CHAPTER LII.

Mrs. Warmington became a person of some importance with the people

of Hartwell. All thoughts were turned towards her house. Everybody

wished they could get in and see and hear more; for the news had spread

rapidly and wide, colored and distorted; but yet falling far short

of the whole terrible truth. When Mr. Short himself arrived in town,

he found three other magistrates had already assembled, and that Mr.

Atkinson and Sir Philip Hastings' groom, John, were already giving them

some desultory and informal information as to the apprehension of Mr.

Hazleton and its causes. The first consideration after his appearance

amongst them, was what was to be done with the prisoner; for one of the

justices--a gentleman of old family in the county, who had not much

liked the appointment of the surgeon to the bench, and had generally

found motives for differing in opinion with him ever since--objected

to leaving Mrs. Hazleton, even for the night, in any other place than

the common jail. The more merciful opinion of the majority, however,

prevailed. Atkinson gave every assurance that the constable whom he

had placed in charge of the lady was perfectly to be depended upon,

and that the room in which she was locked up, was too high to admit

the possibility of escape. Thus it was determined that Mrs. Hazleton

should be left where she was for the night, and brought before the

magistrates for examination at an early hour on the following morning.

Even after this decision was come to, however, the conversation or

consultation, if it may be so called, was prolonged for some time in a

gossiping, idle sort of way. Gentlemen sat upon the edge of the table

with their hats on, or leaned against the mantelpiece, beating their

boots with their riding-whips, and some marvelled, and some inquired,

and some expounded the law with the dignity and confidence, if not with

the sagacity and learning of a Judge. They were still engaged in this

discussion when the news of Emily's death was brought to Hartwell,

and produced a painful and terrible sensation in the breasts of the

lightest and most careless of those present. The man who conveyed the

intelligence brought also a summons to Mr. Short to return immediately

to Sir Philip Hastings, and only waiting to get a fresh horse, the

surgeon set out upon his return with a very sad and sorrowful heart. He

would not disturb Mr. Marlow; though he was informed that he was in the

library; but he remained with Sir Philip Hastings himself during the

greater part of the night, and only set out for his own house to take a

little repose before the meeting of the magistrates, some quarter of an

hour before the first dawn of day.

Full of painful thoughts he rode on at a quick pace, till the yellow

and russet hues of the morning began to appear in the east. He then

slackened his pace a little, and naturally, as he approached the house

of Mrs. Warmington, he raised his eye towards the windows of the room

in which he knew that the beautiful demon, who had produced so much

misery to others and herself, had been imprisoned.

Mr. Short was riding on; but suddenly a sound met his ear, and as his

eyes ran down the building from the windows above, to a small plot

of grass which the lady of the house called the lawn, he drew up his

horse, and rode sharply up to the gate.

But it is time now to turn to Mrs. Hazleton. Lodged in the upper

chamber which had been decided upon as the one fittest for their

purpose, by Mr. Atkinson and the rest, with the constable from Hartwell

domiciled in the ante-room, and the door between locked, Mrs. Hazleton

gave herself up to despair; for her state of mind well deserved that

name, although her feelings were very different from those which are

commonly designated by that name. Surely to feel that every earthly

hope has passed away--to see that further struggle for any object of

desire is vain--to know that the struggles which have already taken

place have been fruitless--to feel that their objects have been base,

unworthy, criminal--to perceive no gleam of light on either side of

the tomb--to have the present a wilderness, the future an abyss, the

past and its memories a hell--surely this is despair! It matters not

with what firmness, or what fierceness it may be borne: it matters not

what fiery passions, what sturdy resolutions, what weak regrets, what

agonizing fears, mingle with the state. This is despair! and such was

the feeling of Mrs. Hazleton. She saw vast opportunities, a splendid

position in society, wealth, beauty, wit, mind, accomplishments, all

thrown away, and for the gratification of base passions exchanged for

disgrace, and crime, and a horrible death. It was a bad bargain; but

she felt she had played her whole for revenge and had lost; and she

abode the issue resolutely.

All these advantages which I have enumerated, and many more, Mrs.

Hazleton had possessed; but she wanted two things which are absolutely

necessary to human happiness and human virtue--heart and principle. The

one she never could have obtained; for by nature she was heartless. The

other might have been bestowed upon her by her parents. But they had

failed to do so; for their own proper principles had been too scanty

for them to bestow any on their daughter. Yet, strange to say, the lack

of heart somewhat mitigated the intensity of the lady's sufferings now.

She felt not her situation as bitterly as other persons with a greater

portion of sensibility would inevitably have done. She had so trained

herself to resist all small emotions, that they had in reality become

obliterated. Fiery passions she could feel; for the earthquake rends

the granite which the chisel will not touch, and these affected her now

as much as ever.

At that very moment, as she sat there, with her head resting on her

hand, what is the meaning of that stern, knitted brow, that fixed,

steadfast gaze forward, that tight compression of the lips and teeth?

At that moment Nero's wish was in the bosom of Mrs. Hazleton. Could

she have slaughtered half the human race to blot out all evidence of

her crimes, and to escape the grinning shame which she knew awaited

her, she would have done it without remorse. Other feelings, too, were

present. A sense of anger at herself for having suffered herself to

be in the slightest degree moved or agitated by any thing that had

occurred; a determined effort, too, was there--I will not call it

a struggle--to regain entire command of herself--to be as calm, as

graceful, as self-possessed, as dignified as when in high prosperity

with unsullied fame. It might be, in a certain sense, playing a part,

and doubtless the celebrated Madame Tiquet did the same; but she was

playing a part for her own eyes, as well as those of others. She

resolved to be firm, and she was firm. "Death," she said, "is before

me: for that I am prepared. It cannot agitate a nerve, or make a limb

shake. All other evils are trifles compared with this. Why then should

I suffer them to affect me in the least? No, no, they shall not see me

quail!"

After she had thus thought for some two hours, gaining more and more

self-command every moment, as she turned and returned all the points

of her situation in her own mind, and viewed them in every different

aspect, she rose to retire to rest, lay down, and tried to sleep. At

first importunate thought troubled her. The same kind of ideas went

on--the same reasonings upon them--and slumber for more than one hour

would not visit her eyelids. But she was a very resolute woman, and

at length she determined that she would not think: she would banish

thought altogether; she would not let the mind rest for one moment upon

any subject whatsoever; and she succeeded. The absence of thought is

sleep; and she slept; but resolution ended where sleep begun, and the

images she had banished waking, returned to the mind in slumber. Her

rest was troubled. Growing fancies seemed to come thick upon her mind;

though the eyes remained closed, the features were agitated; the lips

moved. Sometimes she laughed; sometimes she moaned piteously; sometimes

tears found their way through her closed eyelids; and sobs struggled in

her bosom.

At length, between three and four o'clock in the morning, Mrs. Hazleton

rose up in bed. She opened her eyes, too; but there was a dull glassy

look about them--a fixed leaden stare, not natural to her waking hours.

Slowly she got out of bed, approached the table, took up a candle

which she had left burning there, and which was now nearly down to the

socket, and walked straight to the door, saying aloud, "Very dark--very

dark--every thing is dark."

She tried the door, but found it locked; and the constable slept on.

She then returned to the table, seated herself, and for some five or

ten minutes continued to twist her long hair round her fingers. She

then rose again, and went straight to the window, threw it up, and

seemed to look out. "Chilly--chilly," she said. "I must walk to warm

myself."

The sill of the window was somewhat high, but that was no obstacle; for

there was a chair near, and Mrs. Hazleton placed it for herself with as

much care as if she had been wide awake. When this was done she stepped

lightly upon it, and put her knee upon the window-sill, raised herself

suddenly upright, and struck her head sharply against the upper part of

the window. It is probable that the blow woke her, but at all events it

destroyed her balance, and she fell forward at once out of the window.

There was a loud shriek, and then a deep groan. But the constable slept

on, and no one knew the fate that had befallen her 'till Mr. Short, the

surgeon, passing the house, was attracted to the spot where she had

fallen, by a moan, and the sight of a white object lying beneath the

window.

A loud ringing of the bell, and knocking at the door, soon roused the

inhabitants of the house, and the mangled form of Mrs. Hazleton was

carried in and stretched upon a bed. She was not dead; and although

almost every bone was broken, except the skull, and the terrible

injuries she had received precluded all possibility of recovery, she

regained her senses before three o'clock of the same day, and continued

to linger for somewhat more than a fortnight in agonies both of mind

and body, too terrible to be described. With the rapid, though gradual

weakening of the corporeal frame, the powers of the mind became

enfeebled--the vigorous resolution failed--the self-command abandoned

her. Half an hour's death she could have borne with stoical firmness,

but a fortnight's was too much. The thoughts she could shut out in

vigorous health, forced themselves upon her as she lay there like a

crushed worm, and the tortures of hell got hold upon her, long before

the spirit departed. Yet a sparkle of the old spirit showed itself

even to her last hour. That she was conscious of an eternity, that

she was convinced of after judgment, of the reward of good, and of

the punishment of evil, that she believed in a God, a hell, a heaven,

there can be no doubt--indeed her words more than once implied it--and

the anguish of mind under which she seemed to writhe proved it. But

yet, she refused all religious consolation; expressed no penitence:

no sorrow for what she had done, and scoffed at the surgeon when he

hinted that repentance might avail her even then. It seemed that, as

with the earthly future, she had made up her mind at once, when first

detected, to meet her fate boldly; so with the judgment of the immortal

future, she was resolute to encounter it unbending. When urged, nearly

at her last hour, to show some repentance, she replied in the weak and

faltering voice of death, but in as determined a tone as ever, "It

is all trash. An hour's repentance could do no good even if I could

repent. But I do not. Nobody does repent. They regret their failure,

are terrified by their punishment; but they and I would do exactly the

same again if we hoped for success and impunity. Talk to me no more of

it. I do not wish to think of hell till it has hold upon me, if that

should ever be."

She said no more from that moment forward, and in about an hour after,

her spirit went to meet the fate she had so boldly dared.

But few persons remain to be noticed in this concluding chapter, and

with regard to their after history, the imagination of the reader might

perhaps be left to deal, without further information. A few words,

however, may be said, merely to give a clue to their after fate.

The prosecution of Mr. Shanks, the attorney, was carried on but

languidly, and it is certain that he was not convicted of the higher

offence of forgery. On some charge, however, it would seem he was

sentenced to two years imprisonment, and the last that is heard of him,

shows him blacking shoes at the inn in Carrington, then a very old man,

in the reign of George the First.

Sir Philip Hastings never recovered his senses, nor did he seem to have

any recollection of the horrible events with which his earthly history

may be said to have closed; but his life was not far extended. For

about six months he continued in the same lamentable state in which

we have last depicted him, sometimes singing, sometimes laughing, and

sometimes absorbed in deep melancholy. At the end of that period,

another paralytic stroke left him in a state of complete fatuity, from

which in two years he was relieved by death.

If the reader will look into the annals of the reign of Queen Anne he

will find frequent mention in the campaigns of Marlborough and Eugene,

of a Major, a Colonel, and a General Marlow. They were all the same

person; and they will find that officer often reported as severely

wounded. I cannot trace his history much farther; but the genealogies

of those times show, that in 1712, one Earl of Launceston died at the

age of eighty-seven, and was succeeded by the eighth Earl, who only

survived three years, and the title with him became extinct, as it

is particularly marked that he died unmarried. As this last of the

race is distinguished by the title of Lieutenant-General, the Earl of

Launceston, there can be no doubt that this was the lover and promised

husband of poor Emily Hastings.

It is a sad tale, and rarely perhaps has any such tragedy darkened

the page of domestic history in England. A whole family were swept

away, and most of those connected with them, in a very short space

of time; but it is not the number of deaths within that period that

gives its gloominess to the page--for every domestic history is little

but a record of deaths--but the circumstances. Youth, beauty, virtue,

gentleness, kindness, honor, integrity, punctilious rectitude: reason,

energy, wisdom, sometimes, nay often, have no effect as a screen, from

misfortune, sorrow, and death. Were this world all, what a frightful

chaos would human life be. But the very sorrows and adversities of the

good, prove that there is a life beyond, where all will be made even.

THE END.

From Bentley's Miscellany.

CALCUTTA.

There are in Calcutta four colleges established by Government, besides

numerous other institutions for the diffusion of learning. Education,

indeed, is very general in the metropolis, and there are but few, even

among the natives, making any pretensions to respectability, who have

not some acquaintance with European literature. I have heard as pure

English spoken by Hindoos in Calcutta as by men of rank in London, and

pieces from our poets recited by a lad of color with a correctness of

diction and eloquence that would have done credit to any of our youth

at home. Go where you will in Calcutta, enter the narrowest streets

and the most obscure alleys, and you will find pedagogues engaged in

teaching Pinnock or Goldsmith to the children, and ragged urchins of

three or four years old shouting in concert, B-l-a, bla; c-l-a, cla.

And then turn your eyes in an opposite direction; look at the wealthy

and the noble of mature age, enter their houses, and what will you

see and hear? You will see their dwellings furnished and their tables

laid out in _English_ style; you will see them possessed of libraries

composed of the best works of the most approved _English_ authors;

you will see _English_ newspapers regularly filed; you will see them

corresponding in _English_ with their friends and connections; and you

will hear them conversing on the topics of the day or their own private

affairs in the _English_ tongue. A person who had never travelled

beyond the metropolis would be apt, on seeing all this, to exclaim,

"The people will soon be thoroughly Anglicised!" But it is all confined

to Calcutta, and even there is rather, perhaps, the result of a wish to

outshine, than of a desire to improve.

A Mechanics' Institute was a few years since established in Calcutta.

Institutions of this kind are particularly required in India, where

the national systems of agriculture, commerce, mechanics, science,

literature, and philosophy are so wretched; where prejudice and

superstition impede improvement, and sloth and ignorance have had so

long a reign. It is surely the duty of those who seek affluence in

that country to encourage them, and thus endeavor to benefit the land

from whose resources they expect to gain it. But, in spite of the old

adage, "What's in a name?" the fate of this institution proved that

there is something very important in the nomenclature of a thing. The

title "Mechanic" is in a manner _despised_ by the European community

of Calcutta and their Euratian brethren; and so long as the Institute

continued to bear the title which distinguished it as dedicated to

such, notwithstanding the plainness with which it exhibited its claims

to support as an institution calculated to disseminate a correct and

practical knowledge of science, and a familiar acquaintance with

the fine arts throughout the empire, and by the improvements such a

knowledge would induce ulteriorly to promote the interests of all

connected with India; notwithstanding appeals to the press, public

lectures and private solicitations; notwithstanding the most brilliant

speeches of the most eloquent orators (among whom may be particularly

mentioned Mr. George Thompson), it languished for want of support,

gradually decayed, and seemed about to yield up the ghost. It was

at last suggested, that though the expedients above alluded to had

failed to stay the progress of disease, or invigorate the system,

one, powerful as a galvanic battery, yet remained to be tried, a new

nomenclature. It was proposed that the vulgar title of "Mechanics'

Institute" should be thrown off, and the elegant and euphonious one of

"The Lyceum" adopted. This was done; and wonderful was the effect. The

young and tender tree revived in an instant, refreshing streams of cash

were poured in abundance upon its roots; the very nobles of the land

came forward to tend it, and now it flourishes and blooms, and promises

ere long to produce a rich abundance of fruit. Still it is in reality

the same as before in all but its name.

I have alluded to Mr. George Thompson. His arrival in India in 1843

was greeted by all classes of the community with joy. All had heard of

his eloquence and his ability, of the interest he had exhibited in the

affairs of, and his design in visiting, India, and therefore hailed him

as the champion of her interests. Hindoo and Mussulman flocked eagerly

around the standard he raised as a patriot leader, listened to his

addresses, and, as he enlarged on their rights and wrongs (so far as he

knew them) felt discontent, hatred to the rulers of their country, and

bold resolutions to free it from their tyranny, rising within them. The

press lauded and flattered him; invitations overwhelmed him; patriotic

societies rose from nonentity at his presence; and his person and

character were themes of inquiry and constant disquisition; imitative

would-be orators sprang up in multitudes, and poured forth torrents

of anger and abuse against Government, and all was excitement, all

radicalism. Suddenly the man on whom the eyes of the people were fixed

as their instructor and guide left the metropolis, and when he again

appeared in it, did so in the character of ambassador from the Great

Mogul. With what abuse he then met, let the periodicals of the day

testify. "Where now," it was asked, "are his magniloquent professions

of philanthropy, his self-devotedness, and his zeal in the cause of

India?"

In India, as in England, the public appetite for the drama seems to

have been satiated. There is a very elegant theatre in Calcutta, but

it is now closed. It languished for want of support, though several

talented performers were attached to it. Mrs. Leach, its founder and

greatest ornament, was an exquisite actress. A Miss Cowley and a Miss

Baxter, too, were both superior and elegant actresses. The latter

preserved the theatre to the community on a former occasion, when it

seemed about to fall. A circumstance, as true as it is laughable,

connected with this theatre, occurred in 1841. Two ladies, engaged in

England for it, and sent out, were actually entered among the "imports

manifest" for the port of Calcutta, as goods consigned to the manager

of the playhouse!

The newspaper is as necessary an adjunct to the breakfast table in

Calcutta as it is in London. The military man looks eagerly for

accounts from the north-west; turns to the lists of promotions and

staff appointments, and forgets not to cast his eye at the obituary;

the civilian searches for the advertisements which announce fresh

arrivals of horses from Persia, Burmah, and Arabia; spinsters' and

oilmen's stores from England; and wines and fruits from France; just

glancing at the drafts of laws about to be enacted, and conning over

the programme of the next races; and the merchant studies the accounts

relative to indigo, sugar, and saltpetre. But the greatest excitement

prevails when the mail from England is due. How eagerly is it looked

for, and when it arrives, how are its contents scanned and analyzed!

There are six English newspapers published in Calcutta and its

neighborhood. The editors are all men of experience and talent, who

know how to suit the appetites of their customers. An English reader,

however, taking up one of our Indian newspapers, would think it a very

dull affair, for he would find one-third of it editorial and local

news, another third advertisements, and the remainder, extracts from

the London magazines. Now this is what just suits the Anglo-Indians.

The advertisements tell them what to do with their money, the residue

informs them of what is going on, and gives them the very pith of

literature without putting them to the trouble of cutting it from the

crust.

The Indian press has been stigmatized in England as a "licentious," a

"rascally," and an "unscrupulous" one. This is very far from being the

case. It has its faults, but they are not of such a kind. Indeed, it

seems to me, that in point of purity, honesty, and morality, it may

challenge comparison with the press of Great Britain itself, and most

decidedly it possesses a powerful influence with the executive. It has

been the means, within the last few years, of causing the abolition

of lotteries, the appointment of deputy magistrates, and many other

measures tending to the moralization and welfare of the country. It

scans and fearlessly criticises the acts of Government; it shows a

spirit of active benevolence in pleading the cause of the injured, to

whatever class they may belong; and proves itself impartially just.

In addition to newspapers several magazines and other periodicals

are published in Calcutta. The whole of the periodical publications

amount in number to forty. A Quarterly Review has lately been added to

those, and also a Magazine, the intended publication of which, and its

character, were announced in so curious a manner, that I shall copy

the advertisement at full length for the benefit of the reader: "In

the press, and will be published on the 1st of July, and continued

monthly, a new periodical, entitled, The British India Magazine,

and Daily and Monthly Treasury, a most useful Writing and Reading

Table Manual of Reference, Memoranda, Expenditure, and Literature,

to which is added a Precis of the News of the past month, Political,

Fashionable, Social, Commercial, Humorous, and Scientific. It is

equally adapted for ladies in general, as for Gentlemen of the Civil,

Military, and Uncovenanted Services, Members of the Legal and Medical

Professions, Merchants, Indigo and Sugar Planters, and Planters'

Assistants, Captains and Officers of Ships, Clerks in Mercantile

Houses, &c., or in fact, for all Persons by whom due order and

regularity in the expenditure of their Time and Income is considered an

object worthy of notice. It is compiled upon a method perfectly novel

in the annals of the Press, be it American, Asiatic, or European, and

may be had (per dak) in all parts of British India."

There, dear reader, match that in Europe, if you can! "Why this is

a real Vade Mecum; and, mark you! a _most_ useful one--one equally

adapted for ladies in general as for gentlemen, or in fact for _all_

persons." Doubtless it will have a prodigious circulation as soon as

its merits are fully known. I have not met with any one who has read it.

Books published in India, whatever may be their nature, seldom repay

the cost of print and paper. Even the Calcutta newspapers have between

them all no more than three or four thousand subscribers, and yet our

countrymen there read a great deal. But the works which have emanated

from the pens of Anglo-Indian writers have in general been so dull and

spiritless, that the community has learned to regard all such with

indifference; and as the booksellers regularly supply the newest and

best European productions, these inferior viands are almost entirely

neglected. An annual has once or twice been published, but did not meet

with sufficient patronage to allow of its being regularly continued.

The police of India has always been inefficient. Robberies committed

under the very noses of the watchmen are common. When they should be

on the look-out, they are found sleeping, and when they are awake are

careless and negligent. The worst of them in all India are to be found

in its great metropolis; in Calcutta, indeed, they seem to possess

no honesty or fidelity, and often turn out greater rogues than those

they bring to justice. Policemen in the confidence of the European

authorities have before now been discovered to be at the head of

parties of Thugs, to whom they have thus had the means of communicating

all necessary intelligence.

The native _employés_ in our courts of justice are equally corrupt.

Every Hindoo and Mussulman who has occasion to resort to these courts,

takes with him a bribe, knowing that unless he does so, it will be

all but impossible for him to obtain a fair and impartial hearing.

The _omlah_ who should decline a bribe, would be accounted a fool by

his fellow officials. And so some of them make fortunes; _e. g._, a

_sheristader_ at one of our civil courts, who had been only ten years

in that office, on a salary of one hundred rupees a month, and with

no other income save a trifling share in a small patrimonial estate,

managed, a short time back, to purchase landed property to the value of

fifty thousand rupees.

Enter a criminal court, whether the deponent swear by the water of

the Ganges held in his hand, or by the Koran laid on his head, or by

licking off salt from a sword, or by placing a milk-jug on his back,

or any other mode practised among them, you will find that perjury and

the grossest exaggeration are with him far more common than truth. If

he has received a light box or a gentle kick, he will make oath that he

has been half murdered; and if he has been robbed of an article worth

twenty rupees, will swear its value was a hundred!

A judge has seldom a more conflicting mass of evidence before him

on which to decide the merits of a case, than he has who seeks by

investigating the principles and conduct of this people to form an

opinion of their general character. It seems to me that, as a nation,

there is no other people so profligate, so licentious and avaricious,

so addicted to lying, dishonesty, procrastination, gossip, and

perpetual egotism, so servile, so litigious, and so filthy; and no

other so barren of nearly every good quality. Their code of morality,

to judge from their practice, is a huge mass of every thing bad,

mingled with a few almost imperceptible grains of some things that are

good.

In India, when we look around us and see the fertility of the earth,

the abundance of grain and fruit it produces, we feel astonished that

those engaged in agriculture should be, as they really are, almost

destitute of a bare subsistence. The Irish peasantry are rarely so

badly off as those of Hindostan. Inquiry shows us this is the result of

a system prevailing throughout the country, the oppression of the ryots

by the Zemindars. Yes, it is not the taxes, which are comparatively

light, that cause this evil, but the exactions of the rich natives

from the poor ones. The peasantry have no money, they require advances

to enable them to cultivate, these are granted to them at the most

exorbitant rate of usury by the landlords, and as the one party never

gets out of debt, so the other never ceases its extortions.

Thus the poor are kept poor. The personal property of a peasant seldom

exceeds three or four shillings in value. His wardrobe consists of a

piece of coarse cloth, just large enough to gird round his body, a

similar piece thrown across the shoulders, and a skull-cap or turban,

made of long strips of the same material. And as for his household

goods, a few drinking vessels, an earthen jar, an iron plate, and a

rickety bedstead comprise in general the whole.

Very little attention is paid in Calcutta, or anywhere else in India,

to home politics. Indeed they are never discussed at table. Let a man

have been ever so violent a Tory or zealous a Whig, six months in India

will generally find him, so far as his discourse can testify, neuter.

One reason of this is, that if he should attempt to introduce political

subjects in conversation, he would not be listened to. It is only when

India and Indian interests are concerned, that even a powerful debate

in the House meets with the slightest attention. Theatricals, races,

retiring funds, public characters, civil and military appointments,

these, and such like subjects, form the ordinary topics of discourse.

And you may always know when a man has lived any time in India,

for a little of the Eastern spice is sure to be found in all his

conversation. He cannot conceal it.

An anecdote was one day related to me, which exemplifies the sad

condition of those habitual consumers of opium, many of whom are to

be found among the natives. A Hindoo gentleman, who was accustomed

to indulge in it, being about to remove to a distant and almost

uninhabited province, in which he knew it would be difficult to

procure opium, laid in a large quantity of it to take with him, and

made arrangements for having more regularly forwarded. Soon after his

arrival at his destination, one of his servants decamped, robbing him

of a large amount in money, and a variety of other articles, among

which his entire stock of opium was included. The period at which he

expected his first auxiliary supply was yet distant; but he immediately

sent for a quantity to his agent; as this however did not arrive for a

considerable time, he was at a loss for his usual stimulant, pined away

in a few days for want of it, and in less than a fortnight died.

There are numerous low chop-houses and taverns in Calcutta, to which

our poorer countrymen resort, and these are the nests of profligacy and

licentiousness. Impositions too, of the grossest and most atrocious

nature, are practised by the proprietors of some, on those who frequent

them.

While in the country I made one of a small party at an annual festival,

given by the native officers of a Government establishment in the

neighborhood. The worthy _baboo_, who was at the head of the concern,

had resolved to prepare for the half-dozen Europeans whom he expected

to honor the feast with their presence, two things, of which most

_Feringees_ approve, viz., a _pillau_ and a bottle of brandy. Being a

Hindoo, however, he had substituted pieces of cheese for meat in the

stew, thinking, no doubt, that it would make but little difference to

us. Of course, we could not touch it; but we did not mind its loss, as

the _aqua vitæ_ yet remained. The master of the ceremonies, however,

had forgotten to provide a corkscrew. In this emergency one of our

number offered to save the trouble of sending for one by knocking

off the neck of the bottle with the butt of his riding-whip. This he

attempted, but, missing his aim, broke the bottle and spilt all the

liquor. It was too late to send for more, and, as we did not find any

thing else to our relish, we came away after all, much to the vexation

of our host, without having tasted either bit or drop.

How different in the effects they produce on the heart, and in the

sentiments they awaken, are the various seasons of the year in India to

the same in our native land. How sweetly speaks the changing year to

the minds of the unsophisticated and innocent of England's children!

Are their hearts oppressed by misfortune? with the spring they revive,

and, like nature, shake off the torpor into which, overcome by their

sorrows, they were sinking, while Hope, with the flowers, buds once

more sweetly forth. The summer sun brings with it cheerfulness and

joy; hearts and hopes together expand; they watch, with anxiety and

pleasure, the ripening of the dainty fruits, which promise in autumn to

replenish their board; they sport in the new-mown and perfume-exhaling

fields; they bathe in the clear, unruffled stream, and feel convinced

that earth has not yet been despoiled by sin of all its charms, that

there are pursuits at once pure and delightful, that man is not made

to mourn but to rejoice, and that in nature, the beneficence of the

Deity is demonstrated. Even stern winter has something pleasant in his

countenance, and is kind enough to make them sometimes long for his

return while enjoying the smiles of seasons more congenial; for they

with rapture anticipate a meeting with the friends whom he assembles;

the sweet congratulations, the merry tales, the laughter-exciting

songs, which will then burst forth from affectionate and happy hearts,

and make the blazing hearth a scene of unalloyed ecstasy. But it is not

thus in the arid and joyless East. We watch the approach of spring with

apprehension, for it brings in its train disease and death; we shrink,

and seek in the mountains a refuge from the fiery temper and scorching

breath of summer; autumn's gloom makes all nature distasteful to us;

and winter, though it affords a temporary relief from pain, is totally

unproductive of pleasure.

During the early part of his Indian career, the military officer in the

Hon. Company's service, finds that nearly all the labor, though but a

small share of the honor or profit, of sustaining our hardly-earned

reputation, falls on his shoulders, and on those of his comrades. The

honor is almost entirely engrossed, and what little falls to his share

is entirely eclipsed by that allotted to his superiors in rank; the

income he derives from his position is insignificant when compared

with that of his contemporaries of the civil service. The civilian, it

is well known, has a far better chance of making a fortune in twenty,

than the soldier in forty years. From the period of his arrival in

the country, until after having studied and passed an examination

in the Hindee and Persian languages, he is reported qualified for

the public service, and receives an appointment; the former enjoys a

salary superior to that which is paid to the latter as the allowance

of an ensign or cornet. The military man cannot obtain any staff

employ which affords an augmentation of pay until he shows himself

well qualified in the native languages. Then again, the civilian, if

he manifest any ability, may, in ten or twelve years, rise to a high

and lucrative post; whereas the poor scarlet-coated hero, unless he

have the good fortune to get a quarter-master, or interpreter-ship, or

to be appointed an aid-de-camp, has to vegetate on two hundred rupees

_per mensem_, for some thirteen or fourteen years, when he may receive

an additional hundred with a lieutenancy. Supposing him, however, to

have obtained a good snug berth, his income will be a trifle when

compared with that of the civilian, who escaped from the school-bench

at the same time as himself, while he is always exposed to changes and

inconveniences of which the latter knows nothing. But the sub has one

comfort amidst all this: "In due time," thinks he, "I may hope to be a

general."

"Hope told a flattering tale,"

is, however, the exclamation of many an old veteran in his declining

years; and still oftener is it the sorrowful evidence of those who

live to mourn over the early extinction of even the most brilliant

prospects entertained by youthful relatives, who have fallen a prey to

the inclemencies of a climate which their constitutions were unfitted

to sustain.

But, after all, fortunes are not now-a-days made, even by the most

_fortunate_ of our countrymen, so easily as they were some fifty,

or even thirty years ago. Nor are we even worthy of comparison with

the natives of India in this respect. On the station of Cawnpore are

now residing the two sons of a man who, report says, was nothing

more than a common _bobarchee_, or cook, in the household of the

late king of Lucknow, but who, by his skill in spicing wine, and

manufacturing peculiarly delicious draughts of an inebriating nature,

attracted the notice of his majesty, a man of licentious and depraved

habits, accounted an orthodox Mussulman, but exceedingly fond of

the bottle. The monarch having tasted a sample of his _bobarchee's_

elixir, to reward his skill and encourage his merit, presented him

with a situation near the royal person, and as, while holding this

appointment, he continued to afford him the highest satisfaction,

advanced him step by step, and at length, on a vacancy occurring, as a

mark of his especial favor, gave him the post of prime minister.

This office he continued to hold until his master's decease; and in

the mean time obtained so great an influence with the monarch that his

majesty is said to have been little better than an automaton, whose

movements were regulated by his hand. His chief object, like that of

all his countrymen, being to amass wealth, he tyrannized over the

people, and left no stone unturned beneath which he deemed it possible

that wealth might be discovered. One mode of "raising the wind" was

frequently practised by him. A merchant, or other rich man, having just

completed the erection of a large and magnificent abode, in which to

spend luxuriously the remainder of his days, the minister would forward

to him an official dispatch, intimating that the spot on which he had

built must be immediately cleared for state purposes, and that no

compensation would be given him.

Astonished and perplexed at such a notice from an authority it was

useless to dispute, the unfortunate victim would, perhaps, endeavor, by

pointing out some other eligible spot for the presumed purpose of the

government, and offering a _muzzur_ of, it may be, ten thousand rupees,

to avert the threatened calamity; but to no purpose, for the wily man,

who had risen from the office of a slave to the highest post under the

crown, would at first accept of no terms. The petitioner, therefore,

turned away in despair, and went back to his house, to which, after a

few hours, an emissary of the minister would follow him with a message,

intimating that should any thing worthy his acceptance be presented to

the premier in his private character, he would use his influence with

the king to have the order revoked. Elated with this apparent chance of

escape, the unlucky individual thus destined to be "squeezed" would,

perhaps, offer a sum larger than the minister had anticipated. But

even this was sure to be indignantly refused, and not until the victim

had been visited over and over again, and no hope of any larger offer

remained, would the bribe be accepted. Thus, and by a variety of other

means, the _bobarchee_ gathered a vast amount of wealth. On the death

of the monarch who had so blindly favored and elevated him, he fared

but poorly, however, for the new king threw him into prison. It was now

_his_ turn to bribe, and a timely present of fifty lacs of rupees to an

influential person procured his release. Even then he had an immense

fortune remaining, and thinking it best to secure both his person and

his money against further annoyance and depredation, he left Lucknow,

and settled down in our dominions.

While residing in Calcutta, I was brought into frequent contact with

individuals belonging to the Eurasian or half-caste population, and as

comparatively little is known of this class of people in England, I

shall here make a few remarks on their character.

They are generally the descendants of European fathers by native

mothers. The great majority of them are of Portuguese, many of British,

and some of French extraction. Altogether they form a community by

themselves, as distinct from the European society around them as

from the Hindoos and Mahommedans. They do not travel; here they live

and multiply, marrying generally among themselves. As they are daily

increasing in number, they will, of course, in time become so numerous

as to consider themselves a nation, and to demand a place in history.

Should such, however, be the case, I do not think they will occupy a

very high position in the scale of nations. Great talent (I will not

mention _genius_) and sterling abilities seem very scarce amongst them.

They devote no attention to the cultivation of the arts, they manifest

no zeal in the pursuits of science, no independence, no brotherly

feeling towards each other. The females, at best, receive but a

superficial education, it generally extending only to reading, writing,

and the mechanical performance of music, dancing, and ornamental

needlework, and in none of these do they show any extraordinary skill.

As girls they are flirts and coquettes; as women they are vain, idle,

and slovenly.

Let me be candid, however. I have found among the Eurasians men

possessing a versatility of talent that would do honor to any

of our own countrymen, and females adorned with every grace and

accomplishment. But such characters are very, _very_ scarce.

From Sharpe's Magazine

REVOLUTIONS OF RUSSIA

THE ACCESSION OF NICHOLAS I., 1825.

FROM THE FRENCH OF ALEXANDER DUMAS.

The death of the Emperor Alexander placed the inhabitants of his

empire in mourning; for the grief and loyalty of the lower classes

were sincere, and their attachment to his person almost idolatrous in

its character. The public feeling was increased by the prospect of

the reign of an unpopular sovereign afflicted with mental malady, and

devoid of courtesy.

As for the Grand-duke Nicholas, no one thought of him, but the Russian

people dreaded the accession of Constantine, whom they considered their

sovereign in right of his primogeniture. In no country in the world

has this natural law been so repeatedly broken. Every person in Russia

was aware that the heir-presumptive had purchased his marriage with a

Polish lady, the object of his ardent affections, by the resignation

of his claims to the succession, but that he would abide by that act

seemed a conjecture too improbable to be entertained by any one.

Constantine was nevertheless sincere when he abandoned his rights, and

he hastened to assure his next brother that he was so, by his youngest

brother the Grand-duke Michael, through whom he forwarded a letter

confirming his resignation of the throne, and acknowledging his next

brother as his sovereign. The courier from St. Petersburg crossed the

Grand-duke Michael, and brought letters from Nicholas acknowledging

Constantine as his Emperor, and urging him to ascend the throne. The

wife of Constantine joined her entreaties to those of the next heir,

and with rare devotion offered to resign her consort rather than that

should give up the empire for her. Constantine, over whose mental

agonies the soothing influence of the fair Pole possessed a magical

power, continued firm in his resolution to remain in the condition of

a subject, and he adhered to the determination he had expressed in the

important document of which the Grand-duke Michael was the bearer, and

which is here subjoined:

"MY VERY DEAR BROTHER,--I received yesterday, with feelings of profound

sorrow, intelligence of the death of our adored sovereign, and my

benefactor, the Emperor Alexander. In hastening to assure you of the

painful feelings this misfortune has excited in my mind, I do only

my duty in announcing to you that I have forwarded to her Imperial

Majesty, our august mother, a letter, in which I declare, that in

consequence of the rescript I obtained from the late Emperor, bearing

date February the 2d, 1822, permitting my renunciation of the throne,

it is now my unalterable determination to give up to you all my rights

to the Empire of Russia. I entreated, at the same time, our beloved

mother, to make this declaration public, that the same may be put into

immediate execution. After this declaration, I regard it as a sacred

duty to beseech your Imperial Majesty to receive the first from me,

the oath of fidelity and submission, and to permit me to say that I do

not aspire to any other title or dignity than that of Czarowitz, with

which my august father deigned to honor my services. My solo happiness,

hereafter, will consist in giving your Imperial Majesty continual

proofs of my unbounded devotion and respect for your person, of which

thirty years of constant and zealous service to the Emperors, my father

and brother, are the pledge, in which sentiments I wish to serve your

Imperial Majesty, and your successors, until the end of my life, in my

present situation and functions.

"I am, with the most profound respect,

"CONSTANTINE."

Upon the receipt of the dispatches which followed this letter, the

Grand-duke, called to reign over a vast Empire, by the repeated

abdication of his brother of the rights of primogeniture, no longer

hesitated,--he published the former correspondence between the Emperor

Alexander and the Grand-duke Constantine, with the document already

quoted upon the 25th of December, 1825, and fixed the morrow for his

recognition as their sovereign by his people.

The inhabitants of St. Petersburg, relieved from their dread of a

second Paul by the abdication of the heir-presumptive, began to

reflect with hope upon the promise which the talents and pure moral

character of their new sovereign afforded them. The handsomest and

bravest man in his dominions, his fine person attracted attention, and

his reserved manners excited awe. His grave carriage, his downcast

look, only raised to penetrate to the soul the man who ventured to

observe him, with a glance which compelled him to know and reverence

his master--his haughty manner of interrogation, so unlike the suavity

of Alexander, or the bluntness of Constantine, had isolated him from

the rest of the imperial family, and centred him in the bosom of his

own domestic circle. The Russian people, feeling their need of a guide,

at once comprehended that the cold dignity of this prince concealed an

indomitable will, and that, if they themselves had not chosen their new

sovereign, God had considered their need, and given to the Russians,

who were at once too polished and too barbarous, a man who would grasp

the sceptre in an iron hand covered with a velvet glove.

The morrow, though considered as a day of joy and festivity, was

preceded by some rumors that, like the breath of an approaching

tempest, gave warning that some great national crisis was at hand. It

was whispered in the evening of the 25th that the abdication of the

Czarowitz was a forgery, and that Constantine, then exercising the

authority of Viceroy of Poland, was on full march for St. Petersburg

with an army to claim the empire as his birthright. In addition to this

startling rumor, it was said that several regiments, and among them

that of Moscow, had determined to take the oath to no Russian prince

but Constantine; and the words, "Let Nicholas live, but let Constantine

reign," were heard at intervals in the streets as an intimation of the

state of the military pulse.

In fact, the conspiracy which had disturbed the last days of the

Emperor Alexander was about to raise its head, and seize upon the

Great-Duke Constantine's name as its rallying point. This Prince, who

had passed his life with the army, was beloved by the soldiers, and

the conspirators, who understood little of the character of their

new sovereign, supposed the revolt of the regiments stationed in St.

Petersburg would compel him to resign his recently acquired rights.

They would then summon Constantine to receive the empire, and with it

the constitution they had prepared. If he refused to accept it, they

intended to imprison him and the rest of the imperial family. They

would then establish a republic, an oligarchy in which the despotism of

the many would replace the despotism of one. Such was the design of a

party composed of military aristocrats, who, bolder than the murderers

of Paul, dared, by open force and secret fraud, to contest the throne

of Russia with its new sovereign. The soldiers, devoted to Constantine,

they designed to make their blind instruments in a conspiracy of which

that Prince was not the real object, but their own aggrandisement.

Faithful to their plans, the Prince Stah---- and the two Bes---- went

to the barracks of the 2d, 3d, 5th and 6th companies of the Regiment of

Moscow, whom they knew to be devoted to Constantine. The Prince then

informed these men that they were deceived respecting the abdication

of the Czarowitz, and pointed out Alexander B---- to their attention,

whom he affirmed had been sent from Warsaw to warn them against taking

the oath to the Grand-duke Nicholas. The address of Alexander B----,

confirming this astounding communication, excited a great sensation

among the troops, of which the Prince took advantage by ordering

them to load and present. At that instant the Aide-de-camp Verighny

and Major-General Fredericks, who commanded the grenadiers, having

the charge of the flag, came to invite the officers to visit the

colonel of the regiment. Prince Stah----, who believed the favorable

moment was come, ordered the soldiers to repulse the grenadiers with

_coup-de-crosses_, and to take away their flag, at the same time

throwing himself upon Major-General Fredericks, whom B----, on the

other side, menaced with a pistol, with the stock of which he felled

him to the earth; then, turning upon Major Schenshine, commander of

the brigade, who ran to the assistance of his colleague, he knocked

him down in a moment, and flinging himself among the grenadiers,

successively wounded Grenadier Krassoffski, Colonel Khavosschinski,

and Subaltern Moussieff; and cutting his way to the flag, seized and

elevated it with a loud and triumphant hurrah. To that cry, and to the

sight of the blood so boldly shed to win the flag, the greater part

of the regiment replied, "Long live Constantine! down with Nicholas!"

Prince Stah----, followed by four hundred men whom he had seduced from

their duty, then marched, with drums beating, to the Admiralty quarter.

At the gate of the winter palace, the aide-de-camp, the bearer of the

news of the revolt, encountered another officer, who brought tidings

from the barracks of the grenadier corps of equally alarming import.

When that regiment were preparing to take the oath of fidelity to the

Emperor Nicholas, the sub-lieutenant Kojenikoff threw himself before

the advanced-guard, exclaiming, "It is not to the Grand-duke Nicholas

we ought to make oath, but to the Emperor Constantine." He was told

that the Czarowitz had abdicated in his next brother's favor. "It is

false," was his reply; "totally false; he is on the march for St.

Petersburg to reward the faithful and punish the guilty."

The regiment, notwithstanding these outcries, continued its march,

took the oath of allegiance to the new sovereign, and returned into

quarters, without showing any disposition resembling revolt. At

dinner-time Lieutenant Suthoff, who had taken the pledge of obedience

with the rest, entered at that moment, and addressed himself to his

own company in a manner calculated to excite their attention: "My

friends, we were wrong to obey the order; the other regiments are in

open revolt; they have refused to take the oath, and are at this moment

in the Place of the Senate;--put on your uniforms, arm, come on, and

follow me; I have your pay in my pocket, which I am ready to distribute

without waiting for the ceremony of an order."

"But is what you say quite true?" cried many voices.

"Stay, here is Lieutenant Panoff,--like myself, one of your best

friends,--ask him."

"My friends," remarked Panoff, anticipating their question, "you all

know that Constantine is your only lawful emperor, and that they wish

to dethrone him."

"Live Constantine!" replied the soldiers.

"Live Nicholas!" exclaimed Colonel Sturler, the commander of the

regiment, throwing himself courageously into the hall. "They are

deceiving you, my friends; the Czarowitz has really abdicated, and you

have now no other emperor than the Grand-duke Nicholas. Live Nicholas!"

"Live Constantine!" responded the soldiers.

"You are mistaken, soldiers; you are about to take a fatal step; you

are deceived," again shouted the colonel.

"Comrades, do not abandon me; follow me," cried Panoff; "let those who

are for Constantine, unite with me in the cry, 'Long live Constantine!'"

More than three parts of those present joined in the cry of "Long live

Constantine!"

"To the Admiralty! to the Admiralty!" said Panoff, drawing his sword;

"follow me, soldiers, follow me."

With a wild hurrah two hundred soldiers followed their leader to the

place he indicated, whither, though by a different route, the insurgent

portion of the Regiment of Moscow had already preceded them.

Milarodowich, the military governor of St. Petersburg, a cavalry

general, whose splendid charges on the field had gained him the

appellation of the Russian Murat, was by this time at the palace, to

communicate to his new sovereign the dispositions he had made for the

defence of his throne and the capital. He had directed the troops upon

whose fidelity he thought he could rely, to march to the winter palace.

The first battalion of the regiment Preobrajenski, three regiments of

the guard Paulowski, and the battalion of the Sapper and Miners, were

those he considered fit for this important service.

The emperor saw then that the mutiny was more general than he

anticipated; he therefore sent by Major-general Meidhart, to carry

orders to the Semenowski guard to repress the mutineers, and to the

horse-guards, to hold themselves in readiness to mount. He went down

himself to the corps of chief guards of the winter palace, where the

regiment of Finland guards were at that time on duty, and ordered

them to load their muskets and invest the principal avenues of the

palace. At that very moment tumultuous sounds interrupted the voice

of the sovereign, occasioned by the approach of the third and sixth

companies of the Regiment of Moscow, headed by Prince Stah----, and

the two B----, with the captured flag proudly displayed to the wind,

and drums beating, to the ominous cry of "Long live Constantine! Down

with Nicholas!" The rebel troops debouched on the Admiralty Square,

but whether they thought themselves not sufficiently strong, or that

they dreaded facing majesty with these treasonable demonstrations,

they did not march upon the winter palace, but took up their position

against the senate, where they were immediately joined by the grenadier

corps, and sixty men in frocks with pistols in their hands, who mingled

themselves among the rebel soldiers.

The emperor at this crisis appeared from under one of the arches of

the palace, approached the grating, and threw a rapid glance on his

revolted subjects. He was paler than usual, but was composed and calm.

It was whispered that he had resolved to die as became a Christian

emperor, and that he had confessed and received absolution of the

Church, before he took leave of his family. Every eye was fixed upon

him, when the hard gallop of a squadron of cuirassiers was heard on the

side of the marble palace; it was the horse-guards, headed by Count

Orloff, one of the bravest and most faithful friends of the emperor.

Before him the gates expanded; he leaped from his charger, while

the regiment ranged itself before the palace. The roll of the drums

announced instantly the approach of the grenadiers of Preobrajenski,

which arrived in battalions. They entered the court of the palace,

where they found the emperor with the empress, and their eldest son,

the little Grand-duke Alexander; behind them were ranged the Chevalier

guard, who formed an angle with the cuirassiers, leaving between them

an open space, which was quickly filled up by the artillery. The

revolted regiments regarded these military dispositions with apparent

carelessness, while their cries of "Long live Constantine!" "Down with

Nicholas!" evidently proved that they expected, and waited there for

reinforcements.

While affairs were in this state at the palace, the Grand-duke Michael,

at the barracks, was opposing his personal influence to the flood-tide

of rebellion. Some happy results had followed these attempts, and the

bold resolution taken by Count Lieven, captain of the sixth company

of the Regiment of Moscow, who arrived in time to shut the gates

against the battalion, then about to join their rebel comrades. Placing

himself before the soldiers, he drew his sword, and swore on his

honor to pass the weapon through the body of the first man who should

make a seditious movement to re-open them. At this threat, a young

sub-lieutenant advanced, pistol in hand, towards Count Lieven, with the

evident intention of blowing out his brains. The count, with admirable

presence of mind, struck the officer a blow with the pummel of his

sword, which made the instrument leap from his hands; the lieutenant

took up the pistol and once more took aim at the count. The young

nobleman crossed his arms, and confronted the mutinous officer, while

the regiment, mute and motionless, looked on like the seconds of this

singular duel. The lieutenant drew back a few steps, followed by the

heroic count, who offered him his unarmed breast as if in defiance of

his attempt. The lieutenant fired, but the ball took no effect: that

it did not strike that generous breast appeared miraculous. Some one

knocked at the door.

"Who is there?" asked many voices.

"His Imperial Highness the Grand-duke Michael," replied those without.

Some instants of profound silence followed this announcement. Count

Lieven availed himself of the general stupefaction to open the door, no

person attempting to prevent that action.

The Grand-duke entered on horseback, followed by the officers of

ordnance.

"What means this inaction at a moment of danger?" asked the Grand-duke.

"Am I among traitors or loyal soldiers?"

"You are in the midst of the most faithful of your regiments," replied

the Count, "of which your Imperial Highness shall have immediate

proof." Then raising his drawn sword, he cried, "Long live the Emperor

Nicholas!"

"Long live the Emperor Nicholas!" shouted the soldiers with one voice.

The young sub-lieutenant attempted to speak, but Count Lieven stopped

him by touching his arm. "Silence, sir; I shall not mention what has

passed; and you will ruin yourself by the utterance of a syllable."

His magnanimity awed and convinced the disloyal officer.

"Lieven, I confide to you the conduct of this regiment," remarked the

Grand-duke emphatically.

"I will answer for its loyalty with my life, your Imperial Highness,"

replied the Count.

The Grand-duke departed, and on his rounds, if he received no

enthusiastic greeting, at least found what he sought, obedience to the

authority of the Emperor Nicholas.

Reinforcements came in on every side; the Sappers and Miners drew up in

order of battle, before the palace of the Hermitage; the rest of the

Regiment of Moscow, rescued from the stain of rebellion by the courage

and address of Count Lieven, now proudly debouched by the Perspective

of Niewski. The sight of these troops gave a delusive hope to the

revolted, who, believing them to be on their side, greeted them with

loud cheers; but they were instantly undeceived, for the new-comers

ranged themselves along the Hotel of the Tribunals, facing the palace,

and with the Cuirassiers, Artillery, and Chevalier guards, inclosed the

revolted in a circle of steel.

A moment after, they heard the chant of the priests. It was the

Patriarch, who came out of the church of Casan, followed by all his

clergy, and preceded by the holy banners. He now commanded the revolted

"in the name of heaven, to return to their duty." The soldiers, for

the first time perhaps in their lives, regarded with contempt the

pictures which they had been accustomed from infancy to regard with

superstitious veneration, and they desired the Patriarch "to let them

alone, since if heavenly things belonged to the priestly jurisdiction,

they could take care of those of earth." The Patriarch continued his

injunctions to obedience, notwithstanding this discouraging rebuff,

but the Emperor ordered him to desist and retire. Nicholas himself was

resolved to make one effort to bring back these rebels to their duty.

Those who surrounded the Emperor wished to prevent him from risking his

person, but he boldly replied, "It is my game that is playing, and it

is but fair play on my part to set my life on the stake."

He ordered the gate to be opened, but scarcely had he been obeyed,

before the Grand-duke Michael approached him, and whispered in his

ear that that part of the Regiment Preobrajenski by which he was

then surrounded, had made common cause with the rebels, and that

the Prince T., their commander, whose absence he had remarked with

astonishment, was at the head of the conspiracy. Nicholas remembered

that four-and-twenty years before the same regiment had kept guard

before the red palace, while its Colonel, Prince Talitzen, strangled

the Emperor Paul, his father.

His situation was terrible, but he did not even change countenance; he

only showed that he had formed a desperate resolution. In an instant he

turned and gave his orders to one of his generals, "Bring me hither the

Grand-duke."

The general returned with the young prince: the Emperor raised the boy

in his arms, and advancing to the grenadiers, said, "Soldiers, if I am

killed, behold your sovereign. Open your ranks; I confide him to your

loyalty."

A long, loud hurrah, a cry of enthusiasm that came from the very heart

of these suspected soldiers, reëchoed to that of the Emperor, whose

magnanimous confidence had won their admiration. The most guilty among

them dropped their weapons and opened their arms to receive the heir

of the Empire. The imperial pledge was placed with colors in the midst

of the regiment, a guarded and sacred asylum for honor and innocence.

The Emperor mounted his horse and went out of the gate, where he was

met by his generals, who implored him not to go any further, as the

rebels openly avowed their intention of killing their sovereign, and

their arms were loaded. The Emperor made a sign to them with his

hand to leave him a free passage, and forbidding them to accompany

him, spurred his horse and galloped forward till he arrived within

pistol-shot. "Soldiers," cried he, "I am told that you wish to kill me.

Is that true? If it is, here I am!"

There was a pause, while the Emperor sat on horseback, remaining like

an equestrian statue between the two bodies of troops. Twice the word

fire was heard among the rebel ranks, and twice some feeling of respect

to the dauntless courage of the sovereign restrained the execution of

the order; but at the third command some muskets loaded with ball were

discharged, which whistled past the Emperor without striking him, but

wounded, at a hundred paces behind him, Colonel Velho and many soldiers.

At that moment the Grand-duke Michael and Count Milarodowich galloped

towards the Emperor, the regiment of cuirassiers and those of the

Chevalier guards made a forward movement--the artillerymen were about

to apply their matches to the cannon.

"Halt," cried the Emperor. All obeyed. "General," said he to Count

Milarodowich, "go to these unfortunate men and endeavor to bring them

to their allegiance."

The Count and the Grand-duke Michael rode forward, but the rebels

received them with a shower of ball, accompanied by their war-cry,

"Live Constantine!"

"Soldiers," cried the Count, who was conspicuous alike by his fine

martial figure and splendid uniform covered with orders; "soldiers,

behold this sabre," and he flourished above his head a magnificent

Turkish one, the hilt of which was set with jewels, and advancing with

it to the front ranks of the rebels, he continued, "This sabre was

given me by his Imperial Highness the Czarowitz, and on my honor, I

will make oath upon its blade, that you have been deceived, that the

Czarowitz has abdicated the imperial crown, and that your real and

legitimate sovereign is the Emperor Nicholas."

Cries of "Live Constantine!" and the report of a pistol were the

replies given by the revolted to the address of the Count, whose action

with the sword arm had left his side exposed to the enemy. He was seen

to reel in the saddle. Another pistol was aimed at the Grand-duke

Michael, but the soldiers of the Marine, though included in the revolt,

seized the arm of the assassin.

Count Orloff and the cuirassiers faced the heavy fire of the musketry,

and enveloped in their ranks the wounded Milarodowich, the Grand-duke

Michael and the Emperor Nicholas, whom they carried off by force to the

palace.

The Count, wounded to death, sat his horse with difficulty, and the

moment he arrived at the palace, fell into the arms of those who

surrounded him.

The Emperor, notwithstanding the late unfortunate attempt, still wished

to make one last endeavor to bring back the revolted, but while he

was issuing orders to that effect, the Grand-duke Michael seized the

match: "Fire," cried he, "fire upon the assassins." At that moment four

cannons opened upon the rebels, and paid with usury the deaths they

had sent into the loyal ranks of the imperialists. Before the voice

of the Emperor could stop the slaughter, a second discharge followed

the first. The effect of these volleys within reach of pistol-shot was

terrible. More than sixty men of the grenadier corps of the Regiment

of Moscow and the Marine guards fell; the rebel troops fled, some by

the street Galernain, some by the English quay or by the bridge Isaac,

others across the frozen waters of the Neva, then a plain of ice, but

all were hotly pursued by the Chevalier guards at full gallop.

That evening Count Milarodowich, who was struggling with the agonies

of death, expressed a wish to see the bullet which had given him his

mortal wound. The chirurgeon, who had successfully traced and extracted

the ball, put it into his patient's hand. The expiring warrior

carefully examined the missive, its weight, and form, and found it

deficient in calibre. "I am satisfied," said he, "that ball was aimed

by no soldier." Five minutes after these words, he breathed his last.

He then paid the debt of nature, the only debt he ever paid in his

life. Handsome, valiant, the finest horseman in the army, and the idol

of his own soldiers, the Russian Murat lost his life by the hand of

a Russian, but not of a Russian soldier. The rival of the _cidevant_

King of Naples loved display in every shape; but the field of battle,

at the head of his cavalry, was the theatre on which he best loved to

exhibit his martial form, splendid horsemanship, and daring courage.

The gaming-table found him as reckless of his fortune as the field

of his life, and the bravest cavalry general in the Russian service

was a ruined gamester, loaded with debts which his death acquitted by

leaving him insolvent. In paying the debt of nature Count Milarodowich

surrendered his only personal possession.

The next day, at nine o'clock in the morning, while the population of

his capital was yet uncertain whether the rebellion was effectually

crushed, Nicholas, Emperor of Russia, gave his hand to the Empress

to assist her into a droski which stood before the gates of the

winter-palace, and drove through the streets of St. Petersburg. He

stopped before the barracks as if to offer his bold bosom to the

bullet or the steel of the assassin. The sight of his fine countenance,

shadowed by the floating plumes of his military hat, far from exciting

treasonable demonstrations, awakened lively expressions of loyalty and

devotion to his person, and cries of "Long live Nicholas!" greeted his

fortunate rashness. The Russian people knew and recognized in him a

brave man and great sovereign.

The trial of the chief conspirators took place under the shadow of

night and secrecy; they were brought from all parts of the empire to

St. Petersburg. The sentence, but not the examination of the guilty,

alone was made public; eighty persons were condemned to death, or

life-long exile in Siberia. The most powerful, according to the custom

of Russia, increased the population of Siberia; among these we find

the name of Prince T.: his wife, with rare devotion, petitioned and

obtained from the Emperor permission to accompany her husband to that

dreary land of woe and crime. The decimation of the disloyal but

seduced regiments was an act of severe military justice that astonished

Europe, but secured the tranquillity of Russia. The son of the Emperor

Paul, whose life and death had been the stake of the military contest

of December, 1825, might be better excused than any other man for that

tremendous sentence. He had been fired upon by his own soldiers while

unarmed and confiding his person to their generosity; his brother,

and his plenipotentiary, Count Milarodowich, had been aimed at by

assassins, and the Count had died of his wound.

A flash of magnanimity enlightened this cloud of severity. In the list

of conspirators the Emperor remarked the name of Suwarrow, a name

dear to Russia and associated with her victories. He chose to examine

this young man, the grandson of the great field-marshal, himself.

His countenance and manner, unusually gentle, seemed to inspire

confidence. The questions he asked this lieutenant only required a

simple affirmative or denial, and they were not of a nature to elicit

a confession of guilt. "Gentlemen, you see and hear," remarked the

Emperor to his council, "it is as I have told you, a Suwarrow cannot

be a rebel," and he acquitted the prisoner, and gave him a captain's

commission and sent him back to his regiment; but unfortunately for the

conspirators, this lieutenant was the only person who bore that favored

name. All were not Suwarrows.

It was remarked that those who were executed uttered these words

as their last legacy to posterity, "Live Russia! Live Liberty! our

avengers are at hand!" Their war-cry of "Live Constantine!" false to

their hearts, was not repeated by lips which the presence of death had

rendered then the echo of truth.

The funeral pomp of the widowed Empress Elizabeth, whose remains were

brought for interment to St. Petersburg in this same month of December,

turned the thoughts of its inhabitants from these scenes of civil

strife and the executions that followed them, to a Princess, whom for

twenty-four years they had regarded as a link between the human and

angelic natures. The memory of these events seemed buried in that

sepulchre, which the tears of a grateful people had consecrated to the

remembrance of the consort of the deceased Emperor Alexander.

From Nimrod's Bacchanalia Memorabilia.

DRINKING EXPERIENCES.

The pleasure imparted by wine to me is great, but very short-lived:

it appears to mount, as it were, to a crisis; after which it somewhat

rapidly declines. In fact, it does not enliven me beyond a certain

pitch. It then ceases its charms; doubtless, because my stomach, the

centre of all sympathy, feels oppressed by it. I grow dull, my head

aches, I am inclined for sleep, and wish for bed.--But it does not

rob me of self-possession, nor incline me to wrangle or quarrel. On

the contrary, it excites my love, not my hatred, and greatly expands

my heart. I have granted many a favor, and promised many more, by the

inspiration of the jolly god. I have shaken hands with, sworn eternal

friendship for, many a man, and made love to many a woman, for whom,

vulgarly speaking, I cared not a rush. In short, I have a hundred times

made a fool of myself by talking, boasting--not lying, for I have ever

held that low vice in abhorrence--and occasionally laid wagers, and

matched horses, without a chance of winning. But, as I have already

stated, I never was so overcome by wine as not to know where I was, and

what I said. In fact, it never had the power to make me forget that I

was born a gentleman; and I am happy in the reflection, that I have

travelled thus far through life without having been once called upon to

make an apology for an insult given, either when drunk or sober; nor to

demand but two, and those were the result of excess in wine. One was

tendered to me on the first dawn of returning reason; the other, I am

sorry to say, at the pistol's mouth. But the events I am alluding to

occurred many years back, when, as a well-known sporting old earl of

the last century said of himself, "the devil was very strong in me."

I never was drunk, from drinking spirits, more than twice, which was

with very strong brandy and water. Now he that praises drunkenness

is a sot convicted on his own evidence; but were I to drink for what

is called drinking's sake--that is, to acquire an artificial state

of pleasurable excitement--brandy should be the liquor I should fly

to to secure it. The "divine luxuries of opium" I never yet tasted;

but the powers of wine upon me are, comparatively with brandy, truly

insignificant. At the period I am alluding to, it not only appeared

to afford me a sure panacea for all evils, past, present, and to

come, but to open unlimited prospects of future bliss. I felt as if I

were possessed of more than human powers, and that there was nothing

I willed I could not do. In short, it eventually made me mad; and,

on each occasion, I nearly lost my life, together with my senses.

On the one, I attempted to go to sea, by moonlight, in a small open

boat, without either rudder or sail, and in the current of a strong

tide running out of a Welsh bay; on the other, although more than two

hundred miles distant from it, I got upon a coachbox to go to London,

in my evening dress; and did "go," till I tumbled off it into the road.

To the latter excursion I was no doubt indebted to my early propensity

to driving coaches; but having at no time of my life had a fancy for

the sea, I owed my intended aquatic trip to a member of the yacht club,

who was my partner in the debauch. Death, says Johnson, is more than

usually unwelcome to a rich man; and as my friend is possessed of ten

thousand a year, he was by no means a fit subject to be mangled by

Welsh crabs. Had we, however, accomplished our purpose in unmooring the

boat, we should never have been heard of in this world any more. The

day would have come upon us both "unawares."

To return to wine. The effect of wine is generally supposed to

invigorate the understanding, and to stimulate the mental powers--of

poets, especially. Thus Horace asks Bacchus whither he is about to

transport him? But by the words "_tui plenum_," I think he must have

meant full, not of his wine, but of his divinity, without the aid

of which he felt himself unequal to pen a panegyric upon Octavius.

Now, were I to say that it is in the power of wine to sink me below

mortality--in other words, to make a brute of me--I should certainly

go beyond my tether; but I can safely assert that, if I were a

poet, so far from realizing Horace's expectations of it, it would

lead me _down_, not up, the hill. In fact, when under its immediate

influence--I do not mean drunk, but "pretty considerably sprung," as

the term is--I can scarcely indite a common letter. It appears to

stultify my ordinary capacities. I must, however, admit that, on the

first waking after a plentiful allowance of good wine, some bright

thoughts have come across my mind, and, when not lost by an intervening

nap, have been found worthy of being noted down, and now and then made

serviceable. It would indeed be an act of ingratitude to the jolly god,

were I to omit the fact, that I once did rise from my bed, at four

o'clock in the morning, after having sacrificed largely the overnight,

and wrote the best thing I ever did write; at least, so said a certain

learned sergeant, who now wears a silk gown, and who told me he would

have given five hundred pounds to have been the author of it. But it

never saw the light. It was a satire; and "_Nulla venenato litera mixta

joco est_," has ever been, and shall ever continue to be, my motto. I

wish not to dip my pen in gall.

I have found wine, taken to excess for only a few days, to depress

the mind more than the body; that is to say, when, as a friend of

mine expresses himself, "the _animus_ is flown;" and I once heard

this natural effect of over-mental excitement admirably illustrated

by a very illiterate coachman of the old school. "Was Jem drunk when

he upset his coach the other night?" was a question I put to one of

this fraternity some years back, when drinking to excess with them was

the order of both day and night. "Why, sir," he replied, "he warn't

drunk, nor he warn't sober; _the liquor was a-dying in him, and he was

stupid_." Now, this strongly resembles my own case. Had I to write

for a prize, and that prize were immortality, I would not depend much

upon the assistance of Bacchus. I would rather rely on my own natural

powers, gently stimulated by wine when they flagged.

In all ages of the world, however, clever men, and poets especially,

have been more or less addicted to drinking to excess. The austere

Cato, the voluptuous Cæsar, were each given to what Seneca calls the

_intemperantia bibendi_--notwithstanding which, according to Seneca,

the wisdom of the former received no blemish from this cause. His

daughter, indeed, admitted that it softened the rigor of her father's

virtues. Titus, the delight of human kind, sat late after his dinner:

his brother, Domitian, the tyrant and fly-tormentor, never later than

the setting sun. The influence of wine upon poets has long since been

proverbial. Poetry, in fact, has been called the wine of the mind;

and wine, like love, makes poets. The old Greeks drank and sang; and

Anacreon would not have been Anacreon, but for the inspiring juice

of the grape, as he himself tells us in his celebrated hymn to the

full-blown rose--

"Crown me, and instant, god of wine,

Strains from my lyre shall reach thy shrine."

Indeed, the first prize contended for by poets was a cask of wine;

and the Bacchic hymn was called "The Hymn of the Cask." Horace, in

fact, pronounces a water-drinking poet to be little worth--even the

springs of Castalia will not avail; but after his bottle of Falernian,

he boldly asserts, in his ode to Bacchus, in which he wishes to soap

Cæsar, that no daring was then too great for his muse.

Both Homer and Horace must have liked wine, and experience on occasions

its good effects, or they would not have been the authors of such

glowing panegyrics upon it. It is true the latter is moral in the

midst of his gayety, uniting the wisdom of the philosopher with the

playfulness of the poet; still, and notwithstanding he preaches up

moderation in desires, as the chief source of human happiness, he

must have been _secretly_ attached to the Epicurean school, in our

acceptation of that term. We may, I think, glean this from various

passages of his several works, and especially from the compliment he

pays Tibullus on the knowledge he displays of the _savoir vivre_ at his

own house and table. Again, although in his ode to Apollo he wished

us to believe he did not like it, the one to his Cask is an incentive

to _drinking_. In another to Telephus, he himself gets "as drunk as

a lord;" and had a pretty good bousing match on his escape from the

tree, as well as at his party on Cæsar's birth-day. Then how does he

promise to welcome Macænas when he came to sup with him? _To take a

hundred bumpers with him for friendship's sake!_ Neither is this all.

Notwithstanding his telling his friend that his wine was not such as

_he_ ought to drink, it is evident he did not "think small beer of it"

himself. He notes its age, seals the casks with his own hands, and taps

a fresh one on any very memorable occasion. In short, but for a bodily

infirmity to which he was subject, there is little doubt but he would

have been one of the jolly dogs of his own day. At all events, as has

been elegantly said of him, "he tuned his harp to pleasure, and to easy

temper of his own soul."

How happens it, it may be asked, that not a single Grecian has ascended

Parnassus for so many ages back, and that the vocal hills of Arcadia

no longer resound to the Doric reed? There are, we know, several

reasons given for this, such as a despotic government, alteration in

the language, &c., &c.; but the most powerful cause of the literary

degeneracy of this once justly celebrated people is, doubtless, in the

substitution of the enervating luxuries of coffee, tobacco, and opium,

for the invigorating powers of good wine. It was not so in Anacreon's

days.

Let us now turn to the eminently gifted men of later times. Sir Richard

Steele spent half his hours in a tavern. In fact, he may be said to

have measured time by the bottle; as on being sent for by his wife,

he returned for answer that "he would be with her in half a bottle."

The like may be said of Savage; and Addison was as dull as an alderman

till he was three parts drunk. Neither would he stop at that point.

It is on record of him that he once drank till he vomited in the

company of Voltaire; which called forth the cutting remark, that the

only good thing that came out of his mouth, in Voltaire's presence,

was the wine that had gone into it. It is also recorded of Pitt, but

I cannot vouch for the truth of it, that two bottles of port wine per

diem was his usual allowance, and that it was to _potens Bacchus_ he

was indebted for the almost superhuman labor he went through during

his short, but actively employed life. His friend and colleague, Harry

Dundas, a clever man also in his way, went the pace with him over the

mahogany; and the joke about the Speaker in his chair, after they had

dined together, cannot be forgotten. Pitt could see no Speaker; but

his friend, like Horace with the candle, saw two. Sheridan, latterly,

without wine, was a driveller. He sacrificed to it talents such as no

man I ever heard or read of possessed, for no subject appeared to be

beyond his reach. I knew him when I was a boy, and thought him then

something more than human. The learned Porson would get drunk in a

pothouse--so would Robert Burns, the poet; and Byron drank brandy and

water by bucketsful. Fox was a thirsty soul, and drank far too much

wine for either a politician or a play-man; yet, like Nestor over

the bowl, he was always great. But a contemporary of his, likewise a

great play-man and a clever fellow, out-heroded Herod. He estimated

his losses in hogsheads of claret; and it was humorously said of John

Taylor--for such was his name--that, after a certain hour of the night,

"he could not be removed _without a permit_, as he had more than a

dozen of claret on board." Two of the finest actors that ever graced

the British stage could scarcely be kept sober enough to perform their

parts: But enough of this. Wine taken in excess is the bane of talent.

Like fire upon incense, it may cause rich fumes to escape; but the

dregs and refuse, when the sacrifice is ended, are little worth. By a

long continuance, indeed, in any vicious indulgence, the mind, like

the body, is reduced to a state of atrophy; and knowledge, like food,

passes through it without adding to its strength. But repeated vinous

intoxication soonest unfits a man for either mental or bodily exertion.

Equally with the effect of violent love, so powerfully set forth by the

poet Lucretius, it creates an indolence and listlessness which damps

all noble pursuits, as well as a neglect of all useful affairs--

"Labitur interea res et vadimonia fiunt;

Languent officia, atque ægrotat fama vacillans."

There are countries--half civilised ones, of course--in which

intoxication is esteemed the greatest of human pleasures; and

Lord Bacon thought it only second to love. Much of the folly of

drunkenness, however, in the middle and upper orders of society,

proceeds from a laudable desire to exercise in the extreme the rites

of hospitality. To the "honest pride of hospitality," as Byron calls

it, many a man who hates drinking, has given many a slice of his

perhaps already shaken constitution. And here is really something

like an excuse. Independently of the making welcome our friends, and

seeing ourselves surrounded by them under our own roof, being one of

the first among the ordinary comforts of life, hospitality has ever

been considered a primary social duty. The best definition of real

hospitality is given by Cicero, who admits that there is nothing that

contributes more effectually to the happiness of human life than

society,--distinguishing from the sensual gratification of the palate,

the pleasing relaxation of the mind, which he says is best produced

by the freedom of social converse, always most agreeable at the table.

Neither does he appear to be an enemy to a cheerful glass; and we must

admire the definition he gives of drinking parties. "The Greeks," says

he, "call them by a word which signifies computations, whereas we more

emphatically denominate them convivial meetings; intimating thereby,

that it is in a communication of this nature that life is most truly

enjoyed." That Cicero, however, was temperate, may be concluded by the

fact of his having written when past his sixtieth year his celebrated

Philippies, in which his powers of reasoning are more vigorous, and his

language more touching, than in any of his former and younger orations.

He used wine in moderation; and it is thus that it answers the ends of

Providence. It then exhilarates and strengthens the mind, as well as

the body, and, like the bloom on the female cheek, beautifies it, and

shows health.

There are said to be three modes of bearing the ills of life,

indifference, philosophy, and religion; and many add--the bottle. But

the effect of wine on grief is of a doubtful nature. It may deaden

the pang for a while, but it will return on the morrow with redoubled

force, and with the powers of the sufferer less equal to contend with

it. Nevertheless, the maxim of Anacreon, that "when Bacchus enters our

cares sleep," is in part true; and a temporary oblivion of care and

disappointment is generally produced by an agreeable party and good

cheer. And thus is Shakespeare justified in calling wine the merry

cheerer of the human heart, as well as others who have asserted that it

not only creates pleasure, but mitigates pain. For the latter purpose,

indeed, it was formerly given to condemned malefactors, previously to

their suffering; "Give strong drink to him who is ready to perish,"

says the author of the book of Proverbs, "and wine unto them that be of

heavy hearts. _Let him drink, and forget his poverty, and remember his

misery no more._"

If a tranquil mind and freedom from pain make up the sum of a happy

life, how great is the value of this cordial drop, and how thankful

should we be for it! How sacred and profane writers agree in the

essential qualities of the pure juice, especially in the relief of

wretchedness. "See the blind beggar dance, the cripple sing," is no

exaggeration of its power in lessening anguish from past misfortunes,

or present ills; but in the following translation of a fragment of

Bacchylides, we see what rays of brightness it can throw over our

future prospects:

"Thirsty comrade! would'st thou know

All the raptures that do flow

From those sweet compulsive rules

Of our ancient drinking schools?

First, the precious draught shall raise

Amorous thoughts in giddy maze,

Mingling Bacchus' present treasure

With the hopes of higher pleasure.

Next, shall chase through empty air

All th' intolerant hosts of care;

Give thee conquest, riches, power;

Bid thee scale the guarded tower;

Bid thee reign o'er land and sea

With unquestioned sov'reignty.

Thou thy palace shall behold,

Bright with ivory and gold;

While each ship that ploughs the main,

Filled with Egypt's choicest grain,

Shall unload her ponderous store,

Thirsty comrade, at thy door."

Yet guided by my own experience, of the various effects of wine on the

mind, I cannot go quite the length of some of its panegyrists. So far,

indeed, from thinking with Ovid that it takes even the wrinkles out of

the face, I am more inclined to believe that it adds to their number by

the excitement that it creates; and although the festive pleasures of

the table, in addition to the society of friends, may cheer the heart,

and even irradiate gloom, the talisman is not there by which the cause

may be reached, and the pain destroyed, beyond the hour.

"Though gay companions o'er the bowl

Dispel awhile the sense of ill;

Though pleasure fires the madd'ning soul,

The heart--the heart is lonely still."

No--although I fear I am about to speak without experience now--it is

my opinion, that neither the resources of the philosopher, nor the

consolations of religion, nor conscious worth, unaccompanied by native

fortitude and energy of mind, are of much avail against real grief. Why

they should not be, is no business of mine to inquire; nor would it be

becoming me to question the designs of Providence. But this much I may

affirm without fear of offence,--Human life is prudently chequered with

good and evil; and the most likely way to enjoy it, is to make the best

of the one while the other is away.

The powerful influence of wine on society is estimated by Dr. Johnson,

in the _Rambler_: "In the bottle," says he, "discontent seeks for

comfort, cowardice for courage, and bashfulness for confidence."

Nothing is more true than this; although it sometimes happens that the

first is looked for in vain, the second proves false, and the latter

exceeds its bounds. The union of sensual and intellectual enjoyment,

however, is requisite to complete the happiness of "the double

animal"--the perfect man; and as all mankind are not philosophers,

much less abstract ones, after-dinner conversation would generally

be flat without the genial influence of good wine. Indeed, the wit

of the wittiest man, and the most agreeable companion I ever sat

down with, appeared to rise in brilliancy with every glass he drank;

and when, to use an expression of his own, he felt himself "vinously

inclined,"--that is to say, when he had what Cicero calls the "_furor

vinolentus_" upon him, there were no bounds to his humorous sallies.

Upon old men wine is generally well bestowed.

"----Give me a bowl of wine;

I have not that alacrity of spirit

Nor cheer of mind that I was wont to have,"

exclaims the bold King Richard; and I once heard a fine old sportsman,

and very worthy man, declare, after a bottle of good port, that he

would not exchange the present--his eightieth year--for the gayest he

had ever spent.

Luckily for the credit of the human race--although Cleopatra hunted

and _drank_ with Antony--there has been, in all ages of the world, a

sense of shame attached to the vice of drunkenness in women, having any

pretensions to character, as something contrary to their more refined

nature. By the ancient Roman laws it was punishable even by death; and

we find that even the abandoned women who celebrated the Bacchanalia

were ashamed to do so, except under the disguise of masks.

To the credit of the present age, drunkenness in women is not a

common failing; but when they once yield to the vice, they have less

moderation in the indulgence of it than men have. That such was the

case in other ages and countries, may be gleaned from a passage in

a comic play-writer, contemporary with Plato, which has been thus

accurately rendered:

"Remark how wisely ancient art provides,

The broad-brimmed cup, with flat expanded sides;

A cup contrived for _man's_ discreeter use,

And sober potions of the generous juice.

But _woman's_ more ambitious, thirsty soul

Soon long'd to revel in the plenteous bowl;

Deep and capacious as the swelling hold

Of some stout bark, she shaped the hollow mould;

Then, turning out a vessel like a tun,

Simpering, exclaimed--_Observe, I drink but one_."

To return to the effect of wine on the ruder sex. Next to a smoky

house and a scolding wife, it is the greatest trial of the temper

to which that of man is exposed. In fact, it is a test by which it

may be proved; and the advice of Horace is excellent, _not to choose

a friend till we have put him to this test_. Addison is likewise

happy in his remark on this point. "Wine," says he, "is not to be

drunk by all who can swallow;" and truer words were never written.

It has an extraordinary effect upon low and uncultivated minds; as

was exemplified in late times, when war prices and abundance of money

placed it within the reach of the English commonalty. Rows and broils,

with marked insolence towards superiors, were the concomitant results.

Neither is the observation of Pliny a whit less just. He says truth

is vulgarly and _properly_ attributed to wine; and I am decidedly of

his opinion. In fact, our English term, "disguised in liquor," is

improperly used; inasmuch as a blackguard when drunk is in his nature a

blackguard when sober. The tongue, says the Bible, is at all times an

unruly member; but when under the influence of wine, it is still more

apt to run riot. Then, again, drunken men are given to "err in vision

and stumble in judgment," and to put constructions upon words which

they were not intended to convey. When we sacrifice to Bacchus, we are

not favored by Mercury; and the well-known adage of "wine in, wit out,"

is but an abbreviation of the equally well proved axiom, that wine

raises the imagination, but depresses the judgment.

Neither is the highly bred gentleman, if much addicted to intoxication,

quite safe to be admitted into close friendship, inasmuch as he renders

himself, by the practice, unworthy of confidence. Wine so unlocks the

cabinet of the heart, that it is easily looked into when we are off our

guard.

From an article in the "Home Book of the Picturesque,"

just published by G. P. Putnam.

AMERICAN AND EUROPEAN SCENERY COMPARED.

BY J. FENIMORE COOPER.

The great distinction between American and European scenery, as a

whole, is to be found in the greater want of finish in the former than

in the latter, and to the greater superfluity of works of art in the

old world than in the new. Nature has certainly made some differences,

though there are large portions of continental Europe that, without

their artificial accessories, might well pass for districts in our

own region; and which forcibly remind the traveller of his native

home. As a whole, it must be admitted that Europe offers to the senses

sublimer views and certainly grander, than are to be found within our

own borders, unless we resort to the Rocky Mountains, and the ranges in

California and New Mexico.

In musing on these subjects, the mind of the untravelled American

naturally turns first towards England. He has pictured to himself

landscapes and scenery on which are impressed the teeming history of

the past. We shall endeavour to point out the leading distinctions

between the scenery of England and that of America, therefore, as the

course that will probably be most acceptable to the reader.

The prevalent characteristic of the English landscape is its air of

snugness and comfort. In these respects it differs entirely from its

neighbor, France. The English, no doubt, have a great deal of poverty

and squalid misery among them. But it is kept surprisingly out of the

ordinary view. Most of it, indeed, is to be found in the towns, and

even in them it is concealed in out of the way places and streets

seldom entered by the stranger.

There are places in America, more especially in the vicinities of

the large towns, that have a strong resemblance to the more crowded

portions of England, though the hedge is usually wanting and the stone

wall is more in favor among ourselves than it appears ever to have been

among our ancestors. The great abundance of wood, in this country,

too, gives us the rail and the board for our fences, objects which the

lovers of the picturesque would gladly see supplanted by the brier and

the thorn. All that part of Staten Island, which lies nearest to the

quarantine ground, has a marked resemblance to what we should term

suburban English landscape. The neighborhoods of most of the old towns

in the northern States, have more or less of the same character; it

being natural that the descendants of Englishmen should have preserved

as many of the usages of their forefathers as were practicable. We

know of no portion of this country that bears any marked resemblance

to the prevalent characteristics of an ordinary French landscape. In

France there are two great distinctive features that seem to divide the

materials of the views between them. One is that of a bald nakedness

of formal _grandes routes_, systematically lined with trees, a total

absence of farm-houses, fences, hedges, and walls, little or no forest,

except in particular places, scarcely any pieces of detached woods, and

a husbandry that is remarkable for its stiffness and formality. The

fields of a French acclivity, when the grain is ripe, or ripening, have

a strong resemblance to an ordinary Manchester pattern-card, in which

the different cloths, varying in color, are placed under the eye at one

glance. The effect of this is not pleasing. The lines being straight

and the fields exhibiting none of the freedom of nature. Stiffness

and formality, indeed, impair the beauty of nine-tenths of the French

landscapes; though as a whole the country is considered fine, and is

certainly very productive. The other distinctive feature to which we

allude is of a directly contrary character, being remarkable for the

affluence of its objects. It often occurs in that country that the

traveller finds himself on a height that commands a view of great

extent, which is literally covered with _bourgs_ or small towns and

villages. This occurs particularly in Normandy, in the vicinity of

Paris and as one approaches the Loire. In such places it is no unusual

thing for the eye to embrace, as it might be in a single view, some

forty or fifty cold, grave-looking, chiselled _bourgs_ and villages,

almost invariably erected in stone. The effect is not unpleasant,

for the subdued color of the buildings has a tendency to soften the

landscape and to render the whole solemn and imposing. We can recall

many of these scenes that have left indelible impressions on the mind,

and which, if not positively beautiful in a rural sense, are very

remarkable. That from the heights of Montmorenci, near Paris, is one of

them; and there is another, from the hill of St. Catharine, near Rouen,

that is quite as extraordinary.

The greater natural freedom that exists in an ordinary American

landscape, and the abundance of detached fragments of wood, often

render the views of this country strikingly beautiful when they are of

sufficient extent to conceal the want of finish in the details, which

require time and long-continued labor to accomplish. In this particular

we conceive that the older portions of the United States offer to the

eye a general outline of view that may well claim to be even of a

higher cast, than most of the scenery of the old world.

There is one great charm, however, that it must be confessed is nearly

wanting among us. We allude to the coast. Our own is, with scarcely

an exception, low, monotonous and tame. It wants Alpine rocks, bold

promontories, visible heights inland, and all those other glorious

accessories of the sort that render the coast of the Mediterranean the

wonder of the world. It is usual for the American to dilate on the size

of his bays and rivers, but objects like these require corresponding

elevation in the land. Admirable as is the bay of New-York for the

purposes of commerce, it holds but a very subordinate place as a

landscape among the other havens of the world. The comparison with

Naples that has so often been made, is singularly unjust, there not

being two bays of any extent to be found, that are really less alike

than these. It was never our good fortune to see Constantinople or Rio

de Janeiro, the two noblest and most remarkable scenes of this kind,

as we have understood, known to the traveller. But we much question

if either will endure the test of rigid and severe examination better

than the celebrated Gulf of Napoli. The color of the water, alone, is

a peculiar beauty of all the Mediterranean bays: it is the blue of

the deep sea, carried home to the very rocks of the coast. In this

respect, the shores of America, also, have less claim to beauty than

those of Europe, generally. The waters are green, the certain sign of

their being shallow. Similar tints prevail in the narrow seas between

Holland and England. The name of Holland recalls a land, however, that

is even lower than any portion of our own with which we are acquainted.

There are large districts in Holland that are actually below the level

of the high tides of the sea. This country is a proof how much time,

civilization, and persevering industry, may add even to the interest

of a landscape. While the tameness of the American coast has so little

to relieve it or to give it character, in Holland it becomes the

source of wonder and admiration. The sight of vast meadows, villages,

farm-houses, churches, and other works of art, actually lying below the

level of the adjacent canals, and the neighboring seas, wakes in the

mind a species of reverence for human industry. This feeling becomes

blended with the views, and it is scarcely possible to gaze upon a

Dutch landscape without seeing, at the same time, ample pages from

the history of the country and the character of its people. On this

side of the ocean, there are no such peculiarities. Time, numbers, and

labor, are yet wanting to supply the defects of nature, and we must be

content, for a while, with the less teeming pictures drawn in our youth

and comparative simplicity.

On the American coast the prevailing character is less marked at the

northward and eastward than at the southward. At some future day, the

Everglades of Florida may have a certain resemblance to Holland. They

are the lowest land, we believe, in any part of this country.

Taking into the account the climate and its productions, the adjacent

mountains, the most picturesque outlines of the lakes, and the works

of art which embellish the whole, we think that most lovers of natural

scenery would prefer that around the lakes of Como and Maggiore to

that of any other place familiarly known to the traveller. Como is

ordinarily conceived to carry off the palm in Europe, and it is not

probable that the great mountains of the East or any part of the Andes,

can assemble as many objects of grandeur, sweetness, magnificence and

art, as are to be found in this region. Of course, our own country has

nothing of the sort to compare with it. The Rocky Mountains, and the

other great ranges in the recent accession of territory, must possess

many noble views, especially as one proceeds south; but the accessories

are necessarily wanting, for a union of art and nature can alone render

scenery perfect.

In the way of the wild, the terrific, and the grand, nature is

sufficient of herself: but Niagara is scarcely more imposing than

she is now rendered lovely by the works of man. It is true that the

celebrated cataract has a marked sweetness of expression, if we may use

such a term, that singularly softens its magnificence, and now that men

are becoming more familiar with its mysteries, and penetrating into

its very mists, by means of a small steamboat, the admirer of nature

discovers a character different from that which first strikes the

senses.

We regard it as hypercritical to speak of the want of Alpine scenery

around Niagara. On what scale must the mountains be moulded to bear

a just comparison, in this view of the matter, with the grandeur of

the cataract! The Alps, the Andes, and the Himmalaya, would scarcely

suffice to furnish materials necessary to produce the contrast, on any

measurement now known to the world. In fact the accessories, except as

they are blended with the Falls themselves, as in the wonderful gorge

through which the river rushes, in an almost fathomless torrent, as

if frightened at its own terrific leap; the Whirlpool, and all that

properly belongs to the stream, from the commencement of the Rapids,

or, to be more exact, from the placid, lake-like scenery above these

Rapids, down to the point where the waters of this mighty strait are

poured into the bosom of the Ontario, strike us as being in singular

harmony with the views of the Cataract itself.

The Americans may well boast of their waterfalls, and of their lakes,

notwithstanding the admitted superiority of upper Italy and Switzerland

in connection with the highest classes of the latter. They form objects

of interest over a vast surface of territory, and greatly relieve the

monotony of the inland views. We do not now allude to the five great

lakes, which resemble seas and offer very much the same assemblage

of objects to the eye; but to those of greatly inferior extent, that

are sparkling over so much of the surface of the northern states. The

east, and New-York in particular, abound in them, though farther west

the lover of the picturesque must be content to receive the prairie

in their stead. It would be a great mistake, however, to attempt to

compare any of these lakes with the finest of the old world; though

many of them are very lovely and all contribute to embellish the

scenery. Lake George itself could not occupy more than a fourth or

fifth position in a justly graduated scale of the lakes of Christendom;

though certainly very charming to the eye, and of singular variety

in its aspects. In one particular, indeed, this lake has scarcely an

equal. We allude to its islands, which are said to equal the number of

the days in the year. Points, promontories, and headlands are scarcely

ever substitutes for islands, which add inexpressibly to the effect of

all water-views.

It has been a question among the admirers of natural scenery, whether

the presence or absence of detached farm-houses, of trees, hedges,

walls and fences, most contribute to the effect of any inland view.

As these are three great points of distinction between the continent

of Europe and our own country, we shall pause a moment to examine

the subject a little more in detail. When the towns and villages are

sufficiently numerous to catch the attention of the eye, and there are

occasional fragments of forest in sight, one does not so much miss the

absence of that appearance of comfort and animated beauty that the

other style of embellishment so eminently possesses. A great deal,

however, depends, as respects these particulars, on the nature of the

architecture and the color of the buildings and fences. It is only in

very particular places and under very dull lights, that the contrast

between white and green is agreeable. A fence that looks as if it were

covered with clothes hung out to dry, does very little towards aiding

the picturesque. And he who endeavors to improve his taste in these

particulars, will not fail to discover in time that a range of country

which gives up its objects, chiselled and distinct, but sober, and

sometimes sombre, will eventually take stronger hold of his fancy than

one that is glittering with the fruits of the paint and the whitewash

brushes. We are never dissatisfied with the natural tints of stone,

for the mind readily submits to the ordering of nature; and though one

color may be preferred to another, each and all are acceptable in their

proper places. Thus, a marble structure is expected to be white, and

as such, if the building be of suitable dimensions and proportions,

escapes our criticism, on account of its richness and uses. The same

may be said of other hues, when not artificial; but we think that most

admirers of nature, as they come to cultivate their tastes, settle down

into a preference for the gray and subdued over all the brighter tints

that art can produce. In this particular, then, we give the preference

to the effects of European scenery, over that of this country, where

wood is so much used for the purposes of building, and where the

fashion has long been to color it with white. A better taste, however,

or what we esteem as such, is beginning to prevail, and houses in towns

and villages are now not unfrequently, even painted in subdued colors.

We regard the effect as an improvement, though to our taste no hue, in

its artificial objects, so embellishes a landscape as the solemn color

of the more sober, and less meretricious looking stones.

We believe that a structure of white, with green blinds, is almost

peculiar to this country. In the most propitious situations, and under

the happiest circumstances, the colors are unquestionably unsuited

to architecture, which, like statuary, should have but one tint. If,

however, it be deemed essential to the flaunting tastes of the mistress

of some mansion, to cause the hues of the edifice in which she resides

to be as gay as her _toilette_, we earnestly protest against the bright

green that is occasionally introduced for such purposes. There is a

graver tint, of the same color, that entirely changes the expression of

a dwelling. Place two of these houses in close proximity, and scarcely

an intellectual being would pass them, without saying that the owner of

the one was much superior to the owner of the other in all that marks

the civilized man. Put a third structure in the immediate vicinity of

these two, that should have but one color on its surface, including its

blinds, and we think that nine persons in ten, except the very vulgar

and uninstructed, would at once jump to the conclusion that the owner

of this habitation was in tastes and refinement superior to both his

neighbors. A great improvement, however, in rural as well as in town

architecture, is now in the course of introduction throughout all the

northern states. More attention is paid to the picturesque than was

formerly the case, and the effects are becoming as numerous as they are

pleasing. We should particularize New Haven, as one of those towns that

has been thus embellished of late years, and there are other places of

nearly equal size that might be mentioned as having the same claims

to an improved taste. But to return to the great distinctive features

between an ordinary American landscape and a similar scene in Europe.

Of the artificial accessories it is scarcely necessary to say any more.

One does not expect to meet with a ruined castle or abbey, or even

fortress, in America; nor, on the other hand, does the traveller look

for the forests of America, or that abundance of wood which gives to

nearly every farm a sufficiency for all the common wants of life, on

the plains and heights of the old world. Wood there certainly is, and

possibly enough to meet the ordinary wants of the different countries,

but it is generally in the hands of the governments or the great

proprietors, and takes the aspect of forests of greater or less size

that are well cared for, cleared and trimmed like the grounds of a park.

Germany has, we think, in some respects a strong resemblance to the

views of America. It is not so much wanting in detached copses and

smaller plantations of trees as the countries farther south and east

of it, while it has less of the naked aspect in general that is so

remarkable in France. Detached buildings occur more frequently in

Germany than in France especially, and we might add also in Spain. The

reader will remember that it is a prevalent usage throughout Europe,

with the exception of the British Islands, Holland, and here and there

a province in other countries, for the rural population to dwell in

villages. This practice gives to the German landscape, in particular,

a species of resemblance to what is ordinarily termed park scenery,

though it is necessarily wanting in much of that expression which

characterizes the embellishments that properly belong to the latter.

With us this resemblance is often even stronger, in consequence of the

careless graces of nature and the great affluence of detached woods.

The distinguishing feature existing in the farm-house, fences and

outbuildings. Of a cloudy day, a distant view in America often bears

this likeness to the park, in a very marked degree, for then the graces

of the scene are visible to the eye, while the defects of the details

are too remote to be detected.

The mountain scenery of the United States, though wanting in grandeur,

and in that wild sublimity which ordinarily belongs to a granite

formation, is not without attractions that are singularly its own.

The great abundance of forest, the arable qualities of the soil, and

the peculiar blending of what may be termed the agricultural and

the savage, unite to produce landscapes of extraordinary beauty and

gracefulness. Vast regions of country possessing this character are to

be found in almost all the old states, for after quitting the coast for

a greater or less distance, varying from one to two hundred miles, the

ranges of the Alleghanies interpose between the monotonous districts

of the Atlantic shores and the great plains of the west. We are of

opinion that as civilization advances, and the husbandman has brought

his lands to the highest state of cultivation, there will be a line of

mountain scenery extending from Maine to Georgia, in a north and south

direction, and possessing a general width of from one to two hundred

miles, from east to west, that will scarcely have a parallel in any

other quarter of the world, in those sylvan upland landscapes, which,

while they are wanting in the sublimity of the Alpine regions, share so

largely in the striking and effective.

It is usual for the American to boast of his rivers, not only for their

size and usefulness, but for their beauties. A thousand streams, that

in older regions would have been rendered memorable, ages since, by

the poet, the painter, art in every form, and the events of a teeming

history, flow within the limits of the United States still unsung,

and nearly unknown. As yet, something is ordinarily wanting, in the

way of finish, along the banks of these inferior water-courses. But

occasionally, in places where art has, as it might be, accidentally

assisted nature, they come into the landscape with the most pleasing

influence on its charms. In this respect, the peculiarity of the

country is rather in a want of uniformity than in any want of material.

To us, it would seem that all the northern states of America, at least,

are far better watered than common, and that consequently they possess

more of this species of beauty. As for the great streams, the largest,

perhaps, have the least claims to high character in this respect in

both the old and the new world. The Rhine is an exception, however, for

it would be difficult to find another river of equal length and with

the same flow of water, that possesses the same diversity of character

or one so peculiar. At its source it descends from the high glaciers of

the Alps a number of howling brooks, which forcing their way through

the upper valleys, unite below in a straggling, rapid, but shallow

stream, that finds its way into the lake of Constance, out of which

it issues a compact, rapid river, imposing by its volume of water,

rather than by its breadth, or any other advantage. Its cataracts, so

celebrated in the old world, can scarcely claim to be the equal of the

Cohoes, or many others of the secondary falls of this country, though

the Rhine has always an abundance of water, which the Mohawk has not.

On quitting Switzerland, this remarkable stream assumes many aspects,

and decorates, beyond a doubt, as much landscape scenery as falls to

the share of any other stream in the known world. We do not think it,

however, in its best parts, equal to the Hudson in its whole length,

though the characters of these two rivers are so very different as

scarcely to admit of a fair comparison. Perhaps the most remarkable

feature of the Rhine is its termination, for after embellishing and

serving the purposes of such an extent of country in the very heart

of Europe, it disappears, as it might be, in a number of straggling,

uninteresting, turbid waters, among the marshes of Holland. This is a

very different exit from that which characterizes the majestic flow of

the Hudson into the Atlantic.

England has no great rivers to boast of, though she has a few of

singular claims to notice, on account of the great flow of the tides

and the vast amount of commerce that they bear on the bosom. The

Thames, so renowned in history, is as uninteresting as possible, until

it passes above the bridges of London, where it becomes an ordinary

pretty sylvan stream.

The Seine, another river, familiar in name, at least, to every reader,

has much higher claims than its neighbor of the British Islands, in

the way of natural beauty. This stream, from Rouen to the Channel,

is not without some very fine scenery, as well as possessing a very

variant and interesting character, with both natural and artificial

accessories, to say nothing of the historical, that draw largely on the

attention.

Italy has many rivers that are celebrated in song or story, but not

one, we think, that should rank high, on the ground of landscape

beauty. Most of her streams are so dependent on the melting of the

snows in the Apennines and Alps, as to be either howling torrents,

or meagre, straggling pools. The Arno, the Po, the Adige, the Tiber,

and all the other rivers of that peninsula, are obnoxious to these

objections. Even the Tiber, which is navigable as high as Rome, for

vessels of a light draft, is either a tranquil thread, or one of those

noisy, turbid streams that overflow their banks and often appear at a

loss to know in which direction to pour their waters.

The day is not distant, when America must possess a vast extent of

territory of a character directly the reverse of that we have described

in our mountain scenery, but which, nevertheless, will not be without

a certain magnificence from its extent, productions and fertility. We

allude to the great plains of the West; those which lie between the

bases of the Alleghanies and the semi-sterile steppes that are known

in this part of the world as the great prairies. Lombardy, teeming as

she is, with population, vines, and all the productions of a fertile

soil, in the possession of millions, sinks into insignificance before

the vast plains that are destined to be her rivals in this quarter of

the world. Perhaps New-York alone could furnish nearly as much of this

character of country as is to be found in Upper Italy; for, stretching

from the shores of Ontario towards the southern ranges of uplands,

and as far east as Utica, is spread to the eye a vast extent of the

most fertile plain, slightly relieved in places with a rolling surface

of very respectable claims to natural beauty. We question if greater

fertility is to be found in any part of the world, than is met with in

the region last mentioned, though drainage and the other works of an

advanced state of husbandry, are still much wanting to bring forth both

its fertility and its beauties.