They hove us a line out of the gangway at once, the mate got up her

side as she rolled gently over, and I followed him: the scene that met

our eyes as soon as we reached her deck, however, struck me a good deal

on various accounts. We couldn't at first see where Mr Rollock and

his party might be, for the shadow of a thick awning after the glare

of the water, and the people near the brig's gangway--but I saw two

or three dark-faced, very French-like individuals, in broad-brimmed

straw hats and white trousers, seemingly passengers; while about

twenty Kroomen and Negroes, and as many seamen with unshaven chins,

ear-rings, and striped frocks, were in knots before the longboat,

turned keel up amidships, careless enough, to all appearance, about

us. One of the passengers leant against the mainmast, with his arms

folded over his broad chest, and his legs crossed, looking curiously

at us as we came up; his dark eyes half closed, the shadow of his

hat down to his black mustache, and his shirt-collar open, showing

a scar on his hairy breast; one man, whom I marked for the brig's

surgeon, beside him; and another waiting for us near the bulwarks--a

leathery-faced little fellow, with twinkling black eyes, and a sort

of cocked hat fore-and-aft on his cropped head. "_Moi_, Monsieur,"

said he, slapping his hand on his breast as the mate looked about him,

"oui, je suis capitaine, monsieur." "Good-day, sir;" said Stebbing,

"we've just come aboard for our passengers--and the gig--sir, if you

please." "Certainement, monsieur," said the French skipper, bowing

and taking a paper from his pocket, which he handed to the mate, "I

comprind, sare--monsieur le capitaine d' la fregatte Anglaise, il nous

demande nos--vat you call,--_peppares_--voilà! I have 'ad le honneur,

messieurs, to be already sarch by vun off vos _crusoes_--pour des

_esclaves_! vous imaginez _cela_, messieurs!" and here the worthy

Frenchman cast up his hands and gave a grin which seemed meant for

innocent horror. "_Slaifs! chez_ le brigantin Louis Bourbon, Capitaine

Jean Duprez? _Non!_" said he, talking away like a windmill, "de

Marseilles à l'Isle de France, avec les vins choisis----" "You mistake,

monsieur," said I, in French; "the ship is an Indiaman, and we have

only come for our _friends_, who are enjoying your wine, I daresay,

but we must----" "Comment?" said he, staring, "_what_, monsieur?

have de gotness to----" Here the mustached passenger suddenly raised

himself off the mast, and made one stride between us to the bulwarks,

where he looked straight out at the Indiaman, his arms still folded,

then from us to the French master. He was a noble-looking man, with

an eye I never saw the like of in any one else, 'twas so clear,

bold, and prompt,--it actually went _into_ you like a sword, and I

couldn't help fancying him in the thick of a battle, with thousands of

men and miles of smoke. "Duprez," said he, quickly, "je vous le dis

encore--debarquez ces miserables!--nous _combattrons_!" "Then, mon

ami," said the surgeon, in a low, cool, determined tone, stepping up

and laying a hand on his shoulder, "aussi, _nous couperons les ailes

de l'Aigle_, seulement!--Hush, mon ami, restrain this unfortunate

madness of yours!--c'est bien malapropos, à present!" and he whispered

something additional, on which the passenger fell back and leant

against the main-mast as before. "Ah!" said the French master, shaking

his head, and giving his forehead a tap, "le pauvre homme-la! He

has had a coup-de-soleil, messieurs, or rather of the _moon_, you

perceive, from sleeping in its rays! _Ma foi!_" exclaimed he, on my

explaining the matter, "c'est pos-_sible_?--we _did_ suppose your

boat intended to visit us, when evidently deterred by the excessive

undulation!--My friends, resign yourselves to a misfort--" "Great

heavens! Mr Stebbing," said I, "the boat is _lost_!" "By George! what

_will_ the captain say, then!" replied he; however, as soon as I

told him the sad truth, poor Stebbing, being a good-hearted fellow,

actually put his hands to his face and sobbed. All this time the brig's

crew were gabbling and kicking up a confounded noise about something

they were at with the spare spars, and in throwing tarpaulins over

the hatches; for it was fearfully dark, and going to rain heavy; the

slight swell shone and slid up betwixt the two vessels like oil, and

the clouds to south-westward had gathered up to a steep black bank,

with round coppery heads, like smoke over a town on fire. "Will you

go down, messieurs," said the Frenchman, politely, "and taste my _vin

de_--" "No, sir," said I, "we must make haste off, or else--besides,

by the way, we couldn't, for you've got all your hatches battened

down!" "Diable, so they are!" exclaimed he, "_par honneur_, gentlemen,

I regret the occasion of--ha!" Just before, a glaring brassy sort

of touch had seemed to come across the face of the immense cloud;

and though every thing, far and wide, was as still as death, save

the creaking of the two ships' yards, it made you think of the last

trumpet's mouth! But at this moment a dazzling flash leaped zig-zag out

of it, running along from one cloud to another, while the huge dark

mass, as it were, tore right up, changing and turning its inside out

like dust--you saw the sea far away under it, heaving from glassy blue

into unnatural-like brown--when crash broke the thunder over our very

heads, as if something had fallen out of heaven, then a long bounding

roar. The mad French passenger stood up, walked to the bulwarks, and

looked out with his hand over his eyes for the next; while the young

mate and I tumbled down the brig's side without further to do, and

pulled fast for the ship, where we hardly got aboard before there was

another wild flash, another tremendous clap, and the rain fell in one

clash, more like stone than water, on sea and decks. For half-an-hour

we were rolling and soaking in the midst of it, the lightning hissing

through the rain, and showing it glitter; while every five minutes

came a burst of thunder and then a rattle fit to split one's ears.

At length, just as the rain began to slacken, you could see it lift

bodily, the standing sheets of it drove right against our canvass and

through the awnings,--when we made out the French brig with her jib,

topsails, and boom-mainsail full, leaning over as she clove through

it before the wind. The squall burst into our wet topsails as loud as

the thunder, with a flash almost like the lightning itself, taking us

broad abeam; the ship groaned and shook for a minute ere gathering way

and falling off, and when she rose and began to go plunging through

the black surges, no brig was to be seen: every man on deck let his

breath out almost in a cry, scarce feeling as yet but it was equal

to losing sight for ever of our late shipmates, or the least hope of

them. The passengers, ladies and all, crowded in the companion-hatch

in absolute terror, every face aghast, without thinking of the rain

and spray: now and then the sulky crest of a bigger wave would be

caught sight of beyond the bulwarks, as the sea rose with its green

back curling over into white; and you'd have said the shudder ran down

into the cabin, at thought of seeing one or other of the lost boat's

crew come weltering up from the mist and vanish again. I knew it was

of no use, but held on in the weather mizen-rigging, and looked out

to westward, against a wild break of light which the setting sun made

through the troughs of the sea; once and again I could fancy I saw the

boat lift keel up, far off betwixt me and the fierce glimmer. "Oh,

do you see them? _do_ you not see it yet!" was passed up to me over

and over, from one sharp-pitched voice to another; but all I could

answer was to shake my head. At last, one by one, they went below;

and after what had happened, I must say I could easily fancy what a

chill, dreary-like, awful notion of the sea must have come for the

first time on a landsman, not to speak of delicate young girls fresh

from home: at sight of the drenched quarterdeck leaning bare down to

leeward, the sleet and spray battering bleak against the round-house

doors, where I had seen Miss Hyde led sobbing in, with her wet hair

about her face; then the ship driving off from where she had lost

them, with her three strong lower-masts aslant into the gale, ghastly

white and dripping--her soaked sheets of canvass blown gray and stiff

into the rigging, and it strained taut as iron; while you saw little

of her higher than the tops, as the scud and the dark together closed

aloft. Poor Miss Fortescue's mother was in fits below in her berth--the

two watches were on the yards aloft, where no eye could see them,

struggling hard to furl and reef; so altogether it was a gloomy enough

moment. I stayed awhile on deck, wrapped in a peacoat, keeping my

feet and hanging on, and thinking how right down in earnest matters

_could_ turn of a sudden. I wasn't remarkably thoughtful in these days,

I daresay, but there did I keep, straining my eyes into the mist to

see I couldn't tell what, and repeating over and over again to myself

these few words out of the prayer-book, "In the midst of life we are in

death," though scarce knowing what I said.

However, the Indiaman's officers and crew had work enough in managing

her at present: after a sunset more like the putting out of him than

anything else, with a flaring snuff and a dingy sort of smoke that

followed, the wind grew from sou'west into a regular long gale, that

drove the tops of the heavy seas into the deadlights astern, rising

aft out of the dark like so many capes, with the snow drifting off

them over the poop. At midnight, it blew great guns, with a witness;

the ship, under storm staysails and close-reefed maintopsail, going

twelve knots or more, when, as both the captain and mate reckoned, we

were near St Helena on our present course, and to haul on a wind was

as much as her spars were worth: her helm was put hard down and we

lay to for morning, the ship drifting off bodily to leeward with the

water. The night was quite dark, the rain coming in sudden spits out

of the wind; you only heard the wet gale sob and hiss through the bare

rigging into her storm-canvass, when the look-out men ahead sung out,

"Land--land close to starboard!" "Bless me, sir," said the mate to the

captain, "it's the Rock --well that we _did_--" "Hard up! hard up with

the helm!" yelled the men again, "it's a _ship_!" I ran to the weather

main-chains and saw a broad black mass, as it were, rising high abeam,

and seeming to come out from the black of the night, with a gleam or

two in it which they had taken for lights ashore in the island. The

Seringapatam's wheel was put up already, but she hung in the gale,

doubtful whether to fall off or not; and the moment she _did_ sink

into the trough, we should have had a sea over her broadside fit to

wash away men, boats, and all--let alone the other ship bearing down

at twelve knots. "Show the _head_ of the _fore-topmast-staysail_!"

shouted I with all my strength to the forecastle, and up it went

slapping its hanks to the blast--the Indiaman sprang round heeling

to her ports on the next sea, main-topsail before the wind, and the

staysail down again. Next minute, a large ship, with the foam washing

over her cat-heads, and her martingale gear dripping under the huge

white bowsprit, came lifting close past us--as black as shadows aloft,

save the glimmer of her main-tack to the lanterns aboard--and knot

after knot of dim faces above her bulwarks shot by, till you saw her

captain standing high in the mizen-chains, with a speaking trumpet.

He roared out something or other through it, and the skipper sung out

under both his hands, "Ay, ay, sir!" in answer; but it turned out after

that nobody knew what it was, unless it might be as I thought, "_Where_

are you going?" The minute following, we saw her quarter-lanterns like

two will-o'-the-wisps beyond a wave, and she was gone--a big frigate

running under half her canvass, strong though the gale blew.

"Why, Mr Finch," said Captain Williamson, as soon as we had time to

draw breath, "who was _that_, bid show the fo'topmast-stays'l--'twan't

_you_?" "No," said the mate, "I'd like to know who had the hanged

impudence to give orders here without--" "Well now, Finch," continued

the old skipper, "I'm not sure but that was our only chance at the

moment, sir; and if 'twas one of the men, why I'd pass it over, or

even give him an extra glass of grog in a quiet way!" No one could say

who it was, however; and, for my part, the sight of the frigate made

me still more cautious than before of letting out what Westwood and I

were: in fact, I couldn't help feeling rather uneasy, and I was glad

to hear the superstitious old sailmaker whispering about how he feared

there was no luck to be looked for, when "drowned men and _ghostesses_

began to work the ship!" The first streak of dawn was hardly seen, when

a sail could be made out in it, far on our lee bow, which the officers

supposed to be the frigate; Westwood and I, however, were of opinion it

was the French brig, although by sunrise we lost sight of her again.

Every one in the cuddy talked of our unfortunate friends, and their

melancholy fate; even Ford and Winterton were missed, while old Mr

Rollock had been the life of the passengers. But there was naturally

still more felt for the poor girl Fortescue; it made all of us gloomy

for a day or two; though the fresh breeze, and the Indiaman's fast

motion, after our wearisome spell of a calm, did a great deal to bring

things round again. Westwood was greatly taken up with my account

of the brig and her people, both of us agreeing there was somewhat

suspicious about her, though I thought she was probably neither more

nor less than a slaver, and he had a notion she was after something

deeper: what that might be, 'twas hard to conceive, as they didn't

appear like pirates. One thing, however, we _did_ conclude from the

matter, that the brig couldn't have been at all inclined for visitors;

and, in fact, there was little doubt but she _would_ actually refuse

letting the boat aboard, if they reached her; so in all likelihood

our unhappy friends had been swamped on that very account just as the

squall came on. When this idea got about the ship, of course you may

suppose neither passengers nor crew to have felt particularly amiable

towards the French vessel; and if we had met her again, with any good

occasion for it, all hands were much inclined to give her a right-down

thrashing, if not to make prize of her as a bad character.

"Well, Tom," said I to Westwood one day, "I wish these good folks

mayn't be disappointed, but I do suspect this blessed mate of ours

will turn out to have run us into some fine mess or other with his

navigation! Did you notice how _blue_ the sky looked this morning, over

to eastward, compared with what it did just now where the sun _set_?"

"No," said Westwood, "not particularly; but what of that?" "Why, in the

Iris," replied I, "we used always to reckon that a sign, hereabouts,

of our being near the _land_! Just you see, now, to-morrow morning, if

the dawn hasn't a hazy yellow look in it before the breeze fails; in

which case, 'tis the African coast to a certainty! Pity these 'Hyson

Mundungo' men, as Jack calls them, shouldn't have their eyes about 'em

as well as on the log-slate! I daresay, now," continued I, laughing,

"you heard the first mate bothering lately about the great variation of

the compass here? Well, what do you suppose was the reason of it--but

that sly devil of a kitmagar shoving in his block for grinding curry,

under the feet of the binnacle, every time he was done using it! I saw

him get a kick one morning from the man at the wheel, who chanced to

look down and notice him. Good solid iron it is, though painted and

polished like marble, and the circumcised rascal unluckily considered

the whole binnacle as a sort of second Mecca for security!" "Hang the

fellow!" said Westwood, "but I don't see much to laugh at, Ned. Why,

if you're right, we shall all be soaked and fried into African fever

before reaching the Cape, and we've had misfortunes enough already!

Only think of an exquisite creature like Miss----" "Oh," interrupted I,

fancying Master Tom began lately to show sufficient admiration for her,

"betwixt an old humdrum, and a conceited fool like that, what could

you expect? All I say is, my dear parson, stand by for a pinch when it

comes."

On going down to tea in the cuddy, we found the party full of

spirits, and for the first time there was no mention of their lost

fellow-passengers, except amongst a knot of cadets and writers rather

elevated by the Madeira after dinner, who were gathered round the

reverend Mr Knowles, pretending to talk regretfully of his Yankee

friend, Mr Daniel Snout. "Yes, gentlemen," said the missionary, who was

a worthy, simple-hearted person, "in spite of some uncouthness--and

perhaps limited views, the result of defective education--he was an

excellent man, I think!" "Oh certainly, certainly!" said a writer,

looking to his friends, "and the one thing needful you spoke of

just now, sir, I daresay he had it always in his eye, now?" "Mixed,

I fear," replied the missionary, "with some element of worldly

feeling--for in America they _are_ apt to make even the soul, as well

as religious association, matter of commerce--but Mr Snout, I have

reason to be assured, had the true welfare of India at heart--we had

much interesting conversation on the subject." "Ah!" said the sharp

civilians, "he was fond of getting information, was poor Daniel!

Was that why he asked you so many questions about the Hindoo gods,

Mr Knowles?" "He already possessed much general knowledge of their

strange mythology, himself," answered the missionary, "and I confess

I was surprised at it--especially, as he confessed to me, that that

gorgeous country, with its many boundless capabilities, should have

occupied his thoughts more and more from boyhood, amidst the secular

activity of modern life--even as it occurred unto myself!" Here the

worthy man took off his large spectacles, gave them a wipe, and put

them on again, while he finished his tea. "Before this deplorable

dispensation," continued he again, "he was on the point of revealing

to me a great scheme at once for the enlightenment, I believe, of that

benighted land, and for more lucrative support to those engaged in it.

I fear, gentlemen, it was enthusiasm--but I have grounds for thinking

that our departed friend has left in this vessel many packages of

volumes translated into several dialects of the great Hindu tongue--not

omitting, I am convinced, the best of books." "Where!" exclaimed

several of the cadets, rather astonished, "_well!_ poor Snout can't

have been such a bad fellow, after all!" "All hum!" said the writer,

doubtfully, "depend upon it. I should like, now, to have a peep at

Jonathan's bales!" "I myself have thought, also," said the missionary,

"it would gratify me to look into his apartment--and were it permitted

to use one or two of the volumes, I should cheerfully on our arrival in

Bom----" "Come along!" said the cadets,--"let's have a look!--shouldn't

wonder to see Daniel beside his lion yet, within! or hear 'guess I

aint.'" "My young friends," said the missionary, as we all went along

the lighted passage, "such levity is unseemly;" and indeed the look

of the state-room door, fastened outside as the steward had left it

before the gale came on, made the brisk cadets keep quiet till the

lashing on it was unfastened--'twas so like breaking in upon a ghost.

However, as it chanced, Mr Snout's goods had got loose during her late

roll, and heaped down to leeward against the door--so, whenever they

turned the handle, a whole bundle of packages came tumbling out of the

dark as it burst open, with a shower of small affairs like so many

stones after them. "What's all this!" exclaimed the cadets, stooping

to look at the articles by the lamp-light, strewed as they were over

the deck. The reverend gentleman stooped too, stood straight, wiped his

spectacles and fixed them on his nose, then stooped again; at length

one long exclamation of surprise broke out of his mouth. They were

nothing but little ugly images, done in earthenware, painted and gilt,

and exactly the same: the writer dived into a canvass package, and

there was a lot of a different kind, somewhat larger and uglier. Every

one made free with a bale for himself, shouting out his discoveries to

the rest. "I say Smythe, this is Vishnu, it's marked on the corner!"

D----n it, Ramsay, here's Brahma!" "Ha! ha! ha! if _I_ havn't got

Seeva!" "I say, what's this though?" screamed a young lad, hauling at

the biggest bale of all, while the missionary stood stock upright,

a perfect picture of bewilderment--"_Lo!_" being all he could say.

"What can '_Lingams_' be, eh?" went on the young griffin, reading the

mark outside--"'_Lingams_--extra fine gilt, Staffordshire--70 Rs. per

doz.--D. S. to Bombay,'--what may _Lingams_ be?" and he pulled out a

sample, meant for an improvement on the shapeless black stones reckoned

so sacred by Hindoo ladies that love their lords, as I knew from seeing

them one morning near Madras, bringing gifts and bowing to the Lingam,

at a pretty little white temple under an old banian-tree. For my part,

I had lighted on a gross or so of gentlemen and ladies with three heads

and five arms, packed nicely through each other in, cotton, but inside

the state-room. At this last prize, however, the poor missionary could

stand it no longer; "Oh! oh!" groaned he, clapping his hand to his

head, and walking slowly off to his berth; while, as the truth gleamed

on the cadets and us, we sat down on the deck amidst the spoil, and

roared with laughter like to go into fits, at the unfortunate Yankee's

scheme for converting India."[12] "Well--hang me!" said a writer, as

soon as he could speak, "but this _is_ a streak beyond the Society for

Diffusing Useful Knowledge!" "Every man his own priest,--ha! ha! ha!"

shouted another. "I say, Smythe," sung out a cadet, "just fancy--ha!

ha! 'D. Snout and Co'--ho! ho! ho! you know it's too rich to enjoy by

ourselves. '_My_thullogy store,' Bombay, near the cathedral!" "Cheap

Bramahs, wholesale and retail--eh? families supplied!" "By George! he's

a genius lost!" said Smythe, "but the parson needn't have broken with

him for that,--I shouldn't wonder, now, if they had joined partnership,

but Daniel might have thought of mining all their heads with gunpowder

and percussion springs, so that the missionary could have gone round

afterwards and blown up heathenism by a touch!" The noise of all this

soon brought along the rest of the gentlemen, and few could help

laughing. When the thing got wind on deck, however, neither the old

skipper nor the men seemed to like it much: what with the notion of the

ship's being taken, as it were, by a thousand or two of ugly little

imps and Pagan idols, besides bringing up a drowned man's concerns, and

'yawhawing,' as they said, into his very door,--it was thought the best

thing to have them all chucked over board next morning.

'Twas a beautifully fine night, clear aloft, and the moon rising large

on our larboard bow, out of a delicate pale sort of haze, as the ship

headed south'ard with the breeze; for I marked the haze particularly,

as well as the colour of the sky that lay high over it like a deep-blue

hollow going away down beyond, and filling up with the light. There

was no living below for heat, and the showers of cockroaches that went

whirring at the lamps, and marching with their infernal feelers out,

straight up your legs; so, fore and aft, the decks were astir with us

all. Talk of moonlight on land! but even in the tropics you have to see

it pouring right down, as it was then, the whole sky full of it aloft

as the moon drew farther up; till it came raining, as it were, in a

single sheet from one bend of the horizon to another: the water scarce

rippling to the breeze, only heaving in long low swells, that you heard

just wash her bends; one track brighter than the rest, shining and

glancing like a looking-glass drawn out, for a mile or so across our

quarter, and the ship's shadow under her other bow. You saw the men far

forward in her head, and clustered in a heap on the bow-sprit-heel,

enjoying it mightily, and looking out or straight aloft as if to polish

their mahogany faces, and get their bushy whiskers silvered; while the

awnings being off the poop, the planks in it came out like so much

ivory from the shade of the spanker, which sent down a perfect gush

of light on, every one moving past. For the air, again, as all the

passengers said, it was balmy; though for my part--perhaps it might be

a fancy of mine--but now and then I thought it sniffed a little too

much _that_ way, to be altogether pleasant in the circumstances.

Of course, no sooner had I caught sight of Sir Charles Hyde than I

looked for his daughter, and at last saw some one talking to a young

lady seated near the after-gratings, with her head turned round

seaward, whom it didn't require much guessing for me to name. Not

having seen her at all since the affair of the boats, I strolled

aft, when I was rather surprised to find that her companion was Tom

Westwood, and they seemed in the thick of an interesting discourse. The

instant I got near, however, they broke it off; the young lady turned

her head--and never, I'd swear, was woman's face seen fairer than I

thought hers at that moment--when the bright moonlight that had seemed

trying to steal round her loose bonnet and peep in, fell straight down

at once from her forehead to her chin, appearing, as it were, to dance

in under her long eyelashes to meet her eyes; while one mass of her

brown hair hung bright in it, and white against the shadow round her

cheek, that drew the charming line of her nose and lip as clear as the

horizon on the sky! The very moment, in fact, that a bitter thought

flashed into my mind--for to my fancy she looked vexed at seeing me,

and a colour seemed mounting up to her cheek, even through the fairy

sort of glimmer on it. _Could_ Tom Westwood have been acting no more

than the clerical near such a creature? and if a fellow like him took

it in his head, what chance had _I_? The next minute, accordingly, she

rose off her seat, gave me a slight bow in answer to mine, and walked

direct to the gallery stair, where she disappeared.

"We were talking of that unlucky adventure the other day," said

Westwood, glancing at me, but rather taken aback, as I thought. "Ay?"

said I, carelessly. "Yes," continued he; "Miss Hyde had no idea you and

I were particularly acquainted, and seems to think me a respectable

clergyman; but I must tell you, Ned, she has rather a suspicious

opinion of yourself!" "Oh, indeed!" said I, sullenly. "Fact, Ned," said

he; "she even remembers having seen you before, somewhere or other--I

hope, my dear fellow, it wasn't on the stage?" "Ha! ha! how amusing!"

I said, with the best laugh I could get up. "At any rate, Collins," he

went on, "she sees through your feigned way of carrying on, and knows

you're neither griffin nor land-lubber, but a sailor; for I fancy this

is not the first time the young lady has met with the cloth! What do

you suppose she asked me now, quite seriously?" "Oh, I couldn't guess,

of course," replied I, almost with a sneer; "pray don't--" "Why, she

inquired what could be the design of one concealing his profession

so carefully; and actually appearing to be on a secret understanding

with some of the sailors! Directly after, she asked whether that brig

mightn't really have been a pirate, and taken off the poor general,

Miss Fortescue, and the rest?" "Ah," said I, coldly, "and if I might

venture to ask, what did you--" "Oh, of course," replied Westwood,

laughing, "I could only hide my amusement, and profess doubts, you

know, Ned!" "Deuced good joke, Mr Westwood," thought I to myself, "but

at least you can't weather on _me_ quite so innocently, my fine fellow!

I didn't _think_ it of him, after all! By heaven, I did _not_!" "By

the bye, Collins," exclaimed Westwood in a little, as he kept his eye

astern, "there's something away yonder on our lee-quarter that I've

been watching for these last ten minutes--what do you think it may be?

Look! just in the tail of the moonshine yonder!" What it might be, I

cared little enough at the time; but I did give a glance, and saw a

little black dot, as it were, rising and falling with the long run of

the water, apparently making way before the breeze. "Only a bit of

wood, I daresay," remarked I; "but whatever it is, at any rate the

drift will take it far to leeward of us, so you needn't mind." Here we

heard a steward come up and say to the first officer, who was waiting

with the rest to take a lunar observation, that Captain Williamson had

turned in unwell, but he wanted to hear when they found the longitude:

accordingly, they got their altitude, and went on making, the

calculations on deck. "Well, steward," said the mate, after a little

humming and hawing, "go down and tell the captain, in the meantime,

about _five east_; but I think it's a good deal over the mark--say I'll

be down myself directly."

"A deuced sight _below_ the mark, rather!" said I, walking aft again,

where Westwood kept still looking out for the black dot. "You'll see

it nearer, now, Ned," said he; "more like a negro's head, or his hand,

than a bit of wood--eh?" "Curious!" I said; "it lies well up for our

beam, still--_'spite_ of the breeze. Must be a shark's back-fin, I

think, making for convoy." In ten minutes longer, the light swell in

the distance gave it a lift up fair into the moonshine; it gleamed for

a moment, and then seemed to roll across into the blue glimmer of the

sea. "By Jove, Collins," said Westwood, gazing eagerly at it, "'tis

more like a bottle, to _my_ sight!" We walked back and forward, looking

each time over the taffrail, till at length the affair in question

could be seen dipping and creeping ahead in the smooth shining wash

of the surface, just like to go bobbing across our bows and be missed

to windward. "Crossing our hause I _do_ declare!-- Hanged if _that_

ain't fore-reaching on us, with a witness!" exclaimed the two of us

together: "and a _bottle_ it _is!_" said Westwood. I slipped down the

poop-stair, and along to the forecastle, where I told Jacobs; when two

or three of the men went out on the martingale-stays, with the bight

of a line and a couple of blocks in it, ready to throw round this said

floating oddity, and haul it alongside as it surged past. Shortly

after we had it safe in our hands; a square-built old Dutchman it was,

tight corked, with a red rag round the neck, and crusted over with

salt--almost like one of Vanderdecken's messages home, coming up as it

did from the wide glittering sea, of a tropical moonlight night, nine

weeks or so after leaving land. The men who had got it seemed afraid of

their prize, so Westwood and I had no difficulty in smuggling it away

below to our berth, where we both sat down on a locker and looked at

one another. "What poor devil hove this overboard, I wonder, now," said

he; "I daresay it may have knocked about, God knows how long, since

_his_ affair was settled." "Why, for that matter, Westwood," replied

I, "I fancy it's much more important to find there's a strong easterly

current hereabouts just now!"[13] Here Westwood got a cork-screw,

and pulled out the cork with a true parson-like gravity: as we had

expected, there was a paper tacked to it, crumpled up and scrawled over

in what we could only suppose was _blood_.

"'No. 20,'" read he,--"what does that mean?" "The twentieth bottle

launched, perhaps," said I, and he went on--"'For Godsake, if you find

this, keep to the south-west--we are going that way, we think--we've

fallen amongst regular Thugs, I fear--just from the folly of these

three--(they're looking over my shoulder, though)--we are not

ill-treated yet, but kept below and watched--yours in haste--' What

this signature is I can't say for the life of me, Ned; no date either!"

"Did the fellow think he was writing by post, I wonder," said I, trying

to make it out. "By the powers! Westwood, though," and I jumped up,

"that bottle _might_ have come from the Pacific, 'tis true--but what if

it were old Rollock after all! _Thugs_, did you say? Why, I shouldn't

wonder if the jolly old planter were on the hooks still. _That_

rascally brig!" And accordingly, on trying the scrawl at the end, over

and over, we both agreed it was nothing but T. ROLLOCK!

MORAL AND SOCIAL CONDITION OF WALES.[14]

We have before us a valuable and interesting work on a portion of the

British dominions much visited but little known, and one which is

satisfactory, not only from the good feeling and taste it evinces on

the part of its author, but also from its setting at rest a question

that was lately much agitated, and to which we at the time adverted in

our pages for May 1848. Sir Thomas Phillips has taken up the cudgel, or

rather the pen, to defend the honour of his beloved country, and has

acquitted himself well of the task, partly in combating real opponents,

partly in knocking down men of straw. The book, however, comes so

far late of its subject as that the interest felt upon it had been

gradually subsiding. No very mighty grievance could be alleged by our

hot-blooded Cambrian brethren; many hard words and blustering speeches

had been uttered throughout the length and breadth of Wales, and a sort

of Celtic agitation had been got up by sundry ladies and gentlemen,

not much connected with the country. The nation at large, however,

had not paid great attention to it; the British lion did not show any

indication to lash his sides into foam with his magnanimous tail; the

storm in a tea-cup was left to itself: oil had been floating on the

face of the troubled waters; and though a few disappointed persons

had tried to revive a little excitement, for the sake of "having

their names before the public," peace was again reigning throughout

Cambria's vales, and her people were following their own simple

occupations, unknowing and unknown. Sir Thomas Phillips, however, with

a most patriotic motive, determined to fire one shot more against his

country's traducers; and thus, while concocting a final reply to the

"Blue Books,"--as they are commonly called in the Principality--found

himself led on and on, from page to page, and chapter to chapter,

until, instead of a pamphlet, he has produced a thick volume of six

hundred pages, and has compiled what may be termed a complete apology

for Wales.

Our readers will very likely remember that certain Reports on the state

of education in Wales, printed by order of the House of Commons, gave

immense offence to all who had got ever so little Welsh blood in their

veins. We reviewed these very reports, and gave our opinions on Welsh

education at considerable length; and therefore we do not open Sir

Thomas Phillips' pages with the intention of reverting to that part of

the subject, though the author, in compiling it, seems to have had the

education of his countrymen principally in view.

We consider, however, that a work written by a gentleman, known for

his forensic abilities and literary pursuits, upon a large portion of

this island, and purporting to be a complete account of its moral and

social condition, must form a suitable topic for review and discussion.

Our readers will not repent our introducing it to their notice: we can

at once assure them that it will amply repay the trouble--if it be a

trouble at all--of perusing it. The style is graceful and yet nervous;

the whole tone and colour of the thoughts of the author show the

gentleman; while the general compilation and discussion of the facts

collected prove Sir Thomas Phillips to have the mind and the abilities

of a statesman.[15] Another, and a more important reason, however,

why this work will be acceptable to many of our readers, is that it

touches upon various questions which, at times like the present, are

of vital importance to the welfare, not of Wales only, but of the

British empire; and that it proves the existence of feelings in the

Principality--mentioned by us on a previous occasion--which ought to be

brought before the notice of the public, and commented upon. This is

the task which we reserve for ourselves after reviewing more in detail

the work of the learned author; for Wales _may_ become a second Ireland

in time, if neglected, or it _may_ continue to be a source of permanent

strength to the crown, if properly treated and protected. The existence

of such a state of things is hinted at in the preface--an uncommonly

good one, by the way, and dated, with thorough Cambrian spirit, on _St

David's Day_, if not from the top of Snowdon, yet from the more prosaic

and less mountainous locality of the Inner Temple. The author's words

are--

"Amongst the mischievous results which the temper and spirit of

the reports have provoked in Wales, I regard with discomfort

and anxiety a spirit of isolation from England, to which

sectarian agencies, actively working through various channels,

have largely ministered. In ordinary times this result might

be disregarded; but at a period of the world's history when

the process of decomposition is active amongst nations, and

phrases which appeal to the sympathies of race become readily

mischievous, it behoves those very excellent persons, who claim

Wales for the Welsh, to consider whether they are prepared

to give up England to the English, and to relinquish the

advantages which a poor province enjoys by its union with a

rich kingdom. For generations, Welshmen have been admitted to

an equal rivalry with Englishmen, as well in England as in

those colonial possessions of the British crown, which have

offered so wide a field for enterprise, and secured such ample

rewards to provident industry; and, whether at the bar or in

the senate, or in the more stirring feats of war, they have

obtained a fair field, and have won honourable distinction.

There are offices in the Principality, the duties of which

demand a knowledge of the Welsh language, and for them such

knowledge should be made a condition of eligibility, in the

same manner as a knowledge of English would be required, under

analogous circumstances, in England. In the law these offices

will be few, and probably confined to the local judges; as it

will not be seriously proposed that, in our assize courts, the

pleadings of the advocate, and the address of the judge, shall

be delivered in the Welsh language; and even in the courts

of quarter-sessions, which are composed of local magistrates

most of whom were born and reside in the country, but few of

those gentlemen could address a jury in their own tongue. A

remedy for the inconvenience occasioned by an ignorant or

imperfect acquaintance, on the part of the people, with the

language employed in courts of justice, must be looked for in

that instruction in the English language which is intended to

be provided for all, and which is necessary to qualify men to

appear as witnesses, or to serve as jurors, in courts wherein

the proceedings are conducted in that tongue. The difficulties

arising from language are principally felt in the Church:

and it seems a truism to affirm, that where Welsh is the

ordinary language of public worship, and the common medium of

conversation, the language should be known to those who are

to teach and exhort the people, and to withstand and convince

gainsayers. The nomination of foreign prelates to English

sees before the Reformation, occasioned great dissatisfaction

in the minds of the English clergy, and tended to alienate

them from the papacy; and yet men who are prompt to recognise

that grievance, are insensible to the effect produced on the

Welsh clergy, by their general exclusion from the higher

offices of the Church. The ignorance of Welsh in men promoted

to bishoprics in Wales, may be more than compensated for by

the possession of other qualifications; and a rigid exclusion

from the episcopal office in the Principality of every man

who is unacquainted with the language of the people, might be

inconvenient, if not injurious, to the best interests of the

Church. The selection, however, for the episcopal office of men

conversant with the language of the country, when otherwise

qualified to bear rule in the Christian ministry, would give a

living reality to the episcopate in the Principality, and might

materially aid in bringing back the people into the fold of the

Church."

The difference of language is here made the principal grievance

between the Saxon and Celtic population; and it is certainly one

of the principal, though not the main, nor the only, cause of the

unpleasantness and unsettledness of feeling that exists in Wales

towards England and English people. Where two languages exist, it is

impossible but that national distinctions should exist also; and as the

traditions of conquest, and the hereditary consciousness of political

inferiority, are some of the last sentiments that abandon a vanquished

people, so it is probable that the Welsh will remain a distinct people

for more centuries to come than we care to count up. We do not know but

that, to a certain extent, it may be a source of strength to England

that it should be so, though it will undoubtedly be a cause of weakness

and division to Wales. Nevertheless, the difficulty is not so great

as may be at first sight supposed. In adverting to this part of the

subject, Sir Thomas Phillips observes--

"When Edward the First conquered the country, and subjected

the natives to English rule, he was deeply sensible of the

difficulty which now paralyses education commissioners, and

he dealt with it in a manner characteristic of the monarch

and the times. Of him Carlyle would say, he was a real man,

and no sham; and did not believe in any distracted jargon

of universal rose-water in this world still so full of sin.

Accordingly, he gathered all the Welsh bards together, and

put them to death; and Hume, a philosophic and ordinarily not

a cruel historian, says this policy was not absurd. English

legislation, between the conquest of the country by Edward

the First and its incorporation with England by Henry the

Eighth, was characterised by a deliberate and pertinacious

endeavour to extirpate the language and subjugate the spirit

of the inhabitants. By laws of the Lancastrian princes, (whose

usurpation was long resisted by the Welsh people,) 'rhymers,

minstrels, and other Welsh vagabonds,' were forbidden to burden

the country; the natives were not permitted to have any house

of defence, to bear arms, or to exercise any authority; and

an Englishman, by the act of marrying a Welsh woman, became

ineligible to hold office in his adopted country. By statutes

of Henry the Eighth, it was enacted, that law proceedings

should be in the English tongue; that all oaths, affidavits,

and verdicts, should be given and made in English; and that no

Welsh person, 'who did not use the English speech' should hold

office within the King's dominions. Even at the Reformation,

which secured the sacred volume to Englishmen 'in their own

tongue wherein they were born,' the revelation to man of God's

will was not given to Welshmen in a language understood by the

people. In 1562, however, provision was made for translating

the Bible and the Book of Common Prayer into the British or

Welsh tongue, by an act which declared that the most and

greatest part of the Queen's loving subjects in Wales did not

understand the English tongue, and therefore were utterly

destitute of God's holy Word, and did remain in the like, or

rather more, darkness and ignorance than they were in the time

of papistry, and required that not only a Welsh, but also an

English, Bible and Book of Common Prayer should be laid in

every church throughout Wales, there to remain, that such

as understood them might read and peruse the same; and that

such as understood them not might, by conferring both tongues

together, the sooner attain to the knowledge of the English

tongue.

"Nearly six centuries have elapsed since the first Edward

crossed the lofty mountains of North Wales, which, before

him, no King of England had trodden, and in the citadel of

Caernarvon received the submission of the Welsh people; and

more than three centuries have passed away since the country

was incorporated with, and made part of, the realm of England;

and although, for so long a period, English laws have been

enforced, and the use of the Welsh language discouraged, yet,

when the question is now asked, what progress has been made

in introducing the English language? the answer maybe given

from Part II. of the Reports of the Education Commissioners,

page 68. In Cardiganshire, 3000 people out of 68,766 speak

English.[16] The result may be yet more strikingly shown by

saying that double the number of persons now speak Welsh who

spoke that language in the reign of Elizabeth."

It is a mistaken idea to suppose that the Welsh language is hard to be

acquired,--the very reverse of this is the fact,: there is probably

no spoken language of Europe, not derived from the Latin, which may

be so soon or so agreeably acquired as the Welsh. A good knowledge of

it, so as to enable the learner to read and write it currently, may be

attained certainly within a year by even a moderately diligent student;

and the power of conversing in it with ease and fluency is to be gained

within the course of perhaps a couple of years. The language is daily

studied more and more by persons not connected with the Principality,

and acquired by them; nay, what is a remarkable fact, next to the

galaxy of the Williamses,[17] the best Welsh scholar of the present

day is Dr Meyer, the learned German librarian at Buckingham Palace;

while Dr Thirlwall, the present bishop of St David's, has made himself,

with only a few years' study, as good a Welsh scholar as he had long

before been a German one. We believe that, if the present system of

education be steadily carried out, with its consequent developments,

in the Principality, the two languages, English and Welsh, will become

_equally_ familiar to those who may be born in the second generation

from the present day; and that the inhabitants of Wales, becoming

thoroughly _bilingual_--for we do not anticipate that they will abandon

their ancient tongue--this apparent obstacle to a more complete

amalgamation of interests between the two races will be entirely

removed. One thing is certain, that the aptitude of Welsh children to

learn English, of the purest dialectic kind, is very remarkable--and

that the desire to acquire English is prevalent amongst all the people.

We confess that we should be sorry to see any language impaired, much

less forgotten: they constitute some of the great marks which the

Almighty has impressed upon the various tribes of his children--not

lightly to be neglected nor set aside. They form some of the surest

grounds of national strength and permanence; and they are some of

those old and venerable things which, as true conservatives, we are by

no means desirous to see obliterated or injured. As, however, it is

obviously impossible that the whole literature of the Anglo-Saxon race

should be translated into Welsh, it is essential to the Cambrians that

they should no longer hesitate as to qualifying themselves for reading,

in its own tongue, that literature which is exercising so great an

influence over a large portion of the globe; and the possession of the

two languages will tend to elevate the character, as well as to remove

the prejudices, of the people that shall take the trouble to acquire

them.

The social condition of Wales is gone into by the author at some

length; but he confines his observations principally to the

manufacturing and mining population of Glamorgan and the southern

counties. Upon this part of the subject he has compiled much valuable

information which, though not exactly new, tells well in his work when

brought into a focus and reasoned upon. He introduces the subject

thus:--

"The social condition of the inhabitants is influenced by

the configuration of the country, for the most part abrupt,

and broken into hill and valley; the elevation of the upper

mountain ranges, which are the loftiest in South Britain, and

the large proportion of waste and barren land; the humidity

of the climate; the variety and extent of the mineral riches

in certain localities; and the great length of the sea-coast,

forming numerous bays and havens; and thus there is presented

much variety in the occupation, and remarkable contrasts in

the means of subsistence and habits of life, of the people.

Monmouthshire, Glamorganshire, and the southern extremity

of Breconshire, are the seat of the iron and coal trades.

In the western part of Glamorganshire, around Swansea, and

in the south-eastern corner of Carmarthenshire, copper ore,

imported from Cornwall, as well as from foreign countries, is

smelted in large quantities; and the same neighbourhood is

the seat of potteries, at which an inexpensive description of

earthenware is made. Coal, in limited quantities, and of a

particular description, is exported from Carmarthenshire and

Pembrokeshire; and lead ore and quarries of slate are worked in

Cardiganshire. In North Wales, considerable masses of people

are collected around the copper mines of Anglesey; amidst the

slate quarries opened in the lofty mountains of Caernarvonshire

and Merionethshire, as well as in some of the sea-ports of

those counties; amongst the lead mines of Flintshire, and the

coal and iron districts, which extend from the confines of

Cheshire, through Flintshire and Denbighshire, to the confines

of Merionethshire; and in those parts of Montgomeryshire,

on the banks of the Severn, where flannel-weaving prevails.

Formerly, the woollen cloths and flannels with which the

people clothed themselves were manufactured throughout the

country, at small mills or factories placed on the margin

of mountain streams, which furnished the power or agency

necessary for carrying on the process; but the growth of the

large manufacturing establishments in the north of England

and Scotland, and the substitution of cotton for wool in

various articles of clothing, have uprooted many of the native

factories, and reduced to very small dimensions the once

important manufacture of homemade cloths and flannels. The

larger portion of the industrial population of North Wales, and

of the counties of Cardigan, Carmarthen, Radnor, and Pembroke,

in South Wales, is engaged in agriculture. It consists, for the

most part, of small farmers--a frugal and cautious race of men,

employing but few labourers, and cultivating, by means of their

own families and a few domestic servants, the lands on which

they live.

"In times of mining and manufacturing prosperity, the

productions of the agricultural and pastoral districts find

ready purchasers, at remunerating prices, at the mining and

manufacturing establishments, to which they are conveyed from

distant places; and the surplus labour of the agricultural

districts finds profitable employment at the mines, factories,

and shipping ports, where a heterogeneous population is

collected from every part of the kingdom. The wages of labour

are, nevertheless, very low, in the agricultural portions

both of North and South Wales; and are probably lower in the

western counties of South Wales, and in some districts of

North Wales, than in any other part of South Britain. The

Welsh farmer presents, however, a stronger contrast than even

the Welsh labourer to the same class in England. He occupies

a small farm, employs an inconsiderable amount of capital,

and is but little removed, either in his mode of life, his

laborious occupation, his dwelling, or his habits, from the

day-labourers by whom he is surrounded; feeding on brown bread,

often made of barley, and partaking but seldom of animal food.

The agricultural and pastoral population is, for the most

part, scattered in lone dwellings, or found in small hamlets,

in passes amongst the hills, on the sides of lofty mountains,

or the margin of a rugged sea-coast, or on lofty moors, or

table-land; and oftentimes this population can be approached

only along sheep-tracks or bridle-paths, by which these

mountain solitudes are traversed.

"Whilst, however, such is the condition of a wide area of

the Principality, there is found in particular districts, of

which mention has been already made, a population congregated

together in large numbers, which has grown with a rapidity of

which there is scarcely another example--not by the gradual

increase of births over deaths, but by immigration from

other districts, as well of Wales and England, as of Ireland

and Scotland also. That immigration is not constant in its

operation and regular in its amount, but fluctuating, or

abruptly suspended; and in times of adversity, which frequently

recur, men, drawn hither by the prospect of high wages, however

short-lived such prosperity may prove, migrate in search of

employment to other districts, or are removed to their former

homes. In the iron and coal districts of South Wales, these

colonies are collected at two points--the mountain sides, at

which the minerals are raised, and the shipping ports, at which

the produce of the mines is exported."

It appears that the total value of shipments from the counties of

Monmouth, Glamorgan, and Carmarthen, in metals and minerals, during the

year 1847 was, in round numbers, as follows:--

Iron, £4,000,000

Copper, 2,000,000

Coal, 800,000

Tin plate, 400,000

----------

£7,200,000

----------

The copper specified above is not copper found in Wales, but that which

is brought to Swansea, and other ports of Glamorgan and Carmarthen, for

the purpose of being smelted, and then reshipped for various parts of

the world, principally to France and South America. This trade gives

occupation to a large population in those districts, and it forms one

of the few branches of British manufactures, in which no very great

fluctuations have been experienced during the last few years. It is,

indeed, estimated that more than three-fourths of all the copper used

on the face of the globe is smelted in the South-Welsh coal-field.

But how prosperous soever may have been the condition of the great

capitalists and iron-masters in South Wales, it does not appear that,

with two or three bright exceptions, they have done much to ameliorate

the condition of the people in their employment,--and even, in the

present unsettled state of the world, the influence upon their hearts,

of the metals they deal in, may be but too evidently seen. We find a

most ingenious and important passage in Sir T. Phillips' work upon

this subject, full of sound philosophy and excellent feeling. He

observes:--

"The wilderness, or mountain waste, has been covered with

people; an activity and energy almost superhuman characterise

the operations of the district; wealth has been accumulated by

the employer; and large wages have been earned by the labourer.

Thus far the picture which has been presented is gratifying

enough; but the more serious question arises--How have the

social and moral relations of the district been influenced

by the changes which it has witnessed? May it not be said

with truth, that the wealth of the capitalist has ordinarily

ministered to the selfish enjoyments of the possessor, whilst

the ample wages earned in prosperous times by the labourer

have been usually squandered in coarse intemperance, or

careless extravagance? Prosperity is succeeded periodically by

those seasons of adversity to which manufacturing industry is

peculiarly exposed; when the labourer, whose wants grew with

increased means, experiences positive suffering at a rate of

wages on which he would have lived in comfort, had he not been

accustomed to larger earnings. Crowded dwellings, badly-drained

habitations, constant incitements to intemperance, and, above

all, association with men of lawless and abandoned character,

(who so frequently resort to newly-peopled districts,) are

also unfavourable elements in the social condition of this

people. To those influences may be added, the absence of a

middle class, as a connecting link between the employer and

the employed; the neglect of such moral supervision on the

part of the employers as might influence the character of

their workmen; and the want of those institutions for the

relief of moral or physical destitution--whether churches,

schools, almshouses, or hospitals--which characterise our older

communities. Wealth accumulated by the employer is found by

the side of destitution and suffering in the labourer--often,

no doubt, the result of intemperance and improvidence, but

not seldom the effect of those calamities against which no

forethought can adequately guard; and when no provision is

made for the relief of physical or moral suffering, by a

dedication to God's service, for the relief of His creatures,

of any portion of that wealth, to the accumulation of which

by the capitalist the labourer has contributed, it will be

manifest that the social and political institutions of our land

are exposed to trials of no ordinary severity in these new

communities.

"We live in times of great mental and moral activity. In

the year which has now reached its close, changes have been

accomplished, far more extensive and important than are

usually witnessed by an entire generation of the sons of men;

and around and about us opinions may be discerned, which

involve, not merely the machinery of government, but the very

framework of society: and these opinions are not confined

to the closets of the studious, but pervade the workshop

and the market, and interest the men who fill our crowded

thoroughfares. In former ages, as well as in other conditions

than the manufacturing in our own times, social inequalities

may have presented themselves, or may still exist, great

as those which characterise, in our own age, the seats of

manufacturing labour; and the lord and vassal of the feudal

system may have exhibited, and the squire and the peasant of

some of our agricultural districts may still present, as wide

a disparity of condition, as exists at this day between the

master manufacturer and the operative; but the antagonism of

interests, whether real or apparent, between the manufacturer

and the operative, is altogether unlike that simple disparity

of condition which may have perplexed former serfdom, or may

excite wonder in the agricultural mind of our own age. To the

eyes and the contemplations of the serf, as of the peasant,

the lord or the squire was the possessor of wide and fertile

lands, which he had inherited from other times, and which

neither serf nor peasant had produced, but which both believed

would minister to their necessities, whether in sickness or

in poverty, because neither the castle-gate nor the hall-door

had ever been closed against their tales of suffering and woe.

Neither the ancient serf, nor the modern peasant, witnessed

that rapid accumulation of wealth, which is so peculiarly

the product of our manufacturing system, and saw not, as the

operative does, fortunes built up from day to day, which he

regards as the creation of his sweat and labour--and at once

the result and the evidence of a polity which fosters capital

more than industry, and regards not the poverty with which

labour is so often associated. Different ages and conditions

produce different maxims. The modern manufacturer is not a

worse (he may be, and often is, a better) man than the ancient

baron, but he has been brought up in a different philosophy.

By him, the operative is well-nigh regarded as a machine,

from whom certain economical results may be obtained--who is

free to make his own bargains, and whose moral condition is a

problem to be solved by himself, because, for that condition,

no duty attaches to his employer, who has contracted with

him none other than an economical relation. Yet, is there

not danger that, in pursuing with logical precision, and

with the confidence of demonstrated truths, the doctrines

of political economy, we may forget duties far higher than

any which that science can teach--duties which man owes

to his fellow, and which are alike independent of capital

and labour? It is no doubt true, that men who earn large

wages, whilst blessed with health and strength, and in full

employment, ought to make provision for sickness, old age, or

want of work; but suppose that duty neglected, even then the

obligation attaches to the employer to care for those of his

own household. In old communities, too, the proportion must

ever be large of those who, in prosperity, can barely provide

for their bodily wants, and, in adversity, experience the

bitterness of actual want in some of its sharpest visitations.

To the humble-minded Christian, who has been accustomed

to consider the gifts of God, whether bodily strength, or

mental power, or wealth, or rank and influential station, as

talents intrusted to him, as God's steward, for the good of

his fellow-creatures--afflicting, indeed, is the spectacle of

wealth, rapidly accumulated by the agency of labour, employed

only for self-aggrandisement, with no fitting acknowledgment,

by its possessor, of the claims of his fellow-men.

"In our new and neglected communities, Chartism is found in

its worst manifestations--not as an adhesion to political

dogmas, but as an indication of that class-antagonism which

proclaims the rejection of our common Christianity, by denying

the brotherhood of Christians. This antagonism originated,

as great social evils ever do, in the neglect of duty by the

master, or ruling class. They first practically denied the

obligation imposed on every man who undertakes to govern or

to guide others, whether as master or ruler, to care for, to

counsel, to instruct, and, when necessary, to control those

who have contracted with him the dependent relation of servant

or subject; and from that neglect of duty has sprung up, and

been nourished in the subject, or dependent class, impatience

of restraint, discontent with their condition, a jealousy,

often amounting to hatred, of the classes above them, and a

desire, first to destroy to the base, and then to reconstruct

on different principles, the political and social systems

under which they live. Thus will it ever be, as thus it ever

has been, throughout the world's history; and the violation or

neglect of duty, whether by nations or individuals, in its own

direct and immediate consequences, works out the appropriate

national or individual punishment; and those who sow the wind,

will surely reap the whirlwind--it may be, not in their own

persons, but in the visitation of their children's children."

Notwithstanding the lamentable prevalence of diseased political and

moral feeling among a certain portion of the inhabitants of South

Wales, it is certain that the primitive simplicity of character by

which the Welsh nation is still distinguished, tends in a great degree

to keep them from the commission of those crimes which attract the

serious notice of the law. In most of the counties of Wales, the

business on the crown side at the assizes is generally light, sometimes

only nominal; and the general condition of the public mind may be

fairly judged of from the following table of criminal returns for

1846:--

Convictions-- }

England, 17,644, or 1 in 850}

Monmouthshire and Glamorganshire, 250, or 1 in 1200}

11 counties of North and South Wales, 250, or 1 in 3000} O

} f

Executions-- }

England, 6, } t

Wales, None. } h

} e

Transportations-- }

England, 2801, or 1 in 5300} p

Monmouthshire and Glamorganshire, 29, or 1 in 10,000} o

11 Welsh counties, 25, or 1 in 30,000} p

} u

Imprisonments above a year-- } l

England, 322, or 1 in 4500} a

Monmouthshire and Glamorganshire, 10, or 1 in 30,000} t

11 Welsh counties, 2, or 1 in 350,000} i

} o

Imprisonments not above a year-- } n

England, 14,515, or 1 in 1000} .

Monmouthshire and Glamorganshire, 211, or 1 in 1500}

11 Welsh counties, 223, or 1 in 3300}

"The comparative rarity of crime in the eleven Welsh counties

is represented by 1 offence to 3000 of the population;

and the absence of serious crimes by the small number of

transportations, namely, 25, or 1 in 30,000; and still more

remarkably, by the large proportion of the offenders whose

punishment did not exceed a year's imprisonment, namely, 223

out of 250, leaving 27 as the number of all the criminals

convicted in a year, in eleven counties, whose punishment

exceeded a year's imprisonment."

The accusation that was brought forward in the unfortunate Blue Books

against the chastity of the Welsh women, and which was the _real_ cause

of the hubbub made about them, we dismiss from our consideration. It

arose from a misapprehension of the degree of criminality implied by

the prevalence of an ancient custom, which exists not in Wales only,

but we rather think amongst the peasants of the whole of Europe, and

certainly as widely in England as in Wales. Whether existing in other

nations or not, the Welsh press, (generally conducted by Englishmen, be

it observed,) and the pseudo-patriots of Wales, a noisy empty-headed

class, made a great stir about it, and declaimed violently: they

did not, however, adduce a single solid argument in disproof of the

accusation. There is one fact alone which is quite sufficient to

explain the accusation and to remove the stain: bastardy is not less

common than in England, but prostitution is almost unknown; the common

people do not consider that to be a crime before marriage, which after

it they look upon as a heinous enormity. Such is their code of national

morals: whether right or wrong, they abide by it pretty consistently;

and they appear to have done so from time immemorial. They mean no

harm by it, and they look upon it as venial: this is the state of the

national feeling, and it settles the question.

We now turn to the chapters that refer to the religious condition of

the country, which is treated of by the author at full length, though

our own comments must be necessarily brief. He gives a luminous account

of the rise and progress of modern dissent in Wales; from which,

however, we give the highly improbable statement, that the actual

number of _members_ of dissenting congregations, of all denominations

in Wales, amounted to only 166,606 in 1846, with 1890 ministers. We

should rather say that, whatever the gross population of the country

may be at the present moment, there is not more than one person out of

ten, who have arrived at years of discretion, belonging _altogether_ to

the church; and we infer the fulness of dissenting chapels, not only

from the crowds that we have seen thronging them, on all occasions, but

also from the thinness of the congregations at church. For the Welsh

are eminently an enthusiastic, and we might almost say, a religious

people: they are decidedly a congregational people; and as for staying

at home on days of public worship, no such idea ever yet entered a true

Welshman's head. We think that the author must have been misinformed on

this head, and that the numbers should rather be the other way--100,000

out of 900,000 being a very fair proportion for the members of the

church.

For all this there are good and legitimate reasons to be found, not

only in what is adduced in this work on the church establishment, but

also in the current experience of every man of common observation

throughout the Principality. The wonder is, not that dissent should

have attained its present height, but that the church should have

continued to exist at all, amidst so many abuses, so much ignorance,

so much neglect, and such extraordinary apathy--until of late days--on

the part of her rulers. The actual condition of the church in Wales may

be summed up in a few words--it is that of the church in Ireland: only

those who differ from it are Protestants instead of Roman Catholics.

Let us quote Sir Thomas Phillips again:--

"We have now passed in review various influences by which

the church in Wales has been weakened. We have seen the

religious edifices erected by the piety of other times, and

with the sustentation of which the lands of the country have

been charged, greatly neglected, whilst the lay officers,

on whom the duty of maintaining those buildings in decent

condition was imposed, are sometimes not appointed, or, if

appointed, make light or naught of their duties: we have seen

ecclesiastical officers, specially charged with the oversight

of the churches, not required to exercise functions which have

been revived by recent legislative enactments: we have found a

clergy, with scanty incomes, and a want of decent residences,

ministering in a peculiar language, with which the gentry have

most commonly an imperfect and often no acquaintance--even

where it is the language of public worship--influences which

lower the moral and intellectual standard of the clergy,

by introducing into holy orders too large a proportion of

men, whose early occupations, habits, and feelings, do not

ordinarily conduce to maintain the highest standard of conduct,

and who (instead of forming, as in England, a minority of the

whole body, and being elevated in tone, morally and mentally,

by association with minds of higher culture) compose the

large majority of the clergy of the Principality. It cannot,

then, be matter of surprise, if amongst those men some should

be found who (not being received on a footing of equality

into the houses of the gentry, over whom they exercise but

little influence) again resume the habits from which they

were temporarily rescued by an education itself imperfect,

and, selecting for daily companionship uneducated men, are

either driven for social converse to the village alehouse,

or become familiarised with ideas and practices unsuited to

the character, injurious to the position, and destructive to

the influence of the Christian pastor. Nor could we wonder,

if even the religious opinions and well-meant activity of the

more zealous among persons thus circumstanced, were to borrow

their tone and colour from the more popular influences by which

they are surrounded, rather than from the profounder and more

disciplined theology of the church of which they are ministers.

We have found the ecclesiastical rulers of this clergy and

chief pastors of the people, as well as many other holders

of valuable church preferment, to consist often of strangers

to the country, ignorant alike of the language and character

of the inhabitants, by many of whom they are regarded with

distrust and dislike; unable to instruct the flock committed to

their charge, or to teach and exhort with wholesome doctrine,

or to preach the word, or to withstand and convince gainsayers,

in the language familiar to the common people of the land.

Finally, we have seen the church, whilst she compassed sea and

land to gain one proselyte from the heathendom without, allow

a more deplorable heathendom to spring into life within her

own borders; and the term baptised heathens, instead of being

a contradiction in terms, has become the true appellation

of thousands of men and women in this island of Christian

profession and Christian action. Nevertheless the Welsh are

not an irreligious people; and whilst the religious fabrics of

dissent are reared up by the poor dwellers of their mountain

valleys, in every corner in which a few Christian men are

congregated, and these buildings are thronged by earnest-minded

worshippers, assembled for religious services in the only

places, it may be, there dedicated to God's glory, the feeling

must be ever present, 'Surely these men and women might

have been kept within the fold of the church.' A supposed

excitability in the Cambro-Briton, a love for extemporaneous

worship, and an impatience of formal services, have been

represented as intractable elements in the character of this

people. Even if such elements exist, it does not follow that

they might not have received a wholesome direction; while,

unfortunately, their action now finds excuse in the neglect

and provocation which alone render them dangerous. The church

in Wales has been presented in her least engaging aspect; her

offices have been reduced to the baldest and lowest standard;

and whilst no sufficient efforts have been employed to make

the beauty of our liturgical services appreciated by the

people, neither has any general attempt been made to enlist,

in the performance of public worship, their profound and

characteristic enjoyment of psalmody, by accustoming them to

chant or sing the hymns of the church."

All the abuses of ecclesiastical property seem to have flourished

in the land of Wales, as in a nook where there was no chance of

their being ever brought to light;--more than one-half of the

income of the church, for parochial purposes, totally alienated;

the bishops and other dignitaries totally asleep, and exercising no

spiritual supervision; pluralities and non-residence prevailing to a

great extent; the character of the clergy degraded; the gentry and

aristocracy of the land starving the church, and giving it a formal,

not a real support;--how can any spiritual system flourish under such

an accumulation of evils? The true spirit of the church being dead, a

reaction on the part of the people inevitably took place; and it is

hardly going too far to say, that had it not been for the efforts of

dissenters, "progressing by antagonism," Christianity would by this

time have fallen into desuetude within the Principality.

It is a very thorny subject to touch upon, in the present excitable

state of the world, and therefore we refrain; but we would earnestly

solicit the attention of our readers to the pages of Sir Thomas

Phillips,--himself one of the very few orthodox churchmen still left

in Wales,--for a proof of what we have asserted; and should they still

doubt, let them try an excursion among the wilds of the northern,

or the vales of the southern division of the country, and they will

become full converts to our opinion. Things, however, in this respect

are mending--the church has at length stirred, abuses are becoming

corrected, the ecclesiastical commissioners have done justice in

several cases--and in none more signally than in the extraordinary

epitome of all possible abuses, shown by the chapter of Brecon--abuses

existing long before the Reformation, but increased, like many others,

tenfold since that period. The church has never yet had fair play

in the country, for she has never yet done herself--_much less her

people_--justice; so that what she is capable of effecting among the

Cambrian mountains cannot yet be predicated. We fondly think, at times,

that all these evils might be abolished; but this is not the place

for such a lengthy topic: we have adverted to the state of things as

they have hitherto existed in the Principality, chiefly with the view

of showing their influence upon the peculiar political and ethnical

condition of the people, which it is our main object to discuss. We

will content ourselves with observing, that Sir Thomas Phillips'

remarks on this subject, and on the connexion of the state with the

education of the country, are characterised by sound religious feeling,

and a true conservative interpretation of the political condition of

the empire.

On a calm view of the general condition of Wales, we are of opinion

that the inhabitants, the mass of the nation, are as well off, in

proportion to the means of the country itself, to the moderate

quantity of capital collected in the Principality, and the number

of resident gentry--which is not very great--as might have been

fairly expected; and that it is no true argument against the national

capabilities of the Welsh, that they are not more nearly on a level

with the inhabitants of some parts of England. The Welsh inhabit

a peculiar land, where fog and rain, and snow and wind, are more

prevalent than fine working weather in more favoured spots of this

island. A considerable part of their land is still unreclaimed and

uncultivated--their country does not serve as a place of passage for

foreigners. Visitors, indeed, come among them; but, with the exception

of the annual flocks of summer tourists, and the passengers for Ireland

on the northern line of railroad, they are left to themselves without

much foreign admixture during a great portion of each year. The mass

of the gentry are neither rich nor generous: there are some large and

liberal proprietors, but the body of the gentry do not exert themselves

as much as might be expected for the benefit of their dependants; and

hence the Welsh agriculturist lacks both example and encouragement.

That the cultivation of the land, therefore, should be somewhat in

arrear, that the mineral riches of the country should be but partially

taken advantage of, and that extensive manufactures should rarely exist

amongst the Welsh, ought not to form any just causes of surprise: these

things will in course of time be remedied of themselves. The main evil

that the Welsh have to contend against is one that belongs to their

blood as a Celtic nation; and which, while that blood remains as much

unmixed as at present, there is no chance of eradicating. We allude to

that which has distinguished all Celtic tribes wherever found, and at

whatever period of their history--we mean their national indolence and

want of perseverance--the absence of that indomitable energy and spirit

of improvement which has raised the Anglo-Saxon race, crossed as it

has been with so many other tribes, to such a mighty position in the

dominion of the world.

This absence of energy is evident upon the very face of things, and

lies at the bottom of whatever slowness of improvement is complained

of in Wales. It is the same pest that infests Ireland, only it exists

in a minor degree; it is that which did so much harm to the Scottish

Highlands at one period of their history; and it is a component cause

of many anomalies in the French character, though in this case it

is nearly bred out. One of the most striking evidences and effects

of it is the dirt and untidiness which is so striking and offensive

a peculiarity of Welsh villages and towns--that shabby, neglected

state of the houses, streets, and gardens, which forms such a painful

contrast the moment you step across the border into the Principality.

In this the Welsh do not go to the extremes of the Irish: they are

preserved from that depth of degradation by some other and better

points of their character; but they approach very closely to the want

of cleanliness observable in France--and the look of a Welsh and a

French village, nay, the very smell of the two places, is nearly

identical. A Welsh peasant, amidst his own mountains, if he can get a

shilling a-day, will prefer starving upon that to labouring for another

twelvepence. A farmer with £50 a-year rent has no ambition to become

one of £200; the shopkeeper goes on in the small-ware line all his

life, and dies a pedlar rather than a tradesman. There are brilliant

and extraordinary exceptions to all this, we are well aware; nay, there

are differences in this respect between the various counties,--and

generally the southern parts of Wales are as much in advance of the

northern, in point of industry, as they are in point of intellect

and agricultural wealth. It is the general characteristic of this

nation--and it evidences itself, sometimes most disagreeably, in the

want of punctuality, and too often of straightforward dealing, which

all who have any commercial or industrial communications--with the

lower and middle classes of the Welsh have inevitably experienced.

It is the vice of all Celtic nations, and is not to be eradicated

except by a cross in the blood. Joined with all this, there is a mean

and petty spirit of deceit and concealment too often shown even in

the middle classes; and there is also the old Celtic vice of feud

and clanship, which tends to divide the nation, and to impede its

advancement in civilisation. Thus the old feud between North and South

Wales still subsists, rife as ever; the northern man, prejudiced,

ignorant, and indolent, comes forth from his mountains and looks down

with contempt on the dweller in the southern vales, his superior in

all the arts and pursuits of civilised life. Even a difference of

colloquial dialects causes a national enmity; and the rough Cymro of

Gwynedd still derides the softer man from Gwent and Morganwg. All these

minor vices and follies tend to impair the national character--and they

are evidences of a spirit which requires alteration, if the condition

of the people is to be permanently elevated. On the other hand, the

Welsh have many excellent qualifications which tend to counteract

their innate weaknesses, and afford promise of much future good: their

intellectual acuteness, their natural kindliness of heart, their

constitutional poetry and religious enthusiasm, their indomitable love

of country--which they share with all mountain tribes--all these good

qualities form a counterbalance to their failings, and tend to rectify

their national course. Take a Welshman out of Wales, place him in

London or Liverpool, send him to the East Indies or to North America,

and he becomes a banker of fabulous wealth, a merchant of illimitable

resources, a great captain of his country's hosts, or an eminent

traveller and philosopher; but leave him in his native valley, and he

walks about with his hands in his pockets, angles for trout, and goes

to chapel with hopeless pertinacity. Such was the Highlander once; but

his shrewd good sense has got the better of his indolence, and he has

come out of his fastnesses, conquering and to conquer. Not such, but

far, far worse is the Irishman; and such will he be till he loses his

national existence. St Andrew is a better saint than St David, and St

David than St Patrick; but they all had the same faults once, and it is

only by external circumstances that any amelioration has been produced.

It is a fact of ethnology, that while a tribe of men, kept to itself

and free from foreign admixture, preserves its natural good qualities

in undiminished excellence through numerous ages, all its natural vices

become increased in intensity and vitality by the same circumstances of

isolation. Look at the miserable Irish, always standing in their own

light; look at the Spaniards, keeping to themselves, and stifling all

their noble qualities by the permanence of their national vices; look

at the tribes of Asia, doomed to perpetual subjection while they remain

unmixed in blood. Had the Saxons remained with uncrossed blood, they

had still been stolid, heavy, dreaming, impracticable Germans, though

they had peopled the plains of England; but, when mixed with the Celts

and the Danes, they formed the Lowland Scots, the most industrious and

canniest chields in the wide world: fused with the Dane and Norman,

and subsequently mixed with all people, they became Englishmen--_rerum

Domini_--like the Romans of old. It may be mortifying enough to

national pride, but the fact is, nevertheless, patent and certain, that

extensive admixture of blood commonly benefits a nation more than all

its geographical advantages.

It is our intimate conviction of the truth of this fact, so clearly

deducible from the page of universal history, and especially from the

border history of England and Wales, that shows us, _inter alia_, how

false and absurd is the pretended patriotism of a small party among the

gentry and clergy of Wales who have lately raised the cry of "Wales for

the Welsh!" and who would, if they could, get up a sort of agitation

for a repeal of the Norman conquest! There are sundry persons in Wales

who, principally for local and party purposes, are trying to keep the

Welsh still more distinct from the English than they now are,--who try

to revive the old animosities between Celt and Saxon,--who pretend that

Englishmen have no right even to settle in Wales,--and who, instead

of promoting a knowledge of the English language, declaim in favour

of the exclusive maintenance of the Welsh. These persons, actuated

by a desire to bring themselves forward into temporary notoriety,

profess, at the same time, by an extraordinary contradiction, to be

of the high Conservative party, and amuse themselves by thwarting the

Whigs, and abusing the Dissenters, to the utmost of their power. They

are mainly supported--not by the Welsh of the middle classes, who

have their separate hobby to ride, and who distrust the former too

much to co-operate with them--but by English settlers in Wales, and

on its borders, who, in order to make for themselves an interest in

the country, pander to the prejudices of a few ambitious twaddlers,

and get up public meetings, at which more nonsense is talked than any

people can be supposed gullible enough to swallow. This spirit exists

in the extreme northern portion of Wales, in Flintshire, Denbighshire,

and Caernarvonshire; and on the south-eastern border of the country,

in Monmouthshire, more than in any other district. It is doomed to

be transient, because it is opposed, not less to the wishes and the

good sense of the mass of the people, than to the views and policy of

the nobles and leading gentry of the Principality. One or two radical

M.P.s, a few disappointed clergymen, who fancy that their chance of

preferment lies in abusing England, and a few amateur students of

Welsh literature, who think that they shall thereby rise to literary

eminence, constitute the clique, which will talk and strut for its

day, and then die away into its primitive insignificance. But, by

the side of this unimportant faction, there does exist, amongst the

working classes and the lower portion of the middle orders, a spirit

of radicalism, chartism, or republicanism,--for they are in reality

synonymous terms,--which is doing much damage to the Principality,

and which it lies easily within the power of the upper classes to

extinguish,--not by force, but by kindness and by example.

It has been one of the consequence of dissent in Wales--not intended,

we believe, by the majority of the ministers, but following inevitably

from the organisation of their congregations,--that a democratic spirit

of self-government should have arisen among the people, and have

interwoven itself with their habits of thought and their associations

of daily life. The middle and lower classes, separated from the upper

by a difference of language, and alienated from the church by its

inefficiency and neglect, have thrown themselves into the system of

dissent,--that is, of self-adopted religious opinions, meditated

upon, sustained, and expounded in their own native tongue, with all

the enthusiasm that marks the Celtic character. The gulf between the

nobles and gentry of Wales on the one side, and the middle and lower

classes on the other, was already sufficiently wide, without any new

principle of disunion being introduced; but now the church has become

emphatically the church of the upper classes alone,--the chapel is the

chapel of the lower orders--and the country is divided thereby into

two hostile and bitterly opposed parties. On the one hand are all the

aristocratic and hierarchic traditions of the nation; on the other

is the democratic self-governing spirit, opposed to the former as

much as light is to darkness, and adopted with the greater readiness,

because it is linked to the religious feelings and practices of the

vast majority of the whole people. Dissent and democratic opinions

have now become the traditions of the lower orders in Wales; and every

thing that belongs to the church or the higher orders of the country,

is repulsive to the feelings of the people, because they hold them

identical with oppression and superstition. The traditions of the

conquest were quite strong enough,--the Welshman hated the Englishman

thoroughly enough already; but now that he finds his superiors all

speaking the English tongue, all members of the English church, he

clings the more fondly and more obstinately to his own self-formed,

self-chosen, system of worship and government, and the work of reunion

and reconciliation is made almost impossible. In the midst of all this,

the church in Wales is itself divided into high and low, into genteel

and vulgar; the dignitaries hold to the abuses of the system,--and

some, less burdened with common sense than the rest, gabble about

"Wales and the Welsh," as if any fresh fuel were wanted to feed the

fire already burning beneath the surface of society!

Even at the present moment, chartism is active in Wales: Mormonites

and Latter-day Saints still preach and go forth from the Principality

to the United States, (fortunately for this country;) and unprincipled

itinerant lecturers on socialism, chartism, and infidelity, are now

going their circuits in Wales, and obtaining numerous audiences.[18]

FOOTNOTES:

[1] A damper is a cake of flour baked without yeast, in the ashes.

[2] "I have frequently," says Mr Wilkinson, in his invaluable work upon

South Australia, at once so graphic and so practical, "been out on a

journey in such a night, and, whilst allowing the horse his own time

to walk along the road, have solaced myself by reading in the still

moonlight."

[3] _Mémoires d'Outre Tombe._ Par M. le VICOMTE DE CHATEAUBRIAND. 4

vols. Paris, 1846-9.

[4] "Il y a peu des femmes, même dans le haut rang, dont je n'eusse

fait la conquête si je l'avais enterprise."--Biogiaphie _Universelle_,

xxxix. 136.

[5] Alluding to the name _l'Infame_, given by the King of Prussia,

D'Alembert, and Diderot, in their correspondences, to the Christian

religion.

[6] Dante.

[7] Cook's grease.

[8] East-Indian steward.

[9] _Mina-bird_, or Grakle; a frequent pet in homeward-bound East

Indiamen, and singular for its mimetic faculty; but impudent, and, from

educational disadvantages, not particularly select in its expressions:

appearance as described by the lieutenant.

[10] Familiar metonomy, at sea, for the ship's cook.

[11] Five o'clock, P.M.

[12] It is here due to the credit of our friend the captain, who was

not unusually imaginative for a sailor, to state, that this speculation

as a commercial one, is strictly and literally a _fact_, as the

Anglo-Indian of Calcutta can probably testify. The bold and all but

poetical catholicity of the idea could have been reached, perhaps, by

the 'progressing' American intellect alone, while Staffordshire, it is

certain, furnished its realisation: the investment, it is nevertheless

believed, proved eventually unprofitable.

[13] Currents are designated from the direction they run _towards_;

winds, the quarter they blow _from_.

[14] _Wales: the Language, Social Condition, Moral Character, and

Religious Opinions of the People considered in their relation to

Education._ By Sir THOMAS PHILLIPS. 1 vol. 8vo, pp. 606. London: 1849.

[15] For the information of those among our readers who may not be

aware of the fact, it will be well to mention that Sir Thomas Phillips

was knighted for having, as mayor of Newport, in Monmouthshire, aided

so materially in suppressing the Chartist riots that took place there

in 1839.

[16] "In Breconshire, the proportion of persons who speak English is

much larger; but a considerable number of these are immigrants from

England to the iron works; whilst, in Radnorshire, the great bulk of

the population is not Celtic, and English is all but universal."

[17] The leading scholars and authors of Wales are all named Williams:

viz. Archdeacon Williams, and the Revs. Robert Williams, John Williams,

Rowland Williams, Charles Williams, and Morris Williams--none of them

relations!

[18] It is only a short time since that Vincent, of London notoriety,

made a successful visit to South Wales, lecturing in the Baptist

chapels, wherever he went, on the Claims of the Age, on the Rights of

Woman, on the Claims of Labour, and the other usual clap-trap subjects.

At Swansea, though it is a poor compliment to the good sense of its

inhabitants, he actually succeeded in getting one of his meetings

presided over by a gentleman who had once been mayor of the town,

and he lined his pockets at the expense of not a few persons calling

themselves respectable, and pretending to be people of discernment. The

lecturer, in his hand-bills posted on the walls of Swansea and Tenby,

called himself simply Henry Vincent; but in the smaller towns, such

as Llanelly and Caermarthen, he gave himself out as Henry Vincent,

_Esquire_!

Most of the leading gentry and nobility of Wales are, strange to

say, dabblers in Whiggism and amateur radicalism; many of the M.P.s

are to be found on the wrong side in the most disgraceful divisions:

the corporations of the country are of an unsatisfactory character,

and disaffection prevails extensively in many of the chief towns. We

believe that a great deal of all this has arisen from the folly, the

neglect, the bad example, and the non-residence of the natural leaders

of the Principality. Welsh landlords, like Irish--though not so bad as

the latter--are uncommonly unwilling to loosen their purse-strings,

except for their own immediate pleasures. Scores of parishes have no

other representative of the upper classes in them than a half-educated

and poorly paid resident clergyman: agents and lawyers ride it roughly

and graspingly over the land; the people have few or no natural leaders

within reach; they pay their rents, but they get little back from

them, to be spent in their humble villages. Their only, and their best

friend, as they imagine, is their preacher--one of themselves, elected

by themselves, _deposable_ by themselves. They come in contact with a

_sharp_ lawyer, a drunken journalist, a Chartist lecturer, a Latter-day

Saint--can the result be wondered at?

As long as the patriotism of the Welsh gentry and clergy consists, as

it now, too often, does, in frothy words, and an absence of deeds--in

the accepting of English money and in abusing England--in playing

the Aristocrat at home, and the Whig-radical-liberal in public--so

long will disaffection continue in the Principality, and the social

condition of the people remain unimproved. The only thing that

preserves Wales from rapidly verging to the condition of Ireland, is

the absence of large towns with their contaminating influences, and the

purely agricultural character of the greatest portion of the people.

But even the mountaineer and the man of the plain may be corrupted

at last, and he may degenerate into the wretched cottier--the poor

slave, not of a proud lord, but of a profligate republic. It is from

this lowest depth that we would wish to see him rescued; for in the

peasantry the ultimate hope of the country is involved quite as much

as in the upper classes; and until the latter set the example, by

actually putting their shoulders to the wheel, throwing aside their

political tamperings with the worst faction that divides the state,

and especially by encouraging the introduction of English settlers

into all corners of the country,--we shall not see the social and

moral condition of Wales such as it should be. Let the nobles and

gentry spend their incomes _in_ the country, not _out_ of it; let

them live even amid their mountains, and _mix_ with their people; let

them improve the towns by introducing English tradesmen as much as

possible; let them try to get up a spirit of industry, perseverance,

and cleanliness throughout the land;--so shall they discomfit the

Chartists, and convert the democrats into good subjects. Let the clergy

reform the discipline of the Welsh church; let them alter the financial

inequalities and abuses that prevail in it, to an almost incredible

extent; and let them, by their doctrines and practice, emulate the good

qualities of their professional opponents;--so shall they empty the

meeting-houses, and thaw the coldness of Independentism or Methodism

into the warmth of union and affectionate co-operation. Let every

Welshman, while he maintains intact and undiminished the real honour

of his country, join with his Saxon neighbour, imitating his good

qualities, correcting his evil ones by his own good example; and let

their children, mingling in blood, obliterate the national distinctions

that now are mischievously sought to be revived;--so shall the union of

Wales with England remain unrepealed, and the common honour of the two

countries, distinct yet conjoined, be promoted by their common weal.

THE STRAYED REVELLER.[19]

The other evening, on returning home from the pleasant hospitalities of

the Royal Mid-Lothian Yeomanry, our heart cheered with claret, and our

intellect refreshed by the patriotic eloquence of M'Whirter, we found

upon our table a volume of suspicious thinness, the title of which

for a moment inspired us with a feeling of dismay. Fate has assigned

to us a female relative of advanced years and a curious disposition,

whose affection is constantly manifested by a regard for our private

morals. Belonging to the Supra-lapsarian persuasion, she never loses an

opportunity of inculcating her own peculiar tenets: many a tract has

been put into our hands as an antidote against social backslidings; and

no sooner did that ominous phrase, _The Strayed Reveller_, meet our

eye, than we conjectured that the old lady had somehow fathomed the

nature of our previous engagement, and, in our absence, deposited the

volume as a special warning against indulgence in military banquets.

On opening it, however, we discovered that it was verse; and the first

distich which met our eye was to the following effect:--

"O Vizier, thou art old, I young,

Clear in these things I cannot see.

My head is burning; and a heat

Is in my skin, which angers me."

This frank confession altered the current of our thought, and we

straightway set down the poet as some young roysterer, who had indulged

rather too copiously in strong potations, and who was now celebrating

in lyrics his various erratic adventures before reaching home. But a

little more attention speedily convinced us that jollity was about

the last imputation which could possibly be urged against our new

acquaintance.

One of the most painful features of our recent poetical literature, is

the marked absence of anything like heartiness, happiness, or hope. We

do not want to see young gentlemen aping the liveliness of Anacreon,

indulging in praises of the rosy god, or frisking with supernatural

agility; but we should much prefer even such an unnecessary exuberance

of spirits, to the dreary melancholy which is but too apparent in their

songs. Read their lugubrious ditties, and you would think that life had

utterly lost all charm for them before they have crossed its threshold.

The cause of such overwhelming despondency it is in vain to discover;

for none of them have the pluck, like Byron, to commit imaginary

crimes, or to represent themselves as racked with remorse for murders

which they never perpetrated. If one of them would broadly accuse

himself of having run his man through the vitals--of having, in an

experimental fit, plucked up a rail, and so caused a terrific accident

on the South-Western--or of having done some other deed of reasonable

turpitude and atrocity, we could understand what the fellow meant by

his excessively unmirthful monologues. But we are not indulged with

any full-flavoured fictions of the kind. On the contrary, our bards

affect the purity and innocence of the dove. They shrink from naughty

phrases with instinctive horror--have an idea that the mildest kind of

flirtation involves a deviation from virtue; and, in their most savage

moments of wrath, none of them would injure a fly. How, then, can we

account for that unhappy mist which floats between them and the azure

heaven, so heavily as to cloud the whole tenor of their existence? What

makes them maunder so incessantly about gloom, and graves, and misery?

Why confine themselves everlastingly to apple-blossoms, whereof the

product in autumn will not amount to a single Ribston pippin? What has

society done to them, or what can they possibly have done to society,

that the future tenor of their span must be one of unmitigated woe?

We rather suspect that most of the poets would be puzzled to give

satisfactory answers to such queries. They might, indeed, reply, that

misery is the heritage of genius; but that, we apprehend, would be

arguing upon false premises; for we can discover very little genius to

vindicate the existence of so vast a quantity of woe.

We hope, for the sake of human nature, that the whole thing is a

humbug; nay, we have not the least doubt of it; for the experience of

a good many years has convinced us, that a young poet in print is a

very different person from the actual existing bard. The former has

nerves of gossamer, and states that he is suckled with dew; the latter

is generally a fellow of his inches, and has no insuperable objection

to gin and water. In the one capacity, he feebly implores an early

death; in the other, he shouts for broiled kidneys long after midnight,

when he ought to be snoring on his truckle. Of a morning, the Strayed

Reveller inspires you with ideas of dyspepsia--towards evening, your

estimate of his character decidedly improves. Only fancy what sort of a

companion the author of the following lines must be:--

"TO FAUSTA.

Joy comes and goes: life ebbs and flows,

Like the wave.

Change doth unknit the tranquil strength of men.

Love lends life a little grace,

A few sad smiles: and then,

Both are laid in one cold place,

In the grave.

Dreams dawn and fly: friends smile and die,

Like spring flowers.

Our vaunted life is one long funeral.

Men dig graves with bitter tears,

For their dead hopes; and all,

Mazed with doubts, and sick with fears,

Count the hours.

We count the hours: these dreams of ours,

False and hollow,

Shall we go hence and find they are not dead?

Joys we dimly apprehend,

Faces that smiled and fled,

Hopes born here, and born to end,

Shall we follow?"

It is impossible to account for tastes; but we fairly confess, that if

we thought the above lines were an accurate reflex of the ordinary mood

of the author, we should infinitely prefer supping in company with the

nearest sexton. However, we have no suspicion of the kind. An early

intimacy with the writings of Shelley, who in his own person was no

impostor, is enough to account for the composition of these singularly

dolorous verses, without supposing that they are any symptom whatever

of the diseased idiosyncrasy of the author.

If we have selected this poet as the type of a class now unfortunately

too common, it is rather for the purpose of remonstrating with him on

the abuse of his natural gifts, than from any desire to hold him up to

ridicule. We know not whether he may be a stripling or a grown-up man.

If the latter, we fear that he is incorrigible, and that the modicum

of talent which he certainly possesses is already so perverted, by

excessive imitation, as to afford little ground for hope that he can

ever purify himself from a bad style of writing, and a worse habit of

thought. But if, as we rather incline to believe, he is still a young

man, we by no means despair of his reformation, and it is with that

view alone that we have selected his volume for criticism. For although

there is hardly a page of it which is not studded with faults apparent

to the most common censor, there are nevertheless, here and there,

passages of some promise and beauty; and one poem, though it be tainted

by imitation, is deserving of considerable praise. It is the glitter of

the golden ore, though obscured by much that is worthless, which has

attracted our notice; and we hope, that by subjecting his poems to a

strict examination, we may do the author a real service.

It is not to be expected that the first essay of a young poet should

be faultless. Most youths addicted to versification, are from an early

age sedulous students of poetry. They select a model through certain

affinities of sympathy, and, having done so, they become copyists for a

time. We are far from objecting to such a practice; indeed, we consider

it inevitable; for the tendency to imitate pervades every branch of

art, and poetry is no exception. We distrust originality in a mere boy,

because he is not yet capable of the strong impressions, or of the

extended and subtile views, from which originality ought to spring.

His power of creating music is still undeveloped, but the tendency to

imitate music which he has heard, and can even appreciate, is strong.

Most immature lyrics indicate pretty clearly the favourite study of

their authors. Sometimes they read like a weak version of the choric

songs of Euripides: sometimes the versification smacks of the school

of Pope, and not unfrequently it betrays an undue intimacy with the

writings of Barry Cornwall. Nor is the resemblance always confined to

the form; for ever and anon we stumble upon a sentiment or expression,

so very marked and idiosyncratic as to leave no doubt whatever of its

paternity.

The same remarks apply to prose composition. Distinctions of style

occupy but a small share of academical attention; and that most

important rhetorical exercise, the analysis of the Period, has fallen

into general disregard. Rules for composition certainly exist, but they

are seldom made the subject of prelection; and consequently bad models

find their way into the hands, and too often pervert the taste, of the

rising generation. The cramped, ungrammatical style of Carlyle, and the

vague pomposity of Emerson, are copied by numerous pupils; the value of

words has risen immensely in the literary market, whilst that of ideas

has declined; in order to arrive at the meaning of an author of the

new school, we are forced to crack a sentence as hard and angular as a

hickory-nut, and, after all our pains, we are usually rewarded with no

better kernel than a maggot.

The _Strayed Reveller_ is rather a curious compound of imitation.

He claims to be a classical scholar of no mean acquirements, and a

good deal of his inspiration is traceable to the Greek dramatists. In

certain of his poems he tries to think like Sophocles, and has so far

succeeded as to have constructed certain choric passages, which might

be taken by an unlettered person for translations from the antique. The

language, though hard, is rather stately; and many of the individual

images are by no means destitute of grace. The epithets which he

employs bear the stamp of the Greek coinage; but, upon the whole, we

must pronounce these specimens failures. The images are not bound

together or grouped artistically, and the rhythm which the author has

selected is, to an English ear, utterly destitute of melody. It is

strange that people cannot be brought to understand that the genius and

capabilities of one language differ essentially from those of another:

and that the measures of antiquity are altogether unsuitable for modern

verse. It is no doubt possible, by a Procrustean operation, to force

words into almost any kind of mould; a chorus may be constructed,

which, so far as scanning goes, might satisfy the requirements of a

pedagogue, but the result of the experiment will inevitably show that

melody has been sacrified in the attempt. Now melody is a charm without

which poetry is of little worth; we are not quite sure whether it

would not be more correct to say, that without melody poetry has no

existence. Our author does not seem to have the slightest idea of this,

and accordingly he treats us to such passages as the following:--

"No, no, old men, Creon I curse not.

I weep, Thebans,

One than Creon crueller far,

For he, he, at least by slaying her,

August laws doth mightily vindicate:

But thou, too bold, headstrong, pitiless,

Ah me! honourest more than thy lover,

O Antigone,

A dead, ignorant, thankless corpse."

"Nor was the love untrue

Which the Dawn-Goddess bore

To that fair youth she erst,

Leaving the salt-sea beds

And coming flush'd over the stormy frith

Of loud Euripus, saw:

Saw and snatch'd, wild with love,

From the pine-dotted spurs

Of Parnes, where thy waves,

Asopus, gleam rock-hemm'd;

The Hunter of the Tanagroean Field.

But him, in his sweet prime,

By severance immature,

By Artemis' soft shafts,

She, though a goddess born,

Saw in the rocky isle of Delos die.

Such end o'ertook that love,

For she desired to make

Immortal mortal man,

And blend his happy life,

Far from the gods, with hers:

To him postponing an eternal law."

We are sincerely sorry to find the lessons of a good classical

education applied to so pitiable a use; for if, out of courtesy, the

above should be denominated verses, they are nevertheless as far

removed from poetry as the Indus is from the pole. It is one thing

to know the classics, and another to write classically. Indeed, if

this be classical writing, it would furnish the best argument ever yet

advanced against the study of the works of antiquity. Mr Tennyson, to

whom, as we shall presently have occasion to observe, this author is

indebted for another phase of his inspiration, has handled classical

subjects with fine taste and singular delicacy; and his "Ulysses" and

"OEnone" show how beautifully the Hellenic idea may be wrought out

in mellifluous English verse. But Tennyson knows his craft too well

to adopt either the Greek phraseology or the Greek rhythm. Even in

the choric hymns which he has once or twice attempted, he has spurned

halt and ungainly metres, and given full freedom and scope to the

cadence of his mother tongue. These antique scraps of the _Reveller_

are farther open to a still more serious objection, which indeed is

applicable to most of his poetry. We read them, marking every here

and there some image of considerable beauty; but, when we have laid

down the book, we are unable for the life of us to tell what it is all

about. The poem from which the volume takes its name is a confused kind

of chaunt about Circe, Ulysses, and the Gods, from which no exercise

of ingenuity can extract the vestige of a meaning. It has pictures

which, were they introduced for any conceivable purpose, might fairly

deserve some admiration; but, thrust in as they are, without method

or reason, they utterly lose their effect, and only serve to augment

our dissatisfaction at the perversion of a taste which, with so much

culture, should have been capable of better things.

The adoption of the Greek choric metres, in some of the poems, appears

to us the more inexplicable, because in others, when he descends

from his classic altitudes, our author shows that he is by no means

insensible to the power of melody. True, he wants that peculiar

characteristic of a good poet--a melody of his own; for no poet is

master of his craft unless his music is self-inspired: but, in default

of that gift, he not unfrequently borrows a few notes or a tune from

some of his contemporaries, and exhibits a fair command and mastery

of his instrument. Here, for example, are a few stanzas, the origin

of which nobody can mistake. They are an exact echo of the lyrics of

Elizabeth Barrett Browning:--

"Are the accents of your luring

More melodious than of yore?

Are those frail forms more enduring

Than the charms Ulysses bore?

That we sought you with rejoicings,

Till at evening we descry,

At a pause of siren voicings,

These vext branches and this howling sky?

Oh! your pardon. The uncouthness

Of that primal age is gone,

And the kind of dazzling smoothness

Screens not now a heart of stone.

Love has flushed those cruel faces;

And your slackened arms forego

The delight of fierce embraces;

And those whitening bone-mounds do not grow.

'Come,' you say; 'the large appearance

Of man's labour is but vain;

And we plead as firm adherence

Due to pleasure as to pain.'

Pointing to some world-worn creatures,

'Come,' you murmur with a sigh:

'Ah! we own diviner features,

Loftier bearing, and a prouder eye.'"

High and commanding genius is able to win our attention even in its

most eccentric moods. Such genius belongs to Mrs Browning in a very

remarkable degree, and on that account we readily forgive her for some

forced rhyming, intricate diction, and even occasional obscurity of

thought. But what shall we say of the man who seeks to reproduce her

marvellous effects by copying her blemishes? Read the above lines,

and you will find that, in so far as sound and mannerism go, they are

an exact transcript from Mrs Browning. Apply your intellect to the

discovery of their meaning, and you will rise from the task thoroughly

convinced of its hopelessness. The poem in which they occur is entitled

_The New Sirens_, but it might with equal felicity and point have

been called _The New Harpies_, or _The Lay of the Hurdy-Gurdy_. It

seems to us a mere experiment, for the purpose of showing that words

placed together in certain juxtaposition, without any regard to their

significance or propriety, can be made to produce a peculiar phonetic

effect. The phenomenon is by no means a new one--it occurs whenever

the manufacture of nonsense-verses is attempted; and it needed not the

staining of innocent wire-wove to convince us of its practicability.

Read the following stanza--divorce the sound from the sense, and then

tell us what you can make of it:--