Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 60, Number 371, September 1846

LETTER II.

Chapter 120,374 wordsPublic domain

DEAR MR EDITOR--I should like to offer you some more of my criticisms on the hexameters which have been written in English, and, by your good leave, will try to do so at some future time. But there are probably some of your readers who entertain the prejudices against English hexameters which we often hear from English critics of the last generation. I cannot come to any understanding with these readers about special hexameters, till I have said something of these objections to hexameters in general. One of these objections I tried to dispose of in a former missive; namely, that “we cannot have good hexameters in English, because we have so few spondees.” There are still other erroneous doctrines commonly entertained relative to this matter, which may be thus briefly expressed;--that in hexameters we adopt a difference of long and short syllables, such as does not regulate other forms of English versification; and that the versification itself--the movement of the hexameter--is borrowed from Greek and Latin poetry. Now, in opposition to these opinions, I am prepared to show that our English hexameters suppose no other relations of strong and weak syllables than those which govern our other kinds of verse;--and that the hexameter movement is quite familiar to the native English ear.

The first of these truths, I should have supposed to be, by this time, generally acknowledged among all writers and readers of English verse: if it had not been that I have lately seen, in some of our hexametrists, a reference to a difference of _long_, and _short_, as something which we ought to have, in addition to the differences of strong and weak syllables, in order to make our hexameters perfect. One of these writers has taken the model hexameter--

“In the hexameter rises the fountain’s silvery column;”

and has objected to it that the first syllable of _column_ is _short_. But, my dear sir, it is not shorter than the first syllable of _collar_, or of the Latin _collum_! The fact is, that in hexameters, as in all other English verses, the ear knows nothing of _long_ and _short_ as the foundation of verse. All verse, to an English ear, is governed by the succession of _strong_ and _weak_ syllables. Take a stanza of Moore’s:--

“_When_ in _death_ I shall _calm_ re_cline_, O _bear_ my _heart_ to my _mis_tress _dear_. _Tell_ her it _lived_ upon _smiles_ and _wine_, Of the _bright_est _hue_ while it _ling_er’d _here_.”

I have marked the strong syllables, which stand in the place of long ones, so far as the actual _existence_ of verse is concerned; though no doubt the _smoothness_ of the verse is promoted by having the light syllables short also, that they may glide rapidly away. But this, I say, though favourable to smoothness, is not essential to verse: thus the syllable _death_, though strong, is short; _I_ and _while_, though weak, are long.

Now this alternation, in a certain order, of strong and weak syllables, is the essential condition of all English verse, and of hexameters among the rest. Long and short syllables, to English ears, are superseded in their effect by strong and weak accents; and even when we read Greek and Latin verses, so far as we make the versification perceptible, we do so by putting strong accents on the long syllables. The English ear has no sense of any versification which is not thus constructed.

I had imagined that all this was long settled in the minds of all readers of poetry; and that all notion of syllables in English being long, for purposes of versification, because they contain a long vowel or a diphthong, or a vowel before two consonants, had been obliterated ages ago. I knew, indeed, that the first English hexametrists had tried to conform themselves to the Latin rules of quantity. Thus, as we learn from Spenser, they tried to make the second syllable of _carpenter_ long; and constructed their verses so that they would _scan_ according to Latin rules. Such are Surry’s hexameters; for instance:--

“Unto a caitiff wretch whom long affliction holdeth, Grant yet, grant yet a look to the last monument of his anguish.”

But this made their task extremely difficult, without bringing any gain which the ear could recognise; and I believe that the earlier attempts to naturalize the hexameter in England failed mainly in consequence of their being executed under these severe conditions, which prevented all facility and flow in the expression, and gave the popular ear no pleasure.

The successful German hexametrists have rejected all regard to the classical rules of quantity of syllables; and have, I conceive, shown us plainly that this is the condition of success in such an undertaking. Take, for instance, the beginning of _Hermann und Dorothea_:--

“Und so sass das trauliche Paar, sich unter den Thorweg Ueber das wander de Volk mit mancher Bemerkung ergötgend Endlich aber began der wüedige Hansfrau, und sagte Sept! dort kommt der Prediger her; es kommt auch der Nachbar.”

The penultimate dactyls in these lines, “_unter dem_ Thorweg,” “Be_merkung er_götgend,” “_Hansfrau und_ sagte,” “_kommt auch der_ Nachbar,” have, in the place of short syllables, syllables which must be long, if any distinction of long and short, depending upon consonants and dipthongs, be recognised; but yet these are good and orderly dactyls, because in each we have a strong syllable followed by two weak ones. If we call such trissyllable feet _dactyls_, and in the same way describe other feet by their corresponding names in Greek and Latin verse, _spondees_, _trochees_, and the like, we shall be able to talk in an intelligible manner about English verse in general, and English hexameters in particular.

And I have now to show, in the second place, that English hexameters are readily accepted by the native ear, without any condition of discipline in Greek and Latin verse. I do not mean to say that hexameters have not a peculiar character among our forms of verse; and I should like to try to explain, on some future occasion, the mode in which the recollection of Homer and Virgil, in Greek and Latin, affects and modifies the pleasure which we receive from hexameter poems in German and English. But I say that, without any such reference, poems written in rigorous hexameters will be recognised by a common reader as easy current verse.

In order to bring out this point clearly, you must allow me, Mr Editor, to make my quotations with _various readings_ of my own, which are requisite to exemplify the forms of verse of which I speak.

I begin by talking of “dactylics,” in spite of the _Antijacobin_. Dactylic measures are very familiar to our ears, and congenial to the genius of our versification. These lines are dactylics:--

But the lines may be also regarded as anapæstics:--

In all these cases, the line begins with a weak syllable; and if the lines are regarded as dactylics, this syllable must be taken as a fragment of foot. When the line begins with a strong syllable, the dactylic character is more decided: as if the lines were,--

Know ye the land of the cypress and myrtle? Emblems of deeds that are done in their clime?

Now, in such examples, along with the trissyllable feet, dissyllable feet are often mixed, as their metrical equivalents: as

We may observe that there is, in this example, a kind of symmetry shown in preserving the dissyllable feet always in the second place, which is not without its effect on the ear. Some of these feet may be made two or three syllables at pleasure, as _linger’d_ or _lingerèd_. I will add the next stanza as a further example:--

That the verse so constructed is perfectly rhythmical, we know, by the exactness with which it lends itself to music. The musical bars would point out the divisions, or the number at least, of the feet, if we had any doubt upon that subject.

In order that we may the more distinctly perceive the mixture of two kinds of feet in this example, let us reduce it entirely to trissyllable feet, by slight changes in the expression:--

I have arranged this variation so that the incomplete feet at the end of one line and the beginning of the next in each distich, as well as the rest, make up a complete dactyl; and thus, the measure runs on through each two written lines in a long line of seven dactyls and a strong syllable. But it will be easily perceived, that if the feet had been left incomplete at the end of each written line, the pause in the metre would have supplied what was wanting, and would have prevented the verse from being perceived as irregular. Thus these are still true dactylic lines:----

When in my tomb I shall calmly recline O carry my heart to my conqueror dear; Tell her it lived upon smiles and on wine Of brilliant hue, while it lingered here.

I will now arrange the same passage so as to reduce it entirely to dissyllable feet, which alters the character of the versification.

When in death I calm recline, O bear my heart to her I love; Say it liv’d on smiles and wine Of brightest hue, while here above. Bid her shed no tear of grief To soil a heart so clear and bright; But drops of kind remembrance give To bathe the gem from morn to night.

As the dissyllable feet may be divided either as dactyls or as anapæsts, so the dissyllable feet may be divided either as trochees or as iambuses. Thus we may scan either of these ways--

But in this case, as in that of dissyllable feet, the metre is more decidedly trochaic, because each line, (that is, each distich, as here written,) begins with a strong syllable.

_When_ in | death I | calm re | cline.

The animated trochaic character, when once given by a few lines of this kind, continues in the movement of the verse, even when retarded by initial iambuses; as,

“Haste thee, nymph, and bring with thee Jest and youthful jollity: Quips and cranks and wanton wiles, Nods and becks and wreathed smiles; Such as dwell on Hebe’s _cheek_, _And_ love to live in dimple sleek, Sport that wrinkled care de_rides_, _And_ laughter holding both his sides.”

Here the weak syllables _And_, _And_, do not materially interrupt the trochaic verse. They may be taken as completing the trochee at the end of the preceding line.

In these verses, and in all English verses, there are no spondees, or feet consisting of two strong syllables. No foot in English metre has more than one strong syllable, and the weak syllables are appended to the strong ones, and swept along with them in the current of the metre. The equality between a trissyllable and a consecutive dissyllable foot, which the metre requires, is preserved by adding strength to the short syllable, so as to preserve the balance. Thus, when we say----

_Bear_ my heart to my _mis_tress dear,

There is a strength given to _bear_, and _mis_tress, which makes them metrically balance _carry_ and _conqueror_ in this verse,

_Carry_ my heart to my _conqueror_ dear.

It must be observed, however, that the proportion between heavy and light, or strong and weak, in syllables, is not always the same. When a dissyllable foot occurs in the place of a trissyllable one, in a metre of a generally trissyllabic character, the light syllable may be conceived as standing in the place of two, and is therefore more weighty than the light syllables of the trissyllabic feet. Thus, if we say--

“Tell her it lived upon smiles _and_ wine,”

the _and_ is more weighty than it would be, if we were to say--

“Tell her it lived upon smiles _and on_ wine.”

And if again we say--

“Tell her it liv’d _on_ smiles and on wine,”

the _on_ is more weighty than the same syllable in _upon_. Hence, in these cases, _smiles and_, _lived on_, approach to spondees. But still there is a decided preponderance in the first syllables of each of these feet respectively.

I have hitherto considered dactylics with rhyme; of course the measure may be preserved, though the rhyme be omitted, either at the end of the alternate lines; as

When in my tomb I am calmly lying, O bear my heart to my mistress dear: Tell her it liv’d upon smiles and nectar Of brightest hue, while it lingered here:

Or altogether; as

Bid her not shed one tear of sorrow To sully a heart so brilliant and bright; But drops from fond remembrance gather, And bathe for ever the relic in these.

In the absence of rhyme, each distich is detached, and the number of such distiches, or long lines, may be either odd or even.

I shall now take a shorter dactylic measure; and first, with alternate rhymes.

Tityrus, you laid along, In the shade of umbrageous beeches, Practise your pastoral song, As your muse in your solitude teaches. We from the land that we love From all that we value and treasure, We must as exiles remove: While, Tityrus, you at your leisure Make all the woods to resound Amaryllis’s name at your pleasure.

We see, in this example that the rhyme is a fetter to the construction. In this case, it is necessary to have three distichs which rhyme, in order to close the metre with the sentence.

We detach these distichs, or long lines, from each other, by rejecting the use of rhyme between successive distichs. We might make the two parts of the same long line rhyme thus:--

Tityrus, you in the shadow Of chestnuts stretcht in the meadow, Practise your pastoral verses In strains which your oat-pipe rehearses. We, poor exiles, are leaving All our saving and having; Leaving the land that we treasure: You in the woods at your pleasure Make them resound, when your will is, The name of the fair Amaryllis.

But these rhymes, even if written in one long line, are really two short lines with a double rhyme; and this measure, besides its difficulty, is destitute of dignity and grace.

If we take the same measure, rejecting rhyme, and keep the dactylics pure, we have such distichs as these:--

Tityrus, you in the shade Of a mulberry idly reclining, Practise your pastoral muse In the strains that your flageolet utters.

But these may be written in long lines, thus:--

Tityrus, you in the shade of a mulberry idly reclining, Practise your pastoral muse, in the strains that your flageolet utters; We from the land that we love, from our property sever’d and banish’d, We go as exiles away; and yet, Tityrus, you at your leisure Tutor the forests to ring with the name of the fair Amaryllis.

These verses are of a rhythm as familiar and distinct to the English ear as any which our poets use. Now these are _hexameters_ consisting each of five dactyls and a trochee,--the trochee approaching to a spondee, as I have seen; yet still, not being a spondee, but having its first syllable decidedly strong in comparison with the second.

The above hexameters are perfectly regular, both in being purely dactylic, and in having the regular _cæsura_, namely the end of a word at the beginning of the third dactyl, as--

We from the land that we _love_ We go as exiles _away_.

But these hexameters admit of irregularities in the same manner as the common English measures of which we have spoken. We may have dissyllable feet instead of trissyllable in any place in the line; thus in the fourth--

Tityrus, you in the shade of a _chestnut_ idly reclining.

In the third--

Tityrus, you in the _shade of_ mulberries idly reclining.

In the second--

Tityrus, _you in_ shadows of mulberries idly reclining.

In the first--

_Damon_, you in the shade of a mulberry idly reclining.

We may also have a dissyllable for the fifth foot--

Tityrus, you in the shade of a beech at your _ease re_clining.

But this irregularity disturbs the dactylic character of the verse more than the like substitution in any other place. So long as we have a dactyl in the fifth place, the dactylic character remains. Thus, even if we make all the rest dissyllables--

“Damon, you in shades of beech-trees idly reclining.”

But if the fifth foot also be a dissyllable, the measure becomes trochaic.

“Damon, you in shades of beech at ease reclining, Play your oaten pipe, your rural strains combining.”

Supposing the dactylic character to be retained, we may have dissyllables not in one place only, but in several, as we have seen is the case in the more common English dactylics. Now, the metre thus produced corresponds with the heroic verse hexameters of the Greek and Latin languages; except in this, that the English dissyllable feet are not exactly spondees. The Greek and Latin hexameters admit of dactyls and spondees indiscriminately, except that the fifth foot is regularly a dactyl, and the sixth a spondee or trochee. Also, the regular cæsura of the Greek and Latin hexameters occurs in the beginning of the third foot, as in the English hexameters above given.

I think I have now shown that, without at all deviating from the common forms of English metre, and their customary liberties, we arrive at a metre which represents the classical hexameters, with this difference only, that the spondees are replaced by trochees. And this substitution is a necessary change; it results from the alternation of strong and weak syllables, which is a condition of all English versification.

And thus I have, I conceive, established my second point; that hexameters, exactly representing those of Greek and Latin verse, may grow out of purely English habits of versification.

But at the same time, I allow that classical scholars do read and write English hexameters with a recollection of those which they are familiar with in Greek and Latin; and that they have a disposition to identify the rhythm of the ancient and the modern examples, which leads them to treat English hexameters differently from other forms of English verse. This gives rise to some particularities of English hexameters, of which I may have a few words to say hereafter. In the mean time, I subscribe myself, your obedient

M. L.

FROM SCHILLER.

COLUMBUS

Still steer on, brave heart! Though witlings laugh at thy emprise, And though the helmsmen drop, weary and nerveless, their hands. Westward and westward still! There land must emerge from the ocean; There it lies in its light, clear to the eye of thy mind. Trust in the power that guides: press on o’er the convex of ocean: What thou seek’st, were it not, yet it should rise from the waves. Nature with Genius holds a pact that is fixt and eternal-- All which is promised by _this_, _that_ never fails to perform.

ODYSSEUS

O’er all seas, in his search of home, lay the path of Odysseus, Scilla he past and her yell, skirted Charybdis’s whirl. Through the perils of land, through the perils of waves in their fury-- Yea even Hades’ self scap’t not his devious course. Fortune lays him at last asleep on Ithaca’s margin, And he awakes, nor knows, grieving, the land that he sought.

M. L.

ALGERIA

[_Algeria and Tunis in 1845._ By CAPTAIN J. C. KENNEDY, 18th Royal Irish. London: 1846.]

[_Algeria in 1845._ By COUNT ST MARIE, formerly in the French Military Service. London: 1846.]

We have always felt a strong interest in the welfare and progress of the French colonies in Africa. Our reasons for the same are manifold, and must be manifest to the readers of Maga; that is to say, to all judicious and reflecting persons conversant with the English language. There is, indeed, much to excite sympathy and admiration in the conduct of our neighbours to their infant settlement in the land of the Moor and the Arab. Their treatment of the natives has been uniformly considerate, their anxiety to avoid bloodshed painfully intense, their military operations have been invariably successful, and in their countless triumphs, modestly recorded in the veracious bulletins of a Bugeaud, they have ever shown themselves generous and magnanimous conquerors. The result of their humane and judicious colonial administration, and of a little occasional wholesome severity on the part of Colonel Pelissier, or some other intrepid officer, is most satisfactory and evident. A hundred thousand men are now sufficient to keep the ill-armed and scattered Arab tribes in a state of perfect tranquillity. Twice or thrice in the year, it is true, they rise up, like ill-bred savages as they are, and fiercely assault the Europeans who have kindly volunteered, to govern their country, and, whenever it may be possible, to civilize themselves. A few unfortunate French detachments, outposts and colonists, are plundered and slaughtered; but then up comes a Lamoricière or a Changarnier, perchance the Duke of Isly himself, or a prince of the blood in person, with thousands of bayonets and sabres; and forthwith the turbulent Bedouins scamper across the desert in tumultuous flight, their dingy bournouses waving in the wind, shouts of fury and exultation upon their lips, and Frenchmen’s heads upon the points of their scimeters. As to Abd-el-Kader, the grand instigator of these unjustifiable outbreaks, he is a troublesome and discontented barbarian, always kicking up a devil of a hubbub, usually appearing where least desired, but, when wanted, never to be found. The gallant and _reverend_ gentleman--for, besides being an emir and a general, he is a marabout or saint of the very first chop--has caused the aforesaid Bugeaud a deal of annoyance; and the marshal has long been desirous of a personal interview, which hitherto has been obstinately declined. Altogether the emir is a vexatious fellow; and it is another strong proof of French kindness and conciliatory spirit, that although he has frequently wandered about in very reduced circumstances, _sans_ army or friends, with a horse and a half, and a brace of barefooted followers, (_vide_ the Paris newspapers of any date for the last dozen years,) the French, instead of laying hold of him and hanging him up, which of course they might easily have done, have preferred to leave him at large. Some say that it would be as unreasonable to expect an enthusiastic fox-hunter to waylay and shoot the animal that affords him sport, as to look for the capture of Abd-el-Kader at the hands of men who find pleasure and profit in the chase, but would derive little of either from its termination. To cut his throat would be to cut their own, and to slay the bird that lays the golden epaulets. It is related, in a book now before us, that M. Bugeaud, when applied to by a colonel for a column of troops to pursue and capture the emir, replied in these terms:--“Do not forget, sir, that to Abd-el-Kader most of your brother officers are indebted for their chances of promotion.” Others have asserted, that if the Arab chief is still a free denizen of the desert, it must be attributed to his own skill, courage, and conduct; to the bravery of his troops, and the fidelity of his adherents; and not to any merciful or prudential scruples of his opponents. We reject this notion as absurd and groundless. We are persuaded that French forbearance is the sole reason that the head of Abd-el-Kader, duly embalmed by the _procédé_ Gannal, does not at this moment grace the sideboard of the victorious Duke of Isly, or frown grimly from the apex of the Luxor obelisk.

Having thus avowed our strong interest in the prosperity of Algeria, we need hardly say that we read every book calculated to throw light upon the progress and prospects of that country. The volumes referred to at foot of the first page, had scarcely issued from the sanctuaries of their respective publishers, when our paper-knife was busy with their contents, and as we cut we eagerly read. We confess to have been disappointed. Captain Kennedy’s narrative is tame, and rather pedantic; its author appears more anxious to display his classical and historical lore, and to indulge in long descriptions of scenery and Arab encampments, than to give us the sort of information we should most have appreciated and relished. As a book of travels, it is respectable, and not unamusing; but from travellers in a country whose state is exceptional, one has a right to expect more. We had hoped for more copious details of the present condition and probable result of French colonization, for more numerous indications of the state of feeling and intercourse between the Arab tribes and their European conquerors. These matters are but slightly touched upon. It is true that Captain Kennedy, in his preface, avows his intention of not entering into political discussions, and of abstaining from theories as to the future condition of the southern coast of the Mediterranean. We can only regret, therefore, that he has _not_ thought proper to be more comprehensive. His opportunities were excellent, his pen is fluent, and he evidently possesses some powers of observation. Received with open arms and cordial hospitality by the numerous officers to whom he had introductions, or with whom he casually became acquainted, he has perhaps felt a natural unwillingness to probe and lay bare the weak points of the French in Africa. Such, at least, is the general impression conveyed to us by his book. He seems hampered by fear of requiting kindness by censure; and, to escape the peril, has abstained from criticism, forgetting the possible construction that may be put upon his silence. There is certainly scope for a work on Algeria of a less superficial character, and such a one we wish he had applied himself to produce. From no one could it better proceed than from a British officer of intelligence and education. We are not disposed, however, because Captain Kennedy has not fulfilled all our expectations, to judge with severity the printed results of his tour. His tone is easy and gentlemanly, and we are far from crying down what we presume to be his first literary attempt.

From the English officer we turn to the French one, whose book is of a much more ambiguous character. Who is this Count St Marie? Whence does he derive his countship and his melodramatic or vaudevilleish name? Does he write in English, or is his book translated? Is he a Frenchman as well as a French officer, a _bonâ fide_ human being, or a publisher’s myth; a flesh and blood author, or a cloak for a compilation? From sundry little discrepancies, we suspect the latter; and that he is indebted for name, title, and rank, to the ingenious benevolence of his editor. Sometimes he talks as if he were a Frenchman; at others, in a manner to make us suppose him English. Whatever his nation, it is strange, if he has been an officer in the French service, that he should request information from a certain mysterious Mr R----, whom he constantly puts forward as an authority, on the subject of promotion in the French army, and respecting French military decorations. The commanders of the Legion of Honour, he tells us, wear the gold cross _en sautoir_, like the cross of St Andrew. Odd enough that Count St Marie should be more conversant with Scottish decorations than with French ones. Talking of Bougia, at page 203, he remarks that “the blindness and imbecility of the French in Africa _is_ (he might have said _are_) more perceptible there than any where else;” and adverts to “the ruined _débarcadère_, the fragments of which seem left only to put French negligence to shame.” We doubt if any Frenchman would have written in this tone, especially in a book intended for publication in England. There are many similar passages in the volume. Yet the gallant count talks of the French consul as “_our_ consul,” and of the French troops as “_our_ columns,” the latter in the very same paragraph in which he sneers at their victories. His style is free from foreign idioms, but here and there occurs a peculiarity seeming to denote a translation. A town is said to be garrisoned by veteran troops, when the meaning evidently is, that the garrison was a detachment of the French corps known as “the Veterans.” Although _cent sous_ is a common term in France to express a five-franc piece, in English we do not talk of a payment of one hundred sous. But it is unnecessary to multiply instances. We have probably said enough to make our readers coincide in our suspicion, that “Algeria in 1845,” by Count St Marie, is neither fish, flesh, nor red herring, but altogether of the composite order. It is, nevertheless, amusing and full of anecdote, with only here and there a blunder or dash of exaggeration; and although, as we believe, a compilation, it is tolerably correct in its statistics and inferences. We must protest, however, against the humbug of the system. A book that has merit may be launched under its true colours, and kept afloat without a titled name upon the title-page.

The motives that induce the French to cling, with a tenacity which an immense annual outlay of treasure and human life has hitherto failed to weaken, to their African conquest, are, we believe, pretty well appreciated, at least in this country, where colonies and colonization are understood, and where French policy is studied by many. Algeria is the safety-valve by which the superfluous steam of the national character is in some measure let off; it affords a _point de mire_ for the people, occupation for the army, a subject of discussion for the newspapers. Doubtless a large section of the French nation, or at least of its more sensible and thinking classes, would gladly witness the abandonment of a colony which has already cost more than there is any probability of its yielding for years to come--more, perhaps, than it ever will yield, either in direct or indirect advantages. But were it proposed to give it up, the general cry would be loudly against the measure. Not that there is a probability of the proposal being made. The present shrewd and wary ruler of France well knows that a little blood-letting is as essential to keep down the feverish temperament of his people as a plaything is to occupy their thoughts and preserve them from mischief. Algeria is at once the leech and the toy. Restless and enterprising spirits there find the field of action they require; those who might otherwise be busy with home politics, have their attention diverted by battles and bulletins. The evils of protracted and unprofitable warfare do not, in this instance, come home to the nation in a very direct and palpable form, and therefore disgust at the resultless strife has not yet replaced the interest and excitement it creates. Now and then a tent or an umbrella is captured and stuck up in the gardens of the Tuileries to be gaped and wondered at by the Parisians. This gives a fillip to popular enthusiasm, and well-fed national guardsmen, as they take their turn of duty at the palace gates, look with increased respect and envy upon the Algerine schako and bronzed visage of their fellow sentry of the line. Captain Kennedy gives an amusing instance of the extent to which the martial ardour of sober French citizens is sometimes carried by that stir of arms and din of battle whose echoes are wafted to their ears from the distant shores of the Mediterranean.

“Among the various costumes and styles of dress seen in the streets of Algiers, none are so ridiculous as that of the European civilian, dressed _à l’Arabe_, some fine specimens of which we saw to-day. One of this genus, a wealthy shopkeeper from the Rue Chaussée d’Antin, had, by his adventures a short time since, created some little amusement. Enthusiastic on the subject of the new colony, his thoughts by day had been for months of Algiers, and his dreams by night of bournoused warriors, fiery steeds, and bloody yataghans. At last, determined to see with his own eyes, he left his beloved Paris, and arrived safely in Algiers.

“His first care was to procure a complete Arab dress, in which he sallied forth the morning after his arrival. He came in search of adventures, and he was soon gratified. Stalking along, he accidentally hustled a couple of French soldiers, was sworn at, thrashed, and rolled in the mud as a ‘Sacré cochon d’Arabe,’ lost his purse from having no pockets in his new garments, and was nearly kicked down stairs by the garçon of his hotel for venturing to enter his own room.

“Undismayed by these misadventures, he set out the following day, armed to the teeth, to ride to Blidah. When, half-way there, he was seized as a suspicious character by two Arab gendarmes, for being armed without having a permit, and pretending not to understand Arabic; he was disarmed and dismounted, his hands tied behind his back, and fastened to his captor’s stirrup. He spent the night on the ground in a wretched hut, with a handful of cuscusoo for supper, and next morning was dragged into Algiers in broad daylight, half dead with fear and fatigue. On being carried before the police he was instantly liberated; and, taking advantage of the first packet, returned to France, having seen more of life in Algeria in a few days, than many who had spent the same number of years in the colony.”

Great must have been the discomfiture of the worthy burgher, although he had much reason to rejoice at having encountered Arab gendarnes and French troopers, instead of Bedouins or Kabyles, who would hardly have let him off with a beating, a night’s imprisonment, and a cuscusoo supper. We can imagine his delight at again finding the asphalte of the Boulevards under his boot-soles, and the respect with which his coffee-house gossips regarded him, as he related, over his post-prandial _demi-tasse_, or in the intervals of his game at dominos, the adventures of his amateur campaign, and the perils that beset the pilgrim to Algeria. A slight traveller’s license would convert the pair of gendarmes into a troop of hostile cavalry, and his brief detention in the hut into a visit to the dungeons of Abd-el-Kader. His friends would look up to him as a military authority, his wife exclaim at the injustice that left his button-hole undecorated; and when next his company of the national guard elected their officers, he would have but to present himself to be instantly chosen. The laurels he had failed to achieve in Africa would be bestowed upon him by acclamation in the guard-room of his _arrondissement_.

In relating the well-known incident that gave rise to hostilities between France and the Dey of Algiers, Count St Marie goes back to the remote cause, which, by his account, was a lady. In the time of Napoleon the Bey of Tunis had a favourite female slave, for whom he ordered, of an Algerine Jew, a costly and magnificent head-dress. The Jew, unable to get it manufactured in the country, wrote to Paris; the head-dress was made, at an expense of twelve thousand francs, and the modest Israelite charged it thirty thousand to the Bey. The latter was too much pleased with the bauble to demur at the price, but, not being in cash, he paid for it in corn. There chanced just then to be a scarcity in France; the Jew sold his grain to the army contractors, and managed so well that he became a creditor of the French government for upwards of a million of francs. Napoleon fell, and the Bourbons declined to pay; but the Jew contrived to interest the Dey of Algiers in his cause, and remonstrances were addressed to the French government. The affair dragged on for years, and at last, in 1829, on the eve of a festival when the diplomatic corps were admitted to pay their respects to the Dey, the latter expostulated with the French consul on the subject of the long delay. The answer was unsatisfactory, and the consequence was the celebrated rap with a fan or fly-flap, which sent its giver into exile, and converted Algeria into a French province. On visiting the Kasbah, or citadel, at Algiers, Captain Kennedy was shown the little room in which the insult was offered to the representative of France. It is now used as a poultry-yard. “Singularly enough,” says the captain, “as we entered, a cock, strutting on the deserted divan, proclaimed his victory over some feebler rival by triumphant crow--an appropriate emblem of the real state of affairs.” But the conquered cock is game; and although sorely punished by his adversary’s spurs, he returns again and again to the charge.

Within the fortress of the Kasbah were comprised the Dey’s palace, harem, and treasury. The buildings are now greatly altered, at least as regards their application. The private residence of the Dey has been converted into officers’ quarters, the harem is occupied by artillerymen, a kiosk has been arranged as an hospital, and a mosque has become a Catholic chapel. The treasury was said to contain an immense sum at the time of its capture by the French; but the exact amount was never known, and various accounts have been given of the probable disposal of the money. Captain Kennedy believes there is little doubt that the sum of forty-three millions of francs, officially acknowledged to have been shipped to France, was employed by the ministers of Charles the Tenth in their vain endeavours to suppress the revolution of 1830. Certain general officers of the invading army have been charged with acts of appropriation; but nothing was ever proved, and the whole rests on rumour and unsupported assertion. However the money was got rid of, there is no doubt that a vast deal was found. The Dey, a careless extravagant old dog, worthy of his piratical ancestors, was any thing but minute in his record of receipts and expenditure. He was not the man to ring his sovereign or mark his bank-notes; he knew as much about double entry as about the Greek mythology or the Waverley novels, and kept his accounts with a shovel and a corn-bin. Wooden partitions divided his treasury into compartments--one for gold, one for silver, and separating foreign and native coin; when money was received, it was thrown in uncounted; when wanted, it was taken out without form or ceremony of writing. “Such also was the carelessness shown,” adds Captain Kennedy, “that, in one part, the walls still bear the impressions of coins cast in at random, before the inner coating of plaster had had time to dry,”--quite a realisation of fairy tale accounts, and popular ideas of Oriental profusion and lavish prodigality. The manner in which these heads of gold and silver were guarded is equally curious, and completes a picture worthy of the Arabian Nights’ Entertainments. “Prior to the French occupation,” says M. St Marie, “any attempt to penetrate into these caves was impracticable, the approach to them being guarded by lions, tigers and hyenas, chained up at short distances from each other.” Besides these formidable brute body-guards, whose melodious voices must have greatly soothed the slumbers of the fair inmates of the seraglio, the Dey had barracks within the Kasbah for his household troops, on whose fidelity he relied for protection from the soldiery of the regency, frequently in a state of mutiny.

Military hospitals are of course a primary necessity in a country where half a million of soldiers have perished during the last fifteen years, either by disease or the sword. At Algiers there are several establishments of the kind, one of which, situated in the gardens of the Dey, and capable of containing five thousand sick, is particularly worthy of notice. Large as the building is, it is insufficient in summer and autumn to accommodate all who seek admission. The gardens have been left as much as possible uninjured, and their orange-trees and fountains afford cool shade and delightful freshness to the convalescent soldiers. On the other hand, the Jardin Marengo, belonging to Colonel Marengo, the commandant of the citadel of Algiers, contributes its quota to the sick wards. It is cultivated, Count St Marie informs us, by condemned soldiers, who suffer dreadfully from the heat and from exposure to the burning sun. Scarcely a day passes without some of the unfortunate men being conveyed to hospital, and in many instances they never recover. The real name of Colonel Marengo is Capon. His father distinguished himself at the battle of Marengo, and Napoleon jestingly bestowed on him the name retained by his son, instead of the ignoble appellation that he previously bore. Apropos of the hospital--or it might just as well be said, _àpropos de bottes_--the Count, who certainly never loses an opportunity of bringing in a good story, relates one of a M. St Vincent, president of a French learned society, who went to Africa to prosecute researches in natural history. Eager for specimens, he was liberal in his payments; and one day a great curiosity was brought to him in the shape of two rats, each with a long excrescence, like the trunk of an elephant, issuing from the top of the nose. He caught at the prize, and immediately forwarded to the Jardin des Plantes at Paris a scientific description of the _rat trompé_. But his letter had scarcely gone when the excrescence became dry and dropped off; and on examination it was found that incisions had been made above the noses of the animals, and the tails of two other rats inserted The _rat trompé_ dwindled into a _rat trompeur_.

After a short stay in the city of Algiers, and contemplating a return thither, Captain Kennedy and his companion, Viscount Fielding, started for Blidah by diligence. At about half a mile from the Kasbah, the road--an excellent one, constructed by the troops--passes under the walls of Fort l’Empereur, built in commemoration of a victory obtained by the Moors in the year 1541 over the troops of Charles V. Some of the cannon abandoned on this occasion by the Spaniards were originally French, having been taken by the imperial army at the battle of Pavia. The Algerines mounted them on the Kasbah, where they remained until in 1830, after an interval of three hundred and five years, they again fell into the hands of their first possessors. The fort, which owes its existence to a signal triumph of Algerine power, was not destined to survive the downfall of the Crescent. Invested by the French, a few hours’ cannonade dismounted its guns, breached its walls, and ruined its defences. The garrison were compelled to abandon it, and retreat into the city, with the exception of a few desperadoes, who had sworn to perish, but never to fly before the Christians. Whilst the French troops impatiently awaited orders for an assault, a tremendous explosion took place; and when the dust and smoke cleared away, the whole western face of the fort was a heap of ruins. The surrender of the city shortly followed.

Previously to an earthquake that occurred in 1825, the town of Blidah, situated in a fertile valley at the foot of the lesser Atlas, numbered fifteen thousand inhabitants. Many of these perished in the ruins of their dwellings, and the place never recovered itself; for, at the period of the French invasion, the population was only five thousand. Placed in the very heart of the scene of war, the diminution continued, and the native inhabitants are now an insignificant handful. The European population is on the increase, and the situation of the town on the line of communication between the port of Algiers and the country beyond the Atlas, as well as its good climate and abundance of water, seems to mark it out as a place of future importance. In former times it was a favourite residence of the Moors and Arabs, who called it the New Damascus. There has been hard fighting there during the present war, and it has thrice changed masters. It is surrounded by luxuriant gardens and groves of orange-trees, whose fruit is said to be the finest in the world. The plantations formerly extended quite up to the town; but the Arabs took advantage of this to come down and pick off the sentries, and it was found necessary to clear a large number of acres. This impoverished many of the inhabitants, whose wealth consisted in plantations of oranges, lemons, and olives. The town is usually garrisoned by the Zouaves, troops originally raised amongst the natives in imitation of our Sepoys. Soon after the formation of the corps, however, Frenchmen were allowed and encouraged to enlist, and of these the three battalions now principally consist. As fighting men they enjoy the highest possible character, but in quarters they are terrible scamps. Its gallant reputation and picturesque uniform, and the numerous opportunities of distinction afforded to it, cause this corps to be generally preferred by volunteers, and non-commissioned officers often leave the line to serve as privates in the Zouaves.

At Blidah, Captain Kennedy and his friend procured horses, and with their party strengthened by two Prussian officers, they set out for Medeah. West of the river Chiffa they came upon another military road, at which a battalion was then working. Men and officers were encamped in tents, and in huts constructed of boughs. “The men employed on this duty receive seventy-five centimes (about sevenpence) additional pay per diem; and during the winter and spring, as the work is not hard, it is rather preferred by the troops to garrison duty.” The system of providing employment for the soldier, when he is not actually opposed to the enemy, is very generally carried out by the French in their African colony, and also in France when it is possible to be done. Captain Kennedy evidently approves of it. At Medeah, a few minutes’ walk from the gate, are the gardens of the garrison. Each regiment or battalion has its piece of ground, divided into lots for the different companies, and supplying the troops with vegetables. “Here, as at other places I have since visited, the ground in the occupation of the troops was in a high state of culture, and superior both in produce and neatness of arrangement to the gardens of the civilians. * * * In many of our own colonies, and even at home, this system might be followed with beneficial results to our troops; for, putting aside the addition the produce would make to the comforts of the men, any employment or amusement that would tend to keep the soldier out of the canteen or public-house during his leisure hours, and there are many on whom it would have that effect, must be advantageous.”

Medeah is the capital of the province of Tittery, and the head-quarters of a subdivision of the French army, commanded by General Marey, to whom Captain Kennedy had introductions. To these the general did all honour, and sketched out for his guests the plan of an expedition to the Little Sahara. A French traveller, recording his visit to Medeah, has given the following ludicrous and melancholy account of the caravanserais of the town. “On a déjà plusieurs cafés avec l’inévitable billard, et deux hôtels où le travail est divisé, car l’un loge and l’autre nourrit; les chambres n’y sont pas encore tout à-fait meublées, et le charpentier n’a pas encore achevé l’escalier qui y monte. On y a oublié une certaine faience très utile, mais il y a déjà des miroirs.” This description, doubtless as true as it is characteristic, now no longer applies. Things have improved in the last year or two; and at the time of Captain Kennedy’s journey, the Medeah hotels were very tolerable. But he was eager for the desert, and tarried little in the town. Accompanied by an aide-de-camp of General Marey, who had volunteered to do the honours of the colony, and show to the English visitors life amongst the Bedouins, escorted also by a score of light infantry, a party of Spahis or native cavalry, by half a dozen officers of the garrison, several servants, and a vast number of dogs, our travellers struck into the Arab country. The district they were about to traverse being peopled by friendly tribes, this large attendance was less for purposes of protection to the Englishmen than of mischief to the wild-boars, which it was proposed to hunt. After a night passed in an Arab tent, the battue began; and although not very successful, only one boar being killed, the sportsmen deemed themselves well repaid for eight hours’ walk in a broiling sun, by magnificent scenery, and the excitement of the chase.

There is interest, although no very great novelty, in Captain Kennedy’s narrative of his wanderings amongst the _dasheras_ and _douars_ of the Bedouins. The douars are Arab camps, the dasheras villages, or rather collections of huts, built of stone and mud, and roofed with branches of trees. The walls of these miserable habitations are low; the door does duty as sole window; for a fireplace a hole is made in the earthen door; the furniture consists of a few mats, a corn-mill, some pots, and a lamp. These are the dwellings of the agricultural tribes, who live near the mountains. The pastoral tribes roam over the desert; their tents, corn-mills, and mats, packed upon camels; and driving with them flocks and herds of sheep, goats, and cattle. When they halt, the tents are pitched in a circle, the opening towards the east; and at night the animals are driven into the inclosure, for safety from robbers, and to prevent straying. A family of Arabs will frequently wander several days’ march from their usual abiding-place to some French garrison or settlement, there to barter their stock for corn and European produce. They travel by easy journeys, and halt whenever convenient, only taking care to keep out of the way of hostile tribes. “A short time serves to unload the camel, spread the mats, and pitch the tent. A few handfuls of corn, ground in the mill, kneaded into a paste with water, and baked in thin cakes on the fire, with a drink of water, or, if they have it, milk, forms their simple meal.” Such is the abstemious life of these sons of the desert. In the autumn, when the great fair is held at Boghar, the advanced post of the French on the side of the Little Sahara, several thousand people repair thither, bringing hides, cheese, butter, and wool; also dates, skins of beasts, ostrich feathers, and the woollen manufactures of the Arab women, received from the interior of the country. These various products are exchanged for honey, oil, corn, cutlery, and cotton cloths. Arms and ammunition used to be greatly in request, but the French have prohibited that traffic. The imports of European goods are on the increase, and Captain Kennedy considers French trade in the north of Africa in a highly improving state, favoured as it is by numerous roads, made or making, through the Atlas, by the pacification of the country, and submission of the tribes between Blidah and Boghar. How long this submission may last must be considered doubtful. It has been induced neither by love nor fear, but by self-interest. The more prosperous tribes, and those located in the plain, finding Abd-el-Kader unable to protect them, took the only means left to secure themselves from the fierce razzias of the French, and from the ruin that these entailed. So long as they deem it advantageous, they will doubtless be staunch to their compact; but let then see or imagine a probable change in the fortune of the war, and they will be found eager, as some of them have already shown themselves, to rally once more round the standard of the Emir.

Amongst the tribes whose hospitality was shared by Captain Kennedy, the most powerful was that of Ouled-Macktar, whose chief, Ben Douda, is considered by the captain to afford a good type of the Arab chiefs in the pay of France. For a long period he acted as one of Abd-el-Kader’s lieutenants, but at a critical moment transferred his services to the French. His people had their possessions secured to them, and he himself received the appointment of Aga over the Arabs of the Little Desert, with an allowance of ten per cent on the tribute paid by the tribes under his jurisdiction. He is described as about fifty years of age, with handsome though harsh features of the true Arab cast. “What struck me most in his appearance, was the expression of deep cunning strongly marked in the lines that crossed his forehead, and in the downcast and furtive glances of the eye, observing every thing, yet seemingly inattentive.” The Aga is very wealthy, and lives in great luxury, comparatively to most of the Arabs. Captain Kennedy’s party reached his camp at a fortunate moment. The douar was in an unusual state of excitement, and great rejoicings were on foot in honour of the marriage of the Aga’s son. The wedding-feast, consisting of sheep roasted whole, stewed gazelle, cuscusoo, and other Bedouin delicacies, was succeeded by some very graceless dances. Whilst the latter proceeded, the men kept up an irregular fire of guns, pistols, and blunderbusses, presenting their weapons at each others’ breasts, and suddenly dropping the muzzle at the moment of pulling the trigger, so that the charge struck the ground. As might be anticipated, this dangerous sport did not terminate without an accident. One young savage omitted to sink his muzzle, and sent a blank cartridge into the hip of a comrade, knocking him over, burning his bournous, and causing an ugly, although not a dangerous wound. “The rest of the party did not seem to care much about it, and the wounded man’s wife, instead of looking after her husband, rushed up to the man who had shot him, and, assisted by some female friends, opened upon him a torrent of abuse, with such fluency of tongue and command of language, that, after endeavouring in vain to get in a word or two, he fairly turned tail and walked off.”

In the douar of the Abides tribe, Captain Kennedy fell in with a scorpion-eater. This was a disgusting-looking boy, who, being an idiot, was looked upon by the Arabs as a saint--deprivation of intellect constituting in their opinion a high claim to holiness. This urchin bolted, sting and all, a fine lively scorpion upwards of two inches long--the reptile writhing between his teeth as he deliberately crunched it. Our traveller had heard of such exploits, but had naturally been rather incredulous concerning the non-removal of the sting. In this case, however, he was perfectly satisfied that no deception was practised. The boy afterwards devoured another of the same dangerous species of vermin. He belonged to the religious sect of the Aisaoua, who claim the privilege of being proof against the venom of reptiles and the effects of fire. A most extraordinary account of a festival of this sect has been given by a French officer, of whose narrative Captain Kennedy supplies a translation. Fortunately he does not vouch for its veracity; so we may be permitted to disbelieve one half and doubt the rest. M. St Marie relates some marvels of a similar description, collected from an interpreter who had been a prisoner of Abd-el-Kader.

The general impression made on us by Captain Kennedy’s account of his visit to the Arab tribes, is, that the French have as yet done little or nothing towards securing the affections and improving the condition of the people they have subjugated. It must be acknowledged that they have had to do with an intractable race, and one difficult to conciliate. The old hatred and contempt of Mussulmans towards Christians has been preserved in full force in the deserts and mountains of Northern Africa. Centuries have done nothing to weaken it, or to cause the followers of Mahomet to look with liking, or even tolerance, upon the children of the Cross. The Christian is still a dog, and the son of a dog; and even when crouching before his power and intelligence, the Arab nurtures hopes of revenge, long deferred but never abandoned. The French regard their conquest as secure; and doubtless it may be rendered so by the maintenance of a powerful military establishment; but who can foretell the time when they will be enabled to withdraw even a portion of their present African army? Their doing so would be a signal for revolt amongst the chiefs now in their pay, amongst the tribes apparently most effectually humbled and subdued. Patience and vindictiveness are distinguishing traits of the Arab. He bides his time, but never loses sight of his object and of his revenge. “They do not forget,” says Count St Marie, speaking of the Arabs of the province of Oran, “that the Spaniards, weary of occupying a territory which cost them great sacrifices, and yielded them no advantages, abandoned their conquest after two centuries of possession. They foresee that, one day or other, they will be rid of the French, who have made as great a mistake as the Spaniards. The Arabs are animated by an innate spirit of pride and independence which nothing can subdue.” We venture no prophecies in this sense, but neither can we predict the day when Algeria, as a colony, will become other than an unproductive burden to its present possessors, or when it will repay them for the blood and treasure they so liberally expend upon it. They should beware of arguing too favourably from apparent calm and submission on the part of the natives. The ocean is often smoothest before a storm; the Arab most dangerous when apparently most tranquil. Like other Orientals, he starts in an instant from torpor and indolence into the fiercest activity. “The Arab,” says a German officer, whose narrative of adventure in Africa has recently been rendered into English, “lies whole days before his tent, wrapped in his bournous, and leaning his head on his hand. His horse stands ready saddled, listlessly hanging his head almost to the ground, and occasionally casting sympathising glances at his master. The African might then be supposed phlegmatic and passionless, but for the occasional flash of his wild dark eye, which gleams from under his bushy brows. His rest is like that of the Numidian lion, which, when satisfied, stretches itself beneath a shady palm-tree--but beware of waking him! Like the beasts of the desert and the forest, and like all nature in his own land, the Arab is hurried from one extreme to the other, from the deepest repose to the most restless activity. At the first sound of the tam-tam, his foot is in the stirrup, his hand on his rifle, and he is no longer the same man. He rides day and night, bears every privation, and braves every danger, in order to make prize of a sheep or ass, or of some enemy’s head. Such men as these are hard to conquer, and harder still to govern: were they united into one people, they would form a nation which would not only repulse the French, but bid defiance to the whole world. Unhappily for them, every tribe is at enmity with the rest; and this must ultimately lead to their destruction, for the French have already learned to match African against African.”

The constant hostilities amongst the tribes have doubtless facilitated their conquest; and the French still act upon the maxim of “_divide et impera_,” as the best means to retain what they have won. As yet little attention has been paid to more humane means of strengthening themselves in their new possessions, and to the civilisation of the natives. The chief plan proposed for the attainment of the latter object, has been to subject to the conscription all Arabs born since the occupation of the country by the French. It is very doubtful what may be the effect of this measure should it be carried out. Will it Frenchify the natives, and induce kindly feelings towards their conquerors, or render them more dogged and dangerous than before? They will, at any rate, acquire military knowledge, and an acquaintance with the European system of warfare, which, combined with the skill in arms and horsemanship they already possess, will render them doubly dangerous in case of a revolt. After their seven years’ service, they may perhaps think fit to join Abd-el-Kader, or any other leader then warring against the French. It is want of proper discipline that has rendered the Arab cavalry unable to compete successfully with that of France. They charge tumultuously and with little order, each man relying much upon himself individually, but doing little to aid the combined effect of the mass.

Might not conversion to Christianity be made a powerful lever for the civilisation of the tribes? They entertain a degree of respect for the Catholic priests scarcely inferior to that shown to their own marabouts. Abd-el-Kader has more than once released a prisoner, without ransom, at the prayer of the Bishop of Algiers. Near the last-named city, some French Jesuits have formed an establishment for the education, in the Christian faith, of young Arabs and Moors. There, as the author of “Algeria in 1845” informs us, a certain number of youths, after being baptized, are fed, clothed, lodged, and instructed in some trade. The French government pays little attention to this establishment, which is supported chiefly by charitable contributions. “It is, however, a great work of civilisation. The young pupils are hostages in the hands of the French. It is pretty certain that their fathers, brothers, and relations, will not join the rebels. When they leave this establishment, they will carry with them indelible feelings of gratitude. They will have an occupation, they will speak the French language, and will be of the same religion as their masters.”

Exclusive of the army, Frenchmen form less than half of the European population of Algeria. After them come Spaniards, who are very numerous; then Maltese and Italians; and finally, a small number of Germans, barely five per cent of the whole. The Spaniard, although often taxed with idleness and dislike to labour, here proves himself an industrious and valuable colonist; the Maltese travels from village to village with his little stock of merchandise; the German tills the ground. In the neighbourhood of Algiers, things have a very European aspect; and the Arabs themselves, from constant intercourse with the city, have lost much of their nationality. The appearance of a flourishing colony is, however, confined to this district. Little progress has as yet been made in rebuilding the other towns, although in most of them the work of improvement is begun, and the narrow dirty streets are being pulled down to make room for wider avenues and more commodious houses. In some of them the only buildings as yet erected are barracks and hospitals. The seaport town of Bona, bordering on the regency of Tunis, is an exception. In 1832 it was reduced to ruins by the troops of the Bey of Constantina, under command of Ben Aïssa. It is now rebuilding on the European plan. A large square, with a fountain, has been laid out in its centre, and several well-built streets are completed. The town already boasts of an opera, with an Italian company, who are assisted by amateurs, chiefly Germans, from the ranks of the foreign legion.

The Algerine Jews attribute their first arrival in Africa to a miracle, of which we find the following version in Count St Marie’s book. In the year 1390, Simon-ben-Sinia, chief rabbi of Seville, and sixty of his co-religionists were imprisoned, and condemned to die, the object being to get possession of their wealth. On the eve of the day fixed for their execution, Simon drew the image of a ship on his prison wall. The drawing was miraculously changed into a real vessel, on board of which the prisoners embarked for Algiers, where they were kindly received by the Marabout Sidi Ben Yusef. This tradition is still an article of faith, even with the most enlightened of the Jews. In whatever manner they came, they have increased and multiplied, and now abound in all the towns of Algeria. Preserving the characteristics of their race, they differ little from their European brethren; or, if there be any difference, it is not much in their favour. Their moral condition is low; and although some honourable and honest men are found amongst them, the majority are of a very different stamp. They are charitable to their poor, and hospitable to their own people, and are generally well conducted; but their insatiable and inherent greed leads them into all sorts of disgraceful transactions. They have been immense gainers by the expulsion of the Deys, under whose rule they were subjected to much oppression and ill usage. “Their condition is now vastly ameliorated, and I have even heard complaints of their insolence; a very extraordinary charge against a race so tamed and broken in spirit. The French, I fear, can place but little reliance on their courage in occasions of danger.” The Jewish women, when young, are for the most part strikingly handsome; and the boys are models of beauty until the age of ten or eleven years, when their features grow coarse. Education is confined to the males.

The taming of savage animals is no uncommon amusement amongst the French in Algeria; and the most extraordinary and alarming pets are encountered not only in officers’ quarters but in ladies’ drawing-rooms. At Medeah, Captain Kennedy was introduced to a magnificent lion, the property of General Marey, Sultan by name, two years old, and of a most amiable and docile disposition. Sultan allowed himself to be examined and pulled about, and did not even exhibit anger, but some annoyance when an aide-de-camp puffed a cigar in his nostrils--a pleasantry which we are disposed to consider fool-hardy. The only thing that excited his ire was a Scotch plaid worn by Captain Kennedy. It was supposed that the hanging ends reminded him of an Arab bournous, to which he had shown great aversion, having probably been ill-treated in his infancy by the Arabs who caught him. Notwithstanding his good temper, the general intended to get rid of him, fearing that in the long run instinct might prove stronger than education. Besides the lion, General Marey had an unhappy-looking eagle, and a pair of beautiful gazelles. Count St Marie abounds in anecdotes of ferocious beasts in a state of civilisation. One of the first acquaintances he made in Algiers was a tame hyena, of most unamiable aspect, but who lived in touching amity with a little dog, and did the civil for lumps of sugar. At Bona, the count went to call upon some ladies, and, on opening the door, beheld a brace of lions walking about the room. He shut himself out with great precipitation, but was presently reassured by the fair proprietresses of these singular favourites. When he ventured into the saloon, and sat down, the lion laid his head upon his knee, and the lioness jumped on the divan beside her mistress. These brutes were seven years old. Lions are not very common in Algeria. Now and then they approach the douars, greatly to the alarm of the Arabs, who hasten to inform the French authorities, and a battue takes place. Accidents generally happen at these lion-hunts: Count St Marie affirms that there are always three or four lives lost, to say nothing of wounds and other serious injuries. Whilst passing the night in an Arab encampment at the entrance of the Bibans or Iron Gates--the scene of much hard fighting, and of a gallant exploit of the late Duke of Orleans--the count was roused, he informs us, in the dead of the night, “by a noise which appeared to me like a distant peal of thunder, repeated and prolonged by the mountain echoes. Gradually the noise became louder. The animals sprang from their resting-places, and the men, armed with muskets, rushed out of the tents. The oxen, grouped themselves together, and turned their horns to the enemy; the dogs were afraid even to bark. Presently the roaring became less frequent and more distant; and we found that we had been saved from the unwelcome visit of a lion, by the light of the burning brushwood on the neighbouring hills.” The boar and the jackal are more common and less dangerous objects of chase than the lion. Some of the rich colonists and many of the officers are ardent sportsmen. Two of the former have regular packs of hounds and studs of horses. Hares, rabbits, and red partridges are very common.

The horse has greatly degenerated in Algeria, owing chiefly to the neglect of the Arabs, who consider the choice of the dam to be alone important, and pay no attention to the qualities of the sire. The French government has recently established stables near Bona, with a view to the improvement of the breed; the stud is to consist of stallions only. There are to be similar establishments in the other two provinces. So great is the demand for the better class of horses, that the Arabs obtain very high prices for their stallions, which they willingly sell, but they will not part with the mares. Every year, therefore, it becomes more difficult to propagate a good breed. Officers have now been sent to Tunis to make purchases, at a limit of eighty ponds sterling for each horse. This price, Captain Kennedy says, ought to buy the best horses in the country. Although less numerous than formerly, splendid specimens of the Barbary Arab are still to be met with in Algeria. Captain Kennedy describes, in glowing terms, a magnificent charger belonging to General Marey, purchased by that officer at a high price, and after a long negotiation, from a wealthy chief in the south-west. M. St Marie says, that he knew a Morocco horse to perform fifty leagues in eleven hours, without turning a hair or showing a trace of the spur. Assuming him to speak of the common three-mile league, or even of the old French posting league, which was something less, this statement appears incredible. Thirteen miles and a half an hour! Dick Turpin himself, upon his fabulous mare, would have recoiled before such a pace sustained for such a time. The rate of marching of the Arabs, however, from Captain Kennedy’s evidence, is very rapid. The infantry do their fifteen or twenty leagues in the twenty-four hours--the cavalry from thirty to forty-five--the _meharies_ (so say the Arabs) from fifty to eighty. This is when the tribes are on the war-path, making razzias upon each other’s flocks and camps, when it may be supposed that they put on a little extra steam. The mehary is an inferior race of camel, with a small hump, and possessed of considerable strength and spirit, carrying a couple of men. It keeps up for the whole day at about the same speed as the ordinary trot of a horse. Its diet is herbs and date kernels. The horses of the Sahara thrive best upon dates and milk; few of them get barley; and they are sometimes reduced, when no other food is obtainable, to eat cooked meat.

Amongst the most determined enemies of the French in Africa, are to be enumerated the Kabyles, tribes dwelling in the ranges of the Lesser Atlas, from Tunis to Morocco. Of different race from the Arabs, they are believed to be the aboriginal inhabitants of Northern Africa. Secure in their wild valleys, they have ever preserved their independence. Carthaginians, Romans, Vandals, Arabs, all failed to subdue them; and, although some of the tribes, whose territory is the least inaccessible, are now partially under the rule of the French, the maritime range, from the east of the Metidjah to Philippeville, remains unconquered. Their numbers are inconsiderable, roughly estimated at eighty thousand. This would give a fighting population of at most from sixteen to twenty thousand men; but that small force has been found efficient to preserve from foreign domination the almost impregnable fastnesses in which they dwell. Although the tribes wage frequent war amongst themselves, a common enemy unites them all. The attachment of the Kabyles to their country and tribe is remarkable. Like the Swiss, or the Spanish Galicians, they are accustomed to wander forth when young, and seek their fortune in other lands. Kabyle servants and labourers are found in all the towns and villages of Northern Africa. But if they learn that their tribe is threatened or at war, they abandon their situations, however advantageous, and hasten home, and to arms. They are very brave, but barbarously cruel, giving no quarter, and torturing their prisoners before cutting off their heads.

Their weapons are guns six or seven feet long, pistols, and yataghans, chiefly of their own manufacture, and the materials for which are found in their mountains, where they work mines of copper, lead, and iron. In their rude way, and considering the badness of their tools, they are tolerably ingenious. Amongst other things, they make counterfeit five-franc pieces, sufficiently well executed to take in the less knowing amongst the Arabs. Their industry is great, and, besides the valleys, they cultivate the steep mountain sides, forming terraces by means of walls, such as are seen in the vineyards on the Rhine and in Switzerland. Possessing few horses, they usually fight on foot; and in the plain, their untutored courage is unable to withstand the discipline of the French troops. Their charges are furious but disorderly; and when beaten back, they disperse to rally again at a distance. In the mountains, where the advantages of military organization have less weight, they are sturdy and dangerous foes, fighting on the guerilla plan, disputing each inch of ground, and disappearing from before their enemy only to fall with redoubled fierceness upon his flank or rear. No foreigners can penetrate into their country, and even Arabs run great risk amongst them. Not long ago, Captain Kennedy informs us, a party of Arab traders, suspected by the Kabyles of being in the French interest, were murdered to a man. Most of them understand and speak the Arabic, but they have also a language of their own, called the Shilla or Sherwia, whose derivation it has hitherto been impossible to discover. They profess Islamism, but mix up with it many superstitions of their ancestors, and ascribe certain virtues to the symbol of the cross, which they use as a talisman and tattoo upon their persons. “It would seem from this,” observes Captain Kennedy, “that at least the outward forms of the early Christians had at one period penetrated into the heart of their mountains.” That, however, like all that relates to the early history of the Kabyles, is enveloped in doubt and obscurity.

A barbarous practice, prevalent in Algeria before the French invasion, is still, Count St Marie tells us, adhered to by the Kabyles. The amputation of a limb, instead of being surgically performed, is effected by blow of a yataghan. The stump is then dipped into melted pitch, to stop the bleeding. The barber is the usual operator. Until the French came, regular physicians and surgeons were unknown in Algeria.

Besides the Zouaves already referred to, the French have raised various other corps expressly for African service. Conspicuous amongst these are two regiments of light cavalry, composed of picked men, and known as the “Chasseurs d’Afrique.” They are mounted on Arab horses; and in order to obtain a sufficient supply, each tribe has to furnish a horse as part of its yearly tribute. The arms of the Chasseurs are carbine, sabre, and pistols; their equipment is light; their uniform plain, and well suited to the nature of the service. Wherever engaged, they have greatly distinguished themselves, and are proportionably esteemed in the army of Africa. The reputation of the Spahis stands less high. These consist of four regiments of native cavalry, under the command of the Arab general Yussuf, whose history, as related by M. St Marie, is replete with romantic incident. It has been said that he is a native of the island of Elba, and was captured, when yet a child, by a Tunisian corsair. Sold to the Bey, he was placed as a slave in the seraglio, and there remained until an intrigue with his master’s daughter compelled him to seek safety on board a French brig, then about to join the fleet destined to attack Algiers. He made the first campaign as interpreter to the general-in-chief. His talents and heroic courage rapidly advanced him, and when the first regiment of Spahis was raised, he was appointed its colonel. Previously to that, he had rendered great services to the French, especially at Bona, when that town was attacked by Ben Aïssa. Landing from a brig of war with Captain d’Armandy and thirty sailors, he threw himself into the citadel, then garrisoned by the Turkish troops of Ibrahim, the former Bey of Constantina, who professed to hold the town for the French government, but had left his post. The Turks rose against their new leaders, and would have murdered them, but for the energy of Yussuf, who killed two ringleaders with his own hand, and then, heading the astounded mutineers, led them against the besiegers, who were totally defeated. The exterior of this dashing chief is exceedingly elegant and prepossessing. When at Paris he was called “_le beau Yussuf_,” and caused quite a _furore_, especially among the fair sex. His portrait may still be seen in the various print-shops, side by side with Lamoricière, Bugeaud, and the other “great guns” of the “_Armée d’Afrique_.”

The first Foreign Legion employed by the French in Africa was transferred to Spain in 1835, and there used up, almost to a man. Another has since been raised, composed of men of all countries--Poles, Belgians, Germans of every denomination, a few Spanish Carlists, and even two or three Englishmen; the legion, like most corps of the same kind, is remarkable for the reckless valour and bad moral character of its members. The Polish battalion is the best and most distinguished. The others are not to be trusted; and only a very severe system of punishments preserves something like discipline in their ranks, where adventurers, deserters, and escaped criminals are the staple commodity. Bad as they are, they are eclipsed by the condemned regiments, known by the slang name of “Les Zephyrs” These are punished men, considered ineligible to serve again in their former regiments, and who are put together on the principle of there being no danger of contagion where all are infected. A taught hand is kept over them; they are insubordinate in quarters, but dare-devils in the field. It will easily be imagined that the duties assigned to these convict battalions are neither the most agreeable nor the least perilous. At present, however, a detachment is employed on no unpleasant service, the care of a experimental military farm, near the camp of El Arrouch, in the district of Constantina. Here they cultivate a considerable tract of land, both farm and garden, breed cattle, and supply the colonists with seeds, fruit-trees, and so forth. Workshops are attached to the farm, for the manufacture of agricultural implements. The men who work as artisans receive three-pence, and the field labourers three halfpence, in addition to their daily pay. “Since the commencement of the experiment,” says Captain Kennedy, “the offences that have been committed bear but a small proportion to those that formerly occurred during a similar period in garrison.” In these days of reform in our military system, might not some hints be taken from such innovations as these? If employment is found to diminish crime amongst a troop of convicts, it might surely be expected to do as much in regiments to which no stigma is attached, and the vices of those members are often solely to be attributed to idleness and its concomitant temptations.

Of few men so largely talked of, and so justly celebrated, is so little positively known as of Abd-el-Kader. The contradictory accounts obtained from the tribes, the narratives of prisoners, who, from their very condition, were precluded from gathering other than partial and uncertain information, compose all the materials hitherto afforded for the history of this remarkable chieftain. Even his age is a matter of doubt, and has been variously stated, although it appears probable that he is now about forty years old. Seeing the great difficulty of obtaining authentic information, Captain Kennedy has abstained from nore than a brief reference to the Emir. At the period of his visit, Abd-el-Kader was not in the field, and his whereabout was very vaguely known--the French believing him to be “somewhere on the frontiers of Morocco.” In the absence, therefore, of trustworthy data, and of opportunities of personal observation, the captain says little on the subject. His reserve is unimitated by M. St Marie, who not only gives a detailed account of the Arab sultan, but prefixes to his book a portrait of that personage, with whom he claims to have had an interview. As regards the portrait, it may be as much like Abd-el-Kader as any other of the half-dozen we have met with, no two of which bore any similitude to each other. The account of the interview is rather marvellous. During his stay in the city of Algiers, M. St Marie went to breakfast with a young Belgian acquaintance, and found an Arab seated in his friend’s room, smoking a pipe. Refreshments were offered to the stranger, and, whilst he discussed them, the count had an opportunity of studying his countenance. He was struck with the dignity of his manner and deportment, and with his air of intellectual superiority, and was given to understand that he was sheik of a tribe friendly to the French. Breakfast over, the Arab departed. Two days afterwards, M. St Marie met his Belgian entertainer. “You were very fortunate the other day,” said the latter; “the Arab whom you saw, when breakfasting with me, was no other than the Emir himself.” And he proceeded to relate how Abd-el-Kader had entered the city with a party of peasants, carrying some chickens, which he sold in the marketplace, to prevent suspicion of his real character. He pledged his word to the truth of this statement, of whose accuracy the count appears satisfied. His readers will possibly be more incredulous. As a traveller’s story, the “yarn” may pass muster, and is, perhaps, not much out of place in the book where it is found. With it we conclude our notice of the rival “Algerias.” Those who desire further details of Bedouin douars and French encampments, of camels and Kabyles, razzias and the like, may seek and find them in the chronicle of the English captain, and the varied, but less authentic pages of the foreign count.

HOW TO BUILD A HOUSE AND LIVE IN IT.

NO. II.

We spent last Sunday at Figgins’s at Brixton, No. 2, Albert Terrace, Woodbine Lane. A hearty fellow: good glass of port: prime cigar: snug box in the garden: and a bus every five minutes at the end of the road: a regular A.1. place for a Sunday out, and home again in an hour and a half to our paradise at ----; but we are not going to give you our address, or we should be pestered to death with your visits. Suffice it to say that Figgins’s is a good specimen of a citizen’s villa _near_ London. Now, there are several kinds of villas: there is the villa near London, and the villa not near: there is the villa in a row, and the detached villa: there is your lodge, and your park, and your grange, and your cottage _ornée_; and best of all, in our opinion, there is--what is neither the one nor the other of all these--there is the plain old-fashioned country-house:--once a cottage, then a farm, then a gentleman’s house: irregular, odd, picturesque, unpretending, comfortable, and convenient. But Figgins’s is a new slap-up kind of affair; built within the last two years, and uniting in itself all the last improvements and the most recent elegancies. He has settled himself in a neighbourhood quite the genteelest of that genteel district: for, though merchants and men of yesterday, so to speak, the people of Albert Terrace show that they have respect for the good times of yore, and they admire the character of the fine old English gentleman: they pride themselves, moreover, on being a steady set of people, and they show their respect for things ancient even in the outward arrangements of their dwellings. Thus you enter each of the twenty little gardens surrounding each of the twenty little detached houses, through gates with Norman pillars at their sides, that would have done honour to Durham or Canterbury; while the wooden barriers themselves are none of your radical innovations on the Greek style, nor any of your old impious fox-hunting five-bars, but beautiful pieces of fretwork, copied from the stalls of Exeter Cathedral, painted so nicely in oak, and so well varnished, that Stump the painter must have out-stumped himself in their execution. Once within the gate, however, and the connecting wall--capped, we ought to have said, with a delicious Elizabethan cornice--all Gothic formality ends for the while; and you are lost in astonishment at the serpentine meanderings, the flowing lines, and the thousand attractions of the garden. An ill-natured friend, who went with us, took objection at the weeping ash, in the middle of the circular grass-plot in front of the door; but he altered his mind in the evening, when he found the chairs ranged under its sociable branches--and the Havannahs and sherry-coblers crowding the little table made to fit round the central stem. ’Twas a wrinkle that which he was not up to:--he was a Goth--a cockney. Figgins, though a Londoner, knows what’s what, in matters of that kind; and shows his good taste in such a practical combination of the _utile_ with the _dulce_. On either side of the house, the pathways ran off with the most mysterious windings among the rhododendrons and lilac bushes, and promised a glimpse of better things in the garden behind, when we should have passed through our host’s _atrium, aula, porticus_, and _viridarium_. Figgins’s house has its main body, or _corps de logis_, composed of two little bits of wings, and a wee little retiring centre--the former have their gables capped with the most elaborate “barge-boards,” as the architects term them, all fretwork and filigree, and swell out below into bay windows, with battlements at top big enough for Westminster Abbey. The centre has a narrow and exceedingly Gothic doorway, and one tiny bit of a window over it, through which no respectably-sized mortal has any chance of getting his head: and again over this is a goodly shield, large enough to contain the blazoned arms of all the Figginses. The builder has evidently gone upon the plan of making the most of his design in a small compass; but he has committed the absurdity first of allowing subsidiary parts to become principals, and then of making the ornaments more important than the spaces: thus the centre is squeezed to death like a nut in a pair of crackers, and battlements, boards, and shield “engross us whole,” by the obtrusiveness of their size and workmanship. Nevertheless, this façade, such as it is, struck us as beating Johnson’s house, in Paragon Place, all to nothing: there was something like the trace of an idea in it, there was an aim, or a pretension, at something: whereas the other is really nothing at all, and its appearance indicates absolute vacuity in the central cerebral regions of its inventor. Figgins has two good rooms on the ground floor, a lobby and staircase between them, to keep the peace between their occupants, three good bed-rooms on his first, and four very small ones up amongst his gables: add to which, that he boasts of what he calls his future dressing-room, but what his wife says is to be her boudoir--we forget where--but somewhere up the stairs. All this again is much better than the Paragon Place plan--it shows that men recover somewhat of their natural good sense when they get into country air.

Figgins has not got a great deal of room in his villa, it is true; but he and his nineteen neighbours are all suitably lodged; and when they all go up to the Bank every morning in the same omnibus, can congratulate themselves on emerging each from his own undivided territory; or when they all come down again in the afternoon, each in a different vehicle--(you never meet the same faces in the afternoon that you do in the morning trip: we know not why, but so it is, and the fact should be signalized to the Statistical Society)--they can each perambulate their own eighth of an acre with their hands under their coat-tails in solemn dignity; or their wife, while awaiting their arrival, and listening to the beef-steaks giving an extra fiz, wanders round and round again, or, like a Virgil’s crow,

“Secum sola magnâ spatiatur arenâ.”

If Figgins had but insisted on having the back of his residence plastered and painted to look more natural than stone, the same as the front--or, better still, if his ambition could have contented itself with the plain unsophisticated original brick, we should say nothing against his taste--’tis peculiar certainly, but he’s better off than Johnson.

On the opposite side of Woodbine Lane, some wretch of a builder is going to cut off the view of the Albert Terrace people all over the narrow field, as far as the brick kilns, by erecting a row of contiguous dwellings some three or four storeys high, besides garrets, and they are to be in the last Attic style imported. One word is enough for them: the man who knowingly and voluntarily goes out of town to live in a house in a row, like those lines of things in the Clapham Road or at Hammersmith, deserves to be sent with his house to “eternal smash;” he is an animal below the range of æsthetics, and is not worth remonstrating with.

One of these next days, when we take our hebdomadal excursion, we intend going to see old Lady de Courtain at Lowlands Abbey, near ----; you can get to it in about twenty minutes by the Great Western. It is no abbey in reality, you know; there never was any Foundation on the spot further than what Sam Curtain, when he was an upholsterer in Finsbury, and before he got knighted, had laid down in the swampy meadow which he purchased, and thus bequeathed to his widow: but it’s all the same; it looks like an abbey;--that is to say, there are plenty of turrets, and the windows have all labels over their heads, and there are two Gothic conservatories, and two Gothic lodges at each of the two Gothic gates; and there is a sham ruin at the end of the “Lake:” and if this is not as good as a real abbey, we should like to know what is. Old Lady de Courtain was perfectly justified in Normanizing her name and her house:--why should she not? she had plenty of money: had she been a man, she could have bought a seat for half a dozen boroughs, and might even have gone a step higher; but, as it is, she has married her eldest daughter to the eldest son of Sir Thomas Humbug, a new Whig baronet; and she calls her house as she pleases. We applaud the old lady’s spirit; she has two other daughters still on the stocks, and she gives good dinners; we shall certainly go and patronize her. Comfort for comfort, we are not quite sure but that we had rather take up our quarters with John Bold, Esq., at Hazel House, on the top of the hill opposite. It is quite a different-looking mansion, and yet the rooms are laid out nearly on the same plan: in the one all is Gothic, in the other all is classic: one is be-fretted, and be-pinnacled, and be-shafted, and be-buttressed; but the other has a good plain Tuscan portico, like St Paul’s in Covent-Garden--plain windows wide and high, at enormous distances from each other--sober chimney-pots, that look as if they were really meant to be smoked, and not a single gimcrack or fanciful device any where about the building. It’s only a brick house plastered, after all; but it has a certain air of ease and comfort and respectability about it, that corresponds to a nicety with the character of its worthy inmate. If the door were wide enough, you might turn a coach and pair in the dining-room; there is a good, wide, low-stepped staircase; you may come down it four-a-breast, and four steps at a time, if you like--and if it were well behaved so to do, but it isn’t; and your bedroom would make two of Figgins’s drawing-rooms, lobby and all. The house always looks to us as if it would last longer than Lady de Courtain’s; and so we think it will; just as we doubt not but that honest John Bold’s dirty acres will be all in their proper places when Lady de C.’s three per cents shall be down at forty-two again, and her houses in the city shall be left empty by their bankrupt tenants. They live, too, in a very different way, and in widely distinct circles: at the Abbey you meet many an ex-civic notoriety, and many a rising hope of Lombard Street: it is a perpetual succession of dinners, dances, and picnics: at the House you are sure to be introduced to some sober-faced, top-booted, elderly gentleman or other, and to one or two rotund black-skirted individuals; and you find a good horse at your service every morning, or the keeper is ready for you in proper time and season; and sometimes the county member calls in, or a quorum of neighbouring magistrates sit there in solemn conclave. One is the house of to-day, the other of yesterday: one keeps up the reminiscences of the town, and of a peculiar part of the town, rather too strongly; the other actually smells of the country, and, though so near the metropolis, has nothing with it in common. Their owners, when they go to town, live, one in the Regent Park, the other in Park Lane.

Another acquaintance of ours--and this we will say that we are proud of being known to him--dwells in an old-fashioned gloomy house at Petersham. It is a respectable old gentleman in a brown coat, black shorts, white waistcoat, and a pigtail; and is a member of the Royal Society as well as of the Society of Antiquarians. The house in question suits him, and he suits the house; it was built in the time of that impudent intriguing Dutchman who came over here and drove out his uncle and _beau-père_; and it accordingly possesses all the heavy dignity of the Dutch houses of that period. The windows are pedimented and cased with mouldings; they are lofty and sufficiently numerous; the doorway has two cherubs flying, with cabbages and roses round the shell that hangs over it; and the lawns are still cut square, and have queer-shaped beds and parterres. There is something dignified and solemn in the very bricks of the mansion, wearing as they do a more regular and sombre hue of red than the dusty-looking things of the present day; and when you once get into the spacious rooms, all floored and pannelled with oak, you feel a glow of veneration for olden times--though not for _those_ times--that you cannot define, but which is nevertheless excessively pleasing. While sitting in the well-stored library of this mansion, you expect to see Addison walking in at the one door, and Swift at another; and you are not quite sure but that you may have to meet Bolingbroke at dinner, and take a glass of wine with Prior or Pope. There are numberless large cupboards all over the place; you could sit inside any of the fireplaces, if the modern grates were, as we wish them, removed: and as for opening or slamming a door in a hurry, it is not to be done; they are too heavy; no such impertinences can ever be tolerated in such a residence. And then our friend himself--we could tell you such a deal about him, but we are writing about houses, not men--you must go and get introduced to him yourself. Let it be put down in your pocket memoranda, whenever you hear of a house of this kind to let, either take it yourself or recommend somebody else whom you have a regard for to do so. It is not a handsome, stylish kind of house; but it is one of the right sort to live in.

Very little is to be said in blame, much in praise, of the majority of English country gentlemen’s houses; if atrocities of taste be committed any where, it is principally near the metropolis, where people are only half-and-half rural, or rather are of that _rus-in-urbe_ kind, that is in its essence thoroughly cockney. There is every variety of mansion throughout the land, every combination of style, and more often the absence of all style at all; and in most cases the houses, at least the better kind of them, are evidently made to suit the purposes of the dweller rather than the architect. This ought to be the true rule of building for all dwellings, except in the cases of those aristocratic palaces or _châteaux_ where the public character of the owner requires a sacrifice of private convenience to public dignity. Houses that are constructed in accordance with the requirements of those that are to live in them, and that are suited to the exigencies of their ground and situation, are sure to please longer, and to gratify the taste of a greater number of persons, than those which are the mere embodyings of an architect’s portfolio. This, however, requires that the principles of the architect should be allowed to vary from the strict proportions of the classic styles;--or rather, that he should be allowed to copy the styles of civil architecture, whether of Greece or Rome, or of ancient Europe. The fault hitherto has been, that designers of houses have taken all their ideas, models, and measurements from the religious rather than the civil buildings of antiquity; and that they have thought the capitals of the Jupiter Stator more suited to an English gentleman’s residence than the capricious yet elegant decorations of a villa at Pompeii. In the same way, until very lately, those who call themselves “Gothic Architects” have been putting into houses windows from all the cathedrals and monasteries of the country, but have seldom thought of copying the more suitable details of the many mansions and castellated houses that still exist. Better sense and better taste are now beginning to prevail, and we observe excellent houses rising around us. Of these, by far the larger proportion are in the styles of the Middle Ages; and for this reason, that the architects who practise in those styles have a wider field to range in for their models, and have also more thoroughly emancipated themselves from their former professional thraldom. There is also a very decided reaction in the public taste in favour of the arts of the Middle Ages, or rather let us say, in favour of a style of national architecture;--and as the Greek and Roman styles have little to connect them with the historical associations of an Englishman’s mind, they have fallen into comparative disfavour. For one purely classic house now erected, there are three or four Gothic. The worst of it is, however, that from the low state into which architecture had fallen by the beginning of the present century, and even for some time afterwards, there has been no sufficient space and opportunity for creating a number of good architects adequate to meet the demands of the public; and hence, the greatest barbarisms are being daily perpetrated, even with the best intentions of doing the correct thing, both on the part of the man who orders a building, and of him who builds. Architecture is a science not to be acquired in a day, nor by inspiration;--nor will the existence of one eminent man in that profession immediately cause a hundred others of the same stamp to rise up around him. On the contrary, it requires a long course of scientific study, and of actual scientific practice; it demands that a great quantity of traditionary precepts be kept up, and handed down from master to pupil through many generations of students and practitioners: it requires the accumulation of an enormous number of good instances and examples; and in most cases it is to be polished by long foreign travel. Now, all this cannot be accomplished in an impromptu, off-hand manner: the profession of architecture requires to be raised and kept up at a certain height of excellence through many long years: it is like the profession of medicine, of law, or the study of all scientific matters: when once the school of architecture declines, the practice of it declines in the same ratio, and the resuscitation of it becomes a work of considerable time. Such a regenerating of architecture is going on amongst us: comparatively more money is now laid out on buildings than at any preceding period for the last hundred years: our architects are becoming more scientific and more accomplished: the profession is occupying a higher rank than it has lately done; and we may, therefore, hope for an increasing proportion of satisfactory results. If only the public eye be cultivated and refined in a similar degree, we may reasonably expect that some beautiful and notable works will be executed.

Not, however, to launch forth into the wide question of architectural fitness and beauty, we will confine our observations to two special topics; one concerning the ornamentation of architectural objects, the other concerning the materials used in private dwellings.

Thank goodness for it! but people are now beginning to see rather further than six inches beyond their noses, and to find out that if they adopt ornament as the starting point, and usefulness as the goal of their architectural course, they are likely to end in the committing of some egregious folly. Private persons are more convinced of this truth than public ones; and the unprofessional crowd more than professed architects. In the one case, as ornament costs dear, the pocket puts an effectual drag on the vagaries of taste; whereas, in the other, public money is most commonly spent without any virtual control: and again, all architects are liable to descend to the prettinesses of their profession rather than abide by the great qualities of properly balanced proportion and design. A bad architect, too, is always seeking after ornament to conceal his mistakes of construction. In private houses, therefore, the superabundance of bad ornament that was adopted after a period of its almost total disuse is now giving way to a moderate employment of it; but, in public buildings, the rage for covering blank spaces, and for getting rid of sharp edges or corners, still continues. Persons who have not inquired practically into the matter can hardly believe how very meagre is the stock of ornament with which nine architects out of ten set up in their trade; looking at what they usually employ in the Greek or Roman style, we observe that the details are generally debased clumsy copies of antiques, jumbled together with much incongruity, and commonly altered in proportions. We do not apply this to capitals and bases, which are now worked with tolerable precision, though even in these we observe a heaviness of hand and eye that detracts greatly from their effect; we refer more particularly to mouldings, and to the decoration of cornices and friezes. Any one who has visited the galleries of the Vatican, or wandered over the Acropolis of Athens, will recollect the broad freedom and spirit with which the most graceful details are treated, and the total absence of stiffness or heaviness in any of the designs; whereas, whoever takes the trouble of lounging about London must prepare his eye for that overload of thick heavy ornament which characterises what is now called the English style. The foliage of Greece and Italy was well worked in those countries, because the objects represented by the architectural sculptor were familiar to his own and to the public eye; his own eye committed no blunder, nor would the public eye have tolerated it. In the application, too, of the human form to sculptured ornament, the proportions and harmonies of the body were too well known and felt to allow of any egregious errors taking place; hence, even in the decorating a frieze, the wonderful taste and skill of the Greek and Roman artists fully appear; whereas, in the hands of the English sculptor, such objects are purely mythical--he knows them only by imagination, not by reality, and he properly designates them as “fancy objects.” Hence their clumsiness, their heaviness, and their incongruity. In all the ordinary details of modern common house-building, the mouldings and enrichments ordinarily used are of a very poor description; decorators lived for a long time on the slender stores of the puerile and meretricious embellishments adopted from the French, and translated, if we may so say, for the use of the English public;--they had lost the boldness and originality which made the style of Louis XIV. tolerable, or rather agreeable; and they had substituted in its place the poorest and the cheapest kind of details that could be worked. Let any one go and find out a house in London, built between 1780 and 1810, and he will instantly remark the meagreness of which we are speaking. Grosvenor Square and the adjacent streets abound with houses of this kind; so does Portland Place. Carlton House was one of the most notable examples. In the stead of this, after the war, came in a flood of Greek ornament; every thing Roman was thrown aside; all was to be either Doric or Attic, with an occasional admixture of the Egyptian: the Greek zig-zag, the Greek honey-suckle and acanthus, Doric flutings and flat bands for cornices, swarmed all over the land. Many an honest builder must have broken his heart on the occasion, for his old ornament-books were no longer of use; and he had, as it were, to learn his trade all over again. From poor Batty Langley, with his five orders of Gothic architecture, who was the type of architects towards the end of the last century, down to Nash, Smirke, and Wilkins, who had it all their own way at the beginning of the present, such was the commutation and revolution of ornamental propriety. These styles were not the only ones that had to go through changes of accessory parts, and to suffer from the caprices of those that dressed them up for public exhibition: the revivers of the mediæval styles, the new and old Gothic men, ran also their race of absurdity and clumsy invention. It was long--very long, before they could make any approach towards a proper understanding of the spirit of their predecessors: all was to them a thorough mystery: and it is actually only within the last ten years that any tolerable accuracy has been attained in such matters. Norman capitals used to be put on shafts of the 15th century, and perpendicular corbels used in early English buildings: as for the tracery of windows, it was “confusion worse confounded”--architects there ran quite mad. In these classes of ornamental forms, the faults of awkward and ignorant imitators have been equally apparent: for just as English sculptors have made the Greek acanthus and olive twine and enwreath themselves like Dutch cabbages and crab-trees, so the modern Gothics have made their water-lilies, their ivy, their thistle, and their oak-leaves twist and frizzle in præternatural stiffness--while their griffins and heraldic monsters have ramped and regarded and displayed in the most awful and mysterious manner. Gothic decorators, too, fell into the mistake of over-ornamenting their objects far more than the pseudo-classical men did: what used to be called Gothic ornament in 1820--no longer ago than that--is now so intolerable that many an expensive building requires to be re-erected ere it can square with the laws of common sense and good taste. Gothic furniture-makers went wild in their peculiar art; and there are still numberless magnificent drawing-rooms that require to be entirely unfurnished ere their owners can lay claim to any portion of decorative discernment. Eton Hall and Fonthill (while the latter stood) were two notable instances of this lamentable excess of Gothic absurdity. Windsor Castle is by no means free from blame; and in fact there is hardly a Gothic house in England, of modern date, that does not require the severe hand of the architectural reformer.

To hit the due medium in such matters is not easy; and the reason is, that in architecture we are all imitators, not originators: we are all aiming at renovating old things and restoring old buildings, rather than at inventing new ones: and the result is, that architectural genius and invention are thereby closely cramped and thwarted. To imitate all the details of an old style in the closest manner is indispensable when ancient buildings are to be restored, or when an exact facsimile is to be produced in some new work: but for the ornamental powers of the architect to be perpetually tied down to one set class of forms, is to lower him to the level of a Chinese artist.

Unless we are mistaken, it appears to us that the Greeks imitated nature in her most perfect and abstract forms of beauty: and that they, with their successors the Romans, or rather the later Greeks, sought for beautiful objects as adapted to architectural ornament, wherever they could find them. They were not prevented by any traditional or conventional proprieties from imitating and using the beautiful and the natural wherever they might exist: all the varied forms of nature would have come right to them had they been willing. They seem, however, not to have taken so wide a range as we should have expected; or else their works that have come down to us are so few in number that their choice seems to have been rather restricted. The Middle Age architects also took a wide or rather a free range in the forms of the vegetable and animal world: but they worked with barbarous eyes and stiff hands; nor till the twelfth century do they seem to have arrived at that artistical freedom and correctness which are requisite to interpret and to imitate the multiplex forms of the natural world. As for the human figure, they confined themselves principally to draperied forms; and they embued these with considerable elegance; nevertheless, through all their operations, we trace a want of anatomical knowledge, which not all their ready invention can conceal, and which is scarcely compensated by the value of their sculpture, as a contemporaneous illustration of mediæval history. Heraldry seems always to have been a mystic and a mythic art; and hence heraldic forms have a certain privilege of caricature and distortion from which it is in vain to try to emancipate them.

Such being the case, it becomes a question--how should modern ornament be composed? In the classic style, are we always to adhere to foreign foliage, foreign animals, and mythological figures: and in the Gothic style, are we always to preserve the same rigidity and distortion which prevailed as long as those styles were in actual practice? We apprehend the true rule of æsthetics in this case to be, as we implied before, that for restorations or exact facsimiles of buildings, whether classical or mediæval, the very form as well as the spirit of the ornaments contemporaneously used in such buildings should be most strictly adopted. An imitation, unless it is an exact one, is good for nothing, as far as architecture is concerned. But should we prevail on ourselves either to depart from these styles, or to carry out their main principles, so as to form a national style of our own--not a fixed one, but a style varying through different ages, suiting itself to the social requirements of each--then we should be prepared, not only to call in the aid of natural beauty to the fullest extent, but also to avail ourselves of all that rich fund of form which results from the extensive use of scientific knowledge, and the investigation of physical curves. There is no reason why such a style, or succession of styles, should not be formed, if the great principles of science and utility be taken as the substructure on which imagination may afterwards raise its enrichment: and, if ever it come into existence, we have the unlimited expanse of the universe to range through in search of beauty and harmony. It is impossible to say what changes the introduction of new mathematical forms may not produce, and produce with good effect: thus the beautiful curve of the catena would not have been known, but for the introduction of suspension bridges. The application of the cycloid is comparatively modern, though the curve itself is ancient; and the grand effect of the horizontal line was not fully known--despite of Greece and Rome--till our interminable lines of railroad had stretched their lengths across the land. In the same way, our more extended and more intimate knowledge of the animal and vegetable kingdom ought to furnish us with an immense variety of new and beautiful forms of ornament--we do not mean of mythic or fanciful ornament, but of that highest and best kind of decoration, absolute, and yet partial, imitation of nature. Thus, for example, have we a blank space, extending horizontally to a long distance, which we desire to cover with enrichments. We have our choice, either in mathematical forms and combination of forms, such as mediæval architects might have applied, or else we may throw along it wreaths and branches of foliage, peopled with insect life, or enlivened by birds and animals. A succession of simple oak-branches or laurel-leaves, or the shoots of any other common plants, faithfully imitated, and cut into mimic life, from the inanimate stone, would form an ornament of the most effective kind, and would constitute a work of art, being an intelligent and poetical interpretation of natural beauty. In the building of our houses, why should the straight line and sections of the circle be the only lines admissible for doors, windows, and roofs? Why should the Greek and Roman ovolo, cavetto, and square, be the only combination that we know of in our common mouldings? How much richer were the architects of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, who drew with “free hands,” and gave us such exquisite effects of light and shade! We are firmly persuaded, that an architect, deeply imbued with the scientific principles of his profession, and endowed, at the same time, with the hand and the eye of a skilful artist, may cause a most happy and useful reformation of our national architecture.

In our choice of materials for our common buildings, it appears that we are always struggling with a deficiency of pecuniary means: for we never yet met an architect whose skill was not thwarted, in this respect, by the necessities of his employer. Such a man would have built a splendid palace, only he was not allowed to use stone; another would have made a magnificent hall, had he been able to employ oak instead of deal. Whenever people are so situated that they are restricted in their choice of materials, they should remember that they are immediately limited, both in construction and in decorative forms; and, being so limited, it becomes an absurdity in them to aim at any thing that is unreal, any thing that is in fact beyond their means. This has been one of the curses of all architectural and ornamental art in modern times, that every thing has been imitative, fictitious, sham, make-believe:--brick is stuccoed to look like stone, and fir is painted to look like oak. It is impossible for art to flourish when an imitative object can be accepted in the place of original ones; for when once public taste becomes so much vitiated as to be easily satisfied with cheap copies of the real instead of the real itself, the productive faculties of the artist and the manufacturer take a wrong turn, and go directly to increase rather than diminish the evil. On architecture, the effects of a corrupted national desire for the cheap and the easily made are peculiarly disastrous: this being the least suited of all arts to any thing like deception, since, to be good, it must be essentially real and true. Hence it has arisen, that instead of being content with humble brick, and learning how to convert that material to purposes of ornamentation, the use of stucco and cement has become universal--materials totally unsuited to our country and climate. The decorative portion of architecture has fallen into the same track, and elaborate looking things in plaster, and fifty other substances--in the production of which art has had no share--have come to cover our ceilings and our walls. Had not, indeed, the repairs and erection of public buildings called forth the dormant skill of our workmen, decorative art had long since become extinct amongst us. It may therefore be taken as a fundamental rule in architecture, that the decorations of buildings should be made either of the same materials as the edifices themselves, or that more costly substances should be combined with the former, and should serve for the decorator to exercise his skill on. Thus the combination of stone with brick, an old-fashioned expedient, is good, because it is justified by all the exigencies of constructive skill, and because it is founded on common sense. Look for what effective buildings may be thus produced at Lincoln’s Inn, the Temple, St James’s, and several of our colleges in the universities: how intrinsically superior are these to the flimsy shabby buildings of Regent Street and its Park: even old Buckingham House was good in comparison with some of these. Or go to Hampton Court and Kensington, and see how much grandeur may be produced by proportions and well-combined decoration, without any cement, stucco, or paint, to bedizen the walls. If a man cannot be content to adopt plain brick with such instances as these before his eyes, let him travel forth a little, and see what the effect of the great brick buildings is in Holland, or the south-west of France, where the most admirable churches and public edifices are all erected of this material. Sculptured ornament is of course out of the question in such a case as this: nothing but stone will bear the chisel and mallet to produce any effect that shall satisfy the eye and the judgment of the lover of natural beauty.

We protest strongly against all _terra-cotta_ imitations of sculptural forms; but for geometrical figure they are allowable, and their stiffness, if justified by sufficient solidity, will be found highly suitable for buildings of such a kind.

Whenever the means of the employer are ample enough, let him make up his mind to sink a little additional capital, and build a good stone house, that shall last him and his family for a couple of centuries, instead of a rickety edifice, that can endure for only a couple of generations. And, in this case, let him call in the decorative aid of the architect, to whatever amount his taste dictates. Ornament, to be effective, need not be abundant; it should be employed sparingly rather than the contrary; and, if kept in its proper place, and limited to its due purposes, it will reward its owner’s eye, and will prove a permanent source of artificial satisfaction. Good stone-work without, and good oak-work within, will make a house that a prince may live in. A good house, well built and well decorated, is like a good coat--there is some pleasure in wearing it; it will last long, and look well the whole time; it will bear reparation; and (though we cannot say the same of any short-cut, upper Benjamin, or jacket we ever wore--we wish we could) it will always fetch the price given for it. We have plenty of the finest stone and timber within this snug little island of ours, and it is entirely our own fault that we are not one of the best-built people in the universe.

HOW I BECAME A YEOMAN.