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Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 67, Number 414, April, 1850

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Title: Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 67, Number 414, April, 1850

Author: Various


        
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BLACKWOOD'S EDINBURGH MAGAZINE, VOLUME 67, NUMBER 414, APRIL, 1850 ***

BLACKWOOD'S

EDINBURGH MAGAZINE.

  NO. CCCCXIV.     APRIL, 1850.     VOL. LXVII.




CONTENTS.


  THE MINISTERIAL MEASURES,                                377

  BRITAIN'S PROSPERITY. A NEW SONG,                        389

  MY PENINSULAR MEDAL. BY AN OLD PENINSULAR. PART V.,      393

  THE DWARF AND THE OAK TREE. A VISION OF 1850,            411

  FESTUS,                                                  415

  CASH AND PEDIGREE,                                       431

  CAIRD'S HIGH FARMING HARROWED,                           447

  THE CLEARING OF THE GLENS,                               475

  DIES BOREALES. NO. VI. CHRISTOPHER UNDER CANVASS,        481


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

  _To whom all communications (post paid) must be addressed._

  SOLD BY ALL THE BOOKSELLERS IN THE UNITED KINGDOM.

  PRINTED BY WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS, EDINBURGH.




BLACKWOOD'S

EDINBURGH MAGAZINE.

  NO. CCCCXIV.     APRIL, 1850.     VOL. LXVII.




THE MINISTERIAL MEASURES.


At length signal-guns of distress have been fired from the Liberal
fleet. Albeit stoutly denying the existence of any extraordinary
suffering in Ireland, Ministers have brought forward a measure, based
upon the admission of a distress there much exceeding anything which
their opponents have alleged. Concealing or evading the loud cries
of Colonial discontent, they have announced a policy implying a
total revolution in Colonial government, and which never could have
been conceded but from the consciousness of a vast amount of former
maladministration. The Irish Reform Bill and the New System of Colonial
Government are, _par excellence_, the measures of the session. We
are not surprised they are so. They are the natural complement and
unavoidable consequence of three preceding years of Free Trade and a
fettered Currency.

The policy of Government since 1846 having been entirely founded upon
the interests of the towns against the country, of the consumers
against the producers, of those who had a majority in the House of
Commons over those who were still in a minority, it might naturally be
expected that the consequent suffering would be most acutely felt in
the producing parts of the empire; in those places where agriculture
was the staple of life, where producers were many and consumers few,
and where, necessarily, the measures of the British urban majority
acted with unmitigated severity. Ireland and the Colonies were the
places in which these circumstances combined, because they were both
provinces in which rural districts were of boundless extent, and towns
few and of inconsiderable importance; in which civilisation was as
yet, comparatively speaking, in its infancy; and mankind, yet occupied
in the labours of the field, in felling the forest and draining
the morass, were not congregated in the huge Babylons or Ninevehs,
which are at once the distinctive mark and ineradicable curse of
long-established civilisation. Ireland and the Colonies, therefore,
were the places which suffered most, and in which discontent might be
expected to be most formidable from the new system; and, accordingly,
the first announcements of the Session of 1850 were of measures
calculated, as Government supposed, to assuage the irritations and
conciliate the affections of these important and avowedly discontented
or suffering parts of the empire.

Ten years have not elapsed since Lord John Russell declared that we
could not afford to have a Revolution every year, and that the Reform
Bill had fixed the Constitution upon a basis which must not again be
shaken. There can be no doubt of the justice of the observation; but
the Liberals have always some qualification or reservation to let in
a change of measures, if it appears expedient for their interests as
a party to promote it. That declaration was made before the grand and
distinctive features of Liberal government had developed themselves:
before Free Trade had crushed Agricultural industry, and sapped the
foundations of Colonial loyalty; and when no overbearing pressure from
without reminded Ministers that the time had arrived when they must
eat in their pledges. That time has now, however, come; distress, all
but universal, has spread among all the rural producers of the empire;
Ireland, the West Indies, and Canada, as the most entirely agricultural
districts, have been the first to suffer in consequence. Measures
calculated, as they conceive, to allay the prevailing discontent,
have been brought forward by Government at the very time when they
themselves, and their organs in the Press, were most strenuously
denying that the new measures had produced anything but universal
contentment and satisfaction throughout the empire.

The so-called Liberals have a very easy, and, as they deem it,
efficacious mode of stifling or appeasing public discontent when it
arrives at a formidable height. This consists in extending the suffrage
among the querulous and suffering part of the people. They think that
by so doing they will at once demonstrate their sympathy with the
middle and lower classes, and secure, at least, for some elections to
come, a majority of electors for their support, from a natural feeling
of gratitude towards the Government which has conceded to them the
suffrage. This system has been acted upon now for above a quarter of a
century. No sooner had the contraction of the Currency, by the bills of
1819 and 1826, rendered it wholly inadequate for the industry of the
empire, and produced the dreadful distress from 1826 to 1830 among the
manufacturing and commercial classes, than they brought forward the
Reform Bill in March 1831, and gave a decided majority in the House
of Commons to these suffering and discontented urban electors. They
have existed ever since on the gratitude of these newly enfranchised
city voters. And now when the measures adopted, at the instigation of
these urban constituencies, who compose three-fifths of the House of
Commons, have totally ruined the West Indies, all but severed Canada,
from the empire, and spread unheard-of distress throughout Ireland,
they have a remedy, as they conceive, ready, in the extension of the
suffrage to the suffering population. In this way the successive stages
of general suffering, induced by Free Trade and a fettered Currency--in
other words, a system of general cheapening of everything--issue in
successive degradations of the franchise. The monetary crisis of 1825
led, after five years of suffering, to the Reform Bill for Great
Britain; and the Free Trade crash of 1847 has issued, after three years
of mortal agony, in the new Irish Reform Bill, and the announcement of
provincial assemblies for the Colonies. If this system is continued
for half a century more, it may reasonably be expected to lead, as it
has done in France, to the introduction of universal suffrage. When
everything is so cheapened that one-half of the population is landed in
the workhouses, it is thought, everything will be righted, wisdom at
once imprinted on the measures of Government, and contentment diffused
through the country, by the paupers rising from their straw mattresses
to vote for the Liberal candidates in ballot-boxes put up at the
corners of every street.

It must be confessed that this system of appeasing discontent by
extending the suffrage, has several things to recommend it. In
the first place--and this is a most important consideration with
Governments which behold the national resources wasting away under
the influence of monetary and commercial measures, introduced by the
dominant class--it costs nothing. The Chancellor of the Exchequer is
sure to give it his cordial support. It is much easier to enfranchise
two hundred thousand paupers or bog-trotters, than to issue two or
three millions of exchequer bills to sustain their industry. The old
panacea, so often applied in the days of Tory Government, when distress
became general, to relieve it by issues of exchequer bills, has been
totally discarded since a Liberal Administration, resting on the urban
constituencies, was installed in power. It is now discovered that it
is much better to give the sufferers votes. Undoubtedly it is cheaper;
and in these days, when everything is sacrificed to cheapness, charity
itself, albeit covering a multitude of sins, must be sacrificed to it
with the rest. In the next place, it implies, or is likely to lead to,
no change of public measures, no reaction against the commercial policy
which has produced the suffering. The new voters, it may be presumed,
will support the Liberal Government which has enfranchised them:
gratitude will bear Ministers over more than one contested election.
The very suffering produced by Free Trade measures will bring up a host
of voters to the poll who will, it is hoped, support from gratitude the
Free Trade candidate. That is a matter of immense importance. It is not
only spreading division through the Protection camp, but recruiting in
it for troops to themselves. And though, doubtless, it is scarcely to
be expected that men in the long-run are to support representatives
who are ruining them, yet it is often astonishing how long they will
continue to do so from party influences: the poison, like the contagion
of the cholera, floats in the air, without any one knowing whence it
comes or whither it is going: and, at any rate, the opening of men's
eyes is the work of time; and the great thing with Liberal Governments
is to secure immediate support, or tide over immediate difficulties.

For observe one very remarkable feature in both the Liberal measures
intended to allay the discontent in the agricultural districts of the
empire--that is, that there _is no change in the composition of the
House of Commons_. That assembly, which, as it has the command of the
public purse, rules, by its majority, the whole empire, remains the
same. Three-fifths of its members are still returned by the urban
constituencies of Great Britain. At the late division on the motion
of Mr Disraeli, the majority of twenty-one was composed of _Scotch_
members, most of them members for burghs. Thus the ruling power is
lodged in the urban constituencies, and the suffering rural districts
are to be pacified by an extension of their electors, which will confer
no _real_ political power, and benefit no human being. The majority
for Free Trade measures will be the same, whether the Irish members
are returned by seventy-two thousand or three hundred thousand voters;
or, rather, it is hoped by the promoters of the new measures, the
Protectionists will be weakened by the change--because the Liberal
candidate will be able to call himself the friend of the people, and to
call out the new voters to record their votes for the Government which
has enfranchised them.

So also in regard to the Colonies. The new measures announced by Lord
John Russell propose to give provincial assemblies or parliaments to
all the Colonies; and so far they are founded on just principles. But
they contain no provision for the representation of any of the Colonies
in the Imperial Parliament which meets in London. The fatal majority of
three urban to two rural representatives still determines the measures
of Government. The invaluable nomination burghs, by means of which the
Colonies, under the old constitution, were so effectually represented,
still are extinct. Colonial wealth now can get into Parliament only by
the favour of urban constituencies--that is, by adopting Free Trade
principles. Any man who stood upon the hustings in a British burgh, and
proclaimed "Justice to the Colonies," would be speedily thrown into
a minority, from the dread that his return might raise the price of
sugar a penny a pound. Lord John Russell's Colonial parliaments will
afford no remedy for this great and crying evil. It leaves the ruling
power still in the hands of those actuated by an adverse interest, and
directed by adverse desires. Give _real representation_ to the Colonies
indeed--give them a hundred members in the _Imperial_ Parliament--and
you make a mighty step in the principles of real, just government, and
in reconstructing the bonds which once held together this great and
varied empire. But to give them local assemblies which have no real
power, and which are doomed to sit by and be the impotent spectators
of their own and their constituents' ruin, by the burgh-directed
measures of the Imperial Parliament, is to mock them with a shadow of
constitutional privileges which, in this age of intelligence, will
not long be borne. It is giving the means of organising discontent,
without those of averting disaster; and preparing, in those powerless
provincial assemblies, men for the assertion of rights which, as was
the case with North America, will one day cause the tearing asunder and
dismemberment of the empire.

Nineteen years have elapsed since, in the very first paper on
Parliamentary Reform in this Magazine, we pointed out the fatal
effect of the extinction of Colonial representation by schedules A
and B, as the grand defect of the Reform Bill; and predicted that it
would, if not remedied, lead to the dissolution of the empire.[1]
Consequences, since that time, have followed precisely as we predicted.
The short-sighted urban majorities of the dominant island have
perseveringly pursued their separate and immediate interests, until
they have ruined the West Indies, to make sugar cheap,--all but ruined
Ireland, to make oats cheap,--and rendered agricultural distress
universal in Great Britain, to make bread cheap. The discontent
produced by these measures having become universal among the rural
producers in the empire, Government, thinking they are applying a
remedy to the most suffering parts, propose to extend the rural
suffrage in Ireland, by lowering the existing suffrage of ten pounds,
requisite to enfranchise on a piece of ground, to an eight-pound
interest, and creating everywhere provincial parliaments in the
Colonies. They never were more mistaken. What is wanted in the Colonies
and in Ireland is not an extension of voters or local parliaments, but
a _just system of government at home_. Fiscal measures, which shall
secure their interests, are what they require; and they can only be
passed by the Imperial Parliament. What these measures are, is well
known: you have only to take up any file of the Jamaica, Sidney,
or Montreal papers to see what are the sentiments of the Colonies.
Introduce Colonial representation, in numbers adequate to their wealth,
population, and importance, into the Parliament of Great Britain, and
the effect will be immediate. Measures such as they desire will soon be
carried, and the threatened dismemberment of the empire averted. Delay
or refuse the possession of real power to these important parts of the
British dominions, and you only aggravate existing discontent, and
accelerate approaching dismemberment. To suppose you can now alleviate
Irish suffering by quadrupling its electors, and stifle Colonial
discontent by giving them local parliaments, is as absurd as if it
had been proposed to still the storm of indignation raised in all the
manufacturing towns of Great Britain by the suffering consequent on the
contraction of the Currency, by giving the complainers all votes for
their respective town-councils.

[1] See article on Parliamentary Reform, May 1, 1831; reprinted in
_Alison's Essays_, vol. i. p. 32, 40.

Although, however, for twenty years past, we have anticipated with
certainty the ultimate extension of the suffrage to a still lower class
of voters, as the unavoidable consequence of the Reform Bill, yet we
must admit that we did not anticipate the _mode_ in which the necessity
for this extension was to be brought about. We thought it would arise
from the increase of the unenfranchised population, and the loud cry
for electoral privileges on the part of the inferior urban or working
population. Not at all: a very different reason is now assigned for
the extension of the suffrage in Ireland. It is not the increase of
the unenfranchised, but the _diminution of the enfranchised_, which
is assigned as the reason for the change. It is said there are now
only 72,000 voters in Ireland, instead of 250,000, which there should
be, and which it was calculated the Reform Bill would bring up to the
poll. Mr Cobden boasts that he has more constituents in the West Riding
than there are in all the counties in Ireland put together. We have
no doubt the remark is well founded; although the fact of so numerous
a constituency having selected the man who made the boast, augurs but
little for the wisdom, if kindred, of the measures which we may expect
from the popularly elected representatives for the sister kingdom. But
the material thing to observe is this: A great and important change on
the Reform Bill--an innovation on the foundations which, we were told,
were _non tangenda non movenda_ of the new Constitution, is vindicated
on the immense destruction of the former freeholders which has taken
place within these few years. We have long been aware of the fact: we
adverted to it, in the most pointed manner, in a late article on the
effects of Free Trade.[2] But we little expected that our observations
were so soon to be confirmed from so high a quarter, and that the first
breach in the Constitution, as fixed by the Reform Bill, would be
justified on the avowed destruction of the freeholders of Ireland which
the Reform measures have effected.

[2] See Free Trade at its Zenith: _Blackwood's Magazine_, Dec. 1849.

For what is it which has occasioned such a chasm in the freeholders at
this time, and rendered it necessary, on the admission of Ministers
themselves, to lower the suffrage to an £8 _interest_, if we would
marshal anything like a competent number of freeholders round the
Reform banners? It is in vain to refer to the famine of 1846. That
famine occurred three years ago: it was bountifully relieved by
the British Government; and since its termination we have had two
fine harvests, those of 1847 and 1849, for each of which a public
thanksgiving was returned. A bad harvest does not destroy some hundred
thousand electors. If it does, there are heirs who succeed in ordinary
circumstances to the freeholds, and form as respectable an army of
electors as their fathers had done. What has become of all the heirs
of the starved electors, if they were really starved? What has become
of the freeholds which they formerly held? The answer is obvious, and
has been now officially returned by Government, and made the foundation
of a great constitutional change. THEY HAVE BEEN DESTROYED BY THE
FREE TRADE MEASURES. The Reform Bill, in its ultimate effects, has
crushed the brood whom it warmed into life. Above 200,000 holders of
land, in Ireland, have disappeared since 1845. It is now admitted that
they were, for the most part, the highest class of cultivators; for
the extension of the suffrage is justified on the fearful diminution
of their numbers. So rapid has been their destruction, so fearful the
process of deterioration they have undergone, that out of above 500,000
holders of land who are still in Ireland, only 72,000 could be found
qualified under the Reform Act; and, to augment the number of these,
it is necessary to lower the franchise to £8. Eight pounds a-year is
little more than the average maintenance of a pauper in England. But
such is the misery which Free Trade measures have spread in Ireland,
that it is there the standard of a freehold qualification.

It is in vain to refer to the 40s. freeholders of England as affording
a precedent or a parallel to town franchise. Everybody knows that
the 40s. freehold--originally, when established in the time of Henry
VI., a measure of landed property worth £20 or £30 a-year at this
time--had come, from the change in the value of money, to be a mere
house qualification. No one supposes that the 40s. freeholder _lives on
his 40s._; it is the value merely of the cottage, garden, or paddock
which he holds in freehold. He _lives_ on extraneous resources, the
wages of labour, realised means, or the aid of his family. But the £8
tenant in Ireland _lives_ on the subject which qualifies him. In nine
cases out of ten, he has no other means of livelihood whatever, and the
franchise is the measure of his whole substance. It is little better in
most cases than the income of an English pauper; but, such as it is, we
have no doubt it is all that Free Trade measures will allow the great
majority of Irish cultivators to earn; and that, unless the franchise
is to dwindle away till the Irish counties in many cases become Gattons
and Old Sarums, it is absolutely indispensable to enfranchise such a
miserable and destitute class. But we did not expect, amidst all the
gloom of our anticipations from the effects of the Reform Bill, and
its consequent Free Trade measures, that this misery and destitution
were to reach such a height, that it was to be proclaimed by Lord John
Russell himself, and made the ground of the first great breach in his
own Constitution!

It is not surprising that Government, amidst all the professions
of confidence in the national resources, and assertions of general
prosperity from Free Trade measures, should be thus, in their
legislative acts, betraying a secret consciousness of the rapid decline
of agricultural remuneration and of the existence of widespread
Colonial distress. The prospects of the cultivators, both at home and
in the Colonies, are gloomy in the extreme. The price of wheat is now
known: it has been judicially fixed, at least in Scotland. The _fiar_
prices in that country are, on an average, £1, 16s. for wheat, and 14s.
for oats; instead of 51s. for the former, and 24s. for the latter,
which they were three years ago, before the Irish famine set in. Good
wheat is selling at this moment in the Haddington market at £1, 13s.
6d. a quarter--lower than it has been for a hundred and fifty years.
Black cattle have fallen in the proportion of ten to six, or forty per
cent; and although the rents of sheep-farms have as yet, from the high
prices of wool, not been materially affected, yet it is well known that
they too will ere long share in the general decline. Rents are in most
parts of Ireland irrecoverable: the misery in many of its Unions equals
that of the worst period of the famine. Rents in Scotland will at next
term-day be postponed: the tenants, acknowledging their inability to
pay, generally are already asking for time; and it is well understood
on both sides, that, if the present low prices continue, the arrears,
now fast accumulating, will become irrecoverable. On England it is
unnecessary to dwell: it has spoken out in a voice which can neither be
mistaken nor pretended to be unheard.

But why go into details to illustrate a fact which, so far from being
denied, is openly admitted, and even gloried in by the Free-traders?
In a late paper on Free Trade, we estimated the decline in the value
of agricultural produce, in the British islands, in consequence of
free trade in grain, at £75,000,000, or a fourth of its amount. But
the Free-traders tell us, and apparently with reason, that this is too
low an estimate. Mr Villiers, in seconding the Address in the House
of Commons, calculated the saving of the people, in the consumption
of all the kinds of food, since 1847, at £91,000,000; and if to this
is added the price of the 12,000,000 quarters of all sorts of grain,
which were imported in the course of 1849, estimated at the moderate
average of 20s. a quarter, the loss to the agricultural interest will
be £103,000,000. But this is evidently too high, as the prices of 1847
were scarcity prices, owing to the famine in Ireland; and deducting
£13,000,000 on that account, there will remain £90,000,000 at the very
least which has been lost in one year to the agricultural interest of
Great Britain and Ireland. This is more than _a third_ of its amount,
which may be taken, under the reduced scale of prices, for three years
prior to the Irish famine, at £250,000,000 annual value.

But this, it is said, is all a landlords' question: the community at
large, and, above all, the borough electors who rule the empire, have
no interest in it. A landlords' question truly! Why, the whole _land_
rents of the two islands,[3] abstracting from them those of houses,
are under £60,000,000 annually; and a loss of £90,000,000 a-year is a
landlords' question only! It is, at least, as much a tenants' question
as a landlords'; and as there are now 750,000 holders of land in
the two islands of Great Britain and Ireland, amounting with their
families to 2,500,000 souls, this body, one and all of whom have
been impoverished by the change, must be taken as a clear addition
to the landlords, who have been directly and deeply injured by the
same causes. And what are we to say to the agricultural labourers,
mechanics, millers, wheelwrights, and artificers, who depend directly,
immediately, and almost entirely, on the market for the produce of
their industry among the rural population? At the very least, their
incomes would all decline a half, and they, with their families,
amount to some millions more. And this is what the Free-traders call a
landlords' question!

[3]

  England,           £47,000,000
  Scotland,            3,500,000
  Ireland,             8,000,000
                    ------------
                     £58,500,000

Apart, in the three Kingdoms, from rents of houses, which amount to
about £45,000,000 more.

But, in truth, we deprecate, and that in the most earnest manner, all
these calculations of class loss or suffering, so far as they proceed
on the idea that it is possible for one class to suffer without every
other speedily doing the same. Such arguments and topics were never
heard of in Great Britain till the Reform Bill gave _one class_ in
society, viz. the urban shopkeepers, the command of the British Empire.
We acknowledge one only interest in the whole community, and that is
the interest of all classes; we acknowledge one only family--that is,
the whole British people. Their real interests are, and ever must be,
the same. It is impossible, in one community, that one great interest
can be suffering while others are thriving. Such a thing might happen
for a time, when the manufacturing interest was prosperous from a
sudden extension of the export sale in some considerable foreign
markets; but such a gleam of sunshine must be temporary only, if not
accompanied by a simultaneous growth in the great and, only durable
issue for goods--the home market. The whole manufactures exported at
present--one of the most prosperous years, so far as the export sale
goes--are about £60,000,000 a-year. The manufactures taken off by the
home market are estimated, by the most experienced authorities, at
£120,000,000. Of the £60,000,000 exported, about £16,000,000 goes to
our own Colonies, so that the home and colonial market takes off yearly
£136,000,000; all foreign markets put together, £44,000,000.

In other words, the home and colonial market is more than _three times
all foreign markets put together_. How is it possible after this to
deny that a serious and lasting blow, struck at the rural producing
interests in the British islands and the Colonies, must ere long
react, and that, too, with terrible effect, on the prosperity of our
manufacturers? Mr Villiers boasts that Free Trade has cut £91,000,000
off the remuneration of the British farmers. Is it not evident that,
assuming this to be true, the greater part of this sum is cut of the
funds which pay in the home market? and if so, how long will our
£120,000,000 consumed in the home market be in sinking to £80,000,000,
or some still lower figure? And will Manchester and Glasgow be much
benefited, if they gain £10,000,000 or £12,000,000 annually in the
foreign market, and lose £40,000,000 or £50,000,000 in the home?

Already it has become painfully evident that this effect is taking
place in this country. Ministers boast of the exports having increased
above £10,000,000 in 1849 over what they were in 1848, and of their
having now turned £60,000,000 a-year. Let it be supposed that
this is all to be put down to the account of Free Trade, and that
our Indian victories, the pacification of Europe, the crushing of
revolution in France, and the impulse given to American purchase by
Californian gold, had nothing at all to do with the matter. Is the
country prosperous?--are the railways prosperous?--are poor-rates
declining?--is labour in request either in the rural or urban
districts? The facts are _notoriously the reverse_. At this moment
we happen to know that above ten thousand looms in Manchester are
preparing to put their mills upon the short time of forty hours
a-week. The railways never were so low: at an average, their stock is
worth little more than _a third_ of what it was three years ago. Much
was said in Parliament of the decrease of poor-rates by £300,000 or
£400,000 a-year. That is _entirely owing_ to the fall in the price
of provisions, which at once, and materially, lessened the cost of
maintaining the paupers. Had the rates fallen really in proportion to
the decline in the price of provisions, they would have gone down fifty
per cent, or above £2,000,000 annually. A decline of a few hundred
thousand pounds a-year only, in such circumstances, was in reality not
a fall, but a rise. And in Scotland, the poor-rates for 1849, despite
the fall in the cost of maintaining the paupers, were higher than in
1848, or than in any preceding year: they rose from £544,000 a-year to
£576,000. As to Ireland, it is admitted on all hands that its condition
was never worse, even during the worst periods of the famine.

Now, the real question which it behoves the moneyed interest, and
especially the fundholders, to conder, and that most seriously,
is this:--How do they expect that the interest on their bonds or
the dividends on their stock are to be paid if this ceaseless and
progressive _decline in the resources of their debtors_ is to go on?
How are the dividends raised for payment of the national creditors,
or the interest provided to meet private mortgages, on which so large
a part, probably two-thirds, of the realised capital of the country
depends? Is it not entirely from the exertions of the producing
classes, who, or whose fathers, became debtors in these varied
transactions? But is it possible that the security of creditors can
escape being shaken, if the resources of their debtors are continually
declining? In private life we are never mistaken on this subject. If
a creditor sees his debtor's funds wasting away under improvident or
absurd management, or a landlord sees his tenants running out his land
by scourging and ruinous crops, he at once takes the alarm. But with
the public creditors the case is just the reverse. They sit by and see
the indirect taxes, upon the faith of which their money was advanced,
repealed one after another for a long course of years; and the national
armaments, upon which the public safety and the independence of the
country depend, threatened with ruin by an ignorant, blind, and
selfish democracy; and it never enters into their imaginations for a
moment to entertain the least apprehension for their own payments.
They think, though every other interest in the country is ruined, they
will stand erect amidst the wreck. Deceived by the perfect regularity
with which their interest has been paid for the last hundred and fifty
years, they cannot conceive that it should ever be otherwise. They
would as soon expect to see the sun not rise in the morning, as the
dividends on the three-per-cents not paid in January and June. But
a little consideration must show that this confidence may ere long
be found to be misplaced. The dividends are paid entirely out of the
national income: whatever seriously affects or diminishes the national
income, so much diminishes the fund from which they must be drawn. The
ninety millions which Mr Villiers boasts has been cut off from the
remuneration of agriculture has made a fearful chasm in it--probably
not less than a third of its whole amount. One other such blow, and
the payment of the dividends will become impossible--and the moneyed
interest, whose selfish rapacity has occasioned all the mischief, will
share in the general ruin they have created.

It is hard to say whether, as society is now constituted and power
distributed in this country, the fundholder has most to fear from years
of general suffering or from periods of transient prosperity. Is the
nation flourishing, are exports increasing, taxes well paid, a surplus
revenue beginning to appear, and a huge store of useless and costly
bullion accumulated in the bank? We are immediately told the surplus
must be devoted to the remission of taxes: it is dangerous to leave
the Treasury full; it is a temptation to Government, and serves to
feed the younger sons of the aristocracy. No matter how fleeting the
surplus may be, though it has arisen from an accidental combination of
circumstances which may disappear before the year is out--and it is
well known, taxes once taken off are very rarely reimposed--the surplus
must be instantly relinquished for the _permanent_ remission of taxes.
Are times adverse, do the heavens threaten monetary squalls, and is the
import of grain and export of sovereigns likely to lay, as in 1847,
half the commercial world on their beam-ends? Instantly the cry gets
up that the taxes cannot be paid; that the national expenditure is
shamefully extravagant; that the army must be disbanded, the ships of
the line sold, and the national independence trusted to the generous
cosmopolitan spirit of the Americans, or the unambitious disposition
of the Czar. In both circumstances the national safety, and with it
the security of the public creditor, are endangered: in the first, by
the permanent remission of revenue, in consideration of a transient
gleam of prosperity; in the last, by a permanent abandonment of the
national defences, in consequence of a temporary period of disaster.
And as we inevitably pass now, and must ever pass, under our wise and
judicious system of Free Trade and a Fettered Currency, from the one to
the other, it is evident that not a year passes over our heads that the
security of the fundholders is not more and more endangered, and this
by the effects of the very system which their own selfish and class
legislation has introduced.

It is to this point--the _inevitable_ reaction of agricultural distress
upon commercial prosperity and the general resources of the empire,
that we anxiously wish to direct our readers' attention. The theory
of the Manchester school is, "Give us a sufficient amount of imports,
and the exports will take care of themselves." They care not how
widely they may prostrate the industry of the country, so as they
get a profitable trade to themselves. But the point they have now
to consider, _Can they secure this profitable trade to themselves_,
if the industrial resources of this country--in other words, their
customers' means of paying for their goods--are daily declining? That
our _imports_ are constantly increasing, is true: it is what the
Protectionists always predicted would be the case. But that increase is
no index to national prosperity: on the contrary, it is the forerunner
of national distress, because it implies a progressive supplanting of
our own industry by that of foreigners. The following extract from
the Returns for January 1850, ending 5th February 1850, will show how
largely the productions of foreign countries are trenching upon those
of our own:--

    Month ending 5th Feb. 1849.      1850.

  Silk, thrown, lbs.     13,847      71,600
  Sheep Wool,         1,212,993   1,957,632
  Gloves, pairs,        159,776     270,091
  Silk Broad Stuffs,     13,036      22,124
  ---- Ribbons,           8,946      13,768
  Potatoes, cwt.          6,793     190,511
  Bacon,    do.           2,537       8,036
  Beef,     do.           4,611       6,939
  Pork,     do.           2,038       6,308

It is the same with nearly all the other articles. How our
manufacturers and artisans are to go on, any more than our farmers,
striving against this prodigious and rapid increase of foreign
importations, it is for them to say; but probably experience will, ere
long, enlighten their understandings on this subject.

Indeed this inevitable reaction of domestic distress in trade, as
well as agriculture, against the Free Trade System, has already set
in. We make the following extracts from the Circular of Messrs T. &
H. Littledale & Co. of Liverpool, perhaps the greatest brokers in the
world, for Monday 4th March 1850:--

                       Import of Cotton.
                 From Jan. 1 to   From Jan. 1 to
                  March 5, 1849.  March 5, 1850.

  Bales,               328,523      267,666
  Sales of do.         464,070      368,950
  Home consumption,    305,040      207,960
  Stock at this date,  384,230      518,170

Here is a decline from 3 to 2 in all branches of the cotton trade,
since the two first months of last year, _except in stocks_, in which
there is an increase from 4 to 5¼. We recommend this to the attention
of the gentlemen in Manchester who introduced the Free Trade System.
We shall not imitate their example by saying it is a "Cotton Lord
Question," with which the public generally has no concern.

In the close of the same Circular it is stated:--

    "GENERAL REMARKS.--The month of February affords
    little matter for comment. It has been a particularly dull
    month in business, and, when contrasted with the energy and
    speculative excitement of January, the sudden change appears
    the more striking. There is probably no _one_ cause to which
    this can be attributed, but principally, no doubt, from a
    reaction, the invariable consequence of over-activity. The
    old complaints of railway depression and Continental disquiet
    may have had some influence, but the large arrivals of some
    articles, Tea, for instance, of which _twenty-five_ cargoes
    have come to hand in five weeks, and the near approach of the
    import season for Sugar, Coffee, and other produce, taken in
    connexion with the advance of prices at the opening of the
    year, have deterred the wholesale houses from operating beyond
    their immediate wants.

    "_Great complaints are made of the bad state of the country
    shopkeepers in the agricultural districts. We have closely
    questioned some of our wholesale grocers and tea-dealers, who
    assure us that there is no disguising the fact that such is the
    case, and that the general answer received from travellers is,
    'they can get neither money nor orders.'_ The serious falling
    off in the deliveries of sugar, coffee, tea, and cocoa, for
    the two months of this year, compared with those of the last,
    but too truly confirms these complaints, and are perhaps the
    most alarming features in our present prospects. As given in
    Prince's Public Prices Current of 1st inst. they stand as
    follows:--

                  1850.         1849.               1848.

  SUGAR,          37,006        43,408           42,368 tons.
  COFFEE,      3,795,712     4,907,691 pounds.
  COCOA,         450,774       558,888   "
  TEA,         5,375,648     5,502,931   "

    "The Chancellor's Budget is expected to be brought forward on
    the 15th instant, when some measure may possibly be proposed
    to check the unfair use of Chicory with Coffee; and to do
    this, it is thought by some that an equalisation of the Duties
    on Colonial and Foreign Coffee may be necessary; but, in the
    present relative position of prices here and on the Continent,
    the effect of such a change would not be much felt."

It is evident that squalls are approaching, which, indeed, under our
present Free Trade and Monetary System, are the inevitable results of
a brief period of prosperity; and let it be recollected, when another
crisis does arrive, as arrive it will, the consequences will be far
more disastrous than the last. _Then_ the agricultural interest was
prosperous, because the Corn Laws were not repealed; and the magnitude
of the Home Markets sustained the nation during the dreadful commercial
crisis which prostrated so large a part of the foreign manufacturers.
Now the case is just the reverse,--distress is beginning with the home
markets: and the agricultural population, so far from supporting the
manufacturing in their difficulties, will be fain to recur to them for
support in their distresses. Hundreds of thousands of agricultural
labourers, thrown out of bread by the effects of Free Trade, will be
crowding into the towns as they did into the great cities in the later
periods of the Roman Empire, in the hope of finding that employment
from the wealth of the urban population, or that relief from their
charities, which they can no longer look for in their native seats.

A highly distinguished officer and writer, who will not readily be
suspected of a leaning towards Tory principles, General Sir William
Napier, the eloquent historian of the Peninsular War, has lately
written a letter, which has appeared in the columns of the _Observer_,
portraying the effects of Free Trade upon the fate and independence of
the nation in future times, in such powerful and graphic colours, that
we cannot resist the satisfaction of giving it additional publicity
through the columns of this Magazine:--

    "MAJOR-GENERAL SIR WILLIAM NAPIER'S OPINION OF FREE TRADE GENERALLY.

    _"Extract from a Letter to Mr Lloyd Caldecot._

    "Free Trade means an unrestricted intercourse, and exchange of
    productions, natural or artificial, amongst all the civilised
    nations of the world. Trace the effect of this general Free
    Trade, if such a thing could be attained. It must be that all
    nations, according to their skill and energy, will draw forth
    and make the most of their natural productions: one nation
    may be a little more skilful, a little more energetic than
    the rest; but, generally speaking, the amount of civilisation
    and consequent knowledge will be equal at first, or will be
    soon equalised by this free intercourse. Will not the result
    be, that each nation must take rank in the world according
    to the extent of its natural and artificial resources. What
    will that lead to? Why, that England will sink from the first
    rank in the world to the fifth or sixth rank, as it cannot be
    contended that her natural resources, though now more drawn
    forth, are really equal to those of North America, of Russia,
    of France, of Germany, or even of Spain and Italy; and we may
    look forward to the South American kingdoms, and independent
    Canada, and Australia, as countries destined to overtop her.
    It will be said, Englishmen are braver, more enterprising and
    skilful, than other people; more thoughtful and long-sighted.
    That would be a poor argument, and a presumptuous one, as
    regards Frenchmen and Americans, and would be no argument at
    all against Australians and Canadians, both being Saxon. But if
    it were a solid ground for hope, how is it that those superior
    qualities can be brought into play? Why, surely, by subtle
    contrivances of policy, which will give them free scope. What
    are those contrivances? Commercial treaties, supported by arms;
    that is the policy which has, and the only policy which can,
    raise a small country, like England, to be the head of the
    world. How else has she risen? Can it be supposed that a plain,
    unambitious policy of merely exchanging productions with other
    nations will raise her, or keep her, above her natural level?
    No! she must use her subtilty to overreach other nations, and
    her energy and courage to maintain her superiority; and then,
    with war and overreaching, away goes Free Trade. If courage,
    energy, and subtilty are laid aside, England sinks, as I said,
    to a fifth-rate power, because her natural resources are less
    than those of other nations; and, by Free Trade, she shall
    teach those who do not know their own resources how to find
    their value.

    "The world is not now as it was two hundred years ago. There
    are no new countries to discover,--no new sources of riches
    that can be held in monopoly, or to be found out of the
    bounds of the civilised world. Look at California. Can the
    Americans keep it to themselves? All the world goes there.
    England must then give up her commercial policy, which for
    centuries, whether good or bad, has certainly been compatible
    with advancing greatness, and she must start in a new race,
    with nations superior to her in natural resources, and with
    the weight of £800,000,000 of debt on her back; and to obtain
    even a place in this race, proposed by herself, she must
    break up all her artificial system, with the social relations
    established under it; thus destroying the fortunes and
    happiness of multitudes, inviting revolution, and risking the
    extinction of her debt, which will add hundreds of thousands of
    miserable broken creditors to the multitude of revolutionists.

    "Well, she may survive all this, and, perhaps, be happier
    within her natural bounds; but she cannot be a great nation;
    and she has to choose between her present greatness and an
    uncertain prospect of humbler content, to which she must wade
    amidst blood and social commotion. But will she be allowed
    to enjoy that humbler contentment? Will not ambition stir
    other nations, when they find their power to oppress her?
    What will her courage avail her then? Modern warfare depends
    entirely upon mechanical and manufacturing resources, in which
    her enemies will have a lead over her, because their natural
    resources are greater, and Free Trade will have taught them how
    to make the most of them.

    "I do not give you all this dogmatically, but I cannot myself
    see that Free Trade will produce any other results; and I look
    upon it as certain, that if other nations do not adopt our Free
    Trade notions, that we cannot put them in practice without
    destroying the National Debt: in other words, a fatal struggle
    between the landed and moneyed interest.

    "Free Trade for England is, I think, well illustrated by the
    story of the bear in Marryat's _Captain Violet_:--'Bruin being
    up a peach-tree, was vigorously shaking down the fruit for his
    own eating, but a hog was below very complacently eating the
    peaches as they fell, and expressing by grunts his satisfaction
    at the bear's generosity.'--Yours, &c.,

  "Feb. 2, 1850.      WILLIAM NAPIER."

This is ably and manfully spoken. That it is true, is now in the course
of such clear demonstration to the nation, that it will ere long bring
home conviction to the most prejudiced. But it is a curious fact,
illustrative of the truth of the principles we have so long maintained
in this Magazine, that such an exposition of the effects which Reform
has produced, by vesting the government of the nation in the urban
constituencies, should come from a gallant officer, the historian on
Whig principles of the Peninsular War, and whose zeal for Reform was
known to have been so ardent, that certain proposals were made to him
from a certain quarter when "the Bill" was thought to be endangered,
which he at once spurned, as might have been expected from a soldier
and gentleman of his elevated character.

There is another Napier equally celebrated on another element, whose
opinions have been recently as strongly expressed on the effects of
Reform, and its offspring Free Trade, on our national defences. All the
world is familiar with the energetic letter which Admiral Sir Charles
Napier has lately published, on the alarming decline of our naval
forces. It may be that our Manchester politicians, and their disciples
in the Cabinet, by studying their Trades' Circulars, and occasionally
sharpening their intellects by declamations on the hustings on the
extravagance of the national armaments, and the expediency of selling
our ships of the line and disbanding our troops in anticipation of the
millennium which is approaching, are better judges of the probable
issue of a land contest than the Duke of Wellington, whose opinion
has been equally strongly expressed on the subject, or the historian
of, and actor in, the Peninsular War; and of the chances of maritime
warfare, than the hero who saved the Turkish empire from dismemberment
at Acre, and established the throne of Don Pedro by the victory of
Lisbon. That is no doubt possible, though we can hardly regard it as
very probable. But if such a catastrophe, as our immortal Field-Marshal
and these two very eminent Liberals anticipate, does occur--if Great
Britain, cast down to the rank of a fifth-rate power, finds its
maritime superiority destroyed, and its colonies lost--if its fleets
are blockaded in their harbours, and its manufacturing millions are
thrown back on ruined landlords and bankrupt master-manufacturers for
their daily bread, let it be always recollected it is no more than has
been distinctly foreshadowed to them by those best qualified to form
a correct judgment on the subject, and no more than they have brought
upon themselves, by their blind adherence to a selfish policy.

To all these disasters, present and future, the Free-traders have
one set-off to apply, and that is the increased consumption of food,
which they suppose has taken place in the country in consequence
of their measures. Sir R. Peel contended strongly that the five
million quarters of wheat alone imported in 1849, afforded decisive
evidence of the increased wellbeing of the working classes. If the
right honourable Baronet will take the trouble to travel through any
of the grain districts of the country, he will perceive at once how
fallacious this argument is. The barnyards never were so full at this
season in any former year. Every farmer has held his stock who was not
forced to sell. The nation has, since the last harvest, been fed by
foreigners to an unprecedented extent. Ten millions has been sent out
of the country to buy foreign wheat, and, of course, lost to British
industry. The five million quarters of wheat imported have been less
an addition to the national consumption, than a _transference_ of that
consumption from British farmers to foreigners. At least a half of the
present harvest will be rolled over to next year. If we are blessed
with another fine harvest, there will be the crop of a year and a half,
besides ten or twelve millions imported in 1851, to stock the market.
Prices in all probability will be much lower than they are at present.

We are always reminded that in 1835 prices were 39s. 5d. on an average
of the year for wheat. True, and why was that? Because we had had
_four_ fine harvests in succession; so fine that the importation of
wheat, on an average of five years ending with 1835, had been only
398,000 quarters a-year. _Now_ one fine harvest and the importation
have done the whole. But we are indebted to the Free-traders for so
often reminding us of the low prices of 1835. They demonstrate that the
nation in good seasons can feed itself in the most affluent degree.
Foreign importation, therefore, except in bad years, is unnecessary;
and all the destruction of domestic industry it produces is as
unnecessary as it is short-sighted.

It will appear the most extraordinary of all phenomena to future ages,
that a nation which has, like the British, successfully resisted the
attacks of external enemies, and incessantly grown and prospered,
though with occasional disaster, during more than a thousand years--and
which has in our own recollection repelled the attacks and overthrown
the powers of the greatest coalition ever formed against a single
state, directed by the most consummate ability which has appeared in
modern times--should in this manner voluntarily descend from its high
position, surrender its power, starve down its armaments, and drive
headlong on the road to ruin, for the supposed advantage of a limited
class in its bosom. But the marvel ceases when the composition of its
society, and the prevailing feelings of the section of the people in
whom supreme power is now vested, is taken into consideration. That
class is the mercantile, or rather shopkeeper class; and with them
the money power is all powerful. Three-fifths of the seats in the
House of Commons, let it ever be recollected, are for boroughs; and
two-thirds of the constituents of every borough are shopkeepers or
those whom they influence. This is the decisive circumstance, which
has changed the whole policy of England, since the Reform Bill, and in
its ultimate consequences is destined, to all appearance, to produce
the national disasters which many of its warmest supporters now so
feelingly deplore. To the modern rulers of the British nation, to the
constituents of the majority of the House of Commons, to buy cheap
_and to sell dear_ is the great object of ambition. They have gained
the first; let them see whether they will secure the last. Let them
see whether, amidst the ruin of the agricultural interest, and the
declining circumstances of all trades, which are exposed to the effects
of foreign competition, they, the _sellers_ of commodities, will make
their fortunes. If they do, it will be a new era in society; for it
will be one in which the trading class amass riches in consequence of
the ruin of their customers.

On this account there are Protectionists who deprecate any attempt
to displace the Government at this time, or force upon a reluctant
majority in the House of Commons a change in the present commercial
policy of the country. It is said that Free Trade, though it has been
in operation for three years and a-half, has not had a fair trial;
the Irish famine, the failure of £15,000,000 worth of produce out of
£30,000,000 worth in a single year, did all the mischief. Be it so. Let
Free Trade have a fair trial. Let the shopkeepers see what benefit they
are likely practically to gain by the ruin of their customers. They
have the Government in their hands, because they have the appointment
of a majority in the House of Commons. The agricultural interest, the
colonies, the shipping interest, the small manufacturing interest, are
to all practical purposes disfranchised. Let the trading classes, then,
feel the effects of their own measures. These will be such that they
_cannot_ continue. Ere long a change of policy, and probably of rulers,
will be forced upon Government by the universal cry of suffering. But
let them recollect that it is _their_ measures which are now on their
trial; that theirs will be the responsibility if they fail; and that if
the empire is dismembered, and the national independence lost, theirs
will be the present loss, and theirs the eternal infamy.




BRITAIN'S PROSPERITY.

A NEW SONG, WHICH OUGHT TO HAVE BEEN SUNG BY THE PREMIER AT THE OPENING
OF PARLIAMENT.


I.

    News for you, gentlemen! Here is prosperity,
        Fat and fullhanded, arrived at our door:
    Crashes, disaster, and famine's severity,
        Never can harass or trouble us more.
            No miching malecho!
            Spin away calico!
        Never saw man such a prospect before!


II.

    All things are cheapened. Good sirs, in the galleries,
        Pray bear this cheerful announcement in mind--
    All things are down--except Ministers' salaries,
        Taxes, and some little jobs of the kind.
            Small trades are finishing,
            Wages diminishing--
        That is the way to be happy, you'll find.


III.

    Wheat's at a price that won't pay for the growing it,
        That is to say, if we cultivate here;
    Why should we therefore persist, sirs, in sowing it?
        Beautiful markets are plenty and near.
            Hang the home labourer!
            Buy from your neighbour, or
        Any one else, so you don't buy it dear.


IV.

    True pioneers of a better and brighter age,
        We have diminished the charges for freight;
    Some little dues there may still be for "lighterage,"[4]
        But, on the whole, 'tis a moderate rate.
            Wheat for a guinea a
            Load from Volhynia
        Comes to your shores, and is lodged at your gate.

[4] _Vide_ the _Economist, passim_; more especially that amusing and
delectable series of articles, penned for the purpose of demonstrating
that Free Trade enhances the value of grain.


V.

    Huxtable's pigs, though replete with ammonia,
        Never worked any such wonders as these;
    Barley from Mecklenburg, grain from Polonia,
        Butter from Holland, American cheese;
            Bacon gratuitous,
            Cargoes fortuitous,
        Float to our coasts with each prosperous breeze.


VI.

    What need we care though a desperate peasantry
        Prowl round the stackyards with tinder and match?
    Blandly we'll smile at such practical pleasantry:
        Downing Street is not surmounted by thatch.
            We're not prohibiting
            Some gentle gibbeting
        When the poor starving delinquents you catch.


VII.

    Cobden, our oracle, swears it is vanity
        Ever to dream of protection again:
    Wilson declares it is downright insanity,
        Also he proves it by figures and pen.
            Sheets arithmetical,
            Clearly prophetical,
        Flow from the quills of these eminent men.


VIII.

    Likewise M'Gregor, that brilliant Glaswegian,
        Whom we desiderate always to speak,
    Hath, by the aid of some second-sight Stygian,
        Promised us shortly two millions per week.
            "Whaur shall we pit it, sirs?"--
            Wait till you get it, sirs!
        Zooks! what a prospect of bubble and squeak!


IX.

    As for you paltry persisting Protectionists,
        Why should you prate of the labourer's cause?
    Don't you observe you are mere Resurrectionists
        Trying to get at the grave of the laws?
            Honest Peel strangled them,
            Then the Whigs mangled them,
        Coffined, and sank them with Cobden's applause.


X.

    Any such notions I think you had best bury
        Deep in the grave where your idol is laid:
    Then, from the lips of the member for Westbury,
        Take a sound lesson in matters of trade.
            List to his prophecies--
            We'll keep our offices
        Snug, till your final conversion is made.


XI.

    Deuce take those breechesless rascals the Highlanders!
        Let them go starve on their beggarly hills:
    Irish impostors, and kelp-making Islanders,
        Can't they find room in our poor-law Bastilles?
            Or, for variety,
            Though there's satiety,
        Let them be packed to the calico mills!


XII.

    Wages must tumble, like leaves in a hurricane,
        Under this grand competition for work:
    Britons shall toil for the Jew and American,
        Chinaman, Spaniard, Mulatto, and Turk--
            Each village Hannibal,
            Fierce as a cannibal,
        Eyeing his neighbour like Bishop or Burke!


XIII.

    These are the triumphs of science political--
        These are the views by the Whigs patronised.
    Tories may scout them; but, ne'ertheless, it I call
        Such a grand scheme as was seldom devised.
            How is it robbery?
            Cheapness and jobbery
        Are the twin saints whom we've just canonised.


XIV.

    Under the free-trading auspices, true it is
        Some time or other taxation may pinch.
    Then for a shy at the Funds and Annuities!
        We'll take a yard since you gave us an inch.
            Hush, Mr Newdegate!
            Why not repudiate,
        Just as was done by the pupils of Lynch?


XV.

    Worthy Sir Robert, that statesman immaculate,
        Doubled his fortune by doubling the pound:
    Even the wisest may sometimes miscalculate--
        Surely he will not object to refund?
            "That were a merry go!
            See you at Jericho!"
        O--very well--I abandon that ground.


XVI.

    Shortly--I say, with habitual _bonhomie_,
        Everything's quite as we Ministers wish,
    Plenty and peace are combined with economy,
        Food is abundant--provide you the dish.
            Pay to the foreigner,
            Peasant and mariner,
        All you can raise for your loaf and your fish.


XVII.

    Banish all notions of British ascendency,
        Let them be wiped from our memory quite;
    Modern views have an opposite tendency,
        As hath been clearly expounded by Bright.
            Let us be sensible--
            Britain's defensible,
        Not by brute force, but by maxims of right.


XVIII.

    We, for the voice of the populace amorous,
        Willing to do anything they require,
    Shall, if hereafter they chance to grow clamorous,
        Yield just precisely the thing they desire:
            We are quite ready to
            March with a steady toe
        Out of the frying-pan into the fire.


XIX.

    Stink, like the inmates of Huxtable's piggery,
        Up to the knees in an exquisite draff,
    Stand the determined apostles of Whiggery,
        Chewing the grain, and rejecting the chaff.
            Ay, Mr Huxtable!
            Not from your muck stable,
        Issues so hearty a grunting or laugh!


XX.

    This, I maintain, of our state is the very type--
        Joseph's fat cattle and atrophied kine.
    We, for the first, may be ta'en by Daguerreotype:
        Who are the second, you well may divine.
            Yea, of a verity!
            Britain's prosperity,
        Means nothing else than the measure of mine!




MY PENINSULAR MEDAL.

BY AN OLD PENINSULAR.


PART V.--CHAPTER XII.

On reaching the General's quarters, I thought it best not to report
myself to his Excellency, till I had seen Captain Gabion again. While
waiting in the street, I noticed a small shop, the open window of
which exhibited not only a choice assortment of straw cigars, but
bread, bacon, sausages, eggs, articles all equally attractive to
travellers who had not dined. Reminded, by the sight, that this was
precisely my own condition, I stepped in; hoping to find something
that might support exhausted nature, during the awful interval that
seemed likely to intervene, ere we could halt for the night, and think
about cooking. The eggs, white, large, and pellucid, claimed a trial;
and the yolk of the first I cracked went down whole like an oyster,
with such a delicious gulp, that I was about to attack a second, when
I was interrupted by a voice from the back of the shop, "Nó, nó,
señor." Looking in that direction, I perceived six or eight persons
crouching round a small fire on the hearth. On walking towards them,
I found my two Capatazes, and a party of their muleteers, all on a
broad grin at my recent exploit in egg-sucking. The Spanish Capataz
arose; politely observed that roast eggs are better than raw; and, with
equal politeness taking that which I held in my hand, cracked it at
one end, and stuck it upright in the hot embers. Fully acquiescing in
this arrangement, and determined to carry it out, I was returning to
the counter for another egg; but was anticipated by the Capataz, who
selected a couple, observing that he had great knowledge in choosing
eggs. These he set in the embers, by the side of the former, first
opening a safety-valve in each. Never having known, before, how to
roast an egg, I did not regret this lesson in the art of extempore
cookery. And I beg to state that a roast egg--_so_ roasted, _i. e._
done slowly in the embers, "ovum ad prunas cocked 'em" (you see, the
Romans also set them upright)--not only is altogether a different
sort of thing from a boiled egg, but beats it to sticks: especially
if washed down, as mine were on the present occasion, with a cup or
two of good sound Spanish wine out of a leathern bag. For the Capataz,
insisting that eating without drinking was bad for the digestion,
transferred the wine from the leather to the horn, with an air of
benignity that was perfectly irresistible. In short, he would take
no denial. I was also glad of this little rencontre in the shop, for
another reason--because it tended to establish amicable relations
between me and the muleteers, which was just what I wanted. Having
chatted a few minutes with my polite entertainers, I thanked them for
their _cortesia_, and walked towards the counter, to settle for the
eggs. How now? There's nothing to settle! The eggs are paid for! This
was a touch of high Spanish breeding, that quite took me by surprise--I
demurred. The big jolly old Spaniard, though, stepped forward with his
hand on his breast, self-congratulation twinkling in his eyes, and a
profusion of very profound but silent bows. I really could not find
it in my heart to break his, by saying anything more about the eggs.
In short, I and all the muleteers gradually became very good friends;
and as for my entertainer on the present occasion, had he known I was
thinking of buying a mule, I have no manner of doubt he would forthwith
have made me a _bonâ fide_ offer of the best in his batch, and thanked
me for accepting it.

Just as I emerged from the shop, Jones came pelting by on
the pony--pulled up the moment he saw me--and owned himself
conscience-stricken by rushing into self-vindication. "Please, sir, I
jest only brought the poor hannibal here from the river, sir; 'cause
why, sir?--'cause I thought you had done with him, sir. Been all about,
looking for a stable, sir. Can't find no corner nowhere, not to shove
the poor hannibal in, sir. Couldn't you be so kind and speak to that
'ere hofficer, sir? Have'nt had no time to think of cooking dinner,
sir. Very long march we've had to-day, sir. Very bad thing sitch long
marches for poor soldiers, sir. Got a bullet in my leg, sir."

"Well," said I, "you've no occasion to trouble yourself about dinner,
nor yet about a stable. I expect we have at least two leagues more to
cover, before we halt for the night."

Jones tuned as black as thunder. His look was perfectly savage.

"Well, Jones, it can't be helped, man. You yourself must see there's
not room for us here."

"Please, sir," replied Jones, "I know there isn't, sir. Only I thought
p'rhaps you'd speak to the hofficer, sir. And in course, as he's a
friend, I thought he'd see to it, sir, and make room, sir."

"No, no--I tell you it won't do. As soon as the men have got their
rations, we must move on."

The word "rations" wrought an immediate change in Jones's agonising
visage. "Oh, very well, sir," said he--"then we gits our rations
here, does we, sir? Please, sir, if I might make bold to aast the
question--which is it, sir?"

"Which is it? I suppose beef as usual; bread if they've got any. I
don't know what else it's likely to be."

"Beg your pardon, sir," replied Jones; "but I did'nt mean about the
whittles, sir. What I means is the liquor, sir. 'Cause p'rhaps its
that 'ere poor, nasty, green, hungry, skinny wine as we got in Spain,
sir; that what giz the men the hayger, sir. Or p'rhaps, may be, its
sperrits, sir; if so be we've come into the brandy, what the men gits
here in France, sir. That's the liquor to march upon, sir. Fine rations
thim is for poor soldiers, sir. Oh, be-youti-ful, sir! Takes the skin
off the roof of your mouth, sir."

"Well; we shall soon see which it is."

"Yes, sir," said Jones in a lower voice, coming nearer, and touching
his peak. "But please, sir, that isn't what I meant to hintimate, sir.
Please, sir, wouldn't you have the kineness, sir, and jest speak a word
to the hofficer for the fut-soldiers, sir. 'Cause p'rhaps the rations
is only some on it sperrits, sir; not enough for all on us, fut and
horse, sir. Please, sir, only because we poor fut-soldiers wants it
more, sir; 'cause, ye see, we goes on fut, sir; which them fellers
doesn't want it as doesn't go on fut, sir; 'cause they rides, sir."

"No, no; I'm not going to interfere in a thing of that sort; nor is it
likely the Captain would. Besides, what could _he_ do?"

"What could _he_ do, sir?" said Jones. "Bless your heart, sir, if he
chose to speak a word for me, sir, he could git me a horder to ride a
mule all the way to headquarters, sir; one of the spare uns, sir. Got a
bullet in my leg, sir."

"Well, Jones, _how_ did you get it? You haven't told me that yet."

"Oh, nothing pertikler more than others, sir. Got it near Pampelona,
sir. That 'ere Ginneral Soult thought he was too many for us, sir; but
we soon let him see as we was too many for him, sir. Please, sir, I
laid eighteen hours on the ground, sir, afore I was picked up, sir. The
wolves came down in the night, and smelt to me, sir."

Our disquisition was interrupted by the approach of Captain Gabion.

"I've settled it for you," said the Captain. "Have you seen the
General?"

"I wished to ask you about it first. Any particular etiquette?"

"Oh yes," said the Captain; "I forgot to tell you. Please mind. When
you've reported yourself, if his Excellency remains silent, and takes
no notice, bolt. If he remains silent, but looks up at you, back slowly
towards the door, looking at him. If he looks up at his aide-de-camp,
keep where you are, don't stir. Perhaps the aide will take you to the
window, or into another room, and ask you a question or two."

The actual interview, though, did not terminate precisely as the
Captain anticipated. I was ushered into a small parlour, and there
found two military officers. One of them, the General in command of the
British forces before Bayonne, Sir John Hope, was reclining on a sofa.
He had not yet recovered from the severe wound in the ankle received
in December, near Barrouilhet; and his countenance bore the marks of
illness--perhaps it might be said, of suffering. Yet his aspect, even
in the attitude of repose, at once arrested the eye. Tall, athletic,
and dignified,

    "He lay like a warrior taking his rest,
     With his martial cloak around him."

I saw before me one of the bravest, the most
distinguished, the most trusted of the Generals who fought and
conquered under Wellington; him whom Wellington himself had pronounced
the "ablest officer in the army." Little did I dream that, in less than
five weeks from this very interview, when war was supposed to be at an
end, and ere he had fully recovered from his present injury, he was to
be roused--perhaps from that couch--by martial sounds at dead of night,
to be wounded a second time, taken prisoner, and carried off in triumph
into the city which he now besieged! The other person present was an
aide-de-camp, who sat at a table writing. I reported myself and party.

"Yes, I have heard, sir," said his Excellency, speaking, apparently,
with some degree of effort. "Should have been happy to have given
you quarters here to-night; but it's impossible: we are quite full.
You must proceed, with your convoy and escort, till you regain the
high-road, then take the first quarters you can find. Every man's good
wishes will attend you, for you bring what we are all in want of.
To-morrow you will have all the easier march to Dax. Do not, on any
account, go further than Dax to-morrow: that is where you are to be
to-morrow night. I wish you to be particular in attending to this. Good
afternoon, sir."

On returning to the street, I found our whole party far more reconciled
than I had expected to the idea of proceeding. Mr Chesterfield had
already remounted. The mules had now been kept standing, with their
loads on their backs, more than half-an-hour; and the two Capatazes
received the announcement with great equanimity, each after the manner
of his own nation. The Spaniard, as gravely as though uttering some
time-honoured adage of his race, observed that a long march to-day
makes a short march to-morrow, and that travelling tires a loaded mule,
but resting kills him; while the Portuguese contented himself with a
shrug of the shoulders and a _paciencia_--the two great remedies of
his countrymen for all the troubles that flesh is heir to. Jones stood
close at my elbow, with a face as festive now as it was ruthful not
long before. "Please, sir," said he, "it's sperrits for all the party,
sir. The hofficer has done it very handsome, sir. Don't care now if we
marches all night, sir."

Just as we were moving, I was joined once more by Captain Gabion, who
came on with us a little way, walking by the side of my pony, and
bearing in his hand a small parcel. "You can't imagine, Mr Y----," said
he, "how _very_ much I feel annoyed that we can't accommodate you."

"Pray, don't mention it," said I. "In two or three hours we shall be
under cover."

"Yes," replied the captain, in a consolatory tone. "But then it's such
a shocking bad evening. Why, you'll be drenched to the skin."

"Well, never mind that. I must change when I get in."

"Ah! but then you'll find it such a dreadful road," said he. "The lane
is nothing but slush and quagmire from one end to the other."

"No matter. We must pick our way through it as well as we can, and get
out of it as soon as possible."

"Yes," said he, "so you must. But then it's so dismally long--a league
and a half, if not near upon two."

"No matter, no matter; we shall find the end of it, sooner or later, I
hope."

"How unfortunate, though, you ride a pony!" said he. "Why, you'd get
through a thousand times better on horseback. You'll be caked with dirt
up to your middle."

"Oh, never mind that. Dirt will brush off."

"Ah! I only wish you could have started earlier," said the captain.
"It's now just upon sunset; and, with such a night as this, in another
half-hour or so you'll have it pitch-dark."

"Well, we must do the best we can, you know. If we can't see our way,
we must feel it."

"Yes, that's just what I was thinking," said he. "You'll have to grope
for it, no doubt. But then, unfortunately, from the present state of
the road, you'll find that far from agreeable. One time you'll lay hold
of a dead bullock; another, of a dead man."

"Never mind, never mind. Of course, in the dark, we shan't be able to
tell the difference, so it won't matter which."

"Hang it all!" said Captain Gabion. "I can't express to you how vexed I
feel on your account. Why, I came through this lane myself a day or two
ago, and could hardly get along, though it was daylight. What will you
ever do, with all this convoy at your heels, passing it by night? Why,
it's darker already than when you started."

"Well, at any rate we shall have a hedge on each side of us. That will
tell us where we are, if we have no other clue."

"Yes, yes," said he; "very true; so it will. It's dreadful slow work,
though, feeling your way, after dark, through a long, puddly lane,
knee-deep in mire, by the help of the hedge--especially if there
happens to be a ditch between, which you'll find to be the case. In
short, I'm so perfectly convinced you'll be stuck for the night, I
shall make a point to-morrow of sending a working party, before noon,
if possible, to dig you all out; that is, if you are to be found above
the surface. If not, you know, we must bore for you, or sink a shaft."

"Thank you, thank you; much obliged. Hope you'll remember and send some
breakfast at the same time."

"Why, Mr Y----," roared Captain Gabion, bursting into an incontrollable
fit of laughter, "I really do think you'll make a good campaigner in
time--that is, if you have practice enough. Well, now I must say good
evening, and leave you to pursue your journey. My boots are thin, and
the lane is getting soppy. By the bye, Mr Y----, I don't suppose I have
anything to offer that you are not well provided with; but allow me to
ask, how are you off for cigars?"

"Cigars? Of course, in France, cigars may be bought anywhere and
everywhere. Haven't above a day's provision, if I have that."

"Oh! haven't you, though?" said Captain Gabion. "Then just do
me the favour to accept of this small package. You'll find them
capital--Spanish cigars. Here, let me stow them in your coat pocket.
That's it. No fear of their getting wet. It's a small box, lined with
metal. Let me advise you: never smoke a French cigar, except when you
can't get Spanish: enough to make a horse sick. How do you suppose I
obtained them? One of the staff was sent into Bayonne with a flag of
truce: found the French officers living like princes: happened to say,
no good cigars to be got outside. Didn't they laugh at him? Gave him a
dozen little boxes, though; did them up for him in a wrapper of skyblue
silk. Don't you call that handsome? I got two of the boxes: that in
your pocket is one. Good night."

It soon became too evident, as we proceeded on our march, that Captain
Gabion had given no exaggerated description of the route now before us.
The surface of the soil, near the river, was a loose sand or rubble.
But this gradually disappeared in the lane, and was succeeded by a
subsoil of thick clay, equally soft, soppy, and tenacious--poached,
too, by the passage of cavalry and commissariat bullocks, and trenched
by waggons and artillery. There were, indeed, but few parts of the
road, except where it was actually kneaded into slush, traversed by
water-courses, or occupied all across by plashy inundations, where a
careful walker might not have picked his way, without absolute danger
of detention or absorption. But, with a party like ours, picking was
not always so easy. Regularity there was none; each managed for himself
as he was able. With all the disadvantage of her little feet, Nanny
managed best; where she could not walk, she jumped. Next to her, in
succession, the infantry and muleteers did tolerably well: the mules
did better than could be expected. The riders got on worst of any. Our
line became considerably extended. Here there was a stoppage; there a
break; and the length of road which we occupied far exceeded marching
order. Superintendence became next to impracticable; for, in so narrow
a space, with a hedge and ditch on each side, it was no easy matter
to pass from one part of the line to another. Two or three times, I
noticed, Corporal Fraser made his way to the head of the column; and,
standing up when he found a place, allowed the whole to pass, counting
the mules, as on our previous day's march. Seeing the impossibility of
preserving strict regularity, Mr Chesterfield requested me to proceed
in front with a few of the men, while he brought up the rear, that, at
least, all might be kept together. I accordingly made my way forwards,
and led the march, receiving occasional communications from Corporal
Fraser. Our difficulties, however, increased as we advanced. Daylight
rapidly declined--twilight was short--it fell dark. Fancy, under such
circumstances, a party like ours, horsemen, footmen, mules, muleteers,
floundering about in a narrow lane, which, in fact, was an elongated
bog; the rain coming down in torrents; the muleteers now shouting, now
screaming; the soldiers, horse and foot, making their way onwards, as
best they could, in silence; with every now and then a stoppage, from
a mule that had stuck fast, or fallen under its burden--objects not
distinguishable, barely discernible--and, where the road was overhung
with trees, all gloom around; nothing visible but the faint, uncertain
glimmer beyond. The behaviour of the soldiers, on the whole, I must
say, was such as to do them credit. Now and then a fellow broke away
through the hedge, in hope of finding a better road on the other side.
But that was generally more toil than profit. They came upon unexpected
obstacles, and had to return into the lane. In fact, this, I take it,
is a maxim in marching: Unless you know the country, and know it well,
however bad the road, keep it; don't straggle, or try short cuts.

Riding on at the head of the party, I attempted to pick my way as
far as I could see it, by making Sancho go as I thought best. This
led to frequent contests between Sancho and me. Sometimes he had his
way, and we got on well. Sometimes I was positive and had mine, which
generally led to a plunge and a splash. Tired of this, I dismounted
and led him. Still it was troublesome work. Sancho thought he knew
better than I did; and often, when I pulled one way, he pulled the
other. At length I gave up the contest, led him with a slack rein, and
pulled no longer. This was just what he wanted; and, left to himself,
he picked his way admirably. I noticed, as we passed, several such
obstructions as Captain Gabion had described; and, once or twice, came
very disagreeably in contact with them. At length I stumbled over I
knew not what, and almost fell; took hold of something on the ground:
it was a cold hand that did not return my grasp! Are you a poor man?
Do you shake hands with rich men? You will understand the kind of
thing. Not relishing such salutations, I was induced to try a different
dodge; and, finding that Sancho went very well with a slack rein while
I walked, thought perhaps he might still do the same if I mounted.
Turning for that purpose, I saw, close at hand, in the gloom of night,
what looked very like a ghost!--the ghost of myself! Here was I, bridle
in hand, standing at Sancho's head. And there was I, _alter ego_,
mounted on Sancho's back! While I looked, my mounted double suddenly
disappeared! The spectral evaporation was attended with a wallop in the
mud; then, close behind Sancho's heels, arose the same dark figure from
the earth--and as it rose it spoke! "Please, sir, I only got across
him jest to keep him steady sir, going through the mud, sir. Hope no
offence, sir. Got a bullet in my leg, sir." True to his principle, of
never walking when he could ride, and, dark as it was, detecting an
empty saddle, Jones had promptly occupied it; and, repressing his usual
loquacity, had been riding close behind me, a silent spectator of all
my pedestrian misadventures. On my turning to mount, conscious guilt,
as it always did when he was taken _en flagrant delit_, threw him off
his guard; and, too much flurried to alight in the usual way, he had
effected a retrograde descent, by a parabolic flight over the pony's
tail. The impetus thus acquired carried him further than he intended.
He fell soft; but he fell--not on his feet. Perceiving by my laughter
that I bore no malice, he promptly stepped forward, rubbed his hands on
his trousers, helped me to mount, and walked on by my side. "Please,
sir," said he, "I'm afeared I've split 'em, sir. It did come so very
cold when I squattered down in the puddle, sir."--(No reply.)

"Please, sir, I'm thinking we shan't want good quarters when we gits
furder on, sir." (Pause.) "Nor yit nothing what soldiers wants, when
we gits well on into France, sir." (Another pause.) "Please, sir,
I'm thinking its very cruel on service, sir, when there's whittles
and drink, plenty on it, close to hand, sir, as they won't let poor
soldiers help themselves, sir."

"Oh, then I suppose the soldiers never do."

"Please, sir, I s'pose they don't; not never, sir. In course not, sir.
But then it's this, sir. If the Provost comes and you're cotched, sir,
why, it's a couple of dozen for only taking an old shutter to bile a
kittle, sir."

"Tight hand, the Provost-marshal?"

"Once, I was inamost cotched myself, sir. Please, sir, it was three
on us, as got into a farm-house, sir; an empty house, what wasn't
inhabited, sir. Looked up the chimbly, sir; 'cause that's where they
hangs up the yams to smoke 'em, sir. There they was, sir; oh, sich a
lot on 'em, as you couldn't count 'em, sir. So I fixes bagonets, and
forks down a pair on 'em, sir: and jest as I was a-going to fork down
another for myself, sir, along come the Provost, sir. So he see the
window open, sir; 'cause the door was fastened, sir; so we got in at
the window, sir. So he got in too, sir. The other fellows was cotched,
and got it, sir; but I wasn't, sir; so I didn't, sir."

"Turn king's evidence?"

"Please, sir, it wasn't not likely as I should do that, sir; 'cause I
scorns any sitch low-lived ways, sir. Only when I heard the Provost
a-coming, sir, I got up into the chimbly, sir; and when he was gone,
sir, why then I got down agin, sir. Got safe back to quarters, sir,
with a yam under my greet-coat, sir."

"Of course the inhabitants must be protected, and so must their
property."

"Well, p'rhaps they must if they're frinds, sir; though I nivver see'd
what frinds the Spaniards was to me, sir. But here in France, where us
now be, sir, I doesn't see why poor soldiers shouldn't help themselves,
sir; and men's bin scragged for it, sir, let alone the Provost, sir."

"I trust we shall find the people here, if we treat them well, better
friends than you did the Spaniards."

"Please, sir, if two hofficers dines togither four or five times
a-week, sir, that's what I calls being friends, sir. Hope I shall find
plenty sitch, and you too, sir. Hope no offence, sir." (Pause.) "Might
I make bold to aast the question, sir? The men says, as soon as we
jines, we shall move on aginst the hinnimy, sir."

"Shouldn't wonder."

"Please, sir, I should like to pick off that 'ere feller as put a
bullet into me, sir; jest knock him over, sir, as he did me, sir."

"Sure you would know him again, though?"

"No doubt of that, sir. I know him by the way he cocks his eye down on
his firelock, sir. Could pick him out of a whole ridgment on 'em, sir."

We had now been toiling on, through mire and puddles, for about a
brace of hours; and I know not how much longer our conference might
have continued; but, looking forwards, at a part where the lane was
more than usually darkened by over-arching trees, I perceived, at the
extremity of the vista, a light less dim than hitherto. Hurra! we had
reached the main road. I passed the intelligence; a shout ran down
the line, and came back to us from the rear; and, reaching at length
the paved highway--it was like landing on _terra firma_, I took my
stand to the right of the embouchure, while weary men and weary beasts
slowly and successively emerged from the dark recess, and filed off to
the left along the road. At this moment the rain began to moderate;
the clouds lifted in the east; the blowzy moon looked down on us from
silver peaks, that crested the distant Pyrenees; and, favoured by
her light, after an additional half-hour's marching we reached our
halting-place. Mr Chesterfield and I established headquarters at a
small _auberge_, stowed the money-boxes, saw to the accommodation of
the party, and were fortunate enough to secure a couple of rooms, each
with a comfortable bed.

Walking down into the lower part of the house, I found Jones already
at work, busying himself, much to the amusement of the _ménage_, in
unbidden preparations for my evening meal. He had cut the ration beef
into large uncouth dabs, which he called beef-steaks, and was banging
away at them with a rolling-pin on the dresser, in the vain hope of
subduing them to tenderness. Alas, what could be done with beef, that
had said "moo" that forenoon? While this operation was in progress, a
smart _fillette_ looked smiling on, as if anxious to take a lesson in
cookery _à l'Anglaise_. Fancying that Jones had intruded on an office
which she considered her own, I asked whether I could have anything
else? "Anything Monsieur pleased." Bravo! I was now among the Gascons.
Well but, what could I have?--"For example, a _poulet_, dressed any
way Monsieur preferred--_potage_, in every variety--omelets--she
made twenty-three different sorts. Her brother, who was cook to the
hotel at Mont de Marsan, made twenty-nine." Very well, suppose we
try all three, _potage_, _poulet_, omelet:--the _façon_ of each at
your discretion;--only, if you please, as soon as possible; to be
ready with the biftek (which, I perceived, would be impregnable.)
"All should be ready, in a solitary moment."--What wine could I have?
She referred me to the landlord, a pleasant-looking old gentleman in
a blouse, very pursy about the neck, chest, and chin, who sat in a
corner of the hearth. "Any wine I liked, French or foreign." Go it
again, Gascony!--Could I have a bottle of bordeaux? "Superb."--These
weighty matters arranged, I returned to the first floor; and heard, on
my way up stairs, the screams of a luckless hen, which my mandate had
sentenced to prompt execution in the poultry-yard.

I had not ordered dinner, however, with an eye to self alone: and was
thinking whether it would not be proper to wait on my fellow-lodger,
and report proceedings, when Jones followed me to my door. "Please,
sir," said he, "the hofficer's kit is left behind, sir. His man isn't
come up, nor yet his mule, not nayther on 'em, sir." This intelligence
was decisive: I knocked at the entrance of the Hon. Mr Chesterfield's
apartment. Found him rather disposed, though, to live alone. "His
man would be up ere long. He was much obliged to me." Well; perhaps
I had taken a liberty. Almost before I had completed the twofold
process of shifting and scrubbing, the cloth was laid. The bread and
bordeaux were first on the table; then the potage.--Presently came
the _poulette_ and the beefsteak--then the omelet;--in short, I had
dined. Suffice it to say, the bordeaux was very respectable; but the
beefsteak impracticable, and the _poulette_ questionable. It had been
cut into small pieces, and broiled. The _potage_ and the omelet were
the staple of my meal. Obs. 1.--When travelling in France, should you
order an omelet at a roadside inn, let it by all means be the _omelette
au jambon_. They will offer you a choice of twenty or thirty sorts; but
that's the kind you are most likely to get good, and that you may get
everywhere. Obs. 2.--Though a fowl dressed as I have described is not
very tempting in appearance, especially if you have been cognisant of
its recent slaughter, give me leave to observe, the dish, in a general
way, is by no means unworthy of your attention; indeed, is one of the
best the rural _cuisine_ of France has to offer. And, let me tell you,
the rural _cuisine_ of France far excels the civic _cuisine_ that we
sometimes meet with out of France. Obs. 3.--With regard to wine,--I
asked for bordeaux. That, I admit, was flat. But make allowance; I
was inexperienced; this was the first time I ordered dinner on Gallic
ground. The fact is--and, if you travel in France and ramble about in
country places, so you will find it--the white wine at a given price
is decidedly better than the red at the same price. Thus, say the
price you choose to go to for a bottle of wine is three francs: and I
call that quite enough--for, if you say six, seven, eight francs, it
comes from the same bin. Well, order white; and you probably get, for
your three francs, a bottle of good sound wine. Order red; and, ten to
one, it's horrid. Perhaps, however, you choose to pay for colour; you
prefer red. Well, as you please. Only in that case, remember: you are
responsible for the consequences, not I.

As I sat on three chairs after dinner in dreamy repose, sipping the
last of my bottle of bordeaux, and revolving the events of the day,
Jones entered, licking his lips. Really he looked, already, ten per
cent better than when we crossed the Bidassoa--his complexion fresher
and more wholesome, his aspect decidedly less misanthropic;--I began to
imagine some truth in his theory, that English soldiers, who had served
in Spain, grew fat on entering France. He laid hands, without ceremony,
on the garments which I had doffed before dinner, and walked away with
them. Rain and mud, indeed, had horribly maltreated them; and Jones,
holding out the coat at arm's length, inspected it in silence, as he
moved towards the door.

How beguile the hours till bed-time? I looked out. What a lovely night!
The silent moonbeams fell on the paved court at the entrance of our
inn. Beyond, all was luminous, but indistinct. Below, there was an open
doorway, with a seat--a curious old carved concern,--the very place,
the very hour, for a cigar! A cigar? Why, I've a box-full! Come, Mons.
Thouvenot; we'll see what sort of havannahs you smoke there in Bayonne.

The havannahs were prime--the forenoon had been fatiguing--I had
dined. A pleasing languor repaid the toils of the morning. Soon,
though, it was broken, by the sound of distant violins--not badly
handled, neither. This part of France is the land of the violin: you
find a decent performer in every village. The sound proceeded from the
premises at the back of the _auberge_; and I had previously noticed
some of the villagers gliding into the inn-yard by a side entrance.
Impelled by curiosity, I took the liberty of following their example;
and soon found my way, amongst stables and out-houses, to a small gate
opening into a garden or shrubbery, at which gate sat my jovial friend
the landlord, dispensing tickets of admission, refreshments included,
at six sous each. It was a sort of rural _salon de danse_, where
the villagers met nightly, to exhibit and cultivate their national
nimbleness of toe. Much preferring these rural fêtes to a regular
French ball, I have attended at many a _guinguette_ since; but as this
was the first, and had all the piquancy of a surprise, I beg leave to
give you a short description. Passing on through an alley among the
trees, and guided by the mellow note of the violin, I soon reached the
ball-room, which was simply a large boarded square, with a roof above,
but three sides open,--the fourth was the orchestra. There I found
assembled the youth of the village, and not only the youth, but some
of their elders--three violins in full operation--and the ball at its
height. _Cotillons_ were the order of the day, much like those which
had been introduced into the aristocratic circles of England two or
three years before, say 1811, or 1812, under the name of quadrilles.
The dancing was good, really good--time admirable--no mistakes--no
confusion--all could dance. The deportment of the dancers, too, was
in perfect good keeping. Not a _gaucherie_ did I witness, throughout
the evening. With one thing I was struck: and that was, the attention,
the seriousness, the almost solemnity, with which the whole party
applied themselves to the important business of dancing. Dancing, if it
be, among the higher classes of France, an amusement, with the rural
population is a passion: and, in a nation so volatile, the earnest
gravity of their village _assemblées_ is the more observable. Of the
three violins, one, I soon perceived, had the chief authority. With a
voice of command, he directed the various movements, indicated changes
of figure, regulated the whole proceedings. In fact, he was not only,
as it turned out, leader of the orchestra, but dancing-master to the
village--"_Vir gregis ipse_ CAPER:" and, had he been Grand
Turk, he could not have issued his mandates in a more imperious tone,
or to more obedient subjects.--Never go to France again, without
attending a village dance at a _guinguette_. If you have not seen that,
you have not seen one most interesting phase of Gallic character.

Among the belles of the evening, there was one, you rogue! taller than
the rest, that both attracted my attention, and fixed it. She not only
danced well--they all did that--she danced with an air. Nay, shall I
tell the whole truth? She bore a resemblance, or at least I fancied so,
to the admired of all eyes, the lovely Juno, with whom I had crossed
the Bay of Biscay. Near me danced a lusty Adonis of five-and-forty,
who was decidedly the best male performer of the party. I had already
made two or three acquaintances; and, as he swept by me in the whirl of
his evolutions, I could not help saying, "You dance well, Monsieur."
He, with the honest, open-hearted vanity of a Frenchman and a Gascon,
danced with redoubled energy, to confirm my good opinion. Presently the
set concluded; and the next moment he was at my side in a high state
of exhilaration, mopping and breathless. "_Eh bien! Monsieur_--Our
dancing--what do you think of it?"

"Excellent. The ladies dance admirably. Of the male performers, truth
compels me to avow that you are incomparably the best."

"You dance?"

"Might a stranger presume--?"

"Ah, Monsieur, but what an honour to our ball! Hold! I shall find you a
_vis-à-vis_."

"Might one select?"

"She's yours for the evening! Name her! I fly!"

"Her with the blue sash, large eyes, rather tall--"

"Ah! my cousin! Wait a little moment! 'Tis done!"

The violins struck up; again the sets were formed; with the partner of
my choice, I stood up for a _cotillon_. Had danced the same figures in
England; so got on tolerably well.

I say, though, what's this? The time has changed! Half a second ago, it
was one, two, three, four. Now it's one, two, three! The figure--that's
different too! Why, what's come to them all? Two and two, swimming
round and round! Gyration and rotation at once--the planetary system!
I turned to my fair partner--she turned to me--I clasped a lovely
arm-full--she dropped her hand upon my shoulder--I was fairly in for
it. We whirled away with the rest. First it was to German strains,
soft, equable, and mellifluous. Then, with a shout from Mons. Caper,
the tune suddenly changed. It now was Spanish--soft and equable no
longer--a mad, galloping _capriccio_, all tingling with life, point,
and mettle. She entered into the spirit of it. I soon discovered
that,--so kept her up to it, till she cried "enough!" in earnest. But
oh! the difference between such a partner, and a bouncer! Oh! the
difference between such a partner, and a bolter! Oh! the ease, the
ductility, the lightness, the perfect airiness of her step! She waltzed
like a zephyr!

Farewell, charming Gasconne! Farewell, bewitching partner of an hour!
Farewell, too, energetic and laborious dancer, my partner's middle-aged
fussy cousin! Farewell, at least, till we meet again, under somewhat
altered circumstances. Before you, too, Monsieur Caper, before you,
orchestral umpire! terpsichorean autocrat!--before you, on retiring
for the night, I make, _en passant_, with all the company, a profound
obeisance.--In short, I then and there literally fell in love with the
Gascon character; and the more I saw of them afterwards, the more I
liked them.

On the way to my apartment that night, I fell in with Jones, who
informed me, with great apparent concern, that the servant and his kit
had not yet come up; and that he "was afeared the hofficer had made his
dinner off of bread and cheese."


CHAPTER XIII.

Jones entered my room early in the morning, with the garments which
had so direly suffered, the day before, by spattering mud and pelting
rain. They were now perfectly presentable; and not only that, but
thoroughly dry.

"Well, Jones, I see you've given them a good brushing."

"Wouldn't have bin of no use, sir. Took and washed 'em, sir. Done it
last night, sir."

"How did you get them dry, then?"

"Please, sir, I had 'em down to the kitchen fire the first thing this
morning, sir--before daylight, sir."

"I say, Jones, how did you manage these gloves?"

"Please, sir, I washed 'em and put 'em on, sir. Walked about with them
on my hands till they was dry, sir."

"Why did you turn out so early, man? Don't suppose we shall start
before noon."

"Please, sir, 'cause I wanted to git forward with my wuk, sir; 'cause
to-day I wants to turn out tidy myself, sir. Got a bit of tailoring to
do, sir, 'cause of the haccident off the pony, sir. Thousand pities
they don't cut the soldiers' jackits longer behind, sir."

"Why turn out tidy to-day in particular?"

"Please, sir, 'cause I understands we're like to meet the hinnimy, sir.
Should wish to die dacent, sir."

"Well, get on, then. Here, stop. Take this; and see if you can't find
somebody to do your tailoring in the village."

"Thank ye, sir; pertlickler obleeged to ye, sir; thank ye, sir." Then,
having pocketed the francs, "Please, sir, though, with your pimmission,
sir, I'd rayther do the job of tailoring myself, sir."

"Oh, very well, if you choose to turn tailor. Just as you please."

Jones was about to withdraw--but paused. There was a moment of internal
struggle.

"Please, sir," said he, "it's what I ham, sir. Sarved my prentice, sir.
Only I don't know what ivver I shall do for a goose, sir."

"I say, Jones, what's that you were saying just now about meeting the
enemy? What enemy?"

"Please, sir, I don't know nothing about it, only this, sir. The
fellers as is here told our fellers, sir, as a Frinch party sprised a
Portygee party, sir, in a village not two leagues off, sir, only three
days ago, sir. Took or killed them all, sir. Druv some on 'em into the
stable of the inn, sir; and bagonetted them under the manger, sir."

"Oh, they did, did they? Then let me have my breakfast in about
half-an-hour."

"Please, sir, I'll go at once and give Nanny her milking, sir. She
wants it dreadful, sir."

While concluding my toilet, I noticed the merry chirp of children
at play, which came in through the open window. Gradually it grew
louder and more uproarious: there was evidently some unusual source
of festivity. I looked out; the cause was manifest. Nanny, in the
highest possible state of good humour, now making believe to butt, now
running backwards, now stamping, now caprioling, now erect, with a
languishing turn of her head and her fore-legs gracefully doubled down,
was surrounded with a host of jocund juveniles, who broke forth into
fresh shouts of mirth and marvel, at every variation in her attitude.
In the midst of this hilarity, Jones rushed forth from the inn door,
bearing in one hand a small three-legged stool, and in the other a
can. Did you ever see a goat milked? Nanny at once became sedate--a
fixture. Jones placed the three-legged stool _behind_ her, and the can
between her hind legs. Goats, my dear madam, are not milked _sideways_,
like cows. The milking began. This process effected a total change of
deportment in the small rabble that stood looking on. Before, all was
noise and fun. Now, every tongue was still, every movement suspended.
Twenty little urchins stood grouped in silent observation; twenty
little pairs of eyes stood wide open. Curiosity had superseded frolic;
each was receiving an idea! As the operation proceeded, a snow-white
head of milky foam rose mantling in the can. Then rose, too, the shout
of joyous surprise. However, the younkers soon discovered, with the
intuitive tact of children, that nothing new remained to be seen; so
their thoughts reverted to sport. Hand joined in hand, the toddling
multitude, that, for facility of inspection, had gathered in Jones'
rear, began to deploy. A circle was gradually formed, with Jones and
Nanny in the centre. Two or three voices commenced a chant; the rest
joined in; the circle began to move with measured tread; and Jones,
ere he had finished his task, was encompassed with a ring of merry
dancers and singers, who seemed resolved to make him pay toll, or keep
him prisoner. Jones, however, was too much of a general for that.
Watching his opportunity, he threw a warm jet of milk into the eyes of
a flaxen-haired urchin; and, profiting by the temporary confusion and
delight which ensued, broke the line of circumvallation, and made good
his retreat into the house with stool and can, followed by a tumultuous
throng, some pulling the skirts of his jacket, some punching, some
shouting, some jumping and clapping their sides in an ecstasy of
delight.

The missing servant, though--that was an awkward business. Night had
passed--morning had returned; it was now eight o'clock--still no
servant came. The whole party unaccounted for amounted to four; namely,
1, the servant himself, an English groom, very much disposed to have
his own way, and quite green as a campaigner; 2, the horse which the
servant rode; 3, the mule which carried the officer's baggage; 4, a
Portuguese lad, the mule's driver. Mr Chesterfield was disposed to take
a party of the dragoons, and go back himself in search of them. But,
under all the circumstances of the case, I felt it my duty respectfully
to intimate a doubt as to the advisableness of his separating from the
party which he commanded, and from the treasure which we had in charge;
and, on a moment's consideration, he saw the force of the suggestion.
At length it was decided to send a corporal and four men, who started
in search of the absentees, with a charge, whether successful or not,
to be back before noon. We were bound to reach our next halting-place
that night; and this was still more indispensable, after the strict
injunctions I had received the day before. The detachment, therefore,
set out; but our preparations proceeded for marching at the appointed
hour.

These matters arranged, I bent my steps towards the shrubbery,
intending to take a daylight view of the previous evening's ball-room.
In the shrubbery I had not proceeded far, when, much to my surprise, I
heard, lustily chanted, an old English stave--

    "Oh, what a fine world, this we live in,
    To lend in, to spend in, to give in!
    But to beg, or to borrow, or get a man's own,
    'Tis the very worst world that ever was known."

The songster of the grove, it soon became apparent, was Jones. I saw
him before he saw me. On a line, stretched between two trees, he had
suspended by far the greater portion of his wardrobe,--that part which
he still had on being equally light and scanty,--and, while busily
engaged in his preparations to "turn out tidy" and "die dacent," now
inspecting, now polishing, in a high state of exhilaration, he was
carolling away, very much to his own satisfaction, at the top of his
voice. The next strain was different:--

    "When last I attempted your pity to move,
      Your scorn but augmented my cares.
    Perhaps it was right to dissemble your love;
      But why did you kick me down stairs?"

The last line he twanged out with great pathos, not
forgetting the repeat:--

    "But why did you--why did you--kick me down stairs?"

Then, stepping back a few paces, and complacently viewing
his work, he suddenly threw himself into an attitude, extended one arm,
and commenced a soliloquy:--

"What's life? A book; a pictur-book, a purty pictur-book! But, ah me,
jest like other pictur-books! All the picturs at the beginning! Heavy
reading's the rest on it; so I finds at least. Pertickerly when you've
got a hempty backy-box, and can't git no good pigtail, not for love nor
money, let alone shag. Thim straws, I considers, is renk pyzon."

A quick march, stoutly whistled, sufficed to dispel these melancholy
thoughts. Then followed a touch of the comic. Jones, it was clear, had
been a witness of the preceding night's ball. Holding out, with bowed
arms, the corners of a not very presentable shirt, which--excuse me if
I'm too particular--hung loose from his shoulders, and mimicking the
airs of a dancing belle, he sang:--

    "Hands across, back again, down the middle--
      'Please to make room, for I'm going to faint.'
    'Don't scream so loud, Miss; I can't hear the fiddle.'
      'Ma'am, you're quite rude.'--'No, I'm sure I aint.'
        The doctor's dancing quite contráry,
          Holds his breath, and turns in his toes.
        Ranting, prancing, capering Mary
          Cocks her chin, and off she goes.

    Cross over to Betsy Maginnis,
      And foot it again to Major Shaw.
    'Miss Molloy, your sweet mouth in a grin is.'
      'Mister Mickey, keep off your paw.'
        The doctor's dancing quite contráry,
          Holds his breath, and turns in his toes.
        Ranting, prancing, capering Mary
          Cocks her chin, and off she goes.

    'Down forty couple, I'm sure will fatigue us.'
      'I told you it wouldn't, and here we're come.'
    'Ma'am, shall I fetch you a tumbler of negus?'
      'No, if you please, sir, a glass of rum.'
        The doctor's dancing quite contráry,
          Holds his breath, and turns in his toes.
        Ranting, prancing, capering Mary
          Cocks her chin, and off she goes."

Then, changing both dance and tune, Jones stuck his
arms a-kimbo like a Welsh milkwoman, and struck up an aboriginal air
of the Principality, footing it heel and toe--words unintelligible.
I approached. Jones, as usual, the instant he saw me, fell to
self-defence. "Please, sir, I got up into the hayloft, sir: took 'em
off, and mended 'em there, sir; 'cause I didn't want none of the
fellers to see me a-tailoring, sir. That's why I did it, sir."

"Well, put them on this instant, sir; it's disgraceful. Put them on, I
tell you. Be quick."

Jones, seeing I was resolute, presently gave tokens of compliance.
"Don't let me find you in that state when I come back," said I.

There was nothing now to wait for, save the absentees. About eleven
o'clock, A.M., the dragoons returned. They had gone some
distance down the lane, and found nothing. At length, one of them
noticed, in the ditch, a trunk, which proved, on examination, to
have been broken open and rifled. This they brought back with them;
and it announced to us, in language but too intelligible, what had
been the probable fate of the party missing.--The fact is, when Mr
Chesterfield purchased a mule at St Jean de Luz, for the conveyance
of his personal baggage, his servant had discarded the albarda or
pack-saddle, determining to load in his own way. Hence, in fact, the
loss of the party. The albarda, please to observe, is essential to
the serviceableness of your mule. In appearance, no doubt, it is the
awkwardest thing in the world. Imagine a hard straw mattress (for it
comes nearer that than anything else,) fitted to the animal's back,
and covering nearly the whole of it. "Quite absurd," you would say,
"to oppress a beast of burden with such an extra load." But then this
mattress answers a threefold purpose. First, it keeps the load from
galling your mule's back: secondly, it cushions the packages, so that
they do not shift: thirdly, and this perhaps is most important of all,
it _distributes_ the weight, so that the burden presses equally. Now Mr
Chesterfield's _personelle_ was stowed in large awkward black boxes,
of the most approved London make, which hung over the mule's back by
straps, and of course were continually getting wrong. The inconvenience
of this outfit became apparent, ere we were clear of the town of St
Jean de Luz. The mule got uneasy; the load shifted; something was
continually requiring to be set right. Both mule and driver, horse
and groom, soon fell into the rear: the groom blowing up the driver
in English, which he didn't understand; the driver bothered with an
arrangement, which he knew was all wrong. They came up when we halted,
but soon fell behind again. The last time they were seen in the lane,
which was just before it fell dark, they were come to a halt, and were
all at sixes and sevens. Whether they were killed, or made prisoners,
or escaped with the loss of the effects, we never heard or ascertained
during the rest of our journey to headquarters.

The packing was now completed with all expedition. By noon we got
fairly off; and a march, not quite so short as we expected, brought us
to our resting-place for the night.


CHAPTER XIV.

I question if the Gascon character has been duly appreciated. A Gascon
is a braggadocio; so we settle it. Now the Gascons are great in this
line, it's undeniable. But that which really distinguishes a Gascon,
is grandiloquence on all subjects. Whatever the topic of conversation,
his style is exaggerated. Tell a Gascon any extraordinary fact, he
instantly caps it--tells you something more extraordinary of the same
kind. If he happens to be speaking of himself, he still employs the
same style of amplification, but only as he would in discussing any
subject besides. He possesses also, in an eminent degree, that--(what?
frankness, shall I call it?)--at any rate, that peculiar quality,
which at once makes you feel as much at ease with him as with an
old acquaintance. All the French have this, but the Gascon has it
pre-eminently.

My billet for the night was at a seedsman's. Five minutes after my
arrival I felt domesticated. He puzzled me not a little though, by
eagerly inquiring whether I had ever met in England with a plant called
Chou d'Yorck. Its fame had reached him, but the long war had prevented
his obtaining a sample. He rejoiced in the prospect of a peace, which
would enable him to obtain some Chou d'Yorck. In form he was stiff
and stumpy, but in speech and manner lively. To assist him in his
shop, he had a youth--age eighteen or nineteen--whom he treated with
considerable hauteur. My landlord, his assistant, and myself, all three
took our evening meal together; but the youth was not permitted to
sit down. Standing near his master, like Corporal Trim, with one foot
before the other in an attitude, his head very upright, and his chest
projected, he grasped in one hand a hunch of bread and a modicum of
sausage, while the other flourished a pocket-knife. His master abruptly
handed him a tumbler of wine, without asking him when he would have it;
and he forthwith tossed it off, and set down the glass, as if so much
and no more was his allowance.

I was amused with my landlord's oration, when I entered his shop and
presented my billet. He first read it, then looked at me. "Ah," said
he, "in _your_ face, now, I see something, Monsieur, which tells me we
shall find you an agreeable inmate. The last Englishman I had conducted
himself so badly, I was forced to pitch him out of the window." My
landlord had a great penchant, like other Frenchmen of that day, for
conversing on the subject of duelling. Asked me if the English did
not decide their duels with pistols--were they good shots? I told him
the famous wager that had come off not long before, when a crack shot
betted to hit with a pistol nineteen oranges out of twenty thrown up
in the air--missed the first on purpose to increase the odds--hit the
other nineteen. This brought out the Gascon. I had told something
extraordinary, he must cap it. "But, Monsieur," said he, "we have, in
this place, persons who can hit a butterfly on the wing." (_Qui tuent
un papillon volant!_) He gave me some account of a partisan, who had
been active against the English. "Monsieur, he's as brave as a lion; in
one word, he's as brave as I am myself," (_à tout dire, il est brave
comme moi_.) One difference between a Gascon and the rest of the world
I conceive to be this--that, when other people utter an extravagant or
bombastic speech, they generally utter it in a joke; but when a Gascon
exaggerates or romances, he speaks with perfect seriousness, and so
expects to be taken.

This evening, though, I made a most agreeable discovery. Jones had
found stable-room for Sancho in the yard of an inn near my billet.
After dinner I stepped out, feeling it necessary, from previous
observation, to see that Sancho had his. On reaching the inn-yard, the
first thing I saw was just what one often sees at home about suburban
public-houses, a party holding an open-air compotation, standing. It
was a party of three--an English soldier, an English groom, and a
Portuguese youth of twenty, dressed as much like the groom as possible.
They stood in a triangle, noses all pointing to the common centre
of gravity. Each held a glass, and the English servant a bottle. He,
I concluded, "stood it." The soldier was Jones. He was rhetorically
holding forth; the other two were earnest listeners--his theme, the
battle of Vittoria. My approach broke up the party. I walked direct
into Sancho's stable; found his crib empty--no appearance of corn. This
might have been accounted for, by supposing the corn already consumed;
but Jones couldn't keep his own counsel. He soon put the matter beyond
all doubt by rushing in with a sieve-full, which he shot out under the
pony's nose, and sedulously dispersed with his hand. The other two went
into their own stable: the English groom, I observed, touching his hat.
I had seen him somewhere before, but didn't remember, at the moment,
time or place.

"Please, sir," said Jones, "both on 'em is sarvant to a jeddleham,
sir; a Hinglishman, what's a-going up along with us, sir, 'cause we've
got a hescort, sir; 'cause he considers it's more safer than going by
his-self, sir. One on 'em's his groom, sir, and the other's his help,
sir." The corn stuck in my gizzard, and I made no reply.

"Please, sir, they've got two sitch be-youtiful horses, as nivver you
see'd, sir."

"Please, sir, they've got a text-cart, with a kivver to it, sir; whot
carries the jeddleham's baggage, sir."

I took my station at the stable-door, to be sure that Sancho not
only had his corn, but ate it. The groom, in the adjoining stable,
was addressing the help in a kind of perpetual blowing up, a mixture
of Portuguese and English; voice deep and hollow. "You Joe King,
(Joaquim,) onde está the tobacco-box?"

To this deep-toned bass responded a piping treble--"Ah, I tink you is
got it in you brisch-pockit."

"You Joe King, dá cevada to the cavallos, chega the teapot, and don't
bother me nada."

Having thus issued his mandate, the groom came forth from the stable.
Catching sight of me, he stepped up, and I recognised him at once. Why,
it was Coosey, Gingham's Cockney servant, whom I had seen at Lisbon,
in the Castle. Glad was I to meet with the man for the sake of his
master. Coosey again touched his hat, and respectfully inquired whether
I wasn't the gentleman as vos goin hup with a hescort. A conversation
ensued, in the course of which I learned, in reply to my eager
inquiries, that Gingham was not aware who it was that had charge of the
treasure. Gingham merely knew that a convoy was going up; and intended
to go in company, for the sake of the guard.

Learning from Coosey that Gingham's quarters were in the suburbs, and
not deeming it advisable to go any distance from my charge, I contented
myself, for that evening, with sending Gingham a hearty salutation,
with a confident hope that I should have the pleasure of his company in
the morning. Before bed-time, Coosey brought me a note from Gingham,
that he would join me next day just outside the town, and travel in
company.

Before quitting the yard, though, I fell in with another acquaintance.
The _garçon_ popped out upon me from a side-door; begged to say there
was a gentleman in the _cuisine_, who would be happy to speak to me.

"Who? What is he?"

"A courier, monsieur, employed on an important mission."

"Haven't the pleasure of knowing any gentleman in that line. Describe
him."

The _garçon_ laughed; held up one hand, with the forefinger crooked.
"_Monsieur, voici son nez._"

I entered. Ah, it was my friend Hookey. Hookey, you will remember,
obtained a passage by the Falmouth packet, as bearer of despatches from
Oporto to Lisbon. Probably he was not aware, that doubts were then
entertained of his real character; for, on the present occasion, he
again announced himself as a courier.

"I am now, monsieur, on my way to the British headquarters, with
important despatches from Madrid. You are going there, too." (Who told
you that, friend Hookey?) "I, as I travel post, shall arrive there
first. Don't you see what an excellent opportunity, if you wish to
announce yourself? I shall take charge of your letter, and deliver it
with supreme felicity."

"Much obliged. They probably know all about me."

"But, monsieur," said Hookey, "headquarters are now advanced from St
Sever to Aire, or soon will be." (Pray, Mr Hookey, how do you know, if
you come post from Madrid?) "Why not cut right across, then, and go to
Aire by the nearest road? Why go round by St Sever? Your route is by St
Sever, I understand?"

Wondering how Hookey understood anything of the matter, and not
choosing to convert his understanding into certainty, I merely replied,
that wherever a man is going, of course he would wish to take the best
road.

"Yes, monsieur," said Hookey, "that is incontestable. But the best
road is, evidently, the most direct. Why march on the arc, when you
can march on the chord? _Ecoutez, monsieur_--your road is by Hagetmau,
direct to Aire."

Seeing he was so urgent, I began to suspect he had a motive, so
resolved to humour him. "Really, what you say appears very just. But
the road--I am totally ignorant of it. It may be good; it may be bad."

"I answer for the road; know every inch of it."

"By the bye, monsieur, an idea strikes me. Give me your opinion. What
if I perform the remaining distance by water?"

"By water!" exclaimed Hookey; "a great thought! What a saving of time
and labour!"

"Good. I impress all the boats on the river; embark my whole convoy
and escort; and so, by the Adour, or by one of its tributaries, arrive
within a day's march of headquarters. What a surprise for Milord
Vilinton, and all his staff!"

"Excellent! Write that, monsieur. Commit your letter to me, and trust
me for delivering it. You will excite a sensation. The whole army will
be electrified."

Greatly doubting whether a letter intrusted to Hookey would ever come
to hand, I asked for writing materials, and just wrote that I hoped to
reach my destination by the day appointed. Then, closing the document,
I addressed it in due form, and handed it to Hookey. Had I really
departed from my written route, as Hookey exhorted, I should not only
have incurred responsibility, but have disobeyed orders, gone off the
line of English posts, and entered a district which just at that time,
as I have since discovered, was the seat of a serious disturbance. I
now took leave of friend Hookey. That he was no courier, we had good
reason for knowing ere long. He probably urged me to write, because
doubtful whether my route was round by St Sever--hoping that something
in my letter might help him to decide. This was evidently the point
that he wished to ascertain; and on this subject I left him as wise as
I found him.

Waiting a while at the door, ere I departed to my billet for the
night, I heard a confab under the gateway, between Jones and Joaquim.
Joaquim (Englished by Coosey "Joe King") was displaying to Jones
his proficiency in the English language. Joaquim, I discovered,
was ambitious to be English in everything--an English groom, like
Coosey; took Coosey as his model. Coosey, by way of teaching him the
language, had begun with the London cries. Joaquim was exhibiting his
attainments; "Old clo'--old clo'."

"Quite naytral," said Jones; "better than the Jews does it themselves."

"Hinny yonnimints f'yer fire ... stooves?"

"Muinto buyng, muinto buyng," said Jones, whose Portuguese was second
only to Joaquim's English. Jones, with an eye to Gingham, of whose
well-stored cart he had already formed most magnificent conceptions,
was assiduously striving to establish himself both with Joaquim and
Coosey. Coosey at that moment came up.

"Hony you 'ear him do the donkey, though," said Coosey. "You Joe King,
come, tip us the burro."

Joaquim brayed. Tommy Duncombe couldn't have done it better.

"There," said Coosey. "Now you listen." A donkey, somewhere within
hearing, responded with a distant bray.

"That's vot I goes by," said Coosey. "I knows many young jeddlemen in
Hingland, vot does it wherry like. But I never see not nobody, hony
this 'ear Joe King, vot could make 'em 'oller."

Next morning, Jones again attempted to defraud Sancho of his corn.
Jones, it was too evident, was a rogue in grain--detection did not
reform him. As we issued from the town, proceeding on our day's
march, I looked out for Gingham, right and left. At length, passing a
cross-road, I heard a smart slap on Jones's musket; and, looking down
the turning, I caught sight of Coosey returning the salute, hand to
forehead, in military style, which Joaquim ditto'd. What Coosey did,
Joaquim did; that was Joaquim's moral code. A little further down the
lane, hurra! my eyes had now the pleasure of beholding Gingham; and
not Gingham only, but Mr Staff-surgeon Pledget. Heartily should I have
hailed the sight of either. What then was now my joy, in falling in
both with Pledget, the solemn and the facetious, and with Gingham, the
best of friends! Most cordial was the greeting on my side, nor less
so on theirs. Gingham came forth in a new aspect. He turned out in a
substantial great-coat, which covered everything from his spurs to his
nose. This coat he wore upon the march in all weathers, rain or shine;
but peeled at the end of the journey, and peeled white--came out clean
as a nut--in _propriâ personâ--ipsissimus_--Gingham. The junction of
these friends was a real accession to our party. Pledget was mounted on
a good sensible mule. Gingham rode a handsome horse--Spanish--a really
splendid fellow--all mettle and muscle--with fiery nostrils, flashing
eye, delicate little ears, zebra legs, elastic motion--in short, a
horse worthy of such a rider--a perfect gentleman. Coosey, also, was
mounted on a showy Spanish stallion, whose advance was sideways, a
perpetual zigzag. All in a quiver, he champed the bit, and came sidling
up the road with arched neck, and foam churning from his jaws. The
cart, drawn by a strong, large-boned French horse, was intrusted to
the care of Joaquim, with the option of walking or riding. After our
first greetings, the cart, being a novelty, became the subject of our
conversation as we rode along. Gingham had built it at Passages. Had
out the wheels from England; a pair, with a swivel wheel in front. The
cart had for its covering a tarpaulin supported by hoops, closed at
the back, and also closing, when requisite, in front--might be used,
on an occasion, to sleep in--was so built that Gingham's boxes exactly
fitted into it, making a level surface with their lids. In short the
concern was well arranged, unpretending, and complete--altogether
worthy of Gingham. Jones conned it with an admiring, but at the same
time a critical eye; now walking in front and alongside, now dropping
behind, to take a view in every direction; and, Coosey being Gingham's
right-hand man, and Joaquim his help, would have tumbled head over
heels to secure the favour of either.

I must here describe a little affair in which we were involved
on this day's march; not as important in itself, but as standing
connected with our subsequent adventures. While Gingham and I were
still discussing the subject of the cart, we reached the river which
we had passed the day before, and had now to pass again. A large and
commodious ferryboat, which was to take us over, was lying on the other
side; where we also saw assembled a concourse of people, apparently
country-folks, who had come there with the intention of crossing.
Expecting that a boat-load of them would soon pass to us, our party, as
they came up, halted on the bank, waiting their arrival.

There seemed to be some delay. The people on the other side didn't
get in, and the boat didn't come. We shouted across. They took no
notice. Shouted louder. They answered with derisive jeers. Corporal
Fraser stood by my side. "Some of the individuals have firearms,"
said he. I made a closer examination--saw it was so--and saw Hookey.
Addressed him personally: "Have the kindness to get them to bring over
the ferryboat." "This is not your road," sung out Hookey, with much
gesticulation; "go by Hagetmau. Press all the boats on the Adour, and
go by water." The case was clear. They did not intend to let us pass;
and, as they had got the boat on their side, we could not compel them.
Mr Chesterfield and I held a council of war.

"We can easily disperse that rabble by a few shots," said he; "and
then the ferrymen will no doubt come forward, and bring the boat over."

I, on the contrary, was for avoiding collision, if possible. A war with
the peasantry, once commenced, might soon become serious; and, should
they return our fire, one or two wounded men, even supposing nothing
worse, would prove a serious incumbrance to our subsequent progress.
"Well, then," said Mr Chesterfield; "what are we to do? We can't wait
here all day; that's evident."

The river was low. Could we find no other crossing? Was there no ford?
I looked up the stream, Gingham looked down. "See here," said he, with
his usual sagacity; "the river bends below, and spreads in the bend.
Beyond, I see it again. No doubt there is a considerable sweep; and,
probably, in that sweep a shallow."

"Suppose we go and examine," said I. Gingham looked earnestly in the
direction.

"Don't see any way of getting there," said he. "There must be some
communication, though, between that farmhouse and the road. No doubt it
is the lane we passed just now. Suppose we go and see."

Gingham and I rode off up the road, to find the lane. Pledget followed
on his mule. The multitude on the other side, thinking, no doubt, we
were of to the town for assistance, again raised a shout of derision.
We found the lane; and arrived at the farmhouse, and the bend in the
river, without being noticed by the enemy.

The character of the ground was here peculiar. The river swept round in
a horse-shoe curve, as the Thames sweeps round the Isle of Dogs; but
so that the convexity was towards us, and the peninsula on the other
side. Just at the vortex of this curve, or at what may be called the
toe of the horse-shoe, the stream widened out, and to all appearance
shoaled. "Here's the ford," said Gingham, and rode in. Pledget and I
followed. We crossed the river and re-crossed it--most part of the way
not knee-deep. The ford, though, was not right across; a ledge of rock
traversed the river obliquely. Down to that ridge there was a ripple,
and the stream gradually shoaled. Below it, all was deep water, smooth,
dark, and silent.

"The worst of it is, though," said Gingham, awaking from a fit of
musing, "the moment we withdraw our party from the ferry to pass them
over here, the fellows on the other side will discover our design. We
shall then have the whole peninsula covered with them.

"No fear of that," said I. "Don't you see? The peninsula is our ground,
though on the other side of the river. We can command the whole of it
from this bank, and the approaches too."

"Of course we can," said Pledget. "Occupy the house with half-a-dozen
muskets, and that knoll with as many more, and not a man of them can
come on the peninsula."

In fact, a few words are necessary to explain the full amount of our
advantages. The whole extent of the peninsula, round which the river
swept, was not above two or three acres. At one extremity of the curve,
or, if you like to call it so, at one heel of the horse-shoe, stood the
farmhouse, at the other stood the knoll; so that, though both knoll
and house were on our side of the stream, a line drawn from one to the
other would cut right across the isthmus; and, these two points once
occupied, no one on the opposite side could come on the peninsula, and
approach the ford, without passing under our guns, and exposing himself
to a cross fire.

We returned forthwith, and made our report to Mr Chesterfield, who at
once saw the expediency of promptly occupying the house and knoll.
Accordingly, our whole party withdrew up the road. The enemy, thinking
they had defeated our project, and compelled us to return to our last
night's quarters, now shouted with redoubled energy, "The other road!
The other road!--To Hagetmau! To Hagetmau!" One little squeaking voice
I distinguished above the yells--not Hookey's: "So sal you here ober
komm, so sal I gib you someting." This was not the last time I heard
that voice.

Mr Chesterfield now pushed forward with a party by the lane towards
the ford, the convoy and the rest of the escort following. He occupied
both the farm-house and the knoll, the former with infantry, the latter
with dragoons. The rest of the escort then forded the river with the
convoy. Twenty or thirty of the rabble now discovered us, and ran down
towards the spot; but they were too late. A few carbine and musket
shots, from the knoll and house, soon brought them to a halt, and sent
them to the right-about. Meanwhile the multitude at the ferry made
demonstrations of crossing in the boat, with shouts and menaces. But in
the midst of the uproar, looking down the river towards the ford, they
caught sight of our cavalry moving up the bank towards them on their
own side, in order of battle. It was quite sufficient. Not wishing for
a closer acquaintance, the yokels immediately dispersed and cut; we did
not pursue them; and thus was effected the passage of the river without
collision, and without loss too, save and except the loss of time. Nor
did we meet with any further obstruction during that day's march, which
brought us to the next halting-place indicated in our route.

Still the state of affairs was far from satisfactory. It was
sufficiently clear, from the events of the morning, that a spirit of
hostility was alive; and that the rural population were disposed to
obstruct our progress; nay perhaps, if they saw a prospect of success,
to attack us. Hookey, it seemed probable, was the prime mover; and I
felt satisfied we should see him again. I was far from thinking he had
the concurrence of the French authorities; nor do I think so now. He
would doubtless have been delighted to ease us of part of our cash;
and probably, like other distinguished agitators, he was agitating on
his own account. However that might be, it was clearly incumbent on us
to have our eyes open, and to be prepared, if needful, to take our own
part.

Nor could we feel wholly satisfied in other respects. In our
intercourse with the inhabitants generally, we did not, it is true,
detect tokens of hostility, or even experience rudeness. Still there
was unquestionably a great alteration of manner, since we had advanced
beyond the immediate vicinity of the Allied forces before Bayonne.
This I noticed in the morning. But at the close of the day's journey
it was still more observable. Whatever we applied for, indeed, we
obtained--billets, accommodations, in short everything usually required
by troops on a march. But nothing was given with alacrity; we seemed
to have got into a cooler climate. I suppose most of my readers know
the difference between a Frenchman who wishes to please, and one
who has no such amiable ambition. By the demeanour and looks of the
younger branches, too, we may sometimes discover how the heads of
a family really stand affected towards us; and here, in the houses
which I entered, nothing struck me more than the deportment of the
children. Their distant and suspicious glances seemed to perform the
part of tell-tales; one could almost guess what kind of a conversation
respecting _les Anglais_, had previously passed in the family. One
plucky little fellow appeared dressed out as a soldier. I tapped his
sword, and asked him what that was for. He gravely replied, "To kill
you."

The occurrences of the day seemed to remind us, that we were not
to regard our remaining journey to headquarters as a mere party of
pleasure; and those of the morrow were quite in accordance with this
impression.




THE DWARF AND THE OAK TREE.

A VISION OF 1850.


I.

    Within the greenwood as I walked,
      Upon a summer's day,
    I saw a vision wonderful,
      That filled me with dismay.
    Beneath the spreading shadow
      Of a tall and stately tree,
    Was a band of porkers gathered,
      Grunting fierce as fierce could be.
    They were rough and bristly monsters,
      With an aspect most obscene;
    And they trampled to a dunghill
      All the fair and comely green.
    Hideous tusks, and sharply whetted,
      Did the savage creatures bear;
    And their flanks were thick incrusted
      With the droppings of their lair.


II.

    Above, the mighty branches spread
      From out the parent stem;
    And lo! I saw a Mannikin
      High perched on one of them.
    His face was pale, his cheeks were white;
      He sate in utter woe;
    It seemed he durst not venture down,
      For fear of those below.
    But anon he shook the branches,
      And down the acorns fell,
    And then the beasts rushed forward,
      Each with a horrid yell.
    Right sharp and savage was the grunt,
      Though plentiful the food:
    So sate the lonely Mannikin
      Within the lonely wood.


III.

    But as I tarried, wondering much
      To see the little man,
    A gleam of light came o'er his face;
      It seemed some cunning plan
    Rose up within him, for he grinned
      And nodded to himself,
    Then grinned again and chuckled,
      Like a sly and naughty elf.
    And then I marked him, stealthily
      From out his belt withdraw
    A weapon in the morning light,
      That glittered like a saw;
    And straight astride a heavy branch
      Right nimbly clambered he,
    And sawed away most busily,
      Between him and the tree!


IV.

    Then longer from accosting him
      I could not well forbear--
    "What, ho, thou foolish Mannikin!
      What art thou doing there?
    A little deeper, and 'tis plain
      The branch must downward go,
    And down with it the carpenter
      Unto the beasts below!"
    Then answered back the Mannikin--
      "Aha! I'm light and strong:
    You'll see me scramble higher up,
      And higher yet ere long.
    But first this branch I sever, just
      To please the hungry swine;
    And then I'll lop another off--
      For that's a scheme of mine!"


V.

    "Forbear, thou naughty Mannikin!"
      'Twas thus again I spoke--
    "Who was't gave thee the liberty
      To lop that stately oak?
    In strength and glory it hath stood
      A thousand years and more,
    Still spreading forth its mighty arms,
      As proudly as of yore.
    What tree hath ever matched it yet
      For majesty of form?
    Or yielded such a sure defence
      From heat, or rain, or storm?
    Though tempests often round it swept,
      It still hath bravely stood,
    Nor ever stooped its shapely crest--
      That monarch of the wood!


VI.

    "And _thou_, an ape-like atomy,
      Perched up within the tree!
    Shall its fair limbs be lopped away
      By such a dwarf as thee?"
    Yet chattered still the Mannikin--
      "Down, down, the branch must go!
    The pigs demand the sacrifice--
      They're watching me below.
    See--see! they're grunting upwards! ah,
      They bare their tusks at me!
    For rather than offend my swine
      I would uproot the tree.
    Hush--hush, my darlings! Hush, my dears!
      Here's plenty food for you--
    A moment's patience, and 'tis done;
      The branch is nearly through!"


VII.

    "Have done, thou wicked Mannikin,
      And hold that hand of thine;
    I marvel what Ulysses 'twas
      Set thee to keep the swine!
    If from that noble forest-tree
      Thou loppest every shoot,
    Where, when another autumn comes,
      Will be the needful fruit?
    'Tis well to feed thy bristly herd,
      Ay, feed them to the fill;
    But leave the oak-tree unprofaned
      With all its branches still:
    Lest, when the swine have eaten all
      The food that thou canst send,
    They take a horrid fancy next
      To dine on thee, my friend!"


VIII.

    'Twas thus I spoke in warning. Still
      The Mannikin said, "Nay!"
    But ever chattered busily,
      And ever sawed away.
    I marked the branch declining fast,
      Its fibres creaking sore:
    I heard the grunting of the beasts
      Still fiercer than before.
    High up into the air was thrown
      Each grim uncleanly snout,
    With wriggling tails and cloven hoofs
      They galloped all about.
    They flung the mire and pebbles up,
      In their unholy glee,
    And held a Satan's carnival
      Beneath the fated tree!


IX.

    But as I gazed in wonderment,
      The sky grew dark above;
    A whirlwind sharp and fitfully
      Among the branches drove;
    There was swaying, shrieking, groaning,
      Throughout the forest wide,
    And the hurricane came downward
      With an angry angel's stride.
    Then, right across the welkin, shot
      The red and dazzling levin,
    And the thunder brattled growlingly
      Within the dome of heaven.
    'Twere better in an hour like that
      Far off at home to be,
    Than watching silly Mannikins
      Upon the greenwood tree!


X.

    The first flash scared the porkers;
      Their nasal snort grew still--
    The second sent them cowering;
      As low-bred monsters will--
    The third with triple fervency,
      And answering peal broke out;
    Then helter-skelter from the tree
      Rushed forth the filthy rout.
    I looked up for my Mannikin--
      I saw him clinging there
    To branch and twig, to bark and bough,
      The image of despair.
    And ever as the gust blew strong,
      He clutched with desperate paw,
    And wildly chattered in affright--
      "The foul fiend take the saw!"


XI.

    By Tamworth town a hermit dwells,
      Who riddles strange can read;
    A wizard once of dreaded power,
      And versed in many a creed.
    Of Michael Scott no wilder tales
      Have ever yet been told:
    Men say he knew the wond'rous art
      Of multiplying gold.
    But now his magic wand is broke,
      His tricksy spirits gone,
    And on a backward bench he sits,
      Forsaken and alone.
    To him I went, and told him straight
      The things that I had seen!
    "O holy man, I pray thee say,
      What may this vision mean?"


XII.

    The hermit smiled--he stroked his chin--
      Then quaintly answered he,
    "There's something very singular
      Connected with that tree!
    Once on a time, when bark was dear,
      The boughs I thought to peel,
    But that same hurricane arose
      And tossed me head o'er heel.
    I think the oak will last my time--
      But hark! I hear the bell!"
    With his left hand he crossed himself,
      Then slid into his cell.
    But what the herd of porkers were,
      He never told to me;
    Nor who might be the MANNIKIN
      Was sawing at the TREE.




FESTUS.[5]

[5] _Festus, a Poem._ By PHILIP JAMES BAILEY. Third Edition: with
Additions.


Those who are acquainted with the Faust of Goethe (and who is not?)
cannot fail to have observed the influence which it has exercised
over several of our contemporary poets. We do not infer that those
poets have exhibited any signs of slavish imitation, or that any
other than an honourable influence has been exerted over their minds.
Before them also nature and thought lay open; they too have had their
philosophy--their own mode of solving, or stating, the problems of
human life; and of the great German himself, as perhaps of all men of
genius, it can only be said that he felt more strongly, and reflected
more vividly than others, the common spirit of his age--the spirit of
bold inquiry, of discontent, of aspiration, and of doubt. We would
merely infer that, in their writings, there is much, either in the tone
and temper, or the structure of the composition, which irresistibly
reminds us of the master-piece of Goethe.

In one respect, however, our poets have been far from imitating the
great German. They share with him, more or less, in the daring spirit
of philosophical speculation, and in those views of human life,
which are expressed either in the poetic desperation of Faust, or
the withering sarcasm of Mephistopheles. They have also adopted his
admixture of various styles and metres, suited to a changeful theme
discussed by various speakers. But in this apparent freedom and bold
diversity of styles, whether ballad, or satiric couplet, or mournful
blank verse, the German is always the consummate _artist_. His verse
is, on each occasion, all that the verse should be--polished, refined,
correct, according to its manner and its order. Native critics assure
us, and a foreign ear feels the truth of the criticism, that the Faust
is as remarkable for its mastery of language, and perfection of style,
as for any other and higher qualities of poetry. But _this_ merit some
of our English bards seem to have despised, as utterly superfluous.
They seem to contemn the labours of the artist. The control which
the poet exercises over his own mind, in order that he may not allow
the fervour of imagination to carry him wide beyond the pale of
common-sense, or the frenzy of his passion to bear him far away from
the sympathy of all other mortals; the survey and revisal in a calmer
moment of what had been poured forth in the excited hour of original
composition: the blotting out, the compressing together, the shading
down, the removal of all stumbling-blocks to clear apprehension--all
those labours, in short, by which language is made translucent and
harmonious--made to serve its double purpose of use and luxury, of
meaning and delight--they throw aside as an antiquated, absurd,
unnecessary, and slavish toil. They will retain nothing, own nothing,
but the "torrent rapture" of original composition. The consequence is
evident and unavoidable. It is a very brief and imperfect rapture they
afford their readers. Theirs is a very summer torrent, resembling what
one often meets in a bright day, in the real landscape--very little
stream, much stone, and a great scar in the earth left dry, glaring,
and barren.

What are our "latter-day" poets dreaming of? Is the end of the world
reckoned to be so near at hand that they think it folly to build for
endurance?--idle to erect their "monument of brass," when it and the
earth will so soon be swept away together? Or has the poet's old
dream of an immortality of fame died out with the superstitions of a
by-gone age, and no one in this philosophic era proposes to himself
so visionary an object as a posthumous renown? We cannot think that
poetic genius is wanting. Of all explanations, this is the last we
should be disposed to admit. We could undertake to furnish from poems
sinking rapidly into decay and oblivion, many a passage, and many a
page, which would do honour to the highest names in the calendar of
our muse-inspired men. We seem to have amongst us good poets still, but
they have ceased to produce good poems. We have much genuine poetry
diffused through our literature, and not a new work of art added to our
possessions.

But if our men of genius are contented to be known in future times (if
known at all) by some brilliant extracts only from crude, hasty, and
forgotten works, could they not contrive to write extracts--now--for
us--and leave the works alone? If they have but a few finished pictures
to give us, if this is all their patience or their talent enables them
to bring to perfection, must they really build, each one of them, a
huge, rambling, misshapen edifice, that they may paint them here and
there upon the walls? It is not absolutely necessary to build a new
house for every new picture; although, in the infancy of the arts,
such an idea was probably entertained. Those never-to-be-forgotten
Chinese, immortalised by Charles Lamb, who, in the earliest stage of
the culinary art, thought it requisite to burn down a house every
time a sucking pig was to be roasted, very likely entertained this
kindred idea. No doubt the artists of that period always built a wall
before they painted a landscape. Happily all these matters have been
simplified, and our poets should remember this. They should remember
that, in none of the arts is it necessary to alarm the whole country by
a conflagration, in order that some dainty morsels may be gathered out
of the ruins.

Of all the poems which have lately come under our notice, there is
none to which these remarks are more applicable than to Mr Bailey's
_Festus_. It is the most extraordinary instance which our times, or we
think any times have produced, of the union of genuine poetic power
with utter recklessness of all the demands of art, or indeed of the
requisitions of common-sense. It is "chaos come again," but chaos,
withal, with such lightning flashes of real genius as compel us to
look into it. Were it not for these abrupt and brief, but undoubted
displays of genius, we certainly should not be induced to notice a work
which so often degenerates into a mere _poetic rant_, a mere farrago of
distracted metaphors, and crude metaphysics, and bewildering theology;
where reasoning and imagination both run riot together; where the logic
is as insane as the maniac fancy that is dancing with its flaring torch
about it. Criticism, if it has any office, or duty, or voice left in
the world, must protest against a species of literature which would set
aside all the claims of good taste and good sense, in favour of a bold,
original, reckless and unregulated imagination. Assuredly it ought
not, in such a case, as it appears to have done, lavish unqualified
encomiums.

Is the book worth reading?--is a summary question often put, and
with some impatience, to the critic. Put here, we answer decidedly,
Yes. Read it by all means, and with the pencil in your hand; for the
probability is, that you will not work your way through it _twice_,
and there are many things in it which you will not be content to have
caught a glimpse of only once. Read it by all means. But this summary
question, and its answer, do not decide the matter. If the author, by
longer study and greater labour, could have made it worth preserving as
well as reading, worth reading many times--if the state of opinion in
the literary world is such that it encourages the publication of hasty
and immature performances--there is something wrong here--something
which ought, if possible, to be rectified.

In his poetic temperament, Mr Bailey will frequently remind
the reader of Keats. He shares the same ardent imagination and
uncontrollable fancy--the same, and perhaps stronger passion--the same
breathless haste of composition which Keats manifested in his first
production;--such haste, as if the writer feared to check himself a
moment in his head-long career, lest the pause should be fatal to his
inspiration. As Mr Bailey frequents a profounder region of thought than
Keats had entered, he attains, in his happier moments, to a higher
strain of poetry than his less reflective predecessor. On the other
hand, his poetic sins are of a deeper dye, greater in number and in
magnitude. That luxuriance of metaphor, that perpetual festival of the
imagination, by which Keats is distinguished, are classic purity and
abstinence itself, compared to the excesses of this kind in which the
author of _Festus_ indulges.

Mr Bailey has the true poetic fervour in him. This, no one capable of
enjoying the literature of imagination will hesitate to acknowledge.
Mr Bailey is a poet. But this poem of _Festus_? Criticism looks aghast
at it--cannot possibly give it welcome--looks at it with dismay and
perplexity. Genuine gold in it, you say. Good. But what if a whole
hogshead of the precious mud of the Sacramento, fresh from its native
bed, unwashed, unsifted, is rolled to your door! Confess that the
present is somewhat embarrassing. A single handful of the bullion would
have been so much better.

In dissecting the plot, and analysing the materials of this poem, a
critic might find innumerable occasions for satire and for ridicule. We
shall not avail ourselves of any such opportunities. Perhaps we have
no calling for this part, and are resisting no temptation in refusing
to be satirical. But, indeed, the critic is not properly the satirist.
The satirist is already there--in the outer world; he exists in every
man of keen sense in whom judgment preponderates over those feelings
to which the poet applies himself. The critic steps in between this
satirist and the poet--steps in to mediate. He tells the shrewd and
intelligent man of the world, prompt to detect the ridiculous aspect
of things, that if he really has no sympathy with a class of feelings
based much upon imagination--if he has no admiration, approaching to
enthusiasm, for the beautiful in the visible, and for the tender and
heroic in the moral world--the page of the poet is not for him: instead
of sneering and condemning, he has but to shut up the book and depart.
On the other side, he tells the poet that he does not write for his own
solitary heart, or for the ears of two or three of peculiar and kindred
temperament, who will forgive everything, so that some favourite
chord be touched. He tells him that he will mould his verse to little
purpose, if he fail to secure the attention of judicious, as well as
gentle and imaginative readers; and that it is unwise in him wantonly
to incur the ridicule of men whom a little more sobriety of thought
would have added to his listening and admiring audience. He tells
him that imagination ought not to be divorced from sense, and that
distracted metaphors ought not to be seen wandering about, with nothing
to illustrate; that it is not well to write with wilful obscurity; nor
to torture the ear with discord; nor perplex, and weary, and unfit for
the enjoyment of what is really excellent, by a perpetual exaggeration
which borders, if it is not quite within, the region of hyperbole.

One must be pardoned for repeating the very rudiments of criticism
to some of the headstrong writers of our day. A lucid, correct,
harmonious, style--they have forgotten what it means--what virtue there
is in it. They speak, or think, of it as of some matter of antiquated
prejudice--of stale, conventional observance. It is no matter of
convention; it is the living source of a calm perpetual gratification.
It is the music of the printed book. It is that which makes reading a
delight, as well as a necessary task. It is that which makes another's
thought, to the mind, what the visible object is to the eye--seen
without effort, and seen clad with beauty, as well as distinguished by
form and position. Whether the subject of the poet be of a calm and
gentle, or of a grand and sublime description, this charm of beautiful
composition ought always to accompany it. The theory is false which
separates beauty from sublimity. The wing of the eagle is not less
graceful than that of the smallest bird which flutters from bough to
bough, or from flower to flower; nor is his flight less smooth, in his
stormy altitudes, than the slow sailing of unruffled swans in their
peaceful element. And as the pleasure attendant upon distinct and
melodious language is of itself of the calm and graceful order, so also
some degree of calmness and self-possession should pervade the mind
of the poet who is to produce it for us. Not always must the thought
flow torrent-like. Let it gush with what precipitation it will from
the smitten rock, but let the waters subside and tranquillise a little
before the prophet invites us to dip our thirsty lips into the stream.
Let the hour of reflection follow at due interval. Not always is the
poet to be in the full tempest of original composition;--as, however,
Mr Bailey seems to think, both by his practice and the advice he gives
in his drama to the Student--

                              "Once
    Begun, work thou all things into thy work,
    And set thyself about it as the sea
    About the earth, _lashing at it day and night_."

Poets who give and follow such advice as this, grow to have a horror of
_distinctness_ of thought. They shrink from examining their own ideas,
lest these should turn out to be no ideas at all; or perhaps very good
and sensible ideas, but shockingly true and commonplace. They leave
them, therefore, with the bloom of obscurity upon them, and lapse into
the conviction that a certain degree of indistinctness is inseparable
from subtlety and refinement of thought. A great mistake. Your subtle
and refined thinking, if it be worth anything, if it be really
_thinking_, must be distinct to those who have the ability to perceive
what is subtle and refined. The thinnest gossamer that floats upon the
air, _if it is to be seen_, must have an outline as well defined as
if it were part of a ship's cable. But it is in vain to preach this
doctrine to such writers--vain to argue that the imagination, in its
most ethereal exercise, should still have an alliance with sense--we do
not say with _common_ sense, but with some intelligible thought: they
have a direct interest in believing the contrary. What! sacrifice this
image!--silence all this thunder!--throw away this new word we have
just coined to express our else unutterable conceptions!--impossible!

If these remarks of ours appear to be of a very elementary character,
the fault lies with those who render their repetition necessary. Mr
Bailey, in his composition, has contrived to commit all the oldest
sins in the newest kind of way. He has not only, by the aid of German
metaphysics, become transcendently obscure, but he also emulates Messrs
Sternhold and Hopkins, in the baldness and ruggedness of his verse.

    "It is time that something should be done for the poor."

Who would imagine that this was a line of poetry? It is,
however; and forms the commencement of a speech of Lucifer's. The whole
speech follows in the same style of composition:--

    "_Lucifer._--It is time that something should be done for the poor.
    The sole equality on earth is death;
    Now, rich and poor are both dissatisfied.
    I am for judgment: that will settle both.
    Nothing is to be done without destruction.
    Death is the universal salt of states;
    Blood is the base of all things, law and war.
    I could tame this lion age to follow me.
    I should like to macadamize the world;
    The road to Hell wants mending."

We give another specimen. It is a lyrical effusion delivered by the
_Angel of the Earth_. We must give a lengthy and continuous sample,
lest it should be said that it is we who, by omitting some portions,
have made nonsense of the rest.

    "_Angel of Earth._--Stars, stars!
    Stop your bright cars!
    Stint your breath--
    Repent ere worse--
    Think of the death
    Of the universe.
    Fear doom, and fear
    The fate of your kin-sphere.
    As a corse in the tomb,
    Earth! thou art laid in doom.
    The worm is at thy heart.
    I see all things part:--
    The bright air thicken,
    Thunder-stricken:
    Birds from the sky
    Shower like leaves:
    Streamlets stop,
    Like ice on eaves:
    The sun go blind:
    Swoon the wind
    On the high hill-top--
    Swoon and die:
    Earth rear off her cities
    As a horse his rider;
    And still, with each death-strain,
    Her heart-wound tear wider:
    The lion roar and die,
    With his eyeball on the sky:
    The eagle scream,
    And drop like a beam:
    Men crowd and cry,
    'Out on this deathful dream!'
    A low dull sound--
    'Tis the march of many bones
    Under ground:
    Up! and they fling,
    Like a fly's wing,
    Off them the gray grave-stones;
    They sit in their biers--
    Father and mother,
    Man and wife,
    Sister and brother,
    As in life;
    Lady and lover--
    Love all over.
    Their flesh re-appears--
    Their hearts beat--
    Their eyes have tears:
    Woe--woe!
    Do they speak?
    Stir? No.
    Tongues were too weak,
    Save to repeat
    'Woe!'
    But they smile
    In a while," &c.--(P. 84.)

In these days, when it is said that verse has hard matter to keep
its ground, and is thought to be going altogether into disrepute, is
it wise to give us such verse as this? Or was it well to conjure up
angelical or supernatural persons to repeat it? Or, again, is it wise
of one, who really has poetic power, to abuse it in such rant and
hyperbole as the following? We quote from a part of the poem where
the author is dealing with the most popular and favourable subject
a reflective poet could select. Festus, under pretence of giving an
account of another, describes his own early emotions at his first
intercourse with nature and with life--those emotions which made a poet
of him. Our extract leads off with a noble line, as happy as it is
bold--"All things talked thoughts to him;" and we would wish to rescue
from apparent censure the fine expression for the sky--"The blue eye
of God." For the rest, it is what we have attempted to characterise as
_poetical rant_--imagination grown raving and delirious.

    "All things talked thoughts to him!--The sea went mad,
    And the wind whined as 'twere in pain, to show
    Each one his meaning; and _the awful sun_
    _Thundered his thoughts into him_; and at night
    The stars would whisper theirs, the moon sigh hers.
    The spirit speaks all tongues and understands;
    Both God's and angels', man's, and all dumb things,
    Down to an insect's inarticulate hum,
    And an inaudible organ. And it was
    The spirit spake to him of everything;
    And with the moony eyes, like those we see,
    Thousands on thousands, crowding air in dreams,
    Looked into him its mighty meanings, till
    He felt the power fulfil him, as a _cloud_
    In every _fibre_ feels the forming wind.
    He spake the world's one tongue: in earth and heaven
    There is but one; it is the word of truth.
    To him the eye let out its hidden meaning;
    And young and old made their hearts over to him;
    And thoughts were told to him as unto none,
    Save one, who heareth, said and unsaid, all.
    And his heart held these as a grate its gleeds,
    Where others warm them.
      _Student._             I would I had known him.
      _Festus._--All things were inspiration unto him:
    Wood, wold, hill, field, sea, city, solitude,
    And crowds and streets, and man where'er he was;
    And the blue eye of God which is above us;
    Brook-bounded pine spinnies, where spirits flit;
    And haunted pits the rustic hurries by,
    _Where cold wet ghosts sit ringing jingling bells_;
    Old orchards' leaf-roofed aisles and red-cheeked load;
    And the blood-coloured tears where yew-trees weep
    O'er churchyard graves, like murderers remorseful."

The same most favourite subject--of the early feelings of a poet--he
encounters in another scene of the drama, where he meets the very Muse
herself. We prefer to select from these parts, because, though more
extraordinary passages might be found elsewhere, yet on those occasions
the extraordinary or unsuitable nature of his theme may be thought
to have betrayed him into the _violent_ style of writing we have to
condemn. Festus meets the Muse in some one of the happy planets that he
visits. She speaks in rhyme. We give a part of her address, and part of
the answer of Festus. But first we must premise, that the Muse had that
morning watched a particular ray of light, as it travelled from the sun
to the earth--had "listened" to this ray, and reports what it said upon
its unwilling journey downwards. She then sees this ray enter a cottage
where a young poet is sitting, and in this original manner introduces
her description:--

    "_Muse._             A boyish bard
    Sate suing night and stars for his reward.
    The sunbeam swerved and grew, a breathing, dim,
    For the first time, as it lit and looked on him:
    His forehead faded--pale his lip, and dry--
    Hollow his cheek--and fever-fed his eye.
    Clouds lay about his brain, as on a hill,
    Quick with the thunder thought and lightning will.
    His clenched hand shook from its more than midnight clasp,
    Till his pen fluttered like a wingèd asp;
    Save that no deadly poison blacked its lips:
    'Twas his to life-enlighten, not eclipse;
    Nor would he shade one atom of another,
    To have a sun his slave, a god his brother.
    The young moon laid her down as one who dies,
    Knowing that death can be no sacrifice,
    For that the sun, her god, through nature's night,
    Shall make her bosom to grow great with light.
    Still he sat, though his lamp sunk; and he strained
    His eyes, to work the nightness that remained.

       *       *       *       *       *

    _Festus._     Yes, there was a time
    When tomes of ancient song held eye and heart--
    Were the sole lore I reeked of: the great bards
    Of Greece, of Rome, and mine own master land,
    And they who in the Holy Book are deathless--
    Men who have vulgarised sublimity,
    And bought up truth for the nations--_parted it_
    As soldiers _lotted once the garb of God_;
    Men who have forged gods--uttered, made them pass;
    In whose words, to be read with many a heaving
    Of the heart, is a power, _like wind in rain_:
    Sons of the sons of God, who, in olden days,
    Did leave their passionless heaven for earth and woman,
    Brought an immortal to a mortal breast;
    And, like a rainbow clasping the sweet earth,
    And melting in the covenant of love,
    Left here a bright precipitate of soul,
    Which lives for ever through the lines of men,
    Flashing by fits, like fire from an enemy's front:
    Whose thoughts, like bars of sunshine in shut rooms,
    Mid gloom, all glory, win the world to light;
    Who make their very follies like their souls;
    And, like the young moon with a ragged edge,
    Still in their imperfection beautiful;
    Whose weaknesses are lovely as their strengths,
    Like the white nebulous matter between stars,
    Which, if not light, at least is likest light."

We do not attempt to analyse these passages, it would take up too
much space; and the reader, if he thinks fit, can do it for himself.
Neither have we, except on one or two occasions, resorted to the usual
expedient of marking in italics all we would censure, for almost the
whole of our extracts would then have been printed in italics. Of
course there is something better than this in the poem, or we should
not have given it such praise as we have; but there is also a great
deal that is worse. The various specimens we have presented are no
bad average of what constitutes a very large portion of the book.
Yet this is the poem which, we are told, has been received with most
applausive welcome, both by the public and the critics! In the edition
we have before us--the third, and, we believe, the latest--there is
appended at the conclusion a series of laudatory extracts from Reviews
and Magazines, and also of opinions, most eulogistic, given by men of
literary celebrity. In what shape these last were originally expressed,
whether in print or in private letter, we are not informed. If extracts
from private letters, though doubtless published with the writer's
permission, their publication strikes us as a novelty, even in these
advertising days. Mr Tennyson is set down as saying--"I can scarcely
trust myself to say how much I admire it, for fear of falling into
extravagance." Sir E. Bulwer Lytton speaks with more caution--"A most
remarkable poem, of great beauty, and greater promise. My admiration
of it is deep and sincere." Ebenezer Elliott exclaims--"It contains
poetry enough to set up _fifty_ poets." The ladies are still more
enthusiastic. Mrs S. C. Hall outbids Mr Elliott. "There is matter
enough in it to float a _hundred_ volumes of the usual prosy poetry.
It contains some of the most wonderful things I ever read." Eulogistic
extracts from Reviews, and Magazines, and newspapers, follow in
abundance; it is a universal clapping of hands and shout of triumph.
The whole vocabulary of applause is exhausted. An American critic
"classes it with the Iliad, and Macbeth, and Paradise Lost!"--a
classification not quite so lucid as it is flattering. Our more sober
and Dissenting brethren seem to have pardoned all its heresies, or
not to have seen them, in the dazzling and unintermitting blaze of
its genius. Its critics catch the tone of their applauded poem, and
speak in hyperbolics, as the only language capable of expressing the
intensity of their admiration. "Who," exclaims one, "that has ever read
_Festus_, has forgotten that _prodigious_ poem? You find in it all
_contradictions reconciled_--all _improbabilities accomplished_--_all
opposites paired_--all formulas swallowed--all darings of thought and
language attempted"--a rapture of criticism, which took us with much
surprise, when we saw the respectable authority attached to it.

Well, let the reader now turn back to the specimens we have given
him--or look into the poem itself--he may take up whole handfuls of the
same description. Has all sincerity, all truth and candour, died out
of criticism? Or, because it stands on record that some judgments too
severe were lately passed on the first efforts of youthful genius, has
criticism become all at once exceeding timid, quite tame, humbled, and
subdued? Are we so afraid of being thought blind to novel and original
displays of genius, that we are all resolved to praise--to do nothing
but praise--as the only safe course to pursue? Some have entertained
angels, it seems, unawares, and entertained them but rudely; therefore,
henceforth, let us do homage to every new comer--the more mysterious,
the more homage. Such a stir, it appears, has been made about the
obtuseness of reviewers to the more subtle or sublime beauties of
poetry, that the poor critic dares not use his own eyes--nor tell what
he sees with them--nor whisper what he does _not_ see.

Hans Andersen, in one of his tales for children, tells an admirable
story, how two rogues pretended to weave for the royal person a tissue
of gold and silk, of a novel and most beautiful description. It had,
however, this peculiar property--it was invisible to fools. Of course,
it is needless to say that every one at court saw and was charmed with
its surpassing beauty. The rogues had a pleasant time of it: pensions
from the crown, applause from all the world. They threw an empty
shuttle through an empty loom, and the connoisseurs and critics looked
on with intense delight, and out-rivalled each other in extolling the
growing splendours of this exquisite fabric. Wonderful! Prodigious!
Poetry for fifty! Poetry for a hundred! Prodigious! Wonderful!

But we have not, all this time, given any account of the plot or
purpose of _Festus_. It is a hard task, but it must be undertaken. In
imitation of the Faust of Goethe--or say, adopting, like it, the proem
to the Book of Job--the drama opens with a scene in heaven, wherein
Lucifer appears, and asks permission to tempt Festus. The mortal
whom the Spirit of Evil here selects for his especial temptation,
has the thirst for knowledge, and the contempt for human life, which
distinguish the whole family of the Fausts. But whereas the German
poet adopted a philosophical indifferentism as his position, or
standing-point, from which to survey the scene of human life and of
human thought, Mr Bailey has a positive and very intricate creed to
enunciate, and has made his poem a vehicle for teaching a dogmatical
system of theology, which, if not altogether orthodox, certainly
does not fail from the paucity, or the too great simplicity, of its
doctrines. Instead of doubt, we have a heresy. A most extraordinary
medley of Christian tenets and transcendental or Hegelian metaphysics,
is taught, and chiefly by the devil himself! Lucifer, who assumes at
first something of the mocking vein of Mephistopheles, proves to be a
learned professor of Göttingen or Berlin, and the preacher of a very
refined and spiritual, though somewhat heterodox, Christianity. When we
add that--interweaving, as it were, some scenes from quite a different
drama, on the loves of the angels--Mr Bailey has represented his
great Spirit of Evil falling desperately in love with a mortal maid,
Elissa--"sighing like furnace"--outheroding mere human lovers--yet
jilted, and suffering (as it seems in a most genuine manner) the pangs
of despised passion--our readers will be prepared to agree with us that
never was so strange a Satan conceived or delineated, either in prose
or verse.

The drama opens, as we have said, in heaven.

      "_God._--What wouldst thou, Lucifer?
      _Lucifer._                               There is a youth
    Among the sons of men, I fain would have
    Given up wholly to me.
      _God._                He is thine,
    To tempt.
      _Lucifer._ I thank thee, Lord!
      _God._                             Upon his soul
    Thou hast no power. _All souls are mine for aye._"

This ultimate salvation of all mankind, and of all peccant spirits,
is a conspicuous doctrine of Mr Bailey's. The law of universal
necessity is another. One might suppose that this announcement of the
decreed salvation of Festus would nullify the permission given to
Satan to tempt him, and induce that spirit to relinquish his hopeless
scheme. But the second doctrine of philosophical necessity assists
us in explaining the conduct of Lucifer. He, being a consistent and
enlightened Necessarian, knows that he must fail in his attempt, but
knows also that he must make it--knows that he must act according to
his nature, and incessantly strive to ruin, vitiate, and destroy.

The next scene brings us down to earth, and introduces us to Festus.
And here the reader naturally expects a series of temptations on the
part of the Evil Spirit, of struggles, lapses, and repentances on the
part of the mortal. But no such thing. The strangest relationship
imaginable is established between the two. The Spirit of Evil
reveals to Festus all manner of profound knowledge, metaphysical and
theological; carries him up into heaven, where he learns that his own
name is written in the Book of Life; conveys him through all space,
into the sun, the planets, hell, Hades, and even invests him with the
privilege of ubiquity; performs, in short, every service which so
potent a spirit could render to an ambitious mortal. With respect to
moral delinquency, the only blemish in the character of Festus is a
certain inconstancy in love. His passion is of a tender, imaginative,
and ennobling character; but he transfers it from one beauty to another
with unpardonable levity. He is a sort of poetical or sentimental
Don Juan: Angela, Clara, Helen, Elissa, by turns kindle his amorous
devotion. But this faithless and too redundant worship of woman's
beauty, is not brought about in any manner, by the instigation or the
aid of Lucifer. This inconstant temper he had already manifested, and
given the worst example of, before his acquaintance with the great
tempter. The saddest fault he is chargeable with, his abandonment of
Angela, has been already committed. Nay, this inconstancy in love is
manifested on the last occasion much to the annoyance of Lucifer,
who is driven, by the superior attractions of his pupil, from the
affections of Elissa. We hear Festus very magnanimously pardoning the
Evil One for having tempted him; but it appears to us that Lucifer had
more reason to complain of his friend Festus, than Festus of Lucifer.
At the very close of the drama, Festus is placed, we know not how, on
the throne of all the world!--an elevation dangerous enough. But he
holds it only for a single day. He has no opportunity for the abuse of
power, and his aspirations for possessing it have been of the purest
description. Just before his elevation, he has most devoutly exclaimed--

    "Lord! Thou knowest that the power I seek
    Is but for others' good, and Thine own glory,
    And the desire for it inspired by Thee.
    So use me as I use it."

The Spirit of Evil has asked permission to tempt Festus, but he
occupies himself with teaching a system of divinity, an improved
and transcendental Christianity. He does all in his power to
elevate the thoughts of his pupil, and to enlarge the bounds of his
knowledge--enables him to explore the whole universe, and solve the
most profound mysteries. His talk is wild at times; he retains a
diabolic taste for conflagrations, and the burning up of worlds, which,
in this civilised epoch, he might have laid aside, with his horns and
tail; but, upon the whole, he appears in the light of a most edifying
companion, and a most serviceable spirit. Any young gentleman who,
not satisfied with seeing the world, should be desirous of travelling
through the universe as well, might reasonably congratulate himself
on such a guide and companion. The title of some of the _Scenes_ will
alone show what glorious revelations await those favoured mortals whom
the Devil thinks proper to tempt. We have _Scene, the Surface_; _scene,
the Centre_; _scene, Space_; _scene, Heaven_; _scene, Hell_; _scene,
the Skies_; _scene, Elsewhere_; _scene, Everywhere!_ These localities,
if such they are, could not possibly be described with a more sublime
contempt for detail.

One of the earliest scenes, however, of the drama, takes place in the
humbler precincts of a _Country Town_, and strange enough is the part
which Lucifer and Festus enact before a number of people gathered
together in the market-place. Lucifer delivers a sermon to them in the
style of Maw-worm; and Festus performs his part in this divine service,
by delivering a long, and apparently a serious prayer, which, for
aught we see, might be adopted by any Dissenting minister desirous of
varying his extempore effusions. If there is any heresy, there is, at
all events, no poetry in it which he would find it necessary to omit.
But both these speakers soon ascend to higher regions of speculation,
and to higher regions of the universe. They ascend into heaven--Lucifer
still being able, it seems, to act here as master of the ceremonies.

    "_Lucifer._ All-being God! I come to Thee again,
    Nor come alone. Mortality is here.
    Thou bad'st me do my will, and I have dared
    To do it. I have brought him up to heaven.
    _God._ Thou canst not do what is not willed to be.
    Suns are made up of atoms, heaven of souls;
    And souls and suns are but the atoms of
    The body, I, God, dwell in. What wilt thou
    with him who is here with thee?
    _Lucifer._                      Show him God.
    _God._ No being, upon part of whom the curse
    Of death rests--_were it only on his shadow_,
    Can look on God and live.
    _Lucifer._                Look, Festus, look!
    _Festus._ Eternal fountain of the Infinite,
    On whose life-tide the stars seem strewn like bubbles,
    Forgive me that an atomie of being
    Hath sought to see its Maker face to face,

       *       *       *       *       *

    Forgive me, Lord!
    _God._ Rise, mortal! Look on me.
    _Festus._ Oh! I see nothing but like dazzling darkness.
    _Lucifer._ I knew how it would be. I am away.
    _Festus._ I am thy creature, God! Oh, slay me not,
    But let some angel take me, or I die.
    _Genius._ Come hither, Festus.
    _Festus._                      Who art thou?
    _Genius._                                I am
    One who hath aye been by thee from thy birth,
    Thy guardian angel, thy good genius.
    _Festus._ I knew thee not till now.
    _Genius._                          I am never seen
    In the earth's low thick light; but here in heaven,
    And in the air which God breathes, I am clear.
    I tell to God each night thy thoughts and deeds;
    And watching o'er thee both on earth and here,
    Pray unto Him for thee, and intercede.
    _Festus._ And this is heaven.    Lead on.
          Will God forgive,
    That I did long to see Him?
    _Genius._                   It is the strain
    Of all high spirits towards Him....
    Come, I will show thee Heaven and all angels.
    Lo! the recording angel.
    _Festus._                Him I see
    High seated, and the pen within his hand
    _Plumed like a storm-portending cloud which curves_
    _Half over heaven_, and swift, in use divine,
    As is a warrior's spear!
    _Genius._ And there the Book of Life which holds the names,
    _Formed out in starry brilliants_, of God's sons--
    The spirit-names which angels learn by heart
    Of worlds beforehand. Wilt thou see thine own?
    _Festus._ My name is written in the Book of Life.
    It is enough. That constellated word
    Is more to me and clearer than all stars,
    Henceforward and for aye.
    _Genius._                  Raise still thine eyes!
    Thy gleaming throne!--hewn from that mount of light
    Which was before created light or night,
    Never created, heaven's eternal base,
    Whereon God's throne is 'stablished.--Sit on it!
    _Festus._ Nay, I will forestall nothing more than sight."

The various scenes of which the drama is composed follow in no
intelligible order; it is rarely that one seems to lead to the other.
Festus, after this extraordinary visit into heaven, is the same Festus
that he was before. He descends to earth to make rapturous love
to Helen, or he wanders through all the worlds of space, the same
discontented and mystified mortal. At length, after having explored
the whole universe, and apparently escaped from Space itself, he is
suddenly elevated by Lucifer to the throne of this planet earth.

    "_Scene A gathering of Kings and Peoples._
    _Festus_ (_throned._) Princes and Peoples!
          Powers, once, of earth!
    It suits not that I point to ye the path
    By which I reached this sole supreme domain--
    This mountain of all mortal might. Enough,
    That I am monarch of the world--the world.
    Let all acknowledge loyally my laws,
    And love me as I them love. It will be best.
    No rise against me can stand. I rule of God;
    And am God's sceptre here. Think not the world
    Is greater than my might--less than my love--
    Or that it stretcheth further than mine arm.
    Kings! ye are kings no longer. Cast your crowns
    Here--for my footstool."

In this wonderful position he does nothing, nor has time to do
anything. He has no sooner assumed his throne than his subjects all die
off. The world has come to an end.

    "_Festus._ Hark! thou fiend! dost hear?
    _Lucifer._ Ay! it is the death-groan of the sons of men,
    Thy subjects--King!
    _Festus._            Why hadst thou this so soon?
    _Lucifer._ It is God who brings it all about--not I.
    _Festus._ I am not ready--and--it shall not be!
    _Lucifer._ I cannot help it, monarch! and--it is!
    Hast not had time for good?
    _Festus._                    One day--perchance.
    _Lucifer._ Then hold that day as an eternity.
    _Festus._ All round me die. The earth is one great deathbed."

Then follows a millennium, and, after that, Judgment Day. All mankind
are saved, and not man only--Lucifer and all his host are re-admitted
into Heaven. To Satan, his former throne--which has been preserved
vacant for him--is restored, together with all his pristine glory. The
drama ends in universal and eternal felicity.

Having said thus much of the plot, we may look a little closer at the
philosophy and poetry of this strange performance. We shall touch
as lightly as possible upon that admixture of Hegelian metaphysics
and evangelical divinity, which, as we have said, constitutes
the speculative portion of the work. It occupies, however, no
inconsiderable space in the poem. On one occasion Festus pours into
the ear of his mistress, in an unbroken harangue of about nine hundred
lines, the profound knowledge he has acquired from his supernatural
resources. Love is proverbially patient, and Helen listens--at least
does not interrupt. Here are some fragments that will show how severely
he must have tasked her apprehension. A spirit is speaking in one of
the innumerable visions which everywhere obscure the poem.

    "She spake, I said, the spirit, and at her word
    Behold the heavens were opened as a book.
    I am the world-soul, nature's spirit I,
    Ere universe or constellation was,
    System, or sun, or orb, or element,
    Darkness, or light, or atom, I first lived;
    I and Necessity, though twain in life,
    Yet one in Being. Time and life are one.
    But insomuch as nature is destroyed
    In God's assumption to Divine estate
    Of an especial soul, necessity
    Ends in extreme original nothingness."

It is very tantalising to be so near the source of wisdom, and utterly
unable to avail ourselves of it. How it fared with Helen we do not
know; but for ourselves, it is in vain we are told,--

    "Again the world-soul voiced itself, and I
    Drank in the _fruitful glories_ of her words
    As earth consumes the golden skiey clouds."

These "fruitful glories" are to us mere darkness. We can just gather
where some of these "clouds," by no means "golden" to our vision, came
from. As, for instance, when we hear that--

    "The actual and ideal meet but once,
    _Where pure impossibilities are facts_."

Or, further on, when this world-spirit thus enlightens
us:--

    "She stood and spake intuitive of Heaven,
    The World-divining Spirit whilom named.
    Now such as man is to himself is His
    Divine idea; but the God which is,
    Is not the God men worship, not alone
    Ineffable, but inconceivable;
    How shall an atom comprehend the Heaven?
    Two points men occupy in space and time,
    And half exist of matter and in form:
    Thus, His existence is their opposite;
    And all is either God or nothingness,
    _Being with nonbeing identical_."

And so we are landed in the Absolute of Hegel; and in that insufferable
jargon of his, by which, (confounding _the laws of thought_ with _the
nature of things_,) he proves, because we cannot think of existence
without a reference to non-existence, nor think of non-existence
without the contrasted idea of existence, that therefore existence
itself includes non-existence, and non-existence includes existence,
and they are identical--(_sein_ = _nicht sein_.)

We cannot compliment Mr Bailey on the skill he has displayed in his
combination of Hegelian philosophy with his theological doctrines. In
the following extract Lucifer is the spokesman:--

    "_Lucifer._--_All creature-minds_, like man's, are fallible:
    The seraph who in Heaven highest stands
    May fall to ruin deepest. God is mind--
    Pure, perfect, sinless. Man imperfect is--
    Momently sinning. _Evil thus results
    From imperfection._

       *       *       *       *       *

    _God hath no attributes, unless To Be
    Be one: 'twould mix him with the things He hath made._
    _Festus._ Can imperfection from perfection come?
    Can God make aught defective?
    _Lucifer._                   How aught else?
    There are but three proportions in all things--
    The greater--equal--less. God could not make
    A God above himself, nor equal with--
    By nature and necessity the highest;
    So if he make it must be lesser minds--
    Little and less from angels down to men,
    Whose natures are imperfect, as his own
    Must be all-perfect."

Here we have it stated that evil results from, or is synonymous with,
imperfection; and all creature-minds are necessarily imperfect,
inasmuch as they are inferior to God. But in the lines printed in
italics, God is represented as having "no attributes;" for that would
mix or liken Him with what He creates. There is, therefore, no room for
comparison between the creature and the Creator, there can as little
be inferiority as equality. He first finds an argument, such as it is,
in the inalienable perfection of God's attributes, and then--embracing
the Absolute of Hegel, (to us a mere shadow)--denies that God _has_
attributes.

The contradictory doctrines taught in this poem, by different speakers,
or the same speaker at different times, are to be explained, we
presume, by the dramatic exigencies of the piece. We throw out this
supposition, as a possible ground of defence or explanation; but to us
it seems that we are taught the most contradictory dogmas by speakers
of equal authority. The generally received doctrine of future rewards
and punishments is asserted at one time, and exploded, very positively,
and with very little reverence, at another. The Scriptural tenet of
redemption is generalised into a law of the universe, and the Son of
God is always suffering to redeem guilty planets. Nay, as he bore
suffering for man, we are told that he bears sin for the salvation of
fiends:--

    "_Son of God._               For men
    I bore with death--for fiends I bear with sin;
    And death and sin are each the pain I pay
    For the love which brought me down from Heaven to save
    Both men and devils."

Yet, if all _creature-minds_ are necessarily imperfect, and therefore
necessarily evil, it is difficult to understand in what the action of
redemption can consist; or how any creature can be redeemed from evil,
since evil belongs essentially to it, as a creature.

Though regretting what to us must seem the errors of Mr Bailey, we
have no disposition to censure him very severely for any heterodox
opinion he may have ventured to express. As times go, and as poets
write, Mr Bailey is remarkable for the plenitude of his faith, and the
piety of his verse. We would only, if it were possible, take from his
hands certain edged tools which he is playing with too fantastically,
and the due command of which he does not seem to have acquired. We
would merely express our regret that views which have been dictated
by, or are in accordance with, the highest sentiments and aspirations
of the human mind, should not have been rendered more harmonious with
themselves--more distinct, consistent, and intelligible.

We extricate ourselves as soon as possible from these thorny
discussions, and turn from the philosophy, to some concluding remarks
on the poetry, of _Festus_. And here we can now vary our task, and
relieve our page, by selecting some of those brilliant fragments and
admirable passages which, as we have said, abundantly prove the genius
of Mr Bailey, and which make us regret that an imagination so bold and
original has not been allied to a more disciplined intellect. Nor is
it only in the more daring efforts of imagination that he displays his
power; occasionally there are touches of true pathos; and from time to
time a charming picture, the product of a playful and tender fancy,
will flit past us in the dreary mist which too often hangs over the
scene.

There is much beauty and passion scattered through the love passages of
the drama. Clara says--

    "I wish we had a little world to ourselves,
    With none but we two in it.
    _Festus._                  And if God
    Gave us a star, what could we do with it
    But what we could without it? Wish it not!
    _Clara._ I'll not wish then for stars: but I could love
    Some peaceful spot, where we might dwell unknown,
    Where home-born joys might nestle round our hearts
    As swallows round our roofs, and blend their sweets
    Like dewy tangled flowerets in one bed.
    _Festus._ The sweetest joy, the wildest woe is love;
    The taint of earth, the odour of the skies
    Is in it. Would that I were aught but man!
    The death of brutes, the immortality
    Of fiend or angel, better seems than all
    The doubtful prospects of our painted dust.
    And all Morality can teach is--Bear!
    And all Religion can inspire is--Hope!"

Then changing his mood, with a very natural versatility, Festus says--

    "Here have I lain all day in this green nook,
    Shaded by larch and hornbeam, ash and yew;
    A living well and runnel at my feet,
    And wild-flowers dancing to some delicate air;
    An urn-topped column and its ivy wreath
    Skirting my sight, as thus I lie and look
    Upon the blue, unchanging, sacred skies:
    And thou, too, gentle Clara, by my side,
    With lightsome brow and beaming eye, and bright
    Long glorious locks, which drop upon thy cheek
    Like gold-hued cloud-flakes on the rosy morn.
    Oh! when the heart is full of sweets to o'er-flowing,
    And ringing to the music of its love,
    Who but an angel or a hypocrite
    Could speak or think of happier states?"

The name of the fair one changes--it is Helen instead of Clara that he
now idolises; but the passion is the same--the intense love of beauty.
There is a festival; he crowns Helen queen of the festive scene, with
these gay and joyous lines:--

    "_Festus._ Here--wear this wreath! no ruder crown
    Should deck that dazzling brow.
    I crown thee, love; I crown thee, love;
    I crown thee Queen of me:
    And oh! but I am a happy land,
    And a loyal land to thee.
    I crown thee, love; I crown thee, love;
    Thou art Queen in thine own right!
    Feel! my heart is as full as a town of joy;
    Look! I've crowded mine eyes with light.
    I crown thee, love; I crown thee, love;
    Thou art Queen by right divine!
    And thy love shall set neither night nor day
    O'er this subject heart of mine.
    I crown thee, love; I crown thee, love;
    Thou art Queen by the right of the strong!
    And thou did'st but win where thou might'st have slain,
    Or have bounden in thraldom long.
    I crown thee, love; I crown thee, love;
    Queen of the brave and free;
    For I'm brave to all beauty but thine, my love;
    And free to all beauty by thee."

As this displays the bounding gaiety of love, so the following extract
reveals some of the delirium of the passion:--

    "I, too, could look on thee until I wept.--
    Blind me with kisses! Let me look no longer;
    Or change the action of thy loveliness,
    Lest long same-seemingness should send me mad!--
    Blind me with kisses!"

There are many songs introduced in this, which may be described as
the more terrestrial portion of the drama. They are not, in general,
commendable. The substance of them is no better nor higher than love
songs and drinking songs are very properly composed of, whilst the
verse is destitute of that polish, grace, and harmony, which trifles
of this description ought to possess. We select one stanza, as the
happiest specimen which occurs to us of this kind of composition. Helen
is singing:--

    "Like an island in a river,
      Art thou, my love, to me;
    And I journey by thee ever
      With a gentle ectasie.
    I arise to fall before thee;
      I come to kiss thy feet;
    To adorn thee and adore thee,
      Mine only one! my sweet!"

In his description of nature, and especially of night, the stars, the
moon, the heavens, our poet often breaks upon us with a truly noble and
poetic imagination:--

                  "How strangely fair,
    Yon round still star, which looks half-suffering from,
    And half-rejoicing in its own strong fire;
    Making itself a lonelihood of light."

Of the moon he is a most permissible idolator:--

                                "See,
    The moon is up, it is the dawn of night.
    Stands by her side one bold, bright, steady star--
    Star of her heart-- ...
    Mother of stars! the Heavens look up to thee:
    They shine the brighter but to hide thy waning;
    They wait and wane for thee to enlarge thy beauty;
    They give thee all their glory night by night;
    Their number makes not less thy loneliness
    Nor loveliness."

This is of the full moon: what follows is addressed to her when she
passes as the young moon, and brings her fresh bright crescent of
light into the sky:--

    "Young maiden moon! just looming into light--
    I would that aspect never might be changed;
    Nor that fine form, so spirit-like, be spoiled
    With fuller light. Oh! keep that brilliant shape;
    Keep the delicious honour of thy youth,
    Sweet sister of the sun, more beauteous thou
    Than he sublime. Shine on, nor dread decay.
    It may take meaner things; but thy bright look,
    Smiling away on immortality,
    Assures it us----God will not part with thee,
    Fair ark of light, and every blessedness!"

Here are some scattered fragments which pleased us very much, but which
cannot be introduced under any formal classification. Describing his
desertion of his first love, Angela, Festus says,--

                          "It was thus:
    I said we were to part, but she said nothing.
    There was no discord--it was music ceased--
    Life's thrilling, bounding, bursting joy."

Of books, he says,--

                  "Worthy books
    Are not companions--they are solitudes;
    We lose ourselves in them, and all our cares."

Here is a charming picture,--

                  "Before us shone the sun.
    The angel waved her hand ere she began,
    As bidding earth be still. The birds ceased singing,
    And the trees breathing, and the lake smoothed down
    Each shining wrinklet, and the wind drew off.
    _Time leant him o'er his scythe, and, listening, wept._"

Speaking of men of genius, he says,--

    "Men whom we built our love round, like an arch
    Of triumph, as they pass us on their way
    To glory and to immortality."

The vague aspirations of one living in his ideas is thus expressed,--

                  "I cannot think but thought
    On thought springs up, illimitably, round,
    As a great forest sows itself; but here
    There is nor ground nor light enough to live.

       *       *       *       *       *

            But the hour is hard at hand
    When Time's gray wing shall winnow all away
    The atoms of the earth, the stars of Heaven;
    When the created and Creator mind
    Shall know each other, worlds and bodies both
    Put off for ever."

He says finely,--

                  "We never see the stars
    Till we can see naught but them. So with truth."

Of a young poet,--

    "He wrote amid the ruins of his heart,
    They were his throne and theme; like some lone king
    Who tells the story of the land he lost,
    And how he lost it.
    ... It is no task for suns
    To shine. He knew himself a bard ordained."

These two following quotations may be also put very well together,
though taken from different parts of the poem,--

                        "It is fine
    To stand upon some lofty mountain-thought,
    And feel the spirit stretch into the view:
    To joy in what might be, if will and power,
    For good, would work together.

       *       *       *       *       *

      But while we wish, the world turns round
    And peeps us in the face--the wanton world,
    We feel it gently pressing down our arm--
    The arm we had raised to do for truth such wonders;
    We feel it softly bearing on our side--
    We feel it touch and thrill us through the body--
    And we are fools, and there's an end of us."

The following are some of the expressions of the mingled tide of
passion, and of thought as it flows through the troubled bosom of his
hero,--

    "And if I love not now, while woman is
    All bosom to the young, when shall I love?
    Who ever paused on passion's fiery wheel?
    Or trembling by the side of her he loved,
    Whose lightest touch brings all but madness, ever
    Stopped coldly short to reckon up his pulse?
    The car comes--and we lie--and let it come;
    It c

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