PART I.[13]

BLACKWOOD’S

EDINBURGH MAGAZINE.

NO. CCCCLXVII. SEPTEMBER, 1854. VOL. LXXVI.

CONTENTS.

THE HOLY LAND, 243

BELLEROPHON. A CLASSICAL BALLAD, 256

THE COMING FORTUNES OF OUR COLONIES IN THE PACIFIC, 268

SPECULATORS AMONG THE STARS, 288

MRS STOWE’S SUNNY MEMORIES, 301

THE CRYSTAL PALACE, 317

THE SECRET OF STOKE MANOR: A FAMILY HISTORY.—PART IV., 336

THE SPANISH REVOLUTION, 356

EDINBURGH:

WILLIAM BLACKWOOD & SONS, 45 GEORGE STREET,

AND 37 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON;

_To whom all communications (post paid) must be addressed_.

SOLD BY ALL THE BOOKSELLERS IN THE UNITED KINGDOM.

PRINTED BY WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS, EDINBURGH.

BLACKWOOD’S

EDINBURGH MAGAZINE.

NO. CCCCLXVII. SEPTEMBER, 1854. VOL. LXXVI.

THE HOLY LAND.[1]

Strong and many are the claims made upon us by our mother Earth; the

love of locality—the charm and attraction which some one homely

landscape possesses to us, surpassing all stranger beauties, is a

remarkable feature in the human heart. We who are not ethereal

creatures, but of a mixed and diverse nature—we who, when we look our

clearest towards the skies, must still have our standing-ground of earth

secure—it is strange what relations of personal love we enter into with

the scenes of this lower sphere. How we delight to build our

recollections upon some basis of reality—a place, a country, a local

habitation—how the events of life, as we look back upon them, have grown

into the well-remembered background of the places where they fell upon

us;—here is some sunny garden or summer lane, beatified and canonised

for ever with the flood of a great joy; and here are dim and silent

places, rooms always shadowed and dark to us, whatever they may be to

others, where distress or death came once, and since then dwells for

evermore. As little as we can deprive ourselves of the human frame, can

we divest our individual history of its graceful garment of place and

scene. Such a thing happened, we say; but memory is no bare chronicler

of facts and events, and as we say the words, the time starts up before

us, with all its silent witnesses;—leaves that were shed years ago,

trees cut down and gone, yet they live in our thoughts with the joy or

the sorrow of which they were silent attendants. We have caught and

appropriated these bits of still life—they are a part of our history,

and belong to us for ever.

In some degree every mind must have its own private gallery of pictures,

impossible to be revealed to the vision of another,—from the homely

imagination which cherishes that one bit of sunshine on its walls, “the

house where I was born,” the old childish paradise and ideal, rich with

such flowers and verdure as can be found in no other place, to the

stately and well-furnished recollection which can roam at will through

all the brightest countries in the world; but wherever we go, we weave

ourselves into the landscape, and make every milestone a historical

monument in the chronicle of our life.

And so it comes that natives of a country never expatriated from their

home-soil, grow into a passionate veneration and love for their own

land. The hills which are radiant for ever with their dreams of

youth—the rivers whose familiar voices have chimed into every sound of

their lamentation and their joy—the roads that echo to their daily

footsteps, and all the silent accessories upon which, as on so many

props and pillars, their thoughts for years are hung—the very sight of

which recall a hundred fleeting fancies—the very name of which spreads

pictures lovelier than reality before closed eyes—the “kindly” country,

which seems to respond with a voice borrowed from our own past thoughts

to the thoughts of to-day, suggesting ancient comforts, ancient

blessings, silently speaking hope from experience, solace present from

solace past, lays claims upon us, the most intimate of our confidants,

the nearest to our bosom; and Nature lavish in her demands upon our

sympathy—perpetually calling upon us to weep with her and to rejoice

with her—makes liberal recompense, and softens around us with a visible

embrace our mother country, our sympathetic and consolatory home.

And scarcely less are we moved by localities sacred to the heroes of our

race—storied ground, peopled with names and persons historic in the

national annals, or consecrated to other lives than ours. It is natural

for us to seek those spots with eager interest, to believe ourselves

brought nearer to the great Spirit whose habitation made them famous,

and to linger with visionary satisfaction, looking at things which _he_

must have looked at, realising his life where he led it. Pilgrimages

many grow out of this natural sentiment. The cottage of Shakespeare—the

palace of Scott—the “warm study of deals,” where the Scottish Reformer

belaboured Satan—and the dark-browed rooms where hapless Mary

accomplished her fate. From these shrines we come no wiser—not a whit

better acquainted with the saint of each—notwithstanding we stand in the

same space, we look upon the same walls, we have over us the hallowed

roof, and the instinctive superstition is satisfied with this limited

result of our faith.

But places sacred to one nation are indifferent to another—one class of

men exult over a monument, which to their neighbours is but a block of

stone. Yet there is one holy place where all the nations of the earth

come together to worship—one country rich with a perpetual attraction.

The soil thrills to the consecrating touch of love and grief; the ages

of the past dwell in it as in a sanctuary. Making no account of the

wandering handful of wild Asiatics who surround him, the traveller there

seeks not scenes of to-day, but cities of the dead. The place has a

solemn array of lofty inhabitants, undying fathers of the soil;

generation after generation, conquerors, defenders, devotees, have come

and gone and departed. But we do not search this country for traces of

the Saracen or the Crusader; passing beyond them as modern visitors, a

more ancient race claims the universal awe. It is not the city of

Godfrey of Bouillon, but of David of Bethlehem, which shines on yonder

cluster of hills; and these are not the knightly names of romance which

sanctify the tombs. The brave Crusaders claim memories in other

countries, but they have no memory here where their blood watered the

sacred soil. Turk and Christian, creatures of to-day, stand on the same

platform as we do,—beyond the earliest of them are the true monuments

and memories of this country—

“Over whose acres walked those blessed feet,

Which eighteen hundred years ago were nailed

For our redemption to the bitter cross.”

The story begins and ends in this great figure appearing visibly before

our eyes, and we bow our head to acknowledge Jerusalem, the universal

centre of pilgrimage—Judea, Galilee, the Holy Land.

A land which, if it could be possible to sweep it altogether out of

earthly knowledge, would still live in the pages of one wonderful Book,

and to the readers of that Book be of all countries the most familiar

and well known. Many an untutored peasant, who knows no more of the road

to our own capital than the half-mile of dusty highway under his own

eyes, knows of the way to Bethany, signalised by many wonders—knows of

the road to Gaza which is desert—knows of that road to Damascus where

the traveller was solemnly arrested on his way; and is better aware of

the wayside grave where her heart-stricken husband buried Rachel, “sweet

Syrian shepherdess,” and of Absalom’s tomb which he built to preserve

his name, than of where the royal ashes lie in our own land. Many a

humble scholar, untaught in other history, is learned in the ancient

wars of Israel, and apprehends Moab, and Edom, and Assyria with a

stronger sense of reality than he can apprehend the Russian hordes

embattled against ourselves; and sees Pi-ha-hiroth shut in with its

mountains, Egypt behind and the sea before, as no description, however

vivid, will ever make him see the marshes of the Danube, though he have

a son or a brother militant on that disastrous shore to-day. Strong

security has God taken for the universal remembrance of that beloved

country, blessed by His own Divine preference: while there is a Bible,

there must be a Judea; the landscape in all its glorious tints is

associated for ever with the wonderful artist’s name; and neither its

wretched population nor its heathen rulers, nor all its melancholy

meanness and desolation, existing now, can make Christendom forget that

this discrowned city is the city over which fell the tears of the Lord.

We have no Crusaders in these days; all that remains of our ancient

chivalry finds holier work at home than that impossible redemption of

the Holy Land, which God reserves for His own time, and His own hands;

nor do we need to depend on the vagabond saint of antique times, the

hero of scallop-shell and pilgrim-staff, for our knowledge of Palestine.

Neither travellers nor reports are wanting, and we are by no means

afflicted with monotony of tone or sameness of aspect in the revelations

of our modern pilgrimages. The weary man of fashion who loiters over

Palestine in search of a new sensation—the curt and business-like Divine

who goes thither professionally on a mission of verification and

proof—the wandering _litterateur_ who has a book to make—the

accomplished _savant_ and man of science, follow each other in rapid

succession. Dreamy speculation—decisions of bold rapidity, made at a

glance—accurate topography, slow and careful—each do their devoir in

making known to us this country of universal interest. Nor does even the

lighter portraiture of fiction shrink from the Holy Land, though here

our novelist is a statesman, as much beyond the range of ordinary

novelists, as the locality of that last brilliant romance which it has

pleased him “to leave half told,” differs from the English village or

Scottish glen of common story-telling. To follow Disraeli and Warburton

is no easy task, neither is it quite holiday work to go over the ground

after Robinson and De Saulcy. Lieut. C. W. N. Van de Velde, the latest

traveller of this storied soil, is neither a born poet, nor an

accomplished bookmaker, nor a great divine; but whosoever receives his

book into their household, receives a social visitor, distinct and

tangible—a real man. It is impossible not to clothe the historian with

an imagined person—not to see him sitting down to his extempore

writingtable compounding his letters—not to form a good guess of the

measures of his paces, of perhaps now and then a little puff of Dutch

impatience, curiously wrought into a large amount of phlegm. From his

first offset he comes clearly out from among the shadows—we are at no

loss to keep the thread of personal identity, and are never dubious, in

picture number two, about the hero of picture number one. A most

recognisable and characteristic personage, we yet stand in no dread of

our pilgrim. He makes nothing of his cockle-hat and staff, or his sandal

shoon. Instead of calling to his reverent disciples to follow, he offers

his arm to any good neighbour who will make the tour with him. You may

help to set up the Aneroid, or level the telescope, if you will, but you

cannot doubt for a moment that Lieut. Van de Velde takes the angle of

yonder nameless villages as a conscientious duty, and when he makes his

survey of a bare hillside or Arab desert, does it with the full-hearted

and devout conviction that this is his highest capability of serving

God; for you ascertain immediately that this is not an expedition of the

pleasure-seeker, or a pilgrimage of the devotee. Surveying Palestine is

the _work_ of the traveller—his special end and object—and he sets about

it simply as his vocation, an enterprise which gives consistence and

necessity to all his travel.

One disadvantage of this accurate survey, as indeed of all scientific

expeditions, is the bare chronicle of unknown villages, a confusion of

barren names, and brief descriptions which take the life out of many

pages of this narrative. Lieut. Van de Velde has a very pretty talent

for making pictures in words, but to make a map in words is one of the

driest and least profitable operations of literature. Toil after him as

we may, it is impossible to keep in mind this long course which finds no

track, and leaves none—a mere piece of elaborate geography, with only

the point, here and there, of a hospitable sheikh, or a hastily-sketched

interior, to reward us for the toilsome interval of road. This, however,

is not a fault peculiar to M. Van de Velde, but belongs alike to all the

more serious explorers of Palestine, to whom every fallen stone has, or

ought to have, its separate history.

And notwithstanding this, which, indeed, is a necessary feature of the

conscientious and painstaking mind visible in these pages, there is much

of the picturesque in the travels of Lieut. Van de Velde. If his

sketches are as graphic and clear as his descriptions, it is very much

to be regretted that they are not added to this work, for we have

nowhere seen more rapid and vivid landscapes with so little pretension

on the part of the artist. We speak much of the poetic merit of

transferring one’s own mind and individuality into the scenery

described, and it is a poetic necessity—nevertheless, once in a way,

remembering that the real poet who can do this is not a very common

tourist, it is a refreshment to have the landscape without the

traveller—the hills and the valleys as they lie, without Mr Brown in the

corner taking their likeness. In these volumes our honest traveller

offers to your view what he saw, sometimes in an honest fervour of

admiration; but you cannot fail to be aware that his eye is on the

landscape as he draws it, and not upon the central figure I which

overshadows the scene. From first to last, indeed, Lieut. Van de Velde

never sees his own shadow between himself and the sunshine, never is

oppressed by his own claims to be looked at—in fact, is not troubled

whether you look at him at all, but demands of you, most distinctly, to

look at his picture, and claims from you an interest in it equal to his

own. With strong religious feelings, and a mind deeply leavened with

Gospel truths, and the Gospel history of which this soil is redolent,

our pilgrim travels onward, not without perturbations, yet full of

confidence in the special protection of God, and everywhere, a

single-hearted Christian, seeks his own “edification,” and to promote

the edification of others. We have said that his is not the pilgrimage

of a devotee, yet it is undeniable that though too orthodox to expect

any miraculous influence from these holy places, he yet looks for

“impressions,” for a more vivid realisation of those great events to

which our faith looks back, and a brighter apprehension of the Divine

teachings which were first delivered in this favoured land. Here is an

instance of one profane interruption of his devout meditations;—he is

seated by Jacob’s well:—

“I placed myself in the same position, and could well figure to myself

the woman with her pitcher on her head coming down out of the valley.

He who knows all things, and whose free sovereign love has chosen His

own to eternal life from the foundation of the world—He beheld her,

the poor sinner, for whose preservation He had come down from heaven.

He saw her as she came along under the olive trees, long before she

was aware of His being there. And when she saw Him, she hesitated,

perhaps whether she should approach Him, perceiving that he was a Jew.

But what should she be afraid of, she the lost, who had lost all, for

whom there seemed to be nothing but despair? Therefore she came on,

and——

“Thus was I musing with myself, as I sat alone at the side of the

well, and had just begun to read the fourth chapter of John, when I

was suddenly roused by the blustering voice of a gigantic Arab, who

had come up without my observing him, and addressed me thus, with all

the characteristic repulsiveness and loathsomeness of the Arabs:

“‘Marhhabah chawadja! baksheesh, baksheesh!’

“This disturbance was most unwelcome. Think what a contrast: To be

lost, as it were, in heavenly thoughts, and then all at once to be

aroused by such a thief-like clamour for baksheesh. He was a fellow

with a face enough to frighten one, filthy and disgusting—so filthy

and disgusting as none but an Arab can be. I replied to his

salutation, and begged him to leave me alone.

“But no—he had no idea of doing that.

“‘Baksheesh, baksheesh!’ he roared, and sat himself down at the

well-side, opposite me, at the same time taking out his pipe and

lighting it with such composure as to convince me that he had not the

smallest intention to leave me for some time at least.

“And before five minutes had elapsed, half-a-dozen of his fellows

appeared, who forthwith placed themselves all round me in a very

social circle, so that I had to abandon all thoughts of proceeding

with my meditations on the favourite chapter.

“A chorus of ‘baksheesh!’ with all sorts of variations on the same

theme, was now raised about my ears. I asked them through Philip on

what pretence they wanted a baksheesh, begging at the same time that

they would withdraw. Their answer was to this effect: ‘The land and

the well belong to us, and no foreigner has any right to come here

without paying us a baksheesh. Would you like to go down into the

well? Here is a rope that we have brought with that view. We will let

you safely down; you can see the well from within, and on coming up

again pay us a baksheesh.’

“‘But what makes you suppose that I want to examine your well? I know

quite the appearance of the well from within, and thus have no need to

go down into it. Be, then, so good as to take your rope home again,

and leave me alone.’

“I had almost added, ‘then I will give you a baksheesh;’ but I thought

if these rogues see that a baksheesh is earned by merely allowing a

stranger to be left alone at the well, then there is every chance

that, as soon as they are gone, another similar party will come down

to me, and give me still more molestation than these.

“‘If the Chawadja will not go down into the well, then will we go down

instead of him, and tell him how it looks on our return; but anyhow,

we must have a baksheesh.’”

A sore trial to the righteous soul of our traveller is at all times this

demand for “baksheesh;” and he complains feelingly of the extravagant

example of former travellers who have encouraged the Arab, only too

willing to be encouraged, in his shameless exactions. No small grievance

this for the pilgrim of duty or science who must economise; but, from

railway porters to Bedouin chiefs, human nature is the same. We suspect

the London cabman, compelled to take his legal fare, would turn out as

troublesome as Abu Dahuk, if it were not for the terror of the police

magistrate; and where there is no such heaven-appointed institution—no

guardian angel in blue coat and leaden buttons—no Mr Commissioner

Mayne—it is scarcely to be expected that your master of conveyances in

the desert—your grand representative of railway and public roads for the

district of the Dead Sea—should content himself with the polite

information of what “a real gentleman” would offer, as your cabman must

be content to do.

Reaching by Smyrna and Beyrout the land of his destination, and rising

with serious enthusiasm to hail the first glimpse of Lebanon, Lieutenant

Van de Velde wanders for some time along “the coasts of Tyre and Sidon,”

stepping aside now and then to a mission station on the skirts of

Lebanon, or to a native village, where, among discordant patches of

Roman Catholics, of Greek Catholics, and of Mahommedans, he finds

nothing but strife and bitter animosities, with not so much as a shadow

of the religion for whose name, a vain badge, they hold each other in

the direst hatred. Druse and Maronite and Moslem, Greek and Latin and

unbeliever, every village hates its neighbour heartily and with a will;

and though the Druse patronises the English Protestant, and the Maronite

takes the French Catholic under his protection, Christianity vainly

seeks a resting-place with either: but, where all cherish the natural

intolerance of another faith than their own, the Greek Church, ignorant

and bigoted, carries this evil principle farthest. Brutal violence and

legal injury are alike the fate of every unfortunate convertite who

ventures to embrace the somewhat different gospel preached by the

missionaries of the Evangelical churches in these coasts, so long the

habitation of the Gentiles. The first instance which strikes the

traveller is the state of the persecuted missionary churches at

Hâsbeiya, whose history he thus relates:—

“Hâsbeiya has a population of 6000 souls, of whom about

three-fourths belong to the Greek Church: of the remainder, 1500 are

Druses, about 500 Maronites, about 100 Jews of the class called

Sephardim, and as many Mahommedans belonging to the court of the

Emir _Sad-Ed-Din-Shepebi_, with some few Anzairies. Mr Bird, one of

the American missionaries, was the first who attempted, twenty-five

years ago, to diffuse the gospel here. He established a school, and

obtained a native teacher; but his effort met with no success, and

the school dwindled away. In 1842 the brethren sent a colporteur

from Beirût to Hâsbeiya with tracts; and it was from this man that

the people first learned to attach to the name Protestant the

meaning it bears among them—a true Christian. The books he left

behind him would perhaps have had a good effect, if the Greek

priests—like all priests who dispute with the only High Priest,

Jesus Christ, his right to supremacy over the souls of men—had not

found means, in their hatred of the gospel, to get possession of the

books and burn them.

“It was about this time that the Emir imposed certain new taxes, which

caused great dissatisfaction. These taxes fell particularly hard upon

the poor, who had no protector; and the thought occurred to them, ‘We

may possibly find protection from the missionaries; they are merciful

men.’ In this hope, forty-five of them went to the brethren at Beirût,

to enrol themselves, as Protestants, under their protection.

“The missionaries did not, of course, interfere with regard to the

tax, but they ‘expounded to them the way of God more perfectly;’

showing them, at the same time, how much true faith in the Son of God

differs from such nominal Protestantism as has its origin in mere

secular motives. The brethren then sent them back to Hâsbeiya with

bibles and tracts, promising to give them spiritual help, if their

future conduct should attest the sincerity of their wishes. Shortly

after the missionaries found an opportunity of sending two native

teachers to Hâsbeiya, who had, in a few days, a hundred and fifty

people in attendance on them, desirous of receiving instruction. This

was too much for the priests. The bishop threatened to excommunicate

all who should adopt the Protestant heresies; but, seeing that this

threat had no effect, he had recourse to that powerful weapon, by

which, in the East, justice and right are so constantly assailed.

“The head of the Greeks of Hâsbeiya is the Patriarch of Damascus, a

certain Mathodios, who, as also the Emir of Hâsbeiya, is subject to

the Pasha of Damascus. The Bishop of Hâsbeiya had no difficulty,

through his superior in Damascus, in purchasing from the Pasha an

order to the Emir, to the effect that the heretics should be brought

back by force to the Greek Church. The Emir obeyed but too willingly.

The new converts had to endure the bitterest persecutions. They were

pelted with stones, and spit upon in the bazaars; they were beaten and

insulted in their houses, as well as in the public places; they were

no longer safe anywhere, and were debarred all social intercourse.

Many attempts were made even upon their lives; and so severe was the

persecution to which they were exposed, that, at one time, all but

three, who remained faithful, drew back; but around those three, forty

others soon gathered. After consultation, they agreed that it was best

to disperse, and quitted Hâsbeiya to take up their residence at Abeyh,

or elsewhere in Lebanon. In this attempt, however, they failed; the

means of earning their bread were wanting, and, after a few months,

they were compelled to return to Hâsbeiya. Then arose, in the silent

night, from their closed dwellings, many a heartfelt and united prayer

to the Lord of the Church; eagerly and trustfully His promises were

sought out from His holy Word; and, like the phœnix rising from the

flames, the youthful Christian congregation lifted its head anew.

Persecution had no longer any terrors for them. At the request of the

Patriarch, the Emir ordered his janissaries to drive them with

scourges to the church; but his wrath was unable to compel them to

kiss or worship the images. A certain Chalîl-Chouri, himself the son

of a priest, but now converted to Christ, was sent by his family to

Constantinople; here, by the help of the American consul, he obtained

a firman from the Sultan, granting freedom to the Protestants of

Hâsbeiya. Some amelioration in their lot was the happy result, but

only to a certain degree; for the artful Mathodios managed, during

five weary years, to bribe the Pasha of Damascus to assail them with

all kinds of secret social persecutions.”

While this is the state of the Greek Church, and these the difficulties

which all the labours of a purer faith must encounter among our

so-called Christian brethren in the East, Lieutenant Van de Velde does

not share in the popular idea of the greater liberality of the dominant

religion. “Mahommedans,” he says, “have been hitherto, by the very laws

of the Koran, inaccessible to the gospel. The Sultan is the faithful

assertor of these laws, and punishes with decapitation every Mussulman

who abandons the doctrines of the Prophet. It is not three years since a

respectable young man was beheaded in the streets of Constantinople for

having abjured Islamism. Think, then, what is implied in a Mahommedan’s

even giving an attentive ear to the gospel.” If this statement is

correct, as we presume it to be, it throws rather a singular romance of

disinterestedness upon the present services of the most prominent

nations in Christendom to this empire of heathenesse.

Notwithstanding the discouragements, almost amounting to

impossibilities, which beset him on every hand, M. Van de Velde’s friend

and travelling companion, Dr Kalley, does not fail, with unceasing

devotion, to proclaim to the thronging hosts of invalids who surround

the Hakim at every resting-place, the unchanged faith which, eighteen

hundred years ago, proceeded from this very soil. The scene is

thoroughly Oriental, and strangely reminds us of many a sacred scene.

Crowds of the sick and helpless throng to the door where the wandering

physician sits with his medicine-chest. A high compliment to the

beneficent science of healing is in the eagerness of these mendicant

patients. They believe in a man who goes from village to village for no

other purpose than to alleviate their pains and heal their distresses,

but they find it extremely hard to believe in one who comes with no

medicine-chest, but only with outlandish instruments of science, and

have no faith in topography. It may be that the popular imagination has

a far-off traditionary remembrance of that sublime Traveller, under

whose touch and at whose voice the very dead arose; but it is certain,

that while they do not understand travelling for pleasure, nor

travelling for discovery, nor any other kind of expeditionary

enterprise, the wandering hakim has but to disclose his errand to secure

their perfect faith and most respectful welcome. Poor children of

Ishmael, materialism is too strong for spirituality with them. They may

gape at the antiquary with the scorn of ignorance, but the physician, to

those who have so much need of him, is half divine.

At Hâsbeiya an untoward accident arrests our traveller. During a short

excursion, the house which he had taken there is robbed, and all his

valuables lost. Appeal to the Emir proves fruitless, and M. Van de Velde

almost resigns himself to returning home. This, however, is fortunately

prevented by letters of encouragement and promises of help; and with a

less ambitious retinue he sets forth again undismayed, keeping his way

along the coast of the Mediterranean from the Lebanon towards Carmel,

from which place he strikes farther inland through the fallen remains of

royal Samaria to Jerusalem.

It is not possible to follow our author through his course—this unknown

country, sprinkled with names that are familiar to us as household

words—nor can we pause to point out how many pictures he makes by the

way, how fine an eye this unostentatious artist has for colour, and how

even these pale pen-and-ink sketches brighten and glow with the rich

tints of Oriental landscape; neither can we do justice to his interiors,

with their smoky haze, and wild Arab figures, and primitive hospitality.

These are by the way—but as he comes into a country which is distinctly

historical, and not only hazy, like one of these same desert castles,

with a mist of antiquity, the results of his careful examination become

more apparent. Your charlatan is your most universal cosmopolitan, and

with an indefatigable hand has he dotted over this sacred territory. Not

disposed, however, to receive with blind faith the spot pointed out by

the Carmelites (whose monastic order was instituted by Elijah!) as the

true scene of Elijah’s sacrifice, M. Van de Velde and Dr Kalley set

about examining for themselves, and the very interesting result of their

examination, guided by the traditions of the Arabs and not of the

Church, is as follows:—

“Here, then, are the details of what we observed on ‘the burnt place.’

“Having seated ourselves beneath the shade of a huge oak, we once more

opened our Bibles at chap. xviii. of 1st Kings, and examined what was

required in the place of sacrifice, in order to its agreement with the

account given in the Bible. According to verses 18th and 19th, it must

have been ample enough in size to contain a very numerous multitude.

El-Mohhraka must at that time have been quite fitted for this,

although now covered with a rough dense jungle. Indeed, one can

scarcely imagine a spot better adapted for the thousands of Israel to

have stood drawn up on than the gentle slopes. The rock shoots up in

an almost perpendicular wall of more than two hundred feet in height

on the side of the plain of Esdraelon. On this side, therefore, there

was no room for the gazing multitude; but, on the other hand, this

wall made it visible over the whole plain, and from all the

surrounding heights, so that even those left behind, and who had not

ascended Carmel, would still have been able to witness, at no great

distance, the fire from heaven that descended upon the altar.

According to verse 30th, there must have been an altar there before,

for Elijah repaired ‘the altar of the Lord that was broken down.’ It

is well known that such altars were uniformly built on very

conspicuous eminences. Now, there is not a more conspicuous spot on

all Carmel than the abrupt rocky height of Mohhraka, shooting up so

suddenly on the east. Verses 31st and 32d point to a rocky soil, in

which stones were to be found to serve for the construction of the

altar, and yet where the stones must have been so loose or so covered

with a thick bed of earth, that ‘a trench’ could have been made round

the altar, whilst not of so loose a composition of sand and earth as

that the water poured into it would have been absorbed. The place we

were examining met these requisitions in every respect; it showed a

rocky surface, with a sufficiency of large fragments of rock lying

around, and, besides, well fitted for the rapid digging of a trench.

But now comes the grand difficulty of both believers and unbelievers,

who have not seen this place: Whence could Elijah have procured so

much water as to have it to pour over the offering and the altar in

barrelfuls, so that he filled the trench also with water, at a time

when, after three years of drought, all the rivers and brooks were

dried up, and the king in person, and the governor of his house,

divided the land between them to pass through it, to see if,

peradventure, any fountains of water might be found, and grass to save

the horses and mules alive?—(Verses 1–6). To get rid of this

difficulty, some pious travellers, with imaginations stronger than

their judgments, have said, ‘O, as for that water, the thing speaks

for itself; it must evidently have been got from the sea.’ But less

religious persons, who were sharp enough to perceive that the place

where Elijah made the offering could not have been at the seaside,

have rightly remarked, that it must have been impossible, from every

other point of Carmel lying more inland, on account of the great

distance from the sea, to go thither and return on an afternoon, much

more to do this three several times, as is expressly stated in the

34th verse. Such persons, therefore, have rejected altogether this

absurd explanation, without, however, themselves arriving at any

better solution of the difficulty; and this has led unbelievers, in

their prejudiced haste, to assert that the Bible narrative is a mere

fiction, that being the view which, best suited their purpose. Dr

Kalley and I felt our mouths shut in the presence of this difficulty.

We saw no spring, yet here we were certain the place must have been;

for it is the only point of all Carmel where Elijah could have been so

close to the brook Kishon, then dried up, as to take down thither the

priests of Baal and slay them, return again to the mountain and pray

for rain, all in the short space of the same afternoon after the Lord

had shown, by His fire from heaven, that He, and He alone, was God

(see verses 40–44). El-Mohhraka is 1635 feet above the sea, and

perhaps 1000 feet above the Kishon. This height can be gone up and

down in the short time allowed by the Scripture. But the farther one

goes towards the middle of the mountain, the higher he ascends above

the Kishon, because Carmel rises higher then, and the plain through

which the river flows runs lower down. Add to this that the Kishon

takes a course more and more diverging from the mountain, and the

ravine by which people descend to the river’s bed is exceedingly

difficult to pass through, so that three full hours are thought

necessary for traversing the distance from Esfiëh to the stream.

Nowhere does the Kishon run so close to Mount Carmel as just beneath

El-Mohhraka. Pious expositors, who would transfer the scene to the

seaward side of the mountain, seem quite to have left out of sight the

required condition—that it must be near the brook Kishon.

“Well, then, we went down to the Kishon through a steep ravine, and,

behold, right below the steep rocky walls of the height on which we

stood—250 feet, it might be, beneath the altar plateau—a vaulted and

very abundant fountain, built in the form of a tank, with a few steps

leading down into it, just as one finds elsewhere in the old walls or

springs of the Jewish times. Possibly the neighbourhood of this spring

may have been the inducement that led to that altar which Elijah

repaired, having been built to the Lord in former times. Possibly,

too, the water of this spring may have been consecrated to the Lord,

so as not to be generally accessible to the people, even in times of

fearful drought. In such springs the water remains always cool, under

the shade of a vaulted roof, and with no hot atmosphere to evaporate

it. While all other fountains were dried up, I can well understand

that there might have been found here that superabundance of water

which Elijah poured so profusely over the altar. Yes, the more I

consider the matter, the more am I convinced, that from _such_ a

fountain alone could Elijah have procured so much water _at that

time_. And as for the distance between this spring and the supposed

site of the altar, it was every way possible for men to go thrice

thither and back to obtain the necessary supply.

“Further, the place of Elijah’s offering—the same, probably, where he

cast himself down upon the earth, and put his face between his knees,

in offering thanks to the Lord for the divine power He had hitherto

displayed, to beseech Him for the further fulfilment of His promises,

that of rain for the parched-up ground—the place of Elijah’s offering,

I say, behoves to have been so screened by a rising ground on the west

or north-west side as to intercept a view of the sea; for he said to

his servant, ‘Go up now, and look toward the sea.’ Moreover, the

distance to that height must not have been great; for the passage

runs—‘Go again seven times,’ (verses 42–44). Now, such is the position

of El-Mohhraka, that these circumstances might all quite well have

been united there. On its west and north-west side the view of the sea

is quite intercepted by an adjacent height. That height may be

ascended, however, in a few minutes, and a full view of the sea

obtained from the top.”

There is nothing we hear of more frequently than of the great additional

light thrown upon the Bible by modern researches; and with Scripture

geography and Scripture botany, with Eastern usages and ancient customs,

this modern time professes a much clearer apprehension of the Bible than

did the elder age, which was ignorant of all this minutiæ of

illustration. But the science is overdone. The illustration smothers the

text, and we become suspicious of every new attempt of that

over-explanatory teaching which toils to bring the material and

framework of the sacred record down to “the meanest capacity,” almost

wearying us into incredulity where, if left alone, we could not choose

but believe. Holy Writ, by far the truest and most life-like picture of

its own time, explains itself with small assistance—but we are glad

always to light on such an illustration as this, which brings before us,

in all its striking features, the locality of one of the most striking

scenes of the old dispensation.

Like every other traveller in this singular country, M. Van de Velde is

struck by the evident tokens everywhere of long-restrained and dormant

fertility. The land is still a land of milk and honey. Folded into the

unseen recesses of Carmel, where there is scarcely an eye to look on it,

the soil is lavish of the richest vegetation, matted with plants and

flowers; and everywhere the same teeming fruitfulness peers through the

uncultivated waste, which notwithstanding is a barren waste bound with

the visible restrictions of Providence, forbidden and interdicted to

spread forth its riches, and waiting solemnly, with the life pent up in

its great bosom, till the call of God shall wake it into the luxuriance

of old.

A grand romance is in the position of this desolate but unexhausted

land—ruled by strangers, inhabited by an alien race, and desecrated by

an idolatrous worship, yet with all its rich faculties hidden in its

heart, and its heirs, scattered yet indestructible, waiting for return

to it as it waits for them. M. Van de Velde cannot restrain his

impatience with Turkish rule in Palestine. Disgusted with the universal

corruption, universal mismanagement and oppression, he chafes at the

idea of the Christian Powers upholding the _effete_ and tyrannical

government of the Porte, under whose sway, he says, everything withers,

from commercial enterprise to family comfort, and in whose hands

everything becomes a failure. Setting political motives aside, it is

indisputably a singular position which England and France hold in this

contest. A few hundred years ago, Christendom resisted with desperation

on these very boundaries the invasion of the Turk, and it is strange to

see the leading powers of Christendom crossing the very same line in

these days to fight under the banner of the Crescent, and mingle the

knightly symbols, whose fame has been dearly won in the battles of the

faith, with the ensigns of the unbeliever. Well, letting alone the

balance of power and such imperial considerations, show us the

Englishman who will stand by and see the poor heathen Hindoo, whose

pathetic silence craves alms upon our streets, fall into the hands of

some big Saxon bully, without lifting hand or voice for the rescue of

the weak, and we will say that such a man, but no other, has a right to

stigmatise this crusade of right against might, and condemn the

Christian nation for defence of the Infidel. But for our ally, with his

magnificent indifference, his passive fatalism, his misgovernment, and

all his sins, let us be thankful that we do not need to adopt his faults

when we vindicate his right—rather that our vindication of his rights,

our association with himself, our help and brotherliness, are better

modes of vanquishing the Oriental, who has proved his mettle in these

days, than a new crusade, such as M. Van de Velde longs for, to restore

to the Hebrews their old inheritance. With God, and not with us, does it

remain to decide when the Jew is ready for his new existence—when the

time of prophecy shall be accomplished, and that revolution begun which

is to call out of all lands and places the wandering nation, the great

pilgrim of centuries, and bring Israel home. It is not easy to realise

the possibility of such an event, and there is no wonder in all past

history equal to what this will be—but the work is manifestly out of

man’s hands. At this moment, find him where you will, the qualities for

which the Jew is distinguished are not those which win the respect or

admiration of his neighbours—he is barren and desolate like his country,

and has no beauty in him. Harsh sounds and unmelodious—at the best, a

wail of blind inquiry, and long suspense—are all the harp of Judah is

capable of now; and till the hand of the Divine musician touch the

strings, it is a vain hope that any human finger can wake them to the

measure of David or of Solomon, the lofty strains of old.

One thing these modern times, with all their fairy works of science and

mighty rush of “progress,” ought to do for both Mahommedan and Jew—to

convince them that there is but one faith, which never becomes

obsolete—one religion, which, all independent of climate or temperature,

is from God, and embraces all mankind—which is abashed by no discovery,

and thrown into the shade by no improvement. The creed of Mahomet is

antiquated, and in its dotage. To live a Jew in these days is to live

among the tombs. Paganism is dead and gone long centuries ago. Only

Christianity, in its sublime unfailing youth, is never out of date, but

works as handily with the instruments of to-day as with those of a

thousand years ago, and, knowing neither culmination nor decadence, is

perpetually the same.

But to M. Van de Velde, the charm of attraction which binds the devout

mind to the children of Abraham, the chosen people, is very strong. He

cannot sufficiently execrate the Turkish occupancy, which gives this

historic country to the race of all others most indifferent to its

holiest memories, and when he sees the soil itself indicating, by many

evidences, its inherent riches, yet lying scorched and barren under the

eye of heaven—when he sees a government which discourages every

exertion, a people who have no heart to make any, conscious, as he says,

of the usurpation of these lands, which are not their own—our fervent

pilgrim burns with natural impatience to accelerate the slow course of

events, and can scarcely bring himself to tolerate the support given to

this “Empire of Turkey,” which he apostrophises, with all its tyranny at

home and impotence abroad. Far better service, as he thinks, these same

victorious European arms would render, if they expelled the Crescent

from Palestine, and established the Hebrew in his immemorial fatherland;

but it is a hard thing for a man to set about accomplishing prophecy—the

work is above his hand. M. Van de Velde mentions, however, almost with

enthusiasm, the enterprise of a small American colony which, established

at Bethlehem, professed an intention to prepare the soil, to “break up

the fallow-ground,” in preparation for the return of the banished

Israelites. The idea gratifies his eager mind; but the colonists, after

all, turn out but indifferently, and the enterprise is found to fail.

The present _questio vexata_ of these sacred localities occupies some

space in the journals of M. Van de Velde. This controversy, originating

in the real or alleged discoveries of M. de Saulcy, calls up one of the

most remote and mysterious events ever brought under human

discussion—the destruction of the cities of the plain, Sodom, Gomorrah,

Admah, and Zeboim. The original idea, touching these guilty objects of

the Divine wrath, wrapt in awe and mystery as their fate was, seems to

have been, that the Dead Sea, itself the gloomiest and most appalling

object in creation, had been called into existence by the same miracle

which annihilated the condemned cities, and that its deadly waters swept

every trace of them out of sight for ever. But modern travel has taken

from the Dead Sea much of its mysterious desolation; it is found that

sweet fountains spring, and luxuriant vegetation flourishes, within

sight of its waters, and that itself bears no evident trace of its

deadly qualities, but appears, as one and another of its visitors say,

only a “splendid lake,” an inland sea, mirroring clear skies and

picturesque mountains, sublime, but not terrible. Traces of the most

frightful convulsions of nature surround it on every side; extinct

volcanoes and tremendous chasms, mountains dislocated and shattered in

pieces, and tracts of unparalleled desolation; but still it is

impossible to regard the lake itself as the fatal object which former

ideas held it to be. As the subject clears from the superstitious

veneration of less informed times, a new theory is propounded. Near the

end of the present Dead Sea, a peninsula strikes into the water, almost

cutting off into a separate lake the southmost portion of the sea. This

portion, beyond the promontory El-Lisan, is found to be extremely

shallow, and in more than one spot fordable, presenting a striking

contrast, in this particular, to the main body of the water, which

reaches the depth of 1300 feet. This shallow end of the lake, guarded by

its broad peninsula, Dr Robinson, the eminent American traveller, takes

to be an inundated plain; in other words, the vale of Siddim, the

ancient site of the condemned cities. According to the Scripture

narrative, the soil of this fertile valley was “full of slime-pits,” a

bituminous underground to the surface of tropical luxuriance; and Dr

Robinson’s theory holds, that the fire which destroyed Sodom and

Gomorrah broke up the superficial soil, ignited the bitumen, and lowered

the surface of the plain below the level of the lake, which immediately

flooded over the sunken valley, and formed the shallow piece of water at

the south end of the Dead Sea. A glance at the map will show how the

form of the lake justifies this theory, in which many travellers, and

among them Lieutenant Van de Velde, fully concur.

On the other hand, M. de Saulcy affirms positively to finding extensive

ruins at a place called Kharbet Sdoum (ruins of Sodom), at the foot of

Djebel Sdoum, or Mountain of Sodom; and on the edge of this submerged

plain he finds also other ruins bearing the name of Sebaan, which he

concludes to be Zeboim, and still others called by the Arabs Zouera, or

Zuweirah, which he reckons Zoar. These consist of walls, of now and then

a distinct building, and of masses of fallen stones, to such extent as

to merit the term “stupendous ruins.” Here the reader, who can only

compare testimony, is put completely at fault; for, as confidently as M.

de Saulcy affirms his discovery of these ruins, does M. Van de Velde

deny the existence of any such. No former traveller has lighted upon

them; no after traveller has confirmed the story; but what shall we make

of the distinct assertion of M. de Saulcy, with his little band of

companions, who declared themselves to have twice visited and examined

these extraordinary remains, and to be perfectly convinced of their

authenticity? Limestone rocks, corrugated and channelled by winter

torrents, and worn into the resemblance of layers of building, explains

M. Van de Velde—stupendous ruins, veritable remains of the cities of the

Pentapolis, says his adversary: both produce battalions of

testimony—which is right?

In real locality, we apprehend, the controversy makes little difference,

since both sides of the question mutually agree in choosing this

southern end of the Asphaltic Lake for the position of the destroyed

cities. M. De Saulcy places Zoar on the western side; Dr Robinson and M.

Van de Velde, and all preceding travellers, settle its position on the

eastern coast, upon the peninsula. The Frenchman finds his tangible

memorials of Sodom, and the wonderful event which destroyed it, his

large burned stones, and destroyed buildings, recognised by Arab

tradition, on the still remaining soil; the American and the

Netherlander cover these awful remnants of Almighty vengeance with the

bitter waters wherein no life can be. The former proposition may admit

of proof palpable to the senses, since “stupendous ruins” are not things

to be ignored by an honest examination; but the waters of the lake, if

they contain it, will not open to disclose _their_ secret;—so all the

advantages of proof are on M. de Saulcy’s side. As it is, however, the

question does not seem to us a question for ordinary discussion, but

simply one of comparative credibility of testimony—are there ruins, or

are there not? Has there been glamour in M. de Saulcy’s eyes, or has

obstinate scepticism obscured the vision of M. Van de Velde? The

question is not one on which we are prepared to give a judgment. Our

impetuous Gallic champion stands alone, defying the civilised Bedouin

Criticism, as he defied the Ishmael of the desert; but an army of heavy

artillery fights on the side espoused by M. Van de Velde. What shall we

say?—in prospect of a magnificent duel pending between the head of the

one party and the sole and indivisible representative of the other, only

that our present author boldly throws himself into the discussion,

flings his glove manfully in the face of the Frenchman, denies his

premises, scouts his conclusions, and is thoroughly convinced in his own

mind that not a vestige remains above ground of the submerged cities of

the plain.

M. Van de Velde, who travels economically, without thinking it necessary

to secure the attendance of sheikhs of half a dozen tribes, seems to

meet with a very much less degree of annoyance and obstruction than is

common to travellers in Palestine. We cannot fail to observe, in the

midst of many complaints of the rapacity and perpetual exactions imposed

by the tribes of the desert upon wandering pilgrims, that every

traveller has at least one faithful Arab, who, if not entirely superior

to baksheesh, does yet deport himself with exemplary conscientiousness,

and gain the entire confidence and friendship of the party he conducts.

A good omen this, for a race so completely beyond the rules of ordinary

law. There are some cases, too, where, cast almost upon their charity,

sick, exhausted, and undefended, with no greater retinue than two

unwarlike servants and one Bedouin guide, M. Van de Velde meets with

unexpected kindness and hospitality from these children of Ishmael, and

in his experience the Bedouins seem to contrast rather favourably with

the resident villagers through whose domains his former course had been.

Notwithstanding, though the unobtrusive traveller, who trusts himself

without a guard among them, may meet with less annoyance than the

richly-equipped expedition, prodigal of piastres, one does not see how

controversies, historical or geographical, touching this mysterious

territory, can ever be rightly determined so long as the investigators

are compelled to hurry from point to point, and are kept in terror of

the least divergence from their projected course, lest an enemy pounce

upon them in the wilds where no help is. A railway to the shores of the

Dead Sea is scarcely to be feared or hoped for these few centuries, but

there surely might be an expeditionary band, strong enough to disregard

the wild inhabitants of this land, which piques and tantalises with

imperfect revelations the curiosity of science. An expedition which

should dare to take time, which should venture into deliberate and

careful examinations, and which was sufficiently strong to overawe the

lawless lords of the soil, might do much to settle the jars of opinion,

and reveal to the general knowledge this terrible country, scarred and

marked for ages by the chastising hand of God.

A minor difficulty in the way of reconciling one traveller’s experience

with another’s, is the perpetual variation of proper names. Taken down

as these must be from the guide of the moment, it is easy to account for

the orthographical vicissitudes through which they pass; but it were

surely well even to sacrifice a point and take our predecessor’s

spelling instead of our own, rather than throw this mist of perplexity

over the whole scene. Many a learned puzzle has come out of this

peculiarity in the sacred records themselves, the shifting of names, and

subtracting of syllables; and we are like, as it seems, to find the same

difficulty continuing with us. But it is not necessary, surely, that

every new traveller should set up an orthography of his own: with

submission, it appears to us that accuracy of place is of much more

importance than originality of name, and that he is to be the most

commended who enables you at once, and without perplexity, to recognise

the spot where, in his predecessor’s company, you have been before.

In taking leave of these pleasant volumes, we cannot help regretting

once more that the sketches to which such frequent reference is made are

not added to the text. Lieut. Van de Velde’s friend to whom his book is

addressed, seems to have rather an unfair advantage over the public in

this respect; and without detracting anything from the value of the

pen-and-ink sketches, which are admirable of their kind, it is

impossible not to feel a degree of injury, or to resist being provoked

and tantalised by such a sentence as this—“If my short description of

the vale of Shechem, with its mountains of Blessing and Curse, can in

any way elucidate to you the narratives of Scripture, I shall be very

glad. I hope my sketch will come in aid of my pen.”

And why, then, does not the sketch come in aid of the pen? The

worshipful public who read his book claims to be the dearest of dear

friends to an author, and suffers no such successful rivalry of its

pretensions. We trust to see M. Van de Velde rectify this mistake in his

second edition. A very animated book, full of life and motion,

atmosphere and reality, he has added to our store—a _good_ book, which

the best of us may read “of Sundays,” but which the gayest of us will

not find too dry for every day; and we will be glad to see Lieut. Van de

Velde complete, by the addition of his sketches, so worthy a

contribution to the little library of science, speculation, and

adventure, which treats of the Holy Land.

BELLEROPHON.

A CLASSICAL BALLAD.

“Ὄς τᾶς ὀφίωδεος υιὸν ποτε Γόργονος

ἦ πολλ ἀμφὶ κρουνοῖς

Πάγασον ζευξαι ποθέων ἔπαθεν

Πρίν γέ οἱ χρυσάμπυκα κοῦρα χαλινὸν

Παλλὰς ἤνεγκε.”—PINDAR.

“Αλλ ὅτε δῆ καὶ κεῖνος ἀπήχθετο πᾶσι θεοῖσιν

ἤτοι ὁ κὰπ πεδίον τὸ Αλήιον οἶος ἀλᾶτο

ὅν θυμὸν κατέδων πἀτον ἀνθρώπων ἀλεείνων.”—HOMER.

[The beautiful Corinthian legend of Bellerophon is narrated by Homer in

the well-known episode of Glaucus and Diomede, in the sixth book of the

_Iliad_. In that episode the strong-lunged son of Tydeus meets in the

fight a face that was new to him, and before engaging in battle desires

to know the name of his noble adversary. The courteous request is

courteously complied with; and it appears that Glaucus—for such is the

champion’s name, though now serving in Priam’s army as a Lycian

auxiliary—was by descent a Grecian, the grandson of the famous

Bellerophon of Corinth, between whose family and that of Diomede a

sacred bond of hospitality had existed. This discovery leads to an

interchange of friendly tokens between the intending combatants; the

weapons of war are sheathed, and a bright gleam of human kindness is

thrown across the dark tempestuous cloud of international conflict.

The story of Bellerophon, as told in this passage of the most ancient

Greek poet, is a remarkable instance of how popular legend, proceeding

from the germ of some famous and striking fact, is gradually worked up

into a form where the actual is altogether subordinated to the

miraculous. In Homer there is not a single word said of the winged

horse, which is the constant companion of Bellerophon’s exploits, in the

current form of the legend afterwards revived, and which appears

regularly on the coins of Corinth. The reason, also, of the hero’s fall,

from the loftiest prosperity to the saddest humiliation, is only dimly

indicated by the poet, when he says that Bellerophon, towards the close

of his life, “was hated by all the gods,” and, “avoiding the path of

men, ate his own heart” (ὅν θυμὸν κατέδων); but whether it was that

Homer, knowing the sin of Bellerophon, with a delicate sense of

propriety, refused to set it forth distinctly in the mouth of his

grandson, or whether the simplicity of the oldest form of the legend

knew nothing more than what Homer tells, certain it is that the

ever-active Greek imagination could not content itself with the

obscurity of the Homeric indication, and the moral that “pride must have

a fall” was distinctly brought out in the later form of the myth. For

the rest, the writer has taken the topographical notices in the

following verses, not from his own conceit, but from the authority of

Pausanias in his Corinthian antiquities.

It needs scarcely be added that the legend of Bellerophon—in ancient

times equally the property of Corinth in Europe, and Lycia in Asia—has

now become in a peculiar manner the possession of Great Britain by the

labours of Sir Charles Fellowes, and the Xanthian Chamber of the British

Museum.]

I.

The sun shines bright on Ephyré’s height,[2]

And right and left with billowy might

Poseidon rules the sea;

But not the sun that rules above,

Nor strong Poseidon, nor great Jove,

Can look with looks of favouring love,

Bellerophon, on thee.

There’s blood upon thy hands; the hounds

Of hell pursue thy path;

Nor they within rich Corinth’s bounds

Shall slack their vengeful wrath.

Black broods the sky above thy head,

The Earth breeds serpents at thy tread,

The Furies’ foot hath found thee;

A baleful pest their presence brings,

A curse to peasants and to kings;

The horrid shadow of their wings

Turns day to darkness round thee.

Flee o’er the Argive hills, and there,

With suppliant branch and pious prayer,

Thou shalt not crave in vain

Some prince whose hands not worthless hold

The sceptre of Phoroneus old,

To wash thee clean, and make thee bold

To look on men again.

II.

Darkly the Nemean forests frown,

Where Apesantian Jove

From his broad altar-seat looks down

On the Ogygian grove.[3]

Fierce roars the lion from his den

In Tretus’ long and narrow glen;

And many a lawless man

Here by the stony water-bed

Lists the lone traveller’s errant tread,

And wakes the plundering clan.

Here be thy flight, Bellerophon,

But danger fear thou none;

For she, the warlike and the wise,

Jove’s blue-eyed daughter from surprise

Secure shall lead thee on.

He flees: and where the priestess bears

To Hera on the hill[4]

The sacred keys, he pours his prayers,

And drinks the scanty rill.

He flees: and now before his eye,

With wall and gate and bulwark high,

And many a tower that fronts the sky,

And many a covered way,

Strong Tiryns stands, whose massy blocks

Were torn by Cyclops from the rocks,

And piled in vast array.[5]

Here Prœtus reigns; and here at length

The suppliant throws his jaded strength

Before a friendly door;

And now from hot pursuit secure,

And from blood-guiltiness made pure,

His heart shall fear no more.

III.

The princely Prœtus opes his gate,

And on the fugitive’s dark fate

Smiles gracious; him from fear,

And terror of the scourge divine,

He purifies with blood of swine

And sprinkled water clear.

O blessed was the calm that now

Lulled his racked brain, and smoothed his brow!

Nor wildly now did roll

His sleepless eyes; from gracious Jove

Came down the gentle dew of love

That soothed his wounded soul.

And grateful was blithe face of man

To heart now free from Furies’ ban,

And sweet the festive lyre.

Fair was each sight that gorgeous day,

Spread forth in beautiful array

To move the heart’s desire.

Each manly sport and social game

Thrilled with new joy his re-strung frame,

And waked the living fire.

Antéa saw him poise the dart,

In the fleet race the foremost start,

And lawless Venus smote her heart—

She loved her lord no more:

As no chaste woman sues she sued,

Her guest the partial hostess wooed,

And lavished beauty’s store

Of looks and smiles, and pleading tears,

And silvery words; but he reveres

The rights of hospitable Jove,

Chastely repels her perilous love,

Nor hears her parley more.

IV.

Who slights a woman’s love cuts deep,

And wakes a brood of snakes that sleep

Beneath a bed of roses.

The lustful wife of Prœtus now

To earthly Venus vows a vow,

And in her heart proposes

A fiendish thing. She, with the pin

That bound her peplos, pierced the skin

Of her smooth-rounded arm;

And when the crimson stream began

To trickle down, she instant ran,

And with a feigned alarm

Roused all her maids, and in the ear

Of the fond Prœtus, quick to hear,

She poured the piteous lie,

That the false guest had sought to move

Her loyal-mated heart with love,

And with rude hands had dared assail

Her virtue, cased in surer mail

Than Dian’s panoply:

Then, more to stir his wrathful mood,

She bared her arm that streamed with blood,

And scared his jealous eye.

Hot boiled his Argive heart; his eyes

Flash vengeance; but himself denies

The reins to his own spleen.

His public face in smiles is dressed,

He joins the banquet with the rest,

And tells the tale, and plies the jest

With easy social mien;

And to his high Corinthian guest

Lets not a thought be seen.

“Take here,” quoth he, “thou high-souled knight,

To Iobates the Lycian wight,

The brother of my queen,

These tablets; he will honour thee

Even more than I; and thou shalt see

A famous and a fruitful land,

With all Apollo’s beauty bland,

And various verdure green.”

Uprose the knight with willing feet,

His heart was light, his pace was fleet;

Girt for the road and venture bold

He left the strong Tirynhian hold,

And gaily wends his way

O’er steep Arachne’s ridge, till he

Passed Æsculapius’ sacred fane,

That sendeth health, and healeth pain,

And reached, with foot untired, the sea

That beats with billows bounding free

The Epidaurian bay.

V.

Thoughtful a moment here he stood

And watched the never-sleeping flood,

The ever-changing wave;

He knew no danger, feared no foes,

But from his heart a prayer uprose

To her that guards the brave.

Wise prayer; for scarce the words are gone

From thy free mouth, Bellerophon,

When, struck with holy awe,

Even at thy side in light arrayed,

Serene with placid power displayed,

The chaste Athenian Jove-born maid

Thy wondering vision saw;

And in her hand—O strangest sight!—

A wingèd steed she led,

That bent the knee before the knight

And bowed its lofty head.

“Fear not, thou son of Æolus’ race,

Dear to the gods art thou;

This steed, by strong Poseidon’s mace

That leapt to life, through airy space

Shall safely waft thee now.”

Thus spake the goddess, wise as fair;

And with the word, dissolved in air,

Was seen no more. The knight

Brushed from his eyes the dazzling glare,

And scarce believed his sight.

But when he saw the steed was there,

He winged to Heaven a rapid prayer,

And for the airy flight

Buckled his purpose. Mounted now

With rapid wheel he soars,

O’er creek and crag, and rocky brow,

And swift-receding shores.

A lovely sight was there, I trow,

Where high on wingèd oars

He clove the pathless air. The sea,

With various-twinkling brilliancy,

Immense before him lay,

With many a coast far-stretching seen,

And many a high-cliffed isle between,

And many a winding bay.

High o’er Œnone’s isle he sails,[6]

Where Æacus’ justest law prevails,

And masted armies ride;

O’er famous Sunium’s rocky steep,

Where Pallas guards the Attic deep,

He swept with airy pride.

Ceos and Syros wondering saw

His meteor-steed with humble awe;

And sacred Delos deemed

Apollo’s self, the fervid god

His own ethereal regions trod,

And with such brightness gleamed.

Swift o’er the Bacchic isle he glides,[7]

Where music mingles with the tides

From many a Mænad throat.

And nigh to Caria’s craggy shore,

Cos with her blushing winy store

His sweeping view can note.

Anon, sublime he soars above

Thy temple, Atabyrian Jove,

The lord of cloudless Rhodes,[8]

Where Telchins wise, with busy clamour,

Who shape the steel beneath the hammer,

Possess their famed abodes:

And swiftly then he swoops, I ween,

Down on the steeps of Cragus green

Into the pleasant plain,

Where Xanthus rolls his yellow stream,

And Phœbus lights with glorious gleam

The Patarean plain.

Here he alights. His heavenly steed,

With instant eye out-stripping speed

Scorning the earthly loam,

Wheels eastward far with vans sonorous,

And o’er the rosy peaks of Taurus

Sails to his starry home.

VI.

The Xanthian gate is wide and free;[9]

The Xanthian towers are high;

The Xanthian streets are fair to see;

The knight, with wondering eye,

Beholds and enters. To the king

A ready troop the stranger bring,

And scan him o’er and o’er;

Carious that one so spruce and trim,

And with such light unwearied limb,

Had reached the Lycian shore.

With kindly heart the Xanthian lord

Opes his high hall and spreads his board,

And pours the Coan wine;

Nor question asked (for Jove gives free

To all a questless courtesy)

Till days were numbered nine.

His tablets then the knight presents;

The monarch scans their dire contents,

For here ’twas written plainly,

“If thou dost hate who works amiss

Let not his hand that beareth this

Have sinned against me vainly;

Thy Prœtus.” Sore vexed was the king

That he must do a bloody thing

Against so brave a guest;

But vows were strong, and family bonds;

Therefore, composed, he thus responds—

“Brave knight, a fearful pest

Afflicts this land: a monster dire,

With, terror armed, and breathing fire,

In Cragus holds her den,

Chimera named: with savage jaw

She bites, and with voracious maw

Consumes both beasts and men.

This hideous form its birth did take

From hoar Echidna, virgin-snake;

She to that fiery blaster,

Typhon, Cilicia’s curse of yore

A triform goatish portent bore,

With serpent’s sting and lion’s roar,

This Lycian land’s disaster.

Harmless at first, for sport ’twas bred

By Caria’s thoughtless king,

And by his innocent children led

Obedient to a string.

Anon its hellish blood grew hot;

It breathed a breath of fire,

And tainted every household spot

With gouts of poison dire.

Full grown at length, and fierce and bold,

She ranges freely through each fold,

And licks the fleecy slaughter;

And, when her humour waxes wild,

No flesh she spares of man or child,

Echidna’s gory daughter.

Now hear me, noble Glaucus’ son,

Most valiant knight, Bellerophon;

Thou hast a face that seems to court

A dangerous business as a sport—

This thing I ask thee then;

Wilt thou go forth, and dare to tame

This murtherous monster breathing flame,

And win thyself a deathless name

Among the Xanthian men?”

VII.

Thus he—(for in his heart he thought

Such venture must with life be bought).

But brave Bellerophon

Guileless received the guileful plan,

And, as an eager-purposed man,

Buckled his armour on.

Alone he went: of such emprise

With this bold-breasted stranger

No one shall share, a herald cries,

The glory or the danger.

By Xanthus’ stream he wends him then,

And leftward up the hollow glen

Where Pandarus’ city, like a tower,

Rises begirt with rocky power;

Then upward, still he goes,

Where black-browed mountains round him lower,

And ‘neath chill winter’s grisly bower

The sunless water flows.

Upon a steep rock hoar with eld

A yawning cave his eye beheld,

High-perched; and to that cave no trace

Of road upon the mountain’s face,

But, like an eagle’s nest,

Sublime it hung. He looked again,

And from the cave a tawny mane

Shook o’er the rocky crest;

And now a lion’s head forth came,

And now, O Heaven! long tongues of flame

Ran wreathing round the hill.

No fear the son of Glaucus knew,

But pricked his forward will

The rock-perched monster to pursue:

On right, on left, he sought a clue

To thread that steep-faced hill;

But though the day had much ado,

When night came down with sable hue

It found him searching still.

Hid in the tangled brakes around

Next morn a rugged chasm he found,

That oped into an archway wide

Right through the hollow mountain-side;

Here plunged the knight; and then

With eager foot emerging speeds

Along a rocky ledge that leads

To dire Chimera’s den.

The monster hears his coming tread,

And with a hideous roar

Trails forth its length, and shows its head

And mouth all daubed with gore.

The brave knight drew his sword, and flew

Like lightning on the foe,

And on its hide of horny pride

Dealt ringing blow on blow.

In vain; that hide, Bellerophon,

Dipt in the flood of Acheron,

Is proof at every pore;

And where thy steel doth vainly hack,

A goat’s head rising on its back

With living fire streams o’er;

And from behind, a serpent’s tail,

With many mouths that hisses,

Rears round about thee like a flail,

To give thee poisoned kisses.

The flame, the smoke, the sulphurous breath

Doth choke thy mortal life;

Spare that dear life, for only death

Can grow from such a strife.

Backward the flame-scorched hero sped,

And as he went, upon his tread

The roaring Terror came.

Along the ridge, so sharp and jaggy,

Huge-limb’d it strode, horrid and shaggy,

And swathed with sevenfold flame.

Down through the archway opening wide,

Far through the hollow mountain-side,

It drove him wrathful on;

Then through the black jaws of the rock

It hurled him with a furious shock,

And with a huge-heaved stone

Blocked up the rift. There in the vale,

Scarcely with life, all scorched and pale,

Was left Bellerophon.

VIII.

The evening dew was clear and cold:

Upon the harsh ungrateful mould

All stiffly lay the hero bold

Thorough the dreamless night;

But when the face of peering day

Shot o’er the cliff its crimson ray,

All stiff and aching as he lay,

Sleep seized the weary knight—

A blissful sleep; for when the sense

Was bound with blindness most intense,

With sharp-eyed soul he saw,

Ev’n at his side, in light arrayed,

Serene with placid power displayed,

The chaste Athenian Jove-born maid,

And worshipped her with awe;

And in her hand—a well-known sight—

The wingèd steed she led,

That bent the knee before the knight,

And bowed its lofty head.

Raptured he woke; with sense now clear

He saw the heavenly maid,

And in her hand a massive spear,

Firm-planted, she displayed;

And thus she spake: “Ephyrian knight,

Dear to the gods art thou,

Not vainly did thy prayer invite

My aid to wing thy airy flight

To Cragus’ rocky brow.

A friendly god is thy provider;

If thou hast wisely planned,

Fear not; the steed doth wait the rider,

The spear doth claim the hand.

That snake-born monster’s horny hide,

That was not made to feel,

May never yield life’s crimson tide

To sharpest Rhodian steel;

But with this spear from Vulcan’s forge,

Right through the mouth in the deep gorge

If thou shalt pierce it, then

This dire Chimera, breathing flame,

Thou with a hero’s hand shalt tame,

And win thyself a glorious name

Among the Xanthian men.”

Upstood the knight, with hope elate,

And felt the aching pain abate

From all his sore-bruised limbs;

The wingèd steed he straight bestrode,

And to Chimera’s black abode

Through liquid air he swims.

The deep-mouthed Terror ’gan to bray,

The forky fire-tongues ’gan to play,

The fretful serpents hissed dismay

Round all the rocky wall;

But with direct and eager speed

The rider and the heavenly steed

Rushed to achieve the fearless deed

At glorious danger’s call.

The knight, with curious eye, did note

The centre of the roaring throat,

And while it gaped with gory jaws

To thunder fear around,

Forward he rode—nor any pause,

But right into Chimera’s gorge

He drove the spear from Vulcan’s forge,

And fixed it in the ground.

Up from the back the fell goat’s head

Rose rough with swelling ire,

And right and left long tongues were spread

Of forky-flaming fire;

But with immortal strength the steed

Flaps his huge vans around,

And straight the eager spires recede,

And harmless lick the ground.

Cowed lie the snakes, and with quick eye

A tender place the knight did spy

Where the neck joined the back;

There with a fatal swoop he came,

And through the fount of living flame

He cuts with fierce attack.

Down dropt the goat’s head in its gore,

And with a sharp and brazen roar

The writhing lion dies.

The palsied snakes, with stiffened fang,

Like lifeless leaves unconscious hang,

And lose all strength to rise;

And belching rivers of black gore

Upon the clotted rocky floor

The smoking carcass lies.

IX.

A famous man was Glaucus’ son

Then when Chimera died;

In Lycian land like him was none

In glory and in pride.

At public feast beside the king

He sate; him did the minstrel sing

With various-woven lays;

And old men in the halls were gay,

And maidens smiled, and mothers grey,

And eager boys would cease their play

To sound the hero’s praise.

The Xanthian burghers, wealthy men,

Chose the best acres in the glen

Beside the fattening river—

Acres where best or corn would grow,

Or vines with clustered purple glow,

These, free from burden, they bestow

On Glaucus’ son for ever.

The Xanthian king, to Prœtus bound,

For other dangers looks around,

And finds, but finds in vain.

’Gainst the stout Solymi to fight[10]

He set the brave Ephyrian knight,

And hoped he might be slain;

But from the stiff embrace of Mars

He soon returned, and showed his scars,

To glad the Xanthian plain.

A Lycian army then he led

Against the maids unhusbanded,

Where surly Pontus roars.

Before his spear the Amazon yields;

The breastless host, with moonèd shields,

Far o’er Thermodon’s famous fields

He drove to Colchian shores.

The Xanthian king despairs the strife—

“Let Prœtus fight for Prœtus’ wife;

I will not tempt the charmèd life

Of valiant Glaucus’ son!”

Nor more against the gods he strives,

But with his hand his daughter gives

To brave Bellerophon.

X.

A prosperous man was Glaucus’ son

Then when the queenly maid he won,

The pride of Lycian land:

The Lycian lords obey his nod,

The people hail him as a god,

And own his high command.

Fearless he lived without annoy,

Plucking the bloom of every joy;

For still, to help his need,

Jove’s blue-eyed daughter, when he prayed,

Was present with her heavenly aid,

And lent the wingèd steed.

His heart with pride was lifted high;

Beyond the bounds of earth to fly

Impious he weened, and scale the sky,

And sit with Jove sublime.

Upward and northward far he sails,

O’er Carian crags and Phrygian vales,

And blest Mæonia’s clime.

The orient breezes round him blowing

He feels; with light the ether glowing;

And from the planets in their going

He lists the sphery chime.

Bursts far Olympus on his view

Snowy, with gleams of rosy hue;

And round the heavenly halls,

All radiant with immortal blue,

The golden battlements he knew,

And adamantine walls.

And on the walls, with dizzy awe,

Full many a shapely form he saw

Of stately grace divine:

The furious Mars with terror crested,

Poseidon’s power the mighty-breasted,

That rules the billowy brine;

And, linked with golden Aphrodite,

The heavenly smith, in labour mighty,

Grace matched with skill he sees;

And one that in his airy hand

Displayed a serpent-twisted wand,

And floated on the breeze,

Both capped and shod with wings; and one

That lay in sumptuous ease

On pillowed clouds, fair Semele’s son,

And quaffed the nectar’d bowl;

And one from whom the locks unshorn

Flowed like ripe fields of April corn,

And beaming brightness, like the morn,

Shower’d radiance on the pole;

And matron Juno’s awful face;

And Dian, mistress of the chase;

And Pallas, that with eye of blue

Now sternly meets the hero’s view,

Whom erst she met with love;

And, like a star of purer ray,

Apart, whom all the gods obey,

The thunder-launching Jove.

The ravishment of such fair sight

Thrilled sense and soul with quick delight

To bold Bellerophon;

Entranced he looked; his wingèd steed,

Struck with the brightness, checked its speed,

Nor more would venture on.

Deaf to the eager rider’s call,

Who spurred to mount the Olympian wall,

It stood like lifeless stone

A moment—then, with sudden wheel,

Earthward its flight it ’gan to reel;

For awful now were heard to peal

Sharp thunders from the pole,

And lightnings flashed, and darkly spread

O’er that rash rider’s impious head

The sulphurous clouds did roll.

With eager gust the fiery storm

Resistless whirled his quaking form

Down through the choking air.

Loud and more loud the thunders swell—

Him with blind speed the winds impel;

Three times three days and nights he fell

Down through the choking air.

At length, in mazy terror lost,

Him the celestial courser tossed

With fiercely-fretted mane;

And, by the close-involving blast

Impetuous hurried, he was cast

On the Aleian[11] plain.

XI.

Senseless, but lifeless not, he lay.

The gods had mercy shown

If they had slain, on that black day,

The blasted Glaucus’ son;

But all the gods conspired to hate

The man, with impious pride elate,

Who dared to scale the sky.

Year after year, from that black day,

He pined his meagre life away,

Weak as a cloud or vapour grey,

And vainly wished to die.

On a wide waste, without a tree,

The unfrequent traveller there might see

The once great Glaucus’ son.

Far from the haunts and from the tread

Of men, a joyless life he led;

On folly’s fruitage there he fed,

Dejected and alone;

Even as a witless boy at school,

Would sit and gaze into a pool

The blank Bellerophon;

Or to bring forth the blindworm red

That, creeping, loves a lightless bed,

Would turn the old grey stone.

And thus he lived, and thus he died,

And ended to the brute allied,

Who like a god began;

And he hath gained a painful fame,

And marred immortal praise with blame,

And taught to whoso names his name,

PRIDE WAS NOT MADE FOR MAN! J. S. B.

THE COMING FORTUNES OF OUR COLONIES IN THE PACIFIC.

From the earliest records of what has been termed profane history, down

to the present day, we have been accustomed to regard Europe as the

centre of civilisation and of wealth. From Asia, Greece and Rome in

early times, and the commerce of European nations more recently, exacted

tribute and rich products. Two centuries ago the precious metals and

tropical yield of South America and the West Indies excited the rapacity

of adventurers from this and other countries; and towards the close of

last century we had to recognise the germs of a great Anglo-Saxon power

occupying the Atlantic shores and territory of North America, which we

now see competing actively with us for a share in influencing the

affairs of the world. Still both Asia and the American continent were

regarded as merely the feeders of the commercial and political greatness

of Europe. Africa was and remains comparatively an unknown continent,

whilst the inhospitable regions of the north are shunned by all, save

the hardy mariners engaged in the pursuit of the whale and the seal, the

former for its industrial usefulness, and the latter as affording us

articles of comfort and luxury. The extreme southern hemisphere had,

indeed, been explored by Cook, Vancouver, Fourneaux, and others; and its

clusters of islands were laid down in our charts, and some of them

claimed as calling-stations for the shipping employed in our commerce

with India, whilst others were appropriated for their valuable tropical

productions. But beyond this the Southern Pacific and Antarctic Oceans

were comparatively unknown and unvalued. Below the latitude of Cape

Horn, the Cape of Good Hope, and the Indian Ocean, their waters were an

unbroken solitude, save that occasionally a ship bearing the British

flag might be seen steering for our penal settlement of Australia, there

to deposit its living freight of criminal outcasts beyond reach of

contact with the populations of the civilised world; and more recently

with a few adventurous colonisers going out to cultivate its untrodden

wilds, and, amidst privations and arduous toil, to wring from its soil

the means of living, which they had been jostled out of on that of their

own densely peopled fatherland.

A mighty change, however, has come over us—unlooked for and undreamt

of—the issue of which the wisest can scarcely imagine for himself; for

it is plainly not the unaided work of man which has brought about that

change, but an overruling Providence, carrying out a preordained decree

that one of the fairest portions of the globe shall be a solitude no

longer. In most of the ordinary revolutions which have taken place in

the world, human agency is directly traceable. We have witnessed in

Europe the hardy tribes of the north over-running the fertile soils, and

subjecting to their rule the degenerate populations, of the south. We

have seen similar changes in Asia; and one of these is now progressing

in Africa, the northern provinces of which are being subjected to the

Gaul. Colonisation and emigration are rapidly peopling the western

states of the northern continent of America. But to produce such a

change in the condition of those far-distant countries, whose shores are

washed by the Pacific Ocean, and which are comparatively inaccessible to

the ordinary movements of migratory populations, whilst they held out

little to invite conquest, an extraordinary stimulus was required. That

stimulus has been lately afforded in abundant and overpowering measure.

A popular outburst, excited by the love of territorial aggrandisement,

which is inherent in the nature of the people of the United States, and

which, indeed, is inseparable from the very character of their

institutions, led to the seizure by them of a portion of the territory

of Mexico on the shores of the North Pacific Ocean. Under ordinary

circumstances the acquisition was almost valueless. By land it was

well-nigh unapproachable. A wild and mountainous territory, occupied by

various Indian tribes, intervened between California and the settled

States of the Union. Commercially it was unimportant, and likely to

remain so for years, if not for centuries, whilst, as an agricultural

territory, it was inferior in fertility to those States. It had

certainly the advantage of nearer proximity to India and China; but

there was scarcely along any portion of the west coast of either the

United States or South America sufficient population to render that

advantage of value. But in 1848, only a few months after its acquisition

by the model Republic, the world was startled with the news that gold

had been discovered upon the Sacramento River, within a short distance

from the port and bay of San Francisco; and further advices informed us

that the deposits of that mineral extended over a territory five hundred

miles in length by forty to fifty miles in width; and that, in fact, it

promised to be inexhaustible in amount, as it was unrivalled in

fineness. A population immediately began to flock to San Francisco by

every possible route from the United States, from the west coast of

South America, and from the islands of the Pacific. Even China was

attracted by the flattering accounts promulgated of the richness of the

mines, and began to pour forth its population towards the scene. The

emigrating population of Great Britain swelled the tide; and, within

twelve months of the first discovery of gold, we heard of nearly three

hundred sail of shipping being assembled in San Francisco bay, deserted

by their officers and crews, who had joined their cargoes of passengers,

and run off to partake of the rich harvest provided for them. The

sufferings and privations endured by some of the early adventurers—the

crime, the outrage, and utter lawlessness, which spread over the entire

territory—were recorded in vain. No warning was heeded. The passion for

gain is one of the strongest in our nature. Men heard of fortunes being

earned in a day; of the poorest becoming suddenly rich; of revelry and

wild enjoyment ensuing after severe toil and privation; and the tide of

adventurers flowed on with increased volume as every day added to the

assurance that the attracting cause was a permanent one. It cannot be

forgotten by the commercial people of this country how vast was the

impulse given to the industry, and the agricultural, manufacturing, and

maritime interests of the American Republic, by this state of things.

Her people almost ceased to care about supplying Europe with farm

products. The wealthy settlers in her golden territory could now afford

to consume what had formerly been exported as a disposable surplus.

Their monetary circulation was being largely expanded; and to a

corresponding extent they were enabled to extend their commercial

operations to every country. Their shipping, having earned large

freights by the transport of passengers from the Atlantic ports round

Cape Horn to California, could afford to make the run across the Pacific

in ballast to India and China, whence they competed with us in homeward

freights on terms almost ruinous to the British shipowner. And although

they became, and have since continued to be, larger consumers than

formerly of our products of every kind, it is very questionable whether,

in the long run, this increased consumption would have compensated us as

a nation for the advantages which America had obtained over us, through

the possession of this new territory, with its mineral riches, in

carrying on the traffic between our eastern possessions and China and

the various markets of Europe.

The route westward, by the North Pacific to the Indian Ocean, was thus

for the first time established as a great maritime highway by the

enterprising mercantile community of the United States. We had ourselves

long previously used the route _via_ Cape Horn and the South Pacific in

our trade with Chili, Peru, and other countries on the west coast of

South America. It was reserved for us for the first time to open out for

the commerce of the world an eastern route from the Atlantic and from

Europe across the South Pacific Ocean; in fact, to bring into practical

use the voyages of Cook, Vancouver, and other circumnavigators of the

globe, whose achievements during the past century had hitherto been

regarded as interesting only in a geographical point of view. Here,

again, it was an all-wise Providence which directed our path. On the 6th

May 1851, it was first announced that gold had been discovered in our

convict settlement of New South Wales. The news spread like wildfire

throughout the colony; and in a very short space of time there were

upwards of four thousand “diggers” at Ophir, near Bathurst, where the

discovery was first made, whose success fully equalled that of the early

adventurers at the Californian mines. Additional gold-fields were found

shortly afterwards both in New South Wales and the province of Victoria;

and before the end of July the arrivals of gold at Sydney, Geelong, and

Melbourne were sufficiently abundant to create a perfect revolution in

the labour market, not only in those towns, but in the agricultural

districts of the entire colony of Australia. The ordinary pursuits of

the population were everywhere abandoned. Men of all classes, capable of

wielding a pick or a spade, and many to whom such instruments had been

previously unknown, were seen abandoning their farms, their shops, or

their counting-houses, to swell the throng which rushed forth from every

quarter to “prospect” for gold in the gullies and creeks whose

appearance or geological formation promised a yield of the precious

metal. At the first announcement of so startling a discovery, a large

portion of the public in this country were indisposed to credit it.

Would-be-wise people shook their heads, and hinted that a mania had

seized upon the Australian colonists, which in its issue must be

productive of their utter ruin. We had black pictures painted of the

effect of a neglected agriculture; and some wiser people than their

fellows—journalists and statisticians—indulged in laboured arguments to

show that picking up “nuggets” or dust must in a very short period

become an unprofitable avocation, and absorb more labour than would

yield a paying return, in comparison with the ordinary pursuits of

industry. But each fresh arrival from the colony showed the fallacy of

these anticipations and prophecies. Gold continued to be picked up in

abundance, sufficient to remunerate every person engaged in its search,

although the number of the searchers had been multiplied twenty-fold;

and a vast emigration began to flow from this and other countries

towards the new El Dorado. In 1851—the year when the discovery was first

made—there were despatched from the United Kingdom alone 272 ships, with

an aggregate tonnage of 145,164 tons, having on board 21,532 passengers.

In 1852, the number of ships despatched was 568, with an aggregate

tonnage of 335,717 tons, having on board 87,881 passengers. When using

this term, by the by, it ought to be borne in mind that _adult_

passengers are meant, children of tender years being counted as nothing,

whilst of young persons under fourteen years of age, two are counted as

a passenger. The emigration of 1852 would thus be at least a hundred

thousand souls. During the past year the number of ships despatched was

1201, with an aggregate tonnage of 553,088 tons, being an increase on

the year of 633 vessels and 217,371 tons over the amount of 1852. We

have not before us accurate data for determining the precise number of

passengers taken out by them; but it would certainly be equal to that of

the corresponding period of the previous year. Great Britain, however,

was not the only country which was adding to the population of

Australia. The United States of America were sending us practised

gold-diggers from California, which shortly began to be regarded as

affording a less profitable field for their labour. Germany had begun to

pour forth her emigrant classes to the colony; and even China was

joining in the movement. In the summary of the _Melbourne Argus_,

written for the mail of the 25th March, we find the following statement:

“In the course of the last month several separate ship-loads of Chinese

have landed on our shores.... Numbers of these people, strangers as they

are to our customs and religion, have been sought for and engaged at

good wages by employers, with whom they can only communicate by signs.

They have shown themselves, on the whole, one of the most inoffensive

races of the motley group who seek our golden land; and a colony of

them, that have been for some time established at the diggings, are

remarkable for the quietness of their demeanour, and the propriety of

their behaviour.” The growth of the colony is, however, best shown by

comparing the aggregate number of the population now, with what it was

at the period when gold was first discovered. In the commencement of

1851, it was ascertained that the province of Victoria, which contains

the most productive mines, was 77,360. The same journal from which we

have quoted estimates it to be now 250,000; and adds, that it is being

increased by the arrival of about 1000 immigrants per week. It is

doubtful whether the other provinces—New South Wales and South and West

Australia—are progressing at the same rate. The “diggers” are a

migratory race. The report of a new “find” attracts them from all

directions. In February last, the Tarrengower gold-field was opened out,

and discovered to be most productive; and the following is a description

of the state of things which followed, from one who had visited the

locality: “In leaving Bendigo, the comparatively deserted state of the

diggings along Kangaroo Flat, in Adelaide Gully, and the Robinson

Crusoe, is very apparent. The vast extent of the yellow mounds, where so

much bustle and activity formerly prevailed, is now in many cases

unenlivened by the presence even of a solitary digger. The want of

water, in the first instance, but chiefly the attractions of

Tarrengower, have almost depopulated this portion of the Bendigo. Many

stores have been removed, and a large number are closed up for the

present; yet there is a vitality about the place which shows that the

glory has not altogether departed. Some business is being done, and

those who still remain have infinite faith in the recuperative energies

of Bendigo. ‘When the winter sets in,’ they say, ‘we shall have the

diggers back.’” Similar migrations are continually occurring; and hence

it is most difficult to arrive at the actual population of any

particular province or district. It is most probable, indeed, that the

numbers of souls in the entire colony are considerably understated.

This, we think, will be apparent when we come to examine the consuming

powers of Australia, as tested by its imports. From a return, moved for

in the House of Commons by Mr Archibald Hastie, and ordered to be

printed on the 1st of May last, the following were the exports from the

United Kingdom to the colony in each of the three years ending the 5th

January 1854:—

Declared value exported.

1851, £2,807,356

1852, 4,222,205

1853, 14,506,532.

There is certainly evidence here, either of a most wasteful consumption,

or of the existence of a population greater than it is generally

supposed to be. But this return does not convey the full extent of that

consumption. From what appears to be a carefully compiled statement in

the _Melbourne Argus_ of the 25th of March last, the imports into the

province of Victoria alone, in 1853, amounted to the enormous sum of

£15,842,637, received from the following countries:—

Great Britain, £8,288,226

West Indies (British), 14,973

North America (British), 13,560

Other British colonies, 5,036,311

United States of America, 1,668,606

Foreign States, 820,961

———————————

Total Imports, £15,842,637

If the same proportionate amount has been taken by the other provinces

from colonial and foreign markets, the total imports for the year would

reach the vast amount of _twenty-three millions sterling_!

It is certainly true that, with respect to many articles, these imports

have been in excess of the requirements of the colony. Its markets have

been drugged with Manchester goods, with hardware, and slops, or

“haberdashery,” as our parliamentary returns rather absurdly call hats,

shoes, boots, ready-made clothing, &c. Serious losses will have to be

encountered by those parties who are unable to hold over their

consignments, and in part from the want of storage-room. But this state

of things is merely temporary, and applies to articles which are not

strictly necessaries. The arrival of the overland mail, with dates to

the end of May, brings us the assurance that business is improving, as

indeed might have been expected in a country whose population increases

at the rate of a thousand persons a week, each of whom is, on landing

upon its shores, placed at once in possession of an income never

previously enjoyed. We have the material fact, too, before us,

establishing the capability of the Australian colonist to consume

largely the products of foreign industry, that during the past year the

province of Victoria exported to the amount of £11,061,543, of which

£8,644,529 was gold, and £1,651,543 was wool. The difference between the

amount of imports and exports may be accounted for without concluding

that the population has been running itself into debt beyond their means

of paying it with tolerable promptitude. We may reasonably hope, too,

that one of the causes of such excessive importations as those of last

year will shortly be removed. We have had thus far no efficient and

regular mail communication with the colony. Up to the 20th of July, our

latest advices from Melbourne were dated the 25th of March; and it was

to American enterprise that we were indebted for intelligence up to May

11, brought by the steamer “Golden Age” to Panama, and thence by the

West India Company’s boats to Southampton. Close upon four months had

thus elapsed, during which our merchants had been operating in the dark,

making shipments to a colony the consuming powers of which had not been

fairly tested, and which might, for anything we knew, have supplied its

wants from the nearer markets of India and China, or taken a portion of

the surplus shipments to California. It is clear that such has been the

case. We have shown above, that of the total imports into Victoria in

1853, £5,036,311 were derived from “other British colonies,” and

£1,668,606 from the United States of America. Our East Indian markets,

no doubt, supplied the former amount, and the bulk of the latter crossed

the Pacific from California. On the 27th July we had a regular mail by

the overland route, _via_ India and the Mediterranean, bringing advices

up to the 29th May, which confirmed those brought by the “Golden Age.”

It is clear that a country, which takes from the United Kingdom upwards

of fourteen millions sterling per annum, ought to have permanently

established for it a postal communication as rapid as possible. It is

unreasonable and suicidal to torture a great mercantile nation with a

system, or arrangements, which leave us for four months consecutively

without advices of the wants of one of our most valuable customers, and

exchange of sentiments with nearly half a million of our own

fellow-countrymen. Before concluding our remarks, we shall endeavour to

point out how such improved postal communication can be best

established.

Returning to the immediate question of the increase of population in

Australia, and its probable future rate, we may state, unhesitatingly,

that it must be vastly beyond what is generally anticipated. In fact,

the increase is self-creative—“_vires acquirit eundo_.” Every

newly-arrived immigrant, who purchases land from the colonial

government, and every digger who pays for a gold license, becomes, in so

doing, an importer of labour. Writing on the 25th of March last, _The

Melbourne Argus_ says:—

“The following is a statement of the arrivals and departures of

passengers by sea since our last summary:—

1854. Arrived. Departed.

Week ending Jan. 28, 2,619 739

„ Feb. 4, 1,561 632

„ „ 11, 970 512

„ „ 18, 1,475 557

„ „ 25, 1,438 607

„ Mar. 4, 1,576 434

„ „ 11, 1,336 670

„ „ 18, 1,494 332

—————— —————

12,469 4,483

4,483

——————

Increase to population, 7,986

“In the same number of weeks previously, as stated in our last summary,

the increase was 6281. The immigration is, therefore, again on the

increase. It is now proceeding at the rate of about 1000 per week; but

we ought not to omit mentioning, that a very large increase over this

may be speedily expected. We lately stated, on the authority of public

documents, that our land-fund available for promoting emigration from

the United Kingdom amounted in the last quarter to upwards of £250,000,

and if that rate is maintained during the present year, at the cost of

£6000 per ship, as estimated by the Land and Emigration Commissioners,

and an average of little more than 400 persons to each ship, there will

be a fund sufficient to convey free to these shores no less than 70,000

souls in one year. This, of course, is altogether independent of the

emigration of persons paying their own passages, which, we have noticed,

always increases with an increased Government emigration. Within the

last few weeks we have been invaded by what seems likely to be the

advanced guard of a large army of Chinese. Several ships have arrived

crowded with Chinese passengers, and many more are reported to be on

their way. The same spirit of enterprise is doubtless gradually

extending itself amongst the people of other countries; and the natural

effects will be exhibited in the inflow of a vast wave of population, to

a colony which affords such a field to the labouring man as is presented

in no other country upon earth.”

It may appear singular that there should be so large a number of

departures as 4483 to set against 12,469 arrivals. We have already

remarked, however, that the gold-diggers are migratory in their habits.

Many of them, who have amassed a few thousand pounds, return to their

own countries to settle. The state of society in Australia is not such

at present as to attach parties to the colony. There is unfortunately

there a want of home comforts. The wealth in the colony, suddenly

acquired, is in the hands of people unprepared, by education or early

pursuits, for spending it in a sensible manner, or investing it

profitably. Many are coming thence only for a season, as visitors to

their native land, or to return with relatives and friends; and some are

going away in quest of gold, reported to exist, in more than Australian

abundance, elsewhere. For example, there has been recently a rumour of

the Peruvian mines reassuming their original fertility; and we observe,

in recent Australian papers, announcements of numerous ships about to

sail with passengers for Callao, on the west coast of South America, in

the neighbourhood of which port it is said that gold has been recently

discovered in large quantities. The real gold, however, will most

assuredly be Peruvian guano, with which such ships will load for this

country and the United States. Such re-emigration is natural amongst a

population like that of Australia, and will continue for a while. But

the arrivals in the colony are becoming more and more composed of the

class likely to be settlers. The Germans have been lately extensive

purchasers of land, and are _habitués_ in the colony. A report of a

Hamburg society gives the following as the German population in 1852:—

New South Wales, 13,500

South Australia, 8,000

Victoria, 1,320

____________

24,820

The German emigration to Australia last year will have greatly swelled

these numbers; and the description of emigrants from that country may be

estimated from the fact that, of nearly 6000 persons who applied to the

Berlin Emigration Society in 1852 for advice and assistance, 4444

possessed property amounting in the whole to 977,635 dollars, or, upon

an average, 218 dollars (£32, 14s.) per head.[12] We have also yet to

experience the effect which will be produced by remittances home by

emigrants for the purpose of enabling their friends to join them in the

colony. The impetus given to the efflux of population from Ireland by

such remittances was strikingly shown by the Colonial Land and

Emigration Commissioners in their Report of last year. The remittances

from the United States, as ascertained through leading mercantile and

banking firms, were as follows in the years mentioned:—

1848 £460,000

1849 540,000

1850 957,000

1851 990,000

1852 1,404,000

We observe at present that several of the leading emigration firms in

London and Liverpool are making arrangements in Australia for the

purpose of enabling settlers to pay the passage of their friends out to

the colony.

Independently of the attractions offered by the gold-fields, of

remittances from friends in Australia, or of Government aid, there is

abundant certainty that emigration to that colony must increase very

rapidly. In fact, scarcity of shipping is the only bar to it which is

likely to be felt. There is a positive want of labour in Australia,

which mocks at the childish efforts of such parliamentary committees as

that of which Mr John O’Connell was recently the chairman, to prevent

its supply. Notwithstanding its vast agricultural resources, the demand

for their development created by a rapidly augmenting population, and

the ample, and, in fact, extravagant remuneration afforded in the colony

for every description of industry, the entire world, whose attention has

been for the last two years attracted by its display of wealth, and

which is assured of the genuine and permanent character of its claims to

notice, appears unable to supply labour in sufficient abundance. Whether

we turn to its imports or its exports, furnished us in the valuable

report moved for by Mr Hastie, the great want of labour forces itself

upon us. We shall take at random a few of the articles exported from

Great Britain to the colony during the past three years:—

1851. 1852. 1853.

Apparel, Slops, and Haberdashery, £591,516 £959,687 £3,633,908

Beer and Ale, 135,674 245,657 635,870

Butter and Cheese, 4,142 50,583 207,094

Soap and Candles, 14,812 45,924 121,774

The last two items certainly would not occupy a place in the list of our

exports to Australia if that fine agricultural country had even a

moderate supply of labour. The anomaly is monstrous that butter and

cheese, soap and candles, should be wanting in a country whose live

stock are so abundant that they have actually to be boiled down for

their tallow and hides! Our imports from Australia, however, exhibit

most strongly its deficient supply of labour. We select a few items:—

1851. 1852. 1853.

Regulus of Copper, tons, 1,115 660 41

Unwrought Copper, „ 773 632 473

Flax, undressed, cwt. 1,259 904 664

Hides, tanned or dressed, lb. 931,600 642,198 9,842

Oil, Spermaceti, tuns, 1,911 1,609 940

Tallow, cwt. 174,471 159,333 125,206

The above articles the colony can supply to almost any extent; yet it

will be observed that their export is falling off every year. Its mines

of copper, especially, are amongst the richest in the world; yet they

are comparatively unworked for the want of hands, whilst the world holds

so many human beings who would gladly toil for one-fourth of the

remuneration which Australia could so well afford them. To the people of

Great Britain it is a very material object that the agricultural and

mineral resources of the colony should be more largely developed than at

present; for if, almost exclusively by the produce of her gold-fields,

her population of little, if at all, over half a million souls can

afford to import our productions to the amount of above fourteen

millions sterling per annum, what may be expected when it becomes

enabled to export freely the raw material, the agricultural products,

and the valuable minerals—copper, tin, &c.—which its soil will yield to

an extent almost beyond the power of calculation?

We have already stated that the increase of the population of Australia

is self-creative; and we can very briefly show how that principle is

likely to operate. We have a large amount of tonnage at present employed

in the passenger trade from Great Britain to that colony; but we have

not as yet sufficient homeward freight to employ one-fourth of that

tonnage. Since the discovery of the gold-fields the ordinary

agricultural and other pursuits of the colonists have been neglected;

and, as we might have expected, the exports of bulky raw materials and

produce, which constitute freight, have diminished in quantity. Hence

our emigrant ships, except in the case of those of the established lines

from Liverpool and London, which now return direct from that colony,

have had to go in ballast to the Eastern Seas, or to the guano islands

of Peru, to seek cargoes. Where such a course has to be pursued, the

passage-money outwards must range high—far above the means of the most

valuable emigrants, who are agricultural labourers, practical miners,

and artisans. But this state of things cannot continue to exist long.

The gold-fields are sufficiently tempting, no doubt; yet there are

blanks there as well as prizes. The disappointed must resort to

agricultural and other walks of industry. The flocks and herds of the

squatters in the bush are increasing at a most rapid rate—far beyond the

consumptive demand of the colony—and the supplies for export of hides,

tallow, oil, and wool must very largely increase. Of the latter most

important raw material the following were the shipments to this country

during the past three years:—

Wool—Sheep and Lambs’ 1851, 41,810,117 lb.

1852, 43,197,301 „

1853, 47,075,963 „

In bales the total exports of last year were 153,000, of an average of

about 300 lb. weight each. This article alone would afford return

cargoes for from thirty to forty thousand tons of shipping. The yield

both of wool and tallow must increase enormously in a few years; and

when an ample supply of homeward freight is afforded, our emigration

houses will be enabled to reduce considerably the outward passage-money

for emigrants to the colony, and thus add to the numbers of its

population.

But we cannot regard the discoveries which have been made in the

countries of the Pacific as merely tending to give an impulse to our

commerce, and to afford increased employment to our shipping and to

industry at home. We must regard them in a much more extended light. The

important change which is taking place may fairly be termed the opening

out of a new quarter of the globe, rich beyond measure in all the

products which are valuable and useful to man, and the establishment, in

its centre, of an Anglo-Saxon empire, whose future destiny and greatness

it is almost impossible to predict rightly. A glance at the position of

Australia will be sufficient to show its great commercial importance. To

the north-westward it has the fertile islands of Java, Sumatra, Borneo,

the Philippines, Ceylon, with the vast continent containing China and

Hindostan. The extreme portions of these are at less than half the

distance which lies between them and Great Britain. From Melbourne to

Madras is little more than 5700 miles, whilst the nearer islands in the

Indian Ocean are only distant from 3000 to 3500 miles. From Melbourne to

any portion of the west coast of North and South America the distance,

by the eastward Pacific route, is 8000 miles, or little over that from

Great Britain to Cape Horn. It is thus in closer proximity than the

mother country to San Francisco, New Granada, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia,

Chili, and La Plata. There can no want occur of any of the products of

the tropics, at all events, to a country occupying a central position as

regards such markets as we have named, rich in all that conduces to the

comfort and the luxuries of life; whilst of those products which are

raised in the temperate zone, Australia has soils of her own capable of

providing her with food in abundance, and raw materials amply sufficient

to pay for all that she will require to import, without drawing upon her

vast stores of the precious metals. These must rapidly become available

to create for her population a capital for the purposes of commerce, a

mercantile marine, railways, and other improved communications,

well-built towns, substantial public works, and the usual accompaniments

enjoyed by settled and prosperous communities. There can be no doubt

that the absence of these are amongst the main causes which retard

emigration to the colony of families belonging to the middle and

superior classes, and the absence there so generally regretted of what

may be called a “home circle.” Such a want keeps back the influx of a

female population, especially of the class required to make a home

comfortable; but it will be supplied in time, and, in fact, is being

rapidly supplied now. Not much more than six months ago, Melbourne, the

capital of Victoria, and the seat of the government of the colony, was

in a most deplorable state, and without anything like the accommodation

required for its population or its commerce. Stores and warehouses there

were almost none; and we heard, by every arrival, of merchandise being

sacrificed on this account. But more recent advices report that—

“Melbourne is branching out upon every side. Townships spring up in

localities where a short time ago there was not a single dwelling of

any description; houses seem, in fact, to swarm like mushrooms from

the ground in a single night. A little more than twelve months since,

and North Melbourne was merely the site of a few scattered tents; it

now contains a population of several thousands, with comfortable

homes, shops, hotels, and schools to meet the wants of its

inhabitants. The suburbs, that are being formed in the opposite

direction, offer a still stronger proof of the growth of a taste that

has always been peculiarly English, and one that will do more than

anything else to place the prosperity of this colony upon a secure

foundation—namely, a desire for home comfort. In former times the

pursuit of money was the whole, the engrossing passion of the

community; so long as this object was attained, the feverish seeker

cast not a thought upon the manner in which he lived; he appeared to

have an utter disregard of the comforts of home. If he happened to

have a run of luck, and was successful, what benefit did he reap from

his success! He would run riot for a time, and spend the hard earnings

of a month in the dearly-bought pleasure of a few hours’ debauchery.

The principal reason for this, next to our abominable land-system,

was, that the colony could not offer the swarming mass of new-comers

any domestic comforts. Now, however, the case is becoming far

different: at Richmond, Prahran, St Kilda, and Brighton, the passer-by

can gaze everywhere with pleasure upon pretty cottages enclosed in

their own little gardens, cheerful, trim-built English-looking villas,

and some dwelling-houses that may fairly lay claim to the

high-sounding appellation of mansions. Each of these suburbs, hemming

Melbourne in on every side, constitutes a town of some size; and we

have no doubt that, in a very short space of time, they will form part

of Melbourne itself, much in the same manner that Chelsea and Putney

do of London; indeed, St Kilda, Windsor, and Prahran are already

connected by a line of houses almost the whole of the way with the

town.”

A similar state of progressive improvement exists at Sydney, Geelong,

Adelaide, and other towns. The population in them is becoming a more

settled one; business goes on in more regular channels, and domestic

comforts are more studied. Substantial stores for merchandise are also

rising up on every side; and importers are now enabled to hold back

their goods for a more profitable market than the previous system of

selling them on landing, whatever might be the state of the demand,

would admit of.

The colony, too, is assuming more and more the character, which it is

destined to possess, of an important mercantile community; and its

commercial firms are actively preparing for extensive transactions with

the rich countries with which they have communication in every

direction. The first step towards forwarding such object has naturally

been to connect with each other the various ports along the coast, and

the towns on the principal rivers; and accordingly we find established

lines of steamers running from Sydney to the leading ports in the other

provinces, and to the interior at every point where river navigation is

practicable, and a working community and trade exist. The same

accommodation is provided from Melbourne, Geelong, and Adelaide, to

other ports and towns. Several lines of sailing packets also offer

themselves to the public between the principal ports. In fact, a large

coasting-trade is carried on, both in passengers and merchandise, the

route by sea being preferred to travelling by land over badly-formed,

and frequently unsafe, roads. In the first instance, some difficulty

existed in procuring vessels, especially for the navigation of the

rivers, where a light draught of water was necessary, as such vessels

could not be trusted to make the voyage out from Europe or America. They

are now, however, being gradually supplied by builders in the colony. A

somewhat larger class of vessels is regularly employed in the trade

between New South Wales, Victoria, and South Australia, and New Zealand,

Van Diemen’s Land, and the government settlement in West Australia, with

a few for San Francisco, Callao, Manilla, and the near East Indian

ports. The enterprise of the mercantile community in the colony is being

gradually drawn towards this trade; and shipping of the class suitable

for it is in active demand, both for purchase and charter. Attention is

also being re-directed to the staple business of the colony—the export

of its wool, tallow, hides, &c., which will be more cultivated as the

fever for dealing in gold abates. At present, indeed, gold, as an

article of merchandise, scarcely yields a profit, so numerous are the

buyers of it, competing with each other, belonging to the Jewish

persuasion. Employment for capital must be sought for in another

direction, and it is to be hoped a legitimate one, otherwise the large

sums now lying idle in the colony may be squandered in rash

speculations. At the close of the last quarter, the Bank of Australia

held deposits, not bearing interest, to the amount of £1,998,730

sterling; the Bank of Australasia held at the same period £2,358,390;

the Victoria Branch of the Bank of New South Wales held £760,731; the

Bank of Victoria, £988,244; and the London Chartered Bank of Australia

£133,200, making an aggregate of deposits, not bearing interest, of

£6,239,297 sterling. As might have been expected, these establishments

are dividing amongst their shareholders, forty, fifteen, and twenty per

cent respectively. The last mentioned has only been established nine

months, and as yet has made no dividend. A large portion of this money

must be employed either in commerce or in improvements, as the colonists

begin to see their way more clearly. It can never be allowed to lie thus

unproductively; yet from the habits of the diggers, and their want of

opportunities for investment, there must always be a large amount at

their credit in the banks.

The increased employment given by Australia to the shipping of all

nations is not, perhaps, sufficiently estimated by the public, and

certainly goes far to account for the prosperity of the British

shipowner, and for the high rates of freight prevailing throughout the

world. From the 20th of January last to the 23d of March, the number of

vessels cleared out from the port of Melbourne, exclusive of coasters

and colonial traders, were 198, and the number of entries inwards 163,

making 261 ships arriving and departing in the short period of sixty

days. The bulk of these were large ships, of from 500 to 1000 tons, with

some even of more than that tonnage. The arrivals and departures from

Sydney, Geelong, and Adelaide would no doubt be greater in number,

although of a less size than those of Melbourne. It is probably not

unfair to estimate the entire number of arrivals and departures in the

colony at 400 ships; and taking the tonnage at the low average of 400

tons each ship, we have the quantity employed in the two months, 160,000

tons, or 960,000 tons per annum, by this noble colony.

We must not, however, confine ourselves to Australia, although we might

be excused for dwelling upon it as our own possession. It is a portion,

indeed, and the most important one, as being the centre, and probably

the seat, of the great Pacific empire which is to be; but still it is

only a portion. We have a young and enterprising competitor for sway in

the southern hemisphere, and one who is even now making vast efforts to

assert that sway; a competitor who regards lightly the geographical

formation of the globe itself, if it offers a barrier to his ambition.

The acquisition, by the United States, of the territory of California,

with its great mineral resources, has given their people a footing in

the Pacific, and opened out for them a trade not only with the fertile

countries of South America, but also with Australia itself. They

outstrip us in their knowledge of the wants of those countries, and in

the ample provision which they have been making for their profitable

supply. Nay, they have even been enabled to bring their own gold-fields,

notwithstanding geographical impediments, actually nearer to Great

Britain than its own gold-yielding colony. On the first discovery of the

mineral riches of California, it became an object with the United States

people to bring to their Atlantic ports, as expeditiously as possible,

return remittances in gold for the large shipments of provisions,

merchandise, and necessaries, sent by them round Cape Horn for the

increasing population of California engaged in mining operations, and by

whom agricultural and other pursuits were almost entirely neglected. In

the first instance this was endeavoured to be effected by the employment

of a line of steamers to make the passage round Cape Horn to New

Orleans, whence mails and specie were conveyed by another line of

steamers to New York. But our quick-sighted and energetic brethren soon

discovered that this natural route was too long for their purposes. The

time occupied by the voyage round the South American continent could be

saved, if the means could be found of crossing the Isthmus of Panama,

which, from Panama on the Pacific side, to Chagres, or Navy Bay, on the

Atlantic, was only fifty miles in width; and notwithstanding the passage

over the isthmus was at first a difficult and even an unhealthy one, it

was adopted; and the mails and specie, having been transported across

from Panama to Chagres, were taken on to New York _via_ Jamaica, by the

United States Mail Steam-ship Company. By the adoption of this route,

the distance from San Francisco to New York was reduced to 5450 miles,

of which 2100 miles was accomplished by steaming on the Atlantic, 3300

miles on the Pacific, and 50 miles by overland conveyance across the

isthmus, and the time reduced to about three weeks. In September last,

we find from an article in the _New York Merchant’s Magazine_,

republished in the _Sydney Herald_ of February 23d, that the following

was the provision made by the United States for their traffic with

California and the countries of the west coast of South America:—

“Of the American steamers sailing between New York and the West

Indies, one of the most important communications between the former

port and Havanna is established by the United States Steam-ship

Company. By virtue of the law of Congress, contracting for carrying

the mails, the steamers of this company are commanded by officers of

the United States navy. Of the steamers of this line plying between

New York and New Orleans, embracing the alternate voyages of those

ships, the aggregate tonnage is 4800. The steam-ship ‘United States,’

in her trips from New York to Aspinwall, touches at Kingston, Jamaica.

The Pacific Mail Steam-ship Company, which, in connection with the

United States Mail Steam-ship Company, carries the American mails to

California and Oregon, was established in 1848. It numbers at present

fourteen steamers, built at New York, with an aggregate of 15,536

tons.

“In the transportation of the mails, the United States Mail

Steam-ship Company on the Atlantic side connects with the Pacific

Company. This line, established in 1848 by Mr Law of New York,

comprises nine ships now on the service, with one recently launched,

and not yet placed on the line. They register in the aggregate 19,600

tons. The steamers of this line are despatched from New York and New

Orleans for Aspinwall twice a month.

“The Nicaragua Accessory Transit Company was established in 1850, by

Mr Vanderbilt, of New York, and he receives twenty per cent of the

profits of the company. This line, forming a communication between New

York and San Juan del Norte on the Atlantic, and between San Juan del

Sud and San Francisco on the Pacific, is composed of ten steamers,

with an aggregate of 18,000 tons. Of these, two sail from New York

twice a month for San Juan del Norte, and five are plying on the

Pacific side.

“The New York and San Francisco Steam-ship Company comprises four

steamers, with an aggregate of 7400 tons; the ‘United States,’ 1500

tons; and another, the ‘Winfield Scott,’ 2100 tons; and the ‘Cortes,’

1500 tons, plying between Panama and San Francisco. They are equally

divided upon the Pacific and the Atlantic sides. All of these vessels

were built in New York.

“The Empire City Line was established in 1848, and is composed of

three steamers, of an aggregate of 6800 tons. The ‘Empire City’ and

the ‘Crescent City’ were the pioneers of this line, and were two of

the first steamers engaged in the California trade.

“From the foregoing estimate of the California steam-ships in

connection with the port of New York, it will be seen that the number

of steamers engaged in that trade is forty-one, including four ships

of Law’s Line, which were formerly engaged in the California trade,

but which now run between New York, New Orleans, and Havanna—viz., the

‘Empire City,’ ‘Crescent City,’ ‘Cherokee,’ and ‘Falcon.’ The

aggregate tonnage of these forty-one ships is 67,336. But this is not

all. There are ten American steamers plying between San Francisco and

Stockton; there are ten also plying between San Francisco and

Sacramento. The latter are for the most part of a larger size than

those on the San Joaquin river, and make the trip of a hundred and

twenty miles in from seven to eight hours. In the elegance of their

accommodations, and the luxuries of their larders, they might compare

favourably with any passenger vessels in the world. There are ten

other steamers plying from Sacramento to different places above that

city. One year ago, there was but one steamboat in Oregon, the

‘Columbia;’ now there are eleven steamboats of different kinds running

in the Columbia and Willamette rivers, not including the Pacific

steamers,’Sea Gull’ and ‘Columbia,’ running between Oregon and

California. At this rate of progress the United States will soon be

mistress of the Pacific. American steam-ship lines will, in a few

years, be running from San Francisco to Australia, China, and the East

Indies.”

There can be little doubt of the truth of one of the prophecies with

which our extract concludes, that American steam-ship lines “will, in a

few years, be running from San Francisco to Australia, China, and the

East Indies;” but what a great future for Australia does this suggest!

There must spring up a vast trade between her population and the entire

Pacific seaboard of South America. When her agriculture is more fully

developed, it is not at all doubtful that, whilst supplying even

California with breadstuffs, &c., she may also supply the west coast of

South America with the products of the temperate zone, and with the

copper and other minerals abounding in her soil. We doubt, however, the

truth of the prophecy that the United States is likely to be soon “the

mistress of the Pacific;” to prevent, in fact, the trade between

Australia, China, the East Indies, &c., and San Francisco, being carried

on by Australian enterprise, aided by British capital. Fortunately the

same enterprise, aided by the capital of this country, might be so

directed as to confer a vast boon upon Great Britain herself. One of the

leading sources of her present influence in the Pacific is evidently

considered by the writer, from whom we have quoted above, to be the

adoption by America of the short route to the Pacific _via_ Panama. That

route, however, is equally as available to the commerce of Great Britain

and Australia as it is to that of the United States; and the fact leads

us to the consideration of one of the greatest wants of Australia, which

has very materially retarded its progress, whilst it has also been

severely felt by the mercantile community of this country—viz., the want

of a regular, frequent, and expeditious mail communication between Great

Britain and her southern colonial empire. We have already stated that

during the past spring serious commercial losses have been occasioned by

the want in question, no Government mail having been received in this

country from Australia during a period of four months, up to the 27th

July last, whilst we have been exporting actually at random. The colony

and this country have been mocked by postal arrangements, proposed, but

never efficiently carried out. The “Peninsular and Oriental Company”

have been subsidised for the purpose of conveying mails once a month;

but their efforts have been a failure. Not once in three times have we

had a mail without a mistake occurring at some point of the route.

Sometimes the steamers employed from Australia have arrived at Singapore

or Point de Galle a day or two after the steamers for England have

started. Occasionally a few letters have come, whilst the newspapers,

containing the most important news for the public—shipping and market

intelligence—have been left behind. A while ago, we heard of the

“Chusan” steamer arriving at Sydney a day or two earlier than her

previous performances led her to be expected; and it was with difficulty

that the colonists were enabled to induce her commander to stay above

twelve hours to enable a mail for Great Britain to be made up. Any one

who has read the excellent digests of Australian news contained in the

_Melbourne Argus_ and the _Sydney Morning Herald_, sent by every

Government mail, may imagine that some time is required for writing

them, irrespective of printing. The General Screw Steam Company also

attempted the carrying of the mails, and subsequently the Australian

Royal Mail Steam Company, both subsidised by Government, made the same

attempt. They failed in the performance of their engagements. The latter

had contracted to perform the voyage from England to Sydney in 64 days,

and homewards in 68 days. The “Chusan” was 79 days on the passage from

England to Sydney; the “Formosa” 76 days; the “Cleopatra” 120 days. In

fact, the Company’s ships were laughed at by ordinary sailing vessels.

Then sailing vessels were tried; and we were told that mails were to be

forwarded by this or that “clipper,” the Post-Office guaranteeing its

sailing on a particular day. But first-rate ships would not accept the

terms offered; and accordingly, we had continual instances of those who

had undertaken the work failing in its performance. There has hitherto

been no certainty as to the mail communication between this country and

the colony. We never could tell, within two or three months, at what

date we might expect to receive the reply to a letter to Australia, or

when one from Great Britain would arrive out in the colony. The merchant

who had shipped, or made advances upon goods, had no certainty as to the

time when he must make arrangements to meet the demands upon him out of

his own resources. The want of certainty imparted an additional amount

of hazard to the trade between the two countries. But this is not all

the evil resulting from inadequate postal communication. It has tended

very greatly, combined with bad post-office management in the colony, to

prevent emigration. People accustomed to daily intercourse with their

friends are unwilling to embark for a country from which they can rarely

assure them of their safe arrival, or inform them as to how the world

goes with them, in less than eight or nine months. A brother, a sister,

or a friend, with whom we can correspond, is not as one lost to us. We

do not regard them as quite beyond our social circle. But an emigrant to

Australia has thus far been practically rendered an outcast. We may hear

of him, or her, if fortune smiles, or dire adversity occurs; but the

ordinary kindliness of brotherhood, or sisterhood, becomes neglected

when the means of epistolary intercourse are denied. The rudest amongst

us feel this as a bar to adventuring into a new country. The emigrant

would be glad to communicate the tidings of his good or evil lot to

sympathising friends at home; and there are few who do not know with

what delight even the merest scrap of home news is received by those who

are separated by far less than half the circumference of the globe from

that home. What would not any Australian digger give at the present

moment if he could hear his parent’s clock tick in its old familiar

place? What would any parent at home not give for a glimpse of the

present features of a child now located at the antipodes?

It is humiliating to us as Britons, to contrast the niggardly conduct of

our own Post-Office authorities, and of the Colonial Office, with that

which we have already shown was adopted by the Government of the United

States towards the population of its new territory of California.

Unfortunately, we are governed in this country upon “economical”

principles. The spirit of the trader is carried into every department of

the public service. When we ask for any comprehensive and perfect scheme

of improvement, we are mocked by some petty expedient, because every

successive administration, and every public official, are ambitious of

doing their work more _cheaply_ than their predecessors. This is

especially the case with respect to the postal arrangements of the

country. When an extension or an improvement of the system is suggested,

the first question asked is not, “Is it wanted?” but, “Will it pay?” Our

American brethren have always dealt with the business of their

post-office in a different spirit. They felt that those who are

maintaining the commercial greatness of the country by their toil in

California are worthy of being enabled to communicate cheaply with their

friends at home. Our own postal authorities, however, appear disposed to

treat that colony, which is similarly promoting the commerce of Great

Britain, rather as an unreasonably intruding suppliant than an important

community asking for what is fairly due to them. Our colonists feel

deeply the injustice of their position, that, whilst a portion of the

colonial revenue is contributed to the Home Government, to be expended

in securing steam facilities for their mails, the object for which they

are paying is not accomplished.

We feel perfectly assured that we never shall have an effective postal

communication with Australia, until we cease to regard that important

colony as a mere calling-station for our East Indian mails. Its

increasing commerce with the mother country demands that it should have

a mail service distinctly its own, conducted with no other view than to

promote the convenience of that commerce, and of the people of the

colony. How then is this to be provided most economically, and, at the

same time, most effectively? The latter is the main question. We ought

scarcely to think about cost in the effort to improve the postal

facilities of a possession which, we have seen, took from us last year

upwards of fourteen millions sterling of British produce and

manufactures. Past experience has, we think, shown sufficiently that the

object in view can never be obtained by steaming round the Cape of Good

Hope. The shortest passages as yet attained by that route were performed

by the “Golden Age” in 61 days, and by the “Argo” in 64 days. The noble

steam-ship “Great Britain,” in the last trip made the distance to

Melbourne in 65 days. The Australian Steam Navigation Company, which

promised so largely, failed most unequivocally. The first of their

ships, the “Australian,” took 44 days to reach the Cape; the “Sydney”

took 54 days; the “Melbourne” took 75 days; and the “Adelaide” took 77

days. Of the two last vessels’ voyages the _Melbourne Argus_ remarked at

the time:—

“The preposterous length of the voyage is a minor evil in comparison

with the anxiety which haunted this community for weeks in the case of

the last two steamers. We were almost on the point of giving up the

‘Adelaide’ for lost, when the lumbering old hulk was reported at last

to have rolled into Adelaide.... The mischiefs inflicted upon the

mercantile community here, by the detention of the ‘Adelaide,’ and the

fears for her safety, have been intolerable. Mails have been

postponed—goods have arrived before the advices or bills of lading had

come to hand—correspondence has been confused, and business

transactions have been utterly deranged. It is most provoking to think

that a steamer holding the Government mail contract, and for which the

mails have been kept back for several weeks, should leave London on

the 11th of December, and arrive in Port Philip on the 11th of May

following—a period of five months precisely!”

Undoubtedly the Company must have mismanaged its business, and its

vessels been unfit for the service. But it is the opinion of all

nautical men, that mails, conveyed in even the most superior steamers by

way of the Cape of Good Hope, can never be depended upon either for

speed or regularity. The most efficient mode which we have seen proposed

for performing the service, is that of the Australian Direct Steam

Navigation Company _via_ Panama. It is intended that this Company’s

vessels, which are to be powerful paddle-wheel steamers of 3000 tons,

shall proceed at stated periods from Milford Haven to Aspinwall (Navy

Bay), on the Atlantic side of the Isthmus; from whence passengers and

cargo will be conveyed by railway to Panama, on the Pacific side, and

there re-embarked for Australia, accomplishing the whole distance, to or

from, _in about fifty-five days_. That the power of fulfilling this

promise is within the reach of an energetic Company, has recently been

proved by the experiment made by the United States steamer, “Golden

Age.” America, by the by, is still our pioneer in steam enterprise.

“The ‘Golden Age’—(we quote from an ably-conducted Liverpool paper,

the _Journal_)—steaming only slowly, and under unfavourable

circumstances, made the run from Sydney to Tahiti in 13½ days, and

from Tahiti to Panama in 18 days 12 hours. A more powerful vessel

would have performed the distances in about 11 and 15 days

respectively, and surmounted effectually the only difficulty to be

experienced in crossing the Pacific, namely, carrying coals sufficient

for the voyage from station to station. The detention, which in this

case was nearly 15 days between Sydney and Southampton, might be

shortened to about 4 days, by proper arrangements being made for

prompt despatch; and the voyage would thus be performed in from 50 to

53 days.”

A portion of the journey across the Isthmus, we may remark, was

performed on mules, only thirty-one miles of the railway being as yet

completed. The whole line, however, is expected to be opened in the

course of the present year.

Many circumstances concur to render the Panama route infinitely

preferable to any other. In the first place, the shortest distance has

to be traversed. From Milford Haven to Sydney by this route is only

12,440 miles, the whole of which, with the exception of 45 miles, is by

sea. By the present Peninsular and Oriental Company’s route, _via_ Swan

River and Cape Leeuwin, from Southampton the distance is 12,855 miles,

of which 238 have to be performed between Alexandria and Suez by canal,

by the Nile, and across the desert. By the same Company’s route _via_

Torres Straits, the distance is 13,095 miles, with the same overland

journey to make from Alexandria to Suez. We can only get our mails from

Australia by either of these routes in sixty days, by the very costly

express from Marseilles. The General Screw Company’s route, by way of

the Cape of Good Hope, Madras, and Point de Galle, is enormously

circuitous; and the same Company’s new route, without touching at the

Cape, is 12,837 miles. There is another serious disadvantage connected

with the eastward voyage. From the Cape to Australia the weather is

generally boisterous, with variable winds; and in passing the

equinoctial line, ships have to encounter calms, and can derive no aid

from carrying canvass. The loss of that aid is a serious matter to screw

steamers, in a voyage where economy in the article of fuel is so

desirable. From Great Britain to Navy Bay, on the other hand, is usually

a run in which canvass can be advantageously used, whilst the run from

Panama to Australia is through pleasant weather for the entire distance,

the Pacific fully justifying the propriety of its appellation.

Of course, a company working the Panama route effectively, with superior

vessels, and carrying regular mails, must be subsidised by the British

Government. Our colonists themselves would gladly lend their aid by

grants out of their own public revenue. In fact, the province of New

South Wales has recently advertised its willingness to give a bonus of

£6000 sterling to any company which will bring the postal distance

between England and Melbourne to sixty days each way. The Australian

Direct Company, however, anticipate a good profit on their undertaking,

irrespective of remuneration in the form of a subsidy for carrying the

mails, as will be perceived from the following extract from their

prospectus, published last year:—

“It is thought unnecessary to dwell on the great extension of general

traffic wherever proper facilities of intercourse by steam have been

afforded: it may, however, be briefly stated, that the produce of gold

during the year 1852, in the colony of Victoria alone, amounted to

over £18,000,000, with every prospect of a continuous increase,

exclusive of the produce of New South Wales, which forms a large

addition to this vast amount; that, during the months January,

February, March, and April last, the specie transmitted across the

Isthmus—from Peru and Chili, from the western coast of Mexico, and

from California—amounted to 20,410,796 dollars, exceeding £4,000,000

sterling,—and that the passenger traffic, by the same route and for

the same period, amounted to 10,568 persons, irrespective of those

conveyed by the San Juan de Nicaragua line. It may be, moreover,

observed that this extent of traffic, however great, affords no

adequate idea of the vast trade which will arise to feed this line,

when in full operation,—with all the important advantages of a

completed railway, and of a systematic conduct of business.

“Large additions to this vast traffic must necessarily flow from the

increasing intercourse between North America and the Australian

colonies, facilitated as such intercourse is by the powerful lines of

steamers already established between the United States and the Isthmus

of Panama in the North Atlantic, and between California and Panama in

the North Pacific. The augmented line of steamers, also, employed by

the Pacific Steam Navigation Company between Valparaiso and Panama,

must considerably swell the stream. These great results stand in

perfect independence of a line projected, which will in all

probability, at no distant period, connect California and China; and

likewise of traffic, the natural result of conveyance of passengers

and valuable merchandise diverted from old and circuitous routes.

“The Directors derive great encouragement from the knowledge that the

objects of this Company are favoured with the high approval of British

merchants in general. Many of the most eminent _London_ houses have

strongly expressed their approbation; and the following document fully

attests the spirit in which the enterprise is regarded by several

influential and distinguished _Manchester_ firms:

“‘We, the undersigned, being desirous of encouraging the establishment

of a line of first-class steam-packets, offering increased facilities

and advantages for the transit of passengers and goods to and from

Australia and the different important States in the Pacific Ocean, and

being deeply impressed with the advantages of the route by the way of

the Isthmus of Panama, since the establishment of the railroad at that

place connecting the two oceans,—hereby signify our approval of the

projected British and Australian Direct Screw Steam Packet Company,

for the purpose of carrying out the line of communication to those

parts in the most efficient manner. (Signed)—R. GLADSTONE & CO.,

HORROCKS, JACKSON & CO., ROBERT SMITH & CO., ROBERT GARDNER, SAMUEL

MENDEL, ROBT. BARBOUR & BROTHERS, JOHN PENDER & CO., GEORGE FRASER,

SON, & CO., HENRY B. JACKSON, R. I. FARBRIDGE & CO., B. LIEBERT,

PRESCOTT, BROTHERS, & CO., THOS. CARDWELL & CO., OSWALD STEVENSON &

CO., J. A. TURNER & CO.’”

It is most desirable that whatever line is selected for conveying the

mails should be as far as possible remunerative, in order to enable

Government to fix the rates of postage as low as possible. The present

charges are preposterously high. A letter by a sailing ship, which may

be from ninety to one hundred days on the passage, costs eightpence, if

under half an ounce. By steam and overland mail, it is from a shilling

to twentypence, if under a quarter of an ounce in weight, for what to a

man, whose caligraphy is not of a diminutive order, or who cannot

command “bank” or “foreign post” paper, must be only half a letter.

_Cheap_ postage for the newly settled population of Australia, and for

their friends in this country, is as essential as regular and

expeditious mails are to the mercantile communities in both countries.

We must remark, too, that newspapers and trade circulars are as much

required to be conveyed expeditiously as mercantile letters. By the last

overland mail a fortunate few received despatches _via_ Marseilles in

sixty days. The bulk of the mail, consisting of newspapers and letters

from emigrants, &c., was not delivered until the arrival of the steamer

at Southampton, nearly seventy days from her leaving the colony.

We have certainly little hope of our Government doing much to

develop the resources of Australia. The Post-Office authorities may,

indeed, be induced to concede to the colony, and to the mercantile

community of this country, a direct mail communication _via_ Panama,

by the prospect—indeed, almost certainty—that if they fail in the

performance of their duty, the United States Government will do it

for them. The experiment made by the American steam-ship “Golden

Age” is said to have been, commercially, an unprofitable one. But

the application of steam power to the performance of long voyages is

even as yet in its infancy. The chief difficulty hitherto

experienced in making short and regular passages to a distant port

has been the large quantity of coals required to be carried, which

diminishes the power of carrying cargo in our mail steamers. It is

estimated that our Cunard Company’s and the Collins’ boats would

have to diminish their speed, and to forfeit some of their character

for regularity in the transmission of mails to and from America,

were the two countries a thousand miles farther apart. But at the

present time an improvement is making in the machinery of one of the

boats of the latter Company by her owners in the United States,

which, it is stated, is likely to economise very materially her

consumption of fuel, the saving by which may either be applied to

increasing her speed or her carrying capabilities. The same

improvement can be adopted in our Australian steamers. But from the

Colonial Office we expect literally nothing. The treatment of

Australia by that Office has been, from first to last, most

neglectful; and even since the gold discoveries, and the recognition

by all thinking men of the vast importance which the colony has

assumed as a feeder of the commerce of England, our statesmen have

appeared incapable of appreciating its claims to their

consideration. A glaring instance of this perverse or ignorant

blindness has recently occurred in the filling up of the office of

Lieutenant-Governor of South Australia. The first party appointed

was Mr Stonor, an Irish member, of no great mark in Parliament or

elsewhere. This gentleman duly sailed for the colony, but was

shortly after his departure unseated for bribery. Such was the

grossness of the charges against him, brought to light by a

parliamentary inquiry, that the Colonial Office were compelled to

despatch his recall. Another Lieutenant-Governor was to be

appointed; and the choice fell upon the Hon. F. Lawley, M.P. for

Beverley. Mr Lawley’s claims to hold an appointment, so important at

the present crisis in a country which eminently requires the

supervising of a practical statesman, experienced in the management

of colonial affairs, are not easy to discover. He was a young

man—young at least in public life—twenty-eight years of age; had

passed rather a distinguished course at the university, and had held

for a few months the situation of private secretary to the

Chancellor of the Exchequer; but he was chiefly known to the public

as a runner of race-horses, and a rather unsuccessful speculator on

the Turf. The noble Lord at the head of the Administration, it

appears, had some interest in the borough—Beverley—which Mr Lawley

represented, and had also a son, who was ambitious of parliamentary

honours. Mr Lawley was appointed Lieutenant-Governor of South

Australia; vacated his seat for Beverley; and Lord Aberdeen’s son

was elected to fill his place. We only mention this as a curious

coincidence. But Mr Lawley had some sense of honour in his breast,

as became a young man of his rank and birth, or he may have had

merely a correct appreciation of “the fitness of things.”

Subsequently to his ill-success upon the Turf—it is not said whether

or not during his tenure of his confidential office under the

Chancellor of the Exchequer—he had speculated on the Stock

Exchange—and lost. His resolution—taken, no doubt, after a due

examination of the state of his affairs—was promptly notified to the

Government. He resigned the office to which he had been appointed;

and the colony was spared the infliction of a Lieutenant-Governor in

whom the propensity for gambling was so strongly developed, and

whose favourite sphere of action would probably have been upon the

race-course of Adelaide. What may be the effect upon the minds of

the population of this treatment of South Australia by the Colonial

Office we are not to foretell. It cannot, however, advance that

Office in their estimation.

Failing the hope of efficient Government aid to the growth of the

Australian colonies—as we think it will fail—those colonies have within

their reach the means of aiding themselves in one vitally important

matter—the securing of a larger supply of labour. The funds accruing

from the sale of lands in the colony have, for some years past, been

devoted to the purpose of assisting the emigration of useful classes of

labourers—principally agricultural—to the various colonies; the business

being managed in this country by the Colonial Land and Emigration

Commissioners. Of course, a crotchety management was to be anticipated

from such a body, composed of parties utterly unversed in the business.

We believe it will be found by the colonists that the management has not

only been crotchety, but extravagantly expensive, and even destructive

of the lives of the intending emigrants. A few extracts from the Report

of the Committee (1853) to the Colonial Secretary will be sufficiently

intelligible as to the inefficient working of the present system. In the

first place, it will be made clear that a great public office, with

already a multiplicity of business to conduct, is incompetent, from its

very composition, of carrying on a trade in which they have to compete

with experienced private firms. After mentioning the utter failure of an

experiment made by them of sending out a large number of Highland

emigrants on board H.M.S. the “Hercules,” which was proceeding to

Hong-Kong as an hospital-ship, and was offered them by the Admiralty for

the purpose, the Commissioners report:—

“Meanwhile applications for assistance were made on behalf of Germans

and Swiss, and, by a very respectable committee at Madras, of the

half-caste population of India. But the growing eagerness to reach

Australia soon rendered it unnecessarily pressing for us either to

close with applications of this kind, or to relax our ordinary rules

in regard to British emigrants. This eagerness soon became

excessive—so much so, that, at one time, our office contained no less

than 18,000 applications for passages to Australia. The number of

letters received in the month of June, which, in 1850, was 1564, and,

in 1851, 2884, amounted in 1852 to 18,910, being at an average rate,

excluding Sundays, of 727 a day. And when it is remembered that a

large number of these transmitted small sums of money, requiring

considerable accuracy of treatment, and that a far greater number

respected the time and manner in which poor emigrants were to leave

their country for ever—a matter in which any inaccuracy, though

trifling in respect to the magnitude of the whole service, was of the

greatest importance to the individuals—that a great number of our

correspondents were persons who could not be counted upon for

expressing their own meaning with clearness, or understanding

correctly what was written to them—and, finally, that all this mass of

details, by no means capable of a cursory or careless treatment, was

to be disposed of by persons _partly overtaxed and partly new to those

details_, it will be seen, we hope, that _we laboured under no

ordinary difficulty in meeting the unusual pressure_.”

Of course, such a business, attempted to be carried on by an

inexperienced public board, sitting in a central office in London,

although dealing with emigration from various ports in the United

Kingdom, was likely to run into arrear and confusion. Individual local

firms, however, feel no difficulty in carrying it on, upon a scale fully

equal to that of the Board, when measured by the extent of their

establishments. Those individual firms would have forwarded promptly all

the Government emigrants which the Colonial Land and Emigration

Commissioners might have thought proper to hand over to their care, and

managed all the details and correspondence dwelt upon as being so

onerous upon them. But the Commissioners must needs charter ships of

their own, throwing away all the advantages which private merchants

possess, of procuring profitable freight for a portion of each ship sent

out. And they had to “pay dear for their whistle.” At page 18 of the

Report, they say: “The freights, which in June 1851 had fallen as low as

£10, and in one instance to £9, 9s. 5d. per adult, rose in June 1852 to

upwards of £17; and since that time they have actually reached the

enormous amount of £23 per adult.” Undoubtedly, they might have reached

this “enormous amount” at the time named. But private and most

respectable and experienced firms, at the dearest time mentioned, taking

advantage of their ability of paying merchandise freight, would have

sent out emigrants, supplied to them by the Commissioners, at an average

price of two-thirds the amount, and furnished them with the ample

stores, the ventilation, and the other conducives to health insisted

upon by the local Government Commissioners, in the case of voluntary as

well as Government emigration. Taking from one hundred to one hundred

and fifty passengers, paid for by the Commissioners, in each ship, they

might have afforded to charge even lower.

But the Commissioners had a model system of their own to exhibit to the

world, and peculiar views as to the fitting up of emigrant ships, more

calculated, they maintained, to secure the health and comfort and safety

of poor persons going out at the expense of the colony, a knowledge of

the nature of which was denied to the experienced Government officers

stationed at the various ports, whose duty it is to superintend the

accommodation and quality of provisions afforded to persons going out at

their own expense. Let us see what was the working of this model system!

They state that, in consequence of the high rates for shipping, they

were compelled to adopt large ships, and they add, page 18:—

“We lament to say that in those despatched from Liverpool the result

was unfortunate. Among the adults, indeed, no bad consequence

followed, but amongst the infants and young children, whose numbers

had been increased by the then recent relaxation of our rules, a great

mortality occurred. On the ‘Bourneuf,’ ‘Marco Polo,’ and ‘Wanata,’ in

which the aggregate number of passengers was 2581, the number of

deaths was 181, of which no less than 152 were below four years of

age. On the ‘Ticonderago,’ 165 persons died on the voyage, or in

quarantine after arrival, of whom 65 were below fourteen, and 18 were

less than one year old.”

It is a somewhat singular fact, that in not one of these vessels, since

their being sailed under private management, has more than the ordinary

rate of mortality prevailed. After this disastrous loss of human life,

the Commissioners came to the resolution of diminishing the number of

children allowed to each passenger, and limited the size of their ships.

Private firms allowed the same number, and _increased_ the size of their

ships. Yet the latter have had no increase in the rate of mortality,

whilst, only a few weeks ago, a ship chartered by the Commissioners lost

at sea—having only reached Cork—in putting back to their depot at

Birkenhead, and after placing the sick in hospital, upwards of sixty

lives! The absurdity, on the part of the Commissioners, in employing

exclusively small ships, is thus apparent, even in a sanitary point of

view. The large clippers, built expressly for the trade, have at the

same time had the advantage over their competitors in quick sailing. In

proof of this fact, we quote a table, extracted from a file of the

London _Times_ of this year, showing the average number of days occupied

in the passage by the vessels of different tonnage, ranging from 200

tons upwards, despatched from Liverpool to Australia in the years 1852

and 1853.

1852. 1853.

Average number of Average number of

days. days.

Under 200 tons, 137 133

From 200 to 300 tons 122 122

„ 300 „ 400 „ 123 113

„ 400 „ 500 „ 118 112

„ 500 „ 600 „ 113 112

„ 600 „ 700 „ 107 103

„ 700 „ 800 „ 108 101

„ 800 „ 900 „ 103 100

„ 900 „ 1000 „ 102 95

„ 1000 „ 1200 „ 96 91

„ 1200 & upwards, 91 90

We entertain little doubt that, in a short while, the provincial

legislatures and people of the various provinces of Australia will

protest loudly against this mismanagement of their contributions for the

purpose of encouraging emigration, and assert the right of exercising a

greater control than they have at present over their own funds.

But it is, after all, to the honest press, and to the enterprise of

private individuals, that these important colonies must look chiefly for

a relief from their present temporary difficulties. A large amount of

misconception has been spread abroad as to the prospects which they hold

out for settlers and their social condition. We have had too much

information from the Colonies themselves about the state of trade in

Melbourne and the other large towns, and the yield of the various gold

mines, and much too little of the progress making in agricultural

pursuits. With respect to the latter, too, the sort of information

conveyed, and the picture which it presents, have not been of a

character likely to attract the most useful classes of settlers—our

small farmers and farm-labourers. Sheep-farming and stock-farming in

“the bush,” as it is still absurdly termed, is naturally associated in

their minds with ideas of solitary and half-savage life, to adventure

upon which most men, and especially those who have been accustomed to

quiet domestic life, and have no pressing necessity for taking such a

step, will hardly be induced to leave their native land. In the large

towns society is gradually assuming a settled character, and their

population, the old and the newly arrived as well, are directing their

attention to the ordinary avocations of industry. Dwellings, as we have

shown, are being erected almost with sufficient rapidity to meet the

demand for them, and proper sanitary and other arrangements will follow.

The most congratulatory movement which has recently, and is now more

rapidly than ever taking place, is the conversion of the soil, hitherto

in a wild state, or forming portions of sheep-runs, into farms of

various sizes, cultivated in the best manner by British and other

farmers. Little communities, the germs of future towns and villages, are

springing up on every side; and before many seasons are over, the

population, however largely augmented, will have no occasion to depend

upon extraneous supply for any of the leading necessaries of life.

Whether as a merchant, a tradesman, or to engage in other legitimate and

useful occupations, the emigrant may now safely leave his home to settle

for life in Australia in the entire confidence that his industry will

meet its full reward. To bring about the future greatness which we have

predicted for the colony, as the centre of a wealthy and powerful

Anglo-Saxon empire in the Pacific, whose population are governed by

British laws, and are in the enjoyment of British institutions, it is

most important that the British element should be as largely as possible

infused amongst them. Society in Australia calls especially for the

presence of an educated middle class, capable of ameliorating, by its

example, the rudeness of character and manners which may be expected

from amongst her successful gold-diggers, bush-farmers, and traders. The

spread of truthful information respecting the climate, capabilities,

&c., of the country, will effect much in supplying that want, and

inducing such a class to emigrate thither as to a permanent home. The

time may come—be it far distant!—when the colonists may demand to be an

independent people. Such an infusion amongst them of right-hearted and

loyal British men and women—the fathers and mothers of another

generation—may do much to postpone such an event. And when it does

arrive—when a people grown great and wealthy under the protecting arm of

British sway refuses to be governed from the antipodes—the breaking of

the link may be rendered a kindly one; and it may to no slight extent

operate upon our future relations with the grown-up child, who has cast

us off, and decided to walk by himself, that his heart still clings to

the home of his parents, and feels an interest in maintaining the

prosperity of the land which gave them birth.

SPECULATORS AMONG THE STARS.

PART I.[13]

Let us imagine one of our species, at an early period of its history,

destitute of any artificial aid to the sense of sight, contemplating the

aspect of things around him. He perceives that, somehow or other, he

lives upon a Something—apparently a flat surface, of indefinite extent

in all directions from the spot where he stands—consisting of land and

water, alternately visited with light and darkness, heat and cold; with

a regular succession of seasons, somehow or other connected with the

growth of vegetables of various kinds, suitable and unsuitable for his

purposes, with beautiful flowers and magnificent forests: while the air,

water, and earth, teem with insects, birds, fishes, and animals, which

seem almost altogether at his command. There are also winds, dews,

showers, mists, frost, snow, hail, thunderstorms, volcanoes, and

earthquakes. He himself, equally with the vegetables and animals, passes

through divers gradations, from birth to decay—from life to death: but

during life, alike alternately sleeping and waking, subject to

vicissitudes of pain and pleasure, of health and disease.

If he look beyond the locality on which all this takes place, he beholds

a blazing body alternately visible and invisible, at regular intervals,

and to which he attributes both light and heat; another luminous body

visible only at night, which it gently illuminates; and both these

objects are occasionally subject to brief but portentous obscurations.

During the night there also appear a great number of glittering white

specks in the blue distance, which he calls stars; all he knows of them

being, that they are beautiful objects in the dark; even contributing a

little light, in the absence of the moon. Why all these things came to

be as they are, he knows no more than the bird that is blithely singing

on the branch above him, but for a certain Book, which tells him that

God made him, and everything he sees about him; the sun, the moon, the

stars, the earth, with all the arrangements securing night and day,

light and darkness, seasons, days, and years; forming _him_, in HIS

IMAGE; giving him the earth for a dwelling, and dominion over everything

that lives and breathes in it; and commanding him to be obedient to the

will of his Maker. That the first man and woman placed on the earth

became, nevertheless, almost immediately disobedient; whereby they

incurred the anger of God, and their position on earth became woefully

changed for the worse. That God, nevertheless, loved man, formed in His

own image, after His likeness, with such tenderness, that He devised

means for his restoration, if he chose, to the favour which he had

forfeited; and Himself visited the earth, in the form of man; submitted

to mockery, suffering, and death, on his behalf; rose again, and

returned to Heaven with the body which He had assumed on earth. That

though man’s body must die and decay, equally with that of every animal,

his shall rise again, and be rejoined by its spirit, to stand before the

judgment-seat of God, to be judged in respect of the deeds done in the

body, and be eternally miserable or happy, according to the righteous

judgment then pronounced. Moreover, this Book tells him, with reference

to the locality in which he exists, that all things shall not always

remain as they are; but that the earth, and all that is in it, shall be

burned up; that it, and the Heaven, shall pass away with a great noise;

that the elements shall melt with fervent heat; and for those on whom a

favourable doom shall have been pronounced in the day of judgment, there

shall be a new heaven, and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness.

Believing all this, and his inner nature telling him that the law of

action laid down in the Book is righteous, and conformable to that

nature, he endeavours to regulate his conduct by it, and dies, as dies

generation after generation, in calm and happy reliance on the Truth of

that Book.

Ages pass away, and great discoveries appear to be made, by the exercise

of man’s own thought and ingenuity, and quite independently of any

revelations contained in his Great Book. Whereas he had thought the

earth stationary, he finds it, the sun, and the moon, to be round

bodies, each turning round on its own axis, the earth once in

twenty-four hours; that the earth also goes round the sun once in every

year, the moon accompanying it, and at the same time turning round it

once in every month; and that these are the means by which are caused

light and darkness, night and day, heat and cold, and the various

changes of the seasons. The stars remain twinkling, the mere bright

specks they ever appeared.

Let us now, however, suppose our thoughtful observer’s sight assisted by

the aid of glass, in two ways—so as to place him on the one hand, nearer

to distant objects, and on the other, reveal objects close to him, which

he had never suspected. In the latter case, his microscope exhibits an

astounding spectacle—almost every atom turned, as it were, into a world,

peopled with exquisitely-organised animal forms, adapted perfectly to

the elements in which they are seen disporting themselves. In the former

case, his telescope makes equally astounding revelations in an opposite

direction. The Heavens are swarming with splendid structures unseen to

the naked eye: new planets are visible, with rings, belts, and moons,

and the stars prove to be resplendent suns; the centres of so many

systems peopling infinitude; and these, moreover, obeying laws of motion

the same as those which exist in the system of which the earth forms

part!

“Well,” says our overwhelmed observer, “it is certainly late in the day

to make these sublime and awful discoveries; but here they are, unless

my instruments play me false, so that I am the victim of mere optical

delusion; the boundless, numberless realms of insect life being only

imaginary; and the stars really no suns or worlds at all, but simply the

glittering spots which alone mankind has hitherto believed them. But if

my telescope tell me truly, the little speck on which I live is in fact

but a grain of dark dust in the heavens, circling obscurely round a sun,

itself a mere star, perhaps eclipsed in splendour by every other star in

existence; each probably containing many more and greater planets

circling about it than has our sun! And about these matters THE BOOK is

silent.”

Pondering these discoveries, and assuming them to be real, our observer

echoes the inquiry of our greatest living astronomer—“Now, _for what

purpose_ are we to suppose such magnificent bodies scattered through the

abyss of space?”[14] And at length the grander one occurs—Are there

human beings, or beings similar to myself, anywhere else than on this

earth? On the sun, moon, planets, and their satellites? Nay, on all the

other inconceivably numerous suns, planets, and satellites in existence?

He pauses, as though in a spasm of awe. But he may next, and very

rationally, ask, If it be so, _how does all this affect me_? Has it any

practical bearing on the condition of a denizen of this earth?

If our bewildered inquirer unfortunately had at his elbow Thomas Paine,

he would hear this blasphemous whisper: “The system of a plurality of

worlds renders THE CHRISTIAN FAITH at once little and ridiculous, and

scatters it in the mind, like feathers in the air. The two beliefs

cannot be held together in the same mind; and he who thinks he believes

both has thought but little of either.”[15] By this impious drivel is

meant, that if this infinitude of systems be made by one God, who has

peopled every orb as our own is peopled, with rational and moral beings,

it is absurd to suppose that He has such a special regard for us, as the

Scriptures assure us He has—that _He was made flesh, and dwelt among

us_—lived with us, died for us, rose again for us; us, the insignificant

occupants of this insignificant speck amidst the resplendent

magnificence of the infinite universe. Now, that such a notion is

equally irreligious and unphilosophical we trust no intelligent reader

of ours requires to be persuaded; but that there are both friends and

enemies of the Christian Faith, who fear or believe otherwise, may be

assumed; and hence the unspeakable importance of viewing the matter

soberly, by such light as we have,—as God has been pleased to vouchsafe

to us. If we have little, we cannot help it, but must gratefully and

reverently make the best use we can of it; assuring ourselves that there

must be wise reasons for our omniscient Creator’s having given us just

as much as we have, and no more. He might have endowed us with faculties

nearly akin to His own; but He has thought proper to act otherwise.

The attention of scientific persons, and those of a speculative

character in religion, physics, and morals, has recently been recalled

to the question,—whether there are grounds for believing the heavenly

bodies to be inhabited by rational beings,—by the publication, eleven

months ago, of a thin octavo volume of 279 pages, bearing no author’s

name, and entitled, _Of the Plurality of Worlds, an Essay_. Internal

evidence seemed to point to a distinguished person at Cambridge as the

author—a gentleman of great eminence as a mathematician, a logician, a

divine, and a moralist—in short, to the Reverend Dr Whewell, the Master

of Trinity College. The work was divided into numbered paragraphs, as is

usual with that gentleman; peculiarities of spelling—_e. g._, “offense,”

instead of “offence”—and of style and expression, are common to the

_Essay_ and the other works of the suspected author. We are not aware

that up to the present time he has repudiated the work thus attributed

to him. On the contrary, he has just published a _Dialogue_, by way of

supplement to it, in which he and various classes of objectors are

speakers; and on one of them telling him that one of his critics

“repeatedly tries to connect his speculations with those of the author

of _Vestiges of Creation_,” a wild work of an infidel character, he

answers, “If he were to try to connect me with an _answer_ to that work,

which went through two editions, under the title of _Indications of the

Creator_, he would be nearer the mark; at least, I adopt the sentiments

of this latter book.” Now, this latter book was published, certainly not

with Dr Whewell’s name on the title-page, but by the publisher of all

his other works, and entitled _Indications of the Creator; Theological

Extracts from Dr Whewell’s History and Philosophy of Inductive Science_.

But whereas the _Essay_ in question is written by the present

highly-gifted Master of Trinity, with the design of showing that “the

belief of the planets and stars being inhabited is ill-founded—a notion

taken up on insufficient grounds, and that the most recent astronomical

discoveries point the other way”—the author declaring that these “views

have long been in his mind, the convictions which they involve growing

gradually deeper, through the effect of various trains of speculation;”

it will be found, on referring to Dr Whewell’s _Bridgewater Treatise_,

published in 1833, that these views seem not then to have been

entertained by him. In book iii. chap. 2, we find him speaking thus:

“The earth, the globular body thus covered with life, is not the only

globe in the universe. There are circling about our own sun six others,

so far as we can judge, perfectly analogous in their nature, besides our

moon, and other bodies analogous to it. No one can resist the temptation

to conjecture that these globes, some of them much larger than our own,

are not dead and barren; that they are, like ours, occupied with life,

organisation, intelligence. To conjecture is all that we can do; yet

even by the perception of such a possibility, our view of the domain of

nature is enlarged and elevated.” Speaking again of the stars, and

supposing them suns, with planets revolving round them, he adds, “And

these may, like our planet, be the seats of vegetable, animal, and

rational life. We may thus have in the universe, worlds, no one knows

how many, no one can guess how varied.” And, finally, in the ensuing

chapter, “On man’s place in the Universe,” he says: “We thus find that a

few of the shining spots which we see scattered on the face of the sky

in such profusion, appear to be of the same nature as the earth; and

may, perhaps, as analogy would suggest, be, like the earth, the

habitations of organised beings.” Undoubtedly these remarks are penned

in a cautious and philosophic spirit; and upwards of twenty years’

subsequent reflection, by the light of various splendid astronomical

discoveries during that interval, is now announced to have so far shaken

Dr Whewell’s faith in such “conjectures,” as to induce him, “in all

sincerity and simplicity,” to submit “to the public the arguments,

strong or weak,” which had occurred to him on the subject; “and which,

when he proceeded to write the _Essay_, assumed, by being fully

unfolded, greater strength than he had expected.” He is now disposed to

regard a belief in the plurality of worlds “to have been really produced

by a guess, lightly made at first, quite unsupported by subsequent

discoveries, and discountenanced by the most recent observations, though

too remote from knowledge to be either proved or disproved.” And

further, he thus indicates the grand scope of the entire inquiry: “I do

not attempt to disprove the plurality of worlds, by taking for granted

the truths of Revealed Religion; but I say that the teaching of Religion

may, to a candid inquirer, suggest the wisdom of not taking for granted

the Plurality of Worlds. Religion seems, at first sight at least, to

represent Man’s history and position as unique. Astronomy, some think,

suggests the contrary. I examine the force of this latter suggestion,

and it seems to me to amount to little or nothing.” In the tenth and

eleventh chapters of the _Essay_, Dr Whewell thus speaks, in two

passages (§§ 12, 20), which appear to us to indicate at once the spirit

in which he offers his speculations, and his apprehension as to the

reception with which they might meet. In the former, he owns that his

“views are so different from those hitherto generally entertained, and

considered as having a sort of religious dignity belonging to them, that

we may fear, at first at least, they will appear to many rash and

fanciful, and almost, as we have said, irreverent.” In the latter he

speaks thus:—

“It is not to be denied that there may be a regret and disturbance

naturally felt at having to give up our belief that the planets and

the stars probably contain servants and worshippers of God. It must

always be a matter of pain and trouble, to be urged with tenderness,

and to be performed in time, to untwine our reverential religious

sentiments from erroneous views of the constitution of the Universe

with which they have been involved. But the change once made, it is

found that religion is uninjured, and reverence undiminished. And

therefore we trust that the reader will receive with candour and

patience the argument which we have to offer with reference to this

view, or, rather, this sentiment.”

In this tone of manly modesty is expressed the whole of this really

remarkable work; but all competent readers will also be struck by the

dignified consciousness of power associated with that modesty. These two

characteristics have invested this book with a certain charm, in our

eyes, which we cannot but thus avow, after having given his _Essay_, and

the _Dialogue_, in which he deals with various objectors to his _Essay_,

due consideration. A calm perusal of that _Dialogue_ may suggest to

shrewd opponents the necessity of approaching the writer of it with

caution.

Here, then, we have a man of first-rate intellectual power, a practised

and skilful dialectician, formidably familiar with almost every

department of physical science, in its latest and highest development;

an eminent moral writer and academical teacher, and an orthodox

clergyman in the Church of England, coming forward deliberately to

commit himself to opinions which he acknowledges he does not publish

“without some fear of giving offense:”—opinions at variance with those

not only popularly held, but maintained by perhaps three-fourths of even

scientific persons who have bestowed attention on the subject. Who can

doubt his _right_ to do so, especially in a calm and temperate spirit,

as contradistinguished to one of arrogance and dogmatism? None but a

fool would rush angrily forward, to encounter such an author with harsh

and heated language, or derogatory and uncharitable insinuations and

imputations. A philosophical and duly qualified opponent would act

differently. He would say, In this age of free inquiry, no matter how

bold and serious the attack on preconceptions and long-established

opinion and belief, if it be made in a grave and manly spirit of inquiry

and argument, and especially by one whose eminent character,

qualifications, and position, entitle his suggestions and speculations

to deliberate consideration, that deliberate consideration they must

have. “I have presented,” says the writer of the _Essay_, in the

_Dialogue_, “gravely and calmly, the views and arguments which occurred

to my mind, on a question which many persons think an interesting one;

and if any one will introduce any other temper into the discussion of

this question, with him I will hold no argument; if he write in a

vehement and angry strain, I will have nothing to say to him.” The

author is here alluding to Sir David Brewster, the author of the second

of the three works placed at the head of this article. If, on the other

hand, a man of great authority and reputation be unwise enough to run

counter to opinions universally received, and that by persons of high

scientific and literary reputation, merely as a sort of gladiatorial

exercise, disturbing views rightly associated with religion and science,

and with levity shaking the confidence of mankind in conclusions arrived

at by the profoundest masters of science, he must take the consequences

of being deemed presumptuous and trifling, and encounter the stern

rebuke of those whom he is not entitled to treat with disrespect.

Now, a careful and unprejudiced perusal of this _Essay_ has satisfied us

concerning several things. It is written with uncommon ability. The

author has an easy mastery of the English language, and these pages

abound in vigorous and beautifully-exact expressions. From beginning to

end, also, may be seen indications of a subtle and guarded logic; a

felicitous and masterly disposition of his subject; a thorough

familiarity with the heights and depths of physics, divinity, and

morals; and, above and infinitely beyond all, a reverent regard for the

truths of revealed religion, and an earnest desire to advance its

interests, by removing what, in his opinion, many deem a serious

stumblingblock in the way of the devout Christian. That stumblingblock

may be seen indicated in the audacious language which we have quoted

from Thomas Paine. If this be the object which Dr Whewell has had in

view—and who will doubt it?—his title to respectful consideration is

greatly enhanced. He must be given credit for having deliberately

counted the cost of what he was about to do—the amount of censure,

ridicule, and contempt which he might provoke. It seems that he has felt

himself strong enough to make the experiment; and here he sees a

distinguished contemporary, Sir David Brewster, quickly ascribing “his

theories and speculations to no better feeling than a love of

notoriety;”[16] who again stigmatises an argument of the Essayist as

“the most ingenious though shallow piece of sophistry which we have ever

encountered in modern dialectics.”[17]

That Dr Whewell offers us, in his _Essay_ and _Dialogue_, his real views

and opinions, and that they have been long and deeply considered, we

implicitly believe, on his own statement that such is the case. It may

nevertheless be, that he is the unconscious victim of an invincible love

of paradox; and indeed Sir David Brewster unceremoniously characterises

the Essayist’s conjectures concerning the fixed stars as “insulting to

Astronomy,” and “ascribable only to some morbid condition of the mental

powers, which feeds upon paradox, and delights in doing violence to

sentiments deeply cherished, and to opinions universally believed;”[18]

that having once conceived what he regards as a happy idea on a great

question, he dwells upon it with such an eager fondness as warps his

judgment; that having committed himself to what he has seen to be a

false position, he defends it desperately, with consummate logical

skill. Or he may believe himself entitled to the credit of having

demolished bold and vast theories, and plucked up by the roots an

enormous fallacy. It may be so, or it may not; but Dr Whewell’s is

certainly a very bold attempt to swim against the splendid stream of

modern astronomical speculation. He would say, however, Is it not as

bold _to people_, as to _depopulate_ the starry structures? It is on you

that the burthen of proof rests: you cannot see, or hear, inhabitants in

other spheres; the Bible tells us nothing about them; and where,

therefore, is the EVIDENCE on which you found your assertion, and would

coerce me into a concurrence in your conclusions? I long for the

production of sufficient evidence of so awful a fact as that God has

created all the starry bodies for the purpose of placing upon them

beings in any degree like man—moral, intellectual, accountable beings,

of equal, higher, or lower degree of intelligence—consisting of that

wondrous combination of matter and mind, body and soul, which

constitutes _man_, existing in similar relations to the external world.

The mere suggestion startles me, both as a man of science and a

Christian believer, on account of certain difficulties which appear to

me greater than perhaps even you may have taken into account. But,

however this may be, I call upon you for proofs of so vast a fact as you

allege to exist, or the best kind and greatest degree of evidence which

may justify me in assenting to the existence of such a fact. We are

dealing with facts, probabilities, improbabilities; and I repudiate any

intrusion of sentiment or fancy. If God has told me that the fact

exists, I receive it with reverence; and wonder at finding myself a

member of so immense a family, from all communication with which He has

been pleased to cut me off in my present stage of existence. But if God

has not told me the fact directly—and I feel no religious obligation to

hold the fact to exist or not to exist—I will regard the question as one

both curious and interesting, and weigh carefully the reasons which you

offer me in support of your assertion. But will you, in return, weigh

carefully the reasons I offer for asserting a fact which appears to me,

however you may think erroneously, of incalculably greater personal

moment to me as a member of the human family—namely, that “man’s history

and position are unique;—that the earth is really the largest planetary

body in the solar system—its domestic hearth, and the only WORLD in the

universe?” I am quite as much startled at having to receive your notion,

as you may be to receive mine. My great engine of proof, says his

opponent, is analogy: well, replies the other, there I will meet you;

and the first grand point to settle is, whether there is an analogy;[19]

when that shall have been settled in the affirmative, we will, as

carefully as possible, weigh the _amount_ of it.

This is the point at issue between Dr Whewell and Sir David Brewster;

who resolutely undertakes to demonstrate “_More Worlds than One_” to be

“the _creed_ of the philosopher, and the _hope_ of the Christian.” It is

to be seen whether this eminent member of the scientific world, also a

firm believer in the Christian religion, has undertaken a task to which

he is equal. He must present such an amount of proof as will require the

plurality of worlds to be accepted as his CREED, by a PHILOSOPHER; that

is, by a Baconian—one accustomed to exact and patient investigation of

facts, and inferences deducible from them; who rigorously rejects, as

disturbing forces, all appeals to our hopes or wishes, our feelings or

fancy.

There are two questions before us; to which we shall add, on our own

account, a third. The first is that asked in 1686 by the gifted and

sprightly Fontenelle (whom Voltaire pronounced the most universal genius

which the age of Louis XIV. produced), and echoed in 1854 by Sir David

Brewster: _Pourquoi non?_ Why should there _not_ be a plurality of

worlds? The second is that asked by Dr Whewell: Why _should_ there be?

“I do not pretend to disprove a plurality of worlds; but I ask in vain

for any argument that makes the doctrine probable.”[20] The third, is

our own. _And what if there be?_—a question of a directly practical

tendency. We shall take the second question first, because it will bring

Dr Whewell first on the field, as it was he who has so suddenly mooted

this singular question. But we would at the outset entreat our readers,

at all events our younger ones, to remember that we are dealing with a

purely speculative subject, respecting which zealous partisans are apt

to draw on their imaginations—to assert or deny the existence of

analogy, on insufficient grounds; to overstrain or underrate its force;

and lend to bare probabilities, or even pure possibilities, somewhat of

the air of facts, where _facts_ there are absolutely none.

I. _Why should there be_ more worlds than one? “Astronomy,” says Dr

Whewell, “no more reveals to us extra-terrestrial moral agents, than

religion reveals to us extra-terrestrial plans of Divine government;”

and to remedy the assumption of moral agents in other worlds, by the

assumption of some operation of the Divine plan in other worlds, is

unauthorised and fanciful, and a violation of the humility, submission

of mind, and spirit of reverence, which religion requires.[21] He

considers Dr Chalmers’s allowance of astronomy’s offering strong

analogies in favour of such opinions as “more than rash:” he regards

such “analogies” as, “to say the least, greatly exaggerated; and by

taking into account what astronomy really teaches us, and what we learn

also from other sciences, I shall attempt to reduce such analogies to

their true value.” We have seen Dr Whewell, in 1833, expressing an

opinion very doubtfully, with a “_perhaps_, that, as analogy would

suggest, a few of the heavenly bodies appearing to be of the same nature

as the earth, _may_ be, like it, the seats of organised beings.” He is

now disposed to annihilate those analogies, so far as they are deemed

sufficient to warrant such an immense conclusion. But that to which he

is now disposed to come is equally immense. He says, “That the earth is

inhabited, is not a reason for believing that the other planets are so,

but for believing that they are _not_ so.”[22] Her orbit “is the

temperate zone of the solar system, where only is the play of hot and

cold, moist and dry, possible.... The earth is really the largest

planetary body in the solar system; its domestic hearth; adjusted

between the hot and fiery haze on one side, the cold and watery vapour

on the other. This region only is fit to be a domestic hearth, a seat of

habitation; in this region is placed the largest _solid_ globe of our

system; and on this globe, by a series of _creative_ operations,

entirely different from any of those which separated the solid from the

vaporous, the cold from the hot, the moist from the dry, have been

established, in succession, plants, and animals, and MAN. So that the

habitations have been occupied; the domestic hearth has been surrounded

by its family; the fitnesses so wonderfully combined have been employed;

and the earth alone, of all the parts of the frame which revolve round

the sun, has become a _WORLD_.”[23] Now, let us here cite two or three

passages of Scripture, one of them very remarkable. “The heaven, even

the heavens, are the Lord’s; _but the earth hath he given to the

children of men_.”[24] “Thus saith God the Lord, he that created the

heavens, and stretched them out; he that spread forth the earth, and

that which cometh out of it; he that giveth breath unto the people _upon

it_, and spirit to them that walk _therein_:[25] ... I have made the

earth, and created man _upon it_; I, even my hands, have stretched out

the heavens, and all their host have I commanded.... Thus saith the

Lord, that created the heavens; God himself, that formed the earth, and

made it; he hath established it, he created it not in vain, he formed IT

_to be inhabited_: I am the Lord; and there is none else.”[26] Here the

Psalmist speaks of both the heaven and the earth, saying of the latter

that he has _given it_ to the children of men; while the inspired

prophet repeatedly speaks of the heavens and the earth, saying that God

had given breath to the people upon _it_, and spirit to them that walk

_therein_; that he had created man upon _it_; that he had created the

earth not _in vain_, but formed “_it_,” to be inhabited. It is not said

that he formed the heavens to be inhabited, but the earth. This passage

Sir David Brewster has quoted as “a distinct declaration from the

inspired prophet, that the earth would have been created IN VAIN, if it

had not been formed to be inhabited; and hence we draw the conclusion,

that as the Creator cannot be supposed to have made the worlds of our

system, and those in the sidereal universe, in vain, _they_ must have

been formed _to be inhabited_.”[27] Is not this a huge “conclusion” to

draw from these premises? And do not the words tend rather the other

way—to show that _the earth_, with its wondrous adaptations, would have

been created in vain, if not to be inhabited; but that the heavens may

be created for other purposes, of which man, in the present stage of

existence, has not, nor can have, any conception?

We have spoken of Sir David Brewster’s drawing a huge conclusion from a

passage of Scripture in support of his views of the question before us;

but we have to present a still huger conclusion, drawn by him from

another glorious passage: “When I consider the heavens, the work of thy

fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained; what is man,

that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest

him?” “This,” says Sir David, “is a positive argument for a plurality of

worlds! We cannot doubt that inspiration revealed to the Hebrew poet the

magnitude, the distances, and the final cause of the glorious spheres

which fixed his admiration.... He doubtless viewed these worlds as

_teeming with life, physical and intellectual_; as globes which may have

required millions of years for their preparation, exhibiting new forms

of beings, _new powers of mind_, new conditions in the past, and new

glories in the future!” In his _Dialogue_ Dr Whewell thus drily

dismisses this extraordinary flight of his opponent: “That the Hebrew

poet knew, or thought about, the plurality of worlds, is a fact hitherto

unnoticed by the historians of astronomy; to their consideration I leave

it.”

Let us now, however, follow Dr Whewell in the development of his idea,

bearing in mind his own impressive statement, in his preface, that,

“while some of his philosophical conclusions appear to him to fall in

very remarkably with certain points of religious doctrine, he is well

aware that philosophy alone can do little in providing man with the

consolations, hopes, supports, and convictions which religion offers;

and he acknowledges it as a ground of deep gratitude to the Author of

All Good, that man is not left to philosophy for those blessings, but

has a fuller assurance of them by a more direct communication from Him.”

“The two doctrines which we have here to weigh against each other,” says

Dr Whewell, “are the _plurality_ of worlds, and the _unity_ of the

world;” and he “includes, as a necessary part of the conception of a

‘WORLD,’ a collection of intelligent creatures, where reside

intelligence, perception of truth, recognition of moral law, and

reverence for a Divine Creator and Governor.”[28] His _Essay_ branches

into three great divisions, in disposing of the conjectural plurality of

worlds, and suggesting the reality of the unity of the world. First, he

considers the constitution of man: secondly, that of the earth which he

inhabits, its adaptation, structure, and position: lastly, its

neighbours in the heavens—the solar system to which it belongs, the

fixed stars, and the nebulæ; and as to these, he declares that “a closer

inquiry, _with increased means of observation_, gives no confirmation to

the conjecture which certain aspects of the universe at first sight

suggested to man, that there may be other bodies, like the earth,

tenanted by other creatures like man,—some characters of whose nature

seem to remove or lessen the difficulties we may at first feel in

regarding the earth as, in a _unique and special manner_, the field of

God’s providence and government.”[29] This is not the order in which Dr

Whewell proceeds, but it is that which we shall observe, in giving our

readers such a brief and intelligible account as we can of this

singularly bold _Essay_. He himself commences with a beautiful sketch of

the state of “Astronomical Discoveries,” with which Dr Chalmers dealt in

his celebrated Discourses; by no means understating the amount of them,

with reference principally to the number of the heavenly bodies—“a

countless host of worlds, arranged in planetary systems, having years

and seasons, days and nights, as we have;” as to which, “it is at least

a likely suggestion that they have also inhabitants—intelligent beings,

who can reckon those days and years—who subsist on the fruits which the

seasons bring forth, and have their daily and yearly occupations,

according to their faculties.”[30] “IF this world be merely one of

innumerable other worlds, all, like it, the workmanship of God,—all the

seats of life—like it, occupied by intelligent creatures, capable of

will, law, obedience, disobedience, as man is,—to hold that it alone

should have been the scene of God’s care and kindness, and still more,

of His special interposition, communication, and personal dealings with

its individual inhabitants, in the way which religion teaches, is, the

objector is conceived to maintain, in the highest degree extravagant,

incredible, and absurd.”[31] Such is, as we have seen, the assertion of

Thomas Paine; and Dr Whewell proposes to discuss this vast _speculative_

question, “not as an objection urged by an opponent, but rather as a

difficulty felt by a friend of religion;”—“to examine rather how we can

quiet the troubled and perplexed believer, than how we can triumph over

the dogmatical and self-satisfied infidel.”[32] But let _our_ reader

note well, at starting, the above mighty “IF:” which he may regard as

the comet’s nucleus, drawing after it an enormous and dismaying train of

consequences, sweeping into annihilation man’s hopes equally with his

fears.

Dr Whewell gives a lucid and terse account of the scope of Dr Chalmers’s

eloquent declamation, his ingenious suggestions, and his _astronomical_

or _philosophical_ arguments, which he deems “of great weight; and, upon

the whole, such as we may both assent to, as scientifically true, and

accept as rationally persuasive. I think, however, that there are other

arguments, also drawn from scientific discoveries, which bear in a very

important and striking manner upon the opinions in question, and which

Chalmers has not referred to; and I conceive that there are

philosophical views of another kind, which, for those who desire and

will venture to regard the universe and its Creator in the wider and

deeper relations which appear to be open to human speculation, may be a

source of satisfaction.”[33]

But “WHAT IS MAN?” is the pregnant question of the royal Psalmist; and

Dr Whewell gives an account of man, at once ennobling and solemnising;

in strict accordance, moreover, with revelation, and with those views of

his moral and intellectual nature universally entertained by the

believers in revealed religion. We know of no man living entitled to

speak with more authority on such subjects than Dr Whewell; and we think

it impossible for any thoughtful person to read the portions of his

_Essay_ relating to this subject, without feelings of awe and reverence

towards our Maker. Not that any new conditions of human nature are

suggested, or any peculiarly original views of it presented; but our

knowledge on the subject is, as it were, condensed into a focus, and

then brought to bear upon the question, What is man, that his Maker

should be mindful of him, and visit him? and thereby render the earth,

in a unique and special manner, the field of God’s providence and

government. Lord Bolingbroke objected to the Mosaic account of the

creation, and “that man is made by Moses as the final end, if not of the

whole creation, yet at least of our system:” but let us remember, that

Moses also tells us that God determined to “make _man in Our image,

after Our likeness_;” that God did, accordingly, create man in His own

image—with special significance twice asserting the fact that _in the

image of God created He him_; and he tells us that, after the flood, God

assigned this as a reason for visiting the crime of murder with

death—Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed; for in

the image of God made He man. The full import of that awful and

mysterious expression, the image and likeness of God, man, in his fallen

state, may never know. Adam possibly knew originally; and his

descendants believe that it consists in their Intellectual and Moral

nature. The former is, in some measure, of the same nature as the Divine

mind of the Creator:[34] the laws which man discovers in the creation

must be laws known to God; those which man sees to be true—those of

geometry, for instance—God also must see to be true. That there were,

from the beginning, in the Creator’s mind creative thoughts, is a

doctrine involved in every intelligent view of creation—a doctrine which

has recently received splendid illustration by a living “great

discoverer in the field of natural knowledge.”[35] Law implies a

lawgiver, even when we do not see the object of the law; even as design

implies a designer, when we do not see the object of the design. The

laws of nature are the indications of the operation of the Divine mind,

and are revealed to us, as such, by the operations of our mind, by which

we come to discover them. They are the utterances of the Creator,

delivered in language which we can understand; and being thus

_Language_, they are the utterances of an Intelligent Spirit.[36]

“If man, when he attains to a knowledge of such laws, is really

admitted, in some degree, to the view with which the Creator himself

beholds his creation; if we can gather, from the conditions of such

knowledge, that his intellect partakes of the nature of the Divine

intellect; if his mind, in its clearest and largest contemplation,

harmonises with the Divine mind,—we have in this a reason which may well

seem to us very powerful, why, even if the earth alone be the habitation

of intelligent beings, still the great work of creation is not wasted.

If God have placed on the earth a creature who can so far sympathise

with Him (if we may venture upon the expression), who can raise his

intellect into some accordance with the creative intellect; and that not

once only, nor by few steps, but through an indefinite gradation of

discoveries more and more comprehensive, more and more profound, each an

advance, however slight, towards a Divine Insight; then, so far as

intellect alone, of which alone we are here speaking, can make man a

worthy object of all the vast magnificence of creative power, we can

hardly shrink from believing that he is so.”[37]

Again: The earth is a scene of MORAL TRIAL. Man is subject to a moral

law; and this moral law is a law of which God is the legislator—a law

which man has the power of discovering, by the use of the faculties

which God has given him. Now, the existence of a body of creatures,

capable of such a law, of such a trial, and of such an elevation, as man

is the subject and has the power of—that is, of rising from one stage of

virtue to another, by a gradual and successive purification and

elevation of the desires, affections, and habits, in a degree, so far as

we know, without limit—is, according to all we can conceive, infinitely

more worthy of the Divine Power and Wisdom, in the creation of the

universe, than any number of planets occupied by creatures having no

such lot, no such law, no such capacities, and no such responsibilities.

However imperfectly the moral law may be obeyed; however ill the greater

part of mankind may respond to the appointment which places them here in

a state of moral probation; however few there may be who use the

capacities and means of their moral purification and elevation; still

_that there is_ such a plan in the creation, and that _any_ respond to

its appointments, is really a view of the universe which we can conceive

to be suitable to the nature of God, because we can approve it, in

virtue of the moral nature which He has given us. One school of moral

discipline, one theatre of moral action, one arena of moral contests for

the highest prizes, is a sufficient centre for innumerable hosts of

stars and planets, globes of fire and earth, water and air, whether or

not tenanted by corals and madrepores, fishes and creeping things. So

great and majestic are those names of RIGHT and GOOD, DUTY and VIRTUE,

that all mere material or animal existence is worthless in the

comparison.... Man’s moral progress is a progress towards a likeness

with God; and such a progress, even more than a progress towards an

intellectual likeness with God, may be conceived as making the soul of

man fit to endure for ever with God, and therefore, as making this earth

a preparatory stage of human souls, to fit them for eternity—a nursery

of plants which are to be fully unfolded in a celestial garden. And if

this moral life be really only the commencement of an infinite Divine

plan beginning upon earth, and destined to endure for endless ages after

our earthly life, we need no array of other worlds in the universe, to

give sufficient dignity and majesty to the scheme of the Creator.

The author of the _Essay_ then ascends to an infinitely greater and

grander altitude:—

“If by any act of the Divine government the number of those men should

be much increased, who raise themselves towards the moral standard

which God has appointed, and thus towards a likeness to God, and a

prospect of a future eternal union with him; such an act of Divine

government would do far more towards making the universe a scene in

which God’s goodness and greatness were largely displayed, than could

be done by any amount of peopling of planets with creatures who were

incapable of moral agency, or with creatures whose capacity for the

development of their moral faculties was small, and would continue to

be small, till such an act of Divine government was performed. The

interposition of God, in the history of man, to remedy man’s

feebleness in moral and spiritual tasks, and to enable those who

profit by the interposition to ascend towards a union with God, is an

event entirely out of the range of those natural courses of events

which belong to our subject: and to such an interposition, therefore,

we must refer with great reserve; _using great caution that we do not

mix up speculations and conjectures of our own with what has been

revealed to man concerning such an interposition_. But this, it would

seem, we may say, that such a Divine interposition for the moral and

spiritual elevation of the human race, and for the encouragement and

aid of those who seek the purification and elevation of their nature,

and an eternal union with God, is far more suitable to the idea of a

God of infinite goodness, purity, and greatness, than any supposed

multiplication of a population, on our own planet, or on any other,

not provided with _such_ means of moral and spiritual progress. And if

we were, instead of such a supposition, to imagine to ourselves, in

other regions of the universe, a moral population purified and

elevated without the aid, or need, of any such Divine interposition,

the supposed possibility of such a moral race would make the sin and

misery, which deform and sadden the aspect of our earth, appear more

dark and dismal still. We should, therefore, it would seem, find no

theological congruity, and no religious consolation, in the assumption

of a plurality of worlds of moral beings; while, to place the seats of

those worlds in the stars and the planets would be, as we have already

shown, a step discountenanced by physical reasons; and discountenanced

the more, the more the light of science is thrown upon it.”[38]

Should it be urged, that if the creation of _one_ world of such

creatures as man exalts so highly our views of the dignity and

importance of the plan of creation, the belief in many such worlds must

elevate still more our sentiments of admiration and reverence of the

greatness and goodness of the Creator; and must be a belief, on that

account, to be accepted and cherished by pious minds, Dr Whewell replies

in the following weighty passage:—

“We cannot think ourselves authorised to assert cosmological

doctrines, _selected arbitrarily by ourselves_, on the ground of their

exalting our sentiments of admiration and reverence for the Deity,

_when the weight of all the evidence which we can obtain respecting

the constitution of the universe, is against them_. It appears to me,

that to discover one great scheme of moral and religious government,

which is the spiritual centre of the universe, may well suffice for

the religious sentiments of men in the present age; as in former ages,

such a view of creation was sufficient to overwhelm men with feelings

of awe, and gratitude, and love, and to make them confess, in the most

emphatic language, that all such feelings were an inadequate response

to the view of the scheme of Divine Providence which was revealed to

them. The thousands of millions of inhabitants of the earth, to whom

the effects of the Divine love extend, will not seem, to the greater

part of religious persons, to need the addition of more, in order to

fill our minds with vast and affecting contemplations, so far as we

are capable of pursuing such contemplations. The possible extension of

God’s spiritual kingdom upon the earth will probably appear to them a

far more interesting field of devout meditation than the possible

addition to it of the inhabitants of distant stars, connected, in some

inscrutable manner, with the Divine Plan.”[39]

“In this state of our knowledge,” Dr Whewell subsequently adds, after

recapitulating the whole course of the argument indicated by the lines

above placed in italics, “and with such grounds of belief, to dwell

upon the plurality of worlds of intellectual and moral creatures as a

highly probable doctrine, must, we think, be held to be eminently rash

and unphilosophical. On such a subject, where the evidences are so

imperfect, and our power of estimating analogies so small, far be it

from us to speak positively and dogmatically. And if any one holds the

opinion, on _whatever_ evidence, that there are other spheres of the

Divine government than this earth, other spheres in which God has

subjects and servants, other beings who do his will, and who, it may

be, are connected with the moral and religious interests of man, we do

not breathe a syllable against such a belief, but, on the contrary,

regard it with a ready and respectful sympathy: it is a belief which

finds an echo in pious and benevolent hearts, and is of itself an

evidence of that religious and spiritual character in man, which is

one of the points of our argument.... But it would be very rash, and

unadvised—a proceeding unwarranted, we think, by religion, and

certainly at variance with all that science teaches—to place those

other extra-human spheres of Divine government in the planets and in

the stars. With regard to these bodies, if we reason at all, we must

reason on _physical_ grounds; we must suppose, as to a great extent we

can prove, that the law and properties of terrestrial matter and

motion apply to them also. On such grounds it is as improbable that

visitants from Jupiter, or from Sirius, can come to the earth, as that

men can pass to those stars—as unlikely that inhabitants of those

stars know and take an interest in human affairs, as that we can learn

what they are doing. A belief in the Divine government of other races

of spiritual creatures, besides the human race, and in Divine

ministrations committed to such beings, cannot be connected with our

physical and astronomical views of the nature of the stars and

planets, without making a mixture altogether incongruous and

incoherent—a mixture of what is material, and what is spiritual,

adverse alike to sound religion and to sound philosophy.”[40]

Those possessing a competent acquaintance with the doctrines of

theology, and ethical and metaphysical discussions, cannot, we think,

read this necessarily faint and imperfect outline of what Dr Whewell has

thus far advanced on the subject, without appreciating the caution and

discretion with which he handles the subject which he here discusses—one

of a critical character—in all its aspects and bearings. It is deeply

suggestive to reflecting minds, who may be disposed to note with

satisfaction how closely his doctrine, as thus far developed, quadrates

with those of the Christian system. He has well reminded us, in the

_Dialogue_, of a saying of Kant—that two things impressed him with awe:

the starry heaven without him, and _the Moral Principle within_; and the

current of his reflections tends towards that awful passage in the New

Testament,—words which fell from the lips of the Saviour of mankind:

“For what is a man profited, if he shall gain _the whole world_, and

lose his own soul? Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?”

“FOR the Son of Man shall come in the glory of his Father, with his

angels, and then he shall reward every man according to his works.”[41]

These two questions (to say nothing of the significance of the

expression with reference to the subject now under discussion, “the

whole world”), and the reason which is proposed to those who would

answer the question, as that which should govern the choice between

their own soul and the whole world, justify our attaching the highest

conceivable value and importance to man, as a rational, a moral, an

accountable being.

In the _Dialogue_, an objector suggests, “But in your inclination to

make man the centre of creation, and the object of all the rest of the

universe, are you not forgetting the admonitions of those who warn us

against this tendency of self-glorification? You will recollect how much

of this warning there is in the _Essay on Man_:—

‘Ask for what end the heavenly bodies shine?

Earth for whose use? Pride answers, ’Tis for mine.’

To imagine ourselves of so much consequence in the eyes of the Creator

is natural to us, self-occupied as we are, till philosophy rebukes such

conceit.” To which it is justly answered—“It is quite right to attend to

such warnings. But warnings may also be useful on the other side:

warnings against self-disparagement; against the belief that man is

_not_ an important object in the eyes of the Creator. I do not know what

philosophy represents man as insignificant in the eyes of the Deity; and

still less does religious philosophy favour the belief of man’s

insignificance in the eyes of God. What great things, according to the

views which religion teaches, has He done for mankind, and for each

man!”[42]

But man’s intellectual and moral nature being of such dignity and value

in the estimation of God, other circumstances connected with him tend in

the same direction, says Dr Whewell, and point him out as a special and

unique existence, in every way worthy of his transcendent position. He

is created by a direct and special act of the Deity, and placed and

continued, under circumstances of a most remarkable character, upon the

locality prepared for him. We need hardly say that Dr Whewell repudiates

the irreligious, idle, and unphilosophical notion that man is merely the

result of material development out of a long series of animal

existences. This figment Dr Whewell easily demolishes, on philosophical

grounds, in common with all the great scientific men of the age; and

having vindicated for man the dignity of his origin, as the result of a

direct act of creation, and differing not only in his kind, but in his

order, from all other creations, proceeds to consider his relations to

his earthly abode. This brings us to the second stage of his Argument,

to which we now proceed; premising that it necessarily involves

considerations relating to the constitution of man, physically,

intellectually, and morally; and especially as a being of _progressive_

development. This stage is to be found in two chapters of the _Essay_,

the fifth and sixth, respectively entitled, “Geology;” and “the Argument

from Geology,”—both written with uncommon ability, and exhibiting proofs

of the great importance attached to them by the author. Even those who

may altogether dissent from his main conclusions, will appreciate the

interesting and instructive, the masterly and suggestive outline which

he gives of this noble twin sister of Astronomy, Geology. We are

disposed to hazard a conjecture, that the governing idea developed in

these chapters, was the origin of the whole speculation to which the

_Essay_ is devoted.

MRS STOWE’S SUNNY MEMORIES.[43]

It is, we think, to be regretted that those who intend to lay before the

public their impressions of foreign travel, should so often have

recourse to the form of letters purporting to be addressed to friends or

relatives at home. We admit that, for purposes of fiction, the

epistolary style is convenient. Testy Mathew Bramble, his tyrannical

sister Tabitha, and the lovelorn Winifred Jenkins, may, by their several

lucubrations, unite to form the most amusing of family chronicles; but

Smollett, when he compiled _Humphrey Clinker_, took care that the

expression of each character should be perfectly natural. So with

Lever’s _Dodd Family_, and the immortal letters of Mrs Ramsbottom. But

the case of a party deliberately penning letters, in his or her own

name, not for the private gratification of a select circle, or the

information of those to whom they are addressed, but directly for the

press and the public, is very different. In the first place, every one

knows and feels that the letters are not genuine. The most gifted of our

race, in addressing a mother, a sister, or a child, do not think it

necessary to indulge in fine writing, or in long elaborate descriptions,

or in statistical details. They write simply—generally shortly; and a

good deal of their matter would, if submitted to the eye of a stranger,

appear to be unmeaning gossip, not improbably approaching to twaddle. We

doubt not that, in the real letters which Mrs Stowe despatched across

the Atlantic, there were many household inquiries, suggestions, and

remembrances—domestic precepts and home-thoughts—kind, motherly, or

friendly words, such as render letters doubly delightful to the

recipients. But these formal epistles which she has now given to the

world under the collective title of _Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands_,

bear falsity in their very face, and, in all human probability, the

printer’s devil was the first person that perused them. They are all

pitched in one key. Her despatches to the home nursery are as elaborate

efforts of composition, as those which are nominally addressed to her

father, or to “Dear Aunt E.”;—and, as a necessary consequence, they are

frigid in the extreme. This is an artistic blunder, which cannot fail to

detract very much from the interest of what Mrs Stowe had written. It

was not perhaps to be expected, nor indeed desired, that she should have

printed her genuine letters; but surely there was no occasion for

recasting her diary or memoranda in a purely fictitious form.

We have, however, no reason to doubt that these volumes contain a

faithful record of Mrs Beecher Stowe’s impressions of such parts of

Europe as she has visited; and we so receive them. In her preface she

requests “the English reader to bear in mind that the book has not been

prepared in reference to an English, but an American public, and to make

due allowance for that fact.”—We do not think that any explanation of

the kind was required. Mrs Stowe says plainly enough, that “the object

of publishing these letters is to give to those who are true-hearted and

honest the same agreeable picture of life and manners which met the

writer’s own eyes.”—In short, she was delighted with her tour and

reception, and generally pleased with the people whom she met; and she

wishes to communicate her own agreeable impressions to her countrymen.

No one, on this side of the water at least, is likely to object to so

kindly and benevolent a design. And we are bound to say, that had she

prepared this book with the sole object of gratifying the people of

Great Britain by indiscriminate praise of everything which met her eye,

she could hardly have been more eulogistic than she is. Nor is this at

all surprising, when we remember under what circumstances her journey to

this country was made.

No work published within our memory made so rapid an impression on the

public mind as Mrs Stowe’s novel, _Uncle Tom’s Cabin_. It became famous

among us almost as soon as it was imported from America. The theme was

of surpassing interest, the characters were powerfully drawn; there was

enthusiasm and pathos enough to thrill the heart, to call up tears, and

to awaken the general sympathies of the free for the wrongs of the

persecuted negro. It brought home to the minds of all of us the horrors

of slavery in its worst and most unendurable form. The separation of

husband and wife—the sale of children—the exposure in the public market

of men and women, whose education was often superior to that of the

brutes who bought and sold them: all these things, so revolting to

humanity, were described with an energy and power greater, perhaps, than

have been exhibited by any recent writer. Add to this that the tone of

the novel was eminently religious, and calculated to make it find its

way into circles from which other works of fiction were studiously

banished; and it is easy to account for its immense and sudden

popularity. Thousands of persons who would have thought it a positive

sin to indulge in the perusal of a romance by Scott or Lytton, devoured

the pages of Mrs Stowe with an avidity the more intense from their

habits of previous abstinence. It was a book much patronised by the

Quakers, and greatly in favour among the Methodists. It was multiplied

by countless editions; it was to be seen in the drawing-room of the

noble, and in the humble home of the mechanic; and from men of all

classes throughout Great Britain it met with a cordial acceptance.

Unfortunately, however, it entered into the heads of certain wiseacres,

that they might produce a great moral sensation, and promote other

causes besides that of emancipation, by inducing Mrs Beecher Stowe to

visit this country, and by parading her as an object of interest. Far be

it from us to attempt to dictate to the gentlemen and ladies who are the

principal promoters of the Peace Society, and the most active in the

distribution of Olive-leaves, or to those who make total abstinence a

leading article of their faith. But we may be allowed, with all

deference, to hint our opinion that, in inviting Mrs Stowe to undergo

the ordeal of a public ovation, they were not acting altogether fairly

by the lady whom they professed to honour. We trust that we have said

enough, both now and previously, to testify the sincere admiration in

which we regard her talents as exhibited in her famous novel, and our

sympathy for the cause in which that genius was displayed. Our tribute

of praise, however humble in its kind, has not been niggardly bestowed;

but we demur altogether to the propriety of making a public show and

spectacle of the authoress of the most popular work, upon even the best

or the holiest subject. We should demur to the propriety of such an

exhibition, were it even demanded by the general voice—we condemn it

when it is notoriously got up for sectarian glorification. Yet such

undoubtedly was the case with Mrs Stowe. At Liverpool, at Glasgow, and

at Edinburgh, her self-constituted friends determined that she should be

received with demonstrations which were, in the eyes of the unexcited,

purely ridiculous. There were to be anti-slavery meetings, working-men’s

soirées, presentation of addresses and offerings, and an immense deal of

the same kind of thing which was utterly unsuited to the occasion; and

the result was, that Mrs Stowe, in so far as the north of Britain was

concerned, saw little of that society which gives the intellectual stamp

to the country, and derived her impressions almost entirely from the

conversation of a limited coterie. How could it be otherwise? Mrs Stowe

was undoubtedly a very clever woman—she had written an admirable novel

upon a most interesting subject—and every one was delighted both with

its matter and its success. But was that any reason why town-councils

should receive her at railways—why people should be urged to present

addresses to her as though she had been a Boadicea, or a Joan d’Arc—or

why her presence should be made an excuse for indulging in unmeasured

speeches, or in violent objurgations against the legislature of America,

for continuing a system which we have nationally decreed to be vile in

our own dominions, and have taken every means in our power to

discountenance elsewhere? Opinion in this country, in so far as it can

be expressed—and it has been expressed in thousands of ways—is unanimous

for the emancipation of the negro. One and all of us consider the

continuance of slavery, as it exists in America, a foul blot upon the

nation, which proclaims itself as peculiarly free; and we have said so

in anything but undecisive terms. Still, what we have said, is the

expression of an opinion only. We may object to slavery in America, as

we may object to the same institution in Turkey, or to serfage in

Russia, or to anything else beyond our cognisance and jurisdiction; but

we are not entitled to usurp the right, which every separate nation

possesses, of regulating its own laws according to its peculiar

position. We say this, because, of late years, the tendency towards

popular demonstrations and sympathising meetings in England, has

increased to such a degree as even to embarrass our relations with

foreign powers. Well-meaning, but supremely ignorant vestry-men,

bustling civic magistrates, and conceited members of town-councils,

consider themselves entitled to sit in judgment and give sentence upon

all questions of European politics. The moment a political exile of any

note arrives in this country, he is fêted, and cheered, and made a hero

of by municipal dignitaries, who seize the occasion as a capital

opportunity for making ungrammatical professions of their ardent

adoration of liberty. Their sympathy in favour of insurgents is

perfectly unbounded. They have sympathised with the Hungarians—they have

sympathised with the Italians—and, until very lately, they showed great

sympathy for those gentlemen who were compelled to leave France for

their conspiracies against the existing government. It is not a little

amusing to contrast the tone which is now assumed by the liberal press

and by the municipalities of England towards Louis Napoleon, with that

which was prevalent some eighteen months ago! We should like to see an

ovation attempted now in honour of the French republicans. And yet what

change has taken place? Ledru Rollin is as good a patriot now as ever;

the title of the Emperor to the throne of France is not one whit better

than it was before. We are now engaged in war; and the utmost efforts of

our statesmen have been used to induce Austria to join with the Western

Powers. And yet, in the face of these negotiations, we find that, in the

large towns of England, Kossuth is declaring to immense and sympathising

audiences that the accession of Austria to our side would be the means

of riveting the chains on the oppressed nationality of Hungary! This

conduct on the part of the English public, or rather that portion of it

which has an inveterate itch for meddling with what it does not and

cannot understand, is not only silly, but positively dangerous. If the

people of every State were to act in this way, war would not be the

exception, but a perpetually existing calamity; and nation would rise

against nation, not on account of acts of positive aggression, but

because each objected to the mode in which the other administered its

own affairs. We have no scruple in expressing our conviction that, since

this sympathising mania commenced, Great Britain has lost much of her

influence as a first-rate European power. It has the effect of placing,

apparently at least, the Government and the people in antagonism—of

detracting from the power of the one, and unduly adding to that of the

other. And—what we regret most deeply to see—it has raised and fostered

the impression that we are collectively a nation of braggarts. It is

most natural that it should be so, for we are perpetually vaunting about

the force of public opinion in this country, and declaring that nothing

can stand against it. On the Continent the voice of the towns is

considered as the sure index of public opinion; and if that voice had

been taken, not very long ago, we should ere now have been engaged in

liberating crusades in behalf of Hungary and Italy. The Government, of

course, and the vast bulk of the educated and thinking classes

throughout Great Britain, estimate these ridiculous exhibitions at their

proper value, and treat them with silent contempt;—not so foreigners;

who, being assured that in the principal towns of England immense

meetings have been held and resolutions passed in favour of insurgency,

conclude, naturally enough, that these are demonstrations of that public

opinion of which they have heard so much, and that the British

Government cannot do otherwise than yield to the pressure from without.

Perhaps the most absurd commentary upon this exceedingly reprehensible

system of sympathising may be found in the fact, that while our mayors,

provosts, aldermen, bailies, and other civic small-deer, are

sympathising with the oppressed nationalities of Europe, various of

their Transatlantic brethren are doing the same in behalf of Ireland and

the Irish, and holding up the people of England to the scorn and

detestation of the universe, as the cold-blooded, fiendish, and

systematic torturers of the oppressed Celtic nationality!

But we must not diverge too much from our immediate subject. It seems to

us that there really was no occasion for holding public meetings to show

that the sympathy of this country was decidedly in favour of the cause

of emancipation, or to irritate the Americans by a vain-glorious

comparison of our own conduct contrasted with theirs. We ought, in

common decency, to remember that no very great tract of time has elapsed

since slavery was abolished in the British colonies; and as, in matters

of this kind, interest is always a ruling motive, we should also bear in

mind that the prosperity of those colonies has not been increased by the

substitution of free for forced labour. Very few of us, on this side of

the Atlantic, are able to give a competent opinion as to what effect

immediate and unconditional emancipation might produce upon the

slave-holding States of America; and therefore we are hardly entitled to

do more than to assert the general principle, which condemns the

absolute property of man in man. How entire emancipation, which we

trust, before long, every State in America will adopt, can be carried

out, must be left to the wisdom and discretion of the local

legislatures. No change so great as this can be wrought suddenly.

Christianity itself must be inculcated, not coerced, for violence never

yet made converts; nor was the blood-red baptism of Valverde, who held

the cross in the one hand and the sword in the other, equal in efficacy

to the calm expositions of Xavier. Now, it is very plain to us that, in

her own way, Mrs Beecher Stowe is a zealot. She has been writing and

working at this subject of emancipation, until she has ceased to see any

practical difficulty between her vision and its realisation, and wants

to persuade all others that no practical difficulty exists. We agree

with her so far, that we contemplate not only as desirable, but as

necessary for the political existence of the United States of America, a

measure for the ultimate and entire emancipation of the negro; but we

cannot take upon ourselves the responsibility of urging an immediate

change, which might have the effect, in many important respects, of

deteriorating instead of bettering the condition of the black

population. What more, by any possible effort, can the people of Great

Britain do than they have done? Every man in America knows that we

detest the system of slavery. We have shown that by a long series of

legislative measures, and by national grants to purchase the freedom of

our slaves in the colonies; and very few names, indeed, are held in

greater honour in this country than those of Clarkson and Wilberforce.

But most assuredly we have no right to dictate to other nations, or to

insist that they shall adopt our views in the regulation of their

internal policy. We might just as well attempt to coerce them in matters

of religion, and, founding upon our belief in the purity of

Protestantism, insist that the Catholic states shall renounce the

authority of Rome. Certainly we shall not improve the cause of the

American negro by indulging in bitter terms and unlimited objurgation

against the States which do not, as yet, see their way to immediate

emancipation. All the great reforms of the world have been progressive.

To hasten them unduly, and until men are fit to receive them, is the

mere work of anarchy; and the world-history of the last sixty years,

whilst it conveys a terrible warning against the neglect of a despised

population, shows us that, in order to be permanent, all social

ameliorations must be carefully and cautiously introduced.

But we feel that we owe an apology to Mrs Stowe for this digression. It

was no fault of hers that she had to run the gauntlet through so many

soirées, or to appear perpetually in the disagreeable character of a

_lionne_. The whole programme was arranged before she set foot in this

country; and she had nothing else for it than to go through her allotted

part with patience and equanimity. We must admit that she was sorely

tried during her sojourn in the north. She seems to have been under the

custody of a special dissenting body-guard, with about as little liberty

of action as the unfortunate Lady Grange. No wonder that Scotland

appeared to her a very different country from the land of her

imagination. Not one of those by whom she was surrounded possessed a

spark of romantic enthusiasm, or cared about the associations which have

shed the light of poetry over the land. “One thing,” says Mrs Stowe,

“has surprised, and rather disappointed us. Our enthusiasm for Walter

Scott does not apparently meet a response in the popular breast.” Very

little indeed does the lady know of the beating of the national heart of

Scotland, or the veneration in which the memory of our greatest poet is

held by his countrymen. But it is not at soirées, or meetings such as

she witnessed or attended, that the national feeling finds a voice; nor

have the writings of Sir Walter Scott been ever favourably regarded by

the rigid sectarians among whom she moved. His thoughts were not as

their thoughts are, nor would it be possible that any sympathy should

exist between minds so differently constituted. We cannot expect Mr

Sturge to take much delight in the “Lay of the Last Minstrel,” or a

sleek member of the Peace Society to feel his spirit moved by the chaunt

of the “Field of Flodden.” What has amused us most in the perusal of

this book is, the evident influence which the dislike of her friends to

the martial strains of Scott produced at length upon herself. She seems

to have entered Scotland in a sort of fever of enthusiasm, as is

testified by the perpetual quotations from Sir Walter’s poetry—rather

common, by the way, for they are to be found in all the guide-books—in

which she indulges. By-and-by she begins to find that her raptures are

coldly listened to by the society in which she moves; and ultimately she

seems to have adopted the view that in some respects her friends were

right. The following is a very pretty _morçeau_ of criticism: “The most

objectionable thing, perhaps, about his influence is its sympathy with

the war spirit. A person Christianly educated can hardly read some of

his descriptions in the _Lady of the Lake_ and _Marmion_ without an

emotion of disgust, like what is excited by the same things in Homer:

and as the world comes more and more under the influence of Christ, it

will recede more and more from this kind of literature.” We marvel that

Mrs Stowe, who is a clever woman, does not perceive that the people of a

country in which the spirit which she pleases to reprehend becomes

extinct, must necessarily be in time succeeded by a race of unresisting

slaves. The remark, too, comes with a peculiarly bad grace from a lady

who is not only proud of the independence of her country, but affects

intense enthusiasm for the struggles of the Puritans and Covenanters in

Great Britain. However, we suppose she thought it polite to the members

of the Peace Society, among whom she was moving, to give this little jog

to their principles; and it may be that, after all, her intimacy with

the writings of Scott is considerably less than one would conclude from

the quantity of quotation. Certainly we were surprised to find it stated

by a lady of so much literary pretension and apparent acquaintance with

the personal history of Sir Walter, that Abbotsford “is at present the

property of Scott’s only surviving daughter;” and we must also confess

that some of her quotations unsettle our ancient ideas as to the limits

of the Border. For example, she says with reference to a visit paid at

the Earl of Carlisle’s—“I was also interested in a portrait of an

ancestor of the family, the identical “Belted Will” who figures in

Scott’s “Lay.””

“‘_Belted Will Howard_ shall come with speed,

And _William of Deloraine_, good at need.’”

Possibly Lord Carlisle was not previously aware that his ancestor was a

Scotsman, and a retainer of the house of Buccleuch. With equal propriety

might Omer Pasha be described as a hetman of the Cossacks, rushing to

the rescue of Gortschakoff.

On the whole, we are inclined to think that the American public will not

derive much enlightenment on the subject of Scotland and the Scots from

the revelations of Mrs Stowe. We can assure them that the general

aspect, tone, and sentiments of society here do not at all correspond

with what is represented in her pages. It is not the fact that the

greater part of our time is occupied by delivering or listening to

wish-washy platform speeches, or even to such as have “the promising

fault of too much elaboration or ornament,” on the subjects of

tee-totalism, olive-leavery, or any of the other mild absurdities of the

day. It is not the fact that we have lost all grateful memory for the

warlike deeds of our ancestors, or for the poets who have worthily

recorded them. And, above all, it is not the fact that Mrs Stowe had a

fair opportunity of forming a judgment, on almost any point, of the

views entertained by the bulk of the more educated classes of society.

We do not say this at all in disparagement of the parties among whom she

moved, and by whom she was so hospitably entertained. We have every

respect for their worth, position, and acquirements; and we are well

aware that among the ministers of various denominations to whom she was

introduced, and of whom she speaks affectionately, there are many whose

talent, learning, and devotion have made their names known beyond the

waters of the Atlantic. It must have been peculiarly gratifying to her

to receive the congratulations of the late venerable Dr Wardlaw of

Glasgow, of Dr John Brown of Edinburgh, whom she rightly calls “one of

the best exegetical scholars in Europe,” and other lights of the United

Presbyterian and Congregationalist Churches. In Edinburgh, Glasgow, and

Aberdeen she received much civic kindness and attention; but we are at a

loss, after reading her book, to discover much trace of her intercourse

with general society beyond a very limited coterie. True, she refers to

some persons “from ancient families, distinguished in Scottish history

both for rank and piety,”—and especially to a “Lady Carstairs,” of whose

corporeal existence we can find no trace in any Book of Dignity within

our reach. All that, however, is of little moment; and we never should

have thought of alluding to such circumstances, were it not that, so

very much having been said in America on the subject of Mrs Stowe’s

reception in Scotland, her account of what she saw may naturally be

received as an accurate picture of the country. We have no doubt

whatever of her general accuracy in describing what she saw. We are very

proud to think that she was received with much enthusiasm and

cordiality; and nothing could be more genuine than the expression of

feeling on the part of the working-classes. Her book undoubtedly struck

most deeply in the popular mind; producing a sensation which we have

never seen equalled, inasmuch as it extended through every grade of

society. And we can very well understand the intensity of the feeling

which must have thrilled Mrs Stowe, when she found that even in

sequestered villages in Scotland her work had been moistened with tears,

and that the people, on the announcement of her approach, thronged to

welcome the woman who had exercised so mighty a spell over their

intellect and their passions. There was, really, no delusion in the

matter, in so far as admiration of her talent and respect for her

intrepidity were concerned; but we may, at the same time, be allowed to

regret that she was made part of a premeditated pageant. The utter want

of delicacy which marked the whole arrangements was most extraordinary.

We are sure that Mrs Stowe must have been surprised, if not disgusted,

at finding herself announced as ready to receive deputations and

addresses at certain stated hours, and at the invitation of crowds to

attend in order to cheer her at railway stations. There is something

elevating in spontaneous enthusiasm, even when it is carried beyond the

limits of strict propriety; but demonstrations such as those to which we

have alluded, are not only unfair to the party paraded, but border

closely on the ludicrous. No quackery of the kind was required to insure

Mrs Stowe a cordial reception in Scotland; and we fear that in some

respects it operated rather to her disadvantage than otherwise.

We confess to have been greatly disappointed in the perusal of her

northern tour. We had expected to derive some amusement, if not

edification, from the remarks of a lady whose previous publications had

manifested considerable power in the depiction of character, not unmixed

with occasional glimpses of humour; the more especially as there is much

in the northern idiosyncrasy which must appear peculiar in the eyes of a

stranger. Nothing of the sort, however, is to be found in the pages of

Mrs Stowe. Read her work, omitting the familiar names of places, and one

would be utterly at a loss to suppose that she is describing Scotland

and its inhabitants either outwardly or inwardly. Saunders, as she

depicts him, is a sort of sentimental Treddles, minding every body’s

business more than his own, intoning peace speeches on a platform with a

strong nasal twang, and refreshing himself, after his labours, with

oceans of the weakest and the worst of tea. It is ten thousand pities

that Mrs Stowe should not have witnessed either a Lowland kirn or a

regular Highland meeting. Possibly the sounds either of fiddle or of

bagpipe might have grated harshly on her ear; and the “twasome” reel or

that of Houlakin been regarded as forbidden vanities; still she would

have been infinitely the better of some more diversified experience,

which might at least have caused her to avoid the error of depicting us

as a nation of Mucklewraths, Hammeryaws, and Kettledrummles. As for her

outward sketches, we must say that we greatly prefer the ordinary

guide-books. They have at least the merit of being concise, and do not

usually confound localities and historical events, as Mrs Stowe

certainly does when she indicates Glammis Castle as the scene of the

tragedy in _Macbeth_.

Moving southwards, Mrs Stowe seems to have been surrendered, in the

Midland Counties, almost entirely into the hands of the Quakers. They

appear to have acted towards her with considerable indulgence; for her

host, albeit one of the most eminent of his sect, consented to join a

party to Stratford-on-Avon. Mrs Stowe’s Shakespearian remarks do not

appear to us either so novel or profound as to justify any lengthy

extract—indeed, they are chiefly confined to speculations as to what

Shakespeare might have done or said had he been born under different

circumstances and in a different age. Disquisitions of this sort appear

to us very nearly as sensible and profitable as the question, once

gravely argued in the German schools, whether Adam, if born in the

fifteenth century, would instinctively have betaken himself to the

occupation of a gardener. Mrs Stowe, upon the whole, inclines to the

opinion that Shakespeare would have ranked with the Tories. She

says—“That he did have thoughts whose roots ran far beyond the depth of

the age in which he lived, is plain enough from numberless indications

in his plays; but whether he would have taken any practical interest in

the world’s movements, is a fair question. The poetic mind is not always

the progressive one; it has, like moss and ivy, a need for something old

to cling to and germinate upon. The artistic temperament, too, is soft

and sensitive; so there are all these reasons for thinking that perhaps

he would have been for keeping out of the way of the heat and dust of

modern progress.” Certainly, understanding progress in the sense which

Mrs Stowe attaches to it, we cordially agree with her that Shakespeare

would have kept out of its way; but it does seem to us a most monstrous

assumption that he would have taken no practical interest in the world’s

movements. Of all the poets that ever lived, Shakespeare was decidedly

the most practical and comprehensive in his views. So far from being

addicted to clinging to old things, from mere want of moral stamina, he

has created a new world of his own; and no man ever possessed so keen a

power of analysis of human character, and perception of the springs of

action. But possibly we do her wrong. The word “practical” nowadays has

divers significations; and if Mrs Stowe simply means to express her

belief that Shakespeare, had he existed in our time, would neither have

been a habitual spouter upon platforms, a vegetarian, a tee-totaller, a

member of the Peace Congress, nor a unit of the Manchester phalanx, we

beg leave to record our entire acquiescence in her estimate. Also we

think that, as an eminent vice-president of the Fogie Club lately

phrased it, she has hit the nail on the point, when she adds—“One thing

is quite certain, that he would have said very shrewd things about all

the matters that move the world now, as he certainly did about all

matters that he was cognisant of in his own day.” We have not the least

doubt of it.

The Stratford pilgrimage, however, seems to have given little

gratification to any of the party except Mrs Stowe, who considered it in

the light of a duty. Her brother, the Rev. C. Beecher, who was of the

party, doing a little independent platform business whenever he could

with propriety, and whose journal materially swells the bulk of the

second volume, seems to be quite the sort of man whom Prynne would have

delighted to have honoured. Relic-hunting after professors of the lewd

art of play-making, was by no means to his taste; and accordingly we

find the following commentary delivered over the tea and crumpets on the

questionable amusements of the day:—“As we sat, in the drizzly evening,

over our comfortable tea-table, C—— ventured to intimate pretty

decidedly that he considered the whole thing a bore; whereat I thought I

saw a sly twinkle round the eyes and mouth of our most Christian and

patient friend, Joseph Sturge. Mr S. laughingly told him that he thought

it the greatest exercise of Christian tolerance, that he should have

trailed round in the mud with us all day in our sight-seeing, bearing

with our unreasonable raptures. He smiled, and said quietly—‘I must

confess that I was a little pleased that our friend Harriet was so

zealous to see Shakespeare’s house, when it wasn’t his house, and so

earnest to get sprigs from his mulberry, when it wasn’t his mulberry.’

We were quite ready to allow the foolishness of the thing, and join the

laugh at our own expense.”

Warwick Castle, where Mrs Stowe grows critical upon art, after a very

peculiar fashion—and Kenilworth, at which she indulges in the somewhat

singular remark that “it was a beautiful conception, this making of

birds”!—need not detain us. The pleasure trip was succeeded by a

penance, in the shape of a lecture “against the temptations of too much

flattery and applause, and against the worldliness which might beset me

in London,” delivered by a celebrated female preacher, belonging to the

Society of Quakers, of the name of Sibyl Jones, who had “a concern upon

her mind for me.” That Sibyl possessed somewhat of the prophetic spirit,

appears plain from the commentary of Mrs Stowe, who was sensibly touched

by the hints which she received, and very likely began to feel that she

had been somewhat over-elevated by the inflation of the northern

Puffendorffs. In all seriousness, we believe that the lesson was both

well meant and well timed; but the commentary appended is but one of the

many proofs contained in these volumes, that Mrs Stowe is something more

than a passive spectator of the Transatlantic movement for establishing

what are called the “Rights of Woman”—in more vulgar language, the

superiority of the grey mare, and the supremacy of the petticoat over

the breeches. Now, as to the supremacy of women, we never had any doubt

about it—few men, who have been married for a year, can be sceptical

upon that point—and the utmost that men can demand from their wives as

to the respective ranking of the garments, is, in the ancient and

significant language of the Highlanders, to be allowed “to cast their

clothes together.” Moreover, to the wife is invariably committed that

highest symbol of authority known as “the power of the keys;” so that

she has it in her power at all times to coerce her husband by the

simplest and the readiest means. In fact, she has him at a dead lock,

and possesses the entire command of the press. Young Hampden may talk as

much as he pleases, at his Club, about the liberty of the press, and its

being as essential as the air he breathes; but, when he returns home,

about one in the morning, he is very fain to take his candle, and move

up-stairs as quietly as possible, without attempting to enfranchise any

incarcerated spirits. We do not hesitate to declare ourselves in favour

of the supremacy of the wife in her own household, believing that it is,

in almost every case, an unavoidable consummation, and, upon the whole,

the very best arrangement that human ingenuity could devise. But the

American notion goes far beyond this. The advocates of the “Rights of

Woman” admit of no such paltry compromise as the surrender of domestic

authority. What you as a man can do, of that your wife is equally

capable, and may lawfully exert herself accordingly. Are you a

barrister—why should not your wife, who has studied as a juris-consult,

and been admitted to the honours of the forensic gown more legitimately

than Portia, take a fee from the opposite party, and, by an influence

only known to herself, cause you to quail before you have proceeded

half-way in the exposition of the cause of your client? Or are you a

doctor—Harriet Hunt, M.D., forgive us for this supposition; for your

image, albeit we never saw you and never may, often haunts us in our

dreams, and from your imaginary hand have we received multitudes of

indescribable but seemingly celestial pills—how would you like your wife

to be called in as an adviser on the homœopathic principle, after you

had staked your existence on the superiority of the drastic method, and

see her recover a patient in less than a week, whereas you had

calculated upon a month’s legitimate fees under the ordinary curatory

process? Or let us suppose that one of the fairest dreams of the

strong-minded women of our generation should be realised, and that all

political disabilities were removed from the fair sex, so that they

might be admitted to sit and vote in Parliament. We scorn to take up the

objection which might occur to a common mind of the impossibility of the

Speaker maintaining order—we shall suppose a far worse case; and that is

the possible disagreement between man and wife in political principle

and conduct. How could you possibly endure the spectacle of your spouse

accompanying the smiling Mr Gladstone to a division in one lobby, whilst

your stern sense of duty compelled you to retire into another? How could

you possibly remain at bed and board with a woman who was in the habit

of attending those meetings at Chesham Place, which Lord John Russell is

so fond of calling whenever he requires a friendly castigation, as Henry

II. bared his brawny shoulders to the monks? And how, as a gentleman and

a man of honour, could you reconcile it with your conscience to lay your

head on the same pillow with a woman who can support the Coalition

Ministry, and even go the length of declaring that she has confidence in

the Earl of Aberdeen? Or we shall come to preaching, which is perhaps

the more germain to the matter. The Rev. Asahel Groanings, of some

undefined shadow of dissent, marries Miss Naomi Starcher of

corresponding principles, with a fortune of some few hundred pounds,

which are speedily sunk, beyond hope of extrication, in the erection of

an Ebenezer. Both are licensed to the ministry, Asahel officiating in

the morning and his helpmate in the afternoon. But somehow or other,

Asahel is not popular with his congregation. His style of oratory

reminds one unpleasantly of the exercitations of a seasick passenger in

a steamboat, and his visage is ghastly to look upon, being distorted as

if he laboured under a permanent attack of colic. Whereas, the voice of

Naomi is soft as that of a dove cooing in a thicket of pomegranates, her

countenance is fair and comely, and the thoughts of the elders, as they

gaze upon her, revert to the apocryphal history of Susannah. The result

is, that Asahel utters his ululations to empty benches, whilst Naomi

attracts hundreds of the rising youth of dissenting Christendom. How can

their union possibly be a happy one; or how can they continue to

fructify in the same theatre of usefulness? Yet Mrs Beecher Stowe

absolutely goes the length of recommending, or at least sanctioning, the

view that ladies should be allowed to preach. She says, “The calling of

women to distinct religious vocations, it appears to me, was a part of

primitive Christianity; has been one of the most efficient elements of

power in the Romish church; obtained among the Methodists in England;

and has in all these cases been productive of great good. The

deaconesses whom the apostle mentions with honour in his epistle, Madame

Guyon in the Romish church, Mrs Fletcher, Elizabeth Fry, are instances

which show how much may be done for mankind by women who feel themselves

impelled to a special religious vocation.” Then she goes on to cite the

case of the prophetesses, and tells us that “the example of the Quakers

is a sufficient proof, that acting upon this idea does not produce

discord and domestic disorder.” We are afraid that Mrs Stowe’s platform

experiences have tended somewhat to warp her better judgment upon this

point; and we beg to submit that, according to her own showing, the

ladies of America have quite as much to do, in the interior of their

households, as they can possibly manage to accomplish, without entering

into any of the learned professions, or attempting to eclipse their

husbands. The following extract is certainly a curious one. We, of

course, are not answerable for the correctness or colouring of the

picture, these being matters for which Mrs Stowe is amenable to the

consciences of her countrywomen.

“There is one thing more which goes a long way towards the continued

health of these English ladies, and therefore towards their beauty;

and that is, _the quietude and perpetuity of their domestic

institutions_. They do not, like us, fade their cheeks lying awake

nights ruminating the awful question who shall do the washing next

week, or who shall take the chamber-maid’s place, who is going to be

married, or that of the cook who has signified her intention of

parting with her mistress. Their hospitality is never embarrassed by

the consideration that their whole kitchen cabinet may desert at the

moment that their guests arrive. They are not obliged to choose

between washing their own dishes, or having their cutglass, silver,

and china, left at the mercy of a foreigner, who has never done

anything but field-work. And last, not least, they are not possessed

of that ambition to do the impossible in all branches, which, I

believe, is the death of a third of the women in America. What is

there ever read of in books or described in foreign travel, as

attained by people in possession of every means and appliance, which

our women will not undertake, single-handed, in spite of every

providential indication to the contrary? Who is not cognisant of

dinner-parties invited, in which the lady of the house has figured

successively as confectioner, cook, dining-room girl, and, lastly,

rushed up-stairs to bathe her glowing cheeks, smooth her hair, draw on

satin dress and kid gloves, and appear in the drawing-room as if

nothing were the matter? Certainly the undaunted bravery of our

American females can never enough be admired. Other women can play

gracefully the head of the establishment; but who, like them, could be

head, hand, and foot, all at once?”