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Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 65, No. 400, February, 1849

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Title: Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 65, No. 400, February, 1849

Author: Various


        
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BLACKWOOD'S EDINBURGH MAGAZINE, VOL. 65, NO. 400, FEBRUARY, 1849 ***

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       *       *       *       *       *




BLACKWOOD'S

EDINBURGH MAGAZINE.

  NO. CCCC.      FEBRUARY, 1849.      VOL. LXV.




CONTENTS.


  CAUCASUS AND THE COSSACKS,                          129

  THE CAXTONS. PART X.,                               147

  STATISTICAL ACCOUNTS OF SCOTLAND,                   162

  THE POETRY OF SACRED AND LEGENDARY ART,             175

  AMERICAN THOUGHTS ON EUROPEAN REVOLUTIONS,          190

  DALMATIA AND MONTENEGRO,                            202

  MODERN BIOGRAPHY.--BEATTIE'S LIFE OF CAMPBELL,      219

  THE ENGLISH UNIVERSITIES AND THEIR REFORMS,         235

  THE COVENANTERS' NIGHT-HYMN. BY DELTA,              244

  THE CARLISTS IN CATALONIA,                          248


  EDINBURGH:
  WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND 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. CCCC.       FEBRUARY, 1849.       VOL. LXV.




CAUCASUS AND THE COSSACKS.

     _Der Kaukasus und das Land der Kosaken in den Jahren 1843 bis
     1846._ Von MORITZ WAGNER. 2 vols. Dresden und Leipzig, 1848.


A handful of men, frugal, hardy, and valiant, successfully defending
their barren mountains and dearly-won independence against the
reiterated assaults of a mighty neighbour, offer, apart from
political considerations, a deeply interesting spectacle. When, upon
a map of the world's eastern hemisphere, we behold, not far from its
centre, on the confines of barbarism and civilisation, a spot, black
with mountains, and marked "Circassia;" when we contrast this petty
nook with the vast territory stretching from the Black Sea to the
Northern Ocean, from the Baltic to Behring's Straits, we admire and
wonder at the inflexible resolution and determined gallantry that
have so long borne up against the aggressive ambition, iron will,
and immense resources of a czar. Sixty millions against six hundred
thousand--a hundred to one, a whole squadron against a single
cavalier, a colossus opposed to a pigmy--these are the odds at
issue. It seems impossible that such a contest can long endure. Yet
it has lasted twenty years, and still the dwarf resists subjugation,
and contrives, at intervals, to inflict severe punishment upon his
gigantic adversary. There is something strangely exciting in the
contemplation of so brave a struggle. Its interest is far superior
to that of any of the "little wars" in which Europe, since 1815,
has evaporated her superabundant pugnacity. African raids and
Spanish skirmishes are pale affairs contrasted with the dashing
onslaughts of the intrepid Circassians. And, in other respects than
its heroism, this contest merits attention. As an important section
of the huge mountain-dyke, opposed by nature to the south-eastern
extension of the Russian empire, Circassia is not to be overlooked.
On the rugged peaks and in the deep valleys of the Caucasus, her
fearless warriors stand, the vedettes of southern Asia, a living
barrier to the forward flight of the double eagle.

Matters of pressing interest, nearer home, have diverted public
attention from the warlike Circassians, whose independent spirit and
unflinching bravery deserves better than even temporary oblivion.
Not in our day only have they distinguished themselves in freedom's
fight. Surrounded by powerful and encroaching potentates, their
history, for the last five hundred years, records constant struggles
against oppression. Often conquered, they never were fully subdued.
Their obscure chronicles are illumined by flashes of patriotism
and heroic courage. Early in the fifteenth century, they conquered
their freedom from the Georgian yoke. Then came long wars with the
Tartars, who could hardly, perhaps, be considered the aggressors,
the Circassians having overstepped their mountain limits, and spread
over the plains adjacent to the Sea of Azov. In 1555, the Russian
grand-duke, Ivan Vasilivitch, pressed forward to Tarki upon the
Caspian, where he placed a garrison. A Circassian tribe submitted
to him; he married the daughter of one of their princes, and
assisted them against the Tartars. But after a while the Russians
withdrew their succour; and the Circassians, driven back to the
river Kuban, their natural boundary to the north-west, paid tribute
to the Tartars, till the commencement of the eighteenth century,
when a decisive victory liberated them. Meanwhile Russia strode
steadily southwards, reached the Kuban in the west, whilst, in the
east, Tarki and Derbent fell, in 1722, into the hands of Peter
the Great. The fort of Swiatoi-Krest, built by the conqueror, was
soon afterwards retaken by a swarm of fanatical mountaineers from
the eastern Caucasus. It is now about seventy years since Russian
and Circassian first crossed swords in serious warfare. A fanatic
dervise, who called himself Sheikh Mansour, preached a religious war
against the Muscovites; but, although followed with enthusiasm, his
success was not great, and at last he was captured and sent prisoner
into the interior of Russia. With his fall the furious zeal of the
Caucasians subsided for a while. But the Turks, who viewed Circassia
as their main bulwark against the rapidly increasing power of their
dangerous northern neighbour, made friends of the mountaineers, and
stirred them up against Russia. The fortified town of Anapa, on the
north-west coast of Circassia, became the focus of the intercourse
between the Porte and its new allies. The creed of Mahomet was
actively propagated amongst the Circassians, whose relations with
Turkey grew more and more intimate, and in the year 1824 several
tribes took oath of allegiance to the sultan. In 1829, during the
war between Russia and Turkey, Anapa, which had more than once
changed hands in the course of previous contests, was taken by the
former power, to whom, by the treaty of Adrianople, its possession,
and that of the other Turkish posts on the same coast, was finally
conceded. Hence the chief claim of Russia upon Circassia--although
Circassia had never belonged to the Turks, nor been occupied by
them; and from that period dates the war that has elicited from
Russia so great a display of force against an apparently feeble, but
in reality formidable antagonist--an antagonist who has hitherto
baffled her best generals, and picked troops, and most skilful
strategists.

The tribes of the Caucasus may be comprehended, for the sake of
simplicity, under two denominations: the Tcherkesses or Circassians,
in the west, and the Tshetshens in the east. In loose newspaper
statements, and in the garbled reports of the war which remote
position, Russian jealousy, and the peculiarly inaccessible
character of the Caucasians, suffer to reach us, even this broad
distinction is frequently disregarded.[1] It is nevertheless
important, at least in a physiological point of view; and, even
as regards the resistance offered to Russia, there are differences
between the Eastern and the Western Caucasians. The military tactics
of both are much alike, but the character of the war varies. On
the banks of the Kuban, and on the Euxine shores, the strife has
never been so desperate, and so dangerous for the Russians, as
in Daghestan, Lesghistan, and the land of the Tshetshens. The
Abchasians, Mingrelians, and other Circassian tribes, dwelling on
the southern slopes of Caucasus, and on the margin of the Black Sea,
are of more peaceable and passive character than their brethren
to the North and East. The Tshetshens, by far the most warlike
and enterprising of the Caucasians, have had the ablest leaders,
and have at all times been stimulated by fierce religious zeal.
As far back as 1745, Russian missionaries were sent to the tribe
of the Osseti, who had relapsed from Christianity to the heathen
creed of their forefathers. Every Osset who presented himself at
the baptismal font received a silver cross and a new shirt. The
bait brought thousands of the mountaineers to the Russian priests,
who contented themselves with the outward and visible sign of
conversion. These propagandist attempts enraged the Mahomedan
tribes, and then it was that they thronged around Sheikh Mansour,
as they have done in our day (in 1830) around that strange fanatic
Chasi-Mollah, when in his turn he preached a holy war against the
Russian. In the latter year, General Paskewitch had just been
called away to Poland, and his successor, Baron Rosen, found all
Daghestan in an uproar. He immediately opened the campaign, but met
a strenuous resistance, and suffered heavy loss. The defence of the
village of Hermentschuk, held against him, in the year 1832, by
3000 Tshetshens, was an extraordinary example of heroism. When the
Russian infantry forced their way into the place with the bayonet, a
portion of the garrison shut themselves up in a fortified house, and
made it good against overwhelming numbers, singing passages from the
Koran amidst a storm of bombs and grapeshot. At last the building
took fire, and its undaunted defenders, the sacred verses still
upon their lips, found death in the flames. In an equally desperate
defence of the fortified village of Himri, Chasi-Mollah met his
death, falling in the very breach, bleeding from many wounds. The
chief who succeeded him was less venerated and less energetic,
and for a few years the Tshetshens remained tolerably quiet, but
without a thought of submission. Nevertheless the Russians flattered
themselves that the worst was past; that the death of the mad
dervish was an irreparable loss to the mountaineers. They were
mistaken. Out of his most ardent adherents Chasi-Mollah had formed a
sort of sacred band, whom he called Murides, gloomy fanatics, half
warriors, half priests. They composed his body-guard, were unwearied
in preaching up the fight for the Prophet's faith, and in battle
devoted themselves to death with a heroism that has never been
surpassed. From these, within a short time of their first leader's
death, Chamyl, the present renowned chief of the Tshetshens, soon
stood forth pre-eminent, and the Murides followed him to the field
with the same enthusiasm and valour they had shown under his
predecessor. He did not prove less worthy of guiding them; and the
Russians were compelled to confess, that it was easier for the
Tshetshens to find an able leader than for them to find a general
able to beat him. And victories over the restless and enterprising
Caucasians were of little profit, even when obtained. For the most
part, they only served to fill the Russian hospitals, and to procure
the officers those ribbons and distinctions they so greedily covet,
and which, in that service, are so liberally bestowed.[2] Thus,
in 1845, Count Woronzoff made a most daring expedition into the
heart of Daghestan. He found the villages empty and in flames,
lost three thousand men, amongst them many brave and valuable
officers, and marched back again, strewing the path with wounded,
for whom the means of transport (the horses of the Cossack cavalry)
were quite insufficient. With great difficulty, and protected by
a column that went out to meet them, the Russians regained their
lines, harassed to the last by the fierce Caucasians. This affair
was called a victory, and Count Woronzoff was made a prince. Two
more such victories would have reduced his expeditionary column to
a single battalion. Chamyl, who had cannonaded the Russians with
their own artillery, captured in former actions, possibly considered
himself equally entitled to triumph, as he slowly retreated, after
following up the foe nearly to the gates of their fortresses, into
the recesses of his native valleys.

  [1] "Amongst the Caucasian tribes, the interest of Europe has
  attached itself especially to the Circassians, because they are
  regarded (in Urquhart's words) 'as the only people, from the
  Atlantic to the Indian Ocean, ever ready to revenge an injury
  and retort a menace proceeding from the Czar of the Muscovites.'
  Urquhart's opinion, which is shared by the great majority of the
  European public, is not quite correct, the Circassians not being
  the only combatants against Russia. Indeed it so happens that,
  for the last four years, they have kept tolerably quiet in their
  mountains, contenting themselves with small forays into the Cossack
  country on the Kuban; whilst the warlike Tshetshens in the eastern
  Caucasus, their chief, Chamyl, at their head, have given the Russian
  army much more to do. But, in the absence of official intelligence,
  and of regular newspaper information concerning the events of the
  war, people in Europe have got accustomed to admire and praise the
  Circassians as the only defenders of Caucasian freedom against
  Russian aggression; and even in St Petersburg the intelligent public
  hold the famous Chamyl to be chief of the Circassians, with whom he
  has nothing whatever to do."--_Der Kaukasus_, &c., vol. ii. p. 22-3.

  [2] "It must be admitted that Russian officers are second to those
  of no other nation, in thirst for distinction, and in honourable
  ambition, to awaken and stimulate which, innumerable means are
  employed. In no other army are the rewards for those officers
  who distinguish themselves in the field of so many kinds, and so
  lavishly dealt out. There are all manner of medals and marks for
  good service--crosses and stars of Saints George, Stanislaus,
  Vladimir, Andrew, Anna, and other holy personages; some with crowns,
  some with diamonds, peculiar distinctions on the epaulets and
  uniforms, &c. &c. I was once in a distinguished society, composed
  almost entirely of officers of the army of the Caucasus. Not finding
  very much amusement, I had the patience to count all the orders and
  decorations in the room, and found that upon the breasts of the
  thirty-five military guests, there glittered more than two hundred
  stars, crosses, and medals; on some of the generals' coats were
  more orders than buttons. As it usually happens, the desire for
  these distinctions increases with their possession. The Russian who
  has obtained a medal leaves no stone unturned to get a knight's
  cross, and when the cross is at his button-hole, he is ravenous
  for the glittering star, and ready to make any sacrifice to obtain
  it."--_Der Kaukasus_, &c., vol. ii. p. 98.

The interior of Circassia is still an unknown land. The
investigations of Messrs Bell, Longworth, Stewart, and others,
who of late years have visited and written about the country,
were confined to small districts, and cramped by the jealousy of
the natives. Mr Bell, who made the longest residence, was treated
more like a prisoner than a guest. Other foreigners find a worse
reception still. Even the Poles, who desert from the Russian army,
are made slaves of by the Circassians, and so severely treated
that they are often glad to return to their colours, and endure
the flogging that there awaits them. The only European who, having
penetrated into the interior, has again seen his own country, is
the Russian Baron Turnau, an aide-de-camp of General Gurko; but
the circumstances of his abode in Circassia were too painful and
peculiar to allow opportunity for observation. They are well told by
Dr Wagner.

     "By the Emperor's command, Russian officers acquainted with
     the language are sent, from time to time, as spies into
     Circassia,[3]--partly to make topographical surveys of
     districts previously unknown; partly to ascertain the numbers,
     mode of life, and disposition of those tribes with whom no
     intercourse is kept up. These missions are extremely dangerous,
     and seldom succeed. Shortly before my arrival at Terek, four
     Russian staff-officers were sent as spies to various parts of
     Lesghistan. They assumed the Caucasian garb, and were attended
     by natives in Russian pay. Only one of them ever returned;
     the three others were recognised and murdered. Baron Turnau
     prepared himself long beforehand for his dangerous mission.
     He gave his complexion a brownish tint, and to his beard the
     form affected by the aborigines. He also tried to learn the
     language of the Ubiches, but, finding the harsh pronunciation
     of certain words quite unattainable, he agreed with his guide
     to pass for deaf and dumb during his stay in the country.
     In this guise he set out upon his perilous journey, and for
     several days wandered undetected from tribe to tribe. But one
     of the _works_ (nobles) under whose roof he passed a night,
     conceived suspicions, and threatened the guide, who betrayed his
     employer's secret. The baron was kept prisoner, and the Ubiches
     demanded a cap-full of silver for his ransom from the Russian
     commandant of Fort Ardler. When this officer declared himself
     ready to pay, they increased their demand to a bushel of silver
     rubles. The commandant referred the matter to Baron Rosen, then
     commander-in-chief of the army of the Caucasus; the baron
     reported it to St Petersburg, and the Emperor consented to pay
     the heavy ransom. But Rosen represented it to him as more for
     the Russian interest to leave Turnau for a while in the hands of
     the Ubiches; for, in the first place, the payment of so large a
     sum was a bad precedent, likely to encourage the mountaineers to
     renew the extortion, instead of contenting themselves, as they
     previously had done, with a few hundred rubles; and, secondly,
     as a prisoner, Baron Turnau would perhaps have opportunities of
     gathering valuable information concerning a country and people
     of whom little or nothing was known. The unfortunate young
     officer was cruelly sacrificed to these considerations, and
     passed a long winter in terrible captivity, tortured by frost
     and hunger, compelled, as a slave, to the severest labour, and
     often greatly ill-treated. Several attempts at flight failed;
     and at last the chief, in whose hands he was, confined him in a
     cage half-buried in the ground, and withal so narrow that its
     inmate could neither stand upright nor lie at length."

  [3] The reference in this instance is more particularly to the
  land of the Ubiches and Tchigetes, two tribes that abide south of
  Circassia Proper, and whose language differs from those of the
  Circassians and Abchasians, their neighbours to the north and south.
  The general medium of conversation amongst the various Caucasian
  tribes is the Turkish-Tartar dialect, current amongst most of the
  dwellers on the shores of the Black and Caspian Seas.

Thus immured, a prey to painful maladies, his clothes rotting on
his emaciated limbs, the unhappy man moaned through his long and
sleepless nights, and gave up hope of rescue. No tender-hearted
Circassian maiden brought to him, as to the hero of Pushkin's
well-known Caucasian poem, deliverance and love. Such luck had been
that of more than one Russian captive; but poor Turnau, in his
state of filth and squalor, was no very seductive object. He might
have pined away his life in his cage, before Baron Rosen, or his
paternal majesty the Czar, had recalled his fate to mind, but for
an injury done by his merciless master to one of his domestics, who
vowed revenge. Watching his opportunity, this servant, one day that
the rest of the household were absent, murdered his lord, released
the prisoner, tied him with thongs upon his saddle, upon which the
baron, covered with sores and exhausted by illness, was unable to
support himself, and galloped with him towards the frontier. In one
day they rode eighty _versts_, (about fifty-four English miles,)
outstripped pursuers, and reached Fort Ardler. The accounts given
by Baron Turnau of the land of his captivity could be but slight:
he had seen little beyond his place of confinement. What he did
relate was not very encouraging to Russian invasion. He depicted
the country as one mass of rock and precipice, partially clothed
with vast tracts of aboriginal forest, broken by deep ravines and
mountain torrents, and surmounted by the huge ice-clad pinnacles of
the loftiest Caucasian ridge. The villages, some of which nestle in
the deep recesses of the woods, whilst others are perched upon steep
crags and on the brink of giddy precipices, are universally of most
difficult access.

Dr Wagner, whose extremely amusing book forms the text of this
article, has never been in Circassia, although he gives us more
information about it, of the sort we want, than any traveller in
that singular land whose writings have come under our notice.
His wanderings were under Russian guidance and escort. During
them, he skirted the hostile territory on more than one side;
occasionally setting a foot across the border, to the alarm of
his Cossacks, whose dread by day and dreams by night were of
Circassian ambuscades; he has lingered at the base of Caucasus, and
has traversed its ranges--without, however, deeming it necessary
to penetrate into those remote valleys, where foreigners find
dubious welcome, and whence they are not always sure of exit. He
has mixed much with Circassians, if he has not actually dwelt in
their villages. It were tedious and unnecessary to detail his
exact itinerary. He has not printed his entire journal--according
to the lazy and egotistical practice of many travellers--but has
taken the trouble to condense it. The essence is full of variety,
anecdote and adventure, and gives a clear insight into the nature
of the war. Professedly a man of science, an antiquary and a
naturalist, Dr Wagner has evidently a secret hankering after matters
military. He loves the sound of the drum, and willingly directs
his scientific researches to countries where he is likely to smell
powder. We had heard of him in the Atlas mountains, and at the
siege of Constantina, before we met him risking his neck along the
banks of the Kuban, and across the wild steppes of the Caucasus.
He has travelled much in the East, and prepared himself for his
Caucasian trip by a long stay in Turkey and in Southern Russia.
Well introduced, he derived from distinguished Russian generals,
intelligent civilians, and Circassian chiefs, particulars of the war
more authentic than are to be obtained either from St Petersburg
bulletins, or from the ordinary trans-Caucasian correspondents of
German and other newspapers, many of whom are in the pay of Russia.
His African reminiscences proved of great value. The officers of the
army of Caucasus take the strongest interest in the contest between
French and Arabs, finding in it, doubtless, points of similitude
with the war in which they themselves are engaged. Amongst these
officers he met, besides Russians and Germans, several naturalised
Poles and Frenchmen, Flemings and Spaniards, who gave in exchange
for his tales of razzias and Bedouins, details of Circassian warfare
which he highly prized, as likely to be more impartial than the
accounts afforded by the native Russians. His own journey to the
Caucasus took place in 1843; but a subsequent correspondence with
well-informed friends, on both sides the Caucasian range, enabled
him to bring down his sketch of the struggle to the year 1846.

Many English writers on Circassia have been accused of an undue
preference for the mountaineers, of exaggerating their good
qualities, and of elevating them by invidious contrasts with the
Russians. There is no ground for suspecting a German of such
partiality; and Dr Wagner, whilst lauding the heroic valour and
independent spirit of the Circassians--qualities which Russian
authors have themselves admitted and extolled--does not forget
to do justice to his Muscovite and Cossack friends, to whom he
devotes a considerable portion of his book, many of his details
concerning them being extremely novel and curious. He carefully
studied both Cossacks and Circassians, living amongst the former
and meeting thousands of the latter, who go and come freely upon
Russian territory. At Ekaterinodar, the capital of the Tchernamortsy
Cossacks, the Friday's market swarmed with Circassians. In Turkey,
and elsewhere, Dr Wagner had met many individuals of that nation,
but this was the first time he beheld them in crowds. He describes
them as very handsome men, with black beards, aquiline noses, and
flashing black eyes. He was struck with their lofty mien, and
attributes it to their mental energy, and to a consciousness of
physical strength and beauty.

     "This superiority of the pure Circassian blood does not belie
     itself under Russian discipline, any more than it does in
     Mahometan lands, where, as Mamelukes in Cairo, and as pashas in
     Stamboul, the sons of Caucasus have ever played a prominent and
     distinguished part. The Turk, who by certain imposing qualities
     awes all other Orientals, tacitly recognises the superiority of
     the Circassian _ousden_, or noble. The Emperor Nicholas, who
     preserves so rigid a discipline in the various corps of his
     vast army, shows himself extraordinarily considerate towards
     the Circassian squadrons of his guard. Persons well versed
     in the military chronicles of St Petersburg relate many a
     characteristic trait, proving the bold stubborn spirit of these
     Caucasian men to be still unbroken, and showing how it more
     than once has so imposed upon the emperor, and even upon the
     grand-duke Michael, reputed the strictest disciplinarian in
     Russia, that they have shut their eyes even to open mutiny. At a
     review, where the Caucasian cavalry formally refused obedience,
     the emperor contented himself with sending a courteous reproof
     by General Benkendorf. Beside the coarse common Russians, the
     Circassian looks like an eagle amidst a flock of bustards. Even
     capital crimes are not visited upon Circassians with the same
     severity as upon the other subjects of the emperor. A Circassian
     who had struck his dagger into the heart of a hackney-coachman
     at St Petersburg, in requital of an insolent overcharge, was
     merely sent back to the Caucasus. For a like offence a Russian
     might reckon upon the knout, and upon banishment for life to the
     Siberian mines.

     "Amongst the Circassians at Ekaterinodar, a _work_, or noble,
     of the Shapsookian tribe, was particularly remarkable for his
     beauty and dignity. None of the picturesque figures of Arabs
     and Moors furnished me by my African recollections, could bear
     comparison with this Caucasian eagle. I afterwards saw, in
     Mingrelia, a more ideal mould of feature, resembling the antique
     Apollo type: but there the expression was too effeminate; the
     heroic head of the dweller on the Kuban pleased me better. I
     stood a good while before the Shapsookian, as if fettered to the
     ground, so extraordinary was the effect of his striking beauty.
     What a study, I thought, for a German painter, who would in vain
     seek such models in Rome; or for a Vernet, whose Arabian groups
     prove the great power of his pencil! The Arabs, rather priestly
     than knightly in their aspect, produce far less effect upon
     the large Algerine pictures at Versailles than the Circassian
     warrior would do in a battle-piece by such masters as Vernet or
     Peter Hess. The Shapsook chief at Ekaterinodar seemed conscious
     of his magnificent appearance. With proud mien, and that light
     half-gliding gait observable in most Caucasians, he sauntered
     amongst the groups of Cossacks upon the market-place, casting
     glances of profoundest scorn upon their clumsy sheepskin-wrapped
     figures. His slender form and small foot, the grace and elegance
     of his person and carriage, the richness of his costume and
     beauty of his weapons, contrasted most advantageously with
     the muscular but somewhat thickset figures, and with the ugly
     woolly winter dress of the Tchernamortsies. By help of a Cossack
     I made his acquaintance, and got into conversation. His name
     was Chora-Beg, and he dwelt at a hamlet thirty versts south of
     Ekaterinodar."

Chora-Beg wondered greatly that his new acquaintance was neither
Russian nor English. He had heard vaguely that there was a third
Christian nation, which, under Sultan Bunapart, had made war upon
the Padisha of the Russians, but he had no notion of such a people
as the Germans. He greatly admired Dr Wagner's rifle, but rather
doubted its carrying farther than a smooth bore, and allowed free
inspection of his own arms, consisting of pistols and dagger, and of
the famous _shaska_--a long heavy cavalry sabre, slightly curved,
with hilt of silver and ivory. At the doctor's request he drew this
weapon from the scabbard, and cut twice or thrice at the empty air,
his dark eyes flashing as he did so. "How many Russians has that
sabre sent to their account?" asked the inquisitive Doctor. The
Circassian's intelligent countenance assumed an expression hard to
interpret, but in which his interlocutor thought he distinguished a
gleam of scorn, and a shade of suspicion. "It was long," he replied,
"since his tribe had taken the field against the Russians. Since
the deaf general (Sass) had left the land of the Cossacks, peace
had reigned between Muscovite and Shapsookian. Individuals of his
tribe had certainly been known to join bands from the mountains, and
to cross the Kuban with arms in hand." And as Chora-Beg spoke, the
expression of his proud eye belied his pacific pretensions.

The general Sass above-named commanded for several years on
the line of the Kuban, and is the only Russian general who has
understood the mountain warfare, and proved himself a match for
the Circassians at their own game of ambuscades and surprises. His
tactics were those of the Spanish guerilla leaders. Lavish in his
payment of spies, he was always accurately informed of the musters
and projects of the Circassians; whilst he kept his own plans so
secret, that his personal staff often knew nothing of an intended
expedition until the call to "boot and saddle" sounded. His raids
were accomplished, under guidance of his well-paid scouts, with
such rapidity and local knowledge that the mountaineers rarely had
time to assemble in force, pursue the retiring column, and revenge
their burnt vilages and ravished cattle. But one day the report
spread on the lines of the Kuban that the general was dangerously
ill; shortly afterwards it became known that the physicians had
given him up; and finally his death was announced, and bewailed by
the whole army of the Caucasus. The consternation of the Cossacks,
accustomed, under his command, to victory and rich booty, was as
great as the exultation of the mountaineers. Hundreds of these
visited the Russian territory, to witness the interment of their
dreaded foe. A magnificent coffin, with the general's cocked hat
and decorations laid upon it, was deposited in the earth amidst
the mournful sounds of minute guns and muffled drums. With joyful
hearts the Circassians returned to their mountains, to tell what
they had seen, and to congratulate each other at the prospect of
tranquillity for themselves, and safety to their flocks and herds.
But upon the second night after Sass's funeral, a strong Russian
column crossed the Kuban, and the dead general suddenly appeared
at the head of his trusty lancers, who greeted with wild hurrahs
their leader's resurrection. Several large _auls_ (villages) whose
inhabitants were sound asleep, unsuspicious of surprise, were
destroyed, vast droves of cattle were carried off, and a host of
prisoners made. This ingenious and successful stratagem is still
cited with admiration on the banks of the Kuban. Notwithstanding
his able generalship, Sass was removed from his command when in
full career of success. All his military services could not shield
him from the consequences of St Petersburg intrigues and trumped-up
accusations. None of his successors have equalled him. General
Willaminoff was a man of big words rather than of great deeds. In
his bombastic and blasphemous proclamation of the 28th May 1837, he
informed the Circassians that "If the heavens should fall, Russia
could prop them with her bayonets;" following up this startling
assertion with the declaration that "there are but two powers in
existence--God in heaven, and the emperor upon earth!"[4] The
Circassians laughed at this rhodomontade, and returned a firm and
becoming answer. There were but few of them, they said--but, with
God's blessing, they would hold their own, and fight to the very
last man: and to prove themselves as good as their word, they soon
afterwards made fierce assaults upon the line of forts built by the
Russians upon the shores of the Black Sea. In 1840 four of these
were taken, but the triumph cost the victors so much blood as to
disgust them for some time with attacking stone walls, behind which
the Russians, perhaps the best defensive combatants in the world,
fight like lions. Indeed, the Circassians would hardly have proved
victorious, had not the garrisons been enfeebled by disease. During
the five winter months, the rations of the troops employed upon
this service are usually salt, and the consequences are scurvy and
fever. Informed by Polish deserters of the bad condition of the
garrisons, the Circassians held a great council in the mountains,
and it was decided to take the forts with the sabre, without
firing a shot. It is an old Caucasian custom, that, upon suchlike
perilous undertakings, a chosen band of enthusiastic warrors devote
themselves to death, binding themselves by a solemn oath not to
turn their backs upon the enemy. Ever in the van, their example
gives courage to the timid; and their friends are bound in honour
to revenge their death. With these fanatics have the Circassian and
Tshetshen chiefs achieved their greatest victories over the Russians.

  [4] Longworth's _Circassia_, vol. i. p. 1589.

When it was decided to attack the forts, several hundred
Shapsookians, including gray-haired old men and youths of tender
age, swore to conquer or to die. They kept their word. At the fort
of Michailoff, which made the most obstinate defence, the ditch was
filled with their corpses. The conduct of the garrison was truly
heroic. Of five hundred men, only one third were fit for duty;
the others were in hospital, or on the sick-list. But no sooner
did the Circassian war-cry rend the air than the sufferers forgot
their pains; the fever-stricken left their beds, and crawled to
the walls. Their commandant called upon them to shed their last
drop of blood for their emperor; their old _papa_ exhorted them, as
Christians, to fight to the death against the unbelieving horde. But
numbers prevailed: after a valiant defence, the Russians retreated,
fighting, to the innermost enclosures of the fortress. Their chief
demanded a volunteer to blow up the fort when farther resistance
should become impossible. A soldier stepped forward, took a lighted
match, and entered the powder magazine. The last defences were
stormed, the Circassians shouted victory. Then came the explosion.
Most of the buildings were overthrown, and hundreds of maimed
carcases scattered in all directions. Eleven Russians escaped with
life, were dragged off to the mountains, and subsequently ransomed,
and from them the details of this bloody fight were obtained.

The capture of these forts spread discouragement and consternation
in the ranks of the Russian army. The emperor was furious, and
General Rajewski, then commander-in-chief on the Circassian
frontier, was superseded. This officer, who at the tender age of
twelve was present with his father at the battle of Borodino, and
who has since distinguished himself in the Turkish and Persian
wars, was reputed an able general, but was reproached with sleeping
too much, and with being too fond of botany. His enemies went
so far as to accuse him of making military expeditions into the
mountains, with the sole view of adding rare Caucasian plants to his
_herbarium_, and of procuring seeds for his garden. General Aurep,
who succeeded him, undertook little beyond reconnoissances, always
attended with very heavy loss; and the Circassians remained upon the
defensive until the year 1843, when the example of the Tshetshens,
who about that time obtained signal advantages over the Russians,
roused the martial ardour of the chivalrous Circassians, and spurred
them to fresh hostilities. But the war at the western extremity of
Caucasus never assumed the importance of that in Daghestan and the
country of the Tshetshens.

From the straits of Zabache to the frontier of Guria, the Russians
possess seventeen _Kreposts_, or fortified posts, only a few of
which deserve the name of regular fortresses, or could resist a
regular army provided with artillery. To mountaineers, however,
whose sole weapons are shaska and musket, even earthen parapets
and shallow ditches are serious obstacles when well manned and
resolutely defended. The object of erecting this line of forts was
to cut off the communication by sea between Turkey and the Caucasian
tribes. It was thought that, when the import of arms and munitions
of war from Turkey was thus checked, the independent mountain
tribes would soon be subjugated. The hope was not realised, and the
expensive maintenance of 15,000 to 20,000 men in the fortresses of
the Black Sea has but little improved the position of the Russians
in the Caucasus. The Caucasians have never lacked arms, and with
money they can always get powder, even from the Cossacks of the
Kuban. In another respect, however, these forts have done them
much harm, and thence it arises that, since their erection, and
the cession of Anapa to Russia, the war has assumed so bitter a
character. So long as Anapa was Turkish, the export of slaves, and
the import of powder, found no hindrance. The needy Circassian
noble, whose rude mountains supply him but sparingly with daily
bread, obtained, by the sale of slaves, means of satisfying his
warlike and ostentatious tastes--of procuring rich clothes, costly
weapons, and ammunition for war and for the chase. In a moral point
of view, all slave traffic is of course odious and reprehensible,
but that of Circassia differed from other commerce of the kind,
in so far that all parties were benefited by, and consenting to,
the contract. The Turks obtained from Caucasus handsomer and
healthier wives than those born in the harem; and the Circassian
beauties were delighted to exchange the poverty and toil of their
father's mountain huts for the luxurious _farniente_ of the
seraglio, of whose wonders and delights their ears were regaled,
from childhood upwards, with the most glowing descriptions. The
trade, although greatly impeded and very hazardous, still goes on.
Small Turkish craft creep up to the coast, cautiously evading the
Russian cruisers, enter creeks and inlets, and are dragged by the
Circassians high and dry upon the beach, there to remain till the
negotiation for their live cargo is completed, an operation that
generally takes a few weeks. The women sold are the daughters of
serfs and freedmen: rarely does a _work_ consent to dispose of
his sister or daughter, although the case does sometimes occur.
But, whilst the sale goes on, the slave-ships are anything but
secure. It is a small matter to have escaped the Russian frigates
and steamers. Each of the Kreposts possesses a little squadron of
row-boats, manned with Cossacks, who pull along the coast in search
of Turkish vessels. If they detect one, they land in the night, and
endeavour to set fire to it, before the mountaineers can come to
the assistance of the crew. The Turks, who live in profound terror
of these Cossack coast-guards, resort to every possible expedient
to escape their observation; often covering their vessels with dry
leaves and boughs, and tying fir branches to the masts, that the
scouts may take them for trees. If they are captured at sea by the
cruisers, the crew are sent to hard labour in Siberia, and the
Circassian girls are married to Cossacks, or divided as handmaidens
amongst the Russian staff officers. From thirty to forty slaves
compose the usual cargo of each of these vessels, which are so
small that the poor creatures are packed almost like herrings in
a barrel. But they patiently endure the misery of the voyage, in
anticipation of the honeyed existence of the harem. It is calculated
that one vessel out of six is taken or lost. In the winter of
1843-4, eight-and-twenty ships left the coast of Asia Minor for that
of Caucasia. Twenty-three safely returned, three were burned by the
Russians, and two swallowed by the waves.

A Turkish captain at Sinope told Dr Wagner the following interesting
anecdote, illustrating Circassian hatred of the Russians:--"A
few years ago a slave-ship sprang a leak out at sea, just as a
Russian steamer passed in the distance. The Turkish slave-dealer,
who preferred even the chill blasts of Siberia to a grave in deep
water, made signals of distress, and the steamer came up in time
to rescue the ship and its living cargo from destruction. But so
deeply is hatred of Russia implanted in every Circassian heart, that
the spirit of the girls revolted at the thought of becoming the
helpmates of gray-coated soldiers, instead of sharing the sumptuous
couch of a Turkish pasha. They had bid adieu to their native
mountains with little emotion, but as the Russian ship approached
they set up terrible and despairing screams. Some sprang headlong
into the sea; others drove their knives into their hearts:--to
these heroines death was preferable to the bridal-bed of a detested
Muscovite. The survivors were taken to Anapa, and married to
Cossacks, or given to officers as servants." Nearly every Austrian
or Turkish steamboat that makes, in the winter months, the voyage
from Trebizond to Constantinople, has a number of Circassian girls
on board. Dr Wagner made the passage in an Austrian steamer with
several dozens of these willing slaves, chiefly mere children,
twelve or thirteen years old, with interesting countenances and
dark wild eyes, but very pale and thin--with the exception of
two, who were some years older, far better dressed, and carefully
veiled. To this favoured pair the slave-dealer paid particular
attention, and frequently brought them coffee. Dr Wagner got into
conversation with this man, who was richly dressed in furs and
silks, and who, despite his vile profession, had the manners of
a gentleman. The two coffee-drinkers were daughters of noblemen,
he said, with fine rosy cheeks, and in better condition than the
others, consequently worth more money at Constantinople. For the
handsomest he hoped to obtain 30,000 piastres, and for the other
20,000--about £250 and £170. The herd of young creatures he spoke of
with contempt, and should think himself lucky to get 2000 piastres
for them all round. He further informed the doctor that, although
the slave-trade was more dangerous and difficult since the Russian
occupation of the Caucasian coast, it was also far more profitable.
Formerly, when Greek and Armenian women were brought in crowds to
the Constantinople market, the most beautiful Circassians were
not worth more than 10,000 piastres; but now a rosy, well-fed,
fifteen-year-old slave is hardly to be had under 40,000 piastres.

The Tshetshen successes, already referred to as having at the close
of 1842 stirred into flame and action, by the force of example,
the smouldering but still ardent embers of Circassian hatred to
Russia, are described with remarkable spirit by Dr Wagner, in the
chapter entitled "Caucasian War-Scenes,"--episodes taken down by him
from the lips of eye-witnesses, and of sharers in the sanguinary
conflicts described. This graphic chapter at once familiarises the
reader with the Caucasian war, with which he thenceforward feels
as well acquainted as with our wars in India, the French contest
in Africa, or with any other series of combats, of whose nature
and progress minute information has been regularly received. The
first event described is the storming of Aculcho, in the summer
of 1839. It is always a great point with guerilla generals, and
with leaders of mountain warfare, to have a centre of operations--a
strong post, whither they can retreat after a reverse, with the
confidence that the enemy will hesitate before attacking them there.
In Spain, Cabrera had Morella, the Count d'Espagne had Berga, the
Navarrese viewed Estella as their citadel. In the eastern Caucasus,
Chasi-Mollah had Himri, and preferred falling in its defence to
abandoning his stronghold; his successor, Chamyl, who surpasses him
in talent for war and organisation, established his headquarters
at Aculcho, a sort of eagle's nest on the river Koisu, whither his
escorts brought him intelligence of each movement of Russian troops,
and whence he swooped, like the bird whose eyrie he occupied, upon
the convoys traversing the steppe of the Terek. Here he planned
expeditions and surprises, and kept a store of arms and ammunition;
and this fort General Grabbe, who commanded in 1839 the Russian
forces in eastern Caucasus, and who was always a strong advocate
of the offensive system, obtained permission from St Petersburg to
attack. General Golowin, commander-in-chief of the whole army of
the Caucasus, and then resident at Teflis, approved the enterprise,
whose ultimate results cost both generals their command. The taking
of Aculcho itself was of little moment; there was no intention of
placing a Russian garrison there; but the double end to be obtained
was to capture Chamyl, and to intimidate the Tshetshens, by proving
to them that no part of their mountains, however difficult of access
and bravely defended, was beyond the reach of Russian valour and
resources. Their submission, at least nominal and temporary, was the
result hoped for.

Nature has done much for the fortification of Aculcho. Imagine
a hill of sand-stone, nearly surrounded by a loop of the river
Koisu--a miniature peninsula, in short, connected with the continent
by a narrow neck of land--provided with three natural terraces,
accessible only by a small rocky path, whose entrance is fortified
and defended by 500 resolute Tshetshen warriors. A few artificial
parapets and intrenchments, some stone huts, and several excavations
in the sand rock, where the besieged found shelter from shot and
shell, complete the picture of the place before which Grabbe and his
column sat down. At first they hoped to reduce it by artillery, and
bombs and congreve rockets were poured upon the fortress, destroying
huts and parapets, but doing little harm to the Tshetshens, who lay
close as conies in their burrows, and watched their opportunity to
send well-aimed bullets into the Russian camp. From time to time,
one of the fanatical Murides, of whom the garrison was chiefly
composed, impatient that the foe delayed an assault, rushed headlong
down from the rock, his shaska in his right hand, his pistol in his
left, his dagger between his teeth; causing a momentary panic among
the Cossacks, who were prepared for the whistling of bullets, but
not for the sudden appearance of a foaming demon armed _cap-à-pie_,
who generally, before they could use their bayonets, avenged in
advance his own certain death by the slaughter of several of his
foes, whilst his comrades on the rock applauded and rejoiced at
the heroic self-sacrifice. The first attempt to storm was costly
to the besiegers. Of fifteen hundred men who ascended the narrow
path, only a hundred and fifty survived. The Tshetshens maintained
such a well-directed platoon fire, that not a Russian set foot on
the second terrace. The foremost men, mown down by the bullets
of the besieged, fell back upon their comrades, and precipitated
them from the rock. General Grabbe, undismayed by his heavy loss,
ordered a second and a third assault; the three cost two thousand
men, but the lower and middle terraces were taken. The defence
of the upper one was desperate, and the Russians might have been
compelled to turn the siege into a blockade, but for the imprudence
of some of the garrison, who, anxious to ascertain the proceedings
of the enemy's engineers--then hard at work at a mine under the
hill--ventured too far from their defences, and were attacked by a
Russian battalion. The Tshetshens fled; but, swift of foot though
they were, the most active of the Russians attained the topmost
terrace with them. A hand-to-hand fight ensued, more battalions
came up, and Aculcho was taken. The victors, furious at their
losses, and at the long resistance opposed to them, (this was the
22d August,) raged like tigers amongst the unfortunate little band
of mountaineers; some Tshetshen women, who took up arms at this
last extremity, were slaughtered with their husbands. At last the
bloody work was apparently at an end, and search ensued amongst the
dead for the body of Chamyl. It was nowhere to be found. At last
the discovery was made that a few of the garrison had taken refuge
in holes in the side of the rock, looking over the river. No path
led to these cavities; the only way to get at them was to lower
men by ropes from the crag above. In this manner the surviving
Tshetshens were attacked; quarter was neither asked nor given.
The hole in which Chamyl himself was hidden held out the longest.
Escape seemed, however, impossible; the rock was surrounded; the
banks of the river were lined with soldiers; Grabbe's main object
was the capture of Chamyl. At this critical moment the handful of
Tshetshens still alive gave an example of heroic devotion. They knew
that their leader's death would be a heavy loss to their country,
and they resolved to sacrifice themselves to save him. With a few
beams and planks, that chanced to be in the cave, they constructed
a sort of raft. This they launched upon the Koisu, and floated with
it down the stream, amidst a storm of Russian lead. The Russian
general doubted not that Chamyl was on the raft, and ordered every
exertion to kill or take him. Whilst the Cossacks spurred their
horses into the river, and the infantry hurried along the bank,
following the raft, a man sprang out of the hole into the Koisu,
swam vigorously across the stream, landed at an unguarded spot, and
gained the mountains unhurt. This man was Chamyl, who alone escaped
with life from the bloody rock of Aculcho. His deliverance passed
for miraculous amongst the enthusiastic mountaineers, with whom
his influence, from that day forward, increased tenfold. Grabbe
was furious; Chamyl's head was worth more than the heads of all
the garrison: three thousand Russians had been sacrificed for the
possession of a crag not worth the keeping.

After the fall of Aculcho, Chamyl's head-quarters were at the
village of Dargo, in the mountain region south of the Russian fort
of Girselaul, and thence he carried on the war with great vigour,
surprising fortified posts, cutting off convoys, and sweeping the
plain with his horsemen. Generals Grabbe and Golowin could not
agree about the mode of operations. The former was for taking
the offensive; the latter advocated the defensive and blockade
system. Grabbe went to St Petersburg to plead in person for his
plan, obtained a favourable hearing, and the emperor sent Prince
Tchernicheff, the minister at war, to visit both flanks of the
Caucasus. Before the prince reached the left wing of the line
of operations, Grabbe resolved to surprise him with a brilliant
achievement; and on the 29th May 1842, he marched from Girselaul
with thirteen battalions, a small escort of mounted Cossacks, and a
train of mountain artillery, to attack Dargo. The route was through
forests, and along paths tangled with wild flowers and creeping
plants, through which the heavy Russian infantry, encumbered with
eight days' rations and sixty rounds of ball-cartridge, made but
slow and painful progress. The first day's march was accomplished
without fighting; only here and there the slender active form of
a mountaineer was descried, as he peered between the trees at the
long column of bayonets, and vanished as soon as he was observed.
After midnight the dance began. The troops had eaten their rations,
and were comfortably bivouacked, when they were assailed by a sharp
fire from an invisible foe, to which they replied in the direction
of the flashes. This skirmishing lasted all night; few were killed
on either side, but the whole Russian division were deprived of
sleep, and wearied for the next day's march. At daybreak the enemy
retired; but at noon, when passing through a forest defile, the
column was again assailed, and soon the horses, and a few light
carts accompanying it, were insufficient to convey the wounded.
The staff urged the general to retrace his steps, but Grabbe was
bent on welcoming Tchernicheff with a triumphant bulletin. Another
sleepless bivouac--another fagging day, more skirmishing. At last,
when within sight of the fortified village of Dargo, the loss of
the column was so heavy, and its situation so critical, that a
retreat was ordered. The daring and fury of the Tshetshens now knew
no bounds; they assailed the troops sabre in hand, captured baggage
and wounded, and at night prowled round the camp, like wolves round
a dying soldier. On the 1st June, the fight recommenced. The valour
displayed by the mountaineers was admitted by the Russians to be
extraordinary, as was also their skill in wielding the terrible
shaska. They made a fierce attack on the centre of the column--cut
down the artillery-men and captured six guns. The Russians, who
throughout the whole of this trying expedition did their duty
as good and brave soldiers, were furious at the loss of their
artillery, and by a desperate charge retook five pieces, the sixth
being relinquished only because its carriage was broken. Upon the
last day of the retreat, Chamyl came up with his horsemen. Had he
been able to get these together two days sooner, it is doubtful
whether any portion of the column would have escaped. As it was,
the Russians lost nearly two thousand men; the weary and dispirited
survivors re-entering Girselaul with downcast mien. Preparations
had been made to celebrate their triumph, and, to add to their
general's mortification, Tchernicheff was awaiting their arrival. On
the prince's return to St Petersburg, both Grabbe and Golowin were
removed from their commands.

Against this same Tshetshen fortress of Dargo, Count Woronzoff's
expedition (already referred to) was made, in July 1845. A capital
account of the affair is given in a letter from a Russian officer
engaged, printed in Dr Wagner's book. Dargo had become an important
place. Chamyl had established large stores there, and had built
a mosque, to which came pilgrims from the remotest villages of
Daghestan and Lesghistan, partly to pray, partly to see the dreaded
chief--equally renowned as warrior and priest--and to give him
information concerning the state of the country, and the movements
of the Russians. Less vigorously opposed than Grabbe, and his
measures better taken, Woronzoff reached Dargo with moderate loss.
"The village," says the Russian officer: "was situated on the slope
of a mountain, at the brink of a ravine, and consisted of sixty
to seventy small stone-houses, and of a few larger buildings,
where the stones were joined with mortar, instead of being merely
superimposed, as is usually the case in Caucasian dwellings. One
of these buildings had several irregular towers, of some apparent
antiquity. When we approached, a thick smoke burst from them. Chamyl
had ordered everything to be set on fire that could not be carried
away. One must confess that, in this fierce determination of the
enemy to refuse submission--to defend, foot by foot, the territory
of his forefathers, and to leave to the Russians no other trophies
than ashes and smoking ruins--there is a certain wild grandeur which
extorts admiration, even though the hostile chief be no better
than a fanatical barbarian." This reminds us of the words of the
Circassian chief Mansour:--"When Turkey and England abandon us," he
said, to Bell of the 'Vixen,'--"when all our powers of resistance
are exhausted, we will burn our houses,and our goods, strangle our
wives and our children, and retreat to our highest rocks, there to
die, fighting to the very last man." "The greatest difficulty,"
said General Neidhardt to Dr Wagner, who was a frequent visitor
at the house of that distinguished officer, "with which we have
to contend, is the unappeasable, deep-rooted, ineradicable hatred
cherished by all the mountaineers against the Russians. For this
we know no cure; every form of severity and of kindness has been
tried in turn, with equal ill-success." Valour and patriotism are
nearly the only good qualities the Caucasians can boast. They are
cruel, and for the most part faithless, especially the Tshetshens,
and Dr Wagner warns us against crediting the exaggerated accounts
frequently given of their many virtues. The Circassians are said
to respect their plighted word, but there are many exceptions.
General Neidhardt told Dr Wagner an anecdote of a Circassian, who
presented himself before the commandant of one of the Black Sea
fortresses, and offered to communicate most important intelligence,
on condition of a certain reward. The reward was promised. Then
said the Circassian,--"To-morrow after sunset, your fort will be
assailed by thousands of my countrymen." The informer was retained,
whilst Cossacks and riflemen were sent out, and it proved that he
had spoken the truth. The enemy, finding the garrison on their
guard, retired after a short skirmish. The Circassian received his
recompense, which he took without a word of thanks, and left the
fortress. Without the walls, he met an unarmed soldier; hatred of
the Russians, and thirst of blood, again got the ascendency: he shot
the soldier dead, and scampered off to the mountains.

Chamyl did not long remain indebted to the Russians for their visit
to Dargo. His reputation of sanctity and valour enabled him to unite
under his orders many tribes habitually hostile to each other, and
which previously had fought each "on its own hook." Of these tribes
he formed a powerful league; and in May 1846 he burst into Cabardia
at the head of twenty thousand mountaineers, four thousand of whom
were horsemen. Formidable though this force was, the venture was one
of extreme temerity. He left behind him a double line of Russian
camps and forts, and two rivers, then at the flood, and difficult
to pass. With an undisciplined and heterogeneous army, without
artillery or regular commissariat, this daring chief threw himself
into a flat country, unfavourable to guerilla warfare; slipping
through the Russian posts, marching more than four hundred miles,
and utterly disregarding the danger he was in from a well-equipped
army of upwards of seventy thousand men, to say nothing of the
numerous military population of the Cossack settlements on the
Terek and Sundscha, and of the fact that the Cabardians, long
submissive to Russia, were more likely to arm in defence of their
rulers than to favour the mountaineers. Shepherds and dwellers in
the plain, and far less warlike than the other Circassian tribes,
they never were able to make head against the Russians; and had
remained indifferent to all the incentives of Tshetshen fanatics
and propagandists. For years past, Chamyl had threatened them with
a visit; but nevertheless, his sudden appearance greatly surprised
and confounded both them and the Russian general, who had just
concentrated all his movable columns, with a view to an expedition,
relying overmuch upon his lines of forts and blockhouses. The
Tshetshen raid was more daring, and at least as successful, as
Abd-el-Kader's celebrated foray in the Metidja, in the year 1839.
Chamyl addressed to the Cabardians a thundering proclamation, full
of quotations from the Koran, and denouncing vengeance on them if
they did not flock to the banner of the Prophet. The unlucky keepers
of sheep found themselves between the devil and the deep sea. From
terror rather than sympathy, a large number of villages declared
for Chamyl, whose wild hordes burned and plundered the property of
all who adhered to the Russians; leaving, like a swarm of locusts,
desolation in their track. When the Cossacks began to gather, and
the Russian generals to manœuvre, Chamyl, who knew he could not
contend in the plain with disciplined and superior forces, and whose
retreat by the road he came was already cut off, traversed Great and
Little Cabardia, burning and destroying as he went; dashed through
the Cossack colonies to the south of Ekaterinograd, and regained
his mountains in safety--dragging with him booty, prisoners, and
Cabardian recruits. These latter, who had joined through fear of
Chamyl, remained with him through fear of the Russians. By this
foray, whose apparent great rashness was justified by its complete
success, Chamyl enriched his people, strengthened his army, and
greatly weakened the confidence of the tribes of the plain in the
efficacy of Russian protection. As usual, in cases of disaster, the
Russians kept the affair as quiet as they could; but the truth could
not be concealed from those most concerned, and murmurs of dismay
ran along the exposed line fringing the Muscovite and Circassian
territories.

The Russian army of the Caucasus reckoned, in 1843, about eighty
thousand men, exclusive of thirty-five thousand who had little to
do with the war, but were more especially employed in watching the
extensive line of Turkish and Persian frontier, and in endeavouring
to exclude contraband goods and Asiatic epidemics. But the severe
fighting that occurred in 1842 and 1843, showed the necessity
of an increase of force. Subsequent events have not admitted of
a reduction in the Caucasian establishment; and we are probably
very near the mark, in estimating the troops occupying the various
forts and camps on the Black Sea, and the lines of the rivers,
(Terek, Kuban, Koisu, &c.,) at about one hundred thousand men--not
at all too many to guard so extensive a line, against so active
and enterprising a foe. The Russian ranks are constantly thinned
by destructive fevers, which, in bad years, have been known to
carry off as much as a sixth of the Caucasian army. At a review
at Vladikawkas, Dr Wagner was struck by the powerful build of the
Russian foot-soldiers--broad-shouldered, broad-faced Slavonians,
with enormous mustaches, drilled to automatical perfection. In point
of bone and limb, every man of them was a grenadier. In a bayonet
charge, such infantry are formidable opponents. Ségur mentions that,
on the battle-field of Borodino, the nation of the stripped bodies
was easily known--the muscle and size of the Russians contrasting
with the slighter frames of French and Germans. "You may kill the
Russians, but you will hardly make them run," was a saying of
Frederick the Great; and certainly Seidlitz, who scattered the
French so briskly at Rossbach, had to sweat blood before he overcame
the Russians at Zorndorf. Those survivors of Napoleon's famous Guard
who fought in the drawn battle of Eylau, will bear witness to the
stubborn resistance and bull-dog qualities of the Muscovite. But
the grenadier stature, and the immobility under fire--admirable
qualities on a plain, and against regular troops--avail little in
the Caucasus. The burly Russian pants and perspires up the hills,
which the light-footed chamois-like Circassians and Tshetshens
ascend at a run. The mountaineers understand their advantages,
and decline standing still in the plain to be charged by a line
of bayonets. They dance round the heavy Russian, who, with his
well-stuffed knapsack and long greatcoat, can barely turn on his
heel fast enough to face them. They catch him out skirmishing, and
slaughter him in detail. "One might suppose," said a foreigner in
the Russian service to Dr Wagner, "that the musket and bayonet of
the Russian soldier would be too much, in single combat, for the
sabre and dagger of the Tshetshen. The contrary is the case. Amongst
the dead, slain in hand-to-hand encounter, there are usually a third
more Russians than Caucasians. Strange to say, too, the Russian
soldier, who in the serried ranks of his battalion meets death with
wonderful firmness, and who has shown the utmost valour in contests
with European, Turkish, and Persian armies, often betrays timidity
in the Caucasian war, and retreats from the outposts to the column,
in spite of the heavy punishment he thereby incurs. I myself was
exposed, during the murderous fight near Ischkeri (Dargo,) in 1842,
to considerable danger, because, having gone to the assistance of a
skirmisher, who was sharply engaged with a Tshetshen, the skirmisher
ran, leaving me to fight it out alone." This shyness of Russian
soldiers in single fight and irregular warfare, is not inexplicable.
They have no chance of promotion, no honourable stimulus: food and
brandy, discipline and dread of the lash, convert them from serfs
into soldiers. As bits of a machine, they are admirable when united,
but asunder they are mere screws and bolts. Fanatic zeal, bitter
hatred, and thirst of blood, animate the Caucasian, who, trained to
arms from his boyhood, and ignorant of drill, relies only upon his
keen shaska, and upon the Prophet's protection.

Presuming Dr Wagner's statement of Russian rations to be correct,
it is a puzzle how the soldier preserves the condition of his thews
and sinews. The daily allowance consists of three pounds of bread,
black as a coal; a water-soup, in which three pounds of bacon are
cut up for every two hundred and fifty men; a ration of _wodka_,
or bad brandy, and once a-week a small piece of meat. The pay is
nine rubles a-year, (about one-third of a penny _per diem_,) out of
which the unfortunate private has to purchase his stock, cap, soap,
blacking, salt, &c., &c. Any surplus he is allowed to expend upon
his amusement. "Our soldiers are obliged to steal a little," said a
German officer in the Russian service to Dr Wagner; "their pay will
not purchase soap and blacking; and if their shirts are not clean,
and their shoes polished, the stick is their portion." "Stealing a
little," in one way or other, is no uncommon practice in Russia,
even amongst more highly placed personages than the soldiers.
Officials of all kinds, both civil and military, particularly those
of the middle and lower ranks, are prone to peculation. Dr Wagner
was deafened with the complaints that from all sides met his ear.
"Ah! if the emperor knew it!" was the usual cry. The subjects of
Nicholas have strong faith in his justice. It is well remembered
in the Caucasus, especially by the army, how one day, at Teflis,
the emperor, upon parade, in full view of mob and soldiers, tore,
with his own hand, the golden insignia of a general's rank from the
coat of Prince Dadian, denounced to him as enriching himself at his
men's expense. For several years afterwards, the prince carried the
musket, and wore the coarse gray coat of a private sentinel. The
officers pitied him, although his condemnation was just. "_Il faut
profiter d'une bonne place_," is their current maxim. The soldiers
rejoiced; but in secret; for such rejoicings are not always safe.
A sentence often recoils unpleasantly upon the accuser. Dr Wagner
gives sundry examples. A major in Sewastopol fell in love with a
sergeant's wife; and as she disregarded his addresses, he persecuted
her and her husband at every opportunity. In despair, the sergeant
at last complained to the general commanding. He was listened to;
an investigation ensued; the major was superseded; and from his
successor the sergeant received five hundred lashes, under pretence
of his having left his regiment without permission when he went to
lodge his charge. Corporal punishment, of frequent application, at
the mere caprice of their superiors, to Russian serfs and soldiers,
is inflicted with sticks or rods, the knout being reserved for
very grave offences, such as murder, rebellion, &c., and preceding
banishment to Siberia, should the sufferer survive. Dr Wagner's
description of this dreadful punishment is horribly vivid. Few
criminals are sentenced to more than twenty-five lashes, and less
than twenty often kill. Running the gauntlet through three thousand
men is the usual punishment of deserters; and this would usually be
a sentence of death but for the compassion of the officers, who hint
to their companies to strike lightly. If the sufferer faints, and
is declared by the surgeon unable to receive all his punishment, he
gets the remainder at some future time. "Take him down" is a phrase
unknown in the Russian service, until the offender has received the
last lash of his sentence.

Severity is doubtless necessary in an army composed like that of
Russia. Two-thirds of the soldiers are serfs, whose masters, being
allowed to send what men they please--so long as they make up their
quota--naturally contribute the greatest scamps and idlers upon
their estates. The army in Russia is what the galleys are in France,
and the hulks in England--a punishment for an infinity of offences.
An official embezzles funds--to the army with him; a Jew is caught
smuggling--off with him to the ranks; a Tartar cattle-stealer, a
vagrant gipsy, an Armenian trader convicted of fraud, a Petersburg
coachman who has run over a pedestrian--all food for powder--gray
coats and bayonets for them all. Jews abound in the Russian army,
being subjected to a severe conscription in Poland and southern
Russia. They submit with exemplary patience to the hardships of the
service, and to the taunts of their Russian comrades. Poles are of
course numerous in the ranks, but they are less enduring than the
Israelite, and often desert to the Circassians, who make them work
as servants, or sell them as slaves to the Turks. No race are too
unmilitary in their nature to be ground into soldiers by the mill
of Russian discipline. Besides Jews, gipsies and Armenians figure
on the muster-roll. It must have been a queer day for the ragged
Zingaro, when the Russian sergeant first stepped into his smoky
tent, bade him clip his elf locks, wash his grimy countenance, and
follow to the field. For him the pomp of war had no seductions; he
would far rather have stuck to his den and vermin, and to his meal
of roast rats and hedgehogs. But military discipline works miracles.
The slouching filthy vagabond of yesterday now stands erect as if
he had swallowed his ramrod, his shoes a brilliant jet, his buttons
sparkling in the sun--a soldier from toe to top-knot.

The right bank of the Kuban, from the Sea of Azov to the mouth
of the Laba, (a tributary of the former stream,) is peopled with
Tchernamortsy Cossacks, who furnish ten regiments, each of a
thousand horsemen, for the defence of their lands and families.
These cavalry carry a musket, slung on the back, and a long
red lance: their dress is a sheepskin jacket, except on state
occasions, when they sport uniform. They are much less feared by
the Circassians than are the Cossacks of the Line, who wear the
Circassian dress, carry sabres instead of lances, and are more
valiant, active and skilful, than their Tchernamortsy neighbours.
The Cossacks of the Caucasian Line dwell on the banks of the Kuban
and Terek, form a military colony of about fifty thousand souls,
and keep six thousand horsemen ready for the field. There is a
mixture of Circassian blood in their veins, and they are first-rate
fighting men. Their villages are exposed to frequent attacks from
the mountaineers; but when these are not exceedingly rapid in
collecting their booty, and effecting their retreat, the Cossacks
assemble, and a desperate fight ensues. When the combatants are
numerically matched, the equality of arms, horses, and skill renders
the issue very doubtful. The Tchernamortsies and Don Cossacks are
less able to cope with the Circassians. In a _mêlée_ their lances
are inferior to the shaska. The rival claims of lance and sabre
have often been discussed; many trials of their respective merits
have been made in English, French, and German riding-schools; and
much ink has been shed on the subject. Unquestionably the lance has
done good service, and in certain circumstances is a terrible arm.
"At the battle of Dresden," Marshal Marmont tells us, "the Austrian
infantry were repeatedly assailed by the French cuirassiers,
whom they as often beat back, although the rain prevented their
firing, and the bayonet was their sole defence. But fifty lancers
of Latour-Maubourg's escort at once broke their ranks." Had the
cuirassiers had lances, their first charge, Marmont plausibly enough
asserts, would have sufficed. This leads to another question, often
mooted--whether the lance be properly a light or a heavy cavalry
weapon. When used to break infantry, weight of man and horse might
be an advantage; but in pursuit, where--especially in rugged and
mountainous countries--the lance is found particularly useful, the
preference is obviously for the swift steed and light cavalier.
In the irregular cavalry combats on the Caucasian line, the sabre
carries the day. Unless the Don Cossack's first lance-thrust settles
his adversary, (which is rarely the case,) the next instant the
adroit Circassian is within his guard, and then the betting is ten
to one on Caucasus. Moreover, the Don Cossacks, brought from afar to
wage a perilous and profitless war, are unwilling combatants. They
find blows more plentiful than booty, and approve themselves arrant
thieves and shy fighters. Relieved every two or three years, they
have scarcely time to get broken in to the peculiar mode of warfare.
The Cossacks of the Line are the flower of the hundred thousand wild
warriors scattered over the steppes of Southern Russia, and ready,
at one man's word, to vault into the saddle. Their gallant feats
are numerous. In 1843, during Dr Wagner's visit, three thousand
Circassians dashed across the Kuban, near the fortified village of
Ustlaba. A dense fog hid them from the Russian vedettes. Suddenly
fifty Cossacks of the Line, the escort of a gun, found themselves
face to face with the mountaineers. The mist was so thick that the
horses' heads almost touched before either party perceived the
other. Flight was impossible, but the Cossacks fought like fiends.
Forty-seven met a soldier's death; only three were captured,
and accompanied the cannon across the river, by which road the
Circassians at once retreated, having taken the brave detachment for
the advanced guard of a strong force.

The word Kasak, Kosak, or Kossack, variously interpreted by Klaproth
and other etymologists as robber, volunteer, daredevil, &c., conveys
to civilised ears rude and inelegant associations. Paris has not
yet forgotten the uncouth hordes, wrapped in sheepskins and overrun
with vermin, who, in the hour of her humiliation, startled her
streets, and made her dandies shriek for their smelling-bottles.
Not that Paris saw the worst of them. Some of the Uralian bears,
centaurs of the steppes, Calibans on horseback, were never allowed
to pass the Russian frontier. Their emperor appreciated their good
qualities, but left them at home. Since then, a change has occured.
Civilisation has made huge strides north-eastward. Near Fanagoria,
Dr Wagner passed a pleasant evening with a Cossack officer, a prime
fellow, with all unquenchable thirst for toddy, and an inexhaustible
store of information. He had made the campaigns against the French;
had evidently been bred a savage, or little better; but had
acquired, during his long military career, knowledge of the world
and a certain degree of polish. Amongst other interesting matters,
he gave a sketch of his grandfather, a bloodthirsty old warrior
and image-worshipper, the scourge of his Nogay neighbours, and a
great slayer of the Turk; who in 1812, at the mature age of ninety,
had responded to Czar Alexander's summons to fight for "faith and
fatherland," and had taken the field under Platoff, at the head of
thirteen sons and threescore grandsons. Whilst the Cossack major
told the history of the "Demon of the Steppes," as his ferocious
ancestor was called, his son, a gay lieutenant in the Cossacks of
the Guard, entered the apartment. This young gentleman, slender,
handsome, with well-cut uniform, graceful manners, and well-waxed
mustaches, declined the punch, "having got used at St Petersburg
to tea and champagne." He brought intelligence of promotions
and decorations, of high play at Tcherkask, (the capital of the
Don-Cossacks' country,) and of the establishment at Toganrog of
a French _restaurateur_, who retailed _Veuve Clicquot's_ genuine
champagne at four silver rubles a bottle. He was fascinated by
the French actresses at St Petersburg, and enthusiastic in praise
of Taglioni, then displaying her legs and graces in the Russian
metropolis. Dr Wagner left the symposium with a vivid impression of
the contrast between the bearded barbarian of 1812 and the dapper
guardsman of thirty years later; and with the full conviction that
the next Russian emperor who makes an inroad into civilised Europe,
will have no occasion to be ashamed of his Cossacks, even though his
route should lead him to the polite capital of the French republic.




THE CAXTONS.--PART X.


CHAPTER XLVI.

My uncle's conjecture as to the parentage of Francis Vivian seemed
to me a positive discovery. Nothing more likely than that this
wilful boy had formed some headstrong attachment which no father
would sanction, and so, thwarted and irritated, thrown himself on
the world. Such an explanation was the more agreeable to me, as it
cleared up all that had appeared more discreditable in the mystery
that surrounded Vivian. I could never bear to think that he had done
anything mean and criminal, however I might believe he had been rash
and faulty. It was natural that the unfriended wanderer should have
been thrown into a society, the equivocal character of which had
failed to revolt the audacity of an inquisitive mind and adventurous
temper; but it was natural, also, that the habits of gentle birth,
and that silent education which English gentlemen commonly receive
from their very cradle, should have preserved his honour, at least,
intact through all. Certainly the pride, the notions, the very
faults of the wellborn had remained in full force--why not the
better qualities, however smothered for the time? I felt thankful
for the thought that Vivian was returning to an element in which he
might repurify his mind,--refit himself for that sphere to which he
belonged;--thankful that we might yet meet, and our present half
intimacy mature, perhaps, into healthful friendship.

It was with such thoughts that I took up my hat the next morning
to seek Vivian, and judge if we had gained the right clue, when we
were startled by what was a rare sound at our door--the postman's
knock. My father was at the Museum; my mother in high conference, or
close preparation for our approaching departure, with Mrs Primmins;
Roland, I, and Blanche had the room to ourselves.

"The letter is not for me," said Pisistratus.

"Nor for me, I am sure," said the Captain, when the servant entered
and confuted him--for the letter was for him. He took it up
wonderingly and suspiciously, as Glumdalclitch took up Gulliver, or
as (if naturalists) we take up an unknown creature, that we are not
quite sure will not bite and sting us. Ah! it has stung or bit you,
Captain Roland! for you start and change colour--you suppress a cry
as you break the seal--you breathe hard as you read--and the letter
seems short--but it takes time in the reading, for you go over it
again and again. Then you fold it up--crumple it--thrust it into
your breast pocket--and look round like a man waking from a dream.
Is it a dream of pain, or of pleasure? Verily, I cannot guess, for
nothing is on that eagle face either of pain or pleasure, but rather
of fear, agitation, bewilderment. Yet the eyes are bright, too, and
there is a smile on that iron lip.

My uncle looked round, I say, and called hastily for his cane and
his hat, and then began buttoning his coat across his broad breast,
though the day was hot enough to have unbuttoned every breast in the
tropics.

"You are not going out, uncle?"

"Yes, yes."

"But are you strong enough yet? Let me go with you?"

"No, sir; no. Blanche, come here." He took the child in his arms,
surveyed her wistfully, and kissed her. "You have never given me
pain, Blanche: say, 'God bless and prosper you, father!'"

"God bless and prosper my dear, dear papa!" said Blanche, putting
her little hands together, as if in prayer.

"There--that should bring me luck, Blanche," said the Captain,
gaily, and setting her down. Then seizing his cane from the servant,
and putting on his hat with a determined air, he walked stoutly
forth; and I saw him, from the window, march along the streets as
cheerfully as if he had been besieging Badajoz.

"God prosper thee, too!" said I, involuntarily.

And Blanche took hold of my hand, and said in her prettiest way,
(and her pretty ways were many), "I wish you would come with us,
cousin Sisty, and help me to love papa. Poor papa! he wants us
both--he wants all the love we can give him!"

"That he does, my dear Blanche; and I think it a great mistake that
we don't all live together. Your papa ought not to go to that tower
of his, at the world's end, but come to our snug, pretty house, with
a garden full of flowers, for you to be Queen of the May--from May
to November;--to say nothing of a duck that is more sagacious than
any creature in the Fables I gave you the other day."

Blanche laughed and clapped her hands--"Oh, that would be so nice!
but,"--and she stopped gravely, and added, "but then, you see, there
would not be the tower to love papa; and I am sure that the tower
must love him very much, for he loves it dearly."

It was my turn to laugh now. "I see how it is, you little witch,"
said I; "you would coax us to come and live with you and the owls!
With all my heart, so far as I am concerned."

"Sisty," said Blanche, with an appalling solemnity on her face, "do
you know what I've been thinking?"

"Not I, miss--what?--something very deep, I can see--very horrible,
indeed, I fear, you look so serious."

"Why, I've been thinking," continued Blanche, not relaxing a muscle,
and without the least bit of a blush--"I've been thinking that
I'll be your little wife; and then, of course, we shall all live
together."

Blanche did not blush, but I did. "Ask me that ten years hence,
if you dare, you impudent little thing; and now, run away to Mrs
Primmins, and tell her to keep you out of mischief, for I must say
good-morning."

But Blanche did not run away, and her dignity seemed exceedingly
hurt at my mode of taking her alarming proposition, for she retired
into a corner pouting, and sate down with great majesty. So there
I left her, and went my way to Vivian. He was out; but, seeing
books on his table, and having nothing to do, I resolved to wait
for his return. I had enough of my father in me to turn at once to
the books for company; and, by the side of some graver works which
I had recommended, I found certain novels in French, that Vivian
had got from a circulating library. I had a curiosity to read
these--for, except the old classic novels of France, this mighty
branch of its popular literature was then new to me. I soon got
interested, but what an interest!--the interest that a nightmare
might excite, if one caught it out of one's sleep, and set to work
to examine it. By the side of what dazzling shrewdness, what deep
knowledge of those holes and corners in the human system, of which
Goethe must have spoken when he said somewhere--(if I recollect
right, and don't misquote him, which I'll not answer for)--"There
is something in every man's heart which, if we could know, would
make us hate him,"--by the side of all this, and of much more that
showed prodigious boldness and energy of intellect, what strange
exaggeration--what mock nobility of sentiment--what inconceivable
perversion of reasoning--what damnable demoralisation! I hate the
cant of charging works of fiction with the accusation--often unjust
and shallow--that they interest us in vice, or palliate crime,
because the author truly shows what virtues may entangle themselves
with vices; or commands our compassion, and awes our pride, by
teaching us how men deceive and bewitch themselves into guilt. Such
painting belongs to the dark truth of all tragedy, from Sophocles to
Shakspeare. No; this is not what shocked me in those books--it was
not the interesting me in vice, for I felt no interest in it at all;
it was the insisting that vice is something uncommonly noble--it
was the portrait of some coldblooded adultress, whom the author or
authoress chooses to call _pauvre Ange!_ (poor angel!);--it was some
scoundrel who dupes, cheats, and murders under cover of a duel, in
which he is a second St George; who does not instruct us by showing
through what metaphysical process he became a scoundrel, but who
is continually forced upon us as a very favourable specimen of
mankind;--it was the view of society altogether, painted in colours
so hideous that, if true, instead of a revolution, it would draw
down a deluge;--it was the hatred, carefully instilled, of the
poor against the rich--it was the war breathed between class and
class--it was that envy of all superiorities, which loves to show
itself by allowing virtue only to a blouse, and asserting that a
man must be a rogue if he belong to that rank of society in which,
from the very gifts of education, from the necessary associations
of circumstances, roguery is the last thing probable or natural.
It was all this, and things a thousand times worse, that set my
head in a whirl, as hour after hour slipped on, and I still gazed,
spell-bound, on these Chimeras and Typhons--these symbols of the
Destroying Principle. "Poor Vivian!" said I, as I rose at last,
"if thou readest these books with pleasure, or from habit, no
wonder that thou seemest to me so obtuse about right and wrong,
and to have a great cavity where thy brain should have the bump of
'conscientiousness' in full salience!"

Nevertheless, to do those demoniacs justice, I had got through
time imperceptibly by their pestilent help; and I was startled to
see, by my watch, how late it was. I had just resolved to leave
a line, fixing an appointment for the morrow, and so depart,
when I heard Vivian's knock--a knock that had great character
in it--haughty, impatient, irregular; not a neat, symmetrical,
harmonious, unpretending knock, but a knock that seemed to set the
whole house and street at defiance: it was a knock bullying--a
knock ostentatious--a knock irritating and offensive--"impiger" and
"iracundus."

But the step that came up the stairs did not suit the knock: it was
a step light, yet firm--slow, yet elastic.

The maid-servant who had opened the door had, no doubt, informed
Vivian of my visit, for he did not seem surprised to see me; but he
cast that hurried, suspicious look round the room which a man is apt
to cast when he has left his papers about, and finds some idler,
on whose trustworthiness he by no means depends, seated in the
midst of the unguarded secrets. The look was not flattering; but my
conscience was so unreproachful that I laid all the blame upon the
general suspiciousness of Vivian's character.

"Three hours, at least, have I been here!" said I, maliciously.

"Three hours!"--again the look.

"And this is the worst secret I have discovered,"--and I pointed to
those literary Manicheans.

"Oh!" said he carelessly, "French novels!--I don't wonder you stayed
so long. I can't read your English novels--flat and insipid: there
are truth and life here."

"Truth and life!" cried I, every hair on my head erect with
astonishment--"then hurrah for falsehood and death!"

"They don't please you; no accounting for tastes."

"I beg your pardon--I account for yours, if you really take for
truth and life monsters so nefast and flagitious. For heaven's
sake, my dear fellow, don't suppose that any man could get on in
England--get anywhere but to the Old Bailey or Norfolk Island, if he
squared his conduct to such topsy-turvy notions of the world as I
find here."

"How many years are you my senior," asked Vivian sneeringly, "that
you should play the mentor, and correct my ignorance of the world?"

"Vivian, it is not age and experience that speak here, it is
something far wiser than they--the instinct of a man's heart, and a
gentleman's honour."

"Well, well," said Vivian, rather discomposed, "let the poor books
alone; you know my creed--that books influence us little one way or
the other."

"By the great Egyptian library, and the soul of Diodorus, I wish you
could hear my father upon that point! Come," added I, with sublime
compassion--"come, it is not too late--do let me introduce you to
my father. I will consent to read French novels all my life, if a
single chat with Austin Caxton does not send you home with a happier
face and a lighter heart. Come, let me take you back to dine with us
to-day."

"I cannot," said Vivian with some confusion--"I cannot, for this day
I leave London. Some other time perhaps--for," he added, but not
heartily, "we may meet again."

"I hope so," said I, wringing his hand, "and that is likely,--since,
in spite of yourself, I have guessed your secret--your birth and
parentage."

"How!" cried Vivian, turning pale, and gnawing his lip--"what do
you mean?--speak."

"Well, then, are you not the lost, runaway son of Colonel Vivian?
Come, say the truth; let us be confidants."

Vivian threw off a succession of his abrupt sighs; and then, seating
himself, leant his face on the table, confused, no doubt, to find
himself discovered.

"You are near the mark," said he at last, "but do not ask me farther
yet. Some day," he cried impetuously, and springing suddenly to his
feet--"some day you shall know all: yes; some day, if I live, when
that name shall be high in the world; yes, when the world is at my
feet!" He stretched his right hand as if to grasp the space, and his
whole face was lighted with a fierce enthusiasm. The glow died away,
and with a slight return of his scornful smile, he said--"Dreams
yet; dreams! And now, look at this paper." And he drew out a
memorandum, scrawled over with figures.

"This, I think, is my pecuniary debt to you; in a few days, I shall
discharge it. Give me your address."

"Oh!" said I, pained, "can you speak to me of money, Vivian?"

"It is one of those instincts of honour you cite so often," answered
he, colouring. "Pardon me."

"That is my address," said I, stooping to write, to conceal my
wounded feelings. "You will avail yourself of it, I hope, often, and
tell me that you are well and happy."

"When I am happy, you shall know."

"You do not require any introduction to Trevanion?"

Vivian hesitated: "No, I think not. If ever I do, I will write for
it."

I took up my hat, and was about to go--for I was still chilled and
mortified--when, as if by an irresistible impulse, Vivian came to me
hastily, flung his arms round my neck, and kissed me as a boy kisses
his brother.

"Bear with me!" he cried in a faltering voice: "I did not think to
love any one as you have made me love you, though sadly against the
grain. If you are not my good angel, it is that nature and habit are
too strong for you. Certainly, some day we shall meet again. I shall
have time, in the meanwhile, to see if the world can be indeed 'mine
oyster, which I with sword can open.' I would be _aut Cæsar aut
nullus_! Very little other Latin know I to quote from! If Cæsar, men
will forgive me all the means to the end; if _nullus_, London has a
river, and in every street one may buy a cord!"

"Vivian! Vivian!"

"Now go, my dear friend, while my heart is softened--go, before I
shock you with some return of the native Adam. Go--go!"

And taking me gently by the arm, Francis Vivian drew me from the
room, and, re-entering, locked his door.

Ah! if I could have left him Robert Hall, instead of those execrable
Typhons! But would that medicine have suited his case, or must grim
Experience write sterner recipes with her iron hand?


CHAPTER XLVII.

When I got back, just in time for dinner, Roland had not returned,
nor did he return till late in the evening. All our eyes were
directed towards him, as we rose with one accord to give him
welcome; but his face was like a mask--it was locked, and rigid, and
unreadable.

Shutting the door carefully after him, he came to the hearth, stood
on it, upright and calm, for a few moments, and then asked--

"Has Blanche gone to bed?"

"Yes," said my mother, "but not to sleep, I am sure; she made me
promise to tell her when you came back."

Roland's brow relaxed.

"To-morrow, sister," said he slowly, "will you see that she has the
proper mourning made for her? My son is dead."

"Dead!" we cried with one voice, and surrounding him with one
impulse.

"Dead! impossible--you could not say it so calmly. Dead!--how do you
know? You may be deceived. Who told you?--why do you think so?"

"I have seen his remains," said my uncle, with the same gloomy calm.
"We will all mourn for him. Pisistratus, you are heir to my name
now, as to your father's. Good-night; excuse me, all--all you dear
and kind ones; I am worn out."

Roland lighted his candle and went away, leaving us thunderstruck;
but he came back again--looked round--took up his book, open in
the favourite passage--nodded again, and again vanished. We looked
at each other, as if we had seen a ghost. Then my father rose and
went out of the room, and remained in Roland's till the night was
wellnigh gone. We sat up--my mother and I--till he returned. His
benign face looked profoundly sad.

"How is it, sir Can you tell us more?"

My father shook his head.

"Roland prays that you may preserve the same forbearance you have
shown hitherto, and never mention his son's name to him. Peace be to
the living, as to the dead. Kitty, this changes our plans; we must
all go to Cumberland--we cannot leave Roland thus!"

"Poor, poor Roland!" said my mother, through her tears. "And to
think that father and son were not reconciled. But Roland forgives
him now--oh, yes! _now!_"

"It is not Roland we can censure," said my father, almost fiercely;
"it is--but enough. We must hurry out of town as soon as we can:
Roland will recover in the native air of his old ruins."

We went up to bed mournfully.

"And so," thought I, "ends one grand object of my life!--I had hoped
to have brought those two together. But, alas! what peacemaker like
the grave!"


CHAPTER XLVIII.

My uncle did not leave his room for three days, but he was much
closeted with a lawyer; and my father dropped some words which
seemed to imply that the deceased had incurred debts, and that the
poor Captain was making some charge on his small property. As Roland
had said that he had seen the remains of his son, I took it at first
for granted that we should attend a funeral, but no word of this was
said. On the fourth day, Roland, in deep mourning, entered a hackney
coach with the lawyer, and was absent about two hours. I did not
doubt that he had thus quietly fulfilled the last mournful offices.
On his return, he shut himself up again for the rest of the day,
and would not see even my father. But the next morning he made his
appearance as usual, and I even thought that he seemed more cheerful
than I had yet known him--whether he played a part, or whether the
worst was now over, and the grave was less cruel than uncertainty.
On the following day, we all set out for Cumberland.

In the interval, Uncle Jack had been almost constantly at the house,
and, to do him justice, he had seemed unaffectedly shocked at the
calamity that had befallen Roland. There was, indeed, no want of
heart in Uncle Jack, whenever you went straight at it; but it was
hard to find if you took a circuitous route towards it through the
pockets. The worthy speculator had indeed much business to transact
with my father before we left town. The _Anti-Publisher Society_
had been set up, and it was through the obstetric aid of that
fraternity that the Great Book was to be ushered into the world. The
new journal, the _Literary Times_, was also far advanced--not yet
out, but my father was fairly in for it. There were preparations for
its debut on a vast scale, and two or three gentlemen in black--one
of whom looked like a lawyer, and another like a printer, and a
third uncommonly like a Jew--called twice, with papers of a very
formidable aspect. All these preliminaries settled, the last thing
I heard Uncle Jack say, with a slap on my father's back, was, "Fame
and fortune both made now!--you may go to sleep in safety, for you
leave me wide awake. Jack Tibbets never sleeps!"

I had thought it strange that, since my abrupt exodus from
Trevanion's house, no notice had been taken of any of us by himself
or Lady Ellinor. But on the very eve of our departure, came a kind
note from Trevanion to me, dated from his favourite country seat,
(accompanied by a present of some rare books to my father,) in which
he said briefly that there had been illness in his family, which had
obliged him to leave town for a change of air, but that Lady Ellinor
expected to call on my mother the next week. He had found amongst
his books some curious works of the Middle Ages, amongst others a
complete set of Cardan, which he knew my father would like to have,
and so sent them. There was no allusion to what had passed between
us.

In reply to this note, after due thanks on my father's part, who
seized upon the Cardan (Lyons edition, 1663, ten volumes folio) as
a silkworm does upon a mulberry leaf, I expressed our joint regrets
that there was no hope of our seeing Lady Ellinor, as we were just
leaving town. I should have added something on the loss my uncle had
sustained, but my father thought that, since Roland shrank from any
mention of his son, even by his nearest kindred, it would be his
obvious wish not to parade his affliction beyond that circle.

And there had been illness in Trevanion's family! On whom had it
fallen? I could not rest satisfied with that general expression, and
I took my answer myself to Trevanion's house, instead of sending it
by the post. In reply to my inquiries, the porter said that all the
family were expected at the end of the week; that he had heard both
Lady Ellinor and Miss Trevanion had been rather poorly, but that
they were now better. I left my note, with orders to forward it; and
my wounds bled afresh as I came away.

We had the whole coach to ourselves in our journey, and a silent
journey it was, till we arrived at a little town about eight miles
from my uncle's residence, to which we could only get through a
cross-road. My uncle insisted on preceding us that night, and,
though he had written, before we started, to announce our coming, he
was fidgety lest the poor tower should not make the best figure it
could;--so he went alone, and we took our ease at our inn.

Betimes the next day we hired a fly-coach--for a chaise could never
have held us and my father's books--and jogged through a labyrinth
of villanous lanes, which no Marshal Wade had ever reformed from
their primal chaos. But poor Mrs Primmins and the canary-bird
alone seemed sensible of the jolts; the former, who sate opposite
to us, wedged amidst a medley of packages, all marked "care, to
be kept top uppermost," (why I know not, for they were but books,
and whether they lay top or bottom it could not materially affect
their value,)--the former, I say, contrived to extend her arms over
those _disjecta membra_, and, griping a window-sill with the right
hand, and a window-sill with the left, kept her seat rampant, like
the split eagle of the Austrian Empire--in fact it would be well,
now-a-days, if the split eagle were as firm as Mrs Primmins! As for
the canary, it never failed to respond, by an astonished chirp, to
every "Gracious me!" and "Lord save us!" which the delve into a rut,
or the bump out of it, sent forth from Mrs Primmins's lips, with all
the emphatic dolor of thἂe "Ἂῖ, ἂῖ" in a Greek chorus.

But my father, with his broad hat over his brows, was in deep
thought. The scenes of his youth were rising before him, and his
memory went, smooth as a spirit's wing, over delve and bump. And
my mother, who sat next him, had her arm on his shoulder, and was
watching his face jealously. Did she think that, in that thoughtful
face, there was regret for the old love? Blanche, who had been
very sad, and had wept much and quietly since they put on her the
mourning, and told her that she had no brother, (though she had no
remembrance of the lost), began now to evince infantine curiosity
and eagerness to catch the first peep of her father's beloved tower.
And Blanche sat on my knee, and I shared her impatience. At last
there came in view a church spire--a church--a plain square building
near it, the parsonage, (my father's old home)--a long straggling
street of cottages and rude shops, with a better kind of house here
and there--and in the hinder ground, a gray deformed mass of wall
and ruin, placed on one of those eminences on which the Danes loved
to pitch camp or build fort, with one high, rude, Anglo-Norman tower
rising from the midst. Few trees were round it, and those either
poplars or firs, save, as we approached, one mighty oak--integral
and unscathed. The road now wound behind the parsonage, and up a
steep ascent. Such a road!--the whole parish ought to have been
flogged for it! If I had sent up a road like that, even on a map, to
Dr Herman, I should not have sat down in comfort for a week to come!

The fly-coach came to a full stop.

"Let us get out," cried I, opening the door and springing to the
ground to set the example.

Blanche followed, and my respected parents came next. But when Mrs
Primmins was about to heave herself into movement,

"_Papæ!_" said my father. "I think, Mrs Primmins, you must remain
in, to keep the books steady."

"Lord love you!" cried Mrs Primmins, aghast.

"The subtraction of such a mass, or _moles_--supple and elastic
as all flesh is, and fitting into the hard corners of the inert
matter--such a subtraction, Mrs Primmins, would leave a vacuum which
no natural system, certainly no artificial organisation, could
sustain. There would be a regular dance of atoms, Mrs Primmins; my
books would fly here, there, on the floor, out of the window!

  "_Corporis officium est quoniam omnia deorsum._"

The business of a body like yours, Mrs Primmins, is to press all
things down--to keep them tight, as you will know one of these
days--that is, if you will do me the favour to read Lucretius,
and master that material philosophy, of which I may say, without
flattery, my dear Mrs Primmins, that you are a living illustration."

These, the first words my father had spoken since we set out
from the inn, seemed to assure my mother that she need have no
apprehension as to the character of his thoughts, for her brow
cleared, and she said, laughing,

"Only look at poor Primmins, and then at that hill!"

"You may subtract Primmins, if you will be answerable for the
remnant, Kitty. Only, I warn you that it is against all the laws of
physics."

So saying, he sprang lightly forward, and, taking hold of my arm,
paused and looked round, and drew the loud free breath with which we
draw native air.

"And yet," said my father, after that grateful and affectionate
inspiration--"and yet, it must be owned, that a more ugly country
one cannot see out of Cambridgeshire."[5]

  [5] This certainly cannot be said of Cumberland generally, one of
  the most beautiful counties in Great Britain. But the immediate
  district to which Mr Caxton's exclamation refers; if not ugly, is at
  least savage, bare, and rude.

"Nay," said I, "it is bold and large, it has a beauty of its own.
Those immense, undulating, uncultivated, treeless tracks have
surely their charm of wildness and solitude! And how they suit the
character of the ruin! All is feudal there: I understand Roland
better now."

"I hope in heaven Cardan will come to no harm!" cried my father; "he
is very handsomely bound; and he fitted beautifully just into the
fleshiest part of that fidgety Primmins."

Blanche, meanwhile, had run far before us, and I followed fast.
There were still the remains of that deep trench (surrounding the
ruins on three sides, leaving a ragged hill-top at the fourth) which
made the favourite fortification of all the Teutonic tribes. A
causeway, raised on brick arches, now, however, supplied the place
of the drawbridge, and the outer gate was but a mass of picturesque
ruin. Entering into the courtyard or bailey, the old castle mound,
from which justice had been dispensed, was in full view, rising
higher than the broken walls around it, and partially overgrown with
brambles. And there stood, comparatively whole, the tower or keep,
and from its portals emerged the veteran owner.

His ancestors might have received us in more state, but certainly
they could not have given us a warmer greeting. In fact, in his
own domain, Roland appeared another man. His stiffness, which
was a little repulsive to those who did not understand it, was
all gone. He seemed less proud, precisely because he and his
pride, on that ground, were on good terms with each other. How
gallantly he extended--not his arm, in our modern Jack-and-Jill
sort of fashion--but his right hand, to my mother; how carefully
he led her over "brake, bush, and scaur," through the low vaulted
door, where a tall servant, who, it was easy to see, had been a
soldier--in the precise livery, no doubt, warranted by the heraldic
colours, (his stockings were red!)--stood upright as a sentry.
And, coming into the hall, it looked absolutely cheerful--it took
us by surprise. There was a great fire-place, and, though it was
still summer, a great fire! It did not seem a bit too much, for
the walls were stone, the lofty roof open to the rafters, while
the windows were small and narrow, and so high and so deep sunk
that one seemed in a vault. Nevertheless, I say the room looked
sociable and cheerful--thanks principally to the fire, and partly
to a very ingenious medley of old tapestry at one end, and matting
at the other, fastened to the lower part of the walls, seconded
by an arrangement of furniture which did credit to my uncle's
taste for the Picturesque. After we had looked about and admired
to our hearts' content, Roland took us--not up one of those noble
staircases you see in the later manorial residences--but a little
winding stone stair, into the rooms he had appropriated to his
guests. There was first a small chamber, which he called my father's
study--in truth, it would have done for any philosopher or saint who
wished to shut out the world--and might have passed for the interior
of such a column as Stylites inhabited; for you must have climbed a
ladder to have looked out of the window, and then the vision of no
short-sighted man could have got over the interval in the wall made
by the narrow casement, which, after all, gave no other prospect
than a Cumberland sky, with an occasional rook in it. But my father,
I think I have said before, did not much care for scenery, and he
looked round with great satisfaction upon the retreat assigned him.

"We can knock up shelves for your books in no time," said my uncle,
rubbing his hands.

"It would be a charity," quoth my father, "for they have been very
long in a recumbent position, and would like to stretch themselves,
poor things. My dear Roland, this room is made for books--so round
and so deep. I shall sit here like Truth in a well."

"And there is a room for you, sister, just out of it," said my
uncle, opening a little low prison-like door into a charming room,
for its window was low, and it had an iron balcony; "and out of that
is the bed-room. For you, Pisistratus, my boy, I am afraid that it
is soldier's quarters, indeed, with which you will have to put up.
But never mind; in a day or two we shall make all worthy a general
of your illustrious name--for he was a great general, Pisistratus
the First--was he not, brother?"

"All tyrants are," said my father: "the knack of soldiering is
indispensable to them."

"Oh, you may say what you please here!" said Roland, in high
good humour, as he drew me down stairs, still apologising for my
quarters, and so earnestly that I made up my mind that I was to be
put into an _oubliette_. Nor were my suspicions much dispelled on
seeing that we had to leave the keep, and pick our way into what
seemed to me a mere heap of rubbish, on the dexter side of the
court. But I was agreeably surprised to find, amidst these wrecks,
a room with a noble casement commanding the whole country, and
placed immediately over a plot of ground cultivated as a garden.
The furniture was ample, though homely; the floors and walls well
matted; and, altogether, despite the inconvenience of having to
cross the courtyard to get to the rest of the house, and being
wholly without the modern luxury of a bell, I thought that I could
not be better lodged.

"But this is a perfect bower, my dear uncle! Depend on it, it was
the bower-chamber of the Dames de Caxton--heaven rest them!"

"No," said my uncle, gravely; "I suspect it must have been the
chaplain's room, for the chapel was to the right of you. An earlier
chapel, indeed, formerly existed in the keep tower--for, indeed, it
is scarcely a true keep without chapel, well, and hall. I can show
you part of the roof of the first, and the two last are entire; the
well is very curious, formed in the substance of the wall at one
angle of the hall. In Charles the First's time, our ancestor lowered
his only son down in a bucket, and kept him there six hours, while
a Malignant mob was storming the tower. I need not say that our
ancestor himself scorned to hide from such a rabble, for _he_ was a
grown man. The boy lived to be a sad spendthrift, and used the well
for cooling his wine. He drank up a great many good acres."

"I should scratch him out of the pedigree, if I were you. But,
pray, have you not discovered the proper chamber of that great Sir
William, about whom my father is so shamefully sceptical?"

"To tell you a secret," answered the Captain, giving me a sly poke
in the ribs, "I have put your father into it! There are the initial
letters W. C. let into the cusp of the York rose, and the date,
three years before the battle of Bosworth, over the chimneypiece."

I could not help joining my uncle's grim low laugh at this
characteristic pleasantry; and after I had complimented him on so
judicious a mode of proving his point, I asked him how he could
possibly have contrived to fit up the ruin so well, especially as he
had scarcely visited it since his purchase.

"Why," said he, "about twelve years ago, that poor fellow you
now see as my servant, and who is gardener, bailiff, seneschal,
butler, and anything else you can put him to, was sent out of the
army on the invalid list. So I placed him here; and as he is a
capital carpenter, and has had a very fair education, I told him
what I wanted, and put by a small sum every year for repairs and
furnishing. It is astonishing how little it cost me, for Bolt,
poor fellow, (that is his name,) caught the right spirit of the
thing, and most of the furniture, (which you see is ancient and
suitable,) he picked up at different cottages and farmhouses in the
neighbourhood. As it is, however, we have plenty more rooms here and
there--only, of late," continued my uncle, slightly changing colour,
"I had no money to spare. But come," he resumed, with an evident
effort--"come and see my barrack: it is on the other side of the
hall, and made out of what no doubt were the butteries."

We reached the yard, and found the fly-coach had just crawled to
the door. My father's head was buried deep in the vehicle,--he was
gathering up his packages, and sending out, oracle-like, various
muttered objurgations and anathemas upon Mrs Primmins and her
vacuum; which Mrs Primmins, standing by, and making a lap with her
apron to receive the packages and anathemas simultaneously, bore
with the mildness of an angel, lifting up her eyes to heaven and
murmuring something about "poor old bones." Though, as for Mrs
Primmins's bones, they had been myths these twenty years, and you
might as soon have found a Plesiosaurus in the fat lands of Romney
Marsh as a bone amidst those layers of flesh in which my poor father
thought he had so carefully cottoned up his Cardan.

Leaving these parties to adjust matters between them, we stepped
under the low doorway, and entered Rowland's room. Oh, certainly
Bolt _had_ caught the spirit of the thing!--certainly he had
penetrated down even to the very pathos that lay within the deeps
of Roland's character. Buffon says "the style is the man;" there,
the room was the man. That nameless, inexpressible, soldier-like,
methodical neatness which belonged to Roland--that was the first
thing that struck one--that was the general character of the whole.
Then, in details, there, in stout oak shelves, were the books on
which my father loved to jest his more imaginative brother,--there
they were, Froissart, Barante, Joinville, the _Mort d'Arthur_,
_Amadis of Gaul_, Spenser's _Fairy Queen_, a noble copy of Strutt's
_Horda_, Mallet's _Northern Antiquities_, Percy's _Reliques_, Pope's
_Homer_, books on gunnery, archery, hawking, fortification--old
chivalry and modern war together cheek by jowl.

Old chivalry and modern war!--look to that tilting helmet with
the tall Caxton crest, and look to that trophy near it, a French
cuirass--and that old banner (a knight's pennon) surmounting those
crossed bayonets. And over the chimneypiece there--bright, clean,
and, I warrant you, dusted daily--are Roland's own sword, his
holsters, and pistols, yea, the saddle, pierced and lacerated, from
which he had reeled when that leg----I gasped--I felt it all at a
glance, and I stole softly to the spot, and, had Roland not been
there, I could have kissed that sword as reverently as if it had
been a Bayard's or a Sidney's.

My uncle was too modest to guess my emotion; he rather thought I
had turned my face to conceal a smile at his vanity, and said, in
a deprecating tone of apology--"It was all Bolt's doing, foolish
fellow."


CHAPTER XLIX.

Our host regaled us with a hospitality that notably contrasted his
economical thrifty habits in London. To be sure, Bolt had caught the
great pike which headed the feast; and Bolt, no doubt, had helped
to rear those fine chickens _ab ovo_; Bolt, I have no doubt, made
that excellent Spanish omelette; and for the rest, the products of
the sheepwalk and the garden came in as volunteer auxiliaries--very
different from the mercenary recruits by which those metropolitan
_Condottieri_, the butcher and green-grocer, hasten the ruin of that
melancholy commonwealth called "genteel poverty."

Our evening passed cheerfully; and Roland, contrary to his custom,
was talker in chief. It was eleven o'clock before Bolt appeared with
a lantern to conduct me through the court-yard to my dormitory,
among the ruins--a ceremony which, every night, shine or dark, he
insisted upon punctiliously performing.

It was long before I could sleep--before I could believe that but
so few days had elapsed since Roland heard of his son's death--that
son whose fate had so long tortured him; and yet, never had Roland
appeared so free from sorrow! Was it natural--was it effort? Several
days passed before I could answer that question, and then not wholly
to my satisfaction. Effort there was, or rather resolute systematic
determination. At moments Roland's head drooped, his brows met, and
the whole man seemed to sink. Yet these were only moments; he would
rouse himself up like a dozing charger at the sound of a trumpet,
and shake off the creeping weight. But, whether from the vigour of
his determination, or from some aid in other trains of reflection, I
could not but perceive that Roland's sadness really was less grave
and bitter than it had been, or than it was natural to suppose. He
seemed to transfer, daily more and more, his affections from the
dead to those around him, especially to Blanche and myself. He let
it be seen that he looked on me now as his lawful successor--as the
future supporter of his name--he was fond of confiding to me all
his little plans, and consulting me on them. He would walk with me
around his domains, (of which I shall say more hereafter,)--point
out, from every eminence we climbed, where the broad lands which
his forefathers owned stretched away to the horizon; unfold with
tender hand the mouldering pedigree, and rest lingeringly on those
of his ancestors who had held martial post, or had died on the
field. There was a crusader who had followed Richard to Ascalon;
there was a knight who had fought at Agincourt; there was a cavalier
(whose picture was still extant, with fair lovelocks) who had fallen
at Worcester--no doubt the same who had cooled his son in that
well which the son devoted to more agreeable associations. But of
all these worthies there was none whom my uncle, perhaps from the
spirit of contradiction, valued like that apocryphal Sir William:
and why?--because, when the apostate Stanley turned the fortunes
of the field at Bosworth, and when that cry of despair--"Treason,
treason!" burst from the lips of the last Plantagenet, "amongst
the faithless," this true soldier "faithful found!" had fallen in
that lion-rush which Richard made at his foe. "Your father tells
me that Richard was a murderer and usurper," quoth my uncle. "Sir,
that might be true or not; but it was not on the field of battle
that his followers were to reason on the character of the master
who trusted them, especially when a legion of foreign hirelings
stood opposed to them. I would not have descended from that turncoat
Stanley to be lord of all the lands the Earls of Derby can boast
of. Sir, in loyalty, men fight and die for a grand principle, and
a lofty passion; and this brave Sir William was paying back to the
last Plantagenet the benefits he had received from the first!"

"And yet it may be doubted," said I maliciously, "whether William
Caxton the printer did not--"

"Plague, pestilence, and fire seize William Caxton the printer, and
his invention too!" cried my uncle barbarously. "When there were
only a few books, at least they were good ones; and now they are
so plentiful, all they do is to confound the judgment, unsettle
the reason, drive the good books out of cultivation, and draw a
ploughshare of innovation over every ancient landmark; seduce the
women, womanize the men, upset states, thrones, and churches; rear
a race of chattering, conceited, coxcombs, who can always find
books in plenty to excuse them from doing their duty; make the poor
discontented, the rich crotchety and whimsical, refine away the
stout old virtues into quibbles and sentiments! All imagination
formerly was expended in noble action, adventure, enterprise, high
deeds and aspirations; now a man can but be imaginative by feeding
on the false excitement of passions he never felt, dangers he never
shared; and he fritters away all there is of life to spare in him
upon the fictitious love-sorrows of Bond Street and St James's.
Sir, chivalry ceased when the press rose! And to fasten upon me, as
a forefather, out of all men who have ever lived and sinned, the
very man who has most destroyed what I most valued--who, by the
Lord! with his cursed invention has wellnigh got rid of respect for
forefathers altogether--is a cruelty of which my brother had never
been capable, if that printer's devil had not got hold of him!"

That a man in this blessed nineteenth century should be such a
Vandal! and that my uncle Roland should talk in a strain that
Totila would have been ashamed of, within so short a time after my
father's scientific and erudite oration on the Hygeiana of Books,
was enough to make one despair of the progress of intellect and the
perfectibility of our species. And I have no manner of doubt that,
all the while, my uncle had a brace of books in his pockets, Robert
Hall one of them! In truth, he had talked himself into a passion,
and did not know what nonsense he was saying, poor man. But this
explosion of Captain Roland's has shattered the thread of my matter.
Pouff! I must take breath and begin again!

Yes, in spite of my sauciness, the old soldier evidently took to me
more and more. And, besides our critical examination of the property
and the pedigree, he carried me with him on long excursions to
distant villages, where some memorial of a defunct Caxton, a coat of
arms, or an epitaph on a tombstone, might be still seen. And he made
me pore over topographical works and county histories, (forgetful,
Goth that he was, that for those very authorities he was indebted
to the repudiated printer!) to find some anecdote of his beloved
dead! In truth, the county for miles round bore the _vestigia_ of
those old Caxtons; their handwriting was on many a broken wall.
And, obscure as they all were, compared to that great operative
of the Sanctuary at Westminster, whom my father clung to--still,
that the yesterdays that had lighted them the way to dusty death
had cast no glare on dishonoured scutcheons seemed clear, from the
popular respect and traditional affection in which I found that
the name was still held in hamlet and homestead. It was pleasant
to see the veneration with which this small hidalgo of some three
hundred a-year was held, and the patriarchal affection with which
he returned it. Roland was a man who would walk into a cottage,
rest his cork leg on the hearth, and talk for the hour together
upon all that lay nearest to the hearts of the owners. There is
a peculiar spirit of aristocracy amongst agricultural peasants:
they like old names and families; they identify themselves with the
honours of a house, as if of its clan. They do not care so much for
wealth as townsfolk and the middle class do; they have a pity, but a
respectful one, for wellborn poverty. And then this Roland, too--who
would go and dine in a cook shop, and receive change for a shilling,
and shun the ruinous luxury of a hack cabriolet--could be positively
extravagant in his liberalities to those around him. He was
altogether another being in his paternal acres. The shabby-genteel,
half-pay captain, lost in the whirl of London, here luxuriated into
a dignified case of manner that Chesterfield might have admired.
And, if to please is the true sign of politeness, I wish you could
have seen the faces that smiled upon Captain Roland, as he walked
down the village, nodding from side to side.

One day a frank, hearty, old woman, who had known Roland as a boy,
seeing him lean on my arm, stopped us, as she said bluffly, to take
a "geud luik" at me.

Fortunately I was stalwart enough to pass muster, even in the eyes
of a Cumberland matron; and, after a compliment at which Roland
seemed much pleased, she said to me, but pointing to the Captain--

"Hegh, sir, now you ha the bra time before you; you maun een try and
be as geud as _he_. And if life last, ye wull too--for there never
waur a bad ane of that stock. Wi' heads kindly stup'd to the least,
and lifted manfu' oop to the heighest--that ye all war' sin ye came
from the Ark. Blessins on the ould name--though little pelf goes
with it--it sounds on the peur man's ear like a bit o' gould!"

"Do you not see now," said Roland, as we turned away, "what we owe
to a name, and what to our forefathers?--do you not see why the
remotest ancestor has a right to our respect and consideration--for
he was a parent? 'Honour your parents'--the law does not say,
'Honour your children!' If a child disgrace us, and the dead,
and the sanctity of this great heritage of their virtues--_the
name_;--if he does--" Roland stopped short, and added fervently,
"But you are my heir now--I have no fear! What matters one foolish
old man's sorrow?--the name, that property of generations, is saved,
thank Heaven--the name!"

Now the riddle was solved, and I understood why, amidst all his
natural grief for a son's loss, that proud father was consoled.
For he was less himself a father than a son--son to the long dead.
From every grave, where a progenitor slept, he had heard a parent's
voice. He could bear to be bereaved, if the forefathers were not
dishonoured. Roland was more than half a Roman--the son might still
cling to his household affections, but the _lares_ were a part of
his religion.


CHAPTER L.

But I ought to be hard at work, preparing myself for Cambridge. The
deuce!--how can I? The point in academical education on which I
require most preparation is Greek composition. I come to my father,
who, one might think, was at home enough in this. But rare indeed is
it to find a great scholar who is a good teacher.

My dear father! if one is content to take you in your own way,
there never was a more admirable instructor for the heart, the
head, the principles, or the tastes--in your own way, when you have
discovered that there is some one sore to be healed--one defect
to be repaired; and you have rubbed your spectacles, and got your
hand fairly into that recess between your frill and your waistcoat.
But to go to you, cut and dry, monotonously, regularly--book and
exercise in hand--to see the mournful patience with which you tear
yourself from that great volume of Cardan in the very honeymoon of
possession--and then to note those mild eyebrows gradually distend
themselves into perplexed diagonals, over some false quantity or
some barbarous collocation--till there steal forth that horrible
"Papæ!" which means more on your lips than I am sure it ever did
when Latin was a live language, and "Papæ!" a natural and unpedantic
ejaculation!--no, I would sooner blunder through the dark by myself
a thousand times, than light my rush-light at the lamp of that
Phlegethonian "Papæ!"

And then my father would wisely and kindly, but wondrous slowly,
erase three-fourths of one's pet verses, and intercalate others that
one saw were exquisite, but could not exactly see why. And then one
asked why; and my father shook his head in despair, and said--"But
you ought to _feel_ why!"

In short, scholarship to him was like poetry: he could no more teach
it you than Pindar could have taught you how to make an ode. You
breathed the aroma, but you could no more seize and analyse it,
than, with the opening of your naked hand, you could carry off the
scent of a rose. I soon left my father in peace to Cardan, and to
the Great Book, which last, by the way, advanced but slowly. For
Uncle Jack had now insisted on its being published in quarto, with
illustrative plates; and those plates took an immense time, and
were to cost an immense sum--but that cost was the affair of the
Anti-Publisher Society. But how can I settle to work by myself?
No sooner have I got into my room--_penitus ab orbe divisus_, as
I rashly think--than there is a tap at the door. Now, it is my
mother, who is benevolently engaged upon making curtains to all
the windows, (a trifling superfluity that Bolt had forgotten or
disdained,) and who wants to know how the draperies are fashioned
at Mr Trevanion's: a pretence to have me near her, and see with her
own eyes that I am not fretting;--the moment she hears I have shut
myself up in my room, she is sure that it is for sorrow. Now it
is Bolt, who is making book-shelves for my father, and desires to
consult me at every turn, especially as I have given him a Gothic
design, which pleases him hugely. Now it is Blanche, whom, in an
evil hour, I undertook to teach to draw, and who comes in on tiptoe,
vowing she'll not disturb me, and sits so quiet that she fidgets me
out of all patience. Now, and much more often, it is the Captain,
who wants me to walk, to ride, to fish. And, by St Hubert! (saint
of the chase,) bright August comes--and there is moor-game on those
barren wolds--and my uncle has given me the gun he shot with at my
age--single-barrelled, flint lock--but you would not have laughed at
it if you had seen the strange feats it did in Roland's hands--while
in mine, I could always lay the blame on the flint lock! Time, in
short, passed rapidly; and if Roland and I had our dark hours, we
chased them away before they could settle--shot them on the wing as
they got up.

Then, too, though the immediate scenery around my uncle's was so
bleak and desolate, the country within a few miles was so full of
objects of interest--of landscapes so poetically grand or lovely;
and occasionally we coaxed my father from the Cardan, and spent
whole days by the margin of some glorious lake.

Amongst these excursions, I made one by myself to that house in
which my father had known the bliss and the pangs of that stern
first love that still left its scars fresh on my own memory. The
house, large and imposing, was shut up--the Trevanions had not been
there for years--the pleasure-grounds had been contracted into the
smallest possible space. There was no positive decay or ruin--that
Trevanion would never have allowed; but there was the dreary look of
absenteeship everywhere. I penetrated into the house with the help
of my card and half-a-crown. I saw that memorable boudoir--I could
fancy the very spot in which my father had heard the sentence that
had changed the current of his life. And when I returned home, I
looked with new tenderness on my father's placid brow--and blessed
anew that tender helpmate, who, in her patient love, had chased from
it every shadow.

I had received one letter from Vivian a few days after our arrival.
It had been redirected from my father's house, at which I had given
him my address. It was short, but seemed cheerful. He said, that
he believed he had at last hit on the right way, and should keep
to it--that he and the world were better friends than they had
been--and that the only way to keep friends with the world was to
treat it as a tamed tiger, and have one hand on a crow-bar while one
fondled the beast with the other. He enclosed me a bank-note which
somewhat more than covered his debt to me, and bade me pay him the
surplus when he should claim it as a millionnaire. He gave me no
address in his letter, but it bore the post-mark of Godalming. I had
the impertinent curiosity to look into an old topographical work
upon Surrey, and in a supplemental itinerary I found this passage,
"To the left of the beech-wood, three miles from Godalming, you
catch a glimpse of the elegant seat of Francis Vivian, Esq." To
judge by the date of the work, the said Francis Vivian might be the
grandfather of my friend, his namesake. There could no longer be any
doubt as to the parentage of this prodigal son.

The long vacation was now nearly over, and all his guests were to
leave the poor Captain. In fact, we had made a long trespass on
his hospitality. It was settled that I was to accompany my father
and mother to their long-neglected _penates_, and start thence for
Cambridge.

Our parting was sorrowful--even Mrs Primmins wept as she shook hands
with Bolt. But Bolt, an old soldier, was of course a lady's man. The
brothers did not shake hands only--they fondly embraced, as brothers
of that time of life rarely do now-a-days, except on the stage.
And Blanche, with one arm round my mother's neck, and one round
mine, sobbed in my ear,--"But I will be your little wife, I will."
Finally, the fly-coach once more received us all--all but poor
Blanche, and we looked round and missed her.


CHAPTER LI.

Alma Mater! Alma Mater! New-fashioned folks, with their large
theories of education, may find fault with thee. But a true Spartan
mother thou art--hard and stern as the old matron who bricked up
her son Pausanias, bringing the first stone to immure him; hard and
stern, I say, to the worthless, but full of majestic tenderness to
the worthy.

For a young man to go up to Cambridge (I say nothing of Oxford,
knowing nothing thereof) merely as routine work, to lounge through
three years to a degree among the ὁι πολλοι--for such an one,
Oxford Street herself, whom the immortal Opium-eater hath so direly
apostrophised, is not a more careless and stony-hearted mother.
But for him who will read, who will work, who will seize the rare
advantages proffered, who will select his friends judiciously--yea,
out of that vast ferment of young idea in its lusty vigour, choose
the good and reject the bad--there is plenty to make those three
years rich with fruit imperishable--three years nobly spent, even
though one must pass over the Ass's Bridge to get into the Temple of
Honour.

Important changes in the Academical system have been recently
announced, and honours are henceforth to be accorded to the
successful disciples in moral and natural sciences. By the side
of the old throne of Mathesis, they have placed two very useful
_fauteuils à la Voltaire_. I have no objection; but, in those three
years of life, it is not so much the thing learned, as the steady
perseverance in learning something that is excellent.

It was fortunate, in one respect, for me that I had seen a little
of the real world--the metropolitan, before I came to that mimic
one--the cloistral. For what were called pleasures in the last, and
which might have allured me, had I come fresh from school, had no
charm for me now. Hard drinking and high play, a certain mixture of
coarseness and extravagance, made the fashion among the idle when
I was at the university _sub consule Planco_--when Wordsworth was
master of Trinity: it may be altered now.

But I had already outlived such temptations, and so, naturally, I
was thrown out of the society of the idle, and somewhat into that of
the laborious.

Still, to speak frankly, I had no longer the old pleasure in
books. If my acquaintance with the great world had destroyed
the temptation to puerile excesses, it had also increased my
constitutional tendency to practical action. And, alas! in spite
of all the benefit I had derived from Robert Hall, there were
times when memory was so poignant that I had no choice but to rush
from the lonely room, haunted by tempting phantoms too dangerously
fair, and sober down the fever of the heart by some violent bodily
fatigue. The ardour which belongs to early youth, and which it best
dedicates to knowledge, had been charmed prematurely to shrines less
severely sacred. Therefore, though I laboured, it was with that
full _sense of labour_ which (as I found at a much later period
of life) the truly triumphant student never knows. Learning--that
marble image--warms into life, not at the toil of the chisel, but
the worship of the sculptor. The mechanical workman finds but the
voiceless stone.

At my uncle's, such a thing as a newspaper rarely made its
appearance. At Cambridge, even among reading men, the newspapers
had their due importance. Politics ran high; and I had not been
three days at Cambridge before I heard Trevanion's name. Newspapers,
therefore, had their charms for me. Trevanion's prophecy about
himself seemed about to be fulfilled. There were rumours of changes
in the cabinet. Trevanion's name was bandied to and fro, struck
from praise to blame, high and low, as a shuttlecock. Still the
changes were not made, and the cabinet held firm. Not a word in the
_Morning Post_, under the head of _fashionable intelligence_, as to
rumours that would have agitated me more than the rise and fall of
governments--no hint of "the speedy nuptials of the daughter and
sole heiress of a distinguished and wealthy commoner:" only now and
then, in enumerating the circle of brilliant guests at the house of
some party chief, I gulped back the heart that rushed to my lips,
when I saw the names of Lady Ellinor and Miss Trevanion.

But amongst all that prolific progeny of the periodical
press--remote offspring of my great namesake and ancestor, (for I
hold the faith of my father,)--where was the _Literary Times_?--what
had so long retarded its promised blossoms? Not a leaf in the shape
of advertisements had yet emerged from its mother earth. I hoped
from my heart that the whole thing was abandoned, and would not
mention it in my letters home, lest I should revive the mere idea of
it. But, in default of the _Literary Times_, there did appear a new
journal, a daily journal too; a tall, slender, and meagre stripling,
with a vast head, by way of prospectus, which protruded itself for
three weeks successively at the top of the leading article;--with
a fine and subtle body of paragraphs;--and the smallest legs, in
the way of advertisements, that any poor newspaper ever stood upon!
And yet this attenuated journal had a plump and plethoric title, a
title that smacked of turtle and venison; an aldermanic, portly,
grandiose, Falstaffian title--it was called THE CAPITALIST. And all
those fine subtle paragraphs were larded out with receipts how to
make money. There was an El Dorado in every sentence. To believe
that paper, you would think no man had ever yet found a proper
return for his pounds, shillings, and pence. You would have turned
up your nose at twenty per cent. There was a great deal about
Ireland--not her wrongs, thank Heaven! but her fisheries: a long
inquiry what had become of the pearls for which Britain was once
so famous: a learned disquisition upon certain lost gold mines now
happily rediscovered: a very ingenious proposition to turn London
smoke into manure, by a new chemical process: recommendations to
the poor to hatch chickens in ovens like the ancient Egyptians:
agricultural schemes for sowing the waste lands in England with
onions, upon the system adopted near Bedford, net produce one
hundred pounds an acre. In short, according to that paper, every
rood of ground might well maintain its man, and every shilling be
like Hobson's money-bag, "the fruitful parent of a hundred more."
For three days, at the newspaper room of the Union Club, men talked
of this journal: some pished, some sneered, some wondered; till
an ill-natured mathematician, who had just taken his degree, and
had spare time on his hands, sent a long letter to the _Morning
Chronicle_, showing up more blunders, in some article to which the
editor of _The Capitalist_ had specially invited attention, (unlucky
dog!) than would have paved the whole island of Laputa. After that
time, not a soul read _The Capitalist_. How long it dragged on its
existence I know not; but it certainly did not die of a _maladie de
langueur_.

Little thought I, when I joined in the laugh against _The
Capitalist_, that I ought rather to have followed it to its grave,
in black crape and weepers,--unfeeling wretch that I was! But, like
a poet, O _Capitalist_! thou wert not discovered, and appreciated,
and prized, and mourned, till thou wert dead and buried, and the
bill came in for thy monument!

The first term of my college life was just expiring, when I received
a letter from my mother, so agitated, so alarming, at first reading
so unintelligible, that I could only see that some great misfortune
had befallen us; and I stopped short and dropped on my knees, to
pray for the life and health of those whom that misfortune more
specially seemed to menace; and then--and then, towards the end of
the last blurred sentence--read twice, thrice, over--I could cry,
"Thank Heaven, thank Heaven! it is only, then, money after all!"




STATISTICAL ACCOUNTS OF SCOTLAND.


It is a term of very wide application, this of statistics--extending
to everything in the state of a country subject to variation either
from the energies and fancies of men, or from the operations of
nature, in so far as these, or the knowledge of them, has any
tendency to occasion change in the condition of the country. Its
elements must be either changeable in themselves, or the cause of
change; because the use of the whole matter is to direct men what
to do for their advantage, moral or physical--by legislation, when
the case is of sufficient magnitude--or otherwise by the wisdom and
enterprise of individuals.

Governments, it is plain, must have the greatest interest in
possessing knowledge of this sort; but they have not been the first
to engage very earnestly in obtaining it. It would seem that, in all
countries, the first very noticeable efforts in this way have been
made by individuals.

In this country we have now from government more and better
statistics than from any other source; for besides the decennial
census, there is the yearly produce in this way of Crown Commissions
and of Parliamentary Committees; and, moreover, there is the late
institution of a statistical department in connexion with the Board
of Trade, for arranging, digesting, and rendering more accessible
all matter of this kind collected, from time to time, by the
different branches of the administration. But before statistical
knowledge became the object of much care to the government of
this country, it had been well cultivated by individuals. So in
Germany statistics first took a scientific form in the works of an
individual about the middle of the last century: and in France,
the unfinished _Mémoires des Intendants_, prepared on the order
of the king, were scarcely an exception, since meant for the
private instruction of the young prince. But without attaching
undue importance to the fact of mere precedence, it may be said
that, considering the chief uses of this kind of knowledge, it has
received more contributions from individuals than could have been
expected.

This admits of being easily explained. It has been well said
that, while history is a sort of current statistics, statistics
are a sort of stationary history. The one has therefore much the
same invitations to mere literary taste as the other; and if the
subject be not so generally engaging, the fancy way be as strong,
and produce as pure a devotion to statistics as there ever is to
history. More than this, the statist may care far less for his
subject than its uses,--that is, he may choose to undergo the toil
of researches only recommended by the chance of their ministering
to the better guidance of some part of public policy, and therefore
to the public good. The impulse is then not literary; nor is it
legislative, for the power is wanting; it is simply patriotic, for
so it must be considered, even when, in the words of Mr M'Culloch,
the object is only "to bring under the public view the deficiencies
in statistical information, and so to contribute to the advancement
of the science."

This public nature of the aim of statistical works, and the
unlikelihood of their authors choosing that medium to set forth
anything supposed worthy of notice in the figure of their own
genius, seem to have been recognised, except in rare instances, as
giving to works of this kind a title to be well received, and to
have their faults very gently remarked.

Again, it might be expected that the statistics of individuals
should have a more limited range than those of governments; that
they should refer to districts of less extent; and to the state
of the country in fewer of its aspects. But the case is somewhat
different. The statistics of individuals are often more national
than local, and generally consist of many branches presented in some
connexion; while those of governments are commonly confined to the
single department on which some question of policy may chance for
the time to have fixed attention.

On the occasion mentioned, the inquiries instituted in France were
not so confined, but embraced all the points of chief interest in
the state of the country. In England, nothing similar has been
attempted; although, some years ago, it is known that a proposal to
institute a general survey of Ireland--on the plan, we believe, of
the Ordnance Survey of the parish of Templemore--was for some time
under consideration of the government.

On the other hand, the instances of individual enterprise in this
way to a national extent are numerous, both at home and abroad.
Among the latter, Aucherwall gives the first example, and Peuchet
probably the best; both treating of the country not in parts but
as a whole,--not in one respect but in many. Of the same sort are
the excellent statistical works of Colquhoun, M'Culloch, Porter,
and others, relating to the British empire, and directed to many
aspects of its condition. To these we add the _Statistical Account
of Scotland_,--occupied with as many or more matters of inquiry,
but not so properly national, since viewing not the country
collectively, but its parochial divisions in succession.

One advantage belongs to the collection of statistics upon many
points, which is not found in those that are limited to one. It is
remarked by Schlozer in his _Theorie der Statistik_, that "there
are many facts seemingly of no value, but which become important
as soon as you combine them with other facts, it may be of quite
another class. The affinities subsisting among these facts are
discovered by the talent and genius of the statist; and the more
various the knowledge he possesses, with so much the more success
he will perform this last and crowning part of his task." The
observation need not be confined to facts apparently unimportant:
for even those, whose importance is at once perceived, may acquire
a new value from a skilful collation. In either case, there seems
a necessity for remitting the detached statistics collected by
government to some such department as that in connexion with the
Board of Trade; otherwise, the works of individual statists must
continue to afford the only opportunity of tracing the latent
relations of one branch of statistics to another.

The individual, however, who attempts so much, is in hazard
of attempting more than any individual can well perform. For,
besides this, he has to make another effort quite distinct--in the
investigation of facts. All the needed scientific knowledge he
may possess; but the same sufficiency of local or topographical
knowledge is not supposable. The work so produced, therefore,
cannot easily avoid the defects, either of error in the details
of some branch, of unequal development of the parts, or of a
superficial treatment of the whole. Against these dangers some
writers have had recourse to assistance, inviting contributions from
others favoured with better means of information than themselves;
and to them attributing, in so far as they assisted, the entire
merit and responsibility of the work.

This transference of responsibility is warranted by the necessity
of the case--but it is unusual; and as it scarcely occurs except in
works of the kind in question, it may happen that even a professing
judge of such works, if the habit of attention be not good, may
entirely overlook the circumstance.

In the _Statistical Account of Scotland_, the obligation to
individual contributions has been carried to the greatest extent;
indeed, it is simply a collection of such contributions, and nothing
more. This part of the plan was necessitated by another, in which
the work is equally peculiar--namely, the distinct treatment of
smaller divisions of the country, than have been taken up in any
other work of the kind, having an entire country for its object.
To obtain a body of parochial statistics, it was necessary to
have recourse to persons well acquainted with the bounds, and
intelligent, at the same time, upon the various subjects of inquiry.
But to find such in nine hundred parishes would, of itself, have
required much of that local knowledge, the want of which was the
occasion of the search--had there not been a class or order of men
among whom the desired qualification, in many points, might be
supposed to be pretty generally diffused; and from whose favour to a
project of public usefulness much aid might be expected. It was in
this manner that the co-operation of the parochial clergy came to be
suggested.

The _Statistical Account of Scotland_ was originated, promoted,
and superintended by the late Sir John Sinclair. The authors of
such works, as one of the best of them remarks, should be careful
to explain their motives in undertaking it--we presume, because
undertakings of the kind are felt to be scarcely an affair of
individuals. In this instance, a desire to promote the public good
was at once professed and accredited by many other acts apparently
inspired by the same sentiment. The devotion of Sir John Sinclair's
life in that direction was complete, and the example uncommon.
In this a late reviewer perceives nothing more than a restless
pursuit of plans of no further interest to himself than as they
bore the inscription of his own name. But whenever public spirit is
professed, and by anything like useful acts attested, our faith, we
think, should be more generous. On such occasions, if on any, it is
right to waive all speculation upon private motives, and to presume
the best--for reasons so well understood in general that they do
not need to be explained. But if genius, with a bent to that sort
of penetration, must have its freedom, we do demand that some token
should appear of a belief in the possibility of the virtue which is
denied.

It does not improve the grace of any such judgments that they are
passed fifty years after the occasion; for, in the meantime, the
work may have acquired merits which could not belong to it at
first:--and so it has happened with the _Statistical Account_ of Sir
John Sinclair. Results may be fairly ascribed to that performance
which were not intended nor foreseen, and which seem to have come
from its very defects, as well as from the defects which it revealed
in the condition of the country, and in the means of ascertaining
what the condition of the country was. Its population-statistics
were extremely imperfect; the census followed in a very few years.
Its scanty and unequal notices of agriculture suggested the project
of the County Reports; and to these succeeded the _General Report of
Scotland_--a work still useful, and of the first authority in much
that relates to the agriculture and other industry of the country.
To take advantage of those capabilities which the statistical
accounts had shown his country to possess, Sir John Sinclair
originated the Agricultural Society. All of those things, and more,
appear to have resulted from the _Statistical Account_. They
are honours that have arisen to it in the course of time, and may
be fairly permitted to mitigate the notice and recollection of its
faults.

After the lapse of fifty years, Scotland had ceased to be the
country represented in the old _Statistical Account_; for the
greater part of what is proper to such a work is, as we have said,
changeable and changing. It contained not a little, however, which
remained as true and as interesting as at first: the topography,
the physical characters, the civil divisions of the country were
the same; all that had been said of its history, whether local or
general, might be said again as seasonably as before. It occurred,
then, to those to whom the author had presented the right of this
work, to attempt to restore it in those parts which time had
rendered useless, preserving those which were under no disadvantage
from that cause. This, as we learn, was the plain, unambitious
intention of the _New Statistical Account of Scotland_. It was
projected and carried on during ten years by a Society, whose object
it is to afford aid, where aid is needed, in the education of the
children of the clergy of the Church of Scotland. Nothing could be
more foreign to that object than to engage in a work of national
statistics; nothing more natural than that, in their relation to
the clergy, and with their interest in the first work, they should
propose to renew it in the manner mentioned. A society expressly
formed for statistical purposes, and not restrained like the Society
for the Sons and Daughters of the Clergy, would probably have
proposed something different--something more new; it might have
been expected to produce something more excellent--though, even
in that case, the demand of excellence would have been limited by
the consideration, that the means of completely investigating the
statistics of a country are not at the command of any statistical
society that exists. A modernisation, so to speak, of the first work
appears to have been the idea of the second.

It has been executed, however, in the freest style, and scarcely
admitted, indeed, of being accomplished at all in any other manner.
In such cases, it is seldom that the adaptation is effected by
mere numerical changes; the whole statement, in form, manner, and
substance, behoves to be remodelled. Then, certain parts of the
original may have been deficient, and become more evidently so by
the changes that have since ensued in the state of the object: here
the task is less one of correction than of supplement. For example,
the very interesting and full accounts of mining and manufacturing
industry which abound in the new work are nearly peculiar to it,
and have scarcely an example in the old. One entire section of the
latter, that of natural history, has been developed to an extent
not attempted in the former, nor indeed in any other statistical
work. These are rather noticeable licenses, on the supposition of
the aim being as moderate as professed, and they go far to form a
new and independent work--having nothing in common with the first,
except the parochial divisions and the obligation to the clergy, as
respects the plan; and as respects the matter, only the small part
of it which is historical, and therefore not obsolete.

We observe, accordingly, that the society who promoted the new work
have put it forward as taking some things from the old, for which
they are not responsible, but as containing far more which must form
a new and separate character for itself. In both respects, we think
they have viewed the work with a proper reference to the conditions
under which it was produced.

In other points, the new Account has improved upon the old, and
might be expected to do so. It has more matter, by a third part,
neither less suited to the place, nor more diffuse in the statement;
and, as befits a work of reference, the arrangement is more orderly
and more uniform. It is, on the whole, more carefully and better
written, and shows, on the part of the reverend contributors, a
remarkable advance in the many sorts of knowledge requisite to the
task. If the comparison were pursued further, it might be said that
some contributions to the first are not surpassed in the value of
what they contain; while, from the greater novelty of the task at
that time, as well as from the greater freedom of the method, they
are somewhat fresher and more genial in manner. The later work, if
fuller, more exact, more statistical throughout, possesses that
advantage at the cost of appearing sometimes more like a collection
of returns in answer to submitted points of inquiry,--a character,
however, by no means unsuitable to a compilation of the kind. In all
other points a decided superiority must be attributed to the new
Account.

Our remarks at this time shall be confined to the plan of the new
Account, and to the general description of its contents.[6]

  [6] _The New statistical Account of Scotland._ In 15 vols.
  Edinburgh, 1845.

The chief feature of the plan is the distinct treatment of each
parish--producing a body neither of county nor of national, but
merely of parochial statistics. This was the design, and there
is much to recommend it. It is the last thing that can take the
aspect of a fault in statistics, to view the matter in very minute
portions; for thus, and thus only, it is possible to arrive at
an accurate knowledge of the whole. There can be no good county
statistics which do not suppose inquiries limited, at first, to
lesser divisions of the country, and which do not express the sum
of particulars taken from subdivisions that can hardly proceed too
far. If such minor surveys do not come before the public, they are
presumptively carried on in private. But, in the latter case, they
are the more apt to be superficial, as they can be so with the
less chance of being noticed; they are apt to take aid from mere
computation of averages; they are apt, also, to result in that vague
description which is the master-vice of statistics. "In this town,
there are manufactures which employ _many_ hands; in this district,
_vast_ quantities of silk are produced. These," says Schlozer, "are
pet phrases of tourists, who would say something, when they know
nothing; but they are not the language of statistics." The parochial
method stands, then, on two good grounds: it is inevitable either
in an open or a latent form; and it favours the collection of
sufficient data for those specific enumerations which are the true
worth and the characteristic grace of this branch of knowledge.

This plan, however, has some disadvantages; in referring to which we
shall find occasion to bring to view some of the proper merits of
the work.

In the first place, a work on this plan is inevitably voluminous.
The territorial divisions submitted to distinct treatment are about
nine hundred in number, and the matter is still further augmented by
the occasional assignment to different hands of different parts of
the survey of a single parish. In proportion to the descent of the
details, is the bulk of the production; which we suppose to be an
evil in the same measure in which it exceeds the necessity of the
case. Now the _New Statistical Account_ is at once seen to contain
not a little matter of merely local interest, and of the smallest
value considered as pertaining to a body of national statistics;
and here, if anywhere, it is apt to be regarded as at fault. It
is right, however, to recollect the privilege of every work to
be judged according to the conditions of the species to which it
belongs. The present is not set forth as a statistical account of
Scotland, but as a collection of the statistical accounts of all the
parishes in Scotland; for this, we perceive, is not merely implied
in the plan of the work, but is declared in the prospectus, where
the hope is expressed that, by exhibiting the actual state of the
parishes, with whatever is therein amiss, it may lead to parochial
improvements. It does not appear, therefore, to have been from any
miscalculation of their worth, that matters of merely local interest
have been so liberally admitted; and, all things considered, more of
that nature might have been expected. Let us quote again from the
best theory of statistics that has ever been produced. "An object
may be deserving of remark in the description of some particular
portion of a country, and at the same time have no claim to notice
in any general account of that country at large. In the former
case, the rivulet is not to be omitted; in the latter, any allusion
to it would be a defect, for it would be matter of unnecessary
and trifling detail."[7] It is recorded, in the _New Statistical
Account_, that "Will-o'-wisp had never appeared in the parish of
South Uist previous to the year 1812." Nothing, in a national point
of view, can be conceived more insignificant than this fact; but,
taken in connexion with a notable superstition in that district, its
local importance appears.[8] To the credit of this method, it may be
noticed, that the accounts which are most parochial are, at the same
time, among those which have been drawn up with the most general
intelligence; and, this being the case, it is not a strange wish
that the accounts, in general, had been somewhat more parochial than
they are.

  [7] Schlozer.

  [8] "It is said that a woman in Benbecula went at night to the
  Sandbanks, to dig for some roe used for dyeing a red colour,
  against her husband's will; that, when she left her house, she
  said with an oath she would bring some of it home, though she knew
  there was a regulation by the factor and magistrates, prohibiting
  people to use it or dig for it, by reason that the sandbanks, upon
  being excavated, would be blown away with the wind. The woman
  never returned home, nor was her body ever found. It was shortly
  thereafter that the meteor was first seen; and it is said that it is
  the ghost of the unfortunate and profane woman that appears in this
  shape."--_New Statistical Account_, "Inverness," p. 184.

On this plan, it is certain there is a risk of much repetition, many
parishes having some common characterists which, in place of being
recounted for each, might be stated once for all. How far does the
_Statistical Account_ offend in this manner? It is true that, where
the same facts occur in many parishes, a single statement might
suffice; though this might be at the cost of violating the plan
which for the whole it might be fittest to adopt, upon consideration
that the like resemblance is not found among the greater number of
the parishes. But it is remarkable, how seldom different parishes
have all the similarity requisite for such a common description;
for, in statistics, a difference in mere number or quantity is
a vital difference, and expresses essentially different facts.
Many parishes have the same articles of produce; while no two
produce exactly the same quantities. A very short distance often
brings to view considerable varieties in climate, soil, and other
physical qualities of a country. Now, considering that the object
of this work is to present the parishes in their distinguishing,
as well as in their common features, we do not see much sameness
in the substance of the details which could have been avoided. A
sameness there is; but more in form than in substance--each account
delivering its matter under the same general heads, recurring in
all cases in exactly the same order. This is convenient when the
book is used for reference; it may be wearisome to one who reads
only for amusement: it is monotonous; but who looks for any "soul of
harmony" in such a quarter? We repeat, it is not attended, on the
whole, with much importunate reappearance of the same facts, and
cannot seem to be so, except to a very careless or distempered eye.
But if, perchance, there may be some facts much alike in several
parishes, this itself is an unusual fact, and we should not object
to its coming out in the usual way of each parish speaking for
itself; in which case, there is always a chance of some variety in
the description, from the same thing presenting itself to different
persons under different aspects. But, on the whole, we think there
is less repetition in these accounts, and indeed less occasion for
it, than might at first sight be supposed.

There is another obvious tendency to imperfection in the plan of
parochial accounts. Their first, but not their sole object, is
to describe the parishes; it is certainly meant that they should
furnish, at the same time, the grounds of statistical computation
for the whole country. This is the natural complement and the
proper conclusion to a work of parish statistics. It is, however,
a part of the plan which, not being quite necessary, and requiring
a fresh effort at the last, is apt to be omitted. It was not till
twenty-five years after the publication of the old Account that Sir
John Sinclair at length produced his _Analysis of the Statistical
Account of Scotland considered as one District_. It came too late. A
similar analysis or summary appears to have been at first intended
for the new Account: and we regret that this part of the design was,
by force of circumstances, not carried into effect. One use of it
would have been to evince that parochial statistics do not assume
the character of national; while yet, for even national statistics,
they furnish the most proper foundation. To pass at once, however,
from parochial to national statistics would have been too great a
step; there is an intermediate stage, at which the new Account would
certainly have paused, though it had designed to proceed farther;
and at which, without that design, it has here rested; presenting
the statistics of each county in a summary of the more important
particulars concerning the included parishes; but making no nearer
approach to any general computations for the country at large.

The method of proceeding from parishes to counties suggests that
other plan for the entire work, which would have followed the
opposite course--the plan that would have begun with counties, and
given County, not Parochial reports. Somewhat in this fashion has
been formed the _Géographie Départementale_ of France, now in course
of publication, in which the whole matter is rigorously subjected
to as skilful an arrangement as has ever been devised for matters
of the kind. It is plain, however, that greater difficulty and more
expense would have attended the construction of the Scotch work on
that scheme, than private parties could have undertaken; and even
the example of the French work does not show that, for the compacter
method thus obtained, there might not have been a sacrifice of much
that is valuable in detail.

It may be added, that when parishes are well described, and a county
or more general summary succeeds, we ask no more; a work like this
has then accomplished its object, and what remains must be sought
for elsewhere. What remains is this--to interpret the statistics
thus laid down, for they are often very far from interpreting
themselves; to ascertain, by analysis or combination of their
different parts, what they signify in regard to the condition of
the country. Thus, betwixt the rate of wages and the habits of a
people--the prevailing occupations and the rate of mortality--the
description of industry and the amount of pauperism--there are
relations which it is exceedingly important to remark. But if a
statistical account simply notes the kind, number, or quantity of
each of these particulars, it performs its part,--no matter how
blindly, how unconsciously of the relation that subsists betwixt
them, this may be done. The rest is so different a work, that it
must be left to other hands. It is not to be forgotten, that, for
bringing out the more latent truths of statistics in the manner
mentioned, a work like this is merely _pour servir_; and, keeping
that in view, our prepossessions are all in favour of abundance and
minuteness of detail.

Lastly, a work made up of contributions from nine hundred
individuals must be of unequal merit, according to the different
measures of intelligence or care, and according to the feeling with
which a task of that nature may happen to have been undertaken. A
slight inspection, accordingly, discovers that it is the character
of the writer, more than of the parish, that determines the length
and interest of any one of these reports. This is an imperfection,
and something more--for it makes one part of the book, by
implication, reveal the defects of another. A few years ago, when
a Crown commission considered a project for a general survey and
statistical report of Ireland, their attention was much attracted
to the _New Statistical Account of Scotland_; and, in their report,
they notice, in the course of a very fair estimate, this inequality
as the main disadvantage of the plan. It is, however, inevitable,
except upon a scheme which, from the expense attending it, would
have hindered the existence of the Scottish work, and which appears
to have prevented or postponed the Irish. From a single author,
something like proportion might be expected in the parts of such a
compilation; but to that perfection a work like the _Statistical
Account of Scotland_, with its hundreds of avowed responsible, and
therefore uncontrolled authors, could not pretend. For this reason,
it is the more proper to follow a rule of judgment which, in any
case, is a good one:--to estimate the general character of the work
with a lively recollection of its merits; and to be much upon our
guard against the mean instinct of looking only to the weaker and
more peccant parts of it.

Passing from the plan to the matter of the work, we now ask, whether
all that it contains is properly statistical, and whether it
contains all of any consequence that falls under that description.

Nothing, we suppose, is alien to this branch of knowledge that
tends, in however little, to show the state of a country--social,
political, moral--or even physical.

But this last, comprising somewhat of geography and natural history,
some writers would remove entirely from the sphere of statistics.
Among these is Peuchet, in his work before mentioned--who gives as
the reason of the exclusion, that, in any analysis of the wealth or
power of a state, neither its geography nor natural history ever
come into view: a fact rather hastily assumed. The parallel work for
this country, by Mr. M'Culloch, while it follows Peuchet's method
in much, leaves it in this instance, admitting various branches of
natural history to ample consideration. It is true that trespass
on the proper ground of statistics has been so common an offence,
that writers have been careful to mark those cases in which no title
exists. Thus Schlozer, looking to the intrusions that come from
the quarter we refer to, is averse to all imaginative descriptions
of the physical aspect of a country, but does not prohibit
natural history. Hogel, who also writes well upon the theory of
statistics,[9] is more explicit--admitting that natural history may
encroach too far, but asserting that its several branches may be
received to a certain extent. "Whatever, in the physical nature of a
country, has any influence upon the life, occupations, or manners of
the people, pertains to statistics; by all means, therefore, in any
body of statistics, let us have as much of mineralogy, hydrology,
botany, geology, meteorology, as has any bearing upon the condition
of the people." All of these subjects have been allowed to enter
largely into the _New Statistical Account_.

  [9] HOGEL, _Entwurf zur Theorie der Statistik_.

They form a feature of that work which scarcely belonged to the
old Account, and which is new, indeed, to parochial statistics.
Investigations of natural history have usually been carried on with
reference to other bounds than those of parishes; but, when confined
to parishes, it is remarkable how much this has been at once for the
advantage of the science, and for the enhancement of any interest in
these territorial divisions by the picturesque mixture of natural
objects with the works and pursuits of men. More of this parochial
treatment of natural history we may possibly have hereafter, upon
the suggestion of the _Statistical Account_.

For the abundant favour which the work has shown to the whole
subject of natural history, reasons are not wanting. One portion
of that matter has obviously the quality that designates for
statistical treatment,--comprising, for example, mines, whether
wrought or unwrought; animals, profitable or destructive; plants, in
all their variety of uses: the connexion of which with the wealth
and industry of the country is at once apparent. The same connexion
exists for another class of objects; but not so obviously. For
example, there is a detailed account of the flowering periods of
a variety of plants in one parish; the pertinence of which is not
perceived, until it is mentioned that, in the same neighbourhood,
there are two populous and well-frequented watering-places, which
owe their prosperity to the qualities of the climate: there the
trade of the locality connects itself with the early honours of the
hepaticas. A third class of facts, and not the least in amount,
is not qualified by any relation they are known to possess to the
social condition of the country; but then they belong to a body
of facts, some of which have that relation; and the same may be
established for them hereafter. Still, it may be said that the
matter, if appropriate, behoves to be presented in a statistical,
not in a scientific form. But this, perhaps, is to interpret too
strictly the laws of statistical writing, which do not seem to
forbid the predominance of a scientific interest in the description,
when the matter fairly belongs to the province of statistics. And if
any license at all may be allowed in works of so severe a character,
it is precisely here where that is least unbefitting. It is not
among the faults of the _New Statistical Account_, but rather among
its most interesting features, that the mineral resources of the
country are so often described with all the skill and passion of the
mineralogist, forgetting for the moment everything but the phenomena
of nature.

Under the head of Natural History, we have many instances of the
landscape painting proscribed by Schlozer. But it is remarked,
that the same authority, when adverting to another matter, lays
down a principle of admission which is equally applicable here.
"Antiquities," he observes, "become a proper subject of statistics
in such a case as that of Rome, where a large amount of money was at
one time annually expended by the strangers who came to form their
taste, or to indulge their curiosity, upon the remains of ancient
art." In like manner, if there are places in Scotland that profit
economically by the attractions of their natural beauty, we do
not see that there is any obligation to be silent upon the cause,
by reason merely of the seeming dissonance betwixt an imaginative
description and the austere account of statistics. Other and better
apologies might be offered; and, on the whole, we are not satisfied
that, in this respect, any less indulgence of the gentler vein would
have been attended with advantage to the work.

On these grounds it appears to have been, that so much scope is
allowed to the whole subject of natural history. But if too much,
the fault has been redeemed by the frequent excellence of what is
put forth on that head. Here the _New Statistical Account_ passes
expectation; and to it we may attribute much of the increased
interest that has lately attached to that branch of knowledge in
Scotland.

Another thing of questionable connexion with statistics is
history, which imports a reference to the past; whereas, as the
name declares, statistics contemplates but the present, and can
look neither backward nor forward, without trenching upon other
provinces. Many excellent statistical works, accordingly, have
allowed no place to history at all; and the writers before cited,
on the theory of the subject, concur in excluding it. Hogel is most
explicit. "Statistics never go beyond the circle of the present
in their representations of the condition of a country: they are
like painting--they fix upon a single point of time; and the facts
which they select are those which come last in the series, though
the series they belong to may extend backwards for ages. All that
went before rests on testimony, and is therefore beyond the sphere
of statistics, whose grounds are in actual observation. There is
no limit to the number of facts with which statistics have to do,
provided they are co-existing facts, and do not present themselves
in succession: facts, and not their causes, are the proper matter
of statistics; and they must be facts of the present time." This
doctrine, in which there seems nothing in the main amiss, if
strictly applied to the work under consideration, cancels a large
part of it. But against that consequence we can suppose it to
be pleaded--First, that for relief from a continuity of details
somewhat arid to many readers, the work borrows something from a
neighbouring branch of knowledge, and so far, of purpose, drops its
statistical character--the more allowably, as in this way no harm
ensues to the statistical character of the rest. And next--that
all the history of a place has not equally little to do with its
present state; for past events are often, casually or otherwise,
related to the present, and so become a fair subject of retrospect,
unless restraints are to be imposed on this branch of knowledge
which are unknown to any other. The fault, in this instance, is at
least not so great, as where no discoverable relation exists. It
may be worth while, then, to observe how far the historical matter
of the _Statistical Account_ does show any connexion of the sort in
question.

It includes, under the head of history, various classes of
particulars. 1. The parish has been the scene of some event
remarkable in the history of the country. Of this, perhaps, distinct
traces remain, not in memory alone, but in some local custom or
institution. But the most common case is, that, as the range extends
to the remotest periods, all influence or effect of the event has
ceased, and the interest of its recital is purely historical. Here
the _Statistical Account_ transgresses one rule of such a work by
the admission of such matter, and asks, as we perceive it does ask
in the prospectus, liberty to do so on one of the grounds above
suggested.

2. The same apology is required for the antiquities, that form a
large section under this head. These have sometimes perceptibly the
connexion that gives the title we desire; a connexion, perhaps, no
more than perceptible. Thus, in reference to the round hill in the
parish of Tarbolton, on which the god Thor was anciently worshipped,
we are told that, "on the evening before the June fair, a piece of
fuel is still demanded at each house, and invariably given, even by
the poorest inhabitant," in order to celebrate the form of the same
superstitious rite which has been annually performed on that hill
for many centuries. The famous Pictish tower at Abernethy is said
to be used "for civil purposes connected with the burgh." In these
cases it is seen how very slight is the qualifying circumstance; but
it is still more so for much the greater number of particulars of
this kind which the book contains--such as ancient coins, ancient
armour, barrows, standing-stones, camps, or moat hills: all of which
particularly belong to archæology, and obtain a place here simply
by favour. Indeed, no part of the work adheres to it so loosely as
this of antiquities. Their objects live as curiosities; but, to all
intents that can recommend them to the notice of statistics, they
are dead, "and to be so extant is but a fallacy in duration."

If this portion of the matter be the least appropriate, it is, at
the same time, not the least difficult to handle; for uncertainty
besets a very great part of it, and nothing more tries the reach of
knowledge than conjecture. Besides, the knowledge here requisite
implies both taste and opportunities for its cultivation,--which may
belong to individuals, but which cannot be attributed to an entire
profession, spread over all parts of the country, and designated
to very different studies. If antiquities could be considered as
a main part of statistics, it is, assuredly, not to the clergy we
should look for a statistical account; nor indeed to any other
body, however learned, if it be not the Society of Antiquaries. The
clergyman who honours his profession with the greatest amount of
appropriate learning, may in this particular know but little; and if
we do not, on that account, the less value him, it is assuredly not
from undervaluing in the slightest degree a very interesting branch
of knowledge.

In these circumstances, the reasons for allowing to antiquities
so much of this compilation appear to have been,--the compelling
example of the old Account, the occasional aptness of the matter,
and the effect of such a _mélange_ upon the mass of details that
form the body of the work. But a better apology remains; and
it may be extended to what is said of the remarkable events of
history. We are warranted in saying, that the _New Statistical
Account_ has contributed much to the history and antiquities of
Scotland,--evincing on these subjects a frequent novelty and fulness
of knowledge far surpassing what either the design or the apparatus
of the undertaking gave any title to expect.

Of one fault, in particular, there is no appearance in the
archæology of this work. Nowhere is there any sign of an
idiosyncracy which is not without example--that of professing to
speak of statistics, and yet speaking of nothing but antiquities;
as if these, which are saved with so much difficulty from the
charge of being wholly out of place, were the pith and marrow, the
most vital part of any body of statistics. This is a small merit,
but it is allied to a greater. Throughout these volumes, there is
no tendency to discuss such futile questions as have sometimes
lowered the credit of antiquarian pursuits. We have seen it solemnly
inquired, whether Æneas, upon landing in Italy, touched the soil
with the right or with the left foot foremost; whether Karl Haco
was in person present at the sacrifice of his son; whether a faded
inscription upon the walls of an old church be of this import or
that--in either case the interest having so little to support it
in the significance of the record that it can scarce be imagined
to exist at all, except as it may centre in the mere truth of
the deciphering. Nothing of this doting, degenerate character,
repudiated by all antiquaries, occurs in the _Statistical Account_:
if it did, the sum of all the errors in names, dates, and other
things, inevitably incident to so vast a variety of details, would
not have been an equal blemish.

It is probable that neither history nor antiquities will find a
place in any future statistics of Scotland. Not that they have
been enough examined either in that connexion, or elsewhere; but
it is now common to make them the subject of separate, independent
essays--the most proper form for the delivery of anything that
pertains to such matters. The good service done in this department,
by both of these Accounts, now falls to be performed by such works
as the "Baronial and Ecclesiastical Antiquities of Scotland,"[10]
which have this for their single object; and the presumption is only
fair, that some further light on such matters may be contributed by
the "Parochiale Scoticanum," lately announced as in the course of
preparation[11]--though our expectations would not have been at all
lessened by a somewhat less magnificent promise than that "every
man in Scotland may be enabled to ascertain, with some precision,
the first footing and _gradual progress of Christianity_ in his own
district and neighbourhood."

  [10] _The Baronial and Ecclesiastical Antiquities of Scotland._
  Illustrated by R. W. BILLINGS, and WILLIAM BURN.

  [11] Prospectus _Parochiale Scoticanum_, now editing by COSMO INNES,
  Esq., Advocate.

It is not to be supposed, however, that some other topics which
regularly appear in this New Account, under the head of history,
will ever drop from any work of parochial statistics. We refer to
what may be termed Parish History, as distinct from what belongs to
the history of the country,--notices of distinguished individuals
and of ancient families, changes of property, territorial
improvements, variations in the social state of the people. No
part of a book is more novel, or, to a proper curiosity, more
interesting; and no indication is needed of the fair incidence of
such matters to a work of this description.

If the _New Statistical Account_ contains, then, some particulars
not quite proper to the professed object, the excess appears to
be on the whole venial. But it may still be asked, whether any
important and proper matters appear to have been omitted.

Now, considering how many things of nature, art, institutions, and
industry pertain to statistics, we do not expect any compilation to
embrace all, or to treat completely of all such things as it does
embrace,--we expect imperfection in the details.

Accordingly, it is seen that some subjects well described in some
accounts, are either not at all, or not so fully, taken up in
others; while yet the occasion may be much the same. The climate
of some districts, for instance, is well illustrated by careful
observations from the rain-gage and thermometer; in some parishes we
are informed of the size of the agricultural possessions, the number
of ploughs, the rent of land; in some, manufactories, mines, and
other kinds of industry, are viewed in all their aspects. But, for
other districts or parishes, reports on these subjects are wanting;
and the disadvantage is, not merely that such desirable information
is not given for such places, but that the means are not furnished
of making any general computations for the whole country. It is
plain there have been special reasons for the less satisfactory
representation of particular parishes in these respects: but for all
such faults, both of omission and imperfection, we understand the
_New Statistical Account_ to have one general apology; which is this.

Two distinct efforts are requisite to the preparation of a
comprehensive work of statistics. There is first, the investigation
of facts; and next, the task of arranging and presenting them in
the report. One of the theorists before-mentioned, views it as
a necessary division of labour, that both things should not be
attempted by one and the same party,--especially as the first, when
the subjects are numerous, is not to be accomplished but by the
assistance of many hands--all of which, as he observes, must be at
once skilful and suitably rewarded. Now, here, the task of inquiring
and reporting was not divided; the whole of it was placed, by the
necessities of the case, in the hands of the reverend contributors.
But, as no private society had the means or authority to investigate
the facts completely, it is urged that the defects to which we have
alluded, were for the most part inevitable.

We believe it; and, recognising how much the clergy had thus to
do, which could only be done completely by the government, we only
advert to the sources of information to which they could have
recourse.

_Public documents_ seem to have been consulted, when information
of a later date could not be had,--and chiefly the parliamentary
reports on population, crime, education, and municipal affairs, from
which the parish accounts appear to have been supplemented with
whatever was necessary to the completion of the county summaries.
Much has also been derived from the reports of Societies, Boards,
and mercantile companies; of this there is evidence in the account
of every considerable town.

_Public records_ appear also to have been examined, and chiefly the
parish registers. Every parish has a record of the transactions of
its kirk-session,--sometimes extending to distant periods. Extracts
from these occasionally show, in a clear light, the state and
manners of the country in former times; more of which authentic
illustration we could have wished, and more the same sources
might possibly have supplied. Most parishes have also records of
births or baptisms, marriages and deaths. From these, and these
only, this work could derive the elements of its important section
of vital statistics; but how far were they fitted to serve that
purpose? It is certain that they nowhere form a complete register
of these occurrences, and that for the most part they are very
defective. Baptisms appear to have been entered, in the parish
register, regularly till the year 1783, when the imposition of
a small tax first broke the custom of registration; and, when
that tax was removed, dissenting bodies were unwilling to resume
the practice. The proportion of registered baptisms to births,
for instance, is at the present time not more than one fourth in
Edinburgh, and one third in Glasgow. The marriage register is also
unavailable to statistical purposes, by reason of the practice of
double enrolment--in the parish of each party. In many parishes no
record of burials exists: in others, those of paupers are omitted.
In short, there is scarcely a country in Europe that does not, by
proper arrangements, furnish better information on these important
points; and no industry of individuals can remedy that defect. It is
therefore among the postulates of a work like this, for Scotland,
that its vital statistics should be imperfect.

_Books_ relating to the history, civil or natural, the institutions
or manners of the country, have in many instances been well
consulted; in some, not at all; but probably as much from want of
opportunity as from any other cause.

Still much occasion for inquiry remained after all the use that
could be made of reports, registers, and books. Much of what related
to the institutions of Religion, education, and the poor, might
be supposed to come readily to hand, the clergy themselves being
most conversant with such matters. But they appear to have charged
themselves with the toil of very different investigations. Some
have been at the pains to ascertain the amount and occupations of
the population, betwixt the decennial terms of the parliamentary
census. Few have omitted to state, in connexion with the agriculture
of the parish, the quantities of land under tillage or under wood,
in pasture or in moor, and the amount respectively of the different
kinds of produce--facts that imply not a little correspondence with
land-owners and land-occupiers, and much industry in the collation
of returns. They have had recourse, frequently, to mineralogists,
botanists, overseers of mining and manufacturing works, whose
contributions are of as much value as the fullest and ripest
knowledge can give. Picture-galleries are sometimes described by
their owners; family papers occasionally disclose facts of some
interest in the history of the country. Throughout the work there
are signs not to be mistaken, of much private and unwonted inquiry
on the part of the reverend authors, to do, in a creditable way, a
work that, from the nature of it, ought to have been apportioned to
at least two different parties.

The defects which remain only suggest to us the hope which was thus
expressed in similar circumstances, that "the circulation of this
work, by bringing the deficiencies in the means of statistical
information under the public view, and drawing attention to them,
may, in this respect, also contribute to the advancement of the
science." It is implied, of course, that the work, to be useful
in this indirect way, must have merits of another kind. On these
the _New Statistical Account_ may stand. No other book affords the
same insight into the various natural resources of the country;
none describes so well, and so skilfully, the most considerable
branches of industry, and the methods of conducting them; none has
brought together the same variety of statistics, with the same
ample means of speculating upon their mutual relations. It is still
more remarkable, that such a work, embracing, as it does, so much
beyond the usual sphere of their observation, should proceed from
the clergy; but the explanation is, that the position and character
of that body open to them the best means of information on many
subjects with which they are themselves not at all conversant. They
have produced here a work, which, as a collection of parochial
statistics, stands alone, without either rival or resemblance in any
other country, representing the state of Scotland, at the period to
which it refers, in all its aspects, and so affording the means of
a definite comparison between the past and the present, such as, in
all cases, it is at once natural and profitable to make. A peculiar
interest arises from the unusual diversity of the matter, and the
familiarity of the writers with the bounds which they describe.
It is a useful work, and will continue long to be so, in as many
ways as it throws light upon the condition of the country--and,
not least, in the local improvements to which its suggestions may
give rise. But, if its uses were less than they are, it would still
leave an impression of respect for the general intelligence and the
readiness to employ their opportunities for the public good, which
its authors have known to unite with exemplary devotion to the
duties of their calling.




THE POETRY OF SACRED AND LEGENDARY ART.

     _The Poetry of Sacred and Legendary Art._ By Mrs JAMESON.


We are of the belief that art without poetry is worthless--dead,
and deadening; or, if it have vitality, there is no music in its
speech--no command in its beauty. We treat it with a kind of
contempt, and make apology for the pleasure it has afforded. _Sacred
and Legendary Art!_ How different--how precious--how life-bestowing!
The material and immaterial world linked, as it were, together by
a new sympathy, working out a tissue of beautiful ideas from the
golden threads of a Divine revelation! By _Sacred and Legendary Art_
is meant the treatment of religions subjects, commencing with the
Old Testament, and terminating in traditionary tales and legends. It
is from the latter that the old painters have, for the most part,
taken that rich poetry, which, glowing on the canvass, shows, even
amidst the wild errors of fable, a truth of sentiment belonging to a
purer faith.

By the Protestant mind, nursed, perhaps, in an undue contempt of
histories of saints and martyrs of the Romish Church, the treasures
of art of the best period are rarely understood, and still more
rarely felt, in the spirit in which they were conceived. Those for
whom they were painted needed no cold inquiry into the subjects.
They accepted them as things universally known and religiously to
be received, with a veneration which we but little comprehend. With
them pictures and statues were among their sacred things, and,
together with architecture, spoke and taught with an authority
that books, which then were rare in the people's hands, have since
scarcely ever obtained. Men of genius felt this respect paid to
their works, if denied too often to themselves; and thus to their
own devotion was added a kind of ministerial importance. Their work
became a duty, and was very frequently prosecuted as such by the
inmates of monasteries. Besides their works on a large scale, upon
the walls and in their cloisters, the ornamenting and illustrating
missals embodied a religious feeling, if in some degree peculiar to
the condition of the workers, of a vital form and beauty. Treasures
of this kind there are beyond number; but they have been hidden
treasures for ages. A Protestant contempt for their legends has
persecuted, with long hatred, and subsequent long indifference,
the art which glorified them. And now that we awake from this dull
state, and begin to estimate the poetry of religious art, we stand
before the noblest productions amazed and ignorant, and looking
for interpreters, and lose the opportunity of enjoyment in the
inquiry. Art is too valuable for all it gives, to allow this entire
ignorance of the subjects of its favourite treatment. If, for the
better understanding of heathen art, an acquaintance with classical
literature is thought to be a worthy attainment, the excellence of
what we may term Christian art surely renders it of importance that
we should know something about the subjects of which it treats. The
inquiry will repay us also in other respects, as well as with regard
to taste. If we would know ourselves, it is well to see the workings
of the human mind, under its every phase, its every condition. And
in such a study we shall be gratified, perhaps unexpectedly, to find
the good and the beautiful still shining through the obscurity of
many errors, predominant and influential upon our own hearts, and
scarcely wish the fabulous altogether removed from the minds of
those who receive it in devotion, lest great truth in feeling be
removed also. Indeed, the legends themselves are mostly harmless,
and, even as they become discredited, may be interpreted as not
unprofitable allegories. Had we not, in a Puritanic zeal, discarded
art with an iconoclast persecution, _The Pilgrim's Progress_ had
long ere this been a "golden legend" for the people, and spoken to
them in worthy illustration; nor would they have been religiously
or morally the worse had they been imbued with a thorough taste for
the graceful, the beautiful, and the sublime, which it is in the
power of well cultivated art to convey to every willing recipient.
It is a great mistake of a portion of the religious world to look
upon ornament as a sin or a superstition. Religion is not a bare and
unadorned thing, nor can it be so received without debasing, without
making too low and mean the worshipper for the worship. The "wedding
garment" was not the every-day wear. The poorest must not, of a
choice, appear in rags before the throne of Him who is clothed in
glory, nor with less respect of their own person than they would use
in the presence of their betters. It was originally of God's doing,
command, and dictation, to sanctify the beautiful in art, by making
his worship a subject for all embellishment. For such a purport
were the minute directions for the building of His temple. And yet
how many "religious" of our day contradict this feeling, which
seems to come to us, not only by a natural instinct, but with the
authority of a command! It is a deteriorated worship that prefers
four bare, unadorned, whitened walls of a mean conventicle to the
lofty and arched majesty and profuse enrichment of a Gothic minster.
We want every aid to lift every sense above our daily grovelling
cares, and ought to feel that we are acceptable and invited guests
in a house far too great, spacious, and magnificent for ourselves
alone. Even our humility should be sublime, as all true worship
is, for we would fain lift it up as an offering to the Heaven of
heavens. It has its aspect towards Him who deigns to receive,
together with consciousness of the lowliness of him that offers. It
is good that the eye and the ear should see and hear other sounds
and sights than concern things, not only of time, but of that poor
portion of it which hems in our daily wants and businesses. Beauty
and music are of and for eternity, and will never die; and in our
perception of them we make ourselves a part of all that is undying.
These are senses that the spiritualised body will not lose. Their
cultivation is a thing for ever; we are now even here the greater
for their possession in their human perfection. The wondrous pile
so elaborately finished;

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