SKETCHES

OF

THE IRISH BAR;

ESSAYS,
LITEEAEY AND POLITICAL.

WILLIAM HENRY CURRAN, Esq.

IN" TWO TOLUMES.
VOL. II.

LONDON:
PUBLISHED FOR HEMY COLBURN,
BY Ills SUCCESSORS, HURST & BLACKETT, GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET.
1855.

PRINTED BY HARRISON AND SONS:
LONDON llAZETTK OfKlCK, ST. MARTIN'S l-ANK.

CONTENTS

THE SECOND VOLUME.

MR. DOHERTY, SOLICITOR-GENERAL OF IRELAND ..
ON THE COMPLAINTS IN AMERICA AGAINST THE
BRITISH PRESS 
ON GERMAN CRITICISM 
ON THE WRITINGS OF QUEVEDO 
POSTERITY 
JEAN-JAQUES ROUSSEAU 
THE VAULTS OF ST. MICHAN'S 
BARKY THE PAINTER 
THE NAPOLEON MEMOIRS 

29 55
80
102119156
169184

IV CONTENTS.

•PAGE

MR. IRVING 

 213

ARCHIBALD HAMILTON EOWAN 

 241

THE NEW REFORMATION IN IRELAND ....

 251

IRISH PORTRAITS, No. I 

 273

No. II 

 284

No. m 

 293

No. IV 

 303

SKETCHES or
THE lEISH BAE.
(continued.)

VOL. II.

SKETCHES

THE lEISH BAE.

MR. DOHERTY, SOLICITOR-GENERAL
OF IRELAND.
[September, 1827.]
Mr. Doherty, whom his personal claims, assisted
I presume by his political connexions, and backed
by the opposition of Lord Manners, have recom
mended as the new Solicitor- General of Ireland, is
six feet two inches high, and " every inch" a very
estimable person. TaU as he is, there is nothing
contemptuous or haughty in his carriage. He never
proudly tosses up his chin, as if to let briefer speci
mens of humanity pass under. He delights not, like
some of his learned and pious brethren of the bar,
in soaring among the skies for the inward satisfac
tion of looking down upon other men ; neither can
b2

4 SKETCHES OF THE IRISH BAB.
he pass with their dexterous versatility from knotty
questions of Chancery practice to the latest autho
rities for " non-suiting the devil."' He is, on the
contrary, as terrestrial as can be in his habits and
intercourse. His manners are friendly and forbear
ing, and his conversation enlivened by a temperate
love of frolic, which endears his society to all those
hardened sinners, who have not yet been sainted into
a due sense of the awful responsibility of joining in a
hearty laugh. • As to more important points, h& is
admitted on all hands to be an extremely clever man.
He is, and has been for some years, the leader upon
his circuit ; and since he became so, has given une
quivocal proofs that he possesses powers of no ordi
nary kind in swaying the decisions of a jury, while
he has more recently, in the discussion of graver
matters in the courts of Dublin, established a eharac-
• An English writer of the I7th century has sketched "the
character of a perfect lawyer," from which I extract the con
cluding sentence for the benefit of the learned saints of Ire
land. " In a word, whilst he lives, he is the delight of the
courts, the ornament of the bar, the glory of his profession,
the patron of innoceucy, the upholder of right, the scourge of
oppression, the terror of deceit, and the oracle of his country ;
and when death calls him to the bar of Heaven by a haheas
corpus cum causis, he finds his judge his advocate, nonsuits the
devil, obtains a liberate from all his infirmities, and continues
still one of the long robe in glory."

ME. DOHERTY. 5
ter for legal efficiency, wliich has been erroneously
assumed to be incompatible with the more popular
attributes of wit and eloquence. Resting upon a
confidence in his qualifications, and sustained by a
just ambition, Mr. Doherty long since announced by
his conduct, that he aspired to something more than
the partial success, which is founded upon the mere
emoluments of place. Five years ago he resigned a
lucrative office,' of which he found the duties to
interfere with his final objects, and, dedicating him
self more excliisively to his profession, has prepared
himself for those higher honours, which he then pre
dicted to lie within his reach.
As an advocate, his general style of treating seri
ous topics has nothing so peculiarly his own as pro
minently to distinguish him from others. In his
addresses to juries he is prompt, orderly, correct, and
fluent — ^rarely attempting to inflame the passions to
their highest pitch, but always warmly and forcibly
inculcating the principles of common sense, and
practical good feeling ; but when a case requires (in
technical parlance) "to be laughed out of court,"
(and one half of the cases that enter there deserve
' Commissioner of Enquiry into Courts of Justice in Ire
land — ^the salary 1200?. a year.

6 SKETCHES OF THE IRISH BAR.
to be so dismissed) Mr. Doherty exhibits powers of
very striking and effective originality. I know of
no one that more eminently possesses the difficult
talent of enlisting a jury on his side by a continued
strain of good-humoured, gentleman-like irony — con
sisting of mock-heroic encomiums, sarcastic defer
ence, and appropriate parodies upon arguments and
illustrations, delivered (as long as gravity is possible)
with a most meritorious solemnity of countenance,
and a certain artful kindliness of tone, that heightens
the absurdity it exposes, by affecting to commiserate
it. He is also distinguished for his ability in cross-
examination — a quality which has rendered him, in,
his capacity of crown-prosecutor upon his circuit, a
formidable co-operator in the enforcement of the laws,
Recent events have brought this gentleman into
prominent view before the Irish public, and have
arrayed in his interest a degree of popular favour
which is rarely tendered to a future adviser of state-
prosecutions. Upon the late vacancy of the solicitor..
generalship for Ireland (an office upon which its long
tenure by the present Lord Chief-justice' has con
ferred a kind of classic dignity) a variety of con
curring circumstances — the respectability of his per-
' Bushe.

MR. DOHERTT. 7
sonal character — his professional competency — ^the
known liberality of his political opinions — and his
parliamentary and private relations with the prime
minister of England,' pointed out Mr. Doherty as one
of the fittest persons to be raised to the situation. I
should be unjust to others if I wete to assert that
he was in every respect the very fittest. I can
not overlook, the Irish public did not overlook, the
claims of such a man as Mr. Wallace, founded as
they are upon emi;nent professional station, tried
public character, and (the penalty of the latter) a long
and systematic exclusion from office. Mr. Holmes
is another. He was spoken of, and weU deserved it.
His professional life has been one continued manly
appeal to the public ; and the public, doing aU they
could for him, have placed him at the head of his
profession. In his political principles he has been
honest and immutable, careless of patronage, and
prizing above aU things his self-respect. Another of
the same school and stamp is Mr. Perrin, a younger
man by many years, too young, perhaps, to be raised
to professional honours by merit alone. His name
was not mentioned upon the occasion referred to;
but where a fitness for the public service is in
' Mr. Canning.

8 SKETCHES OE THE IRISH BAR.
question, I cannot in fairness pass it by. He com
menced his career at a period (the most dismal in
the annals of the Irish Bar) when public spirit led
to martyrdom ; but he was one of the few that were
too strong to be suppressed. He prospered in despite
of his inflexible adherence to the opinions of his
youth, and (a rare event in the life of a liberal
Irishman) has lived to see the day, when such
opinions are no longer to disqualify. I could men
tion others. Mr. North, for example, was in every
way suited by character, acquirements, and en
lightened views, to bear a part in a reformed govern
ment of Ireland. So was Mr. Crampton, who,
though more absorbed in his profession, and more
circumspect in his avowals, has always had the spirit
to keep aloof from the base expedients that led to
advancement at the Irish Bar. I have introduced
these names without any invidious design towards
the immediate subject of the present notice. On
the contrary, I could not easUy produce a more com
plimentary test of his personal and professional esti
mation than the fact, that the postponement of such
men to him was acquiesced in without a murmur
from the bar, or the public. His individual qualifi
cations were fully admitted; and it was farther

MR. DOHERTY. 9
borne in mind, that the circumstance of his having a
seat in the House of Commons, where one at the
least of the law-officers of the crown should be
present to answer for their acts, afforded in his
favour an obvious and powerful ground of preference.
The lord chanceUor of Ireland, however, decided.
otherwise; and without presuming to, usurp the
jurisdiction of the House of Peers, or to emulate its
frequent severity towards his lordship's judicial
inadvertencies, I may, perhaps, be permitted to in
vestigate the reasons and the value of his decision in
the present instance.
Lord Manners is a nobleman of high English
blood, and in his individual capacity, and when left
to himself, is marked by aU the thorough-bred attri
butes that belong to his race. As a private man, and
apart from politics, he is dignified, courteous, just,
and generous. His moral instincts are aU aided and
enforced by the honourable pride of the peer, and
the gentleman; he recoils from what is base, not
only because it is so, but because to act otherwise
would be unworthy of the blood of the Rutlands.
Though of a temperament rather irritable than
warm, he is active and steadfast in his friendships.
In his private intercourse, there is an easy simplicity

10 SKETCHES OF THE IRISH BAR.
of manner, and a condescending familiarity of tone,
that not only fascinates his immediate adherents, but
even charms down the resentment of the Catholic
squire, to whom he explains the political impossi
bility of granting him the commission of the peace.
Many of these qualities follow Lord Manners to the
judgment-seat, but in company with others, which
greatly detract from their influence. It is not so
easy a matter to be a great judge, as a perfect gentle
man. That he is the latter, his lordship's enemies
must admit ; that he ever could be the former his
friends have scrupulously abstained from insinu
ating — the contrary, and the cause of it, were too
palpable. In the decisions of Lord Manners, even in those
now prostrate ones, at which the Chancellor of Eng
land shook his sides as samples of provincial equity,
thei'e were no symptoms of impatient or pprverted
strength of intellect, rushing vigorously to a wrong
conclusion. The judicial defects of Lord Manners
have another origin — a natural delicacy of mental
constitution, which incapacitates him for the labours
of legal dialectics. As far as a mere passive opera
tion of the mind is required for collecting a series of
naked facts, he shows no deficiency of perception or

MR. DOHERTY. 11
retention. The settlements, marriages, deaths, and
incumbrances, that form the ordinary staple of a
chancery suit, he can master with sufficient expert
ness, and, probably, not the less so from having his
attention unmolested, during the process, by any
logical speculations upon their bearings on the issue ;
but whenever an active effort of thought is wanting
for the comprehending and elucidating a complicated
question, the organic failing of his mind breaks out.
Submit two propositions to him, and, if they be in
immediate juxta-position, he can perceive as quickly
as another whether they correspond or differ ; but if
(as in the case of most legal problems) their relation
is discoverable only by a process of intermediate
comparisons, no sooner has the advocate advanced a
step in the operation, than he is left to proceed
alone, the Chancellor remaining stock still at the
starting point, and looking on with a polite, fastidious
smile, as if he were rather determined not to be mis
led, than unable to foUow.
The consequence of this habitual inertness of intel
lect is, that the fate of every case of difficulty that
comes before him, must be, more or less, an affair of
chance, depending not so much upon its various
aspects, as upon the precise point of elevation to

]2 SKETCHES OP THE IRISH BAR.
which his mind can be possibly uplifted for the pur
pose of inspection. Lord Manners's inaptitude for
compound reasoning was well known to Lord Plun-
ket, who would often practise upon it vrith the unre
lenting dexterity of a hardened logician. It was at
once interesting and amusing to see that consum
mate advocate, when nothing else remained, resort
ing to a series of subtle stratagems, of which none
but himself could discern the object, until the last
movement, being completed, presented the victim of
his craft pent up in an equitable defile, from which
there was no escaping. If he attempted it on one
side, there stood Vesey Junior guarding the pass ; if
on the other, his own Stackpoole and Stackpoole (as
just reversed in the Lords) stopped the way ; Hard
wicke and Camden overawed his rear ; common
sense and the attorney-general kept annoying his
front, until the keeper of the Irish seals exhausted,
though unconvinced, would frankly admit that he
was "perplexed in the extreme," and, throwing an
" asking eye" at Mr. Saurin, demand four and twenty
hours to clear his thoughts. It required, however,
all the authoritative abihty of such a man as the late
attorney-general to extract such an admission from
his lordship. To others, whom there was less risk

-MR. DOHERTV. 13
of provoking by impatience, he has always given it
to be clearly understood, that, when once he had
succeeded in forming an opinion, he did not expect
to be pressed by arguments against it. In doing
this, he did not intend to be unjust; he merely
shrunk from the mental labour of reinvestigating
the grounds of a conclusion, at which, whether right
or wrong, he had found it no easy task to arrive : but
the consequence of his known irritability upon such
occasions has inevitably been to place a counsel in
the embarrassing predicament, of either surrender
ing his case before it is thoroughly discussed, or of
exposing himself, by his perseverance, to the impu
tation of being wanting in respect to the court.
A chancellor of Ireland is necessarily a politician,
and I confidently believe that Lord Manners had as
anxious a wish to be a beneficent statesman, as to be
a just judge, but it could not be. He came to Ire
land with the prejudices of the cradle upon the
questions that agitate her; and, in a mind like his,
such prejudices are fondly cherished as easy of com
prehension, and saving the necessity of more labori
ous investigation. Tell this amiable nobleman that
the dread of popery is no more the foundation of
British freedom, than the fear of gobUns is the basis

14 SKETCHES OF THE IRISH BAR.
of religion, and he starts as if you proposed an imme
diate dissolution of society. Insinuate that the only
known method of consolidating an empire is by com
municating equal rights and benefits to aU its parts,
and his prophetic eye beholds a picture inconceivably
appalling — the pope on the throne of Ireland —
Doctor Doyle, Archbishop of Dublin — Mr. O'Con-
nell, lord high chancellor — Mr. Purcel O'Gorman,
principal secretary for papal affairs, and, worse than
all, Mr. Shiel sworn in as solicitor- general before he
was actually more than twenty years at the bar.
This chronic distemper of the mind has influenced
almost all Lord Manners's political acts : his govern
ment of the magistracy, his recommendations to
office,' and (what in Ireland may be called a political
' An important branch of the Irish chancellor's patronage,
and one that he has exercised with more profusion than any
of his predecessors, is the nomination of king's counsel. The
subject demands a short notice of the nature and incidents of
this appointment. The legal fiction is, (as the term imports,)
that a certain number of barristers are selected to conduct the
necessary business of the crown. In point of fact, they are
utterly unnecessary, and, as such, unemployed, for that pur
pose. The business of the crown can be, and is fully dis
charged by the attorney and solicitor-general, and the three
sergeants upon important occasions ; and in ordinary matters,
by the several crown-prosecutors, who are chosen indiscrimi
nately from the bar. The attorney-general is bound to pro
vide for the proper conduct of crown-prosecutions, and as he

MR. DOHERTY. 15
act) the selection of his personal favourites. Even
the speculators in a preposterous theology, which he
never liked, found favour in his sight, in considera-
cannot be present in his own person, he substitutes in his
place certain individuals, for whose eflSciency he is responsible ;
of these a considerable portion, upon some of the circuits one
half, are at this moment stuff gowns. But however rarely the
king may in point of fact have occasion for the services of his
nominal counsel, they are by a similar fiction of law presumed
to be at all times occupied with the business of the Crown,
and therefore entitled to precedence in the courts. This, to a
barrister of ordinary eflBciency, is an important personal advan
tage. It enables him to bring on his motions to a speedy
decision, and thus establishes, for those who enjoy the privi
lege, a profitable monopoly of an extensive branch of general
business. The only exception is in the Rolls court ; where, by
a regulation of the present Master of the RoUs, the several
motions for the day are entered in a list according to the date
of the notice, and called on in regular rotation. There is, con
sequently, no precedency among the counsel ; and the result
(which can be scarcely accidental) is, that in that court, the
great mass of the very important business transacted there is
distributed amoug the members of the outer bar. In all the
other courts a large portion of the general business is with
drawn from the outer bar, and distributed among the privi
leged few. In common fairness, therefore, to the profession at
large, and also to the suitor, who ought to be left as uncon
trolled as possible in the selection of his counsel, personal
privileges of this kind, which thus work a detriment to others,
should be very sparingly conferred. Iu former times, a silk
gown was given as an honorary distinction to an alreadyeminent
barrister, and not as a recommendation to business. Thirty
years ago, there were ouly sixteen king's counsel, and since

16 SKETCHES or THE IRISH BAR.
tion of their rapturous concurrence in his worldly
misconceptions. He was at all times wiUing to
meet a senior or junior saint anywhere, but at the
Bethesda, and to hear any thing from their lips
except an extemporary exhortation.
It was quite impossible that a person so single-
minded and unsuspecting, should fail to be the
. frequent dupe of those sagacious devotees. It is
recorded of that ingenious personage, immortalized
as Mr. Dexter in the novel of " O'Donnell," that he
was in the habit, for his own shrewd purposes, of
keeping close to the Irish chancellor (who is a
keen sportsman, though an indifferent shot) upon
his shooting excursions through Lord Abercorn's
grounds. Every bird that rose was missed by the
peer, and contemporaneously brought down by his
unerring companion, who with pretended mortifica
tion, and an effrontery of adulation known only to
Irish parasites, would bluster about the unfairness of
then the general business of the bar has materially decreased.
There are now forty-three ; all, with a few exceptions, of Lord
Manners's creation. The number has, iu fact, become so
excessive, that it has been found necessary to alter the old
arrangement of the courts, in order to supply them all with
seats. At the English bar, where public opinion has some
influence, there were, at the commencement of the present
year, only twenty-eight king's counsel.

MR. DOHERTY. 17
being anticipated in every shot; and, after a day
thus turned to good account, would bring back the
iUustrious sportsman, loaded with imaginary spoils,
and exulting in his undiminished accuracy of aim.
It was not only in the fields of Barons-Court, that
his lordship has been closely attended by men as
dexterous as Mr. Dexter. He was too obvious an
instrument not to be surrounded by practised, politi
cal marksmen, who were ever ready, for their ovm
substantial objects, to give him, all the use and glory
of their skill. Having no taste for general reading,
or solitary meditation, he has dedicated his extra
judicial hours to social ease, and naturally fell into a
companionship with those, who were least disposed
to shake his faith in his prejudices. It was not in
the Huguenot recollections of Mr. Saurin, nor in the
colloquial revelations of his calvinistic hosts or guests,
that a public functionary in Ireland could be ex
pected to be weaned of his pohtical antipathies. The
extent of those antipathies, and their undeviating
influence upon his lordship's public acts, may be
collected from a single fact. Among the legal
appointments in the gift of the Irish chancellor, there
are about thirty commissionerships of bankrupts;
and during the twenty years that Lord Manners
VOL. II. c

18 SKETCHES OP THE IRISH BAR.
has held the seals, not one Roman Catholic barrister
has been named to a place.
When Mr. Doherty was lately nominated to the
vacant soHcitor-generalship for Ireland, Lord Man
ners interposed, and for some weeks, refused to
swear him in. The measure was as unprecedented
as the reason assigned; namely, that the gentleman
in question, who is of twenty years' standing, was
too youthful a barrister to be lifted over the heads
of certain meritorious seniors. The principle sounded
fairly enough in the ears of the one or two, who hoped
to profit by it, but it had not the slightest founda
tion in established usage, There has been no such
thing at the Irish Bar as even a vague expectation^
that promotion was to be regulated by length of
standing, and least of aU, promotion to the office in
question, which may be said to partake more of a
political, than a legal character. It is only necessary
to refer to the appointments since the Union ; they
are as foUows : —
Sir John Stewart, eighteen years at the bar.
Mr. O'Grady, (now Chief-baron of the Exchequer)
fifteen. Mr. M'Cleland, (now Baron of the Exchequer)
thirteen years at the bar.

MR. DOHERTY. 19
Mr. Plunket, (now Chief-justice of the Common
Pleas) seventeen years at the bar.
Mr. Bushe, (now Chief justice of the King's
Bench) thirteen years at the bar.
The list closes with the present Attorney-general,
Mr. Joy. He had certainly obtained the maturity
of standing, which has at length been discovered to
be so indispensable a quaUfication ; but who, that
ever gave a thought to the reasons for his appoint
ment, does not know that he was made solicitor-
general in 1832, not because he happened to be a
sergeant, not because he was well-stricken in legal
years, but because there was in his person a coinci
dence of professional and political requisites, which
accorded with the project of a balanced administra
tion : — so far as the question of seniority is con
cerned, he formed an exception to the general
practice. Overlooking, however, the objection that Mr.
Doherty is not old enough in his profession to be
" a promising young man," — a grave legal maxim,
for which Lord Manners has the high authority of
Mr. Sergeant Elower — I would say that the political
circumstances of Ireland afford some very serious
reasons for the selection of this gentleman, and the
C 2

20 SKETCHES OP THE IRISH BAR-
rejection of the class of competitors that Lord Man
ners would have preferred. The late purification of
the British Cabinet has opened new prospects to the
Catholics of Ireland, and (what a wise and con
siderate government should never overlook) has
inspired their leaders with a sanguine and deter
mined forbearance, seldom manifested by the direc
tors of a popular body. The skiU and prudence with
which Mr. O'ConneU and his coUeagues, at the risk
of their popularity, have prevailed upon their ardent
countrymen to accommodate their temper to the
exigencies of the occasion, justly merited every prac
tical acknowledgment that could be tendered by the
new administration.
Next to the final consummation of their hopes,
the Irish Catholics annex the utmost importance to
the official appointments of persons in whom they
can confide ; and most of aU in the case of .the
legal advisers of the crown, upon whose individual
characters, and pohtical tenets, they know by ex
perience that the decision of many questions afifecting
their interests depend. But, however sensitive upon
this point, they evinced no disposition, at the recent
crisis, to embarrass the government, by exacting
more than could be conveniently accorded. Though

MR. DOHERTY. 21
well aware of Mr. Joy's hostihty to their cause, they
aUowed his personal claims to outweigh their wishes,
and acquiesced, as a matter of state necessity, in his
elevation to the Vacant Attorney-generalship; but
farther than this, they could not be expected to go.
They saw that the government was free to choose
his colleague, and very reasonably considered that
their feeUngs and interests should be consulted in
the selection. Had this expectation been baffied —
had a pohtical favourite of Lord Manners been
raised to a condition of suggesting subtle reasons
for disturbing the pubUc tranquiUity by the prose
cution of the Catholic leaders, the most disastrous
results would have ensued; all confidence in the
professions of the new minister would have been
at an end. The CathoUc Association would have
instantly exploded, and have been quickly involved
in angry colUsions with the government, fatal alike
to their own interests, and to the stabUity of the
administration from which they have so much to
hope. These lamentable consequences have however
been prevented. The spirit of a better and juster
poUcy prevailed. Mr. Doherty was preferred ; and
the measure was no sooner announced than its
propriety was sanctioned by the pubUc and unequi-

22 SKETCHES OP THE IRISH BAR.
vocal satisfaction of that body, which it was of such
vital moment to conciliate.
The mere legal duties of the office to which Mr.
Doherty has been caUed, might be easily discharged
by a person of professional qualifications much
inferior to his; but it embraces other duties, de
manding requisites of another, and less common
kind. It is now notorious that the CathoUc ques
tion (however opinions may vary upon its relative
importance) is the one upon which the fate of
administrations depends — and most pecuUarly the
fate of the present administration. The CathoUcs
of Ireland, though not yet arrived at the maturity
of strength and influence in the empire which, when
attained, must ensure an adjustment of their claims,
have it at all times, in their power to resort to
proceedings incompatible with the continuance of
their friends in office. Hence the relation of that
body with the government of the country, at the
present juncture, is one of unexampled deUcacy, and,
as such, requires the nicest management in sustaining
them under the fatigues of protracted hope, and in
preventing them from confounding inevitable delays
with an abandonment of their cause by their pro
fessed supporters. It would be too much to expect

MR. DOHERTY. 23
that indications of this latter feeling wiU not occa
sionally break out, and in forms that may render
it doubtful whether the due limits of popular dis
cussion have been observed. Upon such questions,
when they arise, the law-officers of the crown wUl
have to advise ; and to advise with discretion, they
must have something more than a knowledge of the
law. There must be good temper, good sense, good
wUl towards the parties concerned, and a strong
pubUc interest in preserving the state from the
embarrassments that would foUow a hasty prose
cution. These important moral qualifications (if he
be true to the tenor of his past life) will be found in
Mr. Doherty's official character; and along with
them, a great practical skill in winning over the
tempers of others to a given object, which eminently
fits him for the task of mediating between the
occasional effervescence of his Catholic countrymen,
and the literal rigour of the law. He will also —
but I have pursued the subject far enough, and in
dweUing so long upon it I feel it to be only an act
of common justice to an estimable individual to
record the opinion of the Irish public upon the cruel,
but unavailing attempt that has been made to
mar his prospects, and , to bring discredit upon the

24 SKETCHES OF THE IRISH BAR.
government that thought him worthy of their
trust. The voice of the country, in which Mr. Doherty
is best known, has sustained him through this impor
tant crisis of his life. The zeal with which his case
was taken up by the Irish community, though a
merited, was a most essential service, and claims
at his hands every possible pubUc return that he
can make. He may personally forgive the Irish
ChanceUor for the wrong inflicted on him ; but for
the sake of others, if not for his own, he must bear
it keenly in his memory, and, stimulated by the
recoUection, make his future conduct a practical
refutation of the pretexts for crushing him, and
thereby afford an unanswerable justification of the
government that placed him where he is, and of
the public that so warmly approved of the choice.
What is expected from him as an officer of the
crown I have already intimated ; but he wiU have
other and more comprehensive opportunities of
retorting upon Lord Manners his public services.
He will shortly resume his seat in the House of
Commons, under circumstances that wiU secure for
him an effective co-operation in every salutary
measure that he proposes; and he must not allow

MR. DOHERTY. 25
the indolence of success, or a groundless diffidence,
to restrain him from turning his facilities to a
useful account. Hitherto he has prudently ab
stained from trusting his reputation to the pre
carious effect of sample-speeches ; and his continued
abstinence wUl be justly applauded, if he aspires
to the better fame of making the statute-book
speak for him.
I have heard that he has, for some time past, been
meditating a simpUfication of the Irish bankrupt-
law. This is a favourable omen ; but his ambition
to be of service must not be Umited to matters of
subordinate moment. It would be neither easy nor
in place, to enumerate here the various legislative
wants of Ireland; but I cannot avoid suggesting
that there is one subject of the highest national
interest as yet unappropriated by any Irish member,
and holding out an assurance of the lasting impor
tance that foUows public services to any competent
individual who shall make it his peculiar care : I
aUude to the civUization of the Irish criminal code.
Such a project would be immediately within the
scope of Mr. Doherty's studies and experience;
much of the first and most deterring labour of the
task would be saved by the adoption of Mr. Peel's

26 SKETCHES OF THE IRISH BAR,
general plan, while enough would remain in the
modifications required by the particular state of
Irish society, to give the undertaking a higher
character than that of a servUe imitation.'
' Mr. Doherty became Chief-justice of the court of Common
Pleas in 1831, and held that office till his death, which took
place in the year 1850.

ESSAYS AND SKETCHES,
LITEEAEY AND POLITICAL,

29

ON THE COMPLAINTS IN AMERICA
AGAINST THE BRITISH PRESS.
[Pbbrttaet, 1821.]
It may not be knovm to all our readers that several
citizens of America, addicted to writing books, or,
like ourselves, to the less ambitious composition of
periodical articles, consider themselves to be in a
state of declared and justifiable hostility with the
British press, for what they caU " the indiscriminate
and virulent abuse," which it has lately heaped
upon their country; and that, in consequence, some
very angry appeals and remonstrances, and retalia-
tive effusions, have been sent forth, to expose the
extreme injustice and illiberality, with which their
unoffending republic has been treated on this calum
niating side of the Atlantic.

30 ON THE COMPLAINTS IN AMERICA
The vanity, or at least the views, of the writers to.
whom we allude, seems to have taken rather a sin
gular turn. Heretofore a self-sufficient and irritable
author's first ambition was to create an extraor
dinary bustle about himself, and he accordingly, as
often as the fit was on him, loudly called upon the
world to become a party in his personal squabbles
and fantastic resentments ; but the present race of
paper-warriors of Boston and Philadelphia, magna
nimously dismissing aU consciousness of themselves,
are displaying a more expanded fretfulness, as
assertors of their country's reputation: and lest,
we suppose, their sincerity should be questioned,
they have entered into their patriotic animosities
with all the blind and morbid zeal, and aU the petty,
punctilious susceptibility of affront, that might have
been expected from the most sensitive pretender to
genius, while defending his own sacred claims to
admiration and respect.
If the questions at issue were confined to the
respective merits of Mr. Walsh, the great American
appeUant, against the calumnies of English writers,'
' An Appeal from the Judgments of Great Britain respect
ing the United States of America. Part first, containing an
Historical Outline of their Merits and Wrongs as Colonies

AGAINST THE BRITISH PRESS. 31
and our principal periodical reviews, which he so
bitterly arraigns, we should leave the beUigerents to
fight out their differences in a course of harmless
missile warfare across the Atlantic; but we can
perceive from the tone of Mr. Walsh's book, and of
his Boston reviewer,' that they have taken up the
affair in a spirit far exceeding that of an ordinary
literary quarrel. They have laboured hard to im
press upon America,^ that she has become in this
country the object of systematic hatred and con
tumely. Many obsolete questions have been re
vived for the mere purpose of exasperation, and
discussed in a tone of the fiercest recrimination.
We have hints, not of a very pacific kind, of the
consequences that may accrue to England from her
perverse insensibility to the merits of the United
States. These topics, and the inferences extorted
from them, are throughout supported by. considerable
exaggeration, and occasionaUy, we regret to observe,
either by direct falsehoods, or by suppressions that
and Strictures upon the Calumnies of British Writers. By
Eobert Walsh, Junior. Second edition. Philadelphia, 1819,
8vo. pp. 512.
' North American Review and Miscellaneous Journal. New
series, No. 11. April, 1820, Boston.

32 ON THE COMPLAINTS IN AMERICA
amount to falsehoods ; so that were it not for our
confidence in the better sense and information of the
community which those productions are designed to
inflame, we should expect to find every American
that possessed a spark of national pride, buming to
retaliate upon us, by acts of more substantial ven
geance than verbal reprisals, for the insolent and
unmanly sarcasms against his country, that he is
taught to believe has been of late the favourite
occupation of English writers.
We profess to take a very anxious interest in aU
that relates to America. The Boston reviewer
derides the notion of the endearing influence of
consanguinity ; but we feel it in all its force. We
have not enough of his philosophy to forget, that
the community which he is seeking to inflame
against us, is principally composed of the children
of British subjects — that our fathers were the
countrymen of Washington and Franklin. We can
never bring ourselves to consider the land of their
birth as absolutely foreign ground. Many gene
rations must pass away, and great vicissitudes in our
mutual sentiments and relations mark the close of
each, before a contest between America and England
can be anything else than what the late one was

AGAINST THE BRITISH PRESS. 33
regarded, an unnatural civU war. We cannot but
feel too, that the character of the principles and
institutions that most attach us to our own country,
is vitally connected with the moral and political
destiny of the United States ; and that in spite of
the violent separation, and of any changes of forms
and titles that may have ensued, the Americans of
future times will be regarded by the world as a race,
either of improved, or of degenerate Englishmen.
Entertaining these sentiments, we cordially unite
with those who deprecate all attempts to excite a
hostUe spirit in either country ; and with this view
shall proceed to point out a few instances of the
extraordinary and unpardonable precipitation, with
which the above-mentioned writers have levelled
their sweeping accusations against the English press;
and, for brevity sake, shaU take the review of Mr.
Walsh's book in preference to the cumbrous original
of which it contains an analysis.
With the generality of our readers it might in
deed be sufficient to assert, and to appeal to their
own knowledge of the fact, that in this country,
America is the object of no such sentiment as sys
tematic hatred or contempt ; but as the Boston
critic has boldly cited some examples to the con-
VOL, II. " i>

34 ON THE COMPLAINTS IN AMERICA
trary, we may as well stop to examine how far his
selection has been fortunate.
" It is weU known (says he) that one of the most
severe attacks ever made against this country in a
respectable quarter, is the one contained in the 61st
number of the Edinburgh Review ;" and the writer
(Mr. Sydney Smith) is classed among " the malig
nant contributors," to whom " abusive books of
travels in America are entrusted," and who do not
hesitate to gratify their feelings of personal animo
sity, and their jocular propensities, at the expense
of truth and candour. We have this offensive Ubel
before us, and we answer —
It accuses the English cabinet of impertinence for
treating the Americans with ridicule and contempt,
and dwells upon the astonishing increase of their
numbers and resources as a proof that England, and
the other powers of the old world, must soon be
compeUed to respect them. It praises the cheapness
of the American establishments. It compares the
spirit of the American and EngUsh governments in
relation to the liberty of the subject, and gives the
preference to the former.
It praises the simple costume of the American
judges and lawyers, and is unsparing in its ridicule

AGAINST THE BRITISH PRESS. 35
of the " calorific wigs " of our EUenboroughs and
Eldons. It commemorates the cheapness and purity
of the administration of justice in America, and
exposes the expense and delays of the English
Court of Chancery.
The reverend and " maUgnant contributor " ex
tracts the details of Mr. Hall's visit to Mr. Jeffer
son, and Mr. Pearon's to Mr. Adams, both tending
to increase our admiration of those respectable
Americans. He agrees with Mr. Fearon that the indolence of
the American character is a proof of the prosperity
of the country. He gratifies his " personal ani
mosity " by expressing his " real pleasure " in
citing Mr. Bradbury's attestations to their indepen
dence and hospitality, and Mr. Hall's, to the good
sense and courtesy prevaiUng in their social circles —
to their extraordinary liberality to strangers in pecu
niary transactions — and to "the gallantry, high
feeling, and humanity of the American troops ;" and
finaUy, the UbeUer vents some encomiums upon the
religious habits of the American people, and the
great respectabiUty of their clergy.
Here is praise enough, one should think, for
national vanity of an ordinary appetite; but Mr.
D 2

36 ON THE COMPLAINTS IN AMERICA
Smith has had the arrogance to glance at two httle
facts, upon the first of which the Boston critic
seems particularly sore — the scantiness of their
native literature — and the institution of slavery, the
greatest curse and stain upon a civihzed commu
nity ; and this foul proceeding on the part of the
reverend reviewer has cancelled all the merit of his
previous panegyric.
We had intended to have taken one of the papers
in another periodical journal which has proved
equally offensive on the other side of the Atlantic,
and to have given a simUar summary of its contents;
but the specimen we have selected of an article
pre-eminently stigmatized for its injustice and ilU-
berality, will be sufficient to satisfy every rational
Englishman or American that very httle depen
dence is to be placed on those directors of pubhc
opinion in the latter country, who assert that it has
been the subject of "indiscriminate and virulent
abuse " in thisi
The North American Review, in a long episode,
arraigns the English writers and politicians (includ
ing Mr. Bentham and Lord Grey) for their pro
found ignorance of some important pecuharities in
the government of the United States. Assuredly,

AGAINST THE BRITISH PRESS. 37
we may with equal truth retort the accusation, and
express our astonishment that Mr. Walsh, and the
conductor of the Boston Review, both of whom
passed some years in England, should have returned
to their own country, so singularly unacquainted
with the most notorious characteristics of our con
stitution, and with the consequences as manifested
in the political sentiments of our people. Did they
never hear, that our frame of government was com
pounded of monarchical and republican elements ?
that these elements were in a state of ceaseless con
flict ? that every Englishman, who arrives, or thinks
he has arrived, at the age of discretion, makes it a
point to extol the one, and decry the other, accord
ing as his education, or temperament, or interests
throw hira into the ranks of either of our great
contending parties ? Are they not aware that in
this fierce intestine war of opinion, which has been
now for a couple of centuries raging among us, the
highest personages of the land on the one side, and
the most sacred rights of the people on the other,
are daily assailed vrith the most virulent abuse and
ridicule ?
During their residence in England, did they never
throw their eyes over the columns of one of our

38 COMPLAINTS IN AMERICA
ranting patriots, or over the antijacobinical effusions
of a ministerial declaimer ? Did they never pass by
one of our caricature shops, where kings and queens,
ministers and oppositionists, judges and bishops, and
every man, woman, and child, who has the good
fortune to be of sufficient celebrity for the purpose,
are regularly gibbetted for the entertainment of a
people, who consider one of their most glorious
privUeges to be that of laughing at their superiors?
Did these enlightened observers of British manners
never discover, that it is one of the customs of our
country to tolerate all this, and that the most pro
minent objects of those attacks are, for the most
part, among the first to enter into the spirit of the
joke against themselves ? And if the United States
of America now and then happen fco come in for a
share of the wit or scurrility that is going, do they
not perceive that it is in reality a tribute to her
importance, and that she may safely leave her quar
rel in the hands of the admirers of republics among
us, who will not fail in due season tp retaliate with
equal venom, if not equal wit, upon some of the
popular butts of the day — the Bourbons, or the
Holy Alliance, or the august representative of what
is most monarchical in the eyes of men, the Emperor

AGAINST THE BRITISH PRESS, 39
of aU the Russias. Surely a moment's reflection
might have shown them that, on such occasions,
sUence and good-humour are the only effectual
weapons of defence, and that no wise and sober
American should feel serious alarm for the character
and dignity of his nation, even though a Scotch
critic should make unreasonably light of Mr. Joel
Barlow's inspirations, or because Mr. Sydney Smith's
pen, in an hour of thoughtless gaiety, addressed
some words of friendly admonition to the United
States of America, under the homely appeUation of
" Jonathan." Yet such are among the provocations
that have caUed forth Mr. Walsh, as the protagonist
of his "calumniated country," that he may "if
possible arrest the war, which is waged without
stint or intermission upon its national reputa
tion." However irrational this extraordinary sensitiveness
may be, we suspect that the secret cause of it may
be easily discovered.
We have had occasion to mingle pretty freely with
American travellers in this, and other countries of
Europe, and to study their sentiments and manners
with some share of attention. Among them we
found several who might be compared with the best

40 COMPLAINTS IN AMERICA
specimens of the best classes of any community that
can be named — accomplished gentlemen and scholars,
who had crossed the seas for the honourable purpose
of enlarging their views, and travelling down their
prejudices, and whose conversation afforded infinite
stores of interesting information, and manly specu
lation. They were distinguished by manners happily
composed of frankness and refinement, by great
ardour in the pursuit of practical knowledge, and by
a deep, but temperate preference for the institutions
of their native country. The greater number, if not
all of them, have returned to America, where their
rank and acquirements predestine them to share in
the conduct of public affairs, and where we sincerely
trust, that their better influence wiU prove a correc
tive to the baneful doctrines of such men as Mr,
Walsh and his Boston coadjutor. But others, we
must add, were persons of a very different stamp.
They were vulgar, vain, and boisterous ; their acquire
ments were common-place and limited. Their con
versation was made up of violent declamations
against slavery {Americe monarchy) and as loud
assertions of the superiority of America over all the
countries of the globe. This latter feeling, pushed
to the utmost verge of extravagant pretension, is

AGAINST THE BRITISH PRESS. 41
(according to the concurring testimony of traveUers)
a prominent trait in the second-rate American
character; and, \^'hen encountered either by argu
ment or ridicule, or what is worst of all, by facts,
seldom fails to provoke such angry remonstrances
as those of the plaintiffs in the present action of
slander against the writers of Great Britain. In
their own country, indeed, this national prepossession,
being rarely exasperated by resistance, does not
always sweU beyond the bounds of a buoyan,t and
harmless self-complacency, a little offensive perhaps
to strangers, but there the matter ends : it is only
when an American of this class comes to Europe,
more especially to Great Britain, and finds himself
daily confronted by men who resolutely contest his
claims, that his admiration of himself assumes the
infiammatory form of unmeasured hatred and rude
ness to those who have the audacity to prefer
themselves. This irritable and exaggerated self-love arises
from a striking peculiarity in the foundation of an
American's national vanity. Other nations boast of
what they are, or what they have been — but a true
citizen of the United States exalts his head to the
skies in the contemplation of the future grandeur

42 COMPLAINTS IN AMERICA
of his country. With him the pride of pedigree is
reversed. Others claim respect and honour through
a hne of renowned ancestors ; an American glories
in the achievements of a distant posterity. Others
appeal to history ; an American to prophecy. The
latter modestly calls on us to discount his predictions ;
and, on no better security, to hand him over the
full amount in ready praise. His visions are hke
those of the Trojan prince in Elysium, gazing with
anticipated rapture on the passing forms of his
illustrious descendants. You must beware how you
speak of a worthy native of Kentucky as the son
of a respectable planter. No, no, " You don't catch
the thing at all." He is to be considered and duly
venerated as the great-grandfather of some immortal
warrior, or legislator, or poet. This system of raising
a fictitious capital of renown, which his posterity is
to pay ofl' (an invention much resembling our
financial anticipations) is the secret of an American's
extraordinary pretensions, and of his soreness when
they are not allowed. With Malthus in one hand,
and a map of the back settlements in the other, he
boldly defies us to a comparison with America, as
she is to be, and chuckles with precocious exultation
over the splendours which the " geometrical ratio"

AGAINST THE BRITISH PRESS. 43
is to shed upon her story. This appeal to the future
is his never-failing resource. If an English traveller
complains of their inns, and hints his dislike to
sleeping three or four in a bed, first, he is a calum
niator — and next, he is advised to suspend his
opinion of the matter, until another century shall
demonstrate the superiority of their accommodations.
So in matters of literature and science — if Shakspeare,
and Milton, and Newton be named, we are told to
wait — " wait tiU these few milUons of acres shaU be
cleared, when we shall have idle time to attend to
other things — only wait tUl the year 1900 or 2000,
and then the world shall see how much nobler our
poets, and profounder our astronomers, and longer
our telescopes, than that decrepid old hemisphere
of yours could produce."
This propensity to look forward with confidence
to the future exaltation of their country, may, in
the abstract, be natural and laudable : but when the
Americans go farther, and refer to that wished-for
period as one in which the comparative glory of
England shaU be extinguished for ever, they aUow
themselves to be betrayed into hopes at once
unnatural and absurd. Let us admit that their
proudest predictions shall be fully accomplished —

44 COMPLAINTS IN AMERICA
that the day is to come, when the immense northern
continent between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans,
shall be all their own — an assemblage of contiguous
circles of independent states, each a kingdom in
itself, and the great federal compact, like a vast
circumference, binding them together in strength
and union — the whole the residence of countless
millions of free and enlightened Americans. Let us
imagine the time arrived when American fleets shall
cover every sea, and ride in every harbour for the
purposes of commerce, or chastisement, or protection;
when the land of America shaU be the seat of aU
that is most admirable in the eyes of men — of
freedom, learning, taste, morals. Let us farther
suppose, that when all these are " throned in the
West," old England, sinking beneath the weight of
years, and the manifold casualties by which the
pride of empires is levelled in the dust, shall have
" faUen from her high estate," — in that day of her
extremity, what is the language which an English
man, remembering the deeds of his ancestry, might
hold to an American, who should too exultingly
boast of the superior grandeur of his country?
Might he not truly and justly say, "America has
reason to be proud, but let her not forget the source

AGAINST THE BRITISH PRESS. 45
whence she derived that original stock of glory
which she has laid out to such admirable account.
Who were the men that first tamed those barren
tracts which have since become a garden ? EngUsh-
men. — Who laid the foundations of those capitals,
now the emporia of commerce and of science?
Englishmen. — Who taught you the arts of navigation,
which have brought that commerce to perfection?
Englishmen. — From what code did you first catch
that spirit of freedom which achieved your indepen
dence, and has so happily preserved it ? From the
laws and institutions of England. — Where did your
infant science and literature find their models of deep
thought, of exquisite composition, of sublime con
ception? In the writings of immortal Englishmen,
your ancestors and instructors. No, never imagine
that the most splendid consummation of your
destinies can give you an exclusive lustre, in which
the name of England has no right to share. The
bands of generous exiles, whom in ages past she
sent forth to be the founders of your race, were her
sons, and carried the elements of grandeur within
them. In every stage of their adventurous career,
the genius of their original country was among them,
directing and consecrating their efforts. You have

46 COMPLAINTS IN AMERICA
a right to be proud ; but you are also to remember,
that what you make your highest boast, is, after all,
the good old spirit of British freedom, of which you
are the lineal inheritors. This is an honour of
which no vicissitudes can deprive her. Let the
name of England fade away from the list of nations
• — let her long line of statesmen, heroes,, and
scholars, and ' the many wondrous things they
did in their day,' be buried in obUvion — stUl,
as long as an empire of Americans survives,
speaking her language, cherishing her institu
tions, and emulating her example, her name shaU
be pronounced with veneration throughout the
world, and her memory be celebrated by a glo
rious monument."
Before we conclude, we cannot refrain from
adverting to one curious topic introduced by the
Boston reviewer, upon which he enlarges, with
considerable warmth, through half a dozen closely
printed pages — the comparative purity of the English
language in the works of British and American
writers : our readers will readily conjecture to whom
the preference is assigned. The American stoutly
maintains that we have no right to dictate to his
country on this head ; and that she is, and shaU be,

AGAINST THE BRITISH PRESS. 47
the sole judge of the words she shall employ, and
the significations they shaU bear, "That every
innovation which has taken place since the time of
Shakspeare, or of Milton, in the English language
in England, should be recognized as authority, and
every change which has taken place in the language
iu America, in the same interval, should be stigma
tized as a corruption, (he) sees no good reason in
philology or common sense : it appears (to him)
mere arrogant pedantry." Now really this quarrel
about words seems, to us, to be siUy in the extreme,
and to betray, on the part of the writer, great
' ignorance of the subject he undertakes to discuss.
Certainly the current language of America is to be
at her own disposal ; and she is as free as England
to circulate as many new, or call in as many old,
words as she pleases. But what will be the conse
quence of the capricious exercise of such a right?
Why, that a particular standard of the language will
arise in America, differing from the English standard,
and which EngUsh writers and readers will not
recognize to be authority. It will be in vain to tell
us that the American innovations have " good reasons
in philology and common sense." The only question
we have to ask is, whether our best writers and

48 COMPLAINTS IN AMERICA
speakers have adopted them ; and, if they have not,
we of necessity pronounce them to be corruptions.
The utmost concession we could make in such a
case, would be to imitate the courteous Parisian's
observation on a phrase of Di. Moore's : " It is not
French, but it deserves to be so." If these innova
tions proceed in either country to such an extent as
to cause a material difference between the lan
guages, how idle to ask which is the better
English. The better English wiU always be the
English of the British court and senate, and of
distinguished British authors ; whUe the language
of America, with all its appeals to "phUology
and common sense," must submit to be termed
a dialect. If America be ambitious of forming a language
that shaU rival or supersede the parent-tongue, there
is indeed one (and only one) mode of accomplishing
her object ; but that she will find to be a work of
far more difficulty than the Boston reviewer appears
to have suspected.
When we speak of the period at which a language
becomes fixed, we seldom annex a very definite or
accurate meaning to the expression. Its more ordi
nary signification we imagine to be, that in gram-

AGAINST THE BRITISH PRESS. 49
matical correctness, in elegance, and in strength, the
language has then arrived at its acme of perfection :
but, in this point of view, we are too apt to confine
our attention to certain inherent qualities in the lan
guage, which, having attained a particular point, are
supposed to be incapable of farther improvement.
The true mode, however, of considering the question
is, to advert to the genius of the writers, who have
thus far moulded the language to their purposes.
The greatest writers in any language, let them
appear when they wiU, fix that language ; that is,
they leave in their works models of thought and
composition, which their successors cannot surpass,
and which are, for that reason, ever after referred to
as standards of unequalled excellence. They become
the manuals of students, or, in other words, the
classics of the language. Now when we say, that
those writers fix their language, we in reality
mean, that the mind of their country reaches, in
their persons, its highest point. The Greek tongue
was fixed for epic poetry by Homer, and, as to
prose by a group of writers who flourished about
the time of Socrates ; but, had the freedom of,
Athens continued, and her intellect advanced —
had a race of authors in after- times sprung up,
VOL. II. E

50 COMPLAINTS IN AMERICA
more sublime than Homer, more eloquent than
Demosthenes, more profound and imaginative than
Plato, more elegantly flowing than Xenophon — no
matter how many innovations the lapse of years
might have introduced, these latter would have
been the fixers of the language ; and innumerable
words and phrases in the writings of their predeces
sors, which are now admired for their purity, would
pass for obsolete or uncouth. But no such event
occurred. The genius of Greece could not survive
her freedom. The successors of the classic age were
not sparing of innovation ; but the mind that could
have sanctified the changes was wanting, and that
noble language which, in its better days, had been
pronounced to be a vehicle of thought " fit for the
gods," became, in its latter periods, feeble, bloated,
and deformed ; and, after dragging out a precarious
existence, finally expired, some centuries too late for
its glory.
Now, in this case, (or in that of the Latin lan
guage, whose history is the same) we can at once
refer to an unalterable standard of purity: for the
genius of those countries has run its course, and its
highest possible attainments are clearly ascertained.
Homer and Plato, Cicero and Virgil, are, in this

AGAINST THE BRITISH PRESS. 51
respect, fixed upon an eminence, from which nothing
but " the oblivion of all things" can displace them.
But with a Uving language like our own, it is other
wise. WhUe EngUsh continues to be written and
spoken, no one can assert that it is absolutely fixed :
our classic models, a century hence, may be very
different from those of the present day ; and we must
hope that it may be so, for unless we presume upon
a deplorable degeneracy of taste in our posterity, it
wiU be a proof that the mind of England gathers
strength as it moves along. Deeply as we venerate
the names of Shakspeare and Milton, we must not
forget what a glorious event it would be in our his
tory to give birth to spirits that could soar above
them, and whose higher conceptions would require
to be conveyed in expressions of yet undiscovered
briUiancy and vigour.
But it is only by great writers that any permanent
and authoritative innovations can be made. In order,
therefore, to give a general currency to the fluctu
ations of our language that may take place in
America, it is indispensable that she shall produce
writers surpassing in genius every contemporary
and preceding author of Great Britain. As long as
the productions of this country continue superior, or
E 2

52 COMPLAINTS IN AMERICA
equal, they will be resorted to by natives and stran
gers as the fountains of the language. Of this
privilege America cannot deprive us by any suUeu
rejection of the novelties v/e may introduce, or by
coining new terms for the uses of her citizens, with
the pompous impression of " phUology and common
sense." Her language, to be entitled to precedence,
must make its claim through generations of Ameri
can writers, more divine than Shakspeare, deeper
and more comprehensive than Bacon, more subUme
than Milton, more "winning soft" than Addison,
more tersely sarcastic than Junius, and more excel
lent, in their respective kinds, than the many admi
rable masters of the British tongue that have fol
lowed, and (we trust) are' yet to come — then may
America, with some reason, contest our right to con
trol her phraseology ; but until that period shall
arrive, her critics must not be accusing us of
" mere arrogant pedantry," because we make the
language of our scholars and men of genius our
standard of English diction, and are determined
to exclude from our Ups and books every obsolete
or new-fangled dialect, that may bear local sway
on the plains of Kentucky, or -at the sources of the
Missouri.

AGAINST THE BRITISH PRESS. 53
Should these and the preceding observations
chance to fall under the eye of an American, he
may, perhaps, imagine that we, too, have been in
dulging in offensive animadversions upon his nation ;
but we sincerely assure him, that we have no inten
tion to offend. We think that America is doing
wonders, and we most heartily congratulate her.
We cannot for an instant doubt, that the formation
of a great empire, resembling in its best points the
best times of Great Britain, must prove an auspicious
era in the history of the human race. A commu
nity, provided with ample resources against an end
less increase of members, and enjoying a free bar, a
free senate, and a free press, if true to itself, must
do great things. But America is yet in her infancy,
and must not, like a froward child, born to a great
estate, and the dupe of domestic adulators, imma-
turely assume the tone and pretensions of a riper
period; she must be docile and industrious, and
patient of rebuke that conveys instruction. She must
not talk too much of her glory, till it comes. She
must not make fine speeches about freedom, while a
slave contaminates her soil. She must not rail at
English travellers for visiting her cities and planta
tions, and publishing what they see. Sh,e must not

54 COMPLAINTS Ilf AMERICA, ETC.
be angry with Lord Grey for caUing Mr. Fearon " a
gentleman;"' and she positively must not be fretting
hersplf into the preposterous notion, that there exists
in this country an organised conspiracy against her
literary fame. There is no such thing. For our
selves, we can say, that on a late occasion, we felt
unfeigned zeal in offering a voluntary tribute to the
memory of an American man of genius;'' and that
we shall be at all times ready to resume so pleasing
an office ; while, on the part of others, we can refer
to the universal praises now bestowing upon the
elegant productions of Mr. Washington Irving, as a
proof that American talent has nothing to apprehend
from the imputed jealousy and injustice of English
criticism. ' " Oentleman, as Lord Grey calls Fearon." — " North Ameri
can Review."
' C. B. Brown.

55

ON GERMAN CRITICISM.
[April, 1821.]
It was our lot, when we entered jthe world some
twenty years ~&,go, to have brought with us a little
code of taste in matters of literature, collected from
the perusal of models that we were then taught to
believe had been formed upon the true and unde
viating principles of human nature. We allude to
the compositions of the best eras of antiquity, and
to those productions of the last two or three cen
turies, by which the authors, in the spirit of noble
competition, have rescued the genius of their respec
tive times, and countries, from the imputation of
degeneracy. Whenever those works proposed to us
examples of what was instructive, or affecting, or
admirable, in the form of fictitious representations.

56 ON GERMAN CRITICISM.
we followed the fortunes of the heroes of the story
with the deepest interest, because we could, without
an effort, comprehend the full measure of their
claims upon our sympathy. All the finer passages
of the epic narratives of antiquity are appeals to
the natural emotions of the human breast. The
love of country — the anguish of exile — the vicissi
tudes of great dynasties — heroic intrepidity in battle,
and in council — the instincts of natural piety — the
endearments of friendship — and the sorrow that can
never weep enough, when the objects are no more;
— these, and the long train of the other social and
political affections, are the elements of poetic excite
ment, which those masterly productions bring in
happy combination before us : and as long as man
retains that mysterious faculty of delighting to iden
tify himself in imagination with the fortunes and
feelings of others, no matter how far removed by
time and space, or how strong his assurance that the
whole is but an unsubstantial fable, he vriU lend
himself to the illusion, he will take pleasure in ac
companying the personages of Grecian and Roman
story, through every variety of sentiment and situa
tion ; and, adopting all their emotions, because he
recognizes them as his own, feel as intensely for

ON GERMAN CRITICISM. 57 '
the fictitious events of twenty or thirty centuries
ago, as for the joys or calamities of the passing
hour. Nor is it merely in such passages of those im
mortal works, as present us with scenes, to which
we might be ourselves exposed, that we fully appre
hend, and participate in, the passions of the actors.
In the recital of scenes of wonder, as of ordinary
occurrences, the foundation still is human nature,
operating according to principles, known and au
thenticated, from time immemorial. The Sixth
Mneid, for instance, is a beautiful and scientific
illustration of the forms, which the ordinary pheno
mena of our nature would assume, if submitted to
new, and, in point of fact, impossible modes of
excitement. In the conduct and language of the
Trojan adventurer, during his passage through the
realms of eternity, and stiU more in that of the
departed beings, with whom this noble episode
briugs him into contact, we feel the spirit of genuine
humanity dictating every movement : once admitting
the mythological creed, by which the fiction is jus
tified — allowing the possibUity of such particular
modifications of existence, as form and feature with
out organic life — as moving, sentient, visible, but

58 ON GERMAN CRITICISM,
unpalpable images of what was once a breathing
substance — having ideas without senses — passions
untamed by death — and conspicuously among the
latter, a sad retrospective attachment to the "glo
rious light," which is never to visit their dreary
situations — once admitting this, we enter, without
scruple, into their habitation — and, informed by the
genius of Virgil, can give our sympathy as strongly
and distinctly to the fleeting groups that throng the
banks of the Styx and the Elysian fields, as if their
interests and condition were commensurate with our
own. It is, in fact, amidst those beings, over whom
the grave has closed, that the pathetic fancy of the
bard displays some of its tenderest inspirations.
His description of the futile efforts to embrace of
the pious son and the disembodied parent — and the
prophetic elegy of the latter on the short-lived vir
tues of the yet unborn MarceUus, are lasting evi
dences of the consummate power, that he possessed,
and never failed to exercise, of making the hearts of
his readers keep pace with the boldest excursions
of his inventive imagination.
This is a single example (every classical reader
will recall others without number), of the principles,
on which the great writers of antiquity proceeded.

ON GERMAN CRITICISM, 59
and by adhering to which, they have so weU suc
ceeded, in imparting to their creations an imperish
able interest. Notwithstanding the lapse of ages,
and the strange vicissitudes of opinion, and of social
forms that have ensued, we still find our heads and
hearts as much at home in the midst of the scenes
they record, as if they related to the daily routine
of our famiUar occupations. The secret of this
fascination (we repeat it) is, that they present us with
human beings, in whose nature we recognize a per
fect identity with our own. In the characters of
ancient fiction, there is consistency and adaptation.
They act from assignable motives. They speak as
becomes their condition. They have no fantastic
incongruities to startle and perplex us. There are
no slaves discoursing like demigods — no pedlars
hawking about quintessential sentimentality, and
haranguing mendicants by the way-side on the soul
of the universe, and the faU of empires. So of the
moral attributes" of their personages — we can com
prehend them at a glance. Th& question of their
merits does not come before us in the form of an
intellectual puzzle. Homer and Virgil had no skUl
in constructing models of inscrutable heroism, whom
the reader is called upon at once to venerate and

60 ON GERMAN CRITICISM.
abhor. They present us with none of those dark
and dubious beings, endowed with courage, gene
rosity, disinterestedness, exalted enthusiasm, and all
the other qualifications of a perfect character, except
that they have betrayed a friend, or stained their
hands in blood, or committed some other crime, for
which they ought long since to have faUen imder
the stroke of the common executioner. But this
old and simple method of engaging our interest, by
appealing directly to our social and moral instincts,
has of late years been falling into disuse, and some
new and very equivocal expedients have been in
vented to supply its place. Among these, the
theories of the German school hold a distinguished
rank ; and, as we understand that the general adop
tion of the principles of that school, by Enghsh
writers, is ardently looked forward to by many as
the mUlennium of our literature, we feel induced to
offer a few remarks upon some of its doctrines, as
far as we can comprehend them ; and their tenden
cies, which are not quite so uninteUigible. Upon a
subject, embracing so wide a range, it wiU, we fear,
be inconsistent with our limits to enter upon minute
details, and we expect to have many future occasions
of returning to it; we shall therefore, at present.

ON GERMAN CRITICISM. 61
content ourselves with submitting our observations
in rather a general form.
One of the leading peculiarities of the German
school, is an incessant effort to produce effect by the
introduction of some high- wrought passion, claiming,
upon special grounds, an exemption from ordinary
restraints, and seeking to engage our sympathy, in
defiance of our moral convictions. The germ of this
principle, if we mistake not, may be traced to a
celebrated author of the last century — not a Ger
man — but who may be fairly classed with the writers
of that nation — we allude to the productions of
Jean-Jaques Rousseau, and in particular to his
Nouvelle Heloise. In speaking of this performance,
we heartily concur with those, who protest against
its indelicacies and its perilous tendencies; but in
spite of these and numerous other objections to it,
as a mere v.ork of fiction, we cannot help pro
nouncing it to bear the stamp throughout of a most
singularly subtle, profound, and imaginative mind.
But to praise, or blame it, is not so much to our
present purpose, as to point out one of its prominent
peculiarities, which appears to have had a very
extensive influence upon the literature of modern
Germany.

62 ON GERMAN CRITICISM.
In the composition of this novel, the author's aim,
as he informs us himself, was to discard the common
artifices of external incident and situation, and to
supply their place by sentiment. For this purpose,
ordinary sentiment would have been insufficient.
To produce a continued interest, he saw the neces
sity of inflaming the imaginations of his readers, by
exhibiting the workings of some impetuous passion,
and his own temperament decided that that passion
should be love : — •" Je me figurai 1' amour, I'amitie,
les deux idoles de mon cceur, sous les plus ravis-
santes images : je me plus k les orner de tons les
charmes du sexe, que j'avois toujours adore." He
entered upon his design in a frame of mind, and
with powers peculiarly fitted to describe, and to
defend, aU the waywardness of the passion he had
selected for his theme. Though long past the season
of youthful excitation, his extraordinary sensibiUty,
which rendered his whole life a long fever, and his
intense recollection of the emotions of his youth,
had, in this instance, completely baffied the effects
of time. He was still as susceptible of tenderness
and love as at any period of his existence ; and the
more so from the oppressive conviction, that the
day was not distant when age or the grave must for

ON GERMAN CRITICISM. 63
ever chiU his heart against the endearments for
which it panted. " Devore (says he) du besoin
d'aimer sans jamais 1' avoir pu bien satisfaire, je me
voyois atteindre aux portes de la vieiUesse, et mourir
sans avoir vecu."
In want of a determinate object, and despairing
to find it, or disdaining to seek it, in a world, with
which he had long been in a state of war, this sin
gular being passed his days in rambling through the
woods of Montmorenci, and dreaming of ideal exist
ences, in whose purer society he could relieve his
bosom from the weight of impassioned emotion that
oppressed it. These solitary reveries first suggested
the idea of a romance ; and it is difficult to deter
mine how far (had nothing intervened) his creative
imagination and fervid style might not have pro
duced a fiction abounding with images of exalted,
however improbable, innocence and perfection. But,
in the height of his romantic paroxysms, Madame
D'Houdetot came across him, and became the object
of his idolatry, for which he had been searching in
the skies. Rousseau at last was unequivocally in
love. His romance was not discontinued, but the
plan was in part remodelled, and sad work made
with the original heroine; and here it is that the

64 ON GERMAN CRITICISM.
writer has justly exposed himself to unmeasured
reproach. Madame D'Houdetot, the avowed mis
tress of St. Lambert, was engrafted upon the divine
Julie, and the author, regardless of the moral re
sponsibilities of his situation, summoned all the
powers of his eloquent and subtle mind to soften
and justify the unnatural combination. Poor Juhe
was permitted to retain her original quahties of
beauty, sensibility, constancy, ardour in friendship,
and filial piety, but was condemned to assume the
temperament, and too frequently the language, of a
Parisian intriguante. She was now to be "foible,
mais d'une si touchante foiblesse, que la vertu sem-
bloit y gagner." '
' This is not precisely the account that Rousseau gives of
the matter, but from the light which the confessions throw
upon the romance, we have little doubt that it is the true
one ; and that Julie would have been represented as ''Sage"
as Claire, if Madame D'H. had kept out of the way. But the
situation, in which he became involved with this lady, brought
down his imagination from its high pitch of romantic contem
plation to all the petty and impure details of French intrigue.
Upon comparing the two works, it is quite manifest that,
wherever he could, he identified himself and her with the hero
and heroine — even to giving Julie an attack of the small-pox,
that her face, by retaining some traces of it, might the more
resemble Madame D'Houdetot's.

ON GERMAN CRITICISM. 65
To establish this paradox, that chastity may not
be essential to the perfection of the female character,
is the great scope of the Nouvelle Heloise ; and
however the laws of society, and (the good old in
stincts of the human breast may exclaim against the
position, the celebrity of the attempt has attracted
crowds of imitators. It is in Germany, where
writers particularly pique themselves upon the
novelty and independence of their conceptions, that
the hint has been most ardently adopted and ex
tended. It were endless to enumerate the myriads
of the productions of this school, from Werter down
to the periodical supplies of sentiment, prepared
expressly for every Leipsic fair, in which nature
and genuine feeUng are put aside, and some morbid
visionary is made to set up a code of wUd and
licentious metaphysics, to justify his offences against
the laws of common prudence and decorum.
In perusing some of the most popular English
productions of the present day, it is impossible not
to observe to what an extent our literature has been
infected by this system of substituting the tur
bulence and sophistries of lawless passion for the
delineation of those more regular and decent move
ments, which appeal to our sympathy through our
VOL. II. P

66 ON GERMAN CRITICISM.
moral approbation. In our poets and our poetical
novel writers, this innovation has been most flagrant
and systematic, and most successful, as far as to be
read with avidity, and applauded by the unthinking,
can constitute success. The fashionable notion now
is, that, in a work of true genius, everything must
be made subordinate to passion — no matter how
unnatural or presumptuous a tone it may assume ;
and accordingly our recent literature has teemed
with impassioned railers against the decencies of
life — impassioned marauders by sea and land — im
passioned voluptuaries — -impassioned renegades —
impassioned striplings— impassioned hags — all of
them venting furious sublimity upon the astonished
reader, and boldly demanding his profound admira
tion, because they have lost all control over their
actions and their words.
But this exclusive taste for foam and convulsions
cannot last. The works that have of late years
been sent forth to gratify it, may enjoy a temporary
celebrity, but they are against the genius of our
literature, and wiU never be permanently embodied
with it. They are excrescences upon a naturally
healthy body, which its restorative energies, when
once roused, will indignantly work off. Sooner or

ON GERMAN CRITICISM. 67
later, we shall get tired of eternally listening to the
uninstructive ravings of culprits and adventurers.
The inherent love of order and decorum, that be
longs to a civilized community, and to England
above aU others, will bring us back to our old taste
for higher and better attractions. Let the profes
sors of the new school rant as they please about its
savage graces, and terrific imaginings ; the natural
and most rewarding propensity of the human mind
is to seek a refuge from the casualties and disgusts
of life, in trains of thinking that soothe and elevate.
To assist and direct us in such endeavours is the
purest office of poetry — and the minister of this
delightful art, who would best fulfil the task assigned
him, will not hurry off our already wearied spirits
to the horrors of dungeons and charnel-houses ; he
will rather lift us to some romantic asylum, where,
amidst the encha.ntment that his genius has spread
around, earth and its crimes and sorrows may be
forgotten; or, if he detains us below, and makes
the human heart, and the play of its inconstant
passions, the subject of his inventions, he will not
nauseate us by loathsome pictures of its deformities,
nor impose upon us by dexterously colouring its
vices, nor perplex our feelings and judgments by
F 3

68 ON GERMAN CRITICISM.
mystery and contradictions. The true poet has too
much dignity and good faith to resort to such base
contrivances : where a moral purpose demands it, he
will glance at turpitude, occasionaUy and with re
luctance; but in all his noblest representations,
beauty and vntue wiU be in the foreground; if
fortunate, to delight and , animate us ; if contending
with adversity, to habituate us to offices of humanity
by consecrating the tears that we shed over unme
rited calamity.
But to return to the Germans. Next to their
perverse advocacy of the cause of irregular sentiment
and passion, we have a word or two to say upon their
mysticism, and the attempts now making to natu
ralize it in England. For ourselves, we must con
fess, that we have entered so little into the spirit of
the mystic doctrines, that we can hardly undertake
to define them. Madame De Stael was one of the
initiated, and if we recollect right, her dashing
explanation of the subject is, that the German men
of genius pass their entire lives in the seclusion of
their studies, from which their minds, every now
and then, make " excursions dans Vinfini," and that
the wonders and discoveries of the voyage are duly
recorded upon their return for the edification of

ON GERMAN CRITICISM. 69
more home-keeping spirits. But we happen to have
lying before us an encomiastic article upon German
literature, lately published in London, in which this
new system is sopiewhat less vaguely announced.
"We willingly and cheerfully," says the writer,
" acknowledge the truth, that there are deep and
unfathomable powers in the universe, and that aU
poetry, which pretends to anything more than a
mere momentary existence, or rather which pretends
at all to life, must rest ultimately, as all life does,
upon a mysterious basis, that is, and ever must be,
incomprehensible to the reflective understanding."
The writer goes on to allege that, in aU the great
works of poetry, though their beauty may have been
intuitively perceived, ages and ages have passed
away before the understanding could discover the
secret of their merits — " for they were really myste
rious, and actually and in truth possessed a myste
rious life ;" and he imputes it as a fundamental
objaction to most modern poems, that they have
been so reduced to the level of the meanest capacity,
that they require no study to discover, or critic to
explain their beauties.
A little further on he corroborates his opinions by
the following extract from the writings of Frederick

70 ON GERMAN CRITICISM.
Von Hordenberg, in which, though the expressions
may seem obscure, a little attention, he assures us,
will discover that there is a deity beneath 'the veil.
"In a genuine tale, everything must be marveUous,
and mysteriously hanging together — everything vivi
fied, each in a differeiit manner. The whole world
of nature must be wondrously mixed up with the
whole world of spirits — thus arises the age of
universal anarchy, lawlessness, and freedom — na
ture's state of nature — the time before the world.
This time before the world presents, as it were, the
scattered features of the time after the world, as the
state of nature is a singular type of the kingdom of
heaven. The world of a tale is the one diametri
cally opposed to the world of truth, and for this
very reason as thoroughly simUar to it, as chaos is
similar to the perfect creation. In the future world,
everything is as in the former world, yet altogether
otherwise ; the future world is the rational chaos —
a chaos that has penetrated itself, that is within
itself, and without itself. A genuine tale must be,
at the same time, a prophetical representation, an
ideal representation, an absolutely necessary repre
sentation. The genuine tale-writer is a seer of
futurity. It is owing only to the weakness of our

ON GERMAN CRITICISM. 71
organs, and tp our contact with ourselves, that we
do not behold ourselves in a fairy world. AU tales
are only dreams of that our native world, which is
everywhere and nowhere."
Now, we do not hesitate to assert, that all this
(and we could select some simUar bursts from the
lectures of the renowned Schlegel) is the very
quintessence of mystical pedantry, bearing precisely
the same relation to true philosophical criticism
that the ravings of Johanna Southcot do to authentic
revelation. We, however, offer it to our readers as
a tolerably fair specimen of the luminous form in
which German minds communicate the treasures of
new light, which they bring back from their " ex
cursions dans I'infini." But to bring the merits of
this recipe for tale-writing to a more familiar test :
how would poor Fielding or Goldsmith have stared,
if, upon offering one of their exquisite inventions for
pubUcation, they had been confronted by the awful
canons of this " deity beneath the veil," to which,
as tale writers, they were to be told, it was their
bounden duty to conform. They might have said,
" we have Uved in the world, we have watched the
conduct and feelings of men of various characters,
in various situations, and in moulding our fictitious

72 ON GERMAN CRITICISM.
personages we have never lost sight of the originals
that we saw acting around us. Upon these obser
vations are founded our notions of what is human
nature, and in this work they are recorded.- The
qualities are real and authentic ; we witnessed them
in others, and felt them in ourselves — ^it is only in
the combinations that we are inventors."
To this simple profession of their literary tenets,
how confounded and perplexed would tliey have
been, if the publisher were to return Tom Jones or
the Vicar of Wakefield upon their hands to be
remodelled, according to the High German prin
ciples of composition. " My good Sir," he might
say, "though your production certainly shows
talent, still the beauties are reaUy so utterly intel
ligible that the meanest capacity may comprehend
them. The thing is cleverish in its way, but it isn't
' dreamy ' enough by half. Couldn't you contrive
to throw in a few touches of ' the age of universal
anarchy,' or of ' the chaos that has penetrated itself.'
The latter in particular would be sure to take.
Then if, instead of giving us human nature, you'd
stick to 'nature's state of nature,' I mean, 'the
time before the world ;' if, in a word, you'd make
your work, what every genuine tale should be, ' a

ON GERMAN CRITICISM. 73
dream of our native world, which is everywhere and
nowhere,' I shall be ready to enter into terms for
its publication."
But to speak more seriously of these fantastic
dogmas. It is utterly false, at least nothing but a
miserable abuse of terms can make it true, that
genuine poetry must be founded in mystery. In
the metaphysical sense of the word it is certainly
true; but so is everything that can be named,
founded in mystery. The visible world — our in
visible emotions — existence — consciousness — all the
natural phenomena, within and without us, when phi
losophically investigated, baffle our comprehension,
and turn out in the last result to be strange, unac
countable, and mysterious. But, in this view of the
subject, the position, that the basis of all good poetry
must be mystery, has no more novelty or truth, thau
to say, that the basis of a good apple-pie, or of the
best home-brewed ale, ihust be mystery. In either
case, the understanding, when pushed for au ex
planation, wiU find it equally impossible to account
for the particular combinations that form the articles
ih question, conveying pleasurable sensations to the
body or the mind; and, however preposterously it
might sound to descant in pompous terms upon the

74 ON GERMAN CRITICISM.
" deep and unfathomable powers" of a pot of mar
malade or a cask of Calvert's entire, as the basis of
their excellence, we should be as much justified in
such a mode of speech, as when we speak of the
" deep and unfathomable powers of the universe,"
as the ultimate basis of our poetical emotions.
But though aU things, wlien metaphysically ana
lysed, must be admitted to be involved in mystery,
the human mind, in its ordinary moods, is Uttle
addicted to this subtle and fruitless process of investi
gation. In the practical details of our existence,
the mystery that overhangs them, never occurs to
our imaginations. Whether it be from instinct, or
from a long famUiarity that supplies its place, we
take appearances upon trust, and act and feel in
regard to them under the impression, of a popular
belief, amounting to a most perfect assurance, that
they are, in fact and essence, precisely such as our
senses represent them. When we gaze upon a rich
landscape, or a human form of surpassing beauty ;
or when we witness an admirable action, the emo
tions which any of these objects excite, derive none
of their power from their mysterious origin. This is
a subtle topic to which our minds never think of
adverting. To us, there is no mystery in the

ON GERMAN CRITICISM. 75
impressions made upon us. The sentiment of admi
ration, or of moral approbation, is clear, distinct,
and to every practical intent and purpose, perfectly
intelligible. The case is precisely the same, when
objects come before us in the form of poetical repre
sentation. The purpose of poetry is not (as the sticklers for
mystery would persuade us,) to throw the mind into
new and undefinable states of being ; and if it had
the wish, it wants the power : aU that it can do is,
to call up our familiar emotions in a state of higher
excitement than the ordinary details of life produce.
This it accomplishes by presenting us with fictitious
objects, which our imagination adopts as realities;
and so far is anything like mystery from being a
necessary ingredient in these fanciful creations, that
all their excellence and power (whether they aim at
representation of external nature, or the develop
ment of human passions) consist in exciting images
and feelings so defined and distinct, that we become,
as it were, actual spectators and actors in the scenes
to which they refer. The business of the poet is to
delight and interest the mind, not to bewilder it ;
and it may be laid down as an undeviating rule,
that aU his pictures wUl produce their destined

76 ON GERMAN CRITICISM.
effects, precisely in the inverse ratio of their vagu-
ness. We have dwelt at some length upon this topic,
because we really consider it of importance to direct
the attention of our readers to the empirical preten
sions of the professors and disciples of this school to
exclusive taste and genius, and to the degradation,
which must befall our literature, if their fUmsy dreams
should be permanently incorporated with it. In the
observations above offered, we by no means intend
to assert that in no case can poetical effect be
heightened and dignified by mysterious associations.
There are majestic appearances in eternal nature,
which at once direct our minds to the contemplation
of " the Great Unknown," of whose power they are
the symbols. There are trains of meditative abstrac
tion, leading to sublime conjectures, and appalling
doubts upon our final destinies, in which the poet's
visions catch a glorious awe from the darkness that
surrounds them. In these and similar instances, we
fully admit the sacred infiuence of mystery, in the
most e.'ctensive meaning of the word : — what we pro
test against is the perverse doctrine, that, because it
is a powerful poetical agent, it must be the funda
mental and only one ; and that sxich is the consti-

ON GERMAN CRITICISM. 77
tution of our nature, that we can never be truly
delighted, except by what we cannot comprehend.
We are aware that these opinions may give offence
to some, but our respect for our native Uterature,
and our anxiety that it should long retain its old
masculine character of energy and nature, and
rational enthusiasm, compel us to exclaim against
the modern efforts to enfeeble and debase it. The
effects are already visible in the published reveries of
a notorious fraternity of inland versifiers, and not
less so in the apologetic effusions of their misguided
disciples. The latter appear, on the whole, to he
much farther gone ; and when we listen to their
ravings, we scarcely know whether most to pity or
to envy them. They are decidedly wild upon the
subject of their favourite theories; but then their
delirium, by their own account, is attended by so
many redeeming ecstasies, that a return to reason
would, we fear, only prove to them au irretrievable
calamity. We can collect from them, that their gentle souls
are endowed with innumerable mystical instincts, for
which they find provided around them as many vision
ary sources of gratification. The lowest objects in na
ture teem with " sanctities" and " consecrations," and

78 ON GERMAN CRITICISM.
" venerablenesses" and "unearthly reminiscences,"
To them a pigsty is holy ground. They can pros
trate themselves in soul-exalting adoration before an
inscrutable daisy, and discover volumes of eternal
truth in the sublime provincialisms of pedlars and
leech-catchers. Their sympathy with idiots is ex
traordinary and unbounded. A ragged coat impor
tuning for a penny, is the beau ideal of created
beings — a lounge in the precincts of a parish work
house suggests trains of as lofty musing, as a walk
in the groves of Academus. They go forth with
their souls so attuned to poetic rapture, that the
most vulgar touch can awaken the sweetest strains ;
just like this barrel-organ beneath our window,
which, while we write, is discoursing a most senti
mental ditty, in despite of the coarse and awkward
hand of the weatherbeaten old tar that grinds it.
Surely they must be happy, if to be rich in resources
can make them so ; for while Old England can sup
ply them with a vagrant, or a stump of rotten thorn,
or a pool of ditch-water, to administer to their mys
tical necessities, they can never want subjects of
profound and ecstatic contemplation.
That is what comes from imitating the German
habit of holding " conversations with the air." When

ON GERMAN CRITICISM. 79
we commenced, we proposed to have said a good deal
more upon these matters, particularly upon Schlegel's
discoveries in Shakspeare, and his critical theory of
the " seminal idea" of every work of art ; but the
want of present limits obliges us to defer our remarks
to some future occasion.

80

ON THE WRITINGS OF QUEVEDO.
[June, 1821.J
Francisco De Quevedo, the great moral satirist
of Spain, is less generaUy read or spoken of in our
literary circles than he deserves. His own nation
boasts of him as one of her intellectual glories, and
has long since assigned him his place beside the two
modern archpriests of philosophic laughter — Rabelais
and Cervantes.
He \^as born at Madrid in 1580 (some accounts
bring him into the world ten years earher), and died
in 1645. His education was the best that his time
and country could supply. He entered at an early
age into the public service. When the Duke of
Ossuna was viceroy of Naples, Quevedo was em-

ON THE WRITINGS OF QUEVEDO. 81
ployed by that nobleman in several delicate com
missions among the Itahan states. On one occasion
he went to Venice disguised as a mendicant ; and as
far as we can collect from the scenes of low life in
some of his comic pieces, it was a character that he
must have found little difficulty in supporting. The
Spanish Court acknowledged its sense of this and
his other services, by decorating him with the cross
of the miUtary order of St. Jago.
The particulars of his biography that have come
down to us are extremely scanty. What is recorded
of his personal character is calculated to engage our
love and respect. He was learned, pious, affec
tionate, and incorruptible. His appearance was
manly and engaging ; his complexion fair, and his
countenance teeming with expression. His eyes
were so debilitated by continual study, that he
always wore spectacles. We have seen some por
traits of him prefixed to inferior Spanish editions of
his works, in which we could recognize nothing of
the above description but the spectacles.
The most important events of his personal history
were his imprisonments. When his friend the Duke
of Ossuna was disgraced, Quevedo was arrested and
confined for the space of three years : at the expira-
VOL. II. G

82 ON THE WRITINGS OF QUEVEDO.
tion of which, nothing appearing against him, he
was discharged. In 1634 he was appointed secretary
of state to Philip IV. The same year he married an
accomplished lady of a noble family ; but soon losing
her, he found it necessary to exchange the vanity and
bustle of a court for the consolations of religion and
philosophy. He resigned his office, and retiring to
the country, gave himself up to literature and medi
tation. Prom this retreat he was a few years after
dragged on a false charge of having libeUed the
prime minister, the Conde D'Olivarez ; and accord
ing to the custom of the country, recommitted to a
dungeon. His estate was sequestrated, his health
was ruined, and his spirits, previously impaired by
his domestic calamity and approaching old age, irre
trievably broken. The affair, when investigated,
proved to have originated iu a malicious calumny,
and the victim was restored to his Uberty, and to as
much of his property as had survived the costs of the
sequestration; but the inhuman objects of his ene
mies were obtained, for Quevedo was soon after car
ried off by the accumulated diseases of mind and
body, which the severities of his imprisonment had
produced or exasperated.
" Such," says one of his biographers, " was the fate

ON THE WRITINGS OF QUEVEDO. 83
of Francisco Quevedo, the pride and the shame of
the Spanish nation ; a scholar and a poet worthy of
universal admiration; a man of exemplary probity
and fortitude, who suffered much unmerited mortifi
cation and distress from the malevolence of his
countrymen, and languished in the shade of adver
sity, and the gloom of a dungeon, while his writings
were affording deUght and instruction to whole
nations." These facts excite deep indignation ; and particu
larly at this moment ought to inculcate a serious
reflection on the degraded state to which a country
can be reduced, even though possessing men of
talents, when there are not laws and a free constitu
tion to protect them. Quevedo's fate must also
touch every breast which is faithful to the cause of
liberty, with an indignant recollection of that unhal
lowed aUiance, which, at this moment, is prevented
only by inabUity from restoring to Spain the system
of oppression under which that immortal genius
languished as a victim.
Quevedo's works are numerous, filling, as origi
nally collected and published at Madrid, three
quarto volumes. They consist of serious disserta
tions on religious and literary subjects, poetic effu-
G 2

84 ON THE WRITINGS OF QUEVEDO.
sions, and humorous productions ; of the last of
which alone we are enabled to speak at any length.
We have seen a few of his love-sonnets, and the
thoughts, as charged by one of his biographers, are
disfigured by the quaint conceits and extravagances
of the ItaUan amatory school. But we have seldom
read verses in any language in direct praise of the
writer's mistress, in, which there has not been much
more of the author than the lover. — The best-con
ducted, and perhaps the most poetical, correspond
ence, that we recollect to have read of in the annals
of fidelity, was that of the separated lovers who agreed
to look at stated hours upon the moon ; but during
our present financial difficulties, we cannot venture
to recommend the general adoption of this practice,
lest Mr. Vansittart should be compeUed to bring iu
a bUl declaring such evasions of the post and paper
duties illegal; a measure which, however necessary,
might sorely press upon the enamoured classes of
the community.
The principal and most original of Quevedo's
humorous efforts are his " Visions."
Cuvier, the celebrated naturalist, undertakes to
deduce from the smallest fragment of the skeleton
of an animal whose race has become extinct, the

ON THE WRITINGS OF QUEVEDO. 85
genus, size, and other physical distinctions of the
creature to which it once belonged. The same
inductive process may be employed, and we suspect
with almost equal success, in more general investiga
tions; and the peculiarities of detached literary or
political remnants of a former society, may enable
us to infer with tolerable certainty many important
particulars regarding its moral and social condition.
Of this the " Visions" of Quevedo afford an illustra
tion. Had all the historical records of the state of
Spain in his time perished, the plan of this work
alone would enable us to conjecture that the writer
must have composed it under the restraining terrors
of such an establishment as the Inquisition, and of
such ministers as the Conde D'Olivarez. It is his
chief satirical production; but in sitting down to
expose the vices and follies of his age, he used most
. especial precautions that none of the extant knaves
and blockheads should take the application to them
selves. His cardinal maxim throughout (the con
verse of the old one) is, " de vivis nil nisi bonum."
For fear the court or the priests should demur, he
lays the venue in hell.
My design, (as he says with some naivete at the close of one
of his Visions) is to' discredit and discountenance the works of

86 ON THE WRITINGS OF QUEVEDO.
darkness, without scandalizing of persons ; and I am certain
this discourse will never be reckoned a satire, as it treats of
none but the damned.
The various styles of satirical productions are, in
fact, excellent tests of the progress which the several
states, where they have appeared, have made in free
dom and civilization. In the infancy of societies,
men abuse one another by word of mouth, without
mercy or apprehension. When provoked, they do
not spare even their chieftains. Every body remem
bers the contumacious invective of Thersites against
the King of men ; and how all that followed was the
infliction of a few summary blows of a sceptre,
administered by the hands of the wise Ulysses. But
such was the law of libel and sedition in those days.
The next step is the more formal and permanent
publication of ridicule or remonstrance, by written
squibs or dramatic representation. The satires of
the early Greek stage (the derivative of the name)
are examples of the latter. Their merit was their
virulence and personality. This goes on for a while ;
and as long as the ingenious author confines himself
to sneers or calumnies against an inoffensive neigh
bour, the higher orders are lavish of their applause,
and heartily shake their sides in unison with the

ON THE WRITINGS OF QUEVEDO. 87
populace. But poets are complexionally indiscreet ;
and when at all encouraged, have a wondrous pro
pensity to take petulant freedoms, in the way of their
art, with their superiors. Upon this, however, mat
ters are altered — and the latter, who heretofore liked
a good joke of all things, soon discovered, that to be
laughed at themselves has a direct tendency to pro
duce a breach of the peace. The poet is, therefore,
muzzled ; or if he attacks the private feelings of any
eminent characters, save philosophers and demigods,
he is chastised as a calumniator. Such productions
as the satirical comedies of Aristophanes mark this
stage. A similar progress might easUy be traced in
other countries. In all, the tone which wit and
indignation assume is precisely regulated by the per
sonal consequences that may befall the author ; that
is, by the power or the disposition of the patrons of
the vices he assails, to punish him for his impertinent
exposure of them. The slavish compliments to
Augustus and Maecenas, in the satires of Horace,
throw as much light upon the degradation of the
once haughty Rome, as the most authentic history.
Quevedo's precautions to keep his person at large,
took a different turn. He formally protests against
entertaining any design to intermeddle with living

88 ON THE WRITINGS OF QUEVEDO.
manners ; and with infinite courtesy and discretion,
lays the scene of his Visions in regions with whose
inhabitants the ministers of the Spanish king, and
the familiars of the inquisition, would not, for their
own sakes, profess to feel any community of charac
ter or interest. He scorns to talk scandal of any
who may yet live to repent and reform. The seal
of damnation must be upon them before he ventures
to make free with their reputation. The first stroke
of Quevedo's pen sends the reader to the devil ; but
he accompanies us himself, and makes us feel won
derfully at home. With such a companion, if it
were not for the name of the thing, one would almost
as soon take a trip to H--  for change of scene, as
to Cheltenham or Brighton. The Visions are a
sort of infernal guide. The dead of all cUmes and
ages pass in review before us, and are made to dis
course, in a most agreeable and edifying manner,
upon the crimes and follies of their earthly career.
The principal groups consist of physicians, attorneys,
catchpoles, necromancers, buffoons, pastry-cooks,
astrologers, lovers, barbers, poets, decayed beauties,
devUs, and duennas. The scenes and dialogues are
as miscellaneous as the characters ; and so must be
our observations. Quevedo's descriptions are strong

ON THE WRITINGS OP QUEVEDO. 89
and unrefined, and, according to the fashion of his
time, and of all ages in which taste is not generally
diffused, incline to burlesque, and turn a good deal
upon the merciless exposure of physical deformity
and distress. His wit is as poignant, and often,
though with more excuse, as gross as Swift's; but
there are occasional gleams of sensibility and imagi
nation to which Swift was a stranger. The follow
ing introductory sentences (for example) to the
Vision of " HeU," appear to us to possess all the
pastoral elegance and serenity of one of Boccacio's
or Isaac Walton's stilly landscapes.
One pleasant night in autumn, when the moon shone
very bright, being at a friend's house in the country, which
was most delightfully situated, I took a walk into the park,
where all my past visions came fresh into my head again ;
and I was well enough pleased with the meditation. At
length the humour took me to leave the path, and go farther
into the wood. What impulse carried me to this I cannot
tell — whether I was moved by my good angel, or some higher
power — but so it was, that in a few minutes I found myself at
a great distance from home, and in a place where it was no
longer night, with the pleasantest prospect round about me
that I ever behpld. The air was temperate and mild ; and it
was no small advantage to the beauty of the place, that it was
both serene and silent. On the one hand, I was entertained
with the murmurs of crystal streams ; on the other, with the

90 ON THE WRITINGS OF QUEVEDO.
whispering of the trees — the birds singing all the whUe, either
in emulation or requital, of the other harmonies. And now,
to shew the instability of our aflfections and desires, I was
grown weary even of tranquillity itself ; and in this most
agreeable solitude began to wish for company.
And again, in the Vision of the " Last Judgment,"
in the midst of a ludicrous representation of the
effects of the resurrection-blast upon the several
orders of the dead — the soldiers starting from their
graves as briskly as if summoned to an assault —
the misers peeping out, pale, and trembling, for fear
of being robbed— -the attornies demurring on the
ground of having got souls that were none of their
own — the slanderer disowning his tongue — and the
pick-pocket running away, at fuU speed, from his
own fingers — au embalmed Egyptian anxiously wait
ing for the coming up of his intestines to complete
his carcase — and an old usurer beside him, inquiring
whether the money-bags were to rise with the bodies
— with groups of solicitors wondering among them
selves that they should have so much conscience
when dead, and none at all whUe living — in the
midst of all this, we find the writer suddenly sweUing,
for a moment, into the highest strain of poetical and
moral description : —

ON THE WRITINGS OF QUEVEDO. 91
At length, silence being proclaimed, the throne erected,
and the great day come — a day of comfort to the good, and of
terror to the wicked — the sun and the stars waited at the
footstool. The winds were stUl — the waters quiet — the earth
in suspense and anguish for fear of her children' — and, in
a word, the whole creation in anxiety and dismay. The
righteous were employed in prayers and thanksgivings, and
the ungodly in framing shifts and evasions to extenuate their
crimes. The guardian angels were near on the one side, to
acquit themselves of their duties and commissions ; and on
the other were the accusing demons, hunting for more matters
of charge and aggravation against offenders.
The concluding sentence of this awful scene is
quite characteristic of Quevedo, who never faUs to
usher in, or close, the most solemn matter, with
a joke : —
The Ten Commandments had the guard of a narrow gate,
which was so strait, that the most mortified body could not
pass it without leaving a good part of his skin behind him.
His humorous style is various, reminding us at
times of different writers that came after him, who
either borrowed directly, or were accidentally thrown
' MUton, a few years after, made a fine use of this sentiment :
" Earth felt the wound, and Nature from her seat
Sighing through all her works gave signs of woe,
That all was lost  " Pakadise Lost.

92 ON THE WRITINGS OF QUEVEDO.
upon similar trains of fanciful association. The
familiar joke of the patient's dying of two doctors
and an apothecary, which we imagined to have
belonged either to Moliere or Le Sage, was first
started by Quevedo — unless some more erudite
detector of plagiarisms can discover a more ancient
proprietor. "You must understand," says Death, "that, though dis
tempered humours make a man sick, it is the physician that
kUls him. So that, when a man is asked what such and such
a one died of, he is not presently to make answer, that he
died of a fever, a pleurisy, the plague, or the palsy, but that
he died of the doctor.''
The following passage brings to our recoUection
the playful style prevailing in some papers of the
Spectator : —
Somebody plucking me behind, I turned my face upon the
most meagre, melancholy wretch that ever was seen. " For
pity's sake," says he, " and as you are a good Christian, do but
deliver me from the persecution of these impertinents and
babblers that are now tormenting me, and I shaU be eternaUy
obliged to you ;" at the same time casting himself at my feet,
and crying like a child. " And what art thou V said I, "for
a miserable creature I am sure thou art." " I am," says he,
" an ancient and an honest man, although defamed with a
thousand reproaches. Some call me Another, and others,
Somebody; and, doubtless, you cannot but have heard of

ON THE WRITINGS OE QUEVEDO. 93
me — as Somebody saysj cries one that has nothing to say for
himself The Latins call me Quidam, and make good use of
me to fill up lines and stopgaps. When you go back again
into the world, I pray do me the favour to own that you have
seen me, and to justify me for one that never did, and never
wiU, either speak or write anything, whatever some tattling
idiots may pretend. When they bring me into quarrels and
brawls, I am called, forsooth, a certain person ; in their
intrigues, I know not who ; and in the pulpit, a certain
author ; and all this to make a mystery of my name, and lay
all their fooleries at my door. Wherefore, I beseech you, lend
me all the assistance in your power ;" which I promised to
do, and so this phantom withdrew.
If our friend Moore were in the kingdom, we
should have got him to versify the following, whicli,
wants nothing but rhyme and a lively air, arranged
by Stevenson, to appear all his own. An apparition
of the " days of old " is describing to Quevedo the
increasing petulance and insubordination of modern
young ladies : —
WiU you see a mother now teaching her daughter a lesson
of good government? "Child," says she, "you know that
modesty is the chief ornament of your sex ; wherefore, be
sure, when you come into company, that you do not stand
staring the men in the face, as if you were looking babies in
their eyes ; but rather look a little downward, as a fashion of
behaviour more suitable to the obligations of your sex."
" Downward ! " says the girl ; " Madam, I must beg to be

94 ON THE WRITINGS OF QUEVEDO.
excused. This was weU enough in the days of old, when the
poor creatures knew no better. Let the men look downward
towards the clay of which they were made ; but man was our
original, and it becomes us to keep our eyes upon the matter
from which we came."
If we had found the next extract in Sir Thomas
Browne, we should not have thought it out of place.
In the leading idea, we recognize the propensity to
draw topics of instruction from the grave, and to
point a moral sentiment with fine-drawn meta
physical acumen, which peculiarly designates the
manner of that writer. Quevedo is conversing with
Death, who is fantastically described as a female
apparition, of a thin and slender make, laden with
crowns, garlands, sceptres, scythes, sheep-hooks,
pattens, hob-nailed shoes, tiaras, straw hats, mitres,
caps, embroideries, silks, skins, wool, gold, lead,
diamonds, pearls, shells, and pebbles, decked in all
the colours of the rainbow ; with one eye shut,
the other open; old on one side, young on the
other :¦ —
I told her, says he, that, under correction, she was no more
Uke the Deaths I had seen, than a horse is like a cat. " Our
Death," I said, " was represented with a scythe in her hand,
and a carcase of bones, as clean as if the crows had picked
it." — "Yes, yes," said she, turning short upon me, "I know

ON THE WRITINGS OF QUEVEDO. 95
that very weU : but your designers and painters are a parcel
of blockheads. The bones you talk of are the dead, or, in
other words, the miserable remainders of the living : but let
me teU you, you yourselves make your own Death, and that
which you call Death is but the period of your Ufe, as the first
moment of your birth is the beginning of your existence : and
actuaUy you die Uving, and your bones are no more than what
^Death has spared, and committed to the grave. If this were
rightly understood, every man would find a memento mori, or
a Death's head, in his own looking-glass, and consider every
house with a famUy in it, but as a sepulchre filled with dead
bodies ; a truth you Uttle dream of, though within your daUy
view and experience. Can you imagine a Death elsewhere,
and not in yourselves 1 BeUeve it, you are greatly mistaken ;
for you yourselves are skeletons, before you know anything
of the matter."
We have left ourselves little space to notice
Quevedo's other popular pieces. There is the
Curious History (containing nine nocturnal adven- '
tures) of an intractable young Spaniard, Don Diego,
surnamed Love-night, who had taken an unaccount
able pique against the sun; and, in defiance of the
sage remonstrances of his friend Amazor, delighted
to mope, like an owl, in some darksome retreat
through the day, and to sally forth every night into
the streets of Madrid in search of romantic encoun
ters, duly accoutred, against both sexes, with a

96 ON THE WRITINGS OF QUEVEDO.
sword and a guitar. The several scenes in which
this extravagant fancy involved him, are related with
much spirit, and the arrangement of the incidents
managed with all the appropriate bustle and per
plexity of Spanish plots. We have also (to omit
some more desultory efforts of Quevedo's humour) ¦
a longer and more connected tale, entitled the
" Pleasant History of the Life and Actions of Paul
the 'Spanish Sharper, the pattern of rogues and
mirror of vagabonds." It abounds with wit, though
the pleasantry and details have frequently more
strength than delicacy. It would, in truth, have
astonished us, that a man of Quevedo's rank and
acquirements should have squandered his genius
upon such subjects as the vices of the refuse of
Spanish society, did we not recollect the danger, in
his day, of intermeddling with the irregularities of
more polished offenders. We shaU offer one specimen
of his powers of descriptive caricature. The young
Paul is sent to a seminary in Segovia, kept by
" Master Cabra," where a scene of starvation opens
upon him, exceeding all that has been ever recorded
or invented of cheap Yorkshire boarding-schools. If
any of our readers have languid appetites, we would
prescribe this chapter for them, as a more infallible

ON THE WRITINGS OF QUEVEDO. 97
whetter than the strongest bitters. We happened to
read it for the first time before dinner, and we
thought the hour would never arrive. The pro
prietor of this asylum of penury and famine is thus
introduced : —
The master was a skeleton, a mere shotten herring, or Uke
a long slender cane with a Uttle head cut upon it ; and red-
haired, so that no more need be said to such as know the
proverb, " that neither cat nor dog of that colour are good ;"
his eyes almost sunk into his head, as if he looked through a
perspective glass, or the deep windows in a linen-draper's
shop ; his nose turning up, and somewhat flat, for the bridge
was carried away by an inundation of cold rheum, for he
never afforded himself a more costly malady. His beard had
lost its colour, for fear of his mouth, which, being so near,
seemed threatening to devour it for mere hunger. His teeth
had, many of them, forsaken him for want of employment, or
were banished as idlers. His neck was as long as a crane's,
with the guUet sticking out, as if it had been compeUed to
come abroad in search of sustenance : his arms withered : his
hands like a bundle of twigs ; each of them, when pointing
downwards, looking Uke a fork, or a pair of compasses. He
had long slender legs. He walked leisurely ; and if ever he
chanced to move any faster, his bones rattled Uke a pair of
snappers. His voice was weak and hollow : his beard bushy
and long ; for, to save charges, he never trimmed it, pretending
it was so odious to him to feel the barber's hands all over his
face, that he would rather die than endure it. One of the
VOL. II. H

98 ON THE WRITINGS OF QUEVEDO.
boys cut his hair. In fair weather he wore a thread-bare cap.
His cassock, some said, was miraculous, for no man could teU
its colour : some seeing no sign of hair upon it, concluded it
was made of frog's skin ; others said it was a mere shadow,
or phantom ; near at hand it looked somewhat bla,ck, and at
a distance bluish. He wore no girdle, cuffs, or band ; so that
his long hair and scanty short cassock made him look Uke the
messenger of death. Each shoe might have served for an
ordinary coffin. As for his chamber, there was not so much
as a cobweb in it, the spiders being all starved to death. He
put speUs upon the mice, for fear they should gnaw some
scraps of bread he kept. His bed was on the floor, and he
always lay upon one side, for fear of wearing out the sheets.
In short, he was the superlative degree of avarice, and the
very ne plus ultra of want. Into this prodigy's hands I feU.
Quevedo has been celebrated for the surprising
extent and variety of his acquirements. He was
familiar with the Hebrew, Arabic, Greek, Latin,
ItaUan, and French languages. We are informed
that he was intiniately acquainted with the classical
writers of antiquity; well read in the history of
nations; versed in the philosophy, rhetoric, and
divinity of the schools ; skilled in mathematics,
astronomy, and geography; tinctured with astrology
and alchemy ; conversant with the best productions
of French and Italian literature; and perfectly
master of his own Castilian tongue. He was, in a

ON TIIE WRITINGS OF QUEVEDO. 99
word, one of the recorded prodigies of learning.
Such prodigies are rare in the present age, and
we are not sure that the age is the worse for
it. Incessan't readers, as far as our humble
observations have gone, are seldom great thinkers.
It is a sign of a wise mind to discover betimes
within how small a compass may be contained all
that it is essential or possible for man to know.
The celebrated Hobbes, who had no appetite for
-books, used to observe, that had he read more, he
should have known less; but he was a deep and
assiduous student of his own thoughts ; and he pre
pared the way for Locke, an achievement of more
lasting glory, than if he had written a hundred
treatises " De omnibus rebus et quibusdam aliis."
We are also rather prone, it strikes us, to give old
writers an inordinate degree of credit for the quan
tity of erudition spread over their works. A good
thought costs more time and lahour than a chapter
of quotations and learned allusions. Place a com
mon writer in a good library, to compose a disserta
tion on any subject; and with the help of a steady
ladder, if he be an active able-bodied man, he will
contrive to draw off as much learning in a week, as
shaU appear the product of a long and studious life.
H 2

100 ON THE WRITINGS OF QUEVEDO,
And even in those cases, where, by habits of inces^
sant acquisition, the mind becomes so saturated with
knowledge that in writing or conversation, it is per
petually dripping away from over-abundance, the
inteUectual labour of such accumulation is by no
means more wonderful than what we daily witness
in the ordinary labours of the more active profes
sions. What treasures of universal learning, for
example, might not any of our eminent barristers
have amassed, if they had devoted to general sub
jects the time and thought which they sacrifice to
the business of their clients ! What thousands and
tens of thousands of printed volumes might be
formed out of the cases and the piles of affidavits
submitted, during their professional career, to Ers
kine or Romilly, over every dull particular of which
they were condemned to ponder with as much in
tense deliberation as the most laborious investigator
of literature and science ! What prodigies of book-
learning ever kept their faculties more highly or con
tinuously strained than these, or any other leader
in Westminster HaU ; who, besides the solitary
drudgery of the closet, have to pass their days in
court, where every power must be for ever on the
alert, to detect intechniealities, to fence with wit-

ON THE WRITINGS OF QUEVEDO. 101
nesses, to puzzle or persuade phlegmatic jurors, and
to harangue, with extemporaneous ardour, upon
every possible topic in the circle of human concerns
— from the ignoble items of a tradesman's bill, up
to the wrongs of violated majesty, or the more
tender grievances of disappointed love. When we
think upon these things, and upon the ceaseless and
exhausting labours of the other intellectual callings
of the present time, we are obliged, we must confess,
to regard with comparatively small admiration, or
surprise, all the boasted examples of extensive
erudition. Some of the ablest men that we know agree with
us in these opinions. Their libraries are small, con
sisting of the few great authors who thought origi
nally, and are models in their kind. We recommend
to our readers to follow their example, and to be
severely fastidious in the selection of their literary
favourites.

102

POSTERITY.
[Sbptbmbeb, 1821.]
I DINED the other day with a friend who Uves at
Hampstead, and returned to town in the evening
(for my friend has the good sense to dine at four
o'clock), by the pathway that leads across the fields
to the Regent's Park. As I walked along, congra
tulating myself upon residing in a quarter of London
to which so rural a scene is contiguous, I observed
a board announcing that the adjoining ground was
to be let on a building lease. This notice reminded
me of what I had lately heard with much regret,
that there was some intention of converting the
whole of the beautiful prospect between' the New
Road and the hills into a mass of brick-work. The
slightest impulse will send the mind on a long
journey. From reflections thus casually suggested upon a

POSTERITY. 103
change that I might yet live to witness, I soon
passed on to speculate upon the many stranger revo
lutions that may be expected to occur, as well on
the surface of the soil, as in the moral and political
condition of the inhabitants, when I, and aU that
belongs to me, shaU be " among forgotten things."
Without stopping to inquire what forms the sur
rounding scene may assume to my children and their
children, I at once pushed on to a remoter point,
and asked " what will London be three or four centu
ries hence? What will England be? — what her
power, and virtues, and opinions? WiU the men
of that day look back upon us their ancestors
with pride, or with contempt ? or will they disgrace
us by their degeneracy? Will they still be for ever
waging war upon the French, and taxes upon them
selves ? Will such things as Holy Alliances be known
or tolerated; America too, what will she have
become ? Are there yet in store a couple of dozen
protracted wars, and some hundred sea-fights, to
settle the rival claims of her and England? Will
the predictions of the philanthropist be realized in
Africa? Will New South Wales, after passing
tlirough successive generations of pick-pockets, colo
nists, rebels, and republicans — wUl she at last, start-

104 POSTERITY.
ing up in the spirit of ambitious insubordination,
and girding her loins with her federal compact,
become the seat of empire and renown, the seeds of
which now lie ready for exportation in our gaols and '
transport hulks."
These, and similar meditations, occupied me
during the remainder of my walk; and before I
reached my own door, I had more than once heaved
a wish, with the Macedonian conqueror, that, choos
ing my own time, I might be aUowed to take just
one interesting peep from my grave, in order to
ascertain, not what the then world would say of me,
but wbat I should think of it. The last number of
the New Monthly lay upon my table — I took it up,
and having read the continuation of " Jonathan
Kentucky's Journal," retired to rest. My brain was
still busy with the thoughts of the evening — I was
no sooner asleep than I became, instanter, the Editoi
of " The New Monthly Magazine." In that capa
city I fancied myself to be in the act of inspecting
some papers offered for insertion, when a person ol
a strange and indescribable appearance, whom I had
not observed entering the room, touched my elbow,
and presented a letter, which he said he had parti
cular instructions to deliver into my own hands.

POSTERITY. 105
Having broken the seal, I turned round to ask if
an immediate answer was required; but the mes
senger had vanished. The following were the con
tents of this mysterious communication : —
To the Editor of the New Monthly Magazine.
Futurity RaR, Aug. 3, 2200.
Mk. Bditoii. — I am not in the habit of intruding myself on
the pubUc ; I am, on the contrary, by nature, of a pro-
verbiaUy retiring disposition — yet it is weU known, that if
flattery could have made me vain, I ought to entertain no
mean opinion of myself ; for not only did Shakspeare, Milton,
Bacon, and the few other British writers with whom I am
acquainted, compose their works professedly rather for me
than for their contemporaries, but I. am credibly informed,
that myriads of authors besides, of every age and country,
but whose names have never reached me, have had the kind
ness to express themselves as pecuUarly ambitious of my
approbation — and in aU the controversies upon their respective
merits, have invariably referred the question to me as sole and
final arbitrator. I have no doubt that several of your literary
friends, both poets and others, entertain the same favourable
opinion of my taste and judgment, and are generously devoting
their time and talents for my instruction and amusement.
Pray present my compUments to them (I wish I knew their
names), and say for me, that I am fuUy sensible of their
liberaUty, though I may never feel the benefits of it. How
ever, as a small mark of my gratitude, I have determined, for
once, to depart from my usual habits of silence and reserve ;
and as you and my other ancestors inust doubtless be curious

106 POSTERITY.
to get a glimpse of Old England in the 23rd century, and to
have an authentic specimen, however trifling, of the literary
and social opinions of us moderns, I beg leave to inclose for
your and their perusal, a few extracts from the last number of
one of our monthly magazines — the " Old Hampstead." It
is considered as one of the best-conducted of our periodical
publications, and far superior to its inveterate rival, the
" Highgate Critic." In this judgment I am impartial, for I
occasionally throw off an article for both ; but the " Old
Hampstead" has really more talent, and, besides, it is vener
able to my imagination from its antiquity. It was estabhshed
as far back as the year 2050, when the Hampstead side of the
metropoUs was first becoming, what it now unquestionably is,
the centre of fashion and intellect.
I hope that what I write is perfectly intelUgible to you. In
fact, I have taken some pains to hit upon the exact degree of
antiquation that may accord with the style of your age — a
task for which, I flatter myself, I am not entirely unfit, as I
often take up a volume of old Fielding, Goldsmith, Junius,
and that venerable dame of blessed memory to the lovers of the
marvellous, Anne Radcliffe. I have done the same with the
foUowing extracts — expunging modernisms, and substituting
the ancient phraseology wherever I considered the alteration
requisite. But, on the whole, our sturdy language wears
well, and has been less affected by the shocks of time than
many of your day predicted.
With compliments to the nineteenth century,
I am, Mr Editor, Ever your's, POSTEBITY.

POSTERITY. 107
From the Old Hampstead Magazine for August, 2200.
Miscellaneous.
When I reside in the country, I am seldom thrown into
trains of melancholy reflection upon the evanescence of
human hopes and concerns — or (what is but an extension of
the same sentiment) upon the general tendency to decay in aU
the visible productions of nature. The reason, I take it, is,
that in the case of vegetable mortality, the season of repro
duction so regularly and rapidly succeeds — or, to adopt the
expression of a celebrated Uving poet, " the death of the
year," is so quickly foUowed by a glorious resurrection, that it
were an idle and fastidious sorrow to mourn over what is
less a loss, than a temporary separation. It were as rational
to pass every night of our lives in bewailing the decease of
the sun. It is only where the spectator himself is on the eve
of a final removal, either to another world, or to some distant
land whence he may never return, that such a feeUng should
be indulged ; and then, I aUow, it is both natural and
reUeving, as we look for the last time upon the homeliest of
the familiar objects around us, to heave a fareweU sigh, and
shed a parting tear.
But I never pass many days in a large city, more espe
cially in this gigantic metropolis, where every street and
edifice reminds me of past ages, and is itself, as it were,
the monument of some dead generation, without being
forcibly reminded of the lapse of time, and the vicissitudes
it brings upon the affairs of men. Considered in this view, a
stately capital, with its grand spires, and palaces, and squares,
all in the most complete repair, becomes as strong and affect-

108 POSTERITY.
ing an evidence of mortality, as if, with old Babylon, it lay in
ruins and desolation, with nothing save a huge mound, like
an ancient giant's grave, to mark the spot where aU its glory
was buried. In either case, the imagination wUl equaUy ask
—Where are the builders ? Where are the old joys, and
hopes, and projects, that once reveUed within these walls 1
Where the now-forgotten poet, that strutted in the prophetic
assurance of immortal renown — or the young enthusiast,
with his burning vows of eternal constancy and love — or the
founders of the many races of extinct opinions, which they ,
fondly imagined had been immovably fixed upon a time-proof
basis ? — Alas, even their epitaphs are gone ! and the sole
remnants of their former existence, could we discover where
they lay, would be a few haudfuls of nameless dust !
Such were the reflections that passed through my mind in
rapid but mournful procession, as I looked down the other
day from the steeple of Primrose church upon the circum
jacent wilderness of buildings. (This noble structure, if I
recollect right, was commenced iu the last year of the reign
of Stephen the Third, of glorious memory, a.d. 2096, and
completed in the foUowing year by his iUustrious successor,
Henry the Twelfth, the wisest and most accomplished prince,
excepting his present gracious Majesty, that ever adorned the
British Throne). I had ascended to this eminence in company
with a friend, his wife, and their young famUy, who had lately
arrived from Devonshire, and being suddenly recalled, were
anxious to be enabled to say, on their return home, that they
had seen the whole of London. We were accompanied by my
ingenious neighbour, the author of " Isaac's Letters to his
Great-Grandchildren," a writer who, in addition to his being

POSTERITY. ^ 109
a profound antiquary, possesses the happy talent of enUveniug
every topic that he touches, by that style of genuine humour,
in which we are confessedly so superior to any preceding age.
The view was a glorious one ; yet my constitutional melan
choly began to break out, and I could not refrain from mora
lizing upon it. " I have a painting (said I, turning to my
Devonshire friend,) of the scene beneath us, as ancient as
the beginning of the nineteenth century — the good old days
of WeUington and Nelson. It was then a rural scene. The
mound over which we stand was, as the name imports, covered
with primroses. Hither, on Sundays and holidays, the citi
zens of London, or to adopt the simple phraseology of the
time, ' numerous well-dressed persons of both sexes,' delighted
to resort. Happy and innocent times ! Methinks I stUl can
see the cheerful groups moving along in tranquil procession,
to enjoy their homely recreation, their little children trotting
by their side, or sporting in the new-made hay upon the
plain, or gaily clambering up the yellow mount, and returning
each with a glorious bunch of primroses in his hand. Alas !
they Uttle imagined what a change a few generations of brick
layers were destined to work upon this spot. The site of
yonder murky brewhouse was then a delicious tea-garden. In
the adjacent lane, then a shady sequestered avenue, in which
the grasshopper chirped a welcome to the strolling lovers, the
lazy waggon now growls along. For the lowing herd we have
now the bawling watchman — to shrubberies and hedgerows
have succeeded files of hackney-coaches — and the very spot,
perhaps, upon which the coy maiden of those days blushed
her acceptance of the pUghted vow, is now usurped by anti-
pastoral barrels , of pipkled beef for exportation, or ' aU

110 POSTERITY.
articles in the hardware line, for ready money only.' These
changes make me sad. The enormous corpulency of our
metropoUs is, doubtless, a proud test of our opulence and
power ; still I can neVer recur to its effects upon our rural
habits, without envying those simpler ' times, when the
tumblest and most central citizen could saUy forth once a
week to refresh his senses, and ventUate himself and his little
'ones, in a country excursion ; but now interminable streets
and squares fence him in on every point, and nature and fresh
air have become a day's journey from Cheapside. "
" And yet (returned my antiquarian friend, taking up the
conversation) I have never repined at being condemned to live
in the present age. I know something of the ' good old times'
of which you speak. Let not a sounding phrase impose upon
us. Our ancestors of the nineteenth century may have had a
few wise and virtuous men among them ; but as a generation,
they Were barbarous and perverse. With what contempt do
the philosophers of our days refer to their maxims of state
and legislation — ^their eternal wars — their senseless restric
tions upon commerce — their criminal code — their laws for
killing men and preserving pheasants — their taxation, the
child of glory and the parent of grumbling — their sinecures^-
their legal fictions — their special action on the case for calling
a scoundrel by his proper name. What trifling with common
sense! what tampering with human life! The same act in
those days was murder in a court of justice, and honour in a
ballroom. " You see that spot beneath us which still retains its pri-
mseval name — the once famous Chalk Farm. It was there
that our ' good old forefathers,' used to meet and pistol one

POSTEPaXY. ill
another upon principles which we are unable to comprehend.
I shall not go in detail through the folly of their institutions :
let a single fact suffice. The youth of those times were taught
their first notions of government in the Republican writers of
Greece and Rome ! and When they came to man's estate were
certain of being piUoried or hanged if they ventured, in word
or act, to manifest a distaste to monarchical establishments.
The same spirit of perverseneSs disgraced their literature. I
have sometimes taken up a volume of their now-forgotten
poetry, but at the first page have been compelled to fling
away the unnatural trash in disgust. Their most popular
poetry was the apotheosis of all that can be conceived most
loathsome or abominable in wretchedness or in crime. Repro
bates, who even then would not have been admitted into
decent society, and who, if indicted at the quarter-sessions,
must have been sentenced to whipping aud low diet, were
versified into right good poetical heroes ; and the records of
their misdemeanors were (to use the (3ritical cant of the
day ) ' to last as long as the EngUsh language.' What a
compUmentary presentiment of our morals and our taste !
Nor was this generation only irrational ; it appears to have
been completely miserable. I read that suicide was one
of the customs of the country. Only imagine what a fear
ful and precarious tenure must have been existence, when
a man, though he should escape the vengeance of the laws,
and his neighbour's spring-guns, and his friend's buUet,
was, after aU, in hourly danger of blowing out his own brains.
We laugh or shudder at these things ; but they called
themselves enlightened, and would have denounced as a fan
tastic speciilator, any one who should hold (what we hold as

] 1 2 POSTERITY.
self-evident truths) that capital punishments may be abol
ished without increasing crimes — that the laws should not
favour partridges — that it is wiser to spend our money in
drinking French wine, than in shedding French and EngUsh
blood — that an appetite for military glory is the test of a
barbarous age — that the democratic writers of antiquity are
not the fittest manuals of aUegiance — that poetry should not
countenance beldames and ruffians— aud, finaUy, that it was
very unthinking in those who denied aU this, to caU them
selves ' a thinking people.' "
Music. — Mamaboo, the celebrated vioUn player from Tim-
buctoo, who for the last four years has been performing in the
principal capitals of Africa and Europe, made his first appear
ance before a British audience on the 20th ult. We found
that fame had not belied his powers. Nothing can exceed the
brilliancy of his execution. He was frequently and raptu
rously encored. Mamaboo is not only one of the most admi
rable musicians of his age, but we have it from good authority
that he possesses the mind and manners of an accomphshed
gentleman. He speaks his own language with great elegance,
and French and EngUsh with considerable fluency. One little
trait of him is worth relating. The day after his arrival in
London, when asked what national object of curiosity he was
most desirous to visit, he feelingly replied, " The grave of
Clarkson.'' He confirms our late statement, that a splendid
monument to the memory of that Ulustrious philanthropist
has been erected in the capital of Timbuctoo. The foUowing
is the inscription, as translated by Mamaboo. " The Africans,
now free aud happy, remember the benefits conferred four ,

POSTERITY. 113
hundred years ago upon their suffering ancestors by Thomas
Clarkson, an EugUshman." And yet perhaps the single spe
cimen of the civilization of modern Africa, as manifested in
the talents of this interesting stranger, should be contemplated
as a more valuable and affecting memorial of our countryman's
merits, than the most gorgeous tribute that architecture could
bestow. Antiquities. Velocipede. — A FeUow of Cambridge has just
published an interesting Treatise upon the origin and use of
this curious instrument, respecting which the opinions of
antiquaries have been so long divided. The prevaUing notion
of late has been, that it was a mere plaything of our ancestors ;
but the present writer advances a different theory, which he
certainly supports with considerable abiUty and research.. The
substance of his doctrine may be shortly stated : He pro
duces incontestable documents to shew, that the period when
the Velocipede first appeared in England was in the nine
teenth century, towards the close of what was denominated
the " Peninsular War." (It may be necessary to inform some
of our readers, that this war was conducted in Spain, under
the auspices of Wellington, a weU-known general of his day ;
and that its successful result was ta give a timely check to the
ambitious encroachments of Napoleon Bonaparte.) "Now,"
says our author, " the enemy being, at the commencement of
the contest superior in cavalry (an historical fact), is it not
quite natural to assume, that the govemment would buy up
aU the spare horses in the kingdom, and ship them off to
reinforce the British army 1 My conclusion, therefore, is
that in the general scarcity of horses, caused by this ne
cessary measure. Velocipedes were invented to supply their
VOL. II. I

114 POSTERITY.
place. This conclusion is corroborated by three most powerful
circumstances : First, There is extant a coloured engraving,
bearing date about the period in question, in which a Royal
Duke is represented as travelUng from London to Windsor on
a Velocipede. Is it to be imagined that a prince of the blood
would not have procured a horse, if the substitute were not
the familiar vehicle of the higher classes 1 Secondly, Velo
cipedes feU into disuse shortly after the conclusion of the war:
and. Thirdly, I find, by the parliamentary records, that about
the same time the agricultural tax on horses was repealed — a
tax, let me say, which our ancestors, notwithstanding their
ignorance of the first principles of political economy, would
never have imposed, had not the pressing demands of the state
for those animals been such as to justify the apparent impolicy
of the measure." On the whole, we are rather disposed to
concur with this ingenious antiquary.
AMERICA.
To the Editor of the Old Hampstead Magazine.
London, July 17, 2200.
Mb. EDia?OB, — I cannot refrain from making a few observa
tions upon a letter signed Columbus, inserted in your last,
wherein the writer, as it appears to me, has been seduced by
his national prepossessions into a strain of very invidious
comparison, and into many unfounded conclusions upon the
subject of the respective merits of America and England.
The first point that he introduces, and on which he seems
especiaUy to pique himself, is, "the superior courtesy and
refinement of manners, which so pre-eminently distinguish the

POSTERITY. 115
American gentleman from the less fortunate inhabitant of
every other quarter of the globe." Really, Mr. Editor, this is
going rather too far. This is the first time I ever heard it was
a misfortune to have been born an Englishman ; and even if
it were so, I should not deem it "pre-eminently courteous"
in this American "gentleman," to make a voyage across the
Atlantic for the purpose of telUng me so. I know not what
Columbus's notions of refinement may be, but I sincerely pray
that the youth of Old England may long continue uninfected
by the finical airs and jaunty gait, and effeminate babble, and
sentimental languor, and superhuman grimace, of the Trans
atlantic coxcombs that infest our drawing-rooms.
He goes on: "Even the boasted 'British fair' consider
their attractions incomplete, unless their minds have re
ceived a final poUsh in the briUiant circles of Washington
and PhUadelphia, and their persons a final fescination from
the unrivaUed productions of the American loom." Mr.
Editor, in answer to this pretended superiority of Ameri
can manners and" manufactures, I appeal to aU (except the
ladies, who wiU never Usten to reason) whether English con
versation, and English stuffs have not always been aUowed
by the most competent judges, to be fully equal (in my
opinion they are far superior) to anything in that way that
we have seen imported from America — and if the "British
fair " have had the foUy to think otherwise, does not Colum
bus see that it is, and has been from time immemorial, a part
of woman's nature to despise everything native, and to dote
upon whatever is foreign. They must have foreign fashions,
foreign phrases, foreign attitudes, foreign perfumes, foreign
shrubs and flowers ; even in daily conversation, the indelible
I 2

116 POSTERITY.
character of their sex breaks out, and, try to fix their minds
upon what you wUl, they are sure to fly off to something foreign
to the subject. It is hence, believe me, and not from the
intrinsic beauty or value of the articles, that we see our wives
and daughters bedizened in Kentucky gauze, and East Florida
satin, and Susquehana lace, and head-dresses A V Illinois, and
the various other items of Transatlantic frippery.
Columbus complains of our traveUing : he rails at the insolence
of our waiters, and descants in a strain of sensitive subUmity
upon the transcendent horrors of a double-bedded room, " an
abomination never heard of in his native land." In answer to
this exquisite tirade, I shall merely ask him, if he ever chanced
to hear of the homely Jonathan of days of yore, who never
grumbled at making one of three in a bed, and would have been
affronted at its being hinted to him that he was not enjoying
substantial comfort. I shall not foUow Columbus through his
pompous detail of the political importance and resources of the
American empire,' nor through his rapturous eulogiums upon
t"he American schools of painting and sculpture, and upon "the
generations of statesmen, phUosophers, and poets, whose names
have shed a lustre upon the land that produced them." As to
some of the facts asserted, I shaU only say, that, judging from
a single specimen, I must aUow his countrymen to possess the
inventive faculty in a high degree, while his reasonings and
general views seem to savour more of the exploded absurdities
of three or four centuries ago, thau of the juster notions that
distinguish the present philosophic and enUghtened age.
Your constant Reader, Britannicus.

POSTERITY. 117
LITERATURE.
To the Editor of the Old Hampstead Magazine.
SiE, — Your inhuman aUusion to me in your late strictures
upon modern poetry was too palpable to be misunderstood.
I have therefore to inform you that my poem was submitted
to the pubUc at the soUcitations of several Uterary friends,
whose judgments are not inferior to that of any periodical
critic in the Kingdom. But I never expected that it would
ple£^se the present degenerate age. I told them what I now
teU you, that it was written for posterity, and to the decision
of an impartial posterity I confidently appeal.
Yours, Ahthony Sanguine.
July 5, 2200.

118

JEAN-JAQUES EOUSSEAIJ.'
[Deoembeb, 1821.]
This is in some respects a singular work, and in
many points an interesting one — though we must
add, that it is indebted for the latter quaUty, rather
to the intrinsic attractions of the subject, and to the
zeal which has accumulated the mass of materials
(some quite original ones) that compose it, than to
the style or the intellectual powers of the biographer.
The general style is not only languid and diffuse,
and the disquisitions, both in phrase and thought,
' Histoire de la vie, et des ouvrages de J. J. Rousseau —
composee des documents authentiques, et dont une partie est
rest^e inconnue jusqu'a ce jour ; d'une biographie de ses con-
temporains, cousideres dans leurs rapports avec cet homme
celebre ; suivie des Lettres inedites. — pp. 1070. Paris, 1821.

JEAN-JAQUES ROUSSEAU. 119
what are termed prosing, but in offering this volun
tary tribute to Eousseau's memory, M. de Musset
has displayed an appetite for profitless drudgery,
such as is rarely connected with a vigorous mind,
and which often reminded us of the patient index-
makers of former times, composing tables of refer
ence for each emphatic word that occurred in the
pages of their favorite authors. Thus, not content
with voluminous details of Eousseau's writings,
opinions, and adventures, he presents us with a
laborious analysis of his correspondence (956 letters)
and biographical notices of more than 760 of his
contemporaries — the two portions occupying full one
half of the entire work. Besides this, we have an
abridgement of the " Confessions," — " qui (says
the writer,) m'ont cause, je I'avoue, un mortel em-
barras," and frequent notes adjusting the dates of
letters or occurrences — upon the exactness of which
the biographer lays as much stress as if he were
engaged throughout in a mathematical calculation.
Yet, though this extreme precision be often tedious
and unnecessary, it turns out occasionally to be very
material for the justification of Eousseau against the
charges of his enemies, which is the main design of
the present publication.

120 JEAN-JAQUES ROUSSEAU.
When we spoke of the singularity of this work,
we adverted to the uncommon devotion of M. de
Musset to the cause of Eousseau's fame, which could
alone have enabled him to sacrifice the time and
labour that he seems to have expended in coUecting
the materials of his defence, and in arranging the
whole with the rigorous pi^oUxity we have noticed.
At an early age, he tells us in the preface, he was
passionately moved by the writings of Jean-Jaques,
and the effect not diminishing as he advanced in
years, he became anxious to investigate the grounds
of the many accusations against his personal cha
racter and conduct. For this purpose he made it a
point to read everything that had been written on
the subject of Eousseau : —
Je le fis avec courage. Rien n'6gala ma surprise, en trou-
vant de la mauvaise foi dans les unes — un esprit faux et
prevenu dans les autres ; dans toutes, sans exception, le Ian-
gage de la passion ou de I'erreur — ici de I'inexaotitude dans
les faits exposes, des conjectures gratuites ; la de I'alteration
dans les citations, des suppositions sans fondement, des inter
pretations fausses ; partout des preventions.'
' I did this courageously. Nothing could equal my astonish
ment at finding bad faith in some, a Talse and prejudiced
spirit in others, and in aU, without exception, the language

JEAN-JAQUES ROUSSEAU. 121
The result of these researches is contained in
the present volumes, and put forth, as it appears
to us, with as much impartiality as could well be
compatible vrith the enthusiasm for his subject,
and his anxiety to discover topics of justification,
which he candidly admits were his incentives to the
task. Our limits do not permit us to follow the bio
grapher of Eousseau in detaU through his disquisi
tions upon his Uterary and phUosop^ical pretensions.
He, perhaps, over-rates them. StUl, after making
every deduction that severe criticism, or even the
malice of his enemies and rivals may exact, the
decrifed and ridiculed, and very often ridiculous
Jean-Jaques wiU stand in the first class of the - first
thinkers and writers of his age.
The effects that Eousseau produced, and the
extravagances, both of thought and conduct, into
which he plunged — that is, his genius and his in
consistencies are — it has always struck us, to be
traced to one or two obvious singularities in his
condition, which have not been suflSciently observed
of passion and error. Here, inaccuracy in the facts aUeged,
gratuitous conjectures — ^there, altered quotations, unfounded
suppositions, false interpretations, and everywhere prejudice.

122 JEAN-JAQUES ROUSSEAU.
upon, either by his present historian, or by any of
the preceding writers, whether friends or foes, who
have laboured to explain, or to expose the character
of this extraordinary man. The most striking of
these peculiarities was the utter want of coincidence
between his theoretic maxims, and his temperament
and habits. His education was irregular and vicious.
In his infancy he was turned adrift upon the world,
with no other guides than the passions of his -age,
and the licentious examples that surrounded him.
For many years he continued a vagabond and an
adventurer, sometimes so needy as to 'pass the night
without house or food — inevitably contracting the
vices of each successive mode of life upon which he
chanced to be flung, but ever, as he has stated it
himself, finding consolation, under the severest pri
vations, in the ideal anticipations of a sensual imagi
nation. Before his twentieth year, he had been
successively " apprenti greffier, graveur, laquais,
valet de chambre, seminariste, interprete d'un archi-.
mandrite, secretaire du cadastre, maitre de musique."
(i. p. 41.) At that age he found a resting-place; but,
as if it were fated that his morals were to be bene
fited by no change of fortune, the residence of his
protectress became the scene where the last remnant

JEAN-JAQUES ROUSSEAU. 123
of virtuous restraint, that had survived his wander
ings, was to be sacrificed to her example, and
deliberate invitation.
Such was the commencement and consummation
of Eousseau's moral education ; and it is little to be
wondered at, if, in the result, he became, to every
practical purpose, irretrievably enervated by the cor
rupt manners and habits amidst which his youth
was passed. But his intellectual character was not
so quickly decided. The growth of his faculties, it
appears, was unusually slow; up to the age of thirty-
nine his talents were unknown to his friends, and
almost to himself. He had previously, it is true,
obscure intimations of his strength from visitations
of ambitious reverie — ^the inquietude of genius was
about him ; but up to the very moment of the ex
plosion of his mind, neither Eousseau himself, nor
any who had known him, ever anticipated the career
that was before him. At last he became an author,
being now on the verge of forty. By this time his
experience of life, in all its forms, had been great.
He had been an acute, though a silent observer of the
varied scenes he had witnessed. He had, for the last
ten years, been initiated in the mysteries of Parisian
society, then at its most profligate period ; and his

124 JEAN-JAQUES ROUSSEAU.
quick and comprehensive understanding had seized
the complicated system of vices, in all their disas
trous consequences, with which it teemed. He saw
that system, and, with the help of his imagination,
in all its deformity. But Eousseau's aversion to the
disorders that he afterwards signalized himself in
denouncing, had this singularity, that it appears, in
the first instance, to have been almost entirely an
intellectual repugnance. Perhaps to assert that it
was not a moral sentiment, may seem either a per
version of language, or at best a pedantic distinc
tion; but when we remember the history and the
habits, both previous and subsequent, of the man, it
appears clearly to have belonged rather to that class
of moral sentiments, which result from the ^ con
clusions of a vigorous understanding (or more cor
rectly speaking, perhaps, may be called those con
clusions themselves), than to the instinctive move
ments of an habitually virtuous mind. Thus, by the
time that Eousseau's philosophical opinions were
formed, his personal morals were gone ; and it was
his fate to commence his pubUc career, inveterately
attached, by taste and temperament, to many of the
licentious indulgences, against which he vehemently,
and, we do think, very sincerely inveighed. This

JEAN-JAQUES ROUSSEAU, 125
view, we imagine, will go pretty far towards explain
ing several of the singularities in his works, and
his life. The first question upon which he em
ployed his powers, was the moral effects of refine
ment upon society. Struck by the universal pro
fligacy that surrounded him in a nation claiming to
be the most refined, and very probably attracted by
the novelty of his own speculations, he composed
his celebrated discourse on the Arts and Sciences.
His final conclusions are unquestionably wrong, but
great truths are dispersed throughout it; and though
neither this, nor his subsequent writings will in
themselves form a wise man, a wise man who con
sults them wiU find abundance of matter to suggest
the profoundest meditations upon things the most
important to human happiness. But, whatever may
,be thought of his general views, Eousseau had the
merit — and it required no ordinary courage — of
"speaking out." He levelled his opinions at the
corruption and frivolities of the age in language of
unprecedented boldness. In the midst of a luxu
rious capital, to which he had emigrated in search
of bread, and in defiance of philosophers, academies,
theatres, saloons, and all that Paris held most dear,
this daring innovator ventured to question the merit?.

126 JEAN-JAQUES ROUSSEAU.
of the institutions upon which all theiir pretensions
rested, and to eulogize in terms, that his bitterest
enemies admitted to belong to the highest order of
eloquence, a system of morals and manners, whicb
both he and they were too degenerate to adopt.
The success of his first work, and the immediate
celebrity that it brought him, proved the crisis of
his fate. Had it been allowed to pass off as a clever
treatise, abounding with glowing passages and home-
truths, but, as far as the main argument was con
cerned, demanding no serious refutation, Jean-
Jaques might have gone on to live like ordinary
men. But the cry was raised through France, that
a watchmaker's son from Geneva was meditating no
less than a subversion of that venerable system,
which kept up a continual demand for courts and
courtiers; for tragedies, opera- dancers, fiddlers,
bons-mots, made-dishes, academical discourses; for
the Pompadours, du Deffands, Sophie Arnoulds, and
the other legitimate unnecessaries of life ; and forth
with, the vindication of those sacred superfluities was
gravely undertaken by nine stout literati ' (as if each
Muse had sent her champion), having in their ranks
' MM. Gautier, Borde, Le Roi, Boudet, de Bonneval, Formey,
le P. Menou, le roi Stanislas, and Locat.

JEAN-JAQUES ROUSSEAU. 127
the anointed majesty of Poland to tlu'ow in a stately
syUogism for the endangered rights of his weU-
beloved cousins, and his priest of the chamber, the
godly Pere Menou, to pledge the blessings of the
church upon his gracious logic. Jean-Jaques in
trepidly went forth to meet the embodied deputies
from the fine arts, the King, and the Jesuit — and he
beat them all. But the victory, if not the very con
test, turned his brain. He not only contracted an
affection for doctrines that procured him so much
renown, but he took it into his head that (the eyes
of Europe being now upon him) it was incumbent
on him, as their author, to demonstrate by his con
duct a capacity of practising those habits of sim
plicity, independence, and self-privation, which he
had been fearless enough to extol. Accordingly he
assumed the stoic — he simplified his costume, con
tracted his expenditure, retired from the salons,
renounced civU speeches, and became a "citizen of
Geneva," and a copier of music. In all this there
may have been (what his rivals and enemies insisted
upon to be the ruling passion of his life) an affecta
tion of singularity ; but when we consider the whole
of his extraordinary character, and weigh the case
made for him by his present biographer, and sup-

128 JEAN-JAQUES ROUSSEAU.
ported throughout by strong documentary evidence,
we inchne to the opinion, that there was a con
siderable mixture of sincerity, and that his motives
were pretty much what he has explained them to
have been in his Confessions. However, from what
ever motive he acted, he was not to be diverted from
prosecuting his plan; and neither the entreaties of
his friends, nor the allurements of female admirers,
nor the mockeries of Baron D'Holbach's corps of
sneerers, could tear the irrevocable Jean-Jaques
from his self-inflicted exUe. He buried himself in
the Hermitage ; yet, though he had withdrawn his
person from the world, his heart and imagination
still lingered amidst its scenes. To give up, on a
sudden, the habits and iudulgencies of forty years,
proved a sacrifice beyond his strength ; and if left to
the re-action of his own feelings, or if temperately
managed by his advisers, he would probably have
seized the first plausible pretext of abandoning his
scheme of absurd and unnecessary self-denial. But
nothing could have been more inconsiderate than
the means adopted by his friends. At one time,
they implored him to return to the world, as if
human affairs could not go on without him; at
another, they assailed him with predictions of the

JEAN-JAQUES ROUSSEAU. 129
precise day upon which his newfangled stoicism was
to die a natural death. They tormented or flattered
him by weekly reports of what all Paris was saying
in wonder at his unnatural desertion ; and (the in-
discreetest course of all) they secretly carried on
miserable consultations and intrigues with the
wretched woman, to whom, in every vicissitude of
his fortune and humour, he seems to have clung
with a strange fidelity, in order to secure her co
operation, and (it is also said) to make her the instru
ment of a plan of domestic annoyances, that might
the sooner disgust him with his retirement. These
methods were little calculated to succeed with such
a being as Eousseau — proud, vain, irritable, and
suspicious. They only riveted him in his absurdities.
He was determined to let all Paris, and all Europe
see, that he possessed more force of character than
was aUowed him ; while the discovery that a secret
committee was sitting upon him gave his sensitive
imagination the alarm ; and in 'the well-meaning,
though imprudent importunities of his friends, or,
at the worst, in their impertinent interference, he
caught the first germ of a notion, which, fostered
by his jealous fancies, and afterwards confirmed by
real calumny and persecution, became matured into
VOL. II. K

130 JEAN-JAQUES ROUSSEAU.
the conviction, that there existed a dark and ex
tended conspiracy against his fame.
Such appears to us to be the fair explanation of
Eousseau's feelings and situation at the outset of his
public career ; and such the origin of those contra
dictions in his character, in which, partly the shame
of retracting, and partly the undue importance
annexed to them by others, impelled him to perse
vere. Thus he was for ever at variance with him
self. His theories and his habits never coalesced.
He had been spoiled by the world, before he compre
hended its vices, and undertook to decry them. He
attempted or affected to renounce them himself, but
it was too late. His reformation was not only
incomplete, but ridiculous. The philosophic citizen
of Geneva, and the effeminate Frenchman could
never assimilate. In the one character, he accom
modated his outward garb and manners to the seve
rity of his theoretic views ; in the other, he dispensed
his senses and imagination from joining in the sacri
fice. He fied from the corruptions and frivoUties of
poUshed life, and he took his mistress with him.
The same inconsistency pervades his writings. His
intellect, having attained its growth, was manly and
comprehensive, but by this time his fancy and moral

JEAN-JAQUES ROUSSEAU. 131
taste were depraved ; and hence we find bold truths
and virtuous lessons incessantly counteracted by
sensual illustrations. As a moral teacher,, this was
his great intellectual failing, that he could never
divest his -imagination of the licentious associations
of his youth. To them, with all his speculative
austerities, he clung to' the last — at once a stoic and
a voluptuary ; in the same breath licentious and
sublime, he declaims against the passions in lan
guage that inflames them. In his most animated
praises of virtue, he seems inspired by the intoxica
tions of vice ; just as if a veteran tippler should sit
down to compose an exhortation against carousing,
with a bottle at his elbow to stimulate his powers.
These observations, if founded, will answer one of
the most popular charges against the memory of
Eousseau; that the object of his writings, more
especially of his celebrated romance, was to corrupt
his readers. We believe, as we have stated on a
former occasion,' that his object in the "Nouvelle
Heloise" was to move his readers by pictures of
ideal virtue, and by impassioned descriptions of feel
ings and situations analogous to those through which
he had passed himself; but that, in the progress of
' Vol. u. p. 64.
K 2

132 JEAN-JAQUES ROUSSEAU.
the work, becoming involved in new feelings and
situations incompatible with his original design, he
could not refrain from embodying them in it j and
feeling bound to justify what he did, he resorted to
paradoxes, and spoiled the whole. Or perhaps it
would be more correct to say, that with his para
doxes, and the inveterate habits of his imagination
on the one hand, and his more matured and le
gitimate powers on the other, he produced a
questionable work of fascination, of which the inex
perienced should beware, but from which a discern
ing mind may collect many a profound reflection,
and many an eloquent and elaborate analysis of
human passion. This last remark will apply, but
with several favourable qualifications, to his greatest
production — the "Emile." The unconquerable pre
dilections of the writer often break out in the inde
licacy of the details; but both the object and the
tendency are unquestionably moral. He exhorted
mothers not to put away their young, and, with
respect to them, had the honour of bringing nature
into fashion ; and for the first stages of human hfe
he zealously pointed out a mode of treatment, which,
though the objects might not ultimately survive to
reap the benefits of it, would still insure to parents

JEAN-JAQUES ROUSSEAU. 133
the consolation of reflecting, that the days of their
children, however few, had been passed in happiness.
These, and the other writings of Eousseau would
demand a more extended notice, but our space does
not allow it. In spite of their defects, and of the
predictions in his own day that they could not last,
they have stood their ground. With many, and
these not the least valuable depositaries, his fame is
as fresh as ever. His genius has annexed to abstract
questions a popular charm unknown before him ;
while his particular descriptions of the scenery of
Switzerland, and of the romantic beings whom his
fancy placed there, enter largely into the associations
that daily attract the traveller to that interesting
region. M. de Musset's work, taking up Eousseau's story
at the period to which the " Confessions" brought it
down, contains the fullest and most authentic
accounts that have yet appeared of his remaining
years. There is a long, and rather a tedious history
of his quarrel with Hume. The writer takes, part
with Eousseau, and labours hard to prove that he
had ample grounds to justify his suspicions of Hume's
sincerity ; but the main fact on which he relies is,
that Hume, before setting out for England with

134 JEAN-JAQUES ROUSSEAU.
Jean-Jaques, had supplied a passage to Horace
Walpole's pretended letter from the King of Prussia,
then under composition in the Parisian circles, and
that Eousseau was soon made acquainted with the
fact of his friend and protector having co-operated in
the sneer.' That Hume did so, is admitted by him
self; but with this single exception, his conduct, in
the first instance, was in the highest degree generous
and considerate. He brought Eousseau to England,
where he supplied him with friends, had him com
fortably settled, and procured him a pension from
the crown — services which might surely have can
celled a single and momentary indiscretion. But in
' The foUowing was Hume's contribution : — " Si vous per-
sistez k vous creuser I'esprit pour trouver de nouveaux mal-
heurs, choisissez-les. Je suis roi. Je puis vous en procurer
au gre de vos souhaits. Je cesserai de vous pers6cuter, quand
vous cesserez de mettre votre gloire i I'itre." [Since you per
sist in searching your mind in order to discover new misfor
tunes, choose them for yourself. I am a king, and can provide
you with them according to your wishes. I wUl cease to per
secute you, when you cease to pride yourself in being perse
cuted.] M. de Musset gives us to understand that this
celebrated mauvaise plaisanterie was the joint production of
Walpole, Hume, Helvetius, le Duo de Nivernois, D'Alembert,
and Madame du Deffand. — " Cette lettre," he adds, "qui
n'est pas un chef-d'ceuvre pour 6tre I'enfant de tant de gens
d'esprit."

JEAN-JAQUES ROUSSEAU. 135
the progress of the quarrel, the historian acted below
himself — he lost his temper. In his letters to Paris
he heaped the most abusive epithets upon his ex-
protege, and finally had the extraordinary weakness
to publish a statement of his wrongs, written with
so much vehemence, that Messieurs D'Alembert and
Suard, who translated it into French, and superin
tended the publication, found it prudent to soften
some of the expressions — an act of friendship for
which Hume, in his cooler moments, thanked them.
In reading the details of this affair, we have been
pai-ticularly struck by one curious Uttle coincidence.
The great charge against Eousseau was, that his
extravagant conduct and suspicions originated in the
vaguest rumours and surmises. Yet the grave and
philosophic David Hume appears to have been insti
gated on no better grounds to the chief imprudence
he ever committed. He took it (or it was put) into
his head, that the " Confessions" (commenced pending
this quarrel) were expressly directed against him;
and he determined to anticipate his calumniator.
" Le sUence a ses dangers (he says in a letter to Madame
BoufBers) ; U compose maintenant un Uvre dans lequel U me
deshonorera par ses mensonges atroces. II eorit ses memoires.
Supposez qu'Us soient pubU6s apr^s sa mort, ma justification

136 JEAN-JAQCES ROUSSEAU.
perdra beaucoup de son authenticite."' And again, "Ce qui
m'a determine k ne garder aucune mesure avec cet homme,
c'est la certitude qu'il ecrivait ses memoires, et qu'U m'y
faisait faire une belle figure."'' Tom. i. pp. 129, 144.
Now it so happened that the " Confessions" break
off precisely at the point of time preceding the trans
action, which it was presumed was to have been a
leading topic. Instead of venting his feelings upon
recent occurrences, Jean-Jaques was at that moment
taking refuge from them in the remembrance of
more pleasurable scenes- — in recalling the adven
tures, and once more re-animating the buried hopes
of his younger and better days, associated as they
were with his boyish frolics, his glorious illusions, his
rambles amidst the hills and lakes of his country,
and with the still glowing images of the fair beings
for whom his heart first sighed — in his vivid recol
lections of all which, he has contrived to throw so
inexpressible a charm round his romantic story.
' Silence has its dangers. He is now writing a book in
which he will disgrace me by his atrocious falsehoods. He is
composing his memoirs. If they should be published after his
death, my justification will, in a considerable degree, lose its
authenticity. " What made me resolve to keep no terms with that man,
was the certainty that he was writing his memoirs, and was
representing me in a fine light.

JEAN-.rAQUES RODSSEAU. 137
The most interesting documents connected with
this breach are the letters of Madame de Boufflers,
who, having originally brought Hume and Eousseau
together, and being now appealed to by them both,
found herself caUed upon to interpose her friendly
offices between the angry philosophers, Her letter
to Hume, we consider to be, in point of tact, exagge
ration, and talent, one, the most perfectly charac
teristic we have ever met of the sex, the nation, and
the era of the writer.' It is far too long to insert;
' It opens thus : — " Quelque raison que vous me puissiez
dire, pour ne m'avoir pas instruite la premifere de I'teange
evfenement qui occupe k cette heure I'Angleterre et la France."
[Whatever reason you may aUege for not having informed me,
first of aU, of the strange event which at present occupies the
attention of England and France.] But she puts many points
weU and strongly. " Vous aurez ici un parti nombreux com
pose de tons ceux qui seront charmfe de vous voir agir comme
un homme ordinaire. — Mais que pretendez-vous faire des nou-
veUes informations dont vous chargez M. d'Holbach 1 vous
n'avez pas dessein apparemment de rien 6crire contre ce mal-
heureux homme qui soit Stranger a votre cause. Vous ne
serez pas son delateur, aprfes avoir et6 son protecteur. De
semblables examens doivent pr6c6der les liaisons, etnon suivre
les ruptures."— Tom. i. pp. 137-8. [You have here a nume
rous party consisting of those who wiU be delighted to see you
act like an ordinary man. — What do you propose to do with
that new information which you are requiring from M. d'Hol
bach ? You do not, surely, intend to write anything against that

138 JEAN-JAQUES ROUSSEAU.
and we are reminded, that, like M. de Musset, we
may already have dwelt too much upon this obsolete
controversy. We cannot, however, suppress one remark in
answer to the insinuation that Eousseau either had
not suffered persecution, or, if he had, that he had
provoked, that he might glory in, it. This charge,
which is more roundly asserted by Grimm and others,
is utterly unfounded. Jean-Jaques was a real, and
unwilling victim of his opinions. Instead of inviting
persecution for his " Emile" (the first occasion upon
which the vengeance of authority was levelled at
him), he had taken the most scrupulous precautions
to avert it. The lady of Marshal Luxembourg un
dertook to dispose of the manuscript, but the author,
contrary to her earnest solicitations, insisted that it
should not be printed in France. It was sent to
Holland. A copy was soon after transmitted to
Paris, to be there printed and published under the
eye of the censor. The reasons for this do not
appear : all that we can collect is, that there was in
unfortunate man, that is foreign to your defence. You wiU
not become his accuser after being his protector. Such inves
tigations should precede connexions, and not follow rup
tures.]

JEAN-JAQUES ROUSSEAU. 139
the whole affair a singular mixture of trick and mys
tery ; but there is abundant evidence that Eousseau
was not a party to it. When informed of it by
M. de Malesherbes, the magistrate under whose au
thority the French edition was preparing, he instantly
disavowed and protested against the proceeding.
These facts, which had originally rested on Eous
seau's statement, are verified by the certificate of
M. de Malesherbes appended to the volumes before
us ; yet, in disregard of aU this, the prerogatives of
despotism were put in force against Eousseau : a
warrant to imprison him issued. He was roused from
his bed at midnight by a timely warning of his
danger, and to escape a gaol, precipitately fled from
France. He was refused an asylum in his own
country, where his book Avas excommunicated before
a copy had been received. Wherever he went, the
same fate attended the work and the author. He
was successively hunted and pelted through Switzer
land, from one miserable canton to another, till,
Frederick of Prussia compassionating him, he at
length found a temporary shelter in the territories
of a tolerant despot. All this might seem a very
laughable affair for the heartless coteries of Paris,

140 JEAN-JAQUES ROUSSEAU.
but those who have any feeling for the privileges of
the human mind, must pronounce it to have been
unequivocal persecution.
After Eousseau's return from England, he repaired
to the Chateau de Trie, where the Prince of Conti
afforded him an asylum. Here he for a whUe as
sumed the name of Eeneau, and announced " that
he was dead to literature, and should never more
read upon any subject that could re-excite his ex
tinguished ideas." In an interesting private letter
of the same period, now first published, he expresses
a similar determination, and speaks of his indif
ference to " cette acre fumee de gloire qui fait pleu-
rer." Botany, and the composition of his " Confes
sions," were his only serious occupations. His friend,
M. du Peyrau, coming to pass some time with him,
Jean-Jaques le prie d'apporter des volans, voulant partager
les momensde lajourn6e entre ce jeu, les promenades, et les
6oheos. — Tom. i. 162.
He soon left Trie, the reason does not appear, and
successively resided at Lyons, Chamberry, and Bour-
goin till 1770, when he finally returned to Paris,
where the authorities connived at his presence, on
the condition that he should publish nothing more.

JEAN-JAQUES ROUSSEAU. 141
He continued in Paris tiU 1778, living in a mean
apartment in la Eue Platriere, upon a small annuity
derived from the profits of his works, and his earn
ings as a music copier, and manfully rejecting to the
last all offers of loans or presents. About the middle
of 1778 he yielded to the importunities of M. Girar-
din, and went to Ermenonville to superintend the
education of his son. His death took place six
weeks after.
The details of the last ten years of Eousseau's
life, coUected from the accounts of several who had
come into contact with him during that period, have
struck us as the most interesting portion of M. de
Musset's work; probably because the anecdotes and
traits of character introduced in them had more
novelty to us than those of his earlier history.
There are occasional examples of the " old humour"
breaking out, but these are greatly outweighed by
the numerous testimonies to his simplicity, playful
ness, sensibility, and his singular moderation when
ever the merits of his rivals came into discussion.
One thing much insisted on, and which the reader of
the " Confessions" would not have expected, is Eous
seau's colloquial powers. Giving an account of one
of his interviews with Madame D'Houdetot, he says.

142 JEAN-JAQUES ROUSSEAU.
Je trouvai, pour rendre les mouvements de mon coeur un
langage vraiment digne d'eux. Ce fut Ik premiSre et I'unique
fois de ma vie, mais je fus subUme.'
But here we have the concurring evidence of
many, that nothing could surpass the fervour and
eloquence of his ordinary conversation. The follow
ing is M. Dussaulx's account of a dinner-party
made by him for Eousseau.
On s'etait rassemble de bonne heure — Jean-Jaques ne se fit
pas trop attendre. A quelques nuages pres, mon dieu ! qu'U fiit
aimable ce jour-la, tantdt enjoue tantot subUme. Avant le diner,
il nous raconta quelques-unes des plus innocentes anecdotes
consignees dans ses Confessions. Plusieurs d'entre nous les
connaissaient d6ja ; mais il sut leur donner une phisiognomie
nouvelle, et plus de mouvement encore que dans son Uvre.
J'ose dire qu'il ne se connaissait pas lui-m^me, lorsqu'U pre-
tendait que la nature lui avait refuse le talent de la parole ; la
solitude sans doute avait concentre ce talent en lui-m§me ;
mais dans ces momens d'abandon, et lorsque rien ne I'offas-
quait, U debordait comme un torrent impetuerfx a qui rien ne
resiste  II fut question de nos plus grands ecrivains :
abstraction faite de ses opinions particuUferes, U les caracterisa,
tous avec justesse, precision, surtout avec une impartiaUte

' To express the feelings of my heart, I employed language
truly worthy of them. For the first and only time in my life
I was sublime.

JEAN-JAQUES ROUSSEAU. 143
dont nous fumes ravis. " Montaigne," nous dit-il, " ce premier
philosophe Frangais, fut notre maitre a tous. Sans lui peut-
etre nous n'aurions jamais eu ni Bayle ni Montesquieu. Quel
homme,'' ajoutait-U, " que ce Michel Montaigne ! Outre la
naivete, la grace, et I'energie de son style inimitable, il avait
des vues longues, et comme il I'a dit, I'esprit primesautier."
Quand Jean-Jaques en fut k Voltaire, qui I'avait si indigne-
ment outragS, au lieu de recrimination, U se plut a rendre
justice entiere a sa f^conditi inepuisable, a la diversite de ses
talents. Quant k son caractere, il n'en dit que ces mots
remarquables : " Je ne sache point d'homme suf la terre dont
les premiers mouvemens aient et6 plus beaux que les siens."'
' The party assembled early. Jean-Jaques soon arrived.
With the exception of a few cloudy moments, how ami
able he appeared, sometimes sportive, sometimes subUme !
Before dinner he related some of the most harmless
anecdotes contained in his " Confessions.'' They were
already known to several of the party ; but he gave them a
new character, and imparted to them a higher colour than
they present in his book. It may be said that he did not know
himself when he asserted that nature had withheld from him
the talent of speaking ; solitude had doubtless concentrated
that talent within himself. But in his moments of famUiarity,
and when nothing occurred to embarrass him, he launched
forth Uke an impetuous torrent which nothing could resist.
 The conversation turned on our most distinguished
writers ; and making allowance for his peculiar opinions,
Rousseau characterised them all with accuracy, precisibp,
and a degree of impartiaUty which charmed all present.
" Moutaigne," said he, " that first of French phUosophers,

144 JEAN-JAQUES EOUSSEAU.
In the following also, considering the fate of the
works and the man, we feel that there is something
peculiarly touching.
• On lui fit remarquer sur mes tablettes tous ses livres ex
poses sur le meme rayon. II s'emeut k cet aspect. Ah ! les
voilk, s'ecrie-t-il, je les rencontre partout : il me semble qu'Us
me poursuivent. Que ces gens-la m'ont fait de mal et de
plaisir ! II s'en approche, il les frappe, et les caresse I'un
aprfes I'autre. Son Emile fut le plus maltrait6, en pfere nean-
moins. Que de veilles, que de tourmens il m'a coutes! et
pourquoi 1 pour m'exposer aux fureurs de I'envie, et de mes
pers^cuteurs. Cet enfant, opprime dis sa naissance, ne m'a
jamais souri. J'ignore quel chemin il a fait dans le monde.
Mon Heloise du moins m'a fait passer de bons momens, quoique
je ne I'aie pas non plus engendrfe sans douleur, et qu'on I'ait
insultee. — Tom. i. 185.
has been our master in everything. Without him we should,
perhaps, never have had Bayle or Montesquieu. What a
man," he added, " was Michael Montaigne ! Besides the
nawet&, grace, and energy of his inimitable style, his views
were profound, and his mind," to use his own phrase, " was so
bounding." Jean-Jaques, in alluding to Voltaire, who had so
vUely insulted him, instead of recrimination, rendered ample
justice to his inexhaustible fertility and diversity of talent.
With regard to his character, he used these remarkable words ;
— I know no man in the world whose first impulses of feeUng
are better than his.
' He was shown my bookcase, in which aU his works were
arranged together. He was moved at the sight of them.

JEAN-JAQUES ROUSSEAU. 145
Eousseau's conversational powers are also attested
by the Prince de Ligne, who visited him in 1770.
The conversation at first turned upon music and
botany, but, as soon as the subject of his writings
was introduced,
II entra dans des details superieurs, peut-itre, k tout ce
qu'U avait ecrit, et parcourut toutes les nuances de ses idees
avec une justesse qu'il perdait quelquefois dans la soUtude,
a force de miditer et d'ecrire. Ses yeux 6taient comme deux
astres. Son genie rayonnait dans ses regards, et m'elec-
trisait. — Sa vilaine femme ou servante' nous interrompait quel.
quefois par quelques questions saugrenues qu'elle faisait sur

" Ah ! there they are," he exclaimed. " I meet them every
where : they seem to pursue me. What pain and pleasure
these things have cost me. He advanced, struck them, and
caressed them one after another. EmUe received the greatest
share of correction, though stUl in a parental way. How
much watchfulness and torment has' he not cost me ! and aU
for what 1 To expose myself to the fury of envy and my per
secutors ! That child, oppressed from its birth, never smUed
upon me. I know not what way it has made in the world.
My Heloise has at least afforded me some happy moments,
though it was not brought forth without pain, nor has it
escaped insult."
' Rousseau, it would appear; was never married to Therese.
He simply named her his wife one day in the presence of two
friends, and afterwards continued the title. — Tom. i. 469.
VOL. II. L

146 jeantJaques rousseau.
son linge ou sur sa soupe, il lui repondait avec douceur, et
aurait ennobU un morgeau de fromage s'U en avait parle.'
This may be the language of exaggeration, but
the writer makes a concluding remark, which con
tains a more unequivocal testimony to Eousseau's
powers than any direct encomium.
Je n'ai jamais eu tant d'esprit (et ce fut, je crois, la premifere
et la dernifere fois de ma vie) que pendant les huit heures que
je passai avec Jean-Jaques dans mes deux conversations.^
And in truth, this is one of the principal charms
and advantages of an intercourse with men of geidus,
that for the moment they raise our minds almost to
a level with their own.
' He instantly entered into details, superior perhaps to any
thing he had written. He passed through all the shades of his
ideas with a degree of accuracy which he sometimes lost in
solitude, through the labour of meditating and writing. His
eyes beamed like two stars. His genius flashed in his looks,
and electrified me. His vulgar wife or servant several
times interrupted us with surly questions concerning his
linen or his soup, which he answered with mildness. He
would have ennobled a piece of cheese had he conversed
about it.
^ I never felt my mind so much inspired (and I beUeve it
was for the first and the last time in my life) as during the
eight hours I spent in my two conversations with Jean-
Jaques.

JEAN-JAQUES ROUSSEAU. 147
There is a long extract from an extremely interest
ing account of the last years and death of Eousseau,
by a M. Corancez, an amiable and sensible man,
who knew him intimately, and, generally bearing
with his infirmities, continued his friend, and re
tained his confidence to the last. Some of the details
that M. C. gives, establish beyond a question the in
sanity of his unfortunate friend. Independent of
the more generally-known facts upon which this
malady has been imputed to Eousseau, M. Corancez
mentions frequent physical attacks, we should ima
gine epileptic, which leave no doubt that there existed
an organical derangement of the functions of the
brain — the final result, not improbably, of that sud
den rush of blood to the head in his youth, which
he has described in his " Confessions." During the
continuance of those attacks, his mind betrayed the
most unequivocal symptoms of the nature of the
visitation. The same narrative shows, we think,
with almost equal clearness, that Eousseau termi
nated his own life — though, from some motives of
prudence or delicacy, a different story was circulated
by the family in whose house he expired. He was
interred at Ermenonville, in the Isle of Poplars.
The scene is feelingly touched upon by his friend.
L 2

148 JEAN-JAQUES ROUSSEAU.
L'inhumation eut lieu le soir meme par le plus beau clair
de lune, et le temps le plus calme. Le lecteur pent se figurer
quelles furent mes sensations en passant dans I'Ue avec le
corps— le lieu, le clair de lune, le calme de fair, I'homme, le
rapprochement des actes de sa vie, une destinee aussi extra
ordinaire, le r6sultat qui nous attend tous ; mais sur quoi
ma pensee s'arreta le plus long-temps et avec le plus de
complaisance, c'est qu'enfin le malheureux Rousseau jouissait
d'un repos, bien achete a la verit6, mais qu'U etait impossible
d'esp6rer pour lui tant qu'il aurait vecu.' Tom. i. 270.
The volumes before us contain a large fund of
incidental anecdote relating to J. J's contemporaries;
from which we can offer only a few scanty selections,
and these in a desultory form. — To begin with the
ladies —
Madame d'Houdetot. — Who would have thought
that this idol of Eousseau's imagination, and, in part,
' The interment took place that very evening, during the
brightest moon-Ught and the calmest weather. The reader
may imagine what were my feelings as I proceeded to the isle
with the body — the place, the moon-Ught, the serenity of the
evening, the man, the recoUection of the incidents of his life,
his extraordinary destiny, and the common end which awaits
us all ; — but the circumstance on which my thoughts dwelt
longest, and with most satisfaction, was, that at length the
unfortuiiate Rousseau enjoyed repose, well earned it is true,
but which it was impossible he could have hoped for whUe
he lived.

JEAN-JAQUES ROUSSEAU. 149
the prototype of the divine Julie, ^was, not only not
what her admirer fancied her, but absolutely ugly ?
Ce sera une consolation pour les femmes laides (says a
Madame d'Allard, in a recent letter to, we believe, the
biographer) d'apprendre que Madame d'Houdetot, qui I'etait
beaucoup, a du k son esprit et surtout k son charmant carac-
tfere, d'etre si passionnement et si constamment aimie. EUe
avait non-seulement la vue basse, et les yeux ronds, comme le
dit Rousseau, mais eUe 6tait excessivement louche, ce que
empechait que son ame se peignit dans sa phisiognomie. Son
front etait trfes has, son nez gros — ^la petite verole avait laisse
une teinte jaune dans tous ses creux, vet les pores etaient
marques de brun. Cela donna un air sale k son teint, qui, je
crois, etait beau avant cette maladie.' Tom. ii. 141.
The readers of the " Confessions" will recoUect the
mention of Eousseau's letters to this lady, and
' It will be a consolation for ugly women, to learn that
Madame d'Houdetot, who was extremely- so, was indebted
to her talent, and particularly to her charming temper, for
being so passionately and so constantly beloved. She was not
merely short-sighted, but, her eyes were extremely round (as
Rousseau himself remarks), and she squinted so excessively as
to deprive her countenance of all power of expression. Her
forehead was very low, and her nose large. The smaU-pox
had left in their marks a yellow tint, and the pores of her
skin were brown. This gave a dingy appearance to her
complexion, which, I believe, had been fine previous to that
disease.

150 JEAN-JAQUES ROUSSEAU.
his remark upon her assertion that she had burnt
them —
Non, Ton ne met point au feu de pareUles lettres. On a
trouv6 brulantes ceUes de la Julie. Eh, dieu! qu'aurait-on
done dit de ceUes-lk? Si ces lettres sont encore en etre,
et qu'un jour elles soient vues, on connoltra comment j'ai
aime.' Many years after, a Madame Broutain, anxious
to ascertain their fate, inquired after them from
Madame d'Houdetot. She replied, "that she had
really burnt them aU, one only excepted, which she
had not the courage to destroy, it being a master
piece of eloquence and passion." — This one she had
committed to the custody of M. St. Lambert, who,
it turned out, had either mislaid, or lost it — a
fatality which M. de Musset deeply deplores — and
we are Jean-Jaquists enough to sympathise in his
regrets. Madame d'Epinay. — There is a curious letter of
this lady, and peculiarly characteristic of the time.
' No ! letters Uke those could not be committed to the
flames ! If the letters of Julie were said to be ai-dent, what
would be thought of those 1 If those letters be stifl in exis
tence, and shaU ever be seen, it wUl be known, how I have
loved.

JEAN-JAQUES ROUSSEAU. 151
She had heard, it seems, that J. J. was treating a
select party of his friends to readings of the " Con
fessions," and becoming alarmed for her character
(" il y va de mon repos," are her words) she made
a formal apphcation to M. de Sartine, the poUce
magistrate, to interfere, and put a stop to this
libellous recitation. It is a little remarkable that
her letter, charging Eousseau as a calumniator, in
directly attests his veracity.
Si vous lui faites donner sa parole (to discontinue), je crois
qu'il la tiendra.
This is only one of the many instances recorded
in these volumes, of such summary appeals against
troublesome authors. Diderot was immured for a
joke. St. Lambert procured a lettre de cachet
against a M. Clement for a rough critique on his
Poem of the Seasons, (ii. 295) — and mention is
made (u. 347) of a scribbling Marquis (de Ximenes)
who regularly applied to M. de Sartine, to mUzzle
aU impertinent commentators upon his trash.
D'Alembert. — M. Corancez relates, that after the
death of Eousseau, D'Alembert bitterly reproached
himself for his conduct towards him, and even went
so far as to shed some tears. Upon this, M. de

152 JEAN-JAQUES ROUSSEAU.
Musset, who questions the geometrician's sincerity,
informs us that he was a perfect master of mimicry
— " il pleurait ou riait k volonte" — and in confirma
tion he introduces the foUowing story : —
C'est a ce don des larmes que La Harpe dut le succes de sa
Milanie. — L'etiquette voulait qu'on eut pleure k ce drame.
D'Alembert ne manquait jamais d'accompagner La Harpe. II
prenait un air s6rieux et compose, qui fixait d'abord I'attention.
Au premier acte, il faisait remarquer les apergus phUosophiques
de I'ouvrage ; ensuite profitant du talent qu'il avait pour la
pantomime, il pleurait toujours aux memos endroits, ce qui
imposait aux femmes la necessity de s'attendrir — et comment
auraient-elles eu les yeux sees, lorsqu'un phUosophe fondait
en larmes ?¦ Tom. ii. 10.
Among the anecdotes there is an amusing and
well-told account of a mystification practised by
Sophie Arnould upon a party of her high acquaint-
' To D'Alembert's power of shedding tears at pleasure, La
Harpe was indebted for the success of his Milanie. Etiquette
required that the audience should weep at the ^representation.
D'Alembert never failed to accompany La Harpe to the theatre.
He assumed a serious and composed air, which at first rivetted
attention. In the first act, he pointed out the philosophic
views of the work ; then, availing himself of his pantomimic
talents, he invariably wept at the same passages, which
imposed on the ladies the necessity of appearing moved ; for
how could they keep their eyes dry, when even a philosopher
was melted in tears

JEAN-JAQUES ROUSSEAU. 153
ances, who insisted upon her inviting her friend
Jean-Jaques to meet them at her house. This was
a few years before his death. Eousseau, as she
anticipated, refused to come.
Voici (continues M. de Musset) comment elle se tira d'affaire.
Le taiUeur de la comldie avait quelque resemblance avec
Jean-Jaques. EUe le remarque, et se resout a lui faire jouer
le role de Rousseau. Les conventions sont bientdt faites — les
voici — le taUleur doit prendre la perruque ronde, I'habit marron
sans coUet, la longue et grosse canne, tout le costume enfin de
Jean-Jaques. II aura soin de tenir la tete un peu penchee,
de ne pas dire un seul mot — on lui laisse la liberte de manger
et de boire, mais en observant toujours le mSme sUence —
il se levera de table k un signal convenu pour se retirer, et
decampera sans rentrer dans le salon — U sera paye largement.'
After these preliminaries the guests were invited
to a supper-party, where the pretended Jean-Jaques
appeared upon the right of MademoiseUe Arnould.
' She got over the difiiculty in the foUowing maimer. The
taUor of the theatre somewhat resembled Jean-Jaques. She
'had remarked this, and determined to make him act the
part of Rousseau. The arrangements were speedily made as
foUows : — The tailor to appear with the round wig, the chesnut-
coloured coat without a coUar, the long thick cane, in short
the whole costume of Jean-Jaques. He must hold his head a
Uttle inclined, aud not uHer a single word. He is to be
aUowed the freedom of eating aud drinking, always preserving

154 JEAN-JAQUES ROUSSEAU.
— The scene is described at length. — To complete
the iUusion, the hostess circulated the bottle briskly.
The mock-phUosopher performed his part to admira
tion, as long as he continued sober ; but, in spite of
aU Sophie's precautions, he at last became as drunk
as the rest, when " il tint des propos qui, sans I'ivresse
des convives, leur auraient paru fort etranges." —
However, the trick was not discovered till afterwards
revealed by the contriver.
Chacun admira le muet — et trouve qu'U repondait parfaite-
ment a I'idee qu'on s'etait faite de son esprit et de ses talens.
Tom. i. 182.
There are also the details of another mystification,
where the real Jean-Jaques is presented to Madame
Genlis, and supposed by her to be PreviUe the actor,
dressed up to personate him. (ii. 193.) — It is very
cleverly related by Madame G  , but we must
refer for the particulars to the book itself.
Upon the whole, M. de Musset's work, though
not an admirable specimen of biography, and un-
necessaiily voluminous, contains a large stock of
the same silence. He must rise from table at a given signal,
retire without returning to the salon, and finally he shaU be
handsomely paid.

JEAN-JAQUES ROUSSEAU. 155
new matter, tending to elucidate many passages in
the life and character of his subject; and as such,
must be considered to be a valuable and necessary
supplement to the published editions of Eousseau's
writings.

156

THE VAULTS OF ST. MICHAN'S.
[November, 1822.]
It is not generally known that the metropolis of
Ireland contains a very singular subterraneous
curiosity — a burial-place, which, from the chemical
properties of the soil, acts with a certain embalming
influence upon the bodies deposited within it. I
speak of the vaults beneath St. Michan's Church — a
scene where those, who have the firmness to go
down, and look death , in the face, will find an in
structive commentary upon the doctrines of moral
humiliation that are periodically preached above.
You descend by a few steps into a long and
narrow passage that runs across the site of the
church ; upon each side there are excavated ample
recesses, in which the dead are laid. There is no-

THE VAULTS OF ST. MICHAN'S. 157
thing offensive in the atmosphere to deter you from
entering. The first thing that strikes you is to find
that decay has been more busy with the tenement
than the tenant. In some instances the coffins have
altogether disappeared ; in others, the lids or sides
have mouldered away, exposing the remains within,
still unsubdued by death from their original form.
But the great conqueror of flesh and blood, and of
human pride, is not to be baffled with impunity.
Even his mercy is dreadful. It is a poor privilege
to be permitted to hold together for a century or so,
until your coffin tumbles in about your ears, and
then to re-appear, half skeleton, half mummy, ex
posed to the gazes of a generation, that can know
nothing of your name and character, beyond the
prosing tradition of some moralizing sexton.
Among these remnants of humanity, for instance,
there is the body of a pious gentlewoman, who, while
she continued above ground, shunned the eyes of
men in the recesses of a convent. But the veil of
death has not been respected. She stands the very
first on the sexton's list of posthumous rarities, and
one of the most valuable appendages of his ofBce.
She is his buried treasure. Her sapless cheeks yield
him a larger rent than some acres of arable land ;

158 THE VAULTS OF ST. MICHAN'S.
and what is worse, now that she cannot repel the
imputation, he calls her to her face, "the Old
Nun." In point of fact, I understood that her age
was one hundred and eleven years, not including
the forty that have elapsed since her second burial
in St. Michan's.
Death, as has been often observed, is a thorough
Eadical, and levels all distinctions. It is so in this
place. Beside the Nun there sleeps, not a venera
ble abbess, or timid novice, or meek and holy friar,
but an athletic young felon of the seventeenth cen
tury, who had shed a brother's blood, and was
sentenced for the offence to the close custody of St.-
Michan's vaults. This was about one hundred and
thirty years ago. The offender belonged to a f^mUy
of some consideration, which accounts for his being
found in such respectable society.
The preservative quality of these vaults is various
in its operation upon subjects of different ages and
constitutions. With regard to the latter, however,
it does not appear that persons, who had been tem
perate livers, enjoy any peculiar privileges. The
departed toper resists decay as sturdUy as the ascetic,
supplying Captain Morris with another " reason
fair, to fill his glass again." But it is ascertained

THE VAULTS OF ST. MICHAN'S. 159
that children are decomposed almost as rapidly here
as elsewhere. Of this, a touching illustration oc
curs in the case of a female who died in child
birth, about k century ago, and was deposited in
St. Michan's. Her infant was laid in her arms.
The mother is stiU tolerably perfect ; exempUfying,
by her attitude, the parental "passion strong in
death;" but the child has long since melted away
from her embrace. I inquired her name, and was
rather mortified to find that it has not been pre
served. But I was chiefly affected by the relics of two
persons, of whom the world has unfortunately heard
too much : the ill-fated brothers, John and Henry
Sheares. I had been told that they were here, and
the moment the light of the taper fell upon the spot
they occupy, I quickly recognized them by one or
two circumstances that forcibly recalled the close of
their career : the headless trunks, and the remains
of the coarse, unadorned, penal shells, to which it
seemed necessary to public justice that they should
be consigned. Henry's head was lying by his
brother's side ; John's had not been completely
detached by the blow of the executioner.: one of
the ligaments of the neck stiU connects it with the

160 THE VAULTS OF ST. MICHAN'S.
body. I knew nothing of these victims of iU-timed
enthusiasm, except from historical report ; but the
companion of my visit to their grave had been their
contemporary and friend, and he paid their memo
ries the tribute of some sighs ; which even at this
distance of time, it would not be prudent to heave
in a less privileged place. He Ungered long beside
them, and seemed to find a sad gratification in
relating several particulars connected with their
fates. Many of the anecdotes that he mentioned have
been already published. Two or three that in
terested me, I had not heard before. " It was not
to be expected," he said, "that such a man as
John Sheares could have escaped the destiny that
befel him. His doom was fixed several years before
his death. His passion for freedom, as he under
stood it, was incurable; for it was consecrated by
its association with another passion, to which every
thing seemed justifiable. You have heard of the
once celebrated MademoiseUe Theroigne. John
Sheares was in Paris at the commencement of the
Eevolution, and was introduced to her. She was
an extraordinary creature; wild, imperious, and
fantastic in her patriotic paroxysms; but in her

THE VAULTS OF ST. MICHAN'S. 161
natural intervals, a beautiful and fascinating woman.
He became deeply enamoured of her, and not the
less so for the poUtical enthusiasm that would have
repelled another. I have heard that he assisted in
the uniform of the national guard at the storming
of the Bastile, and that he encountered the peril as
a means of recommending himself to the object of
his admiration. She returned that sentiment, but
she would not listen to his suit. When he tendered
a proposal of marriage, she produced a pistol, and
threatened to lay him dead if he renewed the
subject. This I had from himself. But her rigour
did not extinguish his passion. He returned to Ire
land, full of her image, and, I suspect, not without a
hope that the success of the fatal enterprise in
which he embarked might procure him, at a future
day, a more favourable hearing ; but of this and aU
his other hopes you see (pointing to his remains)
the lamentable issue. " I asked whether his
mistress had heard his fate, and how she bore it.
My friend replied, " When I was at Paris, during
the short peace of Amiens, I asked the same ques
tion, but I met with no one who had personally
known her. She was then living; in a condition,
however, to which death would have been preferable.
VOL, II. M

162 THE VAULTS OF ST. MICHAN'S.
She was in a miserable state of insanity, and con
fined in a public institution." — " John Sheares,"
he continued, " flung himself into the revolutionary
cause from principle and temperament ; but Henry
wanted the energy of a conspirator : of this he was
forewarned by an incident that I know to have
occurred. Shortly after he had taken the oath of
a United Irishman (it was towards the close of the
year 1797,) he was present at the election for the
city of Dublin; a riot took place at the hustings,
the military interfered, and the people fled in con
fusion : a tradesmen, who resided in the vicinity,
hearing the shouts, hastily moved towards the spot,
to inquire the cause. The first person he met was
Henry Sheares, pallid, trembling, and almost gasp
ing for breath. He asked what had happened:
Sheares, with looks and tones importing extraor
dinary perturbation, implored him, if he valued his
life, to turn back. It was with some difficulty that
the interrogator could obtain an inteUigible account
of the cause and extent of the danger. As soon
as he had ascertained the fact, he fixed his eye on
Sheares and said, 'Mr. Sheares, I know more of
some matters than yOu may be aware of: take a
friend's advice, and have no more to do with

THE VAULTS OF ST. MICHAN'S. 163
poUtics ; you have not nerves. Sir, for the business
you have engaged in.' But the excitation of the
times, and the influence of his brother's character
and example, prevaUed. When the catastrophe
came, John Sheares felt, when too late, that he
should have offered the same advice. This re
flection embittered his last moments. It also called
forth some generous traits that deserve to be re-
membered. His appeal to the Court in behalf of
his brother, as given in the report of the trial, is a
model of natural pathos; but I know of nothing
more pathetic in conduct than a previous scene,
which Curran once described to me as he had wit
nessed it. When Curran visited them in prison
to receive instructions for their defence, John
Sheares rushed forward, and embracing his knees,
implored him to intercede for Henry ; for himself,
he offered to plead guUty; to die at an hour's
notice ; to reveal aU that he knew with the excep
tion of names ; to do anything that might be fairly
required of him, provided the government would
consent to spare his brother."
The preserving power of the vaults of St. Mi
chan's was long ascribed by popular superstition to
the pecuUar hoUness of the ground, but modem
M 2

164 THE VAULTS OF ST. MICHAN'S.
science has unwrought the miracle by explaining,
on chemical principles, the cause of the pheno
menon, "Water is a sore decayer of your whore
son dead body." The walls and soil of these vaults
abound with carbonate of lime, and argillaceous
earth ; a compound that, absorbs the moisture which
is necessary to the putrefactive process. In aU
weathers the place is perfectly free from damp.
The consequence is, that animal matter exposed to
such an atmosphere, though it undergoes important
chemical changes, and soon ceases to be strictly flesh,
yet retains, for a length of time, its external propor
tions. I had occasion to observe a circumstance that
proves the uncommon dryness of the air. One of the
recesses, which is fastened up, is the burial-place of a
noble family. On looking through the grating of the
door, we saw two or three coronets glittering from the
remote extremity of the cell, as brightly as if they
had been polished up the day before. The atten
dant assured us that it was more than a year since
any one had entered the place. He inserted a
taper within the grating to give us a fuller view,
when his statement was corroborated by the ap
pearance of an ample canopy of cobweb, extending
from wall to wall of this chamber of death, and

THE VAULTS OF ST. MICHAN'S. 165
which it must have cost the artificers many a weary
day and night to weave. A curtain of the same
sepulchral gauze overhung the spot where the
Sheareses rest.
I had seen the catacombs of Paris, but I was more
interested, and made to feel more for others and
myself in the vaults of St. Michan's. In the cata
combs, the eye or the heart finds nothing individual
to rest upon; your sympathy is dispersed over
myriads of anonymous skulls and thigh-bones, and
these fantastically arranged into melodramatic com
binations, as if the Graces have any business under
ground, and, after Death has picked us to the bone,
our skeletons must be broken up and shuffled into
attitudes, conforming to the immutable principles of
Parisian taste. I , could never heave a sigh while
promenading between those neatly-trimmed hedge
rows of human bones ; I thought of, and pitied the
workmen, more than the materials. But at St.
Michan's, I felt that I was really in a sepulchre,
and surrounded by the dead. The very absence of
neatness in their distribution, and of respectful
observance towards them, was a source of instruc
tive reflection, by forewarning me of my cessation of
personal importance when I shall cease to breathe.

166 THE VAULTS OF ST. MIGHAN'S.
Every kick the sexton gave a chance skull or two
that stopped the way, had its moral : it was as good
as the festive usage in old Egypt, of handing round
an image of death from guest to guest, to the
words of Drink and be merry, for such you shaU be.
In the absence of such a custom now, I know of
nothing more calculated to bring down the pride
of any one who piques himself too much upon his
flesh and blood, than an occasional conversation in
a churchyard with a sexton or gravedigger, on the
subject of his trade. It is very well as long as a
man has a certain allowance of mind and muscles at
his disposal, and can strut, and talk, and look big,
and hum fragments of bravuras, and be seen now
and then in a tandem, and resort to the other me
thods of commanding some deference to his personal
identity; but when once this important personage
becomes motionless, cold, and tongue-tied, and,
unable to remonstrate, is seized by the undertaker,
and fairly screwed down, and then, as the Irish
phrase is, " put to bed with a shovel," farewell
human respect ! — " out of sight, out of mind :" — his
epitaph, if he has left assets to buy one, may, for a

THE VAULTS OF ST. MICHAN'S. 167
while, keep up a little bustle about his name, but a
short dialogue with a sexton of aftertimes, over the
scattered fragments of his existence, will afford a
pretty accurate measure of the degree of real insig
nificance into which he has subsided. This is mor
tifying ; but it is among the sources of our highest
interests. Certainly, it is only natural that we
should look to some future compensation for our
minds, in return for the many insults their old com
panions are sure to suffer when they are not by to
protect them : it were an intolerable prospect other
wise. To-day to be active, happy, and ambitious,
conscious of being " made for the contemplation of
heaven and all noble objects," and to-morrow to
be flung as useless lumber into a hole, and in process
of time to be buffeted by grave-diggers and sho
velled up to make way for new-comers, without a
friendly moralizer to pronounce an " Alas, poor
Yorick !" over our chop-fallen crania — or perhaps
(what is still more humiliating in a posthumous
point of view) to be purloined by resurrection-men,
and hung up in dissecting-rooms as models of oste
ology for the instruction of surgeons' -mates for His
Majesty's navy — the thoughts of all this would gall,
as well it might, our vanity to the quick, were it not

168 THE, VAULTS OF ST. MICHAN'S.
that Eeligion, assured of a retribution, can smile at
these indignities, and discover, in every rude cuff
that may be given to our dishonoured bones, a fur
ther proof that there awaits us " a bright reversion
beyond the grave."

169

BAEEY THE PAINTEE.
[April, 1823,]
I HAVE just read a notice of Barry the painter in
one of our periodical publications, and I am re
minded of a few particulars respecting that singular
person, with whom I chanced to have come into
contact towards the close of his career. My remi
niscences of him, such as they are, I shall set down
in the order in which they may happen to start up
out of the oblivion into which I had long consigned
them. My acquaintance with him commenced in the
year 1804. I was a mere boy at the time. I
resided in Berners-street, and had daily occasion
to pass through an adjoining street, Castle-street,
Oxford-market. In Castle-street there was a house

170 BARRY THE PAINTER.
that soon attracted my attention. It appeared to
be uninhabited. The glass of the lower windows
was broken, the shutters closed, and the door and
walls plastered with mud. Upon the first occasion
of my particularly observing this house, a group of
boys and idlers had collected outside, where they
continued shouting, whispering, pointing to the
upper windows, and going through the ordinary
routine of looks and gestures, and muttered execra
tions, that precede a general assault upon an ob
noxious tenement. They were in the act of com
mencing hostile operations, when they were dispersed
by the parish officers. I inquired the cause of these
demonstrations of popular anger, and was informed,
that the house (to the terror and scandal of the
neighbourhood) was occupied by an old wizard, or
necromancer, or Jew, for this point was unsettled,
and seemed not very material ; but that, whatever
he was, he lived there in unholy soUtude, that he
might the better dedicate himself unobserved to
some unrighteous mysteries. I took in the account
with greedy ears ; it was confirmed by the distant
view, for I dared not approach, of some writings and
strange figures upon the paper that supplied the
place of glass in the parlour windows. I was as-

BARRY THE PAINTER. 171
sured that the work of magic was going on within,
and for some time after never passed the house,
which was always on the opposite side of the way,
without a thrill of Christian horror.
While my mind was in this state of boyish super
stition, it was proposed to me, one day, by two
gentlemen from Ireland, to accompany them on a
visit to their friend and countryman, Barry the
celebrated painter. I had heard before of "the
great Barry," and, naturaUy enough at my years,
associated with the idea of iuteUectual greatness a
tolerable proportion of opulence and external splen
dour. As we went along, I began already to feel
certain tremors of youthful awe creeping upon me,
at the prospect of entering the, doubtless, spacious
mansion of so renowned an artist. The way led
through Oxford-market. We proceeded down Castle-
street, and my friends made a full stop at the door
of the old magician. It was Barry the painter's.
A loud knock was given, and for some minutes
unanswered. My fears were now all dispersed ; and
I had courage, as well as time, to examine with some
closeness the external peculiarities of this temple of
genius. The area was bestrewn with skeletons of
cats and dogs, marrow-bones, waste-paper, fragments

172 BARRY THE PAINTER.
of boys' hoops, and other playthings, and with the
many kinds of missiles, which the pious brats of the
neighbourhood had hurled against the unhallowed
premises. A dead cat lay upon the projecting stone
of the parlour window, immediately under a sort of
appeal to the public, or a proclamation setting
forth, that a dark conspiracy existed for the wicked
purpose of molesting the writer, and injuring his
reputation, and concluding with an offer of some
pounds as a reward to any one, who should give
such information as might lead to the detection and
conviction of the offenders. This was in Barry's
hand-writing, and occupied the place of one pane of
glass. The rest of the framework was covered with
what I had once imagined to be necromantic devices
— some of his own etchings, but turned upside down,
of his great paintings at the Adelphi. Young as I
was, I was not insensible to the moral of the scene.
I was ignorant at the time whether what I saw had
been wantonly provoked, or whether it was cruel
and capricious vengeance for non- conformity to
popular observances; but whichever might be the
case, the spectacle before me engraved upon my
inexperienced mind an important truth, which I
have subsequently had too many occasions to apply,

BARRY THE PAINTER. 173
.that genius, however rare, without temper and con
duct, is one of the most disastrous privileges, to
which man in his mistaken ambition can aspire.
While I was unconsciously laying in these mate
rials for after-reflection, my friends gave a second
and louder knock. It was answered by almost as
loud a growl from the second-floor window. We
looked up, and beheld a head thrust out, surmounted
by a hunting-cap, and wearing in front a set of
coarse and angry* features, whUe a voice, intensely
Irish, in some hasty phrases made up of cursing
and questioning, demanded our names and business.
Before my companions had time to answer, they were
recognized. In went the head and hunting-cap and
surly visage ; in a few seconds the door was opened,
and I was introduced to the celebrated Barry. I
weU remember his dress and person, and can recall,
almost without an effort, the minutest detaUs of
this, and of my subsequent interviews with him.
The hunting-cap was stUl on, but on a nearer view,
I perceived that the velvet covering had been re
moved — nothing but the bare and unseemly skeleton
remained. He wore a loose, thread-bare, claret-
coloured great coat, that reached to his heels, black
waistcoat, black et-ceteras, grey worsted stockings.

174 BARRY THE PAINTER.
coarse- unpolished shoes with leathern thongs, no
neckcloth, but, like Jean-Jaques Eousseau, whom
he resembled in many other less enviable particulars,
he seemed to have a taste for fine linen. His shirt
was not only perfectly clean!, but equaUy genteel in.
point of texture, with even a touch of dandyism in
the elaborate plaiting of the frills. On the whole,
his costume gave the idea of extreme negligence
without uncleanliness.
His person was below the middle size, sturdy and
ungraceful. You could see at oncfe that he had
never practised bowing to the world. His face was
striking. An Englishman would caU it an Irish, an
Irishman a Munster face ; but Barry's had a cha
racter independent of national or provincial pecu
liarities. It had vulgar features, but no vulgar
expression. It was rugged, austere, and passion-
beaten ; but the passions traced there were those of
aspiring thought, and unconquerable energy, assert
ing itself to the last, and sullenly exulting in its
resources. Of this latter feeling, however, no symp
toms broke out on the present occasion. His two
visitors were old friends, heartily attached to his
fame; and neither of them had ever handled a
brush. He greeted them with Irish vehemence and

BARRY THE PAINTER. 175
good-humour, and in the genuine intonations of his
native province. His friends smiled at his attire.
He observed it, and joined in the laugh. " It was,"
he said, " his ordinary working-dress, except the cap
which he lately adopted, to act as a shade for his
eyes when he engraved at night." They told him,
they had come to see the recent specimens of his
art, and particularly his Pandora. He answered,
that they should see that, and everything else in the
house. We proceeded to the staircase, when Barry,
suddenly recollecting himself, turned back and
double-locked the street-door. The necessity of this
precaution seemed to bring a momentary gloom into
his looks, but it passed away, and he mounted cheer
fully before us. He opened the door of the back
room on the first-floor, and entered first to clear
away the cobwebs before us. The place was fuU of
engravings,- sketches, and casts, confusedly heaped
together, and clotted with damp and dust. The
latter he every now and then removed by a vigorous
slap with the skirt of his coat. There were some
engravings there that he valued highly. I forget
the subjects, but I perfectly recoUect the ardour,
and the occasional delicacy aud tenderness of maur
ner, with which he expMned their beauties. He

176 BARRY THE PAINTER.
apologized for the disorder around him, which arose,
he said, from want of space, for he could trust
nothing in the front-room. The observation intro
duced the subject of the molestation of his premises.
He spoke without- much emotion of his mischievous
neighbours, and detailed his fruitless efforts to coun
teract their schemes of annoyance, pretty much as a
man would recount his defensive operations against
rats, or any other domestic nuisance. In the course
of the conversation, he explained the cause of the
solitude in which he lived. While going over the
plates executed by himself, he pointed out one or two
that he had detected his last maid-servant in the act
of purloining. He hinted that she must have been
corrupted by the enemies of his fame ; at all events,
he expelled her forthwith, and never after admitted
another within his doors. Some specimens of art
lay in his bed-chamber — the back-room on the
second-floor. He took us up there, but I forbear a
minute description. For the honour of genius, I
would forget the miserable truckle upon which a
man, whose powers were venerated by Edmund
Burke,^ lay down to forget his privations and his
pride. ' See his Letters to Barry. — Barry's Works.

BARRY THE PAINTER. 177
Barry took us last to his work-shop, at the back of
the house on the ground-floor. Three of his most
celebrated pictures were there, — " Venus rising from
the sea," " Jupiter and Juno," and his " Pandora,"
upon which he was then engaged.' He developed
the design of the last with great fervour and elo
quence, for, though I have forgotten his language, I
perfectly remember the enthusiasm of his tones and
gestures, and the impression they made upon his
visitors. I also recollect, that every now and then
he threw in a warm oath to animate his discourse,
more particularly when he vented his contempt, as
he often did, for his contemporaries of the Academy.
After a visit of two hours we departed, and I scarcely
expected to meet Barry again, but it fortunately
happened otherwise. In a very few days after, I
became acquainted with an Irish Eoman Catholic
lady, the late Mrs. Smith, who resided in Portland-
street. She was wealthy and hospitable, and her
house was, in the worst of times, a place of refuge for
many of her suffering countrymen. Thither, as one
of them, Barry resorted. It was his frequent habit,
after taking his late and frugal meal at a chop-house
in Wardour-street, to drop in at Mrs. Smith's. The
Abbe McCarthy, a person of great learning, and of
VOL. II. N

178 BARRY THE PAINTER.
congenial politics with Barry's, lived in her house;
and in their society the poor buffeted artist was
glad to postpone his return to his homeless tene
ment, tiU an hour when none of his tormentors in
Castle-street could be in the way to impede his
entrance. From this period until his death, which took
place two years after, I saw him constantly, and,
notwithstanding my inequaUty of years, dehghted
in his conversation. I was full of my classics, and
my school-boy veneration for the ancients; and
it was a glorious thing to me to hear him talk as he
did of old Greece and Eome. His enthusiasm for
the arts and Uterature of Greece was unbounded.
It ran through his whole conversation. He had
contemplated the great models of antiquity with such
fervency of admiration, that from an admirer, he
had become an imitator, and a rival. In simphcity
and elevation of sentiment, in public spirit, in long
ings for renown, in contempt for aU that was frivo
lous or base, he was (as was said of Milton) " an
ancient born two thousand years after his time." I
never heard him more eloquent or self-obUvious than
one night that he came in rather late to his friends
in Portland-street, to beg a lodging tiU the morning.

BARRY THE PAINTER. 179
The mischievous little imps of his neighbourhood
had forced a piece of iron into the key-hole of his
haU door, so as to baffle all his efforts to gain an
entrance : but after stating the circumstances, merely
as an apology for his petition, he dismissed it from
his thoughts, and plunged at once into the topics
from which no petty casualties could long detain
him, and where he never faUed to find his strength
and consolation.
A great interest was imparted to Barry's conver
sation, by his anecdotes of the eminent men with
whom he had lived. He most frequently mentioned
Sir Joshua Eeynolds, Mr. Burke, and Doctor John
son. He has been charged with having been ungrate
ful to Burke. He was not so to his memory. His
eye often fiUed when he named him. " But Mr.
Burke, my first friend, is now gone ! the peace of
God be for ever with him ! " This was Barry's lan
guage to the public, and in private he always pre
served the same tone of pious tenderness and respect.
He spoke with great reverence of Doctor Johnson,
with whom I could collect that he had been a
favourite. There were some points of similarity in
their characters which may have endeared him to
the doctor. Barry was, incontestably, "a good
n2

180 BARRY THE PAINTER.
hater," and, when roused, was not inferior to the
doctor in the faculty of growling down an oppo
nent. Barry spoke much and warmly of politics, and
took no pains to conceal that he was a sturdy
republican. When he alluded to the Irish events of
1798, it was as "the late civil war, which they call a
rebellion." The only instance in which I recoUect
the native impetuosity of his temper to have broken
out, was connected with the politics of Ireland. It
was at a little evening party, given expressly in his
honour. Several young ladies were invited to see an
Irish lion, and the noble animal roared for them,
" an 'twere any nightingale," They were charmed
with his pleasantry and his brogue. WhUe they
were ranged around him, the conversation was sud
denly broken up by the entrance of a noisy, bustling
old gentleman, steaming with perfumes, and gor
geously attired — the late Mr. N  of Soho Square.
This pink of aristocracy pirouetted through the little
circle, offered his scented snuff to the ladies, and
opened a running fire of frivolous compliments in a
loud squeaking voice, from the annoyance of which
his own ears were fortunately saved by his excessive
deafness, Barry eyed the antiquated beau with con-

BARRY THE PAINTER. 181
tempt, and was silent. But in a little time Ireland
and her turbulent peasantry were mentioned.
Mr, N  announced himself to have been once
an Irishman, tripped through ^the common-place
doctrines of provincial policy, and summed up by
exclaiming, that they should be " all hanged, every
man of them hanged." This was too much for the
Irish lion, and the ladies had now a roar in earnest.
Barry started from his chair, strided across to the
corner where Mr, N  was standing, and, arrang
ing both hands into the form of a speaking-trumpet,
bellowed in his ear, " And what, sir, should be done
to those who force the Irish peasantry into these
excesses ?" Poor Mr, N  was utterly confounded
by a home-question, which even to this day is per
plexing the greatest statesmen, and Barry in surly
triumph returned to his chair.
The notice of Barry, to which I have already
adverted, represents him as having died in extreme
poverty. There is a mistake in this, I always
understood from his friends, that the profits of his
works had not been exhausted at the time of his
death. Besides this, his merits as an artist, and the
deplorable condition of his domestic arrangements,
had excited the sympathy of persons, who had some-

182 BARRY THE PAINTER.
thing more than pity to bestow. Lord Buchan took
the lead in proposing a subscription. One of the
royal family, I think the Duke of Cambridge, became
interested in his behalf, and visited the painter in
his dilapidated mansion — an act of condescension,
which Barry prized more highly than his royal high-
ness's previous liberality. Many other lovers of art,
among whom the painter's old friend, the late
Mr, Cooper Penrose, of Cork, was conspicuous,
co-operated in the generous design ; and the result
was a contribution of about one thousand pounds,
which was sunk in an annuity for Barry's life. This
recognition of his claims cheered his latter days. He
determined upon quitting Castle-street, and removing
to a house sufficiently spacious for the execution of
a series of epic paintings that he had long been
meditating. His confidence in womankind was so
far restored, that he consented to give the sex
another trial, by admitting one of them under
the same roof with his plates ; but in the midst of
these designs he was called away. He died at the
house of Signer Bonomi, an Italian artist, in Titch-
field-street, I called there almost daily during
his illness, and could collect from his friend's
minute details of his demeanour, that Barry's last

BARRY THE PAINTER. 183
moments were too phUosophic. The circumstances
of his lying in state in the midst of his own paint
ings at the Adelphi, and of his interment in
St. Paul's, are already known to the pubhc.

184

THE NAPOLEON MEMOIES,'
' [August, 1823,]
When Napoleon, having ceased in 1814 to be
Emperor of France, was about to depart for the
Island of Elba, his farewell promise to the remnant
of his old companions in arms who witnessed that
extremity of his fortune, was, that he would prepare
a record of the great transactions they had achieved
together. The events that had so rapidly ensued
interfered with the design, — but the final, and not
inglorious struggle to be once again the foremost
^ Memoirs of the Reign of Napoleon, dedicated by the
Emperor at St. Helena, to the generals who shared his cap
tivity, and published from the original manuscripts corrected
by himself. 4 volumes.

THE NAPOLEON MEMOIRS. 185
man of the world having failed, and he himself
doomed to a Sentence that extinguished every hope,
he no longer deferred its execution. On the passage
to St, Helena he commenced the present work, and
was constantly occupied upon it during the six years
that he continued to hold out against the miseries
of exUe, and the climate, and the governor of
St, Helena. The quantity of matter condensed in
these volumes is so great, and the subjects so vari
ous, that it would be quite impossible, in such a
notice as the present, to give anything like a per
fect analysis of their contents. A large space is
dedicated to accounts of battles, with minute and
elaborate critical remarks upon military evolutions,
which we profess our incompetency to appreciate, or
at all times to follow — though, doubtless, this portion
of the work will be deemed by many to be the most
interesting and instructive ; we shall, therefore, con
fine our extracts and observations to such passages
as serve to iUustrate the character and policy of this
extraordinary man, who, by the force of his genius
and ambition, raised himself (he repeatedly asserts
" without a crime") from the station of a military
adventurer to be the imperial chief, the creator and
director of the most formidable combination of poli-

186 THE NAPOLEON MEMOIRS.
tical resources that modern Europe has seen con
federated against the stabUity of hostile thrones and
institutions. One of the first great events recorded in these
volumes is the revolution which placed Napoleon at
the head of the French govemment — the celebrated
scene of the 18th and 19th Brumaire, It is given in
that minute detail which always imparts so much
Ught and interest to the narrative of a great trans
action. He was in Egypt when information of the increas
ing inefficiency and unpopularity of the existing
government reached him. The men, whom the acci
dents of the revolution had called to rule the affairs
of France, were distrustful of each other, and had
lost all public confidence and respect. The French
people felt that they were misgoverned, and were
prepared by that impression, and by their recent
familiarity with innovations, for any change that
should promise a more effectual consolidation and
management of the national resources. Under these
circumstances Napoleon, confiding in his talents, and
in the influence of his fame, formed the hardy
project of crushing the factions that agitated the
country, and of raising himself upon their ruins to

THE NAPOLEON MEMOIRS. 187
the summit of his ambition. He consigned the
command of the Egyptian expedition to Kleber, and
repaired to France. His unexpected arrival was
hailed with demonstrations of general joy. By the
time he had reached the capital, he had seen enough
to satisfy him that what he projected might be
achieved. The nature of past events had informed him of the general
. condition of France, and the intelligence that he had procured
on the road (from Prejus to Paris) had made him intimately
acquainted with all that he required to know. His resolution
was taken. What he had not even wished to attempt upon
his return from Italy, he was now determined to effect. His
contempt for the government of the Directory, and for the
poUtical intriguers of the day, was extreme. Resolved to
assume the chief control in the state, and to restore to France
her days of glory, by giving an energetic impulse to pubUc
measures, it was for the execution of this project that he
had come from Egypt ; and aU that he had just witnessed
in the interior of France had only served to confirm his
determination. In the prosecution of this bold design he proceeded
with caution. He went rarely into public — he ad
mitted the visits of none but a few select friends,
with whom he conferred upon the relative strength
of the different parties, and the respective proposals

188 THE NAPOLEON MEMOIRS.
that were tendered to him by each. Bernadotte,
Augereau, and other leaders of the Jacobins, offered,
on certain conditions, to place him at the head of a
military dictatorship ; — a more moderate party, con
sisting of Eegnier, Boulay, &e., were for committing
to him the direction of the government as it then
stood. The Directory was divided — Sieyes was for
abolishing the present Constitution (La Constitution
de I'an III,) and substituting one that he had
framed. His views were supported by the director
Eoger-Ducos, and the majority of the Council of
Ancients, The remaining three directors, Barras,
Moulins, and Gohier, proposed that Bonaparte should
resume the command of the army of Italy. The two
latter were sincere; but Barras, who was then
intriguing for the restoration of the Bourbons,
thought of nothing but retaining his present _ ascen
dancy. After deliberating over these several pro
posals. Napoleon was finally hesitating between
those of Sieyes and Barras, when the following
occurrence betrayed the duplicity of the latter : —
On the 8th Brumaire (October 30th) Napoleon dined with
Barras. The company was small. In the course of conversa
tion after dinner, "The Republic," said the director, "is
going to ruin— the present system wiU never do, — the govern-

THE NAPOLEON MEMOIRS. 189
ment is without energy — we must have a change, and appoint
HedouvUle President of the RepubUc. With regard to you,
general, your intention is to repair to the army ; and as for
myself, sick, desponding, and exhausted as I am, I am good
for nothing but to retire to a private station," Napoleon
looked at him intently, without uttering a word^-Barras sunk
his eyes and was confounded : — the conversation ended
there. General HedouviUe was a man of extreme medio
crity. Barras said not what he thought ; his countenance
betrayed his secret.
This conversation was decisive. A few moments after.
Napoleon went to Sieyes. He informed him that for ten days
past the several parties had been addressing themselves to
him — that he had resolved to proceed in concert with him
(Sieyes) and the majority of the Council of Ancients, and that
he now came to give him a positive assurance of this intention.
It was agreed that the change could be effected between the
15th and 20th Brumaire.
The sequel is equally curious and characteristic of
the men and the times : —
When Napoleon returned home, TaUeyrand, Fouche, Roederer,
- and R6al, were there. He told them with entire simplicity,
and without any movement of countenance that could betray
his own opinion, of what Barras had just been saying. Real
and Fouche, who were attached to that director, felt at once
aU the impoUcy of his dissimulation, and repaired to his house
to remonstrate with him. About eight o'clock on the foUowing
morning, Barras came to Napoleon, who had not yet risen — he

190 THE NAPOLEON MEMOIRS.
insisted upon seeing him, entered, and said that he feared
his meaning had been misunderstood the night before — that
Napoleon alone could save the RepubUc — that he came to
place himself at his disposal — ^to do whatever Napoleon should
desire, and act any part that should be assigned him — and
earnestly entreated to have an assurance, that if he had any
project in view, hp would count upon Barras. But Napoleon
had already taken his part : he answered that he desired
nothing— that he was fatigued and indisposed — that after the
arid climate of Arabia, he found his frame affected by the
moist atmosphere of Paris, and by similar common-places he
put an end to the interview.
Such were some of the petty matters that preceded
and accelerated the momentous crisis that was at
hand. The remaining particulars are given with the
minute fidelity of a historian relating what he had
actually witnessed ;^ — but we must refer our readers
to the work itself. The final result was, that the
plans which Napoleon, in concert with Sieyes,
' The day before the final blow was struck at St, Cloud, to
which the sitting of the Legislative Chambers had been trans
ferred by a decree of the 18th Brumaire, Augereau, who was
secretly opposed to Napoleon, presented himself at the Tuileries
where the troops were passing in review ; Napoleon advised
him to absent himself from St. Cloud on the foUowing day—
to keep quiet, and not cancel the services he had already
rendered his country, for that no effort could counteract the
intended movement. Augereau assured him of his entire

THE NAPOLEON MEMOIRS. 191
adopted, completely succeeded. The Directory was
abolished. Napoleon, Sieyes, and Eoger-Ducos were
named provisional consuls until a new constitution
should be framed. The new Constitution, from
which however the subtleties contained in the port
folio of Sieyes were as much as possible excluded, was
proclaimed on the 24th of the following December ;
and Napoleon, as First Consul of the French
Eepublic, took his place among the sovereigns of
Europe, — As such, his character and actions now
form one of the most interesting topics in the range
of historical investigation.
When a deputation from the town of Capua waited
upon Terentius Varro, with an address of condolence
upon the defeat at Cannae, the beaten consul, in his
reply, implored them to be firm in their fidelity to
Eome, and among other arguments, did not omit to
assure them that Hannibal was altogether a most
devotion, and his desire to march under his orders. " Eh
bien, general," said he, " est-ce que vous ne comptez pas
toujours sur votre petit Augereau !" Next day, however,
when a rumour reached Paris of the proceedings at St. Cloud,
le petit Augereau posted thither, and imagining from the
tumultuary scene there that Napoleon was lost, approaches
him and observed, "Eh Men/ vous voici dans une jolie
position I "

192 THE NAPOLEON MEMOIRS,
fiendlike personage — that he was in the habit of
building bridges and mounds of human bodies, and
had actually initiated his savage troops in the practice
of feeding upon human flesh. During the fourteen
years of Napoleon's formidable ascendancy, it was
a standing point of policy to cheer the efforts of his
enemies by similar calumnies : in proportion as we
became alarmed, we became abusive; every new
victory, or master-stroke of poUcy on his part, was
the signal for fresh levies of libels upon ours ; and
to such an extreme of contumely had we arrived,
and so popular had this mode of carrying on the war
become, that ten years ago every man who wished
to be considered a friend to his king and country,
felt bound to admit that Bonaparte was a monster
in human shape — that he poisoned his soldiers,
murdered his prisoners, betrayed his friends, was
brutally insulting to subjugated kings and queens—^
in a word, that he was so irretrievably and inordin
ately vicious, that, for example-sake, no well-
conducted person should ever mention his name
without a thrill of execration. But he has since
fallen, and is now in his grave, and his character
and actions may at length be spoken of with some
thing Uke the impartiaUty which the future historian

THE NAPOLEON MEMOIRS. 193
will not refuse to the most extraordinary being of
the modern world.
Napoleon's talents have been seldom questioned.
They were of so high and rare an order, that finding
no one of his own age with whom to compare him,
we must resort to the few great names of the human
race — Hannibal, Alexander, Csesar, Charlemagne —
conquerors, legislators, founders of empire — men of
universal renown. The conspicuous qualities of his
mind were energy and sagacity — intellectual hardi
hood to conceive vast designs, and boundless fertility
in creating and applying the means to attain them.
He was equally eminent iu war and policy ; and his
achievements in both were marked by far less of
accident and adventurous experiment than was once
imagined. He went into battle with an assurance
of success founded upon previous, and, for the most
part, unerring calculations. This was the secret of
his confidence in his fortune. He compared, as if it
were an abstract scientific question, the physical and
moral forces of his troops with those arrayed against
him, and where he found the former preponderate,
gave the word to march and conquer. The most
unskUled in military science may collect this from
the general tenor of the volumes before us. Through-
VOL. II. O

194 THE NAPOLEON MEMOIRS.
out, when discussing the various battles he had won,
he appears to claim credit, not so much for having
been actually victorious when once the confiict had
begun, as for having, by previous arrangements and
combinations, brought the certain means of victory
to the field. He was persuaded, and could not
afterwards divest himself of the conviction, that he
had done this at Waterloo ; and hence his expression,
so much ridiculed by those who mistake its real
import, that he, and not AVellington, ought to have
gained the day ; but he had omitted from his calcu
lations the dogged heroism of British troops.
The same qualities of mind, the same preparatory
forethought in speculation, and energy in action,
and for a long time the same success, distinguished
him as a statesman. His boldness here, as in the
field, was the result of profound calculations, through
which none but the most penetrating and combining
intellect could have passed. His saying was, that in
all his great measures, " he marched at the head of
large masses of opinion." This military allusion
illustrates the genius of his civil policy. In aU his
projects, whether foreign or domestic, he marshalled
the passions and opinions that sided with him,
computed their numerical and moral force, and

THE NAPOLEON MEMOIRS. 195
where he found they must prevaU, advanced at the
charge-sbep to his object. In a word, he manoeuvred
the national mind as he would a great army ; and
having had the art of persuading the citizen, as well
as the soldier, that he was leading him on to glory,
he exacted alike from both, and met with the same
measure of discipline jind subordination.
Under Napoleon^s government there was a sus
pension of political liberty in France, His maxim
was that the few should plan, and the many acquiesce
and execute. He established and encouraged free
discussion in the cabinet, but he discountenanced all
popular interference in state measures, as he would
a spirit of mutinous dictation in the camp. We are
no advocates for this mode of rule ; but in speaking
of the despotism of Napoleon as a personal crime.
We should in fairness remember that he was account
able for it to his subjects and not his enemies, and
that they were content to overlook its rigour for
the many benefits it imparted. He asserts that his
government was "eminently popular." He surely
did much to make it so. He rescued France from
the sway of the demagogue. He consolidated the
national energies, and forced them into channels
that led to national objects. He made talent the
O 2

196 THE NAPOLEON MEMOIRS.
surest road to distinction. He was the patron of
unbounded religious toleration. Under his reign no
Frenchman could be molested and degraded upon
the fantastic doctrine, that certain dogmas had
certain remote and infiuential tendencies which
should disqualify for the enjoyment of civil rights.
He framed a comprehensive and intelUgible code
of laws (the greatest want of modern nations), in
which he justly gloried as a lasting monument of his
concern for the public good. These and his other
great acts of general utility attached the French to
his government, despotic as it was, and rendered
them the willing instruments of his schemes of
aggrandizement, in the products of which they were
themselves to share.
We have stopped to offer these remarks, because
we feel that it is not to the glory of England to
depreciate this extraordinary man. Her real glory
consists in having withstood the shock of his genius
— in having so long resisted his imperial pretensions,
and asserted her own, against a confederacy of hostile
powers, such as no people uninspired by the pride
and energy of freedom could have braved,
"W e proceed to extract some further specimens of
these Memoirs, The general contents, independently

THE NAPOLEON MEMOIRS. 197
of the martial details, embrace the miUtiplied objects
of his ambitious policy, which may be summarily
described to have been, to render France the arbi-
tress, and Paris the capital of the world ; to conso-
Udate Italy into a separate kingdom ; to transfer the
seat of the Papal power to the metropolis of France ;
to subjugate the several Continental states into obe
dience, or terrify them into an alliance; and above
all, to break the naval and commercial, and thereby
the political influence of England in the affairs of
Europe. Upon the subject of these vast designs,
the present work supplies invaluable materials for
the future historian ; but their very importance pre
cludes our entering upon them. Any one of even
the subordinate topics connected with them would
more than exhaust our limits. We shall, therefore,
go on according to our original intention (and with
out any attempt at regular order) to take up such
passages as have interested us by their novelty, and are
capable of being compressed into our remaining space.
The following may be adduced as a characteristic
example of Napoleon's originality and skill as a poli
tical intriguer. In 1800 it was the great object of
France to detach the Emperor Paul from the alli
ance of England and Austria, He was at that time

19S THE NAPOLEON MEMOIRS.
known to be deeply chagrined by the losses his army
had sustained in Switzerland, and to be greatly disT-
satisfied with the conduct of his allies. Napoleon
seized the occasion of turning those feelings to
account, and, knowing his vulnerable point to be on
the side of his heroical pretensions, he directed his
operations against that quarter, A little after the
battle of Marengo, he had flattered the, vanity of
Paul by sending him the sword which Leo the Tenth
had presented to He-Adam, as the reward of his
bravery in defending Ehodes against the Infidels;
but an opportunity now offered of making a more
brilliant and substantial present. Ten thousand Eus-
sian soldiers were prisoners of France. Napoleon
proposed to England and Austria to exchange them
for an equal number of Frenchmen, The offer, as
no doubt expected, was refused. Napoleon exclaimed
against the refusal as an act of narrow-minded in
justice, and declared that, as a proof of the high
estimation in which he held such brave soldiers, he
would restore them without ransom to the Czar,
The Eussian officers accordingly received their swords,
and all the prisoners were collected at Aix-la-Cha-
pelle, where they were newly clothed and equipped
in the most splendid style that the manufactures of

THE NAPOLEON MEMOIRS, 199
France could effect. A Eussian geueral was ap
pointed to organize them into battalions and regi
ments. The ardent and impetuous Paul could nqt
hold out against this. He forthwith dispatched a
courier to Napoleon with the foUowing singular
letter : —
Citizen First Consul, — I do not write to you in order to
enter into discussions upon the rights of men or of citizens.
Every country governs itself according to its own discretion.
Wherever I see at the head of a country a man who knows
how to govern and fight, my heart yearns towards him. I
write to make you acquainted with my dissatisfaction towards
England, who violates every right of nations, and is never
guided but by her selfishness and interest. I wish to unite
with you for the purpose of putting an end to the injustice of
that government.
Shortly after, the proposed treaty of alliance was
formally executed.
In the account of Egypt, a portion of the work
that wUl probably have most attractions for geuei'al
readers, we have a short digression upon polygamy,
and a proposed explanation of that institution differ
ent from those of .preceding speculators.
These countries (Africa and Asia) being inhabited by men
of various colours, polygamy is the sole means of preventing
mutual persecution. In order that the blacks should not be

200 THE NAPOLEON MEMOIRS.
at war with the whites, and the whites with the blacks, and
the copper-coloured with both, their legislators have judged it
expedient to make them aU members of one family, and thus
to counteract that tendency in man to hate whatever is not
himself. Mahomet considered that four wives were sufficient
to attain this object, inasmuch as each man could have one
white, one black, one copper-coloured, and one of some other
colour. Doubtless it was also in the spirit of a sensual creed to
favour the passions of its votaries ; and in this respect poUcy
and the prophet have been able to act in concord.
The doctrine of Montesquieu is more obvious and
satisfactory. In warm climates where this usage
has almost exclusively prevailed, female attractions
pass rapidly away, A Nourmahaul or Fatima of
those regions, however adorable in her teens, becomes
to outward appearance, quite elderly at the age of
twenty, and a wrinkled matron at twenty-five. But
Selim, who is only three or four years older at the
period of this catastrophe, is still in the prime of
youth and Oriental sensibUity, and in spite of his
eternal vows, finds his affections wandering from the
object of his first attachment. He is once more
" devore du besoin d'aimer," and if the laws were so
unreasonable as to denounce his second dream of
connubial felicity, the danger, or rather the certainty
would be, that like the fashionable husband of every

THE NAPOLEON MEMOIRS. 201
clime and age, he would defy the law and set up a
separate establishment, to the great scandal of the
neighbourhood — the inextinguishable indignation of
his neglected partner — and foUowed in due course
by everlasting appeals to the Cadi on the subject of
their domestic jars. The legislators of the East,
therefore, perceiving the consequences of prohibit
ing a usage originally founded upon the caducity of
female charms, and which would inevitably continue
in one form or another, whether they sanctioned it
or not, have permitted polygamy ; under the restric
tion, perhaps, in the first instance, of not allowing a
second wife until the first was on the wane ; — but as
laws made for the convenience of the rich are liber
ally construed, the transition was easy from an old
and a young wife to two simultaneous young ones,
and so on to as many as the husband could afford to
support. But although we take Napoleon's conjec
tures on this subject to be incorrect, there is no want
of his accustomed sagacity and boldness in the appli
cation that he would make of his doctrine. Speak
ing in another place of the condition of St, Domingo,
he says.
The question of the liberty of the blacks is one full of com-
pUcation and diflaculty. In Africa and Asia it has been

202 THE NAPOLEON MEMOIRS.
resolved, but by the means of polygamy. There the blacks
and whites form part of the same famUy — the head of the
family having wives of various colours, aU the children are
brothers, are reared in the same cradle, bear the same name,
and sit at the same table. Would it then be impossible to
authorize polygamy in our islands, restricting the number of
wives to two, a white and a black 1 The first consul had some
conferences with theologians, in order to prepare the way for '
this important measure. Polygamy prevaUed among the
patriarchs in the first ages of Christianity^the church tole
rated a species of concubinage, of which the effect was the
same. The pope, the council have the means of authorising a
similar institution, since its object would be to concUiate and
produce social harmony, and not to extend the indulgence of
the senses. The effects of these marriages would have been
Umited to the colonies, and suitable measures would have been
taken to prevent their producing any disorder in the present'
state of our society.
Some of our female readers who, probably know
little of Napoleon's style of thinking and writing
except from his bulletins and other public documents,
may wish to see how he treats subjects of a lighter
kind : — and as one of the crimes imputed to him
during the war, was a barbarous contempt of all
gallant feehng and observance towards the sex, we
shall select a passage, in which he recalls, after a
lapse of many years, the impressions made upon him

THE NAPOLEON MEMOIRS. 203
by the ladies of Egypt. The description is very
much in the minute and caressing manner of
Eousseau. The general-in-chief had numerous occasions of observing
some of the most distinguished women of the country to whom
he granted audiences. They were either' the widows of Beys
or Katchefs, or their wives who came during their absence, to
implore his protection. The richness of their dress, their ele
vated deportment, their Uttle soft hands, their fine eyes, their
noble and graceful carriage, and their extremely elegant man
ners, denoted that they were of a class and an education above
the vulgar, They always commenced by kissing the hand of
the Sultan Kebir,' which they afterwards raised to their fore
head, and then to their breast ; many of them expressed their
wishes with the most perfect grace, and in an enchanting tone
af voice, and displayed aU the talent and the softness of the
most accomphshed Europeans, The propriety of their demea
nour, and the modesty of their attire, added to their attrac
tions, and the imagination took pleasure in forming conjec
tures respecting the charms of which they_^ would not allow so
much as a gUmpse.
A little farther on he gives an instance of their
propensity to assert the rights of women, even to
petitioning himself for a redress of connubial grie
vances; and considering what a frightful despot he
'¦ The Great Sultan — the title by which Napoleon was desig
nated by the Arabs.

204 THE NAPOLEON MEMOIRS.
was, he appears from his manner of relating the
anecdote, to have regarded the stirrings of natural
ambition in the bosoms of these aspiring gipsies with
singular indulgence.
The women have their privileges : — there are some things
which their husbands cannot refuse them without being con
sidered barbarians, monsters, without causing a general outcry
against them ; such, for example, is the right of going to the
bath. It is at the vapour-baths that the women assemble ; it
is there that all sorts of intrigues, political and other, are
planned ; it is there that marriages are settled. General
Menou, who had married a female of Rosetta, -treated her after
the French manner : he led her by the hand into th6 dinner-
room — the best place at table — the most delicate morsels were
for her ; if her handkerchief chanced to drop, he was on the
alert to pick it up. As soon as she related these particulars in
the bath of Rosetta, all the others began to entertain hopes of
a general change of manners, and signed a petition to the
Sultan Kebir, that their husbands should be made to treat
them in the same way.'
While we are upon the subject of Napoleon's
demeanour to women, we cannot refrain from insert-
' We throw together two or three shorter anecdotes that
occur in this portion of the work.
Napoleon gave frequent dinners to the Sheiks. Although
our customs were so different from theirs, they found chairs,
and knives and forks extremely convenient. At the conclu
sion of one of these dinners, he one day asked the Sheik

THE NAPOLEON MEMOIRS. 205
ing an example that we have met for the first time
in these volumes, and which, upon higher grounds
than those of courtesy, must be considered as most
creditable to his memory. His public despatch from
El-Mondi, " Por the six months that I have been among you,
what is the most useful thing I have taught you ? " " The
most useful thing you have taught me," repUed the Sheik, half-
serious, half-laughing, " is to drink at dinner." — The custom
of the Arabs is not to drink untU the repast is over.
At a dinner given to the general-in-chief by the Sheik
El-Payoum, the subject of conversation was the Koran. " It
comprises all human knowledge," said the Sheiks. — Napoleon
asked, " Does it contain the art of casting cannon, and making
gunpowder 1 " " Yes," they replied, " but you must know how
to read it ;'' a scholastic distinction that has been more or less
employed by every religion.
One day that Napoleon was surrounded by the divan of the
great Sheiks, information was brought that the Arabs of the
tribe of the Osnadis had kiUed a Fellah and carried off the
cattle. He manifested his indignation, and in au animated
tone ordered a staff-officer to repair forthwith to Baireh with
200 dromedaries and 300 horsemen to obtain restitution, and
punish the offenders. The Shoik El-Mondi, who was present at
this order, and observed the emotion of the general-in-chief,
said to him with a smUe, " Is that Fellah your cousin, that his
death should put you in such a passion?" "Yes," repUed
Napoleon, " all that I command are my chUdren." " Taib,"'
said the Sheik, " you speak like the prophet."
' An Arab word expressing great satisfaction.

206 THE NAPOLEON MEMOIRS.
Cairo, (August 19, 1798,) announces to the Execu
tive Directory the defeat of the French fleet at
Aboukir — a disaster which he attributes to Admiral
Brueys, who, in violation of repeated orders, neglected
to remove his squadron from that exposed situation.
On the same day he writes as foUows to the widow
of Brueys : Cairo, 3d Pructidor, year VI. (19 Aug. 1798.)
Your husband has been kUled by a cannon-baU whUe he was
fighting on board his vessel. He died without suffering, and
a death the mildest, and the most desired by miUtary men.
I deeply sympathise with your sorrow. The moment that
separates us from the object we love is terrible : it severs us
from the world — it affects the frame with convulsions of agony.
The faculties of the mind are annihUated — it retains no rela
tions with the world, except through the medium of an incu
bus which alters every thing. Mankind appear more cold and
selfish than they really are. In such a situation we feel, that
if nothing obliged us to Uve, it would be far better to die ; but
when, after that first impression, we press our children to our
heart, tears and sentiments of tenderness reanimate nature,
and we live for our children. Yes, madam, let yours from
that first moment open your heart to melancholy. You wiU
weep with them, you wUl watch over their infancy, you wUl
instruct them in their youth — you wiU talk to them of their
father, of your grief, of the loss which they and the Republic
have suffered. After having re-attached yourself to the world
through the influence offiUaland maternal love, appreciate

THE NAPOLEON MEMOIRS. 207
for something the friendship and the Uvely interest that I
shaU ever entertain for the widow of my friend. Be persuaded
that there are some men, though small in number, who deserve
to be the hope of the afflicted, because they feel acutely for
mental suffering. (Signed) Bonaparte.
There is a little of the mannerism of the period in
the above, but every British woman, whose husband
or brother has fallen for his country, will appreciate
its value, and the motives of the writer. A single
authentic document like this refutes and outlives a
thousand calumnies.
There are fewer symptoms in this publication of
Napoleon's tendency to a belief in predestination
than we expected to have found. The feeling, how
ever, now and then breaks out— pretty strongly in
his despatch from Egypt announcing the naval
defeat at Aboukir ; and also in the account of his
marriage with Marie-Louise. Upon that occasion
Prince Schwartzenberg, the Austrian ambassador at
Paris, gave a splendid fete at Paris, to which Napo
leon and the new empress were invited. In the
midst of the festivities, a temporary ball-room, which
had been constructed in the garden of the ambas
sador's hotel, took fire. Many persons perished.
Among them the ambassador's sister-in-law, who

208 THE NAPOLEON MEMOIRS.
was suffocated in the attempt to rescue one of her
children. The writer proceeds —
In 1770, during the f^te given by the city of Paris to cele
brate the marriage of Louis the Sixteenth with Marie-Antoi
nette, two thousand persons were overturned in the fosses of
the Champs-Elys^es, and perished. Afterwards, when Louis
and Marie-Antoinette met their death upon the scaffold, this
terrible accident was recollected, and converted into a presage
of what followed — for it is to the insurrection of that great
metropoUs that the revolution must be immediately attributed.
The unfortunate issue of a fete given by an Austrian ambassa
dor, under simUar circumstances, to celebrate the alUance of
two houses in the persons of Napoleon and Marie-Louise,
appeared an inauspicious omen. The misfortunes of France
have been solely caused by the change of poUcy on the part of
Austria. Napoleon was not superstitious, yet upon that occa
sion he had a painful presentiment. The day after the battle
of Dresden, when, during the pursuit of the Austrian army,
he learned from a prisoner that Prince Schwartzenberg was
rumoured to have been killed, he observed — " He was a brave
man ; but his death is so far consoling, that it was evidently
he who was threatened by the unhappy omen at his ball."
Two hours after it was ascertained at head-quarters that it
was Moreau, and not Prince Schwartzenberg, that had been
killed the day before.
There are numerous other personal traits dis
persed through the work, which, independently of
their intrinsic interest, reUeve the severity of the

THE NAPOLEON MEMOIRS. 209
historical and military details. If any credit be due
to his statements here, and in his recorded conversa
tions at St, Helena, both of which agree with the
reports of the best informed Frenchmen, who have
no motives to traduce him, his moral character must
be taken to have been grossly misrepresented before
his fall. In his public capacity he exhibited the
feelings, or let us rather call them the crimes, insepa
rable from ambitious men, and' ambitious govern
ments. Like other warriors, he was indifferent
enough to the effusion of human blood, provided the
victory was secured. Like other persons and states
aspiring to empire, he made light of the rights and
institutions that were opposed to his plans of domi
nion. But apart from these, the almost universal
vices of nations and rulers, he seems as an indivi
dual to have been tainted by very few of the noxious
passions and caprices of exalted station. His per
sonal habits were laborious and temperate. In
private intercourse, if any intercourse with such a
man can be caUed so, he usuaUy succeeded in fixing
the unbounded admiration and attachment of those
who approached him. In his distribution of favours,
there was Uttle of the petty perfidy and mystery of
courts. The system which he directed demanded
VOL. II. P

210 THE NAPOLEON MEMOIRS,
talent in every department, and wherever he^found it,
he appropriated it promptly and even abruptly, but in
general so judiciously, that he had seldom cause to
repent of his selection. From the tone in which he
speaks of public men, it may be coUected that he was
very far from entertaining a contempt for virtue. He
asserts, that personal probity formed one of the
highest recommendations to his favour — although it
was a melancholy fact, that in France during his day,
moral worth was, for the purposes of her govern
ment, not the most Valuable qualification. Even his
ambition, culpable and destructive as it was, was not
untinged by magnanimity. His abdication at Fon
tainebleau, the severest trial of human pride, was
not so involuntary and sudden as it was at the time
supposed. In a dispatch to Caulaincourt (4th Jan,
1814) appended to this publication, he announces
his intention, if called upon, to make that sacrifice.
Would they (the Allies) reduce France to her ancient Umits?
It would be to degrade her. They deceive themselves if they
imagine that the reverses of war can make the nation desire
peace upon such terms. There is not a French heart that
would not in six months' time feel the scandal of such a peace,
and that would not reproach the government that could be base
enough to sign it. If the nation seconds me, the enemy
marches to his destruction. If fortune betrays me, my reso-^

THE NAPOLEON MEMOIRS. 211
lution is taken — I do not cUng to the throne — I shaU never
disgrace the nation, or myself by subscribing such shameful
conditions. The style of these volumes is simple, perspicuous,
and animated. The notes, as we are informed by the
editors, are more exclusively his own composition —
and, even though we had been ignorant of that fact,
would have struck us as among the most original
parts of the work, both in matter and execution.
There are frequent sketches more or less in detail of
contemporary characters. To give an idea of their
general manner, we shall conclude our extracts and
the present subject, with his notice of two of his
favourite generals who feU in the battle of EssUng.
On this day perished two generals, the Duke of MontebeUo,
and St.HUaire — both of them heroes, and the best of Napoleon's
friends. He wept for their loss. They woiUd never have
deserted him in his adversity ; they never would have been
faithless to the glory of the French people. The Duke of
MontebeUo was a native of Lectoure. When a chef de bataillon
he distinguished himself 'during the campaigns of 1796 in
Italy. As a general he covered himself with glory in Egypt,
at MontebeUo, at Marengo, at AusterUtz, at J6na, at PultU|Sk,
at Friedland, at TudeUa, at Saragossa, at Bckmiil, and at
EssUng, where he found a glorious death. He was cautious,
sagacious, and daring ; before an enemy, his presence of mind
was not to be shaken. He owed Uttle to education — Nature
P 2

212 THE NAPOLEON MEMOIRS.
had done, everything for him. Napoleon, who had witnessed
the progress of his mind, often remarked it with astonishment.
For manoeuvring five and twenty thousand infantry on the
field of battle, he was superior to all the generals of the
French army. He was stUl young, and would have become
more perfect ; perhaps he might even have reached to a pro
ficiency in the highest branch of tactics (la grande tactique)
which as yet he had not understood, — St, HUaire was a general
al Castiglione in 1796, He was remarkable for the chivalry
of his character He had excellent dispositions, was a kind
companion, a kind brother, a kind relative. He was covered
with wounds. His attachment to Napoleon commenced at
the siege of Toulon. They; caUed him, aUuding to Bayard,
" le Chevalier satis peur, et sans-reproche."

213

ME. lEVING.
[Septbmbee, 1823.]'
We would recommend to Mr. Washington Irving,
in whatever quarter of Germany he may be, to post
back to England without delay, aind look after his
particular celebrity ; for here is a synonymous gen
tleman, who has started during his absence, and is
not only in the full enjoyment of a slap-dash renown .
of his own, but from a natural puzzle occasioned by
identity of name, is coming in, among certain classes
of his admirers, for supplemental honours which of
right belong to the author of the " Sketch Book."
We have been to " The Caledonian," the cant
appeUation by which the scene of Mr. Irving's oratory
is now familiarly known, in the neighbourhood of
Hatton'Gaarden. We would not wiUingly exaggerate
— still less srould we indulge in anything verging

214 MR. IRVING.
upon irreverent levity — but the exhibition was so new
in a place of Christian worship, and so much bustle
and curiosity have been excited regarding the prin
cipal performer, that, as mere reporters of passing
novelties, we consider ourselves fully justified in
giving a faithful summary of what we felt and saw.
The whole concern has a theatrical air. You must
have a ticket of admission. When instaUed, in your
seat, you cast your eyes upon the scene, you at once
perceive that the persons around you are strangers
to the place, and to the sentiment that should pre
vaU there — that they have come, not to say their
prayers, but to have it to say, that they have heard
Mr. Irving. You look in vain for the keen and
homely countenances, and the composed demeanour
of a Scotch congregation ; in their stead you have a
miscellaneous assemblage of tittering misse.s, corpu
lent citizens, single gentlemen " from the west end"
with their silk umbreUas, members of Parliament,
and, " the flowers of the flock," a gaUery fuU of the
choicest specimens of the fair population of chariots
and landaulets. The service begins at eleven: for
the preceding half-hour, on the morning of our
attendance, the passages leading to the gallery were
the scene of fearful rushing and confusion — aU

MR. IRVING. 215
memory of the day and place was obliterated — there
was nothing but the most unsightly working of
. shoulders and elbows, producing combinations of
attitude, and varieties of ludicrous endurance, which
no gravity could resist. We cannot stop to specify
many examples ; but the public sympathy is justly
due to the young lady with the pink-lined bonnet,
who was so mercilessly jammed in by a column of
dowagers and dandies, and never thought of fainting
away, and to the apoplectic-looking gentleman in
blue, who, by one heroic plunge, emerged from his
wedge, and, losing an arm of his coat in the effort,
clambered up the gallery-stairs, with this portion of
his raiment dangling askant from his back hke an
hussar's supernumerary jacket.
This extraordinary scene would have astonished
us, if we had been less familiar with the fury of a
-great capital for everything in the way of sights
and novelties. The bare announcement, in our
fashionable circles, of the arrival of a Caledonian
preacher, whose eloquence opened upon his congre
gation with the force of a galvanic battery, was quite
sufficient to collect around him all the high-born, and
the loveliest sinners in the land, impatient to par
take in the delicious horrors of a shock. Then the

216 MR, IRVING.
whisper ran that the personage in question was
neither more nor less than one of Sir Walter's
Covenanters — a palpable, living and authentic illus
tration of the Scotch Novels — so superior to any of
Westall's, that the artist was thinking of applying
for an injunction. Here was a sight indeed ! and as
potent a stimulus for all this bustling and rushing
for priority, as if Diana Vernon, or Meg MerrUies,
or Old Mortality himself had come to town. There
was another ground of attraction, and also of rather
a worldly kind — Mr. Irving had announced his in
tention of " passing the limits of pulpit theology
and pulpit exhortation." He determined upon em
ploying weapons not heretofore wielded at the altar,
and directing them against the most influential-
classes in the country. He came " to teach imagina
tive men, aud political men, and legal men, and
scientific men, who bear the world in hand, and having
got the key to their several chambers of delusion and
resistance, to enter in and debate the matter with
their souls, that they might be left without excuse;"
and the pubhshed example (the work now before
us') of " this new method of handling reUgious
» The Oracles of God ; Four Orations, Judgment to come,
an argument in Nine Parts, pp. 548.

MR. IRVING. 217
truth" had apprised the community, that a part of
his plan was to level the boldest, and were he not
a holy man, we should say, the most bitter person
aUties against some of the most eminent writers of
the day.
But, suspending our opinion for the present upon
the merits of such a mode of exhortation, was more
wanting to secure to the inventor a briUiant auditory?
What food for male and female curiosity ! What a
rehef to the ordinary dulness of Sabbath occupation !
What woman, with a woman's nature, could resist
the prospect of seeing " the heartless Childe"
dragged by a spiritual critic to the altar, and made
to undergo a salutary smarting for the petulance and
wanderings of his heroes; or of beholding Moore,
with aU his crimes and Melodies upon his head,
soundly belaboured in the pulpit by a Calvinistic
chastiser of Anacreontics? What scene of She
ridan's could compare with a debate between Mr.
Irving and Mr. Canning's soul, upon the honour
able member's parliamentary ways? Lord Eldon,
too, with his own and a more iUustrious conscience
to answer for ; and Mr. Eobinson, with the enormi
ties of his budget ; and the Broughams and Scarletts;
and Sir Humphrey, in spite of his safety-lamp ; and

218 MR. IRVING.
Mr, Jeffrey, so carnally insensible to the strains of
the water-poets ; — aU of these might be summoned by
name and roughly communed with (as some of them
have already been) to the inexpressible edification
of a fashionable and overflowing congregation.
But to return from this not altogether irrelevant
digression. Mr. Irving ascended the pulpit at eleven
o'clock. The first effect of his appearance is ex
tremely startling. He is considerably more than
six feet high. He has a pallid face — the outline
rather triangular than oval — the features regular and
manly. The most striking circumstance about his
head is a profusion of coarse, jet-black hair, which
is carefully divided in the centre and combed down
on either side, after the Italian fashion in the middle
ages. The eye-brows and whiskers are in equal
abundance. Upon the whole, we thought the entire
countenance much more Italian than Scotch, and
. imagined that we could discover, in the softness and
regularity about the mouth and chin, some resem
blance to the Bonaparte family. There is a strongly
marked organical defect in the eyes : when upturned,
they convey the idea of absolute blindness. The
forehead is high and handsome, and far too anxiously
displayed. We were sorry to see Mr. Irving's

MR. IRVING. 219
fingers so frequently at work in that quarter to keep
the hair in its upturned position. The petty care
bestowed upon this point, and the toilet-associations
connected with bleached shirt- wrists, starched collar,
and cherished whiskers, greatly detracted from his
dignity of aspect, and reduced what might have
been really imposing into an air of mere terrific
dandyism. His age, we understand, is about forty
years. If any one should ask us, take him all in
all, what he looked most like, we should say, that
when he first glided into view, his towering figure,
sable habiliments, pallid visage, and the theatrical
adjustment of his black and bushy hair, reminded
us of the entry of a wonder-working magician upon
the boards of a real theatre.
The style of the discourse we heard was so simi
lar to that of his publication, upon which we 'shall
observe hereafter, that for the present we shall con
fine ourselves to Mr. Irving's pulpit manner. His
.voice is naturaUy good : it is sweet, sonorous, and
flexible, but he miserably mismanages it. His
delivery is a tissue of extravagance and incorrect
ness. There is no privity between his sentiments
and accents. There is no want of variety of into
nation, but it is so capriciously introduced, that, in

220 MR, IRVING,
one half of the emphatic passages, his tongue seems
to be utterly ignorant of the sense and bearing of
what it is commissioned to articulate. The tones
are at one moment unmeaningly measured and
sepulchral — the next as inappropriately raised to
the highest pitch of ecstatic fervour. His discourse
took a review of the wonders of the animal and
vegetable creation ; and he was as enwrapt and ve
hement upon the budding of a flower, or the growth
of an insect, as if he were throwing off the most
appalling thoughts that can agitate the human
frame. This want of conformity between the matter
and the manner was painfully apparent throughout.
Let any one imagine the battle of Prague, or any
other piece of descriptive music, with the marks for
expression transposed or dispersed at random, and
the leading passages executed accordingly. We
should then have pianissimo voUeys of cannon, sotto
voce trumpet-calls, and maestoso wailings of the faint
and expiring. The effect would not be more fantas
tic and provoking than Mr. Irving's incessant mis
appropriation of his tones to his topics.
His gesture is equally defective in dignity and
propriety. It is angular, irregular, and violent. In
many passages intended to be argumentative or

MR. IRVING, 221
persuasive, his hands were going through petty and
vulgar evolutions, as if he were attempting to explain
by signs the method of effecting some common
mechanical operation. More than once he abruptly
grasped with both hands the edge of the pulpit on
the right, and reclining his body in that direction,
like one seized with a sudden pain in the side,
declaimed over his left shoulder to the auditors in
the farther gallery. The movements of his coun
tenance were to the full as infelicitous as his atti
tudes and gesture. Instead of a natural play of
features, instead of " looks communing with the
skies," we had forced, anomalous, and at times
quite terrific contortions. In some passages, where
the subject would have demanded composure or
elevation of feature, the preacher stooped over the
pulpit, so as to bring one ear almost into contact
with the cushion, knit his brow, assumed a sort of
smile or leer, and when the period was closed, re
turned to his position with a kind of triumphant jerk,
precisely like a man who felt that he had just made
a good satirical hit. There was one circumstance in
Mr. Irving's method that would alone have destroyed
the effect of any eloquence. He read his discourse,
and it so happened that throughout he read it incor-

222 MR. IRVING.
rectly. After taking up the commencing clauses of
a period, he drew back from the book, and recited
with all the fervour of extemporaneous creation,
but suddenly, in the very midst of the sentence,
he had to break off and refer to the manuscript
again, and here he perpetually failed to catch at
once the point from which he was to continue. Five
or six times his eye lighted upon the matter he had
just delivered, and the' congregation had it over
again with a clumsy, " I say," to give it the air of
an intended repetition. This, and frequent mistak-
ings of particular words, and a good many false
quantities (for Mr. Irving seems to be no proso- '
dian),. gave altogether a slovenly and bungling
character to the entire exhibition. During a dis
course of an hour and forty minutes, there was but
one short passage that we can except from these
remarks. It was a description of Paradise'; and he
delivered it well. There was no extravagance of
posture or gesticulation, and his tones had sweet
ness, sincerity, and elevation. With this single
exception, he made Uttle impression. As far as we
could judge from the demeanour of those around us,
they were utterly unmoved. There were now and
then some unseemly, though not unnatural titterings

MR. IRVING. 223"
among the younger females, at the warmth of the
metaphors and personifications introduced into a
description of the effects of Spring upon the animal
and vegetable worlds.
We had almost omitted to state, that Mr. Irving
used a regular white handkerchief, with which he
had frequent occasion to remove the starting drops
from his brow. We are afraid that the colour was
chosen for effect. On retiring from the chapel,
when we cast a last look to catch the character of
his . countenance in repose, we observed him, as he
reclined in the back of the pulpit, performing the
same operation with an honest Belcher pattern.
We have read Mr. Irving's book. It was no slight
task, but we positively have read it through. It now
and then evinces some power; more however in the
way of phrase, and in the accumulation of forcible
common-places, than in original conception : but on
the whole, we regard it as an imprudent publication,
and considered with reference to its main object,
which has been very pompously annouced, the con
version or exposure of the intellectual classes, as an
utter failure. The author appears to us to be a man
of a capacity a little above mediocrity. He is, we
doubt not, thoroughly versed in the theological doc^

224 MR. IRVING.
trines of his church ; for this is a matter upon which
we do not presume to pronounce. His reading
among popular EngUsh authors seems to have been
tolerably extensive. We also give him credit for
the most genuine zeal, notwithstanding the unneces
sary tone of exaggeration and defiance with which it
is accompanied — but here our commendations must
cease. BLis taste is vicious in the extreme. His
style is at once coarse and flashy. It is, in truth,
the strangest jumble we have ever encountered.
There is no single term by which it can be de
scribed. He announces his preference for the mo
dels in the days of Milton, but he writes the lan
guage of no age. The phraseology of different
centuries is often pressed into the service of a single
period. We have some quaint turn from the times
of Sir Thomas More, puritanical compounds that
flourished under CromweU, followed by a cavalcade
of gaudy epithets, bringing down the diction to the
day of publication. His affectation of antiquated
words is excessive, and quite beneath the dignity of
a Christian preacher. Mr. Irving should recollect
that "wot" and "wis" and "ween," and "do" and
" doth" and " hath," upon the latter of which he so
delights to ring the changes, are all miserable matters

MR. IRVING. 225
of convention, having nothing in Ufe to do with the
objects of his ministry — that there is no charity in
giving refuge to a discarded expletive — no piety in
raising a departed monosyUable from the dead.
His style has another great defect. It is grievously
incorrect. When he comes to imagery, his mind is
in a mist. He talks of " aboUshing pulses," " eva
cuating the uses of a law," the "quietus of tor
ment," " erecting the platform of our being upon a
new condition of probation," Some of his sentences
are models of "metaphorical confusion." We sel
dom met with a more perfect adept in the art of
" torturing one poor thought a thousand ways,"
He contrives that a leading idea shaU change its
dress and character with a pantomimic rapidity of
execution. The Bible is with him, at one moment a
star, the very next, a pavUion. Again, "the rich
and meUow word, with God's own wisdom meUow,
and rich with aU mortal and immortal attractions, is
a better net to catch childhood, to catch manhood
withal, than these pieces of man's wording,'' We
could multiply examples without number; they
occur in every page.
Apart from these defects, which might have been
overlooked in a work of less pretension, but which,
VOL. II. Q

226 MR, IRVING.
wherever they prevail, are unequivocal proofs of
slovenly habits of thinking, we may generaUy say of
Mr. Irving's composition, that in the unadorned
passages, where he prefaces or sums up a topic, it
resembles the version of a Papal document, cum
brous, verbose, and authoritatively meek; that in
his scriptural imitations, he sometimes succeeds in
bringing together masses of awful imagery, the
complete effect of which, however, is too often
counteracted by the intrusion of some petty quaint-
:^ess ; and that bis Platonic personifications of the
soul, and the descriptions of its final beatitude, have
a good deal of the pastoral manner and gorgeous
colouring, which render certain parts of the PUgrim's
Progress so delicious a treat to the imagination of
the unlettered Christian.
In justice to Mr. Irving we shall select one or
two of the most faultless of his impressive passages
that we can find. His death-bed scenes are perhaps
among the best : —
A.nd another of a more dark and dau.ntless mood, who hath
braved a thousand terrors, wiU also make a stand against
terror's grisly king — and he wiU seek his ancient intrepidity
and search for his wonted indifference ; and light smiles upon
his ghastly visage, and affect levity with his palsied tongue,

MR. IRVING. 227
and parry his rising fears, and wear smoothness on his out
ward heart, while there is nothing but tossing and uproar
beneath. He may, expire in the terrible struggle — nature may
faU under the unnatural contest ; then he dies with desperar
tion imprinted on his clay !
But if he succeed in keeping the first onset down, then
mark how a second and a third comes on as he waxeth
feebler. Nature no longer enduring so much, strange and
incoherent words burst forth, with now and then a sentence of
stern and loud defiance. This escape perceiving, he will
gather up his strength, and laugh it off as reverie. And then
remark him in his sleep — how his countenance suffereth
change, and his breast sweUeth like the deep ; and his hands
grasp for a hold, as if Ms soul were drowning ; aud his Ups
tremble and mutter, and his breath comes in sighs, or stays
with long suppression, Uke the gusts which precede the burst
ing storm ; and his frame shudders, and shakes the couch on
which this awful scene of death is transacted. Ah ! these are
the ebbings and flowings of strong resolve and strong remorse.
That might have been a noble man ; but he rejected aU, and
chose wickedness, in the face of visitings of God, and there
fore is now so severely holden of death.
And reason doth often resign her seat at the latter end of
these God-despisers. Then the eye looks forth from its naked
socket, ghastly and wild^-terror sits enthroned upon the pale
brow — he starts-rrhe thinks that the fiends of heU are already
upon him-rrhis disordered brain gives them form and fearful
shape — he speaks to them — he craves their mercy. His tender
relatives beseech him to be sUent, and with words of comfort
assuage his terror, and reoaU him from his paroxysm of
Q 2

228 MR. IRVING.
remorse. A calm succeeds, until disordered imagination hath
recruited strength for a fresh creation of terror '; .and he dies
with a fearful looking-for of judgment, and -of fieVy indig
nation to consume him, \
This is undoubtedly striking; but is it original
vigour, or a mere collection of appaUing circum
stances, which it required little skiU to assemble ?
We have marked in italics the single idea that we
did not recognize as common-place.
We like the following much better. The prevail
ing sentiment has little novelty, but it is natural and
affecting, and is given in better taste. Describing
the lukewarmness of modern Christians, and their
addiction to worldly enjoyments and pursuits, he
proceeds —
They carry on commerce with all lands, the bustle and noise
of their traffic fill the whole earth — they go to and fro, and
knowledge is increased — but how few in the hasting crowd
are hasting after the kingdom of God ! MeanwhUe death
sweepeth on with his chilling blast, freezing up the Ufe of
generations, catching their spirits unblessed with any prepa
ration of peace, quenching hope, and binding destiny for
evermore. Their graves are dressed, and their tombs are
adorned ; but their spirits, where are they ? How oft hath '
this city, where I now write these lamentations over a
thoughtless age, been filled and emptied of her people since

MR, IRVING. 229
first she reared her imperial head ! How many generations
of her revellers have gone to another kind of revelry ! — how
many generations of her gay courtiers to a royal residence
where courtier-arts are not ! — how many generations of her
toilsome tradesmen to the place of silence, where no gain can
follow them t How time hath swept over her, age after age,
with its consuming wave, swallowing every living thing, and
bearing it away unto the shores of eternity ! The sight and
thought of aU which is my assurance that I have not in the
heat of my feelings surpassed the merit of the case. The
theme is fitter for an indignant prophet than an uninspired,
sinful man.
We cannot forbear extracting one more passage
for the singularity, if not the excellence of the style.
It is quite in the manner of an ancient Cove
nanter —
I would try these flush and flashy spirits with their own_
weapons, and play a Uttle with them at their own game. They
do but prate about their exploits at fighting, drinking, and
death-despising. I can tell them of those who fought with
savage beasts ; yea, of maidens who durst enter as coolly as a
m^idern bully into the ring, to take their chance with infu-
^'iated beasts of prey ; and I can teU them of those who drank
the molten lead as cheerfuUy as they do the juice of the
grape, and handled the red fire, and played with the bickering
flames as gaUy as they do with love's dimples or woman's
amorous tresses. And what do they talk of war 1 Have they
forgot CromweU's iron hand, who made their chivalry to

230 MR. IRVING.
skip ? or the Scots Caraevonians, who seven times, with their
Christian chief, received the thanks of Marlborough, that first
of English captains ? or Gustavus of the North, whose camp
sung psalms in every tent ? It is not so long that they should
forget Nelson's Methodists, who were the most trusted of that
hero's crew. Poor men ! they know nothing who do not
know out of their country's history, who it was that set at
nought th6 wUfulness of Henry VIII. and the sharp, rage of
l;he virgin Queen, against liberty, and bore the black cruelty
of her Popish sister ; and presented the petition of rights,
and the bill of rights, and the claim of rights. Was it
chivalry ? was it bUnd bravery 1 No — these second-rate
qualities may do for a pitched field, or a fenced ring ; but,
when it comes to death or liberty, death or virtue, death or
religion, they wax dubious, generally bend their necks under
hardship, or turn their backs for a bait of honour, or a mess
of solid and substantial meat. This chivalry and brutal
bravery can fight if you feed them weU, and bribe them weU,
or set them well on edge ; but in the midst of hunger, and
nakedness, and want, and persecution, in the day of a country's
diKest need, they are cowardly, treacherous, and of no avail. —
Oh ! these topers, these gamesters, these idle reveUers, these
hardened death-despisers ! — they are a nation's disgrace, a
nation's downfaU.
It would be beside our province to engage in any
discussions upon the purely theological parts of Mr.
Irving's work; but there are other matters rather
hastily introduced, as it strikes us, and intern-

MR. IRVING. 231
perately handled, and indeed in some degree affect
ing ourselves, upon which we cannot refrain from
offering a few remarks. We allude to his vehement
and sweeping denunciations against the Uterature of
the day —
Our zeal towards God (he says), and the pubUc good, hath
been stung almost to madness .by the writings of reproachable
men, who give tone to the sentimental and political world.
Their poems, their criticisms, and their blasphemous pam
phlets, have been like gaU and wormwood to my spirit, and I
have longed to summon into the field some arm of strength,
which might evaporate their vUe aud filthy speculation, into
the limbo of vanity, whence it came.
This must not be taken to apply solely to those
pubUcations that have been recently under prosecu
tion, and which we, profane as Mr, Irving may think
us, reprobate as sincerely as himself; neither is it an
incidental ebullition, but one of the ever-recurring
anathemas in which he has indulged against his
inteUectual contemporaries, with their ungodly re
creations, "their Magazines of wit and fashion,"
their "death-despising" Eeviews of the latest publi
cations. Poor Mr, C  , he little dreamt, some
few months back, of what was brewing for him at
the other side of the Tweed ; he little expected that

232 MR. IRVING.
one of these Sundays he might be summoned, with
a duces tecum of the " New Monthly" and its con
tributors, to the bar of this spiritual police-office iu
Hatton Garden, to answer for their dark and Anti-
Calvinistic ways. But there we are— and without
caviUing upon points of jurisdiction, we would
.simply ask our judge to examine us before he con
demns us, and then candidly to say whether, in point
of fact, we are to be classed among the sinister signs
of the times. Is it unholy to indulge once a month
in a little unwounding pleasantry ? Is a letter from
the Alps a deed of darkness? A description of
St, Peter's, or N6tre Dame, a lurking attack upon
the kirk of Scotland ? Had our Parthian Glance at
a departed year any tendency to shake the public
confidence in a future state ? Is the Ghost of
Grimm as, graceless and vicious as the embodied
Baron himself was? We would respectfully put it
to Mr, Irving's conscience, in his uninspired mo
ments, whether these are matters that can endanger
the souls of the readers or the writers ? and whether,
as a Christian censor of the age, he may not be
risking his dignity and influence in exaggerating,
like an ostentatious sophist in want of topics, the
innocent pastimes of, on the whole, a tolerably well-

MR. IRVING. 233
conducted generation, into abominations that will
surely be visited with never-ending wrath ?
But there is another and a more important ques
tion which this gentleman has been indiscreet
enough to raise. He has crossed the Tweed with
the avowed design of calling out, as it were, the
intellect of the age for the supposed affronts it has
offered to his notions of religion. We say nothing
of the self-possession of any single person under
taking so adventurous a project; but, as the sincere
friends of religion, we deprecate it as an ill-con
sidered, and dangerous proceeding. With regard to
the main point, the malignant influence against
which his zeal is directed, we consider Mr, Irving's
assertions on the subject to be full of his charac
teristic exaggeration. There are now, as there at
most times have been, many men of talent among
the influential classes, who, unfortunately for them
selves, are cut off by their peculiar habits of
thinking from the consolations of Christianity, but
perhaps there never was a period when such persons
so cautiously abstained from the promulgation of
their particular opinions. There may be one or two
exceptions, but the great mass of the persons, to
whom we refer, feel too deeply the importance of

234 MR. IRVING.
religious sanctions to the well-being of society, to
think of substituting in their place the cold and
unavailing dogmas of a philosophical creed. Feel
ings of decorum, of good taste, and even of personal
respectability,' come in aid, and confirm those habits
of salutary forbearance. The question then is^
whether any service can be rendered to religion by
the tone and manner which Mr, Irving has assumed
towards this class. Will defiance and abuse convert
them? Will offensive personalities, even against
those who have declared their opinions, conciliate
the rest ? Is it wise, by unfairly confounding poetry
and criticism with blasphemy, to alarm the self-love
of many, who are already, tacitly it may be, but
virtually on his side ? And lastly, is there no
danger in impressing upon the other orders of the
community, that, among the high and educated, aU
sense of religion is extinguished ? These are matters
upon which we cannot undertake to dwell, but it
does occur to us, that they deserve Mr, Irving's
most serious consideration. It would be a miserable
ending of his mission to discover tqo late, that his
zeal had produced mischiefs beyond the powers of
his oratory to heal,
Mr. Irving is a man of warm feelings, and can

MR. IRVING. 235
eulogise as exorbitantly as he beil^ures. It may be
interesting to know that one of the schools of
modern poetry has escaped his condemnation. In
the midst of his treatise upon " Judgment to come,"
we have the following burst of rhetorical criticism.
The subject is Mr, Wordsworth —
There is one man in these realms who hath addressed him
self to such a goldly Ufe, and dwelt alone amidst the grand
and lovely scenes of nature, and the deep unfathomable
secrecies of human thought : — would to Heaven it were
allowed to others to do likewise ! And he hath beeri rewarded
with many new cogitations of nature and of nature's God ;
and he hath heard, in the stiUness of his retreat, many new
voices of his conscious spirit — all which he hath sung in
harmonious numbers. But mark the Epicurean soul of this
degraded age ! They have frowned on him ; they have spit
on him ; they have grossly abused him. The masters of this
critical generation (like generation, like masters) have raised
the hue and cry against him ; the literary and sentimental
world, which is their sounding-board, hath reverberated it ;
and every reptile, who can retail an opinion in print, hath
spread it, and given his reputation a shock, from which it is
slowly but surely recovering. AU for what 2 For making
nature and his own bosom his home, and daring to sing of the
simple but sublime truths which were revealed to him — for
daring to be free in his manner of uttering genuine feeUng,
and depicting natural beauty, and grafting thereon devout
aud solemn contemplations of God, Had he sent his Cottage

236 MR, IRVING.
Wanderer forth upon an "Excursion" amongst courts and
palaces, battle-fields, and scenes of faithless gallantry, his
musings would have been more welcome, being far deeper and
more tender than those of " the heartless ChUde ;'' but be
cause the man hath valued virtue, and retiring modesty, and
common household truth, over these the ephemeral decora
tions or excessive depravities of our condition, therefore he is
hated and abused.
Now all this, which was intended to be very fine,
appears to us to be the merest puerile declamation ;
and it is, besides (what is quite out of all rule in a
Christian teacher), an attempt to domineer over the
free expression of public opinion, in matters purely
temporal, by spiritual threats and denunciations.
If ]\Ir. Wordsworth had been an extraordinarily
gifted being, who had brought tidings of immortal
truths in morals or science, and had been scurvUy
used by his age, it might hi ve been pardonable, if
not appropriate, in one of his friends to slide him
into a theological treatise in the character of a dis
honoured prophet. But the plain matter of fact is,
that this gentleman's career has not been peculiarly
sacred or supernatural ; neither has it, as far as we
can discover, been visited with that precise degree of
.martyrdom, that could warrant so vehement an
episode in his behalf As to worldly matters, Mr. W.

MR. IRVING. 237
has long held a lucrative appointment under the
crown. We glance at this, not surely for the pur
pose of casting any imputation upon him or his
patrons, but simply to show that so far he has not
been a neglected man. He has, on the contrary,
been a fortunate, and a favoured man, Mr. Irving
should have recoUected this, and have given the age
of Wordsworth a little credit for so material an item
in its dealings with him. But Mr, Wordsworth has
been a poet, and the wrongs his genius has encoun
tered from this "reptile" age, have been, it would
appear, of so transcendent a cast, as to be made a
fit subject of ghostly sympathy and indignation in a
discourse upon doomsday, and the doctrine of final
retribution. Now these mighty and unprecedented indignities,
which Mr, Irving would thus preposterously exalt
into an affair of the skies, consist of two or three,
not unfrequent, and with deference we say it, alto
gether earthly circumstances, Mr, Wordsworth is
an able man, and has the pardonable ambition of
being thought so. Living at his ease — -happily for
himself, undistracfed by the cares and bustle of
active life, he has indulged a good deal iii imagina
tive reveries, and has submitted numerous specimens

238 MR, IRVING.
of his musings to the decision of the public. The
public, not a very unusual proceeding, have differed
upon their merits. They suited the taste of some,
and these persons have been as ardent in their
eulogies, as Mr, Irving or Mr, Wordsworth himself
could desire. Others, however, took the "reptile"
side of the question, and explained their reasons.
They admitted, and warmly commended his occa
sional tenderness and sublimity, but they also saw
much to condemn and deplore. They denied that
they could understand him, where in point of fact
he was unintelligible. They reprobated his propen
sity to form fantastic conjunctions between what
was elevated in sentiment, and mean and repulsive in
real Ufe. Adopting the principle, that verisimilitude
was a prime essential in every work of art, they did
not expect to be rated from the pulpit for suggesting
that a pedlar, with a poetical pair of wings, was an
innovation upon good taste — tliat a sentimental
leech-catcher was not at all adapted to catch the
public — that a metaphysical vagrant could never be
rendered an appropriate expounder of the mysterious
movements of the soul of man, Mr, Irving may
like all this, and we shaU never make any unman
nerly attack upon him for differing from us, but in

MR. IRVING. 239
the name of fair dealing, let him not overwhelm us
with his holy \ituperation for presuming in matters
of criticism to judge for ourselves.
To conclude our remarks upon Mr. Irving and his
oratory, we do not hesitate to assert, that he has
altogether mistaken the extent of his powers, and
the taste and spirit of the age before which it has
been his lot to display them. He might have done
in the days of Knox^ — proffers of martyrdom and
flaming invectives were in those times provoked, and
were therefore natural and laudable — now, they are
unnecessary, and for that reason ridiculous. But it
is Mr, Irving's fate, when he gets upon a favourite
topic, to throw aside the important fact, that he is
living and exhorting in the year 1823, and in the
metropoUs of England, He is far fitter to be a
missionary among semibarbarous tribes, than an
enforcer of doctrines that are already familiar to his
hearers; or he would do excellently well as a re
claimer of a horde of banditti in some alpine scene.
There, amidst the waving of pines, and rustling of
foliage, with rocks and hills and cataracts, and a
wUder audience around him, his towering stature,
vehement action, and clanging tones, would be in
perfect keeping. His terrific descriptions of a sin-

240 MR. IRVING.
ner's doom would touch the stubborn consciences of
his lawless flock. His copious tautology, and gaudy
imagery would be welcomed by their rude fancies as
the most captivating eloquence. To them, his exag
geration would be energy — his fury, the majesty of
an inspired intellect — but in these countries his
coming has been a couple of centuries too late. We
understand that he has been called "an eloquent
barbarian :" it would have been more correct to say
.that his was " barbarous oratory."

241

AECHIBALD HAMILTON EOWAN.
[May, 1825.]
Or all the remarkable men I have met, Hamilton
Eowan, I think, is the one whose external appear
ance most completely answers to the character of his
mind, and the events of his life. The moment your
eye h^ taken in the whole of his fine athletic con
figuration, you see at once that nature designed him
to be a great massive engine of a popular cause.
When he entered life, he might easily have taken
his place as a leading member of the aristocracy of
his country. He had high connexions, a noble for
tune, manners and accomplishments that would have
graced a court — but his lofty and adventurous spirit
could not have brooked the sedentary forms, an(J
VOL. II. R

242 HAMILTON ROWAN.
still less the despotic maxims, of an Irish state-
career. He never could have endured to sit at a
council-board, with his herculean limbs gathered
under him, to deliberate upon the most expedient
modes of trampling upon public rights. As a mere
matter of animal propensity, his more natural voca
tion was to take the side of enterprise and danger —
to mingle in the tumult of popular commotion, and
leading on his band of citizen - soldiers "to the
portals of the castle, to call aloud in their name for
the minister to come forth, and resist at his peril the
national cry for ' Universal Emancipation.' " ' This
was his election, and his conscience coincided with
his impulses. He became, as might be expected,
the idol of the populace, and, from the qualities
which made him so, too formidable to the state to be
tolerated. He was prosecuted and convicted, by a
tribunal of very doubtful purity^, of feeUng too
ardently for the political degradation of Ire
land. Thus far Hamilton Eowan had acted upon the prin
ciples of an Irish reformer, and if he avowed them
» See his trial in HoweU's State Trials for 1794.
^ See the motion for a new trial, and the documents there
used.— HoweU's State Trials,

HAMILTON ROWAN. 243
indiscreetly, or pushed them too far, he suffered
for it. In his imprisonment, which he at least con
sidered as oppression, he was provoked to listen to
more dangerous doctrines. He committed himself
in conferences with a spy, who procured a ready
access to his presence; and to avoid the conse
quences, effected his escape to a foreign land. After
several years passed in wandering and exile, the
merits of his personal character prevailed against
the remembrance of his political aberrations, and an
act of royal clemency, generously conceded without
any humUiating conditions, restored him once more
to his country. There he has since resided, in the
bosom of domestic quiet, and in the habitual exercise
of every virtue that can ennoble private life. He has
the satisfaction, too, in his old age, of finding that
in a public point of view, his debt of gratitude to the
crown has not been wholly unpaid. In his eldest
son (Captain Hamilton, of the Cambrian frigate) he
has given to the British navy one of its most gallant
and distinguished commanders, and for whose sake
alone every man of a generous spirit should abstain
from gratuitous and cruel railings at the obsolete
politics of the father.
HamUton Eowan's exterior is fuU of interest.
R 2

244 HAMILTON ROWAN.
Whether you meet him abroad, or in a drawing-
room, you are struck at once with his physical pre
eminence. Years have now rendered his frame less
erect, but all the proportions of a noble model
remain. In his youth he was remarkable for feats
of strength and activity. The latter quality was put
to no ordiiiary test, in a principal incident of his life,
to which I shall presently refer. His face, both in
feature and expression, is in strict accordance with
the rest of his person. It has nothing denoting
extraordinary comprehension, or subtlety of intel
lect ; but in its masculine outUne, which the work
ings of time have brought out into more prominent
relief — in the high and bushy brow — the unblenching
eye — the compressed lips, and in the composed, yet-
somewhat stern stability of expression that marks
the whole, you find the symbols of high moral deter
mination — of fidelity to principle — of self-reliance
and self-oblivion, and above all, of an uncompro
mising personal courage, that could front every form
of danger face to face.' The austerity of his counte-
' While I write, I am assisting my recoUection by a drawing
of Mr. Rowan, executed by the manly and truth-telling pencU
of Comerford— a person, by the way, of so much genius in his
profession, and so estimable and inteUectual out of it, that I

HAMILTON ROWAN. 245
nance vanishes the moment he addresses you. His
manners have all the fascination of the old school.
Every tone of his voice is softened by an innate and
undeviating courtesy that makes no distinctions of
rank or sex. In the trivial details of common life,
Hamilton Eowan is as gentle and complimentary to
men, as other men are in their intercourse with
females. This suavity of demeanour is not the vel
vet of art ; it is only one of the signs of a compre
hensive philanthropy, which as habitually breaks out
in acts of genuine sympathy and munificent relief,
wherever a case of human suffering occurs within its
range. The circumstances of Hamilton Eowan's escape
from imprisonment, as I once heard them minutely
detailed by himself, possessed all the interest of a
romantic narrative. The following are such of the
leading particulars as I can recall to my recollection.
Having discovered (on the 28th of April, 1794,) the
extent of the danger in which he was involved, he
arranged a plan of flight to be put into execution on
the night of the 1st of May, He had the address to
shall probably be tempted one of these days to turn his own
art upon him, and present his friends, through the New
Monthly, with a sketch of himself.

246 HAMILTON ROWAN,
prevail on the under gaoler of Newgate, who knew
nothing farther of his prisoner than that he was
under sentence of confinement for a political libel, to
accompany him at night to Mr, Eowan's own house.
They were received by Mrs. E. who had a supper
prepared in the front room of the second fioor. The
supper over, the prisoner requested the gaoler's per
mission to say a word or two in private to his wife in
the adjoining room. The latter consented, on the
condition of the door between the two rooms remain
ing open. He had so little suspicion of what was
meditated, that instead of examining the state of this
other room, he contented himself with shifting his
chair at the supper-table, so as to give him a view
of the open door-way. In a few seconds his prisoner
was beyond his reach, having descended by a single
rope, which had been slung from the window of the
back chamber. The rope was too short by some
feet, and his descent into the area caused a sprain in
one of his ankles, the pain of which was for a
moment excessive, but it quickly subsided. In his
stable he found a horse ready saddled, and a peasant's
outside coat to disguise him. With these he posted
to the house of his attorney, Matthew Dowhng, who
was in the secret of his design, and had promised to

HAMILTON ROWAN. 247
contribute to its success by his counsel and assist
ance, Dowling was at home, but unfortunately his
house was fuU of company. He came out to the
street to Mr. Eowan, who personated the character
of a country client, and hastily pointing out the great
risk to be incurred from any attempt to give him
refuge in his own house, directed him to proceed to
the Eotunda (a public building in SackviUe-street,
with an open space in front), and remain there untU
Dowling could dispatch his guests, and come to
him, Irish guests were in those days rather slow to sepa
rate from the bottle. For one hour and a half the
fugitive had to wait, leading his horse up and down
before the Eotunda, and tortured between fear and
hope at the appearance of every person that ap
proached. He has often represented this as- the
most trying moment of his life. While he was
there, an accidental circumstance occurred to in
crease the nervousness of the situation — a party
of the mounted city-poUce advanced at a rapid
pace along SackviUe-street, in the direction of the
Eotunda. " My natural impression," said Eowan,
" was, that my escape was now known, and that they
were in pursuit of me, and I confess to you, that

248 HAMILTON ROWAN.
I began to tremblp;" but they swept by without
noticing him.
Dowling at length arrived, and after a short
and anxious conference, advised him to mount
his horse, and make for the country-house of their
friend Mr. Sweetman, which was situate about
four miles off, on the northern side of the bay of
Dublin. This place he reached in safety, and found
'there the refuge and aid which he sought. After a
delay of two or three days, Mr. Sweetman engaged
three boatmen of the neighbourhood to man his own
pleasure-boat, and convey HamUton Eowan to the
coast of France. They put to sea at night ; but a
gale of wind coming on, they were compeUed to put
back, and take shelter under the lee of the Hill of
Howth. While at anchor there on the foUowing
morning a small revenue-cruiser saiUng by threw
into the boat copies of the proclamations that had
issued, offering 2000?. for the apprehension of
Hamilton Eowan. The weather having moderated,
the boat pushed out to sea again. They had reached
the mid-channel, when a situation occurred almost
equalling in dramatic interest the celebrated " Cse-
sarem vehis" of antiquity. It would certainly make
a fine subject for a picture. As the boat careered

HAMILTON ROWAN. 249
along before a favourable wind,, the exiled Irishman
perceived the boatmen grouped apart, perusing one
of the proclamations, and by their significant looks
and gestures, discovering that they had recognized
the identity of their passenger with the printed
description. "Your conjectures are right, my lads,"
said Eowan, " my life is in your hands — but you are
Irishmen." They flung the proclamation overboard,
and the boat continued her coui'se.' On the third
morning, a little after break of day, they arrived
within view of St. Pol de Leon, a fortified town, on
the coast of Bretagne. As the sun rose, it dispersed
a dense fog that had prevailed overnight, and dis
covered a couple of miles behind them, moving along
under easy sail, the British Channel fleet, through
the thick of which their little boat had just shot
unperceived. The party, having landed, were arrested as spies,
and cast into prison, but in a few days an order from
the French government procured their liberation.
Hamilton Eowan proceeded to Paris, from which, in
' It is now some years since the particulars of Mr. Rowan's
escape were related to me by the principal actor himself; and my
present recoUection is that the above incident was not included.
I have often heard it, as I have given it, from other sources.

250 HAMILTON ROWAN.
a political convulsion that shortly ensued, it was his
fate once more to seek for safety in flight. He
escaped this time unaccompanied, in a wherry, which
he rowed, himself, down the Seine. The banks were
lined with military ; but he answered their chaUenges
with so much address, that he was aUowed to pass on
unmolested. Having reached a French port, he
embarked for the United States of America, where at
length he found a secure asylum.
Hamilton Eowan, though of Irish blood, was bom
and educated in England. In his youth he acquired
a large property under the wUl of his maternal
grandfather, Mr, Eowan, a barrister, and lay-fellow
of Trinity College, Dublin, who, in a kind of pro
phetic spirit, made it a condition of the bequest,
"that his grandson should not come to Ireland
until after he should be twenty-five years old,"

251

THE NEW EEFOEMATION IN lEELAND,
[June, 1827,]
" Above aU things beware of hoping that your arguments
can prevail with a fanatic. — The fanatic persuades himself
that he can see what is invisible, and pronounces his neigh
bour to be blind, unless he labours under the self-same optical
iUusion." For the last six years the parish of Ballybogue, in
the county of  ¦, had enjoyed such profound tran
quiUity, that even the family of Mr. Clutterbuck
Casey, of Slug-mount, the most active magistrate
in that part of Ireland, had discontinued the custom
of sitting down to breakfast with loaded pistols upon
the table. There were no burnings or burglaries —
no homicides, excepting now and then a Fair-man
slaughter — no abductions, save an occasional one of

252 THE NEW REFORMATION IN IRELAND.
such doubtful violence, that Father Hennessy, when
called upon, did not hesitate to sanctify the. transac
tion by an ex-post-fucto marriage; and what was
better stUl in the opinion of the poor proscribed,
and suffering Protestant gentry ,of the neighbour
hood, rents were punctually paid.
This happy state of things was attributed by vari
ous persons to various causes : — by Father Hennessy
to himself, and by his flock to " the Association;"
by Mr. Hugh MaxweU Ellis, of SaintviUe, to the
moralising influence of his new school-house; and
by a particular friend of mine, who shall be name
less, to the abatement of rents that followed the in
surrection of 1823; but Mr. Clutterbuck Casey,
with the prophetic instinct of an Irish justice, used
often to declare in his domestic circle, that things
would sooner or later change ; " let people talk as
they might, he knew the country better than they
did, both before ninety-eight and since; and with
all this pretended tranqmllity, depend upon it they
would soon have the Insurrection Act among them
again, and then, the district being once more fairly
disturbed, who had a better claim than he to be made
chief magistrate of police ? for wasn't he an Orange
man? wasn't he a Friendly Brother? Hadn't he

THE NEW REFORMATION IN IRELAND. 253
stuck to the Glorious Memory, when others were
afraid or ashamed to give it ? Hadn't he distrained
every tenant of his that paid the CathoUc rent?
Hadn't five stacks of his corn, besides a rick of hay,
and three calves and a filly, been all maliciously burnt
one night some years ago, and for which he never
got anything but compensation from the county?
Hadn't he been illegally fired at four times when
riding along the public road, and once when walking
in his shrubbery with his wife- and daughters,
and for which he never got any compensation
at aU? Hadn't he laid out more money in
blunderbusses and gun-powder, than would have
bought his son Frank a commission in the army ?
Had he ever refused to take an information against a
Catholic, more especially if he wa§ suspected of
being a suspicious character; and accordingly was
there a magistrate in all Ireland more detested by
them ? If these were not claims what were ! And
besides, hadn't he been faithfully promised over aud
over again by his friends in Dublin, incjuding Alder
man Twiss and the Dean of Glennacarry, that at the
very next insurrection in his county, his services
should be honourably and liberally rewarded ?" In
these cheering anticipations, Mr. Casey endeavoured

254 THE NEW REFORMATION IN IRELAND.
to reconcile himself to the calm, that obstinately
prevailed around him.
Winter (it was this last winter) and its long nights
came and brought nothing insurrectionary with
them; so that the worthy magistrate, rather dis
gusted with the " horrid stillness" of the scene, in
creased as it was by the absence of Mrs, Casey and
the girls on their annual visit to Dublin, and being
also privately informed that his name at the next
assizes, from the many pressing claims upon the
high sheriff, was either to be the last on the grand-
jury panel, or omitted altogether, was not sorry to
receive an invitation from a friend in the adjoining
county, to ride across and pass a few weeks at his
house. Thither accordingly he went on the 24th of
last February, and there he remained for one entire
month; and although the distance was only forty
mUes from Slug-mount, it somehow so happened
that no tidings, directly or indirectly, reached him of
some most important local circumstances that, during
the interval, had been occurring in his neighbourhood;
so that he probably would have prolonged his visit, had
it not been for the near approach of Lady-day, upon
which he did not deem it prudent for a landlord to be
out of the reach of any rent that might be tendered.

THE NEW REFORMATION IN IRELAND. 255
The reader is, therefore, to imagine Mr, Clut
terbuck Casey, on the 24th day of March, 1827,
mounted on his favourite bay mare (according to
the Uteral fact) and homeward returning. The
animal had performed her duty so well, that
about four o'clock in the afternoon he found him
self entering the Pass of Thubba-na-muU, distant
only three miles from Slug-mount, Up to this point
nothing had appeared, from which the most sanguine
magistrate in Ireland could have inferred a restora
tion of disturbance. As he came along, he had
observed no signs of recent depredation. The pea
sants whom he met upon the road had accosted him
with civility, and " their tameness was shocking to
him," The few residences of the gentry that he
bad passed, appeared in as unguarded a state as if
they were never to be attacked. Once, and once
only, after he had entered his own county, his ears
had been cheered by the sounds, as he thought, of a
distant riot; but his hopes had deceived hira, for,
upon a nearer approach, they turned out to be
nothing more than a peaceful death-cry.
AU this, as was natural, caused the active magis
trate to despond ; and the farther he penetrated into
the Pass, the more the feeling was increased by the

256 THE NEW REFORMATION IN IRELAli.,.,.
pacific character of the scenery around him. His
road lay through a narrow glen (its precipitous sides
thickly covered with mountain oak and brushwood),
and accommodated itself to the course of the stream
that flowed beneath.
Whose low sweet talking seem'd as if it said
Something eternal to that happy shade.
Not a breath of air was stirring, and the sun, not
withstanding the season and the hour, was so bright
and warm, as to cast a summer glow over all it
rested upon. On the whole, the scene was so se
questered, and so quiet in the strictest meaning of the
word, that another might have been easily lulled
into a momentary oblivion that he was actually
travelling in Ireland. Not so, however, Mr.
Casey. He remembered too well where he was.
He remembered with a sigh the days when the Pass
of Thnbba-na-muU was the favourite cover of the
white-boys of the county — when noble appointments
might be gained in their pursuit — and when an active
magistrate like him, instead of waiting and waiting
for an insurrection that seemed farther off than ever,
might, such were the times, have defied the govem
ment to neglect him. But what a contrast now !
What a depressing quietude in that scen^, where aU

THE NEW REFORMATION IN IRELAND. 257
had once been bustle and alarm — where, instead of
the melancholy chirpings of the birds, and the un
profitable babbUng of a mountain brook, the shouts
of insurgents, and the reports of blunderbusses had
been wont to re-echo gaily through the glen ! Such
were the heart-rending comparisons (peculiar, per
haps, to Irish magistrates,) that now crowded upon
Mr. Casey's mind, presenting to his too vivid imagi
nation nothing but images of present peace, and a
dreary prospect of interminable tranquiUity, when,
just as he was about to emerge from the Pass, the
well-known whiz of a bullet dashed by his ear, fol
lowed by the report of a musket, and a hearty curse
in the native Irish, a few yards off in the thicket
above him. Before he had time to appreciate the
occurrence as it deserved, a second bullet, discharged
from the opposite side of the stream, passed through
the crown of his hat, Mr. Casey being for many
reasons more anxious to live than to die in the ser
vice of old Ireland, put spurs to his mare, and in a
few minutes reached the open country. He pushed
on for Slug-mount in high spirits, arranging, as he
cantered along, his future plan of operations and their
results, which were obviously as follows — first, to
barricade Slug-mount — then to draw up a report,
VOL. II. s

258 THE NEW REFORMATION IN IRELAND.
with appropriate exaggerations, of the particulars of
his recent escape — then to call a meeting of Ms
brother magistrates, who, on reading the report, were
to declare the county to be disturbed, and to petition
for the Insurrection Act — then to get down the In
surrection Act among them once again — and then
to sUp in, with aU imaginable snugness, to his long-
delayed appointment of chief magistrate of poUce,
Mr. Casey had now reached the grounds of Saint
viUe, which adjoin his own, when, to his great
satisfaction, he perceived that his friend's new
school-house was a heap of ruins. This was as it
should be. The county was unequivocaUy disturbed.
The cause was stUl a mystery to him, and he was
impatient to meet some person who should clear it
up, when, at the next turning of the road, he saw a
body of peasantry moving towards him, in rather
greater numbers than just at that moment he would
have preferred to encounter. But he was constitu
tionally brave — and though he knew he was not
" loved of the multitude," he boldly advanced into
the midst of them. The foremost persons of the
cavalcade, who were all mounted and evidently
belonged to the better class of farmers, escorted a
car bearing a coffin, which two women, seated beside

THE NEW REFORMATION IN IRELAND. 259
it, almost concealed from view, as in sullen anguish
they clasped it to their bosoms. Mr. Casey perceived
at once that it was not a funeral. There was no
liearse — no waiUng among those who surrounded
the remains — ^no careless conversation among those
behind. He could further see that the countenances
of the party were far more in anger than in sorrow —
and in anger which his sudden appearance among
them had no tendency to mitigate. Nothing was
said — ^no disrespect was offered; but as group after
group passed by him, every eye that encountered
his shot a quick vindictive glance of deep and most
inteUigible meaning.
With persons thus unsociably inclined, he had no
desire to enter into conversation ; but as soon as the
main bodyj which consisted of several hundreds, had
cleared him, he ventured to stop one of the stragglers,
(a Uttle ragged boy of about ten years of age,) and
inquired into the nature of the procession. The
chUd's information, as contained in his own words,
amounted to this : " that they were only carrying
Tim Sheehan home to be waked : Tim Sheehan that
suffered that morning from the new drop of the old
gaol." Why he had suffered, the informant could
not teU, " barrin' that the talk among the neighbours s 2

260 THE NEW REFORMATION IN IRELAND.
was, that Mr. Hugh Maxwell EUis, beyant there,
had fairly murdered him." Here a wild and terrific
shouting rent the air, which the magistrate, on
looking back, discovered to proceed from the caval
cade, which had made a momentary halt before the
ruined school-house ; a second and third deliberate
cheer succeeded, and the procession resumed its
silent route. Mr, Casey would have interrogated
the boy farther, but the young son of riot had no
sooner caught the first sounds of the music wMch he
loved, than he instantly threw in his ovm shrill
octave whoop, and scampered off to join in the
uproar. A better authority, however, was at hand, for Mr,
Casey was now at the avenue gate of SaintviUe.
After repeated applications by ringing, knocking,
and calling, the aged porteress, bearing the keys,
emerged from the lodge, fearfuUy at first, and with
looks of dire dismay, until she ascertained that the
applicant for admission was Mr, Clutterbuck Casey,
He endeavoured to extract from the old woman
some clue to the causes of the scenes he had just
been witnessing ; but she could only speak of effects,
among which the following were the most promituent.
" That she was in fear and dread of her Ufe, thinking.

THE NEW REFORMATION IN IRELAND. 261
Uttle blame to her, that the boys had been coming
to serve the lodge, as they had served the school-
house — that the master was above at the house
preparing for the attack that was to be made, if
threatening letters were to be believed, that very
night — the night before, seventeen sheep had been
strangled on the lawn, the Kerry cow houghed, the
steward fired at, the haggard burnt, the mistress's
new shrubbery and flower-garden destroyed out and
out, besides much more which his honour would
hear when he stept out to the house." This, though
an imperfect sketch of a " night in Ireland," flUed
the breast of the magistrate vrith the delicious con
sciousness that " this was his own, his native land ;"
— and with this enviable sensation, he hastened up
the avenue, and in a few minutes received from the
mouth of his friend, a full confirmation of the joyful
tidings. Their conference was long and interesting.
They both agreed, and probably with reason, that
the lawless spirit of the neighbourhood had now
reached a height which required the instant applica
tion of the Insurrection-^ct ; but with respect to
the immediate cause of so sudden a transition from
tranquUlity to disturbance, Mr, Hugh MaxweU Ellis,
though closely questioned by the magistrate, pro-

262 THE NEW REFORMATION IN IRELAND.
fessed himself unable to give a satisfactory solutioUi
It therefore becomes the duty of an honest Mstorian
to supply the deficiency.
From the first, Father Hennessy never reUshed
the idea of that new school-house ; rather, however,
from an old, traditional "timeo-Danaos" sort of
feeling, than from there having been anything
unequivocally hostUe to the Catholic Church in its
proposed constitution. Nothing indeed could have
appeared more fair and considerate towards him
than the conduct of its founders. The day the
foundation-stone was laid, he was invited to Saiut-
ville, where all sorts of attention were paid him
during the dinner, and his apprehensions stiUed by
Mrs. Maxwell EUis's pious sallies upon the subject
of charity and tolei;ation. When the buUding was
completed, her intended cours d'etude was submitted
to him. It contained nothing from which the most
tremulous pastor could infer a tendency to transmute
his infant flock into Eanters, Jumpers, or Muggle^
tonians ; and besides, who could have questioned her
sincerity, as with an almost holy fervour she over
and over protested to Father Hennessy, "that all
she wished to have taught to the chUdren of het
school was to read and write, to cast up accounts, to

THE NEW REFORMATION IN IRELAND, 263
tell the truth upon aU occasions, and to wash their
Uttle hands every morning without any reference to
distinctions of religion ?"
Matters accordingly went on very smoothly until
the brealdng out of the Eeformation in the county of
Cavan. The multiplication-tables were models of
toleration, and words of six syUables selected for the
spelUng classes with the most scrupulous regard to
tender consciences. Not a lamb of Father Hennessy's
flock had been tempted to stray ; but no sooner was
the splendid discovery made that Irish Catholics had
it in their power to emancipate themselves by merely
"turning Protestants," than the system of Saint
viUe school-house began to accommodate itself to
the advancing spirit of the age. First, there reached
Father Hennessy's ears authenticated rumours of
surreptitious readings from the forbidden text. He
remonstrated with mildness against the breach of
compact; but the fact was denied — and repeated.
Next foUowed the introduction into the school of
numerous copies of "The Converted Sinner, or
Idolatry made plain" — and of "Andrew Dunn,"
Father H. put a copy of each in his pocket, and
proceeded to SaintviUe. He saw Mr. Ellis, and
declared, respectfully, that if such practices were

264 THE NEW REFORMATION IN IRELAND.
continued, he should incur the censure of his
superiors if he did not instantly withdraw the Ca
tholic children from the school, Mr. Ellis received
him with a condescending shake of the hand, a
friendly spiritual smile, insisted upon his taking a
chair, "that they might talk the matter over at
length, and then proceeded to pronounce an elaborate
discourse, the exordium of which consisted of a
glowing panegyric upon himself — the middle, of un
intelligible matter-^and the peroration, of a pressing
invitation to his reverend friend to come over to the
Protestant faith, in which latter event he should be
strongly recommended to Dr, Magee.
Father Hennessy was, and is, one of the best-
tempered of human beings, lay or ecclesiastical ; so
that, instead of taking fire at the proposition, he
contented himself with making an amiable retort,
rather circuitously expressed, but of which the point
amounted to this, " that Mr, Hugh Maxwell EUis's
mother had lived and died in the bosom of the
Catholic Church — that his father, though he lay in
the Protestant side of the church-yard, yet when his
hour came, and he wanted consolation for his soul
had sent for Father H. — privately, no doubt, and
in the dusk of the evening — ^but still he had sent for

THE NEW REFORMATION IN IRELAND. 265
him, and, received at his hands absolution in extremis,
having first executed restitution codicils, to the
amount of three thousand four hundred pounds;
and after that, not knowing but that it might be in
the course of Providence that he might yet be
called upon by Mr, Hugh MaxweU Ellis himself,
upon a similar occasion, he would beg leave with all
humility, to keep himself qualified for performing
this final act of respect , to the family." With this
argumentum ad familiam, Father Hennessy took his
leave. But retorts and remonstrances were unavaU-
ing. The very next day six penny-rolls were distri
buted as prizes to as many Catholic children, each
of them enveloped in a printed bulletin of the last
conversions in Cavan. This brought matters to a
crisis. On the following Sunday Father H.'s con
gregation were warned from the altar against the
snares of proselytism; and early the next morning
the schoolmaster apprised the patron of the estab
lishment that he was performing to empty benches.
The patron retaliated by distress-warrants upon the
parents of the seceders. The tenants prayed for
mercy ; but the answer, as delivered by Mr, Ellis's
steward, was, " The children to the school, or the
cattle to the pound," In this state of things Father

266 THE NEW REFORMATION IN IRELAND.
Hennessy held a conference with his newly-arrived
young Curate, the Eev. Cornelius Magrath, as to the
possibility of still appeasing the anger of Mr, EUis,
without conceding any points affecting the doctrine
or discipline of their church. He had, in truth, no
great reliance upon the prudence of his friend,
whom the College of Maynooth had just sent forth
somewhat " ofer-informed " with natural fire and
theologic zeal; but the case was becoming desperate.
Father Hennessy was extremely averse to irritating
discussions with a gentleman with whom he had
lived for years upon terms of amity ; and his spiritual
helpmate, though deficient in the arts of courteous
persuasion, had certain powers of gloomy oratory,
not ill-adapted, he thought, to the task of forewarn
ing Mr, EUis of the public consequences of his
hostile proceedings.
My own opinion is, that Father Hennessy should
have gone himself to SaintvUle, I say this, judging
from the different characters of the men. The
elder ecclesiastic, now an aged person, is one of the
few remaining specimens of the better class of the
Irish CathoUc clergy of the old school — a race that
in a few years more wUl be extinct. He was
obliged to fly his country for his education, and after

THE NEAV REFORMATION IN IRELAND. 267
a long sojourn abroad, for the most part at Eome,
returned with manifest signs (which he stiU retains)
of having mixed with beings of a milder cUme.
Instead of passing his youth, and forming his mind
and manners amidst the rough parochial duties of
an Irish priest, that-" never ending, still beginning "
round of preaching, marrying, christening, absolving,
and interring, at all hours, and in all weathers, he
had been enabled to mingle literature with theology,
and to catch and practise the softer courtesies of life,
as he witnessed them in the social habits of Italy.
He had read her poetry, heard her music, reflected
over her ruins, and been confirmed in his faith
by the magnificence of her temples, and the pomp of
her spiritual institutions. The impressions thus
made had never been effaced ; and even Mr. Clutter^
buck Casey has been known to admit, that " Father
Hennessy, whatever else he might be, was very like
a gentleman." But though a foreign education had thus raised
^ ^ his tastes and manners above his condition, it had
by no means tended to give an energy to his cha
racter in temporal concerns. Obedience to estab
lished authority, even acquiescence in wrong, formed
a part of his doctrines. If left to himself, he would

268 THE NEW REFORMATION IN IRELAND.
have shrunk from anything in conduct or language
bearing the aspect of resistance, even upon points
where his religion was assailed. He had in the first
instance been somewhat panic-struck by the estabhsh
ment of the Catholic Association and the Catholic
Eent, as overt acts of an unseemly spirit. It was only
when they became prosperous and popular, that the
fear of reproach from his own body induced hint to
contribute his countenance and co-operation. It
was upon the same principle that he had remonstrated
against Mr, Maxwell Ellis's late proceedings, I am
quite certain, that, if he could have ventured, he
would have submitted. At aU events, the mildness
of his character, whether founded on Christian
humility or complexional subserviency, would have
rendered him a more appropriate mediator upon the
present occasion than his reverend Curate, who was
in every respect a very different sort of person.
The Eev. Cornelius Magrath is a stern home-bred
divine, full of native confidence in his faith, and pay
ing little reverence to the worldly powers arrayed
against it : he is distinguished for his blunt piety,
his knowledge of the Fathers, his declamatory
powers, his skiU in disputation, his strong Irish
accent, and his contempt for the Protestant ascend-

THE NEW REFORMATION IN IRELAND. 269
ency. Talk to him of submitting to the Kildare-
street Association, and his eye becomes ignited, his
frame tremulous with theologic ire, and, in solemn
sepulchral tones, he denounces the sacrilegious
attempt to shut the gates of Heaven against the
Irish poor. Even in his relations with his spiritual
superiors, the spirit of a stubborn democracy is
strong within him. Father Hennessy should have
remembered this, and have paused before he precipi
tated such a temperament into an angry collision
with a champion of the "new reformation," To
Mr. EUis's, however, the Curate was dispatched;
and he accepted the mission with characteristic
alacrity. He had never seen that gentleman ; but,
inferring- from his proceedings that he should have
much in the way of arrogance to sustain in the
interview, he braced up his mind, as he went along,
to repay his Protestant scorn with compound interest.
He found Mr. Ellis in his library, occupied in writing
a spiritual circular to his Cavan fellow-labourers, and
surrounded with bales of "Andrew Dunn," "The
Converted Sinner," Dr. Magee's "First Charge,"
and an extensive assortment of no-Popery tracts and
handbills. This did not surprise the Curate; but
what surprised him was, that the person before

270 THE NEW REFORMATION IN IRELAND.
him should turn out, upon inspection, to be so
utterly variant from the picture of his anticipations.
Instead of encountering a coarse and fierce fanatic,
he found himself in the presence of a young gentle
man, rather fashionably dressed, of a slender frame,
handsome face, and of a mild and courteous aspect.
Mr. Magrath, though well versed in the Human
ities, had never studied Physiognomy at Maynooth;
and in scanning Mr. EUis's countenance, he faUed
to be struck by that peculiar expression of the eye,
which denotes that all is not sound within, and thus
explains the otherwise irreconcUable contrast between
the mildness of his manners, and the perverseness of
his conduct. He does the most mischievous and
provoking things in the most gentle and considerate
manner imaginable. His heart is far from depraved :
he can be kind and generous, and always thinks he
is so ; but his intellect is the victim of self-delusion ;
and, incapable of discriminating between fancy and
demonstration, is perpetually substituting its own
morbid conclusions for moral ends. To emancipate
the Catholics of Ireland upon the newly-discovered
plan, was the form his malady had now assumed;
and to compass this maniacal project everything
appeared justifiable and laudable. Accordingly when

THE NEW REFORMATION IN IRELAND, 271
Mr. Magrath forcibly called upon him, as a Chris
tian, to desist from the attempt to force the consciences
of his tenants, he mildly replied, " That which he
did was for their temporal and eternal good ; that
their unfortunate faith — ^he intended no offence — was
the sole cause of their degradation; and that the
day was not distant when, their eyes being opened,
they would be the first to bless him for his salutary
harshness." When he was told to remember, as a
man of common sense, that the ruin of his tenants
would inevitably impair the value of his estate, he
answered, " That in such a cause, gold was to him as
dross ; and besides, that every shilling thus lost would
be treasure laid up in Heaven," When he was
reproached with the inhumanity of goading on his
dependants to excesses, which their pastors could no
longer control, he meekly responded, " That any
excesses thus occasioned would lead to discussion ;
that the more the truth was discussed, the more
surely and brightly it would shine ; and that, for his
part, he meant nothing uncivil to Mr, Magrath, but
the emancipation of his poor benighted countrymen
from their priests, upon any terms, was a blessed
speculation, for which he would wilhngly lay down
his life," This was too much for the Curate's

272 THte NEW REFORMATION IN IRELAND.
patience ; he started up, and vehemently exclaimed,
" Mr. Hugh Maxwell ElUs, in obedience to the direc
tions of my reverend superior, I have come here and
endeavoured to soften your heart: I have failed;
and, therefore, being forced to it, I say, ' Woe unto
you, scribes and pharisees, hypocrites ! for ye com
pass sea and land to make one proselyte ; and when
he is made, ye make him two-fold more the chUd of
 but you know the rest ; and may Heaven forgive
you ! " The modern reformer returned a smile of
placid commiseration, and the curate took his de
parture. The consequences of Mr. EUis's " blessed specula
tions " soon appeared. The irritated tenants
conspired, and burnt down the school-house. Tim
Sheehan, the leading conflagrator, was discovered,
tried, and executed for the offence. The crime was
forgotten in the provocation ; and the populace, as
has been seen, lost no time in celebrating his mar
tyrdom. Mr, Ellis, pent up in SaintviUe, looked
on in holy exultation; and Mr, Clutterbuck Casey,
according to the last accounts, was in hourly ex
pectation of being made chief magistrate of police.

273

IRISH PORTRAITS,— No, I,
ME, TEEENCE O'FLUMMEEY.
[January, 1825.]
This young gentleman, who has lately completed
his twenty-fifth year, is justly vain of his family and
pretensions. His family, even in Ireland, is allowed
to be ancient. The O'Flummeries are generally con
sidered to have come in with the creation, and are
respected (by themselves) accordingly. It is equally
certain that they acted a conspicuous part in former
times upon the theatre of Irish history, but for want
of historian^, their exploits have not heretofore been
celebrated beyond the firesides of their descendants.
The omission, however, is now pretty well supplied
by Master Terry, (as he is still called by the friends
of the family,) who never fails, when a third tumbler
VOL. II. T

274 IRISH PORTP^lTS.
has stirred up his pride of ancestry, to fill up that
important chasm in the annals of his country. His
accounts are not perfectly distinct, but they are fiiU
of novelty, and in the main extremely creditable to
the heroism of his forefathers. The branch of the
O'Flummeries, of which our hero is a sprig, are
determined Protestants. Their conversion from the
errors of Popery was effected about the middle of
the last century, by a process of persuasion pecuhar
to Ireland. Mr, Brian O'Flummery, the grandsire
of Terence, was then in possession of the family
estate, and, as he was a wealthy man, the state of
his soul became a subject of pubUc concern. Ac
cordingly there was dispatched to him, not a learned
doctor of theology, to allure him to the paths of
truth, by the gentle methods of argument and
remonstrance, but a more authoritative visitor — ^his
Majesty's most gracious writ of subpoena ad respon
dendum, issuing forth from his Majesty's High Court
of Chancery, signed by the then keeper of his
Majesty's Irish conscience, and commanding the
said Brian to appear on a certain day therein specified,
in the said court, and then and th.ere to declare
upon his corporal oath, whether he the said Brian
entertained those precise notions of another world.

MR, TERENCE O'fLUMMERY. 275
which alone could entitle him, according to the
several acts in that case made and provided, to
enjoy a landed property in this. The oath was taken,
and the estate preserved, as I shall probably more
fully and at large detaU upon a future occasion.
The family mansion, Mount-Flummery, is situate
on the banks of the Shannon, — The rent-roU is
precisely a cool thousand a year, and the property
considered one of the best-circumstanced in Ireland ;
for the incumbrances affecting it are somewhat less
than its real value ; and it is admirably situated for
defence against the incursions of white-boys and
process-servers. Besides this, Terence in his confi
dential moods assures his friends, that "upon his
faith and honour the finest potheen in all Ireland is
made, and may be had for asking, upon the borders
of his father's estate," This young gentleman's
occupations, when at Mount-Flummery, are miscel
laneous. Upon fine days he is fond of taking a run
across the country upon his elder brother's mare ;
for his own horse Darby, who is " out and out the
first saddle-horse in the county," can seldom be
spared from the plough or the cart. He generally
breaks in the famUy pointers, and has an old heredi
tary instinct for bringing down a grouse or partridge
T 2

276 IRISH PORTRAITS.
a few days before the term of the parliamentary
prohibition has expired, just to keep up a due impres
sion in the neighbourhood, that an Irish Protestant
gentleman, "born and bred on the banks of the
Shannon," may take what liberties he likes with his
old friend the law of the land. In general, however,
the O'Flummeries are zealous supporters of established
order, and some of Terry's domestic employments
have immediate reference to the political duties of
his house. He keeps the family-blunderbusses in
order ; and upon wet days, makes important additions
to the winter-stock of slugs and bullets. He has
also the credit of having suggested the outhne of
the present fortifications at Mount-Flummery, which
are indeed so excellently contrived, that Captain
Eock has hitherto been baffled in Ms efforts to
surprise that loyal citadel. Three times last winter,
the attempt was made in broad daylight, and while
the family were sitting round the breakfast-table,
but with so little success, that on each occasion the
assailed had no less than five minutes notice of the
captain's approach.
Por the last two or three years, young O'Flummery
has passed the spring months in Dublin, He puts
up at the Hibernian, where he has, upon moderate

MR, TERENCE o'fLUMMERY. 277
terms, a snug bed-room at the top of the house, and
Hberty to lounge in the coffee-room on wet days, or,
to speak more correctly, during the, wet hours of
every day. He seldom breakfasts, and never dines
at his hotel ; his finances as a younger brother would
not aUow it ; but the O'Flummeries are numerous
in Dublin, Many of them hold lucrative offices
under the Government, and they all make a point of
supporting one another, so that Terence by a little
management contrives to secure a daUy invitation to
dinner — more particularly as he never yet has had
the imprudence to ask one of his Dublin relatives to
discount a bill,
O'Flummery's appearance is rather striking; and
as on the whole he may be said to represent in his
person and manners, a pretty numerous class among
the rising generation of Irishmen, upon whom,
according to some, the salvation of their country
wUl mainly depend, I think it a just tribute to their
merits, that a single sample should be delineated in
detaU. In stature he approaches the height of the Belvedere
Apollo ; but the contour of his features, and still
more their expression, differs in many respects from
that model of masculine perfection. In truth, there

278 IRISH PORTRAITS.
is much more of the devil than the god in Terry's
looks; for in his moments of anger, he looks
" devilish fierce, " and in his equally violent
paroxysms of politeness " devUish genteel," The .
character of his countenance in its neutral moods.
belongs to the purely physical. There is flesh and
blood and bone in great profusion. High cheek
bones, a stout common-place nose, with a thriving
plantation of whiskers to shelter it from the side
winds ; a pair of eyes, each as plump, and oleaginous,
and ogling as a Carlingford oyster; a mouth extremely
well-adapted to the two great employments of his
life, eating and talking; for were it less capacious
and pUant, it would be quite impossible for the
masses of viands that enter, or the StiU larger lumps
of oaths and exclamations that come out, to force a
passage ;- these, with a head of hair as bristUng and
bushy as heath upon an uncultivated hill, and an
expanse of cheek richly stuccoed with the small-pox,
but still arrayed in the most glowing colours of
present health, form a general style of visage that
may be not inaptly termed "the florid Gothic."
Of his dress I shall merely say that, when new, it
is in the extremity of the Dublin fashion, which is
synonymous with the London fashion " in extremes."

MR. TERENCE O'fLUMMERT. 279
His cravat, in particular, is greatly to be commended
for the amplitude of its folds, and the variety of its
congyrations. In the centre appears conspicuously a
gUstening Irish diamond, like an inquisitive eye peep
ing out to see what the world thinks of the owner.
O'Flummery's gait and gestures have a considerable
dash of the heroical — more especially when he is
exhibiting upon his favourite . lounge, from " Milli-
ken's" to "Nelson's Pillar," and back again. In
truth he throws out his limbs with a certain air of
defiance, from which you can infer that he has too
much punch in his blood to bear the shadow of a
slight from any man; and as he has somewhere
heard that " none but the brave deserve the fair,"
whenever he approaches a group of well-dressed
females, the roU of his hips becomes pecuUarly
imposing. The back view of his figure is chiefly
remarkable for those involuntary twitchings in the
muscles over the blade bones, which his countrymen
call " the brogue in the shoulders," But Terry has
laboured hard to stifle the brogue in other quarters.
¦ His intonations were once rich and aboriginal; but
he passed the summer before last at Cheltenham,
and ever since he has evinced a most merciless dispo
sition towards his Majesty's EngUsh. Some of his

280 IRISH PORTRAITS.
acquaintance attribute this to the effect of the waters,
and cite many similar instances ; but a friend who
put up at the same boarding-house asserts, that on
the very first day of his appearance there, at the
dinner-table, (they sat opposite to a rich Manchester
cotton-twister's daughter,) he could perceive Terry
making a violent effort to catch the English accent,
but by one of those accidents attendant upon a
hurried exertion, he contrived to lay hold of it by
the wrong end. Whatever the cause, therefore,
certain it is, that his accent and pronunciation, though
they pass at Mount-Flummery for the purest Chel
tenham, differ essentially from the rules recommended
by Mr, Walker, Of the a's and e's, in particular,
he makes strange work. He who before the memo
rable trip to Cheltenham, did not hesitate to extol
Mount-Flummery as a part of Ireland where "bating
was chape," {Anglice, where a man might get kicked
and cuffed for the merest trifle,) will now offer to
hand a cheer to a leedy ; express his utter disteeste
to steel bread, and praise an English sfeege-coach as
an admirable conveeance. It is only when he is
taken by surprise that pose and banes bolt out in the
old way. But besides these improvements upon the
pronunciation of his forefathers, he has adopted a

MR. TERENCE O'fLUMMERV. 281
notion, not very uncommon among certain classes of
his countrymen, that the pure EngUsh accent consists
of a violent compression of the organs of speech
upon the vocal sounds as they pass. Hence some
words permitted to escape only through the interstices
of his clenched teeth, rush out with a hissing noise
hke the riotous spirit of ginger-beer effecting a
forcible enlargement ; whUe others, half-strangulated
about the lower region of the throat, die away in a
distant rumbUng cadence, like the gurgling of a
subterraneous bog-stream.
O'Flummery, though once a student of Trinity
College, (his name is still on the books) was never
distinguished by his progress in classic literature,
and still less in the exact sciences. This is rather
anomalous ; for to see him strut over Carlisle Bridge,
no one would suspect that he coiUd have ever been
stopped by the Pons asinorum. To make amends,
however, for his want of academic honours, he has
lately graduated in an Orange lodge, where he
pledges the Glorious Memory with such surpassing
zeal, that his friends expect to see him shortly
rewarded by a comfortable provision under the last
Police-biU, Being the only gentleman in his lodge,
he is treated there with great respect, and his

232 IRISH PORTRAITS.
opinions on most subjects are impUcitly deferred to.
Yet there are two or three of the older members,
and, in particular. Brother Brannigan the common
councilman, whom he has not yet been able to bring
over to the doctrine, that William the Conqueror
and William the Third were not one and the self
same man. It was under Terry's auspices, that the
last attempt to dress "the statue" was conducted.
He also makes it a point, whenever the Constitution
is more immediately endangered by a rumour of
Emancipation, or by a verdict against an Orange
magistrate, to take a nocturnal stroU, with a suitable
retinue, into College Green, and salute the glorious
idol with a round of midnight yeUs, to the infinite
edification of the Orange watchmen, and the sore
discomfiture of the Catholic slumberers in the
neighbourhood. For these exploits our hero is
regularly invited to the city feasts.
Politics apart, however, the after-dinner thoughts
of O'Flummery will often take a more genial turn.
In the fine evenings of summer, he is fond of saun
tering alone within the railings of Merrion-square,
and indulging in those silent rhapsodies of sentiment
which youth and health and punch inspire. Upon
these occasions his step is more pacific, his eye emits

MR. TERENCE O'FLUMMERT. 283
a more tranquil fire. He hums a national air, and
though a Protestant and an Orangeman, glories in
the name of Irishman, He thinks of the O'Flum
meries, of their past acMevements, and their present
importance. He speculates upon his owh prospects
in Ufe, The wishes of his country have already
assigned him a handsome income on the police-
establishment ; but should this expectation fail,
Ireland has many other resources for the loyal — her
custom-houses, her stamp-offices, her post-offices, her
penitentiaries, her corporations (which never repent),
her coUectorships and deputy-coUectorships, and
many other ships, exceeding in number the British
navy ; or should his elder brother fortunately break
his neck at a hunt, Mount-Flummery and its fair
demesnes may yet be his ; or faUing all of these, the
splendid chances of a matrimonial hit are stUl in
reserve, and then he thinks of Cheltenham, and the
Manchester cotton-twister's daughter, aud his own
soft ways, and of aU he might have done, and all he
may yet do — until, kindUng with " the fervour of
youthful emotion," he determines, if he can only
raise the wind, to be off again to England in the
next day's packet.

284

IRISH PORTRAITS.— No. II.
SIE IGNATIUS SLATTEEY.
[March, 1825.]
Sir Ignatius "is one of those rare men whom"
the corporation of Dublin "alone produces, and of
whom she has produced too many for her glory,"
He was a cutler in his youth, and by dint of in
dustry and strong nerves, and stronger lungs, and a
conscientious attachment to his own interest in
every transaction of his life, has raised Mmself to
his present enviable station of personal affluence, and
civic importance. His appearance is striking, and,
until he speaks, rather imposing. He is full six feet
high, strongly and regularly built, with an Atlantean
breadth of shoulder to sustain the weighty concerns

SIR IGNATIUS SLATTERY. 285,
of a great city, and a commensurate rotundity of the
anterior frame, the growth of a long and liberal
participation in its festive comforts. His features
are regular, and even handsome; the complexion a
glossy florid, with occasional streaks of claret-colour
(claret is his favourite beverage) meandering through
the expanse of cheek,. A large, luscious, blood-
shotten, aldermanic eye, with an overhanging lid,
would at first view point him out as a mere civic
voluptuary; but examine it again, and although it
may persist in telling what is undeniable, that he
loves a good dinner, you will also discover in its sly
and sleeky roll, a character of practical acuteness,
and comic inteUigence as unequivocaUy marked.
His hair is grey, but, though he is now in his fifty-
sixth year, it has not yet been thinned by age or
care. To conclude, he is neat in his apparel, gene
raUy dresses in blue ; prefers long gaiters to boots,
ties his cravat in the old stock-like fashion, and,
in the worst of weather, never wears a surtout.
Such is the external appearance of this worthy cor
porator, as he . may be daUy seen moving down
Dame-street, to the tune of " The Protestant Boys,"
with the buoyant and confident gait of a prosperous
man, and of one determined to resist all newfangled

286 IRISH PORTRAITS.
innovations upon the system under which he has
thriven. Sir Ignatius is a stanch adherent of the Irish
Constitution, as settled at the Battle of the Boyne,
and illustrated by its favour to Protestant cutlers.
Until latterly, however, he was far from pushing his
principles to any intolerant extreme. With aU his
honest horror of extreme unction, he was quite con
tent that matters should remain as they were. He
thought it a right and a "mighty proper thing," that
his Catholic brethren (poor feUows !) should be
eligible to certain minor offices of trust and profit.
All he insisted upon was, that they should never be
elected. During a contest for the city, he was ever
ready to hold out the hand of peace to a Catholic
voter; and some years since, when threatened with
legal molestation touching a mere arithmetical error
in one of the city accounts, he showed so Uttle of
the bigot, that he privately sent O'ConneU a retain
ing fee. The thing transpired, and was warmly
taken up by some leading members of the Common
Council, but, being in office soon after, he com
pletely pacified them by the abundance and excel
lence of the wines at his public entertainments, and
by the jovial fury of his speeches from the chair.

SIR IGNATIUS SLATTERY. 287
announcing "the Glorious Memory." The knight
mentions the circumstance to this day, as a proof of
the dangers of liberality in politics. Two of the
malcontents, he says, brothers Hoolahan and Mo-
riarty, from the Guild of Heel-tappers, insisted on
being made dead drunk no less than three times,
before they promised to support him in the old
way. Sir Ignatius Slattery's life has been so Occupied
by more important matters, that he has been rather
inattentive to several branches of popular learning.
He knows little or nothing of ancient or modern
Mstory, ethics, statistics, polite literature,, grammar,
spelling, or punctuation. The politics of Dublin
have been his vocation, and there he shines as the
leader of a powerful party in the corporation. His
political talents depend mainly upon his oratory;
and that again consists not' so much upon his own
powers of speech, for he is rather apt to mis-pro
nounce, as in his rare capacity for interrupting
and embarrassing an opponent. He is the ablest
cougher-down within the liberties of Dublin, and
gains periodic laurels upon every post and quarter-
day, by the boisterous felicity of his cries "to
order," and his stiU more energetic beUowings for

288 IRISH PORTRAITS.
an adjournment. He usually makes merry upon aU
this when the effort is over, for it is a part of his
character to be waggish and self-raUying upon his
civic displays. There is indeed in his ordinary
intercourse with both friends and foes a certain
turbulent blunt facetiousness, which wonderfuUy
endears him to the congenial souls of his city friends.
This quality, and the circumstance of Ms being sup
posed to have picked up a few of the feelings of a
gentleman since he was made a city knight, caused
him to be admitted at the Castle as the butt and
bosom friend of more than one Irish viceroy. His
present Excellency has, however, for some Popish
reason or other, been strangely insensible to the
worthy corporator's claim upon his familiarity ; and
deep and ineffable is the ire with which he resents
the affront.
The idea of Ireland being tranquiUized without
the aid and sanction and occasional veto of the most
loyal of cutlers, is a thing so monstrous in itself, and
so subversive of every established bye-notion of the
corporation, that he has vowed to bring the patrons
of the innovation to public shame. This he does in
many ways. He collects authentic calumnies for
the anti-Castle press, which, with a few grammatical

SIR IGNATIUS SLATTERY. 289
corrections, produce a profound effect. At public
dinners, he is the first to vociferate for " the Exports
of Ireland," and such is his zeal, even "tips the
wink for the Glorious" before half the company are
drunk. He keeps up the spuits of the Orange
democracy by calling concUiation a humbug ; rouses
their fury by wUy encomiums upon their forbear
ance ; and by certain hems and nods, and other
symbols of fraternal significance, conveys to them
the inspiring assurance, that, let them go what
lengths they please, they will not want friends in
the city to back them. When the time arrives,
he does all he can to keep his -wford; for it is in
his deep sense of the duties of a political juror,
that Sir Ignatius pre-eminently excels. His golden
rule for the jury-box is, never to consent to a
verdict against a friend. For this he is content
to make the greatest of all sacrifices — the loss gf
a dinner and a night's rest. To make the incon
venience, however, as tolerable as possible, he
takes care, on the morning of the trial, to come
down to court with his nightcap, a box of sand
wiches, and a case-bottle of old sherry in his
pocket; and with these he wUl hold out against
VOL. IL U

290 IRISH PORTRAITS.
the law and the facts of any given case for eight-
and-forty hours, — "And call you not this backing
Ms friends?" His services in this way, or rather
Ms known readiness to serve, for he has more
than once been challenged, have made so deep
an impression upon his party, that they have
lately proposed setting him up for the city at the
next election, as a man of decided parhamentary
talents upon Irish questions. The rumour of this
(for he has not yet openly declared himself) was
no sooner circulated through the lodges, than
his own (No. 1603) appointed a deputation of
five to wait upon him at his country-house, with
a voluntary tender of every vote in the lodge,
at the moderate rate of five pounds each. Sir
Ignatius "thanked them (from a paper which
he held in his left hand) ; he did so from
the bottom of his heart (upon which he placed
Ms right). He talked of the approbation of his
conscience, and his love of the constitution, being
the sole guides of his political life ; — exhorted them
not to be bullied by any man, or set of men, out of
their good old principles of conditional aUegiance,
and their unalienable privileges of knocking down

SIR IGNATIUS SLATTERY. 291
Papists, and dressing the statue ; — assured them that
whUe an Orange ribbon was manufactured in Ire
land, he would be found at his post ; for that he for
one would never submit to see the freemen of
Dublin governed like Indian slaves ; — and concluded
by appreciating (without pledging himself to accept
of it) the high honour which his valued brethren
of 1603 proposed to confer upon him." — (Great
applause.) The oratory and cheering over, the deputation
were ushered into an adjoining room, where a cold
coUation, got up by the kmght's directions in the
very natest style, was prepared on the occasion.
Lady Slattery apologized for the absence of Orange
UUes, it being^ the winter sason; but to make
amends. Miss S., who presided at the pianoforte,
regaled their ears with some favourite constitutional
melodies, among which, the "Boyne Water," and
"Croppies lie down," with variations of her own,
were rapturously applauded. The deputation re
turned to Dublin in the evening, and conducted
themselves so peaceably, that they assaulted only
three out of the many Catholic passengers whom
they met upon the way. The general opinion in
u 2

292 IRISH PORTRAITS.
the lodge is, that should Sir Ignatius be retui-ned
Lord WeUesley and his government will be anmhi-
lated by his first speech.'
' Since the above was written, Sir Ignatius has been seen at
Archer's shop, inquiring for the best pronouncing dictionary.

293

IRISH PORTRAITS,— No. III.
MISS CELESTINA MAC SWADLUM.
[July, 1826,]
"Married by special licence, on the first inst, at
Kilmaclush, by the Dean, Brabazon Dashwood Brady,
Esq, eldest, son and heir of Hercules Brady, Esq, of
Knockdown Lodge, in the county of Tipperary,
grandson of the late Sir Ehadamanthus Dashwood,
Chief Justice of the court of Common Pleas, and
cousin to the present Lord Eaglemount, to Flaminda
Dorothea Murphy, youngest daughter of Theophilus
Murphy, Esq, of Bloom-park, in the county of
Mayo, and niece to the present Sir Orlando Casey,
After the ceremony, the happy couple, &c, &c,"
The above announcement, which figured some time
back in the matrimonial corner of the " Freeman's

294 IRISH PORTRAITS.
Journal," is a perfect sample of Irish domestic
oratory. The public are indebted for it to the genius
of Miss Celestina M'Swadlum, bridemaid iu ordinary
to the parish of Kilmaclush, in the county of Mayo,
and who in that capacity has cultivated with peculiar
zeal the art of emblazoning the most interesting of
family events, . The merits of this composition do
not appear " upon the surface," as the modern
phrase is : for the benefit, therefore, of the un
initiated, I shall proceed with the dogged dulness of
any commentator to analyse and expound them, I
foresee that I may be voluminous; but the fair
daughters of Erin, for whose edification this graphic
effort is especially intended,' wiU bear with me.
" Married," That's a fact, briefiy and simply
told by " a proper word in its proper place."
" By special licence," A fact also, but skilfully
put forward wdth an eye to effect, ^Vhether Flaminda
Dorothea Murphy were married by special licence
or by banns, the contract was equally binding on the
parties ; but Miss M'Swadlum well knew, that great
indeed was the difference in point of eclat with which
the tidings of the memorable event would burst upon
every tea-party in the county of Mayo, according to
the one or the other form of the ceremony. It was

MISS CELESTINA MAC SWADLUM. 295
important to inform them and the empire at large,
first, that the happy couple were Protestants;
secondly, that the cost of a licence was no object to
them; and thirdly, that Miss Flaminda's maiden
sensibihty had been spared the cruel exposure, to
say nothing of the delay, of three public announce
ments of the state of her affections,
" By the Dean of Kilmaclush," A rhetorical
flourish. The ceremony was not performed by the
Dean of Kilmaclush. That able churchman had set
out the day before for the spiritual camp at Cavan,
to co-operate in the noble project of healing the
bleeding wounds of Ireland, by the soothing balm of
theological controversy,
" Eldest son of Hercules Brady, Esq, of Knock
down Lodge, in the county of Tipperary," and (Miss
Celestina might have added) of the Marshalsea of
the Four Courts, in the city of Dublin — for there it
was that the elder Mr, Brady constantly resided for
several months preceding the marriage of his son,
and there it was that he signed the settlements ; and
had it not been for the timely relief afforded by a
part of Miss Murphy's fortune (which by the way
was only 7501., and therefore not 4000/. in the
funds, besides expectations from an aunt at Bath, as

296 IRISH PORTRAITS.
her bridemaid represented it) there he must have
continued to the present hour, or else have submitted
to see Knockdown Lodge knocked down to the
highest bidder,
" Grandson to Sir Ehadamanthus," a far famed
judge, of whom it may truly be said, that the less
that is said of him the better,
" Cousin of Lord Eaglemount," — True — not, how
ever, a first, or second, or third, or fourth, or fifth
cousin — but an Irish cousin,
"Youngest daughter" — only daughter, and there
fore both youngest and eldest — but the former as
suggesting ideas of juvenility was skilfuUy preferred,
"Bloom Park,"— There is little truth in the
common assertion, that " man has done so little for
Ireland," He has, on the contrary, given to the
bleakest spots, in the bleakest districts, such pic
turesque and fascinating names, that every country
would appear in description to be a paradise of
villas. How cheering to the fancy — how associated
with ideas of ornament and shelter, and rural
elegance and ease, her Beech-groves, and Fir-groves,
and Grove-mounts, and Eose-mounts, and Wood-
parks, and Bloom-parks i Bloom-park, the seat of
Theophilus Murphy, Esq. is to be seen about two

MISS CELESTINA MAC SWADLUM. 297
mUes to the right of the mail-coach road leading
from Bally-smashem to Killbotherum, in the county
of Mayo, The site of this commodious mansion,
(one of the most picturesque in that part of Ireland)
is on the acclivity of a primeval mountain, supposed
to be among tbe most ancient in the three kingdoms,
which ascends in proud and barren sublimity to the
rear of the house, and several hundred feet above
the level .of the sea. In front, almost as far as the
eye can reach, is an expanse of noble bog^-diversified
here and there by clusters of turf-stacks, and pre
senting oh its western border, far in the distance,
yet distinctly visible from the windows of the break
fast-parlour, the still perfect skeletons of two houses
that were burnt down during the rebellion of ninety-
eight. The naansion itself has been constructed
upon the chastest principles of Irish architecture —
walls with gable-ends, high slanting roof, hall-door
, in the centre, and a window for every room. Its
western aspect and elevated position give it the full
benefit of the bracing gales, that during the winter
months sweep across the Atlantic, and moan pathe
tically through every crevice of the building, like
the sounds of a distant death-cry. The trees of the
Park, from which the mansion takes i^s name, have

298 IRISH PORTRAITS.
not yet grown up : but there are some acres of
thriving young plantations of fir and larch, which, in
about twenty years more (if not previously cut down
for pike-handles, or to pay off incumbrances) will
justify the present designation of the place.
The immediate vicinity of Bloom-park is not
without some local recollections of an interesting
kind. At the Cross (cross roads) about a quarter of
a mile from the house, a person named James Carney,
commonly called Shamus Eou, was hanged in chains,
forty years ago, for the murder of a tythe-proctor.
A heap of stones, by the road-side, marks the spot
where the victim received the mortal blow. Near to
this is a field, where more recently a magistrate
of the county broke his neck at a fox-chase. The
historical ruins, on the verge of the bog, have been
already mentioned. In the bog itself there have
been discovered, within the last half century, a
Carthaginian sabre, wanting only the handle, and
three quarters of the blade ; some fragments of a
gold bracelet, of the fashion usuaUy worn by court-
ladies in the time of King Malachi, half a hom of
a moosk-deer, and the skeleton of a man in Mgh
preservation, supposed to • be the remains of an
ancient Irish Eapparee : — such is Bloom-park.

MISS CELESTINA MAC SWADLUM. 299
" The present Sir Orlando Casey," — meaning
thereby, at the least, an Irish baronet ; but there
never was a late, and never wUl be a future Sir
Orlando. Orlando Casey was an active, pusMng,
and prosperous button-manufacturer of the city of
Dublin, In the course of time he threw himself
into the corporation, seized the proper moments to
be loyal, proposed resolutions, coughed down amend
ments, figured upon juries in mnety-eight, was made
a sheriff, carried up an address to the Castle, and
came down " the present Sir Orlando Casey,"
Considering the long-bowism of thfe above, no one
would suspect that Miss M'Swadlum was over-piously
inclined; yet, strange to say, she has contrived to
reconcUe a departure from accuracy in her reports
of sublunary transactions with the most edifying
anxiety for the souls of her benighted countrymen.
From her spiritual alertness she is styled by the
profane wits of the county. Saint Celestina; but she
smiles in exalted scorn at such impious waggery.
One of her favourite plans for carrying her holy
objects, has much originality. The moment the
potatoe crop is expected to fail in a particular
district. Miss M'Swadlum, ever remembering that
food for the soul is the great want of Ireland, lays

300 IRISH PORTRAITS.
in a supply of the most nutritious tracts, and keeping
a steady eye upon the progress of the visitation, from
the first perceptible collapse of the public jaw, down
to the final stages of abdominal grumbUng, seizes
the happy moment of confirmed inanition, and pours
in the mental aliment upon the attenuated population.
This method of conversion has not succeeded accord
ing to its merits; for Popery, more indomitable
than the wild elephant, refuses to be subjugated
even by an empty stomach ; but Miss M'Swadlum
does not repine at the failure, " She feels," to use
her own expressive language, " a noble consciousness
of having done her duty," And yet her powers of
proselytism are unquestionable. Since her ministry
commenced (about five years ago) she has brought
over two lame beggarmen of Kilmaclush to eat meat
on a Friday ; and latterly a most interesting little
half-starved orphan girl, only six years old, has been
so moved by her arguments and her gingerbread,
that she has consented to become a good child,
and renounce the errors of Popery, ¦ upon the sole
condition of being comfortably provided for in a
Protestant charity-school.
Miss M'S, has been for the last ten years in her
thirtieth year. Her person is rather above the

MISS CELESTINA MAC SWADLUM. 301
middle size ; but this she corrects by a pious stoop.
As to her face, from her rapturous holiness it must be
admitted that she has " Heaven in her eye ;" but
there is nothing celestial about the other features.
They are, on the contrary, rather marked by a
certain terrestrial acidity, which strangers to her
spiritual worth might at first sight confound with
the symptoms of an intolerant spirit. Her dress is
elaborately ascetic, both in form and colour : she
has determined not to risk her eternal prospects for
the sake of worldly flounces and trjmmings, and
looks upon flame-coloured silk as a type of never-
ending combustion. Her ordinary conversation is
tea-and-tractish ; that is to say, she talks of new
plans of conversion, and of the failings of her neigh
bours. She thinks that Sir Harcourt Lees is the
most lucid of divines, in his lucid intervals; she
thinks the church is in danger; she thinks with
Doctor Magee that the religion of the Catholics is
abominable — and further agrees with him in thinking
that they have no religion. She thinks that Doctor
Doyle, with his Popish propaganda doctrines, wants
to set fire to aU Ireland, and particularly to the
parish of Kilmaclush ; and to avert such a crisis, she
thinks that Mrs. Hannah More ought to be made

302 IRISH PORTRAITS.
an Irish bishop, and that Lady Morgan ought to be
immolated. Miss M'Swadlum is a permanent vice-president of
the Kilmaclush-London-Hibernian-Female-Branch-
Auxiliary-Tract-distribution Society ; but she denies
that she either proposed or seconded their celebrated
fourth supplemental resolution — "that, to prevent
misrepresentation, all the important objects of the
society were in future to be carried into effect by a
committee, to consist of twelve gentlemen and as
many ladies, with liberty, &c. &c."

303

IRISH PORTRAITS,— No, IV,
CAPTAIN SANDFOED, NED LAEKINS,
FATHEE CON, &c.
including some particulars of the late
disturbance of the county of 
[October, 1826.]
" By my troth. Captain, these are very bitter words,"
Mrs, Quickly.
My friend Captain Sandford is one of the most
good-humoured persons imaginable, except when
those cursed Irish poUtics sour his temper — at pre
sent they have put him in a violent passion, and
seem likely to keep him so for the rest of his life.
My opimon is (and I more than once have hinted as
much) that he ought to listen to reason and be
appeased, but tMs only aggravates his wrath; so I
must leave it to the public to defcide between us.
The subject of the present difference of sentiment
between us arose in the following way.

304 IRISH PORTRAITS.
The battle of Waterloo was no sooner won, and
Napoleon fairly bundled off to St. Helena, than the
captain then quartered with his regiment at Chelms
ford, taking up the last "Courier" one morning, found
himself included among a list of warriors who had
his Majesty's gracious permission to repose for the
present under the shade of their laurels. In other
words, his regiment was to be disbanded, and himself
put upon half pay. Nothing could have been more
disconcerting to a man whose curtailed military
income was now to be his only means of support,
and to whom a pint of port per day had absolutely
become a necessary of life. At the appointed time,
notwithstanding a flattering rumour in the interim,
that the regiment, instead of being reduced, were
positively to be sent to New South Wales, the — ^th
foot were released from their military bonds, the
officers dispersed, and the captain on the evening of
the fatal day found himself sitting in the three-pair
back-room (No, 56) of the Golden Cross, Charing
Cross, with his portmanteau, travelling-bag, umbrella,
and Ms future prospects lying before him. The
latter stared at 'him in a way that made him feel pe
culiarly uncomfortable, for they gave him fully to
understand that he was, in fact, in that precise

CAPTAIN SANDFORD, ETC. .^05
predicament, which, in his various speculations upon
the possible events of his military career, he had
never taken into fuU account. To have had his
head carried off at a second's notice by a cannon-
ball, or to have had both legs amputated above the
knee-joint, or to have been cashiered for sending a
chaUenge to ' his superior officer (for the captain is
an Irishman) — any of these would have been in the
order of natural and probable occurrences ; but to
be thus in the prime of life, with all his limbs about
him, and without the slightest breach of the articles
of war, gazetted down from his comfortable full-pay,
besides lodging-money, coals and candles, was what
he considered a very singular proceeding, to say the
least of it, on the part of his king and country.
Pondering upon aU this, he first vented his indig
nation against the Horse Guards in the usual terms,
next rang for a tumbler of brandy and water, cold
without sugar, and then proceeded to meditate over
his future movements. Several courses were open
to him. He might try his luck with a sixteenth in
the forthcoming lottery, and settle himself in the
mean time in some cheap board and lodging-house,
in one of the streets off the Strand ; or he might
join the patriots of South America; or suppose he
VOL. II. X

306 IRISH PORTRAITS.
were to make a circuit of the watering-places,
beginning with Margate, in search of a rich widow;
or  , Here his meditations were suspended by
the appearance of something framed and glazed, that
stood upon the chimney-piece of No. 56, and which
upon inspection turned out to be, not an engraving
from the production of any other artist, but an
original and highly-coloured picture of cheap living,
drawn up by the master-hand of M, HippoUte Du-
pont, who had just opened an establishment at
Boulogne, whereat it was made manifest by an
annexed table of charges, that a man might daily
eat, drink, and sleep, in a very princely style, for the
price of a bottle of port, at the port-drinking side of
the channel. The terms struck the captain as expressly
designed for a British hero on half-pay, and unde
cided upon his future plans ; and accordingly in less
than four and twenty hours, one of the sturdy water-
nymphs of Boulogne was gaily prancing over the surf,
with my worthy and gallant friend upon her back.
He was landed in perfect dryness, and proceeded
towards the hotel of M. HippoUte Dupont, to drink
French wine upon reasonable terms, and resume the
consideration of his subsequent movements.
Upon approaching the house, whom should he see

CAPTAIN SANDFORD, ETC. 307
standing at the door, and in the act of attempting
to explain to a French hurdy-gurdy girl that there
was such a tune extant as " Patrick's Day in the
Morning," but Ms old rattling Irish acquaintance,
the celebrated Ned Larkins, who used to give him
such pleasant dinners, when his regiment was quar-
tetied ten years before at DubUn. The first cordial
greeting being past, " My dear captain, and son of my
old friend," said Larkins, " I congratulate you from
the very bottom of my heart and soul upon this late
event; but what in heaven's name brings you here at
such a moment ?" The captain, who saw nothing very
congratulatory in recent events, gave a start and look,
which seemed to ask for explanation. " I mean,"
said Larkins, " that nothing but your actual presence
here could have satisfied me that you were not on
your way to Ireland to take possession." — " To take
possession !" ejaculated the half-pay captain, " in the
name of wonder, of what ?" " You have not heard
then from Ireland lately ?" — " No," — " Nor seen the
late Irish papers ?" — " No," — " And don't know that
old Nick Sandford has gone at last ?" — " Nor that
either," said the captain — "but even so?" — "But
even so," repeated Larkins with Hibernian vehemence
of intonation, " thunder and blazes ! but give us
X 2

308 IRISH PORTRAITS.
your fist again, my boy. Why, by his death, you
only become tenant in fee-simple to as neat a twelve
hundred a-year, in the county of — — , as ever was
bought or sold, and that with proper management
may be made as much more,"
The captain started again, and opened Ms mouth
in silent amazement, and kept it so for some seconds,
during which short space of time the foUowing
ideas posted through the interior with a rapidity
peculiar to Irish brains. He recollected to have
heard, when a boy, that his father, the eldest son,
had married against the consent of his father, old
Hercules Sandford, of Drunmarone, in the county
of  , and that thereupon old Hercules proceeded
without loss of time to retouch and republish his last
wUl and testament, by which, as thus amended, the
family estate was finally settled in such a manner,
that five of the captain's uncles, and their respective
issue, and three aunts, and their issue, were succes
sively to take it, with the usual power in due time of
barring all remainders, before his (the captain's)
rights as heir at law could come into operation.
The possibility therefore of enjoying Drunmarone ,
had appeared so utterly remote, that for years he had
ceased to give the subject a thought. For as he

CAPTAIN SANDFORD, ETC. 309
grew up he had looked into Malthus, and he there
found that in all countries, and most especially in his
own beloved island, there was a tendency in mouths
to increase beyond the means of filling them ; and
therefore to suppose that five Irish uncles, and three
Irish aunts, should all and each of them make a
point of acting in such contradiction to the esta
bhshed rule of multiplication, "in such case made
and provided," as not to leave behind them even one
single mouth to receive the twelve hundred pounds
a-year, that was ready to drop into it, was altogether
so untenable an expectation, that the captain thought
he showed his sense in never venturing to entertain
it. AU this he now recollected; and he further
remembered, that in point of fact he had, when
entering the army about twenty years before, half a
dozen or more full-grown cousins, any one of whom,
if surviving, must have a prior claim to Drunmarone,
The remembrance of all this made the captain
grievously incredulous. His first words were, " Im
possible, my dear friend: surely there are my
cousins: my cousin Kit, for instance." — "Your
. cousin Kit ! why, my dear captain, where have you
been not to have heard that your cousin Kit, poor
fellow, was killed in 98, leading on the Eebels at the

310 IRISH PORTRAITS.
battle of Eoss," The captain without stopping to
shed a tear to his memory, proceeded : " But there
were others : my cousin John — young Jack Sand
ford 1" — " KUled as dead as a door-nail at the same
battle, as he was running away at the head of the
L  militia," — " And young Dick Sandford ?"—
" Broke Ms neck over a five and a half foot stone
wall, at a great Killamey stag-hunt, about seven
years ago," — " But he had a brother," — " He had,
and I knew Mm well — young Harry Sandford, The
last Galway election settled him. I was on the
ground myself, and thought him badly groomed; but
he died like a gentleman, and insisted on having two
shots more after he knew that he was mortaUy
wounded," In this manner Ned Larkins rattled
through the obituary of the devisees in old Hercules
Sandford's will; and in the course of ten minutes
conversation satisfied the captain, that he was in fact
and in law entitled to the immediate possession of
the fair demenses of Drunmarone, together with the
very desirable mansion of Mount Sandford.
The captain had fought in the Pemnsula, where
he had faced the cannon's mouth, withstood the
brunt of a cavalry charge, and scrambled up a
forlorn hope through the hottest fire; but never

CAPTAIN SANDFORD, ETC. 311
upon any military occasion of his life did his frame
evince such signs of perturbation, as when the com
plete assurance burst upon him, that from being a
half-pay captain, wandering through the wide world
in search of cheap living, he was henceforth to figure
upon the grand jury panel of the county of  , as
Frederick Augustus Sandford, of Mount Sandford,
Esq. The brilliant image of sudden opulence
dazzled his vision; the big drops burst in an agony
of joy from his brow; his knees became as relaxed as
the knees of one of Homer's heroes in a fright;
and had not, his friend supported Mm, he would have
sunk to, the ground in a syncope of bliss. These
symptoms of good news, howevpr, quickly vanished ;
and to prevent a relapse, the captain called for some
wine, and tossed off a tumbler of M, Dupont's best
Beaune, without taking the precaution to ask the
price. By the advice of Larkins, the captain determined
upon recrossing the Channel that evening, in the
same packet that had brought him over. In the
interval they took an early dinner together. At first
the captain was unusually silent, having so much to
think of, that he had not a word to say ; but, as the
second bottle of Burgundy circulated, his powers of

312 IRISH PORTRAITS.
conversation revived, " My dear Ned," said he, " I
wish you could accompany me to Ireland, I know
nothing of the management of an estate, and, if left
to myself, shall be terribly at a loss how to act in
many things. The advice and assistance of such a
friend as you, just to set me going, would be invalu-
ble. If you could only — " — " Impossible, captain."
— " Come, come, you must not refuse me. I know
your friendship for me," — " My friendship for you
would make me go through fire and water to serve
you, but the fact is, my dear captain, that I must
stay where I am at present — just to keep out of the
way of a certain Uttle scrap of Irish parchment.
You understand me ?" — " No," — " Have you never
heard of a latitat ?" — " I understand you now ; but
cannot I — " — "No, no; that's quite unnecessary:
it's only a couple of hundred, and not a debt of my
own either ; but the May rents are coming in, and
the thing will be settled before another month," —
" And then I may expect you ?" — " I'U look in upon
you about Christmas, In the mean time I'U give
you a Une to my own attorney, old Mat Nagle— as
shrewd, active and hospitable a fellow as ever lived.
He knew your father well, and will treat you as if
you were his own son. There wUl be no harm, how-

CAPTAIN SANDFORD, ETC. 313
ever, in getting all his bills of costs taxed, for his
faUing, if he has one, lies that way. He'll manage
your lawsuits in Dublin, and recommend an inteUi
gent local agent to bring your country ejectments.
He's also up to everything in your county, and wUl
give you aU sorts of useful information. And then
as to my advice ; — but captain, as this is a serious
matter, suppose we first clear off this bottle, and try
a flask of , Champagne with tumbler glasses." The
Champagne was brought, and Larkins threw off half
a pint at a gulp. The vinous essence thus copiously
administered, ascended to the brain by a short cut
known only to itself, and affected the seat of thought
beyond the exMlarating point, Larkins became
serious, sentimental and retrospective; and with
infinite gravity delivered, in his own circuitous way,
the following golden rules of conduct for Irish
country gentlemen : —
" And so, my dear, captain, before you go to Ire
land to Uve upon your own estate, you wish to get a
few hints from a friend on the occasion. And you
shall have them; though thinking and talking of
Ireland is enough to break down my spirits, for the
country is clearly going to rack and ruin. You
can't remember what it was, as I do : I'm some

314 IRISH PORTRAITS.
years older than you, for you can't be turned of
tMrty-five, and were a mere boy when we lost our
parliament ; but that vUlanous Union has destroyed
us ; and what cuts one to the quick is, to tMnk that
it might have been prevented, — if the friends of the
country had only gone down in a body to the House,
and each picked out his man. I was at the private
meeting at Daly's club-house, where the thing was
debated. We had the pistols and seconds all ready;;
but they spoke of such a proceeding being a breach
of the Constitution ; and in a week's time they
hadn't as much of their Constitution left as might
be thrown to a beggar. And what's the conse
quence ? Why, the old spirit of the country is dead
and gone, and our peers are afraid, or ashamed, to
live in the land that feeds them, and our county-
members, for nine months of the year, are perched
up in London cock-lofts, the devU reUeve them;
and our young fellows, instead of staying at home in
their own counties, and keeping up the old breed
of fox-hounds, and learning to clear a five-bar gate
as their fathers did before them, are flying off to
Cheltenham and other foreign parts, and bringing
back their English airs, and humming their damned
ItaUan — bravuras I think they call them, as if the

CAPTAIN SANDFORD. ETC. .315
fox-hunter's jig, or Jackson's morning-brush, hadn't
music enough in it for the ears of an Irish gentle
man. (Here's bad luck to the Union, and to them
that sold their country !) But I, my dear captain,
am now too old to change my notions ; and I can
not forget the different kind of men I was reared
and Uved among; and therefore my advice to you
is, to fix yourself down upon your own estate, and
to look to your interest in the county, and (the
bottle's with you, captain,) to keep the best of wine
in your cellar, and, if you give it but once a year,
to give plenty of it — and never, either in your own
or at a friend's house, to begin a story with the
bottle at your right elbow, for, though you may not
be thirsty, your neighbours may. And your estate
is a fine one, and, as I said before, may be made
worth a couple of thousand a year ; but you must
always talk of it in a quiet careless way, as a clear
three thousand — don't start, dear captain — you'll
find all your neighbours trebling theirs, and holding
up their heads accordingly. You'U be on the grand
jury, of course — but see that the sheriff gives you
your proper place on the panel. In my day, if a
sheriff dared to insult a gentleman by putting
another over his head that had no right to be there.

316 IRISH PORTRAITS.
the business could only be settled on the sod; but
times are altered now, except in the county of Gal
way ; and, therefore, in this you'U act according to
your discretion. And when you are in the grand-
jury rooin, you'll find them all talking of the pubhc
and thinking of themselves, and, therefore, my
advice to you is, never to help on a job for one of
them without securing in return a presentment for
a cross road on your own estate. And, captain, of
all things be on your guard when you go to a race or
assize-ball, for with your fine income you'll be a
marked man, and they'll be letting go their hand
some daughters at you, and you, perhaps, little
thinking, seeing them so finely dressed, that the
only fortune the best of them can bring you is a
lawsuit with the father, a duel with the brother, and
a tune on the piano-forte. And this, my dear cap
tain, is all in the way of advice that occurs to me at
present." Before a week had elapsed. Captain Sandford was
in peaceable possession of the lands of Drunmarone, .
and the family mansion. Mount Sandford; and as
lucky accidents will sometimes, Uke misfortunes,
follow close upon each otlier's heels, he had the
further gratification of finding that, by a wUl made

CAPTAIN SANDFORD, ETC. 317
some years before, his predecessor had'bequeathed
all the household appendages, plate, furniture,
Hbrary, wine-ceUar, in which some dozens of prime
old Port stUl remained, with the usual etceteras,
to such person as at the time of his decease should
be entitled to the possession of the estate. The
captain took this as a personal compliment on the
part of the testator, and in return put on a black
coat, and mounted a crape on his hat, and tried
occasionaUy to look as grave as the foreman of a
coffin-warehouse ; but in spite of all his efforts he
found it impossible to be heartily melancholy. And
one of the reasons was this — the house, which was
most commodious and in exceUent repair, was
situate on a verdant bank that descended by a
graceful slope down to the edge of a beautiful and
spacious lake — all around were thriving plantatioiis,
shrubberies, gravelled walks, flower-plots, rustic seats
with recesses in the grotto style ; for the late pro
prietor, who was considered a kind of humourist,
had taken to horticulture in his latter years,
and, in pursuance of that elderly propensity, had
rendered the grounds of Mount- Sandford a model
of taste and neatness.
On the opposite side of the lake, distant about

318 IRISH PORTRAITS.
two mUes, stood the princely residence of Lord
Barryborough, Castle-Barry, flanked and backed as
far as the eye could reach with stately plantations,
which, seen from the dining-parlour of Mount-
Sandford, produced the effect of an interminable
grove : — so that when the captain, after a day passed
in traversing Ms grounds, and exploring his wine-
cellar, and rummaging here and there to ascertain
the extent of his late acquisitions, sat down in the
evening at the bow-window of the said dining-
parlour, with a bottle of his favourite beverage at
his elbow, and looking out upon the scene, saw the
rich verdure of the opposite shore, and the western
sun illuminating the waters, and the waters them
selves so tranquil as not to give a sign of motion to
the little pleasure-boat (it had also passed under the
will) which lay at anchor there before Mm, the
captain, being no poet, did not stop to contemplate
the inveni-portum resemblance of his own case to
that of the last-named object, but he feU into a
reverie, which, if audibly expressed, and taken down
by a reporter from the London papers, would run as
foUows : — " I certainly am one of the lucMest fel
lows that ever lived. Only ten days ago, and what
had I ? — a few miserable shillings per day, and the

CAPTAIN SANDFORD, ETC. 319
horrors of everlasting economy before me — but now
here I am. I wonder Larkins never mentioned this
lake. It's positively the most beautiful thing I ever
saw. A clear fourteen hundred a year regularly
paid, ahd aU of it let, I flnd, on short leases, and at
the lowest rents, I'll make no sudden changes,
but — that little boat I think a very pleasing object
— I must give it a flag with the Sandford arms on
it — But the thing can clearly be brought up to what
Larkins said. The neighbourhood too is charming,
and all my new friends so attentive and hospitable.
I hke Lord Barryborough of all things, I dine with
him to-morrow; with Sir Gilbert Bradshaw the
next day, and the next with Colonel Hetherington,
and so on for a week to come — How different from
bivouacking in the Peninsula ! I suppose Lord B.
has some unmarried daughters — ^there certainly was
something marked in Ms manner to me — but to-
morrowwill tell. I'll have him of course at my first
'let off' — ^how very agreeable it is^to be thinking
of aU these pleasant things." Thus meditated the
captain in the first delicious ecstasy of sudden
ownership; and although his judgment told him
that it was the most considerate thing imaginable in
his departed relative, to have made his farewell bow

320 IRISH PORTRAITS.
to the world at so opportune a moment, still, for the
reasons that appear in the above reverie, he found it
utterly impracticable to co-operate with the crape on
his hat, in the act of cordial mourning for his loss.
Six weeks had now elapsed, during which the
captain had been duly entertained by the neighbour
ing gentry, and had given his ovm first "let-off."
He had also become a magistrate of the county.
These had all been matters of course; but certain
appearances now sprang up, which struck him as
singularly mysterious, and,- therefore, demanding his
most serious attention. He was sitting alone after
dinner at the bow-window (now his favourite posi
tion), when he observed more smoke than usual
ascending from the chimneys of Castle-Barry ; and
a little while after, a succession of chaises, gigs, and
jaunting-cars winding through the demesne, led him
to infer that the work of roasting and boUing must
be going on within upon rather an extended scale.
The thing made scarcely an impression on him.
The idea just barely crossed his mind, that "as he
was still a stranger in the county, he might as weU
have been invited"— -and there the matter rested.
The next day, however, no sooner had he taken his
after-dinner position, than there was to be seen the

CAPTAIN SANDFORD, ETC, 321
smoke again emerging in massive volumes, and
veMcles, as numerous as on the preceding day, ad
vancing towards the castle. For two days more
the same appearances were regularly renewed.
Upon the last of them, the captain, not knowing
exactly what to think of the whole proceeding, and
to confess the truth, a little piqued at the continued
omission of himself, reconnoitred the guests, as they
drove up, through a pocket telescope that he had
used in the Peninsular war, and by the aid of its
magnifying qualities, satisfied his eye that one of
the gigs, and three if not four of the jaunting cars,
belonged to persons of far less property, considera
tion, and so forth in the county, than himself.
His pride was now really touched ; and had he
been a married man, I am certain that he would
have thus addressed Mrs. Sandford. " Between
you and me, love, I positively do think there's
something strange, if not marked in this. Here is
Lord Barryborough giving a round of entertain
ments — he knows that I can see it all from where
I sit. Day after day he invites several. I can
distinguish three or four, but I am certain there are
more, of — I say it without vanity— infinitely less
claims to that sort of attention than myself. And
VOL. II. ¦ Y

322 IRISH PORTRAITS.
jet? — I really begin to think there must be some
thing more than casual in the omission. And now
I recoUect, I scarcely noticed it before, but' certainly
it did strike me that though he was extremely civU
and all that, both in his own house and the day he
dined. with me, still there was somehow, in his whole
manner, a sort of a kind of a want of that perfect^
or what I would call brother-officerly frankness and
friendship of tone, with which he treated his other
guests. And I must also say — it may be a miscon
ception — but now that I turn the matter over in
my mind, I unquestionably do feel that with respect
to all the other leading persons here, there has been
from the first great politeness to be sure, and offers
of agricultural advice and so forth, but a particular
kind of almost undefinable standoffishness which I
am utterly at a loss to comprehend. There posi
tively must be somethitig in the background that I
do not see — but I shall keep a sharp look-out ; and
as there is fortunately to be a meeting of the magis
trates to-morrow on that new line-of-road affair, I
shall make a point of attending, and may, perhaps,
succeed in ascertaining what it is,"
The captain not having a Mrs, S. to say this to,
said it to himself, and posted off the next morning

CAPTAIN SANDFORD, ETC. 323
to the county-town to commence Ms plan of obser
vations. The new line of road being a favourite
project of Lord B's, there was a full attendance of
magistrates to help it on ; and the captain watched
them as keenly and closely as if they were an
enemy's advanced piquet on the right bank of the
Ebro. Upon his return home, the following memo
randa were distinctly legible on the tablets of his
brain. Lord B, had given him a shake of the hand
— but a shake, how different from the cordial,
vehement, knuckle-bruising grasp with which he
greeted the others. Then, both before and after
the business of the day was dispatched, there
seemed no end to his lordship's confidential . com
munications with them. He would take sometimes
one, sometimes two or three apart, and produce a
letter from his side-pocket, and appear to ask their
advice upon its contents, and draw forth another,
probably the sketch of a reply, and hear them
deliver their opinions upon it in animated whispers.
In (this way, every magistrate on the bench, except
Mmself, had been admitted to one or more private
confabs, during which about ; a dozen manuscripts,
and three newspapers had been produced and dis
cussed. The subject-matter, whatever it was, must
Y 3

324 IRISH PORTRAITS.
have been important and interesting; for at the
close of every conference, the eyes of the parties
either flashed with indignation, or glistened as if
with the joy of anticipated triumph. Once or twice
as the parting squeeze was passing, the captain
thought he could catch the sounds of his lordship's
voice articulating something about " not being later
than half-past six," but of this he was not positive. ¦
His brother magistrates were all as civil as could be,
but none of them had asked him to turn his horse's
head in the direction of their houses. The captain,
pondering upon all this, became more and more
satisfied that there was a certain reserve afore
thought in their manner towards him, and was
considering and reconsidering in what possible way
he could have rendered himself the object of their
distrust and dislike, when he was agreeably inter
rupted by the arrival of a letter from his friend
Ned Larkins, It was dated from Dublin, and
briefly stated that the latitat, — affair had been settled,
that the writer did not forget his Christmas assig
nation, but that in the mean time, having an unex
pected occasion to pass through the county of  ,
he could not resist the opportunity of looking in for
a day or two at Mount-Sandford, and would accord-

CAPTAIN SANDFORD, ETC. 325
ingly have his legs under the captain's mahogany
on the third day after the date of the letter — a
postscript hinted that the writer had a mortal aver
sion to stylish fare, and liked notMng so well as a
corned leg of pork.
Larkins arrived at the appointed time. The din
ner-cloth was no sooner removed, and the friends
seated t^te-a-tete at the bow-window, than the cap
tain proceeded to put Larkins in possession of the
exact predicament of feeling in which he found him
self. Larkins listened to the details, and the captain's
reasoning upon them, with unusual gravity of coun
tenance, and continuity of attention, so as evidently
to show that he looked upon the entire matter in a
stUl more serious point of view than his friend had
done. " I can see, my dear friend," said the cap
tain in conclusion, '' that the whole business strikes
you precisely as it does myself. The question there
fore is, what Uae of conduct I am called upon under
all the circumstances to pursue," — " My opinion,"
replied Larkins, " is shortly this. Every body knows
that my friend over the water there — for he and I —
he hadn't the title then — fought a duel five-and-
twenty years ago upon a slighter matter than this, and
we are sworn brothers ever since — but as I was saying,

326 IRISH PORTRAITS.
every one knows that he has the county under his
thumb; and that not one of the lads about. here, I
know them well, ventures so much as to set his
kitchen-clock except by his repeater; so that, if
anything like a run be intended against you, and, to
tell you my honest opinion, it has very much that
ugly sort of look. Lord Barryborough must be at
the bottom or the top of it.
" Now, this being the case, if the question you have
just asked was put to me when I and Old Ireland
were some twenty or thirty years younger, here is,
to a word, the kind of answer I'd have given. Bid
ding you leave the whole matter to me, I'd just
throw myself into the little boat I see there, and
paddle myself across to his hall-door, and send up a
civil message that I had a word for his private ear
that couldn't be postponed — and, when we came
together, the sum and substance of my discourse
would be, that he must either satisfy your wounded
feelings by a full and immediate explanation, or else
have the matter amicably settled on the turf before
breakfast hour to-moirow morning. But, my dear
captain, though not yet an old man, I have lived to
see strange changes and modern notions springing
up, as I believe I mentioned lo you when we last

CAPTAIN SANDFORD, ETC. 327
met, and, amongst other things, a sort of prejudice
against powder and ball, that our forefathers never
dreamt of. Such, therefore, being the case, instead
of troubling your boat for the present, I'll just sit
where I am, and take share of another bottle of
this fine old Port — (it reminds me of the last bottle
the poor old Duke of Leinster gave me) — and to
morrow, after breakfast, I'll take a quiet ride across
the country to my friend Mick Evans. You can't
have met him ; for on coming along I heard that he
has been laid up with the gout since you came here ;
but though he has now retired from county politics,
he still knows all the pros and cons of the county, as
weU or better than any other man in Christendom :
therefore make your mind easy. He and I are of
the same good old school, and neither of us has a
thought that's not at the other's service. So just
put it down as settled, that before this time to
morrow we'll have got at the secret of all this busir
ness. In the mean time, here's Old Ireland as she
was when I first knew her 1"
Nearly an hour beyond the usual dinner-hour had
elapsed the next day, before Larkins returned.
" WeU, captain," said he, dismounting, " I have
not kept you waiting for nothing, I have got a fast

328 IRISH PORTRAITS.
hold of the beginning and middle of this business :
how the ending is to be, will depend on yourself.
But the thing is not to be told in a breath; and,
besides, to teU you the honest truth, from the time
I got up into the keen air upon the hUl over there, I
have been able to think of nothing but that other
corned leg of pork you promised me to-day." They
sat down to dinner. " By the way," said LarkinSj
'' did I never tell you the poor old Duke of Leinster'^s
joke about me and this dish ; but -first captain, just
give me another sUee, and as near the knuckle as
you please. It's in glorious order to-day, and the salt
completely through it. Why, we were all dining at
Carton after a hard day's hunt with the KUdare
hounds, and not a thing that I could see upon the
table but French bedevilments and forced-meat bul
lets, and pigeons' heads peeping out from under pie
crusts : so I gave my head a turn — so — towards the
side-table, just as naturally, I suppose, as a horse
that's expecting his oats. ' Don't be alarmed, Ned,'
says the duke, who knew what I was at, — ' the
corned leg of pork is coming,' 'My dear Ned,'
says Denis Bowes Daly, who sat between us, * I
never knew you liked a corned leg of pork.' ' Like
it!' says the duke, in that honest, hearty, fami-

CAPT-4.IN SANDFORD, ETC. 329
liar way he had, ' the moment he sees it, he neighs
at it ;' and so it was, whenever I dined with him at
Carton, or Leinster House, as many a time I did, no
inatter who was there, the honest friendly soul was
sure to come up to me, and, ' Ned,' he would say in
a whisper, ' the corned leg of pork wUl be on the
side-table for you,' But come, captain, now that
I have had my oats, suppose we get our legs
snugly under the little round table at the window
here. Come, this is just the thing. And now — but
first, while I think of it, let us fill to the memory
of the old Duke of Leinster, Here he goes, my
poor fellow ! and a pleasant time to him wherever
he is, for a better Irishman never breathed ; and, as
his old butler said of him the night he died, ' If he
has not met with a hearty welcome in Heaven, they
must be mighty particular about their company
there,' " And now, my dear captain, to the business. I
have been closeted for three hours with Mick Evans,
and find the thing to be pretty much as you sus
pected. There is, he tells us, a feeling, and a pretty
strong one, against you in this part of the county.
' What the devil,' says I, ' can the captain have said
or done to them ? ' — ' The fact is,' says he. ' Captain

830 IRISH PORTRAITS.
Sandford has now been here for six weeks, and has
never yet declared his politics; or, to speak more
plainly, he is strongly suspected of being an enemy to
the Protestant cause,' — ' The captain,' says I, ' never
gave me a hint of that,' — ' It's the general suspicion,
however,' says he, ' and, among the proofs of it,
they tell me that he only half fiUed Ms glass when
the Glorious Memory was given at Lord Barry-
borough's ; that he didn't propose a single loyal toast
at his own table ; and that he, more than once, has
spoken of the expense of the new line of road very
much like a person of dangerous principles,' — ' As to
the Glorious Memory and new line of road,' says I,
'I can say nothing; but this I know, that I dined
tete-a-tete with him yesterday, and the very first toast
he made me fill to was ' The King, God bless him 1'
and he probably gave it on the occasion you speak
of — ' But, my dear Ned,' says he, fixing that ferrety
old eye of his upon me, ' are you now to learn for the
first time, that that is not what is meant by loyalty
in this country?' — 'I see what you are at,' says I, 'go
on, — ' And then,' says he, ' you seem not to know
the present condition of the county — I mean with
a view to the next election,' — '1 know,' says I, 'that
the present members. Lord Barryborough's brother

CAPTAIN SANDFORD, ETC. 331
and nephew, walk over the course,' — ' They probably
wUl,' says he; ' but, — now my dear captain, we're
on honour here, and not a .syllable of this is to be
breathed for the present — ' but' says he, ' there may
be an attempt made to disturb the county. It was only
discovered a few days ago, though the mine has been
secretly working for the last year. You know Sir
Hector Stuart?' — 'Eight well,' says I; 'and a keen lad
he is. I believe he's three-quarters Scotch for carry
ing a point, whether he has to work above or below
ground,' — ' And you have probably heard,' says Mick,
' that he has been lending considerable sums upon
security in this county?' — 'About eight thousand
pounds,' says I, ' at five per cent,' — 'More than double
that,' says he ; ' and at the interest you mention ;
but — ;and this is the secret that has just come out —
for every thousand pounds advanced, he has the bor
rowers privately pledged to be forthcoming when
caUed upon, at any time during the continuance of
the debt, with at least one hundred votes each : so that,
in fact, if there was to be an election to-morrow, he
would have the nomination of the two members. And
hence all this unusual bustle at Castle Barry, where
Lord Bi and his friends are employed for several
hours every day making fresh freeholders as fast as

332 IRISH PORTRAITS.
they can sign the leases, and engaged in evening con
sultations upon the various plans to be adopted for
securing the county in his family, , If the old Dow*-
ager Lady Barryborough would only come down
with about ten thousand pounds at four per cent,,'
one half of Sir Hector's interest might be bought
up and the matter settled; but she has quarrelled
with her son, and refuses to advance a shiUing.' —
'And in all these consultations,' says I, ' was nothing
quietly thrown out about either of the sitting mem
bers giving Sir Hector an opportunity, one of these
fine mornings, of brushing the dew off the daises in
the nearest convenient field? You and I, Mick,
remember the day when many a better man had to
measure his length upon a cabin door for a smaller
matter than disturbing a county.' — ' It was proposed,'
says he, 'but after full debate it was considered,
under all the circumstances, to be too strong a mea
sure. Other projects also were suggested and dis
missed ; and their great plan now is to increase their
interest by the creation of new freeholds, to such an
extent as may deter Sir Hector from any attempt to
open the county.' — 'Well, my dear Mick,' says I, ' all
this, to be sure, is very curious and interesting ; but
what I don't exactly see is, how it can affect my

CAPTAIN SANDFORD, ETC. 333
friend Captain Sandford's reception among them.
He is not suspected, is he, of being in Sir Hector's
plot?' — ' No, no,' says he,/ by no means; but, upon
looking into the state of Ms property, they have
discovered that he has not so much as a forty-shilling
freeholder upon it :' so that the upshot of the busi
ness, my dear captain, is shortly this, — your politics
are suspected, and your estate has been so mis
managed, that you have no manner of weight or
influence iu the county ; and this is the secret of all
this coolness towards you,"
The captain listened to these details with more
patience than satisfaction ; and, when his friend had
concluded, frankly confessed that his position was an
awkward one, and proceeded to ask, whether any
particular line of conduct had occurred to him as
the most expedient to be pursued. " First and fore
most," replied Larkins, " instead of those hedge
rows, and melon-beds, and artificial grasses you
have been talking of, you must lose not a moment
in planting a few hundred freeholders on your estate.
The prime cost wiU not be much, and nothing pays
in the long run like them. You can easily give
yourself four or five hundred to begin with. With
them you will be a man of importance in the county;

334 IRISH PORTRAITS.
without them you see you are nothing : so you must
give Mat Nagle a line by to-morrow's post to come
down with the leases. There's not a man in Ireland
that understands the matter better, or that can make
the soil go farther in this way. I have known him
raise some hundreds of votes from a patch on the
side of a bleak mountain, that another would not
have thought of turning in a starving goat to break
his fast upon : but, in a word, only tell him how
many you want, and leave the rest to him,
" Then as to your politics — but surely, my dear
captain, you have not been making any rash declara
tions on this subject," — " Not that I am aw^are of,"
said the captain, " Oh, I thought you had too much
good sense to commit yourself." — "At the same
time," added the captain, " I candidly confess to
you, that upon that business of the CathoUc claims
— living, you know, in the army, and having so many
brother-officers of that persuasion, and seeing how
our CathoUc soldiers behaved in the Peninsula— I
have never been able to make up my mind exactly
against them. Your opinions, I can perceive, are
the other way."— "Not at all, my dear friend,"
repUed Larkins, — "of course I say this between
ourselves ; but that does not prevent my teUing you

CAPTAIN SANDFORD, ETC. 335
how I would act in your place ; for I would not,
when I could help it, see your father's son go astray :
he and I, poor feUow ! belonged to the same com
pany of the Old Volunteers, and Uved Uke brothers
ever after. Here's to the memory of Lord Charle-
mont, and the old Volunteers of Ireland I But they
were put down, and the country has been going after
them ever since, or, to speak more plainly, that
Union has not left us a country to talk about. So
that, as to you or me, whatever our real sentiments
may be — and the Catholics have not a warmer friend
than myself — but as to anything that any one man
can say or do for them or their question, what is it
but making enemies for himself, without any return
of pleasure or profit ? And further, what is it but a
drop in the ocean after all, when all the world knows
that, instead of having a parliament of our own, to
live among us and Usten to us, every vagabond of an
East India Director, or Jamaica slave-driver, or
timber-merchant from Quebec, can do more by a
wink with them that govern us, than the voices of
aU the country gentlemen of Ireland put together.
So that here we are just neatly tied up hands and
feet, and lying to be kicked or coaxed as best may
suit their pleasure or convenience; and therefore.

336 IRISH PORTRAITS.
my dear captain, what has a man of sense to do but
to keep his private thoughts to himself, and accom
modate himself to Ms company, and try to get as
large a slice as he can of the little that's going?
(Here's bad luck to them that sold their country)
for when a man's house is on fire, surely the least
he can do is to warm his own hands at it. So that,
to come at once to the point — Lord Barryborough is
in present possession of the county; and in my
opinion, and in Mick Evans's, who knows the business
better, will succeed in keeping it. You must either
join him, or quarrel with him. When you are a
little longer here, you'll see there is no middle course.
Now, if Castle-Barry was at the other end of the
county, you might, perhaps, take some time to make
up your mind ; but here you are settled down for
the rest of your life, within sound of his dinner-beU;
and you have already discovered that it has httle
music in it when heard day after day crossing the
lake at half-past six ; but this will be a mere trifle
to what you are to expect if you refuse to join him.
The country gentlemen about you, for they're
Orange to the back-bone, every man of them, "will
shun you as if you were just dropt from a plague-ship.
Your name will be struck out of the grand-jtiry

CAPTAIN SANDFORD, ETC. 337
panel — private memorials wUl be sent up to Dublin to
have you removed from the commission — every lad in
the county that wants a walking-stick wiU have only
to step into one of your nurseries and help himself,
and you may whistle for justice at the quarter
sessions — Lord Barryborough vdU try your right to
keep that Uttle boat upon the Lake there, and be
sure to get a verdict against you. But, to make an
end of it, they'U worry you from year's end to year's
end, till you get a dose of rural life you little dreamt
of, and then find yourself left to your conscience,
and perhaps the priest of the parish, for company
and consolation : so that nothing remains for it but
to mount an Orange lily like the rest of them, or
else to put up Mount-Sandford to the highest bidder,
and make a civil bow for once and aU to the county
of  ."
The captain admitted that Larkins had put the
case in a very forcible point of view, but hinted that,
both on the ground of public principle, and of per
sonal feeUng, after the sUghts he had received, he
should have a difficulty in suddenly declaring himself
a supporter of Lord B.'s politics, "As to pubhc
principle," said his friend, " you'U be doing nothing
more than many, who pretend to the most of it,
VOL. IL z

338 IRISH PORTRAITS.
are doing every day. Isn't there, for instance, my
friend Billy Clinch, who was as ready as another to
handle a pike in '98, and who still signs the CathoUc
petitions, and sets up for a patriot of the first water
in the city of Dublin : and yet it's a settled thing
(this I have from Mick Evans) that every vote upon
the estate he has just purchased in this county, is
to be at the disposal of Lord Barryborough. And
then, as to the difficiUty of declaring your sentiments,
all you'll have to do is to ask half-a-dozen of
the lads to dinner ; and, as soon as the cloth is
cleared away, just to order a bumper round, and
give the Glorious Memory, throwing in a knowing
wink — so — and you'll immediately be put down for
' one of the right sort,' for that's their word, and
ever after treated accordingly. Of course, in joining
Lord Barryborough, you'll take care to make your
terms. The interest that you can bring to the poU
ought to be worth at least a lieutenant-colonelcy
to you. So push the bottle captain, and I'U give
you ' Honour and honesty all the world over,' "
Larkins departed on the foUowing morning, leaving
Ms friend to meditate upon the counsel he had given.
The captain's breast was, for the greater part of that
day, the scene of an obstinate and well-fought strug-

CAPTAIN SANDFORD, ETC. 339
gle between interest and principle. He took a hasty
meal, and the combat was stiU as undecided as the
battle of Waterloo before the arrival of the Prussians.
Up to that hour, interest had, upon the whole, by
certain wUy and weU-directed movements, been
gaining ground ; but a few glasses of good old Port
now caused principle to raUy with renovated strength
and courage ; and he was in the act of meditating
one desperate charge that must have carried every
thing before it, when the clang of Castle-Barry
dinner-beU rushing across the lake, instantaneously
changed the fortune of the day. Principle was
panic-struck, " sauve qui pent " was the word, and
the enemy was left undisputed master of the field.
The reader must now be pleased to suppose that
ten years and a half have elapsed. In the interval
no change of dynasty had occurred in the county
of  . Lord B. had effectually baffled Sir Hec
tor's machinations, and had nine-tenths of the
landlords (our captain among the rest) so thorougMy
in his interests, that the remotest apprehension of
a contest had never interfered with his repose ; but
no sooner had the writs for the last election issued,
than he discovered, first with contempt, then with
anger, and finally with a feeUng approaching to
z 2

340 IRISH PORTRAITS.
dismay, that the county was positively to be disturbed,
and, what made the matter worse, upon Popish prin
ciples. J  B  W  , Esq, of BaUynaclish,
declared himself a candidate, and put forward an
address, every third word in capitals, in which he
pronounced the county of  to be the most glorious
of counties, and himself in every way unworthy to
represent it, " but stiU in support of a great public
principle, and called upon as he had been," &c.
Two days before the election, I went to pass a week
with Captain Sandford, He had just been called
upon by Lord B. for Ms contingent, and, when I
arrived, was sitting with the sub-sheriff, poring over
rent-rolls, registry-books, and similar documents, in
order to ascertain the effective force that he could
bring to the poll. The result of the investigation;,;;
was as follows. Of five hundred original freeholders
created in 1815 (they were all in the barony of
Shanakilty, and thence called "the ShanakUty boys") .
it appeared from the returns of casualties, that ten
had been hanged for wUful murder, twenty-five
transported under the Insurrection Act, three hanged
and twenty-two transported for stealing the captain's
sheep, five had died a natural death, fifteen from
wounds on the head received at fairs, and fifty of

CAPTAIN SANDFORD, ETC. 341
typhoid starvation, six had absconded to avoid pro
secution, and fourteen (ten of them capitally charged)
were then in the body of the county-jail to abide
their trials at the next assizes — thus leaving, according
to the captain's calculation, a net balance of three
hundred and fifty available votes : but the sub-sheriff
corrected the toU, by taking credit for thirty more
that could easily be had by the personation of so
many of the dead or absent.
Lord B, called in at Mount Sandford in the course
of the day. He spoke in energetic terms of the
daring attempt then making to disturb the county.
He said that the conduct of the priests was flagi
tious — that their sole object was to create a rebel-
hon of the tenants against their landlords — that such
proceedings under his friend Saurin's government
would have been put down by military force — that,
in every constitutional point of view, a priest had no
more right than a peer to interfere, either directly or
indirectly, at au election, and that he would himself
bring in a bill next session to make that doctrine
law. He then pulled out of his pocket a hundred
copies of a printed address, headed " Barryborough,
Union and Independence," to be distributed by the
captain, and inquired whether he could rely on their

342 IRISH PORTRAITS.
fidelity. The captain was positive his men would
do their duty. " You must, however, look closely
after them, my dear Sandford," said the peer : "just
now, in coming here, I perceived that scoundrel
Father Slaney (there's not a greater villain unhung,
said the sub-sheriff) ; he was then within a few yards
of your gate, talking Irish to one of your tenants'
wives ; and from the insolent look he gave me, I
think I can suspect his business." When his lord
ship rose to depart, the captain proposed to ride a
part of the way with him. They had scarcely passed
through the avenue gate, when Lord B., pointing to
a woman who was standing at the door of one of the
road-side hovels, observed — "There is the woman I
mentioned to you a while ago." — " That," said the
captain, " is the wife of one of my very best men.
Mrs, Flynn, is your husband within?" — "Indeed
then he is within, please your worship's honour, and
please your lordship," replied Mrs. Flynn, dropping
a deep and awe-struck curtsy, that bruised her
knee against the horse-shoe wMch was naUed for
good-luck to the threshold of the door. "Flynn,"
continlied the captain, " is too comfortably circum
stanced to think of going against us : stiU I'll just
dismount for a moment, to see if these priests have

CAPTAIN SANDFORD, ETC. 343
been tampering with him." — " And I'U go in with
you," said his lordship ; " the servants can lead the
horses gently on."
They dismounted, and entered the tenement of
Captain Sandford's best man, and very comfortable
tenant. Flynn was sitting in the chimney-corner
upon the only chair that the estaJblishment afforded.
Around him were half a dozen children, from the
ages of four to twelve, who, taken all in all, would
have formed most interesting exhibitions for the
fashionable circles of New Zealand, as specimens of
the wonders of civilization. His youngest son, a
promising "three years' old," was sprawling in a
corner with a litter of young pigs, occupied with
them in a course of mutual instruction in the art of
grunting. All but the pigs received the visitors in
solemn sUence. Flynn rose from his seat with much
humility, and some slight signs of apprehension.
Alarm was more distinctly visible in the foreboding
eye of his consort. " Well, Flynn," said the cap
tain, "how have you been coming on lately?" —
" But middling enough, your honour," repUed
Flynn. — " Oh, finely, your honour," said his wife,
casting a reproving glance at her husband, " The
praties," continued Flynn, " will be ruined entirely

344 IRISH PORTRAITS.
for want of a drop of rain." — " Don't be alarmed for
the potatoes," said the captain ; " we shaU soon have
plenty of rain, I promise you," — " Long hfe to your
honour!" ejaculated Mrs, Flynn: — "do you hear
that now?" (to her husband.) "But, Flynn," said
the captain, " there has been some bad work going
on of late about here : you understand me." " To be
sure he does, your honour," answered Mrs. Flynn,
addressing at the same time a rapid exclamation to
her husband in Irish, Flynn had more than once
officiated in a court of justice as an aUbi- witness, and
knew the importance of appearing, when closely
interrogated, to have " but little English about him,"
To this artifice he now resorted, and answered his
landlord's question, as if every word were the pro
duce of a separate hard struggle at translation.
" Why then, now — please your honour now — I have
heard some— talk of that same now-^" — "You know,
Flynn," continued the captain, " what kind of a land
lord you have had." — " Every body knows it well,"
said Mrs. F. — " And what you were before I took
you up, and gave you a freehold." — " Sure enough,''
said Flynn ; " if I have a voice (vote) at aU, who but
your honour gave it to me ? — and I have said that
same to the clergy before now," — "To whom?"'

CAPTAIN SANDFORD, ETC, 345
asked the captain quickly, — " To Father Con then,"
—"Father who?"— "He means Father Slaney,"
interpreted Mrs, F, ; " but the neighbours have a
way of caUing him Father Con, your honour, in
respect of his name-sake Father Tim." — " So then,"
said the captain, "Father Slaney has been talking
to you about this business," — "Sorrow the word,
then," said Flynn, " if the truth must be told ; but
I said that to him." The captain looked, as well he
might, incredulously at him ; and after a short pause,
said — " Flynn, I don't wish to change my present
good opinion of you, — On Monday morning —but you
understand me." " I does, your honour," said
Flynn, faintly. "To be sure he does," said Mrs.
Flynn, firmly. " But only," continued Flynn, " I
have just been thinking that if — " — " Be quiet then,
will you, Dan?" exclaimed Mrs, F, impatiently;
"or are you for destroying your wife and seven
childer? If he had fifty voices, your honour
should have them all — ^long may you reign over us 1"
Lord B, having made it a point that a peer ought
not to interfere in an election, observed during the
preceding dialogue a constitutional silence; but as
soon as they had remounted their horses, he in
veighed, with his accustomed animation, against the

346 IRISH PORTRAITS.
priests ; and impressed again and again upon the
captain, that it Would require all his sMU and influ-
enee to keep his tenants steady to their duty.
The election opened on the foUowing Monday,
and the captain had his three hundred and fifty free
holders ready to move into the scene of action at a
minute's notice. For two days he was not caUed
upon, the arrangement being that "the Shanakilty
men" were not to come in until a decisive blow was
to be struck. On Wednesday morning, however, a
herald from Castle-Barry crossed the lake, and de
livered the foUowing despatch : " The Shanakilty
men must be in before twelve to-day — keep them
steady, and victory is certain. A party of mounted
police wiU rcieet them at the two-mile bridge, and
protect them into the town. Should delay become
advisable, the sheriff and deputies are all with us,
B  ," The captain forthwith mounted his horse,
assembled his forces, delivered them a short harangue
upon the duties of independent electors, and, putting
Mmself at their head, gave the word to march. On
the way he tried to get up an occasional shout for
" Barryborough, Union and Independence;" but the
experiments were all decided faUures. On arriving,
however, at the two-mile bridge, the captain being

CAPTAIN SANDFORD, ETC. 347
then in the rear bringing up the stragglers, a shout
that rent the skies, accompanied by a waving of sticks
and hats, burst from the foremost men, and passed
with undimimshed enthusiasm through the entire
body. It instantly occurred to the captain that the
sight of the poUce had given them confidence, and
produced this result ; so joining in the huzzas, and
calling out " Bravo, boys, Shanakilty for ever," he
galloped forward to their head, when he found, not
a party of mounted police, but a mounted priest.
Father Con.
To describe the captain's countenance on this
occasion would be quite beyond my powers, I must
therefore try my hand on Father Con. I cannot
agree with the sub-sheriff in thinking that he looked
like a man that deserved to be hanged. He was a
taU, corpulent, middle-aged person," dressed in a new
suit of black, and mounted upon a horse as black
and sleek as himself. His countenance was rotund
and somewhat flatfish; the nose being rather Eoman
CathoUc than Eoman, In the upper part of the
face, especially in the dark, arched, bushy eye-M-ows,
the Spanish physiognomy prevailed. At that parti
cular moment, there was a half roguish, half popish
twinkle about his eye, in which temporal acuteness

348 IRISH PORTRAITS.
and spiritual zeal were appropriately commingled,
without at all detracting from that general oleagi-!
nous jollity of aspect, which showed that his tem
perament had nothing sombre in it, but rather
inclined him to look habitually at the bright side of
things in this world and the next. Such appeared
Father Con, and such, I have since heard, is his real
character. He said not a word, but, sitting firmly
in his time-polished saddle, and holding up his head
about a quarter as high as Doctor Magee in the act
of meditating an antithesis, looked on in tranquil
satisfaction, as the Shanakilty boys enfiladed past
him. The protecting party of police soon after met
them, and escorted them into the town. They had
scarcely entered the main street, when the first
remarkable object that struck the captain was Father
Con, How he had contrived to get there, no one
but Father Con himself could tell; but there he
was, moving quietly on a few yards ahead of the
party, and, as it were, bringing in " the Shanakilty
boys" under his especial auspices. The result of
this manoeuvre was, that they were received in the
town with universal acclamations, and "blessings'
here and hereafter," pom-ed upon their heads for

CAPTAIN SANDFORD, ETC. 349
not consenting to vote against their conscience and
religion. The captain hereupon halted them oppo
site the principal committee-room of Lord B,'s
nominees, and ascended to report their suspected
disaffection. It was accordingly debated whether it
was more advisable that they should be taken forth
with to the hustings, or be marched out of the town,
and inclosed till next day in the nearest pound, in
the hope that, in the interval, their allegiance might
he secured. After some opposition the former
course was decided on, and two or three long
speeches were accordingly delivered from the win
dow of the committee-room, importing, that it would
he to the eternal honour of the Shanakilty boys to
return the two candidates who were pledged to vote
against them. The doctrine was Ustened to in re
spectful sUence; and the captain, who was pledged
to bring his three hundred and fifty head of free
holders to the poll, was once more at his post, and
giring the word to advance, when the window of an
adjoining house was raised, displaying the portly
bust of Father Con, His appearance produced a
burst of rapturous acclamation. It had not been
the reverend father's intention to address them, but
some of the persons behind him suggested that he

350 IRISH PORTRAITS.
should say something, if only a single word, "just
to give them the sound of his voice in their ears as
they went to the poll." Father Con, upon this Mnt,
without throwing himself into an oratorical attitude,
but standing qmetly erect as he was, and taking a
pinch of snuff, with three preparatory taps on the
box to mark his composure, and looking down upon
the congregated mass with an aspect of paternal
famiharity, intermingled perhaps with a sUght touch
of the pride of spiritual control, delivered in a deep
stentorian voice the following sentence; judiciously
framed upon the model of Nelson's immortal signal :
— " Shanakilty boys (cheers), the hour is come
when your country (loud cheers) and yom* religion
(bursts of applause) expect that every man of you
will do his duty," (Thunders of applause,) The
rest is quickly told. The Shanakilty boys did their
duty. The popular candidate was returned ; had a
second started, he would have been equaUy suc
cessful; and the supremacy of Lord B,, in the
county of  , is extinguished for ever.
In what way the captain was individuaUy affected
by the catastrophe, or what had been his private
contract with Lord B,, I never could discover — my
friend being upon tMs subject as close as a Cornish

CAPTAIN SANDFORD, ETC. 351
borough ; but he made no secret of his exasperation.
For two days after the election, he could do nothing
but rave against Ms tenants, and issue distress-
warrants against them. On the morning of the
third, he was sufficiently calm to bear a part in a
dialogue, from which the following is an extract :—
'¦ My dear friend," said I, " you really allow yourself
to be too much ruffled by this accident." — " Prove
to me," said the captain, "that this was not the
most unconstitutional proceeding ever heard of, and
I have done," — " I have heard,'^ said I, " of a still
more unconstitutional proceeding. You are legaUy
qualified to vote at an election. To how many votes
are you entitled ?" — " To only one, of course," —
"Does the law intend that that vote should be
free or influenced ?" — " Perfectly uninfluenced," —
"Directly or indirectly, either by money, or any
other corrupt consideration?" — "Exactly." — "And
yet, my dear friend, you aUow yourself to be angry,
because you have not succeeded in violating the law,
by giving not merely your own legal vote, but three
hundred and fifty others, that ought to be as unin
fluenced as your own." — " But were they not aU my
own tenants?" — "They were — and therefore you
have a right to your rent, but not to their votes." —

352 IRISH PORTRAITS.
" And is property then to lose aU its influence ?" —
" It ought to lose the power of giving you three
hundred and fifty times as much influence at an
election as the constitution warrants. But the
truth is, my dear captain, that you country-gen
tlemen, not satisfied with the manifold advantages
of a legal kind that wealth bestows, have heretofore
contrived — " — " So then, you tMnk, it was I that
have acted unconstitutionally?" — "Between our
selves, I certainly do; and that your tenants had
the constitution with them, when they voted as they
pleased." — " But I'll distrain every one of the
scoundrels, for aU that." — "And they'll make a
bonfire of Mount Sandford, in honour of the free
dom of election."

THE END,

SaiSTED BI HAUBISON AND SONS, ST. MAKTIN'S LANS.

13, GREAT MARLBOROrGH ST., LONDON.
MARCH 1855.

NEW AND INTERESTING WORKS

PUBLISHED BT

MESSES. HURST AND BLACKETT,
SUCCESSOES TO IE, COLBMN.

HURST AND BLACKETT's NEW PUBLICATIONS.

THE MEMOIRS AND CORRESPONDENCE OF WIL-
LIAM LISLE BOWLES ; Late Canon Kesidentiary of Salisbury
Cathedkal, Rector of Bremhill, &c. By JOHN BOWLES, D,D.,
Assisted bv ALARIC A, WATTS, 3 vols, post 8vo, with Portrait, &c.
{In the press.)
Among the Correspondents of the Poet of Bremhill, including many of the
most distinguished persons of his time, may be enumerated the following :—
Byron — Wordsworth — Southey — Coleridge — Moore — Campbell — R, B, Sheridan
— Crabbe— Rogers— Milman — Warton — Heber — James Montgomery — The
Marquess of Lansdowne — Lord and Lady Holland — Lord Brougham — Sir G.
and Lady Beaumont — Sir T. N. Talfourd — Dr. Parr — Archdeacon Cox— Arch
deacon Nares — Sir H. Davy — Dugald Stewart — Sir R. Colt Hoare — James
Dallaway — Joseph Jekyl — W, Sotheby — W, Giffard — J. G. Lockhart — Professor
Wilson — W. Roscoe — W. S. Landor — Madame de Stael — Joanna Baillie— Mrs.
•Opie — Mrs, Southey, &c, &c.

LORD GEORGE BENTINCK: A POLITICAL BIO-
GRAPHY. By the RIGHT HON. B. DISRAELI, M.P. Fifth and cheaper
Edition, Revised. Post 8vo. 10s. 6d.
** This biography cannot fail to attract the deep attention of the public. We are bound
^0 say, that as a political biography we have rarely, if ever, met with a book more dexterously
handled, or more replete with interest. The history of the famous session of 1846, as
written by Disraeli in that briUiant and pointed style of which he is so consummate a master,
is deeply Interesting. He has traced this memorable struggle with a vivacity and power
•unequalled as yet in any narrative of Parliamentary proceedings," — Blackwood's Mag.
** Mr. Disraeli's tribute to the memory of his departed friend is as graceful and as
¦touching as it is accurate and impartial. No one of Lord George Bentiuck's colleagues
could have been selected, who, from his high literary attainments, his personal intimacy, and
party associations, would have done such complete justice to the memory of a friend and
Parliamentary associate. Mr. Disraeli has here presented us with the very type and embodi
ment of what history should be. His sketch of the condition of parties is seasoned with
some of those piquant personal episodes of party manoeuvres and private intrigues, in the
author's happiest and most captivating vein, which convert the dry details of politics into a
t«parkling and agreeable narrative.*'— Jlformng- Herald.

LORD PALMERSTON'S OPINIONS AND POLICY; AS
Minister, Diplomatist, and Statesman, during more than Forty Years
of Public Life, 1 vol. 8vo -with Portrait, 12s.
" This work ought to hove a place in every political library. It gives a complete view
<if the sentiments and opinions by which the policy of Lord Palmerston has been dictated as
a diplomatist and statesman." — Chronicle,
" This is a remarkable and seasonable publication j but It Is something more— it is a
valuable addition to the historical treasures of our country during more than forty of the
most memorable years of our annals. We earneitly recommend the volume to general
perusal." — Standard,

HISTORY AND BIOGRAPHY.

MEMOIRS OF THE COURTS AND CABINETS OF
GEORGE THE THIRD, From Original Family Documents. By
the DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM AND CHANDOS, K.G., &c. Second
Edition, Revised. 2 vols. 8vo., with Portraits. 30s.
opinions of the press.
" These volumes contain much valuable matter. The letters which George, first
Marquis of Buckingham, laid by as worthy of preservation have some claim to see the light,
for he held more than one office in the State, and consequently kept up a communication with
a great number of historical personages. He himself was twice Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland,
first, under Lord Rockingham, and secondly, under Pitt ; his most constant correspondents
were his two brothers, William and Thomas Grenville, both of whom spent the chief part of
their lives in official employments, and of whom the former is sufficiently known to fame as
Lord Grenville. The staple of the book is made up of these family documents, but there are
also to be found interspersed with the Grenville narrative, letters from every man of note,
dating from the death of the elder Pitt to the end of the century. There are three periods
upon which they shed a good deal of light. The formation of the Coalition Ministry in 1783
the illness of the King in 1788, and the first war with Republican France. Lord Grenville's
letters to his brother afford a good deal of information on the machinations of the Prince's
party, and the conduct of the Prince and the Duke of York during the King's illness." —
Tke Times,
" A very remarkable and valuable publication. The Duke of Buckingham has himself
undertaken the task of forming a history from the papers of his grandfather and great-
uncle, the Earl Temple (first Marquis of Buckingham], and Lord Grenville, of the days of
the second Wm. Pitt. The letters which are given to the public in these volumes," extend
over an interval commencing with 1782, and ending with 1800. In that interval, events
occurred which can never lose their interest as incidents in the history of England. The
Coalition Ministry and its dismissal by the King — the resistance of the Sovereign and Pitt
to the efforts of the discarded ministers to force themselves again into office — the great con
stitutional question of the Regency which arose upon the King's disastrous malady — the
contest upon that question between the heir apparent and the ministers of the Crown — the
breaking out of the French Revolution, and the consequent entrance of England upon the
great European war, — these, with the Union with Ireland, are political movements every
detail of which possesses the deepest interest. In these volumes, details, then guarded with
the most anxious care from all eyes but those of the privileged few, are now for the first time
given to the public. The most secret history of many of the transactions is laid bare. It is
not possible to conceive contemporary history more completely exemplified. From such
materials it was not possible to form a work that would not possess the very highest interest.
The Duke of Buckingham has, however, moulded his materials with no ordinary ability and
skill. The connecting narrative is written both with judgment and vigour — not unfrequently
in a style which comes up to the highest order of historical composition — especiaUy in some
of the sketches of personal character. There is scarcely a single individual of celebrity
throughout the period from 1782 to 1800 who is not introduced into these pages; amongst
others, besides the King and the various members of the royal family, are Rockingham,
Shelburne, North, Thurlow, Loughborough, Fox, Pitt, Sheridan, Burke, Portland, Sydney,
Fitzwilliam, Tierney, Buckingham, Grenville, Grey, Malmesbury, Wilberforce, Burdett,
Fitzgibbon, Grattan, Flood, Cornwallis, the Beresfords, the Ponsonbys, the Wellesleys, &c."
'-Morning Herald.
" These memoirs are among the most valuable materials for history that have recently
been brought to light out of the archives of any of our great families."— ^^OTniner.
"These volumes are a treasure for the politician, and a mine of wealth for the historiau."
Britannia.

HURST AND BLACKETT S NEW PUBLICATIONS.

MEMOIRS AND CORRESPONDENCE OF MAJOR
GENERAL SIR W. NOTT, G.C.B., Commander of the Army of Can-
dahar and Envoy at the Court of Lucknotv. Edited by J. H.
STOCQUELER, Esa., at the request of the Daughters of the late General,
from Private Papers and Official Documents in their possession. 2 vols.
8vo., with Portrait. 28s, bound.
" One of the most valuable and interesting books that can ever claim a permanent place
in a British library." — Standard.
" These highly interesting volumes give a valuable contribution to the history of India
and an admirable portrait of a most distinguished officer." — John Bull,
" These Memoirs with the Correspondence included in them will do, that Justice to the
part played by Sir W. Nott in the Affghan war, which it is undeniable preceding works haw
failed to do." — Athenaum,
" These memoirs of General Nott, wliom the editor very justly describes as a 'model
officer,' have beeu given to the world at the instigation of the hero's surviving daughters, A
more graceful tribute of dutiful affection to the memory of a departed parent it would be
difficult to name. It is at once a graphic picture of the soldier's career, and a noble monu
ment of his fame. The work issues from the press at a very fortunate moment The life of
an officer who followed in the footsteps of Wellington, making the Despatches of that
illustrious warrior his continual study, will be welcomed by many an aspirant for military
renown at this exciting crisis. The volumes form a valuable contribution to the biographical
stores of the age. To the young soldier, in particular, they will form a most valuable guides
worthy to be placed by the side of the Despatches of the great Duke of Wellington." — Messenger,
*' When the late General Nott died, the ' Quarterly Review' expressed a hope that some
means would be taken for giving publicity to his private letters and official correspondence,
because they so completely illustrated his high and chivalrous character, while a memoir of
hi3 life would hold out so admirable a lesson to British statesmen, and so good an example to
young officers. We are happy, therefore, to find that, under the able editorship of Lfr.
Stocqueler, the whole oi the most valuable portion of the general's correspondence has just
been published in two handsome volumes, which comprise also a most interesting memoir of
the gallant hero of Candahar, giving a complete account of the stirring campaign in Affghan-
istan, and throwing much light upon many important points hitherto left in obscurity. The
work will be eagerly welcomed by all — more particularly by military readers and those in
terested in our Indian dominions." — Globe.
"A biography of a first-rate soldier, and a highly honourable man. The book will often be
appealed to as a standard authority. A valuable and most authentic aditiou Is here
furnished to tbe true history of transactions which will ever hold a prominent place in the
annals of our Indian mle."— Dublin University Mag.
" We know not a book after the Wellington Despatches, more deserving of the study of
a young officer. It might be made one of the standard manuals of military education."—
Literary Gazette.
'This book is one of the most interesting records of military lift that we possess, and
a genuine memorial of one who has achieved a right to be reckoned among England's greatest
men." — Daily News.

NARRATIVE OF A RESIDENCE AT NEPAUL. BT
CAPTAIN THOMAS SMITH, late Assistant Powtical-Kesident at
Nepaul. 2 vols, post 8vo. 21s.
•'No man could be better qualified to describe Nepaul tlian Captain. Smith; andhis
concise, but clear and graphic account of its history, its natural productions, its laws and
customs, and the character of its warlike inhabitants, is very agreeable and instructive
reading. A separate chapter, not the least entertaining in the book, is devoted to anecdotes
of the Nepaulese mission, of whom, and of their visit to Europe, many remorkable stories
are told."— Pm*.

HISTORY AND BIOGRAPHY.

TURKEY: ITS HISTORY AND PROGRESS; FROM
THE JOURNALS AND CORRESPONDENCE OF SIR JAMES PORTER,
Fifteen Years Ambassador at Constantinople, continued to the Present Time,
with a Memoir of Sir James Porter, by his Grandson, SIR GEORGE
LARPENT, Bart. 2 vols. 8vo., with Illustrations. 30s. bound.
"These volumes are of an authentic character and enduring interest." — Athenceum.
"This book forms a very valuable repertory of information in regard to the past and
present state of Turkey. Altogether the information is completely given, and for all pur
poses of reference during the continuance of the struggle in the East, the book will be
valuable." — Examiner,
"To any of our readers desirous of forming an opinion for himself on the condition
and prospects of Turkey, we would advise a careful perusal of this work. No work on the
subject could have been better timed, while the information which it contains — unlike the
great bulk of those hasty compilations which a sudden demand has called into existence — is
not only accurate, but valuable." — Moming Chronicle,
"A most interesting, instructive, and valuable work. In no other book that we are
aware of, will the reader find the same amount of reliable information respecting the actual
condition and resources of the Sultan's dominions," — Moming Post,
" In these volumes we have the most complete and accurate description of the pMt and
pMsent position of the Turkish Empire to be found in our language," — Britannia,
" These volumes constitute a work for the future as well as for the present, in other
words, a valuable library hook as well as a book of great contemporaneous interest. Their
permanent value they derive chiefly from the deep research and extensive and minute in
vestigation of their first author. Sir James Porter, their present interest from the acute and
Uvely treatment of the events of the day by his grandson and continuator. In fact, we knovr
not where to find so perfect an account of Turkey in all its relations with the rest of the
world, military, political, and, above all, commercial." — Standard.
"This highly interesting work consists of two parts. The first volume, after a memoir
of Sir James Porter, proceeds to give a general description of the Turkish Empire, of its
natural and industrial productions, and its commerce, a sketch of its history from the in
vasion of Europe to the reign of Sultan Mahmud II., and an account of the religion and
the civil institutions of the Turks, and of their manners and customs, chiefly from the
data supplied by the papers of Sir James Porter, In the second volume we are made ac
quainted with Turkey as it is j the religious and civil government of Turkey, its Legislature,
the state of education in the Empire, its finances, its military and naval strength, and the
social condition of the Turks, are all in succession brought under review. The work gives a fuller
and more life-like picture of the present state ot the Ottoman Empire, than any other work with
which we are acquainted."— Joftn BuU.
"No publication upon the state and prospects of the Ottoman Empire, with which we
are acquainted can compare with the work now under notice for general utility. In addition
to investigations into the legislature of Turkey, its civil and religious government, its
educational institutions, and the system of instruction, its finances, military and naval
resources, aud the social condition of the people, ample details are given of its history, and
a short account of the progress of the actual struggle. These researches are interspersed with
Journals and letters, which impart a charming interest to the volumes. We hail the appear
ance of these volumes with satisfaction, as accurate information both on the history and the
actual condition of Turkey is niuch needed. Good books are ever welcome, and this is a good
book, cominginto our possession at the critical moment when it is most required." — Messenger*

HURST AND BLACKETt's NEW PUBLICATIONS.

THE LIFE OF MARIE DE MEDICIS, QUEEN OF
FRANCE, Consort of Henry IV., and Regent under Louis XIII.
By MISS PARDOE, Author of "Louis XIV, and the Court of France, in
the 17th Century," &c. Second Edition. 3 large vols. 8vo. with fine
Portraits.
" A fascinating book. The history of such a woman as the beautiful, impulsive, earnest,
and affectionate Marie de Medlcis could only be done justice to by a female pen, impelled by
all the sympathies of womanhood, but strengthened by an erudition by which it is not in
every case accompanied. In Miss Fardoe the unfortunate Queen has found both these
requisites, and the result has been a biography combining the attractiveness of romance with
the reliableness of history, and which, taking a place midway between the ' frescoed galleries '
of Thierry, and the 'philosophic watch-tower of Guizot,' has all the pictorial brilliancy cf
the one, with much of the reflective speculation of the other." — Daily News.
*' A work of high literary and historical merit. Rarely have the strange vicissitudes of
romance been more intimately blended with the facts of real history than in the life of Marie
de Medicis; nor has the difficult problem of combining with the fidelity of biography the
graphic power of dramatic delineation been often more successfully solved than by the
talented author of the volumes before us. As a personal narrative, Miss Fardoe's admirable
biography possesses the most absorbing and constantly sustained interest ; as a historical
record of the events of which it treats, its merit is of no ordinary description."—
John BuU,
MEMOIRS OF THE BARONESS D'OBERKIRCH,
Illustrative of the Secret History of the Courts of France,
Russia, and Germany. Written by HERSELF, and Edited by Her
Grandson, the COUNT DE MONTBRISON. 3 vols, post 8vo. 31s. 6d.
The Baroness d'Oberkirch being the intimate friend of the Empress of Russia,
wife of Paul I., and the confidential companion of the Duchess of Bourbon, her
facilities for obtaining information respecting the most private affairs of the
principal Courts of Europe, render her Memoirs unrivalled as a book of interest
ing anecdotes of the royal, noble and other celebrated individuals who flourished
on the continent during the latter part of tbe last century. Among the royal per
sonages introduced to the reader in this work, are Louis XVI., llarie Antoinette,
Philip Egalite, and all the Princes of France then living — Peter the Great, the
Empress Catherine, the Emperor Paul, and his sons Constantine aud Alexander,
of Russia — Frederick the Great and Prince Henry of Prussia — the Emperot
Joseph II. of Austria — Gustavus III, of Sweden — Princess Christina of Saxony
• — Sobieski, and Czartoriski of Poland — and the Princes of Brunswick and
Wurtemburg. Among the most remarkable persons are the Princes and
Princesses de Lamballe, de Ligne and Galitzin — the Dukes and Duchesses de
Choiseul, de Mazarin, de Boufflers, de la Valli^re, de Guiche, de Penthi6vre, and
de Polignac — Cardinal de Rohan, Marshals Biron and d'Harcourt, Count de
Staremberg, Baroness de Krudener, Madame Geoffrin, Talleyrand, Mirabeau, and
Necker — with Count Cagliostro, Mesmer, Vestris, and Madame Mara ; and the
work also includes such literary celebrities as Voltaire, Condorcet, de la Harpe,
de Beaumarchais, Rousseau, Lavater, Bernouilli, Raynal, de I'Epee, Huher,
Gothe, Wieland, Malesherbes, Marmontel, de Stael and de Genhs j with some
singular disclosures respecting those celebrated Englishwomen, Elizabeth Chud-
leith. Duchess of Kingston, and Lady Craven, Margravine of Anspach.
"A keen observer, and by position thrown in the high places of the world, the
Baroness d'Oberliirch was the very woman to write Memoirs that would interest future
generations. We commend these volumes most heartily to every reader. They are a
perfect magazine of pleasant anecdotes and interesting characteristic things. We lay
down these charming volumes with regret. They will entertain the most fastidious
readers, and Instruct the most Informed."— £j;ami7ier.

HISTORY AND BIOGRAPHY.

THE UFE OF MARGUERITE D'ANGOULEMi;
QUEEN OF NAVARRE, SISTER OF FRANCIS I., from numerous Original
Sources, including MS. Documents in the Bibliotheque Imperiale, and the
Archives du Royaume de France, and the Private Correspondence of Queen
Marguerite with Francis I. By MISS FREER. 2 vols., with fine Portraits^
engraved by Heath, 21s. bound.
OPINIONS OP THE PRESS.
"This is a very complete and cleverly- written life of the illustrious sister of Francis !.>.
and it may be said of her that the varied and interesting stores of French history offer no
theme more worthy of research aud study than the career of this great princess, who exer
cised so potent an influence over the politics and manners of the age of which she was
herself the brightest ornament. The published and manuscript documents and letters
relating to the life of Marguerite of Navarre, and which are indispensable to a correct
biography of this queen, are widely dispersed. The author has spared no cost or trouble ia
endeavouring to obtain all that were likely to elucidate her character and conduct. She has
furnished us with a very interesting and graphic sketch of the singular events and tbe-
important personages who took part in them during this stormy and remarkable period of
Preach and English history." — Observer.
"This is a very useful and amusing book. It is a good work, very well done. Tlie
ihthoress is quite equal in power and grace to Miss Strickland. She must have spent a'
great time and labour in collecting the information, which she imparts in an easy and
agreeable manner. It is difficult to lay down her book after having once begun it. This is
owing partly to the interesting nature of the subject, partly to the skilful manner in which it
has been treated. No other life of Marguerite has yet been published, even in France^
Indeed, till Louis Philippe ordered the collection and publication of manuscripts relating to*
the History of France, no such work could be published. It is difficult to conceive how*.
tader any circumstances, it could have been done better." — Standard.
" There are few names more distinguished that that of Marguerite d'Angoul6me in the
range of female biography, and the writer of this work has done well in taking up a.
subject 80 copious and attractive. It is altogether an interesting and well-writtejr
biography."— Literary Gazette.
" A work of high literary and historic merit. It is full of absorbing and constantly
sustained interest. In these volumes will be found not alone an incalculable amount o£
historical information, but a store of reading of a charming and entrancing character, and we-
heartily commend them as deserving general popularity." — Sunday Times.
" A work which is most acceptable as an addition to our historical stores, and which wilL
place the author in a foremost rank among our female writers of the royal biography of their.
own sex."— Jo/m BuU,
"A candidly, carefully, and spiritedly written production, and no one who peruses it
with the attention it'merita can fail to acquire a complete and accurate knowledge of the
interesting life of the best and most graceful woman who ever filled a conspicuous place in
the history of mankind." — Morning Herald.
" This life of Marguerite d'Angoul^me is entitled to high rank amongst the many excels
lent memoirs of illustrious women for which we have been largely indebted to female
authorship. The subject is eminently attractive," — Morning Post,
"Throughout these volumes the most intense interest is maintained. Like Carlyle,
Miss Freer has written as one whose thoughts and sympathies became assimilated to the
age. The biography of Marguerite of Navarre is a work upon which the author has.
lavished all the resources of her genius," — Britannia,

HUEST AND BLACKETT'S NEW PUBLICATIONS.

MEMOIRS OF JOHN ABERNETHY, F.R.S. WITH A
View of his Writings, Lectures, and Character. By GEORGE
MACILWAIN, F.R.C.S,, author of " Medicine and Surgery One Inductive
Science," &c. Second Edition. 2 vols., post 8vo., with Portraits, 21s.
" A memoir of high professional interest." — Morning Post,
" These memoirs convey a graphic, and, we believe, faithful picture of the celebrated
John Abernethy. The volumes are written in a popular style, and will afford to the general
reader much instruction and entertainment." — Herald.
" This is a book which ought to be read by every one. The professional man will find
in it the career of one of the most illustrious professors of medicine of our own or of any
other age — the student of intellectual science, the progress of a truly profound philosopher—
and all, the lesson afforded by a good man's life. Abernethy's memory is worthy of a good
biographer, and happily it has found one." — Standard,
" We hope these volumes will be perused by all our readers. They are extremely
interesting, and not only give an account of Abernethy, which cannot fail to be read wifli
benefit, but they discuss incidentally many questions of medicine and medical polity. Mr,
Macilwain is fond of anecdotes, and has inserted a great number j this does not render his
work less pleasant reading. We recommend it most strongly as an interesting, and, at the
same time, instructive ireB.H&Q.*^—MedicO'Chirurgical Review,

THE LITERATURE AND ROMANCE OF NORTHERN
EUROPE ; constituting a complete History of the Literature of Swedeiij
Denmark, Norway, and Iceland, with copious Specimens of the most cele
brated Histories, Romances, and Popular Legends and Tales, old Chivalrous
Ballads, Tragic and Comic Dramas, National Songs, Novels and Scenes from
the Life of the Present Day. By WILLIAM and MARY HO WITT. 2 vols.
post 8vo. 2Is.
" English readers have long been indebted to Mr. and Mrs. Howitt, They have now
increased our obligations by presenting us with this most charming and valuable work, by
means of which the great majority of the reading public will be, for the flrst time, made
acquainted with the rich stores of intellectual wealth long garnered in the literature and
beautiful romance of Northern Europe. From the famous Edda, whose origin is lost in
antiquity, down to the novels of Miss Bremer and Baroness Knorring, the prose and poetic
writings of Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and Iceland are here introduced to us in a manner
at once singularly comprehensive and concise. It is no dry enumeration of names, but the
very marrow and spirit of the various works displayed before us. We have old ballads and
fairy tales, always fascinating ; we have scenes from plays, and selections from the poetSj
with most attractive biographies of great men. The songs and ballads are translated with
exquisite poetic beauty." — Sun.

RULE AND MISRULE OF THE ENGLISH IN
AMERICA. By the Author of " SAM SLICK." 2 vols, post 8to. 21s.
*' We conceive this work to be by far the most valuable and important Judge Haliburton
has ever written. While teeming with interest, moral and historical, to the general reader^
it equally constitutes a philosophical study for the politician and statesman. It will be found
to let in a flood of light upon the actual origin, formation, and progress of the republic of
the United Stales." — Naval and Military Gazette.

HISTORY AND BIOGRAPHY-

THE JOURNALS AND COERESPONDENCE OF
GENERAL SIR HARRY CALVERT, Bart., G.C.B. and G.C.II., Ad-
JUT ANT- General of the forces under H.R.H. the Duke of York,
comprising the Campaigns in Flanders and Holland in 1793-94; with an
Appendix containing His Plans for the Defence of the Country in case of
Invasion. Edited hy His Son, SIR HARRY VERNEY, Bart. 1 vol. royal
8vo., mth large maps, 14s.
" Both the journals and letters of Capt. Calvert are full of interest. The letters, in
particular, are entitled to much praise. Not too long, easy, graceful, not without wit, and
everywhere marked by good sense and good taste — the series addressed by Capt. Calvert to
his sister are literary compositions of no common order. With the best means of observing
the progress of the war, and with his faculties of Judgment exercised and strengthened by
experience — a quick eye, a placid temper, and a natural aptitude for language rendered
Capt. Calvert in many respects a model of a military critic. Sir Harry Verney has per
formed his duties of editor very well. The book is creditable to all parties concerned in its
¦production."— Atkejusum.
RECOLLECTIONS OF MY MILITARY LIFE. BY
COLONEL LANDMANN, Late of the Corps of Royal Engineers,
Author of " Adventures and Recollections." 2 vols, post 8vo. 21s.
"JVIuch as has been written of late years about war and Wellington, we know of nothing
that contains so striking a picture of the march and the battle as seen by an individual, or so
close and homely a sketch of the Great Captain in the outset of the European career of Sir
Arthur WeUesley." — Spectator.
"The deserved popularity with which the previous volumes of Colonel Landmann's
adventures were received will be increased by the present portion of these interesting and
amusing records of a long life passed in active and arduous service. The Colonel*3
shrewdness of observation renders his sketches of character highly am^2sing."— Britannia,
COLONEL LANDMANN'S ADVENTURES AND Re
collections. 2 vols, post 8vo. 21s.
*' Among the anecdotes in this work will be found notices of King George III., the Dukes
of Eent, Cumberland, Cambridge, Clarence, and Richmond, the Princess Augusta, General
Garth, Sir Harry Mildmay, Lord Charles Somerset, Lord Edward Fitzgerald, Lord Heath-
field, Captain Grose, &c. The volumes abound in interesting matter. The anecdotes are
one and all amusing." — Observer,
"These 'Adventures and Recollections' are those of a gentleman whose birth and
profession gave him facilities of access to distinguished society. Colonel Landmann writes
so agreeably that we have Uttle doubt that his volumes will be acceptable," — AthencBum.
ADVENTURES OF THE CONNAUGHT RANGERS.
Second Series. By WILLIAM GRATTAN, Esa., late Lieutenant
CONNAUGHT RANGERS. 2 VOlS. 21s.
" In this second series of the adventures of this famous regiment, the author extends
his narrative from the first formation of the gallant 88th up to the occupation of Paris. All
the battles, sieges, and skirmishes, in which the regiment took part, are described. The
volumes are interwoven with original anecdotes that give a freshness and spirit to the whole.
The stories, and the sketches of society and manners, with the anecdotes of the celebrities of
the time, are told in an agreeable and unaffected manner. The work bears all the character
istics of a soldier*s straightforward and entertaining narrative."— SwTwtoy Times.

10 HURST AND BLACKETT^S NEW PUBUCATIONS.

PAINTING AND CELEBRATED PAINTERS, AN-
CIENT and MODERN ; including Historical and Critical Notices of the
Schools of Italy, Spain, France, Germany, and the Netherlands. Edited by
LADYJERVIS. 2 vols, post 8vo. 2is.
*' This book is designed to give to the general public a popular knowledge of the History
of Painting and the characters of Painters, with especial reference to the most prominent
among those of their works which are to be seen in English galleries. It is pleasantly written
with the intention of serving a useful purpose. It succeeds in its design, and will be of real
use to the multitude of picture seers. As a piece of agreeable reading also, U is unex
ceptionable." — Examiner.
" This useful and well-arranged compendium will he found of value to the amateur, and
pleasing as well as instructive to the general reader ; and, to give it still further praise, the
collector will find abundance of most useful information, and many an artist will rise from
the perusal of the work with a much clearer idea of his art than he had before. We sum up
its merits by recommending it as an acceptable handbook to the principal galleries, and a
trustworthy guide to a knowledge of the celebrated paintings in England, and that this
information is valuable and much required by many thousands is a well-proven fact."—
Sunday Times.
" In turning over Lady Jervis's pages, we are astonished at the amount of knowledge
she has acquired. We can testify to the accuracy of her statements, and to the judiciousness
of her remarks. The work will deserve to take rank with those of Waagen and Passavant.
To the art-student*s attention it is In every respect to be commended." — Messenger.
" It is not overstating the merits of the work to describe it as the most complete, and, at
the same time, one of the most trustworthy guides to a knowledge of the celebrated paintings
in England that has hitherto been published." — Observer,

CLASSIC AND HISTORIC PORTRAITS. BY JAMES
BRUCE. 2 vols, post 8vo. 21s.
This work comprises Biographies of the following Classic and Historic Per
sonages : — Sappho, jEsop, Pythagoras, Aspasia, Milto, Agesilaus, Socrates, Plato,
Alcibiades, Helen of Troy, Alexander the Great, Demetrius Poliorcetes, Scipio
Africanus, Sylla, Cleopatra, Julins Caesar, Augustus, Tiberius, Germanicus,
Caligula, LoUia Paulina, Caisonia, Boadicea, Agrippina, Poppaea, Otho, Commodus,
Caracalla, Heliogabalus, Zenobia, Julian the Apostate, Eudocia, Theodora,
Charlemagne, Ahelard and Heloise, Elizabeth of Hungary, Dante, Robert Bruce
Ignez de Castro, Agnes Sorrel, Jane Shore, Lucrezia Borgia, Anne BuUen, Diana
of Poitiers, Catherine de Medicis, Queen Elizabeth, Mary Queen of Scots
Cervantes, Sir Kenelm Digby, John Sobieski, Anne of Austria, Ninon de I'Enclos
Mile, de Montpensier, the Duchess of Orleans, Madame de Maintenon, Catherine
of Russia, and Madame de Stael.
" A book which has many merits, most of all, that of a fresh and nnhacknied subject.
The volumes are the result of a good deal of reading, and have besides an original spirit aud
flavour about them, which have pleased us much. Mr. Bruce is often eloquent, often
humorous, and has a proper appreciation of the wit and sarcasm belonging in abundance to
his theme. The variety and amount of information scattered through his volumes entitle
them to be generally read, and to be received on all hands with merited favour."— ^Mmincr.
'• We find In these piquant volumes the liberal outpourings of a ripe scholarship, the
results of wide and various reading, given Jn a style and manner at once pleasant and p'ictu.

HISTORY AND BIOGRAPHY. II

MIUTARY LIFE IN ALGERIA. BY THE COUNT P.
DE CASTELLANE. 2 vols, post 8vo. 21s.
" We commend this book as really worth perusal. The volumes make us famrliarly
acquainted with the nature of Algerian experience. St. Arnaud, Canrobert, Changarnier,
Cavaignac, Lamoricifere, are brought prominently before the reader." — Examiner.
"These volumes will be read with extraordinary interest. The vivid manner in which.
the author narrates his adventures, and the number of personal anecdotes that he lells^^
engage the reader's attention in an extraordinary manner." — Sunday Times,
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN ENGLISH SOLDIER IN
THE UNITED STATES' ARMY. 2 vols, post 8vo. 21s.
"The novelty characterising these interesting volumes is likely to secure them many-
readers. In the first place, an account of the internal organization, the manners and customs
of the United States' Federal Array, is in itself a novelty, and a still greater novelty is to^
have this account rendered by a man who had served in the English before joining thes.-
American army, and who can give his report after having every opportunity of comparison.
The author went through the Mexican campaign with General Scott, and his volumes
contain much descriptive matter concerning battles, sieges, and marches on Mexican
territory, besides their sketches of the normal chronic condition of the United States' soldiec -
in time of peace." — Daily News.
CANADA AS IT WAS, IS, AND MAY BE. BY THE
late LIEUTENANT-COLONEL SIRR.BONNYCASTLE. With an Account*
of Recent Transactions, by SIR J. E. ALEXANDER, K.L.S., &c. 2 vols., .
post 8vo. with maps, &c., 21s.
"These volumes offer t» the British public a clear and trustworthy statement of the
affairs of Canada, and the effects of the immense public works in progress and completed >
with sketches of locality and scenery, amusing anecdotes of personal observation, and gene
rally every information which may be of use to the traveller or settler, and the military and
poUtical Teader.— Messenger.
ATLANTIC AND TRANSATLANTIC SKETCHES. BY
CAPTAIN MACKINNON, R.N. 2 vols, post 8vo. 21s.
"Captain Mackinnon's sketches of America are of a striking character and permanent
value. His volumes convey a just impression of the United States, a fair and candid view of
their society and institutions, so well written and so entertaining that the effect of thei?
perusal on the public here must he considerable. They are light, animated, and lively, full-
of racy sketches,- pictures of life, anecdotes of society, visits to remarkable men and famous .
places, sporting episodes, &c., very original and interesting." — Sunday Times.
SPAIN AS IT IS. BY G. A. HOSKINS, ESQ..
2 vols, post 8vo. 21s.
*' To the tourist this work will prove invaluahle. It is the most complete and interesting
portraiture of Spain that has ever come under our notice." — JohnBull,
HISTORY OF CORFU; AND OF THE REPUBLIC
OF THE IONIAN ISLANDS. By LIEUT. H. J. W. JERVIS, Roya>
Artillery. 1 vol. post 8vo. 10s. 6d.
" Written with great care and research, and including probably all the particulars ot
any moment in the history of Corfu." — Athenaum,

12 HURST AND BLACKETT S NEW PUBLICATIONS.

THE MOSLEM AND THE CHRISTIAN; OR, ADVEN-
TURES IN THE EAST. By SADYK PASHA. Revised with original
Notes, by COLONEL LACH SZYRMA, Editor of *' Revelations of
Siberia." 3 vols, post 8vo. 31s. 6d.
*' Sadyk Pasha, the author of this work, is a Pole of noble birth. He is now commander
of the Turkish Cossacks, a corps organised by himself. The volumes on the Moslem and
the Christian, partly fact and partly fiction, written by him, and translated by Colonel
Szyrraa, display very well the literary spirit of the soldier. They are full of the adventures
and emotions that belong to love and war; they treat of the present time, they introduce
many existing people, and have the Danubian principalities for [scene of action. Here are
sources of popularity which the book fairly claims. As a translation, it Is excellent.—
Examiner.

HOME LIFE IN RUSSIA. REVISED BY COL. LACH
SZYRMA, Editor of " Revelations OF Siberia." 2 vols. postSvo. 21s,
" This work gives a very interesting and graphic account of the manners and customs of
the Russian people. The most interesting and amusing parts of the work will be found to be
those interior scenes in the houses of the wealthy and middle classes of Russia upon which
we have but scanty information, although they are some of the most striking and truthful
indications of the progress and civilization of a country. As such we recommend them to the
study of our readers." — Observer,
"A curious, extraordinary, and very entertaining memoir is contained in these volumes,
and at the present crisis cannot but command an eager perusal. The special recommenda
tion of the work to us is the novel view and clear insight it affords Englishmen of the real
character of the Russians. Their sayings and doings, and the machinery of their society, are
all laid unsparingly bare." — Sunday Times,
" So little is known in this country of the internal condition of Russia, or the state of
society in that enormous empire, that the contents of these volumes will naturally be perused
with great curiosity. The volumes abound in lively dialogue, and are enlivened by satirical
and humorous touches, and the manners and customs of the individuals composing what is
called the middle rank in Russia are graphically described," — Morning Herald,

REVELATIONS OF SIBERIA. BY A BANISHED
LADY. Edited by COLONEL LACH SZYRMA. Third and cheaper
Edition. 2 vols, post 8vo. 16s.
" A thoroughly good book. It cannot be read by too many people."— JDic*e««'i Hoiae-
Ttold Words.
" The authoress of these volumes was a lady of quality, who, having incurred the
displeasure of the Russian Government for a political offence, was exiled to Siberia. The
place of her exile was Berezov, the most northern part of this northern penal settlement ; and
in it she spent about two years, not unprofitably, as the reader will find by her interesting
work," containing a lively and graphic picture of the country, the people, their manners ahd
customs, &c. The book gives a most important and valuable insight into the economy of
what has been hitherto the terra incognita of Russian despotism." — Daily News.
" Since the publication of the famous romance the • Exiles of Siberia,' we have had
no account of these desolate lands more attractive than the present work."— Ctoie.

VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 13

NARRATIVE OF A JOURNEY ROUND THE VTORLD,
Comprising A Winter Passage across the Andes to Chili, vp-ith a
Visit to the Gold Regions of California and Australia, the South
Sea Islands, Java, &c. By F. GERSTAECKER. 3 vols, post 8vo.
31s. 6d. opinions of the press.
"Starting from Bremen for California, the author of this Narrative proceeded to Rio,
and thence to Buenos Ayresj where he exchanged the wild seas for the yet wilder Pampas,
aud made his way ou horseback to Valparaiso across the Cordilleras — a winter passage full of
difficulty and danger. From Valparaiso he sailed to California, and visited San Francisco,
Sacramento, and the mining districts generally. Thence be steered his coarse to the South
Sea Islands, resting at Honolulu, Tahiti, and other gems of the sea in that quarter, and from
thence to Sydney, marching through the Murray Valley, and inspecting the Adelaide district;
From Australia he dashed onward to Java, riding through the interior, and taking a general
flnrvey of Batavia, with a glance at Japan and the Japanese. An active, intelligent, observant
man, the notes he made of his adventures are full of variety and interest His descriptions of
places and persons are lively, and his remarks on natural productions and the phenomena of
earth, sea, and sky are always sensible, and made with a view to practical results. Those
portions of the Narrative which refer to California and Australia are replete with vivid
Bketches j and indeed the whole work abounds with lining and picturesque descriptions of
men, manners, and localities." — Globe.
" Independently of great variety^for these pages are never monotonous or dull — a
pleasant freshness pervades Mr. Gerstaecker's chequered narrative. It offers much to
interest, and conveys much valuable information, set forth in a very lucid and graphic
manner." — Athenaum.
" A book of travels of a superior kind, both aa regards the varied information It con
tains and the spirited style in which it is written." — Literary Gazette,

A SKETCHER'S TOUR ROUND THE WORLD. BY
ROBERT ELWES, Esq. Second Edition, 1 vol. royal 8vo., with 21
Coloured Illustrations from Original Designs by the Author. 21s. elegantly
bound, gilt edges.
" Combining in itself the best qualities of a library volume with that of a gift-book, is
Mr. Elwes' ' Sketcher'a Tour.' It is an unafifected, .well-written record of a tour of some
36,000 miles, and is accompanied by a number of very beautiful tinted lithographs, executed
by the author. These, as well as the literary sketches in the volume, deal most largely with
Southern and Spanish America, — whence the reader is afterwards taken by Lima to the
Sandivich Islands, is carried to and fro among the strange and exciting scenes of the
Pacific,— thence sails to the Australian coast,— passes to China, — afterwards to Singapore
and Bombay, — and so home by Egypt and Italy, Tbe book is pleasantly written throughout,
and with the picturesque variety that cannot but belong to the description of a succession of
8Uch scenes, is also full of interesting aud instructive re arks." — Examiner.
"The garment in which this book comes forth seems to point out the drawing-room table
as its place of destination. The nature of its contents,— cheerful, lively letter-press— will
assure it a ready welcome there. Yet it is not, therefore, ineligible for the library shelf— even
for that shelf which is devoted to ' "Voyages Bound the World.' Pleasanter reading, we
repeat, need not be offered than our sketcher brings." — Athenaum

14 HURST AND BLACKETT's NEW PUBLICATIONS.

AUSTRALIA AS IT IS : ITS SETTLEMENTS, FAKMS,
AND GOLD FIELDS. By F. LANCELOT, Esa., Mineralogical Sur
veyor in the Australian Colonies. Second Edition, revised. 2 vole.
post 8vo. 21s.
** This is an unadorned account of the actual condition in which these colonies are found,
hy a professional surveyor and mineralogist, who goes over the ground with a careful glance
amd a remarkable aptitude for seizing on the practical portions of the subject. On the
climate, the vegetation, and the agricultural resources of tbe country, he is copious iu the
extreme, and to the intending emigrant an invaluable instructor. As may be expected from
a scientific hand, the subject of gold digging undergoes a thorough manipulation, Mr,
Lancelot dwells with minuteness on the several indications, stratifications, varieties of soil,
and methods of working, experience has pointed out, and offers a perfect manual of the new
eraft to the adventurous settler. Nor has he neglected to providehim with information as to
the sea voyage, and all its accessories, the commodities most in request at the antipodes, and
a general view of social wants, family management, &c., such as a shrewd and observant
counsellor, aided by old resident authorities, can afford. As a guide to the auriferous regions,
as well as the pastoral solitudes of Australia, the work is unsurpassed." — Globe,
" We advise all about to emigrate to take this hookas a counsellor and companion."—
Lloyd's Weekly Paper.

A LADTS VISIT TO THE GOLD DIGGINGS OF
AUSTRALIA. By MRS. CLACY. 1 vol. 10s. 6d.
•* The most pithy and entertaining of all the books that have been written on the gold
diggings."— Lifej-a?'^ Gazette.
"Mrs. Clacy's book will be read with considerable interest, and not without profit.
Her statements and advice will be most useful among her own sex." — Atheneeum.
" Mrs. Clacy tells her story well. Her book is the most graphic account of the digglugs
and the gold country in general that is to be had." — Daily News.
" We recommend this work as the emigrant's vade m^ecum." — Home Companion.

LIGHTS AND SHADOWS OF AUSTRALIAN LIFE.
By MRS. CLACY. Author of " A Lady's Visit to tlie Gold Diggings."
2 vols, post 8vo. 21s.
" In these volumes Mrs. Clucy has presented life in Australia in all its varied aspects.
An intimate acquaintance with the country, and with the circumstances in which settlers and
emigrants find themselves, has enabled the writer to impart to her narrative a character of
truthfulness and life-like animation, which renders them no less instructive than charming.
The book is throughout exceedingly attractive."— JoAn BuU.
"While affording amusement to the general reader, these * Lights and Shadows of
Australian Life,' are full of useful hints to intending emigrants, and will convey to friends at
Iiome acceptable information as to the country where so many now have friends or relatives."
—Literary Gazette.
" These volumes consist of a series of very interesting tales, founded on facts, in which the
cbief features of a settler's life are shown. To intending emigrants the work will be specially
attractive, but the ordinary novel reader will find that these narratives are more likely to
amuse an idle hour thau more ambitious productions — possessing, as they do, the charm of
truth with the fascination of fiction."— Swn.

VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 15

TRAVELS IN EUROPEAN TURKEY: THROUGH
Bosnia, Servia, Bulgaria, Macedonia, Roumelia, Albania, akd
Epirus ; -WITH A Visit to Greece and the Ionian Isles, and a Home
ward Tour through Hungary and the Sclavonian Provinces op
Austria on the Lower Danube. By EDMUND SPENCER, Esa.
Author of ** Travels in Circassia," etc. Second and Cheaper Edition, in
2 vols. 8vo., with Illustrations, and a valuable Map of European Turkey
from the most recent Charts in the possession of the Austrian and Turkish
Governments, revised by the Author, 18s.
"These important volumes describe some of those countries to which public attention
is now more particularly directed: Turkey, Greece, Hungary, and Austria. The author has
given us a most interesting picture of the Turkish Empire, its weaknesses, and the embar.
rassmeuts from which it is now suffering, its financial difficulties, the discontent of its
GAristian, and the turbulence of a great portion of its Mohammedan subjects. We cordially
recommend Mr. Spencer's valuable and interesting volumes to the attention of the reader." —
U. S. Magazine.
"This interesting work contains hy far the most complete, the most enlightened, and
the most reliable amount of what has been hitherto almost the terra incognita of European
Turkey, and supplies the reader with abundance of entertainment as well as instruction.**—
John Bull.

A TOUR OF INQUIRY THROUGH FRANCE AND
ITALY, Illustrating their Present Social, Political, and Eehgious
Condition. By EDMUND SPENCER, Esa., Author of " Travels in
European Turkey," " Circassia," &c. 2 yols. post 8vo. 21s.
" Mr, Spencer has travelled through France and Italy, with the eyes and feelings of a
Protestant philosopher. His volumes contain much valuable matter, many judicious remarks,
and a great deal of useful information."— Jlfonjing- Chronicle.

ARCTIC MISCELLANIES, A SOUVENIR OF THE
LATE POLAR SEARCH. By the OFFICERS and SEAMEN of the
EXPEDITION. Dedicated by permission to the Lords of the
Admiralty. Second Edition. 1 vol., with numerous Illustrations.
10s. 6d.
" This volume is not the least interesting or instructive among the records of the late
Kpedition in search of Sir John Franklin, commanded hy Captain Austin. The most
valuable portions of the book are those vphich relate to the scientific and practical observation*
made In the course of the expedition, and the descriptions of scenery and incidents of arctic
travel. From the variety of the materials, and the novelty of the scenes and Incidents to
which they refer, no less than the interest which attaches to all that relates to the probable
safety of Sir John Franklin and his companions, the Arctic Miscellanies forms a very
readaljle book, and one that redounds to the honour of the national character."— TAe Times.

16 HURST AND BLACKETT's NEW PUBLICATIONS.

FOREST LIFE IN CEYLON. BY W. KNIGHTON, 1E.A.,
formerly Secretary to the Ceylon Branch Royal Asiatic Society,
Second Edition, 2 vols, post 8vo. 21s.
" A very clever and amusing book, by one who has lived as a planter and journalist many
years in Ceylon. The work is filled with interesting accounts of the sports, resources, pro
ductions, scenery, and traditions of the island. The sporting adventures are narrated ia a
very spirited manner." — Standard.
" We have not met with a more delightful book for along time past." — Lit. Gaz,
"We have no recollection of a more interesting or instructive work on Ceylon and the
Cingalese than that which Mr. Knighton has just given to the world. It displays a greatdeal of
acuteness and sagacity in its observation of men and manners, and contains a vast deal of
useful information on topics, historical, political, and commercial, and has the charm of a
fluent and graphic style."^ — Moming Post,

TKOPICAL SKETCHES; OR, REMINISCENCES OF
AN INDIAN JOURNALIST. BY \V. KNIGHTON, M.A., Author of
*' Forest Life in Ceylon." 2 vols, post 8vo. 21s.
" When Mr. Knighton's pleasant volumes on Ceylon were published, we freely gave his
publication the praise which it appears to iave well deserved, since another edition has been,
calledfor. Amongst the writersof theday,weknowofnone who are morefelicitousin hitting off
with an amusing accuracy, the charactars he has met with, and his descriptive powers are first-
rate. Take his Sketches up and open where you will, he touches upon topics of varied
nature — now political, anon historical or commercial, interspersed with traits of society and
mauners, every page teeming with information, combined with lively detail. His style, indeed,
is eminently attractive. There is no weariness comes over the reader with Mr. Knighton's
work before him — all is vivacity. The Tropical Sketches contains the result of the author's
experience in the East in various capacities, but he is chiefiy at home when he enters upon
the narrative of his mission as a journalist. His revelations of his labours in an educational
capacity, are highly amusing, and there is an added charm to the volumes that the impress
of fidelity is stamped on every page. In short, Tropical Sketches may be set down as the work
of a man of education and refinement, gifted with a keen observation for all that is passing
around him j such a publication cannot fail in being both amusing and instructive."— Siffwiflff
Times.

FIVE YEARS IN THE WEST INDIES. BY CHARLES
W. DAT, Esa. 2 vols, post 8vo. 21s.
" It would be unjust to deny the vigour, brilliancy and varied interest of this work, tie
abundant stores of anecdote and incident, and the copious detail of local habits and peculiarities
in each island visited in succession." — Globe.

TRAVELS IN INDIA AND KASHMIR. BY BAEON
SCHONBEKG. 2 vols, post 8vo. 21s.
" This account of a Journey through India and Kashmir will be read with considerable
interest. Whatever came in his way worthy of record the author committed to writing, and
the result is an entertaining and instructive miscellany of information on the country, its
climate, its natural production, its history and antiquities, and the character, the religion,
and the social condition of its inhabitants."— /o/m Bull.

VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. 17

EIGHTEEN YEARS ON THE GOLD COAST OF
AFRICA ; including an Account of the Native Tribes, and their
INTERCOURSE WITH EUROPEANS. By BRODIE CRUICKSHANK, Member
or THE Legislative Council, Cape Coast Castle. 2 vols, post 8vo
21s.
'"This is one of the most interesting works that ever yet came into our hands. It
possesses the charm of introducing us to habits and manners of the hun>an family of whicli
before we had no conception. Mrs. Beecher Stowe's work has, indeed, made us all familiar
with the degree of intelligence and the disposition of the transplanted African ; but it has
been reserved to Mr. Cruickshauk to exhibit the children of Ham in their original state, and
to prove, as his work proves to demonstration, that, by the extension of a knowledge of the
Gospel, and by that only can the African be brought within the pale of civilization. We
amrionsly desire to direct public attention to a work so valuable. An incidental episode in
theworkisan affecting narrative of the death of the gifted Letitia Elizabeth Landon (L. E.L.)
written a few months after her marriage with Governor Maclean." — Standard.

EIGHT YEARS IN PALESTINE, SYRIA, AND ASIA
MINOR. By F. A. NEALE, Esa., Late Attached to the Consular
Service in Syria. Second Edition, 2 vols, post 8vo. "with Illustrations,
21s.
"A very agreeable book. Mr. Neale is evidently quite familiar with the East, and writes
iad Uvely, shrewd, and good-humoured manner. A great deal of information is to be found
ia his pages,"— Athenaum.

KHARTOUM AND THE NILES. BY GEORGE MELLY,
£sa. Second Edition. 2 vols, post Svo., with Maps and Illustra
tions, 21s.
" Mr. Melly is of the same school of travel as the author of ' ESthen.* His book
altogether is very agreeable, comprising, besides the description of Khartoum, many in
telligent iUustrations of the relations now subsisting between the Governments of the Sultaa
and the Facha, and exceedingly graphic sketches of Cairo, the Pyramids, the Plain of Thebes^
the Cataracts, &c." — Examiner.
TRAVELS IN BOLIVIA; WITH A TOUR ACROSS
THE PAMPAS TO BUENOS AYRES. BY L. HUGH DE BONNELI,of
Her Britannic Majesty's Legation. 2 vols, post 8vo. 21*.
"Mr. Bonelli's official position gave him great opportunities of observation, of which
he has ft-eely availed himself, and he has furnished us with a very interesting and amusing
book of travels respecting a country whose political and commercial importance is becoming
every day more obvious." — Observer.
THE ANSYREEH AND ISMAELEEH : A VISIT TO
THE SECRET SECTS OF NORTHERN SYRIA, with a View to the
Establishment OF Schools. BY THE REV. S. LYDE, M.A., Late
Chaplain at Beyeodt. 1 vol. 10s. 6d.
" Mr. Lyde's pages furnish a very good illustration of the present state of some of the
east known parts of Syria. Mr. Lyde visited the most important districts of the Ansyreeh,
lired with them, and conversed with their sheiks or chief men. The practical aim of the
anthor gives his volumes an interest which works of greater pretension wa.nt."—Athenieum.

18 HURST AND BLACKETT's NEW PUBLICATIONS.

SAM SLICK'S NEW WORK, NATURE AND HUMAN
NATURE. 2 yols. post 8vo. 24s.
" Since Sam Slick's /first work he has written nothing so fresh, racy, and genuinely
humorous as this. Every line of it tells some way or other j instructively, satirically,
jocosely, or wittily. Admiration at Sam's mature talents, and laughter at his droll yams,
constantly alternate, as with unhalting avidity we peruse these last volumes of his. They
consist of 25 Chapters, each containing a tale, a sketch, or an adventure. In every one of
them, the Clockmaker proves himself the fastest time killer a-going." — Observer,
SAM SLICK'S WISE SAWS AND MODERN
INSTANCES ; or, What he Said, Did, or Invented. Second Edition.
2 vols, post 8vo. 21s.
" "We do not fear to predict that these delightful volumes will be the most popular, as
beyond doubt, they are the best, of all Judge Haliburton's admirable works. The 'Wise
Saws and Modern Instances' evince powers of imagination and expression far beyond what
even his former publications could lead any one to ascribe to the author. We have, it is true
long been familiar with his quaint humour and racy narrative, but the volumes before us
take a loftier range, and are so rich in fun and good sense, that to offer an extract as a
sample would be an injustice to author and reader. It is oue of the pleasantest books we
ever read, and we earnestly recommend it." — Standard.
" Let Sam Slick go a mackarel fishing, or to court in England — let him venture alone
among a tribe of the sauciest single women that ever banded themselves together in electric
chain to turn tables or to mystify man— our hero always manages to come off with flying
•olours— to beat every craftsman in the cunning of his own calling— to get at the heart of
every maid's and matron's secret. The book before us will be read and laughed over. Its
quaint and racy dialect will please some readers — its abundance of yams will amuse others,
There is something in the volumes to suit readers of every hnmour. "^Athemeum.
" The humour of Sam Slick is inexhaustible. He is ever and everywhere a welcome
visitor ; smiles greet his approach, and wit and wisdom hang upon his tongue. The present
is altogether a most edifying production, remarkable alike for its racy humour, its sound
philosophy, the felicity of its illustrations, and the delicacy of its satire. We promise our
readers a great treat from the perusal of these 'Wise Saws and Modern Instances,' which
contain a world of practical wisdom, and a treasury of the richest fun." — Moming Post.

THE AMERICANS AT HOME; OR, BYEWAYS,
BACKWOODS, AND PRAIRIES. Edited by the Author of "SAM
SLICK." 3 vols, post 8vo. 31s. 6d.
" In the picturesque delineation of cliaracter, and the felicitous portraiture of national
features, no writer of the present day equals Judge Haliburton. ' The Americans at Home '
will not be less popular than anyof his previous works." — Post.

TRAITS OF AMERICAN HUMOUR. EDITED BY
the Author of "SAM SLICK." 3 vols, post 8vo. 31s. 6d.
" No man has done more than the facetious Judge Haliburton, through the mouth of
the inimitable ' Sam,' to make the old pareut country recognize and appreciate her queer
transatlantic progeny. His present collection of comic stories and laughable traits is a
budget of fun full of rich specimens of American humour."— G(o6e.

HURST AND BLACKETT^S NEW PUBLICATIONS. 19

THE DRAMATIC WORKS OF MARY RUSSELL
MITFORD. Author of " Our Village," « Atherton," &c. 2 vols, post 8vo.
¦vrith Portrait of the Author and other Illustrations. 21s.
" We recommend Miss Mitford's dramas heartily to all by whom they are unknown. A
more graceful addition could not be made to any collection of dramatic works." — BlackwootPs
Magazine. " Miss Mitford has collected into one chaplet the laurels gathered in her prime of author-
jhip, and she has given it to the world with a graceful and loving letter of reminiscence and
benediction. Laid by the side of the volume of dramatic works of Joanna Baillie, these
volumes suffer no disparagement. This is high praise, and it is well deserved." — Atheneeum,
" Miss Mitford's plays and dramatic scenes form very delightful reading." — Examiner.
"The high reputation which Miss Mitford has acquired as a dramatist will insure a
hearty welcome to this collected edition of her dramatic wovka."— John BuU.

DARIEN; OR, THE MERCHANT PRINCE. BY ELIOT
WARBURTON. Second Edition. 3 vols, post 8vo.
"The scheme for the colonization of Darien by Scotchmen, and the opening of a com-
monication between the East and West across the Isthmus of Panama, furnishes the founda
tion of this story, which is in all respects worthy of the high reputation which the author of
the ' Crescent aud the Cross' had already made for himself. The early history of the ' Merchant
Prince' introduces the reader to the condition of Spain under the Inquisition ; the portraitures
of Scottish life which occupy a prominent place In the narrative, are full of spirit ; the scenes
In America exhibit the state of the natives of the New World at that period i the daring deeds
of the Buccaneers supply a most romantic element in the story ; and an additional interest
is infused into it by the introduction of the various celebrated characters of the period, such,
as Law, the French financier, and Paterson, the founder of the Bank of England. All these
varied ingredients are treated with that brilliancy of style and powerful descriptive talent, by
which the pen of Eliot Warburton was so eminently distinguished." — John Bull,

THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A MISSIONARY. BY
THE EEV. J. p. FLETCHER. 2 vols, post 8yo. 21s.
" We conscientiously recommend this book, as well for its amusing character as for
ltl« spirit it displays of earnest piety." — Standard.
SCENES FROM SCRIPTURE. BY THE REV. G.
CROLY,LL.D. 10s. 6d.
"Eminent in every mode of literature. Dr. Croly stands, in our judgment, first among
the living poets of Great Britain— the only man of our day entitled by his power to venture
within the sacred circle of religious poets." — Standard.
"An admirable addition to the library of religious families." — John Bull.
THE SONG OF ROLAND, AS CHANTED BEFORE
THE BATTLE OF HASTINGS, BY THE MINSTREL TAILLEFER.
Translated hy the Author of "EMILIA WYNDHAM." Small 4to.,
handsomely bound, gilt edges, 5s.
'"The Song of Roland' is well worth general perusal. It is spirited and descriptlv.,
and gives an important, and, no doubt, faithful picture of the cMyalric manners and feelings
of the i^t."— Moming Herald,

20 HURST AND BLACKETT's NEW PUBLICATIONS.

FAMILY ROMANCE; OR, DOMESTIC ANNALS OF
THE ARISTOCRACY. BY SIR BERNARD BURKE, Ulster King of
Arms. 2 vols, post 8vo. 21s.
Among the many other interesting legends and romantic family histories com-
prised in these volumes, will be found the following : — The wonderful narrative
of Maria Stella, Lady Newborough, who claimed on such strong evidence to he
a Princess of the House of Orleans, aud disputed the identity of Louis Philippe —
The story of the humble marriage of the beautiful Countess of Strathmore, and
the sufferings and fate of her only child — The Leaders of Fashion, from Gramont
to D'Orsay — The rise of the celebrated Baron Ward, now Prime Minister at
Parma — The curious claim to the Earldom of Crawford — The Strange Vicissitudes
of our Great Families, replete with the most romantic details — The story of the
Kirkpatricks of Closeburn (the ancestors of the French Empress), and the re-
markable tradition associated with them — The Legend of the Lambtons — The
verification in our own time of the famous prediction as to the Earls of Mar-
Lady Ogilvy's escape — The Beresford and Wynyard ghost stories correctly told—
&c. &c.
"It were impossible to praise too highly as a work of amusement these two most in
teresting volumes, whether we should have regard to its excellent plan or its not leas ex.
cellent execution. The volumes are just what ought to be found on every drawing-room 4able.
Here you have nearly fifty captivating romances with the pith of all their interest preserreil
in undiminished poignancy, and any one may be read in half an hour. It is not the least uf
their merits that the romances are founded on fact — or what, at least, has been handed down
for truth by long tradition — aud the romance 'of reality far exceeds the romance of fiction.
Each story is told in the clear, unaffected style with which the author's former works
have made the public familiar, while they afford evidence of the value, even to a work of
amusement, of that historical and genealogical learning that may justly be expected of the
author of ' The Peerage.' " — Standard.
" The very reading for sea-side or fire-side in our hours of Idleness." — Athenaum.

THE ROMANCE OF THE FORUM; OR, NARRA
TIVES, SCENES, AND ANECDOTES FROM COURTS OF JUSTICE,
SECOND SERIES. BY PETER BURKE, Esa., of the Inner Temple,
Barrister-at-Law. 2 vols, post 8vo. 21s.
PRINCIPAL CONTENTS :— Lord Crichton's Revenge— The Great Douglas
Cause— Lord and Lady Kinnaird — Marie Delorme and Her Husband— The
Spectral Treasure— Murders in Inns of Court— Matthieson the Forger— Trials
that estabhshed the Illegality of Slavery— The Lover Highwayman— The
Accusing Spirit— The Attomey-General of the Reign of Terror— Eccentric
Occurrences in the Law— Adventuresses of Pretended Rank — The Courier of
Lyons— General Sarrazin's Bigamy — The Elstree Murder — Count Bocarm6 ami
his wife — Professor Webster, &c.
"We have no hesitation in recommending this, as one of the most interesting works
that have been lately given to the public."— AforMtn^ Chronicle
•• The favour with which the first series of this publication was received, has induced
Mr. Burke to extend his researches, which he has done with great judgment. The incidents
forming the subject of the second series are as extraordinary in every respect, as those which
obtained so high a meed of celebrity for the first. Some of the tales could scarcely be believed
to be founded in fact, or to be records of events that have startled the world, were there not
the incontestable evidence which Mr. Burke has established to prove that they have
actuaUy happened." — Messenger.

WORKS OF FICTION.

21

BY MRS. TROLLOPE.

THE LIFE AND ADVEN-
TUEES OF A CLEVER
WOIIAN.
"The 'Clever "Woman * is of the same
dass with the 'Vicar of Wrexhill,* and
'Widow Barnaby.' It is the hest novel
the season has produced. No person can
fell to be amused hy it" — Criiie.
"Mrs. TroUope has done full justice to
Ber well-earned reputation as one of the
devereat novelists of the day in this
new production of lier fertile pen."—
Mn Bull,

UK^CLE WALTER.
3 vols.
'" Uncle Walter' is an exceedingly en
tertaining novel. It assures Mrs. TroUope
more than ever in her position as one of
the ablest fiction writers of the day." —
Moming Post,
THE YOUNG HEIRESS.
3 vols.
" The knowledge of the world which
Mrs. TroUope possesses in so eminent a
degree is strongly exhibited in the pages
of this novel." — Observer*

BY MRS. GORE.

MAffiffiON; OE, THE HAEDSHIPS OF AN HEIEESS.
3 vols.

THE DEAN'S DAUGHTER.
3 vols.
"One of the best of Mrs. Gore's
stories. The volumes are strewed with
smart and sparkling epigram."— itfomingr
Chronicle.

PROGRESS & PREJUDICE.
3 vols.
" This entertaining and particularly
clever novel is not to be analysed, but
to be prised, and that emphatically,"—
Examiner,

BY THE AUTHOR OE MARGARET MAITLAND.

MAGDALEN HEPBUEN;
A STORY OF TBB SCOTTISH BEFORMATION.
3 vols.
"'Magdalen Hepburn will sustain the
deputation which the author of • Margaret
Maitland* has acquired. It is a well
prepared and carefully executed picture
of the society and state of manners in
Scotland at the dawn of the Heforma-
tion. Joha Knox is successfully drawn."
^MhETuewm. '" Magdalen Hepburn * is a story of the
Scottish Reformation, with John Knox
promineatly introduced among the dra
matis personse. The book is thoroughly
enjoyable, pleasant women move to and
tn in it, characters are well dlscrimi-
B&ted, and there is a sense everywhere of
tbe right and good, aa well as the pictu-
Tesque."— JSxomtTier..
ADAM GEAEME,
OF MOSSGEAY.
3 vols.
"A story awakening genuine emotions
OE interest and delight by its admirable
pictnrea of Scottisli life and scenery."—
Putt.

HAEEY MUIE.
Second Edition, 3 vols.
"We prefer 'Harry Muir* to most of
the Scottish novels that have appeared
since Gait's domestic stories. This new
tale, by the author of 'Margaret Mait-
land,* is a real picture of the weakness of
man's nature and the depths of woman's
kindness. The narrative, to repeat our
praise, is not one to be entered on or
parted from without our regard for its
writer being increased." — AthcTusum.
" This is incomparably the best of the
author's works. In it the brilliant pro
mise afforded by ' Margaret Maitland *
has been fully realised, and now there
can be no question that, for graphic pic
tures of Scottish life, the author is en
titled to be ranked second to none among
modern writers of fiction." — Caledonicm
Mercury.

CALEB FIELD. A TALE.
1 vol. 6s.
"This beautiful production is every way
worthy of its author's reputation in the
very first rank of contemporary writers."—
Standard.

22

WORKS OF FICTION.

CONSTANCE HEEBEET.
By Geraldine Jewsburt.
Author of " Marian ¦Withers," " Zob,"
&c. 3 voli.
OAKLEIGH 1LA.SC0TT.
By L. HowK.
Dedicated to Professor Aytoun, 2 vols.
"'A very clever romance. The style
throughout is fluent and forcible, and
many of the scenes are sketched witfi
considerable graphic power." — Morning
Post.^ ANTIPODES;
Oe, THE NEW EXISTENCE.
A TALE OF BEAL LIFE.
By A Clergyman. 3 vols.
HEEBEET LAKE.
By the Author of "Anne Dysart."
3 vols.
•' Many and various are the cross pur
poses of love which run through this
cleverly- written tale, from the pen of the
talented author of ' Anne Dysart.' While
administering larf?ely to the entertainment
of the reader, the Author has added to
a well-earned reputation." — John Bull.
THE YOUNG HUSBAND.
By Mrs. Grev, Author" of "The Gam
bler's Wife," &c. S vols.
"In this fascinating novel Mrs. Grey
has surpassed her former productions,
talented and powerful as they were." —
John Bull.
" The merit of producing an admirable
story may be justly awarded to Mrs.
Grey." — Sunday Times.
THE CURATE OF OVERTON.
3 vols.
"A powerfully written story, the cha
racters and incidents of which are por
trayed with great skill." — John Bull.
"The startling secession of such men
as Newman, Manning, and Wilberforce,
renders the revelations which the author
has made in these interesting and instruc
tive volumes extremely well-timed." — Bri
tannia.
CONFESSIONS
OF AN ETONIAN.
By C. RowcROFT, Esq.
3 vols.

VIVIA.
By Mrs. J. E. Dalbymplb,
Dedicated to Sir E. Bulwer Lytton. 2 vols,
" ' Vivia is an excellent novel. Mrs,
Dalrymple paints society in its tme
colours. We heartily congratulate her
upon a production which displays such
high purpose, wrought out with so much
ability." — Post.
3HATHEW PAXTON.
Edited by the Author of " John Dbat<
TON," " AlLIEFORD," &C. 3 VOls.
" ' Mathew Paxton ' bears a strong
generic resemblance to those clever stories
' John Drayton ' and * Ailieford,' and
awakens in the perusal a kindred gratifi
cation. It displays the same simple
pathos, the same homely humour, the
same truth to nature, and the same fine
sense of national peculiarity." — Post.
AILIEFORD.
A FAMILY HISTORY.
By the Author of " John Drayton." 3 v,
"'Ailieford' is the biography of the
clever writer of * John Drayton.* It ia a
deeply interesting tale." — Britannia.
A PHYSICIAN'S TALE.
3 vols.
" A vast amount of thought and know
ledge is displayed in this work. Many
various phases of society, and different
gradations of character, are dexterously
given to sight." — Sun,
CEEWE EISE.
By John C. Jeaffbeson. 3 vols.
"A clever novel, and one that, without
any great wealth or diversity of incident,
contrives to be deeply interesting. The
career of a brilliant young man at college
— his temptations, errors, and resolute
self-redemption from evil courses— makes
the main interest of the story, which is set
forth with a vigour and reality that looks
like a daguerreotype from facts."— il(A*-
ncBum.
EDWAED WILLOUGHBY.
By the Author of "Thb Disciplin« of
Life." 3 vols.
" We like all Lady Emily Ponsonby'5
novels, and this is, in our judgment, the
best of them." — Moming Post.
PHEMIE MILLAE.
By the Author of " The Kinnears." 3 v.
"We feel obliged to the author for
giving us such a fresh pleasant story as
• Phemie Millar.' Out of the homeliest of
details a certain fascination is evoked
which ensures the reader interest to the
end."— Atheneeum.

WORKS OF FICTION.

23

EEGINALD LYLE.
By Miss Pardoe. 3 v.
"An excellent novel, containing a great
variety of well-drawn characters, and
keeping up the interest of the reader to
the last page." — Atlas.
floeence,
the beautiful,
By A. Baillie Cochrane, Esq. 2 v.
" The best story that has yet appeared
from the pen of the talented author." —
Herald.
THE SECEET HISTOEY
OF A HOUSEHOLD.
By the Author of
"Alice Wentworth." 3 vols,
ALICE WENTWORTH.
3 vols.
"This novel reminds us of the tales by
Lady Scott, which had power and pathos
enough to get a hearing and keep a place,
even though Lister, Ward, and Bulwer
were all in the field, 'with their manly
experiences of modern life aud society." —
Athtnetum.
JANET MOWBEAY.
By Caroline Grautoff. 3 v.
"This very pleasant tale of 'Janet
Mowbray ' is a love story— and a very
good one — full of agreeable variety and
interest." — Examiner.
THE EOSES.
By the Author of "The Flirt." 3 v.
'"The Roses* displays, with the polish
always attending a later work, all the
talent which appeared in 'The Flirt,* and
' The Manoeuvring Mother.' " — Standard.
CHARLES AUCHESTER.
3 vols.
"Music has never had so glowing an
advocate as the author of these volumes.
There is an amazing deal of ability dis
played in them." — Herald.
THE KINNEAES.
A SCOTTISH STORY. 3 V.
THE LADY
AND THE PEIEST.
By Mes. Mabkbly. 3 vols.
THE COLONEL.
By the Author 0/ " Pbbils of Fashion."
3 vols.

THE VILLAGE
MILLIONNAIEE.
Bjr the Author of "The Fortunes op
Woman." 3 vols,
"Great diversity of character and an
endless succession of surprising incidents
and vicissitudes impart an absorbing inte
rest to this new production of Misa
Lament's pen." — Jo7in BuU.
MAEY SEAHAM.
By BIrs. Grey. 3 vols.
" Equal to any former novel by its
author." — Atheneeum.
AUBEEY.
By the Author of "Emilia Wtndhak,"
3 vols.
"This novel is worthy of the author's
reputation. The interest of the story is
powerfully kept up, and there is much
truthful and discriminating depicting of
character." — Literary Gazette.
CASTLE AVON.
By the Author of "Emilia Wtndhaw."
3 vols.
"One of the most successful of the au
thor's works." — Post.
** These volumes abound in delicate
and passionate writing." — Examiner,
THE DAUGHTEE
OF THE SOUTH.
By Mrs. Clara Walbey. 3 vols.
Dedicated to the Earl of Carlisle.
ANNETTE. A TALE.
By W. F. Deacon.
With a Memoir of the Author, by the
Hon. Sir T. N. Talfourd, D.C.L. 3 vols.
"'Annette' is a stirring tale. The pre
fatory memoir of Sir Thomas Talfourd
would be at all times interesting, nor the
less so for containing two long letters from
Sir Walter Scott to Mr. Deacon, full of
gentle far-thinUing wisdom." — Examiner,
LADY MAEION.
By Mrs. W. Foster.
3 vols.
THE BELLE
OF THE VILLAGE.
By the Author of "Tbe Old Enoush
GaWTLBMAN.'* 3 vols.

THE ARMY AND THE NAVY.

COLBURN'S UNITED SERVICE MAGAZINE, AND
NAVAL AND MILITARY JOURNAL. Published on the first of every
month, price 3s. 6d.
This popular periodical, which has now been established a quarter of a century,
embraces subjects of such extensive variety and powerful interest as must render
it scarcely less acceptable to readers in general than to the members of those pro
fessions for whose use it is more particularly intended. Independently of a suc
cession of Original Papers on innumerable interesting subjects, Personal Nar
ratives, Historical Incidents, Correspondence, etc., each number comprises
Biographical Memoirs of Eminent Officers of all branches of service. Reviews of
New Publications, either immediately relating to the Army or Navy, or involving
subjects of utility or interest to the members of either, full Reports of Trials
by Courts Martial, Distribution of the Army and Navy, General Orders, Circulars,
Promotions, Appointments, Births, Marriages, Obituary, etc., with all the Naval
and Military InteUigence of the month.
OPINIONS OF THE PRESS.
"This is confessedly one of the ablest and most attractive periodicals of which the
British press can boast, presenting a wide field of entertainment to the general as well as
professional reader. The suggestions for the benefit of the two services are distinguished
by vigour of sense, acute and practical observation, an ardent love of discipline, tempered by
a high sense of justice, honour, and a tender regard for the welfare and comfort of our soldiers
and seamen." — Globe.
" At the head of those periodicals which furnish usefu and valuable information to
their peculiar classes of readers, as well as amusement to the general body of the public,
must be placed the * United Service Magazine, and Naval and Military Journal.' It numbers
among its contributors almost all those gallant spirits who have done no less honour
to their country by their swords than by their pens, and abounds with the most interesting
discussions on naval and military affairs, and stirring narratives of deeds of arms in 9II
parts of the world. Every information of value and interest to both the Services is culled
with the greatest diligence from every available source, and the correspondence of various
distinguished oflScers which enrich its pages is a feature of great , attraction. In short, tbe
¦ United Service Magazine* can be recommended to every reader who possesses that attach
ment to his country which should make him look with the deepest interest on its naval and
military resources." — Sun,
" This truly national periodical Is always full of the most valuable matter for professionaJ
men." — Morning Herald.
" To military and naval men, and to that class of readers who hover on the skirts of the
Service, and take a world of pains to inform themselves of all the goings on, the modes and
fashions, the movements and adventures connected with ships and barracks, this periodical
is indispensable. Xt is a repertory of facts and criticisms — narratives of past experience, and
fictions that are as good as if they were true — tables and I'eturns — new inventions and new
books bearing upon the army and navy — correspondence crowded with intelligence — and
sundry unclaimed matters that lie in close neighbourhood with the professions, and contribute
more or less to the stock of general useful information." — Atlas.
HURST AND BLACKETT, PUBLISHEES,
SUCCESSORS TO HENRY COLBURN,
13, CHEAT MARLBOROUGH STREET.

V

11