CHAPTER I.

Produced by The Internet Library of Early Journals; Jon Ingram,

Donald Perry and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.

BLACKWOOD'S

EDINBURGH MAGAZINE.

* * * * *

NO. CCCXLVI. AUGUST, 1844. VOL. LVI.

* * * * *

CONTENTS.

AFFGHANISTAN

ETCHED THOUGHTS BY THE ETCHING CLUB

A LOVE CHASE--IN PROSE

ANCIENT CANAL--THE NILE AND THE RED SEA

THE OLD SCOTTISH CAVALIER

TRADITIONS AND TALES OF UPPER LUSATIA. NO. III. THE DWARF'S WELL

SOME REMARKS ON SCHILLER'S MAID OF ORLEANS

THE STOLEN CHILD

M. GIRARDIN

LORD ELDON

* * * * *

EDINBURGH:

WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS; 45, GEORGE STREET;

AND 22, PALL-MALL, LONDON.

_To whom all Communications (post paid) must be addressed_

SOLD BY ALL THE BOOKSELLERS IN THE UNITED KINGDOM.

* * * * *

PRINTED BY BALLANTYNE AND HUGHES, EDINBURGH.

BLACKWOOD'S

EDINBURGH MAGAZINE.

* * * * *

NO. CCCXLVI. AUGUST, 1844. VOL. LVI.

* * * * *

AFFGHANISTAN.

There are those persons now living who would give their own weight in

sovereigns, though drawing against thirteen to sixteen stone, that all

of this dreadful subject might be swallowed up by Lethe; that darkness

might settle for ever upon the insanities of Cabool; and the grave close

finally over the carnage of Tezeen. But it will not be. Blood will have

blood, they say. The madness which could sport in levity with a trust of

seventeen thousand lives, walks upon the wind towards heaven, coming

round by gusts innumerable of angry wailings in the air; voices from

nobody knows where are heard clamouring for vengeance; and the caves of

Jugdulloc, gorged with the "un-coffined slain," will not rest from the

litanies which day and night they pour forth for retribution until this

generation shall have passed away.

Are we to have justice or not?--not that justice which executes the

sentence, but which points the historical verdict, and distributes the

proportions of guilt. The government must now be convinced, by the

unceasing succession of books on this subject, which sleeps at

intervals, but continually wakens up again to new life, that it has not

died out, nor is likely to do so. And for _that_ there is good reason: a

sorrow which is past decays gradually, and hushes itself to sleep; not

so a sorrow which points too ominously to the future. The last book on

this horrible tragedy is that of Mr Lushington;[1] and in point of

ability the best; the best in composition; the best for nobility of

principle, for warning, for reproach. But, for all that, we do not agree

with him: we concede all his major propositions; we deny most of his

minors. As for the other and earlier discussions upon this theme,

whether by boots, by pamphlets, by journals, English and Indian, or by

Parliamentary speeches, they now form a library; and, considering the

vast remoteness of the local interest, they express sublimely the

paramount power of what is moral over the earthy and the physical. A

battle of Paniput is fought, which adds the carnage of Leipsic to that

of Borodino, and, numerically speaking, heaps Pelion upon Ossa; but who

cares? No principle is concerned: it is viewed as battle of wolves with

tiger-cats; and Europe heeds it not. But let a column of less than 5000,

from a nation moving by moral forces, and ploughing up for ever new

soils of moral promise, betray itself, by folly or by guilt, into the

meshes of a frightful calamity, and the earth listens for the details

from the tropics to the arctic circle. Not Moscow and Smolensko, through

all the wilderness of their afflictions, ever challenged the gaze of

Christendom so earnestly as the Coord Cabool. And why? The pomp, the

procession of the misery, lasted through six weeks in the Napoleon case,

through six days in the English case. Of the French host there had been

originally 450,000 fighting men; of the English, exactly that same

amount read as the numerator of a fraction whose denominator was 100.

Forty-five myriads had been the French; forty-five hundreds the English.

And yet so mighty is the power of any thing moral, because shadowy and

illimitable, so potent to magnify and unvulgarize any interest, that

more books have been written upon Cabool, and through a more enduring

tract of time, than upon Moscow. Great was the convulsion in either

case; but that caused by Cabool has proved the less transitory. The vast

_anabasis_ to Moscow had emanated from a people not conspicuously

careful of public morality. But that later _anabasis_, which ascended to

the shining pinnacles of Candahar, and which stained with blood of men

the untrodden snows of the Hindoo Koosh, was the work of a nation--no

matter whether more moral in a practical sense, upon that we do not here

dispute--but undeniably fermenting with the anxieties and jealousies of

moral aspirations beyond any other people whatever. Some persons have

ascribed to Blumenbach (heretofore the great Goettingen naturalist) an

opinion as to the English which we have good reason to think that he

never uttered--viz. that the people of this island are the most

voluptuous of nations, and that we bear it written in our national

countenance. But suppose him to have said this, and secondly, (which is

a trifle more important,) suppose it to be true, not the less we assert

the impassioned predominance of a moral interest in this nation. The

intensity of this principle is such, that it works with the fury and

agitation of an appetite. It urges us to the very brink of civil war.

Two centuries back--yes, exactly to a month, two centuries--we were all

at Marston Moor, cutting throats upon the largest scale. And why? under

the coercion of principles equally sublime on _both_ sides. Then it

_did_ urge us into war. Now it does not--because the resistance is

stronger, and by no means because the impulse is less. On a May morning

in 1844, a question arises in the senate as to factory labour. On one

side it shows an aspect critical for the interests of human nature in

its widest stratum--viz. amongst the children of toil. Immediately, as

at the sound of a signal-gun, five hundred of our fervent journals open

their batteries this way and that upon an inquest of truth. "All the

people quake like dew." The demoniacs of Palestine were not more shaken

of old by internal possessions, than the heart of England is swayed to

and fro under the action of this or similar problems. Epilepsy is not

more overmastering than is the tempest of moral strife in England. And a

new dawn is arising upon us in the prospect, that henceforth the

agitations of peace will be more impassioned for the coming generation

than the agitations of war for the last. But that sympathy, almost

morbid, which England feels with the condition of social man, other

nations echo by a reflex sympathy with England; not always by a friendly

sympathy. Like the [Greek: aerobatentes] and _funambuli_ of ancient

days, equally when keeping the difficult line of advance, or when losing

it, England is regarded with a searching gaze that might seem governed

by the fabulous fascination of the rattlesnake. Does she ascend on her

proper line of advance? There is heard the murmur of reluctant applause.

Does she trip? There arises the yell of triumph. Is she seen purchasing

the freedom of a negro nation? The glow of admiration suffuses the

countenance of Christendom. Is she descried entering on wars of

unprovoked aggression? All faces in Europe are illuminated with smiles

of prosperous malice. It is a painful preeminence which England

occupies--hard to keep, dangerous to forfeit. Hit, and a million of

hearts are tainted with jealousy; fail, and a million revel in

malignity. Therefore it was that Cabool and its disasters drew an

attention so disproportioned to their military importance. Cabool was

one chapter in a transaction which, truly or not, had come to be reputed

incompatible with those august principles of public justice professed

and worn amongst the phylacteries of Great Britain. Therefore also it

was that on this subject, as we have already said, a library of works

has been accumulated.

[1] _A Great Country's Little Wars_. By HENRY LUSHINGTON. London:

Parker, 1844.

Of these works we assert, fearlessly but not arrogantly, that all are

partially in error. They are in fact, one and all, controversial works;

often without the design of the writers, and not always perhaps with

their consciousness--but the fact is such. Not one of them but has a

purpose to serve for or against Lord Auckland, or Dost Mahommed, or the

East India Company, or the government at home and at Calcutta, which

replaced that of the Whigs. Some even go into such specialties of

partisanship as to manage the cause chiefly as a case depending against

the political agents--Mr Ross Bell, Mr Loveday, Captain Outram, or Sir

Alexander Burnes. Whilst others, which might seem a service of

desperation, hold their briefs as the apologists of that injured young

gentleman, Akbar Khan. All, in short, are controversial for a _personal_

interest; and, in that sense, to be controversial is to be partial. Now

we, who take our station in the centre, and deliver our shot all round

the horizon, by intervals damaging every order of men concerned as

parties to the Affghan affair, whether by action, by sanction, by

counsel, or by subsequent opinion, may claim to be indifferent censors.

We _have_ political attachments: we do not deny it; but our own party is

hardly touched by the sting of the case.

We therefore can be neutral, and we shall pursue our enquiry

thus:--_First_, What was the original motive for the Affghan expedition?

We insist upon it, that the motive generally assumed and reasoned upon

was absurd, in a double sense puerile, as arguing a danger not possible,

and (if it had been possible) not existing, and yet, after all, not open

to much condemnation from most of those who _did_ condemn it. They might

object to the particular mode of execution, but they were pledged to the

principle of a war in that direction.

_Secondly_, When the amended form was put forward, a rational form and

the true form of the motive for this expedition, in what respect was

that open to criticism? Far enough are we from going along with the

views of the Auckland cabinet at this juncture; but these two things we

are sure of--that those views were unsound, not by any vice which has

yet been exposed, and that the vice alleged argues gross ignorance of

every thing oriental. Lord Auckland might err, as heavily we believe him

to have done, in his estimate of Affghanistan and the Affghan condition:

he had untrue notions of what the Affghans needed, and what it was that

they could bear: but his critics, Indian and domestic, were not in error

by default merely of philosophic views as to the state of society in

Affghanistan; they erred by want of familiarity with the most prominent

usages of eastern economy. Lord Auckland was wrong, only as whole masses

of politicians are wrong in Europe; viz. by applying European principles

to communities under feelings and prejudices systematically different.

But his antagonists were wrong as to palpable facts.

_Thirdly_, If we pass from the motive to the execution of the motive,

from the purpose to the means of effecting it, we are compelled to say

that Lord Auckland's government adopted for its primary means the most

extravagant that could have been devised; viz. the making itself a party

to the financial torture of the land.

_Fourthly_, When local insurrection had arisen, whether directed (as

every body assumes) against the abuses of a system introduced by

ourselves, or (as _we_ assert) proper to the land, and hereditary to the

morbid condition of Affghan society--we shall expose the feeble and

inadequate solution yet offered by any military guide for the tragical

issue of these calamities. Kohistan, or particular cases, need not

detain us; but, coming at once _in medias res_ as to Cabool itself, we

shall undertake to show, that as yet we have no true or rational account

of the causes which led to the fatal result. What! four thousand five

hundred regular troops, officered by Englishmen--a number which, in the

last eighty years, had shown itself repeatedly able to beat armies of

sixty thousand men, armies having all the appurtenances and equipments

of regular warfare--was this strong column actually unable to fight its

way, with bayonet and field artillery, to a fortress distant only eighty

miles, through a tumultuary rabble never mustering twenty thousand

heads?[1] Times are altered with us if this was inevitable. But the

Affghans, you will say, are brave men, stout and stout-hearted, not

timid Phrygian Bengalees. True--but at Plassy, and again, forty years

after, at Assye, it was not merely Bengalees, or chiefly such, whom we

fought--they were Rohillas, Patans, Goorkhas, and Arabs; the three

first being of Affghan blood, quite as good as any Barukzye or Ghilzye,

and the last better. No, no--there is more to tell. The calamity

ascends to some elder source than the imbecility of General

Elphinstone, or the obstinacy of Brigadier Shelton. Others than the

direct accomplices in that disaster are included in its guilt; some of

the hitherto known only as the slain who have suffered by the

insurrection, and as the survivors who have denounced it. Amongst

_them_ lie some of those impeached by the circumstances. So far we

might add little to the satisfaction of the public; to see the rolls of

the guilty widening would but aggravate the sorrow of a calamity which

now it could do nothing to diminish. But oftentimes to know the persons

concerned in a great disaster, is a step to knowing something of its

causes. And this we will venture to say--that, in defiance of all

professional pedantry incident to military men and engineers, the

reader is likely to be of opinion that we, at a distance of 7000 miles,

have pointed out capital blunders, ensuring ruin and forming

temptations to conspiracy, which Lieutenant Eyre, a principal artillery

officer on the spot, has failed to notice; and if he failed to notice

them in his book _à fortiori_, he must have failed to notice them

officially, whilst yet it would have been in time. There were those

things done in Cabool by the "fantastic tricks" of men dressed in

authority, which, placed in their proper light, go far to explain all

the horrors that ensued. We know not whether they made "the angels

weep," or rather made the devils laugh, when hovering over Coord

Cabool: but this we know, that they are likely to make the hair stand

on end of all considerate men in this land of energetic foresight.

[1] "_Heads_," we say, because it is one amongst the grievous neglects

of the military writers, that they have made it impossible for us to

describe the Affghan soldiery under any better representative term, by

giving no circumstantial account of the arms or discipline prevailing

through the Affghan forces, the tenure of their service, &c. Many had

matchlocks; but many, we presume, had only swords; and artillery the

Affghans had none, but what they had been suffered to steal in Cabool.

_Fifthly_, It may be asked, What is the moral of this dreadful affair?

What inferences in the way of warning are to be drawn from it? This is a

topic untouched by all the writers on the Affghan war. But undoubtedly

the Cabool reverse was not more fitted to fix attention as a judgment

for the past than as a warning for the future; not more as being (or

being thought) the reaction from a public wrong, authorized by English

councils, than as a premonitory case, showing us what may be expected

under the recurrence of similar circumstances. Circumstances altogether

similar are not likely to recur in two centuries; but circumstances only

in part similar, a commander-in-chief incapacitated by illness, or a

second-in-command blind with infatuation, might easily recur in critical

or dreadful emergencies. Such circumstances _did_ happen in the Nepaul

campaigns; imbecility in more leaders than one, as abject as that at

Cabool. And though it could not lead to the same awful results where

there had not been the same elaborate _preparation_ of folly, and upon

ground so much nearer to the means of rectification, still it was then

sufficient to tarnish the lustre of our arms for the time, and, under

worse circumstances, would menace worse misfortunes. Neither is this

all; there are other infirmities in our eastern system than the vicious

selection of generals.

But all the topics proper to this fifth head will fall more naturally

under a paper expressly applying itself to India; and for the present we

shall confine ourselves to the previous four.

I. And _first_, then, as regards the original motive assigned for the

Affghan expedition. What profit in prospect, or what danger in

reversion, moved us to so costly an enterprise? We insist singly on its

cost, which usually proves a sufficient _sufflamen_ in these days to the

belligerent propensities of nations. Cicero mentions the advocate by

name who first suggested the question of _Cui bono_, as a means of

feeling backwards in a case of murder for the perpetrator. Who was it

that had been interested in the murder? But the same question must be

equally good as a means of feeling forwards to the probable wisdom of a

war. What was the nature of the benefit apprehended, and who was to reap

it? The answer to this very startling question, in the case of the

Affghan expedition, stood thus for a long time on the part of our own

unofficial press--that the object had been to forestall Russia, driving

with headlong malice _en route_ for the Indus, by surprising her

advanced guard in Kohistan. Certainly, if the surprise were all, there

might be something plausible in the idea. If the Russians should ever

reach Kohistan, we will answer for their being exceedingly surprised at

finding an English camp in that region for the purpose of entertaining

themselves. In reality no lunatic projector, not Cleombrotus leaping

into the sea for the sake of Plato's Elysium, not Erostratus committing

arson at Ephesus for posthumous fame, not a sick Mr Elwes ascending the

Himalaya, in order to use the rarity of the atmosphere as a ransom from

the expense of cupping in Calcutta, ever conceived so awful a folly. Oh,

playful Sir John Mandeville, sagacious Don Quixote, modest and ingenious

Baron Munchausen!--ye were sober men, almost dull men, by comparison

with the _tête exaltée_ from some upper element of fire, or limbo of the

moon, who conceived this sublime idea of leaping forward by a thousand

miles, to lay salt on the tail of a possible or a conceivable enemy. The

enemy--the tail--the salt--these were all _in nubibus_; the only thing

certain was the leap, and the thousand miles. And then, having achieved

this first stage on the road, why not go on to St Petersburg, and take

the Czar by the beard? The enormity of this extravagance showed from

what mint it came. Ever since we have harboured the Czar's rebels in

England, there has been a craze possessing our newspaper press, that

Russia was, or might be, brewing evil against India. We can all see the

absurdity of such reveries when exemplified by our quicksilver neighbour

France, bouncing for ever in her dreams about insults meditated from the

perfidious England; but we are blind to the image which this French

mirror reflects of our own attitude towards Russia. One hundred and

fifty years ago, the _incubus_ which lay heavy on the slumbers of

England was the Pope; of whom Swift remarked, that constantly his

holiness was seen _incog_. under one disguise or other, drinking at

gin-shops in Wapping, and clearly proved to be spying out the nakedness

of the land. In our days the Pope has vanished to the rear of the

English phantasmagoria, and now lies amongst the [Greek: neknôn amenêna

kasêna]. But not, therefore, is England without her pet nightmare; and

that nightmare is now the Czar, who doubtless had his own reasons lately

for examining the ground about Windsor and Ascot Heath--fine ground for

the Preobasinsky dragoons. How often in this journal have we been

obliged to draw upon these blockheads, and disperse them sword in hand!

How, gentlemen, (we have said to them in substance,) if you must play

the fool as alarmists, can you find no likelier towers for menacing

Calcutta with thunder storms than those of arctic St Petersburg; between

which cities lies an interspace equal to both tropics? We remember, as

applicable to this case, a striking taunt reported by Dampier, that when

one bucanier, on the west coast of Peru, was sailing away from the

oppression of another to some East Indian port, with a weak crew in a

crazy vessel, the ruffian from whom he fled told him at parting, that,

by the time he saw green fields again, the boys in his vessel would be

greyheaded. And we suspect that the Russian drummer-boys, by the time

they reach the Khyber pass, will all have become field-marshals, seeing

that, after three years' marching, they have not yet reached Khiva. But

were the distance, the snows, the famine, and thirst nothing, is the

bloodshed nothing? Russia is a colossus, and Bokhara, Khiva, Kokan, &c.,

are dwarfs. But the finger of a colossus may be no match for the horny

heels of a dwarf. The Emperor Tiberius could fracture a boy's skull with

a _talitrum_, (or fillip of his middle finger;) but it is not every

middle finger that can do that; and a close kick from a khan of

Toorkistan might leave an uglier scar than a fillip at arm's length from

the Czar. Assuredly his imperial majesty would be stopped at many

toll-bars before he would stable his horses in an Affghan caravansery;

and would have more sorts of boxes than diamond snuff-boxes to give and

take in approaching the Hindoo Koosh. But suppose him there, and

actually sitting astride of the old Koosh in boots and spurs, what next?

In our opinion, the best thing he could do, in case, he desired any

sleep for the next three months, would be to stay where he was; for

should he come down stairs into Affghanistan, we English can by this

time give some account of the shocking roads and bad entertainment for

man and horse, all the way to the Indus. Little to choose between the

Khyber Pass or the Bolan: more kicks perhaps on the first, but worse,

dinners on the other. And then, finally, about the costs, the reckoning,

the "little account" which will be presented for payment on the banks of

the Indus. _Us_ it cost forty thousand camels, which for years could not

be replaced at any price, and nine millions sterling, for a _part_ of

our time. But the Czar, who might wish to plant a still larger army on

the Indus, say thirty thousand, and would have six times our length of

march, could not expect to suffer by less than three times the money,

and by the total generation of camels from Mecca to "Samarcand, by

Oxus--Temir's throne."

Could any man rationally believe of a governor-general, left at large

by his council, that, under the terrors of a phantom invasion such as

this, visionary as a dream, and distant as heaven is distant, he could

seriously have organized an armament which, merely by its money costs,

would be likely to shake the foundations of the empire which he

administered? Yet if Lord Auckland _had_ moved upon the impulse of a

panic so delirious, under what colour of reason could he have been

impeached by the English press, of which the prevailing section first

excited, and to this day nurses intermittingly, that miserable Russian

superstition?[1] The Polish craze, adopted by the press of England and

France, and strengthened by the conviction that in Russia lay the

great antagonist balance to the disorganizing instincts of Western

Europe, had made the Czar an object of hatred to the Liberal leaders.

But to improve this hatred into a _national_ sentiment in England, it

was requisite to connect him by some relation with English

"interests." Hence the idea of describing him as a vulture, (or as

Sinbad's roc,) constantly hovering over our sheep-folds in India. Gog

and Magog are not more shadowy and remote as objects for Indian

armies, artillery, and rockets, than that great prince who looks out

upon Europe and Asia through the loopholes of polar mists. Anti-Gog

will probably synchronize with the two Gogs. And Lord Auckland would

have earned the title of Anti-Gog, had he gone out to tilt on an

Affghan process of the Himalaya, with--what? With a reed shaken by the

wind? With a ghost, as did the grandfather of Ossian? With an _ens

rationis_, or logical abstraction? Not even with objects so palpable

as these, but with a Parisian lie and a London craze; with a word,

with a name, nay, with a _nominis umbra_. And yet we repeat a thousand

times, that, if Lord Auckland had been as mad as this earliest

hypothesis of the Affghan expedition would have made him, the bulk of

the English journals could have had no right to throw the first stone

against a policy which, at great cost of truth and honesty, they had

been promoting for years.

[1] "_Miserable Russian superstition_."--This is now, we believe,

decaying. But why? Not from sounder politics, but from more accurate

geography. The Affghan campaigns, with the affairs of Bokhara, of Khiva,

and Khoondooz, have lighted up as with torches those worlds of

wilderness and obstruction; so that, in any practical sense, people are

ashamed _now_ to talk of St Petersburg as threatening Delhi or Calcutta.

But, _secondly_, what was the amended hypothesis of that expedition? Not

Russia was contemplated, aërial Russia, but Affghanistan for

herself--_that_ was the object present to Lord Auckland's thoughts; no

phantom, but a real next-door neighbour in the flesh. The purpose was to

raise Affghanistan into a powerful barrier; and against what? Not

specially against so cloudy an apparition as Russia, but generally

against all enemies who might gather from the west; most of all,

perhaps, against the Affghans themselves. It must be known to many of

our readers--that, about the opening of the present century, a rumour

went traversing all India of some great Indian expedition meditated by

the Affghans. It was too steadfast a rumour to have grown out of

nothing; and our own belief is--that, but for the intestine feuds then

prevailing amongst the Suddozye princes, (Shah Soojah and his brothers,)

the scheme would have been executed; in which case, falling in with our

own great Mahratta struggle under Lord Wellesley, such an inroad would

have given a chance, worth valuing, that the sceptre might have passed

from England--England at that time having neither steamers for the

Indus, nor improved artillery against Affghan jezails, besides having

her hands full of work. Between 1801 and 1838, it is true that things

had altered; for the better, we admit; but also for the worse. Much

stronger were we; but, on the other hand, much nearer were the Affghans.

Delhi and Agra, with their vast adjacencies, had become ours. Cutch was

ours, our outposts were pushed to the Sutlege; and beyond the Sutlege we

had stretched a network of political relations. We therefore were

vulnerable in a more exquisite sense. And on the other hand, as

respected the power of the Affghans to wound, _that_ had not essentially

declined. The Affghan power, it must be remembered, had never exposed a

showy front of regal pomp, such as oftentimes deceives both friend and

foe, masking a system of forces hollow and curious when probed by

foreign war, but had combined the popular energy arising from a rough

republican simplicity, and something even of republican freedom, with

the artificial energy for war of a despotism lodged in a few hands. Of

all oriental races, the Affghans had best resisted the effeminacy of

oriental usages, and in some respects we may say--of Mahometan

institutions. Their strength lay in their manly character; their

weakness in their inveterate disunion. But this, though quite incapable

of permanent remedy under Mahometan ideas, could be suspended under the

compression of a common warlike interest; and _that_ had been splendidly

put on record by the grandfather of Shah Soojah. It was not to be

denied--that in the event of a martial prince arising, favourably

situated for gaining a momentary hold over the disunited tribes, he

might effectually combine them for all the purposes of an aggressive

war, by pointing their desires to the plunder of India. The boundless

extent of India, the fabulous but really vast magnificence of her

wealth, and the martial propensities of the Affghans, were always moving

upon lines tending to one centre. Sometimes these motives were

stationary, sometimes moving in opposite directions; but if ever a

popular soldier should press them to a convergence, there could be no

doubt that a potent Affghan army would soon be thrown beyond the

Punjaub. An Affghan armament requires little baggage; and if it be asked

how the Affghans were to find supplies for a numerous army which they

never could subsist at home, the answer is--for that very reason,

because they would _not_ be at home. The Roman principle of making war

support war would be easily applied to the rich tracts of central India,

which an Affghan leader would endeavour to make the theatre of his

aggression. They could move faster than we could. Semi-barbarism

furnishes strength in that respect; and it would be vain to think of

acting politically upon Affghanistan, when all her martial children were

in the act of projecting themselves upon stages of action which would

soon furnish their own recompense to strength of character and to

persevering courage. In fact, the slightest review of Indian history,

ever since the first introduction of Mahometanism, justifies Lord

Auckland's general purpose of interweaving Affghanistan with the

political system of India. This was no purpose of itinerant Quixotism--

seeking enemies where none offered of themselves. Affghans were _always_

enemies; they formed the _castra stativa_ of hostility to India. For

eight hundred years, ever since the earliest invader under the Prophet's

banner, (Mahommed of Ghuznee,) the Affghans had been the scourges of

India; for centuries establishing dynasties of their own race; leaving

behind them populous nations of their own blood; founding the most

warlike tribes in Hindostan; and, not content with this representative

influence in the persons of their descendants, continually renewing

their inroads from the parent hives in Affghanistan. Could such a

people, brought by our own advance into so dangerous a neighbourhood,

have been much longer neglected?

With any safety to ourselves, certainly not. At least the outline of

Lord Auckland's policy must be approved as wise and seasonable. All the

great internal enemies of Indian peace had been reduced within English

control by former governments; others had dealt, so far as circumstances

required, with the most petulant of our outlying neighbours, Nepaul and

Burmah; and sooner or later, if mischief were to be _prevented_, as well

as healed, it would be necessary to bring Affghanistan within the

general system of cautionary ties. We wanted nothing with the

independence of that country, nor with its meagre finances; but

reasonably we might desire that she herself should not wield either for

the perpetual terror of her eastern neighbours. Westwards and northwards

furnished surely an ample range for mischief; and with those quarters of

the compass we had no mission to interfere. Like Hamlet, the Affghans

would still have a limited license for going mad, viz.--when the wind

sate in particular quarters; and along a frontier of more than a

thousand miles. Still, whilst seeing the necessity of extending the

Indian network of tranquillization to the most turbulent and vigorous of

neighbouring powers, the reader will feel a jealousy, as we do, with

respect to the time chosen for this measure:--why _then_ in particular?

After which comes a far more serious question, why by that violent

machinery, that system of deposing and substituting, which Lord Auckland

chose to adopt?

As to the question of time, it is too clear from the several

correspondences, however garbled, which have been laid before

Parliament, that Herat was a considerable element in the councils at

Calcutta. This seems so far a blunder; because of what consequence to

India, or even to Affghanistan, was the attack of an imbecile state like

Persia upon the Affghan frontier? Here, however, occurs the place for an

important distinction; and it is a distinction which may better the case

of Lord Auckland. In ridiculing the idea which regarded Russia as the

natural enemy of India, between which two mighty realms we may conceive

a _vacuum_ to exist so as to cut off all communication, we applied our

arguments to the case of a _direct_ attempt upon India. This we hold not

only to be impossible at present, but even for centuries to come, unless

Russia shall penetrate to Bokhara, and form vast colonies along the line

of the river Amor; and, if ever such changes should be made,

corresponding changes will by that time have established a new state of

defensive energy in India. The Punjaub will by that time have long been

ours: all the roads, passes, and the five great rivers at the points of

crossing, will have been overlooked by scientific fortresses; but, far

beyond these mechanic defences, Christianity and true civilization will,

by that time, have regenerated the population, who will then be

conscious of new motives for defending themselves. A native _militia_

will then every where exist; and mere lawless conquerors, on a mission

of despotism or of plunder, will have become as powerless against the

great ramparts of civilization as American savages. The supposed Russian

colonies indeed, in stages of society so advanced, would probably have

shared by that time in the social changes; possibly would themselves

form a barrier between the countries to the south and any ambitious

prince in St Petersburg. Any _direct_ action of Russia, therefore, flies

before us like a rainbow as futurity expands. But in the mean time an

_indirect_ action upon India is open to Russia even at present. That

action, which she is powerless to carry on for herself, she may

originate through Persia. And in that we see the remarkable case

realized--that two ciphers may politically form an affirmative power of

great strength by combining: Russia, though a giant otherwise, is a

cipher as to India by situation--viz. by distance, and the deserts along

the line of this distance. Persia, though not so ill situated, is a

cipher by her crazy condition as to population and aggressive resources.

But this will not hinder each power, separately weak _quoad hoc_, from

operating through the advantages of the other; as the blind man in the

fable benefits by the sight of the lame man, whom, for the sake of wider

prospect, he raises upon his shoulders; each reciprocally neutralizing

his own defects by the characteristic endowments of the other. Russia

might use Persia as her wedge for operating, with some effect, upon the

Affghans; who again might be used as the wedge of Persia for operating

upon ourselves, either immediately if circumstances should favour, or

mediately through the Seiks and the Beloochees. On this theory we may

see a justification for Lord Auckland in allowing some weight to the

Persian Shah's siege of Herat. Connected with the alleged intrigues of

the Russian agent, (since disavowed,) this movement of the Shah did

certainly look very like a basis for that joint machinery which he and

Russia were to work. Yet, on the other hand, we cannot but think that

Lord Auckland might safely have neglected it; and on the following

argument, that whatever influence Persia could have acquired in

Affghanistan through the possession of Herat, would to a certainty have

been balanced or overbalanced by an opposition growing out of that very

influence. This happened to ourselves; and this will arise always in

similar cases out of the incohesion essential, to say nothing of the

special feuds incident to the Affghan tribes, khans, and sirdars.

Whilst, therefore, we recognize, as a policy worthy of an Indian

statesman, the attempt to raise up a barrier in Affghanistan by way of

defensive outwork to India, we conceive that all which should have been

desired was a barrier against the Affghans themselves, by means of

guarantees reposing on the structure of the Affghan government, and not

any barrier against Persia as the agent of Russia; because, from the

social condition of the Affghans, Persia was always sure to raise up

barriers against herself, in exact proportion as she should attempt to

intermeddle with Affghan affairs. The remedy was certain to grow up

commensurately with the evil.

But now, quitting the question of the _when_, or why particularly at

that time Lord Auckland interfered with Affghanistan, let us touch on

the much more important question of the _how_, or by what machinery it

was that he proposed during this interference to realize his object?

Here comes the capital blunder, as we regard it, of our Affghan policy.

Lord Auckland started from the principle--and in _that_ doubtless he was

right--that the security sought for Western India could be found only in

a regular treaty of alliance with an Affghan government--firm at least

by its tenure, if circumstances forbade it to be strong by its action.

But where was such a government to be found? Who, in the distracted

state of Affghan society, was the man presumptuous enough to guarantee

any general submission to his authority? And, if no man could say this

for himself, could we say it _for_ him? Was there any great Affghan

philosopher in a cave, for whom Lord Auckland could become sponsor that

he should fulfil all the purposes of British diplomacy? We are come upon

evil ground, where not a step can be taken without cutting away right

and left upon friend and foe. Never, in fact, do we remember upon any

subject so many untruths as were uttered upon this by our own journals,

English and Indian; not untruths of evil intention, but untruths of

inconsideration or of perfect ignorance. Let us review the sum of what

was said, both as to the man chosen and the man rejected; premising

this, however, on behalf of Lord Auckland--that, if he made an evil

choice, means there were not for making a better. The case was

desperate. Not if Mr Tooke's Pantheon had clubbed their forces to create

an Affghan Pandorus, could the perfect creature have faced the

emergency. With the shafts of Apollo clanging on one shoulder, he could

not have silenced the first feud, viz. on his personal pretensions. But

with the tallies of his exchequer rattling on the other--so furiously

would a second feud have exploded, that as easily might you gather a

hail-storm into a side-pocket, as persuade the Affghans of his right to

levy taxes. Do you see the cloud of African locusts warping on the east

wind? Will they suffer you to put them into Chancery? Do you see those

eagles rising from Mont Blanc on the morning breeze? Will the crack of

your mail-coachman's whip bring them to be harnessed? In that case you

are the man to tax the Affghans. Pigs can see the wind; and it is not

less certain that Affghans can scent a tax-gatherer through the Hindoo

Koosh: in which case, off they go on the opposite tack. But no matter if

they stay--not the less with them to be taxed is to be robbed--a wrong

to be remembered on death-beds, and to be avenged were it in the fourth

generation. However, as the reckoning does not come before the banquet,

so the taxes do not come before the accession. Let us look, therefore,

at the men, the possible candidates, simply in relation to that

magnificent claim. There are two only put in nomination, Dost Mahommed

and the Shah Soojah: let us bring them forward on the hustings. Or,

considering them as horses entering at Epsom for the Derby, the first to

be classed as a five-year old, the other as "aged," let us trot them

out, by way of considering their paces.

The comments upon these men in England, whether for or against, were all

personal. The Dost was the favourite--which was generous--as he had no

solitary merit to plead except that he had lost the election; or, as the

watchmaker's daughter so pointedly said on behalf of Nigel Lord

Glenvarloch, "Madam, he is unfortunate." Searching, however, in all

corners for the undiscovered virtues of the Dost, as Bruce for the coy

fountains of the Nile, one man reported by telegraph that he had

unkenneled a virtue; that he had it fast in his hands, and would forward

it overland. He did so; and what was it? A certain pedlar, or he might

be a bagman, had said--upon the not uncommon accident in Cabool of

finding himself pillaged--"What! is there no justice to be had amongst

you? Is Dost Mohammed dead?" Upon which rather narrow basis was

immediately raised in London a glorious superstructure to the justice of

the Dost. Certainly, if the Dost's justice had ever any reference to

pedlars, it must have been a nervous affection of penitential panic

during some fit of the cholera, and as transient as the measles; his

regard for pedlars being notoriously of that kind which tigers bear to

shoulders of lamb; and Cabool has since rung with his pillagings of

caravans. But we believe the pedlar's _mot_ to have been thoroughly

misconceived. If we see a poor man bleeding to death in a village lane,

we naturally exclaim--"What! is Dr Brown, that used to practise here,

gone away?" Not meaning that the doctor could have stopped the

hemorrhage, but simply that the absence of all medical aid is shocking,

and using the doctor's name merely as a shorthand expression for that

aid. Now in the East, down from scriptural days, the functions of a

sovereign were two--to lead his people in battle, and to "sit in the

gate" for the distribution of justice. Our pedlar, therefore, when

invoking Dost Mahommed as the redresser of his wrongs, simply thought

of him as the public officer who bore the sword of justice. "He cried to

Pharaoh," or he "cried to Artaxerxes"--did not imply any reliance in

their virtue as individuals, but merely an appeal to them as

professionally the ministers of justice. "Are there no laws and no

prisons amongst you?" was the poor man's meaning; and he expressed this

symbolically under the name of him who was officially responsible for

both.

But, as one throws a bone to a dog, we do not care to dispute the point

further, if any man is resolute to settle this virtue upon the Dost as a

life-annuity. The case will then stand thus: We have all heard of

"Single-speech Hamilton;" and we must then say--"Single-virtue Dost;"

for no man mentions a second. "Justice for pedlars" will then be the

legend on his coin, as meaning that there is none for any body else. Yet

even then the voters for the Dost totally overlooked one thing. Shah

Soojah had some shadow of a pretence, which we shall presently examine,

to the throne of all Affghanistan; and a king of that compass was

indispensable to Lord Auckland's object. But Dost Mahommed never had

even the shadow of an attorney's fiction upon which he could stand as

pretender to any throne but that of Cabool, where, by accident, he had

just nine points of the law in his favour. How then could we have

supported him? "Because thou art virtuous," we must have said, are we to

support future usurpation? Because the Dost is just to pedlars, "shall

there be no more ale and cakes" for other Affghan princes? All Asia

could not have held him upright on any throne comprehensively Affghan.

Whether _that_ could have been accomplished for any other man, is

another question. Yet unless Lord Auckland could obtain guarantees from

the unity of an _Affghan_ government, nothing at all was done towards a

barrier for the Indus.

Let us resume, however, the personal discussion. The Dost's banking

account is closed; and we have carried _one_ to his credit; but, as the

reader knows, "under protest." Now let us go into the items of the

Shah's little account. Strange to say, these are all on the wrong side--

all marked with the negative sign. The drollest of all was the charge

preferred against him by our Radicals. Possibly the Chartists, the

Leaguers, and the Repealers have something in reserve against him. What

the Radicals said was to this purpose: having heard of the Shah's

compulsory flight more than once from Affghanistan, they argued that

this never _could_ have happened had he not committed some horrible

_faux pas_. What could that be? "Something very naughty, be assured,"

said another; "they say he keeps a haram."--"Ay," rejoined a third, "but

they care little about that in the East. Take my word for it, he has

been playing tricks against the friends of liberty: he has violated the

'constitution' of Caboolistan." And immediately reverting to the case of

Charles X. under the counsels of Prince Polignac, they resolved that he

must have been engaged in suppressing the liberal journals of Peshawur;

and that the Khyberees, those noble parliamentary champions of the cause

for which Sidney bled on the scaffold, had risen as one man, and, under

tricolor banners, had led his horse by the bridle to the frontiers of

the Seiks. This was the colouring which the Radical journals gave to the

Shah's part in the affair; and naturally they could not give any other

than a corresponding one to ours. If Soojah were a tyrant kicked out for

his political misdeeds, we must be the vilest of his abettors, leading

back this _saevior exul_, reimposing a detested yoke, and facilitating a

bloody vengeance. O gentlemen, blockheads! _Silent inter arma leges_--

laws of every kind are mute; and as to such political laws as you speak

of, well for Affghanistan if, through European neighbourhood, she comes

to hear of those refinements in seven generations hence. Shah Soojah saw

in youth as many ups and downs as York and Lancaster; but all in the

good old honest way of throat-cutting, without any fraternal discord on

questions of _Habeas corpus_; and had he been a luckier man in his long

rough-and-tumbles for the Affghan sceptre, so as to have escaped the

exile you reproach him with, he would not therefore, by one jot, have

been more or less a guilty one.

The _purisms_ of political delinquency had little share, therefore, in

any remorse which Shah Soojah might ever feel; and considering the

scared consciences of oriental princes in such matters, quite as little,

perhaps, had the two other counts in his London impeachment. One imputed

savage cruelty to him; the other, with a _Johnny-rawness_ that we find

it difficult to comprehend, profligacy and dissoluteness of life.

As to the cruelty, it has often been alleged; and the worst case,

besides being the only attested case, of the Shah's propensities in that

direction, is the execution of the Ghazees near the fortress of Ghuznee.

We scorn to be the palliators of any thing which is bad in eastern

usages--too many things are _very_ bad--but we are not to apply the pure

standards of Christianity to Mahometan systems; and least of all are we

to load the individual with the errors of his nation. What wounds an

Englishman most in the affair of the Ghazees, is the possibility that it

may have been committed with the sanction of his own country, officially

represented by the British commander-in-chief. But then that

consideration leads an Englishman to suspend with a stoic [Greek:

epochê], and exceedingly to doubt whether the fact could have been as it

was originally reported. So said we, when first we heard it; and now,

when the zeal of malice has ceased to distort things, let us coolly

state the circumstances. A Mahometan Ghazee is a prededicated martyr. It

is important to note the definition. He is one who devotes himself to

death in what he deems a sufficient cause, but, as the old miser of

Alsatia adds--"for a consideration;" the consideration being, that he

wins Paradise. But Paradise he will _not_ win, unless he achieves or

attempts something really meritorious. Now, in the situation of things

before Ghuznee, where a new ruler was brought in under the wing of

Feringee infidels, what meritorious service was open to him? To have

shot the commander-in-chief would have merely promoted some other

infidel. The one sole revolutionary act appropriate to the exigency, was

to shoot the Shah Soojah. There, and in one moment, would have gone to

wreck the whole vast enterprize of the Christian dogs, their eight

hundred lakhs of rupees, and their forty thousand camels. The mighty

balloon would have collapsed; for the children of the Shah, it was

naturally imagined by Affghans, would divide the support of their

father's friends. That alone would have been victory to the Mussulmans;

and, in the case of the British army leaving the land, (which then was

looked for, at any rate, after one campaign,) the three Shahzades would,

by their fraternal feuds, ensure rapid defeat to each other. Under this

state of expectations, there was a bounty on regicide. All Ghazees

carried the word _assassin_ written on their foreheads. To shoot the

Shah in battle was their right; but they had no thought of waiting for

battle: they meant to watch his privacy; and some, even after they were

captured, attempted in good earnest to sting. Such were the men--

murderers by choice and proclamation--and the following were the

circumstances:--On the afternoon immediately preceding the storming of

Ghuznee, from the heights to the southward of that fortress descended a

body of these fanatics, making right for the Shah's camp. They were

anxious to do business. Upon this, a large mass of our cavalry mounted,

went forward to skirmish with them, and drove them back with the loss of

a standard. There the matter would have stopped; but Captain Outram,

casually passing, persuaded some of the cavalry to go round the hills,

to a point where they would have intercepted the retreat of the Ghazees

upon that line. Seeing this, the devotees mounted the heights, whither

the cavalry could not follow; but Captain Outram, vexed at the

disappointment, just then remarked an English officer marching in

command of some matchlocks--him he persuaded to join the chase. Outram

leading, the whole party pushed on, under a severe fire, to the very

topmost pinnacle of the rocks, where was flying the consecrated banner,

green and white, of the fanatic Mussulmans. This was captured, the

standard-bearer was shot, thirty or forty killed, and about fifty made

prisoners.

The sequel we give from page 164 of the _History_, edited by Mr.

Charles Nash:[1]--"A scene now ensued, much less pleasant to

contemplate. It of course became a question what to do with the

captives, and they were brought before the Shah. _Some of them were

released, upon their declaring that they had been forced into the ranks

of the king's opponents against their will_." We pause to remark, that

already in this fact, viz. the cheerful dismissal of prisoners upon

their own verbal assurance of friendliness, though so little

reconcilable with the furious service on which they were taken, there

is enough to acquit the Shah of unmerciful designs. He made an opening

through which all might have escaped. "But," proceeds the author, "the

majority, excited by fanaticism, were not restrained, even by the

Shah's presence, from evincing their animosity towards his person, and

avowing their determination to have been to seek his life. One of them,

more violent than the rest, upon the interference of one of his

majesty's attendants, stabbed him with his dagger; and they were then"

[_then?_ what! because one was worse than the rest?] "immediately

ordered for execution. Two of them, however, were afterwards spared;

one upon the plea of his being a Syud," (i.e., a descendant

collaterally from the Prophet,) "and the other, because he pleaded hard

for his life."

[1] _History of the War in Affghanistan_. Brookes: London. 1843. We cite

this work, as one of respectable appearance and composition; but

unaccountably to us, from page 269 for a very considerable space, (in

fact, from the outbreak of the Cabool insurrection to the end of General

Elphinstone's retreat,) we find a _literatim_ reprint of Lieutenant

Eyre's work. How is _that_?

This account is not very luminous; and it is painful to observe that

the man who was abject, and the man who was lucky, were the two

selected for mercy. What proportion had previously been dismissed, is

not said. The affair occasioned much discussion, as we all know; and

the author speaks doubtfully of the necessity[1] under which the

execution took place, as not "satisfactorily ascertained." He speaks

even more doubtfully of the _persons_ supposed to be implicated, viz.

the Shah and the commander-in-chief, than of the _thing_. Little,

indeed, could have been known distinctly, where rumour ascribed to each

separately the most contradictory acts and motives. Us it surprises,

that Lord Keane has not publicly explained himself under such gloomy

insinuations. But, in the mean time, this is plain, that the Shah is

entitled to benefit by the doubts hanging over the case, not less than

our own officer. The writer suggests as one reason for a favourable

judgment on the Shah, "previous acts of humanity in the course of his

life." Undoubtedly there are such acts, and there are none well

attested in the opposite scale. In particular, he spared the eyes of

his brother Mahmood, when, by all oriental policy, he had every

temptation to incapacitate an active competitor for the throne. Two

considerations heighten the merit of this merciful forbearance; Mahmood

was the elder, a fact which slightly improved his title; and Mahmood,

in a similar situation, had _not_ spared the eyes of an elder brother.

[1] But afterwards, at page 166, there is a dreadful insinuation that

such a necessity might have founded itself on the danger of taking

prisoners "in a camp already subsisting on half and quarter rations."

Now we, in a paper on Casuistry, (long since published by this journal,)

anticipated this shocking plea, contending that Napoleon's massacre of

4000 young Albanians at Jaffa, could draw no palliation from the alleged

shortness of provisions, whether true or false; and on the ground that a

civilized army, consciously under circumstances which will not allow it

to take prisoners, has no right to proceed. Napoleon's condition had not

changed from the time of leaving Cairo. We little expected to see a

Jaffa plea urged, even hypothetically, for a British army.

We may certainly, therefore, dismiss the charges of cruelty against the

Shah, unless hereafter they shall be better established. But in doing

this, it is right to make one remark, overlooked by all who have

discussed the subject. If these Ghazees were executed as murderers

elect, and as substantially condemned by the very name and character

which they assumed, the usages of war in all civilized countries would

sustain the sentence; though still there is a difficulty where, on one

side, the parties were _not_ civilized. But if they were executed as

traitors and rebels taken in arms, such an act, _pendente lite_, and

when as yet nobody could say _who_ was sovereign, must be thought little

short of a murder.

With the remaining charge we shall make short work. The reader would

laugh heartily if we should call the Dey of Tunis a _dissenter_, the

Pasha of Egypt an old _nonconformist_, or the Turkish sultan a

_heretic_. But this way of viewing Islamism in some inconceivable

relation to the Church of England, or to Protestantism, would not be

more extravagant than the attempt to fasten upon an oriental prince the

charge of debauchery and a dissolute life. The very viciousness of

Asiatic institutions protects him from such reproaches. The effeminate

delicacy of easterns, and the morbid principle of seclusion on which

they build their domestic honour, will for ever secure both Hindoo

Pagans and Mussulmans from blame of this kind, until they pass under the

influence of a happier religion. How can _they_ act licentiously, in a

way cognizable or proveable, whom rank and usage will not permit to

wander, and who cannot have a temptation to wander, from their own

harems, authorized by the institutions of their country?

This last charge, indeed, being so intrinsically absurd, is hardly of a

nature to have merited any answer, had it not been the one most insisted

upon in England, where its ludicrousness is not so apparent, until the

mind is recalled from the life of Christendom to that very different

life which prevails in Asia. The charge then exhales into vapour; and a

man laughs as a ship's company on the broad Atlantic would laugh, if

charged with roaming abroad at night.

But why do we notice _personal_ considerations at all, in a case where

public relations to Affghanistan should naturally be paramount? We

notice them, because our own press dwelt on personal qualities almost

exclusively; and since this Cabool tragedy will make the whole Affghan

policy immortal, we are anxious, by dispersing the cloud of calumny

connected with the object of our choice, to clear the ground for a

juster estimate of what was either good or erroneous in our further

conduct. Not that personal accomplishments of mind or of body were

unimportant in a ruler of simple half-barbarous men; nor again is it to

be denied that Dost Mahommed, from advantages of age, (forty-five years

against the seventy of the Shah,) and from experience more direct and

personal, would, under equal circumstances, have been the better man.

But the circumstances were _not_ equal. The Dost could not have been

more than a provincial ruler in the land; consequently he could not have

undertaken that responsibility for the whole which formed the precise

postulate of our Indian government.

Yet because the Dost could _not_ meet our purposes, is it true that the

Shah _could_? That is the point we are going to consider; and to have

postponed this question to a question of personalities, even if those

personalities had been truly stated, is specifically the error which

vitiated all the speculations of our domestic press. We say then, that

Shah Soojah had a _primâ facie_ fitness for our purposes which the Dost

had not; Soojah was the brother, son, and grandson of men who had ruled

all Affghanistan; nay, in a tumultuary way, he had ruled all

Affghanistan himself. So far he had something to show, and the Dost had

nothing; and so far Lord Auckland was right. But he was wrong, and, we

are convinced, ruinously wrong, by most extravagantly overrating that

one advantage. The instincts of loyalty, and the _prestige_ of the royal

title, were in no land that ever was heard of so feeble as in coarse,

unimaginative Affghanistan. Money was understood: meat and drink were

understood: a jezail was understood but nothing spiritual or ancestral

had any meaning for an Affghan. Deaf and blind he was to such

impressions and perhaps of all the falsehoods which have exploded in

Europe for the last six years, the very greatest is that of the

_Edinburgh Review_, in saying that the Suddozye families were "sacred"

and inviolable to Affghans. How could such a privilege clothe the

_species_ or subdivision, when even the Dooaraunee or entire _genus_ was

submitted to with murmurs under the tyranny of accident. In what way had

they won their ascendency? By thumps, by hard knocks, by a vast

assortment of kicks, and by no means through any sanctity of blood.

Sanctity indeed!--we should be glad to see the Affghan who would not,

upon what he held a sufficient motive, have cut the throat of any shah

or shahzade, padishah, or caliph, though it had been that darling of

European childhood--Haroun Alraschid himself.

But how could royalty enjoy any privilege of consecration in a land

where it was yet but two generations old? Even those two had been

generations of tumultuous struggle. Oftener had the Shah been seen

racing for his life on a Arab of the Hedjas, than eating

"dillecrout"[1] in peace, or dealing round a card-table grand crosses

of the Dooraunee order. The very origin of Affghan royalty fathoms the

shallowness of the water on which it floated. Three coincidences of

luck had raised Ahmed to the throne. One dark night his master Kouli

Khan, for the benefit of all Asia, had his throat cut. This Kouli, or

Nadir Shah, was much more of a monster than Ahmed; but not very much

less of a usurper. Riding off with his cavalry from Persia to Candahar,

Ahmed these robbed a caravan! Upon which every body cried out to him,

"Go it!" and his lucky connexion by birth with the best of the

Dooraunee blood did the rest. A murder, a flight, and a robbery, or

pretty nearly in the words of our English litany, "Battle, and murder,

and sudden death," together with a silver spoon in his mouth at his

natal hour, had made Ahmed a shah; and this Ahmed was the grandfather

of our own pet Soojah. In such a genealogy there is not much for a

poet-laureate to found upon, nor very much to make a saint out of.

Ahmed, after a splendid and tumultuous reign of twenty-six years, died

of cancer in 1773. His son Timour feigned distractedly for twenty

years. Dying in 1793, Timour left a heap of shahzades, amongst whom our

good friend Soojah was almost the youngest. As they call people

Tertius, Septimus, or Vicesimus, from their station in the line of

birth, let us call _him_--Penultimate Soojah Penultimate, if he was, he

could fight as respectably as the rest: and many was the kick he

bestowed on antepenultimate Mahmood. From that year 1793, the zenith of

the French Revolution, in Affghanistan was nothing but fighting for

some ten or fifteen years. Truly a battle royal it was; and if we

cannot report to a fraction the "list of the killed and wounded," we

know the main results. How many of the fraternal combatants leaped upon

the throne, we are not quite sure. Four we can swear to, who were all

pulled out by the ears before they had time to adjust the folds of

their purple. The case of Eteocles and Polynices was a joke to it; and

by the time the row or termashaw was over, and the candles were brought

back amongst this happy family, the following was the state of

matters--two stone blind, three (if not four) stone dead, and two in

exile living upon charity; amongst which last was Penultimate Soojah.

It is proper to mention, by the way, as an appendix to the adventures

of this old friend, that (improving upon his grandpapa's example) he

had run off from his elder brother with the crown jewels; but, like

Colonel Blood in our Charles II.'s reign, he benefited only by the

glory of this distinguished larceny; for soon after, falling amongst

thieves, at the head of whom was our late worthy ally the Seik

Maharajah, Runjeet Singh, he in _his_ turn, was effectually cleaned

out; and, in particular, his silk "wipe," in which he had wrapped up

the famous _Koh-i-noor_, or _summit of glory_, was cleanly forked out

of his fob by the artful dodger, old Runjeet, himself. Here was a

pleasant commentary on the adage of "_Diamond cut Diamond_." The

jewels, originally stolen by Ahmed, were passed on (as in our game of

_Hunt the Slipper_) from thief to thief, until at least forty thieves

had possessed them for a few weeks or months. All the forty are now

dead; and at this moment the _summit of glory_, possibly never once

worn by one of them, is a derelict in the hands of the latest murderer

at Lahore, of course attracting by its light all hands towards his

interesting throat.

[1] "_Dillecrout_."--This is the traditional dish of royalty at our

English coronation banquet in Westminster Hall.

We have thus sketched a slender memoir for the leading family of saints

amongst the Edinburgh reviewer's holy Suddozyes. Great must have been

their sanctity amongst the Affghans. The reader will judge for himself

whether that _aureola_, or supernatural glory about their heads, was

altogether sufficient to guarantee the throne of King Soojah. And it

must not be quite forgotten, that on the roll-call of legitimacy

Penultimate Soojah did not stand next for promotion. Prince Caumraum,

who commanded at Herat, stood before him equally in active qualities,

and in precedence of title; for he was the son of Mahmood. The sons of

Zemaun had a still higher precedency.

However, the Affghans, who are essentially democratic by the necessities

of their turbulent condition, often make a compromise in their choice of

khans between strict primogeniture and personal merits, where they

happen to be appropriate. And they might have done so here. But we are

now going, in conclusion, to bring forward one remark, which utterly

prostrates Lord Auckland's scheme as a scheme of hope for Affghanistan,

or of promise for his own purpose. It is this--no legitimacy of title,

and no personal merits, supposing both to have met pre-eminently in the

person of Soojah, had a chance of winning over the Affghans to a settled

state. This truth, not hitherto noticed, reveals itself upon inspecting

the policy of all the Suddozye shahs from Ahmed downwards; and probably

that policy was a traditional counsel. Ahmed saved himself from domestic

feuds by carrying away all the active, or aspiring, or powerful spirits

to continual wars in the Punjaub, in Persia, or India. Thus he sustained

their hopes, thus he neutralized their turbulence. Timour next, and his

son Zemaun after _him_, pursued the very same policy. They have been

both taxed with foolish ambition. It was not _that_: the historian has

not perceived the key to their conduct:--it was the instinct of

self-preservation. No otherwise than by exhausting the martial

restlessness of the Affghans upon foreign expeditions, was durability to

be had for any government. To live as a dynasty, it was indispensable to

cross the Indus in pursuit of plunder. But exactly that policy it was,

the one resource of prudent Affghan princes, the escape-valve for

conspiracy and treason, which Lord Auckland's army had been put in

motion to abolish.

Now, _thirdly_, let us examine the machinery by which these plans were

to be executed. Under the last head we have seen that, if on the whole

perhaps the best instrument at hand, and better essentially than the

Dost, very soon, indeed, Shah Soojah must have learned the necessity of

passing over to that aggressive system which he had been raised up to

destroy. Merely for his own safety he must have done this. But now

suppose this otherwise, and that Soojah had continued to be that passive

instrument for the Indian cabinet which their plans required and

presumed. Even on this supposition, our agent or lieutenant Soojah would

have required at first some support. By what machinery was this to be

given? What was to be the instrument for sustaining our instrument?

Simply taxation, energetic taxation. Yet, if _that_ should happen to

fail, what was to be the resource? Simply to fine and to amerce--_i.e._

more intense taxation. So, in Molière's _Malade Imaginaire_, the only

remedy is "_Saignare et Purgare_." But _lavemens_ had been known to

fail. What was to be done in that case? _What is to be done?_ shrieks

the Macaronic chorus--Why, of course, "_Purgare et ensuita purgare_." To

the present government of India, this organ of administration is all in

all. And it was natural to transfer this doctrine to Affghanistan. But

in that they mistook the notions of the Affghans. And, in order to

understand them, it may be well to review the possible aspect and

modifications under which the idea of a tax may fall.

First, there is the lawful and peaceful revenue raised in free Christian

states under their noble civilization, which is paid even thankfully, as

the purchase money for inappreciable social benefits. Next, and in the

very opposite extreme, is the ruffian levy once raised upon central

India by the ferocious Pindarree, who asked for it with the insolence of

a robber, and wrenched it from the recusant with the atrocities of a

devil. Here there was no pretence of equivalent given or promised: and

this was so exquisite an outrage, a curse so withering, that in 1817 we

were obliged to exterminate the foul horde (a cross between the Decoit

and the Thug) root and branch. Now between these two poles lie two

different forms of mitigated spoliation. One was the Mahratta _chout_,

the other the _black mail_ of the Scottish cateran. Neither of these

gave any strict or absolute equivalent; but with a rude sense of

justice, both, on different principles, endeavoured to indemnify the

sufferer. The Mahratta generally, by a treaty with the local government,

induced them to allow for the _chout_ as twenty-five per cent advanced

out of their own claim for taxes. And the cateran, if he did not go upon

a convention with the government, gave the compounder a protection from

other caterans, a discharge from irregular demands, and a means of

recovering what might be stolen by knaves. The European case of taxation

may be viewed as the fairest case of buying and selling; the Pindarree,

as the vilest of robberies; and the two last as cases of compromise, (or

what in Roman law was called _transactio_,)--as a toll or fine in fact,

though too arbitrarily assessed.

Such are the categories of taxation; and, at the very best, all Affghans

viewed it in the light of _chout_ or _black mail_, a tribute to be

thrown into the one scale if a gleaming sabre lay in the other. King

Soojah levying taxes was to him a Mahratta at the least, if he was not

even a Pindarree or a Thug. Indeed it is clear that, where the

government does nothing for the people, nor pretends to do any thing,

where no courts of justice exist, no ambassadors, no police, no

defensive militia, (except for internal feuds,) title there can be none

to any but a nominal tribute, as a mere peppercorn acknowledgment of

superiority: going beyond _that_, taxation is borne only as robbery is

borne.

Under these circumstances, and having a motive so strong for reconciling

the Affghans to the new government, of all the incidents belonging to

sovereignty on our European notions, least and last should we have

suffered the Shah to exercise that of taxation. But to exercise it

ourselves, that was midsummer madness! If _he_ would have seemed a

robber in such a function, what must we have seemed? Besides, it is held

by some who have more narrowly watched the Affghan modes of thinking,

that, even where they _do_ submit to pay a tax, it is paid as a loan,

and on the understanding that the chief receiving it is bound to refund

it indirectly, by leading them at some convenient season (which many

conceive to be in every alternate year) upon a lucrative foray. But this

was exactly what we came to prevent. What we should have done is

manifestly this. How much could the Shah have levied on all

Affghanistan? A matter of L. 300,000 at most. But this was the _gross_

sum, before deducting any thing for costs of collecting, which costs

were often eighty shillings in the pound, besides counting on the

_little_ aid of our bayonets as a service wholly gratuitous. The sum

netted by the exchequer must have been laughably small; and even in that

respect the poor king must often have sighed for his quiet English

lodgings on the left bank of the Sutlege. Now, surely this trivial

revenue might have been furnished on the following plan. In a country

like Affghanistan, where the king _can_ be no more than the first of the

sirdars, it is indispensable to raise his revenue, meaning the costs of

his courtly establishment, as we ourselves did in England till the

period of 1688. And how was _that?_ Chiefly on crown estates, parks,

forests, warrens, mines, just as every private subject raised his

revenue, reserving all attempt at _taxes_ in the shape of aids,

subsidies, or benevolences, for some extraordinary case of war, foreign

or domestic. Our kings, English and Scotch, lived like other country

gentlemen, on the produce of their farms. Fortunately for such a plan,

at that moment there must have been a fine harvest of forfeitures rising

to the sickle all over the Affghan land, for rebels were as thick as

blackberries. But, if any _deficit_ had still shown itself on the Shah's

rent-roll, one half of that L.30,000 a-year which we allowed to the Dost

when our prisoner, or of that smaller sum[1] which we allowed to the

Shah when our guest, would have made it good. Yet what if we had spent

a million sterling through a period of ten years, as a sort of

scaffolding for the support of our new edifice whilst yet green and

rising? Even in that case, and supposing us to have taken our leave of

the Dooraunee throne at the end of one year, after planting it as

firmly as it ever could be planted, we should have pocketed six million

of pounds sterling that now are gone; whereas we insisted on sinking

three millions per annum for the first three years, in some bottomless

Affghan Chatmoss, with the effect (seemingly with the intention) of

enabling King Soojah to earn universal hatred by netting a few lacs of

rupees.

[1] _Smaller sum._--L.20,000 a-year. There was, however, a separate

allowance, we believe, to Zemaun, the king's blind brother.

This was the rock on which we split. Had we restrained the king from

levying taxes, all might have gone well. Had we restrained ourselves

from enforcing his levies, all might have gone decently. And had we

prompted the king to inaugurate some great public benefit--as, for

instance, by conferring upon the people a simple system of judicial

process and distributive justice--both he and we might have become

popular; for, even in Affghanistan, there must be multitudes of poor

men, peasants and tradesmen in towns, mothers and wives, who sigh for

peace, and curse their endless agitations. Yes, even amongst their

martial spirits, who now live by war and the passions of war, many are

they who would relent from their angry feuds, if it were possible to get

justice without them.

The sum, therefore, of that question; viz. of the _How_ and by what

machinery Lord Auckland proposed to accomplish his not unstatesmanlike

object, is this--that we failed utterly, and chiefly by applying

European principles to Oriental communities; and in particular,

1st, By throwing a prodigious stress on the fancied consecration of

royalty in a country where it would have snapped under the weight of a

L.10 note.

2dly, By enforcing (and even exercising in our own persons as

principals) the odious power of taxation, under the monstrous delusion

that it was the first of a king's privileges, where in fact, and with

some reason, it was viewed as the last of his excesses.

The first was a _negative_ delusion. We fancied a mighty power where

simply there was none; fancied a substance where there was not even a

shadow. But the second was worse: it was a _positive_ delusion. We

fancied a resource where simply there was a snare--a mooring cable where

simply there was a rope for our execution--a sheet-anchor where simply

there was a rock waiting for our shipwreck.

Not the less, however, we maintain, that whilst in fact our ruin was

self-prepared, come it would, sooner or later, from the necessity of

Affghan society, had the actual occasion of that ruin been wanting. You

build a palace on the waters, and you complain that a monsoon has

overthrown it. True; but had there been no monsoon, equally it would

have been supplanted by the _natural_ unsteadiness of the waves.

Now, _fourthly_, however, for Cabool, and the crape-bound banners

"perituraque castra!" Fourthly and lastly, for the solution of that

hideous calamity, whose memory is accursed for ever. But the solution--

is not _that_ plain already? If what we allege be true, if the delusions

exposed under the third head are rightly stated, will not _they_ solve

the ruin of Cabool? Are not _they_ sufficient? No, nothing will solve

it--no causes are sufficient for such a result, unless a strong spirit

of delusion had been inflicted from heaven, distraction, frenzy,

judicial madness. No dangers from the enemy, no pressure from without,

_could_ have accomplished that wreck, had they not been aided by

treachery within the counsels of our own hearts.

It is an old saying of any subject too vast or too sad to measure by

hurried words--that "_de Carthagine satius est silere, quam parcius

dicere_." And in this case, where we have left ourselves too narrow a

space to turn round in, and where no space would exhaust the infinities

of the affliction, it is not our purpose to heighten, or rhetorically to

colour, any one feature of the dismal story. Rhetoric, and art of all

kids, we forswear in a tragedy so torturing to our national

sensibilities. We pass, in sympathy with the burning wrath of our

readers, the madness of dallying and moping over the question--to starve

or not to starve. We pass the infamy of entertaining a treaty with

barbarians, _commenced_ in this foul insult to a British army--that

_after_ we should have submitted to indignities past expression, they

(the barbarians) would consider at their leisure whether it would please

them to spare our necks; a villany that gallant men _could_ not have

sanctioned, an which too certainly was not hurled back in their teeth as

it ought to have been. We pass the lunacy of _tempting_ barbarians to a

perfidy almost systematic in their policy, by consenting to a conference

_outside_ the British cantonments, not even within range of the British

guns, not even within the overlooking of British eyes. We pass the

lunacy of taking out sixteen men as an escort against a number

absolutely unlimited of the enemy, and where no restraint, even of

honour or mutual understanding, forbade that unlimited enemy to come

armed from head to foot. It is a trifle to add--that no instructions

were given to the sixteen men as to what they were to do, or in what

circumstances to act; and accordingly that one man only, out of the

whole sixteen, attempted any resistance; and this in defiance of

warnings eight several times reiterated by English officers, and by

friendly Affghans, that treachery was designed. We pass the triple

lunacy of treating at all in a case where Sir William M'Naughtan well

knew, and himself avowed his knowledge, that no man or party existed

amongst the enemy who could pretend to have authority sufficient for

ratifying, or for executing, any treat of whatsoever tenor. The Cabool

forces perished eventually by the _dissension_ of the two first in

command. This is notorious. And yet, to mark the dread fatality which

pursued them, the _concord_ of these two officers was even more

destructive to their victims than the worst of their disputes. In the

one solitary case where they agreed, the two leaders, Elphinstone and

Shelton, _sealed_ their doom. That case was this:--Many felt at that

time, as all men of common sense feel now, that the Bala Hissar, and not

Jillalabad, was the true haven for the army. In resisting this final

gleam of hope for the army, both General Elphinstone and Brigadier

Shelton heartily concurred; _and they concurred then first and then

last_. This also, this almost incredible fact, should be added to the

anecdote--General Elphinstone, when hard pressed by the general wishes

on this point, pleaded as a last reason for his obstinacy--that a

particular article, essential to the army, was wanting in the Bala

Hillar. Subsequently, but after all was over, it turned out that this

plea had been the windiest of chimaeras. True, you reply, but perhaps he

was deceived. Yes, reader, but by what manner of deception? He was

distant from the Bala Hissar by less than two miles; he was then in

almost daily communication with it; and yet, upon a matter confessedly

one of life and death for 17,000 souls, he took no steps for

ascertaining the truth!

But these things we pass, in order to reach a point most superficially

treated by Lieutenant Eyre, which was, in truth, the original fountain

of the whole calamity. We have said already, that, (guilty as might be

the leaders by unexampled fatuity, obstinacy, and improvidence,) in our

judgement, the mischief ascended to elder sources than either General

Elphinstone or Shelton. And here was the main source, which (on the

principle explained above) we shall barely indicate, not saying one word

in aggravation. The cantonments--who was it, what man, what men, what

council, on whom rests the horrible responsibility of that selection and

that execution? We contend that, besides those _directly_ responsible

parties, others were so to a criminal extent; every artillery officer

was so; and therefore, unless some further explanations are made,

Lieutenant Eyre is so. But surely Lieutenant Eyre has exposed the vices

of these cantonments. True, he has so; _some_ of the vices, but not all,

but not the worst. The ground, he tells us, was bad; the line of

fortifications too extensive; the interior overlooked in parts; and

(with a view to the accommodation of the envoy) the defences absolutely

interrupted in their regular series. True; and therefore, night and day,

it became the duty of every artillery officer to cry out, _Delenda est

Carthago_. But all this is not the worst. Even a child knows that, under

the circumstances of the case, and the known reversionary uses of such a

retreat in the event of its being wanted at all, (except as a barrack,)

it was of the last importance to destroy all the strong places, nay,

even all the cover, strong or not strong, which could shelter an enemy.

This was not attempted, or thought of, until it became too late. Next,

it was of even more clamorous importance to have the corn magazine

_within_ the line of defences: no effort was made in that direction.

Now, had these been the only defects of the cantonments, they were

enough to argue a constructive treason in those who neglected to

denounce then. We know how they operated. These three ruins issued from

these most culpable negligences:--1st, Starvation fell in one day upon

the British host; and _that_ it was which placed them at the mercy of

the enemy. 2dly, The troops were inadequate to the extent of the

defences; so that, together with starvation, loss of sleep fell upon the

fighting men. 3dly, As another effect from that cause, a perpetual

Penelope's web was to be maintained; for as often as detachments went

out from cantonments against the many neighbouring forts, before they

could possibly have time to destroy these nests of hornets, back they

were summoned to the defence of their own _lares_; often in broad

daylight, by combined assaults of the enemy on their own ramparts, but

always by the approach of night. So that all momentary advantages became

idle and useless; none could be followed up, none could be maintained.

Lucan says of Caesar, when besieged in the fortified palace of the

Ptolemies at Alexandria, that often, whilst thrown on his most difficult

defence, the matchless soldier became the assailant--

"Obsessusque gerit, tanta est constantia mentis,

_Offensoris_ opus."

But what _he_ did as a trophy of his superiority, we did by imbecile

improvidence and for final ruin. Yet even these shocking neglects or

oversights were not the worst. Let us now suggest what _were_. Wherefore

were the cantonments placed in proximity so close to Cabool? Let that be

answered, and we shall see the early commencement of our infatuation.

Two considerations will clench the case, and then we shall leave it.

1st, The cantonments were never meant to act upon the city of Cabool:

that task was thrown upon the Bala Hissar from its situation. And yet no

trial had ever been made of the power possessed by that fortress. The

private houses were known to be forts: not until rebellion commenced was

it ascertained of what strength they were; and eventually the city

proved more formidable to the Bala Hissar than the Bala Hissar to the

city. Such a blunder of ignorance and miscalculation, we believe, was

never heard of. But, 2dly, Even that was a trifle by comparison with the

capital evil--and the capital evil was this. The enemy was allowed,

throughout the autumn of 1841, to accumulate _ad libitum_ in Cabool.

Retainers of the chiefs, Ghilzyes and others, gathered unwatched

throughout October. Now mark what followed from our choice of

cantonments. Had they been fixed fifteen or even ten miles off, the

impossibility of marching daily to and from Cabool would have strangled

the rebellion in its first three days. The evil which crushed ourselves,

of having always at sunset to go homewards, would have been thrown upon

the enemy, and with as much more of ruinous effect as the distance was

greater. As it never was alleged that the cantonments were meant for the

overawing of Cabool, and in effect they were totally inefficient as

regarded that city--it is clear that the one great advantage by which

the Affghans accomplished our destruction, was coolly prepared for them

by ourselves, without the shadow of any momentary benefit for our own

interests. Even for provisions, the event showed that we had never

looked to Cabool. And there reveals itself the last feature of our

perfect madness.

ETCHED THOUGHTS BY THE ETCHING CLUB.

In the Number of _Maga_ of January 1842, we reviewed one of the labours

of the Etching Club--_The Deserted Village_. We congratulated the lovers

of art upon the resumption of the needle, and showed the advantages

which, in some important respects, it has over the graver. Etching, as

it is less mechanical, is more expressive. We have from it the immediate

impress of the painter's mind; that peculiar autographic character which

marks every turn and shade of thought, even transition of thought and

feeling, in what may, at first view, seem vagaries of lines; which, we

know not how, (nor is the artist himself at the time conscious of the

operation,) discriminate innumerable niceties, each having its own

effect, and yet tending to one whole. We rarely come at once, _uno

ictu_, to a decision. The operation is progressive--from conception to

conception, from feeling to feeling, from many shades of uncertainty to

decision. The first fresh hand upon any work is obedient to the mind in

this process; and hence it is that we so value, so admire, the sketches

and drawings of the great masters. We see not only the full complete

sentiment of the subject, but how they came to it; we trace it back

through all its varieties, and feel a sensible delight in being in

possession of the very mind of the master. Were this not the case, how

are we to account for the charm felt in turning over a portfolio of old

drawings? How exquisitely beautiful are those of Raffaelle and Titian!

The sale of the collection of Sir Thomas Lawrence proves the high

estimation in which these are ever held. Thousands of pounds for a few

drawings! What sums were given for Claude's "Liber Veritatis!" and

why?--Because these original drawings of the old masters possess this

very autographic character that we have described. And this is precisely

the case with etching. Nor is it only the case with those of the

Italian, but those of every school; and, singularly enough, the Flemish

and Dutch painters, whose high finish and elaborate colouring give such

great value to their works, were eminently successful in the free and

expressive style of etching. Rembrandt we need not speak of--wondrous

indeed are his works of the needle. How exquisite are the etchings of

Berghem, Both and Karel du Jardin! and, to show how characteristic they

are, how different are they from each other! It is to be regretted that

this art is of modern invention. What treasures might we not have

possessed, had this inestimable secret been known to the ancients! We

should not be left to conjecture the merits of Apollodorus, Zeuxis,

Parrhasius, Timanthes, Apelles. We might have had outlines--first

thoughts--"etched thoughts," by Phidias himself. And, as the art of

design was earlier than any of those names--even coeval with, or prior

to, Homer himself--those who engraved and worked in metal their shields,

might have handed down to us etchings of Troy itself, and particulars of

the siege. Do we lose or gain by not having the ancient book of beauty?

But we must be content with what we have, and, in the regret, see the

value of the present, looking to future value. Etching, is still old

enough to interest by its portraiture of ages gone by. The inventor is

not known. Perhaps the earliest specimen is the well-known "Cannon" by

Albert Durer, dated 1518; and there is one by him, "Moses receiving the

Tables of the Law," dated 1524. The art was soon after practised by

Parmegiano, and extended to general use. Yet it is clear that the real

power and merit of etching was not known to the inventor, nor to those

who, in its early state, applied themselves to it. The first aim seems

to have been exact imitation of the graver. Le Bosse, in his treatise on

engraving, makes the perfection of the art consist in the close

similitude of the graver's work. It was this which at first cramped the

artist, and delayed the progress of etching, and gave it not only the

appearance, but the reality of inferiority--and often times the name and

reputation of inferiority is as prejudicial as the thing itself, and we

verily believe that it still has its effect upon the public taste.

Artists have not sufficiently taken to etching. We have had more

amateurs excel in it than professional artists. There was a collection

of amateur etchings at Strawberry Hill, given to Walpole by the etchers.

The greater part of them is excellent, though they are mostly copies

from other works, but not all. There are some surprising imitations of

Rembrandt. The best are by Lady Louisa Augusta Neville, afterwards Lady

Carlisle.

Then, again, the union of etching and engraving has certainly retarded

the art, and has given it another character. If that union has engrafted

freedom on engraving, it has given to the needle too much precision--it

has taken from it the working out effects. We have elsewhere noticed

that the taste for the precise and labored engraving in landscape,

introduced by Woollet, drove out from the field that which was very

superior to it. The prints from Claude and Poussin, by Vivares Wood,

Mason, and Chatelet, and published by Pond, are infinitely more

characteristic of the masters than the works which succeeded them. But

we speak here only of imitation. It is in the original handling of

artists themselves, not in translated works, and according to the

translating phraseology, "done by different hands," that we are to look

for the real beauty and power of the art. It is this handwriting of the

artist's original mind that constitutes the real beauty; we would not

have a touch of the graver to any work professing to be an etching--the

graver cannot be used with impunity. If it will admit of any

adventitious aid, it may perhaps be, in a very subordinate degree,

mezzotint and aquatint. But etching rather improves Prince Rupert's

invention than is advantaged by it. The sootiness of mezzotint is

dangerous--in bad hands it is the "black art" of Prince Rupert, though

the term was applied to a metal of the prince's invention, not to his

discovery of mezzotint.

Modern times have brought the art of engraving to a wonderful

perfection. Its mechanical work is most exquisite, and reaches the whole

effect of picture surprisingly. If the publishing public knew as well

what to engrave as our engravers know how to engrave, we should not see

our printsellers' windows teem with worthless works beautifully

executed. We often wonder, as we stop occasionally to look at the

display, where the purchasers are found for things that pain the eye and

weary the mind to see--history, or landscape, or familiar life, it

matters not, nearly all without feeling, elaborate nothings--obtrusions,

unless we are disposed to examine only the work of the engraver; and

even then we must lament to see it thrown away, or rather employed in

disseminating bad taste. How rarely is it we see even a subject of any

value or interest attempted! It is, as in our play-writing, not the

subject, but the peculiarity of some actor, that is to be written up to;

so the peculiarities of some few flashy favourite artists employ our

best engravers, who ought to be far otherwise employed, in making

transcripts from the best works, ancient or modern, by which taste may

be improved, the mind enlarged, and the heart made to feel as it ought.

If our flashy prints are the index of the public taste in this country,

we have little of which to boast; and we undoubtedly keep our artists

from rising to any worthy aim, by showing them how satisfied we can be

with mediocrity, and even some degrees below it. There is, in etching, a

lightness and playfulness of execution which excuses, if it does not

quite reconcile us to a bad subject. We lose the idea of effort in the

freedom. To present to the eye a laboured nothing, is to disgust by the

sense of labour alone. We calculate the time and cost, and look for an

object worthy the outlay in vain, and become thoroughly dissatisfied. We

have a great mind to describe the process of etching, that the lovers of

art who read _Maga_, and happen to be ignorant of it, may try their

hands--it is very fascinating work, and even the uncertainty in the

first attempts, and the very failures, give pleasure in the operation.

There is something more pleasant in hoping our labour will turn out

well, than knowing it. If there be any whose time hangs heavy on their

hands, let them take up etching. Johnson lamented that men did not work

with their needles, considering the employment of the hands a great aid

to thought--and so it is. Now the etching-needle is the one a man may

take up without becoming ridiculous. As there are so many "Handmaids" to

the art, from which the whole mystery may be learned, we forbear. We

have, however, turned to our friend Gerard Larresse for the purpose of

setting down, _secundum artem_, a practical account, and find it not:

but we like little old treatises better than modern, there is something

unsophisticated in their manner of giving information, and there is no

study of periods, which, in their music, steal away the understanding;

so we refer to Faithorne. But nevertheless our friend Gerard, if he does

not give information, supplies amusement. He thinks every thing best

told by an emblem--so receive, reader, his pictorial account of the art;

we cannot give his plate, so be content with _his_ description of it,

that is, Etching. "This beautiful virgin, sitting at a table, has before

her a copperplate, lying on a sand-bag; and near it stands a little

monkey, placing a lighted lamp before her. She is attended by Prudence

and Diligence, and Practice is setting the tools on an oil-stone. Her

chair is of ebony, adorned with figures of Sincerity and Assiduity,

wrought in ivory, and mutually embracing; behind which stands Judgment,

showing her a little further, Painting, accompanied by Apollo and Diana;

he holding up his torch, in order to enlighten Sculpture, and she hers

reversed, with purpose to extinguish it; the Genii, in the mean time,

are every where busy in providing necessary materials. The eldest offers

her a drawing, either redded or whited on the back, and a point or

needle for tracing it on the plate; this drawing represents the design

he is going about. Others, in an inner apartment, are employed in

heating a plate on a chafing-dish, and laying the ground even with a

feather. Here, one is etching--there, another biting a plate; others

taking and reviewing proofs, with great attention and pleasure--while

Fame, having a proof of a portrait in her hand, with her trumpet sounds

out at a window the praises of masters or engravers. Honour, crowned

with laurel, and bearing a small pyramid, is entering the room, ushering

in Annona or Prosperity, who has a cornucopia, or horn filled with

fruits. Round the room are set on pedestals divers busts of famous

etchers and engravers; as Marc Antonio, Audlan, Edelinck, Vander Meulen,

and several other Italian and French, as well as Dutch and German

masters. In the off-skip, Europe, Asia, and Africa appear standing in

surprise at the sound of the trumpet." There is nothing like example!

Who sees in this prophetic enigma, in his "chair of ebony," other than

"Ebony" himself, the "_most accomplished Christopher_," beaming with

"sincerity," and placid in his "assiduity," with "Judgment" waiting upon

him at command, wielding neither crutch nor pen, but, in affable

condescension, the contemned needle etching the portrait of his own

"Colonsay," and his own famous exploit, to show that one needle in the

hand of genius can make a man and a horse too; though nine tailors and

nine needles scarcely make up the complement of a man--yet would these

nine in one, the renowned of Brentford, scarcely have matched

"Christopher on Colonsay!" And as for Fame blowing out of the window,

he, in spite of himself and his modesty, is his own trumpeter, and, as

_Maga_ reaches them, surprises "Europe, Asia, Africa," and America too.

Such is the emblematical representation of etching, and we have

embellished it with a first-rate performer.

And now let us turn to "Etched Thoughts by the Etching Club." We find a

new name or two added to the list--C.G. Lewis, the renowned and best of

etchers; and Severn, whose etchings are new to us, not so his other

works of art. We remember his "Ship of the Ancient Mariner," and his

expressive, sentimental, figures; and poor Fearnley--now no more--we

remember greatly admiring a somewhat large picture of his--"A

River-Scene in Norway,"--evidently painted immediately from nature,

powerfully, expressively given. Somehow or other he did not take in this

country, and quitted it, leaving behind him very beautiful studies

strangely undervalued, and sold for little. The fact is, he was too true

to the solemnity and sobriety of nature to please a public led away by

gaudy display and meretricious colouring. Yet was he a man of more

genius--in landscape--than any nine out of ten of our best artists that

have, these last ten years, attempted to show nature or art upon our

academical walls. Poor Fearnley! We have heard that elsewhere he was

appreciated and successful. Stone and Herbert are good additions. Happy

is it when the feelings of the artist and poet are in unison; happier

still when the poet is himself the artist: and such is the case here. So

that, in many cases, they are really "Etched Thoughts"--not etched

translations of thoughts; and the work of the pen is not inferior to

that of the needle. In the "Deserted Village" was a continuous story;

every plate was in connexion with its preceding. In this publication,

every artist seems to have been left to his own choice of subject, and

to his free fancy.

Cope first comes under our notice. He commences the work with "Love,"

and a quotation from Spenser. As an etching, it is powerful, but we

doubt if quite true: there should be something to account, in such a

twilight scene, for the strong light upon the "Ladye-love!" Nor are we

quite satisfied with the love of the lover, or the reception it meets

with. The man or his guitar, one of the two, if not both, must be out of

tune. His "Veteran's Return" tells its tale, and a somewhat mournful

one; it is in illustration of some very good and pathetic lines by a

member of the club, H.J. Townsend; and as, we believe, they are not to

be met with out of "Etched Thoughts," we extract them for the

gratification of the reader:--

THE VETERAN'S RETURN.

The old yew, deck'd in even's parting beams,

From his red trunk reflects a ruddier ray;

While, flickering through the lengthen'd shadow, gleams

Of gold athwart the dusky branches play.

The jackdaws, erst so bustling on the tower,

Have ceased their cawing clamour from on high;

And the brown bat, as nears the twilight hour,

Circles--the lonely tenant of the sky.

The soldier there, ere pass'd to distant climes,

On Sabbath morn his early mates would meet;

There list the chant of the familiar chimes,

And the fond glance of young affection greet.

There, too, at eve--before the twilight grey

Led the dark hours, when sprites are wont to walk--

With his sweet Nancy how he joy'd to stray,

And tell his rustic love in homely talk.

Now, home return'd, far other thoughts he owns,

Though still the same the scene that meets his view!

The same sun glistens o'er the lichen'd stones--

Scarce one year more seems to have gnarl'd the yew.

There, too, the hamlet where his boyhood pass'd

Sends, as of old, its curls of smoke to ken--

So near, his stalwart arm a stone might cast

Among the cots that deck the coppiced glen!

But ere the joys of that domestic glade

Can wipe the tear from off his rugged brow,

A stone beneath the yew-tree's ebon shade

Deep o'er his heart a heavier shade doth throw.

(Oh! sad indeed, when thus such tidings come

That stun, even when by slow degrees they steal,)

That tablet tells how cold within the tomb

Are hands whose fond warm grasp he long'd to feel.

The "Painter of the Olden Time."--"His shop is his element, and he

cannot, with any enjoyment to himself, live out of it.--Dr South." This

is very good. The painter has his back to you, and is at work apparently

on a wall. Little wots he of the world without. He is embodying angels,

and spreading angelic light; himself, slipshod and loosely girdled,

centring the radiance he creates. How differently arrayed are body and

mind! By the title, we presume Mr Cope means to satirize some modern

fops of the profession. Of all Mr Cope's etchings in the volume, we

mostly admire "Love's Enemies." It is from the well-known passage of

Shakspeare, "Ah me! for aught that ever I could read," &c. The

conception is excellent. War, Death, and Sickness are taking off their

prisoner Cupid, chained, from the door of an aged couple willing enough

to part with him, while their poor broken-hearted daughter, with

disheveled hair, hides her face with her hands; and, above her, the hard

father's uplifted crutch is ready to speed the departure. It is lightly

etched, in very good keeping; so that the grouping is clear, and the

moral is perceptible at a glance. His "Rejected Addresses" is of another

cast. Here he is in the common and beggarly world: yet represents he no

common beggar; for, though he be often so named, he is one of rare

accomplishments. "He can write a capital letter, enough to make any of

the 'quality people' cry. The begging-letter people give him a shilling

for a letter. He is now on the tramp." The man was a lawyer, and so

astute that he can so adjust himself and his shadow, that he will hide

in it from your scrutiny any habitual expression of his villany. And

Cope has been most happy in this idea.

"Morning Prayer" is introduced with a few elegant lines, we presume by

Mr Cope himself. They have no name to them. The figure is graceful, the

effect tender; but we confess we have been so satiated with such

subjects in the Annuals, that we do not relish this as perhaps we ought.

From the same cause, we do not dwell upon "The Mother." "The Wanderer--

the beggar and his dog," is good. The impostor beggar was in sunshine,

and which he turned to his purpose: he could cope with the world's broad

glare. This is no impostor; and the atmosphere he breathes is suited to

his fortunes. The rejecting hand, with its shadow of the dry skinny

fingers, is well conceived.

"The Readers," from Boccaccio, is not happy. The figures are not

Italian; nor is the costume of the age of the book. His "Girl and Cupid"

is a little gem, reminding us of Schidoni. We presume these lines are by

the etcher--

"Love, in the virgin breast of beauty lying,

Laughs at the fate for her he doth prepare--

Will swiftly turn her sweetest smiles to sighing,

And flee when she is fixed in despair."

We have seen so many ladies with up-turned eyes, called in the annual

catalogues "Meditation," that we will not interrupt the calm of Mr

Cope's. C.G. Lewis has but one plate, "A Woodland Dell." A quiet spot of

shade and flickering sunshine--a streamlet, and a rural bridge. It is

sweetly etched, true to the character.

Richard Redgrave, in more than one instance in the book, shows that he

has power over the deep and solemn pathetic, as well as over the tender.

His first plate is "The Survivors of the Storm." The story is from

Petronius, as told by Jeremy Taylor. A floating body of one of a

shipwrecked crew lies pillowed on a wave, and is met with by the

survivors in their boat. Solemn and awe-stricken is their expression.

The plate is of a fine tone, befitting death in that awful shape. This

story of Petronius was the subject of a poetical piece, which we

remember to have read in a volume of poems by Thomas Flatman, one of the

"mob of gentlemen" condemned by Pope, who, nevertheless, did not care

about borrowing from him pretty much of his version of the "Animula,

blandula, vagula"--the Emperor Adrian's address to his soul. We remember

the commencement of the piece:--

"After a blustering tedious night,

The winds all hush'd, and the rude tempest o'er,

Rolling far off upon a briny wave,

Compassionate Philander spied

A floating carcass ride,

That seem'd to beg the kindness of a grave.

At near approach he thought he knew the man," &c.

His "Fairy Revels" make a light and elegant plate. A fairy group in a

frame of leaves. He is here both painter and poet.

"Hast thou not seen the summer breeze,

The eddying leaves, and downy feather,

Whirl round a while beneath the trees,

Then bear aloft to heaven together?

With just such motion, gliding light,

These fairies vanish'd from my sight."

Poor unfortunate Dadd! some years ago he exhibited a picture of this

subject, somewhat similarly treated, that was exquisitely ideal.

The "Ellen Orford," from Crabbe's _Borough_, is good in the effect; but

it has not the pathos that usually distinguishes Redgrave. "Rizpah

watching her Sons," is very fine. The night, the glaring torchlight, to

scare away the approaching wolves, and the paler, more distant light in

the sky, with the melancholy mourning Rizpah, are of the best

conception. "The Sick Child" has quite the effect of a Rembrandt plate;

yet it is very tender--a scene fit for the angelic visit, and pure and

devout of thought and purpose is that angel--we do not like the mother.

The best description is from Mr Redgrave's own pen.

"THE SICK CHILD.

"He shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy

ways."--PSALM xci.

"In a chamber, faintly crying,

With its mother o'er it sighing,

Lay a baby pale and wan;

Ever turning--restless turning--

Much she dreaded fever burning,

Sickness slow or sickness hasting,

Cough, convulsion, ague wasting.

Bitter tears there fell upon

The pale face of her little son.

"The evening chimes had ceased their ringing,

And the even song was singing

In the old kirk grey with years;

Through the air sweet words came welling--

Words of peace, unto that dwelling;

Hymns they sang, how angels shielded

Those who ne'er to sin had yielded:--

And her pale face lost its fears--

That lonely mother dried her tears.

"In her arms the babe soon slumber'd;

That little son, whose days seem'd number'd,

Smiled upon his mother sleeping.

The Lord indeed had sorely tried her,

But his angel knelt beside her;

Heavenly breezes cool'd the fever

Of her child--He shall not leave her!

And this mother ceased her weeping."

The "Expected Return" is quite in Redgrave's best manner

"Fancy, impatient of all painful thoughts,

Pictured the bliss should welcome his return;

* * * * *

And hope and memory made a mingled joy."--SOUTHEY

This is a lovely figure; a loving and lovable gentle creature! and many

such have we seen by Redgrave's hand. Not Raffaelle himself could more

truly paint the pure mind--that precious jewel, innocence, in its most

lovely casket.

Severn has two plates, which may be called companions; racy and good are

they, and of one vintage. We are not quite satisfied with either face or

figure of the maiden in the "Roman Vintage." Hers is not a face of

feeling; nay, we would almost beg Mr Severn's pardon, and pronounce her

a bit of a fool. The "Neapolitan" is much better. They are executed in a

very bold, broad, free style of etching, and effective. Horsley's

"English Peasant" might be allowed to be a little weatherbeaten; but, at

first sight, we should say that he was not of the temperance society

when the aquafortis was on the table. It is black, from being

overbitten. Yet, after a while, we see through the darkness into the

character. He is an honest fellow, but a little "disguised." His

"Twilight" is very good, yet perhaps is the light a little too sharp and

strong for that hour. The subject is from verses by Redgrave, and good

and quaintlike old gentle rhymes they are. But how comes it that the

figures are both feminine?--that does not accord with the lines.

"Time was no more for them: the sun had gone,

The stars from sunset glow began to peer;

Yet 'neath those stars that pair still linger'd on,

Unconscious of the night, fast drawing near!

His voice to her was daylight, and her smile

A sunny morning breaking o'er his soul:

Such hours of bliss come only once--the while

Long-silent love speaks forth without control,

And of its hopes and fears first telleth out the whole."

"Welsh Gossips."--

"At every word a reputation dies."

For the credit of Wales, we hope Mr Horsley did not sketch these from

nature; yet is there a fearful look of natural acrimony in the one, and

sheer busybodyism in the other. The plate is beautifully etched. His

"Moonlight" is not quite clear enough--there are too many sparkling

lights. The "Shady Seat" is prettily designed; the lady looks rather too

alarmed, and, for the subject, perhaps there is not enough of shadow--

certainly not "enough for two." We at once recognize Stonhouse in the

"Evening effects of Solitude," and his "Neath Abbey." The former he thus

describes:--

"There, woods impervious to the breeze,

Thick phalanx of embodied trees--

Here, stillness, height, and solemn shade

Invite, and contemplation aid."

We are sure that Neath Abbey is from nature, for it has the sooty and

smoked character of that manufacture-ruined ruin. But we must not pass

by his "Dorothea" from Don Quixote. Nothing can be more happily

expressed than the deep shady retirement of the wood; there are nice

gradations of shades, which is the very character of retirement, and

Dorothea is herself in it, not a bright figure in a black mass--and good

is the figure too, but the feet are unfinished.

Mr Creswick is a large contributor, and least fortunate in his first: it

is not the scene so well given in verse by his friend Townsend; for it

is too pretty, too tight. It wants the "lane;" it is the road-side.

"THE WAYSIDE.

"A lane, retired from noisy haunts of men,

Whose ruts the solitary lime cart tracks,

Whose hedge-sides, propp'd by many a mossy stone,

Are checker'd o'er with foxglove's purple bloom,

Or graceful fern, or snakehood's curling sheath,

Or the wild strawberry's crimson peeping through.

There, where it joins the far-outstretching heath,

A lengthen'd nook presents its glassy slope,

A couch with nature's velvet verdure clad,

Trimm'd by the straggling sheep, and ever spread

To rest the weary wanderer on his way.

There, oft the ashes of the camp-fire lie,

Marking the gipsy's chosen place of rest.

Black roots of half-charr'd furze, and capons' bones--

Relic of spoils from distant farmers' coop--

Point to the revels of preceding night.

And fancy pictures forth the swarthy group,

Their dark eyes flashing in the ruddy glare;

While laughter, louder after long constraint,

From every jocund face is pealing round.

His "Summer" is a simple unaffected scene, such as may be met with any

where, if you have but "eyes to see:" and pretty much like it, but

inferior--for if it be not more common in subject, it is in treatment--

is the "Old Farm-House," from that delighting and most natural painter

with her pen, Miss Mitford. Very exquisite in his "Moonlight"--so true,

with all the quivering and blending light of nature, where all things

are at once lucid and in shade--as Virgil happily expresses it, "luce

sub incertâ linae." Sweet, too, and in the deep solemn repose of

religious eve, is the "Village Church"--from lines by Rogers. He is not

so happy in his "Smithy;" neither is the scene of interest nor the

effect pleasing. But he makes up for all by his "Outward Bound." The

home is left in the calmest, stillest of days; though the "outward

bound" has sails, they rather wait for, than feel, the wind; there is

the village church still in view, and will yet be an hour and more. The

sky is, though really printers' ink, like many a sooty vapour converted

into light-shedding yet faint clouds--we can see the colour--it is a

grey, in which is gold and ultra-marine. The boat is conveying the

"outward bound" to the vessel; there is the moving and the waiting. It

is poetical. "The Castle" we do not much admire; it is a villa castle,

and on no agreeable river. "Low Water" is quite another thing; it is a

beautiful etching. He thus describes it with his pen--

"The flowing tides that spread the land,

And turn to sea again."

The "River Scene," illustrating lines from Southey, is delicately

touched, and a pleasing scene; yet we feel sure it is not from nature.

Why, we can hardly tell. Is it that there is a bridge, apparently

without a bank on one side to rest upon? "The Terrace," from lines by

Andrew Marvel, is a most fascinating upright plate. It is perfectly

true, giving all the thousand intricacies and shades of such a scene;

and there is grace in the forms, and the figures well suit the whole.

All is gentleness and ease; not a light is too strong, or a shadow too

deep; there is no violence--which too many are apt to express when they

would give powerful effect. His "Fishing Scene on the Coast of Ireland"

is not to our taste, yet is it not without meaning--it is windy and

sunny. "The Oriental Palace" is solemn, with its ancient yew in the

silence of the crescent moon; but the ruin is to fill up, and does no

good.

We have read with pleasure, and extracted, some of Mr Townsend's poetry;

let us now see his etching. "Boyhood:" those who delight in the easy,

every-day, every-hour play of boyhood, will enjoy this plate. A boy is,

with a peacock's feather, tickling a child asleep in the arms of a grave

old lady--so sedate have we seen grimalkin look whilst encouraging her

kitten, lightly and coquettishly, to play with a ball of cotton. "The

Beach" is a well-sketched coast scene, and shows Mr Townsend to have an

eye for nature's scenery, as well as nature's sympathies. Very good is

"The Model"--an artist sketching in the figure of a Lascar. But his best

plate is "Sad Tidings." It is a very sweet figure--youth, elegance,

tenderness, are there--and such an even melancholy light, or rather such

a mournful evenness of light and shade, that, as a whole, it is neither

light nor dark, and should have no other name than melancholy. He had

the judgment and forbearance to hide the face--we know it is lovely, and

that is enough; it is this, in part, which separates "Sad Tidings" from

such subjects as they are usually treated. There are two etchings by

Frederic Tayler--"The Chase" from Somerville, and "The Auld Grey" from

Burns--both are lightly etched and good; but they have not that free and

certain hand which marks Mr Tayler's style in his drawings, where one

wash of the brush hits off his object with great truth. "The Gypsy Boy,"

by Mr Knight, is very masterly in chiaroscuro, and certainly

characteristic of the race. Effect of chiaroscuro seems to be his aim.

It is marked in his "Old Fable" (which always means the newest) of "The

Peasant and the Forest." It is thus given: "A peasant once went into an

old forest of shady oaks, and humbly entreated the same to grant him a

small branch to make a handle for his axe, and thereby enable him to

pursue his labours at home. The forest very graciously acceded to his

request, and the peasant soon formed the required handle; but presently

he began to lay about him in every direction, using the very substance

with which the forest had furnished him out of its own bosom, and in a

short time hewed down its whole growth."

Which are we bound most to admire--John Bell's pen or John Bell's

needle? It is a difficulty. "The Devil's Webbe" is admirable in both.

What a spider-like wretch is he, watching the toils that he has spread!

"This webbe our passions be, and eke the flies

Be we poor mortals: in the centre coyles

Old Nick, a spider grimme, who doth devyse

Ever to catch us in his cunning toyles.

Look at his claws--how long they are, and hooked!

Look at his eyes--and mark how grimme and greedie!

Look at his horrid fangs--how sharp and crooked!

Then keep thy distance so, I this arreede ye,

Oh sillie Flie! an thou wouldst keep thee whole;

For an he catch thee, he will eate thy soul."

And there they are! the winged insect lovers of pleasure, and of gain

and strife--in one word, of sin--entangled in the ladder webb; while

such a monster is in the centre, watching his larder. John Bell is

instinctively a moral weaver. Fine-spun are his philosophical threads;

we stop not to enquire if they will bear the tug of life. He is trying

them, however, on the "tug of war." Pen and needle are set to work

philosophically, methodically, benignly. In this he is but a unit out of

many thousands. His opinions are not singular. Amiable moralist!--

delightful is the dream, sweetly sounding the wisdom; but is it

practicable? John Bell's warfare, "The Assault," is, without a doubt,

"confusion worse confounded;" it is not easy, at a view, to find legs

and arms and heads in their anatomical order. We must trace the human

figure as through its map. Perhaps this is purposely done to resemble a

battle the more truly, where limbs are apt to fly out of their places.

But John Bell thinks--

"The play's the thing

Wherewith to touch the conscience of the king."

So he pours forth from his "Unpublished Play" a choice tirade against

the royal play of human ninepins:--

"And then a battle, too--no doubt it is

A right fine thing; or rather to have been there.

But all things have their price; and this, methinks,

Is rather dear sometimes. Oh! glory's but

The tatter'd banner in a cobwebb'd hall,

Open'd not once a-year--a doubtful tomb,

With half the name effaced. Of all the bones

Have whiten'd battle-fields, how many names

Live in the chronicle? and which were in the right?

One murder hangs a man upon a rope,

A hundred thousand maketh him a god,

And builds him up a temple in the air

Out of men's skulls. A loving mother bears

A thousand pangs to bring into the world

One child; your warrior sends a thousand out,

Then picks his teeth."

JOHN BELL--_Unpublished Play_.

Such was Shakspeare's momentary humour, when he put it into Falstaff's

mouth to ask what honour is "to him that died o' Wednesday." It is a

humour that won't last--'tis against nature--man is more than half

belligerent, and has a "murder" in him (to give it a bad name) "that

will out." Even the peaceable Ephraim took up the handspike, and used it

too, with "friend, keep thee in thy own ship." The "friend" was

hyprocrisy--the use of the handspike, natural; the very elements are at

war, and were made to be so--storms are as necessary as sunshine. But

excellent able John Bell likes sunshine best; and who does not like him

the better for that? And sweet sunshine has he shed around "The good

Mayde"--a sunshine that makes its own magic circle, within which evil

spirits or evil men shall not come. Tempt on, ye wizards--she looketh

upwards, yet think not she will fall or miss her way--the Unseen guideth

her steps. Bell's account of the matter is, however, far better. Let him

publish his quaint poem, all of it; the specimens warrant the request.

"Thus doth the goode Mayde, with a stedfaste eye,

Walke through the troubles vaine, and peryls dire,

That doe beset mayde's path with haytes full slie,

The trappes and gynnes of mischief's cunning syre.

Ne nought to her is riches' golden shower,

Ne gaudy baites of dresse and rich attyre,

Ne lover's talke, ne flatteries' worthless store,

Ne scandal's forked tongue--that ancient liar,

Ne music's magic breath, ne giddy wheel

Of gay lascivious daunce, ne ill-raised mirthe,

Ne promised state doth cause her mind to reel,

Or lure from thoughts of heaven to joys of earthe."

Our poet, a moralist etcher, reverts to the old subject; and we have

"The Progresse of Warre," in a series, as part of a frieze for his

Temple of Peace. This is most clear--for he who runs may read; yet, on a

second view, we doubt that--for we see, what we did not at first see,

writing under each tablet that is by no means intelligible. Having, with

Mr Bell, seen an end of the battle, it is fit time, with Mr Herbert, to

discuss "The Day after the Battle." "Next day did many widows come"--

that verse of _Chevy Chase_ is the subject. The slaughtered knight, the

widow, and the dog, tell the tale, and tell it well too. The widow is

the best figure. We have had enough of battle and all its horrors; let

us turn to tranquillizing nature, where the undisturbed lichen may grow

upon the rocks, and the branches of unpruned trees throw out their

sheltering leafage, and the innocent insects know it is their home; and

even in the seeming silence, if you listen, may you hear the still voice

of a busy creation, a world of a few summer hours--yet seemeth it to

them an eternity of enjoyment. And such a scene we have in the "Woody

Scene," by Thomas Fearnley--poor Fearnley!--and is it not lightly,

elegantly touched with the needle? the scene realized? Or, would you see

a wilder spot, turn to his "Norwegian Scenery," and see the saw-mill, or

whatever the building be, at the very entrance of the deep wood in its

gloom, with the mountain torrent pouring over the rocks. In this

sequestered spot, man has built him a home, and turned to human uses the

rebellious waters, even on the very skirts of the wilderness; and there

he is, for his hours are not all of toil, gloriously angling, for he has

hooked his fish. Poor Fearnley! would he could have remained in this

country! Had he been moderately patronised, he might have added an

honourable name to our dictionary of painters.

And what has become of Webster? We remember well his "Boys let loose

from School." Here he is--and but one plate--"Anticipation"--well named.

The pie is come home, and the boy's eyes open, and his mouth waters. The

story is quaintly told by Townsend thus:--Lights and shadows of boyish

days! how bright and deep they are! The schoolmaster's frown may be

charmed away by the gift of a new top, or a score of marbles. But what

are these in the cotter's life to the stirring vicissitudes of a pie!

----Before its departure for the bakehouse, did he not ponder admiringly

on the delicate tact that mingled the bony scraps with.

'Herbs, and other country messes,

Which the neat-handed Phillis dresses?'

"Since then, _imagination_ has been at play; and, in accordance with its

suggestions, his bib and tucker have been donned, as trusty adjutants to

the formidable wooden spoon. Thus armed, while sister Phillis--the

creative genius of the savoury structure--regards the baker's boy with

her modest glance, young Corydon, with his prophetic anticipation, is

ogling the baker's burden. If his knife be as sharp as his appetite,

'twill want no whetting! We must expect that, in the afternoon, when

anticipation shall have faded through the stages of its fulfilment, if

no longer entranced by the pleasures of Hope, he will solace himself

with those of Memory." And there, sure enough, is the grinning baker's

boy, and the pie admirably baked; and the boy of the bib and tucker, and

the wooden spoon, realizing it through his nostrils, and magnifying it

through his eyes; and there is the neat-handed Phillis, who cares little

for the eating. Feminine and gluttonous seldom come together. "The

little glutton" is ever the male. This was in Webster's own way, and he

has hit it off truly; he has seen it hundreds of times, and knew as well

as Townsend who should have the wooden spoon. We find we have omitted to

notice one plate, and that by Redgrave. We did not expect landscape by

his hand. It is, however, very clever; there is a light over the dark

church-tower which a little offends. Keep down that a little, and you

recognize the true effect of nature. It is a view of Worcester. "A

spot," says Mr Redgrave, "memorable as the scene of that battle

signalized by Oliver Cromwell as the 'crowning mercy;' and whence the

young Charles II. commenced the series of romantic and perilous

adventures which terminated in his safety."

Our work of criticism is at an end; not so our pleasure. We shall look

at this choice volume again and again; and as we have somewhat

arrogantly, and with a conceit of our ability and right so to do, taken

the Etching Club under our especial care, regard, and patronage, we

shall think ourselves at liberty to encourage and to exhort them

whenever we see fit. We therefore do exhort them to go on, to give a

taste for painters' etchings, to improve themselves, too; and let each

make it a rule to himself never to take the trouble to touch a subject

that is not worth doing; nor to tell a story not worth telling, however

such may seem to look pretty or with effect upon copper or paper; by all

means to avoid "annual sentimentalities," and commonplace "acting

charades;" and never to forget that expression is the soul of the art.

For the present, we dismiss them with thanks--like the prudent

physician, who, as Fielding says, always stands by to see nature work,

and contents himself by clapping her on the back, by way of approbation,

when she does well.

A LOVE-CHASE--IN PROSE.

CHAPTER I.

Bandvale Hall had lain empty for a long time--old Frank Edwards, so well

known as a sportsman, had been dead for eighteen years, his horses sold,

his kennels dismantled, and his son, after so absurdly long a minority,

(for his father had capriciously fixed his majority at twenty-three,)

only now coming of age; but whether he would reside at Bandvale, or

continue in the neighbourhood of Leicester, where his guardian lived, or

what he would do, nobody could tell. The estate, we were told, in spite

of the economical management of four or five attorneys, and a couple of

stewards, was more involved than when old Frank died; and many a time

have I sighed, as I ambled past the lodges, and saw grass growing over

the drive, contrasting these appearances with the jolly days I had known

in the hall, "when the beards wagged all--shall we ever see the like

again?" But change passes over all; and Bandvale was not the only place

or the only thing that felt its influence. We were all very different

from what we were; we had a railway within half an hour's drive; we had

a Methodist chapel in the village; we had a clergyman who preached in

his surplice, and would have had a hurl off a lame donkey if he had

ventured into the saddle; the hounds were given up; you were asked to

dinner at half-past seven, and got home again by ten; rather a changed

state of affairs since old Frank kept the ball alive, and Parson Holt

rode his grey nag over bank and fence, and we had two packs within ten

miles, and no Methodists in the village, and no railroad in the county,

and every thing was exactly as it ought to be; and we dined at five, and

got home--when it pleased Heaven. Sometimes I turned down the avenue,

and took a melancholy look at the old Hall. It is a great square house;

flanked with two turrets, with fine old stone windows, and a stone porch

in the middle. The Bandvale river runs through the park about three

hundred yards from the front door, and is crossed by two bridges in the

direction of the lodges, east and west; and beyond it rises the upland,

all dotted over with clumps of elm--and at the highest part of the park

is the church; a great black figure, kneeling on one knee, used to bear

up the sun-dial in the centre of the sweep--his leg had given way from

the weight of years and the huge globe he supported, and the poor old

fellow lay on his back, kicking up the stump of his leg in a most

audacious manner, in the very face of the sun. "The great globe itself

had dissolved, and left not a wreck behind." They talk of Marius among

the ruins of Carthage, and Coliseums unroofed, and temples of Theseus

with crumbling pillars--all these are desolate enough; but then, their

condition is picturesque: and I doubt whether Marius in the capitol, and

the Coliseum newly finished, and the Temple at the time of its

consecration, were half such interesting objects as in the days of their

decline and fall. But to me the true representative of desolation was

the long tufts of grass that grew in old Frank Edwards's stable-yard,

the weeds that choked up the hall door, and the broken panes of the

great dining-room windows--the spacious yard, the hospitable door, the

jocund dining-room. And now young Frank was just coming to his legal

age, and we were all forming our guesses and conjectures as to what the

youth's proceedings would be when he came into possession. I made sure,

if the property was really involved to the extent reported, that he

would sell some of the lands he had in other counties; a farm or two he

had in Sussex; a tolerable estate in the north; and a foolish marine

villa somewhere in Devonshire, and pay off all incumbrances, and settle

himself for life at Bandvale Hall. He would still have a very fine

fortune; and it had been the family seat since the reign of Charles the

Second. All the mothers and aunts in the county thought it was a seat

like a Spanish saddle, and would carry double; and it certainly was

amazing to see the preparations that were made to get the proper foot in

the stirrup. It seemed agreed that for a young gentleman of

twenty-three, seventeen was the only admissible age; and to reach that

desirable date, as great cruelty was practised on the baptismal register

books as on ancient travellers by the bed of Procrustes-girls of

twenty-four were shortened by seven years, and little children of

fourteen elongated by three. In some families there were three or four

daughters all of the same age, yet not the least like twins; brothers

and fathers were kept in marching order, ready to be dispatched to make

poor Frank's acquaintance the moment he took possession. I also, though

unendowed with any possession so valuable as either daughter, or sister,

or niece, kept myself prepared to welcome my old friend's son, whenever

he arrived.

The day of majority came at last--the third of June. The tenants of the

Bandvale farms had a dinner at the Rose and Crown, and one of the

managing attorneys proposed the young landlord's health in a speech full

of amazing eloquence, but with a countenance that would have been more

appropriate to a funeral oration than a toast; and it was, in fact, the

funeral oration over his stewardship, as he gave notice that it was Mr

Edwards's intention to take the management into his own hands--a piece

of information that gave great satisfaction to every one except the firm

of Goody and Fripp. But in spite of this announcement, young Frank never

made his appearance--the walks continued overgrown with grass--the

wounded Atlas looked proudly to heaven from his deathbed of fame-and the

young ladies remained on the tiptoe of expectation.

"What can be the matter with the boy?" thought I; "has he no regard for

his father's neighbours, and his own birthplace?"

"What can be the matter with the boy?" thought Miss Sibylla Smith, and

all the maidens young, old, and middle aged. "Has he fallen in love with

his tutor's daughter, or got engaged to his guardian's niece?" for our

young people had studied life so zealously in three-volume novels, that

they never doubted for a moment that Frank Edwards's tutor (if he had a

tutor) had a daughter, or that his guardian (and they knew he had a

guardian) had a niece. But in spite of all our thoughts Bandvale Hall

continued empty.

"I'll take another look at the old place," I said, one day in August as

I was passing the lodge, and rode at a quiet contemplative walk down the

avenue. I hung my rein over one of the rails of the porch steps, and

passed round into the garden. Not a flower to be seen; but the place of

them famously supplied with potatoes and other useful articles--and the

same evidence of absenteeism in the shape of tottering walls, and grass

grown walks, and dusty fountains in all directions. What a shame!--if I

knew the boy's address, I would write to him to come home at once; but

that Leicestershire guardian has kept him quite separated from those who

ought to have been his friends, and had the bringing up of him from his

youth. If we are to have him all the rest of his life, he could not have

come among us too early; and in the firm intention of carrying this

resolution into effect, I determined to look out for some workman about

the place, to ask where Mr Edwards was to be found. The man that has the

care of the garden can't be far off;--and accordingly I went in search

of him. But either the vegetables were illustrations, like Southey's

butlers, of self-culture, or the gardener had gone to dinner; and in the

expectation of finding him in the kitchen, I clambered into the house by

an open window, and walked quietly along the passage. I thought I heard

voices in the garden library, a delightful room on the ground-floor,

where I had passed many an evening with old Frank; and, supposing the

gardener had taken possession of it, I opened the door. Close to the

window two persons were sitting, so deeply engaged in conversation that

they did not remark my entrance, and I took the opportunity of observing

them at leisure. They were both young men--both tall and good-looking;

one remarkably dark, with great umbrageous whiskers and mustaches; the

other a chestnut-haired, fresh-complexioned youth, so like poor old

Frank in the set on of his head and breadth of his shoulders, that I

knew in a moment it could be no one but his son. They seemed both very

much excited about something; but from the whispered tone of their

conversation, it was difficult to make out what it was. The dark man,

who was six or seven years older than his companion, had apparently been

saying something that shocked the other, for he clenched his hand, and

threw his eyes despairingly to the ceiling; and no wonder, for the words

I heard, as I advanced from the screen at the door, were enough to raise

a shudder in any person's breast. He said--

"I had him murdered in the shooting-box."

"But why?" enquired Frank Edwards, looking less startled than could be

expected.

"Why? Because Isabella could not be happy while he lived."

"Recollect I had no hand in it," said Frank. "I wouldn't have agreed to

it on any account, and told you so before you did it."

Great heavens! what a secret to be thrust upon me! and what an

introduction to the son of my poor friend--the accomplice of a

murderer--who had evidently been consulted about the crime, and though

he certainly had protested against it, had allowed it to be carried into

effect! I was hesitating whether I should not retire at once, when Frank

turned round and saw me. He rose, and received the apologies I muttered

for my intrusion with the most astonishing self-command. I determined to

conceal my knowledge of their conversation from them; and really,

looking at the clear open countenance of the boy, it was difficult to

believe that he knew any thing of so shocking a kind. I was introduced

to the other, Mr Percy Marvale, and saw so much Italian, or perhaps

gipsy, blood in his dark skin, and such a fierce expression in his

coal-black eyes, that I was not so much surprised at his being

implicated in the fearful deed. He looked just like one of the fellows

on the stage who cut throats in a heroic fashion on the slightest

provocation. But both were so free in their manner, and talked so

pleasantly, that if it had not been for what I had overheard, I should

have taken them for two very agreeable young men. And, in spite of it

all, I could hardly avoid asking them both to leave the deserted house,

and take up their quarters with me. I forced myself, however, to abstain

from giving them the invitation; and after a half hour of friendly

conversation, I got up to go away. They accompanied me a portion of the

way; and when I looked at young Frank, and listened to the tones of his

voice, twenty years seemed to roll off my shoulders. I took his hand.

"You must dine with me to-morrow," I said; "and--and--your friend Mr

Marvale," I added with some little difficulty. They both accepted

without a moment's hesitation. "Hang it, there must be some mistake

after all!" I thought, as I put my foot in the stirrup; "but I'll go and

ask a few of the neighbours to meet them. Old Smith of Howkey is a

magistrate, with an amazing nose for a crime. We'll see what he makes of

it."