Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine. No. CCCCLXIII. May, 1854. Vol. LXXV

FIRMILIAN: A TRAGEDY. [23] — SUMMIT OF THE PILLAR OF ST SIMEON STYLITES. — SQUARE BELOW THE PILLAR. — A GARDEN. — A BARREN MOOR.

We have great pleasure in announcing to our readers the fact, that we have at last discovered that long-expected phenomenon, the coming Poet, and we trust that his light will very soon become visible in the literary horizon. We cannot, however, arrogate to ourselves any large share of merit in this discovery—indeed, we must confess, with a feeling akin to shame, that we ought to have made it at a much earlier date. Firmilian is not altogether new to us. We have an indistinct recollection of having seen the tragedy in manuscript well-nigh two years ago; and, if we remember aright, a rather animated correspondence took place on the subject of the return of the papers. We had, by some untoward accident, allowed them to find their way into the Balaam-box, which girnel of genius was at that particular time full up to the very hinges. We felt confident that Firmilian lay under the weight of some twenty solid layers of miscellaneous literature; and we should as soon have thought of attempting to disinter an ichthyosaurus from a slate-quarry, as of ransacking the bowels of the chest for that treasury of rare delights. However, we took care, on the occasion of the next incremation, to make search for the missing article, and had the pleasure of returning it to Mr Percy Jones, from whom we heard nothing further until we received his tragedy in print. Our first perusal having been rather of a cursory nature, we are not able to state with certainty whether the author has applied himself during the intervening period to the work of emendation; but we think it exceedingly probable that he has done so, as we now remark a degree of vivacity and force of expression, however extravagant many of the ideas may be, which had escaped our previous notice. We hope that, by a tardy act of justice, we shall offer no violence to that amiable modesty which has, in the mean time, restrained him from asking the verdict of the general public.

As to the actual amount of poetic genius and accomplishment which Mr Percy Jones possesses, there may, even among the circle of his friends, be considerable difference of opinion. Those who admire spasmodic throes and writhings may possibly be inclined to exalt him to a very high pinnacle of fame; for certainly, in no modern work of poetry—and there have been several recently published which might have borne the imprimatur of Bedlam—have we found so many symptoms of unmistakable lunacy. Still there is a method in his madness—a rapidity of perception and originality of thought, which contrasts very favourably with the tedious drivellings of some other writers of the same school. His taste is not one whit better than theirs, but he brings a finer fancy and a more vivid imagination to the task; nor is he deficient in a certain rude exaggerated dramatic power, which has more than once reminded us of the early style of Marlowe and the other predecessors of Shakespeare.

It is not very easy to comprehend the exact creed and method of the new school of poets, who have set themselves to work upon a principle hitherto unknown, or at all events unproclaimed. This much we know from themselves, that they regard poetry not only as a sacred calling, but as the most sacred of any—that, in their opinion, every social relation, every mundane tie, which can interfere with the bard’s development, must be either disregarded or snapped asunder—and that they are, to the fainting race of Adam, the sole accredited bearers of the Amreeta cup of immortality. Such is the kind of nonsense regarding the nature of his mission which each fresh poetaster considers it his duty to enunciate; and as there is nothing, however absurd, which will not become credited by dint of constant repetition, we need not be surprised that some very extraordinary views regarding the “rights of genius” should of late years have been countenanced by men who ought to have known better. Poets are, like all other authors or artisans, valuable according to the quality of the article which they produce. If their handiwork be good, genuine, and true, it will pass at once into circulation and be prized—if the reverse, what title can they prefer to the name which they so proudly arrogate to themselves?

We do not, however, quarrel with a poet for having an exalted idea of his art—always supposing that he has taken any pains to acquire its rudiments. Without a high feeling of this kind, it would be difficult to maintain the struggle which must precede eminent success; nor would we have alluded to the subject but for the affectation and offensive swaggering of some who may indeed be rhymsters, but who never could be poets even if their days were to be prolonged to the extent of those of Methusaleh. When the painter of the tavern sign-post, whereon is depicted a beer-bottle voiding its cork, and spontaneously ejecting its contents right and left into a couple of convenient tumblers, talks to us of high art, Raphael, and the effects of chiaroscuro, it is utterly impossible to control the action of the risible muscles. And, in like manner, when one of our young poetical aspirants, on the strength of a trashy duodecimo filled with unintelligible ravings, asserts his claim to be considered as a prophet and a teacher, it is beyond the power of humanity to check the intolerable tickling of the midriff.

But, apart from their exaggerated notions of their calling, let us see what is the practice of the poets of the Spasmodic School. In the first place, they rarely, if ever, attempt anything like a plot. After you have finished the perusal of their verses, you find yourself just as wise as when you began. You cannot tell what they would be at. You have a confused recollection of stars, and sunbeams, and moonbeams, as if you had been staring at an orrery; but sun, moon, and stars, were intended to give light to something—and what that something is, in the poet’s page, you cannot, for the life of you, discover. In the second place, we regret to say that they are often exceedingly profane, not, we suppose, intentionally, but because they have not sense enough to see the limits which decency, as well as duty, prescribes. In the third place, they are occasionally very prurient. And, in the fourth place, they are almost always unintelligible.

Now, although we cannot by any means aver that Mr Percy Jones is entirely free from the faults which we have just enumerated, we look upon him as a decidedly favourable specimen of his tribe. There is, in Firmilian, if not a plot, at least some kind of comprehensible action; and in it he has portrayed the leading features of the poetical school to which he belongs with so much fidelity and effect, that we feel called upon to give an outline of his tragedy, with a few specimens from the more remarkable scenes.

The hero of the piece, Firmilian, is a student in the university of Badajoz, a poet, and entirely devoted to his art. He has been engaged for some time in the composition of a tragedy upon the subject of Cain, which is “to win the world by storm;” but he unfortunately discovers, after he has proceeded a certain length in his task, that he has not yet thoroughly informed himself, by experience, of the real nature of the agonies of remorse. He finds that he cannot do justice to his subject without steeping his own soul in guilt, so as to experience the pangs of the murderer; and as, according to the doctrines of the spasmodic school of poetry, such investigations are not only permitted, but highly laudable, he sets himself seriously to ponder with what victim he should begin. All our spasmodic poets introduce us to their heroes in their studies, and Mr Percy Jones follows the tradition. He does not, however, like some of them, carry his imitative admiration of Goethe’s Faust so far, as personally to evoke Lucifer or Mephistopheles—an omission for which we are really thankful. Firmilian begins by a soliloquy upon his frame of mind and feelings; and states himself to be grievously perplexed and hindered in his work by his comparative state of innocence. He then meditates whether he should commence his course of practical remorse by putting to death Mariana, a young lady to whom he is attached, or three friends and fellow-students of his, with whom he is to dine next day. After much hesitation, he decides on the latter view, and, after looking up “Raymond Lullius” for the composition of a certain powder, retires to rest after a beautiful but somewhat lengthy apostrophe to the moon. There is nothing in this scene which peculiarly challenges quotation. The next is occupied by love-making; and certainly, if Mr Percy Jones had intended to exhibit his hero throughout in the most amiable and romantic light, nothing could be better than his appearance in the bower of Mariana. If, here and there, we encounter an occasional floridness, or even warmth of expression, we attribute that in a great measure to the sunny nature of the clime; just as we feel that the raptures of Romeo and Juliet are in accordance with the temperament of the land that gave them birth. But we presently find that Firmilian, though a poet, is a hypocrite and traitor in love. The next scene is laid in a tavern, where he and his friends, Garcia Perez, Alphonzo D’Aguilar, and Alonzo Olivarez are assembled, and there is a discussion, over the winecup, on the inexhaustible subject of knightly love. Alphonzo, claiming to be descended from the purest blood of Castile, asserts the superiority of European beauty over the rest of the universe; to which Firmilian, though known to be betrothed to Mariana, makes the following reply—

Judging from the implied character of the ditty in question, we are not sorry that we cannot lay it before our readers—indeed it does not appear in the volume, for D’Aguilar was so disgusted with the introduction that he openly reviled Firmilian as a pupil of Mahound, and bestowed a buffet on him, whereupon there was a flashing of swords. These, however, were sheathed, and the students again sate down amicably to drink. Firmilian, being suddenly called away, entreats his friends to amuse themselves, during his absence, with a special bottle of “Ildefronso”—a vintage which we do not remember having seen in any modern list of wines. They comply—feel rather uncomfortable—and the scene concludes by the chaunt of a funeral procession beneath the window; an idea which we strongly suspect has been borrowed from Victor Hugo’s tragedy of Lucrèce Borgia.

The next scene exhibits Firmilian pacing the cloisters. His three friends have died by poison, but he is not able by any means to conjure up a feeling of adequate remorse. He does not see that he is at all responsible in the matter. If he had poured out the wine into their glasses, and looked upon their dying agonies, then, indeed, he might have experienced the desired sensation of guilt. But he did nothing of the kind. They helped themselves, of their own free will and accord, and died when he was out of the way. On the whole, then, his first experiment was a blunder. During his reverie, an old preceptor of his, the Priest of St Nicholas, passes; and certain reminiscences of stripes suggest him as the next victim. The reader will presently see by what means this scheme is carried into execution. Suffice it to say, that the mere anticipation of it sheds a balm upon Firmilian’s disappointed spirit, who, being now fully convinced that in a few days he will be able to realise the tortures of Cain, departs for an interview with Lilian, a young lady for whom he entertains a clandestine attachment. The next scene speaks for itself.

We back that scene, for intensity, against anything which has been written for the last dozen of years. Nay, we can even see in it traces of profound psychological observation. Firmilian, like Hamlet, is liable, especially on the eve of action, to fits of constitutional irresolution; and he requires, in order to nerve him to the deed, a more direct and plausible motive than that which originally prompted him. Hence we find him wavering, and almost inclined to abandon his purpose, until a casual passage in the choral hymn jars upon an excitable nerve, and urges him irresistibly forward. We shall presently find the same trait of character even more remarkably developed in another scene.

We then come to the obsequies of the students, which, being episodical, we may as well pass over. There are two ways of depicting grief—one quiet and impressive, the other stormy and clamorous. Mr Percy Jones, as might have been expected, adopts the latter method; and we are bound to say that we have never perused anything in print so fearful as the ravings of the bereaved Countess D’Aguilar, mother of the unfortunate Alphonzo. She even forgets herself so far as to box the ears of the confessor who is officiously whispering consolation.

Meanwhile, where is the hero of the piece—the successful Guy Fawkes of the cathedral? Perched on a locality which never would have occurred to any but the most exalted imagination.

There is a grand recklessness and savage energy displayed in this scene, which greatly increases our admiration of the author’s abilities. He seems, indeed, in the fair way of making the spasmodic school famous in modern literature. With the death of Haverillo an ordinary writer would have paused—not so Percy Jones, who, with a fine aptitude for destruction, makes his hero, Firmilian, kill two birds with one stone. The manner in which he accomplishes this feat is most ingenious. He maintains the unity of the design by a very slight alteration of the locality. Whilst the two poets are ominously conversing on the summit of the pillar, a critic, affected by an intolerable itch for notoriety, is prowling in the square beneath—

Save you, my merry master! Need you any leeks or onions? Here’s the primest cauliflower, though I say it, in all Badajoz. Set it up at a distance of some ten yards, and I’ll forfeit my ass if it does not look bigger than the Alcayde’s wig. Or would these radishes suit your turn? There’s nothing like your radish for cooling the blood and purging distempered humours.

Lookye, master, I’ve dusted a better jacket than yours before now, so you had best keep a civil tongue in your head. Once for all, will you buy my radishes?

We then find Firmilian wandering among the mountains, and lavishing a superfluity of apostrophe upon the rocks, forests, and cataracts around him. Whatever may be his moral deficiencies, we are constrained to admit that he must have studied the phenomena of nature to considerable purpose at the University of Badajoz, since he explains, in no fewer than twelve pages of blank verse, the glacier theory, entreating his own attention—for no one is with him—to the striated surface of rocks and the forcible displacement of boulders. He then, by way of amusement, works out a question in conic sections. But, notwithstanding these exercitations, he is obviously not happy. He is still as far as ever from his grand object, the thorough appreciation of remorse—for he can assign a distinct moral motive for each atrocity which he has committed. He at last reluctantly arrives at the conclusion that he is not the party destined—

If this view of the powers of poets and poetry be correct, commend us to the continuance of a lengthened period of prose!

Firmilian then begins to look about him for a new subject, and a new course of initiative discipline. Magic first occurs to him—but he very speedily abandons that idea, from a natural terror of facing the fiend, and a wholesome dread of the Inquisition. He admits having made already one or two experiments in that line, and narrates, with evident horror, how he drew a chalk circle in his apartments, kindled a brazier, and began an incantation, when suddenly a lurid light appeared in the sockets of a skull upon the shelf, and so nearly threw him into convulsions that he could barely mutter the exorcism. (It appears, from another part of the poem, that this exploit had been detected by his servant, a spy of the Inquisition, in consequence of his having neglected to erase the cabalistic markings in chalk, and was of course immediately reported.) At last he determines to fall back upon sensuality, and to devote his unexampled talents to a grand poem upon the amours of the Heathen deities. He states, with much show of truth, that the tone of morals which an exclusively classical education is apt to give, cannot but be favourable to an extensive and sublime erotic undertaking—and that the youthful appetite, early stimulated by the perusal of the Pantheon, and the works of Ovid, Juvenal, and Catullus, will eagerly turn to anything in the vernacular which promises still stronger excitement. We shall not venture, at the present, to apply ourselves seriously to that question.

That Firmilian—for we shall not say Mr Percy Jones—was well qualified for such an undertaking as he finally resolved to prosecute, must be evident to every one who has perused the earliest extract we have given; and we shall certainly hold ourselves excused from quoting the terms of the course of study which he now proposes to himself. Seriously, it is full time that the prurient and indecent tone which has liberally manifested itself in the writings of the young spasmodic poets should be checked. It is so far from occasional, that it has become a main feature of their school; and in one production of the kind, most shamefully bepuffed, the hero was represented as carrying on an intrigue with the kept-mistress of Lucifer! If we do not comment upon more recent instances of marked impurity, it is because we hope the offence will not be repeated. Meantime, let us back to Firmilian.

As he approaches the catastrophe, we remark, with infinite gratification, that Mr Percy Jones takes pains to show that he is not personally identified with the opinions of his hero. Up to the point which we have now reached, there has been nothing to convince us that Jones did not intend Firmilian to be admired—but we are thankful to say that before the conclusion we are undeceived. Jones, though quite as spasmodic as the best of them, has a sense of morals; and we do not know that we ever read anything better, in its way, than the following scene:—

Bravo, Percy! The first part of that scene is managed with a dexterity which old Dekker might have applauded, and the conclusion shows a perfect knowledge of womanly character and feeling. Firmilian is now cast beyond the pale of society, and in imminent danger, if apprehended, of taking a conspicuous part in an auto-da-fé. An author of inferior genius would probably have consigned him to the custody of the Familiars, in which case we should have had a dungeon and rack scene, if not absolute incremation as the catastrophe. But Jones knew better. He felt that such a cruel fate might, by the effect of contrast, revive some kind of sympathy in the mind of the reader for Firmilian, and he has accordingly adopted the wiser plan of depicting him as the victim of his own haunted imagination. The closing scene is so eminently graphic, and so perfectly original, that we give it entire.

And so ends the tragedy of Firmilian.

It is rather difficult to give a serious opinion upon the merits of such a production as this. It is, of course, utterly extravagant; but so are the whole of the writings of the poets of the Spasmodic school; and, in the eyes of a considerable body of modern critics, extravagance is regarded as a proof of extraordinary genius. It is, here and there, highly coloured; but that also is looked upon as a symptom of the divine afflatus, and rather prized than otherwise. In one point of proclaimed spasmodic excellence, perhaps it fails. You can always tell what Percy Jones is after, even when he is dealing with “shuddering stars,” “gibbous moons,” “imposthumes of hell,” and the like; whereas you may read through twenty pages of the more ordinary stuff without being able to discern what the writers mean—and no wonder, for they really mean nothing. They are simply writing nonsense-verses; but they contrive, by blazing away whole rounds of metaphor, to mask their absolute poverty of thought, and to convey the impression that there must be something stupendous under so heavy a canopy of smoke. If, therefore, intelligibility, which is the highest degree of obscurity, is to be considered a poetic excellence, we are afraid that Jones must yield the palm to several of his contemporaries; if, on the contrary, perspicuity is to be regarded as a virtue, we do not hesitate in assigning the spasmodic prize to the author of Firmilian. To him the old lines on Marlowe, with the alteration of the name, might be applied—

THE QUIET HEART. — PART THE LAST.—CHAPTER XXXI. — CHAPTER XXXII. — CHAPTER XXXIII. — CHAPTER XXXIV. — CHAPTER XXXV. — CHAPTER XXXVI. — CHAPTER XXXVII.

Courage, Menie Laurie! Heaven does not send this breeze upon your cheek for nought—does not raise about you these glorious limits of hill and cloud in vain. Look through the distance—look steadily. Yes, it is the white gable of Crofthill looking down upon the countryside. Well, never veil your eyes—are you not at peace with them as with all the world?

Little Jessie here wearies where you have left her waiting, and trembles to move a finger lest she spoil the mysterious picture at which she glances furtively with awe and wonder. “The lady just looks at me,” says little Jessie; “no a thing mair. Just looks, and puts it a’ doun like writing on a sclate.” And Jessie cannot understand the magic which by-and-by brings out her own little bright sun-burnt face, from that dull canvass which had not a line upon it when Jessie saw it first.

Come to your work, Menie Laurie; they make your heart faint these wistful looks and sighs. No one doubts it is very heavy—very heavy—this poor heart; no one doubts it is full of yearnings—full of anxious thought and fears, and solitude. What then!—must we leave it to brood upon its trouble? Come to little Jessie here, and her picture—find out the very soul in these surprised sweet eyes—paint the loveliest little heart upon your canvass, fresh and fair out of the hands of God—such a face as will warm cold hearts, and teach them histories of joyous sacrifice—of love that knows no evil—of life that remembers self last and least of all. You said it first in bitterness and sore distress; but, nevertheless, it is true. You can do it, Menie. It is “the trade” to which you were born.

And with a long sigh of weariness Menie comes back. No, it is not a very fine picture; the execution is a woman’s execution, very likely no great thing in the way your critics judge; but one can see how very like it is, looking at these little simple features—one could see it was still more like, looking in to the child’s sweet generous heart.

“What were you crying for this morning, Jessie?”

A cloud came over the little face—a mighty inclination to cry again; but Jessie glanced at the picture once more, and swallowed down her grief, feeling herself a very guilty Jessie, as one great blob of a tear fell upon her arm.

“It wasna little Davie’s blame—it was a’ me.” Poor little culprit, she dares not hang her head for terror of that picture. “He was paidling in the burn—and his new peeny ga’e a great screed, catching on the auld saughtree; but it wasna his blame—he’s owre wee—it was a’ mine for no looking after him. Just, I was awfu’ busy; but that’s nae excuse—and my mother ga’e Davie his licks, for a’ I could say.”

Another great tear; no one knows so well what an imp this said little Davie is—but Jessie sighs again. “It was a’ me.”

But it is not this little cloud of childish trouble that throws a something of pensive sadness into Jessie’s pictured face. The face is the face before you; but the atmosphere, Menie Laurie, is in your own heart. Something sad—touched with that sweet pathos which lies on the surface of all great depths—and this true picture grows under Menie’s hand to a heroic child.

It is a strange place for an artist to be. From this dark raftered threatening roof which catches your first glance, you look down to the mother by the fire with her unpretending look of gentlewoman—to the daughter’s graceful head bending over her work—to pretty little Jessie here with her flutter of extreme stillness, looking at the grey walls and sober thatch without. You would never think to surprise such a group within; and yet, when you look at them again, there is something of nobleness in the primitive cottage where these women have come to live independent and unpitied—come down in the world—very true; but it would be hard to presume upon the tenants of this wayside house.

You need not fear to enter, little July. Half-weeping, blushing, trembling, and with all these beseeching deprecations of yours, you may come in boldly at this narrow entrance. “It is no blame of hers, poor bairn,” Mrs Laurie says, with a little sigh. No blame of hers nor of Randall’s either, for Menie has kept her secret religiously, and will never tell to mortal ear what broke her engagement. Nelly Panton knows it, it is true; but Nelly, with the obtuse comprehension of a mercenary mind, thinks Randall broke off the match in consequence of Mrs Laurie’s poverty, and knows of no more delicate difficulties behind. Come in boldly, July Home—for no manner of interpretation could disclose to you the sudden pang which seizes Menie as she bends her head down for an instant, when she discovers you at the door. Now she says nothing, as she holds out her hand; but Menie is busy; it is only her left hand she extends to her friend; that is why she does not speak.

“I’m not to come out again,” whispers July, sitting back into Mrs Laurie’s shadow, and speaking under her breath. “I came here the very last place—and oh, Menie, will you come?”

The colour mounts high to Menie’s temples; this means, will she come to July’s marriage, which is to happen a week hence. Will she be there? Some one else will be there, the thought of whose coming makes Menie’s heart beat strong and loud against her breast. But Menie only shakes her head in reply—shakes her head and says steadily, “No.”

“You might come, for me. I never had a friend but you, and you’ve aye been good to me. Mrs Laurie, she might come?”

But Mrs Laurie too, after quite a different fashion, shakes her head with a look of regret—of only partial comprehension, but unmistakable solicitude. “No,” she says, doubtfully; “I do not see how Menie could go;” but, as she speaks, she looks at Menie, with an eager wish that she would.

Courage, Menie Laurie! If your hand falters, they will see it; if a single tear of all this unshed agony bursts forth, your mother’s heart will be overwhelmed with pain and wonder—your little friend’s with dismay. This is best—to look at the child and go on—though little Jessie has much ado to keep from weeping when she meets, with her startled face, the great gloom and darkness of Menie’s eye.

“This is from Menie and me,” said Mrs Laurie, taking out a pretty ring. “You are to wear it for our sake, July. Menie, can you put it on?”

Yes—Menie takes the little trembling hand within her own, and fits her mother’s present to a slender finger—and no one knows how Menie presses her own delicate ankle under her chair, to keep herself steady by the pain. “You must try to be very happy, July,” says Menie, with a faint smile, holding the hand a moment in her own; then she lets it drop, and turns to her work once more.

What can July do but cry? She does cry, poor little trembling heart, very abundantly, and would fain whisper a hundred hesitations and terrors into Menie’s ear. But there is nothing of encouragement in Menie’s face—so steady and grave, and calm as it looks. The little bride does not dare to pour forth her innocent confidences—but only whispers again, “I never had another friend but you, and you were aye so good to me;” and weeps a flood of half-joyful, half-despairing tears, out of her very heart.

“No one can doubt that Randall is unhappy; but Randall is not a humble man, Mrs Laurie; he will not woo and plead and supplicate, I am afraid; he will honour only those who honour him, and never obtrude his love where he thinks there is no response. You know them both—could anything be done?”

Alas! good Johnnie Lithgow, we are all proud. This is not the wisest line of attack, in the circumstances. Mrs Laurie sits gravely by the fireside to listen. Mrs Laurie was Mrs Laurie before Randall Home was born. It is wonderful how she recollects this; and, recollecting, it is not difficult to see which of the two, in the opinion of Menie’s mother, has the best right to stand on their dignity.

“I cannot advise,” said Mrs Laurie somewhat coldly. “Menie has made no explanation to me. Mr Home has not addressed me at all on the subject. I am sorry I cannot suggest anything—especially when I have to take into consideration the lofty ideas of your friend.”

It was a little bitter this. Lithgow felt himself chilled by it, and she saw it herself immediately; but Mrs Laurie said no word of atonement, till a sudden recollection of Menie’s strangely altered and sobered fate broke upon her. Her countenance changed—her voice softened.

“I would be glad to do anything,” she said, with a slight faltering. “To make Menie happy, I could accept any sacrifice. I will see—I will try. No,” she continued, after a considerable pause, “I was right after all—your friend is what you call him. My Menie has a very high spirit, and in this matter is not to be controlled by me. They must be left to themselves—it is the wisest way.”

Lithgow made no answer. Mrs Laurie sank into silence and thought. As they sat opposite to each other by the little fireplace, the young man’s eye wandered over the room. His own birthplace and home was such another cottage as this; and Lithgow’s mother, with her homely gown and check apron—her constant occupation about the house—her peasant tastes and looks and habits, was suitable and homogeneous to the earthen floor and rude hearth of the cottars’ only room. But very strangely out of place was Menie’s easel—Menie’s desk—Mrs Laurie’s delicate basket of work—her easy-chair and covered table; strangely out of place, but not ungracefully—bearing, wherever they might be, a natural seemliness and fitness of their own. And if a rapid cloud of offence—a vapour of pride and resentment, might glide over Mrs Laurie’s brow, it was never shaded by so much as a momentary shame. As undisturbed in her household dignity as at her most prosperous time, she received her visitor in the cot-house, nor ever dreamt she had cause to be ashamed of such an evidence of her diminished fortunes.

But Lithgow’s thoughts were full of Randall; he was not willing to give up his attempt to reconcile them. “Randall is working very hard,” said his generous fellow-craftsman. “I think his second success will lift him above all thought of hazard. He does his genius wrong by such unnecessary caution; he could not produce a commonplace thing if he would.”

“And you, Mr Lithgow”—Mrs Laurie’s heart warmed to him, plebeian though he was.

“I do my day’s work,” said the young man, happily, “thanking God that it is very sufficient for the needs of the day; but between Randall and myself there is no comparison. I deal with common topics, common manners, common events, like any other labouring man. But Randall is an artist of the loftiest class. What he does is for generations to come, no less than for to-day.”

This enthusiasm threw a flush upon his face. As it receded, gradually fading from his forehead, a quick footstep went away from the cottage threshold. Menie Laurie had paused to listen whose the voice was before she entered, and, pausing, had heard all he had to say.

The happy golden purple of the sunset has melted from Criffel and his brother hills; but there is a pale light about all the east, whither Menie Laurie’s face is turned as she leaves the cottage door. From her rapid step, you would fancy she was going somewhere. Where will she go? Nowhither, poor heart—only into the night a little—into the silence. It would not be possible to sit still in that noiseless house, by that lonely fireside, with such a tumult and commotion in this loud throbbing heart—forcing up its rapid cadence into the ears that thrill with sympathetic pulses—leaping to the very lips that grow so parched and faint. Oh! for the din of streets, of storms, the violence of crowds and noise of life—anything to drown this greater violence, these strong perpetual throbs that beat upon the brain like hailstones—anything to deaden this.

But all the air remains so still—so still; not a sound upon the silent road, but the heart and the footsteps, so rapid and irregular, which keep each other time. But by-and-by, as Menie goes upon her aimless way, another sound does break the silence—voices in the air—the sound of wheels and of a horse’s feet. Listen, Menie—voices in the air!

But Menie will not listen—does not believe there are voices in the world which could wake her interest now—and so, unconsciously, looks up as this vehicle dashes past—looks up, to receive—what? The haughty salutation—uncovered brow and bending head, of Randall Home.

She would fain have caught at the hedge for a support; but he might look back and see her, and Menie hurried on. She had seen him; they had looked again into each other’s eyes. “I never said I was indifferent,” sobbed Menie to herself, and, in spite of herself, her voice took a shriller tone of passion—her tears came upon her in an agony. “I never said I was indifferent; it would have been a lie.”

Hush!—be calm. It is safe to sit down by the roadside on this turf, which is unsullied by the dust of these passing wheels;—safe to sit down, and let the flood have vent, once and never more. And the soft whispering air comes stealing about Menie, with all its balmy gentle touches, like a troop of fairy comforters; and the darkness comes down with gracious speed, to hide her as she crouches, with her head upon her hands, overcome and mastered;—once, and never more.

Now it is night. Yonder the lights are glimmering faintly in the cottage windows of the Brigend. Far away above the rest, shines a little speck of light from the high window of Burnside, where once was Menie Laurie’s chamber—her land of meditation, her sanctuary of dreams. The wind rustles among the firs—the ash-trees hold up their bare white arms towards the heavens, waiting till this sweet star, lingering at the entrance of their arch, shall lead her followers through, like children in their dance. And—hush!—suddenly, like a bird new awaked, the burn throws out its voice upon the air, something sad. The passion is overpast. Look up, Menie Laurie; you are not among strangers. The hills and the heavens stretch out arms to embrace you; the calm of this great night, God’s minister, comes to your heart. Other thoughts—and noble ones—stretch out helping hands to you like angels. Rise up; many a hope remains in the world, though this one be gone for ever.

And Menie, rising, returns upon her way—away from Burnside, her old beloved home, and, going, questions with herself if aught is changed since she made the bitter and painful decision which in her heart she thought it right to make. Nothing is changed—the severance has been made—the shock is over. At first we knew it would be very hard; at first we thought of nothing but despair. We never took into our calculation the oft-returning memories—the stubborn love, that will not be slain at a blow; and this it is that has mastered mind and heart and resolution now.

There is no one else upon the road. The night, and the hills, and Menie Laurie, look up through the silence to heaven—and no one knows the conflict that is waging—none is here with human voice or hand to help the struggle. Fought and won—lie still in her religious breast, oh heart! Fittest way to win your quiet back again, Menie Laurie has laid you down—come good or evil, come peace or contest—laid you down once for all at the feet of God.

A brilliant company—the very newspapers would say so if they had note of it; distinguished people—except here and there a few who are only wives or sisters of somebody; the ladies and gentlemen present, individual by individual, are somebodies themselves. For a very pretty collection of Lions, as one could wish to see, are drawn together into Mr Editor Lithgow’s drawing-room, to do honour to his wedding-day.

And you may wonder at first to hear such a moderate amount of roaring; Lions of the present day are not given to grandiloquence. If the truth must be told, the talk sounds somewhat professional, not unlike the regimental talk of soldier officers, and the ladies pertaining to the same. True, that a picturesque American, bolder than her compeers on this side the Atlantic, poses in one corner, and by-and-by makes a tableau, lying down in wild devotion at the feet of two respectable and somewhat scared good people—literary ladies of a modest standing, who have done just work enough to make their names known, but are by no means prepared for such homage as this. And for the rest of the company, it must be said that they sit or stand, lean back or lean forward, as propriety or common custom enjoin;—that there is a great talk of babies in that other corner, where the mistress of the house is surrounded by a band of matron friends;—and that there is in reality very little out of the common in this company, if it were not for the said professional talk.

The young mistress of the house! She talks pretty nearly as much now as other people talk—quite as much, indeed, when her heart is opened with that all-interesting subject, babies—or when her tongue has leisure to talk of the marvellous feats of certain babies of her own. July Home has been a married wife five years.

There is nothing very costly or rare in this drawing-room; but it is well-sized and well-furnished, notwithstanding, and a pretty apartment. Lithgow himself, not a very stately host, attends to his guests with an unassuming kindliness which charms these somewhat sophisticated people, in spite of themselves; and Lithgow is full of the talk of the profession, and speaks great names with the confidence of friendship. In these five years, mother though she be, and mistress of a London household, all you can say of July is, that she has grown a pretty girl—a little taller, a little more mature in action—but a girl, just as she was when we saw her last.

Being addressed, but of his own will scarcely speaking to any one, there is a remarkable-looking person among Mr Lithgow’s guests. Looking up to his great height, you can just see some threads of white among his hair, though his age does not justify this, for he is a young man still; and a settled cloud upon his brow gives darkness to his face. It is not grief—it is not care; a gloomy self-absorbed pride is much more like what it is.

“That is Mrs Lithgow’s brother,” says another guest, in answer to the “who’s that” of an unaccustomed visitor. Mrs Lithgow’s brother! Is this all the distinction that remains to the lofty Randall Home?

“And a literary man, like all the rest of us,” continues, condescendingly, this gentleman, who is a critic, and contemptuous in right of his craft. “He made a great success with his first publication six or seven years ago. I saw it on that table in the corner, covered with a pile of prints and drawings. They say Home cannot bear to see it now. Well; he lingered a long time polishing, and elaborating, and retouching his second book, expecting, no doubt, a universal acclamation. Poor fellow! the public never so much as looked at it—it was a dead failure.”

“Was it not equal to the first?” inquired breathlessly the original speaker, who in his heart was a warm adherent of Randall, though personally unknown to him, and who was a great deal better acquainted with the work in question than his informant.

“There was merit in the book,” said the critic, poising a pretty paper-knife carelessly on his forefinger—“merit, such as it was; and Lithgow, here, gave him an article, and tried hard to get up a feeling; but he’s a supercilious fellow, sir—proud as Lucifer; he is constantly running against somebody, and we put him down.”

The critic turned to speak to another critic on his other hand; the interrogator stood aside. Solitary in the midst of this animated company—dark, where all was glowing with a modest brilliancy—it was not wonderful that this good man should inquire of himself whether there was nought of the evil thing called affectation in the gloom and pride of Randall Home. One thing at least it was not difficult to see—that Randall knew people were looking at him—wondering about him—and that more than one lady of sentiment and enthusiasm had marvelled already, with wistful melancholy, whether any one knew what the grief was which had blighted the young author’s life.

The young author’s life was not blighted. On him, like a nightmare, sat a subtle spirit, self-questioning, self-criticising. He was disappointed;—a bitter stream had come into his way, and by its side he walked, his eyes bent downward on it, pondering the evils of his fate, trying with a cold philosophy to believe them no evils, assuming to despise them, yet resenting them with bitterness in his own secret heart.

“Randall, look at this; it minds me of home,” said his sister in his ear. He took mechanically what she put into his hand—carelessly: not the slightest interest in his face for poor July’s enthusiasm—as like as not he would smile and put it down with a careless glance. Things that other people look on with interest were matters of chilled and disappointed indifference to Randall Home.

Yet he looks at this child’s face that has been brought before him; insensibly a smile breaks upon his lips in answer to this sweet child’s smile. He, who is a critic, knows it is no chef d’œuvre, and has little claim to be looked upon as high art; but for once Randall thinks nothing of the execution—as on a real countenance he gazes upon this. These sweet little features seem to move before him with the throng of gracious childlike thoughts that hover over the unclouded brow—childlike thoughts—thoughts of the great eternal simplicities which come nearest to angels and to children. This man, through his intricacies and glooms, catches for an instant a real glimpse of what that atmosphere must be through which simple hearts look up into the undoubted heavens; for scarcely so much as a summer cloud can float between this child and the sky.

Come this way, Randall. Here is a little room, vacant, half-lighted, where lie other things akin to this. Take them up after your careless fashion. What message can they have to you? Be ready, if you can, to put them aside with a word of bitter criticism—only leave out this child’s portrait. Say with your lips it is good and you like it; feel in your heart as if it spoke to you long, loving, simple speeches; and when you turn from it—hush! it is irreverent—do not try with either sarcasm or jest to cheat this sudden desolateness which you feel at your heart.

A cloudy face—is this no portrait? The wind is tossing back wildly the curls from its white high brow, and out of a heavy thunder-cloud it looks down darkly, doubtfully, with a look which you cannot fathom. Uneasily the spectator lays it aside to lift another—another and another; they are very varied, but his keen eye perceives in a moment that every face among them which is a man’s bears the same features. Other heads of children unknown to Randall—pictures of peasant women, real and individual, diversify the little collection; but where the artist has made a man’s face, everywhere a subtle visionary resemblance runs through each and all. Through altered features the same expression—through changed moods and tempers the same sole face. The room swims about him as he looks—is it a dream or a vision—what does it mean?

The long white curtains faintly stir in the autumn night-wind which steals in through the open window; the shaded lamp upon the table throws down a little circle of light—a larger circle of shadow—upon these pictures, and faintly shines in the mirror above the vacant hearth. He has sunk on one knee to look at them again. What memory is it that has kept this face, what sad recollection has preserved its looks and changes so faithfully and so long? No ideal, noble, and glorious, such as a heart might make for itself—no human idol either, arrayed in the purple and gold of loving homage—and the heart of Randall, startled and dismayed, hides its face, and beholds itself for the first time truly. He knows that none of these is meant for him—feels with certain confidence that reproach upon him is the last thing intended by this often portraiture; yet stands aside, and marvels, with a pang—a great throb of anguish and hope—to see himself, changed in habit and in aspect, with years added and with years taken away; but he feels in every one that the face is his own.

Love that thinks you loftiest, noblest—love that worships in you its type of grace and high perfection, its embodiment of dreams and longings—rejoice in it, oh youth! But if you ever come to know a love that is disenchanted—a love that with its clear and anxious sight has found you out and read your heart—knowing not the highest part alone, but, in so far as human creature can, all that is written there—yet still is love; if you rejoice no longer, pause at least, and tremble. Light is the blind love of the old poets—frail, and in constant peril. Heaven help those to whom is given the love that sees as nothing else can see—It struck to the heart of Randall Home.

Through secrets of his being, which himself had never guessed, this lightened eye had pierced like a sunbeam. Unwitting of its insight, nought could it say in words of its discovery, but unconsciously they came to light under the artist-hand. Menie Laurie—Menie Laurie!—little you wist when your pencil touched so dreamily these faces, which were but so many shadows of one face in your heart—little you wist how strange a revelation they would carry to another soul.

“Something has happened to Randall—he will not hear me,” said July to her husband when the guests went away. “He makes me no answer—he never hears me speak, but stands yonder steadfast at the mirror, looking in his own face.”

The sun has struck on Criffel’s sullen shoulder. Look you how it besets him, with a glorious burst of laughter and triumph over his gloom. And now a clown no longer, but some grand shepherd baron, he draws his purple cloak about him, and lifts his cloudy head into the sky. Marshal your men-at-arms, Warder of the Border! Keep your profound unbroken watch upon the liege valleys and homes at your feet—for the sun is setting in a stormy glory, and the winds are gathering wild in their battalions in the hollows of the hills.

Travelling with his face towards the east, is one wayfarer on this lonely road. He knows the way, but it is long to his unaccustomed feet; and he is like to be benighted, whatever speed he makes. The sky before him is cold and clear, the sky of an autumn night, gleaming itself with an intense pale lustre, while great mountain-heaps of clouds, flung upon it, stand out round and full against its glittering chilly light; and with a wild rush the wind comes down upon the trees, seizing them in a sudden convulsion. The road ascends a little, and looks from this point as if it went abruptly into the skies; and on either side lies the low breadth of a peat-moss, on which it is too dark now to distinguish the purple patches of heather, or anything but the moorland burn and deep drain full of black clear water, from which is thrown back again, in long flying glimmers of reflection, the pale light of the sky.

There is not a house in sight. Here and there a doddered oak or thorn, or stunted willows trailing their branches into the pools, give a kind of edge, interrupted and broken, to the moorland road; and now and then on a little homely bridge—one arch of stone, or it may be only two or three planks—it crosses a burn. With every gust of wind a shower of leaves comes rustling down from the occasional trees we pass, and the same cold breath persuades this traveller very soon to regret that his breast is not guarded by the natural defence—the grey plaid of the Border hills.

He does not lift his foot high and cumbrously from the ground, as the men of this quarter, used to wading through the moss and heather, are wont to do; nor does he oppose to this wild wind the broad expanded chest and weather-beaten face of rural strength; but he knows the way along which he walks so smartly—pauses now and then to recognise some ancient landmark—and pushes forward without hesitation, very well aware where he is going to, nor fearing to choose that shorter way across the moss, like one to the manner born.

A narrower path, broken in upon here and there by young sapling trees, self-sown willows, and bushes, which are scattered over all the moss. Suddenly—it may be but a parcel of stones, a little heap of peats—but there is something on the edge of the way.

Going forward, the traveller finds seated on the fallen trunk of a tree two children—a little girl drawing in to her side the uncovered flaxen head of a still younger boy, and holding him firmly with her arm. The little fellow, with open mouth and close shut eyes, is fast asleep, and his young guardian’s head droops on her breast. You can see she watched long before she yielded to it; but she too has dropped asleep.

The traveller, touched with sudden interest, pauses and looks down upon them. Indistinctly, in her sleep, hearing his step, or conscious of the human eye upon her which breaks repose, the little girl moves uneasily, tightens the firm pressure of her arm, murmurs something—of which the spectator, stooping down, can hear only “little Davie”—and then, throwing back her head and changing her attitude, settles again into her profound child’s sleep.

What arrests him that he does not wake her? What makes him pause so long after his previous haste? Yes, look closer—stoop down upon the damp and springy soil—bend your knee. The pale faint light has not deceived you, neither has the memory, which holds with unwonted tenacity, the likeness of this face—for this is indeed the original. Sweet in its depth of slumber, its lips half closed, its eyelash warm upon its cheek, the same sweet heart you saw in London in the picture—the very child.

Eleven years old is Jessie now; and to keep little Davie out of mischief is a harder task than ever. So helpless, yet in such an attitude of guardianship and protection, the traveller’s eyes, in spite of himself, fill with tears. He is almost loth to wake her, but the wind rushes with growing violence among the cowering trees.

He touches her shoulder—she does not know how gently—as suddenly she starts up broad awake. One terrified look Jessie gives him—another at the wild sky and dreary moor. “You’re no to meddle wi’ Davie; it’s a’ my blame,” said Jessie with one frightened sob; “and oh, it’s dark nicht, and we’ll never win hame!”

“How did you come here?” said the stranger gently. Jessie was reassured; she dried her eyes and began to look up at him with a little returning confidence.

“I dinna ken; it was Davie would rin—no, it was me that never cam the road before—and we got on to the moss. Oh, will you tell me the airt I’m to gang hame?”

He put his hand upon the child’s head kindly. This was not much like Randall Home. The Randall of old days, if he never failed to help, scarcely ever knew himself awakened to interest. There was a great delight of novelty in this new spring opened in his heart.

“Were you not afraid to fall asleep?”

Poor little Jessie began to cry; she thought she had done wrong. “I couldna keep wakin. I tried as lang as I could, and then I thocht I would just ask God to take care o’ Davie, and then there would be nae fear. That was the way I fell asleep.”

A philosopher! But how have these tears found their way to his face? Somehow he cannot look on this little speaker—cannot perceive her small brother laying his cheek upon her breast, without a new emotion which ought to have no place in the mind of an observing moralist whose thought is of cause and effect. Again he lays his hand upon her head—so kindly that Jessie looks up with a shy smile—and says, “You are used to say your prayers?”

“I aye do’t every nicht.” Jessie looks up again wistfully, wondering with a sudden pity. Can it be possible that he does not say his prayers, gentleman though he be?

“Say them here, little girl—I would like to hear your prayers”—and his own voice sounds reverent, low, as one who feels a great presence near.

But Jessie falters and cries—does not know what to answer, though it is very hard to contend against the impulse of instant obedience. “Oh, I dinna like—I canna say them out-by to a man,” she says in great trouble, clasping and unclasping her hands. “I just mind a’body, and little Davie—and give my soul to Christ to keep,” added the little girl solemnly, “for fear I shouldna wake the morn.”

There is a little silence. She thinks this kindly stranger is angry with her, and cries; but it is only a something of strong unusual emotion, which he must swallow down.

“Now, you must wake up little Davie, and I will take you home. Is it far? You do not know, poor little guardian. Come away—it is near Brigend? Well, we will manage to get there. Come, little fellow, rouse up and give me your hand.”

But Davie, very wroth at such a sudden interruption of his repose, shook his little brown clenched hand in the stranger’s face instead, and would hold by no other but his sister. So in this order they went on, Jessie, with much awe, permitting her hand to be held in Randall’s, and sleepy Davie dragging her back at the other side. They went on at a very different pace from Randall’s former rate of walking—threading their encumbered way with great difficulty through the moorland path—but by-and-by, to the general comfort, emerged once more upon the high-road, and near the cheerful light from a cottage door.

And here he would pause to ask for some refreshment for the lost children, but does not fail to glance in first at the cottage window. This woman sitting before the fire has a face he knows, and she is rolling up a heavy white-faced baby, and moving with a kind of monotonous rock, back and forward upon her seat. But there is not a murmur of the mother-song—instead, she is slowly winding up to extremest aggravation a little girl in a short-gown and apron, who stands behind her in a flood of tears, and whose present state of mind suggests no comfort to her, but to break all the “pigs” (Anglicè crockery) in the house and run away.

“Will I take in twa bairns?—what would I do wi’ twa bairns? I’ve enow o’ my ain; but folk just think they can use ony freedom wi’ me,” said the woman, in answer to Randall’s appeal made from the door. “I’m sure Peter’s pack micht be a laird’s lands for what folk expect; and because there’s nae ither cause o’ quarrelling wi’ a peaceable woman like me, I maun aye be askit to do things I canna do. It’s nane o’ my blame they didna get their denner. Lad, you had best take them hame.”

“I will pay for anything you give them cheerfully; but the little creatures are exhausted,” said Randall again from the door. He thought he had altered a good deal his natural voice.

The woman suddenly raised her head. “I’m saying, that’s a tongue I ken,” she said in an under-tone. “This is nae public to gie meat for siller, lad,” she continued; “but they may get a bit barley scone and a drink o’ milk—I’ve nae objections. Ye’ll no belang to this country yoursel?” For, with a rapidity very unusual to her, she had suddenly deposited her gaping baby in the cradle, and now stood at the door. Randall kept without in the darkness. The lost children were admitted to the fire.

“No.”

“I wouldna say but you’re out o’ London, by your tongue. I’ve been there mysel before I was married, biding wi’ a brother o’ mine that’s real weel-off and comfortable there. I’ve never been up again, for he’s married, and her and me disna ’gree that weel. It’s an awfu’ world—a peaceable person has nae chance—and I was aye kent for that, married and single. Ye’ll have heard o’ my man, Peter Drumlie, if you come out o’ Cumberland; but I reckon you’re frae London, by your tongue.”

With a bow, and a sarcastic compliment to her discrimination, Randall answered her question; but the bow and the sarcasm were lost upon the person he addressed: she went on in her dull tone without a pause.

“Ay, I aye was kent for discrimination,” she said with modest self-approval, “though it’s no everybody has the sense to allow’t. But you’ll ha’e come to see your friends, I reckon—they’ll be biding about this pairt?”

“Just so,” said Randall.

“Ye’ll ken mony a change in the countryside,” continued the woman. “There’s the auld minister dead in Kirklands parish, and a’ the family scattered, and a delicate lad, a stranger, in the Manse his lane; and maister and mistress gane out o’ Kirklands House, away somegate in foreign pairts; and Walter Wellwood, the young laird, he’s married upon a grand lady and joined to the Papishes; and—but ye’ll maybe ken better about the common folk o’ the parish. There’s auld Crofthill and Miss Janet their lee lane up the brae yonder, and ne’er a word frae Randy—maybe you would ken Randy?—the awfullest lad for thinking of himsel; and then there’s the family at Burnside—they’re come down in the world, wi’ a’ their pride and their vanity—living in naething but a cot-house on the siller Jenny makes wi’ her kye; and Miss Menie, she makes pictures and takes folk’s likenesses, and does what she can to keep hersel. Eh, man, there’s awfu’ changes!—And wee July Home, Crofthill’s daughter, she’s married upon our Johnnie, keepit like a leddy, and never has a hand’s turn laid to her, wet day or dry—it’s a grand marriage for the like o’ her;—and there’s mysel—I was ance Nelly Panton, till I got my man—but I’ve nae occasion to do a thing now but keep the house gaun, and mind the siller—for Peter, he’s a man o’ sense, and kens the value o’ a guid wife—and I live real comfortable among my ain folk in a peaceable way, as I was aye disposed—though they’re an ill set the folk hereaway—they’re aye bickering amang themsels. Will you no come in by and rest?”

Randall, who felt his philosophy abandon him in this respect as well as others, and who could not persuade himself by any arguments of her insignificance to quench the passion which this slow stream of malicious disparagement raised within him, answered very hotly, and with great abruptness, that he could not wait longer. A moment after he found himself again upon the road, with the reluctant children dragging him back, and Nelly looking out after him from her door. He had time to be annoyed at himself for betraying his anger; but Randall began to have changed thoughts—began to lose respect for the self-constraint which once had been his highest form of dignity—began to think that no natural emotion was unworthy of him—of him. For the first time he laughed at the words with bitterness as he looked up to the pale gleaming sky, with its clouds and stars. Unworthy of him—who then was he?

“The man’s richt—they’ll ha’e strayed in on the moss. Oh, my bairns! my bairns!” cried the distressed mother into the night. “And Patie was telling, nae farther gane than yestreen, what a bogilly bit it was, till a’ the weans were fleyed; and if they’re no sunk in the moss itsel, they’ll be dead wi’ fricht by this time. Oh, my bonnie Jessie! that was aye doing somebody a guid turn; and wee Davie—puir wee Davie! he was aye the youngest, and got his ain way. My bairns! my bairns!”

A snort came through the misty gloom. By this time it was very dark, and Randall could hear the voices as they approached.

“What’s the woman greeting for? Her bairns?—her bairns? I would just like to ken what suld ail her bairns—little mischiefs! They’re warm at somebody’s ingle-neuk, Ise warrant. That wee Davie’s an imp o’ Satan; neither fricht nor bogles will harm him. Come this road, woman. What gart ye leave the lantern? If there werena better wits than yours”—

Jenny’s voice was interrupted by a sudden footstep crushing the bramble branches on the side of the way, and by a sudden glow of light thrown full upon the dazzled eyes of little Jessie, who left Randall’s hand with a cry of joy—“Oh, it’s the leddy—we’re safe at hame.”

The lantern flashed about through the darkness. Randall’s heart beat loudly. With a great start, he recognised the voice which gave kindly welcome to the strayed child, and he could distinguish the outline of her figure, as she shaded the lantern with her hand; then she raised it—he felt the light suddenly burst upon his face—another moment, and it was gone. Little Jessie flew back to him dismayed; voice and figure and light had disappeared as they came; one other step upon the brambles, and they were alone once more.

He had no time to marvel or to follow, for now the mother and Jenny, suddenly drawing close to them, fell upon the lost children, with cries of mingled blame and joy. “It was the gentleman brought us hame.”

“Thanks to the gentleman—would he no come in and rest?—he would be far out of his way—the guidman would take a lantern, and convoy him”—and a hundred other anxious volunteerings of gratitude poured upon Randall’s ears. “I must go on—I must go on!” He burst past them impatiently; he did not know where the house was, or if she had gone home; but Menie had seen him, and Menie he must see.

Step softly, Randall! In her high excitement, she hears every stir of the falling leaves without, and could not miss your footstep, if you trod as softly as a child. She has reached to her shelter already—she has put out her mother’s lights, and stands in the darkness, pressing her white face against the window, looking out, wondering if she will see you again—wondering why you come here—praying in a whisper that you may not cross her path any more, but contradicting the prayer in her heart. Mrs Laurie stands by the door without, watching for the children’s return; and now they come, Davie lifted into his mother’s arms (for he has been almost asleep on his feet), Jessie eager that everybody should understand “it was my blame,” and Jenny smartly lecturing each and all. The rest of the family—all but the goodman, who has gone to the moss to seek the children—are gathered in a group before the cottage; and the red light of the fire glows out upon them, and some one has picked up the lantern which Menie Laurie dropped. A little crowd—the inner circle of faces brightened by the lamp, the outer ones receding into partial gloom, hearing little Jessie tell her story, speculating what part of the moss it could be, and “where was the gentleman?”—a question which none could answer.

“Though I’ve heard his tongue afore, mysel,” said Jenny, “I’m just as sure—woman, will ye no take that little Satan to his bed?—and puir wee Jessie’s een’s gaun thegither. It wasna your blame, you deceitful monkey! Ye may cheat the wife there, but ye’ll no cheat Jenny. It was a’ that little bother—it wasna you. Gang out o’ my gate, callant! If nane o’ the rest o’ ye will stir, I maun pit the bairn to her bed mysel.”

From her window Menie Laurie looks out upon this scene—upon the darkness around—the one spot of light, and the half-illuminated faces; looks out wistfully, straining her eyes into the night, wondering where he has gone, and getting time now, as her agitation calms, to be ashamed and annoyed at her own weakness. Very calm for many a day has been Menie Laurie’s quiet heart—soberly, happily contented, and at rest. Little comforts and elegancies, which neither Mrs Laurie’s income nor Jenny’s kye could attain, Menie has managed to collect into this little room. Her “trade,” as she still calls it—for Menie is the person of all others least satisfied with her own performances, and will not assume to be an artist—has brought her in contact with many pleasant people; her mother is pleased that they have even better “society” here, in the cot-house, than they had in prosperous Burnside; and it even seems a thing probable, and to be hoped for, that by-and-by they may go back to Burnside, and be able to live without its fifty yearly pounds. This success could not come without bringing some content and satisfaction with it; and constant occupation has restored health and ease to Menie’s mind, while almost as calm as of old, but with a deeper, loftier quiet, a womanly repose;—light, within her eased breast, has lain Menie Laurie’s heart.

And why this face of strange excitement now, Menie cannot tell. She found him out so suddenly—flashing her light upon the face which least of all she thought to see. But Menie wonders to feel this strong thrill of agitation returning on her as she touches the window with her pale cheek, and wonders if she will see him again.

The night falls deeper—darker; the wind overhead comes shouting down upon the trees, throwing their leaves from them in wild handfuls, and tearing off their feebler branches in a frenzy. Here where we stand, you can hear it going forth with its cry of defiance against the hills, flinging a magic circle round the startled homesteads, attacking bridges upon rivers, stacks in farmyards. The goodman, who has returned with a glad heart to find his children safe, says, when he closes the cottage door, that it is a wild night; but here, amid all its violence, waiting a moment when he may see her—strangely excited, strangely emancipated, owning the sway of one most passionate and simple emotion, and for the first time forgetting, not only himself, but everything else—here, with his bare forehead to the wind, stands Randall Home.

Now come hither: Jenny’s candle in the kitchen thriftily extinguished, leaving her window only lightened by the firelight, proves that Jenny has come “ben” to the family service—the daily meeting-ground of mistress and servant, child and mother. There is no need to close the shutters on this window, which no one ever passes by to see. Calm in her fireside corner sits Mrs Laurie, with her open Bible in her lap; Jenny is close by the table, drawing near the light, and poring very closely upon the “sma’ print,” which runs into a confused medley before her, not to be deciphered—for Jenny will not be persuaded to try spectacles, lest they should “spoil her een;” while Menie, who reads the chapter aloud, reverently turns over the leaves of the family Bible, and, with all her quiet restored, speaks the words which say peace to other storms than that storm never to be forgotten, in the Galilean Sea.

You remember how she was when you saw her last—you remember her through the flush of your own anger, the mortification of your own pride—but pride and mortification have little to do with this atmosphere which surrounds our Menie now. Her delicate hand is on the open Book—her reverent eyes cast down upon it—her figure rising out of its old girlish freedom and carelessness, into a womanly calm and dignity. He follows the motion of her head and lips with an unconscious eager gesture—follows them with devotion, longing to feel himself engaged with her; and hears, his frame quivering the while—rising upon his heart with a command, that hushes all these violent strong voices round—the low sound of her voice.

Now they are at prayer. Her face is folded in her hands, Randall; and there may be a prayer in Menie’s heart, which Mrs Laurie’s voice, always timid at this time, does not say. Whatever there is in Menie’s heart, you know what is in your own—know at once this flood of sudden yearning, this sudden passion of hope and purpose, this sudden burst of womanish tears. Now then, overmastered, subdued, and won, turn away, Randall Home—but not till Jenny, starting from her knees, has burst into a violent sob and scream. “I dreamt he was come back this very nicht; I dreamt o’ him yestreen—Randall—Randall Home!” But, with an awed face, Jenny returned from the door to which she had flown. Randall was not there!

Something of languor is in this chill morning, as its quiet footstep steals upon the path of the exhausted storm—something worn out and heavy are Menie’s eyes as she closes them wearily upon the daylight when Jenny has cleared the little breakfast-table, and it is time for the day’s work to begin. They speak to her softly, you will perceive, and are very tender of Menie, as if she were ill, and Jenny cannot forgive herself for the shock that her exclamation caused last night.

A heavy stupor is on Menie’s mind, lightened only with gleams of wild anxiety, with fruitless self-questionings, which she fain would restrain, but cannot. Jenny, firm in the belief that she has seen a spirit, is melancholy and mysterious, and asks suggestive questions—whether they have heard if there is “ony great trouble in London ’enow,” or who it was that was prayed for in the kirk last Sabbath—a young man in great distress. Mrs Laurie, uneasy and solicitous, cannot stay these pitiful looks which unawares she turns upon her daughter, and hangs perpetually about her with tender touches, consoling words, and smiles, till poor Menie’s heart is like to break.

The day’s work is over in Jenny’s “redd-up kitchen;”—the uneven earthen floor is carefully swept—the hearth as white and the fireside as brilliant as Jenny’s elaborate care can make them; and Jenny has drawn aside a little the sliding pannel which closes in her bed, to show the light patch-work quilt, and snowy linen of the “owrelay.” Bright brass and pewter carefully polished above the high mantel-shelf—bright plates and crockery against the walls—with a glance of satisfaction Jenny surveyed the whole as she passed into the private corner where she made her toilette—a “wiselike” kitchen; it was worthy of Jenny.

And now, in her blue and yellow gown, in her black and red checked plaiden shawl, in her great Leghorn bonnet, fashioned in antique times, Jenny sets out from the cottage door. No one knows where Jenny is going, and there has been some surprise “ben the house” at her intimation of her proposed absence. But Jenny keeps her own counsel, and walks away soberly, seeing Mrs Laurie at the window, in the direction of Burnside. “Nae occasion to let the haill town see the gate Jenny was gaun,” she says to herself, with a slight fuff; and, altering her course before she reaches the Brigend, Jenny turns rapidly towards the hills.

And something of growing gravity, almost awe, is on Jenny’s face. “Eh, puir callant, he’s young to take fareweel o’ this life. Weel, laddie, mony’s the time Jenny’s grutten for ye; and maybe it’s best, after a’, if ane could but think sae.” These lamentations fall like so many tears on Jenny’s way—and she is rapidly climbing the brae, as she utters them, towards the house of Crofthill.

It is a wintry autumn afternoon—so dull, that the potato-gatherers in the fields are chilled into silence, and the ploughmen scarcely can whistle into the heavy atmosphere which droops upon them laden with unfallen rain. The paths of the little triangular garden of Crofthill are choked with masses of brown leaves, fallen from the trees, which sway their thin remaining foliage drearily, hanging lank from the crest of the hill. The goodman is thrashing to-day; you can hear the heavy tramp of the horses, the swing of the primitive machine: it is almost the only sound that breaks the silence of the place.

Nay, listen—there is another sound; a slow monotonous voice, wont to excite in Jenny certain sentiments the reverse of peaceable. The kitchen door is open, a great umbrella rests against the lintel, and Miss Janet’s tall figure is just visible, in a gown not much unlike Jenny’s own, standing before the fire listening, as Jenny, arrested at the threshold, must be content to listen too.

“Na; I can do nae mair than tell what’s true; I canna gie folk the judgment to put trust in me. I’m no ane that meddles wi’ ither folk’s concerns—but I thocht it richt ye should ken—I’m no saying whether it’s in the flesh or the spirit—that Randall Home was seen upon the Kirklands road last nicht.”

“But I tell ye, woman, it couldna be our Randy—it couldna be my bairn,” exclaimed Miss Janet in great distress. “Do ye think Crofthill’s son would ca’ upon the like o’ you, and no come hame? It’s been some English lad, that’s spoken grand, like Randall; and how was you to ken to look at his presence, that never ane had like him? Na, it wasna our son.”

“Presence or no presence, I mind him weel,” said Nelly, emphatically. “I wouldna think, mysel, an appearance or a wraith could ha’e grippit thae weans, and kent the road sae weel to carry them hame—no to say that spirits would ha’e little patience, as I think, wi’ barley scones, when they canna partake themsels; and I tried him about the Burnside family, and Crofthill as weel; and I saw his een louping wi’ passion, and he scarce ga’e me thanks for my charity. It’s an awfu’ thing to see as I do ilka day—and I canna think but what it’s just because I’m sae peaceable mysel that a’body flees into raptures wi’ me. But I just ken this—I saw Randall Home.”

Miss Janet turned round to wring her hands unseen. She was very much troubled and shaken, and turning, met, to her dismay, the keen inquisitive face of Jenny. With a little start and cry, Miss Janet turned again, to dash some tears off her cheek. Then she addressed the newcomer in a trembling voice. “Ye’ll have heard her story—your house is on the same road—have ye seen onything like this?”

“I wouldna put a moment’s faith in her—no me!” said Jenny, promptly. “It’s a dull day to her when she disna put somebody in trouble; and it’s just because there’s no a single mischief to the fore in Kirklands that she’s come to put her malice on you. Put strife amang neibors, woman—naebody can do’t sae weel; but what would ye come here for to frichten honest folk in their ain houses?”

“For every friendly word I say, I aye get twa ill words back,” said Nelly meekly, with a sigh of injury. “But it’s weel kent the spirit that’s in Burnside Jenny, and I wouldna take notice, for my pairt, o’ what the like o’ her micht say; but I canna help aye being concerned for what happens to Crofthill, minding the connection; and if I didna see Randall Home’s face, and hear Randall Home’s tongue, in the dark at my ain door yestreen, I never saw mortal man. If he’s in the flesh, I wouldna say but he was hiding for some ill-doing—for you may be sure he didna want me to see his face, kenning me for far sicht langsyne; and if it was an appearance, I’ll no gie you muckle hope o’ his state, for the awsome passion he got in, though he never said a word to me; and, as I said before, I can tell you what’s true, but I canna gie ye faith to believe—sae I’ll bid ye good day, Miss Janet; and ye’ll just see if ye dinna think mair o’ what I’ve said, afore you’re a day aulder—you and the auld man too.”

Slowly Nelly took her departure, Miss Janet looking on like one stupefied. As the unwelcome visitor disappeared, Miss Janet sank into a chair, and again wrung her hands; but looking up with sudden fright to perceive Jenny’s elaborate dress, and look of mystery, hastily exclaimed, “Jenny, woman—it’s no but what you’re aye welcome,—but what’s brocht you here the day?”

“I cam o’ my ain will; naebody kens,” said Jenny abruptly.

“But ye maun have come with an errand—I’m no feared to greet before you, Jenny,” said Miss Janet, with humility. “Oh, woman, tell me—do you ken onything of my bairn?”

“Me! what should I ken?” said Jenny, turning her face away. “You’ll have gotten word? Nae doubt, being grand at the writing, he aye sends letters. What gars ye ask the like o’ me?”

Miss Janet caught her visitor’s hand, and turned her face towards the light with a terrified cry. “You may tell me—I ken you’ve seen him as weel.”

Jenny resisted for some time, keeping her head averted. At length, when she could struggle no longer, she fell into a little burst of sobbing. “I never would have telled ye. I didna come to make you desolate—but I canna tell a lee. I saw him in the dark last nicht, just ae moment, glancing in at the window—and when I gaed to the door, he was gane.”

Half an hour after, very drearily Jenny took her way down the hill—and looking back as the early twilight began to darken on her path, she saw Miss Janet’s wistful face commanding the way. The twilight came down heavily—the clouds dipt upon the hill—drizzling rains began to fall, carrying down with them light dropping showers of half-detached and dying leaves—but still Miss Janet leaned upon the dyke, and turned her anxious eyes to the hilly footpath, watching, with many a sob and shiver, for Randall—in the flesh or in the spirit. Surely, if he revealed himself to strangers, he might come to her.

After this there fell some very still and quiet days upon Mrs Laurie’s cottage. Everything went on languidly; there was no heart to the work which Menie touched with dreamy fingers; there was something subdued and spiritless in her mother’s looks and movements; and even Jenny’s foot rang less briskly upon her earthen floor. They did not know what ailed them, nor what it was they looked for; but with a brooding stillness of expectation, they waited for something, if it were tempest, earthquake, or only a new glow of sunshine out of the kindly skies.

Was it a spirit? Asking so often, you make your cheek pale, Menie Laurie; you make your eyelids droop heavy and leaden over your dim eyes. Few people come here to break the solitude, and we all dwell with our own thoughts, through these still days, alone.

“Menie, you are injuring yourself; we will take a long walk, and see some people to-day,” said Mrs Laurie. “Come, it is quite mild—it will do us both good; we will go to the manse to see Miss Johnston, and then to Woodlands and Burnside. Put up your papers—we will take a holiday to-day.”

Menie’s heavy eyes said faintly that she cared nothing about Miss Johnston, about Woodlands or Burnside; but Menie put aside her papers slowly, and prepared for the walk. They went out together, not saying much, though each sought out, with labour and difficulty, something to say. “I wonder what ails us?” said Menie, with a sigh. Her mother made no answer. It was not easy to tell; and speaking of it would do more harm than good.

A hazy day—the sky one faint unvaried colour, enveloped in a uniform livery of cloud; a faint white mist spread upon the hills; small invisible rain in the air, and the withered leaves heavily falling down upon the sodden soil.

“This will not raise our spirits, mother,” said Menie, with a faint smile; “better within doors, and at work, on a day like this.”

But why, with such a start and tremble, do you hear those steps upon the path? Why be struck with such wild curiosity about them, although you would not turn your head for a king’s ransom? Anybody may be coming—the shepherd’s wife from Whinnyrig yonder, the poor crofter from the edge of the peat-moss, or little Jessie’s mother bound for the universal rural-shop at the Brigend. We are drawing near to the Brigend—already the aromatic flavour of the peats warms the chill air with word of household fires, and we see smoke rise beyond the ash-trees—the smoke of our old family home, the kind hearth of Burnside.

Hush! whether it were hope or fear, is no matter; the steps have ceased; vain this breathless listening to hear them again; go on through the ash-trees, Menie Laurie—on through the simple gateway of this humble rural world. By the fireside—in the cottage—with such simple joy as friendly words and voices of children can give you—this is your life.

And only one—only one—this your mother—to watch your looks and gestures—the falling and the rising of your tired heart. Wistful eyes she turns upon you—tender cares. Look up to repay her, Menie; smile for her comfort; you are all that remains to her, and she is all that remains to you.

Look up; see how solemnly the ash-trees lift their old bleached arms to heaven. Look up, Menie Laurie; but here, at our very ear, these bewildering steps again!

Do not shrink; here has come the ordeal you have looked for many a day. Well said your prophetic heart, that it drew near in the hush and silence of this fated time. They stand there, arched and canopied, under these familiar trees, the hamlet’s quiet houses receding behind them—Burnside yonder, the limit of the scene, and the burn, the kindly country voice, singing a quiet measure to keep them calm. An old man and a young, learned with experiences of life: the elder, fresh and noble, daring to meet the world with open face, aware of all the greatest truths and mysteries of the wonderful existence which we call common life, but nothing more; the younger, trained in a more painful school, with his lesson of self-forgetting newly conned, with knowledge sadder than his father’s, with a heart and conscience quivering still with self-inflicted wounds—they stand there bareheaded under the cloudy sky—not with the salutation of common respect, which might permit them to pass on. A courtly natural grace about them both, makes their attitude all the more remarkable. With blanched cheeks and failing eyes, Menie Laurie’s face droops; she dares not look up, but waits, trembling so greatly that she can scarcely stand, for what has to be said.

Mrs Laurie, with a sudden impulse of protection, draws her child’s arm within her own—moves forward steadily, all her pride of mother and of woman coming to her aid; bows to her right hand and her left; says she is glad to see that this is really Mr Randall, and not the wraith her simple Jenny had supposed; and, speaking thus in a voice which is but a murmur of inarticulate sound to Menie, bows again, and would pass on.

But John Home of Crofthill lays his hand upon her sleeve. “You and me have no outcast to settle. Leave the bairns to themselves.”

With a startled glance Mrs Laurie looks round her, at the old man’s face of anxious friendliness, at the deep flush on Randall’s brow, and at her own Menie’s drooping head. “Shall I leave you, Menie?” Menie makes no answer—as pale and as cold as marble, with a giddy pain in her forehead, unable to raise her swimming eyes—but she makes a great effort to support herself, as her mother gradually looses her hand from her arm.

Passive, silent, her whole mind absorbed with the pain it takes to keep herself erect, and guide her faltering steps along the road; but Randall is by Menie’s side once more.

Father and mother have gone on, back towards the cottage; silently, without a word, these parted hearts follow them side by side. If she had any power left but what is wanted for her own support, she would wonder why Randall does not speak. She does wonder, indeed, faintly, even through her pain. With downcast eyes like hers, he walks beside her, through this chill dewy air, between these rustling hedges, in a conscious silence, which every moment becomes more overpowering, more strange.

“Menie!” With a sudden start she acknowledges her name; but there is nothing more.

“I said, when we parted, that you were disloyal to me and to Nature,” said Randall, after another pause. “Menie, I have learned many a thing since then. It was I that was disloyal to Nature—but never to you.”

Still no answer; this giddiness grows upon her, though she does not miss a syllable of what he says.

“There is no question between us—none that does not fade like a vapour before the sunlight I see. Menie, can you trust me again?”

She cannot answer—she can do nothing but falter and stumble upon this darkening road. It grows like night to her. What is this she leans upon—the arm of Randall Home?

Miss Janet sits in her shawl of state in Jenny’s kitchen—very curious and full of anxiety. “Eh, woman, such a sair heart I had,” said Miss Janet, “when wha should come, as fast up the road as if he kent I was watching, but my ain bairn? He hasna been hame since July’s wedding; ye wouldna think it o’ a grand lad like our Randall, and him sae clever, and sae muckle thocht o’ in the world—but when he gaed owre his father’s doorstane again, the puir laddie grat like a bairn. Will you look if they’re coming, Jenny?—nae word o’ them? Eh, woman, what can make Miss Menie sae ill at the like o’ him?”

“The like o’ him’s nae such great things,” said Jenny, with a little snort. “I wouldna say but what Miss Menie has had far better in her offer. She’s a self-willed thing—she’ll no take Jenny’s word; but weel I wat, if she askit me——”

“Whisht, you’re no to say a word,” cried Miss Janet, coming in from the door. “I see them on the road—I see them coming hame. Jenny, you’re no to speak. Miss Menie and my Randall, they’re ae heart ance mair.”

And so it was—one heart, but not a heart at ease; the love-renewed still owned a pang of terror. But day after day came out of the softening heavens—hour after hour preached and expounded of the mellowed nature—the soul which had learned to forget itself; other pictures rose under Menie’s fingers—faces which looked you bravely in the face—eyes that forgot to doubt and criticise. The clouds cleared from her firmament in gusts and rapid evolutions, as before these brisk October winds. One fear followed another, falling like the autumn leaves; a warmer atmosphere crept into the cottage, a brighter sunshine filled its homely rooms. Day by day, advancing steadily, the son drew farther in, to his domestic place. The mother gave her welcome heartily; the daughter, saying nothing, felt the more; and no one said a word of grumbling, save perverse Jenny, who wept with joy the while, when another year and another life lighted up into natural gladness the sweet harmonious quiet of Menie Laurie’s heart.

MARATHON.

[Note.—These lines were written shortly after a visit to the plain of Marathon, and personal inspection of the ground. The historical facts are taken from Herodotus; the mythological allusions, and other incidental circumstances, from the two chapters of Pausanias (Att. I., c. 15 & 32), where the paintings of the famous Portico of the Stoics in Athens, and the district of Marathon, are described with characteristic detail.]

LONDON TO WEST PRUSSIA.

Northward and eastward the eyes of Englishmen are turning, straining to catch a glimpse of the white sails of their country’s ships, to discern the streaks of smoke which tell of far-off steamers, or to hear the echo at least of their thundering cannon. And many, too, not content to wait for tidings, are hurrying towards the scenes of action, if haply they may witness or sooner learn what the fortune of war may bring. Due east from the northern part of our island the Baltic fleet is now manœuvring; but from London the speediest route is through Belgium, and along the German railways, till the traveller reaches Stettin. Thence he can skirt the Baltic landwards by Königsberg as far as Memel, beyond which it will scarcely be safe to venture; or he can, by ship or boat, from the mouths of the Stettiner Haaf, prosecute his recognisance on the waters of the east sea itself.

But as mere ever-moving couriers, few, even in these exciting times, will travel. Most men will stop now and then, look about them, ask questions, gather information, reflect between whiles, and thus add interest at once and extract instruction from the countries they pass through. Especially they will observe what bears upon their individual professions, pursuits, or favourite studies; and thus, almost without effort, will gather new materials, to be used up in the details of ordinary life, when, the warlike curiosity being gratified, they return again to the welcome routine of home or domestic duties.

Such has been our own case, in a recent run from London through Stettin into Western Prussia, in less genial weather than now prevails; and it may interest our readers to make the journey with us, by anticipation, at their own firesides, while the trunks and passports are preparing for their own real journey.

On the 27th of January, at eight in the morning, a huge pyramid of luggage blocked up the London station of the South-eastern Railway. Troops of boys hovered about, some true Cockney lads, and others half-Frenchified, with an occasional usher fussing about the boxes. “Do you see that mountain, sir?” said the superintendent to us. “All school traps, sir.” “Two hundred boys at least?” we interposed, interrogatively. “No; only fifty. Fill a steamer, sir, itself.” However, the master contrived to get all put right, the mountain vanished into the waggons, the whistle blew, and we were off. The boys gave a hearty hurra as we left the station, which they repeated, time after time, at every fresh start we made, from station to station. At Dover the boat was waiting, the day fine, the wind in our favour, the sea moderately smooth, and by 11.40 we were on our way to Calais. Alas for the brave boys! The last cheer was given as they bade adieu to the cliffs of Dover. Melancholy came over them by degrees. It was painful to see how home-sick they became. From the bottom of their stomachs they regretted leaving their native land, and, heart-sore, chopfallen, and sorely begrimed as to their smart caps and jackets, they paraded, two hours after, before the customhouse at Calais, like the broken relics of a defeated army. M. Henequin was importing the half-yearly draft of Cockney boys to his school at Guines; and we recommend such of our readers as are curious in sea-comforts respectfully to decline the companionship of M. Henequin and his troop, should they at any future time lucklessly stumble upon them on the gangway of a steamer.

At Calais the patriotic and Protestant Englishman, who visits the cathedral of Nôtre Dame, will particularly admire a huge modern painting, which is supposed to adorn the north transept, and will have no difficulty in interpreting the meaning looks of the gaping peasantry when he reads underneath—“Calais taken from the English in 1558, and restored to Catholicity.”

The Pas de Calais—at least that portion of the department of that name through which the railway runs—at once tells the Englishman that he is in a new country. Low, wet, and marshy, like the seaward part of Holland, it is parcelled out, drained, and fenced by numberless ditches. Wandering over its tame and, in winter at least, most uninviting surface, the eye finds only occasional rows of small pollard willows to rest upon, as if the scavengers of the land had all gone home to dinner, and in the mean time had planted their brooms in readiness along the sides of the ditches they were employed to scour.

But passing St Omer and approaching Hazebrook, the land lifts itself above the sea marshes, becomes strong and loamy, and fitted for every agricultural purpose. Arrived at Lille, the traveller is already in the heart of the most fertile portion of northern France. Twin fortresses of great strength, Lille and Valenciennes, are also twin centres of what, in certain points of view, is the most wonderful industry of France. The sugar beet finds here a favourite soil and climate, and a rural and industrial population suited to the favourable prosecution of the beet-sugar manufacture. Though long before suggested and tried in Germany, this manufacture is purely French in its economical origin. The Continental System of the first Napoleon raised colonial produce to a fabulous price. At six francs a pound colonial sugar was within the reach of few. The high price tempted many to cast about for means of producing sugar at home, and a great stimulus was given to this research by the magnificent premium of a million of francs offered by the Emperor to the successful discoverer of a permanent source of supply from plants of native growth. Of the many plants tried, the beet proved the most promising; but it required twenty years of struggles and failures, and conquering of difficulties, to place the new industry on a comparatively independent basis. Twenty years more has enabled it to compete successfully with colonial sugar, and to pay an equal tax into the French exchequer. From France and Belgium the industry returned to its native Germany, and has since spread far into the interior of Russia. The total produce of this kind of sugar on the continent of Europe has now reached the enormous quantity of three hundred and sixty millions of pounds, of which France produces about one hundred and fifty millions in three hundred and thirty-four manufactories.

It is a pleasant excursion on a fine day in autumn, when the beet flourishes still green in the fields, and the roots are nearly ripe for pulling, to drive out from Lille, as we did some years ago, among the country farmers ten or twelve miles around. The land is so rich and promising, and on the whole so well tilled—and yet in the hands of good English or Scotch farmers might, we fancy, be made to yield so much more, and to look so much nicer, and drier, and cleaner, that we enjoy at once the gratification which in its present condition it is sure to yield us, while we pleasantly flatter ourselves at the same time with the thoughts of what we could make it. That it is not badly cultivated the practical man will infer from the average produce of sugar beet being estimated about Lille at sixteen, and about Valenciennes at nineteen tons an acre. At the same time, that much improvement is possible he will gather from the fact that, though often strong and but little undulating, the land is still unconscious of thorough drainage, and of the benefits which underground tiles and broken stones have so liberally conferred upon us.

The adjoining provinces of Hainault and Brabant—which the traveller leaves to the right on his way to Ghent and Brussels—are the seat of the sugar manufacture in Belgium. There the average yield of beetroot is said to be from eighteen to twenty-four tons an acre, the land in general being excellent, while the total produce of beet-sugar in Belgium is ten millions of pounds. In Belgium, as in France, the home-growth of sugar is equal to about one-half of the home consumption.

Late in the evening we found ourselves in Brussels, and the following morning—though wet and dirty—we were visiting, as strangers do, the numerous churches. It was Sunday; and as in the face of nature we had seen in the Pas de Calais that we were in a foreign country, so to-day the appearance of the streets told us at every step that we were among a foreign people. The shops open everywhere, and more than usually frequented; the universal holiday sparkling upon every face; the frequent priests in gowns, bands, and broadbrims to be met with on the streets; the crowding to morning mass at St Gudule’s and St Jacques’; the pious indifference of the apparently devout congregations; the huddling together and intermixture among them of all classes and costumes; the mechanical crossings and genuflections even in the remotest corners, where only the tinkling of the bells was faintly heard; the easy air of superiority, and lazy movements and mumbling of the officiating clergy at the altar; and the happy contentment pictured on every face as the crowd streamed from the door when the service was ended;—all these things spoke of a foreign people and a foreign church. The evening theatres and Sunday amusements told equally of foreign ideas and foreign habits; while the old town-hall and the other quaint buildings which the English traveller regards at every new visit with new pleasure, kept constantly before his eyes that he was in a foreign city.

The characteristic of Belgium among foreign countries is, that, with the exception of Spain, it is probably the most completely Roman Catholic sovereignty in Europe. To this almost exclusive devotion to the Roman Church the peculiarities to which we have referred are mainly to be ascribed. Of its population, which by the last census was 4,337,000, not less than 4,327,000 were Roman Catholics, and only 7,368 Protestants. The total expense of the dominant Church to the state, which pays all the clergy, is 4,366,000 francs, or about a franc a-head for each member of the Church. It has besides private revenues of various kinds for repairing churches, for charitable foundations, &c., amounting to 800,000 francs, making the total revenue about 5,000,000 of francs. This, divided among five thousand clergy of all ranks, gives less than one thousand francs as the average stipend. And when we add to this that the archbishop’s stipend is only £840, that of a bishop £580, and of a cathedral canon from £100 to £130, we should fancy the Church to be in money matters poor, and the clergy badly off. But in Protestant countries we understand very little of the system of fees and unseen payments in the Catholic Church, and we form probably a very erroneous idea of the real income and means of living of a Roman Catholic clergy when we conclude that, as a general rule, their main dependence is upon the known and avowed salaries they derive from the State or from other public sources.

While we are at home discussing with some little sectarian animosity the subject of State payments to Popish chaplains for our prisons and military hospitals, it is but fair to this most Catholic country to mention, that to the 7,368 Protestants the Belgian state-chest pays yearly 56,000 francs to eleven native pastors and six Church of England ministers, for salaries and other church expenses—being at the rate of eight francs for each Protestant in the kingdom. It allows also 7,900 francs to the Jews, or about seven francs a-head. For their religious liberality the reader will give such credit to the Belgian clergy as he may think they deserve.

Detained by unforeseen circumstances for a day in Brussels, we witnessed the honours paid to Prince Napoleon on his entry from Paris, and in the afternoon were on our way to Cologne. Passing Louvain and Tirlemont in the dark, we recognised the neighbourhood of Liege only by its coke-ovens and iron-works, and an hour before midnight reached Cologne.

Cologne, with thy sixty stinks still redolent, even a midnight entrance reveals to travelling olfactories thy odoriferous presence! As we jogged along to the Hotel Disch, enjoying alone a luxurious omnibus, the slumbering memory of long-familiar smells sprung up fresh in our nostrils, and awoke us to the full conviction that our railway conductor had made no mistake, and that we were really passing beneath the shadow of the magnificent cathedral of Cologne.

Early morning saw us pacing the nave of the gigantic pile, admiring anew its glorious windows, peering into its chapels, glancing hurriedly at its saintly pictures, turning away both eyes and ears from unwholesome-looking priests intoning the morning service, admiring the by-play called “private worship,” which was proceeding at the same moment in the northern aisle, and offending susceptible un-fee’d officials by indecent looks, as we stealthily paced the circumference of the lordly choir. No familiarity can reconcile an English Protestant to the mummeries of a worship performed before tawdry dolls by the light even of a dozen penny candles. And the paltriness appears the greater in a vast pile like this, which itself is but a feeble attempt to do something adequate to the greatness of Him who dwelleth not in temples made with hands. This feeling awoke within us in full force as we came, in our promenade round the church, upon a large side-chapel, with its Virgin dressed in lace, enclosed in a small glass cupboard, with votive offerings of waxen limbs and other objects hung up beside it, while three small candles in dirty sconces burned beneath. And before this trumpery exhibition knelt and prayed grave men and women, who had passed the middle of life; and young girls with warm hearts, who had still the world with all its lures and temptations before them. Pity that hearts so devout and so susceptible should be so badly directed—that the plain helps and comforts of Scripture should be set aside for the aggrandisement of a powerful craft!

Much had been done here by architects and masons since our former visit. Much money had been collected and expended, and many men are still at work on this vast building; and yet the stranger’s eye discovers from without only small changes to have been effected during the past ten years. Here and there, as he walks around it, a white pillar, or a less discoloured arch, tells him where the workmen have been busy; but the several portions of the work are so massive, and proceed of necessity so slowly, that the progress of years produces advances which seem almost microscopic when compared with the whole. While they satisfy us, however, that generations will still come and go, leaving the growing cathedral still immature, yet they give us at the same time a far grander idea both of the vastness of the work which has already been accomplished, and of the original greatness of the conception, which so many centuries have failed to embody fully in durable stone.

At eleven in the forenoon we had already crossed the Rhine to Deutz, had taken our seats on the Winden railway, and at the blowing of the official trumpet had begun to move along the rich flat land which here borders the Rhine. The walls and river-face of Cologne, now spread out before us, carried back our musings to the times of the historical grandeur of this ancient city. During the period of Roman greatness, emperors of the world were born and proclaimed within its walls; centuries later, a king of the Franks was chosen in Cologne; and still six hundred and fifty years later began that bright period of its commercial prosperity, which for three hundred years made it the most flourishing city of Northern Europe. Thirty thousand fighting men, from among its own armed citizens, could then march defiantly from its gates. Its whole population is now but ninety thousand, and its trade comparatively trifling.

But the cause of this decline interests an Englishman more than the actual decay. Commerce, it is true, had begun in the seventeenth century to find new channels, and this circumstance, had the city been merely abandoned to supineness, might have gradually affected its prosperity. But it was positive measures of repression that forced it to decline. It fell under the dominion of the Roman priesthood, which first drove out the Jews, afterwards banished the weavers, and finally, in 1618, expelled the Protestants. From this time, for nearly two hundred years, it became a nest of monks and beggars, till at the Revolution the French changed everything, drove out the two thousand five hundred city clergy, seized their revenues, and turned to other uses their two hundred religious buildings. Hand over Liverpool or London to the same clerical dominion, and the same depressing consequences would most certainly follow.

High over walls and houses, as we fly along the railway, towers the cathedral, with its ancient crane still erect on its unfinished tower. Who designed this huge building? Alas! centuries before his work is complete, the name of the architect is lost. Six hundred years ago the work was begun, but the glory of God is the plea on which it has been prosecuted, and upon that altar the humble designer has sacrificed his fame!

And as it fades from the sight, memory recalls another scene which, four centuries ago, was witnessed beneath the shadow of this great pile. In a small upper room, with rude appliances, and a scanty store of materials, two men are seen curiously putting together the letters of a movable alphabet, arranging them into the form of tiny pages, and with slow deliberation impressing them, page by page, on the anxiously moistened paper. The younger of the two is William Caxton, the father of English printing. Here he learned the then young art which has since rendered him famous in his native land. How would William Caxton admire, could he now for a moment be carried into the printing-office of a metropolitan journal, and see with what marvellous speed and certainty the operations he watched so anxiously at Cologne are now conducted.

But as the quick thoughts course through our mind, we rush as quickly along towards Dusseldorf. We have now left the country of hedgerows of timber and of visible fences, and divisions of the land. Open, flat, and rich, it stretches inward from the Rhine, often light, and sometimes sandy or gravelly; all cultivated on the flat, all neat and clean, but naked, at this season, both of animal and vegetable life. A few sheep sprinkled over one field, and a rare man or woman trudging along beside deep ditches, were the only symptoms of moving life we saw between Cologne and Dusseldorf; while pollard trees here and there, and long rows of unpollarded poplars by the highway-sides, where a village was near, as tamely represented the vegetable ornaments which beautify an English landscape.

Following the Rhine for twenty miles farther, the line turns to the right, and we pass through the coal district which supplies the soft coke by which the locomotives are fed, and the dirty-looking coal to which the neighbouring region owes so much of its industrial prosperity. Iron furnaces, coal-pits, and chemical manufactories, remind us, as we pass Oberhausen, of the denser peopled and more smoke-blackened coal-fields of northern and western England, while all the appointments we see around them speak of an economy in management somewhat different from our own. No heaps of waste and burning coal indicate the approach to a colliery, nor columns of black smoke vomiting waste fuel into the tainted air, nor wheels and ropes rattling and busily revolving in the open day, nor troops of blackened men and boys lifting their heads to gaze, as the train skims swiftly by. Fine buildings cover in and conceal the openings to the pits with all their gear; and it is not quite obvious whether climate and profit compel this system, or whether it is the general habits of the people which thus manifest themselves. Cattle are kept under cover nearly all the year through; thoughts are very much kept under cover, even in so-called constitutional Prussia and Hanover; and the operations of the coal-pit may be boxed in and hidden from the vulgar gaze, merely as the consequence of a precautionary habit.

Dordmund, with its fortifications, and its associations with the famous “Vehm-gericht,” stands in the middle of this coal-field. Several borings in progress on the flats of black land, which stretch away from its old walls, exhibited the living influence of railway communication in changing the surface even of old countries, in opening up long-neglected resources, and in imparting new energy to half-dormant populations. Through the fertile Hellweg we sped along, leaving Dordmund behind us, and through the region of Westphalian hams, till the dark wet night overtook us. But, easy and comfortable in our luxurious carriages, we only quitted the train at Hanover that we might spend a morning in a city with which England has had so many relations.

From the moment the Englishman enters a Continental railway carriage, and especially if he is proceeding into Germany, two things strike him: First, the extreme luxury, roominess, and comfort of the carriages; and, second, the universal propensity to the use of tobacco. The second-class carriages are generally fully equal in their fitting and provisions for ease to our British first-class, while the German first-class carriages surprise us by the numerous little thoughtful appliances they exhibit to the wants and fancies of their temporary occupants. This seems rather a contradiction to an Englishman, who flatters himself that the word comfort is indigenous to his own country, and who actually sees, go where he will, that in its domestic arrangements an English house and houshold is the most comfortable in the world. This discordance between the practice of home and foreign countries, is probably to be traced to the difference of general habits and tendencies. To an Englishman, home is the place which is dearer than any other. In it he spends his time chiefly. He makes his home, therefore, and likes to see it made, the most comfortable place of all. To him a public conveyance or a public place of resort is no permanent temptation. He comes back always the happier, and he counts generally how soon he may get back again to his home. But on the Continent it is generally different. Home has few comforts or attractions, chiefly because habit has led to the custom of dining, of supping, of sipping coffee and punch, of drinking wine, and of smoking, in public. The public places of resort are made comfortable and luxurious to invite these visits. People look for and provide more comfort abroad than at home; and thus into their railway carriages, which, like other public places, are really smoking-shops, they carry the luxurious appliances which they deny themselves at home.

In Germany there is thus an excuse for travelling in second-class carriages, because of their excellence, which we do not possess in England. This custom, in consequence, is very general, not only among natives, but among foreigners also. “On the Continent,” says Professor Silliman, in a book of travels he has lately published, “and particularly in Germany, we have generally taken the second-class carriages. They are in all respects desirable, and few persons, except the nobility, travel in those of the first class, which appear to possess no advantage except the aristocratic one of partial exclusion of other classes by the higher price.” There is, perhaps, a little advantage in point of comfort; but the second-class carriages are certainly in this respect quite equal to the average of the railway cars in the United States. As to our second-class carriages in England, they are, adds Professor Silliman, “made very uncomfortable. They have no cushions, but simply naked board seats. The backs are high and perpendicular.” But in these arrangements the learned Professor was not aware that our railway directors patriotically study the conservation of our domestic habits. Were the carriages made too comfortable, people might prefer them to their own easy-chairs and sofas at home, and thus might be tempted to frequent them too much and too often for the general good. As to ourselves, we have always taken first-class tickets in our German tour, chiefly because in this way we could, in most cases, secure to ourselves a carriage in which we could avoid, for our lungs and our clothes, the contamination of the perpetual tobacco. In West Prussia, it is true, we were told that nobody but “prinzen und narren” (princes and fools) travelled first class; but even with the risk of such nicknames we continued our plan.

“On ne fume pas ici,” you see stuck up on a rare Belgian carriage in a long train; and in Prussia a ticket with the words, “Für nicht rauchende,” is in like manner suspended to a carriage in most of the trains on the main lines. But if this select carriage be full, you must take your place among the fumeurs or the rauchende; and should you there be fortunate enough to escape the torments of living smoke, you have the still more detestable odours to endure, the after-smells which linger wherever tobacco-smokers have been. We have lately perceived symptoms of the introduction of this custom into our English railway carriages. We trust that no desire to increase the home revenue in these war times will induce even our most patriotic railway directors to shut their eyes to the growth of so annoying a nuisance.

A morning in Hanover is agreeably spent. Like other German cities, it has derived an impulse from the railway, and new streets and magnificent buildings already connect the station with the older parts of the town. But it is in these old streets and their quaint buildings that the greatest enjoyment awaits the sight-seer. The dress and manners of the people, especially in the markets, their habits and tastes, as indicated by the articles everywhere exposed for sale, and especially the quaint old Gothic and curiously-ornamented houses, which range their gables here and there along the streets—these attractions interest even the keenest lovers of progress. Old-world times come up on the memory with all their associations, and by dint of contrast awaken trains of thought not the less pleasant that they are totally different from those which railways and their accompaniments are continually suggesting to us.

Among these quaint old houses, that in which Leibnitz lived is in itself one of the most attractive, and in its associations by far the most interesting. Elevated from the din of the main street (Schmiede strasse) on which it is situated, the philosopher is said to have studied in the garret which looks out from the upper part of the gable, and there to have arrived at those results of thought which have given both his name and his monument a place in the annals of the city, which none of its kings can boast of. It is honourable to one of these kings, Ernest Augustus, that he bought the old house, and caused it to be kept from disrepair, and to the citizens of Hanover that in 1790 they erected a simple monument to the memory of the philosopher, consisting of a bust on a marble pedestal. This now stands on a slight mound of earth on one side of Waterloo Place, surrounded by a humble railing. Few strangers visit the city who have not heard of the man, and who do not feel gratified to have seen his likeness in his bust. Fewer, whose love of books has carried them to the royal library, have not in silence looked, and with a melancholy interest, on the chair in which he sat when the death-stroke came upon him, and at the book which he was still holding in his hand when the sudden summons came.

Bursting its old boundaries, like Hamburg, Brunswick, Breslau, and many other fortified cities, the walls and ditches and towers of Hanover are gradually disappearing. Some of the last of the ditches we saw in the act of being filled up; and the progress of the arts of peace will henceforth, it is to be hoped, save its modern inhabitants from the frequent sufferings which besieging armies have in former times inflicted. Traversed by the river Leine, which, at a short distance from the town, becomes navigable from the junction of the Ihme, they have now facilities for communication in every direction; the mercantile class of the city is every year becoming more influential; and as education is beginning to spread among the masses—a thing which is far from being unnecessary—a more rapid advancement of the neighbourhood, both in commerce and agriculture, may hereafter be anticipated.

To the south west of Hanover, at the distance of a few miles, appear the terminating hills of the Deister, from which sloping grounds, densely peopled and generally fertile, extend almost to the city. Rich clay-soils on this side are fruitful in varied crops; but, stretching away from its very walls on the other side, are sand, moor, and heath, the flat and inhospitable beginnings of the far-extending Luneburg heath. Away over these flat, black, and sandy moors we sped in the afternoon to Brunswick. The brief stoppage of the train gave us time to walk through some of the clean streets of this city, and to admire its richness in picturesque gable-fronted buildings, many of them three centuries old. We commend it to the leisurely traveller as worthy of a more protracted visit; and if he is cunning in malt liquor, we entreat him to indulge his palate with a glass of the so-called “Brunswicker mumme,” the real substantial black-strap for which Brunswick is famous.

Daylight scarcely served to bring us to Magdeburg. We hurried past Wolfenbüttel, famous for its library and its relics of Luther; and as we glided into the station of the celebrated fortress-city, we could form little idea either of the fertility of the river banks on which it stands, or of the strength of the fortifications from which Magdeburg derives its place in history. Within the walls it resembles Hanover and Brunswick in the mixture of old and new, plain and picturesque, common and quaint, which its streets present. Here are the simple remarks which a day’s stroll through the city suggested recently to Madame Pfeiffer:—

“Magdeburg is a mixed pattern of houses of ancient, medieval, and modern dates. Particularly remarkable in this respect is the principal street, the “Broadway,” which runs through the whole of the town. Here we can see houses dating their origin from the most ancient times; houses that have stood proof against sieges and sackings; houses of all colours and forms; some sporting peaked gables, on which stone figures may still be seen; others covered from roof to basement with arabesques; and in one instance I could even detect the remains of frescoes. In the very midst of these relics of antiquity would appear a house built in the newest style. I do not remember ever having seen a street which produced so remarkable an impression on me. The finest building is unquestionably the venerable cathedral. In Italy I had already seen numbers of the most beautiful churches, yet I remained standing in mute admiration before this masterpiece of Gothic architecture.”^[30]

This cathedral is worthy of all the admiration which Madame Pfeiffer expresses. The glitter of the Roman Catholic worship is now foreign to it, but the dignity of the pile remains. The city is Protestant, and fondly it ought to cherish its purer worship, for in the same quaint streets Luther sang as a poor scholar for charity, and at the doors of the rich men of the time, to enable him to prosecute his learning.

But without the walls Magdeburg is equally attractive to one who has just escaped from the sands and peaty flats of the Luneburg heath. Situated where the Elbe widens, with its citadel planted on one of the river islands, the city walls are skirted on either hand by fertile plains, rich in corn and other produce. Still flat, however, unenclosed, without hedgerows, clumps of trees, straying cattle, and the numerous rural peculiarities which give life and variety and interest to an English landscape, almost a single glance suffices to take in all they exhibit of the picturesque, and to satisfy the merely superficial tourist. But there is attraction in these flat plains, nevertheless, and an economical interest, which may induce even the railway traveller to stay and inspect them. Fitted by its free and open nature for the growth of root crops, these alluvial shores of the Elbe have become the centre of a husbandry of which little is known as yet in England. In Murray’s Handbook, the traveller is informed that “much chicory is cultivated in this district;” and this is one of the roots for the growth of which the soil is specially adapted. The culture was in former years more extensive than at present; but there are still five or six thousand acres devoted to the raising of this crop. The yield in dried chicory from this extent of land is from twenty to thirty millions of pounds. It is largely exported to England and America through Hamburg—that which we receive from this port being chiefly from the Magdeburg chicory manufactories.

But the growth of the sugar beet, and the extraction of beet-sugar, are superseding the chicory trade, and are gradually assuming the first place both in the rural and manufacturing industry of Magdeburg and its neighbourhood. The largest producer of beet-sugar in the world is France; but the German Customs’ Union is the second in this respect, and Magdeburg is the principal centre of the German production. Like eager horses, skilfully jockeyed, and running neck and neck, the Cis and Trans Rhenave sugar-extractors have for years back been struggling hard to get ahead of each other in the perfection of their methods, and the profit of their fields and manufactories; and many curious facts and difficulties have come out or been surmounted during this chemico-agricultural and chemico-manufacturing contest. For it is an interesting circumstance, that while chemistry was, on the one hand, aiding the farmer to grow large and profitable crops of roots, it was, at the same time, on the other, assisting the manufacturer more perfectly and profitably to extract the sugar from the roots when raised. But it is curious, at the same time, that in the advances thus made on either hand, the increased profits of the one party were found singularly to clash and interfere with the profits and processes of the other. Increase the size of your turnip by chemical applications, said agricultural chemistry, and you have a heavier crop to sell to the sugar-manufacturer. And the grower took the advice, and rejoiced in his augmenting profits. The practices of North British turnip-growers were introduced by British settlers, and their imitators, on the plains of Magdeburg; and root crops more like those which cover our British turnip-fields were seen, for the first time, on the banks of the Elbe.

Then up rose economical chemistry, on the other hand, and said, No, no, Mr Farmer, we don’t want, and we won’t buy, your larger roots. We cannot afford to purchase your gigantic beets, the offspring of your high manuring. The chemistry which enlarged the roots did not increase the quantity of sugar in proportion. “A ton of good big beets gives me less sugar,” says the extractor, “than a ton of your small ones; and therefore, if you will grow the big ones, I must have them at a less price in proportion. And, besides, your high manuring puts salt into the turnip, which prevents me from fully extracting all the sugar they do contain.” Thus chemistry, on the one side, was at issue with chemistry on the other, and the progress of a profitable scientific agriculture appeared to be arrested by that of a scientific and economical extraction of the sugar.

But difficulties to men of science are only things to be overcome. On the one hand, the farmer kept down the size of his roots. He sought to make up in number for the deficiency in size, while he applied his manure at such times in his rotation, and of such a quality, as to give him a slower-grown, more solid root, rather than a porous, light, rapidly forced, and less saccharine crop. And on the other hand, the chemical sugar-maker set his skill to work to devise means of more fully extracting the sugar still, and of overcoming the difficulties which the presence of salt in the juice had hitherto thrown in his way. And thus, by improving in different directions, the two interests are gradually ceasing to clash, and at the present moment a mutually advancing prosperity binds together more and more the chemical manufacturer and the chemical farmer on the alluvials of the Elbe.

We have already alluded to the importance of the beet-sugar industry to the continent of Europe. But the reader will see, from what we have just said, that it has a relative as well as a positive importance, very similar to that which the arts of brewing and distilling have in this country. It cannot flourish anywhere without causing the agriculture of the place to flourish along with it. A necessary condition to the establishment of a flourishing sugar-manufactory, is the existence of well-cultivated farms, and skilful farmers in the neighbourhood. The erection of such works, therefore, is a positive and direct means of promoting agriculture, by affording a tempting and constant market for an important part of the yearly produce. This is no doubt one of the reasons why the German governments have given so many encouragements of late years to the extension of this branch of manufacture, and why the astute government of Russia should have incited the nobles of the empire to exert themselves in its behalf in the various provinces of the Czar’s dominion. Russia, in consequence, possesses a greater number of beet-sugar works than any other country. Even as far as Odessa the culture has penetrated, and is now carried on.

Mr Oliphant, who recently visited the shores of the Black Sea, informs us that—

“Lately, in the neighbourhood of Odessa, the cultivation of beetroot, and extraction of sugar from it, was carried on to a considerable extent by the large landed proprietors of the adjoining provinces. Notwithstanding most praiseworthy exertions, these aristocratic beetroot growers were totally unable to make their speculation remunerative, and many of them must have been ruined had not the legislature stepped in and prohibited the sale of any other sugar. The consequence is, that the inhabitants are obliged to buy sugar at a hundred per cent higher than the price at which our colonial sugar could be imported into the country. It is some satisfaction to know that, notwithstanding this iniquitous regulation, combined with the system of forced labour, the beetroot growers are unable to cultivate with profit.”^[31]

But the train is in motion, the trumpet has sounded, and we are off through the darkness, and along the slightly undulating flats, on our way to Berlin. We found ourselves in company with a pleasant Frenchman en route from the embassy in London to the embassy in Berlin; and before our most unanimous deliberations on the affairs of the East had come to a close, we found ourselves at the end of our journey, and by 10 P.M. had reached our quarters in the Hôtel de Russie.

Berlin, how many beauties and attractions dost thou present to the stranger who steps out for the first time from this hotel, and, walking a few yards, places himself in the centre of the Unter den Linden, with his back to the river and bridge. Leisurely he feasts his eyes as he turns, now to the right and now to the left, now gazing down the long vista which terminates at the Brandenburg gate, now turning towards the arsenal and the museum, and now farther round towards the cathedral and the royal palace. Architecture, sculpture, and the arts of decoration and design, all contribute their attractions; massing, grouping, and colouring, add their effects upon the intelligent eye, while the heart is touched by the mementoes of the past which here and there arrest his glance, the grateful homage to the departed which the monumental statuary exhibits, the love of country breathing from brief but frequent inscriptions, and over all the love and veneration of both king and people for the Great Frederick, the founder of the Prussian fortunes. Deeper than all the other sights which thus first arrest the stranger’s eye, the monument to Frederick and his times will touch and impress the sensitive stranger. On his war steed there he rides, the iron man, the observed of all eyes, surrounded, it is true, by the generals who rose to fame beneath his banner, but not less conspicuously by the statesmen who led his civil armies, by the poets and great writers whom he esteemed and imitated, by the advancers of science in his time, and by those who ornamented his reign through the decorations of the fine arts,—all here find their place side by side, attendant upon the great monarch, at once giving and receiving lustre. It is a monument to the age rather than to the man—or, we might rather say, to the man and his age; and the lover of abstract art, and the worshipper of modern progress, will equally admire the design and execution of this interesting monument. We were touched by a feature in the inscription, which others have no doubt noticed as well as ourselves. The words of the whole inscription are: “To Frederick the Great, Frederick-William III., 1850, completed by Frederick-William IV., 1851.” Two kings emulous of the distinction of dedicating this monument to their illustrious predecessor! This scarcely expresses more highly the mutual veneration of both father and son for the national hero whose blood they boast of, than it bespeaks their pride in the work of art it was their happiness to be able to dedicate to his memory. How many will admire and cherish in it the genius of art, who will deplore and condemn the genius of war to which the great hero offered his most ardent and most costly sacrifices!

Yet the most deadly haters of war cannot but acknowledge that there is something sublime in the special features of Frederick’s character, which the letters recently published have disclosed. Oppressed by the anxieties consequent upon military disasters, and apprehensive of further defeats, in which he sees the possibility of himself being taken prisoner, he writes to his minister, and prescribes the course to be taken for the safety of the royal family in such an eventuality. And then, speaking of his own possible position, and of the compulsion which might be exercised upon him as a prisoner, he commands them to attend to no instructions or orders he may issue while detained a prisoner, and no longer to be regarded as a free agent. He is of a great mind who knows, can anticipate, and provide against the special or possible weaknesses of his bodily nature. And so Frederick, dreading what impatience for liberty or personal suffering might possibly force from him in such circumstances, lays upon his servants, while free, his heaviest commands to regard him no more than one dead, should he happen to become a prisoner, and to consider not his state or condition or written orders then, but solely the tenor and substance of what he now writes, viewed in connection with the interests of his people and his country. How many men have lived to despise themselves for acts of weakness, of folly, or of vice, which in feeble hours they have committed! Here we have the philosophical hero providing for the possible contingency of such an hour of bodily weakness or mental imbecility casting its heavy shadows over him! There is in this trait something not only for descendants to be proud of, and for a people to venerate, but for strangers of other nations also to respect and admire.

The character of the society in Berlin is familiar to most travellers. To those who have access to diplomatic circles, the evening reunions in the hotels of the ambassadors are described as agreeable in a high degree. But of real Berlin hospitality in the houses of the Berlin aristocracy, or of the nobles whose domains are in the provinces, little is either to be seen or said. We had no leisure to seek an entrée to the houses of imperial and kingly representatives, then over head and ears in notes, rejoinders, protocols, and despatches, and teased every hour of the night by thundering couriers and impatient despatch-boxes. We had, indeed, occasion to experience, as we had long before done in St Petersburg, the kindness and affable attention of Lord Bloomfield, and were happy to find that his long residence abroad had not lessened his keen sympathy with English feeling, nor his contact with Prussian vacillation made him undecided as to the conduct and policy of England in the then approaching crisis.

But Berlin boasts a scientific society, to which it was our pride and happiness to obtain an easy introduction. Every one is acquainted with some of the numerous names which adorn the list of scientific men who form the educational staff of the University of Berlin, or who hold official situations of various kinds in the Prussian capital. No city in Germany can boast of so many men of real eminence as illustrators and discoverers in the several walks of science; and nowhere will you find a pleasanter, franker, happier, more unpretending, jolly, and good-natured a set of evening companions, over a bottle of good Rhine wine and a petit souper, than these same distinguished philosophers!

One of the most agreeable of the evening meetings at which the stranger may have the fortune to meet the greater part of the men of science in Berlin, is that of the Geographical Society. The President is the distinguished Carl Ritter, who was in the chair when we attended, and around him were many whom we had come to see. But on turning over the leaves of the book of travels of our friend Professor Silliman, of which we have already spoken, we find an account of the meeting of the same Society at which he was present two years before, which appears so exact a photograph of the one at which we assisted that we shall not scruple to quote his words.

“Several papers were read on geographical subjects, and different gentlemen were called upon to elucidate particular topics. Their course is, not only to illustrate topography, but all allied themes, including the different branches of natural history and of meteorology that are connected with the country under consideration. In this manner the discussions become fruitful of instruction and entertainment, and the interest is greatly enhanced.

“A supper followed in the great room of the Society. Among the eminent men present whose fame was known to us at home were Professor Ehrenberg, the philosopher of the microscopic world; the two brothers Rose; Gustav, of mineralogy, and Heinrich, of analytical chemistry; Dove, the meteorologist and physicist; Magnus, of electro-magnetism; Poggendorff, the editor of the well-known journal which bears his name; Mitscherlich, of general and applied chemistry, besides many others almost equally distinguished. We received a warm welcome to Berlin, and throughout the evening the most kind and cordial treatment.”^[32]

We, too, had the pleasure of eating and drinking with all these great men. We had the satisfaction also, among the papers read, to hear one by our friend Professor Ehrenberg, on microscopic forms of life which exist in the bottom of the Atlantic, under the enormous pressure of a thousand feet of water. They are found in a fine calcareous mud or chalk which covers the sea-bottom, and which was fished up from this and still greater depths by Lieutenant Maury, of the United States’ coast survey. Ehrenberg, as a scientific man, enjoys the singular distinction, we might almost say felicity, not only of having discovered a new world, but of living to see it very widely explored, and of having himself been, and still being, its chief investigator. His microscope and his pencil are as obedient to him as ever, eye and hand as piercing, as steady, and as truthful as ever; and, to all appearance, microscopic investigation, and the classification of microscopic life, must assume a new phase under the guidance of some new genius, before Ehrenberg cease both himself to steer, and mainly to man and work, the ship which he built, and rigged, and launched, and for so many years has guided on its voyage of discovery.

Among the curiosities of the microscopic world which Ehrenberg has investigated, we may notice in this place, as likely to interest our readers, his singular suggestion in relation to the foundations of the city of Berlin. This city stands in the midst of an infertile flat plain, through which the river Spree wends its slow way, passing through the centre of the city itself. Beneath the present “streets of palaces and walks of state” exists a deep bog of black peat, through which sinkings and borings in search of water have frequently been carried. This peat, at the depth of fifty feet below the surface, swarms at this moment with infusorial life. Countless myriads of microscopic animals, at this great depth, beneath the pressure of the superincumbent earth and streets, live and die in the usual course of microscopic life. They move among each other, and wriggle, to human sense, invisible; so that the whole mass of peaty matter is in a state of constant and usually insensible movement. But in Berlin the houses crack at times, and yawn and suffer unaccountable damage, even where the foundations seem to have been laid with care. And this, our philosopher has conjectured, may be owing to the changes and motions of his invisible world—the sum of the almost infinite insensible efforts of the tiny forms producing at times, when they conspire in the same direction, the sensible and visible movements of the surface by which the houses that stand upon it are deranged! The conjecture is curious, the cause a singular one, but who shall say that it is inadequate to the effect?

Another among the names above mentioned—that of Mitscherlich—stands in relation to the crystalline forms of matter in a nearly similar relation to that which Ehrenberg occupies in regard to microscopic life. The discoverer, at an early period of his life, of what is called the doctrine of Isomorphism, he has lived to see his discovery assume a most important place in chemico-crystallographic science, and to branch out into various kindred lines of research; and at the same time has the happy satisfaction of feeling that he has himself always led the progress, and that he is acknowledged everywhere as still the principal advancer and head authority in the department of knowledge he was the first to open up.

But among the scientific men of Berlin, we must spare a few words for one who shines among them as the acknowledged chief—the veteran and venerable Alexander Von Humboldt. Here is Professor Silliman’s description of the old gentleman, as the American Professor saw him, by appointment, in the autumn of 1851:—

“I then introduced my son, and we were at once placed at our ease. His bright countenance expresses great benevolence, and from the fountains of his immense stores of knowledge a stream almost constant flowed for nearly an hour. He was not engrossing, but yielded to our prompting, whenever we suggested an inquiry, or alluded to any particular topic; for we did not wish to occupy the time with our own remarks any further than to draw him out. He has a perfect command of the best English, and speaks the language quite agreeably. There is no stateliness or reserve about him; and he is as affable as if he had no claims to superiority. His voice is exceedingly musical, and he is so animated and amiable that you feel at once as if he were an old friend. His person is not much above the middle size; he stoops a little, but less than most men at the age of eighty-two. He has no appearance of decrepitude; his eyes are brilliant, his complexion light; his features and person are round although not fat, his hair thin and white, his mind very active, and his language brilliant, and sparkling with bright thoughts. We retired greatly gratified, and the more so, as a man in his eighty-third year might soon pass away.”—Vol. ii. p. 318.

Two years more had passed away, when we were honoured with an audience of the distinguished philosopher during our stay in Berlin. Age sits lightly upon his active head. Still full of unrecorded facts and thoughts, he labours daily in committing them to the written page,—for the grave, he tells you, waits him early now, and he must finish what he has to do before he dies. And yet he is as full at the same time of the discoveries and new thoughts of others, and as eager as the youngest student of nature in gathering up fresh threads of knowledge, and in following the advances of the various departments of natural science. And in so doing it is a characteristic of his generous mind to estimate highly the labours of others, to encourage the young and aspiring investigator to whatever department of nature he may be devoted, and to aid him with his counsel, his influence, and his sympathy. We found him congratulating himself on the possession of a power with which few really scientific men are gifted—that of making science popular—of drawing to himself, and to the knowledge he had to diffuse, the regard and attention of the masses of the people in his own and other countries, by a clear method, and an agreeable and attractive style in writing. “To make discoveries plain and popular is, perhaps, more difficult,” he said to us, “than to make the discoveries themselves.” And the feeling of the present time seems very much to run in sympathy with this sentiment. The power of diffusing is a gift perhaps as high, and often far more valuable to the community, than the power of discovering, and it should be esteemed and honoured accordingly. He expressed himself as especially pleased that no less than four original translations of one of his late books have appeared in the English tongue. In a work so honoured by publishers’ regards, there must exist some rare and remarkable element of popularity which our scientific writers would do well to study.

Professor Silliman, in his description of Humboldt, scarcely seized the most salient and characteristic points of his personal appearance. Fifty commonplace men have “benevolent countenances, lively and simple manners, and persons which are round though not fat.” But look, gentle reader, at the picture of the venerable sage as it hangs there before us. What strikes you first? Is it not that lofty, towering, massive brow, which seems all too large, as it overarches his deep-sunk eyes, for the dimensions of the body and the general size of the head itself? And then, does not the character of the eye arrest you—the thinking, reflecting, observing eye—which, while it looks at you quietly and calmly, seems to be leisurely looking into you, and reflecting at the same time upon what you have said or suggested to his richly-stored mind? There is benevolence, it is true, in the mouth, and something of the satisfied consciousness of a well-spent life, the more grateful to feel that it is almost universally acknowledged. But there is tenacity of purpose in the massive chin, and indications of that rare perseverance which for so long a life has made him continuously, and without ceasing, augment the accumulated knowledge of his wide experience, and as continuously strive to spread it abroad.

The celebrity of Berlin among German cities depends in part upon its architectural and other decorations, but chiefly upon the scientific and literary men whom, during the last half-century, it has been the pride and policy of successive governments to attach to its young university. Where so many high-schools exist, as is the case in Germany, the resort of students can only be secured by the residence of teachers of greater genius and wider distinction. Fellowships and other pecuniary temptations do not invite young talent to the universities there as with us. Place a man of high reputation in a scientific chair in a puny university like Giessen, and students will flock to his prelections. Remove him to Berlin or Heidelberg, and all Germany will send its most ardent natures to sit at his feet in his new home. The love of knowledge carries them to college, the fame of its professors decides in which college they shall enrol themselves. To the sedulous choice of the best men from the various schools of Germany, and to great care in rearing and fostering the best of its own alumni, the university of Berlin owes its rapid growth in numbers and in reputation, and the city of Berlin the agreeable circle of distinguished philosophers, among whom the intellectual stranger finds at once a ready welcome and a great enjoyment.

Though Berlin is actually south of London, yet its inland position gives it a winter climate of much greater seventy. It derives, also, a peculiar character from the cold north wind which, descending from the frozen Baltic, sweeps across the flat country by which this sea is separated from Berlin. These winds gave to the air, during a portion of our stay, the feeling as if it was loaded with minute icicles, which impinged upon and stuck in the throat as the breath descended. The public statuary, and the plants in the public walks, were mostly done up in straw to keep them from injury; scarcely an evergreen was anywhere to be seen, and, as in Russia, our common ivy was cultivated in flowerpots, and preserved as a hothouse plant.

In our walks through the city, our attention was attracted one day by a sign-board announcing a “Cichorien fabrique und eichel caffee handlung”—a chicory and acorn coffee-manufactory. As the latter beverage at least was a novelty to us, we entered the premises and explored the rude manufactory. Attending a huge revolving cylinder, something like a gas-retort, stood one unclean workman, while on the floor at his feet was a heap of dirty half-charred rubbish, which we learned was the roasted chicory. Watching another machine, from which streamed a tiny rivulet of coarse brown powder, stood a boy, who, with the master, completed the staff of the establishment. The one machine roasted and the other ground the materials, while place and people were of the untidiest kind. We saw and bought samples of both varieties of so-called coffee. The chicory, as the master told us without any reserve, was made up half of chicory and half of turnips, roasted and ground together. The latter admixture made it sweeter. The acorn coffee, made from acorns roasted and ground, was made, he said, and sold in large quantities. It was very cheap, was given especially to children, and was substituted for coffee in many public establishments for the young. This may be done with a medicinal rather than an economical view, as acorn coffee finds a place in the Prussian and other German pharmacopœias, and is considered to have a wholesome effect upon the blood, especially of scrofulous persons. It is, however, manufactured and used in many parts of Germany for the sole purpose of adulterating genuine coffee, and it has been imported into this country for the same purpose, chiefly, we believe, from Hamburg.

It is very interesting, in an economico-physiological point of view, to mark and trace the historical changes which take place in the diet and beverages of nations. The potato came from the west, and by diffusing itself over Europe has changed the daily diet, the yearly agriculture, and the social habits of whole kingdoms. Tea came from the east, and has equally changed the drinks, the tastes, the bodily habits and cravings, and we believe also very materially the intellectual character and general mental and bodily temperament, of probably a hundred millions of men, who now consume it in Europe and America. Coffee, coming in like manner from the east, has in some countries of Europe turned domestic life, we may say, literally out of doors. The coffee-house and living in public have in France and elsewhere superseded the domestic circle and the quiet amenities of the home hearth. And now, to succeed and supersede both coffee and tea, we are ourselves in the west now growing and manufacturing chicory, which in its turn is destined materially to alter the taste, and probably to change the constitution, and thus to affect the mental habits, dispositions, and tendencies of the people who consume it. In chemical composition, and consequent physiological action upon the system, this substance differs essentially from tea and coffee, and, whether for good or for evil, it must gradually produce a change of temperament which we cannot at present specially predict,—that is to say, if the consumption spread and increase as it has done in recent years. For, little comparatively as we have yet heard of this plant in England, the European consumption of chicory, mixed and unmixed, amounts already to not much less than one hundred millions of pounds.

Between Brussels and Berlin, when seen on a Sunday, much difference will strike the English traveller. He is now in a Protestant country; and though the bill-sticker announces balls and concerts, and open theatres for the evening, yet the Sunday mornings are quiet in the streets, and the bustle of business or of holiday pleasures in no offensive way obtrudes itself upon the attention. The tendency also, during the present reign, is to make the observance of the day more strict still, though there, of course, as at home, opposition shows itself, and diverse opinions prevail. Among the four hundred and sixty thousand inhabitants of Berlin, there are comparatively few Roman Catholics. Two churches and a chapel are all the places of public worship they possess; and hence the passing to and fro of priestly vestments as we walk the streets does not strike the eye here as it does in Brussels.

But at a time like this, politics are likely to be talked of in the military capital of Prussia quite as much as either religion or science. As to the Russian question, three main things, difficult to reconcile, embarrass the Prussian policy. The people hate Russia—barely tolerate the supposed sympathy of the court of Berlin with that of St Petersburg—and would not suffer the King to take part with the Czar. Then both court and people equally hate and distrust the French. They fear to be robbed of their Rhenish Provinces by a sudden incursion from France; and that, were Prussia once engaged in a struggle with Russia, the occasion would be too favourable for the French to resist. The life of Louis Napoleon is uncertain, his death would be followed by a revolution, and this very probably by war upon their neighbours. With England they would unite, but they cannot cordially do so with a country they talk of as fickle and faithless France. And as a third main element in the question comes the jealousy of Austria. Berlin and Vienna watch each the motions of the other. If the one were to commit itself, the course of the other would be clear; but so long as neither feels that it can heartily trust in France or safely defy Russia, a union between the two on a German basis, equally anti-Russian and anti-French, such as has recently been announced, seems the only safe solution possible. But cool reasoning on probabilities and situations is not to be expected from a Prussian more than from an Englishman—less, perhaps, from the former than the latter, since, in Prussia, patriotism is always associated with more or less of that military feeling and ardour with which a three years’ service in the army more or less inoculates all; and still less can it be expected from an unstable and wavering Prussian King, whom sympathy, more than duty, bends and binds.

Among the items in Berlin newspapers which daily amused us more than their politics, were the marriage advertisements which have their constant corner in the Berliner Intelligenz Blatt. Here is a bit of conceit. “A man in his thirtieth year wishes to marry. To ladies who possess a fortune of four to five thousand dollars or upwards, and who have no objections to become acquainted with persons of good character, I hereby give the opportunity to send in their addresses to,” &c. &c. Side by side with this we have—“An active and respectable widow, about thirty years of age, who has a secure pension, wishes to connect herself in marriage with a man of business, and requests in all negotiations the most inviolable secresy. Addresses to be sent,” &c. &c. Some of the ardent male candidates for connubial bliss put forth the melting plea that they want to marry, but have no female acquaintances; while the females, on the other hand, urge that they have no protectors, and in these piteous circumstances both sexes find an excuse for making their wishes known through the public prints.

But we linger, not unnaturally perhaps, but somewhat long for our narrative, in the city of Berlin. The passports are again viséd, however, and stowed away in our safest pocket, the trumpet sounds anew, and we are off to Stettin. Through flats and sands and moors as before, and occasional patches of pine forest, we pass for the most part of the way. Here and there a stretch of poor corn-land breaks upon the monotony, and occasional undulations of the surface confine the view. But no home-like fences divide the land, nor signs of comfort make up for the natural nakedness and repulsive aspect of the bleak-looking country. This character of the land and landscape prevails both east and west along the southern shores of the Baltic Sea, not only in Prussia, but in the Danish appendages of Holstein and Sleswick, and across to the mouth of the Elbe. Yet there are some so little experienced in the features of a fair landscape, or so patriotically blind, or so poetically disposed by nature, as to see beauties even in these unpromising countries, and to derive a pleasure from passing through them which the majority of travellers can scarcely appreciate. Madame Pfeiffer crossed this tract of country on her way from Hamburg through Holstein to Kiel, in which route we also remember sands and heaths somewhat less forbidding than those which intervene between Ungernsunde and Stettin. This matter-of-fact old lady, who was already beyond the age of poetry, thus speaks of what she saw and heard as she glided along—

“The whole distance of seventy miles was passed in three hours; a rapid journey, but agreeable only by its rapidity. The whole neighbourhood presents only widely-extended plains, turf bogs, and moorlands, sandy places and heaths, interspersed with a little meadow and arable land. From the nature of the soil, the water in the ditches and fields looked black as ink.”

And then, in the way of reflection, she adds—

“The little river Eider would have passed unnoticed by me, had not some of my fellow-passengers made a great feature of it. In the finest countries, I have found the natives far less enthusiastic about what was really grand and beautiful, than they were here in praise of what was neither the one nor the other. My neighbour, a very agreeable lady, was untiring in her laudation of her beautiful native land. In her eyes, the crippled wood was a splendid park, the waste moorland an inexhaustible field for contemplation, and every trifle a matter of real importance. In my heart I wished her joy of her fervid imagination; but, unfortunately, my colder nature would not catch the infection.”^[33]

This region, so tiresome to the eye, is yet interesting to the student of the pre-historic condition of this vast flat region. Covered everywhere with a deep layer of drifted materials, which consist, for the most part, of sand, sometimes of gravel, and more rarely of clay, no rocks are seen in situ for thousands of square miles. But strewed, now on the surface, now at depths of two or three feet, and now beneath fifty or sixty feet of sand or gravel, lie countless blocks of foreign stone, of every size, from that of the fort to that of a small house. These the waters of the once larger Baltic brought down ages ago from the rocky cliffs of the Finnish and Bothnian gulfs. During that very recent geological epoch which immediately preceded the occupation of the country by living races, these flats of North Germany, as far south and east as the mountains of Silesia, were covered by the waters of the Baltic Sea. Yearly over this sea the northern ice drifted, bearing with it blocks of granite and other old rocks as it floated southward, dropping masses here and there by the way as the ice-ships melted before the summer sun. But in greater numbers they bore them to the shores on which the ice floes stranded and strewed them in heaps along the flanks of the Silesian hills. Hence now, when the land has risen above the sea, the huge stones so transported, age after age, are found at every step, if not on the very surface, yet always at some small depth beneath the sand, or gravel, or clay, or in the deep peat which covers so much of the wide area. And, piled up in heaps on the slopes of the Silesian mountains, at heights of nine hundred to twelve hundred feet, the traveller wonders to see the same distant-borne strangers, unlike any of the living rocks on which they rest, and which talk intelligibly to the geologist of their ancient homes in the frozen wilds of Scandinavia.

Admired by the students of pre-historic physical geography, these boulder-stones are prized and sought for by the inhabitants of this wide tract of rockless plains. Though hard and intractable beneath the chisel and hammer, these hard granitic and metamorphic masses are the only durable building materials which are within their reach. Hence all solid constructions are formed of them, and the houses of wood generally stand on a substratum of these more lasting stones. In this way the traveller sees them employed in town, village, and farm. Palace, fortress, and cottage are equally indebted to the antediluvian icebergs of the old-world Baltic. And thus near the ancient towns, and wherever frequent people live, few of the unmoved boulders catch the traveller’s eye as he rides over the unenclosed plains around them. But they occur singly, in groups, and in rapid succession, when he penetrates to the less-peopled interior, or explores the primeval forests, or where railway cuttings dip deeply into the drift, or clay-beds are worked for economical purposes, as we see them in the vicinity of Berlin.

Stettin, well known to our Baltic merchants and shipowners, and famed among the fortresses of Germany, stands near the mouth of the Oder—where the river, escaping from the long flats through which it has wound its slow way, is about to expand into a broad lake. This lake, called the Haaf, would in reality be a wide firth or arm of the sea, were it not that its mouth is blocked up by the islands of Usedom and Wollin, which leaves three channels for the escape of the waters of the Oder. The central channel, called the Swine, is the deepest and most used; but all are difficult and narrow, and easy of defence against attacks by sea. The Silesian commerce has its principal outlet by the Oder, which connects Stettin with Frankfort-on-the-Oder and with Breslau. Above the town of Stettin, for the two or three last miles, the river winds, and again and again returns upon itself, through the almost perfect flat—and even throws off several small arms, which flow to the Haaf through channels of their own, before the main stream passes the city. To look down upon these windings from the tower of the old palace, when the bright morning sun rests upon the valley, reminded us of the winding Forth, as it is seen by thousands yearly from the beautiful summits of our well-beloved Ochil Hills. Beyond this distance the whole valley on either side is hemmed in by a lofty natural embankment of sand and gravel, the ancient limits of the Haaf when the land was lower and its waters covered the whole flat. The embankment which thus girdles the valley, and skirts at a distance the river flanks, consists for the most part of a ridge of ancient downs, such as we see on our own sandy shores where sea-born winds blow often inland; which hide Flemish towns and steeples from the eyes of the passing sailor; and which in Holland occur far from the modern shores, telling how widely in former times the sea asserted her dominion. Through this amphitheatre of sandy ridges the river forces its way into the flat valley; and it is the natural strength which the ridge possesses on the right bank, where the town now stands, of which art has taken advantage in erecting the strong fortifications which make Stettin the key of Pomerania. In the city itself there is not much to see even in summer. At the time of our visit the river was frozen up, some inches of snow covered the ground, the people had already commenced the winter amusements to which snowy climates offer so many inducements, and a single day was enough to satisfy our taste for sight-seeing. The rumours of war here, as elsewhere, were agitating the Prussian population. The course that our Government might take naturally touched very nearly the interests of a city which, by its commerce, was concerned for the openness of the sea to its ships; which, as a fortress of the first class, was liable to bombardment and siege in the event of hostilities by land; and which, by its nearness to the Russian territory, was so likely to be assailed should war commence. House property in the city was said to have already fallen much in value, and commercial speculation for the time was in a great measure paralysed.

But we were bound for West Prussia. We had a desire to see the manners and manège upon an old Prussian barony, where an ancient schloss still overlooks lake, field, and forest, and a numerous peasantry, though not bound like serfs to the soil, still pay so many days of bodily toil for the house and land which they hold of the lord. By the Posen railway, therefore, we left Stettin, and in four hours reached Woldenburg, whence four hours more by extra post brought us to the village of Tütz. Here a welcome awaited us from our friends in the old palace, while a natural interest, not unmixed with a little wonder, recommended us to the kind consideration of the villagers. Many of these simple people had never before seen a real live John Bull, and could not help suspecting a connection of some sort between the visit of “die zwei Englander” and the rumours of war which even in this secluded spot were already agitating their minds.

The lands attached to the old schloss in which we found ourselves, were in former times very extensive. When there were Dukes of Brandenburg, the lord of the place, it is said, was wont to go to war with his neighbours; on one occasion, when taken prisoner, he was obliged to ransom himself by ceding to the duke a large forest, which is still the property of the Crown. But the castle has passed through several hands since, and the whole estate now includes only twenty thousand acres, worth in fee about £30,000. Of these, about nine thousand are in forest, chiefly pine, four thousand in lakes and bogs, four thousand in arable culture, and three thousand rented in farms. These divisions include a considerable quantity of pasture and meadow land, and on the edge of the forests the sheep find food in summer. The soil is generally light and sandy, with a bed of clay marl at a greater or less depth below. The custom of the Prussian proprietors is to farm their own land, and thus they have extensive establishments, and carry on various branches of rural economy. The timber is felled, and either sold on the spot to merchants who come from a distance to buy, or is split up into billets and sent to the large towns for firewood; or, where a shipping place is accessible, is sawn into balks (balken) suitable for the English market. The pines are principally Scotch firs (Pinus sylvaticus); and here and there at the outskirts, or in the open glades of the forest, are seen magnificent trees of this species throwing out picturesque old arms, such as at times arrest the eye and step of the traveller in our Scottish highlands. Such he may see, for instance, on the borders of Loch Tula—the straggling relics of what were great forests in the days of our forefathers.

The arable land is chiefly under rye, of which great breadths are occasionally seen without fences or divisions. Already, where the snow had melted, the surface of these rye-fields was beautifully green. The average yield scarcely exceeds twenty bushels an acre, and it is often very much less. Were the labour and manure expended upon half the land, the profit, as our own experience has shown, would on the whole be much increased. Few root crops are grown, and these only on the low, black, and boggy land. The manures employed are what is made by the cattle and sheep, marl, black earth (moder) from the peaty bottoms, the pine leaves which are collected in the forests, and are known under the name of waldstrew (forest straw), and the wood and peaty ashes from their fires. It is common to grow rape for the seed; and then the proprietor, if he has the means, erects a crushing-mill, uses the cake for his cattle, and sells the oil. Of rape-cake it is usual to give about a quarter of a pound a-day to the horses—their other food being oats, pease, and rye, mixed in equal quantities, and given three times a-day with chopped straw ad libitum. Of his potatoes the lord makes brandy, and feeds his stock on the refuse which remains in the still. Thus, he is a distiller as well as an oil-crusher, and a distillery in most parts of Germany is a usual appendage to the farm. Only very small, usually waxy, potatoes are retained for table use, the large and mealy ones being given either to the pigs or to the brandy-maker. Then the lakes yield their share of revenue. They are fished in winter, with nets introduced through holes in the ice; and the take from the lakes in this quarter is sent to the market of Berlin. Thus the lord is a fish-merchant also. Some proprietors, again, begrudge the waste of wood ashes upon the land; and as these readily melt into glass, another way of adding to the revenue is to build a glass-house. Hence many small glass-houses are scattered about in the midst of the forests, and another complication is added to the affairs and the manifold accounts of the North Prussian landlord. If he possess a bed of good marl, he burns it into lime with his waste timber, and both sells and uses it. If he find good clay, he makes bricks and coarse pottery. Thus he attempts to develop everything, to turn everything into money. He is the sole capitalist. There is no division of labour. He monopolises all trades and wholesale commerce. He has large concerns, various establishments, numerous servants, intricate accounts, and withal, as we Englanders would expect, it is only one man here and there who makes things yearly better, and finally enriches himself. Thus the Prussian aristocracy are livers in the country, full of affairs, rarely reside in Berlin, and at the most come for a month or two to apartments in a hotel, and attend a few state balls and receptions given by the royal family, and return again to their country habits. Amid the limited society of the unproductive sandy plains these habits not unfrequently degenerate.

Upon this estate two farms were let to tenants. We visited one of them. It was let on a lease for fifteen years, contained 2000 acres of corn-land, and 550 of meadow. The rent was 1800 dollars in money, 200 in kind, and about 500 in taxes—in all, about 2500 dollars, or a dollar (3s.) an acre. The tenant had upon it 800 sheep, 14 cows, 18 draught-oxen, and 10 horses. Twelve families of labourers were lodged upon the farm, and extra labour was employed as required. Everything in the way of stock and implements was defective. The sheep are kept under cover in the winter. They are fed on hay, the breeding ewes receiving, besides, chopped turnips and carrots. The sheep-houses, both here and elsewhere, we found to be warm and comfortable. The lord worked his own land with 64 horses and 76 draught-oxen, and had a yearly increasing flock of sheep, amounting at present to 4500.

The farm labourers are but poorly off. Those who live on the farm (the hausinnen) receive for the man’s wage four silver groschen, and for the woman’s three silver groschen a-day. (Five silver groschen make an English sixpence.) They have a house, for which each of them, the man and woman, must pay two days a week in summer, one day and a half in autumn, and half a day in the three first months of the year. They are allowed also two acres of corn-land, and a third of an acre for a garden. They have pasture for a cow, and are permitted to cut the inferior wood on the heath for fuel, and to gather the pine-needles from the forest for manure. Day-labourers, not resident on the farm, receive 5 silver groschen a-day—the unhappy sixpence of our Irish peasant.

There are on the outside, and here and there indenting the large estate, numerous small properties of from five to eighty acres, formerly belonging to the lord, and many of them owing him still a yearly acknowledgment. These people, though in a sense independent, yet upon such land are generally poor. They keep one or two horses, or two cows, to plough their light sandy soil, from three to thirty sheep, and a few pigs. With a single horse a man will work his farm of forty or fifty acres. Milk is their principal diet, and many never eat meat once a year, unless it be a bit of their own home-fed pork.

In this part of Prussia the people are nearly all Roman Catholics. Most of the traffic is in the hands of Jews. Each sect has its own place of worship and its own school in the village. The Roman Catholic priest is nominated by the lord, and the evangelical minister and the Jewish rabbi must both be approved by him. There are six schools on the estate, which are under government inspection, and of which the salaries of the masters are paid by the estate. Religious instruction is not excluded from the schools, but each denomination has here at least its own school. The sectarian spirit is very bitter, especially on the part of the ignorant Romanists, against the evangelicals, whose church had gone down, but has lately been rebuilt, very much to the dissatisfaction of the dominant party. Hence, though Protestant children are sometimes found in the Romanist school, the contrary is never the case. On occasion of our visit, a grander display than usual was got up by the priest in honour of the English visitors of our host. The village Schüzerei, sixty strong, marched up on the Sunday morning, with music and banners, to escort us to church. The whole population had turned out to see the strangers. The church was crowded to suffocation; and to identify himself with the occasion, the priest got up a religious procession through and around the church. First went so many of the sharpshooters, carrying their muskets; next a party bearing the Virgin and Child under a canopy; then the Herrschaft from the schloss, with lighted candles in their hands; then the priest with the Host under a large canopy, borne by four men; and the procession was closed by the remainder of the armed Schüzer, and by men and women in great numbers from the congregation. Coming out at the west end of the church, it marched northwards round the church, through six inches of untrodden snow; and when the head of the procession again reached the west end, the priest stopped, and with him the people. He then elevated the Host, when down went men and women, all in adoration, kneeling in the cold snow. Our travelling-companion, who had never assisted at a Roman Catholic service, had accompanied the party to church, not knowing what awaited him, and he was indeed mortified when he found himself unintentionally, and from the goodness of his nature, involved in such an act of worship.

While the party were absent at church, we walked to an adjoining round hill for the purpose of enjoying the view, when, in a thin plantation which partially covered it, we stumbled upon the Jewish burying-ground. Scattered among the trees, here and there stood on end slabs of granite and other hard rock, split from the boulder-stones of which we have already spoken; and on the flat faces of these were graven large, beautifully clear, deeply cut, Hebrew characters, bearing, no doubt, the names and commemorating the virtues of the dead, and expressing the love and sorrow of the living. In this far-off region the lonely Hebrew graves, so far from the homes of the once-favoured people, recalled to our minds those distant days when the Euphrates saw them weeping disconsolate, and the oppressor, as now in Poland and its borders, treating them with contumely and despite.

“By the rivers of Babylon there we sat down; yea, we wept when we remembered Zion. We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof.

“For there they that carried us away captive required of us a song, and they that wasted us, mirth. Sing us one of the songs of Zion.

“How shall we sing the Lord’s song in a strange land?

“If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, may my right hand forget her cunning.

“If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth; if I prefer not Jerusalem above my chief joy.”

It is very remarkable to find three millions of Jews settled in this portion of Europe. It may have been that, in former ages, when the Roman Church persecuted them so madly, they found greater peace and safety near the limits of the Eastern and Western churches, where the power of both was somewhat lessened; but certainly, in modern times, the two million two hundred thousand who are subjects of the Czar might readily find a more comfortable home.

Among other things which will amuse the Englishman in Germany, and, if, like ourselves, he refreshes himself at times with a cup of good tea, may perchance annoy him occasionally, is the kind of beverage he will obtain under this name. In the hotels we had often experienced this, and we expected to have our tea weak enough in the schloss also. But a refinement we had heard of, but never met, here presented itself in the form of a tiny bottle of rum, which was handed round with the sugar and cream to give a flavour to the tea! This contrivance for giving the tea some taste and flavour, so much less simple, one would suppose, than adding more of the pure leaf, is common in other parts of Germany besides West Prussia. Here is a humorous passage from a recent work of fiction by a German baroness, which illustrates very graphically the Teutonic notions about tea-drinking.

“At this moment Walburg exclaimed, ‘The water boils!’ and they all turned towards the hearth. ‘How much tea shall I put into the tea-pot?’ asked Madame Berger, appealing to Hamilton.

‘The more you put in the better it will be,’ answered Hamilton, without moving.

‘Shall I put in all that is in this paper?’

Hamilton nodded, and the tea was made.

‘Ought it not to boil a little now?’

‘By no means.’

‘Perhaps,’ said Walburg, ‘a little piece of vanille would improve the taste.’

‘On no account,’ said Hamilton.

‘The best thing to give it a flavour is rum,’ observed Madame Berger.

‘I forbid the rum, though I must say the idea is not bad,’ said Hamilton, laughing.

Hildegarde put the tea-pot on a little tray, and left the kitchen just as her stepmother entered it.

His tea was unanimously praised, but Madame Rosenberg exhibited some natural consternation on hearing that the whole contents of her paper cornet, with which she had expected to regale her friends at least half-a-dozen times, had been inconsiderately emptied at once into the tea-pot!

‘It was no wonder the tea was good! English tea, indeed! Any one could make tea after that fashion! But then, to be sure, English people never thought about what anything cost. For her part, she found the tea bitter, and recommended a spoonful or two of rum.’ On her producing a little green bottle, the company assembled around her with their tea-cups, and she administered to each one two or three spoonfuls as they desired.”^[34]

Here our limits compel us to stop. After staying a few days at Tütz we returned upon our steps, again saw our friends at Berlin, thence came to Cologne in one day, to Ghent the second, and to London the third. We fell in with the Peace deputies on their way from St Petersburg, and divers other accidents happened to us which our most patient readers will thank us for passing by.

THE NATIONAL LIFE OF CHINA.

If it becomes one to know something of those with whom he is about to be brought into contact, it is high time the rest of the world were acquainting itself with that portion of the vast human family that has so long segregated itself upon the plains of China. The world seems to have entered again upon a migratory era of mankind, in which no longer solitary individuals are seen groping their way over land or over sea, in search of the excitement of adventure or the pleasure of acquiring strange knowledge; but whole nations are seen feverous with the passion for emigration, and throwing off their surplus swarms to settle in the more favoured places of the earth. Ireland is emptying itself upon America,—England and Scotland are peopling Australia; a restless host, 150,000 strong, yearly takes its march from the Continent, mostly for the New World;—while in America itself a similar movement is ever afoot, pressing peacefully from east to west, but not seldom dashing covetously against the crumbling States that line the coveted shores of the Mexican sea. We do not know if the Old World likewise, within its own bosom, is not on the eve of exhibiting a similar movement of nations—a heave and roll of people upon people, of north upon south—an overflowing of the long-pent-up barbaric energies of Muscovy over the crumbling States which fringe alike its European and Asiatic borders. But how different the impelling motive here, and how significant of the undeveloped state of the Russian compared with the Western world! It is the barbaric lust of territorial extension, the rude fervour of fanaticism, the sensual dream of luxury to be captured in the South;—in one word, it is the same spirit that animated the hordes of an Attila or Gengis Khan that now spreads its contagion among the Russians. They move, too, like an inert mass. There is no individual life in them, that culminating phase of civilisation,—no spontaneous and self-reliant action in the units of the mass. They move, not by virtue of an innate and self-directing force, but are swayed to and fro by the will of their Czar, as vastly and unresistingly as the slumbrous mass of ocean beneath the influence of the moon. They press southwards from their northern homes as the vast torpid mass of the glacier gravitates from its cradle in the snows, crushing its slow way down to the plain, and spreading a cold blight around in valleys that once bore the vine. The glacier soon melts when it overpasses the zone of cultivation; so, we trust, will the power of Russia when it strives to take hold of the seats of civilisation.

It is a fanatic but unholy crusade that now enlists the sympathies of the Slavonic millions; but it is peace and wisdom that elsewhere foster the spirit and guide the course of emigration. It is the effort of individuals to better themselves. The units of society are learning to think for themselves; and the spread of peace and tolerance, and the triumphs of mechanical invention, are laying “the world all before them where to choose.” It is a great thing to see this power of reflection and self-reliance spreading among mankind; for assuredly, wherever it is met with, it argues a stage of national development which only long centuries of civilisation suffice to produce. Such a faculty it is, fostered by the external circumstances which we have named above, which is now drawing those hermits of the world, the Chinese, from their long seclusion, and bringing them into yearly and fast-increasing contact with Europeans. Alike in California and Australia, in our West India colonies and in the islands of the Pacific, the Chinaman may be seen side by side with the European, the Negro, and the Malay; and as he immeasurably transcends the other coloured races in industry and intelligence, so not unfrequently he may compare with the European even in point of that business-like cast of intellect which we self-managing Anglo-Saxons so highly prize.

The Chinese are coming out into foreign lands to meet us, and we in turn are posting ourselves on their shores to become better acquainted with them. In fact, of late, China has been such a centre of interest, that almost every Power that has a navy, has a detachment of war-vessels cruising off its shores. Great Britain, America, France, Russia (not to speak of stray vessels from other Powers), are regularly represented by naval squadrons in its waters; so that China, the oldest and not least notable of existing empires, is actually revolutionising and reforming herself under the eyes of the leading representatives of the world’s civilisation. It is high time, then, we repeat, that Europe should know as much as possible of this vast Power that is now for the first time being linked into the community of nations. Every information respecting their character and customs has now a practical and more than ordinary value; and it is all the more wanted, inasmuch as no people appears hitherto to have been more imperfectly comprehended by the rest of the world. Twelve centuries before our era, we find them, by indisputable proof, in a condition of advanced civilisation. Not to speak of the larger items of civilisation, which we have discussed on former occasions, they were then in possession of gold and silver—had money, and kept accounts—had silks, dyed in many colours—leather, hemp, wine, jewels, ivory, carriages, horses, umbrellas, earthenware, &c.;—they had a literature, and a Board of History; and, moreover, a very complete ceremonial of observances, the empire being regulated with all the minute formality of a household, in conformity with its household origin. Arrived at that condition thirty centuries ago, the Chinese are commonly supposed to have remained nearly stationary ever since, and to offer at this day a living picture of the condition of their nation three thousand years ago. We recently showed, from the history of this curious people, how fallacious was this opinion, alike in regard to their religion and their government, and filled in with broad touch the more salient features which have characterised the material and intellectual career of the nation throughout its forty centuries of vicissitude. Now, dispensing with abstract disquisitions, we desire to present to our readers a rapid coup-d’œil of the national life of China, especially in its more practical and social aspects.

In length of years the Chinese Empire has no rival; nor is it easy to find, in the rest of the world’s history, any States which may profitably be paralleled with it. In point of extent and populousness, the only ancient empire that can at all compare with it is the Roman; yet, in almost every other respect, they differ as widely as it is possible for any two States to do. Rome founded its empire wholly by the sword, China mainly by the ploughshare; the former by daring soldiers, the latter by plodding peasants. The conquests of Rome were those of a city that came to cast its chains over a world; the triumphs of China were those of a prolific nation, that absorbed its very conquerors. The splendid talents of the Roman generals, the ardour of the citizens to extend the republic, the thirst for glory, and the matchless skill and self-devotion of the legionaries, may find nothing equal among the sons of Han; but these latter produced heroes of peace, who instructed the people in industry and the useful arts, and increased by their skill the riches and population of the country. The former were masters in the art of destroying, the latter in that of preserving and multiplying human life. In China we must not (at least nowadays) look for the noble sentiments and grand actions which immortalised Greece and Rome. We find there an industrious but common-minded race, which strives stoutly to maintain its existence, however its numbers may multiply, and which finds no heart to sacrifice life for glory, no time to postpone business for politics. The rice-bearing plains are the fields of their glory, the centre of their hopes; and as they trudge forth to their never-ceasing labours, thus they sing:—

The art of agriculture is coeval with the first establishment of the empire; and to this useful employment China mainly owes its grandeur and populousness. The enormous numbers of the people has caused the utmost attention to be paid to the art, and the cultivation of much of the country approaches as near as possible to garden-farming. Some parts of the country are mountainous and infertile, but the greater proportion of it is fruitful, and densely studded with houses. The hills and mountain-sides are terraced; the rocky fragments are gathered off the slopes, and formed into retaining-walls; and the wonders of Chinese irrigation have never been rivalled. Upon the decease of the parents, lands are divided among the male children, and, like all Orientals, the people cleave with great fondness to their patrimonial acres. Any one, by simply applying to Government, may obtain permission to reclaim waste land; and a wise exemption from all taxes, until it becomes productive, allows the cultivator to reap a proper reward for his industry and enterprise. The agricultural knowledge of China cannot vie with ours in point of science; but it is far more widely diffused. A uniform system of cultivation, the result of centuries of experience, is known to, and practised by, every cottar in the empire; and that system is indubitably unequalled by that of any other nation, unless it be our own. The steeping of seeds, and drilling in sowing, are practised, and have been so for ages; they never fail to seize promptly the proper season and weather for their farming operations; they take every advantage of their summer time by the system of double-cropping; and in the vitally important matters of manuring and irrigation, as well as in making the most of their land, they are unsurpassed, perhaps unrivalled, by any nation in the world.

The Chinese Government has always fostered agriculture as peculiarly the national pursuit; and well has it repaid the imperial patronage. A country nearly as large as all Europe, and far more densely peopled—containing, in fact, more than a third of the whole human race—sustains them more comfortably than any similar number of men on the face of the globe. No emigration has until now issued from its shores, and each new myriad of the rapidly-augmenting population has gone to increase the strength and resources of the State; while the invidious extremes of poverty and riches (that prime bane of old States) are there unknown, wealth being more equally divided than in any civilised country. Undisturbed in their little farms, the people are contented and cheerful; and with comparatively little commerce, and no manufactures (viewed as a distinct employment), the empire has continued for centuries thriving and unshaken by intestine commotions. The home consumers have maintained in comfort the home producers,—the grand opening of new markets has been found in the increase of the population,—the only emigration has been to the hill-side and the marsh. The French historian and philosopher, Sismondi, maintains that the real bone and muscle of a nation is its agricultural population, and predicted the coming ruin of the older states of Europe from the evident decline of this class of their people; but whatever truth there may be in his opinion, no such state of matters is likely soon to sap the foundations of the Chinese empire. There, no millionaire manufacturers, with machinery costing £30,000 or £40,000, overwhelm all competition, and, by ruining the small traders who ply the shuttle as well as till the ground, draw starving thousands to Nanking or Shanghae, feeding the towns to plethora at the expense of the country, and accumulating from the labour of thousands gigantic fortunes for individuals. The small farmer rears his crop of rice, cotton, or tea, dresses it, and sends it to market, and turns it to his own use as food or clothing; and although he cannot succeed in laying by money, it is only in periods of famine or inundation that he experiences the pressure of want.

“There are few sights more pleasing,” says Mr Fortune, “than a Chinese family in the interior engaged in gathering the leaves of the tea-plant, or, indeed, in any of their agricultural pursuits. There is the old man—it may be the grandfather, or even the great-grandfather—patriarch-like directing his descendants, many of whom are in their youth and prime, while others are in their childhood, in the labours of the field. He stands in the midst of them, bowed down with age, but—to the honour of the Chinese as a nation—he is always looked up to by all with pride and affection, and his old age and grey hairs are honoured, revered, and loved.” In the tea-districts, every cottager or small farmer has his own little tea-garden, the produce of which supplies the wants of his family, and the surplus brings him in a few dollars, which procure for him the other necessaries of life. “When, after the labours of the day are over,” says Mr Fortune, “they return to their humble and happy homes, their fare consists chiefly of rice, fish [with which their rivers and lakes abound], and vegetables, which they enjoy with great zest, and are happy and contented. I really believe that there is no country in the world where the agricultural population are better off than they are in the north of China. Labour with them is pleasure, for its fruits are eaten by themselves, and the rod of the oppressor is unfelt and unknown.... For a few cash (1000 or 1200 cash = 1 dollar) a Chinese can dine in a sumptuous manner upon his rice, fish, vegetables, and tea; and I fully believe that in no country in the world is there less real misery and want than in China. The very beggars seem a kind of jolly crew, and are kindly treated by the inhabitants.”

Commerce is discouraged by the Chinese Government, chiefly on account of their jealousy of strangers; but it is a pursuit so congenial to the national spirit that no exertions could succeed in putting it down. Wherever money can be made, a Chinaman will brave dangers to gain it, and will fear neither the jungles and marshes of his southern frontier, nor the inhospitable deserts of the north and west. For a thousand years and more, they have trafficked with the isles of the Indian Archipelago, and for nearly twice that time their silks have found their way into Europe. Nevertheless, the geographical situation of the country on the one hand, and the unskilfulness of the Chinese in maritime enterprise on the other, oppose great obstacles to their prosecution of external commerce, so that the carrying-trade is almost entirely in the hands of foreigners. The journey across the inhospitable steppes of Mongolia to the nations of the west, or over the almost insurmountable Himalayas to those of the south, is attended by too much risk and expense, in the present state of the roads, to be prosecuted extensively; but the Chinese eagerly avail themselves of the marts opened in recent times by the Russian traders, and throng with their silks and tea to the grand fairs at Maimatschin. This overland commerce with Russia commenced in the reign of Peter the Great, by a treaty which stipulated for a reciprocal liberty of traffic, and by virtue of which caravans on the part of the Russian Government and individual traders used to visit Peking; but the Muscovites exhibited so much of their native habits of “drinking and roystering,” that, after trying the patience of the Celestials for three-and-thirty years, they were wholly excluded. After a temporary cessation of intercourse, however, a renewal of negotiations took place, by which it was agreed that only Government caravans should proceed to Peking, and Kiachta (distant four thousand miles from Moscow, one thousand from Peking, and close to the Chinese frontier town of Maimatschin) was built for the accommodation of private traders. This market, which has now risen to much importance, is most resorted to in winter. To the chief Russian merchants the trade is a species of monopoly, and a most thriving one,—some of them being millionaires, and living in the most sumptuous style, the “merchant princes” of the wilderness. “At the present day,” says the Hamburg Borsenhalle of 20th July last, “the wholesale trade is in the hands of Russian merchants and commercial companies, while the retail trade is carried on by the Siberian tribe of Burglaetes. The wholesale trade takes place only twice a year, and is a complete interchange of goods, of which black tea forms the staple, and cannot be replaced by any other article. This tea is brought to Kiachta from the northern provinces of China, and is very superior to that exported by the English and Dutch from the southern provinces. The green tea which comes to the market is consumed by the Kalmucks, Tartars, and Siberians. The duty on tea yields a considerable annual revenue, which is the sole advantage the Chinese claim from this important article of commerce. The Chinese will take nothing but cloth in return; and thus the consumers of tea are the persons who are the cloth-manufacturers. The Russians themselves derive no pecuniary advantage from this trade. They might make some profits, and the consumers pay less for their teas, if the trade were not monopolised; and if the tea might be exported from St Petersburg to Odessa on payment of a moderate duty, the northern provinces of China would be obliged to lower the price of their tea, for which they have no other outlet.”

Although Fine Art has made little progress, and is little prized, great works, in which genius is joined to utility, are to be met with in China on a larger scale than anywhere else. Such a work is the Great Wall, raised by the first emperor to repel the inroads of the Nomades, and which guards the northern frontier for the space of fifteen hundred miles, from the shores of the Yellow Sea to Eastern Tartary. It is carried over the highest hills, descends into the deepest valleys, crosses upon arches over rivers, and at important passes is doubled;—being, in fact, by far the largest structure that human labour ever raised. A work more extraordinary still is the Imperial Canal. The Mongol emperor, Kublai Khan, who fixed the seat of government at Peking, constructed (or rather completed) the canal, in order to remedy the sterility of the plain in which that city stands. From the vicinity of Peking, it extends southwards for a distance of six hundred geographical miles,—now tunnelled through heights, now carried through lakes and over marshes and low grounds by means of stupendous embankments,—and exhibiting not merely a gigantic effort of labour, but sound practical skill on the part of its constructors, in availing themselves of every advantage that could be derived from the nature of the ground. Rivers feed it, and ships of good size spread their sails on its bosom. It is along this watery highway that the chief supplies are brought for the immense population of the capital; and another great merit of the work is, that it acts at once as an irrigator and as a drain to the country through which it flows, from Tientsin to the Yang-tse-keang; for while at some parts fertilising the sterile soil by diffusing its waters, at others being carried along the lowest levels, and communicating with the neighbouring tracts by flood-gates, it renders available for agriculture much land that would otherwise be a useless swamp.

Education in China, as we have seen, is directed almost exclusively to the inculcation of moral and constitutional principles; and with such good effect, that nowhere in the East are the social relations so well understood and preserved. Class has never risen against class, and the religious apathy of the people has prevented any war of creeds. This social harmony has had the best effects upon the welfare of the people, by rendering an iron rule unnecessary on the part of the Government. However absolute the administration may be, the great mass of the people live quietly and happily, enjoying the fruits of their industry. The legislation is disfigured by an excessively minute attention to trifles,—an unavoidable result of the system of regulating the mind of the people through the agency of external observances; but the code is, on the whole, a clear and concise series of enactments, savouring throughout of practical judgment and European good sense; and if not always conformable to our liberal notions of legislation, in general approaching them more nearly than the codes of most other nations. The laws are more generally known and equally administered than in the other States of Asia,—wealth, comfort, and cheerful industry more equally diffused; and Mr Ellis pronounces the Celestial Empire superior to them all in the arts of government and the general aspect of society. Sir George Staunton says that the condition of the people is “wholly inconsistent with the hypothesis of a very bad government or a very vicious state of society,” and conceived that he could trace almost everywhere the unequivocal signs of an industrious, thriving, and contented people. But we may go further than this, and fully concur with Mr Davis that “there is a business-like character about the Chinese, which assimilates them in a striking degree to the most intelligent nations of the West; and there is less difference [in this respect?] between them and the British, French, and Americans, than between these and the inhabitants of Spain and Portugal, whose proneness to stolid bigotry and Oriental laziness was perhaps in part imbibed from the Arabs.”

In regard to slaves, the code metes out less equal justice; but a like one-sidedness has defaced the legislation of every country—and slavery, as it exists in China, is infinitely milder than anywhere else either in the East or West. It is not superior humanity and generosity which occasions this difference: it results from the social condition of the nation. Slavery is the apprenticeship which, in one shape or another, uncivilised man has had to undergo in all countries before becoming capable of sustained industry and self-government. In this state he falls under the power of his more civilised fellows, and obtains food and protection in exchange for freedom; and it is only when he has raised himself above the indolence and improvidence of savage life that liberty becomes beneficial even for himself. Resembling the western half of Europe, the whole Chinese nation is industrious, and has acquired that relish for the artificial wants of civilised life which tends so greatly to man’s elevation, and which is so little felt elsewhere (save in some of the highest classes) in the regions of the East and South. No political or social distinctions of rank or caste exist in China, and education is provided by the State for all classes. On these accounts there is no servile class; and those who have lost or bartered their freedom resemble their masters in everything but wealth, and are treated rather as menials than as serfs. Slavery exists in China not as a relic of barbarism, nor from the prevalence of caste or the absence of industry, but simply, it would appear, as the effect of a redundant population: it is a man’s last shift for employment.

We can give a most pleasing anecdote in connection with this point, which recently appeared in the Java Bode newspaper, published at Batavia, where there is a large Chinese population—which shows at once the good feeling of the Chinese in regard to the unfortunate objects of slavery, and the remarkable industry and self-relying spirit of the slaves themselves. In giving an account of a sale of slaves at the Chinese camp, it says:—The slaves, who were twelve in number, having been placed upon the table of exposition, arranged in four lots, rattled some money in their hands, and addressed a few words, timidly and in low tones, to the assembly. A person who acted as their agent here stepped forward, and stated that his clients, having accumulated by long and painful labours some small savings, solicited the favour of being allowed to make a bidding for the purchase of their own persons. No opposition was offered; and the first lot of three, being put up to auction, made an offer, through their agent, of forty francs. No advance being made on this sum, the slaves were knocked down to themselves. The next lot, encouraged by their predecessors’ success, offered only twenty-four francs for themselves. The public preserved the same silence, and they likewise became their own purchasers. The third lot took the hint, and were even more fortunate, picking themselves up, a decided bargain, for the modest sum of ten francs! The Java Bode rightly sees in these facts signs of a great advance in civilisation among the Chinese, who constituted the great majority of the persons present.

Superficial writers on China judge of the whole nation by what they see of the population at Canton; and are profuse in their charges of lying, treachery, and inhumanity,—as if it were even possible for three hundred and sixty millions of human beings to be nothing but one black mass of moral deformity! The monstrousness of the idea ought to have been its own refutation. Such writers might as well conclude that the whole abyss of ocean is a turbid mass, because its fringing waves are “gross with sand.” In truth, their conclusions are as unjust as if one were to judge of our own nation solely by the doings of the wreckers of Cornwall or the mob of London. For the inhabitants of Canton are termed the “Southern boors” by their own countrymen; and it may safely be stated of the people of Fokien and the southern coasts of China, with whom alone foreigners come in contact, that they are all more or less addicted to piracy and smuggling, and have adopted the nefarious habits which commerce invariably engenders when carried on between nations who despise, and whose only desire is to overreach one another. The inadequacy of the ordinary data for judging of Chinese character is at once perceived by the few travellers who have got glimpses of the interior, or of those parts of the country where the manners of the people are unaltered by contact with foreigners. We have already quoted Mr Fortune’s pleasing picture of cottar-life in the interior, and on the general question he says:—“The natives of the southern towns and all along the coast, at least as far north as Chekiang, richly deserve the bad character which every one gives them; being remarkable for their hatred to foreigners and conceited notions of their own importance, besides abounding in characters of the very worst description, who are nothing else than thieves and pirates. But the character of the Chinese as a nation must not suffer from a partial view of this kind; for it must be recollected that, in every country, the most lawless characters are amongst those who inhabit seaport towns, and who come in contact with natives of other countries: and unfortunately we must confess that European nations have contributed their share to make these people what they are. In the north of China, and more particularly inland, the natives are entirely different. There are, doubtless, bad characters and thieves amongst them too: but generally the traveller is not exposed to insult; and the natives are quiet, civil, and obliging.” Lord Jocelyn, who was with our fleet during the late war, and who landed on various points of the coast, states, as the experience of his rambles among the villagers, that a kind word to a child, or any little notice taken of the young, will at once ingratiate a stranger with this humane and simple-minded people. Mr Abel, also, (one of Lord Amherst’s retinue) in like manner testifies to the simple kindness of the country people. The nation at large (thanks to their education) are remarkable for the virtues of sobriety and filial reverence,—instances of noble generosity in individuals are said not to be infrequent,—and we may add that no people in the world, unless it be the French, are so ready to take notice of and applaud the casual utterance of noble sentiments. In fine, Mr Lay says, that “no man can deny the Chinese the honourable character of being good subjects—though, from the venality of their magistrates in general, they must often be exposed to many kinds of usage that tempt them to throw off allegiance.” And he attributes their steady obedience to constituted authority, not to a tameness of disposition that disposes a man to take kicks without feeling the gall of indignation, but to “a habitual sentiment of respect and a share of sterling good sense, that lead him to see and choose what is really best for his own interest.”

We have said that there are no separate castes among the Chinese; but one of the most curious features that strikes a stranger in their social life is the division of the people into clans, somewhat resembling the clanships of the Scottish Highlanders. There are altogether about 454 of these clans, each of which has its peculiar surname; but no jealous line of demarcation is allowed to be kept up between these different septs (some of whom number a million of souls), for, by a wise though somewhat stringent provision, every man is required to seek a bride in a different clan from his own,—thus acquiring two surnames. These clans are results of the Patriarchal or Family system, which forms the basis of the whole political and social arrangements in China. This system may seem a very narrow and illiberal one to us enlightened Westerns, and especially to our Transatlantic brethren, among whom the fifth commandment is but little regarded; but its influence upon the social relations in China has been unquestionably good. A Chinese father is a little emperor in his own household; he is held responsible in some degree for their conduct, and is invested with unlimited power over them, so that even the punishment of death is hardly beyond his prerogative. Yet abuses of power are at least as rare there as here. “I have reason to believe,” says Mr Lay, “that the sway exercised by Chinese parents is seldom burdensome, and that their will and pleasure are enforced, for the most part, with great mildness.” And if we seek to judge of the system by its fruits at large, we find that the duties of mutual love and mutual help are fully recognised, as incumbent upon all who are within the circle of blood or affinity; while the hilarities of family-feasts, or the sorrows of family-mourning, are entered into with a keenness of relish, or an acuteness of feeling, which leaves the Chinese perhaps without a parallel in the world. “Fear God” is a precept of which the modern Chinese know little or nothing; but “Love, honour, and obey your parents,” is the fundamental commandment of their moral system,—and to say or do anything against it, is as shocking and disgusting to their feelings as blasphemy to those of a Christian. “The practice of infanticide,” says Mr Meadows, speaking of Canton, “exists here, as the bodies of infants floating occasionally on the river sufficiently prove; but it may be fairly doubted whether there is much more of it than in England,” where the crime is punished with death, and where, of course, every means is taken to conceal it; “and often having remarked instances of deformed female children being treated with constant and evident affection by their parents, I am inclined to believe that when infants are put to death, it is solely because their parents are altogether unable to support them.” And Mr Lay says, that the rare occurrence of dead bodies of children being found in the Canton river “proves that, among a swarming population of indigent people, such deeds are none of their customary doings.”

The Chinese are a cheerful light-hearted race, well trained to social duties, and with no proclivity to the melancholy of the southern nations of Europe, or to the John-Bull tendency towards reserve and isolation. Social feeling—or good-humour, mildness of disposition, and a good-natured propensity to share in the mirth and hilarity of others, are seen wherever one meets with a company of Chinese. To live in society is a Chinaman’s meat and drink. In a company of his fellows he is something,—by himself, nothing. Men of study and retirement are to be found in China, but by far the greater number seem to have their hearts set upon social delights and the celebration of public festivity. And what most strikes the spectator at such meetings is, the respect which every one is so anxious to pay to all around him,—(another point in which the Chinese nation is most nearly paralleled by the French). Nor are such attentions the frigid offspring of mere formality. “Apart from business,” says Mr Lay, “the intercourse of natives in China is made up of little acts of homage. The rules of relative duty command an individual to regard a neighbour as an elder brother, and thence entitled to the respect belonging to such eldership. These displays of veneration are not occasioned, then, by dread or hope of gain, but are the spontaneous results of a propriety essential to the character of the people,” and strongly developed by their domestic training and the teaching of their schools. In walking abroad, for instance, the stranger may wonder what two gentlemen can have so suddenly found to dispute about; but he soon perceives that each of them is severally refusing to advance a step till the other has set the example, and consented to go ahead!

On the other hand, it must be allowed that most of the loftier qualities of our nature seem to be deficient among the Chinese. The feeling of patriotism, at least nowadays, is almost unknown,—partly, it may be, owing to the immense size of the empire, and the imperfect intercourse kept up between the several provinces. Loyalty, as we understand the feeling, apparently never at any time had much hold upon the Chinese mind. Reason, rather than emotion, is the prominent feature of their mental constitution; and although they have at all times entertained a profound regard for their sovereign, that regard had reference to the office, not the man, and is quite different from that chivalrous devotion to the monarch’s person which plays so prominent a part in the history of European struggles. Self-denial and self-devotion, in fact—that fundamental basis of the noblest of human virtues—rare everywhere, is very rare in China. Even peace has its disadvantages. Virtues, like talents, require congenial circumstances to develop them; and probably the long reign of public tranquillity in China—where for nine centuries it has hardly been broken save at intervals of two hundred years—has helped to numb the courageous and masculine sentiment of self-devotion, and allowed the national mind to “settle on its lees.” Pleasure, money, sensuality,—these are now the objects that most greatly engross a Chinese. “The Chinese,” says Mr Lay, “are lovers of pleasure, from the greatest to the least. They study ease and comfort in a way that leaves them, as a nation, without a rival in the art of ministering to sensual gratification.” This proneness to sensual indulgence is unhappily increased by the narrow spirit in which certain portions of their legislation are conceived,—the rich not being allowed to expend their superfluous wealth in the erection of elegant mansions, (that being looked upon as a misdirection of money from more useful purposes); nor dare they indulge in much public munificence, lest they attract the covetous eyes of the generally extortionate and unscrupulous mandarins. “A Chinese,” says Mr Lay, “is licentious in the general turn of his ideas, and makes a public display of those forbidden pleasures which in many countries are somewhat screened amidst the shades of retirement. The floating abodes for ladies of pleasure are generally of the gayest kind, and are consequently the first thing to attract the traveller’s attention as he draws near the provincial city of Canton.” The auri sacra fames is not less strong in the breast of a Celestial. “At a very early age,” says Mr Lay, “the love of money is implanted in his nature: indeed, one of the first lessons a mother teaches a child is to hold out its hand for a bit of coin.” Money, says Gutzlaff, is the idol of the Chinese. “It is the national spirit, the public sentiment, the chief good of high and low”—the higher classes being as eager to obtain it in order to gratify their sensual inclinations, as the poor to procure food.

To call a man a liar is, in England, and in the European world generally, the surest way to provoke anger; but such an epithet has but little weight attached to it in China. This is partly owing to the fact that “white lies” have there a recognised and reputable existence not openly accorded to them elsewhere. In the eyes of a Chinese, as in the code of the Jesuits, a lie in itself is not absolutely criminal, and it may, on the contrary, be very meritorious. According to Confucius, a lie told by a child to benefit a parent is deserving of praise; and a Jeannie Deans, or the stern old father in Mr Warren’s Now and Then, so far from being held models of religion, would be regarded, the one as a stubborn fanatic, and the other as the most heartless and unnatural of parents. But another, and, we suspect, a much more powerful cause of this want of veracity among the Chinese, is their system of government. Here, as throughout Asia generally, Despotism—or, in other words, an Executive power from which there is no proper appeal—generates mendacity in the people, as their sole refuge from irresponsible Power. Duplicity is the resource to which Weakness naturally betakes itself; and it is universally adopted wherever the decrees of Government officials are felt to be unjust as well as unappealable. Everywhere the result is the same; and in this, as in many other respects, a perfect parallel might be drawn between those two vastest empires of modern times, the Chinese and the Russian. In the latter empire, as in the former, the vastness of the country and consequent impossibility of an efficient surveillance over the host of officials, joined to the absence of municipal institutions and a free press to act as checks upon local tyranny, render it most difficult to detect or repress abuses of power on the part of the Government officers. And the consequence in both countries may be told in the words of Alison, applied to Russia:—“So universal is the dread of authority, that it has moulded the national character. Dissimulation is universal; and, like the Greeks under the Mussulman yoke, the Russians have become perfect adepts in all the arts by which talent eludes the force of authority, and astuteness escapes the discoveries of power.” And we suspect we ought to add, in justice to the Chinese, that this disposition has been impressed upon them, as upon the Russians, by the invasion of the Tartar hordes, which in both countries reduced the native race to subjection for three long centuries.

In China, however, the domination of the Tartars has never been in any degree so complete as it was in Russia; and even among the maritime population, with whom foreigners are brought most in contact, and among whom lying is probably most prevalent, there exists a check which is found sufficient for the transaction of all matters of ordinary importance. Every great, busy, and closely-connected society (which Russia is not) requires some bond of mutual trust; and this is found, in China, in the custom of guaranteeing, which pervades all domestic and mercantile relations. Mr Meadows states it as a fact that he has never known an instance in which a Chinese openly violated a guaranty known to have been given by him; and though, under strong temptations, they will sometimes try to evade its fulfilment, yet such instances are extremely rare, and they generally come promptly forward to meet all the consequences of their responsibility. “A Chinaman,” says Mr Lay, “is a man of business, and therefore understands the value of truth.... The standard of honesty is perhaps as high in China as in any other commercial country; and strangers who have known this people during the longest space, speak in the best terms of their integrity. Thieves of a most dexterous kind, and rogues of every description, are plentiful in China, because she has a swarming population to give them birth,—but they are not numerous enough to affect a general estimate of the national character.”

The imperfections of human language render it a difficult matter to give a description, at once short and correct, of national character. Thus it is both true and false to say that the Chinese possess a high degree of fortitude. They bear pain or adversity without murmuring or despondency; and, taken individually, they perhaps possess as much constitutional or animal courage as any other specimens of our race. But they are deficient in that courage which is based on self-reliance, and which enables a man to confront danger with a ready intrepidity—because their institutions and education are as unfavourable to its development as those of the Anglo-Americans are singularly propitious. They possess a great command over their tempers, and instances are common of their bearing, with the greatest apparent equanimity, insults and injuries which would make a European ungovernable; and this proceeds not from cowardice, but from their really regarding self-command as a necessary part of civilisation, and passionate or hasty conduct as indecent, and giving evidence of a low nature. The readiness they evince to yield to the force of reason is another quality for which, says Mr Meadows, “the Chinese certainly deserve to be considered a highly civilised people.” They settle their disputes more by argument than by violence (a strange thing in the East); and a Chinese placard posted at the street-corners, exposing the unreasonable (i. e. unequitable) conduct of a party in any transaction is, if the want of equity be sufficiently proven, to the full as effective, if not more so, than a similar exposure of an Englishman in a newspaper. Bullies seem to be kept in check by the force of public opinion, and the Chinese neither fight duels, nor, though murders occur as in England, can they be said to assassinate or poison. Finally, we may round off this précis of Chinese character in the words of Mr Lay:—“It is an abuse of terms to say that they are a highly moral people, but we may affirm that the moral sense is in many particulars highly refined among them. Respect to parents and elders, obedience to law, chastity, kindness, economy, prudence, and self-possession, are the never-failing themes for remark and illustration.”

No people in the world consume so little butcher-meat as the Chinese; and, unlike the Eastern nations—such as the Jews, Hindoos, Parsees, and Mohammedans generally—their favourite meat is pork. In fact in China, as in other parts of the world, the cottar-system of land-holding is found unfavourable to the rearing of horses, cattle, or sheep, but quite adapted (as witness Ireland) for the rearing of pigs. The national system of agriculture, like almost everything else in China, is based upon the strictly utilitarian principle of turning everything to the greatest account. We do not pretend to settle off-hand here how far the stimulating diet of animal food is necessary or advantageous to mankind. We would simply remark that butcher-meat is matter in a more highly organised form, and more nearly assimilated in composition to our own frames than vegetable food. It is in diet what alcohol is in drink; and the nations who most indulge in it—such as the British, the Anglo-Americans, and savages who live by the chase, (we beg pardon for the unflattering conjunction!)—are generally as remarkable for gloomy strength and perseverance, as the more vegetarian nations are for cheerful quickness and volatility. But the preference which from time immemorial has been accorded to grain-crops in China is based upon the principle (of which our free-trade authorities are too forgetful in their admonitions to “plough less and graze more”), that grain is the cheapest form in which food can be produced, and that a much more numerous population can be maintained in comfort by tillage than by pasturage. Sheep have been justly styled “the devourers of men;” and the Chinese monarch who first turned the people from pastoral life, and taught them the civilising science of agriculture, is still, after the lapse of more than four thousand years, venerated throughout the empire by the title of “the divine Husbandman.” Fish, which abound in the numerous lakes with which the country is studded, and rice and other kinds of vegetable produce, form the staple of the national diet. From stern necessity, as well as from a wise and unparalleled economy, everything is turned to full account, and even hair-cuttings and parings of all kinds are made matter of traffic,—while everything nutritive, including “rats and mice, and such small deer,” (however unclean, according to European notions), are searched out and eaten for food. Opium is much in use; but both the perniciousness of its effects, and the extent to which it is indulged in, have been overstated by most writers on the subject. The misery caused by it is never to be compared to the plague of drunkenness, which is the bane of our own country. “Redness of the eyes,” as a mark of intoxication, is very conspicuous in the Chinese, as it was in the days of Solomon among the Jews; and if you see two Chinamen walking hand in hand in the street, says Mr Lay, it is ten to one that they are both flustered with drink!

The Chinese, like most Asiatics, do not dance for pleasure, nor are their unmelodious voices formed for song. Their favourite amusements are games of chance,—in which, perhaps, they out-do all Asiatics. The grand aim of a Chinaman, as we have said, is to enjoy himself; and this colours even his gravest doings. With him, banqueting and religious ceremonies are the same thing, and he would never keep any sacred festival if he could not enjoy himself. No festival is without its play, and only a few temples are without a stage; and so fond are the people of theatricals, that they will attend a whole night to them, without showing the least weariness, and will afterwards recount with ecstasy what they have seen. The people in general never pray, nor have they any forms of prayer; and the Mandarins, on public occasions, only recite a formula, in the shape of a simple message, to the idols, but never address them in their own words. The affairs of this life are ever uppermost in the mind of a Chinese; and long life, wealth, and male children, are the great objects of desire. Nothing is regarded with so much horror as death—gloomy death, after which their souls go to wander cheerless among the genii; and strange to say, the elixir of life seems to have been more generally and more perseveringly sought after in reasoning and materialistic China than among the most spiritual and imaginative nations of mankind.

“Polygamy,” says Mr Lay, “is not practised by all, and is seldom indulged in till the husband is advanced in years. It appears that by far the greater number among the rich, as well as all among the poor, reap the solaces of connubial life without suffering this hemlock to grow in their furrows. A few, from the surfeit of too much ease and prosperity, indulge in this practice, and a few more have recourse to it for the sake of building up their house with an heir, or a more numerous progeny;” while on the other side, it is fostered by “the anxiety of parents to see their daughters provided for in the houses of the great, and to reap a personal advantage from noble alliances.” For untiring industry, cheerfulness of temper, fidelity to their husbands, and care of their offspring, the poor women are every way exemplary. Any one who visits China will find proofs of this wherever he turns his eyes, and a traveller has only to lay his hand upon the head of a little child to earn applause from a whole crowd of bystanders.

Constancy, habit of respect, and the social feeling are easily recognisable in the character of the Chinese women. Chinese stories are full of examples of love that knows no bounds. “There is only one heaven,” said a forlorn maiden, when her parents upbraided her for spending her days in sorrowful libations of salt tears at the tomb of her lover, “and he was that heaven to me!” “A native of the United States,” says Mr Lay, “married a Chinese female, who had never felt the benefits of education, and therefore could scarcely have learnt to cultivate this sentiment by lessons from those who were older than herself. She accompanied her husband to America, and afterwards back again to Macao, where a friend of mine paid her lord a visit. On his return, I asked him how she demeaned herself towards her better half. ‘With great respect,’ was the answer. And this testimony in her favour was not solitary; for the captain who conveyed the pair across the Atlantic declared he had never met with such passengers before, and that the wife rendered the services of a stewardess unnecessary in the cabin, and with her own hands kept everything in an admirable state of order and neatness.” When a stranger sees that a Chinese lady of the house is not entitled to receive any civilities or acts of courtesy from the friend of her husband, and forgets that this interdict is founded upon motives of propriety, consecrated by the usage of the earliest times, he is very apt to think her slighted, and that those apartments which the Chinese have decorated with so many flowery names are but a sort of prison. This is a great mistake, however, and the women of China are not only exempt from that rigid seclusion which prevails elsewhere in the East; but are treated much more nearly on terms of equality with their husbands. There is nothing abject or mean, either in principle or practice, in the deference which is paid, among high and low alike, to husbands; and “the air of a Chinawoman,” says Mr Lay, “has a majesty about it which is only compatible with sentiments of freedom; and the tone of her voice, and the glance of her eye indicate a consciousness that she was not born to be despised.”

The existing monuments of ancient civilisation in China are not of the same kind as those of Egypt and Assyria, of Greece and Rome. Time has spared the mighty structures of these latter empires, as if in compensation for having buried the nations that reared them; but in China, where the dynasties have succeeded one another without interruption, and the people have gone on increasing in numbers, down to our own day, the wars which have swept over it, and the revolutions which have shaken it, have destroyed almost all the monuments which would have attested its former magnificence. We refer particularly to the great revolution effected by the Emperor Che-hoang-te, (about 246 A.C.), who, for political purposes, ordered the destruction of every monument of the past, whether in metal, in stone, or on paper,—a proscription which lasted for nearly a century, and which left comparatively little to be regained by the most persevering researches of after ages. Nevertheless, the early ages of the Chinese empire seem to have been distinguished by not a little science, and many rare discoveries. In their carefully kept ancient annals, we have full particulars of the circumstances attending an eclipse of the sun, which happened 2155 years before Christ; and in the reign of Shun, a century before this, we read of “the instrument adorned with precious stones, which represented the stars, and the movable tube which served to observe them”—words which plainly indicate a celestial sphere, and a telescope, of some kind or other. After speaking of the discussions which took place in Europe last century, in regard to the high antiquity of astronomical observations in China, M. Pauthier remarks,—“All that we know of the reigns of the philosophical emperors, Yao, Shun, and Yu, and of the state of astronomical science in their time, justifies the supposition that, in the days of those emperors, sure methods were known for calculating beforehand the precise date of eclipses of the sun and moon, and all that concerned the calendar.” Another piece of knowledge possessed by the ancient Chinese, which is calculated to astonish our modern astronomers and mathematicians, is that not merely of the general spherical shape of the earth, but of its oblate form, in consequence of the flattening of the poles. We have not space to set forth the grounds we have for holding it probable that they really were acquainted with this recondite fact in physics; we must hasten on to add that the Sacred Book of Annals mentions facts which indirectly prove that music, poetry, and painting were known from the earliest historic times of China, and we know for certain that in the days of Confucius, the first of those arts was carefully studied, and apparently highly developed. Gunpowder was known four centuries before our era, and we read not only of this “devouring fire,” but of “fireboxes,” “fire-tubes,” and “globes containing the fire of heaven,”—which latter expression, by its allusion to lightning, seems to indicate as if powder, even in those days, was used as something more than a mere toy. A knowledge of the properties of the magnet or loadstone is another thing in which the Chinese were some two thousand or more years in advance of us Europeans; and the art of printing (by means of wooden blocks—xylography) was in use among them six centuries before anything of the kind was thought of elsewhere.

The character of Chinese literature may be guessed from what we have said of their system of education, which eschews speculation, and attends to little else than the precepts of public and private morality. The grandest, or we may say, the only grand, achievements of their literature are in the department of practical politics and morals; and next to this are their annals and statistical reports upon the various provinces of the empire. Poetry is much studied by the educated classes in early life for the sake of obtaining command of language and elegance of expression, the latter of which is highly valued in the communications and epistles of the government officials; but the Chinese temperament possesses little of the vis poetica; and of the millions of Mandarins who have learned to rhyme, very few indeed have written anything that would pass as mediocre in Europe. They have a good command of poetic figures and expressions, and their descriptive pieces and moral odes are fair productions; but that is all that can be said in their favour. Historical writings occupy a prominent place in their literature, and the greatest pains are taken to insure accuracy of statement; but these works are mere annals or chronologies, and have no pretensions to those intellectual and artistic qualities which distinguish the Livys and Xenophons, the Gibbons and Humes of ancient and modern Europe. It is to the credit of China that it has had a drama from a very early period, although we cannot speak particularly as to its merits. The writing of novels, also, dates as far back as the third century, and seems to be a department of literature very congenial to the Chinese mind. Such works exist in great numbers, and amongst much trash there are some very able productions.

In the appreciation of beauty, the Chinese are below any other nation that ever emerged from barbarism. Their painting is of a very commonplace description,—though not so bad, we believe, as it is generally supposed to be in this country; and their only notion of sculpture is, to represent a thing lusty in order that it may look grand. Their architecture, says Mr Barrow, “is void of taste, grandeur, beauty, solidity, or convenience; their houses are merely tents [an exaggeration]; and there is nothing magnificent even in the palace of the emperor.” One of the few notable exceptions to this remark is the celebrated Porcelain Pagoda at Nanking, which Du Halde thought “the most solid, remarkable, and magnificent structure in the eastern world.” For this want of beauty in their buildings, some excuse may be found in the circumstance that the law does not permit them to deviate from the established rules, and that any Mandarin who should venture to indulge an architectural fancy of his own would quickly draw down upon himself the vengeance of the Board of Rites; but “when there’s a will there’s a way,” and had the general taste ever advanced beyond the tent-shaped domiciles of their early ancestors, the administration of the law would hardly have proved an insurmountable barrier to improvement.

However flattering to the Chinese some of the preceding statements may be, it will be seen, on the whole, that they by no means hold a high place in regard to might of intellect. The discoverers of many important facts, and inventors of many useful arts, they yet seem as if they had stumbled upon them by chance, and were unable to appreciate their value; and the highly civilised race who, ages ago, were familiar with astronomy and printing, gunpowder and the magnetic needle, are now incomparably surpassed in their use by nations comparatively of yesterday. “Their mechanical contrivances,” says Mr Wade, “remain but as monuments of an originality which seems to have exhausted itself by its earlier efforts. They appear never to have investigated the principles of the discoveries by which the requirements of their agriculture, architecture, or navigation, were first satisfied. The means which their genius suggested to meet their immediate wants they adopted, and, without the aid of theory, perfected—in some instances, to a degree not surpassed, if attained, by the most scientific of nations; but errors and defects were left untouched; no spirit of inquiry quickened the dormant powers of their reason, and the lack of a habit of reflection prevented their pushing their invention beyond a certain necessary point.” There is something stunted or microscopic in the intellect of the Chinese, which leads them to magnify trifles, yet to be blind when great facts stare them in the face,—to keep the steam-engine a toy and gunpowder a plaything, yet to spend an infinity of skill and patience upon the manufacture of one of their ivory “puzzles.” Excellent in imitation, and well adapted for details, they are yet deficient in that highest quality of genius, which grasps a subject at once in all its bearings—which reasons outwards and upwards from the centre-object of contemplation, and which discerns in it its latent powers and the uses to which they may be applied,—which sees in the vapour of a kettle the embryo of the mighty steam-engine, and in the fall of an apple the gravitating force that sustains the universe.

There cannot be a doubt, however, that the Chinese character has never yet had fair play. It has never had such advantages as those enjoyed by the nations of Europe, or indeed by every civilised community of modern times. We will not speak of the over-population, and consequent ceaseless and absorbing struggle for the necessaries of life, which ever tends to act injuriously upon the moral and intellectual qualities of the majority of the people,—by extinguishing all high aspirations, and bending down the soul in slavery to the wants of the moment; for that over-population is not peculiar to China, and has, moreover, the attendant, though hardly compensating benefit of sharpening the national wits, and placing a large supply of cheap labour at the disposal of capital. We would rather point out the following peculiarity which affects this people alone of the nations of the earth, and which must ever be kept in mind by those who would correctly appreciate China’s place in universal history.

The Chinese empire belongs to the ancient—indeed, we ought to say to the primitive, world. It has long survived the empires of Egypt and Assyria, and the kingdoms of ancient India,—yet it is with these States alone that the isolated civilisation of China can fairly be compared. Like them, China has reared a civilisation for herself, without any help from without. Throughout her unparalleled existence of more than forty centuries, she has been a world to herself. No influx of new ideas, no inspection of other civilisation than her own, has been granted to her. She has grown up like a Crusoe and his children and grandchildren, upon a solitary island,—forced ever to compare themselves by themselves, and never enjoying the rare privilege, and help to improvement, to “see ourselves as others see us.” We Europeans of the present day—in this age of “running to and fro upon the earth”—are privileged to behold the endless variety of life, manners, and institutions with which the world is stored—to judge of them by their several effects, as revealed in the pages of history, and to draw from them their moral; thus benefiting by the experience of a whole world, and perfecting ourselves upon the model of the best of our race. Moreover, the blood of a dozen different tribes of mankind runs in our veins (as was the case on a smaller scale in ancient Greece), producing a richly-blended nature, excelling in all departments, whether of thought or action—producing now a Shakespeare and now a Napoleon, now a Hildebrand and now a Howard, now a Richard Cœur-de-Lion and now a Peter the Hermit, now a Luther and now a Mozart, now a Cromwell and now a Robespierre, now a Scott, a Watt, a Burns, a Dickens, a Kean, or a Grimaldi. China, on the contrary, presents but one phase of human nature,—but to that phase it has done marvellous justice. Good sense is its only idol—practical usefulness its prime test; but we have yet to learn that the former of these qualities has ever been more wisely or so perseveringly worshipped, or the latter been so unflinchingly and universally applied.

An attentive observation seems to indicate that this most ancient of empires, for long stationary in power and intellect, has of late been in many respects retrograding. “The arts once peculiarly their own,” says Mr Wade, “have declined;—neither their silks nor their porcelain, in their own estimation, equal in quality those of former years.” And Mr Fortune arrives at a similar conclusion from the signs of decay which he met with in his wanderings. “There can be no doubt,” he says, “that the Chinese empire arrived at its highest state of perfection many years ago, and since then it has been rather retrograding than advancing. Many of the northern cities, evidently once in the most flourishing condition, are now in a state of decay, or in ruins; the pagodas which crown the distant hills are crumbling to pieces, and apparently are seldom repaired; the spacious temples are no longer as they used to be in former days; even the celebrated temples on Poo-too-San (an island near Chusan), to which, as to Jerusalem of old, the natives came flocking to worship, show all the signs of having seen better days. And from this I conclude that the Chinese, as a nation, are retrograding.” Were this falling off only visible in the case of the temples, it might be wholly accounted for by the increasing apathy or scepticism of the people in regard to their religion; but, in truth, these signs of decay extend into almost every department of the State. And, writing immediately before the present rebellion broke out, Mr Wade says, “With a fair seeming of immunity from invasion, sedition, or revolt, leave is taken to consider this vast empire as surely, though slowly, decaying. It has, in many respects, retrograded since the commencement of the present dynasty, and in none that we are aware of has it made any sensible progress.”

It would be a great error, however, to suppose that this vast empire is now stooping irretrievably to a fall. The whole tenor of its past history forbids the supposition. Again and again has it reformed itself;—again and again has it passed through the purifying furnace of suffering and convulsion, and re-emerged firm as before. Its periodic convulsions are the healthy efforts of nature to throw off the corruptions which ease engenders in the system; and however much temporary suffering may attend the present, like every other of its score of preceding revolutions, the resultant good will ultimately atone for all. China will never fall. Its homogeneousness, and the unconquerable vastness of its population, endow it with an earthly immortality. We have said that it lacks the variety of Europe; but in that variety, be it noted, there lurks political weakness, as much as intellectual strength. Every unit of Chinese society is homogeneous. The whole population are one—in blood, sentiments, and language;—and hence it contains none of those discordant elements, those unwillingly-yoked parts, which proved the destruction of the old “universal empires,” and which are destined ere long to annihilate the present territorial system of Europe. China, in fact, has ever been, and is, what European Germany and Slavonia, and every other great State of the future will be—a Race-Empire;—and therefore indestructible. The Monguls may reign in it for eighty years, or the Mantchoos for two hundred,—and even then only by adopting the political and social institutions of the natives. But as time runs on, the wheel ever turns; one after another the foreign hosts are chased from the land, and a native dynasty is destined still to wield the sceptre of the Flowery Land.

But we must say more than this in regard to the fortunes of China. What it has hitherto wanted is, new ideas,—and now it is about to get them. In old times, nations could hardly inoculate their neighbours with their ideas save by conquest, and new mental life was only produced after a temporary death of liberty. It is otherwise nowadays, and China is likely to benefit by the change. As long as she was feeble, and as long as the sword was the only civiliser, Providence kept her shut in from the prowess of the restless Western nations. But now that her people have grown like the sands on the sea-shore for multitude, and that steam has become the peaceful “locomotive of principles,” China is opened. Often as she has reformed herself before, the present is her true second-birth. She will now obtain those new ideas of which she has hitherto been starved, and will enter into ever-memorable union with the rest of the civilised world. The energy and science of the Anglo-Saxons will penetrate the empire, and the Chinese will not be slow to avail themselves of the new lights. Aversion to change, when such change is recommended by manifest utility, is not an original element of the Chinese character,—as we learn on the authority of Jesuit writers two centuries ago, before the advent to power of the Tartars, and their jealous exclusion of foreigners. And then, what country in the world can compare with China as a field for the triumphs of mechanical enterprise! Its vast rivers and canals present unrivalled scope for steam-navigation; and its wide plains and valley-lands offer matchless facilities for railways. And then all this amidst the densest and perhaps busiest population in the world. The amount of internal travelling in China is such, that we are assured by those who have penetrated into the interior, that there are continuous streams of travellers on horse, on foot, and on litters, as well as long lines of merchandise, from Canton to the Great Wall, and over distances of fifteen hundred miles;—in many parts so crowded as to impede one another, and even in the mountain-passes so numerous as to leave no traveller out of sight of others before or behind. In what other country of the world are such phenomena to be met with? And though it were vain to enter upon the tempting field for speculation which these few facts—and they could be multiplied indefinitely—present to us; yet we need have no hesitation to predict a striking future for the Chinese race, and one which will benefit the world at large, perhaps not less than themselves.

RELEASE.

TOO LATE.

THE PROGRESS AND POLICY OF RUSSIA IN CENTRAL ASIA. [36]

It is one of the happiest peculiarities in the construction of the human mind, that it acquires knowledge so gradually, that it cannot realise the extent of that ignorance by which it was once clouded; and forms its opinions so imperceptibly, that no precise period can be attached to their origin. It is just a year since Prince Menschikoff visited Constantinople upon a mission which subsequent events have proved to have been fraught with the most portentous consequences to Europe. If it were possible now to convey to the public any adequate notion of the lamentable want of information which then prevailed upon all matters connected with the Eastern Question, people would be inclined indignantly to deny its accuracy, if they did not go so far as to maintain stoutly that they had always penetrated into the true character of the policy of Russia, and anticipated her schemes of aggression; and, certainly, considering the prominence which this topic has acquired, it is not to be wondered at if familiarity with it should lead us into so natural an error. Nobody now doubts that the occupation of the Principalities formed part of that system of territorial aggrandisement which is the very essence of Russian policy, and which has not the less been successfully at work, because its operations have hitherto been so silently conducted as not to excite the alarm of the great powers of Europe.

The results of that policy were always apparent, no less in the history than on the map of Europe; and if they have only been forced upon our attention by events which have recently occurred, it has not been because the facts themselves were wanting which should have taught us what to expect, and have prepared us to meet that contingency which was inevitable; but unfortunately, even now, our inquiries and our discoveries end here, we are content with recognising the leading principle of Muscovite diplomacy without looking more narrowly into its workings, and thus acquiring the very knowledge and experience best adapted to enable us to cope successfully with the wily and ambitious power which is now defying Europe. For it is a fair inference, that if success has uniformly attended the aggressive schemes of Russia, nothing else than a departure from her established policy could lead to a different result; and therefore it is interesting to investigate the system of frontier extension which she has hitherto pursued, so that, if it has been altered, we may not only be able to account for so important a change, but to show how it may be taken advantage of by the powers opposed to her in the present struggle.

Peter the Great devised a scheme of territorial annexation, which during his own splendid career he practised with the greatest success upon neighbouring countries, which he bequeathed to his successors, and which a very slight knowledge of Russian history will enable us to recognise as the formula since adhered to by the successive occupants of the Muscovite throne. In an able pamphlet recently published, upon the Progress and Present Position of Russia in the East, the process is thus described: “It invariably begins with disorganisation, by means of corruption and secret agency, pushed to the extent of disorder and civil contention. Next in order comes military occupation to restore tranquillity; and in every instance the result has been, Protection followed by Incorporation.” This process, however, we hope to illustrate in a more detailed account of some of the acquisitions of the last century; but first it will be interesting to observe why the system of Peter the Great was the only one calculated to attain the object for which it was designed. That object was to extend the frontier of the empire in every direction, and to continue to do so to an unlimited amount. There was no single especially-coveted province, which, once gained, was sufficient to satisfy the ambition of the Czars. It was a never-ending process, and one which depended for its successful working entirely upon a strict adherence to the formula; for it is evident, that in proportion as the frontier became extended did the difficulty of guarding it increase, and that caution upon which the whole policy was built became more necessary with every new outpost which was established, in order that the jealousy of neighbouring States might not be awakened, or the tranquillity of the newly-acquired provinces disturbed. Where an influence so destructive to independence, and so blighting to prosperity was at work, it could not steal over the doomed country too imperceptibly; and, therefore, not until this latter had become sufficiently enervated was the disguise under which it had been acquired thrown aside, and the protecting hand of the friend was now recognised to be the iron grasp of an insatiable giant.

Hence it is no longer a matter of surprise if we find that, from Norway to China, the Russian frontier is composed entirely of provinces which have been added to the empire since the accession of Peter the Great. But with the principles of annexation which he inculcated, there were also rules laid down for the guidance of his successors in the administration of new territory; and the success which has attended every scheme of aggression, only renders a strict adherence to these maxims the more indispensable, since the empire is now encircled with a belt of disaffected provinces five thousand miles in length, and varying in breadth from three hundred to one thousand miles—a barrier not to be depended upon, and formed of very combustible materials; indeed, in time of war, a source of weakness rather than of strength, and from which much is to be apprehended. It is easy, then, to see why war formed no part of the policy of the Great Peter. He did not recommend coming Czars to surround themselves with gunpowder and then to thrust in the match, but rather by a slow process to decompose and absorb the combustible particles—and this in many provinces has almost been effected. It is a work of time, which requires both external and internal tranquillity, and to engage in a general war is to undo all that has been going on during some of the quieter years of the last century. Energies which a long course of oppression have now almost crushed, will again develop themselves; and when the work of retribution once begins, there will be a heavy reckoning to be paid.

In all his diplomatic relations hitherto, the Emperor Nicholas has proved himself a worthy disciple of his great ancestor. He has never made a treaty without obtaining fresh territory, or acquiring the exercise of rights over new provinces which have ever proved the inevitable precursors of annexation. Recent attempts at negotiation, indeed, have not terminated in conformity with the uniform policy of the Czars; and we may venture to predict that the history of Russia affords no precedent for any such treaty as that which will probably be made at the termination of the hostilities now impending—and yet the Emperor has nothing to reproach himself with. Everything combined to lead him to suppose that the time had arrived to justify him in entering upon another step of the annexing process in the direction of Turkey. There had been comparatively little difficulty in appropriating Turkish provinces hitherto, and he is going through the customary formalities when his proceedings are most unexpectedly nipped in the bud, by what he had, no doubt, heretofore supposed to be an impossible combination of powers in the West. If the contingency of a war with Europe has never been anticipated by Russian autocrats as an impediment in the way of their aggressive designs, it is simply because the possibility of Europe combined against Russia has never been contemplated. If England and France were not now united to resist Russia, a treaty with Turkey might soon be expected upon conditions no less favourable than that of Adrianople. But, to the dismay and astonishment of the Emperor, the time for making the treaty has arrived, and he finds that it is literally hopeless to attempt to drive a profitable bargain. He has been called upon to choose between unconditional surrender of the countries he has occupied and unmitigated war. How, then, is he prepared to meet this contingency so suddenly forced upon him, how is his position affected by an emergency which has never been provided for, and how are the allied powers best able to profit by it? It is apparent, that if the power of Russia for defence or for attack depended only upon the extent of her resources, it would be enormous. Fortunately, however, the vital question is, not how vast, but how available those resources are—whether their development has been increased with the limits of the empire, or impeded by the acquisition of those extensive territories, the recent subjugation of which, to the rule of the Czar, must exercise an important influence upon the destinies of Russia in a crisis like the present?

In order thoroughly to appreciate these considerations, it would be necessary to dissect the whole extended frontier of the empire, and consider generally:—The political combinations which have in every case led to the annexation of each individual province—the advantage secured to Russia by such annexation—the present internal condition of the conquered province—the reasons which render any further extension of the frontier line in the same direction undesirable—and also to what country in Europe these reasons are more especially applicable—finally, with reference to the war now impending, the comparative strength or weakness of the advanced posts, and their general merits as points of attack. In making this survey the most eastern limit to which Russian influence extends forms the natural starting-point, and, as we explore the sands of Tartary, we shall soon discover that they possess at least far higher claims upon the notice of the British public than the snows of Lapland. At the same time, the information which we possess upon this remote quarter of the globe is so meagre as to render any very full account of the Kirghiz Steppes and their inhabitants impossible—and the historical records are so uncertain as to make it somewhat difficult to follow every step of the process by which Russia gradually exerted her influence over those nomadic hordes who wander between China and the Caspian, between Siberia and Khiva. Nor would there be much use in pursuing the inquiry, did it not derive its interest from the extreme anxiety Russia has manifested for a century past to advance and consolidate her power in this direction—incurring vast expense and sparing no efforts to carry out the apparently insane project of subduing two millions of the most impracticable savages that ever defied civilisation, and annexing a more uninhabitable series of deserts than are to be found in the whole continent of Asia. It is not to be wondered at, if an attempt so long and earnestly persisted in, and apparently so little in accordance with the sagacity which usually characterises Muscovite diplomacy, should attract attention, more especially since the motives ostensibly assigned by Russia are by no means sufficient to account for her course of procedure. The necessity of protecting and encouraging her Eastern trade has been put very prominently forward as the principal ground of interference with independent barbarians; and, in so far as her commercial intercourse with Khiva and Boukhara are likely to promote her ulterior designs, this is doubtless the case. The trade of the East once passed through the Caucasian provinces; but when those provinces fell into the hands of Russia, it was diverted into another channel by the establishment of a restrictive system which proved that the encouragement of commerce was merely the pretext used to acquire a territory, the prosperity of which was a matter of indifference to the government. Had the same energies been expended in the formation of roads, or the construction of canals throughout the empire, which have been devoted to the protection of trade on the Kirghiz Steppes, the best interests of commerce would have been immeasurably further advanced; and therefore, so far as they are concerned, we are fairly entitled to assume that they did not furnish the real motives for any such expenditure. Perhaps a more plausible excuse is to be found in the annual captures by the Kirghiz of Russians who were sold to the Khivans as slaves. But the number of these was very trifling, and the sums spent in a year, for political purposes, would have sufficed to repurchase ten times over those who were thus unfortunately kidnapped.

We have had, indeed, sufficient experience of the intrigues of Russia in the East, to enable us to perceive at once, that the object which she has in view in subjugating Tartary is none other than that which she betrayed in her secret intercourse with Persia; and, in the present state of our political relations with the Russian empire, it is important to inquire how far her designs in the East have been attended with success, in order that we may be able to appreciate at their proper value those rumours respecting the advance of her armies in this direction, which find a ready circulation among those whom ignorance disposes to credulity, and an exaggerated estimate of the power and resources of our enemy excites to alarm. Thus we have had it regularly communicated to us as a fact for the last six months from India, that a Russian army is at Oorjunge, two marches distant from Khiva, with an occasional intimation received from good authority, that it is prepared to invade India, reinforced by levies of indomitable cavalry, supposed to have been raised upon the Steppes of Tartary. Alluding to such reports as these, the Journal de St Petersburg inquires naturally enough whether the Times and its contemporaries have correspondents in the little states of Upper Asia, and records with much amusement some of the most glaring inconsistencies which have been gravely listened to, and credited by the British public. Thus, although Russia was said to have formed a quadruple alliance with the Khans of Khiva and Boukhara, and Dost Mahomed, it was nevertheless necessary to seize the town of Khiva, which succumbed after an energetic resistance of thirty-two days—certainly a most improbable mode this of cementing the alliance. At the same time, it is due to another portion of the home community to give them the benefit of holding views of a very different character. They utterly ignore the influence of Russia in the East—treat her possible advance in that direction as a chimera—and the power which she has already acquired as a bugbear from which nothing is to be apprehended. The fact that views so diametrically opposed to one another are very generally entertained in this country, induces us to hope that any information we may be able to afford upon a subject which has hitherto been scarcely investigated, may prove both useful and interesting.

Among the vast and varied schemes formed by Peter the Great, for increasing his dominions and his influence in the East, he early conceived the design of opening up a trade with those nations to which, of all European powers, Russia was the most contiguous, and whose riches at that period found their outlet by different overland routes to the great markets of the West. In 1717, he sent a mission to the Khan of Khiva, under Prince Bekevitch, to negotiate a commercial treaty. The attempt, however, proved abortive, and Prince Bekevitch and his whole troop were assassinated. This catastrophe served its purpose, in so far as it proved that the really effective way of attaining the desired end would ultimately be by coercion, rather than by alliance. But as the vast tract of intervening country was inhabited by wandering tribes of savages, their subjugation was involved in any scheme of extended conquest. The motives which stimulated and encouraged Russia in the accomplishment of this primary object, have increased in proportion as the possessions and influence of Great Britain in India have been extended, and that trade monopolised by the enterprise and capital of this country, which Peter the Great had destined to flow in a very different direction. The task, however, has proved one which for a century has demanded the exercise of a more than usual share of Muscovite cunning and perseverance; nor has it yet been so perfectly completed as to render the conquest of Khiva a matter of certain practicability. It fortunately does not fall within our limits to enter into any dissertation upon the origin of the Kirghiz Cuzzacks, or to attempt to chronicle the early history of these tribes, which is as vague and uncertain as records of barbarism usually are. It appears that the country now inhabited by the Kirghiz Cuzzacks, was formerly occupied by the Black Kirghiz or Bouroutes, nomades who attained to some degree of civilisation by reason of the commercial relations which they maintained with the Arabs, Boukharians, and above all, with the Khazars, who, inhabiting the Steppes of Southern Russia, kept up a constant intercourse with Constantinople. Towards the close of the seventeenth century, the Bouroutes were compelled finally to emigrate to the neighbourhood of Kashgar, thus relieving the southern provinces of Siberia from the presence of a tribe whose warlike and predatory habits had proved a constant source of annoyance and irritation. The tranquillity of these provinces, however, was of short duration. The Kirghiz Cuzzacks, who now extended their wanderings to the borders of Siberia, claimed to be of Turkish origin, and had formed a portion of the subjects of the celebrated Gengis Khan. They were originally called Cuzzacks, and the prenomen of Kirghiz was merely used as a distinctive appellation. Spreading over the Steppes of Tartary, they made frequent inroads upon the Russian territory, and in 1717 penetrated as far as Kazan. Surrounded, however, by tribes of Bashkirs, Calmucks, Zungars, and Nogais, the Kirghiz were continually attacking or being attacked, while their division into three hordes, the reason of which has never been fully accounted for, did not increase their warlike capabilities. Thus it happened that the great horde was completely subjugated by the powerful tribe of the Zungars, whose territory extended to the Chinese frontier; and it soon after became apparent that the middle and little hordes could not much longer continue to make a successful stand against the western tribes. In this emergency, Aboulkhair, the most celebrated of Kirghiz Khans, perceived the advantage of obtaining the protection of Russia. As, however, both hordes were excessively averse to any such proposal, the negotiations were carried on with great tact and secresy by Tevkelef, a Russian agent, who guaranteed to Aboulkhair the assistance of Russia, in order to enable him to carry his designs into execution. This, however, did not become necessary; the consent of the Kirghiz was ultimately obtained, partly through the persuasive eloquence of Tevkelef, and partly by the influence of Aboulkhair; and in 1734, the middle and little hordes were formally enrolled as subjects of the Empress Ann.

The submission thus obtained was not of any very permanent character, and Kirilof was sent with a small body of troops into the Kirghiz Steppes to take measures, which should insure the permanent subjection of these tribes. His instructions afford us the first glimpse of the ulterior designs of Russia, and the means proposed for their execution. Kirilof was commanded at once to build a town and fort at the embouchure of the Ori; to assemble the Khans and ancients of the two hordes, and obtain from them, in the presence of their subjects, the oath of allegiance, and having succeeded in this, he was to preserve the obedience of the Kirghiz by gentleness or by force, by presents or by menaces, according to circumstances. The Ural was to be considered the boundary of the empire, and the newly-acquired subjects were strictly prohibited from crossing it. A caravan was to be despatched across the Steppes to Boukhara, with the least possible delay, and every effort was to be used in order to attract merchandise from every part of Asia. Kirilof was himself to examine the annexed country, in the hope of discovering mines. A port was to be established upon the Sea of Aral, and ships built upon the Ural, and kept ready to be transported thither as soon as the town should be built, and such terms made with the Kirghiz as would facilitate their conveyance, and that of the artillery with which they were to be provided.

Among his diplomatic instructions Kirilof was told to avail himself of the animosity which existed between the Kirghiz and Bashkirs, to restrain it as much as possible so long as they continued subservient to the designs of Russia; but, in case of disaffection being exhibited on either side, he was to excite their mutual jealousies and thus save the expenditure of Russian troops. The exportation of ammunition was strictly prohibited, nor was Aboulkhair to be supplied with pecuniary assistance to carry on war with the Khivans, or to be encouraged in it. It was considered peculiarly desirable that as much information as possible should be acquired relative to the more distant frontier tribes, and more particularly the Zungars, who possessed Turkistan, and who ranked amongst the most powerful of these. Kirilof, however, had scarcely commenced to carry out these instructions, and had just founded the town of Orenburgh, which has since risen to a position of such importance as the emporium of the Eastern trade of Russia, when he died. Thus had it been reserved for the Empress Ann to take the first step towards accomplishing what Peter the Great had meditated, and was about to attempt after the Swedish war when death terminated his career.

It was not long after Kirilof’s death before a revolt among the Bashkirs and Calmucks rendered it necessary for his successor to stimulate Aboulkhair to attack the rebellious tribes. Indeed the subjects of the Khan, unaccustomed to so much tranquillity, desired nothing better than to be let loose upon their old foes, and entered upon the war with such good will that they not only speedily succeeded in suppressing the rebellion, but created some anxiety to Russia lest a portion of her subjects might be altogether extirpated, and the counter-irritation, which she desired to preserve to keep Aboulkhair in check, destroyed; for it was evidently essential to the success of the system that no one tribe should acquire such a preponderance over the others as no longer to dread them, or require the protection of Russia. The ambition of Aboulkhair, however, was sufficiently restrained by the fear of endangering the life of his son, who was retained at St Petersburg as a hostage. Indeed, without these pledges of the good faith of the border tribes, there was no means of insuring their submission longer than it was consistent with their own convenience; and throughout the later history of the Kirghiz, we find them continually intriguing for assistance with their powerful neighbours, sending hostages to Peking as often as to St Petersburg, and endeavouring so to bring to bear the influence of their protectors as to secure their own ends, without permanently compromising their independence. Thus the allegiance of the Kirghiz to Russia was in a great degree nominal, and was resumed and cast off at pleasure. The advantages, however, which Russia derived from her uncertain dominion over her inconstant neighbours, and the hopes she entertained of rendering it permanent, were so great as to make it expedient to deal leniently with such troublesome conduct; and she soon learnt to discern how far she might extort obedience and make her will felt, without driving those whom she desired to rule to seek some less exacting protector.

Thus it will appear that the governor of Orenburgh was in a good school for diplomatic training, and after a successful administration here, was competent to officiate as minister at any capital in Europe. To know how best to profit by the distresses of his neighbours was the sum and substance of his policy, and just in proportion as they were desirous of propitiating Russia, did Russia refuse to be easily propitiated. So it happened that, after the plunder and massacre of the Calmucks and Bashkirs, Aboulkhair humbly sued for pardon,—for a new bugbear had risen in the person of the warlike Galdane Tsyrène, Khan of the Zungars, who held hostages both from the great and middle hordes; and the governor of Orenburgh, of course, pretended to hesitate before receiving the renewed allegiance of the little horde. This conjuncture of circumstances was deemed favourable to the project of a town on the Sea of Aral, which, at Aboulkhair’s request, was to be built at the mouth of the Syr (Jaxartes), and an engineer officer was despatched to carry it into execution: the difficulties in the way, however, proved insurmountable, and the scheme fell to the ground. An attempt to carry out another article of Kirilof’s instructions was equally unfortunate, and the first caravan ever despatched from Orenburgh to Boukhara was plundered on the steppes. Shortly after this Aboulkhair, who, profiting by the protection of Russia, if not by her assistance, had possessed himself of Khiva, was driven out of that country by the formidable Nadir Shah. From this period his power gradually declined, and he was assassinated not long after the death of his enemy, the Khan of the Zungars. Russia obtained the election of Nourali, his son, as his successor, and offered him the use of a thousand men for fifteen days to erect a tomb to his father, on the condition that it should be four days’ march on the direct road to Khiva, and that a town should be built near it. Engineering and every other assistance was afforded, in the hope that fixed habitations might be established at least at one spot upon the steppes; but the suspicions of the Kirghiz were roused, and they positively refused to permit the attempt, reminding the engineer officer, who endeavoured to overcome their objections, of the conquest of Astrakhan and Kazan, and assuring him that if those nomades had not fixed themselves where they did, their descendants would have been free still. Nourali had not long held the dignity of Khan before he offered to retake Khiva if Russia would furnish him with 10,000 men, and the necessary artillery. This was declined, as it was apparent that the conquest of Khiva by tribes who wished to strengthen themselves against the authority of Russia, would only retard her own views of conquest in the same direction, which could never be accomplished until the Kirghiz themselves were thoroughly reduced to subjection. One of the most striking illustrations of the method by which Russia hoped to arrive at so desirable a consummation, is afforded by an act of singular perfidy, of which Neplouieff, then governor of Orenburgh, was the perpetrator. The Bashkirs who inhabited what is now the province of Orenburgh, although they had been subject to Russia ever since the reign of Ivan Groznoi, had always been most insubordinate. In 1755 they originated a revolt in which the Kazan Tartars took part. It soon spread so widely as to cause the government much alarm, since the possibility of a junction being formed with the Kirghiz to the south rendered the position of the Russian line extremely critical. Neplouieff, however, who was a man of resource, devised a notable plan for extricating himself from his dangerous situation. Raising an army, chiefly composed of Don Cossacks and Calmucks, he succeeded in intimidating the insurgents, and, by promising pardon to those who would submit, he for the time put down the rebellion: those who did not trust his offer sought refuge with the Kirghiz. Fearing that the lull was merely temporary, Neplouieff perceived that the only real safety lay in sowing the seeds of irreconcilable enmity between the Bashkirs and Kirghiz. He determined, therefore, to deliver into the hands of the latter the wives and children of those of the Bashkirs who had trusted in his offers of pardon; upon two conditions—first, that the Kirghiz should come into the province of Orenburgh, and forcibly carry off their prizes; secondly, that they should give up the Bashkir refugees to the Russian government. He communicated this happy thought to St Petersburg, where it met with the royal approval, and an intimation was received by the Kirghiz, to the effect that the Empress in her bounty had made them a present of the wives and children of the Bashkirs. The voluptuous Kirghiz rushed to the spoil. Their unfortunate victims, confiding in the promise of Neplouieff, were taken by surprise; and although they fought well for everything that was most dear to them, those of the men who did not escape were brutally massacred, and the Kirghiz returned triumphantly laden with their living booty. The Bashkirs no sooner came back to their homes than they vowed vengeance, and applied to the Russian government to be allowed to cross the border to obtain satisfaction for such deep injuries. Neplouieff publicly proclaimed that the Empress could not permit so bloodthirsty a proceeding; and when he had thereby thrown the Kirghiz off their guard, he gave secret orders to the commanders of the garrisons on the line, not to stop the transit of armed Bashkirs. When these latter learnt that the way to the Kirghiz steppes was thus open to them, large bands poured across the frontier line, pounced upon the unsuspecting Kirghiz—who, trusting in the promised protection of Russia, were enjoying the possession of their prizes in fancied security—returned with interest the pillage and massacre their own tribe had suffered, and, regaining most of those whom they had supposed lost for ever, conveyed them in safety to their own homes. Nourali complained bitterly of so flagrant a breach of good faith. Neplouieff answered that the Kirghiz had given up all the Bashkir refugees not according to agreement; that the bargain was therefore at an end; and that he might shortly expect another inroad of Bashkirs. The Kirghiz prepared for their reception, and the two tribes continued mutually to slaughter one another, until Neplouieff, judging that they were so much weakened as no longer to be formidable separately, and hated each other too cordially ever to be united, prohibited the Bashkirs from crossing the frontier, and thus put a stop to the war. About this period the empire of the Zungars was overturned by the Chinese, and the Kirghiz grand horde delivered from their conquerors. They increased and spread rapidly under a powerful and enterprising Khan, vanquishing the Calmucks on the east, and extending their incursions to Tashkend. One of the most remarkable events, however, in the history of these steppes, was the Calmuck emigration from the shores of the Volga to join their brethren on the frontiers of China who had at the same time been freed from the yoke of the Zungars. This migration has been ascribed to various causes. Whatever may have originated it, the Russian government exerted all its energies to overtake the fugitives. The cupidity of all the tribes of Central Asia was roused to check the advance of more than twenty-eight thousand tents of Calmucks, who, with their flocks and families, performed this wonderful journey; and, in spite of the most incredible natural obstacles, encountered, with more or less success, the attacks of the three hordes of Kirghiz, fairly distancing a Russian army that was sent in pursuit from the lines of Orenburgh. The Black Kirghiz or Bouroutes, however, made such terrible havoc among these unfortunate adventurers, that they lost about half their number before arriving at their destination.

During the reign of the Empress Catharine, the relations of Russia with the Kirghiz tended more than ever to two results which it had mainly in view: the first was to establish fixed habitations in the two hordes; the second, to secure the inviolability of caravans. The forts of Troisk and Semipalatinsk were built as trading stations, and a town was projected upon the banks of the Emba nearly one-third of the way to Khiva. This, however, was not then carried out. Indeed, notwithstanding the efforts made to tame and civilise the Kirghiz, they ever proved most pertinacious barbarians. The mosques built here and there for their use upon the steppe were allowed to fall into decay; and although caravans were no longer so invariably plundered as formerly, the attempt to erect caravanserais on the road to Khiva for their accommodation failed signally. Agriculturists were sent to their encampments from Russia; but the art of cultivation has scarcely improved to this day, nor has the extent of cultivated ground increased. Nourali, in spite of many protestations of loyalty, was always most insubordinate, and, as alleged by Russia, he encouraged his tribe in the capture of Russian slaves for the Khivan market, so as ultimately to incur the vengeance of the government, and render an expedition to the sources of the Emba necessary to recover the captives. These, however, had been transferred to Khiva before the arrival of the Russian troops, who compensated themselves for their trouble and disappointment by retaliating on their enemies after their own fashion, and capturing two hundred and thirteen Kirghiz, women and children.

Not long afterwards, the power of Nourali was much shaken by the growing popularity of an adventurer named Syrym, whose terrible and successful inroads into Russia soon procured him the support of the greater portion of the tribe. The policy of Russia on this occasion is worthy of notice. Perceiving that the ability of the usurper would render him a formidable neighbour, she offered to withdraw her protection from Nourali, and place him at the head of the tribe under another title than that of Khan. Syrym seized the opportunity thus presented of getting rid of his rival. Nourali was for no ostensible reason deposed, a new constitution formed, and Syrym was placed as representative of the assembly of the Kirghiz little horde. The middle horde had some time previous to this increased in importance under an enterprising chief, who consolidated his power so successfully, by maintaining relations with China, that he was enabled to throw off the Muscovite yoke. Meantime Catharine directed her attention more exclusively than ever to the internal organisation of the little horde. She constituted tribunals in three of the tribes, the heads of which were salaried by Russia; presents of land were made to those of the Kirghiz who would establish themselves in the empire, and permission was given them to settle wherever they pleased within the frontier; in consequence of which forty-five thousand tents wintered in Russia the same year. Syrym, however, proved faithless. He was discovered to be tampering with the Turks, who were then at war with Russia, and finally threw off his allegiance. The Empress had now gained a sort of prescriptive right to the election of the chief of the horde; her influence assumed a permanent character, and she was enabled to enforce the regulations she had imposed. It is adduced as an evidence of the improved state of things, that no less than twenty-two thousand tents, at their own request, established themselves inside the Russian frontier, where they have remained peaceable subjects ever since. The real fact that this emigration was compulsory does not alter the value of the testimony.

During all this while, the grand horde, whose remote position rendered them less amenable to Russia, had not been enjoying independence. It seemed essential to the existence of these wandering tribes that they should be protected by the countries on whose frontiers they occasionally encamped—and the grand horde had been subjects successively of the Khan of Kokan and the Emperor of China. About this time, however, a large portion of it under the Khan transferred their allegiance to the Empress, who now found her influence extending more rapidly than ever. The middle horde was shortly after compelled to follow the example. This horde had, indeed, enjoyed greater tranquillity and independence than either of the others; it had neither been exposed to such repeated attacks from without, nor suffered, except for short intervals, from the protection of Russia. Now, however, tribunals of justice similar to those in the little horde were constituted; and not long after, it was thought necessary to draw out rules for the internal administration of such of the Kirghiz tribes as were definitely comprised in the category of Inorodtsï. The Inorodtsï are defined by Russia to be “subjects of Russia, without being Russians, or being confounded with the general population of the empire;—colonists, constituting colonies of their own, with their own regulations. They are half-savage nations, to whom the empire, interested, no doubt, but always benevolent, allows the advantage of its enlightened protection.” A few extracts from the regulations drawn up for the government of the Kirghiz, may not be uninteresting, as illustrating the mode in which Russia proposed to exercise over these remote tribes that protectorate which has now become so proverbial as the distinguishing feature of her aggressive policy.

The Kirghiz are divided into volostes; these volostes into aouls. An aoul is generally composed of one hundred and seventy tents, and a volost of ten or twelve aouls. A division contains fifteen or twenty volostes. The people of these divisions may communicate with one another without permission, but the limits are fixed by the officers of the quartermaster’s department attached to the superior authority of the line. The divisions are divided into those which border with countries not dependent on Russia—the numbers of which should be as few as possible—and those which abut upon the Russian frontier, which should be as numerous as possible.

The aouls are governed by starchines publicly elected every three years. The volostes are governed by sultans; the office of sultan is hereditary. In each division there is a chamber of administration (Prikaz), constituted by a president or starchi-sultan, who is the highest authority in the division, and is elected for three years by the starchines, and receives 1200 rubles annually; two Russian members, who are named by the superior authority of the province, and receive 1000 rubles annually; and two grandees, who are also elected by the starchines for two years. Should the Prikaz disapprove of the popular election of a starchine, it cannot reject him, but refers the matter to the superior authority. None of the members of the chamber can resign without permission from the same source. The starchi-sultan ranks with a major in the Russian army. If he is twice elected, he is raised to the rank of a nobleman of the empire. The other members rank as Russian employés of the 9th class; the sultans of volostes as of the 12th. The starchines and grandees rank with mayors of communities. From this it would appear that, though all the members of the government are nominally elected, there is not one of the offices, from the starchi-sultan downwards, that is not under the control of the superior Russian authority of the province. There is another tribunal presided over by the starchi-sultan, the functions of which are to make arrangements for the safety of the people in time of trouble; to watch over the domestic interests of the community, and encourage industry; to allow none to take the law into their own hands, no plundering of caravans; and, after due trial, to punish the offenders with death if necessary. There is a commanda or company of soldiers quartered near the Prikaz to keep the peace and protect caravans, and sentinels must be kept upon the boundaries of each division. Permission may be given to trade, but Chinese merchants found in the divisions are to be sent back to the frontier. Migrations into Russia by Kirghiz are not allowed without permission, and the sultans are personally responsible for the observance of the prescribed rules, and for the public peace and security. Houses for the members and officials connected with the Prikaz are to be built together with hospitals in each division, and a barrack for the Cossacks. For the first five years no taxes are levied; and after that the Issak, or a contribution of one animal out of every hundred, becomes due—except in the case of camels. Horses must be supplied gratuitously for Cossack regiments; and the line of communication must be maintained between each division and the frontier. Intercourse must be carried on daily between the aoul and the sultan, and the latter is ordered to keep up a weekly communication with the Russian authority by a courier on horseback. The corn trade is to be encouraged, and government granaries instituted; but the importation of corn brandy, or the distillation of it in the divisions, is prohibited. The cultivation of land is to be encouraged in every way. Five or six square versts round the Prikaz is the exclusive perquisite of the starchi-sultan; the other members are entitled to different proportions, as well as every domiciled Cossack or agriculturally disposed Kirghiz, provided he steadily perseveres in his new occupation. The land then becomes hereditary. The Russian members and Cossacks are specially enjoined to set the example, and show to the ignorant Kirghiz the use of hedges and ditches. Implements of husbandry, and other assistance, will be supplied by government. Missions and schools are to be established, and the Kirghiz to be permitted to send their children to Russia for their education. The superior Russian authority is commanded to make a tour of the divisions once a year. Slavery is prohibited. During the introduction of these rules, it is to be proclaimed as publicly as possible that the whole middle horde is under the Russian rule, and that faithful subjects on either side of the frontier shall enjoy the same rights. They must also be translated, and those volostes who do not submit to them are to be rigorously excluded from contact with those who do. So long, therefore, as the little horde will not conform to these rules, they are to be regarded as strangers. The lines of Siberia and the forts along it are not to be considered as fixed establishments; but the frontier is to be gradually extended as the new regime is propagated and embraces more distant portions of the tribe. The effective movement of the frontier line is only to take place upon the decision of the supreme authority,—when a detailed and circumstantial plan is to be presented, showing a favourable conjuncture of circumstances, and taking into consideration the interests of the frontier posts and local situations. Hence it appears that “the effective movement of the frontier line” into their territory is one of those privileges which Russia, “interested, no doubt, but always benevolent,” allows to the Inorodtsï or frontier nations to whom she accords her protection. The savage character of the Kirghiz, however, has proved their chief protection; for these rules for an improved system of internal organisation, so skilfully designed to destroy their nationality, have never been fully carried into effect, and the larger proportion of the Kirghiz have maintained their independence more entirely than the inhabitants of the more civilised countries of the west.

From the account we have already given of the policy of Russia with respect to these hordes, it is plain that, while she professes to encourage and protect their advances towards civilisation, her real object is their total subjugation; and the only possible way of accounting for her efforts to make an acquisition intrinsically so undesirable, is by the fact that it is necessary to her ulterior designs upon Khiva; and therefore it is that our inquiries are more especially directed to that part of the Kirghiz steppe through which a Russian army advancing upon Khiva would be compelled to march. So few travellers have recently visited these remote countries, and the information which we can obtain from Russian sources is so very meagre, and liable to so much suspicion, that it would be impossible here to enter into a detailed or minute analysis of the state of feeling towards Russia which prevails among the tribes of the little horde, or describe the facilities for moving large bodies of troops which Russia may recently have established upon the line of march. We know that ostensibly her influence extends over all the Kirghiz inhabiting the country between the Sea of Aral and the Caspian, and that the boundary line between the Kirghiz and the Turcomans, in this direction, is merely imaginary, following as nearly as possible the 44th parallel of latitude. On the east of the Sea of Aral the Syr is the limit of Russian influence; and to the south of that, the Oozbegs and Karakalpaks extend to Khiva, forming a portion of the subjects of that government.

There are four routes by which a Russian army could cross the steppes of Tartary to Khiva. That which is best known is identical with the great caravan route from Orenburgh to Boukhara, as far as the southeast corner of the Sea of Aral, where it branches off to Khiva. The country has been accurately described by Meyendorff and Eversmann, who made the journey by separate routes to Boukhara in 1820. Meyendorff was attached to a mission, under M. de Negri, sent to negotiate a commercial treaty with the Khan of Boukhara; and as he travelled with a heavy caravan and some troops, his journey gives us some idea of the difficulties which would be opposed to an army following the same line. For the first three hundred miles these would not be very serious. The country, though partially desert and hilly, is well supplied with water. Numerous rivulets, frozen in winter, dry in summer, and abundant in spring and autumn, run down the valleys; and upon their banks enough verdure is found to satisfy the wants of the camels. The aouls of the Kirghiz are frequent where the pasture is good; and at this short distance from the frontier they are comparatively submissive, and their assistance in transporting the artillery and heavy baggage would be indispensable to the Russians. The camels, though enduring, and of a good breed, are not accustomed to heavy loads, and are excessively slow as compared with those of the Arabian deserts. Tombs are the only buildings to be seen upon the whole route, which is of the most cheerless character imaginable. The Ilek and the Emba are the most considerable streams. Beyond the latter river, the road, by a rocky pass, crosses the hills of Moughodjar, which are accounted important in the steppe country, above which they rise to a height of nearly a thousand feet. The southern slopes of these hills are utterly devoid of vegetation; and here the real hardships of the way commence. The desert of Borzouk, which intervenes between this range and the Sea of Aral, furnishes a most scanty supply of water, and is composed of deep moving sand, rendering the carriage of artillery very arduous. Many of the carts accompanying Meyendorff’s expedition were burnt for fuel, and the cattle suffered severely from want of water, which, when it was procurable at all, was generally very bitter or brackish. It was often found at a depth of five feet from the surface. Fodder was equally scarce, camel-thorn and wormwood scrub forming the entire means of subsistence for the camels. To add to the dreary aspect of the country, extensive saline deposits are crossed frequently, while occasionally the track skirts a salt lake; but few inhabitants are met with on these desolate wastes, and those not to be depended upon. The expedition was upwards of a month in reaching the Sea of Aral from Orenburgh, and, travelling along its desert shores, arrived at last at the mouths of the Syr or Jaxartes. It is now reported that a line of Cossacks has been established along the whole of this route. But we are almost inclined to doubt the practicability of permanent posts being maintained across the great Borzouk sands, which extend from the Moughodjar mountains to the Sea of Aral. Between Orenburgh and these mountains we know that Cossack posts do exist; and it is said that a garrison has been placed upon the Emba, which would serve as a cantonment for reserves. This station was first established here at the time of Peroffsky’s expedition. This general succeeded, with ten thousand men, in reaching an intrenched camp half-way between the Emba and the Sea of Aral; but here (his journey having been undertaken in the dead of winter) he was stopped by the snow-drifts; and although he successfully defended himself from the attacks of the Oozbeg and Turcoman troops, sent from Khiva to arrest his further progress, he was compelled to retreat from his critical position, after suffering the loss of more than three-fourths of his men—thus proving that the obstacles which nature interposed to prevent his invading Khiva were more formidable than those which were to be encountered from Khivan troops. Of the object of this expedition we shall speak presently. Its failure has been held to establish the fact that the transport of an army across the Kirghiz steppes is utterly impracticable. This is a point, however, which does not deserve to be thus summarily decided upon. Russia has evidently not abandoned the idea of invading Khiva; and in spite of our assertions of its non-feasibility, she may prove some day that her endeavours to improve the means of communication with the shores of the Sea of Aral have not been unavailing. She has established a port at the mouth of the Jaxartes, and launched two iron steamers upon waters skimmed heretofore only by the reed canoe of the savage Kirghiz. And the determination displayed, in arrangements such as these, to make this route available, should teach us not to treat too lightly the efforts of a powerful and ambitious nation to subvert the existing political organisation of the states of Central Asia, and direct their resources against the single European power which has hitherto monopolised the lion’s share of their commerce. At the same time, it must not be supposed that the nature of the country to be traversed is the only impediment to the transport of troops. The southern Kirghiz are sufficiently far removed from the frontier of Russia not to dread its punishment; and as voluntary allegiance is never to be depended upon to the same extent as that which has been enforced, so the insubordinate tribes of the little horde, tempted by the prospect of plunder which the camp of the invading army would offer to them, might, by judiciously planned night assaults, inconceivably harass its movements; while, should they desire altogether to check the further advance of the army into their territory, burning the dry shrubs which form the only pasturage, or poisoning the few scattered wells upon which the army is dependent, are devices with which such savages are familiar. Moreover, they alone could supply the camels necessary for the transport of commissariat and artillery; and were they to desert the army in these sandy wastes, pursuit would be impossible. Hence it follows that the co-operation of the Kirghiz is essential to the success of an expedition through their country; and we gather from the universal testimony of travellers, that such co-operation is not to be depended upon. They are avaricious, treacherous, and indolent, yet possessing violent passions. For a century they have professed allegiance to Russia, during which period she has endeavoured to coax them into a state of permanent obedience by a lavish expenditure, and the gentlest treatment; by the building of mosques, houses, schools, and courts of justice; by the appointment of khans, and by the encouragement of agriculture; and she has succeeded no better than China, who uses threats instead of entreaties, force instead of presents, and who, by the most excessive cruelty, has fruitlessly endeavoured to force her commands upon the grand horde. The Russian Kirghiz still continue to misbehave and apologise as usual: they still sell slaves to Khiva, and deny their guilt; and Russia, unable to punish them, accords them her gracious protection, because she hopes to march, by their help, some day to Khiva to—recapture her slaves! Indeed, it is not to be expected that Kirghiz will respect Russians when they sell their own children to Russians themselves, and, in spite of the professed prohibition upon this traffic, continue to receive, on an average, three bags of corn for a boy, and two for a girl. No wonder the Russian trader finds this a profitable investment. The general trade, which consists of the exchange of horses, cows, sheep and goats, for grain and some of the simple luxuries of life, has decreased within the last few years. The population of the grand horde, partly subject to China, and partly independent, is estimated at four hundred thousand. The middle horde, the northern portion of which is really subject to Russia, and the whole nominally so, numbers about a million; and the little horde, whose allegiance is similarly divided, contains only two hundred thousand souls.

Hitherto we have only described the route to Khiva as far as the Jaxartes, because it is probable that a Russian army would embark there for Khiva. The Jaxartes divides into numerous channels near its mouth, forming an extensive delta, covered with reeds so tall that, although Meyendorff and Eversmann visited the embouchure for the purpose, they could not catch a glimpse of the waters of the lake. These reeds, matted together, form floating islands; and the natives construct rafts and canoes with them, upon which to cross the deep broad stream of the Syr. Forests of rushes fringe the southern and eastern coasts of the Sea of Aral, which is reported to be shallow throughout its whole extent. The banks of the Syr are considered the most favoured region in the globe by the Kirghiz, who there find trees occasionally six feet high, and rejoice in vegetation of a corresponding luxuriance. Upon some islands there are singular ruins of tombs and temples. It occupies a caravan five days of incessant marching through tall rushes to cross the delta. The principal arm of the river is said by Eversmann to be eight hundred yards broad. To the south of the Jaxartes, the route passes through a wood of saxaul, a species of tamarisk, and then crosses the worst desert in this part of Asia—the Kisil Koum, or Red Sand Desert. A loaded caravan is obliged to carry with it a five days’ supply of water, and is exposed to the attacks of the Kirghiz and Oozbegs who are subject to Khiva, and who inhabit the eastern shores of the Sea of Aral. It would be madness for a Russian army to attempt this route, and therefore the port has been wisely established at the mouth of the Syr. On the arrival of Meyendorff at Boukhara, after a journey of seventy-one days from Orenburgh, fifty of the horses which formed part of the escort died of fatigue.

The second route to which we have referred, passes along the western shores of the Sea of Aral. It was traversed in 1842 by a Russian mission to Khiva, and has been described by Basiner, a German, who accompanied the expedition. He left Orenburgh in August, the most trying time of the year, but found pasture abundant as far as the Ilek; it becomes scarcer between that river and the Emba. The route followed the line of Cossack posts at first; then crossing the Moughodjar hills, it enters upon the desert of the Oust Ourt, at a distance of about six hundred versts from Orenburgh. This plateau, elevated more than a thousand feet above the sea, is perfectly level, and is composed of deep sand. For days not a hill was visible, and our traveller records passing a mound three feet high as a curiosity. Cliffs overhang the Sea of Aral, and occasionally rivulets trickle into it, but water is sometimes not met with for two or three days at a time. For three weeks not even a wandering Kirghiz was seen; and then, at the south western corner of the Sea of Aral, only the most savage specimens were met with. Still this is the route which, if there be any truth in the rumour of a Russian army being at Oorjunge, it most probably must have taken; unless they had been conveyed across the Sea of Aral by steam, as, if they had followed its Eastern shores, they would have marched direct upon Khiva. Altogether the journey lasted seven weeks, and the description here given of the route does not lead us to suppose for a moment that it would be practicable for troops, more especially if their passage was disputed.

The third route, which has ever been regarded by Russia with a more favourable eye, crosses from Mung Ishlak, on the Caspian, to Khiva, over the southern portion of this same plateau, and has been accurately described by Captain Abbott. He estimates the highest point of the Oust Ourt steppe at two thousand feet above the sea-level, and gives a picture of the route, calculated to appal the most determined general that ever led an army. Although it is only four hundred and eighty miles, or about half as far from the Russian fort of Alexandrofski, on the eastern shores of the Caspian, to Khiva, as from Orenburgh to the same place, the difficulties of the traject would be far greater. Not even the tent of a Kirghiz was seen by Abbott during an interval of eight days: herbage was always scarce; and on one occasion the wells were one hundred and sixty miles apart. But the most serious objection to this route lay in the fact, that the greater part of it passes through the country inhabited by the tribes of Turcomans, which are subjects of Khiva, and a far more courageous and enterprising people than the Kirghiz. For a lengthened period the troops would be obliged to sustain the attacks of a most pertinacious foe, in addition to the frightful hardships incidental to the route. Caravans, no doubt, prefer coming from Russia by Astrakhan and Mung Ishlak, to going round by Orenburgh; but the requirements of a caravan are very different from those of an army, and not until every soldier is supplied with a camel can the same rules be made applicable to both.

The fourth and last route is that which Mouraviev followed, in an expedition which he made to the country of the Turcomans, and afterwards to Khiva, at the desire of the Russian government, in 1819–20. The objects of this mission, undertaken a very short time before that of M. de Negri to Boukhara, throws considerable light upon the policy of Russia in these states. After the fatal termination of Prince Bekevitch’s expedition, it became evident that, without propitiating the Turcomans, it would be impossible to maintain friendly relations with the countries lying beyond them; and in 1813, M. Rtichichev, the general then commanding in Georgia, sent into Turcomania Jean Mouratov, an Armenian merchant of Derbend, who, carrying on commercial transactions at Astrabad, had preserved relations with that country. At this period the Turcomans were an independent race, at war with Persia, and their alliance with Russia would prove a most opportune assistance to this latter power, who would thus command the whole northern Persian frontier. The proposal made by the Russian envoy for such an alliance, was eagerly received by the Khan of the Turcomans, and deputies sent to treat with Rtichichev. They found him at Gulistan, in Karabagh, concluding peace with Aboul Hhussein Khan. The Persian plenipotentiary, perceiving at once the danger of the proposed alliance between the Russians and Turcomans, objected to treat unless it were abandoned. This was agreed to by Russia; and many of the unfortunate Turcomans, feeling they were no longer able to resist Persia, submitted to that power, giving hostages to insure their future good behaviour. The Khan, however, with many followers, retired to Khiva for shelter; while another portion of the tribe took refuge upon the shores of the Caspian, in the bay of Balkhan, where they were beyond the reach of a Persian army—and they have ever since not only maintained their independence, but have become the most successful slave-dealers in this part of the world. Five years after the treaty of Gulistan, and while still at peace with Persia, Russia, anxious to secure the alliance of a tribe whose hostility to that power would materially affect the existing state of their mutual political relations, deliberately, and in defiance of an express stipulation to the contrary, reopened communications with the independent portion of the Turcoman nation, and Major Ponomarev and Mouraviev were sent to negotiate the act of treachery. The following passage from Major Ponomarev’s instructions may serve to illustrate their general character:—“From address in your conduct, the most favourable results may be anticipated; and upon this point the knowledge which you have of the Tartar language will be most useful. In your character of European, do not consider that flattery is a means which you cannot employ. It is very common among Asiatic nations; and although it may cost you something, you will find it to your advantage not to fear being too lavish of it. Your residence among a people who are almost altogether unknown to us, will furnish you, better than my instructions can, with light sufficient to guide you. As I believe in your capacity and zeal, I flatter myself that this attempt to form amicable alliances with the Turcomans will not be without success, and that the knowledge you will acquire of the country will facilitate the ulterior designs of government.” The first Turcoman encampment visited was at the southeast corner of the Caspian, near Cape Serebrenoi. The Turcomans were delighted at the prospect of a Russian alliance, and of seeing a fort built on Cape Serebrenoi. “We will have revenge,” they said, “on the Persians for their robberies. We do not know how to construct a fort; but when we make a general call to arms, we can bring ten thousand men into the field, and beat the Persians. Only five years ago we cut their Sardars to pieces near here, and carried away their cattle.” It is clear that if Major Ponomarev was prone to be too sparing of flattery, he did not scruple to betray to the Turcomans the ultimate designs of his government upon its allies the Persians. The Turcomans are agriculturists; they also possess large flocks and herds, and, from their proximity to the Persian frontier, have attained some little degree of civilisation. They dress like Persians, and have adopted many of their manners and customs; but they are easily impressed by superior intelligence and civilisation, and Mouraviev anticipates no obstacles, so far as they are concerned, to the movements of troops. The route to Khiva is tolerably well supplied with pasture and water for the first few days after leaving Krasnavodsk; but then the same terrible desert must be crossed that in every direction divides Khiva from Russia, and for five or six days water is unprocurable. The nature of the country is similar to that already described; but this is the shortest of the four routes, Mouraviev having accomplished it in seventeen days. At Krasnavodsk, as at Alexandrofski, the Russians have built a fort; thus having a starting-point for each of the routes to Khiva. The ostensible motive for building the two forts on the Caspian, was to protect the Russian fishermen from their Turcoman allies, who occasionally sell them at Khiva as slaves.

So long, indeed, as stray Russians continue to be kidnapped by the frontier tribes, will the Czar have a fair excuse for waging war, not only with those tribes themselves, but with the nations to whom his subjects are sold as slaves. He will continue desirous to extend the frontier of his empire, simply because he cannot set at liberty these unfortunates without doing so. Such was the object of Peroffsky’s expedition; the origin of which, as told to Abbott by the Khan of Khiva, is illustrative of what we have been saying. It was to the following effect: During the war between Khiva and Boukhara, about thirty years ago, a rich caravan, escorted by two hundred infantry and two guns, was sent by Russia to the latter state. To reach its destination, however, it was compelled to pass through part of Khiva, or Khaurism, as the whole country is called. The Khan, fearing that so desirable an acquisition might be used by his enemy against him, politely intimated to the Russian commander his objection to the further advance of the caravan. In spite of this prohibition, the latter attempted to force a passage. Khivan troops were sent to oppose him in the Kisil Koum, where they inflicted serious loss, compelling the troops to retreat to the Russian frontier, and plundered the caravan. Fifteen years afterwards the Russians built the fort of Alexandrofski, in what was really Khivan territory, and soon after seized some Khivan caravans trading in Russia, and retained five hundred and fifty merchants as prisoners. Upon her ambassador being sent to demand their release, the Khan was informed that he must first release all the Russian slaves. As an earnest of his intention to do so, he sent six to Russia, demanding an equal number of Khivans. The Russians were retained, and the ambassador’s brother imprisoned, but no Khivans were released. Upon this a third ambassador, with a hundred and twenty captives, were surrendered, but no answer was returned. “I therefore,” said the Khan, “perceived that Russia was only playing upon my credulity. It is six months since the return of my last ambassador.” At this very time there was an intrenched camp on the Emba, and an advanced post half-way between that river and the Sea of Aral. As we before remarked, the snows, and not the Khivans, rendered that expedition fruitless; and further attempts of a similar nature were put a stop to by the gallant exploit of Sir Richmond Shakespeare, who released nearly five hundred Russian slaves in Khiva, and conveyed them safely to St Petersburg.

The slave traffic, however, still continues; and in 1842 Danielevsky was sent to Khiva, upon the mission to which we have already alluded, charged with obtaining the release of the captives then in slavery, and securing the inviolability of caravans to Boukhara, together with certain privileges for merchants trading in Khiva. We have no information as to the secret objects of the expedition, or how far it may have been successful; but this is certain, that Russia does not need an excuse for invading Khiva, and has been paving the way for an occupation for many years. We have not space now to describe the condition of this country, the most savage of all the states of Central Asia; but, from the description of English as well as Russian travellers, it cannot be expected to offer any very serious resistance to Russian arms. The army is estimated by Abbott at one hundred and eight thousand men. It consists entirely of cavalry, and is furnished by the settled population at the rate of one horseman for fifty chains of land, and by nomades at the rate of one horseman for four families. The Oozbegs are the bravest of these, and compose nearly half the army; still, the encounters they have already had with the Russians prove that they are no match for disciplined troops; and if ten thousand men, in good condition, were landed upon the southern shores of the Sea of Aral, the independence of Khiva would be gone. It remains to be proved whether this is a possibility. The difficulties of marching an army across the Great Borzouk to the embouchure of the Syr have been already noticed, and do not seem altogether insurmountable. The Oxus is too shallow to allow of their being conveyed up its stream, and they would be compelled to disembark in the face of a whole population prepared to receive them. Mouraviev calculates upon a rising among the slaves in the event of any such invasion. But the mode which Russia would most probably employ to possess herself of Khiva, would be by exciting Persia or Boukhara to hostilities with that state, and then offering it her protection. Spring or autumn are the only seasons of the year at which the expedition could expect to make a successful traject of the steppes. Khiva, though a small state, is capable of being made a productive acquisition. Its annual revenue amounts to about £300,000. At present it furnishes scarcely any articles of export, and carries on a comparatively small trade with Russia. Boukhara is the great Eastern emporium; but the traffic is much intercepted by Turcoman banditti, who are subjects of Khiva. The aspect of Khiva, after a journey over the steppe, which in every direction surrounds it, is most inviting. Canals intersect the country, forming little islands, upon which castellated houses are situated; tropical produce is abundant and luxuriant; vegetation affords a grateful relief to the eye of the weary traveller. The most fertile portion is about two hundred miles long by sixty broad. The entire population amounts to 2,500,000. In winter the cold is severe; and though in the latitude of Rome, the Oxus is frozen over.

Having thus attempted to relate the mode by which Russia has extended her influence over those tribes whose furthest wanderings form the uncertain boundary which separates her subjects from the nomades of Khiva, and having described the nature of the country, and of the inhabitants through which a Russian army invading that state would be compelled to march, it is time to consider shortly what the object of such a campaign would be, and what its probable results. It is evident that, of all European nations we alone could be directly interested in such a movement on the part of Russia; but it is equally plain that, even should a Muscovite army succeed in occupying Khiva, its farther advance through Caubul and the Hindoo Khoosh is an utter impossibility. Bjornstjerna, the Swedish general, in his work on the East Indies, says it will require four campaigns before a Russian army could possibly arrive at the Indies by this route; and, indeed, the slightest acquaintance with the nature of the country to be traversed, will be sufficient to justify our discarding as absurd the notion of a Russian army invading India from Orenburgh and Khiva. But this consideration does not divest of their importance the designs of Russia upon Khiva, but should rather lead us to discover what those motives really are which induce her to entertain them at all; and a due appreciation of the present position of Russia in the East will quickly enable us to perceive why, while repelling her aggressions in the West, we should not neglect to watch her movements in that part of the world in which our own interests are more nearly affected. The tendency of those movements has not been altogether concealed. Mouraviev says, unreservedly—“Masters of Khiva, many other states would be under our rule. The possession of it would shake to the foundation the enormous commercial superiority of those who now rule the sea.” It is, therefore, not the invasion of India which is anticipated, but the acquirement of that influence over the neighbouring states which would have the effect of undermining the power of Great Britain in the East. The states here alluded to as bordering upon Khiva, are Boukhara, Caubul, and Persia. Supposing Russia to be at Khiva, so long at least as she was confined to that remote and inaccessible country, the possibility of her alliance with Boukhara and Caubul against England can scarcely be entertained. The barbarian rulers of these distant people are far too suspicious of so powerful a neighbour, and too ignorant of the relative power of European states, to join in a war between two great Christian empires, the objects of which they would not understand, and which they would conceive might probably lead to the extinction of Mahomedanism. While allowing that the conquest of Boukhara is possible, its acquisition would not facilitate the designs of Russia against India, for the intercourse between the two countries is unimportant, and the mountain ranges by which they are separated are almost impassable. The deserts which intervene between Khiva and Caubul, the mountainous nature of this latter state, and the bravery of its inhabitants, would render its conquest by a Russian army out of the question, as our own experience may testify. Persia, then, is the only state which would really be placed in imminent peril by the occupation of Khiva by the Russians, and it is the only state whose independence is of vital importance to our Eastern interests. “The independence of Persia,” writes the author of the pamphlet we have already quoted, “is the only apparent obstacle to a position by Russia which would enable her to destroy in Asia the power of the Sultan, already shaken in Europe; to annihilate our commerce in Central Asia; to force us to diminish our revenues, and largely to augment our expenditure in India, where our finances are even now embarrassed; to disturb the whole system of government in that country during peace; to threaten it with invasion in war; and to oppose to our maritime and commercial superiority her power to shake our empire in the East.” If, then, we admit the view, here so ably expressed, to be correct, it only remains for us to consider how the taking of Khiva would be instrumental towards the subversion of Persian independence, and how we may best take advantage of the existing state of our relations with Russia, so as to relieve ourselves for ever from the anxiety arising from this source. The frontier of Khiva is conterminous with that of Persia from Herat to Astrabad, for a distance of four hundred miles. If Khiva became a Russian province, the whole northern frontier of Persia, from its most easterly to its most westerly point, from Boukhara to Turkey, would form the southern boundary of the Russian empire. Already has the Czar despoiled Persia of territory equal in extent to the British Islands, but hitherto he has been able to threaten her upon the western shores of the Caspian alone. It was the object of Mouraviev’s mission to Turcomania to induce the Turcomans to create a diversion upon the opposite coast, and, crossing the Attruck, to invade the province of Astrabad. That project would be rendered still more feasible by the possession of Khiva, whose influence extends more or less over the whole of Turcomania. The most bitter enmity has ever existed between these tribes and the Persians, fostered by the fanaticism consequent upon their profession of opposite Mahomedan creeds, and they would gladly seize this opportunity of avenging themselves on a power which has incessantly persecuted them, while even Caubul might be incited to join in a crusade against the heretical Sheas. The long-coveted provinces of Ghilan, Mazenderan, and Astrabad alone separate the Transcaucasian provinces of Russia from Turcomania and Khiva. Their ports are at the mercy of the Russian fleet on the Caspian; and if, while the Turks are being conquered at the one end of the frontier, the Khivans are being subjugated at the other, Persia must, in her turn, submit to the omnipotent power from the north, and her most fertile provinces will be added to the catalogue of “All the Russias.”

But if, on the other hand, by a prompt conveyance of troops to the seat of war in Georgia, and a strict blockade of the eastern shores of the Black Sea, we are able, in conjunction with the Ottoman and Circassian armies, to drive out the Russian forces at present occupying them, we shall hear no more rumours of a Russian army being at Khiva. A Russian army in Khiva, unsupported by an army in Armenia, would find itself in a particularly useless position; and, even in connection with the Affghans and Turcomans, could hope to gain no advantage over a power who, now that the tide of Russian aggression had been stayed, no longer believed in Russian omnipotence, as it saw with amazement that the allied powers of Europe had been able to maintain the tottering independence of plundered and enfeebled Turkey.

The conclusion, then, to which our consideration of the present state of the acquired provinces in Asia has brought us, seems to be, that they have been acquired only as a necessary prelude to the annexation of another and more important country;—that, notwithstanding the judicious treatment of the Kirghiz, their internal condition is by no means satisfactory, while the natural obstacles which their country presents to the transport of troops are almost insurmountable;—that even if the conquest of Khiva were achieved, it would be dangerous only to the British possessions in the East indirectly, or through the influence thus exercised upon Persia;—that this influence can only exist so long as the Russian arms in Armenia are successful;—that, in fact, the extension of the frontier line of Russia to the east of the Caspian must be regulated entirely by its progress to the west of that sea;—and that it is in the power of this country to check that progress at once, and thus nip in the bud her long-cherished designs upon Persia, and her deeply-laid schemes for the appropriation of those sources of wealth and power in the East, which have so materially contributed to raise this country to her present high position among European nations.

DEATH OF PROFESSOR WILSON.

It is one of the painful duties which devolve on those connected with a work like the present, to be called on from time to time to commemorate the removal from this earthly scene, of those by whose original and inventive minds its peculiar character was impressed, or to whose genius and labours in after life it owed its continued influence and reputation. More than once that melancholy task has been ours, for Death has made more than his usual gaps in the ranks of those who were associated with the rise of this Magazine and its early success. But the greatest and most distinguished of that gifted band, whose name has been identified with it from first to last, had till now been spared;—withdrawn, indeed, for some time from those circles which he had enlightened and adorned—and already surrounded by some shadow of the coming night, but still surviving among us as a link connecting the present and the past, and forming the centre of a thousand sympathising and reverential associations. He also has at last been gathered to his fellows. Professor Wilson expired at his house in Gloucester Place on the morning of the 3d April 1854. Born in May 1785, he was thus in his sixty-ninth year when he died;—not prematurely taken, it may be said, for he had nearly touched the period which is proverbially allotted as the measure of human life, yet passing from among us long before he had attained that advanced old age, which, when united with health, wisdom, and worth, seems to afford one of the happiest conditions of existence, and of which, in his case, the vigour and elasticity both of his mental and bodily frame, had seemed to human calculation to promise the attainment. It is consolatory to think that his period of seclusion and sickness passed in tranquillity both of mind and body; not perhaps painless, yet without acute or prolonged suffering;—the bodily energies waning gently, like the twilight, and the mind, though clear, partaking of that growing languor which had crept over the frame with which it was associated. As a proof of how long his mental vigour and capacity of exertion survived the effects of physical decline, it may be mentioned that two of the papers entitled “Dies Boreales,” the last of a fine series on Milton’s Paradise Lost, were written by him in August and September 1852, some months after the occurrence of that calamity by which his strong frame had been stricken down; papers written with his usual fine perception and impressive diction, but in a hand so tremulous, so feeble and indistinct, as to prove the strong effort of will by which alone such a task could have been accomplished. These were the last papers he ever wrote: they want, as is evident enough, the dazzling splendour of his earlier writings: they do not stir the heart like the trumpet tones of his prime, but they breathe a tone of sober grandeur and settled conviction; and these subdued and earnest words, now that we know them to have been his last, sink into the heart, like the parting accents of a friend, with a melancholy charm.

We leave to others, and in another form, the task of delineating the character of Professor Wilson as a poet, a novelist, a philosopher, and a critic: our more limited object is to speak of him only in connection with this Magazine, of which he was so long the animating spirit; to recall and arrest for a moment the lineaments of the man as he first appeared to us—as we were familiar with him in after life—and to embody in a few words our sense of what he has done for literature and for society, through the pages of that publication, in which, unless we greatly err, posterity will recognise the richest outpourings of his genius, and in which may be traced all the moods of his changing mind—from the first wild and sparkling effusions of youth, through the more matured creations of his manhood, down to that period when even genius takes a sober colouring from the troubles of life, and all those vivid and truthful pictures of the world around us begin unconsciously to be imbued and solemnised by the prospects of another.

When we first saw Professor Wilson—now more than three-and-thirty years ago—no more remarkable person could have attracted attention. Physically and mentally he was the embodied type of energy, power, and self-reliance. The tall and elastic frame, the massive head that crowned it, the waving hair, the finely-cut features, the eye flashing with every variety of emotion, the pure and eloquent blood which spoke in the cheek, the stately lion-like port of the man,—all announced, at the first glance, one of Nature’s nobles. And to the outward presence corresponded the mind within; for rarely have qualities so varied been blended in such marvellous and harmonious union. The culture of English scholarship had softened the more rugged features of his Scottish education. The knowledge of life, and sympathy with all its forms, from the highest to the lowest, had steadied the views and corrected the sentimental vagueness of the poetical temperament: a strong and practical sagacity pervaded, and gave reality to, all the creations of his imagination. Extensive and excursive reading—at least in English literature and the classics—combined with a singular accuracy and minuteness of natural observation, had stored his mind with facts of every kind, and stamped the results upon an iron memory. Nature and early training had so balanced his faculties that all themes seemed to come alike to his hand: the driest, provided only it bore upon the actual concerns of life, had nothing repulsive for him: he could expatiate in the field of the mournful as if it were his habitual element, and turn to the sportive and the fantastic, as if he had been all his life a denizen of the court of Comus. The qualities of the heart partook of this expansive and universal character. Affections as tender as they were impetuous, checked and softened the impulses of a fiery temper and vehement will, and infused a pathetic and relenting spirit into strains of invective that were deviating into harshness. That he should have been without warm dislikings, as well as warm attachments, would imply an impossibility. But from everything petty or rancorous he was absolutely free. Most justly was entitled to say of himself, that he never knew envy except as he had studied it in others. His opposition, if it was uncompromising, was always open and manly: to the great or good qualities of his opponent he generally did justice from the first—always in the end; and not a few of those who in early life had regarded him merely as the headlong leader of a partisan warfare, both in literature and politics, came to learn their mistake, to reverence in him the high-toned and impartial critic, and to esteem the warm-hearted and generous man.

His conversation and his public speaking had in them a charm to which no other term is applicable but that of fascination, and which, in the zenith of his powers, we never met with any one able to resist. While his glittering eye held the spectators captive, and the music of the ever-varying voice, modulating up and down with the changing character of the theme, fell on the ear, and a flood of imagery invested the subject with every conceivable attribute of the touching, the playful, or the picturesque, the effect was electric, indescribable: it imprisoned the minds of the auditors; they seemed to fear that the sound would cease—they held their breath as if under the influence of a spell.

Thus accomplished by nature and education, did Professor Wilson apply himself to his self-imposed task in this Magazine—that of imparting to periodical literature in general, and to literary criticism in particular, a new body and a new life; of pulling down the old conventional walls within which they had been confined, and of investing criticism itself with something of the creative and poetic character of the great works of imagination to which it was to be applied.

And in what a noble and true-hearted spirit was that task accomplished. Much had no doubt been done within the century to enlarge the basis of our critical views, to exchange the criticism of particulars for that of generals, to contemplate and decide according to the essence rather than the form. But we hesitate not to say, that practically the criticism of the day was sectarian and political: class criticism, not catholic. It denied or coldly accorded merit to those beyond the pale of the reviewer’s own opinions; it was too apt to assume in all cases an air of condescending superiority; and it was in its form inflexible, demurely decorous, and solemn, banishing from its sphere all that wide field of illustration afforded by the homely and the ludicrous, from the judicious contrast and opposition of which so much of added interest and novelty of view might fairly be derived. These wants the criticisms of Professor Wilson for the first time effectually supplied. Reverential in all cases where reverence was justly due, his keen sense of the ludicrous made him at the same time unsparing of ridicule, when, either in its moral or artistic aspect, the subject of the criticism required and justified the application of such a weapon. Strong as might be his party opinions, they faded out of view whenever he had to deal with any of the greater questions of literature or the pretensions of its genuine candidates; while to how many of the humblest aspirants for fame did his cordial and unstinted praise, blended with just advice and chastened censure, speak hope and comfort amidst discouragement and poverty and pain! From every nook of nature, from every mood of mind, he drew his allusions and illustrations, ever-shifting, iridescent:—under his guidance, humour and feeling, long separated, walked hand in hand; and even the gravest minds readily reconciled themselves to his gay and fanciful embroideries on the web of life, because they felt that none knew better than he that its tissue was, after all, of a sombre hue;—because every page of these compositions, quaint and startling as they were, impressed them with the assurance that wherever the shafts of his ridicule might light, the nobler qualities of the soul itself—love, honour, duty, religion, and all the charities of life—were safe as in a sanctuary from their intrusion.

It would be idle, as it would be endless, to refer to particular examples in dealing with the criticisms of Professor Wilson. But we hesitate not to say, humbly, but with the conviction of its truth, that his contributions to this Magazine contain an amount of original and suggestive criticism, unparalleled in any publication to which the present time has given birth. From the Noctes alone what an armoury of bright and polished thought might be supplied! In his other papers, what a new aspect is given to old themes! The gentle and devout spirit of Spenser seems never before to have met with a congenial exponent. The infinite depths of Shakespeare’s mind are made to reveal new treasures. Milton’s stately fabric appears to expand its proportions, and to grow, at once classic and colossal, under his hand. Dryden’s long-resounding march here meets with a spirit-stirring accompaniment; and he who “stooped to truth, and moralised his song,” finds a defender, who can appreciate the sterling vigour and condensation of his thoughts, and the lucid felicities of their expression. Towards the few genuine poets who illumined the twilight of the last century—towards those who gilded the morning of the new—towards Scott, and Byron, and Coleridge, and Wordsworth—towards the lesser stars revolving within the orb of those greater luminaries—how just, how discriminating have been his acknowledgments! And in proof that these judgments, all glowing and impassioned as they seem, were yet founded on the truest appreciation of the principles of art, we would ask (and we do so with some confidence), in how few instances has the public shown any disposition to reverse the sentence which a deep poetical insight had dictated, and a lofty sense of duty had kept so impartial and so pure!

Nor is it to the mere professed criticism of literature that these observations are applicable. The same peculiarities and the same originality pervaded his numerous and varied essays, where he came more palpably into that field which Addison and Johnson and Goldsmith had trod before him. The humblest and most unpromising topics were on system made the vehicles of important truths; deep reflections “rose like an exhalation” out of hints thrown out as if in a spirit of dalliance; but the result was to exhibit man and his nature in many a new light, and to enforce reflection on many a vital question, where, under a more formal treatment of the subject, it would unquestionably have been evaded. Never, perhaps, was the power and value of the principle of surprise more aptly illustrated than in these essays, where we are suddenly withdrawn from some vulgar and prosaic foreground; led off—blindfold, it may be, and through brake and briar—yet, as we feel, by no unfriendly hand, till, when the journey ends, and the mask drops, we find ourselves translated to some mysterious mountain height, with the ocean of this life spread beneath our feet, and around us “the breath of heaven fresh blowing.”

This, we feel, is no fit place for entering on the social or moral qualities of Professor Wilson. “Something we might have said, but to what end?” The depth and tenderness of his domestic affections are not themes for such discussion. His charities, his generosity, liberal and unfailing as they were, we would leave in that obscurity to which it was his own wish they should be consigned. His appreciation of all worth, however humble; his readiness to assist struggling merit; his utter absence of all affectation of superiority in himself; his toleration for the faults or presumption of others; his reluctance consciously to inflict pain on any one—a feeling which grew on him, as it grows on all good men, with advancing years; are they not written on the memories of all who were the objects of his aid or his forbearance? The charms of his social intercourse, who is likely to forget, whether first experienced “in life’s morning march, when his spirit was young,” or when added years and experience had pruned the luxuriance and softened the asperities of youth, but left all the bright and genial qualities of the mind undimmed, and the sympathies of the soul at once deepened and diffused? To those who had the privilege of enjoying his intimate acquaintance, as familiar friends or fellow-labourers in the same seed-field; to the many who have been indebted to him for that which he never failed to afford—wise and considerate counsel; to the thousands whom he has formed, guided, encouraged, admonished, or corrected, the thought of Professor Wilson will be among those recollections which they would most wish to arrest—those visions which, when they begin to fade, they would be most anxious to recall.

As a proof how completely he was superior to any feeling of party where a question of literature and genius was involved, and how his kindly disposition could urge him to exertion, even under the pressure of disease, we may mention, that the last occasion on which he can be said to have appeared in public, was when he left his brother’s house, and, supported by a friendly arm, came up to record his vote for a political opponent, Mr Macaulay. The last occasion on which he left his own threshold, was when he drove out to congratulate a friend on an event, on which he believed his happiness in life was likely to depend.

So lived, so died Professor Wilson—in the union of his varied mental gifts, in the attractive and endearing qualities of his character, one of the most remarkable men whom Scotland, in the present or any other century, has produced. In our remarks we have confined ourselves to his services to this Magazine, and through that to literature. We have not referred to his other productions, nor to his academical prelections. If the value of the latter were to be estimated by the effect which they produced in stimulating the minds and awakening the interest of his auditory, they would be entitled to a high rank; but as yet there exist no materials from which a deliberate judgment as to their merits can be formed. In other respects, opinion has given the preference to his prose over his poetry, and to his essays over his narrative fictions. The judgment has been so general that it is probably just. In poetry, in prose fiction, he seems overmatched by other men: in the field of the discursive essay, with its “numerous prose,” he is felt to be unique and unapproachable—without a prototype, and in all probability without a successor.

We are aware that in what we have said we have uttered nothing new; that the marking lines of Professor Wilson’s literary character and compositions have been often drawn before; that his characteristics as a man have been indicated by worthier hands. But our object now is, not to say what is new, but to record what is true—true, as it presents itself to us, and true, as we should wish it to be for other times. The public has already pronounced its judgment, and with sufficient approach to unanimity, on Professor Wilson’s genius; it has formed and expressed its estimate of him as a man: in both cases we are content to accept the verdict as it stands; for in both we think it generous as well as just—we ask only to be allowed to register it in our pages.