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Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 65, No. 403, May, 1849

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Title: Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 65, No. 403, May, 1849

Author: Various


        
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BLACKWOOD'S EDINBURGH MAGAZINE, VOLUME 65, NO. 403, MAY, 1849 ***

    BLACKWOOD'S EDINBURGH MAGAZINE.

    NO. CCCCIII.      MAY, 1849.      VOL. LXV.




CONTENTS.


    COLONISATION--MR WAKEFIELD'S THEORY,         509

    THE REACTION, OR FOREIGN CONSERVATISM,       529

    MADAME D'ARBOUVILLE'S "VILLAGE DOCTOR,"      542

    NATIONAL EDUCATION IN SCOTLAND,              567

    ARARAT AND THE ARMENIAN HIGHLANDS,           577

    LEGITIMACY IN FRANCE,                        590

    THE COLLEGE. A SKETCH IN VERSE,              601

    JACK MOONLIGHT,                              606

    MOONLIGHT MEMORIES. BY B. SIMMONS,           613

    AUSTRIA AND HUNGARY,                         614




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. CCCCIII.      MAY, 1849.      VOL. LXV.




COLONISATION--MR WAKEFIELD'S THEORY.[1]


We agree with those, and they are the majority of reflective minds,
who, taking a survey of our half-peopled globe, and considering the
peculiar position which England occupies on it--her great maritime
power, her great commercial wants, her overflowing numbers, her
overflowing wealth--have concluded that colonisation is a work to
which she is especially called. She is called to it by her marked
aptitude and capability for the task, as well as by an enlightened
view of her own interests. Without too much national partiality,
without overlooking our own faults, and that canker of a too
money-loving, too money-making morality, which has eaten into our
character, (though perhaps not more so than it has corroded the
character of other European nations, who have quite as strong a
passion for gold, without the same industry in obtaining it,) we may
boldly say that the best seed-plot of the human race that now exists
(let the best be estimated as it may by the moralist and the divine)
is to be found in this island of Great Britain. To plant the
unoccupied regions of the earth, or regions merely wandered over by
scattered tribes of savages, who cannot be said to possess a soil
which they do not use, by off-sets from this island, is itself a good
work. It is laying no ill foundation for the future nations that shall
thus arise, to secure to them the same language, the same literature,
the same form of religion, the same polity, or, at all events, the
same political temper (the love and obedience to a constitution) that
we possess; to make native to them that literature in which the great
Christian epic has been written, in which philosophy has spoken most
temperately, and poetry most profusely, diversely, and vigorously. Nor
will England fail to reap her own reward from this enterprise. In
every part of the world an Englishman will find a home. It will be as
if his own native soil had been extended, as if duplicates of his own
native land had risen from the ocean. A commercial intercourse of the
most advantageous character will spring up; the population and the
wealth of the old country will find fresh fields of employment in the
new; the old country will itself grow young again, and start in the
race with her own children for competitors. Neither will the present
age pass by without participating in the benefit, since its
overcrowded population will be relieved by the departure of many who
will exchange want for plenty, and despondency for hope. Whatever
opinion may be held of the remedial efficacy against future pauperism
of a system of emigration, it must be allowed that this present relief
arrives most opportunely, as a balance to that extraordinary pressure
produced by the distress in Ireland, and the influx of its
famine-stricken peasantry into other parts of the kingdom.

On this subject--the measure of permanent relief which colonisation
will afford to this country by carrying off its surplus
population--the degree in which emigration may be calculated upon as
the future antagonist of pauperism--we would speak with caution. We
are so far hopeful that we see here a great resource against the
national evil of an unemployed population, but it is a resource which
must be rightly understood and wisely taken advantage of; it is a
great resource for an intelligent people; it comes in aid of that
fundamental remedy, a good sound education for the people, moral and
religious, but is no substitute for that most necessary of all
measures. Misunderstood, and vaguely relied on by those who know not
how properly to avail themselves of it, the prospect of emigration may
even prove mischievous, by rendering the thoughtless and improvident
still more reckless, still more improvident.

Granted, it may be said, that emigration supplies an outlet annually
for a certain excess of population, it supplies, by that very reason,
an additional and constant impulse to an increase of population. The
old country may overflow, but it is always kept full, and to the brim.
The restraint of prudence is relaxed. "We can feed ourselves; and, as
to our children, are there not the colonies?" may be said by many an
improvident pair. People even of the better sort, who would shrink
from the idea of their children sinking into a lower grade of society
than they themselves occupied, would find in emigration a vague
provision for the future family--a provision which would often
disappoint them, and which they would often fail in resolution to
embrace.

Let it be borne in mind that, when we speak of the duty of restraining
from improvident marriage, we are not inculcating any new morality
founded upon the recent science of political economy. It is a duty as
old as the love of a parent to his child, and needs only for its
enforcement an anticipation of this parental affection. No man who
_has_ married, and become a father, ever doubted of the existence of
such a duty, or spoke slightingly of it. Ask the Scotch peasant, ask
the simplest Switzer, who knows nothing of reading-clubs or mechanics'
institutes--who has perhaps never quitted his native valley, and all
whose knowledge is the growth of his own roof-tree--what he thinks of
the morality of him who becomes the father of a family he cannot rear,
or must rear like wild beasts more than men--he will give you an
answer that would satisfy the strictest Malthusian. The prudence that
would avoid famine, the just and righteous fear of having hungry
children about our knees--this is no new wisdom in the world, though,
like all our old wisdom, it continually cries in vain in our streets.
Now the operation of this, in every respect, moral restraint would be
materially interfered with, if the notion should prevail, that in the
colonies there existed (without any distinct knowledge how it was to
be secured) an inexhaustible provision for human life. Numbers would
marry, trusting to this resource, yet the offspring of such marriages
might never reach their destined refuge, or reach it only after much
suffering, and in the degraded condition of uneducated paupers. And
men who have calculated that, at all events, without seeking aid from
Government or the parish, they shall be able to send their child
abroad, when the child has grown up, will hesitate to part with it.
They had calculated what they would do, when parents, before they
became such. They had not been able to anticipate that bond of
parental affection which, we may observe in passing, is by no means
weakest in the humblest ranks, but, on the contrary, until we reach
the very lowest, seems to increase in strength as we descend in the
social scale.

The fact is, that it is not as a distant provision for their children
that the youthful pair should be taught to look on emigration. If it
comes at all into their calculation, they should embrace it as a
provision for themselves, and, through them, for their future
offspring. They should carry their hopes at once to the climate which
is to realise them. Marriage should be the period of emigration. At
this period a man can readily leave his country, for he can leave his
home. The newly married couple, as it is commonly said, and with no
undue exaggeration, are all the world to each other. It is at this
period that men have double the strength, for they have twice the
hope, and exhilaration, and enterprise, that they have at any other
epoch of their lives. That slender hoard, too, which will so soon be
wasted in this country, which a few pleasures will drain, would carry
them creditably into another, and lay the foundation for the utmost
prosperity their birth and condition has led them to wish for. To the
distant colony let them not devote their ill-fed and ill-taught
children; but, going thither themselves, rear a healthy race for whom
they will have no cares. If at this period of life it should become
the fashion of the humbler classes to emigrate, it would be difficult
to say how far our colonies might become a real, and effectual, and
permanent resource against overpopulation. At all events, the
mischievous influence we have been describing could never arise. We
see not why England, if she learns rightly to use them, may not reap
from her colonies all those advantages which the United States have
been so frequently felicitated upon in their territories in the Far
West. Much will depend on the current which public opinion takes.
Presuming that Government discontinues entirely the old system of
transportation, which must always render emigration extremely
unpalatable; presuming that a steady, equitable rule is adopted in
dealing with the unappropriated land, so that a moderate price, a
speedy possession, and a secure title may be depended upon--we think
it highly probable that colonisation will become very popular amongst
us. The more that is learnt about the colonies, the more the
imagination is familiarised with them by accounts of their climate,
products, and the mode of life pursued in them, the less apparent, and
the less fearful will their distance become, and the more frequently
will men find themselves carrying their hopes and enterprises in that
direction. If, therefore, an intelligent and practicable view is taken
of colonisation, we may re-echo, without scruple, the words of our
thoughtful poet--

                    "Avaunt the fear
    Of numbers crowded in their native soil,
    To the prevention of all healthful growth
    Through mutual injury! Rather in the law
    Of increase, and the mandate from above,
    Rejoice!--and ye have special cause for joy.
    For, as the element of air affords
    An easy passage to the industrious bees,
    Fraught with their burdens, and a way as smooth,
    For those ordained to take their sounding flight
    From the thronged hive, and settle where they list,
    In fresh abodes--their labour to renew;
    So the wide waters open to the power,
    The will, the instincts, and the appointed needs
    Of Britain; do invite her to cast off
    Her swarms, and in succession send them forth
    Bound to establish new communities
    On every shore whose aspect favours hope
    Or bold adventure; promising to skill
    And perseverance their deserved reward."

                                        _Excursion_, book 9.

How best to colonise; how far Government should undertake the
regulation and control of the enterprise; how far leave it to the
spirit and intelligence of private individuals, separate or banded
together in groups, or companies; and especially under what terms it
shall permit the occupation of the unappropriated soil--all these have
become highly interesting topics of discussion.

For ourselves, we will at once frankly confess that we have no faith
in any model colonies, in ideals of any description, or in any "_Art_
of colonisation." What has been done, may be done again; what America
is doing every day on the banks of the Mississippi, England may do in
her Australian continent. With regard more particularly to the last
and most important matter that can affect a new settlement, the mode
of dealing with the land, it appears to us that the duties of
Government are few, simple, and imperative--as simple in their
character as they are indispensable. A previous survey, a moderate
price, lots large and small to suit all purchasers--these are what we
should require. The land-jobber, who interposes between Government
and the emigrant, to make a cruel profit of the latter, must be kept
out, either by laying a tax (as they do in America, under the
denomination of the "Wild-land Tax,") on all land not reclaimed within
a certain time, or by declaring the purchase forfeited, if, within
that time, the soil is not cultivated. Government also must restrain
its own hands from large grants to favoured individuals, who are no
better than another species of land-jobbers. This, though a merely
negative duty, will probably be the last performed, and the most
imperfectly. Few readers are perhaps aware of the criminal ease with
which the Government has been persuaded into lavish grants of land to
persons who had, and could have, no immediate prospect of making use
of it; enormous grants unjust to other settlers, and ruinous to the
young colony, by dispersing the emigrants, interposing between them
wide tracts of barren property. We ourselves read with no little
surprise the following statement, which we extract from the work
before us, Mr Wakefield's _Art of Colonisation_:--

     "There are plenty of cases in which mischievous dispersion
     has taken place, but not one, to my knowledge, in which the
     great bulk of settlers had a choice between dispersion and
     concentration. In the founding of West Australia there was no
     choice. In disposing of the waste land, the Government began
     _by granting 500,000 acres (nearly half as much as the great
     county of Norfolk) to one person_. _Then came the governor
     and a few other persons, with grants of immense extent._ The
     first grantee took his principality at the landing-place; and
     the second, of course, could only choose his outside of this
     vast property. Then the property of the second grantee
     compelled the third to go further off for land; and the
     fourth again was driven still further into the wilderness. At
     length, though by a very brief process, an immense territory
     was appropriated by a few settlers, who were so effectually
     dispersed, that, as there were no roads or maps, scarcely one
     of them knew where he was. Each of them knew, indeed, that he
     was where he was positively; but his relative position--not
     to his neighbours, for he was alone in the wilderness, but to
     other settlers, to the seat of government, and even to the
     landing-place of the colony--was totally concealed from him.
     This is, I believe, the most extreme case of dispersion on
     record. In the founding of South Africa by the Dutch, the
     dispersion of the first settlers, though superficially or
     _acreably_ less, was as mischievous as at Swan River. The
     mischief shows itself in the fact, that two of the finest
     countries in the world are still poor and stagnant colonies.
     _But in all colonies, without exception, there has been
     impoverishing dispersion, arising from one and the same
     cause._"--(P. 433.)

Two very different _ideals_ of colonisation have often haunted the
imaginations of speculative men, and coloured very diversely their
views and projects on this subject. Both have their favourable
aspects; neither is practicable. As is usual, the rough reality rides
zig-zag between your ideals, touching at both in turns, but running
parallel with neither.

With one party of reasoners, the ideal of a colony would be a
miniature England, a little model of the old country, framed here, at
home, and sent out (like certain ingeniously-constructed houses) to be
erected forthwith upon the virgin soil. A portion of all classes would
sally forth for their New Jerusalem. The church, with tower and
steeple, the manor-house, the public library, the town-hall, the
museum, and the hospital, would all simultaneously be reproduced.
Science would have its representatives. Literature with its light
luggage, thoughts and paper, would be sure to hover about the train.
Nobility would import its antique honours into the new city, and, with
escutcheon and coat of arms, traditionally connect it with knighthood
and chivalry, Agincourt, and the Round Table. There would be
physicians and divines, lawyers, and country gentlemen "who live at
ease," as well as the artisan and ploughman, and all who work in wood
and in iron. Dr Hind, the present Dean of Carlisle, in an elegantly
written essay, incorporated in Mr Wakefield's book, proposes and
advocates this mode of colonisation. After remarking on the greater
success which apparently accompanied the schemes of the Greeks and
Romans to found new communities, Dr Hind thus proceeds.--The italics,
it may be as well to say, are his, not ours.

"The main cause of this difference may be stated in few words. We send
out colonies of the limbs, without the belly and the head; of needy
persons, many of them mere paupers, or even criminals; colonies made
up of a _single class_ of persons in the community, and that the most
helpless, and the most unfit to perpetuate our national character, and
to become the fathers of a race whose habits of thinking and feeling
shall correspond to those which, in the mean time, we are cherishing
at home. The ancients, on the contrary, sent out _a representation of
the parent state--colonists from all ranks_." And further on, after
insisting on the propriety of appointing to the colony educated and
accomplished clergymen, he says--"The same may be urged in respect of
men of other professions and pursuits. The desirable consummation of
the plan would be, that a specimen, or sample, as it were, of all that
goes to make up society in the parent country, should _at once_ be
transferred to its colony. Instead of sending out bad seedlings, and
watching their uncertain growth, let us try whether a perfect tree
will not bear transplanting."

We apprehend that this project of "transplanting a perfect tree" is
none of the most feasible. However the Greeks managed matters, we
moderns find it absolutely necessary to begin "at the beginning," and
with somewhat rude beginnings. If the Greeks had the art in the
colony, as in the epic poem, of rushing _in medias res_--of starting
with and from maturity--then indeed must colonisation be reckoned, as
Dr Hind seems half to suspect, amongst the _artes perditæ_. Anything
more lamentable than a number of cultivated men--"samples" of all
kinds, physicians, and divines, and lawyers, with, of course, their
several ladies--set down upon the uncultivated soil, on the long green
grass, we cannot imagine. It seems to us quite right and unavoidable
to send out "a single class," first--good stout "limbs," without much
of "the belly"--which must mean, we presume, the idle folks, or much
of "the head," which must mean the thinkers. That class, or those
classes which cultivate the soil, and render the place somewhat
habitable, had better surely precede, and act as pioneers, before the
gentry disembark from their ships. Other classes must follow as they
are wanted, and find room and scope. What would the physician do with
his elaborate skill and courtesy, without that congregation of idlers
on whose ailments he rides and dines? What need yet of eloquent
barrister, or are his fees forthcoming, when a new estate could be
purchased with less money than would serve to defend the old one by
his pleading? Who would attend to the man of science, and his latest
experiments on magnetic currents, when every one is trying over again
the very first experiment--how to live?--where corn will grow, and
what the potato will yield? Even your clergy must be of a somewhat
different stamp from the polished ecclesiastic, the bland potentate of
our drawing-rooms. He must have something more natural--"some
rough-cast and a little loam" about him, be serviceable, accessible.
And the fair "sample" partners of all these classes, what is to become
of them? As yet, pin-money is not. There is nothing refined and
civilised; men talk of marriage as if for prayer-book purposes. Very
gross ideas!

The ancients, says Dr Hind, "began by nominating to the honourable
office of captain, or leader of the colony, one of the chief men, if
not the chief man of the state--like the queen bee leading the
workers. Monarchies provided a prince of the blood royal; an
aristocracy its choicest nobleman; a democracy its most influential
citizen." In order to entice some one of our gentry--some one of
wealth, station, and cultivated mind, to act as "queen bee" of the
colony--seeing that a prince of the blood royal, or a Duke of
Northumberland, would be hard to catch--the Doctor proposes to bestow
upon him a patent of nobility. Wealth he has already, and wealth would
not bribe him, but honour might. We see nothing ridiculous whatever in
the suggestion. A patent of nobility might be much worse bestowed;
but, unless we err greatly in our notion of what colonisation really
is, the bribe would be lamentably insufficient. The English gentleman
of fortune and of taste, who should leave his park and mansion in the
county of Middlesex, to share the squabbles and discomforts of a crowd
of emigrants--too often turbulent, anxious, and avaricious--would have
well earned his earldom. He would be a sort of hero. Men of such a
temper you may decorate with the strawberry leaf, but it is not the
coronet, nor any possible bribe--nothing short of a certain thirst for
noble enterprise can prompt them.

The other ideal of what colonisation might be is quite the reverse,
presents a picture every way opposite to this of our classical dean.
Many energetic and not uncultured spirits, wearied with the endless
anxieties, cares, hypocrisies, and thousand artificialities of life,
are delighted with the idea of breaking loose from the old trammels
and conventionalities of civilisation. Their romance is to begin life
afresh. Far from desiring to form a part of the little model-England,
they would take from the Old World, if possible, nothing more than
knowledge, seeds, and tools. To a fresh nature they would take a fresh
heart, and a vigorous arm. Fields rescued by themselves from the waste
should ripen under their own eyes. Thus, with a rude plenty, care and
luxury alike cut off, no heartburnings, no vanity, a cultivated temper
and coarse raiment--they and their families, and some neighbours of
kindred dispositions, would really enjoy the earth, and the being God
had given them. Not theirs the wish to see a matured society spring
from the new soil. They regret to think that their own rustic
community must inevitably advance, or decline, into some one of the
old forms of civilisation; but they and their children, and perhaps
their grandchildren, would be partakers of a peculiar and envied state
of social existence, where the knowledge and amenity brought from the
old country would be combined with the healthy toil and simple
abundance of the new; where life would be unanxious, laborious, free;
where there would be no talk of wars, nor politics, nor eternal
remediless distress; but a disciplined humanity, in face of a kindly
nature whose bounty had not yet been too severely taxed.

A charming ideal! which here and there is faintly and transiently
realised. Here and there we catch a description of this simple,
exhilarating, innocuously enterprising life, either in some Canadian
settlement, or in the forests of America, or even in _the Bush_ of
Australia. There is rude health in all the family; housekeeping is a
sort of perpetual pic-nic, full of amusing make-shifts; there is
rudeness, but not barbarism; little upholstery, but wife and child are
caressed with as much amenity and gentle fondness as in carpeted and
curtained drawing-rooms. If the tin can should substitute the china
cup, the tea is drunk with not the less urbanity. Such scenes we have
caught a glimpse of in this or that writer. But alas! that which
generally characterises the young settlement, let it be young as it
may--that which would so wofully disappoint our pastoral and romantic
emigrant, is precisely this: that, instead of leaving care behind
them, the care to get rich, _to get on_, as it is disgustingly
called--our colonists take a double portion of this commodity with
them. Comparatively few seem to emigrate simply to live then and there
more happily. They take land, as they would take a shop, to get a
profit and be rich. And then, as for the little community and its
public or common interests, it is the universal remark that, if
politics in England are acrid enough, colonial politics are bitterness
itself. The war is carried on with a personal hatred, and attended by
personal injuries, unknown in the old country.

One would indeed think that people, fatigued with this anxious passion
which plays so large a part in English life--this desire to advance,
or secure, their social position--would seize the opportunity to
escape from it, and rejoice in their ability to live in some degree of
freedom and tranquillity. But no. The man commerce bred cares not to
enjoy life and the day. He must make a profit out of himself; he must
squeeze a profit out of others; he toils only for this purpose. If he
has succeeded, in the new colony, in raising about him the requisite
comforts of life--if he has been even rescued from threatened famine
in England, and is now living and well housed, he and his family--you
find him full of discontent because of the "exorbitant wages" he has
to pay to the fellow emigrants who assist him in gathering in his
corn--full of discontent because he cannot make the same profit of
another man's labour _there_ that he could have done in the old
country--in that old country where he could not for his life have got
so much land as the miserable rag upon his back would have covered.
Such men carry out a heart to work, none to enjoy: they have not been
cultivated for that. The first thing the colonist looks for is
something _to export_. It was in vain that Adelaide boasted its
charming climate and fruitful fields; it was on the point of being
abandoned--so we hear--by many of its inhabitants, when some mines
were discovered. There was then something that would sell in England,
something to get rich with; so they that would have left the soil,
stayed to work in the bowels of the earth. In _the Bush_ you hear of
the shepherds and small owners of sheep living, the year round, on
"salt beef, tea, and damper," which last is an extemporised bread, an
unleavened dough baked in such oven as the usual fire-place supplies.
But fresh mutton, you exclaim, is plentiful enough; what need to diet
themselves as if they were still in the hold of that vessel which
brought them over? True, plentiful enough--it sells in Sydney at some
three-halfpence a pound; but while the sheep lives it grows wool upon
its back. For this wool it is bred. Sometimes it is boiled down bodily
for its tallow, which also can be exported. Mutton-chops would be a
waste; it would be a sin to think of them.

Set sail from England in whichever direction you will, East or West,
over whichever ocean, the first thing you hear of, in respect to
colonial society, is its proverbial "smartness"--an expression which
signifies a determination to cheat you in every possible manner. The
Old World, and the worst of it, is already there to welcome you. Nay,
it has taken possession of the very soil before the spade of the
emigrant can touch it. There lies the fresh land, fresh--so geologists
say of Australia--as it came up at its last emergence from the ocean.
You are first? No. The land-jobber is there before you. This foulest
harpy from the stock exchange has set its foot upon the greensward,
and screeches at you its cry for _cent per cent_!

There is yet a third and later ideal of colonisation--the ideal of the
political economist. With him colonisation presents itself under the
especial aspect of a great _exploitation_ of the earth. He is desirous
that capital and labour should resort to those spots where they will
be most productive. Thus the greatest possible amount of production
will be generated between man and his terraqueous globe; capital and
labour are with him the first elements of human prosperity; and to
transfer these in due proportions, and as quickly as possible, to the
new land, when they may be most profitably employed, is the main
object of his legislation. Hitherto, it may be observed, the political
economist has limited his efforts to the _undoing_ what he conceives
has been very unskilfully done by previous legislators. In this matter
of emigration he steps forward as legislator himself. It is no longer
for mere liberty and _laissez-faire_ that he contends; he assumes a
new character, and out of the theory of his science produces his
system of rule and regulation. He knows how a small village becomes a
great city; he will apply his knowledge, and by positive laws expedite
the process. Let us see with what success he performs in this new
character.

Mr Wakefield's system--for it is he who has the honour of originating
this politico-economical scheme--consists in putting a price upon
unoccupied land, and with the proceeds of the sale raising a _fund for
the transmission of emigrant labourers_. This is, however, but a
subordinate part of his project, which we mention thus separately,
because, for a purpose of our own, we wish to distinguish it from the
rest. This price must, moreover, (and here is the gist of the matter,)
be that "sufficient price" which will _debar the labourer from
becoming too soon a proprietor of land_, and thus deserting the
service of the capitalist.

The object of Mr Wakefield, it will be seen at once, is to procure the
speedy transmission in due proportion of capital and labour. The
capitalist would afford the means of transferring the labourer to the
scene of action; the labourer would be retained in that condition in
order to invite and render profitable the wealth of the capitalist.
The twofold object is good, and there is an apparent simplicity in the
means devised, which, at first, is very captivating. There is nothing
from which the colonial capitalist suffers so much as from the want of
hired labour. He purchases land and finds no one to cultivate it; the
few he can engage he cannot depend upon; the project of agricultural
improvement which, if it be not completed, is utterly null and
useless, is arrested in mid progress by the desertion of his workmen;
or his capital is exhausted by the high wages he has paid before the
necessary works can be brought to a termination. The capitalist has
gone out, and left behind him that class of hired labourers without
which his capital is useless. Meanwhile, in England, this very class
is super-abundant; but it is not the class which spontaneously leaves
the country, or can leave it. Mr Wakefield's scheme supplies the
capitalist with the labour so essential to him, and relieves our
parishes of their unemployed poor. But these emigrant labourers would
soon extend themselves over the new country, as small proprietors,--Mr
Wakefield checks this natural tendency by raising the price of land.

There is, we say, an apparent and captivating simplicity in the
scheme; but we are persuaded that, the more closely it is examined,
the more impracticable and perplexing it will reveal itself to be. As
Mr Wakefield's system has made considerable progress in public
opinion, and obtained the approval, not only of eager speculative
minds, but of cool and calculating economists--as it has already
exerted some influence, and may exert still more, upon our colonial
legislation--and as we believe that the attempt to carry it out will
give rise to nothing better than confusion and discontent, we think we
shall be doing no ill service to the cause of colonisation by entering
into some investigation of it.

We are compelled to make a division, or what to Mr Wakefield will
appear a most unscientific _fracture_, of the two parts of his scheme.
We acquiesce in fixing _a_ price upon unappropriated land, and with
the proceeds of the sale forming a fund for the transmission and
outfit of the poor emigrant. We do not say that these proceeds must
necessarily supply _all_ the fund that it may be thought advisable to
spend in this matter, or that the price is to be regulated solely
according to the wants of this emigration fund. But we do _not_
acquiesce in the proposal to fix a price for the specific purpose of
retarding the period at which the labourer may himself become a
proprietor. The doctrine of "a sufficient price" (as it has been
called, and for brevity's sake we shall adopt the name) we entirely
eschew. To the imposing of an artificial value upon the land, for this
purpose, we will be no parties. Simply to transport the labourer
hence, shall be the object of our price, beyond such other reasons as
may be given for selling at a certain moderate sum the waste land of
the colonies, instead of disposing of it by free grant. This object
may be shown to be equitable; it appeals to the common justice of
mankind. But as to the longer or shorter term the hired labourer
remains in the condition of hired labourer, for this the capitalist
must take his chance. This must be determined, as it is in the old
country, and as alone it can be determined amicably, by that current
of circumstances over which neither party can exercise a direct
control. To such collateral advantage as may accrue to the capitalist
from even the price we should impose, he is welcome; only we do not
legislate for this object--we neither give it, nor take it away.

The wild unappropriated land of our colonies belongs to the crown, to
the state--it is, as Mr Wakefield says, "a valuable national
property." In making use of this land, one main object would be to
relieve the destitute of the old country; to give them, if possible, a
share of it. What more just or more rational? To give, however, the
soil itself to the very poor would be idle. They cannot reach it, they
cannot travel to their new estate--they have no seeds, no tools, no
stock of any kind wherewith to cultivate it. The gift would be a mere
mockery. We will sell it, then, to those who can transport themselves
thither, and who have the necessary means for its cultivation, and the
purchase-money shall be paid over to the very poor. By far the best
way of paying over this purchase-money, which as a mere gift of so
much coin would be all but worthless, and would be spent in a week, is
by providing them with a free passage to the colony where they will
permanently improve their condition; obtaining high wages, and
probably, after a time, becoming proprietors themselves; and assisting
in turn, by the purchase-money their own savings will have enabled
them to pay, to bring over other emigrants to the new field of labour,
and the new land of promise.

This is an equitable arrangement, and, what is more, the equity of it
is level to the common sense of all mankind. It effects also certain
desirable objects, though not such as our theorist has in view. It
places the land in the possession of men who will and can cultivate
it, and who, by paying a certain moderate price, have shown they were
in earnest in the business; and it has transmitted, at their expense,
labourers to the new soil. With the question, how long these shall
continue labourers, it interferes not. It is a question, we think, no
wise man would meddle with. Least of all does it represent that the
capitalist has obtained any claim upon the services of the labourer,
by having paid for his passage out: this payment was no gift of his;
it was the poor man's share of the "national property." They meet in
the colony as they would have met in England, each at liberty to do
the best he can for himself.

Observe how the difficulties crowd upon us, when we enter upon the
other and indeed the essential part of Mr Wakefield's scheme. The
emigrant is not "too soon" to become a proprietor. What does this "too
soon" mean? How long is he to be retained in the condition of hired
labourer? How many years? Mr Wakefield never fixes a period. He could
not. It must depend much upon the rapidity of immigration into the
colony. If the second batch of immigrants is slow of coming in, the
first must be kept labourers the longer. If the stream of labour flow
but scantily into this artificial canal, the locks must be opened the
more rarely. But how is the "sufficient price" to be determined until
this period be known? It is the sum the labourer can save from his
wages, during this time, which must constitute the price of so much
land as will support him and his family, and enable him to turn
proprietor. Thus, in order to regulate the sufficient price, it will
be necessary to find the average rate of wages, the average amount of
savings that a labourer could make (which, again, must depend upon the
price of provisions, and other necessaries of life) during an unknown
period!--and, in addition to this, to determine the average produce of
so many acres of land. The apparent simplicity of the scheme resolves
itself into an extreme complexity. The author of it, indeed, proposes
a short method by which his sufficient price may be arrived at without
these calculations: what that short method is, and how fallacious it
would prove, we shall have occasion to show.

But granting that, in any manner, this "sufficient price" could be
determined, the measure has an unjust and arbitrary character. It is
not enough that such a scheme could be defended, and shown to be
equitable, because for the general good, before some committee of
legislators; if it offends the popular sense of justice it can never
prosper. "I know," the humble emigrant might say--"I know there must
be rich and poor in the world; there always have been, and always will
be. To what is inevitable one learns to submit. If I am born poor
there is no help for it, except what lies in my own ability and
industry. But if you set about, by artificial regulations, in a new
colony, where fruitful land is in abundance, to keep me poor, because
I am so now, I rebel. This is not just. Do I not see the open land
before me unowned, untouched? I well enough understood that, in old
England, I could not take so much of any field as the merest shed
would cover--not so much as I could burrow in. Long before I was born
it had been all claimed, hedged, fenced in, and a title traced from
ancestor to ancestor. Here, I am the ancestor!"

Tell such a man that a price is put upon the land in order that some
companions whom he left starving in England may come over and partake
the benefit of this unbroken soil,--he will see a plain justice here.
He himself was, perhaps, brought over by the price paid by some
precursor. What he received from one more prosperous, he returns to
another less prosperous than himself. But tell him that a price is put
upon the land, in order that he may serve a rich master the
longer,--in order that he may be kept in a subordinate station, from
which circumstances now permit him to escape--he will see no justice
in the case. He will do everything in his power to evade your law; he
will look upon your "sufficient price" as a cruel artificial barrier
raised up against him; he will go and "squat" upon the land, without
paying any price at all.

Indeed, the objection to his scheme, which Mr Wakefield seems to feel
the strongest,--to which he gives the least confident reply, is just
this--that, equitable or not, it would be impossible to carry out his
law into execution; that if the price were high enough to answer his
purposes, the land, in colonial dialect, would be "squatted"
on,--would be taken possession of without any payment whatever. A
moderate price men will cheerfully pay for the greater security of
title: Englishmen will not, for a slight matter, put themselves
wittingly on the wrong side of the law. But, if coupled with a high
price, there is a rankling feeling of injustice: they will be very apt
to satisfy themselves with actual possession, and leave the legal
title to follow as it may. It is true, as Mr Wakefield urges, the
richer capitalists will by no means favour the squatter; they will be
desirous of enforcing a law made for their especial benefit. But they
will not form the majority. Popular opinion will be against them, and
in favour of the squatter. It would not be very easy to have a police
force, and an effective magistracy, at the outskirts of a settlement
stretching out, in some cases, into an unexplored region. Besides, it
is a conspicuous part of Mr Wakefield's plan to give municipal or
local governments to our colonies: these, as emanating from the
British constitution, must need be more or less of a popular
character; and we are persuaded that no such popular local government
would uphold his "sufficient price," or tolerate the principle on
which it was founded.

But, even if practicable, if carried out into complete execution, it
remains to be considered whether the measure proposed would really
have the effect contemplated by our theorist--that of supplying the
capitalist with the labour he needs. With a certain number of
_labourers_ it might,--but of what character? It is not a remote
possibility that will influence a common day-labourer to save his
earnings. It is one of the terms of the proposition that high wages
are to be given; for without these there would be no emigration, and
certainly no fear of a too speedy promotion to the rank of proprietor.
It follows, therefore, that you have a class of men earning high
wages, and not under any strong stimulus to save--a class of men
always found to be the most idle and refractory members of the
community. A journeyman who has no pressing motive for a provident
economy, and who earns high wages, is almost invariably a capricious
unsteady workman, on whom no dependence can be placed; who will
generally work just so many days in the week as are necessary to
procure him the enjoyments he craves. One of these enjoyments is
indolence itself,--a sottish, half-drunken indolence. Drinking is the
coarse pleasure of most uneducated men: it is so even in the old
country; and in a colony where there are still fewer amusements for
the idle hour, it becomes almost the sole pleasure. How completely it
is the reigning vice of our own colonies is known to all. Imagine a
labourer in the receipt of high wages, little influenced by the remote
prospect of becoming, by slow savings, a proprietor of land--and
feeling, moreover, that he was retained in a dependent condition,
arbitrarily, artificially, expressly for the service of the
capitalist--what amount of _work_ think you the capitalist-farmer
would get from such a labourer? Not so much in seven years as he
would have had from him in two, if, at the end of that two, the man
had calculated upon being himself a farmer.

Recollect that it is not slave labour, or convict labour, that we are
here dealing with: it is the free labour of one man working for
another man, at wages. He gets all the wages he can, and gives as
little labour as he can. If the wages are high, and the inducement to
save but feeble, he will probably earn by one day's work what will
enable him to pass the two next in idleness and debauchery. What boon
will Mr Wakefield have conferred upon the capitalist?

The theory of a "sufficient price" is, therefore, placed in this
hopeless predicament:--1. It would be almost impossible to enforce it;
and, 2. If enforced, it would fail of its purpose. It would supply the
capitalist with inefficient, profligate, and idle workmen, on whose
steady co-operation and assistance he could never calculate.

That it may be desirable to tempt the capitalist abroad by securing
him an abundance of hired labour, something like that which lies at
his door in England, we do not dispute. But the thing is impossible.
You cannot manage this by direct legislation. You cannot combine in
one settlement the advantages of a new and of an old country. It is
not in the wit of man to bring together these two stages of society.
Our political economist is in too great a haste to be rich: he forgets
the many lessons he has given to others against bootless and
mischievous intermeddling with the natural course of things. Meanwhile
"the attempt will confound us,"--it will throw an unpopularity over
the whole subject of emigration in the minds of the working classes.
Already we hear it murmured that the land is to be made a monopoly for
the rich; that the man of small substance is to be discouraged; that
the sole object of the moneyed class is to make profit of the labours
of others; and that they are bent upon creating, artificially, in the
colony, those circumstances which put the workmen in their power in
the old country. We would earnestly counsel those who are interested
in the subject of emigration, to consider well before they teach or
practise this new "_art_ of colonisation."

Those who have not perused Mr Wakefield's book may, perhaps, entertain
a suspicion that, in thus separating the objects for which a price is
to be laid on land, admitting the one and rejecting the other, we are
only engaging ourselves unnecessarily in a theoretical debate. If a
price is to be affixed, the result, it may seem to them, is
practically the same, whatever the object may be. But the practical
result would be very different; for a very different price would be
exacted, according to the object in view, as well as a very different
motive assigned for imposing it. The price at which a considerable
fund would be raised for the purpose of emigration, would be too low
to answer the purpose of restraining the labourer from soon becoming a
proprietor of land. Those, however, who are familiar with Mr
Wakefield's book, know well that this last purpose forms the very
substance of the plan it proposes; and that hitherto no
price--although it has ranged as high as 40s. per acre--has been
considered sufficiently high to effect the object of the theorist.

     "There is but one object of a price," says Mr Wakefield, (p.
     347,) "and about that there can be no mistake. The sole
     object of a price is to prevent labourers from turning into
     landowners too soon: the price must be sufficient for that
     one purpose, and no other." "The sufficient price," he says,
     (p. 339,) "has never yet been adopted by a colonising
     government." And a little further, (p. 341,) he thus
     continues: "There are but three places in which the price of
     new land has had the least chance of operating beneficially.
     These are South Australia, Australia Felix, and New Zealand.
     In none of these cases did the plan of granting with
     profusion precede that of selling; but in none of them did
     the price required prevent the cheapest land from being cheap
     enough to inflict on the colony all the evils of an extreme
     scarcity of labour for hire. In these cases, moreover, a
     large portion of the purchase-money of waste land was
     expended in conveying labourers from the mother-country to
     the colony. If this money had not been so spent, the
     proportion of land to people would have been very much
     greater than it was, and the price of new land still more
     completely inoperative. More facts might be cited to show the
     insufficiency of the highest price yet required for new
     land."

We will continue our first quotation from p. 347. The manner in which
Mr Wakefield himself exposes the difficulties of fixing the
"sufficient price," and the very inadequate expedient he points out
for obviating, or avoiding, these difficulties, may throw some further
light upon the matter.

     "The sole object of a price is to prevent labourers from
     turning into landowners too soon: the price must be
     sufficient for that one purpose, and no other. The question
     is, What price would have that one effect? That must depend,
     first, on what is meant by 'too soon;' or on the proper
     duration of the term of the labourer's employment for hire;
     which again must depend upon the rate of the increase of
     population in the colony, especially by means of immigration,
     which would determine when the place of a labourer, turning
     out a landowner, would be filled by another labourer; and the
     rate of labour-emigration again must depend on the popularity
     of the colony at home, and on the distance between the
     mother-country and the colony, or the cost of passage for
     labouring people. Secondly, what price would have the desired
     effect, must depend on the rate of wages and cost of living
     in the colony, since according to these would be the
     labourer's power of saving the requisite capital for turning
     into a landowner: in proportion to the rate of wages, and the
     cost of living, would the requisite capital be saved in a
     longer or a shorter time. It depends, thirdly, on the soil
     and climate of the colony, which would determine the quantity
     of land required (on the average) by a labourer, in order to
     set himself up as a landowner. If the soil and climate were
     unfavourable to production, he would require more acres; if
     it were favourable, fewer acres would serve his purpose: in
     Trinidad, for example, ten acres would support him well; in
     South Africa, or New South Wales, he might require fifty or a
     hundred acres. But the variability in our wide colonial
     empire, not only of soil and climate, but of all the
     circumstances on which a sufficient price would depend, is so
     obvious, that no examples of it are needed. It follows, of
     course, that different colonies, and sometimes different
     groups of similar colonies, would require different prices.
     To name a price for all the colonies, would be as absurd as
     to fix the size of a coat for mankind.

     "'But, at least,' I hear your Mr Mother-country say, 'name a
     price for some particular colony--a price founded on the
     elements of calculation which you have stated.' I could do
     that, certainly, for some colony with which I happen to be
     particularly well acquainted, but I should do it doubtingly,
     and with hesitation; for, in truth, the elements of
     calculation are so many, and so complicated in their various
     relations to each other, that in depending on them
     exclusively there would be the utmost liability to error. A
     very complete and familiar knowledge of them in each case
     would be a useful general guide, would throw valuable light
     on the question, would serve to inform the legislator how far
     his theory and his practice were consistent or otherwise;
     but, in the main, he must rely, and if he had common sagacity
     he might solely and safely rely, upon no very elaborate
     calculation, but on experience, or the facts before his eyes.
     _He could always tell whether or not labour for hire was too
     scarce or too plentiful in the colony. If it were too
     plentiful, he would know that the price of new land was too
     high--that is, more than sufficient: if it were hurtfully
     scarce, he would know that the price was too low, or not
     sufficient. About which the labour was--whether too plentiful
     or too scarce--no legislature, hardly any individual, could
     be in doubt_, so plain to the dullest eye would be the facts
     by which to determine that question. If the lawgiver saw that
     the labour was scarce, and the price too low, he would raise
     the price; if he saw that labour was superabundant, and the
     price too high, he would lower the price; if he saw that
     labour was neither scarce nor superabundant, he would not
     alter the price, because he would see that it was neither too
     high nor too low, but sufficient."

Admirable machinery! No steam-engine could let its steam on, or off,
with more precision. The legislature or governor "could always tell
whether or not labour for hire was too scarce or too plentiful," and
open or close his value accordingly. "No legislature, hardly any
individual could be in doubt" about the matter! Indeed! when was hired
labour ever thought too cheap--in other words, too plentiful--by the
capitalist? When was it ever thought too dear--in other words, too
scarce--by the labourer? Could the most ingenious man devise a question
on which there would be more certainly two quite opposite and
conflicting opinions? And suppose the legislature to have come to a
decision--say that the labour was too scarce--there would still be this
other question to decide, whether to _lower_ the price, in order to
tempt emigrants, might not be as good a means of rendering labour more
plentiful, as to _raise_ the price in order to render it still more
difficult for labourers to become landowners? Here there is surely
scope for the most honest diversity of opinion. One party might very
rationally advise to entice thither the stream of emigration:--"Let it
flow more copiously," they might exclaim, "though we retain the waters
for a shorter time;" while the party thoroughly imbued with the
doctrine of the "sufficient price" would devise fresh dikes and dams,
and watch the locks more narrowly.

In his "sufficient price," Mr Wakefield has discovered the secret
spring that regulates the economical relations of society. He has his
hand upon it. He, or his lawgiver, will henceforward regulate the
supply of labour, and the remuneration of labour, upon scientific
principles. Unenviable post! We should infinitely prefer the task of
the philosopher in _Rasselas_, who fancied himself commissioned to
distribute rain and sunshine, in just proportions, to all the farmers
in the neighbourhood.

It is quite curious to observe how strong a faith our projector has in
his theory of a sufficient price, and how singular a bias this has
exerted on his mind in some other matters of speculation. He finds
that slavery, both in olden and modern times, has been all owing to
"cheapness of land." Could he have fixed his sufficient price upon the
arable land in Chaldea, or about the cities of Athens and Rome,
neither the patriarchs, nor the Greeks, nor the Romans, would have
known the institution of slavery. "Slavery is evidently," he says, "a
make-shift for hiring; a proceeding to which recourse is had only
where hiring is impossible, or difficult. Slave labour is, on the
whole, much more costly than the labour of hired freemen; and slavery
is also full of moral and political evils, from which the method of
hired labour is exempt. Slavery, _therefore_, is not preferred to the
method of hiring: the method of hiring would be preferred if there was
a choice."--(P. 324.) Most logical "_therefore_!" The mode of hiring
is preferred by those to whom experience has taught all this; but
slavery, so far from being the "make-shift," is the first expedient.
It is the first rude method which unscrupulous power adopts to engross
the produce of the earth. The stronger make the weaker labour for
them. "It happens," he continues, "wherever population is scanty in
proportion to land." It happens wherever people prefer idleness to
work, and have been able to coerce others to labour for them, whether
land has been plentiful or not. Was it abundance of land, or the
military spirit, that produced the amiable relationship between the
Spartan and the Helot?--or was there any need of a "sufficient price"
to limit the supply of good land in Egypt, which lay rigidly enough
defined between the high and low margin of a river? Or could any
governor, with his tariff of prices, have performed this duty more
effectually than the Nile and the desert had done between them?

But the most amusing instance is still to follow. "It was the
cheapness of land that caused Las Casas (the Clarkson or Wilberforce
of his time, as respects the Red Indians of America) to invent the
African slave-trade. It was the cheapness of land that brought African
slaves to Antigua and Barbadoes."--(P. 328.) It was the cheapness of
land! If land had been dearer, the Spaniards would have worked for
themselves, and not have asked the Red Indians for their assistance!
If land had been dearer in Antigua and Barbadoes, the climate would
have lost its influence on European frames, and Englishmen would have
laboured in their own sugar plantations!

Doubtless the difficulty of obtaining hired labour has been sometimes
a reason, and sometimes an excuse, for the continuance of slavery. It
is also true that the willingness of the discharged slave to work, as
a hired labourer, is almost a necessary condition to the extinction of
slavery. But, losing sight of all our amiable passions and
propensities, to describe slavery as originating altogether in the
scarcity of hired labour, (as if the slave had first had the offer
made to him to work for wages, and had refused it,) and then to
resolve this cause again into no other circumstance than the
"cheapness of land," is something like monomania.

In America, those states which have colonised so rapidly have not been
the slave-holding states, nor have they needed slaves; nor has land
been scarce; nor has much been done by the mere capitalist who goes to
hire labour; but almost all by the man who goes there to labour
himself, upon property of his own. And who, after all, we would ask,
are the best of emigrants, in every new country where the land has yet
to be reclaimed? Not those who seek the colony with an intention of
making a fortune there, and returning to England; nor even those who
go with some feeling that they shall be the Cæsars of the village; nor
the easy capitalist, who expects, from the back of his ambling nag, to
see his fields sprout with corn and grow populous with cattle. The
best of emigrants, as pioneers of civilisation, are those who intend
to settle and live on the land they shall have reduced to cultivation,
who go to labour with their own hands on property they shall call
their own. It is the labour of such men that has converted into
corn-fields the dark forests of America. That ardent and indefatigable
industry which has been so often admired in the peasant
proprietor--the man who has all the hardy habits of the peasant and
all the pride of proprietorship--is never more wanted, never more at
home, than in the new colony. We have a sympathy with these men--we
like their hearty toil, their guiltless enterprise. This is not the
class of men we would disgust; yet it is precisely this class who go
forth with their little store of wealth in their hand, or with hope
soon to realise it, whom the "sufficient price" of Mr Wakefield would
deter from entering the colony, or convert, when there, into
unwilling, discontented, uncertain labourers.

The rights of every class must, of course, be determined by a
reference to the welfare of the whole community. The poorer settler
must have his claims decided, and limited, according to rules which
embrace the interest of the empire at large. We hope we shall not be
misunderstood on so plain a matter as this. We do not contemplate the
settler as arriving on the new land unfettered by any allegiance he
owes to the old country. He belongs to civilised England; carries with
him the knowledge and the implements which her civilisation has
procured him; lives under her protection, and must submit to her laws.
But in limiting the rights of the settler in a land spreading open
before him--where nothing has taken possession of the soil but the
fertilising rain, and the broad sunshine playing idly on its
surface--you must make out a clear case, a case of claims paramount to
his own, a case which appeals to that sense of justice common to the
multitude, which will bear examination, which readily forces itself
upon an honest conviction. It must not be a mere speculative measure,
a subtle theory, hard for a plain man to understand--benevolently
meant, but, intricate in its operation, and precarious in its
result--that should come betwixt him and the free bounty of nature.
Not of such materials can you make the fence that is to coop him up in
one corner of a new-found continent. Laudable it may be, this
experiment to adjust with scientific accuracy the proportion of
capital and labour; but a man with no peculiar passion for political
economy, will hardly like to be made the subject of this experiment,
or that a scientific interest should keep his feet from the
wilderness, or his spade from the unowned soil. It would be an
ungracious act of parliament, to say the least of it, whose preamble
should run thus--"Whereas it is expedient that the labouring
population emigrating from England should be 'prevented from turning
too soon into landowners,' and thus cultivating the soil for
themselves instead of for others, Be it enacted," &c. &c.

Although this theory of a "sufficient price" is the chief topic of Mr
Wakefield's book, yet there are many other subjects of interest
discussed, and many valuable suggestions thrown out in it; and if we
have felt ourselves compelled to enter our protest against his main
theory, we are by no means unwilling to confess our share of
obligation to one who has made colonisation the subject of so much
study, and who has called to it the attention of so many others. It
was he who, struck with the gross error that had been committed of
stocking certain of our colonies with too large a proportion of the
male sex, first pointed out that the period of marriage was the most
appropriate period for emigration. Do not wait till want drives out
the half-famished children, but let the young married couple start
whilst yet healthy and vigorous, and not broken down by poverty. Some
might be disposed to object that these will do well enough in England.
They might, but their children might not. It is wise to take the
stream of population a little higher up, where it yet runs clear; not
to wait till the waters have become sluggish and polluted.

In a literary point of view, Mr Wakefield's book is an extremely
entertaining one. It is difficult to believe what we are told in the
preface, and hear with regret, that it was written in ill health, so
elastic a spirit is observable throughout. The work assumes the form
of letters passing between a statesman, who is in search of
information and theory on the subject of colonisation, and a colonist
who has both to give. One would naturally conclude, from the letters
themselves, that both sets were written by the same author, and that
the correspondence was but one of those well-understood literary
artifices by which the exposition of certain truths or opinions is
rendered more clear or interesting. The letters of the statesman have
that constrained fictitious aspect which responses framed merely for
the carrying on of the discussion are almost sure to acquire. At all
events, it was hardly necessary for Mr Wakefield to describe himself
in the title-page as "_one_ of the writers;" since the part of the
statesman, in the correspondence, is merely to ask questions at the
proper time, to put an objection just where it ought to be answered,
and give other the like promptings to the colonist.

With many readers it will add not a little to the piquancy of the
work, that a considerable part is occupied in a sharp controversy with
the Colonial Office and its present chief. Mr Wakefield does not spare
his adversaries; he seems rather to rejoice in the wind and stir of
controversy. What provocation he has received we do not know: the
justice of his quarrel, therefore, we cannot pretend to decide upon;
but the manner in which he conducts it, is certainly not to our taste.
For instance, at p. 35 and p. 302, there is a littleness of motive, a
petty jealousy of him (Mr Wakefield) attributed to Lord Grey as the
grounds of his public conduct--a sort of imputation which does not
increase our respect for the person who makes it. But into this
controversy with the Colonial Office we have no wish to enter. So far
as it is of a personal character, we can have no motive to meddle with
it; and so far as the system itself is attacked, of governing our
colonies through this office, as at present constituted, there appears
to be no longer any controversy whatever. It seems admitted, on all
hands, that our colonies have outgrown the machinery of government
here provided for them.

In the extract we lately made from Mr Wakefield's book, some of our
readers were perhaps startled at meeting so strange an appellation as
_Mr Mothercountry_. It is a generic name, which our writer gives to
that gentleman of the Colonial Office (though it would seem more
appropriate to one of the female sex) who for the time being really
governs the colony, and is thus, in fact, the representative of the
mother country. The _soubriquet_ was adopted from a pamphlet of the
late Mr Charles Buller, in which he very vividly describes the sort of
government to which--owing to the frequent change of ministry, and the
parliamentary duties of the Secretary of State--a colony is
practically consigned. We wish we had space to quote enough from this
pamphlet, to show in what a graphic manner Mr Buller gradually narrows
and limits the ideas which the distant colonist entertains of the
ruling mother country. "That mother country," he finally says, "which
has been narrowed from the British isles into the Parliament, from the
Parliament into the Executive Government, from the Executive
Government into the Colonial Office, is not to be sought in the
apartments of the Secretary of State, or his Parliamentary
under-secretary. Where are we to look for it?" He finds it eventually
in some back-room in the large house in Downing Street, where some
unknown gentleman, punctual, industrious, irresponsible, sits at his
desk with his tape and his pigeon-holes about him. This is the
original of Mr Mother-country.

That which immediately suggests itself as a substitute and a remedy
for the inefficient government of Downing Street, is some form of
local or municipal government. As Mr Wakefield justly observes, a
local government, having jurisdiction over quite local or special
matters, by no means implies any relinquishment by the imperial
government of its requisite control over the colony. Neither does a
municipal government imply a republican or democratic government. Mr
Wakefield suggests that the constitution of a colony should be framed,
as nearly as possible, on the model of our own--that there should be
two chambers, and one of them hereditary. The extreme distance of
many, of most of our colonies, absolutely precludes the possibility of
their being efficiently governed by the English Colonial Office, or by
functionaries (whether well or ill appointed) who have to receive all
their instructions from that office. Throughout our colonies, the
French system of centralisation is adopted, and that with a very
inadequate machinery. And the evil extends with our increasing
settlements; for where there is a "seat of government" established in
a colony, with due legislative and executive powers, every part of
that colony, however extensive it may be, has to look to that central
power for the administration of its affairs.

     "In our colonies," says Mr Wakefield, "government resides at
     what is called its seat; every colony has its Paris, or 'seat
     of government.' At this spot there is government; elsewhere
     little or none. Montreal, for example, is the Paris of
     Canada. Here, of course, as in the Paris of France, or in
     London, representatives of the people assemble to make laws,
     and the executive departments, with the cabinet of ministers,
     are established. But now mark the difference between England
     on the one hand, and France or Canada on the other. The laws
     of England being full of delegation of authority for local
     purposes, and for special purposes whether local or not,
     spread government all over the country; those of Canada or
     France in a great measure confine government to the capital
     and its immediate neighbourhood. If people want to do
     something of a public nature in Caithness or Cornwall, there
     is an authority on the spot which will enable them to
     accomplish this object, without going or writing to a distant
     place. At Marseilles or Dunkerque you cannot alter a high
     road, or add a gens-d'arme to the police force, without
     correspondence with Paris; at Gaspé and Niagara you could
     not, until lately, get anything of a public nature done,
     without authority from the seat of government. But what is
     the meaning, in this case, of a correspondence with Paris or
     Montreal? It is doubt, hesitation, and ignorant objection on
     the part of the distant authority; references backwards and
     forwards; putting off of decisions; delay without end; and
     for the applicants a great deal of trouble, alternate hope
     and fear, much vexation of spirit, and finally either a rough
     defeat of their object or evaporation by lapse of time. In
     France, accordingly, whatever may be the form of the general
     government, improvement, except at Paris, is imperceptibly
     slow; whilst in Old, and still more in New England, you can
     hardly shut your eyes anywhere without opening them on
     something new and good, produced by the operation of
     delegated government specially charged with making the
     improvement. In the colonies it is much worse than in France.
     The difficulty there is even to open a correspondence with
     the seat of government; to find somebody with whom to
     correspond. In France, at any rate, there is at the centre a
     very elaborate bureaucratic machinery, instituted with the
     design of supplying the whole country with government--the
     failure arises from the practical inadequacy of a central
     machinery for the purpose in view: but in our colonies, there
     is but little machinery at the seat of government for even
     pretending to operate at a distance. The occupants of the
     public offices at Montreal scarcely take more heed of Gaspé,
     which is five hundred miles off and very difficult of access,
     than if that part of Canada were in Newfoundland or Europe.
     Gaspé, therefore, until lately, when, on Lord Durham's
     recommendation, some machinery of local government was
     established in Canada, was almost without government, and one
     of the most barbarous places on the face of the earth. Every
     part of Canada not close to the seat of government was more
     or less like Gaspé. Every colony has numerous Gaspés. South
     Africa, save at Cape Town, is a Gaspé all over. All Australia
     Felix, being from five hundred to seven hundred miles distant
     from its seat of government at Sidney, and without a made
     road between them, is a great Gaspé. In New Zealand, a
     country eight or nine hundred miles long, without roads, and
     colonised, as Sicily was of old, in many distinct
     settlements, all the settlements, except the one at which the
     government is seated, are miserable Gaspés as respects
     paucity of government. In each settlement, indeed, there is a
     meagre official establishment, and in one of the settlements
     there is a sort of lieutenant-governor; but these officers
     have no legislative functions, no authority to determine
     anything, no originating or constructive powers: they are
     mere executive organs of the general government at the
     capital, for administering general laws, and for carrying
     into effect such arbitrary instructions, which are not laws,
     as they may receive from the seat of government. The
     settlers, therefore, are always calling out for something
     which government alone could furnish. Take one example out of
     thousands. The settlers at Wellington in New Zealand, the
     principal settlement of the colony, wanted a light-house at
     the entrance of this harbour. To get a light-house was an
     object of the utmost importance to them. The company in
     England, which had founded the settlement, offered to advance
     the requisite funds on loan. _But the settlement had no
     constituted authority that could accept the loan and
     guarantee its repayment._ The company therefore asked the
     colonial office, whose authority over New Zealand is supreme,
     to undertake that the money should be properly laid out and
     ultimately repaid. But the colonial office, charged as it is
     with the general government of some forty distinct and
     distant communities, was utterly incapable of deciding
     whether or not the infant settlement ought to incur such a
     debt for such a purpose; it therefore proposed to refer the
     question to the general government of the colony at Auckland.
     But Auckland is several hundred miles distant from
     Wellington, and between these distant places there is no road
     at all--the only way of communication is by sea; and as there
     is no commercial intercourse between the places,
     communication by sea is either so costly, when, as has
     happened, a ship is engaged for the purpose of sending a
     message, or so rare, that the settlers at Wellington
     frequently receive later news from England than from the seat
     of their government: and moreover the attention of their
     government was known to be, at the time, absorbed with
     matters relating exclusively to the settlement in which the
     government resided. Nothing, therefore, was done; some ships
     have been lost for want of a lighthouse; and the most
     frequented harbour of New Zealand is still without one."--(P.
     212.)

This is a long extract, but it could not be abridged, and the
importance of the subject required it. Mr Wakefield has some remarks
upon the necessity of supplying religious instruction and the means of
public worship to our colonies, with which we cannot but cordially
agree. But we rubbed our eyes, and read the following passage twice
over, before we were quite sure that we had not misapprehended it: "I
am in hopes of being able, when the proper time shall come for that
part of my task, to persuade you that it would now be easy for England
to plant _sectarian colonies_--that is, colonies with the strong
attraction for superior emigrants, of a peculiar creed in each
colony"--(P. 160.) We thought that it was one of the chief boasts, and
most fortunate characteristics of our age, that men of different
sects, Presbyterians and Episcopalians, Independents and Baptists, had
learned to live quietly together. It is a lesson that has been slowly
learnt, and through much pain and tribulation. What is the meaning of
this retrograde movement, this drafting us out again into separate
corps? Possibly the fact of the whole settlement being of one sect of
Christians may tend at first to promote harmony--although even this
cannot be calculated upon; but differences of opinion are sure, in
time, to creep in; and the ultimate consequence would be, that such a
colony, in a future generation, would be especially afflicted with
religious dissensions, and the spirit of persecution. It would have to
learn again, through the old painful routine, the lesson of mutual
toleration. We suspect that Mr Wakefield is so engrossed with his
favourite subject of colonisation, that, if the Mormonites were to
make a good settlement of it, he would forgive them all their
absurdities; perhaps congratulate them on their harmony of views.

We have hitherto regarded colonisation in its general, national, and
legislative aspect: the following passage takes us into the heart of
the business as it affects the individuals themselves, of all classes,
who really think of emigrating. It is thus Mr Wakefield describes
"the charms of colonisation:"--

     "Without having witnessed it, you cannot form a just
     conception of the pleasurable excitement which those enjoy
     who engage personally in the business of colonisation. The
     circumstances which produce these lively and pleasant
     feelings are, doubtless, counteracted by others productive of
     annoyance and pain; but, at the worst, there is a great deal
     of enjoyment for all classes of colonists, which the fixed
     inhabitants of an old country can with difficulty comprehend.
     The counteracting circumstances are so many impediments to
     colonisation, which we must examine presently. I will now
     endeavour to describe briefly the encouraging circumstances
     which put emigrants into a state of excitement, similar to
     that occasioned by opium, wine, or winning at play, but with
     benefit instead of fatal injury to the moral and physical
     man.

     "When a man, of whatever condition, has finally determined to
     emigrate, there is no longer any room in his mind for thought
     about the circumstances that surround him: his life is for
     some time an unbroken and happy dream of the imagination. The
     labourer--whose dream is generally realised--thinks of light
     work and high wages, good victuals in abundance, beer and
     tobacco at pleasure, and getting in time to be a master in
     his trade, or to having a farm of his own. The novelty of the
     passage would be a delight to him, were it not for the ennui
     arising from want of occupation. On his arrival at the
     colony, all goes well with him. He finds himself a person of
     great value, a sort of personage, and can indulge almost any
     inclination that seizes him. If he is a brute, as many
     emigrant labourers are, through being brutally brought up
     from infancy to manhood, he lives, to use his own expression,
     'like a fighting cock,' till gross enjoyment carries him off
     the scene. If he is of the better sort, by nature and
     education, he works hard, saves money, and becomes a man of
     property--perhaps builds himself a nice house, glories with
     his now grand and happy wife in counting the children, the
     more the merrier, and cannot find anything on earth to
     complain of, but the exorbitant wages he has to pay. The
     change for this class of men being from pauperism, or next
     door to it, to plenty and property, is indescribably, to our
     apprehensions almost inconceivably, agreeable.

     "But the classes who can hardly imagine the pleasant feelings
     which emigration provides for the well-disposed pauper, have
     pleasant feelings of their own when they emigrate, which are
     perhaps more lively in proportion to the greater
     susceptibility of a more cultivated mind to the sensations of
     mental pain and pleasure. Emigrants of cultivated mind, from
     the moment when they determine to be colonists, have their
     dreams, which, though far from being always, or ever fully
     realised, are, I have been told by hundreds of this class,
     very delightful indeed. They think with great pleasure of
     getting away from the disagreeable position of anxiety,
     perhaps of wearing dependence, in which the universal and
     excessive competition of this country has placed them. But it
     is on the future that their imagination exclusively seizes.
     They can think in earnest about nothing but the colony. I
     have known a man of this class, who had been too careless of
     money here, begin, as soon as he had resolved on emigration,
     to save sixpences, and take care of bits of string, saying
     'everything will be of use _there_.' There! it is common for
     people whose thoughts are fixed 'there,' to break themselves
     all at once of a confirmed habit--that of reading their
     favourite newspaper every day. All the newspapers of the old
     country are now equally uninteresting to them. If one falls
     in their way, they perhaps turn with alacrity to the shipping
     lists, and advertisements of passenger ships, or even to an
     account of the sale of Australian wool, or New Zealand flax;
     but they cannot see either the parliamentary debate, or the
     leading article which used to embody their own opinions, or
     the reports, accidents, and offences, of which they used to
     spell every word. Their reading now is confined to letters
     and newspapers from the colony, and books relating to it.
     They can hardly talk about anything that does not relate to
     'there.'"--(P. 127.)

A man is far gone, indeed, when he has given up his _Times_! This zeal
for emigration amongst the better classes, and especially amongst
educated youths, who find the avenues to wealth blocked up in their
own country, is, we apprehend, peculiar to our day, and amongst the
most novel aspects which the subject of colonisation assumes. How many
of these latter find their imaginations travelling even to the
antipodes! _Where_ shall we colonise? is a question canvassed in many
a family, sometimes half in jest, half in earnest, till it leads to
the actual departure of the boldest or most restless of the circle.
Books are brought down and consulted; from the ponderous folio of
Captain Cook's voyages--which, with its rude but most illustrative of
prints, was the amusement of their childhood, when they would have
thought a habitation in the moon as probable a business as one in New
Zealand--to the last hot-pressed journal of a residence in Sydney; and
every colony in turn is examined and discussed. Here climate is so
delicious you may sleep without hazard in the open air. Sleep! yes, if
the musquitoes let you. Musquitoes--oh! Another reads with delight of
the noble breed of horses that now run wild in Australia, and of the
bold horsemanship of those who drive in the herd of bullocks from
their extensive pasturage, when it is necessary to assemble in order
to number and to mark them. The name of the thing does not sound so
romantic as that of a buffalo-hunt; but, armed with your tremendous
whip, from the back of a horse whom you turn and wind at pleasure, to
drive your not over-tractable bullocks, must task a good seat, and a
steady hand, and a quick eye. A third dwells with a quieter delight on
the beautiful scenery, and the pastoral life so suitable to it, which
New Zealand will disclose. Valleys green as the meadows of Devonshire,
hills as picturesque as those of Scotland, and the sky of Italy over
all! and the aborigines friendly, peaceable. Yes, murmurs one, until
they eat you. Faugh! but they are reformed in that particular.
Besides, Dr Dieffenbach says, here, that "they find Europeans salt and
disagreeable." Probably they had been masticating some tough old
sailor, who had fed on junk all his life, and they found him salt
enough. But let no one in his love of science suggest this explanation
to them; let us rest under the odium of being salt and disagreeable.

These aborigines--one would certainly wish they were out of the way.
Wild men! Wild--one cannot have fellowship with them. Men--one cannot
shoot them. In Australia they are said to be not much wiser than
baboons--one wishes they were altogether baboons, or altogether men.
In New Zealand they are, upon the whole, a docile, simple people. The
missionaries are schooling them as they would little children. A very
simple people! They had heard of horses and of horsemanship; it was
some tradition handed down from their great discoverer, Captain Cook.
When lately some portly swine were landed on the island, they
concluded _these_ were the famous horses men rode upon in England.
"They rode two of them to death." Probably, by that time, they
suspected there was some error in the case.

Hapless aborigines! How it comes to pass we cannot stop to inquire,
but certain it is they never prosper in any union with the white man.
They get his gin, they get his gunpowder, and, here and there, some
travesty of his religion. This is the best bargain they make where
they are most fortunate. The two first gifts of the white man, at all
events, add nothing to the amenity of character, and happen to be
precisely the gifts they could most vividly appreciate. Our
civilisation seems to have no other effect than to break up the sort
of rude harmony which existed in their previous barbarism. They
imitate, they do not emulate; what they see of us they do not
understand. That ridiculous exhibition, so often described, which they
make with our costume--a naked man with hat and feathers stuck upon
his head; or, better still, converting a pair of leathers into a
glistening helmet, the two legs hanging down at the back, where the
flowing horse-hair is wont to fall--is a perfect emblem of what they
have gained in mind and character from our civilisation.

These poor New Zealanders are losing--what think you says Dr
Dieffenbach?--their digestion; getting dyspeptic. The missionaries
have tamed them down; they eat more, fight less, and die faster. One
of the "brethren," not the least intelligent to our mind, has
introduced cricket as a substitute for their war-dances and other
fooleries they had abolished.

When we want the soil which such aborigines are loosely tenanting, we
must, we presume, displace them. There is no help for it. But, in all
other cases, we could wish the white man would leave these dark
children of the earth alone. If there exists another Tahiti, such as
it was when Cook discovered it, such as we read of it under the old
name of Otaheite, we hope that some eternal mist, drawn in a wide
circle round the island, will shroud it from all future navigators.
Were we some great mariner, and had discovered such an island, and had
eaten of the bread-fruit of the hospitable native, and reclined under
their peaceful trees, and seen their youths and maidens crowned with
green boughs, sporting like fishes in their beautiful clear seas, no
mermaid happier--we should know but of one way to prove our
gratitude--to close our lips for ever on the discovery we had made. If
there exist in some untraversed region of the ocean another such spot,
and if there are still any genii, or jins, or whatever sea-fairies may
be called, left behind in the world, we beseech of them to protect it
from all prying circumnavigators. Let them raise bewildering mists, or
scare the helmsman with imaginary breakers, or sit cross-legged upon
the binnacle, and bewitch the compass--anyhow let them protect their
charge. We could almost believe, from this moment, in the existence of
such spirits or genii, having found so great a task for them.

We have no space to go back to other graver topics connected with
colonisation which we have passed on our road. On one topic we had
not, certainly, intended to be altogether silent. But it is perhaps
better as it is; for the subject of transportation is so extensive,
and so complicate, and so inevitably introduces the whole review of
what we call secondary punishments--of our penal code, in short--that
it were preferable to treat it apart. It would be very unsatisfactory
merely to state a string of conclusions, without being able to throw
up any defences against those objections which, in a subject so full
of controversy, they would be sure to provoke.

In fine, we trust to no ideals, no theory or art of colonisation.
Neither do we make any extraordinary or novel demands on Government. A
great work is going on, but it will be best performed by simple means.
We ask from the Government that it should survey and apportion the
land, and secure its possession to the honest emigrant, and that it
should delegate to the new settlement such powers of self-government
as are necessary to its internal improvement. These, however, are
important duties, and embrace much. The rest, with the exception of
such liberality as may be thought advisable, in addition to the fund
raised by the sale of waste land, for the despatch and outfit of the
poor labourer or artisan--the rest must be left to the free spirit of
Englishmen, whether going single or in groups and societies.

FOOTNOTE:

[1] _A View of the Art of Colonisation, with present reference to the
British Empire; in Letters between a Statesman and a Colonist._ Edited
by (one of the writers) EDWARD GIBBON WAKEFIELD.




THE REACTION, OR FOREIGN CONSERVATISM.


                                    BOSTON, _February 1849_.

It is the sage remark of Montesquieu, that, under a government of
laws, liberty consists simply in the power of doing what we ought to
will, and in freedom from any constraint to do what we ought not to
will. The true conservative not only accepts this maxim, but he gives
it completeness by prescribing a pure religion as the standard of what
a people ought to will, and as the only sober guide of conscience. And
this may be added as a corollary, that so long as a free people is
substantially Christian, their conscience coinciding with absolute
right, their liberty, so far as affected by popular causes, will
preserve itself from fatal disorders. Such a people, possessed of
liberty, will know it and be content. But where the popular conscience
is morbid, they may have liberty without knowing it. They will fancy
that they ought to will what they are not permitted to will, and the
most wholesome restraints of wise laws will appear tyrannical. For
such a people there can be no cure, till they are restored to a
healthy conscience. A despotism successfully established over them,
and then moderately maintained, and benevolently administered, is the
only thing that can save them from self-destruction.

I was not writing at random, then, my Basil, when I said in my last
letter that the first want of France is a national conscience. As a
nation, the French lack the moral sense. What sign of moral life have
they shown for the last fifty years? The root of bitterness in the
body politic of France, is the astonishing infidelity of the people.
Whatever be the causes, the fact is not to be denied: the land whose
crown was once, by courtesy, _most Christian_, must draw on courtesy
and charity too, if it be now called Christian at all. The spirit of
unbelief is national. It is the spirit of French literature--of the
French press--of the French academy--of the French senate; I had
almost added of the French church; and if I hesitate, it is not so
much because I doubt the corrupting influences of the French
priesthood, as because they are no longer Gallican priests, but simply
the emissaries of Ultramontanism. There is no longer a French church.
The Revolution made an end of that. When Napoleon, walking at
Malmaison, heard the bells of Ruel, he was overpowered with a sense of
the value of such associations as they revived in his own heart, and
forthwith he opened the churches which had so long been the sepulchres
of a nation's faith, convinced that they served a purpose in
government, if only as a cheap police. He opened the churches, but he
could not restore the church of France. He could do no more than
enthrone surviving Ultramontanism in her ancient seats, and that by a
manoeuvre, which made it a creature and a slave of his ambition. When
it revolted, he talked of Gallican liberties, but only for political
purposes. Nor did the Restoration do any better. The church of St
Louis was defunct. Gallican immunities were indeed asserted on paper;
but, in effect, the Jesuits gained the day. The Orleans usurpation
carried things further; for the priesthood, severed from the state,
became more Ultramontane from apparent necessity, and lost,
accordingly, their feeble hold on the remaining respect of the French
people. Who was not startled, when the once devout Lamartine talked of
"the new Christianity" of Liberty and Equality over the ruins of the
Orleans dynasty, and thus betrayed the irreligion into which he had
been repelled by the Christianity of French ecclesiastics! Thus always
uncongenial to the national character, Ultramontanism has coated, like
quicksilver, and eaten away those golden liberties which St Louis
consecrated his life to preserve, and with which have perished the
life and power of Christianity in France.

The history of France is emphatically a religious history. Every
student must be struck with it. To understand even the history of its
court, one must get at least an outline of what is meant by Jansenism
and Molinism, and Ultramontanism, and the whole tissue of isms which
they have created. No historian gives us an exemption from this amount
of polemical information. The school of Michelet is as forward as that
of de Maistre, in claiming a "religious mission" for France among the
nations; and de Stael and Chateaubriand are impressed with the same
idea. Her _publicists_, as well as her statesmen, have been always, in
their own way, theologians; and, from Louis IX. to Louis XVI., the
spirit of theology was, in some form or other, the spirit of every
reign. Not only the Mazarins, but the Pompadours also, have made
religion part of their craft; and religion became so entirely
political under Louis XV., that irreligion was easily made political
in its stead. In the court of France, in fact, theology has been the
common trade; the trade of Condé and of Guise, of Huguenot and Papist,
of Jansenist and Jesuit, of philosopher and poet, of harlots, and
almost of lap-dogs. Even Robespierre must legislate upon the
"consoling principle of an _Etre Suprême_," and Napoleon elevates
himself into "the eldest son of the church." "A peculiar
characteristic of this monarchy," says de Maistre, "is that it
possesses a certain theocratic element, special to itself, which has
given it fourteen centuries of duration." This element has given its
colour to reigns and revolutions alike; and if one admit the necessity
of religion to the perpetuity of a state, it deserves our attention,
in the light of whatever contending parties have advanced upon the
subject.

Let us begin with the revolutionists themselves. In the month of June
1844, Monsieur Quinet, "of the college of France," stood in his
lecture-room, venting his little utmost against the "impassioned
leaven of Reaction," which he declared to be fermenting in French
society. His audience was literally the youth of nations; for, as I
gather from his oratory, it embraced not only his countrymen, but,
besides them, Poles, Russians, Italians, Germans, Hungarians,
Spaniards, Portuguese, and a sprinkling of negroes. Upon this
interesting assembly, in which black spirits and white must have
maintained the proportion, and something of the appearance, of their
corresponding ebony and ivory in the key-board of a pianoforte, and
which he had tuned to his liking by a series of preparatory exercises,
he played, as a grand _finale_, a most brilliant experimental
quick-step, which satisfied him that every chord vibrated in harmony
with his own sweet voice. He was closing his instructions, and
addressed his pupils, not as disciples, but as friends. His great
object seems to have been to convince them of their own importance, as
the illuminated school of a new gospel of which he is himself the
dispenser, and through which, he promised them, they would become,
with him, the regenerators of the world. Having fully indoctrinated
them with his new Christianity, it was necessary to work them into
fury against the old. He had already established the unity of politics
and religion; he had shown, very artfully, that Christianity had
identified itself with Ultramontanism, and that France must perish if
it should triumph; and he had only to convince them of danger from
that quarter, to influence the combustible spirits of his credulous
hearers to the heat which his purpose required. This he did by
bellowing _Reaction_, and anathematising Schlegel and de Maistre.

You were mistaken then, my Basil, in supposing this word _Reaction_
altogether a bugbear, and in understanding it with reference only to
the counter-spirit in favour of legitimacy, which has been generated
by the revolution of last year. You see it was the hobgoblin of a
certain class of fanatics, long before Louis Philippe had received his
notice to quit. It was an "impassioned leaven" in French society five
years ago, in the heated imagination, or else in the artful theory, of
Quinet. What was really the case? There was, in his sober opinion, as
much danger from the reaction at that time as from the Great Turk, and
no more. He merely used it as an academic man-of-straw to play at
foils with. He held it up to contempt as an exploded folly, and then
pretended it was a living danger, only to increase his own reputation
for daring, and to quicken the development of antagonist principles.
He little dreamed the manikin would come to life, and show fight for
the Bourbons and legitimacy. He cried _Wolf_ for his own purposes, and
the actual barking of the pack must be a terrible retribution! The
reaction of 1848 must have come upon the professors like doomsday. I
can conceive of him, at present, only as of Friar Bacon, when he
stumbled upon the discovery of gunpowder. A moment since, he stood in
his laboratory compounding the genuine elixir of life, and assuring
his gaping disciples of the success of his experiment; but there has
been a sudden detonation, and if the professor has miraculously
escaped, it is only to find chaos come again, his admiring auditors
blown to atoms, and nothing remaining of his philosophical
trituration, except his smutty self, and a very bad smell. I speak of
him as the personification of his system. Personally, he has been a
gainer by the revolution. Guizot put him out of his place, and the
Republic has put him back; but the Reaction is upon him, and his
theories are already resolved into their original gases. "The college
of France" may soon come to a similar dissolution.

Let us look for a while at foreign conservatism through Monsieur
Quinet's glasses. I have introduced you to de Maistre, and de Maistre
is to him what the Pope was to Luther. Quinet is, in his own way,
another reformer; in fact, he announces his system, in its relations
to Protestantism, as another noon risen upon mid-day. The theological
character of foreign politics is as prominent in his writings as in
those of his antagonists. Thus, to illustrate the character of the
French Revolution, he takes us to the Council of Trent; and to
demolish French Tories, he attacks Ultramontanism. This is indeed
philosophical, considering the actual history of Europe, and the
affinities of its Conservative party. Action and reaction are always
equal. The cold infidelity of Great Britain was met by the cool reason
of Butler, and sufficiently counteracted by even the frigid apologies
of Watson, and the mechanical faith of Paley. But the passionate
unbelief of the Encyclopædists produced the unbalanced credulity of
the reaction; and Diderot, d'Alembert, and Voltaire, have almost, by
fatality, involved the noble spirits of their correctors in that
wrongheaded habit of believing, which shows its vigorous weakness in
the mild Ballanche and the wavering Lamennais, and develops all its
weak vigour in de Maistre and de Bonald. Thus it happens that Mons.
Quinet gives to his published lectures the title of _Ultramontanism_;
for he prefers to meet his antagonists on the untenable field of their
superstition, and there to win a virtual victory over their
philosophical and political wisdom. His book has reached me through
the translation of Mr Cocks,[2] who has kindly favoured the literature
of England with several similar importations from "the College of
France," and who seems to be the chosen mouthpiece of the benevolent
author himself, in addressing the besotted self-sufficiency of John
Bull. So far, indeed, as it discusses _Ultramontanism_ in itself, the
work may have its use. It shows, with some force and more
vociferation, that it has been the death of Spain, and of every state
in which it has been allowed to work; and that, moreover, it has been
the persevering foe of law, of science, and of morality. This is a
true bill; but of him, as of his master Michelet, it may be said with
emphasis, _Tout, jusqu' à la vérité, trompe dans ses écrits_. It does
not follow, as he would argue, that political wisdom and Christian
truth fall with Ultramontanism; nor does he prove it be so, by proving
that de Maistre and others have thought so. The school of the Reaction
are convicted of a mistake, into which their masters in Great Britain
never fell. That is all that Quinet has gained, though he crows
lustily for victory, and proceeds to construct his own political
religion, as if Christianity were confessedly defunct. As to the
style of the Professor, so far as I can judge it from a tumid and
verbose translation, it is not wanting in the hectic brilliancy of
rhetoric raised to fever-heat, or of French run mad. Even its
argument, I doubt not, sounded logical and satisfactory, when its
slender postulate of truth was set off with oratorical sophistry,
enforced with professorial shrugs of the shoulders, or driven home
with conclusive raps upon the auxiliary _tabatière_. But the inanimate
logic, as it lies coffined in the version of Mr Cocks, looks very
revolting. In fact, stripped of its false ornament, all its practical
part is simply the revolutionism of the Chartists. Worse stuff was
never declaimed to a subterranean conclave of insurgent operatives by
a drunken Barabbas, with Tom Paine for his text, and a faggot of pikes
for his rostrum. The results have been too immediate for even Mons.
Quinet's ambition. From hearing sedition in the "College of France,"
his motley and party-coloured audience has broken up to enforce it
behind the barricades. They turned revolutionists against reaction _in
posse_, and reaction _in esse_ is the very natural consequence.

"Every nation, like every individual, has received a certain mission,
which it must fulfil. France exercises over Europe a real magistracy,
which cannot be denied, and she was at the head of its religious
system." So says de Maistre, and so far his bitter enemy is agreed.
But, says de Maistre, "She has shamefully abused her mission; and
since she has used her influence to contradict her vocation, and to
debauch the morals of Europe, it is not surprising that she is
restored to herself by terrible remedies." Here speaks the spirit of
Reaction, and Quinet immediately shows fight. In his view she has but
carried out her vocation. The Revolution was a glorious outbreak
towards a new universal principle. In the jargon of his own sect, "it
was a revolution differing from all preceding revolutions, ancient or
modern, precisely in this, that it was the deliverance of a nation
from the bonds and limits of her church, into the spirit of
universality." The spirit of the national church, he maintains, had
become Ultramontane; had lost its hold on men's minds; had made way
for the ascendency of philosophy, and had tacitly yielded the sceptre
of her sway over the intelligence and the conscience to Rousseau and
Voltaire. Nor does the Professor admit that subsequent events have
restored that sceptre. On the contrary, he appeals to his auditors in
asserting that the priesthood have ceased to guide the French
conscience. His audience applauds, and the enraptured Quinet catches
up the response like an auctioneer. He is charmed with his young
friends. He is sure the reaction will never seduce them into
travelling to heaven by the old sterile roads. As for the
_réactionnaires_, no language can convey his contempt for them. "After
this nation," says he, "has been communing with the spirit of the
universe upon Sinai, conversing face to face with GOD, they propose to
her to descend from her vast conceptions, and to creep, crestfallen,
into the spirit of sect." Thus he contrasts the catholicity of
Pantheism with the catholicity of Romanism; and thus, with the
instinct of a bulldog, does he fasten upon the weak points of foreign
Conservatism, or hold it by the nose, a baited victim, in spite of its
massive sinews and its generous indignation. This plan is a cunning
one. He sinks the Conservative principles of the Reaction, and gives
prominence only to its Ultramontanism. He shows that modern
Ultramontanism is the creature of the Council of Trent, and reviews
the history of Europe as connected with that Council. He proves the
pernicious results of that Council in every state which has
acknowledged it; shows that not preservation but ruin has been its
inevitable effect upon national character; and so congratulates France
for having broken loose from it in the great Revolution. He then
deprecates its attempted resuscitation by Schlegel and de Maistre,
and, falling back upon the "religious vocation" of France, exhorts his
auditors to work it out in the spirit of his own evangel. This new
gospel, it is almost needless to add, is that detestable impiety which
was so singularly religious in the revolution of last February,
profaning the name of the Redeemer to sanctify its brutal excesses,
and pretending to find in the spirit of his gospel the elements of its
furious Liberty and Equality. In the true sentiment of that
revolution, an ideal portrait of the Messiah is elaborately engraved
for the title-page of Mr Cock's translation! So a French quack adorns
his shop with a gilded bust of Hippocrates! It is a significant hint
of the humble origin of a system which, it must be understood, owes
its present dignity and importance entirely to the genius of Mons.
Quinet.

That the Reaction is thus identified with Ultramontanism, is a fact
which its leading spirits would be the very last to deny. The
necessity of religion to the prosperity of France is their fundamental
principle; and religion being, in their minds, inseparable from
Romanism, they will not see its defects; and their blind faith, like
chloroform, makes them absolutely insensible to the sharp point of the
weak spear with which Quinet pierces them. And it is but fair to
suppose that Quinet and his colleagues are equally honest in
considering Christianity and Ultramontanism synonymous. They see that
the old religion of France has become, historically, a corrupt thing,
and they propose a fresh Christianity in its place. Of one thing I am
sure--they do not over-estimate the political importance of the
Council of Trent. Let it be fairly traced in its connexions with
kingdoms, with science, with letters, and with the conscience of
nations, and it will be seen that Quinet is not far from correct, in
taking it as the turning-point of the history of Europe. It produced
Ultramontanism, or rather changed it from an abstraction into an
organised system; and Ultramontanism, in its new shape, gave birth to
the Jesuits. Christendom saw a new creed proposed as the bond of
unity, and a new race of apostles propagating it with intrigue and
with crime, and, in some places, with fire and sword. In proportion as
the states of Europe incorporated Ultramontanism with their political
institutions, they withered and perished. Old Romanism was one thing,
and modern Ultramontanism another. Kingdoms that flourished while they
were but Romanised, have perished since they became Tridentine.

Among English writers this distinction has not been generally made.
Coleridge seems to have observed it, and has incidentally employed it
in treating of another subject. But foreign literature is full of it,
either tacitly implied or openly avowed, in different ways.
Ultramontanism is, in Europe, a political and not merely a theological
word,--its meaning results from its history. Before the Tridentine
epoch, the national churches of Europe were still seven candle-sticks,
in which glittered the seven stars of an essential personality and
individual completeness. The "Church of Rome" still meant the Roman
See, and, vast as were its usurpations over the national churches, it
had neither reduced them to absolute unity in theology, nor absorbed
their individuality into its own. The Roman Church, as we now
understand it, was created by the Council of Trent, by a consolidation
of national churches, and the quiet substitution of the creed of Pius
IV. for the ancient creeds, as a test of unity. This fact explains the
position of the Reformed before and after that extraordinary assembly.
Till its final epoch, they had never fully settled their relations to
the Papal See. The history of England is full of illustrations of this
fact. Old Grostete of Lincoln spurned the authority of the Pope, but
continued in all his functions as an English bishop till his death, in
the thirteenth century. Wycliffe, in the fourteenth, was still more
remarkable for resisting the papal pretensions, yet he died in the
full exercise of his pastoral office, while elevating the host at
Childermas. Henry VIII. himself had the benefit of masses for his
pious soul at Notre Dame; and his friend Erasmus lived on easy terms
with the Reformed, and yet never broke with the Vatican. Even the
English prayer-book, under Elizabeth, was sanctioned by papal
authority, with the proviso of her recognition of the supremacy, and
for twelve years of her reign the popish party lived in communion with
the Reformed Church of England. During all this period the dogmas of
popes were fearlessly controverted by Cisalpine theologians, who still
owned their supremacy in a qualified sense, and who boldly appealed
to a future council against the decisions of the See of Rome.
Ultramontanism had then, indeed, its home beyond the mountains, and
when it came bellowing over its barrier, it was often met as "the
Tinchel cows the game." But modern Ultramontanism is another thing. It
is an organised system, swallowing up the nationalities of constituent
churches, and giving them the absolute unity of an individual Roman
church, in which Jesuitism is the circulating life-blood, and the
Italian consistory the heart and head together. Such was the prodigy
hatched during the seventeen years of Tridentine incubation. It
appeared at the close of those interminable sessions, so different
from all that had been anticipated, that it startled all Europe. It
had quietly changed everything, and made Rome the sole church of
Southern Europe. Quinet has not failed to present this fact very
strongly. "That Council," says he, "had not, like its predecessors,
its roots in all nations; it did not assemble about it the
representatives of all Christendom. Its spirit was to give full
sanction to the idea, which certain popes of the middle ages had
established, of their pre-eminence over oecumenical assemblies.
Thenceforward, what had been the effect of a particular genius, became
_the very constitution of the church_. The great adroitness consisted
_in making the change without anywhere speaking of it_. The church
which was before tempered by assemblies convoked from all the earth,
became an absolute monarchy. From that moment the ecclesiastical world
is silent. The meeting of councils is closed, no more discussions, no
more solemn deliberations; everything is regulated by bulls, letters,
and ordinances. Popedom usurps all Christendom; the book of life is
shut; for three centuries not one page has been added." One would
think the school of the Reaction would feel the force of facts so
efficiently urged, even in spite of their towering disgust at the
purposes for which they are employed. In fact, their own maxims may be
turned against them with great power, in this matter of
Ultramontanism. De Maistre, in his argument for unwritten
constitutions, speaks of the creeds of the church as furnishing no
exception to his rule; for these, he argues, are not _codes of
belief_, but they partake the nature of hymns--they have rhythmical
beauty, they are chanted in solemn services, they are confessed to GOD
upon the harp and organ. Now this is indeed true of those three
ancient creeds which are still chanted in the service of the Church of
England; but the creed of Pius IV., which is the distinguishing creed
of the Roman church, is absolutely nothing else than a _code of
belief_, and is the only creed in Christendom which lacks that
rhythmical glory which he considers a test of truth! Even Quinet
notices this liturgic impotence of the Ultramontane religion. "The
Roman church," he says, "has lost in literature, together with the
ideal of Christianity, the sentiment of her own poetry. What has
become of the burning accents of Ambrose and Paulinus? Urban VIII.
writes pagan verses to the Cavalier Berni;[3] and instead of _Stabat
mater_ or _Salutaris hostia_, the princes of the church compose
mythological sonnets, at the very moment when Luther is thundering
_Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott_, that Te Deum of the Reformation."

No wonder France was reluctant to acknowledge a Council which had thus
imposed a new creed on Christendom, and which dictated a new
organisation to the ancient churches of Southern Europe. While other
nations subscribed with artful evasions, she hesitated and submitted,
but gave no formal assent. Rome had come over the Alps to absorb her,
and she was loth to yield her birthright. She stood long in what
Schlegel calls "a disguised half-schism," struggling against
dissolution, the last lump to melt away in the Tridentine element. But
where now is the church which St Louis left to France, strong in her
anti-papal bulwarks? Where now are those bulwarks, the labour of his
life, and the chief glory of a name which even Rome has canonised? As
for Spain, Ultramontanism was riveted upon her by the Inquisition,
and she is twice dead. One sees no more the churches of Western
Christendom, fortified by Pragmatic Sanctions, and treated with as
younger sisters, even by domineering Rome! They have disappeared; and
the only light that lingers in their places is the sad sepulchral
flame that owes its existence to decay.

Such is Ultramontanism. Follow its history, in connexion with
political events in France, and you cannot fail to charge it with all
the responsibility of French infidelity, and, consequently, of the
present lamentable condition of the nation. Thrice has the spirit of
France been in deadly collision with it--in the fire, in the wind, and
in the earthquake. Its first antagonists were the Huguenots, and over
them it triumphed by the persecutions of Louis XIV., following up the
policy of Catherine de Medicis. It was next confronted by Jansenism
under Louis XV., and that it overcame by intrigue and by ridicule.
Under Louis XVI. it was obliged to meet the atheism of the
Encyclopædists, which it had itself produced, and which terribly
visited upon its head its own infernal inventions. To overwhelm the
Port-Royalists, it had resorted to low caricatures and epigrams, and
to philosophical satires upon their piety. Voltaire took from these
the hint of his first warfare against Christianity. This was first a
joke and a song, and then _Ca Ira_ and _A la lanterne_; first the
popguns of wit, then the open battery of _Ecrasez l'infâme_, and then
the exploding mine of revolution. It merely reversed the stratagems of
Ultramontanism, which began in massacre, and finished its triumphs
with a jest; and both together have stamped the nation with its
indelible character of half tiger and half monkey. The origin of such
an issue of infamy cannot be concealed. France owes it all to her
conduct in the crisis of the Reformation. Had the Gallic Church, under
Henry of Navarre, fully copied the example of England, or had she even
carried out her own instincts, repudiating the Council of Trent, and
falling back upon the Pragmatic Sanction for a full defence of her
independence, how different would have been her history, and that of
the monarchy to which she would have proved a lasting support! Let the
difference between Henri Quatre and Louis Quatorze, between Sully and
Richelieu, illustrate the reply. Or it may be imagined, by comparing
the campaigns of Cevennes with the peaceful mission of Fenelon to the
Huguenots of Saintonge. Where now both church and state appear the
mere materials of ambition to such as Mazarin and Dubois, or where
even the purer genius of such as Bossuet and Massillon is exhibited in
humiliating and disgraceful associations, the places of history might
have been adorned by such bright spirits as were immured at
Port-Royal, or such virtue as sketched the ideal kingdom of
_Télémaque_, and rendered illustrious a life of uncomplaining sorrow
in the pastoral chair of Cambray. Where the court can boast one
Bourdaloue, there would have been, beside him, not a few like Pascal;
and in the rural parishes there would have been many such as Arnauld
and Nicole, training in simple piety and loyal worth the successive
generations of a contented people. As for the palace, it would never
have been haunted by the dark spirit of Jesuitism, which has so often
hid itself in the robes of royalty, and reigned in the sovereign's
name; and the people would have known it only as a fearful thing
beyond the Pyrenees, whose ear was always in the confessional, and
whose hand was ever upon the secret wires of the terrible Inquisition.
The capital would have been a citadel of law, and the kingdom still a
Christian state. Its history might have lacked a "Grand Monarque," and
certainly a Napoleon; but then there would have been no _dragonnades_,
and possibly no Dubarrydom; no _Encyclopædie_, and no _Ca Ira_! The
bell of St Germain l'Auxerrois would have retained its bloody memory
as the tocsin of St Bartholomew's massacre, but it would never have
sounded its second peal of infamy as the signal for storming the
Tuileries, and for opening those successive vials of avenging woe, in
which France is expiating her follies and her crimes.

Bossuet, in his funeral oration upon Queen Henrietta, unhappily for
his own cause, has challenged a comparison between the histories of
France and England, which, if he were living in our days, he would
hardly renew with pleasure. The Anglican Reformation was rashly
charged by him with all the responsibility of the Great Rebellion; but
facts have proved that revolutions are by no means confined to
anti-papal countries, while history may be safely appealed to by
Englishmen, in deciding as to the kind of religion which has best
encountered the excesses of rebellion, and most effectually cured the
disease. The Anglican Church survived the Great Rebellion, with
fidelity to itself: the Gallic Church perished in the Revolution.
Before the vainglorious taunt of Bossuet had passed from the memory of
living men, all those causes were at work in France, which bred the
whirlwind of infidelity, and which insured a revolution, not of
fanaticism, but of atheism. The real power of the two churches, in
moulding the character of a people, and retaining the loyalty of its
noblest intellect, became, then, singularly apparent. In France, it
was superstition to believe in GOD. In France, philosophers were
afraid to own a great First Cause. In France, noblemen were ashamed to
confess a conscience. In France, bishops and cardinals were foremost
in apostasy, and claimed their sacerdotal rank only to become the
high-priests of atheistic orgies. It is needless to cite, in
comparison, the conduct of parallel classes during the Great Rebellion
in England; while, at the very moment in which these things were
transacting, the brightest genius in her Imperial Parliament could
proclaim himself not only a believer, but a crusader for Christianity.
It was a noble answer to the ghost of poor Bossuet, when such a man as
Burke, addressing a gentleman of France, declared the adhesion of
England to her Reformed religion to be not the result of indifference
but of zeal; when he proudly contrasted the intelligent faith of his
countrymen with the fanatical impiety of the French; and when, with a
dignity to which sarcasm has seldom attained, he reminded a nation of
atheists, that there was a people, every whit its peer, which still
exulted in the Christian name, and among whom religion, so far from
being relegated to provinces, and the firesides of peasants, still sat
in the first rank of the legislature, and "reared its mitred front" in
the very face of the throne. The withering rebuke of such a boast must
be measured by the standard of the time when it was given. In Paris,
the mitre had just been made the ornament of an ass, which bore in
mockery, upon its back, the vessels of the holy sacrament, and dragged
a Bible at its tail.

Thus the colossal genius of Burke stood before the world, in that war
of elements, trampling the irreligion of France beneath his feet, like
the Archangel thrusting Satan to his bottomless abyss. The spectacle
was not lost. It was that beautiful and sublime exhibition of moral
grandeur that quickened the noblest minds in Europe to imitative
virtue, and produced the school of the Reaction. It was rather the
spirit of British faith, and law, and loyalty, personified in him. The
same spirit had been felt in France before: it had moulded the genius
of Montesquieu, abstractly; but Burke was its mighty concrete, and he
wrote himself like a photograph upon kindred intellect throughout the
world. Before his day, the character of English liberty had been
laboriously studied and mechanically learned; but he, as its living
representative and embodiment, made himself the procreant author of an
intellectual family. I fear you will regard this as a theory of my
own, but I would not have ventured to say this on my mere surmise. One
whose religion identifies him with Ultramontanism has made the
acknowledgment before me. I refer to the English editor and translator
of Schlegel's _Philosophy of History_. According to him, Schlegel at
Vienna, and Goerres at Munich, were "the supreme oracles of _that
illustrious school of liberal conservatives_, which numbered, besides
those eminent Germans, a Baron von Haller in Switzerland, a Viscount
de Bonald in France, a Count Henri de Merode in Belgium, and a Count
de Maistre in Piedmont."[4] From the writings of these great men, in a
greater or less degree, he augurs the future political regeneration of
Europe; and yet, strongly warped as he is away from England, and
towards Rome, as the source of all moral and national good, he does
not conceal the fact that this splendid school of the Reaction was
"founded by our great Burke." My hopes from the writings of these men
are not so sanguine: but, so far as they are true to their original,
they have been already of great service. They may hereafter be made
still more powerful for good; and if, at the same time, the rising
school of Conservatism, which begins to make itself felt in America,
shall impart its wholesome influences to an off-shoot of England, so
vast already, and of such grand importance to the future, then, and
not till then, will be duly estimated the real greatness of those
splendid services which Burke was created to perform, not for his
country only, but for the human race.

Perhaps it could hardly have been otherwise; but it must always be
deplored that the Conservatism of England was reproduced on the
Continent in connexion with the Christianity of Ultramontanism. The
conservatism of de Stael and of Chateaubriand, though repudiated by
the _réactionnaires_, is indeed worthy of honourable mention, as their
characters will ever be of all admiration; yet it must be owned to be
deficient in force, and by no means executive. It was the Conservatism
of impulse--the Conservatism of genius, but not the Conservatism of
profound philosophy and energetic benevolence. The spirit that
breathes in the _Génie du Christianisme_ is always beautiful, and
often devout, yet it has been justly censured, as recommending less
the truth than the beauty of the religion of Jesus Christ; and though
it doubtless did something to reproduce the religious sentiment, it
seems to have effected nothing in behalf of religious principle. Its
author would have fulfilled a nobler mission had he taught his
countrymen, in sober prose, their radical defects in morality, and
their absolute lack of a conscience. The Conservatives of the Reaction
have at least attempted greater things. They have bluntly told the
French nation that they must reform; they have set themselves to
produce again the believing spirit: their mistake has been, that they
have confounded faith with superstition, and taken the cause of the
Jesuits into the cause of their country and their God. Nothing could
have been more fatal. It arms against them such characters as
Michelet,[5] with his _Priests, Women, and Families_, and makes even
Quinet formidable with his lectures on "the Jesuits and
Ultramontanism." Yet it must be urged in their behalf, that they have
been pardonably foolish, for they drew their error with their mother's
milk; and when even faith was ridiculed as credulity, it was an
extravagance almost virtuous to rush into superstition. Such is the
dilemma of a good man in Continental Europe: his choice lies between
the extremes of corrupt faith and philosophic unbelief. This was the
misfortune of poor Frederick Schlegel; and, disgusted with the hollow
rationalism of Germany, he became a Papist, in order to profess
himself a Christian. The mistake was magnanimously made. We cannot but
admire the man who eats the book of Roman infallibility, in his hunger
for the bread of everlasting life. Even Chateaubriand must claim our
sympathies on this ground. Our feelings are with such errorists--our
convictions of truth remain unaltered; and we cannot but lament the
fatality which has thus attended European Conservatism like its
shadow, and exposed it to successful assaults from its foes. I have
shown how they use their opportunity. And no wonder, when this
substitution of Ultramontanism for Christianity has involved de
Maistre in an elaborate defence of the Inquisition--debased the
Conservatism of de Bonald to slavish absolutism;[6] and when true to
its deadening influence upon the conscience, it implicated von Haller
in the infamous perjury which, though committed under the sanction of
a Romish bishop, led to his ignominious expulsion from the sovereign
council at Berne. Chateaubriand has not escaped an infection from the
same atmosphere. It taints his writings. In such a work as the _Génie
du Christianisme_, denounced as it is by the Ultramontanists
generally, there is much that is not wholesome. The eloquent champion
of faith wields the glaive as stoutly for fables as for eternal
verities. The poet makes beauty drag decay in her train, and ties a
dead corpse to the wings of immortality. Truth itself, in his apology,
though brought out in grand relief, is sculptured on a sepulchre full
of dead men's bones; and, unhappily, while we draw near to examine the
perfection of his ideal, we find ourselves repelled by a lurking scent
of putrefaction.

The career of de Maistre is, in epitome, that of his school. Disgusted
with Jacobinism, and naturally delighting in paradox, it seemed to
afford him relief to avow himself a papist, in an age of atheism. He
was not only the author of the reactionary movement, but his character
was itself the product of Reaction. Driven with his king to Sardinia,
in 1792, by the invasion of Piedmont, his philosophical contempt for
the revolutionists was exhibited in his _Considerations sur la
France_, from which, in a former letter, I have made so long a
quotation. In this work--in some respects his best--his Ultramontanism
is far from extravagant: and not only his religious principles as they
were then, but also the effect which everything English was then
producing on his mind, is clearly seen in a comment upon the English
Church, which, as it passed his review, and was printed again in 1817
with no retractation, must be regarded as somewhat extraordinary. "If
ever Christians reunite," says he, "as all things make it their
interest to do, it would seem that the movement must take rise in the
Church of England. Calvinism was French work, and consequently an
exaggerated production. We are pushed too far away by the sectarians
of so unsubstantial a religion, and there is no mean by which they may
comprehend us: but the Church of England, which touches us with one
hand, touches with the other a class whom we cannot reach; and
although, in a certain point of view, she may thus appear the butt of
two parties, (as being herself rebellious, though preaching
authority,) yet in other respects _she is most precious_, and may be
considered as one of those chemical _intermèdes_, which are capable of
producing a union between elements dissociable in themselves." He
seldom shows such moderation; for the Greek and Anglican churches he
specially hates. In 1804 he was sent ambassador to St Petersburg; and
there he resided till 1817, fulfilling his diplomatic duties with that
zeal for his master, and that devotion to conservative interests,
which are the spirit of his writings. There he published, in 1814, the
pithy _Essai sur le principe générateur des Constitutions_, in which
he reduced to an abstract form the doctrines of his former treatise on
France. His style is peculiarly relishable, sometimes even sportive;
but its main maxims are laid down with a dictatorial dignity and
sternness, which associate the tractate, in the minds of many, with
the writings of Montesquieu. This essay, so little known in England,
has found an able translator and editor in America, who commends it to
his countrymen as an antidote to those interpretations which are put
upon our constitutional law by the political disciples of Rousseau. I
commend the simple fact to your consideration, as a sign of the more
earnest tone of thinking, on such matters, which is beginning to be
felt among us. The fault of the essay is its practical part, or those
applications into which his growing Ultramontanism diverted his sound
theories. His principles are often capable of being turned upon
himself, as I have noticed in the matter of creeds. His genius also
found a congenial amusement in translating Plutarch's _Delays of
Divine Justice_, which he accompanied with learned notes, illustrating
the influence of Christianity upon a heathen mind. On his return from
St Petersburg in 1817, appeared his violent Ultramontane work, _Du
Pape_, in which he most ingeniously, but very sophistically, uses in
support of the papacy an elaborate argument, drawn from the good which
an overruling Providence has accomplished, by the very usurpations and
tyrannies of the Roman See. As if this were not enough, however, he
closes his life and labours with another work, the _Soirées de St
Petersbourg_, in which, with bewitching eloquence, he expends all his
powers of varied learning, and pointed sarcasm, and splendid
sophistry, upon questions which have but the one point of turning
everything to the account of his grand theory of church and state.
Thus, from first to last, he identifies his political and moral
philosophy with religious dogmas essentially ruinous to liberty, and
which, during three centuries, have wasted every kingdom in which they
have gained ascendency. To the direct purpose of uprooting the little
that remained of Gallicanism, he devoted a treatise, which accompanies
his work _Du Pape_, and of which the first book is entitled, _De
l'Esprit d'opposition nourri en France contre le Saint-Siège_. Its
points may be stated in a simple sentence from the works of his
coadjutor, Frederick Schlegel, who, in a few words, gives the theory
which has been the great mistake of the Reaction. "The disguised
half-schism of the Gallican church," says he,--"_not less fatal in its
historical effects than the open schism of the Greeks_--has
contributed very materially towards the decline of religion in France,
down to the period of the Restoration."[7] He illustrates it by the
disputes of Louis XIV. with the court of Rome, but forgets to say
anything of his extermination of the Huguenots. In one sense, however,
he is right. It was precisely the _half_-schism to which the mischief
is attributable. This half-way work it was that enabled Louis XIV. to
assert the Gallican theory against a semi-Protestant pope, for the
very purpose of fostering genuine Ultramontanism and favouring the
Jesuits; while under another pontiff he could repudiate Gallicanism,
and force the clergy to retract what he had forced them to adopt! The
schism of England was doubtless "an open schism," in the opinion of
Schlegel, and if so, it should have been followed, on his theory, by
worse effects; but Schlegel lives too long after the days of Bossuet
to bring her example into view. The natural appeal would have been to
that example, as its history is cotemporary; but he adroitly diverts
attention from so instructive a parallel, and cunningly drags in "the
open schism _of the Greeks_!" Thus, against a bristling front of
facts, he drives his theory that France has not been Romish enough,
and lends all his energies to render her less Gallican and more
Tridentine. Were he now alive, he might see reason to amend his
doctrine in the condition of Rome itself! But the condition of France
is quite as conclusive. Since the Restoration, the French Church has
been growing more and more Ultramontane, and the people are worse and
worse. Gallicanism is extinct, but results are all against the
Reactionary theory. France has no more a la Vendée; there will be no
more Chouans; the present Church is incapable of reviving such things.
It makes the infidels. I know there is less show of rampant atheism
just now than formerly; but if there is less of paroxysm, there is
less of life. France dies of a chronic atheism. The Abbé Bonnetat,
writing in 1845 on _The Religious and Moral Wants of the French
Population_, expresses nothing but contempt for the alleged
improvement in religious feeling. According to him, almost a tenth of
the male population, in any given district, not only do not believe in
GOD, but glory in their unbelief. Half of all the rest make no secret
of their infidelity as to the immortality of the soul; and their wives
are equally sceptical, to the curse of their children's children! "The
residue believe," says the Abbé, "only in the sense of not denying.
They affirm nothing, but, as compared with the others, they lack the
science of misbelief." To go on with his melancholy picture, the
divine and salutary institution of the Lord's day no longer effects
its purpose. In towns, the working classes and tradespeople scarcely
ever enter the churches. In the rural districts, a tenth of the people
never go to church at all; and of the rest, one half may hear a mass
on the five great festivals, while the other half, though more
frequent in attendance, are very irregular. One Sunday they perform
the duty perfunctorily; the next they work in the fields; the next
they stay at home, amuse themselves, and forget religion as part of
"dull care." The young folk, in many places, receive their first and
last communion at twelve or fourteen, and that is the end of their
conformity. A worse feature yet in the domestic manners, resulting
from this state of religion, is the fact that girls and boys are
brought up very much in the same way, and are thrown promiscuously
together, spending their evenings where they choose. Parents have
ceased to ask their children--_Why were you not at church? Were you at
vespers? Were you at mass?_ and in fact are the first to corrupt their
offspring, by their brutal irreligion, and coarse language, and
shameless behaviour.[8]

Such is the moral picture of France. The Abbé has brightened his mass
of shadow with here and there a reflection of light, but there is no
mistaking his work for a Claude Lorraine. France is in a moral
eclipse, and her portrait presents, of necessity, the _chiaro 'scuro_
of a Rembrandt. One needs no more than these confessions of a French
ecclesiastic to account for her false and fickle notions of liberty,
and for her interminable _émeutes_ and revolutions. Yet if Quinet has
not wholly invented his assertions, the Conservatism of France is
pledged to prescribe as remedies the same old poison from which the
disease results. It would take the Christianity of the nation, at its
last gasp, and dose it anew with Ultramontanism. They have adopted the
sound principle, that Christianity moulds a people to enlightened
notions of liberty, but they seem not to know that it does this by
acting directly upon the conscience; and hence their political system
is spoiled by their fatal substitution, for pure Christianity, of that
spurious religion whose great defect is precisely this, that it does
not undertake to cleanse and cure the conscience, but only to subject
it, mechanically, to irrational authority. Montesquieu, in asserting
the importance of Christianity, without question failed to detect this
essential defect in Popery, but he instinctively taught his
countrymen, by memorable example, to eschew Ultramontanism. In the
closing scene of a life which, with all its blemishes, was a great
life, and, in comparison with his times, a good one, he accepted with
reverence the ministrations of his parish priest, but repulsed from
his deathbed, with aversion and disgust, the officious and intrusive
Jesuits.[9] De Maistre is more devout than Montesquieu, but he is less
jealous of liberty, and his ideas of "what a people ought to will" are
limited, if not illiberal. His more moderate ally, Ballanche, has not
unjustly characterised him as "not, like Providence, merciful, but,
like destiny, inexorable." It is impossible that a Conservatism, of
which such is the sovereign genius, should achieve anything for the
restoration of such a country as France. I have, indeed, predicted the
restoration of the Bourbons, according to de Maistre's principles, by
the sheer tenacity of life which belongs to a hereditary claim, and by
which it outlasts all other pretensions. But I cannot think that
either he or his disciples have done much to bring it about; and still
less do I imagine that their system, as a system, can give permanence
to the monarchy or prosperity to the state. On the contrary, let Mons.
Berryer, or the Comte de Montalembert, attempt the settlement of the
kingdom on the theory of the _réactionnaires_, and they will speedily
bring it to that full stop which Heaven at last adjudges to princes as
well as to people, "who show themselves untutored by calamity, and
rebels to experience." They will, at best, prolong the era of
revolutions to some indefinite epoch of futurity, and consign the
nation to a fever, which will return periodically, like a tertian, and
wear it out by shakings.

It will be well, then, if the imperial farce that must precede "the
_legitimate_ drama" shall prove somewhat protracted. The Legitimists,
meantime, may become convinced of the blunder of the Reaction, and
resolve upon a wiser and more sound conservatism. De Maistre hazards
some predictions in his works, on which he stakes the soundness of his
theories, and for which he challenges derision and contempt to his
doctrines, if they fail. The position of _Pio Nono_, from the very
outset of his career, has stultified those theories already; and if he
remains permanently where he now is, it will be to good-breeding alone
that de Maistre will owe his preservation from the contempt he has
invoked, by staking his reputation on the conservative character of
that very court of Rome, from which the democratic wildfire, that has
inflamed all Europe, has proceeded! In any conceivable settlement of
the Roman States, the Pontiff will hardly be to Europe what he has
been during the former years of this century; and if he is to sink to
a mere patriarchal primate, the grand dream of ultramontanism is
dissipated.[10] It is to be hoped, then, that the restoration may be
deferred till the Legitimists have been effectually taught the grand
fallacy of ultramontane conservatism; and that Henry V. will ascend
the throne, cured of the hereditary plague of his immediate ancestors,
and willing to revert, for his example, to his great name-sake, Henri
Quatre. He will need another Sully to restore France to a sound mind.
His cause demands a minister who will not trust it to the tide of
impulse on which it will come in, but who will labour with prudence
and with foresight, to gain an anchorage before the ebb. Give but a
minister to the restoration capable of that kind of patient and
practical forecast, which sent Peter to the dock-yards; and let him
begin with the parochial schools, to mould a new race of Frenchmen
under the influences of true religion; and let him have the seventeen
years which Louis Philippe wasted on steam-ships and bastions, and
Montpensier marriages; and then, if it be "men that constitute a
state," there is yet a future of hope for France. And forgive me for
adding, Basil, that if England shall reverse this policy, and make the
national schools the sources of disaffection to the national
religion--then may she expect to see her Oxford and Cambridge degraded
to such seats of sedition as "the College of France," and their
ingenuous youth converted from gownsmen into blousemen, under such
_savans_ as Quinet. Remember, too, in connexion with what I have
written, that Ireland is the most ultramontane of all nations under
heaven, and you will be able to estimate the value of government
measures for its relief! May God open the eyes of all who seek the
prosperity of the British empire to the primary importance of a
wholesome national religion, retaining its hold on the national heart,
and moulding the national conscience to the grand political wisdom of
the proverb--"My son, fear the Lord and the king, and meddle not with
them that are given to change." Yours,

                                                     ERNEST.

FOOTNOTES:

[2] _Ultramontanism; or the Roman Church and Modern Society._ By E.
QUINET, of the College of France. Translated from the French. Third
edition, with the author's approbation, by C. COCKS, B.L. London: John
Chapman. 1845.

[3] He surely means _Bernini_, and is a _ninny_ for not saying so. But
Mr Cocks' translation says _Berni_--p. 144.

[4] _Literary Life of Frederick von Schlegel._ By James Burton
Robertson, Esq.

[5] See _Blackwood_ for August 1845.

[6] Mr Robertson says of de Bonald, "As long as this great writer
deals in general propositions, he seldom errs; but when he comes to
apply his principles to practice, then the political prejudices in
which he was bred lead him sometimes into exaggerations and errors."
For "political prejudices" substitute _Ultramontanism_, and Mr
Robertson has characterised the whole school of the Reaction.

[7] _Philosophy of History._

[8] _De l'Etat et des besoins Religieux et Moraux des Populations en
France_: par M. L'ABBÉ J. BONNETAT. Paris. 1845.

[9] See _Blackwood_, October 1845.

[10] "Le Souverain Pontife est la base nécessaire, unique, et
exclusive du Christianisme.... Si les évènements contrarient ce que
j'avance, j'appelle sur ma mémoire le mépris et les risées de la
postérité."--_Du Pape_, chap. v. p. 268.




MADAME D'ARBOUVILLE'S "VILLAGE DOCTOR."


The readers of _Blackwood_ can hardly have forgotten a charming French
tale, of which an abridged translation appeared, under the title of
"_An Unpublished French Novel_," in the number of the Magazine for
December 1847. In the brief notice prefixed to it, we mentioned the
existence of a companion story by the same authoress, which had
obtained wider circulation than its fellow, through arbitrary transfer
to the pages of a French periodical; and which, on that account,
although of more convenient length than the _Histoire Hollandaise_, we
abstained from reproducing. Having thus drawn attention to one of the
most pleasing tales we in any language are acquainted with, we fully
expected speedily to meet with it in an English version. Not having
done so, our vivid recollection of the great merits of "_Le Médecin du
Village_" now induces us to revoke our first decision--the more
readily that we have repeatedly been solicited to give the English
public an opportunity of appreciating a tale unprocurable in the form
in which it was originally printed, and which few persons in this
country are likely to have read in the _Revue des Deux Mondes_. The
exquisite delineation of the erring, but meekly penitent Annunciata,
and of the long-suffering and enthusiastically pious Christine, may
well inspire a wish to become acquainted with other productions of the
same delicate and graceful pen. The simple story of the _Village
Doctor_ will not disappoint expectation. We ourselves, deeply sensible
of the fascinations of the Countess d'Arbouville's style, consider it
her happiest effort; and although we once hinted a doubt of the
probability of its crowning incident, we forget to play the critic
when under the influence of her touching pathos and delightful
diction. In our present capacity of translators we feel but too
strongly the impossibility of rendering the artless elegance of her
style, which flows on, smooth, fresh, and sparkling, like a summer
streamlet over golden sands. And, with all her apparent simplicity,
Madame d'Arbouville is a cunning artist, playing with skilful hand
upon the chords of the heart, which vibrate at her lightest touch. The
effects she produces are the more striking because seemingly unsought.
But her merits will be better exhibited by this second specimen of her
writings than by any praise we could lavish; and we therefore proceed,
without further preamble, to the narrative of Eva Meredith's sorrows,
as given by her humble friend,


THE VILLAGE DOCTOR.

"What is that?" exclaimed several persons assembled in the dining-room
of the château of Burcy.

The Countess of Moncar had just inherited, from a distant and slightly
regretted relation, an ancient château which she had never seen,
although it was at barely fifteen leagues from her habitual summer
residence. One of the most elegant, and almost one of the prettiest
women in Paris, Madame de Moncar was but moderately attached to the
country. Quitting the capital at the end of June, to return thither
early in October, she usually took with her some of the companions of
her winter gaieties, and a few young men, selected amongst her most
assiduous partners. Madame de Moncar was married to a man much older
than herself, who did not always protect her by his presence. Without
abusing the great liberty she enjoyed, she was gracefully coquettish,
elegantly frivolous, pleased with trifles--with a compliment, an
amiable word, an hour's triumph--loving a ball for the pleasure of
adorning herself, fond of admiration, and not sorry to inspire love.
When some grave old aunt ventured a sage remonstrance--"_Mon Dieu!_"
she replied; "do let me laugh and take life gaily. It is far less
dangerous than to listen in solitude to the beating of one's heart.
For my part, I do not know if I even have a heart!" She spoke the
truth, and really was uncertain upon that point. Desirous to remain
so, she thought it prudent to leave herself no time for reflection.

One fine morning in September, the countess and her guests set out for
the unknown château, intending to pass the day there. A cross road,
reputed practicable, was to reduce the journey to twelve leagues. The
cross road proved execrable: the travellers lost their way in the
forest; a carriage broke down; in short, it was not till mid-day that
the party, much fatigued, and but moderately gratified by the
picturesque beauties of the scenery, reached the château of Burcy,
whose aspect was scarcely such as to console them for the annoyances
of the journey. It was a large sombre building with dingy walls. In
its front a garden, then out of cultivation, descended from terrace to
terrace; for the château, built upon the slope of a wooded hill, had
no level ground in its vicinity. On all sides it was hemmed in by
mountains, the trees upon which sprang up amidst rocks, and had a dark
and gloomy foliage that saddened the eyesight. Man's neglect added to
the natural wild disorder of the scene. Madame de Moncar stood
motionless and disconcerted upon the threshold of her newly-acquired
mansion.

"This is very unlike a party of pleasure," said she; "I could weep at
sight of this dismal abode. Nevertheless here are noble trees, lofty
rocks, a roaring cataract; doubtless, there is a certain beauty in all
that; but it is of too grave an order for my humour," added she with a
smile. "Let us go in and view the interior."

The hungry guests, eager to see if the cook, who had been sent forward
upon the previous day, as an advanced guard, had safely arrived,
willingly assented. Having obtained the agreeable certainty that an
abundant breakfast would soon be upon the table, they rambled through
the château. The old-fashioned furniture with tattered coverings, the
arm-chairs with three legs, the tottering tables, the discordant
sounds of a piano, which for a good score of years had not felt a
finger, afforded abundant food for jest and merriment. Gaiety
returned. Instead of grumbling at the inconveniences of this
uncomfortable mansion, it was agreed to laugh at everything. Moreover,
for these young and idle persons, the expedition was a sort of event,
an almost perilous campaign, whose originality appealed to the
imagination. A faggot was lighted beneath the wide chimney of the
drawing-room; but clouds of smoke were the result, and the company
took refuge in the pleasure grounds. The aspect of the gardens was
strange enough; the stone-benches were covered with moss, the walls of
the terraces, crumbling in many places, left space between their
ill-joined stones for the growth of numerous wild plants, which sprung
out erect and lofty, or trailed with flexible grace towards the earth.
The walks were overgrown and obliterated by grass; the parterres,
reserved for garden flowers, were invaded by wild ones, which grow
wherever the heavens afford a drop of water and a ray of sun; the
insipid bearbine enveloped and stifled in its envious embrace the
beauteous rose of Provence; the blackberry mingled its acrid fruits
with the red clusters of the currant-bush; ferns, wild mint with its
faint perfume, thistles with their thorny crowns, grew beside a few
forgotten lilies. When the company entered the enclosure, numbers of
the smaller animals, alarmed at the unaccustomed intrusion, darted
into the long grass, and the startled birds flew chirping from branch
to branch. Silence, for many years the undisturbed tenant of this
peaceful spot, fled at the sound of human voices and of joyous
laughter. The solitude was appreciated by none--none grew pensive
under its influence; it was recklessly broken and profaned. The
conversation ran upon the gay evenings of the past season, and was
interspersed with amiable allusions, expressive looks, covert
compliments, with all the thousand nothings, in short, resorted to by
persons desirous to please each other, but who have not yet acquired
the right to be serious.

The steward, after long search for a breakfast-bell along the
dilapidated walls of the château, at last made up his mind to shout
from the steps that the meal was ready--the half-smile with which he
accompanied the announcement, proving that, like his betters, he
resigned himself for one day to a deviation from his habits of
etiquette and propriety. Soon a merry party surrounded the board. The
gloom of the château, its desert site and uncheery aspect, were all
forgotten; the conversation was general and well sustained; the health
of the lady of the castle--the fairy whose presence converted the
crazy old edifice into an enchanted palace, was drunk by all present.
Suddenly all eyes were turned to the windows of the dining-room.

"What is that?" exclaimed several of the guests.

A small carriage of green wicker-work, with great wheels as high as
the body of the vehicle, passed before the windows, and stopped at the
door. It was drawn by a gray horse, short and punchy, whose eyes
seemed in danger from the shafts, which, from their point of junction
with the carriage, sloped obliquely upwards. The hood of the little
cabriolet was brought forward, concealing its contents, with the
exception of two arms covered with the sleeves of a blue _blouse_, and
of a whip which fluttered about the ears of the gray horse.

"_Mon Dieu!_" exclaimed Madame de Moncar, "I forgot to tell you I was
obliged to invite the village doctor to our breakfast. The old man was
formerly of some service to my uncle's family, and I have seen him
once or twice. Be not alarmed at the addition to our party: he is very
taciturn. After a few civil words, we may forget his presence;
besides, I do not suppose he will remain very long."

At this moment the dining-room door opened, and Dr Barnaby entered. He
was a little old man, feeble and insignificant-looking, of calm and
gentle countenance. His gray hairs were collected into a cue,
according to a bygone fashion; a dash of powder whitened his temples,
and extended to his furrowed brow. He wore a black coat, and steel
buckles to his breeches. Over one arm hung a riding-coat of
puce-coloured taffety. In the opposite hand he carried his hat and a
thick cane. His whole appearance proved that he had taken unusual
pains with his toilet; but his black stockings and coat were stained
with mud, as if the poor old man had fallen into a ditch. He paused at
the door, astonished at the presence of so many persons. For an
instant, a tinge of embarrassment appeared upon his face; but
recovering himself, he silently saluted the company. The strange
manner of his entrance gave the guests a violent inclination to laugh,
which they repressed more or less successfully. Madame de Moncar
alone, in her character of mistress of the house, and incapable of
failing in politeness, perfectly preserved her gravity.

"Dear me, doctor! have you had an overturn?" was her first inquiry.

Before replying, Dr Barnaby glanced at all these young people in the
midst of whom he found himself, and, simple and artless though his
physiognomy was, he could not but guess the cause of their hilarity.
He replied quietly:

"I have not been overturned. A poor carter fell under the wheels of
his vehicle; I was passing, and I helped him up." And the doctor took
possession of a chair left vacant for him at the table. Unfolding his
napkin, he passed a corner through the buttonhole of his coat, and
spread out the rest over his waistcoat and knees. At these
preparations, smiles hovered upon the lips of many of the guests, and
a whisper or two broke the silence; but this time the doctor did not
raise his eyes. Perhaps he observed nothing.

"Is there much sickness in the village?" inquired Madame de Moncar,
whilst they were helping the new comer.

"Yes, madam, a good deal."

"This is an unhealthy neighbourhood?"

"No, madam."

"But the sickness. What causes it?"

"The heat of the sun in harvest time, and the cold and wet of winter."

One of the guests, affecting great gravity, joined in the
conversation.

"So that in this healthy district, sir, people are ill all the year
round?"

The doctor raised his little gray eyes to the speaker's face, looked
at him, hesitated, and seemed either to check or to seek a reply.
Madame de Moncar kindly came to his relief.

"I know," she said, "that you are here the guardian genius of all who
suffer."

"Oh, you are too good," replied the old man, apparently much engrossed
with the slice of pasty upon his plate. Then the gay party left Dr
Barnaby to himself, and the conversation flowed in its previous
channel. If any notice was taken of the peaceable old man, it was in
the form of some slight sarcasm, which, mingled with other discourse,
would pass, it was thought, unperceived by its object. Not that these
young men and women were generally otherwise than polite and
kind-hearted; but upon that day the journey, the breakfast, the
merriment and slight excitement that had attended all the events of
the morning, had brought on a sort of heedless gaiety and
communicative mockery, which rendered them pitiless to the victim whom
chance had thrown in their way. The doctor continued quietly to eat,
without looking up, or uttering a word, or seeming to hear one; they
voted him deaf and dumb, and he was no restraint upon the
conversation.

When the guests rose from table, Dr Barnaby took a step or two
backwards, and allowed each man to select the lady he wished to take
into the drawing-room. One of Madame de Moncar's friends remaining
without a cavalier, the village doctor timidly advanced, and offered
her his hand--not his arm. His fingers scarcely touched hers as he
proceeded, his body slightly bent in sign of respect, with measured
steps towards the drawing-room. Fresh smiles greeted his entrance, but
not a cloud appeared upon the placid countenance of the old man, who
was now voted blind, as well as deaf and dumb. Quitting his companion,
Dr Barnaby selected the smallest, humblest-looking chair in the room,
placed it in a corner, at some distance from everybody else, put his
stick between his knees, crossed his hands upon the knob, and rested
his chin upon his hands. In this meditative attitude he remained
silent, and from time to time his eyes closed, as if a gentle slumber,
which he neither invoked nor repelled, were stealing over him.

"Madame de Moncar!" cried one of the guests, "I presume it is not your
intention to inhabit this ruin in a desert?"

"Certainly I have no such project. But here are lofty trees and wild
woods. M. de Moncar may very likely be tempted to pass a few weeks
here in the shooting season."

"In that case you must pull down and rebuild; clear, alter, and
improve!"

"Let us make a plan!" cried the young countess. "Let us mark out the
future garden of my domains."

It was decreed that this party of pleasure should be unsuccessful. At
that moment a heavy cloud burst, and a close fine rain began to fall.
Impossible to leave the house.

"How very vexatious!" cried Madame de Moncar. "What shall we do with
ourselves? The horses require several hours' rest. It will evidently
be a wet afternoon. For a week to come, the grass, which overgrows
everything, will not be dry enough to walk upon; all the strings of
the piano are broken; there is not a book within ten leagues. This
room is wretchedly dismal. What can we do with ourselves?"

The party, lately so joyous, was gradually losing its gaiety. The
blithe laugh and arch whisper were succeeded by dull silence. The
guests sauntered to the windows and examined the sky, but the sky
remained dark and cloud-laden. Their hopes of a walk were completely
blighted. They established themselves as comfortably as they could
upon the old chairs and settees, and tried to revive the conversation;
but there are thoughts which, like flowers, require a little sun, and
which will not flourish under a bleak sky. All these young heads
appeared to droop, oppressed by the storm, like the poplars in the
garden, which bowed their tops at the will of the wind. A tedious hour
dragged by.

The lady of the castle, a little disheartened by the failure of her
party of pleasure, leaned languidly upon a window-sill, and gazed
vaguely at the prospect without.

"There," said she--"yonder, upon the hill, is a white cottage that
must come down: it hides the view."

"The white cottage!" cried the doctor. For upwards of an hour Dr
Barnaby had been mute and motionless upon his chair. Mirth and
weariness, sun and rain, had succeeded each other without eliciting a
syllable from his lips. His presence was forgotten by everybody: every
eye turned quickly upon him when he uttered these three words--"The
white cottage!"

"What interest do you take in it, doctor?" asked the countess.

"_Mon Dieu, madame!_ Pray forget that I spoke. The cottage will come
down, undoubtedly, since such is your good pleasure."

"But why should you regret the old shed?"

"I--_Mon Dieu!_ it was inhabited by persons I loved--and--"

"And they think of returning to it, doctor?"

"They are long since dead, madam; they died when I was young!" And the
old man gazed mournfully at the white cottage, which rose amongst the
trees upon the hill-side, like a daisy in a green field. There was a
brief silence.

"Madam," said one of the guests in a low voice to Madame de Moncar,
"there is mystery here. Observe the melancholy of our Esculapius. Some
pathetic drama has been enacted in yonder house; a tale of love,
perhaps. Ask the doctor to tell it us."

"Yes, yes!" was murmured on all sides, "a tale, a story! And should it
prove of little interest, at any rate the narrator will divert us."

"Not so, gentlemen," replied Madame de Moncar, in the same suppressed
voice. "If I ask Dr Barnaby to tell us the history of the white
cottage, it is on the express condition that no one laughs." All
having promised to be serious and well-behaved, Madame de Moncar
approached the old man. "Doctor," said she, seating herself beside
him, "that house, I plainly see, is connected with some reminiscence
of former days, stored preciously in your memory. Will you tell it us?
I should be grieved to cause you a regret which it is in my power to
spare you; the house shall remain, if you tell me why you love it."

Dr Barnaby seemed surprised, and remained silent. The countess drew
still nearer to him. "Dear doctor!" said she, "see what wretched
weather; how dreary everything looks. You are the senior of us all;
tell us a tale. Make us forget rain, and fog, and cold."

Dr Barnaby looked at the countess with great astonishment.

"There is no tale," he said. "What occurred in the cottage is very
simple, and has no interest but for me, who loved the young people:
strangers would not call it a tale. And I am unaccustomed to speak
before many listeners. Besides, what I should tell you is sad, and you
came to amuse yourselves." And again the doctor rested his chin upon
his stick.

"Dear doctor," resumed the countess, "the white cottage shall stand,
if you say why you love it."

The old man appeared somewhat moved; he crossed and uncrossed his
legs; took out his snuff-box, returned it to his pocket without
opening it; then, looking at the countess--"You will not pull it
down?" he said, indicating with his thin and tremulous hand the
habitation visible at the horizon.

"I promise you I will not."

"Well, so be it; I will do that much for them; I will save the house
in which they were happy.

"Ladies," continued the old man, "I am but a poor speaker; but I
believe that even the least eloquent succeed in making themselves
understood when they tell what they have seen. This story, I warn you
beforehand, is not gay. To dance and to sing, people send for a
musician; they call in the physician when they suffer, and are near to
death."

A circle was formed round Dr Barnaby, who, his hands still crossed
upon his cane, quietly commenced the following narrative, to an
audience prepared beforehand to smile at his discourse.

"It was a long time ago, when I was young--for I, too, have been
young! Youth is a fortune that belongs to all the world--to the poor
as well as to the rich--but which abides with none. I had just passed
my examination; I had taken my physician's degree, and I returned to
my village to exercise my wonderful talents, well convinced that,
thanks to me, men would now cease to die.

My village is not far from here. From the little window of my room, I
beheld yonder white house upon the opposite side to that you now
discern. You certainly would not find my village handsome. In my eyes,
it was superb; I was born there, and I loved it. We all see with our
own eyes the things we love. God suffers us to be sometimes a little
blind; for He well knows that in this lower world a clear sight is not
always profitable. To me, then, this neighbourhood appeared smiling
and pleasant, and I lived happily. The white cottage alone, each
morning when I opened my shutters, impressed me disagreeably: it was
always closed, still and sad like a forsaken thing. Never had I seen
its windows open and shut, or its door ajar; never had I known its
inhospitable garden-gate give passage to human being. Your uncle,
madam, who had no occasion for a cottage so near his château, sought
to let it; but the rent was rather higher than anybody here was rich
enough to give. It remained empty, therefore, whilst in the hamlet
every window exhibited two or three children's faces peering through
the branches of gilliflower at the first noise in the street. But one
morning, on getting up, I was quite astonished to see a long ladder
resting against the cottage wall; a painter was painting the
window-shutters green, whilst a maid-servant polished the panes, and a
gardener hoed the flower-beds.

"All the better," said I to myself; "a good roof like that, which
covers no one, is so much lost."

From day to day the house improved in appearance. Pots of flowers
veiled the nudity of the walls; the parterres were planted, the walks
weeded and gravelled, and muslin curtains, white as snow, shone in the
sun-rays. One day a post-chaise rattled through the village, and drove
up to the little house. Who were the strangers? None knew, and all
desired to learn. For a long time nothing transpired without of what
passed within the dwelling. The rose-trees bloomed, and the fresh-laid
lawn grew verdant; still nothing was known. Many were the commentaries
upon the mystery. They were adventurers concealing themselves--they
were a young man and his mistress--in short, everything was guessed
except the truth. The truth is so simple, that one does not always
think of it; once the mind is in movement, it seeks to the right and
to the left, and often forgets to look straight before it. The mystery
gave me little concern. No matter who is there, thought I; they are
human, therefore they will not be long without suffering, and then
they will send for me. I waited patiently.

At last one morning a messenger came from Mr William Meredith, to
request me to call upon him. I put on my best coat, and, endeavouring
to assume a gravity suitable to my profession, I traversed the
village, not without some little pride at my importance. That day many
envied me. The villagers stood at their doors to see me pass. "He is
going to the white cottage!" they said; whilst I, avoiding all
appearance of haste and vulgar curiosity, walked deliberately, nodding
to my peasant neighbours. "Good-day, my friends," I said; "I will see
you by-and-by; this morning I am busy." And thus I reached the
hill-side.

On entering the sitting-room of the mysterious house, the scene I
beheld rejoiced my eyesight. Everything was so simple and elegant.
Flowers, the chief ornament of the apartment, were so tastefully
arranged, that gold would not better have embellished the modest
interior. White muslin was at the windows, white calico on the
chairs--that was all; but there were roses and jessamine, and flowers
of all kinds, as in a garden. The light was softened by the curtains,
the atmosphere was fragrant; and a young girl or woman, fair and fresh
as all that surrounded her, reclined upon a sofa, and welcomed me with
a smile. A handsome young man, seated near her upon an ottoman, rose
when the servant announced Dr Barnaby.

"Sir," said he, with a strong foreign accent, "I have heard so much of
your skill that I expected to see an old man."

"I have studied diligently, sir," I replied. "I am deeply impressed
with the importance and responsibility of my calling: you may confide
in me."

"'Tis well," he said. "I recommend my wife to your best care. Her
present state demands advice and precaution. She was born in a
distant land: for my sake she has quitted family and friends. I can
bring but my affection to her aid, for I am without experience. I
reckon upon you, sir. If possible, preserve her from all suffering."

As he spoke, the young man fixed upon his wife a look so full of love,
that the large blue eyes of the beautiful foreigner glistened with
tears of gratitude. She dropped the tiny cap she was embroidering, and
her two hands clasped the hand of her husband. I looked at them, and I
ought to have found their lot enviable, but, somehow or other, the
contrary was the case. I felt sad; I could not tell why. I had often
seen persons weep, of whom I said--They are happy! I saw William
Meredith and his wife smile, and I could not help thinking they had
much sorrow. I seated myself near my charming patient. Never have I
seen anything so lovely as that sweet face, shaded by long ringlets of
fair hair.

"What is your age, madam?"

"Seventeen."

"Is the climate of your native country very different from ours?"

"I was born in America--at New Orleans. Oh! the sun is far brighter
than here."

Doubtless she feared she had uttered a regret, for she added--

"But every country is beautiful when one is in one's husband's house,
with him, and awaiting his child!"

Her gaze sought that of William Meredith; then, in a tongue I did not
understand, she spoke a few words which sounded so soft that they must
have been words of love.

After a short visit I took my leave, promising to return. I did
return, and, at the end of two months, I was almost the friend of this
young couple. Mr and Mrs Meredith were not selfish in their happiness;
they found time to think of others. They saw that to the poor village
doctor, whose sole society was that of peasants, those days were
festivals upon which he passed an hour in hearing the language of
cities. They encouraged me to frequent them--talked to me of their
travels, and soon, with the prompt confidence characterising youth,
they told me their story. It was the girl-wife who spoke:--

"Doctor," she said, "yonder, beyond the seas, I have father, sisters,
family, friends, whom I long loved, until the day when I loved
William. But then I shut my heart to those who repulsed my lover.
William's father forbade him to wed me, because he was too noble for
the daughter of an American planter. My father forbade me to love
William, because he was too proud to give his daughter to a man whose
family refused her a welcome. They tried to separate us; but we loved
each other. Long did we weep and supplicate, and implore the pity of
those to whom we owed obedience; they remained inflexible, and we
loved! Doctor, did you ever love? I would you had, that you might be
indulgent to us. We were secretly married, and we fled to France. Oh
how beautiful the ocean appeared in those early days of our affection!
The sea was hospitable to the fugitives. Wanderers upon the waves, we
passed happy days in the shadow of our vessel's sails, anticipating
pardon from our friends, and dreaming a bright future. Alas! we were
too sanguine. They pursued us; and, upon pretext of some irregularity
of form in our clandestine marriage, William's family cruelly thought
to separate us. We found concealment in the midst of these mountains
and forests. Under a name which is not ours we live unknown. My father
has not forgiven--he has cursed me! That is the reason, doctor, why I
cannot always smile, even with my dear William by my side."

How those two loved each other! Never have I seen a being more
completely wrapped up in another than was Eva Meredith in her husband!
Whatever her occupation, she always so placed herself, that, on
raising her eyes, she had William before them. She never read but in
the book he was reading. Her head against his shoulder, her eyes
followed the lines on which William's eyes were fixed; she wished the
same thoughts to strike them at the same moment; and, when I crossed
the garden to reach their door, I smiled always to see upon the gravel
the trace of Eva's little foot close to the mark of William's boot.
What a difference between the deserted old house you see yonder, and
the pretty dwelling of my young friends! What sweet flowers covered
the walls! What bright nosegays decked the tables! How many charming
books were there, full of tales of love that resembled their love! How
gay the birds that sang around them! How good it was to live there,
and to be loved a little by those who loved each other so much! But
those are right who say that happy days are not long upon this earth,
and that, in respect of happiness, God gives but a little at a time.

One morning Eva Meredith appeared to suffer. I questioned her with all
the interest I felt for her. She answered me abruptly.

"Do not feel my pulse, doctor," she said; "it is my heart that beats
too quick. Think me childish if you will, but I am sad this morning.
William is going away. He is going to the town beyond the mountain, to
receive money."

"And when will he return?" inquired I, gently.

She smiled, almost blushed, and then, with a look that seemed to say,
Do not laugh at me, she replied, "_This evening!_"

Notwithstanding her imploring glance, I could not repress a smile.
Just then a servant brought Mr Meredith's horse to the door. Eva rose
from her seat, went out into the garden, approached the horse, and,
whilst stroking his mane, bowed her head upon the animal's neck,
perhaps to conceal the tear that fell from her eyes. William came out,
threw himself lightly into the saddle, and gently raised his wife's
head.

"Silly girl!" said he, with love in his eyes and voice. And he kissed
her brow.

"William, we have never yet been so many hours apart!"

Mr Meredith stooped his head towards that of Eva, and imprinted a
second kiss upon her beautiful golden hair; then he touched his
horse's flank with the spur, and set off at a gallop. I am convinced
that he, too, was a little moved. Nothing is so contagious as the
weakness of those we love; tears summon tears, and it is no very
laudable courage that keeps our eyes dry by the side of a weeping
friend. I turned my steps homeward, and, once more in my cottage, I
set myself to meditate on the happiness of loving. I asked myself if
an Eva would ever cheer my poor dwelling. I did not think of examining
whether I were worthy to be loved. When we behold two beings thus
devoted to each other, we easily discern that it is not for good and
various reasons that they love so well; they love because it is
necessary, inevitable; they love on account of their own hearts, not
of those of others. Well, I thought how I might seek and find a heart
that had need to love, just as, in my morning walks, I might have
thought to meet, by the road-side, some flower of sweet perfume. Thus
did I muse, although it is perhaps a wrong feeling which makes us, at
sight of others' bliss, deplore the happiness we do not ourselves
possess. Is not a little envy there? and if joy could be stolen like
gold, should we not then be near a larceny?

The day passed, and I had just completed my frugal supper, when I
received a message from Mrs Meredith, begging me to visit her. In five
minutes I was at the door of the white cottage. I found Eva, still
alone, seated on a sofa, without work or book, pale and trembling.
"Come, doctor, come," said she, in her soft voice; "I can remain alone
no longer; see how late it is!--he should have been home two hours
ago, and has not yet returned!"

I was surprised at Mr Meredith's prolonged absence; but, to comfort
his wife, I replied quietly, "How can we tell the time necessary to
transact his business? They may have made him wait; the notary was
perhaps absent. There were papers to draw up and sign."

"Ah, doctor, I was sure you would find words of consolation! I needed
to hear some one tell me that it is foolish to tremble thus! Gracious
heaven, how long the day has been! Doctor, are there really persons
who live alone? Do they not die immediately, as if robbed of half the
atmosphere essential to life? But there is eight o'clock!" Eight
o'clock was indeed striking. I could not imagine why William was not
back. At all hazards I said to Mrs Meredith, "Madam, the sun is hardly
set; it is still daylight, and the evening is beautiful; come and
visit your flowers. If we walk down the road, we shall doubtless meet
your husband."

She took my arm, and we walked towards the gate of the little garden.
I endeavoured to turn her attention to surrounding objects. At first
she replied, as a child obeys. But I felt that her thoughts went not
with her words. Her anxious gaze was fixed upon the little green gate,
which had remained open since William's departure. Leaning upon the
paling, she suffered me to talk on, smiling from time to time, by way
of thanks; for, as the evening wore away, she lacked courage to answer
me. Gray tints succeeded the red sunset, foreshadowing the arrival of
night. Gloom gathered around us. The road, hitherto visible like a
white line winding through the forest, disappeared in the dark shade
of the lofty trees, and the village clock struck nine. Eva started. I
myself felt every stroke vibrate upon my heart. I pitied the poor
woman's uneasiness.

"Remember, madam," I replied, (she had not spoken, but I answered the
anxiety visible in her features,) "remember that Mr Meredith must
return at a walk; the roads through the forest are not in a state to
admit fast riding." I said this to encourage her; but the truth is, I
knew not how to explain William's absence. Knowing the distance, I
also knew that I could have gone twice to the town and back since his
departure. The evening dew began to penetrate our clothes, and
especially Eva's thin muslin dress. Again I drew her arm through mine
and led her towards the house. She followed unresistingly; her gentle
nature was submissive even in affliction. She walked slowly, her head
bowed, her eyes fixed on the tracks left by the gallop of her
husband's horse. How melancholy it was, that evening walk, still
without William! In vain we listened: there reigned around us the
profound stillness of a summer night in the country. How greatly does
a feeling of uneasiness increase under such circumstances. We entered
the house. Eva seated herself on the sofa, her hands clasped upon her
knees, her head sunk upon her bosom. There was a lamp on the
chimney-piece, whose light fell full upon her face. I shall never
forget its suffering expression. She was pale, very pale--her brow and
cheeks exactly the same colour; her hair, relaxed by the night-damp,
fell in disorder upon her shoulders. Tears filled her eyes, and the
quivering of her colourless lips showed how violent was the effort by
which she avoided shedding them. She was so young that her face
resembled that of a child forbidden to cry.

I was greatly troubled, and knew not what to say or how to look.
Suddenly I remembered (it was a doctor's thought) that Eva, engrossed
by her uneasiness, had taken nothing since morning, and her situation
rendered it imprudent to prolong this fast. At my first reference to
the subject she raised her eyes to mine with a reproachful expression,
and the motion of her eyelids caused two tears to flow down her
cheeks.

"For your child's sake, madam," said I.

"Ah, you are right!" she murmured, and she passed into the
dining-room; but there the little table was laid for two, and at that
moment this trifle so saddened me as to deprive me of speech and
motion. My increasing uneasiness rendered me quite awkward; I had not
the wit to say what I did not think. The silence was prolonged; "and
yet," said I to myself, "I am here to console her; she sent for me for
that purpose. There must be fifty ways of explaining this delay--let
me find one." I sought, and sought--and still I remained silent,
inwardly cursing the poverty of invention of a poor village doctor.
Eva, her head resting on her hand, forgot to eat. Suddenly she turned
to me and burst out sobbing.

"Ah, doctor!" she exclaimed, "I see plainly that you too are uneasy."

"Not so, madam--indeed not so," replied I, speaking at random. "Why
should I be uneasy? He has doubtless dined with the notary. The roads
are safe, and no one knows that he went for money."

I had inadvertently revealed one of my secret causes of uneasiness. I
knew that a band of foreign reapers had that morning passed through
the village, on their way to a neighbouring department.

Eva uttered a cry.

"Robbers! robbers!" she exclaimed. "I never thought of _that_ danger."

"But, madam, I only mention it to tell you it does not exist."

"Oh! the thought struck you, doctor, because you thought the
misfortune possible! William, my own William! why did you leave me?"
cried she, weeping bitterly.

I was in despair at my blunder, and I felt my eyes fill with tears. My
distress gave me an idea.

"Mrs Meredith," I said, "I cannot see you torment yourself thus, and
remain by your side unable to console you. I will go and seek your
husband; I will follow at random one of the paths through the forest;
I will search everywhere and shout his name, and go, if necessary, to
the town itself."

"Oh, thanks, thanks, kind friend!" cried Eva Meredith, "take the
gardener with you and the servant; search in all directions!"

We hurried back into the drawing-room, and Eva rang quickly and
repeatedly. All the inhabitants of the cottage opened at the same time
the different doors of the apartment. "Follow Dr Barnaby," cried Mrs
Meredith.

At that moment a horse's gallop was distinctly heard upon the gravel
of the garden. Eva uttered a cry of happiness that went home to every
heart. Never shall I forget the divine expression of joy that
illumined her face, still inundated with tears. She and I, we flew to
the house-door. The moon, passing from behind a cloud, threw her full
light upon a riderless and foam-covered horse, whose bridle dragged
upon the ground, and whose dusty flanks were galled by the empty
stirrups. A second cry, this time of intensest horror, burst from
Eva's breast; then she turned towards me, her eyes fixed, her mouth
half open, her arms hanging powerless.

The servants were in consternation.

"Get torches, my friends!" cried I, "and follow me! Madam, we shall
soon return, I hope, and your husband with us. He has received some
slight hurt, a strained ancle, perhaps. Keep up your courage. We will
soon be back."

"I go with you!" murmured Eva Meredith in a choking voice.

"Impossible!" I cried. "We must go, fast, perhaps far, and in your
state--it would be risking your life, and that of your child--"

"I go with you!" repeated Eva.

Then did I feel how cruel was this poor woman's isolation! Had a
father, a mother been there, they would have ordered her to stay, they
would have retained her by force; but she was alone upon the earth,
and to all my hurried entreaties she still replied in a hollow voice:
"I go with you!"

We set out. The moon was again darkened by dense clouds; there was
light neither in the heavens nor on the earth. The uncertain radiance
of our torches barely showed us the path. A servant went in front,
lowering his torch to the right and to the left, to illumine the
ditches and bushes bordering the road. Behind him Mrs Meredith, the
gardener, and myself followed with our eyes the stream of light. From
time to time we raised our voices and called Mr Meredith. After us a
stifled sob, murmured the name of William, as if a heart had reckoned
on the instinct of love to hear its tears better than our shouts. We
reached the forest. Rain began to fall, and the drops pattered upon
the foliage with a mournful noise, as if everything around us wept.
Eva's thin dress was soon soaked with the cold flood. The water
streamed from her hair over her face. She bruised her feet against the
stones of the road, and repeatedly stumbled and fell upon her knees;
but she rose again with the energy of despair, and pushed forwards. It
was agonising to behold her. I scarcely dared look at her, lest I
should see her fall dead before my eyes. At last--we were moving in
silence, fatigued and discouraged--Mrs Meredith pushed us suddenly
aside, sprang forward and plunged into the bushes. We followed her,
and, upon raising the torches--alas! she was on her knees beside the
body of William, who was stretched motionless upon the ground, his
eyes glazed and his brow covered with blood which flowed from a wound
in the left temple.

"Doctor?" said Eva to me. That one word expressed--"Does William
live?"

I stooped and felt the pulse of William Meredith; I placed my hand on
his heart and remained silent. Eva still gazed at me; but, when my
silence was prolonged, I saw her bend, waver, and then, without word
or cry, fall senseless upon her husband's corpse.

"But, ladies," said Dr Barnaby, turning to his audience, "the sun
shines again; you can go out now. Let us leave this sad story where it
is."

Madame de Moncar approached the old physician. "Doctor," said she, "I
implore you to continue; only look at us, and you will not doubt the
interest with which we listen."

There were no more smiles of mockery upon the young faces that
surrounded the village doctor. In some of their eyes he might even
distinguish the glistening of tears. He resumed his narrative.

"Mrs Meredith was carried home, and remained for several hours
senseless upon her bed. I felt it at once a duty and a cruelty to use
every effort to recall her to life. I dreaded the agonising scenes
that would follow this state of immobility. I remained beside the poor
woman, bathing her temples with fresh water, and awaiting with anxiety
the sad and yet the happy moment of returning consciousness. I was
mistaken in my anticipations, for I had never witnessed great grief.
Eva half opened her eyes and immediately closed them again; no tear
escaped from beneath their lids. She remained cold, motionless,
silent; and, but for the heart which again throbbed beneath my hand, I
should have deemed her dead. Sad is it to behold a sorrow which one
feels is beyond consolation! Silence, I thought, seemed like a want of
pity for this unfortunate creature: on the other hand, verbal
condolence was a mockery of so mighty a grief. I had found no words to
calm her uneasiness; could I hope to be more eloquent in the hour of
her great suffering? I took the safest course, that of profound
silence. I will remain here, I thought, and minister to the physical
sufferings, as is my duty; but I will be mute and passive, even as a
faithful dog would lie down at her feet. My mind once made up, I felt
calmer; I let her live a life which resembled death. After a few
hours, however, I put a spoonful of a potion to her lips. Eva slowly
averted her head. In a few moments I again offered her the drug.

"Drink, madam," I said, gently touching her lips with the spoon. They
remained closed.

"Madam, your child!" I persisted, in a low voice.

Eva opened her eyes, raised herself with effort upon her elbow,
swallowed the medicine, and fell back upon her pillow.

"I must wait," she murmured, "till another life is detached from
mine!"

Thenceforward Mrs Meredith spoke no more, but she mechanically
followed all my prescriptions. Stretched upon her bed of suffering,
she seemed constantly to sleep; but at whatever moment I said to her,
even in my lowest whisper, "Drink this," she instantly obeyed; thus
proving to me that the soul kept its weary watch in that motionless
body, without a single instant of oblivion and repose.

There were none beside myself to attend to the interment of William.
Nothing positive was ever known as to the cause of his death. The sum
he was to bring from the town was not found upon him; perhaps he had
been robbed and murdered; perhaps the money, which was in notes, had
fallen from his pocket when he was thrown from his horse, and, as it
was some time before any thought of seeking it, the heavy rain and
trampled mud might account for its disappearance. A fruitless
investigation was made and soon dropped. I endeavoured to learn from
Eva Meredith if her family, or that of her husband, should not be
written to. I had difficulty in obtaining an answer. At last she gave
me to understand that I had merely to inform their agent, who would do
whatever was needful. I hoped that, at least from England, some
communication would arrive, decisive of this poor creature's future
lot. But no; day followed day, and none seemed to know that the widow
of William Meredith lived in utter isolation, in a poor French
village. To endeavour to bring back Eva to the sense of her existence,
I urged her to leave her bed. Upon the morrow I found her up, dressed
in black; but she was the ghost of the beautiful Eva Meredith. Her
hair was parted in bands upon her pale forehead, and she sat near a
window, motionless as she had lain in bed.

I passed long silent evenings with her, a book in my hand for apparent
occupation. Each day, on my arrival, I addressed to her a few words of
sympathy. She replied by a thankful look; then we remained silent. I
waited an opportunity to open a conversation; but my awkwardness and
my respect for her grief prevented my finding one, or suffered it to
escape when it occurred. Little by little I grew accustomed to this
mute intercourse; and, besides, what could I have said to her? My
chief object was to prevent her feeling quite alone in the world; and,
obscure as was the prop remaining, it still was something. I went to
see her merely that my presence might say, "I am here."

It was a singular epoch in my life, and had a great influence on my
future existence. Had I not shown so much regret at the threatened
destruction of the white cottage, I would hurry to the conclusion of
this narrative. But you have insisted upon knowing why that building
is hallowed to me, and I must tell you therefore what I have thought
and felt beneath its humble roof. Forgive me, ladies, if my words are
grave. It is good for youth to be sometimes a little saddened; it has
so much time before it to laugh and to forget.

The son of a rich peasant, I was sent to Paris to complete my studies.
During four years passed in that great city, I retained the
awkwardness of my manners, the simplicity of my language, but I
rapidly lost the ingenuousness of my sentiments. I returned to these
mountains, almost learned, but almost incredulous in all those points
of faith which enable a man to pass his life contentedly beneath a
thatched roof, in the society of his wife and children, without caring
to look beyond the cross above the village cemetery.

Whilst contemplating the love of William and of Eva, I had reverted to
my former simple peasant-nature. I began to dream of a virtuous,
affectionate wife, diligent and frugal, embellishing my house by her
care and order. I saw myself proud of the gentle severity of her
features, revealing to all the chaste and faithful spouse. Very
different were these reveries from those that haunted me at Paris
after joyous evenings spent with my comrades. Suddenly, horrible
calamity descended like a thunderbolt upon Eva Meredith. This time I
was slower to appreciate the lesson I daily received. Eva sat
constantly at the window, her sad gaze fixed upon the heavens. The
attitude, common in persons of meditative mood, attracted my attention
but little. Her persistence in it at last struck me. My book open upon
my knees, I looked at Mrs Meredith; and well assured she would not
detect my gaze, I examined her attentively. She still gazed at the
sky--my eyes followed the direction of hers. "Ah," I said to myself
with a half smile, "she thinks to rejoin him _there_!" Then I resumed
my book, thinking how fortunate it was for the weakness of women that
such thoughts came to the relief of their sorrows.

I have already told you that my student's life had put evil thoughts
into my head. Every day, however, I saw Eva in the same attitude, and
every day my reflections were recalled to the same subject. Little by
little I came to think her dream a good one, and to regret I could not
credit its reality. The soul, heaven, eternal life, all that the old
priest had formerly taught me, glided through my imagination as I sat
at eventide before the open window. "The doctrine of the old _curé_,"
I said to myself, "was more comforting than the cold realities science
has revealed to me." Then I looked at Eva, who still looked to heaven,
whilst the bells of the village church sounded sweetly in the
distance, and the rays of the setting sun made the steeple-cross
glitter against the sky. I often returned to sit opposite the poor
widow, persevering in her grief as in her holy hopes.

"What!" I thought, "can so much love address itself to a few particles
of dust, already mingled with the mould; are all these sighs wasted on
empty air? William departed in the freshness of his age, his
affections yet vivid, his heart in its early bloom. She loved him but
a year, one little year--and is all over for her? Above our heads is
there nothing but void? Love--that sentiment so strong within us--is
it but a flame placed in the obscure prison of our body, where it
shines, burns, and is finally extinguished by the fall of the frail
wall surrounding it? Is a little dust all that remains of our loves,
and hopes, and passions--of all that moves, agitates, and exalts us?"

There was deep silence in the recesses of my soul. I had ceased to
think. I was as if slumbering between what I no longer denied, and
what I did not yet believe. At last, one night, when Eva joined her
hands to pray, beneath the most beautiful starlit sky possible to
behold, I know not how it was, but I found my hands also clasped, and
my lips opened to murmur a prayer. Then, by a happy chance, and for
the first time, Eva Meredith looked round, as if a secret instinct had
whispered her that my soul harmonised with hers.

"Thanks," said she, holding out her hand, "keep him in your memory,
and pray for him sometimes."

"Oh, madam!" I exclaimed, "may we all meet again in a better world,
whether our lives have been long or short, happy or full of trial."

"The immortal soul of William looks down upon us!" she replied in a
grave voice, whilst her gaze, at once sad and bright, reverted to the
star-spangled heavens.

Since that evening, when performing the duties of my profession, I
have often witnessed death; but never without speaking, to the
sorrowing survivors, a few consoling words on a better life than this
one; and those words were words of conviction.

At last, a month after these incidents, Eva Meredith gave birth to a
son. When they brought her her child,--"William!" exclaimed the poor
widow; and tears, soothing tears too long denied to her grief, escaped
in torrents from her eyes. The child bore that much-loved name of
William, and a little cradle was placed close to the mother's bed.
Then Eva's gaze, long directed to heaven, returned earthwards. She
looked to her child now, as she had previously looked to her God. She
bent over him to seek his father's features. Providence had permitted
an exact resemblance between William and the son he was fated not to
see. A great change occurred around us. Eva, who had consented to live
until her child's existence was detached from hers, was now, I could
plainly see, willing to live on, because she felt that this little
being needed the protection of her love. She passed the days and
evenings seated beside his cradle; and when I went to see her, oh!
then she questioned me as to what she should do for him, she explained
what he had suffered, and asked what could be done to save him from
pain. For her child she feared the heat of a ray of sun, the chill of
the lightest breeze. Bending over him, she shielded him with her body,
and warmed him with her kisses. One day, I almost thought I saw her
smile at him. But she never would sing, whilst rocking his cradle, to
lull him to sleep; she called one of her women, and said, "Sing to my
son that he may sleep." Then she listened, letting her tears flow
softly upon little William's brow. Poor child! he was handsome,
gentle, easy to rear. But, as if his mother's sorrow had affected him
even before his birth, the child was melancholy: he seldom cried, but
he never smiled: he was quiet; and at that age quiet seems to denote
suffering. I fancied that all the tears shed over the cradle froze
that poor little soul. I would fain have seen William's arms twined
caressingly round his mother's neck. I would have had him return the
kisses lavished upon him. "But what am I thinking about?" I then said
to myself; "is it reasonable to expect that a little creature, not yet
a year upon the earth, should understand that it is sent hither to
love and console this woman?"

It was, I assure you, a touching sight to behold this young mother,
pale, feeble, and who had once renounced existence, clinging again to
life for the sake of a little child which could not even say "Thanks,
dear mother!" What a marvel is the human heart! Of how small a thing
it makes much! Give it but a grain of sand, and it elevates a
mountain; at its latest throb show it but an atom to love, and again
its pulses revive; it stops for good only when all is void around it,
and when even the shadow of its affections has vanished from the
earth!

Time rolled on, and I received a letter from an uncle, my sole
surviving relative. My uncle, a member of the faculty of Montpellier,
summoned me to his side, to complete in that learned town my
initiation into the secrets of my art. This letter, in form an
invitation, was in fact an order. I had to set out. One morning, my
heart big when I thought of the isolation in which I left the widow
and the orphan, I repaired to the white cottage to take leave of Eva
Meredith. I know not whether an additional shade of sadness came over
her features when I told her I was about to make a long absence. Since
the death of William Meredith such profound melancholy dwelt upon her
countenance that a smile would have been the sole perceptible
variation: sadness was always there.

"You leave us?" she exclaimed; "your care is so useful to my child!"

The poor lonely woman forgot to regret departure of her last friend;
the mother lamented the loss of the physician useful to her son. I did
not complain. To be useful is the sweet recompense of the devoted.

"Adieu!" she said, holding out her hand. "Wherever you go, may God
bless you; and should it be His will to afflict you, may He at least
afford you the sympathy of a heart compassionate as your own."

I bowed over the hand of Eva Meredith; and I departed, deeply moved.

The child was in the garden in front of the house, lying upon the
grass, in the sun. I took him in my arms and kissed him repeatedly; I
looked at long, attentively, sadly, and a tear started to my eyes.
"Oh, no, no! I mu

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