PART III.

BLACKWOOD’S EDINBURGH MAGAZINE.

NO. CCCCLXVI. AUGUST, 1854. VOL. LXXVI.

CONTENTS.

TRICOUPI AND ALISON ON THE GREEK REVOLUTION, 119

STUDENT LIFE IN SCOTLAND, 135

THE INSURRECTION IN SPAIN, 151

THE ETHNOLOGY OF EUROPE, 165

THE GANGETIC PROVINCES OF BRITISH INDIA, 183

THE SECRET OF STOKE MANOR: A FAMILY HISTORY.—PART III., 206

CONSERVATIVE REASCENDANCY CONSIDERED, 230

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PRINTED BY WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS, EDINBURGH.

BLACKWOOD’S

EDINBURGH MAGAZINE.

NO. CCCCLXVI. AUGUST, 1854. VOL. LXXVI.

TRICOUPI AND ALISON ON THE GREEK REVOLUTION.[1][2]

We certainly owe an apology to our Greek ambassador. The nine hundred

and ninety-ninth edition of a declamatory old play of Euripides, cut and

slashed into the most newfangled propriety by some J. A. Hartung, or

other critical German, with a tomahawk, is a phenomenon in the literary

world that can excite no attention; but when a regularly built living

Greek comes forward in the middle of this nineteenth century, exactly

four hundred years after the last Byzantine chronicler had been blown

into the air by our brave allies the Turks—and within the precincts of

the Red Lion Court, London—ἐν τῇ ἀυλῇ τοῦ ἐρυθροῦ λέοντος—puts forth a

regularly built history of the Greek Revolution of 1821, thereby

claiming—not without impudence, as some think—a place on our classical

shelves alongside of Herodotus, Thucydides, and Xenophon, and a great

way above Diodorus Siculus, and other such retailers of venerable

hearsay: this truly is an event in the Greek world that claims notice

from the general reviewer even more than from the professed classical

scholar. At the present moment, particularly, one likes to see what a

living Greek, with a pen in his hand, has to say for himself; his

language and his power of utterance is an element in the great

Turko-Russian question that cannot be lost sight of. Doubly welcome,

therefore, is this first instalment of Mr Tricoupi’s long-expected

history; and as it happens opportunely that the most interesting portion

of Sir A. Alison’s third volume is occupied with the same theme, we

eagerly seize the present opportunity at once to acquit ourselves of an

old debt to our Hellenic ambassador, and to thank Sir A. Alison for the

spirited, graphic, and thoroughly sympathetic style in which he has

presented to the general English reader the history of a bright period

of Greek history, which recent events have somewhat tended to becloud.

It is not our intention on the present occasion to attempt a sketch of

the strategetical movements of the Greek war, 1821–6. A criticism of

these will be more opportune when Mr Tricoupi shall have finished his

great work.[3] We shall rather confine ourselves to bringing out a few

salient points of that great movement, which may serve, by way of

contrast or similitude, to throw light on the very significant struggle

in which we are now engaged. A single word, however, in the first place,

with regard to the dialect in which Mr Tricoupi’s work is written; as

that is a point on which all persons are not well informed, and a point

also by no means unimportant in the decision of the question,—_What are

the hopes, prospects, and capabilities of the living race of Greeks?_

Now, with regard to this point, Mr Tricoupi’s book furnishes the most

decided and convincing evidence that the language of Aristotle and Plato

yet survives in a state of the most perfect purity, the materials of

which it is composed being genuine Greek, and the main difference

between the style of Tricoupi and that of Xenophon consisting in the

loss of a few superfluous verbal flexions, and the adoption of one or

two new syntactical forms to compensate for the loss—the merest points

of grammar, indeed, which to a schoolmaster great in Attic forms may

appear mighty, but to the general scholar, and the practical linguist,

are of no moment. A few such words of Turkish extraction, as ζάμιον, _a

mosque_; φιρμάνιον, _a firman_; βεζιρης, _a vizier_; γενίτσαρος, _a

janizary_; ραγιάδης, _a rajah_, so far from being any blot on the purity

of Mr Tricoupi’s Greek, do in fact only prove his good sense; for even

the ancient Greeks, ultra-national as they were in all their habits,

never scrupled to adopt a foreign word—such as γάζα, παράδεισος,

ἄγγαρος—when it came in their way, just as we have κοδράντης, κηνσος,

σουδάριον, and a few other Latinisms in the New Testament. The fact is,

that the modern Greeks are rather to be blamed for the affectation of

extreme purity in their style, than for any undue admixture of foreign

words, such as we find by scores in every German newspaper. But this is

their affair. It is a vice that leans to virtue’s side, and springs

manifestly from that strong and obstinate vitality of race which has

survived the political revolutions of nearly two thousand years; and a

vice, moreover, that may prove of the utmost use to our young scholars,

who may have the sense and the enterprise to turn it to practical

account. For, as the pure Greek of Mr Tricoupi’s book is no private

invention of his own, but the very same dialect which is at present used

as an organ of intellectual utterance by a large phalanx of talented

professors in the University of Athens, and is in fact the language of

polite intercourse over the whole of Greece, it follows that Greek,

which is at present almost universally studied as a dead language, and

that by a most laborious and tedious process of grammatical

indoctrination, may be more readily picked up, like German or French, in

the course of the living practice of a few months. It is worthy of

serious consideration, indeed, how far the progress of our young men in

an available knowledge of the finest language of the world may have been

impeded by the perverse methods of teachers who could not speak, and who

gave themselves no concern to speak, the language which they were

teaching; who invented, also, an arbitrary system of pronouncing the

language, which completely separated them from the nation who speak it.

But this is a philological matter on which we have no vocation to enter

here: we only drop a hint for the wise, who are able to inquire and to

conclude for themselves.

We now proceed to business. There are five points connected with the

late Greek Revolution which stand out with a prominent interest at the

present moment.

_First_,—The character, conduct, and position of RUSSIA at the outbreak

of the Revolution.

_Second_,—The character and conduct of the TURKS and the Turkish

government, as displayed by the manner in which the revolt was met.

_Third_,—The character, conduct, and political significance of the GREEK

PEOPLE, as exhibited during the five years’ struggle.

_Fourth_,—The character, conduct, and position of RUSSIA, as more fully

developed at the conclusion of the struggle.

_Fifth_,—The character, conduct, and political significance of the GREEK

PEOPLE, as exhibited since the battle of Navarino and the establishment

of the existing Bavarian dynasty.

On all these points we shall offer a few remarks in the order in which

they are set down.

_First_,—As to the conduct of RUSSIA. It is a remarkable fact, and very

significant of the nature of Russian influence in Turkey, that the Greek

Revolution did not commence where one might have expected it to

commence, in Greece proper—_i.e._, the mountainous strongholds of

Acarnania and the Peloponnesus—but in those very Principalities where we

are now fighting, and where the Muscovites are always intriguing. How

was this? Plainly because all those Greeks who had for years been

brewing revolt in their ἑταιριαι, or secret conspiracies, took it for

granted that on that nominally Turkish but really Russian ground, Russia

would at once come forward and help them to kill—we use the Imperial

simile—the sick old Infidel, who had been so long lying with his

diseased lumpish body on the back of the Christian population; and

accordingly the man whom they set up to raise the flag of Christian

insurrection on the banks of the Pruth and the Sereth, was an officer in

the Russian service, Alexander Ypsilanti by name; and the first thing he

did when he came forward as military head of the revolt in the

Principalities, was to put forth a proclamation, in which the Christian

tribes of Turkey were told that “_a great European power_” might be

depended on as “_patronising the insurrection_”—ὁτι μιά μεγάλη δύναμις

τοῦς προστατευει. Now, here was a lie to begin with, to which perhaps

the old _Græcia mendax_ may seem not inapplicable: but in fact it was a

most probable lie; and if lies were at all justifiable, either on

principle or policy, at the opening scene of a great war, certainly this

was the lie which at that time and place looked most like the truth. But

it is a dangerous thing to raise warlike enthusiasm at any time,

especially when an emperor is concerned, by sounding statements not

founded on truth. Had the Czar been ever so willing to assist the

movement of the Wallachian Greeks, and to lead his victorious Cossacks,

scarcely returned from fair Paris, to magnificent Stamboul, he could not

but feel offended at the unceremonious manner in which his decision had

been taken out of his own mouth, and the absolute spontaneity of an

imperial ukase been forestalled by a vagabond Greek captain. But the

Greeks were, from the beginning, out of their reckoning in supposing

that the then Czar would, as a matter of course, patronise their

insurrectionary movement against the Turks. Alexander, though not

naturally a very bellicose person, had already done as much for the

territorial aggrandisement of Russia as would have contented the most

warlike of his predecessors. He had rounded off the north-west corner of

his vast domain in the most neat and dexterous way by the appropriation

of Finland in 1808; and he had profited alike in the upshot by the

friendship of Napoleon at Tilsit in 1807, and by his enmity at Moscow in

1812. That he should enter upon a new, and in all probability a severe

contest with another enemy, and put himself at the head of a great

insurrectionary movement, disturbing all the peaceful relations so

recently established, and in such friendly amity with the great

conservative powers at Paris and Vienna, was a proceeding not to be

looked for from a moderate and a prudent man. This the Greeks might have

known, had they not been befooled by patriotic passion. A “_holy_

alliance” no doubt it was which, in 1815, the pious soul of the good

Czar had made with his brother kings; but this “holiness” was either a

mere fraternisation of sentiment, too vague to be of any practical

force, or at best a religious stamp placed upon a document, the contents

of which were essentially political, and did not at all warrant the

expectation that the most Christian crowned Allies should be called upon

to interfere in supporting every revolt which Christian subjects in any

land might feel themselves called upon to make against their traditional

lords. Then as to politics: Though Alexander was a most kind-hearted,

truly popular, and very liberal sovereign, and had made speeches at

Paris, Warsaw, and elsewhere, equal to anything ever spouted by the

present Majesty of Prussia in his most liberal fits, yet he was very

little of a constitutionalist, and not at all a democrat. From Laybach,

therefore, where he was when the revolution broke out in March 1821, he

gave his decision in the matter of the Greek insurrection in the

following very remarkable words:—

“The motives of the Emperor are now known, from the best of all

sources, his own words, in confidential conversation with Mons. de

Chateaubriand. ‘The time is past,’ said he, ‘when there can be a

French, Russian, Prussian, or Austrian policy. One only policy for the

safety of all can be admitted in common by all people and all kings.

It devolves on me to show myself the first to be convinced of the

principles on which the Holy Alliance is founded. An opportunity

presented itself on occasion of the insurrection of the Greeks.

Nothing certainly could have been more for my interests, those of my

people, and the opinion of my country, than a religious war against

the Turks; but I discerned in the _troubles of the Peloponnesus the

revolutionary mark. From that moment I kept aloof from them._ Nothing

has been spared to turn me aside from the Alliance; but in vain. My

self-love has been assailed, my prejudices appealed to; but in vain.

What need have I for an extension of my empire? Providence has not put

under my orders 800,000 soldiers to satisfy my ambition, but to

protect religion, morality, and justice, and to establish the

principles of order on which human society reposes.’ In pursuance of

these principles, Count Nesselrode declared officially that ‘his

Imperial Majesty could not regard the enterprise of Ypsilanti as

anything but the effect of the exaltation which characterises the

present epoch, as well as of the inexperience and levity of that young

man, whose name is ordered to be erased from the Russian service.’

Orders were at the same time sent to the imperial forces on the Pruth

and in the Black Sea to observe the strictest neutrality.”

The publication of this resolution on the part of the Imperial

government effectually quashed the movement in the Principalities; and

poor Ypsilanti, after a few awkward and ill-managed plunges, was obliged

to back out of his position, and, leaving “Olympian George,” and other

sturdy Greek mountaineers, in the lurch, seek for refuge, and find a

prison in Austria. In this whole affair, however, though the Greeks had

shown themselves very vain and foolish, no man can deny that the Czar

behaved with great moderation—like a gentleman, in fact, and a

Christian, as he was—and moreover, we must add, like a wise politician.

For we can scarcely agree with some strong indications of feeling, both

in Tricoupi and in Sir Archibald Alison,[4] that any Christian power

would have been justified in supporting a revolt of Christian subjects

against their lawful sovereign, being an Infidel, till these Christians

had first shown, by their own exertions, that they were worthy of the

intervention which afterwards took place in their favour. We see, also,

that Lord Aberdeen, in some late remarks in the House of Lords, was

quite correct historically when he called attention to the comparative

“moderation” of Russian counsels in some of her dealings with Turkey.

Russia, in fact, never has displayed any very flagrant rapacity in her

dealings with Turkey, for the best of all possible reasons,—because,

having as much of the fox as of the bear in her nature, she does not

wish to alarm the European powers on a point where she knows they are

peculiarly sensitive. Her policy has been to poison the sick old man,

not to kill him; and in this very moderation, as all the world now

knows, lies the peculiar danger of her encroachments. Like a deep

swirling river, she rolls beneath the fat mud-banks of your political

STATUS QUO, and you suspect no harm, and can walk on the green bank with

delectation; but when the flood comes, there will be a shaking and a

precipitation; and then God help the sleepers!

So much for Russia. Our next question relates to the Turks. How did they

behave at the outbreak of the insurrection? The answer is given in two

words—like butchers, and like blunderers. Like butchers in the first

place. Their way of crushing an insurrection was truly a brutal

one—πολιτική θηριώδης as Mr Tricoupi says; or shall we not rather say

devilish. Certainly Sylla, in his most sanguinary humours, never enacted

anything more inhuman and more diabolical than the wholesale massacre of

the prosperous Greeks in Scios, April 1822, which, next to certain

scenes when the Furies were let loose in France, forms the most bloody

page of modern history.[5] When a Turk suspects a Greek of treason, he

makes short work of it: no forms of law, no investigation, no trial, no

proof; but right on with the instinct of a tiger, in the very simple and

effective old Oriental style,—“_Why should this dead dog curse my lord

the king? let me go over, I pray thee, and take off his head._” So an

old Jew once said to King David; but Sultan Mahmoud did not require that

a word of cursing should have been spoken. Sufficient that the

individual marked for butchery stood in a prominent situation, and was

of the same brotherhood as those who had spoken or acted treason: if he

was not guilty in his own person, he was bound to be cognisant of the

guilt of others; and for not revealing this guilt he must die. Such is

the simple theory on which proceeded the wholesale murders which took

place at Constantinople so soon as word was brought of the

insurrectionary movement in the Principalities. As a specimen of these

infamous proceedings, we shall select from Mr Tricoupi’s book the

account of the death of the Patriarch Gregory, a murder committed with

the most flagrant disregard of all the forms of justice (if there be

such forms in Turkey), and under circumstances calculated to rouse to

the utmost pitch the spirit of the people whom it was intended to crush;

a murder, therefore, not merely cruel and barbarous, but stupid and

impolitic. The account given by our author of this most characteristic

event is somewhat circumstantial, as might be expected from the piety of

a true Greek writing on such a subject. We curtail it, however, as

little as possible,—especially as the closing scene, in which Russia

appears a chief actor, affords a vivid glimpse of the very natural

manner in which, unassisted by any evil arts of diplomacy, that power

can continually earn for itself golden opinions among the Christian

nations of the south.

“On the evening of Easter Saturday, or great Saturday—το μέγα σάββατον,

as the Greeks call it—being the 9th of March, there were seen dispersed

in the neighbourhood of the Patriarch’s palace, within and without the

Fanar, about five thousand armed Janizaries, without any person knowing

why. The Janizaries perambulated the streets of the Fanar the whole

night, but did no harm to any one. At midnight, as is the use in our

Church, the church-crier made proclamation, and the Christian people,

though under great apprehensions, immediately obeyed the sacred summons,

and assembled without hindrance or disturbance in the church of the

Patriarchate. The Patriarch himself officiated as usual, with twelve

other priests; and after the service was finished, the people were

dismissed, and retired quietly to their own homes. The Patriarch went to

his palace, when the first streaks of day were beginning to appear; but

scarcely had he entered, when word was brought that Staurakis

Aristarches, the great Interpreter, wished to speak with him. The

Patriarch proposed to go with him to his private room, but the

Interpreter replied that he preferred being taken immediately to the

great Hall of the Synod. There he came with one of the Secretaries of

State, and forthwith produced a firman, which he declared he had orders

to read aloud without a moment’s delay in the presence of the Patriarch,

the chief priests, the heads of the Greek people, and the deacons of

corporations. These parties were sent for, and the firman instantly read

as follows: ‘Forasmuch as the Patriarch Gregory has shown himself

unworthy of the patriarchal throne, ungrateful to the Porte, and a

deviser of plots,—for these reasons he is deposed from his office.’ The

Patriarch, accompanied by his faithful archdeacon, was immediately led

off to prison; and as soon as he had left the hall, a second firman was

read out in the following terms: ‘Forasmuch as the Sublime Porte does

not desire to deprive his faithful subjects of their spiritual

superintendence, he hereby commands them to elect a patriarch according

to their ancient custom.’ A consultation immediately took place among

the clergy; and they agreed that they should call to the patriarchal

throne Cyril, who had been formerly patriarch, and was now in

Adrianople; but the secretary replied that this could not be allowed, as

the proposed patriarch was absent, and under present circumstances the

Porte could not allow the throne to be vacant for a single hour;

wherefore he commanded them instantly to make election of a new

patriarch from the number of the clergy then present. Another

consultation immediately took place; and after considerable difficulty

the vote fell upon Peisidias Eugenios, who, according to usage, was

immediately sent to the Porte, the rest remaining till he should return.

After three hours he appeared, environed with a pomp and circumstance

more magnificent than usual.

“This ceremony of electing the new pontiff was still going on, when

Gregory was led out of prison, where he had been preparing himself by

constant prayer for the death which he had too good reason for supposing

was prepared for him. After taking him from the prison, they put him

into a boat, and disembarked him on the strand of the Fanar. There the

venerable old man, looking up steadfastly to heaven,[6] made the sign of

the cross, and knelt down, and inclined his hoary head to the

executioner’s axe; but the headsman ordered him to rise, saying that

here was not the place where he was to be executed. They accordingly led

him into his own palace, and there the executioner hung him as he was

praying on the threshold of the principal entrance at the hour of noon

on Easter Sunday—so that at the very moment when the wretched Christians

above were singing the hymn of welcome to their new Patriarch, with the

accustomed words εις πολλᾶ ἔτη δέσποτα, his predecessor was hung on the

ground-floor like a thief and a malefactor; the very holy person who

only a few hours before had offered the bloodless sacrifice for the sins

of the people, and had blessed his faithful flock, who, with devoutness

and contrition of heart, had kissed the hand that had been hallowed by

the handling of the holiest elements. The last moments of Gregory were

moments of pure faith and resignation, springing from an unspotted

conscience, a heart the fountain of good deeds, a calm contempt of this

ephemeral life, and a bright expectation of futurity. The writing of

condemnation, by virtue of which he died, called, in Turkish, _Yiaftás_,

was fixed upon the dead body, and set forth the causes of his death as

follows.”

Here Mr Tricoupi gives the Turkish act of condemnation at full length;

but the substance of it is contained in two points: first, “that the

Patriarch did not use his spiritual weapons of excommunication, &c.,

against the revolters; and, second, that he was personally privy to the

conspiracy.” To which two charges the historian answers shortly that the

first is directly contrary to the fact (for the revolters were

excommunicated by the Greek hierarchy in the capital); and with regard

to the second, he avers, that though it was quite impossible for the

head of the Greek Church to be ignorant of the existence of a conspiracy

of which thousands of the most notable Greeks in Europe were members,

yet he was never a member of the secret societies, and had, on the

contrary, like many other influential persons of his nation, considered

the movement premature,[7] and warned his countrymen against it as

likely to lead to the most pernicious consequences. But it is vain, as

we already remarked, to look for reasons that would satisfy any European

ideas of justice in proceedings between Turks in authority and

rebellious Giaours. The calm and solemn gentleman, enveloped in smoke

and coffee fumes, whose bland dignity we so much admired in time of

peace, becomes suddenly seized with a preternatural fury when the scent

of Greek blood is in the gale. It is a primary law of his religion,

inherited from the oldest Oriental theocracies, that no infidel is

entitled to live; and if the head seems more serviceable for the nonce

than the capitation-tax, which is its substitute, the law of the Prophet

is satisfied, and no man has a right to complain. Mr Tricoupi now

proceeds with his narrative.

“The execution being over, the great interpreter, the secretary, and

their attendants, left the palace of the Patriarch. In the evening of

the same day, Beterli Ali Pasha, who had recently been appointed Grand

Vizier, went through the Fanar with only one attendant, and, asking

for a chair, sat down for five or six minutes on the street opposite

the suspended body of the Patriarch, looking at him, and speaking to

his attendant. After an hour the Sultan himself passed the same way,

and cast his eye on the Patriarch. The body remained suspended three

days; but on the fourth the hangman took it down to throw it into the

sea, it being contrary to law in Turkey that persons hung or beheaded

should receive burial. Then there came to the hangman certain Jews,

and having received his permission (some say that they bribed him),

bound together the feet of the corpse, and dragged it away to the

extreme end of the quay of the Fanar, with mockery and blasphemous

words. Then they threw it into the sea, and gave the end of the rope

with which they had bound the feet to the hangman, who, having gone

before, was waiting them in a little boat. He immediately, seizing the

rope and dragging the body after him, came to the middle of the

bay,[8] and there attached to the body a stone which he had brought

with him in order to sink it: but it proved not weighty enough for

this purpose; so he left the corpse floating on the water, and, making

for the strand, came back with two other stones, which he attached to

the body; and then, giving it two or three stabs with his knife, to

let out the water, he immediately sunk it. After some days, however,

it came to the surface at Galata between two ships lying at the point

where a great many boats are always stationed, for passing over to the

city. One of these ships was a Slavonian, and the other a Greek, from

Cephalonia. The captain of the Slavonian saw the body first, and threw

some straw matting over it, with the view of concealing it till the

night, when he meant to bury it, like a good Christian. But when the

evening came, the Cephalonian captain anticipated him, and perceiving

from the unshaven chin that it was the body of a priest, brought into

his ship secretly some Christians, who assured him that it was the

body of the Patriarch. The pious Cephaliote immediately swathed the

body in a winding-sheet, and, transporting it to Odessa, deposited it

in the Lazaretto there.[9] There the body was examined by the order of

the governor, and was recognised by certain signs as that of the

Patriarch.

“Information of this being sent to St Petersburg, orders were given to

bury the body with all appropriate honours. The sacred Russian synod

came to assist in the funeral ceremony; and on the 17th of June there

were assembled in the Lazaretto all the local authorities, political

and military, the two metropolitan bishops, Cyril of Silistria, and

Gregory of Hieropolis; also Demetrius, bishop of Bender and Akerman,

all the clergy of the province, a great number of Greek refugees, who

had fled from the butchery at Constantinople. Then the church bells

were rung, the funeral psalms were sung, a salute of cannons was

given, and, with the accompaniment of military music and the prayers

of the congregated faithful, the remains of the venerated Patriarch

were carried to the metropolitan church of Odessa. Here they remained

three days, till the 19th, when the burial-service was again sung, and

a funeral oration was pronounced by Constantine Œconomos, preacher to

the Œcomenic Patriarchate, who happened to be in Odessa; after which

the body was removed with great pomp to the church of the Greeks, and

deposited in a new sepulchre within the railing of the holy altar, at

the north side of the holy table, as being the body of a martyr. And

thus—to use the very words of the semi-official journal of St

Petersburg—by the command of the most pious Autocrat of all the

Russians, Alexander I., were rendered due honours of faith and love to

Gregory, the holy Patriarch of the Eastern Orthodox Church of the

Greeks, who suffered a martyr’s death.”

Next to the butchery—which, by the way, the Greeks, as opportunity

offered, were not ashamed to retaliate—the most noticeable thing in the

Turkish conduct of the war was their extraordinary slowness, fickleness,

inefficiency, and bungling of every sort. The insurrection, though

attempted in Thessaly and Macedonia, did, in fact, never extend with any

permanent force beyond the narrow boundaries of the present kingdom of

Greece, with the addition of Crete, and one or two of the Ægean islands,

now in the possession of the Turks; but to suppress this petty revolt of

an ill-peopled and divided district, occupying a small corner of a vast

empire, all the strength of Turkey, both Asiatic and European, proved in

vain; for it was not till Ibrahim Pasha, in 1825, was sent by his

father, Mehemet Ali, with a large Egyptian armament that the Morea was

recovered to the Sultan, and the insurrection virtually quashed. Now,

when we consider that the Greeks of the Morea were stamped with the

servitude of nearly four hundred years—that they were, in fact, so awed

by the hereditary authority of their haughty masters, that in the

beginning of the war, as Gordon expressly testifies, three hundred of

them could not be made to stand against thirty Turks; that their only

effective leaders were a few brigand chiefs from the wild regions of

Acarnania, Ætolia, and Epirus; that the land was of such a nature as to

be kept in subjection by fortresses, all of which were in the possession

of the lords of the soil; that the sea was open to the men of Stamboul

as much as to those of Hydra and to Mehemet Ali’s Egyptians, we shall

see plainly that nothing but a wonderful combination of slowness,

stupidity, and cowardice on the part of the Turks could have allowed the

Greek revolt to protract its existence during the space of those first

four years, when—not without large aids from English gold—it continued

to present a prosperous front to the world. What strikes us most in the

account of the war given by Gordon—who will always be a main

authority—is the great want of capacity and enterprise in the Turkish

commanders both by sea and land—the very same weakness, in fact, which

is remarked at the present hour as afflicting the Turkish armies—a want

of good officers. There is in Turkey a want of a high-minded,

independent, and energetic middle class, without which an army never can

be well officered. Only one efficient Turkish captain appeared in the

whole course of the Greek war; and he took Missolonghi.

We have been anxious to bring forward this sad account of the conduct of

the Turks in the insurrection distinctly, as there is a danger, at the

present moment, of the Turkish military virtue being overrated. No man

who knew that nation ever doubted that they could defend a fort well in

the present war, as they have ever done where they happened to have a

good commander, and acted under encouraging circumstances. This is the

secret of the recent successful defence of Silistria, for which we feel

all respect. With the English and French fleet to guard their flank, and

all Europe as spectators of their mettle, with the very existence of

their empire perhaps at stake, and with the choice of their own

battlefield—that is, the defence of forts—the Turks would have been dull

truly, never to be roused, if the old heroism had not flamed out with

more than wonted fierceness. But the successful defence of this fort

affords no proof that the people who made it possess a spirit and an

organisation able to cope in a continued campaign with some Paskiewitch

or Diebitch of the next generation. Let us look to the history of the

Greek Revolution, and not believe that the Turks are great masters in

the art of war till they have successfully conducted a great campaign.

Above all things, matters must be so arranged at the next pacification

that the preservation of the peace of Europe may not be left to depend

on them.

Our third question has reference to the Greeks. Their conduct in the

great revolt by which their independence was ultimately achieved,

deserves to be noted with the greater care at the present moment,

because there are not a few persons in this country who are only too

ready, in the unhappy blunder of 1854, to forget the glorious heroism of

1821–26. Sir A. Alison, we are happy to say, with that large spirit of

appreciation for which he is remarkable, has shown no tendency to chime

in with this vulgar cry. He is not surprised that the brigands of

Thessaly and Epirus should not possess all the virtues of Pericles and

Aristides; and therefore he is not offended. The Greeks, in fact, in

1821, were the authors of their own liberty, as much as the Turks now

are the authors of the retreat of the Russians from Silistria. Most true

it is, that without the intervention of the Allied Powers,

notwithstanding their utmost efforts, their cause was lost; so also will

the defence of Silistria have proved in vain, if England and France, in

the proceedings that are yet waited for, show weakness or vacillation.

But the Greeks, in 1821, had this decided moral vantage-ground over the

Turks of the present day, that the intervention would never have taken

place had it not been forced upon the great Powers by the popular

sympathy which the heroism of the Greeks had excited. We may say, upon a

review of the whole five years’ struggle, that the Greeks displayed on

that occasion all the weakness, and indeed all the vices, that belonged

to a people just rising from under the weight of centuries of

oppression—but virtues also of the highest order, which it is of the

very nature of oppression to make a people forget. Oppression, in fact,

had never done its perfect work with this noble-spirited people; it had

made intriguers of those who remained in the Fanar, and mere

money-changers and money-makers of those who peopled the cities; the

base stamp of slavery also might be found on the plains: but freedom

remained among the mountains; and in Maina and Souli every brigand chief

was a hero. In fact, under such a military despotism as that of Turkey,

brigandage, which is outlawed by a good government, becomes the very

church militant of liberty. Whatsoever virtues, therefore, belong to the

indomitable spirit of nationality when forced to create its own law, and

redeem itself from destruction by the desperate efforts of individual

self-assertion, belonged to the Greek people, and those Albanian tribes

who were identified with them in the highest degree. But there was more

than that. The Greeks, as the whole spirit and tendency of Corai’s

writings show, were intellectually an advancing people. They had

scholars, and thinkers, and poets among them, who were fighting not

merely for the rude privilege of freedom—which a brute can understand as

well as a man—but for the vindication of an intellectual heritage of

which they were proud. To these men the possession of the uncorrupted

Greek tongue was not a mere pretty plaything, as it may be to many of

our academical men; but it was the badge which publicly proclaimed their

brotherhood with that great hierarchy of intellect which had conquered

ancient Rome, and inspired modern Europe. These men did not fight with

the mere impatient spirit of vulgar insurrection: they came, like

banished kings, claiming a long-lost throne; and Europe felt that there

was a dignity in their work not belonging to every exile. But there was

another element of strength in the Greek revolt, without which it never

could have succeeded, and an element which, like their zeal for

intellectual culture, proved that the modern Greeks are the true sons of

Themistocles and Pericles. This element was their use of the sea. The

Turks, though they had possessed the finest harbour in the world for

four centuries, though they governed a country where arms of the sea

serve the same purpose that railroads do elsewhere, had not only made no

progress in the nautical art, but had allowed their enterprising slaves

to create for themselves a navy by which they were to succeed in driving

their masters out of the field. When Ibrahim Pasha, in his march across

the Morea in 1825, had arrived at that high ground between Tripolizza

and Argos where the island of Hydra becomes visible, pointing with his

hand to that little nest of daring adventurers, he exclaimed, “_Thou_

LITTLE ENGLAND, _when shall I hold thee!_” This little England it was

which saved Greece. There is nothing in the records of modern history

more interesting than the dashing exploits of the gallant Ipsariote

Canaris with his fire-ships in the Greek war; and wherever Miaulis the

Hydriote appeared with his squadron, there everything that could be done

was done. But great as were the exploits of the islanders, Europe,

perhaps, knew more, and was justly more astonished at the gallant

conduct of the land army in the two sieges of Missolonghi—a fortress

protected only by shallow lagoons and a mud rampart, and utterly

unprovided with those long lines of fire-spouting barricades that make

Cronstadt and Sevastopol so difficult of approach. Yet Missolonghi was

maintained against the whole force of the Turks for two years; and when

it did fall, the resolute garrison made no capitulation, but after

having exhausted the last scraps of raw hides and sea-weeds which served

them for food, cut their way with gallant desperation, men and women

together, through the sabred ranks of their enemies. Nor were they

without their reward. Let Mr Alison speak:—

“Thus fell Missolonghi; but its heroic resistance had not been made in

vain. It laid the foundation of Greek independence; for it preserved

that blessing during a period of despondence and doubt, when its very

existence had come to be endangered. By drawing the whole forces of

the Ottoman empire upon themselves, its heroic garrison allowed the

nation to remain undisturbed in other quarters, and prevented the

entire reduction of the Morea, which was threatened during the first

moments of consternation consequent on Ibrahim’s success. By holding

out so long, and with such resolute perseverance, they not only

inflicted a loss upon the enemy greater than they themselves

experienced, but superior to the whole garrison of the place put

together. The Western nations watched the struggle with breathless

interest; and when at last it terminated in the daring sally, and the

cutting through of the enemy’s lines by a body of intrepid men,

fighting for themselves, their wives, and children, the public

enthusiasm knew no bounds. It will appear immediately that it was this

warm sympathy which mainly contributed to the success of the

Philhellenic societies which had sprung up in every country of Europe,

and ultimately rendered public opinion so strong as to lead to the

treaty of July, the battle of Navarino, and the establishment of Greek

independence.”

On the other hand, we must not shut our eyes to the faults of the

Greek people—which were, in fact, just the faults of their ancestors

made more large and more prominent by the long-continued action of

circumstances favourable to their development. Will it be

believed?—during the time that this heroic struggle was going on, by

a people manifestly unable, even with their strongest combined

exertions, to withstand their gigantic adversary—even in the

mid-heat and the critical turning-point of this grapple for free

existence, the Greek captains were quarrelling among themselves!

There were actually at one time, as Gordon assures us, seven civil

wars among a people who could only collect hundreds to plant against

the thousands of their masters! Such a self-divided people, one

might almost say, was unworthy of liberty. Certainly if they could

not agree to fight for themselves, it did not seem the business

either of France or England to force them to be patriotic. But,

after all, what was this but the natural result of the geography of

the country, and of the circumstances under which its latent liberty

had been maintained? What was it else but the same thing, on a small

scale, which the Peloponnesian war exhibited on a large scale?

Division is the weak point of Greece, and always was; and as for

other vices which stank so strongly in the nostrils of some of our

sentimental Philhellenes—cunning, falsehood, selfishness, rapacity,

and blushless impudence of all kinds—such rank weeds grow from a

neglected moral soil, not only in Greece, but in the streets of

London and Edinburgh, and elsewhere; the only difference being that

in our case a wicked or neglectful parent brings up corrupt

individuals, while in the case of the modern Greeks, a wicked and

neglectful government had brought up a corrupt people. There is, no

doubt, some truth in the doctrine of races and hereditary

propensities; and the Greek may probably be more subtle in

speculation, and more cunning in practice, than the other families

of the Indo-European stock. Nevertheless, we are inclined to believe

that the proverbial falsehood of the Greeks, which is the worst vice

now continually thrown in their teeth, is as much the result of

circumstances as of blood, and that, under the same influences, any

Teutonic race whose honesty is now most loudly bepraised, would

exhibit a large development of the same vice. When a people is not

allowed to play the lion, it must either learn to play the fox or

perish.

We shall now make a few remarks on the fourth point stated—viz., the

circumstances attending the conclusion of the war, as illustrative of

the policy of Russia. Here a very interesting contrast immediately

presents itself. Alexander, as we have seen, occupied with various

benevolent projects and perambulations, fearing also not a little

everything in the shape of rebellion and revolution, refused to have

anything to do with the Greek insurrection. In this he behaved like a

man, a gentleman, and a king, but not like a Russian. As a Russian he

would have followed the footsteps of Catherine, who twice, in the latter

half of the last century, raised a rebellion in the Morea, and assisted

Greece not from any classical enthusiasm, we may be sure, (such as

helped not a little to fan the Greek fire of ourselves and the Germans),

but that she might cripple Turkey by inflicting such a deep wound on her

left leg as would render amputation necessary. All this became plain in

a few years. Alexander died. In the year 1826 Nicholas succeeded; and

matters were at that period, by the fall of Missolonghi, and Ibrahim

Pasha’s occupation of the Morea, brought to such a pass that the bloody

five years’ struggle, with all its heroism, must have gone for nothing,

had not the tide of popular sympathy begun to move so strongly in favour

of intervention among the great European nations, that the governments

were forced to take the matter up. England, as the most classical, and,

may we not say also, the most generous, country in matters of

international feeling, was the first to make overtures for a European

demonstration in favour of Greek independence; and of the consulted

Powers none came forward with greater alacrity than the new Emperor of

the North. On the invitation of the Duke of Wellington, Nicholas was

invited to send ships into the Mediterranean to co-operate with the

fleets of France and England in coercing the Porte. Here was an

opportunity thrown in his way, by pure accident, to achieve in a few

days results more favourable to the most cherished projects of Russian

aggrandisement than might have been brought about by the tortuous

diplomacy and bloody encounters of long years; and this not only without

exciting suspicion of ambitious views, but amid acclamations, and

cheers, and philanthropic hurrahs innumerable. By joining England and

France in establishing the independence of Greece, the Czar felt that

not only would Turkey be reft of one of her limbs, but a new field would

be opened for diplomatic intrigue in regions hitherto preserved, by the

blessings of barbarism, from such refinements. A little tinselled court

at Athens, with some German princeling on the throne, was no doubt even

then seen in near vista, as the best possible theatre for the display of

those arts of political falsehood and finesse in which the Russian

Nesselrodes and Pozzo di Borgos excel. But more. Might not the Turk, who

is by no means a milksop, and who can deal heavy blows, as we have just

seen, even from his sick-bed—might not the Turk oppose the armed

intervention of the Powers, and might not some untoward collision be the

result, and might not the Turkish navy be annihilated; and then—O! then,

might not the way to Constantinople be more open, and the Balkan more

easily crossed? Such were the cogitations that might naturally begin to

move in the brain of a thoroughly Russian energetic and enterprising

young Czar, when the proposal was made to coerce the Sultan into the

recognition of the total or partial independence of one of his revolted

provinces. And the result, as we all know, was exactly such as the most

brilliant imagination of a brisk young emperor could have conceived. In

the course of a few months the Turkish fleet was destroyed at Navarino;

in two years Kustendji and Varna, and the whole sea-road to Stamboul,

were in the hands of the Russian fleet; and in three years General

Diebitch had made himself immortal by surmounting the unsurmountable

Balkan, and was resting with twenty thousand men (supposed, however, to

be sixty thousand!) on the banks of the Hebrus at Adrianople. Never was

game better played. The Turko-Russian campaign of 1828–9, which we can

now study to such advantage, was, we may say, impossible, but for the

battle of Navarino, which was only the natural result of the armed

intervention of the three Powers in favour of Greece. Add to this the

disorganisation of the Turkish army, caused by the massacre of the

Janizaries in 1826, and the consequent disaffection among the old

Turkish conservatives; and we shall see at once how the campaign of

1828–9 ended so gloriously for Russia, while that of 1854 has proved so

shameful. The cause of the difference lies obviously in the command of

the Black Sea, which Russia, by the disaster of Navarino, then had, and

which, by the Anglo-French alliance, she now has not. This, and this

only, has on the present occasion made the gallant defence of a single

fortress by the Turks equivalent to the loss of a whole campaign by the

Russians.

The last of our five points only remains—How has the establishment of

Greek independence, by the treaty of 1827, answered the expectations of

its founders?—What is the actual state of Greece, material, moral, and

intellectual?—Are the Greeks under German Otho substantially more

prosperous than they were under the Turkish Mahmouds? We cannot, of

course, hope to answer these questions satisfactorily within the limits

at present prescribed to us; but one or two observations we are

compelled to make, for the sake of taming down to somewhat of a more

sober temper the glowing observations with which Sir Archibald Alison

concludes his fourteenth chapter. There is a class of wise men in the

world who show their wisdom only in the negative way of seeing

difficulties and making objections. Sir Archibald Alison certainly does

not belong to this class. Once possessed by a grand idea, he marches on

fearlessly to its realisation, and lets difficulties shift for

themselves. He gives you a project for a marble palace and a granite

bridge; but seems to forget sometimes that there are only bricks to

build with. We like this error, which leans to virtue’s side, and has a

savour of something positive and productive; nevertheless the truth must

be spoken—for in politics the best intentions are often the mother of

the greatest blunders. The remarks of Sir Archibald Alison, which we

think require a little chastening, are as follows:—

“In truth, so far from the treaty of 6th July 1827 having been an

unjustifiable interference with the rights of the Ottoman Government

as an independent power, it was just the reverse; and the only thing

to be regretted is that the Christian powers did not interfere earlier

in the contest, and with far more extensive views for the restoration

of the Greek empire. After the massacre of Chios, the Turks had thrown

themselves out of the pale of civilisation: they had proved themselves

to be pirates, enemies of the human race, and no longer entitled to

toleration from the European family. Expulsion from Europe was the

natural and legitimate consequence of their flagrant violation of its

usages in war. Had this been done in 1822—had the Congress of Verona

acceded to the prayers of the Greeks, and restored the Christian

empire of the East under the guarantee of the Allied Powers—what an

ocean of blood would have been dried up, what boundless misery

prevented, what prospects of felicity to the human race opened! A

Christian monarchy often millions of souls, with Constantinople for

its capital, would, ere this, have added a half to its population,

wealth, and all the elements of national strength. The rapid growth,

since the Crescent was expelled from their territories, of Servia,

Greece, the Isles of the Archipelago, Wallachia, and Moldavia, and of

the Christian inhabitants in all parts of the country, proves what

might have been expected had all Turkey in Europe been blessed by a

similar liberation. The fairest portion of Europe would have been

restored to the rule of religion, liberty, and civilisation, and a

barrier erected by European freedom against Asiatic despotism in the

regions where it was first successfully combated.

“What is the grand difficulty that now surrounds the Eastern question,

which has rendered it all but insoluble even to the most far-seeing

statesman, and has compelled the Western Powers, for their own sake,

to ally themselves with a state which they would all gladly, were it

practicable without general danger, see expelled from Europe? Is it

not that the Ottoman empire is the only barrier which exists against

the encroachments of Russia, and that if it is destroyed the

independence of every European state is endangered by the extension of

the Muscovite power from the Baltic to the Mediterranean? All see the

necessity of this barrier, yet all are sensible of its weakness, and

feel that it is one which is daily becoming more feeble, and must in

the progress of time be swept away. This difficulty is entirely of our

own creation; it might have been obviated, and a firm bulwark erected

in the East, against which all the surges of Muscovite ambition would

have beat in vain. Had the dictates of humanity, justice, and policy

been listened to in 1822, and a _Christian_ monarchy been erected in

European Turkey, under the guarantee of Austria, France, and England,

the whole difficulties of the Eastern Question would have been

obviated, and European independence would have found an additional

security in the very quarter where it is now most seriously menaced.

Instead of the living being allied to the dead, they would have been

linked to the living; and a barrier against Eastern conquest erected

on the shores of the Hellespont, not with the worn-out materials of

Mahommedan despotism, but with the rising energy of Christian

civilisation.

“But modern Turkey, it is said, is divided by race, religion, and

situation; three-fourths of it are Christian, one-fourth Mahommedan:

there are six millions of Slavonians, four millions of Bulgarians, two

millions and a half of Turks, and only one million of Greeks;—how can

a united and powerful empire be formed of such materials? Most true;

and in what state was Greece anterior to the Persian invasion; Italy

before the Punic wars; England during the Heptarchy; Spain in the time

of the Moors; France during its civil wars? Has the existence of such

apparently fatal elements of division prevented these countries from

becoming the most renowned, the most powerful, the most prosperous

communities upon earth? In truth, diversity of race, so far from being

an element of weakness, is, when duly coerced, the most prolific

source of strength; it is to the body politic what the intermixture of

soils is to the richness of the earth. It is the meagreness of

unmingled race which is the real source of weakness; for it leaves

hereditary maladies unchanged, hereditary defects unsupplied. Witness

the unchanging ferocity in every age of the Ishmaelite, the

irremediable indolence of the Irish, the incurable arrogance of the

Turk; while the mingled blood of the Briton, the Roman, the Saxon, the

Dane, and the Norman, has produced the race to which is destined the

sceptre of half the globe.

“Such was the resurrection of Greece; thus did old Hellas rise from

the grave of nations. Scorched by fire, riddled by shot, baptised in

blood, she emerged victorious from the contest; she achieved her

independence because she proved herself worthy of it; she was trained

to manhood in the only school of real improvement, the school of

suffering. Twenty-five years have elapsed since her independence was

sealed by the battle of Navarino, and already the warmest hopes of her

friends have been realised. Her capital, Athens, now contains thirty

thousand inhabitants, quadruple what it did when the contest

terminated; its commerce has doubled, and all the signs of rapidly

advancing prosperity are to be seen on the land. The inhabitants have

increased fifty per cent; they are now above seven hundred thousand,

but the fatal chasms produced by the war, especially in the male

population, are still in a great measure unsupplied, and vast tracts

of fertile land, spread with the bones of its defenders, await in

every part of the country the robust arm of industry for their

cultivation. The Greeks, indeed, have not all the virtues of freemen;

perhaps they are never destined to exhibit them. Like the Muscovites,

and from the same cause, they are often cunning, fraudulent,

deceitful; slaves always are such; and a nation is not crushed by a

thousand years of Byzantine despotism, and four hundred of Mahommedan

oppression, without having some of the features of the servile

character impressed upon it. But they exhibit also the cheering

symptoms of social improvement; they have proved they still possess

the qualities to which their ancestors’ greatness was owing. They are

lively, ardent, and persevering, passionately desirous of knowledge,

and indefatigable in the pursuit of it. The whole life which yet

animates the Ottoman Empire is owing to their intelligence and

activity. The stagnation of despotism is unknown among them; if the

union of civilisation is unhappily equally unknown, that is a virtue

of the manhood, and not to be looked for in the infancy of nations.

The consciousness of deficiencies is the first step to their removal;

the pride of barbarism, the self-sufficiency of ignorance, is the real

bar to improvement; and a nation which is capable of making the

efforts for improvement which the Greeks are doing, if not in

possession of political greatness, is on the road to it.”

Now, to the first proposition contained in the above remarks, that the

Great Powers were perfectly justified in their intervention to save the

Greeks from the lawless ferocity of the Turks, we have no objections to

offer. It is a gladdening thing to believe and to see that the strong

cry of human sympathy will sometimes be listened to even by politicians,

and that heartless diplomacy in the public intercourse between people

and people is not all in all. But the summary expulsion of the Turks

from European Turkey, even supposing it were not too great a punishment

for the offence, would, when achieved, leave the most difficult part of

the Greek problem unsolved. Sir Archibald assumes that the discordant

and crude elements of which European Turkey, less the Turks, is

composed, would, in 1827, have readily coalesced, or is ready now, in

1854, to coalesce, into a great Greek empire, of which Constantinople

shall be the capital. That the Greeks themselves should believe this is

natural; that Sir Archibald Alison should believe it, carried away by a

noble sympathy with a heroic theme, is but the radiation of that fire

with which the noblest minds burn most intensely; but we have never

conversed with an individual practically conversant with the elements of

which Christian Turkey is composed, who looked upon such a consummation,

in the present age at least, as possible. A very intelligent and

patriotic Greek gentleman once remarked in our hearing, that the Greek

kingdom could never prosper in its present tiny dimensions; that the

Greek Islands—except Corcyra, which the English must keep as a naval

station—with Thessaly, and part of Thrace and Macedonia, must be added

to it before it could be free from that spirit of petty intrigue which

is the great vice of small governments. This is intelligible; because

the population included under such an extended Greek kingdom would, by a

great predominance both of numbers and moral forces, be essentially

Greek. But when it is proposed seriously to revive a Byzantine empire,

Greek merely in name, and comprising such large sections of a

non-Hellenic population as Servia, for instance, and Bulgaria, then, we

confess, we feel staggered; and all the historic analogies which Sir

Archibald Alison so skilfully presses into his service will not give

wings to our drooping faith. The best-instructed man with whom we ever

conversed on the subject—Dr George Finlay, who has lived among the

Greeks all his life—declares that such a combination is impossible: the

principle of cohesion is too weak, that of repulsion too strong: the

splendid aggregate would fall to pieces in a few years; and out of the

confused elements a new compulsory crystallisation take place under the

influence—very likely—of Russian polarity. Sir Archibald Alison himself,

in one of the phrases which he accidentally drops, seems to admit the

truth of this view. “Diversity of race,” he says, “so far from being an

element of weakness, is, _when duly coerced_, the most prolific source

of strength.” Very true, when _duly coerced_; but it is this very

principle of coercion that would not exist in the supposed Byzantine

empire; and could exist only, according to one of Sir A. Alison’s own

analogies, through the violent subjection of all the other races by the

one that happened to be strongest; for so it was, as Livy shows in

bloody detail, that the different races of Italy were coerced into a

grand national unity by the Roman Latins. But even after all that bloody

cementing, the aggregate of the Italian States, as no one knows better

than Sir Archibald Alison, was kept together by the loosest possible

cohesion; as the terrible outburst of the Marsic or Social war

testifies, which well-nigh split Italy into two, at a time when Julius

Cæsar, its future master, had not yet begun to trim his beard. He

certainly, the lion, and his nephew Augustus, the fox after him, did use

the bloody cement successfully, and exercised a strong coercion, the

effect of which is visible even now among the again-divided possessors

of the Italian soil; such a coercion as the present Czar of Russia might

perhaps at the present moment be in the fair way of exercising for the

sake of the Orthodox Church, had Sir Archibald Alison’s Byzantine empire

been patched together with a few purple rags in the year 1828. Or again,

to take another of his analogies, has Sir Archibald Alison forgotten

what was the state of Greece, not anterior to, but immediately after the

Persian invasion?—did it not plunge at once into all the pettiness of

provincial rivalry? and was not the great Peloponnesian war a speaking

proof, that there were no elements of cohesion even among pure Greeks,

and in the best days of Greece, strong enough to keep that unfortunate

country from consuming its own vitals in civil war, and becoming, by

voluntary self-betrayal, first the scoff of the Persian, and then the

prey of the Macedonian?—With these examples before us, we cannot but

consider ourselves more near the truth in following the practical

statesmen who declared that the new Greek kingdom should be confined

within the limits where the insurrection had chiefly raged, and where

the battle had been fought. Sober politicians could not but look upon

the whole affair as experimental; and whatever arguments may in the

course of events be advanced for an expansion of the limits of the

existing monarchy, no person practically acquainted with the events of

Greek government, or rather _mis_government, since the creation of

Otho’s kingdom in 1832, can imagine that the evils under which the

country has groaned would have been less, had Thessaly and Macedonia

been at that time included within the Hellenic border. We should still

have had German bureaucracy, French constitutionalism, Fanariete

intrigue, Ætolian brigandage, and modern diplomacy, thrown together to

brew a devil’s soup of jobbery, and falsehood, and feebleness, over

which the wisest man can only hold up his hands, and with a hopeless

wonderment exclaim—

“Double, double, toil and trouble;

Fire burn, and cauldron bubble!”

In conclusion, we need hardly say that we cannot agree with Sir A.

Alison when he states, so strongly as he does in the last paragraph,

that “_already the warmest hopes of the friends of Greece have been

realised; and all the signs of advancing prosperity are to be seen in

the land_.” It is a great mistake to imagine that the country is really

in a prosperous state because Athens has trebled its population in

thirty years. Athens has a well-furnished and rather a flourishing

appearance, for the same reason that Nauplia looks out upon the

beautiful Bay of Argos in such a state of woeful dismantlement and

dilapidation: the court has left the Argive city, and travelled to the

Attic; and all the gilded gingerbread, which you call prosperity, has

gone with it. Let no man be hasty to draw sanguine promises of Greek

prosperity from anything good or glittering that may delight his eyes in

the streets of Athens. That splendid palace of the little German prince,

now called King of Greece, with its fine well-watered gardens without,

and its fine pictures within, and its large dancing-saloon, the wonder

even of London beauties—this palace was a mere toy of the boy’s poetical

papa, and has no more to do with the progress of real prosperity in

Greece than a wax-doll has to do with life and organisation. Nay, it may

be most certainly affirmed, that not a small part of that sudden growth

of the capital of Greece is, with reference to the country at large, a

positive evil, a brilliant excrescence, which owes its existence

altogether to the artificial attraction of the nutritive fluids of the

body politic to one prominent point, while the largest and most useful

limbs are left without their natural supply. If there are shining white

palaces, and green Venetian blinds, in one Greek city, there is

desolation and dreariness, stagnation and every sort of barbarism, in

the fields. But “commerce flourishes;” it has doubled, says Sir A.

Alison, since the battle of Navarino. Be it so. Patras is a goodly city,

preferable, in some points, to Athens, we think; but were there not rich

merchants at Hydra before the Revolution? and are the Greeks at Patras

more prosperous than at Salonica, at Odessa, at Trieste, at Leghorn, at

Manchester? There were always clever merchants among the Greeks, just as

generally as there are sharp bankers and money-changers among Jews and

Armenians. We would by no means despair of Young Greece; there is much

to admire in her, especially her schools, university, and the wonderful

culture of her deathless language in its most recent shape; and only in

a fit of foolish pettishness would any Englishman entertain the thought

of blotting her again out of the map of nations, for any of the many

sins she has committed, whether by her own fault, or—what we suspect to

be the real truth—by the ignorant and officious agency of German

bureaucratists, Anglo-French constitutionalists, and Muscovite

diplomatists. Nevertheless, in so slippery a science as politics, and

with creatures so difficult to manage as human beings, it is always

better to avoid the temptation of drawing panoramic pictures in rose

colour; and with regard to Greece, a country to which humanity owes so

much, our first duty, in the present very critical state of Europe, is

to look soberly at a reality full of perilous problems, and to possess

our souls in patience.

STUDENT LIFE IN SCOTLAND.

If the latest lingering summer tourist in Scotland should perchance

delay his departure until he is driven southward by the chill evenings

of November, he may chance to see arising around him, in some

considerable town, a race of young men, whose loose robes, varying from

the brightest of fresh scarlet to the sombrest hue which years of bad

usage can bestow on that gay colour, attract him as peculiar and funny,

and as, on the whole, a phenomenon provocative of inquiry. He is told

that the session has begun, and these are the students of the

university. The information will perhaps be surprising to him, whoever

he be: if he be an Oxonian or Cantab, a sneer of derision will perhaps

curve his lips when he remembers the gentleman commoners, and tufted

noblemen, who crowd the streets of his Alma Mater in haughty

exclusiveness and unmeasured contempt of the citizen class, who

evidently have no respect whatever for the scarlet gown men of poor

Scotland. Indeed, the luxurious academic ease, the placid repose of

dignified scholarship, are strangers to these wearers of the flowing

toga. It is evident that many of them have felt the pinch of poverty. No

pliant gyp attends the toilet, or lays forth the table for the jovial

“night-cap.” Hard work and hard fare are their portion, and their

raiment shows that they have been rubbed roughly against the world,

instead of being set apart from its toils and cares and vulgar turmoil

in aristocratic isolation. Some of the gowns are bright and new, indeed,

and the faces in which they culminate are ruddy, fresh, and warm. Yet

the youths endowed in these blushing honours seem not to exult therein,

but rather to give place to the hard-featured brethren, whose threadbare

togas bear the grim marks of mud and soot, or hang in tatters like a

beggar’s cloak. The truth is, that the wear and tear of the gown is held

indicative of advancement in the academic curriculum, and is rather

encouraged than avoided. And of those who wear it, many, though they may

have been sufficiently tutored in the economy of their more serviceable

clothing, have not made acquisitions in the school of finery, or

acquired a weakness for decorative vanity. We remember an instance of a

hard-featured mountaineer, who afterwards rose to distinction in an

abstruse department of science, being charged by his fellow-students

with having so far desecrated the gown as to have perambulated the

streets with a barrow hawking potatoes, by the cry of “Taties—taties!”

He admitted the commercial part of the charge, but denied the admixture

of potato-vender and student by the desecration of the robes. He was

careful to put off his gown while he cried “taties.”

With all these and other indications of poverty, there is something to

our eyes extremely interesting in the Scottish universities, as relics

preserved through all changes in dynasties, constitutions, and

ecclesiastical polities, through poverty, neglect, and enmity, of the

original characteristics of the university system, as it existed in all

its grandeur of design in the middle ages.

A collection of remarkable papers, now before us, opens up and presents,

in valuable and full light, the progress of a portion of our Scottish

universities. They consist of two works of that class commonly called

“Club Books.” The one is a collection of records and other documents

connected with the University of Glasgow, printed under the auspices of

the Maitland Club; the other a “Fasti Aberdonenses,” appropriately

collected by that northern association which, in honour of the Cavalier

annalist of “The Troubles,” is called the “Spalding Club.” Both works

are edited with that peculiar archæological strictness which has been

applied to this class of documents, through the special skill of Mr

Cosmo Innes. They are both edited by him, with some partial aid, in the

case of the Glasgow documents, from his ablest coadjutor in Scottish

archæology, Mr Joseph Robertson. These volumes form a very apt

supplement to that collection of ecclesiastical records which, arranged

and printed under the same able management, are an honour to our

country. With the exception of their curious and agreeable prefaces,

neither the chartularies nor the volumes before us profess to be

readable books. They are collections of records, and must have all the

substantial dryness of records. But then they contain in themselves the

materials of the social and incidental history of the classes of persons

to which they refer, and contain imbedded within them the materials of

instruction, both valuable and curious. With some labour we have driven

shafts through their strata, and we may have occasion to lay before our

readers a few of the specimens we have excavated—confining ourselves, in

the mean time, to the characteristics developed by the collection of

documents.

The direction of these is chiefly to show how thoroughly these remote

institutions partook in the great system of the European universities,

and how many of its vestiges they still retain. The forms, the

nomenclature, and the usages of the middle ages are still preserved,

though some of them have naturally changed their character with the

shifting of the times. Each university has still its chancellor, and

sometimes a high State dignitary accepts of the office. It was of old a

very peculiar one, for it was the link which allied the semi-republican

institutions of the universities to the hierarchy of St Peter. The

bishop was almost invariably the chancellor, unless the university were

subordinated to some great monastic institution, when its head was the

chancellor—as in Paris the Prior of St Genevieve exercised the high

office. In the Scottish universities the usual Continental arrangement

seems to have been adopted prior to the Reformation—as a matter of

course, the bishop was the chancellor.

But while the institution was thus connected through a high dignitary

with the Romish hierarchy, it possessed, as a great literary community

with peculiar privileges, its own great officer electively chosen for

the preservation of those privileges. It had its rector, who, like the

chief magistrate of a municipal corporation, but infinitely above him in

the more illustrious character of the functions for which his

constituents were incorporated, stood forth as the head of his republic,

and its protector from the invasions either of the subtle churchmen or

the grasping barons. The rector, indeed, was the concentration of that

peculiar commonwealth which the constitution of the ancient university

prescribed. Sir William Hamilton has shown pretty clearly that, in its

original acceptation, the word Universitas was applied, not to the

comprehensiveness of the studies, but to that of the local and personal

expansion of the institution. The university despised the bounds of

provinces, and even nations, and was a place where ardent minds from all

parts of the world met to study together, and impart to each other the

influence of collective intellect working in combination and

competition. The constitution of the rectorship was calculated to

provide for the protection of this universality, for the election was

managed by the procurators or proctors of the nations or local bodies

into which the students were divided, generally for the purpose of

neutralising the naturally superior influence of the home students, and

keeping up the cosmopolitan character imparted to the system by its

enlightened founders. Hence in Paris the nations were France, Picardy,

and England, afterwards changed to Germany, in which Scotland was

included. Glasgow is still divided into four nations: the Natio

Glottiana, or Clydesdale, taken from the name given to the river by

Tacitus. In the Natio Laudoniana were originally included the rest of

Scotland, but it was found expedient to place the English and the

colonists within it; while Albania, intended to include Britain south of

the Forth, has been made rather inaptly the nation of the foreigners.

Rothesay, the fourth nation, includes the extreme west of Scotland and

Ireland. In Aberdeen there is a like division into Marenses, or

inhabitants of Mar, Angusiani or men of Angus, which we believe includes

the whole world south of the Grampians as the Angusiani, while the

northern districts are partitioned into Buchanenses and Moravienses.

The procurators of the nations were, in the University of Paris, those

high authorities to whom, as far separated from all sublunary

influences, King Henry of England proposed, in the twelfth century, to

refer his disputes with the Papal power. In England they are represented

at the present day by the formidable proctor, who is a terror to

evil-doers without being any praise or protection to them that do well.

But it may safely be said that the chubby youths who in Glasgow and

Aberdeen go through the annual ceremony, as _procuratores nationum_, of

representing the votes of the nations in the election of a rector, more

legitimately represent those procurators of the thirteenth and

fourteenth century, who maintained the rights of their respective

nations in the great intellectual republic called a Universitas. The

discovery, indeed, of this latent power, long hidden, like some

palæontological fossil, under the pedagogical innovations of modern

days—which tended to make the self-governing institution a school ruled

by masters—created astonishment in all quarters, even in those who found

themselves in possession of the privilege. In Aberdeen especially, when

some mischievous antiquary maintained that by the charter the election

of a lord rector lay with the students themselves, the announcement was

received with derision by a discerning public, and with a severe frown,

as a sort of seditious libel, enticing the youth to rebellion, by the

indignant professors. But it turned out to be absolutely true, however

astounding it might be to those who are unacquainted with the early

history of universities, and think that everything ancient must have

been tyrannical and hierarchical. The young ones made a sort of

saturnalia of their fugitive power, while the professors looked on as

one may see a solemn mastiff contemplate the gambols of a litter of

privileged spaniel pups. The privilege was, however, used effectively,

we may say nobly. There has been no fogyism, or adherence to any settled

routine of humdrum respectability, in the selection of the rectors. From

Burke to Bulwer Lytton and Macaulay, they have, with a few exceptions,

been men of the first intellectual rank. What is a still more remarkable

result than that they should often have been men of genius, there is

scarcely an instance of a lord rector having been a clamorous quack or a

canting fanatic.

In Edinburgh there is no such relic of the ancient university

commonwealth, and the students have instinctively supplied the want by

affiliating their voluntary societies, and choosing a distinguished man

to be the president of the aggregate group. The constitution of the

College of Edinburgh, indeed, was not matured until after the old

constitution of the universities had suffered a reaction, and, far from

any new ones being constructed on the old model, the earlier

universities with difficulty preserved their constitution. Some person

called a College Bailie is the dignitary who presides over the interests

of the University of Edinburgh as one of the appendages of the Town

Council. By that body the greater part of the patronage of the

institution is administered, and now it is decided that they have the

sole and absolute right of making bye-laws for the regulation of this,

the leading educational institution of Scotland. There is something

transcendently ludicrous in a civic corporation—a conclave of demure

tradesmen, intensely respectable—extending those functions of

administration which are appropriately applicable to marketing and

street-cleaning to the direction and adjustment of the highest ranges of

human instruction. Yet somehow it has worked well, on account of the

very anomaly involved in it. The town-councillors, in selecting a

professor, like the students in choosing a rector, are afraid of their

own powers, and never venture to use their own discretion. Absolutely

ignorant of the branches of knowledge to which the rules they frame

apply, they become a medium through which these rules are moulded by

others, and a certain commercial sagacity enables them to divine who are

the most sagacious advisers. So also in the exercise of their patronage,

being utterly unable to test the capacity of a candidate, they dare not

give way to any partiality founded at least on this ground, and they are

generally acute enough to find out who is most highly estimated by those

who are competent to judge.

That principle of internal self-action and independence of the

contemporary constituted powers, of which the rectorship and some other

relics remain to us at this day, is one of the most remarkable, and in

many respects admirable, features in the history of the middle ages. It

is involved in mysteries and contradictions which one would be glad to

see unravelled by skilful and full inquirers. Adapted to the service of

pure knowledge, and investing her with absolute prerogatives, the system

was yet one of the creatures of that Romish hierarchy, which at the same

time thought by other efforts to circumscribe human inquiry, and make it

the servant of her own ambitious efforts.

It may help us in some measure to the solution of the phenomenon to

remember that, however dim the light of the Church may have shone, it

was yet the representative of the intellectual system, and was in that

capacity carrying on a war with brute force. Catholicism was the great

rival and controller of the feudal strength and tyranny of the

age—_informe ingens cui lumen ademptum_. As intellect and knowledge were

the weapons with which they encountered the sightless colossus, it was

believed that the intellectual arsenals could not be too extensive or

complete—that intellect could not be too richly cultivated. Like many

combatants, they perhaps forgot future results in the desire of

immediate victory, and were for the moment blind to the effect so

nervously apprehended by their successors, that the light thus brought

in by them would illuminate the dark corners of their own ecclesiastical

system, and lead the way to its fall. Perhaps such hardy intellects as

Abelard or Aquinas may have anticipated such a result from the stimulus

given by them to intellectual inquiry, and may not have deeply lamented

the process.

But however it came about—whether in the blindness of all, or the

far-sightedness of some—the Church, from the thirteenth to pretty far on

in the fifteenth century, encouraged learning with a noble reliance and

a zealous energy which it would ill become the present age to despise or

forget. And even if it should all have proceeded from a blind confidence

that the Church placed on a rock was unassailable, and that mere human

wisdom, even trained to the utmost of its powers, was, after all, to be

nothing but her handmaiden, let us respect this unconscious simplicity

which enabled the educational institutions to be placed in so high and

trusted a position. The Church supplied something then, indeed, which we

search after in vain in the present day, and which we shall only achieve

by some great strides in academic organisation, capable of supplying

from within what was then supplied from without: and the quality thus

supplied was no less than that cosmopolitan nature, which made the

university not merely parochial, or merely national, but universal, as

its name denoted. The temporal prince might endow the academy with lands

and riches, and might confer upon its members honourable and lucrative

privileges, but it was to the head of the one indivisible Church that

the power belonged of franking it all over Christendom, and establishing

throughout the civilised world a free-masonry of intellect, which made

all the universities, as it were, one great corporation of the learned

men of the world.

It must be admitted that we have here one of those practical

difficulties which form the necessary price of the freedom of

Protestantism. When a great portion of Europe was no longer attached to

Rome, the peculiar centralisation of the educational systems was broken

up. The old universities, indeed, retained their ancient privileges in a

traditional, if not a practically legal shape, through Lutheranism and

Calvinism carrying the characteristics of the abjured Romanism, yet

carrying them unscathed, since they were protected from injury and

insult by the enlightened object for which they were established and

endowed. When, however, in Protestant countries, the old universities

became poor, or when a change of condition demanded the foundation of a

new university, it was difficult to restore anything so simple and grand

as that old community of privileges which made the member of one

university a citizen of all others, according to his rank, whether he

were laureated in Paris or distant Upsala—in the gorgeous academies

close to the fostering influence of the Pope, or in that humble edifice

endowed after the model of the University of Bologna, in an obscure

Scottish town named Glasgow.

The English universities, by their great wealth and political influence,

were able to stand alone, neither giving nor taking. Their Scottish

contemporaries, unable to fight a like battle, have had reason to

complain of their ungenerous isolation; and as children of the same

parentage, and differing only with their southern neighbours in not

having so much worldly prosperity, it is natural that they should look

back with a sigh, which even orthodox Presbyterianism cannot suppress,

to the time when the universal mental sway of Rome, however offensive it

might be in its own insolent supremacy, yet exercised that high

privilege of supereminent greatness to level secondary inequalities, and

place those whom it favoured beyond the reach of conventional

humiliations.

To keep up that characteristic which the Popedom only offered, the

monarchs of the larger Protestant states have endeavoured to apply the

incorporation principle to universities. In small states and republics

the difficulty of obtaining a general sanction to frank their honours to

any distance from the place where they are given is still greater; yet

it is in such places that, through fortunate coincidents, an academy

sometimes acquires a widespread reputation and influence. To what

eminence the universities in the United States are destined who shall

predict? yet, in the estimate of many, they have no right to be called

universities at all; and of the doctors’ degrees which they freely

distribute in this country, much doubt is entertained of the

genuineness. Yet if it would be difficult to lay down how it is that

these American institutions have acquired any power to grant

degrees—that is to say, the power not only to confer prizes and rewards

among their own alumni, but to invest them with insignia of literary

rank current for their value over the world—it would be equally

difficult for any of the ancient universities in Protestant states to

claim an exclusive right to such a power, since this could only be done

through Papal authority. It will be said that there is just the same

practical difficulty in this as in all other departments of human

institutions, and especially those which, like rank, are transferable

from country to country, so as to require and obtain an estimate of

their value in each. It will be said that the exclusiveness which denies

the Heidelberg Doctor of Philosophy a parallel with the LL.D. of Oxford

is just the same as that which will by no means admit the count or baron

who is deputy-assistant highways controller, as on a par with an earl or

baron in the peerage of England. The Kammer Junker of Denmark is not

looked on as a privy-councillor. The Sheriff of Mecca, the Sheriff of

London, and the Sheriff of Edinburgh, are three totally different

personages, and would feel very much puzzled how to act if they were to

change places for a while. Some Eastern dignitaries—Baboo, Fudky, and

the like, must occasionally puzzle even the adepts of Leadenhall. Nor

are we without our instances near at hand. What is the Knight of Kerry,

what the Captain of Clanranald, what The Chisholm—and how do the

authorities at the Herald’s Office deal with them? Has not an Archbishop

of York been suspected of imposture in a Scottish bank when he signed

with the surname of Eborac; and have not our Scottish judges, with their

strange-sounding peerage-titles, made mighty confusion in respectable

English hotels, when my Lord Kames is so intimate with Mrs Home, and my

Lord Auchinleck retires with Mrs Boswell? But admitting the confusion to

be irremediable in the department of political and decorative rank, the

absence of a uniform intellectual hierarchy is not the less to be

regretted, while the great effort made to secure it in an early and

imperfect condition of society should be contemplated with a respectful

awe. There is just one man who professes to be able effectually to

restore it—the sage of positivism, M. Comte; and he is to do it when he

has established absolute science in everything, and put down freedom of

opinion by the application of sure scientific deduction in every

department of the world’s intellectual pursuits; when it shall be as

impossible to question the most abstruse propositions in chemistry,

geology, or social organisation, as to question the multiplication table

or the succession of the tides—then, indeed, may absolute laws be laid

down to govern the world in its appreciation of intellectual rank. But

it is long yet ere that day of certain knowledge—if it is ever destined

to dawn on that poor, blundering, unfortunate fellow, man. We have got

but a very, very little way yet, and we know not how much farther it is

permitted us to penetrate. Terrible are the chaotic heaps that have to

be cleared away or set in order by the pioneers of intellect, and it is

still a question whether our race can provide those who are

strong-headed enough for the task.

There is much truth, however, at the foundation of the French sage’s

audacious speculations, that intellect must achieve for herself her own

conquests and take her own position. In the greatness of the

acquirements of which they are the nursery, must we look hereafter to

the greatness of our seminaries of learning. If the university is but a

grammar school or a collection of popular lecture-rooms, no royal

decrees or republican ordinances will give it rank—if it be a great

centre of literary and scientific illumination, the pride or enmity of

its rivals will not tarnish its lustre. But apart from, the question

between catholicity and positivity, it is, we think, very interesting to

notice in our universities—humble as we admit them to be—the relics of

the nomenclature and customs which, in the fifteenth century, marked

their rank in the great European cluster of universities. The most

eminent of their characteristics is that high officer, the Rector,

already spoken of. There is a Censor too—but for all the grandeur of his

etymological ancestry in Roman history, he is but a small officer—in

stature sometimes, as well as dignity. He calls over the catalogue or

roll of names, marking those absent—a duty quite in keeping with that

enumerating function of the Roman officer which has left to us the word

census as a numbering of the people.

So lately as the eighteenth century, when the monastic or collegiate

system which has now so totally disappeared from the Scottish

universities yet lingered about them, the censor was a more important,

or at least more laborious officer, and, oddly enough, he corresponded

in some measure with the character into which, in England, the Proctor

had been so strangely diverted. In a regulation adopted in Glasgow, in

1725, it is provided “that all students be obliged, after the bells

ring, immediately to repair to their classes, and to keep within them,

and a censor be appointed to every class, to attend from the ringing of

the bells till the several masters come to their classes, and observe

any, either of his own class or of any other, who shall be found walking

in the courts during the above time, or standing on the stairs, or

looking out at the windows, or making noise.”—_Munimenta Univ.

Glasguensis_, ii. 429. This has something of the mere schoolroom

characteristic of our modern university discipline, but this other

paragraph, from the same set of regulations, is indicative both of more

mature vices among the precocious youth of Glasgow, and a more

inquisitorial corrective organisation:—

“That for keeping order without the College, a censor be appointed to

observe any who shall be in the streets before the bells ring, and to go

now and then to the billiard-tables, and to the other gaming-places, to

observe if any be playing at the times when they ought to be in their

chambers; and that this censor be taken from the poor scholars of the

several classes alternately, as they shall be thought most fit for that

office, and that some reward be thought of for their pains.” (_Ibid._,

425). In the fierce street-conflicts, to which we may have occasion to

refer, the poor censors had a more perilous service.

In the universities of Central Europe, and that of Paris, their parent,

the censor was a very important person; yet he was the subordinate of

one far greater in power and influence. In the words of the writers of

the _Trevaux_, so full of knowledge about such matters, “Un Régent est

dans sa classe comme un Souverain; il crée des charges de _Censeurs_

comme il lui plait, il les donne à qui il veut, et il les abolit quand

il le judge à propos.” The regents still exist in more than their

original potency; for they are that essential invigorating element of

the university of the present day, without which it would not exist. Of

old, when every magister was entitled to teach in the university, the

regents were persons selected from among them, with the powers of

government as separate from the capacity and function of instructing; at

present, in so far as the university is a school, the regent is a

schoolmaster—and therefore, as we have just said, he is an essential

element of the establishment. The term regent, like most of the other

university distinctions, was originally of Parisian nomenclature, and

there might be adduced a good deal of learning bearing on its

signification as distinct from that of the word professor—now so

desecrated in its use that we are most familiar with it in connection

with dancing-schools, jugglers’ booths, and veterinary surgeries. The

regency, as a university distinction conferred as a reward of capacities

shown within the arena of the university, and judged of according to its

republican principles, seems to have lingered in a rather confused shape

in our Scottish universities, and to have gradually ingrafted itself on

the patronage of the professorships. So in reference to Glasgow,

immediately after the Revolution, when there was a vacancy or two from

Episcopalians declining to take the obligation to acknowledge the new

Church Establishment, there appears the following notice:—

“_January 2, 1691._—There had never been so solemn and numerous an

appearance of disputants for a regent’s place as was for fourteen days

before this, nine candidates disputing; and in all their disputes and

other exercises they all behaved themselves so well, as that the Faculty

judged there was not one of them but gave such specimens of their

learning as might deserve the place, which occasioned so great

difficulty in the choice that the Faculty, choosing a leet of some of

them who seemed most to excel and be fittest, did determine the same by

lot, which the Faculty did solemnly go about, and the lot fell upon Mr

John Law, who thereupon was this day established regent.”—_Ibid._, vol.

iii. p. 596.

Sir William Hamilton explains the position of the regents with a lucid

precision which makes his statement correspond precisely with the

documentary stores before us. “In the original constitution of Oxford,”

he says, “as in that of all the older universities of the Parisian

model, the business of instruction was not confided to a special body of

privileged professors. The University was governed, the University was

taught, by the graduates at large. Professor, master, doctor, were

originally synonymous. Every graduate had an equal right of teaching

publicly in the University the subjects competent to his faculty and to

the rank of his degree; nay, every graduate incurred the obligation of

teaching publicly, for a certain period, the subjects of his faculty—for

such was the condition involved in the grant of the degree itself. The

bachelor, or imperfect graduate, partly as an exercise towards the

higher honour, and useful to himself, partly as a performance due for

the degree obtained, and of advantage to others, was bound to read under

a master or doctor in his faculty a course of lectures; and the master,

doctor, or perfect graduate, was in like manner, after his promotion,

obliged immediately to commence (_incipere_), and to continue for a

certain period publicly to teach (_regere_), some at least of the

subjects appertaining to his faculty. As, however, it was only necessary

for the University to enforce this obligation of public teaching,

compulsory on all graduates during the term of their _necessary

regency_, if there did not come forward a competent number of _voluntary

regents_ to execute this function; and as the schools belonging to the

several faculties, and in which alone all public or ordinary instruction

could be delivered, were frequently inadequate to accommodate the

multitude of the inceptors, it came to pass that in these universities

the original period of necessary regency was once and again abbreviated,

and even a dispensation from actual teaching during its continuance

commonly allowed. At the same time, as the University only accomplished

the end of its existence through its regents, they alone were allowed to

enjoy full privileges in its legislature and government; they alone

partook of its _beneficia_ and _sportulæ_. In Paris the non-regent

graduates were only assembled on rare and extraordinary occasions: in

Oxford the regents constituted the house of congregation, which, among

other exclusive prerogatives, was anciently the initiatory assembly

through which it behoved that every measure should pass before it could

be admitted to the house of convocation, composed indifferently of all

regents and non-regents resident in the University.”—_Dissertations_, p.

391–2.

But the term Regent became afterwards obsolete in the southern

universities, while it continued by usage to be applied to a certain

class of professors in our own. Along with other purely academic titles

and functions, it fell in England before the rising ascendancy of the

heads and other functionaries of the collegiate institutions—colleges,

halls, inns, and entries. So, in the same way, evaporated the faculties

and their deans, still conspicuous in Scottish academic nomenclature. In

both quarters they were derived from the all-fruitful nursery of the

Parisian University. But Scotland kept and cherished what she obtained

from a friend and ally; England despised and forgot the example of an

alien and hostile people. The Decanus seems to have been a captain or

leader of ten—a sort of tything-man; and Ducange speaks of him as a

superintendent of ten monks. He afterwards came into general employment

as a sort of chairman and leader. The _Doyens_ of all sorts, lay and

ecclesiastical, were a marked feature of ancient France, as they still

are of Scotland, where there is a large body of lay deans, from the

eminent lawyer who presides over the Faculty of Advocates down to “my

feyther the deacon,” who gathers behind a half-door the gear that is to

make his son a capitalist and a magistrate. Among the Scottish

universities the deans of faculty are still nearly as familiar a title

as they were at Paris or Bologna.

The employment in the universities of a dead language as the means of

communication was not only a natural arrangement for teaching the

familiar use of that language, but it was also evidently courted as one

of the tokens of learned isolation from the common illiterate world. In

Scotland, as perhaps in some other small countries, such as Holland, the

Latin remained as the language of literature after the great nations

England, France, Germany, Italy, and Spain, were making a vernacular

literature for themselves. In the seventeenth century the Scot had not

been reconciled to the acceptance of the English tongue as his own; nor,

indeed, could he employ it either gracefully or accurately. On the other

hand, he felt the provincialism of the Lowland Scottish tongue, the

ridicule attached to its use in books which happened to cross the

Border, and the narrowness of the field it afforded to literary

ambition.

Hence every man who looked to be a worker in literature or science,

threw himself into the academic practice of cultivating the familiar use

of the Latin language. To the Scottish scholars it was almost a revived

language, and they possessed as great a command over it as can ever be

obtained of a language confined to a class, and not universally used by

the lowest as well as the highest of the people. Hence, when he had the

pen in hand, the educated Scotsman felt the Latin come more naturally to

his call than the vernacular; and people accustomed to rummage among old

letters by Scotsmen will have sometimes noticed that the writer,

beginning with his native tongue, slips gradually into the employment of

Latin as a relief, just as we may find a foreigner abandon the arduous

labour of breaking English, to repose himself in the easy fluency of his

natural speech. We believe that no language, employed only by a class,

is capable of the same copiousness and flexibility as that which is

necessarily applicable to all purposes, from the meanest to the highest.

But such as a class-language could become, the Latin was among the

Scots; and it is to their peculiar position and academic practices that,

among a host of distinguished humanists, we possess in George Buchanan

the most illustrious writer in the Roman tongue, both in poetry and

prose, since the best days of Rome.

The records before us afford some amusing instances of the anxious zeal

with which any lapse into the vernacular tongue was prevented, and

conversation among the students was rendered as uneasy and unpleasant as

possible. In the visitorial regulations of King’s College, Aberdeen, in

1546, it is provided that the attendant boys—the gyps, if we may so call

them—shall be expert in the use of Latin, lest they should give occasion

to the masters or students to have recourse to the vernacular speech:

“_Ne dent occasionem magistris et Studentibus lingua vernacula uti._” If

Aberdeen supplied a considerable number of waiting-boys thus

accomplished, the stranger wandering to that far northern region, in the

seventeenth century, might have been as much astonished as the man in

_Ignoramus_, who tested the state of education in Paris by finding that

even the dirty boys in the streets were taught French. It would, after

all, have perhaps been more difficult to find waiting-boys who could

speak English. The term by which they are described is a curious

indication of the French habits and traditions of the northern

universities: they are spoken of as _garciones_—a word of obvious origin

to any one who has been in a French hotel.

In Glasgow, in a law passed in 1667, it is provided that “all who are

delated by the public censor for speaking of English shall be fined in

an halfpenny _toties quoties_.” The sum is not large, but the imposition

of the penalty at that particular juncture looks rather unreasonable,

since the Senate and the Faculty of Arts had just abandoned the use of

Latin in their public documents, and had adopted what, if not strictly

English, was the vernacular tongue—a change which was doubtless as much

to their own ease as it is to the satisfaction of the reader, who

becomes painfully alive to the continued and progressive barbarisation

of the academic Latin.

In a great measure, however, it seems to have been less the object in

view to inculcate Latin than to discountenance the vernacular language

of the country. In some instances the language of France is admitted;

and, from the number of Scotsmen who carved out their fortunes in that

hospitable and affluent country, this acquisition must have been one of

peculiar value. In a set of statutes and laws of the Grammar School of

Aberdeen, adopted in 1553, there is a very singular liberty of

choice—the pupils might speak in Greek, Hebrew, or even in Gaelic,

rather than in Lowland Scots: “Loquantur omnes Latinè, Græcè, Hebraicè,

Gallicè, Hybernicè—nunquam vernaculè, saltem cum his qui Latinè

noscunt.” This is by no means to be held as an indication of the

familiar acquaintance of the Aberdonian students with the language of

the Gael; on the contrary, it shows how entirely this was placed within

the category of foreign tongues. We know no other instances in which the

tongue of the Highlander is spoken of in connection with the earlier

educational institutions of the country; but we think it not improbable

that any encouragement it received was for much the same reason that

Hindostanee and the African dialects are now sometimes taught to young

divines—that they may work as missionaries among the heathen. A few

students from this wild region, to which Christianity had scarcely

penetrated, were indeed a peculiar feature of the educational

institutions of Aberdeen, and in a modified shape so remain to this day,

since some wild men from the hills, spending a brief period at school or

college to acquire a fragment of education, are yet known by the term

_extranni_, of old applied to them. There is a prevailing, but utterly

false impression, that Aberdeen is in the Highlands. It lingers chiefly,

in the present century, with Cockneys beginning their first northern

tour; but in the seventeenth century it may, perhaps, have been

entertained even in the metropolis of Scotland. Hence the educational

institutions there, though at the extremity of a long tract of

agricultural lowland, inhabited by a Teutonic people, and farther

separated from the actual Celtic line than Edinburgh itself, are

generally talked of in old documents as those which are peculiarly

available for the civilisation of the Highlanders. Glasgow was nearer

and more accessible to the great body of the western Celts; but in this

town the prejudices against them were greater, and the alienation,

especially in religion, was more emphatic. It was to Aberdeen then,

generally, that the son of a predatory chief would be sent, to fit him

in some measure for converse with the civilised world, such as it then

was; and the fierce owner of a despotic power over his clansmen would

appear among the sober burgesses of the northern metropolis much as an

American chief may among the inhabitants of some distant city in the

Union. Lovat studied at King’s College, in Aberdeen, and there acquired

a portion of those accomplishments which made him act the subtle

courtier in Paris or London, and reserve his sanguinary ruffianism for

Castle Dunie. Not unmindful of the benefits of the institution, some of

the Celtic princes bestowed endowments on it. Thus, the Laird of

Macintosh, who begins in the true regal style, “We, Lachlan Macintosh of

that ilk,” and who calls himself the Chief and _Principall_ of the Clan

Chattan—probably using the term which he thought would be the most

likely to make his supremacy intelligible to university

dignitaries—dispenses to the King’s College two thousand marks, “for

maintaining hopeful students thereat.” He reserves, however, a dynastic

control over the endowment, making it conducive to the clan discipline

and the support of the hierarchy surrounding the chief. It was a

condition that the beneficiary should be presented “by the lairds of

Macintosh successively in all time coming; that a youth of the name of

Macintosh or of Clan Chattan shall be preferred to those of any other

name,” &c.—_Fasti_, 206. This document is titled in the records,

“Macintosh’s Mortification,” according to a peculiar technical

application of that expression in Scotland, to the perpetuity of

possession which in England is termed mortmain. Later in the eighteenth

century, M‘Lean of Coll causes another mortification to be “applied

towards the maintenance and education of such young man or boy of the

name of M‘Lean as shall be recommended by me, or my heirs or successors

on the estate of Coll.” This is probably the same Highland potentate who

frowned so savagely on young Colman, when he, seeing an old gentleman

familiarly called Coll by his contemporaries, addressed him as Mr Coll.

Such a solecism would never be permitted to pass as an accidental

mistake, since it would be utterly impossible to convince the mighty

chief of Coll that there existed in this world a person ignorant enough

to be unacquainted with his style and title. At a still later date, a

bequest is more gracefully made by Sir John M‘Pherson: “In testimony of

my gratitude to the University of Old Aberdeen, I bequeath to ditto, so

as to afford an annual bursary to any Highland student who may be

selected to receive the said bursary, two thousand five hundred pounds

of my Carnatic stock.”

Here there is a wider range of application, but still the endowment is

to a Highland student. Nor, after all, when the social state of the

Highlanders is considered, can we wonder that their gentry should seek

to preserve the wealth which they are constrained to deposit in the

hands of the stranger for their own people. Occasionally, at the present

day, some wild wiry M‘Lean or M‘Dougal makes his appearance, by command

of the chief, at the proper time and place, to claim investment in the

clan bursary. Other of these endowments are of restricted application,

being exclusively appropriated to students of a special name, such as

Smith or Thomson, or born in a special parish, or descended from members

of some corporation. In general, however, these endowments—some of them

of very ancient date—are open to free universal competition, and are in

this shape one of the most interesting and remarkable specimens of the

ancient literary republics, in which each man fought with his brains,

and held what his brains could achieve for him. Annually, at the

competition for bursaries in Aberdeen, there assembles a varied group of

intellectual gladiators—long red-haired Highlanders, who feel trousers

and shoes an infringement of the liberty of the subject—square-built

Lowland farmers—flaxen-haired Orcadians, and pale citizens’ sons,

vibrating between scholarship and the tailor’s board or the shoemaker’s

last. Grim and silent they sit for a day, rendering into Latin an

English essay, and drop away one by one, depositing with the judges the

evidence of success or failure as the case may be. The thing is very

fairly and impartially managed, and honourable to all the parties

concerned.

It is indeed, as we have hinted, a relic of the old competitive spirit

which distinguished the universities as literal republics of letters,

where each man fought his own battle, and gained and wore his own

laurels. Nor was his arena confined to his own college. The free-masonry

we have already alluded to opened every honour and emolument to all, and

the Scotsman might suddenly enter the lists at Paris, Bologna, or

Upsala, or the Spaniard might compete in Glasgow or Aberdeen. The

records before us contain many forms in which the ancient spirit has now

ceased to breathe. Already has been mentioned the competition for the

regentship. The old form of the Impugnment of Theses, so renowned in

literary histories, has died away as a portion of the ordinary

laureation. The comprehensive challenges and corresponding victories

attributed to the Admirable Crichton give this practice a peculiar

interest in the eyes of Scotsmen; and it has a great place in the annals

of the Reformation, since one of its main stages was the posting the

twenty-five theses on the door of the church of Würtemberg by Luther.

But in reading these remarkable events people are apt to forget the

commonness of the practice; and Crichton has the aspect of a

preposterous intellectual bully going out of his proper way to attract

notice, instead of doing what was in its time and circumstances as

ordinary and common sense an act as running a tilt, joining a crusade,

or burning a witch. Goldsmith, in that account of the intellectual

vagabond which so evidently describes himself, has noticed some relics

of the practice as he found it on the Continent. “In all the

universities and convents there are, upon certain days, philosophical

theses maintained against every adventitious disputant; for which, if

the champion opposes with any dexterity, he can claim a gratuity in

money, a dinner, and a bed for one night. In this manner, then, I fought

my way towards England.” A collection of German pamphlets, amounting, it

is said, to upwards of a hundred thousand, and called the Dietrich

Collection, was some years ago purchased by the Faculty of Advocates,

and was found to consist chiefly of the academic theses in which the

scholars of Germany—illustrious and obscure—had been disputing for

centuries. In the same place, by the way, where this vast collection

reposes, may be found the most complete living illustration of the old

form of impugnment. The anxious litigant or busy agent entering the main

door of the Parliament House at 9 o’clock of a morning, may find, by an

_affiche_ to the door-post, that there is to be a _disputatio juridica_

under the auspices of the _inclytus Diaconus facultatis_. Since the year

1693 it has been the practice of each intrant to undergo public

impugnment, or, as the act of Faculty says, “the publict tryall of

candidates, by printing and publishing theses on the subject assigned

with corollaries, as it is observed amongst other nations.” A title of

the Pandects is assigned on each occasion. Thus the Faculty possesses

more than one running commentary upon that celebrated collection; and it

has always been deemed remarkable that, considering the number and

varied talent of the authors of these theses, they should be so uniform

in their Latinity and structure. A great innovation has lately taken

place in sparing the cost of printing the theses, and applying the

amount so saved to the Faculty’s magnificent library.

Many of the old university theses are very interesting as the youthful

efforts of men who have subsequently become eminent. Those connected

with Aberdeen are apparently the most numerous. It is very noticeable,

indeed, that in the remote rival institutions there established, the

spirit and practice of the Continental universities, in almost every

department, had their most tenacious existence. As in England, the

Church of Rome was succeeded there, not by Presbyterianism but

Episcopacy, and there were fewer changes in all old habits and

institutions. The celebrated “Aberdeen doctors,” who carried on a

controversy with the Covenanters, met their zealous religionists with

something like the old pedantic formality of the academic system of

disputation. They resolved the Covenant into a thesis, and impugned it.

Of this remarkable group of scholars we have the following notice in

Professor Innes’s Preface:—

“Their names are now little known, except to the local antiquary;

but no one who has even slightly studied the history of that

disturbed time is unacquainted with the collective designation of

‘the Aberdeen Doctors’ bestowed upon the learned ‘querists’ of the

ultra-Presbyterian Assembly of 1638, and the most formidable

opponents of the Solemn League and Covenant.

“Of these learned divines, Dr Robert Barron had succeeded Bishop

Forbes in his parish of Keith, and from thence was brought on the

first opportunity to be made Minister of Aberdeen, and afterwards

Professor of Divinity in Marischal College. He is best judged by the

estimation of his own time, which placed him foremost in philosophy

and theology. Bishop Sydserf characterises him as ‘vir in omni

scholastica theologia et omni literatura versatissimus:’ ‘A person of

incomparable worth and learning,’ says Middleton, ‘he had a clear

apprehension of things, and a rare facultie of making the hardest

things to be easily understood.’[10] Gordon of Rothiemay says, ‘He was

one of those who maintained the unanswerable dispute (in 1638) against

the Covenante, which drew upon him both ther envye, hate, and

calumneyes; yet so innocently lived and dyed hee, that such as then

hated him doo now reverence his memorye, and admire his works.’

Principal Baillie, of the opposite party, speaks of him as ‘a meek and

learned person,’ and always with great respect: and Bishop Jeremy

Taylor, when writing in 1659 to a fellow of Trinity College, Dublin,

recommending the choice of books for ‘the beginning of a theological

library,’ named two treatises of Barron’s especially, and recommended

generally ‘everything of his.’[11] That a man so honoured for his

learning and his life should receive the indignities inflicted on

Barron after his death, is rather to be held as a mark of the general

coarseness of the time, than attributed to the persecuting spirit of

any one sect.[12]

“Another of the Aberdeen doctors, William Leslie, was successively

Sub-principal and Principal of King’s College. The visitors of 1638

found him worthie of censure, as defective and negligent in his

office, but recorded their knowledge that he was ‘ane man of gude

literature, lyff, and conversatioun.’[13] ‘He was a man,’ says James

Gordon, ‘grave, and austere, and exemplar. The University was happy in

having such a light as he, who was eminent in all the sciences above

the most of his age.’[14]

“Dr James Sibbald, Minister of St Nicholas, and a Regent in the

University, is recorded by the same contemporary: ‘It will not be

affirmed by his very enemyes, but that Dr James Sibbald was ane

eloquent and painefull preacher, a man godly, and grave, and modest,

not tainted with any vice unbeseeming a minister, to whom nothing

could in reason be objected, if you call not his ante-covenanting a

cryme.’[15] Principal Baillie, while condemning his Arminian

doctrines, says—‘The man was, there, of great fame.’

“Dr Alexander Scroggy, minister in the Cathedral Church, first known

to the world as thought worthy to contribute to the ‘Funerals’ of his

patron and friend, Bishop Forbes,[16] is described in 1640 by Gordon

as ‘a man sober, grave, and painefull in his calling;’[17] and by

Baillie as ‘ane old man, not verie corrupt, yet perverse in the

Covenant and Service-book.’ His obstinacy yielded under the weight of

old age and the need of rest, but he is not the more respected for the

questionable recantation of all his early opinions.[18]

“Foremost, by common consent, among that body of divines and scholars,

was John Forbes, the good bishop’s son. He had studied at King’s

College, and, after completing his education in the approved manner by

a round of foreign universities, returned to Scotland to take his

doctor’s degree, and to be the first professor in the chair of

theology, founded and endowed in our University by his father and the

clergy of the diocese. Dr John Forbes’s theological works have been

appreciated by all critics and students, and have gone some way to

remove the reproach of want of learning from the divines of Scotland.

His greatest undertaking, the _Instructiones historico-theologicæ_,

which he left unfinished, Bishop Burnett pronounces to be ‘a work

which, if he had finished it, and had been suffered to enjoy the

privacies of his retirement and study to give us the second volume,

had been the greatest treasure of theological learning that perhaps

the world has yet received.[19]

“These were the men whom the bishop drew into the centre and heart of

the sphere which he had set himself to illuminate; and in a short

space of time, by their united endeavours, there grew up around their

Cathedral and University a society more learned and accomplished than

Scotland had hitherto known, which spread a taste for literature and

art beyond the academic circle, and gave a tone of refinement to the

great commercial city and its neighbourhood.

“It must be confessed cultivation was not without bias. It would seem

that, in proportion as the Presbyterian and Puritan party receded from

the learning of some of their first teachers, literature became here,

as afterwards in England, the peculiar badge of Episcopacy. With

Episcopacy went, hand in hand, the high assertion of royal authority;

and influenced as it had been by Bishop Patrick Forbes and his

followers, Aberdeen became, and continued for a century to be, not

only a centre of northern academic learning, but a little stronghold

of loyalty and Episcopacy—the marked seat of high Cavalier politics

and anti-Puritan sentiments of religion and church government.

“That there was a dash of pedantry in the learning of that Augustan

age of our University, was the misfortune of the age, rather than

peculiar to Aberdeen. The literature of Britain and all Europe, except

Italy, was still for the most part scholastic, and still to a great

degree shrouded in the scholastic dress of a dead language; and we

must not wonder that the northern University exacted from her divines

and philosophers, even from her historians and poets, that they should

use the language of the learned. After all, we owe too much to

classical learning to grudge that it should for a time have

overshadowed and kept down its legitimate offspring of native

literature. ‘We never ought to forget,’ writes one worthy to record

the life and learning of Andrew Melville, ‘that the refinement and the

science, secular and sacred, with which modern Europe is enriched,

must be traced to the revival of ancient literature, and that the hid

treasures could not have been laid open and rendered available but for

that enthusiasm with which the languages of Greece and Rome were

cultivated in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.’[20]

“It is not to be questioned that in the literature of that age, and in

all departments of it, Aberdeen stood pre-eminent. Clarendon

commemorates the ‘many excellent scholars and very learned men under

whom the Scotch universities, and especially Aberdeen,

flourished.’[21] ‘Bishop Patrick Forbes,’ says Burnet, ‘took such care

of the two colleges in his diocese, that they became quickly

distinguished from all the rest of Scotland.... They were an honour to

the Church, both by their lives and by their learning; and with that

excellent temper they seasoned that whole diocese, both clergy and

laity, that it continues to this very day very much distinguished from

all the rest of Scotland, both for learning, loyalty, and

peaceableness.’[22]

“That this was no unfounded boast, as regards one department of

learning, has been already shown, in enumerating the learned divines

who drew upon Aberdeen the general attention soon after the death of

their bishop and master. In secular learning it was no less

distinguished. No one excelled Robert Gordon of Straloch in all the

accomplishments that honour the country gentleman. Without the common

desire of fame or any more sordid motive, he devoted his life and

talents to illustrate the history and literature of his country. He

was the prime assistant to Scotstarvet in his two great undertakings,

the Atlas and the collections of Scotch poetry.[23] The maps of

Scotland in the Great Atlas (many of them drawn by himself, and the

whole ‘revised’ by him at the earnest entreaty of Charles I.), with

the topographical descriptions that accompany them, are among the most

valuable contributions ever made by an individual to the physical

history of his country. His son, James Gordon, parson of Rothiemay,

followed out his father’s great objects with admirable skill, and in

two particulars he merits our gratitude even more. He was one of the

earliest of our countrymen to study drawing, and to apply it to plans

and views of places; and, while he could wield Latin easily, he

condescended to write the history of his time in excellent Scotch.

“While these writers were illustrating the history of their country in

prose, a crowd of scholars were writing poetry, or, at least, pouring

forth innumerable copies of elegant Latin verses. While the two

Johnstons were the most distinguished of those poets of Aberdeen, John

Leech, once Rector of our University,[24] David Wedderburn, rector of

the Grammar School, and many others, wrote and published pleasing

Latin verse, which stands the test of criticism. While it cannot be

said that such compositions produce on the reader the higher effects

of real poetry, they are not without value, if we view them as tests

of the cultivation of the society among which they were produced.

Arthur Johnston not only addresses elegiacs to the bishop and his

doctors, throwing a charming classical air over their abstruser

learning, but puts up a petition to the magistrates of the city, or

celebrates the charms of Mistress Abernethy, or the embroideries of

the Lady Lauderdale—all in choice Latin verse, quite as if the persons

whom he addressed appreciated the language of the poet.[25]

“Intelligent and educated strangers, both foreigners and the gentry of

the north, were attracted to Aberdeen; and its colleges became the

place of education for a higher class of students than had hitherto

been accustomed to draw their philosophy from a native source.[26]

“If it was altogether chance, it was a very fortunate accident, which

placed in the midst of a society so worthy of commemoration a painter

like George Jamiesone, the pupil of Rubens, the first, and, till

Raeburn, the only great painter whom Scotland had produced. Though he

was a native of Aberdeen, it is not likely that anything but the

little court of the bishop could have induced such an artist to

prosecute his art in a provincial town. An academic orator in 1630,

while boasting of the crowd of distinguished men, natives and

strangers, either produced by the University, or brought to Aberdeen

by the bishop, was able to point to their pictures ornamenting the

hall where his audience were assembled. Knowing by whom these

portraits were painted, we cannot but regret that so few are

preserved.”[27]

Keeping, however, to the matter of academic impugnment, we shall now

turn to an instance of its incidental occurrence in that University,

which, from its late origin, was least imbued with the spirit of the

Continental system.

The visit of King James to his ancient kingdom in 1617, afforded the

half-formed collegiate institution in Edinburgh an opportunity for a

rhetorical display, which ended in substantial advantages. Tired with

business at Holyrood, and in the enjoyment of full eating and drinking,

and “driving our” at his quieter palace of Stirling, he bethought

himself of a rhetorical pastime with the professors of the new

University, wherein he could not fail to luxuriate in the scholastic

quibbling with which his mind was so well crammed, and he was pretty

certain of enjoying an ample banquet of success and applause. Hence, as

Thomas Crawford the annalist of the institution informs us, “It pleased

his majesty to appoint the maisters of the college to attend him at

Sterling the 29th day of July, where, in the royal chapel, his majesty,

with the flower of the nobility, and many of the most learned men of

both nations, were present, a little before five of the clock, and

continued with much chearfulness above three hours.”

The display was calculated to be rather appalling to any man who had

much diffidence or reserve in his disposition, and hence Charteris, the

principal, “being naturally averse from public show, and professor of

divinity,” transferred the duty of leading the discussion to Professor

Adamson. The form adopted was the good old method of the impugnment of

theses, so many being appointed to defend, and so many to impugn; “but

they insisted only upon such purposes as were conceived would be most

acceptable to the king’s majesty and the auditory.”

The first thesis was better suited for the legislature than an academic

body, and there must have been some peculiar reason for bringing it on.

It was, “that sheriffs and other inferior magistrates should not be

hereditary,” which was oppugned by Professor Lands “with many pretty

arguments.” The king was so pleased with the oppugnation, that he turned

to the Marquis of Hamilton, hereditary sheriff of Clydesdale, and said,

“James, you see your cause lost—and all that can be said for it clearly

satisfied and answered.” _N.—B._ It is just worth noticing that the

College and the Marquis were then at feud. There was a question about

the possession of the old lodging of the Hamilton family, then

constituting a considerable portion of the University edifices. The “gud

old nobleman,” his father, had been easily satisfied, but the young man

was determined to stand upon his rights, and, though he could not

recover possession, get something in the shape of rent or damages; nor

would he take the judicious hint that “so honourable a personage would

never admit into his thoughts to impoverish the patrimony of the young

University, which had been so great an ornament, and so fruitful an

instrument of so much good to the whole nation, but rather accept of

some honourable acknowledgment of his munificence in bestowing upon the

College an honest residence for the muses.” But to return to the

impugnment. The next thesis was on local motion, “pressing many things

by clear testimonies of Aristotle’s text;” and this passage of literary

arms called out one of James’s sallies of pawky persiflage. “These men,”

he said, “know Aristotle’s mind as well as himself did while he lived.”

The next thesis was on the “Original of Fountains;” and the discussion,

much to the purpose, no doubt, was so interesting that it was allowed to

go on far beyond the prescribed period, “his majesty himself sometimes

speaking for the impugner, and sometimes for the defender, in good

Latin, and with much knowledge of the secrets of philosophy.”

Talking is, however, at the best, dry work. His majesty went at last to

supper, and no doubt would have what is termed “a wet night.” When up to

the proper mark, he sent for the professors, and delivered himself of

the following brilliant address:—

“Methinks these gentlemen, by their very names, have been destined for

the acts which they have had in hand to-day. Adam was father of all;

and, very fitly, Adamson had the first part of this act. The defender is

justly called Fairly—his thesis had some fair lies, and he defended them

very fairly, and with many fair lies given to the oppugners. And why

should not Mr Lands be the first to enter the lands? but now I clearly

see that all lands are not barren, for certainly he hath shown a fertile

wit. Mr Young is very old in Aristotle. Mr Reed needs not be red with

blushing for his acting to-day. Mr King disputed very kingly, and of a

kingly purpose, anent the royal supremacy of reason over anger and all

passions.” And here his majesty was going to close the encomiums, when

some one nudged his elbow, and hinted that he had omitted to notice the

modest Charteris; but the royal wit was not abashed, and his concluding

impromptu was by no means the least successful of his puns. “Well, his

name agreeth very well to his nature; for charters contain much matter,

yet say nothing, but put great purposes in men’s mouths.”

Few natures would be churlish enough to resist a genial glow of

satisfaction on receiving such pearls of rhetoric scattered among them

by a royal hand, and we may believe that the professors were greatly

gratified. But, pleased more probably by his own success, the king gave

a more substantial mark of his satisfaction, and said, “I am so well

satisfied with this day’s exercise, that I will be godfather to the

College of Edinburgh, and have it called the College of King James; for

after the founding of it had been stopped for sundry years in my

minority, so soon as I came to any knowledge, I zealously held hand to

it, and caused it to be established; and although I see many look upon

it with an evil eye, yet I will have them to know that, having given it

this name, I have espoused its quarrel.” And further on in the night, he

promised, “that as he had given the College a name, he would also, in

time convenient, give it a royal godbairn gift for enlarging the

patrimony thereof.”

In the course of the multifarious talk of the evening, a curious and

delicate matter was opened up—the difference between the English

pronunciation of Latin and the Scottish, which corresponds with that of

Europe in general. An English doctor, who must have enjoyed exceptional

opinions, or been a master of hypocrisy, praised the readiness and

elegancy of his majesty’s Latinity; on which he said, “All the world

knows that my maister, Mr George Buchanan, was a great maister in that

faculty. I follow his pronunciation both of Latin and Greek, and am

sorry that my people of England do not the like, for certainly their

pronunciation utterly spoils the grace of these two learned languages;

but you see all the university and learned men of Scotland express the

true and native pronunciation of both.”[28]

THE INSURRECTION IN SPAIN.

_Madrid, July 1854._

Dear Ebony.—Had I known that you would treacherously publish my private

communications, and that Maga comes to Madrid, I certainly would have

waited until I had quitted this capital, before imparting to you my

impressions of it, its inhabitants, and its institutions. I admit that I

have but myself to blame for my ignorance of the fact that Maga, whose

fame extends to the uttermost parts of the earth, has her regular

readers even in Madrid. But you, who must be aware of that fact, are not

the less culpable for risking the valuable life of your old ally and

contributor. You might have had a little more consideration for your

outpost than to expose him to the thrust of an Albacete dagger or

Catalan knife, whether dealt under the fifth rib, or treacherously in

the back. You should have reflected that my olive-green uniform, with a

golden thistle on the black-facings, would naturally betray my quality

of Maga’s vedette. Since the 10th of June, date of the Magazine’s

arrival in Madrid, my existence has not been worth an hour’s purchase. I

have been obliged to strike my tent, pitched in the Puerta del Sol, as

the best place for observation, and to picket my charger in the recesses

of the Retiro, whose cool shades, I confess, are not altogether to be

despised now that the thermometer ranges from 90 to 100 in the shade,

and that the streets of this capital resemble nothing so much as

limekilns, thanks to dust from demolitions, and to the rays of a sun

compared to which the Phœbus of the British Isles is a very feeble

impostor. You are, of course, aware of the pleasant peculiarities of the

Madrid climate—Siberia in winter and in the wind; the Sahara in summer

and in the sun. We are just now in all the delights of the dogdays; a

wet brick is sunburned red in half an hour; eggs, placed for ten minutes

on the tiles, open for the exit of lively chickens; and Madrid, to avoid

calcination, flies to the woods and waves. As I hope soon to follow its

example, and shall consequently not be here when your August number

arrives, I will venture to send you another epistle, notwithstanding

that I have received sundry mysterious warnings that a repetition of my

first offence would lead to prompt blood-letting. This time, however, I

shall have less to say of the follies and failings of the natives, and

more of what has occurred since last I troubled you with my prose. Then

I did but glance at politics _en passant_; now, I propose devoting my

whole letter to them. Just one fortnight ago there occurred at Madrid an

event so important that I think it best to confine myself to an account

of it, and to reserve lighter matters for a future communication. I need

hardly say that the event in question is the military insurrection of

the 28th of June.

Things had been in rather a queer state here for some time past. As you

may possibly, amidst the excitement of the Eastern question, have

neglected to follow up the minute intricacies of Spanish politics, I

must step back a pace or two, in order to put you _au fait_. Autumn of

last year witnessed the arrival at power of the present ministry, which

speedily became far more unpopular than, for some time past, any

administration had been. Headed by an unprincipled and unscrupulous

adventurer, it recoiled from no illegality or tyranny that might conduce

to its own advantage. Defeated in the senate by a large majority, on the

memorable railway question, it suspended the session, and began to

indulge its hatred of those who assisted in its rebuff. In January of

the present year, about a month after the closing of the legislative

chambers, some of the most formidable of its opponents, on that occasion

and on most others, were ordered into exile. It is customary and legal

in Spain for the minister to assign a residence to unemployed officers,

whither they are bound to proceed. In those dispositions, the

convenience of the officers is usually to a certain extent consulted,

but sometimes, especially for political reasons, the contrary is the

case, and such assignment of quarters becomes little less than a

sentence of banishment. A military man may be authorised to reside in

Madrid (the Spaniard’s paradise), or transported to the Philippines,

which he would consider purgatory. As most military men of high rank in

this country are more or less political characters, either having held

office, or hoping some day to find a place in one of the ephemeral

Spanish governments (whose existence rarely exceeds a year, and is

sometimes limited to a day), and constantly manœuvring to obtain it,

they hold it a cruel destiny that consigns them to a colonial abode, or

to vegetation in a remote town, far from the capital, that centre of

every kind of intrigue. It may be imagined, therefore, with what extreme

disgust some of the military chiefs of the Moderado opposition suddenly

found themselves ordered to places where they would be at full liberty

to study strategy, or play the Cincinnatus in their cabbage gardens, but

where they would be forgotten by the world, and powerless to annoy the

ministers or to forward their own ambitious views. Generals Leopold

O’Donnell, Manuel Concha, José Concha, and Infante (a deserter from the

Progresista or liberal party), were the men whose influence and

intrigues the Sartorius ministry thus attempted to annul. The two former

were ordered to the Canary Islands, the two latter to the Balearics.

Manuel Concha and Infante obeyed orders and departed for their

destinations; José Concha, by far the cleverer of the brothers, went

into France; O’Donnell disappeared, and it was not until some time

afterwards that it became known where he was concealed. From the time of

these banishments (the latter part of January) may be dated the

commencement of the conspiracy which has just broken out in the shape of

a military insurrection.

On the 20th of February, the regiment of Cordova, quartered at

Saragossa, rose in revolt, headed by its colonel, Brigadier Hore, an

officer of merit, who had served in the royal guards during the civil

war. Nearly the whole of the garrison, and several officers of high

rank, were pledged to support the movement; but some of the latter

played the traitor, others hesitated at the very moment when promptness

and decision were most necessary; José Concha, who was then concealed in

Spain, and expected to start up at Saragossa to head the revolt, did not

appear, but soon afterwards presented himself to the authorities of

Bordeaux. In short, the whole thing failed. The Cordova regiment was

broken up; changes were made in one or two garrisons; a number of

arrests, especially of military men and newspaper editors, were made in

Madrid; promotions and decorations were lavished upon certain officers,

amongst whom were some who had betrayed to death the friends and

confederates they had promised to support; the last of the insurgents

were driven across the frontier; the government emerged from the brief

struggle with renewed strength, and became daily more unconstitutional,

arbitrary, and tyrannical.

Within a short time after the incidents I have thus briefly sketched, it

was generally reported that the place where the Moderado opposition

(noway discouraged by the disaster in Arragon) intended to make their

next attempt, was Madrid itself. The conduct of the government in the

mean time had certainly been such as to irritate its enemies, and rouse

public indignation. No one was safe from the despotic system introduced.

Illegal arrests were of frequent occurrence, made without a shadow of a

pretext, and whose victims, conscious of no crime, were left to languish

in prison, transported to the colonies, or escorted out of Spain. The

opposition journals were daily seized, not only for the articles they

published, but for the mere news they gave, as there were many things

which ministers did not choose to have communicated to the nation except

in the falsified version given by their own journals. The _Clamor

Publico_, ably conducted by a staunch and well-known liberal, Don

Fernando Corradi; the _Nacion_, also a Progresista paper, whose editor,

Rua Figueroa, still contrived to write in it from the concealment to

which an order for his arrest had compelled him; the _Diario Español_

and the _Epoca_, representing the Moderado opposition, were the chief

objects of ministerial oppression and vindictiveness, and day after day

their columns were headed with the announcement, that their first

edition had been seized by order of the censor. In spite of this

persecution, they steadily persevered, opposing the government as well

as they might, but prevented from exposing, otherwise than by inference

and in a most guarded manner, the scandalous corruption and jobbing of

the ministers and the court. Discontent was general, and daily

increased. It was asked when the Cortes were to assemble, for only in

their discussions did there seem a chance of such expression of public

opinion as might alarm and check the men in power. These, however, had

no intention of calling together the legislative chambers. They

continued to make laws by decree, and to sanction, for the benefit of

their friends and adherents, railways and other national works, for

which the approval of the Cortes was to be asked at some future day. But

that day has not yet come, nor will it come, so long as the present

ministry is in office and the Queen-mother supports them, for she

dreads, as much as they do, the exposure of the countless iniquitous

speculations at the country’s expense, in which she and her husband have

been concerned, with the connivance and aid of the government, who thus

repaid her for the countenance that often stood them in good stead

against the intrigues of the camarilla headed by the Queen’s favourite.

Then there were frequent rumours of an approaching _coup d’état_, on the

plan of that of December 1851 in France, or of that, nearly resembling

it, which the bravo-Murillo ministry had actually published, but had

been unable to carry out. All this time (ever since the outbreak at

Saragossa) the whole country was under martial law; no _coup d’état_

could confer upon the government more arbitrary powers than those it

already exercised—it could but legalise illegality. The case was vastly

different in France and in Spain. In France, after a period of anarchy,

succeeded by a conflict of political factions which rendered all

government impossible, a man long depreciated, but now generally

admitted to be of commanding talent, and, we are justified in believing,

of far more patriotic mind than he ever had credit for, cut the knot of

the difficulty, at the cost, certainly, of constitutional forms, but, as

many now think, for the real benefit of the nation. In Spain, the

situation of affairs was quite otherwise. Where was here the vigorous

intellect whose judgment, and firmness and foresight were to guide,

without assistance and through many perils, the ship of the state. Was

it that of the unfortunate, uneducated Queen, who detests business, and

passes her life sunk in sloth and sensuality? Was it to be the upstart

unscrupulous minister who, by sheer audacity (the most valuable quality

for a Spanish politician who seeks but his own aggrandisement), had

first crawled and afterwards pushed his way to the head of the royal

council-board? Or would the arch-intriguer, Maria Christina, sketch the

course her daughter should adopt when converted into an absolute

sovereign? No, for her time was too much taken up in adding, at the

expense of Spain, to her already incalculable wealth, and in planning

marriages for her numerous daughters. In short, to carry into the higher

sphere of politics the general and servile imitation of France now

observable in Spain, was an idea repugnant to the Spanish nation, and

which increased, if possible, the universal discontent that already

prevailed—excited by the closing of the chambers, the violence used

towards the independent press (which it was evidently intended to

crush), the notorious corruption of the administration; the

unsatisfactory state of the finances, tending inevitably to some

extraordinary exactions from the already over-taxed people; and last,

but not least, by the scandalous concessions daily made to the friends

and adherents of the ministry, and to those influential persons, the

Rianzares, Señor Arana, Mr Salamanca, and others, whose enmity the

Sartorius cabinet dared not encounter, and whose support they were

compelled to purchase.

It was understood that a military insurrection was contemplated, with

O’Donnell at its head. The government affected to make light of the

affair, but in reality they were not without uneasiness, for they could

not but feel—although they daily had it proclaimed by the hireling

_Heraldo_ that they were the saviours of the nation, and the most

popular and prosperous of ministries—that they were execrated, and that

all classes would rejoice in their downfall. It is difficult to convey

to Englishmen—except to those who may be personally acquainted with this

singular country and people—a clear idea of the state of political

affairs in Madrid during the second quarter of the present year. I must

content myself with supplying a few detached facts and details, from

which you may, perhaps, form a notion of the whole. For three months

conspiracy may be said to have walked the streets of Madrid openly and

in broad daylight. Almost every one knew that something was plotting,

and a considerable number of persons could have told the names of the

chief conspirators, and given some sort of general outline of their

plans. O’Donnell, disobeying the orders of the Queen’s government,

remained hidden in Madrid, seeing numerous friends, but undiscoverable

by the police. He had frequent meetings with his fellow-conspirators;

his wife often saw him; for some time, during which he was seriously

ill, he was daily visited by one of the first physicians in Madrid;

still the government, although most anxious to apprehend him, failed in

every attempt to discover his hiding-place, which was known to many. It

is rare that the secrets of a conspiracy, when they have been confided

to so large a number of persons, have been kept so well and for so long

a time as in the present case; but this caution and discretion are

easily explicable by the universal hatred felt for the present

government and by the strong desire for its fall. The superior police

authorities were bitterly blamed by the minister; large sums were placed

at their disposal, numerous agents had assigned to them the sole duty of

seeking O’Donnell. All was in vain. The government paid these agents

well, but O’Donnell, as it afterwards appeared, paid them better. A

portion, at least, of the men employed to detect him, watched over his

safety. The government, ashamed of its impotence to capture, spread

reports that he they sought had left Madrid; and, afterwards, that they

knew where he was, but preferred leaving him there and watching his

movements to seizing him and sending him out of the country, to prepare,

on a foreign soil, revolutionary movements in the provinces of Spain.

These ridiculous pretences imposed upon very few. Could the government

have apprehended O’Donnell, they might not have dared to shoot him, and

might have hesitated permanently to imprison him; but they would not

have scrupled to ship him to the Philippines, where he would have done

little mischief. The truth was, that they employed every means to

discover his hiding-place, and every means proved ineffectual.

O’Donnell, I am informed, was concealed in a house that communicated

with the one next to it, which had back and front entrances. His friends

and the friendly police kept strict watch. Of a night, when he sometimes

went out to walk, his safety was cared for by the very men whom the

authorities had commissioned to look for him, and who went away with him

when he left Madrid to assume the command of the insurgents. A gentleman

who, during a certain period, was in the habit of frequently seeing him,

was one morning on his way to his place of concealment, and had entered

the street in which it was situated, when a police agent, making him a

sign, slipped a scrap of paper into his hand. On it were the words

“Beware, you are watched.” Taking the hint, the person warned passed the

house to which he was going, and entered another, in the same street,

where he had friends. From the window he observed a policeman, who had

been loitering about as if in the ordinary discharge of his duty,

hastily depart. When he had made sure that the coast was clear, he left

the house, entered that in which O’Donnell was, saw him, passed into the

next house, and departed by the back door. There was soon a cordon of

police agents round the house into which he first had gone, but their

vigilance was fruitless. I had this anecdote from one of the most

intimate friends of the person who visited O’Donnell, and who was named

to me at the same time.

During the period of suspense that preceded the insurrection, attempts

were made to bring about a union between the Liberal party and the

Moderado opposition. The former, although divided into sections which

differ on certain points, is unanimous in its desire to see Spain

governed constitutionally. Overtures were made to some of its chiefs. It

was proposed that it should co-operate in the overthrow of the set of

men who had detached themselves from all parties, and were marching on

the high road to absolutism. These men, known as the Polacos or Poles—a

word which seems to have had its origin in an electioneering joke—were

odious alike to Progresistas and Moderados. But there were great

difficulties in the way of a sincere and cordial junction between the

two principal parties into which Spaniards are divided. The Moderados

would gladly have availed themselves of the aid of the Liberals to upset

their common enemy; but they would give them no guarantees that they

should be, in any way, gainers by the revolution. The Liberals, on the

other hand, mistrusted the Moderados, and would not assist men whose

aims they believed to be purely personal. When the Moderados asked what

guarantees they required, they were quickly ready with an answer. “Arm

the national guard of Madrid,” they said; or, “March your troops, as

soon as you have induced them to revolt, at once into Arragon, with one

of our most influential and determined chiefs.” The Moderados could not

be induced to listen to such terms. They found themselves exactly in the

position in which the Progresistas were in 1843. Divided amongst

themselves, the probabilities were that the insurrection they proposed

would turn to the advantage of the Liberals; and the risk of this was

doubled if they accepted even the most favourable of the conditions

offered to them. They knew that the feeling of a large majority of the

nation was in favour of the Progresistas; that Espartero, although for

seven years he had led the life of a country gentleman at Logroño, and

had steadily resisted all temptations to mingle again in political

affairs, was in reality the most popular man in Spain, and that he was

idolised by the people of Madrid. Some amongst them (O’Donnell himself,

it has been said), whose views were more patriotic and less selfish than

those of the majority, were not unwilling to blend with the

Progresistas, to whom a few, including Rios Rosas, a distinguished

lawyer and senator, frankly proclaimed their adherence, declaring that

the parties which for so many years had divided Spain were virtually

defunct, and that there were but two parties in the country,—the

national one, which desired the welfare of Spain, and to see it governed

according to the constitution, and the retrograde or absolutist, which

trampled on the rights of the people. But although a few men were found

ready to waive personal considerations and to forget old animosities,

the great majority of the Moderados were less disinterested, and the

decision finally come to was to do without the aid of the Liberals, and

to accomplish an insurrection which, although its success was likely to

be of some advantage to the country, at least for a time, had for its

object a change of men rather than of measures.

One of the most important persons concerned in the conspiracy was the

Director of Cavalry, Major-General Domingo Dulce, reputed one of the

best and bravest officers in the Spanish army, and who had won his high

rank and many honours, not by political intrigue, as is so frequently

the case in this country, but at the point of his good sword. He passed

for a Progresista, and most of his friends were of that party; but in

fact he had never mixed much in politics, and, as a military man, had

served under governments of various principles. It is evident, however,

that whilst confining himself to the duties of his profession—which is

rarely the case with Spanish general officers—he cherished in his heart

the love of liberty, and a strong detestation of the tyranny under which

Spain has for some time groaned. An intimate friend of his, a well-known

and distinguished Liberal, was the immediate means of his joining the

conspiracy. It was an immense acquisition to the cause he agreed to

assist. Chief of the whole of the Spanish cavalry, respected and beloved

by the men and officers under his command, he could bring a large force

to the insurgent banner, and his own presence beneath it was of itself

of great value, for he is a daring and decided officer. He it was who,

by his obstinate resistance in the palace, at the head of a handful of

halberdiers, defeated the designs of the conspirators in the year 1841.

Dulce is a slightly-made, active, wiry man, rather below the middle

height, of bilious temperament, and taciturn mood, extremely reserved,

even with his friends, not calculated to cut a great figure in the

council, but a man of action, precious in the field. The other principal

conspirators were General Messina, a man of education and talent, who

had been under-secretary of the war department, and is an intimate

friend of Narvaez; Ros de Olano, a general officer of some repute; and

Brigadier Echague, colonel of the Principe regiment, a Basque officer

who served with high distinction throughout the whole of the civil War.

Several false starts were made before the insurrection really broke out.

On the 13th of June, especially, it had been fixed to take place. The

garrison of Madrid had been ordered to parade before daybreak for a

military promenade and review outside the town. Such parades had been

unusually frequent for a short time past; and it was thought the

government ordered them, owing to information it received, not

sufficiently definite to compromise the conspirators personally, but

which yet enabled it to defeat their designs. On that morning, however,

all was ready. The Principe regiment, instead of marching directly to

the parade ground, lingered, and finally halted at a place where it

could easily join the cavalry. O’Donnell left the town, disguised, and

stationed himself in a house whence he could observe all that passed.

Persons were placed in the vicinity to watch over his safety. The

proclamations that had been prepared were got ready for distribution.

Late on the eve of the intended outbreak, about four or five hours

before it was to occur, its approach was known to several persons who,

without being implicated in the plot, sincerely wished it success. There

seemed no doubt of the event. But, at the very moment, a portion of the

artillery of the garrison, which had pledged itself to take part in the

movement, failed to make its appearance at the place of rendezvous.

General Dulce considered their absence so important that he abandoned,

for that day, his intention of marching off his cavalry, and declaring

against the government. The combat of the 30th of June, in the fields of

Vicálvaro, showed that he did not overrate the importance of including

all arms in the composition of the insurrectionary force. At the time,

however, a storm of censure burst over his head. He was taxed with

treachery, with a deficiency in moral courage; his best friends looked

mistrustfully and coldly upon him; more than one general officer,

presuming on seniority of rank and age, took him severely to task.

General O’Donnell was not backward in reproaching him. “Never was a

white man” (these were the very words of the ex-governor of Cuba) “sold

as you have sold me.” Dulce, although deeply sensitive to all this

blame, took it meekly, acknowledged that appearances were against him,

but declared that he had acted for the best, and steadily affirmed that

his future conduct would prove his fidelity to the cause he had

espoused. Not all believed him.

Some days passed over, and there was no word of an insurrection. The

conspirators were discouraged. Rumour spoke of dissensions among them.

It was thought that nothing would occur. It was known to many that Dulce

was of the conspiracy, and that, by his fault or will, a good

opportunity had been lost; and they said that if he were not playing a

double game, the government would certainly have heard of his complicity

with O’Donnell, and would at least have removed him from his command. It

was fact that, for some time past, anonymous letters had been received

by the ministers, warning them that he was plotting against them. But

they disbelieved this information, and some of the letters were even

shown to Dulce. The Duke of Rianzares, calling one day on a minister,

found Dulce there. “What is this that I hear, general?” said Queen

Christina’s husband; “is it true that you intend to shoot us all?” The

question was awkward, but easily parried. A few days before the

insurrection occurred, Dulce went over to Alcala, five leagues from

Madrid, under pretence of inspecting the recruits stationed there. Seven

squadrons of cavalry were in that town. Doubtless his object was to see

if he could still reckon upon their following him whithersoever he chose

to lead. I met him in the street after his return; I think it was on the

26th of June. He looked anxious and careworn. His position was certainly

critical, and it is not presuming too much to suppose that a severe

struggle was going on within him between a long habit of military

discipline and duty, and what we must in justice believe to have been,

in his opinion, a paramount duty to his oppressed country. For he was at

the top of the tree. His position was splendid; his emoluments were

large; he had but to persevere in his adherence to the government of the

day to attain to the very highest rank in his profession—although that

did not afford a more desirable place than the one he already occupied.

Under these circumstances, even his enemies must admit—however guilty

they may deem him—that he was not actuated by the selfish desire of

personal advantage or aggrandisement.

Madrid, incredulous of an insurrection, was taken completely by surprise

by the news that greeted its uprising on the morning of the 28th June.

Some hours previously, it was informed, the director-general of cavalry,

after mustering for review, in a field just outside the walls, the

eleven squadrons that formed part of the garrison of the capital, had

been joined by a battalion of the regiment of Principe, by a few

companies from other regiments, and by General O’Donnell himself, and

had marched to Alcala to incorporate in his insurrectionary force the

troops there stationed. Other generals, it was stated, were with him,

but for many hours—indeed for the whole of that day—truth was hard to be

got at, and Rumour had it all her own way. The aspect of Madrid was

curious. The Queen and Court had left two days previously for the

Escurial; all but two of the ministers were absent; those two were

paralysed by the sudden event, and seemingly helpless. No measures were

taken, no troops brought out; for a time it might have been thought

that, as was reported, all but some fifteen hundred of these had left

with the insurgent generals; for several hours the town was at the mercy

of the people, and had they then risen it would probably have been their

own, for many of the troops remaining in Madrid were disaffected and

would have joined them. There was great excitement; the general

expression was one of joy at the prospect of getting rid of a ministry

than which none could be more odious; the Puerta del Sol and the

principal streets were full of groups eagerly discussing the events of

the hour; friends met each other with joyous countenances, and shook

hands as if in congratulation—Liberals and Moderados alike well pleased

at the event that threatened to prove fatal to the common enemy. I need

not repeat the countless reports current on that day. The most important

fact that became known was that the cavalry at Alcala had joined the

insurgents, and that two thousand horsemen, some of the best dragoons in

the Spanish army, were in hostile attitude close to Madrid, accompanied

by a small but most efficient body of infantry. Towards evening the

authorities began to awake from their lethargy of alarm. Ignorant of the

fact that a line of telegraphic wires had been concluded on the previous

day between Madrid and the Escurial, the insurgents had neglected to cut

off this means of rapid communication; news of the insurrection had been

transmitted to the Queen, and her return to the capital was announced.

The streets were quickly filled with troops, illuminations were ordered

(there was no hope of their being volunteered), and at about ten o’clock

her Majesty made her entrance, passing completely through the town,

having previously been to perform her devotions in the church of Atocha,

whose presiding virgin is the special patroness of the royal family of

Spain—the gracious protectress for whom princes embroider petticoats,

and whose shrine queens enrich with jewels, whose cost would found an

hospital or comfort many poor. A young Queen, entering her capital in

haste and anxiety, a few hours after a revolt against her authority,

ought, one might suppose, to command, by her mere presence, some

demonstration of loyalty and affection from her subjects. But the

present Queen of Spain has so completely weaned from her the affections

of her people, has so well earned their contempt, and even their hatred,

that neither on that night nor on any other occasion that I have

witnessed was a voice uplifted or a _viva_ heard. A body of gendarmes,

drawn up opposite to the ministry of the interior, cheered as she

passed, and possibly the same may have been the case on the part of

civil and military functionaries at other points of the line of her

progress, but the attitude of the people and soldiers was one of perfect

indifference. The same was the case on the following day, when she

reviewed the garrison in the Prado, and conferred decorations and

promotion on sergeants and privates who had distinguished themselves by

their fidelity in refusing to be led away by the insurgents. Surrounded

by a numerous staff of officers, and having the troops formed in such

wise that as many as possible of them might hear her, she addressed to

them a short speech, was profuse of smiles, and held up to them her

infant daughter as if confiding it to their defence. Now was the time,

if ever, for the old Castilian loyalty to burst forth in acclamation.

But its spirit is dead, crushed by royal misconduct and misrule. Not a

cheer was uttered, either by officer or soldier. The ominous silence was

remarked by all present. It was equally profound as the Queen returned

to her palace through the most populous streets of her capital, crowded

on the warm summer night. It is said and believed here that, on reaching

the palace, she was so affected and disheartened by the chilling

reception she had on all sides met, that she burst into a passion of

tears. Pity it is for the poor woman, who is not without some natural

good qualities, but whom evil influences and a neglected education have

brought to sorrow and contempt.

I cannot pretend to relate all the incidents of the last fortnight,

which has been crowded with them to an extent that baffles memory. The

most important you will find in this letter—many of the minor ones have

doubtless escaped me. I must devote a few more lines to the first day.

An unsigned proclamation was circulated, of a tenor by no means

unacceptable to the Liberals, whose chiefs consulted as to the propriety

of rising in arms, or at least of making some demonstration of hostility

to the government. Another proclamation, of greater length, signed by

three generals, O’Donnell, Dulce, and Messina, disappointed them, for it

contained not a word that guaranteed benefit to the nation, and spoke

merely of the knavery of the ministers and of the necessity of getting

rid of them. Moreover, a request was sent in by the insurgents that

Madrid would remain quiet, and leave them to settle matters militarily.

Between deliberation and delays the day passed away, and towards night

the altered attitude of the authorities, who had received telegraphic

orders from Mr Sartorius to act with the utmost vigour, the large bodies

of troops in the streets convincing those who had previously doubted

that there was still a sufficient force in the town to repress any

popular attempt, caused half-formed plans to fall to the ground, and

even the most ardent and bellicose resolved to wait the events of the

morrow before shouldering musket and throwing up barricades.

The morrow was the festival of St Peter, a great holiday, kept quiet as

a Sunday, with much mass and bull-fights. I presume the churches were

attended, but the bull-fights did not take place. Some arrests were

made, but not many, for some of the persons sought after had concealed

themselves. Madrid was still excited, but quite tranquil. On that and

the following day every sort of rumour was current. The insurgents were

near the town, and there were frequent reports that they were coming to

attack it. Circulation was prohibited in the lower part of the street of

Alcala, leading to the gate near to which the enemy were supposed to be.

The residence of the Captain-general and the officers of the staff is in

the lower part of that street, and the constant passage to and fro of

orderlies and aides-de-camp interested the people: so that on the line

of demarcation, beyond which there was no passage, there was a throng

from morning till night, watching—they knew not exactly for what. From

time to time there was a rush and panic—when the mob encroached on the

limit, and the military were ordered to make them recede. The Café

Suizo, at the summit of the street—which rises and again sinks over a

small eminence—was a great point of rendezvous, and was crowded with

eager politicians. Towards evening, on the 30th, the garrison (almost

the whole) being out of the town, it became known that a fight was

imminent, or already begun. This was in the neighbourhood; but as none

were allowed to pass, or even to approach the gates, news were scanty,

and little to be relied upon. Cannon and musketry were heard, and

wounded men were seen straggling in. The fever of expectation was at its

height. Public opinion was decidedly in favour of the insurgents. They

would beat the government troops, it was said, and enter the town

pell-mell with them. All the male population of Madrid was in the

streets, a few troops were stationed here and there; there was no

disorder, but it was easy to see that a trifle would produce it. I was

in the Café Suizo, which was crowded in every part, a short time after

nightfall, when one of the alarms I have referred to was given. There

was a violent rush in the street outside, cries and shouts; those

without crowded into the café, most of those within made for the open

doors. The effect was really startling; it was exactly that produced by

a charge of troops upon a mob; and I saw more than one cheek blanch

amongst the consumers of ices and lemonade (the evening was extremely

hot) who filled the café. But it was a groundless alarm, produced, as

before, merely by the troops compelling the crowd to recede. Armed

police circulated in the throng, dispersing groups, and urging them to

go home. Soon the streets were comparatively clear, but the clubs and

coffee-houses were filled until past midnight with persons discussing

what had occurred, and giving fifty different versions. There had been a

fight, it was certain, at about a league from Madrid, but who had won

and who had lost was a matter of doubt until the next day.

The _Madrid Gazette_, the order of the day, published by General

O’Donnell, and conversation with officers present in the short but sharp

action, enable me to give you a sketch, which you may rely upon as

correct, of its principal incidents. The garrison of Madrid, consisting

of about eight battalions of infantry, four batteries of artillery, and

some three hundred cavalry, took position on a ridge of ground at about

a league from Madrid. The enemy, strong in cavalry, but weak in

infantry, sought to draw them farther from the town, and into a more

favourable position for horse to act against them. As the result proved,

the wisest plan would have been to persevere in these tactics, and, if

the garrison refused to advance further, to let the day pass without an

action. But General O’Donnell had assurances that a large portion of the

troops opposed to him only waited an opportunity to pass over to his

banner. A part of the artillery, especially, was pledged to do so. After

some preliminary skirmishing, he ordered a charge, which was made in

gallant style by two squadrons of the Principe regiment. In spite of a

severe fire of shot and shell, reserved, until they were within a very

short distance of the battery they attacked, they got amongst the guns,

and sabred many of the artillerymen, but were prevented from carrying

off the pieces, and compelled to retire, by the heavy fire of the

squares of infantry formed in rear of the artillery. Having thus

ascertained, beyond a doubt, that there was no chance of the artillery

coming over to them, or allowing themselves to be taken, the insurgents

would have perhaps acted wisely in making no farther attempts upon the

hostile line, or, if they were resolved upon a contrary course, in

assailing the flanks, instead of again charging up to the mouths of the

cannon. But it appears from O’Donnell’s own bulletin that the troops

were not well in hand, and that, enraged at finding themselves fired

upon by those from whom they expected a very different reception, they

made several charges under the direction of their regimental chiefs, but

without the sanction of their generals. I can hardly give a better

account of the latter part of the combat than is contained in two short

paragraphs of the insurgent general’s order of the day, which has been

copied in the government papers, and admitted by these to be a fair and

true statement of what occurred. The bulletin is before me, and I

translate the passages in question:—

“The retreat of the two squadrons of the Principe cavalry (those which

had charged the battery) was opportunely taken advantage of by the

hostile squadrons of the Villaviciosa lancers, and of the _Guardia

Civil_, who charged after them. This cavalry, however, was driven

back, when in full career, by the 3d and 4th squadrons of the

Principe, who routed them, cutting down a great part of them, and

receiving into their ranks a large number of the soldiers of

Villaviciosa, with their standard, and four officers, who reversed

their lances, proclaiming themselves friends. In a second charge made

by these same squadrons, the standard-bearer of Villaviciosa, and some

soldiers of the same corps, who had joined us only because they

considered themselves prisoners, went over again to the enemy.

“The bloody effect of the fire of the artillery, who, well assured

that they would not be encountered by the same arm (of which we had

none), had deliberately studied their range, and taken the breasts of

our soldiers for their mark, caused the action to become hot, and the

regiment of Farnesio again charged upon the guns, with great valour

and determination. At the very mouth of the cannon its colonel was

wounded and taken prisoner, and several officers and soldiers were

struck down, our cries of _Viva la Reina y la Constitucion_ being

drowned in the roar of the enemy’s pieces. Repeated charges of the

same regiment, and of those of Bourbon, Santiago, and the School of

Cavalry, must have convinced our opponents in the action of Vicálvaro,

that the feelings which prompted those cries are to be extinguished in

the hearts of our brave soldiers by death alone.”

The upshot of the action was this: The insurgents accepted battle when

there was little to be gained by them in so doing, unless, indeed, the

contest had been conducted very differently, and a more judicious plan

had been adopted than that of charging headlong up to the muzzles of

artillery supported by squares of infantry. But this mistake had its

origin, as I have already observed, in the expectation that the

artillery would not fire. The insurgents were repulsed, not, however,

without inflicting considerable loss upon their enemies. The garrison

returned into Madrid in some haste and confusion, and near the gate a

singular incident occurred. It was dark, and some lancers appeared on

their flank—insurgents, according to some accounts—a part of their own

cavalry, as it is reported by others. The exact truth will probably

never be known. But a panic seized the infantry; some of the battalions

were composed in great part of recruits; young soldiers, retiring

hastily and in the dark after their first fight, are easily alarmed; the

confusion that ensued was as great as that of a rout; the men fired at

random killing and wounding their own friends, and a great number,

especially of the battalion of engineers, were thus injured. The

government papers passed this unlucky mistake almost _sub silentio_; but

the fact is certain, the troops returned into the town in disorder, and

it was not until the next day that all the wounded were brought in.

Some prisoners had been taken from the insurgents, including three or

four wounded officers, the chief of whom, Colonel Garrigó, was captured

amongst the guns, where his horse fell, killed by grape-shot. The

gallant manner in which Garrigó had led his men again and again to the

charge, encountering each time a storm of bullets, had excited a strong

interest in his fate, and measures were taken to move the queen’s

clemency on his behalf. Before the result of these were known, and when

it was thought probable that at any hour he might be judged, condemned,

and shot, I went to the ward of the military hospital where he lay under

arrest, to see another officer of cavalry who had been wounded when with

the insurgents. This officer had gone out of Madrid to see some friends

who were with O’Donnell; he was in plain clothes and without arms, but,

venturing too far forward during the action, he got struck from his

horse, and received, as he lay on the ground, a lance-thrust in the

neck, of which, however, he complained less than of blows received from

the lance-poles, when the men struck at him as they rode rapidly past.

He had afterwards been taken prisoner by an officer, and brought into

Madrid. In the next bed to him was Garrigó, a swarthy, soldierly-looking

man of about fifty-five; he had been hit in the leg, but not severely,

by a grape-shot, and was sitting up in bed, fanning away the flies which

entered in unpleasant numbers through the open windows. He looked

gloomy, but firm. There were some other wounded officers in the ward,

one of whom subsequently died after undergoing amputation of a leg, and

a number of soldiers in an adjoining one. Amongst the insurgents, I

heard there were as many killed as wounded; and many horses dead, the

artillery having pointed their guns low. Grape and round shot, at fifty

paces, the distance to which the cavalry were allowed to come before the

gunners got the word, were quite as likely, perhaps, to kill as only to

wound. An officer received two grape-shot in his face—one at each angle

of the nostrils; another, Captain Letamendi, the English son of a

Spanish father, who served during the civil war in the British Legion,

was met by a round shot, which carried away the greater part of his

head. But you will find nothing attractive in such details.

The combat of Vicálvaro, insignificant in its material results, had

little effect upon the _morale_ of either party. The government troops

were assured by the gazette that they had achieved a glorious victory,

of which they themselves were not very sure, especially when they saw

the numerous carts of wounded that came into the town, and remembered

their own disorderly return from the field and final panic. The

insurgents, conscious that they had fought gallantly, and lost no

ground, although they had failed in their chief object, which was to

capture the artillery, were well satisfied with themselves, and in no

way disheartened by the event. It was clear that the insurgent generals

must not reckon on the support of the garrison of Madrid, and they

consequently changed their plans, retiring to Aranjuez, a pleasant spot,

eight leagues from Madrid, with abundant shade, water, and forage, where

for two or three days they gave their men and horses rest, organised

their staff and commissariat, and took other measures necessary for the

welfare of the division. There they received several reinforcements,

both of infantry and cavalry, and were joined by a number of civilians

from Madrid, many of them belonging to the better classes. These

received caps, muskets, and belts, and were formed into a battalion

called the _Cazadores di Madrid_.

Meanwhile, the capital anxiously awaited news from the provinces, where

insurrections were expected to occur. Madrid itself continued perfectly

tranquil, although occasional rumours of an intended popular rising

alarmed the government. The excitement of the first three days subsided

into a strong interest. There was great eagerness for news from the

insurgents, and much difficulty in learning anything authentic,

especially when once they had left Aranjuez. Save the government and its

hangers-on and personal adherents, all Madrid was for the insurrection,

and heartily wished it well. The recent compulsory advance of half a

year’s taxes, extorted from the people by a notoriously corrupt and

grasping government, had greatly incensed the Madrileños, who did not

scruple openly to express their good wishes for Generals O’Donnell and

Dulce, the most prominent personages of the day and of the movement.

Although the insurrection deprived Madrid of two things which it can ill

do without, bull-fights and strawberries, not a murmur was heard on this

account. Aranjuez is the strawberry garden of Madrid, and from it daily

comes an abundant supply of that fruit, particularly grateful in this

hot climate. I suppose that the insurgents, who had been for three days

roasting in the shadeless desert that surrounds this capital, needed

refreshment, and eat up all the strawberries, or else that the want of a

railway—that to Aranjuez being partly in the hands of the government,

and partly in those of O’Donnell, and cut in the middle—precluded their

being sent. As for bull-fights, it was no time for them when man-fights

were going on; and moreover, the gates of Madrid were for several days

shut—besides which, some of the bull-fighters are said to have joined

the insurgents. The dramatic season being at an end, and all the

theatres closed, Madrid has now for sole amusement the insurrection,

which every day seems taking farther from its walls, but which not

impossibly may break out again within them. If a decided advantage were

gained by O’Donnell’s division, or if news came that Saragossa or some

other large town had pronounced against the government, there would very

likely be a rising in this capital. I am assured that attempts are now

making to work upon the troops of the garrison, and if only a few

companies could be won over and relied upon, the government might

speedily be upset. There are in Madrid plenty of ex-national guards, and

of men who have served in the army, who would quickly produce their

hidden arms and rush out into the streets, with cries of “Down with the

ministry.” It is matter of considerable doubt whether these would be

coupled with _vivas_ for the Queen. As for the Queen-mother, I am

convinced that her life would be in danger in the event of such an

outbreak. She is deeply detested here; the more so as she is known to

support the present government with all the influence she possesses over

her daughter. A Madrid revolutionary mob is dangerous, vindictive, and

bloody-minded. In proof of this many incidents recur to my memory, and

doubtless will to yours—amongst others, the fate of Quesada, whose son

is now military governor here, and who was almost torn to pieces at the

country house in the environs, whither he had fled for shelter. His

murderers returned to Madrid, singing the dreaded _Tragala!_ and drank

in the public cafés bowls of coffee stirred with his severed fingers.

The revolutionary spirit is calmer now, but it may again revive upon

occasion. No person in Spain, not even Sartorius himself, who certainly

is sufficiently hated, is so much under public ban as Maria Christina.

She doubtless knows it: her conscience can hardly be easy, and her fears

are probably roused; for her approaching departure for France is much

spoken of, and likely to take place.

Since O’Donnell’s division left the neighbourhood of Madrid, we have

heard comparatively little concerning him. We know his route; also that

his strength has somewhat increased, that his troops are

well-disciplined and confident of success, and that he is at this date

in Andalusia. Where he may be, and what may have occurred by the time

you receive this letter, it is of course impossible to foretell; but,

although ministerial bulletins daily scatter his men to the winds,

representing them as deserting, weary, exterminated, and, if possible,

even in worse plight, the truth is that they are in as good order, and

as ready for service, as if they held themselves subject to the

government of the Queen. Every possible means have been taken by the

authorities to throw discredit upon the insurgents and upon their

leaders, by representing them as robbers and oppressors, paying for

nothing, ill-treating the people, and exacting forced contributions at

the bayonet’s point. “To lie like a bulletin,” is an old saying, but it

would be at least as apt to say—“like the _Madrid Gazette_ or the

_Heraldo_ newspaper.” I can well imagine how difficult it must be in

other countries to get at the truth about Spanish affairs, when I see

the systematic efforts made to suppress it here. Letters are seized by

wholesale in their passage through the post-office, some newspapers are

suppressed, and others are permitted to publish no news but those they

copy from the government journals, which are for the most part

ingeniously embellished to suit the purpose of the ministers; whilst

sometimes they are pure fabrications. One of the great occupations of

the official papers, for the first few days after the insurrection broke

out, was to blacken the character of its leaders. Dulce, especially—who,

in common with the other generals engaged in the outbreak, had been

stripped by royal decree of all rank, titles, and honours—was the object

of abuse which bordered upon billingsgate.

The virtuous _Heraldo_ daily came out with fierce philippics upon the

“rebel and traitor,” who had deserted his Queen because he deemed that

she had deserted the country and broken her oath, and who, by so doing,

had exchanged large emoluments, high rank, and one of the best positions

his profession affords in Spain, for the uncertain fate of an insurgent

leader—perhaps, in the end, for a short shrift and a firing party. The

men of the _Heraldo_ could not understand this; they felt that _they_

were incapable of such conduct; in their heart of hearts they must have

thought Dulce more remarkable as a fool than as a rebel, but in their

paper they contented themselves with abusing him as the latter. Inexpert

with the pen, Dulce nevertheless took it up to reply. On the 1st of

July, the day after the drawn fight of Vicálvaro, and in a village close

to the scene of action, he wrote a letter, whose faulty style and

soldierly abruptness are the best evidence of its being his own

unassisted production. As a characteristic production, and in justice to

its writer, who will doubtless be blamed by many in foreign countries,

where the facts of the case and the extent of the sacrifices he has made

are imperfectly known and appreciated, I give you a translation of the

letter. It is addressed to the editors of the _Heraldo_, and runs as

follows:—

“Since you have allowed the publication in your periodical of an article

referring to me personally, and to my conduct, and as I consider that an

insult is not a reason, I trust you will be pleased to publish my

protest against the whole of your accusation, by doing which you will

fulfil your duty as public writers.

“I do not wish to prejudge the issue of our enterprise; whatever that

may be it will not surprise me, or make me repent what I have done. That

I may not be disappointed, the worst that I expect is to die in the

field of battle or in the _Campo de Guardias_ (the place of military

executions at Madrid). Whatever occurs, I shall have acted according to

my conscience.

“I seek neither places nor honours, for I have them in abundance. No

desire of revenge of any kind has moved me, for I cherish neither

dislike nor resentment against the persons composing the present

government, and much less against the Queen. The cause of my

insurrection is entirely the memory that I have of the oath taken by the

King of Castile when he ascends the throne. He swears upon the Holy

Scriptures to observe and enforce the law of the State—‘_and if I should

not do so, I desire not to be obeyed_.’

“My conviction is, that the Queen has violated her oath, and, in this

case, I prefer being guilty of _leze-majesty_ to being guilty of

_leze-nation_.

“I well know that the sentiments I have expressed will not convince you,

because they must be felt and not explained. For my justification I

appeal to the inexorable tribunal of posterity, and to the secret police

of the consciences of yourselves in the first place, of the Queen

herself, and of this unhappy country.

“A copy of this document is already on the road, and will be published,

as you will see, in foreign countries. I also send it to other Madrid

newspapers, although I believe that a miserable fear will prevent their

publishing it.

“That you may never be able to deny that I have sent you this letter, I

have had formal registry made of it, and it perhaps will one day be

published. I trust then that you will be sufficiently generous and

gentlemanly[29] to insert it in your periodical, by doing which you will

highly oblige me. (Signed) EL GENERAL DULCE.

“Vallecas, 1st July 1854.

“The original is to be found duly stamped in the register of this

corporation, where it has been inserted against the will of the

individuals composing it, who are exempt from all blame.”

I need hardly say that the _Heraldo_ has not published this letter, of

which numerous copies have been distributed in Madrid by friends of its

writer, and by persons who believe that, as he himself says, he has

“acted according to his conscience (_dado una satisfaccion à mi

conciencia_), and who admire his disinterestedness—the rarest quality

amongst public men in Spain.

It is not easy to foretell the result of this insurrection, which has

now lasted for fifteen days without any decisive or even important

event. The country, taken by surprise, and ignorant of the objects of

the outbreak—which it suspected to have been made merely to bring about

a change of men, but not of system—looked on at first with apathy.

O’Donnell’s greatest error was the first proclamation he issued, which,

in many words, said nothing and held out no prospect of advantage to the

people. Another has just appeared, short, pithy, explicit, and

calculated to satisfy the liberal party. It promises the Spanish nation

the benefits of the representative system, for which it has shed so much

of its blood and made so many sacrifices, as yet without result.

“It is time,” it continues, “to say what we propose doing on the day of

victory. We desire the preservation of the throne, but without the

camarilla that dishonours it; the rigorous enforcement of the

fundamental laws, improving them, especially those of elections and of

the press; a diminution of taxation, founded on strict economy; respect

to seniority and merit in the civil and military services. We desire to

relieve the towns from the centralising system that consumes them,

giving them the local independence necessary to preserve and increase

their own interests; and, as a guarantee of all these things, we desire

the NATIONAL MILITIA, and will plant it on a solid basis. Such are our

intentions, which we frankly express, but without imposing them upon the

nation. The juntas of government that are to be constituted in the free

provinces, the general Cortes that are soon to be assembled, the nation

itself, in short, shall fix the definitive bases of the liberal

regeneration to which we aspire. We devote our swords to the national

will, and sheathe them only when it is fulfilled.”

This proclamation is dated from Manzanaris, the 7th July, and is signed

by O’Donnell. You will observe that no mention is made in it of the

Queen. It is monarchical, because it desires to “preserve the throne;”

but it by no means pledges those who publish it to retain Isabella II.

The promise to arm the national guard is the most important that it

contains, since that is the only guarantee the Liberals can have for the

fulfilment of the other pledges. It may possibly induce the

Progresistas, who hitherto have scarcely stirred in the business, to

take active measures. Meanwhile we hear of risings and armed bands in

various parts of the country, and persons familiar with Spanish

revolutions, and who have witnessed many of them, notice signs of

fermentation, which prove the insurrectionary spirit to be spreading—a

bubble here and there on water, indicating that it will presently boil.

When O’Donnell’s proclamation gets spread abroad, and its purport known,

it is quite possible that large towns or districts may declare for the

insurgents. In Spain, however, it is most difficult to speculate on

coming events, for it is the land of the unforeseen—_le pays de

l’imprévu_—and I shall not attempt to play the prophet, for, if I did,

perhaps, before my letter reached you, the electric telegraph would have

proved me a false one. Moreover, I have no time to add much more, for I

well know that you, Ebony, will grumble, if this letter does not reach

you somewhere about the twentieth of the month. Moreover, the horses of

Maga’s foreign-service messenger neigh with impatience, and the escort

which is to accompany him on the first stage of his journey is already

formed up. For the roads are far from safe just now, thanks to the

concentration of the gendarmes, (who usually keep excellent order upon

them), to do duty in the capital, or pursue the insurgents. We hear of

various bands appearing—north, south, and east—some calling themselves

Carlists, others Republicans, but in either case probably not pleasant

to meet on the road; and besides those there are smaller parties who do

not aspire to a political character, and are abroad simply for their own

behoof and advantage, and, I need not say, for the disadvantage of the

travellers they may chance to encounter. As for sending letters of the

nature and importance of this one by the ordinary channel of Her

Catholic Majesty’s mails, one would do better to abstain from writing

them, as the chances would be fifty to one against their ever reaching

their destination. One might almost as well throw them into the fire as

into the marble lion’s mouth that yawns at the _casa de correos_,—as if

to warn people of the dangers their correspondence runs. Were I to

consign this epistle to leo’s jaws, I should not expect it ever to go

farther than to the Graham-department of the Madrid post-office.

Although you will have gathered from the newspapers the principal

events, and some of the minor particulars of the insurrection of 1854—as

far as it has as yet gone—this sketch of it, however imperfect, from an

eyewitness, will, I trust, interest you. Spanish revolutions and

insurrections rarely resemble each other; every successive outbreak has

a character of its own, distinct from that of its predecessors. And that

of the 28th of last month has peculiar features, which I have

endeavoured to portray. If my letter has no other merit, it will, I

think, bring its readers, concisely, without much detail, but with

perfect truth, up to the present point of Spanish politics. Should aught

worth relating occur whilst I am within the boundaries of Queen Isabel’s

dominions, rely upon my keeping you duly informed. Meanwhile, may

Providence preserve you, in your happy Land of Cakes, alike from

military revolts, and from popular _pronunciamientos_. So prays, from

his exile _in partibus_, your faithful

VEDETTE.

THE ETHNOLOGY OF EUROPE.

“There were brave men before Agamemnon,”—heroes before there was a Homer

to sing them, says that prince of sensible poets, Horace. It is not less

true that there were nations before history—communities, races, of which

the eye of civilisation never caught a glimpse. In some cases, before

the light of history broke in upon their seclusion, these old types of

mankind, losing their individuality, had become merged in a succeeding

and mightier wave of population; in others they had wholly

disappeared,—they had lived and fought and died in perfect isolation

from every focus of civilisation, and left not even a floating legend

behind them in the world. Man’s mortality—the destiny of the individual

to pass away from earth like a vapour, making room for others, heirs of

his wisdom and unimbued with his prejudices—is the most familiar of

truths; but the mortality of nations, the death of races, is a

conception which at first staggers us. That a family should grow into a

nation,—that from the loins of one man should descend a seed like unto

the sands on the sea-shore for multitude, appears to our everyday senses

as a natural consequence; but that nations should dwindle down to

families, and families into solitary individuals, until death gets all,

and earth has swallowed up a whole phase of humanity, is a thought the

grandeur of which is felt to be solemn, if not appalling. The

conception, however, need not be a strange one. Facts, which reconcile

us to everything, are testifying to its truth even at the present day.

It is not long since the Guanches in the Canary Islands, that last

specimen of what may once have been a race, and the Guarras in Brazil,

dwindled out of existence in their last asylum,—expiring at the feet of

the more lordly race which the fulness of time brought to their

dwellings.

Not to mention the Miaou-tse in China, and other relics of Asiatic

races, the same phenomenon is more impressively presented to us among

the Red Men of America, where the old race is seen dying out beneath our

very eyes. Year by year they are melting away. Of the millions which

once peopled the vast regions on this side of the Mississippi River, all

have vanished, but a few scattered families; and it is as clear as the

sun at noonday, that in a few generations more, the last of the Red Men

will be numbered with the dead. Why, is it asked, are they thus doomed?

In the suburbs of Mobile, or wandering through its streets, you will see

the remnant of the Choctaw tribe, covered with nothing but blankets, and

living in bark tents, scarcely a degree advanced above the beasts of the

field. No philanthropy can civilise them,—no ingenuity can induce them

to do an honest day’s work. The life of the woods is struck from

them,—the white man has taken their hunting-grounds; and they live on

helpless as in a dream, quietly abiding their time. They are stationary,

they will not advance; and, like everything stationary, the world is

sweeping away. They sufficed for the first phase of humanity in the New

World. As long as there was only need for man to be lord of the woods

and of the animal creation, the Red Man did well; but no sooner did the

call come for him to perfect himself, and change the primeval forest

into gardens, than the Red Man knew, by mysterious instinct, that his

mission was over,—and either allowed himself, in sheer apathy, to sink

out of existence among the pitiless feet of the new-comers, or died

fighting fiercely with the apostle of a civilisation which he hated but

could not comprehend.

Far back in the history of Europe and of our own country—or rather, we

should say, in periods entirely pre-historic—it is now known that a

similar disappearance of a human race has taken place. Celt and Teuton,

we fancy, were the first occupiers of Europe,—but the case is not so. A

wave or waves of population had preceded even them; and as we dig down

into the soil beneath us, ever and anon we come upon strange and

startling traces of those primeval occupants of the land. In those

natural museums of the past, the caves and peat-bogs of Europe, the

keen-witted archæologists of present times are finding abundant relics

of a race dissimilar from all the human varieties of which written

history takes cognisance. The researches of Wilson among the peat-bogs

of the British Isles have brought to light traces of no less than two

distinct pre-Celtic races inhabiting the land,—one of which had the

skull of a singularly broad and short, square and compact form, while

the head of the other race was long and very narrow, or “boat-shaped.”

The exhumations of Retzius show that precisely similar races once

inhabited Scandinavia. The caves and ossuaries of Franconia and Upper

Saxony prove that in Central Europe, also, there were races before the

advent of the Celts; and the researches of Boucher de Perthes, amid the

alluvial stratifications of the river Somme, indicate a not less ancient

epoch for the cinerary urns, bones, and instruments of a primordial

people in France.

“Here,” says M. de Perthes, “we naturally inquire, who were these

mysterious primitive inhabitants of Gaul? We are told that this part

of Europe is of modern origin, or at least of recent population. Its

annals scarcely reach to twenty centuries, and even its traditions do

not exceed two thousand five hundred years. The various people who are

known to history as having occupied it—the Gauls, the Celts, the

Veneti, Ligurians, Iberians, Cimbrians, and Scythians have left no

vestiges to which we can assign that date. The traces of those

[originally] nomadic tribes who ravaged Gaul scarcely precede the

Christian era by a few centuries. Was Gaul, then, a desert, a

solitude, before this period? Was its sun less genial, or its soil

less fertile? Were not its hills as pleasant, and its plains and

valleys as ready for the harvest? Or, if men had not yet learned to

plough and sow, were not its rivers filled with fish, and its forests

with game? And, if the land abounded with everything calculated to

attract and support a population, why should it not have been

inhabited? The absence of great ruins, indeed, indicates that Gaul at

this period, and even much later, had not attained a great degree of

civilisation, nor been the seat of powerful kingdoms; but why should

it not have had its towns and villages?—or rather, why should it not,

like the steppes of Russia, the prairies and virgin forests of

America, and the fertile plains of Africa, have been overrun from time

immemorial by tribes of men—savages, perhaps, but nevertheless united

in families if not in nations?”

We shall not dwell at present upon the relics of these races who have

thus preceded all history, and vanished into their graves before a

civilised age could behold them. We shall not accompany M. de Perthes in

his various excavations, nor, after passing through the first stratum of

soil, and coming to the relics of the middle ages, see him meet

subsequently, in regular order, with traces of the Roman and Celtic

periods, until at last he comes upon weapons, utensils, figures, signs

and symbols, which must have been the work of a surpassingly ancient

people. We need not describe his discovery of successive beds of bones

and ashes, separated from each other by strata of turf and tufa, with no

less than five different stages of cinerary urns, belonging to distinct

generations, of which the oldest were deposited below the woody or

diluvian turf,—nor the coarse structure of these vases (made by hand and

dried in the sun), nor the rude utensils of bone, or roughly-carved

stone, by which they were surrounded.[30] Neither need we do more than

allude to the remains of a fossil whale recently exhumed in Blair

Drummond moss, (twenty miles from the nearest point of the river Forth

where, by any possibility, a whale could nowadays be stranded), having

beside it a rude harpoon of deer’s horn—speaking plainly of the

coexistence, in these remote pre-Celtic times, of human inhabitants.

Even above ground there are striking relics scattered over Europe which

it would be hazardous to assign to any race known to history. Those

circles of upright stones, of which Stonehenge is the most familiar

example, date back to an unknown antiquity. They are found throughout

Europe, from Norway to the Mediterranean; and manifestly they must have

been erected by a numerous people, and faithful exponents of a general

sentiment, since we find them in so many countries. They are commonly

called Celtic or Druidic; not because they were raised originally by

Druids, but because they had been used in the Druidical worship, though

erected, it may be, for other uses, or dedicated to other

divinities,—even as the temples of Paganism afterwards served for the

solemnities of Christianity. All that we know is, that, having neither

date nor inscription, they must be older than written language,—for a

people who can write never leave their own names or exploits

unchronicled. The ancients were as ignorant on this matter as ourselves;

even tradition is silent; and, at the period of the Roman invasion, the

origin of those monuments was already shrouded in obscurity. A

revolution, therefore, must have intervened between the time of their

erection and the advent of the Legions; and what revolution could it be

in those days save a revolution of race? “The Celtæ,” says Dr Wilson,

“are by no means to be regarded as the primal heirs of the land, but

are, on the contrary, comparatively recent intruders. Ages before their

migration into Europe, an unknown Allophylian race had wandered to this

remote island of the sea, and in its turn gave place to later

Allophylian nomades, also destined to occupy it only for a time. Of

these ante-historical nations, archæology alone reveals any traces.”

Passing from this strange and solemn spectacle of the death and utter

extinction of human races, once living and enjoying themselves amidst

those very scenes where we ourselves now pant and revel in the drama of

existence,—let us look upon the face of Europe as it appears when first

the light of history broke upon it. Since then, there have been

remarkable declines, but no extinction of races. As if war and rivalry

were a permanent attribute of the species, when the curtain first rises

upon Europe, it is a struggle of races that is discernible through the

gloom. A dark-skinned race, long settled in the land, are fighting

doggedly with a fair-skinned race of invaders from the East. The

dark-skins were worsted, but still survive—definitely in detached

groups, and indefinitely as a leaven to entire populations. That

dark-skinned race have been called Iberians,—the fair-skinned new-comers

were the Indo-Germans, headed by the Gaels or Celts. When the two races

first met in Europe—the _blond_ from the south-east, meeting the _dark_

in the west—they encountered each other as natural enemies, and a severe

struggle ensued. The Celts finally forced their way into Spain, and

established themselves there,—became more or less amalgamated with the

darker occupants, and were called _Celt-Iberians_. Ever since, these two

opposite types have been commingling throughout Western Europe; but a

complete fusion has not even yet taken place, and the types of each are

still traceable in certain localities.

There was thus an Iberian world before there was a Celtic world. One of

the pre-Celtic populations of the British Isles was probably Iberian;

and their type, besides leavening indefinitely a portion of the present

population, is still distinctly traceable in many of the dark-haired,

dark-eyed, and dark-skinned Irish, as well as occasionally in Great

Britain itself. The Basques, protected by their Pyrenean fastnesses, are

a still existent group of nearly pure Iberians; and of their tongue,

termed Euskaldune by its speakers, Duponceau long ago said:—“This

language, preserved in a corner of Europe, by a few thousand

mountaineers, is the sole remaining fragment of perhaps a hundred

dialects, constructed on the same plan, which probably existed and were

universally spoken, at a remote period, in that quarter of the world.

Like the bones of the mammoth, and the relics of unknown races which

have perished, it remains a monument of the destruction brought by a

succession of ages. It stands single and alone of its kind, surrounded

by idioms whose modern construction bears no analogy to it.”

The Bretons form another isolated but less distinct group of still

existent Iberians. To this day they present a striking contrast to the

population around them, who are of tall stature, with blue eyes, white

skins, and blond hair—communicative, impetuous, versatile—passing

rapidly from courage to timidity, and from audacity to despair;—in other

words, presenting the distinctive character of the Celtic race, now, as

in the ancient Gauls. The Bretons are entirely different. They are

taciturn—hold strongly to their ideas and usages—are persevering and of

melancholic temperament;—in a word, both in _morale_ and _physique_,

they present the type of a southern race. And this brings us to the

question—whence came these Iberians? M. Bodichon, a surgeon

distinguished for fifteen years in the French army of Algeria, observes

that persons who have lived in Brittany, and then go to Algeria, are

struck with the resemblance which they discover between the ancient

Armoricans (the Bretons) and the Cabyles of northern Africa. “In fact,

the moral and physical character of the two races is identical. The

Breton of pure blood has a bony head, light-yellow complexion of bistre

tinge, eyes black or brown, stature short, and the black hair of the

Cabyle. Like him, he instinctively hates strangers. In both, the same

perverseness and obstinacy, the same endurance of fatigue, same love of

independence, same inflexion of voice, same expression of feelings.

Listen to a Cabyle speaking his native tongue, and you will think you

hear a Breton talking Celtic.” Impressed with this resemblance, M.

Bodichon was induced to reflect on the subject, and at last came to the

conclusion that the Berbers who primally peopled Northern Africa, and

the dark-skinned Iberians of Western Europe, belonged to the same race.

He thinks that, as Europe and Africa were once united at their western

extremities, previous to the convulsion which produced the Straits of

Gibraltar, this Iberian population passed into Spain by this primeval

isthmus, and thence diffused themselves over Western Europe and its

isles. Whether this were actually the case, it is hard to say; but it is

important to note that Sallust, quoting “the Punic books which were

ascribed to King Hiempsal,” exactly reverses the course of migration,

and states that the progenitors of the African Moors were Medians and

Persians who had marched through Europe into Spain, and thence into

Mauritania—though whether overland by the isthmus, or by boats across

the strait, is still left to conjecture. Prichard thinks the Libyans and

Iberians were distinct races, but owns that they were found

intermingling in the islands and along the western shores of the

Mediterranean. Of course it may be taken for granted that among these

Iberians thus spread over Africa, Spain, France, and the British Isles,

local differences would exist—just as there is a perceptible difference

between the Anglo-Saxons of the Old World and those of the New; but

there is little doubt that the _Scoti_ of Ireland, the Iberians of

Spain, and the Berbers of Africa, belonged to a fundamentally identical

race.

How any race first came into a country, is a matter of little moment,

especially when the epoch of their arrival so far transcends the dawn of

history as does that of the Iberians. Even the first wave of the Celtic

migration had reached the West before any scrutiny of their progress was

possible; for when tradition first dimly opens upon Gaul, about 1500 B.

C., its territory was occupied by these two primitive and

distinctly-marked Caucasian races—the Celts and Iberians: the one

fair-skinned and light-haired, the other a dark race; and each speaking

a language bearing no affinity to that of the other—precisely as the

Euskaldune of the present Basques is unintelligible to Gaelic tribes of

Lower Brittany. Some of the subsequent waves of Celtic or Scythic

migration come within the ken of history; and it is remarkable that the

line of march which these followed, after passing the shores of the

Black Sea, seems to have been along the “Riphæan Valley,” which lay to

the north of the Carpathian mountains, and stretched to the Baltic. Now,

if we look at the contour map of Europe in _Johnston’s Physical Atlas_,

we see a narrow strip of the lowest elevation extending from the Black

Sea to the Baltic—nowhere rising to the second line of elevation, _i.e._

more than 150 and less than 300 feet above the level of the sea,—and

turning to the geological map, we find that this same tract is overlaid

with recent diluvial deposits. We know that the Scandinavian region is

rising, and it is probable that all the plain of Sarmatia has partaken

of the elevation,—and before the barriers of the Thracian Bosphorus

burst, it is quite certain that the waters of the Caspian, the Euxine,

and the Baltic were united by that “ocean-river” of which Homer, Hesiod,

and all the old bards sing, and by sailing along which, both the

Argonauts and Ulysses are reported to have passed northwards into the

western ocean. The existence of this vast belt of water, stretching from

the southmost point of the Baltic to the Caucasus, is probably one

reason why the Slavonians were late of appearing in southern Europe, and

why no sprinkling of them or of the Mongols is to be found among the

early settlers of South-western Europe. All the early migrations into

Europe proceeded from Caucasian or sub-Caucasian regions—a circumstance

which, considering the known simultaneous existence of roving hordes and

a great population on the Mongolian plains, can hardly be accounted for

on the supposition that the face of Eastern Europe has since then

undergone no change. But on the supposition we make, the chain of the

Ural Mountains and this large Mediterranean basin would for long act as

restraints upon any tendency of the Mongolian population to move

westward, or of the Slavonians to move southwards.[31]

The next wave of population which flowed westwards was the Cimbri or

Cimmerians,—a people cognate to the Celts or Gaels, yet by no means

closely related. About the seventh century B.C., as may be inferred from

Herodotus, a clan of this race abandoned the Tauric Chersonese, and

marched westwards,—this Cimbrian migration, however, like most others,

not being conducted in one mass, but by successive and sometimes

widely-severed movements. Three centuries afterwards we find the Cimbri

on the shores of the Northern Ocean in Jutland; and between the years

113 and 101 B.C., we find the race all on the move, and setting out on

that southward career of devastation which eventually brought them into

Gaul, Spain, and Italy. The Belgians seem to have been a Cimbrian tribe

which had preceded the main body; for when, in this invasion, the Cimbri

reached Northern Gaul, the Belgæ immediately joined them as allies

against the Celts,—and it seems also proven that the Cimbri and Belgæ

spoke dialects of the same language. The Celts, routed by the invaders,

were impelled to the south and east, doubtless trespassing in turn upon

the dark-skinned Iberians. It was immediately after this inroad that

Cæsar and his Romans entered Gaul, and commenced his Commentaries with

the well-known statement:—“All Gaul is divided into three parts, of

which one is inhabited by the Belgians, [or Cimbri, in the

north]—another by the Aquitanians [or Iberians, in the south-west],—and

the third [or eastern], by those who in their own language, call

themselves Celts, and who in our tongue are called Gael (_Galli_). These

races differ among themselves by their language, their manners, and

their laws.” Previous to this time the Teutons had settled in central

Europe, and in alliance with Celtic tribes made incursions into Italy.

We have now reached a period at which the population of Europe becomes

greatly mixed, in consequence of the constant rovings and incursions of

the various races and tribes of which it was composed. It is interesting

to note the effect of such a state of things upon the physical

characteristics of the people. And first it is to be observed, that,

with extremely rare exceptions, conquest is not attended by

extermination. When one people, even in semi-barbarous times, conquers

another, it does not annihilate and rarely displaces, but for the most

part only overlays it. The annihilating process, of which a sample may

be seen in America, only takes place in the rare case of the meeting of

two nations, in such widely different states of civilisation as to

render amalgamation impossible,—and even in this case only when the

inferior race is so intractable as to resist all obedience to the

superior. _Displacement_—which is obsolete now, since advancing

civilisation has rendered conquest political only—was pretty common two

thousand years ago, when Europe was thinly and nomadically peopled, and

tribes migrated _en masse_. In this way, for example, the Cimbri wedged

themselves in among the Celts in Northern Gaul, and took possession of a

large tract in Northern Italy. But soon after the Christian era—chiefly

in consequence of the increasing density and settled habits of the

population—conquest ceased to produce either extermination or

displacement, and consisted merely in the overlaying of one population

by another much less numerous but more powerful. Thus the Normans in

England and the Franks in Gaul were but a handful compared to the

conquered population; and consequently, though they might give their

laws and even their name to the country, they could not materially alter

the physical character of the people.

The chief influence which, in the case of two races mingling, determines

the preservation or extinction of types or national features, is simply

the numerical proportion existing between the two races thus

amalgamating. When races meet and mix on equal terms, and with no

natural repugnance to each other (in other words, _cæteris paribus_),

the relative number of the two races decides the question—the type of

the smaller number, in this hypothetical case, inevitably disappearing

in the long run. Take, for example, a thousand white families and fifty

black ones—place them on an island, and let them regularly intermarry;

and the result would be, that in the course of time the black type would

disappear, although there is reason to believe that traces of it would

“crop out” during a very long period. And if two fair-skinned races were

brought into contact in a similar manner, and in similar proportions,

the extermination of the less numerous one would be even sooner

effected. The operation of this law is well illustrated in the lower

animals. Cross two domestic animals of different breeds—take the

offspring and cross it with one of the parent stocks, and continue this

process for a few generations, and the result is that the one becomes

swallowed up in the other. This is the theory; but in the actual world

races never intermarry with such theoretical regularity and

indifference. Each community of mankind has, as its conservative

element, a tendency to form unions within its own limits; and if a

foreign element is once introduced into a population, the operation of

this predilection tends to preserve the type of the lesser number for a

much longer period than mere theory would assign to it. The

stranger-hating and obstinate-tempered Bretons and Basques, for

instance, by intermarrying among themselves, have thus preserved the

type of the old Iberians through three thousand years, although

surrounded on all sides by the fair-haired Celts. In the case of a

conquering race like the Franks and Normans, there is generally less

isolation than this; but then, the way in which the amalgamation between

the conquerors and the conquered takes place, is such as to give a great

advantage to the former. The sons of the conquerors may wed the

daughters of the conquered, for the sake of their lands; but it is

comparatively seldom that the daughters of the invaders will condescend

to tarnish their scutcheon by becoming wedded to and merged in the class

of the vanquished. The principle of caste is all-pervading, even when

nominally repudiated; and thus, as the male ever influences most

directly the type of the offspring, a small number of conquerors may for

long perpetuate their line in comparative purity, even though surrounded

by myriads of a different race.

From all this it results, that when a small body of foreigners is shot

into the middle of a large population, as it were in virtue of a mere

casual impetus, and not owing to higher qualities and organisation on

the part of the aliens, the new-comers are quickly absorbed into the

general mass of the population, and their type, in course of time,

wholly disappears. The history of Italy throws important light upon this

subject. Successive hordes of barbarians broke into and overran that

country, powerful from their rude energy, but numerically weak, and

inferior in mental condition to the conquered race. Again and again did

human waves of Visigoths, Vandals, Huns, Herules, Ostrogoths, Lombards,

and Normans roll in succession over the Italian plains; and even the

Saracens for a time held possession of some of its fairest provinces;

yet what vestiges remain in Italy of these barbarian surges? The first

three passed over it like tornados; the two next, after contending with

the Goths, were expelled from the land; and of the whole conglomerate

mass but small fragments were left, too insignificant to materially

influence the native Italic types. The Lombards, indeed, remained, and

implanted their name on a portion of the peninsula; but, with this

fragmentary exception, the aboriginal population of Italy has remained

unaltered in blood and features since the early times when the Celts and

Cimbri made settlements in its northern provinces. And thus the normal

law is fulfilled, in the invaders being swallowed up in the mass of the

native population,—leavening it, of course, more or less, but ever

tending towards ultimate extinction.

When a really conquering race, however—one superior alike in physical

and mental power to the subjugated population—invades a country, and,

instead of being expelled, or passing onwards like a transient

whirlwind, continues to hold the realm in virtue of superior power, such

a race, as we have said, may long and almost indelibly perpetuate their

features in the land. In such a case they in reality, if not in name,

form a caste; each one of the invaders becomes a noble; and when they

make exceptions to the practice of intermarrying among themselves, it is

only that they may more widely diffuse their lineaments, by forming

matrimonial or other unions with the female portion of the native

race.[32] Thus the feudalism of the all-conquering Normans was a system

of caste, by means of which they long maintained the purity and

pre-eminence of their race in the countries which they conquered; as may

best be seen in French history, where the _vieux noblesse_, even in

1789, were the lineal descendants of the soldiers of Clovis; and where

the distinction between _noble_ and _roturier_ was kept up with such

rigid and antiquated pertinacity, that at length the Celtic population,

becoming more and more developed alike in intellect and resources, threw

off the whole foreign system like an incubus, and returned to those

principles of equality and volatility in government which distinguished

their ancestors of old Gaul.

We may remark in conclusion, on this topic, that the ascendancy of

certain families of mankind is due not only to their superior physical,

but even more to their superior mental organisation, which ever keeps

them uppermost, and enables them to mate themselves with whom they

please. It is a remarkable fact, as illustrative of the native vigour of

some races, that there is not a head in Christendom which _legitimately_

wears a crown—not a single family in Europe whose blood is acknowledged

to be royal, but traces its genealogy to that Norman colossus, WILLIAM

the CONQUEROR. This has been well shown by M. Paulmier;[33] but we may

add, as a curiosity which lately attracted our own notice, when looking

at the portrait of the Conqueror—namely, that a strong resemblance

exists between his fine and massive features and those of the present

Czar of Russia. Both are distinguished by the same broad brow and arched

eyebrows (not each forming a semicircle, as seems to be the meaning of

the term “arched” when applied to eyebrows nowadays, but both combining

to form an oval curve, vaulting over the under part of the face, as was

the meaning among the Greeks), the same thick straight nose, and the

same massive and beautiful conformation in the bones of the jaw and

chin. The face of the Czar, however, we must add, is not equal in solid

strength and intellect to that of his great progenitor.

The operation of these physiological laws upon the population of Europe

has been interestingly illustrated by the recent researches of a French

naturalist of high reputation, M. Edwards. This gentleman, after

perusing Thierry’s _History of the Gauls_, made a tour through France,

Belgium, Switzerland, and Italy, engaged in careful study of the present

population in relation to the ancient settlers; and he asserts that now,

after the lapse of two thousand years, the types of the Cimbri, the

Celts, and Iberians are still distinctly traceable among their living

descendants, in the very localities where history first descries these

early families. Of the inland eastern parts of France, tenanted of old

by the Gauls proper, and which were never penetrated into by the Cimbri,

who took quiet possession of their outskirts, M. Edwards thus

speaks:—“In traversing, from north to south, the part of France which

corresponds to Oriental Gaul—viz., Burgundy, Lyons, Dauphiny, and

Savoy—I have distinguished that type, so well marked, which

ethnographers have assigned to the Gauls.” That is to say, “the head is

so round as to approach the spherical form; the forehead is moderate,

slightly protuberant, and receding towards the temples; eyes large and

open; the nose, from its depression at its commencement to its

termination, almost straight—that is to say, without any marked curve;

its extremity is rounded, as well as the chin; the stature medium;—the

features thus being quite in harmony with the form of the head.” Of the

northern part of ancient Gaul, the principal seat of the Belgæ or

Cimbri, he says:—“I traversed a great part of the _Gallia Belgica_ of

Cæsar, from the mouth of the Somme to that of the Seine; and here I

distinguished for the first time the assemblage of features which

constitutes the other type, and often to such an exaggerated degree that

I was very forcibly struck,—the long head, the broad high forehead, the

curved nose, with the point below, and the wings tucked up; the chin

boldly developed; and the stature tall.” In the other parts of France

(exclusive of the south and west, anciently occupied by the Iberians),

M. Edwards found that the Cimbrian type had been overcome by the round

heads and straight noses of the Gauls, who were the more numerous

because the more ancient race in those parts, and had covered the whole

country before the arrival of the Cimbrians.

Passing into Italy, he continues his examinations. “Whatever may have

been the anterior state of matters,” he says, “it is certain, from

Thierry’s researches and the unanimous accord of all historians, that

the _Peuples Gaulois_ have predominated in the north of Italy, between

the Alps and the Apennines. We find them established there at the first

dawn of history; and the most authentic testimony represents them with

all the character of a great nation, from this remote period down to a

very advanced point of Roman history. This is all I need to trouble

myself about. I know the features of their compatriots in Transalpine

Gaul—I find them again in Cisalpine Gaul.” The old “Gallic” settlers in

northern Italy appear to have been Cimbrian. After describing the

well-known head of Dante—which is long and narrow, with a high and

developed forehead, nose long and curved, with sharp point and elevated

wings—M. Edwards says that he was struck by the great frequency of this

type in Tuscany (although a mixed Roman type is there the prevailing

one) among the peasantry; in the statues and busts of the Medici family;

and also amongst the effigies and bas-reliefs of the illustrious men of

the republic of Florence. This type is well marked since the time of

Dante, as doubtless long before. It extends to Venice; and in the ducal

palace, M. Edwards had occasion to observe that it is common among the

doges. The type became more predominant as he approached Milan, and

thence he traced it as to its fountain into Transalpine Gaul. The

physical characteristics of the present population, therefore,

correspond with the statements of history, and show that the ancient

type of this widespread people, the Cimbri, has survived the lapse and

vicissitudes of two thousand years.

In passing through Florence, M. Edwards took occasion to visit the Ducal

Gallery, to study the ancient Roman type,—selecting, by preference, the

busts of the early Roman emperors, because they were descendants of

ancient families. Augustus, Tiberius, Germanicus, Claudius, Nero, Titus,

&c., exemplify this type in the Florentine collections; and the family

resemblance is so close, and the style of features so remarkable, that

they cannot be mistaken. The following is his description:—“The vertical

diameter of the head is short, and, consequently, the face broad. As the

summit of the cranium is flattened, and the lower margin of the jaw-bone

almost horizontal, the contour of the head, when viewed in front,

approaches a square. The lateral parts, above the ears, are protuberant;

the forehead low; the nose truly aquiline—that is to say, the curve

commences near the top and ends before it reaches the point, so that the

base is horizontal; the chin is round; and the stature short.” This is

the characteristic type of a Roman; but we cannot expect now to meet

with absolute uniformity in any race, however seemingly pure. Such a

type M. Edwards subsequently found to predominate in Rome, and certain

parts of Italy, at the present day. It is the original type of the

central portions of the peninsula, and, however overlayed at times, has

swallowed up all intruders. As a singular corroboration of the French

ethnographer’s observations, Mr J. C. Nott, an American surgeon and

naturalist, says:—“A sailor came to my office, a few months ago, to have

a dislocated arm set. When stripped and standing before me, he presented

the type described by M. Edwards so perfectly, and moreover combined

with such extraordinary development of bone and muscle, that there

occurred to my mind at once the beau-ideal of a Roman soldier. Though

the man had been an American sailor for twenty years, and spoke English

without foreign accent, I could not help asking where he was born. He

replied in a deep strong voice, ‘In _Rome_, sir!’”[34]

In Greece the Hellenes and Pelasgi are two races identified with the

earliest traditions of the country; but when we appeal to history for

their origin, or seek for the part that each has played in the majestic

drama of antiquity, there is little more than conjecture to guide us.

Greece did not come fairly within the scope of M. Edwards’ researches,

yet he has ventured a few note-worthy observations in connection with

this point. He thinks the same principles that governed his examination

of Gaul may be applied to Greece; and that the Hellenes and Pelasgi

might be followed ethnologically like the Celts and Cimbri. Perhaps the

most important remark which he makes is that which refers to the

differences between what he calls the _heroic_ and _historic_—or what is

generally termed the ideal and real types of the Greek countenance. The

ancient monuments of art in Greece exhibit a wide diversity of types,

and this at every period of their history. Of the two great classes into

which these may be divided, M. Edwards says:—

“Most of the divinities and personages of the _heroic_ times are

formed on that well-known model which constitutes what we term the

beau-ideal. The forms and proportions of the head and countenance are

so regular that we may describe them with mathematical precision. A

perfectly oval contour, forehead and nose straight, without depression

between them, would suffice to distinguish this type. The harmony is

such that the presence of these traits implies the others. But such is

not the character of the personages of truly _historic_ times. The

philosophers, orators, warriors, and poets almost all differ from it,

and form a group apart. It cannot be confounded with the rest: it is

sufficient to point it out, for one to recognise at once how far it is

separated. It greatly resembles, on the contrary, the type which is

seen in other countries of Europe, while the former is scarcely met

with there.”

This observation is just. The head of Alexander the Great is nearly

allied to the pure classical or heroic type; but this case is an

exception—and the lineaments of Lycurgus, Eratosthenes, and most other

specimens of old Greek portrait-sculpture, are, with the exception of

the beard (if indeed such an exception is now requisite), very much like

those which one meets with daily in our streets. “Were we to judge

solely by the monuments of Greece,” continues M. Edwards, “on account of

this contrast, we should be tempted to regard the type of the fabulous

or heroic personages as ideal. But imagination more readily creates

monsters than models of beauty; and this principle alone will suffice to

convince us that such a type has existed in Greece, and the countries

where its population has spread, if it does not still exist there.”

In corroboration of this conjecture, it may be stated that the learned

travellers, M.M. de Stackelberg and de Bronsted, who have journeyed

through the Morea and closely examined the population, assert that the

_heroic_ type is still extant in certain localities. M. Poqueville

likewise assures us that the models which inspired Phidias and Apelles

are still to be found among the inhabitants of the Morea. “They are

generally tall, and finely formed; their eyes are full of fire, and they

have a beautiful mouth, ornamented with the finest teeth. There are,

however, degrees in their beauty, though all may be generally termed

handsome. The Spartan woman is fair, of a slender make, but with a noble

air. The women of Taÿgetus have the carriage of a Pallas when she

wielded her formidable ægis in the midst of a battle. The Messenian

woman is low of stature, and distinguished for her _embonpoint_,” (this

may be owing to a mixture with the primitive race of the Morea, who, as

Helots, long existed as a distinct caste in Messenia); “she has regular

features, large blue eyes, and long black hair. The Arcadian, in her

coarse woollen garments, scarcely suffers the symmetry of her form to

appear; but her countenance is expressive of innocence and purity of

mind.” In the time of Poqueville the Greek women were extremely ignorant

and uneducated; but, he says, “music and dancing seem to have been

taught them by nature.” He speaks of the long flaxen hair of the women

of Sparta, their majestic air and carriage, their elegant forms, the

symmetry of their features, lighted up by large blue eyes, fringed and

shaded with long eye-lashes. “The men,” he says, “among whom some are

‘blonds,’ or fair, have noble countenances; are of tall stature, with

masculine and regular features.” They have preserved something of the

Dorians of ancient Sparta.

It would be erroneous, however, to conclude from this that Greek art

owed everything to the actual. The type existed more or less imperfectly

in the population, but Phidias and the Greek artists took and developed

it, by the aid of the imagination, into that perfect phase of physical

beauty which we justly term the _beau-ideal_. A nation’s beau-ideal is

always the perfectionment of its own type. It is easy to see how this

happens. In nations, as in individuals, the soul moulds the body, so far

as extrinsic circumstances permit, into a form in accordance with its

own ideas and desire; and accordingly, whenever a marked difference

exists in the physical aspect of two nations, there, also, we may expect

to find a variance in their beau-ideals. Not, as is generally supposed,

from the eye of each race becoming accustomed to the national features,

but because these features, are themselves an incarnation and embodiment

of the national mind. It is the soul which shapes the national features,

not the national features that mould the æsthetic judgment of the soul.

It is not _association_, therefore, that is the cause of the different

beau-ideals we behold in the world, but a psychical difference in the

nations which produce them,—a circumstance no more remarkable than those

moral and intellectual diversities in virtue of which we see one race

excelling in the exact sciences, another in the fine arts, a third in

military renown, and a fourth in pacific industry. We may adduce, in

curious illustration of this point, the well-known fact that Raphael and

many other eminent artists have repeatedly given their own likeness to

the imaginary offspring of their art,—not real, but idealised

likenesses. How was this? From vanity? No, certainly; but because the

ideal most congenial to them, which they could most easily hold in their

mind, and which it gave them most pleasure to linger over and beautify,

was the ideal constituted by the perfectionment of their own features.

There is something more than mere vanity in the pleasure usually derived

from looking into a mirror; for when the features are in exact or nearly

exact accordance with the desires of the framing Spirit within, there

must always be a pleasure in the soul looking upon its own likeness:

even as it experiences a similar delight when meeting with a being of

perfectly congenial nature—in other words, its spiritual (as the other

is its physical) likeness. It is to be expected, _cæteris paribus_, that

this pleasure will be most felt by those who are gifted with much

personal beauty, and whose features are most perfect of their kind; for

in their case there is more than ordinary harmony between the soul and

its fleshly envelope. Accordingly, no artist ever painted himself more

than the beautiful Raphael. And we could name an eminent individual, now

no more, as rarely gifted with physical beauty as with mental powers, to

whom the contemplation of his portrait was almost a passion. Some of our

readers may recognise the distinguished man of whom we speak. No one

less vain or more noble-hearted than he, yet his painted likeness had

always a fascination for him. “It is a curious thing,” he used to say,

“how I like to look at my own portrait.” Was it not because, in that

beautifully developed form and countenance, the spirit within had most

successfully embodied its ideal, with little or no hindrance from

extrinsic circumstances, and accordingly rejoiced, though it knew not

why, in the presence of its own likeness?

But to return to ethnography, and trace out the successive changes which

have taken place in the population of Europe. As we have already

observed, the great ebb and flow of nations was over by the Christian

era. The population had become comparatively dense, so that room could

no more be made for tribes of new-comers—and settled in their habits and

occupations, so as no longer to admit of their shifting or being driven

to and fro like waves over the land, as was the case while they were in

the nomadic state. And as the nations became consolidated, they began,

however feebly at first, to live a national existence, and to put forth

national efforts of self-defence against those who assailed them. On

these various accounts, the system of conquest by displacement, which

marked the pre-historic and in a faint degree the early historic times,

was brought to an end,—the conquests of the Northmen being the last

examples of the kind; and these being hardly worthy of the name, as they

were marked rather by the political predominance of the new-comers, and

by an overlaying rather than by any displacement of the native

population. For all useful purposes, therefore, we may conceive that at

the Christian era the various nations of Europe were arranged on the map

very much as they are now,—the only exceptions worth mentioning being

the influx of the Magyars and Turks, and the southward progress of

several of the Slavonian tribes through the old Byzantine provinces into

Greece.

“Had a Roman geographer of the days of the Empire,” it has been well

observed, “advanced in a straight line from the Atlantic to the

Pacific, he would have traversed the exact succession of races that is

to be met in the same route now. First, he would have found the Celts

occupying as far as the Rhine; thence, eastward to the Vistula and

Carpathian mountains, he would have found Germans; beyond them, and

stretching away into Central Asia, he would have found the so-called

Scythians,—a race which, had he possessed our information, he would

have divided into the two great branches of the Slavonians or European

Scythians, and the Tartars and Turks, or Asiatic Scythians; and

finally, beyond these, he would have found Mongolian hordes

overspreading Eastern Asia to the shores of the Pacific. These

successive races or populations he would have found shading off into

each other at their points of junction. He would have remarked, also,

a general westward pressure of the whole mass, tending toward mutual

rupture and invasion,—the Mongolian pressing against the Tartars, the

Tartars against the Slavonians, the Slavonians against the Germans,

and the Germans against the Celts.”

Although the early history and migrations of the Slavonians are involved

in greater obscurity than that of either of the other two great branches

of the European population, it is erroneous to suppose that they are a

recent accession out of the depths of Asia. It was evidently a branch of

them that Herodotus describes as peaceful, pastoral, and agricultural

tribes located near the shores of the Black Sea. Instead of entering

Europe _via_ Asia Minor and the southern borders of the Euxine, as many

of the Celtic and Teutonic tribes did, they appear to have taken the

route by the north of the Caspian and Black Seas, and probably advanced

southwards into Europe on the gradual and ultimately sudden subsidence

of the waters of the inland sea which primevally stretched from the

Baltic eastwards to the Sea of Aral.

This race, which now constitutes the largest ethnographical unit of

population in Europe, numbering nearly eighty millions, has never yet

been examined in rigorous detail. The earliest and best developed of its

tribes is the Polish, which, though it has in recent times been

subjected by the Russo-Slavons aided by the German powers, has not yet

lost its nationality; and it is probable that, in the course of the

future, the mighty Slavonic race will yet give rise to several distinct

states. Both in features and complexion there is much diversity to be

found in the various tribes which it comprises; but, if we consider the

immense numbers of the race, and the different climes and temperatures

under which they are located, it must be allowed that they are more

homogeneous in character than any other people in Europe. The general

type of the Slavonians is thus described by M. Edwards:—

“The contour of the head, viewed in front, approaches nearly to a

square; the height surpasses a little the breadth; the summit is

sensibly flattened; and the direction of the jaw is horizontal. The

length of the nose is less than the distance from its base to the

chin; it is almost straight from the depression at its root—that is to

say, without any decided curvature; but, if appreciable, it is

slightly concave, so that the end has a tendency to turn up; the lower

part is rather large, and the extremity rounded. The eyes, which are

rather deep-set, are [unlike those of the Tartars] perfectly on the

same line; and when they have any particular character, they are

smaller than the proportion of the head ought to indicate. The

eyebrows are thin, and very near the eyes, particularly at the

internal angle; and from this point are often [like those of the

Tartars] directed obliquely outwards. The mouth, which is not salient,

has thin lips, and is much nearer to the nose than to the tip of the

chin. Another singular characteristic may be added, and which is very

general, viz., their small beard, except on the upper lip [a trait

connecting them with the peoples of Upper Asia]. Such is the common

type among the Poles, Alesians, Moravians, Bohemians, Slavonic

Hungarians, and is very common among the Russians.”

Having thus briefly and imperfectly glanced at the ethnographical

features of Europe prior to the Christian era, we come now to note,

equally briefly, the accession of foreign elements which the Continent

has received subsequently to that period. The first of these is the

memorable one of the Jews. Unlike the other incomers, they came not as

conquerors, nor in a mass—but as isolated exiles, seeking new homes

where they might be suffered to preserve their religion and gain a

livelihood. A military race when in the land of their fathers, in Europe

they developed only that other feature of their nation, the passion for

moneymaking. In pursuit of this object they have settled in every

country of Europe; and, in spite of persecutions innumerable, continue

to preserve to this day their religion and their national features.

Despite the warm passions of the Hebrews, which, even when in their own

land, repeatedly led both the people and their princes into the

contraction of sexual alliances with other nations, the Jewish blood on

the whole is still much purer than that of any other race—the foreign

elements from time to time mingled with it being gradually thrown off by

innumerable crossings and re-crossings with the native stock. At present

there are about two millions of Jews in Europe, and in the rest of the

world about a million and a half. The modern Jews, while preserving the

national features, present every variety of complexion save black—for

the _black_ Jews of Malabar are not Jews at all, but the descendants of

apostate Hindoos. In regard to the matter of complexion, which varies so

much with the climate and condition of the people, we shall say

something by-and-by; but we shall here give some remarks of Mr Leeser, a

learned Jew of Philadelphia, on the curious diversities of complexion so

remarkably observable among the Hebrew race:—

“In respect to the true Jewish complexion, it is _fair_; which is

proved by the variety of the people I have seen, from Persia, Russia,

Palestine, and Africa, not to mention those of Europe and America, the

latter of whom are identical with the Europeans, like all other white

inhabitants of this continent. All Jews that ever I have beheld are

_identical in features_; though the colour of their skin and eyes

differs materially, inasmuch as the Southern are nearly all

black-eyed, and somewhat sallow, while the Northern are blue-eyed, in

a great measure, and of a fair and clear complexion. In this they

assimilate to all Caucasians, when transported for a number of

generations into various climates. Though I am free to admit that the

dark and hazel eye and tawny skin are oftener met with among the

Germanic Jews than among the German natives proper. There are also

red-haired and white-haired Jews, as well as other people, and perhaps

of as great a proportion. I speak now of the Jews north—I am myself a

native of Germany, and among my own family I know of none without blue

eyes, brown hair (though mine is black), and very fair skin—still I

recollect, when a boy, seeing many who had not these characteristics,

and had, on the contrary, eyes, hair, and skin of a more southern

complexion. In America, you will see all varieties of complexion, from

the very fair Canadian down to the almost yellow of the West

Indian—the latter, however, is solely the effect of exposure to a

_deleterious_ climate for several generations, which changes, I should

judge, the texture of the hair and skin, and thus leaves its mark on

the constitution—otherwise the Caucasian type is strongly developed;

but this is the case more emphatically among those sprung from a

German than a Portuguese stock. The latter was an original inhabitant

of the Iberian Peninsula, and whether it was preserved pure, or became

mixed with Moorish blood in the process of centuries, or whether the

Germans contracted an intimacy with Teutonic nations, and thus

acquired a part of their national characteristics, it is impossible to

be told now. But one thing is certain, that, both in Spain and

Germany, conversions to Judaism during the early ages, say from the

eighth to the thirteenth century, were by no means rare, or else the

governments would not have so energetically prohibited Jews from

making proselytes of their servants and others. I know not, indeed,

whether there is any greater physical discrepancy between northern and

southern Jews than between English families who continue in England or

emigrate to Alabama—I rather judge there is not.”—_Types of Mankind_,

p. 121.

The Huns and Magyars were the next tribes who made their way into

Europe; and their advent, fierce, rapid, and exterminating, was

conducted like a charge of cavalry. They hewed their way with the sword

through the Slavonian and other tribes who impeded their march; and

after being for a brief season the terror of Europe, they settled _en

permanence_ on the plains of Hungary, where for upwards of a thousand

years they dominated, like a ruling caste, over the surrounding Slavonic

tribes. The influx of this warlike race took place by two

migrations,—firstly, of the Huns, under Attila, in the fifth century;

and, secondly, of the Magyars, under Arpad, in the ninth. The type of

the two races was identical; it is peculiarly exotic, and unlike any

other in Europe. It belongs to the great Uralian-Tatar stem of Asia;

but, strangely enough, though they differ in type from the Fins, the

Magyars speak a dialect of the Finnish language,—which shows that the

two races must have been associated in some way at a remote epoch, and

before either of them emerged from the depths of Asia. M. Edwards thus

describes the Magyar type:—“Head nearly round; forehead little

developed, low, and bending; the eyes placed obliquely, so that the

external angle is elevated; the nose short and flat; mouth prominent,

and lips thick; neck very strong, so that the back of the head appears

flat, forming almost a straight line with the nape; beard weak and

scattering; stature short.” The Magyars did not belong to the Caucasian

stock; and their long-continued supremacy over tribes decidedly

Caucasian, is a nut to crack for those ethnographers who deduce

everything from race, irrespective of the habits and state of

development of particular nations.

The next alien race which entered Europe was the Gypseys, the history

and peculiarities of which strange people present many curious analogies

with those of the Israelites. “Both have had an exodus; both are exiles,

and dispersed among the Gentiles, by whom they are hated and despised,

and whom they hate and despise under the names of Busnees and Goyim;

both, though speaking the language of the Gentiles, possess a peculiar

language which the latter do not understand; and both possess a peculiar

cast of countenance by which they may without difficulty be

distinguished from all other nations. But with these points the

similarity terminates. The Israelites have a peculiar religion, to which

they are fanatically attached; the Romas (gypseys) have none. The

Israelites have an authentic history; the Gypseys have no history,—they

do not even know the name of their original country.” Everything

connected with the Gypsey race is involved in mystery; though, from

their physical type, language, &c., it is conjectured that they came

from some part of India. It has been supposed that they fled from the

exterminating sword of the great Tartar conqueror, Tamerlane, who

ravaged India in 1408–9 A.D.; but Borrow’s work furnishes good ground

for believing that they may have migrated at a much earlier period

northwards, amongst the Slavonians, before they entered Germany and the

other countries where we first catch sight of them. All that we know

with certainty is, that in the beginning of the fifteenth century they

appeared in Germany, and were soon scattered over Europe, as far as

Spain. The precise day upon which these strange beings first entered

France has been recorded,—namely, the 17th of August 1427. The entire

number of the race at present is estimated at about 700,000,—thus

constituting them the smallest as well as the most singular and

distinctly marked of races. But if their numbers be small, their range

of habitat is one of the widest. They are scattered over most countries

of the habitable globe—Europe, Asia, Africa, and both the Americas,

containing specimens of these roving tribes. “Their tents,” says Borrow,

“are pitched on the heaths of Brazil and the ridges of the Himalaya

hills; and their language is heard in Moscow and Madrid, in London and

Stamboul. Their power of resisting cold is truly wonderful, as it is not

uncommon to find them encamped in the midst of the snow, in slight

canvass tents, where the temperature is 25° or 30° below the

freezing-point according to Reaumur;” while, on the other hand, they

withstand without difficulty the sultry climes of Africa and India.

The last accession which the population of Europe received was

accomplished by an irruption similar to that of the Huns, but on a

grander scale. In the beginning of the fifteenth century the Osmanli

Turks swept across the Hellespont and Bosphorus, and in 1453 established

their empire in Europe by the capture of Byzantium. In proportion to its

numbers, no race ever gave such a shock to the Western world as this;

and, by its very antagonism, it helped to quicken into life the

population and kingdoms of central and eastern Europe. It is

semi-Caucasian by extraction, but, coming from the northern side of the

Caucasus, and pretty far to the east, the original features of the race

had a strong dash of the Tartar in them. The portrait of Mahomed II.,

the conqueror of Byzantium, may be taken as a fair sample of the

primitive Turkish type,—indeed a more than average specimen, for among

all nations the nobles and princes, as a class, are ever found to

possess the most perfect forms and features. The Turkish tribes who

still follow their ancient nomadic life, and wander in the cold and dry

deserts of Turkistan, still exhibit the Tartar physiognomy—even the

Nogays of the Crimea, and some of the roving tribes of Asia Minor,

present much of this character. The European Turks, and the upper

classes of the race generally, exhibit a greatly superior style of

countenance, in consequence of the elevating influences of civilisation,

and of their harems having been replenished for four centuries by fair

ones from Georgia and Circassia,—a region which, as Chardin long ago

remarked, “is assuredly the one where nature produces the most beautiful

persons, and a people brave and valiant, as well as lively, _galant_,

and loving.” There is hardly a man of quality in Turkey who is not born

of a Georgian or Circassian mother,—counting downwards from the Sultan,

who is generally Georgian or Circassian by the female side. As this

crossing of the two races has been carried on for several centuries, the

modern Ottomans in Europe are in truth a _new nation_—and, on the whole,

a very handsome one. The general proportion of the face is symmetrical,

and the facial angle nearly vertical,—the features thus approaching to

the Circassian mould; while the head is remarkable for its excellent

globular form, with the forehead broad and the glabella prominent.

The natural destiny of the Turks in Europe, like that of ruling castes

everywhere when holding in subjection a population greatly more numerous

than themselves, is either to gradually relax their sway and share the

government with the subject races, as the Normans in England did,—or, if

obstinately maintaining their class-despotism, to be violently deposed

from the supremacy. The increasing development of the Greek and other

sections of the population of European Turkey has of late years made one

or other of these alternatives imminent; but the extensive reforms and

liberalisation of the government simultaneously undertaken by the

Ottoman rulers, and the remarkable abeyance in which they have begun to

place the _distinctive_ tenets of the Mahommedan faith, promised, if

unthwarted by foreign influences, to keep the various races in amity,

and admit Christians to offices in the state. The history of the last

fifteen years has shown this system of governmental relaxation growing

gradually stronger—so that Lord Palmerston was justified in saying that

no country in the world could show so many reforms accomplished in so

short a time as Turkey. And after the recent exploits of the Ottomans in

defeating simultaneously the attacks of Russia and of the Greek and

Montenegrin insurgents, and the Turkish predilections even of those

provinces which were entered by the Christian forces of the Czar, it

cannot be doubted that the Turkish rule was on the whole giving

satisfaction, and that, if unaided by foreign Powers, no insurrection

against the supremacy of the bold-hearted Osmanlis had the slightest

chance of success. It was this state of matters which alarmed the

ambitious Czar into his present aggression; for he felt that now or

never was the time to interfere, if he did not wish to see a Turko-Greek

state establish itself in such strength as to bid defiance to his power.

We may add, that, whatever be the issue of the present contest, it must

tend to a further and higher development of the Turkish character. The

contagion of Western ideas, disseminated in the most imposing of ways by

the presence of the armies of England and France, cannot fail to impress

itself on the slumbrous but awakening Ottomans, and not only expand

their stereotyped civilisation into a wider and freer form, but possibly

to strike also from their religion the more faulty and obstructive of

its tenets.

Such are the elements of the present population of Europe,—a population

which, in its western and southern portions, no longer presents distinct

masses of diverse tribes, and whose various sections every century is

drawing into closer contact. The progress of commerce and civilisation

produces not only an interchange of products of various climes, and of

ideas between the various races of mankind, but also a commingling of

blood; and as the most nobly developed races are always the great

wanderers and conquerors, it will be seen that the progress of the world

ever tends to improve the types of mankind by infusing the blood of the

superior races into the veins of the inferior. The settlements of the

Normans are an instance of this. And a still more remarkable, though

exceptional, exemplification of the same thing may at present be

witnessed in America—where the Negroes, transported from their native

clime, have already become a mixed race, owing to the relation in which

all female slaves stand to their masters, and the consequent frequent

crossing of the European blood with the blood of Africa. In point of

fact, there are slaves to be found in the Southern States, who, like

“George” in _Uncle Tom’s Cabin_, are as Caucasian in their features and

intellect as their masters,—a circumstance fraught with considerable

danger to the White caste in these States, because producing the

extremest irritation in these nearly full-blood “white slaves,” and at

the same time providing able and fiery leaders for the oppressed Negro

race in the event of an insurrection and servile war.

But the great variety of countenance and temperament in Western and

Southern Europe is not due merely to actual crossings of the commingling

races. Civilisation itself is the parent of variety. The progress of

humanity produces physical effects upon the race, which may be classed

under two heads, one of these being a general physical improvement, and

the other increasing variety. Take an undeveloped race like the Tartars

or Negroes, and you will find the aspect and mental character of the

nation nearly homogeneous,—the differences existing amongst its

individual members being comparatively trivial. Pass to the Slavonians,

and you will perceive this uniformity lessened; and when you reach the

nations of Western Europe, you will find the transition accomplished,

and homogeneity exchanged for variety. The explanation of this is

obvious. Just as all plants of the same species, when in embryo, are

nearly alike, undeveloped races of mankind present but few signs of

spiritual life; and therefore their individual members greatly resemble

one another,—because the fewer the characteristics, the less room is

there for variety, and the more radical and therefore more universal

must be the characteristics themselves. Pebbles, as they lie rough upon

the sea-shore, may present a great uniformity of appearance; but take

and polish them, and a hundred diversities of colour and marking

forthwith show themselves;—even so does civilisation and growth develop

the rich varieties of human nature. As these mental varieties spring up

within, they ever seek to develop themselves by corresponding varieties

in the outer life,—placing men now in riches, now in poverty, now under

the sway of the intellect, now of the passions, now of good principles,

now of bad, and moreover leading to an infinite diversity of external

occupation. The joint influence of the feelings within, and of the

corresponding circumstances without, in course of time comes to affect

the physical frame, often in a very marked manner; and, indeed, it is

well known that even so subtle a thing as the predominant thoughts and

sentiments of an individual are almost always reflected in the aspect of

his countenance. Nations, when in a primitive uncultured state, differ

as widely from those at the apex of civilisation, as the monotonous

countenance and one-phased mind of a peasant contrasts with the rich

variety of expression in the face of genius, whose nature is quickly

responsive to every influence, though often steadied into a masculine

calm. Let any one inspect the various classes of our metropolitan

population, and he will perceive an amount of physical, mental, and

occupational variety such as he will meet with nowhere else in the

world—presenting countenances deformed now by this form of brutal

passion, now by that, ranging upwards to the noblest types of the human

face, the joint product of easy circumstances and high mental and

spiritual culture. It is all the result of civilisation, which ever

tends to break up the uniformity of a population, and allows of its

members rising to the highest heights or sinking to the lowest

depths,—thus breaking the primitive monotony of life into its manifold

prismatic hues.

Not the least remarkable of the physical changes thus produced by

civilisation, is the diversity of complexion which it gradually affects.

It appears certain, for example, that the races who peopled the northern

and western parts of Europe, subsequent to the dark-skinned Iberians,

were all of the fair or xanthous style of complexion; but this is by no

means the case with the great mass of people who are supposed to have

descended from them. “It seems unquestionable,” says Prichard, “that the

complexion prevalent through the British Isles has greatly varied from

that of all [?] the original tribes who are known to have jointly

constituted the population. We have seen that the ancient Celtic tribes

were a xanthous race; such, likewise, were the Saxons, Danes, and

Normans; the Caledonians also, and the Gael, were fair and

yellow-haired. Not so the mixed descendants of all these blue-eyed

tribes. The Britons had already deviated from the colour of the Celts in

the time of Strabo, who declares that the Britons are taller than the

Gauls, and less yellow-haired, and more infirm and relaxed in their

bodies.” The Germans have also varied in their complexion. The ancient

Germans are said to have had universally yellow or red hair and blue

eyes,—in short, a strongly marked xanthous constitution. This, says

Niebuhr, “has now, in most parts of Germany, become uncommon. I can

assert, from my own observation, that the Germans are now, in many parts

of their country, far from a light-haired race. I have seen a

considerable number of persons assembled in a large room at

Frankfort-on-the-Maine, and observed that, except one or two Englishmen,

there was not an individual among them who had not dark hair. The

Chevalier Bunsen has assured me that he has often looked in vain for the

auburn or golden locks and the light cerulean eyes of the old Germans,

and never verified the picture given by the ancients of his countrymen

till he visited Scandinavia,—there he found himself surrounded by the

Germans of Tacitus.” In the towns of Germany, especially, the people are

far from being a red-haired, or even a xanthous race; and, from the fact

that this change has been developed chiefly in towns, we may infer that

it depends in part on habits, and the way of living, and on food. Towns

are much warmer and drier than the country; but even the open country is

much warmer and drier than the forests and morasses with which Germany

was formerly covered. The climate of Germany has, in fact, changed since

the country was cleared of its vast forests; and we must attribute the

altered physical character of the Germans to the altered condition under

which the present inhabitants live.

It was the conquests of Rome that first scattered the seeds of

civilisation in Western Europe. There it has grown up into a stately and

nearly perfect fabric on the shores of the Atlantic, gradually losing

its perfection as it proceeds eastwards, until it reaches the

semi-barbarism of Russia, and the still deeper barbarism of Upper Asia.

Our limits hardly allow of our inquiring what influence this

civilisation is calculated to exert in future upon the ethnological

condition of the Continent, although it is a question of great

importance, as foreshadowing the chief changes which may be expected to

result from the state of chronic strife upon which Europe has now

entered. We can only remark that the grand action of progress and

civilisation is to develop _the mind_, and so convert the units of

society from a mass of automatons into thinking and self-directing

agents,—conscious of, and able to attain, alike their own rights and

those of their nation. Hence follows the growth of liberty within; and,

without, the gradual establishment of union between scattered sections

of the same race. Supposing, then, that the progress of civilisation in

Europe be unobstructed, we may calculate that wherever we now see

internal despotism, there will be liberty,—wherever we see foreign

domination, there will be national freedom,—and that, after a little

more training in the stern school of suffering, the Continental nations,

grown wiser, will make an end of the present arbitrary and unnatural

territorial system of Europe, and arrange themselves in the more

natural, grander, and permanent communities of race.

It was doubtless a perception of this truth that caused the French

Emperor recently to declare that “the age of conquests is past.” We

regret to think, however, that the statement is somewhat premature,—for

Europe is still far from that happy climax of civilisation which in the

preceding sentences we have indicated. Moreover, there are two very

opposite periods in the life of nations when the race-principle reigns

supreme, their first and their last;—just as, in the case of

individuals, men often adopt in old age, from the dictates of

experience, principles which in youth they had acted upon from instinct.

Now, Europe at this day presents both of these phases of national life

existing simultaneously, at its eastern and western extremities; and it

seems probable that the development of the race-principle in its early

form among the Slavonians, will take precedence of its development in

maturity among the civilised races of the Continent. There is every

indication that the Panslavism of Russia will precede the coalescing of

the Teutonic tribes into a united Germany—or of the Romano-Gallic races

of France, Spain, and Italy, into that trinity of confederate states

which Lamartine so stoutly predicts. Nay, may not this Panslavism of

Russia, by a short-lived political domination, be destined to prove the

very means of exciting the ethnological affinities of the rest of

Europe, and of thereby raising up an insuperable barrier to its own

progress, as well as involuntarily launching the other nations on their

true line of progress?

The fag-end of an article is little suitable for the discussion of such

really momentous topics, and we especially regret that we cannot proceed

to consider the effects which the progress of civilisation is likely to

exert upon Russia itself. Any one, however, who is disposed to supply

for himself the deductions from the above principles, will feel that his

labour in so doing is not without its recompense, by establishing the

consolatory truth that, so far as human eye can discern, “a good time

coming” is yet in store for Europe,—though, alas, what turmoil must

there be between this and then!

THE GANGETIC PROVINCES OF BRITISH INDIA.[35]

Disguise it as we may, conquest to the conquered must ever be a bitter

draught.

It is impossible for nations to be entirely disinterested. The rewards

of the victors cannot be reaped without trenching upon the rights of the

vanquished.

Three centuries have gone by since Machiavelli wrote, yet still does the

Italian mutter his words, “Ad ognuno puzza questo barbaro dominio;” and

all the material benefits which the peasantry of Lombardy often admit

that they enjoy under their present masters, cannot abate the aversion

of the people of that province to the Austrian rule.

There are more points of resemblance than we may like to confess between

the position of Austria towards Italy, and that of England towards

India. In both cases, the bulk of the conquered, especially the

agricultural classes, have little to complain of, and are on the whole

passively contented and reconciled to a yoke which, as far as they are

concerned, presses, perhaps, but does not gall; in both cases, all of a

higher order, all upon whom ambition can have any influence, must feel

more or less discontented with a condition necessarily attended with a

diminished chance of advancement, and a mortifying stagnation of hope.

Both of the dominant powers ought to regard this frame of mind not as a

fault, but as a moral malady, and to direct their best efforts to the

cure of an affection naturally resulting from the depressed position of

those brought by conquest under their sway.

What the sanative measures of Austria may have been, and into the causes

of their failure, we need not stop to inquire, but may proceed at once

to consider in how far we have, in this respect, acquitted ourselves of

our obligations to those over whom we also rule mainly by the right of

conquest and superior strength.

Not being gifted, like many of our contemporaries, with power to take in

the totality of the gorgeous East at one comprehensive glance, we must

examine our Indian empire in detail, and for the present confine our

remarks to the Presidency of Bengal, with its appendage the

Lieutenant-Governorship of Agra.

The guides whom we propose to follow in the prosecution of our inquiries

into the state of these Gangetic provinces, their past and present

condition, and their future prospects, are the authors enumerated at the

foot of the page, each of whom may be regarded as a representative of

one or other of the schools into which those interested in the work of

Indian administration may now be said to be divided.

The history of our civil administration of the Gangetic portion of our

Eastern territory divides itself into three distinct periods. The first,

extending from the victories of Clive in 1757, to the commencement of

Lord Cornwallis’s system in 1793, may be called the heroic and

irregular; the second, dating from the year last mentioned, and

continuing till the accession of Lord William Bentinck in 1829, may be

designated the judicial and regular; and the third, stretching from that

time to the present day, the anti-judicial and progressive period.

During the first of these periods, it is in vain to deny that gross

abuses prevailed, and that many acts of oppression were committed by

those very individuals among our own countrymen, whose heroism in the

field and sagacity in council were the subjects of admiration to such

natives as were brought into communication and contact with them.

A degree of intimacy thus subsisted between the European rulers and

natives of higher rank, such as, in these days, is only to be found

where the native has been by education assimilated in some degree to the

Englishman.

It is stated by Mr F. H. Robinson, that men who had left India at that

early period, could not believe those who, in after years, told them of

the social estrangement prevailing in that country, and of the

reluctance evinced, even by Mahommedans, to share a repast with a

Christian.

Engaged, as the English of those early days were, in a struggle for

political existence, their deportment towards natives of rank was

influenced by the often-felt necessity of winning them over to their

interests; and thus our national disposition to be contemptuously

churlish towards those who differ from ourselves in language,

complexion, and manner, was kept for a while in abeyance. At that

period, therefore, we find traces of friendly personal feeling

subsisting between Englishmen and natives, and expressed by the latter,

even in the same breath with the most earnest protestations against the

mal-administration of the country then in our hands. Striking instances

of these conflicting feelings are exhibited in that most curious work

entitled _Syar-ul Mootekherin_, which may be translated into a “Review

of Modern Times,” or more literally, “Manners of the Moderns.” This

history of the events attending the downfall of the Moghul and the rise

of our own power in India, was written by a Mahommedan gentleman, of the

name of Mir Gholan Hussein, whose descendants, if we are not

misinformed, continued under our rule to hold possession of certain

lands in the province of Behar, since lost to them in a manner likely to

be chronicled among the events of the third of the three historic

periods to which we have alluded.

If even at this distance of time it is painful to read the reproaches

bestowed by the author on our internal administration, it is still

consolatory to find one, to whom neither partiality nor flattery can be

imputed, recording his unfeigned admiration of the personal conduct of

many of our countrymen in those early days.

Of Warren Hastings the author writes with enthusiasm. He records all of

that great man’s troubles with his council; and gives, if we remember

right—for we have not been able to find a complete translation of the

work in London—a circumstantial account of the duel with Francis,

fought, according to English custom, with _tummunchas_ (pistols), in a

_bugishea_ (garden); and then after narrating the complete dispersion of

the factious opposition by which he had been thwarted, he breaks out in

a triumphant tone, with an exclamation like the following: “Now did the

genius of Mr Hastings, like the sun bursting through a cloud, beam forth

in all its splendour.” In describing an action fought in the vicinity of

the city of Patna, in the year 1760, the native author dwells with

delight upon the conduct of his friend Dr William Fullerton, who, in the

midst of a retreat in the face of a victorious enemy, on an

ammunition-cart breaking down, stopped unconcernedly, put it in order,

and then bravely pursued his route, and “it must be acknowledged,” he

adds, “that this nation’s presence of mind, firmness of temper, and

undaunted bravery, are past all question.”

In abatement of these praises, he adds the following reflections: “If,

to so many military qualifications, they knew how to join the art of

government, no nation would be preferable to them, or prove worthier of

command; but such is their little regard to the people of these

kingdoms, and such their apathy and indifference for their welfare, that

the people under their dominion groan everywhere, and are reduced to

poverty and distress.”

Though this censure is in so far unfair, that all is, in Oriental

fashion, imputed to the ruling power, without allowance for the

circumstances of a period of troublous transition, it is evidently

penned in an honest and friendly spirit; and evinces no repugnance

whatever to the domination of the English, provided they would acquire

some better knowledge of “the art of government.” In another passage he

recounts how gallantly a Hindoo of high rank, Rajah Shitab Roy,

co-operated with Captain Knox in attacking an immensely superior force,

and how heartily, on returning to Patna, the English captain expressed

his admiration of his Hindoo ally, exclaiming repeatedly, “This is a

real Nawab; I never saw such a Nawab in my life.”

Soon afterwards the French officer with the force opposed to the

English, the Chevalier Law, having been deserted by his men, remained

by himself on the field of battle, when, bestriding one of his guns,

“he awaited the moment of his death.” His surrender and courteous

reception are dwelt on with evident delight; and, after stating how a

rude question addressed to the Chevalier by a native chief was checked

and rebuked by the English officer, he makes the following

observation:—“This reprimand did much honour to the English; and it

must be acknowledged, to the honour of these strangers, that as their

conduct in war and in battle is worthy of admiration, so, on the other

hand, nothing is more modest and more becoming than their behaviour to

an enemy, whether in the heat of action or in the pride of success and

victory.”

These extracts, borrowed from the notes to the third volume of Mill’s

History, might be supported by many other passages of a similar tendency

in the native work itself; and all tend to prove that the social

estrangement since prevailing between our countrymen and the native

gentry has not had its origin in the religious scruples of the latter,

or in any decided aversion on their part to a closer intercourse with

the strangers to whom Providence has assigned the mastery over their

land.

This view is confirmed, in as far as the Mahommedans are concerned, by

what Mrs Colin Mackenzie tells us of the comments of the Afghan chiefs

on the reluctance of their co-religionists in Hindostan to share a

repast with their Christian rulers, and the absence of any fellowship

between the two classes is traced by that lady to the very cause to

which it is in our opinion also mainly to be ascribed; namely, to our

peculiar and somewhat repulsive bearing towards all who differ from

ourselves in tone of thought, in taste, or in manners.—With a scrupulous

respect for the persons and property of those among whom we are thrown

by the accidents of war, or trade, or travel, we too often manifest a

great disregard for the feelings; and as insults rankle in the memory

long after injuries are forgotten, we find that liberal expenditure and

strict justice in our dealings cannot make us as popular as our rivals

the French, even in countries where we paid for all, and they for

nothing, that was supplied or taken. Now, it is well remarked by Mr

Marshman, at p. 63 of his Reply to Mr Cobden, that “everything in and

about our Eastern Empire is English, even to our imperfections;” and

among them we need not be surprised to find an undue scorn of all that

is foreign, heightened by the arrogance of conquest and the Anglo-Saxon

antipathy to a dark complexion. This last is a more potent principle

than in our present humour of theoretical philanthropy we may be

disposed to admit; but it seems to be born with us, for it may be seen

sometimes in English children at an age too young for prejudice, or even

a perception of social distinctions.

It was said by “the Duke,” that there is no aristocracy like the

aristocracy of colour; and all experience in lands where the races are

brought into contact, proves the correctness of the aphorism.

During the first thirty years of our ascendancy in India, this most

forbidding of our national characteristics was kept in check by the

exigencies of our position; and the consequence was, that,

notwithstanding all the corruption of the time, we were then

individually more popular than we have ever been since. There was so

little of what could be called European society then to be met with

throughout the country, that Englishmen were drawn into some degree of

intimacy with natives, in order to escape from the painful sense of

total isolation and solitude. That this intercourse was favourable to

morality in the highest sense of the term, is more than we can venture

to affirm; each party too often acquired more of the faults than of the

virtues of the other. But still, bad as the public and private life of

Anglo-Indians was at that period, and however great the corruption that

prevailed, these defects in those who ruled were perhaps more tolerable

to the governed than the ill-mannered integrity of a succeeding

generation.

The abuses had probably gone on increasing, and the palliating courtesy

most likely diminishing, when a new era was ushered in by the arrival of

the first Governor-General of superior rank, in the person of the

Marquis Cornwallis.

We must refer our readers to Mr Kaye’s pages for a clear description of

the state of the Bengal Presidency at the commencement of this the

second of the three periods into which we have assumed that its history

may be distributed. Our space will not allow of our entering into the

controversy about the merits of the system then introduced by Lord

Cornwallis and his coadjutors, but we gladly make room for the following

picture of the state of the peasantry in Bengal, sketched as we are

assured by an eyewitness, in the course of the year 1853.

“What strikes the eye most in any village, or set of villages, in a

Bengal district, is the exuberant fertility of the soil, the sluttish

plenty surrounding the Grihasta’s (cultivator’s) abode, the rich

foliage, the fruit and timber trees, and the palpable evidence against

anything like penury. Did any man ever go through a Bengalee village

and find himself assailed by the cry of want or famine? Was he ever

told that the Ryot and his family did not know where to turn for a

meal, that they had no shade to shelter them, no tank to bathe in, no

employment for their active limbs? That villages are not neatly laid

out like a model village in an English county; that things seem to go

on, year by year, in the same slovenly fashion; that there are no

local improvements, and no advances in civilisation, is all very true.

But considering the wretched condition of some of the Irish peasantry,

or even the Scotch, and the misery experienced by hundreds in the

purlieus of our great cities at home, compared with the condition of

the Ryots who know neither cold nor hunger, it is high time that the

outcry about the extreme unhappiness of the Bengal Ryot should

cease.”—(P. 194.)

It is cheering to read in the chapter of Mr Kaye’s work, from which the

above extract is taken, the proofs that the labours of Cornwallis and

his able coadjutors have not been fruitless, and that the peasantry of

the part of India more immediately under their care, are not, as some

have asserted, to this hour suffering from their blundering humanity.

It would indeed be most mortifying to think that regulations, pronounced

at the time of their promulgation by Sir Wm. Jones and the best English

lawyers in India (though, in the true spirit of professional pedantry,

they would not allow them to be called laws), to be such as would do

credit to any legislator of ancient or modern times, should really in

operation have proved productive of little or no good.

The preambles to some of the first of these regulations are worthy of

notice, even on the score of literary merit; and it is impossible to

peruse them without feeling that they must have proceeded from highly

cultivated minds, deeply impressed with the importance of the duty on

which they were engaged.

It was the recorded opinion of the late Mr Courtenay Smith, of the

Bengal Civil Service (a brother of the celebrated Sidney Smith, and,

like him, a man of great wit and general talent, though unfortunately

his good things were mostly expressed in Persian or Hindostanee, and are

thus lost to the European world), that succeeding governments have

always erred as they have departed from the principles of the Cornwallis

code; and that it would have been well if they had confined their

legislation to such few modifications of the regulations of 1793 as the

slowly progressive changes of Oriental life might have really rendered

necessary.

For very nearly thirty years the government of Bengal resisted the

tempting facility of legislation incident to its position of entire and

absolute power, and was content to rule upon the principles, and in

general adherence to the forms, prescribed by those early enactments.

The benefits resulting from this system were to be seen in a yearly

extending cultivation, a growing respect for rights of property, and the

gradual rise in the minds of the people of an habitual reference to

certain known laws, instead of to the caprice of a ruler, for their

guidance in the more serious affairs of life.

The counterbalancing evils alleged against it were, the monopoly of all

high offices by the covenanted servants of the East India Company; the

accumulation of suits in the courts of civil justice—a result partly of

that monopoly, and partly of the check imposed by our police on all

simpler and ruder modes of arbitrement; and its tendency, by humouring

the Asiatic aversion to change, to keep things stationary, and

discountenance that progress without which there ought, in the opinion

of many of our countrymen, to be no content on earth. Indeed, the very

fact of the natives of Bengal being satisfied with such a system, would,

we apprehend, be advanced as a reason for its abolition—a contented

frame of mind, under their circumstances, being held to indicate a moral

abasement, only to be corrected by the excitement of a little

discontent. But, in truth, there was nothing in the Cornwallis system to

preclude the introduction of necessary amendments.

The great reproach attaching to it was the insufficient employment of

natives, and the exclusive occupation by the Civil Service of the higher

judicial posts. Now, we hope to make it clear, by a brief explanation,

that the correction of both of these evils might more easily have been

effected under the Cornwallis system, than under that by which it has

been superseded. There are, as we have remarked at the outset of this

article, questions of difficult solution inseparable from conquest;

among which, that of the degree of trust to be reposed in the conquered

is perhaps the greatest.

Where attachment can hardly be presumed to exist, some reserve in the

allotment of power appears to be dictated by prudence; and to fix the

amount of influence annexed to an office to be filled by one of the

subjugated, so as to render its importance and respectability compatible

with the supremacy of the ruling race, is far from being so easy as

those imagine who, in their reliance on certain general principles of

supposed universal application, leave national feelings and prejudices

out of account in making up their own little nostrums for the

improvement of mankind.

Under the Cornwallis system, there was an office which, though then

always filled by a member of the Civil Service, seemed, in the

limitation as well as the importance of its duties, to be exactly suited

for natives to hold. When the civil file of a district became overloaded

with arrears, the government used to appoint an officer to be assistant

or deputy judge. To him the regular judge of the district was empowered

to refer any cases that he thought fit, though there his power ceased,

as the appeal lay direct to the provincial court from the award of the

deputy.

The deputy being made merely a referee without original jurisdiction,

was a wise provision for keeping the primary judicial power in the hands

of the officer charged with the preservation of the peace of the

district, while importance and weight were given to the office of the

deputy, by making the appeals from his decisions lie to the Provincial

Court, and not to his local superior. A single little law of three

lines, declaring natives of India to be eligible to the office of Deputy

Judge, would, by throwing a number of respectable situations open to

their aspirations, have provided for their advancement, without any

disturbance of institutions to which the people of the country had

become accustomed and reconciled. Again, as to the monopoly of higher

judicial office by members of the Civil Service, the Cornwallis system,

perhaps, provided a readier means of abating even this grievance than

will be found in that by which it has been supplanted.

Nothing can be more extravagant than the scheme of sending out

barristers from Westminster Hall, to undertake, without any intermediate

training, the management of districts in Bengal and Hindostan. Sir

William Jones himself, unintelligible as he was, on his first arrival,

to the natives of India, would have failed if he had undertaken such a

task. This visionary proposal has happily received its _coup de grace_

from Sir Edward Ryan, the late Chief Justice in Bengal, in his evidence

before the Commons’ Committee; but it does not, in our opinion, follow

that the aid of lawyers trained in England is therefore to be altogether

discarded in providing for the administration of justice in India.

Although the man fresh from England would be sadly bewildered if left by

himself in a separate district, it does not follow that he should not,

after some preparatory training, be able to co-operate vigorously with

others. The horse will go well in double-harness, or in a team, who

would upset a gig, and kick it to pieces.

If barristers chose to repair to Bengal, and, while there practising at

the bar of the Supreme Court, would study the native languages, it

appears to us that, on their proficiency being proved by an examination,

they might have been advantageously admitted, under certain limitations

as to number, into the now abolished Provincial Courts.

Had these experimental provisions in favour of natives of India, and

barristers from England, been found to succeed, their eligibility to

every grade in the judicial branch of the service might have been

proclaimed, and the most plausible of all the complaints against our

system of Indian government would thus have been removed. But

improvement without change was not to the taste of those by whom the

last of our three administrative periods was ushered in; and in further

confirmation of Mr Marshman’s remark, already cited, on the parallelism

of movement in England and in India, it was in the changeful years 1830

and 1831 that a revolution was effected in our system of internal

administration, which has since given a colour and a bent to our whole

policy in the East. In the course of those two years the magisterial

power was detached from the office of the judge, and annexed to that of

the collector; the Provincial Courts were abolished, their judicial

duties being transferred to the district judges, and their ministerial

functions of superintendence and control to commissioners, each with the

police and revenue of about half a dozen districts under his charge.

Two Sudder, or courts of ultimate resort, were established, one at

Calcutta, the other at Allahabad in upper India; but all real executive

power centred in the magisterial revenue department, presided over by

two Boards, located, like the Sudder Courts, at Calcutta and Allahabad.

One of the new provisions then introduced abolished the office of

Register, or subordinate Judge, held by young civilians conjointly with

that of Assistant to the Magistrate. This was a most serious change, for

it abolished the very situation in which young civilians received their

judicial training, and fitted themselves for the better eventual

discharge of the higher duties of the judicature.

The Registers used to have the trial of civil suits for property, if not

more than five hundred rupees (£50) in value. The abolitionists urged

the injustice of letting raw youths experimentalise upon small suits, to

the supposed detriment of poor suitors. There was a show of reason in

this mode of arguing; but those who used it did not give due weight to

the consideration that these youths were to become the dispensers of

justice to all classes, and that it was better for the country to suffer

a little from their blunders at the outset, than to have them at last

advanced to the highest posts on the judgment-seat without any judicial

training whatsoever. But, in fact, the whole argument was based upon a

mere assumption. The young Registers certainly committed occasional

blunders, as old Justices and Aldermen, if we are to believe the daily

papers, constantly commit them in England; but, on the whole, their

courts were generally popular and in good repute among the natives. The

young civilian had often a pride in his own little court of record,

liked to know that it was well thought of, and was sometimes pleased to

find parties shaping their plaints so as to bring them within the limits

of his cognisance.

They thus often acquired a personal regard for the people, whom it was

their pride, as well as their duty, to protect—a feeling which has

since, we fear, been too much weakened. The young civilians of the

present day, though excellent men of business, and accomplished

linguists, have seldom any individual feeling for the natives, whom they

regard in a light for which no word occurs to us so happily expressive

as the French term, “les administrés.” Thus it happened that the

abolition of Registerships proved almost the death-blow to the

Cornwallis system, and shook, not merely the framework, but the very

principles of judicial administration throughout the country. It was

followed up by a series of measures, all calculated to lower the

judicial department of the service, and to prove to the natives that the

protection of the law, promised in the still unrepealed regulations, was

thenceforward to prove illusory, wherever it was required to shield them

from the encroachments of any new scheme or theory finding favour for

the moment with an executive government ruling avowedly upon principles

of expediency, and seeking every occasion to shake off the trammels

imposed upon its freedom of action by the cautious provisions of the

Cornwallis code.

The people soon found in their rulers under the new system a scrupulous

discharge of all positive duties, combined with a diminished

consideration for native prejudices, a neglect of many punctilios of

etiquette, and a stern hostility to every exceptional privilege

exempting an individual in any degree from the operation of the rules of

general administration. This last-mentioned tendency showed itself

particularly in the case of the rent-free tenures, which had for some

ten years previously been undergoing revision.

These landed tenures were held under grants from former rulers,

exempting the grantee and his heirs from all payment on the score of

revenue, though sometimes, as in our own feudal tenures, imposing upon

him obligations of suit and service in some form or other.

When the framers of the Cornwallis code, in 1793, determined on

recognising the validity of every such tenure as was held under an

authentic and sufficient grant, a provision was at the same time made

for their being carefully recorded and registered.

This duty of registration was, however, either totally neglected or very

imperfectly performed, and the consequence was, that by collusive

extensions of their limits, and other means, such as it would be tedious

to explain, the rent-free tenures were gradually eating into the

rent-paying lands forming the main source of the revenues of the state.

Careful revision, therefore, became necessary, and was in fact commenced

so far back as the year 1819. The inquiry was intrusted to the officers

of the revenue department; but for some time permission was left to

those discontented with their award, to bring the question at issue

between them and the Government before the regular courts of justice for

final decision. This process proving too tardy, in about ten years

afterwards a sort of exchequer court, called a Special Commission, was

erected for the trial of appeals from the decisions of the revenue

authorities on the validity of rent-free grants. This commission was

filled by officers of the judicial branch of the service, and their

proceedings, carried on in strict conformity with the practice of the

courts of civil justice, gave no offence, and created no alarm,

notwithstanding that extensive tracts were brought by their decisions

under the liability of paying revenue to the state. But not long after

the country had entered into the third period of its administration, the

revenue authorities got impatient of all restraint, and sought to break

through the impediments of judicial procedure and rules. The primary

proceedings, being intrusted to young deputy-collectors, were carried on

with a rapidity which rendered due investigation utterly impossible, and

all real inquiry must have been deemed superfluous by juniors, who saw

their superiors gravely pronounce, even in official documents, that the

very existence of a rent-free tenure was an abuse, and ought to be

abated.

We have said that the forgeries practised by some, and the extension of

their privileges by others of the holders, rendered strict investigation

of rent-free tenures an immediate necessity and a duty. Still, it was to

be borne in mind, that our faith was pledged to the recognition of all

_genuine_ grants, and that, in the larger of these tenures, the fallen

nobility and gentry of the land found their solace for the loss of

power, place, station, hope of advancement, and all that gives a zest to

the life of the upper classes in every part of the globe; while the

smaller tenures of the kind constituted, in many instances, the sole

support of well-descended but indigent families. There was something to

move the compassion even of a universal philanthropist, in the thought

of the humble individuals of both sexes to whom a sweeping resumption of

all such tenures was in fact the extinction of almost every earthly

hope. The Indian government itself, though at that period described by

Mr F. H. Robinson (p. 12) as “a despotism administered upon radical

principles,” became startled at the havoc which the zeal of its

subordinates was committing among this class of sufferers, and

interfered to mitigate the severity of their proceedings. Many of the

“soft-hearted” seniors of the Civil Service rejoiced at a resolution

which relieved them from an odious and painful duty. But thus reasons a

strong-minded junior on what he regards as a feeble concession:—

“Unfortunately the long delay in making the investigations had

established in their seats the fraudulent appropriators of the

revenue; and when it came to be taken from them, the measure caused

great change and apparent hardship to individuals in comfortable

circumstances; hence arose a great cry of hardship and injustice. We

were still most apt to view with sympathy the misfortunes of the

higher classes; many soft-hearted officers of Government exclaimed

against the sudden deprivation; and some of the seditious Europeans,

who find their profit in professional attacks on Government, raised

the cry much louder. But the worst of the storm had expended itself; a

little firmness, a little voluntary beneficence to individual cases,

and it would have ceased; and the temporary inconvenience to

fraudulent individuals would have resulted in great permanent addition

to the means of the state; but the Bengal Government is pusillanimous.

Since Warren Hastings was persecuted in doing his duty, and Lord

Cornwallis praised for sacrificing the interests of Government, and of

the body of the people, it has always erred on the side of abandoning

its rights to any sufficiently strong interested cry. It wavered about

these resumptions. It let off first one kind of holding, then another,

then all holdings under one hundred beegas (about seventy acres),

whether one man possessed several such or not: life-tenures were

granted where no right existed. Finally, _all_ resumed lands were

settled at _half_ rates in perpetuity, and the Board of Revenue

intimated that they ‘would be happy to see all operations

discontinued.’ The result therefore is, that the Government have

incurred all the odium and abuse of the measure, have given the cry

more colour by so much yielding, and in the end have got not half so

much revenue as they ought to have had. There has been an addition of

about £300,000 to the annual revenue, at an expense of £800,000.”[36]

According to Mr Campbell’s calculation, a stricter enforcement of the

resumption laws might have doubled the above sum; but as only the

smaller tenures were let off, it is scarcely possible that more than

half as much again as was actually realised could have been wrung out of

the remnants to which the Government so timidly, as he asserts,

abandoned its rights. An addition, therefore, of about £450,000 to our

annual income would have been all that we should have gained by a

measure violating the most solemn pledge given to the people that every

VALID grant should be respected, reducing many families to ruin, and

shaking the general confidence in our honesty and good faith. Though the

passage cited is open to many objections on the score of arbitrary

assumption and false reasoning, it is to its hardness of tone that we

would chiefly draw our readers’ attention, as strongly confirmatory of

the following remark, taken from Mr F. H. Robinson’s pamphlet:—

“I have said enough, I think, to demonstrate that the disaffection

which exists is traceable to the despotic character our administration

has of late years assumed, simultaneously with its sedulous diffusion

of liberal doctrines; to the unhappy dislike of natives, as natives,

which has crept in among the servants of Government; to the many acts

of abuse, oppression, and arbitrary misgovernment, arising as much

from misguided zeal as from evil intention, which, on the part of the

administrative officers, harass and vex the people.”—(P. 31).

We have already recorded our assent to Mr Marshman’s remark on the

thoroughly English character of our Indian empire and its

administration; but we have, moreover, to observe, that, in the

application of new principles even of European growth, India often

outstrips the mother country. That which in England is still theory has

in India become practice. There are not wanting in England people to

maintain that all grants of olden times ought to be forfeited, and their

proceeds applied to the purposes of general government. If these people

had their way, they would certainly resume the lands of the deans and

chapters, probably those of the schools and colleges, and possibly such

also as are devoted to the support of almshouses, and other charitable

institutions scattered over the face of the country. These speculations

in England evaporate in pamphlets, and cannot for a long time assume any

more positive form than that of a speech in the House of Commons. But

the following passage in Mr F. H. Robinson’s pamphlet shows us how

differently such matters are ordered in India:—

“The Government have systematically resumed, of late years, all

religious endowments; an extensive inquiry has been going on into all

endowments, grants, and pensions; and in almost every one in which the

continuance of religious endowments has been recommended by

subordinate revenue authorities, backed by the Board of Revenue, the

fiat of confiscation has been issued by the Government.”—(P. 17).

Again, there are many in England who would gladly reduce the landed

possessions of great proprietors, like the Duke of Buccleuch and others,

to more moderate dimensions; but they hardly venture to put forth

speculations upon a measure which, in India, has been carried into

positive and extensive execution.

The fourth chapter of Mr Kaye’s work contains a clear and admirable

account of the recent settlement of the provinces of the Upper Ganges,

in the course of which the reader will meet with the following passage:—

“There was a class of large landed proprietors, known as Talookdars,

the territorial aristocracy of the country. The settlement officers

seem to have treated these men as usurpers and monopolists, and to

have sought every opportunity of reducing their tenures. It was not

denied that such reduction was, on the whole, desirable, inasmuch as

these large tenures interfered with the rights of the village

proprietors. But the reduction was undertaken in too precipitate and

arbitrary a manner; and the Court of Directors acknowledged that it

had caused great practical embarrassment to Government, against whom

numerous suits were instituted in the civil courts by the ousted

talookdars, and many decided in their favour.”—(P. 265).

The redress afforded by these decisions of the civil courts has not, we

fear, been sufficient to avert the ruin of such members of the

“territorial aristocracy” as had the hardihood to withhold their

adhesion to a scheme for their own extinction. The principle of that

scheme was to grant, in the form of a per-centage on the revenue

realised from the village communities of what had been his domain, a

pension to the talookdar who was willing, for such a consideration, to

give up all the other advantages of his hereditary position. Many of

these men, or their immediate predecessors, had rendered us great

service in the war by which we acquired the country; but they stood in

the way of a favourite scheme, and before its irresistible advance they

were compelled to retire. The provision made for their future wants may

have been a liberal one; but how would the Duke of Buccleuch or the

Marquess of Westminster like to be thus pensioned off?

The truth had better be frankly avowed; the object aimed at is, to get

rid of the old territorial aristocracy altogether,—indeed, it is so

stated by Mr Campbell in the following sentences:—

“It is, I think, a remarkable distinction between the manners of the

natives and ours, and one which much affects our dealings with them,

that there does not exist that difference of tone between the higher

and lower classes—the distinction, in fact, of a gentleman. The lower

classes are to the full as good and intelligent as with us; indeed,

they are much more versed in the affairs of life, plead their causes

better, make more intelligent witnesses, and have many virtues.

“But these good qualities are not in the same proportion in the higher

classes; they cannot bear prosperity; it causes them to degenerate,

especially if they are born to greatness. The only efficient men of

rank (with, of course, a few exceptions) are those who have risen to

greatness. The lowest of the people, if fate raise him to be an

emperor, makes himself quite at home in his new situation, and shows

an aptitude of manner and conduct unknown to Europeans similarly

situated; but his son is altogether degenerate. Hence the

impossibility of adapting to anything useful most of the higher

classes found by us, and for all fresh requirements it is necessary to

_create_ a fresh class. From the acuteness and aptness to learn of the

inferior classes, this can be done as is done in other

countries.”—(Pp. 63, 64).

We fully subscribe to all that is here said in commendation of the lower

classes of our Indian subjects, but we demur to the author’s very

disparaging estimate of the capacity of the higher orders. Doubtless

there are, or rather were, many dull men of rank on the banks of the

Ganges; but are there none on those of the Thames?—no squires of cramped

and confused notions, no fortunate inheritors of wealth content to

wallow through life in utter disregard of the duties attaching to

property, while fiercely jealous of its rights? It would be a sad day

for our own landed aristocracy if Mr Campbell were to obtain sway in

England, and try to rule that country upon the principles of which he

approves in the East. But if he could, would our peasantry be

_permanently_ bettered by a change tending towards a destruction of all

the gradations of society? If the reply to this query should be in the

affirmative, we may contemplate with unalloyed satisfaction the progress

of a system the description and defence of which is the main object of

Mr Campbell’s work; but if we feel any hesitation as to the future

effects of such a change in England, then, human nature being much the

same in every clime, we ought to have some misgivings as to its eventual

results in the East. We say _eventual_, because the _immediate_ fruits

of the measures described by Mr Campbell have, we are assured by him,

and have heard from other quarters, been satisfactory and cheering. But

is it probable that a whole nation should rest satisfied for ever in

this state of flat and tame sufficiency? and can we wonder to find

alongside of Mr Campbell’s picture of what ought to be the feelings

towards the English of the present day on the banks of the Ganges, Mr F.

H. Robinson’s gloomy account of what, in his opinion, those feelings

really are? Having been compelled, as a member of the Board of Revenue,

to make a communication to an old retired officer of Gardiner’s

Irregular Horse, and to a Mussulman of rank, calculated to hurt the

feelings of both, Mr Robinson thus describes what followed:—

“I shall never forget the looks of mortification, anger, and at first

of incredulity, with which this announcement was received by both, nor

the bitter irony with which the old Russuldar remarked, that no doubt

the wisdom of the _new-gentlemen_ (Sahiblogue, so they designate the

English) had shown them the folly and ignorance of the gentlemen of

the old time, on whom it had pleased God, nevertheless, to bestow the

government of India.”—(P. 17).

Mr Robinson goes too far when he taxes the rulers of the present day

with dislike to the natives generally; but it is evident, from Mr

Campbell’s own admission, that there is a strong prepossession in the

minds of the young men of his school against all natives with any

pretensions to rank. This feeling extending to those beyond the limits

of our own dominions, has stamped on our foreign policy the character of

our internal administration, and found its full development in the late

Afghan war. Thirty or forty years ago, when natives, if excluded from

office, were more often admitted to familiar intercourse with their

European rulers, a mere regard for our own character in the eyes of our

subjects would have withheld us from making an unprovoked attack upon an

unoffending neighbour, and thus incurring a certain loss of reputation

for a very uncertain amount of gain. This view of the case does not of

course even occur to Mr Campbell as one likely to be taken by any

reasonable being, and he sums up his account of the Afghan war with the

following remarks, suggestive to our minds of little beyond a most

earnest hope that the future advancement, doubtless in store for one of

his abilities, may lead him far away from meddling with matters either

political or military:—

“Such it was—a grievous military catastrophe and misfortune to us,

both then and in our subsequent relations with the country; but in no

way attributable to our policy, from which no such result necessarily

or probably flowed. To the policy is due the expense, but not the

disaster.”—(P. 136).

Mr Campbell has evidently not made very minute inquiry into the facts of

the war, or he would never have hazarded the assertion contained in the

following passage, that Sir George Pollock literally paid his way

through the Khyber Pass:—

“Through the Western mountains only has India been invaded; for beyond

them are all the great nations of Central India, and they are

penetrable to enemies through one or two difficult passes. But these

passes are so narrow, difficult, and easily defended, that _it is

believed_ that no army, from Alexander’s down to General Pollock’s,

has ever passed without bribing the mountain tribes. In the face of

regular troops and an organised defence, all the armies in the world

could not force an entrance; but in the absence of such a defence,

experience proves that the local tribes are always accessible to

moderate bribes.”—(P. 27).

The absolute impracticability of any mountain barrier is, we believe,

disputed; but, without offering any opinion on that point, we are happy

to have it in our power to correct the mistake into which the author has

fallen, in supposing that it was by bribing that Sir George Pollock

carried his army through the Khyber Pass. It is true that, in the

anxious time preceding our army’s movement from Peshawar, negotiations

had been entered into with the local tribes; but we have the most

unquestionable authority for asserting that, before the march towards

Cabool began, the sum advanced to their chiefs, being 20,000 rupees or

£2000, was demanded back from them by the political agent on the

frontier, and actually repaid; so that the mountaineers had not only the

clearest warning of the British general’s intention, but the strongest

possible inducement to oppose him, as they did to the utmost of their

power.

But our chief motive for alluding to the Afghan war is, that we may show

how the spirit of the two schools, under which, according to our theory,

those engaged in the work of Indian government may now be classed,

showed itself even in the direction of our armies in the field. Sir

George Pollock was there the representative of what would be called by

us the considerate and moderate, by Mr Campbell the soft-hearted and

over-cautious school; while Sir William Nott was at the head of that

which, going straight to its object, tramples under foot, without

compunction, every consideration that might hamper its freedom of

movement. We select but a few instances in proof of our position,

choosing such as, from their notoriety, can be cited without injury or

offence.

As the two avenging armies, the one from Candahar on the south, the

other from Peshawar on the east, drew nigh to Cabool, a powerful party,

consisting chiefly of the Kuzzilbashes or Persians, who had never taken

part against us, prayed earnestly that the citadel, the Bala Hissar,

might be spared to serve as a place of refuge to themselves amid the

troubles likely to ensue on our again evacuating the country.

This prayer General Nott would have rejected, and in so doing would have

gained the applause of every member of that school by which concession

to the feelings of natives in opposition to the requirements of

expediency, or the sternest justice, is regarded as a proof of weakness.

With this prayer General Pollock complied; and to his doing so may the

safety of the ladies and other prisoners, in whose fate the whole

civilised world took so deep an interest, be ascribed; for it was

through the co-operation of those thus conciliated that the Afghan

chief, charged with the custody of the captives, was won over to assist

in their escape. General Nott was fortunately the inferior in rank; for

had he commanded in chief, we have his own words for the fact, that he

would have destroyed the Bala Hissar and the City of Cabool, and marched

on with the least possible delay to Jellabad, of course leaving the poor

captives to their fate; or, in words which, from the manner of their

insertion in the pages of the historian, it is to be feared he must have

used, “throwing them overboard.”—(KAYE’S _History of the Afghan War_,

vol. i. pp. 617, 631).

Incomplete indeed, to use Mr Kaye’s words, would any victory have been,

if these brave men and tender women, who had so well endured a long and

fearful captivity, had been left behind; and it is well to reflect that

we were saved from this reproach by the ascendancy of the milder

principles of rule in the mind of the officer upon whom the chief

command at this moment, we may almost say providentially, devolved.

Many more instances are recorded, in the chapter just quoted, of the

influence of a contrary spirit on the closing events of the Afghan war;

but we must pass on to what happened in Scinde, where the anti-judicial

principle may be said to have reached its climax.

The following is Mr Campbell’s short and flippant account of that

transaction, reminding us in one passage of a letter from the Empress

Catherine to one of her French correspondents, wherein she congratulated

herself “qu’il n’y a pas d’honneur à garder avec les Turcs”:—

“But though we withdrew from Cabool, our military experiences were not

yet over. On invading Afghanistan by the Bolan Pass, Scinde became a

base of our operations, and troops were there cantoned. When our

misfortunes occurred, it was supposed that the Beloch chiefs would

have liked to have turned against us, but dared not—did not.

“Major-General Sir C. Napier then commanded a division in Bombay; he

was a good soldier, of a keen, energetic temperament, but somewhat

quarrelsome disposition; had at one proud period of his life been in

temporary charge of a petty island in the Mediterranean, but was, I

believe, deposed by his superior—most unwisely, as he considered; and

he had ever since added to his military ardour a still greater thirst

for civil power—as it often happens that we prefer to the talents

which nature has given us those which she has denied us. He was

appointed to the command in Scinde; and Lord Ellenborough, an admirer

of heroes, subsequently invested him with political powers. He soon

quarrelled with the chiefs, and came to blows with them. Their

followers were brave, but undisciplined, and they had no efficient

artillery. An active soldier was opposed to them; he easily overcame

them, declared the territory annexed, and was made Governor of

Scinde.”

Now, the Beloch chiefs had no other right to the territory than the

sword; _and we, having the better sword, were perfectly justified in

taking it from them if we chose_, without reference to the particular

quarrel between Sir Charles and the chiefs, the merits of which have

been so keenly disputed, and on which I need not enter. But the

question _was one of expediency_; and this premature occupation of

Scinde was not so much a crime as a blunder,—for this very simple

reason, that Scinde did not pay, but, on the contrary, was a very

heavy burden, by which the Indian Government has been several millions

sterling out of pocket.

“The Ameers had amassed, in their own way, considerable property and

treasure, which the general obtained for the army. He was thus

rewarded by an unprecedented prize-money, and with the government of

Scinde, while Bengal paid the costs of the government he had gained.

Scinde was so great a loss, for this reason—that it was not, like

other acquisitions, in the midst of, or contiguous to, our

territories, but was at that time altogether detached and separated by

the sea, the desert, and the independent Punjab; while on the fourth

side it was exposed to the predatory Beloches of the neighbouring

hills. Consequently, every soldier employed there was cut off from

India, and was an expense solely due to Scinde; and while a great many

soldiers were required to keep it, it produced a very small revenue to

pay them. It is, in truth, very like Egypt—that is, it is the fertile

valley of a river running through a barren country, where no rain

falls. But there is this difference—first, that while no broader, it

is not so long, nor has the fine delta which constitutes the most

valuable portion of Egypt; second, that while Egypt is free from

external predatory invasion, Scinde is exceedingly exposed to it; and,

thirdly, that while Egypt has a European market for its grain, Scinde

has not. Altogether, the conquest was, at the time, as concerns India,

much as if we had taken the valley of the Euphrates.

“Half a dozen years later, when we advanced over the plain of the

Indus, and annexed the Punjab, we must have arranged to control Scinde

too, directly or indirectly, as might be done cheapest; but during

those intermediate years it was a gratuitous loss, and the chief cause

of the late derangement of our Indian finances.”—(Pp. 137–139).

The better sword gives the better title! When such is the doctrine

maintained, even by a man of the pen, we cannot wonder at its finding a

ready expositor in the man of the sword.

But, in truth, Mr Campbell’s sword plea, having the merit of honesty and

openness, is by far the best that has been advanced; and yet, as he

shows, it is only available in support of the right, and not of the

policy, of the measure. After-events, he observes, alluding to the

conquest of the Punjab, have given a value to Scinde, which in itself it

did not possess; but he has omitted to remark that the one event very

probably grew out of the other. The Sikhs, who not only had refrained,

like the Ameers, from molesting, but had even assisted us in our recent

difficulties, had some reason for apprehending that, in due time, the

policy pursued in Scinde would be extended to their own more inviting

country; while, as if to remove an obstacle to an apparently desired

misunderstanding, Sir George Clerk was promoted to the nominally higher

post of lieutenant-governor of Agra, and an officer, his very opposite

in every quality excepting earnest zeal and undaunted courage, was

appointed to be his political successor at Lahore.

Though he is little disposed to state any case too favourably for the

party opposed to us, this peculiarity in our relations with the Sikhs,

immediately before their invasion of our territory, is frankly admitted

by Mr Campbell. After mentioning various military movements calculated

to give them alarm, he describes a political difficulty as to certain

lands belonging to the Sikh state, lying on our side of the Sutledge,

which he says had been so managed by two successive political agents,

Sir Claude Wade and Sir George Clerk, that through their personal

influence “it had so happened that our wishes were generally attended

to.” He thus concludes:—

“Sir George Clerk having been promoted, new men were put in charge of

our frontier relations, and seem to have assumed as a right what had

heretofore been yielded to a good understanding. In 1845 Major

Broadfoot was political agent. He was a man of great talent and

immense energy, but of a rather overbearing habit. In difficult and

delicate times he certainly did not conciliate the Sikhs....

Altogether, I believe the fact to be, that had Sir George Clerk

remained in charge of our political relations, the Sikhs would not

have attacked us at the time they did; it might have been delayed: but

still it was well that they came when they did.”—(Pp. 142, 143.)

The annexation of the Punjab followed hard on the conquest of Scinde,

and both events may be regarded as sequels to the Afghan expedition, and

this again as but a fuller development of the anti-judicial school,

which, since the downfall of the Cornwallis system, has held almost

undisputed sway on the banks of the Ganges.

When a government essentially despotic, like that of British India,

spontaneously engages to adhere to the rules of judicial procedure in

dealing with its own subjects, a pledge is thereby given to neighbouring

states that towards them also its conduct will be regulated on

principles of justice and moderation.

We admit that the ruling power may thus sometimes create obstructions to

its own progress along the path of improvement; but it seems probable

that such self-imposed restraints should more frequently operate (to

borrow a term from the railway) as “breaks” to save it from

precipitately rushing into acts of rashness or injustice.

History confirms these conclusions, and shows the practical result to

have been precisely what _a priori_ reasoning would have led us to

expect.

Five great wars were waged in India during the second or judicial period

of its administration—that is, from 1793 to 1830. These were—the Mysore

war in 1799, the Mahratta war in 1803, the Nepaul war in 1814, the

Pindaree war in 1817, and the Burmese war in 1825. There is not one of

these against which even a plausible charge of injustice can be

maintained by our bitterest foreign foes, or most quick-sighted

censorious countrymen.

The acuteness of Mr Cobden himself would be at fault if he were to try

to make out a case against the authors of any one of these wars, to

satisfy a single sensible man beyond the circle of the “Peace Society.”

But how is it with the wars which have occurred since, wandering from

judicial ways, the rulers of Gangetic India have pursued whatever course

for the moment found favour in their own eyes, with little or no

reference to the feelings of their subjects, and with hardly a show of

deference to the laws enacted by their predecessors?

The Afghan war of 1838, the Scinde affair of 1843, the Gwalior campaign

of 1844, have each in their turn, especially the two first-named, been

made the subject of comments neither captious nor fastidious, but

resting on indisputable evidence, and supported by reasoning such as

pre-formed prejudice alone can resist. The two wars in the Punjab come

under the category of the just and necessary; and Lord Hardinge’s

generous use of the privileges of victory, at the close of the first of

these hard-fought conflicts, did much to re-establish our character for

justice and moderation. But still these wars are, we fear, coupled in

the minds of the people of India with those out of which they sprang,

and share in the reproach attaching, in their estimation, to the

invasion of Afghanistan and the conquest of Scinde.

We have now reached a point where we may stop to consider the several

merits of the works on our list at the head of this article. Mr F. H.

Robinson’s pamphlet is written in a frank conversational style,

indicative of his earnest sincerity and his real sympathy with the

people of the Upper Ganges, among whom his official life has been spent.

We could wish occasionally that his language was a little more measured,

for there are passages to startle some of his readers, and so to impair

the general effect of his otherwise interesting pamphlet.

Of the style, as well as the matter, of Mr Campbell’s more elaborate

work, hardness is the chief characteristic. Indeed, he seems to discard

all ornament from the one, and all sentiment from the other, and to aim

at nothing beyond correctness as to his facts, and positiveness as to

his deductions. In this he fully succeeds. His volume is a repertory of

useful facts, and his conclusions can never be misapprehended. Some of

Mr Campbell’s descriptions also are amusing; and we insert, as a

specimen of his lighter style, the following sketch of the day of a

magistrate and collector in Upper India, that functionary whose labours

are so little known to any but those of his own service, or the people

among whom he lives. After enumerating many out-of-door duties

despatched in the course of an early morning’s ride, the description

thus proceeds:—

“At breakfast comes the post and the packet of official letters. The

commissioner demands explanation on this matter, and transmits a paper

of instructions on that; the judge calls for cases which have been

appealed; the secretary to Government wants some statistical

information; the inspector of prisons fears that the prisoners are

growing too fat; the commander of the 105th regiment begs to state

that his regiment will halt at certain places on certain days, and

that he requires a certain quantity of flour, grain, hay, and eggs; Mr

Snooks, the indigo-planter, who is in a state of chronic warfare with

his next neighbour, has submitted his grievances in six folio sheets,

indifferent English, and a bold hand, and demands instant redress,

failing which he threatens the magistrate with Government, the supreme

court, an aspersion of his character as a gentleman, a Parliamentary

impeachment, a letter to the newspapers, and several other things

besides. After breakfast he despatches his public letters, writes

reports, examines returns, &c.

“During this time he has probably a succession of demi-officials from

the neighbouring cantonments. There is a great complaint that the

villagers have utterly, without provocation, broken the heads of the

cavalry grass-cutters, and the grass-cutters are sent to be looked at.

He goes out to look at them, but no sooner appears than a shout

announces that the villagers are waiting in a body, with a slightly

different version of the story, to demand justice against the

grass-cutters, who have invaded their grass-preserves, despoiled their

villages, and were with difficulty prevented from murdering the

inhabitants. So the case is sent to the joint magistrate. But there

are more notes; some want camels, some carts, and all apply to the

magistrate; then there may be natives of rank and condition, who come

to pay a serious formal kind of visit, and generally want something;

or a chatty native official who has plenty to say for himself.

“All this despatched, he orders his carriage or umbrella, and goes to

cutcherry—his regular court. Here he finds a sufficiency of business;

there are police, and revenue, and miscellaneous cases of all sorts,

appeals from the orders of his subordinates, charges of corruption or

misconduct against native officials. All petitions from all persons

are received daily in a box, read, and orders duly passed. Those

setting forth good grounds of complaint are filed under proper

headings; others are rejected, for written reason assigned. After

sunset, comes his evening, which is probably like his morning ride,

mixed up with official and demi-official affairs, and only at dark

does the wearied magistrate retire to dinner and to private

life.”—(Pp. 248–249).

Mr Kaye’s essay recommends itself by the same easy flow of language as

made his _History of the Afghan War_ such agreeable reading. His plan

does not admit of his giving more than a series of sketches; but his

outlines are so clear, and his selection of topics to fill up with is so

happy, that we can safely recommend his volume to any one who, without

leisure or inclination for more minute study of the subject, may still

wish to obtain some general idea of the administration of our vast

Eastern empire. In a note at page 661, Mr Kaye informs us, that in the

summer of 1852 the Duke of Newcastle told the Haileybury students that,

during a recent tour in the Tyrol, he had met an intelligent Austrian

general who, in the course of conversation on our national resources,

said that he could understand all the elements of our greatness except

our Anglo-Indian empire, and _that_ he could not understand. The vast

amount of administrative wisdom which the good government of such an

empire demanded, baffled his comprehension.

The Austrian general, perhaps, would not have readily assented to the

explanation of the marvel given by the young French naturalist, Victor

Jaquemont, who, in a letter dated from the confines of Tartary, in

August 1830, thus writes to a relative in Paris: “The ideas

entertained in France about this country are absurd; the governing

talents of the English are immense; ours, on the contrary, are very

mediocre; and we believe the former to be embarrassed when we see them

in circumstances in which our awkwardness would be completely at a

stand-still.”—(_English translation of Victor Jaquemont’s Letters_,

vol. i. p. 169).

The lady whose three volumes come next under our notice is certainly one

of the most intelligent travellers of her sex who has visited India

since the days when Maria Graham, afterwards Lady Callcott, amused her

readers in England, and enraged many of her female acquaintances in

India, by describing the latter as generally “under-bred and

overdressed.”

It is curious to observe how little change the lapse of forty years

seems to have made in the outward peculiarities of Anglo-Indian

drawing-room life, and how much in unison the two fair authors are in

their remarks on their own countrymen.

Mrs Colin Mackenzie, however, has enjoyed opportunities which her

predecessor could not command, of observing the private and domestic

side of Oriental life, and has evinced a wonderful aptitude in turning

these opportunities to the best account. The great charm of her work is

that it admits us within the Purdah, and lets us see what is hidden from

all European masculine eyes,—the interior, namely, of an Asiatic

household.

It is pleasing to read an English lady’s lively account of her own

friendly intercourse with families of another faith, upon whom her

industrious energy, quickened and regulated by a zeal for her own

religion, openly avowed and studiously exhibited as her main motive of

action, cannot, we imagine, have failed to produce a deep and lasting

impression. We trust that Mrs Mackenzie’s example may be followed by

many of our countrywomen; for the information in which, of all others,

the English functionaries in the East are most deficient—that regarding

natives in their private and domestic sphere—is precisely what our

ladies alone have the power to acquire and impart. Mrs Mackenzie, it is

true, mingled chiefly with the Afghans, who are a more attractive race

than the people of India.

The Afghans, also, must have felt inclined to open their hearts to the

wife of one who, both as a soldier in the field, and afterwards as a

captive in their hands, had commanded the sincere respect of those among

whom he was thrown. But though all cannot have her advantages, there is

no lady whose husband holds office in India, who, if she makes herself

acquainted with the languages of the country, will not find native women

of rank and respectability ready to cultivate her acquaintance, and thus

afford her the means of solving some of those problems of the native

character which elude all the researches of our best-informed public

functionaries. Having said thus much in praise of Mrs Mackenzie’s book,

we cannot but censure most strongly the attempt at spicing her work with

gossipping tales calculated to wound the feelings of private individuals

among her own countrymen, and even of the officers of her husband’s own

service, with whose characters she deals with a most unsparing degree of

reproachful raillery, designating individuals as Colonel A., Major B.,

or Captain C. of the — Regiment, stationed at such a place, so that

there cannot be a doubt as to whom the anecdotes, which are always to

the discredit of the parties, refer.

The difficulty of commenting on a posthumous work is much enhanced when

the author happens to have been, like the late Sir Charles Napier, one

whose errors of the pen are more than redeemed by a career of long and

glorious services. Still, though this consideration may soften, it ought

not to silence criticism, for errors never more require correction than

when heralded by an illustrious name. An additional reason for not

passing over the last work of so distinguished a man is, that it

contains many admirable remarks on the Native army, well deserving to be

detached from the mass of other matter in which they are imbedded. The

contents of the book may be classed under three heads: Censure of

individuals; censure of public bodies; suggestive remarks on the civil

and military administration of India.

On whatever comes under the first of these heads, our strictures shall

be brief.

We find in the list of those censured, the names of so many of the best

and ablest men who have taken part in Indian affairs, either at home or

in the East, that we feel loth to give any additional publicity to what

we have read with pain, and would gladly forget. Public bodies being

fair targets to shoot at, the censures coming under the second head are

open to no objection excepting such as may arise from their not standing

the test of close examination. The Court of Directors, the Supreme

Council of India, the whole body of the Civil Service (with one or two

exceptions), the Political Agents, the Military Board in Calcutta, and

the Board of Administration in the Punjab, follow each other like

arraigned criminals in the black scroll of the author’s antipathies. To

notice all that is advanced against those included in this catalogue

would be impossible, for a few lines may contain assertions which it

would fill a folio to discuss. Of the East India Company, the instrument

through which India has been providentially preserved from the

corruptions of an aristocratic and the precipitancy of a more popular

rule, Sir Charles Napier’s view is not more enlarged than what we might

have got from his own Sir Fiddle Faddle, of whom he has left us (at page

253) so amusing a description. Though capable, as we shall soon see, of

rising above the prejudices of his profession on other points, he looks

at this singular Company and its governing Court with the eyes of a

Dugald Dalgetty, who, while pocketing the commercial body’s extra pay,

accounts it foul scorn to be obliged to submit to such base and

mechanical control.

But none are all bad, and we rejoice to see it admitted at page 210 of

the unfriendly book before us, that “the Directors, generally speaking,

treat their army well;” and at pages 49, 261, that the Company’s

artillery, formed under the rule of these very Directors, is “_superb_,

second to none in the world—perfect.” Yet it never seems to have

occurred to the author, that those under whose rule one department has

reached perfection, are not likely to blunder in every other, as in his

moments of spleen he made himself believe. So able a man as Sir C.

Napier could not always be blind to his own inconsistencies; and

accordingly, in the midst of some declamation on what India might be

under royal government, he seems to have been suddenly brought up by a

thought about what the Crown Colonies really are.

From this dilemma he escapes by saddling one distinguished personage

with the blame of all that is wrong in the colonies, and thus punishes

Earl Grey for the speech about Scinde, made by Lord Howick, some ten

years ago, in the House of Commons.

To the Supreme Council of India, though he was one of their number, the

author never makes any but disparaging allusions. Discontented with

being a commander-in-chief under a ruling body, of which he was himself

a member, he sought to be recognised as the head of a separate military

government. He wished, in short, to be, not what the Duke of York was in

England, but what, under peculiar circumstances, the Duke of Wellington

was in Spain during the war in the Peninsula. In this he was not

singular; for we suspect that the real cause of that uneasiness in their

position, stated at page 355, to have been manifested by many of Sir C.

Napier’s predecessors, is to be found in a desire on their part for such

an independency of military administrative power, as is totally

incompatible with the necessary unity and indivisibility of a

government. Yet it is admitted that, in England, “when war comes, the

war-minister is the real commander,”—(p. 220.) The author evidently felt

how much this admission must tell against his own complaints of undue

interference with his authority; for he endeavours, by some feeble

special pleading, to abate its effect, and to prove the “poor Indian

general,” with his £15,000 a year, to be more unfavourably placed than

his _confrère_ in England.

One circumstance, however, is such, that while the latter is excluded

from the Cabinet, the former can take his seat at the Council-Board, and

his part in the guidance of the counsels of the State.

It is, we think, greatly to be regretted that Sir C. Napier did not more

frequently avail himself of this privilege, for by keeping apart from

the Supreme Council he lost the benefit of free personal communication

with equals, and incurred the evil of having none near him but

subordinates, whom he could silence by a word or a look.

The Civil Service is represented simply as a nuisance requiring

immediate abatement.

We are told that “a Civil form of government is uncongenial to

_barbarous_ Eastern nations.” There is some truth in this, if a proper

stress is laid on the word _barbarous_. In the first chapter of the

fourth part of his work, Mr Kaye has shown how, in reaching the

outskirts of civilisation, we are brought into contact with rude tribes

like the Beloches in Scinde, “to whose feelings and habits the rough

ways of Sir C. Napier were better adapted than the refined tenderness or

the judicial niceties of the gentlest and wisest statesman that ever

loved and toiled for a people.” But the error of such reasoners as Sir

C. Napier is, that they would treat all India as barbarous, and rule it

accordingly. Now, with all our respect for Sir C. Napier’s talents, we

doubt much whether he would have governed the more civilised provinces

of Upper India better than the late Mr Thomason, whom he condescends to

praise—(p. 37); or managed the subtle and well-mannered Sikhs with more

tact and skill than Sir George Clerk during the perilous period of our

disasters in 1841–42.

It is true that the utter failure of the system in operation in the

Punjab is confidently predicted at p. 366; but it is consolatory to

find, from the very last Indian newspapers, that no progress is making

towards a fulfilment of this prophecy; but that, on the contrary, a

reduction of taxation has been effected by the Board, such as would be

felt as a boon by the tenant-farmers of England, its influence having

been counteracted by nothing but by the effects of an excessive plenty.

It is creditable to the candour of the Bengal Civil Service, that its

members themselves furnish the information to be turned against their

own body, and it is from a work published by the Hon. F. J. Shore, in

1837, that Sir C. Napier has borrowed his most plausible charges.

On this we can only observe, that Mr Shore, in his zeal for the

improvement of his own service, forgot that what he wrote would be read

by the ignorant and the unfriendly; by those who could not, and by those

who would not, comprehend the real scope and meaning of his words.

The faults imputed by him to his brother civilians are mainly those of

manner, already noticed by ourselves as being common to the English,

generally, in their deportment towards strangers in every clime.

If we were writing only for those who know what British India is, our

ungrateful task of correcting errors might here conclude; but it is

upon those to whom that country is unknown that the work before us is

calculated to produce an impression, and therefore we must try, in as

few words as possible, to point out one of its most striking

inaccuracies. On referring to the pages noted below,[37] the reader

will find a series of assertions, to the effect that in Bengal the

army is scattered over the country for the protection of the Civil

servants. From the _Indian Register_ of this very year, it appears

that, in the country below Benares, which, in extent and population,

is about equal to France, there are only about ten battalions;[38] the

half of these being stationed at Barrackpore, in the immediate

vicinity of Calcutta. In the provinces above Benares, under the rule

of the Lieutenant-governor at Agra, with a somewhat smaller but more

hardy population, it appears that there are thirteen stations occupied

by regular troops; of which eight are close to large towns, such as in

every country require to be watched—or else purely military posts.

There are only five other places where regular troops seem to be

stationed, and of these, one is on the frontier of Nepaul.

Admitting that the Civil power derives its support from the knowledge of

a military force being at hand, still the exhibition of the latter is as

rare on the Ganges as on the Thames; and a magistrate would sink in the

opinion of his superiors, and of his own service, if he were to apply

for the aid of troops in any but the extreme cases in which such an

application would be warranted in England. It would be just as rational

to argue that our provincial mayors and magistrates in England are

hated, because troops are stationed at Manchester, Preston, or

Newcastle, as to adduce the distribution of the regular Sepoys in Bengal

and Upper India as a proof of the hatred borne to the Civil servants,

through whose administration that vast region is made to furnish forth

the funds to support the armies with which heroes win victories and

gather laurels.

What is meant by “guards for civilians” it is hard to guess. The

Lieutenant-governor at Agra is, we believe, the only civilian, not in

political employ, who has a guard of regulars at his house. In some

places in Upper India, regulars may be posted at the Treasury, for the

same reason that a corresponding force is posted at the Bank of England

in the heart of London; but even to the Treasuries in the lower

provinces no such protection is given.

Sir C. Napier, we suspect, has confused the collector with the

collections, and fancied the force occasionally posted to protect the

latter to be, in fact, employed to swell the state or guard the person

of the former. That regular Sepoys should be employed to escort treasure

is much to be regretted; but treasure is tempting, and the mode of

conveyance on carts very tedious, the ways long, the country to be

traversed often very wild, and the robbers in some quarters very bold.

It is not often that in England bullion belonging to the State has to be

conveyed in waggons; but when this happens, it is, we think, usually

accompanied by a party of soldiers.

It would be tedious to follow out all the mistakes made about

Chuprassees and Burkundazes—the former being a sort of orderly, of whom

two or three are attached to every office-holder, military or civil, to

carry orders and messages, in a climate where Europeans cannot at all

hours of the day walk about with safety; and the latter being the

constabulary, employed in parties of about fifteen or twenty at the

various subdivisions into which, for purposes of police, each district

is laid out. To form them into battalions would be to strip the interior

of all the hands wanted for the common offices of preventive and

detective police.

We now gladly turn to the more pleasing duty of pointing out the

brighter passages, and rejoice to draw our reader’s attention to the

strain of kindly feeling towards the men and officers of the Company’s

army, both European and Native, pervading the whole work.

It is pleasing to observe the anxiety expressed by so thorough a

soldier, to see the armies of the Crown and Company assimilated to each

other, and all “the ridiculous jealousies entertained by the

vulgar-minded in both armies”[39] removed. It is delightful to read the

assurance given by such a man that, “under his command, at various

times, for ten years, in action, and out of action, the Bengal Sepoys

never failed in real courage or activity.”[40] It is instructive to

learn from so great a master in the art of war, that “Martinets are of

all military pests the worst;”[41] and still more so to read his earnest

and heart-stirring exhortations to the younger of his own countrymen not

to keep aloof from Native officers;[42] and his declaration that, even

at his advanced age, he would have studied the language of the Sepoys,

if his public duties had not filled up all his time. Our space will not

allow us to give any specimens of the author’s style. It is ever

animated and original. There was no need of a signature to attest a

letter of his writing, for no one could mistake from whom it came.

Though deformed by occasional outbursts of spleen, our readers may find

much to admire in the narrative of the expedition to Kohat.[43] It will

be well, however, after reading it through, to take up the _Bombay

Times_ of the 14th of December last, to see what progress is being made

by the very Board of Administration so contemptuously spoken of in the

narrative,[44] towards reducing the turbulent Afridee tribes to a state

of enduring submission and good order.

Long practice had given great fluency to the author’s pen when employed

in what we may call anti-laudatory writing, but this sometimes led him

into that most pardonable of plagiarisms, the borrowing from himself, as

in the following sentence, at page 118: “He,” meaning the

Governor-General, “and his politicals, like many other men, mistook

_rigour_, with cruelty, for _vigour_.” If our memory is to be relied on,

this very antithetical jingle may be found in a pamphlet, published some

twenty-five years ago, about the alleged “misgovernment of the Ionian

Islands.” The author’s political speculations, when unwarped by

prejudice, were generally correct, and we fully concur with him, and, we

may add, with his predecessor, the late Sir Henry Fane, in the opinion

expressed at page 66, that the Sutledge “ought to bound our Indian

possessions;” and we now fear that, having crossed that river, we must

also throw the Indus behind us, and fulfil the prediction hazarded at

page 374, that, “with all our moderation, we shall conquer Afghanistan,

and occupy Candahar.” Sometimes, however, his disposition to paint

everything _en noir_ has misled our author even upon a military point,

as in the following instance: “The close frontier of Burmah enables that

power to press suddenly and dangerously upon the capital of our Indian

Empire; and such events are no castles in the air, but threatening real

perils. The Eastern frontier, therefore, is not safe,”—(p. 364).

In former days, when the Burmese territories were dovetailed into our

district of Chittagong, there might have been some ground for this

opinion, supposing the Burmese to have been, what they are not, as

energetic a people as the Sikhs. But a glance at the map might satisfy

any one that with our occupation of Arracan, a country so intersected by

arms of the sea as to be impassable for any power not having that

absolute superiority on the water which a single steamer would give us,

all danger of invasion from that side has for the last twenty-five years

been at an end.

The mention of Burmah naturally leads to the next work in our list, that

of Mr J. C. Marshman, the well-known editor of the ablest of the

Calcutta journals, the _Friend of India_.

His pamphlet is a reply to another, by Mr Cobden, entitled “The origin

of the Burmese war.” Mr Cobden could not, of course, write about a war

excepting to blame it, consequently Mr Marshman appears in defence of

what the other assails.

We cannot devote much time to the consideration of this controversy, but

at one passage we must indulge in a momentary glance.

Towards the end of the fifth page of Mr Marshman’s pamphlet our readers

will find a sentence throwing some light on the origin of the war which

he undertakes to defend. He there dwells, with great emphasis, on the

“unexampled and extraordinary unanimity which was exhibited by the

Indian journals on the Burmese question,” and describes, with much

unction, the happy spectacle of rival editors laying aside their

animosities, to combine in applauding the course pursued on that

occasion by the Government. Editors, like players, must please, to live;

and as the whole Anglo-Saxon community in the East, most especially

those of the shipping and shopping interest at Calcutta, have, for the

last twenty-five years, had a craving for a renewal of war with Ava, the

newspaper must have been conducted upon most disinterested principles,

which had opposed itself to any measure conducive to so desiderated a

result.

We have now skimmed over the annals of a hundred years, endeavouring, as

we moved along, to detect the ruling principle of each successive

period, and to trace its influence upon the leading events of the time.

In looking forward to what is to come, we shall not speculate on the

spontaneous limitation of conquest, because we feel that this will never

be; for this simple reason, that we shall never sincerely wish it to be.

Wars, then, will go on, until, on the north-west, we shall have

accomplished all that Sir C. Napier either predicted or recommended, and

until, on the south-east, we shall have added Siam to Pegu, and Cambodia

to Siam. Within the geographical boundaries of India Proper, also, there

are several tempting patches of independent territory to be absorbed,

such as the Deccan and Oude, both of which, along with the Rajpoot and

Bondela states, are all marked like trees in a forest given up to the

woodman. The inexhaustible plea for interminable conquest, internal

mal-administration, will ever furnish grounds for the occupation of the

larger states; and though many of the smaller Hindoo principalities are

admirably governed, according to their own simple notions, still, as

they certainly will not square with our ideas of right, some reason will

always be found to satisfy the English-minded public that their

annexation is both just and expedient. Then we shall, indeed, be the

sole Lords of Ind; but after destroying every independent court where

natives may hope to rise to offices of some little dignity, we shall be

doubly bound to meet, by arrangements of our own, the cravings of

natural and reasonable ambition.

In searching for a guide at this point of our inquiry, we have hit upon

the work standing last upon our list, the production of a gentleman who

has extraordinary claims upon the attention of English as well as Indian

readers. Mr Cameron carried out with him to India a mind stored with the

best learning of the West; and during twelve years spent out there in

the high posts of Law Commissioner, Member of the Supreme Council, and

President of the Committee of Education, his best powers were exerted,

not merely to impart instruction, but to inspire with a true love of

knowledge, the native youth attached to the various institutions within

the sphere of his influence.

His work is truly one of which his country may be proud, for a more

disinterested zeal in the cause of a conquered people was never

exhibited by one of the dominant race, than is evinced in this noble

address to the Parliament of England on behalf of the subject millions

of India.

Many, however, as Mr Cameron’s qualifications are for the task which he

undertakes, there is one of much importance not to be found among them.

He never served in the interior; never was burdened with the charge of a

district; never spent six hours a day, at the least, in the crowded

Babel of a Cutcherry,[45] with the thermometer at 98° in the shade. His

Indian day was very different from that of the magistrate collector of

which we have inserted Mr Campbell’s lively description. It was passed

in the stillness of his library, or in the well-aired and well-ordered

halls of a college, among educated young natives, mostly Bengalees, who

were about as true specimens of Indian men as the exotics in a London

conservatory are of British plants.

Such a life is compatible with the acquirement of great Oriental lore,

but not with the attainment of that ready knowledge of native character

which is picked up by far inferior intellects in the rough daily school

of Cutcherry drudgery.

This reflection has somewhat damped our pleasure in perusing Mr

Cameron’s eloquent and high-toned address. We devoutly hope to see our

misgivings proved to be groundless; but in the mean time we must give

one or two of our reasons for doubting whether the day is at hand when

the natives of England and India may meet on terms of perfect parity in

every walk of life. In the first place, to judge by precedent, we doubt

the strict applicability to the present question of that drawn from the

practice of ancient Rome. Of the people subjugated by Rome, a vast

proportion were of the same race as their victors, with no

peculiarities, personal or complexional, to check the amalgamation

resulting from popular intermarriage. It is in Egypt that the closest

similarity to our situation in India is likely to be found, and, judging

by the contemptuous tone of Juvenal’s allusion to the people of that

country in his 15th Satire, we can hardly imagine that, when employed in

any public capacity, the “imbelle et inutile vulgus” were placed exactly

on the same footing as the Roman knights who constituted the “covenanted

service” of those days in that particular province.

The geographical circumstances were also different. Rome grew like a

tree—its root in the eternal city, its branches stretching forth in

continuous lines to the furthest extremities of its vast domain.

Our Indian empire springs from a transplanted offshoot of the parent

State. No one part of it has a firmer hold on the soil than another. It

is all equally loose. Our dominion is, in fact, based upon our ships,

and it is to our ships that both Englishmen and natives, in touching on

the possibility of our eventual downfall, always speak of our retreating

or being driven. From our ships we sprung, and to our ships we shall

some day perhaps return. It is in vain, therefore, to draw, from the

practice of a purely continental empire like that of Rome, rules for the

government of an essentially maritime dominion such as we have

established on the Ganges. Ours is a power without a precedent, and

perhaps, therefore, without a prognostic. There is nothing like it in

the past, and its future will probably be stamped with the same

singularity as has characterised its whole existence.

We must try, therefore, to better the condition of our subjects by means

such as our own experience teaches us to be best adapted to their

nature. To open to them at once the civil and military services; to give

to any number of them that absolute right to preferment implied in their

enrolment in the ranks of a peculiar body, would not, we imagine, be to

follow the guidance of experience. Presumption on the one side, and the

pride of race on the other, might lead to serious jarrings between the

English and the Indian members, who, though standing in the ranks of the

same service, would still differ from each other like the keys of a

piano-forte. It would, we think, be safer to commence, as we have

already suggested, by selecting for preferment individuals from the mass

of our native subjects. Situations in the judicial and revenue

department may be found or created which natives can fill with great

credit; but their general fitness for the office of magistrate remains

to be proved. It is easy to imagine a case wherein to leave the powers

wielded by a magistrate in the hands of any one open to the influences

from which a fellow-countryman alone can be secure, would be, to say the

least, most imprudent. Besides, there is a duty, perhaps but imperfectly

performed at present, and to which, at least in the lower provinces, a

native functionary would be quite incompetent, and that is, affording

protection to the people against the violence of Englishmen settled in

the interior as merchants, landholders, or Indigo-planters. We have now

before us a letter written in excellent English by a native of Bengal,

in which the following passage occurs:—“The fact is, that European

traders have obtained, in many places in the interior of the Bengal

Presidency, almost uncontrolled power—a power which they are seldom

sufficiently scrupulous not to exert to the injury of those with whom

they come in contact. It is not exaggeration to say, each

Indigo-factory, together with its surrounding estate, is a little

kingdom within itself, wherein avarice and tyranny hold unlimited sway.

The police is too feeble to render effectual aid in suppressing the

lawless oppression of the factor.”

Now, let us figure to ourselves one of Mr Cameron’s slender dusky

_élèves_ on the bench as magistrate, and (to take what ought to be the

mildest specimen of a gentle Englishman) the leading member of the Peace

party at the House of Commons at the bar in an Indigo-planter, taxed

with oppressing the Hindoo, and we shall easily see that the law must

have an almost supernatural inherent majesty, if, under such

circumstances, it can be effectually enforced and impartially

administered.

The regulation of the intercourse between our own countrymen not in the

service of Government, and our native subjects, will rise in importance

with the progress of those works in which European agency is essential

to insure success. Railways, electric telegraphs, improved

cotton-cultivation, steam, and all other complicated machinery, must, if

overspreading the country as many anticipate, bring with them a vast

increase to the European section of the community, whose influence will

still be out of all proportion to its commercial strength.

To give to this little section full scope for the development of its

industrial energies, and yet to restrain it from abusing its strength to

the injury of the native population, is in fact the only real service

ever likely to be rendered by the Law Commissions and Legislative

Councils called into existence by the enactment of last session.

In as far as the natives of Bengal and Upper India are alone concerned,

we are convinced that all of this cumbrous law-making apparatus is quite

superfluous. The existing regulations, with occasional pruning and

trimming, would, if fairly enforced and adhered to, amply suffice to

meet all of their simple wants. But the natives can no longer be left to

themselves. Europeans will intrude, and legislation must therefore be

shaped and stretched so as to fit it to the characters of the intruders.

As at present constituted, the magistracy and the police are hardly

equal to the control of British-born settlers, half a dozen of whom are

more difficult to rule than half a million of natives. There prevails

among Englishmen of every grade a notion of the East India Company being

a body of a somewhat foreign stamp, to whose servants it is almost

degrading for a free-born Britain to be obliged to submit.

The amalgamation of the Queen’s and the Company’s superior tribunals,

known at Calcutta as the Supreme, and the Sudder, Courts, would, by

coupling the home-bred judges appointed by the Crown with the

country-trained nominees of the local government, give a weight to the

magistracy acting under this combined authority, and thus fit it for the

better discharge of the difficult duty of controlling and correcting the

excesses of Englishmen settled in the interior. These settlers often

find in the menace of an action or prosecution before a remote and

somewhat prejudiced tribunal, a weapon wherewith to combat the immediate

power of a functionary, amenable individually to the Queen’s Court in

Calcutta, for every act which legal ingenuity can represent to be

personal, and so beyond the pale of official protection.

The fusion of the two superior courts will not, in fact, lessen the

personal responsibility of the English magistrate; but it will remove an

apparent antagonism, calculated to keep alive a spirit of defiance

towards the _local_ authority in the breast of many an English settler,

the effects of which, as described in the extract above given, from the

letter of a Bengal gentleman, are felt by every native with whom he may

have any dealings. Much has been written and spoken about the duty of

protecting the people of India from being oppressed by the Government

and its agents, but few seem to have thought of that more searching

tyranny which a few strong-nerved and coarse-minded Englishmen in the

interior, invested with power by the possession of land, may exercise

over the people among whom they are located, and from whom they are

eager to extract the wealth which they long to enjoy in a more congenial

climate.

This species of tyranny will of course be most felt among the feeblest,

and is, consequently, likely to be more grievous in Bengal than among

the hardier population of Upper India. But wherever the Anglo-Saxon

goes, he will carry with him his instinctive contempt for tribes of a

dusky complexion; and where this is not counteracted by the imposed

courtesies of official life, or checked by the presence of a sufficient

controlling authority, it will ever be ready to break out in a manner

injurious to the interests and feelings of those subject to his power.

Our future rule will, it is evident, become daily more and more European

in its tone, and there will consequently be an increasing call upon

those engaged in its direction to watch over the conduct of the dominant

race, to restrain its arrogance, and to see that the equality announced

in the laws does not evaporate in print, but is something real and

substantial, to be felt and enjoyed in the ordinary everyday intercourse

of life.

If this can be accomplished by legislation, the new Commissions and

Councils will not have been created in vain; but if their labours end in

merely adding to the existing tomes of benevolent enactments, without

effectual provision for their enforcement, then we cannot but fear that

our projected measures of improvement, being all of a European

character, will add little to the happiness of our subjects on the banks

of the Ganges, and be regarded by them merely as ingenious contrivances

for extending our own power, and completing their subjugation.

THE SECRET OF STOKE MANOR: A FAMILY HISTORY.

PART III.