CHAPTER IV.

"Stand back, thou manifest conspirator: Thou that contrivedst to murder!" SHAKSPEARE.

"Farewell, my lord! Good wishes, praise, and prayers, Shall Suffolk ever have of Margaret. Farewell, sweet madam!" _Idem._

In a small room on the first floor of the old house occupied by the Jew druggist, sat Otmar once more, on the evening of the important day which had decided the fortunes of Maria Theresa. He had returned to the temporary home from which he had been so inhospitably driven, in order to direct the removal of his scanty baggage, and the few relics that reminded him of happier times, and the brighter days of his childhood, and which, during the day, his old attendant had collected together.

The room was wainscoted with blackened oak, the sombre shades of which were unrelieved by any ornament; and at a table, near the heavy casement-window, a part of which was open, rather to admit the fading light of day into the dark apartment than the autumn air of the chill evening, sat the young noble, tracing slowly the lines of a letter, which he seemed to compose with difficulty, and not without many a hesitation and many a heavy sigh.

Upon a packed portmanteau, in the middle of the room, sat Farkas, puffing from a short pipe small clouds of smoke, which issued in regular but uneasy jerks from beneath his thick overhanging moustache. From time to time he nodded his head impatiently, with a sideward movement, and murmured between his teeth, without interrupting his employment, words that accompanied his intermittent puffs, like the distant rumbling which follows the smoke of the cannon on the far-off battle-field.

"_Teremtette!_" he muttered angrily. "I shall not be easy until I am quit of this den of the old hyena, who has turned my lord out of doors like a gipsy beggar-boy--and why? The foul fiend only knows. I should like to wring the old ruffian's neck for him, like a carrion-crow, _eb adta_!"

At length the young noble threw down his pen.

"It is done!" he exclaimed with a sigh. "I have written to the old advocate at Buda to send me the papers I require. I must not think on my own fortunes. My father's honour must be saved; and my own beggary shall be signed before I leave this country."

"Too honest by half to such rascals as those villanous cheating money-lenders, whoever they may be, _eb adta_!" muttered Farkas again unheard, with a vexed shrug of the shoulders.

"Is all prepared?" said Otmar, turning to his attendant.

"There is nothing but what I can take upon my own shoulders," answered the old man with a sigh; "and they are broad enough to bear twice the weight." And rising from his temporary seat, he jerked it on to his back. Then seizing up another small valise in his hand, he stood ready for departure.

"Enter the first inn, and there await my orders, whether they have room to lodge us or no; as is not probable in the confusion of the town," said Otmar. "I trust that I may yet find us other and better quarters for another night; and we can seek a home for once under nature's roof, without much detriment to our bones."

"What his lord can bear, can old Farkas also," was the attendant's sturdy answer, and he left the room.

"Farewell then," said Otmar, gazing around him. "Farewell, my poor chamber, the depositary of so many hopes and aspirations, regrets, sad thoughts, and air-built castles. Visions, bright visions of beauty and of love, have illumined thy dark walls; and they, too, have flown--flown before a stern reality, which proclaimed them folly, madness--ay, madness! They are gone for ever! But shall they not be followed by dreams of glory, of renown, of smiles from her beaming eyes to thank her champion--her friend? Yes--me, too, she has called her friend. Farewell, then, my poor chamber! Thou hast witnessed little but my wretchedness, and yet I regret thee; for her spirit--hers--the beautiful, the bright, the unknown--still hovers around thee. Fare-thee-well!"

Otmar prepared to depart; but he was still lingering to send around him a last look upon those bare walls which he had thus apostrophized, when hasty steps were heard to mount the stair, and Farkas abruptly re-entered the room.

"Quick, quick!" cried the old man. "I saw him coming up the street--him, you know--that outlandish rascal, whom you fought by the inn on the roadside, because he would have spoken ill of our Queen--God preserve her!--the same who, if your doubts prove true, was the villain who tore that cursed slip in your attila last night--the foul fiend confound him, _eb adta_! I thought I had a stronger arm--old fool that I was! Quick, quick!" And seizing Otmar's arm, he dragged him to the open window.

"It is he!" exclaimed the young noble, looking out; "the same tall form and insolent gait. Ah! he is entering the house. Hark! he is mounting the stair. God be praised, he falls into my very hands!"

In truth, footsteps were evidently ascending the staircase. Otmar and his old attendant paused to listen with palpitating interest. The next moment the door of the Jew's apartment, on the other side of the passage, was heard to open, and a voice to exclaim, "Hello! old fox, where have you hid yourself? Out of your hole, I say! I have to speak with you." Then the door closed, and all was still.

"It is the same voice!" exclaimed Otmar again. "It is he who made that foul attempt upon her liberty. Villain!" And half-drawing his sabre, he rushed towards the door of the room.

"Down with him! down with the rascal, _teremtette_!" cried Farkas, following his master in excitement.

"No, no!" said Otmar, checking his own first impulse, and catching the old man's arm. "He is a traitor and a spy! It is not for me to punish; it is for the country's laws. She bids me seek to discover him. Providence has thrown him into my hands, and enabled me to obey her behest. She would condemn me were I to take vengeance into my own hands."

"What!" cried Farkas, violently. "My lord has his enemy face to face, and hesitates to defy him to the death!"

"Peace, old man!" exclaimed Otmar; "you know not what you say. Ah! I see it all now," he continued. "He is the agent of her enemies, and is in collusion with our doctor landlord. It is here their villainous schemes are hatched."

"True! It was he--it must have been he," said Farkas in his turn, "who sat with the rascally old thief, when I entered his room the night before the last."

"Hear me, Farkas," continued the young noble. "I must away to the castle. Maria Theresa may still be there. All shall be revealed. Watch you, at some distance, in the street, that he leave not the house or escape us."

"Better split the cowardly villain's skull at once, _teremtette_!" cried the old man once more, indignantly.

"Peace, I say!" said Otmar. "Follow me, and stealthily." And with these words he left the room, followed down the stairs by his grumbling attendant, who still muttered many an angry "_teremtette!_" between his lips, unable to comprehend the hesitation of his young master, when so good an opportunity was before him of taking revenge upon "such a villainous scoundrel" as the spy.

Scarcely had they quitted the apartment, when an angle of the wainscoting, forming the door of a partially concealed closet, opened; and the form of the Jew money-lender--pale, trembling, and with haggard eyes--staggered into the room.

"Jehovah! We are lost--irretreviably lost!" he exclaimed with a choked husky voice. "Cavaliere! Cavaliere!" and he hastened, as fast as his trembling limbs would carry him, to the door. But, in spite of his agony and his alarm, his usual habits of caution, and perhaps of self-appropriation also, did not forsake him, and with the words, "That paper the young fellow wrote may tell us more!" he turned back, shuffled to the table, snatched up the letter, which Otmar had forgotten in his hurry, and then gained his room, where, seated, with gloomy and discontented brow, the Italian spy waited him.

"_Diavolo!_ Where have you been hiding, Bandini? I need your aid," exclaimed the cavaliere, as he entered. "All is ruined, if still stronger measures be not taken. My grand expedition of last night, which might have secured all at a blow, has utterly failed, through the interference of a rash young fool, who has twice crossed my path to baffle me. I myself am wounded,"--and he pointed to a bandage, partly concealed by a scarf thrown over his shoulder--"still confused, from a blow dealt upon my head by some meddling ruffian. The curses of hell blight their arms, one and all! Those traitors, too, the Hungarians, have broken every promise, to shout _Vivat!_ to that woman; because she shed before them a few maudlin tears. Weak fools! weak fools! and that they call enthusiasm! They promise her supplies of men and money. My schemes are ruined--my services all naught--your hopes of reward utterly gone, Master Bandini--utterly gone, do you hear?--if some great _coup-de-main_ be not yet tried. There! look not so pale and frightened, man, with that ugly wo-begone face of yours. There are yet means that may be used."

"But we are lost--lost!" stammered the Jew, shaking in every limb, and struggling in vain to speak.

"Lost! Not yet!" replied the Italian scornfully "whilst I have yet a head to scheme, and a bold heart to execute."

"We are lost, I tell you. All is discovered. We are betrayed!" cried the Jew. "That young fellow--in yonder room--alas! he knows all. We must fly--conceal ourselves."

"How now, man?" exclaimed the cavaliere, in his turn springing up in alarm.

"I had driven him from the house, at your desire," stammered Bandini, panting for breath; "but he returned to seek his baggage. They had both been absent, master and man; and I had thought to look after my own poor goods and chattels in the room"--

"Or to that which you could lay your hands upon, old thief--I know you. But proceed! What means this tale?" said the spy.

"Jehovah knows you speak not true!" continued the Jew. "But they came back suddenly and unawares. I feared they might think evil of me, if they found me there; and I concealed myself in the closet. I heard all!"

"All!--all what? Speak, man!" exclaimed the Italian furiously.

"He is the same--the same of whom you spoke just now," pursued the old man, trembling. "He who wounded you last night. He recognised you as you entered. He knows all. He is gone up to the castle to betray us. Oh! I am a lost man--a lost man!" and the Jew wrung his hands bitterly.

"Betrayed!" cried the spy--"gone, to the castle! Ten thousand devils drag him down to hell! Which way did he go? What did you hear? Speak, man!--speak, I tell you." And he shook the old man violently by the collar.

"He will probably mount to it by the shorter ascent, along the Jews' street," gasped forth Bandini with difficulty.

"And is there no quicker way?" exclaimed the Italian hurriedly.

"By the lane opposite," stammered the Jew breathlessly. "Turn to the left--mount the crooked street--you will find yourself opposite to the garden, behind my old friend Zachariah's house. On passing through it, you are at the upper end of the Jews' street, and near the castle plain."

"There is no time to be lost!" cried the spy, flinging his hat upon his head. "My pistols are primed and loaded," he continued, feeling in an inner pocket of his coat. "I shall be there before him. He must die. The same passage will favour my escape. Ah! it is you rascal of a Jew, villainous miser, who are the cause of all! Dearly shall you repay me this!" And seizing the old money-lender by the throat, he nearly throttled him, and, when he was almost black in the face, flung him with violence into a corner of the room.

As the Italian disappeared, the old man raised himself, with difficulty, from the ground.

"And such is the poor Jew's reward," he muttered, "from these Christian dogs, for all his losses, and his sacrifices, and his perils! What is to be done? If he kill the youth, I have still to fear his wrath. If he come not in time, we are undone. Every way is danger. Shall I myself turn informer? It is late--very late in the day--but yet it may be tried. Can I glean nothing from this paper that may sound like fresh and genuine information? What have we here?" he continued, rapidly scanning parts of Otmar's letter with his eye, and murmuring its contents to himself. "'I leave the country'--'But my father's honour must be covered'--'Send the papers ceding the estates'--'I am resolved to sign, although it be my utter ruin'--The name?--'Otmar, Baron Bartori.'--Merciful Jehovah!" burst forth the Jew. "It is he! It is my young man--and I knew it not--he, whose sign-manual is to convey to me the estates, in return for my poor moneys lent: and, if he sign not, the heritage goes to the next male heir; and I am frustrated of my dues. But he will be killed--die without signing. I am a ruined man--a ruined man!" And the money-lender clasped his hands in despair. "No, no--he must not die. Caracalli! Caracalli! touch him not! touch him not! He must not die, ere I have his precious sign-manual. Save him! save him! Jehovah! what shall I do? Caracalli! Caracalli!" And thus madly shouting after the Italian, the Jew rushed from his room in a frenzy of despair.

In addition to the great and winding carriage-road which leads up to the summit of the hill on which stands the castle of Presburg, there is a shorter passage to it, by a narrow tortuous street, lined with old falling houses, and paved at intervals with terrace-like stone steps to aid the steep ascent. To this street, in former times, the Israelites residing in the city were restricted as a dwelling-place, incurring heavy fine and imprisonment by daring, either openly or under a feigned name, to infringe this severe rule: and even at the present day, although this restriction has been removed, it is almost entirely occupied, either from habit or from choice, by petty and most doubtful traders of the same persuasion, and is still known under the name of the Jews' Quarter. The upper end of this steep and winding lane is terminated, between high walls, by a large old gateway, opening into the castle plain. And under this gateway it was, that the Italian spy awaited his victim. He had contrived to evade the vigilance of Farkas, by darting up a lane immediately fronting the St Michael's gate, and now, having ascertained, by a few hasty words interchanged with the Jew Zachariah, that no one answering the description of the young noble had been seen to pass, he felt assured, that, by his haste in pursuing the shorter cut from behind, he had gained an advance upon him.

The night was fast closing in, and the Italian felt himself secure from observation in the dark recess in which he lurked behind the gate. Aware that by a deed of assassinating alone he could save himself from the consequences of a revelation which not only ruined all his schemes, but placed his life at stake, he grasped a pistol in his hand, and waited firmly, with calmness which showed his long acquaintance with deeds of hazard and of crime.

He had stood some time, counting with impatience the moments, until he began to fear that the young noble had taken the longer road, when at last the sound of footsteps struck upon his ear. Looking out from the corner of the gateway in which he had concealed himself, he could plainly see, at some little distance, the form of a man, resembling that of his expected victim, mounting the stone steps of the lane between the row of walls; and he drew back, cocked his pistol, and prepared to fire at him as he passed. Presently hastier footsteps--those of a running man--sounded nearer. Had he been perceived? Was his purpose divined? Was his victim about to rush upon him? These thoughts had scarcely time to pass rapidly through his brain, when a dark form hurried round the angle of the gateway. The Italian's hand was on the lock. He fired.

A terrific cry, and then a groan, followed the explosion. A body fell. The Italian bent forward. At his feet lay the form of his associate, the miserable Jew.

"Kill him not--the sign-manual"--were the only last words that faintly met the ear of the assassin, before the blood rushed up in torrents into the mouth of the unhappy man, and choked his voice for ever.

Before the spy had a moment's time to recover from his surprise at the unexpected deed he had done, another cry of "Murder! murder!" was shouted close beside him, by a man who had run up. A strong hand grasped his arm. It was that of his intended victim.

"Assassin!" cried Otmar. "Ah! it is again he! God's will be done!"

"_Mille diavoli!_ Have at thee yet!" exclaimed the Italian, struggling to disengage himself with a strong effort, and staggering back.

Succeeding in the attempt, he drew his sword. The weapons of the two men were immediately crossed. Both fought with desperation. Already a wound on Otmar's arm had rather excited his energies than disabled him, when a crowd was seen approaching rapidly from the direction of the castle. Some persons detached themselves from it, and ran forward, attracted by the previous cry of "murder," and the clash of arms. The cavaliere felt that he was lost, if he made not a fearful effort to disengage himself at once from his antagonist, and made a violent lunge at Otmar. The active young noble swerved aside. The sword passed him unscathed, and the next moment his sabre descended on to the Italian's head. With a fearful curse, the spy staggered, reeled backward, and fell to the ground.

When the persons from the castle hurried up, they found the young noble standing by his prostrate foe, and leaning upon his sabre--his cheek already pale from the loss of the blood which streamed from his wound. Before, in the confusion, much explanation could be asked or given, others of the approaching party had come up: at an order issued, a sedan chair, borne by eight men, was set down under the gateway; a female form issued from it, and, in spite of the opposition of those about her, Maria Theresa advanced through the crowd.

"What has happened? Who disturbs the peace?" she exclaimed, coming forward with that courage she evinced on all emergencies.

"Retire, I beseech you, to your chair, madam, and allow yourself to be carried on," said the young Prince Kaunitz, who formed one of the suite. "This is no sight for a woman, and a queen." And he interposed his person between his sovereign and the bodies of the Italian and the Jew.

"Permit me, prince," said Maria Theresa, waving him aside; for she had now caught sight of the pale face of Otmar, brightly illumined by the lighted torches which some of her attendants bore to light her on her way, upon her evening transit from the castle to the primate's summer palace.

"You, my young champion, here!" she cried, with tones of evident anxiety, stepping forward. "What has happened? In God's name, what is this? You are not hurt, sir?"

"Only a scratch, so please your majesty," replied Otmar; "and happy and proud I am that I should have gained it in your service."

"Tell me what has passed? How do I find you here? Who is this man?" continued the young Queen, glancing slightly at the form of the prostrate Italian.

"It is the same villain who has already dared to lay his hand upon the sacred person of your majesty," said the young noble proudly. "Chance led me to his discovery. I was hurrying to seek my Queen, to obey her orders. The wretch--I know not how--was beforehand with me. He would have waylaid me, as I must suppose. Another, who passed me at the moment, was his victim. I attacked him; and there he lies. I know no more."

"And who is that poor man?" said Maria Theresa, pointing to the body of the Jew.

Some of her attendants raised up the corpse.

"I recognise him," said Otmar. "He was the accomplice of that fellow. God's justice has fallen on him by the hand of his own confederate. But how, is still to me a mystery."

"The other still lives," exclaimed the voices of some, who had now lifted up the form of the Italian.

"Let him be conveyed to the castle," commanded the Queen. "Every inquiry shall be instituted in this affair. Let justice take its course upon the spy and traitor."

The Italian was conveyed away.

"But you are hurt, noble youth. Your cheek grows paler still," cried Maria Theresa. "Help there! Bring water! quick! He may be dying."

"It is nothing!" said Otmar, with sinking voice and failing senses. "A little faintness! I shall be better soon. A smile from you will repay all!"

His head whirled, and he fell back into the arms of the bystanders.

In spite of the alarm of the young Queen, a deep blush overspread her countenance at these last words.

"Ah! should it be so!" she murmured to herself; and, after casting a long look upon the form of the handsome youth before her, she bent her head to the earth.

Water was quickly brought from a neighbouring house. In spite of the increasing crowd attracted to the spot, Maria Theresa disdained not to bathe with her own hands the temples of the fainting man. Snatching a perfumed handkerchief from the hand of Kaunitz, she bound it tightly on the young noble's arm. In a short time, he once more opened his eyes. Water was given him to drink; and he again was able to stand, weakly, on his feet.

"You--my Queen. You have deigned--to look upon your poor subject-to tend him"--he stammered faintly, as his eyes fell upon the lovely face before him. "You--the noble--the beautiful--the beloved"--

"Hush! hush, sir," interposed the young Queen hurriedly. "You must not speak now. Your brain wanders. You shall be conveyed to the castle, and tended there. As soon as you are fully recovered, a post is ready for you with the army. You must leave us forthwith. Be brave, be gallant, be noble, as you have ever shown yourself; and, perhaps, hereafter"--

She checked herself; with a sigh, and turned away her face.

"Yes--away from here! I must away," said Otmar. "The army, the battle-field, glory, renown, must be my only thoughts." And, sinking his head on his heart, he murmured lowly--

"_Moriamur pro Rege Nostro._"

CONCLUSION.

It is well known in history, that the rising of the Hungarian saved the falling fortunes of Maria Theresa. The enthusiasm of this sensitive and energetic people, once awakened, knew no bounds. All the country nobles, with their followers, took up arms. Croatia alone supplied twelve thousand men. Immense sums of money, to support the army, were offered by the clergy; and, out of the most distant provinces, sprang up, as the soldiers sown by the teeth of Cadmus from the earth, those countless savage hordes, who under the name of Pandours carried terror into every part of Europe. From the moment of the "insurrection," as it is called, of the Hungarian nobility, the aspect of affairs began to change. The Elector of Bavaria, who, to the grief of Maria Theresa, had received the imperial crown of Germany, so long in the possession of the House of Hapsburg, chiefly by the influence of French intrigues, under the name of Charles the Seventh, was driven from his States. England and Holland were won over to the cause of the persecuted Queen; and both, especially the former, lent her large sums. The whole British nation was interested in her favour. The English nobility, instigated by the Duchess of Marlborough, offered her a subscription collected to the amount of a hundred thousand pounds; but this sum Maria Theresa nobly refused, accepting nothing that was not granted to her by the nation in Parliament assembled. By the valour of Hungarian arms, the French were at length driven out of Bohemia; and what still more contributed to the peace shortly after obtained from a great portion of the Queen's enemies, was the result of the bloody field of Hanau, which turned out entirely to the advantage of Maria Theresa and her noble allies, and at which half of the _noblesse_ of France was either killed or wounded.

It was shortly after this great battle, in which so many bold spirits fell on either side, that a catafalk was erected at the upper end of the middle aisle belonging to the glorious Gothic Church of St Stephen's in Vienna. The service for the dead had been performed with pomp. The priests had retired from the aisle. But still, upon the steps, covered with black cloth, and illumined from above by many wax-lights, knelt two personages. The one was a female, dressed in deep mourning, who appeared to be praying fervently. A group of attendants, both male and female, in the attire of the court mourning of the day, stood at a little distance from her. The other was an old man, in a well-worn hussar dress, who had thrown himself forward on to the upper step, upon another side of the catafalk, and had buried his face in his hands. At length the female rose, gave a last look at that dark mass, which concealed a coffin, and, within, a corpse; and then, drawing her veil over her face, moved slowly towards a side-door, followed by her attendants, with a respect paid only to a royal personage. A crowd of beggars surrounded the door, where an Imperial carriage waited; and distributing the contents of a heavy purse among them, the lady said, with broken voice,

"Pray for the soul of Otmar, Baron Bartori, who died in battle for his Queen."

MESMERIC MOUNTEBANKS.

In an age of utilitarian philosophy and materialism, we are proud to stand forth as the champion of he Invisible World. MAGA and MAGIC are words which we cannot dissociate from one another, either in sound or in affection. The first was the mistress of our youth--our literary mother--our guide and instructress in the paths of Toryism, good-fellowship, and honour. Fain would we hope that, in maturer years, we have rendered back to the eldest-born of Buchanan some portion of the deep debt of gratitude which from our childhood upwards we have incurred. We have ever striven to comport ourselves in sublunary matters as beseemeth one who has sat at the feet of Christopher, imbibed the ethical lore of a Tickler, and received the sublimest of peptic precepts and dietetic instruction from the matchless lips of an Odoherty. Her creed is ours, and no other--the bold, the true, and the unwavering--and when we die, bewept, as we trust we shall be by many a youth and maiden of the next generation, we shall ask no better epitaph for our monument than that selected by poor John Keats, though with the alteration of a single word--"HERE LIETH ONE WHOSE NAME IS WRIT IN MAGA."

Magic, however--not Maga--is the theme of our present article; nor do we scruple at the very outset to proclaim ourselves a devout and fervent believer in almost every known kind of diablerie, necromancy, and witchcraft. We are aware that in the present day such confessions are very rare, and that when made by some reluctant follower of the occult faith, they are always accompanied with pusillanimous qualifications, and weak excuses for adherence to opinions which, in one shape or another, pervade the population of Christendom, and pass for current truth throughout the extensive realm of Heathenesse. So much the better. We like a fair field and no auxiliaries; and we are here to do battle for the memory and fair fame of Michael Scott, Doctor Faustus, and the renowned Cornelius Agrippa.

Sooth to say, we were born and bred long before Peter Parley had superseded the Fairy Tales, and poisoned the budding faculties of the infancy of these realms with his confounded philosophical nonsense, and his endless editions of _Copernicus made Easy_. Our nurserymaid, a hizzie from the Upper Ward of Lanarkshire, was a confirmed and noted believer in dreams, omens, tatie-bogles, and sundry other kinds of apparitions. Her mother was, we believe, the most noted spaewife of the district; and it was popularly understood that she had escaped at least three times, in semblance of an enormous hare, from the pursuit of the Laird of Lockhart's grews. Such at least was the explanation which Lizzy Lindsay gave, before being admitted as an inmate of our household, of the malignant persecution which doomed her for three consecutive Sundays to a rather isolated, but prominent seat in the Kirk of Dolphington Parish: nor did our worthy Lady-mother see any reason to doubt the accuracy of the statement. For was it not most natural that the daughter--however comely--and Lizzy was as strapping a lass as ever danced at a kirn--of a woman who had the evil reputation of divining surreptitious fortunes by means of the sediment of a tea-cup--of prophesying future sweethearts in exchange for hoarded sixpences--and of milking dry her neighbours' cows by aid of cantrips and an enchanted hair rope--was it not most natural, we say, that the daughter of the witch should have been looked upon with a suspicious eye by the minister, who used annually to preach four sermons in vituperation of Her of Endor, and by the Elders, whose forefathers had turned out doggedly for the Covenant, and among whom still circulated strange and fantastic tales of bodily apparitions of the Evil One to the fugitives in the muir and the wilderness--of hideous shapes, which disturbed the gathered conventicle by the sides of the lonely burn--of spells, which made the buff-coats of their adversaries impenetrable as adamant to leaden bullet or the sweep of the Cameronian steel?

Upon these testimonials, and a strong affidavit from Lizzy, that in every other earthly matter she was innocent of the slightest peccadillo, the Lily of Lanark was installed as mistress and governante of the Nursery. We were then in the days of teething, and sorely tormented with our gums, which neither for knob of poker, nor handle of kitchen-fork--the ancient Caledonian corals--would surrender their budding ornaments. We believe, therefore, that Lizzy Lindsay erred not materially from the path of truth when she signalized us as "the maist fractious bairn that ever broke a woman's heart." Night and day did we yell, with Satanic energy, from the excruciating molar pain, and little sympathy did our tears awaken in our pillow, as we lay in fevered anguish on the exuberant bosom of our guardian. Fortunately for us, in these days Daffy's Elixir was a thing unknown, else no doubt we should have received an early introduction to dram-drinking by means of the soft carminative. The fertile genius of Lizzy suggested a better spell for allaying our infant sorrows. Whenever we indulged in a more than ordinary implacable fit of screeching, she threatened us with the apparition of "the Boo-man," a hideous spectre which was then supposed to perambulate the nurseries in the shape of Napoleon-Bonaparte. In a very short while, no Saracen child ever became dumber when threatened by its mother with a visit from the Melech-Ric, than we did at the proposed coming of the dark and sanguinary phantom. For many years afterwards we believed as sincerely in the existence of this anthropophagus as in our own; and very nearly became a Bauldy for life, from having been surprised on one occasion, whilst surreptitiously investigating the contents of a jampot, by the descent of a climbing-boy into the nursery, and the terrors of his telegraphic boo! As we grew up, our nascent intellect received still more supernatural services from the legendary lore of Lizzy. She taught us the occult and mysterious meaning of those singular soot-flakes which wave upon the ribs of a remarkably ill-pokered fire--the dark significance which may be drawn from the spluttering and cabbaging of a candle--and the misfortunes sure to follow the mismanagement of the sacred salt. Often, too, her talk was of the boding death-watch--the owl which flapped its wings at the window of the dying--and the White Dove that flitted noiselessly from the room at the fearful, and then to us incomprehensible moment of dissolution. As Hallowe'en approached, she told us of the mystic hempseed, of the figure which stalled behind the enterprising navigator of the stacks, and that awful detention of the worsted clue, which has made the heart of many a rustic maiden leap hurriedly towards her throat, when in the dead of night, and beneath the influence of a waning moon, she has dared to pry into the secrets of futurity, and, lover-seeking, has dropped the ball into the chasm of the deserted kiln.

Such being the groundwork of our mystic education, it is little wonder that we turned our novel knowledge of the alphabet to account, by pouncing with intense eagerness upon every work of supernatural fiction upon which we possibly could lay our hands. We speak not now of Jack the Giant-killer, of the aspiring hero of the Beanstalk, or the appropriator of the Seven-leagued boots. These were well enough in their way; but not, in our diseased opinion, sufficiently practical. We liked the fairies better. For many a day we indulged in the hope that we might yet become possessed of a pot of that miraculous unguent, which, when applied to the eye, has the virtue of disclosing the whole secrets of the Invisible World. We looked with a kind of holy awe upon the emerald rings of the greensward, and would have given worlds to be present at the hour when the sloping side of the mountain is opened, and from a great ball, all sparkling with a thousand prismatic stalactites, ride forth, to the sound of flute and recorder, the squadrons of the Elfin Chivalry. Well do we remember the thrill of horror which pervaded our being when we first read of the Great Spectre of Glenmore, the Headless Fiend that haunts the black solitudes of the Rothemurchus Forest, whom to see is madness, and to meet is inexorable death! Much did we acquire in these days of the natural history of Wraiths and Corpse-candles-of Phantom Funerals encountered on their way to the kirkyard by some belated peasant, who, marveling at the strange array at such an hour, turns aside to let the grim procession pass, and beholds the visionary mourners--his own friends--sweep past, without sound of footfall or glance of recognition, bearing upon their shoulders a melancholy burden, wherein, he knows, is stretched the wan Eidolon of himself! No wonder that he takes to his bed that night, nor leaves it until the final journey.

Not for worlds would we have left the Grange house, which was then our summer residence, after nightfall, and, skirting the hill by the old deserted burial-ground, venture down the little glen, gloomy with the shade of hazels--cross the burn by the bridge above the Caldron pool--and finally gaze upon the loch all tranquil in the glory of the stars! Not all the fish that ever struggled on a night-line-and there were prime two-pounders, and no end of eels, in the loch--would have tempted us to so terrible a journey. For just below the bridge, where the rocks shot down precipitously into the black water, and the big patches of foam went slowly swirling round--there, we say, in some hideous den, heaven knows how deep, lurked the hateful Water-Kelpy, whose yell might be heard, during a spate, above the roar of the thundering stream, and who, if he did not lure and drown the cat-witted tailor of the district, was, to say the least of it, the most maligned and slandered individual of his race. Even in broad day we never liked that place. It had a mischievous and uncanny look; nor could you ever entirely divest yourself of the idea that there was something at the bottom of the pool. Bad as was the burn, the loch was a great deal worse. For here, at no very remote period, the fiend had emerged from its depths in the shape of a black steed, gentle and mild-eyed to look upon, and pacing up to three children, not ten minutes before dismissed from the thraldom of the dominie, had mutely but irresistibly volunteered the accommodation of an extempore ride. And so, stepping on with his burden across the gowans--which never grew more, and never will grow, where the infernal hoof was planted--the demon horse arrived at the margin of the loch where the bank is broken and the water deep, and with a neigh of triumph bounded in, not from that day to this were the bodies of the victims found. Moreover, yonder at the stunted thorn-trees is the spot where poor Mary Walker drowned herself and her innocent and unchristened bairn; and they say that, at midnight when all is quiet, you will hear the wailing of a female voice, as if the spirit of the murdered infant were bewailing its lost estate; and that a white figure may be seen wringing its hands in agony, as it flits backwards and forwards along the range of the solitary loch. Therefore, though the black beetle is an irresistible bait, we never threw a fly at night on the surface of the Haunted Tarn.

Penny Encyclopaedias, although Lord Brougham had advanced considerably towards manhood, were not then the fashion. Information for the people was not yet collected into hebdomadal tracts; and those who coveted the fruit of the tree of knowledge were left to pursue their horticultural researches at their own free will. In the days of which we write, the two leading weekly serials were the "_Tales of Terror_" and "_The Terrific Register_," to both of which we regularly subscribed. To our present taste--somewhat, we hope, improved since then--the latter seems a vulgar publication. It was neither more nor less than a _rifacciamento_ of the most heinous and exaggerated murders, by steel, fire, and poison, which could be culled from the records of ancient and modern villany. It was, in short, the quintessence of the _Newgate Calendar_, powerful enough to corrupt a nation; as a proof of which--we mention it with regret--the servant lad who ten years ago purloined it from our library, has since been transported for life. We even dare to back it, for pernicious results, against the moral influence which has been since exercised by the authors of Oliver Twist and Jack Sheppard, to both of whom the penal colonies have incurred a debt of lasting gratitude. It is true that, in point of sentiment, these gentlemen have the advantage of the Editor of The Terrific Register, but he beats them hollow in the broad delinquency of his facts. But in the Tales of Terror we possessed a real supernatural treasure. Every horrible legend of demon, ghost, goule, gnome, salamandrine, and fire-king, which the corrupted taste of Germany had hatched, was contained in this precious repository. It was illustrated also, as we well remember, by woodcuts of the most appalling description, which used to haunt us in our sleep long after we had stolen to our bed at half-past eleven punctually, in order that we might be drenched in slumber before the chiming of the midnight hour--at which signal, according to the demonologists, the gates of Hades are opened wide, and the defunct usurer returns to mourn and gibber above the hiding-place of his buried gold.

Gradually, however, we waxed more bold; and by dint of constant study familiarized ourselves so much with the subject, that we not only ceased to fear, but absolutely longed for a personal acquaintance with an apparition. The History of Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay, which shortly afterwards fell into our hands, inspired us with the ambition of becoming a practical magician, and we thirsted for a knowledge of the Cabala. We had already done a little business in the way of turnip lanterns, the favourite necromantic implements of the ingenuous Scottish youth--hideous in the whiteness of their vegetable teeth, and not unappalling when dexterously placed upon the edge of the kirk-yard wall. Electric shocks conveyed by means of the door-handles, phosphoric writings on the wall, and the mystery of spontaneous bells, were our next chemical amusements; nor did we desist from this branch of practice until we had received a most sound castigation, at the recollection of which our bones still ache, from a crusty old tutor whose couch we had strewn, not with roses, but with chopped horse-hair.

We are old enough to recollect the first representation of _Der Freischutz_, and it is an era in our dramatic reminiscences. Previously to that, we had seen a Vampire appear upon the boards of the Edinburgh stage, and after an extravagant consumption of victims throughout the course of three acts, fall thunder-smitten by an indigo bolt through a deep and yawning trap-door. But Zamiel, as then represented by Mr Lynch, completely distanced the Blood-sucker. With feelings of intensest awe, we beheld the mysterious preparations in the Wolf's Glen--the circle of skull and bone--the magic ring of light blue that flickered round it--the brazier with the two kneeling figures beside it--the owl on the blasted tree, which opened its eyes and flapped its wings with true demoniacal perseverance--and the awful shapes that appeared at the casting of every bullet! But when, as the last of them was thrown from the mould, a crash of thunder pealed along the stage, and lurid lightnings glared from either wing--when the cataract was converted into blood, and the ferocious form of Lynch stood forth as the Infernal Hunter, discharging, after the manner of such beings, two rifles at once--our enthusiasm utterly overcame us; we gave vent to an exulting cheer, and were conducted from the boxes in a state of temporary insanity.

We pass over our classical studies. We were no great dab at Virgil, but we relished Apuleius exceedingly, and considerably petrified the Rector, by giving up, as the subject of our private reading, "_Wierus de Proestigiis Demonum_." Our favourite philosopher was Sir Kenelm Digby, whose notions upon sympathy and antipathy we thought remarkably rational; so much so, that up to the present time, we recognise no other treatment for a cut finger than a submersion of the bloody rag in vitriol and water, and a careful unction of the knife. We lost our degree in medicine by citing as a case in point the wonderful cure of Telephus by the application of oxide of iron, which we held to be no specific at all, except as obtained from the spear of Achilles. This dogma, coupled with our obstinate adherence to the occult doctrines of Van Helmont, the only medical writer whose works we ever perused with the slightest satisfaction, was too much for the bigoted examinators. We were recommended to go abroad and study homoeopathy. We did so, and we swear by Hahnemann.

It is now some years since we received our first inkling of mesmeric revelation. Since then, we have read almost every work which has appeared upon the subject; and we scruple not to say that we are a profound believer in all of its varied mysteries. In it we recognise a natural explanation of all our earlier studies; and we hail with sincere delight the progress of a science which reconciles us to magic without the necessity of interposing a diabolic agency. The miracles of Apollonius of Tyana, as related by Philostratus, become very commonplace performances when viewed by the light of mesmerism. The veriest bungler who ever practised the passes can explain to you the nature of that secret intelligence which enabled the _clair-voyant_ philosopher, then at Ephesus, to communicate the murder of Domitian to his friends at the moment it took place at Rome. Second-sight has ceased to be a marvel: the preternatural powers, long supposed to be confined to Skye, Uist, and Benbecula, are now demonstrated to be universal, and are exhibited on the platform by scores of urchins picked up at random from the gutter. Even the Arabian Nights have become probable. Any perambulating mesmeriser can show you scores of strapping, fellows, reduced by a single wave of his hand to the unhappy condition of the young Prince whose lower extremities were stone. Comus was nothing more than a common Professor of the science; and Hermotimus a silly blockhead, who could not wake himself from his trance in time to prevent his wife from consigning him to the funeral pile.

The practical utility of the science is no less prodigious. Is it nothing, think you, if you have suffered a compound fracture of the leg, so bad that amputation is indispensable, to be relieved from all the horrors of the operation, from the sickening sight of the basins, the bandages, and the saw--to feel yourself sinking into a delicious slumber at the wave of the surgeon's hand, and to wake up ten minutes afterwards an unsuffering uniped, and as fresh as the Marquis of Anglesea? Is it nothing, when that back-grinder of yours gives you such intolerable agony that the very maid-servants in the attics cannot sleep o'nights because of your unmitigated roaring--is it nothing to avoid the terrible necessity of a conscious Tusculan disputation with Nasmith or Spence--to settle down for a few moments into a state of unconsciousness, and to revive with your masticators in such a condition as to defy the resistance of a navy biscuit? Or, if you are a stingy person and repugnant to postage, do you think it is no advantage to get gratis information about your friends in India through the medium of your eldest son, who, though apparently sitting like a senseless booby in your armchair, is at this moment invisibly present in the mess-room at Hyderabad, and will express, if you ask him, his wonder at the extreme voracity with which Uncle David devours his curry? Why, in that boy you possess an inestimable treasure! You may send him to Paris at a moment's notice for a state of the French funds--he will be at St Petersburg and back again in the twinkling of an eye--and if our own sight is failing, you have nothing to do but to clap the last number of the Magazine below him, and he will straightway regale your heart with the contents of the leading article.

There is a great deal of romance about Mesmerism. We have nowhere read a more touching story than that of the two consumptive sisters who were thrown into the Magic trance about the end of autumn, who lay folded in each other's arms--pale lilies--throughout the whole of the dreary winter, and awoke to life and renovated health in the joyous month of May, when the leaves were green, the flowers in bud, and the lambkins frolicking on the meadow! Read you ever any thing in novels so touching and pathetic as this? Nor is the case once recounted to us by a friend of our own, a noted mesmerizer, one whit less marvellous. In the ardent prosecution of his art, he had cast his glamour upon a fair Parisian damsel of the name of Leontine--we believe she was a laundress--and daily held conference with the dormant Delphic girl. On one occasion he left her, wrapt in the profoundest sleep, in his chamber, and proceeded to perambulate the Boulevards on his own secular affairs. On returning, he found poor Leontine suffused in tears; deep and stifling sobs disturbed her utterance, nor was it until the charmer had soothed her with a few additional passes, that she could falter out the tender reproach--"Why did you not bring me some bonbons on the shop where you eat those three ice-creams?" Our friend had not walked alone through Paris. The spirit of the loving Leontine was invisibly clinging to his arm.

Now, although we make it an invariable rule to believe every thing which we read or hear, we were not a little desirous to behold with our own eyes an exhibition of these marvellous phenomena. But somehow or other, whilst the papers told us of Mesmeric miracles performed in every other part of the world, Edinburgh remained without a prophet. Either the Thessalian influence had not extended so far, or the Scottish frame was unsusceptible to the subtle fluid of the conjuror. One or two rumours reached us of young ladies who had become spellbound; but on inquiring more minutely into the circumstances, we found that there was an officer in each case, and we therefore were inclined to think that the symptoms might be naturally accounted for. There was, however, no want of curiosity on the part of the public. The new science had made a great noise in the world, and was the theme of conversation at every tea-table. Various attempts at mesmerization were made, but without success. We ourselves tried it; but after looking steadfastly for about twenty minutes into a pair of laughing blue eyes, we were compelled to own that the power was not in us, and that all the fascination had been exercised on the other side. Nobody had succeeded, if we except a little cousin of ours--rather addicted to fibbing--who averred that she had thrown a cockatoo into a deep and mysterious slumber.

Great, therefore, was our joy, and great was the public excitement, when at length a genuine professor of the art vouchsafed to favour us with a visit. He was one of those intelligent and patriotic men who go lecturing from town to town, inspired thereto by no other consideration than an ardour for the cause of science. The number of them is absolutely amazing. Throughout the whole winter, which is popularly called the lecturing season, the dead walls of every large city in the empire are covered with placards, announcing that Mr Tomlinson will have the honour of delivering six lectures upon Syria, or that Mr. Whackingham, the famous Timbuctoo traveller, will describe the interior of Africa. They are even clannish in their subjects. The Joneses are generally in pay of the League, and hold forth upon the iniquity of the Corn-duties. The Smiths, with laudable impartiality, are divided between slavery and liberation, and lecture _pro_ or _con_, as the humour or opportunity may serve. The Macgillicuddies support the Seceding interest, and deliver facers in the teeth of all establishments whatsoever. The Robinsons are phrenological, the Browns chemical, and the Bletheringtons are great on the subject of universal education for the people. To each and all of these interesting courses you may obtain admittance for the expenditure of a trifling sum, and imbibe, in exchange for your shilling or half-crown, a considerable allowance of strong and full-flavoured information. Always ardent in the cause of science, we never, if we can help it, miss one of these seducing soirees: and we invariably find, that whatever may have been the heterodoxy of our former opinion, we become a convert through the powerful arguments of these peripatetic apostles of science.

Our new Xavier belonged to what is called the mesmerico-phrenological school. He was a man of bumps as well as passes--a disciple alike of German Spurzheim and of English Elliotson. His placard was a modest one. It set forth, as usual; the disinterested nature of his journey, which was to expound to the intelligent citizens of Edinburgh a few of the great truths of mesmerism, illustrated by a series of experiments. He studiously disclaimed all connexion with preternatural art, and ventured to assure every visitor, that, so far as he was concerned, no advantage should be taken of their attendance at his _Seance_ in any future stage of their existence. This distinct pledge removed from our minds any little scruple which we otherwise might have felt. We became convinced that the lecturer was far too much of a gentleman to take advantage of our weakness, and report us to the Powers of Evil; and accordingly, on the appointed night, after a bottle or so of fortifying port, we took our way to the exhibition-room, where Isis was at last to be revealed to our adoring eyes.

We selected and paid for a front seat, and located ourselves in the neighbourhood of a very smart bonnet, which had mesmerically attracted our eye. Around us were several faces well known in the northern metropolis, some of them wearing an expression of dull credulity, and others with a sneer of marked derision on the lip. On looking at the platform, we were not altogether surprised at the earliness of the latter demonstration. There was no apparatus there beyond a few chairs; but around a sort of semicircular screen were suspended a series of the most singular portraits we ever had the fortune to behold. One head was graced with a mouth big enough to contain a haggis, and a coronal of erected hair like a hearth-brush surmounting it left no doubt in our mind that it was intended for a representation of Terror. It was enough, as a young Indian officer afterwards remarked, to have made a Chimpanzee miscarry. Joy was the exact portraiture of a person undergoing the punishment of death by means of tickling. We should not like to have met Benevolence in a dark lane: he looked confoundedly like a fellow who would have eased you of your last copper, and knocked you down into the bargain. As for Amativeness, he seemed to us the perfect incarnation of hydrophobia. In fact, out of some two dozen passions, the only presentable personage was Self-esteem, a prettyish red-haired girl, with an expression of fun about the eyes.

In a short time the lecturer made his appearance. To do him justice, he did not look at all like a conjuror, nor did he use any of those becoming accessories which threw an air of picturesque dignity around the wizard of the middle ages. We could not say of him as of Lord Gifford,

"His shoes were mark'd with cross and spell, Upon his breast pentacle; His zone, of virgin parchment thin, Or, as some tell, of dead-man's skin, Bore many a planetary sign, Combust, and retrograde, and trine."

On the contrary, he was simply attired in a black coat and tweed terminations; and his attendant imps consisted of half a dozen young gentlemen, who might possibly, by dint of active exertion, have been made cleaner, and whose free-and-easy manner, as they scrambled towards their chairs, elicited some hilarious expressions from the more distant portion of the audience.

The introductory portion of the lecture appeared to us a fair specimen of Birmingham rhetoric. There was a great deal in it about mysterious agencies, invisible fluids, connexion of mind and matter, outer and inner man, and suchlike phrases, all of which sounded very deep and unintelligible--so much so indeed, that we suspected certain passages of it to have been culled with little alteration from the emporium of Sartor Resartus. Meanwhile the satellites upon the platform amused themselves by grimacing at each other, and exchanging a series of telegraphic gestures, which proved that they were all deep adepts in the art of masonry as practised by the youth of the Lawnmarket. The exposition might have lasted about a quarter of an hour, when sundry shufflings of the feet gave a hint to the lecturer that he had better stop discoursing, and proceed incontinently to experiment. He therefore turned to the imps, who straightway desisted from mowing, and remained mute and motionless before the eye of the mighty master. Seizing one of them by the hands, the operator looked steadfastly in his face. A dull film seemed to gather over the orbs of the gaping urchin--his jaw fell--his toes quivered--a few spasmodic jerks of the elbows showed that his whole frame was becoming Leyden, jar of animal electricity--his arms dropped fecklessly down--few waves across the forehead, and the Lazarillo of Dunedin was transported to the Invisible World!

Muttered exclamations--for the sanctity of the scene was too great to admit of ruffing--were now heard throughout the room. "Did you ever?"--"By Jove, there's a go!"--"Lord save us! but that's fearsome!"--"I say, Bob, d'ye no see him winking?" and other similar ejaculations caught our ear. Presently the operator abandoned his first victim, and advanced towards another, with the look of a rattlesnake, who, having bolted one rabbit, is determined to exterminate the warren. The second gutter-blood succumbed. His resistance to the mesmeric agency was even weaker than the other's: and, indeed, to judge from the rapidity of his execution, the marvellous fluid was now pouring in cataracts from the magic fingers of the adept. In a very few seconds the whole of the lads were as fast asleep as dormice.

Leaving them in their chairs, like so many slumbering Cupids, the lecturer next proceeded to favour us with a dissertation upon the functions of the brain. Cries of "Get on!"--"Gar them speak!"--"We ken a' aboot it!" assured him at once of the temper and the acquired information of the Modem Athenians; so, turning round once more, he pitched upon Lazarillo as a subject. So far as our memory will serve us, the following is a fair report of the colloquy.

"Are you asleep, my little boy?"

"I should think sae!"

"Do you feel comfortable?"

"No that ill. What was ye speering for?"

"Ha! a cautious boy! You observe, ladies and gentlemen, how remarkably the natural character is developed during the operation of the mesmeric trance. An English boy, I assure you, would have given me a very different reply. Let us now proceed to another test. You see, I take him by the hand, and at the same time introduce this piece of lump sugar into my own mouth. Remark how instantaneously the muscles of his face are affected. My little fellow, what is that you are eating?"

"Sweeties."

"Where did you get them?"

"What's yeer bizziness?"

"Well, well--we must not irritate him. Let us now change the experiment--how do you like this?"

"Fich!--proots!--Ye nastie fellie, if ye pit saut in ma mooth, I'll hit ye a duff in the muns!"

"How! I do not understand you!"

"A dad in the haffits."

Here a benevolent gentleman, with a bald head and spectacles, was kind enough to act as interpreter, and explained to the scientific Anglican the meaning of the minatory term.

"Ha! our young friend is becoming a little restive. We must alter his frame of mind. Observe, ladies and gentlemen, I shall now touch the organ of Benevolence."

With an alacrity which utterly dumbfoundered us, the young hope of the Crosscauseway now sprung to his feet. His hands were precipitately plunged into the inmost recesses of his corduroys.

"Puir man! puir man!" he exclaimed with a deep expression of sympathy, "ye're looking far frae weel! Ay, ay! a wife and saxteen weans at hame, and you just oot o' the hospital!--Hech-how! but this is a weary warld. Hae--it's no muckle I can gie ye, but tak it a'--tak it a'!"

So saying, he drew forth from his pockets a miscellaneous handful of slate-pencil, twine, stucco-bowls, and, if we mistake not, gib--a condiment much prized by the rising generation of the metropolis--all of which he deposited, as from a cornucopia, at the feet of the delighted lecturer.

A loud hum of admiration arose from the back-benches. Charity is a popular virtue, as you may learn at the theatre, from the tumultuous applause of the gallery whenever the hero of the melodrama chucks a purse at the head of some unfortunate starveling. Two old ladies in our neighbourhood began to whimper; and one of them publicly expressed her intention of rewarding with half-a-crown the good intentions of the munificent Lazarillo, so soon as the lecture was over. This seemed to inspire him with a fresh accession of benevolence; for, the organ being still excited, he made another desperate attempt, and this time fished up a brass button.

"Let us now," said the magician, "excite the counter organ of Secretiveness; and, in order to give this experiment its full effect, I shall also irritate the kindred organs of Acquisitiveness and Caution."

To our great disgust, Lazarillo instantly threw off the character of Howard, and appeared in that of David Haggart. He was evidently mentally prowling with an associate in the vicinity of a stall bedecked with tempting viands, irresistible to the inner Adam of the boy.

"I say, Tam! did ye ever see sic speldrings? Eh, man--but they'd be grand chowin! What'n rock!--and thae bonnie red-cheekit aipples! Whisht-ye, man--bide back in the close-head, or auld Kirsty will see ye! Na--she's no lookin' now. Gang ye ahint her, and cry oot that ye see a mad dowg, and I'll make a spang at the stall! That's yeer sort! I've gotten a hantle o' them. Stick them into ma pouches for fear they tumble oot, and we'll rin doon to the King's Park and hide them at the auld dyke!"

"This boy," said the operator, "evidently imagines himself to be engaged in an act of larceny. Such is the wonderful power of mesmerism, and such and so varied is the peculiar idiosyncrasy of the human frame. What we call man is a shell of virtue and of vice. In the same brain are contained the virtues of an Aristides, and the coarse malignity of a Nero. I could now, ladies and gentlemen, very easily procure from this lad the restitution of his imaginary spoils, by simply exciting the organ of Justice, which at once would prompt him to a full and candid confession. But I shall prefer to develop the experiment, by slightly awakening the powerful functions of Terror, an organ which we dare not trifle with, as the consequences are sometimes calamitous. I think, however, from the peculiar construction of this boy's head, that we may safely make the attempt. Mark the transition."

The hair of Lazarillo bristled.

"Gosh, Tam! are ye sure naebody seed us! Wha's that wi' the white breeks comin' down the close? Rin, man, rin--as sure's death it's the poliss! O Lord! what will become o' ma puir mither gin they grup me! O man--let's in! let's in! The door's fast steekit--Mercy--mercy--mercy--! Tak' yeer knuckles oot o' ma neck, and I'll gie ye the hale o' them back. It wasna me, it was Tam that did it! Ye're no gaun to tak us up to the office for sic a thing as that?--O dear me--dear me--dear me!" and the voice of Lazarillo died away in almost inarticulate moaning.

This scene had so affected the nerves of our fair neighbour in the bonnet, that, out of common civility, we felt ourselves compelled to offer a little consolation. In the mean time, the stern operator continued to aggravate the terrors of poor Lazarillo, whose cup of agony was full even to the brim, and who now fancied himself in the dock, tried, and found guilty, and awaiting with fear and tribulation the tremendous sentence of the law.

"O, ma lord, will ye no hae mercy on us? As true as I'm stannin' here, it's the first time I ever stealt ony thing. O whaur's mither? Is that her greeting outside? O, ma lord, what are ye puttin' on that black hat for? Ye daurna hang us surely for a wheen wizzened speldrings!--O dear--O dear! Is there naebody will say a word for me? O mercy--mercy! Wae's me--wae's me! To be hangit by the neck till I'm deid, and me no fifteen year auld!"

"We shall now," said the operator, "conduct our young friend to the scaffold"--

"Stop, sir!" cried the benevolent gentleman in the spectacles--"I insist that we shall have no more of this. Are you aware, sir, that you are answerable for the intellects of that unhappy boy? Who knows but that the cruel excitement he has already undergone may have had the effect of rendering him a maniac for life? I protest against any further exhibition of this nature, which is absolutely harrowing to my own feelings and to those of all around me. What if the boy should die?"

"Let alane Jimsy!" cried a voice from the back row. "I ken him fine; he'll dee nane."

"I shall have much pleasure, sir," said the mesmerist, with a polite bow, "in complying with your humane suggestion. At the same time, let me assure you that your apprehensions are without foundation. Never, I trust, in my hands, shall science be perverted from its legitimate object, or the glorious truths I am permitted to display, minister in the slightest degree to the wretchedness of any one individual of the great human family. I shall now awaken this boy from his trance, when you will find him wholly unconscious of every thing which has taken place."

Accordingly, he drew forth his bandana, flapped it a few times before the eyes of Lazarillo, and then breathed lightly on his forehead. The boy yawned, rubbed his eyes, stretched his limbs, sneezed, and then rose up.

"How do you feel?" asked the operator.

"A wee stiff--that's a.'"

"Would you like a glass of water?"

"I'd rather hae yill."

"Do you recollect what you have been doing?"

"I've been sleeping, I think."

"Nothing more?"

"Naething. What else should I hae been doing? I say--I want to gang hame."

"Well, ladies and gentlemen, I think we may dismiss this boy."

Lazarillo, however, did not show any immediate hurry to depart. He lingered for a while near that edge of the platform where the two aged ladies were seated, as though some faint vaticination of the advent of half-a-crown still haunted his bewildered faculties. But the profligacy of his latter conduct had effaced all memory of the liberality with which he first dispensed his earthly treasures. His unhallowed propensity for speldrings had exhibited itself in too glaring colours, and each lady, while she thought of the pilfered Kirsty, clutched her reticule with a firmer grasp, as though she deemed that the contents thereof were not altogether safe in the vicinity of the marvellous boy. At length, finding that delay was fruitless, Lazarillo, _alias_ Jimsy, went his way.

The phrenological organs of the remaining lads were now subjected to similar experiments. These were, we freely admit, remarkably interesting. One youth, being called upon to give a specimen of his imitative powers, took off our friend Frederick Lloyd of the Theatre-Royal to the life; whilst another treated us to a very fair personification of Edmund Glover. Some youths in the back gallery began to whistle and scream, and the sounds were regularly caught up and transmitted by the slumbering mimics. A learned Pundit, who sate on the same bench with ourselves, favoured them with a German sentence, which did certainly appear to us to be repeated with some slight difference of accent. A Highland divinity student went the length of asserting that the reply was conveyed in Gaelic, which, if true, must be allowed to throw some light upon the knotty subject of the origin of languages. Is it possible that, in the mesmeric trance, the mind in some cases rejects as artificial fabric all the educated conventionality of tongues, and resumes unconsciously the original and genuine dialect of the world? We have a great mind, at some future moment of leisure, to indite an article on the subject, and vindicate, in all its antiquity, the speech of Ossian and of Adam.

We shall pass over several of the same class of experiments, such as the display of Adoration, which struck us as bordering very closely upon the limits of profanity. In justice to the operator, we ought to mention that they were all remarkably successful. We admired the dexterity with which two lads, under the savage influence of combativeness, punched and squared at each other; we were pleased with the musical talents of another boy, who varied the words, airs, and style of his singing as the fingers of the mesmerist wandered around the several protuberances of his cranium. In fact, we saw before us a human organ of sound, played upon with as much ease as a mere pianoforte. After such exhibitions as these, it was impossible to remain a sceptic.

A grand chorus by the patients, of "Scots wha hae wi' Wallace bled," under the influence of some bump corresponding to Patriotism, terminated this portion of the evening's entertainments. But all was not yet over. The lecturer informed us that he would now exhibit the power of mesmerism over the body, apart from the enchainment of the mental faculties--that is, that he would produce paralysis in the limbs of a thinking and a sentient being. We are ashamed to say that a cry of "Gammon!" arose from different parts of the hall.

"Ladies and gentlemen," said the undaunted sorcerer, "some incredulous persons seem to doubt my power. You shall see it with your own eyes. I shall now proceed to waken these boys, and submit them to the new experiment."

In the twinkling of a handkerchief they were awake and lively, and beyond a slight complaint from the pugilists of pain in the region of the abdomen, and a very reasonable demand on the part of the musician for lozenges, they did not seem at all the worse in consequence of their recent exercise. One of them was now desired to stretch out his arm. He did so. A few passes were made along it, and he remained in the attitude of a fakeer.

"That lad's arm," said he of the mysterious art, "is now as fixed as marble. He cannot take it down. Can you, O'Shaughnessy?"

"The divil a bit!" replied the Hibernian, a stout and brawny villain of some two and twenty.

"Would any gentleman like to try it?" inquired the operator.

"It's myself has no manner of objections at all!" exclaimed a stalwart medical student, springing upon the platform, amidst a shout of general exultation. "Hould yerself tight, Pat, my boy; for, by the powers, I'll twist ye like an ounce of pig-tail!"

"Tear and owns!"--replied O'Shaughnessy, looking somewhat dismayed, for the volunteer was about as stout a Connaughter as it ever was our fortune to behold. "Tear and owns! it isn't after breaking my arm you'd be at? Och wirra! Would ye take a dirty advantage of a decent lad, and him as stiff as a poker?"

"I protest against this exhibition!" said the benevolent gentleman, in whom we now recognised a Vice-President of the Fogie Club. "The shoulder of the man may be dislocated--or there may be a fracture of the ulna--or some other horrid catastrophe may happen, and we shall all be prosecuted for murder!"

"And am I not here to set the bone!" demanded the student indignantly "Give us a hould of ye, Pat, and stand firm on your pins, for I'll work ye like a pump-handle."

So saying, he closed with O'Shaughnessy. But that wary individual, whilst he abandoned his arm to the student, evidently considered himself under no obligation to forego the use of his legs. He spun round and round like a teetotum, and stooped whenever an attempt was made to draw him down, but still the arm remained extended.

"You see, ladies and gentlemen!" said the operator, after the scuffle was over--"You see how the power of the mesmeric fluid operates above the exertion of physical force. This amazingly powerful young gentleman has totally failed to move the arm one inch from its place."

"I'd move it fast enough, if he'd only stand still," replied the student. "I'll tell you what. I look upon the whole thing as egregious humbug. There's my own arm out, and I defy either you or Pat to bring it down!"

"Excuse me, sir," replied the mesmerist with dignity--"We do not meet here to practise feats of strength, but to discuss a scientific question. I appeal to this intelligent individual, who has taken so distinguished a part in the interesting proceedings of this evening, whether I am in any way bound to accept such a challenge."

"Certainly not--certainly not!" said the Vice-President, delighted with this appeal to his understanding.

"You hear the remark of the gentleman, sir," said the mesmerist. "May I now beg you will retire, and permit me to go on with the experiments?"

"Take it all your own way, then," replied the student, reluctantly retiring from the platform; "but as sure's I am out of purgatory, that lad's arm was no more fixed than your tongue!"

This slight episode over, the work went on accordingly. Paralysis flourished in all its shapes. One lad was spellbound to the floor, and could not move a yard from the spot, though encouraged to do so by an offer of twenty pounds from the liberal and daring artist. What effect the superadded security of the Vice-President might have had upon the patient's powers of locomotion, we really cannot say. Another, as he assured us, was utterly deprived of sight by a few cross passes of the operator--a third was charmed into dumbness--whilst a fourth declared his readiness to be converted into a pin-cushion; but was, at the intreaty of some ladies and our benevolent acquaintance, exempted from that metamorphosis, and merely endured, without murmuring, a few nips from the fingers of the lecturer.

This closed the _seance_. We moved a vote of thanks to the Mesmerist for his gratifying exertions, and then retired to our Club to meditate upon the subject over a comfortable board of pandores. A few days afterwards, we met our friend the young Indian officer in Prince's Street.

"I say, old fellow," quoth the Jemadar, "that was a confounded take-in the other night."

"What do you mean?"

"Why, that magnetizing nonsense. Not a soul of then was asleep after all."

"Do you wish me to disbelieve the evidence of my own senses?"

"You may believe whatever you like; I only wish you had been with us last Tuesday at a meeting we held in the Cafe. If you've got any tin about you, and don't mind standing an ice or so at Mrs Stewart's, I'll tell you all about it."

Our desire for truth overcame our habitual parsimony. We led the way into the back saloon, and at a moderate expenditure became possessed of the following particulars:--

"You see," said the Jemadar, sipping his cherry bounce, "there were a lot of clever fellows sitting near me the other night, and I made out from what they said that they were by no means satisfied with the whole proceeding. Now, as I have seen a thing or two in India, where, by Jove, a native will make a mango-tree grow out of a flowerpot before your eyes, and bear fruit enough in a few months to keep a large family for a year in pickles--and as I knew all about snake-charming, the singeing of tiger's whiskers, and so forth, I thought I might be of some use to the scientific birds; so, when the meeting broke up, I proposed an adjournment and a tumbler. I looked about for you, but you seemed more agreeably occupied."

"You never were in a greater mistake in your life."

"Well--that's all one; but I thought so. They were quite agreeable, and we passed a very pleasant evening. There were two or three young advocates who went the pace in regular style, a fair sprinkling of medicos, and that Irish student who handled the humbug on the platform; and who, let me tell you, is little short of a perfect trump. We reviewed the whole experiments, quite impartially, over a moderate allowance of alcohol, and were unanimously of opinion that it was necessary, for the interests of science, to examine into the matter more closely. One of the company undertook to procure the attendance of some of those lads whom you saw upon the platform; and another, who believes in mesmerism, but scouts the idea of phrenology, was acquainted with a creditable magnetizer, who, he said, would be sure to attend. We fixed our meeting for the second evening afterwards, and then adjourned.

"When the appointed hour came, we mustered to the number of about thirty. Some scientific fellows about town had got wind of the thing, and wished to be present: to this we made no manner of objection, as it was not a hole-and-corner meeting. Of course, we took care that the lecturer should know nothing about it--indeed, he had left Edinburgh, for the purpose, I suppose, of enlightening the gallant Glaswegians; so that we had nothing to fear on the ground of secret influence. Well, sir, we elected a President, who gave his vote in favour of the postponement of beer until all the experiments were over, and had in the raggamuffins, who at their own request were each accompanied by a friend. They did not look quite easy on finding themselves introduced to such an assemblage, but native brass prevailed--they were in for it, and they durst not recede.

"After a pretty tight examination by the President as to their former experiences and sensations, which of course resulted in nothing, one of the lads--the fellow who became blind--consented to be mesmerised by his brother. The latter, a very sheepish-looking sort of journeyman, went awkwardly through the usual flummery of passes, and then ensued this dialogue.

"'Hoo are ye, Jock?'"

"'Man, I'm blind!'"

"'Can ye see naething?'"

"'Naething ava. It's jist a' blackness afore me. Gudesake, dinna keep us lang this way--it's positeevely fearsome.'"

"'Gentlemen,' said the brother, 'I hope you'll no be ower lang wi' oor Jock. Puir fallow! he's no jist a' thegether right in the nerves, and a wee thing is eneuch to upset him. Dinna handle him roughly, sir!' he continued, as one of our party commenced turning up his sleeves preparatory to an ocular demonstration; 'ye manna pit your hand upon him--it's enough to destroy the haill mesmereesin' influence, and he'll gang into a fit. Nane but the operawtor should touch him. Gin ye want to look into his een, I'se haud up the lids myself.'

"He did so; and sure enough he disclosed a couple of unmeaning grey gooseberry orbs which stared perseveringly upon vacancy. A medical gentleman approached a candle towards them without any visible effect. The urchin was perfect in his calling. He did not even shrink at the rapid approach of a finger.

"I was convinced in my own mind," continued the Jemadar, "that this was a piece of absolute humbug. The anxiety of the brother to keep every person at a distance was quite palpable, so I had recourse to stratagem to get him out of the way. We pretended to give the boy a momentary respite, and a proffered pot of porter proved a bait too tempting to the Argus of the blind. In short, we got him out of the room, and then resumed our examination of Jock, who still pled, like another Homer, to absolute want of vision.

"'This is really very extraordinary, gentlemen,' said I, assuming the airs of a lecturer, but getting carefully in the rear of patient. 'I am now perfectly convinced that this boy is, by some inexplicable means, deprived of the functions of sight. You observe that when I advance the finger of my right hand towards his right eye--so--there is not the slightest shrinking or palpable contraction of the iris. It is the same when I approach the left eye--thus. If any gentleman doubts the success of the experiment, I shall again make it on the right eye.'

"But this time, instead of probing the dexter orbit, for which he was prepared, I made a rapid pass at the other. The effect was instantaneous. A spasmodic twitch of the eyelid betrayed the acuteness of Jock's ocular perception.

"'He winks, by the soul of Lord Monboddo!' cried one of my legal acquaintances. 'I saw it perfectly plainly!'

"'Ye're leein'!' retorted Jock, whose pease-soup complexion suddenly became flushed with crimson--"'Ye're leein'! I winkit nane. It was a flea. Did ye no see that I winkit nane when ye pit the lancet forrard?'

"'Oh! my fine fellow!' replied the Advocate, a youth who had evidently picked up a wrinkle or two at circuit, 'you've fairly put your foot into it this time. Not a living soul has said a single word about a lancet, and how could you know that this gentleman held in his hand unless you positively saw it?'

"This was a floorer, but Jock would not abandon his point.

"'Ye dinna ken what mesmereesin' is,' he exclaimed. 'It's a shame for a wheen muckle chaps like you to be trying yer cantrips that way on a laddie like me. It's no fair, and I'll no stand it ony langer. Whaur's my brither? Let me gang, I say--I'm no weel ava'!' and straightway the miraculous boy girded up his loins, and flew swiftly from the apartment.

"Pat O'Shaughnessy was next brought forward to exhibit once more his unparalleled feat of rigidity. Confident in the strength of his brawny arm, the young Milesian evinced no scruples. The magnetist who had attended, at our request--a pleasant gentlemanly person--made the usual passes along the arm, and O'Shaughnessy stood out in the attitude of the Pythian Apollo.

"I tried to bend his arm at the elbow, but sure enough I could not do it. The fellow had the muscles of a rhinosceros, and defied my utmost efforts. The magnetizer now began to exhibit another phenomenon. He made a few passes downwards, and the arm gradually fell, as if there were some undefinable attraction in the hand of the operator. He then reversed the motion, and the arm slowly ascended. Being quite convinced that in this case there was no collusion, I said a few words to the operator, who then took his post _behind_ the giant carcase of the navigator. A friend of the latter, who was detected dodging in front of him, was politely conducted to the door, and in this way the experiment was tried.

"'Now sir,' said I, 'will you have the kindness to attract his arm upwards? I am curious to see if the mesmeric principle applies equally to all the muscles.'

"'Faix!' volunteered O'Shaughnessy, 'it does that, and no mistake. Ye might make me hould up my fist on the other side of an oak door!'

"I am sorry for the honour of Tipperary. The operator, as had been privately agreed on, commenced the downward passes, when, to our extreme delight, the arm of O'Shaughnessy rose directly upwards, until his fist pointed to the zenith!

"'Beautiful!--admirable!--miraculous!' shouted half a dozen voices.

"'Now, sir, will you try if you can take it down?'

"'The magnetiser made efforts which, if successful, would have enabled O'Shaughnessy to count the number of his own dorsal vertebrae. He didn't seem, however, to have any such passion for osteology. The arm gradually declined, and at last reposed passively by his side. A general cheer proclaimed the success of the experiment.

"'Mr Chairman,' said one gentleman, 'I move that it be recorded as the opinion of this meeting, that the late exhibitions of mesmerism, as exhibited in this city, were neither more nor less than a tissue of unmitigated humbug!'

"'After what we have seen this evening,' said another, 'I do not feel the slightest hesitation in seconding that motion.'

"'And I move,' said a third, 'that in case that motion should be carried, we do incontinently proceed to supper.'

"So far as I recollect, there was not a dissentient voice in the room to either proposition.

"'Axing yer pardon,' said O'Shaughnessy, advancing to the chairman, 'it's five shillings I was promised for time and trouble, and expinces in attending this mating. Perhaps yer honour will allow a thrifle over and above to my friend Teddy yonder, who came to see that I wasn't bothered all at onst?'

"'You are an impudent scoundrel, sir,' said the chairman, 'and deserve to be kicked down stairs. However, a promise is a promise. There is your money, and let us never see your face again.'

"'Och, long life to yese all!' said the undaunted O'Shaughnessy, 'but its mismirism is a beautiful science! Divil a barrow have I wheeled this last month on the North British Railway, and it isn't soon that I'll be after doing it again. Teddy, ye sowl! let's be off to the ould place, and dhrink good luck to the gintlemin in a noggin.'

"Such," concluded the Jemadar, "was the result of our meeting; and I can tell you that you lost a rich treat by not hearing of it in time."

"I don't want to be disenchanted," said we. "Nothing that you have said can shake my firm belief in mesmerism in all its stages. I allow that the science, like every thing else, is liable to abuse, but that does not affect my faith in the slightest degree. Have you ever read Chauncey Hare Townshend's book? Why, my dear fellow, he has magnetized a female patient, through mere volition alone, at the other end of the town; and I have not the remotest doubt that it is quite possible to exercise the same powers between Edinburgh and Madras. What a beautiful thought it is that two lovers, separated by land and ocean, may yet exercise a sweet influence over each other--that at a certain hour, a balmy slumber, stealing over their frames, apprises them that their souls are about to meet in undisturbed and tranquil union! That in a few moments, perhaps, far, far above the galaxy"--

"Oh, confound the galaxy!" interrupted the prosaic Jemadar. "If you're going on in that style, I shall be off at once. I have no idea of any communication quicker than the electric telegraph; and as for your sympathies, and that sort of rubbish, any body may believe them that likes. I suppose, too, you believe in clair-voyance?"

"Most assuredly," we replied. "The case of Miss M'Avoy of Liverpool--of Prince Hohenlohe, and many others"----

"Are all very wonderful, I daresay; but I should like to see the thing with my own eyes. A friend of mine told me, no later than yesterday, that he had been present at a meeting, held in a professional gentleman's house, for the purpose of testing the powers of a lad said to be clair-voyant, who was exhibited by one of those itinerant lecturers. In addition to the usual bandages, of which there was much suspicion, a mask, previously prepared, was put upon the face, so that all deception was impossible. In this state, the boy, though professedly in the mesmeric sleep, could see nothing. He fingered the cards--fumbled with the books--but could read no more than my poodle-dog. In fact, the whole thing was considered by every one present not only a failure, but a rank and palpable sham; and until I have some better evidence in support of these modern miracles, I shall take the liberty of denouncing the system as one of most impudent imposture."

"But, my dear fellow, recollect the number of persons of rank and station--the highly intellectual and cultivated minds which have formed a directly opposite opinion. What say you to Van Helmont? What say you to Michael Scott,

'A wizard of such dreaded fame, That when in Salamanca's cave, Him listed his magic wand to wave, The bells would ring in Notre Dame?'

What say you to the sympathetic secrets still known to be preserved in the monastery of Mount Carmel? What say you"--

"I say," replied the Jemadar, "that you are beginning to talk most infernal nonsense, and that I must be off, as I have an engagement at three to play a match at billiards. In the meantime, you'll oblige me by settling with Mrs Stewart for the ices."

COOKERY AND CIVILISATION.[12]

It is only after passing through an ordeal cruelly insidious, tolerably severe, and rather protracted, that we feel conscientiously entitled to assert our ability to dine every day of every week at the Reform Club, without jeopardy to those immutable principles which are incorruptible by Whigs and indestructible by Rats. A sneer, perhaps, is curling with "beautiful disdain" the lips of some Conservative Achilles. Let us nip his complacent sense of invulnerability in the bud. To eat and to err are equally attributes of humanity. Looking at ourselves in the mirror of honest criticism, we behold features as unchangeable as sublunary vicissitudes will allow.

"Time writes no wrinkles on our azure brow."

Witness it! ye many years of wondrous alternation--of lurid tempest and sunny calm--of disastrous rout and triumphant procession--of shouting paean and wailing dirge--witness the imperturbable tenor of our way! Attest it, thou goodly array of the tomes of Maga, laden and sparkling, now as ever, with wisdom and wit, science and fancy!--attest the unwavering fidelity of our career! All this is very true; but the secret annals of the good can never be free from temptations, and never are in reality unblotted by peccadilloes. The fury of the demagogue has been our laughing-stock--the versatility of trimming politicians, our scorn. We have crouched before none of the powers which have been, or be; neither have we been carried off our feet by the whirlwinds of popular passion. Yet it is difficult to resist a good dinner. The victories of Miltiades robbed Themistocles of sleep. The triumphs of SOYER are apt to affect us, "with a difference," after the same fashion.

There was, we remember, a spirit of surly independence within us on visiting, for the first time, the "high capital" of Whiggery, where the Tail at present

"New rubb'd with balm, expatiate and confer Their State affairs."

To admire any thing was not our mood:

"The ascending pile Stood fix'd her stately heighth; and straight the doors, Opening their brazen folds, discover, wide Within, her ample spaces, o'er the smooth And level pavement."

And as these lines suggested themselves, we recollected who the first Whig is said to have been, and whose architectural glories Milton was recording. We never yet heard a Radical disparage a peer of the realm without being convinced, that deep in the pocket, next his heart, lay an incautious hospitable invitation from the noble lord, to which a precipitate answer in the affirmative had already been dispatched. Analogously, in the magnificent edifice, whose tesselated floor we were treading gingerly, it seemed to us that we surveyed an unmistakable monument of an innate predilection for the splendours and comforts, the pomp and the _abandon_, of a "proud aristocracy." This was before dinner, and we were hungry. To tell all that happened to us for some hours afterwards, would, in fact, force us to transfer to our pages more than half of the volume which is prompting these observations. Suffice it to say, that when we again stood on Pall-Mall, a bland philanthropy of sentiment, embracing all races, and classes, and sects of men, permeated our bosom. Whence came the mellowing influence, seeing that we had been, as our custom is, very innocent of wine? Nor could it be the seductive eloquence of the company. We had indeed been roundly vituperated in argument by the Liberator. Oh yes! but we had been fed by the Regenerator.

To us, then, on these things much meditating--so Cicero and Brougham love to write--many of the speculations in which we had indulged, and of the principles which we had advocated, were obviously not quite in harmony with the views long inculcated by us on a docile public. Suddenly the truth flashed across and illuminated the perplexity of our ponderings. We were aware that, early in the evening, a much milder censure than usual upon some factious Liberal manoeuvre had passed our lips. This took place just about the fourth spoonful of soup. The spells were already in operation under the shape of "_potage a la Marcus Hill_." There is a fascination even in the name of this "delicious soup"--such is the epithet of Soyer--which our readers will better understand in the sequel. Again, it was impossible to deny that we had hazarded several equivocal observations in reference to the Palmerstonian policy in Syria. But it was equally true that such inadvertencies slipped from us while laboriously engaged in determining a delicate competition between "_John Doree a l'Orleannaise_" and "_saumon a la Beyrout_." A transient compliment to the influence at elections of the famous Duchess of Devonshire was little liable to objection, we imagined, during a playful examination of a few "_aiguillettes de volaille a la jolie fille_." More questionable, it must be admitted, were certain assertions regarding the Five Points, enunciated hastily over a "_neck of mutton a la Charte_." No fault, however, had we to find with the cutting facetiousness with which we had garnished "_cotelettes d'Agneau a la reforme en surprise aux Champignons_." The title of this dish was so ludicrously applicable to the consternation of the remnants of the Melbourne ministry--the cutlets of lamb--in finding themselves outrun in the race by mushroom free-traders, that our pleasantry thereanent was irresistible. It was difficult, at the same time, to justify the expression of an opinion, infinitely too favourable to Peel's commercial policy, yielding to the allurements of a "_turban des cailles a la financiere_." And, on the whole, we smarted beneath a consciousness that all our conversation had been perceptibly flavoured by "_filets de becasses a la Talleyrand_."

The result of these reflections was, simply, an alarming conviction of the tremendous influence exercised by Soyer throughout all the workings of the British constitution. The causes of the success of the League begin to dawn upon us, while our gravest suspicions are confirmed by the appearance, at this peculiar crisis, of the "Gastronomic Regenerator." What patriotism can withstand a superabundance of untaxed food, cooked according to the tuition of Soyer? How can public virtue keep its ground against such a rush of the raw material, covered by such a "_batterie de cuisine_?" Cobden and Soyer, in alliance, have given a new turn, and terribly literal power, to the fable of Menenius Agrippa.

"There was a time when all the body's members Rebell'd against the belly."

Such times are gone. The belly now has it all its own way, while

"The kingly-crowned head, the vigilant eye, The counsellor heart, the arm our soldier, Our steed the leg, the tongue our trumpeter,"

are conjunctly and severally cuffed, or bunged up, or broken, or stifled, unless they are perpetually ministering to the service of the great cormorant corporation. It is mighty well to talk of the dissolution of the League. The testament of Caesar, commented on by Mark Antony, was eventually more fatal to the liberties of Rome, than the irrepressible ambition which originally urged the arch-traitor across the Rubicon. The "Gastronomic Regenerator," in the hands of every housewife in the country, is merely to convert the most invincible portion of the community into a perpetual militia of free-traders. All cooks proverbially encourage an enormous consumption of victuals. The study of Soyer will infallibly transform three-fourths of the empire into cooks. Consequently, the demand for every variety of sustenance, by an immense majority of the nation, will be exorbitant and perennial. No syllogism can be more unassailable. We venture also to affirm that the judgment of posterity will be rigidly true in apportioning the endurance of fame which the conflicting merits of our great benefactors may deserve. It is far from unlikely that the glories of a Peel may be disregarded, forgotten, and unsung, when the trophies of a Soyer, still odorous, and unctuous, and fresh, shall be in every body's mouth.

The "Gastronomic Regenerator" has not assumed his imposing title without a full appreciation of the dignity of his office and the elevation of his mission. The brief and graceful "dialogue culinaire" between Lord M. H. and himself, illustrates the grand doctrines that man is a cooking animal, and that the progress of cooking is the progress of civilisation. There is something prodigiously sublime in the words of the noble interlocutor, when he declares, "Read history, and you see that in every age, and among all nations, the good which has been done, and sometimes the evil, has been always preceded or followed by a copious dinner." This language, we presume, must be considered on the great scale, as applicable to the most solemn and momentous occurrences in the history of governments and countries. Not that we can exclude it from individual biography. Benevolence we have always regarded as a good sauce, and have often observed it to be an excellent dessert. The man who tucks his napkin under his chin immediately after conferring a benefit on a fellow-creature, invariably manifests marvellous capabilities for digestion; and, on the other hand, the man who has dined to his own entire satisfaction, if solicited in the nick of time, will frequently evince an open-handed generosity, to which his more matutine emotions would have been strangers. But--to reverse the picture--any interruption to the near prospect of a "copious dinner" is at all times inimical to charity; while repletion, we know, occasionally reveals such unamiable dispositions as could not have been detected by the most jealous scrutiny at an earlier period of the day. Nations are but hives of individuals. We understand, therefore, the noble lord to mean, that all the history of all the thousand races of the globe concurrently teaches us that every great event, social or political, domestic or foreign, involving their national weal or woe, has been harbingered or commemorated by a "copious dinner." Many familiar instances of this profound truth--some of very recent date--crowd into our recollection. But we cannot help suspecting a deeper meaning to be inherent in the enunciation of this "great fact." Copious dinners are, as it strikes us, here covertly represented as the means of effecting the most extensive ameliorations. To dine is insinuated to be the first step on the highway to improvement. In the consequences which flow from dining copiously, what is beneficial is evidently stated to preponderate over what is hurtful, the qualifying "sometimes" being only attached to the latter. In this respect, dinners seem to differ from men, that the evil is more frequently "interred with their bones," while the "good they do lives after them." This is, assuredly, ringing a dinner-bell incessantly to the whole universe. We have ourselves, not half an hour ago, paid our quota for participating within the last week in congratulatory festivities to two eminent public characters. The overwhelming recurrence, in truth, of these entertainments, drains us annually of a handsome income; and reading, as we do daily in the newspapers, how every grocer, on changing his shop round the corner, and every professor of dancing, on being driven by the surges of the Utilitarian system up another flight of stairs, must, to felicitate or soothe him, receive the tribute or consolation of a banquet and demonstration, we hold up our hands in amazement at the opulence and deglutition of Scotland.

What shall become of us, driven further onwards still, by the impetus of the Gastronomic Regenerator, we dare not foretell. The whole year may be a circle of public feasts; and our institutions gradually, although with no small velocity, relapse into the common table of Sparta. But never, whispers Soyer, into the black broth of Lycurgus. And so he ensnares us into the recognition of another fundamental principle, that the simplicity of Laconian fare night be admirably appropriate for infant republics and penniless helots, but can afford no subsistence to an overgrown empire, and the possessors of the wealth of the world! Thus cookery marks, dates, and authenticates the refinement of mankind. The savage cuts his warm slice from the haunches of the living animal, and swallows it reeking from the kitchen of nature. The civilized European, revolting from the dreadful repast, burns, and boils, and stews, and roasts his food into an external configuration, colour, and substance, as different from its original condition as the mummy of Cheops differs from the Cheops who watched, with an imperial dilatation of his brow, the aspiring immortality of the pyramids. Both, in acting so differently, are the slaves and the types of the circumstances of their position. The functions in the frames of both are the same; but these functions curiously follow the discipline of the social situation which directs and regulates their development. The economy of the kitchen is only a counterpart, in its simplicity or complication, its rudeness or luxury, of the economy of the state. The subjects of patriarchs and despots may eat uncooked horses with relish and nourishment. The denizens of a political system whose every motion is regulated by an intricate machinery, in which the teeth of all the myriad wheels in motion are indented with inextricable multiplicity of confusion into each other, perish under any nurture which is not as intricate, complex, artificial, and confused. What a noble and comprehensive science is this Gastronomy!

"Are you not also," says the philosophic Soyer, in the same interesting dialogue, "of opinion with me, my lord, that nothing better disposes the mind of man to amity in thought and deed, than a dinner which has been knowingly selected, and artistically served?" The answer is most pregnant. "It is my thinking so," replies Lord M. H., "which has always made me say that a good cook is as useful as a wise minister." Behold to what an altitude we are carried! The loaves and fishes in the hands of the Whigs, and Soyer at the Reform Club to dress them! Let us banish melancholy, and drive away dull care. The bellicose propensities of a foreign secretary are happily innocuous. The rumours of war pass by us like the idle wind which we regard not. Protocols and treaties, notes and representations, are henceforth disowned by diplomacy. The figure of Britannia with a stew-pan for her helmet, and a spit for a spear, leaning in statuesque repose on a folio copy of the _Gastronomic Regenerator_,

"Surveys mankind from China to Peru;"

and with an unruffled ocean at her feet, and a cloudless sky overhead, smiles on the countless millions of the children of earth, chatting fraternally together at the round table of universal peace. Bright will be the morning of the day which sees the impress of such an image on our currency. Of course, it will be understood that we are entirely of the same mind, abstractly, as M. Soyer and Lord M. H. The _maitre de cuisine_ appears to us unquestionably to be one of the most important functionaries belonging to an embassy. Peace or war, which it is scarcely necessary to interpret as the happiness or the misery of two great countries, may depend upon a headache. Now, if it were possible, in any case, to trace the bilious uneasiness which may have perverted pacific intentions into hostile designs, to the unskilful or careless performance of his momentous duties by the cook-legate, no punishment could too cruelly expiate such a blunder. We should be inclined to propose that the brother artist who most adroitly put the delinquent to torture, should be his successor, holding office under a similar tenure. It may be matter of controversy, however, at once whether such a system would work well, and whether it is agreeable to the prevalence of those kindly feelings which it is the object of M. Soyer, and every other good cook or wise statesman, to promulgate throughout the human family. The publication of the _Gastronomic Regenerator_ inspires us with better hopes. The tyro of the dripping-pan will be no more entitled to screen himself behind his imperfect science or neglected education, than the unlettered criminal to plead his ignorance of the alphabet as a justification of his ignorance of the statute law, whose enactments send him to Botany Bay. The rudiments and the mysteries--the elementary axioms and most recondite problems--of his lofty vocation are unrolled before him in legible and intelligible characters. The skill which is the offspring of practice, must be attained by his opportunities and his industry. And if

"Fame is the spur which the clear spirit doth raise,"

it might, we trust, satiate the most ravenous appetite which ever gnawed the bowels even of a cook, not merely to secure the tranquillity of the universe, but to save his native land the expense of armies and fleets, and turn the currents of gold absorbed by taxation, into the more congenial channel of gastronomical enterprise. The majestic and far-spreading oak springs out of the humble acorn. In future ages, the acute historian will demonstrate how the "copious dinner" which cemented the bonds of eternal alliance between vast and consolidated empires, whose people were clothed in purple and fine linen, lived in habitations decorated with every tasteful and gorgeous variety which caprice could suggest and affluence procure, and mingled the physical indolence of Sybaris with the intellectual activity of Athens, was but the ripe fruit legitimately matured from the simple bud of the calumet of peace, which sealed a hollow truce among the roving and puny lands of the naked, cityless, and untutored Indian. So, once more, the perfectibility of cookery indicates the perfectibility of society.

The gallantry of Soyer is as conspicuous as his historical and political philosophy. He would not profusely "scatter plenty o'er a smiling land" solely for the gratification of his own sex. The sun shines on woman as on man; and when the sun will not shine, a woman's eye supplies all the light we need. The sagacious "Regenerator" refuses to restrict to the lordly moiety of mankind a monopoly of his beams, feeling that, when the pressure of mortal necessity sinks his head, fairer hands than those of the statesman or the warrior, the ecclesiastic or the lawyer, are likely to be the conservators of his reputation. "Allow me," he remarks, "to suggest to your lordship, that a meeting for practical gastronomical purposes, _where there are no ladies_, is in my eyes a garden without flowers, a sea without waves, an experimental squadron without sails."

"Without the smile from partial beauty won, Say what were man?--a world without a sun!"

The harrowing picture of desolation, from the pen of M. Soyer, may be equalled, but cannot be surpassed, by a line here and there in Byron's "Darkness." The sentiment, at the same time, sounds oddly, as it issues from the penetralia of a multitudinous club. Our notion has hitherto been, that a club was an invention of which a principal object was to prove that female society was far from being indispensable to man, and that all the joys of domesticity might be tasted in a state of single-blessedness beyond the precincts of home for a small annual payment. A thorough-going club-man would very soon drive a coach and four through the Regenerator's polite eloquence. For instance, a garden without flowers has so much the more room for the growth of celery, asparagus, artichokes, and the like. There could not possibly be a greater convenience than the evaporation or disappearance of the waters of the ocean; because we should then have railways every where, and no nausea. Sails, likewise, are not requisite now-a-days for ships; on the contrary, steam-vessels are so evidently superior, that the sail-maker may as well shut up his shop. The flowers of a garden are an incumbrance--the waves of the sea are an impediment--the sails of a ship are a superfluity. Garden, sea, and ship would be better wanting flowers, waves, and sails. On the same principles a club is preferable to a family fire-side, and the lot of a bachelor to the fate of a Benedict. M. Soyer, speaking _ex cathedra_ from the kitchen of the Reform Club, would find it no easy matter to parry the cogency of this reasoning. He forgets, apparently, that he bares his breast to a most formidable attack. What right have MEN to be Cooks? What hypocrisy it is to regret that women cannot eat those dinners which women alone are entitled, according to the laws of nature and the usages of Britain, to dress! Be just before you affect to be generous! Surrender the place, and the privileges, and the immunities, which are the heritage and birthright of the petticoat! Hercules with a distaff was bad enough; but here, in the vagaries and metamorphoses of heathen mythology, do you read of Hercules with a dishclout? What would the moon say, should the sun insist on blazing away all night as well as all day? Your comparisons are full of poetry and humbug. A kitchen without a female cook--it _is_ like a flowerless garden, a waveless sea, a sail-less ship. A kitchen with a male cook--is a monster which natural history rejects, and good feeling abhors. The rights of women are scarcely best vindicated by him who usurps the most precious of them. There will be time to complain of their absence from the scene, when, by a proper self-ostracism, you leave free for them the stage which it becomes them to occupy. These are knotty matters, M. Soyer, for digestion. With so pretty a quarrel we shall not interfere, having a wholesome respect for an Amazonian enemy who can stand fire like salamanders. To be candid, we are puzzled by the sprightliness of our own fancy, and do not very distinctly comprehend how we have managed to involve the Regenerator, whose thoughts were bent on the pale and slim sylphs of the boudoir, in a squabble with the rubicund and rotund vestals who watch the inextinguishable flames of THE GREAT HEARTH.

This marvellous dialogue, from which we have taken with our finger and thumb a tit-bit here and there, might be the text for inexhaustible annotation. It occupies no more than two pages; but, as Gibbon has said of Tacitus, "they are the pages of Soyer." Every topic within the range of human knowledge is touched, by direct exposition or collateral allusion. The metaphysician and the theologian, the physiologist and the moralist, are all challenged to investigate its dogmas, which, let us forewarn them, are so curtly, positively, and oracularly propounded, as, if orthodox, to need no commentary; and if heterodox, to demand accumulated mountains of controversy to overwhelm them. For he, we believe, can hardly be deemed a mean opponent, unworthy of a foeman's steel-pen, who has at his fingers' ends "Mullets a la Montesquieu," "Fillets of Haddock a la St Paul," "Saddle of Mutton a la Mirabeau," "Ribs of Beef a la Bolingbroke," "Pounding Souffle a la Mephistopheles," "Woodcock a la Stael," and "Filets de Boeuf farcis a la Dr Johnson."

The constitution of English cookery is precisely similar to the constitution of the English language. Both were prophetically sketched by Herodotus in his description of the army of Xerxes, which gathered its numbers, and strength, and beauty, from "all the quarters in the shipman's card." That imperishable mass of noble words--that glorious tongue in which Soyer has prudently written the "Gastronomic Regenerator," is in itself an unequalled specimen of felicitous cookery. The dishes which furnished the most _recherche_ dinner Soyer ever dressed, the "Diner Lucullusian a la Sampayo," being resolved into the chaos whence they arose in faultless proportions and resistless grace, would not disclose elements and ingredients more heterogenous, remote, and altered from their primal nature, than those which go to the composition of the few sentences in which he tells us of this resuscitation of the _caena_ of Petronius. A thousand years and a thousand accidents, the deepest erudition and the keenest ingenuity, the most delicate wit and most outrageous folly, have been co-operating in the manufacture of the extraordinary vocabulary which has enabled the Regenerator himself to concoct the following unparalleled receipt for

"THE CELESTIAL AND TERRESTRIAL CREAM OF GREAT BRITAIN.

"Procure, if possible, the antique Vase of the Roman Capitol; the Cup of Hebe; the Strength of Hercules; and the Power of Jupiter;"

"_Then proceed as follows:_--"

"Have ready the chaste Vase (on the glittering rim of which three doves are resting in peace), and in it deposit a Smile from the Duchess of Sutherland, from which Terrestrial Deesse it will be most graceful; then add a Lesson from the Duchess of Northumberland; the Happy Remembrance of Lady Byron; an Invitation from the Marchioness of Exeter; a Walk in the Fairy Palace of the Duchess of Buckingham; an Honour of the Marchioness of Douro; a Sketch from Lady Westmoreland; Lady Chesterfield's Conversation; the Deportment of the Marchioness of Aylesbury; the Affability of Lady Marcus Hill; some Romances of Mrs Norton; a Mite of Gold from Miss Coutts; a Royal Dress from the Duchess of Buccleuch; a Reception from the Duchess of Leinster; a Fragment of the Works of Lady Blessington; a Ministerial Secret from Lady Peel; a Gift from the Duchess of Bedford; an Interview with Madame de Bunsen; a Diplomatic Reminiscence from the Marchioness of Clanricarde; an Autocratic Thought from the Baroness Brunow; a Reflection from Lady John Russell; an amiable Word from Lady Wilton; the Protection of the Countess de St Aulaire; a Seraphic Strain from Lady Essex; a poetical gift of the Baroness de la Calabrala; a Welcome from Lady Alice Peel; the Sylph-like form of the Marchioness of Abercorn; a Soiree of the Duchess of Beaufort; a Reverence of the Viscountess Jocelyn; and the Good-will of Lady Palmerston.

"Season with the Piquante Observation of the Marchioness of Londonderry; the Stately Mein of the Countess of Jersey; the Tresor of the Baroness Rothschild; the Noble Devotion of Lady Sale; the Knowledge of the Fine Arts of the Marchioness of Lansdowne; the Charity of the Lady De Grey; a Criticism from the Viscountess of Melville;--with a Musical Accompaniment from the whole; and Portraits of all these Ladies taken from the Book of Celebrated Beauties.

"Amalgamate scientifically; and should you find this _Appareil_ (which is without a parallel) does not mix well, do not regard the expense for the completion of a dish worthy of the Gods!

"Endeavour to procure, no matter at what price, a Virtuous Maxim from the Book of Education of Her Royal Highness the Duchess of Kent; a Kiss from the Infant Princess Alice; an Innocent Trick of the Princess-Royal; a Benevolent Visit from the Duchess of Gloucester; a Maternal Sentiment of Her Royal Highness the Duchess of Cambridge; a Compliment from the Princess Augusta de Mecklenbourg; the future Hopes of the Young Princess Mary;--

"And the Munificence of Her Majesty Queen Adelaide.

"Cover the Vase with the Reign of Her Most Gracious Majesty, and let it simmer for half a century, or more, if possible, over a Fire of Immortal Roses.

"Then uncover, with the greatest care and precision, this Mysterious Vase; garnish the top with the Aurora of a Spring Morning; several Rays of the Sun of France; the Serenity of an Italian Sky; and the Universal Appreciation of the Peace of Europe.

"Add a few Beams of the Aurora Borealis; sprinkle over with the Virgin Snow of Mont Blanc; glaze with an Eruption of Mount Vesuvius, cause the Star of the Shepherd to dart over it; and remove, as quickly as possible, this _chef-d'oeuvre_ of the nineteenth century from the Volcanic District.

"Then fill Hebe's Enchanted Cup with a religious Balm, and with it surround this mighty Cream of Immortality;

"Terminate with the Silvery light of the Pale Queen of Night, without disturbing a Ray of the Brilliancy of the brightest Queen of the Day."

Half a century hence, when the simmering over the roseate fire is silent, may we, with M. Soyer, be present to gaze on the happy consummation of the conceptions of his transcendant imagination!

The Regenerator is too conversant with universal history not to know that his book, in crossing the Tweed northwards, approaches a people more familiar with its fundamental principles than any other inhabitants of these Fortunate Isles. England, for any thing we care, may deserve the opprobrious title of perfidious Albion. Scotland--("Stands Scotland where it did?")--was ever the firm friend of France. Ages ago, when our southern cousins were incessantly fighting, we were constantly dining, with the French. Our royal and noblest families were mingled by the dearest ties with the purest and proudest blood of the adopted land of Mary. For centuries uninterruptedly was maintained an interchange of every gentle courtesy, and every friendly succour; and when the broadsword was not needed to gleam in the front ranks of Gallic chivalry, the dirk never failed to emit the first flash in the onslaughts of Gallic hospitality. The Soyers of those times--dim precursors of the Regenerator--did not disdain to alight on our hungry shores, and leave monuments of their beneficence, which are grateful to this hour in the nostrils and to the palate of prince and peasant. Nay, we shrewdly conjecture that some time-honoured secrets still dwell with us, of which the memory has long since perished in their birth-place. Boastful we may not suffer ourselves to be. But if M. Soyer ever heard of, or dressed or tasted precisely as we have dressed and tasted, what is known to us and a very limited circle of acquaintances as "Lamb-toasty," we shall start instantly from the penultimate habitation of Ultima Thule, commonly known as John O'Groat's House, expressly to test his veracity, and gratify our voracity. Perhaps he may think it would not be too polite in us to transmit him the receipt. Not for a wilderness of Regenerators! Could we unfold to him the awful legend in connexion with it, of which we are almost the exclusive depositaries, the cap so lightly lying on his brow would be projected upwards to the roof by the instantaneous starting of his hair. The Last Minstrel himself, to whom it was narrated, shook his head when he heard it, and was never known to allude to it again; in reference to which circumstance, all that the bitterest malice could insinuate was, that if the story had been worth remembering, he was not likely to have forgotten it. "One December midnight, a shriek"--is probably as far as we can now venture to proceed. There are some descendants of the parties, whose feelings, even after the lapse of five hundred years, which is but as yesterday in a Highlander's genealogy, we are bound to respect. In other five hundred years, we shall, with more safety to ourselves, let them "sup full of horrors."

The Gastronomic Regenerator reminds us of no book so much as the Despatches of Arthur Duke of Wellington. The orders of Soyer emanate from a man with a clear, cool, determined mind--possessing a complete mastery of his weapons and materials, and prompt to make them available for meeting every contingency--singularly fertile in conceiving, and fortunate without a check in executing, sudden, rapid, and difficult combinations--overlooking nothing with his eagle eye, and, by the powerful felicity of his resources, making the most of every thing--matchless in his "Hors-d'OEuvres"--unassailable in his "Removes"--impregnable in his "Pieces de resistance"--and unconquerable with his "Flanks." His directions are lucid, precise, brief, and unmistakeable. There is not a word in them superfluous--or off the matter immediately on hand--or not directly to the point. They are not the dreams of a visionary theorist and enthusiast, but the hard, solid, real results of the vast experience of a tried veteran, who has personally superintended or executed all the operations of which he writes. It may be matter of dispute whether Wellington or Soyer acquired their knowledge in the face of the hotter fire. They are both great Chiefs--whose mental and intellectual faculties have a wonderful similarity--and whose sayings and doings are characterised by an astonishing resemblance in nerve, perspicuity, vigour, and success. In one respect M. Soyer has an advantage over his illustrious contemporary. His Despatches are addressed to an army which as far outnumbers any force every commanded or handled by the Hero of Waterloo, as the stars in the blue empyrean exceed the gas-lamps of London--an army which, instead of diminishing under any circumstances, evinces a tendency, we fear, of steadily swelling its ranks year by year, and day by day--a standing army, which the strong hand of the most jealous republicanism cannot suppress, and which the realization of the bright chimera of universal peace will fail to disband. Before many months are gone, thousands and tens of thousands will be marching and countermarching, cutting and skewering, broiling and freezing, in blind obedience to the commands of the Regenerator. "Peace hath her victories no less than those of war." But it is not to be forgotten that if the sword of Wellington had not restored and confirmed the tranquillity of the world, the carving-knife of Soyer might not have been so bright.

The confidence of Soyer in his own handiwork is not the arrogant presumption of vanity, but the calm self-reliance of genius. There is a deal of good sense in the paragraph which we now quote:--

"Although I am entirely satisfied with the composition, distribution, and arrangement of my book, should some few little mistakes be discovered they will be the more excusable under those circumstances, as in many instances I was unable to devote that tedious time required for correction; and although I have taken all possible care to prescribe, by weight and measure, the exact quantity of ingredients used in the following receipts for the seasoning and preparing of all kinds of comestibles, I must observe that the ingredients are not all either of the same size or quality; for instance, some eggs are much larger than others, some pepper stronger, salt salter, and even some sugar sweeter. In vegetables, again, there is a considerable difference in point of size and quality; fruit is subject to the same variation, and, in fact all description of food is subject to a similar fluctuation. I am far, however, from taking these disproportions for excuses, but feel satisfied, if the medium of the specified ingredients be used, and the receipts in other respects closely followed, nothing can hinder success."

It seems a childish remark to make, that all salts do not coincide in their saltness, nor sugars in their sweetness. The principle, however, which the observation contains within it, is any thing but childish. It implies, that, supposing the accuracy of a Soyer to be nearly infallible, the faith in his instructions must never be so implicit as to supersede the testimony of one's own senses, and the admonitions of one's own judgment. It is with the most poignant recollections that we acknowledge the justice of the Regenerator's caution on this head. We once, with a friend who shared our martyrdom, tried to make onion soup in exact conformity with what was set down in an Oracle of Cookery, which a foul mischance had placed across our path. With unerring but inflecting fidelity, we filled, and mixed, and stirred, and watched, the fatal caldron. The result was to the eye inexpressibly alarming. A thick oily fluid, repulsive in colour, but infinitely more so in smell, fell with a flabby, heavy, lazy stream, into the soup-plate. Having swallowed, with a Laocoonic contortion of countenance, two or three mouthfuls, our individual eyes wandered stealthily towards our neighbour. Evidently we were fellow-sufferers; but pride, which has occasioned so many lamentable catastrophes, made us both dumb and obdurate in our agony. Slowly and sadly, at lengthened intervals, the spoon, with its abominable freight, continued to make silent voyages from the platters to our lips. How long we made fools of ourselves it is not necessary to calculate. Suddenly, by a simultaneous impulse, the two windows of the room favoured the headlong exit of two wretches whose accumulated grievances were heavier than they could endure. Hours rolled away, while the beautiful face of Winandermere looked as ugly as Styx, as we writhed along its banks, more miserably moaning than the hopeless beggar who sighed for the propitiatory obolus to Charon. And from that irrevocable hour we have abandoned onions to the heroines of tragedy. Fools, in spite of all warning, are taught by such a process as that to which we submitted. Wise men, take a hint.

"Nature, says I to myself"--Soyer is speaking--"compels us to dine more or less once a-day." The average which oscillates between the "more" and the "less," it requires considerable dexterity to catch. Having read six hundred pages and fourteen hundred receipts, the question is, where are we to begin? Our helplessness is confessed. Is it possible the Regenerator is, after all, more tantalizing than the Barmecide? No--here is the very aid we desiderate. Our readers shall judge of a

"DINNER PARTY AT HOME."

BILL OF FARE FOR EIGHT PERSONS.

Asparagus.

New Potatoes.

1 SOUP. French Pot au Feu.

1 FISH. 3 Slices of Salmon en matelote.

2 REMOVES. Braised Fowls with spring vegetables. Leg of Mutton basted with devil's tears.

2 ENTREES. Lamb Cutlets with asparagus, peas. Salmi of Plovers with mushrooms.

2 ROASTS. 2 Ducklings. 4 Pigeons barded with vine leaves.

4 ENTREMETS. Orange Jelly. Green peas. Omelette, with fine herbs. Gooseberry Tart with cream.

1 REMOVE. Iced Cake with fruits.

"Nothing but light wine is drunk at the first course, but at the second my guests are at liberty to drink wines of any other description, intercepting them with several hors-d'oeuvres, which are small dishes of French pickled olives and sardines, thin slices of Bologna sausage, fillets of anchovies, ciboulettes, or very small green onions, radishes, &c.; also a plain dressed salade a la Francais, (for which see end of the entrees, Kitchen at Home), fromage de brie Neufchatel, or even Windsor cheese, when it can be procured. The coffee and dessert I usually leave to the good taste and economy of my menagere."

We shall be exceedingly curious to hear how many hundred parties of eight persons, upon reading this bill of fare in our pages, will, without loss of time, congregate in order to do it substantial honour. Such clattering of brass and brandishing of steel may strike a new government as symptomatical or preparatory of a popular rising. We may therefore reassure them with the information, that those who sit down with M. Soyer, will have little thought of rising for a long time afterwards.

We have introduced the Gastronomic Regenerator to public notice in that strain which its external appearance, its title, its scheme and its contents, demand and justify. But we must not, even good-humouredly, mislead those for whose use its publication is principally intended. To all intents and purposes M. Soyer's work is strictly and most intelligibly practical. It is as full of matter as an egg is full of meat; and the household which would travel through its multitudinous lessons must be as full of meat as the Regenerator is full of matter. The humblest, as well as the wealthiest kitchen economy, is considered and instructed; nor will the three hundred receipts at the conclusion of the volume, which are more peculiarly applicable to the "Kitchen at Home," be, probably the portion of the book least agreeable and valuable to the general community. For example, just before shaking hands with him, let us listen to M. Soyer, beginning admirably to discourse

_Of the Choosing and Roasting of Plain Joints._

"Here I must claim all the attention of my readers. Many of the profession will, I have no doubt, be surprised that I should dwell upon a subject, which appears of so little importance, saying that, from the plain cook to the most professed, all know how to roast or boil a piece of meat; but there I must beg their pardon. I will instance myself, for, previously to my forming any intention of writing the present work, I had not devoted the time necessary to become professionally acquainted with it, always depending upon my roasting cook, who had constant practice, myself only having the knowledge of whether or not properly done. I have since not only studied it closely, but have made in many respects improvements upon the old system, and many discoveries in that branch which I am sure is the most beneficial to all classes of society, (remembering, as I have before stated, that three parts of the animal food of this country is served either plain-roasted or boiled) My first study was the fire, which I soon perceived as too deep, consumed too much coal, and required poking every half hour, thus sending dust and dirt all over the joints, which were immediately basted to wash it off; seeing plainly this inconvenience, I immediately remedied it by inventing my new roasting fire-place, by which means I saved two hundred-weight of coals per day, besides the advantage of never requiring to be poked, being narrow and perpendicular; the fire is lighted with the greatest facility, and the front of the fire being placed a foot back in the chimney-piece, throws the heat of the fire direct upon the meat, and not out at the sides, as many persons know, from the old roasting ranges. I have many times placed ladies or gentlemen, visiting the club, within two feet of the fire when six large joints have been roasting, and they have been in perfect ignorance that it was near them, until, upon opening the wing of the screen by surprise, they have appeared quite terrified to think they were so near such an immense furnace. My next idea was to discontinue basting, perhaps a bold attempt to change and upset at once the custom of almost all nations and ages, but being so confident of its evil effects and tediousness, I at once did away with it, and derived the greatest benefit (for explanation, see remarks at the commencement of the roasts in the Kitchen of the Wealthy,) for the quality of meat in England is, I may say, superior to any other nation; its moist soil producing fine grass almost all the year round, which is the best food for every description of cattle; whilst in some countries not so favoured by nature they are obliged to have recourse to artificial food, which fattens the animals but decreases the flavour of the meat: and, again, we, must take into consideration the care and attention paid by the farmers and graziers to improve the stock of those unfortunate benefactors of the human family."

How full of milky kindness is his language, still breathing the spirit of that predominant idea--the tranquillisation of the universe by "Copious Dinners!" He has given up "basting" with success. Men may as well give up basting one another. Nobody will envy the Regenerator the bloodless fillets worthily encircling his forehead, should the aspirations of his benevolent soul in his lifetime assume any tangible shape. But if a more distant futurity is destined to witness the lofty triumph, he may yet depart in the confidence of its occurrence. The most precious fruits ripen the most slowly. The sun itself does not burst at once into meridian splendour. Gradually breaks the morning; and the mellow light glides noiselessly along, tinging mountain, forest, and city spire, till a stealthy possession seems to be taken of the whole upper surface of creation, and the mighty monarch at last uprises on a world prepared to expect, to hail, and to reverence his perfect and unclouded majesty.

THE LATE AND THE PRESENT MINISTRY.

Our sentiments with regard to the change of policy on the part of Sir Robert Peel and his coadjutors, were early, and we hope forcibly, expressed. We advocated then, as ever, the principle of protection to native industry and agriculture, not as a class-benefit, but on far deeper and more important considerations. We deprecated the rash experiment of departing from a system under which we had flourished so long--of yielding to the clamours of a grasping and interested faction, whose object in raising the cry of cheap bread, was less the welfare of the working man, than the depression of his wages, and a corresponding additional profit to themselves. The decline of agricultural prosperity--inevitable if the anticipations of the free traders should be fulfilled--seems to us an evil of the greatest possible magnitude, and the more dangerous because the operation must be necessarily slow. And in particular, we protested against the introduction of free-trade measures, at a period when their consideration was not called for by the pressure of any exigency, when the demand for labour was almost without parallel, and before the merits of the sliding-scale of duty, introduced by Sir Robert Peel himself in the present Parliament, had been sufficiently tested or observed. Those who make extravagant boast of the soundness and sagacity of their leader cannot deny, that the facts upon which he based his plan of financial reform, were in reality not facts, but fallacies. The political Churchill enunciated his _Prophecy of Famine_, not hesitatingly nor doubtfully, but in the broadest and the strongest language. Month after month glided away, and still the famine came not; until men, marvelling at the unaccountable delay, looked for it as the ignorant do for the coming of a predicted eclipse, and were informed by the great astrologer of the day that it was put off for an indefinite period! Now, when another and a more beautiful harvest is just beginning, we find that in reality the prophecy was a mere delusion; that there were no grounds whatever to justify any such anticipation, and that the pseudo-famine was a mere stalking-horse, erected for the purpose of concealing the stealthy advance of free-trade.

If this measure of free-trade was in itself right and proper, it required no such paltry accessories and stage tricks to make it palatable to the nation at large. Nay, we go further, and say, that under no circumstances ought the distress of a single year to be assigned as a sufficient reason for a great fiscal change which must derange the whole internal economy and foreign relations of the country, and which must be permanent in its effects. There is, and can be, no such thing as a permanent provision for exigencies. Were it so, the art of government might be reduced to principles as unerring in their operation as the tables of an assurance company--every evil would be provided for before it occurred, and fluctuations become as unknown among us as the recurrence of an earthquake. A famine, had it really occurred, would have been no apology for a total repeal of the corn-laws, though it might have been a good reason for their suspension. As, however, no famine took place, we take the prophecy at its proper value, and dismiss it at once to the limbo of popular delusions; at the same time, we trust that future historians, when they write this chapter of our chronicles, will not altogether overlook the nature of the foundation upon which this change has been placed.

It requires no great penetration to discover how the repeal of the corn-laws has been carried. The leaders of a powerful party who for ten years misgoverned the country, were naturally desirous, after an exile of half that period, to retaste the sweets of office--and were urged thereunto, not only by their own appetites, but by the clamour of a ravenous crew behind them, who cared nothing for principle. While in power, they had remained most dogmatically opposed to the repeal of the corn-laws. Lord Melbourne denounced the idea as maniacal--he was supported in that view by almost every one of his colleagues; nor was it until they found themselves upon the eve of ejectment, that any new light ever dawned upon the minds of the steadfast myrmidons of Whiggery. The election of 1841, which turned them out of office made matters worse instead of better. They now saw no prospect of a restoration to power, unless they could adopt some blatant cry similar to that which formerly brought them in. Such a cry was rather difficult to be found. Their ignorance of finance, their mismanagement abroad, their gross bungling of almost every measure which they touched, had made them so unpopular that the nation at large regarded their return to office much as a sufferer from nightmare contemplates the arrival of his nocturnal visitant. Undeterred by scruple or by conscience, they would with the greatest readiness have handed over the national churches to the tender mercies of the Dissenters, if such a measure could have facilitated their recall to the pleasant Goshen of Downing Street. It was not however, either advisable or necessary to carry matters quite so far. Midway between them and revolution lay the corn-law question once despised but now very valuable as a workable engine. The original advocates of abolition were not prime favourites with the Whigs. The leaders of that party have always been painfully and even ludicrously particular abut their associates. Liberal in appearance they yet bind themselves together with a thin belt of aristocratic prejudice and though insatiable in their lust for public applause, they obstinately refuse to strengthen their coterie by any more popular addition. They found the corn-law question in the hands of Messrs Cobden, Bright and Wilson--men of the people--who by their own untiring energy and the efforts of the subsidiary League, had brought the question prominently forward, and were fighting independent of party, a sort of guerilla battle in support of their favourite principle. Our regard for these gentlemen is not of the highest order, but we should do them great injustice if we did not bear testimony to the zeal and perseverance they have exhibited throughout. These are qualities which may be displayed alike in a good and in an evil cause; and yet earnestness of purpose is at all times a high attribute of manhood, and enforces the respect of an enemy. With the constitution of the League we have at present nothing to do. The organization and existence of such a body, for the purposes of avowed agitation, was a fact thoroughly within the cognisance of ministers--it was checked, and is now triumphant, and may therefore prove the precursor of greater democratic movements.

The question of the corn-laws was, however, emphatically theirs. A body of men, consisting almost entirely of master manufacturers, had conceived the project of getting rid of a law which interfered materially, according to their views, with the profit and interests of their class. Their arguments were specious, their enthusiasm in the cause unbounded. They spared no exertions, grudged no expense, to obtain converts; they set up gratuitous newspapers, hired orators, held meetings, established bazars--in short erected such a complicated machine of agitation as had never before entered into the minds of democrats to conceive. With all this however, their success, save for political accident, was doubtful. The leaders of the League were not popular even with their own workmen. Some of the simpler rules of political economy are tolerably well known among the operative classes, and of these none is better understood than the relationship betwixt the prices of labour and of food. Cheap bread, if accompanied at the same time by a reduction of wages, was at best but a questionable blessing; nor were these doubts at all dispelled by the determined resistance of the master manufacturers to every scheme proposed for shortening the hours of labour, and ameliorating the social as well as the moral condition of the poor. All that the taskmaster cared for was the completion of the daily tale. The truck system--that most infamous species of cruel and tyrannical robbery--gave sad testimony of the extent, as well as the meanness, of the avarice which could wring profit even from the most degraded source, and which absolutely sought to establish, here, within the heart of Britain, a slavery as complete and more odious than that which is the disgrace of the American republic. It is, therefore, not to be wondered at if the great mass of the working population regarded the proceedings of the Anti-Corn-law League with apathy and indifference. For, be it remarked, that the original Leaguers were by no means thorough-paced free-traders. Their motive was to deal most summarily with every restriction which stood in the way of their business, both as regarded export and import, and the establishment of a lower rate of wages. For such purposes they were ready to sacrifice every interest in the commonwealth except their own; but they showed no symptoms whatever of anxiety to discard restriction wherever it was felt to be advantageous to themselves. They were, in fact, the aspiring monopolists of the country. In their disordered imagination, the future position of Britain was to be that of one mighty workshop, from which the whole world was to be supplied--a commonalty of cotton, calico, and iron, with a Birmingham and Manchester aristocracy.

Such was the position of the League at the moment when the Whigs, eager for a gathering-cry, came forward as auxiliaries; and yet we have some doubt as to the propriety of that latter term. They did not come as helpers--as men who, devoted in singleness of heart to the welfare of their country, were anxious to assist in the promotion of a measure which the sagacity of others had discovered--but claiming a sort of divine right of opposition, similar to that which the lion exercises when the jackal has run down the prey. Accordingly, upon the corn-laws did the magnanimous Whig lion place its paw, and wheeze out a note of defiance against all interlopers whatsoever. Henceforward that question was to be a Whig one. English agriculture was not to receive its death from the ignoble hands of Cobden and Co.

Such was the move of the Whigs in the month of November last. A paltrier one, in every sense of the word, was never yet attempted nor did the simultaneous conversion of the whole party, with scarcely more than one or two honourable exceptions, present a very creditable specimen of the integrity of her Majesty's Opposition. They had become convinced--why or wherefore was not stated--that "the time had now arrived" for a total repeal of the corn-laws, and there was an end of the matter. They were prepared to vote for it in Parliament--to go to the country with it as their rallying-cry--to adopt it, in short, as their readiest stepping-stone into office. The old champions of repeal--the Leaguers--might go about their business. The conduct of the question was now transferred into the same hands which had become imbecile and paralysed in 1841, but which had since been renovated and invigorated by a wholesome course of five years' banishment from office.

It is somewhat remarkable, but rather instructive, that the Whigs do not seem to have contemplated any other financial alteration beyond the repeal of the corn-laws. Of an equitable adjustment of clashing interests, they appear to have had no idea. It is quite true that they had been of old well accustomed to a deep defalcation of the public revenue, and the probability of the recurrence of _that_ fact, may have been viewed by them as a mere bagatelle. From vague and general protestations of economy, we can form no proper estimate of the real nature of their plans. Economy, or that paltry system of paring, which passes with the Whigs for such, is, after all, a political virtue of minor import. What we require from every administration is the adoption of such measures only as shall tend to promote the general wealth and prosperity of the country; and, in consequence, render more easy the payment of the national burdens. Any fiscal change which affects the revenue, must, as a matter of course, affect some particular class of the community. A certain yearly sum has to be made up--no matter how--and every million which is remitted from one source of the revenue must be supplied by another. It is this necessity which renders the administration of our finances so difficult. Great Britain, when she obtained her place in the foremost rank of nations, had to pay a fancy price for that supremacy. Our system of taxation is not the growth of a few years, but of a large tract of time, embracing periods of enormous expenditure and of intense excitement. It is of the most complex and artificial nature; for the reservoir of the state is filled from a thousand separate sources, and not one of these can be cut off without occasioning a greater drain upon the rest.

In such a state of things, it is quite natural that each particular interest should be desirous to shift the burden from itself. This may not be right nor proper, but it is natural; and the desire is greatly fostered by the frequent changes which have of late been made in the financial department, and by the alteration and adjustment of duties. The attack of the League upon the agriculturists is a specimen of this, though upon the largest scale; and the Whigs were quite ready to have lent it their support, without any further consideration. That they were really and sincerely converts to the new doctrine, we do not believe--but, if so, it is little creditable to their understanding. The repeal of the corn-laws, as a solitary and isolated measure, is, we maintain, an act of gross injustice and impolicy--as part of a great financial reform, or rather remodelment of our whole system, it may bear a different character. The Whigs, however, in adopting it, gave no promise of an altered system. The creed and articles of the League were ready made, and sufficient for them, nor did they think it necessary to enlarge the sphere of their financial relief; and so, towards the end of last year, they presented themselves in the quality of aspirants for office.

It is to us matter of great and lasting regret, that this move was not met by Sir Robert Peel and his cabinet with a front of determined resistance. Whatever may be the opinions of the late premier, of Lords Aberdeen and Lincoln, or any other members of that cabinet, on the abstract advantages of free-trade, we still hold that they were bound, in justice to the great body of gentlemen whose suffrages in the House of Commons had carried them into power, to have pursued a very different course. It is in vain for them to take shelter under their privileges or their duties as ministers of the crown. Their official dignity by no means relieved them from the pledges, direct or implied, in virtue of which alone they were elevated to that position. The understanding of the country at large was broad and clear upon the point, that the agricultural interest should not suffer from the acts of the late administration; and it was their duty, as well as their true interest, to have kept that confidence inviolate.

The financial plans of Sir Robert Peel have not yet been fully expounded. Over-caution has always been his characteristic and his misfortune. It is beyond dispute, that, in point of tact and business talent, he has no superior; but he either does not possess, or will not exhibit, that frankness which is necessary to make a leader not only respected but beloved; and hence it is that he has again alienated from himself the confidence of a large proportion of his followers. Enough, however, has transpired to convince us that his scheme is of a much more comprehensive nature than any which has been yet submitted. Various acts of his administration have shown a strong tendency towards free-trade. The establishment of the property and income tax, though apparently laid on to retrieve the country from the effects of Whig mismanagement, seemed to us at the time very ominous of a coming fiscal change. It organized a machinery by means of which direct taxation, however graduated, became the simplest method of raising the revenue; and the revision of the tariff was doubtless another step in the same direction.

If on these foundations it was intended to rear a perfect system of free-trade--by which we understand an abolition of all restrictions and protections, of all duties and customs on exports and on imports--and the substitution, for revenue purposes, of direct taxation, we think that the country may fairly complain of having been kept most lamentably in the dark. It is a great--nay, a gigantic plan--one which certainly would simplify or remove many of the intricacies of government,--it might possibly put an end, as is most desirable, to all clashing interests at home, and might open up abroad a new and greater field to the operations of British industry. All these are possible, nay, probable results--at the same time we are quite justified in saying, that if so wide and important a change was really contemplated, it was somewhat hazardous, and surely unprecedentedly bold, to keep it all the time concealed from public observation, and to give a different gloss and colour to the measures devised for its advancement. In reality, a more momentous question than this does not exist. The fortunes of every man in this country are more or less bound up with it,--it is one of the deepest import to our colonies, and calculated to affect the whole range of our commercial relations. We say further, that such a measure is not one which ought to be considered in detail--that is, brought about by the gradual abolition of different imposts without reference to the general end--but that, if entertained, it ought to be proclaimed at once, and carried into effect so soon as the nation has been enabled to pronounce an opinion upon it.

Our surmises are, of course, conjectural; for hitherto Sir Robert Peel has chosen to wear the mask of mystery, and has enunciated nothing clearly, beyond a single statement, to the effect that the late bills for the regulations of corn and the customs formed only a part of a larger measure. It is to this reserve that Sir Robert owes his defeat; and we cannot but deeply regret that he should have thought fit to persevere in it at so serious a cost as the dismemberment of his party. We have a strong and rooted objection to this kind of piecemeal legislation. It is, we think, foreign to the genius of this country, which requires the existence between the minister and his supporters of a certain degree of confidence and reciprocity which in this case has certainly not been accorded to the latter. The premier of Britain is not, and cannot be, independent of the people. It is their confidence and opinion which does practically make or mar him; and in the House of Commons, no measure whatever ought to be proposed by a minister without a full and candid admission of its real object, an exposition of its tendencies, and, at least, an honest opinion of its results.

There were, we think two courses open to Sir Robert Peel and his cabinet, either of which might have been adopted, after the issue of the Russell manifesto, with perfect consistency. The first of these, and the manlier one, was a steady adherence, during the existence of the present Parliament, to the established commercial regulations. They had already done quite enough to free them from any charge of bigotry--they had modified the corn-duties, with the consent even of the agricultural body, who were induced to yield to that change on the ground that thereby a permanent settlement of the question would be effected, and a baneful agitation discontinued. It is quite true that neither of these results followed. The settlement was not held to be permanent; and the agitation, as is always the case after partial concession, was rather increased than diminished. This, however, was a cogent reason why the ministry should not have proceeded further. Under their guidance, and at their persuasion, the agriculturists had already made a large concession, and that easiness of temper on their part ought not to have been seized on as a ground for further innovation. Within the walls of Parliament the Conservative party possessed a large majority; without, if we except the manifestations of the League, there was no popular cry whatever against the operation of the sliding-scale. Even with the prospect of a bad winter--an auxiliary circumstance not unlooked for by the Whigs--Lord John Russell and his colleagues would have had no chance whatever of unseating their political rivals, supported as these were by the votes of the country party. Had distress absolutely occurred, the means of remedying the more immediate pressure of the evil were in the hands of ministers, who, moreover, would have been cordially assisted by every one in any scheme calculated to ward away famine from the door of the industrious and the poor. In short, there was no political necessity for any such precipitate change.

Far better, therefore, would it have been for the late ministry had they remained uninfluenced by the interested conversion of the Whigs. By doing so they would have saved both character and consistency, without impairing in the least degree the strength of her Majesty's government--an excuse which the experience of a few mouths has shown to be utterly fallacious. How, indeed, could it be otherwise? Was it conceivable that a change of policy upon a point on which an immense majority of the supporters were distinctly pledged, could _add_ to the permanent strength of the ministry?--was no allowance to be made for irritated feelings, for broken ties, for inevitable desertion on the part of those who believe themselves to be wantonly betrayed? The Duke of Wellington surrendered his own private opinion in order that her Majesty's government might be carried on! A sentiment which might have been applauded to the echo in ancient times but which, it must be confessed by all, is wholly inapplicable to the notions of the century in which we live. The result has proved it. Her Majesty's government was indeed able by joining with the Whig-Radical faction, or rather by adopting their game to carry the corn-bill by the most incongruous majority ever counted out in the lobby of St Stephens, but at their very next step the day of reckoning arrived. Indeed the presages of their coming fall was so apparent, that the Irish coercion bill--the measure which more than any other if we may believe the tissue of bloody and disgusting facts upon which its introduction was founded demanded attention and despatch--was put off from day to day, lest a hostile division upon it should oust the ministry before the corn-bill could be carried through the House of Lords and receive the royal assent. Had Sir Robert Peel and his supporters been wedded from their infancy upwards to free-trade opinions--had these been the golden dreams of their political life-principles which they had adhered to, and sworn by, through many a long year of adversity and opposition--they could not have manifested a more unseemly haste in seizing upon the favourable moment, and paralysing all the efforts of the agricultural party, at a time when their own official existence was fast drawing to its close. Public opinion, as we are now told from a very high source, ought always to guide a minister in the formation of his measures, irrespective of the considerations of party. The axiom is indeed a true one, but true only when followed out according to the letter of the constitution. Public opinion is to be gathered neither from the voice, however loudly expressed, of a clamant faction like the League--nor from the sentiments enunciated by a changeable press, which shifts oftener, according to the flow of its own proper interests, than the quicksands of the deceitful Solway--nor even from the votes of renegades, who promised one thing upon the hustings and promoted the reverse in Parliament--but from the sentiments of the electors of the country, from _their_ votes and _their_ understanding, which have not been appealed to since 1841, when deliberately and unmistakeably they pronounced in favour of protection.

This brings us to the alternative course, which, without any peril of honesty or of honour, was open to the late ministry. We mean, a clear and unreserved declaration of their future policy, and an appeal to the country for its support. If Sir Robert Peel was convinced in his own mind that the principles of protection which he had hitherto advocated were in themselves objectionable--that the time had arrived for a great experiment whereby the whole taxation of the realm should be remodelled, and the many smaller sources of revenue abolished, in order to make way for a broader and a simpler system--if, furthermore, he believed that the continuance even of such agitation as prevailed upon the subject of the corn-laws, was likely to become more serious and more hurtful to the general interest by the factious declaration of the Whigs--then, he had it in his power at once to test the opinion of the country, by offering to the crown the alternative of his resignation or a dissolution of Parliament; and upon obtaining the latter, to have put forth, in unambiguous language, a statement of the policy which he intended thereafter to pursue, so that the constituencies of the empire might fairly have chosen between adherence to the ancient, or adoption of the novel plan. We can admit of no excuse such as the stoppage of private business, or any other similar impediment. These are reasons which, if just, might apply to every dissolution of Parliament short of the statutory term; nor can they in the present instance be brought forward, since the late government were by their own confession seriously perplexed by the amount of railway and other bills which this session have been crowded before Parliament, and had sought, without discovering, some method which might check at an early stage the flood of untoward speculation. In such a crisis as this, private interests ought to have been as nothing in comparison with the public good. If the choice lay between free-trade in its widest sense, and protection, it was but common justice that the country should have had the opportunity of making its selection. In no other way can public opinion be gathered. At last general election the country declared for protection--ministers since then have manoeuvred that protection away. We were told that certain compensations were to be given; but, alas! the ministry is no more, and compensation has perished with it. The old balance has been disturbed, and the task of adjusting a new one--if that indeed be contemplated--is now left to weak and incompetent hands.

Most heartily, therefore, do we regret that these great changes, which have free-trade for their ultimate object, were commenced in the present Parliament. Sir Robert Peel cannot but have foreseen--indeed he acknowledged it--that the corn-bill could not be carried without a complete disorganization of the Conservative party. In his eyes this may seem a small matter, but we view it very differently. It has shaken, and that to a great degree, the confidence which the people of the country were proud to place in the declarations and sincerity of the government. It has generated a belief, now very common, that the plain course of open and manly dealing has been abandoned for a system of finesse; and that for the last few months--it may be longer--the leaders of the two great political parties have been playing a match at chess, with less regard to the safety of the instruments they were using, than to the exhibition of their own adroitness. Perhaps no minister of this country ever owed more to party than Sir Robert Peel; and yet, without the excuse of strong necessity, he has not only abandoned that party, but placed it in a false position. The majority of the Conservatives were sent to Parliament under clear and distinct pledges, which honour forbade them to violate. This of the corn-laws was so far from being a discretionary question, that the continuance or discontinuance of agricultural protection was the great theme of the hustings at last general election, and their opinions upon that point became the touchstone on which the merits of the respective candidates were tried. It is worse than vain to talk of Parliamentary freedom, and the right of honourable members to act irrespective of the opinion of their constituents. They are neither more nor less than the embodied representatives of that opinion; and no man of uprightness or honour--we say it deliberately--ought to retain his seat in the House of Commons after the confidence of his supporters is withdrawn. It is neither fair nor honourable to taunt members with having been too free and liberal with their pledges before they knew the policy of their leaders. All men do not possess that happy ambiguity of phrase which can bear a double construction, and convey one meaning to the ear of the listener, whilst another served for the purposes of future explanation. It is not pleasant to believe that we are moving in an atmosphere of perpetual deceit. It is not wholesome to be forced to construe sentences against their obvious and open meaning, or to suspect every public speaker of wrapping up equivoques in his statement. At the last general election there was no misunderstanding. The Conservative candidates believed that their leaders were resolved to uphold protection; the people believed so likewise, and in consequence they gave them a majority. Situated as the protectionists were, they had no alternative but to act in accordance with their first professions, and to maintain their trust inviolate.

We have no pleasure in referring to that tedious and protracted debate. Yet this much we are bound to say, that the country party, under circumstances of unparalleled discouragement, abandoned, nay, opposed by their former chiefs, and deprived of the benefit which they undoubtedly would have received from the great talents and untiring energy of Lord Stanley--a champion too soon removed from the Lower House--did nevertheless acquit themselves manfully and well, and have earned the respect of all who, whatever may be their opinions, place a proper value upon consistency. It was perhaps inevitable that in such a contest there should have been a display of some asperity. We cannot blame those who, believing themselves to have been betrayed, gave vent to their indignation in language less measured than becomes the dignity of the British senate: nor, had these displays been confined to the single question then at issue, should we have alluded even remotely to the subject. But whilst our sympathies are decidedly with the vanquished party--whilst we deplore as strongly as they can the departure of the ministers from their earlier policy at such a time and in such a manner--we cannot join with the more violent of the protectionists in their virulent denunciations of Sir Robert Peel, and we demur as to the policy of their vote upon the Irish coercion bill, which vote was the immediate instrument of recalling the Whigs to power.

Sir Robert Peel has told us that he is contented to be judged by posterity. He is so far wise in his appeal. The opinions of contemporaries are comparatively worthless on a matter like this, and very few of us are really able to form an unprejudiced opinion. But, unless we are greatly mistaken, he does not contemplate the possibility of appearing before that tribunal in his present posture and condition. There is much yet to come upon which he must depend, not only for a posthumous verdict, but for that which we hope he may yet receive, an honourable acquittal from those who are at present alienated from his side. As the foe to agricultural protection, he can look but for sorry praise--as the financial reformer of the whole national system, he may, though at heavy risk, become a public benefactor. Every thing depends upon the future. He has chosen to play a very close and cautious game. His is a style of legislation not palatable to the nation; for he has taken upon himself too boldly the functions and responsibilities of a dictator--he has aspired to govern the freest country of the world without the aid of party--and he has demanded a larger and more implicit confidence, even whilst withholding explanation, than any minister has ever yet exacted from the representatives of the people. The risk, however, is his. But clearly, in our opinion, it was not the policy of the protectionists, after the corn-bill was carried and past control, to take a nominal revenge upon their former leader, and eject him from office by a vote inconsistent with their previous professions. By doing so, they have relieved him of the necessity which must soon have become imperative, of announcing the full nature of his scheme of financial reform; they have contributed to an interregnum, possibly of some endurance, from which we do not augur much advantage to the public welfare; and, finally, they have in some degree relinquished the credit and the strength of their position. From the moment the corn-bill was carried, they should have resolved themselves into a corps of observation. Their numbers were formidable enough to have controlled either party; and in all future measures, whenever explanation was required, they were in a condition to have enforced it.

The step, however, has been taken, and it is of course irremediable. All that remains for them and for us is to watch the progress of events during the remainder of the present Parliament--a period which, so far as we can judge from recent disclosures, is likely to pass over without any very marked attempts at innovation. The Whigs are at present too happy in the resumption of office, to be actually dangerous. They are, or they profess to be, in high good-humour. They have thrown aside for a time the besom of Radical reform, and are now extending in place of it the olive-branch of peace to each different section of their antagonists. We look, however, a little below the surface, and we think that we can discover two very cogent reasons for this state of singular placidity. In the first place, the Whigs are in a minority in the House of Commons. Their political walk cannot extend a yard beyond the limits of Sir Robert's sufferance; and as the boundary line, like the Oregon, has not been clearly laid down, they will be most cautious to avoid transgression. In the second place, they are, as is well known, most miserably divided in opinion among themselves. There is no kind of coherency in the councils of the present cabinet. They cannot approach any single great question without the imminent risk of internal discord; and it is only so long as they can remain quiescent that any show of cordiality can be maintained among them. Accordingly, when we look to Lord John Russell's manifestoes, we are quite delighted with their imbecility. As a matter of course, he has put forward, in the first rank of his declarations, the usual vague rhetoric about the social improvement of the people, which is to be effected by the same means which the Whigs have always used towards that desirable end--viz. by doing nothing. Then there is the subject of education, which we must own opens up a vast field for the exertions of government, if they will only seriously undertake it. This, however, cannot be done without the establishment of a new department in the state, which ought to have been created long ago--we mean a board, with a Minister of public instruction at its head; but we hardly expect that Lord John Russell will vigorously proceed to its formation. Then come what are called sanatory measures, by which we understand an improved system of sewerage, and a larger supply of water to the inhabitants of the towns. On this point, we understand, the whole of the cabinet are united, and we certainly rejoice to hear it. It is certainly the first time in our experience, that a ministry has founded its claims to public support on the ground of a promised superintendence of drains and water-carts. Upon this topic, one of the members for Edinburgh was extremely eloquent the other day upon the hustings. We hope sincerely that he is in earnest, and that, for the credit of Whig legislation, since we cannot obtain it from the municipality, our citizens may occasionally be indulged with the sight of a sprinkled street in summer, and that some means will be adopted for irrigating the closes, which at present do stand most sorely in need of the sanatory services of the scavenger. This point, then, of sewerage we freely concede to the Whigs. Let them grapple with it manfully, annihilate all the water-companies in the realm, and give us an unlimited supply of the pure fresh element without restriction or assessment. They cannot be employed more harmlessly--nay, more usefully, than in such a task. Let them also look to the points of adequate endowment for hospitals, and the institution of public baths and washing-houses, and for once in their lives they shall promote measures of real importance and benefit to the poor.

But, unfortunately, sewerage and its concomitants form but a small part of the considerations connected with the government of this country. A ministry may ask some popularity, but it can hardly found a claim for permanency on the fact of its attention to drains. In the first place, Lord John Russell and his colleagues have serious difficulties before them in the state of the public revenue. The late fiscal changes cannot but have the effect of causing a most serious defalcation, which must be immediately and summarily supplied. It will not do to attribute this defalcation to the acts of the late government, since the Whigs were not only the cordial supporters of these measures, but were ready to have taken the initiative. They are as much answerable as Sir Robert Peel, if, at the end of the present year, the accounts of Exchequer shall exhibit a large deficiency, which cannot, consistently with their own policy, be remedied by any new indirect taxation. The moment that free-trade is adopted as a broad principle, there can be no going back upon former steps. There is no resource left except a direct appeal to the purse, which may, indeed, be made by an additional income-tax, if the country are of a temper to submit to it. But we apprehend that a good deal of negotiation will be necessary before any such measure can be carried. The agriculturists are not in a mood to submit to any further burdens. The eyes of the productive classes are by this time a little opened to the effects of foreign importation, and their trade has been already much crippled by the influx of manufactured articles from abroad. Above all, a strong conviction is felt, both in England and in Scotland, of the gross injustice of the system which throws the whole burden of the direct taxation upon the inhabitants of these two countries, whilst Ireland is entirely free. It is a system which admits of no excuse, and which cannot continue long. The immunities which Ireland already enjoyed were any thing but reasons for exempting her from the operation of income-tax. It is not a question of relative poverty, for the scale is so adjusted that no man is taxed except according to his possession; and it does seem utterly inexplicable, and highly unjust to the Scotsman who pays his regular assessments, and a per centage besides upon his income of L150, that the Irishman, in similar circumstances, should be exempt from either charge. It was this feeling, we believe, more than any other, which rendered the increased grant to Maynooth college obnoxious to the greater part of the British nation; and which, setting aside all other considerations, would at once seal the fate of any ministry that might be rash enough to propose the endowment of the Romish clergy out of the consolidated fund. An increased direct taxation, therefore, would, under present circumstances, be a most dangerous experiment for the Whigs; and yet, if they do not attempt it, how are they to make good the almost certain deficiency of the revenue?

Probably that point may be postponed for future consideration. Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof, and the sugar-duties are more immediately pressing. Whether the West Indian proprietors are to receive the _coup-de-grace_ during the present year, or whether they are to be allowed a further respite, seems at the present a matter of absolute uncertainty. It is, however, merely a question of time. Free-trade cares not for the colonies; and, indeed, whilst the work of protective abolition is going on so rapidly both at home and abroad, no isolated interest has reason to expect that it will be exempted from the common rule. Ireland, it seems, is to have an extension of the franchise; and with respect to her social grievances, Lord John Russell is hopeful that his ministry will be enabled "to afford, not a complete and immediate remedy, _but some remedy--some kind of improvement; so that some kind of hope may be entertained that_, SOME TEN OR TWELVE YEARS HENCE, the country will, by the measures we undertake, be in a far better state with respect to the frightful destitution and misery which now prevail in that country." Here is a precious enunciation of principles and grammar!--A complete remedy for the Irish social grievances is avowedly out of the power of the most intrepid of Whig politicians--a confession of which we presume Mr O'Connell will not be slow to avail himself. But then he expects--or, to use his own phraseology thinks--"it is _most likely_ to be in our power to afford" _some_ remedy, _some_ kind of improvement, the nature of which is still in embryo, but which shall be so matured that _some_ kind of hope may be entertained, that in _some_ ten or twelve years hence the country may be in a far better state with regard to the destitution which now prevails in the country! Was there ever, we ask, in the whole history of oracles, any thing more utterly devoid of meaning, more thoroughly and helplessly vague, than the above declaration? Why, the whole hopes of the noble scion of the house of Russell are filtered away to nothing before he has achieved the limits of his sentence. There are four or five different stages of trust through which we decline to follow him, being perfectly convinced that the hope of his being likely to introduce any such measure, is quite as improbable as the implied hope conveyed a little further on, to the effect that he and his party may be allowed to remain for some ten or twelve years in office, until these exceedingly musty ideas all have resolved themselves into a tangible form.

In the mean time it is some gratification to know that the Churches are to be spared for the present. Not that Lord John Russell has any abstract love for these institutions--for he has no objection to Romish endowment out of the funds of the Irish Protestant Church--but then he is quite aware that any such move on his part would lead to his instant and ignominious expulsion from power. Earl Grey is of a different opinion; but the construction of the present cabinet is such, that it admits of every possible diversity of opinion, and was, in fact, so planned by the new premier, that the lion and the lamb might lie down together, and Radical Ward be installed in peace by the side of Conservative Lord Lincoln and of Sidney Herbert, about a year ago the pride of the protectionists!

There is something painfully ludicrous in Lord John's exposition of the theories of cabinet construction. It was, as he experienced last winter, quite impossible to bring the chiefs of his party to any thing like a common understanding. The revelations of Mr Macaulay to his correspondent in Edinburgh, gave any thing but a flattering picture of the unity which then pervaded the councils of Chesham Place. It is gratifying to know, that individuals who at that time expressed so exalted an opinion of the intellects and temper of each other, should have met and consented to act together in a spirit of mutual forgiveness. And we are now asked to receive from the lips of Lord John this profound political axiom, that it is not at all necessary that members of the same cabinet should agree in their individual opinions. We have all heard of cabinets breaking up through their own internal dissensions. Such a disruption, in the eyes of Lord John, was an act of egregious folly. What was to have prevented each man from voting according to his own opinions? On urgent questions, he admits, they should maintain some show of unanimity; but, with all respect for such an authority, we think he is unnecessarily scrupulous. Why quarrel or dissolve upon any single point? Let every man vote according to his own mind--let every question be considered an open one--and we shall answer for the stability of the ministry. In fact, Lord John Russell has at last discovered the political _elixir vitae_. No disunion can break up his administration, because disunion is the very principle upon which it has been formed. He has sought support from all classes of men. He is so far from disapproving of Conservative doctrines, that he absolutely has solicited three members of the late government to hold office under him. He asks no recantation of their former opinions, and binds them down to no pledges for the future. Their associates, it is true, are to be men of liberal opinions, some of them verging upon Chartism, and others avowed ecclesiastical destructionists; but that need not deter them from accepting and retaining office. We once knew a worthy Highland chief--a more hospitable being never breathed--who towards the conclusion of his third bottle, invariably lapsed into an affectionate polemical mood, and with tears in his eyes used to put this question to his friends--"Why can't a man be a Christian and a good fellow at the same time?" This is just the theory of Lord John Russell. He can see no objection to diversity of opinions, so long as the whole body of the cabinet are agreed upon one essential point--that of holding fast by office; and surrendering it upon no account whatever.

Accordingly, when we look narrowly into his manifesto, we find that he has chalked out for himself a course which makes this singular coalition by no means absolutely impossible. He will do nothing, if he can help it, which may give offence to any body. The cabinet are to have an easy task of it. They have nothing to do but to sit still with uplifted oars, and allow the vessel of the state to drift quietly along with the stream. We fear, however, that the Whig Palinurus has not taken into account the existence of such things as shoals and sand-banks. Let him provide what crew he pleases, the keel, unless we are sadly mistaken, will erelong be grating upon some submerged impediment; and then he will have a fair opportunity of testing the discipline of his motley band. Neither sewerage nor education can well be expected to last for ever. Enormous interests are at present placed in his charge; and these, handled and deranged as they have been of late, will not admit of idling or inattention. There can be no dawdling with these as with the Irish social measures. They will not stand the postponement of some ten or twelve years; nor will Lombard Street permit a second derangement of the financial affairs of the nation. In the manufacturing districts, the workmen are demanding the relief of a controlling factory bill, and on that point the cabinet is divided. The railway system requires particular attention, less for the sake of remedying past ministerial neglect, than of regulating future proceedings. The affairs of the colonies may erelong require the superintendence of a calm, temperate, and experienced head; and, finally, there is the question of revenue and the inchoate system of free-trade. There is quite enough work ready to the hand of the present ministry, if they only choose to undertake it. The country party, we believe, will form an effective and a watchful opposition, and will prove the best safeguard against any rash or uncalled-for experiments. Situated as they now are, they have no other functions to perform; and we would earnestly entreat of them, during the period which must elapse between the present time and the next general election, to bury, in so far as may be, all animosity for the past; and to reflect seriously in what manner the changes, which are now inevitable, may be best carried out for the benefit of the nation at large. The artificial fabric which has been reared during many years of conquest and successful industry, has now been deprived of its equipoise, and is fast becoming a ruin We thought, and we still think, that it may be difficult to find a better; but the work of demolition has already commenced, and we must do what we can to assist in the construction of another. At all events, we are entitled to insist upon working rigidly by plan. Let us know what we are about to do, before we bind our hands to any partial and one-sided measure; and, above all things, let us take care that the poorer classes of our fellow-subjects shall not suffer privation or want of employment during the adjusting and development of the new commercial theories. A little time will show their actual value. Long before the invention of the Irish social remedies, we shall be enabled to judge how far the free-trade policy of England is likely to be reciprocated abroad--we shall learn too, by the sure index of the balance-sheet, whether these changes are operating towards our loss or our gain; and we shall also have some opportunity of testing the efficiency of the present administration. Let us, at all events, be prepared for future action; and since we cannot altogether dismiss from our minds the political history of the last few months, let us make it a useful lesson. It may be instructive for future statesmen to learn how the most powerful party in this age and country has been broken up and severed, not by any act of their own, but by the change of policy of their leader. It may also teach then the value of candour and of open dealing--virtues of such universal application, that we cannot yield to doctrines which would exclude then even from the councils of a cabinet.

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

Footnotes:

[1] _Notes and Recollections of a Professional Life._ By the late WM. FERGUSSON, M.D., Inspector-General of Military Hospitals. Longmans: 1846.

_The Military Miscellany._ By HENRY MARSHALL, F.R.S.E., Deputy Inspector-General of Army Hospitals. Murray: 1846.

[2] Sir Charles Napier.

[3] "The author, soon after his last return from the West Indies, at the close of the year 1817, was induced, from the then troubled state of the country, to join the ranks of a volunteer corps in Scotland, which was drilled and instructed by experienced men in all manner of ways, with the exception of the one thing needful--the firing ball--for during the whole time he remained with them, nearly two years, that was never thought of; and this was the case generally with the whole volunteer force of Great Britain, as well as the militia, at least in the early part of the war. Future wars must and will recur, and volunteer corps will again be formed; but if they be unused to the full-charged musket, however much their first appearance may impose, they will be found, when brought into action, of as much use as so many Chinese. Let them not suppose that until they have attained this skill, which it is in the power of every man to do, they are qualified to fight the battles of their country. * * * * In their present state, supposing two such bodies to get into collision, it would indeed be matter of wonder to think how they could contrive to kill one another without the aid of the cannon and other adjuncts. If they carried broomsticks on their shoulders, instead of muskets, they would no doubt make a sturdy fight of it; but with fire-arms which they had never been taught to use, the battle would resemble those of the Italian republics in the middle ages, when mailed knights fought the livelong day without mortal casualty."--DR FERGUSSON, p. 42.

Is ball practice sufficiently attended to in our army generally? We are inclined to doubt it. "We are economical people," says Dr Ferguson in another place, "famed for straining at gnats and swallowing camels, and the expense of ball cartridge is ever brought up in bar of the soldier being in the constant habit of firing it." We should also like to see some of our muskets replaced by rifles, an arm in which we have ever been deficient.

[4] Macaulay's _Miscellaneous Essays_. Article _Dryden_.

[5] Ranke's _History of the Popes_ is a most valuable addition to historical knowledge; but no one will assign it a place beside Livy or Gibbon.

[6] Macaulay's _Essays_. Article _Dryden_.

[7]

"Those rules of old discover'd, not devised, As Nature still, but Nature methodised: Nature, like Liberty, is but restrain'd By the same laws which first herself ordain'd. Hear how learn'd Greece her useful rules indites, When to repress, and when indulge our flights:

* * * * *

Just precepts thus from great examples given, She drew from them what they derived from heaven." _Essay on Criticism._

[8] _Peru._ _Reiseskizzen aus den Jahren_, 1838-1842. Von J. J. VON TSCHUDI. Volume the second.

[9] "Por un clavo se pierde una herradura, por una herradura un cavallo, por un cavallo un caballero."

[10] Stevenson, in his work on South America, refers to the extraordinary longevity of the Peruvian Indians. In the church register at Barranca, he found recorded the deaths of eleven persons in the course of seven years, whose joint ages made up 1207 years, giving an average of 110 years per man. Dr Tschudi mentions an Indian in Jauja, still living in 1839, and who was born, if the register and the priest's word might be believed, in the year 1697. Since the age of eleven years he had made a moderate daily use of coca. However old, few Indians lose their teeth or hair.

[11] _Godo_, _goth_, the nickname given by Peruvian Indians to the Spaniards.

[12] _The Gastronomic Regenerator; a Simplified and entirely New System of Cookery, &c._ By MONSIEUR A. SOYER, of the Reform Club. London; 1846.