| | | | | We were lingering about the hallowed precincts of St. | Stephens, on the way to the great hall, contemplating the | fathers of English liberty with whose images a grateful | posterity lines the passages, and puzzling over the apparent | phenomenon that all great men have small heads, when we | found ourselves in the centre of a stream of human beings | hotly careering in one direction. There were counsel in | wigs, attorneys dandling huge briefs, oppressed-looking | clerks groaning under blue bags, and a nondescript crowd | of keen eager-looking faces, panting and steaming as they | elbowed each other through the splendid hall. We suffered | our steps to follow the rush, which was indeed making a | virtue of necessity, and after a desperate struggle up a | gorgeous but somewhat ill-smelling staircase, we found | ourselves in a huge square room hung round with maps. | There was a bar in front of us, and beyond that a horse-shoe | table, round which five weary-looking gentlemen were | seated. It was that awful tribunal, a Committee of the | House of Commons. In the centre was the chairman, whom | we recognised as Sir Tunbelly Turnbull, M.P. for an | agricultural county in the west, noted for his success in | fating pigs, and a great connoisseur in middens. On one | side was Mr. O'Blunderbuss, Dr. M'Hale's representative on | the principle of universal opposition and Mr. Muddle a | small country grocer, whom the late apotheosis of town | clerks had exalted into a senator. On the other side sat a | scamp of a Life-Guardsman, whom his aristocratic mother | had sent into the House as the sole chance of making him | steady, and a Yellow Admiral, who has a strong opinion on | the peculiar construction of scuppers, but has never been | known to express any opinion on any other subject | whatever. | We wondered what these sages could possibly have met to | discuss, and what human being could pay the slightest | deference to their decision. But on listening to Mr. Hope | Scott and Serjeant Wrangham, who were arguing at the bar, | we discovered that the disposal of several millions turned | on their sentence. Indeed there were many witnesses in the | room who loudly asseverated that, if the project under | discussion were sanctioned, they would be utterly ruined. | The matter just then at issue was a nice point of | conveyancing, which at that moment was still | sub judice in the Court of Chancery. | Serjeant Wrangham had succeeded in convincing the | Life-Guardsman that the fee-simple of land had no connexion | with a lawyer's fee; but he had been compelled to do so | with the greatest delicacy, for his young lordship was very | sulky at being supposed to be ignorant of anything, and was | very much inclined to swear. The argument proceeded. | The counsel flung cases at each other, which certainly the | Committee, and probably no-one | else, had ever heard of, and overwhelmed the | tribunal with legal terms which, warned by the fate of his | fellow-ignoramus, the Life-Guardsman, Sir Tunbelly was | too prudent to ask the meaning of. The rest of the | Committee took the infliction in various ways. Mr. | O'Blunderbuss kept shaking his head knowingly at all the | points, to make believe he understood, and would | occasionally interject a joke, at which counsel, agents, | witnesses, and public roared . Mr. Muddle | appeared to be taking notes; but his papers being afterwards | found on the table, it appeared that he had been calculating | the effect of the Budget on the prices of tea. The | Life-Guardsman gave himself up unreservedly to sandwiches; | and the Yellow Admiral, wisest of all, fairly snored. | In our innocence, we inquired of a friend close by, who we | know was an ardent admirer of the constitution, how this | strange collection of varieties had been set in a position to | dispose at will of the property of their fellow-subjects. We | were told in answer, that they had been elected by sundry | communities of publicans, small tradesmen, or small | farmers, to give effect to certain political opinions on the | Ballot, Church Rates, and other like matters. But why we | asked, was that supposed to fit them to adjudicate on legal | points, and to adjust the claims of those to whose detriment | railways or other works might have to be carried out? The | only answer we could obtain was, that the House of | Commons was an ancient body, and was loth to part with | its privileges. But we had been often told by the | Times, in which we are implicit | believers, that this House of Commons contained some of | the best men of business in the country. ! | answered our informant, . We further learned, | that these sapient judges are irresponsible ~~ that their | power extends over all property, and to the abrogation of | any title and any law ~~ that they are bound by no code or | precedent, except their own views of equity and policy ~~ | that their sentence, if it be against a project, is without | appeal, and that, if in its favour, there is no appeal for those | whom its operation may injure, except to a tribunal nearly | as bad in the House of Lords. We were moreover informed | that the management of these judges, to whom legal | acumen appeals in vain, is so delicate a matter, and requires | such peculiar talents, that the fortunate few who possess | them are able to charge the luckless suitors, whose all | depends upon their aid, as much as fifteen guineas for | every four hours. We thought to ourselves that it was idle | to talk of the House of Commons being unchristianized; for | verily it is the only body in Christendom whose zeal goes | so far that it carries out to the letter the Apostle's ironical | precept, to . But while we were communicating | this original thought to our friend, the Yellow Admiral | awoke and called us to order, to show that he had been | attending all the while. | | | | | It is by trifles that national character is most distinctly | shown. All the more elaborate and important | institutions of nations have a tendency to assimilate to | each other. The results of reasoning and reflection | will be the same in all countries; and the | arrangements which are the result of them cannot, in | the end, differ very much. But in the smaller matters | of life, the subjects of mere caprice and taste, a | nation's spontaneous tendencies make themselves | very plainly seen. Bathing ~~ a subject with which, | as actors or spectators, a considerable number of our | readers will be familiar just now ~~ curiously | illustrates the difference of the two nations which, in | more important matters, are gradually drawing more | close together. The two systems are much valued by | the two nations; and the plan of one is wholly | intolerable to the other. The Englishman cannot | endure the restraints of the French system, and the | Frenchman boldly sets down all our talk about | morality as humbug when our laws and customs | tolerate such outrages upon decency as are witnessed | at an English watering-place. To an Englishman the | charm of his system is its independence. His | bathing-machine is his castle. The little bit of sea it | encloses is his peculiar property. | No-one can encroach upon the few cubic feet of | water he has appropriated for the time. If he likes to | sally forth for a swim, he comes and goes regardless | of the existence of anyone | else. It is not necessary for him to take any | notice of his most intimate acquaintance who may be | bathing in the next machine. He adopts precisely that | amount of clothing or nudity which comports best | with his own idea of no regulations, and recognises | no public opinion in his proceedings. The sea and he | have it entirely to themselves. That mixture of | freedom and seclusion which constitutes an | Englishman's chief happiness finds its highest ideal in | an English bathing-machine. To carve out for the | time being a private property even in the sea, and to | have contrived a movable house for the enjoyment of | a luxury in which seclusion seemed impossible, is | quite a triumph of the national peculiarities. In | France, the whole spirit of the scene is changed. The | pastime ceases to be the isolated, surly, exclusive | affair which it is upon the English coast. But, at the | same time, it loses its characteristic freedom. Like | every other action in the life of a French citizen, it is | | tremendously regulated by the Government, and it is | as much made the opportunity for the display of a | Frenchman's gregarious tastes as any other part of the | day's employment. There is no period of the | twenty-four hours at which the beach looks so gay, so full, | so picturesque, as during the bathing time, and at the | place which a paternal Administration has selected as | the most suitable. Perhaps what makes it the liveliest | is the curious costume in which many of the figures | upon it appear. The Government has taken the | observance of decency under its own protection, and | prescribes with accuracy the apparel to be worn. It | looks a comical kind of decency to English eyes. The | men are dressed in a sort of trowsers and jersey all in | one, which differs from ordinary garments of that | description chiefly in being much too short in the legs | and arms. This arrangement seems to be a | compromise between the Government's appreciation | of decency and the natural human desire to be as | naked as possible in the water. But, to a stranger, it | looks as if all the male population of the place had | been seized with a sudden fancy for dressing in the | clothes of their little boys. But they are not the oddest | figures of the scene. The Government, having | ascertained the minimum of clothing that is | respectable for men, appears to have come, by a kind | of mechanical logic, to the conclusion that a similar | quantity is abundant for women. The result is, that | the beach is peopled with a number of | nondescript-looking figures, bearing very much | the appearance of short, ill-made men, scantily dressed in | chocolate-coloured serge ~~ a sort of forked radish turned | brown from keeping ~~ which it requires some effort | of reasoning, on the part of people who are not | habituated to this Paradisaical innocence of costume, | to believe may possibly be ladies. All these figures | wander about in the aimless dilatory way which | appears to be an integral portion of the amusement. | Some are approaching the water with lazy steps, | wondering whether it is not rather cold, and, in the | agonies of deliberation, displaying the beauties of | their costume to considerable advantage. Others, who | have had their dip, are picking their steps wearily | over the shingle, looking in vain for the | cabane where they may relieve | themselves of the dripping garments which cling to | their figures with a tenacity which gives rather a | statuesque effect. All this time, by way of contrast, | the beach is full of non-bathers ~~ women dressed as | only French women can dress ~~ who are come to | enjoy the spectacle. The contrast between the | well-distended cones of gorgeous drapery which sweep | along to and fro across the beach, and the poor brown, | dripping, bifurcated specters who are creeping over | the pebbles up to their cabanes, | may give a philosopher food for reflection upon | the distinction between accidents and substance. If | any anxious parents wish to provide a cure for some | love-stricken youth, let them take him to see the | mistress of his affections bathing at a French | sea-place. Romance itself could not survive the sight of | the fair one, associated in his mind with graceful | movements and flowing lines and harmonious | colouring, emerging from the water in the similitude | of a magnified brown rat on its hind legs, which has | narrowly escaped from drowning. Few who have not | witnessed it can imagine how much of feminine | beauty can be left behind by its owner in a | cabane. | But the scene in the water is stranger still to English | eyes. It looks like some mythological picture | representing the Tritons carrying off the Nereids, or | the Satyrs pursuing the Nymphs. The first thing that | meets the spectator's eye is several couples in the | water, holding each others' wrists, and to all | appearance struggling violently. One of each of these | couples is one of the brown rats we have described, | and whom, by this time, the spectator has learned to | speak of in the feminine gender. The other is a very | muscular broad-shouldered Frenchman in a sailor's | dress, who appears to look upon the brown rat as his | own peculiar property. Generally, he seems to be | shaking her violently by the wrists, and taking the | opportunity to each successive wave that passes to | duck her under its crest. Sometimes he is grasping | her round the waist; sometimes he is tugging at one | arm; sometimes she seems to have been just cast | ashore by a very violent wave close by him, and to be | lying in a suppliant attitude at his feet. At one end of | the cabane, for the better | display of manly and feminine forms, is erected a | spring board, from which these strangely clothed | beings, of either sex, are projected into the sea. | Sometimes they take "headers," sometimes they take | "footers;" but the fairer portion of creation, | unaccustomed to these athletic feats, is very apt to | take that compromise between the two to which | Etonians were in the habit of assigning an | uneuphonious name. It is fair to say that all these | pastimes are not invariably conducted under the rough | manipulation of the muscular French | baigneurs. Ladies who are | fastidious prefer that the male hand in whose | guardianship they struggle with the waves shall be | one with which they are not wholly unfamiliar. Such | an arrangement may be more correct, but it is not | nearly so comfortable. Uninitiated males are much | more apt to be upset by the waves themselves than to | be able to give much assistance in the critical moment | to their tottering charges. Husband and wife may | often be seen entering the water affectionately | hand-in-hand, and returning more speedily than they had | intended, clutching each other in an involuntary | embrace as they are tumbled over by some unusually | large wave. Brothers, or even casual friends, are put | to the same use by ladies who shrink from the | baigneur's sinewy arm; and it is | quite the proper thing for a lady to make an | appointment with her male friends for a swimming | party, always assuming that her accomplishments | enable her to bear her part in it. But experienced | bathers do not trust to such a frail support. It is no | consolation to the fair one who is let go at the critical | moment, and washed up by the surf in admired | disorder, that the arm which played her false was a | conjugal or fraternal limb. And after all, it is a pity, | when you have gone so far, to distress yourself with | any remnants of English decorum. When you have | once persuaded yourself to run the ordeal of walking | in the comical tights, into which your dress is | converted by the water, across a large open place, in | presence of crowds of well-dressed gentlemen and | ladies, any further display of fastidiousness is an | unnecessary injury to your comfort. | Englishmen, at least, will never be very partial to this | system of bathing. They gain nothing by it except the | very questionable privilege of being allowed to swim | about among their female friends, both parties | disguised, par ordre superieur, | in a dress of exquisite absurdity. Though all | opportunities in which the sexes are allowed to | mingle freely are of course valued by young men on | their promotion, still it can hardly be said that the | French plan of bathing adds anything to their | opportunities in that respect. It would hardly be | possible to commence an eligible acquaintance in the | sea, or to pursue a promising flirtation at the moment | that both parties were wading out dripping wet upon | the shingle. A neighbouring | cabane might give an opportunity for a Pyramus | and Thisbe adventure, if unfortunately the | cabanes of the two sexes were | not generally kept apart. On the other hand, it is an | utter destruction of the comfort of bathing. It is not | bathing ~~ it is only getting wet through in a rather | elaborate manner. Moreover, it requires more | courage than a good many English people of either | sex possess, to face an admiring assemblage of | well-dressed and scrutinizing spectators in such a costume. | But carefully arranged by the authorities as a model | of decency and decorum according to their ideas, may | teach us a lesson as to the conventional character of | those terms, and the danger of censuring an apparent | breach of them in the customs of other nations. It is | difficult for an Englishman to conceive a method of | proceeding less consistent with his ideas of strict | decorum: and yet it is adopted by a people who | unanimously agree to censure him for his outrageous | disregard of decency in respect to the same | subject-matter. | | | | | The universal emancipation of mankind is the | conception of a petty mind. In the race towards | perfection, we have far outstripped such antiquated and | rudimentary ideas. The time has arrived to cast aside | our old and narrow prejudices in favour of the human | species. The great achievement of our epoch is to be | the emancipation of the brutes. The hour has arrived, | and so has the man. Lord Raynham, fresh from | linendraping reform, is to be the hero of this new | crusade ~~ the Wilberforce of oppressed brutality. He | is a practical man, not much given to talk, and therefore | we have heard little of his speeches in or out of | Parliament. He has gone straight to the point, by | introducing a Bill for securing ~~ in part, at least ~~ | their due privileges to brutes; and as it appears that a | retrograde House of Commons has refused to allow the | measure to go any further this year, we hasten to lay a | description of it before our readers. As its main object | is to secure his dumb but interesting clients against their | natural enemies, the human species, it may interest the | human public to know what their legal position will be | when Lord Raynham shall have attained the success | which prejudice can only delay for a time. | The first feature which we ought to recognise about the | Bill is its catholicity. All animals are included in it, and | are equally sheltered by its provisions. There is no | invidious selection. Aristocracy is the misfortune of the | human species, but it is not to be so among the brutes. | Lord Raynham will not hear of anything but absolute | equality. From the Darwinian monad to the Gorilla, all | are to be alike before the law. It is specially provided | in the Bill that it is not to be confined to quadrupeds, | but is to extend to all animals of all kinds, whatever | number of feet they may possess. . From the | bull to the rat, from the peacock to the flea, he throws | his shield impartially over all. He even goes so far as to | define, with more regard for liberality than etymology, | that the word

"cattle,"

as used in the Bill, | shall be as wide as the word

"animal"

in its | meaning ~~ a provision which, as we shall see, is | fruitful in important consequences. Having thus, in the | most liberal spirit, defined his clients, he proceeds to | lay down, in simple and nervous language, the great | enactments which are to effect the emancipation of the | brutes. The first provision is to give them personal | security: ~~ | | The language is obscure and susceptible of various | interpretations; but we assume that, like all penal laws, | it will be construed strictly. Hitherto, it has been the | practice with persons brought up in obsolete notions | upon the subject, to fight any animal that attacked them, | from a gnat upwards. But such illegal practices will be | no longer tolerated. People must not take the law into | their own hands. Henceforth, in case of any such | attack, they must abstain from violence and send for the | police, who will immediately procure a summons | against the offending gnat. They are bound, however, | not only not to lay violent hands on an animal, but they | must be careful not to hurt its feelings. The fourteenth | clause enacts, among other things ~~ | | It is impossible to imagine provisions conceived in a | broader or more liberal spirit. Henceforth such horrible | instruments of cruelty as flea-powder or insecticide will | be prohibited. To tread on a cur's toes will be highly | penal. To scare birds will no longer be the employment | of heartless boyhood. The

"injury and suffering" |

which every autumn brings back to partridges and | grouse will soon be a matter of history. The fox will | have his rights, like any other brute, and, as soon as he | gets out of breath, may turn round and fine all the | hunting field forty shillings. The worm's consent must | clearly be obtained before he can be made to wriggle | upon the hook. As for such atrocious instruments as | toothcombs, there is no doubt that they cause

| "injury and suffering"

to a vast number of animals, | and we hope that the very name will be forgotten. | Coachmen and costermongers, too, must learn that | flogging is unsuited to this enlightened age. When their | horses or donkeys decline to go, they must not dream of | inflicting

"suffering"

by means of the whip. | They must cultivate the art of reasoning with their | emancipated cattle, and induce them to trot by an | appeal to their moral sense. Our only fear with respect | to this clause is that the respected author does not see | all the consequences to which it may lead. It is quite | conceivable that, if it were to pass, the human species, | which has tyrannized over animals for so long, might | ask to be included under the same law as their former | victims. Many a lover would like to fine his | unreciprocating flame forty shillings for the offence | described in the clause of

"negligently treating him | so as to subject him to suffering;"

and the | gentlemen to whom Lord Palmerston will not give | office might, under this Bill, gratify their revenge at | last. | The next thing is to provide the brutes with a Poor-law. | If they are to be raised to a perfect equality with | mankind, they have clearly a right to Poor Relief. But | Lord Raynham, ever erring on the generous side, is | inclined to give them something more. He will not | expose them to the horrors of Boards of Guardians and | the workhouse test. He adopts a totally new principle | in Poor-law legislation, and lays upon every person, | indiscriminately, the duty of providing for every | destitute beast: ~~ | | This wide and generous provision will be remembered | by the brutes of after ages as the Magna Charta of their | race. Not only is every person forbidden to keep any | animal without food, water, or other necessary | provision, whatever that may mean, but | everyone who, by avoidable | negligence, causes suffering to any | animal is heavily punished. It is clearly | avoidable negligence to omit providing a cheese for | your mice, or a cream-jug for your neighbour's cat. If | you willfully or negligently lock up the cream-jug and | the cheese, and either of those interesting quadrupeds | dies in consequence, you will be liable to a fine of | 20 pounds But Lord Raynham has | specially provided that the word

"animal"

is | not to be confined to quadrupeds. Beware, therefore, | hard-hearted gardener, of depriving blackbirds of their | legitimate resource by netting over your fruit. Beware, | selfish landowner, of repelling the owl from his | favourite repast of pheasant's eggs. On the wickedness | and illegality of mosquito-nets it is needless to enlarge. | An interesting question will arise as to the status of | fleas and bugs under this clause. It is clear that any | person who possesses two rooms ~~ one infested by | bugs or fleas, and the other clear of them ~~ and shall | wilfully sleep in the one in which those meritorious | insects are not, will be , and will be, | ~~ offences punishable, as we have seen, by a fine of | twenty pounds. It may occur to a selfish householder, | placed in this dilemma, and compelled to choose | between his purse and his night's rest, to evade the | difficulty by shaking his sheets out of window, or | otherwise expelling from his dwelling his nightly foes. | But Lord Raynham has provided with admirable | foresight against any such act of barbarism by the | fifteenth clause: ~~ | | The fleas, therefore, may congratulate themselves on | being guarded at every point. If their victim should | attempt to crack them, he will be liable under the | fourteenth clause to a fine of forty shillings for | . If he attempt to turn them out of his house, he | must pay the same penalty for ; and if he shall | have the audacity to sleep in another bed, he must pay | no less than twenty pounds, under the twelfth clause, | for . He may think himself lucky if they do | not sue him under the same clause for turning round in | bed, as an act of

"negligence causing suffering to | an animal."

| Our short recapitulation is far from having exhausted | the benefits which our new liberator proposes to confer | upon the beasts. Sir George Lewis has noticed that the | Bill creates a Habeas Corpus | for brutes. There is one clause forcing every surveyor | of roads, or similar authority all over the country, to | provide tanks and troughs on any road by which cattle | pass, and to keep them day and night constantly filled | with water. There is another forbidding | anyone | to drive any cattle ~~ under which | term, as we have seen, every sort of animal is included | ~~ in the metropolis, unless he has taken out a license | and wears a badge. This provision will decorate with | that enviable ornament every gentleman's coachman, | carter, or commercial traveller ~~ | anyone in fact who holds a pair of reins in | his hands. There is another clause providing that no | cab-horse shall be employed until the Commissioners | of Police have themselves inspected him, and certified | that he is a suitable horse for the duty ~~ a function | which will form an agreeable relaxation to the | Commissioners in their leisure hours. And there is a | further provision that every person committing an | offence under this Act shall be fined at least ten | shillings, and for the third offence imprisoned three | months, without any discretion to the sentencing | magistrate. Three fleas cracked, and the offence in | each case duly proved, will suffice, when Lord | Raynham becomes a legislator, irrevocably to consign | an impatient Briton for three months to | | jail. Into these enactments we have not left ourselves | space to enter more at length. Some talk there has been | lately of the valuable exertions of independent members | to improve our law, and of the danger of allowing the | Government to supersede them altogether. We feel | sure that when the public considers those two masterly | achievements ~~ Sir Charles Burrell's Bill for | preserving maid-servants, and Lord Raynham's Bill for | protecting animals ~ there will be but one opinion, that | no sacrifice can be too great for the purpose of | maintaining in all their usefulness these invaluable | Solons. | | | | | The old complaint of the mismanagement of charitable | associations is beginning to be heard again. The | tendency of jobbery, and that constitutional dislike of | audits which seems inseparable from the consciousness | of having other people's money to give away, will | probably continue to impede benevolent undertakings | so long as they are managed by large committees. The | same easy temper of mind which enables a man to sit | through the discussions of a charitable committee gives | him a large-hearted and genial contempt for audits and | other checks against dishonesty, and jobbery is the | inherent vice of numerous bodies of electors entrusted | with the power of electing to offices of profit. What | large constituencies can do in this respect the | Universities occasionally show us on a grand scale. | The only remedy, will be, according to the fashion of | the day, to submit all the office-bearers of charitable | associations to a competitive examination. Candidates | for the place of committee men should be examined as | to their capacity for sitting several hours at a long table, | with their hands folded doing nothing, and wearing a | serious expression of countenance. Secretaries would | have to be examined generally in their capacity for | unctuous eloquence, and would be selected according to | their ability to construct the most affecting appeal out | of the slenderest materials. It might be expedient also | that they should be questioned upon the laws of honour | as applied to the subject of vouchers and receipts, and | should be required to exhibit the form of letter in which | they would resent the insult of an application for those | degrading instruments. Auditors should be examined as | to the various forms of checking accounts applicable to | the respective cases of a patron, a friend, an | acquaintance, and an enemy. | But the errors of benevolence are by no means confined | to abuse of patronage or unlimited trust in secretaries. | That want of the sterner element of business-like habit | and knowledge of the world which some men will call | innocence, and others greenness, produces far graver | evils than mere waste of money. It is apt to encourage | hypocrisy and vice. What, for instance, is likely to be | the practical working of the society which introduces its | difficulties to the world in the following advertisement: | ~~ | | We will not dwell on the naivete | of the Society's account of its operations in Long | Annuities. The termination of those securities has | evidently come upon them wholly by surprise. They | speak of their losses , as they might speak of | losses by the failure of the harvest or of some promising | speculation ~~ a mysterious Providential decree, the | consequences of which they may fairly call upon the | benevolent to help them in averting. But our complaint | is not of their finance, but of their professed object. | What do they expect to be the result of offering relief | exclusively to

"decided Christians?"

| Competitive examinations are undoubtedly the rage, but | this competition of decisive Christianity beats anything | that has yet been attempted in this line. How do they | distinguish between a decided and an undecided | Christian? Is it the length of the face? Or is there an | inimitable snuffle which an experienced Secretary | recognises at first hearing? Do the candidates for a | certificate of decisive Christianity give in a return of | their attendances at church, distinguishing the days on | which they kept awake through the sermon? Or are | they made to confide their experiences to the | Secretary's private ear, he marking

"regenerate" |

and

"unregenerate"

against their names, | according to circumstances? Generally it is young | ladies of the scrupulous age ~~ seventeen to twenty-five | ~~ who pour these gushing confidences into the | clerical bosom; in which cases, no doubt, they must be | very refreshing to a chastened spirit. But from elderly | paupers of more than sixty-five years of age we should | think it would be insipid. Besides, as the usual tests of | regeneracy ~~ abstinence from pink ribbons, dancing, | and play-going ~~ are not applicable to these poor old | folks, it must be difficult even for the most experienced | vessel to decide whether they are in a state of | justification or not. But, whatever the Secretary's | shibboleth may be, or that of the clergyman to whom he | trusts, we are very certain that it must produce a crop of | hypocrisy out of all proportion to the hunger it relieves. | The set of poor women who go to Church regularly in | consideration of the weekly dole of soup from the | parsonage are very apt to be the worst characters in the | parish. Madame de Maintenon thought she would | convert the French court by reserving the Royal favour | exclusively for

"decided Christians,"

and the | result was, that she trained up the generation who were | the boon-companions of Dubois. The experience of | pious parsonesses as to the expediency of reinforcing | the promises of the Beatitudes by promises of weekly | soup, generally coincides with the experience of | Madame de Maintenon. | Another curious instance of the inconceivable | simplicity of mind which characterizes the benevolent | world is the mode in which it is the fashion to attempt | the evangelization of the Social Evil. There is a perfect | furor just now for the | reclamation of these interesting creatures. A | considerable proportion of the charitable schemes | which crowd the advertising columns of the | Times are projects of one kind or | another for Christianizing the Magdalens. In itself this | is a very noble aspiration ~~ all the more noble that it is | not very likely to be realized, except on the very | smallest scale. It has all the romantic grandeur which | belonged to Canon Townshend's expedition to Rome | for the purpose of Protestantizing the Pope. The only | thing we object to is the mode in which it is to be done. | The Magdalens are to be made devout by exactly the | same process as that which is to manufacture

| "decided Christians"

in the neighbourhood of St. | Paul's. The soup-conversions, the invariable refuge of | proselytists in despair, meet us here again. The | Refuges and Penitentiaries are undoubtedly places in | which the best spiritual instruction is offered to the | Magdalen; but they are also places which present the | more carnal attractions of good clothing, warm fires, | plenty to eat and drink, and skilful medical attendance. | The hope is that the Magdalen will come to eat, and, | like the pickpocket in the story, remain to pray. | Theologians have divided with exact science, the | various modes in which religious anxieties are | re-awakened in hearts that have lost them; but they have | omitted to include the prospect of a good supper in the | catalogue. Of course, reports differ as to the degrees of | success which this mode of propagating the Gospel | attains ~~ some putting it at zero, and some at | boiling-point. But it is not to be wondered at if many | | of the Magdalens treat the Penitentiaries as a sort of | paddock, in which they can turn themselves out to grass | for a time whenever their health begins to suffer or their | trade to slacken. This, however, is not the only evil. If | it were, we should simply have to regret that so many | estimable people were wasting their money in chasing | such a will-o'-the-wisp. But it has a terrible tendency to | foster the vice against which it professes to contend. | Those who devote themselves so earnestly to minister | to the Magdalen forget that there are thousands of | maids-of-all-work in London who are not unobservant | spectators of the favours lavished on their erring sisters. | Let them try to look at the Penitentiary system from the | point of view of a maid-of-all-work, who drudges from | morning to night for half-a-crown a-week and her keep. | She knows companions of her youth, no richer than | herself, who flaunt up and down the street, dressed, as | she thinks, like any lady, enjoying unlimited freedom | and unlimited gin. Naturally, she thinks this is | pleasanter than ten hours' ceaseless scrubbing, and is | strongly tempted to adopt the vocation which leads to | such results. The only thing that comes in aid of her | principles to deter her is, that she has heard that it often | ends, after a few years, in broken health, destitution, | and an early death in the workhouse. But the | acquaintances who are urging her to do as they have | done, are easily able to pacify her alarms on this head. | A number of religious gentlemen have kindly removed | all difficulties of this kind. They have provided a sort | of Chelsea Hospital for the disabled of the profession, | in which her vocation can be laid aside whenever it | ceases to pay; so that she need trouble herself with no | fears of the death in the workhouse. With principle on | the one side, and every earthly advantage on the other, | we leave the philanthropists to judge which is likely to | carry off the victory. It is no theory, but a mournful | fact, that the contrast between the care lavished on the | wicked and the neglect which is the lot of the innocent | works deep and terrible results in the hearts of the class | from whom first the pavement, and then the | penitentiaries, are recruited. | But the mania goes on merrily. It has risen from point | to point till it has culminated in the midnight meetings | in St. James's Hall. There is something exquisitely | thoughtful and refined in this last attention to the wants | of an interesting class. There was something gross and | vulgar in the beef and mutton and costs which were the | bald attractions held out by the penitentiaries. The | imagination requires food as well as the body. Woman | has social instincts which are cultivated in every class | of the community, and from the gratification of which | the Magdalens ought not to be excluded. Some women | satisfy it by going to evening parties ~~ others, more | precise and demure, content themselves with | missionary meetings. Which species of entertainment | the Magdalens, as a body, would prefer, is, in the resent | imperfect state of knowledge with respect to them, | difficult to ascertain. It was resolved, therefore, to give | them an evening party and a missionary meeting all in | one. The most beautiful hall in London was hired, and, | in order to suit their peculiar habits, was advertised to | open at midnight. When midnight came, | the brilliantly-lighted hall was opened, | and the fair guests flocked in, | some of them in costumes so elegant that an | enterprising publisher has since thought it worth his | while to give them to the world. Conversation flowed | freely, tea and buttered toast were handed round ~~ the | most ethereal form of victuals in which a spiritual call | could possibly be disguised ~~ and several gentlemen, | renowned for their oratorical powers, contributed to the | entertainment of the evening. We see that the | promoters of the reunion | declare that it was a complete success; and we | thoroughly believe them. Those who happened to pass | through Regent-street in the small hours just after any | one of the entertainments was closed will entirely | confirm their boast. It had obviously been a success. | The street was full of lively groups; and the gentle | subjects who had just been preached at were animated, | we had almost said frisky, in their spirits, and more than | affable in their bearing. The experiment so | triumphantly made is likely to become an institution. It | appears that a succession of

"midnight meetings" |

of a still more brilliant character are contemplated | for the present year. There is only one thing now | wanting to their complete success. If Magdalens are | remarkable for anything, it is for a proper reverence for | the aristocratic institutions of our country. The | promoters of Penitentiaries have felt this so strongly | that they have founded a kind of hierarchy of refuges, | so that penitents may be accommodated according to | their birth, and miserable sinners of a higher class may | not be contaminated by having to weep in company | with miserable sinners of a lower. We recommend the | promoters of the midnight meetings to do something | towards satisfying this laudable instinct. Is there no | way of putting their entertainments under fashionable | patronage? Can they not have a "respectable" midnight | meeting, like the

"respectable"

night at the | analogous institution of Cremorne two years ago? It | would draw enormously. Fashionable ladies would | eagerly throng ~~ as they did to Cremorne ~~ to enjoy | the excitement of standing about, laughing, talking, and | drinking tea in the very places in which the | demi monde were in the habit of | doing the same thing. And then they might keep up the | illusion by having the same orators to address them; | and, if they liked it, the very same sermons too. It | would be quite as piquant as | Cremorne. Nor would its results be an unimportant | gain to the good cause. Very few Magdalens would | like to be out of the fashion; and those who were | strong-minded enough to resist the fascinations of | buttered toast and damnatory eloquence would come | when they heard that duchesses had set the example. | | | | It is a happy characteristic of our generation that | philanthropic persons are not satisfied with relieving | the suffering that thrusts itself upon their notice, but | are constantly hunting for new kinds of misery to | succour. So long as this benevolent spirit is abroad, | we cannot doubt that, sooner or later, the patient | afflictions of the chaperone will attract its notice. | Why should not her emancipation be attempted, now | that we have emancipated every other enslaved or | oppressed race? Is she not a woman and a sister, or, | at least, a female relative? Why is she to be the only | slave in the Queen's dominions? | Many curious kinds of villenage or serfdom grew up | under the feudal system, and many curious rights | prevailed under them. There was the right of feeding | your cows upon a peasant's vineyard, and there was | the right of opening a peasant and putting your feet | inside him to keep them warm when you came home | from hunting, and there were other rights more | irritating still, the mention of which is only suitable | for an antiquarian's pages. But the only one of these | rights that appears to have survived to the present day | is the villenage of the chaperone. The persons to | whom it is incident are mothers of marriageable | daughters until the possibility implied in that | adjective is converted into a fact. The suit and service | required under it is very severe. It is commonly | performed at the hour when the human race in general | are in bed. Under it the villein chaperone is bound to | follow her liege young lady, at any hour of the | evening at which she may be summoned, to dinner, | party, or ball (generally the later), there to sit or stand, | as circumstances may require, for any number of | hours, until such time of the night or morning as it | shall please the aforesaid liege young lady to go home. | The atmosphere in which this service is to be | performed approaches as nearly to that of the Black | Hole of Calcutta as the difference of climate will | permit. No fatigue is admitted as an excuse either for | not obeying the summons to go out, or for desiring to | get back home to bed. Unless the liege young lady | happens to be of an unusually merciful disposition, | physical infirmity confers no exemption upon the | villein. The only alleviation allowed to her is the | relaxation of exchanging scandalous stories with | other unhappy females in the same condition as | herself, who may be standing by her side on the | staircase, or ranged together with her along the wall, | in the common performance of their long and | toilsome duty. If her strength should fail her in the | trial, she must not look for mercy. One of the worst | evils of slavery is the cruelty it begets in the master's | heart. The young lady knows that her mother was | created for no other purpose except to wait in corners | or on staircases, while she dances and flirts into the | small hours of the night; and she has no notion of | setting a divine institution at nought from any | misplaced feelings of compassion. | Whether this is exactly the old people's view of the | institution of chaperonage, we will not undertake to | say: but it certainly is the young people's, and that, | after all, is the important matter. The theory, which in | former ages prevailed, that mothers underwent all the | fatigue of the office as a favour to their daughters, is | now quite obsolete. The subject has been more fully | studied, and the object for which mothers exist is | much better understood in the present day than it used | to be in days of less enlightenment. They are not | ornamental, nor, as a general rule, useful. It is | obvious at first sight that they are not allowed to exist | because they are pretty to look at. Nor do they exist | for the sake of bringing up their daughters. Such a | theory would be much too humiliating for the | daughter to endure, and is certainly much too | troublesome to be needlessly pressed on her by the | mother. No doubt, the use of mothers must be a | profound mystery to young ladies while they are still | in the hands of masters and governesses. But directly | they come out of the schoolroom the mystery is | solved. They recognise the wonderful adaptation by | which a use is found for all created things, even the | most useless; and they see at once that the final cause | of mothers is to take young ladies out. For their part, | they lose no opportunity of giving a full effect to this | providential arrangement. The mothers submit | meekly and do as they are told. They belonged to a | generation when girls were admired for being | languishing and helpless, and were trained | accordingly; and they are, consequently, wholly | incompetent to contend with the robust and athletic | natures which the healthier taste of our age has | developed in the existing race of young ladies. So | they go unresistingly whenever the summons is issued; | and if they are fortunate enough to get inside, are | packed in tightly-fitted rows against the wall. There | they contrive to exist in a semi-torpid condition, | staring sleepily at the undulating mass before them, | half stifled by the atmosphere and each other's | crinolines, until their daughters are satiated with the | pleasures of that almost stationary embrace which in | England is called a valse. Then, when their ordeal is | over, they wearily rumble home by the morning's | light, trying to remember where the next night's | torture is to be passed. The wan complexion and | pendulous cheeks which, about this time of the year, a | well-employed chaperone begins to exhibit, would | melt any but the stony heart of a fashionable daughter. | The only consolation to them is the hope they | constantly cherish that some day or other, in | consequence of these exertions, they may transfer the | duty of attending upon their pleasure-loving | daughters to some deluded partner, and then their | nocturnal servitude may be at an end. Of course, this | release sometimes does take place; but not so often as | might be wished. There are few cases more pitiable | than that of the veteran but unemancipated chaperone, | whose daughters cannot get married. Season after | season they have to congratulate fellow-labourers | who have escaped, while they remain in bondage; and | night after night they have to follow the half-old-maid | daughters, crosser and more desperate every year, to | the scene of their fruitless labours. These are the | cases we should recommend the most earnestly to the | consideration | | of philanthropists. The emancipation of worn-out | chaperones is surely an aim worthy of a section in the | Social Science Association. There are many charities | for the relief of far less deserving objects. Of course, | the machinery must differ slightly from the | recognised machinery of such bodies. Instead of a | Secretary and a Committee, and Solicitor and a | Banker, it would be necessary to have a corps of | eligible and devoted young men. For it is obvious | that the only mode in which the distressed chaperones | in question could be emancipated would be by | marrying off their unmarriageable daughters; and this | would certainly entail some self-sacrifice upon the | devoted young men. But surely it would not be more | than the suffering to be relieved might fairly demand. | We commend the whole subject to the consideration | of Lord Raynham and his friends, feeling sure that | they will do their little possible in the matter. Lord | Raynham proposed that in the case of cab-horses, | inspectors should be appointed to see that they were | not over-driven, and that they were properly taken | care of in the stables; and that in cases where the | ill-treatment had been so severe that the cab-horse was | broken down, the magistrate should have the power of | ordering it to be destroyed. We think chaperones | have a right to the same status as over-driven | cab-horses: and we trust that Lord Raynham will insert | clauses to that effect to his next Bill for the | Suppression of Cruelty to Animals. | But if the chivalry of the young men of England is not | equal to the one scheme for liberating the chaperone, | and Lord Raynham fails in accomplishing the other, | surely something might be done to alleviate her | sufferings. We can quite sympathize with the | reluctance of the ball-going world to abandon this | time-honoured institution. It is true that she is of no | use. She can only, in reality, watch over her young | charge's proceedings in the carriage on their way to | and from the entertainment ~~ at which time that | amiable young person rarely misconducts herself in | the way of flirting, for want of the male assistance | necessary for that process. In the crowded ball-room | itself, the chaperone is, for all practical purposes of | supervision, both blind and deaf. As she sits in the | chaperones' row, an impenetrable veil of floating | tarlatan prevents her from seeing tender glances, and | a very industrious band of music equally precludes | her from hearing any of those soft nothings that distil | so sweetly through curled mustachios. But, though | she is useless as a fact, she is splendid as a fiction. | She gives the shadow of respectability, and, where the | reality is slipping away from us so very fast, it would | be improvident to let the appearance go at the same | time. But, though we would never dream of | abolishing the chaperone, surely there might be some | economy of the labour employed, and therefore of the | suffering inflicted. To sit against a wall staring at the | backs of a crowd, is an occupation which, no doubt, | brings a great deal of moral heroism into play, but | which does not require a great many hands, or rather | eyes, to perform it. As a mere symbol or emblem of | respectability, one old lady could fulfil the duty as | well as a hundred. She might be told off for the | service by an arrangement among the young ladies | themselves; or a poor widow might be found to take | the office for a consideration. An advantage of this | plan would be that a little gallery might be provided | for her in which she should sit, far above the heads of | the crowd; and in that elevated position she would not | only be a much more striking and conspicuous | symbol of the respectability of the entertainment; but | for the purpose of watching the proceedings she | would be much more efficient than any number of | wearied mothers along the wall below. She would | not be engrossed by the occupation of struggling for | breathing space, but would have full leisure for noting | the manoeuvres of the charming couples in the centre | of the room. It would only be a revival of the plan by | which abbesses of old used to chaperone their nuns. | It does not differ very much from the mode in which | constituencies keep watch over the frail beings whom | they send to bear a part in the mazy dance of | Parliament. The tendency towards unauthorized | flirtations, and the danger of objectionable alliances, | is greater there than in any ball-room; but, on the | whole, the chaperones who sit in the reporters' gallery | contrive to maintain to a very considerable extent the | respectability of their charges. Fortified by such | precedents, we cannot but hope that we may live to | see the adoption of a reform by which such a vast | amount of anile misery will be saved. | | | | | At the close of his financial statement, Mr. | GLADSTONE read to the House an account of | England's war expenditure in the course of the last three | years, during which she has been at peace with all the | civilized world. The total amounted to some eight | millions sterling. Two countries ~~ China and New | Zealand ~~ divided between them, in unequal | proportions, the merit of having imposed upon us so | large an actual military outlay at a time of nominal | peace. Mr. GLADSTONE did not go on to trace the | causes to which this heavy burden was due. He seemed | to imply, by the admonitions with which he improved | his figures, that this expenditure was the result of a love | of taxation for its own sake, which had suddenly | possessed the nation and the House of Commons. It | was due, in reality, to a cause far less paradoxical. It | was simply the consequence of a theory prevailing | among our statesmen that Governorships in the | Colonies are convenient almshouses in which political | incapables may be cheaply boarded and lodged. From | the siege of Troy down to the Indian mutiny, great wars | have been engendered from little causes; and the China | war, which has wasted so many millions of treasure and | so many human lives, sprang from a cause pettier even | than greased cartridges. The bombardment of Canton, | and the carnage at the Taku Forts, and the burning of | the Summer Palace, and the execution of Captain | BRABAZON and Mr. BOWLBY all arose out of the | apparently unimportant circumstance that Lord JOHN | RUSSELL was bored by listening to Dr. BOWRING'S | speeches in the House of Commons. Hong Kong was a | place where it seemed that he could do no harm, and to | Hong Kong he was accordingly despatched. The rest is | told in the item of seven millions odd sterling, which | Mr. GLADSTONE brought in the other night as Dr. | BOWRING'S little bill for the various wars that trace | their pedigree from the affair, of the lorcha < | Arrow. The sins of New Zealand | against the national Exchequer are not so heavy. At | present their amount is indeterminate; but it is not | probable that they will leer equal the grand proportions | of our Chinese extravagance. Yet the cause to which | they were owing was exactly the same. They were due | to the appointment of an incompetent man to a | preeminently difficult post, either by reason of some | Colonial-office routine of promotion, or of the | inadequacy of the salary to attract a better man. The | best proof that Colonel BROWNE'S incompetence was | the source of the New Zealand troubles is the | marvelous change which the reversal of his policy, and | the substitution of an able Governor in his place, have | produced in the condition of affairs. | The policy called for by English settlers in dealing with | native tribes whose lands they occupy, has always | rested upon one great fundamental dogma. It is, that | the absolute submission of the natives must be | conquered by force of arms before any terms of | compromise or any redress of grievances can be offered. | Colonel BROWNE acted in scrupulous fidelity to this | policy. Far from abating, for the sake of peace, his | original demands, he enlarged them as soon as the | expeditions for England whose cost Mr. GLADSTONE | is now deploring had enabled him to do so with safety. | The primary cause of quarrel was the celebrated dispute | concerning the ownership of a piece of land at Waitara | in Taranaki. Colonel BROWNE had purchased it of the | ostensible owner; that owner's title to sell was | impeached by the chief of his tribe; and Colonel | BROWNE, without submitting the disputed point to | any tribunal, summarily settled it by ordering a party of | soldiers to occupy the land. The Taranaki war followed, | in which, after some reverses, the English arms were | ultimately victorious. But immediate peace did not | follow upon this result, as English taxpayers might have | hoped. It only gave the Governor an opportunity for | expanding his demands. He required of the natives that | they should further abandon the

"King"

| movement, which, in effect, was a movement for | organizing in the native districts a machinery for that | protection to life and property which the English law | did not practically assure to | anyone outside the English pale. If the demand | had been persisted in, nothing but a war of | extermination between the two races could have ensued. | Fortunately, at this juncture, the news arrived that the | Home Government had awoke to the costliness of | incompetence, and that Sir GEORGE GREY had been | appointed a second time to avert from New Zealand the | curse of civil war; and until his arrival all further action | was necessarily suspended. | When the new Governor arrived, a renewal of the war | was imminent. The danger is now believed to have | entirely passed away. This happy change in the course | of six months is due partly to Sir GEORGE GREY'S | influence with the natives, partly to his careful reversal | of his predecessor's policy. Governor BROWNE had | been either unable or unwilling to gain a sufficient | knowledge of the natives and their language to exercise | a personal influence over them. This was a fatal error. | Tribes whose civilization is at best but nascent can | never be governed by a mere administrative mechanism. | They soon lost faith in a Governor with whom they had | no personal dealings; and they hailed the return of | Governor GREY, who had always pursued the opposite | system, as the return of an old friend. As far as he has | at present gone, his measures have not belied their | hopes. They show that he has thoroughly unlearnt the | pernicious maxim, too prevalent with Englishmen | abroad, that fear is the only motive which can be relied | upon to influence men of darker skins than their own. | Though he has retreated from the untenable positions | Colonel BROWNE had taken up, he has done so | without exhibiting any sign of weakness. He has | insisted on the compensation of plundered settlers, and | has declared his resolution to compel, if necessary by a | military force, the reopening of the roads through the | interior, and the permission of a free passage to | travelers and the mails. But he has not been satisfied | with the re-establishment of his authority. He has | proceeded at once to the redress of the grievances out of | which armed resistance to it originally arose. The | grievances were two. One was that, while the British | Government had destroyed the authority of the chiefs, it | had substituted no authority of its own. In the purely | native regions there was no law, no protection for life | and property, and no punishment for crime. The other | grievance was that the Government, to please the | settlers, had organized a fraudulent system of | land-purchase, to which the natives gave the name of | land-stealing. Under the disguise of a colourable purchase | from a fictitious owner, tribes whose consent had never | been asked were driven without compensation from the | lands they had inherited. To both these grievances Sir | GEORGE GREY has applied a simple remedy, by | conceding to the Maoris the self-government which is | the right of their white fellow-subjects. The Maori | region is to be mapped out into districts; and in each | district a council is to be elected by the Maoris, to | whose decision all questions of local legislation will be | committed. It will be entrusted with the determination | of all disputed points that shall arise in reference to the | sale of land. All the intricate discussions concerning | the mana of the chief, and the | rights that have accrued by conquest, and the rights that | have ceased by emigration, will be simply settled by | | a reference to the Maori Council of the district. A | European Chief Commissioner will be appointed by the | Governor to preside over it, and all its decisions will be | subject to the Government's veto. | A native court, consisting of elected assessors | presided over by a European chairman, will administer | justice in every hundred, in both ~~ civil and criminal | cases. The decrees pronounced by it will be left to | Maori officers to enforce. Thus the want of an internal | police, which has driven the Maoris to the King | movement, will be remedied by a machinery which the | most ill-humoured Maroi will not be able to suspect of | any tendency hostile to his race. For the wretched | dispute at Waitara, over which so much blood has been | shed, it is to be settled, as it ought to have been settled | originally, by a court of arbitration, named half by the | natives, and half by the Governor. The new institutions | proclaimed by Sir GEORGE GREY in a manifesto of | singular ability, have met with a very favourable | reception from the natives, and have scarcely | experienced any formidable resistance even from the | whites most opposed to his policy. There seems a fair | ground for hoping that they will avert from England the | terrible reproach of adding, in the full light of the | nineteenth century, yet another to the list of races whom | the growth of her empire has exterminated. | The contrast between the statesmanlike sagacity of the | new Governor, and the dull, aimless stubbornness of the | old, is too striking to be ignored. But there is a more | useful lesson to be drawn from it than the barren | condemnation of the errors of Colonel BROWNE. | Though perhaps it may not be possible always to | command a special aptitude, such as that with which Sir | GEORGE GREY is endowed, yet still ability is in the | market, if the necessary price for it is given. There is | no necessity for being content with such representatives | of the QUEEN as the two of whose blunders our | Exchequer is feeling the results. But while we are | prodigal in armaments for the defence of our colonies, | we are conscientiously economical in the salaries of the | Governors, who might, if they were equal to their posts, | make those armaments superfluous. Whether we | consider the interests of which they dispose or the | fearful expenditure which their mismanagement may | cause, those colonial Governors who have native races | to deal with should be selected from among the ablest | servants of the English Crown. It would be a cheap | investment to multiply their salaries tenfold, if by such | an expenditure we could avert the exhausting drain of | these little wars. But so long as we scarcely give them | enough to cover the expenses of their position, we must | expect occasionally to pay the penalty of our economy | in such a bill of costs as that on which Mr. | GLADSTONE commented the other night. | | | | | Tuesday was a gala day for the House of Commons. On | Monday there was nothing but a discussion on the best | securities for life and property; and the audience hardly | consisted of more than those gentlemen who intended to | speak, the Government and Opposition leaders, and Mr. | Spooner ~~ who, having attended Protestant meetings for | half a century, is warranted bore-proof, and sits through | every debate. But on Tuesday, there was that green oasis in | the desert of legislation ~~ that dainty morsel in the | sessional banquet ~~ a personal explanation, which, in Mr. | Disraeli's hands, was pretty sure to include also a personal | attack. The House mustered in force. All the leaders of all | the parties were there ~~ Ministers and their backers, warm | with

"the lively sense of anticipated favours"

~~ | the Opposition chiefs and those who were their backers ~~ | the mutinous squires, whose single tie to Mr. Disraeli is | their hatred of Mr. Gladstone ~~ the

"bench of | talents,"

where Manchester is linked to Oxford in the | common dilemma of supporting a Government which they | detest, where the wolf lies down with the lamb, and Mr. | Robert Phillimore sits between Mr. Cobden and Mr. Milner | Gibson ~~ and the troops of Free Lancers, who almost form | a majority in the House, and whose fickle allegiance is the | nightmare of the whips. | The galleries, too, were full. There was Lord Derby, | evidently not without a sense of the ridiculous position into | which his colleague's excessive taste for startling dramatic | situations had led him. There was Lord Eglintoun, with | that unruffled serenity which, under the most adverse | circumstances, never deserts him, and which Prince | Talleyrand himself might have envied. There was Lord | Stanhope, with a full sense of the historic import of the | conjucture, but with a strong tendency to go to sleep. And | there was that now well-known statesman, the Marquis of | Bath, in a pair of pink gloves. All were in rapt attention, | such as has scarcely been seen since the last Layard-bait. | But, unhappily, Mr. Disraeli has of late years discovered a | narcotic for the most resolute attention. His novels first | opened to him a path to fame; but that he was ever a | novelist is the most unfortunate thing for his career as a | politician. Judging, we presume, from his opponents, he | thinks it absolutely necessary to his character as a | statesman to be generally dull; and his efforts in this | direction have been so portentously successful that he is | considered almost as great a bore as the Chancellor of the | Exchequer himself. On the present occasion, he was not | wanting to this sinister reputation. He began with a weary | rigmarole, touching his success in some debate which took | place eight years ago. He proceeded to recite the object of | his charges against the Government, then the motive which | dictated them, then the nature of them, then the nature of | the Government rejoinder, and then the terms in which it | had been couched ~~ and all this with an iteration and a | reiteration which could only have been excused in a village | schoolmaster lecturing a form of ploughboys. After the | narcotic had been applied for about half an hour it began to | tell. The members of note put on that look of helpless | wretchedness which men generally wear at a charity dinner. | The profanum rulgus began to talk, | and some to murmur, and some even to call out "Question." | The lines of care deepened on Lord Derby's brow, Lord | Stanhope was fast asleep, Lord Eglintoun still looked | imperturbably polite, and Lord Bath as intellectual as usual. | The House was reduced to the amusement of laughing at | the solitary sonorous cheers with which the single voice of | Mr. Bowyer continued to encourage the censor of our | Italian policy. At last, the weary preamble was over, and | the actual

"explanation" commenced.

The sole | fact which Mr. Disraeli added to his former statement was a | contradiction of it. On the first night of the session he had | alleged that the Secret Treaty had been executed during the | Ministry of Lord Palmerston. He now gave the date ~~ | Dec. 22, 1854 ~~ before Lord Palmerston's Government | was formed. Besides this addition, his explanation was a | barren reiteration of his previous allegations, without any | sort of proof, beyond a challenge to print all the | correspondence in the archives of Downing-street, during | December, 1854. | Whoever duped Mr. Disraeli into believing this fable was, | in addition to the moral qualifications evinced by the | exploit, a very blundering artist. If he had selected any date | later than 1854, Mr. Disraeli might have relinquished the | discussion, pitting his own assertion against that of the | Prime Minister, and, on the strength of the traditional | mendacity of Governments, leaving a film of doubt over | the real solution of the contradiction. But, by placing his | myth in the days of the Aberdeen Government, he enabled | Lord Palmerston to appeal to his "right honourable friends" | who sat by him then, but love him not now, and who, by | their eloquent silence, endorsed the assertions of the | Premier. Lord Palmerston's refutation seemed | overwhelming. There had been a convention, which, after | all, he said, was never signed, and which was limited | entirely to a promise on the part of France to abstain from | offensive operations against Lombardy, in case Austria | should withdraw her troops from Italy to aid the allies in | the Crimea. His speech was, like all his speeches, short | enough to be effective. He sat down in triumph; and Major | Reed stood up to slay the Income-tax. The apparition | scattered the pleasure-loving legislators like chaff before | the wind. In two minutes, the House was reduced to that | knot of all-enduring habitues to | whom is practically left the business of the nation. | But the drama was not over yet ~~ perhaps it is not over | now. On Thursday, the House was gayer still. It began by | enjoying a quarter of an hour's laugh at the strange | gesticulations of a post-prandial artist ~~ kept by the | Government apparently for the low comedy parts ~~ and at | the comical comments which he gave on his Birmingham | buffoonery. As soon as he had retired to more fitting | obscurity behind the Speaker's chair, Lord Palmerston | came forward, and bluntly announced that the | had been signed. What, on the first | night of the session, was dismissed parenthetically as

| "communications,"

on Tuesday became an unsigned | convention, on Thursday a signed convention. Lord | Palmerston's drawn face, hurried manner, and loss of | temper, showed how keenly he felt the disadvantage of the | retractation. His adversaries felt it too, for they received | him with a perfect roar of ironical cheering. The | disadvantage was, however, more apparent than real; for | the marrow of Mr. Disraeli's original charge lay in the | existence of a permanent guarantee, not in the nature of the | instrument by which it was conveyed. But the Opposition, | by apparent exultation, gave the best colour they could to | their assumed triumph. Some sharp sparring followed, | echoed by savage cheers and counter cheers. Mutual | interruptions, flat contradictions, interjected with scant | courtesy of tone or manner, showed that both leaders were | smarting under the discredit of their respective blunders. | But the Speaker, who has no taste for these disrespectable | scenes, put a stop to the fray at the first available opening, | by hastily calling on Mr. Napier, whose name stood first on | the paper; and that amiable man, whose deafness enables | him to go on with unflagging spirit, no matter how loud his | auditors may talk, at once plunged into an elaborate | disquisition on the English law, which speedily sent the | excited multitude to their dinners. | | | | | Historical essayists are a class whom it is rather | difficult to criticize, because they bear a false | resemblance to another class of writers, with whom | they have really nothing in common. At first sight, they | look like historians on a small scale. But it would be | very erroneous to judge them by the same standard, or | to require of them the same species of success. They | have important functions of their own to perform, and, | as Lord Macaulay sufficiently showed, they can attain | to a very brilliant excellence: but neither their | functions nor their excellence are those of the historian. | It is not their part to disinter new facts, or to elaborate | new theories of history. The process of rehabilitation | which is the peculiar mania of the present day, cannot | be applied with success either to persons or to causes by | the essayist; because the limits of an essay give no | room for the necessary exhibition of proofs. The | utmost stretch of novelty which is permitted to him is | the grouping together acknowledged facts in a new way, | and applying to them a new philosophy of explanation. | His real office is to carry the facts of history to | numberless minds which they would never reach at all | without his aid. His function is to manufacture the raw | material which the researches of others have collected | into a form in which a lazy or a busy age can consume | it. At the present pace at which the world is going, | human life is far too short to suffer the mass of active | men to study anything thoroughly; and if they are to be | acquainted with any of the details of history at all | beyond those which they learn at school, they must be | indebted for it to the writers whose business it is to | compress history into a compact and readable form. | Everyone ought to | know something of the details of the history of France; | but who that has any other engrossing employment is | equal even to a superficial study of seven or eight | shelves full of Memoires pour servir! | A hierophant is needed to stand between the | dusty oracle and its indolent inquirers, who shall | undertake the labour of bringing down his lengthy | utterances to the level of their intelligence or their | leisure. | Tried by this standard, Lord Cranborne has produced a | series of historical essays of great merit. They are | written upon periods belonging ~~ with the exception | of one upon Agnes Sorel ~~ exclusively to the section | of history which Mr. Hallam has divided off as modern; | but, with this limitation, they are not confined to any | special period or country. He appears to have directed | his attention more especially to French history, but he | has not neglected Spain, Italy, or Russia. Like most | Englishmen, he appears to shrink from the chaotic | details and unfascinating heroes of German history, but | otherwise his interests are catholic enough. His style is | admirably adapted for conveying information and | impressing it on the mind ~~ being shrewd and simple | and jealous of needless ornament. He has adhered with | severity to the conception which he has formed of an | essayist's part, and studiously avoids all episodes and | irrelevant discussions. He will not give in to the | ordinary practice of review writers, who are always | afraid that plain facts and calm opinions will tire their | readers, and think it necessary occasionally to beguile | the weary path of history with a display of literary | fireworks. Neither will he make the essay a vehicle of | party propagandism. Excepting the fact that he is an | Englishman and Protestant, it would be impossible to | discover from his writings that he belongs to any party | or entertains any sharply defined political opinions. He | approaches the most exciting questions of modern | politics in a spirit of absolute neutrality, and writes of | the convulsions that have disturbed Europe with as little | bias as if he were describing the late Chinese revolution | and the successes of Prince Kung. Of course this | impartiality deprives his compositions necessarily of | whatever attractions one-sided judgments may have for | headlong partisans. But he gives them, by this | abstinence, a permanent, instead of a merely transient | value. There are few forms of political pamphlet so | effective as that which mirrors the present in cunningly | composed pictures of the past. Without openly pointing | its moral, or avowing the lurking purpose, it conveys to | the reader's mind the desired political doctrines, in a | form which does not suggest to him to protect himself | from proselytism. But this device is necessarily ruinous | to historical truth, and has caused more confusion in the | minds of the mass of Englishmen, as to the facts of | history, than any other source of error. Lord Cranborne | is wholly free from the reproach of disguising a | pamphlet as an essay. Several | | essays which appear in this volume in reference to the | later history of the Bourbon dynasty in France, display | this impartiality in a more marked degree than could | have been expected from a writer of the present | generation. The Essays on Italy will be read with | interest for the same reason. The author writes in part | from information collected personally in Italy, and the | truth upon Italian questions has been so distorted by the | keen partisanship of everyone | who has dealt with the subject, that the | testimony of a clear-minded and neutral witness is of no | small importance. | The Essays are in themselves a valuable contribution to | their particular class of literature; but they derive a | peculiar interest from a circumstance to which Lord | Cranborne alludes in his preface: ~~ | | It is impossible to read the book through, bearing this | fact in mind, without being amazed at the powers of | memory which so wide a grasp of historical knowledge | under such circumstances implies. The accuracy with | which the author's facts are recounted, and the | judgment with which they are arranged, would have | been noticeable in an ordinary case as constituting the | intrinsic value of the book, and its real recommendation | to that large class of persons who will read an historical | sketch and will not read a history; but in the present | case they indicate an extraordinary development of the | faculty which is the most important an historical writer | can possess. For the purposes of clear and lucid | narrative, no amount of authorities on the shelves of a | library are equal in value to a memory in which the | authorities are accessible at once without the laborious | aid of catalogue and index. In his preface, Lord | Cranborne intimates that he has been for some time | collecting materials for the prosecution of historical | labours upon a more extended scale. If he carries out | this intention, these essays give every promise that he | will do so with eminent success. Impartiality of temper | and thorough mastery of his field of research are the | two great qualifications for a true historian; though in | our days we have been accustomed to see some of the | claimants to that name eke out their deficiencies in this | respect by the arts of the novelist or the platform orator. | Lord Cranborne, in his criticism on Prescott, to whose | example he naturally looks, gives token of a truer | appreciation of an historian's character: and if he aids | in bringing back his countrymen to a severer standard | of historical excellence, he will have done no trivial | service to the science to which he has devoted himself. | He will do a still better service to society at large in | continuing to give, as he has already given by this work, | an example of the uses to which wealth and leisure may | be put. There is much work for literature which poor | and busy men cannot do, and which is not done by | those who are free from these drawbacks quite as | abundantly as might be expected. Political volunteers | from the wealthier classes are numerous enough; but | the literary volunteers are a comparatively scanty band. | The spectacle of historical labours undertaken for the | mere love of them, with so much success, and under | circumstances of some discouragement, is a welcome | one. We are glad to see from the words

"first | series"

on his title-page, that Lord Cranborne's | great historical aptitudes are not to remain unemployed | for the future; and, besides the additional Essays which | those words promise, we hope in due time to welcome | from his pen some work of a more important and | comprehensive character. | | | | Sir J. Bowring's luckless aspirations after tom-toms and | cock-feathers have committed an amount of havoc, as | well in England as in China, which, if notoriety be his | aim, will give him more of it than could be gained by the | most gorgeous procession along the streets of the | recalcitrant Cantonese. Our constitutional saturnalia have | begun, and till they are closed, everything else must be | suspended. All social or legal reform, every | philanthropic enterprise, the agitation of every important | question, must be hung up till the nation has disposed of | the merits of Dr. Bowring. He has had many victims | besides Yeh and the savage barbarians whom we are | cannonading into gentleness and love. At least half a | million ~~ probably a great deal more ~~ will be spent | within the next three months in inducing Englishmen to | exercise the franchise of which they are so | | proud. Many a budding patriot will shrink again into the | slender proportions of a village Hampden. We shall lose | several well-known faces, and, we hope, several | well-execrated bores. And among other losses, we trust | we shall bear it with fitting resignation if we should be | compelled to part with some of those agricultural divines | who are so fond of turning their ploughshares into swords, | and whose martial Protestantism has lately so much | edified the godly. Doubtless they will carry their | principles into private life. An evangelical coachman | who gets drunk and runs down other people's carriages, | and a T. P. (truly pious) gamekeeper who poaches their | neighbour's pheasants, will be as dear to their enlightened | hearts as a Premier who varnishes over an impotent | domestic policy by Protestant bishops at home and | profligate bloodshed abroad. | Everywhere one may see the symptoms of approaching | dissolution. The House is indeed the very picture of | desolate wretchedness.

"Death is upon its closing | eye."

All its old cheerfulness and vivacity is gone. | The hearty Opposition shout, renowned throughout the | House, is dumb. The crowd of Ministerialists who used | to throng the shadowy corner behind the Speaker's chair, | and sleep and cheer, and cheer and sleep by turns, have | disappeared. You will listen in vain for the merry hum of | conversation with which the Radical benches were wont | to beguile the weary periods of Lewis or of Wood. | Heavy perfunctory debates, with spasmodic efforts at | electioneering interspersed, have succeeded; but they are | delivered to scattered rows of long gloomy faces. There | are no brothers Phillimore now, by rival cheers, to | encourage a floundering debater. Their well-known | voices are still ~~ for the hand of Hayter is upon them, | and they are doomed. Lord John Russell still sits | , as our Cannon-ball wit, Sir J. Tyrell, expressed it, | bravely maintaining his post in spite of the tempestuous | tea-pots of the City. His thin anxious face is stamped | with the resolve which his whole life has exemplified, | that, if he cannot win, he will at least wound in falling. | And the giant veteran, Sir James, still sits on to the last; | but his face no longer wears that benignant, almost | paternal, smile with which it was his wont to listen to the | bitter insinuations flung at him by his former colleagues. | | gathers on his beaming countenance as he leans his chin | upon his stick. He is wearily bethinking himself that the | time is drawing near when he must perform another stage | of that ceaseless pilgrimage of which Carlisle seems to be | both the starting-place and the goal. All is sad and | spiritless. The very Speaker has relaxed the reins which | he soon will cease to hold; and the elegant form of Sir | Charles Napier may be seen reclining in horizontal | gracefulness, and seeking ~~ shade of Manners-Sutton! | ~~ in the benches of the House of Commons a substitute | for his hammock. Below the bar, there is a flux and | efflux of listless Peers. Their own legislative energy has | been struck with paralysis by the late events ~~ assuredly | by no fault of their own, for they did their best, or worst, | to prevent it. So they saunter in to see if there is any | more excitement to be got out of the Commons; and | when they find that the proceedings are, if possible, even | duller than their own, they saunter out again. The only | persons who show signs of real animation are the Whips. | They are not the stormy petrels of the political horizon ~~ | the fiercer the tempest, the more merrily they fly hither | and thither. Now is their hour. Mr. Hayter is for the | moment a more important man than the Premier. All | those whom he has wheedled in vain during four long | years will now feel the power of his arm. His incessant | hurry, his weighted brow and compressed lips, betray that | he has a full consciousness of his position. He slips in | and out of the House with the activity of an armadillo ~~ | now gliding on to the Treasury bench, and whispering in | a leader's ear ~~ now gently carrying off under his arm | some timid follower, who has broken his pledges and | dreads the hustings, and cheering him with flattering tales | of the skill of Coppock and the charms of place. And, as | he passes, you may see the Opposition members making | way for him with a kind of sullen awe; for they have | heard that he has sworn to run a candidate in every field | in the United Kingdom, and his well-known success in a | hundred trying emergencies has inspired men with a | vague notion of his omnipotence. | One thing amid all these hopes, and fears, and interests, | most men seem to have agreed to look upon with | indifference; and that one thing is legislation. It is well to | dwell on, and to remember these scenes, for they teach us | what the result of annual Parliaments would be. What is | now an exceptional degradation would then be the | constant condition of the House of Commons. All | speeches would be electioneering manifestoes ~~ all | votes would be addressed to Bunkum ~~ all legislation | that was not recommended by some claptrap cry would | be passed over with contempt. The transient orgy of | misrule in which whips govern and statesmen cringe, | would become the permanent order of Parliamentary | subordination. | | | | The period of the year has come round again when | the leading journal finds some difficulty in filling its | ample columns, and is driven to many ingenious | devices for the purpose. Among others, is that of | starting hares for volunteer correspondents to hunt. It | is curious to watch the failure or the success of the | various subjects which are suggested in this way. | Sometimes it makes a great find, and discovers | something which lasts it, in leaders and paragraphs, | and letters in big print and letters in small print, for a | month or six weeks ~~ like that famous discussion | upon the art of dining which interested so large a | number of distressed dinner-givers, or that other upon | the possibility of marrying on three hundred a year. | But these are only the prizes of the lottery. The large | majority turn out blanks. Full many a topic is born to | blush unseen in the remote corner where it is at first | modestly introduced. The reception which these | successive ventures meet with from the public is not a | bad index of the current opinion of the hour. Among | the most recent failures was a well-intentioned effort | to get up a discussion upon the prodigality of the | expenditure which women are accustomed to make in | dressing themselves in the present day. It was not a | bad topic, and was skillfully introduced. It came in | the form of a letter from an indignant lover, real or | apocryphal, complaining that he had just been refused | by a young lady living in Clapham Road because he | could not afford her a hundred a year for her dress, | and enclosing the young lady's letter in proof. But it | did not seem to take. The only response it evoked | was a reply from another, apparently less youthful, | lady at Croydon, who professed that she and plenty of | others would be willing to do it for half the money. | Undoubtedly this ready rejoinder was a proof of the | economical law that demand will always call forth | supply. Whether the two have been brought together | in the private room of Printing House Square is a | point which the public are not likely to receive any | information. But, as everybody is not strong-minded | enough to confide his matrimonial aspirations to the | Times, it would be | convenient if the long-sighted and calculating | damsels of the present day would settle upon some | other plan of letting their suitors know the exact | figure of pin-money at which they are to be secured. | In the meantime, it is evident that there is no public | inclination to join in the indignant lover's protest | against the great millinery movement of the age. In | other movements there is reaction, or pause, or at | least an abatement of zeal among men just now. But | no such laggard spirit infests the women of England | in pursuing the great object of their lives. They have | resolved, with a unanimity which shames the divided | counsels of their husbands and brothers, that | dressmakers' bills have increased, are increasing, and | ought never to be diminished. We do not pretend to | say a word against a decision to which the whole sex | seems to be committed. That passion for extended | territory which fills whole nations with madness | appears to have communicated itself to them. Skirt | vies with skirt as to the area of ground it shall occupy, | and each fair female nucleus seems to stake its whole | credit upon extending the width of its borders further | than its neighbours. There is no resisting a manifest | destiny of enlargement whose future is plainly written | in providential characters. We can only try ~~ as it | used to be the fashion to say when the extension, not | of the petticoat, but of the suffrage, was in vogue ~~ | to furnish it with a resting-place at which it may be | retained for a considerable number of years. Finality | is out of the question. We can only hope for a | temporary pause. The ears of those to whose lot it | falls to pay these milliners' bills were mocked in the | summer with reports that some such boon had been | conferred by the autocratic rulers of Parisian fashion; | but as yet fulfilment lags far behind the promise. It is | obvious, whatever the fashion of this year or next | may be, that the cost of ladies' dresses must go on | increasing. To whatever type of funnel, or bell, or | dome, or slopbasin it may please them to assimilate | one half of their fair forms, the self-multiplying | virtues of a milliner's bill spring from causes too | powerful to suffer more than a temporary check. | The truth is, that this mania for expensive dressing is | only a step in the feminine march of intellect. It is a | phase in the progressive history of female culture. It | is an indication that the sex, as a whole, has risen | sufficiently to the level of man to be ambitious. It | shows that mutual rivalry, that desire to acquire an | outward token of having excelled, which universal | experience recognises as the condition of all human | progress. It is not, perhaps, a very exalted | subject-matter which ladies have chosen for the display | of their emulation. But it is always a gain that they | should try to excel each other in something. The | present English taste for dress, it must always be | remembered, is not that common exhibition of vanity | with which, in all ages it has been the habit of satirists | and moralists to twit the sex. There is a barbarous | love of dress, common to both sexes, which it would | be unjust to impute to the Englishwomen of the | nineteenth century. The Kafir chief delights in the | charming simplicity of a costume consisting of | Wellington boots and cocked hat. Queen Pomare | took pleasure in exhibiting her tattoo, in obedience to | the same human instinct as that which makes a child | strut about and show its new scarlet sash. But this | feeling, it is obvious, could not have received a | special or exceptional development in the middle of | the nineteenth century. Woman cannot be more a | now than she has been in every generation since | the taunt was first uttered against her. Nor, again, is | the English taste for dress altogether similar in | character to the French fashion from which it | apparently takes its origin. With a Frenchwoman, | dress is a means to an end. It is the instrument for | procuring male admiration, and to secure to herself a | sufficient quantity of this necessary of life a | Frenchwoman will forego a great many luxuries and | even comforts. But then, having got the instrument, | she uses it. She does not hide her light under a bushel, | or wear her three or four gowns a day merely to | impress those of her own sex. It is obvious that she | does dress for the sake of securing the admiration of | men, because she is constantly trying to secure it in | other ways. But in England the passion for dress | appears to extend itself far beyond the circle of those | who can be accused of aiming at conquests. With the | women of the upper classes, where Milly Nisdale | flourishes and matrons "frisk," there is probably a | tincture of flirting in most cases of extraordinary | passion for dress. But the women of our middle | classes do not, as a rule, flirt; and yet their | expenditure in dress has risen much on the same scale | during the last few years as that of their more | fashionable neighbours. It is clear that, to a great | many women, dress has become something more than | either an expression of vanity or an aid to flirtation. It | has become a token of caste. Wealth practically | measures rank in England, especially among the | classes where there are no titular distinctions to | modify its influence; and the simplest way in which a | woman can advertise that she has more wealth than | others, is by carrying as much of it as she can upon | her person. This was the feeling expressed with great | naivete by the young lady | whose refusal was published by her distracted lover in | the Times. , | precisely expresses the state of feeling upon the | subject among the sober uninflammable type of | womanhood that inhabits a suburban villa. She feels | degraded unless she can carry about with her the | insignia of the social rank to which she pretends. If | she could by any other means proclaim to the world | that her income was adequate to an expensive style of | dress, the actual clothes would be of less importance. | But the customs of society will not allow her to pin | upon her back a certified statement of her husband's | balance at his banker's; and so she must try to make | known the fact by the less satisfactory evidence of an | expensive trimming. Nor is it quite certain that a | banker's certificate would answer all the purposes in | view. It might be a little too truthful. In the English | hierarchy of pounds, shillings and | pence people generally make a struggle to take | rank as being two or three degrees richer than they | really are; and the principle of ascertaining female | rank by dress is conveniently elastic in this respect. It | is always open to any woman who is unusually | ambitious to leap at once to the rank which she | desires to occupy, by the simple process of keeping | her husband and children a little short, and putting the | savings into her milliner's bill. | So long as our social grades are to be measured | principally by | | wealth ~~ and that seems to be more and more the | tendency of modern society ~~ there are a good many | advantages in concentrating all the show which the | family can afford upon the wife's dress. It is superior | in many ways to the other modes of competition | which have hitherto been in vogue amongst us. Some | of them will still survive in a modified degree. The | passion for putting all your available means upon the | walls of your house, in the shape of hangings and | carvings, which appears to have ruined poor Mr. | Wolley, will remain as the advertisement of wealth of | the wealthier class. It is probable that the difference | between

"carriage money"

and

"foot | company"

is too deeply engrained into the | substance of English society to be effaced by any | change of fashion. But there is some ground for | hoping that the competition in men-servants will | become less warm. It will be a great social reform | when pages shall give way to petticoats as tests of the | respectability of a household. Grandeur as revealed | by the possession of flunkeys is one of the most | pernicious forms of social self-glorification that have | been discovered in England. It has created what, by | the universal testimony of all who know the lower | classes, is not far from being the very worst class in | the population of London. They live under a | collection of all the most favourable conditions for | developing whatever of evil can be found in man. | They have nothing to do, abundance to eat, plenty of | opportunity for stealing, are not married, and are | driven to the betting-houses for sheer want of some | occupation to fill up their spare time. But though they | are the curse of the neighbourhood, and the plague of | their masters and mistresses, they are part of the state | by which men of various conditions proclaim to the | world the amount of wealth with which they desire to | be credited. It would be a great gain to society if any | fashion should come in which should relieve the | richer classes of the conventional necessity of | maintaining this horde of fattened scamps. It would | be a much better plan if the mistress of the house, as | she got richer, instead of adding another useless lout | to her establishment, were content with taking it out | in endless stores of lace, or with wearing five gowns a | day instead of the four to which she had previously | restricted herself. The new lace or gown would be | pleasanter to look at than the new flunkey, and would | serve quite as effectually to acquaint all beholders | that its possessor was a little richer than before; and | the world would, as a rule, be better by one rascal the | less. | Of course, there remains the consideration which | originally prompted the despairing lover to address | himself to the Times. If | young ladies insist on dressing so much better than | their mothers, they must have a much richer class of | husbands; and rich husbands are, unfortunately, not as | common as might be desired. In the meanwhile, the | poorer suitors, who would have been able to marry | them but for the price to which inordinate distension | has carried their gowns, pine in celibacy, or dispose | of themselves in other ways. The subject | undoubtedly has a grave moral side; and one of its | aspects ~~ the most revolting one ~~ is a good deal | under discussion just at present. But the question is a | much wider one than that of class. The disinclination | of both sexes for matrimony is not to be accounted for | simply by the increase in the woman's demand for | pin-money. No doubt, in the long run, the | economical law will work, and the demand for cheap | wives will create its corresponding supply. An | abundance of a maidens warranted to dress on fifty | pounds a year will sooner or later find their way into | the market. But the evil which the Julian Law was | designed to remedy will continue to plague society | for many a long year yet. | | | | | How to convey the discoveries of the learned to the | ignorant mass has always been one of the most perplexing | problems of controversial tactics. To refute an adversary is, | at least in one's own estimation, a very easy matter. | Learning, logic, and a good cause will go a long way with | those who read and think; but if a man were as profound as | Aristotle himself, it would puzzle him to argue into | conviction people who will not read his arguments. | Various have been the devices to which proselytizers have | had resort, in order to overcome this difficulty. Erasmus | undermined the Papacy by squibs. The detestable casuistry | of the Jesuits fell before Pascal's playful Letters. The early | Reformers spread their doctrines by preaching in season | and out of season ~~ in the street, in the market-place, and | on the village common; for preaching was in their hands | something very different from the periodical recitation of a | string of common-places from a MS. The older churches, | on the other hand, have always relied on methods of | instruction ~~ on | symbols, and ceremonies, and pictures,

"the poor | man's books."

And both Romanist and Reformer have | made plentiful use of that vehicle of knowledge which Dr. | Johnson's Laird of Rum so fully appreciated ~~

"the | yellow sick."

But it has been reserved for these latter | days ~~ when persecution is out of vogue, art Popish, and | open-air preaching methodistical ~~ to invent the religious | novel. Whatever may be thought of it as an instrument of | instruction, the eagerness with which the combatants in our | late theological frays have seized on it is sufficient proof of | its value as a controversial weapon. The plan of its | composition may be easily described. The hero and | heroine either are, or come to be, of the author's particular | opinions. The result is, that they are conglomerates, | respectively, of all manly and feminine virtues, and are | ultimately rewarded with supreme and permanent peace of | mind ~~ with, probably, a fortune into the bargain. | Somebody else is of the opinions to which the author | happens to have a special aversion. He constantly meets | the hero or heroine in argument, and is as constantly | defeated; and the usual upshot is, that he steals the spoons, | or does something equally horrible, and comes to an evil | end. Sometimes, however, if the author is of a placable | temperament, he is allowed to be converted; and then his | abiding happiness is paraded as a conclusive proof of the | correctness of the author's views. The dialectical skill | required for this species of controversy is obviously of the | simplest order. In fact, the syllogisms employed being of | that kind which are denominated;

"a lady's argument," |

it has been usual to confide the wielding of this | weapon to female hands. | The book before us is the most recent specimen of the class. | It is of the Evangelico-Minerva type ~~ a cross between Dr. | McNeile and Mrs. Radcliffe ~~ and is written with the | laudable aim of opening our eyes to the dark Jesuit | intrigues with which the fair surface of society is mined. | Before we proceed to give an account of it, we entreat that | our printer may not be held responsible for any peculiarities | of language or orthography which may be detected in our | extracts. Our author's knowledge of English is small, but | his ignorance of French and Italian is unmitigated and | complete; and unluckily he has a predilection, common to | small novelists, for interlarding his sentences with French | and Italian words. We can only afford to give specimens of | his blundering. We have a

"Machieval order"

for | "Machiavellian" ~~ a gentleman is said to be by | the Jesuits, meaning that he is under their | surveillance ~~ Pio Nono always | appears as ~~ one of the characters is constantly | described as , for

"exigeant"

~~ and so | we might go on through a long list. However, we may | hope for better things in a second edition. In the errata we | are told to substitute seance for | sceance; and as the blunder | happens many times over, right through the book, and | therefore cannot well be a misprint, we may venture to | hope that the author is getting on his French, and that the | discovery of the spelling of that difficult word marks a | stage in the development of his studies later than the period | of his going to press. The author shrinks from fame behind | the veil of the anonymous; but we should imagine that he | must be an Irishman, not only because the scenes laid in | Ireland have more nature than any other part of the book, | but also because he displays a shamelessness in the | exhibition of his ignorance rare in a native of any other | country. He has selected Mr. Westerton for his publisher | ~~ the motive for which eccentric act seems, from the | following passage, to be his admiration for a striking | incident in the life of that great man: ~~ | | To make up for the shortcomings of the

"Heads of | Oxford College"

in not

"scotching the Jesuit | snake"

by flinging some light or lights out of some | door or doors unknown, the author proceeds unflinchingly | with his revelations. We will try to give a summary of his | tale of terror. There is an Irish proprietor, Mr. Fosterton, | with an excitable wife. They are deluded enough to | frequent

"Paul and Barnabas;"

and the Jesuits | consequently think they see their way to the possession of | the Fosterton estates. Accordingly, by the use of certain |

"subtle essences,"

or poisons, on which a Jesuit | father is said to have written a learned work, the Protestant | governess is made ill, and removed from the family. A | neighbouring baronet, who is a Jesuit, recommends a young | Italian to the post, who is also a Jesuit. It is part of the | creed of Exeter Hall and Mr. Westerton, that the Company | of Jesus consists alike of men and women, landed | proprietors and priests. This Jesuit governess is a | spirit-medium, and gives spirit-rapping | seances to Mrs. Fosterton; and by the help of the | valet, who is also a Jesuit, and who works a galvanic | battery from a neighbouring room, the spirits

"rap" |

Romanizing answers to the questions of the confiding | Mrs. Fosterton. Meanwhile, there is a fourth Jesuit staying | in the house. He is a captain in the Guards, and a Jesuit | priest; and a man with a

"flinty eye, glittering like | steel"

~~ a property we never observed in flint before. | This Jesuit, Captain Gardner, is an Admirable Crichton. He | shoots, dances, hunts, bets, writes plays, acts, sings, | mediaevalizes, and quotes "Froude's Remains" to Mrs. | Fosterton, and

"plays his thoughts"

on the | pianoforte a la German (as the | author elegantly phrases it), to the young ladies. Between | his mediaevalism and the revelations of the spirits, Mrs. | Fosterton is abandoning her belief in the

"martyr | Hooker"

(of whose martyrdom historians are | shamefully ignorant), and progressing rapidly towards | Rome, when an unlucky accident cuts short the Captain's | career. He has a pupil in the house, a concealed Papist, | who knows him in his sacerdotal character. This pupil falls | in with a neighbouring clergyman ~~ a dreary old | gentleman, who preaches by the hour against

"the | Moloch of superstition"

~~ and gets converted; and it | appears likely that he may betray the priestly character of | his Guardsman friend. Accordingly, the Jesuit Captain, | equal to any emergency, invites him to go out shooting, and | tries to shoot him. Unluckily, he only wounds him, and is | consequently obliged to beat a rapid retreat from the | country. Subsequently, we hear of the indefatigable man in | the disguise of a Polish Jew, trying to reconcile Judaism | with the Papacy. But the return of the season brings the | Fostertons to town. It is necessary that Mr. Fosterton | should be ruined. He is, therefore, enticed into play by | gaming friends ~~ some of them Jesuits; and he is so | utterly fleeced that he is compelled to borrow money by | mortgaging his Irish estates ~~ again to the Jesuits. | Meanwhile Mrs. Fosterton has fallen in with her sister, | Lady Drydale, who is a stanch Protestant, and does her best | to keep her sister from Romanizing. The Jesuits are | alarmed. She must be removed; and the

"subtle | essences"

necessary for this purpose are entrusted to | the spirit-rapping governess. This young lady, however, | has the remnant of a heart, and is with great difficulty | persuaded to her task. It is in describing her scruples and | her agony, after administering the first dose of the poison, | that the author discloses a depth of Jesuit intrigue the | thought of which freezes us with horror: ~~ | | | | We had flattered ourselves that, amid all the defections of | this backsliding age, the British cabman at least was a | stanch Protestant. We have often suspected governesses, | and have long seen something Jesuitical in the manners of | the Household Brigade; but we have always contemplated | with undisturbed complacency that well-weathered cape | and that battered hat, without a suspicion that they only | concealed the cassock and the tonsure. But we must follow | our over-scrupulous governess. She is driven to a | and she forthwith enters the chapel, which the author | pronounces, on account of its frescoes and arabesques and | painted glass, to be . And here we are introduced | to another class of society who are manoeuvring for our | conversion ~~ namely,

"aristocratic young ladies." |

They act, doubtless, in concert with the Guardsmen, | with whom frequenters of ballrooms may often observe | them to be conferring in a low tone of voice. A procession | enters the chapel ~~ | | Further on, we are told that these young ladies, whom the | Jesuits seem to have selected in most guardsmanlike style | , are . What a Marist may be, or how a | number of young ladies can be confraternity, the author | does not stop to explain. As far, however, as we can gather, | a Marist, male or female, is exactly the same as Jesuit, and | is invested with all the attributes which belong to that | semi-fabulous animal. After the procession comes a service, | peculiar, we suspect, to the

"Carmelite nunnery in the | City."

The female confraternity in blue and white | first sing that well-known hymn, Glorias | Laus, ,and then ~~ | | The service has the effect of entirely removing any scruples | the governess might have had about poisoning Lady | Drydale ~~ a feat she accordingly performs the same | evening. Mrs. Fosterton is in despair; and, by the advice of | the Jesuit baronet, her husband takes her to Rome for | change of scene. The author describes the perils of Rome | in a passage which displays alike his resources of metaphor | and orthography: ~~ | | This eloquent passage entirely throws into the shade Lord | Castlereagh's

"fundamental feature on which this | question hinges."

We certainly should feel no | tendency to enthusiastic pleasure if we had an iron rule in | our vitals; let alone its being engaged in the act of eating | them. Mrs. Fosterton, however, would surrender the

| "reigns"

to fancy, and was consequently meshed in the | wily act, etcetera. It required, | however, a journey to Paris, to enable the said wily net | finally to

"engulph"

her. The Empress Eugenie is | brought in to accomplish the catastrophe. Acting, of course, | under Jesuit orders, she invites Mrs. Fosterton to join her | and the Emperor in receiving the Eucharist at the Requiem | sung over the fallen in the Crimea. The Englishwoman | acquiesces with the prompt courtesy, and, together with her | husband, is at once rebaptised. But, unluckily, just at this | juncture, the Italian governess overhears the steward | reading the Epistle to the Corinthians. She instantly turns | Protestant; and, having written an account of all her crimes | to Mrs. Fosterton, dies of a broken heart. Mrs. Fosterton | becomes a confirmed lunatic; and her husband, his estates | gone to the Jesuits, lives on as . | We have omitted to mention Mr. Fosterton's chaplain, | whose adventures form an episode in the story. He is | trained up in rigid Protestantism by a widowed mother. | Unfortunately, he takes a liking for the Opera; and in | consequence of this departure from vital godliness, he falls | before long into the snare of Tractarianism, under the | influence of Captain Gardner and the governess's | spirit-rapping. Puri passu with | his progress in doctrine, he also makes progress in morals, by | falling in love with his patron's wife. The two passions | ripen together, and he declares himself to her, and goes | over to Rome, on the same day. He is received by no less a | person than Dr. Newman, whom, by the way, the author | coolly charges ~~ under the perfectly transparent | pseudonyme of "Dr. Freshman,"

"the leading writer of | the Tracts for the Times"

~~ | with having been a Jesuit priest some time before they | appeared. Dr. Newman has probably had enough of Lord | Campbell's justice ~~ otherwise, an action for libel might | have a salutary effect in staying the progress of this habit of | religious slander. | It may be said that we waste paper in exposing such trash | as this. Trash as it is, however, it is useful in gauging the | intellect and the veracity of a party which is likely to rule | the

"religious world"

for some years to come. | They sit in high places in the Church ~~ they are powerful | enough to overawe the House of Commons. At their | bidding, honourable men stoop to juggle with delusive | pledges about Maynooth, and to vote in hundreds for | fastening on their inferiors a Sabbatical yoke which they | themselves would shake off with contempt. It is | melancholy enough if one-tenth part of the ignorance and | malignity with which this book is rank can be imputed to | the party which holds an ascendency such as this. And yet, | as ballads indicate a nation's real feelings, so a religious | novel is now-a-days the true mouthpiece of a sect. | Treatises and sermons are written, and in the main read, by | the educated few ~~ what the people think is told in what | the people read. And so we are driven to the painful | conclusion that our religious future as a nation is in the | hands of a party whose intellectual qualifications may be | found in the columns of the Record, | the speeches of Mr. Spooner, and the novels | published by Mr. Westerton. | | | | | We do not know whether Lord Raynham has at present | anything on hand. If not, perhaps he will accept from | us a friendly hint of a field on which his philanthropic | energies may find a worthy object. Owing to the | benighted condition of the age, many of his and his | friends' recent enterprises have miscarried. Parliament | absolutely declines to emancipate the fleas, or to | establish a habeas corpus for | the cab-horses, or to flog aggravating husbands, or to | restrain maid-servants from the pernicious liberty of | leaning out of window. He will therefore hear with joy | of a case of oppression and suffering from which no | Parliament, however hard-hearted, can turn away. As | the knight-errant of the lower animals in general, and | young women in particular, we invite him to an | enterprise which will require and reward all his | gallantry, in both senses of that ambiguous word. We | only hope that when he has triumphed, and the | wreathed offerings of grateful womanhood rest upon | his brow, he will not forget the humble instrument to | whose suggestions he will owe his glory. | We have to inform him, then, that in this metropolis | there is a vast district where all the horrors of

| "overtime"

are inflicted without remorse, and | almost without limit, upon a class of young and helpless | females. A large number of young women, from the | ages of sixteen to thirty, living in the West-end of the | town, are engaged in the manufacture of a certain | article of general consumption. They are employed, as | a rule, for fifteen hours a day on week days, and for six | or seven on Sundays. But these fifteen hours are not | the ordinary hours of factory labour. The working-day | begins at twelve o'clock at noon, and ends at three | o'clock the next morning; but it is not uncommon for | girls to work at it even till five, for the chance of better | pay. The business is carried on in a hot and stifling | atmosphere, from which ventilation is carefully | excluded; but at certain intervals in the process the | workers have to move suddenly, bare-headed and | bare-shouldered, into the cold night air. The dress in which, | according to the custom of the trade, the manufacture is | conducted, is so light and ill-adjusted as to increase to | the utmost possible extent the dangers of this change of | temperature. Fatal illnesses are not uncommonly the | consequence of this enormous labour under such | unhealthy conditions. The mental results are still worse. | The manufacture in question is found to have the | peculiar property of predisposing its victims to idiotcy; | and of course, after the greater part of the day and night | has been spent in exhausting toil, neither time nor | strength is left for anything in the nature of self-culture | or self-education to counteract its operation. The | natural consequence is, that both the intellectual and | physical development of this class of young females is | very low, and constantly becoming lower. For their | miserable toil the remuneration is wretchedly scanty. | In pursuance of a peculiar custom it is paid in very | unequal portions, and is moreover distributed by lot. | Some of the young women who are lucky in the lot they | draw, obtain an amount of recompence which may be | said to repay even such labour as we have described. | But the majority obtain little or nothing for their pains. | Fed by hope, which the overseers of the factory | culpably encourage, they continue their round of | wearing and dreary toil for fifteen or even twenty years, | and find themselves at the end even poorer than when | they began. We need hardly particularize more closely | to Lord Raynham the case of which we speak. The | manufacture in question is that of

"small-talk" |

~~ an article which he probably does not consume | ~~ and the young females who are employed for fifteen | hours a day in producing it live chiefly in the | neighbourhood of Belgravia and May Fair. It is indeed | an opportunity for the interposition of philanthropists. | There never was such a case for a short-time agitation. | Even if Lord Raynham's own favourite panacea could | be applied, and they could all be employed as | linen-drapers' assistants, the lot of these unfortunate | young women would be materially improved. | These Belgravian young ladies are, indeed, very much | to be pitied. The inexorable necessity of getting a | livelihood somehow imposes upon them this pernicious | toil; for without it husbands are, according to the | traditions of Belgravian wisdom, not to be obtained. | But, having forced this system on the young ladies, | society turns round and abuses them for its results. The | elder sons, to charm whose wearied and used-up | existence this gigantic production of small-talk is | carried on, actually have the effrontery to complain that | the young ladies of the present day are stupid. We are | not disputing the melancholy truth. There is no room | left for disputing what is lamented, but admitted, on all | sides. The demand that has sprung up for pretty | horsebreakers is a sufficient proof that the legitimate | article has become quite unmarketable. It is too true | that the young-lady brain, whatever there was of it, is | slowly wearing away. But it does not lie in the mouth | of her hard taskmaster to reproach his victim with the | injuries his own exigence has caused. Let the exacting | parti who complains, | deliberately count over the trials through which that | brain has to pass, and then say whether any native | strength of texture or excellence of preparation could | avert the melancholy result. If he really wishes to | probe the evil to the bottom, let him ask the next silly | young lady with whom he dances to favour him with a | diary of her occupations during the space of a single | day. In the present state of the marriage market, such a | modest request could not be refused to any thoroughly | eligible young gentleman. When he obtains the | precious document, he will find that the existence of the | fair chatterbox at whose empty-headedness he has been | marvelling consists entirely of a ceaseless round of talk, | talk, talk. The occupation is never varied, but only the | ostensible amusement under which the occupation is | disguised. It may be the exhibition, in Rotten Row, of a | hat copied after the last new horsebreaker's pattern. It | may be the destruction of poor Aunt Sally's pipe on | some hot suburban lawn. It may be the calmer delights | of the

"kettle-drum,"

when the young married | women talk over their husbands, and exchange hints | upon conjugal strategy ~~ or the stiff diner, or the | asphyxiating drum, or the revolution on one's own axis | which is called dancing. These are only different | modes of weaving the meshes of small-talk by which | the angling maiden hopes to land her golden prey. | During all these various occupations she must be | chattering, ever chattering, about something. What that | something is, all men who have suffered under it know | too well ~~ the heat, the weather, the last party and the | next, her neighbour's misconduct, and her friends' | ugliness, and the general hideousness of every dress | except her own. For fifteen hours out of every week-day | her poor little brain, ill prepared by an education of | mere accomplishments, must be spinning out of its own | weak substance eternal talk upon these edifying topics. | And these exertions are not confined, as formerly, to | the season. No sooner is the season over than the | country-house begins. Scotland for the autumn, and | England for the winter, furnish a season pretty nearly as | severe as that of London. The so-called gaiety is quite | as constant, and the hours almost as bad. And, as recent | experiments appear to many others to have established | the superiority of country-house dissipation for | matrimonial purposes, the manufacture of small-talk | goes on more furiously than ever. Only, the | opportunities for tete-a-tetes | being very much greater, it is apt to become a good | many shades more tender. But, whether mingled with | the tenderness of the shrubbery or the pertness of the | ball-room, on it must go without respite or relaxation, | till a bridegroom capable of settlements has been won, | or the chilling threshold of old maidship has been | reached. Is it a matter of surprise that under such | treatment a young lady's intellect becomes a vanishing | quantity? It is rather wonderful that any portion of it | survives ~~ even that small portion of it which | subsequently reappears under the faded charms and | developed outline of the fashionable mother. No other | human being could go through such trials and retain | even the rudiments of a mind at the end. The toughest | intellects could not stand it. We should like to make the | experiment on Mr. Gladstone or Lord Westbury, if | either of those great men would sacrifice themselves in | the interests of science. We entertain no doubt that if | one of these grave personages were condemned to five | years of hard fashionable labour, to spend all his | waking hours in fashionable conversation, discussing | balls and concerts, matchmaking and scandal, he would | come out at the end with an intellect as nearly washed | out as that of the most inveterate ball-goer in Belgravia. | It is a consolation to think that in course of time the evil | must cure itself. The system will cease as soon as it | becomes clear, even to the obtusest mother, that it has | ceased to pay. Already the tide of feeling on the male | side is beginning to turn against it. Men do not relish | the alternative, which is apt to befall the husband of the | regular ball-goer, of either turning chaperon himself, or | leaving that office to be more tenderly performed by the | volunteer zeal of other young men. Mothers should | take warning in time, and not invest in a falling stock. | The market is turning. London girls are showing signs | of heaviness, and country-bred girls are becoming | firmer every day. A reaction will come soon, if they | are not wise in time, and eligible elder sons will be seen | scampering over the country, ransacking rural | parsonages and retired manor-houses for wives. Evil | days are in store for the mammas, if they do not | compromise matters with the growing utilitarianism of | the men. There is no knowing where a revulsion will | stop. Times may come when nimbleness in playing | polkas or dancing them will be looked on as an | unpractical accomplishment, and when cleverness in | imitating horsebreaker fashions will cease to attract | admiration. Men may even come to be so prosaic as to | wish that future housewives should know something | about managing a household. Perhaps they may go so | far as to desire that some traces of mental cultivation, | however minute, should be discoverable in the | conversation on which they are to depend for | amusement during great part of their lives. Possibly | they may even be so fastidious as to prefer to take their | wives from houses in which scandal does not form the | main topic of daily conversation. This is an evil | prospect to put before the eyes of an honest Belgravian | matron. She had better anticipate these dangers, and, | by plenty of loud professions and a few unimportant | practical concessions, make terms, while it is yet time, | with the changing spirit of the age. | | | | | To judge from the sameness of type observable in the | countless tales with which the adultery school of French | novelists feed the avidity of their fashionable readers, it | must be a very easy thing to write a French work of | fiction. They all seem to be prepared after a single recipe. | Take one unfaithful wife (if possible, two), a gallant lover | with a taste for suicide, and an angelic young lady, who, | out of pure love either for her parents or her | future, comes forward to impute the | unchastity to herself. Compound them together, with | plenty of sentiment, sweeten up with a little French | religion, and the preparation is complete. In M. About's | Germaine, which we noticed a | short time ago, the angelic young lady, by a process of | law peculiar to French jurisprudence, sells her good name, | and falsely swears herself impure, in order to provide | money for a scamp of a father. M. About is not singular | in his view of the duties of daughters, and of the use to | which young ladies ought to put their reputations. An | immoral self-sacrifice, of some sort or other, is the | motif of all the compositions of the | school to which the author of Tolla | has ~~ we trust only temporarily ~~ condescended | to attach himself. Every member of that school sits down | to excogitate some new and more exquisite species of | immolation, to which his heroes and heroines are made to | subject themselves, in obedience to some provision of | that abnormal code of morality which guides the | demi-monde of Paris ~~ some fraud | or falsehood, whose only peculiarity is that it utterly ruins | the person who commits it. The creme | de la creme of heroism is the greatest conceivable | self-sacrifice in the teeth of the plainest duties. | The Famille Lambert, by M. | Gozlan, would be a tale of considerable power, but for his | scrupulous adherence to this monotonous pattern. There | is force and humour in the opening, for, instance: ~~ | | But after this spirited beginning, the story runs on in the | old style, with

"as implacable an uniformity"

as | that which the author denounces in the canals and the | children of Holland. There is a father with a grown-up | daughter, a partner in trade who is a suitor for her hand, | and a wife ~~ the latter being a lady who has a holy | horror of growing old, and, by way of perpetuating her | youth, carries on a love affair with a | roue Count. The husband is introduced as being on | the point of starting on a journey, in order to take | possession of the Count's estates, which the latter has | gambled away; and the interest of the dialogue is made to | turn on the wife's agony at hearing her husband detail the | circumstances of her lover's ruin. At last he goes away, | and she hastens to an assignation with the Count. But | instead of the Count, there appears a letter of excuse; and | while she is reading it, her husband suddenly comes back, | and finds it in her hand. In his fury, he draws out a pistol | to shoot her on the spot; but just as he is on the point of | doing so, his daughter rushes between them, and by way | of saving her mother, asserts the criminal intrigue to be | her own. Of course the result is, that the daughter's | intended marriage is broken off, and she is ready to break | her heart. At last the mother, unable to bear her | daughter's agony, makes up her mind to confess ~~ the | Famille Lambert have a good | cry all round ~~ and the husband is reconciled to his wife | in the following truly natural style: ~~ | | In M. Magnet's Dettes de Coeur, | there is a still more thrilling succession of sacrifices, and | a still more original code of morality. The characters of | angel and adulteress are scrupulously preserved | according to regulation; but they are fused in a single | person. A Russian princess falls in love with a Parisian | young gentleman. In the heyday of the intrigue, the | Russian war breaks out, and she is compelled to retire | from France, and to join her husband in Russia. The | Parisian young gentleman, with a weakness for which the | author almost apologizes, forgets his guilty flame, and | falls in love with an unexceptionable young heiress; but, | just a he is on the point of marrying her, a letter reaches | him from the Princess, informing him that their | correspondence has fallen into the hands of a hostile Pole, | who intends to show it to her husband. He loses not a | moment ~~ it is a Dette de Coeur | ~~ in leaving his fiancee | and dashing off to the | | Russian frontier, to grapple with the treacherous Pole. He | succeeds in finding him, and of course in running him | through the body; but he also finds, to his great surprise, | the Princess herself, who tells him that her husband has | died of grief at the discovery of her infidelities, and that | she has decamped with some of his jewels. New | sacrifices await the unhappy Parisian. True, he has quite | ceased to love the estimable Princess, and is dying to | return to his intended bride; but French society, though it | may treat the marriage tie with something of laxity, | guards with holy jealousy the indissoluble bond of | adultery. With a stern self-denial he proceeds to jilt the | woman to whom he his really attached, and to marry one | for whom he has no affection, and who has committed as | many crimes as a decent woman can well cram into a | couple of years. Fortunately, the laws of the | demi-monde are double-edged, | and relieve him from the dilemma into which they have | plunged him. The widow finds out that he does not love | her, by the very characteristic expedient of stealing his | letters, and, in a similar spirit of self-sacrifice, cuts the | knot by drowning herself, with many touching and | romantic incidents, in the Lake of Como. | Of course we are far from the prudery of saying that a | species of guilt from which so large a portion of this | world's misery has ever flowed ought to be entirely | banished from the canvas of fiction. A picture of life | with so huge a section of its shadows left out, would be a | mere delusion. You can no more ignore incontinence | than you can ignore murder. But the most dainty dish | may pall upon the palate ~~ the raciest story may be worn | threadbare at last. It is possible to be tired even of | adultery; and these authors give us nothing else. It is the | one theme on which their imagination warms and their | pen grows eloquent. The most stirring adventures | become tame under their hands, unless they are lit up | with the mellowed tints of a conjugal infidelity. If some | monk of the Grande Chartreuse, suddenly emerged from | his living tomb, were to take up, for information's sake, | the Bibliotheque Choisie or the | Collection Hetzel, as professing | to depict the manners of the age, he would infer that life | was a very dull, cold, and spiritless affair ~~ that its | incidents, as a rule, furnished little of interest, and | nothing of pathos or of passion ~~ but that there was one | thing which would at once convert the arid desert into a | flower-land of romance, namely, that a woman should | break her marriage vow. Now, on the immoral tendency | of constantly associating all that is vicious with all that is | touching, it is scarcely necessary to enlarge ~~ the text is | somewhat stale, and has been too much besmeared with | unction to be savoury. Nor, indeed, have we any right to | object to this strange gallery of portraits, if they really are | a fair representation of French society. We can only wish | their authors success in the salutary though unattractive | task of disclosing to Europe the cesspool of filth which | lies in their midst. But if it be not so ~~ if conjugal | infidelity is not really the informing spirit of French | society ~~ they commit as great an offence against art as | they do against morality. They deserve to be ranked on | no higher level than the artist who could paint nothing but | a red lion, and whether he painted a king's head or a | crown and scepter, it came very much to a red lion after | all. It is the fashion to speak of French novels of this | school as very clever, but very wicked ~~ perhaps the | most fascinating assemblage of qualities to the youthful | mind that can possibly be conceived. But this monotony | of plot, which never travels, as the lawyers say, out of the | mischief of the seventh commandment, certainly seems to | us to bespeak a very slender ingenuity. It may in part, | perhaps, arise from causes with which the authors are not | fairly chargeable. Something of it may be due to the | national mania for startling effects and dramatic | situations, which can hardly be furnished by the real lives | of sober people, who do not make love to each other's | wives ~~ something to the gregarious life of Frenchmen, | who pass their time mostly in large assemblages and | places of general resort, and know little of the inner life | of the domestic circle, where alone there is scope for the | study of delicate shadings of character. But, after all | allowances made, there is still a large residue which can | only be attributed to the barren invention of the authors, | or the imperious pruriency of their readers. | | | | | Both the Messrs. Chambers have gained a reputation of a | peculiar but very effective-description. They approach | more nearly to the French litterateurs | than any other prominent writers of the present day. | They are not investigators, or discoverers, or even deep | thinkers. They have not the gift of showy writing; but they | have what is very much more useful ~~ a style of sparkling | clearness, and a singular facility in working up the raw | materials of more prosy labourers into a shape fit for the | consumption of our lazy-minded public. They furnish | wings to ponderous statistics and closely-wrought | calculations, which, but for their aid, would never travel | beyond the students of a public library. The book before us | is a sample of their handiwork. It is exceedingly pleasant | reading, and by no means lengthy; yet it furnishes a perfect | handbook of the Northern side of the slavery controversy. | It is a mine of argument for those who hate slavery simply | because their neighbours hate it, and would be very glad of | a decent show of reasons to back their opinions; and it is | well stored with the piquant anecdotes and sharp numerical | antitheses which form so large a part of modern | argumentation. Of the anecdotes we need give no | specimens. Use has made us only too familiar with them | ~~ perhaps callous to them. They are of the kind with | which anti-slavery books have teemed, from Miss | Martineau to Mrs. Stowe ~~ for the stream of them is ever | flowing. A system which habitually tears wife from | husband, and child from mother, which rules by cruelty and | spreads by prostitution, can never be barren in anecdotes to | illustrate its horrors. Miss Martineau tells a story of two | daughters of a planter, by a | | mulatto woman, who (being all but white) were brought up | by him in the greatest refinement, and with the most | religious education. They were discovered on his death to | be, in consequence of some legal flaw, still unemancipated; | and they were sold by his executors by public auction into | another planter's seraglio. This has always seemed to us so | completely to sum up, in one horrible instance, the worst | iniquities of slavery, that after it all other stories have | seemed superfluous and weak. | But the figures are sufficiently novel to be worth noticing | more specially. The upshot of what they prove is that | slavery is not only a crime but a blunder. It is eminently | wasteful and inefficient ~~ and that for the simple reason | that though you can flog men into moving their muscles | according to your bidding, you cannot flog them into | ingenuity, or care, or diligence. Fear-service is necessarily | eye-service; and therefore, until overseers acquire the | attribute of ubiquity, slavery will remain the most worthless | of all kinds of labour. But this is not the only cause of | economical stagnation in the Slave States. The slaves have | taken a revenge upon their masters not very unlike that | which ancient Greece was said to have taken on her Roman | conquerors. They have made labour shameful and lust easy; | and the luxurious apathy of absolute power, and the free | scope given to unbridled sensuality, have eaten out the | native energy of the Anglo-Saxon slave-owners, and have | left them as stagnant as Spanish grandees. Mr. Chambers | proves this by comparing the opportunities and the | achievements of the Northern and the Southern sections of | the Union. The value of real and personal property in the | North is just three times as much per acre as it is in the | South. Massachusetts could more than bur up Virginia, the | two Carolinas, Georgia, Florida, and Texas; and yet those | States are collectively upwards of sixty times as large as | Massachusetts, and their population is four times as great. | The tonnage of vessels is five times as great in the North | ~~ small as is its seaboard. Its manufacturing products are | nearly ten times as abundant as those of the South. As a | climax, the North outstrips the South on the South's own | chosen ground: ~~ | | In everything the contrast is the same ~~ in schools, books, | newspapers, churches, railways, canals. In everything the | North advances, the South lags behind. The South does not | even contrive to pay its own postage; and the deficiency | has to be made up by the superior epistolary energies of the | North. | Some ten or twelve years ago, Sir C. Lyell, who painted the | state of affairs in America with a very friendly hand, was so | impressed with the failure of slavery in an economical | point of view, that he indulged in a belief that it would die | out of itself. Mr. Chambers entertains no such hopes. The | demoralization wrought by slavery on the slave-owners | disables them for the energetic efforts which a transition | from slave to free labour would require. Moreover, the | possession of slaves, however injurious to the community | at large, is of course an abundant source of wealth to | individuals; and these men exercise a control over public | opinion as despotic as that of the inquisition. The writer | before us gives instances of men driven out of the Slave | States under peril of their lives ~~ one for voting for | Fremont, and the other for saying, in a private letter, that he | and others should be glad to do so if they dared. As long as | his tyranny is maintained, there is no more chance of a | healthy public opinion being formed on the subject of | slavery, than there was of an opinion being formed in | favour of Lutheranism three hundred years ago in Spain. | And those whose special office it is to correct the errors of | human feeling and opinion, instead of rebuking the evil, | sanction it. The clergy of almost every denomination are as | much tainted with slavery doctrines as their flocks. The | mediaeval Church, much as she is accused of undue | compliance with the spirit of her age, never ceased to urge | the enfranchisement of serfs; and that villenage has almost | disappeared from Western Europe is, in great part, her | work. But the American denominations, with all the | enlightenment of Protestantism to guide them, only rack | their ingenuity to invent pleas for slavery. One imaginative | apostle sees in it a mighty instrument for the evangelization | of the blacks, and solemnly points out the danger of | preferring their temporal to their spiritual welfare. We | should have thought that the facts that Virginia visits with | imprisonment any man or woman who teaches even a free | black child to read, and that Tennessee, only last December, | forbad any black to go to church for the space of one year, | might modify these sanguine views. Another reverend | gentleman, with humble-minded blasphemy, does not | venture to inquire into the religious objects of the

| "institution,"

but complacently lays it on the broad | shoulders of Providence. . According to this | doctrine we must presume that the existence of such | persons as this apologist to bring infamy on the Christian | name, is

"no moral evil, but the Lord's doing."

It | is unquestionably very marvelous in our eyes. | The fact is, that these preachers hold their positions | , and depend for their very sustenance on the good | pleasure of their congregation. Now men rather like to be | lectured severely on vices which only affect their spiritual | welfare ~~ the passing sting is a pleasing excitement, and is | moreover accepted by the conscience as full discharge and | satisfaction for all penitential liabilities; but woe to the | luckless wight who shall venture to reprove a community | for any vice the renunciation of which involves a temporal | loss. In England, the wrath of an indignant flock is | commonly confined to measureless abuse; but in America it | is unfortunately able to point that abuse by a summary | dismissal. It is melancholy spectacle for us, before whose | eyes the links that unite State and Church are snapping year | by year, to see the most thoroughly

"voluntary"

| community of Christians the world has beheld since the | time of Constantine brought face to face with a huge | national iniquity, and instead of rebuking, cowed into | approving it. The only religious body which seems never | to have wavered in reprobating it is the Church of Rome; | and even her conduct is susceptible of the ill-natured | explanation, that she derives her support mainly from | Europe. | But if the Southern clergy are faithless to their trust, and the | Southern people either bribed by self-interest or overawed | by menace, at least it may be said there is hope that the | energetic North, the home of Abolitionism, stanch in the | cause of Freedom, will eventually prevail. Unhappily, the | North is not stanch in the cause of Freedom. It values | philanthropy much, but the almighty dollar more. The | South gives Protectionist to the back-bone in its convictions, | cannot bring itself to relinquish this support. This may | very possibly not be an enduring obstacle, for a change of | opinion, similar to that which has taken place in England, | may take away all its value from the bribe. But a much | more serious hindrance to any hearty action against slavery | on the part of the North is the ineradicable prejudice against | colour. Mr. Chambers gives a great many instances which | betray a state of public feeling scarcely conceivable to us in | England. The rudest and the most enlightened districts, | with the exception of Massachusetts, share it alike. It | seems to be felt with equal keenness by clergymen and | laymen, by the pious and the profane ~~ nay, even intense | Abolitionist opinions do not seem to secure a man from this | moral contagion. No accomplishments, no moral or | intellectual qualities, can save from virtual | excommunication the unhappy possessors of any | proportion of negro blood. They are secluded in special | galleries in church, banished to special schools, hunted out | of public conveyances; and in hotels, the common table | d'hote is taboo to them. A Pariah in India, or even a leper | among the children of Israel, was scarcely more an object | of commiseration than a free negro is in the free Northern | States of America. A curious illustration of this state of | feeling occurred in New York. A curious illustration of | this state of feeling occurred in New York. A certain | college in that State had the courage to appoint a quadroon | to one of the professor's chairs. This professor, not | satisfied with this unparalleled favour, had the audacity to | fall in love with a white young lady, who was weak enough | to accept him. But she had a brother, a very pious | clergyman, and distinguished for the fervour with which he | testified against the atrocities of slavery. He never seems | to have contemplated a personal application of the | doctrines of equality and fraternity. He was willing enough | to look on the negro as a man and a brother, but he strongly | objected to looking on him as a man and a brother-in-law. | Accordingly, with a ready Yankee instinct, he appealed to | the mob of the neighbourhood, who, nothing loth, | assembled one Sunday afternoon after Church, , | and all the other apparatus of patriotic vengeance complete, | in order to tar and feather the aspiring professor. He | escaped out of their clutches, and fled, first to New York, | where he married his hard won bride, and then to England. | But a luckless schoolmaster who had given him shelter, | was summarily dismissed from his situation. This story | reads like a tale of some of the worst periods of the most | exclusive German aristocracies ~~ except that some more | gentle form of death would probably have been substituted | for the

"empty barrel spiked with shingle nails."

| It seems to be the hard fate of the American constitution to | revive within its own pale all the evils against which it was | designed to protest, without any of the mitigating adjuncts | which made them tolerable in the older societies. It has | persecution without the self-devoted faith which almost | hallowed it ~~ despotism untempered by the patriarchal | feeling ~~ and an aristocracy of caste, impassably fenced | off, and unsoftened by the halo of chivalrous traditions. | As long as it is under the dominion of feelings such as these, | it is quite clear that the North, notwithstanding such | indications as have recently been given by the legislatures | of New York and one or two other States, can never be | really in earnest in the cause of Abolition. But were it ever | so much in earnest, it is bound hand and foot by the | provisions of the Federal Constitution. The Fugitive Slave | Law is, as is well known, a portion of that Constitution. It | now appears, by the decision of the Supreme Court, that it | does not lie within the powers of Congress to limit the | extension of slavery in any direction. Mexico, Central | America, Cuba, even Brazil, may be ultimately swallowed | up in the vortex. The curse of slavery may be perpetuated | over half a continent ~~ the Senate may be swamped by the | votes of fifty new Slave States ~~ and yet the North will be | powerless to interfere. The Constitution cannot be altered | except with the consent of three-fourths of the States, | involving therefore a considerable number of Slave States; | and in consequence of the strange provision | | that five slaves votes shall be equal to three free votes, the | slave-owners are and must remain masters of the Slave | States. The entanglement is inextricable ~~ the South is | thoroughly master of the situation. As long as the Union is | maintained, slavery must endure; and the North has hitherto | resolutely declined even to contemplate the dissolution of | the Union. The remedy would be a certain one, though | attended with terrible risk: ~~ | | And yet the prospect of sitting still is terrible enough. The | slaves are now four millions, and in ten years they will be | five millions. A war with some powerful European State is | always a possible contingency. Suppose the Federal forces | to be engaged in defending the Union on some other point | ~~ a black regiment or two, raised in Hayti, might march | through the Southern States, and the great slavery difficulty | would be solved by a universal massacre. | | | | Few commonplaces of morality are better worn then | those which dwell on the banefulness of gossip; and | there are few which seem to fall so absolutely | pointless on the ears of those to whom commonplaces | of morality are addressed. Good books and sermons | are no doubt powerful instruments for the conversion | of the human heart ~~ at least, from their length and | number, it is obvious that those who compose them | think so. But they have no effect whatever upon | female or quasi-female tongues. The slaughter of | characters goes on as merrily as it did in the days of | Mrs. Candour. Gossip is a bad habit out of which the | world evidently does not grow. The increase of | civilization and the march of intellect only give it | strength and variety, while religious movements | stimulate it and turn it into a new channel. In spite of | moralists and preachers, it is not one of the | worldlinesses which the religious world rejects. It | holds its ground in many a circle which casts out the | theatre as evil, and has long ago renounced all | fellowship with pink ribbons. Its subject-matter is not | the same in the two worlds. In the religious world it | concerns itself with the theological errors of a clerical | neighbour ~~ in the worldly world it expatiates upon | the amatory vagaries of a fashionable neighbour. But | the nature of the gratification it ministers to those who | indulge in it is, in both cases, very much the same; | and the religious evil-speaking, on the whole, is the | more damaging of the two. | We must accept the fact, then, that this great social, | and very sociable, evil has an invincible hold over | mankind. Under these circumstances, we put it to the | moralists whether it would not be wiser to make the | best of it, and to discern in it a providential | arrangement. It is a favourite argument in favour of | field-sports that Nature has herself recommended | them to man, by supplying him with animals which | have a natural aptitude for aiding him in those | amusements. We think that Nature herself may also | safely be put into the witness-box to testify in favour | of gossip. There are some women who are obviously | created for no other purpose than to gossip. The | extraordinary agility of their tongues, the marvelous | endurance of fatigue displayed by that organ, their | total incapacity to reproduce without distortion any | thing that they hear, their abnormal passion for tea, | and their minute acquaintance with the peerage, mark | them out as distinctly to be gossips as the greyhound | is marked out for his special functions by his fleetness, | or the game-cock by his spurs. In taking away their | neighbours' characters, they are only acting after their | kind, and putting to the best use the faculties with | which they have been endowed. Does the captious | objector imagine that they were not intended to | employ that glorious and picturesque mendacity ~~ | that exquisite acuteness which never misses the | shadow of an ogle, or the echo of a sight ~~ that | sagacious foresight which enables them, at the close | of a London season, to cast with so much confidence | Sir Cresswell's judicial horoscope for the next year? | Tastes, too, or rather instincts, will not be overlooked | by the philosopher who is familiar with the argument | from design. The gossiping old maid has strange, | mysterious, inexplicable proclivities towards the | subjects from which her sex generally shrink. Surely | these tastes are not given her for nothing. These | instincts betray her vocation upon earth. She is | ordained to feed on scandal, as the scavenger-turkey | is ordained to feed on dirt. Then there is an argument | to be drawn from the protection which has been | provided for her. Nature shelters all created beings | from the dangers incident to the condition she assigns | to them. The negro's skull is thickened against the | sun-stroke ~~ the artic fauna are thickly furred to | protect them from the cold. So Nature protects the | old maid from scandal. Here gossiping propensities | might tempt her neighbours to fling it back against | her; but she is armed with a natural armour of proof | against the most distant insinuation that she is the | object of any illicit masculine aspirations. | We would go even a step further, and say that not | only is the vocation of gossips, both male and female, | marked out for them by Nature, but that it is | eminently beneficial in its results. If gossip were less | general, it might be very dangerous. There would | always of necessity be a little of it, for there are | spiteful people who have grudges to gratify, and find | that, as a vent for their feelings, backbiting is cheaper | than a lawsuit, and safer than an attempt at | horse-whipping. Then there are the exigencies of that | curious ceremony which, from the fact of its taking | place in the afternoon, is termed a

"morning | call."

When Mrs. A. calls on Mrs. B. at the hour | of four on a fine day, she expects that Mrs. B., if she | has the feelings of a woman and a Christian, will | direct her servant to say,

"Not at home."

| But it sometimes happens that Mrs. B. is forgetful of | her duties, or that her servant is fresh from the | country, and does not know how to lie with a good | grace, or ~~ which is the most trying | contre-temps of all ~~ that Mrs. | B. comes out of her | | door just as Mrs. A. is driving up. Then there is | nothing left for them but to go mournfully upstairs | together, and set their united brains to work to find | conversation for the regulation twenty minutes. | There is not an Exhibition every year; and the weather, | past, present, and to come, will barely last five | minutes. Human nature is weak; and they must be | forgiven if, in despair, they soon set to talking over |

"that dreadful story about Miss So and So,"

| and agreeing that it is a judgment upon her mother, | and that they always thought it would come to that. | Now, here comes in the inestimable utility of the | professional gossips. If these stories only arose now | and then from the bitterness of envies or the despair | of morning visitors, it is possible they might be | believed, and do real harm. But the old maids and | other professional gossips have so effectually cried |

"Wolf!"

that a scandalous attack upon a | lady's character is merely looked on as a playful sort | of joke, a good-humoured display of inventive genius. | It is piquant at the time, like the

"non-official" |

announcements of the | Moniteur, or Mr. Gladstone's promises of a | surplus; but it does not now command any more | serious credence. And this great step in advance, it | must always be remembered, we owe to the old maids. | In male society, the functions of this useful body of | women are assumed by the loungers at the clubs ~~ a | body chiefly made up of superannuated old bachelors, | and professional men who have been rising for some | time, but have not risen yet. Their opportunities, | however, are very limited now. Of old, politics were | their great field; and by a diligent attendance at the | club you might often know a fact several hours before | it was in print. But since Common Fame has taken a | corporeal form in the body of Mr. Reuter, who only | blows his trumpet twice a day, the occupation of the | club-lounger is very nearly gone. He is obliged to | content himself with facts the most minute, or fictions | the most wild. If he knows a political personage, he | can probably tell you what he said to the personage, | which will certainly rank among the minute facts, and | also what the personage said to him, which may be | safely classed among the wild fictions. Possibly he | can indicate to you mysteriously that there are | differences of opinion in the Cabinet, and perhaps | may darkly hint that he saw the Court Physician shake | his head the other day. But his political budget is | soon exhausted. The mysteries of the press are | now-a-days the favourite thesis of this class of gossips. | They are very great with the authorship of this | morning's leader in the Times; | and can give you a good reason, founded on an | imputation of the lowest personal motives, for every | opinion expressed in its columns. There is something | that irritates their curiosity in the veil which is thrown | over journalism; and they do their best to dispel the | darkness by a flood of imaginative effort. The | Saturday Review occasionally | comes in for its share of these ideal revelations. Two | or three times during our brief history, a fierce civil | war has raged among the conductors of this journal, | of which we ourselves were unhappily not conscious, | but the details of which have been carefully observed | and chronicled by our good friends at the clubs. | Recently, one of these catastrophes is supposed to | have visited us, and to have inflicted on us a sudden | and premature metempsychosis. We are informed, on | good authority, that we are no longer ourselves, but | have become somebody else. If we might be positive | upon any subject in opposition to the wise men who | know everything about everybody, we should venture | to maintain our own identity, and that, with two | exceptions, we are the same

"we"

~~ | although with very large additions ~~ that first | addressed the public six years ago. But it is not a | point on which we wish to dispute with them, or to | run the risk of spoiling the zest of their secret | information. Still, we feel with Amphitryon's valet | that it is embarrassing to have one's identity claimed | by somebody else. | | But there are few transformations which the | Quidnuncs of the clubs are not capable of effecting. | Our fate is nothing to that which some years ago | befell a respected religious contemporary, who, in the | midst of a triumphant career of anti-Roman polemics, | was suddenly discovered by the wise men to be the | devoted organ of a committee of Romanists. | On the whole, as a mere matter of taste, we prefer | what we must call the male old maids to the female | old maids. Neither of them do much harm; but | attacking tough old journalists and weather-beaten | politicians is a very innocent pursuit, compared to the | kind of gossip to which the petticoated | scandal-mongers are addicted. The spectacle of | half-fashionable women whose tempers have made them | nearly friendless, but whose pungent tongues retain | for them a certain amount of contemptuous | acquaintance, going about imputing sins they secretly | wish were their own, and manufacturing lies which, if | they had any effect at all, would poison for ever a | young girl's life ~~ such a spectacle, unhappily no | rarity, is one of the most revolting which our artificial | state of society can furnish. | | | | On Saturday last, what is called an influential | deputation ~~ that is to say, a deputation that gets | reported in the newspapers ~~ waited on the Home | Secretary. The subject-matter of their complaint was | the nightly gaieties of which the upper part of the | Haymarket and several neighbouring streets are the | scene. It is indeed a striking sight ~~ one which no | foreigner who wishes to study our national morality | in all its aspects ought to overlook. It is seen in all its | glory on a fine summer's night at one o'clock. It is a | sort of hour of restitution in which Vice indemnifies | herself for the arrogant and domineering attitude | which Virtue maintains in other places and at other | times. There are, indeed, few occasions in which | Vice does not maintain at least an equal claim to | notice in this, the most moral capital in the world. | But here she reigns without a rival. The pavement is | occupied in force by crowds of men and women, who | saunter about in the blaze of gaslight which issues | from the aggregation of gin-palaces and oyster-shops | of which the street consists. They enjoy themselves, | on the whole, after the manner of English people, | moult tristement, occasionally | dancing and shouting, but more generally simply | lounging. A sharp quarrel here and there, not limited | to words, is the only outward evidence of the gin they | have been consuming. Their conversation, it is | needless to say, is frank and candid, expressing | pointedly and unreservedly the subject-matter of their | meditations and the desires of their hearts. There is | no room for any charitable self-delusion as to the | character of this assemblage of men and women, or | the nature of the in whose worship they are | engaged. Some intrusive respectability, too sleepy | and too anxious to get home to be eager for the | service either of Silenus or Cytherea, may perhaps | find his way into the street. But unless he is anxious | for unsought caresses, under whose ambiguous | importunity either lust or larceny may lurk, he will | carefully avoid the footway and stick to the middle of | the street. Sharp granite edges, or muddy pools, or | the danger of being run over by a cab, are light risks | compared to the certainty of being hustled, bonneted, | and probably robbed by the half tipsy, half-amorous | Sirens of the pavement. By this last phrase we should | be sorry to contribute to the disappointment of any | lover of melody by implying that beautiful voices | would be among the snares employed here to entrap | him. One of their most repulsive peculiarities is the | raven-like croak in which their endearments to the | passer-by are conveyed. But we labour under heavy | verbal disabilities. We have a difficulty in giving a | generic name to the women with the sight of whom | everyone who has to | walk through the greater streets after night-fall must | be as familiar as he is with the lamp-posts. The | straightforward names that our fathers used have been | repudiated by the delicacy of our age. In coarser | times words were employed to represent facts; but in | proportion as the facts become more numerous, more | notorious, and more obtrusive, the words which | represent them have become obsolete and shocking: | ~~ | | Many circumlocutions have undoubtedly been | invented to describe, without falling into the | coarseness of St. Paul or even of Addison, the | highly-tinted Venuses who form so favourite a study of the | connoisseurs of the Haymarket. Some call them

| "social evils;"

others, who are more | compassionate, call them

"unfortunate women;" |

others, who are more respectful still, are | satisfied to describe them as

"gay persons."

| But, on the whole, the nicest, the softest, the most | poetical designation we have heard, is that which the | Penitentiaries have invented ~~ . The time | will no doubt come when this, too, will be thought too | coarse and too direct; but for the present we shall | adopt it as decidedly the most delicate phrase that has | been devised. | It is fair to the influential deputation to say that they | were not restrained from stating their case in all its | nudity by any fears of shocking the sensitive ears of | Sir George Grey. The matter had assumed a practical | and prosaic form to them, which blunted the edge of | their prudery very perceptibly. The soiled doves were | becoming a formidable nuisance to the whole | neighbourhood. Light sleepers could get no night's | rest for their incessant cooings. Respectable women | could not pass the streets for fear of being pecked at | by them. Philanthropists who had taken the trouble to | visit all their haunts, in which the said philanthropists | must have cut a very amusing figure, stated to Sir | George Grey, for his information, that soiled doves | were to be frequently found in the ginshops of the | Haymarket, and that their presence in the streets acted | as a temptation to young men. It is grievous to think | how much unwelcome affection these good men must | have exposed themselves to, in order to obtain this | knowledge, which probably did not shed any new | light over the Home Secretary's mind. But there was | a far more serious complaint than this. The soiled | doves, though charming as companions, are not | popular as neighbours; and rents, in consequence, are | falling rapidly in the neighbourhoods to which they | resort. The modesty of the landlords has endured a | great deal; but when it comes to the falling of rents, | they must speak out. | All these complaints were laid before the Home | Secretary, and very courteously received; and, to | quicken his zeal, he was assured that the Haymarket | had become one of the recognised sights of London, | where Frenchmen were accustomed to contemplate in | its practical workings that example of morality which | we so frequently commend to them for their imitation. | But he could give the deputation little comfort. He | could hold out hopes to them that, by putting the law | more rigidly into execution, or sharpening its | provisions, it might be possible to drive them in | greater multitudes into the streets; and as the whole | object of the deputation was to drive them out of the | streets, the prospect held out was anything but | satisfactory. As far as this deputation went, therefore, | the problem of clearing our streets of these open-air | preachers of immorality, and allowing respectable | people to pass through them unmolested, is as far | from solution as ever it was. It was not unknown | either to the Secretary of State or to those applying | for his assistance, that England is the only European | country in which it is not solved. The Continental | practice was frequently referred to, but only to draw | from both sides the unanimous judgment that

| "the state of public opinion in this country"

will | not allow it to be adopted here. It is obvious enough | that the police cannot clear the streets unless they are | allowed to remove the obstructions, and for that | purpose the police must have the means of | recognizing without error the obstructions they are to | remove. In other words, they must know the

| "soiled doves"

by sight. In Continental | countries, measures are taken to enable them to | possess this knowledge. The dove-cote is duly | catalogued and registered. The result is that in Paris, | or Berlin, or Vienna, such a scandal as the English | Haymarket is never to be seen. There, the streets are | safe for peaceable citizens to pass through at any time. | Wherever the doves wish to play their trade it is not in | the great thoroughfares that they are allowed to do so. | The sin of great Continental cities, whatever its extent, | confines its pernicious effects to those who are | sharers in its guilt. It is not allowed to make the chief | streets impassable for honest men and women. But | English morality will not allow us to take the | precautions of which these salutary results are the | fruit. We do not pretend to check the growth of this | vice. If we did, our pretence would be ridiculously | futile. Its branches are shooting up on every side in | ever-increasing abundance. Its practice becomes | yearly more open and shameless with high and low. | In the Parks, at the Opera, everywhere except in | private drawing-rooms, it pushes unfascinating virtue | aside, and boldly asserts its power. Almost every trial | that gives us a glimpse into the private history of our | time displays it in the command of boundless | resources, and in the enjoyment of unexampled | luxury. There is very little doubt that, so long as the | English theory of marriage obtains, and the holy | union is avowedly treated as a commercial transaction | between two families struggling to better themselves, | so long the vice to which we have referred will | flourish and prevail. In the face of such facts, patent | to every eye, those who lead public opinion among us | think to atone for the evil by ignoring its existence. | While the ministers to the kindred vice of | drunkenness are under rigid restraint, they think they | do good service to the cause of purity by assuming | that no such thing as impurity exists. And, in order | that this fiction may be with greater decency upheld, | statesmen are content to allow our streets to be | disgraced by a shameful traffic, which is annoying | and disagreeable enough to men, but which no | woman can pass through with self-respect. | The open and obvious evil, which must strike the eye | of all who come up the Haymarket late at night, is not | the only one that results from our sage attempt to | destroy facts by shutting our eyes to them. The secret | workings of a far graver evil are | | well known to medical men. We can but barely | allude to the frightful social dangers which the | police sanitaire of the Continent | is intended to avert. Those who wish to know in their | full extent the ravages to which we refer, will do well | to consult the Registrar-General's report. It must | never be forgotten that scrofula, with its two kindred | forms of madness and consumption, is, in the opinion | of many scientific men, but an application of the | natural law indicated in the Second Commandment. | It is impossible to follow this subject up. It will | suggest to everyone | thoughts which we dare not clothe in words. But we | cannot exclude from our minds dangers and evils | which affect those yet unborn, or listen with patience | to the prudish platitudes which hinder our | Government from taking common-sense precautions | to arrest the progress of a plague. The difficulty lies | wholly in the scruples of the religious world. The | punctiliousness of the Government is entirely | assumed. They have recently approved of an | ordinance, granting to the colony of Hong Kong all | the safeguards which are provided by Continental | legislation. The only obstacles to a sensible policy | upon this subject at home are the religious ostriches | who think they have extirpated an evil by hiding their | heads and refusing to hear its name. | | | | The sufferings which people who have anything that | can be dunned out of them by importunity are | condemned to undergo at the hands of those who are | impudent enough to dun them, have long been the | subject of general commiseration. The system of | Competitive Examination is believed to owe its origin | chiefly to the anxiety of statesmen to rid themselves | of the intolerable throng of applicants who were | gathered round them by the hopes of patronage. The | Mendacity Society owes its existence to the absolute | necessity of providing some protection against the | swarm of beggars whom the merest rumour will draw | round any man who has had the weakness to be guilty | of an act of benevolence. It is said that a | distinguished philanthropist, who has had the | misfortune to make his name famous by an act of | singular munificence, has been fairly driven into a | foreign country by the levee of piteous cases that has | taken to assembling round his street door. There are | better-dressed beggars also, who do not beg less | valiantly, though it is for other things. The great | people who have the reputation of giving agreeable or | splendid parties are severe sufferers from the | imperturbable assurance with which those who are | labouring up the lower rounds of the fashionable | ladder petition for a card. But of all the sufferers of | this kind, there is no set of people so deserving of pity | as elder sons. The mendicants by whom they are | beset are not of the outcast class, who can be got rid | of by an appeal to a police magistrate or a mendacity | officer; nor is the favour for which they are | importuned a very small matter. Turbaned dowagers, | of awful presence and remorseless tongues, laden | with unmarketable daughters, and with the word

| "Intentions"

trembling on their lips, are the | lazzaroni by whom their footsteps are dogged; and, | like their Neapolitan prototypes, these persecutors are | always ready to turn to and abuse their victim if he | refuses them the trifling dole of title and estates for | which they are asking. | Happily for themselves, the hunted animals in | question are comparatively rare. London ball-rooms | and country-houses are the spots in which their | persecutors generally find them; but, like the Alpine | chamois, excessive hunting has made them scarce in | their ancient haunts. They survive, however, in | sufficient numbers to enable a careful observer to | watch their habits in every stage of their troubled | existence. The change that comes over them in the | course of it is both striking and melancholy. The | length of time during which any one of them has been | the object for which some dowager has spread her | toils may in general be inferred from the extent of | timidity and caution he displays. On his first entrance | into society the elder son is cheerful, conversable, and | trustful in his manner. He betrays no consciousness | that his every gesture is watched, or that every phrase | that falls from him is carefully analysed, to find | whether a latent or embryo proposal can be detected | in its composition. He does not even know his | enemies as yet. He will talk and laugh with a | dowager, and listen to her compliments, and accept | her invitations, and will speak of her to his friends as | though she were nothing else to him but a rather ugly | old woman, with a large development of skirt and | head-dress. But the great sign that an elder son is still | enjoying the bliss of youthful ignorance is the ease | and composure with which he practises the manly | accomplishment of flirting. He will plunge into a | family of maiden daughters, if pheasants should lead | him there, without a tinge of fear. He will sit by a | young lady at dinner, if chance should thrust him into | such a position, and his appetite will never be blunted | by a thought upon the dangers that surround him. | Nay, he will devote himself to her all the evening, | will bank with her at the round game, and turn over | her leaves at the pianoforte; and at the end of it all, he | will hand a candle to her mother, without a suspicion | that those maternal eyes are already glancing at him | that question about

"Intentions"

which in a | few days will send him a scared and breathless | fugitive from the hall-door. Very different is the | bearing of the elder son who has learnt wisdom in the | bitter school of experience. He no longer ventures | willingly into danger. After a score of hairbreadth | escapes, like the partridges in November, he is | decidedly wild. He is mentally scarred all over with | the wounds he has received. Good-natured friends | have confided to him more than once that Lady | So-and-So is saying all over London that

"he has | behaved infamously;"

and his manner shows | that he is no longer insensible to the constructions | which may be placed on the ordinary politenesses | which are only practiced with impunity by younger | sons. Something of his former self still remains to | him as long as only married women are in the room. | He speaks and laughs at his ease, sits down wherever | he is inclined, and does not shrink even from a | tete-a-tete. But the moment the | form of a marriageable female darkens the doorway, a | cloud comes over him. If he can, he flees from the | open plain by the fire, and hides himself in distant | corners or behind impregnable writing tables. If he | cannot make his escape to a place of security, he | throws himself upon the defensive by making hard | love to the nearest married lady, or by taking a sudden | but absorbing interest in the agricultural prospects of | a country neighbour. Sometimes hard fate forces him | to sit through a whole meal next to the object of his | terrors, and then it is very pretty to watch his coy and | maidenly embarrassment. He is evidently puzzling | himself the whole time how to draw the narrow and | imperceptible line which, in the case of elder sons, | separates rudeness from love-making. He is | calculating how many observations upon the weather | it will be safe to make, and whether he can dare to | desert that innocent subject of criticism without | exposing himself to the risk of being supposed to | have

"behaved infamously"

six months | hence. His manner becomes very like that of a | witness who has been put forward to prove an alibi, | and is undergoing a severe cross-examination. At last, | of course, he attains to a wonderful dexterity in the | use of a glacial politeness, in which nothing | matrimonial can be scented even by the keenest | dowager nose. It is not all elder sons, however, who | attain to this conversational agility. Many are taken | in the process of learning how to elude their pursuers. | In spite of all his care, many a one finds himself at | last undergoing that dreaded interview in which the | dexterous dowager drives in her last harpoon, by | telling him in a broken voice, from behind her | pocket-handkerchief, that she fears her dear daughter's | peace of mind is gone for ever. Conscious of their | weakness, the elder sons seldom run too close to | danger. They prefer to flock together out of its reach. | Just as a shoal of herrings indicates the | neighbourhood of a dog-fish, and as the terror among | the small birds betrays the presence of a hawk in the | air above, so, if you see a number of elder sons | congregated at one end of a breakfast or luncheon | table, you may be quite sure there is a young lady at | the other. | After a time, this phase, too, in the elder son's career | passes away. The dowagers whose toils he has | constantly eluded give him up in despair at last. He is | beyond the age when he can be expected to believe in | the fracture of a young lady's peace of mind; and it is | of no use asking for intentions when there are no | intentions forthcoming. Nothing remains of his many | hazards and narrow deliverances, but a quarrel with | two or three families to whom he is supposed to have | behaved infamously. He has not resumed, however, | the unsuspecting gaiety of youth. He has acquired a | precautionary habit of sheering off at the approach of | a young lady, to which he probably adheres. He has | also contracted a practice of keeping his hands in his | pockets, which has attracted the observation of the | naturalists by whom the species has been studied. | The reason is supposed by many to be analogous to | that which induces the Persians who live in disturbed | districts to cut their beards short, in order that their | adversaries may have nothing to take hold of. This | explanation, however, requires to be verified. It is | needless to say that, in this advanced stage of | elder-sonship, he does not dream of marriage. To propose | it to him would be like proposing amalgamation to | Federals and Confederates, or to Poles and Russians. | A long course of social hardships and privations has | made such an idea abhorrent to him. The results ~~ at | least those results which we can examine without | lifting up the veil of our decorous social system ~~ | are curious enough, not only with respect to all who | are in any degree worth being hunted down. Refined | female society they will, as a rule, have, though they | cannot have it in the conversation of young ladies, the | greater number of whom are brought up to look on | them with a purely commercial eye. The demand | from such a quarter is pretty sure to create a supply; | and as the | | young unmarried ladies are shut out by the | manoeuvres of their mothers, it must be furnished by | those who have removed that disqualification. | Snake-charming is a perilous amusement except with snakes | whose fangs are drawn. The arrangement is, no doubt, | a very pleasant one for the young men. Married | women are in themselves more practiced, and, | therefore, more agreeable talkers than young ladies; | and even if they were not, a friendship which does not | lead up to a question about intentions is necessarily a | very much pleasanter and more comfortable kind of | intimacy than one that does. But it is not to be | expected that the prevalence of such a state of things | should be free from consequences of a more serious | kind upon the morality and the repute of the classes | among whom it exists. For the present, the game | appears to go on merrily. Skating on thin ice is a | delightful amusement until the ice breaks ~~ and, | perhaps, for some time after. But if the pastime | should result in extensive scandal, no small share of | the blame will belong to the dowager-system, and | especially to the vigorous practitioners who have | pushed it to such a length in our day. | | | | | Some nations have a gift for ceremonial. No poverty | of means or absence of splendour hinders them from | making any pageant in which they take part both real | and impressive. Everybody falls naturally into his | proper place, throws himself without effort into the | spirit of the little drama he is enacting. | | and instinctively represses all appearance of | constraint or formality or distracted attention. This | aptitude is generally confined to people of a Southern | climate and of non-Teutonic parentage. In England | the case is exactly the reverse. We can afford to be | more splendid than most nations; but some malignant | spell broods over all our most solemn ceremonials, | and inserts into them some feature which makes them | all ridiculous. Spite of all the appliances of luxury | and art, the temper of the people is against them, and | they degenerate into either an unmeaning formality or | an ill-contrived show. Something always breaks | down, somebody contrives to escape doing his part, | or some by-motive is suffered to interfere and ruin it | all. | Tuesday was one of the few occasions on which the | English indulge themselves in a pageant, and it | furnished an ample illustration of the thorough | uncongeniality of the amusement. The meeting of all | the authorities that go to make up the executive and | the legislative Government of England, in the midst | of a grave crisis, and at the commencement of a year | that promises to be eventful, was an opportunity not | wanting in grandeur. There was gathered in that | splendid hall plenty of the solid power which is | necessary to give reality to a solemn political pageant. | But it would have required a very large bump of | veneration to have seen anything solemn in the actual | spectacle which the House of Lords presented on | Tuesday last. The officials who had the arranging of | it seem to have thought a good deal more of | gratifying the curiosity of those who wished to see it, | than of making the ceremonial itself correspond to | what it was supposed to represent. Theoretically, it | was the Sovereign meeting the Estates of the realm to | inaugurated grave political deliberations. But | practically, it looked more like a revival of the | Ecclesiazusoe of Aristophanes | than any assemblage known to modern experience. | The last thing it resembled was a weighty political | occasion. It was all very well to say that that | assembly was the House of Lords; but it was only by | a very minute search with a good opera-glass that any | Lords were to be discovered. Half-a-dozen old men | in red mantles might be discerned lolling on the | lowest bench; but they looked as if they had got there | by accident, and felt that they were in the way. | Behind them, and above them, and all round them, | swarming in every corner cramming every gallery, | densely packed on the benches where the hereditary | legislators ordinarily sit, were throngs of ladies who | formed, and evidently felt that they formed, the main | feature of the assemblage. The eye was wearied with | resting on nothing but tarlatans and silks. An | enlightened and travelled Turk who should be anxious | to see the Great Council of the nation on the occasion | of its most solemn meeting, would certainly report to | his friends that the rights of women of which he had | heard in America had received their full development | in England. He would at least conclude that they had | obtained the privilege of holding a rival Parliament in | the neighbourhood of Westminster Hall, and that he | had stumbled into the seraglio of the Constitution by | mistake, and was listening to the deliberations of the | House of Ladies. The Bench of Bishops, with their | feminine apparel and not unfeminine aspect, would be | far from destroying the illusion. He would only | conclude that they were eminent females, to whom, | by reason of their age and infirmities, a warm corner | had been assigned. The absence of fashionable | inflation in their attire, together with its sadder | colouring, would probably suggest to him that they | were elderly widows. As for the few old men in red | mantles, if he noticed them at all, their deplorable | aspect and the obvious shyness and embarrassment of | their demeanour would lead him to set them down as | the principal slaves or mutes of the imperious sultanas | who were flaunting in every colour of the rainbow | behind them. | He would be still more puzzled at our national | customs as the ceremonial went on. He would have | an opportunity of seeing the peculiar form in which | both our male and female legislators pay homage to | their Sovereign. Gradually the fair throng becomes | more and more agitated and animated as the signs of | approaching Royalty increase. The space near the | throne fills with the privileged dignitaries, who, | except the reporters, are the only male spectators | suffered at these mystic rites. If a man who is neither | member of Parliament, peer's son, official, nor | connected with the press, wishes to hear the Queen's | speech from her own lips, he must submit to a | Clodian disguise, and call himself a peeress. At last | the silver trumpets announce that the moment of | fruition is at hand for which so many fair lionizers | have struggled and squeezed. Spite of Lord Haddo, | Court ceremonial still exacts a definite amount of | nudity from a respectful subject. Various nations | have adopted various modes of expressing deference. | The Eastern uncovers his feet, the Western his head; | the Englishwoman is probably unique in expressing | her awe-stricken feelings by exhibiting her shoulders. | But the rule is quite rigorous. It includes alike old | and young, smooth and wrinkled, plump and | shrivelled. A soft-footed official glides along the | Ministerial benches to frown away any remnant of | cloak or shawl to which chilliness or shyness may | cling; and at his appearance, as he goes along | whispering , a perfect glacier of bare | shoulders is simultaneously exposed to the light of | day. | At all events, this is a more noiseless as well as a | more graceful tribute of respect than that which the | Queen shortly afterwards receives from the | representatives of the masculine portion of her | subjects. Here first direction, as soon as she is seated | in her throne, is to

"command the attendance of | the Commons."

Now, the Commons on this | occasion are a reality, not a sham. If they made their | appearance, like the House of Lords, by female | substitutes, matters would probably go off much more | smoothly. The Speaker and Lord Palmerston, | marching in at the head of a fair and bare-shouldered | cortege, would certainly be a | pleasant sight to look upon; but they would not run | the same imminent risk of bodily injury either in | coming in or going out; or at any rate it would not be | so distasteful to be hustled. As it is, the Commons, | no doubt to compensate for the deficient virility of the | Lords, vindicate their manliness by a succession of | athletic exercises in the course of their passage from | their own House to the House of Lords. Wrestling, | racing, and something very nearly approaching to | boxing, are all combined in the lively scuffle which | constitutes the procession of the Commons. An | increasing murmur, as if made up of the groans of | men whose breath was being squeezed out of their | bodies, announces to the gentler occupants of the | House of Lords the slow and painful approach of the | third Estate. At last a struggle of more than usual | length and desperation ends with shooting forward Mr. | Speaker, all gleaming in purple and gold, majestic | still, though rumpled, into the presence of his | Sovereign. Etiquette requires that he should approach | the bar of the House of Lords with three reverential | bows; but under the circumstances this is not quite so | simple a matter as it seems. It is difficult to maintain | a stately pace with a crowd treading on your heels, or | to execute a dignified bow at the moment that a | metropolitan member is being propelled, with the | force of a catapult, into your back. Generally, the | Speaker is lucky if he reaches the bar of his own | accord. Fortunately, it has been the practice to select | for the Speakership men of great endurance, who do | not express in their faces all that they are suffering | elsewhere. But the contrast between the Speaker in | his official robes, with his countenance composed to a | stately dignity beseeming a high functionary, and the | pushing, peeping , elbowing, struggling crowd of | dusty-looking members behind him, illustrates aptly | enough the ludicrous inconsistencies that are sure to | make their appearance to spoil any bit of pageantry | we attempt in England. Many improvements might | be suggested in the ceremonial which celebrates the | meeting of the Sovereign and the Estates of her realm. | But it has several stages to go through before it even | ceases to be absurd. That happy result will not be | attained till the House of Lords is represented by | something else than innumerable ladies in evening | costume, and the House of Commons by something | better than a mob of grown-up schoolboys. | | | | | Most of our readers probably have, within the circle of their | acquaintance, some dealer in anecdotes, who always ushers | in his favourite Joe Miller with a premonitory giggle, | apparently from an indistinct feeling ~~ invariably justified | by the result ~~ that no-one | except its fond parent is likely so to honour it. Some such | instinct must have induced the authors of | A Long Vacation Ramble in Norway and | Sweden to introduce themselves to the public with | the jocose nomenclature of "X and Y, two Unknown | Quantities." Such an advertisement of the authors' | benevolent intention of entertaining the public is, as a | matter of tactics, decidedly a mistake, especially when a | great show has to be extracted out of scanty resources. It is | an announcement that the book is intended to be a funny | book, and its failure or its success must be estimated in | reference to that standard. Lame jokes, which might | otherwise have been passed over as the pardonable | overflow of spirits in the first transports of release from | professional drudgery, become a failure when they are | made the primary aim of the composition. The conscious | weakness indicated by the title-page is by no means belied | by the character of the book. From beginning to end, "X | and Y" are doggedly and ponderously facetious. Their | ramble embraces the greater part of the coast of Norway up | to the North Cape, and the principal towns in Norway and | Sweden. They are indefatigable walkers, and seem never | to have been deterred from any expedition by hardship or | fatigue; and they add to these qualifications, that one of | them is a botanist and the other an ecclesiologist. They | must have seen much that was exquisite in scenery ~~ | much that was instructive in national character ~~ much | that was curious in nature and art; and they make | perfunctory attempts to introduce these necessary | ingredients of a book of travels. But their descriptions of | scenery place no picture before the eye ~~ their reflections | are models of bathos ~~ and their botany and ecclesiology | a mere

"beadroll of unbaptized jargon."

But | though these outbreaks of seriousness are unquestionably | dull, they are gems compared to the weighty mass of | manufactured wit in which they are imbedded. Every | reader of Punch who is conversant | with Mr. Douglas Jerrold's peculiar style, knows well the | whole armoury of Brummagem facetiousness to which a | hard-pressed jester has recourse. Sometimes it is mock | heroics, or an elaborate parody of Scripture phraseology ~~ | sometimes a mere jingle, or the inversion of a sentence by | putting the adjective first, is made to pass muster for wit ~~ | or, what is still more repulsive, if a young woman occurs in | the course of the narrative, she is dealt with in that style of | gallant inuendo which sly old bachelors are, or used to be, | so fond of indulging in after dinner with a chuckle and a | wink at their younger neighbours. But true wit is of all | things the most difficult to sham. Men may catch the | twang and the rhythm of sentiment who have very little real | tenderness in their hearts; but no art can feign the keen | sense of the ridiculous, or the spontaneous exuberance of | genial humour, without one or the other of which | facetiousness is as flat as champagne in decanters. That | our readers may judge for themselves of the wit of these | Unknown Quantities, we will give two extracts, illustrative | of their varying styles: ~~ | | This may be termed the mock heroic and jingle style; now | for the Scripture style: ~~ | | When we turn from the false wit of "X and Y" to the genial | and easy flow of Mr. Musgrave's pleasant volumes, we feel | as if we were passing into the fresh air from the loaded | atmosphere of a ball-room. Making a slight deduction for | the good-humoured garrulity which is the speciality of | elderly clergymen, he seems to us the very model of what a | modern tourist, who writes not for fame but for circulation, | should be. The qualifications for that character are none of | them very lofty, but they are rare in the necessary | combination. It is needless to say that the successful inditer | of travels must be a man of observation and information, of | quick eye, retentive memory, and untiring limb. He must | be more than this. He must have a smattering of a variety | of tastes, sufficient to maintain himself in each at the | highest level to which the generality of his readers ever | reach. His character is not perfect without a little | knowledge of agriculture, manufactures, architecture, and | painting; but it | | must be only a little knowledge, for great proficients are | very apt to cast aside, as not worth telling, precisely that | which the uninstructed most need to be told. He must have | an extensive sympathy with all sorts of people, especially | with those who wear peculiar old national dresses. He | must be well read in all the more touching parts of the | history of the ground over which he has to travel; for names | and dates, in an Englishman's eye, add wonderfully to the | pathos of a moving tale. But, above all, in belief and | feeling he must flow steadily with the stream. Nothing | mars the reader's enjoyment of light reading like the feeling | that the author is insidiously trying to convert him to some | view or other in politics or religion. In all these respects, | Mr. Musgrave is a tourist made to order. His pilgrimage | into Dauphine (of which, by the way, Dauphine occupies a | most insignificant fraction) leads him into a great variety of | scenes and associations; but he seems to have the same | ready and easy sympathy, and the same historical | familiarity, with all. The wine-vats of Epernay and the | solitudes of the Grande Chartreuse, the renowned silk | factories of Lyons and the statues of the obscure village of | St. Mihiel, the agricultural system of the valley of the | Meuse and the sad historical reminiscences of Varennes, | the manufacture of millstones and the relics of Joan of Arc, | all excite in him a lively interest, and are made the objects | of the same curious, indefatigable, but unpedantic research. | And he tells it all with such a winning, simple-minded | garrulity ~~ taking you into his confidence, even to the | extent of informing you that his daughter is a very | extravagant travelling companion ~~ recording with lifelike | fidelity the most trivial incidents, even down to the fact of | his getting his trousers very dirty ~~ making the most | execrable puns in the very fulness of his cordiality ~~ | quoting in the most shameless manner from the Latin | grammar such exquisite extracts as, ~~ that you | feel rather as if you were hearing the yarn of a lively old | friend at the club, instead of perusing a literary composition. | His reflections are numerous, as is natural in his office and | age. They are not fresh, otherwise they would infringe one | of the canons we have laid down above, concerning the | introduction of controversial matter; but they are precisely | the reflections that, in the present state of opinion, would | occur to the mass of tolerably clever educated Englishmen, | if they chose to do what they never do choose ~~ take the | trouble to reflect. Therefore, Mr. Musgrave answers the | end of all literature in these days ~~ he does not invite the | reader to think, but saves him the trouble of thinking by | doing it in his stead. In politics, his views are intensely | patriotic ~~ Liberal in theory, and Conservative in the | application of that theory. In religion, he has a decided | objection to austerity, and views the monastic life with all | the contempt that is natural and becoming in a married | clergyman. Beyond this, he evidently dislikes controversy, | values practical work, and has an intense appreciation of | ecclesiastical art, both in architecture and music. The one | sin for which he cannot forgive the monks of the Grande | Chartreuse is Bruno's prohibition of all musical services. | The French people he looks upon with a good-natured | feeling of superiority, and speaks of with that patronizing | liberality which has become orthodox since the Alliance. | He spends some pages in proving that they are not wholly | given up to frivolity, and then thinks it necessary to | apologize for the apparent partiality which such a bold | assertion seems to imply. | The most interesting part of the book is his description of | the Grande Chartreuse, and the account he gives of the silk | manufacture at Lyons. He devotes a good deal of space to | a history of the capture of Louis XVI. at Varennes, | concerning which he copies out the | proces-verbal that has been preserved; but | no-one who is familiar with | Lamartine's exquisite picture-drawing in the | Girondins will have much relish for | Mr. Musgrave's documentary rechauffee. | His descriptions of the architecture of Rheims and | Bourges, and the "Retables" of Dijon, are full of the | peculiar merit required by a work such as this. They are | not scientific, like the architect's specifications with which | X and Y regale us; but they are popularly written, and they | convey to the mind a vivid image of the beauties they | portray. The same may be said of his pictures of scenery, | of which we will extract one of the best. The scene is the | Rhone, a little above Lyons: ~~ | | One charm there is in Mr. Musgrave's work which is rare in | an English book of travels. The pride and the reserve for | which our countrymen are noted make them usually the | worst travellers in the world. It may be that they are | ashamed of their French ~~ or that they shrink from | intruding ~~ or that they are afraid of falling in with | sharpers; but, whatever the cause is, the fact is almost | invariable, that, go where he will, an Englishman never | opens his lips. The natural result of his speaking to nobody | is that nobody speaks to him. He travels through the world | with closed ears; and consequently, for all purposes of | information or self-improvement, he might just as well be | travelling in the Great Sahara. This fact is the only | explanation of the very small effect which the enormous | locomotion of recent years has had upon our peculiar and | insular character. But Mr. Musgrave is entirely free from | this fault. He talks to everybody and catechises everybody, | high and low: and the mass of heterogeneous gossip which | he has accumulated is what gives its principal attraction to | one of the most readable "Rambles" that it has ever been | our fortune to come across. | | | | The inevitable result, of course, is that all excellence | will ultimately centre in the American Republic. That, | with no less certainty, it will thence travel to the | Sandwich Islands and to China, is a consequence which | does not seem to have occurred to our author. His | prophetic eye only foresees

"that all the vitalities | successively developed and superseded through sixty | centuries will become resuscitated and harmonized on | this American continent."

He gives utterance to the | same idea, during a paroxysm of prophetic rapture, in | language which will explain doubtless to the world the | full meaning of a Christian symbol which has been | involved in some obscurity: ~~ | | We do not quite understand from this passage, as St. John | bears the eagle, and the eagle bears the banner, whether | or not he is to accompany the bird of power in his journey | across the zenith with the stars and stripes. St. John little | knew the full glory of his mission. But the words

| "supreme dominion"

are significant, | | and are pointed still more by the title of the book ~~ | Westward Empire. Throughout, it | proceeds on the assumption that

"the Republic in its | centre"

is to govern the whole of the American | continent. And in order to prove that such a result is a | decree of the

"Providence"

which has to bear a | multitude of human sins, our author proceeds to a general | investigation of history in support of his theory. He starts | by pointing out that the ; and he is exceedingly | indignant that Mr. Scott Russell's monster ship should | have received the name "Great Eastern," which he | denounces as an unnatural misnomer. Nothing Eastern | can ever be great. He then divides the history of the | world into four periods ~~ <1.> The Age of Pericles; | <2.> The Age of Augustus; <3.> The Age of Leo X., | which we are informed began in the fifth century after | Christ; and <4.> The Age of Washington. We are not to | imagine that the classification which has jumbled in one | two periods so far apart in religion, in time, in manners, | in civilization, as the time of the austere Gregory and the | profligate epoch of the Renaissance is a mere human | invention of the author's. , he tells us, . | The Age of Pericles seems to have begun considerably | before the Age of Shem. It appears that before that | patriarch's epoch there was a settlement of orientals living | together at the sources of the Indus, which have been | designated to our author as the situation of the first | civilized communities, by some peculiar revelation ~~ | possibly from St. John, in his aerial journey with the stars | and stripes. Anyhow, the revelation was a convenient | one, as it disposes of the difficulty of the early Hindoo | civilization, which otherwise must have travelled | eastward. Of the Chinese civilization, with a science, and | probably a literature, long in advance of Europe, he does | not attempt to give any account. These orientals were | expelled, previously to the flood, from their primeval | seats by a furious religious war, for the knowledge of | which history is indebted to Mr. Magoon. Taking a turn | through Abyssinia, they at last settled on the Morean | isthmus; and in proof of his wondrous story, the author | points out that Attica was so named from Attac, a town | upon the Indus, and Corinthus is only a Hindoo word for | the mouth of the Indus. The Acro-Corinthus must have | strikingly reminded the emigrants of the salt marshes of | the Runn of Cutch. Then we come to Noah, and his three | sons. . This is a truly American division. The | Japhatians of the West seem well content to abide by the | bargain. The descendants of Shem passed from Crete | into Greece, and the descendants of Japhet from Thrace | into Greece, and both migrations are adduced as striking | proofs of the westward tendency of civilization. Oriental | thought developed into Greek; or, in the chaste metaphor | of our author: ~~ | | Many pages of fustian, studded with proper names, | follow about Greek; and afterwards about Roman | literature. The composition is, in truth, an abridgment of | Lempriere in a setting of the purest American metaphor. | We recommend the following description of Tacitus to | the spasmodic school for versification: ~~ | | But, spite of the tendency of all literary excellence | towards the setting sun, our author admits that Roman | literature, even during the time that it lasted, was a | considerable falling off from the age of Pericles. | However, Rome was the means of preserving to future | ages the treasures of the Greek intellect ~~ which is | equally true of the Byzantine empire. The mode in which | these treasures were preserved and transmitted is | described with a fidelity which will go home to the hearts | of our agricultural friends: ~~ | | It was a new and striking thought to recognise the sticky | properties of blood, and to make the eagle rise from the | battlefield all covered with seeds, just as you see a | sportsman come out of a thicket all covered with burrs. | The next period is the

"Leoine Age,"

which | includes Charlemagne and Queen Elizabeth. Unluckily, | during this period, literature not only did not travel | westward, but actually travelled eastward, for at the | commencement of it the Moors in Spain were certainly | the most cultivated nation in Europe. Mr. Magoon passes | with a light foot over Mediaeval history. The bead roll of | names ceases, for there was no Lempriere to be consulted, | and so he is sparing in the use of them. He does indeed | contrive to make a few blunders in spite of this salutary | discretion. Good old Archbishop Bradwardine is turned | into an early reformer ~~ Albertus Magnus is decked in | the plumes of Bonaventure, and called

"the Seraphic | Doctor"

~~ and the author seems to imagine that the | Romans came into England at the same time as the Danes, | and that Edward the Confessor was the successor of | Canute. But these are pardonable errors, which have | slipped in accidentally in the middle of cautiously vague | declamations about chivalry and monasticism. He is not | more fortunate in his geography; for in a disquisition on | architecture, in which he lays down that the western | architecture of England is superior to anything else in | Europe, he names as the three western most counties of | England, Devonshire, Hampshire, and Lincolnshire. In | another place, Liverpool is put upon a rock; and, still | further on, we are told that the system of pluralities in | England produces licentiousness and immorality among a | large proportion of the upper clerical ranks. Before he | writes much more about England, we must advise him to | violate his own principles by travelling eastward, to see it. | However, he hastens to the time of Shakspeare, where he | feels himself at home; and delivers himself of a critique | on that poet's literary position, which is worthy of the | attention of Mr. Sidney Dobell: ~~ | | Or rather, seeing there were two of them; it should be like | the clown at Astley's ~~ ! The Emersonian | school, with which Mr. Magoon seems to sympathise, is | very fond of prostituting the loftiest names for the | purpose of supplying the deficiencies of their barren | imagery. In respect to Art, we have already given one of | our author's doctrines. Another is, that the object of | orientation in architecture is ~~ we believe Magoon is an | Irish name ~~ to point

"the mediaeval front to the | setting sun."

We then pass on to the last two | hundred years, to which he gives the name of the

| "Age of Washington."

In this it is his task to prove | that America has inherited all that was excellent in | literature, art, science, philosophy, and religion, and has | improved upon them all. The grandeur of the era he | describes in language which we should admire, if we | could understand it: ~~ | | had passed from the old continent to the new. | Does Mr. Magoon recollect who were the

"selectest" |

inhabitants of the plantations? He speaks with just | pride of the Pilgrim Fathers. They have excited the | sympathy and claimed the homage of men of very | different hues of thought. All who venerate Christian | confessorship, all who admire resistance to tyranny, have | joined in recognising the grandeur of their characters. | But, among their many eulogists, we doubt if they have | found any to praise them with such copiousness of | metaphor as this: ~~ | | But when we come to inquire in detail how far America | has evidenced in fact this

"concentration of | antecedent rays,"

we find that in the answers there is | a melancholy preponderance of the future tense. The | literary triumphs seem to be confined to Mr. Squier and | Dr. Schoolcraft, whose

"effulgence"

has been | so

"buffeted"

that it scarcely twinkles on this | side of the Atlantic. Neither Bancroft, nor Prescott, nor | Longfellow, mentioned. Mr. Magoon will have nothing | that does not originate in the Far West; and he | contemptuously dismisses the productions of New York | as . In point of architecture, they intend to have | a beautiful native style, some day or other; but at present | they are content with asserting that Philadelphia contains | more true Roman and Corinthian than any three cities in | the Old World. So in painting, their present | performances seem to have been limited to the invention | of that great work of art, the moving panorama, and the | scraping off by R. H. Wilde of the whitewash from | Giotto's picture of "Dante at Florence;" but ~~ in the | future tense ~~ their achievements are far less narrowly | limited. . It may be so; but there is an old | proverb touching the premature enumeration of chickens. | It is one of the strangest anomalies of our mental | constitution, that a nation's mind and a nation's literature | should often stand in such startling contrast. The Italians, | who have been slaves for centuries because they could | not control their slightest impulse, will not suffer a shade | of bombast to mar the classic delicacy of their style. The | Yankee, whose life is one long calculation, appears to | have bombast for his mother tongue. | | | | | We are not among those who would treat with | contempt the wail of despair that has lately issued | form Belgravia. Business is slack everywhere; but in | the matrimonial market we are well aware that | matters are fast verging to a commercial crisis. The | market is absolutely glutted with unsaleable young | ladies. Heiresses, of course, are still brisk, and | something is doing in pretty orphans. A little inquiry | has been made for motherless articles of prime quality, | the absence of a mother-in-law increasing the price | considerably. But buyers will not look at the ordinary, | well-chaperoned, pink and white, unexceptionable | young lady. Whole rows of them may be seen | undisposed of in any ball-room, wrapped up in their | own weight of tarlatan, and exhibiting themselves to | some sauntering and languid eldest son. They are of | all kinds, fair and dark, simpering and demure, and of | all growths, from the blooming | debutante of the last drawing-room to the pale | ball-worn veteran upon whom the shades of old-maidship | are rapidly lengthening. The eldest son eyes | them all with a polite insouciance, as a well-fed fish | eyes the bait on a bright day. The angler whom he | fears sits against the wall, looking disinterested and | indifferent; but he has probably had one or two | narrow escapes, and he knows and respects her skill. | He is proof against all the allurements she can | contrive. In vain has the cost of dress quadrupled in | recent years. In vain have the dresses swelled below | and shrunk above, resulting in milliners' bills of | extraordinary length and shoulders of extraordinary | expanse. The article is got up for the market with | admirable skill, but buyers have lost all confidence, | and the commoner qualities are quite unmarketable. | Under these circumstances, Belgravia has uttered a | piteous appeal for succour to the public opinion of the | world that lives outside its charmed circle. Such an | appeal speaks for itself. Nothing but the extremity of | distress could have extracted it. A trader would as | soon think of prematurely publishing his own | bankruptcy as a mother of needlessly admitting that | she had failed in the great maternal function of | catching elder sons. The confession will not be | extorted from her till July after July has passed over | her head, and each time she has felt that she has lost a | season. | Many various reasons have been assigned for this | melancholy stagnation in an interesting trade. Some | lay it to the unparalleled selfishness of the young men | of the present day, others to the luxury of the clubs. | But the favourite theory attributes the cause to the | unusual fascinations which are on all hands ascribed | to the present race of

"pretty horse-breakers." |

This subject has elicited an amount of | enthusiasm from some of the newspaper | correspondents which makes us hope that the days of | Ovidian poetry are not absolutely extinct. One | gentleman attributes to the Corinnas of his | acquaintance a list of virtues far surpassing those | which ordinarily appear upon the tombstones of late | lamented wives. He sees in them not only the usual | charms which their success implies, but even the | refinement of manner and the economy of domestic | management which he professes himself unable to | discover in fashionable matrons. He evidently | represents the most advanced school upon the | conjugal question. He belongs to the party of | progress in domestic politics. He looks upon the | marriage ceremony as a mediaeval rite of a | deleterious character, which quite accounts for all | feminine shortcomings. No doubt, when Sir | Cresswell has pursued his congenial labours a little | longer, we shall be of his mind. But at present we | cannot profess to go the whole way with him. We | incline to the old belief, that pretty horse-breakers | occasionally spend money, and that superior | refinement is not necessarily the result of a vicious | life. If we might venture to assign a cause for the | present paralysis of that commerce whose clearing-house | is in St. George's, Hanover-square, we should | say that it was much the same cause as that to which | all trade failures are owing. | No-one believes a tradesman who imputes his | ill-success to the unaccountable ill-temper of his | customers; and we are not inclined to give more credit | to the mammas who attribute the scarcity of | marriages to the abominable backwardness of young | men. The truth is, that the evil in both cases has the | same origin. Customers and bridegrooms will come | fast enough if the goods offered are worth the price | they are asked to pay. But in both cases the price is | too large, and the goods are too worthless. | The enterprising mothers who get up their daughters | for the wife-market appear to labour under the | permanent delusion that what a man looks for in a | wife is a bad imitation of a

"pretty horsebreaker." |

Putting morality aside for the moment, the | functions of those two institutions are very intelligible | and very distinct. The aim of the latter is sheer | amusement. When she has succeeded in amusing the | man whom she is fleecing, she has accomplished the | end of her elevated vocation; and as soon as by that | means she has taken all the available wool off him, | she has nothing to do but to get rid of him as fast as | possible, and look for | someone else. If, therefore, such a thing exists | as a woman brought up for this trade, her education | would correspond with this end. She would be | sedulously taught every kind of accomplishment. She | would learn to sing well, dance well, ride well; to flirt | amusingly, to move gracefully, to dress attractively. | So she would be best fitted to afford men the | amusement for which, during the earlier years of life, | they are willing to pay so dearly and to go through so | much moral degradation. Oddly enough, this is | precisely the education which numbers of careful | mothers give to their daughters. Any stranger who | knew nothing of our customs, and judged of people's | motives merely from their acts, would imagine that | most of the young ladies in Belgravia were being | educated to be pretty horse-breakers. Their training is | concentrated on this one point, that they may be | eligible objects for young gentlemen to make love to. | It never seems to have occurred to those who have | had the devising of fashionable female education that | there will be a period in a woman's life when she will, | or ought to cease being made love to. On the prosaic | duties which lie beyond that interesting epoch no | educator bestows a thought. The whole training is | devoted to a preparation for her young-lady existence, | which is, according to the present fashion, | diametrically the reverse of what the whole of the rest | of her life ought to be. It is a strange enough that any | rational beings should think this a wholesome | education for their daughters; but it is stranger still | that they should think it the way to ensure their | getting husbands. All that it does ensure them is | plenty of flirtation. The idea seems to be, that | whatever men will flirt with, should have sufficed to | dispel. The majority of fashionable mothers appear to | have studied with envy the accomplishments of the | pretty horse-breakers, and to have conceived the | ingenious plan of entrapping men to make wives of | their daughters by fitting them to be their mistresses. | No wonder this clever stratagem breaks down in | practice. In the first place, it is idle for the amateurs | to attempt to compete with the profession. If mere | power of amusement is to be the object of education, | those who are weighted with any of the shackles of | morality, however slight, will be outrun by those who | are absolutely free. In the second place, men are not | quite such lunatics as the fashionable mothers appear | to think. They know that the power of amusement | may beguile odd evenings during a few years of life. | But to pass a whole life with a woman who can do | nothing but amuse, is like dining for life on | sugar-candy. The mass of men, moral or immoral, are | perfectly aware that the qualifications of a companion | for life are of a very different kind, and that a lively | mistress would be a most intolerable wife. Young | ladies are taught to play to admiration, to dance | beautifully, and to chaff saucily; and if they were | intended for

"temporary engagements,"

the | preparation would be perfect. The choice of Hercules | before an eldest son, therefore, is this: ~~ St. John's | Wood offers him the real thing; Belgravia offers him | a washed-out and imperfect imitation. But Belgravia | insists that he shall tie himself to the inferior article | for life; while St. John's Wood is content that he | should change whenever he thinks fit. The results to | which a rivalry conducted on these terms generally | leads may be deplorable, but can hardly be called | wonderful. Belgravia must not be surprised if the | immoral men prefer temporary to permanent Hetaerae, | and if the moral men look elsewhere for genuine | wives. | | Unluckily, the mothers do not take this view of the | subject. They imagine that their daughters, having | been duly crammed with ornamental | accomplishments and with nothing else, are all that | men could desire for wives. Under this impression | they charge for them a price which is prohibitory to | all but eldest sons. The young lady must

"be | supported in the style of living to which she has been | accustomed."

In other words, her husband must | be as rich as her father is, and as her eldest brother | will be. Then there is that feudal heriot levied by the | attorneys upon all marriages in the upper class, which | goes by the name of settlements. Of course these | difficulties do not affect an eldest son. Except in | paying a heavy blackmail to the lawyers and severely | trying everybody's temper, settlements do not do | much harm to those happy mortals who are able to | rest content with investments in land or in the Three | per Cents. But, by a cruel dispensation of Providence, | the number of eldest sons is limited; and the doctrine | that every young lady must live as luxuriously as her | mother is living, and is to marry | no-one who is not in a position to

"settle" |

all his own money ~~ that is, to part with all | control over it ~~ effectually puts the younger sons | out of the question. No wonder there is a famine of | bridegrooms. We can only suggest one remedy to the | distressed Belgravian mothers. It may seem startling | at first sight, but we are sure that, the more they think | over it, the more it will commend itself to their | maternal aspirations. It is that the eldest sons should | be allowed, like the Mahometans, to marry four wives | a-piece. If this measure does not remedy the evil of | course it will be open for consideration whether the | permissive legislation should not be made | compulsory, and the eldest sons forced to marry four | wives a-piece. But we entertain a sanguine hope that | no such harsh proceeding would be necessary. It is | generally acknowledged that the tendency of | polygamy is to reduce wives to the condition of | mistresses ~~ a change which would exactly adapt | itself to the education of most Belgravian young | ladies; and the new law would of course get rid at | once of the appalling scarcity of | partis which carries terror to every maternal | heart. As for the younger sons, they should, in such a | case, no longer be allowed to tempt unwary young | ladies from a loyal and steady devotion to the main | chance. Perhaps the best way would be to retort on | them the insult of Mount Athens, and to forbid them | even to darken the Belgravian pavement with their | detrimental shadows. | | | | | It has been agreed by a unanimous consensus of | Mammas that the great problem of modern times is to | get young ladies married. What the cause of the | increasing scarcity of husbands can be, the maternal | mind has in vain bent its energies to ascertain. Some | people say that the Imperial regime, | discouraging all permanent investments, has put | marriages out of fashion ~~ others that the cigar is | gradually supplying the place of the companionship | after which the male heart yearns, without the costly | establishment on which the female heart insists. Others | ~~ but these are daughterless, and therefore envious | matrons ~~ suggest that the mammas have cried their | wares too lustily, and that the competition is so keen | that the customers are becoming fanciful. Something of | difficulty is necessary to lend to the transaction that | romantic halo which is required to blind the eyes of our | too wary youth to its inevitable financial drawbacks. | There was a time ~~ at least so the poets and our own | youthful recollections tell us ~~ when love-making had | something of the excitement of a chase. But now it is | Daphne that runs after Apollo. Hunting would be very | poor fun if the fox were to meet the hounds half-way ~~ | or rather, if the fox were to chase the hounds madly | over hedge and ditch, imploring them to eat him. | Whatever the explanation, the consentient groans of | countless dowagers attest the fact that the men will not | propose. Celibacy is receiving year by year into its | cold and cheerless solitudes numbers of willing, waiting, | but alas! groomless brides. The effects of this famine of | husbands are horrible and heartrending. As men in the | last stages of hunger will eat grass and chew old shoes, | so young ladies, who came out dreaming of strawberry | leaves, are fain to put up at last with the incumbents of | Peel districts. There are of course a few eldest sons still | to be had; but what are they among so many? Their | aspect and sufferings in London ball-rooms are | described by the travelers who venture into those | regions to be truly pitiable. The English passenger who | lands for the first time on Boulogne pier, and begins to | look about him for an hotel, is not more bewildered by | the abundant welcome and unsolicited attentions with | which he meets. He moves through the crowd with the | trembling caution of a health walking through a | lazaretto. He looks on every old woman as one who | may ask his intentions, on every young one as one to | whom he may be forced to propose. To speak is | dangerous, to dance is fatal. At last, reversing the part | of Amary Pas, he flies to the supper-room, wishing that | he may not be seen. So far the evil is working its own | cure. Very few articles of this kind, at least of prime | quality ~~ we do not speak of Irish samples ~~ are | disposed of now at the ball-room auctions. They are | generally negotiated in wholly unexpected quarters by | private contract. Even worse results are said by | competent authorities to have followed from this | backwardness of the English youth. The most innocent | portion of the imitativeness which Juvenal ascribes to | the wife of Claudius is becoming fashionable among | English young ladies. An inverted hypocrisy is the | homage which virtue now pays to vice. Sterling silver, | it is found, cannot be sold without an electro-plate of | very different metal. The Haymarket gives the law of | tone, dress, manner, to Rotten-row. In that aristocratic | retreat the reign of universal reconciliation is being | foreshadowed. The sucking child plays on the hole of | the asp, and the weaned child puts her hand on the | cockatrice's den, in the full confidence that they shall | not hurt nor destroy. And the semi-acquaintance results | in a loan of weapons. A species of poaching is now | only too common in the matrimonial chase. The | legitimate sportswoman no longer brings down her | game in the old fashion, but borrows the snares and | gins of her less recognised sister. In fact, the old | weapons are thought to have failed, and the others are | known in their own sphere to have succeeded. To vary | the metaphor, skating over thin ice is a favourite | maidenly accomplishment of the present day. So at | least, in far blunter terms, it has been averred by a | contemporary, qualified beyond all others to reveal to | the outer world the secrets of fashion. Whether the | full-blown Messalina will make her appearance among her | partial imitators, whether the thin ice will not give way | beneath some of the less nimble feet, remains to be seen. | If Paterfamilias is not ambitious for such results, he had | better open his eyes. There is no doubt that the evil is | both grave and growing. | To suggest a remedy for this one-sided admiration of | celibacy is not very easy. The policy of charging | bachelors extra for their footmen has been given up as | futile. The lex Julia has not | left a brilliant reputation behind it, and would be even | less successful in the present day. The monopoly of the | front opera-stalls would be a small consolation for the | resigned latch-key and the abandoned Cremorne. | Anxious, however, to bring our contribution to the | common stock of consolation, we will suggest to the | desolated mothers one mode of alleviating their | misfortunes. Let them see if they cannot do something | to mitigate the absurdities of marriage settlements. The | bold bridegroom has terrors enough to face. The long | period of engagement, during which he is something | between a lion and a laughing-stock to a score of | inquisitive acquaintances ~~ the batch of new relations | of whom it is morally certain that he will not take to all | ~~ and the possible mother-in-law, are a perspective | which it requires a stronger imagination than the cold | youth of this age posses to clothe in golden colours. | But they are trifles compared to settlements. It is | fortunate that all young men do not know what | settlements are, or marriages would become still rarer. | They appear to be a relic of the times of which | ethnologists tell us so much, when our forefathers | wandered on the slopes of the Hindoo Koosh. They | embody completely the Oriental theory of marriage. A | woman is dealt with as a valuable security, to be | exchanged for due consideration. The consideration | takes the form of a reversionary interest in money | offered by the husband, and secured to her and her | family in case she survives. Starting from this principle, | a marriage conducted according to the approved | principles is a matter of sharp, close bargaining. No | sooner is the romantic part of it over than it is | surrendered to the lawyers, who proceed to chaffer over | it and | | cheapen their adversary's claim, as they might do if | they were purchasing a cow. If one side brings money | into settlement, his or her lawyer expects that the other | side shall bring the same sum too. If the simple | difficulty of the said sum not being procurable should | defeat this claim, he will probably advise his principal | to break off the marriage, and declare that the other side | are acting very shabbily. If the principal has common | sense, he pooh-poohs these suggestions, and sends the | lawyer back to his wrangling. Then the lawyer tries for | three-quarters of the sum claimed, and again goes to his | principal with a long face if it is refused. Then he tries | for half, and so on. In some cases he probably succeeds | in inducing his principal to adopt his complaints, and a | great deal of unhappiness is the result. In the vast | majority of cases he only produces endless worry, a | great deal of angry correspondence, and a few frightful | storms of household politics. Fathers-in-law threaten, | sisters-in-law gossip, brothers-in-law growl. | Accusations of sordid intentions are guardedly, but still | abundantly, exchanged. All the follies which pride of | family begets in an Englishman are brought to the | surface. The match is canvassed, not as something | which concerns the happiness of two individuals, but as | an instrument by which one family is permitted to share | in the superior pedigree, or caste, or antiquity, or title, | of another family. At last, after quarrels about | respective contributions, quarrels about trustees, | quarrels about investments, the struggle is concluded. | The husband is brought into church, manacled, fettered, | strait-waistcoated, as far as parchments can do it. | Every possible security is taken that over their common | property he shall have no power during his life or after | his death. His possible caprices, or errors, or vices in | this respect are guarded against as rigorously as if he | were a ticket-of-leave man or an idiot. Consequently, | when the marriage is over, he finds himself in this | position ~~ that he may commit towards his wife every | inhumanity short of what will bring him into Sir | Cresswell Cresswell's court, but he may not invest her | money in a five percent. security. He has unlimited | liberty to ill-treat her during her life, but he may not | change the destination of her money after her death. | The settlement struggles have probably had the | foundation of a coolness for life between him and some | of his new relations, and have at least cost him weeks of | as much worry as any man would be inclined to | encounter; and probably also throughout his whole life, | he feels the inconvenience of not being master of his | own fortune. But they have not interposed the slightest | obstacle to his making his wife as miserable as he may | think fit. | The enormous lawyers' bills which always follow these | formalities probably explain why they have been kept | up. They confer no real benefit on a woman: for all | that is necessary for her safety is that her own money | should be secured to her. But few men look forward to | them without horror, or submit to them without | indignation. In many professions they are a heavy clog | round a man's leg. They require a limitation of | investment to which only the rich can submit without | inconvenience, and which has a tendency to make the | mercantile classes a caste by themselves. More than | anything else they have hampered landed proprietors, | restrained improvement, and perpetuated neglect. Are | the matrons of the London world surprised that | marriages fall off? ~~ that Aspasia is becoming a | commoner character, and her part more openly avowed? | Does it not occur to them that a Morganatic marriage, | free from settlements, lawyers, and preliminary battles, | and all the artificial worries with which marriage, | properly so called, has been surrounded, may have | charms with which exacting respectability competes in | vain? Surely, if they make up their minds to trust a | man with their daughter's happiness, they might trust | him with his own money. | | | | purpurei punni. | The point in which Mr. Worsley has shown most power is | in his rare talent of breathing life into the dry bones of | controversy. He describes with considerable minuteness | the ever-varying phases of opinion which sprang up in | such rapid succession on the subject of the Sacrament, | and the still more wearisome subtleties of the | Justification controversy; and yet his summaries are so | brief and so clear that they almost equal the narrative in | interest. Those who in the present day have handled the | thorny literature of the Denison case will fully appreciate | the value of a talent which can put the microscopic | distinctions of the professional controversialist within | reach of the million. In illustration, we will quote our | author's description of part of the conference of Marburg | ~~ not because it is absolutely his best performance, but | because it is the most available for citation. | | One minor defect in Mr. Worsley's style we must notice | in passing. It is strange that an author whose language is | so remarkable for gracefulness and ease should think it | necessary to affect those qualities by the introduction | qualities of slipshod. The Emperor is made to take a

| "sound nap"

at the Diet of Augsburg. In another | place, he

"rates"

the Elector ~~ not in the way | in which vestries rate, but in the way in which old women | rate; and elsewhere, Luther is said to regret that | Melanethon . Mr. Worsley seems to think that | the fact of Luther's having been fond of slang is a | sufficient excuse to him for indulging in it himself. | Notwithstanding the general excellence of our author's | style, which we readily admit, this is not a satisfactory | biography ~~ probably for the same reason that none of | its predecessors have been satisfactory. Luther's life | encroaches too much on the domain of history; and the | domains of history and biography are very distinct. It is | the office of history to record how a man acts under the | public eye; and therefore it paints him as he thinks he | ought to be, rather than as he is. But biography | chronicles his life as it passes when he is under no check | to public opinion, no load of public responsibility. It tells | how he acts towards those who can make no outcry ~~ | how he speaks when his words are free to flow from the | abundance of his heart. Now there never was a man who | had so little private life as Luther. Most public men ~~ | even those who have most powerfully influenced the | fortunes of our race ~~ have done so almost entirely by | their speeches, their writings, or their public acts. What | Napoleon, or Peter the Great, or Hildebrand might do or | say in their own private circles, had no direct effect on | their contemporaries, and therefore has a personal rather | than an historic interest. But it was not so with an apostle | of new ideas that revolutionized the world. In the | dissemination of his opinions lay his gigantic power; and | every conversation, every letter, every journey he made, | was means to the great end of his life. His words became | oracles, no matter when or where uttered. Consequently, | nothing in his life was private. The full glare of | European publicity was turned on every circumstance of | his domestic life. His most private acts became public ~~ | they had a meaning for his fellow men, and a bearing on | the crisis of which he was the guide. His very marriage | was a controversial manifesto. | A Life of Luther, therefore, is in truth only a chapter out | of the history of the sixteenth century; and if written in | the spirit and under the responsibilities of history, it | might be as valuable a contribution to literature as a Life | of Philip the Second or of | | Cardinal Wolsey. But Mr. Worsley does not profess to | write as an historian. There is no trace of critical research | or of laborious accuracy in his pages. His object is | merely to entertain and to inform ~~ he takes no notice of | the historical disputes which honeycomb the ground over | which he walks. He dismisses the case of the Landgrave | of Hesse with a few caustic remarks against Luther's | detractors, without attempting to discuss the merits of the | charges brought against him. He tells again the old story | of Luther's finding a Bible in a library at Wittenberg, and | his exultation at discovering that it contained . | We should have thought that Dr. Maitland had disposed | of that fable for ever; but our author does not seem to be | aware that Dr. Maitland ever wrote upon the subject. So | little does he assume a critical attitude that, among the | crowd of anecdotes which he relates, he gives no hint to | his readers of what he wishes them to believe. He tells the | following with as unwavering a gravity as he exhibits in | chronicling the Diet of Augsburg: ~~ | | With a similar disdain of pedantic accuracy, he accuses | (vol. i. p. 308) the Holy See of levying a tax on priests' | concubines ~~ and then, in justification, cites a passage at | length from the Centum Gravamina, | which does not even mention the Holy See. But | though Mr. Worsley is not fastidious about accuracy | himself, he by no means spares those of his predecessors | who have been guilty of a similar failing. He falls on the | unfortunate Audin ~~ who, as a Frenchman and an | Ultramontane, has a double right to blunder ~~ with all | the fury of an indignant Protestant. Luther stopped at | Erfurth on his way to the Diet of Worms, and being | applied to by some of the inhabitants, consented to preach. | On this Mr. Worsley has an indignant note: ~~ | | The mistake is not a very serious one, even if Audin | made it. But there is nothing in the least irreconcilable in | the accounts. What could be more likely than that, | having been begged by the inhabitants to preach, Luther | should apply to the authorities for permission? | Biographers are well known for a servile race; but Mr. | Worsley out-Boswells Boswell. He is the pattern of all | biographers. He not only justifies his hero's faults ~~ he | will not be content unless he imitates them in practice. It | is told of the last days of the ancien | regime, that Marie-Antoinette, having sprained her | ankle one day, was reduced to a hobble; whereupon the | obsequious courtiers straightway took to limping into the | presence-chamber. Allowing for difference of age and | country, Mr. Worsley has caught Luther's

"hobble" |

to a nicety. Perhaps his bad language, like his | master's, is susceptible of a controversial interpretation. | There is a large consensus | among theologians ~~ at least in practice ~~ polemical | difference suspends altogether the ordinary laws of | courtesy and charity, and very considerably relaxes these | of truth. Being aware of this ruling, which during the last | twenty years has been extensively acted on, we were not | startled at the assertion (vol. i. p. 49), that . We | wondered, indeed, where Mr. Worsley procured his | intimate acquaintance with the

"usual sins of | monks;"

but we are aware that both these assertions | were strictly orthodox, and that Exeter Hall would | support them as one man. But we came across a | definition of Christian worth, which certainly struck us as | a new and compendious view of the whole duty of man; | and we do not think that it has as yet been authoritatively | accepted by any class of theologians: ~~ | | If Mr. Worsley had professed to be an historian, the value | of his work would have been considerably modified by | the above sentiments. But in a mere biography, the | heartiness with which he throws himself into one side of | the question adds considerably to the vigour of the | narrative, without doing any serious injury to truth. In his | preface, he tells us that his only aim has been to cast the | work in a . And he has so far succeeded in his | aim, that one-half of the work is readable if it is not | succinct, and the other half is succinct if it is not readable. | | | | | A wise man has said that it is impossible to tell the | true character of a woman till she has marriageable | daughters to bring out. There is no doubt that the test | is a very searching one. Our social system is | peculiarly hard on matrons who are in that | unfortunate position. Our decorous practice of | conventionally disavowing facts of whose truth | everyone is convinced, | imposes on her burdens which she has to bear in no | other country. There are two ways in which a prudent | mother can get her daughters off her hands ~~ she can | either negotiate husbands for them, or leave them to | procure husbands for themselves. So far as the | primary object of securing them a life-long guarantee | of board and lodging is concerned, both methods are | equally effectual. One of them is popular in France, | the other in America; but neither of them suits our | more fastidious taste. Our romance is shocked at the | idea of finding a husband for a young lady, and our | delicacy revolts at the idea of her finding one for | herself; and the feeling, from which the French | system took its rise, that children are a species of | capital to be invested judiciously in a remunerative | marriage, is still extensively prevalent among us. So, | according to a very common national habit, we | compromise between the conflicting practices to | which we object by selecting and combining the evils | of all; and the victim of the compromise is the | unfortunate mamma. The arrangement is that the | mother is to choose really, and the daughter to choose | apparently. The lacquer of romance is to cover the | homely reality of bargain and sale. Nothing would | shock us more than that a young lady should go out | walking or riding, as in America, with any male | friend she might think fit, and so have the opportunity | of making a genuine and independent choice. | Nothing would horrify us more than that the mother | of a marriageable young lady should openly, as in | France, without management or trick of any kind, | negotiate a marriage with an eligible young man. | Accordingly, an English mother never conducts a | formal treaty of marriage. Her language always is, | that her daughters are perfectly free to choose for | themselves. In her opinion, marriages are made in | heaven; and no good ever comes of forcing young | people's inclinations. By such professions she | satisfies the requirements of English opinion, and | spreads over her proceedings that varnish of | disinterestedness which decorum rigorously exacts. | But in spite of these romantic views, she maintains an | espionage over her daughter as vigilant and untiring | as a detective maintains over a pickpocket in a crowd. | Of course she does not interfere with the choice of her | daughters: but nevertheless, if she be skilful, they | marry the husbands whom she selects. She cannot be | said to force them any more than beaters force | partridges into any particular turnip field. But they | accomplish the same object by driving them out of | every other; and the skilful mother effects all the | objects of a French matron by very much the same | policy. And as the partridges, after having tried many | stubbles in vain, at last, in sheer weariness, resign | themselves to be walked up quietly in the turnips, so | the young ladies, after a dozen flirtations have been | pitilessly broken off, resign themselves in despair to | the wealthy louts for whom they were originally | destined in the maternal mind. And at the wedding | breakfast the mamma piously observes to her | neighbour that she thinks it wicked in people to sell | their daughters, as the French do, and that for her part | she never will put any force upon any of hers. But | still she does not go into the opposite extreme. She | has a horror of the vulgar freedom of American girls, | and avoids it in the same discriminating way. As a | rule, nothing can be better brought up than her girls. | If a young man comes into a room where they are | alone, they immediately remember that they have left | their work upstairs. If a young man tries to speak to | them in Rotten-row, they look the other way, and | whip their horses. If, in the country, a general walk | into the park is proposed, they are all gar one | by a strong detachment of hard-featured governesses | from the putting on of their bonnets till the pulling off | of the same. These are the general rules, to be | boasted of and ostentatiously enforced on all suitable | occasions. But rules should be made of leather, not of | iron; and it is quite proper that they should bend a | little at the instance of a companion whose propriety | is guaranteed by a respectable rent-roll. On such | occasions rules fall into desuetude, and a few | American customs are borrowed for the occasion. | London parties are not very convenient for the | purpose, for observers are so numerous and gossip is | so active that these judicious relaxations are apt to be | noticed by those who have not enjoyed the benefit of | them; and therefore country-house society is | cultivated in preference by all prudent mothers. They | have so many conveniences for bringing about | involuntary tetes-a-tetes. | There are shrubberies in which people may meet by | more chance, and labyrinths in which they can be | accidentally left behind when the party is seeing the | house. Then there are terraces where people walk out | on warm nights after dinner, and where nobody | knows exactly where anybody else is, and spare | drawing-rooms where people go to listen in order to | hear the music better, and dances in which, from mere | want of partners, it is sometimes inevitable that the | same couple should dance together more than once. | A great deal is forgiven to properly brought-up | maidens, if they take advantage of these opportunities | with due discrimination of persons. In fact, in a | country-house well stocked with elder sons, the very | existence of such aids to flirtation never occurs to an | unsuspicious mother's mind. Woe to the importunate | governess who, on such occasions, shall pedantically | call to mind the rules which have become obsolete. | But still greater woe to any backless young man on | whom such favours have been lavished, and who is | afterwards discovered not to have deserved them | either by his present or prospective income. | This mode of operation is so universal among the | class of match-making mammas that it has passed | into a proverb. At first sight it is difficult to | understand how it has withstood so long the attacks of | moralists, both serious and satirical, and borne up | against an amount of alternate ridicule and invective | which would have uprooted a dozen of the ordinary | fashionable misdoings. But the truth is, the | matchmaking mothers are not the chief culprits. The | elastic prudery and the calculating gaiety for which | they are laughed at are only a despairing effort to free | themselves from the burden which society lays upon | them. The whole strain of reconciling English | conventionalities with the stern logic of facts falls | upon them. It is their onerous function to make | American

"fastness"

the work of French | bargaining, and, at the same time, in outward | appearance, to seem to be repudiating both. To carry | through creditably such a delicate piece of diplomacy | requires no little labour. It is only by constant | attention that practical argument of exclusion can be | conducted which distances all aspirants but the right | one. If the mother could fix upon her | parti and open negotiations | without any circumlocution, a few letters or at worst | one or two interviews, would be sufficient to | conclude the bargain. Or, if the mother might leave | the matter entirely to her daughters to settle for | themselves, it is obvious that she would not need to | alter very much her own habitual mode of life. But | the compromise between the two forces her to be in | constant attendance at the various marriage-markets. | She cannot keep the daughters at home, because, as | their choice is to be ostensibly free, the comedy must | be played out, and accidental meetings must be | provided. And she cannot let the daughters go out | without a chaperon, for that would be equally sinning | against the conventionalities, and might end in an | unprofitable marriage. Therefore they must work | through the round of laborious gaiety in the season | and out of it, and they must drag her after them. The | situation has become much more arduous since the | introduction of railways. The facilities of | communication have prolonged the toils of the season | into the recess. No sooner has the beneficent | interposition of the grouse put a stop to the London | season than the country season begins. No sooner has | the expiry of the pheasant shooting brought the | country balls to a close than the migratory dancers | recommence their labours in London. This is all very | well for the young ladies. To those whose health is | unbroken and whose nerves are still strong, and for | whom the whole life possesses the charm of novelty, | the round of excitement is intensely enjoyable. Even | to those who have exhausted all the pleasurable | sensations that can be extracted out of whirling round | your own axis in a stuffy room, youth and good spirits | may make the occupation tolerable. But to the | chaperons who are not allowed to whirl, and who | have long ceased to invest either guardsmen or | Foreign Office clerks with a romantic halo, a ball | means sitting four hours against a wall, trying to | interpret the smiles of your charge's partners, and to | find out, if you can, their worldly prospects from the | rival dowagers who are engaged in a similar study on | each side of you. Is it a wonder that the average | woman, not endowed with the spirit of a martyr, tries | to escape this doom of eternally sitting against a wall? | St. Simeon | | Stylites, after all, had the benefit of fresh air. | Moreover, he did not have a dowager on each side of | him, and was under no obligation to study the | expression of successive guardsmen's lips. No | reflective person can seriously blame any woman for | resorting to any number of discreditable manoeuvres | in order to rid herself somehow of such a life without | damage to the prospects of her children. | Match-making mammas are not a very important | section of the community, or even of the class to | which they belong. But they deserve commiseration | as an injured race. They are more sinned against than | sinning. They deserve, if any do, to be called

| "unfortunate females,"

and to be made the | subjects of special clerical sympathy. They are the | victims of English shams ~~ of the conflict between | our professions and our deeds. So long as we insist | on attempting to combine marrying well with | romance, and prudery with love-making, the class of | match-making mammas will endure. But they ought | not to suffer for the sins of society, or to be supposed | to be acting from mere worldliness when they are | simply anxious to get their term of servitude over, and | to find some repose for their ball-worn frames. | | | | A few weeks ago we ventured to make some remarks | upon Miss Rye's project for the emigration of women | of the middle class. It was a matter of painful | surprise to us to find that our article upon "The Export | Wife-trade" had excited very ungentle emotions in the | bosoms of some of our fair readers. The article was | intended to warn Miss Rye and her supporters against | some dangers which seemed to us very imminent. | We could not but express a fear that they were | undertaking to supply a market with which they were | imperfectly acquainted; and that, in attempting to | dispose of our superfluity of educated women by | furnishing colonial bachelors with wives, they might | be involuntarily incurring dangers which they were | very far indeed from contemplating. But Micaiah is | in all ages a very unpopular character. Our | suggestions drew down upon us a storm of invective, | whose fury only those who are familiar with feminine | controversy will be able to appreciate. It is a terrible | thing to incur the wrath of philanthropists; and a | controversy with the softer half of creation is | notoriously a dangerous undertaking. But when | benevolence of profession and gentleness of sex are | combined in the same antagonist, a mere ordinary | man of the world has no resource but to surrender at | discretion. No purely secular nerves can be expected | to withstand the vituperation which female | benevolence pours out on those who meddle with its | chimeras. | It is not, therefore, with any foolhardy intention of | provoking another onset of female pens that we | venture to recur to this dangerous subject. We are | emboldened to do so only by the circumstance that we | have been happy enough to make a convert, and that | convert is no less a person than Miss Rye herself. | Her original scheme was to provide an outlet for | distressed governesses, by sending them to the | colonies, in the hope that some at least of them would | get employers, and that most of them would get | husbands. They were to be sent out on speculation. It | was argued, a priori, that | Australian young ladies required education, and | Australian young men required wives; and that, if | educated young women who were in want of money | could be persuaded to allow themselves to be | consigned to the Australian ports, they would find a | ready market for their talents in one capacity or the | other. As a mere sum in political economy, an | exercise in the rule of supply and demand, this | calculation made a tolerable appearance upon paper. | In fact, there were only two objections to it. One was, | that the people who need education are not always the | people who desire it; and the other was, that | matrimony is not, even in the colonies, contracted | upon principles so purely mercantile as Miss Rye and | her estimable coadjutors appeared to imagine. Few | settlers can afford, or think they can afford, the luxury | of a governess, and therefore the majority of | Australian young ladies must complete their | education in some other way. The demand, | accordingly, for governesses is limited and | precarious; and women who go out on speculation, | with no definite certainty of employment, will, in | most cases, be disappointed. Their chances of | marriage would be still more precarious. They would | be too fastidious to be content to take a digger or a | labourer for a husband; and the young men of their | own class would be too fastidious to take them for | wives. Englishmen of any education like to know | something of the antecedents and connexions of the | women they marry. It is rather an adventurous | proceeding to bind yourself for better for worse to a | lady of whom you know nothing whatever, except | that she was Number 36 in | Miss Rye's last emigrant ship. For the governess | class of emigrants, therefore, marriage is an even | more precarious reliance than employment. If Miss | Rye had proceeded with her scheme as it was | originally explained to the world, numbers of those | whom she sent out must have been driven to depend | for bare subsistence upon the liberality of others. We | cannot regret that we have called the attention of the | promoters of the scheme to these dangers in language | which has compelled their attention. It is easy to | compliment enthusiasts upon their good intentions, | but nine-tenths of the harm that is done in the world is | done by well-meaning people. Those who voluntarily | assume to shape the destinies of others must bring | something more than good intentions to the work. | They are bound to make themselves certain, by | adequate inquiry, that the promises by which they | persuade others to risk their whole welfare are not | mere figments of their own imaginations. If their | sentimental ignorance is in reality deluding others to | ruin, they must be exposed as unsparingly as if they | were consciously wrong-doers. | Such censure, however, we are glad to say Miss Rye | deserves no longer. The objections which both | English and colonial writers have made to her first | project have roused her to a sense of the dangers it | involved. She acknowledges now, that . So | strongly has she now become impressed with the evils | of

"sending out governesses by hundreds,"

| that she is going herself to the colonies to spend a | year and a half there, to ascertain the real extent of the | demand that exists for that class of labour, and to | make arrangements, under which, in future years, it | can be supplied without risk. For the present, the | middle-class emigration scheme is practically | abandoned. It has been superseded by the more | sensible plan of exporting the class of women for | whom both employers and husbands can be found | without difficulty. Out of four hundred who have | been sent out, only forty were governesses; and out of | a hundred whom she is taking herself, only eight are | governesses. The remaining nine-tenths belong to the | classes who live by the labour, not of their minds, but | of their hands, and for whose services there is a | steady and abundant market. The Australian colonies | form an admirable provision for the two extremes of | the social scale, but (speaking generally) for none | between. There is no better place for those who can | take with them some capital to invest, or for those | who can work with their hands. But for the | intermediate class, who have received too high an | education to be fit for annual labour, and yet have no | capital to invest, the colonies offer but a doubtful and | speculative subsistence. The rule holds good of either | sex. Miss Rye thinks it necessary to apologize for her | change of plan. She wishes it to be understood

| "that she alone is responsible"

for taking out the | class that will succeed, and leaving the class that | cannot possibly succeed behind. The patrons of the | former scheme, who have a sentimental contempt for | facts, and look upon them as the suggestions of a | coarse mind, probably find it hard to stomach the | change. | | But there is no help for it. Neither in the colonies nor | elsewhere can any outlet be found for the enormous | overflow of that class of women who have been | brought up to look on manual labour as ungenteel. | Their distresses will not cease until the conventional | barrier which shuts them out from self-support is | broken down. The demand for the mental services of | women scarcely exists except in old and wealthy | countries, and in those it has long ago been | over-supplied. | Miss Rye incidentally makes a curious addition to the | already abundant illustrations which the men of | Manchester have given of their humanity. If ever | there was a case for emigration, it is that of the | factory-girls who are unemployed. Even if the | American war were to conclude to-morrow, it is | probable that a very long time would elapse before | the whole number of hands that are out of work | would regain their employment. Cotton will not be so | abundant as it has been for years; capital has been | wasted; machinery has deteriorated; and it is now | very generally agreed that the production of the last | few years, even if it were possible to resume it, has | been largely in excess of the demand. As a matter of | humanity, therefore, it is of the last importance that | the most helpless class of the factory-hands should be | provided for by emigration. Miss Rye is fully | sensible of the necessity, and so are the girls | themselves. In one month she has had applications | from two thousand of them. According to the law, | the Poor Law Guardians have the power of assisting | emigration out of the rates; and if they do so now, | they might stop up a source of pauperism which will | trouble them for many a long year. Yet they have not | only refused to assist Miss Rye, but have thrown | every obstacle in her way. They are afraid ~~ such is | Miss Rye's account of their motives ~~ that some of | their best mill hands may leave them. They prefer to | inflict on them all their present suffering, and all the | degradation to which a long continuance of it may | drive them, rather than risk the occurrence of this | slight drawback in case the cotton prosperity should | revive. They cannot get rid of the notion that these | factory girls are

"hands,"

not human beings. | They are merely a portion of the machinery by which | cotton fortunes are made. As such they are to be | preserved from actual starvation; but they are with | equal care to be held back from any improvement of | their condition which shall render them unavailable | for the future manufacture of calico. The guardians | are, probably, strong opponents of slavery; but it is | only the slavery which is imposed by direct | enactment. The force of circumstances, stronger than | law, binds these unhappy girls to the soil on which | they live, and the employment to which they have | been brought up; and the guardians decline the | exercise of their legal owners, rather than help to free | them from the practical serfdom. The mill-owners, it | seems, will not bate one jot of the calculation by | which their human machines are to yield them the | largest possible profit for the smallest possible outlay. | As they closed their mills that they might be freer to | speculate in the raw material, instead of working it up | ~~ as they withhold subscriptions, in order to force a | grant from the Exchequer ~~ so they resist | emigration, lest they should have to pay for the | mitigation of present distress by some slight | deduction from their future profits. | | | | | Mrs. Meredith is well known to the English public as an | Australian writer, and in that capacity has gained a very | considerable popularity. The favour she has obtained is | very natural, for she stands almost alone upon the | ground she has selected. We mean no disparagement to | the colonists when we say that ladylike authoresses are | not among the products they have any right to expect to | raise. We have them among ourselves, though in no | very great abundance, and though they are obscured by | a crowd of unsuccessful imitators. But they are | essentially the mark of a full-grown community. They | belong to a state of society in which housekeeping is | delegated to servants, and the making of puddings has | ceased to be a female accomplishment. It is very hard | for a colonial matron to escape from household cares, if | she is equal to her duties; and if she is not, she is very | unlikely to possess application enough for the work of | an authoress. The class of women who write because | they cannot repress the impulse to put their thoughts | down on paper are not likely to find their way to the | Antipodes. Moreover, in a colony education and | affluence do not go so regularly together as they do in | an old country. The majority of those who make | money there are, as a rule, the last people who would | have selected literary wives. Mrs. Meredith has the | field, therefore, pretty well to herself. She is an | agreeable and lively writer, and deserves the praise of | combining in her writings the refinement of the old | country with the freshness and vigour of the new. A | colonist, like an American, is very fond of | grandiloquent sentiments and bursts of prophetic | patriotism. He is always mentally attitudinizing as the | founder of an infant empire, and can hardly be | persuaded that his particular Wooloomooloo, or other | equally euphonious locality, is not destined to be the | metropolis of the civilized world. And this special | tendency to turgidity is apt to infect his style generally | with fustian, which is often very tiresome reading. | From all those defects Mrs. Meredith is free, and | therefore enjoys without drawback all the benefit of the | attractiveness which the novelty of her subject naturally | gives her. | The present work is nothing more than a slight sketchy | narrative of a trip from Van Diemen's Land to | Melbourne. It is full of amusing anecdotes and vivid | pictures, diversified by tracts of rather more arid | moralizing. Its chief value lies in the incidental | descriptions of colonial life and manners, and the light | it occasionally throws on controverted colonial | questions. The transportation question is an example. | To an external observer its history is a great puzzle. The | system was abandoned, as is well known, by England, | in consequence of the great outcry which was raised | against it in all parts of the colony. This outcry was at | the time a perfect enigma to English statesmen. That | the more refined minority of these communities should | revolt at the indignity of the country which was their | home being made the cesspool for English crime, was | intelligible enough. That the ministers of religion | should murmur against a system which gave a | peculiarly hopeless complexion to their task of | evangelization was still more natural. But a colony is | not mainly composed of refined people and ministers of | religion. Its chief ingredients are of a much more | earthy character, and take a much more commercial | view of life. That, in a country where labour was | scarce, a set of men who had expatriated themselves for | the sole purpose of making money should object to be | presented gratis with a certain and cheap supply of | labour, seemed absolutely inconceivable. For some | time the Government at home refused to believe it. | They set the outcry down as an artificial clamour got up | by a few restless philanthropists. But the movement | gained in area and strength, despite of all official | discountenance, and at last threatened to become the | basis of a dangerous agitation; and the Government was | forced to give way. Mrs. Meredith throws some light | upon the puzzle. If the colonists really had derived | some benefit from the forced labour ~~ if public works | of a profitable kind had been executed for them without | cost ~~ they would probably have taken a different | view of the moral aspect of the question. But the | scheme ~~ at least at the time when the | anti-transportation movement took its origin ~~ existed only | on paper. The gaoler-class is not a very hopeful one in | England; the portion of it that will exile itself for its | country's good is less hopeful still. The Government | could not find officials honest enough and capable | enough to carry out its plans. The whole affair was | jobbed, neglected, or mismanaged. Plenty of money | was expended, and plenty of convicts were sent; but | roads and bridges were not made. The island of | Tasmania is not a very large one, nor is there anything | of special and unusual difficulty | | in the country; but many of the best parts of it are still | as inaccessible as if no convict had ever been landed on | its shores. The convicts were either left in idleness, or | employed to do work which oxen would have done | better: ~~ | | Unluckily, the idleness thus encouraged bore evil fruit | positively as well as negatively. The most horrible | wickedness became prevalent among the convicts thus | maintained in luxurious ease, and the pestilence of | immorality spread abroad among the community was | enough to alarm the most sober moralist. At one time it | was difficult to bring up the children even of the more | affluent classes without exposing them to the terrible | contagion. And the panic of timid piety magnified the | dangers which actually prevailed. Meanwhile, all this | corruption was not paid for by any compensating profit. | The flood of wickedness was not a fertilizing flood, or | it might have been borne. The monthly ship-load of | reprobation raised the police rates to a frightful height, | but it did not make roads or bridges. Consequently the | colonists felt themselves morally outraged and | commercially disappointed at the same time; and the | tones of their virtuous indignation were proportionably | harsh. | Among other places, Mrs. Meredith went up to the | diggings. There is nothing in her account to confirm | the horrible pictures of disorder with which the | correspondents of London newspapers used to terrify | their European readers. But she gives a melancholy | account of the continued prevalence of an evil which | we should have thought had been stayed by this time ~~ | the expedition to the El Dorado of people of educated | habits and delicate nurture. At first it was impossible to | persuade poor gentility or starving clerkdom that wealth | was not attainable where gold was to be had for the | picking up. But it has been true from the first, and, as | the surface-gold is exhausted, becomes truer still, that | the instances of great success are very rare indeed. A | few made very good wages by their labour at the gold | mines, and a large majority made less than they could | have secured by remaining at their ploughs, or with | their flocks. But the people who were almost certain to | lose everything were those who were too gently | nurtured to bear up against continued hardship. | Exhausting labour under a nearly vertical sun, | poisonous water, rough food, and constant exposure, | will bring a delicate constitution to the grave long | before the lucky nugget is found. Mrs. Meredith gives | several stories of the utter ruin that is the common | reward of the gold-field gambler. We will extract the | shortest: ~~ | | Though she has been long a resident in the colonies, use | has not blinded our authoress to the peculiarities of her | countrymen. She takes off their quaint ruggedness and | vulgarity with a great deal of humour. It is not quite | safe for us, however, to venture upon this | ground. Mr. Duffy, who has gone quite voluntarily to | the bourn where so many of his brother heroes of 1848 | have gone before, is zealous for the classic land of Irish | patriotism. His susceptibilities have been so wounded | by the gloomy view which we took on one occasion of | the morality and good breeding of the Australian | Legislatures, that he thought it necessary to summon a | meeting of Melbourne citizens, before whom he | declaimed in the very energetic style of his nation | against our depravities. We should be sorry to give him | the trouble again. We quite feel that Australia has | many difficulties to contend against. To have to work a | constitutional system in a political firmament of which | Mr. Duffy is a distinguished star is a task that may well | claim all our indulgence. We shall abstain therefore | from extracting from Mrs. Meredith's picture-gallery an | amusing description of a Melbourne senator's | eloquence, lest we should be thought to be personal. | We will only commend the book heartily to our readers | as a vigorous picture, so far as it goes, of Australian life | and manners. | | | | | practical men. Men are gregarious, and herd together | from mere instinct; they are eager, and will unite to push | the objects they have at heart; but the combinations into | which the generality naturally fall are after the type of | their own minds, small and narrow, and moulded on some | single speciality. Combinations there must be ~~ the | only question is, whether they shall be broad parties, | based on comprehensive ideas, and guided by men who | have a name to stake on the wisdom of their course, or | obscure cliques, with some narrow crotchet for a policy, | and some paltry yelping shibboleth for a cry. | The necessity of a party organization is usually argued as | if it was purely a House of Commons question. The evils | of the opposite state of things is indeed patent enough in | the proceedings of that body. Compare the traces left on | the statute-book by the first two years of Lord | Melbourne's Administration, or by Sir Robert Peel's, with | those which mark Lord Palmerston's rule up to this time. | Legislation, in the one case, is the work of powerful | minds ~~ of minds fallible, indeed, and often wrong, but | armed with mature experience and ample knowledge. In | the other, it is the result of a fortuitous concurrence of | ignorant crotchets. But the unstable and capricious action | of the House of Commons is the smallest part of the evil. | The extinction of party is demoralizing the constituencies. | The spirit of the constitution, indeed, assumes that every | ten-pound householder is competent to judge of the | complicated questions on which his representative is | summoned to decide; but in making that assumption, as | Mr. Bumble observed, in reference to a more domestic | fiction, . If they are fit to decide such | controversies in detail, it can only be by direct revelation; | for they have no possible means of reaching the facts | which, unhappily, the frailty of human intellect requires | as a basis for reasoning. Their life is not made a burden | to them by Blue-books ~~ no

"trade reports"

| garnish their waste-paper basket ~~ of statistics they | know nothing, except what comes to them in some | veracious summary of the Times, | refracted through the dingy medium of a local | paper. They cannot judge of particular questions. But | what those who possess the franchise are, or ought to be, | capable of judging, is the general character of leaders in | the state; and the question which their suffrages are | rightly held to decide is, whether the political need of the | moment is for movement or for pause. And when the | party system was in its fullest vigour, these were in effect | the only two questions presented to an elector's mind ~~ | for these determined whether he was Whig or Tory, | Conservative or Liberal. All this is now sadly changed. | The old watch-words remain, and are now and then used | apologetically in a hustings speech; but in the hands of | their present interpreters, they are as meaningless as the | blue and green of the Hippodrome. The electors have | therefore generally ceased to trust them; and they have | consequently lost the only criterion of political excellence | which really conveyed an idea to their minds. Their | material interests give them little time to study politics ~~ | their only clue to the mazes of the political labyrinth is | gone ~~ and in default of it, their votes are given for | selfish or sectional ends. Private gratitudes or grudges, | the promotion of some local interest, or the glorification | of some parochial notability, have replaced the old | fidelity to a party banner. Or if some of the more | enthusiastic spirits are above a job, they never rise higher | than a crotchet. The putrescence of old organizations | gives life and vigour to cliques and crotcheteers. Such | knots, if the form in the centre of a compact party, are | soon dispersed by the influences which surround them; | but among a mass of scattered, undecided stragglers, their | cohesion gives them enormous power, and, wavering and | colourless as most of the constituencies now are, these | cliques are in a position to dictate their own terms to | candidates. | The result may be seen in the narrow pledges and petty | hustings tests which have formed so dark a feature in the | few last elections. In Hampshire, the issue of a contest is | determined by a pledge to support a special mode of | administering the county rate ~~ at Bath, the Established | clergy vote enthusiastically for a man hostile to all | endowments, because in that hostility he includes | Maynooth ~~ and, at Dundee, it appears that a dance in a | drawing-room on a Sunday evening is held to be an | absolute and final disqualification for the House of | Commons. Indeed, Maynooth and the

"Sabbath" |

enjoy an evil pre-eminence among these husting | tests; for, on the principle that , a religious fool is | the greatest of all fools. But the political influence which | sectarian zealots have gained since 1846, and the mire | through which they have dragged the House of Commons, | must be imputed to keep them down. Party is the only | true antidote to clique. There are many highly | conscientious men who regard it as an act of positive | immorality for a man to vote ~~ as every party man must | often do ~~ in opposition to his convictions. If a vote | were an assertion of fact, and the House of Commons a | debating club, this would be a tenable doctrine. But a | vote is not an assertion ~~ it is, either actually or | inchoately, a command. The House of Commons does | not waste its time in propounding abstract truths; and, in | the rare cases where its votes seem to assume that form, it | is only a preliminary step of the process which ends in a | command. To a command, however, the terms

| "truth"

and

"falsehood"

are inapplicable. | It may be expedient, or the reverse; and its immediate | expediency may be outweighed by the evils which, on a | larger survey of its consequences, may be seen to flow | from its adoption. And the highest expediency of all ~~ | that before which all other interests, save those of | morality and religion, sink into insignificance ~~ is the | displacement of an incapable, or the reinstatement of a | trustworthy Minister. To give a party-vote, then, against | a conviction of the special merits of the actual matter | under discussion, may be merely to prefer the higher | expediency to the lower. The terms

"truth"

and |

"falsehood"

may well be employed with | reference to votes in the Sorbonne, but they are a misuse | of language when applied to the proceedings of any | assembly whose domain is not dogma, but action. | | | | | It is well known that the chosen who sit under Lord | Panmure are remarkable, among other eminent qualities, | for an exquisite delicacy of discrimination. Theirs it is to | discern the delicate moral boundary which distinguishes a | tea-party from | | a dinner, and to understand why Shakspeare is innocent in a | square-room, recited by a gentleman in black cloth, and | profligate in a horse-shoe room, from the mouth of a | gentleman in maroon velvet. This nice perception is also | carried into literature. The naughty world reads novels ~~ | three-volume abominations, half-bound in roan; but the | saint reads only tales, nice little books, elegantly got up in | red cloth and one volume. Indeed, we are not sure that | these privileged works are not exempted from the pitiless | sweep of the fourth commandment, and allowed to take | their place by the side of gossip and dozing as a legitimate | Sabbath recreation. We, of course, are of the despised | Pariahs called

"the world,"

and therefore | naturally felt ambitious to enjoy for once the seraphic | characters, and the gentle incidents, which can innocently | thrill the pure hearts that would have been spotted by | Marryat or James. We longed to share the holy musings of | the saintly few who applaud a Shaftesbury and work | slippers for a Close. So we betook ourselves to one of the | most accredited publishers, and procured a little volume, | orthodox in size, binding, and title, and written by a lady | who has already edified the Evangelical world by her moral | lucubrations. And having, with much pain and grief, | mastered its contents, we will now try to introduce our | readers to the subjects of thought which an Evangelical | authoress thinks most suitable for the minds of English | maidens. | A Lady Lismore renounces her son on account of a | misalliance, and drives him and | his low-born wife to seek their fortunes in India ~~ being | cajoled into this severity by a lady named Bertha, who | wished to have married that son herself. The unhappy | couple both die in India. Their only child is sent home in | an Indiaman, which is wrecked on the shore of England, at | the very spot where Bertha happens to be living. The child | is saved, and is brought up to her cottage, whereupon she | immediately conceives the idea of murdering it. For the | child is heir of the Lismore estates; and if she murders it, it | will be easy for her to pass off one of her own children in | its place: ~~ | | However, her hand was stayed by a variety of interruptions, | one of which consisted in one of her own children ~~ she | had but two ~~ dying of the croup. The story then leaps | over a few years, and introduces us to Floreen, the central | character of the book. Floreen is the heiress of the Lismore | estates, on the supposition generally entertained, that the | child which was wrecked had died. She is a character | which the authoress evidently drew for a Jesuit novel, and | which she was obliged to turn to better account, because | Jesuit horrors were so flat in the market. She is, therefore, | made to do the part of the

"shocking example"

of | infidelity. She begins by reading Rochefoucault, for which | she is prosily lectured by Lady Lismore ~~ naturally takes | to Rousseau in consequence ~~ and ends, as the book | draws towards its catastrophe, by studying Voltaire. Her | eyes are

"glassy," "gleaming," "snakelike."

She | has

"snakelike hissings in her brain,"

and gives | vent, probably in consequence, to

"low hissing | laughs."

She is given to listening behind bushes to | other people's conversation ~~ a peculiarity, indeed, which | is shared by no less than four other characters in the book, | and appears to form, in Miss Lisle's opinion, a salient | feature in English country life. She is incessantly weaving | intricate webs of policy, which principally consist in trying | to make other people marry those they don't like, in order | that she may keep the heir to herself; and she spends her | life in practicing all those simple-minded | puses by which we have so often seen | the wily Jesuit ensnare the dovelike Protestant. The story | turns on her efforts to retain the Lismore estates, of which | she was for a long time thought to be the heiress, until one | day Bertha appeared with a boy and a girl ~~ the girl, Hilda, | being her own child, but the boy, Hugh, being, according to | her account, the child who was saved on the night of the | wreck, and who is, therefore, Lady Lismore's grandchild, | and heir to the property. At this announcement, Floreen | behaves as an individual with snakelike hissings in her | brain might be expected to do: ~~ | | She resolves, however, to retrieve her position by marrying | Hugh; but Hugh is perverse enough to fall in love with | Hilda. Nothing daunted, Floreen betakes herself to her | manoeuvres, which principally consist in bribing another | man with the promise of her own hand to make love to a | third man's lady-love, so as to pique him, the third man, | into courting Hilda, and detaching her from Hugh. | Accordingly, the authoress drags her readers through a long | tissue of coquettish intrigues, over which she gloats with a | gusto and a familiarity, strange in one of those to whom |

"the world"

is a subject of such avowed horror. | There are no less than four couples, embracing nearly all | the subsidiary characters of the book, who are incessantly | engaged in flirting, coquetting, proposing to, and jilting | each other. But Floreen's intrigues are all in vain. Hugh | will marry Hilda, and the wedding-day is fixed, when | suddenly Bertha, as soon as she hears the news, goes into a | delirium with horror, tells Hugh that he is her son, and dies | before she can say more. The natural conclusion to which | Hugh and Hilda come is that they are really brother and | sister, and were on the point of committing an incestuous | marriage of a most frightful nature. And here comes Miss | Lisle's strongest moral point. Just as Floreen is a shocking | example of the results of reading Rochefoucault in early | youth, so Hilda is the pattern young lady who harangues | the company by a page at a time on the doctrine of | justification by faith alone; and she has now reached what | the authoress looks upon as her culminating point of virtue. | Long and wearily does Miss Lisle dwell on the beauty of | Hilda's patience in resigning herself to the impossibility of | marrying her brother. Here, for instance, is the exordium | of a sermon on the general unreality of female affection: | ~~ | | But, in spite of this eulogium of her heroism, and in spite of | strenuous efforts, Hilda was not able to shake off the

| "unreasonable predilection,"

or, as we of the world | should call it, the incestuous attachment. Floreen's | manoeuvres succeeded so far, that Hilda was induced to | engage herself to somebody else; but neither her impending | marriage with him, nor the fact that the gratification of her | real wishes would have been, to the minds of most people, | too horrible to think of, had much effect on the feelings of | this Christian heroine. Her

"predilections"

were | still in a most unreasonable condition. Two days before her | wedding she is represented as remonstrating with herself in | the following resigned but not very hopeful spirit: ~~ | . And then she steals her hand within that of her future | husband, and

"feels almost happy."

Fortunately, | under these circumstances, a visitor from India makes his | appearance in the very nick of time, and changes the face of | affairs. It then comes out that Hugh, indeed, is the son of | Bertha, as she declared on her deathbed, but that Hilda is | the child who was saved from the wreck, and, consequently, | Lady Lismore's granddaughter. As soon as this discovery | comes to light, Hilda, with the utmost promptitude, breaks | off her marriage with her second lover, and at once | re-engages herself to Hugh. But Floreen, the disciple of | Voltaire, must of course come to a tragical end. Baulked | again of her expectation of wealth, she becomes desperate, | and resolves to poison Hilda; and for this purpose she steps | out one evening and buys arsenic at the neighbouring | village. Hugh, however, who hears that she is gone out, at | once suspects arsenic as the most natural thing in the world, | rushes to the village to verify his suspicions ~~ climbs up | the ivy to the window of Floreen's room ~~ watches her | hide the arsenic, and then changes it for white sugar. | Foiled in this endeavour, Floreen makes an attempt to | throttle Hilda, which Hilda obviates by the simple | expedient of screaming; and Floreen, detected in all her | crimes, disembarrasses herself of their results by going mad. | We think this is a failure of poetical justice on the | authoress's part. The disciple of Voltaire ought certainly to | have been hanged. | Now, as this little book was written for the edification of | youth, and is read, we presume, in holy seclusion, where | the wicked novel never penetrates, it may be instructive to | review the subjects on which Miss Anna Lisle wishes the | minds of Evangelical young ladies to dwell. To begin with | the lowest grade of criminality ~~ there are, first, four | young gentlemen and three young ladies perpetually flirting | in the most shameless way with people they do not intend | to marry. Then there are two young ladies and two young | gentlemen mutually detesting each other, and eventually | engaging themselves to each other, in fraud, or pique, or | despair. Then there are two women, young and well-born, | who attempt the most treacherous and ruthless kinds of | assassination. And lastly, there is the pure-minded young | heroine, whose bitter grief, blended with patient resignation | at not being able to form an incestuous connexion with her | brother, is the main interest of this chaste and touching plot. | Miss Anna Lisle is conversant with St. Paul, and doubtless | recollects a crime which was

"not so much as named | among the Gentiles;"

and yet the parties in that case | were only stepmother and stepson. But that which was not | so much as named among the Gentiles is thought, among | some religionists of the nineteenth century, it appears, a fit | subject for women to write on and women to read. To | dwell on, and invest with a sentimental halo, a vain longing | on a girl's part after an incestuous connexion with her | brother, as if it were a passion which is

"unreasonable" |

indeed, but rather a subject for pity than for reproof, | would doubtless conduce highly to the promotion of | domestic purity, and will be a valuable addition to the | day-dreams of young-lady readers. Fortunately, however, Miss | Lisle's style of composition ~~ a sort of hybrid between the | Newgate Calendar and one of Dr. | Cumming's sermons ~~ is not one to attract any but very | resolute students. It is a fortunate mental law that those | who have the power to attract do not, as a rule, care to grub | deep into the moral dungheap. It is only the feeblest and | the silliest who try to compound for their own insipidity | | by the natural horror of the incidents they select. But let | not Miss Lisle be discouraged, or imagine that her | resources are at an end. There are still regions of horror to | be explored, on which she has not touched ~~ there are yet | plenty of strong-savoured incidents of crime wherewith to | spice her pious tales. She should make herself acquainted | with the works of Xavier de Montepin ~~ though he indeed | can scarcely be called more than a disciple in the school of | which she is the leader ~~ for, as Evangelicism is not very | prevalent in France, the raciness of his subjects has been | too much for the sensitive nerves of the French police. But | in this freer atmosphere, and under the strong shield of a | religious party, she may venture on lines of thought which | no worldling would dare to touch. | | | | Many changes have passed over the world in the last | fifteen years. We are all colder, more prosaic, less | hopeful than we were. A generous theory, based on a | belief in the perfectibility of man, was as certain then | to evoke a cheer as it is now to be scouted with a | scornful laugh. In those days men believed in an | extended suffrage, and eternal peace, and the | possibility of extirpating crime by reformatory | prisons. Some went so far as to believe in an | approaching union of all Christian Churches. Others, | of an opposite turn of mind, had persuaded | themselves that a drab-coloured millennium was | dawning on the other side of the Atlantic. Rude facts | have roughly woke us from these luxurious dreams, | and taught us that the antagonism which divides sects | and classes, the ambition which embroils nations, and | the love of a good dinner which animates the garrotter, | are passions as rife and powerful as they ever were | before at any period of human history. It is the | melancholy but complete collapse of optimism. We | are compelled with heavy hearts to give up our | aspirations after ideal churches and ideal | commonwealths, and content ourselves with patching | a little here, and altering a bit there, in the hope that | the systems under which we live may at all events | furnish us shelter for our time. Practical philanthropy, | which has abandoned all other hope but that of being | a temporary palliative for ills it cannot cure, is useful, | but little fascinating. The flood of evil wells up | ceaselessly; and it requires no small philosophy to | labour on, baling it out little by little, with the | certainty that no exertions that we can make will ever | materially abate its flow. | Such thoughts, pressed home by the events of our day | even upon the most sanguine, have produced a | marked alteration, not always for the better, in the | tone of popular thought. Many delusions have | disappeared; but much of the zeal which it seems can | hardly be maintained without their aid has evaporated | at the same time. Of course this tendency shows itself | the most strongly in the women, who are always the | quickest barometers to mark the progress of a general | change of | | feeling. The feature

"most conspicuous by its | absence"

in the educated society of the present | day, is the class of devout women and clerical young | ladies who formed a very familiar type of | womanhood ten or fifteen years ago. Whether the | women of the present day are essentially back, is a | matter too delicate for male critics to decide. But that | they are externally less devotional there can be no | question whatever. At the time to which we are | referring, religious observances formed a material | part of a young lady's business in life. She | entertained very strong views in favour of one or | other of the schools into which the religious world | was then divided. She got up regularly for early | church, or taught industriously in a Sunday school. | She had some pet clergyman whom she defended | against all comers, and the praise of whose voice in | intoning, or whose eloquence in preaching, she | sounded on every possible occasion. She was usually | engaged in the conversion of her parents, and often of | one or two Guardsmen into the bargain; and besides | this, she was active in good works ~~ especially in | collecting money for penitentiaries. She possessed an | abundant store of devotional works, magnificently | bound; and she was a diligent reader of the religious | novels which at that time issued so copiously from the | press. Her conversation between the intervals of | dancing was upon subjects of the day ~~ that is to say, | Transubstantiation and Baptismal Regeneration. So | decided was the theological tinge of her mind, that | she imposed the pretence of it, at least, upon those | who sought her favour. Flirtation involved a certain | proficiency in the terms of current controversy; and | love-making wore the pleasant disguise of a mutual | exploration into each other's religious difficulties. | There was a good deal that was ridiculous in the | young-lady religion of that day; but its absurdities | were a healthy sign. The affectation and fashion of | the many was a sure symptom of the real earnestness | of the few. There is no fertility where there are no | weeds. Moreover, the pretence did a good deal of | indirect good. If people were talking polemics, they | could not be talking scandal; and as there is no | evidence that they talked more than the feminine | average at that period, it is evident that a considerable | amount of scandal was thereby elbowed out of | existence altogether. Nor was the general fashion | which it induced, under which | everyone was obliged to have a | theological opinion of some kind, and to be able to | support it in argument, altogether an unhealthy one. | A religious fashion, if it does nothing else, at all | events fills up the ground that would be otherwise | occupied by an irreligious fashion. The world is in | the main composed of people who have no particular | opinions, or tastes, or tendencies of their own, and | who must, by the law of their being, always begin by | pretending to be something that they are not, though | they sometimes end by conforming their characters to | the pretence. Whether these people pretend to be | good or pretend to be bad ~~ whether they conform to | the fashions of Victoria's time, or the fashions of | George IV.'s time ~~ matters little as far as their | sincerity is concerned. In each case they begin by | being equally unreal. But it makes a great difference | as to the reality into which their pretences ultimately | develop. The change, at all events, whether unhealthy | or the reverse, has been very complete. Devotion is | no longer fashionable, and the clerical young lady is | rapidly disappearing. Specimens may undoubtedly be | found, like the specimens of the bustard or | capercailzie, to testify to a state of things that has | passed away. But the average young lady of the | present day has a mortal aversion to parsons, and a | profound ignorance of theology. She entertains no | schemes for the conversion of her benighted parents, | and cares a great deal more about the hearts of | Guardsmen than their souls. Controversy lends her | no aid in small talk. She cannot make love by a free | exchange of sweet experiences with some | mustachioed penitent. Compliments on one side, and | chaff on the other, is now the debased currency with | which she transacts a flirtation; and with her accepted | she chiefly discourses on upholstery. A photographic | album replaces upon her table the illuminated | Thomas a Kempis or | Christian Year of other days ~~ | which album is adorned by a large number of manly | forms, which she modestly assures you are those of |

"her brother's friends."

She wholly ignores | the theological topics of the day, and does not feel at | the thought of Bishop Colenso one-half the glow of | indignant horror with which the young lady of twelve | years ago would have mentioned the name of Gorham | or Bennett, as the case might be. She knows more | about operas than churches, and more about | dressmakers than either. | No doubt there is more reality in the later type. We | now see the young-lady mind as nature made it, and | not as good books have dressed it out. But few | people will deny that there was something more | fascinating in the enthusiastic fashion than in the | practical fashion. The human mind needs clothes as | well as the human body. There is something | revolting in the photographic truthfulness with which | very unreserved or very cynical people unveil to the | world the workings of their minds. It is always | pleasanter to believe that those around you have at the | bottom of their souls aims higher than can be satisfied | by the passing amusements of each succeeding day; | and most people furnish their neighbours with that | innocent gratification by assuming such aims, even if | they have them not. Men very seldom go mentally | naked. They have almost always sufficient reserve | and restraint to clothe themselves in the decorums | prescribed by the public opinion of their day. Women, | and especially young women, are scarcely | diplomatists enough for this. Their only chance of | presenting to your eye a mind fair to look upon is to | array it in some genuine or affected enthusiasm. | Even the latter, though it be only the contagion of a | passing fashion, is better than nothing at all. In the | most practical point of view the practical young lady | is a mistake. Far-sighted matrons ought to cultivate | enthusiasm in their daughters merely as a marketable | article. In these evil days, when angling in | matrimonial waters is a toilsome and ungrateful | labour; and the fat, well-fed fish ~~ the only fish an | angler cares to hook ~~ nibble so sluggishly and bite | so rarely, it is not a time for throwing away any kind | of bait that might be useful. A languid generation | requires some stimulant more exciting than the | conversation of a voluble chronicler of crinolines. | There is something gratefully exciting, like the acid of | a tropical fruit, in the vehemence of charming women | who talk of things they do not understand; but a | pumpkin is the only vegetable that, in point of flavour | and solidity, can supply a comparison for the small | talk of the charmers of the present day. If young | ladies will be practical, it is no wonder that elder sons | should have become practical too. It requires | something of enthusiasm, something in the nature of | an illusion, to impel an elder son into the weary ways | that lead to matrimony. The public courtship, the | regulation observances of engaged happiness, the | fierce battle of settlements, the ceremonials contrived | for duly exhibiting the bridegroom, are nuisances | from which very practical men, with very mundane | views of the duties and objects of life, will be inclined | to escape. Some mental fascinations, some bait | beyond mere personal beauty, is needed to attract the | shy fish of our generation. This practical fashion falls | very hard upon the large number of young ladies who | have no unusual intellectual power to countervail it. | Every mother who knows her own interests will | earnestly pray that the times of enthusiasm may come | back again. And if the mother desire it from | interested motives, those who merely wish to see the | influence and usefulness of women extended will | desire it still more keenly. | | | | Any tolerably tender-hearted man who feels himself | in danger of becoming too merry over his plum-pudding | at this festive season, may tone his spirits | down with great rapidity by glancing over the string | of appeals from charitable institutions with which, | either in the form of letters or advertisements, three or | four columns of the Times | are filled. Such a moan of misery, so deep, so varied | in its inflections, and so well sustained, is enough to | spoil the best mince-pie that was ever baked. While | one is reading letter after letter of sickening details, | one is inclined to wonder how people can contrive to | enjoy themselves at all with this mass of utter | wretchedness painted so visibly before their eyes. | Surely the philanthropist, with his pungent anecdotes | and odious statistics, must haunt their memories in the | middle of all their gaiety, and constantly suggest | disagreeable little calculations precisely at the wrong | moment. One would have thought abstractedly that it | might be difficult to drink, in the course of a dinner, | the weekly earnings of a south-country labourer | without thinking of the labourers who are starving | within a stone's throw. As a matter of fact, however, | such thoughts do not often intrude when people are | merry-making; and it is very fortunate they do not. If | people could keep constantly pictured to their minds | the realities by which they are surrounded, innocent | gaiety would certainly be impossible; but it does not | follow that the change would do very much good. A | few might give themselves over to a gloomy and | dyspeptic philanthropy; but the majority would | become brutally indifferent. | Familiarity with horrible facts very soon destroys | their power of moving sympathy or compassion. The | dead set, therefore, which at this season of the year | the Times and other | newspapers make upon public benevolence, though | very well intentioned, may have very formidable | consequences. As a provisional remedy for the | distress of London it is very well; but as a permanent | resource it will very soon be exhausted. People will | not endure, year after year, to gaze upon this spectre | at their feasts. They will simply get rid of it by | turning away from it. For some years they will be | deeply moved by all they read, and give largely. But | after a time the thing will have lost its novelty; and | readers will be as callous to the sufferings of the | houseless poor as surgeons are to an operation, or the | inhabitants of a plague-stricken city are to death. And | then the last avenue of succour will be closed, and the | London poor will be in worse case than they were | before. Compassion is a note which to much | thumping will easily put out of tune. It is very useful | in helping to tide over a crisis, to relieve sudden | distress which has arisen from exceptional and | unforeseen causes; but it will never be adequate to | satisfy a permanent or a periodical want. For such | sudden calamities as that which has overtaken the | Coventry weavers, and which no prudence could have | averted, it will never be appealed to in vain; but no | preaching will convert it, among Anglo-Saxons at | least, into a perpetual endowment for one class of the | community. The future, therefore, which is being | prepared for the London poor by the mode in which | they are at present dealt with is a very gloomy one. | Not only do they now live from hand to mouth, but, | they are encouraged by those to whom they look up | as the benefactors to accept this as their permanent | condition. The lesson that is taught them is to dig | when they can, and to beg when they cannot. No | attempt is made to discover, and, if it may be, to dry | up, the sources of their distress. It is assumed as a | sort of Providential arrangement that misery is always | to be asking, and bounty is always to be giving. | During the last few weeks we have seen countless | plans for extending relief in every direction and to | every kind of ill ~~ for increasing it, for organizing it, | for finding out fit subjects for it. But we have not | seen one single scheme for making it less necessary in | future years. The idea seems to be that year after year | the piteous letters in the Times, | and the genial articles thereupon, and the long | list of subscriptions, are to be as regular a | phenomenon as the winter solstice. Assuming the | supply to last, is this any better than the dole of the | monastery, or the parish allowance of the old poor | law, or any other of the pauperizing systems in which | charitable sympathy has from time to time run to seed? | Undoubtedly it is right that the alms of the rich should | help the poor out of casual distress; but the moment | that the poor can count upon that help as periodical | and systematic, the alms cause more misery than they | relieve. Alms are always an evil, though often an | inevitable one, for they discourage the thrift which is | the poor man's only chance either of morality or | comfort. The movement in favour of the Field-lane | Refuges two years ago brought the tramps to London | from every part of the country. It is difficult to | imagine a more crucial instance of the slenderness of | the relief that will tempt men to indolence, if it be | given on system and as of right; for the Field-lane | Refuges offer nothing but a bed and a cup of coffee. | But even that furnished a base upon which a beggar | could conduct his operations. Unless, therefore, | benevolent people will turn their zeal more into the | | direction of rooting out the causes of distress, they | will find themselves on the horns of this dilemma ~~ | either the relief which now flows so freely will dry up, | or, if it continues to flow, it will pauperize its objects. | There are a good many nostrums for ameliorating the | condition of the poor; but most of them are very slow | in their operation. The cure that is to be expected | from such remedies as education or sanitary reform | will, no doubt, come some day, but it is a very long | way off. But there is one way of relieving the misery | of London which has been tried and is very easy of | application; and that is the measure which, a quarter | of a century ago, reduced the far more terrible misery | of the rural districts of all England. Cannot the | Poor-law be applied more rigorously? We do not mean | that the rigour is to be increased as against the | applicants for relief, but as against the metropolitan | guardians. There is a fine phrase, which patriotic | declaimers are fond of using, that in England every | poor man has a right to live. The metropolitan | vestries know better than that. Spite of the theoretical | right to live, deaths from want are only too common. | In the country the Poor-law is a tolerably efficient | instrument of relief; in London, considered in | comparison with the mass it has to deal with, it is | almost a dead letter. In the country, the boards of | guardians are generally composed of different classes, | who check each other's selfishness. In London the | whole management is in the hands of a class who | make their fortunes by scraping together petty profits | and petty earnings, and who therefore, by the habit of | their daily life, naturally incline to penuriousness in | all their transactions. As long as they can throw their | own burden on the shoulders of the charitable public, | they will do it. The police-courts are constantly | occupied with complaints that the workhouses have | shut their doors on starving men and women, who | have been picked up in the streets by the police. The | magistrates send back stinging messages, in the hope | of goading the workhouse authorities into doing their | duty. But it requires something stronger than stinging | messages to bring such a phenomenon to pass. The | Boards of Guardians or Directors know that hard | words bread no bones: and that the more public the | cases of misery are made, the better for the ratepayers. | They have found a rate in aid of a novel kind, which | requires no authorization from their old enemies at | Whitehall, but which is to be obtained by a process | much more congenial to their feelings. It is a great | discovery to have found out that by simply shutting | out the poor into the street, they can induce charitable | people at the West End to take the cost of poor relief | upon themselves. The only thing they require is | publicity. Just as the begging mother in the streets | makes her children squall to attract the compassion of | the passers-by, so the parochial authorities delight | when the poor, whom their neglect is starving, get | their tale into the Times. | They know then that their rate in aid will be levied | quickly, effectively, and without a murmur. The | public rushes forward with refuges, visiting | associations, soup-kitchens, and other devices of | various kinds; money flows in abundantly through a | hundred channels; and the shopkeepers, who are the | tender-hearted administrators of the poor-laws, | complacently observe that charity, in addition to its | other merits, has the virtue, which St. Paul omitted to | notice, of lowering the poor-rates. | There is much to be said for and against the | interference of the State in the relief of the poor. But | there can be no question that, if it does undertake to | do it, it ought to do it with effect. The startling | anecdotes of misery with which philanthropists | harrow our feelings show that in London the Poor-law | has broken down, and will not work. It has been | committed to the charge of those who have no wish | that it should work, and who infinitely prefer that the | Times and Lord Raynham | should do the work in its stead. A twofold evil is the | result. The compassion of the richer classes is | prematurely overtaxed and worn out, so that they are | becoming callous to the exceptional calamities which | it is really their function to alleviate; and the London | poor are being relieved indiscriminately, without the | workhouse test, and consequently with all the | demoralizing consequences to remedy which the New | Poor-law was passed. These abuses can only be | arrested by giving to the Poor-law in London a reality | which at present, in the hands of its local managers, it | does not possess. The entire abstinence of the more | educated and more independent section of the | inhabitants from all part in local affairs makes local | self-government a very doubtful blessing in the | metropolis, but in nothing are its evils so glaring as in | the harsh and barbarous treatment it brings upon the | poor. | | | | | Under ordinary circumstances, we should not have thought | it worth while to review four volumes of such unmitigated | dullness as these poems of Mr. Reade. But the fact that | many of them have attained such a sale as to make a new | edition possible, gives the author a title at least to notice, if | not to praise. He is not a poet by nature, and has none of | the gifts which go to make a poet; but he has qualities | which, in these days, their possessors often imagine to be | poetical. He is deeply infected with that passion for | self-analysis which Mr. Kingsley is so fond of telling us is | the disease of the age, and the results of which, for some | inscrutable reason, are nowadays invariably versified. | From the number of poems that are published, a foreigner | might imagine that England was never so rich in poets as | she is now; but, on a closer examination, he would perceive | that we are rich, not in poets, but in metaphysicians, who | are distinguished less for the novelty of their discoveries | than for their marvelous mania for putting them into metre. | Of this school Mr. Reade is a shining luminary. All kinds | of persons from Adam and Eve down to a hypothetical | fatalist, are made to come forward and dissect themselves | for the instruction of this generation. They make long | prosy speeches, in which a few most orthodox sentiments | struggle dimly through a tangle of halting metre and | inextricable grammar. The following is a fair specimen of | the sort of metre in which these

"spiritual revealments" |

are generally clothed: ~~ | | If there are any connoisseurs of dullness who would like to | explore further the beauties of Mr. Reade, we especially | commend to their notice a poem entitled "Man in Paradise," | which he appears to have modestly intended as a | continuation of Paradise Lost. | The burden of it is, that Adam and Eve, as soon as the | autumn begins to set in, discover that it is getting cold: ~~ | | | In this difficulty, he and his wife, after an unsatisfactory | interview with the devil, apply for counsel to an angel. The | angel is remarkably sensible, and advises him to take | exercise; but like many sensible people, he does not convey | his advice in the most lucid language: ~~ | |

"Caparisons are odorous."

We should | recommend Mr. Reade to steer clear of Milton's subjects | and Milton's metre. | It seems to us that this age is peculiarly cursed in its | poetasters. The poetasters of former ages were generally | dull and milk-and-water; but still their humble efforts were | far too carefully elaborated not to be perfectly intelligible. | But the poetaster of the present day not only cannot write | poetry ~~ he cannot write English, or sense, or grammar. | At first sight, it is hard to conceive a reason why a set of | educated men should take so much trouble to imitate the | style of an Irvingite speaker of tongues. Probably they are | the victims of a blind obedience to two prevalent popular | ideas. The guiding star of the poetical taste of the present | generation is a renewed adoration of Shakspeare, and a | reaction against the idolatry of Pope. Our unhappy | poetasters seem to have imagined that by formulating these | feelings ~~ by shunning all that Pope did, and aping all that | Shakspeare did ~~ they would obtain the true recipe for the | manufacture of poetry. Unluckily it happens that | Shakspeare, though the greatest of poets, is the worst of | models. His illustrious qualities, his exact knowledge of | nature, his noble conceptions of character, are | unapproachable; but he lived in an age rude and half | polished, and he wrote for the age in which he lived. It was | an age which, though great in many ways, was by no means | free from affectations; and one of them was the taste for | quaint conceits and far-fetched similes. They are no | peculiarity of Shakspeare's ~~ they were the constant form | of the witticisms of Court wits, and of the compliments of | Court poets. They are just as strong in Spenser or in Bacon | ~~ they were the fashion with all the writers of the | Jacobean age ~~ they culminated in Cowley and Andrews, | and only finally disappeared after the Restoration. But they | tincture strongly the writings of the great dramatist, among | others, and so far as they do so undoubtedly deform them; | and, being deformities, they are precisely the only parts | which our own metrical metaphysicians are competent to | copy. But the copyists have met with the usual fate of their | breed ~~ their imitation has become caricature. Their | conceits are not quaint, but uncouth ~~ their similes are not | merely far-fetched, but simply unintelligible. Still more | unfortunate has been their abhorrence of Pope; for nearly | all Pope's defects are negative. Though undoubtedly | wanting in many of the native qualities of a poet, few ever | equaled him in the mere knack and trick of his craft; and | whatever Pope excelled in, the spasmodic school abhor as a | blemish. Pope's meaning was as clear as crystal ~~ they | are therefore consistently unintelligible. Pope's lines were | flowing to a fault ~~ their verses never scan by accident. | Pope's style was scrupulously grammatical ~~ from their | writings the normal relations of verb and nominative case | have absolutely disappeared. The result is, that what passes | for poetry in this middle of the nineteenth century is | nothing but a mysterious metaphysical jargon, fitfully | jerked out in broken sentences, like the gasping of an oracle | in hysterics. | Now, Mr. Reade is not a poet, and therefore it would be | idle to expect him to write poetry. But he evidently has a | considerable command of English, and some of his smaller | pieces sufficiently show that he can express himself with | clearness when he likes. It is therefore matter of wonder | that he should don the livery of Mr. Sidney Dobell, or carol | himself in a school which has no other notion of the use of | language except that which tradition imputes to Talleyrand. | He seems to have forgotten the rudimentary truth that a | man must write English before he can write poetry. It is | not merely that we demur to many of his metaphors ~~ | such as , or , which rise up ~~ | it is not simply that he is generally obscure, or that he | makes a liberal use of a poet's license of inversion. What | we complain of is, that many of his passages are as | completely unintelligible as one of the corrupt passages of | the Eumenides. What will the | future Dindorf of New Zealand, if he should be unlucky | enough to disinter Mr. John Edmund Reade from the | debris of a fossil circulating library, | make of the following passage? It is supposed to be a | description of the charge at Inkerman: ~~ | | How does an ocean splinter? And when it splinters, how | can it burst? And who hurled whose foremost backward | reeling on whose rearward ranks? We do not venture to | object to the poetry. We do not enter on the difficulty of a | rampart being crowned by the fiery zone that girds it, or on | the fact that sweeping is not an operation to which | whirlwinds are generally subject. We only ask to | understand, not to admire; and in all humility we beg to | suggest, that when Mr. Reade next publishes in the | spasmodic style, he will be good enough to follow the | precedent of the Delphin editions of the classics, and to add | a marginal translation in ordinary English. Possibly, | however, he may plead the exigencies of an unmanageable | metre. We will try him, then, in the full liberty of blank | verse, in which he soars perfectly unfettered; for his blank | verse is nearly as innocent of metre as it is of rhyme. The | following extract is from a metaphysical poem termed | "Revelations of Life," written for the confusion of fatalists | and fanatics: ~~ | | We have never been fortunate enough to see the

"rays | of twilight;"

but, assuming their existence, how do the | same rays contrive to fall on the pastor and against the oak? | Possibly the pastor was bald and shining, and acted as a | mirror. But the most mysterious question suggested by the | passage is whether it is the oak, or the twilight, or the | pastor that is

"reclining a part of nature and the scene;" |

for, as far as our observation has gone, twilights and | oaks seldom recline at all, and pastors only when they are | in bed. We cannot leave this passage without calling | attention to the exquisite touch of nature in the last line. | We quite agree with Mr. Reade that it is of very little use | for a young lady to

"blossom in the beautiful"

| unless she does it

"silently."

| It would be tedious to dwell further on the blunders of a | tedious production. The passages we have noticed are not | the carefully culled blemishes of a lengthy work ~~ they all | occur in the first hundred and fifty pages of one single | volume. Mr. Reade has mistaken his vocation. Before he | again trusts himself to his Pegasus, we entreat him to lay to | heart the elementary truths that blank verse does not mean | prose printed in short lines ~~ that eccentric language does | not alter the nature of commonplace ideas ~~ and that even | the mere art of poetry consists of something more recondite | than the simple plan of leaving out all the nominative cases | and systematically substituting participles for verbs. | | | | | The Finance debate has, on the whole, been anything but | interesting. That the Minister of the Crown must submit | his taxation to the judgment of the representatives of the | people, is said to be the palladium of our glorious | constitution. Much blood was shed to establish it ~~ many | a struggle has been fought in its defence. But Minerva | herself lost all her majesty when unrobed; and we should be | sorry to introduce any admiring Montalembert to | contemplate the said palladium in | deshabille ~~ that is to say, at dinner-time. The sight | would convince him that there is but a step from the | sublime theory of the British constitution to the less | sublime practice under the regime of Sir G. C. Lewis. The | first thing that would meet his eye would be a huge desert | of musty-looking green benches, dented all along with the | yet warm impression of those absent sages whose | legislative vigour has yielded to Lewis and hunger. | Scattered here and there, like the congregation in a City | church, are a few care-worn partisans ~~ a noble young | whip is sprawling in uneasy slumber on the Treasury bench, | in an attitude which can only be compared to that of an | agonized frog ~~ the clerks are nodding in their bob-wigs | at the table, the Speaker is dozing in his full-bottomed wig | in the chair ~~ nothing seems to be awake save Spooner | and the clock. Yes, there is one exception, which is | sufficient to explain the rest. At the table, the lugubrious | Lewis is plodding his weary way through the | unmanageable figures which the tyrant Wilson has forced | him to father. It is impossible for those who have not heard | him to gather from the reports the faintest idea of the | soporific power of this organ of the constitution. His words | are squeezed out of him at intervals, like milk from a cow. | He has read the dictum of Demosthenes ~~ that action is | the first, second, and third requisite of an orator. | Accordingly, glueing his elbow to his side, he slaps the | table at fixed intervals with the palm of his hand. But this | clockwork proceeding being in no way governed by the | sense of his speech, the slaps generally go to emphasize the | prepositions. A sentence, printed as really spoken, using | dashes to express the minute-gun succession of his phrases, | would run thus: ~~ | | But it is not within the resources of typography to convey | an adequate idea of the contagious sleepiness of this | successor of Gladstone and of Pitt. | But a finance debate is not always so bad as this. Over and | above the displays of Mr. Disraeli and Mr. Gladstone, there | was on Monday night an interlude of a lighter character. | Finance is a dull thing, and a squire is a dull thing; but, just | as two negatives make an affirmative, a squire speaking on | finance is rather an amusing entertainment. On the first | night of the Session, it became evident that Mr. Gladstone | and Mr. Disraeli were likely to concur in a common attack | on the financial scheme of the

"Ministry of all the | Imbecilities;"

and when at last this fact beamed on the | dim recesses of the bucolic intellect, the squires shook with | unutterable wrath. The National Club groaned from the | roof-tree to the cellar ~~ from Mr. Spooner, who was | cursing the Pope in a Committee-room, to the chambermaid | who was telling her experiences in the kitchen. But for a | time it was smothered wrath. They waited for some overt | act. At last the overt act came; and on Monday night the | Cannon Balls ~~ we cannot say exploded, but ~~ went off. | Mr. Bentinck led the attack. His finely-chiselled features | had long given no obscure intimations of his gathering | wrath. He was wont to sit guarding the entrance to the | Opposition gangway, like another Cerberus, only that, the | three heads seem to have been hammered into one; and he | would keep his face turned ever in one direction, scowling | at where the hated Gladstone sat.

"True as the needle | to the pole,"

his speeches ~~ if continuous growls of | ten minutes' duration can be described under that name ~~ | were all devoted to the same holy cause. They invariably | consisted of an attack upon all politicians in general, and a | direct or indirect exposure of Mr. Gladstone's villanies in | particular. On Monday night, after having delivered | himself to his testimony in his usual strain, he concluded | with a vigorous denunciation of all manner of coalitions. | Unluckily, for this last sentiment, he was followed almost | immediately by a hoary sage ~~ another specimen of the | political Dodo ~~ Sir John Tyrell, who announced in pretty | plain terms his intention of coalescing with Lord | Palmerston. This portly squire was once a burning and a | shining light. But for some time past he has withdrawn | himself from all communication with a polluted Legislature, | and has been nursing his genius in the seclusion of rural | Essex, where the English language seems as yet to have | obtained a very limited development. His eccentric | grammar and wandering gossip kept the House in a roar of | laughter from the beginning to the end of his speech. He | began by informing the House that he was very much | surprised at right honourable and honourable gentlemen | sitting on so many benches ~~ a fact, we may remark, | which seems to be sufficiently explained by the limited | dimensions of the said benches ~~ but by which the worthy | old gentleman intended to imply the number of sections | into which the House was split. He then proceeded to an | interesting disquisition on the authorship of an article in the | Quarterly, and other matters | equally relevant, and concluded by lamenting that he was in | an incomprehensible position ~~ a remark in which all men | of sense were inclined to coincide, but which, it appears, | signifies, in the Essex dialect, a position ~~ a remark in | which all men of sense were inclined to coincide, but which, | it appears, signifies, in the Essex dialect, a position in | which he could not comprehend the movements of other | people. His best friends could only cheer him in the | intervals between their fits of laughter ~~ excepting always | the deep-mouthed of Newdegate, the intonations of which | have never been weakened by unseemly mirth. In due time | the division came; and the last defenders of British | Protestantism marched out to the number of 22. It is a sad | sign of our decaying morality that their virtuous resistance | to Jesuits, traitors, and coalitions roused no greater | sympathy. The only impression it seemed to produce on | the House was to make honourable members very cross at | being kept, at midnight, for three-quarters of an hour, | dividing twice, in a hot, crowded lobby. It is said that the | nascent party whose birth-throes we have restored the title | of Cannon-Balls ~~ which they resemble in density, if not | in weight ~~ have been called into existence by the late | episcopal appointments. We had not given the country | gentlemen credit for so much religious enthusiasm. We | should like to hear Mr. Bentinck's spiritual experiences, | and we hope he will invite us to tea whenever he gives | them. But whatever their theological relations may be, we | can well imagine that there must be a strong intellectual | sympathy between the Cannon-Ball prelates and the | Cannon-Ball M.P's. | | | | The English strikes have accustomed us to that view | of the Rights of Labour which interprets them to | mean the right of preventing other men from | labouring. But, like many other English opinions, it is | only moderately carried out in practice here. Among | us the rights of labour do not prescribe anybody; but | their requirements are satisfied if, by pressure legal or | illegal, every rival is brought under the obedience of | the Trades Unions. To see the principles in full | blossom, which in England are only germinating, it is | generally necessary to turn to a colonial community. | In those new countries everything comes more | quickly to maturity, and false principles blossom into | political dangers with terrible rapidity. Some recent | proceedings in New South Wales present us with the | picture of the rights of labour in a state of advanced | development. They give us an instructive indication | of the sort of political economy that would prevail | among ourselves if Mr. GEORGE POTTER were a | trifle more powerful than he is. | Among the various nationalities that were drawn | together from all parts of the world to the Australian | gold-fields, there arrived a considerable number of | Chinese from Hong Kong. These people were very | successful in their mining, and the reports they carried | home stimulated numbers of their countrymen to | follow their example. They have not shown | themselves other than peaceable visitors. No crimes | of theft or violence are charged against them; and | they appear to follow the laborious pursuit upon | which they are engaged with more than ordinary | energy and skill. It is alleged against them, indeed, | that they are dirty, and that they are immoral; and | everyone will feel | how such failings must shock the fastidious | cleanliness and virgin purity of an Australian digger. | But they are also guilty of another very serous offence; | and that is, that they share with the European diggers | the profits of the gold-field. Its area is limited, and | therefore its average yield to each person is clearly | curtailed by every addition to the number of labourers; | and the European feels that his scantier profits are due | to the presence of the Chinese. Which of the two | offences has made the Chinese to be unsavoury in the | nostrils of the European diggers is of course a moot | point in the colony. The democratic papers loudly | maintain that the diggers are actuated solely by a | jealousy for the seventh commandment, and a high | appreciation of soap and water. The papers on the | other side maliciously insinuate that the exquisite | sensitiveness of their modesty has been marvellously | quickened by the sight of the promising

"claims" |

which the Chinese are industriously digging. | Whichever feeling preponderates, it has of late found | a very practical expression. So unanimous are the | miners, either in their horror of immorality or their | hatred of successful rivals, that in the middle of July | last, the whole of the diggers working at one of the | chief gold fields assembled together and marched | upon the Chinese. The wretched strangers, even | according to the reluctant testimony of the advocates | of the diggers, , stripped of every shred of | property, and driven in a mass, in a state of abject | destitution, to a distant cattle station. Against this | oppression there is no appeal for them. The utter | impotence of the law in the face of any mob, which is | the mark of all democratic constitutions, has been | brought painfully to light. No attempt even to | reinstate the Chinese in the possession of their | property, or to protect them from further outrage, has | been made by the Government. Probably any such | vindication of the law is an impossibility. A modest | attempt on the part of the authorities to arrest three of | the most prominent rioters turned the whole mob | furiously upon the Government. The three rioters | were released, the authorities decamped, and the mob | remain masters of the field. | This is bad enough, but it is far from being the worst. | The class from whom the Burrangong rioters are | drawn are, the rulers of New South Wales, and their | lawless excesses are viewed with very mild | disapprobation by the section of public opinion which | gives law to the colony. Already it is proposed to | give legal effect to the object of these outrages, and to | complete by a statute what the diggers have begun | with their revolvers. The democratic party have | raised a cry for the legal exclusion of Chinamen from | New South Wales. To that cry it is probable that the | PRIME MINISTER will not be wholly deaf. The | heights of power are more slippery at Sydney than | even here: and Mr. COWPER'S footing is | notoriously very insecure. He is likely to grasp at any | support from any quarter that may promise him a | respite of official life. It is not, therefore, impossible | that an English colony may, in the nineteenth century, | retort upon the Chinese that policy of exclusion which | has made them a byword among nations, and has | usually been supposed to be the peculiar product of | ignorance and barbarism. If this policy concerned | them alone, it need excite among us no stronger | feeling than curiosity. If it were being carried out at | San Francisco or New York, it would merely suggest | reflections upon the economical results of entrusting | political mastery to an uneducated class. Assuredly, | protection to native industry was never carried to such | a length in the darkest feudal days. But it concerns us | much more nearly than as a matter of simple | speculation. Though, in practice, there is little else | left of Australia's dependence upon England than the | name and the cost of an unreal sovereignty, we are yet, | in the eyes of foreign Powers, responsible for the acts | of the Governments over which the QUEEN | nominally rules. England has a credit to support, | which, unhappily, it is in the power of Australia to | impeach. To take the lowest ground, her influence | will be seriously impaired if it comes to be generally | believed that, unless she is moved to do so by interest | or by fear, she never thinks of observing in practice | the principles which she preaches so ostentatiously to | others. It is, even in a material point of view, a | serious loss to a nation if she is regarded as an | inveterate hypocrite. Yet what other construction can | be put upon our conduct, if we denounce | exclusiveness at Hong Kong and practice it at Sydney | ~~ if our armies claim free immigration as the | common right of all men in China, while our own | Governor in Australia is repudiating it in the case of | the Chinese? If only their own internal polity was | concerned, no-one would | grudge to the inhabitants of New South Wales the | peculiar political luxuries in which they take pleasure. | If they like to have their laws dictated to them by a | mob, and to suffer protection in its most odious form | ~~ the prohibition of the import of labour ~~ to be | reintroduced among them, it is no business of ours to | interfere. The assailants at Burrangong are merely | | a Trades Union on a large scale, and freed from legal | restraint. The Unions at Manchester used to employ | oil of vitriol to rid them of their rivals, and at | Sheffield they still blow up their antagonists in their | own houses with mines secretly constructed. | Advancing with revolvers against even a body of | Chinese is decidedly a nobler system of warfare than | the use either of oil of vitriol or gunpowder petards. | If the New South Wales people choose that their | Government should be so feeble that the

"right of | labour"

can be enforced at will by any body of | labourers who can master revolvers enough for the | purpose, it would be very gratuitous in England to | interfere with so paradoxical a taste. But the very | condition of their existence as a dependency is that | they should not trench upon question of international | policy. China happens to be the one country with | which we are under engagements, implied if not | express, with respect to the mutual immigration of the | subjects of the two Crowns. It is earnestly to be | hoped that the QUEEN will never be advised to | consent to any measure of the Colonial Parliament | which may incur the suspicion of sharp practice in | this respect. The Emperor of CHINA is not in a | condition, even if he were inclined, to resent or | criticise any measures we may take with respect to his | emigrant subjects. But unfair influence to the | principles which we have produced in with him | will not be the less disgraceful because he certainly is | not able, and probably does not care to it. No | regard for the independence of the colonies can | justify us in tolerating the dishonour of two | foreign policies pursued simultaneously on behalf of | the same Empire and in the name of the same | QUEEN. Whatever the value of Australian | allegiances may be to England, it certainly will not | repay a slur on her good name. | | | | | Germans have the reputation of being among the best | informed of nations. The learning of their learned men is | proverbial, and their peasants' children must go to school | unless the parents prefer to go to prison. On the other hand, | we flatter ourselves that there are few things better known, or | better worth knowing, than England and English institutions. | It may therefore be interesting to some of our readers to | ascertain the ideas concerning English laws and manners | which German dramatists entertain, and which German | audiences calmly swallow. Every theatre represents pretty | exactly the ideas of the class that frequents it. The dramas of | the Surrey side reflect with accuracy the extent of historical | knowledge prevalent among the ten-pound householders; | while, on the other hand, all the learning and research of | English antiquaries have been put into requisition to furnish | the theatrical properties of Macready and Kean. The German | text, therefore of Flotow's Martha, | as produced at the principal theatre in Dresden, may be | accepted as a fair picture of the current notions of an | educated German concerning the manners and customs of | England as it was. | The date of the action of the piece is Queen Anne's reign. | Lord Tristan Mikleford, her Master of the Horse and Captain | of the Pages, and also a member of Parliament, burns with an | ardent but unrequited flame for Lady Hariet Durham, one of | her maids of honour. The play opens with a morning call | from him, in which, to recommend his suit, he proposes | various English sports for her morning's amusement. He runs | through them seriatim ~~ | cockfighting, donkey-riding, horse-racing, tilting, | bear-baiting; but she is cruel, and | declines them all. Just then they | hear outside the noise of Richmond fair ~~ an institution | peculiar to that town, in which the maidens of the | surrounding country come to be hired by the farmers; the rule | of the fair being that when the earnest-money is once | received, the maiden is irrevocably bound to a year's service. | The young lady and her confidante | insist that Lord Tristan shall accompany them in disguise to | the fair, under the plebeian name of "Bob." In vain he | indignantly exclaims, ~~ they will take no refusal. | Forth the party sally accordingly; but no sooner have the | young ladies arrived there than they are accosted by two | farmers, who wish to hire them, and offer, as a bait, | on Sundays, and plum pudding on New Year's day; and | before the young ladies quite know what they are about, they | have taken the earnest-money, and are irrevocably bound for | a year. The next scene opens in the dwelling of these two | farmers, who are in vain trying to induce their very | unserviceable handmaids to do a little work. It ends, | however, in one of them, named Lyonel, falling in love with | the disguised Lady Hariet. Fortunately Lord Tristan pursues | the farmers, makes a burglarious entry into the house after | the family have retired, and lets the two young ladies out of | one of the windows. The farmers awake, find out theft, and | set off at midnight, with the whole posse | comitatus of the farm, in pursuit of the fugitive | housemaids. If the farmers of Queen Anne's time had only | had American experience to guide them, no doubt they would | have employed bloodhounds. As it was, the game naturally | escaped. | The next scene is in a wood. The Queen and all her Court are | out hunting ~~ what, we are never able to discover. But, as a | preliminary to the arrival of the hunters, we are presented | with a party of farmers, who apparently have selected the | hunting ground for a genuine British carouse. They are | introduced in the act of celebrating the merits of

| "Porter-beer,"

in lines of which the following is a close | translation. The principal singer is one of the farmers from | whom the two young ladies have escaped: ~~ | | No sooner is this song concluded, than Lady Hariet's | confidante appears on the stage with a | troop of

"huntresses,"

all in hunting costume. Now | a hunting English lady ~~ or, indeed, an active English lady | of any kind ~~ has always been an unfathomable mystery to | a foreigner; and therefore, whenever he allows himself to | contemplate it, his imagination invests it with the wildest | colours. In the present instance, our author's notion of an | English lady's equipment for the hunting-field is unique. It | consists of a bare head, a green velvet jacket, a yellow satin | petticoat, white kid gloves, and a harpoon in her hand. What | species of animal these Dianas were intended to kill with this | peculiar weapon, it is rather hard to make out. One can only | suppose that some faint notion of the whale-fishery as a great | field of English industry must have floated through the | author's mind. However, the farmer who had been | eulogizing

"porter-beer"

stands aghast, as well he | may, at this strange apparition of his quondam maid-of-all-work | in yellow satin and harpoon. But, spite of the oddity of | her apparel, he thinks the opportunity is not to be lost, and | attempts to carry her off then and there ~~ doubtless | according to the statute in that case made and provided. The | huntresses, however, are too much for him ~~ they lay their | harpoons in rest, and hunt him off the stage. Next appears | Lyonel, who seems to have selected the same wood for a | solitary constitutional, and is discovered mourning over the | pangs of love and the inconstancy of maids-of-all-work. As a | matter of course, Lady Hariet chances to be walking that way | too, and a love-scene ensues. It is, however, as they say in | the East country, love deformed, or all the one side; for she is | very much frightened at being detected in her unlucky frolic, | and professes not to know him. A lively conversation | follows, in which she calls him , and he calls her | . She cries out for assistance. Lord Tristan comes | to her aid, and, in exercise of a power which the Constitution | seems at that time to have vested in the younger sons of | Dukes and Marquises, but which it has since unhappily | withdrawn, at once scuds Lyonel off to prison, where he is | put in heavy irons. But at this juncture a critical discovery is | made. There was always a mystery hanging over Lyonel's | birth; and it now turns out that his father was . | Lyonel, therefore, who makes love to pretty housemaids at | midnight, and afterwards insults a maid of honour in a wood, | is no less a person than ~~ we beg pardon for mentioning so | respectable a name in such a connexion ~~ Lord Stanley. | After this discovery, Lady Hariet, in the most ample manner, | apologizes for her past conduct, and at once proposes to him, | and sugars the proposal by coupling it with the presentation | of a patent, in which the Queen restores him to the honours of | the House of Derby. At first he rejects both the peerage and | the lady, being a little sore at his unceremonious | incarceration; but at last his resentment is overcome, | everybody is made happy, except Lord Tristan, and the | curtain falls. | We cannot take leave of Martha | without expressing our surprise that Flotow's singularly gay | and sprightly music is entirely unknown to the English stage. | To high art, of course, it makes no pretension; but that can | offer little objection in dealing with a public taste which | adores Verdi, and swallows even Halevy without a wry face. | The reason that used to be always given for the scantiness of | our repertoire was, that Madame | Grisi declined to learn any more; but that reason can hardly | be valid now. | | | | | We have been deluged with anti-slavery literature of late | years. The wrongs of the negro are precisely of that class, | on which the English people love to expend their sympathy. | His sufferings are real and practical, and require neither | effort of thought nor glow of fancy to apprehend them. The | coldest imagination can realize the unpleasantness of being | flogged to death. At the same time, our denunciations do | not involve the necessity either of self-censure or | self-amendment. It is not often that we can have the luxury | of being humane without paying for it; but, in the present case, | we are fairly entitled to the indulgence, in consideration of | the boldness with which we faced the cost and risk of | emancipation in our own colonies. Accordingly, the | Abolitionist champions, whether they appear in the guise of | novelists or travelers, have always received a hearty | welcome among us. Few of us can forget the | furor which Mrs. Stowe's book | excited in England. Every class anathematized slavery | with a unanimity of execration which we generally reserve | exclusively for Cardinal Wiseman. As for Mrs. Stowe | herself, she attained the pinnacle of true Republican | ambition ~~ she was lionized and petted by a duchess. | Attracted by the magnet of such patronage as this, it is not | wonderful that many a stray missile from the American | fray has fallen on our shores. In truth, between Mrs. Stowe | and the late Presidential election, the subject has become | somewhat stale; but the shelves of publishers still groan | with the philanthropy of pamphleteers. Any new claimant | on our attention must show cause why he should not be | consigned to the limbo of all threadbare themes ~~ why he | should not moulder beside Newdegate on the Jew-Bill, and | Berkeley on the Ballot. Assuredly, it is not his style which | will save Dr. Hall from such a fate. He is one of those | authors who rely for vigour entirely on their printer. If the | correction of the press had been entrusted to a committee of | school-girls, the array of italics, capitals, and notes of | admiration could not have been more formidable. At the | same time, the pathos and the eloquence are worthy of the | Morning Herald itself. In fact, Dr. | Hall seems to combine in his single pen the graces which | adorn feminine composition at all periods of life. | But, badly as they are dressed, the ideas contained in his | book rise considerably above the mass of the literature to | which it belongs. He abstains from a mere parade of | well-culled anecdotes, which, after all, never indicate the | average of the tendencies which they are quoted to | illustrate, but only the extremest range to which those | tendencies have run. He points out the obstacles which lie | in the way of the Abolitionist, and at the same time shows | great judgment in discriminating the evils which are the | true reproach of American slavery, and for which no | expediency, no material exigencies, can afford the faintest | palliation. These do not consist in the barbarities which | may be occasionally practiced, and which are generally | quoted as the condemnation of the system. Mr. Dickens, | Mrs. Stowe, and other writers have surfeited us with | horrors, and have drawn from them their main argument | against slavery. Yet it is evident, from the nature of the | case, that these must be exceptional. If one moiety of the | population were in the habit of putting the other moiety ~~ | a race physically stronger than themselves ~~ to refined | and causeless torture, their crimes would, long ere this, | have been avenged and arrested by a servile war. But it is | the constant testimony of all travellers who do not cross the | Atlantic with the fixed intention | of paying their passage-money by | the proceeds of a biting satire, that the prototypes | of Legree are rare. Dr. Hall himself quotes, as a proof of | the degradation of the negroes, that many of them prefer | slavery to freedom. Indeed, the very charge that negroes | are treated like cattle implies that they are generally cared | for like cattle. Isolated acts of cruelty are no more an | argument against slavery than against omnibus-driving. | The real opprobrium of the system lies in this ~~ that its | existence absolutely requires the utter degradation, moral | and intellectual, of the unhappy race over whom it reigns. | Men with living souls have to bear the part, and submit to | the degradation, of brutes; and therefore all that art can do | must be done to liken them to brutes. Education is | proscribed by savage laws. It is not merely that the | schoolmaster and the missionary are forbidden to ply their | craft among the slaves of an unwilling owner ~~ the owner | himself, even if he be so minded, dare not allow his wife or | daughters to teach the alphabet to a black boy on the estate. |

"The ample page, rich with the stores of time,"

| the accumulated heritage of the human race, is sealed to | them, not by want of means or opportunity, but by the | selfishness of those who have the might, acting under the | sacred sanctions of law. The world has been plagued by | many a capricious tyrant, and law has been perverted to | cloak many a strange freak of oppression; but from Deioces | to Yeh, from King Tarquin to King Ferdinand, it has never | entered the head of the wildest of them to put knowledge | itself under a ban. It was reserved for a model republic to | put the coping-stone on the edifice of despotism. The | reason of this proud pre-eminence is plain. The feudal lord | might let his serfs pick up, if they liked, the rudiments of | learning from the neighbouring monastery, and the Roman | master might be surrounded with slaves whose high | education formed their market value, because serfdom and | slavery were accepted by the opinion of the age, and there | could be no danger of slaves learning to assert rights which | would be looked upon by everybody else as imaginary. | But the Americans have to contend, not only with the | denunciations of Christendom, but with their own loudly | proclaimed doctrines. Crime, therefore, has to be propped | by crime. The slave-owning vindicators of freedom must, | in mere self-preservation, shut out the light from their | victims ~~ else it would be impossible to maintain slavery | in a land whose first principle is that all men are inalienably | free. | But the depth of their degradation is not sufficiently | represented by the fact that education is absolutely closed | to them. They are cattle; and if more cattle are wanted, | they must increase like cattle. Accordingly, the American | law lays down that marriage is incompatible with the | condition of a slave; and the theory is thoroughly carried | out. Slave-breeding has become a trade. Whole States ~~ | Virginia and Kentucky, for example ~~ have devoted | themselves to that department of industry; | and the slave-breeder shows, in the | exercise of his craft, about as much | regard to the sanctity of marriage as is shown by the | shepherd or the dog-fancier. In most Eastern countries the | slave-market feeds the harem, especially where | Mohammedanism prevails; but this system has no analogy | to the degradations of | | slave-breeding in America. There, in a Christian country | ~~ smiled on by ministers of the Gospel as

"a peculiar | domestic institution"

~~ is an hereditary caste of | prostitutes and adulterers. The tone of morality of every | negro man and woman is, in the Southern States, | irrevocably fixed from their cradles; and that tone is a | direct negative of the precepts of Christianity. This, far | more than individual acts of barbarity, or violations of a | theoretic right of freedom, is the

"damned spot"

| on American institutions which bluster cannot shroud nor | expediency wash out. | Dr. Hall exposes with much force the inadequacy of the | two remedies which are popular among the champions of | liberty in the North. Sudden abolition would starve slave | and master alike. The natives of tropical climates are | naturally indolent; and the fact that no motive to work has | ever been held out to him except the lash, makes him look | upon idleness as a convertible term for Paradise. The | example of the English colonies sufficiently proves that the | sudden cessation of slavery would be the sudden cessation | of labour. Nor could the place of the negroes be supplied | by large importation of European labourers, even if capital | for so gigantic an enterprise could be found. The | cultivation of some of the crops ~~ rice, for example ~~ is | fatal to the health of the white man. M. de Tocqueville's | summary remedy ~~ ~~ is not calculated to | recommend any scheme of abolition in the eyes of a | Southern landowner. But Dr. Hall calls the of the | United States ~~ in other words, in the invincible objection | which the white man has to give protection, or even | toleration, to the black. The popular idea of a Free State is | a place where a man may go where he likes, and do what he | likes, so long as he does not injure his neighbour. But this | is not the conception which many of the Free States of | America have formed of their functions. Setting aside the | Fugitive Slave Law, in respect to which the North is | probably more chargeable with cowardice than with | complicity, the internal legislation of many of the States | calling themselves free is utterly disgraceful to | communities that have the language of the Declaration of | Independence on their lips. In Indiana and Illinois, a free | African is forbidden by the law to reside in the State or to | follow any useful occupation. If he ventures to put such an | interpretation on his freedom, he is liable to be resold into | slavery. The legislation in Ohio is equally severe. In | Connecticut, the whites for many years retained upon their | statute-book an act prohibiting the education of free black | children; and with such ferocity was it enforced, that they | actually imprisoned a lady for teaching the alphabet to | some African girls, who, according to the theory of the law, | were as free as herself. This legislative excommunication | descends into still more extraordinary minutae. In New | York, a black man may be a minister of religion ~~ nay, he | may be a Doctor in Divinity ~~ but he is not allowed to | enter an omnibus. In Philadelphia, the prohibition is | stronger still ~~ a black man may not | drive an omnibus. We shall learn henceforth to view | with more reverence the noble craft and mystery of | omnibus-driving. So far as we know, the Americans are | the only great people who think it necessary, by legislative | interference, to guarantee the purity of their blood. | Aristocratic as the English are accused of being, these | extravagances seem incredible to us, who see the Minister | of Hayti at a levee without feeling | half the incongruity which is produced by his American | colleague's ostentatious eccentricity of dress. But it is plain | that, with these monstrous feelings of repulsion, if it is | difficult to convert slaves into willing labourers, | slaveowners will be ten times more reluctant to subside into | the character of employers. The intensity of feeling is too | strong to endure, without an entire convulsion of society, so | sudden a change as total abolition. | The scheme of colonization in Liberia Dr. Hall dismisses | with deserved contempt. How far it is likely to accomplish | the end which it professes to have in view, may be judged | from the fact that, in 1852, the increase of slaves was | fifteen times as great as the number of emigrants whom the | Colonization Society were able to send out. Dr. Hall hints | that they feel a keener interest in getting rid of the incubus | of the free blacks than in any other advantage likely to | result from the scheme. This is very possible. Mrs. | Partington is generally to be found in the ranks of that class | of philanthropists who have an eye to the main chance. It | amuses an uneasy conscience to mop up the flood which its | own guilt has let loose. | His own remedy Dr. Hall shall state in his own somewhat | boastful words: ~~ | | Unhappily, this, like every other remedy, presupposes a | wisdom and a self-sacrifice not often found in those who | have habitually lived on the brutalization of their | fellow-men. Meanwhile, the prospect is a fearful one. The | Africans breed faster than the white man; and the cry is | everywhere, not for a slower but for a more rapid increase | of slaves. Already, in some States, they equal the white | population; and, already, savage repressive laws indicate | that they are beginning to feel their power and their wrongs. | But their masters will not see it. The sin that hardens also | blinds. Perverted morality avenges itself. An overweening | confidence in prescriptive superiority is the direct and | unfailing consequence of the haughty selfishness which | consents to exalt itself on the misery of others. | | | | For the Americans themselves the question of the | origin of Secession can have very little interest now. | When once fighting has begun, and the blood on both | sides is up, one cause of quarrel is just as good as | another. The South American republics, whose | aptitude for civil war is as great as that of their | Northern sister promises to become, are perfectly | satisfied if they have a leader and an enemy, and do | not trouble themselves with perplexing controversies | about the origin of each quarrel. But the case is very | different with England; for our part in the proceedings | is still to come. The origin of the strife is of | considerable interest to us, as it may be one of the | elements in a decision that will probably be forced | upon us before very long. Mr. Ellison, as a warm | advocate of the North, knows that he is not wasting | time in trying to persuade Englishmen that . | He surmises that, if no such disturbing element affects | the national judgment, we shall act towards America | according to the ordinary rules of international law, | just as we should act towards any other country in the | world. If we are to be tempted into all the risks and | future difficulties which would be involved in making | a special exception in favour of the North, it can only | be in deference to feelings that lie very near to the | English heart. It is a natural device, therefore, on the | part of those who wish to propitiate England towards | the North, that they should try to represent the civil | war that is raging in Virginia as a struggle between | slavery and freedom. Mr. Ellison devotes to the | question a volume full of history and statistics which | may be said to exhaust it. But he does not prove the | point which it is important to him to prove. That | slavery is at the root of the long-standing hostility | between the North and the South scarcely requires to | be proved. It is established by the simple fact that the | Slave States are, with one or two exceptions, all on | one side, and the Free States all on the other. But | what it imports to Mr. Ellison to make good is, not | that slavery has made the North and South | antagonistic and antipathetic communities, but that it | is the cause of the present outbreak ~~ that the South | has taken the field in defence of slavery and the North | in defence of freedom. It is only with the immediate | cause of the war that foreign countries are concerned. | England helped Turkey against Russia, because | England sympathized with Turkey in reference to the | immediate subject of the contest. But it is, no doubt, | the difference of religion which is at the bottom of the | antipathy between Russia and Turkey, and England | no more sympathizes with Mahometanism than she | does with slavery. In calling on us to assume an | attitude hostile to the South at the present crisis upon | general anti-slavery grounds, M. Ellison is really | asking England to imitate the example of the famous | Welsh juryman who was for returning the prisoners | guilty of murder, because, whether they had | committed it or not, he was quite certain they had | stolen his horse. | In trying to prove his case, Mr. Ellison relies chiefly | on evidence which only a man of genuine | guilelessness could employ. He quotes the warlike | appeals made by the Sothern statesmen to their own | people. On similar evidence he might prove that the | object of Napoleon III. in crossing the Ticino was to | free Italy from the Alps to the Adriatic, and that the | object of the Emperor of Russia in crossing the Pruth | was to secure the spiritual privileges of his Greek | co-religionists. Potentates who are going to war are apt | to use the most popular topics they can hit upon to stir | up the martial ardour of their people, without | disquieting themselves by the inquiry whether those | are exactly the most prominent topics in their own | minds. Slaves are the most precious possession of | every Southern rich man, and the darling object of | every struggling poor man. The belief that the | Northerners were coming down to take away their | slaves, or to make their slaves rebel, has about the | same value, as historical evidence of a fact, as the old | belief in England that the Pretender was coming over | to introduce Popery and wooden shoes. But even this | evidence, worthless as it is, breaks down in Mr. | Ellison's hands. He himself gives an extract from the | address of Governor Hicks, of Maryland, which | absolutely negatives the statement that the leaders of | the revolt put forward slavery as their chief cause of | discontent: ~~ | | Mr. Ellison's volume closes with a very complete | view of the relative conditions in which slavery and | freedom have left the two communities. He shows | very conclusively by elaborate figures how the | peculiar institution has retarded the States which | maintain it in every kind of progress, moral, | intellectual, and material. It is a terrible balance-sheet; | and if the victory of the North could cancel its results, | we might even wish to strain the obligations of | international law to arrive at so blessed a | consummation. But he seems to conceal from himself | and his readers the real and direct connexion of these | figures with the present war. The South are as well | aware of their inferiority as we are. We attribute it | with confidence to the thriftless and brutalizing | influence of slavery. But the South assign to it a very | different pedigree, and unfortunately the North have | given them only too specious an excuse for doing so. | We have seen that the Carolinians refer the origin of | their grievances to 1833; and 1833 was only the crisis | of a previous discontent which had been growing up | for a long period of years. The South asserted then, | and assert still, that if they are behind their rivals in | wealth, and in all the culture that burdened their | agriculture, impeded their public works, and robbed | them of their legitimate commerce. The tariff of the | United States forced them to buy Northern iron and | other goods at a high price, instead of European | goods at a low price; and these purchases had to be | paid for by their cotton, which thus took a circuitous | route through New York instead of a direct route to | England. The consequence was that New York grew | fat while Charleston starved; and capital gravitated | towards the protected North, and drained away from | the burdened South. This at least is a much more | probable cause of secession than any slavery | grievances. That secession would leave the South in | a worse position as regards slavery has been obvious | at first sight to every thinking man in Europe, and | assuredly cannot have escaped the notice of the able | men who have headed the Southern movement. It | will deprive them of a large force of auxiliaries on | which, while the Union lasted, they could have | counted in the case of a negro insurrection; and it will | bring a free country, the focus of an Abolitionist | propaganda, to their very doors. It will dispense with | the necessity of an underground railway, by giving | them for their nearest neighbour an asylum for their | slaves more hostile to themselves than the hated | Canada itself. If the maintenance of slavery were the | object of the Secession, it would be a grotesque | absurdity, such as vast communities do not commit | when their nearest and most obvious interests are at | stake. On the other hand, there can be no doubt that | Secession will give them Free-trade, and restore the | cotton trade to some Southern port. | | Apart, however, from the conduct of the South, it | would be impossible for Englishmen to persuade | themselves that the invasion of Virginia is a crusade | on behalf of freedom. Neither the Federal | Government nor its popular masters have ever | dropped a hint that such is the object of the war. To | the last, Congress has been considering, and in part | agreeing to, compromises intended to make the | position of the slaveowner more comfortable, and the | institution of slavery more enduring. On the last day | of February in the present year, a resolution was | passed for the purpose of making the maintenance of | slavery where it now exists, so long as the Slave | States shall support it, an integral and unalterable | portion of the Constitution. The readiness with which | this security to the slaveowner was given contrasts | strangely with the tenacity with which the Morrill | Tariff has been upheld. The truth is, that the real | Abolitionists are not strong Unionists. They believe | that a termination of the support and countenance | given to slavery by the North would be its certain | downfall. It is a saying of Mr. Garrison's, the great | Abolitionist orator, . The North fights for | supremacy, not for freedom. The wretched position | of degradation held by the free blacks in the North is | of itself a sufficient proof that the Northerners cherish | no enthusiasm for the establishment of an equality | between the races. | Slavery is a mere stalking-horse on both sides. The | passions of a certain class of natives are stimulated by | its alleged danger in the South; and it is hoped by | some advocates of the North that the sympathies of | foreign Powers will be enlisted by the promise of hits | overthrow. In reality, it counts absolutely for nothing | in the motives of the Government of Washington, and | takes a very long subordinate rank among the motives | of the Government of Montgomery. Mr. Ellison, and | many other authors of pamphlets and lectures, are | honest in believing that the war is a holy way; but | they are biassed by their predilections, and must be | listened to as men who hold a brief. Their theory can | only be substantiated by ignoring the history of every | part of American politics except that which directly | bears on slavery. If their views are allowed to be | reiterated without contradiction, it is possible they | may lay hold of that floating stock of unemployed | sentiment which is always ready in the autumn | months to be invested in any cry, however worthless, | which may offer itself at the right moment. It would | not be a harmless delusion if it were once to become | prevalent. According to the present aspect of affairs, | the question of recognition may arise at any moment; | and we should suffer as meddlers always do suffer, if | any passing fit of generous blundering were to divert | us from a rigorous observance of the traditions of | international law. | | | | | In an age when every man is profoundly sensible of the | duty of mending his neighbour's ways, we could desire | to contribute our mite to the common stock of mutual | improvement by founding a reformatory for novelists. | It is a weary and disheartening labour to go on for ever | reproving the backslidings of this stiff-necked race. It | is in vain to preach to them ~~ they only reply by | another three volumes full of their old sins, as tiresome | and unreadable as ever. Their evil habits require a | more systematic eradication. They must be subjected to | critical discipline for a period varying with the | heinousness of their offence, and not exposed again to | the temptations of pen and ink, and the society of the | publisher who originally seduced them from the paths | of good taste, until they are thoroughly cured. Of | course it would be hopeless to enumerate all the forms | of nonsense of which it may be hoped that such a | reformatory might cure even the most confirmed | novel-writer. But there are two prominent vices to which the | attention of the philanthropist should be specially | directed. To treat them, according to the prevalent | fashion, not as vices, but as moral diseases, we should | call one of them the Mayfair mania, or | lucs Belgraviana. It shows itself in | an irrepressible desire to depict with the minutest detail, | and the most damnable iteration, the manners and | customs of that happy race that dwells within smell of | the balmy Serpentine. The appropriate remedy for this | affection is a course of realistic training, tending to | dissipate the halo which ignorance, flunkeyism, and a | devout study of the Morning Post | tend to gather round the heads of those who live | in the West End. The patient should be sentenced to | aristocratic society for a year, so that he may convince | himself that morality and intellect are not particularly | affected either way by degrees in the peerage, and that | fashionable ladies do not invariably make violent love | upon the first introduction. A course of large dinners | might also be prescribed, in order to carry home to him | the conviction that soup, when handled by plush and | hair-powder, remains nevertheless (unless the powder | tumbles in) nothing but soup after all. But the other | moral malady is more destructive still. It may be best | described as incontinence of tall talk. Fashion and fine | writing between them ruin nine-tenths of the novels that | cumber Mr. Mudie's shelves; but we are inclined to | think that the fine writing is far the most fatal habit of | the two. A man must be very far removed indeed from | the Belgravian firmament before he thinks its | constellations worth describing, except in a satire; but | fine writing is a temptation to which all are exposed. | Perhaps a course of stump-oratory is the best remedy. | No doubt so much eloquence finds its way into our | novels simply because the writers have no other vent to | give it. Tucy cannot really believe that the young | gentlemen and young ladies whose conversations they | undertake to report actually talk to each other in rolling | sentences a page long. They must be aware, at least | from their own experience, that love-scenes are not | usually conducted in the language Mr. Everett employs | in his orations. But it is the only public opportunity | they have for the delivery of their over-burdened souls. | The magniloquent perorations with which "Ada" and | "Hubert" are made to reply to each other in a romantic | green lane, are in truth only gems from the speeches | with which the author would have electrified the world | long ago if an unkind fate had but given him a chance. | If he had ever so small a stump whereon to vent his | oratorical powers, he would not put the speeches of a | debating society into the mouths of his hero and heroine. | They would be allowed to speak the ordinary slip-slop | in which they were brought up, and to indulge in the | abundant anacoluthon which is the favourite figure in | English conversation. | Mr. Colburn Mayne is a victim principally to the latter | propensity. In respect to the fashionable world he even | shows a certain amount of virtue. Though he brings | several of is characters to London, he does not take one | of them to a ball. There is not a single flirtation in | Rotten Row, nor a debauchee peer from one end of the | novel to the other. A lisping subaltern with an | aristocratic name is the only requisition Mr. Mayne | makes upon the traditional stock of fashionable | properties. But the few glimpses he does give us of his | views of fashionable life show that it is only his | self-restraint that has preserved him from countesses who | make assignations at first sight, and duchesses who | elope at the third interview. He is possessed with the | same strange idea that haunts so many novelists, | touching the special accessibility of

"the upper ten | thousand."

That it is the peculiarity of fashionable | people, male and female, and to a certain extent of | English people in general, to pick up anybody they may | meet in picture galleries, museums, streets, and so forth, | and after ten minutes' conversation to swear eternal | friendship, appears to be the one point on which there is | a consensus among the | explorers who undertake to tell the outside world what | mysterious Belgravia is like. One of the heroes of the | book (there are four or five) is a youth of eighteen, | named Lionel. He quarrels with his stepmother, runs | away from home, and walks up to London, a distance of | fifty miles. On his arrival he sleeps at a small inn, and | the next day goes to call on an actor whom he had met | strolling about the country, and with whom he had | formed a friendship. At this point is introduced the | solitary fashionable character in the book, one Sir | George Savile by name, who makes his appearance in a | chapter headed, "The Man of the World." The man of | the world drives up in a brougham just as Lionel is | relating to his actor friend how he ran away from his | stepmother. Thereupon Sir George Savile, who knows | the actor, immediately invites Lionel to jump into his | brougham, and drive off to lunch at his villa on the | Thames with Sir Edwin Landseer and Lord Carlisle, | Madam Alboni, and a great number of other | distinguished persons. Not satisfied with these favours, | the man of the world shortly afterwards offers Lionel to | take him into his house on the footing of a younger | brother, and

"to provide him with dress, money, | and everything suitable for that station."

It may | be doubted whether men of the world generally would | be eager to endorse this definition of the legitimate | footing of a younger brother. The conversation of Sir | George Savile, who is represented as a typical specimen | of those who live in the land of fashion, is perfectly in | character with his proceedings in general. When he had | lodged Lionel in is brougham, and was driving him out | to meet Lord Carlisle, this was the style of his discourse: | ~~ | | | | All of which things are exactly what a

"man of the | world,"

belonging to

"the land of fashion," |

would say to a youth whom he had picked up in | the street and never seen before. But London appears | to have a strange power of bringing on these paroxysms | of fine writing to which Mr. Colburn Mayne is so | deplorable a victim. A kind of prose ode to Piccadilly | and Buckingham Palace is one of the severest cases of | the malady we have ever met: ~~ | | Surely even the National Gallery may take heart now, | and hope to find its poet yet, if Buckingham Palace has | lived to be likened to a palace of Arabian story. | Perhaps we may even be permitted to see the day when | universal rehabilitation shall have been accomplished, | and enthusiastic admirers shall descant on the poetry of | the Brompton Boilers. | If any chemical process existed by which all this | vaporous bombast could be distilled out of its style, | Which does she Love? would not | be an uninteresting novel. As a tale of mere incident, | without pretending to any delicate portraiture of | character, it would not be without attraction, if only it | were possible, even for a chapter, to conclude a truce | with the fine writing. But there is no escape from it. | The passionate lovers, and the philosophic friends, and | the cruel stepmother, and the affectionate mother ~~ all | of them talk with the full consciousness that the | reporters are in the gallery. And the author himself is | more difficult to endure than all his characters put | together. For fear the moral of his fiction should not be | apprehended at once by his younger readers, he is | careful to point it out at every convenient interval, and, | when he thinks it particularly striking, to improve it by | preaching upon things in general. A Greek chorus, | suddenly smitten with a taste for grandiose twaddle, is | the ideal pattern he appears to have set himself to copy. | There is only one chance for his cure. He must get rid | of the extravasated oratory that presses on the brain, by | some more natural channel. He loves London dearly. | If he could only induce London to return the | compliment, and invest him with that chartered right of | spouting which resides in the dignity of a Metropolitan | Member, he might yet be healed. Then, in frequent | addresses to his constituents, he could throw off that | morbid secretion of fine phrases with which he is now | afflicted. It will be in our power then to judge fairly of | his story-telling capabilities, which may very likely be | found to be far greater than, in their present disguise, it | is possible to suspect. If he does adopt the healing | process we have recommended, and becomes a | candidate for the representation of princely Piccadilly, | he will probably find that he can transfer most of the | choice passages in this book to his electioneering | speeches, and be sure of an appreciative audience. | Only there is one feature which he must be content to | suppress. For the last twenty years the land has been | sorely plagued with the religious novel. But now a | worse pest has come upon us, in the shape of an | irreligious novel. Denunciation of the principal | doctrines of Christianity, and of those who preach them, | has become as favourite a condiment for spicing an | insipid dialogue as eulogy of religious ritualism used to | be in years gone by. Founding an argument against real | opinions upon facts avowedly fictitious, is in any case | as bold an affront to common sense as can well be | conceived. But the character of the proceeding varies | considerably with the gravity of the opinions discussed. | The author may safely count upon disgusting all to | whom he addresses himself if he goes on interpolating | into the intervals of a fictitious story polemical | arguments upon the gravest controversy upon which | human beings can enter.