Blackwood's Edinburgh magazine, Vol. 74, No. 457, November, 1853
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Title: Blackwood's Edinburgh magazine, Vol. 74, No. 457, November, 1853

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BLACKWOOD'S EDINBURGH MAGAZINE, VOL. 74, NO. 457, NOVEMBER, 1853 ***

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BLACKWOOD’S
EDINBURGH MAGAZINE.

No. CCCCLVII.      NOVEMBER, 1853.      Vol. LXXIV.

CONTENTS.

- Haydon’s Autobiography, 519

- Brute Life in the Alpine Regions, 539

- The Romans in Scotland, 557

- Athens in 1853, 569

- A few more Words on University Reform, 583

- Our Commissioner in Paris, 595

- The Narcotics we indulge in.—Part II., 605

- Poems, by H. G. K., 629

- A few Facts concerning the Turkish Question, 633

EDINBURGH:

WILLIAM BLACKWOOD & SONS, 45 GEORGE STREET; AND 37 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON.

To whom all communications (post paid) must be addressed.

SOLD BY ALL THE BOOKSELLERS IN THE UNITED KINGDOM.

PRINTED BY WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS, EDINBURGH.

BLACKWOOD’S

EDINBURGH MAGAZINE.

No. CCCCLVII.      NOVEMBER, 1853.      Vol. LXXIV.

HAYDON’S AUTOBIOGRAPHY.[1]

We fear that, of late, there has been considerable deterioration in the tone of contemporary criticism. Works which, in themselves, contain nothing either interesting or memorable, have been puffed into notice on account of the celebrity of the editorial accoucheur, or the former reputation of the party to whom they more particularly refer. Others, which set nature, truth, and common-sense at defiance, and which are, both in conception and composition, extravagant and absurd, are lauded to the skies as the productions of great and commanding genius. Belonging to the former class are the Memoirs, Journal, and Correspondence of Thomas Moore, to which Lord John Russell, actuated no doubt by the most pious and praiseworthy motives, has consented to appear as sponsor. Anything less interesting than the Memoirs, more weakly gossiping than the Journal, and more deplorably dull than the Correspondence of the Bard of Erin, it would be difficult for the imagination of man to conceive; and yet for a time, and until the work got into circulation, there was no limit to the roaring of the laudatory bellows. Belonging to the latter class are sundry works of fiction, of which the present season has produced a remarkably contemptible crop. Journals of some pretension have not hesitated—from what motive we shall not inquire—to characterise the silliest of these as among the most truthful, eloquent, and interesting publications of the year. Few can have forgotten the shout of exultation with which Lord Holland’s Reminiscences were hailed by a certain section of the press, and the persevering attempt to cram down the public throat that farrago of imbecility and scandal. Even in the domain of poetry, fustian has been mistaken for inspiration; and the crude fancies of a whimsical brain have been represented as the noblest efforts of sublime and godlike genius.

This tendency towards undue and extravagant laudation may perhaps in some degree be accounted for by the paucity of new works of merit. Certainly there has been very little of late in the productions of the press to stimulate curiosity or excite interest; and the critics, who are in the main endowed with a much larger share of good-nature than they receive credit for, grow weary of snarling, and, in the absence of better material, take to praising books which, in better and more fruitful times, they would unhesitatingly have condemned. The error is on the gentle side, and we cannot harshly condemn it. But, on the other hand, we now and then meet with remarkable instances of neglect. Judging from the notices which we have seen in various literary journals, and the slight and almost supercilious tone of their commentaries, we are led to believe that the work presently before us—the autobiography of Haydon the painter—has not as yet received, at the hands of the critics, the full measure of consideration. Works of this kind are not to be judged by strictly artistic rules. It is impossible that a diary, extending over the period of many years—indeed the active part of a lifetime—and faithfully chronicling the thoughts, deeds, and struggles of the writer, should be otherwise than unequal in its interest. In the career of all men there are elevations and depressions—fits of energy and times of carelessness—high aims and humble objects—alternations of triumph and despair. Sometimes we are inclined to smile at the eagerness displayed in the pursuit of a phantom; sometimes we are moved to tears by the cry of agony wrung from a disappointed spirit. Sunshine and shadow, calm and tempest—these follow each other in the life of man as certainly as in external nature; and sometimes, even when the clouds are at the darkest, a gleam comes athwart the mass to light up the glories of the rainbow. The value of an autobiography is its truth. If it has been written, not for the purpose of giving a true impression of thought or a just portraiture of self, but for posthumous exhibition, in order that men may know the altitude of him who wrote it, vanity is almost sure to assume the place of truth, and the picture, however skilfully designed, has small resemblance to the original. The author, in designing his own mausoleum, forgets the rules of proportion, and over the remains of an ordinary mortal would construct the pyramid of a king. If, on the other hand, it be a genuine chronicle, in which thoughts are entered and deeds described irrespective of all considerations as to after judgment or approval, we have indeed a record over which it is salutary to ponder. For, not only in his strength, but in his weakness also, is the man confessed; and which of us, looking to himself, can deny that in weakness rather than in strength is the true character revealed? What need we care for journals compiled purposely to show that the writer has, in his own day, mingled on easy terms with the great and illustrious of this world—that he has dined with a duke, was on intimate terms with an earl, and has heard from the lips of beauty the warmest encomiums on his genius? Alas for the little vanity that can see, in such things as these, a passport to posthumous consideration! Is Virgil remembered through his works, or through the reflected credit of his having been the favourite of Mæcenas? Would Shakespeare even have been heard of as the friend of Lord Southampton, without his immortal legacy? No. The way to the Temple of Fame does not lie through Holland House, Woburn Abbey, Bowood, or any other seat of titled hospitality. No man can cheat posterity into the belief that he was really great, by registering the blandishments of society, however these may have convinced himself of the extraordinary range of his genius. We can give but a passing regard to the eccentric flitting of the butterfly.

Read Moore’s Journal, and then tell us what matter of interest you have found—what lesson of value you have received? Of bons mots and anecdotes current among the loungers of society, there are a few good, many indifferent, and a multitude heinously bad. There are notes of balls and dinners, tavern bills, Tivoli amusements, and theatrical small-talk—numerous instances of fulsome compliment addressed to the author, and apparently received by him as genuine without hesitation—the contents of Falstaff’s pocket with scarce a scintillation of his wit. But where are the notices of the serious struggle of life—where the aspirations of high genius elaborately working out its aims—where the traces of that self-denial and energy without which even the choicest gifts of genius are vouchsafed in vain? Of these there is no vestige. We are indeed very sorry that such a book has been given to the world; for, while it tends to lower greatly, in the estimation of all thinking men, the character of one who was at least a sparkling poet, it conveys a false impression of life, and we believe was intended to do so.

Most unlike the flippant journals of Moore is the stern autobiography of Haydon. No matter what judgment may be passed upon the rashness, imprudence, inconsistencies, or even follies of the man, these volumes contain as true a record of the struggles of a life as ever yet was exposed to the public view. In them there is nothing concealed, nothing falsified. Haydon never set down a word, which he did not believe to be true, nor ever forged a sentiment in order that it might raise him in the world’s esteem. Doubtless he expected—for an inordinate estimation of his own importance in regard to his art was his foible—that these volumes would hereafter be perused by many an aspirant after fame; but we can nowhere trace any indication of their being otherwise than a faithful transcript of his thoughts. Over and over again we find him referring to former entries—blaming himself for having entertained too rash an impression, or retracting some accusation set down in an irritated moment—but never do we perceive him engaged in framing an imposture for posterity. The hopes and the disappointments, the success and the failure of each day and of each scheme, are chronicled with a minuteness which gives decisive evidence of their truth; and we hesitate not to say that, within the compass of these volumes—most ably edited and arranged by Mr Taylor—is expressed a deeper tragedy than any which has been shadowed on the stage. It is a work that ought to be studied, not for its artistic but for its practical lesson, by every student of art, whether his implement be the brush, the chisel, or the pen; and, although poor Haydon would have revolted from the thought, it is nevertheless true that he is more likely to be known to posterity on account of this expressive journal of his, than from all the yards of canvass that he covered with his historical compositions.

The story of Haydon is indeed a sad one, though by no means without its parallels. Nature designed him to be a painter, and, as is customary in such cases, he overcame at an early age the parental opposition, and enlisted himself as a child of art. In this commercial and money-seeking country of ours, parents very often take upon themselves to decide the future destiny of their children without any regard to the peculiar direction of their talents or bent of their inclination. Nothing is more common than to hear elderly men, connected with trade or manufactures, complain that gross injustice was practised towards them in their boyhood, and that, if they had been allowed to take their own way, they would, to a certainty, have become shining lights of art, literature, or science, instead of having simply made their fortunes by attending to foreign exportation. We confess that we always listen to such murmurs without an atom of sympathy. We don’t believe that the gentleman who has just cleared ten thousand pounds by a lucky consignment to Australia, could ever have written a stanza worthy of a reviewer’s scalpel, or that the wholesale fabricator of calico could by any effort have painted a picture which the easiest Boniface would have hoisted as a signboard attractive to his hostelry. We are inclined to hold that, in the great majority of cases, the parental judgment is correct, and the influence legitimately exercised. Were it not so, the stage would be inundated with recruits; and the attainment of the part of Romeo (whenever there was a good-looking Juliet) be an object of ambition, perhaps at the risk of bloodshed. Even among the Anglo-Saxons, practical as they may call themselves, there is, in early youth, a considerable feeling of romance; and no boy would willingly devote himself to a perch on a three-legged stool if he saw a reasonable prospect of achieving fame or independence otherwise. For our own part, we believe that the annual sacrifice of talent is very small, and that, of genius infinitesimally less. For, where true genius exists, it is irrepressible. Let parents strive as they may, they cannot extinguish the flame in one who is a poet born. No adverse circumstances, no accumulation of distasteful labour will put it out—it is like the fire which the Ghebirs adore—stop it up at one place, and it is sure to break forth at another. So with the genuine painter. Bind him apprentice to an attorney, and his art breaks out on the blotting-sheet—try to make a mechanic of him, and the walls are defiled with charcoal. Mere talent may succumb: genius never does. And very often men of genius have, through being thwarted in the earlier part of their career, and through subjection to a training altogether alien from their fancy, received most wholesome lessons and impressions which afterwards have been of signal benefit. Haydon, we suspect, obtained his liberty too early. A few years of servitude might have been of great use in the way of teaching him prudence, and as a corrective against rashness, impetuosity, and defiance. They might, at any rate, have tended to lessen his overweening confidence in his own ability, and have sent him better prepared to woo fortune in that particular walk for which he certainly was designed. But, from the very first, he was opinionative, self-willed, and impatient of restraint. An accidental perusal of Reynolds’s Discourses seems to have strengthened his hankering after art into an inflexible resolution to pursue it. He says—“I read one. It placed so much reliance on honest industry; it expressed so strong a conviction that all men were equal, and that application made the difference, that I fired up at once. I took them all home, and read them through before breakfast the next morning. The thing was done. I felt my destiny fixed. The spark which had for years lain struggling to blaze, now burst out for ever.” At this time Haydon could not have been much above eighteen. His father, a respectable tradesman in Plymouth, but by no means opulent in his circumstances, made the usual remonstrances, and he was further assailed by his mother with every argument which love and anxiety could suggest. Nothing, however, would serve young Benjamin but an immediate removal to London, where, uncontrolled, he might work out the plans which he had conceived for the future, and devote himself thoroughly and entirely to the study of art, in what he conceived to be the highest walk. Haydon had no notion whatever of intellectual progression, and therefore fell into the error committed by many artists and writers, who, not content with gradual advancement, strive to anticipate their time. For portrait-painting—undoubtedly the most lucrative department of his profession, and a very high one, as is testified by the masterpieces of Vandyke, Velasquez, Titian, and Rembrandt, besides a host of later distinguished painters—he entertained an intense contempt. Utterly destitute of worldly prudence, and reckless to a culpable degree in pecuniary matters, he could not be brought to understand that the first duty of every man, whether gifted with genius or not, is to labour for his livelihood, and to avail himself, for that purpose, of all the means within his power. To the end of his days Haydon never understood this. He seemed to think that the possession of genius gave him an absolute claim upon the purses of the opulent; and that they were, if not legally, at all events morally bound to come forward and buy his pictures whether they wanted them or not. Be it remembered that a picture by Haydon was no trifle, nor adapted for the capacity of every drawing-room. Here is his own account of his system and method, in connection with his picture of the “Raising of Lazarus.”

“I always filled my painting-room to its full extent; and had I possessed a room 400 feet long, 200 feet high, and 400 feet wide, I would have ordered a canvass 199–6 long by 199–6 high, and so have been encumbered for want of room, as if it had been my pleasure to be so. My room was 30 feet long, 20 wide, 15 high. So I ordered a canvass 19 long by 15 high, and dashed in my conception, the Christ being 9 feet high. This was a size and a subject which I loved to my very marrow.”

No wonder that with these views he was doomed to repeated disappointment—that Lady Beaumont objected to the purchase of his “Macbeth” because “we have no room”—and that, on another occasion, when a gentleman had offered six hundred guineas for the “Judgment of Solomon,” (12 feet 10 inches by 10 feet 10 inches) his lady said, “But, my dear, where am I to put my piano?” And that bargain was at an end. By making his pictures utterly disproportionate to the size of ordinary dwelling-houses, Haydon, as a matter of course, deprived himself of the chance of disposing of his pictures to that very numerous and opulent class of persons who are sincerely attached to art, and willing to buy its choicest productions on a moderate scale. People will not build houses for pictures. They want pictures that will suit their rooms, and, if artists will be foolish enough to expand their ideas over whole acres, they must necessarily pay the penalty of their folly. Large art is not high art, nor is it necessary for sublimity to expand the human figure into the colossal dimensions of a giant. But more of this hereafter. On his arrival in London, Haydon waited upon Northcote, likewise a Plymouth man, with a letter of introduction.

“I went. He lived at 39 Argyle Street. I was shown first into a dirty gallery, then up-stairs into a dirtier painting-room, and there, under a high window with the light shining full on his bald grey head, stood a diminutive wizened figure in an old blue striped dressing-gown, his spectacles pushed up on his forehead. Looking keenly at me with his little shining eyes, he opened the letter, read it, and, with the broadest Devon dialect, said, ‘Zo, you mayne tu bee a peinter doo-ee?—what zort of peinter?’ ‘Historical painter, sir.’ ‘Heestoricaul peinter! why, yee’ll starve with a bundle of straw under yeer head!’

“‘I zee,’ he added, ‘Mr Hoare zays you’re studying anatomy; that’s no use. Sir Joshua didn’t know it; why should you want to know what he didn’t?’ ‘But Michael Angelo did, sir.’ ‘Michael Angelo! What’s he tu du here? you must peint portraits here!’ This roused me, and I said, clinching my mouth, ‘But I won’t.’ ‘Won’t?’ screamed the little man, ‘but you must! your vather isn’t a monied man, is he?’ ‘No, sir; but he has a good income, and will maintain me for three years.’ ‘Will he? hee’d better make ’ee mainteen yeezelf!’ A beautiful specimen of a brother artist, thought I. ‘Shall I bring you my drawings, sir?’ ‘Ees, you may,’ said he, and I took my leave.”

Ten thousand pities for Haydon that he did not take Northcote’s words to heart. By laying himself out for portrait painting, at least for a time, and studying the essentials, Haydon would have acquired more rapidly than in any other manner the mechanical portion of his art, and probably would have been gradually weaned from that extravagance of manner which disfigured many of his most ambitious works. He might also have learned independence, which, under his circumstances, was a duty, and so have early avoided the fatal habit of looking to others for support. Fuseli gave him worse counsel, and confirmed him in his resolution to adhere to what is, absurdly enough, denominated the “Grand Style.”

Whilst drawing as a student at the Academy, he became intimate with Wilkie, then just entering on his career of fame. They were marked contrasts to each other both in theory and conduct. Haydon was all for the grand style; Wilkie for the familiar. The one was disputatious and combative; the other gentle and submissive. The former was reckless as to means; the latter careful and provident. And yet, notwithstanding these discrepancies, Haydon was probably more attached to Wilkie than to any other person in the world. They entered life together, they worked together, and they gloried in each others’ early triumphs; nor, as is too often the case, was their friendship ever obliterated. It is true that throughout Haydon’s journals there are scattered gibes at the worldly-wisdom, and sneers at the timidity of his friend—hints at occasional coolness, and complaints of national parsimony; and several times there are indications of a little jealousy, not unnatural from a man whose temper had been tried by frequent and sore disappointment. But for all that, it is plain that Haydon really loved his early fellow-student. Apparently, for a time, there was estrangement and coolness, but never entire separation; and when Wilkie died, no one mourned for him more sincerely and deeply than did Haydon. The entries in his journal for 1841, the year of Wilkie’s death, are most affecting; and perhaps it would be impossible to give a better idea of the man, than by transcribing the following passage:—

“May 15th.—I dreamt I was sleeping in the tombs of the kings at Jerusalem, and awoke in a wild confusion, and thought, in the dim twilight of daybreak, the arch of my bed was the cold cave. Poor Wilkie! he seemed to look on me, and to say, ‘Did I ever give you cause of offence? Did I not bear and forbear? Did I not assist you with money? Was not our friendship unalloyed until you tried to destroy the Institute in which you were brought up? When did I leave you? Did I not enjoy your genius—bear testimony to your great talents? My character was different from yours. You have no right to reproach me for not being willing to go to the extremes of your hatred, and involve myself in suspicions which I did not deserve. No, my dear Haydon, I loved you as much as, nay more than, any man; and while we entertained the same views, saw each other daily, and pursued the same objects, nothing disturbed our happiness. When you did not fear ill-usage as I did; when worse treatment afflicted and nearly destroyed me, you ought not to blame me for wishing for that peace so natural to my nature?’

“This passed through my imagination as I lay dosing; and I hugged my pillow, and seemed to wish never again to wake.

“‘But,’ I replied, ‘you were a slave to the great and the world. You feared to show regard to a man the world had deserted. You shrank from an ardent heart, whose only fault was its excess of affection,’” &c.

And so on; rather, as is evident, for the purpose of excusing to himself what share he might have had in their estrangement, than of reviving past ground of offence. But again and again he breaks out into a cry of lamentation, as if thenceforward for him there would be less of sunshine on the world.

But perhaps we anticipate too much. Wilkie, who had the start of his friend by dint of previous study in Edinburgh, rapidly rose into notice. In 1806 he received no less than three commissions for the “Village Politicians,” “The Blind Fiddler,” and “The Rent Day”—was patronised by Lords Mansfield and Mulgrave, and by Sir George Beaumont—and, in short, became a lion. Haydon all this while was drawing and studying anatomy under the late Sir Charles Bell, who was then laying the foundation of his future distinction. From these lectures and expositions he received much practical benefit.

His first picture, “Joseph and Mary resting on their way to Egypt,” which was exhibited in 1807, does not seem to have been very successful, and cost him enormous labour from his inexperience and ignorance of vehicle. But, through Wilkie, he became acquainted with the Beaumonts and Lord Mulgrave; was invited as a guest to their tables; and occasionally, by way of signifying his independence, waxed contradictory and argumentative, and made himself disagreeable. At no time of his life was Haydon qualified to shine in society. Imbued with vanity, he was never satisfied unless allowed to play the first fiddle, and even then he wished to concentrate the whole orchestra in himself. In a young man, who had seen nothing whatever of the world, this egotism was peculiarly offensive; and it is highly creditable to the good-nature and forbearance of his early patrons, that they overlooked his impertinence, and did not withdraw their encouragement. One or two commissions he received, and in 1810 gained the prize of one hundred guineas offered by the directors of the British Gallery for the best historical picture. That which he sent in was the “Dentatus,” already painted for Lord Mulgrave.

By this time Haydon was twenty-four. He had made a great stride in art by studying and drawing from the Elgin marbles, which had just come to this country, and which, to his credit, he was the first to appreciate. This made him a master of form and proportion, the qualities in which he excelled—grouping, expression, and fine harmonious colouring were those in which he was deficient. Hitherto he had been supported by his father, but now came his trials. That resource was withdrawn. It is but justice to Haydon’s memory to say that he does not appear to have been extravagant, or to have been addicted to the pursuit of pleasure. His life was remarkably pure and blameless, and he did not squander money upon mere sensual gratifications. But he grudged no expense for the purposes of art. His extravagance lay in models, which he cast and drew with an enthusiasm which is almost ludicrous—in a huge painting-room, and such like. He had no capital to start with; and, as he would paint neither portraits nor small pictures, he was forced to depend upon the doubtful success of immense historical pieces, which, in this country, have never found a ready sale. Then he had already quarrelled with the Academy on the old ground of injustice in the hanging of his pictures. It is the stock complaint of young artists; but it is to be hoped that the majority of those to come will behave more temperately than Haydon, and take warning by his example. His note, referring to this period, is valuable.

“This year (1810) might be considered as the beginning of those painful contests which have tormented my life for so many years. I was not independent, and had my fortune to get like Wilkie, who was at one time, I think, almost as fierce as myself; but the first blow Wilkie got, his sagacity showed him the power of his rivals, and he sunk down in submission, whilst my blood rose like a fountain. I returned, with all my might, blow for blow, and heated a furnace for my foe so hot, that I singed myself, reckless of consequences.

“All my youthful readers will say, ‘you were right.’ No, my young friends, I was not right; because I brought useless obstructions in my path, which, though they did not entirely prevent the development of my genius, brought it out in such agonising distresses, as will make you wonder, as you proceed, that I did not go raving mad; though, from the state of ignorance existing as to the value of High Art, I question whether, if I had been as quiet as a kitten, or more abject than Wilkie, the result would not have been just the same; whereas, by the eternal uproar I made, I indisputably kept alive the public attention.”

Rather paradoxical this! A confession of error, and a vindication of it in the same sentence. The truth is, Haydon’s combativeness was so largely developed, that under no possible circumstances could he have remained at peace.

He had begun by squabbling with the Academy, and he now squabbled with Sir George Beaumont, the first man of influence who had taken him by the hand, about “Macbeth.” The result was, that the picture was thrown on his hands, Haydon being at this time beyond £600 in debt. To his great misfortune, he had become intimately acquainted with Mr Leigh Hunt, then editor of the Examiner, a journal which then owed its reputation entirely to the catholicity of its abuse, from which, as now, the realms of Cockneydom were alone excepted. Haydon was exceedingly imprudent in having associated himself with such company, and afterwards acknowledged it, as the following extract will show:—

“Exasperated by the neglect of my family, tormented by the consciousness of debt, cut to the heart by the cruelty of Sir George, fearful of the severity of my landlord, and enraged at the insults from the Academy, I became furious. An attack on the Academy and its abominations darted into my head. I began by refuting an article by Payne Knight, on Barry, in the Edinburgh Review, which came out in the previous year. Sitting down one evening, I wrote on all night, and by morning I had completed my exposure for the Examiner, and walked about the room as if revenged and better.

“To expose the ignorance of a powerful patron (thus offending the patrons) and to attack the Academy (thus insuring an alliance of the academicians with the patrons) would have been at any time the worst and most impolitic thing on earth. I should have worked away and been quiet. My picture rose very high, and was praised. The conduct of Sir George was severely handled. People of fashion were beginning to feel sympathy. In fact, had I been quiet, my picture would have sold, the prize of three hundred guineas would have been won, and, in a short time, I might, in some degree, have recovered the shock his caprice had inflicted.

“But no. I was unmanageable. The idea of being a Luther or John Knox in art got the better of my reason. Leigh Hunt encouraged my feelings, and without reflection, and in spite of Wilkie’s entreaties, I resolved to assault. ‘Hunt,’ said Wilkie, ‘gets his living by such things; you will lose all chance of it. It is all very fine to be a reformer; but be one with your pencil and not with your pen!’”

Sounder advice could not have been given; but the rabies was upon Haydon, and he would not listen. First appeared the attack upon Payne Knight—next that on the Academy. Very improperly, as it appears to us, John Hunt, the brother of Leigh, on being questioned, divulged the name of the writer. Haydon tells the consequences.

“From this moment the destiny of my life may be said to have changed. My picture was caricatured, my name detested, my peace harassed; so great was the indignation at my impertinence that all merit was denied to ‘Macbeth.’

“West went down and did his best as president to damn the picture before a crowded room. Sir George was at once praised for his resistance to my insolent attempt to force on him a picture he, in fact, never ordered (it was said); and no excuse or palliation for me, either in the case of Sir George or the Academy, was listened to for a moment. I was looked at like a monster, abused like a plague, and avoided like a maniac.”

There is, of course, an immense deal of exaggeration in this. Haydon was not quite so formidable as he evidently wishes us to believe; neither were shafts from such a quiver armed with so formidable a barb. But he certainly did enough to make himself unpopular with the Academy, and to alienate those who, up to that time, had shown the warmest disposition to befriend him. Wilkie, whose name he had very improperly introduced in his diatribes, as one equally injured with himself, wrote him a most sensible, kind, and affectionate letter, which terminated thus:—

“You have certainly got plenty of work on your shoulders, and I should advise you to get out of it in the best way you can. But is this the way an artist should be engaged? Why not follow up the reputation your painting might gain you, and let that carry you through? It will lessen the respect people would have for your talents as a painter, when they find them employed disputing in a newspaper.

“I shall be miserable till I hear that you are going on with your picture—I shall then be assured that you have regained your peace of mind.”

Wilkie might have spared himself the trouble. Haydon had now convinced himself that he was a deeply injured man, had thrown down the gauntlet of defiance, and begun to write. His notion evidently was that he had made the whole of the Academicians his enemies for life.

How stood the fact? This escapade of his occurred in 1812, and immediately afterwards he began to paint the “Judgment of Solomon.” He was awfully in debt, which was constantly increasing, and at last we find him in perfect despair for a dinner. The kind-hearted owner of an eating-house, where he had dined for years, allowed him to run a score; and his landlord consented to wait for better times. It is a curious feature in human life that indulgences, so given, rarely stimulate to exertion. Haydon seems to have considered them as the proper acknowledgments of his genius, and to have idled more than he ever formerly had done. He got, too, into some sort of entanglement with “an infernal woman,” which seems to have caused him needless remorse, since he says, he “came off, thank God, without actual falling;” but possibly he may have committed himself unwarily, through the new habit, unfortunately acquired, of writing letters for the Examiner. He was then in the country; but, returning to London, he appears to have worked lazily, and for many months to have been in great distress, without credit anywhere, except for food and lodging. His new friends, Leigh and John Hunt, were then imprisoned for their libel on the Prince of Wales, and he had no one to apply to. He was very indolent, studying Italian when he should have been painting, and then chronicling his defalcations in his journal, without any visible effort at amendment. At last, in 1814, his position became desperate. From Hilton, an old fellow-student of his, he borrowed a considerable sum; but this would not suffice, and, just as his eyesight was failing, from inanition as he says, West, the President of the Academy, whom he had attacked, came in to his assistance. Although straightened in his own means, West sent him £15, an act of kindness which Haydon, indeed, acknowledges to have been “noble,” but which does not seem in the least degree to have modified his belief in the unrelenting persecution of the Academy. Men of letters and artists are strangely liable to this sort of delusion. Starting with an exaggerated view of their own importance, they regard criticism as the result of a deliberate conspiracy to put them down. They are such consummate gluttons of praise that they construe everything like censure into the outpouring of diabolical malignity. Certainly up to this time it does not appear that Haydon had suffered anything at the hands of the Academicians. If jealousy in any quarter prevailed, he had himself to blame as the aggressor; but there is not, in these journals, a scrap of evidence that the leading artists regarded him otherwise than with forbearance and compassion.

At length his picture was finished, but he would not exhibit it at the Academy. He sent it to the Water-Colour Society, which then admitted pictures, and it proved entirely successful. The “Judgment of Solomon” is generally considered as the best of Haydon’s paintings; it was again exhibited this season at the British Institution, and stood its ground well among some of the masterpieces of antiquity. It was purchased on the third day by the partners of a Devonshire banking-house, for the sum of six hundred guineas, the receipt of which enabled Haydon to discharge his most pressing claims, but it did not extricate him from his difficulties. On a review of his liabilities, just before sending the picture for exhibition, it appeared that he owed upwards of £1100.

Haydon’s exultation was naturally very great. He had indeed achieved a triumph, but, with his usual pugnacity, he could not entertain the idea of a triumph disconnected with the humiliation of an enemy. He estimated the value of success by the amount of opposition encountered, and, as usual, magnified the latter. That he was sincere, however, in his delusion, no one, we think, can doubt. The following is his pæan:—

“The success of Solomon was so great, and my triumph so complete, that had I died then my name must have stood on record as a youth who had made a stand against the prejudices of a country, the oppressions of rank, and the cruelty and injustice of two public bodies.

“It was a victory in every sense of the word. In my pursuit, I had proved the power of inherent talent, and I had done good to this great cause as far as I could do it. I did not command bayonets and cannons; would to God I had! But what I did command, I wielded with firmness and constancy. I had shown one characteristic of my dear country—bottom. I had been tried and not found wanting. I held out when feeble, and faint, and blind, and now I reaped the reward.”

So that, in the opinion of Haydon, he had not only to contend against the opposition of the Academy, but against the prejudices of the country, and the ill-will of the aristocracy! The last charge, in particular, is most ungracious. No one can peruse these volumes attentively without feeling amazed at the extent of the private liberality shown in his instance. The perverseness of the man in supposing himself to be the victim of a conspiracy, is the more unaccountable because he actually was receiving substantial acknowledgment of his talents. A few pages later, we find this entry: “The British Institution, on the proposition of Sir George Beaumont, seconded by Lord Mulgrave, voted me one hundred guineas, as a mark of admiration for the ‘Judgment of Solomon.’”

Some recreation was doubtless necessary for the re-establishment of his health, but hardly to the extent he allowed himself. More than six months elapsed before he commenced seriously to work at his next picture. His difficulties were again increasing.

“February 25th (1815).—The more I reflect on my nature, the more I am convinced of my adaptation to great difficulties. I am once again without a farthing. I have paid off the greatest part of my debts. The price of ‘Solomon’ was so inadequate, that my models and journey have swept off most of the rest. So far from being depressed, my breast broadens at the contemplation of conquering. I look upon all difficulties as stimulants to action. I have £200 to pay the twenty-first of next month. As yet I have not a sixpence towards it; but in God I trust who has always relieved me. Let me but be successful in realising my conceptions in my day’s labour, and what shall subdue me but extinction?”

That Haydon was a fervent believer in Christianity, and constant in prayer, is evident from every page of his journal. There is in the first of these volumes a very remarkable account of a conversation which he held with Shelley, and another literary character (whose name, we presume, from his being still alive, is withheld), on the subject of Christianity; and Haydon records emphatically the keen disgust with which he listened to their flippant blasphemies. Nevertheless, we agree with Mr Taylor that his religiousness is rather puzzling. His prayers are most special—he implores direction for mixing colours, and perfecting a head; and, in regard to his worldly circumstances, he seems rather to have expected a miraculous interposition in his favour, than a blessing on his earnest labour. How else can we understand his remarkable indifference to pecuniary matters, and the almost defiant strain in which the foregoing paragraph is written? He had just begun a work, “The Entry of Christ into Jerusalem,” which, even with unremitting effort, would take a long time before it could be completed, and which was actually not completed until six years had expired. He was worse than penniless—he was deep in debt, and he had to support himself all that time. It never seems to have occurred to him that, even if his picture should be successful to an extent hitherto unparalleled, he must be a loser, inasmuch as he would be necessitated to borrow money in the mean time, and could not hope ultimately to clear such a sum as would defray the intermediate expenses. On he went. £200 paid in advance from a Liverpool commission (which, alas, was not executed till a long period afterwards), and a similar sum from Sir George Beaumont for the despised “Macbeth,” were all the earnings—if we may call them so—which he received. But he took to borrowing. First he had recourse to the money-lenders, who discounted bills on the usual extortionate terms. Then he got £300 from a Mr Harman; £400 from old Mr Coutts the banker, having been acquainted previously with Miss Mellon; also, he fell back upon Sir George Beaumont, from whom he received an additional supply. The latter urged and entreated him most earnestly to turn his talents to some purpose.

“Pray excuse me if I again take the opportunity of recommending some profitable mode of practice. I know you object to portraits, although the dignity you would be able to give them, so far from degrading, would greatly add to your reputation; and the greatest artists have not considered the practice as beneath their notice. Again, painting fancy heads, and other smaller works, would be a relief from severer studies, and be very likely to answer the purpose. Indeed, my dear sir, you must attend to this necessary concern, or circumstances more mortifying than what I recommend cannot fail to attend you.”

Even Haydon could not deny the truth of this, but the pride of the artist in the Grand Style rebelled. He had somehow or other convinced himself, that, instead of his working like an ordinary mortal for his own support, it was the duty of the country to support him; and, true to that convenient faith, he thus reasoned:—

“His letter was prophetic; but all my friends were always advising me what to do, instead of advising the Government what to do for me. Now, a different course, I have no hesitation in saying, would have prevented my necessities, and developed what powers I had. Dear Sir George’s advice was kind and good, but it was yielding the question of public support; and as I had made up my mind to bring that about by storm, I disdained Sir George’s timid caution, and flew at my picture, come what might.”

It is not very easy to understand what Haydon meant. Supposing that he had received a Government commission in the Grand Style, which was the only one he would condescend to undertake, that could not have benefited him more than his private pictures, unless, indeed, he was to have been allowed his own time, and to have painted upon salary. He appears to have been a slow worker, and very liable to fits of intermission, which, we believe, is the invariable tendency in the composition of all large and lengthy works. A very large picture is like an epic—no man can accomplish it at a heat. It must be studied, altered, and retouched—laid aside and again resumed, with time enough in the intervals to allow the imagination to cool, before the artist can satisfy himself of the worthiness of his own work. That Art ought to be countenanced and encouraged by the State, we maintain as strenuously as Haydon; but we demur to the proposition that it is the duty of the Government to provide for every clever painter who chooses to be eccentric enough to deprive himself of the opportunities of his profession.

With singular bad taste, and almost inconceivable impudence, Haydon varied his toils by attacking the Academy afresh; and, if his own account of his literary performances be true, it is no wonder if he made enemies. He says:—

“It is a pity I allowed my mind to act again through the pen when the pencil was my real instrument, but the temptation was irresistible; and then I thought of doing good by implanting sound principles of patronage in a proper quarter. I might, perhaps, have done this without irritating and exasperating the Academicians. Yet, regarding them as a great body who influenced and prejudiced the aristocracy, it was impossible to touch on art without finding the Academy at every point checking, misleading, and obstructing. Every weapon of attack was resorted to—ridicule, sarcasm, allegory, and insinuation, with such success that a member said, ‘By-and-by a man will be afraid to become an Academician.’”

And why was all this anger, the reverse of celestial, displayed? Simply, in so far as we can see, because Haydon thought that his pictures had not been well hung at the Academy, and because he was not an Academician himself. Pass we to 1820 when his picture at last was completed. A room was engaged for its exhibition at the rate of £300 a-year; and yet so poor was Haydon that he was again compelled to borrow from Sir George Beaumont and Messrs Coutts the sum necessary to procure the fittings. The exhibition was upon the whole successful. In London the profit, after payment of expenses, amounted to nearly £1300; and in Edinburgh and Glasgow, where the picture was likewise exhibited, he appears to have drawn about £900. All that, however, had been long anticipated. He was hopelessly in the mire; and, to make matters worse, he married!

Within eighteen months afterwards, he was lodged in the King’s Bench Prison, and finally passed through the Insolvent Court.

“It is pleasant,” says Mr Taylor, “to find so many proofs of substantial sympathy in the letters Haydon received during his confinement. Lord Mulgrave, Sir Edward Codrington, Brougham, Sir Walter Scott, Barnes (of the Times), his fast friend, Miss Mitford, were all prompt and helpful. His active friend and physician, Dr Darling, with Sir George Beaumont, Wilkie, and others as practically benevolent, bought at the sale many of his casts, prints, and painting materials, so that he might have a nucleus for beginning work upon on coming out of prison.”

From the King’s Bench he addressed a petition to the House of Commons, setting forth his own case as an instance of the deplorable lack of encouragement given to historical painters in England, and praying that such assistance might be given to that branch of art, as might place the professors of it on a level with the sculptors to whom government patronage had been liberally extended. This was, so far as we know, the first time that the claims of art for national encouragement were broadly and boldly asserted; and Haydon was not the man to be silenced by a single refusal—for years afterwards he continued to assail Ministers on the subject.

“Nothing daunted, he kept pouring in page after page of passionate pleading on Sir Charles Long, on Mr Vansittart, on Mr Robinson, on the Duke of Wellington, on Lord Grey, on Sir Robert Peel, on Lord Melbourne, on Sir Robert Peel again, and seemed to be making no way whatever with any of them. But our new Houses of Parliament are to have their statues, and their frescoes, and their oil pictures; and Haydon lived to take a part (though an unsuccessful one) in the first competition intended to test the capability of our artists for such work.”

Rejoicing as we do at the recent encouragement given by the state, for the prosecution of art in the higher branches, we are yet apprehensive of the effect this may have upon the rising school of painters. We should be sorry to see their attention exclusively turned to the “grand style,” which, in painter’s language, means the composition of gigantic pictures. If one Haydon, allowed to be the best historical painter of his time, could not, although seldom in want of commissions, provide for the necessities of a single year, how is it possible for twenty Haydons to thrive, even though the state were annually to assign a large sum for their employment? It is not with us, as it was in Italy, where the decoration of the churches afforded the noblest scope for the genius of the painter—so much so, that they are now regarded by the world as the temples of art rather than of religion. It is in vain to hope that in a Protestant country this will be allowed. No regard for art, or sympathy for its professors, will persuade us to convert our churches into picture-galleries; and if the same rigid rule has not been applied to sculpture, it is on account of the monumental associations inseparably connected with the marble. Our public and municipal halls are decorated, not with historical paintings, but with portraits, which has ever been in Britain the favourite branch of art. We do not put up gladiators or Venuses in our streets and squares—we place there the statues of kings, warriors, and statesmen. Italian art can flourish kindly only under an Italian sky. The construction of our mansions is in accordance with the nature of our climate. Except in those dwellings of the high nobility, which are literally palaces, there are no galleries or saloons adapted for the reception of large works, and the best proof of the unfitness of these for our domestic arrangements is that they seldom retain their value. For example, just three years after its completion, Haydon’s large picture of the “Entry into Jerusalem” was sold for £240—that of “Lazarus,” which he esteemed even more, for £300; and the creditor, who bought it for exhibition, lost as much more by the speculation.

Art, like everything else, must be regulated, depressed, or elevated according to the demand for its productions. The epic is considered, almost universally, as the highest form of poetry; but it is extremely doubtful whether a new epic, even of the highest merit, would now command a sale. Is the state, then, with the view of elevating the public taste, to give commissions for epics? The idea is sufficiently absurd; and yet poetry, from its universality, is clearly to be ranked above painting.

And yet we have a British school, and its productions are greatly admired and prized. We shall not, for obvious reasons, refer to living artists, though, if we were to do so, we could mention several names which undoubtedly will hereafter be classed with those of the highest European renown. But take Wilson, Gainsborough, Reynolds, Wilkie, and Turner. None of these men pretended to the “Grand Style,” and yet see how their fame endures! Who would not rather have a masterpiece from the hands of one of them, than a specimen of gigantic grotesqueness neither classical nor romantic, such as is now called in the style of the highest art? It is a vast mistake to suppose that figures constructed from the models of prize-fighters, or of the nymphs of the Walhalla, are either heroic or beautiful. The style and expression of art, like those of thought, must vary according to the country that gives them birth.

We are led to make these observations, because we wish to see the British school remain uncontaminated by imitation. At present, the tendency is to Germanise, and to adopt the German manner. Hence the rage for frescoes, and for unlimited cartoons. In the indulgence of this, we see nothing but future disappointment for the artists. It is to the great body of the public that artists must ultimately look for encouragement; and, whatever may be their confidence in their own theories, they cannot hope to change the popular perception. Let art, by all means, be encouraged; but in the proper direction. There is a very great deal in the observation of Haydon, that the noble and wealthy of this country are well disposed towards the encouragement of art, but sadly ignorant of its principles. We are quite of his opinion that there ought to be in every one of our universities an æsthetical chair, for the purpose of tracing the history of art, and exercising its productions. This would greatly tend to elevate the general taste, and would, we think, be of much benefit to the artists, whose position, as a highly intellectual class of men, has not yet been sufficiently recognised.

Unfortunate Haydon! After obtaining his discharge, he had to begin life anew; but with the burden of a wife and family. Even his obstinacy gave way before the absolute necessity of something like remunerative labour, and he began to paint portraits, and small pictures; but he was successful in neither department. He had studied the heroic so long that he could not get rid of it.

“The great drawback,” says Mr Taylor, “was the reception his critics gave his portraits when exhibited. Their attacks took what Haydon calls ‘a new direction.’ The painter was assailed through the personal peculiarities of his sitters. It is natural enough to find the angry artist expressing an opinion that this is a cruel and deep-laid plot to injure him, at his starting on this more lucrative branch of his calling; but we shall perhaps do the critics more justice, if we believe that Haydon’s portraits had something about them provokingly open to ridicule. The heroic style of treatment could hardly have been adapted to a comfortable citizen family, or a provincial ex-mayor. Indeed, I am assured that, in the latter performance, he had represented the mayor of proportions too heroic even to have got through a door-way, out of which he was supposed to have issued in his civic state.”

In fact, he hated portrait-painting, and complained of being cramped in the composition of small pictures. He longed to be at the gigantic canvass again. Still, he had a good deal of employment, and, had he persevered, might have overcome his difficulties; but a new commission tempted him, and he again plunged into the Grand Style. In 1827, he was again arrested for debt.

The rest of his story is a record of perpetual struggle, not so much against debt as against payment. He became familiar with the King’s Bench Prison, where he painted his “Mock Election,” and “Chairing of the Member;” and, when not in jail, exerted his powers of borrowing to the uttermost. He had no hesitation in applying to those upon whom he had not the slightest claim, and expressed himself as an injured man if they refused. He painted the “Reform Banquet,” and lost money by it. He pestered Sir Robert Peel and the Duke of Wellington to take colossal pictures until his importunity became intolerable. He addressed a furious letter to his kind friend and most indulgent landlord, Newton, to whom he was indebted for heavy arrears of rent, and threatened him with a notice to quit! Then he lectured on art—and lectured well—but that would not suffice for his support. A more wretched life than his it is hardly possible to conceive. The gleams of fortune that visited him—for some of his pictures brought good prices, and one was purchased by the King—were all illusory; he was inextricably and hopelessly entangled. And yet all this while he was in communication with some of the first men, both political and literary, of the age—was addicted to no degrading vice, and endeavoured, as he best could, to rear and educate his children. Indeed, in his domestic relations, he appears in a most amiable light, striving manfully to avert the blow of misfortune from those whom he was bound to protect, however heavily it might fall on his own head. What agony must have possessed the soul of this unfortunate man, when he penned the following sentence!

“The greatest curse that can befall a fellow in England is to have a son gifted with a passion and a genius for high art. Thank God, with all my soul and all my nature, my children have witnessed the harassing agonies under which I have ever painted; and the very name of painting, the very name of high art, the very thought of a picture, gives them a hideous and disgusting taste in their mouths. Thank God, not one of my boys, nor my girl, can draw a straight line even with a ruler, much less without one; and I pray God, on my knees, with my forehead bent to the earth, and my lips to the dust, that He will in His mercy afflict them with every other passion, appetite, or misery—with wretchedness, disease, insanity, or gabbling idiotism, rather than a longing for painting—that scorned, miserable art—that greater imposture than the human species it imitates!”

Evidently this was not his serious thought—it was but a wild and frantic ejaculation, uttered in a paroxysm of despair; but it serves to show how tremendous his agony must have been. When that was penned, he was well-nigh sixty years of age; and what triumphs had he to show? In his fortunes he was an utterly broken man, almost a beggar; for what else is he who is constantly supplicating for loans which he knows he can never repay? Some of his best pictures, on which he rested his hopes of fame, had been thrown aside and neglected. He had not made friends with his cotemporaries, and he was distanced in popularity by many of the rising generation of artists. With all his vanity, he could not delude himself into the idea that he had won the popular support—the failure of his later Exhibitions had given too distinct a proof of the reverse. He had passed the best years of his life in active opposition to the Academy, and now he found himself almost an outcast from his fellows.

There can be, we think, no doubt that in secret he deeply regretted this, and deplored the rashness of his former conduct. In 1826 he attempted a reconciliation, but his pride interfered to prevent it. It was then that he held the following conversation with the elder Reinagle, which will explain what we have just said regarding the neglect of his pictures.

“‘Where is your Solomon, Mr Haydon?’ ‘Hung up in a grocer’s shop.’ ‘Where your Jerusalem?’ ‘In a wareroom in Holborn.’ ‘Where your Lazarus?’ ‘In an upholsterer’s shop in Mount Street.’ ‘And your Macbeth?’ ‘In Chancery.’ ‘Your Pharaoh?’ ‘In an attic, pledged.’ ‘Good heavens! and your Crucifixion?’ ‘In a hay-loft.’ ‘And Silenus?’ ‘Sold for halfprice.’”

Haydon constantly uses, in his Journal, expressions which would lead to the conclusion that he had suffered some heinous wrong or insult at the hands of the Academicians. We believe that charge to be utterly unfounded; indeed, the only grievance that he has particularised is the unfortunate position assigned to his “Dentatus,” in the exhibition of 1809. He himself admits, that whenever he chose to approach the Academicians individually, he was kindly and courteously received; and, so late as 1842, an overture appears to have been made to him on the part of his brethren. The entry is characteristic.

“October 11th.—Collins called to-day, and in the course of conversation said, ‘I really think you ought to join us.’ I said nothing.

“The state of the question is this. All the objects I have fought for are coming. If they are realised without the Academy claiming me as a member, I am victorious, isolated, unsanctioned by rank or station. If they induce me to join them, and the victory comes after, they will claim a share in the honour of an achievement they have always tried to oppose. So, if I am great, and let things take their course, whether I benefit or not individually, my character is consistent before the country. I would not lose that character in dear old England for all the treasures of the earth.

“My dear old friend and fellow-student, Collins, is anxious for me to join the Academy; but how can I? It is too late. After having brought up my family, through every species of misery, to distinction and honour, am I now to show that, after all, their honours were necessary? Oh! no, no; the compromise of principle would be dreadful. Let me do as I have lived, O God! and give me strength of mind to resist temptation, for I see it’s coming. And let me live in the hearts of my countrymen, like John Milton and William Shakespeare! Ah! may I be worthy—may I be worthy! Amen.”

But the heaviest blow of all was yet to fall upon him. In 1843, that grand dream of his life—a competition of native artists for the purpose of testing their capability of executing great monumental and decorative works—was realised, and cartoons were directed to be given in. Haydon became a competitor. We never saw the cartoons which he exhibited, and consequently cannot offer any opinion upon their merits; but this much seems certain, that he had greatly overrated his own capabilities of execution. Mr Taylor says,—

“He would not admit to himself that his powers were impaired; that he was less fit for great achievements than when he painted Solomon and Lazarus. But if he held this opinion himself, he held it alone. It was apparent to all, and to none more than to his warmest and truest friends, that years of harassment, humiliation, distraction, and conflict, had enfeebled his energies, and led him to seek in exaggeration (to which even in his best days he had been prone) the effect he could no longer attain by well-measured force. His restless desire to have a hand in all that was projected for art had wearied those in authority; and even his old and sincere friend, the secretary of the Commission, was unable to put forward his name without the chance of doing him more injury than service. He had shown himself too intractable to follow, and he had not inspired that confidence which might have given him a right to lead.”

On the day appointed for the decision, his cartoons were passed over, and the prize was awarded to others!

This was the prostrating stroke, and from it he never recovered. Although he did not directly question the justice of the decision, he appears to have persuaded himself that an evil influence was at work against him; and that it was predetermined by his enemies, that, come what might, he should not carry the prize. “The Academy,” says he, “the Government, and the Commission, thoroughly understand each other. They have all made up their minds that I must be sacrificed, as a successful rebel, because I have succeeded, in spite of four ruins, and will keep my ground in spite of four more. My cartoons, therefore, it was clearly predetermined, were not to be rewarded, on the principle of authority being supported at all hazards.” These are but wild and wayward words; but they show how deeply the arrow had penetrated. It is impossible not to feel for Haydon, who really had done more than any other man to force the subject of the encouragement of art upon the government, and had made enormous sacrifices by doing so. But he was beaten in a fair competition, such as he had himself recommended, and he had no cause to complain. Perhaps, indeed, the consciousness that the decision was a just one, was, to a man imbued with such vanity as his, the bitterest pang of all. With regard to future public employment, irrespective of his defeat, he had so unmercifully abused the patience of every man in power, and made such a glaring revelation of his impracticable nature, that no one would have been justified in offering it to him. Still, we think that some generosity might have been shown, and some acknowledgment made, to a man distinguished in his day, now well up in years, and who had laboured incessantly, and almost single-handed, for that very object which the Government had recognised as legitimate. We grant the difficulty of the case; but we cannot read this tragedy without feeling a poignant regret that something was not done to avert the woeful catastrophe.

But the old spirit was not yet extinguished, and after a brief interval, the misery of which no one can tell, for the news of his disappointment brought a swarm of creditors upon him, he again set to work, painting Napoleons, Wellingtons, anything, to provide for immediate necessities, but having in his heart one last object—an exhibition of pictures, on the subjects which he had long before proposed for the decoration of the old House of Peers—to prove to the world the extent of his powers, and the injustice of the award of the Royal Commissioners. He worked hard, and he worked long, but still he could not get over the feeling of disappointment, and the wound was opened afresh when the commissions were actually given. “All the young men,” he writes, “have got commissions—Bell, Marshall, Foley, Maclise, and others. I am totally left out, after forty-one years’ suffering and hard work, with my Lazarus, and Curtius, and Uriel, before their eyes; and being, too, the whole and sole designer for the House of Lords, in the first instance, and the cause of the thing being done at all.” This brings us to the conclusion of the year 1845. What follows is the first entry in his journal for the last year of his life.

“1846. January 1st.—O God, bless the beginning, progression, and conclusion of this year, for Jesus Christ’s sake, my dear family, my art, and myself!

“The ‘Nero’ to-day looks well; but I am very uneasy. I cannot keep my word for want of means. I paid away too rapidly, and left myself bare; and have now to struggle—paint—conceive—borrow—promise, and fly at my picture—get enchanted—and awake out of a delicious dream to think of the butcher. But in God I trust. At sixty, men are not so bold as at twenty-five; but why not? If Napoleon had behaved with the same spirit in 1815 as on the 13th Brumaire, he would not have died at St Helena.

“There is no competition till next year. If I lose this moment for showing all my works, it never can occur again....

“I shall never have a great opportunity again of connecting myself with a great public commission by opposition, and interesting the public in the contrast. If I miss it, it will be a tide not taken at its flood.”

It can have been only in the desperate hope of still obtaining public employment that Haydon persisted in the execution of these large pictures; for the next entry in his journal is a statement of the profit and loss on his various exhibitions for the twenty-six years immediately preceding. Four of these exhibitions were profitable, while six entailed a loss. Deducting the loss from the profits, there remains a balance of £1466 in the artist’s favour for ten exhibitions, and of this no less than £1453 was derived from the “Entry into Jerusalem.” Setting that one picture aside, the profits upon Haydon’s exhibitions in the gross barely sufficed to cover the expenditure. All his later exhibitions had proved failures, therefore it is not likely that Haydon could have expected a direct return from the efforts of his old age. He wished probably to keep himself before the view of the public, in the hope that his case, certainly a hard one, might awaken sympathy, and lead to a withdrawal of that sentence of exclusion which he believed to have been passed against him.

But he was imprudent in all things. Three months before his exhibition opened, he sent an advertisement to the newspapers, in which he impugned not only the selection of artists by the Commission, but the style of the artists selected: at least that is the only interpretation which we can put upon an announcement which is rather a criticism upon others than an appeal in behalf of himself. The following is an extract from it:—

“This exhibition will open in no spirit of opposition to the Government plan about to be put in force, but with the view of letting the public see that works, endeavoured to be executed on the principles of the great masters of the British school, founded on those established by the greater men of other schools, are perfectly consistent with the decoration of any building, Grecian or Gothic, and that there is no necessity for endangering the practice of the British schools by the adoption of the wild theories of a sect of foreigners, who have considered the accidental ignorance of an early age as a principle fit to guide an enlightened one. The British school was progressing to excellence five years ago, and would have attained it, had not the weak recommendation of absurd fancies thrown the young men off the right road, and the whole school into confusion. Backgrounds are now considered a vulgarity; rotundity of imitation, the proofs of a debased mind; nature, a nuisance, and the necessity of models, evidence of no poetry of soul; portraits are beginning to appear with coats of arms sticking to their noses; the petty details of decoration and patterns of borders take place of expression and features; and all those great doctrines which the experience of centuries established, are now questioned with the dandy air of infinite superiority to Titian, Rubens, Velasquez, Reynolds, Vandyke, Michael Angelo’s Prophets, or Raffaele’s Cartoons. The end of such a state of things may be easily predicted; and Mr Haydon respectfully hopes his humble attempt to prove there is no occasion to change the principles of the school for the purpose of decoration will be supported by the sound sense of the people. He was the first to petition the House for State support to high art—he was the first to petition for schools of design—he was the first to plan the decoration of the old House of Lords, and to keep up the excitement till it was resolved to decorate the new—he has devoted forty-two years, without omission of a day, to simplify the principles of the art for the instruction of the people; and having been utterly neglected when all his plans have been adopted, he appeals to the public to support his exhibition, that he may be able to complete the series he has planned.”

Ah, poor Haydon! All his experience had not sufficed to teach him that appeals of this nature are the weakest that can be urged. He dwells upon his many efforts, his long labours, and the neglect of him as an artist, as if these were so many claims to public support; not reflecting that, to the uninitiated (and how few are initiated in art!) these very circumstances would appear conclusive arguments against him. A mere tyro would, in this case, have had a better chance than a veteran. If a young man, hitherto unknown, had risen up, denounced the prevailing taste as vicious, flung down his gauntlet to the Commissioners, and declared that he was ready to give proof, by his own works, that they were corrupting instead of advancing art, the curiosity of the public might have been stimulated by the mere audacity of the challenge. But Haydon, by his own confession, had been forty-two years before the public; and during twenty-six of these his reputation, instead of increasing, had declined. He was a man marked by many defeats, and was now reclaiming against the last of these as a wrong. And he had none to back him. No portion of the press maintained that, in the matter of the decision as to the cartoons, the judgment of the Commissioners was wrong. Therefore we are not surprised that this announcement, appeal, or criticism of his passed almost unregarded by the many. Some, who remembered his earlier efforts, may have regarded it with pity or with sorrow—pity for the disappointments of the man, and sorrow for the imprudence of the appeal. But it failed to awaken sympathy, because he asked it only as an artist. Had the appeal been made solely on behalf of Haydon—had it been stated that, after so many years of labour and misfortune, his last hope of success rested upon this exhibition—we are anxious to believe that the public would have responded readily to such a call. But he did not ask support for himself; he asked it for his principles, which few cared for or understood. In art, novelty is much. People will rush for a year or two to gaze at pre-Raphaelite paintings, or any other whimsical monstrosity, not because they really admire, but because the spectacle is something new. But that does not last long; and the enterprising innovator must either fall back upon the principles of common sense, or submit to become a laughingstock. Poor Haydon had no novelty to offer as an enticement. He and his paintings and his principles had been long before the public, and had not met with due appreciation. If there was no reaction in his favour before, it was in vain to expect it now.

Darker and darker gather the clouds as we approach towards the close of his existence. More miseries—more hardships! On the 6th of April his last exhibition, consisting of the “Banishment of Aristides,” and the “Burning of Rome,” was opened, and the receipts of the first day amounted to £1, 1s. 6d. On no one day were two pounds taken at the doors! And why was this? Because, as we verily believe, the bulk of the British public care nothing about what is called “High Art,” and because Haydon had outlived his reputation.

If the former of our conclusions is challenged, and if we are asked to reconcile this alleged indifference of the public to “High Art,” with the enthusiasm which greeted Haydon’s earlier picture of the “Entry into Jerusalem,” we refer to what we have just said regarding the advantage which the assertor of some supposed new principle possesses over the veteran whose day has gone by. When the “Entry into Jerusalem” was painted, Haydon, then comparatively a young man, was at open warfare with the Academy, setting old constituted authority at defiance, and was, in point of fact, a far better historical painter than West, the President, whose meagre works were still within the recollection of the public. He was then fighting what seemed a winning battle. The subject, too, had its high and awful interest; whereas no one, in truth, cared the value of a straw for Aristides. There was, and is, no party in the country in favour of gigantic pictures. Haydon, with all his talent, never reached sublimity; and there are none of all his works that can properly be styled perfect. As we have already said, even his most popular pictures were characterised by a certain degree of exaggeration, which tendency was not modified by experience; and that which was originally a blemish, his innate pugnacity prompted him to defend and repeat as a beauty. As to the latter conclusion, we apprehend we need say nothing. There is always a culminating point; and men regard with far more earnest interest the rising than the setting star.

But to poor Haydon himself, knowing, what the world did not, the depth of misery at home, and forced to contemplate the future lot of his dear ones—to a man of his pride, vanity, high impressions of art, and stubbornness—what must have been the effect of this decisive proof that the sympathy of the public was not with him? We find it in his own journal. At the time his pictures were exhibited—at the time when life or death were staked upon the cast—that diminutive human abortion, Tom Thumb, was strutting on a table for the delectation of the London gazers. We do not blame them. All men have their tastes, and so have women and children; and many thousands would rather have seen that dwarf gesticulate than have listened to the full melodies of Shakespeare. Why not? It was the same in ancient times. The Romans never could get up a national drama—they preferred a show of gladiators, or an exhibition of the combats of beasts, to the most powerful efforts of the tragic muse.

But who could have said that to Haydon in the midst of his frantic despair? Few men of genius—and it boots not now to inquire how much of the blame was his own—have been so sorely tried at the last. Far greater men than he was have gone to their graves, indifferent as to the opinion of their contemporaries, and in the assured faith that posterity would do them justice—but these were men who never had relied on the current of popular opinion, and were content to die without immediate acknowledgment. Haydon was not one of them. He could not, like Correggio, commit his fame, with confidence, to the verdict of a coming generation; he required the decision instantly, and was compelled to do so, because upon that his reason or his life depended. Awful was the abyss before him!

Here is his commentary upon the miserable receipts of his exhibition on Easter Monday, a day to which he had looked forward in sanguine expectation that the tide would turn in his favour. £1, 3s. 6d. was taken at the door.

“They rush by thousands to see Tom Thumb. They push, they fight, they scream, they faint, they cry Help and Murder! and oh! and ah! They see my bills, my boards, my caravans, and don’t read them. Their eyes are open, but their sense is shut. It is an insanity, a rabies, a madness, a furor, a dream.

“I would not have believed it of the English people.”

Singular instance of faith, that could withstand, for so many years, the almost daily and ever-increasing experience of the fickleness of the world!

“May 18th.—I closed my exhibition this day, and have lost £111, 8s. 10d. No man can accuse me of showing less energy, less spirit, less genius, than I did twenty-six years ago. I have not decayed, but the people have been corrupted. I am the same, they are not; and I have suffered in consequence.

“I used to accuse Napoleon of want of energy in not driving out the senate after Waterloo, as he did on the 18th Brumaire. But he knew men better than I. It would have been useless; he was not altered, they were.”

And yet he painted on—hard, energetically at work, between the intervals of absolute distraction—on his picture of Alfred, intended to be the third of the series. He did so, because in art only could he find a momentary respite from his miseries. He even worked with more frantic energy than before; for abstraction of thought was his opiate, and in visions of the past alone could he take refuge from the anguish of the present. But the moment he dropped the pencil from his wearied hand, the Furies were again upon him.

“23d.—Awoke at three, in very great agony of mind; and lay awake till long after five, affected by my position. Prayed God, as David did, and fell asleep happier, but still fearing.

“I took the original sketch of Uriel, and went to my landlord, and asked him to buy it in vain. At last I offered it to him if he would lend me £1 to pay an instalment, when failure would have been certain ruin. He assented, and I left a beautiful sketch. I then came home, and darted at my picture. I have done a great deal this week under all circumstances, and advanced the masses of the drapery for my jury. Here lie Aristides and Nero, unasked for, unfelt for, rolled up—Aristides, a subject Raffaele would have praised and complimented me on! Good God!—and £111, 11s. 5d. lost by showing it!”

On June 11th there is this entry:—

“I have £15 to pay to-morrow, without a shilling. How I shall manage to get seven hours’ peace for work, and yet satisfy my creditors, Heaven only knows.

“£30, Newton, on the 25th; £31, 17s. 6d., Newman, same day; £26, 10s., Coutts, on the 24th; £29, 16s. 9d., Gillotts, on the 29th; £17, 10s. 6d. to baker,—in all £136, 14s. 10d. this month, with only 18s. in the house; nothing coming in—all received; one large picture painting, and three more getting ready, and Alfred’s head to do. In God alone I trust, in humility. * * *

“16th.—I sat from two till five staring at my picture like an idiot, my brain pressed down by anxiety and anxious looks of my dear Mary and children, whom I was compelled to inform.”

He had written to Sir Robert Peel, among others, stating his circumstances. The answer was prompt and kind, and in these terms:—

“Sir,—I am sorry to hear of your continual embarrassments. From a limited fund which is at my disposal, I send as a contribution to your relief from those embarrassments the sum of £50.”

But that could not rescue the poor man. As the month drew towards its termination, the horror became greater that his intellect could bear. The following are the last entries in his journal.

“18th.—O God, bless me through the evils of this day. Great anxiety. My landlord, Newton, called. I said, ‘I see a quarter’s rent in thy face, but none from me!’ I appointed to-morrow night to see him, and lay before him every iota of my position. ‘Good-hearted Newton!’ I said, ‘don’t put in an execution.’ ‘Nothing of the sort,’ he repeated, half hurt.

“I sent the Duke, Wordsworth, dear Fred, and Mary’s heads to Miss Barrett to protect. I have the Duke’s boots and hat, and Lord Grey’s coat, and some other heads.

“20th.—O God, bless us all through the evils of this day. Amen.

“21st.—Slept horribly. Prayed in sorrow, and got up in agitation.

“22d.—God forgive me. Amen.

Finis
of
B. R. Haydon.

“Stretch me no longer on this rough world.’—Lear.

“End of twenty-sixth volume.”

He died by his own hand.

A more profoundly melancholy history than this it is impossible to conceive. But if the records of one life of ambition and misery, fairly and truthfully written, can avail as a warning to others, these volumes have not been published in vain. Genius, it must be acknowledged, too often needs a monitor. It is rash and eccentric—over-confident, and always seeking to conquer; with its eye bent on the glories from afar, it cannot guide its steps along the common pathway of existence. Of devotion to art, or literature, or science in any branch, we desire to speak most reverently. We know that many of the most important services rendered to mankind have been performed by humble men labouring sedulously in seclusion, and shutting themselves out from the external world almost as carefully as did the alchemists of old, when brooding over their electuaries and alembics. But these men were, like all others, subject to the laws of society, and were compelled, somehow, to earn their daily bread, however humble might be their fare. And in this they followed the apostolic example, for we find that even Paul, after he had received his world-wide mission, did not deem himself absolved from the common lot, but laboured diligently at his craft, as a duty, that he might not be a burden upon his fellows. The possession of genius does not exempt men from the ordinary cares of life; they are, after all, but men; they must eat, drink, be clothed and lodged like the other children of Adam; there is no exemption in their favour from the weight of the primitive curse. It is one thing to abandon high aims and impulses in order to acquire wealth, and another to labour diligently in order that they may have the freer scope. It is all very well to talk disparagingly about Pegasus in the yoke; to that restraint Pegasus must needs submit, else a worse thing will befall him. Some faint suspicion of this seems to have passed across the mind of Haydon when he penned the following observation: “Homer begged; Tasso begged in a different way; Galileo was racked; De Witt assassinated, and all for wishing to improve their species. At the same time Raffaele, Michael Angelo, Zeuxis, Apelles, Rubens, Reynolds, Titian, Shakespeare, were rich and happy. Why? because with their genius they combined practical prudence. I believe this is the secret.” Haydon, however, could not shape his course accordingly. From first to last he belonged to that unhappy class who are constantly looking out for what they call “the good time coming;” forgetting that every man must be the architect of his own fortune, that the success of to-morrow depends upon the labour of to-day, and that as we sow, so also must we reap. We doubt not that he indulged in glowing anticipations of fame and fortune; but he neglected to take the simplest means towards their attainment, thereby placing himself, from the very commencement of his career, at a sore disadvantage. It cannot be too often repeated, that to an artist or a literary man, early debt is ruin. It is easy to find an excuse for incurring the first obligation; but the very facility with which that has been obtained becomes a temptation to a second; and very soon the unfortunate borrower finds himself so entangled, that no late exertion of industry can set him free. If we are met with the question, What ought Haydon to have done in the earlier part of his career? We answer unhesitatingly, that he ought to have painted portraits—sign-posts—anything, rather than have sacrificed his independence. After all, as we have seen, he was driven to paint portraits in his latter years; but the employment which he then felt as a degradation, and regarded with disgust, would, had he applied himself to it earlier, have been the means not only of affording him a competency, but of giving him free and unharassed leisure to carry out his more ambitious schemes. The casual reader of this work will be amazed to find so many entries of squandered time. In the very midst of his difficulties, months would elapse without Haydon’s taking up his pencil, and those periods of idleness he condemns as “the delinquency of infatuation.” For our part, we should not be inclined to use so harsh a term. Such works as Haydon was engaged in will not admit of continuous and unbroken application. In their composition the faculties must be exerted to the utmost, and both passion and imagination must be excited. That is the case alike with the painter and the poet—if it is otherwise, the pictures of the one and the words of the other will be cold and unsympathetic. Now such a mood of mind is exceedingly exhausting, and moreover cannot always be assumed at pleasure. Some men—we might instance Schiller—have sacrificed their lives in the attempt to prolong this excitement; for nature, whenever overtasked, demands a period of repose, or at least a change of exertion. We have Haydon’s own authority for the fact that, while engaged in composition, he was always under the influence of strong emotion. It is no wonder, therefore, that he frequently felt himself unable to continue—that is, to raise himself to the point of elevation of idea which he had previously reached. But instead of using these intervals profitably, he threw away his time, dreaming and speculating, until the goad of necessity or the prick of conscience roused him to another effort. And how profitless these efforts were, his history too plainly shows.

We have not thought it necessary to attempt, in this article, any criticism of Haydon as a painter. In truth, the materials for doing so are not within our reach, for his pictures are dispersed, and for the greater part forgotten. Nor can he be said to be the founder of a school; for although he numbered among his pupils Sir Edwin Landseer, and Sir Charles Eastlake, the present distinguished President of the Academy, the traces of his style are visible in the works of neither of these eminent men. He will be remembered hereafter rather from his enthusiasm—we had almost said fanaticism—in the cause of High Art, than on account of his works; and these volumes will unquestionably remain, remarkable in literature, as the most faithful record extant of the miserable effects which ensue from the misapplication of genius, from abandonment of prudence, from defiance of public opinion, and from the indulgence of overweening vanity. They ought, as we have already said, to be attentively perused by every student of art and literature; for they convey an important lesson, which is not the less likely to have its effect because our sympathies are keenly excited by the misfortunes, the trials, and miserable fate of the man. May his unhappy story be a warning to those who, proud in the real or fancied possession of genius, believe that nothing more is required to carry them to the summit of their ambition—may all such read and ponder, and recoil from the abyss which yawns for every one who disregards the common duties and daily responsibilities of existence!

BRUTE LIFE IN THE ALPINE REGIONS.[2]

Switzerland has latterly become one of the most commonplace countries in Europe. No matter that its lakes are as lovely, its mountains as magnificent, its landscapes as beautiful, and its cascades as sparkling as they were thirty years ago; it has the grievous misfortune of being too well known. Familiarity has begot indifference. Switzerland is now little more than a baiting place on the road to Italy or the East. Everybody has visited it, and professes to know it by heart. If a railway were accomplished, people would dart through it in a day, as they do through monotonous Belgium on their way to the Rhine—caring to see no more of it than they can spy from the carriage windows. As to Mont Blanc, its ascent is becoming quite an ordinary occurrence; men scramble up and down it like conies on a sandhill, and one thinks of the Grands Mulets pretty much as one used to think, in the dear departed days of four-horse teams and many-coated jehus, of the Halfway House on the Great North Road. Switzerland is now visited (for its own sake) only by persons who are stinted for time—who cannot afford a tour, but merely “a run,” and who accordingly scamper off to the Alps (as they might do to the Westmoreland lakes or Welsh hills), the journey thither being performable, thanks to steam, in somewhere about thirty hours from London Bridge. Rapid gentlemen, who glory in the quantity of ground they get over, who estimate the interest of a tour by the number of leagues accomplished, who have passed a day at Chamouni, climbed the Rhigi, visited the convent of St Bernard, written nonsense in visitors’ books, and satisfactorily settled in their minds the comparative merits of the many excellent tables-d’hôte that British gulosity and guineas have caused to replace Helvetia’s once simple and unsophisticated hospitality,—gentlemen of this class, who have done thus much, declare they know the country thoroughly, consider it rather slow, and pack their portmanteaus for a trip to the Antipodes or a stroll amidst Nineveh’s ruins.

From the Andes to the Alps, the flight is a far one. When first we fell in with that agreeable writer and accomplished naturalist, Dr Frederick Tschudi, he was fresh from Peru, and it was the meritorious book his South American wanderings suggested that brought us acquainted with him. Since that expedition, and probably during many years previously to it, he has studied and observed nearer home. The mountains of his native Switzerland have supplied him a theme for one of those massive octavos which indefatigable Germany loves to produce, and whose close print and countless pages deter foreign readers, unless the author’s name be one that invites and encourages them to proceed. That of Dr Tschudi was associated in our memory with so much valuable information, most pleasantly imparted, that we at once and willingly plunged into his formidable volume.

However well acquainted frequent visits or long residence may have made us with one of the most picturesque and delightful of European lands, a summer’s ramble amidst its mountains will assuredly possess much of the charm of novelty, if performed after an attentive perusal of Dr Tschudi’s recent publication. A summer’s ramble—not for ever along high-roads and beaten tracks, with a luxurious hotel for the goal of each day’s journey, but—away in the mountains, with a change or two of linen, and Dr Tschudi’s book for sole baggage, and with a cheerful resolution to be content with hard beds and shepherd’s fare. We are much mistaken, or Dr Tschudi must have passed many such summers, and less clement seasons too—must long have been a lodger in huts and chalets, and have bivouacked for months together amidst Alpine peaks—as he once did in Peruvian forests—in order to accumulate the country thoroughly, consider it rather slow, and pack their portmanteaus for a trip to the Antipodes or a stroll amidst Nineveh’s ruins.

From the Andes to the Alps, the flight is a far one. When first we fell in with that agreeable writer and accomplished naturalist, Dr Frederick Tschudi, he was fresh from Peru, and it was the meritorious book his South American wanderings suggested that brought us acquainted with him. Since that expedition, and probably during many years previously to it, he has studied and observed nearer home. The mountains of his native Switzerland have supplied him a theme for one of those massive octavos which indefatigable Germany loves to produce, and whose close print and countless pages deter foreign readers, unless the author’s name be one that invites and encourages them to proceed. That of Dr Tschudi was associated in our memory with so much valuable information, most pleasantly imparted, that we at once and willingly plunged into his formidable volume.

However well acquainted frequent visits or long residence may have made us with one of the most picturesque and delightful of European lands, a summer’s ramble amidst its mountains will assuredly possess much of the charm of novelty, if performed after an attentive perusal of Dr Tschudi’s recent publication. A summer’s ramble—not for ever along high-roads and beaten tracks, with a luxurious hotel for the goal of each day’s journey, but—away in the mountains, with a change or two of linen, and Dr Tschudi’s book for sole baggage, and with a cheerful resolution to be content with hard beds and shepherd’s fare. We are much mistaken, or Dr Tschudi must have passed many such summers, and less clement seasons too—must long have been a lodger in huts and chalets, and have bivouacked for months together amidst Alpine peaks—as he once did in Peruvian forests—in order to accumulate the great store and variety of curious information he has brought together in this volume. Some aid he may have derived from the numerous admirable books which Swiss naturalists have devoted to the beauties and wonders of their native land. But his pages bear the stamp of originality, and abound in unmistakable evidence of an enthusiastic love of science, and of keen and intelligent personal observation. One of their most striking features is the minute knowledge displayed of the ways and habits of creatures of whose existence many persons are barely aware—a knowledge which can only have been acquired by long frequentation of their haunts, and by the most cautious watchfulness. The author of a book like this must, one would think, have led the life of an Indian on the war-path—have exercised the craft, and patience, and vigilance, the silence and self-denial of Leatherstocking on a Sioux trail—whilst watching the furred and feathered and scaly denizens of the forests, as eager to note their aspect and peculiarities as the wild warrior could be to surprise foes and add fresh scalps to his savage trophies.

Dr Tschudi has made a Dantesque arrangement of his work, dividing it into “circles,” whose denizens he describes in turn. The circles are the Mountain Region, the Alpine Region, the Snow Region. The first chapter of each circle is devoted to the general characteristics of the region described, its formation, geology, climate, streams and lakes. A botanical chapter follows; then one is given to the lower animals—fish, insects, reptiles—and others to birds and quadrupeds. Each circle is terminated by a series of biographies and delineations of particular animals, and these are some of the most pleasing portions of the book, which, far from being dry or abstruse, contains few scientific terms that are not intelligible to all tolerably educated persons, and maybe ranked in the same class to which belongs White’s delightful Natural History of Selborne. The general reader might be little attracted by so extensive a work devoted entirely to natural history, but Dr Tschudi is capable of imparting attraction and interest to a much drier subject.

“The Alps,” says Dr Tschudi, in his few preliminary pages of general reflections, “are the pride of the Switzer, who has planted his home at their foot. Their vicinity exercises an indescribable and extensive influence on his whole existence. They are in some sort the condition of his natural and spiritual, his social and political life. He loves them almost instinctively; the most secret fibres of his heart are intertwined with them; when absent from them, his longing is incessant to return to his beloved mountains. His love for them is perhaps greater than his knowledge of their nature. Even at the present day, when the furrow is sought in which the locomotive may most easily wind its way over the lowest saddle of the Central Alps, and the galvanic stream glides along the copper wire, where beautiful roads have long intersected them, and thousands of tourists from every part of the world have visited them—even now that the indefatigable spirit of inquiry of our numerous great naturalists has stimulated to a thousand fruitful expeditions to their lofty and glittering summits, a deep mystery still envelopes them.” They compose an almost unknown land, in the midst of thickly peopled and highly civilised countries. Refined and prosperous nations have occupied their valleys, and pushed their way up those lower steeps which form the step of transition from plain to mountain. But at a certain elevation they stop, and go no farther. Above is the domain of bird and beast, rarely intruded upon, save by a stray hunter or by an ardent and adventurous seeker after knowledge. In those lofty regions are immense tracts of mountain, which have never echoed to a human voice, or received the print of human foot, and whose animal and vegetable life are still totally uninvestigated. “Many a valley in the rugged recesses of the Upper Alps is less known than the coasts of the remotest group of islands, or than the banks of the Nile and the Mississippi. And not only this: even the districts which we have before our eyes, and under our feet, have but lately become known to us; we still are but at the threshold of knowledge, and few are there who earnestly knock, and are admitted.”

Dr Tschudi’s first circle, the mountain region, consists of the whole of those parts of Switzerland which are between 2500 and 4000 feet above the level of the sea. Below the former elevation he does not consider the mountains to have begun; above the latter heights we get into the second or Alpine circle. The first region is made up partly of independent mountains, whose height does not exceed the stipulated 4000 feet, partly of the broad flanks and slopes of loftier mountains. It is the region of waterfalls. The Jura is the most important of the independent chains it comprises. Many of the most charming parts of Switzerland are in the horizontal zone, thus established between 2500 and 4000 feet above the sea. It contains beautiful valleys, some manufacturing places; the high-roads to Italy traverse it; small villages, shepherds’ cottages, cow and sheep stables, are found in even its most elevated valleys. In summer it is overrun by travellers, wandering in quest of cascades and glaciers; in winter its fashionable baths and elegant hotels are closed or deserted, and it is enlivened only by the passage of strings of mules laden with merchandise.

To us the most attractive parts of this book are those where we find the author wandering in the woodlands, communing with the brute creation, and unostentatiously displaying his rare familiarity with sylvan sights and sounds. It is with reference to those chapters, and not to his geological and meteorological dissertations, that we have more particularly taken up his work; but before walking with him into the woods, we are tempted to abridge two curious and interesting pages, relating to the hollows and caverns frequently found in the Alps. The worthy naturalist’s German is occasionally as rugged as the rocks he writes about, and we must aim rather at giving its spirit than at rigidly rendering its letter.

“Throughout the whole Alpine land,” he says, “hollows are numerous, and often of very interesting appearance. They assume the most various forms—gentle recesses of cliffs, with overhanging roofs, regular closed grottoes or caves, which the Bernese Oberlanders call ‘Balm;’ ravine-like hollows ending in rocky vaults, or communicating with yet deeper clefts and crevices; and finally, passages broken through the mountains from daylight to daylight. With these hollows tradition associates many pious reminiscences of saints and missionaries, and here and there a chapel or hermitage is still to be found in their vicinity. The interior of these rocky dwellings is often of singular conformation, including narrow galleries, deep and gloomy pools of water, and unexplored precipices, sinking more than a thousand feet into the bowels of the mountain. In some are found, as signs that in former times they were used as hiding-places by fugitives, or as dwellings by banditti, Roman and ancient German coins; in others, petrified bones or shell-fish; in others, again, rounded fragments of serpentine and of other descriptions of stone not proper to the mountain; remains of beasts of prey, which for centuries have been extinct in those regions; and finally—this especially in the Jura—masses of snow and ice that never melt. Most of them have an internal coating of stalactites. Almost more remarkable than these caverns are the wind-holes, everywhere found in the mountains—deep narrow clefts in the rock, which sometimes have, and sometimes have not, an upper exit. In fine summer weather, a strong and very cold wind issues from them; in winter, on the contrary, the air rushes into them, and their temperature is higher than that without. Such wind-holes are very numerous in the Alps.... The cow-keepers use them as dairies. They are not without influence upon animal and vegetable life. When not taken possession of by man, they are frequently taken advantage of by a fox or marmot, for one of the several entrances to his earth. Plants will not thrive at their entrance or in their vicinity, with the exception of some few dark mosses and lichens. Upon the same natural laws with these wind-holes, depends the existence of the vast and wonderful ice-caverns which are found in the mountains far below the snow-line, and which contain, for many months together, sometimes the whole year through, huge masses of ice. We may cite the icecavern of St George, situate near Rolle, 2562 feet above the lake of Geneva, on a shelf of the foremost range of the Jura, which contains some 2000 hundredweight of ice, and where it freezes even in summer; also the greatest and most magnificent of all known ice-caverns, the sheep-hole on the lake of Thun, in a cliff 1500 feet high, 5604 above the level of the sea, penetrating deep into the mountain, and containing the strangest formations of ice. Notwithstanding its uninviting aspect, shepherds and cowherds take refuge within it in stormy or very hot weather, and it not unfrequently affords shelter to a thousand head of sheep.”

Quitting inanimate for animate objects, Dr Tschudi enumerates the vertebrals found in Switzerland. Besides domestic animals, he estimates them at about 430 kinds, of which fifty are mammalia, thirty-two amphibia, forty-two fish, and no less than 310 different kinds of birds. The position of Switzerland, midway between the north and south of Europe, makes it a place of rendezvous for many foreign birds, seen but rarely, or for short seasons. “Strange guests often come to us,” says the doctor, “now from the icebergs of the North Sea, then from the hot plains of Egypt. Ducks and divers, geese and sea-mews, from the polar regions, meet the African flamingo, the Egyptian ibis, the purple heron from the Black Sea, the sea-swallow from the Caspian. Many of these are merely casual visitors—birds that have been scared, disturbed when brooding, or that have lost their way, as in the case of the flock of 2130 pelicans that appeared on the Bodensee in the year 1768.” Upon the other hand, in autumn occur regular and systematic changes of quarters, numbers of birds flying south, to seek the warmer climates of Italy and Africa, whilst others come from the north, well pleased to winter in Switzerland. Spring dismisses the strangers, and brings back the emigrants. Of these, however, but few return to their old accustomed copses, woods, and valleys. Some have sunk under the fatigues of the journey, more have been carried off by birds of prey; the greatest number have fallen victims to man. Dr Tschudi is indignant at the furious war waged in Italy upon his feathered songsters and favourites. “Not only snipes, quails, thrushes, pigeons, and suchlike birds, are taken, but the friendly swallow, so respected in our country; linnets, nightingales, little singing-birds of all kinds, are unceasingly assailed, during their passage through the land of citrons, with net and gun, by young and old of all classes—tradesmen, mechanics, priests, and nobles. At Bergamo, Verona, Chiavenna, Brescia, millions of birds are annually taken—for the most part creatures which no one in Switzerland would dream of injuring, but which we rather cherish for the sake of their beautiful notes. Therefore is it that Italy, the land of music and song, is so extraordinarily poor in singing-birds. The same is the case in the canton of Tessin, which has long been infected with the Italian bloodthirstiness, and where even sparrows are scarce. From Tessin and the Valteline the birdcatchers advance to the St Gothard, and to the mountains of the Grisons, to intercept the friendly little creatures upon the very frontier with their treacherous nets. Therefore has there been for some time remarked in Switzerland, a growing and alarming diminution in the numbers of the insectivorous birds. The canton of Tessin is much more injured than benefited by its birdcatchers. Fifteen hundred shooting licenses (which there cost but a franc a-piece) are annually issued; but birdcatching with nets, snares, lime, traps, owls, and even with great fowling-floors (Rocoli), is free to all. Beyond the Monte Cenere, a single rocoladore will often take, upon a fine October day, 1500 small birds. It is easy to understand how great is the loss of time and labour for a country which, in many branches of industry, is so far behindhand, and how prejudicial an influence this wholesale slaughter must have upon the character of the people. In German Switzerland, upon the other hand, birdcatching is very little practised, and only against a few sorts of finches and thrushes; and shooting is confined almost exclusively to large game,—pigeons, fieldfares, and birds of prey. Small birds are left tolerably unmolested; the swallows are guarded by the popular piety, and only the other day (1852) a law for their protection was published in the canton of Vaud.”

The doctor’s disgust at the wholesale bird-slaughter on the Italian frontier of Switzerland, is not to be attributed merely to a naturalist’s sympathy with the sweet-throated objects of his study, and companions of his solitary rambles. Of all animals, birds are those which most contribute to the cheerfulness of nature. How strongly one feels this during a long walk through a lonely country! Quadrupeds fly and hide themselves at our approach; only now and then we see a hare scudding away in the distance, or a saucy squirrel perched upon a bough high over our head; as we walk by the river-side, the trout plashes out of the water, fly-catching intent. But all these creatures are mute, shy, and rarely seen, whilst birds are all around us, twittering in the bushes by our side, flashing their plumage in the sunbeams, warbling in the trees we walk under, and carolling high aloft in the clouds. How deadly dull the forest and mountain would be without them! Such, doubtless, have often been Dr Tschudi’s thoughts when he walked forth alone to gather knowledge on nature’s page, and they would suffice to explain his vexation with the birdcatchers. We turn, for another and more practical reason, to his chapter on the lower animals, and to his interesting account of the myriads of insects which the first breath of the Fön[3] calls into existence. Many of these insects are extremely hurtful to vegetation, and do great damage to fields and gardens, even when decimated by the birds whose nourishment they compose. The May-bug, especially, appears in the northern valleys of the central Alps in prodigious swarms, resembling, and as noxious as, the flights of locusts that afflict more southerly lands. And if the purveyors of Italian epicures, whom, it appears, nothing less than roast linnets and nightingale ragout will satisfy, are allowed to continue their work of devastation amongst the small birds of Switzerland, the times are likely soon to become good for beetle and caterpillar, and extremely unfavourable to Helvetian gardeners and farmers. One of the modes of birdcatching referred to by Dr Tschudi—namely, by means of owls—is curious and peculiar. He describes it in another place. The sort of owl most used by the fowler (Strix passerina) is found in the woods of Tessin, where it bears the name of civetta piccola. He is domesticated in the houses, catches mice, eats fruit and polenta. The birdcatchers take him out into the fields, and set him upon a one-legged stool, with a padded top. A long string is fastened to his leg, and occasionally pulled, which makes him jump about and play all manner of comical antics. Round about are decoy-birds, and sticks spread with bird-lime. The small birds come in flocks to see the fun, settle on the sticks, and are caught—redbreasts, yellow-hammers, wrens, wagtails, hedge-sparrows, thrushes of various kinds, &c. &c. The finch family alone are said to be too knowing to be thus entrapped. They keep up a great noise, but at a prudent distance. This mode of bird-snaring is followed from July to November, and the Tessinees, who seem to be a community of birdcatchers, travel into other cantons to practise it. In Germany the large screech-owl (Strix bubo)—which in Switzerland is carried about in a box, and shown as a pretext to beg for batzen—is used as a decoy for carrion birds. The sportsman ties him to a peg in the ground, and hides himself near at hand in a low hut, covered with turf and provided with loopholes. Soon there is a great gathering of crows, magpies, hawks, kites, &c., which come croaking and screaming around, and are easily shot.

“The mountain region of Switzerland,” says Dr Tschudi, in one of the many pleasing passages of this volume, “possesses no kinds of birds quite peculiar to itself, and which do not also appear in the corresponding regions of adjacent lands, and not many kinds that do not, at least occasionally, show themselves in the plain.[4] The greater number, especially of the smaller birds, alternate between the hill and the mountain regions, and in winter gladly seek the fields, forests, and bushes of the lowlands and of the mild valleys. But their sweetest song, their summer joys, their merriest time, are in the mountains. There they live like rich gentlemen, who, in the fine season, repair to their country-houses. Their table is ever spread, and their perch ready; their friends are ever at hand to sport and rejoice with them. There is a peculiarity about their jubilation in their mountain forests. No nightingale pipes her melodious notes, seldom a linnet is heard, rarely that capital singer, the black-headed titmouse—and yet wood and rock resound again with the joyous concert. True it is that good-will, and joyous, gushing vitality, often atone for the absence of natural harmony and artistic skill. Before the rosy mists of morning have announced the sun’s approach—often before even a light tint in the east has indicated its point of rising, and whilst the stars still glitter brightly in the dark-blue sky—a low rumbling noise is heard, issuing from a tall old fir; then follow chattering clapping notes, growing quicker and quicker; and finally, a long string of hissing sounds, like the whetting or sharpening of a blade. It is the heathcock’s coupling time. With distorted eyes he trips and dances about upon his bough, whilst in the bushes below the hens quietly repose, and respectfully behold the foolish capers of their lord and master. He is not long left to enliven the forest alone. Some marsh-birds in the neighbouring reeds have been piping ever since midnight, and become zealous in their song, now that the sun approaches. Then the blackbird awakes, shakes the dew from the glossy sable of his plumage, whets his bill against the bough, and hops higher up in the maple-tree, almost wondering to find that twilight is becoming daylight, and that the forest still sleeps. Twice, thrice, he sends a summons, over the tree tops, across to the opposite mountain, and down into the valley, on whose brooks thin banks of vapour rest. Then he puts forth, with might and fire, his magnificent notes, alternately gay and plaintive, and rouses the whole woodland region into life. The cuckoo’s musical call resounds afar in the forest. Thin blue columns of smoke issue from the cottage chimneys in the valley; there is barking of dogs in the farmyards, and the tinkling of a cow-bell; the birds rise from bushes, grass, and rocks, and soar upon the wing, to see the sun, and to praise kind Mother Nature, who has once more sent them the cheerful light. Many a poor little flutterer rejoices that the anxious, dangerous night is past. He sat upon a twig, his head buried in his feathers, when by the starlight he saw a forest-owl fly noiselessly through the trees in search of prey. The rock-marten came from the valley, the ermine from the cliff, the pine-martin descended from his squirrel’s nest, the fox prowled amongst the bushes. All these the bird had seen. On the tree, in the air, on the ground—destruction was all around him. Many weary hours had he sat out, not daring to stir, protected and concealed by a few young beech-leaves. How gladly he now leaps forth, and extols the safety of life, and the protection of light! The chaffinch sounds his clear and powerful notes, the redbreast sings on the summit of the larch, the greenfinch in the alder-bush, the yellow-hammer and redfinch in the underwood. The flaxfinch, the titmouse, the golden-crested and the common wren, exert their various voices; the ringdove coos, the woodpecker taps at his tree. But above all these cheerful sounds are heard the potent voice of the mistle-bird, the melodious notes of the tree-lark, and the inimitable chant of the thrush. What a morning concert in those green glades!”

And what a pretty bit of sylvan description is this, showing a hearty love of nature, and close observation of her ways! Dr Tschudi has invited himself to pass the day with the birds, and he avails himself of the opportunity to observe and note down the details of their domestic life, like some impertinent foreigner whom a hospitable country gentleman has invited to pass a week at “The Grange,” and who requites the courtesy by printing the minutest particulars of his host’s housekeeping. But the most susceptible bird could find nothing offensive in the doctor’s revelations. It is hard to say how he managed to observe, without alarming, his feathered entertainers. He must have covered himself with leaves, or lain, for hours, perdu beneath a bush, suppressing his breath till his presence was forgotten, or till he was taken for part of the landscape, for a log or a fossil—for he had to do with a timorous race, easily panic-stricken and silenced. Suddenly chirping and piping, singing, cooing, and hammering, all ceased at once. They were replaced by the hoarse and hungry cry of the pigeon-hawk, hovering ominously over the wood, whose melodious denizens buried themselves, mute and trembling, in its deepest foliage. The peril past, they again emerged, recommenced roulades and trills that a Grisi might envy, and industriously sought their breakfast—berries, insects, seeds. Thus passes the morning, in song and banqueting; hot noon is the silent time in the forest, when its denizens take their siesta, with the exception of a few indefatigable warblers, whom nothing will silence. Towards evening the choir is again active, but the concert lacks somewhat of the vigour and freshness of the morning’s performance. It is a farewell to light—which the other welcomed. Night falls, and once more the stillness is only broken by the hooting of owls, and the heavy circling of the bat.

Of this last-named singular animal, the link between bird and beast, Dr Tschudi discourses at some length, giving curious results of his observations of their habits, and taking occasion to animadvert on the unaccountable repugnance entertained by men for certain animals, which they persecute as foes, when they ought to favour and foster them as useful friends. He had already touched on this point when talking of the Swiss snakes. On the subject of bats he writes as follows: “They are the owls amongst mammalia; like them they are dismal, nocturnal, carnivorous creatures, unamiable and shy. Our naturalists are probably still far from a thorough knowledge of them, their secret abodes and nocturnal habits rendering this very difficult to attain. And in this respect natural history receives small aid from man, who loathes the bat, because he does not know that it is his benefactor; kills it when he can, and throws it away. Strange it is that man has such a profound aversion and almost invincible horror for many animals which are positively useful and no way injurious! He shuns and persecutes toads and lizards, which destroy so many locusts, worms, spiders, flies, and snails; blind worms and snakes, which rid him of vermin and of mice; moles, owls, and bats, which are his true benefactors, and should be carefully protected. The last named are, like swallows, active destroyers of insects, and devour millions of beetles, injurious water insects, tree-caterpillars, cabbage-butterflies, night-moths, and May-bugs, and crunch, with their numerous and extremely sharp teeth, even the hard-winged dung-beetle. Certainly they have not the agreeable aspect or the amiable manners of canaries or goldfinches; they are wild and fierce, and ready enough to open their wide red gullets against the head of man. They are hard to tame, and, when held captive, usually refuse all nourishment. Their musky smell, the thin oily skin of their wings, their tawny hair, their hissing and grumbling, their little tail and their claws, are not particularly attractive; but one might forgive them all that, and leave them in peace, inasmuch as they do great and good service. Popular superstition classes them as venomous, with toads, frogs, and snakes. They are just as little so as any of these, and have not the absurd passion attributed to them of flying into people’s hair. Weasels and polecats, martens and dogs, and especially owls, their sworn foes, persecute them sufficiently, to prevent their numbers ever becoming troublesome to man, though he should leave them unmolested.

“In winter we see no bats, unless by chance upon extraordinarily warm evenings, and people often ask what becomes of them in the cold season. Were they birds, they would fly southwards; were they proper quadrupeds, they would dig holes to shelter themselves from the cold: as it is, their only resource is to seek warm hiding-places. Moreover, insects, their habitual food, disappear in winter time. So, as soon as frost sets in, they look for caves, sheltered clefts in the rocks, old chimneys, and other shelter of the same kind, hook themselves on to the wall with the thumbs of their fore-feet, one over the other, and sleep until the warmth of spring again awakes them. The blood circulates slowly through their little bodies; stabbing, burning, or cutting occasions them convulsions, but does not awaken them from their winter torpidity. Taken into a warm place, they gradually awaken. Their vitality is in some respects very tenacious, in others easily destroyed: thus the slightest bodily injury kills them, but they resist for a very long time the action of electricity and of the air-pump, and can endure hunger longer than any other of the mammalia.”

Dr Tschudi gives some other curious details of these animals, but we omit them, in order to ascend with him into the Alpine region, and observe a class of birds very different from any as yet referred to. In the Oberland, some thousand feet higher than we have hitherto been, we come upon the eagle and the vulture. There the osprey soars over summits twelve thousand feet high, or is seen, at a less elevation, bearing away a lamb or a hare to his hungry eaglets in their inaccessible eyrie. Scarcely anything that runs or flies is safe from his clutches. He overtakes the swiftest birds, snatches their prey from hawk and falcon, and will carry off a dog, a fox, or a badger, as readily as a kid or a barn-door fowl. It has been sometimes denied that this kind of eagle carries off children, but he is unquestionably strong enough and courageous enough to do so, and Dr Tschudi vouches for one painful case of the kind as having occurred in the Grisons. “In a mountain village, an osprey darted upon a child of two years old, and bore it off. The father came running up at the cries of the infant, and followed the robber into the rocks. The burthen being rather a heavy one, he succeeded, after great exertions, in making the eagle resign its prey. But the poor child’s eyes had been hacked out, and it soon died. Long did the father lie in wait for the murderer, which was continually hovering about that neighbourhood, and at last he caught him alive in a fox-trap. In his eagerness and fury he laid hold of his prize so imprudently that the bird wounded him severely with his beak and with the foot that was free. Some neighbours came up and killed the eagle with sticks.” The village of Eblingen, by the lake of Brienz in the Bernese Oberland, is celebrated for its eagle hunts. About a league from it, in a very wild and beautiful part of the mountains, is a favourite abiding-place of the ospreys, where they love to sit upon the sunny side of inaccessible peaks, and look out over the great valley of the lakes. The Eblinger hunters wage perpetual war against them, and attract them to the neighbourhood, as an angler ground-baits for fish, by hanging dead cattle and other carrion to the trees. This is in summer; and as the eagle can then usually get better food, he often disdains the garbage. In winter the hunters place their baits upon the ground, securing them with wooden pegs. Roasted cats are the best bait. The eagle cannot rise from the flat ground so rapidly as he can fly off a more elevated perch; and moreover, when he once settles down to a repast, he often remains for hours at it. The baits are so placed as to be visible, through field-glasses, from the village below. The hunters, with whom this kind of sport is a passion, are continually at their windows, watching the snare. When they see an eagle settle down to his food, they set out, and although they have a full league to climb through bushes and over rocks, the bird seldom escapes them. The highly picturesque vicinity of Eblingen is disfigured, in the eyes of the traveller who wanders thither, by such unpleasing sights as a putrid goat hanging from a tree and dangling in the wind; here a horse’s head, partially picked, and there a half-eaten cat. The strength of this kind of eagle is very considerable. One was known to fly away with a fox-trap, weighing eight pounds, in which he had been caught. But a more powerful and formidable, although a less intelligent and kingly bird, is the lämmergeier or vulture—the condor of European mountains, and unquestionably the most remarkable feathered inhabitant of the Alps. With the exception of the chapters relating to the chamois and chamois-hunters, the one allotted to the vulture is the most interesting of Dr Tschudi’s book. Concerning this largest of European birds of prey naturalists knew little until very recently. The great Buffon himself confounded it with the condor. The Swiss naturalist Steinmüller was the first who gave a good account of it; others followed, and extended their researches farther, but much yet remains to be ascertained. In the book before us Dr Tschudi has made a valuable addition to the natural history of this obscene and dangerous bird, of which he relates numerous anecdotes, partly the result of personal observation, partly derived from experienced hunters and scientific friends. We will give the cream of two or three pages.

“The internal construction of this gigantic bird is most peculiar. The muscles of the breast are extraordinarily large and strong; the long bones, hollow as in other birds, become filled, by the action of the lungs, with air, which, being warm, is specifically lighter than the external atmosphere, and facilitates the bird’s flight. His digestive organs are singularly powerful. His acrid gastric juice corrodes and disposes of the largest bones. When one of these birds is killed, the contents of the stomach astounds everybody. Thus in one vulture was found a fox’s rib, 15 inches long, the entire tail of a fox, the hind leg of a hare, several shoulder-blade bones, and a ball of hair. The greatest discovery of this kind, however, was in the stomach of a vulture killed by Dr Schinz: it contained the large hip-bone of a cow, a chamois’ shin-bone 6½ inches long, and a half-digested rib of the same animal, numerous smaller bones, a quantity of hair, and a heathcock’s claws. The gastric juice decomposes the bones by strata or layers, so as to get from them the nutritive gelatine, whilst the dead chalky part passes away. By this organisation, Nature, in her wisdom, has restricted the mischief the vulture might otherwise do. For if his great need of nourishment had to be satisfied by masses of flesh, not only would the bird often die of hunger, but he would exterminate all the game in the upper Alps. He digests the thick hoofs of calves and cows; and the gastric juice continues its operation even after death.” Thus, in a vulture shot in the act of devouring a fox, and opened three days afterwards, the fox’s head was found in the usual state of digestive fermentation—a remarkable example, says Dr Tschudi, of independence of action between heart and stomach.

The habits of the Alpine vulture are not such as to render their observation an easy or a very safe occupation. In the morning he usually flies off to the place where he last found a meal, and, suspending himself at a great height, examines his hunting-ground. His scent and sight are alike excellent, and he detects his prey a league off. Below him the Alpine animals graze and repose, unsuspicious of the fatal cloud overhanging them. Suddenly the vulture folds his wings, and falls like a shot upon his victim. If this be a small animal—a dog, a lamb, a badger, a hare—he perhaps carries it off; larger prey he is fain to devour upon the spot; for this bird’s strength lies less in his feet and claws than in his wings and beak. “If he descries a large animal, a heavy sheep, an old chamois or goat, grazing in the neighbourhood of a precipice, he circles round and round it, trying to torment and terrify it, until it runs to the edge of the precipice; then he plumps upon it with a rushing flight, and not unfrequently succeeds in knocking it over the cliff. He flies down after it, and settles upon his prey, killed by the fall. First he pecks out the eyes, then eats the entrails, then the bones. He crushes the skull of living cats, and bolts them at a mouthful. He has often been known to attempt to throw hunters down a precipice, when he found them in a dangerous position on a narrow mountain-path or rocky promontory; and those who have been thus assailed declare that the rush, the swiftness, and the power of the enormous pinions are almost irresistible, even by a man. In like manner a vulture was seen to attempt to throw an ox down a steep cliff close to which it had strayed. The bird obstinately persisted in his daring attacks; but the quadruped was not easy to scare out of his natural tranquillity. Lowering his head, he planted himself firmly on his solid legs and waited quietly, until the vulture became satisfied that the case was hopeless.”

In Piedmont, the country people decoy the vulture into a narrow pit, by means of a roast cat or some other carrion. He eats his fill, has difficulty in rising, and is beaten to death with sticks. The Indians in the Andes kill condors by dozens in the same manner. It is hard to get near enough to the vulture to shoot him: he is caught in fox-traps; and there is a price upon his head in Switzerland. In the Grisons, the successful hunter carries his prize from house to house, to claim reward, and the peasants are generally willing to bestow a little wool and many thanks upon the captor of the sheep-destroyer. Now and then the vulture catches a Tartar. Dr Tschudi tells an instance of this, of his own knowledge. Near Alpnach, in Unterwalden, hard by the place called the Dragon’s Hole, a vulture picked up a fox and flew away with it. But Reynard managed to seize the spoiler by the neck, and bit it right through. The bird came tumbling dead to the ground, and the fox limped away, after an aerial excursion he was not likely soon to forget. One has heard of weasels playing a similar trick to hawks; but a fight in the air between a full-grown fox and the largest European bird of prey must be a sight worth seeing.

Dr Tschudi relates several instances of children being carried off by vultures, and one of the almost miraculous recovery of a little girl thus abducted, and who thereafter went by the name of Geier-Anne. The remarkable event was noted in the church-register of the village in the Bernese Oberland, near which it occurred, and its heroine was alive a few years ago. The only case in which the vulture will fight, to the very death, against adult men, is when these attempt to rob its nest. Thus, one day, in the canton of Glarus, a resin-gatherer saw a nest high up in the rocks, climbed to it with prodigious labour, found two young fledged vultures (breakfasting on a squirrel, which they had not taken the trouble to skin), tied their feet, threw them over his shoulder, and had begun his descent, when the young birds’ cries brought back the old ones, who furiously attacked him. It was only by continually swinging his axe round his head that he kept them off; and they continued to follow and rage around him till he reached the village of Schwanden, four leagues off. “The celebrated chamois-hunter, Joseph Scherrer, of Ammon, on the Wallensee, once climbed, barefoot and with a gun on his back, to a nest in which he suspected there were young. Before he reached it, the male eagle flew by and was shot. Scherrer reloaded and continued his ascent. But on reaching the nest the female bird fell furiously upon him, seized him by the hips with her claws, endeavoured to hurl him from the rock, and dealt him severe blows with her beak. The man’s position was desperate. He was compelled to cling with all his strength to the precipice, and could not use his gun. His extraordinary presence of mind saved him. With one hand he directed the muzzle of his weapon against the breast of the bird that grappled him, and with his naked toe he cocked the piece and pulled the trigger. The eagle fell dead amongst the rocks. For the two old and the two young birds the hunter received five florins and a-half reward; but he kept the deep scars upon his arm as long as he lived.

“Quite as frightful was the position of a Sardinian, who went with two of his brothers to rob a vulture’s nest in the mountains of Eglesias. His companions let him down by a rope, as is often done in our country, to get at places inaccessible by climbing. Suspended over a tremendous precipice, he took the young birds from the nest. At that moment the two old ones attacked him like furies. The young Sardinian had a sword, and kept them off by unceasingly brandishing it round his head. Suddenly he felt a violent shaking of the rope, and perceived, to his horror, that, in the ardour of his defence, he had cut it three parts through. Each moment he expected the remaining strands to sever; each movement he made might hurl him into the abyss below. He was slowly and cautiously drawn up and rescued.”

These striking anecdotes are followed by an extremely curious account of the habits of a vulture captured when full grown (young birds are easily reared and tamed), by the Swiss Professor Scheitlin, and kept in a room until his death. But it is time to quit the Swiss birds for the Swiss beasts, if we are to say anything about the latter, which, although fewer in number, occupy very considerable space in the doctor’s book.

“Upon the whole,” says Dr Tschudi, “our country, and especially our beloved mountain-land, seems by no means unfavourable to the propagation of mammalia—great forests, extensive wastes, almost inaccessible mountain-districts—but on nearer examination their advantage greatly dwindles. Everywhere cultivation strides victoriously forward; our woods are thinned and frequented; the herd and the hunter intrude into the wild mountain-valleys!” And the enthusiastic naturalist seems disposed to lament such cultivation and intrusion. He has rambled in Alpine solitude and Peruvian puñas, until he has acquired somewhat of the feeling with which Cooper’s Pioneer beheld law and ploughshares encroaching upon his beloved forest, where the only law and the best breadwinner had long been a long rifle and a sure aim. “Where man comes tormenting (mit seiner Qual),” says the worthy Tschudi, whom we expect to hear of next from the Far West, if Californian discoveries have not made that too cultivated and populous a country for him, “not only does nature cease to breed new animals, but those long since bred diminish and disappear.... Once the beaver built his wonderful dwelling upon our rivers; the wild ox stamped down the bushes in our woods; the wild boar grubbed holes at the foot of our venerable oaks. Every trace of these animals has disappeared. But a century since, the fallow-deer was a native of our forests. How seldom now does a wild boar make its way hither from Alsatia, affording a noble mark to our rifle-bullets; how rarely does one hear that a hunted stag, hard beset in the Black Forest, has swam the Rhine, and shown himself in our woods! On the other hand, not all the efforts that have been made have rid us of dangerous beasts of prey, and for scores of years to come, although we may lessen their numbers, we shall not succeed in exterminating them. The mountains favour and shelter them, and our lynxes, bears, and wolves will long continue their nocturnal expeditions through the Alps, whilst in adjacent Germany they have for many years been exterminated.” Although cherishing succulent and savoury reminiscences of the rich black meat—a sort of pig-venison—on which we have so often banqueted when abiding hard by the forests of “adjacent Germany,” we still must question the desirableness of wild boars as habitual residents in an agricultural country, or even as casual visitors from neighbouring mountains. Dr Tschudi has drawn quite a Druidical picture of Tusky rooting at the foot of oaks which were probably already saplings in days when bread was hardly deemed a necessary of life, and when robber-knights washed down with quarts of Rhenish the meat they that morning had speared. Doubtless these were fine carnivorous times, and if a husbandman dared complain of ravaged fields, the whip—perhaps the halter—was ready for the scurvy knave. But we would beg Dr Tschudi to descend from the mountain’s summit into the valley below, and to inquire the wine and corn grower’s private opinion on the subject of wild pigs. We are convinced it would be strongly in favour of the total extermination of an animal which, although not quite as dangerous to man as some of the ferocious quadrupeds so prettily designed upon the ornamental cover of the doctor’s book, is about as bad an enemy as the farmer can have. As to bears, wildcats, and the other Carnivora, whose permanence in the mountains of Switzerland the doctor deplores, it is not likely they will ever be entirely got rid of; but, upon the whole, the damage they do is decidedly inconsiderable, and their descent into the plain of rare occurrence. One might certainly encounter pleasanter-looking creatures in a morning’s walk than this flat-headed, big-clawed lynx, that snarls so fiercely at a bear, covetous of the chamois Bruin holds beneath his paw; or than the fierce wild-cat—no bad imitation of a panther—which, when assailed, makes such good fight against dog and man. This beast loves to lie all day upon the bough of a tree, whence she springs upon her prey: there the hunter often spies her, and then, if he chooses to meddle with her, he does well to take good aim. If she be but wounded, down she comes, foaming and snorting, with a high back and a perpendicular tail, and springs upon her assailant. She strikes her sharp claws so deep into the flesh, especially on the breast, that it is very difficult to tear her off, and such wounds are hard to heal. She fears dogs so little, that she often, before perceiving the hunter, comes down from the tree to encounter them. Then terrible fights ensue. The furious cat tears deep rents with her claws, aiming by preference at the dog’s eyes, and defends herself with ferocious obstinacy, so long as a spark of her very tenacious life remains. Thus did a wild-cat, one day in the Jura, contend victoriously with three dogs. She struck her claws deep into the nose of two of them, and her teeth firmly into the throat of the third—a mode of defence evincing not only prodigious courage and inconceivable dexterity, but also great sagacity, since only in that manner could she avoid being bitten by the dogs. The hunter hurried up, and, by a shot through the body, killed her, and rescued his dogs, whom she otherwise would assuredly have defeated. This really formidable beast is getting daily scarcer in Switzerland, but is said to be still pretty common in the Black Forest, where Dr Tschudi recently saw a very fine specimen, weighing upwards of sixteen pounds. The lynx—still found, although rarely, in various of the Alpine regions of Switzerland (where he abides, not from any particular love of a cool temperature, but to avoid the persecution he is exposed to on descending towards the plain)—attains a much larger size, weighing from thirty to sixty pounds, and standing two and a half feet high. He is peculiar in his feeding, and wasteful in his ways—not a large eater, but very partial to warm fresh blood. “When he falls in with a flock of sheep or goats, he creeps up to them, writhing like a snake upon his belly, and suddenly springs upon the back of a victim, bites it in the nape, or through an artery, and so kills it instantly. After lapping the blood, he tears open the animal’s belly, eats the entrails and a little from the head, neck, and shoulders, and leaves the rest. It is not proved that he hides the remains of his repast; at least such is not the case in our Alps. His peculiar manner of tearing his prey leaves the shepherds no doubt as to whether or not it is a lynx that has diminished their flock. He not unfrequently kills three or four sheep or goats at one onslaught, and when very hungry will attack calves and cows. In the summer of 1814, three or four lynxes killed more than 160 sheep and goats in the mountains of the Simmenthal.” If, however, the lynx can get enough game, he keeps to it, and seems averse to betray his presence by preying on tame animals. The chamois is his favourite meat, but difficult to catch, even when he lies in ambush for them at their salt licks and places of passage. So he puts up with badgers and marmots, hares, heathcocks, and other large birds, and, when driven to straits, condescends even to squirrels and mice. In the winter, when he is obliged to venture down amongst the hills and into the valleys, his plan is to burrow a way underground into the stables where the flocks are kept; and Dr Tschudi relates that upon one occasion a sturdy he-goat, noting the arrival of the subterranean foe, dealt him, just as he got his head out of the ground, such severe blows that the robber lay dead in his mine.

Owing to the scarcity of the animal, there is no regular lynx-hunting in Switzerland, and before a lynx’s presence is discovered by his ravages, he is usually far enough away, and, if pursued, quits the neighbourhood altogether. If a hunter comes upon him by accident, he does not run away, but lies quietly on his branch, gazing fixedly at the man, and is easily shot. “If the hunter be unarmed, he has only to stick up part of his clothes, and to leave them there whilst he goes home to fetch his gun. The lynx continues to stare at the clothes until his return.” Like the wild-cat, if the lynx is only wounded, he springs upon the hunter, and bites savagely. Sometimes, however, his attack is made upon the dog, and the man gets time for a second shot. This fierce beast is more than a match for two or three ordinary hounds. In various Swiss cantons, high rewards are paid by the authorities for a lynx’s head: in Friburg, 125 Swiss francs; in Glarus, 15 florins; in Tessin, a louis-d’or.

In Switzerland, as in all countries where forest and mountain abound, where living is cheap, and where any man may acquire, by a payment so trifling as to be almost nominal, the right to carry rifle or fowling-piece, the usual consequences ensue. The game becomes scarcer every year, and the labouring classes are tempted to idleness and evil courses. It is lighter work and pleasanter pastime to brush the morning gossamer from the grass with gun on shoulder and game-bag on hip, than to drive cattle to pasture, or urge the plough along the stubborn furrow. So thinks many a stout Switzer, and quits the paths of honest industry for the hunter’s precarious and unprofitable trade. In the chapter he devotes to squirrels and mountain hares, Dr Tschudi digresses to lecture his countrymen on this score. “When the hopeful young woodman,” he says, “has achieved his first heroic deed, and, by the aid of a quarter of a pound of small-shot, has picked off, at five paces distance, a brace of sparrows from the heavy-laden cherry-tree, he cleans his gun with unusual care, lays aside, half-exultingly and half-contemptuously, the fragments of his small victims, and muses on better booty. He has visions of a stray lynx or a fat chamois falling before his unerring barrels, and makes preparations to start for the mountains early upon the next Sunday morning, confident of bringing home at least a hare or a squirrel. Often, when in the valley the clear church-bells resound from village to village, and the Sabbath morn, fresh with dew and bright with blossoms, extends its hallowed peacefulness over the hearts of men weary of working days, a rolling file-fire is heard in the woods, directed at the tapping woodpecker, the melodious thrush, the gracefully sportive squirrel—a heathenish battue against His cheerful creatures, which can hardly be very pleasing to God Almighty. It is a real pity and a shame for the long-legged fools, who know not how better to employ the Lord’s Day than in this bloody sport, in which is displayed neither bravery nor woodcraft, but mere idleness and cruelty.” After which very proper animadversion upon the wanton bloodthirstiness of his younger countrymen, the worthy doctor makes us acquainted with sundry curious facts in natural history and peculiarities of Swiss sport; telling us that squirrels are great lovers of truffles, hunt for them by scent, dig them up and devour them—a proof of refined taste, which will cause us to look henceforward with much increased respect upon that harmless and rotatory quadruped—the ape, as Dr Tschudi calls it, of European woods. Two pages farther on, we find described a most barbarous mode of extracting that poor old grey hermit, the badger, from the depths of his earth. In the canton of Glarus badgers are drawn like corks—with a screw. A long pole, having a sort of double corkscrew affixed to its extremity, is thrust into the den, whose unfortunate tenant is dragged slowly out and knocked on the head, for the sake of hide, hair, fat, and flesh, all of which are made profitable in Switzerland; the meat being excellent pork. Fox flesh, as we learn with some surprise—in the course of a most amusing chapter devoted to the tricks and stratagems of the Alpine foxes, whose wits are evidently sharpened by the keenness of the atmosphere—is very good food, if sufficiently washed and properly prepared. Then we come to the otter. Who does not remember Isaac Walton’s brief but animated description of an otter-hunt, in the stream at the bottom of “that meadow, chequered with water-lilies and lady-smocks,” and his “pleasant question” to the huntsman, whether he hunts a beast or a fish?—a question resolved by Dr Tschudi, so far as the custom of the Swiss Catholic cantons may be said to settle it, for there it is eaten in fast-time as fish. “I am glad these otters were killed,” said Walton, and, as a lover of the angle, well he might be, for Dr Tschudi positively affirms that, in the shallow mountain-streams, a single otter kills many dozen trouts in a night. But it is time to turn from animals whose habits we have opportunities of observing in our own country, to one peculiar to the land to which the volume before us refers.

The chamois—the reindeer of the Alps, as Dr Tschudi calls it—is the animal of all others that is most completely and popularly identified with the Swiss mountains, whose cliffs and crags not a traveller approaches without straining his eyes in quest of its graceful form. He strains them, most often, in vain—unless, indeed, he has sufficient confidence in the steadiness of his head, and the sureness of his foot, to accept the practical hunter’s guidance, and ascend amidst the glaciers and precipices which are the home of the Alpine antelope. Even then he may wander long before getting sight of a herd. They are believed by many to be much less numerous than is really the case, because even summer travellers see little or nothing of them. One may repeatedly visit hunting-grounds in which a score of head or more are known constantly to dwell, and see not one. They lie for the greater part of the day behind stones and bushes, and are difficult to detect. In wooded districts, they conceal themselves in great herds in the innermost depths of the forest. Dr Tschudi denies that there are any grounds for the apprehensions that have been expressed of their approaching extinction, and believes that as long as the Alps stand they will shelter chamois. The nature of their retreats and favourite haunts, the perils of the chase, its unprofitable nature, the protection afforded them by the game-laws, which restrict chamois-hunting to the twelve weeks comprised between the 1st September and the 25th November,[5] combine to persuade him that sooner might hares, foxes, and martens, dwellers in the immediate vicinity of man, become extinct, than the keen-scented, wary, and extraordinarily agile animal, whose hunter risks his neck every time that he goes in its pursuit.

“There—where that good climber, the Alpine goat, dares not ascend, on the most inaccessible grass plots of the steepest peaks, on the narrow stripes of turf, scarcely a foot wide, which run like ribbons from cliff to cliff—the chamois comfortably grazes, getting fat upon the scanty but strong and nourishing vegetation of the Alps, until in autumn he weighs sixty, eighty, and even a hundred pounds. An instance is known to us when a Glarus hunter shot a beast that weighed a hundred and twenty-five pounds. It was the great “Rufelibock,” long celebrated in those mountains, which for many years had been in the habit of coming low down towards the valley, mocking all the efforts of the hunters, until at last the cunning Bläsi proved more than his match.”

Besides the hunter’s bullets, the bear, and the lynx, the chamois has to fear birds of prey (at least when it is young, and even when it is old, if the geier catches it in some convenient spot for throwing it over a precipice); and it sometimes—but this is only a very occasional occurrence—gets its horns inextricably entangled in the branches of fir trees, when cropping from them in winter the long green lichens, remains hanging there, and starves. Dr Tschudi once found a skeleton of a chamois that had thus perished, in an erect attitude. Excepting under such circumstances, he does not believe that chamois die of hunger, although a Bernese hunter told him that he had once, in the spring, found, under a great fir-tree, the bodies of five, which had been snowed up and starved. They had eaten all the leaves and bark within their reach, but the snow had lasted longer than the provender. An avalanche sometimes sweeps away a whole herd; and loose stones, which in spring and summer are constantly falling from the heights, take their proportion of victims. Finally, it now and then happens—but this is very rare—that a chamois, pursued by the hunter, leaps upon some ledge or pinnacle, whence it is impossible for it either to advance or retreat. In such cases, the courageous animal does not stand helpless and hopeless—like goats, which often remain in such a position until their herd rescues them at risk of his own life—but dares a desperate leap at the nearest landing-place, and is dashed to pieces in the ravine. A chamois clears, without hesitation, a chasm sixteen or eighteen feet wide, and leaps with impunity down a height of twenty-four feet.

Chamois-hunting, once an imperial sport in the Tyrol, is rather too dangerous and fatiguing for gentlemen sportsmen of the present day, and is not very often followed in Switzerland by any but poor men, who, adopting the pursuit for the sake of profit, soon become enthusiastically addicted to it. They are usually tough, hardy, sober people, sharp-sighted, able to look down a thousand feet of precipice without feeling dizzy, daring, and especially cool, and possessed of good lungs and iron muscles. They need to be first-rate shots, and better climbers than any mountain goat; for the goat is free and unencumbered in its movements, whilst the hunter is loaded with gun, provisions, and ammunition, and often, on his return from the chase, with a couple of chamois weighing something like a hundredweight and a half. He disembowels them, ties their hind legs together, and slings them over his head in such a manner that their feet lie forward upon his forehead, and their hind quarters rest against his shoulders. Thus burthened, he performs leagues over the most perilous paths. The profits of the severe labour and hourly risk are wretchedly small. The chamois, when shot, is worth but from three to six dollars; the meat is sold at fivepence to sevenpence a pound; the skin for from seven to fourteen shillings; the horns fetch a florin. Now and then a hunter accumulates what may be considered a large fortune in the Swiss mountains; but this is only by dint of rigid economy. These men are very temperate, and seldom touch wine. Thus did David Zwicky, a renowned chamois-hunter in the canton of Glarus, leave, at his death (a violent one, like that of most of those Helvetian Nimrods), seven thousand florins and twelve fowling-pieces. This, however, was a rare instance. It is less the gain than the excitement that fetters the hunter to his hazardous trade. How eagerly he pursues it may be judged from the following anecdote: “A hunter, who had his leg amputated at Zurich, sent to his surgeon, two years later, as a mark of gratitude, the half of a chamois he himself had shot, observing, at the same time, that the sport was not so good, now that he had a wooden leg, but that he hoped still to knock over many a chamois. At the time of the amputation this man was seventy-one years of age.” A strong testimony in favour of the healthfulness of mountain air, frugal fare, and hard exercise.

Dr Tschudi devotes a chapter to a selection from the most authentic of the innumerable tales current in Switzerland concerning chamois-hunters’ perils and adventures. He receives most of such stories with caution, because, in the course of repetition, they are apt to become interwoven with romance—the more so, as the heroes of many of them did not survive to tell their own tale. “An abbot of Engelberg considered himself fortunate when he did not lose in one year more than five of the inhabitants of his valley—killed while chamois-hunting; and at the present day every year claims more than one or two victims. Before the end of October 1852, three Swiss chamois-hunters had lost their lives—amongst them Hans Laumer, the well-known guide, who fell off the Jungfrau over a precipice two thousand feet deep.” Dr Tschudi assures his readers that they may rely on the truth of the sketches of celebrated hunters, with which he pleasantly fills a section of his second circle. The most striking of these sketches, whose incidents were supplied to the doctor by an eyewitness—a friend and brother naturalist—relates to Colani, the most famous chamois-hunter of the present century, who dwelt above the village of Pontresina, not far from the Reseggio glacier and from the colossal Bernina, in the south-eastern nook of the Grisons that borders upon Lombardy and the Tyrol. This Colani was a desperate bandit, who had attained the exclusive right to many square leagues of mountain, and suffered none to encroach upon his hunting-ground. He had a sort of Far-West morality, by which he perfectly justified himself in planting a bullet in the body of any intruder on his usurped domain. In the mountains near his cottage he had about two hundred half-tame chamois, which he calculated to yield him annually sixty young ones, and of which he annually shot a like number of old bucks. It was very unsafe to carry a gun over his ground. The story went that a room in his house was adorned exclusively with the arms and equipments of the strange hunters he had shot (mostly Tyrolese); and the people of Bevers and Campogask believed he had thirty men’s lives upon his soul, which nobody doubted would ultimately become the property of the Evil One. Dr Tschudi does not attempt to decide how much or how little of these reports was true, contenting himself with remarking that in a more extensive circle Colani was much esteemed, and that his relatives were of the best repute; but he was choleric, and violent almost to madness when in anger. He dwelt in his mountain retreat like some dreaded chieftain, and seemed to stand, in a manner, above the law. He waylaid a physician, who had summoned him before a tribunal on a charge of illegal practice of medicine, and dealt him a blow in the face with his fist which smashed his spectacles and left him senseless.

“The well-known naturalist, Dr Lenz, hunted in the year 1837 with Colani, and has communicated to us an authentic account of the last expedition of the prince of hunters; an account highly characteristic of the nature of the mountains, and of the hunters’ life in that wildest part of Switzerland. Accompanied by his friend, A. von Planta, Dr Lenz called upon Colani, and requested to be allowed to go out with him chamois-hunting, promising him two dollars for every day they were out, the same sum for every chamois he shot in their presence, and four dollars and the game for every one they themselves should shoot. The hunter accepted the offer. He was then a man of sixty-six, broad-shouldered, sturdy, deep-breasted, with rather a long face, a dark complexion, black hair, an aquiline nose, and brown, bold, wary eyes, whose expression betrayed his passionate character. He lived on bread, milk, and whey. Before or during the hunting-time he never drank wine. The meat of chamois and marmots was his favourite food. He spoke Italian, German, and French, and was skilled in the manufacture of sun-dials, surgical bandages, and fire-arms. He domineered over his neighbours with very little ceremony. They must let his two tame chamois feed in their gardens, and when a woman would not submit to this, and poisoned the animals—she very soon died, Colani was accustomed smilingly to relate.

“In vain had Dr Lenz and Planta been warned not to have anything to do with Colani. Their desire for sport was too strong, and the prospect of accompanying him too alluring. They started the next morning—a store of salt, and of smoked chamois and marmot meat, in the hunter’s game-bag. They had gone but a short way, when, in a deep ravine, closed in rear by the Reseggio glacier, they came upon five chamois, and the friends were about to open the campaign, when Colani said: ‘All very fine, but this is my salt-lick, where I allow no chamois to be shot.’ Then he desired to see ‘whether the gentlemen could shoot,’ and placed a stone, the size of a man’s fist, at a distance of a hundred and fifty paces, as a mark, which both hit.”

Despising the marmots that darted about amongst the rocks, the party continued their ascent of the vast icefield, occasionally catching sight of large and small herds of chamois, until, after an hour’s further march, they came upon a group of thirteen, grazing on a bit of turf hard by the rocks. But Colani again forbade them to fire, his object being rather to earn his handsome day’s wage than to destroy his game, so that the two friends had the pleasure of seeing forty beautiful chamois trot by in file—the young always behind the old ones—without being allowed to fire a shot. Without a single head of game, they betook themselves to a cowherd’s hut to pass the night. Amongst their provisions was a small wine-keg, the bung of which, driven hard in, they all in turn endeavoured to extract, with their fingers, and by the help of stones, &c. “I will get it out!” cried Colani; and griping the hard wooden stopper with his sixty-six-year-old teeth, turned the keg in his hands, and had uncorked it in an instant.

“The next morning the mountaineer took his companions to the Brüneberg, set one to watch, and led the other along a steep narrow crest of rock, whence they discerned several distant herds of chamois. Colani amused himself by taking Dr Lenz into several places of deadly peril. Once, when both lay looking over a cliff a thousand feet deep, endeavouring to spy out game, Lenz suddenly heard a violent rustling noise, and at the same moment a tremendous yell from Colani. Lenz drew himself back in a fright, and saw an enormous vulture sweeping, with the swiftness of an arrow, close over his head. Colani had observed the vulture’s premeditated attack, and by his shout had saved his companion from certain destruction. Before the hunters could use their guns, the bird had disappeared. Lenz thanked the mountaineer for his rescue, but at the same time observed to him, that he had not come into the mountains to be served up for breakfast to a nestful of young vultures, but to shoot chamois, whereupon Colani promised to take him, the next day, to the Bernina, where they abound.”

The next day was lost, however, in the fruitless pursuit of two bears, of which they could not get even a sight. The morning after, they were on foot at four o’clock, ascending a mountain. After breakfasting on milk and cheese in a shepherd’s hut, they separated, Planta remaining behind, Colani and Lenz pushing forward, through wind and snow showers, until the sun, rising above the mountains, gave promise of a fine day. Lenz got impatient, and told Colani that if he did not get a shot that day he would give up the chase. Colani replied that he would have taken them to the Bernina, but they had preferred coming to the Campogask mountains in quest of bears. There were few chamois where they then were, and those hard to get at, nevertheless he would take him to some, if he had courage to follow. In another half-hour he came in sight of the spot where he expected to find game, and saw five head. “There they are,” he cried; “at nine o’clock they will lie down; we may wait half an hour here;—but the road to yonder place is frightful. I have been over it only once in my life.”

“Colani went in front, his gun slung over his shoulder, came to a huge perpendicular wall of rock, and stepped upon a narrow ledge which ran along it. The path was hideously dangerous. The loose earth crumbled away at every step; in the incalculable depth below them the loftiest trees appeared no bigger than a man’s finger; in their front the shelf grew narrower, and seemed at last quite to disappear; they passed over several crevices, through which they looked down into the valley. With his face half-covered, Lenz followed Colani. On reaching the end of the line of precipice: ‘Have a care!’ cried the hunter, as he grasped, there where the path ceased, a rocky point, planted his foot firmly, and swung himself over the chasm to the farther side of the rock, leaving his companion to follow his example. With the courage of despair, Lenz did so, without accident, and almost to the astonishment of Colani, who remarked, with great naïveté, ‘I hardly thought we should have got as far as this together—but now to the chamois; we have circumvented them finely!’ In another half-hour they were on the top of the mountain on which they had seen the chamois, and at last they discerned a large and a small one lying amongst the Alpine roses at their feet, on the brink of a deep precipice. With a beating heart Lenz fired over Colani’s shoulder. The large chamois sprang to the height of a man from the ground, turned over, and fell backwards over the precipice. Colani, resting his gun on an unsteady block of stone, fired at the small one, and missed. Lenz was for going down into the ravine, to fetch his game, but Colani opposed this, and, with looks that told of a conscience ill at ease,—‘What lies in that grave,’ he said, ‘lies safely buried!’ Several years before, a Grison hunter had disappeared at that place, and no trace of him had ever been found. Lenz fancied a smell of human blood.”

Continuing their walk, or rather their scramble, the two men reached a dismal valley, strewn with blocks of stone, and surrounded by cloud-capped peaks. Suddenly Colani threw himself behind a stone, and made a sign to Lenz to do the same.

“‘What’s the matter?’ inquired Lenz, surprised.

“Colani answered not, but gazed hard through his field-glass, clenched his fist violently, and muttered an execration. At last Lenz discovered, high up amongst the rocks, a diminutive human figure. Colani, almost mad with fury, continued to grind out his ‘Verdamms!’ ‘I do not know the fellow,’ he at last exclaimed; ‘but, thank God, he has not seen us yet! Now he looks down through his glass.’ As he spoke, the hunter’s clenched teeth and savage glances justified apprehensions of the worst kind.

“‘As soon as yonder man moves off,’ he whispered, ‘we must circumvent him.’

“‘Nothing of the sort, Colani,’ said Lenz, gravely. ‘I came to shoot chamois, not men.’ Meanwhile the strange hunter disappeared. Colani sprang up. ‘Follow me,’ he cried: ‘in a quarter of an hour the man will be on yonder ridge; we must be there in ten minutes.’ They ran themselves out of breath, and in ten minutes got over a distance which, under ordinary circumstances, they would have taken half an hour to perform. On reaching the summit they sank, utterly exhausted, behind a mass of rock. But the strange hunter was near at hand. His approach revived them.

“Colani cocked his piece and took aim at the man. Quietly, but resolutely, Lenz seized the barrel, changed its direction, and said, in an authoritative tone,

“‘Stop; I will suffer no murder in my presence.’

“Colani cast a dangerous glance at him; but then he held out his hand and said, ‘We will not quarrel.’ Meanwhile the hunter had disappeared amongst the rocks. With a malicious laugh, Colani crept round, bidding Lenz remain where he was. The stranger had sat down rather lower, on the edge of a rock, and was gazing through his glass into the valley. ‘I do not know the fellow,’ said Colani; ‘but I will go down and pay him a visit. Hold yourself ready to fire.’

“‘I will have nothing to do with your quarrels,’ replied Lenz; ‘but I shoot down the first man who meddles with me.’

“With triggers cocked, Colani crept down like a cat. When only at three paces from the inoffensive stranger, he stepped suddenly from behind the rocks, and raised his fist against him. But he silently let it fall again. The pair gazed at each other for a moment; then Colani leant his gun against the rock, and sat down beside the hunter, took his gun from his hands and examined it, whilst they took snuff together. Lenz expected he would next ask for the game-bag, and then treacherously push the man over the precipice; but they remained friends.

“The strange hunter, a stout old man, about sixty-five years old, was a native of the village of Bevers, and a particular friend of Colani’s; but nevertheless, knowing how spiteful he was, he never risked himself on his hunting-ground. He had heard that Colani was gone to the Bernina, and seized the opportunity of shooting a chamois. But he had disguised himself, so that no one might betray him to Colani.”

Soon after this the hunting party was broken up, for it appeared to Lenz as if Colani would not have been much grieved to see him fall over a precipice, and as if he did all in his power to disgust him with his mountains and chamois. The next day Lenz left the Engadine with Planta; but for the next month he felt in every limb the consequences of his unusual fatigues. Colani fell ill in consequence of them, and died five days afterwards. This remarkable hunter had shot, since his twentieth year, at which period he usurped the sovereignty of the mountains, no less than two thousand seven hundred chamois (to say nothing of the many he had killed before attaining that age)—a number which no other hunter ever nearly approached.

The second part of Dr Tschudi’s book—which might rather be called a brief appendix, since it comprises but one-fifteenth part of the volume—is allotted to the domestic animals of the Alpine country—to cattle, goats and sheep, horses and dogs. It contains particulars interesting to the farmer as well as to the naturalist; but the length to which this paper has already extended forbids its further prolongation.

THE ROMANS IN SCOTLAND.[6]

Some forty years ago, in the windy muirlands of the parish of Lesmahago, in Lanarkshire, a stepping-stone in a burn, where the cattle crossed from one field to another, attracted attention by an odd phenomenon. A smooth, rounded, moderate-sized stone it had appeared, since it had been noticed at all—coloured a greenish brown by infusoria, like the other water-worn lumps of clay-slate in the district. But this stone was seen to receive a peculiar indentation on its surface from the pressure of the cattle’s feet, not of a kind exemplified on water-worn stones in general. As to the inquiring peasant, in whom this phenomenon created a curiosity not to be gratified without an excavation, the annals of archæology are silent. It is only known that the curiously indented stone was removed with some difficulty, when, behold, it resolved itself into the figure and material of a plated claret jug, from which the silver had, by long exposure, been removed. This was odd enough—a claret jug in such a place, and trodden on, for no one knew how many years, by cattle and their herds! But a deeper mystery remained behind, for, on examination, the vessel was found to be an undoubted Roman work, to be made of bronze, in that beautiful egg-shape, sweeping with an ogee curve towards the neck, so remarkable in the best Etruscan vases; while on the gracefully-formed handle there was a piece of legendary sculpture, harmonising in the artistic beauty of its outlines with the form of the vessel. It may now be seen in the Hunterian Museum in Glasgow, with the indentation made by the hoofs of cattle on its side, and the beautiful little bit of sculpture—seemingly Mercury in the upper department, and Minerva with the helmet and bird of wisdom in the lower—as it was buried among the pebbles of the burn in Lesmahago—for how long, let the person who may have dropped it there tell.

To us there appears to be something infinitely interesting and impressive in such casual, and accidentally and strangely discovered vestiges of the great empire which ramified itself so far into the wilderness; and we confess to the weakness that we never could see any of these scanty relics of the uncertain frontiers of the empire, without feeling much more interest and emotion than chambers full of marble sculpture, pottery, and bronzes, could call forth in other places. There is a character about them all, scanty as they may be deemed, which at once, in the eye even of the uninstructed, removes them from anything, either in an early or a late age, belonging to the indigenous workmanship of the country. Occasionally our earth has yielded one of the glittering relics which fallen empires leave as types of their old lustre beneath the dust of their decay, and a gold or silver coin, bearing the image and superscription of an Antoninus Pius, a Severus, or a Caracalla, has been revealed by the plough of the hind, or the mattock of the railway labourer. But, though he may take it to the nearest change-house for criticism, the finder will not irreverently dream of passing it off as a convertible medium, however it may bear a mysterious resemblance to the current coin of the realm. There are indications that both in early and recent times—among the learned, the peasantry, and the citizens—a sort of unconscious homage has been paid to Roman remains, as they have, from time to time, been revealed—an acknowledgment, as it were, of their high rank among the fragmentary memorials of past ages, and departed dynasties and races. Walking down the High Street of Edinburgh, nearly opposite to Knox’s house, there may, on the other side of the street, be seen, in fine preservation, two heads, cut in low relief, indisputably Roman, from the simple severity of the sculpture. The house in which they are imbedded is old enough to have seen many historical events; but the sculpture carries tokens that it was taken charge of, and valued, at a still earlier period; for between the two heads there is inserted an inscription, in Gothic character, older perhaps than any house in Edinburgh. And so this far, at all events, seems evident of the medallions of the Roman emperor and his wife, that they had decorated some structure still older than the old Edinburgh house—probably in some one of the ecclesiastical buildings which fell to pieces after the Reformation; and perhaps the builder of the house adopted them as more artistic and modern-looking than the other relics of Gothic masonry in the ruin—little dreaming that the builder of the medieval edifice looked on them with mysterious awe as relics of some early unknown school of art, with which he was incapable of competing.

In nothing, perhaps, is the immediate acknowledgment of superiority, which fragments of Roman art have created in our country, more remarkable than in the ecclesiastical seals which it has lately become the pride of our archæologists to preserve. There, one may often see in the midst of the rude Gothic tracery of the fourteenth century, an outline scarce distinguishable on the surface of the mouldering wax; yet evidently adjusting itself, as it were, by some capricious accident, to the pure forms of older art, in a head, or nude figure, a lion or an equipped Roman warrior. Examination shows that these are no ideal creations, from worn outlines fancifully adjusted to artistic forms like faces in the fire, but that old entaglio gems had been inserted in the matrices of the seals; and that their beauty should have been appreciated is the more remarkable, that they are in their rigid simplicity so strongly in contrast even with the merits of that florid decoration which the early seal-cutters took from the architectural types of their age. We believe that a minute inquiry would bring forth many fragments of Roman work incrusted into our older buildings; and we could point to one instance where a piece of sculpture—of Priapeian character—does duty, after some slight liberties having been taken with it, as a representation of an illustrious national hero. Sandy Gordon, as he is called by Monkbarns, when he prowled about Scotland grubbing in various corners for the materials of his inimitable Itinerarium Septentrionale, was ever finding Roman altars and sculpture imbedded in obscure private houses; and it must be commendably said of their builders that they did the best they could to save these relics from destruction. Some of these have been lost or obliterated during the century and a quarter elapsing since the publication of the Itinerarium; but others have, through the influence of that work, found a more public and secure place of deposit. Thus a sculptured and inscribed stone, which Gordon pronounced one of the best in Scotland, when found at Duntocher, was elevated to the dignity of decorating the gateway of Kochney House, and has thence been transferred to the Hunterian Museum of Glasgow. “At the house of Nether Croy,” says Mr Stuart, “situated on the low grounds to the north of Croyhill, are two pieces of Roman sculpture and a votive altar, which are said to have been found in the immediate vicinity of the height in question. The former are placed in the wall of the building—the latter stands in a green plot immediately adjoining.” In the funny little museum in the semicircular building at Perth—the sybilistic Latin inscription on which has sometimes driven curious travellers frantic to discover its purport—there is a stone slab with sculpture as mysterious. It may, however, be guessed from the triumphal car and figure, and the leopards, that it represents a Bacchus. This vestige of ancient polytheism long occupied the uncongenial position of a hearthstone in a peasant’s cottage in Strathmore. But whether it was so preserved from respect to its artistic interest, or from the convenience of its form, may be doubted. In the middle of the sixteenth century, some Roman remains were discovered at Musselburgh; among them an altar dedicated to Apollo by a certain proconsul Quintus Lusius Sabiniarius, no doubt a highly respectable man and efficient officer, though history has failed to commemorate his merits. The excitement and attention created by this discovery are curious, and show, in a remarkable shape, that interest which has ever attached to the vestiges of the Roman presence in Scotland. In Queen Mary’s Treasury Accounts for 1565, there is an entry of twelve pence, “to ane boy passand of Edinburgh with ane charge of the Queene’s Grace, direct to the Baillies of Mussilburgh charging thame to tak diligent heid and attendance, that the monument of Grit antiquitie now fundin be nocht demolisit nor broken down.” Randolph, the English ambassador, influenced, perhaps, by the fuss he saw made about the matter, deemed the discovery worthy of a special note stuck into the midst of matters of a very different character; and so he writes to Cecil, who probably was a little surprised at finding his cunning correspondent occupied with such a trifle, that “the cave found bysyd Muskelbourge seemeth to be some monument of the Romaynes, by a stone that was found with these words graven upon hym,” &c. This altar was noticed by the all-observing Camden, and more philosophically commemorated by Napier of Merchiston, as appropriate to the idols of Pagan Rome, in his commentary on the Apocalypse.

And having noticed these instances of respect paid to the vestiges of mighty Rome, perhaps the picture will only be rendered the more complete by telling of the retaliation which followed a signal action of disrespect to a relic of the illustrious strangers. Who has not heard of Arthur’s Oon on the Carron in Stirlingshire? now, alas! obliterated. It was fortunately seen by Sandy Gordon, who, in his matter-of-fact engravings, has evidently preserved its appearance—lapidatim, if we may use the term—though not in the best of perspective. It was a dome, following on a small scale the form of the Pantheon, with a circular opening at the top. It was a diminutive building twenty-two feet only in height, with an outer circumference of some thirty yards or so, and an arched door about nine feet high. Keeping these dimensions in view, it does not resemble any other Roman building that we remember to have heard of. In dimensions and structure, it has features in common with the curious beehive houses to be found in some of the ancient Irish burial-grounds; but then, these are of the roughest of unworked stones, while Arthur’s Oon was laid in courses accurately hewn. Granting an eccentric and peculiar building to be Roman, the usual solution of its purpose is to count it a tomb, for the Romans were eccentric, like ourselves, in the commemorations which they raised over the dead, and often departed from systematic characteristics. Of course there has been abundance of conjecture as to the origin and object of so peculiar a building. Its name, Arthur’s Oon, has been read as a corruption of Arthur’s oven, as if it were the circular baking-place where that hospitable prince appropriately prepared the viands consumed at his round table by the chivalrous company there assembled; but this is a theory to which the more learned antiquaries of late times give little encouragement. Diodorus Siculus tells us, on the authority of a writer venerable in his day, whom he calls Hecatæus, that there is over against Celtic Gaul an island as large as Sicily, inhabited by the Hyperborians. The tradition of the natives says that Latona was born there—whence they have a partiality for the worship of Apollo. To this their favourite deity they dedicated a wonderful temple, of a round form, intrusting the custody of it to the descendants of Boreas, with a fitting establishment of priests and bards, who are represented as constantly doing duty within the sacred precincts. If we should maintain that here we have the original history of Arthur’s Oon, we defy any one to disprove it; and this kind of negative impossibility is, we have generally found, the main strength of archæological theories. It would be eminently satisfactory too, as carrying the structure back into an unknown antiquity, far before the Roman invasions. It requires, however, the peculiar capacities of the Irish antiquary to fight out a theory of this sort, simple though it may seem, and we shall therefore content ourselves with a tacit assent to those who believe the structure to have been Roman.

Here there would be a steady enough foundation in the unanimity with which all the earlier annalists attribute the lost structure to Roman origin, were they not so diverse in the specific period to which they refer it. Still, the early period at which it was held to be an interesting Roman antiquity is remarkable. That questionable gentleman Nennius tells us as explicitly as possible that Carausius built on the banks of the Carron a round house of polished stone, as a triumphal arch in memory of his victory, while he rebuilt the wall between the Forth and Clyde, and fortified it with seven castles. John Major is as distinct in his assertion that it was built by Julius Cæsar, adding the strange gloss that it was an imitation of Hercules when he placed his triumphal pillars in the south of Spain. That inveterate old story-teller Hector Boece is not less specific in stating that it was raised by Vespasian in honour of his predecessor Claudius, and that it covers the ashes of the highly respected and distinguished officer Aulus Plautius. Hector, however, mentions some other little particulars, which, if true, are decidedly to the point;—as that in his day the effigy of a Roman eagle was visible, cut in the pavement, and there stood within the building a stone sacrificial altar. Sir Robert Sibbald, the naturalist and historian, probably having his imagination heightened by this statement—declared that with a lighted link he could trace the outline of an eagle’s head, and that he could also trace something extremely like the figure of a Victory. Moreover, he saw certain letters which, with a diffidence unprecedented and unimitated in the antiquarian world, he declared to be to him (Sir Robert) quite unintelligible.

Thus, Arthur’s Oon—a building so diminutive in itself that a fac-simile of it, identical in dimensions, formed a cupola for the stables of that zealous antiquary Sir James Clerk of Penicuik—became one of the wonders of the world. So it was esteemed when the proprietor of the estate in which it stood, not having the fear of the antiquarian world before his eyes, but desiring some good hewn stone for the purpose of flagging a mill-dam, and believing that he could do what he liked with his own, took Arthur’s Oon to pieces. The mill-dam which he built was carried off by a flood—a just judgment, as it was deemed, on its sacrilegious owner; and the hewn stones of Arthur’s Oon have for nearly a century been buried in silt, or tossed about and rounded by the water of the stream. The antiquarians were loud in their wail, and propagated their indignant grief far around. They had even resort to the medium—uncongenial for their usual purpose—of caricature, and the destroyer of the circular temple was represented as the victim of every kind of ludicrous retaliation, which the invention of gentlemen whose artistic line, however, lay chiefly in crockets, mouldings, and fragmentary sculpture, could devise. Posterity and other nations took up the cry. We remember that, when the representative of the original victim stood for a Scottish constituency after the passing of the Reform Bill, it was stated against him, with mysterious emphasis, that he was the descendant of the destroyer of Arthur’s Oon; and we saw the whole delinquency specifically described as a sort of celebrated crime in the work of a German historian, published within the past five years. We are the more anxious to draw attention to this instance of heavy and protracted retribution, that we would desire it to stand forth as an example, warning others, as the Scottish indictments do, against committing the like crime in time coming. Let all and every person or persons, body corporate or politic, see what it is thoughtlessly or obstinately to destroy any portion of the country’s treasury of antiquities.

“Oh be its weight like lead to lead

Upon its dull destroyer’s head,”

was Sir Walter Scott’s minstrel’s malison against such an offender; and we cannot help remembering that at this moment one of the finest specimens of Gothic architecture left by the destroyers of a former age, lies in a carefully preserved and arranged heap, ready to be put together again if its restoration may be permitted. We must admit that, in general, the Scottish gentry have shown a praiseworthy anxiety to preserve all remains of the mighty Romans, justly judging the interest attached to them to be very high, however insignificant their relics may appear. Nor are they all, by any means, of a kind that would be deemed insignificant, even in the richer mines of Roman antiquities nearer the seat of empire. For instance, the following description of a sculptured slab found in a farm, near the Duntocher station, on Antonine’s Wall, is full of promise to the artist as well as the archæologist:—

“In a certain freedom of execution and simplicity of design, we have seen nothing superior, throughout the entire assemblage of our Roman inscriptions. A plain raised border surrounds the stone, within which, in the lower centre of the field, appear two winged Victories, each resting one foot upon a globe, and jointly supporting, with their raised hands, an oblong tablet bearing the inscription. On either side of the Victories stands a Roman soldier—the one holding a spear, and leaning on his scutum, or long-shaped buckler—the other supporting a small standard with his right hand, and carrying what appears to be a sheathed sword in his left. The former is no doubt intended for one of the Hastati or Principes, who carried long spears and oblong shields—the latter for a Vexillarius, with his Ensign displayed. In the first, the lorica or cuirass covering the body is perfectly distinct, and he stands before us in the full equipment of battle; the standard-bearer seems more lightly accoutred, while something like the fold of a scarf descends from his left shoulder. The head-dress of the two figures is rather singular, bearing a much greater resemblance to the bonnets of our Highland regiments than to the Roman galea or helmet. As, however, the legionary soldiers had a decided penchant for adorning the crests of their morions with feathers, we have here perhaps a specimen of the length to which, in this respect, their tastes would sometimes lead them.”

This extract is taken from the work of one who devoted a thoughtful and inquiring mind to the classification and elucidation of the Roman remains in Scotland. It was the misfortune of a little circle of friends, who seem to have been deeply attached to him, to lose him from among them after the first edition of his work had achieved success, and while he was preparing an edition more extensive and complete, and more in accordance with his enthusiastic conception of the interest of the subject. Friends attached to his memory have filled up the little gaps which the author had left until some day that never was destined to dawn on him, and have edited the work for the benefit of his early left widow and children; and a pleasant book it is. Not that it contains a rapid and succinct history of events, or a brief and rigidly archæological investigation into the character of our Roman remains. Though it can stand inquiry for scholarship and full investigation, it is on the whole a dreamy and discursive book, and the dreaminess is of that sad, gentle, and somewhat plaintive kind, which might be supposed to come from one in whom the seeds of early dissolution had been sown. This is by no means uncongenial to the subject. Turning from imperial Rome, in her progressive rise and all-conquering greatness, as we stand in Italy and picture her spreading her power over the world—yet the view from the extremities which recalls to us how the Roman soldier, reared under the blue sky of Italy, among the vines and olives, amid temples and groves alive with sculpture, had been driven by imperious duty to spend long periods of life on desolate moors, swept by the bleak damp winds of Scotland, is one suggestive of saddened reflections. To a mind like Mr Stuart’s, and to other minds too, if they wander meditatively among these farthest relics of departed empire, their structure and nature, ever recalling the home characteristics and associations of the colonists, impart many touching appeals to sympathy. The prætor or centurion who had to take up his abode in some wild heath in the half-conquered dependency, would have as gaily tesselated a floor as the materials of the district would afford, to imitate as near as possible his villa by the warm shore of pleasant Baiæ. A few statues, however meagre and rude they might be, would still show the characteristic types of those dear to his sight in the streets of Rome or Pompeii. The structure of his villa followed the rich architecture which his fathers had adopted from the simpler Greek, and in his exile he forgot not to dedicate altars to his native deities—as many inscribed blocks of stone, with the sacrificial focus, flanked by the usual scroll decoration, can testify. Many of these curious and eloquent memorials were discovered in the cuttings of the Edinburgh and Glasgow Railway, which, like the Union Canal, followed the same line of country as the Roman engineer had adopted for a rampart and chain of forts. One of these, an insignificant slab near Castlecary, announces that the soldiers of the sixth legion—victorious, pious, and faithful, natives of Sicily, Italy, and Bavaria—pay their vow to the god Mercury.

“From the appearance of this altar, the form of the letters, the character of their combinations, and the number of arbitrary marks or dashes which it contains, we should suppose it to have been executed at a much later period than any of the stones which refer to the construction of the Wall. We have frequently had occasion to mention the Legio Sexta Victrix, but never with any particular knowledge of its history, until this little antique came forth from its long concealment, to tell us of the various nations which had contributed to swell its ranks. From the banks of the upper Danube, the plains of Megara or of Agrigentum, and from the bounteous fields of Italy herself, the young and the stout-hearted had been called, it would appear, to experience a long, if not a perpetual exile, in the comparatively inglorious and harassing service of defending the Caledonian frontier. As the Sixth legion is supposed to have remained for several centuries in Britain, it is most probable that numbers of those men, drafted from the south of Europe to recruit its ranks, were fated to pass their whole existence in this remote corner of the world. To many, such a prospect was perhaps far from repulsive, as they may have looked forward to the possession of some of those grants of land which were bestowed on the Roman soldier when his period of service was expired: still, the recollections of home and country had not, as we see, been altogether eradicated from among them, and often may the thoughts of the legionary veteran have rested upon the associations of his earlier days, when, as on the stone before us, the name of Sicily or Noricum was presented to his view.”

It must be remembered that these strangers were not momentary invaders; but that, more or less, they held ground in Scotland—sometimes only their forts and ramparts, at others, the wider fruit of recent conquest—for a period approaching three centuries; and that the works of Agricola, if he left any, must have been as much antiquities in the days of Constantius, as the castles connected with Mary are in the days of Victoria. Hence any vestiges of the manner in which they domestically adapted themselves to the wild north, have a utilitarian interest beyond that of mere association. After their villas and works of art, not the least important vestiges of their career are those which are supposed to indicate the use of their national luxury, the bath. Did the Italians indeed attempt, in these inhospitable regions, to indulge in a meagre imitation of those vast establishments, with their sudatories, caledaries, tepidaries, and frigidaries, and other costly aids of luxury, physical and mental, which in their remains astonish the tourist wandering southward? If we may believe the inferences which men not unskilled in archæology have drawn from discovered remains, the Romans erected a substantial bath so far northward as the rocky promontory of Burgh-head, stretching into the Moray Firth. That here there was a Roman station—castra stativa; and that the Moray Firth, with its line of lakes so far, and the highland mountains in continuation, formed the aræ finium of the Roman empire, is one of the matters which admit of very pretty antiquarian criticism and debate. One curious argument on the question we shall at once dispose of, as characteristic of the kind on which archæological theories are sometimes founded. Thus antiquaries find that the ancient name of the place was Torryton or Torrydun, and give its northern etymology as meaning the town or fortress on the hill. Now, the Greek geographers give a certain Pteroton stratopedon as about the most northerly of the Roman stations in Britain. Here, then, they say, is a natural adaptation of the native Torryton into Pteroton. But—and it is seldom that etymology, which generally is allowed to run riot, can be so satisfactorily pulled up—the Greek name is but a translation of the Roman Alata Castra, or winged camp; and even an etymologist will hardly hold that the ancients would go round about through a Latin description, to find a Greek word resembling in sound the native name. As to external evidence of occupation, there have been Roman coins found in the neighbourhood; but money is a vagrant commodity; and while there have been other relics, of a disputable character, found as far northward as the entrance of Loch Ness, where, indeed, Camden mentions that a little treasury of Roman antiquities was discovered, yet there is no authentic inscription—the true test of occupancy—which has been discovered in these northern districts. But then there is the bath itself, which introduced this particular branch of the subject to our present notice. We take a lively interest in it, from having made, about a quarter of a century ago, a pilgrimage to inspect it. An accommodating sailor, lounging among the windy rocks which there jut into the ocean, took us through a narrow round-arched entrance into a square stone chamber, where a solid platform, of a couple of feet or so in width, surrounded the lower and narrower compartment, in which clear water, as from a spring, rose to about four feet from the platform. A slight incision or niche in one corner was characteristic of Roman work, as intended for the reception of the deity of the fountain. But otherwise there were no expressive marks of classical origin, unless the clean cutting of the stones and their accurate courses be so considered. The promontory was a favourite fortress of the Northmen, to whom undoubtedly so workmanlike an edifice could not be attributed. Scattered around the little fishing village were remains of old fortifications, which the scientific General Roy and others have set down as Roman. They are now, we believe, incapable of bearing witness in the question, scarcely a vestige of them remaining. But at the time to which we allude there were several fragments of considerable mounds strengthening the position to seaward, and the still fainter vestiges of ramparts, which, severing the promontory from the low neck of sandy land connecting it with the fruitful plains of Moray, had converted it into a petty Gibraltar. The site, however, is not like those of Roman camps, which were generally on central plains attached to a system of trunk highways, and the remains of mounds had none of the fastidious neatness of their square works. On the whole, we could only decide—and after consideration adhere to the decision—that the stone chamber either is or is not a Roman bath.

Remains more distinctly indicative of the adoption of their native luxury have been found near Inveresk, where the Romans were undoubtedly in permanent position.

“In the year 1783, whilst workmen were engaged in the improvement of some garden-ground, a short distance to the eastward of the church, they came, at the depth of two or three feet, on the floors and foundations of various buildings, which in course of their operations were laid open over an extent of 60 feet in length by 23 feet broad. The whole of this space was paved with a kind of mortar, known by the name of tarras, and was intersected at intervals by distinct traces of stone walls, among which might be observed the enclosures of two separate chambers, the evident remains of a Roman bath. The largest room measured 15 by 9 feet, the other 9 by 4½; and the floors of both were composed of a coating of tarras two inches thick, laid, in the case of the first, upon a layer of lime, gravel, and pieces of brick five inches deep, which again rested on a basement of irregular flag-stones—the whole being supported on rows of pillars two feet in height, some of them formed of stone, and others of brick; but in the smallest chamber the coarse substratum of lime and gravel was ten inches in thickness, as if this part of the building had been required to sustain a greater degree of heat than the other—a supposition extremely probable, from the circumstance that the pillars below bore evident marks of having been much injured by fire. A quantity of charcoal was found beside them, in good preservation, as if placed there to renew the glow of a furnace which had been suddenly and for ever extinguished. Under the first apartment the heat had been conducted by means of flues formed of clay, which were found quite perfect when the discovery was made; the partition-wall between the two rooms was pierced near the ground by a hole three inches in diameter, through which a pipe of some description had no doubt led as a conduit for water from the one to the other.

“Such were the most perfect of the ruins brought to light at the period referred to; but all around them were to be seen the remains of other chambers which had evidently been of a similar construction. Taken in the aggregate, they unquestionably marked the position of an establishment of no mean importance in its day—the public baths of the Roman Inveresk. Of their high antiquity there can be no doubt; for every particular mentioned proclaims them Roman—the very cement covering the floors was of a quality unequalled by the skill of later times, and was formed of exactly the same materials as the tarras which lined the capacious sewers of the ‘Eternal City.’”

Still it is open to doubt if such remains indicate the poor northern substitute for the gorgeous thermæ of the south. Mr Bruce, in his scholarlike and interesting book on the Roman Wall—of which we would fain take an opportunity of speaking more at length ere we resign the subject of the Romans in Scotland, with which it is intimately connected—in mentioning one of these oven sub-floors or hypocausts, suggests that, instead of being intended to heat water or produce a sudatory, they were merely an ingenious method of creating a comfortable degree of indoor warmth for the southern inhabitants of our stormy region. “At present,” he says, speaking of the remains near Chesters, “the floor of the principal apartment is nine inches thick, and when its upper surface was overlaid with a tasteful concrete or mosaic pavement, it would be an inch or two more. It would require a very powerful furnace to raise this mass of matter to a considerable temperature. On the other hand, if the production of a genial and uniform warmth were the object in view, no contrivance could be more suitable. The heated air from a small furnace permeating the underground flues and the walls of a suit of apartments, and not passing off until in its lengthened passage it had given out the larger part of the warmth it had derived, would, in the lapse of some hours, give to the whole building a comfortable temperature which it would not readily lose. Any inattention to the furnace, either by causing it to burn too fiercely or too feebly, would not be felt. The thickness of the floors would prevent the air from being scorched, and producing the disagreeable sensation which is experienced in rooms that are heated by the stoves in common use. It is not improbable that we may return to this method of warming our churches and public halls, even if we do not adopt it in our private buildings.”

Here we have got at something very practical indeed. But, in fact, the Romans knew a vast deal about the art of sustaining life and making it endurable; how otherwise could they have organised so vast a population within the walls of the imperial city? When the Board of Health were recommending tubular drainage, they received specimens of glazed pipes constructed on the best modern principles, which had been excavated from the Coliseum. Curious tubes have been found both in the English and the Scottish walls, and the tradition of the country people in the neighbourhood of both has singularly coincided in assigning them as part of a tubular system of communication from end to end of the wall. The Romans were able sanitarians, and knew the art of safely, and, without inconvenience or risk to discipline, condensing a large number of men within a narrow space. The camp, under the Polybian system of castrametation, was crowded beyond anything that a deputy-quartermaster could readily believe, and there was still greater condensation under the Hygenian system—which, by the way, has no connection whatever with the Hygeian system of the quack doctors who call themselves the British College of Health.

This slight digression from the domestic circle to the camp seems to invite the question, if there are not nobler objects of association with the mighty Roman name than warm baths, heated parlours, and soil-pipes? Was it for this that the eagle, seeking universal dominion, was borne northwards through fields of slaughtered barbarians into realms beyond the line which those who entered them had been taught by their parents to believe as the utmost limits of the earth? Is there nothing in the relics of almighty Rome to tell of her conquests and victories—her mingled impetuosity and endurance—her lofty scorn of the barbarian—her proud defiance of man, of the elements, and of fate itself? Yes. Her military works are indeed still the great leading memorials of Rome, and warlike relics are her principal vestiges. Standing within the ramparts of the fortified camp at Ardoch Bridge, we are conscious in the permanent stability of the earthen works—many of them still smooth and clean as the glacis of a modern fortress—how daring and aggressive, yet how systematic and careful, was the Roman invasion of the North. It is the boast of the antiquary—or the archæologist, as he now calls himself—that he is no longer the fusty custodier of

“A fouth o’ auld nick-nackets,
Rusty airn caps and jinglin jackets,
Waud haud the Lothians three in tackets,
A towmont guid;
And parritch-pats, and auld saut backets,
Before the flood.”

He is now the scientific analyser of the wrecks which time has left, erecting out of his researches, by rigid induction, so much of the history of the past as his materials will afford. And for this there is still a wide field—a wide blank field, but a small portion of which we can ever hope to see filled up—in the three centuries of struggle between the Romans and the inhabitants of Scotland. The beginning of the contest is illuminated by the brilliant light of Tacitus; but after this all is dark and indistinct. We know that nearly a century later Lollius Urbicus penetrated far to the north—that he probably reached those Aræ Finium which we have already spoken of in Moray and Inverness, possibly built that dubious stone chamber in Burgh-head, and bathed in it. About his journeys and conquests—about the building of the Scottish Wall and its forts—their repeated relinquishment and recapture, and the final expulsion of the invaders, still deemed so after the lapse of centuries, how much must there be which the spirit of historical inquiry would devour with avidity—how little that can actually be submitted to its intellectual appetite.

Nay, of the very beginning of the narrative as set forth by Tacitus, how little do we actually know. The bright light dazzles us, and we think it reveals everything, but on examination we can make out but little with clearness. What are we to believe about the battle of the Grampians and Galgacus? Who reported that fine speech of his, containing so many capital hits at the condition of the court of Domitian and the policy of the Prætorian guards? Is it not odd that the Romans, who do not condescend to afford us the slightest hint of the character or structure of the language of their Celtic and Gothic contemporaries, should have got hold of an entire speech of the kind, and translated it so well? That the Romans found it the hardest of all their conflicts to establish themselves in Scotland is clear enough; but it is beyond a doubt that the number and organisation of their adversaries were exaggerated by the historian, to enhance the merit of his brother-in-law and fellow Romans. How are we to believe that thirty thousand trained warriors were gathered under the command of one leader, with such means of subsistence as Scotland can have then afforded? We know that the islands of New Zealand, having an area co-extensive with the United Kingdom, could just produce about that number of men able to bear arms, were every one, in all the remotest corners of the islands, brought to join the general muster; and it is difficult to suppose that Scotland was much more populous than a track of New Zealand similar in extent would be now. How much more interesting than the grandiloquent Roman’s account of the chariot charge, and the showers of darts, would have been some actual account of the character and appearance of the mountain warriors who braved the power of Rome; but we derive no more distinct impression of them than that their swords were very long. It would be something to know even the name of the chief called Galgacus, and an accurate sketch of his appearance would be worth a picture-gallery. Modern art has by no means supplied the defect. We have before us a representation of “Galgacus addressing the Caledonian army before the battle of the Grampians,” which, we are informed, is engraved in steel, in the finest style of the art. The chief has unexceptionable mustaches, and is arrayed in the full uniform of some one of the Highland regiments. His ostrich plume is very rich and full, and he addresses the meeting in the attitude which may be found in the frontispiece of “the Speaker’s Guide.” His chariot—but for the material, which is basket-work—might have come out of Longacre. We cannot say much for the anatomy of the horses, but their grooming is excellent, and they are admirably matched. At their head stands a figure arrayed in tartan, whose shape and attitude would seem much more natural were he accoutred in cords and tops, with a green frock and shoulder-knots. Another attempt, evidently more ambitious in the adaptation of costume and coincidents, is not much more successful. The scene is laid on the slope of Arthur Seat as a suitable piece of mountain scenery. Galgacus is more rough and hairy than in the other attempt. There is a greater portion of bare limb and a smaller amount of tartan. He wears on his head a skull-cap with a spike in it, such as dragoons wore in the seventeenth century. In his hand he carries a Lochaber-axe, such as that which made the City Guard of Edinburgh so formidable in the days of poor Ferguson. The chariot is not so well got up as in the rival plate; we question if it would go a couple of yards on a turnpike road, not to speak of its capacity to bowl along the scaurs and precipices of the Grampians. A scythe projects from either axle in a way which makes one wonder how the group around can pay so much attention to the oratory. If the machine move a few inches, the leg of a venerable gentleman very intent on the oration will be amputated. As to this personage,—his head, with its high brow, aquiline nose, and profuse white beard, is taken from some apostle in some painting by some great master. The costume is of the peculiar kind invented by Benjamin West. The old man carries in his hand an instrument like an Irish reaping-hook; only it is made of gold, and he is going to cut the misletoe with it. He is the type of those mysterious personages called Druids in the histories perused by our youth at school, and his function in modern phraseology is that of army chaplain. From neither of these representations do we derive a very satisfactory notion of Galgacus and his followers; and, indeed, it would be difficult to say which of them seems the more distant from the probable truth.

Another question is in itself of a far more simple character, yet has caused a sufficient amount of complex dispute—Where was this battle of the Grampians fought? The Grampian mountains are well enough known in modern geography. The Mons Grampius of Tacitus is as great a geographical vagrant as the source of the Niger or the place where Hannibal passed the Alps. The etymologists find that the word Grampian is decidedly of Gaelic origin; but etymologists, and Celtic ones especially, can always find what is wanted. Our own belief is that the name of the Grampian mountains is derived from the words Mons Grampius of Tacitus, and we have no doubt that he gave that name to the battle-field with true Roman caprice and contempt. Where then was it? When Tacitus speaks of the army having passed the Bodotria, and the natives being driven, as it were, into another island before the battle, we seem to have the fact pretty clearly ascertained that it occurred north of the Forth and Clyde, and of the line of forts subsequently erected. But over the extensive ground thus opened to them antiquaries have moved about the battle like a chessman over every available square, from Lochore in Fifeshire, where Scott rather encouraged them to place it on account of his son’s marriage with the heiress, to the hills of Aberdeenshire. A hard fight was made at Ardoch, with its fine fort and camps, in full view of the Grampian range, if not on them; but the champions of the other spots would not admit themselves to be defeated. In the midst of such a contest, in which such men as Sibbald, Horsley, Gordon, Stukeley, Whitaker, Chalmers, Pinkerton, Roy, and Ritson were engaged so unsuccessfully, it is pleasant to see a real giant come forth and hew the pigmies down with an unhesitating sword. Some thirty years ago there appeared an “Account of interesting Roman Antiquities discovered in Fife,” by the Rev. Andrew Small of Edenshead. In a chapter, giving “an account of the battle of Meralsford on the Lomond hill, which Tacitus has mistaken for Mount Grampius,” he affords a model to the class of antiquaries who have generally dealt with these subjects, since he carries to the highest perfection their peculiar method of reasoning. His view is, that Tacitus had made a topographical blunder, since a battle which Mr Small knows to have taken place at Meralsford, “appears obviously to have been that great battle described by Tacitus as having been fought at the foot of Mons Grampius. But it is clear to a demonstration, that he had mistaken Mons Lomundus for Mons Grampius, as it is nigh the north brae of the West Lomond Hill that the battle was fought.” Such reasoning is conclusive. His method of describing the whole affair is equally clear and convincing. We have the operations of the Romans step by step thus:—“At Burnside they were within less than a quarter of a mile of the Caledonians, having only to cross in a north-east direction the south-east angle of the farm of Bonnety when they entered upon the lands of Edenshead, and there they came first in contact with the Caledonians, where a large cairn, erected upon the march betwixt these two lands, straight east from the farm-steading of Bonnety, which stood about these twenty years back, evidently points out the extremity to where the left wing had extended.” Here it seems the Romans at the commencement of the affair were repulsed, an event which Tacitus naturally passes over; and the exulting Mr Small, who is a truly national writer, talks of “the warm reception they met with, and the sound drubbing they got from the brave Caledonians when the battle commenced;” while he further finds that the unfaithful Tacitus “carefully conceals their retreat across the river Eden, because he considers it disgraceful to the Roman arms.”

It is a pity that people will not be satisfied with such comprehensive solutions of difficulties, but it must be admitted that the battle of the Grampians is still in want of a site. A curious element of perplexity was added to the dispute, by the introduction in the midst of it, about a century ago, of the itinerary of Richard, the monk of Cirencester, who had left behind him a manuscript giving a full and minute account of the geography of Britain in the time of the Romans, taken from Roman sources. His itinerary went as far north as the Moray Firth, and wherever he set down a station, there some remains or some identity of name immediately proved the accuracy of his materials. Never was such joy in the antiquarian world. The writers on Roman British archæology, who followed the discovery, alluded to their groping predecessors as astronomers might to those who wrote in ignorance of the Copernican theory. The magnificent work of General Roy on the military antiquities of the Romans, was but a commentary on the itinerary of Richard. Whitaker treated it as an undoubted authority for the state of Britain in the middle of the second century, “a period when we have scarce any information concerning the island from the Roman historians, and the Roman Empire among us was in its greatest glory and its farthest extent.” Even Gibbon gave the work entire credit.

Yet there were some anachronisms or anatopisms, if we may coin a word, which cast suspicion on the performance; and among these, after having taken the inquirer by the ninth Iter beyond the boundaries of Aberdeenshire and the wild uplands near the source of the Don, here all at once he found himself at the “Mons Grampius.” No ingenuity could reconcile this with the account of Tacitus, and the antiquaries had to resort to the bold operation of believing that this did not profess to be the site of the battle, but was a station named in honour of it, as we now say Waterloo Bridge, and Trafalgar Square. But there was something very suspicious in the unwonted circumstance of a monk of the fourteenth century having occupied himself with Roman topography; and the suspicion is not removed by a preliminary dialogue, in which Richard argues the matter with his abbot, who tells him that man has but a short time to live in this world, and it is a sad thing to see a rational creature occupying so brief an interval in setting down a useless list of places which have ceased to exist, and were in their best days only the abode of benighted heathens.

There is, indeed, some reason to believe that the itinerary of Richard is a hoax; but if it be, it is a very complicated and elaborate one. The existence of the MS. was first notified to Stukeley the antiquary, who received an account of it as a discovery made in Copenhagen by Mr Charles Julius Bertram, who enclosed a specimen of it. This so excited the interest of the antiquary that he insisted on having a copy of the whole. Mr Charles Julius Bertram held the responsible place of English Professor in the Royal Marine Academy, and if it be the case that, having tried by the specimen and description to “take a rise,” as it is termed, out of the solemn antiquary, and finding that he must support the story or find himself in a position which it would be unpleasant for an instructor of youth to occupy, that of a perpetrator of practical jokes—it must be admitted that he bore the task he had brought on himself bravely, and relieved himself from his predicament very successfully. We see that a translation of Richard of Cirencester has been published by Mr Bohn in his six old English chronicles. We would like well to see a critical inquiry into its authenticity, conducted with the light of modern archæological science. To the subject, as well as to the wider field of the Roman vestiges in Scotland, we must in the mean time bid farewell.

ATHENS IN 1853.[7]

Wordsworth, whose elegant and scholarly work on Greece is now familiar to most drawing-room tables, in his more erudite-looking but scarcely less elegant volume on Athens and Attica, published in the year 1836, gives a description of the then waste and desolate condition of the city of Pericles in the following terms:—

“The town of Athens is now lying in ruins. The streets are almost deserted; nearly all the houses are without roofs. The churches are reduced to bare walls and heaps of stones and mortar. There is but one church in which service is performed. A few new wooden houses, one or two of more solid structure, and the two lines of planted sheds which form the bazaar, are all the inhabited dwellings that Athens can now boast. In this state of modern desolation, the grandeur of the ancient buildings which still survive here is more striking—their preservation is more wonderful. There is now scarcely any building at Athens in so perfect a state as the temple of Theseus. The least-ruined objects here are some of the ruins themselves.”

A sad picture!—but the saddest thing is, that this is only a picture of what the whole of Greece had been suffering during its long-protracted and painful existence in the middle ages, at a time when Italy, having wrought for itself a new character and language by admixture with Lombard blood, was performing a principal part in the great drama then opening of modern European civilisation. The Greeks have preserved their historical continuity and their language, without a gap, up to the present moment; but for this privilege—if, indeed, it shall prove to be one—they have paid dearly. Better were it, one sometimes thinks, that the whole Hellenic race had been swallowed up by those devastating swarms of Slavonic and other barbarians who now people great part of European Turkey, than to have prolonged such centuries of gilded decrepitude as we see in the later history of Byzantium, and to have been trampled under foot, shorn, and bled by contending races of foreign masters, in the manner exhibited by the medieval rulers of Peloponnesus, and other parts of Greece proper. Whoso wishes to weep for the fortunes of a people, whose character is seldom judged with much Christian charity, will look into the stern, darkly-glowing pages of Professor Fallmerayer, or the more calm, sober, and philosophic chapters of our countryman George Finlay, and he will not remain unmoved.[8] No man who knows what the Greeks have suffered from the days of sanguinolent Sylla until now, will speak against the Greeks. One wonders how a single blade of green grass should be found growing on a soil where, for many centuries, it seemed to rain blood and stones upon a race doomed by Heaven to be exterminated. Professor Fallmerayer, as is well known, goes so far as to say that the Greek race actually is exterminated—that there are literally at this moment no Greeks in Greece:[9] but the existence of one common Greek language in all the countries anciently inhabited by the Hellenes is a pretty strong proof, that, however much Slavonic and Albanian blood may have been imported into Greece, there must have been an equally strong Greek element remaining behind to Hellenise the importation. As for Athens, amid the general black and fiery devastation that possessed subjugated Greece, it continued to present such various phases of lovely decay, genteel decadence, and even fitful flushes of prosperity, without health, as became the metropolis of ancient taste and science. Rome, upon the whole, behaved handsomely enough to her beautiful slave. The Emperor Hadrian, who, like our Queen Victoria, was given to perambulate his empire, visited Athens also, of course, and bestowed on it many distinguished marks of his imperial favour, of which not a few remain even to the present day. He went so far, indeed, in improving a certain district of the city—the south-east quarter, towards the Ilissus—that it went by his name so long as Roman memory lived upon the spot; and the completion of the rich and lordly temple of Jupiter in that region is attributed to him. Julian also, the Apostate, who was educated there, with his fine pagan frenzy, could not be slow to patronise the city of the heathen Muses; nay, even Alaric the Goth, who sacked Lacedæmon, and annihilated Megalopolis, and who, by the base treachery of Arcadius, the puny Emperor of the East, was made Roman governor of those very Greek provinces which as a Goth he had plundered,—this Christian scourge of Hellenic heathendom, when violating the awful mystery of Eleusis and the sacred pomp of Olympia, left Athens unscathed, and feared the gigantic image of the blue-eyed goddess that looked down from the Acropolis. After the fall of the Western Empire, when the dissolute Isaurian, Zeno, purchasing peace for the East, delivered Italy to the Goths, Athens shared naturally in the decay which affected all the provincial cities of the empire, under such a system of centralised absolutism and fiscal oppression as was organised at Byzantium. Nevertheless, we find that when, in the year 1204, the Byzantine Empire was suspended for a season, and large portions of it separated for ever from the centre of authority, Athens became the capital of one of the most flourishing branches of the Frankish Empire; and under the government, first of the Burgundian family of La Roche, then of the Sicilian branch of Arragon, and, lastly, of the Acciauoli, a family of rich merchants from Florence, enjoyed a degree of material prosperity, which the general haze through which the eye is apt to view medieval history seldom allows us distinctly to discern. On this subject Mr Finlay has some remarks, which many of our readers will see with interest.

“It is usual,” says he, “to suppose that Athens was a miserable and decayed town during the whole period of the middle ages, and that Attica then offered the same barren, treeless, and unimprovable aspect which it now does as a European kingdom. Such, however, was not the case: the social civilisation of the inhabitants, and their ample command of the necessaries and many of the luxuries of life, was in those days as much superior to the condition of the citizens of Paris and London, as they are now inferior. The Spaniard Montaner, who was well acquainted with all the rich countries round the Mediterranean, then the most flourishing portion of the globe, and who was familiar with the most magnificent courts of Europe, says that the dukes of Athens were among the greatest princes who did not possess the title of king. He has left us a description of the court of Athens, which gives us a high idea of its magnificence; and he declares that the nobles of the duchy then spoke as good French as the Parisians themselves. The city was large and wealthy, the country thickly covered with villages, of which the ruins may still be traced in spots affording no indication of Hellenic sites. Aqueducts and cisterns then gave fertility to land now unproductive: olive, almond, and fig trees were intermingled with vineyards, and orchards covered ground now reduced by the want of irrigation to yield only scanty pasturage to the flocks of nomade shepherds. The valonia, the cotton, the silk, and the leather of Attica then supplied native manufactories, and the surplus commanded a high price in the European markets. The trade of Athens was considerable, and the luxury of the Athenian ducal court was celebrated in all the regions of the West, where chivalry flourished.”

This extract is uncommonly interesting, as it shows us not only what was done in the past of Athens, but what may be done in the future. But whatever prosperity Athens might have enjoyed under the Frankish dukes was merely temporary; for these dynasties, having no firm root in the country, fell by degrees, one after another, into the condition of ill-governed European dependencies, or of conquered countries governed by foreign rulers for selfish purposes. The wisdom of popular conciliation exercised by most of the early Frankish princes in Greece, as a matter of necessity, on their first entrance into possession, became forgotten when their power seemed firmly established. Part of their kingdoms—in Peloponnesus, for instance—were at an early period resumed by the decadent Byzantine government, which, whatever faults it had, certainly possessed in no ordinary degree the virtue of an obstinate vitality; and all of them were so cruelly oppressed by their unprincipled governors, that when the Turks appeared in Europe, many Greeks looked upon their now greatest enemies as their best friends. In the year 1456, three years after the capture of Constantinople, Athens was Turkish, and remained so till the late war, notwithstanding more than one attempt of the Venetians to make themselves masters of the place. In one of these attempts their admiral threw a bomb into the Acropolis, which reduced the then almost entire Parthenon to its present state of beautiful dilapidation. This happened in the year 1686. What Athens was under the Turks, before the ravages of the Liberation War, during the course of which it was always a most important, and, at the same time, a very exposed point, is thus described by a German traveller in the year 1810:—

“Athens is a town of considerable extent and population,[10] and surrounded with a wall. The houses are bad, and stand without order in the narrow streets. The Turks have several mosques and public baths here; the Greeks a good many churches, cloisters, and chapels. Fragments of pillars and statues are found everywhere. The Turks have very recently made lime of some of the finest works of Greek art. The Acropolis is now a fortress. The garrison consists of a few Turks, who live there with their families, and are called Castriasni, or soldiers of the fort. The fortifications are bad. The Parthenon is a ruin. The Temple of Theseus is entire, and used as a Greek church dedicated to St George. The Tower of the Winds is used as an oratory for the dervishes. The country round Attica is dry and bare. The city itself is under the protection of the Kislar Aga, and is treated mildly by the Turks. Of the three harbours which Athens once had, the Piræus, under the name of Porto Leone, or Porto Draco, is the only one now used. In the place of the magnificent temples and porticoes once found there, there are seen only a few miserable huts, a tottering booth of customs, a cloister dedicated to St Spiridin, and a few ruins of a theatre.”[11]

In the above remarks we have taken a large sweep of time hastily under our view; but the subject is a curious one; and next to the capital of Bavaria there is, at the present moment, no European city on which the last twenty years have made such a change as on Athens. Unreasonable and ill-informed tourists will, of course, visit that city with unreasonable expectations, and be disappointed; but they who start from Mr Wordsworth’s position in 1836, and with some such historical review as we have just given, will be astonished. Athens is now a flourishing, elegant, and, in some important respects, altogether unique capital, containing a population of nearly thirty thousand inhabitants. This, indeed, is not a rise, since Ukert’s times, equal to the marvellous increase in the population of Manchester and Glasgow within the present century; but it is something very notable, and something that looks out into the immediate future with a significance scarcely less attractive than the strange and various past out of which it has sprung. There are two races that have marched out of the past into the present, carrying with them a yet unsolved problem in their existence—the Jews and the Greeks. Providence may yet have in store some worthy work for both. At all events, so long as they exist curiosity cannot sleep.

We do not know who it was that first called Edinburgh the “Modern Athens,” but the designation, topographically at least, is not without a great truth. The situation of our fair metropolis is, in several most important respects, very similar to that of the real Athens; and the prominent points of the one may serve as an admirable analogical basis for the comprehension of the prominent points of the other. There is a sea in both adjacent, and a mountain view beyond; there is an abrupt rock forming a natural fortress in the middle; there is a range of fine mountains in the background, and prominent and picturesque hills in the immediate vicinity. For the Firth of Forth, the capital of Greece has the Saronic Gulf; for the coast of Fife, the mountain-coast of Argolis; for Inchkeith, Ægina; for the Castle, the Acropolis; for the Pentland Hills, Hymettus; for Arthur’s Seat, Lycabettus; and all this so nicely correspondent that an expert teacher of geography might well use it as a sort of memoria technica for his scholars. Points of difference, of course, there are also, and very marked ones too, some of which, when a nice comparison is made, turn the balance in favour of the Athenian, and others as strongly in favour of the Scottish capital. In favour of the Greek landscape, the complete and well-defined background, formed by Mount Pentelicus on the north-east, and the chain of Parnes, and other connecting ridges to the north and north-west, deserves to be first mentioned; for in the room of these Edinburgh has nothing to present but the bare and dreary stretch of the Lammermoors. One must also confess honestly, though a patriotic Scottish heart is loth to make such admissions, that Inchkeith with its lighthouse is a very poor substitute for Ægina with its Doric temple; while against Salamis in no view can we dare to present the isle of Cramond. Largo Law, also, though it be very beautiful, and becomes more beautiful the nearer you approach it, even as backed by the Lomonds, and flanked by the Cleish Hills and Ben Cleugh in the far west, is, when set against the grand ridge of lofty Argolic mountains, apt to appear small. On the other hand, Edinburgh has a decided advantage over Athens, and all other fair towns, that it is built on a series of parallel ridges, with valleys between, which present one part of the city in picturesque contrast to the other, and at the same time open up a prospect various and wide in all directions, from the midst of a city’s bustle into the green and blue quietude of the country. There is no such ridge of elevated ground in Athens as that on which Queen Street, George Street, and Princes Street stand; and even the elevations which the Attic landscape presents have not been wisely used in the construction of the modern city. All the heights over against the Acropolis, the Hill of Philopappos, the Hill of Mars, the Museum, and the Hill of the Nymphs, occupying as they do a situation something corresponding to our Calton Hill in Edinburgh, and presenting the finest architectural positions, form no part of the present city, the principal part of which is crammed into the low ground which lies between the Acropolis and the Academy—that is to say, following out our analogy, occupies a situation corresponding to that part of the city of Edinburgh which lies between the Castle and Arthur’s Seat, supposing the ridge of the High Street altogether removed, and the level of the Princes Street Gardens continued with a very gentle elevation towards that hill and the adjacent heights, which occupy the position of the fine conical hill hanging over Athens on the north-west, and now acknowledged to be Lycabettus. As the modern city has been constructed, there are only three points from which a free view into the open country is obtainable,—the Acropolis, of course, being the first; the esplanade to the north, where the two principal hotels are, being the second; and the street before the palace of King Otho, between Lycabettus and the Ilissus, being the third. This street, which at its south end assumes the name of the Street Amalia, looks down upon the Temple of Jupiter in the vale of the Ilissus, and beyond the Acropolis to the sea. On the whole, therefore, though Attica presents a much finer landscape than Mid-Lothian, Athens does not, and, even in its best days, never did occupy an architectural position so magnificent as Edinburgh; not to mention what we learn from the best authorities, that the ancient classical city was grand only in its temples and public buildings, whereas Edinburgh, as a princely mouth once uttered, is altogether a city of palaces.

The present appearance of the city may be well gathered from the description of a recent German traveller, from whose book we shall now proceed to make a few characteristic extracts.

“Modern Athens lies altogether on the ground occupied by the ancient city. No doubt this idea of making the capital of the modern city identical with the ancient, went out from the brain of King Ludwig of Bavaria. But this romantic sentimentality was a decided political mistake. The original inhabitants of Athens planted themselves at a certain distance from the sea,[12] on an island fortress, that they might be safe from the attacks of the pirates, with whom the seas were, in those early times, everywhere infested. At the present day no such motive exists. The sea is the natural element of Greek life and of Greek prosperity. The natural position for the capital of a kingdom that depends for its advancement so much on trade and commerce, was the Piræus, which Themistocles advised the ancient Athenians to look upon as their real capital. Or, possibly, even any port of Attica may be regarded as too much in a corner to present a position fit for the capital of a compact Greek kingdom; and it is no doubt to be regarded as a proof of the great wisdom of Capo d’Istria and the Venetians, that they chose Nauplia, with its fine situation and beautiful harbour, as the seat of their government. It is well known, also, that the idea was at one time entertained of placing the capital of the new kingdom on the rising ground which forms the isthmus of Corinth—a situation which would have commanded both seas.

“Nevertheless the new city has risen up with an astonishing rapidity. It contains some twenty thousand inhabitants,[13] and occupies a large space of ground. Two principal streets, crossing one another at right angles, run through the whole length and breadth of the city. Off from these runs, in every possible relation of irregularity, a confused web of streets, made for any purpose rather than beauty or convenience. The one of these main streets, the street of Hermes, goes from west to east, being the direct continuation of the road from Piræus to the city, and ends in a beautiful square area, laid out in public gardens, immediately in front of the palace. The street would be a perfect straight line, open from the high ground on which the palace lies down to the plain of the Piræus, were it not for the interposition of a small old Byzantine church, which projects, about the middle of its course, in such a manner as to cause a slight bend in the direction of the street. The other main street leads from north to south. It has received the name of the street of Aeolus, from the small tower of the winds below the north base of the Acropolis, which is its southern starting-point. The street is uneven in its level, but straight in its direction; so that from every point of its length the Acropolis is visible, closing the prospect to the south.

“In these two streets the real life of modern Athens is concentrated. They are composed for the most part of elegant houses, generally of two storeys high. Here there are glass windows—seldom found in the minor streets—double-hinged doors, and balconies. In the street of Aeolus are the principal coffeehouses and shops. And when the lounger looks into the open barbers’ shops, which are found here in great numbers, and are places of great resort, and beholds all the busy processes of hat-making, shoe-making, and tailoring, which are here exposed to public view on the ground-floor, without any notion of concealment, he enjoys that same rich fulness of street life which gives such a charm to Naples and other Italian cities; only here in Athens everything is more motley and more glittering.

“The houses of the foreign ambassadors and the various government offices, the bank, the university, are situated at some distance from the busy hum of the street of Aeolus, on the gently-rising ground towards Lycabettus, between the royal palace and the old Academy. This is the fashionable quarter of Athens, being not the west end, as in London, but the north-east quarter of the city.

“After having mastered these keys, so to speak, of the position, the stranger may venture into the strange maze of short, crooked, and narrow streets, of which the rest of the city is composed. But let a man not venture rashly. Here there is no more neatness, no more two-storeyed houses, with windows and balconies; everywhere are to be seen miserable huts and cabins, meagrely composed of four walls whitewashed, and covered with a light roof of tiles; a few openings with wooden shutters serve at once as door, window, and chimney. Causeway there is none; so if there happens to have been rain, or if the sky takes a gusty fit, and the dust is driving—not at all uncommon in this quarter—these troglodytes have a miserable lodgment. In the midst of all this wretchedness, the high-sounding names, which are stuck up on every street corner, have a burlesque effect. In the midst of the strangest huddle of ill-built houses, and motley patchwork of incoherent stones, you look up and find yourself surrounded by the ‘Senate-house,’ the ‘Painted Stoa,’ the ‘Eponymic Heroes,’ the tragic ‘Tripods,’ and the Council of the ‘Areopagus,’—all in the most classical Greek; and when these local associations fail, you find the dirtiest lanes and vennels dignified with the names of Pericles and Phidias, Praxiteles and Æschylus, Sophocles and Euripides. This is another manifestation of the same sort of beggarly pride, which delights to stamp the children of modern Greek Christians with the names of some old heathen heroic Epaminondas or Achilles.”

This witness is in the main true; though there are a few things in the extract to which one might object, as proceeding from that unsympathising critical spirit too common in these times, which delights to pass itself off for cleverness. What harm, for instance, can there be in the son of a modern Greek being called Achilles, any more than in a modern dealer in old clothes being called Moses? Is it any burlesque upon the good old president of the British round table, when there happens to be an oldest son called Arthur in any reputable English family now paying taxes to her Majesty? And is the sainted ghost of Jeremiah the prophet insulted because there is a Dissenter of that name who keeps a grocer’s shop in Beverley, or because Tom and Jerry once walked the boards of the British stage profanely? As little offence is there in the names of the streets, however humble some of them may now be; for we have reason to hope, that as boys and trees grow bigger, so these streets will grow more magnificent with years. Even Wellington’s noble name does not always decorate a noble street in British towns; and Princes Street in Aberdeen does not look so royal by any means as Princes Street in Edinburgh. The real stumblingblock in these Athenian streets is not in the names of Æschylus and Sophocles, Colocotroni, Miaulis, and Lord Byron,[14] which are all well worthy of the sort of immortality hereby conferred on them; but in those other names of ancient places, chosen out of Pausanias, and put down where the ill-informed archæologist now thinks that they ought to be, and where the better-informed archæologist, some fifty years hence, will know that they ought not. This archæological objection, by the way, and not any of those political and commercial ones mentioned by Herr Hettner, is the real strength of the objection to the present site of the capital of Greece, which has been made by so many; for the present city being built, not on the whole area certainly, but on the greater portion of the ancient one, it follows that, till the new houses, which have been raised so quickly on the foundations of old temples and porticoes, shall have crumbled down by age, or be shaken down by an earthquake, the snouts of zealous antiquaries are doomed to sniff about these famous purlieus in vain;—a great loss, certainly, to the archæological societies of the present age in Berlin, London, Munich, and elsewhere, now so vigorous; but the Greeks will thereby keep their subterranean treasures to themselves for another century at least, free from touch of foreign mattock, by which time they may have somewhere to put them; for at present the government has neither a museum to put ancient remains in when found, nor money to pay for them—a state of matters which leads even now sometimes to lamentable results, over which Professors Gerhard and Panofka in Berlin must weep. But, after all, Canaris did not drive his conquering fire-ships across the Archipelago, nor did Lord Byron think it worth while to die poetically at Messolonghi, for the sake of the archæologists. In choosing Athens as the site of the capital of the new kingdom of Greece, the patriotic reminiscences of the Greek people were no doubt as much consulted as the sentimental romance of Bavarian Louis. If cats have a right to attach themselves to places, why not men?

But we shall not trifle on these points. Among the public buildings of Athens, in what our author calls the fashionable quarter, the most prominent, certainly, are the palace and the university. The ground, as we have already mentioned, rises with a very gentle slope from the level of the plain in which the Ilissus and Cephissus are lost, to the base of Lycabettus, which overhangs the city in a most effective conical mass to the north-east. Along the highest part of this slope runs, from north to south generally, though with a considerable bend in the middle, a long street, principally occupied with public buildings and other houses, in size and elegance much surpassing the best houses in the two principal streets described by Mr Hettner. This is the same street which is above described as sweeping down to the Ilissus, and, under the name of Amalia Street, opening up a view of the sea. Now it is on this upper part of the city, just beneath the base of Lycabettus, that the palace and the university are situated. The former especially is, next to the Acropolis, both from its situation and its size, the most prominent object in the city. No eye can miss its glaring extent of white wall, and the glimmering of its long uniform ranges of windows, tier upon tier, like the arches in the Coliseum;—but, like the Coliseum, certainly, in nothing else—like a huge Manchester cotton-factory rather, new and whitewashed, as the English say—or like a large Austrian barracks, as the Germans say—or one of those immense cloister-like baronial halls, which sometimes stare upon the flitting eye of the tourist from amid the vine-clad heights of Germany. Altogether, not architecturally only—for even Bavarian architects are not infallible—but economically much more, we are disposed to think the palace was a blunder. Nothing, indeed, can exceed the beauty and chaste magnificence of its internal decoration—that part of the work is in every respect worthy of the classical fame of Munich. But what has all this magnificence to do, the practical mind will ask, with a petty and beggarly kingdom, that has neither roads, nor people, nor water, nor money to pay its lawful debts? We are afraid the artistic sentimentality of Bavarian Louis had something to do with this; he was too much of a poet, and too little of a practical man, to know what the infant kingdom of Greece required in the first place. What it required, our readers may see in a small but very sensible book noted below.[15] Certainly among the last of necessary things was a royal residence, which, had it been intended for the Queen of Great Britain and India, or the Czar of all the Russias, could not have been raised larger in scale, or more magnificent in embellishment.

Our German traveller had the good fortune to inspect the show-rooms of King Otho’s palace, not in their pure naturals, as they are commonly shown to strangers, but when furnished with fair ladies and gay knights, on occasion of a court-ball. Let us see how they looked when lighted.

A GREEK COURT-BALL.

“I have just returned from a grand court-ball. The ball-room is finished in the same style of luxuriant but chaste magnificence in which the whole palace is built. It is of truly colossal dimensions. In height it occupies two entire floors of the building. It is divided into three parts, separated from each other by tall marble pillars, whose Ionic capitals are adorned with painting and gilding. More than a thousand persons can move about with ease in every part of this magnificently lighted hall, and yet it does not appear crowded—scarcely even filled. In the most remote parts, where no dancing is going on, parties can saunter up and down with ease and freedom.

“We arrived about nine in the evening. Along the walls several groups were already seated on the crimson-velvet cushioned divans. How remarkable the scene that now presented itself! On the right, the men reclining at ease, in their gay and glittering Greek attire, the scarlet cap on their heads; on the left, the women, some in Greek, others in Frankish costumes. A few of the men were parading in the centre of the saloon, engaged in animated conversation. There could not be a more attractive sight than the contemplation of such a variety of costume and outward bearing. The simple black dress-coat prevailed least of all; then the diplomatic and military uniforms of the different embassies, and of the French, English, and Austrian fleets now stationed in the Piræus; but chiefly the Greek national costume, in all its striking varieties, from the gold-embroidered fustanella of the royal court marshals, to the simple loose Turkish trousers of the islanders. How wild and proud are the fine expressive countenances of these men! It almost seemed as if the smooth inlaid floor burnt beneath their feet—for their true home is on the rocky mountains, where they are their own masters, only issuing forth from time to time, in true middle-age fashion, on some jovial plundering expedition. There sits, for example, between two captains of Palikari, a fierce-looking old man, with white hair and a long flowing white beard, his curved sabre hanging at his side. His features are expressive of daring, but nobly chiselled: they remind one of the fine manly forms in which the old Byzantine mosaics represent the apostle Paul. This man is a warrior every inch. He is the famous Papa Kostas—called Papa because he was formerly a monk. Latterly he returned to the world, and became an honoured hero in the Greek Liberation war. Two years ago he wished to be elected deputy for his native town of Lamia; but government, to whom he was obnoxious, found means to frustrate his election. What did he then do? He incited the whole of his province to rebellion, and for six entire months the king had to carry on an open war with him. At length the royal troops succeeded in conquering him, and he then took flight into Turkey. After some time an amnesty was granted him; and now he is at a court-ball, but so proud and unsubdued, that, instead of a pardoned rebel, he looks like one who is waiting for the first favourable occasion to avenge the humiliation he has endured.

“There is in like manner some history about all these men. They are barbarians, but there is poetry in them; and it is quite intelligible that these wild mountaineers should have been victorious over the superior force of the enervated Turks.

“The saloon gets more and more crowded. Suddenly the general murmur ceases. The king appears with his blooming consort on his arm. Early in the morning a new French man-of-war had arrived in the Piræus, and the officers are now presented by the French ambassador. Immediately the Polonaise begins, the queen opening the ball with the Austrian ambassador. She is dressed in blue, embroidered with silver, her hair magnificently arranged in the European style. The king, on the contrary, is as usual in the glittering gold and silver gala-dress of the national Greek costume; he and the sister of the English resident minister make the second pair. The queen dances the second movement of the Polonaise with the president of the Chamber. He is a Hydriot, and wears the dress of the Greek islanders—dark blue, tight-fitting short jacket, wide bunchy Turkish trousers of the same colour, and between jacket and hose a simple red girdle. The king leads out the venerable matron, the wife of the president of the Chamber, who is also dressed in the costume worn by the women of the Greek islands—a blue silk dress with yellow stripes, a jacket of the same material, very much cut open in, front, the bosom covered with a silk handkerchief, also a little parted in front. In Berlin or Paris it would excite some wonderment to see such attire recognised as admissible at court.

“And now the ball begins in good earnest; no more national dances, but all in true European style. The king danced a great deal, and was most courteous and affable in his demeanour. But the queen shone above every one, and was the first in all the dances. She is a true knightly dame, the boldest equestrian in the land, and graceful above all in the dance. The young Greek ladies have shown great facility in acquiring the new dances. It would be difficult to discover a single national trait in them, were it not for the dark glancing eyes, the brown complexion, and their love of bright showy colours, which betray their half-southern, half-Oriental character. They almost all appeared in white ball-dress, but wearing over it an extremely beautiful little jacket of red velvet, richly embroidered with gold; and on the head, trimmed around with plaits of deep black hair, is placed coquettishly, inclined to one side, a little cap, also of red velvet embroidered with gold, exactly corresponding to the jacket.

“The Greek men do not mix in the dance. Some collect in quiet corners in groups; others contemplate languidly the strange foreign movements. How would these stately forms and costumes correspond with such unpoetic waltzing and whirling? The keenest dancers were the gentlemen of the diplomatic corps.”

Then follow some sentimental remarks about Themistocles, Pericles, and Plato, and how they would have looked dancing the polka; and how it is almost a profanation for young diplomatists to think of enjoying a dance at all, on ground where grave Aristotle walked, and stern Demosthenes thundered; and how a fine German “belletrist,” in the midst of such a gay scene, “cannot but feel every moment as if some sturdy old Marathonians would rush in, blow the lights out, and tear all the pretty Parisian frippery to rags.” Shade of Goethe, what nebulous nonsense even sensible Germans will speak and print! With us a young lady, passing stupidly out of her teens, and thinking of moonshine and marriage, would be ashamed formally to enunciate such trash.

Let us now look to

THE UNIVERSITY.

“All the more highly educated Greeks exhibit a lively interest in the newly-erected university at Athens, which is formed entirely on the German model. The professors are chiefly Greeks, who have studied at the French and German universities. Since the revolution of 1843, Landerer the chemist, and Fraas[16] the botanist, are the only foreigners in the university, but they, like the others, lecture in Greek. The teachers, with the exception of the private tutors, are paid by the state; they have, on an average, seven hundred dollars, but no honorarium for the lectures. The influx of students is very great, amounting to more than four hundred, which would be inconceivable in so thinly-populated a country, were it not that numbers come from Epirus, Thessaly, and Asia Minor; also from Turkish Greece, and even, (so great is the feeling of nationality,) from the Ionian Islands, although there is a Greek university in Corfu. The Athenian professors point with pride to this fact, alleging that their university forms thus the centre of all the Grecian countries, many of them now under foreign rule, and as such is perhaps the nursery of a future political union.

“No university in the whole world is placed on a site so rich in associations. When the student comes out of the lecture-room, and saunters in the open piazzas which form the entrance, he has before him the empurpled range of Hymettus, whose bees are proverbially associated with the glory of Attic wisdom and art; and the venerable Acropolis, with the towering pillars of the Parthenon, remind him of the ancient glory of his country. Where is the youth who would not feel his heart elevated by such noble recollections?

“And yet these wings are only the wings of Icarus; they cannot perform impossibilities. True culture and a national literature and art can only exist where there is material prosperity, and an education extending to all ranks of the people. There is, however, no sense of the importance of instruction; for in most places the lowest elementary schools are not to be found, scarcely even a few miserable attempts at such. Government has committed the fault of working from above downwards, instead of from beneath upwards, and has proceeded forcibly to engraft the most extreme points—even the excrescences of European customs and refinement—on the prevailing barbarism. They have erected four gymnasia at Athens, Syra, Patras, and Nauplia; but the people’s schools are still in the condition in which Capo d’Istria left them; indeed, general evil report says rather worse than better. How can we reap unless we sow? How can the building stand firm, when the foundation is awanting?

“It is, therefore, a quite fruitless and premature, though well-meant, endeavour that has been made by some of the more noble-minded Greeks, since the happy issue of the Liberation War, to found a modern Greek literature. The attempt, however, has had the merit of purifying the language, and assimilating it to the ancient Greek. But so long as Greek culture has no firm root in itself, all such endeavours must prove imperfect imitations of foreign models. I fear much that a hideous mildew is already nipping the blossom in the bud. Among the many discouraging impressions caused by the present state of Greece, the most so to me was, that the booksellers’ shops are almost exclusively filled with the worst sort of new French romances. It is here much as with the poor inhabitants of the South Sea Islands, who have gained nothing by their intercourse with enlightened Europe but the poison of whisky.”

These remarks open up the whole question of education and intellectual culture in Greece—a vista far too wide for our detailed survey on the present occasion; but we must add a few remarks by way of necessary correction. We have met persons to whom the university of Athens was as much “a myth” as any of those nebulous allegories into which German scepticism weens that it has dissipated the solid traditions of an old Attic Theseus, and other classical monarchs. But the testimony of our traveller here is most decided to the point, that the university of Athens is an existing fact, and one of the most real and significant in the whole history of the restored nationality of this remarkable people. All persons who have lived even for a short period in familiar converse with the Greek people, have felt that, in a remarkable degree, they have retained that quickness of intellectual perception, that eagerness for knowledge, which was so characteristic of their ancestors. It is well known, also, to persons who have looked into the recent history of this people, that the political revolution, by which they threw off the yoke of Turkish oppression, was preceded by an intellectual revolution which taught them to shake off the night of Turkish ignorance; and Corais is, in fact, a name not less mighty in the history of Greek liberty than Miaulis or Mavrocordato. Under these circumstances, that education should have been a main concern with the new Greek government was just what was to have been expected. To have shown indifference in such a matter would have argued a complete blindness to the finest capabilities of the materials under hand. Nor has Bavarian Otho, so far as we can see, laid himself open to any charge of neglect on this score. Mr Hettner, in the strictures which he pays in the above passage, proceeds, we are afraid, on a very insufficient basis of facts, and is also vulnerable in point of logic. It is far from being true, as he says, that a people must be educated from below upwards. The upper classes are everywhere more open to educational influences than the lower; and in semi-barbarous countries, such as Greece and Russia, it is a necessity which cannot be avoided, that the elements of intellectual culture shall, in the first place, be imported from the more advanced surrounding nations; and the importers of such merchandise must be the upper classes. To enable them to appropriate, elaborate, and assimilate the materials thus thrown in upon them, a university is the natural and most convenient, if not the absolutely indispensable instrument. How, it may be asked, is the state to obtain well-informed statesmen, lawyers, theologians, physicians, and teachers, without a university? Surely the judge must be made wise before the attorney, and the parish priest rather than the parishioner. A peasant may hew wood and draw water without learning, but scarcely will a gospel text be well expounded, or a surgeon’s cut dexterously performed. There appears to us, therefore, nothing blameworthy in a government of a new country erecting a university first, and parish schools afterwards. But the facts with regard to elementary education in Greece are by no means such as our German reporter represents. It may be quite true that the educational law of the Greek kingdom, according to which there should be a primary school in every δημος or commune, has not yet been everywhere carried out; it may be true, also, considering the immense extent of desolate districts in Greece, that some of the miserable ill-peopled villages that compose a district are at very inconvenient distances from the δημος where their school is situated; but this is only a hardship arising out of the general state of poverty in which the whole country lies, to which familiar analogies are at hand in the ecclesiastical condition of many of our own Highland parishes. And with regard to the general state of education among the lower orders of Greece, the writer can state, from personal observation, that it is by no means suffering generally from any such neglect as Mr Hettner imputes to the present government. During a tour of several weeks in continental Greece, the present writer was constantly in the habit of conversing with the peasant boys, as a sort of pleasant amusement after the fatigues of equestrian travel in the hot days of June; and as the conversation, however it might start, often ended with schooling and school-books, he had frequent opportunities of observing, not only the remarkable quickness of their juvenile Hellenic wit, but the general prevalence of a fair school-training among the rising generation. The subjects with which they seemed most conversant, and on which they always produced three well-thumbed school-books, were Greek history, Scripture history, and general geography. They very often also produced a Romaic New Testament; and there seemed to be not the least shyness (as there might be in Italy) of exhibiting a familiarity with its contents. The New Testament, indeed, in the Greek Church, does not seem to be a forbidden book at all. A certain class of priests, no doubt, with Oeconomus at their head, will look with shyness on the preachings of Protestant missionaries, and exhibit more or less of that tendency to monopolise the Scriptures in the hands of self-authorised interpreters, which is so characteristic of Popery; but in general the Greeks seem to entertain no suspicion that there is anything in the Scriptures contrary to their “orthodox faith;” and a jealous sacerdotal tyranny never was established in the East during the middle ages, and is not at all likely to be carried through now.[17]

As little of kindly or reasonable criticism do we find in Herr Hettner’s remarks on the influence of French literature on the living Greek mind, and on the existing literature of Greece generally. From the very nature of the case, as we have already said, the literature of Greece must, for a considerable period, be a literature of appropriation; and as the French language, for obvious reasons, happens to be the most generally known among the educated classes in that part of the world, it is as necessary that those who are in search of amusement should read French novels, as that those who are in search of strange philological erudition among ourselves should go to Germany. What our author means by his remark, that it is “a quite fruitless and premature endeavour in the Greeks to attempt the founding of a modern Greek literature,” it were hard to say. No literature, in the highest sense, can be founded till God sends forth original genius to found it; and it is true also that, except upon the basis of a certain degree of material prosperity, that extent of luxurious intellectual culture which we call a national literature cannot be expected to rise; but in the mean time, till the conditions favourable to such a higher development shall arise, the Greeks are busying themselves, and have been busying themselves since the time of Corais and Righas, mainly in appropriating whatever their need most loudly calls for, not only from French, but to a great extent also from German, Italian, and English sources; while, at the same time, they have not been averse to give whatever nurture was possible to the first germ and tender blade of an original and truly Hellenic modern literature. Into the details of this matter our limits do not allow us to enter; but were the purification of their language the only fruit which the renewed activity of the liberated Greek mind had produced, it would have deserved a more kindly mention than the cold sympathy of Mr Hettner allows. Those who know to what a state centuries of neglect and abuse had brought the fine language of Homer and Plato, will at once perceive the great public service performed by that band of patriotic translators and original writers who have, in the course of two generations, made Greek—pure Greek—a second time the grand organ of a national culture and a popular regeneration.[18]

A glimpse into the Greek Church, as it exists at Athens, will now gratify the just curiosity of many of our readers. Take the following graphic account of the celebration of Easter:—

“10th April.

“All is gaiety here to-day. It is Easter week, and Easter is the principal festival of the Greek Church. Athens presents at this season a remarkable appearance. The Greeks observe the fasts with great strictness, therefore they indemnify themselves on Easter morning by an exhibition of license, in which the paschal lamb performs the principal part. I was told as a fact, that at Easter, in Athens alone, from twelve to fifteen thousand, and throughout Greece more than two hundred thousand, lambs and sheep are slaughtered and eaten. The country people out of every part of Attica keep driving their flocks into the city the whole week. The city of the goddess of wisdom is now full of nothing but bleating lambs.

“When the Greek carries home his lamb, he slings it round his neck, holding it by the feet crossed over his breast. This is to be seen with us also; but the sight is especially attractive here, for it was in this manner the ancients represent Hermes as the guardian and multiplier of the flocks. So stood the statue of Hermes at Olympia, Oechalia, and Tanagra. Small marble statues of this kind have even come down to us, one of which is to be seen in the Pembroke collection at Wilton House; another, a smaller one, here in the Stoa of Hadrian. This representation, however, appears most frequently in the oldest works of Christian art, in which the laden Hermes is turned into a laden Christ, who often called himself the Good Shepherd, and expressly says in the Gospel of St Luke, that when the shepherd finds the sheep, he lays it joyfully on his shoulders.

“In Easter week a fair is also held, and much skill displayed in decking out the wares. Candles are the chief article of trade; for no Greek, on this occasion, enters a church without bearing in his hand a candle or taper. These candles are mostly painted in variegated colours, and prettily disposed in the booths according to their different colours—some alike, others in direct contrast. The Greek people are still sticking fast in old heathen customs and ways of thinking. These booths, and the greater number of the shops also, are decked out with all sorts of pictures and images on which the possessors can lay their hands. They display images of the saints, pictures of the battles of the Liberation War, portraits of Napoleon and Frederick the Great, and, not unfrequently, even modern French pictures of equivocal meaning, coloured and lithographed, all mixed up together without any attempt at order. Round these pictures hang lamps and candles, many of them adorned with gold tinsel and stripes of coloured paper, often artistically twisted together to represent chandeliers. In the midst of all this lumber stands a huge image of Christ or of the Virgin; and the object of this is manifest. In true heathen fashion, Christ and the Virgin are supposed to be really present in their images, and enjoying the sight of these motley groups, and lights are placed there that they may see them the better. How rude and childish all this seems, and yet how entirely corresponding to the most ancient image-worship!

“The remains of this ancient heathen tendency were especially evident in the solemnities of Good Friday, at least in the evening, for during the day the celebration was uniform enough. Morning and afternoon divine service. The whole church streamed with lights, for every one held piously a taper in his hand. In the centre of the church lay, under a high canopy, a wax figure of the dead body of Christ. Every one, without distinction of sex, age, or rank, approached this figure, and fervently kissed it. There was not a moment of quiet or repose, but a constant moving to and fro of the restless multitude. Added to this, the constant singing of a frightfully monotonous, mournful liturgy, in the usual nasal tone. Late in the evening the solemnity suddenly assumed a more imposing form. The canopy, with the figure of Christ tastefully adorned with flowers, was borne through the streets, priests and people, men and women, devoutly following, torch in hand—the procession flowing on like a moving sea of lights. A peculiar melancholy lay was sung, now in a low mournful tone, now breaking out into loud bursts of grief. This dirge is for the dead Christ, who is solemnly borne to the grave. The procession lasts for more than an hour, when at length the image is again set down in the church, and the former dirges and liturgies resound anew, only in a still more mournful and inconsolable tone.

“I know not whether I am correct, yet I cannot help expressing what I felt, that this nocturnal funeral procession involuntarily reminded me of those grand processions by torchlight in the times of the ancient Athenians, made to Eleusis at the great Eleusinian festival. The ancient Greek origin of this peculiar celebration of Good Friday seems the more evident to me, as I never witnessed in Rome, on the same occasion, any public procession of a similar nature, at least not in the streets, or accompanied by the whole of the people. The procession in the Vatican on Good Friday, when the body of Christ is borne from the Sistine chapel into that of St Paul, lasts but a few minutes, and is only a piece of priestly pageantry, confined to the Pope and the cardinals.

“It is not difficult, however, to imagine how the same feelings and solemnities which marked the Eleusinian mysteries should have crept imperceptibly into the Christian services of Easter. The Eleusinian mysteries celebrate the grief of Demeter for the loss of her daughter Proserpine, who was stolen away by Pluto; and then comes loud rejoicing when this daughter issues forth again from the darkness of the infernal regions, and unites with the joy-dispensing wine-god in imparting to man the blessings of their mysteries. In the celebration of the Christian festival of Easter there is the same display of opposing emotions, the quick transition from grief to joy, from loss to restoration, from the interment to the resurrection. New gods have arisen, but the old worship is the same. As the ancient Greeks fasted and prayed and did penance while Proserpine remained in the lower world, so do the Greeks of Christendom fast and pray and do penance for the death of the Saviour. And just as in the Eleusinian mysteries, after these days of bitter mourning, there was the most extravagant rejoicing over the return of Proserpine, drinking, and dancing, when all

‘Beat the ground with violent foot—
For the unreined joy-intoxicated
Wanton celebration!
Each one danced the gracious,
Thrice graceful, and thrice holy
Mystical measure;’

so does now the Christian Greek pass at once from the rigid fasting of Passion Week to the most unbridled license. The moment the bishop at the midnight hour on Easter eve gives utterance to the much-longed-for words, ‘Christ is risen; yea, He is risen indeed!’ loud rejoicings are heard from all quarters, shrill screaming and shouting, constant shooting, and throwing of rockets, roasting and eating the lamb, and drinking unmixed wine. The first day of Easter is the only day on which the Greek drinks except for thirst; so uniformly temperate is he, indeed, that he detests nothing more than to see the German stranger swaggering along, without shame, drunk in the open streets.”

All this is very characteristic and interesting enough, considering how little is generally known in this country of the Greek Church; it is sad, however, to think that the facts here given present so little essentially different from that continental Rome with which we are so familiar, and so much of the outward and sensuous trickery of what our author recognises as mere heathenism. The low state of the Greek Church, indeed, will be most readily appreciated from the fact, that while the recitation of long prayers and litanies is going on diligently in a thousand churches and chapels every morning, it is the rarest chance in the world to find a Sunday or holiday when, even at Athens, such a thing as a sermon or Christian address of any kind is delivered to the people. This circumstance, which may be easily verified on the spot, is a plain proof that the ceremonial element in the Greek service has altogether overshadowed and almost absorbed the intellectual and moral: in other words, that an element characteristic of pure heathenism has been transplanted into the Christian soil, and allowed to grow to such luxuriance that the native vegetation, characteristic of Christianity, has almost entirely disappeared; for we never can forget that it was by the “foolishness of preaching,” and not by the nasal drone of drowsy litanies, that St Paul confounded the Epicurean philosophers on the Hill of Mars, and made the famous image of Diana of the Ephesians tremble in its silver shrine. A Christian church without preaching, is a Christian church without intelligence; and such a church cannot exist with any propriety in an age which prides itself in the general diffusion of knowledge, and among a people of whose character intellectual quickness has always been a more prominent trait than moral probity. Of all this, well-educated men in Greece—and of these there is no lack—are sufficiently aware. But over and above the fact that all churches are apt to display a remarkable obduracy in the matter of reform, in the case of the Greek Church an additional difficulty arises from patriotic and political considerations. In Greece, not only the devout believer, but the intelligent Greek who is not devout, is well aware that his Church is to the Greek, more than to any other people in Europe, the great bond of his nationality. It was within the bosom of this Church that freedom of mind, and of speech also, to a considerable extent, was preserved at Byzantium, in an age when the tyrannous spirit of imperial centralisation had choked every other utterance of individual life. It was the traditions, the service, and, to some extent also, the learning of the Greek clergy, which preserved the Greek language an inestimable heirloom to the Greek people during a long course of centuries, when Slavonic barbarism, Turkish bigotry, and Turkish oppression, successively threatened its extinction. It was, finally, a primate of the Greek Church, Germanós, the Archbishop of Patras, that in 1821 first planted the standard of independence among the mountain-peaks of the Northern Morea. Under these circumstances it is easy enough to understand how a certain amiable piety prevents the religious Greek from wishing to disturb his patriotic Mother Church with innovations, which, however plausible in their outset, might end in breaking up the unity of that venerable religious corporation which has hitherto kept together his disintegrated and scattered nationality. And if such considerations operate strongly with the devout Greek, the mere politician will, of course, feel them more strongly. To him the Church, even in its purest state, is only a convenient moral police; and an unreformed church which keeps a people together, is, as a political instrument, more valuable than a reformed church which disunites them. We see no likelihood, therefore, at the present moment, of any reform in the Greek Church, such as pious Protestant writers have hoped for. The political interest, not the religious, is at present the dominant power in the Greek mind. A single sentence from Lord Palmerston or Lord Aberdeen, pointing towards a division of Turkey, and a restoration of the Greek empire at Constantinople, would stir the whole nation much more deeply than did a late notable ecclesiastical pamphlet by Pharmacides, one of their most talented theologians. The painted candles and the gilt tinsel, the roasted lamb and the cracks of gunpowder, and, above all abominations, that inhuman nasal drone with which they chant their service, are likely to remain in the Greek ecclesiastical world a long season after the Greeks themselves have by a great majority voted them gone. Alas for poor humanity! So it happens in other churches also sometimes. The living are condemned to walk the streets with a dead corpse on their backs, and must call it an ornament.

In concluding these hasty notices of the present condition of so famous a city, may we be allowed to express a hope that the pedantic habits fostered by our schools and universities, of considering modern Greece and modern Greeks as things with which scholars have nothing to do, may forthwith be given up. Greece and the Greeks are no longer what they were under the Turks—very different, as we have seen, in some respects, from what they were when visited by Wordsworth. Like Pompeii, which slumbered for centuries within the ashes of Vesuvius, and then came to light suddenly one of these modern days, to astonish us with the resurrection of a lost people, and a forgotten epoch; so a Greek people and a Greek language have certainly risen from the dead since the commencement of this century, and their living presence cannot be ignored. We should advise our academical men, unless they are ambitious of imitating the obdurate conservatism of the Greek Church, to throw off at once the capricious pronunciation of the Greek language, which was imposed on Europe by the pleasant conceit of Erasmus, and take up again that living tradition of the Byzantine elders, from which Erasmus himself, and all our great early scholars, drew their inspiration. They will thus not only do a thing reasonable and scholarly in itself, but resume at once that direct connection with the living Greek language which the present bastard pronunciation renders on our part so difficult. In Europe the railways and steamboats, as we constantly hear, have annihilated space and time; and a scholarly trip to the Acropolis is neither so difficult nor so expensive an affair now as it was thirty years ago. Athens, no doubt, is a bad school for quantity; but there are many things in Greek as important as long and short syllables; and some very important things certainly there are which a scholar may learn in Athens, not so readily to be picked up at Oxford or Cambridge. We hope the day is not far distant when it will be considered as natural for a scholar to take part of his Greek education in Greece, as for a sculptor to drink in beauty from the marble treasures of the Vatican and the Capitol; and when no philologist will consider himself properly qualified for his work, who has not heard Greek lectures under the shadow of Lycabettus, and made classic vows at the tombs of Otfried Mueller on Colonus.

A FEW MORE WORDS ON UNIVERSITY REFORM.

The long vacation is over, and the streets of Oxford have once more resumed their sombre gaiety. Dons in the dignity of long tassels, and freshmen in that bizarre conjunction of all varieties of snuff-coloured coats and short black gowns, which seems at present to embody the undergraduate sense of the beautiful, meet in mid High Street—each regarding the other with a mild astonishment, and a benevolent consciousness of superiority. Term has begun; and it is generally believed that those reverend seniors, whom by a pleasant euphemism we in Oxford call the “Heads of Houses,” are hard at work making arrangements, with the fear of Lord John before their eyes, to set those houses in order; or to see what sop they can afford to throw to that seven-headed Cerberus, which, under the name of “Her Majesty’s Commission,” is barking at their gates. There has been a long foreboding lull; but surely there are throes in the Alma Mater’s womb; “parturiunt Collegia”—we trust the rest of the quotation would ill apply; though no doubt many a young tutor has come up with a plan of University Reform ripe for production, the result of three months’ sea-side gestation during the “long.” “What are you going to do at Oxford?” has been a question oftener asked than answered during these summer holidays. Indeed, what answer there has been was too often to this effect, “Probably nothing.” Too probably; and yet, not only the Home Secretary, but the public, are expecting something. It is of little avail now to question the legality or the expediency of the Royal Commission; whether we like it or not, it is now a great fact—like the repeal of the Corn Laws, or the cholera. And, whether or not the authorities of the University may please to recognise it, the public, who have an interest in these great public institutions, must recognise it, and have a right to a voice in the question. If we are to have, as we must have, University Reform, let us have it of the right quality; and in order to this it must come from the right hands. It must not be the amateur performance of clever theorists, but the mature result of practical experience, aided by calm and dispassionate inquiry. This we have not had, and for this it is that we are waiting. Oxford must set herself to the task; her best and truest sons must wrest, as they may easily, the ill-grasped weapon from the enemy’s hand, and turn it to their own defence. No purism of consistency, no fear of touching the unclean thing, must deter them from the task. The skilful pilot does not refuse to take the helm because he alone foresaw the danger, and would not have put to sea. It may seem very grand and heroic for the Senate of Oxford to sit still in their seats of office, though the enemy is within their walls, scorning to recognise his presence; but in their case none will mistake the reverend conclave for divinities, and their fall will be at the best but a caricature of the Romans. We live in an age of compromise, as Home Secretaries and Chancellors of Exchequer can amply testify: it may not be dignified, but it is practically convenient; no man makes a martyr of himself nowadays for a theory; he “accepts the position;” he eats and gives thanks. And in this temper of our times, undignified as it is, may lie the salvation of Oxford. Already one result of it has been, that the Government before which the report of her Majesty’s Commissioners now lies, is of quite another composition than that under which it issued; and however Oxford may still be disposed to question the jurisdiction of the court, and the legality of their warrant, she has no longer any cause, on the whole, to challenge the jury. She has, at all events, such privileges as we consider sufficient justice to foreigners; half aliens, half fellow-citizens, may be no unfair panel. Heaven send her a good deliverance!

We have said before, that the Commissioners’ report can scarcely be satisfactory to any one but the authors; it is wonderful, and, as the charity-boy said, somewhat disappointing, to go through so much, and learn so little. Engrossed, as it would seem, almost exclusively by the one grand panacea for all University discords—the professoriate idea—they have either altogether overlooked, or very slightly touched upon, defects and abuses which every honest member of the University had long since groaned over in secret—of which many had complained aloud. It seems as if the clever gentlemen to whom her Majesty sent greeting, impressed with an awful sense of duties as arduous as they were unusual, had felt themselves excused from noticing facts that were obvious to meaner eyes, and that “knowledge, ability, and discretion” so egregious as theirs, could only fitly be employed in grand conceptions and comprehensive theories of regeneration. The words of their Commission, to ordinary ears, conveyed only powers and instructions to “inquire into and report upon the state, discipline, studies, and revenues of the University;” but they, by an inspiration peculiar, perhaps, to commissioners, as all the moral and intellectual virtues are, we now know, to professors, interpreted these words in a transcendental sense, or rather, perhaps, read them by a cipher supplied from Downing Street. Still these words stand, in their innocent simplicity, on the outside of the Blue-book; but on opening it we find what has been sarcastically, but quite as reasonably, called “suggestions for the constitution of a University.”[19] That it would have no longer been the University upon which they were commissioned to report, was in their eyes, perhaps, of little consequence. It is possible that their Report, if less original, might have been more practical, had they but contented themselves with humbler aims. Nay, the very witnesses themselves seem to have been infected by the important presence in which they stood, and with few exceptions to have rather aimed at remodelling everything according to an ideal standard of their own, than to be willing to address themselves to the real defects and anomalies of the existing system. There are abuses on which the most careless undergraduate could have borne important testimony, and which every honest tutor will confess with pain, on which this Report evinces either the strangest insensibility, or the most perverse conservatism.

First and most prominent, as regards the studies of the place, stands the crying evil, which might almost have claimed a Commission to itself,—that the real work of the University is done by private tutors. How tenderly and delicately the Commissioners deal with this—which we are surely not singular in considering a gigantic anomaly—may be seen by those who have the patience to read page 89 of their production. Fondly placing in the foreground, in the ardent words of Mr Lowe—himself an able and successful private tutor—the “manifold advantages” of the system, they touch lightly on its defects, and faintly hint at partial remedies. Admitting that “the amount paid for private tuition by many individuals far exceeds that which is paid for college tuition”—(it would, we believe, have been nearer the truth to say that the sum paid annually for the former more than doubles the college charges for the latter)—they congratulate themselves upon the fact, that the practice is less general at Oxford that at Cambridge. But when they tell us, as a serious piece of information, the result of six months’ laborious inquiry, the product of seven printed papers of questions, and the combined evidence of “the great majority of Professors” and “persons of note” (p. 1), that “of late years many candidates for an ordinary degree have had recourse to assistance from private tutors,” we feel that the veriest freshman—supposing freshmen ever to read Blue-books—must laugh in the face of her Majesty’s Commissioners. “Many candidates for an ordinary degree.” Indeed! Why, two men out of three, in some colleges, who are going up even for “little-go,” “have recourse,” &c. &c.; or, in the less Johnsonian language of undergraduates, “take a coach.” If the Commissioners did not know this, they are pretty nearly the only Oxford men who do not know it. We may indeed plead in their excuse that the “persons of note,” who have been evidently their favourite witnesses, have themselves found this branch of instruction both lucrative and honourable; and besides the natural and amiable tendency in all minds to be somewhat partial judges of those employments in which we have spent the best, the busiest, and, therefore, not the least happy years of life, there is another consideration which, however unwillingly and unconsciously, will always have its weight with poor weak human nature. “Sirs, ye know that by this craft we have our wealth,” is an argument no less cogent now than formerly.

The evil, we have said, is a gigantic one. It is for this reason—because its roots are spread so wide and deeply, and because it involves so many interests, and shelters itself under such powerful patrons—that a Royal Commission, that λᾶας ἀναιδης’ trenchant and unsparing of minor delinquencies, recoils from it. Well may Mr Foulkes in his evidence, unquoted by Commissioners, call it “one of the curses of our days.”[20] Even Mr Congreve,—himself an able private tutor, and on other points a witness after the Commissioners’ own heart—denounces it as “a great evil”[21] both for pupil and tutor. But in this case, with all deference to names which seem to carry with them all the weight due to practical experience, the unacademical common sense of the public sees its way pretty clearly. Like railway mismanagement and hotel charges, the force that is to move this mountain must come from without. We must be our own Commissioners. And first we say,—though with some hesitation, in the presence of such tried logicians as the Commissioners and their witnesses,—that in almost all the arguments, pro and con, there has been an ignoratio elenchi. With all submission to such authorities, the question is not, whether it be or be not popular with undergraduates, as giving them some taste of the German heaven of “Lernfreiheit” and “Lehrfreiheit;”[22] or convenient for M.A.’s, as “retaining within the University many able men whom it is not possible”[23] otherwise to provide for, and “affording a field for public competition and display;” whether it promote that “intercourse and confidence” between the pupil and the tutor of his own choice, which he refuses to his legitimate college instructors; whether it be an “unhealthy stimulus,” or an opportunity of “direct personal contact and privacy invaluable to the student;”[24] whether the moral influence acknowledged to be thus acquired by men whom the University does not even recognise as teachers be used for good or for evil; nor even whether it be, as one gentleman in his evidence has waggishly described it, and as the Commissioners have printed in apparent innocence of the joke,[25] desirable as an “investment for a certain amount of loose private capital”[26] (well known to abound in undergraduate pockets), and safe to bear a good interest when the pupil in his turn becomes tutor;—all these, important and interesting questions as they may be in themselves, are quite beside the real issue. Turn and twist it how you will, the fact resolves itself into the plain words of Mr Melville,—“the work of the University is done by an order not recognised by that system whose operations it so extremely influences.”[27] “Unauthorised adventurers,”[28] as they are not unfairly styled by one of themselves, usurp the teaching which the University professes to commit only to hands carefully and deliberately selected, and for whose fidelity she possesses the strongest guarantees. Granted that these men are, as most of them are undoubtedly, clever, hardworking, fully equal to their position—granting even what cannot be asserted in all cases, even by the warmest admirers of the system, that they are all in principle, in private character, and habits of life, what we look for in the guides and instructors of youth,—still is it reasonable, is it decent, that these magnificent institutions, endowed with ample revenues for the promotion of sound learning, and receiving the flower of the youth of England in solemn trust for the highest purposes of education, should leave them, after all, to pick up this education as they may, by the wayside? If Universities and Colleges cannot educate as Universities and Colleges, what can they do? Are they really, as their enemies would call them, mighty shams—hoary hypocrisies? It is because we believe that these questions admit at once of an indignant answer,—an answer which has already sprung to the lips of many an energetic teacher—that we here ask them. But it is because her Majesty’s Commissioners have apparently thought them neither worth asking nor answering, that they need to be asked again and again.

The absurdity of the present system of private tuition is indeed so patent, that only long-established custom, and the infection of example, mixed with some considerations of self-interest already alluded to, can have shut the eyes of so many, within the academic walls themselves, to an abuse which, so far as the public is concerned, has surely only to be fully exposed and understood to be condemned unanimously. A young man enters a college at Oxford, and thereby becomes a member of the University, devoting to this object four of the best years of his life, and incurring expenses which, even with prudence, are necessarily considerable. Often, as we all know, this step cannot be taken without much resolved self-denial on the part of parents, sometimes not without some postponing, in the case of an eldest or talented son, of the interests of younger brothers and sisters. But these family sacrifices are cheerfully made, in the feeling that they will purchase for the object of them the highest inheritance which a father can insure for a son—a first-rate education; an education which, unless his own abilities or industry fail him, shall enable him hereafter to move pari passu through life by the side of the eldest-born of any noble in the land, and stand in any presence unabashed by a sense of inferiority. These advantages, which University distinction is to purchase for him, are scarcely of less value, in the world of English society, than its more legitimate and solid fruits—the improvement of the mind, and the material for future usefulness. The path to all these brilliant possibilities lies through the portals of Oxford; and the youth who enters them, finds all the machinery which is to produce these great results apparently in its place, and in fair working order. It is idle for a Royal Commission to tell us how, in ruder times, ruder engines were contrived to do the same work; that there were days when tutors were not, and professors were all in all; that tedious exercises and disputations supplied, or failed to supply, the stimulus which examinations do now: we can all guess, and have a right to suppose, that the means and appliances for education have altered like everything else, and that the great national seminaries have not been behindhand with minor institutions in adapting themselves to the growth of human learning. How prælectors fell, and college tutors rose, is of little consequence, except to the educational antiquarian. Whether the University, or his college, or both, be responsible for his teaching, it is certain that every man who matriculates does so under an implied engagement that he is to be taught. Nor does there seem, to the uninitiated eye, to be any lack of teachers. Not to mention the long list of public functionaries who figure in the University Calendar—professors of Greek, of Hebrew, of Divinity, of Ancient and Modern History, of Geometry, of Moral, Natural, and Experimental Philosophy, of Astronomy, of Logic, Geology, Chemistry, and Political Economy—quite exclusive of any by-hours which he may devote to Music or to Medicine—even if he should be indisposed to avail himself of the services of the Lord Almoner’s reader in Arabic, or to study Anglo-Saxon or Sanscrit under their respective professors,—within the walls of his own college there is ample provision for his intellectual wants. Passing over the Bursar and the Dean—whom he will find somewhat dry nurses—the new alumnus must have been very unfortunate in his selection, if he does not find three tutors at the least ready to welcome him, besides a mathematical lecturer and divinity reader; he may be lucky enough, also, to obtain (according to the Calendar) the services of a “catechetical” or a “humanity lecturer,” whatever those may be. At any rate, here seems quite enough to satisfy any moderate appetite for learning. But he soon finds that this showy and apparently well-appointed staff is considered quite inadequate to its duties; nay, confesses itself to be so. If his Latin prose be not quite Ciceronian, or if his irregular Greek verbs be more than usually irregular, his best friends warn him earnestly of the necessity of “putting on a coach for Little-go;” if he be a promising scholar, and likely to win distinction for himself and his college, his tutor, with a cautious compliment, and the kindest intentions, suggests his “reading with Mr So-and-so.” No one seems to entertain the idea that his appointed pastors and masters can either save him from being “plucked,” or train him for his place in the class list. He finds college lectures are regarded as matters of routine, like Temple dinners: a course of the former, duly attended, makes a B.A., as a course of the latter, duly eaten, makes a barrister, each being a sort of causa formalis. Nay, in many cases the regular University or rather College course of instruction is regarded as interfering with that which, look at it as we will, is and must be the main object with three-fourths of its recipients—the obtaining a degree. Nothing is more common than for a young man, who is a candidate for honours, during the term or two previous to his examination, to apply to the authorities of his college “to be excused lectures;” and the request is commonly granted: that is, in plain words, because the time is approaching which is to test his acquirements under his alma mater’s teaching, that very teaching is to be withdrawn as useless—nay, worse than useless—for the end proposed. Can anything be more preposterous? What, in the name of common sense, was the use of that apparatus of tutors classical, mathematical, and catechetical, if not to prepare him for this said examination? In what is he to be “examined,” if not in the progress which, with their help and guidance, he is supposed to have made?

But let us examine matters more closely, and we may discover some of the causes of this remarkable state of things. Our friend, whom we have matriculated, is, we will assume, of modest acquirements, and proposes (under the old system) to take up for his degree, Herodotus, Virgil, portions of Cicero, and four plays of Euripides. But the lectures which he has to attend (for he has seldom much choice of his own in the matter) are one in Livy, one in Horace, and one in Plato’s Republic; in which latter college tutor No. 1 is supposed to be great, having edited some new readings. All very desirable subjects, no doubt, but not exactly what he requires at present. One hour of Alcestis were worth more to him than a cycle of Republics; the tense of a verb in μι is to him, at this conjuncture, a subject of more anxiety than the destinies of Rome or Carthage. Or, granted that he is fortunate enough to be in a Herodotus lecture; he gets through five chapters in an hour, thrice a-week, in a class of seventeen, including one freshman who cannot construe a line together decently, and stutters into the bargain, and another from the sixth form at Eton, who rattles it all off in a tone perfectly inaudible to any one except himself, and, it is supposed, the tutor. Why, at this rate, it will take him about two academical years more to get through the five books of the old historian in which he is to be examined! If he be a candidate for high honours, the case is just the same, or even worse; either there are no college lectures on the subject in which he needs special assistance, or they are attended by such an ill-assorted class, containing men of all grades of scholarship and no scholarship, that he either cuts them altogether or goes to them with disgust, and brings away from them little of more value than a leading-string abstracted with much patience and vigilance from his next neighbour’s gown, or a series of bad pencil-caricatures of the tutor. He has done more than waste an hour—he has begun, or encouraged, a habit of idleness that may haunt him during his life.

Now, only let us transfer ourselves in fancy, for one moment, from this great University to one of our public schools. There, a father pays some hundred and fifty pounds per annum for his son’s education—a large deduction from the income of many fathers, yet, perhaps, considering all things, not too much. We agree with the Commissioners in having no fancy for very cheap education. But supposing that at this public school the instruction given in the school itself by the recognised head master and assistants was considered, both by boys and masters, as quite insufficient, and indeed, of itself, worth very little at all, but that there were residing in the town or village in which the said school was located several very clever gentlemen of undoubted scholarship, having indeed, in their time, been amongst the head boys there, and carried off all the prizes; that to these gentlemen (paying extra for the privilege, of course) all boys who wished to learn could resort, and, in fact, did resort, and thereby got on surprisingly (not that the head master knew much about them, but believed them to be respectable), saving thereby considerable trouble both to head and assistant masters, who, in fact, could not undertake, though it might be possible, to educate at all without such assistance, holding that, nevertheless, their school was an excellent school, admitted to be such (else how did so many boys go there?), and turned out most unexceptionable scholars;—would not the fathers, and the public generally, think this rather a strange way of doing business, and that the education might go on quite as effectually in the hands of the clever gentlemen aforesaid, at a clear saving of a hundred or so of the original guineas, which seemed a good deal to pay to the head master for mere board and lodging, and the use of his name? Why is it that a state of things which would not be tolerated in any decent grammar-school is considered “unavoidable”—“beneficial”—nay, even “a valuable element”[29] in the great schools of the nation?

We will not touch here upon a charge more than insinuated in some of the evidence volunteered before the Commission against college tutors, of incapacity or inattention; first, because we firmly believe that the charge is in the main untrue, and, at all events, less true now than it has ever been; and, secondly, because no amount of diligence, no quintessence of scholarship, could enable any man to make an hour’s lecture with a class of from twelve to twenty young men of various calibre that which a catechetical lecture should be. Mr Lowe is quite right in saying that “the plan”—if by this he means the present plan—“of teaching in large lectures is inexpressibly odious and disgusting to the forward student.”[30] Until this evil be remedied, no tutor can do his work with profit or with satisfaction. But it must be borne in mind, that when private tuition is so universal, the public tutor has not fair play. It is hard to judge, from what college lectures are, of what they might be, if they were attended in a different spirit. Few men work heartily who do not hope to see some fruit of their travail: the criminal at the treadmill works with double disgust when he knows that he is grinding nothing. Once let the pupil think that his teacher cannot teach, and let the teacher know that he thinks so, and it is true—he cannot. On this point Mr Foulkes, himself a college tutor, speaks with equal sense and honesty. “Pupils,” says he, “make light of their college lectures in comparison with those of their private tutor; and college tutors, finding their lectures ill got up or remembered, are apt to grow apathetic, and relax in their diligence.” They were more than mortal if they did not. A dull audience, the Commissioners confess, may make even a professor dull;—to borrow an illustration from the Report (which has throughout a tendency to the poetical), a tutor with an inanimate class is “Pyrrhus” without “his Epirots”[31]—an eagle with clipped wings.

It is undeniable that the existing tutorial staff, in every College, is insufficient for the demands upon its labours; the remedy for this insufficiency, in any minor educational establishment where reason and common sense hold a commission of inquiry, would be to increase it. But before we discuss this question, it may be well to examine whether all is done which might be done even as things stand at present. What is the actual amount of work performed by a college tutor? We may gather pretty accurately from the evidence volunteered by, we are bound to suppose, not the least energetic of those who are so employed. Thirteen lectures in the week, of one hour each, is a fair average of the actual instruction given by each tutor;[32] how many hours besides may be spent in preparation for each lecture is, of course, a question impossible for any but themselves to answer. Now let us take the case of the head master of one of our public schools, who may surely be assumed, without offence, to be fully the college tutor’s equal in scholarship and in social position. His work ordinarily begins at seven in the morning, and continues, with perhaps two hours intermission, till twelve; to which, on “whole schooldays,” about three days in the week, must be added two hours in the afternoon; making, in all, some twenty-two hours in the week, allowing for some extra half-holidays. This allows no time for looking over and correcting written exercises—an important and laborious part of every schoolmaster’s work. And this, we must remember, continues for nearly nine months in the year, instead of six, involving a question which we may have to discuss hereafter. Now, why should there be this enormous disproportion? Why is the college tutor to work a little more, on an average, than two hours in the day, and the schoolmaster a little less than four? It may indeed be answered, that college tutors are not so well paid; but considering that the value of this office, when combined with a fellowship (which surely, in these days, may be considered as implying some educational duties), averages about £450 per annum, and that its cares and responsibilities are comparatively light, it may be questioned whether the position is not quite as desirable. It must be borne in mind, also, that many men perfectly qualified by academical honours for a college tutorship, are content to accept under-masterships, which, with harder and more distasteful work, and often less emolument, offer a position immeasurably inferior in the eyes of society, and certainly presenting a great contrast, to a man of cultivated mind, to the collegiate life of Oxford. Even if the advantages of such a life are not all that they might be—if the common-room has its petty jealousies, and party bitterness, and men thrown constantly together see too much of each other’s weaknesses—still, a University, as a place of residence, has its attractions for minds of almost every character, except those who, from apathy or cynicism, set themselves firmly against the doctrine that man is a social animal. Where, unless he have the entrée of the literary or political society of London itself, which few can have—where will a man to whom “the humanities,” in their widest sense, are something more than the cram of the schools—who believes in his heart that there are subjects which are as really and truly interesting to the human intellect as the growth of turnips or the price of stocks—find anything approaching to a companionship of thought and feeling, if not in collegiate society? To call such society “narrow-minded,” to say that it has its mannerisms and its pedantries, is true enough: they are defects incidental to all society. Never were yet three schoolboys, who walked arm-in-arm, that had not a creed and a shibboleth of their own; but surely the narrowest track that ever the soul of college fellow moved in was the liberty of the prairie, compared to the round of dull conventionalities which delight our “excellent neighbourhoods” in the country. At all events, there will always be an abundance of ripe scholars and sensible men, to whom the social position, and the congenial work, even with the present modest emoluments of a college tutor, will be an object quite sufficient, even if, in this active age, we add a little to their work. An extra early hour in the morning—say from eight to nine—would be a wonderful incentive to the energies of many a freshman, who is now hugging himself every morning in bed with the comfortable reflection, that in his new sphere he is emancipated from the odious “first lessons” of Harrow or Eton. Another hour in the evenings devoted to Horace or Aristophanes—say three times a-week—would hardly interfere with those pleasant dinner-parties, or social cup of coffee, to which the tutor naturally looks as the reward of his labours, and with which we are sure it would be rank ingratitude for any stranger to intermeddle, who has been welcomed, as all strangers are welcomed, to those classic hospitalities. It is only fair to say, that more than one college might be quoted, where, of late, tutors have been seen imposing upon themselves some such additional labours, and doing their utmost to make college tuition a reality. Much also might be done by a better division of the work assigned to each, and the more judicious classifying of their pupils—points which are at present in most colleges grievously neglected.

But the great remedy must be, the appointment of additional tutors in each college. This, of course, implies additional funds for their payment. Now, considering that the whole charge for “tuition” is £16 for the academical year, we say unhesitatingly that the public, with all its ardour for retrenchment of University expenses, would not grudge an increase in this particular item. Twenty pounds per annum would hardly be considered too much, by the most economising parent, for a really efficient course of classics and mathematics. At all events, it would be far cheaper, and far more satisfactory, to pay the larger sum for an equivalent, than to be charged as at present for what is confessedly insufficient for its purpose, and be saddled with indefinite extra demands under the item of “private tutor.” John Bull likes to know how the money goes, and to have his money’s worth. Half the sum annually spent in Oxford upon private tuition, would amply provide for public teaching of a much more useful character. It is possible that some of the surplus income of many colleges, which is now divided among the fellows as a sort of bonus, or laid by for the purchase of advowsons and other purposes, might be quite as legitimately, and much more usefully, employed in establishing an additional tutorship; or some of the fellowships themselves, which the Report proposes to melt down into professorships, might much more properly be held in future to involve the residing and taking part in the college work. It appears at least doubtful, from the statutes of more than one College, whether all fellowships did not there involve some tutorial duties; at any rate, such a regulation would be quite in accordance with the spirit of their founders.

One objection, indeed, there is urged by the opponents of the present tutorial system, which must be allowed to have some foundation. College tutors are inefficient, they say, not only because they are too few, but because they are often incompetent or indifferent. “The system,” says Mr Lowe, “has often been grossly abused by the appointment of incompetent persons.” So, we suppose, has pretty nearly every system at some period. This argument from the abuse, to less subtle rhetoricians than our Commissioners, might have seemed to border on a fallacy. Still, that incompetent persons have occasionally been appointed is true, and is not to be defended, even on the ground that incompetent appointments are sometimes made by other patrons than heads of Colleges—that they are not unknown upon the bench, at the bar—nay, we dare to say it, even in Royal Commissions themselves. But it is hardly assuming too much for our own times to say, that the days of such appointments, if not wholly past, are already numbered; that soon it will be a rare exception to point to a man who holds an important public trust by favour of nepotism or corruption. To assume that Oxford is sharing, and will share, this improved tone of public morality, is surely no more than we may claim for her in common fairness, or than the testimony of any unprejudiced observer could support by recent facts. And once let it be understood that a college is bonâ fide to educate its own men without extraneous help, and we shall have the best of all practical checks upon incompetence or idleness in the teachers. There needs in this case no statute to be repealed, no founder’s will to be set aside; the heads of houses have themselves acknowledged that “the tutors of colleges are not necessarily appointed from the fellows of colleges.” It is in the power of any principal to choose his tutors from the whole University; to summon to his aid any portion of that marketable scholarship which at present can only find employment in private teaching; it is nothing but custom and prejudice which at present restrict his choice within his own society.

Let this plan only be tried: let some college, now considered inferior, select and pay a couple of first-rate tutors, and let them form their classes according to their own judgment, selecting those departments for which each feels himself best qualified, and really working them. We will not ask of them twelve, ten, or even six hours a-day: much less will give an amount of genuine instruction sufficient for the limited numbers which any one of the smaller colleges can expect to supply as candidates for honours. A couple more tutors for the pass-men, in a small college of say forty undergraduates, with a mathematical lecturer, would complete an establishment, not much more formidable in point of numbers, but infinitely more efficient than any at present existing. They will be fully competent to do all which private tutors now do, if it is distinctly understood both by undergraduates and their friends that they, and they alone, are to do it. If it be desired to leave something to their own free choice and taste, let each attend such lectures (a minimum number per diem being fixed, of course) as he may think tend most to his improvement; and let each tutor be paid in proportion to the number of his pupils. From forty men, paying, as we have suggested, £20 per annum each, we have £800 to apply in this manner; to which the college may well add another £200, sinking, if it be necessary, as it seldom would be, a fellowship for the purpose. In the larger colleges, where more tutors are required, the funds will increase in proportion. This will allow, even in small colleges, at least £300 per annum to a first-rate tutor, in addition to the fellowship which we may naturally suppose he will hold on his own or some other foundation. And this, we repeat, will be enough to secure good men, and men whose energies are young and fresh; for we cannot agree with the Commissioners in thinking that the succession, by which a college tutor quits his work for the “expected living,” and thus makes way for his juniors, is in itself an evil; or that it is not far preferable to the system of married professors, who will stick to their chairs, if not to their work, long after the “solve senescentem” might be fairly applied.

And if, as we trust, the opening of new halls, affiliated or private, shall stir up the old foundations to exertion, in order to maintain their ground, that college which, from the inefficiency of its tutors, fails to educate, will at least soon be relieved from the necessity of pretending to educate at all. Even its foundation scholarships, with which we would never meddle, will fail to recruit its ranks, if the path to a fellowship be made, as it should, to lie only through a fair place in the Honour-list. With the addition which may thus easily be made to the staff of college tutors—by exacting some little additional labour from each—by abolishing at once the monopoly which now drives a man to enter at a bad college rather than not to enter at all, and allowing, at the same time, every Master of Arts, who has sufficient confidence in his own abilities (and in whom the University shall place sufficient confidence), to open a hall of his own—and by rigorously insisting not only upon attendance at lectures, but upon due preparation for them—college tuition may again become what we believe it has been, what an innocent public naturally suppose it to be, and what it undoubtedly ought to be; and the hydra-headed incubus which has gradually supplanted and overpowered it will thus, if not annihilated, become a very innocent monster indeed. When the regular college work makes its full demand on the undergraduate’s time and powers, private tuition will only be resorted to by those who have more money than brains; and the private tutor will gradually come to be considered, by all well-regulated minds, much in the same light as a “crib” to Thucydides, or a key to Colenso’s algebra. Even now, his services are absurdly magnified, and much of the supposed benefit derived from them is wholly imaginary. Men who, years ago, rose to the highest University honours without such artificial aid, may fairly challenge, in the extent and accuracy of their scholarship, any name in later class-lists; nay, it is no unheard-of or unfounded complaint that, in spite of the formidable apparatus criticus, and various modern patents for learning-made-easy—in spite of the “invaluable” facilities afforded the student by these private tutors—(it might be unfair to say because of these things)—the scholarship of Oxford has declined. Nay, the cram, “purchased and handed down from tutor to tutor,” is not actually so valuable, even in the schools, as either buyer or seller would fain persuade themselves. The man who lost his “First,” because he had no private tutor[33]—whom Mr Rawlinson so pathetically holds out as a sort of George Barnwell to undergraduates—would have made a very good addition to Mr Douglas Jerrold’s “men of character,” as a pendant to “the man who couldn’t help it;” but the latter character is more common in Oxford. For one man who fails in the attainment of expected honours, from ignorance of some technical formulas, or recondite information, supposed to be the exclusive property and stock in trade of practised private tutors, twenty break down from inaccurate scholarship, or imperfect knowledge of the actual text-books of the examination. It is quite true that the examiner, who has unfortunately himself been a private tutor, is very apt, in the vivâ voce examination, to lead a candidate into these by-ways of learning, where he himself feels so much at home, when, if the candidate be also one of the initiated, a very pleasant dialogue takes place, to the great delectation of the audience, but probably with very little effect upon his place in the class-list. For it must be remembered that, even should the candidate succeed in flattering the known predilections of a single examiner into a false estimate of his abilities, there are three others sitting by who regard all this display with perfect indifference. The atrocious blunders made by showy men would pass the belief of any but an examiner. A few specious answers on a “science paper” will not cover the multitude of sins. We have heard from the lips of one of the ablest examiners in Oxford—whose name would have some weight even with the Commissioners—that more men lost their expected class from a want of knowledge of their books than from any other cause whatever. But one of the great evils of the system which now exists is, that it is so infectious; it is hard for a young man not to believe that the assistance which he sees others so eager to obtain is necessary, or at least very desirable, for himself; if A, B, and C read with private tutors, D considers that he starts with a disadvantage unless he does so too. And when the college tutor sees that nearly all his men prefer to seek other aid, he, very naturally, if he be an indolent man—not without some vexation, if his heart be in his work—feels his own responsibility in a great measure taken from him.

And this so-called liberty in the choice of an instructor, thus opened to the youth of Oxford, how often is it wisely exercised? What a mere caprice of fashion it is often which makes men rush in crowds to this or that popular tutor, as if he alone were in possession of some specific for the schools! whilst he again has soon to give place to some newer favourite—

“Arbitrio popularis auræ.”

Can one blame the teacher, if with such a precarious tenure he strives hard, for the time being, to make the most of his brains? Is it wonderful if he is willing to take pupils whilst they are to be had, even at the rate of twelve hours a-day?[34] It has been done—with what effect upon the tutor, with what benefit to the pupil, let the reader judge for himself. So again, in the case of a pass-tutor (whose course of preparation is only for Responsins, or for the ordinary degree), his reputation is sometimes made or unmade by the result of a single examination—some half-dozen men plucked whom he had considered almost safe—a few desperate cases “shaved through,” who had failed under other trainers; this, or less than this, in the chapter of accidents, is quite sufficient to overwhelm a man with applications for the next examination, or leave him gradually almost without a pupil.

In short, this forcing system, which aims at pumping into the pupil’s brains the condensed results of another’s labours, owes its chief popularity to the notion that it saves the pupil work. Whether even a less amount of actual knowledge, if the result of personal labour and research, would not be far more valuable, is a question which the undergraduate, anxious only for his examination, cannot be supposed to ask. If the true object of a University education be “to train the powers of the mind,” every artificial aid which tends to weaken self-reliance, and discourage self-exertion, is a step towards defeating it. It is quite true that the results of originality of thought, as displayed in the examination papers of even the best candidates for honours, may not be very valuable in themselves; but the habit of thinking for one’s-self, and the exercise of mental power in mastering difficulties, are amongst the most precious fruits of a student life. And if ever one of the most valuable suggestions contained in the Report be carried out, as we trust it will, and candidates for classical honours be tested more and more, as may easily be done, in the translation and analysation of unseen passages, it will do good service in proving the hollowness of a system which aims at communicating to the student knowledge ready made, instead of strengthening him to attain it.

We have said little of that strange hallucination which has led the Commissioners to see in the extension of the professorate alone the remedy for all the educational mistakes of Oxford. It has been so effectually exposed by other writers, and has been so little popular with any but its authors, that it may be considered as pretty well disposed of. It is very satisfactory to find the “Tutor’s Association,” in their Report (No. II. p. 42), in a few cool words giving us the deliberate opinion of so large and important a body, that “it is in no way desirable that the instruction of professors should ever become the main instruction of the place.” That some addition may with great advantage be made to the present number of professors—still more, that existing professorships should be made efficient—no one will deny. We could be content to take the last reform first as an instalment. We should like to have one or two of the existing types of the class put into working order, that we might know how to value the effect of a larger importation; for the professor, as he is, is not unknown in Oxford, though not apt to exhibit much for the public delectation. But we have the thing, of various species—Regius, Margaret, and others—and have not as yet been much the better for them. We are told that with new professors we shall have a greater command of talent than can be expected in the case of college tutors. “I have always found,” said Arnold of Rugby, “that the great difference between one boy and another lay not so much in talent as in energy.” No man was a better judge; few men in themselves had more of both; and we are sure he would have applied unhesitatingly to the teacher what he had said of the taught. We need, in those who are to regenerate Oxford, talent, it is true—we need yet more energy. There is enough Greek and History and Philosophy already dormant in University Chairs, “celata virtus,” to satisfy the most voracious undergraduate that ever hungered and thirsted after knowledge. It may be a great comfort to him to know that his teachers, or those who should be his teachers, know so much, but with this comfort he must rest content. And even with the immense “run” of public talent which our modern tyro is to have opened to him, let him not be too sanguine. In the multitude of his new councillors there shall surely be wisdom, but not surely for him. He shall have teachers in plenty, but they shall only teach as shall seem to them good. The Commissioners have made the profound discovery that no statutes “can compel a man to lecture well;” and one of their chosen witnesses even doubts whether they should be compelled to lecture at all.[35] Because the plan of teaching in large classes does not work well in colleges, the student shall be transferred to larger classes, under other names, formed out of the whole University. Because existing professors are a failure—those who have done their duty having been “brilliant exceptions,” “not even encouraged by success”[36]—therefore he shall have more. Because college tutors do not always lecture well, he shall have a new set of teachers, who shall lecture, if it so pleases them, not at all. By some magnetic process, the learning of the professor shall be instilled into the pupil without having recourse to the ordinary mediums of communication. We have not patience to pursue all these absurdities to their conclusion.

Yet we must not wonder that the Commissioners’ scheme has on this point found able advocates. A measure of reform which is to create at once some fifty snug and honourable appointments, of from £800 per annum downwards, can hardly fail to be popular amongst unemployed and ambitious M.A.’s. More than one name might be pointed out amongst the eager witnesses for the prosecution, who are already in fancy seating themselves in the professors’ chairs. If they have not been slow to impute to existing teachers low aims and unworthy motives, they must not wince if they are cross-examined closely as to the feelings which might possibly influence themselves. It would not be difficult to select from those names probable candidates for the visionary chairs of “Jurisprudence,” “Philosophy,” or “Mental Philosophy.” “Professor, sir? Here you are, sir!” we fancy we hear chorused by a score of eager voices. They are conscious, many of them honestly conscious, of talents which have not yet found scope enough for exercise, and long naturally for recognised position and rank. The pay, as Mr Vaughan slily says, “is a slighter but not unfelt consideration.”[37]

We must protest, at all events, against this ex parte evidence. It is too late now to discuss the wisdom of that policy which closed so many lips, which might have been fitting oracles of Oxford, before a court whose jurisdiction they denied. But we now claim to hear those men of grave and mature experience, whose names are not upon the Commissioners’ list of witnesses; there are some among them to whom all must listen reverently, although all may not adopt their views. The University has called for their opinions; let them now speak, or else hereafter for ever hold their peace.

OUR COMMISSIONER IN PARIS.

It was on the evening of the 22d of August, 1853, that a party consisting of a gentleman, two ladies, and four packages, emerged from the door of the Castle Inn at Southampton, and bestowed themselves in and upon a one-horse fly. Something had happened which apparently had disturbed the equanimity of the paternal leader of the flock; and as an attentive bystander might have heard him mutter in no very benevolent accent, while he indignantly crumpled up a small bit of paper and thrust it into his waistcoat-pocket—“We might have dined at the Clarendon for the same sum”—it is not an unlikely conjecture that the entertainment had been bad, and the charge excessive. A drive of three minutes conducted them to the pier; when a demand for an infinite variety of shillings and twopences still farther increased the traveller’s dissatisfaction, which, however, only reached its climax when Jehu, wet and tipsy, insisted on a crown. It was now eight o’clock; the Grand Turk lay alongside the jetty, fretting, and fuming, and spurting out angry ejaculations from its funnel; the deck was strewed with boxes of all imaginable shapes and sizes; the rain was falling, porters swearing, deck slippery, companion-ladder dark, and, when the cabin was at last attained, the glimmering lamp threw a melancholy light over the visages of twenty or thirty people who sat in solemn silence, or anxiously whispered to each other as to the safety of hat-box or umbrella. The party we have mentioned took their seats with the rest; and, if we pursued the very novel style in which we have begun this narrative, now would be the time to introduce a description of the travellers’ personal appearance. It was manifest the relationship between them was rather close; a father, mother, and daughter were on their way to the gay city of Paris, and adopted the route by Southampton and Havre, intending to spend a few days at Rouen by the way. The description of any of the party would, however, be useless; for before it had got beyond the bold and intellectual glance of the senior traveller, his hair glossy black, clustering in rich ringlets around his well-shaped, head—his majestic features, now radiant with an indefinable expression and now sunk in serene repose—and the tones of his voice redolent of scholarship and romance—the dullest of readers would at once perceive that it was no other but Our Commissioner on his way to France; determined, as in duty bound, to communicate to Maga the result of his observations—

“To talk of sciences and arts,

And knowledge gained in foreign parts.”

So, leaving to the reader’s imagination the discomforts of a night passage in an over-crowded boat, with a sharp wind, and an angry chopping sea, he will merely state that he arrived weary, but safe, at the excellent Hôtel de l’Europe, in the bustling town of Havre; and, after a copious breakfast, proceeded to survey the place. A very pleasant, active, clean place it is. The docks so intersect the town that half the streets have their frontage occupied by the shipping. It looks more like what we have read of Amsterdam than what we had expected to find in France. The tide rises three-and-twenty feet, so that, though there is depth of water enough for vessels of large burthen, the docks are not available for them at all hours; and the outside harbours did not strike us as either capacious or safe. The fortifications as they at present stand are contemptible, and could not stand the attack of the “Duke of Wellington” for an hour; but batteries of great strength are soon to be begun, and the maritime capital placed out of danger of a coup-de-main. At five o’clock we got into the train for Rouen; and, through a rich, flat, uninteresting country, very much resembling the Isle of Thanet, we careered at twenty-five miles an hour, and reached our destination as comfortably as on the best of our English lines. Let all men who stop at Rouen go to the Hôtel d’Albion; it is situated on the quay, and nowhere is the beautiful Seine more beautiful than here. It is spanned by several bridges, from which the view both up and down is of extraordinary richness. Towers, and pinnacles, and great high houses, all breathing of the middle ages, surround, and are reflected in a river, which is bright to-day with the gay sails and flags of all nations, and which is the same that bore William the Conqueror on his way to England. Somehow or other, this same William the Conqueror gives us a sort of vested interest in the scenery of Normandy. We feel a kind of property in his castles; and can’t help a small sensation of enmity to Joan of Arc for ousting us from our hereditary domains. However, let us look on her statue in the marketplace without a blush, for the English did not burn her as an enemy, but the French ecclesiastics burned her as a witch. The cathedral is gaudy, and over-ornamented outside, but solemn and grand within; a hurried glance is sufficient for all the internal sights of the place, but the fine old streets, the gable-ended houses, the projecting balconies, the straight, steep roofs, would furnish food for contemplation for a month. Then the walks around it are delightful, the heights that encompass it very rich and finely moulded, fruit and provisions very cheap, and the people good-humoured and obliging—no wonder many English families have established themselves here, and taken possession of the most charming situations—a sort of reprisal for the behaviour of the Normans in 1066.

Next day saw us on the way to Paris, careering through a country still flat and monotonous, except when here and there the windings of the Seine showed us the chalky banks through which it had forced its way; or, at a remote distance, a few hills, or rather elevations, crowned with an occasional ruin. For, though this is the highway to the capital, and one of the richest provinces in the kingdom, there is an appearance of desolation spread over all the district, as if it had very recently been the scene of some devastating war. The villages are all either half finished, or half destroyed. Instead of the three or four gentlemanly dwellings—the surgeon’s, the retired tradesman’s, the neighbouring manufacturer’s, besides the squire’s, and the rectory—which you see dotted among the humble cottages in almost every English village—here you see nothing but straight, narrow stone huts, no fruit on the walls, no garden attached—but single, bare, and comfortless, clustered, like some recent fungi, round an old squat-spired church, which seems to look with blank astonishment out of its broken clock-face at the railway carriages hissing past it, and disturbing its “ancient, solitary reign” over a trampled peasantry and roadless country. There are not above three chateaus visible between Havre and Paris; and the tale of at least one of them is told by the appearance of three or four great high factory-chimneys, which were of course utterly unknown to the original seigneur, but are very convenient for the present owner of the mansion, as they are situated just at one end of the long-terraced garden, and must be a comfortable accession to the view from the drawing-room windows. All old things have died away in this part of France, and a new order of things has not yet risen. Here are houses dismantled in the riots of ’93 still unroofed. Even the old chateau inhabited by the great Sully, and giving the title “de Rosny,” by which he was originally known, does not seem to have a tree about it more than thirty years old. Yet the chimneys are all shaky with age, and if there were any cracks in the wall that gave rheumatism to the great councillor of Henry IV., depend upon it they are there still. We did not see a house under repair all the time we were in France. The owner seems to wait till it is actually uninhabitable, and then he builds another. The result is a combination of novelty and decay which it is very unpleasant to look upon.

One style of building, however, it must be confessed, is carried to great perfection in France. As you approach Paris, you see on all hands barracks and fortifications. At intervals you hear far-distant military music, and catch the glimpses of long rows of bayonets in the sunlight; and on the elevation commanding the plain you see enormous lines of strong low walls crowded with embrasures for cannon, and on a stout little post swings in the summer air the universal tricolor. Universal we call it; for, go where you like, the blue, white, and red, are sure to meet your eyes: they hang over book-stalls, and auction-rooms, and restaurateurs, and theatres. Over small cabarets in rural villages you still see the flag; over all the government offices, small and great; over merry-go-rounds at a fair; over a conjuror’s booth; over the tilted waggon of a perambulating quack; and, finally, over the central pavilion of the majestic Tuileries. Flags, therefore, and fortifications are the principal characteristics of the capital. But, in fact, the massive style of masonry, and the isolated nature of the dwelling-houses, fit every mansion in Paris to stand a siege. Any lodging-house in the street could be converted into a fortification at a moment’s notice, and would only require to hoist the tricolor from the roof to become a citadel at once. In the mean time, it was our object to get into lodgings as soon as we could; and with this view we hurried from the railway station to the office of an excellent English agent in the Rue de Rivoli. Fortunately an appartement of eight rooms was vacant on the first floor above; half an hour saw the bargain made, the trunks deposited, the services of a native cook secured, and everything as comfortable as heart could desire.

The rooms were intensely French. There were nine windows in the lodging, and nineteen doors; there were five clocks, enamelled, gilded, and otherwise ornamented, which did not go, and one in the kitchen which was always wrong; there were four arm-chairs in the drawing-room, with square gilded legs, and tapestry-covered backs, which it required an enormous exertion of strength to move from beside the wall; there was a sofa so tremendously elastic that you kept swinging up and down for a minute or two after you had taken your seat; there was a round table, so small that it couldn’t hold the smallest tea-tray, and so heavy, by means of a marble top, that it couldn’t be moved from its place; and, what with tables and chairs, and sofas and clocks, and jars and mirrors, and curtains and firescreens, and brackets and other useless encumbrances, there was only left a narrow serpentine walk across the floor more intricate than, and quite as dangerous as, the entrance into Portsmouth harbour. The bedrooms had the same characteristics of over-furnishing and encumbered space; but the colours of everything were so gay, the gilding so bright, the mirrors so glossy, that our spirits were never depressed, and we entirely escaped the Penitentiary-at-Millbank sort of feeling which invariably takes possession of us on being ushered into the dull, heavy, monotonous apartments of a London lodging-house.

Here, then, we were established in the most beautiful part of Paris—just opposite the Tuileries gardens—the bright sun of France shining upon us all day long, and a month before us in which to survey the astounding scene. For astounding it certainly is, if you remember how often these beautiful streets have been filled with thousands of infuriated citizens, cutting and shooting each other; cannon resounding in all parts of the town, and blood flowing in torrents over the pavement, and all these horrors occurring not in the distant reigns of Charles the Ninth, or Henry the Third; but a year ago,—when this old hat was new—some months after our new drawing-room paper was put on, which is still in its first gloss. And now look at the place, nothing but peace and gaiety apparently were ever heard of here. The people walk about as if every man was just let out for a holiday, and requested to enjoy it as much as he could. The shops are shining with gold and silver, with laces, and silks, and satins, in every window; the blue sky bends over all without a cloud, and we will forth into the gardens of the Tuileries to see the world. What a pleasant, bright, glittering world it is. There are groups scattered all about in the shady walks, under these crowded trees. A gentleman, his wife, three children, and a maid in a long-flapped white cap, are all as busy as if they were in their own house. The mother is sewing, and hearing the eldest girl her lesson; the maid is also active with her needle; the two smaller children are poring over the same book; and the father, with his back to a tree, and his hat over his brows, is deep in the milk-and-water politics of the Assemblée, or the platitudes of that wonderful misnomer, the Constitutionnel. Now, all these people have left their appartement for the day. The key is in the coat-pocket of the absorbed politician; they will dine in the quietest and most economical way at some humble restaurant, and returning to their position in the gardens, they will enjoy the gay scene before them, stroll from fountain to fountain, or from statue to statue, listen to the band, and finally, when the shades of night begin to fall, they will retire to their modest lodging, having spent a day of open-air enjoyment, which makes them utterly independent of the size or situation of the rooms they nominally occupy. This seems the mode of life of an immense number of the Parisians. Houses seem mere accommodations for the night; for, from morn till eve, they are in as full possession of the Tuileries as if they had been crowned monarchs of France—their empire in the Luxembourg gardens, there’s none to dispute—and a few sous puts them at any time into the plenary usufruct of St Cloud or Versailles. Now, who are all those people who disport themselves in the sunshine? Are they gentlemen living on the small remains of their property, or shopkeepers out for a ploy, or visitors from the country, or play-actors retiring to study their parts, or literary men catching glimpses of life? We confess ourselves utterly unable to answer these questions. Perhaps the numberless groups we see consist of specimens of all those classes—small rentiers economising, flourishing epiciers relaxing, country visitors reposing; but, whatever they may be, they present the appearance of the most careless, happy population, ever known. It is a complete “cure for the heartache” to walk down these murmuring avenues at any hour from ten till seven. There is such an amazing amount of enjoyment in the indolent repose of the seniors, the merry plays of the children, the air, the trees, the flowers, the company walking before you in endless procession, as if intended entirely for your gratification, that again we go back with astonishment to the appalling consideration, that less than a year ago there were battle, murder, and sudden death in all parts of this gay metropolis; and, in less than another year, they may be all let loose again. Those very idlers probably would be on the top of a barricade, and, according to circumstances, either installed in a few days in the Hôtel de Ville or on their way to Cayenne. So we will shake off these disagreeable impressions by walking down the centre walk, and admiring the pillar of Luxor in the Place de la Concorde. This is agreed, in all quarters, to be the finest site in Europe; and all the accessories are worthy of their situation. The fountains are very fine, and give issue to a body of water which would drown the dumb-waiters in Trafalgar Square. At the four ends are the Tuileries, the Madeleine, the Arc de Triomphe, and the Corps Legislatif—four specimens of building, we will be bold to say, unequalled—taken separately, and in their joint effect as seen from this noble centre, the greatest triumphs of taste and architecture the world contains. The spaces are so vast that the Luxor column, though seventy-two feet high, and raised on a plinth of twenty, appears dumpy and out of proportion. We doubt the congruity of Egyptian obelisks in the midst of our modern styles. It carries the mind too far away. Grecian temples retain their place because they have at no time been lost sight of, and have often been reproduced; but this Egyptian monument, rising all of a sudden like an animated mummy, is frightful for its very resuscitation. Let it lie like a well-preserved corpse in the sands of its native country, and we can read of it without a shudder; but really, to look on this tremendous stone, set up amidst the shouts of a hundred and fifty thousand spectators in 1836, and see it looking as juvenile and unwrinkled as if it had been quarried on Montmartre, is a sort of anachronism which jars upon the taste. If the wretched thing looked old, the case would be different; but it looks newer than the Arc de Triomphe; the inscriptions on it are finer in the edge, and deeper cut than the victories recorded on its rival; and yet has any one reflected on the antiquity of this monster? It was set up in Luxor amid the shouts of more than a hundred and fifty thousand spectators in the reign of Rameses of Egypt, three thousand two hundred years ago,—a few years after Pharaoh was drowned in the Red Sea, and while Joshua was conquering the tribes of Palestine. This is such a confusion of dates and eras that we wish the pillar were removed—removed to some granite hill as old as itself, and no more permitted to put our perishing materials to shame by parading its immortal youth unhurt amidst the war of elements.

We will therefore, by way of treating ourselves to the sight of a little decay, proceed to inspect the Invalides—a noble palace for worn-out soldiers and sailors,—not so magnificent outside as our unequalled Greenwich, but more richly supported, and giving refuge and maintenance to a much greater number of men. A stout old fragment of the Grand Army showed us round the building. Nearly three thousand men find accommodation within the walls, tolerably fed while in health, and most carefully attended to when ill. They are apparently admissible at an earlier age, and with fewer titles to compassion, than is the case at either Greenwich or Chelsea—many of them were hale-looking active men, of not more than forty-five years old, with many campaigns in them yet; and all of them, except the maimed and very old, had the buoyant step and intelligent look, which, we confess with some regret, is the characteristic of the French militaire. Whether the old warrior who did the honours on this occasion was a chosen representative of his class, we do not know, but he had the politeness of a marshal of Louis XIV., and the information of a member of the Institute. The little biographical hints he gave of the different governors of the institution, when we entered the room adorned with their portraits, were very short, sharp, and decisive. Some of the older race, dukes and marquises who had obtained the office by their influence and rank, he passed over with a magnanimous disdain, merely enumerating their names and titles,—but when others of more distinction came under his notice, he sounded forth the names of their victories as if they had only recently appeared in the Gazette; and this is a peculiarity which we observed among all classes of the French population. They seem to keep a catalogue of their glories from Chalons to Isly, and remember the smaller actions of Condé and Turenne with an accuracy which few Englishmen of a humble class possess of Salamanca or Waterloo. In the chapel are suspended flags of all nations conquered in war. There are standards of Austria, and Prussia and Russia, and Africa in great profusion. We looked round with great satisfaction as we failed to discover the Union Jack among these spoils of victory.—“You don’t happen to have any English specimens here?” we asked with a chuckle, which we felt at the moment was horribly impolite.

“Look,” he said, “high up, just under the roof”—and there we certainly saw a small bit of bunting which it was impossible to mistake for anything but the meteor flag.

“And how and where was that taken?” we inquired, somewhat crestfallen.

“It was seized at Dantzic,” he replied, “when we took Monsieur Corbet prisoner.”

There was nothing more to be said; we had never heard of any battle or victory at Dantzic; but then we are so apt to forget those military events, and the French are so accurate. We had and have no books of reference; but we heard from a friend that the flag fell into the hands of the French when they garrisoned Dantzic at the time of the Moscow campaign, and it had formed part of the colours of a mercantile brig, at that time in the harbour, commanded by a skipper of the name of Corbet. But our venerable guide seemed to forget Vittoria and Waterloo when gazing on this proof of his countrymen’s prowess; and as it was the only one they could show, we were well pleased to leave him to his triumphant meditations. The tomb of the Emperor was under repair, and could not be seen; but a bust of Napoleon was dwelt upon with great admiration, while a companion bust of the nephew was passed by almost in silence. It is observable, that whenever a Frenchmen speaks of the Emperor, he means our old enemy Buonaparte—when he alludes to his present governor, he has to describe him as Napoleon the Third; but it struck us, wherever we went, that the little Corsican has a more abiding presence among the present generation than the living individual who has inherited his power and name. His statues and monuments are everywhere—songs are sung about him—plays are perpetually acted in which he is introduced; and altogether it needs a very slight effort of the imagination to suppose that he is still inhabiting the Tuileries, and ready to launch his thunderbolts all over the world. But the fact of his nephew occupying the throne of France is the most wonderful proof of his still existing ascendancy over the French mind. It seems as much in accordance with the “eternal fitness of things,” that a Napoleon should rule in France, as it was in ancient days that a Cæsar should reign at Rome. No matter whether he was an Augustus or a Nero, he was of the true master’s blood; and Julius was honoured in the vilest of his successors. When this stream of hereditary adulation in France will be dried up, it is impossible to say. It is just possible the fame of the great founder may go on increasing in a greater ratio than the deterioration of his descendants, so that what is lost at one end may be supplied at the other. But surely cockhats and little grey greatcoats can’t last for ever—some glimpses of fact will steal in upon the most benighted of his admirers, and awaken them to a knowledge that, even in military affairs, he was oftener repulsed and defeated than any great conqueror who ever lived, and that in politics, foreign and domestic, he was the most cruel and unprincipled tyrant “whereof the world holds record.” Those merry, lively, vain French people have entirely forgotten all his reverses. His Moscows, Leipsics, and fifty other defeats, have all disappeared. Even Waterloo is looked on as a miraculous incident, against which it is impossible to reason, but which tells nothing against his fame; and he stands on the top of the column in the Place Vendôme surrounded by a halo of victories, unclouded by a single check. This is the most honourable feature in the French character in its connection with Buonaparte, and finding no counterpart, we are afraid, in our own. If Nelson had been defeated at Trafalgar—if Wellington had been defeated at Waterloo—their previous glories would have been effaced; the Nile and Copenhagen never would have been heard of, and the History of the Peninsular War would never have been read. Byng would be shot again, if the same circumstances occurred to-morrow.

Nôtre Dame is grand and massive, but it is under repair; the Sainte Chapelle is most rich and beautiful, but it is under repair; the Palais de Justice vast and imposing, but it is under repair. So are half the churches, so is the Palace of the Luxembourg; and almost all the public buildings are finding the effects of the new Emperor’s rage for improvement. But this very vehement desire he has to leave a city of marble which he found of bricks, has considerable disadvantages for the historical student. The scenes of great events will soon become doubtful or forgotten. The Temple and Bastille have long disappeared; the Place de Grève is now an open space, soon to be surrounded by buildings of the most modern character; the bridges have lost their identity; and, in short, if this system of substitution goes on for twenty years, there will be no monuments of Parisian history remaining. The reign, at all events, of Louis Philippe will be entirely blotted out. The Orleanist statues are all withdrawn; the names they gave to streets and places rigorously changed; and the most recent of his predecessors whom Louis Napoleon condescends to recognise is Louis XIV. That crowned Brummel still bestrides his steeds in marketplaces and esplanades; but the series of the Louis after him is completely expunged. The Grand Monarque is still popular in France; for the people are still fond of the drama, and are persuaded he was an admirable actor. There is something elevating, too, in the superbness of the tyranny under which their ancestors were trodden down. There never was a man, not even Napoleon, who was so entirely the central figure in the kingdom he ruled; and certainly there never was a man, except that most selfish and magnificent of despots, who would not have sunk into insignificance by the gigantic scale on which everything round him was carried on. Who, except himself, would not have become ridiculous amid the enormous spaces of Versailles? Even he must have felt like an ant in a barn, when he wandered through the interminable galleries and innumerable rooms which he vainly thought he inhabited. The size of that palace must have unkinged him, and occasionally he must have sighed for some more moderate mansion to enable him to recover his self-respect. At the same time, it is the most imperial residence we ever saw; and nothing shows so much the illogical tendency of the French mind, as the attempt they have several times made to establish a republic in Paris, with Versailles within an hour’s drive. That stately pile is a standing protest against equality and plainness. While such piles as Versailles and the Tuileries stand, there will be some person supreme in France. Even a constitutional king would be overhoused in those enormous residences. They must be inhabited by the whole nation distilled into one man.

The present unit prefers St Cloud, and we don’t wonder at the preference. There are many of the old hereditary mansions of our nobility of greater extent, but probably not excelling it in elegance and comfort. A man could keep it up on an income of twenty thousand a-year; and perhaps Louis Napoleon feels the comparative security of a house which might be defended by the domestics, and does not need to be garrisoned by a regiment or two of soldiers.

The grey old mustaches of the French army have disappeared. In their stead you see thousands upon thousands of lightly-made active young fellows, from nineteen to twenty-three, with their clothes excellently made, their surtouts neatly drawn in at the waist—their height as uniform as possible, at about five feet one—a lively, vigorous, contented-looking set, with none of the martial precision and combined motion which gives to our army such an appearance of military power. Those little French heroes never think of keeping the step, or holding their muskets all at one elevation—they crowd and roll and hustle—but they get on. Their pace is very rapid, and instantly on the word of command they form line, and are as regular and formal as ourselves.

We determined to go to the camp at Satory, where notice was given of an intended review. A line of two or three thousand tents stretched along the farther end of the immense plain which forms the western boundary of Versailles. The hour designated for the review was two in the afternoon, but on arriving at about half-past twelve we found no signs of any preparation; on the contrary, the soldiers were all lounging about, or sunning themselves before their tents. In front of each of the external lines, which stretched like an interminable street towards the north, the national ingenuity was wonderfully displayed. The space between the canvass of the tent and the line of felt was probably not more than four feet—but what an amazing use of those four feet of ground the gallant occupiers had made! In each of those little divisions there was a portion perfectly smooth and covered with sand; in the midst of this sand were inscribed a vast variety of mottoes, the letters being composed of parsley-leaves or furze prickles. Of these mottoes the greater part had reference to the Emperor, but whether the allusion in the military mind was to the present or the first, we could not guess. The statues of both, either in common plaster, or occasionally in mud, from the artistic hand of one of the soldiers, were the unfailing ornaments of the remaining ground unoccupied by inscriptions. There were also some models admirably executed of the Arc de Triomphe, and the Emperor’s tomb in the Invalides. There were also slabs of excellent imitation-marble, surmounted by the common cast of Napoleon with the cocked-hat and riding-coat, and on the slab a verse or a quotation. On one we saw—

“On lira dans l’histoire
De Cæsar, Alexandre, Hannibal,—
Mais nous préférons la gloire
Du petit caporal.”

On another we saw, under a bust of the present Emperor,

“Il a protégé la société et est le sauveur de la patrie.”

On a third, under well-executed military trophies, we read,

“Si vis pacem, bellum para.”

In others the ingenuity was more mechanical than artistic or literary. There were small fountains sending up tiny columns of water through a crow-quill to the height of eight or nine inches. The labour of procuring even this quantity must have been considerable, for we observed no water near; and as the fountain seemed perpetual, the barrel which gave it supply must have required frequent replenishment.

But the civility of our military friends was greater, if possible, than their skill in gardening or hydraulics. When we saw a countenance more intelligent and good-natured than the rest, we made bold to enter into conversation, and make inquiries about the forthcoming review. The witnesses were unanimous in answering, that it was to commence at half-past two, and that the Emperor and Empress would appear at three. The French army, we conclude, is recruited, like our own, from all parts of the country, and the mixture of dialects is accordingly very great. There were the most convulsive efforts made by several of the men we spoke to, first, to understand what we said, and, secondly, to make us understand their reply. Some were from Alsace, and we detected the German element in the sibilants and gutturals with which they in vain endeavoured to simplify their discourse; but, whether Parisians or Alsacians, they were unanimous about the show, and we accordingly considered ourselves in luck, and moved slowly towards the Champ de Manœuvre, a plain on the other side of the road, where, they told us, the display was to take place. Suddenly we heard bugles and drums at the line of camps which we had left, and, on looking back, we saw blue coats and red trousers congregating in front, issuing from their tents like a thousand hives of bees swarming; and after a few rat-tat-tats! and a few notes of the horn, we saw a long line of soldiers stretching from one end of the encampment to the other. Motion was communicated to this immense body, and we waited to see them pass. First, a regiment, in battle array, with bayonets blazing in the sun, marched solidly and firmly past, crossed the highway, and were lost to our eyes in the level ground beyond. Behind them, at a moderate interval, walking, not marching, fifteen abreast, came a prodigious column of men and officers, but they had no arms, and apparently very little discipline; laughing, talking, dropping out of line, but still tripping lightly on, at about four miles an hour, and they also disappeared in the plateau to the south. Where could they all be going to? Without muskets, how could they manage at a review? The artillerymen also were in full force, but they were dismounted and unarmed, and the whole army, “pioneers and all,” disappeared, in some marvellous manner, the moment they crossed the road. We crossed the road too, and found ourselves behind a close line of armed soldiers, who were drawn up along a narrow pathway. Another line of soldiers guarded its other side, and the space so kept clear was occupied by field-officers and aides-de-camp, and occasionally by an orderly or two, trotting at full speed, and busy in the delivery of orders and despatches. About fifty yards from where we stood, an immense curtain was suspended across the whole width of the footpath, and entirely blocked up the view beyond. This enormous curtain stretched from side to side of lofty banks, which looked like the entrance to a deep cutting in a railway; and it was only when either the wind blew the canvass aside, or the sides of it were partly opened to admit fresh arrivals from the camp, that we caught momentary views of the most curious spectacle it ever was our fortune to see. An amphitheatre of more than Roman size had been hollowed out of the sandy elevation at the end of the pathway. Row upon row, to an enormous height, were stretched the seats all round; and placed on them, grim, silent, and expectant, sat upwards of twenty thousand of the young soldiers of France, all in uniform, all under military discipline—for their officers maintained perfect order—and all radiant, as far as we could see, with health and satisfaction. The curtain again closed, and we were left to the line of soldiers and the narrow pathway. There were crowds where we stood, but by the disbursement of some halfpence we got our party comfortably provided with chairs, and on these miserable rush-bottomed and rickety articles we stood in the hot sun, till fatigue almost compelled us to give up all prospect of the review, and wend our way to Versailles. But the plot began to thicken. A bewhiskered civilian made his appearance at the end of a little alley, which was exactly opposite to where we stood, and at his command there emerged from some canvass tents, which we had not observed under some trees, a group of strangely dressed characters, which was “a sight to behold” at that time of day, with the sunshine all round. First, on piebald steeds, with long tails and broken knees, appeared two or three painted ladies, dressed in red jackets and spangled velvet petticoats. They spurred and whipped their chargers to get a little life into them, and took short gallops from the tents towards the opposite line of soldiers, pulling suddenly up when they came within an inch or two of the bayonets, and voltiging round with great elegance and skill. Next came some men, also mounted, dressed like emirs of the desert, trundling tremendous hoops, of such circumference that they rose several feet above the horses’ heads. The hoops the horsemen kept at full speed, twisting and turning them, galloping after or overtaking them; and all these preliminary rehearsals were carried on exactly in front of our position, and sufficed to make our time pass pleasantly enough. The bewhiskered civilian made some signal which we did not notice, and instantly, dashing through the line of soldiers, the bespangled ladies burst into the pathway full speed, the curtains were for a moment withdrawn, and clapping of hands and hearty cheers from the twenty thousand spectators hailed the commencement of the fêtes of Satory. This was a field-day, not of the French army, but of Franconi’s troop, all at the Emperor’s expense.

The size of the amphitheatre was too vast, the noise of the reception frightened the horses; some accident we saw had taken place, for a horse rushed frantically down the pathway, nearly upsetting a fiery little major, who had been showing off by blowing up some of the too ardent spectators, and in a short time the runaway steed was followed by one of the red-jacketed amazons, very much contused, and leaning for support on the arms of two men: a horse, bleeding and lame, followed. There had been a collision in the ring, and that portion of the sports was dispensed with. Our Arabian hoop-players took their place, were well received, and came off without an accident. It was now three o’clock, and we only wished the founder of the feast would follow the example of our gracious Queen in the great virtue of punctuality; and we were not much disappointed. At a corner of the little wood, beyond the horse-people’s tents, we perceived a stir among the spectators. Suddenly emerging from a green alley in the wood, we saw a first-rate turn-out—an open carriage and four, with two outriders, but no other attempt at show. It came at a foot pace, and was followed by another, also with four horses, but both as plain and unpretending as any gentleman’s could be. Meanwhile the sports grew fast and furious among the equestrians in our front. Five or six ponies now made their appearance bestrode by monkeys, dressed like Abd-el-Kader, and fixed so closely and ingeniously to the saddle that it was difficult to believe their horsemanship was not voluntary, but painful and distressing to the last degree. The ponies carried them at full gallop through the curtain and round the ring. After them, like lightning, rushed an equal number of boys, also on ponies, and dressed like French spahis; and great was the agitation in the military circle, to see the counterfeit presentment of the African war. There were shouts and loud clappings of hands, as they watched the pursuers gradually overtake the vanquished Arabs, and lay their mimic swords lightly on the captives’ shoulders; but this lasted a long time, during which the royal cortège made its slow detour towards the entrance of the guarded pathway; and far down, to our left, we heard the shouting that told the gradual approach of the cavalcade. The shouting was cold and faint; but perhaps soldiers in actual duty, with muskets in hand, thought noisy demonstration a little out of place. The spectators were not numerous enough—that is, condensed enough into one crowd—to encourage each other to any violent hurraing; and therefore in comparative silence, which however was respectful and good-humoured, the carriages passed on through the double line of soldiers and of spectators on the outside. Just opposite to us the carriages stopped, and we had a full view of Louis Napoleon and the Empress Eugenie. His appearance is so well known from bust and portrait, that we will not allude to it farther. We will only say that on this occasion he had shaken off the dull apathetic expression, or rather want of expression, of which he is accused. He sat with his back to the horses, fronting his wife, and his cousin the Princess Mathilde, and seemed very much pleased and interested with all he saw. But the Empress—Has she red hair? Has she absurdly large features, and a ridiculously long nose? Does she look proud and haughty like a parvenu?—bronzed and audacious like a successful adventuress? In short, is she like the descriptions we have read of her from the pens of her enemies and rivals? No, she is not. She is as sweet and gentle a lady as ever it was our fortune to look upon. None of her portraits do her justice—a point greatly in her favour, for we remember hearing Sir Henry Raeburn say, “No woman’s face is worth anything if it can be put upon canvass,”—meaning that variety and transitoriness of expression were the finest parts of female beauty. Even in feature she is statuesque and regular; “but ’twasna her bonny blue e’e was my ruin;” it was the soft, feminine graciousness of look and motion; the retiring and yet self-possessed manner with which she acknowledged the sincere and hearty reception of the spectators,—and to us—

(“Land of my sires! what mortal hand
Shall e’er untie the filial band
That binds me to thy rugged strand?”)

she had an indefinable charm—powerless perhaps on the hearts of French, or even English. She was the exact representative of “the yellow-haired lassie” we read of in Burns’s songs: a refined Scottish expression about her mouth, winning and humorous, completed the effect; and from henceforth our glove is perpetually in the ring against all comers, as champion à l’outrance of the Empress Eugenie—always saving and excepting our sovereign lady the Queen. But in the mean time the monkeys and boys were in mad career round the ring; the royalties dismounted from the carriages, and walked up a steep incline which conducted to the top of the amphitheatre on its outward face; they were received by generals and princes, and distinguished visitors of all nations—except our own; for there was not a red coat or tartan trews to refresh the eye in all that blaze of gold and jewels; and on stepping a little forward to the inner edge, they came in view of the soldiers. But the monkeys were too much for the Emperor. The spahis were in the very act of cutting off the retreat of the Bornouses, and the recognitions of the Sovereign were slight and momentary. However, like a sensible man, he seemed pleased with the applauses they gave, bowed in a very manly manner once or twice, and took his seat with no pride or state, and seemed to enter into free and lively conversation with anybody that chose.

So having commenced our inspection of foreign parts with such elevated personages, we shall proceed in our future communications to a notice of the Sciences and Arts, and any other subject which may appear worthy of Maga’s regard.

THE NARCOTICS WE INDULGE IN.

PART II.

In a previous Number we treated of Tobacco and the Hop, the two narcotics of the most general and acknowledged use among our British population. But there are many others in extensive use in foreign countries, which, though not of so much immediate interest to us in their social relations, are yet of even higher interest in their general, physiological, and psychological bearings. Among these are opium, hemp, coca, the red-thorn apple, the betel-nut, the Siberian fungus, and several others, which we now propose to consider in their order.

III. The Poppy and Opium.—The use of the poppy, as a giver of sleep and a soother of pain, has been familiar from the earliest periods. This is partly shown by the names—poppy in English and papaver in Latin—said to have been given to the plant because it was commonly mixed with the food of young children (pap or papa) to ease pain and secure sleep. In this country the chief use of the poppy is as a medicine. The Tartars of the Caucasus, who, though they profess Mahomedanism, yet drink wine publicly, make it very heady and inebriating, by hanging the unripe heads of poppies in the casks while the fermentation is going on; and in the coffeehouses of the cities of Persia a decoction of poppies is sold, called kokemaar, which is drunk scalding hot. Before it begins to operate, the drinkers quarrel with and abuse each other, but without coming to blows; and afterwards, as the drug takes effect, make peace again. One utters high-flown compliments, another tells stories; but all are extremely ridiculous both in their words and actions.—Tavernier.

But it is the concrete juice of the

The Elements of Materia Medica and Therapeutics. By Jonathan Pereira, M.D., F.R.S., &c. Third Edition. London, 1850.

Confessions of an English Opium-Eater.

Travels in Peru during the years 1838–1842. By Dr J. L. Von Tschudi. Translated from the German by Thomasina Ross. London, 1847.

poppy-head that is generally and extensively employed as a narcotic indulgence. The dried juice is called by the Persians afioun, and by the Arabs aphioum, and hence our name opium.

Numerous as are the substances included in the enlarged list of drugs and medicines of the present day, opium is still the most important of them all. It is obtained by making incisions into the capsules or seed-vessels of the common white poppy (Papaver somniferum), when they are nearly ripe, allowing the milky juice which exudes to thicken upon the capsules for twenty-four hours, and then scraping it off. The best opium of commerce is a soft unctuous mass of a reddish or blackish brown colour, a waxy lustre, a strong disagreeable odour, and a bitter, acrid, nauseous taste, which remains long in the mouth. It is collected chiefly in Asiatic Turkey, in Persia, and in India. That which is most esteemed in the European markets comes from Smyrna. The most extensively used in Eastern countries is that which is grown in India. The maximum produce of good opium in our Indian possessions is stated to be 41 lb. per acre, and the average from 20 to 25 lb.—Meyen.

When used as a narcotic indulgence, opium is swallowed either in bulk in the form of pills, or in tinctures—such as our common laudanum—or it is smoked in minute pipes after the manner of tobacco. The first practice prevails most, we believe, in Mahomedan countries, especially Turkey and Persia; the second among Christian nations; and the third in China, and the islands of the Indian Archipelago. In preparing it for smoking, the Chinese extract from the Indian opium all that water will dissolve—generally from one-half to three-fourths of its weight—dry the dissolved extract, and make it into pills of the size of a pea. One of these pills they put into a short tiny pipe, often made of silver, inhale a few puffs at a time, or one single long puff, and return the smoke through the nostrils and ears, till the necessary dose has been taken.

In Borneo and Sumatra finely-chopped tobacco is mixed with the moist extract till it absorbs the whole, and the mixture is made into pills about the size of a pea. At convivial parties a dish of these peas is brought in along with a lamp, when the host takes a pipe, puts in one of the pellets, takes two or three long whiffs, returning the smoke through his nostrils, and, if he be an adept, through his eyes and ears. He then passes the pipe round the company, each of whom does the same with the same pipe; and so they continue smoking till all are intoxicated.

Used in any of these three ways, its sensible effects are nearly the same, varying of course with the quantity taken, with the constitution of the taker, and with the frequency of its previous use. The essential and primary action of the drug is upon the nervous system.

When it is taken in a moderate dose, the results of this action are, that

“The mind is usually exhilarated, the ideas flow more quickly, a pleasurable or comfortable condition of the whole system is experienced, which it is difficult to describe. There is a capability of greater exertion than usual, and hence it is taken as a restorative by such persons as the Tartar couriers, who travel for many days and nights continuously, and with great speed. These exciting effects are succeeded by a corresponding depression. The muscular power is lessened, and the susceptibility to external impressions. A desire for repose ensues, and a tendency to sleep. The mouth and throat become dry meanwhile, the thirst is increased, hunger diminished, and constipation succeeds.”

When large doses are taken, all these effects are heightened in proportion. The period of depression, which almost always succeeds the excitement at first produced by opium, comes on more quickly the larger the dose; the prostration of energy degenerates into stupor, with or without dreams; the pulse becomes feeble, the muscles exceedingly relaxed, and if enough has been taken, death ensues.

In small doses, opium acts in a similar way to our wines and spirituous liquors; and it is as a substitute for these that the Chinese use it. Like them, also, its effects diminish by use, and therefore those who take it for the purpose of producing a pleasurable excitement must gradually increase the dose. The Turkish opium-eaters generally begin with doses of from half a grain to two grains a-day, and gradually increase the quantity till it amounts to 120 grains, or sometimes more. The effect shows itself in one or two hours after it has been taken, and lasts for five or six. In those accustomed to take it, it produces a high degree of animation, which the Theriakis (opium-eaters) represent as the summit of happiness.

Dr Madden thus describes his own sensations when under the influence of the drug, in one of the coffeehouses at Constantinople:—

“I commenced with one grain. In the course of an hour and a half it produced no perceptible effect. The coffeehouse-keeper was very anxious to give me an additional pill of two grains, but I was contented with half a one; and in another half hour, feeling nothing of the expected reverie, I took half a grain more, making in all two grains in the course of two hours. After two hours and a half from the first dose, my spirits became sensibly excited; the pleasure of the sensation seemed to depend on a universal expansion of mind and matter. My faculties appeared enlarged; everything I looked at seemed increased in volume; I had no longer the same pleasure when I closed my eyes which I had when they were open; it appeared to me as if it was only external objects which were acted on by the imagination, and magnified into images of pleasure: in short, it was ‘the faint exquisite music of a dream’ in a waking moment. I made my way home as fast as possible, dreading at every step that I should commit some extravagance. In walking, I was hardly sensible of my feet touching the ground; it seemed as if I slid along the street, impelled by some invisible agent, and that my blood was composed of some etherial fluid, which rendered my body lighter than air. I got to bed the moment I reached home. The most extraordinary visions of delight filled my brain all night. In the morning I rose pale and dispirited; my head ached; my body was so debilitated that I was obliged to remain on the sofa all day, dearly paying for my first essay at opium-eating.”[38]

The effects of opium upon the system of the healthy are generally esteemed to be eminently prejudicial. Not only is an indulgence in the use of opium held to be criminal in itself, because of the evil consequences which are supposed to follow it, but it is esteemed a criminal act to make the procuring of it easy, and thus indirectly to minister to its more extensive consumption.

The opinion is now, however, beginning to prevail among medical men, that opium taken in moderation, even for a serious of years, is not necessarily injurious to health. Like spirituous liquors and tobacco, it acts as a sure poison when taken immoderately, but the moderate enjoyment of any of the three has not been proved to be either generally or necessarily, and upon all constitutions, attended by ill effects. It may be that the temptation to excess in the case of opium is greater, and that the habitual users of it are less frequently able to resist its seductive influence. But even this, as a physiological question, has by no means been satisfactorily established, and we must be cautious in pushing our conclusions farther than known facts will carry us.

Upon confirmed opium-eaters, however, as the irreclaimable are called, the evil effects of the drug are both undoubted and extremely melancholy.

“A total attenuation of body, a withered yellow countenance, a lame gait, a bending of the spine, frequently to such a degree as to assume a circular form, and glassy deep-sunken eyes, betray the opium-eater at the first glance. The digestive organs are in the highest degree disturbed; the sufferer eats scarcely anything, and has hardly one evacuation in a week. His mental and bodily powers are destroyed—he is impotent.

“When the baneful habit has become confirmed, it is almost impossible to break it off. His torments when deprived of the stimulant are as dreadful as his bliss is complete when he has taken it. Night brings the torments of hell, day the bliss of paradise; and after long indulgence, he becomes subject to nervous pains, to which opium itself brings no relief. He seldom attains the age of forty, if he have begun the practice early.”—Oppenheim.

“The coffeehouses,” says Dr Madden, “where the Theriakis, or opium-eaters, assemble, are situate in a large square; and on a bench outside the door they await the wished-for reveries, which present to their glowing imagination the forms of the celestial houris, and the enjoyments of their own paradise in all its voluptuousness. I had heard so many contradictory reports of the sensations produced by this drug, that I resolved to know the truth, and accordingly took my seat in the coffeehouse with half a dozen Theriakis. Their gestures were frightful; those who were completely under the influence of the opium talked incoherently, their features were flushed, their eyes had an unnatural brilliancy, and the general expression of their countenances was horribly wild. The effect is usually produced in two hours, and lasts four or five; the dose varies from three grains to a drachm. I saw one old man take four pills, of six grains each, in the course of two hours: I was told he had been using opium for five-and-twenty years; but this is a very rare example of an opium-eater passing thirty years of age, if he commence the practice early. The debility, both moral and physical, attendant on its excitement is terrible; the appetite is soon destroyed, every fibre in the body trembles, the nerves of the neck become affected, and the muscles get rigid: several of these I have seen in this place at various times, who had wry necks and contracted fingers; but still they cannot abandon the custom; they are miserable till the hour arrives for taking their daily dose; and when its delightful influence begins, they are all fire and animation. Some of them compose excellent verses, and others address the bystanders in the most eloquent discourses, imagining themselves to be emperors, and to have all the harems in the world at command.”—Madden, i. p. 23.

Similar effects are described as resulting from the smoking of opium to excess in China; and the drinking of laudanum in large quantities in England is equally pernicious in its consequences.

The use of this drug, as a narcotic indulgence, appears to be on the increase among the European populations generally. Among the less provident, especially of the working classes in our own large manufacturing towns, the use of laudanum as a care-dispelling, happiness-giving potion—often as a dispeller of hunger—is said to be greatly extending. If so, we should expect that among us, as among the Turks and Chinese, opium will find many who are unable to resist its seductive allurements, and whom it will drag into the extreme of mental and bodily misery.

Of its powers of seduction, indeed, even over the less delicate and susceptible organisation of our northern European races, and of the absolute slavery to which it can reduce even the strongest minds among us, we have two remarkable examples in the celebrated Coleridge, and in the author of the English Opium-Eater. For many years Coleridge was a slave to opium, and the way in which he became addicted to it is thus described by himself, in a letter dated April 1814:—

“I was seduced into the accursed habit ignorantly. I had been almost bedridden for many months with swellings in my knees. In a medical journal I unhappily met with an account of a cure performed in a similar case (or what appeared to me so), by rubbing in laudanum, at the same time taking a given dose internally. It acted like a charm—like a miracle. I recovered the use of my limbs, of my appetite, of my spirits, and this continued for near a fortnight. At length the unusual stimulus subsided, the complaint returned, the supposed remedy was recurred to—but I cannot go through the dreary history. Sufficient to say, that effects were produced which acted on me by terror and cowardice of pain and sudden death, not (so help me God) by any temptation of pleasure, or expectation or desire of exciting pleasurable sensations. On the contrary, the longer I abstained, the higher my spirits were, the keener my enjoyments—till the moment, the direful moment arrived, when my pulse began to fluctuate, my heart to palpitate, and such a dreadful falling abroad, as it were, of my whole frame, such intolerable restlessness and incipient bewilderment, that in the last of my several attempts to abandon the dire poison, I exclaimed in agony which I now repeat in seriousness and solemnity, ‘I am too poor to hazard this.’”[39]

He subsequently put himself into the hands of a medical man when at a friend’s house in Bristol; and while he pretended to be gradually lessening the dose under medical instructions, and while his friends thought he was absolutely cured by being brought down to twenty drops a-day, he was all the while obtaining laudanum secretly, and drinking it in large doses as before!

How his moral sense must have been overborne, and by how powerful a fascination, before he could have stooped to such degrading deception! And how fierce his self-upbraidings must have been, when he could add in the same letter from which the above extract is taken: “There is no hope. O God, how willingly would I place myself under Dr Fox in his establishment; for my case is a species of madness, only that it is a derangement, an utter impotence of the volition, and not of the intellectual faculties. You bid me rouse myself. Go bid a man, paralytic in both arms, to rub them briskly together, and that will cure him. ‘Alas!’ he would reply, ‘that I cannot move my arms is my complaint and my misery.’”

And his misery he still further paints in a letter, dated June of the same year: “Conceive a poor miserable wretch, who for many years has been attempting to beat off pain, by a constant recurrence to a vice that reproduces it. Conceive a spirit in hell employed in tracing out for others the road to that heaven from which his crimes exclude him! In short, conceive whatever is most wretched, helpless, and hopeless, and you will form as tolerable a notion of my state as it is possible for a good man to have.”[40]

And yet Coleridge lived twenty years after this letter was written, conquered the evil habit, and enjoyed, it is to be hoped, much happiness, as he wrote many noble works.

Coleridge speaks of his attempts to give up the indulgence. The following graphic passage describes the horrors undergone by Mr de Quincey, in his efforts to abandon the practice:—

“Opium, therefore, I resolved wholly to abjure, as soon as I should find myself at liberty to bend my undivided attention and energy to this purpose. It was not, however, till the 24th of June last (1822) that any tolerable concurrence of facilities for such an attempt arrived. On that day I began my experiment, having previously settled in my own mind that I would not flinch, but ‘would stand up to the scratch’ under any possible ‘punishment.’ I must premise that about 170 or 180 drops had been my ordinary allowance for many months; occasionally I had run up as high as 300, and once nearly to 700: in repeated preludes to my final experiment I had also gone as low as 100 drops, but had found it impossible to stand it beyond the fourth day, which, by the way, I have always found more difficult to get over than any of the preceding three. I went off under easy sail—130 drops a-day for three days; on the fourth I plunged at once to 80. The misery which I now suffered ‘took the conceit out of me’ at once; and for about a month I continued off and on about this mark: then I sunk to 60; and the next day to—none at all. This was the first day for nearly ten years that I had existed without opium. I persevered in my abstinence for ninety hours—i. e., upwards of half a week. Then I took—ask me not how much. Say, ye severest, what would you have done? Then I abstained again; then took about twenty-five drops; then abstained—and so on.

“Meantime the symptoms which attended my case for the first six weeks of the experiment were these—enormous irritability, and excitement of the whole system; the stomach, in particular, restored to a full feeling of vitality and sensibility, but often in great pain; increasing restlessness night and day; sleep—I scarcely knew what it was—three hours out of the twenty-four was the utmost I had, and that so agitated and shallow that I heard every sound that was near me; lower jaw constantly swelling, much ulcerated, and many other distressing symptoms that would be tedious to repeat; amongst which, however, I must mention one, because it had never failed to accompany my attempt to renounce opium—viz., violent sternutation. This now became exceedingly troublesome, sometimes lasting for two hours at once, and returning at least twice or three times a-day. I was not much surprised at this, on recollecting what I had somewhere heard or read, that the membrane which lines the nostrils is a prolongation of that which lines the stomach; whence I believe are explained the inflammatory appearances about the nostrils of dram-drinkers. The sudden restoration of its original sensibility to the stomach expressed itself, I suppose, in this way. It is remarkable, also, that, during the whole period of years through which I had taken opium, I had never once caught cold (as the phrase is), nor even the slightest cough. But now a violent cold attacked me, and a cough soon after. In an unfinished fragment of a letter begun about this time to ——, I find these words——: Do you know Beaumont and Fletcher’s play of Thierry and Theoderet? then you will see my case as to sleep; nor is it much of an exaggeration in other features. I profess to you I have a greater influx of thoughts in one hour at present, than in a whole year under the reign of opium. It seems as though all the thoughts which had been frozen up for a decade of years by opium had now, according to the old fable, been thawed at once, such a multitude stream in upon me from all quarters. Yet such is my impatience and hideous irritability, that for one which I detain and note down fifty escape me: in spite of my weariness from suffering and want of sleep, I cannot stand still or sit for two minutes together. ‘I nunc et versus tecum meditare canoros.’”[41]—Confessions—Appendix.

It was not so much by the pleasure it gave, as by the tortures connected with the attempt to abjure it, that in both these cases opium kept its firmest hold. But both men finally triumphed over it, though after tortures which few will consent to undergo, and with frail and shattered bodies:—

“I triumphed: but think not, reader, that therefore my sufferings were ended. Nor think of me as of one sitting in a dejected state. Think of me as of one, even when four months had passed, still agitated, writhing, throbbing, palpitating, shattered; and much in the situation of him who has been racked, as I collect the torments of that state from the affecting account of them by William Lithgow, the most innocent sufferer of the times of James I. Meantime, I derived no benefit from any medicine, except one prescribed for me by an Edinburgh surgeon of great eminence—ammoniated tincture of valerian.”—Confessions.

After a seventeen years’ use, and an eight years’ abuse of its powers, he ceased to consume the drug, but he probably still feels the effects of its long use.

Much uncertainty exists as to the extent to which the use of laudanum really prevails among our healthy adult population. According to De Quincey, the opium-eaters were already numerous thirty years ago. “Of this,” he says, “I became convinced several years ago, by computing at that time the number of those in one small class of English society (the class of men distinguished for talents or of eminent station) who were known to me, directly or indirectly, as opium-eaters: such, for instance, as the eloquent and benevolent ——; the late Dean of ——; Lord ——; Mr ——, the philosopher; a late under-secretary of state (who described to me the sensation which first drove him to the use of opium in the very same words as the Dean of ——; viz., ‘that he felt as though rats were gnawing and abrading the coats of his stomach’); Mr ——, and many others hardly less known, whom it would be tedious to mention.” He adds, also, that about the same time he learned in Manchester that “on a Saturday afternoon the counters of the druggist were strewed with pills of one, two, or three grains, in preparation for the known demand of the evening. The immediate occasion of the practice was the lowness of wages, which at that time would not allow them to indulge in ale or spirits; and wages rising, it may be thought that this practice would cease. But as I do not readily believe that any man, having once tasted the divine luxuries of opium, will afterwards descend to the gross and mortal enjoyments of alcohol, I take it for granted—

‘That those eat now, who never ate before,

And those who always ate, now eat the more.’”

In regard to the intensity and suddenness of the positive enjoyment which the uninitiated derive from the first use of opium, the experience of De Quincey is very instructive. Like Coleridge, he took it first to dispel pain. He had been affected for three weeks with excruciating rheumatic pains in the head and face, when he was advised to try laudanum, and forthwith purchased some at a druggist’s shop.

“Arrived at my lodgings, it may be supposed that I lost not a moment in taking the quantity prescribed. I was necessarily ignorant of the whole art and mystery of opium-taking; and what I took, I took under every disadvantage. But I took it, and in an hour, oh, heavens! what a revulsion! what an upheaving, from its lowest depths, of the inner spirit! what an apocalypse of the world within me! That my pains had vanished was now a trifle in my eyes. This negative effect was swallowed up in the immensity of those positive effects which had opened before me—in the abyss of divine enjoyment thus suddenly revealed. Here was a panacea—a φαρῳακον νήπενθες for all human woes. Here was the secret of happiness about which philosophers had disputed for so many ages at once discovered! Happiness might now be bought for a penny, and carried in the waistcoat pocket: portable ecstasies might be had corked up in a pint-bottle; and peace of mind could be sent down in gallons by the mail-coach.”

Those who understand best and feel most for the sorrows and pains of the poverty-stricken humbler classes of every pursuit, would feel no surprise on learning that the seductions which the above passage describes had led away many of them into the habitual and intemperate use of opium. To live in pain and privation from day to day, to suffer from the agonies of old remembrances, or the fears of future individual and family griefs, and to have a key to paradise at hand! Who can wonder that the key is used, or would exercise severity towards him who uses it? We must add to the health, and comfort, and peace of mind of the tempted, before we exchange compassion or forbearance for reproach.

But accurate statistical information is still wanting to prove that the habit of opium-eating has really extended in any great degree among our full-grown healthy labouring population, either in town or country. Isolated cases of a melancholy kind do now and then occur, and loose conjectural statements are made as to the prevalence of the practice in this district or that, but we are unwilling to admit the wide prevalence of the custom without the most trustworthy testimony. A child died, for example, from the effects of opium in September (1853) at Boxworth in Cambridgeshire, the mother, because it was unwell, having placed a piece of crude opium in its mouth to suck. To the announcement of this fact in the newspapers, it was added, “that the mother and her family are all opium-eaters, and, though labouring people, spend four shillings a-week on the drug!” This statement suggests the idea that the habit may prevail extensively in the district, a conclusion which may in reality do injustice to an industrious peasantry. We refuse to adopt it, therefore. It lays, we think, a moral obligation upon the professional men of the county to collect information and make known the truth; and all who feel an interest in the moral reputation of our labouring people should reject such inferences to their prejudice, in the absence of accurate knowledge, which it ought not to be difficult for certain parties to obtain.

But another form of the opium evil has been shown, upon unquestionable evidence, extensively to prevail. In the large manufacturing towns of Lancashire it is a common thing for mothers who work in the factories to put out their children to nurse, and it is equally common for the nurses to dose the children with opium for the purpose of keeping them quiet or of setting them to sleep. It was stated by the Rev. Mr Clay, that in the town of Preston alone, in 1843, “upwards of sixteen hundred families were in the habit of using Godfrey’s Cordial, or some other equally injurious compound,” and that in one of the burial clubs in that town, “sixty-four per cent of the members die under five years of age.”[42] The obvious conclusion is, that the fatality among the children is connected with the use of the drug.

A writer in the Morning Chronicle of the 4th of January 1850 thus describes the effects which this use of opium produces upon the health of the children:—

“The consequences of this system of drugging are suffusion of the brain, and an extensive train of mesenteric and glandular diseases. The child sinks into a low torpid state, wastes away to a skeleton, except the stomach, producing what is known as pot-belly. One woman said, ‘The sleeping stuff made them that they were always dozing, and never cared for food. They pined away. Their heads got big, and they died.’”

It cannot be denied, therefore, that in one melancholy form at least the evils of opium-eating are visible amongst us. And it is curious that this should be the very form of drugging from which the poppy is said to have derived its name. The diffusion of knowledge among the, it may be not unfeeling, mothers of the factory districts, is one of the most likely ways to remove these evils.

It is impossible to arrive at anything like an approximate idea of the quantity of opium consumed by the different nations of the world. Meyen asserts that the quantity consumed by the Malays of the Indian Archipelago, in Cochin-China and Siam, as well as India and Persia, is so immense that, if we could obtain an exact statement of it, the amount would be quite incredible. The Rajpoots and other Hindoo tribes present opium at their visits and entertainments, with the same familiarity as the snuff-box is presented in Europe. In some countries it is even given to the horses, to excite them to greater exertions. “A Cutchee horseman shares very honourably his store of opium with his horse, which then makes an incredible stretch, though wearied out before.”[43]

In India at least six and a half millions of pounds of opium are annually bought by the East India Company from the native growers, and manufactured into a marketable condition. To produce this quantity will require upwards of three hundred thousand acres of land. It yields a revenue to the Company of three and a half millions sterling, and is for the greatest part exported.

As to China, we know that, in the season 1837–8, it imported from India three millions of pounds, and the importation from that country has probably increased considerably since that time. To this importation must also be added the opium which China receives by land from the countries which border it towards the west. The consumption of China at the present moment is probably not less than four or five millions of pounds’ weight, having a market value of as many pounds sterling. In the same year (1837–8) India exported about a million and a half of pounds to the islands of the Indian Archipelago and other places.

The consumption of the United Kingdom is of course trifling when compared with this, but it is greatly on the increase. Thus, the quantity imported into Great Britain in 1839 was only 41,000 pounds, while in 1852 it amounted to 114,000 pounds; or, it has increased nearly three times within fifteen years. This implies either the application of the drug to new purposes, or a greatly increased demand for the uses to which it was formerly applied.

It is to be observed, however, as a matter of comfort, that we are not to expect either in Christian Europe or in America to see the consumption of opium ever become so universal as in Mahometan countries, where the use of wine is forbidden to the true believer. So long as a freedom of choice is allowed to the people, or a moral compulsion only is exercised over them, there is little fear of their becoming generally addicted to opium. Prohibit the use of fermented liquors by law, and we may hope to increase largely the consumers of this drug. Morehead mentions a young lady of his acquaintance who, being prevented by her friends from indulging in ardent spirits, had accustomed herself to swallow an ounce of crude opium, with as much ease and indifference as a boy would eat as much liquorice.[44] We apprehend something of this sort from the strict enforcement of the Maine Law in North America; for although the constitution of our Transatlantic connections has considerably altered, especially in the oldest states, since they crossed the sea, still the universal craving exists among them, and if it is denied gratification in one form, it will seek for it in another.

In regard to its chemical history, opium is probably the best known of all the vegetable extracts or inspissated juices used in medicine. It has been the subject of numerous and elaborate experimental and analytical investigations, and the results of these fill many interesting pages in our newest systems of organic chemistry.

How very complicated a substance even the purest opium is, the general reader will infer from the formidable list of peculiar principles which have been found in it. Besides familiar substances, such as gum, mucilage, resin, fat, caoutchouc, &c., it contains morphine, narcotine, codeine, narceine, thebaine, opianine, meconine, pseudomorphine, porphyroxine, papaverine, and meconic acid—eleven peculiar organic compounds, which occur in greater or less quantity in nearly every sample of pure opium!

Of all these, the most active is that now almost universally known under the name of morphine or morphia. Of this invaluable medicine the best qualities of opium contain as much as ten per cent. It is colourless, void of smell, and nearly insoluble in water, but possesses an exceedingly bitter unpleasant taste, and what are called by chemists alkaline properties. It is powerfully narcotic and poisonous, and is described by some as producing upon the system all the effects of the natural opium. This, however, is not generally the case; and hence it has not, we believe, been anywhere attempted to substitute this pure chemical compound—the chemical composition of which is fixed, and the physiological effects constant and certain—for the crude and uncertain opium, in the production of pleasureable excitement and gratification. And the reason of this obviously is, that the full and peculiar effect of the natural drug is due to the combined and simultaneous action of all the numerous substances it contains. Each of these modifies the effect which would be produced by any one of the others taken singly—as the attraction of each planet modifies the course which would be taken by every one of the others, were it the only one which revolved round the sun. It is from the result of all these conjoined actions that the singular pleasure of the opium-consumer is derived.

At least three of the constituents of opium which have been named above are known to be narcotic and poisonous. These are morphine, codeine, and thebaine. The special action of the other substances upon the system is still unknown or undecided. Indeed, it is a remarkable thing in chemico-physiological history, that, long as opium has been known, extensively as it has been, and still is used, both as a medicine and a luxurious indulgence, and numerous as are the opinions in regard to its mode of action which have been promulgated by medical authorities, we are still so unable to say what is the true action of this drug, that, in the words of Dr Pereira, “we shall save ourselves much time and useless speculation by at once confessing our ignorance on this point.” So far does physiology appear still to lag behind, when our chemistry is tolerably advanced.

It is no doubt the complicated nature of the problem which renders the physiological solution so difficult. Nearly a dozen different substances are mixed up and given at once. Not only do these act in different ways upon the same individual, but each of them probably acts in a somewhat different way upon each different patient, according to his natural constitution, and the state of his health. Is it wonderful that, out of these multiplied sources of diversity, numerously varied phases should appear in the character of its action, and numerous opinions consequently be formed as to the way in which its effects are produced?

Besides, it is a matter of interest, both in connection with this point and with the general chemical history of opium, that the proportions of the several ingredients which are known to be active, vary very much in different samples of the drug. The locality or country in which the plant is grown, the peculiarities of the season during which the opium is collected, and the state of ripeness of the plant—the way in which the juice is dried, and subsequently prepared for the market, and the variety of poppy from which it is obtained,—all these circumstances influence the proportions of its constituents, and consequently modify the action of the mixed substance upon the human system. The Smyrna opium is generally considered the best in the European market, but even in this the morphia varies between four and fourteen per cent. Bengal opium differs from that of Turkey and Egypt, in containing more narcotine in proportion to the morphia. Generally, also, the Indian and Persian samples yield less morphia than those of Turkey.

This latter fact shows that, though it is in warm climates that opium is chiefly collected and used, yet that mere warmth of climate, whatever may be its other effects upon the white poppy, does not alone cause the juice of its capsules to be rich in morphia; and this is supported further by the statement of some English experimenters, that British-grown opium contains more morphia than that of commerce, as well as by the results of French experiments, which showed the presence of 16 to 28 per cent of morphia in some opiums collected in France. These facts are of considerable scientific interest; but they are not likely to lead to any practical results of importance to the rural economy at least of this country. Our poppy plants are probably too slow in their growth, and possess too little juice or succulence, to yield a satisfactory return to the opium-gatherer—were the uncertainty of the climate and the dearness of labour not alone sufficient to preclude the idea of our entering into competition with the Eastern producers of the drug. A different opinion, however, is entertained in France, where the most recent experiments profess to show that the variety which is there cultivated for its seed may be so treated as to yield a harvest of opium at an expense which need not exceed one-fourth of the present market price of the drug, while the seed which ripens uninjured will pay all the ordinary cost of culture; and from these results it is argued, that in the collecting of opium there is the prospect of great advantage to the agriculture of France.

There are three other circumstances in connection with the chemico-physiological history of opium, which will be interesting to the general reader. These are—

First, That its exciting effect is more conspicuous upon some races of men than upon others. This is said to be especially the case with the negroes, the Malays, and the Javanese. “The latter,” says Lord Macartney, “under an extraordinary doze of opium, become frantic as well as desperate. They acquire an artificial courage; and, when suffering from misfortune and disappointment, they not only stab the objects of their hate, but sally forth to attack in like manner every person they meet, till self-preservation renders it necessary to destroy them.” They shout, as they run, Amok, amok, which means “kill, kill;” and hence the phrase, running a-muck. Captain Beeckman was told of a Javanese who ran a-muck in the streets of Batavia, and had killed several people, when he was met by a soldier, who ran him through with his pike. But such was the desperation of the infuriated man, that he pressed himself forward on the pike, until he got near enough to stab his adversary with a dagger, when both expired together. On the Malays its effects are described to be very nearly the same. They remind one of the excitement said to have formerly prevailed in a less fatal form at Donnybrook and other Irish fairs, when an unusual dose of poteen had been administered to the boys.

The influence of race, as it affects the physiological action either of substances introduced into the stomach, or of ideas presented to the mind, is the same in kind as the influence of individual constitution. It is only greater in degree, and startles us sometimes because of the extent to which it appears exaggerated. The influence of constitution is recognised and considered in every dose of medicine we take or administer, and in the way in which good or evil tidings are communicated to our friends. We more rarely allow for differences of race in dealing with foreign nations, or in criticising their behaviour and actions under given circumstances.

In the Malays and Javanese we have the excitable temperament, accompanied by the unrestrained outward forms of expression, which are characteristic of Eastern nations. What affects us Saxons lightly or slowly, touches them instantly, and penetrates deep. The emotions which, when awakened, we are accustomed to restrain and hide, they openly and vividly display, and by indulgence heighten often to an overpowering degree. The negro tribes partake of a similar organisation. “In this respect,” says Mrs Beecher Stowe, “they have an Oriental character, and betray their tropical origin. Like the Hebrews of old, and the Oriental nations of the present day, they give vent to their emotions with the utmost vivacity of expression, and their whole bodily system sympathises with the movements of their minds. When in distress, they actually lift up their voices to weep, and ‘cry with an exceeding bitter cry.’ When alarmed, they are often paralysed, and rendered entirely helpless.” This susceptibility affects all their relations both to living and dead things. Opium affects different individuals among them in different ways, as it does the different individuals of European races, but upon all it produces those more marked and striking effects which, among ourselves, we only see in rare instances, and in persons of uncommonly nervous temperament.

Second, It is a curious fact, that the active narcotic ingredients of opium often escape the decomposing action of the digestive and other organs. They pass unchanged into the milk of the nurse who uses it, and have been known to poison the infant suckled by a female who had been dozing herself largely with opiates. The odour of the drug is to be perceived in the breath and in the perspiration; and morphia and meconic acid are known occasionally to escape through the kidneys, and have been found in the fluid excretions. This character the active ingredients of opium possess in common with many other narcotic principles, such as those of the deadly nightshade, the henbane, the thorn-apple, the intoxicating fungus, and with many other substances used in medicine.—Pereira, p. 102.

Third, Opium, as is well known, gradually loses its effect upon the habitual consumer, so that the dose must be increased from time to time, if the influence of the drug is to be maintained. But at length, even this resource fails the inveterate opium-eaters of Constantinople, and no increase of dose will procure for them the desired enjoyment, or even relieve them from bodily pain. In this emergency, they have recourse to the poisonous corrosive sublimate. Mixing at first a minute quantity of this substance with their daily dose of opium, they increase it by degrees, till they reach the limit of ten grains a-day, beyond which it is usually unsafe to pass. This mixture acts upon their long-tortured frames, when neither of the ingredients, taken alone, will either soothe or exhilarate. But the use of the new medicine only protracts a little longer the artificial enjoyment, which has become a necessary of life, finally bringing to a more miserable termination the career of the debilitated and distorted Theriaki.

We have said that, in moderate doses, opium acts in a similar way to our wines and spirituous liquors, and that it is as a substitute for these that the Chinese use it. By this we do not mean that its physiological effects are precisely the same, although the main purpose for which they are used by many—that of a care-dispeller—may be the same. On the contrary, there are many points of difference in the effects which alcohol and opium respectively produce. The following somewhat coloured and imaginative picture represents their relative effects on the constitution of the English opium-eater:—

“Crude opium, I affirm peremptorily, is incapable of producing any state of body at all resembling that which is produced by alcohol; and not in degree only incapable, but even in kind. It is not in the quantity of its effects merely, but in the quality, that it differs altogether. The pleasure given by wine is always mounting, and tending to a crisis, after which it declines; that from opium, when once generated, is stationary for eight or ten hours: the first—to borrow a technical distinction from medicine—is a case of acute, the second of chronic pleasure; the one is a flame, the other a steady and equable glow. But the main distinction lies in this, that whereas wine disorders the mental faculties, opium, on the contrary (if taken in a proper manner), introduces amongst them the most exquisite order, legislation, and harmony. Wine robs a man of his self-possession; opium greatly invigorates it. Wine unsettles and clouds the judgment, and gives a preternatural brightness, and a vivid exaltation to the contempts and the admirations, the loves and the hatreds, of the drinker; opium, on the contrary, communicates serenity and equipoise to all the faculties, active or passive; and with respect to the temper and moral feelings in general, it gives simply that sort of vital warmth which is approved by the judgment, and which would probably always accompany a bodily constitution of primeval or antediluvian health. Thus, for instance, opium, like wine, gives an expansion to the heart and the benevolent affections; but then with this remarkable difference, that, in the sudden development of kind-heartedness which accompanies inebriation, there is always more or less of a maudlin character, which exposes it to the contempt of the bystander. Men shake hands, swear eternal friendship, and shed tears, no mortal knows why; and the sensual creature is clearly uppermost. But the expansion of the benigner feelings, incident to opium, is no febrile access, but a healthy restoration to that state which the mind would naturally recover upon the removal of any deep-seated irritation of pain that had disturbed and quarrelled with the impulses of a heart originally just and good.... Wine constantly leads a man to the brink of absurdity and extravagance; and, beyond a certain point, it is sure to volatilise and to disperse the intellectual energies; whereas opium always seems to compose what had been agitated, and to concentrate what had been distracted. In short, to sum up all in one word, a man who is inebriated, or tending to inebriation, is, and feels that he is, in a condition which calls up into supremacy the merely human—too often the brutal—part of his nature; but the opium-eater (I speak of him who is not suffering from any disease, or other remote effects of opium) feels that the diviner part of his nature is paramount; that is, the moral affections are in a state of cloudless serenity; and over all is the great light of the majestic intellect.”

After this highly-coloured eulogium upon the comparative virtues of opium and alcohol, drawn from personal experience, who could blame us were we at once to propose the establishment of a national opium-eating, distillery-burning society, and, Father Mathew-like, should take up our staff, and preach everywhere the exceeding virtues of the inestimable drug, and propose for universal imitation the admirable example of the silver-piped Celestials? But it may occur to the reader, as it does to ourselves, that the English opium-eater himself was brought to death’s door by the use of his favourite drug, and was compelled to abandon his beloved enjoyment. For the present, therefore, we refrain, and recommend in preference our own bitters practice. Keep your morphia bottle carefully stowed away till a new attack of toothache or sciatica comes on, and your laudanum as a ready friend should the prevailing epidemic approach you.

And yet even grave and matter-of-fact men are to be found—persons who have had large experience of the use of opium in Eastern countries—who not only pronounce the use of the drug as a narcotic indulgence to be far from an unmitigated evil, but who especially prefer its general use to that of alcoholic drinks. Among these we may mention Dr Eatwell, of the East India Company’s service, whose knowledge of the history and action of opium is acknowledged to be most extensive. The deliberate opinion of this gentleman is deserving of much attention; and he argues the case as follows:—

“It has been too much the practice with those who have treated this subject to content themselves with drawing the sad picture of the confirmed debauchee, plunged in the last stage of moral and physical exhaustion; and having taken this exception as the premises of their argument, to proceed at once to involve the whole practice in one sweeping condemnation. But this is not the way in which the subject can be fairly treated. As rational would it be to paint the horrors of delirium tremens, and upon that evidence to condemn at once the entire use of alcoholic liquors. The question to be determined is not, what are the effects of opium used in excess, but what are its effects on the moral and physical constitution of the mass of individuals who use it habitually, and in moderation, either as a stimulant to sustain the frame under fatigue, or as a restorative and sedative after labour, bodily or mental. Having passed three years in China, I can affirm thus far, that the effects of the abuse of the drug do not come very frequently under observation, and that, when cases do occur, the habit is frequently found to have been induced by the presence of some painful chronic disease, to escape from the suffering of which the patient has fled to this resource. That this is not always, however, the case, I am perfectly ready to admit, and there are doubtless many who indulge in the habit to a pernicious extent, led by the same morbid influences which induce men to become drunkards in even the most civilised countries; but these cases do not, at all events, come before the public eye. As regards the effects of the habitual use of the drug on the mass of the people, I must affirm that no injurious results are visible. The people are a muscular and well-formed race, the labouring portion being capable of great and prolonged exertion under a fierce sun, in an unhealthy climate. Their disposition is cheerful and peaceable, and quarrels and brawls are rarely heard even amongst the lower orders; whilst in general intelligence they rank deservedly high amongst Orientals.

“I conclude, therefore, with observing that the proofs are still wanting to show that the moderate use of opium produces more pernicious effects upon the constitution than the moderate use of spirituous liquors; whilst, at the same time, it is certain that the consequences of the abuse of the former are less appalling in their effects upon the victim, and less disastrous to society at large, than the consequences of the abuse of the latter. Compare the furious madman, the subject of delirium tremens, with the prostrate debauchee, the victim of opium; the violent drunkard with the dreamy sensualist intoxicated with opium. The latter is, at least, harmless to all except his wretched self, whilst the former is but too frequently a dangerous nuisance, and an open bad example to the community at large.”[45]

It strikes us that the tone of this passage is that of an apologist for an evil practice, rather than of a defender of a good one. But we leave our readers to form their own opinion upon the point not unably argued by Dr Eatwell. It may be that the ideas we have generally entertained in this country, hitherto, as to the necessarily evil effects of the use of opium as an indulgence, may be only unfounded prejudices. They may have arisen from drawing too hasty and general conclusions from the manifest evils of extreme cases; and it is possible that more knowledge may compel us materially to alter our present opinions. Meantime the medical missionaries inform us that the confirmed opium-consumers of China use daily from 30 to 200 grains of the pure extract, which is equal to twice as much of the crude opium. We might expect, therefore, a more frequent recurrence of melancholy spectacles arising from the use of the drug, than by the testimony of Dr Eatwell is really the case.

IV. Hemp.—As a general rule, little is popularly known in northern Europe of the use of hemp as a narcotic indulgence; and yet in the East it is as familiar to the sensual voluptuary as the opium we have been considering.

Our common hemp (Cannabis sativa), so extensively cultivated for its fibre, is the same plant with the Indian hemp, Cannabis Indica, which from the remotest times has been celebrated among Eastern nations for its narcotic virtues. The plant came to Europe from Persia, and is supposed by many to be a native of India; but, like tobacco and the potato, it has a wonderful power of adapting itself to differences in soil and climate. Hence it is cultivated in northern Russia—whence our manufacturers obtain large supplies of its valuable fibre—in Northern America, on the plains of India and Arabia, in Africa, from its northern to its southern extremities, and throughout the whole of Europe. But in hot climates the fibre degenerates in quality, while the narcotic ingredients increase in quantity, and in apparent strength.

In the sap of this plant, probably in all countries, there exists a peculiar resinous substance in which the narcotic quality resides. In northern climates the proportion of this substance is so small as hitherto to have escaped notice. In the warmer regions of the East, however, it is so abundant as to exude naturally from the flowers, from the leaves, and from the bark of the young twigs. This is another of the many interesting facts now known, which show the influence of climate in modifying the chemical changes that take place in the interior of plants, and the nature and proportions of the several substances which are produced by these changes. We have already seen how the numerous constituents of opium vary with the locality in which it is collected.

In India the resinous exudation of the hemp plant is collected in various ways. In Nepaul it is gathered by the hand in the same way as opium. This variety is very pure and much prized. It is called Momeea, or waxen Churrus. It has a fragrant narcotic odour, and a slightly hot, bitterish, and acrid taste. In Central India, men covered with leathern aprons run backwards and forwards through the hemp fields, beating the plants violently. By this means the resin is detached and adheres to the leather. This is scraped off, and is the ordinary churrus of commerce, the chirs of Caubul. It does not bring so high a price as the momeea. In other places the leathern aprons are dispensed with, and the resin is collected on the naked skins of the coolies. In Persia it is collected by pressing the resinous plant on coarse cloths, and afterwards scraping the resin from these, and melting it in a little warm water. The churrus of Herat is considered as one of the best and most powerful varieties of the drug.

The plant itself is often collected and dried for the sake of the resin it contains. The whole plant collected when in flower, and dried without the removal of the resin, is called Gunjah. The larger leaves and capsules without the stalks form bang, subjee, or sidhee, which is less esteemed than the gunjah.[46]

The gunjah, when boiled in alcohol, yields as much as one-fifth of its weight of resinous extract, and hence this method of preparing the drug in a pure state has been recommended as the most efficient and economical.

Among the ancient Saracens, the modern Arabs, in some parts of Turkey, and generally throughout Syria, the preparations of hemp in common use were, and are still, known by the names of haschisch, hashash, or husheesh. The most common form of haschisch, and that which is the basis of all others, is prepared by boiling the leaves and flowers of the hemp with water to which a certain quantity of fresh butter has been added, evaporating the decoction to the thickness of a syrup, and then straining it through cloth. The butter thus becomes charged with the active resinous principle of the plant, and acquires a greenish colour. This preparation retains its properties for many years, only becoming a little rancid. Its taste, however, is very disagreeable, and hence it is seldom taken alone, but is mixed with confections and aromatics, camphor, cloves, nutmegs, mace, and not unfrequently ambergris and musk, so as to form a sort of electuary. The confection used among the Moors is called el mogen, and is sold at an enormous price. Dawamese is the name given by the Arabs to that which they most commonly use. This is frequently mingled, however, with other substances of reputed aphrodisiac virtues, to enable it to minister more effectually to the sensual gratifications, which appear to be the grand object of life among many of the Orientals.

The Turks give the names of Hadschy Malach and Madjoun to the compositions they use for purposes of excitement. According to Dr Madden, the madjoun of Constantinople is composed of the pistils of the flowers of the hemp plant ground to powder, and mixed in honey with powdered cloves, nutmegs, and saffron.

Thus the hemp plant or its products are used in four different forms.

First, The whole plant dried and known by the name of gunjah; or the larger leaves and capsules dried and known as bang, subjee, or sidhee; or the dried flowers, called in Morocco kief, a pipe of which, scarcely the size of an English pipe, is sufficient to intoxicate; or the dried pistils of the flower in the madjoun of the Turks. It is possible that these latter parts of the plant may be peculiarly rich in resin.

Second, The resin which naturally exudes from the leaves and flowers, and is, when collected by the hand, called momeea; or the same beaten off with sticks, and sold by the name of churrus.

Third, The extract obtained by means of alcohol from the gunjah, and which is said to be very active.

Fourth, The extract obtained by the use of butter, which, when mixed with spices, forms the dawamese of the Arabs, and is the foundation of the haschisch of many Eastern countries and districts. Other varieties, however, are in use, under the name of haschisch, one of which consists only of the tops and tender parts of the plants collected after they have been in flower.

The dried plant is smoked, and sometimes chewed, while the resin and resinous extracts are generally swallowed in the form of pills or boluses. The newly-gathered plant and leaves have a rapid and energetic action. Their efficacy diminishes, however, by keeping, which is less the case with the natural resin and the extracts.

In one or other of these forms the hemp plant appears to have been used from very remote times. The ancient Scythians are said by Herodotus to have excited themselves “by inhaling its vapour.” Homer makes Helen administer to Telemachus, in the house of Menelaus, a potion prepared from the Nepenthes, which made him forget his sorrows. This plant had been given to her by a woman of Egyptian Thebes; and Diodorus Siculus states that the Egyptians laid much stress on this circumstance, arguing that Homer must have lived among them, since the women of Thebes were actually noted for possessing a secret by which they could dissipate anger or melancholy. This secret is supposed to have been a knowledge of the qualities of hemp.

It is curious how common and familiar words sometimes connect themselves with things and customs of which we know absolutely nothing. The word assassin—a foreign importation, it is true, but long naturalised among us—is of this kind. M. Sylvester de Sacy, the well-known Orientalist, says that this word was derived from the Arabic name of hemp. It was originally used in Syria to designate the followers of “the old man of the mountain,” who were called Haschischins, because among them the haschisch was in frequent use, especially during the performance of certain of their mysterious rites. Others say that, during the wars of the Crusaders, certain of the Saracen army, intoxicated with the drug, were in the habit of rushing into the camps of the Christians, committing great havoc, being themselves totally regardless of death; that these men were known as hashasheens, and that thence came our word assassin. The Oriental term was probably in use long before the time of the Crusades, though the English form and use of the word may have been introduced into Europe at that period.

Nor is the use of hemp less extended than it is ancient. All over the East, and in Mahomedan countries generally, it is consumed. In Northern Africa it is used largely by the Moors. In Southern Africa, the Hottentots use it under the name of Dacha, for purposes of intoxication; and when the Bushmen were in London, they smoked the dried plant in short pipes made of the tusks or teeth of animals. What is more astonishing, when we consider what broad seas intervene, even the native Indians of Brazil know its value, and delight in its use; so that over the hotter parts of the globe generally, wherever the plant produces in abundance its peculiar narcotic principle, its virtues may be said to be known, and more or less extensively made use of.

Its effects on the system, therefore, we must suppose, are very agreeable. In India it is spoken of as the increaser of pleasure, the exciter of desire, the cementer of friendship, the laughtermover, and the causer of the reeling gait,—all epithets indicative of its peculiar effects. Linnæus describes its power as “narcotica, phantastica, dementens, anodyna et repellens;” while in the words of Endlicher, “Emollitum exhilarat animum, impotentibus desideriis tristem, stultam lætitiam provocat, et jucundissima somniorum conciliat phantasmata.”

The effects of the churrus or natural resin have been carefully studied in India by Dr O’Shaughnessy. He states that when taken in moderation it produces increase of appetite and great mental cheerfulness, while in excess it causes a peculiar kind of delirium and catalepsy. This last effect is very remarkable, and we quote his description of the results of one of his experiments with what is considered a large dose for an Indian patient:—

“At two P.M. a grain of the resin of hemp was given to a rheumatic patient; at four P.M. he was very talkative, sang, called loudly for an extra supply of food, and declared himself in perfect health. At six P.M. he was asleep. At eight P.M. he was found insensible, but breathing with perfect regularity, his pulse and skin natural, and the pupils freely contractile on the approach of light. Happening by chance to lift up the patient’s arm, the professional reader will judge of my astonishment when I found it remained in the posture in which I placed it. It required but a very brief examination of the limbs to find that by the influence of this narcotic the patient had been thrown into the strangest and most extraordinary of all nervous conditions, which so few have seen, and the existence of which so many still discredit—the genuine catalepsy of the nosologist. We raised him to a sitting posture, and placed his arms and limbs in every imaginable attitude. A waxen figure could not be more pliant or more stationary in each position, no matter how contrary to the natural influence of gravity on the part! To all impressions he was meanwhile almost insensible.”

This extraordinary influence he subsequently found to be exercised by the hemp extract upon other animals as well as upon man. After a time it passes off entirely, leaving the patient altogether uninjured.

In this effect of the hemp in India we see a counterpart of many of the wonderful feats performed by the fakeers and other religious devotees of that country. It indicates probably the true means also by which they are enabled to produce them. How much power a little knowledge gives to the dishonest and designing in every country over the ignorant and unsuspecting masses!

The effects of the haschisch of the Arabians, which probably do not differ from those of hemp in any of its forms, have been described to us from his own personal experience by a French physician, M. Moreau. When taken in small doses, its effect is simply to produce a moderate exhilaration of spirits, or at most a tendency to unseasonable laughter. Taken in doses sufficient to induce the fantasia, as its more remarkable effects are called in the Levant, its first influence is the same as when taken in a small dose; but this is followed by an intense feeling of happiness, which attends all the operations of the mind. The sun shines upon every thought that passes through the brain, and every movement of the body is a source of enjoyment. M. Moreau made many experiments with it upon his own person—appears indeed to have fallen into the habit of using it even after his return to France—and he describes and reasons upon its effects as follows:—

“It is really happiness which is produced by the haschisch; and by this I mean an enjoyment entirely moral, and by no means sensual, as might be supposed. This is a very curious circumstance, and some remarkable inferences might be drawn from it. Among others, for example, that every feeling of joy and gladness, even when the cause of it is exclusively moral—that those enjoyments which are least connected with material objects, the most spiritual, the most ideal—may be nothing else but sensations purely physical developed in the interior of the system, in the same way as those which are produced by means of the haschisch. At least, in so far as relates to that of which we are internally conscious, there is no distinction to be made between these two orders of sensations, in spite of the diversity of causes to which they are due. For the haschisch-eater is happy, not like the gourmand, or the famished man when satisfying his appetite, or the voluptuary in the gratification of his amative desires,—but like him who hears tidings which fill him with joy, or like the miser counting his treasures, the gambler who is successful at play, or the ambitious man who is intoxicated with success.”[47]

This glowing description of the effects of the haschisch, though given by one who had often used it, is yet on that very account, like the picture of the opium-eater, open to suspicion. We feel as if it were intended as a kind of excuse or justification of the indulgence on the part of the writer. Yet apart from this, the metaphysical question raised by M. Moreau is a very interesting one. To pursue it here, as a general question, would be out of place. We may observe, however, that it is intimately connected not only with the peculiar action exercised over the mind by each of the narcotics we are now considering, but with the probable cause of all those mental aberrations we include under the general term—insanity. Can we produce, for example, virtual insanity—imaginary happiness,[48] imaginary misery, or the most truth-like delusions—by introducing into the stomach, and thence into the blood which is passing through the hair-like blood-vessels of the brain, a quantity of a foreign body too minute to be recognised by ordinary chemical processes; and may not real natural insanity, in any of its forms, be caused by the natural production within the system itself of minute quantities of analogous substances possessing similar virtues? And, if so produced, will our future chemistry teach us to remove the mental disease, by preventing the production of the cause, or by constantly neutralising its effects? How important are these facts and considerations to a true pathology of insanity in general, and to every rational attempt to bring it, in all its phases, within the domain of the healing art!

When first it begins to act, the peculiar effects of the haschisch may be considerably diminished or altogether checked by a firm exertion of the will, “just as we master the passion of anger by a strong voluntary effort.” By degrees, however, the power of controlling at will and directing the thoughts diminishes, till finally all power of fixing the attention is lost, and the mind becomes the sport of every idea which either arises within itself, or is forced upon it from without.

“We become the sport of impressions of every kind. The course of our ideas may be broken by the slightest cause. We are turned, so to speak, by every wind. By a word or a gesture, our thoughts may be successively directed to a multitude of different subjects with a rapidity and lucidity which are truly marvellous. The mind becomes possessed with a feeling of pride, corresponding to the exaltation of its faculties, which it is conscious have increased in energy and power. It will be entirely dependent on the circumstances in which we are placed, the objects which strike the eyes, the words which fall on our ears, whether the most lively sentiments of gaiety or of sadness shall be produced, or passions of the most opposite character excited, sometimes with extraordinary violence. Irritation may rapidly pass into rage, dislike into hatred and desire for revenge, and the calmest affection into the most transporting passion. So fear becomes terror, courage is developed into rashness which nothing checks, and which seems unconscious of danger, and the most unfounded doubt and suspicion becomes a certainty.

“The mind has a tendency to exaggerate everything, and the slightest impulse carries it along. Hence those who make use of the haschisch in the East, when they wish to give themselves up to the intoxication of the fantasia, withdraw themselves carefully from everything which could give to their delirium a tendency to melancholy, or excite anything but feelings of pleasurable enjoyment. They profit by all the means which the dissolute manners of the East place at their disposal. It is in the midst of the harem, surrounded by their women, under the charm of music and of lascivious dances performed by the almees, that they enjoy the intoxicating dawamese; and with the aid of superstition, they find themselves almost transported to the scene of the numberless marvels which the Prophet has collected in his paradise.”[49]

The errors of perception to which the patient is liable during the period of fantasia, are remarkably experienced in regard to time and place. Minutes seem hours, and hours are prolonged into years, till at last all idea of time seems obliterated, and the past and the present are confounded together. Every notion, in this curious condition, seems to partake of a certain degree of exaggeration. One evening, M. Moreau was traversing the passage of the Opera when under the influence of a moderate dose of haschisch. He had made but a few steps when it seemed to him as if he had been there for two or three hours; and as he advanced the passage seemed interminable, its extremity receding as he pressed forward.[50]

The effect produced by hemp in its different forms varies, however, both in kind and in degree, with the individual to whom it is administered. Its general effect upon Orientals is of an agreeable and cheerful character, exciting them to laugh, dance, and sing, and to commit various extravagances—acting as an aphrodisiac, and increasing the appetite for food. Some, however, it renders excitable and quarrelsome, and disposes to acts of violence. It is from the extravagant behaviour of individuals of this latter temperament that the use and meaning of our word assassin have most probably arisen. There are some rare individuals, however, according to Dr Moreau, on whom the drug produces no effect whatever—upon whom, at least, doses are powerless which are usually followed by well-marked phenomena, as is the case with opium, long use making larger doses necessary. To some even a drachm of the churrus is considered a moderate dose, though sufficient to operate upon twenty ordinary men.

Upon Europeans generally, at least in Europe, its effects have been found to be considerably less in degree than upon Orientals. “In India, Dr O’Shaughnessy had seen marked effects from half a grain of the extract, or even less, and had been accustomed to consider one grain and a half a large dose; in England he had given ten or twelve or more grains, to produce the desired effect.”—(Pereira, p. 1242.) In kind, also, its effects upon Europeans differ somewhat from those produced upon Asiatics. It has never been known, for example, to produce that remarkable cataleptic state, described in a previous page as having been observed in India as the consequence even of a comparatively small dose of the hemp extract.

Of the chemistry of the hemp plant comparatively little is yet known. Had it been as long familiar to Europeans, or used as extensively as in the East, it would probably, like opium, have been the subject of repeated chemical investigations.

When distilled with water, the dried leaves and flowers yield a volatile oil in small quantity. The properties of this volatile oil have not been studied. It is not supposed, however, to have any important connection with the remarkable effects of the plant upon the living animal.

But the whole hemp plant is impregnated, as we have seen, with a resinous substance, in which its active virtues reside. When collected as it naturally exudes, this resin forms the churrus of India. It is extracted when the leaves are boiled with butter to form the basis of the haschisch, or when the dried plant is treated with alcohol to obtain the hemp extract. It is soft, dissolves readily both in alcohol and ether, and is separated from these liquids in the form of a white powder when the solutions are mixed with water. It has a warm, bitterish, acrid, somewhat balsamic taste, and a fragrant odour, especially when heated.

Both the resin which naturally exudes from the hemp plant, and the extract it yields to spirituous liquids, are probably mixtures of several substances possessed of different properties and relations to animal life. The remarkably complex composition of opium justifies such an opinion. And the analogy of the same substance makes it probable that the produce of the plant will differ in different localities and countries—so that the churrus of India, and the haschisch of Syria, may produce very different effects on the same constitution. But these points have not as yet been investigated either chemically or physiologically. This substance, therefore, holds out the promise of a rich and interesting harvest to future experimenters.

The extract of hemp differs considerably in its effects from opium. It does not lessen, but rather excites the appetite. It does not occasion nausea, dryness of the tongue, constipation, or lessening of the secretions, and is not usually followed by that melancholy state of depression to which the opium-eater is subject. It differs also in causing dilatation of the pupil, and sometimes catalepsy, in stilling pain less than opium does, in less constantly producing sleep, in the peculiar inebriating quality it possesses, in the phantasmata it awakens, and in its aphrodisiac effects. To the intellectual activity imparted by opium, it adds a corresponding sensitiveness and activity of all the feelings and of the senses, both internal and external. It seems, in fact, a source of exquisite and peculiar enjoyment, with which, happily, we are in this part of the world still altogether unacquainted.

It is impossible to form any estimate of the quantity of hemp, of hemp resin, or of the artificial extract, which are used for purposes of indulgence. It must, however, be very large, since the plant is so employed, in one form or another, by probably not less than two or three hundred millions of the human race!

V. Coca.—When the Spanish conquerors overcame the Indians of the hilly country of Peru, they found among them plantations of an herb called coca, and the custom extensively prevalent of chewing its leaves during frequent short periods of repose specially set apart for the purpose. So universal, indeed, was the use of it, that it was the common money or medium of exchange of Peru, and after the introduction of gold and silver money, the principal article of traffic. The practice of using it was already ancient among the Indian races, and its origin is lost in the mists of remote antiquity. It continues equally prevalent to the present day among the Indian inhabitants of Bolivia and Peru. Coca is in reality the Narcotic of the Andes, and it is not less interesting than hemp, either in its social or in its physiological relations.

The Erythroxylon coca[51] is a bush which attains the height of six or eight feet, and resembles the blackthorn in its small white flowers and bright green leaves. It grows wild in many parts of Bolivia, but that which is used by the people is chiefly the produce of cultivation. Like our common thorn, it is raised in seed-beds, from which it is planted out into regular coca plantations. It is extensively cultivated in the tropical valleys of the eastern slopes of the Andes, in Upper and Lower Peru. The steep sides of these valleys, below the level of 8000 feet, are often covered with plantations of coca, arranged in terraces like the vine-culture of Tuscany and the Holy Land. The leaves, when ripe enough to break on being bent, are collected and dried in the sun. In favourable localities, the bushes yield three, and even four, crops of leaves in a year. When nearly dried, or exposed to the sun, they emit an odour similar to that of new-made hay, in which much mellilot, or sweet-scented vernal grass, is contained; and they give a headache to new-comers, as haymaking does to some persons among ourselves. These dried leaves form the coca of commerce. When of good quality, they are of a pale-green colour. Dampness causes them to become dark coloured, in which state they are less esteemed; and if they heat through dampness, they become altogether useless. Their taste is not unpleasant; it is slightly bitter and aromatic, and resembles that of green tea of inferior quality. It is more piquant and agreeable when a sprinkling of quicklime or plant ashes is chewed along with it.

The use of this herb among the Indians dates, as we have said, from very remote periods. Its cultivation was a care of the native government during the reign of the Incas, and it is still to the Indian of the mountains the delight, the support, and in some measure a necessity of his life. He is never seen without the leathern pouch (his chuspa) to contain his coca leaves, and his little gourd-bottle to hold powdered unslacked lime—or, if he is a Bolivian, the alkaline ashes left by the quinoa or the musa root when burned. Always three, and sometimes four times a-day, he rests from his mining or other labour, or pauses in his journey, and lays down his burden to chew in quiet the beloved leaf. When riding, or walking, or labouring, the leaves have little effect. As with opium and hemp, stillness and repose are indispensable to his full enjoyment of the luxury it produces. In the shade of a tree he stretches himself at ease, and from time to time puts into his mouth a few leaves rolled into a ball (an acullico), and after each new supply a little unslacked lime on the end of a slip of wood moistened and dipped into his lime-flask. This brings out the true taste of the leaf, and causes a copious flow of greenish-coloured saliva, which is partly rejected and partly swallowed. When the ball ceases to emit juice it is thrown away, and a new supply is taken. The interval of enjoyment conceded to the labouring Indian lasts from fifteen minutes to half an hour, and is generally wound up by the smoking of a paper cigar. Repeated three or four times a-day, his average consumption is an ounce or an ounce and a half in the twenty-four hours, and on holidays double that quantity. The owners of mines and plantations have long found it for their interest to allow a suspension of labour three times a-day for the chaccar, as it is called; and the Indian speedily quits an employer who endeavours to stint or deprive him of these periods of indulgence. During these periods his phlegm is something marvellous. No degree of urgency or entreaty on the part of his master or employer will move him; while the confirmed coquero, when under the influence of the leaf, is heedless of the thunder-storm which threatens to drown him where he lies, of the roar of approaching wild beasts, or of the smoking fire which creeps along the grass, and is about to suffocate or scorch him in his lair.

The Indians of the Peruvian Andes are subject to fits of melancholy, or are generally perhaps of a gloomy temperament. “In their domestic relations,” says Von Tschudi, “the Indians are unsocial and gloomy. Husband, wife, and children live together with but little appearance of affection. The children seem to approach their parents timidly, and whole days sometimes elapse without the interchange of a word of kindness between them. When not engaged in out-door work, the Indian sits gloomily in his hut, chewing coca and brooding silently over his own thoughts.”—Travels, p. 481.

It does not appear, however, that the coca adds to his gloom; on the contrary, he takes it to relieve himself for the time from the peculiarities of his temperament. Silence and abstraction are necessary to the enjoyment, but the use of it makes him cheerful; and it is to the unhappy, often oppressed, and always poor Peruvian, the source of his highest pleasures. It has come down to him as a relic of the ancient enjoyments of his people, and during the phantasy it produces, he participates in scenes and pleasures from which in common life he is altogether excluded. Dr Weddell very sensibly remarks, that, as a relic of the past, he attaches “superstitious ideas to the coca, which must triple, in his imagination, the benefits he receives from it,” and that its value to him is further enhanced by its being the “sole and only distraction which breaks the incomparable monotony of his existence.”

We have no detailed account, by an actual chewer of the leaf, of the special effects which it produces; but these must be very seducing, since, though long stigmatised, and still very generally considered as a degrading, purely Indian, and, therefore, despicable vice, many white Peruvians at Lima and elsewhere retire daily at stated times to chew the coca; and even Europeans in different parts of the country have fallen into the habit. A confirmed chewer of coca is called a “coquero,” and he is said to become occasionally more thoroughly a slave to the leaf than the inveterate drunkard is to spirituous liquors.

Sometimes the coquero is overtaken by a craving which he cannot resist, and he betakes himself for days together to the silence of the woods, and there indulges unrestrained in the use of the weed. Young men of the best families in Peru become sometimes addicted to it to this extreme degree of excess, and are then considered as lost. Forsaking cities and the company of civilised men, and living chiefly in woods or in Indian villages, they give themselves up to a savage and solitary life. Hence the term, a white coquero, has there something of the same evil sense as irreclaimable drunkard has with us.

The chewing of coca gives “a bad breath (abominable, according to Weddell), pale lips and gums, greenish and stumpy teeth, and an ugly black mark at the angles of the mouth. The inveterate coquero is known at the first glance. His unsteady gait, his yellow skin, his dim and sunken eyes encircled by a purple ring, his quivering lips, and his general apathy, all bear evidence of the baneful effects of the coca juice when taken in excess.”—Von Tschudi, p. 450.

Its first evil effect is to weaken the digestion; it then gradually induces a disease locally named the opilacion. Biliary affections, with all the painful symptoms which attend them in tropical climates, and, above all, gall stones, are frequent and severe. The appetite becomes exceedingly uncertain, till at length the dislike to all food is succeeded by an inordinate appetite for animal excrement. Then dropsical swellings and boils come on; and the patient, if he can get it, flies to brandy for relief, and thus drags out a few miserable years, till death relieves him.[52]

This description is sufficiently repulsive, but it is only the dark side of the picture. A similar representation could be truthfully made of the evil effects of wine or beer in too numerous cases, without thereby implying that these liquors ought either to be wholly forbidden, or of our own accord entirely given up. “Setting aside all extravagant and visionary notions on the subject, I am clearly of opinion,” says Von Tschudi, “that the moderate use of coca is not merely innoxious, but that it may even be very conducive to health. In support of this conclusion, I may refer to the numerous examples of longevity among Indians who, almost from the age of boyhood, have been in the habit of masticating coca three times a-day. Cases are not unfrequent of Indians attaining the great age of 130 years; and these men, at the ordinary rate of consumption, must in the course of their lives have chewed not less than 2700 lb. of the leaf, and yet have retained perfect health.” Even the Indian coquero, who takes it in excess, reaches the age of fifty years. It is consumed both more abundantly, however, and with less baneful results, in the higher Andes than in the lower and warmer regions.

It is certain that the Peruvian Indians ascribe to it the most extraordinary virtues. They regard it even at the present day as something sacred and mysterious. This impression they have inherited as a fragment of their ancient religion, for in all the ceremonies, whether warlike or religious, of the times of the Incas, the coca was introduced. It was used by the priests either for producing smoke at the great offerings to the gods, for throwing in handfuls upon the sacrifice, or as the sacrifice itself.

“During divine worship the priests chewed coca leaves, and unless they were supplied with them, it was believed that the favour of the gods could not be propitiated. It was also deemed necessary that the supplicator for divine grace should approach the priests with an acullico in his mouth. It was believed that any business undertaken without the benediction of coca leaves could not prosper, and to the shrub itself worship was rendered. During an interval of more than 300 years Christianity has not been able to subdue this deep-rooted idolatry, for everywhere we find traces of belief in the mysterious powers of this plant. The excavators in the mines of Cerro de Pasco throw masticated coca on hard veins of metal, in the belief that it softens the ore and renders it more easy to work. The origin of this custom is easily explained, when it is recollected that in the time of the Incas it was believed that the cozas, or the deities of metals, rendered the mountains impenetrable if they were not propitiated by the odour of coca. The Indians, even at the present time, put coca leaves into the mouths of dead persons, to secure to them a favourable reception on their entrance into another world; and when a Peruvian Indian on a journey falls in with a mummy, he, with timid reverence, presents to it some coca leaves as his pious offering.”—Von Tschudi, p. 454.

And even Europeans cannot deny that, in addition to the ordinary properties of a narcotic, this leaf possesses two very remarkable properties not known to coexist in any other substance.

First, They lessen, when chewed, the necessity for ordinary food, and not only enable the chewer, as opium does, to put forth a greater nervous energy for a short time, but actually, with the same amount of food, perseveringly to undergo more laborious fatigue or longer-continued labour. With a feeble ration of dried maize, or barley crushed into flour, the Indian, if duly supplied with coca, toils under heavy burdens, day after day, up the steep slopes of the mountain passes, or digs for years in the subterranean mines, insensible to weariness, to cold, or to hunger. He believes, indeed, that it may be made a substitute for food altogether; and an instance given by Von Tschudi seems almost to justify this opinion.

“A cholo of Huari, named Hatan Huamang, was employed by me in very laborious digging. During the five days and nights he was in my service he never tasted any food, and took only two hours’ sleep each night. But at intervals of two and a half or three hours he regularly chewed about half an ounce of coca leaves, and he kept an acullico continually in his mouth. I was constantly beside him, and therefore I had the opportunity of closely observing him. The work for which I engaged him being finished, he accompanied me on a two days’ journey of twenty-three leagues across the level heights. Though on foot, he kept up with the pace of my mule, and halted only for the chaccar. On leaving me he declared he would willingly engage himself again for the same amount of work, and that he would go through it without food, if I would but allow him a sufficient supply of coca. The village priest assured me that this man was sixty-two years of age, and that he had never known him to be ill in his life.”—Von Tschudi, p. 453.

How this remarkable effect of the coca is to be accounted for, in accordance with the received notions as to animal nutrition, it is not easy to see.

Second, Another striking property of this leaf is, that, either when chewed or when taken in the form of infusion, like tea, it prevents the occurrence of that difficulty of respiration which is usually felt in ascending the long and steep slopes of the Cordillera and the Puna.

“When I was in the Puna,” says Von Tschudi, “at the height of fourteen thousand feet above the level of the sea, I drank always, before going out to hunt, a strong infusion of coca leaves. I could then during the whole day climb the heights and follow the swift-footed wild animals, without experiencing any greater difficulty of breathing than I should have felt in similar rapid movements on the coast. Moreover, I did not suffer from the symptoms of cerebral excitement or uneasiness which other travellers have experienced. The reason perhaps is, that I only drank the decoction on the cold Puna, where the nervous system is far less susceptible than in the climate of the forests beneath. However, I always felt a sense of great satiety after taking the coca infusion, and I did not feel a desire for my next meal until after the time at which I usually took it.”

The reason of this action of the leaf is not less difficult to perceive than that of its strength-sustaining capabilities.

When the Spanish conquerors took possession of Peru, the Indians, and all their customs, were treated by them with equal contempt; but everything connected with their religion was especially denounced by the Spanish priests. Hence the use of coca was condemned and forbidden. It was considered worthy the consideration of councils of the church, which denounced it in 1567 as a “worthless substance, fitted for the misuse and superstition of the Indians,” and of the thunders of a royal decree which, in 1569, condemned the idea that coca gives strength as an “illusion of the devil.” But these fulminations were of no avail. The Peruvians still clung to their esteemed national leaf, and the owners of mines and plantations, soon discovering its efficacy in enabling their slaves to perform the heavy tasks they imposed upon them, became its warm defenders. Even churchmen at last came to regard it with indulgence, and, stranger still, to recommend its introduction into Europe.

“One of the warmest advocates of the plant was the Jesuit Don Antonio Julian, who, in a work entitled Perla de America, laments that coca is not introduced into Europe instead of tea and coffee. ‘It is,’ he observes, ‘melancholy to reflect that the poor of Europe cannot obtain this preservative against hunger and thirst; that our working people are not supported by this strengthening plant in their long-continued labours.’ In the year 1793, Dr Don Pedro Nolasco Crespo pointed out in a treatise the important advantages that would be derived from the use of the coca plant, if introduced into the European navies; and he expresses a wish that experiments of its utility in that way could be tried. Though it is not probable that Dr Crespo’s wish will ever be realised, yet there is little doubt that the use of coca as a beverage on board ship would be attended with very beneficial results. It would afford a nutritious refreshment to seamen in the exercise of their laborious duties, and would greatly assist in counteracting the unwholesome effects of salt provisions. As a stimulant, it would be far less injurious than ardent spirits, for which it might be substituted without fear of any of the evil consequences experienced by the coqueros.”—Von Tschudi, p. 456.

It will strike the reader of the present article as somewhat remarkable, that modern, perhaps more impartial and truth-loving inquiry, should strip so many of these narcotic indulgences of the horrid and repulsive aspect they have always hitherto worn. We find now that they have all a fair side as well as a foul, and that it becomes a question for reasonable discussion whether an educated population, trained to the exercise of a reasonable self-control, might not be safely left to avail themselves of the strangely fascinating enjoyments they are capable of affording, without much risk of their becoming the source of any greatly extended after-misery. But when, it may be pertinently asked, can we hope to see the mass of our population so trained to self-denial and self-restraint?

Of the chemical history of the coca leaf we are almost entirely ignorant. The narcotic principle it contains appears to be volatile and evanescent like that of the hemp plant. By keeping, the leaves gradually lose their smell and virtue, and after twelve months are generally considered worthless. We have found, that as they reach this country the leaves are coated with a resinous or waxy substance which is only sparingly soluble in water, but which ether readily dissolves. When digested in ether, the leaves give a dark green solution, which, on evaporation in the open air, leaves a brownish resin, possessed of a powerful, peculiar, and penetrating odour. By prolonged exposure to the air this resinous matter diminishes in quantity, and gradually loses the whole of its smell, leaving a fusible, nearly inodorous, matter behind. Ether, therefore, seems to extract at least two substances from the leaf, one of which is volatile, and has a powerful odour. It is probably in this volatile body that the narcotic qualities of the leaf reside. According to the French chemist, M. Fremy, the leaf contains besides a bitter principle, which dissolves in alcohol but not in ether, on which, as on the theine of tea, some of the virtues of the coca may depend. But the chemical and physiological properties of this substance have not yet been determined. A few pounds of fresh leaves, placed in the hands of a capable chemist, might soon furnish us not only with more chemical light, but probably also with some new and valuable remedial agents capable of producing medicinal effects hitherto beyond our reach.

If we attempt to explain, by the aid of the above modicum of chemical knowledge, the remarkable effects produced by the coca leaf, we utterly fail. How the mere chewing of one or two ounces of the leaves in a day, partly rejecting and partly swallowing the saliva,[53] but wholly rejecting the chewed leaf—how this supports the strength, or can materially nourish the body in the ordinary acceptation of the term, we cannot understand. It cannot give much to the body; it must therefore act simply in preventing or greatly diminishing the ordinary and natural waste of the tissues which usually accompanies bodily exertion. As wine acts upon the nervous system of the aged so as to restrain the natural waste to a quantity which the now weakened digestion can readily replace, and thus maintains the weight of the body undiminished,—so it is probably with coca. In the young and middle-aged it lessens the waste of the tissues, and thus enables a smaller supply of food to sustain the weight and strength of the body. All these substances probably operate in a similar way to the partial absence of light, which, as is well known, causes the same amount of fattening food to go farther in increasing the weight of the body.

This explanation is only conjectural, and we hazard it only that some chemical physiologist, into whose hands the drug may fall, may by actual experiment test and amend it. Besides, we are aware that the explanation itself requires explanation; for how either wine or any other substance should have the effect described is by no means plain. At first sight it seems wholly irreconcilable with the received chemico-physiological doctrine, that the amount of muscular exertion is a measure of the waste of the tissues. We believe, however, that the apparent difficulty is, to a certain extent at least, capable of a purely chemical solution, but the discussion is unfit for this place.

This leaf resembles hemp in the narcotic quality of dilating the pupil, which opium does not possess. But in the proneness of the coca-eater to stillness and solitude we recognise an influence of this herb similar to that which opium exercises upon those who have experienced its highest enjoyments. “Markets and theatres,” says De Quincey, “are not the appropriate haunts of the opium-eater, when in the divinest state incident to his enjoyment. In that state crowds become an oppression to him, music even too sensual and gross. He naturally seeks solitude and silence as indispensable conditions of those trances or profoundest reveries, which are the crown and consummation of what opium can do for human nature. At that time I often fell into these reveries on taking opium; and more than once it has happened to me on a summer night, when I have been at an open window, in a room from which I could overlook the sea at a mile below me, and could command a view of the great town of L—— at about the same distance, that I have sat from sunset to sunrise, motionless, and without wishing to move.”

This state resembles somewhat the abstracted condition in which the coquero reclines beneath the sheltering tree;—whether his apathy and phlegm ever approached to that of the coquero, the Opium-eater does not inform us.

We have no accurate data from which to form an estimate of the actual weight of coca leaf collected and consumed in Bolivia and Peru. Pöppig estimates the money value of the yearly produce to be about four and a half millions of Prussian dollars, which, at a shilling a pound, the price it yields to the grower, would make the annual produce nearly fifteen millions of pounds. This approximation is sufficient to show us its importance to the higher regions of South America, in an agricultural and commercial, as well as in a social point of view.

Dr Weddell, whose travels in Bolivia we noticed in a recent Number, informs us that the province of Yongas, in Bolivia, in which the coca is much cultivated, alone produces 9,600,000 Spanish pounds. The total produce, therefore, is probably much beyond the fifteen millions of pounds deduced from the statement of Pöppig. The importance of the plant to Bolivia is shown by another fact stated by Dr Weddell, that the revenue of the state of Bolivia in 1850 amounted to ten and a half millions of francs, of which nine hundred thousand, or one-twelfth of the whole, is derived from the tax on coca. Had he told us the amount of the tax per pound, we should have been able to approximate more nearly to the total produce of the state of Bolivia.

Here we close for the present our remarks upon this interesting class of bodies. There are still others, the effects of which are not less surprising, and which are indulged in by large masses of men, to the consideration of which we may hereafter return.

Meanwhile, with such attractive descriptions before him as the history of these narcotics presents, can we wonder that man, whose constant search on earth is after happiness, and who, disappointed here, hopes and longs and strives to fit himself for happiness hereafter—can we wonder that he should at times be caught by the tinselly glare of this corporeal felicity, and should yield himself to habits which, though exquisitely delightful at first, lead him finally both to torture of body and to misery of mind; that, debilitated by the excesses to which it provokes, he should sink more and more under the influence of a mere drug, and become at last a slave to its tempting seductions? We are indeed feeble creatures, and of little bodily strength, when a grain of haschisch can conquer, or a few drops of laudanum lay us prostrate; and how much weaker in mind, when, knowing the evils they lead us to, we cannot resist the fascinating temptation of these insidious drugs.

Note.—The writer of the above, and the previous article on Narcotics, assures the critics who have done him the honour to notice his remarks upon tobacco, that he is himself neither a smoker nor an opium-eater. To the kind old lady, Mrs Mary Smith, who has taken the trouble to write him from No. 195 Twelfth Street, New York, he begs to say, that he will be happy to receive the little volume, containing “the results of American experience on the use of tobacco,” and will endeavour to consider them with an unprejudiced mind.

POEMS BY H. G. K.

FROM THE TENTS OF KEDAR.

When rolling wastes of barren sand
Torment the exile’s eye,
And, howling o’er the thirsty land,
The furnace blasts go by;
When Nature seems, with furious beams,
To glare in wrath on me,
My breast is fain to breathe again
The freshness of the sea.

When in the night awakes the breeze,
I turn, in feverish sleep,
And seem to hear, in rustling trees,
The murmur of the deep:
Thick falls the heat, the transient cheat
But feeds my misery;
Mine ears are fain to hear again
The language of the sea.

Unnumbered smilings of the calm
The billows give their God,
To Him goes up the awful psalm
When tempests are abroad;
The ocean’s Lord my soul adored
On childhood’s bended knee;
O! I am fain to share again
The worship of the sea.

A CONFESSION.

When first I looked upon thy face,

O sister of the meek-eyed Dove!

I wondered at its gentle grace,

But never thought of love.

And when again, in later days,
Thy simple tale of grief I heard,
My heart outwent my lips’ weak praise,
But ne’er a pulse was stirred.

Slowly, at length, the feeling grew,
All common passions far above;
I found that when thyself I knew,
To know thee was to love.

But now, when years have passed, and these
Have brought us mutual joy and pain,
When children gathering round our knees
But closer draw the chain;

I find my days have been so free
From loneliness, despair, or strife,
If my late love grew dear to me,
How precious is the wife!

Nor thou with disappointment hear
A secret I had ne’er confessed,
Were that slow trust that made thee dear
Less rooted in my breast.

Not thine the vain and wanton look
On which the moths of passion feed,
Nor is thy soul such trivial book
As he who runs may read.

Nor envy I the vagrant race
Whose loves as soon as felt are gone,
Who wander on from face to face
Till age shall leave them lone.

The gourd that in a night appeared
Next noon had withered on the sand;
The oak a hundred years have reared,
For ages crowns the land.

MOVEMENT.

(India, 1853.)

In the dismal polar world,
As the night of months wears on,
The ice-bound ship, her white wings furled,
Lies torpid, and alone.

At times the sailors hear
Strange voices of the night,
And see the streamers, far and near,
Of the transient northern light.

The months draw on, night wanes,
Slow creeps the spreading dawn,
A soft wind stirs the slumbering vanes,
The winter’s power is gone.

House awnings, hoist your sails,
Your vessel moves at last;
No matter, if Atlantic gales
Should snap each straining mast;

Nor if through crashing floes,
Or mountain waves she roam;
Through icebergs and through storm she goes
To the happier skies of Home.

There is a land fast bound,
In chains of age-long night,
Encompassed by unfruitful sound,
And false precarious light.

The ages wear, night wanes,
She stirs in her helpless rest,
Loosens her old obdurate chains,
Sees day spring from the west!

Blow, low, or loud, each breath,
To regions light and warm;
Where calm is harbinger of death,
How welcome is the storm!

Brethren! if slanderous speech
Press heavy on your heart,
Remember truth is vast, and each
Beholds her but in part.

And if to alien view
We seem to slumber yet,
God sees the work begun by you,
And He will not forget.

THE POET AND THE PASSIONS.

The winds come forth from South and North,
Through the World they go,
And divers are the ends they work,
And places where they blow.

Some howl along the Polar snows,
Where the riving Icebergs roar;
And some sail o’er the weltering Sea,
And drive tall Ships before.

Some breathe on Mills by thymy downs,

And some, through Gardens fair,

Steal ’mid the flowers, and moist tree-leaves,

And in young lovers’ hair.

And others waste their strength and life,
On whirling spires of sand,
Till men the gathered poison take,
By Suez or the Caspian Lake,
From Fez to Samarcand.

Our passions thus in solitude
Are driven round and round;
Unrecognised by learned ears,
They howl in stony ground.

Time was the Poet’s music rose,
On every breeze that stirred;
In Nature’s free, unquestioned joy,
He sang as sings the bird.

Yon trifler of the curious pipe,
With all his high wrought art,
May for a moment please the ear,
But cannot touch the heart:

In a night of fabled innocence,
His simple fancies flow,
With cold fantastic images,
Like Moonlight on the snow;

While through the darkling ways of life,
The earnest crowds grope on,
And, though they may not tell their care,
The old delight is gone.

Speak in the darkness words of truth,
Upon the crowded ways,
Oh Poet, if such man there be,
In these material days!

Thou must ignore the heart no more,
In quaint reluctant rhymes,
If thou wouldst seek to cure indeed
The madness of the times:

Tell those, like fire whose souls aspire,
That God himself is love;
And that the Heaven they seek to reach
Is round them, not above:

Tell those whose self-deemed virtue brooks
No intercourse with sin,
God loves not whited sepulchres,
With rottenness within:

Tell those who sneer because their eyes
Embrace not all His plan,
The Steam-engine does many things,
But cannot make a man:

The accidents of time and space,
Their ripening lore may know;
The human soul as well was read,
Two thousand years ago:

The air that makes the furnace glow,
O’er flowery meads has blown,
Man lives by every breath of God,
And not by bread alone.

A FEW FACTS CONCERNING THE TURKISH QUESTION.

It is not at the point the Eastern Question has now reached that we feel disposed to go into a minute retrospect of the circumstances that have brought us to the brink of a war, whose consequences are incalculable. Although, at the moment at which we write, everything seems tending to strife, and we listen already for the echoes of cannon from the Danube’s banks and the Euxine’s waters, the changes in the aspect of this alarming question have hitherto been so numerous and so rapid in their succession, that we still refuse to cast away all hope of its amicable adjustment. True, that before these lines meet the public eye, armies may have been set in motion, and collisions have occurred; but we prefer to believe that the present warlike aspect of affairs may have been exchanged for one more pacific, and that Russia, who would gladly recede, could she do so with honour, may accept a retractation as a reason for a concession.

What has brought Europe to its present painful state of suspense and anxiety? The storm of democratic insurrection, which burst forth in 1848, and swept over the Continent, leaving few nations unscathed, had scarcely lulled, when fresh alarm spread abroad, springing from very different causes—from the aggression of a colossal power upon a feeble one, utterly unable to cope with it. Upon what was this aggression based? Its nominal origin is to be sought in the most futile matters of dispute—in a wrangle between rival churches as to the possession of a key, the repairs of a cupola, the right of entering a sanctuary by a side door, or by the front gate. It was behind an affected interest in this monkish squabble that Russia masked deep and dangerous designs.

The question of the Holy Shrines lay entirely between France and Russia, as protectors of the Latin and Greek Churches in Turkey. England looked on, and smiled with some little disdain at the sudden religious fervour of the neighbour she had long held for a latitudinarian in such matters. Russia was pleased to see her in this mood, and augured well from it for the success of her plans. For Russia had a double point to gain. One of her objects was the following up of the traditional policy that, for more than a century, has impelled her southwards, in the direction of those Dardanelles which the Emperor Alexander called one of the doors of his house. Her second aim was the downfall of the present occupant of the throne of France.

An ill-founded disbelief in the possibility of any sincere and durable alliance between England on the one hand, and France, under her present ruler, upon the other, has had much to do with the Czar’s attack upon Turkey. It will be remembered that the coup d’état of December 1851 was warmly approved by the Russian emperor. He looked upon it, as did many in this and in other countries, who neither profess nor feel attachment to despotism, as an immense service rendered to the cause of order in Europe. France had reached a point at which absolutism, or horrible and contagious anarchy, were the only alternatives left her. She had overset or trampled upon every liberal, moderate, and constitutional government she had ever had. She had proved herself unfit for them; devoid of that invaluable species of patience which enables a nation to endure small evils rather than rush upon great ones, and to seek gradual reforms by peaceable means, instead of insisting upon them suddenly and violently. She was so fortunate as to escape with the lesser of the two evils, to one of which she was evidently and inevitably speeding. The hour came, and the man. The last shred of liberty’s flag was blown away, and turbulent France had found her master. When this extraordinary event occurred, it was right, perhaps, for the friends of constitutional government, and of the natural rights of civilised nations, to protest, in the name of a great principle, against the establishment of despotism. But such protests were too often reiterated, and too virulently and offensively worded, by the only really free press remaining in Europe, to produce practical good. On the contrary, they did much harm. The persevering and rancorous manner in which the majority of the English journals assailed the sovereign whom they chose to stigmatise as a reckless adventurer, but who has proved himself a man of commanding ability and rare energy—and who may possibly yet show himself a truer friend to France than some who have made patriotism their war-cry, whilst their own advantage was their object—was well calculated to spread the belief that steadfast alliance and cordial co-operation, for the attainment of any end, were impossible between Great Britain, and France under Napoleon III. There is no doubt that this was the impression made upon the mind of the Emperor Nicholas, who, in common with more than one great statesman in other countries, looked favourably upon the new order of things, as that best calculated to retrieve France from the slough into which she had sunk, and, at the same time, to quell and daunt the revolutionary spirit throughout Europe. But past dangers are quickly forgotten. In proportion as the perils Europe had run from the democratic party grew faint and fainter in the distance, and, as the probability rapidly increased of the restoration of the Empire in France, the Czar became less and less well-disposed towards the nephew of the man whose memory Russia has certainly no reason to cherish. Perhaps recollections of his youth rose up before him—the many reverses of the Russian arms, the flames of Moscow, the blood and treasure his country had been compelled to lavish to stem one man’s ambition. The terms in which he accredited his ambassador to the new Emperor of the French sufficiently betrayed the great diminution of the good-will with which he had for a time regarded the government of Louis Napoleon.

The prevalent feeling in Europe, when Napoleon III. was proclaimed, was, that the days of his empire were numbered, that his power was doomed to speedy extinction. In war, many declared, lay his sole prospect and probability of its retention. He rested upon bayonets; his name was Napoleon, aggression and glory must constitute his sole tenure of the place he had usurped. He must fight or fall. Two years have elapsed, and as yet there is no prospect of these predictions being verified. War there may be—we are perhaps on the eve of it—but certainly it will not have been brought on or sought by the French emperor, who has shown a wise and earnest desire to avoid it, and who, as far as he is to be judged from his conduct hitherto, has a better right to the title of the “Napoleon of Peace” than the citizen-king upon whom it was so fulsomely bestowed. The war that is regretfully anticipated, but which we still hope may be averted, will have been forced upon France, and instead of being waged, as alarmists have predicted that the first war in which France should engage would assuredly be, in the British Channel and on English ground, it will present the novel spectacle of French and English fleets combined under the orders of an English admiral, and of British troops marshalled for action at the command of a French general.

When the Emperor of Russia saw that the empire consolidated itself in France—that Napoleon III., far from seeking occasions of strife or invasion, busied himself in conciliating opponent parties, in improving his capital, in devising employment for the necessitous classes of his subjects, in endeavouring to gain the good opinion of powers but little disposed to think well of him—he meditated upon the best means of urging him to some rash step, which should bring about his downfall and a Bourbon restoration. He reckoned on having all Europe with him against the usurper; and, if he counted England in the new coalition, or at least calculated on her standing aloof from France, how can we wonder at it, when, day after day, he saw the English press heaping insult and contumely upon the Emperor of the French—and, by inevitable implication, upon the people he ruled—and when Whig statesmen so far forgot their discretion as publicly to express their aversion to the government France had accepted—their contempt for the French themselves?

In accordance with a skilfully combined plan, and taking as a double pretext the war Turkey was waging against the Montenegrins and the question of the Holy Shrines, the Czar sent Prince Menschikoff to Constantinople, charged to insist, in no mild or measured terms, upon the satisfactory settlement of both those affairs. It so happened, however, that before the Prince’s arrival, Prince Leiningen, acting on behalf of Austria—and, it must be admitted, in a more moderate and conciliatory spirit than might have been expected in the envoy of a power embittered, as Austria was, against Turkey, by the latter’s protection of the Hungarian refugees—had brought the Montenegro question to a satisfactory conclusion. Thus the most important of the two ostensible motives for the Menschikoff mission had disappeared. That which remained—the question of the Holy Places—had seemed, but a few weeks previously, to be all but settled; and, at any rate, it was a very insufficient cause for so pompous and extraordinary an embassy. Upon it, however, Prince Menschikoff commenced negotiations—his peremptory tone, and the arrogance of his style, being in an inverse ratio to the importance of the matter to be discussed. Had the Muscovite Minister of Marine been sent as his master’s delegate to some petty tributary, whose power depended on his nod, he could hardly have assumed a more trenchant tone, or have demeaned himself with greater insolence. The French government, upon this occasion more vigilant than our own, appears at once to have detected an ulterior object in this mission, and in the concurrent naval and military display at Sebastopol. A French fleet showed itself in the waters of Salamis. This step the Aberdeen cabinet, or the greater portion of it—for it was reported that at least one of its members was more clear-sighted than his colleagues—blamed as precipitate and uncalled-for; and our ambassador at Paris was understood to have intimated, in a non-official manner, to M. Drouyn de l’Huys, his government’s regret at a proceeding that might rouse the susceptibility of the Czar, and that was, to say the least, extremely premature.

An extraordinary blindness as to Russia’s real views, and to the importance of the question at issue, afflicted, at that period of the question, the Aberdeen cabinet and all connected with them. The Premier could not credit any harm of Russia, nor make up his mind to look kindly or trustfully upon the government of the French Emperor. Lord Clarendon saw through the spectacles of his chief. The obstinate convictions of the composite cabinet communicated themselves to its agents. Admiral Dundas—whom Colonel Rose, then chargé d’affaires at Constantinople, in the absence of the ambassador, sent to, at the request of the Grand Vizier, to urge the propriety of his exhibiting his pennant at some point rather nearer to the Dardanelles than Malta—thought the movement unnecessary. Colonel Rose was afterwards removed from Constantinople, and one of Lord Stratford’s first acts, on his return to the post whence his prolonged absence, at such a time, was a gross impropriety, was to write to his government that there was every reason to expect that the questions pending would be brought to a satisfactory termination. This Lord Clarendon stated in his place in the House of Lords on the 25th of April, and, at the same time, gave the most satisfactory and positive assurances with respect to the state of affairs in the East. “As regards Turkey,” thus did he conclude his speech, “there was no danger of the peace of Europe being disturbed, nor any prospect of the unanimity which prevailed between this country and the other great powers of Europe, as to the necessity of maintaining the integrity and independence of the Ottoman empire, being interrupted.” It was not unnatural, the noble Secretary admitted, in another part of his speech, “that Colonel Rose, not being cognisant of the information possessed by her Majesty’s government, should participate in the alarm which was, in the first instance, caused by Prince Menschikoff’s arrival.” The information of her Majesty’s Government seems to have been worth about as much as their penetration, the sole difference being that the inefficiency of their agents, or the discretion of the Czar’s, might be the cause of the badness of the former, whilst none but themselves were responsible for the obtuseness of the latter. Upon the 5th of May, just ten days after the Foreign Secretary’s speech, the French and English ambassadors at Constantinople were made officially acquainted with the real object of the Menschikoff mission. The Czar demanded the protectorate over four-fifths of the European subjects of the Porte, over the twelve millions of Greek Christians contained in the dominions of the Sultan, who would thus, to all practical purposes, become the vassal of Russia. Confidential communications, Prince Menschikoff reminded the Turkish minister of Foreign Affairs, had already been made to the Porte of the tenor of this outrageous demand. It has not been ascertained how long previously to the official note the private intimation had been conveyed; but it is quite clear that the fact of its conveyance was not comprised in “the information possessed by her Majesty’s Government” on the 25th of April.

The Czar’s real object might have been yet longer in revealing itself, but for the skilful and decided course adopted by the French government. The English and French press—with almost the sole exception of the Times, which, in unusual opposition to the public voice, and disregarding the warnings contained in its own published correspondence, still persisted in sharing Lord Aberdeen’s views, and in maintaining the question of the Holy Shrines to be the only one at issue—had, for some time past, loudly denounced the intentions of Russia. But nothing could move Lord Aberdeen. He remained the personification of stubborn stolidity. The whole question, for him, was centred in a few ancient and sacred buildings at Jerusalem. His pretended convictions were powerfully influenced by his repugnance to anything like cordial combined action with the government of Napoleon III. His political friends on the other side the Channel rejoiced at his tenacious and wilful short-sightedness. Thanks to it, the usurper was about to find himself in isolated opposition to a European coalition. His downfall was decided upon. England would stand aloof; never—and of this the Orleanist and legitimate partisans had private and positive assurances from persons professing to speak in the name of Lord Aberdeen—would there be any real and durable alliance with France under the imperial regime. The French government felt that its position was becoming an uneasy one, and, with great judgment, resolved to bring matters to a crisis. Its ambassador at Constantinople—where the question of the Holy Places was then being discussed by the ministers of Russia, France, and Turkey—received instructions to yield so far as to bring about a prompt settlement. This was giving rope to Russia. The difficulties about the shrines once removed, Prince Menschikoff had, for sole alternative, to declare himself satisfied, and take his departure, or to produce what remained at the bottom of his official bag. This was the project of the famous sened, or convention, that was to annihilate the independence of the Porte by giving the Czar authority over four-fifths of its European subjects, and a pretext for constant interference in its internal affairs. The verbal note of the 19th April had already conveyed a pretty plain hint, that refusal of compliance with the Czar’s demands would be the signal for stringent measures on the part of the Russian envoy.

From the date of the 5th May, the Turkish question may be said to have been placed upon its proper basis. Henceforward the case was clear; none could any longer maintain that the settlement of a dispute about a silver star and a church key, about the cave of Gethsemane and the garden of Bethlehem, was the sole and simple object of Menschikoff’s mission, of the review of naval and military armaments that had preceded it, and of his menacing and offensive notes and deportment to the Turkish government. The point at which the dispute has now arrived, and the long discussion it has undergone in the public press, renders it unnecessary for us to do more than briefly note the events that have since rapidly succeeded each other. The Sultan persisting in his very natural refusal to abdicate the better half of his sovereign rights, upon the 18th of May Prince Menschikoff broke off official communications, and embarked with the whole legation on board a Russian man-of-war. On the 21st he quitted Constantinople. One more effort was made by Russia to induce the Porte to bend to her will. A letter from Count Nesselrode to the Grand Vizier renewed, with no better success, the demand that had already been rejected. The French and English fleets moored in Besika Bay, the Russian troops having previously crossed the Pruth and occupied the Danubian provinces. Simultaneously with this act of invasion, the Czar’s government protested their respect for the integrity and independence of the Turkish empire. If they occupied two of its provinces, it was merely to enforce the acceptance of conditions annulling the very independence they professed to respect. The entrance of the troops was not to be considered as an act of war, and the position guaranteed by treaty to Moldavia and Wallachia would be in no way altered by it. Notwithstanding this assurance, the hospodars were soon afterwards ordered to notify to the Porte that they broke off all intercourse with it, and should no longer pay it tribute. This was certainly a singular mode of respecting the statu quo of the principalities.

Convinced at last, by Russia’s acts, of those ulterior views it had so long refused to credit, the Aberdeen ministry applied itself, in concert with France, to endeavour amicably to terminate the untoward affair, which a little penetration or sincerity on its part might never have allowed to assume such alarming proportions. Although the conduct of Russia was a manifest violation of the treaties of Adrianople and Balta Liman, her strange declaration that the armed occupation of two Turkish provinces was not to be taken as an act of war was allowed to pass current, and negotiations were commenced—a circular of Count Nesselrode’s having previously been replied to by the governments of France and England, in terms proving their unity of action and their resolution to preserve the integrity of the Turkish empire. Austria, who had long stood undecided, offered her intervention between Russia and the Porte. It was accepted. A project of agreement drawn up at Paris, was submitted at Vienna to the conference composed of the ambassadors of England, France, Austria, and Prussia. Russian influence at Berlin, and close family alliance, had kept the last-named power aloof from the contention, in like manner as recent obligations had long restrained the young Francis Joseph from even intimating his dissatisfaction with a policy of aggression whose development no European power has more cause than Austria to apprehend and deprecate. The French note, after undergoing at Vienna some slight and unimportant alterations, was at once accepted by the Emperor. The text of this note has not, that we are aware of, yet transpired. But the Emperor’s promptness was suspicious. His acceptance was contingent on the Porte’s agreeing to the note without modification, and this the Porte refused to do. For a moment the Turkish government was blamed, until it became known that the interpretation put by Russia upon the Vienna note, was such as would have enabled her to act upon it in the same manner as upon the convention proposed to the Sultan by Prince Menschikoff, to the acceptance of which she therefore considered it virtually tantamount. Thus were the efforts of diplomacy once more frustrated, and the whole question thrown completely open.

The wisdom and moderation of which the Emperor Nicholas has, upon so many occasions, given proof, his unceasing efforts for the improvement of his subjects’ moral and physical state, and the many high qualities none can deny him to possess, command admiration, and augment our regret that he should have placed himself in a position from which he can extricate himself only by a sacrifice of dignity and prestige, or by plunging Europe into war. Upon the other hand, the state of Turkey is not a very edifying spectacle for Christendom. Under no circumstances can it be a pleasing sight to behold Christians subjected to Mahometan rule, even though that be exercised mildly, and a disposition shown to ameliorate their condition. But, although commonly assumed, it is by no means proved that the general feeling of the Greek Christians in Turkey is in favour of their transfer to the Czar. Their dream is of the re-establishment of their nationality, of an independent Byzantine empire, a project often mooted, and as often pronounced theoretical and impracticable. Failing to obtain that, they naturally ask themselves whether they would be better off under Russian than under Turkish sway. A few years ago, there would have been no doubt as to the reply, but since then their condition has greatly improved; and the present alarm of the Porte, which has already, within the last few weeks, given birth to firman after firman, conferring new privileges and immunities upon its Christian subjects—will stimulate the Sultan’s government speedily to grant all those concessions that the Greeks may fairly claim, and which their overwhelming numerical majority, backed by the influence of England and France, must secure their ultimately obtaining. This is not the moment, however, to go into these considerations, or into that minute examination of the state of the Christians in Turkey which at another time it may be interesting to institute. The news of the last few days have compressed the question, for the present, within much narrower limits. Whatever emancipation there may be in store for the Christians of Turkey—whether in the form of independence or of partition amongst Christian powers—it must not proceed from the arbitrary mandate of any one potentate. It must be matter of accord between the great powers of Europe, and such accord may be very difficult to arrive at. If treaties are to be treated as waste-paper, and international law set at nought, we sink at once into political barbarism, and establish, by a most perilous precedent, the law of the strongest to be the only one that governs us.

The conduct of Turkey, throughout the whole of this unpleasant affair, cannot in any respect be justly blamed. In the discussion of the question of the Holy Shrines, in which she herself had no interest, she displayed great patience, and a sincere desire to conciliate and please both of the powers that claimed—the one on the strength of treaties, the other by no other right than that of its influence and community of faith with twelve millions of Turkish subjects—to interfere in the appropriation of those sacred relics. The charges of bad faith and breach of engagement brought against her by Russia remind us of those brought by the wolf against the sheep that drank at the same brook. When Prince Menschikoff’s departure, and the formidable preparations that Russia had been making ever since the beginning of the year, compelled her, as a measure of the commonest prudence, actively to arm, she did it quietly and unostentatiously, and exerted herself to the utmost to keep down the fanatical spirit of the Asiatics she summoned to the defence of her European territory. The only mistake the Porte may be thought to have made in the whole affair, is that it did not at once accept the Vienna note. It would then have been in the hands and under the protection of the honour of the Four Powers who drew it up, and who certainly could not have accepted the Czar’s interpretation, nor have suffered him to act upon it. Their conference was not held to compel Turkey to yield everything to Russia, but to pare down the exorbitance of the latter power’s demands. Here, again, however, the Sultan’s government was not free to act as it chose. The fanaticism of the Mussulmans was fully roused; and a furious insurrection, the Sultan’s deposition and death, and massacres of Christians, were perhaps only to be averted by the rejection of the note, as they since have been only by a declaration of war. This was made on the 9th of October, and much speculation is already afloat as to the prospects and probabilities of a campaign, which we still trust may be brought to a close before it has been commenced by anything more important than outpost skirmishes. From its very commencement, this Eastern question has abounded in curious and contradictory positions. Thus Turkey waits until October to declare a war which Russia has actually commenced nearly four months previously, by taking armed possession of a part of the Sultan’s territory. Her declaration of war is a mere acquiescence in the attitude her adversary has already imposed upon her. Another odd circumstance is that, as Russia is not likely to cross the Danube at this season of the year, but will more probably content herself with remaining quietly in the principalities, and there establishing her influence and organising her administration, the Turks, instead of standing on the defensive, must, if they wish to do anything, move forward to seek the invader. But it is more probable that they will remain in quiet observation on the south bank of the stream, unless indeed the fanatical ardour of the Moslem troops compels their chiefs to lead them across it—certainly a hazardous enterprise at this season, and in the presence of an enemy greatly superior, we suspect, in discipline, although perhaps neither in courage nor in numbers. The line of the Danube is a long one, however, and, with the forces the Czar had, up to the last accounts, in the provinces, it might be very difficult to prevent a Turkish corps d’armée from crossing at some unguarded spot.

The Turkish army, according to the most reliable accounts that can be obtained, consists of about 150,000 men, but a fresh levy of a like number has just been ordered; and, as far as numbers go, Turkey has vast resources in her fierce Asiatic population. Independently of her regular army, various provinces, which do not furnish soldiers in peace time, are bound to do so when war breaks out. Servia, Bosnia, Upper Albania, Egypt, Tripoli, Tunis, are amongst them. Egypt has already despatched her ten thousand. The editor of the French Journal de Constantinople, M. Nogués, affirmed about four months ago, in his newspaper, that in a general war, where important objects were at stake, the Sultan, as chief of the Mahometan faith, could rally round his banner a million of armed men, ardent in his cause, and eager to fight. Before taxing this estimate with exaggeration, we must remember how easy it is to rouse the fanaticism of the Asiatic Turks. The auxiliary contingents supplied by the European and African provinces enumerated above, are estimated, by another authority, to amount to 110,000 men. The rédif, or reserve, which is what the Sultan has just called out, consists of soldiers who, having served for the prescribed term of six years, obtain their discharge. For seven years from its date, they are on the strength of the reserve, whose skeleton is kept up, whose officers and non-commissioned officers are paid, and which is mustered at intervals, like our yeomanry and militia, to renew the habit of drill and discipline. Thus this reserve forms a second army, which a very short time would render as efficient as the first. Tartars, Cossacks from the lakes of Asia Minor, and other irregulars, are counted at about 60,000. By adding all these figures together we arrive at a total of upwards of 450,000 men. We do not, by the exhibition of these formidable numbers, mean to imply a belief that Turkey, left to her own resources, could make head against Russia, but all the evidence we have collected induces us to believe that the Czar’s armies would have some trouble and sharp fighting before getting to Constantinople.

A French writer, apparently military, and well acquainted with the ground, sketched, a few days ago, in a Paris paper, the Univers, the various routes the Russians might follow, supposing them across the Danube; and it is interesting to trace upon the map the track he assigns to the invaders. The Danube crossed, the Balkan is the next obstacle, and affords excellent positions to a defensive army. There are three roads by which the passage of this mountain may be attempted, and all three are parallel to the west coast of the Black Sea, “whence,” says the writer quoted, “the Russian army might be supplied and supported by its fleet, if England and France did not oppose it. The capture of the port of Varna would be a great advantage to Russia.” Not only advantageous, but indispensable. The navigation of the Black Sea is extremely perilous for large sailing vessels (of which the Turkish fleet in those waters is chiefly composed), owing to constant and capricious changes in the wind, which often chops suddenly round and rises into tremendous hurricanes. As refuge from these, Varna is the only port on the Turkish-European shore capable of receiving large vessels. But Varna is an exceedingly strong place; the Turkish artillery practice, thanks to Prussian instructors, is equal to any in Europe; and as an example of the manner in which Turks—fallen though their empire be, and extinguished their glory—will fight when well commanded, it is not uninteresting to refer to an account of the last siege of Varna.

“The important fortress of Varna, on the Black Sea,” (says M. Poujoulat, in his Histoire de Constantinople,[54]) “capitulated on the 10th October 1828, after a murderous siege of forty days’ duration. The Russian loss was very heavy. Yussuf Pasha, one of the chiefs of the Ottoman army, went over, with arms and baggage, to the Muscovite camp. This defection, purchased, it was said, by Russian gold, was the signal of Varna’s fall. What is certain is, that that general retired into Russia, where he lived in disgraceful splendour, although Mahmoud II. had confiscated all his possessions in Turkey. If Yussuf Pasha’s conduct was that of a traitor, that of Izzet Mehemet, governor of Varna, excited the admiration even of his enemies. Several times summoned to surrender, his invariable reply was, that he would never ask pardon of the Giaours. He fought like a gallant soldier to the very last. The Emperor Nicholas publicly eulogised his courage, and, unwilling to expose Varna to the horrors of capture by assault, he proposed to him to quit the town with the honours of war. Izzet Mehemet, who had but three hundred men left with him, accepted the offer. To recompense his brilliant behaviour, Mahmoud named him Grand Vizier.”

So that it will not do to reckon too much on the speedy capture of Varna, even in the improbable case that the English and French fleets allowed the Russians to come out of Sebastopol. Its possession, however, is not indispensable to the invaders’ land operations. Supposing a first battle to be fought and won by the Russians on the line of the Danube, the second, it is thought probable, would occur near Shumla, which is considered the key of the Balkan, and must, of course, be taken. Omar Pasha, it is said, has considerably strengthened its fortifications, as well as those of Rustchuk on the Danube. “Shumla,” says the writer in the Univers, “stands in a basin, between two abrupt peaks. A stream, the Tekie, deep sunk between its banks, covers the place on two sides. But it is approachable by artillery, especially by the side of Yenibazar (east by north), where there is a level and naked plateau. Shumla, surrounded by walls flanked by square towers, is the centre of a great intrenched camp, defended by earthen redoubts and deep ditches. Between Shumla and the Danube, most of the villages are palisaded. Shumla fallen and Pravadi taken, the Balkan would be open: the trenches and abattis in the defiles could not stop a Russian army.”

Supposing the Russians to be uniformly successful in their operations, a first campaign would hardly take them beyond Adrianople. The country between that place and Constantinople is hilly, sandy, and intersected by innumerable ravines, which the winter rains convert into watercourses. It would afford but scanty supplies, especially for the cavalry, and if the Russian fleet was captured or blockaded, the army might be put to great straits. The retreating Turks would, of course, leave as little as possible behind them, except, probably, a few bands of guerillas and partisans in the Balkan, who would be very useful in cutting off convoys. The artillery would have great difficulties to surmount in a country such as that, where the numerous mountains and ravines are as unfavourable to its progress as they are favourable to the sharpshooters, who would not fail to hang upon and harass the Russian line of march. The possession of the port of Midia, a little south of Adrianople, would be almost indispensable to the existence of the invading army. But, in or off that port, the French and English flags would doubtless be waving. Admitting, however, that all the difficulties and dangers of the march were overcome, and that the Russians were in sight of Constantinople, it is no light task that would still remain to be performed. “Constantinople,” says an authority already quoted, “is covered by a last line of which the Karasu is the chief defence. This little river forms a lake of fresh water, that flows by a large ravine into the Sea of Marmora. Eight leagues from the city it is traversed by a stone bridge, five hundred paces long. Between the city and this bridge, almost as far as the Cape of Kara-Burun, on the Black Sea, is one mass of precipitous mountains, on whose flank stands Constantinople, between the two seas. Some of the slopes extend as far as the Bosphorus, so that the city is surrounded by a girdle of natural fortifications. It would be almost impregnable on the land side, if artificial intrenchments were added to its natural defences; the old walls should be repaired, the large new barracks should be rendered, as far as possible, bombproof, and detached forts should be built on the heights, on both sides of the Liman. Hitherto we do not believe that anything very serious has been done in the way of fortifying Constantinople. Amongst other things, we doubt if sufficient attention has been paid to the hill of Multate, whence an enemy, once posted there, might batter the port and the buildings of the Admiralty. In a few weeks, however, the five or six hundred thousand inhabitants of Constantinople could construct, under the direction of European officers, the most necessary intrenchments. The Russians would then have great difficulty in taking the place. The strength and the natural resources of Constantinople account for the agony of the Byzantine empire having lasted several centuries. Besieged twenty-four times, this city has but six times been taken: in the last siege a few thousand Greeks defended it for fifty-three days, against the 250,000 soldiers of Mahomet II., at a period when the Turks were masters of the military art. “Constantinople,” the Duke of Ragusa said, “is the most important position in the world, and the easiest to defend.” As to the defences of the Dardanelles and Bosphorus they are too well known, and have been too often enumerated for it to be necessary here to recapitulate them. Tremendous and well-served batteries, guns that vomit stone-balls half a ton in weight, strong fortifications, to say nothing of the frequent fogs and difficult navigation of the Black Sea, render access to the Turkish capital by a hostile fleet a very desperate undertaking.”

The ambiguous and undecided attitude of Austria and Prussia renders it difficult to speculate on results in the case of the war on whose verge Europe apparently now totters. When Vienna conferences abruptly terminated, Olmutz and Warsaw interviews began, and it is impossible to say how far the arguments, energy, and moral superiority of the Czar may have influenced Prussia’s wavering king and Austria’s youthful emperor. The mere fact of these monarchs having hesitated to take a side, the neutrality they from the first attempted, the proposal of Austrian mediation, and the adhesion of Prussia to the Conference, sufficiently prove their real conviction as to what are their own interests and those of the countries they reign over. Had they had a doubt they would at once have declared themselves for Russia. But the course that common sense and sound policy suggest to them, is a strict union with the Western powers, than whom they are certainly not less interested in preventing that destruction of the balance of power in Europe which must result from Russia’s obtaining Constantinople. What does Russia care for the Danubian provinces, save as a step toward the attainment of her one great aim, the possession of the Turkish capital—which is at once the key of the Black Sea and of the Mediterranean, and the passage between those seas? Constantinople is the one great object on which her eyes have for more than a century been covetously fixed. If she be allowed to stretch her power that far south, none will be able to prevent her afterwards extending it both east and west. And she will become as dangerous a neighbour for Austria as she at present is for the decayed empire of the Ottomans.

If Russia persists in her aggression, which we do not believe that she will, and if Austria and Prussia stand aloof, which we doubt their doing should war break out, the contest can hardly be of long duration. The part taken in it by France and England will be chiefly maritime. The Black Sea swept of Russian vessels, all its ports garrisoned or blockaded, an Anglo-French army of moderate size supporting the Turks, and occupying Rodosti on the Sea of Marmora, French and English officers assisting the Turkish leaders with their counsels—such are the steps that will obviously first be taken. But it would be madness on the part of Russia to accept the struggle unless Austria and Prussia were with her. In that case, indeed, the war would assume a terrible and deplorable character: throughout Europe the democratic party would raise its head; Hungary and Lombardy would be quickly in arms; Germany and Italy would be the battlefields, and who shall foretell the issue of the strife!

For whatever evils may arise out of the present critical conjuncture, as well as for the prolongation of a state of suspense, which, in many respects, and especially in a commercial point of view, is nearly as prejudicial as war itself could be, Europe is indebted to the weakness of Lord Aberdeen, and to the servility of his supporters in the Cabinet. If Russia now gives way, she would manifestly have done so four months ago, had England then shown herself determined to oppose her aggressions. But the political predilections and illegitimate manœuvres of the Premier, and the feebleness and incapacity of the present Foreign Secretary, have prolonged the crisis and encouraged Russia; and if war occurs, at their door it will lie—the sole compensation being that they have at last shown themselves in their true colours, and utterly disgusted the country in whose government they have ill-advisedly been permitted to share.

Printed by William Blackwood & Sons, Edinburgh.

ENDNOTES:

1. Life of Benjamin Robert Haydon, Historical Painter, from his Autobiography and Journals. Edited and compiled by Tom Taylor, Esq. 3 vols. London, 1853.

2. Das Thierleben der Alpenwelt. By Frederick von Tschudi, Member of the Swiss Society of Naturalists. Leipzig: Weber. London: Williams & Norgate. 1853.

3. The hot south wind, which, when it sets in, usually in early spring, melts the snow and ice with magical rapidity. In the Grindlewald it often melts, in the course of twelve hours, a bed of snow more than two feet thick. Its agency in this respect is far more rapid and powerful than that of the sun, and in the upper Swiss valleys there is no proper spring until it comes—just as in autumn, in many parts of the Swiss lowlands, it is deemed indispensable to the proper ripening of the grape.

4. Hügelgebiet, or hill-district. Although he devotes his book to the three upper circles, Dr Tschudi establishes in his mind, and occasionally refers to, a fourth—the hill or hillock district, below the 2500 feet above the sea at which he considers the mountains to begin. There can be little difference between the flora and fauna of this lowest circle and those of the plain itself.

5. Such, at least, appears to be the case in the canton of Uri, (vide Tschudi, p. 365), but probably the regulation is not common to all the cantons; for at page 372 we find a friend of the doctor’s chamois-hunting in the Grisons in the month of June, and meeting professional chamois-hunters out after game. The following passage is worth quoting: “In the canton of Glarus the chamois has possessed, for many centuries, a free and protected refuge. The ordinances that the valleys and mountains situated between the Linth and the Sernf, as far as Frugmatt, should be ‘free mountains’ for chamois and all Alpine game, and that no one should shoot, or even carry a gun within those limits, date as far back as the fifteenth century. At times other mountain districts have been in a like manner protected, and the game greatly increased. Eight sworn hunters, appointed by the authorities, had orders to shoot, in the ‘free mountains’ between Jacobi and Martini, two chamois for every citizen of the canton who got married at that time, one chamois annually for the landammann, two for the burgomaster of Zurich, &c. With these exceptions, they were forbidden to shoot a single head of game in the fence-districts. In modern times, these wholesome regulations have ceased to be enforced. The canton of St Gall also possesses, in our day, preserved districts.”—Tschudi, p. 350–1.

6. Caledonia Romana; a Descriptive Account of the Roman Antiquities of Scotland, by the late Robert Stuart. Second edition. Revised by David Thomson, M.A. of Trinity College, Cambridge, Professor of Natural Philosophy in the University and King’s College of Aberdeen. Edinburgh: Sutherland & Knox.

7. Griechische Reisekizzen. Von Hermann Hettner. Brunswick, 1853.

8. We allude more particularly here to the German professor’s historical work on the Morea, and to Mr Finlay’s Medieval Greece and Trebizond, a work indispensable to every English historical library.

9. “Das Geschlecht der Hellenen ist in Europa ansgerottet.”—Preface to the Morea.

10. In the year 1825 its population was about 9000.—See Gordon’s History.

11. Gemülde von Griechenland. Von T. A. Ukert. Königsberg, 1810.

12. Athens is about four or five miles from the Piræus, while Edinburgh is only two from Granton. This is another point of the architectural position greatly in favour of Edinburgh. The firth, seen from Queen Street, is quite near enough to supply the want of a large river in the landscape.

13. This is wrong. About 27,000 was the number generally named to the present writer, when he asked the question during the present year on the spot. Strong, in his book, quoted below, gives 26,000. This was in the year 1842.

14. There is a street of Byron in Athens, below the Acropolis, at the south-east corner, just beside the street of Bacchus, as you go round to the Dionysiac theatre.

15. The Hellenic Kingdom and the Greek Nation. By George Finlay. London: Murray. 1836.

16. Fraas is no longer in Athens.

17. Some interesting details on the statistics of education in Greece, and conceived in a more reasonable spirit than the remarks of Mr Hettner, will be found in Strong’s Statistical Description of Greece. London, 1842.

18. As many of our readers perhaps labour under the erroneous impression that the language now spoken at Athens is a new composite language, standing in the same relation to classical Greek that Italian does to Latin, we can only advise them at present to procure a catalogue of his most recent publications from the bibliopole Coromelas, street of Hermes, Athens; and by ordering any of these works, they can satisfy themselves with their own eyes of the genuine Hellenic character of the language now used.

19. Evidence, p. 368.

20. Evidence, p. 226.

21. Ib., p. 154.

22. Ib., p. 218.

23. Ib., p. 21.

24. Ib., p. 218.

25. Did the learned Commissioners so little “know their man” as really not to detect in Mr Mansel’s evidence the happy vein of humour which has so often set St John’s common-room in a roar? Or was it that, conscious of the dulness of Blue-books in general, they purposely enlivened theirs with a few stray faceticæ?

26. Evidence, p. 218.

27. Ib., p. 56.

28. Ib., p. 196.

29. Mr Mansel’s evidence, p. 21.

30. Evidence, p. 12.

31. Vide Report, p. 96.

32. It appears from the evidence that there are at—

Tutors. | Lectures.
University | College, | 4 | giving | weekly | about | 50 | equal to | 12½ | each.
Balliol | „ | 5 | „ | „ | | 50 | „ | 10 | „
Merton | „ | 3 | „ | „ | | 35 | „ | 12 | „
Corpus | „ | 4 | „ | „ | | 30 | nearly | 8 | „
Wadham | „ | 4 | „ | „ | 65 to | 70 | about | 17 | „
Pembroke | „ | 3 | „ | „ | | 52 | „ | 17 | „
St John’s—each tutor 3 hours daily for 5 days in the week; and this is probably a fair guide to other colleges.

33. Evidence, p. 216.

34. The writer of these pages may be excused for inserting here a fact from his own experience. He read, while an undergraduate, with one of the most distinguished private tutors of that day, of whose ability and energy he would be ungrateful to speak a disparaging word. At that time this gentleman had about ten hours of each day occupied in tuition. The only hour at which the writer could secure his services was at half-past seven in the morning; and it was not surprising, however inconvenient, if, after the labours of the preceding day, that hour often found the tutor in bed. In bed, however, or during the intervals of dressing, the Ethics or the Rhetoric were duly discussed, he is bound to say carefully and ably, though certainly under difficulties. He was more fortunate, perhaps, than one of his fellow-pupils, who had the same hour assigned him in the evening. Punctually at the time appointed the tutor left his common-room, and the pupil his wine-party, and took up their positions in two arm-chairs on each side the fire in the tutor’s room. Both had worked hard during the day; if both had taken a glass or two of wine, no men deserved it better, or enjoyed it more; and sitting by the fire does make one sleepy. My friend confessed that, now and then, when the scout brought in tea, they used to look at their watches, and not feel quite certain whether they had construed that last chapter.

35. Evidence, p. 274.

36. Report, pp. 92, 93.

37. Evidence, p. 274.

38. Madden’s Travels in Turkey, &c., vol. i. pp. 25, 26, 27.

39. Cottle’s Early Recollections, vol. ii. p. 157.

40. Ibid., p. 185.

41. Among external symptoms he mentions that excessive perspiration, even at Christmas, attended in his case any great reduction in the daily dose of opium, and that in July this was so excessive as to oblige him to use a bath five or six times a-day.

42. First Report of the Commissioners of Inquiry into the State of Large Towns, 1844. Appendix, pp. 46, 48.

43. Burnes’s Visit to Scinde, p. 230, quoted by Meyen. Geog. of Plants, p. 360.

44. Morehead, On the Use of Inebriating Liquors, p. 106. London, 1824.

45. Pharmaceutical Journal, vol. xi. p. 364.

46. Pharmaceutical Journal, vol. i. p. 490.

47. See British and Foreign Medical Review, vol. xxiii. pp. 217–225.

48. “Madness hath imaginary bliss, and most men have no more.”—Tupper.

49. Moreau—Du Haschisch et de l’Alienation Mentale, p. 67. Paris, 1845.

50. British and Foreign Quarterly Review, vol. xxiii. p. 225.

51. The word Coca is derived from the Aymara word Khoka, signifying “plant,” in the same way as in Paraguay the indigenous tea-plant is called Yerba, “the plant” par excellence.

52. Pöppig, Reise in Chile, Peru und auf dem Amazon Ström, 1827 to 1832, chap. iv.

53. Dr Weddell states that the saliva is never rejected, and being a later authority than Von Tschudi, whom we have followed in the text, he is probably correct.

54. Paris, 1853. Vol. ii. p. 469, 470.

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES

- Fixed typos; non-standard spelling and dialect retained.

- Renumbered footnotes and moved them all to the end of the final chapter.

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Table of Contents

- BLACKWOOD’S EDINBURGH MAGAZINE. No. CCCCLVII. NOVEMBER, 1853. Vol. LXXIV.

- CONTENTS.
- HAYDON’S AUTOBIOGRAPHY.[1]
- BRUTE LIFE IN THE ALPINE REGIONS.[2]
- THE ROMANS IN SCOTLAND.[6]

- ATHENS IN 1853.[7]

- A GREEK COURT-BALL.

- THE UNIVERSITY.

- A FEW MORE WORDS ON UNIVERSITY REFORM.

- OUR COMMISSIONER IN PARIS.

- THE NARCOTICS WE INDULGE IN.

- PART II.

- POEMS BY H. G. K.

- FROM THE TENTS OF KEDAR.

- A CONFESSION.

- MOVEMENT.

- THE POET AND THE PASSIONS.

- A FEW FACTS CONCERNING THE TURKISH QUESTION.

- THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG™ LICENSE