"'Tis a friend," said he.

The gipsy made a step backwards, in distrust and uncertainty.

"I tell you it is a friend," repeated Herrera--"a comrade of my own, who

has come to aid my escape. And now that you have rescued me, act as our

guide to the nearest Christino post, and your reward shall be ample."

The mention of reward seemed at once to remove the doubts and suspicions

of the esquilador. Returning to the rope which dangled from the window,

he cut it as high up as he could reach.

"They may perhaps miss the sentry and not the prisoner," said he.

At that moment a dark form turned the corner of the house.

"Who goes there?" exclaimed a voice.

"This way," cried the gipsy, and springing across the road, he dashed

down a bank, and with long and rapid strides hurried across the fields.

"Who goes there?" repeated the deep hoarse tones of Major Villabuena

"Sentry, where are you? Guard, turn out!"

The flash and report of Mariano's musket, which he had left leaning

against the wall, and which Don Baltasar found and fired, followed the

words of alarm. The bullet whistled over the heads of the fugitives. In

another instant all was noise and confusion in the village. The rattle

of the drum was heard, lights appeared at the windows, and the clatter

of arms and tramp of man and horse reached the ears of Herrera and his

companions. Soon they heard a small party of cavalry gallop down a road

which ran parallel to the course they were taking. But in the darkness,

and in that wild and mountainous region, pursuit was vain, especially

when one so well skilled as the gipsy in the various paths and passes

directed the flight. In less than half an hour, the three fugitives were

out of sight and sound of the village and their pursuers.

After six hours' march, kept up without a moment's halt, over hill and

dale, through forest and ravine, the intricacies of which were threaded

by their experienced guide with as much facility as if it had been

noonday instead of dark night, Herrera and Torres paused at sunrise upon

the crest of a small eminence, whence they commanded a view of an

extensive plain. On their right front, and at the distance of a mile,

lay a town, composed of dark buildings of quaint and ancient

architecture, surrounded by walls and a moat, and on the battlements of

which sentries were stationed; whilst from the church tower the Spanish

colours, the gaudy red and gold, flaunted their folds in the morning

breeze.

"What place is that?" said Torres to the guide.

"It is the Christino town of Salvatierra," replied the gipsy, turning

into a path that led directly to the gate of the fortress.

SICILIAN SKETCHES.

SYRACUSIANA.

FOUNTAIN OF ARETHUSA.

After three hours' steaming from Catania, we were in the harbour of

Syracuse; but it was at two in the morning, and we could not go ashore.

A little scuttling takes place overhead while the Mongibello litters her

two hundred and forty horses for the night; and, when this is

accomplished, all is silent, and we sleep in the moonlit mirror. In two

hours more the last star had dropped out of its place; and in another,

rosy morn found us all in activity, and on deck, examining a most

unprepossessing _paysage_, and contemplating, for many a league, the

wretched coast road which must have been our doom if we had _not_ come

by sea--so, for once, we had chosen well! Our alternative would have

consisted in two days' swinging in a _lettiga_, in facing malaria in the

fields, with nothing but famine and fever-stricken hamlets to halt at,

and even these at long intervals. There were, to be sure, places enough

of ancient _name_, in D'Anville's Geography, along the coast, but

nothing _beyond_ the name itself. This is so exactly the case, that even

with the beautiful and authentic money of _Leontium_ before us, we did

not land at _Lentini_! There is nothing so utterly confounding as the

contemplation of _money_, every piece of which is a _gem_, on spots

where no imagination can conceive the city that coined it. We are not

long before we begin to cater for new disappointment, in the desire to

be conducted without delay to the fountain of _Arethusa_. Accordingly, a

quarter of a mile's distance from our locanda, under the rampart of the

old _Ortygia_, and in the most uncleanly suburb of modern Syracuse, the

far-famed spring is pointed out to our incredulity; and we are at once

booked with the many who, having got up a suitable provision of

enthusiasm to be exploded on the spot, are obliged to carry it away with

them. A vile, _soapy washing-tank_ is Arethusa, occupied by half-naked,

noisy laundresses, thumping away with wooden bats at brown-looking

linen, or depositing the wet load that had been belaboured and rinsed on

the bank, gabbling, as they work, like the very _Adonizousoe_ of

Theocritus, (himself, as he informs us, a native of Syracuse.) A man lay

sleeping with his dog beside him; a number of mahogany-coloured

children, quite naked, were sprawling on the parapet-wall, covered with

flies, but fast asleep! A poor bird, a descendant of the [Greek: Adones

Sikelikai], a nightingale of the soil, _with his eyes put out, that he

might not know day from night, and so sing unconsciously, sang to us as

we passed_! But the affair was destined, in a single moment, to become

ludicrous as well as disappointing. Our guide, Jack Robertson, (so named

by an English man-of-war's crew that had, as he said, kidnapped him

during the war,) quite mistaking the _nature_ of our disappointment,

said, consolingly, "You come _dis_ way, sir; down here I show you _more

gals' feet, wash more clothes_;" on which intimation we certainly

followed him down a few steps, when, pushing back a wooden door, we

entered at once into a large roofed washing-house, along the floor of

which still ran the sadly humiliated Arethusa! We praised the beauty of

the young washerwomen, and departed--Jack Robertson having considerably

more to say on the subject than would interest the reader to know; and

which, in fact, we could not tell, without violating what was evidently

imparted in confidence.

JACK ROBERTSON AND THE PROFESSOR OF ELOQUENCE.

Under the guidance of the aforesaid Jack Robertson, we had visited two

rival collections of coins, the property of two priests, and certainly

the finest we had seen in Sicily. Those of _Syracuse_ in silver, of the

_first_ or largest module, (_medaglioni_ as they are technically

called,) are for size and finish deservedly reputed the most beautiful

of ancient coins; and of these we saw a full score in each collection.

We might indeed have purchased, as well as admired, but were deterred by

the price asked, which, for one perfect specimen, was from 45 to 50

crowns, (£7 or £8 sterling.) These coins are among the largest extant.

On one side, the head of Arethusa is a perfect gem in silver, (the

_hair_ especially, treated in a way that we have never seen elsewhere;)

on the other, is a _quadriga_. One of these ecclesiastics dealt like any

other dealer. The other consulted the dignity of the church, and

employed a lay brother to impose upon strangers who buy in haste to

repent at leisure; for even among the picked, select, and _winnowed_

coins of the man who knows what he is about, there are always false

ones. Having shown that we are _au fait_ both as to the _thing_ and the

market-price--that we had read Myounet, and were acquainted with the

sharp eyes of _de Dominicis_ at Rome, we pass immediately for an English

_dealer_; and suspicion becomes conviction, when, taking up a gold

Philip, we remark that "all trades must live," and that our price must

depend upon his "_quanto per il Filippo_?" "You will not scruple,

I suppose, to pay forty-seven dollars!" "Thirty-seven is

plenty."--"_Pocket Philip._" "Sir," said we to our employé as we went

home, "you are a _rogue_ to have brought us to that cheating priest."

"Not so, sir," said the Siculo-Inglese Jack Robertson, "they tell here

priest _not_ cheat, always deal _square_--have that character indeed,

sir;" and he proceeded to conduct us to another priest-collector, who,

in this instance, had gone out to dine with a friend. Jack, however,

said he would soon bring him back, dined or undined; and in ten minutes

he returned in high spirits at his success. "Always trust _me_, sir! Me

no fool, sir! As soon as I see him, sir, I say, you got _coins?_ He say

'_yes_.' Den you show what you got _directly_ to English gentlemen. 'No,

I won't,' he tell me--'I take my dinner here wid my friends, and after

dat I come see English gentlemen.'" Rather a cool thing we thought for a

_dealer_ to keep his customers waiting; but, whenever one wants any

thing, one can always afford to wait a little, and Jack informed us that

he had learned from the padré's servant that his master always dines in

a quarter of an hour. The quarter of an hour up, we send again, but our

messenger comes back empty-handed. "Well, where is your friend?" "He no

friend of mine, sir! He very angry! Not my fault, sir," "Angry? what is

he angry about?" "Because I say to him only this, sir--'_Other_ priest

ask gentleman _too much_--hope you not _very dear too_, sir;' to which

he say, '_You damn fool_, I don't sell coins!' _Den_ I beg his pardon,

and he ask me sharply, '_Who_ say I sell coins?' 'Sir,' I say, 'all the

whole world say so.' Den he say, '_D--n all the whole world_; and when

any body tell you this again, say Abate _Rizzi_ call him a d----d fool,

and say he may go to h-ll!!!'" "Abate Rizzi!! why, that is the

_Professor of Eloquence_ to whom we were to be introduced yesterday."

"Yes, sir," says Jack, "and here he comes," glancing up the street. We

now see a personage, whose staid deportment and gait declare him to be

much beyond the age when it may be thought allowable to swear. "You

rascal, you have been telling us a lie; that gentleman could never have

said, damn the whole world." "He did not speak it in _English, sir_."

"Not speak it in English? why, what did he say?" "Sir, he say, '_Cazzo!

questa é una minchioneria!_' that means 'damn fool,' sir,--'_dettia

tutti d' andare al diavolo_,' that be the same as tell every body go to

h-ll!!" (the translation in this case we thought not _so_ bad;) we had

not, however, time to discuss the matter, for the Professor of

Eloquence, who had indulged our servant _pro re nata_ with so very

unusual a specimen of his art, was at our elbow. We saluted him

courteously, but offended dignity was apparent in a grave face of

considerable _church_ power; we therefore subjoined to the ordinary

salutation much regret at the awkwardness of our guide, and apologised

for intruding on his repose; which apologies, and further explanations,

immediately changed the current in our favour. Jack, too, regretted he

had been so indiscreet as to be misled by _current reports_; but _this_

was to rouse the calmed resentment into a new explosion. "_Who_," he

demanded, in very Demosthenic accents--"_who_ had dared to affirm that

he had ever sold a coin?" We went in, saw his very beautiful collection,

the Professor himself doing the honours with so much obligingness, that

we left him convinced that he neither sold coin nor dispensed anathemas.

EAR OF DIONYSIUS.

"Lautumias Syracusanas omnes audistis; plerique nostis. Opus

est ingens magnificum regumac tyrannorum. Totum est ex saxo in

mirandam altitudenem depresso, et multorum operis penitus

exciso. Nihil tam clausum ad exitus, nihil tam septum undique,

nihil tam tutum ad custodias, nec fieri nec cogitari potest."

Half an hour's shaking in a _lettiga_ brings us without a stumble, by

the old forum of Syracuse, to the Ear of Dionysius, and those other

stone quarries so well described in the above passage from Cicero _in

Verrem_. We alight at the embouchure of these most striking excavations,

and, descending a very steep short hill, wind through a small garden of

exquisite vegetation, and are in the first _lautumia_ of the series.

Here, deeply embayed in a colossal cave, we behold the marks of the

ancient pick-axe, and the niches, as it were, in which the labourers sat

while they chiselled out the extraordinary work, fresh as if they had

been done yesterday! Shapeless and half-fashioned masses, _ebauches_ of

columns for temples which never came into the possession of capitals, or

the support of entablatures--unborn Dorics of the Greek portfolios are

here. The sun striking obliquely from the mouth into the interior of the

cavern, made the green vegetation all hoary in the slanting light. Fires

in dark caverns are favourite subjects with some painters. We admire

them not, but we would have liked to take a sketch of one here for the

sake of poor Nicias and his fellow captives. A party of men is collected

round a caldron with a fire blazing beneath it; another group is seated

at a long table eating; some feed the immense boiler with new supplies

from a heap of dirty-looking earth-stained _salt_. Others test the

quality from time to time of that which has been purged and

crystallized. It was the native nitre of the country on which they were

occupied, and the test was its deflagration. In passing out of the

_first_ of the line of quarried caverns to go to the _Ear_, which is the

last, we are struck with the beauty of the garden into which it opens,

which is found in possession of many unfrequent flowers and plants, such

as had not prospered even here, but for the singularly sheltered

disposition of the spot. Against the wall there grew a magnificent

_Smilax sarsaparilla_ in full maturity. A decoction of the twigs of that

tree cured the gardener, as he assured us, of an obstinate pain in both

shoulders that no other medicine would touch; which testimony in its

favour made us look with an added interest on the cordate leaf, and

small white verbena-looking flower, of certainly the first, and in all

probability the last, _Smilax sarsa_ we should ever see _growing_. We

cut off from the main stem an arm about the thickness of an

ordinary-sized bamboo, and, like it, knotted, for a souvenir of the

place and the plant. In this same garden the tea-plant thrived; the

proprietor, Count S----, makes an annual _racolte_ of its leaves, which

he keeps for his own teapot. Another curiosity is the _Celtis australis_

or _favaragio_, a tree that bears fruit of the size of a pea, with a

stone kernel; a trumpet-flower of spotless white, belonging to the

_Datura arborea_, measured a whole foot and a half from lip to stalk!

But it were vain to dwell on the novelties of a garden which is _all_

novelty to an English eye, and full of variety to the Italian himself; a

garden equally unique in its position and productions. The _Ear_ is

probably the most wonderful acoustic contrivance in existence; and that

it was the work of studious design, is proved by a _second_ one

_commenced_ in a neighbouring quarry--commenced, but not further

prosecuted, evidently because it would not answer, from the soft, chalky

material of the wall on one side. Its _external_ shape of the conch is

that of the ass's ear. The aperture, through which the light now enters

from its further end, and from a height of one hundred and twenty feet,

was till lately not known to exist; it not being supposed that the _Ear_

had any _meatus internus_ corresponding with the _external one_. The

accidental removal of a quantity of loose stones from above, revealed a

narrow passage of from twenty to thirty feet in length, and opening

directly into the cave. This internal opening is situated almost

immediately over the amphitheatre, one hundred and twenty feet above the

_floor_ of the cavern, and (measuring in a plane) is one hundred and

eighty feet from the external opening.

Having rent paper, which made an incredible noise, and let off a

Waterloo cracker, which reverberated along the walls like thunder, and

done other deeds of the same kind below, we ascended, and walking over

the _back_ of the cavern, presently came upon the passage which leads to

its _inner_ opening; and there, leaning over a parapet wall, (in doing

which we almost exclude the feeble light that penetrates into the cavern

from behind,) we are startled by a very audible but faint whisper, which

comes from our friend below, asking us to declare our present

sensations. We reply in the same faint whisper; and are immediately

apprised of its safe arrival by _another_. One hundred and eighty feet

separate the parties. In the stillness of that half-lit cavern, not only

were our faintest whisperings conveyed, but we could hear each other

breathe! This was a place to come and see!

SANTA LUCIA AND THE CAPUCIN CONVENT, &c.

Some Franciscans told us that Saint Lucia was stabbed close to a granite

column, in a subterranean chapel in their church, in the _fourth

century_, and _under Nero_!--so ignorant are these men even about what

it concerns them to know. They show a silver image, which a dozen men

can, they assure us, scarcely lift. The body of the saint is not,

however, here, but at Venice. "No; we have but one rib and a thumb,"

said the padré! "but we have two very handsome _dresses_ which she

wore--one red, the other blue." Cast-off clothes, then, will do for

relics! In returning to the church, they tell us of a blind old general

who came hither on purpose to obtain the intercession of: Santa Lucia,

(who had her own eyes put out,) to remove this calamity; with success of

course, for they never record failures in church _clinique_. "Do you

believe the cure?" we ventured to ask. "Why not? il miracolo e

_autenticato_." "No!" said his companion, "_autorizzato_! The

distinction is, that the church _authorizes_ the declaration of some

lies as miraculous, but declines to make herself responsible for the

reality of others!" Round the Capucian church certain stanzas are

written, under what are called the fourteen _stazioni_ or stations of

the cross, (places where our Saviour is supposed to have halted, or

fainted under his load, on his way to Calvary.) Stanzas we were at first

profane enough to attribute to Metastasio, but afterwards found that it

was only the _metastasis_ of his metre adapted to the use of the church.

They are much better than most of our sacred poetry, as it is strangely

miscalled, which is frequently neither poetry nor common sense:--

"Il sol si oscura,

E in fin la terra

Il sen disserra

Per grand dolor;

Morto è il Signore!

O Peccatore,

Se tu non piangi,

Sei senza cuor!

"Deh, madre mia,

Con quant' afflitto,

Piangendo, al Petto,

Stringi Gesù!

Io, l'ho fer ito,

Ma son pentito--

Non più peccati,

Non più, non più!

"Dal tuo sepolcro,

Non vo partire,

Senza morire,

Ma qui starò;

Finchè 'l dolore

M'uccida il core,

L'alma piangendo

Qui spirerò!" &c. &c.

The Capucins live on a hill in the only good air in the vicinity of

Syracuse; in their precincts we found ourselves fairly attacked on

_Luther's_ quarrel, and expected to take up cudgels ecclesiastic on that

worn-out controversy--one of our Capucins vaunting himself ready and

able to bleed for the _truth_. Liberal ideas are not common in the

cloister. "You aver," said he, "that Roman Catholics may be in a way of

salvation; we by no means return the compliment--but as both Lutherans

and Calvinists agree in believing thus charitably of _us_, and not of

one another, it seems a pretty strong argument in our favour." With such

high subjects did our apparently very much in earnest friends entertain

us, in a garden planted amidst those quarried prisons of the captive

Athenians. A man attempted to-day to put off some bad coins upon us,

which we recollected to have had offered to us by another hand--still we

only hinted that they were forgeries, and declined purchasing. While

this was in progress, another person came up properly introduced, with

an _enlarged spleen_, which was _certainly_ authentic. We tell him that

such indurations of viscera require a _very long time_ indeed for

removal: and that malaria is their origin This convent possesses one of

those revolting vaults, which dry up and preserve the corpse in the form

of mummy; a huge trap-door flapped its wooden wings, and gave us

admission into a large subterranean apartment, wherein we presently

stood in the midst of defunct brethren arranged along the walls, as if

they stood in chapel at their devotions! On the floor thirty or forty

light boxes looked like orange chests, with custom-house hieroglyphics

on their lids; but they were marked with proper and even high-sounding

names, and were in fact the coffins of barons, counts, and prelates,

transported here to have the _benefit of the air_, and there accordingly

they lay unburied, to profit by the antiseptic qualities of the soil. We

looked at a baron or two, and saw something like a huge caterpillar

beginning to change into a chrysalis; a grub mummy dressed out in old

Catanian silk, and so enveloped in cobwebs, that you could with

difficulty make out the central nucleus of shrivelled humanity.

"_Questo_," said our cowled conductor, "è il Barone Avellina, morto di

cholera, anno ætatis fifty-six; he loved our order! here is another

equally good-looking personage," said he, exposing a corrugated face and

dark hair, frightfully at variance with a blue silk handkerchief, and

all the funeral gear of twenty years ago. This was another victim to

that awful visitation; his feet and hands were covered with faded herbs,

rosemary, and lavender; first placed in the coffin at the time of his

decease, and renewed every year by friends, when the cobwebs of the year

preceding are brushed away. One elder, the pride of the collection, had

lain in his court-suit for nearly a hundred years, the aforesaid

aromatics having kept off the moths all this time. The room felt dry,

and, except for the _company_, what one calls _comfortable_.

Knee-buckles and shoe-buckles, and steel-hilted swords, do not rust

here, and white cravats and embroidered waistcoats might almost return

to the world! The Capucins themselves are disposed in niches, and each

has a text from Scripture over his cowl. "Do you _prepare_ these

mummies?" we enquire "_Nienti preparati, signor!_ We only lay them to

dry in yonder room over a sink, and when they have lain four months, we

take them out and complete the process in another room, where the sun

comes; after which we dress them and place them here." These Capucins,

they tell us, are the strictest of all sects of Franciscans. From the

sights of the mummy chamber, we see at least that they are not idle, and

must always have a job on hand. Females, if _not_ Catholic, are here

admitted to see the grounds, and they offer wine and bread for our

refreshment, which we, thinking of their _wallets_, decline on the plea

of _anorexia_. Near the Capucins is the Church of _San Giovanni_, a

singularly wild spot, in the midst of bad air, and within reach of the

Ear of Dionysius. We descend with a fellow filthier than the filthiest

Capucin, calling himself a hermit, to guide us in the vast catacombs

over which the hermitage stands. It was a trial to follow him--the rank

woollen dress, uncleansed till it falls to pieces, diffuses an odour

which, in such confined passages, is particularly unpleasant.

Cleanliness, says an English proverb, is next to godliness; but, in

cowled society, it assuredly forms no part of it. Catacombs, in general,

are called interesting--we never saw one in which we did not pay heavy

penalty for gratifying curiosity. Those of Syracuse are vast indeed;

spacious arcaded streets intersect each other in all directions, and

your walk throughout lies between lengthening files of niches, cut into

the walls for coffins, tier above tier, like berths in a steamboat,

conducting here and there into a circular apartment, with a cupola and a

central aperture, looking out upon the wild moor above.

SHARKS, FIREFLIES, &c.

We form to-day the acquaintance of an intelligent medical practitioner

and collector in natural history, from whom we learn that there are

eight different species of dog-fish (_Squalus_) along the Syracusan

coast. This animal, to the popular fame of whose injurious exploits we

had hitherto yielded unabated confidence, appears fully to justify his

West Indian character. An "ancient mariner" told us, that full forty

miles from Syracuse, a shark, which had been following him for a long

time, thrust his head suddenly out of the water, and made a snap at him;

and if the boat had not been a _thunny_ boat, high in the sides, there

is no saying how much of him might have been extant! A pair of trousers

drying in the sun over the side of the boat should have small attraction

for a shark, but he _took_ them on _speculation_. At one of the

principal thunny fisheries near Catania, the fishermen have fixed upon

poles, like English kites on a barn-door, _pour encourager les autres_,

two immense sharks' heads as trophies--the jaws at full gape, exhibiting

four sets of teeth as sharp as harrows, and as white and polished as

ivory. They always wish to decline any dealings with this formidable

foe, though his flesh is in repute in the market, and he weighs from two

thousand five hundred to four thousand pounds. But Syracuse has no

reason to complain of scarcity, or to eat shark's flesh from necessity;

most of the _Scomber_ family,--the _alatorya_, the _palamida_, and a

fine gray-coloured fellow which the fishermen call _serra_, frequent her

coast; then there is the _Cefalo_--the ancient _mugilis_, our gray

mullet--and the sea-pike, _Lucedimare_, whose teeth and size might well

constitute him lieutenant to the dog-fish,--all these came to table

during our stay; but we did not meet with one very superior fish known

to the ancients as the _Lupus_, (_labrax_ of the Greeks,) which abounds

when in season, and is known in every comfortable _ménage_ along the

Sicilian coast; his Linnæan name is _sparus_. On the shore are to be

picked up occasionally two small kinds of shells _peculiar_ to Sicily,

of which our intelligent acquaintance is so obliging as to give us

specimens. We never saw or heard of a firefly in Sicily. Professor Costa

of Naples, though he doubted the fact of there being none, had never

seen any in his frequent entomological trips to that island. This

beautiful insect, so common about Florence and Rome, and in central

Italy, is extremely rare about Naples; nor does this seem to be from

their disliking the sea, for we never saw so _many_ as at _Pesaro_, on

the Adriatic;--no insect, then, is more _volage_, or uncertain as to

place, than the firefly. The only poisonous _reptile_ of Sicily is the

_viper_, of which there seem to be several varieties. A beautiful blue

thrush (_Turdus cyaneus_), a great _talker_, much prized, and

_high-priced_ too, when he has been taught to speak, is found in the

rocky clefts about Syracuse. The heat and brilliancy of the sunshine

render it extremely difficult, we are told, to preserve collections in

natural history. All the water drunk here is _rain water_. The butter,

fruit, and vegetables of Syracuse are, in the month of May at least,

bad, very bad; but its _Muscat_ wine, its _Hybla_ honey, and its fish,

are all of superior quality.

The honey of that hill needs not our praise,

----"quæ nectareis vocat ad certamen

Hymetton,

Audax Hybla, favis."

For ourselves, after tasting the confection of the Attic as well as of

the Sicilian bee, we know not which is the greater artist, or which

operates on the finer material; but the _best_ honey in Europe, in our

opinion, comes from the apiaries of Narbonne.

A CONSULTATION.

We had given advice, and were preparing to go, when another candidate

comes forward, and, with suitable gesticulation, _so_ placed his hands

that we could not help saying, "Liver, eh?" "_Eccelenza_, si!" "Dopo una

febbre?" "_Illustrissimo_, si!"--Folk now beginning to wink approvingly

at our sagacity, we were looking exceeding grave, when a pair of

Sicilian eyes set in a female head put us quite out by evidently taking

us for a conjurer, and so setting at once our ethics, our pathology, and

our Italian dictionary at fault. Still the surgeon congratulates the

room on the "_lumi_" brought to it by the strange doctor, approves of

the prescription, and corroborates our opinion that the "Signore _Don

Jacomo_" _Somebody_ was the incontestable possessor of a "_flogosè

chronica del fegato!_" We now said we must go; and _two_ children ran

for our hat, the man with the liver kisses our hand, others seize our

coat-skirts, and the guide, Jack Robertson, carries the mace and leads

the way, and puts himself at the head of the procession homewards; and

glad were we to escape the embarrassment of curtsies and courtesies, to

which we are unused, and far too extravagant ones to admit of reply.

Come! the best of fees is a poor man's gratitude; but from poor or

rich, at home or abroad, it is seldom that medical men walk off so

magnificently.

EXCURSION TO EPIPOLÆ.

The country about Syracuse is neither grand nor beautiful; but the

ground is _classic ground_, and Sicily has not been brought within the

reach of an intercourse which, while it polishes and confers substantial

benefits, removes the sacred rust of antiquity. The Hybla hills, as

hills, are not equal to the Surrey hills as one sees then from one's

window at Kensington; but Hybla is Hybla, and here we eat the honey and

sip the wine of the soil. Yonder plain before our breakfast-table is

plain enough, and promises little; but that small insignificant stream

is the _Anapus_, those columns belonged to a temple of Jupiter, that

white tower, five miles off, marks _Epipolæ_, the snow-capped Etna is

the background of the picture, and the bay at our feet once bore that

Athenian navy which left the Piræus to make as great a mistake as we did

in our American war. We rowed across that bay to the mouth of the

Anapus, and penetrated up the stream to the paper manufactory, from real

papyrus, on its banks. The vestiges of a temple of Diana, converted into

a monastery, and the nearly perfect remains of that amphitheatre which

Cicero pronounced the largest in the world, are not to be seen in every

morning's walk! Of Archimedes, without being able to fix his proper tomb

among so many, the _name_ here is enough. One ought to be able to

conjure with it; the genius that concentrated the sun of Syracuse on the

hostile anchorage, was of no common measure. We spent our day on a visit

of the deepest interest, up at _Epipolæ_ (_i.e._, the position _on or

over the city_, as Thucydides expresses it,) the acropolis, in fact, of

Syracuse, and at about the same distance from the town itself as Athens

is from Piræus. In order to do this commodiously, we allowed ourselves

to be suspended between two mules in a very narrow watchman's box,

_lettiga_, (the ancient _lectiga_, you will say--no: here there is

nothing for it but an erect spine.) The see-saw motion is unpleasant as

well as unusual; the mules, though docile, have not the _savoir faire_

of a couple of Dublin or Edinburgh chairmen. You must sit _quite_ in the

middle, or run the perpetual chance of capsizing. A little alarming,

also, is it to look out on the stone-strewn furrow, over which the mules

carry you safely enough; and when you have become reconciled to the

oscillation, and have learned to trim the boat in which you have

embarked, it is long before your ear becomes accustomed to the stunning

sound of a hundred little bells fastened to the mules' heads. "_Do_ take

them off," said we, after half an hour's impatience; "do, pray, remove

these infernal bells!" "And does the signor imagine that _any_ mule

would go without falling asleep, or lying down, were it not for the

bells?" We arrived safe and stunned, in about an hour and a half, at the

foot of a tower of no Roman or Sicilian growth, but a bastard

construction upon the ancient foundations of Epipolæ. We saw, however,

some fine remains of a wall, which might have been called Cyclopian, but

that the blocks which composed it were of _one_ size. Our guide, a

mason, and, of course, an amateur of walls, insists upon our calling

this a _capo d'opera_, as, no doubt, it is. On the spot itself there is

nothing antique to see; but the drive or ride is one of the most

remarkable in all the world! It takes you over from four to five miles

of a rocky table-land, by a very gradual ascent, abounding with

indelible traces of human frequentation, else long forgotten. The deep

channelling of those wheels is still extant that had transported million

tons of stone out of those interminable lines of quarries, to raise

buildings of such grandeur as to give occasion to Cicero to say, that he

had "seen nothing so imposing as the ancient port and walls of

Syracuse!" The scene is altogether wild and peculiar; you pass for miles

amidst excavated rock, and on the flagstones of ancient pavement,

between the _commissures_ of which wild-flowers, principally of the

_thistle_ kind, spring up into vigorous life, and look as if they grew

out of the very stone itself. The small conduit-pipe of an underground

aqueduct still serves to carry from the same sources the same water; but

the people who used it are gone. In the wildest parts of the way, the

large flat stones, that formed a continuous road, serve for

_barn-floors_--or rather _threshing_-floors that require _no barns_--on

which long-horned cattle tread out, without any chance of bad weather to

injure, the golden grain of the Sicilian harvest. Here lives the

blue-breasted _hermit bird_ in unmolested solitude; and, careless of

solitude, the _Passer solitarius_ utters her small twitter in the

hollows--a few goats browse amongst the scanty thistles, and one or two

dogs protect them. Snakes, hatched in vast number under the warm stones,

show you their progress, by the motion they impart to the thin light

grass; and an endless variety of new lizards present themselves in a

soil not untenanted, though barren. From a plain, justly called Bel

Veduta, we see _Catania_ and _Lentini_, (Leontium,) famous once for its

coinage, infamous now for its malaria. A little bay bears the great name

of _Thapsus_; and, opposite, a small mass of nearly undistinguishable

houses, the ambitious distinction of _Port Augusta_.

We have seen our sights, and are returned, and waiting to go on shore.

Our paddle-wheels are once more at rest in the harbour of Messina! They

have let down the windows of the long room on deck, in which we had

taken shelter from the vermin below, and wake we must, though it is not

five o'clock. The sun breaks cover to-day, magnificently, behind

Messina; but the Health-office having no inducement to open its eyes

prematurely, will not, for some time, send its delegates on board, to

announce our liberty to land. We have nothing for it but to look over

the boat, or study haggard faces reflected in the unflattering mirror of

a beautiful sea. The hauling about of things on deck is always pleasant,

as a signal of voyage over! The sun still shines full upon the long row

of houses on the quay--fishing boats are entering with abundance of

fresh fish for our dinner, and shoals of silvery sardines, untaken, are

leaping out of the water near our prow, to escape from a large body of

mackerel which is pursuing them. The authorities are coming! We don't

want any cards to hotels, but cram a dozen into our pockets, and ask if

there are any more here? We are sorry to take a new guide. Jack

Robertson has spoiled us for some time. When he pocketed our

supplementary piece, as we were coming off, he told us, "haud sine

lacrymis," it should buy a linen shirt for his youngest child. "I good

Christian, sir, I no tell you lie, sir! I love my children, upon my

word! When they go to bed, my wife not able to attend them, sir! They

cry, father. I say, yes! _Bread_, says little Bill--I get up; give him

some bread. Mary say, _water_, and I get up for water six times every

night!--no story, sir!" "How many hours do you work?" "When sun get up,

sir, till it be mid-day; I go see childer till three, den work hard at

BUILD WALL till sun go down; den I go home. I wish I could speak English

better; but you understand me, sir." We rowed off with many _vivas_, and

this poor mason's "hopes" that we "might _find all square at home_." At

home! Oh, that we had a home!!--an unassuming wife--placens et tacens

uxor; an unpretending house, with a comfortable guest-chamber; and no

noiseless nursery, _unfendered_ and uncared for! But the bells of

Messina, all let loose together, interrupt our pleasing reverie, and our

friends, who have been hovering round us in a boat, are now permitted to

approach, and to land with us at our hotel. 'Tis our last day!--in the

evening, we go to hear Sicilian vespers for the last time; and the next

day we are off for Naples!

ADDIO! SICILIA!

On deck!--off!--Stromboli is already veiling himself in the rapidly

encroaching shades of darkness, and it is time to say good-night to

this fair night, and to go to our cabin. Beautiful Sicily! may this

_not_ be our final leave-taking! We found no poetry below, and in a

short time are driven back from the cabin by its complicated nuisances,

to moonlight contemplation, and catching cold. An hour elapses--a town

not to be forgotten by the Neapolitans is just ahead. The moon shines

brightly on its high-perched castle, and we have scarce stopped the

paddles, when our deck is invaded by a new freightage of passengers,

already far too many. Twenty boats full of noise and animation, with all

the exaggeration that attends both in these latitudes; every pair of

oars fighting for a fare, and knocking one another over board in

contention for passenger or parcel destined to land at Pizzo. They ship

about with the wildness and alacrity of South-Sea islanders; some are

all but naked, and every quarrel is conducted in such a Calabrian

brogue, that the very men of Messina profess not to understand them, and

to treat them as savages rather than as countrymen. The small fort in

front was disgraced by the nocturnal trial and prompt execution of the

unfortunate Murat. It is long ago; but of these noisy disputants for the

things to be landed, some probably had been eyewitnesses of the last

bloody act of a blood-stained throne. A poor sick horse, confined in his

narrow crib on deck, blinks at the moonlight, and can neither sleep nor

eat his corn; he drops his lower lip, and presents an appearance of more

physical suffering than we should have thought could have been

recognized in face of quadruped; but pain traces stronger lines, and

understands the anatomy of expression better than pleasure. We wished to

land for half an hour, but this being impossible, _addio Pizzo!_ Our

vessel is quickly off, and our Cyclopean stokers are already mopping off

their black sweat in the dreadful glare of the engine-room. Some cages,

full of canaries and parrots, just become our fellow-passengers, are all

in a fluster at the screaming and bustle to which they are unused, and a

large cargo of turkeys, with fettered legs, and fowls that can only flap

their wings, do so in despair at the treatment threatened them by the

dogs on deck--second and third class passengers are fighting for

prerogatives in misery, amidst the clatter of unclean plates, and the

remains of the supper of the fore-cabin. The space for walking, is

encumbered with coils of cordage, and the empty water-barrels are all

taken possession of for seats. Bad tobacco, even among the _élite_, and

garlic every where, drive us to the fore-deck, or to the neutral ground

between it and ours. A passage, which promised fair when we started,

begins, now that we are half over, to look suspicious; and a preliminary

lurch or two, as the breeze freshens, converts many from an opinion they

had begun to _promulgate_, that the steamer on the Mediterranean

afforded, _on the whole_, the most eligible mode of traversing space. We

looked at each other piteously enough, on seeing that we were fast going

to face a magnificent specimen of a wave, of which our piston was

determined to try the valour, and if possible abate the confidence. When

Greek meets Greek, said we, as we dashed through it, and gave a warning

to old Neptune to take care of his interests below! Other huge parcels

of water hit us obliquely, or come down upon us with a swoop like a

falchion; steam hisses, and chimney gets red-hot; but though the vessel

yields not, there be those on board who _do_: an Anglo-Sicilian pleasure

party is quenched in twenty blanched faces at once; conversation is

over, women retire, and the deck is deserted. Against such _ups and

downs as these_, the very philosophy of the Stoics were powerless!--even

thou, O moon! seemest a _little_ disconcerted, and hast withdrawn thy

_pale_ face from thy whilom plate-glass, _the Mediterranean_, so often,

for weeks together, like the inland lake of the north,

"Thy _mirror_! to inform

Thee, if the dark and arrowy storm

The forest boughs that brake,

Require thy slender silvery hand, to still

Thy ruffled wreath of _lily_ and jonquil!"

_Pindemonte._

Whew!--wind gets up, and takes part with wave, and all against us--never

mind!--

"Hurrah! for the marvels of steam,

As thus through the waters we roam;

For pistons that smite, oh! for funnels that gleam,

And to carry us safe through the _foam_."

Whew, whew!--but greater divinities than Neptune are abroad

to-night!--What! expect our _black_ chimney to show the _white_ feather!

Pooh! pooh! old _Eunosigæus_, what are thy _white horses_ to the

invisible hoofs of two hundred and forty coal-black steeds stamping in

the hold? We had, however, a sharp seven-hours' tussle for it; at the

end of which, the buffeted Mongibello came bounding into the harbour,

and swirled round in the face of Vesuvius, who was smoking his cigar as

quietly as ever!

We have tried several Mediterranean steamers, and our report of all is

much the same--bad is the best! A sea passage any where, to be

comfortable, depends _solely_ on the smoothness of the water; if this be

rough, what care you for mahogany, rosewood, and plate-glass? Whether

the cabin where you are to be sick, and to hear others groan, has its

Scotts, its Byrons, and its Moores, under a convex mirror; its rows of

curtained births, and horse-hair sofas, and its long line of polished,

well articulated tables? Whether the smell of empyreumatised grease be

wafted to the nostrils by a _Maudsley_ or a _Bell_? Whether the captain

have his _ears bored_, or be an Englishman? Your brass nails and

varnished _buffets_ are very well _in dock_, when the vessel has _stank_

off her last voyage, and lies clean washed, like that other _syren_ of

the opposite coast, who coaxed Ulysses and his men, some years ago--not,

indeed, to _come on board_, but the contrary. But when her deck is all

soot and nastiness, when she has quartered her vermin on her passengers,

and goes gurgling along, as if _she had an Empyema under her pleura

costalis_; when she _pitches into_ the waves, as if to _punish_ them,

and tramples on their crests, as if to crush them under her keel, why

all the brass you want is "ÆS TRIPLEX;" and there is no _varnish_ in the

world that will enable _you_ to put _a good face on it_. A few heaves

more, such as those of our present imagining, and brandy and water,

bottled porter, and _bottled philosophy_, are uncorked in vain!

As to particular steamers, the Castor since he lost his twin-brother,

who was run down off _Capo D'Anzo_ (he forgot, we suppose, to invoke

Fortune "_gratum quæ regit Antium_"), has become quite negligent of

toilette, and incredulous about the powers of soap and sand. The bugs in

only _one_ of her beds would defy _Bonnycastle!_ Fast enough, however,

goes the Castor! Orestes, pursued by the furies, never rushed more

impetuously on than does this child of Leda, with all his vermin in the

locker. Of Virgil in the water, we have no experience, but they say his

_prosody_ is perfect, and his _quantity_ (of accommodation) blameless.

The Dante under paddles is unknown to us; but the poem which his

customers read oftenest on board is doubtless the _Purgatory_. The

captain of the Palermo, an obliging man, _with ear-rings_, and speaking

Siculo-English, does his job in nineteen hours; and giving you one

execrable meal, gives you more than enough. This vessel (blessed

privilege!) carries some of the Teffin family (Mr Teffin, our readers

know, was _bug-destroyer to the king_), and _is said_ to have no bugs.

As to the two floating volcanoes, Vesuvius and Mongibello, we had heard

much against the Neapolitan _crater_ (_cabin they_ call it), and, after

due preparation, we precipitated ourselves into the latter, which

placards her two hundred and fifty horse-power. The engineer, however,

if you acquire his confidence, reduces the team considerably, taking off

at least one-fifth. Horse-power is, after all, we fear, an appeal to the

imagination! How do you measure horse-power? and what horses? Calabrian

nags? Arab stallions? Dutch mares? or English drays? or perhaps you mean

_sea-horses?_ That every vessel has a great _rocking-horse power_ we

know by sad experience, and are come to read one hundred and fifty, two

hundred, &c., with great tranquillity, being convinced that when the

translation from horse-power into paddle-power is effected, you obtain

no corresponding result.

ÆSTHETICS OF DRESS.

MILITARY COSTUME.

Military dress is almost as difficult and dangerous a thing to deal with

as ladies' attire; as various in its hues and forms, as fanciful in its

conceits, as changeable in its fashions, and as touchy in the temper of

its wearers. To pull a guardsman by his coat-tail would be as

unpardonable an offence as to tread on a lady's skirt; and to offer an

opinion upon a lancer's cap might be considered as impertinent as to

criticise a lady's bonnet. Having, however, been bold enough to commit

offences of the latter description, we will now venture to brave the

wrath of the whole of Her Majesty's forces, horse, foot, and artillery,

while we read those gallant gentlemen a lecture on their costume; and we

will even add into the bargain that other most honourable and equally

useful branch of the public force "the mariners of England;"--as for

"the force," the police, truly we eschew them and their deeds. They are

a perverse, stiff-necked race, who wear two abominations, round hats and

short coats, and they have a villanous propensity of following you home

from your club of an evening, and inveigling you every now and then to

Bow Street, thrusting a broken knocker or two into your pocket as you go

along, and then pestering your bewildered memory with all sorts of

nocturnal misdemeanors; truly they are a race of noxious vermin; pretty

well, perhaps, for the protection of the swinish multitude; but for us

gentlemen, why, they "come betwixt the wind and our nobility," and their

remembrance stinks in our nostrils! One thing only we know in their

favour,--they dress all in one colour; their blueness alone makes them

sufferable in this nineteenth century of ours, and whenever they depart

from this great principle of æsthetic unity, we will bring in a bill for

their suppression.

Now, if there be any thing more self-evident than the ante-Noachian

problem that "two and two make four," it is this axiom, the verity of

which was demonstrated long before Achilles behaved in so

ungentlemanlike a manner to Hector, when he took him that dirty drive

round Troy, viz., that utility for purposes of service is the very

essence and spirit of military costume. The finest dressed army in the

world had better be in plain clothes, if the excellence of their

clothing depends only upon its ornament; while, on the contrary, the

plainest and most rudely equipped corps will come out of campaign with

excellent military effect and appearance, provided only that their

clothing has been suited to their service. "My dear fellow," said an old

moustache to us one day on the Place du Carrousel, "give me 20,000 men

who have served in nothing but blouses and blue caps, and I'll make you

ten times as fine a line as all that mob of national guards there in

their new uniforms." And he was right; in military matters it is the man

that produces the real effect, as to appearance, upon the long run; and

the practised eye of the old campaigner would prefer a Waterloo man in a

smock-frock to any flunkey you could pick out, even though he were

dressed up as fine as Lady L----'s favourite chasseur. We assert, then,

that a scrupulous attention to the nature of the service should form the

basis and the starting point of all discussions as to military costume;

but we will not go so far as to say that ornament is inadmissible or

unnecessary for military men. On the contrary, we know that the

adornment of the person has been attended to by the bravest men in all

ages and in all armies; and we know further, that it does produce a

powerful effect on the _morale_ of a corps. We intend to advocate the

use of frequent but consistent ornament for our soldiers, but we do not

wish to turn then into mere paraders. Use first and before every thing,

in this case at least--ornament next and entirely subsidiary to it; keep

to this rule, and you shall see an army turned out into the field

better than most that pass muster now-a-days.

It is of no use going into that diffuse subject--that _vexatissima

quæstio_--of how far the military dress of ancient days accorded with

the wants and uses of the service; the reader may go and look into that

dusty little volume of _Vegetius de Re Militari_, if he is fond of

dabbling in military antiquities; or he may consult our learned old

friend, Captain Grose of facetious memory; or still better, let him be

off to Goderich Court, and ask the porter to admit him to a sight of the

finest collection of armour in the world. We are not going to dive into

these matters; we will rather say roundly, that ever since armour came

to be disused, we think military men have gone clean daft in equipping

themselves. Only look at the uniforms of the campaigns of the Grand

Monarque or William of Orange; see what inconvenient coats those

glorious fellows that won Blenheim and Ramilies wore; recollect the

absurd turn-out of Charles XII., and even of Frederick the Great.

Convenience and comfort seem to have been totally out of the question in

those days--not that they made the men worse soldiers--they all fought

admirably--but we question whether their fatigues would not have been

less, and their health sounder, had they been clad and equipped in a

sensible manner. Oh, the powder, and the pigtails, and the broad cuffs,

and the Ramilies cock, and the sword tucked through the coat-tail!

Glories of glorious times, ye are gone for ever! But so, too, are the

tactics of your wearers; all is changed; another Cæsar has swept you all

off the field; and even the famous uniforms of the French empire, so

brilliant,--but at times so absurd,--even they have been altered. They

have had their day, and most of them are fit now only for fancy-balls

and old-clothes' shops. Nothing is so short-lived as a good uniform; it

varies with the taste of a commander-in-chief, or a commander-in-chief's

toady; or the fancy of some royal favourite. It's like the wind in the

Mediterranean; you never know what is coming upon you till you are in

the midst of it; and so it is with your uniform. Get a new one, and the

probability is that you will not show it on parade half-a-dozen times

before a new regulation is out, and then more work for the tailors. Be

it so, then; military costume, like all other kinds, is doomed to

change; let us aim only at keeping its vagaries within something like

the limits of common sense.

The infantry of our own army--the successors of those noble fellows that

walked across Spain--have no better covering for their backs than the

scanty and useless coatee; in this they parade, and in this they are

supposed to fight. Behind, two little timid-looking skirts descend any

thing but gracefully; they are too small to have any grace in them; and

a pair of sham cotton epaulettes, or large unmeaning wings, are

supposed, by a pleasing fiction of the military tailors, to adorn their

shoulders. Now, this garment, we contend, is neither ornamental nor

graceful: were it cut down into the common jacket, it would be better;

were the excrescences at the shoulders removed, it would be more seemly;

it has no warmth in it, and offers little or no protection against the

rain. No soldier, who has been reduced to his coatee in a campaign, but

must have sighed after his original smock-frock, or any other outer

covering that had at least some pretensions to being useful. Since,

however, the idea of defending the body of the foot-soldier by steel or

leather is given up, the two things requisite in a serviceable coat are

warmth and convenience. No coatee nor jacket can be warm enough for the

British service, exposed as the men are to all varieties of climate; and

infinitely more to cold and wet than to sunshine. In India, and in some

of the colonies, a lighter kind of clothing may be indeed necessary; but

for the common use of the army, a coat is wanted that shall be a

protection against wet and cold, and yet not inconvenient to the

wearer--making him comfortable, in fact, while it allows him free use of

all his limbs and muscles. For the heavy infantry, therefore, we would

propose such a coat as we have before recommended for all civilians;

nothing more nor less than a frock-coat, coming down half way along the

thighs, and close buttoned above to the chin. Every body knows that

this is the most comfortable thing he can put on for all kinds of wear;

and the evolutions of a good infantry soldier can be perfectly well gone

through by whoever wears it. The shoulders, if they require external

ornament, should have something that is really useful at the same time;

not merely tinsel or cotton lace; and, therefore, it should be the

adaptation of a thick woollen pad, ornamented with metal or coloured

lace, calculated to take off the pressure of the musket and of the

knapsack-straps from the bones of the neck and arm. Whoever has carried

a musket twelve or fourteen hours continuously, and has had his pack on

at the same time, well knows how comfortable and how really useful such

an addition to his dress would have been. The coat should be furnished

with two small pockets in front, just to hold a knife, some money, and

things of that kind; and they should be close to the circle of pressure

at the waist.

The appearance of a close-buttoned coat of this kind, not caricatured

about the shoulders, is manly and dignified; it proclaims its usefulness

at the first glance; and, whatever be its colour, will form a handsome

uniform. The cross-belts should be done away with--being at once ugly,

expensive, and inconvenient--a plain broad strap, white or black, as you

please, should gird the waist up well; and the cartouche-box, which

could be made to slide upon it, might be worn, while out of battle,

behind; but, in actual engagement, in front. The bayonet (which might

advantageously be lengthened, and made to approximate rather more to the

nature of a sword, or a long knife, than it does now) should always have

its sheath fixed to the belt, at the left side.

The soldier would in this way have his habiliments warmer, his

equipments tighter and more simple, and his appearance in line or on

guard, highly improved. Only think of how you would dress yourself if

you were going out deer-stalking, and you will come to something of this

kind--barring the pockets of your shooting-coat, which are certainly

inadmissible, from motives of military neatness and discipline; and

barring, too, the buttoning up to the chin, which, on the mountain's

side, you had perhaps rather dispense with; but which the soldier must

adhere to, if he would keep up the essential degree of stiffness and

smartness of dress. Coats of this kind, and equipments of this nature,

are worn by the Prussian and French infantry--two good authorities in

military matters; they have been tried on our police force; something of

the sort has been used for clothing the pensioners; and we venture to

predict, that, in a few years, a dress upon these principles will become

universal in the British service.

Should a man have a cloak or a great-coat?--It should be a compound of

both--a small cloak with sleeves; and it might be worn either rolled up,

as at present, on the top of the kit; or else, as some of the French

troops wear it--both conveniently and gracefully--made up into a long

thin roll, going over the left shoulder, and with the ends strapped

together upon the right hip. The Scotch regiments would wear their

plaids most effectively in this fashion; and it is a good guise to

adopt, whether you are on the rough lands of Spain, or in the thick

woods of America. A warm coat and a blanket are two of the soldier's

dearest friends in winter and have kept many a man out of hospital.

The light-infantry man--and there ought to be more distinction made in

the uniforms than there is--might wear a long jacket, descending below

the hips, instead of a frock-coat: his cloak, too, should be lighter:

and, in fact, his whole equipments constructed for quick and active

service. So should be the rifleman's clothing and arms; everything

should be designed to serve the one end had in view--the real use and

intent of that particular arm, whatever it might be; and, if so, then

let the officers of the rifles leave off their long trailing

sabres--fitter for a light dragoon than for one who is supposed to be

hopping about, like a Will o' the Wisp, in swampy brakes; or creeping,

like a serpent, through rushes and long grass. Their present swords are

good for nothing but to trip them up in their movements, or to give them

the pleasure of holding the sheath in one hand, and the blade in the

other.

For the leg-clothing of our men, give us the trouser, and let us keep

to it; we do not indeed seem likely to change it; yet, who can tell?

Just as the civilian seems to have decided upon this happy invention, as

the most useful and comfortable thing he ever donned, so will all

military men agree in its praises. It is not so good for parade

purposes, as the light pantaloon and gaiter, in as much as it conceals

defects of limbs; but, on the long run, it is far to be preferred; it

lasts better, keeps cleaner, and does more comfortable service to its

wearer, than any thing else. One point not sufficiently attended to by

our military authorities, and yet which affects the health of the men,

is, that their trousers, whether in parade or for service, whether for

winter or for summer use, should be made of such a woollen fabric as

will allow of frequent washing. It is impossible for the cleanliness of

the soldier to be sufficiently kept up without this; and the material

now used for plaids of various kinds, or the common blanketing for

sailors' clothes, might be easily modified, so as to be suitable for

this purpose. Linen trousers are indispensable for foreign service of

some kinds; but for summer clothing at home, a light white blanketing,

which has the curious faults of being cool in warm weather, and warm in

cold, is the proper substitute; our men often get sudden chills in

summer evenings, which send then to the fever ward, and the cause is

mainly attributable to undue exposure in insufficient clothing. To

complete the lower portions of the soldier's dress, let him wear either

the shoe and gaiter, or the low boot; either is good, there is hardly a

choice--comfort preponderates in favour of the gaiters--ornament in that

of the boot.

And now for the head-gear of the British Achilles: a touching and a

troublesome subject, which has bothered all heads, from those of the

humble wearer up to the field-marshal, who is content under the

shadow--not of his laurels--but his plumes--to design any kind of

uncomfortable and ugly thing that strikes his imagination, and to clap

it on the cranium of steady veteran and raw recruit. Truly we have been

most unfortunate, æsthetically speaking, in our military caps; and, to

go no further back than Peninsular recollections,--from the

conico-cylindrical cap of Vimiera to the funny little thing with a flap

up in front of Vittoria and Waterloo, down through the inverted

cone-shaped shako of recent days--until we have come to the very bathos

of all chapellerie that now disgraces the heads of too many among our

infantry regiments--all has been bad. Never, since the day when men

first armed their heads for the fight, has there been seen such a

paltry, ugly, useless, bastard kind of a thing as the last cap turned

out for the British army. With its poke before and behind, its conical

top and low elevation, it is a degraded cross between a Germano-Tyrolese

cap and a policeman's hat--a bad mixture of both. May it be sent back to

Germany, where the idea came from, and may it be stuffed into a barrel

of sour-crout, not to come out till it is thoroughly rotted.

There is only this choice for the useful and graceful covering of the

foot-soldier's head; either the small slouched hat of the old Spanish

infantry--a hat very liable to be turned into something slovenly and

dirty--or the foraging cap of our undress--a covering most comfortable,

but not quite strong enough for campaigning use, as well as for parade;

or the helmet of antique form, shaped, that is to say, in some

conformity with the make of the head, and more or less ornamented with

crest and plume. We incline on the whole to the latter, and for two

reasons: it is not so liable to get altered in shape by service as the

others; it will wear well for a longer time; it is more useful in mêlées

and against cavalry; and it is the most becoming of any. In Prussia it

has lately been adopted with great success; and the appearance of the

infantry there is now warlike and graceful in the highest degree. The

helmet need not be made of metal; boiled leather is the proper

material--ventilation and lightness can be easily provided for in it,

and any degree of ornament may be superadded--crest or feathers, each is

becoming.

For Eastern service something lighter than this is of course

necessary--a cap or a broad hat might easily be adopted there; and for

American service another description of covering is also most essential

to the health and comfort of the soldier. We mean the close-fitting and

well-formed fur cap, which can protect the head, neck, and cheeks of the

wearer from the extraordinary rigour of a Canadian winter. The cap worn

by our guards when last on service in these regions, was at once

comfortable, useful, and handsome.

For the cavalry, where ornament seems to be required much more than

amongst the infantry--for they fancy themselves, if indeed they are not,

the top sawyers in all matters of service--the head-dress must be not

only useful, but can hardly be made too ornamental, within the limits of

good taste. And here allow us to say that the infantry shako and the

great grenadier's cap are perfectly absurd and misplaced; the one will

never give a man any chance against a sabre-cut, and the other is fit

only to tumble off within the first two minutes of a charge. In heavy

cavalry nothing but the helmet, richly plumed and crested, should be

allowed; constructed either of leather or metal, yellow brass or silvery

steel, and adorned sometimes with skins, sometimes with graven plates.

The handsomest helmet worn by any regiment in Europe, is that of the old

_gardes du corps_ of Charles X., the same as that now worn by the

_gardes municipaux à cheval_ in Paris; a metal helm with leopard-skin

visir; a lofty crest, with a horse-tail streaming down the back, and a

high red and white feather rising from the left side. Beauty of natural

form, the sharp contrast of flowing lines between the feather and the

tailed crest, and the general brilliancy of colour, render this by far

the most effective head-dress for cavalry which we have ever seen. Our

helmets in England, for the dragoon guards, are too heavy, too

theatrical; there is no life and spirit in them.

In light cavalry of all kinds, except lancers, the fur cap, lately

re-introduced into the British army, is the most useful and most

suitable covering; it is at once comfortable and becoming; its form is

warlike and harmonious; its colour rich; and it admits of as much or as

little ornament as you please to put upon it. Without a feather it is

good, with one it is better; guard-bands add to its appearance without

troubling the wearer; and it has the merit of lasting to look well

longer than any other kind of cap whatever. In the lancers they should

always preserve that national cap which tells us of the origin of this

arm, and which is an ingenious and elegant adaptation of the strength of

the helmet to the lightness of the shako; it is beautiful and graceful

as the lance itself; we have nothing to say of it but what is in its

favour.

Heavy cavalry, in our opinion, ought to wear the cuirass; this is the

only relic of ancient defence which we are advocates for keeping up, and

we do so upon the score of utility. It is rather heavy for the men, but

only so because they are not accustomed to wear it in a judicious

manner; it is of real service to the arm in question, and is the

greatest ornament that a soldier can put on. It is true that our heavy

cavalry did all their gallant deeds without it, and may do so over

again; still it can do no harm, and may be of much use to a brigade of

decidedly heavy cavalry; the helmet and the cuirass should always go

together, neither without the other, as we see it often now, forming an

absurd anomaly. The coat of the cavalry should be long, like the

frock-coat for the heavy regiments; short, like the lengthened jacket of

the light infantry, for the corresponding branch of the mounted

soldiers; and the lancers should all wear the Andalusian or Hungarian

jacket. While these may be ornamented with all the fancies of lace,

embroidery, and buttons, the dress of the cuirassiers should be severely

plain and simple. Epaulettes here, if worn, should be mere enrichments

of the top of the sleeve; no weight has to be carried on the horseman's

shoulder, and therefore our metal plates now stuck upon them are

useless. The belt of the cartouche-box, if needed, can be confined on

the shoulder by other means; and this, as well as the waist-belt for the

sabre, should be broad and serviceable, fit for the roughest use.

To complete the clothing of our brave cavaliers, we would urge that

wherever the helmet and cuirass are used, there the long boot should be

adopted, were it only for harmony of purpose, to say nothing of means

of defence. They need not be stiff, unwieldy, and so-called sword-proof

boots, like those of the Life-guards, but equally high and much more

flexible; they would cost a good deal of money at the first mounting of

a regiment, but they would last for a long time by merely renewing their

feet, and they would be both serviceable and comfortable to the men. Let

all other regiments adhere as at present to their trousers--they can

hardly do better; though, if any smart hussar corps wanted to show off

their well-turned limbs to the ladies on a review day, they might sport

tight pantaloons and Hessian boots as of old, _pace nostrâ_.

One important subject, as connected with military dress, is that of

national distinctions of costume; for whatever tends to remind men of

their common country, whatever tends to mark them out as a band of

brothers in arms, coming from the same homes, and bound to stand by each

other in their noble calling--this is worthy of the attention of the

skilful leader. In our own country, we have admirable opportunities of

turning the strong love of local distinction and ancient glory to good

account; for while we consider the brilliant scarlet of our uniforms to

be distinctive of English arms, we have the glorious old plaids of

Scotland, any one of which is enough to stir up the heart of the

hardiest mountaineer, when he meets his brethren in the field. We are of

opinion, then, that as a point of military discipline, as well as of

æsthetical correctness, all English regiments--properly so

called--should adhere to their red uniforms, varied with subsidiary

ornaments, or other distinctions, to mark separate regiments and corps.

Those from Scotland should all wear the plaids, so as to let them

predominate in their habiliments--of course, we would send those stupid

plumed caps to the right-about, and adopt the Scotch bonnet; but the

plaid of each clan should find its place in the British army; and those

noble distinctions of old feudal manners should never be done away with.

The Irish regiments ought also to have their distinguishing colours; and

as green seems to be the poetical tint of the Emerald Isle, there is no

sound objection to the adoption of that hue for the base of the Irish

uniform. Irish soldiers will fight like devils in any uniform, or in no

uniform at all, as has been seen on many a gory field; but if the use of

green can awaken one thought of national glory--one kindly recollection

of "dear Erin" in their hearts--then let the gallant spirits from the

western isle lead their headlong charges in the tint that haunts their

imagination. Do we want them to have some red about their coats?--they

are always willing to dye them with their best blood. And even the

Taffies--the quiet, sedate Taffies--for "she is good soldier, Got tam,

when her blood is up"--why should not they have some national uniform,

to remind them of the blue tints of their native mountains and deep

vales? Children of the mist and the wild heath, the natural rock, and

the lonely lake--the glare of our Saxon red is too brilliant for them;

let them wrap their sinewy limbs and fiery hearts in pale blue, and

grey, and white--and so let them enter the bloody lists, where they will

hold their ground by the side of the three other nations, and bear away

their share of military glory.

A few words on the navy, and we have done--and only a few words; for we

have nothing to say, but to give unqualified praise. In the habiliments

of our jolly tras--God bless 'em!--utility is every thing, ornament

nothing. They are clad just as they should be; and yet, on gala days,

they know how to make themselves as coquettish as any girl on Portsmouth

Downs. There is no greater dandy in the world, in his peculiar way, than

your regular man-of-war's man. The short jacket, and the loose trousers,

and the neat pumps, and the trim little hat, and the checked shirt, and

the black riband round his neck--he is quite irresistible among the

fairer portion of the creation. Or in a stormy night, with his pilot

coat on, at the lonely helm, and his northwester pulled close over his

ears, and his steady, unflinching eye, and his warm, lion-like heart

within--the true sailor is one of the noblest specimens of man. He that

is fierce as a bull, and yet tender-hearted like a young child--the

greatest blasphemer on earth, and yet the most religious, or even the

most superstitious, of men--he is not to be tied down by the rules of

æsthetics, like a land-crab. His home is on the sea, as somebody has

said or sung; he has nobody there to see him but himself, (if we may be

excused the bull.) What does he care for dress? Only look at him

standing by his gun, when broadside after broadside is pouring into the

timbers of some sanguinary Yankee or blustering Frenchman. What is his

uniform then? Let them declare who have seen that most awful of human

sights, a great battle at sea; but let them not whisper it in ears

feminine or polite.

To the officers, we will only add a word--let them eschew all hats and

short coats, and keep to their caps and frocks. This is their proper

dress. Let them keep themselves warm, comfortable, and ever ready for

service. Never let them face their coats with red again. The old blue

and white against all the world, say we! And let the soldiers take a

leaf out of the sailors' books, and remember that utility, though

accompanied by plainness, is far more consonant to the laws of æsthetics

than unmeaning ornament or erroneous form.

GOETHE TO HIS ROMAN LOVE.

ATTEMPTED IN THE ORIGINAL METRE.

Lass dich, Geliebte, nicht reu'n dass du mich so schnell dich ergeben!

Glaub'es, ich denke nicht frech, denke nicht niedrig von dir.

Vielfach wirkten die Pfeile des Amor; einige ritzen,

Und vom schleichenden Gift kranket auf Jahre des Herz,

Aber machtig befiedert, mit frisch geschliffener Scharfe,

Dringen die andern ins Mark, zunden behende das Blut.

In der Heroischen Zeit, da Gotten und Gottinnen liebten,

Folgte Begierde dem Blick, folgte Genuss der Begier.

Glau'bst du er habe sich lange die Gottiun der Liebe besonnen,

Als in Idäischen Hain einst ihr Anchises befiel?

Hatte Luna gesäumt den schonen Schläfer zu küssen,--

O, so hatt' ihm geschwind, neidend, Aurora geweckt!

Hero erblickte Leander am lauten Fest, und behende

Stürzte der Liebende sich heiss in die nàchtliche Fluth.

Rhea Sylvia wandelt, die fürstliche Jungfrau, der Tiber

Wasser zu schopfen, hinab--und sie ergreifet der Gott.

So erzengte die Sohne sich Mars! Die zwillinge tranket

Eine Wólfin, und Rom nennt sich die Fürstin der Welt.

Rue it not, dear, that so swiftly thy tenderness yielded thee to me--

Dream not again that I think lightly or lowly of thee.

Divers the arrows of Love: from some that but graze on the surface,

Softly the poison is shed, slowly to sicken the heart;

Others, triumphantly feather'd, and pointed with exquisite mischief,

Rush to the mark, and the glow quivers at once in the blood.

In the heroical time when to Love the Deities yielded,

Follow'd desire on a glance, follow'd enjoyment desire.

Deem'st thou the parley was long when Anchises had pleased Aphroditë,

Catching her eye as she roved deep in the woodlands of Ide?

Or that if Luna had paused about wooing her beautiful Sleeper,

Jealous Aurora's approach would not have startled the boy?

Hero had glanced on Leander but once at the Festival--instant

Plunges the passionate youth into the night-mantled wave.

Rhea in maidenly glee caroll'd down with her urn to the Tiber--

But in a moment she sank mute on the breast of the God:

Hence the illustrious Twins that were nursed in the den of the She-wolf;

Worthy of Mars were the boys:--Rome was the Queen of the World.

P.M.

EPIGRAMS.

ANACREON'S GRAVE.

Wo die Rose hier blüht, wo Reben um Lorbeer sich schlingen

Wo das Turtelchen lockt, wo sich das Grillchen ergezt,

Welch ein grab est hier, das alle Götter mit Leben

Schön bepflanzt und geziert? Es ist Anacreons Ruh.

Frühling, Sommer und Herbst genoss der glückliche Dichter,

Vor dem Winter hat ihn endlich der hügel geschützt.

Here where the Rose is in bloom, the Vine and the Laurel entwining--

Here where the Turtle invites--here where the Grasshopper springs,

Whose is this grave in the midst, which the Gods with life and with beauty

Thus have circled and decked?--This is Anacreon's Tomb.

Spring, and Summer, and Autumn, the joyous spirit had tasted,

And from the Winter he hides under this hillock of green.

THE WARNING.

Wecke den Amor nicht auf! Noch schäft der liebliche Knabe

Geh! vollbring dein Geshäft, wie es der Tag dir gebeut!

So der Zeit bedienet sich klug die sorgliche Mutter,

Wenn ihr Knäbchen entschläft, denn es erwacht nur zu bald.

Waken not Love from his sleep! The boy lies buried in slumber;

Go, and, while leisure is left, finish the task of to-day;

Even as a diligent mother, who, seizing the hour as it passes,

Works while her child is asleep--knowing he'll waken too soon.

THE SWISS ALP.

War doch gestern dein haupt noch so braun wie die Locke der Lieben,

Deren holdes Gebild still aus der Ferne mir winkt;

Silbergrau bezeichzet dir fruh der Schnee nun die Gipfel,

Der sich im sturmender nacht, dir um den Scheitel ergoss.

Jugend, ach, ist dem Alter so nah, durch's Leben verbunden

Wie ein beweglicher Traum Gestern und Heute verband.

Yesterday's eve were thy peaks still dark as the locks of my loved one,

When from a distance she looks fair and serene upon me;

But, with a mantle of snow, at morn those summits were silver'd,

Which the chill fingers of night sudden had spread on thy brow.

Ah! how swiftly in life may youth and old age be united--

Even as the flight of a dream yesterday link'd with to-day.

NORTH AND SOUTH.

Glanzen sah ich das Meer, und blinken dië liebliche Welle

Frisch mit gunstigem Wind zogen die Segel dahin.

Keine sehnsucht fühlte mein Herz; es wendete rückwärts

Nach dem Schnee des Gebirgs, bald sich der schmachtende Blick.

Südwärts liegen der Schätze wie viel! Doch einer im Norden

Zieht, ein grosser Magnet, unwiderstehlich zurück.

Glitter'd the ocean around, in light the billows were breaking,

Freshly, with favouring winds, glided our sails o'er the sea.

Yet for the land of beauty I felt no longing; in sadness

Backward my glances still turn'd towards the region of snow.

Southward how many a treasure invites! but _one_, like the Magnet,

Stronger than all, to the North draws me resistlessly back.

CHRISTMAS CAROL, 1845.

TUNE.--"_Packington's Pound._"

I.

"The intrigues of this month shall we e'er comprehend?

Will the Dons, when the Parliament meets, give a clue?

Will one Tory among them speak out like a friend,

On the WHY and BECAUSE of this famous to-do?

Is it really the case

That the Whigs are in place,

Because Peel, when his colleagues assembled, appall'd them

By a cool proposition,

To toss to perdition,

Both the faith and the force that in office install'd them."

II.

Thus groan'd out a grumbler, all sulky and sour,

But for Christopher's temper such trash was too much;

And it soon made the malecontent quiver and cower,

When he saw preparations for handling the Crutch.

"Lay your croaking aside,"

The old gentleman cried,

"Or I'll make you eat up each ungenerous word:

Not our deadliest foe,

Such injustice should know,

And far less shall a friend be convicted unheard.

III.

"Come read here their Mottoes extracted from Burke

For the Commoners,--here for the Peerage from Lodge;

Say, can these be consistent with pitiful work,

On a par with some Whiggish O'Connellite dodge?

Though at present a cloud

May the mystery shroud,

Till secrecy's seal from their lips be removed;

When the truth shall appear,

It will all become clear,

And the words here inscribed shall again be approved.

IV.

"Ne'er believe that Peel's noble INDUSTRIA Plann'd

Aught design'd of its honours his fame to despoil,

Aught but JUSTICE to INDUSTRY, JUSTICE to Land,

To the loom and the ploughshare, the sea and the soil.

His hand will still hold

Straight, steady, and bold,

The scales where our wealth and our welfare are weigh'd:

Still though tempests may blow,

And cross currents may flow,

He will steer our good ship till at anchor she's laid."

V.

"But surely that terrible leader of Walter's

Was not utterly void of foundation in fact.

Was the Cabinet really not full of defaulters,

And resolved for a time on that ruinous act?"

"Cease, blockhead, to babble

Your ganderlike gable:

Could Repeal e'er be REASON CONTENTS ME with Graham,

Could the NE NIMIUM

Of good Gordon succumb,

Or the Stanley's SANS CHANGER be changed into shame?

VI.

"With AVITO HONORE would Wortley turn tail,

To his PRÆSTO ET PERSTO is Binning untrue?

Could the SPERNO TIMERE of Somerset quail,

Or a Ripon with treachery blot FOY EST TOUT?

Could the princely Buccleuch

Stoop the star-spangled blue

Of his Bellenden banner when Leaguers came on?

Proved the Lion a jest

On great Wellington's crest?

Did his VIRTUS exude at the shriek of Lord John?

VII.

"Arthur falter'd?--I'll swallow such inpudent flams

When the ears of the sow yield us purses of silk;

When there's no Devil's Dust in the Cotton Lord's shams,

And the truck-master's pail holds unmystified milk.

Not a Tory, I swear,

Will be forced to declare

In the face of the Nation's assembled Senatus.

That from duty he shrunk,

Or once felt in a funck

About Cobden, and Bright, and some rotten potatoes!

VIII.

"We shall see them again, even now or erelong,

Upon Wisdom and Equity taking their stand,

Calm, able, and upright, harmonious, and strong,

In peace and prosperity ruling the land.

Firm, faithful, and free?

What they say they will do--

No Right unprotected, no Wrong unredress'd;

While writers of Letters

And all their abettors

Stand in swaggering impotence caught and confess'd."

THE CRISIS.

The announcement that the Peel Ministry had resigned was received by us,

as we believe it was by the nation at large, with feelings of sincere

and solemn regret. We do not know that any Cabinet has existed within

our memory whose retirement was wished for by so few, and deprecated by

so many among all classes of men. We have doubted the policy of some of

its measures, and more than doubted the propriety of others. But we have

never ceased to respect the energy, the ability, and the honesty of the

great men composing it; and have always felt that in those points on

which we could not agree with them, they were entitled to a generous

forbearance, due to their responsible and arduous position, as the

ministers who have most strenuously and most successfully endeavoured to

solve the problem, how the government is to be carried on under the

Reform Bill. The disappointment of some expectations among a powerful

and prominent part of their supporters had diminished the enthusiasm,

and divided the feelings, of the party who mainly contributed to bring

them into power. But, on the other hand, it should not be forgotten,

that they equally disappointed the adverse expectations, and ultimately

gained the confidence of a large, and not unimportant, portion of the

country, who for years had been taught to believe, that the accession of

Conservatives to power would commence a new era of warfare, oppression,

profusion, and corruption. Let us look fairly at some of the practical

and palpable facts of the case--at some of the most conspicuous features

of public affairs, during their administration. AGRICULTURE has

flourished, and agricultural improvement has advanced in an

unprecedented degree. COMMERCE has plumed her wings anew, and added

other regions to her domain. PUBLIC CREDIT has been supported and

advanced, and the revenue raised from an alarming and increasing

depression. PEACE has been universally maintained abroad, and agitation

rendered powerless and contemptible at home. The POOR have been

contented and employed, and not a murmur has been heard against the

authority of the Crown, or the principles of the Constitution. These

unmistakable results have been felt by all men, and all have confessed,

in their hearts, that however they may have been offended with minor

blemishes--whether by the short-coming, or by the excess of ministerial

liberality,--the great purposes of government have been achieved by the

ministry now dissolved, and they will frankly acknowledge with

ourselves, that we shall not soon look upon its like again.

We know nothing of the causes that have led to this memorable and

momentous event, except that apparently differences of opinion prevailed

among the members of the Ministry in reference to the corn-laws. We

shall not believe, until we hear it from their own lips, that any

portion of the Cabinet have advocated any scheme fraught with danger and

injustice to the best interests of the country: nor shall we indulge in

any conjecture as to the real nature of the policy that may have been

under discussion, where conjecture must be so vague, and where it must

so soon give place to authentic information. We shall merely say, that

any measure calculated to place agriculture and industry generally, in a

disadvantageous and defenceless position, must have met with our

unfactious, but firm, opposition. If ever the day should come, when

protection, by common consent, were to be withdrawn, truth compels us to

declare, that there is no one by whose hand we should desire to see that

painful and dangerous operation performed so much as Sir Robert

Peel;--not because we should be insensible to all the awkward and

painful embarrassments of such a change of course; but simply, because

we are bound to say, that there is no other man of whose knowledge,

skill, and sagacity we have the same opinion. By none we think could the

fall be so much broken, or the transition made so smooth, or so little

injurious. Certain it is, that a measure of total and immediate

abolition _from the Whigs, incompetent and incapable as they have been

proved_, would be a calamity of which the magnitude can scarcely be

estimated by the most gloomy imagination. We are far, however, from

contemplating the necessity or possibility of such a policy from any

Ministry whatever.

We take our stand upon the principle of protection to national

agriculture and industry, in the existing and peculiar circumstances of

the country. We do not love restrictions for their own sake, or desire

any protection by which nothing is to be protected. But we think that

protection is demanded by the exigencies of the whole community, and to

that extent and on that ground we advocate its preservation for the

general good. We shall not enquire at present how far the amount or the

form of that protection may be modified. That may no doubt be a varying

question, of which the discussion is to be controlled only by the grave

consideration that its too frequent agitation is a great evil, as

inevitably unsettling important rights and arrangements. But if it be

thought that the rapid progress of events in this railway age admits or

requires a relaxation or re-construction of existing restrictions, we

are prepared candidly to consider any specific plan that may be tabled,

and to weigh deliberately the amount and kind of protection that may now

be necessary to preserve our _status quo_, having regard to the

facilities of transit, the discoveries of science, the progress of

improvement, the increase of population, the abundance of money, and any

other elements which may be alleged as to a certain extent emerging

since the last adjustment of the scale, and having special regard also

to _any alteration in the distribution of taxation_ which may accompany

the proposal for such change. We do not see our way to such a change. We

do not recognise its necessity; but we think it unbecoming the position

occupied by those who concur in our principles to offer a blind or

bigoted resistance to any discussion of a practical matter, which must

always depend greatly on surrounding circumstances and complex

calculations. Far less shall we here enquire whether the time is soon or

is ever to arrive when all protection is to cease. In politics, as in

other things, the absolute words of "always" or "never" are rarely to be

spoken. It is sufficient for us to say, that the period when such a

revolution ought to take place has not as yet been presented to our

minds as an object of present and practical contemplation.

Let us unite, then, in support of these national principles with a calm,

candid, and temperate firmness, demanding a just and fair protection,

_so far_ and _so long_ as it is needed to keep our soil in cultivation,

and to foster those improvements, which cannot be carried on without the

prospect of a due return, and by means of which alone, _if ever_, the

necessity of protection may be superseded, or its amount diminished. Let

us oppose any rash or undue alteration, from whatever quarter it may

come; but, above all, let us resist to the uttermost the attempts of

selfish Leaguers and the more reckless portion of the Whigs, whose

interested or unprincipled policy would overlook all those large and

deep-seated considerations, which in every view require so much

management, and such nice computation, before any thing can be done in

so momentous a matter as the _providing permanently for a nation's

food_, and the development of a nation's resources with a due regard to

those various interests which seem often to be conflicting, but which,

in a just point of perspective, are ultimately identical.

Our pain in contemplating the loss of one ministry, is not alleviated by

our anticipation of the ministry that is expected to succeed. The rash

and presumptuous man who has been called to take office, does not

possess, and his character, so far as hitherto known, is not calculated

to command, the confidence of the British nation. We could not look back

upon the crude projects and unscrupulous practices by which the last

Whig ministry disgraced their office and endangered their country,

without a feeling of the deepest alarm--if we believed it possible that

a repetition of them would now be tolerated. What is to be the character

and course of our new rulers? Independently of the corn-laws, what is

to be their policy as to Ireland, as to foreign affairs, as to domestic

finance? Is the Popish Church to be endowed in the sister kingdom? or is

the Protestant Establishment to be overthrown? Is repeal to be openly

patronized, or only covertly connived at? Is Lord Palmerston to be let

loose on our relations with other powers, and to embroil us, before six

months are over, in a quarrel with France and a war with America? Is our

revenue to be supported to the level of our expenditure, or is a growing

deficiency to be permitted to accumulate, till our credit is crippled,

and our character branded with almost Pensylvanian notoriety? Is the

country prepared for such enormities as these, or for the risk of their

being attempted? We hope not: we think not. We feel assured that the

very contemplation of their possibility, would make the nation rise in a

mass, and eject the imbecile impostors who have already been so

patiently tried, and so miserably found wanting.

Then, as to the corn-laws, is the new minister to adhere to his last

manifesto, or has he used it merely as a lever for opposition purposes,

to be laid aside, like some implement of housebreaking, when an entry

into the premises has been effected? That attempt will scarcely be

tolerated by his own supporters. Then how is he to carry his measure?

With the present House of Commons, he cannot hope to do so, nor can he

entertain that anticipation from any dissolution, except one carried on

under such circumstances of unprincipled agitation, _as would convulse

the country, and prove fatal to commercial credit and prosperity_.

But suppose he had the power, how would he use it? Would his measure be

such as would immediately throw any considerable portion of land out of

cultivation? That seems to be the hinging point of this corn-law

question; and it is one on which the "total and immediate" men are more

evasive, _in public discussion_, than on any other, though privately

such of them as understand the subject, are fully aware of its bearings.

If the proposed scheme would _not_ attain or involve the result of

throwing inferior soils out of culture, what good would it do to the

League and their friends? For, strange to say, when the matter is probed

to the bottom, the battle for which the League are truly fighting is

directed to _the great national end of laying waste inferior land_. It

is only by lowering rents and prices that they expect benefit, yet it is

as clear as day that rents are dependent on the comparative value of the

highest and lowest grades of the land in tillage; and if prices fall,

those lands that barely pay at the present rates must cease to be

cultivated. Read any of the more open and outspoken repealers. Take up

the little tales of Miss Martineau, one of the most able and honest of

her sect, and see how completely the object is to get rid of the expense

attending the cultivation of inferior land. If that object is not

attained by total and immediate repeal the whole discussion is a

delusion. But if Lord John's proposed measures _will_ throw lands out of

cultivation, to a large extent, what provision is to be made to avert

the inevitable evils that must ensue? How is the surplus population to

be supported that will thus be thrown loose on the market of labour? How

are the burdens to be provided for that the land thus disabled has

hitherto borne? Are the imposts on agriculture to increase while its

returns are to diminish? or is the old Whig expedient to be resorted to,

of raising that very tax which they have resisted and denounced? Are all

customs-duties to be abolished, and is the deficiency to be supplied by

having the property-tax aggravated to whatever multiple the account may

require? What safeguards or palliatives are to be devised to prevent the

PANIC likely to ensue from so vast and so sudden a revolution; in which,

under the instant diminution of rents and precariousness of prices,

every mortgagee will be driven in desperation to recur upon his debtor,

and every landlord upon his tenant; while the whole landed interest,

high and low, though chiefly, no doubt, the middle and smaller

proprietors and tenants, will be compelled to curtail their expenses to

the lowest sum, and those who have already but a narrow margin of

surplus, be reduced to beggary and ruin.

But would this confusion and distress affect the landed interest alone?

No; the same alarm which involved that interest in ruin, would soon

extend to manufactures, by striking at their foundation, CREDIT.

Already, from a singular and unhappy combination of causes, a period of

restricted circulation and of high interest for money, has begun to

follow on one of unlimited accommodation: distrust seems ready to take

the place of confidence: gigantic schemes in progress are paralysed or

threatened with abandonment: the country appears to be trembling on the

brink of one of those commercial crises which from time to time, and

unavoidably, arise out of the spirit of speculation. Let but this

additional element of confusion--the distress of the agricultural

classes, _and all that depend upon them_--be thrown into the already

wavering scale, and who can pretend to estimate the amount of ruin which

a week may produce? The paradise of free-trade in corn may indeed be

obtained, but it will be reached through the purgatory of a general

bankruptcy.

But is free-trade to be confined to corn? Are the agriculturists alone

to be deprived of protection, the manufacturing interests retaining the

advantage of those protecting duties which exclude the competition of

foreign markets? That is plainly impracticable. The silk, the wool, the

iron, the manufactures of the Continent--the "main articles of _food and

clothing_," according to Lord John Russell's letter--are also to be

admitted into our markets at rates with which native industry cannot

contend. Is this likely to raise wages, or to keep them as they are?

Will it better the condition of the working classes? Or is the condition

even of the higher classes in the mercantile circles to be made more

comfortable by that immediate increase of the income-tax, which must be

imposed, to balance the loss of revenue arising from the deficiency of

our customs, if national faith is to be preserved, or the government of

the country conducted. In every view of the case, and to every interest

in the state, we believe that absolute free-trade, such as appears to be

contemplated by the late leader of the Whigs, would be fraught with

ruin. The letting loose of such a storm upon the State, _with the hand

of Lord John Russell to hold the helm_, is a contingency from which we

believe the very boldest will draw back.

But we feel no apprehension of such a result. There is now no democracy

to be fooled into a new excitement in favour of a Whig ministry, or to

be cheated by a cry of cheap bread, counteracted as it must be by the

contemplation of lower wages, and an increased competition in the

labour-market. The middle classes, again, and all who have any thing to

lose, are too wise to hazard the prosperity of the last four years, by

supporting the men to whose ejection from office that prosperity is

attributable.

We should, at the same time, act with a want of candour and frankness

towards our agricultural friends, if we did not direct their attention

to another aspect of the case. If it be true, contrary to our own hopes

and convictions, that repeal is inevitable, _every thing depends_ on the

TIME and MANNER of effecting it. There is a inestimable value attending

every year of continued protection that can yet be gained. Even a

comparatively short period might be of infinite importance in completing

those great improvements now in progress, which will raise the available

fertility of so large a portion of our soil, but which must instantly

stop, if protection be suddenly withdrawn. It is not in our power to see

far into futurity, but every delay is precious, as enabling us better to

meet the demands of public necessity, and to stand a competition with

foreign soils, if that competition must ultimately be entered upon

without legislative aid. How infinite, too, the difference of any change

produced WITH A PANIC, and WITHOUT ONE! There may be various

arrangements, moreover, which, if boldly and equitably made, might

possibly go to place our protection on a footing nearly as firm, and not

so likely to be assailed. On all this, however, we suspend our judgment

for the present, remarking merely that we are not prepared to quit our

present amount and plan of protection without DEMONSTRATION that we

cannot fairly or prudently retain it.

In the meantime let us hope and struggle for the best, for the

maintenance either of the present law, or of a scale substantially

equivalent. If that fails us, let us aim at the _next best_ arrangement;

and by a firm and temperate course, we need not at least despair of

averting that overwhelming confusion and wide destruction of property

that would inevitably follow from the nostrums of desperate and

designing men, devised and conducted with an equal absence of wisdom and

of honesty.

A single word of earnest admonition in conclusion. The next few months

or weeks must decide one important practical question, which we think

has been unfolding itself silently before the minds of considerate men

for the last few years, and which, whether they will or no, men of all

opinions must weigh well, with the deliberation due to their own safety

and self-interest, and with that freedom from personal pique or party

spirit which the emergency demands. We are far from pinning our faith to

individual characters, or thinking that the welfare of the state can be

wrapped up in the fortunes or progress of a single mind. But still the

question will recur, whether, in the existing state of the country, and

when all circumstances are balanced together, Sir Robert Peel is not the

statesman of the day, as being at once the _most Conservative_ and the

_most Liberal_ minister whom the opposite and conflicting forces in

operation in this great country are likely to suffer or submit to. He

may not be so tenacious of certain points as some would wish, or so

lavish of concession as may be wished by others. But we speak of him on

the one hand as witnesses to the fact, that his past measures, though

calculated to excite apprehension, have been found, _by experience_, to

carry with them no detriment to agriculture, or to any other great

interest in the country; and, on the other hand, in the confident

anticipation that nothing has recently occurred in his proposed course,

that will not, in due time, be fully and satisfactorily explained. With

these views of Sir Robert Peel's conduct, we cannot avoid asking,

whether when we take him all in all, and appeal to the standard of

practical good sense and prudence which wisdom will alone employ in such

a momentous discussion, there is any other man now in the field, or

likely to appear, to whom all parties can look so confidently, as an

equitable and safe arbitrator of our national differences? If there is

such a man, let him be pointed out. Sure we are that it is _not_ Lord

John Russell.

We had written thus far, in the belief that the Whigs, though after some

coy, reluctant, amorous delay, would succeed in forming a sort of

government--a task which we were sure Lord John Russell would attempt.

That result seems now more than doubtful, and we close this article in

the anticipation that a Conservative cabinet may possibly be again in

power, before these pages meet the eyes of our readers. We rejoice at

the prospect, and the country will rejoice. _Good measures from good

men_ is the best consummation of political well-doing, as it is certain

that _dangerous measures from dangerous and desperate men_, is the most

fearful political evil. In any view our friends have a plain course. It

is, to adhere to their principles with a firm, yet prudent,

determination of purpose--to hope and believe the best of their leaders

and party--and to await patiently, and receive candidly, the elucidation

of those things that have hitherto been a mystery; and, as to which, as

it was impossible to make any explanations, so it was unjust to

pronounce a decision. We earnestly pray that, whether in power or in

opposition, the meeting of Parliament will see among our great

Conservative statesmen, and their followers throughout the country,

including the new adherents whom the rashness and recklessness of our

opponents have necessarily gained for us, that solid union of opinion

and vigorous co-operation of action, on safe and sound principles of

legislation, which can alone terminate the CRISIS and avert its

recurrence.

* * * * *

_Edinburgh: Printed by Ballantyne & Hughes, Paul's Work._