Chapter 6

"He lives!--thank God, he lives!--and it was all my fault!" were the first words I heard in returning consciousness. I felt very faint and weak, but the tones sounded sweetly in my ears. I then heard some directions to keep me "perfectly quiet."

But I need not detail the progress of my recovery. I was in Violet-Bank, near to which the accident had occurred. My brother soon after came to see me; and even my worthy aunt, in her anxiety, ventured into "that horrid country." Pleasant, indeed, were the hours I passed in the period of my convalescence.

As soon as was permitted by the doctor, I had a visit from Felworth.

"Thank Providence," said he, "all is right with you now, but it was a very doubtful matter for some hours. It was a bad business altogether. Units was killed, and you nearly so."

"But tell me exactly how you got off yourself: I perceive your forehead cut, and your arm in a sling."

"You see the whole of the injuries I received; but the mare is much cut and bruised; both shafts of the gig were broken. I have preserved, as a sad memorial of the day, the stone against which your head came when you were pitched out. Fortunately, for me, I fell in a soft place; and I was on my legs before the quarry-men gathered about you, and carried you into the house. What presence of mind Alice had! She sent for the doctor without a moment's delay; but women always act best in such circumstances."

"But Units, what of him?"

"Why, one trace broke in his attempt to leap into the field; and, fortunately for Tens, the other soon gave way; and then he galloped home."

"I thought you said he was killed."

"And so he was, but not by fair play. My father, unfortunately, met the man who was leading home the mare; and when he heard what had occurred, he brought down his own pistols, and had the horse led out, and shot on the spot. It was not out of vengeance that he did so, for he was not aware at the time of the dangerous state you were in; but he said that the horse would be the cause of death to some one yet. It was from a kind motive he did so, but it was a sad blow to me. I will never see the like of Units again."

It was arranged that Alice and I were to be married in the following September.

"You were a sad truant," said my aunt, "to go from Dublin after the cautions I gave you; but I give my full pardon under the circumstances."

I had a silent but powerful, advocate near me.

Shortly after my recovery, I went to London, for the purpose of making necessary arrangements for my marriage. When there, I called upon Thomson, and narrated to him the entire events.

"You are a very lucky fellow!" he said. "I look upon this horse 'Units' as having been your guardian angel. I told you you were deficient in 'Constructiveness,' and your story proves it. Had it not been that you got your head broken, or some other fortuitous event occurred, you would have remained a bachelor to the end of your days."

RESEARCH AND ADVENTURE IN AUSTRALIA.[15]

The confident mariner, spreading his canvass to the fickle gale, and launching forth upon unknown seas in search of uncertain shores, to combat the kraken and fish the pearl, scarcely exhibits more daring, or braves greater perils, than the hardy landsman, who, on horse's back or dromedary's hump, or his own mocassined feet, plunges into tangled jungle and pathless prairie, adventuring himself, a solitary pioneer, thousands of miles from the abodes of civilisation. If shoal and squall and treacherous reef, pirates and storms, and tropical calms scarce less terrible, when parched lips blacken for thirst in the midst of boundless waters, await the seaman, dangers equally imminent and inevitable, and more incessant beset the path of the wanderer in the desert. The sailor has his days and weeks of safety and repose and rude luxury, whilst the stately ship scuds merrily before favouring breezes over a summer sea, and the light routine of duty is but sufficient to give zest to the junk ration, the grog kid, and the tobacco pipe. The storm over, he swings easily in his hammock, recruiting strength for fresh exertion; and even when the winds howl their worst, give him a tight ship and sea-room, and he holds himself safe and laughs at the tempest. The explorer of trackless plain and aboriginal forest is in a very different predicament. He is never safe; his toils and tribulations are unceasing; danger may not exist, but he must ever guard against it, for he knows not where it may lurk. With him, security is temerity and eventual destruction. The ambushed savage, the crouching beast of prey, the silent and deadly reptile, the verdant swamp, flower-strewn and fathomless, wooing to destruction, the rushing torrent and resistless hurricane, are but a few of the dangers through which he threads his way. And when, at close of day, weary and hungry, foot-sore or saddle-galled, he halts for refreshment and repose, it seems but the beginning of his labours. Wood must be cut and collected, the fire lit, the meal prepared, often its very materials must be sought in pool and thicket, before the wanderer can be at rest, and the cravings of appetite appeased. The hardly-won repast concluded, the ground offers a comfortless couch to his stiffened and jaded limbs, where to snatch such sleep as the necessity of strict guard, and the ominous and mysterious noises of a night in the desert, allow to descend upon his eyelids.

With a thorough knowledge and appreciation of the many difficulties, dangers, and discomforts, inseparable from such an expedition, Dr Ludwig Leichhardt, a German gentleman, remarkable for enterprising spirit and scientific zeal, left Moreton Bay, upon the east coast of Australia, in September 1844, to proceed overland in a north-westerly direction to Port Essington, on the north coast, a distance of more than three thousand miles. The Doctor was no novice in such wanderings; he had already devoted two years to exploring the district north of Moreton Bay; undaunted by hardship, his thirst for knowledge unappeased, he had scarcely returned when he was ready to start again. Many dissuaded him, pointing out the vast field of research afforded within the limits of New South Wales, urging innumerable dangers--some imaginary, but more real--taxing him with overstrained enthusiasm, and inordinate lust of fame; even blaming him as a madman and a suicide. He was neither to be deterred nor cajoled from his expedition, but made his preparations, limiting as much as possible the amount of provisions and stores, in consideration of the difficulties of the route and encumbrance of baggage. He was also compelled, in conformity with the plan he had formed, and with the smallness of his means, to restrict the number of his companions, and reject the offers of many adventurous young men eager to accompany him. His party, at first composed of six persons, had swelled to ten, when, upon the 30th September, it left Jimba, the advanced post of the white man. The stores consisted of sixteen head of cattle, twelve hundred pounds of flour, two hundred pounds of sugar, eighty pounds of tea, and twenty of gelatine, eight bags of shot, and thirty pounds of powder. Each man had two pairs of strong trousers, three shirts, and two pairs of shoes,--certainly no very sumptuous equipment for a journey expected to last seven months, but which occupied fifteen. Fortunately, as they advanced, game and wild animals, at first rare, became more plentiful; and although the flour was expended at the end of the eighth month, they managed, with the aid of kangaroos, emus, waterfowl, and other beasts and birds, to protract their beef till their arrival at Port Essington. The party comprised (besides Dr Leichhardt) Messrs Calvert, Roper, Hodgson and Gilbert, John Murphy, a lad of sixteen, a convict of the name of William Phillips, Caleb, an American negro, and Messieurs Harry Brown and Charley, Australian aborigines, mutinous but useful, of whose character and propensities we learn more than of those of any other member of the party. The Doctor is, indeed, remarkably silent with respect to his fellow-labourers in the vineyard of Tasmanian discovery. Eight men of the adventurous disposition implied by their engaging in such an expedition, could hardly be thrown together for a year or more without displaying flashes of character, and greater or less eccentricity, the result of their exceptional position, of the many shifts and devices they had to resort to. Of characteristic traits, however, we obtain few hints from Dr Leichhardt, the most amiable, but the most matter-of-fact of travellers. His sympathies and attention are engrossed by the stocks and stones, the beasts, birds, trees and flowers around him. In them he finds tongues and books, and with and of them he loves to discourse. Although evidently a good comrade and considerate chief, his enthusiasm as a naturalist and man of science preclude much heed of his companions' peculiarities--if such they had. Enough that they are at hand, ready to aid him in catering for a meal, in chasing stray bullocks, replacing fallen baggage, and in the many other toils and labours in which he manfully bears his share. Nothing less than the departure of one, and the death of another, can elicit a passing hint of their character and qualities. Mr Hodgson shot a kangaroo; Mr Roper brought in eight cockatoos; Mr Phillips found a flesh-coloured drupaceous fruit; Mr Calvert shot a native companion--not one of the aborigines, but a bird so called; and thus the book goes on, every thing put down with the dry brevity of a seaman's log. Hence Dr Leichhardt's volume, though highly valuable and interesting to naturalists and emigrants, will scarcely be appreciated by the general reader. Learned and well written, the amusing element, which readers of the present day are apt to make a condition for their favour, is but scantily scattered through its pages. But it is a work of unquestionable merit and utility, and its author's name will justly stand high upon the honourable list of able and enterprising men, whose courage, perseverance, and literary abilities, have contributed so largely to our knowledge of the geography and productions of our distant southern colonies.

The first start of the expedition could hardly be called a good one; at least, it was not such as to encourage the faint-hearted, or falsify anticipations of extreme hardships and difficulties. A light spring-cart, which the doctor had fondly hoped to take with him through the wilderness, was broken the very first day. He was fortunate enough to exchange it for three bullocks, and proceeded to break in five of those animals for the pack-saddle, finding he could not depend upon his horses for carrying baggage. But the bullocks gave a deal of trouble, and were most unsatisfactory beasts of burthen. The weight they could carry without injury and exhaustion, was very small in comparison with their known strength,--not more than a hundred and fifty pounds, Dr Leichhardt found, for a constancy--without the advantage of roads. Mules would have been the proper carriers; and troublesome, kicking, contrary demons as they often are, under a hot sun and with the aggravation of flies, they could hardly have been more refractory than their bovine substitutes. Persons whose whole experience of bullocks, as beasts of draught and burthen, consists in having seen a pair of them tugging, with painful docility and resignation, at a heavy continental cart--a ponderous yoke across their necks, or their heads attached with multitudinous thongs to the extremity of a massive pole--can form but a faint idea of the tribulations of the Doctor and his friends, who had to lead the beasts, as best they might, with iron nose-rings, and who, moreover, being wholly unused to cattle of that description, had at first a not unnatural dislike of the horns. Then the pack-saddles did not fit, and the immediate result was sore backs; the cargo would get loose and fall off, to the fracture and destruction of straps; or the hornets, whose nests, suspended from the branches, were disturbed by the passage of the caravan, would drive the unlucky oxen nearly mad, by a stinging assault upon their hind quarters. Finally, both horses and bullocks had a singular propensity to stray back during the night to the previous halting place, whence they had to be fetched in the morning, causing great delay, and often postponing the start till mid-day. Here is a significant little entry in the log, comprising the entire proceedings of one day, which gives an idea of the difficulty of progress. "Oct. 2--Bullocks astray, but found at last by Charley, and a start attempted at one o'clock: the greater part of the bullocks with sore backs. The native tobacco in blossom. One of the bullocks broke his pack-saddle, and compelled us to halt." Only one small plug of tobacco to all that peck of troubles! The nicotian flower the sole object in the scene of disaster, on which the eye can rest with a sensation of relief. Stray cattle, sore backs, broken saddles! The combination of calamities can only be appreciated by those who have encountered it, in the desert, and when anxious to prosecute their march. For some time, these pleasant incidents were of daily occurrence; added to which, the bullocks, in forcing their way through tangled thickets, frequently tore the sacks, and wasted large quantities of flour. And towards the latter part of the journey, when Dr Leichhardt, owing to the death of three horses, unfortunately drowned in a creek, had been forced to abandon, with tears in his eyes, a large portion of his valuable botanical collection, he had the intense mortification of seeing a reckless ox, foot-sore and heated by a long day's march, plunge deliberately into a deep pond, where the remainder of the dried plants, seeds, and the like, carefully packed upon the animal's back, underwent a thorough and disastrous soaking. As some amends for the trouble they gave, the bullocks proved useful in an unexpected capacity, namely, as guards. They conceived an antipathy to the natives, whom they charged in warlike style, whenever they had the chance. The aborigines held them in great respect, took them for large dogs (bull-dogs of course), and had a wholesome fear of their bite. These notions the travellers did not deem it advisable to dispel.

Opossums and flying squirrels, kangaroos, (some standing nine feet high,) and kangaroo rats, emus, ducks, and bronze-winged pigeons, were the principal beasts and birds encountered during the journey. Crocodiles were met with, and a few buffaloes. Fish of many kinds, now and then turtles, were seen and caught in the pools, rivers, and lagoons. Sand-flies, mosquitoes, and hornets, were very annoying, but the cool night-breeze usually swept them away. The melodious note of the glucking-bird, so named from the sound resembling "gluck, gluck," the noisy call of the "laughing jackass," the hoot of the barking owl, the howlings of native dogs, and the screech of the opossum, were the principal sounds that broke the stillness of the bush. Kangaroos were a great article of provender; the travellers chased them with dogs, so long as the dogs lasted, but these perished, little by little, until at last only one remained,--Spring by name,--a useful and valiant brute, covered with honourable scars. He was of the breed known as the kangaroo-dog, was exceedingly stanch and valuable, and the means of obtaining a vast deal of game. Of course, he was an immense favourite, and his masters had reckoned on his accompanying them to the end of their journey. They carried a calabash of water for his private use, as they were frequently very long without meeting with any, and this precaution more than once saved Spring's life. At last, during the latter part of a toilsome day's march, poor Spring lagged in rear and was forgotten. The next day two of the party returned to seek him, and found him almost dead, "stretched out in the deep cattle track, which he seemed not to have quitted even to find a shady place. They brought him to the camp; and I put his whole body, with the exception of his head, under water, and bled him; he lived six hours longer, when he began to bark, as if raving." And Spring gave up the ghost, to the great comfort and relief of the emus and kangaroos, and to the deep distress of the worthy Doctor and his biped companions.

The party had been out but one month, when the scarcity of game, far less abundant than had been expected, and the rapid shrinking of the flour-sacks, rendered it necessary to diminish its numbers, lest famine should be added to the many dangers of the journey. Mr Hodgson and Caleb the negro accordingly returned to Moreton bay, the remaining eight persons continuing their route. Two of these eight, as we have already mentioned, were Australian aborigines, indebted to Christian god-fathers for the baptismal names of Charley and Harry. Early in the expedition, these two gentlemen became exceedingly troublesome; not more so, however, than might reasonably be expected from the very sullen and brutish expression of their uncomely physiognomies. Dr Leichhardt favours us with a portrait of the pair, and notwithstanding the embellishments of clean frocks, flowing neck-kerchiefs, and a comb, we have seldom set eyes upon more unprepossessing countenances. Any more hirsute we certainly never beheld, and their whole aspect gives the idea of men who, in the natural state, would deem a tender infant the most delicious of luncheons, and look upon a deceased relative with the one absorbing idea of a juicy roast. We may be doing injustice to the creatures, but appearances are not in their favour, however British missionaries and mutton may have weaned them from aboriginal barbarity and cannibal cravings. After they had been about four months out, they began to play truant, to desert Dr Leichhardt when reconnoitring, taking the provisions with them, and to wander away without permission in quest of honey and opossums. At first the Doctor overlooked their transgressions, or let them pass with a reprimand; but he soon found occasion to regret his leniency, and that he had not inflicted a severe and decided punishment. On the 19th February the travellers, who had halted two days for the purpose of jerking the beef of a bullock, were busy greasing their straps and saddles, an operation rendered very necessary by the dust and scorching heat, when Master Charley, thirsting after honeycomb and greedy of opossum, left the camp, and was absent several hours. On his return the Doctor reprimanded him, and threatened to stop his rations, but was met with threats and abuse. "Finding it, therefore, necessary to exercise my authority, I approached to show him out of the camp, when the fellow gave me a violent blow upon the face, which severely injured me, displacing two of my lower teeth." In return for which brutal assault we expected to find that the Doctor and his friends removed the surcingle and baggage-straps from the jaw-breaker's horse, tied him to a tree with the latter, and with the former flogged his black shoulders till he cried _peccavi_, and promised reform. Nothing of the sort appears to have taken place, the good Doctor contenting himself, as sole revenge for the injury done to his masticators, with expelling the delinquent, who was accompanied from the camp by his countryman and ally, Harry Brown. They soon got tired, however, of going afoot and shifting for themselves, returned submissive and sorry, and were allowed to rejoin the caravan. And though they subsequently again gave cause of complaint, upon the whole they were tolerably manageable during the rest of the expedition.

The travellers were out a long time before falling in with natives, although they saw signs of their vicinity, and ascertained that they were objects of curious observation and some anxiety to the timid Australians. They stumbled upon various native camps, recently vacated, and occasionally took the liberty of helping themselves to kangaroo nets and cordage, leaving in exchange fish hooks, handkerchiefs, and other European articles. On the 6th of December, upon rousing from his bivouac, Dr Leichhardt found "the horses had gone back to Ruined Castle Creek, about twenty-one miles distant (!), and the bullocks to the last camp, which, according to Charley, had been visited by the Blackfellows, who had apparently examined it very minutely. It was evident they kept an eye upon us, although they never made their appearance." The Doctor's coolness in recording his disasters is quite provoking. If he exhibited the same laudable calm and resignation when he arose from his bed of reeds on the banks of the finch-haunted water-hole, and found his cattle had gone back a day's journey or more, as he does in writing down the fact, he is certainly the most Job-like of travellers. We could sometimes quarrel with him for making so very light of heavy inconveniences and positive misfortunes. It is necessary to pause and reflect in order to appreciate what he endured. The hasty reader, skimming the page without allowing his imagination to dwell on the Doctor's brief indications of the many sufferings, the wounds and sickness (the latter often caused by unwholesome diet), the hunger and thirst, the daily and nightly exposure, for fifteen months, to scorching suns and drenching rains, undergone by himself and his companions, might complete the perusal with the impression on his mind that the whole affair was rather pleasant than otherwise--a sort of prolonged pic-nic, varied by kangaroo hunts, fishing parties, and shooting excursions. Bread stuffs, he would have to admit, were scarce in that cornless land: but hard exercise and fresh air sharpen the appetite and strengthen the digestion; and a keen woodsman will not heed bannocks when he can get beef, varied by such an exotic viand as kangaroo venison, and by such delicate and fantastical volatiles as harlequin pigeons and rose-breasted cockatoos. Nay, so easy is it to fight battles in one's back parlour, and to endure hardships with one's feet on the fender, that this same imaginary and hastily-judging reader, whose flippant conclusions we now quote, may think lightly of the necessity in which our travellers found themselves of eating a horse, as recorded in the Leichhardtian journal, p. 247. A horse broke its thigh, and it was resolved to make the best of the meat. It proved tolerably palatable, especially the liver and kidneys, pronounced equal to those of a bullock. When the flour was gone, the only relief from the monotony of a carnivorous diet was obtained by experimentalising on seeds, fruits, and roots, of which many unknown species were met with. How the party escaped death by poison is a wonder, for they were very venturesome in their essays, and not unfrequently were punished for their boldness by severe vomitings and other unpleasant symptoms. The jerked meat they carried with them often became musty and tainted, having been imperfectly dried, or from the effects of rain. But their greatest difficulty was the frequent scarcity of water, which sadly afflicted their horses, and prolonged their route, compelling them to deviate from the direct course to encamp near pools or lagoons. These were not always to be found; and they often remained for very many hours, even for days, without other water than they could carry in their scanty kettles. Then the bullocks were allowed to stray in search of drink, and it was sometimes necessary, in order to save the horses' lives, to take them back to the previous night's camping place. The fatigues thus encountered might well have exhausted the endurance and physical energies of the strongest man. "I had been in a state of the most anxious suspense," says Dr Leichhardt on one of these occasions, "about the fate of our bullocks, and was deeply thankful to the Almighty when I heard they were all safe. I had suffered much from thirst, having been forty-eight hours without water, and which had been increased by a run of two miles after my horse, which attempted to follow the others; and also from a severe pain in the head, produced by the impatient brute's _jumping with its hobbled fore-feet on my forehead_, as I lay asleep with the bridle in my hand; but after drinking three quarts of cold tea, which John had brought with him, I soon recovered, and assisted to load our horses with the remainder of our luggage, when we returned to join our companions. The weather was very hot during the day, but a cool breeze moved over the plains, and the night, as usual, was very cold." It needed men of iron frame to endure, without serious and frequent indisposition, such terrible privations and sudden contrasts of temperature. Nevertheless, none of the party seem to have suffered from illness produced by other causes than irregular and hazardous diet, except in the case of the Doctor, who once or twice had a touch of lumbago. These violent transitions from heat to cold were felt during only a portion of their journey. Towards the middle of the time, in the month of June, they were greatly favoured by climate. "The state of our health showed how congenial it was to the human constitution; for, without the comforts which the civilised man thinks essentially necessary to life, without flour, without salt, and miserably clothed, we were yet all in health, although at times suffering much from weakness and fatigue. At night we stretched ourselves upon the ground, almost as naked as the natives; and though most of my companions still used their tents, it was amply proved afterwards that the want of this luxury was attended with no ill consequences." All things are comparative; and to the Doctor, whose sole canopy during the whole expedition was the vault of heaven, the canvass covering enjoyed by his comrades evidently appeared a Sybaritical indulgence.

To return to the savages. The day after the retrograde movement of the cattle to Ruined Castle Creek, and just as Dr Leichhardt was about to start on a reconnoissance, the Blackfellows came down to where the horses were grazing, and speared one of them in the shoulder. This was the first act of hostility. The Australian aborigines are very cowardly, and the aggressors hastily retreated into the bush on the appearance of two or three white men. After this, in February, some friendly and respectable barbarians were met with, and there was an interchange of courtesy and presents. Generally the natives were shy, entertaining feelings of mingled fear, aversion, and contempt for the pale-skinned intruders upon their forest domain. Mr Roper and Charley, out in search of water, fell in with a Blackfellow and his gin or squaw. Like a brace of opossums, they were up a gum-tree in no time, although the lady was in an advanced state of pregnancy. "As Mr Roper moved round the base of the tree, in order to look the Blackfellow in the face, and to speak with him, the latter studiously avoided looking at Mr Roper, by shifting round and round the trunk like an iguana. The woman also kept her face averted." A day or two afterwards, Mr Gilbert and Charley met some more natives. "Two gins were so horror-struck at the unwonted sight, that they immediately fled into the scrub; the men commenced talking to them, but occasionally interrupted their speeches by spitting and uttering a noise like pooh! pooh! apparently expressive of their disgust." Meetings with the natives now became of common occurrence; but as they showed much timidity, and, when ill disposed, confined their hostile demonstrations to expectoration and grimaces, the travellers entertained little apprehension of attack. The night watch, regularly kept at the commencement of the expedition, was now little more than nominal, and although each man was supposed to take his turn of sentry, the guard was usually a sleepy one, and a mere matter of form. They had reason to repent their negligence. Encamped one evening in the dry bed of a lagoon, some in their tents, others platting palm-leaf hats, the Doctor himself dozing near the fire, a shower of spears fell amongst them, and the savages followed up the treacherous attack by a charge with their waddies or clubs. The Europeans were so completely off their guard that they did not know where to find percussion caps for their guns. When the Doctor had procured these, two or three shots sent the assailants to the right about, with one of their number killed or wounded, for bloodstains were on their track, and they were heard next morning wailing in the woods. But the little caravan had suffered heavy loss. Gilbert was killed; Roper and Calvert were severely injured and disfigured by spear-wounds and blows from the waddies. It was a melancholy and untoward event, but time could ill be spared to mourn. The dead man was buried, a large fire made over his grave to prevent the natives from detecting and disinterring the body, and with sad hearts the little caravan prosecuted their march. The Doctor allows us to infer that the wounded would gladly have prolonged the halt, but, although feeling for their suffering state, he had duties to perform to himself and his other companions; and being of opinion that motion would not interfere with cure, he overruled objections, and insisted on proceeding. The event proved he was right; the sick men, although inconvenienced, were not injured by the march. Calvert was soon able to resume his share in the labours of the camp and the hunting-field, and Roper, although longer disabled, also eventually recovered.

The eighth chapter of Dr Leichhardt's journal will be esteemed by the general reader the most interesting in the book, for in it he deviates somewhat from his usual track, is more sparing than his wont of botanical and geographical details, and gives a few brief but interesting particulars of the daily life and habits of his party. "I usually rise," he says, "when I hear the merry laugh of the laughing-jackass (a bird) which, from its regularity, has been not unaptly named the settler's clock; a loud _cooee_ then rouses my companions, Brown to make tea, Mr Calvert to season the stew with salt and marjoram, and myself and the others to wash, and to prepare our breakfast, which, for the party, consists of two pounds and a half of meat, stewed over night; and to each a quart pot of tea. Mr Calvert then gives to each his portion, and, by the time this important duty is performed, Charley generally arrives with the horses, which are then prepared for their day's duty." Towards eight o'clock the caravan usually started, and after travelling about four hours, selected a spot for that night's camp, which being pitched, the horses and bullocks unloaded, the fire lighted, and the dried beef put on to stew for the late dinner, the remainder of the afternoon was devoted to washing and repairing clothes, mending saddles, shooting, fishing, botanizing and writing up the log. The Doctor, who was of course provided with sextant, chronometer, compass, and the other instruments necessary to ascertain their whereabout in the wide desert, would take his observations, calculate the latitude, ride out reconnoitring, and plan the next day's route. Towards sunset came dinner, and soon after nightfall all retired to their beds. "The two Blackfellows and myself spread out each our own under the canopy of heaven, whilst Messrs Roper, Calvert, Gilbert, Murphy, and Phillips, have their tents. Mr Calvert entertains Roper with his conversation; John amuses Gilbert; Brown tunes up his corrobori songs, in which Charley, until their late quarrel, generally joined. Brown sings well, and his melodious plaintive voice lulls me to sleep, when otherwise I am not disposed. Mr Phillips is rather singular in his habits; he erects his tent generally at a distance from the rest, under a shady tree, or in a green bower of shrubs, where he makes himself as comfortable as the place will allow, by spreading branches and grass under his couch, and covering his tent with them, to keep it shady and cool, and even planting lilies in blossom (crinum) before his tent, to enjoy their sight during the short time of our stay." We would fain have heard something more of this Phillips, whose love of solitude and flowers contrast with his quality of a convict, and inspire interest and curiosity. Whatever his crime, his companions apparently did not repulse him, but he himself voluntarily avoided their society, perhaps from a feeling of unworthiness and humiliation. Dr Leichhardt casually mentions him here and there in his volume, and he seems to have behaved steadily and well, for he was pardoned on returning to Sydney, and received a portion of the thousand pounds appropriated from the crown revenue to reward the adventurous party. Why he was originally selected to form part of it, when numbers of young men of enterprising spirit and untainted reputation were refused the privilege, the Doctor does not think it necessary to inform us.

To men far removed from the pleasures and luxuries of civilisation, isolated in a desert, and leading a life of unceasing hardship and privation, small treats afford great enjoyment. The pleasures of the palate, especially, acquire unusual importance, and the discovery of some fragrant fruit or succulent vegetable, the addition to the daily stew of a bird or beast unusually flavorous, causes amongst these grown children as much jubilation as a giant cake amongst a horde of holiday urchins. "I had naturally," says the Doctor, "a great antipathy against comfort-hunting and gourmandising, particularly on an expedition like ours.... This antipathy I expressed, often perhaps, too harshly, which caused discontent; but, on these occasions, my patience was sorely tried." Notwithstanding his anti-epicurean principles, the chief of the expedition good-humouredly gave in to the fancies of his followers, who loved a feast now and then, and were partial to celebrate notable days by such modest _hors-d'oeuvres_ and supplementary condiments as the niggard forest and their indifferently provided saddle-bags would afford. Homely indeed were the additions thus made to their daily ration of _charqui_ beef, horse-flesh or kangaroo. Let us dwell a moment upon the magnificent preparation for a banquet on the natal day of her Majesty Queen Victoria.

"May 24. It was the Queen's birth-day, and we celebrated it with what--as our only remaining luxury--we were accustomed to call a fat cake, made of four pounds of flour and some suet, which we had saved for the express purpose, and with a pot of sugared tea. We had for several months been without sugar, with the exception of about ten pounds, which were reserved for cases of illness and for festivals."

Assuredly no sumptuary laws were needed to restrain such revels as these. "On another occasion, in consequence of the additional fatigues of the day, I allowed some pieces of fat to be fried with our meat." Horrible gluttony! After they had been some months out, an extraordinary desire for fat diet took possession of the wanderers. At first they felt disgust for it, and rejected it contemptuously, but suddenly a total change occurred. "The relish continued to increase as our bullocks grew poorer; and we became as eager to examine the condition of a slaughtered beast as the natives, whose practice in that respect we had formerly ridiculed." When they caught an emu, their first and eager care was to pluck the feathers and cut into the flesh, "to see how thick the fat was, and whether it was a _rich yellow_." The Spartan Doctor himself was not proof against the greasy fascination. Hear his confession of a frailty, and record of its quick-succeeding punishment. 'Tis _a propos_ of kites, which filthy feeders, unaccustomed in the lonely bush to the sight of man, become exceedingly daring and impudent. "Yesterday, I cleaned the fat gizzard of a bustard to grill it on the embers, and the idea of the fat dainty-bit made my mouth water. But, alas! whilst holding it in my hand, a kite pounced down and carried it off, pursued by a dozen of his comrades, eager to seize the booty." It needs no great stretch of fancy to picture the Doctor, bereaved of his gizzard, sitting open-mouthed and aghast at the foot of a gum-tree, his fingers still shining from the unctuous contact, the moisture of anticipation oozing from his lips, his eyes watching the flight of the felon kite, whilst the 'possum on the branch above grins at his mishap. The loss was the more serious, that game was not abundant just then. They had got into a flat, sandy, uninteresting country; all box-trees and ant-hills, as Australian Charley described it, with no cover, and nothing to shoot at. Bad enough for the sportsman, but highly eligible squatting ground, where the settler would have few trees to fell and abundant grass for his cattle. As for the game, it came in tracts and districts. Sometimes they thought themselves fortunate could they secure a few pigeons, at others, they revelled in pinguid plenty,--kangaroos roasted whole, fat ibis, flying foxes in scores, and ducks by the dozen. The atmosphere of these latitudes must be particularly favourable to the appetite, judging from the following passage.--"Charley Brown and John, who had been left at the lagoon to shoot waterfowl, returned with twenty ducks for luncheon, and went out again during the afternoon to procure more for dinner and breakfast. They succeeded in shooting thirty-one ducks and two geese; so that we had fifty-one ducks and two geese for the three meals; and they were all eaten, with the exception of a few bony remains, which some of the party carried to the next camp. If we had had a hundred ducks, they would have been eaten quite as readily, if such an extravagant feast had been permitted." A century of the web-footed for one day's consumption! And they were seven--no more! Surely this was playing at ducks and drakes with their resources. Fourteen ducks, a leg, a wing, and a bit of the breast, entombed, within twenty-four hours, in the stomach of each of these seven men! The very feathers in their pillows (had they had any) would have cried out against such voracity. Truly it is without a spark of compassion that we read of their reduction, precisely one week afterwards, to short and less palatable commons. "Oct. 26. We enjoyed most gratefully our two wallabies, which were stewed, and to which I had added some green hide, to render the broth more substantial. This hide was _almost five months old_, and had served as a case to my botanical collection, which, unfortunately, I had been compelled to leave behind. It required, however, a little longer stewing than a fresh hide, and was rather tasteless." We avow total unacquaintance with wallabies, their size and edible qualities, but, whatever their dimensions, the fact of a five-months'-old hide having been stewed with them to ameliorate the broth, says very little for their succulence. The sweetness, as well as the greenness of the "case to the botanical collection," may fairly be doubted. We should have an ill opinion of the pottage that needed an old portmanteau to improve its consistency, and strongly mistrust the nutritious qualities of the meagre wallabi-broth, which followed so closely on the heels of the Feast of Ducks.

It was very fortunate for Dr Leichhardt and his companions--who certainly had abundance of difficulties to encounter--that the country they traversed was nearly free from ferocious beasts and noxious reptiles. They had plenty to do without combating such formidable enemies. Throughout the whole journal there is no mention of any dangerous animal, except crocodiles and alligators,--easily avoided, and not much to be dreaded. On the 19th June, "Charley and Brown, who had gone to the river, returned at a late hour, when they told us they had seen the tracks of a large animal on the sands of the river, which they judged to be about the size of a big dog, trailing a long tail like a snake. Charley said, that when Brown fired his gun, a deep noise like the bellowing of a bull was heard, which frightened both so much that they immediately decamped. This was the first time we became aware of the existence of the crocodile in the waters of the gulf." Afterwards they not unfrequently fell in with them. Near the banks of a magnificent salt-water river--named by Dr Leichhardt the "Robinson," in honour of one of the promoters of the expedition--they came upon a native well. "When Charley first discovered it, he saw a crocodile leaning its long head over the clay-wall, enjoying a drink of fresh water." Of venomous snakes and insects, we also find little or no account in the Doctor's diary. Once only there was a suspicion of the kind. Upon leaving a camp on the river Lynd, the lad Murphy's pony was missing, and Charley went back to look for it. "He brought us the melancholy news that he had found the poor beast on the sands of the Lynd, with its body blown up, and bleeding from the nostrils. It had either been bitten by a snake or had eaten some noxious herb, which had fortunately been avoided by the other horses." Sand-flies and mosquitoes were very troublesome, large yellow hornets savage in their attacks, and ants every where. Of these, the species called the funnel-ant is worthy of notice for the peculiarity of its nest. It digs a perpendicular hole in the ground, and surrounds the opening with an elevated wall, sloping outwards like a funnel; a style of architecture of which, upon a rainy day, the tenant of the dwelling must feel the disadvantage. The white ant is also met with, and builds itself massive hills of enormous size. "I followed the Casuarina Creek up to its head, and called it 'Big Ant-Hill Creek,' in consequence of numerous gigantic strangely-buttressed structures of the white ant, which I had never seen of such a form, and of so large a size." Within three days' journey of the gulf of Carpentaria, the box-tree flat was studded with turreted ant-hills, either single sharp cones, three to five feet high, or united in rows and forming piles of remarkable appearance.

Their arrival at the gulf of Carpentaria, which occurred on the 5th July, was a joyful event to the wanderers. From the map accompanying Dr Leichhardt's journal, it appears they did not take the most direct track from Moreton Bay to Port Essington, but inclined too much to the right, reaching the gulf on its eastern instead of its southern shore, and having consequently, as they were proceeding north-west, to strike off at right angles in a S.S.W. direction. For this deviation from the direct line, there may have been good reason in the nature of the ground, the forests, mountains, and other difficulties to be avoided, and in the necessity of preserving the vicinity of water. Hitherto the progress of the expedition was most satisfactory, the only important drawback being the death of poor Gilbert. A line of land communication between the eastern and northern coasts of Australia had been discovered and carefully mapped; it was well supplied with water, and the country was excellent--available almost throughout for pastoral purposes. The Doctor had special reason to rejoice at having got so far on his expedition, for the time occupied in reaching the gulf exceeded the period in which he had expected to arrive at Port Essington, and his companions had begun to despond, and even to question his abilities as a guide and leader. "We shall never come to Port Essington,"--the melancholy cry that too often reached Leichhardt's ears,--was exchanged for a joyful hurra at sight of salt water. Fatigues and privations were for the time forgotten as though the goal, instead of the half-way-house, had been attained. The caravan had been nine months out; they had still nearly six to pass before reaching their journey's end; and for various reasons, the latter portion was the most painful and difficult. They got amongst the salt creeks and lagoons, and fresh water was often very difficult to find. Then the little stock of comforts they had brought from Moreton Bay, became gradually exhausted. The flour was gone before they reached the gulf; the sugar was finished up, even to the boiling of the bags, that none of the saccharine particles might be lost--and at length they came to their last pot of tea. This was a great deprivation, for tea had been found most refreshing and restorative. Their diet now was dry beef and water. They tried various substitutes for the latter, but with no very good result. The M'Kenzie bean served as coffee, and although disagreeing at first, was finally relished. Mr Phillips, who discovered and adopted it, subsequently tried a similar preparation of acacia seeds, whose effects, however, were such as not to encourage consumers. To vary their edibles, they ate vine-beans in porridge, and the young leaves of bullrushes--coming, in fact, as near to grazing as human beings well can. Their animal food was not always of the choicest, as the following passage testifies: "During the night a great number of flying foxes came to revel in the honey of the blossoms of the gum-trees. Charley shot three, and we made a late but welcome supper of them. They were not so fat as those we had eaten before, and tasted a little strong; but in messes made, at night, it was always difficult to find out the cause of any particular taste, as Master Brown wished to get as quickly as possible over his work, and was not over particular in cleaning them." A negligence deserving of the bastinado. The notion of any animal, bearing the name of fox, being served up with the trail, is too full-flavoured to be agreeable, and the dish might cause a revolt in the stomach of the least particular of Australian bush-rangers. By this time, however, Dr Leichhardt and his party were inured to every sort of abomination in the way of food, and were not difficult to please. Other troubles they had, more sensibly felt than the coarse quality of the vivers. Their scanty wardrobe threatened to fail them; and, already reduced to the produce of the forest for their daily food, it appeared by no means improbable they would have to resort to the same primitive source for raiment to cover their nakedness. "The few shirts we had with us became so worn and threadbare, that the slightest tension would tear them. To find materials for mending the body, we had to cut off the sleeves; and when these were used, pieces were taken from the lower part of the shirt to mend the upper. Our trousers became equally patched, and the want of soap prevented us from washing them clean." Worse than this, inflammation, boils, and prickly heat, tormented the travellers, and their cattle showed symptoms of breaking down. At first, there were plenty of spare horses, but these had perished from accidents and disease; those which remained became daily weaker from over-work and want of water, and were sore-footed and tired from travelling over rocky ranges, their shoes, useless in the grass-land, having been long since removed. Leichhardt, who, on reaching the gulf, had sanguinely hoped the worst of the journey over, soon found his mistake. Bad enough before, it was far worse now, and too much praise can hardly be accorded to the cheerful courage with which the Doctor endured hardships, wrestled with difficulties, sustained the spirits of his companions, and pressed on over all obstacles, to the termination of his long and weary pilgrimage. It was now (at the beginning of December) not very distant. "Whilst we, were waiting for our bullock," (they were reduced to their last, which they were unwilling to kill, and took to Port Essington) "which had returned to the running brook, a fine native stepped out of the forest with the ease and grace of an Apollo, with a smiling countenance, and with the confidence of a man to whom the whiteface was perfectly familiar. He was unarmed, but a great number of his companions were keeping back to watch the reception he should meet with. We received him, of course, most cordially; and upon being joined by another good-looking little man, we heard him utter distinctly, the words '_Commandant_!' '_Come here!_' 'Very _good!_' '_What's your name?_' If my readers have at all identified themselves with my feelings throughout this trying journey, if they have imagined only a tithe of the difficulties we have encountered, they will readily imagine the startling effect which these, as it were, magic words produced; we were electrified--our joy knew no limits, and I was ready to embrace the fellows, who, seeing the happiness with which they inspired us, joined with a most merry grin in the loud expression of our feelings." The party were within a fortnight's march of Port Essington, where they arrived on the 17th day of December, and received a kind welcome and needful supplies from Captain MacArthur, commandant of the place. After a month's stay, they took ship, and reached Sydney at the end of March.

We have already referred to the strong feeling prevailing at Sydney against the practicability of Dr Leichhardt's projected expedition, to the numerous efforts made to induce him to abandon it, and to the confident predictions of its failure, and of the destruction of all engaged in it. It will be remembered, also, that about a month after the departure of the adventurers from Moreton Bay, it had been found necessary, in consequence of loss of stores and scarcity of game, to send back some of the party, and that Mr Hodgson, suffering and disheartened, had volunteered to return. His reappearance in the colony strengthened the doubts already entertained, and little surprise was excited when, a month or two afterwards, news came through a party of natives, that the adventurous band had been attacked, and its members murdered, by a tribe to the northward. There could be small doubt of the catastrophe, which elicited from Mr Lynd of Sydney, a bosom friend of Leichhardt, and to whom the Journal is inscribed, some very beautiful stanzas. They were addressed to a party formed to proceed, under guidance of Mr Hodgson, in the footsteps of Dr Leichhardt, and to ascertain his fate. By favour of a near relative of Mr Lynd, resident in the environs of Edinburgh, we are enabled here to introduce them.

Ye who prepare, with pilgrim feet, Your long and doubtful path to wend, If--whitening on the waste--ye meet The relies of my murdered friend, Collect them, and with reverence bear To where some mountain streamlet flows, There, by its mossy bank, prepare The pillow of his long repose.

It shall be by a stream, whose tides Are drank by birds of every wing; Where every lovelier flower abides The earliest wakening touch of spring; O meet that he, who so caress'd All beauteous Nature's varied charms, That he--her martyred son--should rest Within his mother's fondest arms.

When ye have made his narrow bed, And laid the good man's ashes there, Ye shall kneel down around the dead, And wait upon your God in prayer; What though no reverend man be near, No anthem pour its solemn breath, No holy walls invest his bier, With all the hallowed pomp of death,

Yet humble minds shall find the grace, Devoutly bowed upon the sod, To call that blessing round the place, Which consecrates the soul to God: And ye,--the wilds and wastes,--shall tell How, faithful to the hopes of men, The Mighty Power he served so well, Shall breathe upon his bones again!

When ye your gracious task have done, Heap not the rock upon his dust! The Angel of the Lord alone Shall guard the ashes of the just! But ye shall heed, with pious care, The memory of that spot to keep; And note the marks that guide me where My venturous friend is laid in sleep.

For oh, bethink,--in other times, And be those happier times at hand, When science, like the smile of God, Comes bright'ning o'er that weary land, How will her pilgrims hail the power, Beneath the drooping miall's gloom, To sit at eve, and mourn an hour, And pluck a leaf on Leichhardt's tomb.

These charming verses were dated the 2d of July 1845. It was not till the close of the following March, that the cloud suspended over the destiny of the expedition was suddenly dispelled by the appearance of Leichhardt himself. As may be supposed, an enthusiastic welcome awaited the pilgrim, whose bones were long since supposed to be bleaching in the wilderness. Subscriptions were set on foot, and soon amounted to fifteen hundred pounds, which, with another thousand pounds voted by the Legislative Council, were divided amongst the seven persons composing the expedition. Dr Leichhardt, to whom the lion's share was with justice awarded, received it at a meeting held in the School of Arts at Sydney, of which an account is given in the _Sydney Herald_ under the head of "The Leichhardt Testimonial," and where Dr Nicholson, speaker of the Legislative Council, addressed the intrepid traveller, in a strain of high and well-merited eulogium. "It would be difficult," he said, "to employ any terms that might be considered as exaggerated, in acknowledging the enthusiasm, the perseverance, and the talent, which prompted you to undertake, and enabled you successfully to prosecute, your late perilous journey through a portion of the hitherto untrodden wilds of Australia." A flattering letter from the Colonial Secretary at Sydney, announcing the government grant, a gold medal from the Royal Geographical Society of London, and another from that of Paris, have further rewarded Dr Leichhardt's meritorious labours. Unflinching in pursuit of science, he again set forth, in December 1845, on an overland journey to Swan River, expected to occupy two years and a half. This time he is better provided. His party consists of only eight persons, but he has mules for the stores, fourteen horses, forty oxen, and two hundred and seventy goats. And he further takes with him--light but pleasant baggage--the warm sympathy and hearty good wishes of all to whom his amiable character and previous labours are known, a class which the publication of the present Journal will doubtless tend largely to increase.

FOOTNOTE:

[15]_Journal of an Overland Expedition in Australia, from Moreton Bay to Port Essington_. By Dr LUDWIG LEICHHARDT. London: Boone, 1847.

MAGUS MUIR.

The subject of the following ballad is the atrocious and dastardly assassination of James Sharp, Archbishop of St Andrews and Primate of Scotland.

More than one attempt was made upon the life of that eminent prelate. On the 11th of July, 1668, a shot was fired into his carriage in the High Street of Edinburgh, by one James Mitchell, a fanatical field preacher, and an associate of the infamous Major Weir. The primate escaped unharmed, but his colleague Honyman, Bishop of Orkney, received a severe wound, from the effects of which he died in the following year. The assassin Mitchell fled to Holland, but subsequently returned, and was arrested in the midst of his preparations for another diabolical attempt. This man, who afterwards suffered for his crimes, and who in consequence has obtained a place in the book of "Covenanting Martyrology," described his motive "as an impulse of the Holy Spirit, and justified it from Phinehas killing Cosbi and Zimri, and from that law in Deuteronomy commanding to kill false prophets!" This is no matter of surprise, when it is recollected that the "principles of assassination," as Mr C. K. Sharp observes, "were strongly recommended in _Naphthali, Jus Populi Vindicatum_, and afterwards in _The Hind let Loose_, which books were in almost as much esteem with the Presbyterians as their Bibles." Sir George Mackenzie states, "These irreligious and heterodox books, called _Naphthali_ and _Jus Populi_, had made the killing of all dissenters from Presbytery seem not only lawful, but a duty among many of that profession: and in a postscript to _Jus Populi_, it was told that the sending of the Archbishop of St Andrews' head to the king would be the best present that could be made to Jesus Christ."[16]

These principles, at first received with doubt, were afterwards carried out to the utmost extent by the more violent of the insurgent party. Murder and assault, frequently perpetrated upon unoffending and defenceless persons, became so common, that the ordinary course of the law was suspended, and its execution devolved upon the military. Scotland was indeed in a complete state of terrorism. Gangs of armed fanatics, who had openly renounced their allegiance, perambulated the country, committing every sort of atrocity, and directing their attacks promiscuously against the clerical incumbents and the civil magistracy.

But the crowning act of guilt was the murder of the unfortunate Archbishop. On the 3d of May 1679, a party of the Fife non-conformists were prowling near the village of Ceres, on the outlook, it is said, for Carmichael the Sheriff-substitute of the county, against whom they had sworn vengeance if he should ever fall into their hands. This party consisted of twelve persons, at the head of whom were John Balfour of Kinloch, better known by his _soubriquet_ of Burley, and his brother-in-law, David Hackstoun of Rathillet. Balfour, whose moral character had never stood high, though his religious fanaticism was undoubted, had been at one time chamberlain to the Archbishop, and had failed to account for a considerable portion of the rents, which it was his official duty to levy. Hackstoun, whose earlier life had been in little accordance with the ostensible tenets of his party, was also in debt to the Archbishop, and had been arrested by the new chamberlain. "These two persons," says Mr Lawson, "had most substantial reasons for their rancour and hatred towards the Archbishop, apart from their religious animosities."

It does not seem to be clearly ascertained, whether Carmichael was the real object of their search, or whether their design from the first had been directed against the person of the Primate. It would appear, however, from the depositions taken shortly after the murder, that the deed had been long premeditated, and that three days previously some of the assassins had met at a house in Ceres and concerted their plans. The incumbent of Ceres, the Rev. Alexander Leslie, was also to have been made a victim if found in company with the Prelate.

Fortunately for himself, Carmichael eluded their search, but towards evening the carriage of the Archbishop was seen approaching the waste ground near St Andrews, which is still known by the name of Magus Muir. A hurried council was then held. Hackstoun, probably from some remnant of compunction, declined to take the lead; but Balfour, whose bloodthirsty disposition was noted even in those unhappy times, assumed the command, and called upon the others to follow him. The consummation of the tragedy can best be told in the words of the historian already quoted.

"When the Primate's servants saw their master followed by a band of men on horseback, they drove rapidly, but they were overtaken on the muir about three miles west of St Andrews; the murderers having previously satisfied themselves, by asking a female domestic of the neighbouring farmer, who refused to inform them himself, that it was really the Archbishop's coach.

"Russell first came up, and recognised the Primate sitting with his daughter. The Archbishop looked out of the coach, and Russell cast his cloak from him, exclaiming,--'Judas, be taken!' The Primate ordered the postilion to drive, at which Russell fired at the man, and called to his associates to join him. With the exception of Hackstoun, they threw off their cloaks, and continued firing at the coach for nearly half a mile. A domestic of the Archbishop presented a carbine, but was seized by the neck, and it was pulled out of his hands. One of the assassins outrun the coach, and struck one of the horses on the head with a sword. The postilion was ordered to stop, and for refusing he was cut on the face and ankle. They soon rendered it impossible to proceed further with the coach. Disregarding the screams, entreaties, and tears of his daughter, a pistol was discharged at the Primate beneath his left arm, and the young lady was seen removing the smoking combustibles from her father's black gown. Another shot was fired, and James Russell seized a sword from one of his associates, dismounted, and at the coach-door called to the Archbishop, whom he designated _Judas_, to come forth." Sir William Sharp's account of what now occurred, which would be doubtless related to him by his sister, is as follows:--"They fired several shots at the coach, and commanded my dearest father to come out, which he said he would.--When he had come out, not being yet wounded, he said,--'Gentlemen, I beg my life!' 'No--bloody villain, betrayer of the cause of Christ--no mercy!' Then said he,--'I ask none for myself, but have mercy on my poor child!' and, holding up his hand to one of them to get his, that he would spare his child, he cut him on the wrist. Then falling down upon his knees, and holding up his hands, he prayed that God would forgive them; and begging mercy for his sins from his Saviour, they murdered him by sixteen great wounds in his back, head, and one above his left eye, three in his left hand when he was holding it up, with a shot above his left breast, which was found to be powder. After this damnable deed they took the papers out of his pocket, robbed my sister and their servants of all their papers, gold, and money, and one of these hellish rascals cut my sister on the thumb, when she had him by the bridle begging her father's life."

So died with the calmness and intrepidity of a martyr this reverend and learned prelate, maligned indeed by the fanatics of his own and succeeding ages, but reverenced and beloved by those who best knew his innate worth, unostentatious charity, and pure piety of soul. In the words of a worthy Presbyterian divine of last century,--"His inveterate enemies are agreed in ascribing to him the high praise of a beneficent and humane disposition. He bestowed a considerable part of his income in ministering to pressing indigence, and relieving the wants of private distress. In the exercise of his charity, he had no contracted views. The widows and orphans of the Presbyterian brethren richly shared his bounty without knowing whence it came. He died with the intrepidity of a hero, and the piety of a Christian, praying for the assassins with his latest breath."

Gently ye fall, ye summer showers, On blade, and leaf, and tree; Ye bring a blessing to the earth, But nane--O nane, to me!

Ye cannot wash this red right hand Free from its deadly stain, Ye cannot cool the burning ban That lies within my brain.

O be ye still, ye blithesome birds, Within the woodland spray, And keep your songs within your hearts Until another day:

And cease to fill the blooming brae With warblings light and clear, For there's a sweeter song than yours That I maun never hear.

It was upon the Magus Muir Within the lanesome glen, That in the gloaming hour I met Wi' Burley and his men.

Our hearts were hard as was the steel We bore within the hand; But harder was the heart of him That led that bluidy band.

Dark lay the clouds upon the west Like mountains huge and still: And fast the summer lightning leaped Behind the distant hill.

It shone on grim Rathillet's brow With pale and ghastly glare: I caught the glimpse of his cold gray eye-- There was MURDER glittering there!

* * * * *

Away, away! o'er bent and hill, Through moss and muir we sped: Around us roared the midnight storm, Behind us lay the dead.

We spoke no word, we made no sign But blindly rade we on, For an angry voice was in our ears That bade us to begone, We were brothers all baptised in blood, Yet sought to be alone!

Away, away! with headlong speed We rade through wind and rain, And never more upon the earth Did we all meet again.

There's some have died upon the field, And some upon the tree, And some are bent and broken men Within a far countrie, But the heaviest curse hath lighted down On him that tempted me!

O hame, hame, hame!--that holy place-- There is nae hame for me! There's not a child that sees my face But runs to its mither's knee.

There's not a man of woman born That dares to call me kin-- O grave! wert thou but deep enough To hide me and my sin!

I wander east, I wander west, I neither can stop nor stay, But I dread the night when all men rest Far more than the glint of day.

O weary night, wi' all its stars Sae clear, and pure, and hie! Like the eyes of angels up in heaven That will not weep for me!

O weary night, when the silence lies Around me, broad and deep, And dreams of earth, and dreams of heaven, That vex me in my sleep.

For aye I see the murdered man, As on the muir he lay, With his pale white face, and reverend head, And his locks sae thin and gray; And my hand grows red with the holy blude I shed that bitter day!

O were I but a water drop To melt into the sea-- But never water yet came down Could wash that blude from me!

And O! to dream of that dear heaven That I had hoped to win-- And the heavy gates o' the burning gowd That will not let me in!

I hear the psalm that's sung in heaven, When the morning breaks sae fair, And my soul is sick wi' the melodie Of the angels quiring there.

I feel the breath of God's ain flowers From out that happy land, But the fairest flower o' Paradise Would wither in my hand.

And aye before me gapes a pit Far deeper than the sea, And waefn' sounds rise up below, And deid men call on me.

O that I never had been born, And ne'er the light had seen! Dear God--to look on yonder gates And this dark gulf between!

O that a wee wee bird wad come Though 'twere but ance a-year! And bring but sae much mool and earth As its sma' feet could bear,

And drap it in the ugsome hole That lies 'twixt heaven and me, I yet might hope, ere the warld were dune, My soul might saved be!

W. E. A.

FOOTNOTE:

[16] LAWSON'S _History of the Episcopal Church of Scotland_.

A NOVEMBER MORNING'S REVERIE.

BY DELTA.

Hast thou a chamber in the utter West, A cave of shelter from the glare of day, Oh radiant Star of Morning! whose pure eye, Like an archangel's, over the dim Earth, With such ineffable effulgence shines? Emblem of Sanctity and Peace art thou! Thou leavest man, what time to daily toil His steps are bent--what time the bustling world Usurps his thought; and, through the sunny hours, Unseen, forgot, art like the things that were; But Twilight weeps for joy at thy return, With brighter blaze the faggots on the hearth Sparkle, and home records its happiest hour!

Hark! 'tis the Robin's shrill yet mellow pipe, That in the voiceless calm of the young morn, Commingles with my dreams:--lo! as I draw Aside the curtains of my couch, he sits, Deep over-bower'd by broad geranium leaves, (Leaves trembling 'neath the touch of sere decay,) Upon the dewy window-sill, and perks His restless black eye here and there, in search Of crumbs, or shelter from the icy breath Of wild winds rushing from the Polar sea: For now November, with a brumal robe, Mantles the moist and desolated earth; Dim sullen clouds hang o'er the cheerless sky, And yellow leaves bestrew the undergrove.

'Tis earliest sunrise. Through the hazy mass Of vapours moving on like shadowy isles, Athwart the pale, gray, spectral cope of heaven, With what a feeble, inefficient glow Looks out the Day; all things are still and calm, Half wreathed in azure mist the skeleton woods, And as a picture silent. Little bird! Why with unnatural tameness comest thou thus, Offering in fealty thy sweet simple songs To the abode of man? Hath the rude wind Chilled thy sweet woodland home, now quite despoiled Of all its summer greenery, and swept The bright, close, sheltering bowers, where merrily Rang out thy notes--as of a haunting sprite, There domiciled--the long blue summer through? Moulders untenanted thy trim-built nest, And do the unpropitious fates deny Food for thy little wants, and Penury, With tiny grip, drive thee to dubious walls,-- Though terrors flutter at thy panting heart,-- To stay the pangs which must be satisfied? Alas! the dire sway of Necessity Oft makes the darkest, most repugnant things Familiar to us; links us to the feet Of all we feared, or hated, or despised; And, mingling poison with our daily food, Yet asks the willing heart and smiling cheek: Yea! to our subtlest and most tyrannous foes, May we be driven for shelter, and in such May our sole refuge lie, when all the joys, That, iris-like, wantoned around our paths Of prosperous fortune, one by one have died; When day shuts in upon our hopes, and night Ushers blank darkness only. Therefore we Should pity thee, and have compassion on Thy helpless state, poor bird, whose loveliness Is yet unscathed, and whose melodious notes, (Sweeter by melancholy rendered,) steal With a deep supplication to the heart, Telling that thou wert happy once--that now Thou art most destitute; and yet, and yet-- Only were thy small pinching wants supplied By Charity--couldst be most happy still!-- Is it not so?

Out on unfeeling man! Will he who drives the beggar from his gates, And to the moan of fellow-man shuts up Each avenue of feeling--will he deign To think that such as Thou deserve his aid? No! when the gust raves, and the floods descend, Or the frost pinches, Thou may'st, at dim eve, With forced and fearful love approach his home, What time, 'mid western mists, the broad, red sun, Sinking, calls out from heaven the earliest star; And the crisp blazing of the dry Yule-log Flickers upon the pictured walls, and lights By fits the unshutter'd lattice; but, in vain, Thy chirp repeated earnestly; the flap, Against the obdurate pane, of thy small wing;-- He hears thee not--he heeds not--but, at morn, The ice-enamoured schoolboy, early afoot, Finds thy small bulk beneath the alder stump, Thy bright eyes closed, and tiny talons clench'd, Stiff in the gripe of death.

The floating plume Tells how the wind blows, with a certainty As great as doth the vessel's full-swoln sheets; So doth the winged seed; 'tis not alone In mighty things that we may truliest read The heart, but in its temper and its tone:-- Thus true Benevolence we ever find Forgiving, gentle, tremblingly alive To pity, and unweariedly intent On all the little, thousand charities, Which day by day calls forth. Oh! as we hope Forgiveness of our earthly trespasses,-- Of all our erring deeds and wayward thoughts,-- When Time's dread reckoning comes,--oh! as we hope Mercy, who need it much, let us, away From kindness never turning, mould our hearts To sympathy, and from all withering blight Preserve them, and all deadening influences:-- So 'twill be best for us. The All-seeing Eye, Which numbers each particular hair, and notes From heaven the sparrow's fall, shall pass not o'er Without approval deeds unmarked by man-- Deeds, which the right hand from the left conceals-- Nor overlook the well-timed clemency, That soothed and stilled the murmurs of distress.

Enamour'd of all mysteries, in love With doubt itself, and fond to disbelieve, We ask not, "if realities be real?" With Plato, or with Berkeley; but we know Life comes not of itself, and what hath life,-- However insignificant it seem To us, whose noblest standard is ourselves,-- Hath been by the Almighty's finger touch'd, Or ne'er had been at all--it must be so. Therefore 'tis by comparison alone That things seem great or small; and noblest they Whose sympathies, with a capacious range, Would own no limit to their fond embrace. Yea, there, as in all else, doth Duty dwell With happiness: for far the happiest he, Who through the roughnesses of life preserves His boyish feelings, and who sees the world, Not as it is in cold reality, A motley scene of struggle and of strife, But tinted with the glow of bright romance: For him the morning has its star; the sun, Rising or setting, fires for him the clouds With glory; flowers for him have tales, Like those which, for a thousand nights and one, Enchained the East; each season as it rolls Strikes in his bosom its peculiar chord, Yet each alike harmonious, to a heart That vibrates ever in sweet unison: Each scene hath its own influence, nor less The frost that mimics each on pool or pane: Delight flows in alike from calm or storm: Delight flows in to him from nature's shows Of hill and dale, swift river, or still lake: To him the very winds are musical-- Have harmony AEolian, wild and sweet; The stream sings to its banks, and the wild birds To Echo--viewless tell-tale of the rocks-- Who in the wantonness of love responds.

Gifts, in the eye of Heaven, not always bear The marketable value stamped by man Upon them,--else the poor were truly poor, The willing spirit destitute indeed. In other balance are our actions weighed By Him who sees the heart in all its thoughts; Both what it wills and cannot, what it tries And doth,--and with what motive, for what end. Clouds clothe them like realities, and shine Even so to human eyes; yet, not the less Are only mockeries of the things they seem, And melt as we survey them. Let us not The shadow for the substance take, the Jay For the true Bird of Paradise. A crust Dealt, by the poor man, from his daily loaf, To the wayfarer, poorer than himself-- A cup of water, in the Saviour's name Proffered, with ready hand, to thirsting lips,-- Seem trifles in themselves, yet weigh for wine, And gems, and gold, and frankincense. The mite,-- The widow's offering, and her all, put in With grief, because she had no more to give, Yet given although her all,--was in the sight Of Heaven a sumless treasury bestowed, And reckoned such in her account above:-- When Nineveh, through all her myriad streets, Lay blackened with idolatry and crime, God had preserved her--would have saved her whole-- Had but the Prophet, as a leaven, found His righteous ten!

Therefore, Oh never deem Thoughts, deeds, or feelings valueless, that bear The balance of the heart to Virtue's side! The coral worm seems nought, but coral worms Combined heave up a reef, where mightiest keels Are stranded, and the powers of man put down. The water-drop wears out the stone; and cares Trifling, if ceaseless, form an aggregate, Whose burden weighs the buoyant heart to earth. Think not the right path may be safely left, Though 'twere but for one moment, and one step; That one departure, slight howe'er it be, From Innocence is nought. The young peach-bloom, Rudely brushed off, can be restored no more, By all the cunning of the painter's art; Nor to the sered heart comes, in after life Again,--however longed for, or bewailed,-- Youth's early dews, the pure and delicate!

VALEDICTORY VISITS AT ROME.

Andiamo a Napoli; and so we will, in accordance with the repeated suggestions we have received during the last ten days from all the vetturini in Rome. Easter is gone by, the Girandola went off last week, the English are going, and so is our bell, tinkle! tinkle! tinkle!--as if its wire had a touch of vernal ague--while the old delf plate in the hall is filled and running with cards, every pasteboard parallelogram among them with two P's and a C in the corner; for we are becoming too polite, it seems, to take leave of each other in our own tongue. As the English quit Rome, the swallows arrive, and may be seen in great muster flitting up and down the streets, looking at the affiches of vacancies before fixing on a lodging. Unlike us, these callow tourists--though many of them on their first visit to Rome--are no sooner within the walls, than they find, without assistance, their way to the Forum, and proceed to build and twitter in that very Temple of Concord where Juvenal's storks of old made their nidus and their noise! Andiamo a Napoli; yes, but not yet; we are sure at this season to have an impatient patient or two to visit in the Babuino, or at Serny's; who, labouring under incipient fever which has not yet tamed them into submission, tell us they would--optative mood--be at Florence in a week, and add--in the imperative--that they must be in London in three! _Vedremmo!_ These cases--may they end well--are sure, meanwhile, to be somewhat tedious in their progress; and besides, were there none such, two motives have we for always lingering the last in Rome: the one, to avoid the importunity of many indiscreet acquaintance, who would else be sure at this season to plague us with some trifling commission, on purpose to open a sudden correspondence, in the hope of learning all about the heat, the fever, the mosquitoes, the fare and the accommodation of Castellamare and Sorrento, thinking themselves, meanwhile, perfect Talleyrands in diplomacy, in employing a ruse which it is impossible not to see through; the other and more important, to secure the necessary quiet while we linger about favourite haunts, and refresh our memory with sites and scenes endeared by long and intimate acquaintance. To describe people or places accurately, requires a long and attentive familiarity, but to do so feelingly and with effect, we should trust principally to first and last impressions: either will be more likely to furnish a lively representation, as far as it goes, than when too great intimacy with details leads us to forget what is characteristic, and to dwell without emphasis, or with equal and tedious emphasis, upon all alike. New scenes, owing, perhaps, part of their charm to that circumstance, may occasionally betray us into exaggeration; but the records of a last _coup-d'oeil_, when we dwell with sad complacency upon every feature, as upon those of a friend from whom we are about to part, are characterised at once by an equal freshness, and by more truth, feeling, and discrimination. We might proceed to exemplify this, from a long series of first and last views in Italy: with some of them the reader may be familiar, for we have frequently met in Maga's pages; with others he will--should it so please him--become acquainted, when, leaving the company of our present agreeable associates, we stand forth an author of "Travels," and have more ample scope for our egotism. We confine ourselves now to a few valedictory visits in and about Rome.

THE VILLA BORGHESE.

It was on 15th April, 1843, seven A. M., when we went to take farewell of the Borghese. In passing up the Via Babuino on our way thither, our ears catch some of the well-known street cries. These generally attract a momentary attention, even amidst all the bustle, activity, and din of a great commercial city: how much more, then, in the comparative stillness of Rome, particularly in the morning, when few people are stirring, and we are most alive to sounds? Some of these cries are not unpleasing: the first to greet us, plaintive and melancholy in its character, is that of "_Aqua acetosa_," which announces the water of a mineral spring in the neighbourhood, brought in at sunrise for those who are too idle or too ill to drink it at its source. Another kind of water--also very matutinal in its delivery,--the "_Aqua vita_," is intonated by the _Aquavitario_, in a sharp kestrel key,--hear him! Now, list to two men carrying a large deep tub of honey between them, and bellowing in rapid alternation, "_Miele_, _miele_," and say if their accents are mellifluous! Next, comes a loud-tongued salesman, who out-brays Lablache, but confines his singing to "_Che vuole_, _che vuole_!" and oranges and lemons are his commodity. From an itinerant green-grocer, who passes with his panniered donkey, suddenly bursts forth, "_Cimaroli, cimaroli_!" The last cry we hear is that of "_Tutti vivi_, _tutti vivi_!" from the _asparagaro_, who is bringing frogs and wild asparagus into Rome. Now we are in the Piazza del Popolo, and having glanced a moment at those buxom goddesses, at the foot of the Pincian hill, who look right well this morning in their flowing robes, turn out of the Popolo Gate, just as a large drove of lean turkeys, driven in from the Campagna, besiege the entrance on their way to the bird-market, where they are to be presently slaughtered, drawn, and quartered; their "disjecta membra" exposed to sale at so many _baiocchi_ a pound; and their blood, which is more esteemed than their flesh, hawked about the streets in cakes: of course we are too humane to hint to them their coming destiny. In front of the elegant Borghese entrance, and round the Park lodge, all strewn about in picturesque disarray, we behold one of those numerous herds of goats, which come in every morning, to be milked at the different houseouse doors: their udders at present are brimful, and almost touch the lintel of the gate where they are standing--"gravido superant vix ubere limen;" and though they are emptied continually, soon fill again,--

"Et plus ta main avare epuise leurs mammelles Plus la douce ambroisie entre tes doigts ruisselle."

Some are lying down to lighten their load; and some, with an air of patient expectancy, turn their heads towards an "osteria cacinante" opposite, knowing that so soon as their drover has finished his own cold broccoli breakfast, he will come out to accompany them into Rome to _disperse_ theirs. And now we are within the _enceinte_ of the Borghese grounds, have passed the good-humoured _custode_ at the gate, responded a hearty "_da vero_," to the "_che bella qiornata_" with which we are greeted, tarried for an instant by the little pond to the left, and heard the Babylonian willow susurrate the same salutation to the water under its boughs, and then make for, and soon reach, the large ever-spouting fountain which is scattering its comminuted water-dust far and near, and bathes our cheek refreshingly as we pass it: and now we are at the Borghese dairy, and now by Raphael's little frescoed house, untenanted within, and with a solitary robin, the _custode_ of the porch; but at the back premises we come upon an artist in a blouse making a sketch. He could not have chosen a more picturesque spot than this any where in the park: for _foreqround_, a beautiful green sward, well dotted with recumbent and standing cows, and interspersed with masses of acanthus-crowned ruin; and for the _back_, the graceful sweep of the old gray Roman walls, with the Villa Medici and the Pincian hill peering just above. Fain would we carry away some such souvenir; but as nature or our misfortune forbid this, our endeavour shall be to supply its place, however inadequately, by dotting down a few words of description of one or two of the principal trees, which here so greatly embellish the view.

The Ilex, interesting alike from its appearance and physiology, first engages our notice. Compact and solid while yet a shrub, (for hers is indeed an _old_ head upon _young_ shoulders,) she grows like a tree that is to count by centuries, and under no advantage of soil or situation does her sober aspect change; no premature overgrowth was ever known to weaken her fibres, those _tetes mortees_; the Lombardy poplars there, whose only merit is their height, may shoot up ever so tauntingly, for aught she cares, at her elbow; her ambition is not like that of the stately pines, to nurse a noisy aviary on high; nor does she seek to rival the fair sisterhood of the Acacias in the youthful vanity of overdecking her person; one dark-coloured investment lasts her, and remains unchanged the whole year through. But though she takes no improper "pride in dress," even the rigid Dr Watts would hardly be disposed to object to the exceedingly _charming_ trimming of semi-transparent green flouncing, and the rich festoons of straw-yellow tassels, with which--not to appear insensible to the festivities of spring--she has just now fringed her winter apparel. Making less demands upon the earth than many of her neighbours, she turns her supplies to better account; her acorns from early youth are firm and mature; excrescences, the common result of excess, mar not the rough symmetry of her hardy frame--few insects feed upon that uncompromising rind, which, opposing itself to most cryptogamic alliance, seldom suffers moss or lichen to spread over its incised and tesselated surface,

"Save here and there in spots aye dank and dark, When the green meshes fill the fissured bark."

Much does the Ilex gain by this prudent economy of her resources; for, long after the autumnal rains have stripped her companions bare, while they are shivering and sighing in the blast, _she_ knows neither moult nor change. Immutably serene, she plants the dense screen of well-clothed boughs across the road, and affords shelter to the careless wight who has forgotten his umbrella, keeping him dry and warm under an impenetrable water-proof and winter-proof canopy. Of all trees that bloom, (especially when as now in full feather,) few can rival the acacia in delicacy of white, or in profusion of blossoming. Nodding their heavy plumes and parting their leafy tresses in the breeze, they are the charm of every spot where they grow; whether as here, alternating in beautiful relief by the lofty wall of the aqueduct, commingling their snowy bunches amidst thousands of red and white Banksian roses; or else standing sentinel with a weeping willow over some garden fountain. Whether alone or in company, there is not a more beautiful sylvan blonde than the acacia; but it is too apparent that such loveliness will not last, that her stature is fully beyond her strength. For example, there is a row of them; none counts her twelfth birth-day, and yet all are grown up! Turn we, now, to the great stone pines: here they stand in the morning sun, that has already cracked their fevered bark, and caused it to peel off in red _laminae_ from the rugged trunk. See the ground at their base strewn with these thin vegetable tiles; and large quantities of that most beautiful of funguses, the _Clatharus Cancellatus_, chooses this situation to blush and stink. This group is a well-known land-mark for miles around Rome; far off in the Campagna we recognise the clump; the dome of St Peter's itself meets not sooner the inquiring eye of the arriving tourist. They are also the artists' trees; not a bough of them but has been studied and depicted time after time for centuries; they have stood oftener for their portraits than they have cones to count, and are as familiar to the young painter, as the line-school that beset the Pincian hill. These are the principal trees which give character to the garden; but there are hosts of others that help to make up the beauty of the scene; _Catalpas_, _Meleas_, _Brousenitias_, _&c. &c._, all now in light green foliage. Some are still hung with pods and berries of their last year's growth, producing an _insieme_ of pictorial effect rarely to be met with out of Italy, and in Italy only at this season of the year. Continuing our walk, we pass under the rose-crowned aqueduct, and strike into the green avenue that darkens beyond; listening to the distant water bubbling up from the deepest recesses, and to the fitful whistle of blackbird and thrush, as they flit athwart the moss-grown gravel, and perch momentarily on the heads of mutilated termini and statues; whilst the clipt trees vibrate under the wings of others extricating themselves on a piratical cruise against a whole flotilla of butterflies, which is rising and falling over the sunny parterres beyond. "The well-greaved grillus" bounds twenty feet at a spring, and having thighs as thick as a lark's to double under him, makes little use of his wings. Many a callow bee is buzzing helplessly in the path. The gray _curculio_ walks with snout erect, snuffing the morning air; and here we fall upon a party of apprentice pill-beetles, learning to make up stercoraceous boluses, and forming nearly as long a line as the shopmen who are similarly engaged behind Holloway's counter in the Strand. Near us, hordes of "quick-eyed lizards,"--insect crocodiles, which much infest this region, start from their holes in the wall, and, rustling along the box hedge, suddenly pounce upon a butterfly, detach his wings--the whole walk is strewed with them--and having bolted his body, retire again to their resting--no--they never _rest_--lurking-places. Notwithstanding, however, these constant aggressions, from both birds and reptiles, the _lepidopterous_ race is not, it seems, to be exterminated; and there, in evidence, lies that very blue-zoned peacock-butterfly, with his wings extended, and motionless as if pinned to the gravel, on the same sunny spot where we have been in the habit of noticing him for these three successive Aprils past. The eye that follows butterflies takes note also of the flowers on which they settle, but we must not indulge ourselves in pointing them out to the reader, who, unless a botanist, or inclined that way, might turn as restive as the young bride listening to her "preceptor husband."

"He showed the flowers from stamina to root, Calyx and corol, pericarp and fruit; Of all the parts, the size, the use, the shape: While poor Augusta panted to escape: The various foliage various plants produce, Lunate and lyrate, runcinate, retuse, Latent and patent, papilous and plain; 'Oh!' said the pupil, 'it will turn my brain!'"

And, therefore, though "flowers, fresh in hue and many in their class," absolutely "_implore_ the pausing step," we forbear, and will let him off this time with rehearsing only three or four among them:--the _Allium fragrans_, he will join with us, if he has been in Italy, in the wish that _all_ onions there were like it! the _Anchusa Italica_, through whose long funnel the proboscis of the ever-buzzing _Bombylius_ finds its way to the sweet nectar prepared within; the _Scilla Lilio-hyacinthus_--a _Squill_ masquerading it as a _Hyacinth_; the leaves of the _Cnicus Syraicus_, most beautiful of thistles, glistening here in abundance, and scarcely inferior in attractions to the far-famed _Acanthus_. But the society of plants is as promiscuous as our own, and accordingly we find here the jaundiced _Chelidonium_ filled with bilious juices; the feculent-smelling flowerets of the _Smyrnum olusatrum_, and the stinking _Geranium robertianum_, mingle with the sweets of _Calendula_, _Narcissus_, and _Jonquil_; not to mention the _Orchis_ tribe, which flourishes in profusion. Traversing the green arena of the amphitheatre,--where annual festas are held, and occasional cricket matches played--to the left, and leaving the Temple of Diana to the right, we come upon a deep descent just in front of the villa, and enter it for a minute to cast a hasty _coup-d'oeil_ at the ample frescoes of the ceiling and the grim mosaics of the floor; the subjects of the latter, however, not being congenial to an unbreakfasted stomach, we relinquish them presently, for the beauties of the park.... By the time we think of retracing our steps, the clock of Monte Citorio has struck ten; but the morning is still delightfully cool and exhilarating; we have been overtaken and passed by three pedestrians, each carrying away from the grounds something more than mere recollections; one, a _semplicista_ of the Rotunda, with a collection of Galenicals for his shop; another with a pocket full of _Arum_ roots, which he has been grubbing up for his wife, a _lavatrice_, to clear linen; and a third, whose handkerchief contains several pounds weight of _prugnoli_--_Agaricus prunulus_--destined for his breakfast. These do not long keep pace with our lingering footsteps; we are loth to quit hastily, and for the last time, this scene of by-gone pleasures. Oh! Villa Borghese, well known to us from curly-pated boyhood, before Waterloo was won, and often at intervals since, till now, when half our hair has become gray, and the remainder has left our temples, while grown-up nephews and nieces declare to us, what our contemporaries will not--the progress of time--how many happy hours of careless childhood have we frolicked away among thine avenues and plantations--on which we cast a last sad look--with urchins now as bald as ourselves! In early youth we have read our favourite authors under thy trees; a little later, have botanised with friends who loved thee and nature as dearly as we did; and thus have we learned to know thee, in every dress, in every phase of light and shade, and in every month of the year. During our last sojourn, in particular, this has been our favourite haunt; in winter, when walking required speed, and stalactites of ice would glisten occasionally from the aqueduct; or when summer returned, and we could bask under the tall spread pines, and watch the cawing rooks as they went and came over head, or screened ourselves in some dark avenue from the fervency of the sun, from whence we could see him blazing at both ends of it. A long and endearing familiarity has indeed been ours, melancholy and unsating; and it has given rise to a host of trying associations, conjured up by each new visit after a brief absence from Rome, and now adds poignancy of regret to what we feel _must_ be the last,--

"While at each step, against our will Does memory, with pernicious skill, Our captive thoughts enchain, Recalls each joy that treach'rous smiled, And of green griefs and sorrows wild, Resuscitates the pain."

THE VILLA ALBANI.

An Italian villa is like any other Italian belle; we would rather pay either a morning visit than summer and winter with them; both dress themselves out for strangers, and often at the expense of their rightful owners. An Italian villa is very charming for a brief spring, malarious in summer and autumn, and incommodiously furnished for every season. _Comfort_ makes but slow progress abroad, and has not yet found its way into Italy at all; neither into her dictionaries as a _name_, nor into her dwellings as a _thing_. What should we, ease-loving English, think of a house, which, lined with marbles and frescoes, carpeted with mosaics and adorned with statues, offered nothing but niches and marble curule chairs to write on and to sit in? Yet such is the general scheme and internal arrangement throughout most villas in Italy; for as to the prime of the house, the _piano nobile, that_ belongs as by prescriptive right to the Caesars, being indeed only fitted for impassive marble and bronze emperors:--while the over-hospitable entertainer of these august guests is content to stow away himself and family in apartments which are frequently little better than our offices for menials, in which his few articles of rococo furniture, of all sorts and sizes, are crazy, cumbersome, undusted, and ill-matched; in short, more like the promiscuous contents of some inferior broker's shop, than the elegant _ameublement_ we might have expected to correspond to the profusion of objects of _vertu_ which grace the principal show-rooms of the mansion. At home, we may differ in our notions about comfort in the details, but there are certain conditions which are rightly held essential to its possible existence; and if "the cold neat parlour, and the gay glazed bed," have their admirers, it is because cleanliness and neatness are two of them: but in Italy we look in vain for either, and there is nothing to compensate their absence. Few Englishmen could engage in literary labour in the fireless, ill-furnished rooms which throughout Italy are a matter of course; where carpets, curtains, or an easy chair, are unknown luxuries; and into which, entering by various ill-placed and worse fitting windows and doors, confluent draughts catch you in all directions, turning the _sanctum_ of study into a perfect Temple of the Winds! Yet, to some men, comfort seems as unnecessary as it is unattainable. The Italian antiquary, in particular, had need be careless of his ease, and regardless of external temperature; as that degree of it necessary for the conservation of nude marble figures, is by no means congenial to flesh and blood. This reflection occurs to us to-day--not for the first time, certes--under the noble portico of the villa Albani, with a volume of Winkelmann in our hand; for in this palace, and in some such study as we have hinted at, must he have shivered over these recondite labours, while meditating, composing, and consulting authorities, to constitute himself hereafter the great oracle of the fine arts. Had Winkelmann been half as curious in his research after comfort as vertu, verily the world would have lost many an able dissertation and ingenious conjecture; and this villa in particular--to which we are now come to pay our respects--we fear our last respects--had been deprived of this renowned commentary on her treasures. Let us hope parenthetically that a recent perusal of the venerable antiquary, together with some slight acquaintance with the objects themselves, will on such an occasion excite in us a spark of that enthusiasm which animates all his descriptions. What a beautiful portico! we catch ourselves saying _con amore_ for the hundredth time--and who will gainsay us?--with its thirty columns of different coloured granites and rare marbles, cipolino, porta santa, occhio di pavone (_vide_ Corsi); its busts, its ornamented tazzas, its statues, and many other _et coeteras_ too numerous to catalogue. Among the statues, our eye soon singles out the queenly figure of Agrippina seated in her marble chair. Stateliness and high rank apparent in her features, grace and perfect self-possession in her attitude, doubtless she is expecting a deputation of importance, or maybe a visit from the emperor, and has prepared her well-tutored countenance to receive either with dignity. Here are the busts of Nerva and of the first Caesar, to whose characters, while history gives the key, we are apt to fancy, as we stare at them, that to Lavater we owe the discovery. Those ubiquitous emperors Hadrian, Trajan, Antoninus _Pius_, and Gordianus _ditto_, on whom as on other boring acquaintance you are sure to stumble in every gallery at Rome till you almost yawn in their faces, are here of course. Besides these, by way of novelty, we fall in with the grave, much-bearded, long-faced bust, _Epicurus_ underwritten on the pedestal. If it _be_ that sage, then has not his face any vestige of the jovial "live while you live" expression which we might have expected, were he true to his own philosophy; but, on the contrary, a dignified Melancthon sadness, as if, like Solomon, he had had enough of pleasure, and had found nothing but "vanity and vexation of spirit" from them all. Opposite to him, we look with interest on the much less apocryphal head of Scipio Africanus, not only exhibiting on his bald temple a large crucial cicatrice, in token of a wound which we know him to have received, but presenting the singular appearance of having been trefined, an operation of which there is certainly no record in his life. Just before we ascend, we glance up at those beautiful Caryatides, who give their name to one of the principal saloons, and, loitering for a few moments on the stair before a charming little group of Niobe and her children, are presently in the gallery above. There--omitting all minor objects of interest chronicled in the guide books, (which we have now no time to re-examine,)--we devote ourselves chiefly to the reconsidering two or three favourite marbles and bronzes. First among the former stands the Minerva, a specimen of Roman sublime, (_vide_ Winkelmann)--perfect, say all the guide books; but how a lady with an artificial nose, and a right arm palpably modern, can be so considered, it would be difficult to explain. By the side of his wise daughter is niched a noble statue of Jupiter, executed by some great artist while the god was master of Olympus, and probably brought to Rome when he had ceased to reign, and his effects were sold. In the effeminate Antinous, an alto-relievo of whitest marble, we admire the prototype of that arrow-stricken youth, the comely St Sebastian. Nothing can exceed the grace of the bronze Apollo; but, on looking from his form into his face, you are surprised to find him literally _stone_-blind; a shocking case of double cataract, produced by adopting for eyes two sardonyxes, whereof the second layer, representing the iris, is dark, while the white centre of the orb, corresponding to the pupil, exhibits a hopeless opacity. We pause in succession before those weird sisters, arranged stiffly _a l'Etrusque_, who are receiving the infant Bacchus, not to give him milk, you may be sure, but to dry-nurse him upon Burgundy; a perfectly intellectual head, planted upon misshapen shoulders, supposed to be AEsop, a beautiful deformity; a Hercules, leaning against a column, and reposing after some of his many labours; the large marble vase with Bacchante figures and attendant Fauns, carrying skins of wine to keep up the festivities; all these are well worthy of a longer inspection than we have now time to bestow. The mosaics on the floor, too, offer pleasing representations of different objects of natural history; many birds, "goldfinch, bullfinch, greenfinch, chaffinch, and all the finches of the grove;" cicadae and dragonflies, fruits and flowers, the arbutus and the ivy, commingling their various forms and colours, and all inimitably executed. Descending slowly, we find ourselves once more at Agrippina's side in the Portico; not this time to look at the statues, but out upon the prospect, _sub dio_, and amuse ourselves with tracking the broken and often interrupted lines of converging aqueducts that cross and recross the plain. The clear Italian atmosphere renders objects so distinct, that with a glass we can read the names of the _locanda_ at Frascati, nine miles off, and almost determine what provisions the man in the white apron has in his hand. Tivoli and Frascati, not far distant from each other, stand high upon the hills; and still higher up is Rocca di Papa on its lofty site; while between us and them, in the dancing air, lies that malarious Campagna, which, though unfruitful in corn, wine, or olives, yields notwithstanding a rich harvest of its own. From it, every year are gathered bushels of imperial and consular coins; engraved stones, and other works of ancient art; and from the same "marble wilderness" many of the busts and bas-reliefs, which adorn not only this villa, but also most of the mansions in and about Rome. But we have to walk home; and we accordingly look with natural alarm at the garden, with its broad shadeless walks blazing in the sun; the sparrows can bear the heat no longer; a whole bevy, who for the last five minutes have been jargoning their uneasiness over our head, have finally gone off to seek shelter in the bushes;--their instinct having first prompted several expedients to relieve their distress, all of which failed them; thus, when they found that sitting either in company or "alone upon the house top" would not do, and that hopping on the tiles blistered their feet, they bethought them of the metal pipes, and tried to effect an entrance, but quickly issued screaming, having made the discovery, that they had only got out of the fire into a frying-pan. On issuing from the Portico, we pass a large fountain, in which the gold fish keep studiously at the bottom of the water, while the restless dragon-fly (who finds the glittering shell-work too hot to hold him) is as studiously skimming backwards and forwards over the surface, to cool and refresh himself; and the frogs, in a neighboring tank, while conjugal duties keep them also on the top, feebly croak as they float with their wives among the green feculence, and make love behind the bulrushes. On leaving the garden, we mount our green spectacles, hoist our umbrella, and resolutely set our face homeward and Romeward. Half an hour's broiling walk brings us up under the friendly covert of the city walls; following the _giro_ of which, we arrive in about as much time as it has taken us to reach them, at the Popolo Gate, and enter the Piazza, which no mortal wight would now care to traverse, who could avoid it. The owls--how cruel to place owls upon an obelisk dedicated to the _sun_--never blinked to a brighter flood of light in the streets of Thebes, than that which here streams on every object to-day. The Tazza's fountain, at its base, is a perfect cauldron, in which the glowing water bubbles up against, the sides, as if it were actually about to _boil over_; the domes of the two churches, opposite the city gate, will soon warm their capacious interiors, from the large, supply of caloric they are now rapidly absorbing; a stand of bayonets before the Dogana, sparkles as if it were on fire; and when we have arrived at the foot of the wide white Scalinata of the Trinita di Monti, the whole expanse from top to bottom shines with unmitigated and unsupportable splendour. No importunate beggar can stand and rattle his tin box on the summit, and if he could, there is no passenger to heed or hear him; the Sabine model belle is not there to offer herself to the first artist who wants a madonna or a saint, nor amateur bandits, nor faun-like children playing on the steps; even the patient goats, long since milked, lie panting under the convent wall; not a dog is visible on the large _immondezaro_ in front of it; and had we not had already painful experience of the heat of the day, the donkey who lives below, in the court of the Palazzo Mignanelli, exhibits it most strikingly; there he stands, a fine subject for Pinelli, with a wo-begone countenance,--Sancho's ass not more triste--ruminating over a heap of fresh vegetables, which he feebly snuffs, and wants resolution to stoop his head and munch; whilst his adopted friend, the large house-dog, totally regardless of his charge, sleeps heavily in the opposite corner of the court.

It required an early dinner, and a long siesta afterwards, in our darkened, water-sprinkled rooms, to resuscitate us to any fresh exertion; but as the Ave Maria approached, we were sufficiently refreshed to climb the Quirinal Mount, in order to witness one of our few remaining Roman sunsets from its summit. We pass, to reach it, down the Via Felice, across the Piazza Barberini, and up the steepest hill in Rome, by the Via Quatro Fontani; from its brow, we look momentarily down on the Viminal side, to Santa Maria Maggiore, with all the other objects that present themselves to view from this spot; and presently find ourselves at the end of that long street of convents and churches, which issues at its other extremity in the Porta Pia, forming a straight line of nearly a mile and a half in length; and here we are in that well-known Piazza, which is bounded on one side by the Papal Palace and its gardens; on the opposite by the Colonna and its ruin-scattered grounds; backed by the palaces Ruspigliosi and Guardi Nobile, and an open view of the Campagna in front. No position could have been better chosen than this, for the display of the two finest colossal statues in the world; they stand in the midst, with the Theban Obelisk and the Roman Fountain between them, all blending into a matchless group. As we look from this lofty vantage ground, high over the roofs of Rome, we see the sun preparing to take farewell of us, behind the ridge of Monte Mario; but the convent walls on the height where we stand enjoy his beams a few minutes longer, though they have ceased to strike upon the city at its foot. Soon, however, he touches the horizon and begins to dip; the palace windows behind us blaze away as if for an illumination; and when the last golden speck has disappeared from the ridge, the whole landscape changes colour; the yellow tint is instantaneously transformed into a rosy light, deepening, and becoming more and more beautiful every minute, till the short southern twilight is over; the somewhat harsh outline of the obelisk is softened during this brief point of time; a gentle air, (the breath of evening,) fans our cheek; fire-flies light their lamps all around, and night suddenly overtakes us,--"_ruit nox_." Scarcely ten minutes have elapsed since we stood here, and already the dilated nostril and meaning eye of the restive coursers, then so strikingly exhibited, are scarcely any longer distinguishable; while the dark curvilinear outline of their bodies, and the towering forms of "the great Twin Brethren" at their heads, gain not only in stature, but in grandeur too, by this very indistinctness,--the obscure being a well-known element of the sublime,--and the eye becomes more and more conscious of their vast proportions the less it is enabled to enter minutely into details.

HIGHLAND DESTITUTION.

The appalling horrors with which the Irish famine of last season set in, seemed to exceed any similar scene of national affliction that had been witnessed in modern times. It appeared as if the worst tragedies that had been enacted in sieges and shipwrecks were to be realised in the midst of comparative abundance, and within reach of friendly aid. It was right, however, that the clamant demands for relief, uttered by her starving millions, should not stifle the smaller voice of suffering that issued from our Scottish shores. Nor was this the case: the Christian philanthropy of Britain did justice to the cause of patience and fortitude. The fountains of private beneficence were opened, and Scotland was better protected from the miseries of this visitation by individual exertion, than Ireland with all the aid and apparatus of government interference.

Making every abatement for the natural exaggeration incident to such a calamity, no doubt can be entertained as to the general condition of our Highlands and Islands in the early part of the past year. Great distress was almost every where prevalent, and every day that passed was tending to increase it. A large portion of the food of the people had failed, and the remnant of the preceding year's corn crop was their only means of subsistence. That resource could not long be relied on; and the great problem was, in what manner the destitute thousands of our countrymen were to be fed till the returning harvest should visit them with its scanty and precarious bounty. Too many of them were habitually on the verge of starvation, and the crumbling away of the slender support on which alone they stood, brought them at once to the low abyss of wretchedness in which they would have been left if public generosity had not interposed.

The task of those who undertook to distribute the large relief fund subscribed was attended with great difficulty, and involved a solemn responsibility of the highest kind. They appear to us, on a review of their arrangements, to have proceeded with judgment and good feeling; anxious, on the one hand, to alleviate want, and on the other, to avert those moral mischiefs that follow in the wake of gratuitous or indiscriminate liberality. Their object necessarily was, to do as much good and as little harm as the emergency would permit.

Something has recently been said of the great extent to which the distress in those districts was originally over-stated by the individuals who came forward to rouse the benevolence of their countrymen on behalf of the Highlands. We are by no means prepared to join in this view. It is impossible to describe the consequences of a coming famine with mathematical precision. Besides, the destitution is not yet over. And it is at least clear, even as to the past, that _except for the exertions of the proprietors_, which might or might not have been so largely made, the destitution would have fully borne out the predictions which were uttered. It could not with certainty be assumed that the smaller and less wealthy proprietors, in particular, would have been able to make the great sacrifices which they have so generously submitted to, and without which the people of Wester Ross and Skye, of Islay and Colonsay, and many other places, would have laid on the relief fund a burden far heavier than it has had to bear.

This at least is certain, that the fund has not been dispensed upon any extravagant views of the existence of destitution. The large surplus that remains on hand, demonstrates the caution and economy with which the distribution has been conducted. The money has not been lavished merely because it had been subscribed; and the difficult object has been accomplished, of keeping in check those demands which were likely to become more clamorous and more unreasonable, in proportion as the means existed of satisfying them.

It would serve little purpose to examine in detail the operations of the Relief Board, which are already before the public in the reports which they have published from time to time. It is, perhaps, sufficient to say, that they present, in a great degree, the features which might have been looked for in the working of a scheme devised on the spur of an emergency, and destined to be followed out in remote localities, and under influences partaking, in no ordinary degree, of the taint of human frailty. In some parts of the country, the local committees have done their duty conscientiously and respectably; in others we are afraid they are not entitled to the same praise. Yet, on the whole, things have answered better than could have been expected; and undoubtedly the greatest benefit was derived from the able superintendence of the two general inspectors employed by the board, Captain Eliott and Dr Boyter, whose services to the public in this important duty cannot be too highly commended.

It is quite clear, however, that the local machinery, which was necessarily or allowably resorted to at the outset, ought no longer to be kept up, if further operations are required for the relief of destitution. There must now be a more stringent examination of the claims which may be preferred, and a more rigid enforcement of the proper regulations, than could well be insisted for when the field was new and the urgency irresistible. A continuance of any past laxity would now be inexcusable and eminently mischievous, by tending to perpetuate in the Highlands those social evils and anomalies which the present calamity is naturally calculated to expose and extirpate.

It is almost needless to ask the question, whether the operations of the Relief Board are still necessary. Every one acquainted with the Highlands and Islands is aware that the results of last year's failure of the potato are still at work, and must necessarily prolong the distress for some time to come. The fund which has been subscribed for the relief of that distress must necessarily, therefore, be employed in its legitimate and destined purpose, until that purpose be accomplished or the fund exhausted. Independently of any blight in the present potato crop, great distress will arise from the limited breadth of potatoes that has been planted, and from the fact that the cottars, who, in other years, were allowed ground to plant potatoes for themselves, have been deprived of that resource, from the necessity of retaining the whole arable farms for the direct use of the tenants and crofters. It is believed, also, that the corn crops of this year, though highly favourable in the lower parts of the country, have neither been so early nor so productive in the Islands as was at one time expected.

It is, therefore, with perfect propriety and justice that the Board have determined to retain the balance in their hands, in the mean time, as a sacred deposit for the relief of that continued distress, which both the reports of their own inspectors, and the information of the government officers, establish to be still prevalent. On this point the late report of Sir John F. Burgoyne as to Ireland applies in a smaller degree to a very great part of the Highlands and Islands.

In continuing the system of relief, however, the board must keep in view more closely and constantly than ever the leading principles which originally guided them, and which we believe to be founded on the most solid grounds of humanity and social policy.

1. Nothing must be done to relieve of their legal obligations those who are bound by law to support the infirm poor. Wherever a poor law is established, it must, we conceive, be fully and fairly enforced against those liable in relief, to the extent of what is imposed upon them. In no other way will selfish or thoughtless men be taught a due interest in the social condition of their neighbours, and make the necessary exertion to raise or preserve them from a state of pauperism, the effects of which they are themselves to feel in their only sensitive part.

2. It must be a rule, all but inflexible, that the able-bodied, receiving relief, shall give, at the time, or engage to give afterwards, a corresponding amount of labour in return; and that engagement must be strictly enforced. This rule is not necessary merely for the purpose of economising the fund, and benefiting the public by useful employment. It is essential for preserving the destitute both from the feeling, and from the reality, of that degradation which attends on eating the bread of idleness. We believe that much mischief was done, in 1837, by exonerating those who had obtained aid from the obligations of labour which they had undertaken, and which we know, in some districts, broke down all the restraints of self-respect, and implanted a spirit of dependence and mendicity, even in persons of a decent station. The evils of famine itself are great,--its moral no less than its physical effects are fearfully destructive. But the injury done is hardly less when the poor are deprived, by gratuitous and reckless largesses, of those habits of industry, independence, and self-respect, which are their best possessions, and their only means of rightly bearing their lot or raising themselves in the scale of existence.

3. A peculiar portion of the population, consisting chiefly of solitary females unfit for active employment, and yet not sufficiently disabled to be objects of parochial aid, will require a humane and indulgent consideration. The Committees hitherto seem to have advanced them little stores of wool and flax, to enable them to give some return for their support; and a great deal of meritorious exertion has in this way been fostered. We presume that at least to a certain extent this humane system may be continued.

4. Another obvious and incalculable boon will be conferred on the country, if we can bridge over the chasm that has hitherto divided the Highlands and Islands from the labour markets of the south. It was indeed a strange anomaly, that strong men should be lying down to die in the Isles, or even on the mainland of Scotland, and that within two or three hundred miles of their homes, and on Scottish soil, there should be a want of labourers, and the easy means of earning ample wages. This appears to us one of the great objects to be now consulted, and to which the attention of the Board has already been anxiously directed: to remove the obstacles that have existed to a free intercourse between different parts of the country, and more particularly between the Saxon and Celtic districts. There are many causes that combine to fix a Highlander to his home, even in the midst of misery. Among these are ignorance of better things, and that strangeness and helplessness, produced by a change of scene, which half-civilised men are apt to feel with almost the timidity of children. The diversity of the Highland and the Lowland tongue is another impediment, but one which is daily disappearing, and is never so likely to vanish as under the pressure of necessity. The very virtues of the Highland character contribute to keep them where they are, and are assisted in doing so by some of those defects which are akin to their good qualities. Their patient endurance of cold and privation cooperates with the congenial tendency towards indolence, to fix them in a state of miserable inaction, rather than submit to the active exertion that would increase their comforts. Every thing will now combine to overcome these difficulties; the _res angusta domi_ will now be vividly felt, if it can ever be felt at all; while fortunately both the benevolence and the necessities, both the wishes and the interests of their Lowland neighbours, concur in desiring that a new supply should be obtained from that quarter, in aid of what the south itself affords. Not only railways now forming, but also the great amount of draining operations contemplated, or already in progress under recent enactments, must tend in an eminent degree to alleviate the sufferings of the distressed districts, if a free current of labour can be established, so as to redress the inequalities prevailing in different places. The labour market may not be so favourable this year as it was last, but it will still, we hope, be sufficiently so for this purpose.

We have a strong impression that a change of this kind, if prudently brought about without deranging local agriculture, will of itself do a great deal for the permanent relief of those localities where distress now prevails. Labourers thus obtained may in some respects be inferior, from want of skill, and even from want of strength. But our Highland countrymen have recommendations in their sober and orderly habits, which are not to be found in some of their competitors in the labour-market. Even railway contractors, though not likely to be swayed, except by economical views, are beginning to tire of the scenes of disorder and disturbance too frequently exhibited by workmen from other quarters. If the natives of the Scottish Highlands can be fairly roused to exertion, at a distance from home, their characters will be improved, and their views enlarged. They will begin to taste the benefits of better subsistence, and of some command of money; and their frugal habits, as well as their kindly affections, will communicate the advantage and spread the example among their suffering countrymen whom they have left behind.

This resource, then, must be pressed by the Board with the whole force of their influence, upon all the able-bodied in the distressed districts who can with propriety be required to leave their localities; and we should not quarrel with a very strict administration of wholesome compulsion to effect so essential an object.

5. The most difficult and delicate duty which the Relief Board will have to discharge, regards the selection of works to be undertaken or sanctioned by them, as affording employment for those destitute persons whom they must relieve on the spot. It must here be kept in view, on the one hand, that the permanent improvement of the Highlands is no proper or direct object of the subscriptions received. On the other hand, it will clearly be necessary, after every attempt to remove labourers to the south, that some work should be provided in each locality, on which those persons may be employed who cannot be so removed, and who yet stand in need of relief. It would be mischievous and wasteful to relieve such persons without exacting labour from them, and just as reprehensible to employ them in digging holes and filling them up again, or in any other occupation equally useless and unproductive. If their work is to be obtained, it should be directed into some channel that will benefit themselves and the community. Public roads, harbours, piers, breakwaters, and the like, appear an obvious outlet for the labour thus placed at the command of the Board; and we are not even averse, within certain limits, to admitting their exertions in the improvement of their own crofts, provided, at least, the benefit thence arising be secured to the occupant by some reasonable tenure, and that no continuance is thus effected of an improper system of occupation. It seems no objection to such operations that proprietors will indirectly benefit by them. It is impossible to devise any local work that is not open to the same objection, which would indeed be insuperable, if it were proposed to expend the money on local improvements as a direct and substantive object. But where the relief must be given, and the work is only to be taken to the extent of the relief, and as a return for it, we think almost any employment better than none, as we know no evil that can outweigh the moral mischief arising from gratuitous distribution. At the same time, the Board must require the co-operation of proprietors where-ever they can, and must insist for such terms as the circumstances of each case may recommend.

Guarded by some such principles of action, we anticipate that the relief operations in Scotland will, on the whole, be attended with no small degree of moral as well as of physical benefit.

The subject of Emigration is too large and complicated to be now discussed. That remedy is perhaps essential to the thorough cure of the social disorders prevailing in the Highlands. But it must not be rashly resorted to; nor can it ever be safe or effectual without the cordial co-operation of the government.

The operation and effects of the calamity with which so large a portion of Scotland has now been visited, cannot be suffered to pass away without an effort to extract from them a moral law and a moral lesson for our future guidance.

It is obvious that the suffering which has been felt, arises from the social system being in so great a degree _based upon the potato culture_. The dependence of the great bulk of the destitute population on a plant which, though more productive of mere sustenance than any other, yet stands lowest in the scale of all our articles of food, is demonstrated by the distress that has been occasioned by the failure of that crop, and is indeed implied in all the exertions that have been made to give relief. This is obviously an unsound foundation for social life. It places the labouring classes on the very border of starvation, and leaves no margin whatever for any contingencies. On the failure of the potato, the ground can only be applied to the cultivation of other produce, which on the same space would yield a far inferior quantity of food, and thus a large portion of the year is left unprovided for.

It is impossible to exclude from consideration at this time the important question of the state of the Scotch Poor Law. On this momentous subject we beg leave explicitly to decline at present any announcement of opinion; and we confess that we do not think a season of calamity is at all the proper period for legislating on a matter which involves so much feeling, and which yet requires such grave consideration, and so much cautious arrangement. It cannot, however, be denied, that the events which we have lately witnessed afford important elements and examples which must influence any opinion that we may form, and which should be treasured up as materials for ultimately arriving at a sound conclusion.

No one desirous of making up his mind on this point will fail to consult, on one side of this question, the very able "Observations"[17] which have just appeared from the pen of Dr Alison, and to which, without adopting all the writer's views, we have great pleasure in directing attention, as to a most powerful and temperate argument in favour of an able-bodied Poor Law. If talents of a very high order, if an enlarged and enlightened experience, and a long consideration of the subject,--if a life passed, whether professionally or in private, in the exercise of the most active and disinterested benevolence,--if these qualifications entitle a witness to be heard in such a cause, Dr Alison may well claim for his opinions the greatest deference and respect: and the logical precision, and clear and candid statement, which this essay exhibits, will secure even from his opponents a ready and cordial approbation. Again we say, that we do not wish to adopt his arguments as our own, but we willingly contribute to embody them in a more permanent form, and to offer them to the attention of our readers, that they may prevail, if they cannot be answered, or may receive an answer, if an answer can be given.

The general nature of Dr Alison's views will be understood by quoting his table of contents, which contains a synopsis of his argument:

"All questions regarding Poverty and Destitution are inseparably connected with the Theory of Population, i. e., the observation of the conditions by which Population is regulated;--the best system of Management of the Poor being that under which there is least redundancy of population.

"The unequivocal tests of a population being redundant, are Pestilence and Famine; these taking effect on such a population much more than on any other; and the experience of both, within the last few years in this country, proves unequivocally, that it is in those portions of it where there is no effective legal provision for the poor--not in those where there is such provision--that the population is redundant.

"The peculiar Fever of 1843, as well as ordinary Typhus, now prevail much more extensively among the destitute Irish, hitherto unprotected by law, than among any others--and the effect of all other predisposing causes, in favouring their diffusion, is trifling in comparison with Destitution, and its inseparable concomitant, crowding in ill-ventilated rooms.

"The Famine of 1846-7, consequent on the failure of the Potato Crop, (_i. e._ of the cheapest and poorest food on which life can be supported,) clearly reveals the parts of the country where the population is redundant; and this is throughout Ireland, until very lately absolutely without provision, and in 106 districts of Scotland, where, without exception, there has been no assessment and a nearly illusory legal provision for the poor.

"These facts not only prove incontestably that an effective Poor Law does not foster redundant population, but justify the belief, that the absence of a legal provision against Destitution is a great and general predisposing cause, with which others have no doubt concurred, in producing such redundancy; and that the presence of such a provision greatly favours the checks upon it.

"This it may be distinctly observed to do in two ways--1. By keeping up the standard of comfort among the poor themselves; 2. By giving every proprietor of land a direct and obvious interest in constantly watching and habitually checking the growth of a _parasite_ population, for whose labour there is no demand, on his property.

"The statement that the English Poor Rate increases more rapidly than the wealth and population of the country, and threatens to absorb that wealth, is statistically proved to be erroneous.

"The other accusation brought against an effective legal provision, that it injures the character of a people, and depresses the industry, and checks the improvement of a country, is equally opposed to statistical facts.

"The lower orders of the Highlanders and Irish--whose resource when destitute is mendicity, are much more disposed to idleness than the English labouring men.

"Yet this disposition among the Highlanders has been greatly exaggerated.

"Where it is most offensive, it is amongst those who have been most impoverished and neglected.

"The inquiries of the agents of the Relief Committees, as well as those of the Royal Commissioners on the Poor Laws, have _proved_,--

"1. That there has been a great deficiency in the application of capital and skill to develop the resources of the Highlands and Islands.

"2. That the skilful application, even of a moderate capital, to various undertakings requiring labour, opens a prospect of great improvement in the country. These resources existing, the inference is inevitable, that if the higher ranks in the Highlands are bound to support their poor, they can and will, in general, find "remunerative employment" for them rather than maintain them in idleness.

"And the observations of the agents of the Committees, dispensing a voluntary fund, but guarding it--as a well-regulated relief would be guarded,--by the 'Labour Test' therefore affording an earnest of what maybe expected from the habitual operation of such a Law,--have shewn that, under its influence, the 'aboriginal idleness' of the Highlanders rapidly disappears.

"The principle that an effective legal provision against all kinds of destitution is useful to a country, as a wholesome stimulus both to capitalists and labourers, is clearly stated by Sir Robert Peel, _and now recognised and acted on in reference to Ireland_.

"The evidence of the resources of Ireland, in the absence of that stimulus, having been very imperfectly developed,--from the Report of the Committee on the occupation of lands, and other sources,--is just similar to that in the Highlands.

"And the effect of an incipient Poor-Rate in forcing on profitable improvements, as well as in equalising the burden imposed on the higher ranks by the destitution of the lower, begins to show itself in Ireland unequivocally.

"There are probably some districts both in the Highlands and in Ireland, where 'profitable investments of labour' cannot be found, which can only be effectually relieved by emigration and colonisation.

"To which purpose, in the case of the Highlands, the surplus funds in the hands of the Relief Committee, and even an additional subscription, may be very properly applied, provided that the districts requiring it are pointed out by their own agents, and that the wholesome stimulus of an effective Poor Law, embracing the case of destitution from want of employment, _now existing in all other parts of her Majesty's dominions_, be extended to Scotland."

We make no apology for the copiousness of the extracts which we are now to make, and which, we think, will sufficiently explain themselves without much commentary from us.

Nothing can be fairer than the footing on which Dr Alison places his argument at the outset.

"Very little reflection appears to be sufficient to show, that the best system of management of the poor (_ceteris paribus_) must be that which gives the least encouragement to redundancy of population. I have always regarded, therefore, the doctrine of Malthus--by which all such questions are held to be inseparably connected with the theory of population--to be the true basis of all speculative inquiry on this subject; and I cannot help saying again, that in consequence of some hasty expressions which he used, and of the great practical error, which, as I believe, and as he himself evidently suspected in the latter part of his life, he had committed in the application of his principle, justice has not yet been generally done to the truth and importance of that fundamental principle itself. In the present state of this country, and indeed of every civilised country, and with a view to the happiness of the human race upon earth, it seems hardly possible to exaggerate the importance of any inquiries which promise to indicate the conditions by which the relation of the population to the demand for labour, and the means of subsistence there existing, is determined, and may be regulated.

"We cannot indeed expect, that so striking results can follow from this or any other principle in political science, as have already rewarded the labour of man in investigating the laws of the material world. The beautiful expressions of Cicero, in describing the power which man has acquired over Nature, are more applicable to the present age, than to any one that has preceded it. 'Nos campis, nos montibus fruimur; nostri sunt amnes, nostri lacus; nos fruges serimus, nos arbores; nos aquarum inductionibus terris fecunditatem damus; nos flumina arcemus, dirigimus, avertimus; nostris denique manibus in rerum natura quasi alteram naturam efficere conamur.' We can hardly anticipate, that science shall acquire a similar power of regulating the condition of human society or the progress of human affairs. In regard to the changes which these affairs undergo in the progress of time, we are all of us agents, rather than contrivers. 'L'homme avance dans l'execution d'un plan qu'il n'a point concu, qu'il ne connoit meme pas; il est l'ouvrier intelligent et libre d'une oeuvre qui n'est pas la sienne; il ne la reconnoit, ne la comprend que plus tard, lorsqu'elle se manifeste au dehors et dans les realites, et meme alors il ne la comprend que tres incompletement."--(GUIZOT.) Still we may observe, that in all applications of science, moral and political, as well as physical, to the good of mankind, the same principle holds true, 'Natura non vincitur nisi parendo;' and that even in those cases where man is the agent, he may likewise be the interpreter and the minister of Nature. It is only by acquiring a knowledge of the natural laws of motion, of heat, of chemical action, that we acquire that power, "quasi alteram naturam efficere," which Cicero describes; and those events which are due to the agency of free, and intelligent, and responsible human beings, although liable to the influence of a greater number of disturbing forces, and therefore requiring careful investigation, are still subject to laws, which are imposed on the constitution of the human race, and which may be ascertained by observations belonging to the department of statistical science.

"That the natural tendency of the human race is to increase on any given portion, or on the whole of the earth's surface, in a much more rapid ratio than the means of subsistence can be made to increase, I apprehend to be an undeniable fact. I am aware of various objections which have been stated to this principle, but shall not enter on these objections farther than to state, that two considerations appear to me to have been overlooked by those who have advanced them. _First_, That the term 'means of subsistence,' is not to be restricted to the raising from the land of articles of food, but applies to the extraction from the earth's surface, and the preparation for the use of man, of all productions of Nature, which are either necessary to human existence or adapted for human comfort, and which have, therefore, an exchangeable value;--_secondly_, that the question regarding these, which concerns us in this inquiry, is not how much a given number of men may raise, but how much a given portion of the earth's surface can supply; and what relation this quantity bears to the power of reproduction granted to the human race. When these considerations are kept in view, it does not appear to me that the objections to the general principle laid down by Malthus are of any weight; and the truth of the principle appears to be strongly illustrated by the care taken by Nature to have a certain number of carnivorous genera, in every order of animals, and among the animated inhabitants of every portion of the earth's surface, whereby the tendency to excess in every class of animals is continually checked and repressed. And although it is certain that the causes of human suffering of all sorts, as of human diseases, are very generally complex, yet we may certainly assert, that this principle is essentially concerned, as a great and permanent predisposing cause, in all those sufferings which result from poverty, and must be carefully kept in view in all wise regulations for their relief.

"Neither is it incumbent on those who acquiesce in this general principle, to assert that the natural checks on this tendency to excessive reproduction in the human race have been well named or fully expounded by Malthus. But the great distinction which he pointed out, of the _positive_ and the _preventive_ checks on population, is undoubtedly of extreme importance. And in regard to the positive checks, by which it is easy to see that the progress of the human race upon earth has been hitherto rendered so very different from what might have been expected from its powers of reproduction,--when we reflect on the effects of War, of Disease of all kinds, and especially of Pestilence, of Famine, of Vice, of Polygamy, of Tyranny, and misgovernment of all kinds,--while we can easily perceive that all these may be ultimately instruments of good in the hands of Him who can 'make even the wrath of man to praise Him,'--yet we must acknowledge that all, if not properly ranked together under the general name of Misery, are yet causes of human suffering,--so general, and so great, that the most meritorious of all exertions of the human mind are those, which are directed to the object of counteracting and limiting the action of these positive checks on population; and on this consideration it is wise for us to reflect deeply, because it is thus only that we can judge of the value of the great preventive check of Moral Restraint, by which alone the human race can be duly proportioned to the means of subsistence provided for it, without suffering the evils which are involved in the operation of the different positive checks above enumerated.

"I consider, therefore, the general principles of Malthus as not only true, but so important, that the exposition and illustration of them is a real and lasting benefit to mankind. The real error of Malthus lay simply in his supposing, that moral restraint is necessarily or generally weakened by a legal provision against destitution; and this is no part of his general theory, but was, as I maintain, a hypothetical assumption, by which he thought that his theory was made applicable in practice. His argument against Poor Laws was this syllogism: Whatever weakens the moral restraint on population must ultimately injure a people; but a legal protection against destitution weakens that moral restraint; therefore Poor Laws, giving that legal protection, must ultimately injure any people among whom they are enforced. The answer, as I conceive, is simply 'Negatur minor.' How do you know that a legal protection against destitution must necessarily weaken moral restraint? The only answer that I have ever seen, amounts only to an _assertion_ or conjecture, that more young persons will marry, when they know that they may claim from the law protection against death by cold and hunger, than when they have no such protection. But this is only _an opinion_, supported perhaps by reference to a few individual cases, but resting on no foundation of statistical facts. Where are the facts to prove that early marriages are more frequent, and that population becomes more redundant, among those who have a legal provision against destitution, than among those who have none? I have never seen any such facts, on such a scale as is obviously necessary to avoid the fallacies attending individual observations; and the facts to which I have now to advert, are on a scale, the extent of which we must all deplore, and all tending, like many others formerly stated, to prove that the greatest redundancy of population in her Majesty's dominions exists among those portions of her subjects who have hitherto enjoyed _no legal protection_, against destitution. As it is generally avowed that it is for the sake of the poor themselves,--with a view to their ultimate preservation from the evils of destitution,--that the law giving them protection in the meantime is opposed, these facts must be regarded as decisive of the question."

It will not generally be disputed that a correct view of the main cause of distress is contained in what follows:--

"The famine, consequent on the failure of the potato crop in 1846, considered independently of disease, presents a still more remarkable collection of facts, the proper view of which appears to me to be this. The potato is an article of diet throughout the whole of this country, particularly useful to the working classes, and its importance to them seems to be fully illustrated by the pretty frequent occurrence of scurvy in many places, where it had been unknown for more than a century, since the beginning of the winter 1846-7,--that is, since the use of the potato has been necessarily nearly abandoned.

"But it is only in certain districts that the people have been absolutely dependent on the potato, and been reduced to absolute destitution by its failure; and the reason obviously is, that the potato, although much less desirable, as the chief article of diet, than many others, is that by which the greatest number of persons may be fed from a given quantity of land in this climate. When we find a population, therefore, living chiefly on potatoes, and reduced to absolute destitution, unable to purchase other food, when the potato crop fails,--we have at once disclosed to us the undeniable fact, that that population is redundant. It is greater than can be maintained in that district, otherwise than on the poorest diet by which life can be supported, and greater than the labour usually done in that district demands. Now I formerly stated, that such a redundant population, living, as a foreign author expresses it, 'en parasite,' on the working people of the country, exists most remarkably in Scotland, in districts where no poor-law is enforced; and I have now only to show how amply that statement is confirmed by the facts which the present famine in some parts of Scotland has brought to light."

Whatever be its merits, the argument for a comprehensive Poor Law is placed on its true basis in the following passages:--

"If it be still said, that there is a difficulty in perceiving how the natural increase of population should be restrained,--implying that marriages should in general be rendered later and less productive,--by laws which give protection against destitution, I can only repeat what I formerly stated, that in order to understand this, it is only necessary to suppose, what is quite in accordance with individual observation, that human conduct, and particularly the conduct of young persons, is more generally influenced by hope than by fear,--that more are deterred from early and imprudent marriages by the hope and prospect of maintaining and bettering their condition in life, than by the fear of absolute destitution. The examples of the Highlands and of Ireland are more than enough to show, that this last is not a motive on which the legislator can place reliance, as influencing the conduct of young persons in extreme poverty. No legislation can take from them the resource of mendicity, of one kind or another, as a safeguard, in ordinary circumstances, against death by famine; and _experience shows_ that those who are brought up in habits of mendicity, or of continued association with mendicants, will trust to this resource, and marry and rear families, where no other prospect of their maintenance can be perceived; whereas those who have been brought up in habits of comparative comfort, and accustomed to artificial wants, will look to bettering their condition, and be influenced by the preventive check of moral restraint, to a degree, as Mr Farr--judging from the general results of the registration of marriages in England--expresses it, which 'will hardly be credited when stated in figures.'

"I have repeatedly stated likewise, that I consider an efficient poor law, extending to all forms of destitution, as affording a salutary preventive check on early marriages and excessive population in another way, which is easily illustrated by statistical facts, viz. by making it obviously the interest of landed proprietors always to throw obstacles in the way of such marriages among persons who are likely to become burdensome on the poor rates, _i. e._ among all who have no clear prospect of profitable employment. The number of crofters, and still more of cotters, living _en parasite_ on the occupiers of the soil in the Highlands, is the theme of continual lamentation; but the question seldom occurs to those who make this complaint,--would such a population be allowed to settle on the lands of an English proprietor, who is familiar with the operation of the poor-rate?"

The following remarks also are well deserving of attention:--

"But, setting aside the argument of Malthus against effective Poor Laws, the chief resource of the opponents of such laws has of late years been the assertion, that a legal provision against destitution leads naturally to relaxation of industry; that idleness, if not improvidence, is thus fostered among the poor, and that in this manner, the improvement of a country, necessarily dependent on the industry of its lower orders, is retarded. I have always maintained, that this assertion likewise is distinctly refuted, and not only that it is refuted, but the very contrary established, by statistical facts; that it is indeed made in face of the demonstrable fact, that the nations most celebrated for industry have long enjoyed a legal protection against destitution; that the people of England, speaking generally, are probably, to use the words of Lord Abinger,--'the most trustworthy and effective labourers in the world,' and that the greatest degree of idleness to be seen on the face of the earth exists among people who have no such protection; whose only resource, therefore, when destitute, is mendicity."

Dr Alison endeavours to show that wherever the _labour test_ is applied, an able-bodied Poor Law is disarmed of its apparent dangers.

"Where the bounty dispensed by Dr Boyter and Captain Eliott has been combined with 'strict attention to the rules laid down by the Central Relief Board,' (which are exactly similar to those which would be adopted by any experienced official Board dispensing legal relief to the able-bodied under the safeguard of the labour test,) its effects in stimulating the industry of the people, and improving the prospects of the country, appear to have been uniform and decided. And when it is remembered that, notwithstanding the failure of the potato crop, and consequent destitution of so large a population in the Highlands, the Relief Committees have been not only able to prevent any death by famine, but to open in so many places a fair prospect of improvement of the country, and of reformation of the manners of the people, at an expense in all not exceeding L100,000, it is surely not unreasonable to expect, that in ordinary seasons, and after some further assistance shall have been given them for the purpose of emigration, the proprietors of the Highlands and Islands will be perfectly able to bear a similar burden to that _which the legislature has now imposed on Ireland_.

"I observe with the utmost satisfaction that the principle of a Poor Law, skilfully imposed and judiciously regulated, and extending to _all kinds_ of destitution, being a useful stimulus, both to the industry of the people, and to the exertions of the landlords and other capitalists of a country, (and a reasonable security to others assisting them,) has now been fairly recognised and _acted on_, in reference to Ireland. It is distinctly avowed in the following extract from Sir Robert Peel's speech at Tamworth, 1st June 1847. 'We have experience of the evils of periodical returns of destitution in Ireland; we see periodically a million or a million and a half of people absolutely in a starving state,--in a state which is disgraceful, while it is dangerous to the security of life and property. I believe it is a great point _to give security to those people_ that they shall not starve,--that they shall have a demand upon the land. I believe it is necessary to give _a new stimulus to industry_,--_to impress upon the proprietors and the occupying tenants, that they must look on the cultivation of the land in a new light_; and that the demands of poverty will not be so great when all persons do all that they can to lighten the pressure.'

We shall quote only a part of Dr Alison's observations on Ireland, but they contain information of some interest.

"In proof that the natural resources of Ireland, in the absence of this stimulus, have been equally neglected as those of the Highlands, I may quote a few sentences from the official Report of the Commission on the Occupation of Lands in Ireland. 'The general tenor of the evidence before the Commissioners goes to prove, that the agricultural practice throughout Ireland is _defective in the highest degree_, and furnishes the most encouraging proofs, that where judicious exertions have been made to improve the condition and texture of the soil, and introduce a better selection and rotation of crops, these exertions _have been attended with the most striking success and profit_.' 'The lands in almost every district require drainage; drainage and deep moving of the lands have proved most remunerative operations wherever they have been applied, but as yet they have been introduced only to a very limited extent; and the most valuable crops, and most profitable rotations, cannot be adopted in wet lands.' (See Report of that Commission in London newspapers, Sept. 3, 1847.)

"The Commission above mentioned stated as their opinion, that the potato may perhaps be regarded as the main cause of that inertia of the Irish character, which prevents the development of the resources of the country; but with all deference to that opinion, I would observe, that in this case, as in the Highlands, the fundamental evil appears to be, the existence of a population, such as nothing but the potato can support, who 'cannot find employment,' as these commissioners themselves state, 'during several months of the year,' and therefore cannot afford to purchase any other food, and whose only resource, when they cannot find employment, is beggary; and that it is the absence of skill and capital to give them work, rather than the presence of the potato to keep them alive, which ought chiefly to fix the attention of those who wish to see the resources of the country developed. And without giving any opinion on the political question, how far it is just or expedient for Great Britain to give farther assistance by advances of money, to aid the improvement of Ireland, we may at least repeat here what was stated as to the Highlands, that when it becomes the clear and obvious interest of every proprietor in a country, to introduce capital into it, with the specific object of employing the poor, as well as improving his property, we may expect, either that such improvements as will prove 'profitable investments of labour,' will be prosecuted, or else, that the land will pass into other hands, more capable of 'developing its resources.'"

"When we read and reflect on these statements, I think it must occur to every one, that whatever other auxiliary measures may be devised, the greatest boon that has been conferred on Ireland in our time, is the Law which has not only given a security, never known before, for the lives of the poor, but has made that motive to exertion, and to the application of capital to 'profitable investments of industry,' which is here distinctly avowed, equally operative on the proprietors of land in every Poor Law union in that country, and in all time coming; and I believe I may add, that the individual to whom Ireland is chiefly indebted for this inestimable boon, is one whose name we do not find connected with any of the questions of religion or of party politics, which have caused so much useless excitement; but who has distinctly perceived the root of the evil,--the absence of any security, either for the lives of the poor, or for the useful application of capital to the employment of labour, and has applied himself patiently and steadily to the legitimate remedy--viz. Mr Poulett Scrope.

"It is true that we have many representations, from Poor Law unions in Ireland, of the utter inability of the proprietors and occupiers of the soil to bear the burden which the new Poor Law has imposed upon them; and I give no opinion on the questions, whether they have a claim in equity on further assistance from England, or whether the rate has been imposed in the most judicious way. But when it is said, that they are utterly unable to support the poor of Ireland by a rate, the question presents itself--How do they propose that those poor are to be supported without a rate? I apprehend it can only be by begging; and of whom are they to beg? It can only be from the occupiers of the soil, and other inhabitants of the country. Now, will the ability of those inhabitants to bear this burden be _lessened_ by a law which will, in one way or other, compel the landlords (often absentees) to share it along with them?--and will, at the same time, make it the obvious interest of the landlords to introduce capital into the country, and expend it there in 'remunerative employment?'

"On the present state of Ireland I can speak with some confidence, because I can give the opinion of a friend, the Count de Strzelicki, who is well entitled to judge, because he was previously thoroughly acquainted with agriculture, and because he nobly undertook the painful office of dispensing the bounty of the London Association in the very worst district of Ireland, during the worst period of the famine; and who expresses himself thus:--The real evil and curse of Ireland is neither religious nor political, but lies simply in so many of the landlords being bankrupts, and so many of those who are well off being absentees; others again, equally well off, resident, judicious, benevolent, and far-sighted, being unsupported in their efforts, and isolated in their action upon the masses, who, long since cast away by the proprietary, have been dragging their miserable existence in recklessness, distrust, and rancour. It is this dislocation--even antagonism--of social interests and relations, combined with the _irresponsibility of the property for its poverty_, that constitutes the '_circus viciosus_,' the source of all the evils of this unfortunate and interesting country.

"'But now, _in consequence of the new Poor Law_, and other new enactments of Parliament, those who have a real interest in the preservation of their property, will be forced to look, as they never did before, to the improvement of their tenantry. Those who are insolvent must part with the nominal tenure of land, and leave their estates to capitalists who can better discharge the duty of landlords; and lastly, the masses, who hitherto had been abandoned to themselves and to their brutal instinct for self-preservation, will find henceforth their interest linked with that of the landlord, and will find advice, help, encouragement, and, in extreme cases, a legal support.

"'Every real friend of Ireland, and particularly those who, like myself, have had an insight into the many excellent intellectual and moral qualities of their character, while sympathising with the hardships which at first will be felt by many from the new system, cannot but acknowledge that it is only now that its society is being placed on its proper basis, and in a fair way to amelioration and prosperity.'

"This opinion was given in a letter to a common friend, and without reference to any speculation of mine as to the management of the poor. In a subsequent letter to myself he adds, 'It is only since I came to Ireland that I have become conscious of _the real value of a legal provision for the poor_, and of the demoralising effect of private alms. Already we see some good symptoms of the action of the new Poor Law. It is by the provision made to employ men, and not by feeding them, that the operation of the law begins. The out-door relief will, I am sure, act not as a premium to idleness, but as a _stimulus to landlords_ to supply labour, and thus prevent the people from falling on it.'"

On the absolute or eventual necessity of emigration, Dr Alison's views seem to be sound and satisfactory.

"That there are some parts of the Highlands which may be relieved more rapidly and effectually by aid of some form of emigration than in any other way, I have no doubt. In many such cases it is probably unnecessary to remove the people farther than to those parts of the low country, where, by a little well directed inquiry, employment may be found for them, as was done by the Glasgow 'Committee on Employment;' but in others it is quite certain that emigration to the colonies may be safely and beneficially managed. And the importance of this subject becomes much greater when we consider, that so large a surplus remains of the sum raised for the relief of distress there, the disposal of which is at this moment a question of difficulty. I am so much impressed with the truth of the last observation of Dr Boyter, as applicable to certain districts of the Highlands, that I should think it highly advisable to apply the greater part, or even the whole, of this surplus of L115,000 to this salutary drainage of the population. An equal sum might be advanced by Government, to be gradually repaid, just as in the case of assistance given to proprietors by the Drainage Act; and the whole sum might be expended in aiding emigration and such colonisation as Dr Boyter describes. Nay, I am persuaded that few of the subscribers to the Highland Destitution Fund would scruple to renew their subscriptions, provided they had any security that the Highland proprietors, thus relieved of a portion of their population, would really exert themselves to develop the resources _now known to exist_ in their country, and so maintain the remainder without farther claims on the rest of the community. But I cannot think it reasonable or right, that while we have periodical returns of destitution in the Highlands, demanding aid from all parts of the country and from the colonies, to prevent many deaths by famine, a Highland proprietor should be enabled to advertise a property for sale, at the upset price of L48,000, and to state as an inducement to purchasers, that the _whole_ public burdens are L40 a-year. (See advertisement of sale of lands in Skye, _Edinburgh Courant_, Sept. 16, 1847.) I should think it highly imprudent for the Committee intrusted with that money for the benefit of the poor in the Highlands, to part with it for any kind of emigration, excepting on _two_ express conditions: 1. That agents appointed by the Committee, unprejudiced and disinterested, (and probably better judges on the point than Captain Eliott and Dr Boyter cannot be found,) shall report on the localities in which this remedy should be applied, in consequence of "profitable investments of industry" not existing at home; and, 2. That application be made to the Legislature for a measure, which should place the remaining portion of the Highlanders under the circumstances which are known _by experience_ to be most favourable to the development of the resources of a country, and at the same time to the action of the preventive check on excessive population, _i. e._, under the operation of an effective and judicious Legal Provision for the Poor."

The following sentences form an impressive conclusion to this valuable, dissertation.

"I have only to add, that being firmly convinced that a well-regulated Poor Law is really, as stated by Sir Robert Peel, a wholesome stimulus to enterprise and industry, and a check upon extravagance and improvidence, I have written this paper to prove,--by evidence on so large a scale, that it excludes all fallacies attending individual cases, and ought to command conviction,--that it is only in those parts of this country where this salutary precaution has been neglected, that such periodical returns of destitution and famine, as he describes, have been suffered or are to be apprehended. But, as it is obviously essential to this beneficial effect of a Poor Law, that it should secure relief to _destitution from want of work_, the practical result of all that has been stated is, to confirm the arguments which I formerly adduced in favour of the extension of a legal right to relief to the able-bodied in Scotland, when destitute from that cause;--guarded of course by the exaction of work in return for it when there are no means of applying, or when such exaction is thought better than applying, the workhouse test. And notwithstanding the strong feeling of distrust (or prejudice, as I believe it) which still exists among many respectable persons on this point, I confidently expect that this right--_now granted to the inhabitants of every other part of her Majesty's European dominions_, and soon to be accompanied, as I hope, in all parts, by an improved law of settlement _i. e._, by combinations or unions instead of parishes,--cannot be much longer withheld from the inhabitants of Scotland."

Nor can I doubt that the intelligent people of this country, seriously reflecting on the lessons which have been taught them by those two appalling but instructive visitations of Providence,--pestilence and famine--will soon perceive, whether it is by the aid or without the aid of an effective legal provision against destitution, that the sacred duty of charity is most effectually performed; and what are the consequences to all ranks of society which follow from its being neglected.

_Magna est veritas et praevalebit._

It is right that views so important and so ably stated, and which are obviously prompted by so pure a spirit of philanthropy and true piety, should receive the full weight that they are entitled to; and should be canvassed and considered by all who feel an interest in the question.

On the other hand, there are obvious considerations of an opposite kind which should be fairly weighed. Independently of the general arguments against an able-bodied Poor Law, with which political economists are familiar, the special question arises, whether the Highlands of Scotland have not been brought into their existing condition partly by the peculiarities of national character, and partly by the transition that is now in progress from a system of ancient vassalage to more modern ideas of calculation and independence. The patriarchal state which prevailed under the old habits of clanship is now at an end, so far as regards the proprietors, who are unable to maintain or govern their retainers as of old, while the population generally continue in their former condition of helpless tutelage, and must now be taught to act and provide for themselves. The Lowlands of Scotland, though not possessing an able-bodied Poor Law, are free from those evils by which the Highlands are afflicted, and the population are scarcely, if at all, in an inferior state to the corresponding portion of the English nation.

Further, there arises the very grave consideration, that whatever may be the abstract or original merits of an able-bodied Poor Law, the introduction of such a system in an advanced state of society is a matter of great delicacy, and may, from the very novelty of its operation, often lead to utter idleness on the one hand, and confiscation on the other. It ought not, in any view, to be attempted, without being accompanied by some well digested plan of public colonisation, to relieve the pressure which might otherwise over-power the resources of all who are to be burdened.

We would say, in conclusion, that whatever may be the state of this argument, it lies in a great degree with the proprietors in the Highlands and Islands to avert the threatened evil, if they consider it as such, by a gradual but entire change in the system of the occupation of land. The great argument we have seen for an able-bodied Poor Law is, that it compels the proprietary classes to keep down the population by a feeling of self-interest. This object must, in some way or other, be attained. Without harshness, without any sudden removals, every opportunity must be sought of remodelling the plan of small possessions, and the principle must be laid down and enforced, that no one shall continue in the condition of a tenant who does not occupy enough of ground to raise, at least, _an ample corn crop_ for the support of his family. If the potato system continues,--if, after the present calamity passes away, its lessons are forgotten, it is not probable that the benevolence of the public would again be equally liberal as it has now been, where the visitation was so sudden and unexpected, and no clear or unequivocal warning of its approach had previously been received.

We hope, however, for better things; and trust that the present crisis will be duly improved, and will form a new era of prosperity and increased civilisation and happiness for the Highlands and Islands of Scotland.

FOOTNOTE:

[17] _Observations on the Famine of 1846-7 in the Highlands of Scotland, and in Ireland, as illustrating the connexion of the principle of population, with the management of the poor._ By W. P. ALISON, M.D., &c.

_Printed by William Blackwood & Sons, Edinburgh_