Chapter 3

"Have I not in my time heard lions roar? Have I not heard the sea, puft up with wind, Rage like an angry boar chafed with sweat? Have I not heard great ordnance in the field, And Heaven's artillery thunder in the skies? Have I not in the pitched battle heard Loud 'larums, neighing steeds, and trumpets clang?"

Shakspeare.

As my mission was but temporary, and might be attended with personal hazard, I had left Clotilde in England, much to her regret, and travelled with as small a retinue as possible; and in general by unfrequented ways, to avoid the French patroles which were already spread through the neighbourhood of the high-roads. But, at Burgos, the Spanish commandant, on the delivery of my passport, insisted so strongly on the necessity for an escort, placing the wish on a feeling of his personal responsibility, in case of my falling into the enemy's hands, that to save the señor's conscience, or his commission, I consented to take a few troopers, with one of his aides-de-camp, to see me in safety through the Sierra Morena.

The aide-de-camp was a _character_; a little meagre being, who, after a long life of idleness and half-pay, was suddenly called into service; and now figured in a staff-coat and feather. His first commission had been in the luckless expedition of Count O'Reilly against the Moors; and it had probably served him as a topic, from that time to the moment when he pledged his renown for my safe delivery into the hands of the junta of Castile. He had three leading ideas, which formed the elements of his body and soul,--his exploits in the Moorish campaign; his contempt for the monks; and his value for the talents, courage, and fame of Don Ignacio Trueno Relampago, the illustrious appellative of the little aide-de-camp himself. He talked without mercy as we rode along; and gave his opinions with all the easy conviction of an "officer on the staff," and all the freedom of the wilderness. The expedition to Africa had failed solely for want of adopting "the tactics which _he_ would have advised;" and his public services in securing the retreat would have done honour to the Cid, or to Alexander the Great, had not "military jealousy refused to transmit them to the national ear." His opinion of Spanish politics was, that they owed their occasional mistakes solely to the culpable negligence of the war-minister "in overlooking the gallant subalterns of the national army." Spain he regarded as the natural sovereign of Europe; and, of course, of all mankind--its falling occasionally into the background being satisfactorily accounted for by the French descent of her existing dynasty, by the visible deterioration in the royal manufacture of cigars, and, more than either, "by the tardiness of military promotion." This last grievance was the sting. "If justice had been done," exclaimed the new-feathered warrior, rising in his stirrups, and waving his hand, as if he was in the act of cleaving down a Moor, "_I_ should long since have been a general. If I had been a general, the armies of Spain would long since have been on a very different footing. Men of merit would have been placed in their proper positions; the troops would have emulated the exploits of their forefathers in the age of Ferdinand and Isabella; and, instead of receiving a king from France, we should have given her one; while, instead of seeing a French emperor carrying off our princes, as the hawk carries off pigeons, or as a gipsy picks your pocket under pretence of telling your fortune, we should have been garrisoning Paris with our battalions, and sending a viceroy to the Tuileries."

I laughed; but my ill-timed mirth had nearly cost me an "affair of honour" with the little regenerator. His hand was instantly on the hilt of his sword, and every wrinkle on his brown visage was swelling with wrath; when my better genius prevailed, He probably recollected that he was sent as my protector, and that the office would not have been fulfilled according to his instructions, by running me through the midriff. But, with all his pomposity, he had the national good-nature; and when we sat down to our chicken and bottle of Tinto in one of those delicious valleys, he was full of remorse for his burst of patriotic temper.

The day had been a continued blaze of sunshine, the road a burning sand, and the contrast of the spot where we made our halt was tempting. The scene was rich and _riant_, the evening lovely, and the wine good. I could have reposed there for a month, or a year, or for ever. It would have been enough to make a man turn hermit; and I instinctively gazed round, to look for the convent which "must lie" in so luxurious a site. My companion informed me that I was perfectly right in my conjecture, that spot having been the position of one of the richest brotherhoods of Spain. But its opulence had been unluckily displayed in rather too ostentatious a style in the eyes of a French brigade; who, in consequence, packed up the plate in their baggage, and, in the course of a tumult which followed with the peasantry, burned the building to the ground.

Yet, this misfortune was the source of but slight condolence on the part of my friend. He was perfectly of the new school. "They were Theatines," said he--"as bad as the Jesuits in every thing but hypocrisy--powerful, insolent, bold-faced knaves; and after their robbing me of the inheritance of my old, rich uncle, which one of those crafty _padres_ contrived to make the old devotee give them on his death-bed, I had dry eyes for their ill luck. But, I suppose," added he, "you know their creed?" I acknowledged my ignorance. "Well, you shall hear it. It is incomparably true; though, whether written for them by Moratin or Calderon, I leave to the antiquarians." He then chanted it in the style of the monkish service, and with gesticulations, groans, and upturning of eyes, which strongly gave me the idea that he had employed his leisure, if not relieved his sense of the war-minister's neglect, by exerting his talents as the "Gracioso" of some strolling company. The troopers gathered round us, with that odd mixture of familiarity and respect which belongs to all the lower ranks of Spain; and the performer evidently acquired new spirits from the laughter of his audience, as he dashingly sang his burlesque:--

Cancion.

Los mandamientos de los Teatinos,[6]. Mas humanos son que divinos.

_Coro_.--Tra lara, tra lara.

_Primo_--Adquirir mucho dinero. Tra lara, &c. _Segundo_--Sujetar todo il mondo. Tra lara, &c. _Tercero_--Buen capon, buen carnero. Tra lara, &c. _Quarto_--Comprar barato, y vender caro. Tra lara, &c. _Quinto_--Con el blanco aguar el tinto. Tra lara, &c. _Sexto_--Tener siempre el lomo en siesto. Tra lara, &c. _Septimo_--Guardase bien del sereno. Tra lara, &c. _Octavo_--Obrar la suya, y lo ageno. Tra lara, &c. _Nono_--Hazar del penitente esclavo. Tra lara, &c. _Decimo_--Mesclarse en cosas d'estado. Tra lara, &c.

_Coro_.--Estes diez mandamientos se encierran en dos-- Todo para mi, y nada para vos. Tra lara, tra lara, &c.

The whole performance was received with an applause which awoke the little aide-de-camp's genius to such an extent, that he volunteered to sing some stanzas of his own, immeasurably more poignant. He was in the act of filling a bumper to the "downfall of all monkery on the face of the earth," when the report of a musket was heard, and the bottle was shivered in his hand. The honour of Don Ignacio Trueno Relampago was never in greater danger, for he instantly turned much whiter than his own pocket-handkerchief: but the Spaniard is a brave fellow, after all; and seeing that I drew out my pistols, he drew his sword, ordered his troopers to mount, and prepared for battle. But, who can fight against fortune? Our horses, which had been picketed at a few yards' distance in the depth of the shade, were gone. A French battalion of tirailleurs, accidentally coming on our route, had surrounded the grove, and carried off the horses unperceived, while our gallant troopers were chorusing the songster. The sentinel left in charge of them had, of course, given way to the allurements of "sweet nature's kind restorer, balmy sleep," and awoke only to find himself in French hands. Don Ignacio would have fought a legion of fiends; but seven hundred and fifty sharpshooters were a much more unmanageable affair; and on our holding a council of war, (which never fights,) and with a whole circle of bayonets glittering at our breasts, I advised a surrender without loss of time. The troopers were already disarmed, and the Don, appealing to me as evidence that he had done all that could be required by the most punctilious valour, surrendered his sword with the grace of a hero of romance. The Frenchmen enjoyed the entire scene prodigiously, laughed a great deal, drank our healths in our own bottles, and finished by a general request that the Don would indulge them with an encore of the chant which had so tickled their ears during their advance in the wood. The Don complied, _malgrè_, _bongrè_; and at the conclusion of this feat, the French colonel, resolved not to be outdone in any thing, called on one of his subalterns for a song. The subaltern hopelessly searched his memory for its lyrical stores; but after half a dozen snatches of "chansons," and breaking down in them all, he volunteered, in despair, what he pronounced, "the most popular love-song in all Italy." Probably not a syllable of it was understood by any one present but myself; yet this did not prevent its being applauded to the skies, and pronounced one of the most brilliant specimens of Italian sensibility. It was in _Latin_, and a fierce attack on the Jesuits, which the young officer, a palpable _philosophe_, had brought with him from the _symposia_ of the "Ecole Polytechnique:"--

Mortem norunt animare[7] Et tumultus suscitare, Inter reges, et sedare.

Tanquam sancti adorantur, Tanquam reges dominantur, Tanquam fures deprædantur.

Dominantur temporale, Dominantur spirituale, Dominantur omnia male.

Hos igitur Jesuitas, Heluones, hypocritas, Fuge, si cælestia quæras.

Vita namque Christiana Abhorret ab hac doctrinâ, Tanquam fictâ et insanâ.

The colonel of the tirailleurs was a complete specimen of the revolutionary soldier. He was a dashing figure, with a bronzed face; at least so much of it as I could discover through the most inordinate pair of mustaches ever worn by a warrior. He was ignorant of every thing on earth but his profession, and laughed at the waste of time in poring over books; his travelling-library consisting of but two--the imperial army-list, and the muster-roll of his regiment. His family recollections went no higher than his father, a cobbler in Languedoc. But he was a capital officer, and the very material for a _chef-de-bataillon_--rough, brave, quick, and as hardy as iron. Half a dozen scars gave evidence of his having shared the glories of France on the Rhine, the Po, and the Danube; and a cross of the Legion of Honour showed that his emperor was a different person from the object of Don Ignacio's cureless wrath, the war-minister who "made a point of neglecting all possible merit below that of a field-marshal."

The Frenchman, with all his, _brusquerie_, was civil enough to regret my capture, "peculiarly as it laid him under the necessity of taking me far from my route;" his regiment then making forced marches to Andalusia, to join Dupont's division; and for the purpose of secrecy, the strictest orders having been given that the prisoners which they might make in the way should be carried along with them. As I had forwarded my official papers from Galicia to Castile, and was regarded simply as an English tourist, I had no sense of personal hazard; and putting the best complexion which I could upon my misadventure, I rode along with the column over hill and dale, enjoying the various aspects of one of the most varied and picturesque countries in the world. Our marches were rapid, but chiefly by night; thus evading at once the intolerable heat of the Spanish day, and collisions with the people. We bivouacked in the shelter of woods, or in the shade of hills, during the sultry hours; and recommenced our march in the cool of the eve, with short halts, until sunrise. Then we flung ourselves again under the shelter of the trees, and enjoyed those delights of rest and appetite, which are unknown to all but to the marchers and fasters for twelve hours together.

But, on our crossing the Sierra Morena, and taking the direction of Andalusia, the scene was wholly changed. The country was like one vast field of battle. The peasants were every where in arms, villages were seen burning along the horizon, and our constant vigilance was necessary to guard against a surprise. Every soldier who lay down to rest but a few yards from the column, or who attempted to forage in the villages, was sure to be shot or stilettoed; provisions were burned before our faces; and even where we were not actually fired on, the frowns of the population showed sufficiently that the evil day was at hand. At length we reached the range of hills which surround the plain of Cordova; yet only just in time to see the army of Dupont marching out from the city gates, in the direction of Andujar. As I stood beside the colonel, I could observe, by the knitting of his brow, that the movement did not satisfy his military sagacity. "What a quantity of baggage!" he murmured: "how will it be possible to carry such a train through the country, or how to fight, with such an encumbrance embarrassing every step? Unless the Spanish generals are the greatest fools on earth, or unless Dupont has a miracle worked for him, he must either abandon three-fourths of his waggons, or be ruined."

But I was now to have a nearer interest in the expedition. The battalion had no sooner joined the army on its advance, than I was ordered to appear before the chief of the staff. The language of this officer was brief, but expressive.

"You are a spy."

"You are misinformed. I am a gentleman and an Englishman."

"Look here." He produced a copy of my letter to the junta of Castile, which some clerk in the French pay had treacherously transmitted from Madrid. "What answer have you to this?"

I flung the letter on the table.

"What right have you to require an answer? I have not come voluntarily to the quarters of the French army; I am a prisoner; I am not even in a military capacity. You would only act in conformity to the law of nations by giving me my liberty this moment; and I demand that you shall do your duty."

"I shall do it! If you have any arrangements to make, you had better lose no time; for I wait only the general's signature to my report, to have you shot." He turned on his heel. A sergeant with a couple of grenadiers entered, and I was consigned for the night to the provost-marshal. How anxiously I spent that night, I need not say. I was in the hands of violent men, exasperated by the popular resistance, and accustomed to disregard life. I braced myself up to meet my untoward catastrophe, and determined at least not to disgrace my country by helpless solicitation. I wrote a few letters, committed myself to a protection above the passions and vices of man, wrapped my cloak round me, and sank into a sound slumber.

I was aroused by a discharge of cannon, and found the camp in commotion. The Spaniards, under Reding and Castanos, had, as the colonel anticipated, fallen upon our line of march at daybreak, and cut off a large portion of the baggage-train. It had been loaded with the church-plate, and general plunder of Cordova; and the avarice of the French had obviously involved them in formidable difficulty. But, even in the universal tumult, the importance of my seizure was not forgotten; and I was ordered to the rear in charge of a guard. The action now began on all sides; the cannonade rapidly deepening on the flank and centre of the French position, and the musketry already beginning to rattle on various points of the line. From the height on which I stood, the whole scene lay beneath my eye; and nothing could have been better worth the speculation of any man--who was not under sentence of being shot as soon as the struggle was over!

I was aware of the reputation of the French general. He held a high name among the _braves_ of the imperial army for the last ten years, and he had been foremost everywhere. In the desperate Italian campaign against the Austrians and Russians; in the victorious campaign of Austerlitz; in the sanguinary campaign of Eylau--Dupont was one of the most daring of generals of brigade. But his pillage of Cordova had roused the Spanish wrath into fury; and the effort to carry off his plunder made it impossible for him to resist a vigorous attack, even with his twenty thousand veterans. He had indulged himself in Cordova, until the broken armies of the south had found time to rally; and a force of fifty thousand men was now rushing down upon his centre. The hills, as far as the eye could range, were covered with the armed peasantry, moving like dark clouds over their sides, and descending by thousands to the field. The battle now raged furiously in the centre, and the charges of the French cavalry made fearful gaps in the Spanish battalions. At length, the rising of the dust on the right showed that a strong column was approaching, which might decide the day. My heart beat slow as I saw the tricolor floating above its bayonets. It was the advanced guard, with Dupont at its head--a force of three thousand men, which had returned rapidly on its steps, as soon as the sound of the attack had reached it. It was boldly resisted by the Swiss and Walloon brigades of the Spanish line: but the French fire was heavy, its manoeuvre was daring, and I began to fear for the fate of the day; when a loud explosion, and a hurried movement at the extreme of the French position, turned my eyes to the left wing. There the Spanish attack had swept every thing before it. Brigade after brigade was giving way, and the country was covered with scattered horsemen, infantry retiring in disorder, and broken and captured guns. The peasantry, too, had joined in the pursuit, and the wing seemed utterly ruined. To retrieve this disorder was now hopeless, for the French general had extended his line to the extraordinary length of ten miles. His baggage-train was his ruin. The whole Spanish line now advanced, shouting, and only halting at intervals to cannonade the enemy. The French returned a feeble fire, and began to retreat. But retreat was now impossible, and they must fight, or be massacred. At this moment I saw an officer, from the spot where Dupont sat on his charger surrounded by his staff, gallop between the two armies. He was met by a Spanish officer. The firing ceased. Dupont had surrendered, with all the troops in Andalusia!

I was now at liberty, and I was received by the Spanish commander-in-chief with the honours due to my mission and my country. After mutual congratulations on this most brilliant day, I expressed my wish to set off for Madrid without delay. An escort of cavalry was ordered for me, and by midnight I had left behind me the slaughter and the triumph, the noblest of Spanish fields, the immortal Baylen!

The night was singularly dark; and as the by-roads of the Peninsula are confessedly among the most original specimens of the road-making art, our attention was chiefly occupied, for the first hour, in finding our way in Indian file. At length, on the country's opening, I rode forward to the head of the troops, and addressed some questions, on our distance from the next town, to the officer. He at once pronounced my name, and my astonishment was not less than his own. In the commandant of the escort I found my gallant, though most wayward, young friend, Mariamne's lover, Lafontaine! His story was brief. In despair of removing her father's reluctance to their marriage, and wholly unable to bring over Mariamne to his own opinion, that she would act the wiser part in taking the chances of the world along with himself, he had resolved to enter the Russian or the Turkish service, or any other in which he had the speediest probability of ending his career by a bullet or a sabre-blow. The accidental rencontre of one of his relations, an officer high in the Spanish service, had led him into the Peninsula; where, as a Royalist, he was warmly received by a people devoted to their kings; and had just received a commission in the cavalry of the guard, when the French war broke out. He felt no scruples in acting as a soldier of Spain; for, with the death of Louis, he had regarded all ties as broken, and he was now a citizen of the world. I ventured to mention the name of Mariamne; and I found that, there at least, the inconstancy charged on his nation had no place. He spoke of her with eloquent tenderness, and it was evident that, with all his despair of ever seeing her again, she still held the first place in his heart. In this wandering, yet by no means painful, interchange of thoughts, we moved on for some hours; when one of the advanced troopers rode back, to tell us that he had heard shots in the distance, and other sounds of struggle. We galloped forward, and from the brow of the next hill saw flames rising from a village in the valley beneath, and a skirmish going on between some marauding troops and the peasantry. Lafontaine instantly ordered an advance; and our whole troop were soon in the centre of the village, busily employed with the pistol and sabre. The French, taken by surprise, made but a slight resistance, and, after a few random shots, ran to a neighbouring wood. But as I was looking round, to congratulate my friend on his success, I saw him, to my infinite alarm, reel in his saddle, and had only time to save him from falling to the ground.

The accommodation of the Ventas and Posadas is habitually wretched, and I demanded whether there was not a house of some hidalgo in the neighbourhood, to which the wounded officer might be carried. One of the last shots of the skirmish had struck him in the arm, and he was now fainting with pain. The house was pointed out, and we carried my unfortunate friend there, in a swoon. Even in that moment of anxiety, and with scarcely more than the first dawn to guide us, I could not help being struck with the cultivated beauty of the avenue through which we passed, and the profusion and variety of the flowers, which now began to breathe their opening incense to the dawn. The house was old, but large and handsome, and the furniture of the apartment into which we were shown, was singularly tasteful and costly. Who the owner was, was scarcely known among the bold fellows who accompanied us; but by their pointings to their foreheads, and their making the sign of the cross at every repetition of my enquiries, I was inclined to think him some escaped lunatic. I shortly, however, received a message from him, to tell me, that so soon as the crowd should be dismissed, he would visit the officer. The apartment was cleared and he came. This was a new wonder for me. It was Mordecai that entered the room. The light was still so imperfect, that for awhile he could not recognise either of us; and when I advanced to take his hand, and addressed him by his name, he started back as if he had trod upon a snake. However, his habitual presence of mind soon enabled him to answer all my enquiries, and, among the first, one for the health and happiness of his daughter. Fearful of the effects of his intelligence, whether good or evil, on the nerves of Lafontaine, who still lay on the sofa, almost invisible in the dusk, I begged to follow him to another room, and there I listened to his whole anxious history since our parting.--Mariamne had suddenly grown discontented with Poland; which to Mordecai himself had become a weary residence, from the ravages of the French war. For some reason, unaccountable to me, said the old man, she set her heart upon Spain, and had now been domiciled in this secluded spot for a year. But she was visibly fading away. She read and wrote much, and was even more attached to her harp and her flowers than ever; yet declared that she had bid farewell to the world. The father wept as he spoke, but his were the tears of sorrow rather than of anguish. They stole quietly down his cheeks, and showed that the stern and haughty spirit was subdued within him. I had not ventured to allude to Lafontaine; but the current of his own thoughts at length led to that forbidden topic. "I am afraid, Mr Marston," said he, "that I have been too harsh with my child. I looked for her alliance with some of the opulent among my own kindred; or I should have rejoiced if your regards had been fixed on her, and hers on you. And in those dreams, I forgot that the affections must choose for themselves. I had no objection to the young Frenchman, but that he was a stranger, and was poor.--Yet are not we ourselves strangers? and if he was poor, was not I rich? But all is over now; and I shall only have to follow my poor Mariamne, where I should have much rather preceded her,--to the grave."

I now requested to see Mariamne. She met me with almost a cry of joy, and with a cheek of sudden crimson; but, when the first flush passed away, her looks gave painful proof of the effect of solitude and sorrow. The rounded beauty of her cheek was gone, her eyes, once dancing with every emotion, were fixed and hollow, and her frame, once remarkable for symmetry, was thin and feeble. But, her heart was buoyant still, and when I talked of past scenes and recollections, her eye sparkled once more. Still, her manner was changed--it was softer and less capricious; her language, even her voice, was subdued; and more than once I saw a tear stealing on her eye. At length, after hearing some slight detail of her wanderings, and her fears that the troubles of Spain might drive her from a country in whose genial climate and flowery fields "she had hoped to end her days;" I incidentally asked--whether, in all her wanderings, she had heard of "my friend, Lafontaine." How impossible is it to deceive the instinct of the female heart! The look which she gave me, the searching glance of her fine eyes, which flashed with all their former lustre, and the sudden quivering of her lip, told me how deeply his image was fixed in her recollection. She saw at once that I had tidings of her lover; and she hung upon the hand which I held out to her, with breathless and beseeching anxiety. After some precautions, I revealed to her the facts--that he was as faithfully devoted to her as ever, and--that he was even under her roof!

I leave the rest of her story to be conjectured. I shall only say, that I saw her made happy; the burden taken off her spirits which had exhausted her frame; her former vivacity restored, her eye sparkling once more; and even the heart of her father cheered, and acknowledging "that there was happiness in the world, if men did not mar it for themselves." The "course of true love" had, at last, "run smooth." I was present at the marriage of Lafontaine. The trials of fortune had been of infinite service to _him_; they had sobered his eccentricity, taught him the value of a quiet mind, and prepared him for that manlier career which belongs to the husband and the father. I left them, thanking me in all the language of gratitude, promising to visit me in England.

* * * * *

My mission to the junta was speedily and successfully accomplished. Spain, in want of every thing but that which no subsidy could supply, a determination to die in the last intrenchment, was offered arms, ammunition, and the aid of an English army. In her pride, and yet a pride which none could blame, she professed herself able to conquer by her own intrepidity. Later experience showed her, by many a suffering, the value of England as the guide, sustainer, and example of her national strength. But Spain had still the gallant distinction of being the first nation which, as one man, dared to defy the conqueror of all the great military powers of the Continent. The sieges of Saragossa and Gerona will immortalize the courage of the Spanish soldier; the guerilla campaigns will immortalize the courage of the Spanish peasant; and the memorable confession of the French Emperor, that "Spain was his greatest error, and his ultimate ruin," is a testimonial more lasting than the proudest trophy, to the magnanimous warfare of the Peninsula.

This was the Crisis. The spirit of the whole European war now assumed a bolder, loftier, and more triumphant form. A sudden conviction filled the general heart, that the fortunes of the field were about to change. Nations which had, till then, been only emulous in prostration to the universal conqueror, now assumed the port of courage, prepared their arms, and longed to try their cause again in battle. The outcry of Spain, answered by the trumpet of England, pierced to the depths of that dungeon in which the intrigue and the power of France had laboured to inclose the continental nations. The war of the Revolution has already found historians, of eloquence and knowledge worthy of so magnificent an era of human change. But, to me, the chief interest arose from its successive developments of the European mind. The whole period was a continued awakening of faculties, hitherto almost unknown, in the great body of the people. The first burst of the Revolution, like the first use of gunpowder, had only shown the boundless force of a new element of destruction. The Spanish insurrection showed its protecting and preservative power. The tremendous energy which seemed to defy all control, was there seen effecting the highest results of national defence, and giving proof of the irresistible strength provided in the population of _every_ land. What nation of Europe does not possess a million of men for its defence; and what invader could confront a million of men on their own soil? Let this truth be felt, and aggression becomes hopeless, and war ceases to exist among men.

For the first time in the history of war, it was discovered, that the true force of kingdoms had been mistaken--a mistake which had lasted for a thousand years; that armies were but splendid machines; and that, while they might be crushed by the impulse of machines more rapid, stronger, and more skilfully urged, nothing could crush the vigour of defence, while it was supplied by a people.

The _levée en masse_ of France was but the rudest, as it was the earliest, form of the new discovery. There, terror was the moving principle. The conscription was the recruiting-officer. The guillotine was the commander who manoeuvred the generals, the troops, and the nation. Yet, the revolutionary armies differed in nothing from the monarchical, but in the superiority of their numbers, and the inferiority of their discipline.

The war of Spain was another, and a nobler advance. It was the war of a nation. In France the war was the conspiracy of a faction. In Spain the loss of the capital only inflamed the hostility of the provinces. In France the loss of the capital would have extinguished the Revolution; as it afterwards extinguished the Empire. I think that I can see the provision for a still bolder and more beneficent advance, even in those powerful developments of national capabilities. It will, perhaps, be left to other nations. Spain and France have a yoke upon their minds, which will disqualify them both from acting the nobler part of guides to Europe. Superstition contains in itself the canker of slavery; perfect freedom is essential to perfect power; and the nation which, from the cradle, prostrates itself to the priest, must retain the early flexure of its spine. The great experiment must be reserved for a nobler public mind; for a people religious without fanaticism, and free without licentiousness; honouring the wisdom of their fathers, without rejecting the wisdom of the living age; aspiring but to the ministration of universal good, and feeling that its opulence, knowledge, and grandeur are only gifts for mankind.

The system of the war was now fully established. All the feelings of England were fixed on the Peninsula, and all the politics of her statesmen and their rivals were alike guided by the course of the conflict. The prediction was gallantly fulfilled--that the French empire would there expose its flank to English intrepidity; that the breaching battery which was to open the way to Paris, would be fixed on the Pyrenees; that the true sign of conquest was the banner of England.

The battle of the Ministry was fought in Spain, and as victoriously as the battle of our army. We saw Opposition gradually throw away its arms, and gradually diminish in the popular view, until its existence was scarcely visible. Successive changes varied the cabinet, but none shook its stability. Successive ministers sank into the grave, but the ministry stood. The spirit of the nation, justly proud of its triumphs, disdained to listen to the whispers of a party, who murmured defeat with victory before their eyes; who conjured up visions of ruin, only to be rebuked by realities of triumph; and to whom the national scorn of pusillanimity, and the national rejoicing in the proudest success, could not unteach the language of despair. Perceval, the overthrower of the Foxite ministry, perished; but the political system of the cabinet remained unchanged. Castlereaghperished--Liverpool perished; but the political system still remained. The successive pilots might give up the helm, but the course of the great vessel continued the same--guided by the same science, and making her way through sunshine, and through storm, to the same point of destination.

The three successive ministers were men of high ability for government, though their character of ability exhibited the most remarkable distinctions. Perceval had been a lawyer, and had risen to the rank of attorney-general. In the House, he carried the acuteness, the logic, and even the manner, of his profession with him. Without pretending to the power of eloquence, he singularly possessed the power of conviction; without effecting changes in the theory of the constitution, he put its truths in a new light; and without a trace of bigotry, he defended, with conscientious vigour, the rights of the national religion. Sustaining a bold struggle at the head of the feeblest minority perhaps ever known in Parliament, he had shown unshaken courage and undismayed principle in the day of the Foxite supremacy. This defence was at length turned into assault, and his opponents were driven from power. His ministry was too brief for his fame. But, when he fell by the hand of a maniac, he left a universal impression on the mind of the empire, that the blow had deprived it of a great ministerial mind.

Lord Castlereagh exhibited a character of a totally different order, yet equally fitted for his time. An Irishman, he had the habitual intrepidity of his countrymen, combined with the indefatigable diligence of England. Nobly connected, and placed high in public life by that connexion, he showed himself capable of sustaining his ministerial rank by personal capacity. Careless of the style of his speeches, he was yet a grave, solid, and fully-informed debater. But it was in the council that his value to the country was most acknowledged. His conception of the rights, the influence, and the services of England, was lofty; and, when the period came for deciding on her rank in the presence of continental diplomacy, he was her chosen, and her successful, representative. His natural place was among the councils of camps, where sovereigns were the soldiers. The "march to Paris" was due to his courage; and the first fall of Napoleon was effected by the ambassador of England.

Lord Liverpool was a man equally fitted for his time. The war had triumphantly closed. But, a period of perturbed feelings and financial necessities followed. It required in the minister a combination of sound sense and practical vigour--of deference for the public feelings, yet respect for the laws--of promptitude in discovering national resources, and yet of firmness in repelling factious change. The head of the cabinet possessed those qualities. Without brilliancy, without eloquence, without accomplished literature; still, no man formed his views with a clearer intelligence; and no man pursued them with more steady determination. Perhaps disdaining the glitter of popularity, no minister, for the last half century, had been so singularly exempt from all the sarcasms of public opinion. The nation relied on his sincerity, honoured his purity of principle, and willingly confided its safety to hands which none believed capable of a stain.

But the characters of those three ministers were striking in a still higher point of view. Their qualities seem to have been expressly constructed to meet the peculiar exigency of their times. Perceval--acute, strict, and with strong religious conceptions--to meet a period, when religious laxity in the cabinet had already enfeebled the defence of the national religion. Castlereagh--stately, bold, and high-toned--to meet a period, when the fate of Europe was to be removed from cabinets to the field, and when he was to carry the will of England among assembled monarchs. Liverpool--calm, rational, and practical; the man of conscience and common sense--for the period, when the great questions of religion had been quieted, the great questions of the war had died with the war, and when the supreme difficulty of government was, to reconcile the pressure of financial exigency with the progress of the people--to invigorate the public frame without inflaming it by dangerous innovation--and to reconstruct the whole commercial constitution, without infringing on those principles which had founded the prosperity of the empire.

At length the consummation came: the French empire fell on the field by the hand of England. All the sovereigns of Europe rushed in to strip the corpse, and each carried back a portion of the spoils. But the conqueror was content with the triumph, and asked no more of glory than the liberation of mankind.

While all was public exultation for this crowning event, fortune had not neglected to reward the gentler virtues of one worthy of its noblest gifts. In my first campaign with the Prussian troops in France, I had intrusted to the care of the old domestic whom I found in the Chateau de Montauban, an escritoire and a picture, belonging to the family of Clotilde. The old man had disappeared; and I took it for granted that he had been plundered, or had died.

But one day, after my return from one of those splendid entertainments with which the Regent welcomed the Allied sovereigns, I found Clotilde deeply agitated. The picture of her relative was before her, and she was gazing at its singularly expressive and lovely countenance with intense interest.

She flew into my arms. "I have longed for your coming," said she, with glowing lips and tearful eyes, "to offer at least one proof of gratitude for years of the truest protection, and the most generous love. Michelle, the husband of my nurse, has arrived; and he tells me, that this escritoire contains the title-deeds of my family. I was resolved that you alone should open it. In the frame of that picture, in a secret drawer, is the key." The spring was touched, the key was found; and in the little chest was discovered, untouched by chance or time, the document entitling my beautiful and high-hearted wife to one of the finest possessions in France. By a singular instance of good fortune, the property had not been alienated, like so many of the estates of the noblesse; and it now lay open to the claims of the original proprietorship. I hastened to Paris. My claim was acknowledged by the returned Bourbon, and Clotilde had the delight of once more sitting under the vine and the fig-tree of her ancestors. The old domestic had made it the business of years to obtain the means of reaching England. But the war had placed obstacles in his way every where, and he devoted himself thenceforth to the guardianship of his precious deposit, as the duty of his life. He was almost pathetic, in his narration of the hazards to which it had been exposed in the perpetual convulsions of the country, and in the rejoicing with which he felt himself at last enabled to place it in the hands of its rightful mistress, the last descendant of the noble house of De Tourville.--But I had still to experience another gift of fortune.

On the evening of my birth-day, Clotilde had given a rustic fête to the children of her tenantry; and all were dancing in front of the chateau, with the gaiety and with the grace which nature seems to have conferred as an especial gift on even the humblest classes of France.

The day was one of the luxury of summer. The landscape before me was a rich extent of plain and hill; the fragrance of the vast gardens of the chateau as rising as the twilight approached; my infants were clustering round my knee; and in that thankfulness of heart, which is not less sincere for its not being expressed in words, I came to the conclusion, that no access of wealth, or of honours, could add to my substantial happiness at that hour.

My reverie was broken by the sound of a _calèche_ driving up the avenue. A courier alighted from it, who brought a letter with a black seal, addressed to me. It was from the family solicitor. My noble brother had died in Madeira; where he had gone in the hopeless attempt to recruit a frame which he had exhausted by a life of excess. In that hour, I gave him the regrets which belonged to the tie of blood. I forgot his selfishness, and forgave his alienation. I thought of him only as the remembered playfellow of my early days; and could say in heart--"Alas, my brother!" The landscape before me at last sank into night; and with feelings darkened like it, yet calm and still, I saw the closing of a day which, painful as was the cause, yet called me to new duties, gave me a stronger hold upon society, and placed me in that position which I fully believe to combine more of the true materials of happiness and honour than any other on earth--that of an opulent English nobleman.

My brother, dying childless, had devolved the family estates to me, disburdened of the results of his prodigality; but I had still much to occupy me, in restoring them from the neglect of years. The life of the member of government was now to alternate with the life of the country gentleman; and my transfer to the House of Peers gave me the comparative leisure, essential to the fulfilment of the large and liberal duties which belong to the English landholder. To cheer the country life by rational hospitality; to make friends of those whom nature had made dependents; to sustain those laws which had turned England into a garden; and to protect that "bold peasantry," who ought to be the pride, as they are the strength of their country; to excite the country gentlemen to the scientific study of the noblest of all arts, as it was the first, the cultivation of the soil; to maintain among that gallant race a high sense of their purposes, their powers, and their position; to invigorate the principles which had made them the surest defenders of the throne in its day of adversity; and to fix in their minds by example, more effectual than precept, a solemn fidelity to the faith and to the freedom of their forefathers:--these were the objects which I proposed to myself, and which the loftiest intellect, or the amplest opulence, might be well employed in attempting to fulfil.

Those objects had been placed before England, from the day when the light of the Reformation broke through the darkness of a thousand years, and her brow was first designed for the diadem. By those she was made the universal protector of Europe, in its day of fugitive princes and falling thrones; and by those alone will be erected round her, if she shall remain true to her allegiance, a wall of fire, in the days of that approaching contest which shall bring the powers of good and evil front to front, in strength and hostility unknown before, and consummate the wars of the world.

Yet with those tranquil and retired pursuits, I still took my share in the activity of public life. I was still minister, and bore my part in the discussions of the legislature. But the great questions which had once sounded in my ear, like the call to battle in the ear of the warrior, had passed away. The minds that "rode in the whirlwind, and ruled the storm," had vanished with the storm. The surge had gone down; and neither the dangers of my earlier day, nor the powers which were summoned to resist them, were to be found in the living generation. Yet, let it not be thought that I regard the mind of England as exhausted, or even as exhaustible. The only distinction between the periods is, that one gave the impulse, and that the other only continues it. When peril comes again, we shall again see the development of power. We might as well doubt the existence of lightning, because the day is serene, the sun shining, and no cloud rolls across the heaven. But when the balance of the elements demands to be restored, we shall again be dazzled by the flash, and awed by the thunder.

But time has taught me additional lessons. I have learned to see a hand, in all its clouds, which guides man and kingdoms with more than human power. In these remembrances, I have spoken but little of religion. It belongs to the chamber more than to the council; and it is less honoured than humiliated by being brought idly before men. But by that light I have been able to see, where subtler minds have been blind. The man may be bewildered by the glare of the torch in his hand, who would have found his way by trusting to the milder lustre of the stars. In the great war of our time, the greatest since the fall of the Roman empire--the war of the French Revolution--I think, that I can trace a divine protection, distinctly given to England as the champion of justice, honour, and religion. I offer but the outline of this view; but to me the proof is demonstrative.--In every instance in which France aimed an especial blow at England, that blow was retorted by an especial retribution; while her assaults on the continental kingdoms were made with triumphant impunity.

I give the examples.--The French expedition to Egypt was formed with the express object of breaking down the influence of England in the East, and ultimately subverting her Indian empire--that expedition was the _first_ which tarnished the military renown of the Republic, cost her a fleet, and lost her an army. Of the army which Napoleon led to Egypt, not a battalion returned to Europe but as the prisoners of England!

The French invasion of Spain was a blow aimed _expressly_ at England. Its object was the invasion of England--the Spanish war broke down the military renown of the Empire, and was pronounced by Napoleon to be the origin of his ruin!

The invasion of Russia was a blow aimed _expressly_ at England. Its object was the extinction of English commerce in the whole sea-line of the north--that invasion was punished, by the ruin of the whole veteran army of France!

Napoleon himself at length met the troops of England. He met them with an arrogant assumption of victory--"Ah! je les tiens, ces Anglais." Never was presumption more deeply punished. This single conflict _destroyed_ him; his laurels, his diadem, and his dynasty, were blasted together!

It is not less memorable, that during the entire Revolutionary war, France was never suffered to inflict an injury on England; with one exception--the perfidious seizure of the English travelling in the French territories under the safeguard of the Imperial passports. But this, too, had its punishment--and one of the most especial and characteristic retribution--Napoleon himself was sent to a dungeon! By a fate unheard of even among fallen princes, the man who had treacherously made prisoners of the English was himself made a prisoner, was delivered into English hands, was consigned to captivity in an English island, and died the prisoner of England!

I speak of events like these, not in the spirit of superstition, nor in the fond presumption of being an interpreter of the mysterious ways of Providence. I record them, in a full consciousness of the immeasurable distance between the intellect of man and the wisdom of the supreme Disposer. But they convey, at least to my own feelings, a confidence, a solemn security, a calm yet ardent conviction, that chance has no share in the government of the world; that the great tide of things, in its rise and fall, has laws, which, if unapproached by the feebleness of human faculties, are not the less true, vast, and imperishable; that if, like the air, the agency of that ruling and boundless authority is invisible, we may yet feel its existence in its effects, rejoice in the acknowledgment of a power which nothing can exhaust, and take to our bosoms the high consolation, that the good of man is the supreme principle of the system.

* * * * *

Men actively employed in public life, are strangely apt to think that there is no progress outside their circle. But, on my return to Mortimer Castle, I found this conception amply confuted. The world had moved as rapidly in those shades, as in the centre of cabinets and courts. Time had done its work, in changing the condition of almost every human being whom I had known in my early days. The brothers and sisters, whom I had left children, were now in the full beauty of their prime; my brothers showy and stirring youths; my sisters fair and gentle girls, just reaching that period of life when the countenance and mind are in their bloom together, and the highborn woman of England is the loveliest perhaps in the world. The extravagance of my elder brother had dilapidated the provision intended for the younger branches of his house. My habits, learned in a sterner school, enabled me to retrieve their fortunes, and I thus secured a new tie to their regards. Justice is essential to all gratitude, and I found them ready to pay the tribute, to the full.

Among my first visits was one to my old friend and tutor, Vincent. I found him still resident on his living; and with spirits, on which time had wrought no change. Years had passed lightly over his head. His eye was as vivid, and his mind as active as ever. He perhaps stooped a little more, and his frame had lost something of that elasticity of step which had so often tried my young nerves in our ramblings over the hills. But he was the same cordial, animated, and high-toned being, in all his feelings, that I had seen him from the first hour. I found him in his garden, arranging, selecting, and enjoying his flower-beds with all the spirit of a horticulturist. But he apologised for what he termed, "its disorder." "For," said he, "I have lost all my gardeners." On my looking doubtful, "All my girls," said he, "are gone; all married; all wedded to one neighbour or another. Such is the way in which I have been left alone." I made my condolences on his solitude, in due form. "Yet I am not quite solitary," added the gay old man, "after all; or my solitude depends upon myself. My girls are all married to our squires, honest fellows, and some of them well enough off in the world. But I made a stipulation, that none of them should marry out of sight from the gazebo on the top of yonder hill; and when I want their company, I have only to hoist a flag. You see that I have not altogether forgotten my days of the sabre and the signal-post; my telegraph works well, and I have them all trooping over here with the regularity of a squadron."

The approach of winter made the castle a scene of increased liveliness. I had always looked with strong distaste on the habit of flying to watering-places at the season when the presence of the leading families of a county is most important to the comforts of the tenantry, and to the intelligent and social intercourse of the higher ranks. I sent a request to Lafontaine and his wife, that they should perform their "covenant," and venture to see "how English life contrived to get through the dulness of its Decembers." My request was countersigned by Clotilde, and this was irresistible. They came, and were received with a joyous welcome. They too had undergone a change. Lafontaine was graver, and was much the better for his gravity. He was now the sincere and kind-hearted being for which nature had intended him. The coxcombry of French early life had disappeared, and left behind it only that general grace and spirit which makes the maturity of a foreign life its most interesting portion. Mariamne was still more advantageously changed. Her wild vivacity was less subdued than transformed into elegance of manner; her features were still handsome, travel had given her knowledge, and her natural talents had been cultivated by the solitary hours, in which but for that cultivation she might have sunk into the grave. She had brought with her, too, another remembrance, and one of that order which produces the most powerful effect upon the whole character of woman. She had brought her first-born, a lovely infant, in which her whole soul seemed to be absorbed, and in which she already discovered more beauties and good qualities than fate or fortune had ever given to human nature. But the centre of our circle, and the admiration and love of all, sat my wife, my generous, noble, pure-spirited Clotilde. Time, too, had wrought its change on her; but it was only to give her deeper claims on the feelings of a heart which could not imagine happiness without her. The heroine had wholly disappeared, and given place to the woman; the character of resistance to the shocks and frowns of fortune, which adversity had made essential perhaps to her being, had passed away with her day of suffering. She was now soft, mild, tender, and confiding. She often reminded me of some of those plants which, when exposed to the storm, contract and diminish their form and foliage; but, when sheltered, resume their original luxuriance and loveliness. Clotilde, in the sufferings of the emigration, in the terrors of the Revolution, and in the march through the Vendée, might have perished, but for that loftiness of soul which was awakened by the exigency of the trial. But now, surrounded with all the security of rank, and with opulence for her enjoyment, and with love to cherish her, she displayed the force of her nature only in the fondness of her affections. Thus surrounded, thus cheered, thus looked up to by beings whom I loved; what had I to ask for more? Nothing. I here close my page of life. I still vividly retain all the sense of duty, all the feeling of patriotism, and all the consciousness, that age will neither dull my heart towards those whom I have so long loved, nor shut up theirs to me. I believe in the possibility of friendship untainted by selfishness, and I am firm in the faith, of love that knows no decline. I look round me, and am serenely happy. I look above me, and am sacredly thankful.

HOW WE GOT UP THE GLENMUTCHKIN RAILWAY, AND HOW WE GOT OUT OF IT.

I was confoundedly hard up. My patrimony, never of the largest, had been for the last year on the decrease--a herald would have emblazoned it, "ARGENT, a money-bag improper, in detriment"--and though the attenuating process was not excessively rapid, it was, nevertheless, proceeding at a steady ratio. As for the ordinary means and appliances by which men contrive to recruit their exhausted exchequers, I knew none of them. Work I abhorred with a detestation worthy of a scion of nobility; and, I believe, you could just as soon have persuaded the lineal representative of the Howards or Percys to exhibit himself in the character of a mountebank, as have got me to trust my person on the pinnacle of a three-legged stool. The rule of three is all very well for base mechanical souls; but I flatter myself I have an intellect too large to be limited to a ledger. "Augustus," said my poor mother to me, one day while stroking my hyacinthine tresses--"Augustus, my dear boy, whatever you do, never forget that you are a gentleman." The maternal maxim sunk deeply into my heart, and I never for a moment have forgotten it.

Notwithstanding this aristocratical resolution, the great practical question, "How am I to live?" began to thrust itself unpleasantly before me. I am one of that unfortunate class who have neither uncles nor aunts. For me, no yellow liverless individual, with characteristic bamboo and pigtail--emblems of half a million--returned to his native shores from Ceylon or remote Penang. For me, no venerable spinster hoarded in the Trongate, permitting herself few luxuries during a long-protracted life, save a lass and a lanthorn, a parrot, and the invariable baudrons of antiquity. No such luck was mine. Had all Glasgow perished by some vast epidemic, I should not have found myself one farthing the richer. There would have been no golden balsam for me in the accumulated woes of Tradestown, Shettleston, and Camlachie. The time has been when--according to Washington Irving and other veracious historians--a young man had no sooner got into difficulties than a guardian angel appeared to him in a dream, with the information that at such and such a bridge, or under such and such a tree, he might find, at a slight expenditure of labour, a gallipot secured with bladder, and filled with glittering tomauns; or in the extremity of despair, the youth had only to append himself to a cord, and straightaway the other end thereof, forsaking its staple in the roof, would disclose amidst the fractured ceiling the glories of a profitable pose. These blessed days have long since gone by--at any rate, no such luck was mine. My guardian angel was either woefully ignorant of metallurgy, or the stores had been surreptitiously ransacked; and as to the other expedient, I frankly confess I should have liked some better security for its result, than the precedent of the "Heir of Lynn."

It is a great consolation amidst all the evils of life, to know that, however bad your circumstances may be, there is always somebody else in nearly the same predicament. My chosen friend and ally, Bob M'Corkindale, was equally hard up with myself, and, if possible, more averse to exertion. Bob was essentially a speculative man--that is, in a philosophical sense. He had once got hold of a stray volume of Adam Smith, and muddled his brains for a whole week over the intricacies of the _Wealth of Nations_. The result was a crude farrago of notions regarding the true nature of money, the soundness of currency, and relative value of capital, with which he nightly favoured an admiring audience at "The Crow;" for Bob was by no means--in the literal acceptation of the word--a dry philosopher. On the contrary, he perfectly appreciated the merits of each distinct distillery; and was understood to be the compiler of a statistical work, entitled, _A Tour through the Alcoholic Districts of Scotland_. It had very early occurred to me, who knew as much of political economy as of the bagpipes, that a gentleman so well versed in the art of accumulating national wealth, must have some remote ideas of applying his principles profitably on a smaller scale. Accordingly, I gave M'Corkindale an unlimited invitation to my lodgings; and, like a good hearty fellow as he was, he availed himself every evening of the license; for I had laid in a fourteen gallon cask of Oban whisky, and the quality of the malt was undeniable.

These were the first glorious days of general speculation. Railroads were emerging from the hands of the greater into the fingers of the lesser capitalists. Two successful harvests had given a fearful stimulus to the national energy; and it appeared perfectly certain that all the populous towns would be united, and the rich agricultural districts intersected, by the magical bands of iron. The columns of the newspapers teemed every week with the parturition of novel schemes; and the shares were no sooner announced than they were rapidly subscribed for. But what is the use of my saying any thing more about the history of last year? Every one of us remembers it perfectly well. It was a capital year on the whole, and put money into many a pocket. About that time, Bob and I commenced operations. Our available capital, or negotiable bullion, in the language of my friend, amounted to about three hundred pounds, which we set aside as a joint fund for speculation. Bob, in a series of learned discourses, had convinced me that it was not only folly, but a positive sin, to leave this sum lying in the bank at a pitiful rate of interest, and otherwise unemployed, whilst every one else in the kingdom was having a pluck at the public pigeon. Somehow or other, we were unlucky in our first attempts. Speculators are like wasps; for when they have once got hold of a ripening and peach-like project, they keep it rigidly for their own swarm, and repel the approach of interlopers. Notwithstanding all our efforts, and very ingenious ones they were, we never, in a single instance, succeeded in procuring an allocation of original shares; and though we did now and then make a hit by purchase, we more frequently bought at a premium, and parted with our scrip at a discount. At the end of six months, we were not twenty pounds richer than before.

"This will never do," said Bob, as he sat one evening in my rooms compounding his second tumbler. "I thought we were living in an enlightened age; but I find I was mistaken. That brutal spirit of monopoly is still abroad and uncurbed. The principles; of free-trade are utterly forgotten, or misunderstood. Else how comes it that David Spreul received but yesterday an allocation of two hundred shares in the Westermidden Junction; whilst your application and mine, for a thousand each, were overlooked? Is this a state of things to be tolerated? Why should he, with his fifty thousand pounds, receive a slapping premium, whilst our three hundred of available capital remains unrepresented? The fact is monstrous, and demands the immediate and serious interference of the legislature."

"It is a bloody shame," said I, fully alive to the manifold advantages of a premium.

"I'll tell you what, Dunshunner," rejoined M'Corkindale, "it's no use going on in this way. We haven't shown half pluck enough. These fellows consider us as snobs, because we don't take the bull by the horns. Now's the time for a bold stroke. The public are quite ready to subscribe for any thing--and we'll start a railway for ourselves."

"Start a railway with three hundred pounds of capital!"

"Pshaw, man! you don't know what you're talking about--we've a great deal more capital than that. Have not I told you seventy times over, that every thing a man has--his coat, his hat, the tumblers he drinks from, nay, his very corporeal existence--is absolute marketable capital? What do you call that fourteen-gallon cask, I should like to know?"

"A compound of hoops and staves, containing about a quart and a half of spirits--you have effectually accounted for the rest."

"Then it has gone to the fund of profit and loss, that's all. Never let me hear you sport those old theories again. Capital is indestructible, as I am ready to prove to you any day, in half an hour. But let us sit down seriously to business. We are rich enough to pay for the advertisements, and that is all we need care for in the mean time. The public is sure to step in, and bear us out handsomely with the rest."

"But where in the face of the habitable globe shall the railway be? England is out of the question, and I hardly know a spot in the Lowlands that is not occupied already."

"What do you say to a Spanish scheme--the Alcantara Union? Hang me if I know whether Alcantara is in Spain or Portugal; but nobody else does, and the one is quite as good as the other. Or what would you think of the Palermo Railway, with a branch to the sulphur mines?--that would be popular in the North--or the Pyrenees Direct? They would all go to a premium."

"I must confess I should prefer a line at home."

"Well, then, why not try the Highlands? There must be lots of traffic there in the shape of sheep, grouse, and Cockney tourists, not to mention salmon and other et ceteras. Couldn't we tip them a railway somewhere in the west?"

"There's Glenmutchkin, for instance"----

"Capital, my dear fellow! Glorious! By Jove, first-rate!" shouted Bob in an ecstasy of delight. "There's a distillery there, you know, and a fishing village at the foot; at least there used to be six years ago, when I was living with the exciseman. There may be some bother about the population, though. The last laird shipped every mother's son of the original Celts to America; but, after all, that's not of much consequence. I see the whole thing! Unrivalled scenery--stupendous waterfalls--herds of black cattle--spot where Prince Charles Edward met Macgrugar of Glengrugar and his clan! We could not possibly have lighted on a more promising place. Hand us over that sheet of paper, like a good fellow, and a pen. There is no time to be lost, and the sooner we get out the prospectus the better."

"But, Heaven bless you, Bob, there's a great deal to be thought of first. Who are we to get for a provisional committee?"

"That's very true," said Bob musingly. "We _must_ treat them to some respectable names, that is, good sounding ones. I'm afraid there is little chance of our producing a Peer to begin with?"

"None whatever--unless we could invent one, and that's hardly safe--_Burke's Peerage_ has gone through too many editions. Couldn't we try the Dormants?"

"That would be rather dangerous in the teeth of the standing orders. But what do you say to a baronet? There's Sir Polloxfen Tremens. He got himself served the other day to a Nova Scotia baronetcy, with just as much title as you or I have; and he has sported the riband, and dined out on the strength of it ever since. He'll join us at once, for he has not a sixpence to lose."

"Down with him, then," and we headed the Provisional list with the pseudo Orange-tawney.

"Now," said Bob, "it's quite indispensable, as this is a Highland line, that we should put forward a Chief or two. That has always a great effect upon the English, whose feudal notions are rather of the mistiest, and principally derived from Waverley."

"Why not write yourself down as the Laird of M'Corkindale?" said I. "I daresay you would not be negatived by a counter-claim."

"That would hardly do," replied Bob, "as I intend to be Secretary. After all, what's the use of thinking about it? Here goes for an extempore Chief," and the villain wrote down the name of Tavish M'Tavish of Invertavish.

"I say, though," said I, "we must have a real Highlander on the list. If we go on this way, it will become a Justiciary matter."

"You're devilish scrupulous, Gus," said Bob, who, if left to himself, would have stuck in the names of the heathen gods and godesses, or borrowed his directors from the Ossianic chronicles, rather than have delayed the prospectus. "Where the mischief are we to find the men? I can think of no others likely to go the whole hog; can you?"

"I don't know a single Celt in Glasgow except old M'Closkie, the drunken porter at the corner of Jamaica Street."

"He's the very man! I suppose, after the manner of his tribe, he will do any thing for a pint of whisky. But what shall we call him? Jamaica Street, I fear, will hardly do for a designation."

"Call him THE M'CLOSKIE. It will be sonorous in the ears of the Saxon!"

"Bravo!" and another Chief was added to the roll of the clans.

"Now," said Bob, "we must put you down. Recollect, all the management--that is, the allocation--will be entrusted to you. Augustus--you haven't a middle name I think?--well, then, suppose we interpolate 'Reginald;' it has a smack of the Crusades. Augustus Reginald Dunshunner, Esq. of ---- where, in the name of Munchausen?"

"I'm sure I don't know. I never had any land beyond the contents of a flower-pot. Stay--I rather think I have a superiority somewhere about Paisley."

"Just the thing," cried Bob. "It's heritable property, and therefore titular. What's the denomination?"

"St Mirrens."

"Beautiful! Dunshunner of St Mirrens, I give you joy! Had you discovered that a little sooner--and I wonder you did not think of it--we might both of us have had lots of allocations. These are not the times to conceal hereditary distinctions. But now comes the serious work. We must have one or two men of known wealth upon the list. The chaff is nothing without a decoy-bird. Now, can't you help me with a name?"

"In that case," said I, "the game is up, and the whole scheme exploded. I would as soon undertake to evoke the ghost of Croesus."

"Dunshunner," said Bob very seriously, "to be a man of information, you are possessed of marvellous few resources. I am quite ashamed of you. Now listen to me. I have thought deeply upon this subject, and am quite convinced that with some little trouble we may secure the co-operation of a most wealthy and influential body--one, too, that is generally supposed to have stood aloof from all speculation of the kind, and whose name would be a tower of strength in the monied quarters. I allude," continued Bob, reaching across for the kettle, "to the great Dissenting Interest."

"The what?" cried I aghast.

"The great Dissenting Interest. You can't have failed to observe the row they have lately been making about Sunday travelling and education. Old Sam Sawley, the coffin-maker, is their principal spokesman here; and wherever he goes the rest will follow, like a flock of sheep bounding after a patriarchal ram. I propose, therefore, to wait upon him to-morrow, and request his co-operation in a scheme which is not only to prove profitable, but to make head against the lax principles of the present age. Leave me alone to tickle him. I consider his name, and those of one or two others belonging to the same meeting-house--fellows with bank-stock, and all sorts of tin--as perfectly secure. These dissenters smell a premium from an almost incredible distance. We can fill up the rest of the committee with ciphers, and the whole thing is done.

"But the engineer--we must announce such an officer as a matter of course."

"I never thought of that," said Bob. "Couldn't we hire a fellow from one of the steam-boats?"

"I fear that might get us into trouble: You know there are such things as gradients and sections to be prepared. But there's Watty Solder, the gasfitter, who failed the other day. He's a sort of civil engineer by trade, and will jump at the proposal like a trout at the tail of a May fly."

"Agreed. Now, then, let's fix the number of shares. This is our first experiment, and I think we ought to be moderate. No sound political economist is avaricious. Let us say twelve thousand, at twenty pounds a-piece."

"So be it."

"Well, then, that's arranged. I'll see Sawley and the rest to-morrow; settle with Solder, and then write out the prospectus. You look in upon me in the evening, and we'll revise it together. Now, by your leave, let's have in the Welsh rabbit and another tumbler to drink success and prosperity to the Glenmutchkin railway."

I confess, that when I rose on the morrow, with a slight headache and a tongue indifferently parched, I recalled to memory, not without perturbation of conscience, and some internal qualms, the conversation of the previous evening. I felt relieved, however, after two spoonfuls of carbonate of soda, and a glance at the newspaper, wherein I perceived the announcement of no less than four other schemes equally preposterous with our own. But, after all, what right had I to assume that the Glenmutchkin project would prove an ultimate failure? I had not a scrap of statistical information that might entitle me to form such an opinion. At any rate, Parliament, by substituting the Board of Trade as an initiating body of enquiry, had created a responsible tribunal, and freed us from the chance of obloquy. I saw before me a vision of six months' steady gambling, at manifest advantage, in the shares, before a report could possibly be pronounced, or our proceedings in any way overhauled. Of course I attended that evening punctually at my friend M'Corkindale's. Bob was in high feather; for Sawley no sooner heard of the principles upon which the railway was to be conducted, and his own nomination as a director, than he gave in his adhesion, and promised his unflinching support to the uttermost. The Prospectus ran as follows:--

"DIRECT GLENMUTCHKIN RAILWAY. In 12,000 Shares of L.20 each. Deposit L.1 per Share. _Provisional Committee._ SIR POLLOXFEN TREMENS, Bart. of Toddymains. TAVISH M'TAVISH of Invertavish. THE M'CLOSKIE. AUGUSTUS REGINALD DUNSHUNNER, Esq. of St Mirrens. SAMUEL SAWLEY, Esq., Merchant. MHIC-MHAC-VICH-INDUIBH. PHELIM O'FINLAN, Esq. of Castle-rook, Ireland. THE CAPTAIN of M'ALCOHOL. FACTOR for GLENTUMBLERS. JOHN JOB JOBSON, Esq., Manufacturer. EVAN M'CLAW of Glenscart and Inveryewky. JOSEPH HECKLES, Esq. HABBAKUK GRABBIE, Portioner in Ramoth-Drumclog. _Engineer_--WALTER SOLDER, Esq. _Interim Secretary_--ROBERT M'CORKINDALE, Esq.

"The necessity of a direct line of Railway communication through the fertile and populous district known as the VALLEY of GLENMUTCHKIN, has been long felt and universally acknowledged. Independent of the surpassing grandeur of its mountain scenery, which shall immediately be referred to, and other considerations of even greater importance, GLENMUTCHKIN is known to the capitalist as the most important BREEDING STATION in the Highlands of Scotland, and indeed as the great emporium from which the southern markets are supplied. It has been calculated by a most eminent authority, that every acre in the strath is capable of rearing twenty head of cattle; and, as has been ascertained after a careful admeasurement, that there are not less than TWO HUNDRED THOUSAND improvable acres immediately contiguous to the proposed line of Railway, it may confidently be assumed that the number of cattle to be conveyed along the line will amount to FOUR MILLIONS annually, which, at the lowest estimate, would yield a revenue larger, in proportion to the capital subscribed, than that of any Railway as yet completed within the United Kingdom. From this estimate the traffic in Sheep and Goats, with which the mountains are literally covered, has been carefully excluded, it having been found quite impossible (from its extent) to compute the actual revenue to be drawn from that most important branch. It may, however, be roughly assumed as from seventeen to nineteen _per cent_ upon the whole, after deduction of the working expenses.

"The population of Glenmutchkin is extremely dense. Its situation on the west coast has afforded it the means of direct communication with America, of which for many years the inhabitants have actively availed themselves. Indeed the amount of exportation of live stock from this part of the Highlands to the Western continent, has more than once attracted the attention of Parliament. The Manufactures are large and comprehensive, and include the most famous distilleries in the world. The Minerals are most abundant, and amongst these may be reckoned quartz, porphyry, felspar, malachite, manganese, and basalt.

"At the foot of the valley, and close to the sea, lies the important village known as the CLACHAN of INVERSTARVE. It is supposed by various eminent antiquaries to have been the capital of the Picts, and, amongst the busy inroads of commercial prosperity, it still retains some interesting traces of its former grandeur. There is a large fishing station here, to which vessels from every nation resort, and the demand for foreign produce is daily and steadily increasing.

"As a sporting country Glenmutchkin is unrivalled; but it is by the tourists that its beauties will most greedily be sought. These consist of every combination which plastic nature can afford--cliffs of unusual magnitude and grandeur--waterfalls only second to the sublime cascades of Norway--woods, of which the bark is a remarkably valuable commodity. It need scarcely be added, to rouse the enthusiasm inseparable from this glorious glen, that here, in 1745, Prince Charles Edward Stuart, then in the zenith of his hopes, was joined by the brave Sir Grugar M'Grugar at the head of his devoted clan.

"The Railway will be twelve miles long, and can be completed within six months after the Act of Parliament is obtained. The gradients are easy, and the curves obtuse. There are no viaducts of any importance, and only four tunnels along the whole length of the line. The shortest of those does not exceed a mile and a half.

"In conclusion, the projectors of this Railway beg to state that they have determined, as a principle, to set their face AGAINST ALL SUNDAY TRAVELLING WHATSOEVER, and to oppose EVERY BILL which may hereafter be brought into Parliament, unless it shall contain a clause to that effect. It is also their intention to take up the cause of the poor and neglected STOKER, for whose accommodation, and social, moral, religious, and intellectual improvement a large stock of evangelical tracts will speedily be required. Tenders of these, in quantities of not less than 12,000, may be sent in to the interim secretary. Shares must be applied for within ten days from the present date.

"By order of the Provisional Committee, "ROBT. M'CORKINDALE, _Secretary_."

"There!" said Bob, slapping down the prospectus on the table, with the jauntiness of a Cockney vouchsafing a pint of Hermitage to his guests--"What do you think of that? If it doesn't do the business effectually, I shall submit to be called a Dutchman. That last touch about the stoker will bring us in the subscriptions of the old ladies by the score."

"Very masterly, indeed," said I. "But who the deuce is Mhic-Mhac-vich-Induibh?"

"A _bona-fide_ chief, I assure you, though a little reduced: I picked him up upon the Broomielaw. His grandfather had an island somewhere to the west of the Hebrides; but it is not laid down in the maps."

"And the Captain of M'Alcohol?"

"A crack distiller."

"And the Factor for Glentumblers?"

"His principal customer. But, bless you, my dear St Mirrens! don't trouble yourself any more about the committee. They are as respectable a set--on paper at least--as you would wish to see of a summer's morning, and the beauty of it is that they will give us no manner of trouble. Now about the allocation. You and I must restrict ourselves to a couple of thousand shares a-piece. That's only a third of the whole, but it wont do to be greedy."

"But, Bob, consider! Where on earth are we to find the money to pay up the deposits?"

"Can you, the principal director of the Glenmutchkin Railway, ask me, the secretary, such a question? Don't you know that any of the banks will give us tick to the amount 'of half the deposits.' All that is settled already, and you can get your two thousand pounds whenever you please merely for the signing of a bill. Sawley must get a thousand according to stipulation--Jobson, Heckles, and Grabbie, at least five hundred a-piece, and another five hundred, I should think, will exhaust the remaining means of the committee. So that, out of our whole stock, there remain just five thousand shares to be allocated to the speculative and evangelical public. My eyes! won't there be a scramble for them?"

Next day our prospectus appeared in the newspapers. It was read, canvassed, and generally approved of. During the afternoon, I took an opportunity of looking into the Tontine, and whilst under shelter of the _Glasgow Herald_, my ears were solaced with such ejaculations as the following:--

"I say, Jimsy, hae ye seen this grand new prospectus for a railway tae Glenmutchkin?"

"Ay--it looks no that ill. The Hieland lairds are pitting their best fit foremost. Will ye apply for shares?"

"I think I'll tak' twa hundred. Wha's Sir Polloxfen Tremens?"

"He'll be yin o' the Ayrshire folk. He used to rin horses at the Paisley races."

("The devil he did!" thought I.)

"D'ye ken ony o' the directors, Jimsy?"

"I ken Sawley fine. Ye may depend on't, it's a gude thing if he's in't, for he's a howkin' body."

"Then it's sure to gae up. What prem. d'ye think it will bring?"

"Twa pund a share, and maybe mair."

"'Od, I'll apply for three hundred!"

"Heaven bless you, my dear countrymen!" thought I, as I sallied forth to refresh myself with a basin of soup, "do but maintain this liberal and patriotic feeling--this thirst for national improvement, internal communication, and premiums--a short while longer, and I know whose fortune will be made."

On the following morning my breakfast-table was covered with shoals of letters, from fellows whom I scarcely ever had spoken to--or who, to use a franker phraseology, had scarcely ever condescended to speak to me--entreating my influence as a director to obtain them shares in the new undertaking. I never bore malice in my life, so I chalked them down, without favouritism, for a certain proportion. Whilst engaged in this charitable work, the door flew open, and M'Corkindale, looking utterly haggard with excitement, rushed in.

"You may buy an estate whenever you please, Dunshunner," cried he, "the world's gone perfectly mad. I have been to Blazes the broker, and he tells me that the whole amount of the stock has been subscribed for four times over already, and he has not yet got in the returns from Edinburgh and Liverpool!"

"Are they good names though, Bob--sure cards--none of your M'Closkies and M'Alcohols?"

"The first names in the city, I assure you, and most of them holders for investment. I wouldn't take ten millions for their capital."

"Then the sooner we close the list the better."

"I think so too. I suspect a rival company will be out before long. Blazes says the shares are selling already conditionally on allotment, at seven and sixpence premium."

"The deuce they are! I say, Bob, since we have the cards in our hands, would it not be wise to favour them with a few hundreds at that rate? A bird in the hand, you know, is worth two in the bush, eh?"

"I know no such maxim in political economy," replied the secretary. "Are you mad, Dunshunner? How are the shares ever to go up, if it gets wind that the directors are selling already? Our business just now, is to _bull_ the line, not to _bear_ it; and if you will trust me, I shall show them such an operation on the ascending scale, as the Stock Exchange has not witnessed for this long and many a-day. Then, to-morrow, I shall advertise in the papers, that the committee having received applications for ten times the amount of stock, have been compelled, unwillingly, to close the lists. That will be a slap in the face to the dilatory gentlemen, and send up the shares like wildfire."

Bob was right. No sooner did the advertisement appear, than a simultaneous groan was uttered by some hundreds of disappointed speculators, who with unwonted and unnecessary caution, had been anxious to see their way a little, before committing themselves to our splendid enterprise. In consequence, they rushed into the market, with intense anxiety to make what terms they could at the earliest stage, and the seven-and-sixpence of premium was doubled in the course of a forenoon.

The allocation passed over very peaceably. Sawley, Heckles, Jobson, Grabbie, and the Captain of M'Alcohol, besides myself, attended, and took part in the business. We were also threatened with the presence of the M'Closkie and Vich-Induibh; but M'Corkindale, entertaining some reasonable doubts as to the effect which their corporeal appearance might have upon the representatives of the dissenting interest, had taken the precaution to get them snugly housed in a tavern, where an unbounded supply of gratuitous Ferntosh deprived us of the benefit of their experience. We, however, allotted them twenty shares a-piece. Sir Polloxfen Tremens sent a handsome, though rather illegible letter of apology, dated from an island in Lochlomond, where he was said to be detained on particular business.

Mr Sawley, who officiated as our chairman, was kind enough, before parting, to pass a very flattering eulogium upon the excellence and candour of all the preliminary arrangements. It would now, he said, go forth to the public that this line was not, like some others he could mention, a mere bubble, emanating from the stank of private interest, but a solid, lasting superstructure, based upon the principles of sound return for capital, and serious evangelical truth, (hear, hear.) The time was fast approaching, when the gravestone, with the words "HIC OBIIT", chiselled upon it, would be placed at the head of all the other lines which rejected the grand opportunity of conveying education to the stoker. The stoker, in his (Mr Sawley's) opinion, had a right to ask the all important question, "Am I not a man and a brother?" (Cheers.) Much had been said and written lately about a work called _Tracts for the Times_. With the opinions contained in that publication, he was not conversant, as it was conducted by persons of another community from that to which he (Mr Sawley) had the privilege to belong. But he hoped very soon, under the auspices of the Glenmutchkin Railway Company, to see a new periodical established, under the title of _Tracts for the Trains_. He never for a moment would relax his efforts to knock a nail into the coffin, which, he might say, was already made, and measured, and cloth-covered for the reception of all establishments; and with these sentiments and the conviction that the shares must rise, could it be doubted that he would remain a fast friend to the interests of this Company for ever? (Much cheering.)

After having delivered this address, Mr Sawley affectionately squeezed the hands of his brother directors, and departed, leaving several of us much overcome. As, however, M'Corkindale had told me that every one of Sawley's shares had been disposed of in the market the day before, I felt less compunction at having refused to allow that excellent man an extra thousand beyond the amount he had applied for, notwithstanding of his broadest hints, and even private entreaties.

"Confound the greedy hypocrite!" said Bob; "does he think we shall let him Burke the line for nothing? No--no! let him go to the brokers and buy his shares back, if he thinks they are likely to rise. I'll be bound he has made a cool five hundred out of them already."

On the day which succeeded the allocation, the following entry appeared in the Glasgow share lists. "Direct Glenmutchkin Railway. 15s. 15s.6d. 15s.6d. 16s. 15s.6d. 16s. 16s.6d. 16s.6d. 16s. 17s 18s. 18s. 19s.6d. 21s. 21s. 22s.6d. 24s. 25s. 6d. 27s. 29s. 29s.6d. 30s. 31s. pm."

"They might go higher, and they ought to go higher," said Bob musingly; "but there's not much more stock to come and go upon, and these two share-sharks, Jobson and Grabbie, I know, will be in the market to-morrow. We must not let them have the whip-hand of us. I think upon the whole, Dunshunner, though it's letting them go dog cheap, that we ought to sell half our shares at the present premium, whilst there is a certainty of getting it."

"Why not sell the whole? I'm sure I have no objections to part with every stiver of the scrip on such terms."

"Perhaps," said Bob, "upon general principles you may be right; but then remember that we have a vested interest in the line."

"Vested interest be hanged!"

"That's very well--at the same time it is no use to kill your salmon in a hurry. The bulls have done their work pretty well for us, and we ought to keep something on hand for the bears; they are snuffling at it already. I could almost swear that some of those fellows who have sold to-day are working for a time-bargain."

We accordingly got rid of a couple of thousand shares, the proceeds of which not only enabled us to discharge the deposit loan, but left us a material surplus. Under these circumstances, a two-handed banquet was proposed and unanimously carried, the commencement of which I distinctly remember, but am rather dubious as to the end. So many stories have lately been circulated to the prejudice of railway directors, that I think it my duty to state that this entertainment was scrupulously defrayed by ourselves, and _not_ carried to account, either of the preliminary survey, or the expenses of the provisional committee.

Nothing effects so great a metamorphosis in the bearing of the outer man, as a sudden change of fortune. The anemone of the garden differs scarcely more from its unpretending prototype of the woods, than Robert M'Corkindale, Esq., Secretary and Projector of the Glenmutchkin Railway, differed from Bob M'Corkindale, the seedy frequenter of "The Crow." In the days of yore, men eyed the surtout--napless at the velvet collar, and preternaturally white at the seams--which Bob vouchsafed to wear, with looks of dim suspicion, as if some faint reminiscence, similar to that which is said to recall the memory of a former state of existence, suggested to them a vision that the garment had once been their own. Indeed, his whole appearance was then wonderfully second-hand. Now he had cast his slough. A most undeniable Taglioni, with trimmings just bordering upon frogs, gave dignity to his demeanour and twofold amplitude to his chest. The horn eyeglass was exchanged for one of purest gold, the dingy high-lows for well-waxed Wellingtons, the Paisley fogle for the fabric of the China loom. Moreover, he walked with a swagger, and affected in common conversation a peculiar dialect which he opined to be the purest English, but which no one--except a bagman--could be reasonably expected to understand. His pockets were invariably crammed with share lists; and he quoted, if he did not comprehend, the money article from the _Times_. This sort of assumption, though very ludicrous in itself, goes down wonderfully. Bob gradually became a sort of authority, and his opinions got quoted on 'Change. He was no ass, notwithstanding his peculiarities, and made good use of his opportunity.

For myself, I bore my new dignities with an air of modest meekness. A certain degree of starchness is indispensable for a railway director, if he means to go forward in his high calling and prosper; he must abandon all juvenile eccentricities, and aim at the appearance of a decided enemy to free trade in the article of Wild Oats. Accordingly, as the first step towards respectability, I eschewed coloured waistcoats, and gave out that I was a marrying man. No man under forty, unless he is a positive idiot, will stand forth as a theoretical bachelor. It is all nonsense to say that there is any thing unpleasant in being courted. Attention, whether from male or female, tickles the vanity, and although I have a reasonable, and, I hope, not unwholesome regard, for the gratification of my other appetites, I confess that this same vanity is by far the most poignant of the whole. I therefore surrendered myself freely to the soft allurements thrown in my way by such matronly denizens of Glasgow as were possessed of stock in the shape of marriageable daughters; and walked the more readily into their toils, because every party, though nominally for the purposes of tea, wound up with a hot supper, and something hotter still by way of assisting the digestion.

I don't know whether it was my determined conduct at the allocation, my territorial title, or a most exaggerated idea of my circumstances, that worked upon the mind of Mr Sawley. Possibly it was a combination of the three; but sure enough few days had elapsed before I received a formal card of invitation to a tea and serious conversation. Now serious conversation is a sort of thing that I never shone in, possibly because my early studies were framed in a different direction; but as I really was unwilling to offend the respectable coffin-maker, and as I found that the Captain of M'Alcohol--a decided trump in his way--had also received a summons, I notified my acceptance.

M'Alcohol and I went together. The Captain, an enormous brawny Celt, with superhuman whiskers, and a shock of the fieriest hair, had figged himself out, _more majorum_, in the full Highland costume. I never saw Rob Roy on the stage look half so dignified or ferocious. He glittered from head to foot, with dirk, pistol, and skean-dhu, and at least a hundred-weight of cairngorums cast a prismatic glory around his person. I felt quite abashed beside him.

We were ushered into Mr Sawley's drawing-room. Round the walls, and at considerable distances from each other, were seated about a dozen characters male and female, all of them dressed in sable, and wearing countenances of woe. Sawley advanced, and wrung me by the hand with so piteous an expression of visage, that I could not help thinking some awful catastrophe had just befallen his family.

"You are welcome, Mr Dunshunner, welcome to my humble tabernacle. Let me present you to Mrs Sawley"--and a lady, who seemed to have bathed in the Yellow Sea, rose from her seat, and favoured me with a profound curtsy.

"My daughter--Miss Selina Sawley."

I felt in my brain the scorching glance of the two darkest eyes it ever was my fortune to behold, as the beauteous Selina looked up from the perusal of her handkerchief hem. It was a pity that the other features were not corresponding; for the nose was flat, and the mouth of such dimensions, that a Harlequin might have jumped down it with impunity--but the eyes _were_ splendid.

In obedience to a sign from the hostess, I sank into a chair beside Selina; and not knowing exactly what to say, hazarded some observation about the weather.

"Yes, it is indeed a suggestive season. How deeply, Mr Dunshunner, we ought to feel the pensive progress of autumn towards a soft and premature decay! I always think, about this time of the year, that nature is falling into a consumption!"

"To be sure, ma'am," said I, rather taken aback by this style of colloquy "the trees are looking devilishly hectic."

"Ah, you have remarked that too! Strange! it was but yesterday that I was wandering through Kelvin Grove, and as the phantom breeze brought down the withered foliage from the spray, I thought, how probable it was, that they might erelong rustle over young and glowing hearts deposited prematurely in the tomb!"

This, which struck me as a very passable imitation of Dickens's pathetic writings, was a poser. In default of language, I looked Miss Sawley straight in the face, and attempted a substitute for a sigh. I was rewarded with a tender glance.

"Ah!" said she, "I see you are a congenial spirit. How delightful, and yet how rare it is to meet with any one who thinks in unison with yourself! Do you ever walk in the Necropolis, Mr Dunshunner? It is my favourite haunt of a morning. There we can wean ourselves, as it were, from life, and, beneath the melancholy yew and cypress, anticipate the setting star. How often there have I seen the procession--the funeral of some very, _very_ little child"----

"Selina, my love," said Mrs Sawley, "have the kindness to ring for the cookies."

I, as in duty bound, started up to save the fair enthusiast the trouble, and was not sorry to observe my seat immediately occupied by a very cadaverous gentleman, who was evidently jealous of the progress I was rapidly making. Sawley, with an air of great mystery, informed me that this was a Mr Dalgleish of Raxmathrapple, the representative of an ancient Scottish family who claimed an important heritable office. The name, I thought, was familiar to me, but there was something in the appearance of Mr Dalgleish which, notwithstanding the smiles of Miss Selina, rendered a rivalship in that quarter utterly out of the question.

I hate injustice, so let me do due honour in description to the Sawley banquet. The tea-urn most literally corresponded to its name. The table was decked out with divers platters, containing seed-cakes cut into rhomboids, almond biscuits, and ratafia drops; but somehow or other they all looked clammy and damp, and, for the life of me, I could not divest myself of the idea that the selfsame viands had figured, not long before, as funeral refreshments at a dirgie. No such suspicion seemed to cross the mind of M'Alcohol, who hitherto had remained uneasily surveying his nails in a corner, but at the first symptom of food started forwards, and was in the act of making a clean sweep of the china, when Sawley proposed the singular preliminary of a hymn.

The hymn was accordingly sung. I am thankful to say it was such a one as I never heard before, or expect to hear again; and unless it was composed by the Reverend Saunders Peden in an hour of paroxysm on the moors, I cannot conjecture the author. After this original symphony, tea was discussed, and after tea, to my amazement, more hot brandy and water than I ever remember to have seen circulated at the most convivial party. Of course this effected a radical change in the spirits and conversation of the circle. It was again my lot to be placed by the side of the fascinating Selina, whose sentimentality gradually thawed away beneath the influence of sundry sips, which she accepted with a delicate reluctance. This time Dalgleish of Raxmathrapple had not the remotest chance. M'Alcohol got furious, sang Gaelic songs, and even delivered a sermon in genuine Erse, without incurring a rebuke; whilst, for my own part, I must needs confess that I waxed unnecessarily amorous, and the last thing I recollect was the pressure of Mr Sawley's hand at the door, as he denominated me his dear boy, and hoped I would soon come back and visit Mrs Sawley and Selina. The recollection of these passages next morning was the surest antidote to my return.

Three weeks had elapsed, and still the Glenmutchkin Railway shares were at a premium, though rather lower than when we sold. Our engineer, Watty Solder, returned from his first survey of the line, along with an assistant who really appeared to have some remote glimmerings of the science and practice of mensuration. It seemed, from a verbal report, that the line was actually practicable; and the survey would have been completed in a very short time--"If," according to the account of Solder, "there had been ae hoos in the glen. But ever sin' the distillery stoppit--and that was twa year last Martinmas--there wasna a hole whaur a Christian could lay his head, muckle less get white sugar to his toddy, forbye the change-house at the clachan; and the auld luckie that keepit it was sair forfochten wi' the palsy, and maist in the dead-thraws. There was naebody else living within twal miles o' the line, barring a tacksman, a lamiter, and a bauldie."

We had some difficulty in preventing Mr Solder from making this report open and patent to the public, which premature disclosure might have interfered materially with the preparation of our traffic tables, not to mention the marketable value of the shares. We therefore kept him steadily at work out of Glasgow, upon a very liberal allowance, to which, apparently, he did not object.

"Dunshunner," said M'Corkindale to me one day, "I suspect that there is something going on about our railway more than we are aware of. Have you observed that the shares are preternaturally high just now?"

"So much the better. Let's sell."

"I did so this morning--both yours and mine, at two pounds ten shillings premium."

"The deuce you did! Then we're out of the whole concern."

"Not quite. If my suspicions are correct, there's a good deal more money yet to be got from the speculation. Somebody has been bulling the stock without orders; and, as they can have no information which we are not perfectly up to, depend upon it, it is done for a purpose. I suspect Sawley and his friends. They have never been quite happy since the allocation; and I caught him yesterday pumping our broker in the back shop. We'll see in a day or two. If they are beginning a bearing operation, I know how to catch them."

And, in effect, the bearing operation commenced. Next day, heavy sales were effected for delivery in three weeks; and the stock, as if water-logged, began to sink. The same thing continued for the following two days, until the premium became nearly nominal. In the mean time, Bob and I, in conjunction with two leading capitalists whom we let into the secret, bought up steadily every share that was offered; and at the end of a fortnight we found that we had purchased rather more than double the amount of the whole original stock. Sawley and his disciples, who, as M'Corkindale suspected, were at the bottom of the whole transaction, having beared to their heart's content, now came into the market to purchase, in order to redeem their engagements. The following extract from the weekly share-lists will show the result of their endeavours to regain their lost position:--

Sat. Mon. Tues. Wed. Thurs. Glenmutchkin Rail, L.1 paid,. 1 2/8 | 2 1/4 | 4 3/8 | 7 1/2 | 10 3/4

Frid. Sat. 15 3/8 | 17,

and Monday was the day of delivery.

I have no means of knowing in what frame of mind Mr Sawley spent the Sunday, or whether he had recourse for mental consolation to Peden; but on Monday morning he presented himself at my door in full funeral costume, with about a quarter of a mile of crape swathed round his hat, black gloves, and a countenance infinitely more doleful than if he had been attending the interment of his beloved wife.

"Walk in, Mr Sawley," said I cheerfully. "What a long time it is since I have had the pleasure of seeing you--too long indeed for brother directors. How are Mrs Sawley and Miss Selina--won't you take a cup of coffee?"

"Grass, sir, grass!" said Mr Sawley, with a sigh like the groan of a furnace-bellows. "We are all flowers of the oven--weak, erring creatures, every one of us. Ah! Mr Dunshunner! you have been a great stranger at Lykewake Terrace!"

"Take a muffin, Mr Sawley. Any thing new in the railway world?"

"Ah, my dear sir--my good Mr Augustus Reginald--I wanted to have some serious conversation with you on that very point. I am afraid there is something far wrong indeed in the present state of our stock."

"Why, to be sure it is high; but that, you know, is a token of the public confidence in the line. After all, the rise is nothing compared to that of several English railways; and individually, I suppose, neither of us have any reason to complain."

"I don't like it," said Sawley, watching me over the margin of his coffee-cup. "I don't like it. It savours too much of gambling for a man of my habits. Selina, who is a sensible girl, has serious qualms on the subject."

"Then, why not get out of it? I have no objection to run the risk, and, if you like to transact with me I will pay you ready money for every share you have at the present market price."

Sawley writhed uneasily in his chair.

"Will you sell me five hundred, Mr Sawley? Say the word and it is a bargain."

"A time bargain?" quavered the coffin-maker.

"No. Money down, and scrip handed over."

"I--I can't. The fact is, my dear young friend, I have sold all my stock already!"

"Then permit me to ask, Mr Sawley, what possible objection you can have to the present aspect of affairs? You do not surely suppose that we are going to issue new shares and bring down the market, simply because you have realized at a handsome premium?"

"A handsome premium! O Lord!" moaned Sawley.

"Why, what did you get for them?"

"Four, three, and two and a half."

"A very considerable profit indeed," said I; "and you ought to be abundantly thankful. We shall talk this matter over at another time, Mr Sawley, but just now I must beg you to excuse me. I have a particular engagement this morning with my broker--rather a heavy transaction to settle--and so"----

"It's no use beating about the bush any longer," said Mr Sawley in an excited tone, at the same time dashing down his crape-covered castor on the floor. "Did you ever see a ruined man with a large family? Look at me, Mr Dunshunner--I'm one, and you've done it!"

"Mr Sawley! are you in your senses?"

"That depends on circumstances. Haven't you been buying stock lately?"

"I am glad to say I have--two thousand Glenmutchkins, I think, and this is the day of delivery."

"Well, then--can't you see how the matter stands? It was I who sold them!"

"Well!"

"Mother of Moses, sir! don't you see I'm ruined?

"By no means--but you must not swear. I pay over the money for your scrip, and you pocket a premium. It seems to me a very simple transaction."

"But I tell you I haven't got the scrip!" cried Sawley, gnashing his teeth, whilst the cold beads of perspiration gathered largely on his brow.

"That is very unfortunate! Have you lost it?"

"No!--the devil tempted me, and I oversold!"

There was a very long pause, during which I assumed an aspect of serious and dignified rebuke.

"Is it possible?" said I in a low tone, after the manner of Kean's offended fathers. "What! you, Mr Sawley--the stoker's friend--the enemy of gambling--the father of Selina--condescend to so equivocal a transaction? You amaze me! But I never was the man to press heavily on a friend"--here Sawley brightened up--"your secret is safe with me, and it shall be your own fault if it reaches the ears of the Session. Pay me over the difference at the present market price, and I release you of your obligation."

"Then I'm in the Gazette, that's all," said Sawley doggedly, "and a wife and nine beautiful babes upon the parish! I had hoped other things from you, Mr Dunshunner--I thought you and Selina"----

"Nonsense, man! Nobody goes into the Gazette just now--it will be time enough when the general crash comes. Out with your checque-book, and write me an order for four-and-twenty thousand. Confound fractions! in these days one can afford to be liberal."

"I haven't got it," said Sawley. "You have no idea how bad our trade has been of late, for nobody seems to think of dying. I have not sold a gross of coffins this fortnight. But I'll tell what--I'll give you five thousand down in cash, and ten thousand in shares--further I can't go."

"Now, Mr Sawley'," said I, "I may be blamed by worldly-minded persons for what I am going to do; but I am a man of principle, and feel deeply for the situation of your amiable wife and family. I bear no malice, though it is quite clear that you intended to make me the sufferer. Pay me fifteen thousand over the counter, and we cry quits for ever."

"Won't you take Camlachie Cemetery shares? They are sure to go up."

"No."

"Twelve hundred Cowcaddens' Water, with an issue of new stock next week?"

"Not if they disseminated the Ganges."

"A thousand Ramshorn Gas--four per cent guaranteed until the act?"

"Not if they promised twenty, and melted down the sun in their retort!"

"Blawweary Iron? Best spec. going."

"No, I tell you once for all. If you don't like my offer--and it is an uncommonly liberal one--say so, and I'll expose you this afternoon upon 'Change."

"Well, then--there's a checque. But may the"----

"Stop, sir! Any such profane expressions, and I shall insist upon the original bargain. So, then--now we're quits. I wish you a very good-morning, Mr Sawley, and better luck next time. Pray remember me to your amiable family."

The door had hardly closed upon the discomfited coffin-maker, and I was still in the preliminary steps of an extempore _pas seul_, intended as the outward demonstration of exceeding inward joy, when Bob M'Corkindale entered. I told him the result of the morning's conference.

"You have let him off too easily," said the Political Economist. "Had I been his creditor, I certainly should have sacked the shares into the bargain. There is nothing like rigid dealing between man and man."

"I am contented with moderate profits," said I; "besides, the image of Selina overcame me. How goes it with Jobson and Grabbie?"

"Jobson has paid, and Grabbie compounded. Heckles--may he die an evil death!--has repudiated, become a lame duck, and waddled; but no doubt his estate will pay a dividend."

"So, then, we are clear of the whole Glenmutchkin business, and at a handsome profit."

"A fair interest for the outlay of capital--nothing more. But I'm not quite done with the concern yet."

"How so? not another bearing operation?"

"No; that cock would hardly fight. But you forget that I am secretary to the company, and have a small account against them for services already rendered. I must do what I can to carry the bill through Parliament; and, as you have now sold your whole shares, I advise you to resign from the direction, go down straight to Glenmutchkin, and qualify yourself for a witness. We shall give you five guineas a-day, and pay all your expenses."

"Not a bad notion. But what has become of M'Closkie, and the other fellow with the jaw-breaking name?"

"Vich-Induibh? I have looked after their interests, as in duty bound, sold their shares at a large premium, and dispatched them to their native hills on annuities."

"And Sir Polloxfen?"

"Died yesterday of spontaneous combustion."

As the company seemed breaking up, I thought I could not do better than take M'Corkindale's hint, and accordingly betook myself to Glenmutchkin, along with the Captain of M'Alcohol, and we quartered ourselves upon the Factor for Glentumblers. We found Watty Solder very shakey, and his assistant also lapsing into habits of painful inebriety. We saw little of them except of an evening, for we shot and fished the whole day, and made ourselves remarkably comfortable. By singular good-luck, the plans and sections were lodged in time, and the Board of Trade very handsomely reported in our favour, with a recommendation of what they were pleased to call "the Glenmutchkin system," and a hope that it might generally be carried out. What this system was, I never clearly understood; but, of course, none of us had any objections. This circumstance gave an additional impetus to the shares, and they once more went up. I was, however, too cautious to plunge a second time into Charybdis, but M'Corkindale did, and again emerged with plunder.

When the time came for the parliamentary contest, we all emigrated to London. I still recollect, with lively satisfaction, the many pleasant days we spent in the metropolis at the company's expense. There were just a neat fifty of us, and we occupied the whole of an hotel. The discussion before the committee was long and formidable. We were opposed by four other companies who patronised lines, of which the nearest was at least a hundred miles distant from Glenmutchkin; but as they founded their opposition upon dissent from "the Glenmutchkin system" generally, the committee allowed them to be heard. We fought for three weeks a most desperate battle, and might in the end have been victorious, had not our last antagonist, at the very close of his case, pointed out no less than seventy-three fatal errors in the parliamentary plan deposited by the unfortunate Solder. Why this was not done earlier, I never exactly understood; it may be, that our opponents, with gentlemanly consideration, were unwilling to curtail our sojourn in London--and their own. The drama was now finally closed, and after all preliminary expenses were paid, sixpence per share was returned to the holders upon surrender of their scrip.

Such is an accurate history of the Origin, Rise, Progress, and Fall of the Direct Glenmutchkin Railway. It contains a deep moral, if any body has sense enough to see it; if not, I have a new project in my eye for next session, of which timely notice shall be given.

THE SCIENCE OF LANGUAGES.[8]

The past history of Mr Morgan Kavanagh is probably as little known to our readers as it is to ourselves. But his future destiny is not equally obscure. We have it, on his own authority, that he has made a discovery of unparalleled merit and magnitude, as simple as it is surprising, and calculated, in an equal degree, to benefit mankind, and immortalize its author. He has discovered the science of languages--a science in which the wisest hitherto have been smatterers, but in which the most shallow may henceforward be profound. In the prophetic spirit of conscious genius, Horace, Ovid, and other great men, have boasted of the perpetuity of fame achieved by their efforts; and Kavanagh, apparently under a similar inspiration, indulges the pleasing anticipation, that he has completed a monument more lasting than brass--of which material, it may be observed, he does not appear to have a deficient supply. He confesses, that on so trite a subject, the presumption is against him of so great an achievement; but he sticks to his point, and is sure that he has attained an undying name by his inestimable disclosures:--

"A discovery equalling in magnitude the one to which I lay claim, must appear to all, before examining its accompanying proofs, just about as probable as the discovery, in the neighbourhood of the British Channel, of some rich and extensive island that had escaped till now the mariner's notice. Then am I either egregiously in error, or, through my humble means, one of the greatest and most important discoveries on record has been made."

The alternative here allowed us is irresistible--_either_ our author is egregiously in error, _or_ he has made a great discovery. Who can doubt it? We feel at once driven to the wall by the horns of so dexterous a dilemma; and unable as we are, in the kindness of our hearts, to adopt the more uncivil supposition, we succumb, without a struggle, to the only choice left us, and concede to such a disputant all that he can demand.

Mr Kavanagh is determined that the importance of his discovery shall lose nothing from his reluctance to put it in the strongest light:--

"If, from having taken a view of the human mind different from any other hitherto taken, and from having founded a rational principle, in conformity with this view, I can offer such a definition of words as may bear the strictest investigation, and which all may understand; and if a child, by adhering to this principle, may be able to account for words with all their changes and variations, and show them such as they must have been, not only ages before the Bible and the Iliad had been written, but even as they were at their very birth; then it will, I dare hope, be admitted, that I shall not only have surmounted innumerable difficulties, but have discovered the real science of languages. Yet all this, and a great deal more, may be done by the application of the principle by which I am guided."

Again he says:--

"I am sorry that the resolution I have formed, of frankly speaking my mind throughout this work, obliges me to express myself as I do here and elsewhere with such an apparent want of modesty; but were I to adopt, with regard to this discovery, and the knowledge we have hitherto had of the science of grammar, what is understood by a more becoming and humble tone, I should, by doing so, lose in truth what I might gain by affected modesty, since I should not only be speaking falsely, but be leading the reader into error by concealing from him my real opinion, which I should by no means do. And if while it be allowed, as I am sure it must, that though I do well to speak as I think, it be observed that this is not a reason why I should think as I do--that is, so presumptuously--I beg to reply, that if I had never _thought so_, this discovery had never been attempted, and much less made; for notwithstanding what the world may say about the modesty of certain great men, I do in my heart believe that such modesty has been ever affected, and that it is wholly impossible that any thing great may be undertaken or achieved, but where there is at bottom great presumption, which is, after all, nothing more than a consciousness of one's own strength."

This is all right, and no apology was necessary. Why should a man be modest, who, in the six thousandth year of the creation, has found out, for the first time, the science of languages? Though entirely devoid of originality ourselves, we can sympathize with the proud exultation of those who have produced a new and "glorious birth." From the cackling of the hen when she has laid an egg, to the [Greek: heurêcha] of Archimedes when he discovered hydrostatics, we see the instinctive impulse under which those who have brought to light a great result, are constrained to proclaim it aloud; and we should be thankful when the mighty inventor can refrain from rushing out, in native nudity, into the public way.

The discoverer of the science of languages, however, does not come forth upon us, like Archimedes, in a state of dishabille. Attired in the same fashionable garb, rejoicing in the same paper and type, and issuing from the shelves of the same respectable publishers, Mr Kavanagh's two goodly octavos may fitly range, as far as exterior is concerned, with the collected productions of Jeffrey and Macaulay, who will no doubt feel honoured by such good company. The fly-leaf at the beginning of the work warns all pirates and poachers "that it is private property, protected by the late Copyright Act;" and a foot-note seems to inform us that a French edition is simultaneously to appear in Paris. Who could doubt that such mighty notes of preparation were to usher in some _magnum opus_, worthy of the expectations thus excited?

Mr Kavanagh appears to us to have lived for some time in France, and if so, he has not lived there in vain. He has acquired the knack of framing a bill of fare, that would do honour to the reigning prince of restaurateurs, whoever he may be, and would create an appetite under the ribs of death. Take the following excerpts from the contents:--

"What the author should do before attempting to prove the discovery of the science of languages. This he does, and a great deal more."

"View of the human mind. That taken by eminent philosophers inquired into, and found to be erroneous. The author's view of it."

"Proof that there are no such words as substantives or nouns."

"Pronouns, supposed like nouns, but erroneously, to represent substances. They never represent nouns, as they have been supposed to do. Proof that they never stand for substances, nor can be, any more than nouns, the subject of propositions. Their real nature shown, and difficulties and locutions connected with them accounted for. The original form of _oh me_! and _ah me_!"

"Thus far the author pretends to have shown that there is but one part of speech."

"The author's account of the verb. Why it cannot be compared like the adjective. The verb is an adjective or name in the fourth degree. It does not represent an action. TO and DO. Shown how it does not represent an action, and how grammarians have been led to suppose that it does."

"How men expressed themselves in the beginning of the world, when they had occasion to make use of the verb TO BE."

"The nature of a past participle in English and French. This knowledge of a past participle in French leads to a precious discovery."

"How to find the etymology of words. Instances given: the meaning of _friend_, _mind_, _blind_, &c., shown."

"The origin of the termination _ish_ discovered. The etymology of the words, _Ireland_, _Scotland_, _Dublin_, with many other etymologies."

"The feminine and plural of _mon_, _ton_, _son_, explained. _Mes_, _tes_, and _ses_, not plural numbers. _Notre_ and _votre_ do not come from the Latin words _noster_ and _vester_. No language derived from another."

"The first names man ever had for his own dwelling, with several other etymologies, such as _barrack_, _good-by_, _property_, _coin_, _copper_, _maistre_, _castor_, _out-cast_, _caserne_, _quoit_, _cat_, _quiet_, _discus_, _Apollo_, _tranquil_, _keel_, _cuisse_, &c."

"The delicate meaning of certain words."

"The extraordinary wisdom displayed in the formation of words: different accounts of the words _man_, _woman_, _Adam_, &c. The meanings of _animare_, _animal_, _animation_, _beget_, _amo_, _Venus_, _shame_, _honte_, &c.

"The etymology of _squat_, _cower_, _square_, _four_, _year_, _fair_, _faire_, &c."

"In the account given of the letters of the Greek alphabet are to be found explained the letters of all languages. To what this knowledge may lead. Shown how the twenty-four letters make but one. The dot over the _i_. A straight line, a circle, &c."

"The _ing_ in _being_ accounted for. Meaning of _big_, _wig_, _mig_, &c.; of _hat_, _oyster_, &c.; of _eight_, _octo_, &c.; of _nigh_, _near_, _night_, &c. The literal meaning of negatives and affirmatives. What man's first oaths were."

"_Big_, once a name for the Divinity."

"How all numbers make but one. No such thing as a plural number. Examination of the ten figures, 1, 2, 3, &c. Each of them means _one_."

"Concluding observations resumed. The difficulty of believing in this discovery. The great wisdom it contains. The language supposed to be spoken in heaven."

"The advantages to be derived from this discovery. How Mathematicians, Theologians, Grammarians, Lexicographers, Logicians, and Philosophers, are likely to consider this discovery. Other works proposed."

"The members of the press. Bookmaking. The many important discoveries in this work lie in the way of its immediate success with such minds as cannot receive new ideas. The view which the man of enlarged ideas is likely to take of it. The author's pretensions. His confidence in the ultimate success of this discovery."

We confess we felt our mouth water at the glimpses thus afforded of the coming feast; and we are happy to acknowledge that what we expected was fully realized.

It must not be imagined that we are going to furnish, in these trivial pages, a full disclosure of Mr Kavanagh's discovery. There are several reasons for our not doing so. First, we could not, in common justice, think of spoiling the sale of Mr Kavanagh's book. Secondly, we are not sanguine that, in the space allowed us, we could make the discovery understood by our readers. And thirdly, we are not sure that we understand it ourselves. But, as far as consistent with these considerations, we shall endeavour to give such a view of it as may excite, without satiating, curiosity, and may give the means of conjecturing what the book itself must be, of which we are enabled to offer such specimens.

It is a common and allowable artifice, in those attempting to lead us up the hill of science, to point to some attractive object that is to be reached at the summit. Mr Kavanagh employs this expedient with great effect. He shows us, near the outset of our journey, one astonishing result to which it is to conduct us, and which necessarily inflames our eagerness to get over the ground:--

"That the reader may have in advance some notion of this manner of analysing words, and discovering their hidden meaning, I beg here to give, for the present, the contents of the analysis of the English alphabet _collectively_ considered; that is, not as to what each letter means when read by itself, but as to what they all mean when read together in the following order:--

A B C D E F G H I (or J) K L M N O P Q R S T U (or V) W X Y Z;

of which the literal meaning in modern English is--_This first book is had of the Jews; it opens the mind, and is good breeding and wisdom._ I shall show in the proper place how this meaning may be found in the above characters."

The steps by which we are to reach a mighty secret like this, are given by our author in great detail; for, as he candidly observes--

"Though my discoveries are mostly about as evident as any thing in Euclid, still, as they are new to the world, and require, previous to their being received as truths, the disagreeable admission that we have been hitherto in error; some art, besides down-right logical persuasion, will be necessary towards bringing the mind friendly to them."

The first discovery Mr Kavanagh seems to have made is, that he knew nothing of grammar; and had he stopped here, he would have been entitled to no small praise for discernment. But this was but a stepping-stone to greater things.

Mr Kavanagh seems by and by to have found out that "there are no such words as substantives or nouns; that is to say, words standing for substances, or representing substances in any manner." He discovered that such words, and indeed all words, are, whether it be true or not, sounds to our ears not altogether new. We had a notion that, at least, the term _noun_, _nom_, and _nomen_, meant properly a _name_, but of course Mr Kavanagh must know better. We must decline, however, to follow him through his explanation on this footing of the real presence.

But then comes an announcement of undoubted originality, "that all words called substantives are but names _in the fourth degree of comparison_; that is to say, in a degree above the one commonly called the superlative." We durst not doubt that Mr Kavanagh is here right; but, for persons of slow perception like ourselves, we should have liked to see a little more fully explained what are the first, second, and third degrees of comparison of those names, of which _hat_, _stick_, _thing_, _hand_, _foot_, &c., are the fourth degrees. Discoverers should bear a little with beginners; and we suggest that, in a second edition, a full table should be given of what we desiderate.

The view thus taken of nouns, leads, it seems, to important results, and, in particular, enables us to explain what Mr Kavanagh had been puzzling himself about for half his lifetime--the meaning of the expressions, "This is John's book," and "this is a book of John's." We had always thought that the first of these phrases was plain sailing, and that the second meant, "this a book of John's books--or, one of John's books," _ex libris Joannis_. But these simple suppositions cannot satisfy men of science, who require a discovery to explain what other men think they understand without one:--

"We can now account for what has hitherto puzzled all grammarians, namely, the double possessive. This book of John's means, this book of all John's; that is, this book forming a part of all John's, of all things belonging to John."

"And how rich and full the meaning of this new possessive! What an image it brings before the mind, compared to the wretched meaning our ignorance of this noble science has hitherto taught us to allow it to have! This book is John's, means, we have been told, this book is John's book. How frivolous, how poor, compared to, 'this book is part of all things corporeal and ideal belonging to John.' How useless this repetition of the same word book! and how incorrect! since if John possessed only one book, and that we said, 'this book of John's is better than mine,' we were immediately stopt, as we cannot say, this book of John's book is better than mine. But now we know that this book of John's, &c., means, 'this book is a part of all John's,' &c."

Our discoverer thereafter proceeds to analyse the personal terminations of verbs, of which he seems to give an elucidation highly satisfactory to himself, and which, we hope, will be equally so to his readers. It is obviously of oriental origin, being analogous to the astronomical theory of the elephant and tortoise, by which the Hindoos are said so clearly to account for the support of our terrestrial planet. "_Love_, _lovest_, _loveth_, or _loves_," &c., have been formed by combining the root with the inflections of the auxiliary verb, _to have_. He gives a very distinct table by which

"We see that _love hast_ has been shortened to _lovest_; _love has_, to _loves_; _love hath_ to _loveth_; _love had_ to _loved_; and _love hadst_ to _lovedst_. The _ha_ has been omitted throughout, as, love [ha]st; love [ha]s; love [ha]th; love [ha]d; love [ha]dst."

This is remarkably ingenious, and it must be from a very unphilosophical curiosity that ignorant persons like ourselves are tempted to ask how Mr Kavanagh explains the origin of the inflections _have_, _hast_, _hath_, _had_, &c. We have been accustomed to regard these terminations, though in a contracted form, as having the same origin as those of other verbs; and we doubt if it would command general acquiescence to say that "hath" was a compound of "have hath." But these are probably foolish doubts, only showing the small progress of our scientific enlightenment; and we feel assured that they would occur to no one who was once fully imbued with Mr Kavanagh's principles.

A similar theory is applied by Mr Kavanagh with equal success to the Latin system of conjugation; but we think it better to refer our readers to the book itself, than weaken its effect by any attempt at an abstract of it. We cannot, however, resist quoting Mr Kavanagh's account of the advantages to which his theories directly tend.

"And this inquiry has led me to the most important of all my discoveries; since it not only showed me the original of the endings of the Latin verbs, but also those of the several declensions of Latin nouns, adjectives, pronouns, participles, &c., with their several cases, genders, numbers, &c. And this knowledge will not only apply to the Latin language, but of course to all the languages in the world. From this I have been also led to discover the real nature of a pronoun, and how words have been made in the beginning of time, and how they have increased from a single letter, or at most from two, to all which they have at present: by which means we may see the state of languages at different periods of the world, even such as they must have been ages before the building of the tower of Babel; which knowledge will, it is presumed, throw great light on the ancient history of the world, since men must, in the composition of words, have ever made allusion to things already known, and such as might serve to explain the words they made. Thus is it even in our own times, and thus has it ever been. I intend towards the end of this work to give numerous instances of how words were at first formed, and the various forms they bore at different times; so that no doubt may remain on any man's mind, either as to the truth of this, the most important part of my discovery, or as to the advantages which may, from our following it up, arise from it."

In pursuing this interesting subject, Mr Kavanagh shows the important part in etymology played by the Latin verb _esse_.

"Nothing of this has, however, been known. The greatest lexicographers have not even suspected that _sagesse_ was for _sage-esse_ (sage-étre,) so short-sighted is man without the light of science; then much less did they suspect that for _to be_, and _to go_ there was, whilst languages were yet in their infancy, but one word. The learned, from their not knowing that _sagesse_ is for _sage-esse_, must have lost discovering the etymology of a vast number of words in all languages. Thus, all the French words ending in _esse_, as, caresse, finesse, paresse, &c., have never been accounted for; and, in like manner, the etymology of all English words ending in _ess_ and _ness_, as, car_ess_, happi_ness_, &c., has been unknown. But here the reader, as he has not yet seen how we are to discover in words their own definitions, may say, that though he can admit _caress_ and _caresse_ to be for _cara_ or _carus esse_ (to be dear,) and _finesse_ to be for _fin-esse_ (être fin,) he cannot so readily allow _paresse_ and _happiness_ to be accounted for after a similar manner, since _paresse_ must hence become _par-esse_, and _happiness_, _happin-esse_, which words _par_ and _happin_ here offer no meaning. But a little farther on, he will know that _par_ here signifies _on the ground_; so that _paresse_ literally means _on the ground to be_, that is, to be lying down, or doing nothing. He will also see, that the termination _ness_ has not the ridiculous meaning assigned it by the learned, namely, "the top or the foot of a hill" (I forget which,) but that it literally means _the being_ (_en-esse_,) so that _happiness_ was first _en-esse-happy_, (the being happy, the thing happy,) after which, _en-esse_ became contracted to _ness_, and so fell behind happy, making _happiness_.

"Here, not to perplex the reader's and my own mind, by the considering of too many things at once, I am really obliged to turn my view from the many important discoveries that rush upon me, all emanating out of this little word _be_, or _go_, (no matter which we call it,) in order merely to show how verbs in Latin have, from this single word, formed their endings."

By and by it appears that if we are so much indebted to the Latin for their verb _esse_, the Latin is no less indebted to us for our verb _am_.

"But I have not shown by what artifice this past time (ibam) of _eo_ is formed. It is, we may see, composed of two words, _ib_ and _am_; yet the latter word _am_ has all the appearance of a present time or a future; as we may see it in e_am_, leg_am_, and audi_am_. Then it is evidently to the word _ib_ we are indebted for this word _ibam_ having a past signification; and as there is now no such Latin word, we are led to believe that _ib_ must be a contraction, and this at once leads us upon _ibi_, which means, _then_, or, _at that time_. Hence, _ibam_ is a contraction of _ibi am_, there being only the letter _i_ omitted. Now, as _am_ is evidently a present time, and the same _am_ we have in English, it means, "I existence;" so that when _ibi_ is added to it, both words mean, "I existence then," or "at that time;" and it is in this manner that men, in the beginning, made a past time. If we now turn to the past time of _sum_ (_eram_, _eras_, _erat_, &c.) we shall find that the same method has been adhered to. The _am_ here is the _am_ in ib_am_; and now we have to look to the word _er_ by which it is preceded, in order to find its past signification. This brings us to _era_, or as it is now written in Latin, _æra_ which, like _ibi_, refers also to a past time, meaning _that epoch_. Then _eram_, which might as well be written _æram_, is a contraction of ær_a_am, there being, as before, but a single letter omitted, (the _a_,) and the meaning is as before, "I existence _then_, or _at that epoch_."

Certainly if ever there was a man who "existenced" at an era or epoch, or rather who was himself the era, Mr Kavanagh may claim the distinction.

We are informed by the printer that our space is nearly out, and we must therefore draw to a close. We cannot better fill up the limits allowed us, than by selecting a few examples of our author's successful treatment of etymology. It will be seen that in the zoological department of this subject he is particularly happy.

"The third person plural, _étoient_, is a very curious word: it literally means _the great lives_--and there is for this a very wise reason. When this word first received this name, persons were not referred to, but the winds of heaven; and hence the propriety of the name _great lives_ or _great beings_; and also of making this name signify afterwards _persons_ or _beings gone_, since nothing can, to all appearance, be more gone than the winds that have passed by. When _oient_ means _the great lives_, it is to be thus analysed: _oi-iv-it_; or thus, _ii-iv-it_; or thus, _iv-iv-it_. But when considered as meaning but a single idea, it may be indifferently written _went_ or _ivent_. It is easy to perceive that _ivent_ is no other than _vent_, the French of wind, the _i_ having been dropped. Thus we discover the origin of the English word _went_: we see that it is the same as _vent_ or _wind_."

"As the French word _souvent_ means, when analysed, _all the wind_ (_is-oii-vent_), it would appear that men in the beginning of time received also the idea of frequency from the winds. But in a country rarely visited by them, this idea must have been borrowed from some other natural object. Thus the Latin word for _often_ (_sæepè_) takes, when analysed, this form, _is-æ-ip-é_, which literally means, _is the bees_. Here the word _bees_ is represented by _ip-è_, of which the meaning is _bee_, _bee_; but to avoid the repetition of the second _bee_, a pronoun, that is _è_, and which means life or being, has been put in its place. When it is remarked that this pronoun might as well be _is_ or _es_ as what it is, it will be admitted that _sæpè_ might as well be written _sæpes_. I make this remark to show how slight the difference between _apes_, the Latin of _bees_ and _apè_ in _is-apè_, which means also the _bees_. Now the English word _often_ becomes, when analysed, _en-ov-it_, of which the literal meaning is _the sheep-sheep_; the pronoun _it_ serving here as in the last instance, and for the same reason, as a substitute for the second word _sheep_; but this _it_ might as well be _es_ or _is_. In Latin the word for _sheep_ is _ov is_, which must have first been _is ov_; that is, _the sheep_: but when the _is_ fell behind, it became _ovis_, and it has no other meaning than _the one life_ (_is-o-vie_). Thus we perceive that _the winds, bees_, and _sheep_, have, in three different countries, given birth to the same idea."

Mr Kavanagh adds in a foot-note as to the word sheep--

"This is for she-bay; that is, _the female-bay_, this animal being so called from its crying _bay_. Hence it would appear that the word sheep (_she-bay_) did not in the beginning apply equally to both genders, but that it was only in the feminine. When we recollect that the _b_ and the _p_ are frequently confounded, it can be easily admitted that, with our great love for contraction, _sheep_ should be used instead of _sheeb_. An analysis of the French word for sheep (_brebis_) confirms what I have here stated with regard to this animal's being called after its bleat. When analysed, it is _is-bre-be_; of which the literal meaning is, the _bray bay_; that is, the _cry bay_ or _the breath bay_, for the word _breath (bray the)_ is no other than _the bray_ which became _breath_ from the article _the_ falling behind _bray_. And this again is confirmed by an analysis of the word _bleat_, which makes _it_-BE-_il-ea_, or _it bay il é_, and means, _the bay it is_, that is, it is the cry of the sheep."

"_Mons_," says Mr Kavanagh, "is the original of _monster_ in English, of _monstre_ in French, and _monstrum_ in Latin. Then the literal meaning of these words is--_monster, it is to be a mountain; est er_ literally means 'it is the thing,' and, of course, these two words first preceded _mon_, thus, _est er mon_ (it is the thing mountain.) _Monstre_ is for _mon estre_, this _estre_ being the infinitive _être_, and the same as _est re_ (it is the thing.) _Monstrum_ is more modern in its form than either the English word _monster_, or the French word _monstre_, since it has in its composition the pronoun _um_, besides what these two words have. Then the Latins had _monstre_ or _monster_ before they had _monstrum_; and they must have said _um monstre_ or _um monster_ just as the French say now _le monstre_."

"The word _chien_ becomes when analysed (and the explanation of the alphabet will show how this happens) _ic iv ien_; or, as _ien_ can be reduced to _iv_, we may say it is equal to _ic iv iv_. No matter which of these two forms we adopt, the analysis of _chien_ will be still the same, since both are expressive of haste. _Ic iv ien_ means _the thing come_ or _go_, or _life life_. Thus if we contract _iv ien_ to one word, we have _vien_, so that _ic vien_ will mean _the come_; and this word is we know expressive of haste, since _venir_, as we have seen in the account given of _oient_, means the wind (_ir ven_). In like manner _ic iv iv_ may mean _the life life_, which we know from the repetition of _life_ must imply quickness. And hence it is that _iv iv_ become when contracted, _vive_, that is, _be alive_. Now when we contract _iv ien_ to _vien_, if we give to _ic_ its primitive meaning, which is that of _here_, we shall, by allowing that _vien_ in the beginning went before _ic_, have for the meaning of both words, come here (_vien ic_). Hence it is we still hear a dog called upon in English by _Here! here!_ and in French by the word _Ici_ with the dog's name attached to it. The English word _dog_ is also, when analysed, expressive of haste, since it makes _id eo ge_ or _id-o-ge,_ which implies _the thing go_, or _the go, go_."

We conclude this brief, and, we fear, imperfect notice of so great a work, by suggesting for the author's consideration, whether, in a revisal of his views, he might not bestow some attention on one or two other languages than English and French. His attainments in these seem to be of a superior order, and he seems also to have made considerable progress in the Latin rudiments. We do not hold that Greek is essential, but we respectfully submit that the acquisition of Anglo-Saxon, and some other older dialects of Europe, with which English is generally supposed to have some connexion, might with advantage be attempted. Not that we imagine Mr Kavanagh's views would then be changed or improved. The etymologist's eye, "in a fine frenzy rolling," may have intuitive perceptions of results such as no course of study could attain. But still there is a vulgar prejudice to which we think it prudent to pay some deference, and which recommends that, before writing on a subject, we should know something about it.

This, however, is a secondary matter, which we merely submit in passing. As it is, Mr Kavanagh has taken his place as a philologist on an elevation which only a few can hope to attain. He may be said to have done for language in general what has hitherto only been attempted in the field of Celtic speculation; but it is no light matter to have followed and outstripped in their course the illustrious men who have excelled in that more limited province. Henceforth the name of Morgan Kavanagh will be entwined in the same undying wreath with those of Lachlan Maclean and Sir William Betham.

SCRAMBLES IN MONMOUTHSHIRE.

A SEQUEL TO HOUSE-HUNTING IN WALES.

As we sat in the state of mind which has become characteristic of the gallant Widdrington--in the large room at the Angel inn at Abergavenny, wondering when our pilgrimage among the hotels would come to an end--a messenger of joyful tidings made his appearance in the person of our friendly landlord. He had just remembered that a house about three miles off was occasionally let--he thought it was unlet at that moment--it was the larger portion of a farm-house, originally occupied by the 'squire, but now in the hands of a most respectable farmer. We would hear no more; in ten minutes from this communication we were careering along in a one-horse car to judge for ourselves--our imaginations filled with the same celestial visions that blest the slumbers of the friar, in the song--

"All night long of heaven I dream-- But that is fat pullets and clouted cream"--

and before we had conjured up one-half the delights of a residence in a real farm-house, we turned in at some iron gates, drove up a gravelled avenue, and stood at the door of a very nice, comfortable-looking house, that in many advertisements would pass very well for "a quiet and gentlemanly mansion, fit for a family of the first distinction." The rooms were of good size--a beautiful lawn before the door--a well-filled garden behind--fields, hedges, trees all round--and the river winding through brushwood a few hundred yards in front. It did not take long to settle about terms. We were installed the very next day; and, after our ten days' wanderings, it was no little satisfaction to find once more

"All that the heart can dream of heaven --a home!"

Trunks were unpacked, books laid on the table, and, in spite of the season of the year, a roaring fire went rushing up the chimney; and as we looked round, after candles were brought in, and the novel skies and unaccustomed earth shut out, we could hardly believe we had gone through such a succession of coaches and cars, boats, busses, and flies--Yorks, Westerns, Beauforts, Angels, Swans, Lions, and other beasts of hospitable inclinations--but that we had long been completely settled in our present quarters, while all these conveyances and hotels were the phantasmata of a dreadful dream.

Even in the best furnished houses, in Aladdin's palace itself, new-comers always discover some deficiency; and a few things were wanting in this to complete our felicity;--but Fate, which had frowned from every sign-board on us for a long time, was now determined to make up for her bad behaviour, and at that moment put into our hands a catalogue of household goods to be sold the very next day, a few miles off, at Oakfield Lodge. The one-horse car was again put in requisition, and our hostess--the kindest of women--accompanied us to the sale, and by nodding at intervals to the auctioneer, procured all the articles required.

A sale is always a melancholy event. A house looks so miserable with all its carpets and chairs and tables piled in useless heaps--the beds dismantled--and the rooms filled with a staring crowd, handling every thing, and passing its vulgar judgment upon curtains and drapery that the proprietor perhaps thought finer than those of a Grecian statue--on pier-glasses which had reflected shapes of love or beauty--on the polish of mahogany that had been set in a roar with wit,--a low, mean, savage-hearted crowd, bent on making bargains, and caring nothing for the associations that make commonest furniture more valuable than cedar and ebony. The auction on this occasion lasted nearly a week; and day after day the whole population of the neighbourhood streamed to it like a fair. It was a handsome house, and the arrangement of the rooms spoke audibly of taste and comfort. Selling the things that agreed together so well, to go into separate situations--the library table to one town--the library chairs to another--seemed very like selling a family of slaves to different masters; so, after a cursory glance at the dwelling, we betook ourselves in solitary rumination to the banks of the river. And a quiet, steady, calm, respectable kind of river the Usk is--not of the high aristocratic appearance of the Wye, with wild outbursts of youthful petulance softened immediately into grace and elegance--but a sedate individual, like a retired citizen, well to do in the world, and glad to jog on as uninterruptedly as he can. The grounds of Oakfield slope down to the water--and beautiful grounds they are--a line of rich meadows, shaded with stately trees, and divided into numerous portions by invisible wires, stretches for several miles along the banks; and the abrupt elevation, bounding this level sweep of grass and stream, affords an admirable site for two or three of the moderate-sized and tasteful villas that seem the characteristics of this vicinity. On pursuing our way through field and fell towards the suspension bridge over the river, we saw, emerging from a wood, a figure that Isaac Walton would have adopted immediately for his son and heir. He was a good-looking young man, but so piscatorially habilimented that there was no making out his order or degree from his external sophistications. Round his hat were twined spare lines; on his back, as Paris's quiver hung over his shoulder broad, was suspended a fish-basket; an iron blade of a foot or so in length formed the end of his rod; and, as if he had been afraid of the disciples of the gentle Rebecca, he bore an instrument something between a Highland claymore and a reaping-hook; and as we looked on his accoutrements, we thought we would not be a trout in such a neighbourhood on any consideration. Escape must be impossible for everything with fins, from a thirty-pound salmon to a minnow. As we got near him, he handled his rod with a skill and dexterity that left the young waterman far behind in the management of his oars; and, after a whisk or too in the upper air, he deposited the hook and line, not on the ripple in the middle of the Usk, but on the bough of an elm-tree.

"Here's a mess!" he said, with a half-despairing, half-angry look at the entanglement. He pulled, and it seemed firmer at every tug. We approached to render what aid we could.

"Here's a mess!" again he said.

"You can scarcely call it a kettle of fish," was our sympathizing reply; and by the aid of crooked sticks to hold the bough with, and the warlike weapon, which cut off some of the branches, the hook was regained, the fly found uninjured, and with mutual good wishes we each took off his several way.

There seems a good deal of amateur fishing in this country. In the course of our walk to the bridge, we saw three or four individuals flogging the water with great energy, who had evidently been fitted out in Bond Street, or who were perhaps taking out the value of the dresses in which they had enacted piscators at the fancy ball; but their success, we are sorry to say, was in no degree proportioned to the completeness of their preparations; and we suspect that people with less adornments, and a much more scanty apparatus of flies and fish-baskets, are the real discoverers of the treasures of the deep in the shape of trout and sewin. This latter fish, the sewin, we may add in passing, is a luxury of which the Usk has great reason to boast; for it is better than any thing we remember of the salmon kind, except the inimitable grilses at Stirling.

On returning from the sale, with the carriage loaded with our purchases, we disposed our new acquisitions in the different rooms, and laid ourselves out for a few weeks' enjoyment of the blest retirement--friend to life's decline--which we had struggled so hard to gain, and which now looked so satisfying in every point.

There is nothing to be compared, for comfort and beauty, to a dairy-farm. Arable lands are detestable; and the windows of the house generally look into a horrible yard, where the present agonies of the nose are made tolerable only by the hope of the rich crop to come. Here our windows looked upon a sloping green field, bounded from the road by a good thick hedge, at the distance of seventy or eighty yards. Beyond the road stretched fine luxuriant meadows, each bordered with its fence of noble elms, down to the river; so that we had nothing to do but cross the road, and wander among fields and hedgerows, miles and miles, either east or west--always within hearing of the gentle voice of the Usk, and often in sight of the long, still reaches of the river, that looked like beautiful lakes, fringed to the water side with willows and flowering shrubs. Seventeen or eighteen cows were our fellow-lodgers at the farm; and no sight is more fascinating, especially if you are fond of warm milk, than the long majestic march, and musical invocations, of the milky mothers, as they come home at evening from the pastures. Before three days were over, the names of all the cows were household words among the young ones; their very voices were distinguished; and it was decided that the flower of the flock, as to beauty, was Glo'ster, though some of us stoutly maintained that the whiteness of Handsome entitled her to the prize. Then there were about thirty sheep; but with them (in spite of frequent intercourse) we could only make out a general acquaintance--for we disbelieve altogether in the possibility of distinguishing one of the flock from the others. It must be the easiest thing in the world for a sheep to establish an _alibi_; and we are rather surprised that the impossibility of detection does not encourage some of the bolder of the woolly-sided heroes to some desperate outrage. There could be no identifying the culprit. But we saw no instance of spirit among them, except a wicked attempt on the part of a young lamb to overthrow authorities and powers; and we are sorry to say it was successful. Our friend the farmer discovered the presence of some insects in the wool, or rather in the body, of one of the yearlings. He proceeded, attended by us all, to extirpate this fatal enemy with his shears; and, having seized the sufferer, put its head between his knees, and proceeded to lay bare the hiding-place of the devouring grub. By some unlucky chance, the lamb got its head loose, pushed forward with two or three tremendous jumps, and the operator was thrown on his back, his feet in the air, and the shears held helplessly up in his discomfited hands. It created great consternation among the spectators; and the two younger children, after looking on in speechless amazement, thought, probably, that the assailant was a tiger in disguise, and sought safety ignominiously in flight. The patient--the lamb, we mean--was again submitted to the shears, the grub extirpated, and the cure, we believe, effected. The muscular power of a sheep is tremendous; and, if it were to get its head between the ankles of the brazen Achilles, down would fall the glory of Hyde Park. It is lucky they have not found out the secret of their strength, as they might take such a dangerous attitude as materially to raise the price of mutton--a consummation by no means to be wished.

In addition to the cows and sheep, and innumerable multitudes of chickens and turkeys, the farm boasted a goodly array of horses. These would have made a poor figure at Newmarket, as they were no kin to Godolphin or Eclipse--but in plough or harrow they looked respectable. There was an old mare, and her daughter, and her daughter's daughter--Grannie, and Polly, and Rose by name. There were also another mare and her foal; but our acquaintance was confined to the three generations--or rather to the two--for Grannie was old and stupid; and as the farmer sported a fine old-fashioned strong rough gig, we occasionally pressed Polly into the service, put two or three children on footstools in the front, brandished a whip that had done duty at the plough, and trotted off with the easy dignity of four miles an hour, and lionized the whole neighbourhood. Amidst bumps, and thumps, and bursts of laughter at the unwieldy turn-out, the excursion was pleasanter than if made in a chariot and four.

One day we started off to visit Ragland Castle; the distance was five or six miles, the day beautiful, the mare in splendid order, and the whip ornamented with a new lash. Disregarding the whinnyings and neighings with which the family received our steed as we passed the field where they were all assembled to see us at the gate, from Grannie down to the foal, we applied the thong vigorously, and chirruped, and whistled, and cried "Gee!" and "Hither!" and got fairly into a trot; and an easy thing it is to maintain the pace after you have once got into it--in fact, you find some difficulty in getting into a slower rate; and if by any chance we pulled up altogether to see a view, Polly, who was no judge of the picturesque, was very apt to turn round and run away home--if the word "run away" can be applied to a very determined walk, with no regard whatever to bit and rein. A struggle of this sort was very apt to occur at Llansaintfraed Lodge, meaning, we are told, in the original, the Church of St Bridget--and a pretty church it is. It is in a park of moderate size, crowning a gentle elevation; a carriage-drive leads to it, nicely gravelled, for it is the approach to Llansaintfraed House. The church, when we saw it, was all festooned over the porch and a portion of the walls, with honeysuckle in full show; roses and other flowers were planted all round, and a fine solid stone cross threw its beautiful shadow over the graves. The church is very small and very old, and owes a part of its good condition to the good fortune of having had the late Bishop of Llandaff for a parishioner. Some years ago he occupied Llansaintfraed House, and rescued the parish from the disgrace of a ruinous and neglected church. It is only to be wished that every parish had its manor occupied so well--for a district with churches so shamefully fallen into disrepair we never saw. In all the churchyards, for instance, the piety of our forefathers had raised a cross; and it surely does not argue a man to be a Puseyite, if he thinks highly of such an emblem in such a place; and in every instance, except this one of Llansaintfraed, the hand of the spoiler hath been upon it. The cross, in every instance, is broken, and only a portion of the broken pillar remaining. If the archdeacon disapproves of the cross, let it be removed altogether; but if not, let it be repaired, and not left to affront the parishioners with the daily spectacle of the rate-payers' meanness and the clergyman's neglect. So, having managed to get Polly's head round again--for she had availed herself of our pause to whisk homeward--we proceed on our way to Ragland. Welsh precisians, we perceive, call it Rhaglan--and probably attach a nobler meaning to the name than can be forced out of the Saxon Rag and Land; but as novelists and historians have agreed in calling it Ragland, we shall keep to the old spelling in spite of sennachie and bard. A short way beyond Llansaintfraed is the handsome gate and beautiful park of Clytha; the gate surmounted by a magnificent and highly ornamented Gothic arch, and the mansion-house pure Grecian--an allegory, perhaps, of the gradual civilization of mankind, or the process by which chivalrous knights are turned into Christian gentlemen. The house is modern, and even the arch without much pretension to antiquity; but the family stretching far back into the gloom of ages, and lineal ancestors of the antediluvian patriarchs. Since the Deluge, however, they have restricted themselves to this part of Monmouthshire; and judging from the number of Joneses--which is the great name in the neighbourhood--there seems no great chance of the genealogical tree being in want of branches. There is nothing so strange in a new vicinity as the different weight attached to family names. We have known districts where the word Smith itself, even without the fictitious dignity of _y_ in the middle and _e_ at the end, was pronounced with great veneration. Jones--elsewhere sacred to the comic muse--is of as potent syllable--unluckily it has only one--along the banks of the Usk, as Scott or Douglas on the Nith and Yarrow. And such is the effect of territorial or moral association, that we shall willingly withdraw an objection we made to a line in the tragedy of our late friend J---- S----, where some one, speaking of the patriot Pym--to eye and ear the most pithless and contemptible of cognomens--says,

"There is a sound of thunder in the name."

We have no doubt there was a very distinct peal of heaven's dread artillery in the ear of that bitter-hearted Roundhead every time he heard the magic word--Pym.

The family highest in mere antiquity in Monmouthshire, we are told, rejoices in the curious-looking name of Progers. From them are descended the noble Beauforts, and even the Joneses of Clytha. For hundreds of years, the Progerses had kept going down-hill; estate after estate had disappeared; farm after farm took to flight; till, thirty or forty years ago, the blood of the Progerses flowed in the veins of a poor gentleman with about two hundred a-year, a house in very bad repair, and family pride that seemed to flourish in proportion as every thing else decayed. Some tourist, in the course of his researches, encountered this Monmouthshire Marins sitting among the ruins of his former state. The tourist was of a genealogical turn of mind, and the Desdichado poured forth his hoarded boasts in his sympathizing ear. "Out of this house," he said, pointing mechanically to the tottering walls of his family mansion, but metaphorically alluding to the House of Progers, "came the Joneses of Clytha and Llanerth--out of this house came the noble Somersets, now Dukes of Beaufort;" and so he went on, relating all the great and powerful names that had owed their origin to his house. The tourist seems also to have had some knowledge of architecture, for his answer to the catalogue was--"Well, sir, it's my advice to you to come out of this house yourself as quickly as you can, or it will be down upon you some of these days to a certainty."

On passing Clytha, we enter into a territory which might more justly be called Somersetshire than the county the other side of the channel. The Dukes of Beaufort seem paramount wherever you go; and in every town, and even in all the villages, there is sure to be a house of entertainment with the royal portcullis on the signpost, and the name of the Beaufort Arms. The domains of the family must be larger than half a dozen foreign principalities; and, from all we heard, the conduct of the present noble Somerset is worthy of his high position--liberal, kind-hearted, magnificent. One thing very pleasant to see was the little garden-ground taken from the road, and attached to nice clean cottages, almost all the way. Little portions, about thirty feet in depth, and considerable length, formed the wealth and ornament of the wayside dwellings. They were all well filled with apple and other fruit-trees, and stocked with useful vegetables. If this is the plan of enclosing commons, we wish we were in Parliament to give Lord Worsley our aid; for a few perches, well hedged and carefully kept, are worth all the rights of pasture, whether of cows, geese, or donkeys, that ever the poor possessed. Inside of this fringe of rustic independencies, snug farm-houses rose up in all directions; but, with a perverseness which seems characteristic of the whole county, and not limited to farm-houses, or even semi-genteel villas, no sooner does a man fix on a nice situation--a rising knoll beside a river--a gentle slope--or beautiful level green--no sooner does he rear a modest, or perhaps an ornamental, mansion on the site, than his next care is to plant as thick round it as the trees will stand. Elms, poplars, oaks, and larches, in a few years block up the view; and arbutus, rododendrons, and enormous Portugal laurels, stand as an impenetrable screen before every window; so that a house, which by its architecture ought to be an ornament to the neighbourhood, and should command noble hills and rich valleys, might as well be a wigwam in an Indian forest. There seems a greater tendency to rheumatism than romance among the inhabitants; and, by the by, we observed on all the walls Welsh placards of Parr's pills. But in spite of the large letters, and the populousness of the towns and villages where they were posted up, we did not see a single individual reading the announcements. Query, can the Welsh peasantry read Welsh? or is their book-learning limited to English, and their native tongue left to its oral freedom, untrammeled with A, B, C? In addition to the usual fence of impenetrable trees and shrubs, we noticed one pretty little dwelling, newly built, a mile or two from the village of Ragland, tastefully ornamented with an immense heap of compost, which nearly barricaded the drawing-room window. The inhabitant must have been a prodigious agriculturist; and probably preferred the useful, but unromantic heap, to any other object in the view. We gave it the name of Guano Hall.

But where, all this while, is Ragland Castle, and when will the old mare jiggle joggle to the end of our course? All eyes were kept in constant motion to catch a glimpse of the towers and pinnacles, of which we felt sure we were now within a mile. Trees, trees, and nothing but trees, with sometimes a glimpse of blue hills far off, and wreaths of smoke from cottages or farms rising above the wilderness of leaves. At last, on a little elevation on the left hand, rising solemnly, into the silent air, we caught sight of the old ruin, with great ponderous walls, covered with ivy, and the sky seen through the open arches of its immense windows. A beautiful mass of building, with such rents and fissures in it, that you wondered whether it was ever entire; and the walls so thick and massive that you wondered again how it ever fell into decay. We hobbled into the village, keeping the castle in view the whole time, got good quarters for the mare at the first hostel we encountered, and proceeded up a country lane to spend an hour or two among the ruins. The entrance is very fine, and might give rise to grand historic emotions in people fond of the feudal and sublime; but in our instance such a train of thought would have been impossible, for just inside of the majestic portal sat an old harper thrumming away at the pathetic melody of Jenny Jones. He might as well have played Jim Crow at once, for romance was put to flight, and we speedily got as far as we could from the descendant of Talessin. The Duke of Beaufort has fitted up the ruins in a way that would have gratified the heart of Mrs Radcliffe. Winding stairs lead, in the thickness of the walls, from tower to tower, and the dim corridors and dizzying bartizans are made safe to the most timid of Cockneys by stout wooden banisters, that enable you to stand as securely on a crumbling battlement as on the top of Salisbury plain. We saw the courts and quadrangles, admired the splendid windows, and only wondered at the lowness of the ceilings of some of the principal rooms, as from floor to floor could not have been more than seven feet and a half. There were fountain courts without a fountain; and chapel-yards with no chapel; why should we speak of kitchens, conjuring up visions of roasted oxen, and butteries suggestive of hogsheads of home-brewed ale, when fire-places are now choked up, and nothing is left of the buttery but a pile of broken stones? At first, on going in, we dilated on the grand things we should do in the way of restoration if we were the lord of the castle. First, we would fit it up exactly as it was in the brave days of old: we should have new floors put in the audience-chamber; a roof on the great dining-hall; a stately dais at the upper end, and get it from the hands of Pugin--the identical castle of the days of Elizabeth. But, on closer inspection, we came to the conclusion that the natural condition of such buildings is that of interesting remains. The rooms are low, the passages are dark, the bed-rooms dog-kennels, the stairs ladders, the court-yards damp, the windows all turned the wrong way, and, in short, the sixteenth century an excellent trimmer of popes and conqueror of armadas, but a very bad architect.

In one of the court-yards was a flock of sheep nibbling at the grass that had been trodden by the great marquis, as he walked down after his noble defence, to deliver his sword to the Parliamentarian Fairfax. Has Cattermole or Charles Landseer never thought of the brave old cavalier, at the age of eighty-five, surrendering his ancestral home,--surrounded by his sorrowing garrison, and bearing himself with the true dignity of a heroic noble? Let them think of this, and send us a proof print.

Leader of the sheep was the most beautiful ram that ever was seen since Aries was made a star. All our common-place muttons at home sank into insignificance at once. The children patted it, and fed it, and kissed it,--and to all their endearments it answered in the most bewitching manner. It followed them like a dog, and rubbed its head against them, and it was soon very evident that the greatest beauty of Ragland Castle, in certain eyes, was thickly cased in wool. The ancient gardener told us it had once taken such a fancy to one of the visitors, that it had followed her up a hundred and sixty steps to the very top of the signal tower,--and the old lady was so pleased with it, she wished to take it home with her, though she lived two or three hundred miles off. And certainly if ever a pet of such a size was allowable, it must have been the gentle creature before us. But all things are deceitful--gentle-looking rams among the number,--for on the discontinuance of our gifts, he waxed all of a sudden very wroth, and favoured the youngest of the party with a butt, that made her not know whether she was on her head or her heels--which is an extraordinary specimen of ignorance, for she was exactly half-way between both. So, converting our admiration of the golden fleece into a kick, we raised the astonished victim of his anger, and after a delightful stroll got into our gig again, and in due time arrived at our comfortable home.

We have heard of people being a month at Cairo, and never going to see the Pyramids,--a circumstance which does not give a very lofty idea of their activity. We determined to show those stay-at-homes a good example, and not remain a week in Monmouthshire without visiting the Wye. Again the old gig was put in requisition; but on this occasion we succeeded in borrowing a horse of a neighbouring farmer, that trotted merrily up and down hill at a reasonable pace; and away we started on one of the few warm days of this hyperborean summer, on our way to the town of Monmouth. Great is the enjoyment of passing through a beautiful country on a fine clear day in June. There was no dust--the sun was not too hot--the hedges were in full leaf, and no drawback to our felicity except a preternatural dread of stone heaps by the roadside, on the part of our steed, which: kept us on the alert to try and pull in the proper direction the moment he shied to the side. All other objects in nature or art it passed with the equanimity of a sage; tilted waggons with the wind flapping their canvass coverings with a sound and motion that would justify a little tremor in the heart of Bucephalus--stagecoaches, loaded with men and luggage, rushing down-hill at fifteen miles an hour, and apparently determined to force their way over our very heads. Against all these it showed the most unflinching courage; but if it came to a heap of stones, large or small, broken or entire, it lost its presence of mind in a moment, and would have jumped for safety into the ditch at the other side of the road, if not restrained by a pull at the rein, and a good cut of the whip scientifically applied. Even the milestone was an object of great alarm; and as there were twelve of them on the way, and the cowardly creature never by any chance missed seeing them, however deep they were sunk in hedges, or buried in grassy banks, we never required to distinguish the figures on the stones, but calculated the progress we made by the number of starts and struggles. After a dozen of these debates, which created great amusement among the juveniles of the party, we arrived at the clean delightful town of Monmouth--and here let us make amends for the disparaging mention of this place in our former narrative of House-Hunting in Wales. The weather on that occasion was very bad, and the inn we lunched at a very poor and uncomfortable one. When a person's principal acquaintance with a town consists in his experience of its wet streets and tough beef steaks, it is no wonder that his impressions are not of the most agreeable kind. On the present occasion we drove to the Beaufort Arms, and, in imitation of the Marquis of Exeter, "we pulled at the bell with a lordly air." The hostler and his curates rushed zealously from the further end of the yard, and received us with astonishing command of face--not a grin was visible, even the waiters stood with decorous solemnity, while child after child was lifted down, and all out of one gig. They rather looked on with the pleased expression we have seen on the countenances of a rural audience when Mr Ingilby, or other juggler, produced, out of some unaccountably prolific hat, a stewing-pan, a salt cellar, a couple of eggs, a brood of chickens, and finally the maternal hen. We ordered a cold dinner to be put into baskets, with a moderate accompaniment of bottles and glasses--enquired if a boat was to be had to take us up the Wye--were recommended to a certain barge-master of the name of Williams; and, in a very short space of time, were safely stowed in a beautiful clipper, thirty feet long, with only nine inches draught of water, with a gorgeous morning over our heads, luxurious cushions on the seats, a tug, in the shape of a most strong, active fellow, pulling us by the towing-path, and, seated at the helm, the most civil, the most polite, the most communicative, and the most talkative man that it ever was our fortune to meet. He united in his own person a vast multiplicity of trades and offices. He was innkeeper, boat-builder, boat-owner, pilot, turner, Bristol-trader, wood-merchant, coracle-maker, fisherman, historian, and, above all, a warrior of the most tremendous courage. In all of these capacities he had no rival; and as it was his own boat, his native town, his own river, and we were merely his passengers, he had it all his own way. He stood up in the excitement of his discourse, and talked without a moment's intermission--sometimes to us--sometimes to a little boy he had brought on board to look after the baskets--sometimes to the man on the towing-path--and sometimes to himself; but at all times there fell thick and fast about our ears the words of Thomas Williams; and of all his words, Thomas Williams was the hero. As people get used to the noise of a waterfall, at last we stood the perpetual sound without any inconvenience, and carried on quiet conversation, or sank into silent admiration, as we floated past the bold cliffs, or soft-wooded shores, of the sylvan Wye.

For the first mile or two from Monmouth, the hermit of the woods is nothing to boast of. The banks are low; the water sluggish; and the scenery common-place. The beauties begin at a bend of the river, where Mr Blakemore has built a large and comfortable-looking house. On a high, conical hill above the mansion, there stands a lofty gazebo of open iron-work, commanding a view of we don't remember how many counties; but before our _cicerone_ had got half-way into an account of each of them, with their capital towns, the names of the present mayors, and the noble families he had supplied with cricket-bats, we had passed far away among the noble scenery of the oak district; and our friend launched into a description of oak plantations in general--the value of oaks per acre--the sum paid to Lord George for his estate, which was bought by government fourteen years ago, the last time the duke was in power--

"What duke?"

An unlucky question, for it led into a disquisition o all dukes, ancient and modern, and an encomium on the late Duke of Beaufort, as the best soldier that England had ever produced. "He was a true soldier's friend, and flogged every soul that came on parade-ground with a dirty shirt. I don't think there was ever seen such a militia regiment--there was a sight more flogging in it than the reg'lars--so it was quite a comfort to some fellers that didn't like it, to go into the line. I was in it myself; but I liked the duke, though he would have flogged me as soon as look at me. And such dinners he gave us when our time was over--it was dreadful--six of our corporals died of drinking in one month. He was certainly the greatest officer ever _I_ see. I was threatened myself with a thing they call _delirium tremens_, for he dined us in tents for a fortnight at a time. It's a pity the French never landed; we would have licked them like sacks. I hates a Frenchman, and hope to have a fling at 'em yet."

In the mean time we had glided further and further into the leafy recesses of the river. Such banks are nowhere else to be seen--high perpendicular cliffs, broken off in all manner of fantastic shapes; sometimes a great rock standing up bare, smooth, and majestic, like a vast tower of some gigantic cathedral; sometimes a solitary column, higher and more massive than any of an architect's designing, with its capital ornamented with self-sown shrubs, and its base washed by the rippling water. Each of these called forth an anecdote from our guide, philosopher, and friend--one was "the scene of the great fight between Characterus and the Romans. The Romans licked 'em; for them Welsh was never no great shakes. I could lick any three ancient Britons I ever saw myself--and they knows it. And, as to Characterus, he could be no great general, or he never would have fought on that side of the water. He should have come across to the other side, and he would have licked them Romans to a certainty."

We thought it was a pity Mr Williams, who, in spite of his contempt for the ancient Britons, was as true a Welshman as ever ate his leek, had not been of the council of war of Caractacus--for it _was_ the scene of his great struggle we were passing. The ground still bears the name of Slaughter Field, and was a fit altar on which to offer the last victims to national freedom. The scenery all round it is of the noblest character--rock and wood, and the mountain chain that they hoped had shut out the invader. The river bends round it, and enables you to keep for a long time in view the plain where the battle was fought, and the rude remains of what is considered to have been the Roman encampment. After an hour or two delightfully spent in gliding under enormous cliffs, and winding among woods of all hues and sizes, hanging over the precipice, and waving their branches almost down to the water's edge, we arrived at our point of destination, a high rock called Simon's Yatt, which our agreeable companion described as the finest thing in the world. On bringing to at the landing-place, we found we had nearly a mile to walk up a steep road, newly escarped on the side of the hill; and setting ourselves manfully to the effort, we began our march--Williams insisted on being the useful member of the party. He offered, in the plenitude of his strength, to carry the shawls, to carry a couple of children, to carry ourselves; he thought nothing of weights; he was used to hard labour; he rather liked some difficult thing to do; and finally, nearly broke down under the burden of one of the provision baskets; stopping every now and then to rest, and evidently over-tasked. The day was very hot--the soil was a red ironstone--there was no shelter from the pervading sun--and the ascent was on an inclination of at least one foot in six; at last, however, urged on by a desire to enjoy the prospect--and the lunch--and also with a malicious intention, shared by the whole party, to walk our companion to death, we surmounted all difficulties, wound round a rocky eminence at the top, and suddenly found ourselves on a beautifully wooded platform, six or seven hundred feet above the river, and in the enjoyment of the most surprising view we ever saw. The river Wye takes a sharp turn round the foot of this enormous projection, not only winding round the extremity, but actually flowing down on one side exactly as it flowed up on the other, leaving Simon's Yatt as a sort of wedge inserted in its course; and presents the extraordinary effect of the same river at the same moment running both north and south. The summit of Simon's Yatt is not above fifty feet wide, and the descent on one side is perpendicular, showing the river directly under your feet, and on the other is nearly precipitous, leaving only room, between its base and the river, for a most picturesque assemblage of cottages called the New-Weir village. Directly in front is the rich level champaign, containing the town of Ross at a considerable distance, Goodrich Priory, and many other residences, from the feudal Castle to the undated Grange. On the horizon-line you recognise Ledbury, the Malvern hills; and the whole outline of the Black mountains. On the right, where the river careers along in its backward course, you see the interminable foliage of the forest of Dean, and the rich valleys of Glo'stershire. A very handsome house, about a mile down the river, attracted our attention. "It's a reg'lar good billet," said Mr Williams, breaking off from some other piece of information with which he was regaling the idle wind, for by this time we had acquired a power of not hearing a word he said; "and it's a great shame, the gent as owns it never lives in it. He is a very great man in foreign parts; and the Pope is his uncle. So, in course, he always lives in France to be near his great relations." No cross-examination could shake his statement of this genealogical curiosity; so we looked with increased interest on the mansion of the Pope's nephew, whose principal merit by the by, in Mr William's eyes, was, that he had once furnished him with a coracle. After gratifying our eyes for a long time with the surprising prospect, we found a nice shady spot in a plantation at a little distance; spread shawls and cloaks upon the grass, and were soon engaged in the mysteries of cold meat, hard-boiled eggs, an excellent salad, and Guinness's porter--not to mention a beautiful gooseberry tart and sparkling ginger-beer. Some feasts have been more splendid, and some perhaps more seasoned with eloquence and wisdom--but, as the Vicar of Wakefield says of the united party of the Primroses and the Flamboroughs, "If there was not much wit among the company, there was a great deal of laughter, and that did just as well." So we laughed a good hour among the shady walks at Simon's Yatt--managed for five whole minutes to stop our companion's conversation by filling his mouth with beef and porter, distributed the fragments among a hungry and admiring population of young coal-heavers who looked on--like a group starting out of Murillo's pictures--and with empty baskets and joyous hearts set off on our homeward way. We glided at our own sweet will down the river, exchanged the bark for our plethoric gig, and in due course of time, after twelve starts at the twelve milestones, arrived in safety at our home.

By this time there were no symptoms left of deficient health and strength--the invalid would have done for an honorary member of the club of fat people recorded in the _Spectator_; and we looked, with disdain on the level territory on the banks of the Usk, and longed for hills to climb, and walls to get over, and rocks to overcome, like knights-errant in search of adventures. No walk was too great for us. We thought of challenging Captain Barclay to a match against time, or of travelling through England as the Pedestrian Wonders. Walker, the twopenny postman, would have had no chance against us. So, merely by way of practice, we started off one day, with straw-hats and short summer frocks, and every other accompaniment of a professed pedestrian's turn-out, and away we went on a pilgrimage to the churchyard of Llanvair Kilgiden. Through rich fields of grass we sauntered--over stiles we leapt--through hedges we dashed--and occasionally became prosaic enough to walk on for half a mile or so in a country lane, but generally we preferred trespassing through a corn-field, and losing our way in searching for a short cut across a plantation; and at last, after many hairbreadth 'scapes--after being terrified by the bellowing of a bull, which turned out to be a sentimental cow giving vent to her agitated feelings in what somebody calls a "gentle voice and low"--after nearly losing half the party by the faithlessness of a plank that crossed a ditch that swarmed with an innumerable multitude of tadpoles--after surpassing these, and many other perils, we at last got into the quiet road that leads from Penty Goitre bridge down to the church of Llanvair--a large, solemn-looking churchyard, ornamented with a goodly array of splendid yew-trees, and boasting, at some former period, a majestic stone cross, now of course defaced, and the very square it stood upon moss-grown and in ruins. The church itself is a plain quiet structure, but the sylvan beauty and peaceful seclusion of the situation cannot be surpassed. We measured the great yews, and several of them were twenty-four or twenty-five feet in circumference at four feet from the ground. There were some graves enclosed in railings, and surrounded by evergreens and rose-trees; and the sentiment of the place was not destroyed by a few nibbling sheep that cropped the short grass on the graves where the rude forefathers of the hamlet slept. Can the sepulchral muses have found their way to so remote a district as this? Have "afflictions sore" and "vain physicians" obtained a sculptor among the headstones of this out-of-the-way place? We made a survey of the inscriptions, as a very sure guide to the state of education among the peasantry, and are compelled to confess that the schoolmaster had decidedly gone abroad. Even monuments of some pretension to grandeur, with full-cheeked cherubs on the sides, and solid stones on the top, offered no better specimens of spelling and composition that this:--

"Laden with age my years they flew-- The Lord is holy, just, and trew."

And on the slab, over a child of three years old, the following pithy observation:--

"If life and care could death p_er_vent, My days would not so soon been spent."

The sculptor, in many instances, (being tired probably of chiselling the same words over and over,) had attempted an improvement by altering the arrangement of the lines,--an ingenious device on his part, and a pleasing puzzle to the spectator:--

"A tender husband and a father dear, a faithful friend lies buried hear, he was true and just in all his ways, he do deserve this worthey praise."

To the memory of Margaret, wife of John Hall, appeared some lines of a superior kind, with which we never met elsewhere:--

"You see around me richer neighbours lie As deep and still in this cold ground as I; From ease and plenty they were called away-- Could I in lingering sickness wish to stay? When faith supports the body worn with pain, To live is nothing but to die is gain."

But as if to show that the muse had made a very flying visit to the hamlet, and had left the mason, on the next occasion, to his own unassisted genius, the epitaph on two other members of the same family runs thus:--

"When in the world we did remain, Our latter days was grief and pain, But God above he thought it best To take _we_ to a place of rest."

What can it be that induces people, who were probably as unpoetical as Audrey in their lives, to wish the ornament of verse upon their tombstones? The effect must be almost ludicrous upon those who were acquainted with the living individual, to hear "the long resounding march and energy divine" of heroics and Alexandrines proceeding from him, now he is dead. Philosophy put by the epitaph-writer in the mouths of a chaw-bacon--moral reflections on the loveliness of virtue in the mouth of a poor-law overseer--and noble incitements to follow a good example in the mouth of the bully or drunkard of the parish, must be far from useful to the surviving generation. We therefore highly approve of the remarks of a sententious gentleman in this churchyard, who seems to lay no great claim to extraordinary merit himself, but favours his co-parishioners with very useful advice:--

"Farewell, vain world, I've seen enough of thee, And now am careless what thou say'st of me,-- Thy smiles I court not, nor thy frowns I fear; My cares are past; my head lies quiet here-- What faults thou see'st in me take care to shun-- Look well at home; enough there's to be done."

By the time we had transferred these and other inscriptions to our note-book, the party were refreshed and ready for the homeward walk. We got over the same stiles and underwent the same dangers as before, and happily completed our voyage of discovery to the beautiful churchyard of Llanvair.

Day after day saw us all busy in ferreting out fine views or old manor-houses--the little Skirrid or old Llangattock. Sometimes we crossed the river and wandered through the delicious lanes of Llanover, or passed through Llanellen on our way to the Blorenge. As our courage and strength expanded, we tried bolder flights--spent a day among the smoke and thunder of the Nantiglo ironworks--with processions of thousands of men hurrying off amidst music, and shouts of the most tremendous loudness, to a dinner at their club. Great, hard-featured, savage-looking fellows they were, though in their holiday attire, and accompanied by one or two of the Bailey family--the real iron kings of the neighbourhood; and a sight of their grim features and brawny arms gave us a more vivid respect for the courage of Sir Thomas Philips, who drove them back from the sack and massacre of Newport; and also a clearer idea of the almost justifiable hardihood of the worshipful Mister Frost, in thinking that with ten or twelve thousand souls, made of fire, and children of the mine, he could upset Old England, and be himself the legitimate successor of King Coal.

Another day we spent among the ruins of Llantony Abbey, one of the finest remains of ecclesiastical architecture in the kingdom. The person who owns the ground and the ruins, is a poet, a philosopher, a scholar, so at least he wishes to be thought; but from the condition of the abbey, (a small pot-house protruding its vulgar sign from one of the noble entrances, and a skittle-ground being established in the main aisle--desolation, neglect, and dirtiness all around,) we formed no very high estimate of the taste or feeling of Mr Walter Savage Landor. If he had no higher object than merely to keep up the beauty of the building, you might expect that he would have guarded it from the degradation of beer, tobacco, and British spirits. A man of a poetical mind would have taken care to prevent such miserable associations as are supplied by a tap and skittle-ground;--a person of loftier and purer sentiments would have shown more reverence for the _genius loci_, and would have remembered that the walls were once vocal with Christian prayers, and that what in other instances would be only negligence, is profanation here. But probably the innkeeper pays his rent regularly, and we hope will be made the interlocutor in an imaginary conversation with the last abbot of Llantony.

The object we had in coming into Wales was now entirely gained; and after ten weeks most happy wanderings over hill and dale, and constantly breathing the clear fresh air of Monmouthshire, we packed up bag and baggage, and returned to our home with a stock of health laid in for winter use, which will keep us constantly in mind of the benefits we derived from change of scene.

NEAPOLITAN SKETCHES.

GARDEN OF THE VILLA REALE.

This garden--which, during the winter months, is the lounge of the English idler at Naples, and then looks as flowerless and dingy as Kensington in an east wind--assumes a very different appearance in spring. On the 7th of May, we, who had passed the winter at Rome, were at once struck with the brilliancy of unusual blossoms, and the number of distinguished vegetable foreigners who lifted their heads out of parterres, of the very existence of which in winter one is scarcely conscious. The formal line of clipt _Ilex_ that looks towards the sea, had changed its dusky hue for a warmer tint; statues that had been doing sentinel all the winter without relief, now seem to bend delighted over fragrant flower-beds, and enjoy the spring. Two high shrubs in flower (_Metresiglias_) hoist from opposite beds, the one its _white_, the other its _red_ banner. Two of the _Muses_, the _Speciosa_ and _Paravisogna_, or bread-tree plant, were raising their light spiry trunks out of a _corbeille_ taller than a life-guardsman. They want no hothouse in Naples:--would you shade your face from the sun, an elsewhere exotic, the Brazilian _Camarotta_ at your feet, furnishes you with a _screen_. The _white flocks_ of the _Acacia verticillata_ are peeping out from the ranks of those small _triangular leaves_, which are so singularly attached, without stalks, by one of these angles to the stem. Amidst these pleasant perfumes camphor would be unwelcome, but there is the _laurel_ that yields it. _Fennel_ has here become a tree, in which, like the _mustard_ of the Gospels, the fowls of the air may lodge; we are dwarfs beside it! Three kinds of the soft, slimy Mallow of the Marsh are here so much WOODY and so tall, that we must pick their flowers on tiptoe. The _flattened disk_ of the sky-blue _Nana arborea_ contrasts with the _Betula sanguinea_, glowing deeply in the flower-bed of many lighter-coloured petals; the sweet-scented _African laurel_ grows against the long-leafed Babylonian willow, which _susurrates_ droopingly over your head, as if it were "by _the waters of Babylon_." The fountains, with their _hydrophilous_ tribes, add to the charm; and many a beautiful _Launaria aquatica_ had already buoyed himself up on his large _cordate leaves_ on the surface of the _tazza_, and was filling his vegetable skin with water. All these beauties and peculiarities, a mere scantling of the whole of the Villa Reale, escape the lounger, and the nurserymaids, and children, and those of either sex who have appointments to keep, or to look out for; and the soldiers, and the police, and the Neapolitan nobility and gentry, and the pickpockets, and others:--to the nurseryman and botanist, things not to be forgotten; and at present the weather is not too hot to interfere with their enjoyment.

SERVI DI PENA.

At Castel Nuovo, a penal settlement of Naples, we held conversation with a man sentenced to the galleys, and wearing, accordingly, a _yellow_ jacket; but yellow is not here, as at Leghorn, the deepest dye. Here, it is _red cloth_ and manacles that go together. We asked him his crime. "Un _piccolo_ omicidio." "A small homicide, provoked by a dispute for a single ducat! I quarrelled with a man _now in paradise_. I killed him at one stab, but the devil possessed me to give him another _colpo di coltello_ after he had fallen; and as the judges asked me _why_ I did this, and I could not perfectly satisfy them, they concluded I was a sanguinary fellow, and gave me eighteen years galleys--but, as you see, I have no chains; nor ever had--_mai! mai_!" and he extended his hands in somewhat of the attitude of Raphael's _Paul before Festus_, to suit the action to the word. "No! he was of a very different order of criminals to a boatful of _birboni_ in red jackets, all _bad cases_ of homicide and _robbery!_"

"What do you call _bad_ cases?"

"Why, I call it a bad case to kill a man for NOTHING."

"Well, but _theft_ to any amount is not so bad as taking away _life_."

"Oh! as to that, the police are _quite right!_ A decent and a devout man does not commit homicides every day: but he that steals at all, steals always!" So that our culprit reasoned, like _Paley_, on the _tendency_ of crimes. It was his _Chapter of the Silver Spoon_, with a new exposition from the mouth of a Galeote! And they pluck men at Cambridge for _not_ getting up their Paley! Our philosophical criminal seemed satisfied with his lot.

"We are not so badly off after all: we walk out with an obliging escort, who let us do pretty much as we like; and all our work is confined to sweeping the courts in front of the king's palace. We are free of the castle, and allowed to conduct strangers over it, as in your case. Oh! for the fellows at _St Stefano_, it is quite another matter; as a part of their punishment, they are _compelled to be idle!_"

Our rascal was allowed a new coat once every eighteen months, with two pair of drawers and as many shirts, and a penny a-day for pocket-money! These _piccoli omicidii_ at home do not get off so cheap, but stabbing is endemic at Naples. When a queen of Naples brings the Neapolitans a new prince--great joy of course!--all the penal settlements _except_ St Stefano receive _three_ years' mitigation of their sentence; but the crimes that consign to that island are _senza grazia_--the rays of royal bounty do not reach those dark and solitary cells. The St Stefano convicts form a body of three hundred doomed men, incorrigible housebreakers or systematic assassins. The food of all classes of criminals is the same, whatever the offence, and consists of twenty-four ounces of bread, with half-a-pint measure of beans and some oil--a basin of cabbage soup, without meat, for dinner, and meat once in fourteen days: there are eight thousand out-of-doors convicts, many of whom being under sentence for a less space _than two years_, work in their own clothes--which is, of course, a considerable saving to government. Although all the galley-slave establishments are full, no place swarms like Naples with so many meritorious candidates for the _red_ and _yellow_ liveries of the state.

ST CARLO, &c.

St Carlo is, as the guide-books tell us, "a very fine theatre." What we particularly like, is the absence of all _side-lights round its boxes_. Two hundred burners, arranged in three rows round a small chandelier, give just light enough to set off the fine chastened white and gold, and the one quiet fresco which embellishes the ceiling. A pit of vast size, divided into comfortable sittings, six tiers of boxes, and an orchestra of great space, suited to the extraordinary size of the house, secure a far less adulterated playhouse atmosphere than we are used to; and so exempt from the ordinary inconveniences, that we were able to sit out the _Semiramide_, even with Ronzi di Begnis, now old and out of keeping, for the heroine. Surely _she never_ should have been Semiramis, even in her palmy day! Actors and actresses _will_ not know that words written for them, scenery and dresses adapted for them, and attitudes invented for them, can never _make_ them the personages mentioned in the playbill. On returning home, we stood at our balcony gazing on the lovely face of a true Naples night--a night beyond description!--the whole vault of heaven lighted by one light: a full moon, like a subdued sunshine over earth and water. A world of light, that shone on a world of darkness, tinging the air, gilding the mountain-tops, and making the sea run like melted phosphorus. And what a silence abroad! not the perilous cessation of sound which so often only anticipates the storm; nor the sultry stillness of an exhausting noon; but a mighty and godlike display, as it were, of the first full moon after creation shining on an entranced world!

POZZUOLI.

An _amphitheatre_ is one of those few ruins that leave no problem to solve. Here we have a grey antiquity without any mutilation of form, and merely spoliated of its benches. The patron saint of Naples was, they say, imprisoned here. A little chapel ascertains the spot, but he does no miracles on this _arena_. When we come to _temples_, we are always at a great loss for proprietors. The very large one here is called of Jupiter Serapis. The remaining columns of this temple, whatever it was, exhibit a very remarkable appearance. Three pillars, forty-two feet in height, up to about twelve feet above their pedestals, have the surface of the marble as smooth as any in the Forum; then comes a portion of nine or ten feet, of which the marble has been bored, drilled in all directions, by that persevering bivalve the _Lithodomus;_ the perforations are so considerable, and go so deep, as to prove "the long-continued abode" of these animals within the stone, and by consequence, as Mr Lyell observes, "a long-continued immersion of the columns in the sea at some period recent, comparatively, with that of its erection." Indeed, there is abundant evidence adduced in the fourth volume of his _Geology_ to show, that all this ground was at a no very distant period _under the sea_, like Monte Nuovo in its neighbourhood, and was thrust out of the water to its present level. When the ground on which this temple stood, collapsed, the _bottom part of its columns_ was protected by "the rubbish of decayed buildings and strata of turf;" the _middle_ or perforated part was left exposed to the action of the sea bivalves above alluded to; and the _upper part_, which was never under the water, remained smooth and free from perforation. But these columns not only prove by internal evidence the general fact of the ground on which they stand having been submerged--they also furnish an exact _measure_ of the degree to which it sunk; viz. twenty feet--_i.e._ the height where these perforations terminate at present. You can only cross the floor of this building on stepping-stones; and as you do so, you see shoals of small sea-fish darting about in the shallow water which occupies its area, into which the sea has been _admitted_ on purpose, to prevent the accumulation of the stagnant water that had infected this particular spot with intense malaria.

BAIÆ.

We took a hot bath under the _soi-disant_ villa of Lucullus. Steam, sulphur, and hot water, may be had cheap any where along this coast. An awful place it was to enter naked, and be kept in the dark, stifling, as we were, for some seconds which seemed minutes, till our guide returned with a _milord's_ dressing-gown, which he assured us had been hung up as a votive offering for cured rheumatism. Being candidates ourselves for a similar benefit, we desired to be rubbed down like _milord_, till _aluminous_ perspiration stood thick upon us, the alum being deposited from the walls and atmosphere of the place. We were soon obliged to beg for quarter. The _milord_, whose dressing-gown we were possessed of, was so bad as to be obliged to be rubbed sitting; but so powerful is the remedy, that after fifteen such sittings, he walked round the lake (two miles), and went home in his carriage "_guerito!_" "Such baths!" that had cured _he_ knew not how many persons:--

"Men who'd spent _all_ upon physician's fees, Who'd _never_ slept, nor had a _moment's_ ease, Were now as _roaches sound_, and all as _brisk as bees!_"--CRABBE.

What with its hot water, sulphur, vapour, and alum, we too should have fancied Naples might have been comparatively exempt from rheumatisms and skin diseases, in both of which it abounds.

LUCRINE AND AVERNUS LAKES.

From the sea and its inlet called the Lucrine _Lake_, we pass along a pleasant green lane, about a mile long, which issues on _Avernus_, whose waters we find both limpid and clear; but are instructed that two months later will change them to a dark-red colour, and that the neighbourhood will then become very malarious and unsafe. A piece of semicircular wall on one side of the lake, indicates the whereabouts of a temple of Proserpine, or Apollo, or any god or goddess you please. We were so absurd as to pay a scudo to be taken through a vile tunnel, accompanied by two torch-bearers, and two other dirty wretches, who often carry us pick-a-back through one black hole into another, splashing us through dark pools, putting us down here and there as they pleased, picking us up again, grinning like demons, and by dint of shaking their torches above, and disturbing the water below, raising foul smells enough to intoxicate fifty Sybils. At length, half suffocated by those classical delights, we cry Enough! enough! and beg to be put into our saddles again. The _Stufa di Nerone_, a little further on the high-road, is another volcanic _calidarium_ in full activity, where you may boil eggs or scald yourself in a dark cavern. There you may deposit your mattrass and yourself in any one of a store of _berths_ wrought into that most unpicturesque tufa, of which the exterior face constitutes the whole of the sea view of _Baiæ._ If ever there were decorations in these caverns, they are gone; but there probably never were. Diana, Mercury, Venus, and Apollo all claim brick tenements, called temples, in this little bay, all close together on the seaside, and none having any claim at present either on the artist or the poet.

We quit the seaside at this spot, and reach the summit of the hill above, where there is more torch-work and more disappointment for those that go a Sybil-seeking with the sixth book of Virgil for a guide. Those who like it may also grope their way through _Nero's prisons_, and descend into the _Piscina Mirabilis_, that vast pilastered cellar like an underground dissenting chapel. They say the Roman fleet was supplied with water from this huge tank; but if this had been the intention of its construction, why obstruct it with more pillars or supports of square masonry than the roof absolutely required, without which incumbrances a reservoir of half its size would have held more water,--and for water it was evidently meant? Ascending the hill we see a man or two working away at a newly-discovered _tomb_, from which he told us he had removed several skulls in perfect preservation, even to the teeth of both jaws, together with some small sepulchral lamps and old copper coins. We dine on the summit of a low hill, immediately opposite a cape better known to fame than the Cape of Good Hope--the promontory of _Misenum_, with _Procida_ and _Ischia_ on our right, and _Nisida_ with its white lazaretto, and _Puteoli_ (Pozzuoli,) where St Paul landed, on our left. We took to _plant_ collecting after dinner, and were glad to learn that we should find at Puzzuoli a celebrated botanist of the locality, who could declare to us the _unknown_ of all we should collect. On our return, therefore, the man of science was fetched to look at our wild nose-gay and at us. We show him a specimen; he calls it by some outlandish name; we tell him what we want is its _Latin_ one. It _is_ Latin, he says, which he is actually speaking! _We_ thought _not_. A crowd of fishermen and rustics are fast collecting around us; we try him with another one of the grasses. "_Questo è asparago_," cries a bumpkin, unasked, from behind. "_Che asparagi?_" says _il mio Maestro_, "_è Pimpinella._" We show him a _Cytisus_, and he calls it a _Campanula._ Seeing that so great a difference exists between our friend and Linnæus, we ask no further questions.

Tench and eels abound in _Avernus_, and coot and teal also blunder here occasionally, as if to contradict Virgil and confute etymology--for Avernus is [Greek: aornos] (birdless,) and Latinised as every one knows. However, few birds are to be found here. The _Lucrine_ is now a mere salt-water pond of small extent, affording the little sea fish, in rough weather, a sort of playground. No Lucrine oysters now, though these dainties are of excellent quality at Naples, and might have satisfied _Montanus_ himself. As to the _Mare Mortuum_, it is another rank, unwholesome, unpicturesque pond. We walked all round it, and have a right to say so; and, if we had done so _twice_ after sunset, might perchance have had to say _more_.

PROCIDA.

"_Ego vel Prochytam præpono Suburræ_," says Juvenal, and so would we if compelled to live in that nasty St Giles's beyond the Coliseum; but as the "_vel_" seems strangely misapplied--for the _situation_ of Procida must always have been delightful--the poet's preference must be understood as of a dull unlively place, with few inhabitants or resources, to a dense and dangerous population. Baiæ itself is not three miles from Procida; but the Roman Baiæ was thronged with good society, and this little island was doubtless then as unpeopled as it is now populous. Procida is about three-fourths of an hour's fair rowing from Miniseolæ, on the Baian side; but you may run your boat over on a fine day in half an hour. As you approach the houses, you discern the not unpicturesque frontage of a little fishing town; but all is as revolting within as fair without. Something of the Greek or Albanese costume is still preserved here, and they offer to dress up one of their families in full _parure_ for our further satisfaction, if we will pay them. The view from the leads of the fort (under which the galley-slaves are confined) is fine indeed! Ischia and Vesuvius, and the whole stretch of the bay, and _Sorrento_, and the promontory of Minerva. Procida builds good enough trading vessels. We saw two in the harbour of Baiæ, as we rowed back on a delicious evening towards sunset; they were going on a first voyage, bound for our London docks;--and _à propos_ of the London docks, all this country is, as it always was, rich in productive vineyards and bad wine. Every hill once gave its own epithet to wines celebrated in _longs and shorts_ of immortal celebrity, whereas the land round Rome could never have been viniferous. You may still drink _Falernian_, if so minded, on its native seat of St Agatha. The wine of _Gaurus_ has not deserted Monte Babaro, and _Lachryma_, though not classical, has its own celebrity; and the islands of Ischia and Procida also produce a strong, heating, white wine. But there is not any wine, from the Alps to Messina, to be compared to those of the _Garonne_, and the _Rhine_, or the _Moselle_. The _Barbarians_ subdued by the Roman legions have long had it all their own way, not only in this, but in every other good thing _except sunshine_; but the vine, growing as it grows, suspended as it is suspended, and wreathed round the hills of Italy, is still the _plant_ which secures the loudest admiration of the foreigner. "The vine of Italy for ever!"--so we join the chorus of all travellers, and say-"_till_ it lies bruised, bleeding, fermenting in the vat! _then_ commend us to the Bacchus of lands far nearer home." And here, feeling ourselves called upon for a _song_, we will sing one.

A VINTAGE SONG.

ABRIDGED FROM BÉRANGER.

"Amidst the Celtic hordes of old That gather'd round his wayworn band, The cumbrous booty to behold Brought from Ausonia's sunny land, Thus _Brennus_ spake--'This lance of mine Bears Rome's best gift--Behold--the Vine! Plant, plant the Vine, to whose fair reign belong The arts of Peace, and all the realms of Song!

"'They told us of its wondrous juice; We fought to taste it, and have won! Now o'er your hills new wealth diffuse And cherish well the warrior's boon. Plant, plant the Vine, &c.

"'Nor for ourselves alone we tore That stem away; your ships shall bear The freighted joy to many a shore, And spread the unknown gladness there. Plant, plant the Vine, &c.'

"He ended, and in face of all, While deep in earth he strikes the lance And plants the shoot--_unconscious Gaul Prepares the world's vast vineyard--France!_"[9]

THE PALACE OF CASERTA.

About thirteen miles from Naples is one of the finest kingly residences in Europe--so say all the guide-books, and they are right. Vanvitelli is the very Michael Angelo of palace-rearing! Its shape is a parallelogram approaching to a square. Counting mezzanines, it has six stories besides the attics; and is pierced with no less than 1700 windows. Its stair, the very perfection of that sort of construction, is vast in all its dimensions, and so very easy, that you look down from its summit admiring, with untried lungs, the enormous height you have reached. It starts double from the ground, and twenty persons might ascent either branch abreast, and meet one another at the spot where it begins to return upon itself; so that the noble octagonal landing above finds itself just over the starting-place below. From this post four large windows command four spacious courts, and the simple construction of this gigantic edifice stands unveiled. You now begin your journey through vast, lofty, magnificently marbled, and very ill-furnished apartments, of which, before you have completed the half circuit of a single floor, you are heartily tired, for, beyond the architecture, there is nothing to see. The commonest broker's shop would furnish better pictures. Boar-hunts of course, to represent how Neapolitan kings kill boars at Portici, and shoot wild-ducks on the _Lago di Fusina_. There is also an ample historical fresco on the ceiling of the antechamber to the throne-room, on which Murat _had_ caused to be represented some notable _charge_ where he proved victorious; but after he was shot, Ferdinand, with great taste, judgment, and good feeling, _erased_, _interpolated_, and _altered_ the picture into a harmless battle of Trojans against Greeks, or some such thing! The palace has two theatres and a chapel; and you must change your conductor four times if you would be led through the whole. For this enormous edifice boasts of only twelve servants, at eleven dollars a-month from the privy purse. Caserta, which, even in its present imperfect state, has cost 7,000,000 scudi, is raised amidst a swarm of paupers, who are permitted to besiege the stranger, and impede his progress, with an importunity such as could be shown by none but men on the eve of famishing. We _never_ saw such a population of beggars as those which infest the walls of this most sumptuous palace and its park--but the park is a park indeed! It may have something of the formality of Versailles or Chantilly; but its leading features are essentially English; its thickets and copses abound in hares and pheasants. The ilex attains twice the height we remember to have seen it reach elsewhere. Its islands and fishponds, its kitchen and flower-gardens, put one in mind of a first-rate English country-seat. The ornamental water is fetched, by an aqueduct worthy of old Rome, from mountains seven miles off, first emptying its whole charge over a high ledge of rock, making a waterfall (which you see from the drawing-room window) over a series of steps and terraces, which get wider as they get lower, till they terminate in a superb basin within a quarter of a mile of the palace, where the water makes its last bound, and forms a broad lake fit for Diana and her nymphs, amidst woods fit for Actaeon and his dogs. Of course we asked to be conducted to these stone terraces, over which the dash of the mountain stream into the lake is effected: but as we passed the latter, we were surprised by our guide approaching the water, and, beginning to whistle, he begs us to observe the water begins to be troubled at a distance, and the more he whistles the more the commotion increases. Ten, twenty, and in half a second hundreds of _immense_ fish come trooping up, and, undeterred by our presence, approach as near as they dare to the surface of the water where he stands; they swim backwards and forwards, and lash the water with their tails. What is the matter? Why! they come to be fed! and such is the ferocious impatience of this aquatic _menagerie_, that we long to assist in quelling it; and so we dip our hand into the man's basket of frogs, and drop a few right over the swarm--and now the water is bubbling and lathering with the workings and plungings of these mad fish; and so large are they, so strong, so numerous, that, all angler as we are, we really felt unpleasantly, nor would we, after what we saw, have trusted hand or foot in the domain of such shark-like rapacity. They consume five basketsful of frogs and minnows a-day. Except that of the Caserta beggars, we never saw any thing like the hunger of the Caserta fish.

THE SILK MANUFACTORY.

The silk manufactory at Caserta is worth a visit. The labour is chiefly accomplished by the hand, as is all labour in Naples. Silk is wound off into skeins by a mill turned by the artificial falls of the aqueduct. At one extremity you see the unpromising _cocoons_; at the other the most rare and beautiful velvets and _gros de Naples_. The locality of this manufactory is delightful, and the old queen preferred its comforts and cheerfulness to the solitary grandeur of the palace in the plain. In place of occupying and paying the poor round his palace to make silk and satins for his court and the Pope, the present king spends his money in _gunpowder and soldiering_. They accuse him of having less compassion for the misfortunes of the poor than even his father Francis, or his grandfather Ferdinand of blessed memory. The view from this spot of the huge palace itself, with Vesuvius smoking to our right, and Capri shining before it, is one of those not to be forgotten.

THE SNAKE TAMER.

Behold the old snake-finder with his sack! "_Ola! vecchio, che cosa avete pigliato quest' oggi?_" was a question put from our one-horse cart, till then going at a great rate through the village of Somma, to a little old man, with a humpback, a sack, and a large shallow box. He was dressed in a queer costume, had a wolf's brush in his hat, and remarkably tight-fitting leather leggings. "Tre! fra altri una vipera meschia." "Oh! oh! aspetta," added we--we must see the viper. Upon which there was a broad grin all round the circle; but the driver stopped, and down we got. The old man, seeing our intention to be serious, got a chair for us from a cottage, and putting his box on his knee, looked knowing, and thus began.

"Gentlemen, you have all seen a viper, _basta feroce_--a reptile that every one runs from _except_ me, and those who know, as I do, how to humour him. I have a viper in this box whom I have so perfectly tamed, that he lives with two others, and never quarrels with them. I will open the box, and, as you will see, they will all lie as if they were dead, until I notice _one_, when he will put up his head that I may take him out."

He opened the box, where lay coiled, and perfectly still, a spotted viper, an immense black snake, and one very light and silvery like an eel.

"Here's my family," said the old man; and catching the viper round the middle, brought him out, while the others wriggled a little, as if in expectation of being caressed in their turn. "This animal, signor, is not so bad in his temper as you have been told. It is only when he is making love that he is poisonous--to all but his females; but in this, gentlemen, he is scarcely worse than many of yourselves, whom it is not safe then to approach."

"Bravo, bravo, _vecchaccio_! ancora! Go it again!" sounds every where from the circle collected round the old snake-charmer.

"If you tread upon his tail, gentlemen, what can you expect but a bite? Would not _you_ bite if you had your tails trodden on?"

The viper now raised his head, and darted it out, with about half of his body behind it, at the crowd. The two nearest peasants fell back. The viper, missing his spring, turns round to bite the hand that is holding him, but no sooner touches it, than off it glides from the horny finger, wriggling both head and tail at a great rate.

"He has been warmed by my hand, sirs, and wants to escape! _Ingrato!_ Come, I have something to tell you that these gentlemen must not hear!"

And he opened his month, and the viper thrust his head between his lips; upon which the old man closes them and makes believe to mumble the horrid head, the body appearing violently convulsed, as if it really suffered violence.

"He has lost his teeth," said one, "and can't bite."

"_Sicuro_," said another, and began to yawn.

"No," said the old man, "his teeth are all in his head. You doubt it, do you? See here, then."

And catching him by the head, and drawing down his lower jaw, having forced the mouth to its full stretch, he drew the red surface of his upper-jaw smartly over the back of his own hand two or three times, so as to bring blood from six or seven orifices. Then, drying the blood off his hand, he returns his viper to the box, and asks a _baiocco_ for the exhibition.

"What's the price of your viper?" ask we.

"Two _carlines_, excellenza."

"Here, tie him up for me in my handkerchief." Which was accordingly done, and we popped him into spirits of wine, as a _souvenir_ of Monte Somma, and of the old man whom we saw handling him.

"Does he gain a livelihood by his trade?" we enquired.

"He teaches people how to catch serpents; and by familiarizing them with the danger, they work in greater comfort, and are not afraid of going over any part of Monte Somma, which, as it abounds in vipers and snakes, still deters the unpractised a little. Besides, they like to see the snake caught and exhibited, and every body gives him something."

A MEDITATION.

Some hidden disappointment clings To all of man--to all his schemes, And life has little fair it brings, Save idle dreams.

The peace that may be ours to-day, Scarce heed we, looking for the morrow; The slighted moments steal away, And then comes sorrow.

The light of promise that may glow Where life shines fair in bud or bloom, Ere fruit hath ripen'd forth to show, Is quench'd in gloom.

The rapture softest blush imparts, Dies with the bloom that fades away, And glory from the wave departs At close of day.

Where we have garner'd up our hearts, And fixed our earnest love and trust, The very life-blood thence departs, And all is dust.

Then, Nature, let us turn to thee; For in thy countless changes thou Still bearest immortality Upon they brow.

Thy seasons, in their endless round Of sunshine, tempest, calm or blight, Yet leave thee like an empress crown'd With jewels bright.

Thy very storms are life to thee, 'Tis but a sleep thy seeming death; We see thee wake in flower and tree At spring's soft breath.

We view the ruin of our youth, Decay's wan trace on all we cherish; But thou, in thine unfailing truth, Canst never perish.

J.D.

ON THE OLD YEAR.

With mournful tone I hear thee say, "Alas, another year hath sped!" As if within that circlet lay Life's garland dead.

Vain thought! Thy measure is not Time's; Not thus yields life each glowing hue; Fair fruit may fall--the tendril climbs, And clasps anew.

Time hath mute landmarks of his own; They are not such as man may raise; Not his the rudely number'd stone On life's broad ways.

The record measuring his speed Is but a shadow softer spread-- A browner leaf--a broken reed, Or mildew shed.

And if his footfall crush the flower, How sweet the spicy perfume springs! His mildew stain upon the tower A glory brings.

Then let the murmuring voice be still, The heart hold fast its treasure bright; The hearth glows warm when sunbeams chill; Life hath no night.

J.D.

CORALI.

Soft-brow'd, majestic Corali! Thou like a memory serene Seemest to me--or melody, Or moonlight scene.

With thee life in soft plumage glides, As on the ruffled lake the swan, Whose downy breast the struggle hides That speeds it on.

In thy fair presence wakes no care; Harsh discords into music melt; Thy harmony alone is there-- Alone is felt.

The heart, unsway'd by hope or dread, Safe haven'd in a clime of balm, Nor chain'd in ice, nor tempest-sped, Lies rock'd in calm.

J.D.

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF FRANK ABNEY HASTINGS.

"Man wrongs and time avenges, and my name May form a monument not all obscure."

The success of the Greek insurrection against the Turks, is the event in contemporary history concerning which it is most difficult to form a precise and correct idea. Causes and effects seem, to the ordinary observer, to be utterly disproportionate. Its progress set the calculations of statesmen at defiance; and while congresses, ambassadors, and protocols, were attempting to fetter it in one direction, it generally advanced with increased speed in some other, totally unexpected.

It was very natural that the Greeks should take up arms to emancipate themselves from Turkish oppression, the moment a favourable opportunity presented itself; but certainly, few foreigners conceived that the time they selected afforded them much chance of success. Kolocotroni, however, appears to have understood the internal condition of the Ottoman empire rather better than Metternich. The unwarlike habits of the majority of the Greek population, contrasted with the military feelings of the Turks, and with the numbers and valour of the Ottoman armies, rendered their cause desperate for some years, even in the opinion of their most enthusiastic friends. The whole progress of the Revolution was filled with anomalous occurrences; and the wisdom of the statesman, and the skill of the warrior, were constantly set at nought by events, the causes of which have still been too generally overlooked by the professional politicians of all nations who mix in the affairs of Greece.

Unquestionably, therefore, there exists much in the condition of the Greek nation, and in the character of the people, which has been completely misunderstood by foreigners. Nor do we entertain any hope of seeing the affairs of Greece placed on a better footing, until the Greeks themselves collect and publish detailed information concerning the statistics and the administration of the kingdom.

Hitherto, not a single report of any value has been published on any branch of the public service; so that the foreign ministers at Athens are, from absolute want of materials, compelled to confine their active exertions for the good of Greece to recommending King Otho to choose particular individuals, devoted to the English, French, or Russian party, as the case may be, to the office of cabinet ministers. Not even an army list has yet been published in Greece, though the Hellenic kingdom is in the twelfth year of its existence. But as the publication of an army list would put some restraint on political jobbing and ministerial patronage, each minister leaves it to be done by his successor.

The fate of all the foreigners who have taken an active part in the Greek Revolution is worthy of notice. Many persons of high, and of deservedly high, reputation embarked in the cause, yet not one of the number added to his previous fame by his exploits. Although the names of Byron, Cochrane, and Capo d'Istrias appear in the annals of Greece, it is doubtful whether their actions in the country exercised any direct influence on the course of events. We think we may safely assert that they did not, and that these distinguished and able men were all carried along by the current of events. To us, it appears that the fate of Greece would have undergone no change if these great men had changed places;--if Capo d'Istrias had enacted the part of lord high admiral, Lord Cochrane that of commander-in-chief at Missolonghi, and Lord Byron, in his day, that of president of the Greek republic, things would have been little better and no worse. The ambassadors with their treaties and protocols at London, and the admirals with their _untoward event_ at Navarin, were almost as unfortunate as all other volunteers in the Greek cause. The ambassadors were occupied for years in trying to hinder the Greek state from attaining the form it ultimately assumed; and, in spite of the battle of Navarin, Ibrahim Pasha carried away from the Peloponnesus an immense number of Greek prisoners, in the very fleet the allied admirals supposed they had destroyed.

The insignificance of individual exertions in this truly national Revolution, has been equally remarkable among the Greeks themselves. Indeed it has been made a capital charge against them by strangers, that no man of distinguished talent has arisen to direct the destinies of the country. Perhaps there is a worse feature than this prominent in the Greek community, and this is a disposition to calumniate whatever little merit may exist. Here again, however, we cannot refrain from remarking, that a singular resemblance may be traced between the conduct of the strangers in Greece, and the Greeks themselves. A vice so predominant must doubtless be nourished by some inherent defect in the constitution of society in Greece, rather than in the characters of individuals.

If no Greek has succeeded in gaining a glorious pre-eminence by the Revolution, we must recollect that the foreigners who have visited the country have contrived to bury there all the fame they brought with them. Singular too as it may appear, a love of quarrelling and a passion for calumny have been found to be as decidedly characteristic of the foreigners in Greece, as of the natives. The Philhellenes were notoriously a most insubordinate body; the English in Greece have never been able to live together in amity and concord; the three European powers who signed a treaty to aid and protect Greece, have rarely been able to agree on the means of carrying their good intentions into execution on a systematic plan. The Regency sent to civilize the country during King Otho's minority, though consisting of only three members, set the Greeks an example of what the Litany calls "blindness of heart, pride, vain-glory, and hypocrisy, envy, hatred, and malice, and all uncharitableness." The _corps diplomatique_ has often astounded the Greeks by its feuds and dissensions. The Bavarians made their sojourn in the country one prolonged _querelle d'Allemande._ Even the American missionaries at Athens have not escaped severe attacks of the universal epidemic, and during the paroxysms of the malady have made all Greece spectators of their quarrels.[10]

The single exception which so often occurs to confirm the general ruler, exists in this case as in so many others. One European officer rendered very important services to Greece, and so conducted himself as to acquire the respect and esteem of every party in that singularly factious land. This officer was Frank Abney Hastings; but he always made it his rule of life to act, amidst the license and anarchy of society in Greece, precisely as he would have felt himself called upon to act in similar circumstances, could they have occurred, in England. We shall now attempt to erect a humble monument to his memory. The pages of Maga have frequently rescued much that is good from the shadow of oblivion; and, in this instance, we hope that a short account of the actions of the best of the Philhellenes will not only do honour to his memory, but will likewise throw some new light on the history of the Greek Revolution.

Frank Abney Hastings was the younger son of the late Lieutenant-general Sir Charles Hastings, Bart., and his elder brother Sir Charles Abney Hastings inherited the baronetcy. The late Sir Charles Hastings was colonel of the 12th foot, and knight grand cross of the Guelphic order; he possessed a large fortune, and he was well known for his singularity at Carlton House, and in the fashionable circles of London, about the beginning of the present century. The present baronet, Sir Charles Abney Hastings, entered the army when young, but retired after having served some time in the Mediterranean. Frank was born on the 14th of February 1794, and was placed in the navy when about eleven years old. Hardly six months after he became a midshipman, he was present at the battle of Trafalgar on board the Neptune. An explosion of powder between the decks of the Neptune during the action, by which several men were killed and wounded, early directed his attention to the service of artillery on board ship; and the science of gunnery became his favourite study. Hastings was subsequently serving in the Seahorse when that frigate engaged two Turkish men-of-war, and captured one of them, which proved to be a frigate much larger than herself. During his career of service, he visited every quarter of the globe.

After having served nearly fifteen years, he was sent to the West Indies in command of the Kangaroo, a vessel destined for the surveying service, carrying out his commission as commander. On arriving in the harbour of Port-Royal, in Jamaica, he was supposed to have brought the Kangaroo to an anchor in an improper manner. The flag-captain of the admiral's ship, then in the harbour considered this offence so extraordinary, that he took a still more extraordinary manner of expressing his dissatisfaction. We cannot give our readers a better idea of the circumstance than by transcribing the words of a letter which Hastings, on his return to England, addressed to Lord Melville, then first lord of the Admiralty. "He thought proper to hail me in a voice that rang through the whole of Port-Royal, saying--'You have overlayed our anchor--you ought to be ashamed of yourself--you damned lubber, you--who are you?'" Of course such an insult, both personal and professional, could never be overlooked. Hastings, however, feeling the importance of any step he might take to his future reputation, both as a sailor and a gentleman, waited until he had delivered up the command of the Kangaroo to the officer appointed to conduct the survey; and having received his commission as commander, and being ready to return to England on half-pay, he sent a challenge to the flag-captain who had thus insulted him.

The admiral on the station was, by some circumstance, informed of this challenge, and on his representation of the affair to the Admiralty, Hastings was dismissed the service. We shall conclude our mention of this most unfortunate business by quoting a few more words from the letter of Hastings to Lord Melville, which we have already alluded to:--"I have served fourteen years under various captains, and on almost all stations. I have certainly seen greater errors committed before; yet I never was witness to such language used to the commander of a British vessel bearing a pendant." "Your lordship may, perhaps, find officers that will submit to such language, but I do not envy them their dearly purchased rank; and God forbid that the British navy should have no better supporters of its character than such spiritless creatures." These words express the deep attachment he always felt to the service.

"Alas! how bitter is his country's curse To him who for that country would expire."

Hastings now found that all his hopes of advancement at home were blasted, and, without any loss of time, he determined to qualify himself for foreign service. He flattered himself that he might acquire a reputation abroad, which would one day obtain for him the restoration of his rank in the navy in a distinguished manner. He resided in France for some time, in order to acquire a thorough knowledge of the French language, which, by dint of close application, he soon spoke and wrote with ease and correctness.

About three years after his dismissal from the navy, the position of the Greeks induced him to believe that in Greece he should find an opportunity of putting in practice several plans for the improvement of maritime warfare which he had long meditated. He embarked at Marseilles on the 12th of March 1822, and arrived at Hydra on the 3d of April. Here he was kindly received by the two brothers Jakomaki and Manoli Tombazis, and their acquaintance soon ripened into friendship.

The Greek fleet was preparing to sail from Hydra to encounter the Turks, and Hastings was anxious to accompany it, in order to witness the manner in which the Greeks and Turks conducted their naval warfare. As it was necessary for a stranger to receive an authorization from the general government before embarking in the fleet, Hastings repaired to Corinth, which was then the seat of the executive power. The hostility displayed to the Greek cause by Sir Thomas Maitland, the lord high commissioner in the Ionian islands, had rendered the British name exceedingly unpopular at this time, in Greece, and Alexander Maurocordatos, (called at that period Prince Maurocordatos,) who was president of the Greek Republic, partook of the popular prejudice against Englishmen.

On arriving at Corinth Hastings met with a very cool reception, and spies were placed to watch his conduct; for though the president had made no progress in organizing the naval, military, or financial administration, he had already established a numerous and active secret police. For several days Hastings was unable to obtain an audience of Maurocordatos; but an American, Mr Jarvis, (afterwards a lieutenant-general in the Greek service,) to whom Hastings had given a passage from Marseilles, was received with great attention. Jarvis, as well as Hastings, observed "that the police was very severe and vigilant in Corinth;" and on the 15th of April he wrote thus:--"I paid my respects to the prince, and was invited to come in the evening. I had a long conversation with him, and he was particularly kind to me, and liked me the more, as he said, for being an American. He told me many of the bad actions of the English, and plainly told me he and the rest took my friend and companion for a spy. I then answered what was necessary--approved his dislike of the English and his foresight, but showed him that he was in the wrong in this case."

These suspicions being mentioned to Hastings, he immediately addressed a letter to the president, demanding that his offer of serving on board the fleet should be either definitely refused or accepted by the Greek government. He, at the same time, pointed out to Maurocordatos the absurdity of suspecting him as a spy. We translate his own letter, which is in French. "I am suspected by your excellency of being an English spy. Considering the conduct of the British government to Greece, I expected to meet with some prejudice against the English among the ignorant; but I own I was not prepared to find this illiberality among men of rank and education. If the English government required a spy in Greece, it would not address itself to a person of my condition. I am the younger son of Sir Charles Hastings, Baronet, a general in the army, and who was educated in his youth with the Marquis of Hastings, governor-general of India; so that I could surely find a more lucrative, less dangerous, and more respectable employment in India than that of a spy in Greece. I quitted England because I considered the government treated me with injustice, in arbitrarily dismissing me from the navy, after more than fourteen years of active service, for an affair of honour, while I was on half-pay." This letter obtained for Hastings an audience of the president, and his services were at length accepted.

On the 3d of May 1822, the Greek fleet began to get under weigh at Hydra, and Hastings embarked as a volunteer on board the Themistocles, a corvette belonging to the brothers Tombazis. The scene presented by the Hydriote ships hauling out of harbour was calculated to depress the hopes of the most sanguine friend of Greece. Those of the crew who chose to come on board did so; the rest remained on shore, and came off as it suited their convenience. When it became necessary to make sail, the men loosed the sails, but shortly found that no sheets were rove, and the bow-lines bent to the bunt line cringles. At last sheets were rove. But as the ships were getting clear of the harbour, a squall came on; then every man on board shouted to take in sail; but there were no clue-lines bent, and the men were obliged to go out on the jib-boom to haul down the sail by hand. The same thing occurred with the topgallant sails. The crews, however, were gradually collected; things assumed some slight appearance of order; and after this singular exhibition of anarchy and confusion, the fleet bore up for Psara.

It is needless to describe the scenes of misery Hastings witnessed when the fleet arrived at Scio, as the particulars of the frightful manner in which that island had been devastated by the Turks are generally known. The war was at this period carried on with unexampled barbarity, both by the Greeks and Turks. As an illustration of the manner in which naval warfare had been previously conducted in the Levant, we shall quote the account given by an English sailor of the conduct of the Russo-Greek privateers in 1788. The modern atrocities were not perpetrated on so large a scale, and the officers rarely countenanced them, but still it would be too invidious to cite single examples. We shall therefore copy a short extract from Davidson's narrative of a cruise on board one of the vessels connected with the expedition of the famous Greek privateer and pirate, Lambro. "The prize had on board eighty-five hands, which we took on board us, and confined in the hold until next day; when they were called up one by one, and had their heads cut off in the same manner as we cut off ducks' heads at home, and we then threw them overboard. This was the first time we were obliged to take it by turns to put them to death. The English, when called upon, at first refused it; but when the captain told them they were cowards, and that he could not believe they were Englishmen, they went and did the same as the rest; and afterwards were even worse than the others, for they always were first when such work was going on. Sometimes we had three or four in a day to put to death for each man's share." Things are certainly better than this in our times; but the statesmen who have constituted the kingdom of Greece should recollect, that these occurrences took place in the dominions of King Otho on the 21st of May 1789, and that similar scenes, though not on so extensive a scale, were witnessed by Hastings in the month of May 1822.

The Greek naval force at this period consisted entirely of merchant ships, fitted out at the private expense of their owners. These vessels were generally commanded either by the owners or their near relations, whose whole fortune frequently consisted in the vessel they were to lead into action. It is not surprising that under such circumstances many brave men, who would willingly have exposed their lives, felt some hesitation in risking their property. The Greek ships, previously to the breaking out of the Revolution, had been navigated by crews interested in certain fixed proportions in the profits of the cargo. As the proprietor of the ship, the captain, and the sailors formed a kind of joint-stock company, they were in the habit of deliberating together on the measures to be adopted, and in discussing the destination of the vessel. The disorder and want of discipline naturally arising from such habits, were greatly increased by the practice which was introduced at the breaking out of the Revolution, of always paying the sailors their wages in advance. In a fleet so composed and manned, Hastings soon perceived that there was no hope of executing any of his projects for the improvement of naval artillery. After fitting locks and sights to the guns in the Themistocles, and building up a furnace for heating shot in her hold, he found that all his arrangements were of no avail. Some order was absolutely necessary, but he discovered by experience that there was nothing the Albanians of Hydra held in so much honour as disorder.

The naval campaign of 1822 was signalized by the successful attack of the Greek fire-ships on the fleet of the Capitan Pasha off Scio. Kanaris, who conducted his vessel with admirable courage and presence of mind, set fire to the ship bearing the pasha's flag, which was completely destroyed. Pepinos, who commanded the Hydriot fire-ship, was not so fortunate in his attack on the ship of the Reala Bey. His vessel was disengaged, and though it drifted on board another line-of-battle ship, the Turks succeeded in extinguishing the flames in both.

Hastings, having failed to persuade the Greeks to fit out one or two gun-boats with long guns of large calibre and furnaces for heating shot, became disgusted with the service on board the fleet, which was confined to sending marauding parties to the coast of Asia Minor, where the plunder was oftener taken from the poor Greek villagers than from their Ottoman masters. These expeditions were conducted with unparalleled disorder, and without any plan. Before quitting the fleet, Hastings made a last attempt to inspire the councils of the admiral with some of his own energy. He waited on the celebrated Admiral Miaoulis with a plan for capturing a Turkish frigate then anchored at Tenedos. This interview between these two remarkable men is of great importance for the appreciation of their respective characters and views at this period. In order to convey to our readers as vividly as possible the impression which it produced on the mind of Hastings, we shall transcribe the account of it in his own words. "I proposed to direct a fire-ship and three other vessels upon the frigate, and, when near the enemy, to set fire to certain combustibles which should throw out a great flame; the enemy would naturally conclude they were all fire-ships. The vessels were then to attach themselves to the frigate, fire broadsides double-shotted, throwing on board the enemy at the same time combustible balls which give a great smoke without flame. This would doubtless induce him to believe he was on fire, and give a most favourable opportunity for boarding him. However, the admiral returned my plan, saying only [Greek: chalho], without asking a single question, or wishing me to explain its details; and I observed a kind of insolent contempt in his manner, which no doubt arose from the late success of Kanaris. This interview with the admiral disgusted me. They place you in a position in which it is impossible to render any service, and then they boast of their own superiority, and of the uselessness of the Franks (as they call us) in Turkish warfare." It must be recollected, in justification of Miaoulis, that he had not then had time to avail himself of the enlarged experience he subsequently acquired in his capacity of admiral of the Greek fleet. He was then little more than a judicious and courageous captain of a merchant brig, just elected by the suffrage of his equals to lead them. As one of the owners of the ships hired by government, his attention was naturally rather directed to the destruction than to the capture of the large Turkish men-of-war; and it is probable that he considered the total want of discipline among the Hydriotes as presenting insuperable difficulties to the execution of the plan, and as likely to render the Turkish frigate, even if captured, utterly useless to the Greeks, who would doubtless have allowed her to rot in port.

Shortly after this disagreeable affair, Hastings had an opportunity of acquiring considerable personal reputation among the Hydriote sailors, by saving the corvette of Tombazis in circumstances of great danger. In pursuing some Turkish _sakolevas_ off the north of Mytilene, they ran in near Cape Baba, and made for the shore under a cliff, where a considerable number of armed men soon collected from the neighbouring town. The captain and crew of the Themistocles, eager for prizes, pursued them; when the ship was suddenly becalmed within gun-shot of a battery at the town, which opened a well-directed fire on the corvette. In getting from under the fire of the battery, a baffling wind and strong current drove the ship within sixty yards of the high rocky cliff where the Turkish soldiers were posted. These troops opened a sharp but ill-directed fire of musketry on the deck of the Themistocles; and on this occasion the total want of order, and the disrespect habitually shown to the officers, had very nearly caused the loss of the vessel. The whole crew sought shelter from the Turkish fire under the bulwarks, and no one could be induced to obey the orders which every one issued. A single man would spring forward for a few seconds, at intervals, to execute the most necessary manoeuvre. Hastings was the only person on deck who remained silently watching the ship slowly drifting towards the rocks. He was fortunately the first to perceive the change in the direction of a light breeze which sprang up, and by immediately springing forward on the bowsprit, he succeeded in getting the ship's head round. Her sails soon filled, and she moved out of her awkward position. As upwards of two hundred and fifty Turks were assembled on the rocks above, and fresh men were arriving every moment, there can be no doubt that in a short time the enemy would have brought a piece of artillery to bear on the Themistocles from a position inaccessible to her fire; so that, even if she had escaped going on shore on the rocks, her destruction seemed inevitable, had she remained an hour within gun-shot of the cliff. Thus, the finest vessel in the Greek fleet was in imminent danger of being lost, through the carelessness and obstinacy of the captain, who, though repeatedly entreated by Hastings to have a small anchor constantly in readiness, could never be induced to take this necessary precaution.

On this occasion, however, both the captain and the crew of the Themistocles did Hastings ample justice. Though they had refused to avail themselves of his skill, and neglected his advice, they now showed no jealousy in acknowledging his gallant conduct, and he became a permanent favourite with the crew ever after this exploit. Though he treated all with great reserve and coldness, as a means of insuring respect, there was not a man on board that was not always ready to do him any service. Indeed the candid and hearty way in which they acknowledged the courage of Hastings, and blamed their own conduct in allowing a stranger to expose his life in so dangerous a manner to save them, afforded unquestionable proof that so much real generosity was inseparable from courage, and that, with proper discipline and good officers, the sailors of the Greek fleet would have had few superiors.

When the naval campaign was concluded, Hastings joined the troops engaged in the siege of Nauplia. That force was exposed to the greatest danger by the irruption of a large Turkish army into the Morea, commanded by Dramali Pasha. While engaged in defending the little fort of Bourdzi in the port of Nauplia, and under the guns of that fortress, he became intimately acquainted with Mr Hane, a young artillery officer, who subsequently served under his orders with great distinction. At this time Hastings raised a company of fifty men, whom he armed and equipped at his own expense. But as his actions on shore are not immediately connected with the great results of his services to Greece, we shall confine this sketch exclusively to the share he took in the naval warfare. He served the campaign of 1823 in Crete, as commander of the artillery; but a violent fever compelling him to quit that island in autumn, he found, on his return to Hydra, that Lord Byron had arrived at Cephalonia.

It was of great importance to the Greek cause that the services of Lord Byron should be usefully directed, and it was equally necessary that the funds collected by the Greek committee in London should be expended in the way most likely to be of permanent advantage to Greece. The moment appeared suitable for one who, like Hastings, had acquired some experience by active service, both with the fleet and army, to offer his advice. He accordingly drew up a project for the construction and armament of a steam-vessel, which he recommended as the most effectual mode of advancing the Greek cause, by giving the fleet a decided superiority over the Turks at sea. It appeared to Hastings that it was only by the introduction of a well-disciplined naval force, directly dependent on the central government, that order could be introduced into the administration, as well as a superiority secured over the enemy. It is not necessary to enter into all the professional details of this memoir, as we shall have occasion to state the manner in which Hastings carried his views into execution a few years later. Its conclusion was to recommend Lord Byron to direct his attention to the purchase or construction of a steam-vessel, armed with heavy guns, and fitted up for the use of hot shot and shells as its ordinary projectiles.

Neither Lord Byron nor Colonel Stanhope, the agent of the Greek committee, seem to have appreciated the military science of Hastings, and the plan met with little support from either.

The Greek government shortly after this obtained its first loan in England; and, during the summer of 1824, Hastings endeavoured to impress its members with the necessity of rendering the national cause not entirely dependent on the disorderly and tumultuous merchant marine, which it was compelled to hire at an exorbitant price. It is needless to record all the difficulties and opposition he met with from a government consisting in part of shipowners, eager to obtain a share of the loan as hire for their ships. These ships were in some danger of rotting in harbour, in case a national navy should be formed. The loan, however, appeared inexhaustible; and in the autumn of 1824, Hastings returned to England, with a promise that the Greek government would lose no time in instructing their deputies in London to procure a steam-vessel to be armed under his inspection, and of which he was promised the command. This promise was soon forgotten; a number of favourable accidents deluded the members of the Greek government into the belief that their deliverance from the Turkish yoke was already achieved, and they began to neglect the dictates of common prudence. The Greek committee in London emulated the example of the Greek government at Nauplia; and in place of acting according to the suggestions of common sense and common honesty, that body engaged in a number of tortuous transactions, ending in the concoction of a dish called "the Greek pie." Ibrahim Pasha awakened the heroes at Nauplia from their dreams, and Cobbett disturbed the reveries of the sages in London.

The success which attended Ibrahim Pasha on his landing in the Peloponnesus in 1825, and the improvement displayed by the Turks in their naval operations, seriously alarmed the Greeks. The advice of Hastings occurred to their remembrance; but, even then, it required the active exertions of two judicious friends of Greece in London to induce the Greek deputies to take the necessary measures for fitting out a steamer. Hastings, in a letter addressed to the Greeks, which he wrote on his return to Greece, declared distinctly that the gratitude of the Greek nation was due to the Right Honourable Edward Ellice and to Sir John Hobhouse, and not to the Greek deputies in London, if the steam-vessel he commanded proved of any service to the cause.

Greece was then in a desperate condition. Navarin was taken by Ibrahim Pasha, the Romeliat army was completely defeated, and the Egyptians encamped in the centre of the Peloponnesus, after routing every body of troops which attempted to arrest their progress. The Turkish and Egyptian fleets kept the sea in spite of the gallant attacks of Miaoulis; and the partial successes of the Greeks were more honourable to their courage than injurious to the real strength of their enemies. In the mean time, the Greek government had lost all power of commanding either respect or obedience at home, in consequence of the civil wars which prevailed previously to the arrival of the Egyptians, and the intrigues of Maurocordatos and Kolettis to obtain the sole direction of affairs.

At this conjuncture, Lord Cochrane's name excited universal attention in England, and he was engaged by the Greek deputies, and some friends of the cause, to enter the Greek service. He received for his services £37,000 sterling, in cash; and an additional sum of £20,000 was paid into the hands of Sir Francis Burdett, to be given to Lord Cochrane whenever the independence of Greece should be secured.

This transaction happened in the month of August 1825; but in the month of March, a steam-vessel, called the Perseverance, of about four hundred tons, had already been ordered; and Hastings had been named to command her, and received authority to arm her with sixty-eight pounders, according to the plan he had submitted to the Greek government. When Lord Cochrane was appointed commander-in-chief of the Greek fleet, five more steam-vessels were ordered to be built; but it may be observed, that only two of these ever reached Greece. The equipment of the Perseverance was then kept back, in order that the whole squadron might sail together under the auspices of Lord Cochrane. The news of the taking of Missolonghi by the Turks at last threw the friends of Greece into such a state of alarm, and the outcry against the dilatory manner in which the steam-boat expedition in the Thames was fitting out, became so violent over all Europe, that the Perseverance was hastily completed, and allowed to sail alone.

After a series of difficulties and disappointments, which it required all the extraordinary perseverance and energy of Hastings to overcome, he was hurried away from Deptford on the twenty-sixth of May 1826, though the engine of the Perseverance was evidently in a very defective state. The boiler burst in the Mediterranean; and the ship was detained at Cagliari, reconstructing a boiler, until the twenty-eighth of August. She arrived in Greece too late to be of any use in the naval campaign of that year. The winter was spent in aiding the operations of the army, which was endeavouring to raise the siege of Athens.

The Karteria, which was the name of the Perseverance in the Greek navy, was armed on the principle which Hastings had laid down as necessary to place the Greeks with small vessels on some degree of equality with the line-of-battle ships and large frigates of the Turks: namely, that of using projectiles more destructive than the shot of the enemy. These projectiles were hot shot and shells, instead of the cold round-shot of the Turks. We have already mentioned that the Karteria was armed with sixty-eight pounders. Of these she mounted eight; four were carronades of the government pattern, and four were guns of a new form, cast after a model prepared by Hastings himself. These guns were seven feet four inches long in the bore, and weighed fifty-eight hundred-weight. They had the form of carronades in every thing but the addition of trunnions to mount them like long guns; these trunnions, however, were, contrary to the usual practice, placed so that their centre intersected a line through the centre of the bore of the gun. They were mounted on ten-inch howitzer carriages, which answered the purpose admirably. The shells used were generally strapped to wooden bottoms; but they were more than once employed without any precaution, except that of putting them in the gun with the fusees towards the muzzle. The hot shot were heated in the engine fires, and were brought on deck by two men in a machine resembling a double coal-box, which was easily tilted up at the muzzle of the gun to be loaded.

Hastings fired about eighteen thousand shells from the Karteria in the years 1826 and 1827, with a miscellaneous crew composed of Englishmen, Swedes, and Greeks, and never had a single accident from explosion. As a very small number of hot shot can be heated at once, and as an iron ball of eight inches diameter loses its spherical form if kept for any length of time red hot, this projectile could only be used in particular circumstances. It happened more than once on board the Karteria, that shot which had remained for some time in the engine fires, had so lost their form as not to enter the muzzle of the guns. With regard to the great danger which is supposed to attend the use of hot shot on board ships, Hastings thus states his opinion in a "Memoir on the use of Shells, Hot Shot, and Carcass Shells, from ship artillery:"[11] "I have continually used hot shot with perfect safety; my people having become so familiar with them, that they employ them with as little apprehension as if using cold shot."

We shall now give a regular account of the career of active service in which Hastings was engaged, as captain of the Greek steam-frigate Karteria, extracted in part from his own official reports and private letters, and drawn in part from the testimony of eyewitnesses of all his actions.

In February 1827, Captain Hastings was ordered by the Greek government to co-operate with the troops under General Gordon, destined to relieve Athens. Captain Hastings, sailing from Egina, passed round the island of Salamis, and entering the western strait between it and Megara, arrived, unobserved by the Turks, in the bay where the battle of Salamis was fought--now called the port of Ambelaki. This was the first time the passage had ever been attempted by a modern man-of-war. During the presidency of Count Capo-d'Istrias, Sir Edmund Lyons carried H.M.S. Blonde through the same passage.

The troops under General Gordon were landed in the night, and they occupied and fortified the hill of Munychia without any loss of time. It was then resolved to drive the Turks from a monastery at the Piræus, in which they kept a garrison to command the port. The troops were ordered to attack the building on the land side, and Hastings entered the Piræus to bombard it from the sea. A practicable breach was soon made; but the Greek troops, though supported by the fire of a couple of field-pieces, were completely defeated in their feeble attempts to storm this monastery. The Turks, on the other hand, displayed the greatest activity; and the Seraskier Kutayhi Pasha, who commanded the army besieging Athens, soon arrived with a powerful escort of cavalry, and bringing with him two long five-inch howitzers with shells, boasting that with these he would sink the Karteria. As the object of the Greek attack had completely failed, and the troops had retired, the Karteria quitted the port just as the Turks opened their fire on her.

A few days after this, the Turks, having defeated a division of the Greek army destined to make a diversion from the plain of Eleusis, attempted to carry the camp of General Gordon by storm. Captain Hastings now entered the Piræus again, even at the risk of exposing the Karteria to the Turkish shells; as he saw that by his powerful fire of grape he could prevent the Turks from forming in any force to attack the most vulnerable part of the camp. The fire of the Karteria soon produced its effect; but it drew all the attention of the Pasha to the vessel, as he perceived it was vain to persist in attacking the troops until he compelled the steamer to quit the Piræus. Five guns directed their fire against her, and though three were either dismounted by her fire, or rendered useless by their carriages breaking, still two elongated five-inch howitzers being placed between the monastery and an adjoining tower, which covered them from the fire of the Karteria, contrived to keep up a well-supported fire. The effect produced by the shells from the Turkish guns was soon considerable, though several of those which struck the Karteria did not explode. One, however, fixed in the carriage of a long sixty-eight pounder, and exploded there, though fortunately without injuring either Captain Hane, the artillery-officer engaged in pointing the gun, or any of the men who were working it. Another exploded in the Karteria's counter, and tore out the planking of two streaks for a length of six feet, and started out the planking from the two adjacent streaks. As this shell struck the vessel on the water's edge, a ship built in the ordinary manner would have been sunk by this explosion of about nine ounces of powder; but the Karteria was in no danger, as she was built with her timbers close and caulked together. She was also constructed with two solid bulkheads enclosing the engine-room, caulked and lined, so as to be water-tight; consequently, any one of her compartments might have filled with water from a shot-hole without her sinking. The attack of the Turks on the Greek camp having been repulsed, nothing remained for Hastings but to retreat from his dangerous position in the Piræus as speedily as possible. This, however, he did not effect without loss; all his boats were shot through, and he had to encounter a severe fire of musketry from the Turks stationed on each side, as he moved through the pillars at the entrance of the port.

In the month of March an expedition was planned by General Heideck, who was afterwards one of the members of the unhappy regency which misgoverned Greece during the minority of King Otho. The object of this expedition was to destroy the magazines of provisions and stores which the Turks possessed at Oropos, and, by occupying their lines of communication with Negropont, to compel them to raise the siege of Athens. This was the only feasible method by which the Greeks could ever have hoped to defeat the Turks; but when the execution of it was proposed, it always met with some opposition. When it was at last undertaken by a foreigner, the operation was conducted in so weak and desultory a manner, as to end in complete disgrace.

The naval force which accompanied General Heideck was unusually powerful, as he was then the acknowledged agent of the King of Bavaria. It consisted of the frigate Hellas of sixty-four guns, with the flag of Admiral Miaoulis, the Karteria, and some smaller vessels as transports. The Greek vessels arrived before Oropos in the afternoon, and as the Hellas was compelled to anchor about a mile from the Turkish camp, Captain Hastings immediately steamed into the port. He captured two transports laden with grain and flour, which had just arrived from Negropont; and having anchored within two hundred yards of the Turkish batteries, he opened on them a fire, which in a short time dismounted every gun which they could bring to bear on his ship. A carcass-shell lodging in the fascines of which the principal battery was constructed, soon enveloped the whole in flames--the powder-magazine exploded, and the carriages of the guns were rendered useless.

At this moment the Greek troops, of whom one hundred and fifty were on board the Karteria, loudly demanded to be led to attack the camp; and an officer from General Heideck, who had remained on board the Hellas, was expected every moment to place himself at their head. No orders, however, arrived. Hastings remained all night in the port, and it was not until dawn next morning that the troops were landed. The Turks, in the mean time, had been more active; they had also received considerable reinforcements; the day was consumed without General Heideck going on shore, and a large body of Turkish cavalry making its appearance in the afternoon, he issued orders to re-embark the troops, and sailed back to Egina.

The public attention was suddenly diverted from this disgraceful exhibition of European military science by the arrival of Lord Cochrane in Greece. He came, however, in an English yacht, which had been purchased to expedite his departure, but unaccompanied by a single one of the five steamers which were still unfinished in the Thames. His lordship was soon after appointed lord high admiral of Greece; General Church was at the same time named generalissimo of the land forces; and both officers directed all their attention to raising the siege of Athens, which Kutayhi continued to attack with the greatest constancy.

Captain Hastings was now detached for the first time with an independent naval command. The Turks drew their supplies for carrying on the siege of Athens from a great distance in their rear, as all the provinces of Greece were in a state of desolation. This circumstance exposed their lines of communication, both by land and sea, to be attacked by the Greeks in many different points. Volo was one of the principal depots at which the supplies transmitted from Thessalonica and Constantinople were secured; and from this station they were forwarded by the channel of Euboea to the fortress of Negropont, and thence to Oropos. From Oropos these supplies were transported on horses and mules to the camp of the Pasha at Patissia, near Athens. Captain Hastings was now charged with the duty of cutting off the communications of the Turks between Volo and Oropos, and instructed to use every exertion to capture their transports and destroy their magazines. For this purpose he sailed from Poros with a small squadron, consisting of the Karteria and four hired vessels--the corvette Themistocles, belonging to the Tombazis; the Ares, belonging to the Admiral Miaoulis; and two small schooners.

On the afternoon of a beautiful clear day, the little fleet entered the bay of Volo, in which eight Turkish transports were seen at anchor. It was some time before the enemy was persuaded that the Greek vessels were bearing down to attack them, for they considered the anchorage perfectly defended by two batteries which they had erected on the cape, enclosing the harbour, opposite the castle of Volo. The castle itself is a square fort in a dilapidated condition, with only a few guns mounted.

At half-past four o'clock, the Themistocles and Ares received orders to anchor before the batteries, just out of the reach of musketry, and not to waste a single shot before they had taken up their positions. They were then directed to open a heavy fire of grape and round shot on the enemy. While they were executing these orders, Hastings entered the port, and opened his fire of shells on the intrenchments of the Turks, and of grape on the transports, which were filled with men to prevent their capture. The heavy fire of the Karteria, which poured on the enemy three hundred two-ounce balls from each of its guns, soon threw the Turks into confusion; and the boats were manned, and sent to board the transports. Five vessels being heavily laden, though they had been run aground, were not close to the shore, and these were soon captured; but two brigs being empty, were placed close under the fire of the troops in the intrenchments. Though they were attacked by all the boats of the squadron, they were not taken until after an obstinate resistance. The English boatswain of the Karteria, who was the first to mount the side of one, was wounded; but he succeeded in gaining the deck, and hauling down the Turkish flag. A Turk, however, who had no idea of surrendering to an infidel, rushed at him, and fired a pistol at his head. The ball, fortunately, only grazed his forehead. The Turk then leaped overboard, and endeavoured to swim on shore; but one of the English sailors, considering his conduct so unfair as to merit death, jumped into the sea after him, and, having overtaken him, deliberately cut his throat with a clasp-knife, as he had no other weapon, and then returned on board. The Greek Revolution too often gave occasions for displaying

"The instinct of the first-born Cain, Which ever lurks somewhere in human hearts."

It was found impossible to get the two brigs afloat; and, as their sails had been landed, it would have been impossible to navigate them. They were therefore burnt; and another smaller vessel, which was so placed that Hastings would not expose his men by attempting to take possession of her, was destroyed by shells. A shell, exploding in her hull, blew her fore-mast into the water. For four hours the Karteria remained in the harbour of Volo. The corvette and brig had so completely silenced the fire of the batteries, that they appeared to be abandoned; while the guns of the castle only kept up an irregular and ill-directed fire on the Karteria. The magazines were all in flames from the effect of the red-hot shot fired into them; and, as night approached, the Karteria made the signal for all the vessels to make sail out of the harbour with a light breeze from the land. The spectacle offered by the bay as it grew dark was peculiarly grand. On the sombre outline of the hills round the gulf, innumerable fires were seen; and a continued discharge of musketry was heard proclaiming the arrival of each little band of troops which reached the camp at Volo. The lurid light thrown out by the flames from the burning magazines, and the reflection of the blazing transports, which were quickly consumed to the water's edge, enabled the steamer, in departing, to destroy the carriages of two guns which the Turks were endeavouring to get ready to salute the departing squadron.

Hastings had expected to find at Volo a large Turkish man-of-war, mounting sixteen heavy guns, and two mortars which had been constructed for the siege of Missolonghi, but which had not even got so far as Volo until after the fall of that place. This vessel was now waiting until the Turks should require her to bombard some seaport in the possession of the Greeks. A Greek fishing-boat came alongside to inform Hastings that the Pasha had ordered this vessel to Tricheri for greater security, where she was moored, with three schooners taken from the Greeks at Psara, in a small bay protected by a battery of twelve guns. In this position, she was considered perfectly safe from the attacks of the whole Greek fleet, aided by the fire-frigate herself, as the Turks called the Karteria. Hastings proceeded immediately to Tricheri, hoping to surprise the enemy by an attack during the night; but he found the Turks on the alert, and their well-directed fire of musketry rendered it impossible to continue the attack with the smallest chance of success.

At daylight next morning, Hastings examined the position of the enemy with care, but he saw there was no hope of capturing the bomb-ketch or any of the schooners; he therefore determined to confine his operations to destroying them. After getting up the steam and heating a few shot, he stood in to about three-quarters of a mile of the Turkish ship, and going slowly round in a large circle, he brought his long guns to bear successively, and fired them with the greatest deliberation. He then moved out of gun-shot of the Turkish battery to observe the effect of his fire. In about half an hour, a quantity of smoke was observed to issue from the large Turkish vessel, which the enemy appeared at first to disregard; but, in a short time, they seemed to discover that their ship was on fire, for they were seen hurrying down and rushing on board in great numbers. The carronades were now reloaded with shells, and the long guns with large grape, and the Karteria stood in to prevent the enemy from continuing his endeavours to extinguish the fire. The attention of the Turks was thus distracted; the flames soon burst through the decks of the ship, and, catching the rigging, rendered all approach to her impossible. In a short time she was a mass of flame; and her guns to the land-side, having been loaded, went off, discharging their shot into the battery formed for her protection. As her upper works burned away, she drifted from her station; but getting again on shore against the rocks, her magazine exploded, and the remains of her hull, with all her guns, sank in deep water. The three schooners also received several shells, and were so injured, as to be rendered unable to put to sea without undergoing great repairs.

The loss of the Greek squadron in this expedition was very small; only three men were killed and two wounded. But one of the killed was James Hall, an Englishman on board the Karteria--an old sailor of a most excellent character, and possessed of considerable knowledge in every branch of his profession. He was killed by a twelve-pound shot from the battery at Tricheri. This shot, after breaking the claw of an anchor, rebounded, and, in falling, struck Hall in the pit of the stomach, and rolled on the deck, as if it had hardly touched his clothes. He fell instantly, and was taken up quite dead--the usual tranquil smile his features bore still lingering on his lips. Hall was not only a most excellent sailor, but, a truly honest man, and he was long remembered and deeply regretted by all on board the Karteria. His remains were committed to the deep, Captain Hastings reading the funeral service; for the English insisted that he would have preferred a sailor's funeral to being interred on shore in a Greek churchyard.

James Hall was the only human spirit among the rude crew of the Karteria, and after his death most of the English sailors displayed the feelings of savages. One old man-of-war's man, who had served in many a well-fought action, declared that he would kill every Turkish prisoner taken in the prizes at Volo; and he attempted one night to break into the cabin abaft the larboard paddle-box, in which some of these Turks were confined. Armed with a large knife, he proclaimed that he was determined to kill the prisoners, and he called on the other sailors to assist him. He argued, that the war with the Turks was an irregular warfare; and as the Turks killed their prisoners, on the ground that they were either rebels or outlaws, it was the duty of the Greeks to kill every Turk who fell into their power. When brought before Captain Hastings, he persisted in his determination; and though he was perfectly sober, he at last declared that he would quit the service, unless the English were allowed in future to kill the prisoners. Hastings tried to reason with him, but in vain. It was necessary to put him under arrest, and when the Kateria returned to Poros, he demanded his discharge, and quitted Greece.

The Karteria suffered very severely in her hull and rigging, from the fire of the castle at Volo, and the battery at Tricheri. She lost her jib-boom, main-topmast, gaff, and larboard cat-head, and received much other damage; so that it was necessary to proceed to Poros to give her a thorough repair. On her way, she was fortunate enough to capture four vessels laden with stores and provisions for the Turks of Negropont.

At Poros, Hastings found the affairs of the navy very little improved by Lord Cochrane's presence in Greece; and we think that we cannot convey a better idea of their state, than is contained in a letter which he addressed to his lordship on the 30th of April 1827. "It is with deep regret I see the extreme discontent on board the Sauveur brig, which seems to me to be greatly increased by, if not entirely owing to, the Greeks being paid in advance, and the English being in arrears of wages. In this country, I must repeat, my lord, nothing can be done without regular payments. By paying out of my own funds when others could not be obtained, I have established the confidence both of Greeks and English in this vessel, as far as money is concerned; but I cannot continue to pay out of my own pocket. If funds are not forthcoming, I beg leave to resign. Whilst I am on board, the people will always consider me personally responsible for their wages; and I must again remark, I have suffered already much too severely in my private fortune in this service to admit of my making further sacrifices. Besides wages for the crew, I have various expenses to repair damages sustained in the late actions at Volo and Tricheri." Captain Hastings was, however, at this time, easily induced to continue his services on board the Karteria, as the defeat of the Greek army before Athens on the 6th of May, and the departure of General Gordon, Count Porro, and several other Philhellenes, who considered the cause utterly hopeless, rendered the moment unsuitable for his resignation.

The Karteria was again fitted for sea with the greatest expedition, and joined Lord Cochrane, when he made an unsuccessful attempt to surprise and capture Ibrahim Pasha at Clarenza. Hastings was separated from the Hellas by bad weather, and in returning to the rendezvous at Spetzia, he lost two of his masts and two men, in a hurricane off Cape Malea. Shortly after his return to Poros, where he was again compelled to refit, he received the following laconic communication from Lord Cochrane, in which all mention of a rendezvous was omitted.

"_Memo._--If the Perseverance is fit for service, please join the squadron without delay.

"COCHRANE. "_Hellas, 7th June 1827._ "Captain Hastings, _Perseverance_."

In consequence of this order, Captain Hastings set out in search of Lord Cochrane. A series of fruitless cruises followed, in which every division of the Turkish fleet contrived to escape the Greeks. At last, it was resolved that an attack should be made on Vasiladhi, the little fort which commands the entrance into the lagoons of Missolonghi; and the whole fleet, under the command of Lord Cochrane in person, appeared off that place. The attempt was only persisted in for a short time, and it failed.

The treaty of the 6th of July 1827, for the pacification of the affairs of Greece, between Great Britain, France, and Russia, now became known to the Greeks; and the news stimulated both them and their friends to make increased exertions, in order that the Allies might find as much of the country as possible already delivered from the Turkish yoke. A small squadron of ten Turkish brigs having entered the Gulf of Lepanto, Lord Cochrane gave Hastings an order to pursue them, conceived in the following flattering terms:--

_Off Missolonghi, 18th Sept. 1827._

"You have been good enough to volunteer to proceed into the Gulf of Lepanto, into which, under existing circumstances, I should not have ordered the Perseverance (Karteria.) I therefore leave all the proceedings to your judgment, intimating only, that the transporting of General Church's troops to the north of the gulf, and the destruction or capture of the enemy's vessels, will be services of high importance to the cause of Greece."

Captain Hastings immediately entered the gulf, passing through the formidable strait between the castles of the Morea and Roumelia, called the Dardanelles of Lepanto, during the night. On the 29th of September, having collected his little squadron, consisting of the Karteria, the brig Sauveur of eighteen guns, commanded by Captain Thomas, and two gun-boats, each mounting a long thirty-two pounder; Hastings stood into the bay of Salona (Amphissa) to attack a Turkish squadron, consisting of nine vessels, anchored under the protection of batteries, and a large body of troops placed at the Scala of Salona. Three Austrian merchantmen in the port were also filled with armed men, in spite of the remonstrances of their masters, and assisted in defending the squadron at anchor.

About ten o'clock A.M., the Karteria, followed by the Sauveur and the two gun-boats, stood into the bay to attack this formidable position. The Turks were so confident of victory, that they were eager to see the Greek ships anchor as near them as possible. They therefore withheld their fire until Captain Hastings made the signal for anchoring. The Karteria proceeded much nearer the shore than the sailing vessels, and having anchored within five hundred yards, opposite the vessel which bore the flag of the Turkish commodore, she opened her fire. The Turks then commenced a furious cannonade from upwards of sixty pieces of artillery; but they had hardly time to reload the greater part of the guns on board their ships. Captain Hastings, before going into action, had heated several shells, thinking that sixty-eight pound shot might pass through both sides of the vessels he was about to engage so near, as they were principally constructed of fir. After firing one broadside of cold shot to make sure of the range, his second consisted of two hot shells from the long guns, and two carcass-shells from the carronades. One of these lodged in the hull of the Turkish commodore, and, reaching the powder-magazine, the action commenced by blowing up his ship.[12] A carcass-shell exploding in the bows of the brig anchored next to the commodore, she sank forward, while a hot shell striking her stern, which stood up in the shallow water, it was soon enveloped in flames. In a few minutes, another vessel was perceived to be on fire; and a fine Algerine schooner, mounting twenty long brass guns, having received a shell which exploded between her decks, was abandoned by her crew.

The battle of Salona afforded the most satisfactory proofs of the efficiency of the armament of steam-boats, with heavy guns, which Captain Hastings had so long and so warmly advocated. The terrific and rapid manner in which a force so greatly superior to his own was utterly annihilated by the hot shot and shells of the Karteria, silenced the opponents of Captain Hastings' plan throughout all Europe. From that day it became evident to all who studied the progress of naval warfare, that every nation in Europe must adopt his principles of marine artillery, and arm some vessels in their fleets on the model he had given them. In Greece the question of continuing to hire merchant ships to form a fleet was put to rest; and the necessity of commencing the formation of a national navy was now admitted by Hydriotes, Spetziotes, and Psariotes.

The services of the other vessels in the Greek squadron at Salona, though eclipsed by the superior armament of the Karteria ought not to be overlooked. Captain Thomas, who commanded the Sauveur, displayed all the courage, activity, and skill of an experienced English officer; he silenced the two batteries, on which the Turks had placed great dependence, as alone sufficient to prevent the Greeks from entering the port; and by a well-directed fire of grape, he compelled the troops which lined the shore to get under the cover of the irregular ground in the neighbourhood. Hastings then made the signal for all the boats of the squadron to take possession of the Algerine schooner and the two other brigs which were not on fire.

A severe contest took place in order to gain possession of the schooner; for the fire of the Greek ships being suspended as the boats approached her, the Turkish troops sprang from their hiding-places, and rushed to the edge of the rocks, which commanded a view of her deck. From this position they opened a heavy fire of musketry on those who had mounted her sides. The fire of the gun-boats again cleared the beach; but the Turks contrived to keep up a severe fire at intervals, and Mr Scanlan, the first lieutenant of the Sauveur, was killed, and several others wounded, in attempting to get her under weigh. Captain Hastings steamed up to the schooner at last, and having got her stream-cable made fast, attempted to move her; but the cable broke, and it became evident that the falling tide in the bay had fixed her firmly on the ground. With incredible exertions her long brass guns were all saved, and she was then set on fire. Mr Phalangas, a Greek officer, the first lieutenant of the Karteria, was also wounded in setting fire to a brig anchored at some distance from the rest. The boats then concluded the day by driving the Turks from the Austrian merchantmen, and bringing out these vessels as prizes.

In this engagement nine Turkish vessels were destroyed, though defended by batteries on shore and upwards of 500 veteran troops; yet it cost the assailants only six men killed and a few wounded. In the despatch of Captain Hastings, announcing the victory, he pays a high tribute to the merits of Captain Hane, who had served with him at the siege of Nauplia in 1822, and in Crete during the campaign of 1823. "The services of Captain Hane of the artillery, serving on board this vessel, are too well known on every former occasion to make it necessary for me to say more than that I am equally indebted to him now as on other occasions."

Ibrahim Pasha was at Navarin with an immense fleet, when he heard of the destruction of his ships in the bay of Salona. Sir Edward Codrington and Admiral de Rigny had, on the 25th of September, entered into convention with him to suspend all hostilities against the Greeks until he should receive answers from Constantinople and Alexandria to the communications made on the part of the three allied powers; but neither Hastings nor the Turkish commodore in the Gulf of Lepanto were aware of this circumstance. The rage of Ibrahim when he heard of the result of the affair at Salona knew no bounds, and he determined to inflict the severest vengeance on Hastings, whose little squadron he thought he could easily annihilate.

Sir Edward Codrington, after arranging the terms of the convention, had repaired to Zante to wait the arrival of several vessels he expected, and Admiral de Rigny had left Navarin to collect the French force in the Archipelago. Ibrahim, seeing that there were no ships of the allies at Navarin capable of stopping his fleet, ordered twenty-six men-of-war to put to sea on the 30th of September. He embarked himself with this division of his fleet, determined to witness the destruction of the Greek squadron. A violent gale, however, compelled him to put back on the 3d of October; but a part of his fleet, under the command of the Patrona Bey, persisting in its endeavours to enter the Gulf of Lepanto, was pursued by Admiral Codrington, who forced it to return to Navarin, but not until he had found himself obliged to fire into several of the Ottoman ships. As the English admiral had at the time a very small force at Zante, many of the Turkish ships might, in spite of all his exertions, have escaped into the gulf, unless he had been aided in arresting their progress by a succession of gales which blew on the 4th, 5th, and 6th of October. These gales assisted Sir Edward Codrington in compelling the whole of the dispersed fleet of the Patrona Bey to seek refuge in the port of Navarin.

In the mean time the position of Captain Hastings was one of extreme danger, and Lord Cochrane, who addressed his last official communication to him on the 12th of October, conveys his parting words of praise and confidence in the following terms:--"You have done so much good, and so much is anticipated from your keeping open the communications between the shores of the gulf, that I think you would do well to remain for a while where you are. You occupy, however, a position of risk, if the reports are true regarding the fleet being off Patras; and therefore I leave you to act in all things as you judge best for the public service." Hastings, as soon as he was informed of Ibrahim Pasha's intention to attack him, and before he had received the news of his deliverance by the movement of Sir Edward Codrington's squadron, had selected the spot in which he hoped to be able to defy the attacks of the whole fleet sent against him. He chose a small bay at the eastern extremity of the Gulf of Corinth, formed in the rocky precipices of Mount Geranion, and open to the Alcyonian sea. This little bay or port is called Stravá. Its entrance is protected by two rocky islands, and it is bounded on the continent by a succession of precipices covered by pine woods, which render the debarkation of a large force in the neighbourhood very difficult. Hastings proposed to defend this position by landing four of his guns on the mainland and the islands; and he made every preparation for receiving the Egyptians with a well-sustained fire of hot shot, while a number of Greek troops were assembled to man the rocks around.

There can be no doubt that Ibrahim Pasha committed a blunder in violating the convention into which he had just entered, and his attempt at taking vengeance into his own hands, instead of appealing to the three allied powers, created great distrust on the part of the admirals. They naturally enough conceived that he would always hold himself ready to take every advantage of their absence, and their only method of effectually watching the immense fleet assembled at Navarin was by bringing their own squadrons to an anchor in that immense harbour. The battle of Navarin, on the 20th of October, was the natural consequence of the distrust on the one side, and the eager desire of revenge on the other, which rendered the proximity of the different fleets necessary. The affair of Captain Hastings at Salona, as one of the proximate causes of this great naval engagement, acquires an historical importance far exceeding its mere military results. In the eyes of the Greeks and Turks it very justly occupies a prominent place in the history of the Greek war, as it is by them always viewed as the link which connects their military operations with the celebrated battle of Navarin.

The destruction of the Turkish and Egyptian fleets delivered Greece from imminent peril; but in the exultation created by the assurance that their independence was firmly established, the Greek government began to forget the services which the Karteria had rendered in the days of their despair. No supplies of any kind were forwarded to Captain Hastings, who remained in the gulf; both Lord Cochrane and the government allowed him to remain without provisions, and his crew would have in great part quitted him, unless he had paid the men their wages from his own fortune. On the 17th of November he wrote to Lord Cochrane, urging the necessity of sending him some assistance. This letter, which remained unanswered, contains the following passages:--"I am now seven thousand pounds out of pocket by my services in Greece, and I am daily expending my own money for the public service. Our prizes are serving as transports for the army, and we must either shortly abandon this position or be paid. Without money I cannot any longer maintain this vessel. I will do all I can; but I must repeat, that it is not quite fair I should end a beggar, after all the labour, vexation, and disappointment I have experienced for so many years."

The only body of troops available for any national purpose, which had been kept together after the loss of Athens, with the exception of the corps of regular troops under General Fabvier, was that assembled by General Church on the southern shores of the Gulf of Lepanto. As soon as the battle of Navarin had paralysed the movements of the Turks, General Church determined to transport his troops from the Morea into Acarnania, where the Greek captains, who had submitted to the Turks, offered again to take up arms, if an adequate force appeared in the province to support them. The principal object which detained the Karteria in the gulf had been to assist the movements of General Church, who now resolved to cross over to Acarnania from Cape Papas. On the evening of the 17th of November, Captain Hastings received a communication from General Church, requesting him to appear off Cape Papas next day.

In order to arrive at the rendezvous in time, Hastings was compelled to quit the gulf in the daytime, and consequently to expose his own ship and the three prizes to the fire of the castles of the Morea and Romelia--an act of rashness of which he would not willingly have been guilty. The castle of the Morea mounted about sixty guns, and that of Romelia twenty-seven; those commanding the straights were of large calibre. As their fire crossed, the passage of the Dardanelles of Lepanto was always considered a dangerous enterprise; and certainly, if the batteries had been served by good artillerymen, no ship could have ventured under their fire without being destroyed. Even with the gunners of Ibrahim Pasha's army, the passage was attended with considerable risk.

The little squadron of Captain Hastings approached the castles about noon on a beautiful day. The Karteria, leading with a favourable wind, and spreading an immense extent of canvass from her four low masts, glided along with the aid of her steam at an amazing rate. Her three prizes, followed with every sail set, and two Greek misticos availed themselves of the opportunity of quitting the gulf in order to cruise as privateers between Patras and Missolonghi. The moment the Karteria came within gun-shot of the Turkish castles, they opened their fire; and for some time the balls fell thick around her--those of both castles passing over her hull, and falling beyond their mark. Several shot, however, struck her sails, and the slow and regular manner in which each gun was discharged as it came to bear, indicated that the passage was not likely to be effected without some loss. Fortunately very few shot struck the hull of the Karteria, yet the damage she received was not inconsiderable. The funnel was shot through, a patent windlass was broken to pieces, and the fragments of the iron wheels scattered about the decks like a shower of grape. Several paddles were wrenched off the starboard paddle-wheel, and one shot passed through the side near the water's edge. Two of the best sailors on board were killed by a twenty-four pound shot while working a gun on the quarter-deck. The hand of a boy was carried away by another, and yet all this loss was sustained ere the Karteria had reached the centre of the passage. At the moment when every shot was taking effect, the Turks suddenly lost the range. Every succeeding shot passed over the steamer, and she proceeded along under the fire of more than half the guns, without receiving any additional damage. The Turks were only able to reload a few guns to discharge at the rest of the squadron, which escaped uninjured.

The loss of two men killed and one wounded, distressed Captain Hastings. He was sure the Turks at Patras would soon receive an exaggerated account of the damage he had sustained, from their spies at Zante; and as this would embolden those who furnished their camp with provisions, he was extremely anxious to destroy any vessels that might be anchored at Patras, in order to convince the enemy that the Karteria was to be dreaded, even after receiving the greatest injury. A favourable opportunity fortunately offered itself of displaying the power of the steamer to Ibrahim Pasha's camp at Patras. On approaching the roadstead, a brig heavily laden was seen at anchor, which had evidently arrived the preceding night, little expecting that the Greek squadron would quit the gulf in the daytime. Hastings immediately made every preparation for cutting her out, but the Austrian consul was seen approaching in a small boat, with a flag like the ensign of a three-decker. The following dialogue took place between him and Hastings alongside the Karteria, while the Austrians in the brig were actively engaged in getting every thing ready to haul their vessel, at a moment's warning, under a battery of Turkish field-pieces placed on the beach.

_Hastings._--"As Austrian consul, you must be aware that the Greek government have been blockading Patras for some time, and that there is now a gun-boat cruising off the port."

_Austrian Consul._--"My government acknowledges no such authority as a Greek government, and, consequently, does not admit the validity of its acts."

_Hastings._--"My orders, however, are to enforce those acts. I must, therefore, request you to proceed immediately to the Austrian brig at anchor in the Harbour, and order the master to come on board with his papers."

_Austrian Consul._--"I believe I am speaking to an Englishman; and neither Austria nor Turkey being at war with England, you are bound to respect the Austrian flag."

_Hastings._--"You are speaking, sir, to an officer in the Greek service, commanding the squadron blockading Patras; and if the Austrian brig does not place itself under my protection in five minutes, I shall fire into the Turkish camp, and it will be destroyed."

In saying this, Captain Hastings took out his watch and left the consul, who vainly endeavoured to renew the conversation in order to gain time. When he quitted the Karteria, he pulled towards the shore, instead of proceeding to communicate Hastings' orders to the master of the brig. This being, apparently, a concerted signal, the greatest exertions were suddenly commence to haul the Austrian vessel under the guns of the battery.

Hastings allowed the Austrian consul five minutes to reach the shore; and as he was not inclined to expose his crew to any loss in taking possession of a prize which he could easily destroy without danger, he directed his fire against the Austrian brig. As soon as he found that he was approaching the range of the Turkish battery, he fired a few shells into it and the Austrian vessel. One of these exploding in her hull near the water's edge, tore out great part of her side, and she sank almost instantaneously, barely leaving time for the crew to escape in the long-boat.

On the 28th of November, General Church reached Cape Papas with the first division of his army, consisting of only six hundred men, which was embarked and transported to Dragomestré. Two days after, the squadron returned, and conveyed over to Romelia the remainder of the Greek troops, not exceeding seven hundred soldiers; so that General Church opened his winter campaign in Acarnania, which led to the conquest of that province, with a force of only one thousand three hundred fighting men.

While the Greek army was engaged in fortifying its position at Dragomestré, Captain Hastings resolved to attack Vasiladhi--the small insular fort commanding the entrance into the lagoons of Missolonghi and Anatolikon, which Lord Cochrane had attempted in vain to capture about three months before. On the 22d of December he anchored about three thousand yards from the fort, finding that it was impossible to bring the Karteria any nearer. For nearly a mile round Vasiladhi, the depth of the water does not exceed three feet, and the fort itself rises little more than six feet above the level of the sea. The bombardment of such a place was a delicate operation, requiring the most favourable weather, and the very best artillery practice. The first day the attempt was made, two hundred shells were fired without producing any effect. When fired _en ricochet_, they diverged to the right and left in a manner which gave Vasiladhi the appearance of an enchanted spot. Captain Hastings conjectured that this singular circumstance was owing to the shallowness of the water; the mud approaching the surface close to the fort, afforded so much more resistance to the shells which fell in its immediate vicinity, as to cause a more marked deviation in the line of their primary direction.

At the same time it was found that those shells which were fired with a charge of eight pounds of powder, at twenty-three degrees of elevation--the highest elevation that could be given to the long guns--all varied to the right, though the day was perfectly calm. This variation appeared to be caused by a strong current of air at some height above the earth's surface; but it was so irregular that it was found impossible to make any correct allowance for it; and it was singular, that any wind perceptible on the deck of the Karteria blew in the contrary direction.

For some days after this unsuccessful attempt, the weather was too stormy to think of renewing the attack; but on the 29th of December the day was perfectly calm, and the atmosphere of that transparent clearness which characterises the climate of Greece. Hastings determined to bombard Vasiladhi a second time. The first shell fired indicated that the circumstances were now favourable; and the fourth, which Captain Hastings fired with his own hand, exploded in the powder-magazine. All the boats were instantly ordered out to storm the place; but the Turks were thrown into such a state of confusion by the explosion of the powder, and the fire which burst out in their huts, that they were unable to offer any resistance; and the assailants, commanded by Captain Hane of the artillery, entered the place, seized the arms of the Turks, and set them to work at extinguishing the fire, which was spreading to the magazine of provisions, as if they had only arrived to assist their friends. There were fifty-one Turks in the fort; twelve had been killed by the explosion.

Captain Hastings ordered all the prisoners to be transported on board the Karteria; and as he could ill spare any of his provisions, and could not encumber his vessel with enemies who required to be guarded, he resolved to release them immediately. He therefore informed the Turkish commandant that he would send him to Missolonghi in a monoxylon, or canoe used in the lagoons, in order to procure two large flat-bottomed boats to take away the prisoners. The Turk, who considered this was only a polite way of letting him know that he was to be drowned or suffocated in the mud, showed, nevertheless, no signs of fear or anger. He thanked Captain Hastings for the soldier-like manner in which he had been treated, and said that, as a prisoner, it was his duty to meet death in any way his conqueror might determine. The scene at last began to assume a comic character;--for Hastings was the last person on board to perceive that his prisoner supposed that he was about to be murdered by his orders; and the Turkish commandant was the only one who did not understand that it was really Hastings' intention to send him to Missolonghi in perfect safety. When the Turk was conducted to the monoxylon, in which one of his own men was seated, in order to paddle the boat through the lagoon, he was convinced of his error, and his expressions of gratitude to Hastings were warm, though as dignified as his previous conduct.

The flat-bottomed boats arrived next day, and took away the prisoners. They brought a sheep and a sabre as a present to Captain Hastings from the Turkish commandant, accompanied by a letter expressing his regret that the commander-in-chief in Missolonghi would not allow him to come himself to visit his benefactor.

The conquest of Vasiladhi did not diminish the difficulties with which Hastings was surrounded, nor remove any of the disagreeable circumstances attendant on the neglect with which he was treated by Lord Cochrane and the Greek government. On the 7th of January 1828, he wrote to a friend in the following desponding terms:--"I am full of misery. I have not a dollar. I owe my people three months' pay, and five dollars a man gratuity for Vasiladhi. I have no provisions. I have lost an anchor and chain. If I can get out of my present difficulties, I may perhaps go into the gulf."

On the 16th of January he wrote to the Greek government, stating all the difficulties of his position, and complaining of the manner in which the Karteria had been left entirely dependent on his private resources. He wrote: "It has become an established maxim to leave this vessel without any supplies. Dr Goss has just been at Zante, and has left three hundred dollars for the Helvetia, now serving under my orders--but not one farthing, no provisions, and not even a single word, for me. Five months ago, I was eight thousand dollars in advance for the pay of my crew; and, since that time, I have only received one thousand dollars from the naval chest of Lord Cochrane, and six hundred from the military of General Church. This last sum is not even sufficient to pay the expenses incurred by the detention of our prizes in order to serve as transports for the army. I have, in addition to the ordinary expenses of this vessel, been obliged to purchase wood for our steam-engine, and provisions for the gun-boat Helvetia--to which I have also furnished two hundred dollars in money to pay the crew. The capture of Vasiladhi has cost me two thousand dollars; yet I have not taken the brass cannon in that fort, and replaced them with the iron guns of our prizes, in order to assist me in meeting my expenses."

About this time Count Capo d'Istrias arrived in Greece to assume the presidency of the republic; and Captain Hastings, as soon as he was informed of his arrival, transmitted him a very valuable letter, in which he gave a luminous picture of the state of affairs in Western Greece. This letter is particularly instructive, as it gives an admirable summary of the line of conduct which gained Hastings his great reputation in Greece. "From the hour of my receiving the command of the Karteria, I determined to break down the system existing in the navy of paying the sailors in advance, as such a practice is destructive of all discipline. The Greek government and Lord Cochrane, however, did not adopt this rule. They paid their own equipages in advance, and they left mine unpaid."

Count Capo d'Istrias, though a very able diplomatist, was not a military man; and he paid no attention to Hastings' letter. Lord Cochrane, who had long ceased to hold any communication with Captain Hastings, had, a short time previous to the arrival of Count Capo d'Istrias, suddenly disappeared from Greece, in the English yacht in which he arrived, without giving the Greek government any notice of his intention. In this state of things, it was not wonderful that the naval affairs of the country fell into the most deplorable anarchy; and the disorder became so painful to Captain Hastings, that he resigned the command of the Kateria and resolved to quit Greece.

The importance of preventing so distinguished a Philhellene from quitting Greece so shortly after his own arrival, struck Count Capo d'Istrias very forcibly, and he resolved to do every thing in his power to retain Captain Hastings in his service. To effect this, he invited him to a personal interview at Poros, in order, as he said, to avail himself of the valuable experience of so tried a friend to the cause of his country. When they met, it was easy for Capo d'Istrias to persuade Hastings to resume the command of the naval division in the Gulf of Corinth; particularly as the president promised to adopt the principles which Hastings laid down as necessary for the formation of a national navy, and engaged to follow his advice in organizing this force. Nothing, indeed, could have gratified the ambition of Captain Hastings so much as being employed in this way, since he could thus hope to raise a durable monument of his naval skill, and a lasting memorial of his service in Greece.

After commencing the formation of a naval arsenal at Poros, and laying the foundation for some superstructure of order in the naval administration, Hastings again assumed the command of the Karteria; and on the 9th of May 1828, anchored off Vasiladhi, in order to co-operate with the troops under General Church. The united forces had been directed by the president to act against Anatolikon and Missolonghi, which, it was hoped, would easily be compelled to surrender. After reconnoitring the approaches to Anatolikon, which General Church had resolved to attack first, Captain Hastings, with his usual activity, prepared rocket-frames, and brought all his boats into the lagoons. On the 15th, an attempt was made to set fire to the town by the discharge of a number of six and twelve-pound rockets; but, though many entered the place, no conflagration ensued, and the attack failed. It was then determined to bombard Anatolikon; and, under the cover of a heavy fire of shells from the batteries, and grenades from the gun-boats, to make an attempt to carry the place by storm.

The 25th of May was fixed for the assault; and Captain Hastings, who felt the necessity of enforcing order, and setting an example of courage in so important a crisis, determined to direct the attack of the naval forces in person. Unfortunately, a division of the land forces, which were totally destitute of all discipline, and not even officered in a regular manner, had been embarked in the boats of some Greek privateers, for the purpose of assisting in the attack. The real object of these troops was to try to get first into the place in order to pillage. Before the artillery had produced any effect, and before Captain Hastings had made all the necessary dispositions for the assault, these irregular troops advanced to the attack. Two officers of the marine, who commanded the gun-boats at the greatest distance from the boats of the Karteria, seeing the attack commencing, and supposing that the signal had been given by Captain Hastings, pushed forward. No alternative now remained between carrying the place, or witnessing a total defeat of a considerable part of the force under his command; Hastings, therefore, without a moment's hesitation, endeavoured to repair the error already committed, by rendering the attack as general as possible. Making the signal of attack, he led the boats of the Karteria to the assault.

The ardour of the troops who rashly commenced the attack abated, as soon as they found that the Turks received them with a well-directed fire of musketry. After some feeble attempts to approach the enemy, in which they sustained no loss, they kept their boats stationary far out of musket-shot of Anatolikon. On the other side, the boats of the Greek squadron advanced with great gallantry and steadiness; but the Turks had assembled a powerful force, which was posted in a well-protected position, and opened a severe fire on the assailants. The shallow water, and intricate channel through the lagoon, retarded the progress of the two gun-boats; and Captain Andrea, who commanded that in advance, having been killed, and some of his men wounded, his crew was thrown into disorder. Captain Hastings, pushing forward in his gig to repair this loss, was almost immediately after struck by a rifle-ball in the left arm, and fell down. His fall was the signal for a general retreat.

When the boats returned to the Karteria, the wound of Captain Hastings was examined and bandaged. By a most unfortunate accident, there was no surgeon attached to the ship at the time; one surgeon having left a few days before, and his successor not having arrived. A medical man had, however, without any loss of time, been procured from the camp on shore; and after he had dressed the wound, he declared that it was not alarming, and that the arm was in no danger. Though he suffered great pain, Captain Hastings soon began to turn his attention to repairing the loss the Greek arms had sustained. On the 28th of May, he wrote a report of the proceedings before Anatolikon, addressed to the minister of the marine; and in it he expressed the hope, that in a few days his wound would be so far healed as to allow him again to assume the direction of the operations against Anatolikon in person.

But, in spite of the favourable opinion expressed by the surgeon of the troops, it became evident that the wound was rapidly becoming worse; and it was decided that amputation was necessary. In order to entrust the operation to a more skilful surgeon than the one who had hitherto attended him, it was necessary that Captain Hastings should proceed to Zante. This decision had unfortunately been delayed too long. Tetanus had ensued before the Karteria reached the port; and, on the 1st of June, Frank Abney Hastings expired at Zante, on board the Karteria, which he had so gloriously commanded.

The moment his death was known in Greece, the great value of his services was universally felt. All hope of organizing the Greek navy perished with him; and notwithstanding the advice and assistance of the European powers, and the adoption of many plans prepared by the allies of Greece, the naval force of that country is in a much worse condition to-day than it was at the time of Captain Hastings' death in 1828. Every honour was paid to his memory. The president of Greece, Count Capo d'Istrias, decreed that his remains should receive a public funeral; and by an ordinance addressed to Mr Alexander Maurocordatos, the minister of the marine, and Mr George Finlay and Mr Nicholas Kalergy, the personal friends of the deceased, he charged these gentlemen with this sacred duty. Mr Tricoupi pronounced the funeral oration when the interment took place at Poros; and he concluded his discourse with the following words, as the prayer of the assembled clergy in the name of the whole Greek nation:--"O LORD! IN THY HEAVENLY KINGDOM REMEMBER FRANK ABNEY HASTINGS, WHO DIED IN DEFENCE OF HIS SUFFERING FELLOW-CREATURES."

But nations are proverbially ungrateful. Nearly seventeen years have now elapsed since the death of Hastings, the best and ablest Englishman who, even to the present hour, has been connected in any way with the public affairs of Greece; yet neither the Greek government nor the Greek people, though often revelling in millions rashly furnished them by their injudicious friends, have ever thought of paying their debt of gratitude to the memory of Frank Abney Hastings. While stars and ribands have been lavishly conferred on those whose power was supposed to influence the arrival of expected millions, the heirs of Hastings were forgotten. We are bound, however, to absolve a considerable portion of the nation from the charge of ingratitude and avarice, which we only thereby concentrate against the government, and the leading statesmen of the country.

When the numerous Greek sailors who had served under the orders of Hastings heard of his death, many of them happened to be at Egina. They immediately collected a sum of money among themselves, and engaged the clergy at Egina to celebrate the funeral service in the principal church, with all the pomp and ceremony possible in those troubled times. Never probably was a braver man more sincerely mourned by a veteran band of strangers, who, in a foreign land, grieved more deeply for his untimely loss.

It may appear surprising to many of our readers that we should give to the name of Hastings so very prominent a position in the history of the latter days of the Greek Revolution, when that name is comparatively unknown at home. To make this apparent, we shall endeavour to explain the manner in which the Greeks carried on their warfare with the Turks; and it will then appear that European officers were not generally likely to form either a correct or a favourable opinion of the military affairs of the country. It is not, therefore, surprising that false ideas of the state of Greece have prevailed, or indeed that they still continue to prevail, even among the foreigners long resident in the new Greek kingdom. The military operations of the Greeks, both at sea and on shore, were remarkable, not only for a total want of all scientific knowledge, but also for the absence of every shadow of discipline, and the first elements of order and subordination. The troops consisted of a number of separate corps, each under its own captain, who regulated the movements, and provided for the supply of his men, from day to day. Every soldier joined his standard, and left it, when he thought fit, unless when it happened that he had received some pay in advance; in which case, he was bound in honour to remain in the camp for the term he was engaged. With such an army, any systematic plan of campaign, and all strategetical combinations, were clearly impossible; and when they have been attempted by the different European officers who have commanded the Greeks, they have invariably ended in the most complete defeats the Greeks have ever sustained. So entirely were the operations of the war an affair of chance, that the mountain skirmishes, in which the Greek troops excelled, were usually brought on by accident.

In such an army, it is evident that the services of many an able officer would be useless. A Greek general could only acquire and maintain a due influence over his troops by taking a rifle in his hand, and bounding over the rocks in advance of his soldiers. The best general, therefore, in the estimation of the soldiers, was the officer who could run fastest, see furthest, and fire with truest aim from behind the smallest possible projection of a rock. In cases where it became absolutely necessary to enforce obedience to an order, the captain required to be both able and willing to knock down the first man who dared to show any signs of dissatisfaction with the butt of his pistol. Many excellent European generals were not competent to emulate the fame to be gained in such a service.

Matters were very little better in the fleet. The sailors were always paid in advance, or they refused to embark; if on a cruise, when the term for which they had been paid expired, they always returned home, unless prevented by an additional payment. While at sea, they frequently held councils to discuss the movements of their ships, and repeatedly compelled their captains to alter the plans adopted by the admiral; and sometimes they have been known to carry their ships home in defiance of their officers. Even the brilliant exploits of the fire-ships which destroyed the Turkish three-deckers, were entirely performed by volunteers, and are rather due to the daring courage of Kanaris, and a few other individuals, than to the naval skill of the Greek fleet. In the latter years of the war, when the Turks and Egyptians had, by the exertions of Sultan Mahmoud and Mohammed Ali, made some small progress in naval affairs, the fire-ships of the Greeks failed to produce any important results.

Captain Hastings, observing the total difference between Greek and European warfare, avoided the error into which foreigners generally fell, of allowing their authority to be mixed up with that of others, over whose actions they could not exercise any efficient control. Instead of seeking a command, the imposing title of which might flatter his vanity, and impose on the rest of Europe, Hastings steadily refused to accept any rank, or place himself in any command, where he would have been unable to enforce obedience to his orders. By this means, and by the sacrifice of very large sums of money from his private fortune, in paying not only the men, but even all the officers who bore commissions on board the Karteria, he was enabled to maintain some order and discipline in that vessel. Though he was at the head of the smallest detached force commanded by a foreigner in Greece, there can be no doubt that, of all the foreigners who have visited Greece, he rendered the greatest service to the cause of her independence. At the same time, it is not wonderful that all other foreigners have felt but little inclined to give the due meed of praise to a line of conduct which they have never had strength of mind to imitate.

It may be observed here, that the naval operations of Captain Hastings possess considerable interest in connexion with the modern history of maritime warfare in Europe. The Karteria was the first steam-vessel armed with long sixty-eight pounders; she was the first vessel from which eight-inch shells and hot shot were used as ordinary projectiles. And this great change in the employment of destructive elements of warfare was introduced by Captain Hastings among a people where he had to teach the first principles of military discipline. Yet he overcame every difficulty; and with very little assistance, either from the Greek government, or the officers who were his superiors in the Greek navy, he succeeded in giving all the naval powers of Europe a valuable practical lesson in marine artillery. Great Britain is especially called upon to acknowledge her obligations to Captain Hastings. She has imitated the armament of the Greek steam-frigate Karteria in several vessels; and though the admiralty have doubtless added many improvements in our ships, we are only the more explicitly bound to recognise the debt of gratitude we owe. By rendering naval warfare not only more destructive, but at the same time making it more dependent on a combination of good gunnery and mechanical knowledge with profound naval skill, he has increased the naval power of Great Britain, where all these qualities are cultivated in the highest degree. At the same time, the civilized world is indebted to him for rendering battles so terrible as to be henceforth less frequent; and for putting an end to naval warfare as a means of amusing kings, and gratifying the ambition of princely admirals, or vain-glorious states.

In concluding this sketch of the biography of Hastings, we regret that we have to record the death of Colonel Hane of the Greek army, so long his companion during the war, and who is so often and so honourably mentioned in his despatches as Captain Hane of the artillery. His death is another blot on Greece, and on what is called the English party in Greece, by whom he was treated with the greatest neglect. Colonel Hane was removed from active employment in 1842, when King Otho placed many Philhellenes and Greeks on a trifling pittance of half-pay, in order to retain a number of Bavarian officers in his service, who were richly endowed with staff-appointments. As a Philhellene, a constitutionalist, and an Englishman, it was natural that Colonel Hane should be treated with the utmost severity by the court and the Bavarian administration.

The adoption of the constitution on the 15th September (3d O.S.) 1843, caused all the Bavarians to be dismissed from the Greek service; but there were so many Greeks more eager in their solicitations for appointments than Colonel Hane, and ministers are always so much more ready to listen to the claims of their party than their country, that the title of a stranger to the gratitude of Greece was easily forgotten. When Mr Alexander Maurocordatos, however, became prime-minister, his subserviency to English diplomacy was supposed by many to indicate a feeling of attachment to English views, and an esteem for the English character. Under this impression, Mr Bracebridge, Dr Howe, and Mr George Finlay, solicited Sir Edmund Lyons to exert his influence to prevent an Englishman, who, for twenty-three years, had served Greece with courage and fidelity, from dying of absolute want. Mr Maurocordatos gave Sir Edmund Lyons some promises, but those promises were never fulfilled; and Colonel Hane died of a broken heart at Athens, on the 18th of September 1844, leaving a young wife and three children in the most destitute condition.

It was well known to every body in Athens, from King Otho to the youngest soldiers in the army, that Colonel Hane had for some time suffered the severest privations of poverty, which he had vainly endeavoured to conceal. That his last hours were soothed by the possession of the necessaries of life, was owing to the delicacy with which Dr Howe and Mr Bracebridge contrived to make the assistance they supplied as soothing to his mind, as it was indispensable for the comfort of his declining health.

Frank Abney Hastings, the hero who commanded the Karteria, and John Hane, the gallant officer who fought by his side, now rest in peace. Two volunteers, their friends and companions in many a checkered scene of life, still survive to cherish the memory of the days spent together on board the Karteria. One has acquired a wide-extended reputation in America and Europe, by the intelligence, activity, and we may truly say genius, with which he has laboured to alleviate the sufferings of humanity. But for an account of Dr Howe's exertions to extend the blessings of education to the blind, the deaf, and the dumb, we must refer to Dickens' _American Notes_. The other still watches the slow progress of the Greeks towards that free and independent condition of which these friends of their cause once fancied they beheld the approaching dawn. We may, therefore, allow the names of Hastings, Hane, Howe, and Finlay, to stand united on our page--

"As in this glorious and well foughten field They stood together in their chivalry."

_Edinburgh: Printed by Ballantyne and Hughes, Paul's Work._

Footnotes:

[1] An offspring created without a mother.

[2] "There is no one now thinks of reading Montesquieu," said the Marquis of Mirabeau, author of _L'Ami des Hommes_, and a distinguished economist, to the King of Sweden, in 1772, at Paris.--See _Biog. Univ._ xxix. 89.

[3] This is still the case in some parts of England, according to the custom called Borough-English, Blackstone, ii. 93. Duhalde mentions that a similar rule of descent prevails among some of the Tartar tribes whom he visited on the frontiers of China: a curious indication of the justice of Montesquieu's speculation as to its origin.

[4] We were once told by Mr West, the president, that the reading of Richardson, (to use his own words,) "lighted up a fire in his breast that had never been extinguished; and that he had in consequence, and contrary to the wishes of his friends and relatives, who were Quakers at Philadelphia, resolved to become a painter." By a very curious circumstance, this identical volume is now in our possession, the legacy of the very man, whose history is worth relating, who lent it to Mr West when a boy.

[5] Fuseli objects that the principal figures and chief action in the _Raising of Lazarus_, by Sebastian del Piombo, are crowded into a corner. He would have had them "pyramid;" so does received quackery overpower the judgment of men of sense, and acute reasoning.

[6] CHANT.

The Theatines' commandments ten Have less to do with saints than men.

_Chorus_.--Tra lara, tra lara.

1--Of money make sure. Tra lara, &c. 2--Entrap rich and poor. 3--Always get a good dinner. 4--In all bargains be winner. 5--Cool your red wine with white. 6--Turn day into night. 7--Give the bailiff the slip. 8--Make the world fill your scrip. 9--Make your convert a slave. 10--To your king play the knave.

_Chorus._--Those ten commandments make but _two_-- All things for _me_, and none for _you_. Tra lara, tra lara.

[7]

Breeders of all foreign wars, Breeders of all household jars, Snugly 'scaping all the scars.

Worshipp'd, like the saints they make; Tyrants, forcing fools to quake; Grasping all we brew or bake.

All our souls and bodies ruling, All our passions hotly schooling, All our wit and wisdom fooling.

Lords of all our goods and chattels, Firebrands of our bigot battles. When you see them, spring your rattles.

Shun them, as you'd shun the Pest; Shun them, teacher, friend, and guest; Shun them, north, south, east, and west.

France, her true disease has hit; France has made the vagrants flit; France has swamp'd the Jesuit.

[8] _The Discovery of the Science of Languages._ By MORGAN KAVANAGH. London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans. 1844.

[9] The poets are a little at variance, and do not all celebrate the _same_ wine--(as some of us like Port, and some Madeira)--some, doubtless, dealt with better wine-merchants than others. Poets have the privilege of celebrating plain women, and wine that nobody else can drink. Redi talks of Monte Fiascone and Monte Pulciano--both _raisin_ wines to English or French stomachs. _Florence_ had no fame in those days, and _now_ makes by far the best wine in Italy--give _us_ good _Chianti_, and none of your Aleatico or Vino Santo. At Rome, there is not a flask of any thing fit to drink; and we recollect when bad _Spanish wine_ was brought up the Tiber to meet the deficiency. _Orvieto_ is far from wholesome; yet, in Juvenal's time, _Albano_ furnished a wine of superlative quality.

"_Albani_ veteris pretiosa senectus;"

the same passage denouncing _Falernian_ by the epithet of _acris_--a wine, he says, to _make faces at_. Again, _Cuma_ and _Gaurus_--the privilege of drinking those wines was for the _rich only_--are now the common drink of the peasants who cultivate them.

"_Te_ Trifolinus ager _fecundis vitibus_ implet, Suspectumque jugum _Cumis_, et _Gaurus inanis_."

The _vinum Setinum_, wine fit for patriots to drink "on the birthdays of Brutus and Cassius," was never heard of by a subject of the _Pope_, nor would be worth above a _paul_ a flask. But the day is far off when Italy will quaff a generous goblet on any such solemnity, or pour out a cup

"Quale coronati Thrasca, Helvidiusque bibebant, Brut rum et Cassî natablibus."

[10] During the dissensions of the Regency and the _corps diplomatique_, old Kolocotroni, who was then confined in the fortress above the town of Nauplia, once remarked--"These Franks abuse us for quarrelling, but"--and here he threw out his right hand with the fingers wide apart towards the town of Nauplia below him, exclaiming, [Greek: na], with true Greek energy--"they worry one another like dogs--to unshame us." [Greek: Trôgountai san schulia dia na mas exentropiasan.]

[11] Published by RIDGWAY. 1828.

[12] In a description of the engagement, forwarded by the Austrian consul at Patras to the consul-general in the Ionian islands, which was captured by the Greeks, the following is the account given by the Austrians:--"Il commandante della flottiglia Ottomana con terzo del Vapore andò per aria, avendogli questo gettato una granata in Santa Barbara."

Transcriber's Note: The original text included Greek characters. For this text version these letters have been replaced with transliterations set off by [Greek: ] tags.

Misprints corrected: "Lairisse" corrected to "Lairesse" (page 429) "sb ject" corrected to "subject" (page 464) unnecessary leading "ac-" removed (page 466) "head" to "heard" (page 480) "ruler" corrected to "rule" (page 497)

Additional spacing after some of the poetry and block quotes is intentional to indicate both the end of a quotation and the beginning of a new paragraph as is in the original text.