CHAPTER III.

Mildred was at this moment checked in her current of observation,

and reduced to play something more than the part of spectator. Her

ear caught a voice, heard only once before, but not forgotten; she

turned, and saw the stranger who had surprised her when, in her

girlish days, she was sitting in the minster tower. He immediately

introduced himself by asking her to dance.

"I do not dance," she said, but in a manner which did not seem to

refuse conversation. The stranger appeared very well satisfied with

the compromise; and some pleasant allusion to the different nature

of the scene in which they last met, put them at once upon an easy

footing.

"You say you _do_ not dance--that is, of course, you _will_ not. I

shall not believe," he continued, "even if you had just stepped from

your high tower of wisdom, but that you can do any thing you please

to do. Pardon so blunt a speech."

"Oh, I _can_, I think," she replied. "My uncle, I believe, would

have taught me the broad-sword exercise, if any one had suggested

its utility to him."

And saying this, she turned to her uncle, to give him an

opportunity, if he pleased, of joining the conversation. It was an

opportunity which Mr Bloomfield, who had heard a foreign language

chattered in his ear all the evening, would have gladly taken;

but the patience of that gentleman had been for some time nearly

exhausted; he had taken his sister under his arm, and was just going

to propose to Mildred to leave the room.

The stranger escorted them through the crowd, and saw the ladies

into their carriage.

"Can we set you down any where?" said Mr Bloomfield, who, though

impatient to be gone, was disposed to be very cordial towards his

fellow-countryman. "We are at the _Hotel de l'Europe_."

"And I opposite at the _Hotel de Flandres_--I will willingly accept

your offer;" and he took the vacant seat in their carriage.

"How do you like Brussels?" was on the lips of both gentlemen at the

same time.

"Nay," said the younger, "I have been here, I think, the longest;

the question is mine by right of priority of residence."

Mr Bloomfield was nothing loath to communicate his impression of all

that he had seen, and especially to dilate upon a grievance which,

it seemed, had sorely afflicted him.

"As to the town, old and new, and especially the Grande Place, with

its Hotel de Ville, I have been highly interested by it; but, my

dear sir, the torture of walking over its horrid pavement! Only

conceive a quiet old bachelor, slightly addicted to the gout,

accustomed to take his walk over his well-rolled paths, or on his

own lawn, (if not too damp,) suddenly put down amongst these cruel

stones, rough and sharp, and pitched together in mere confusion,

to pick his way how he can, with the chance of being smashed by

some cart or carriage, for one is turned out on the same road with

the horses. I am stoned to death, with this only difference, that

I fall upon the stones instead of the stones falling upon me. And

when there is a pavement--_a trottoir_, as they call it--it is often

so narrow and slanting, and always so slippery, and every now and

then broken by some step put there purposely, it would seem, to

overthrow you, that it is better to bear the penance at once of the

sharp footing in the centre of the street. _Trottoirs_, indeed! I

should like to see any one trot upon them without breaking his neck!

A spider or a black beetle, or any other creature that crawls upon

a multitude of legs, and has not far to fall if he stumbles, is the

only animal that is safe upon them. I go moaning all the day about

these jogged pointed stones, that pitch me from one to the other

with all the malice of little devils; and, would you believe it?

my niece there only smiles, and tells me to get thick shoes! They

cannot hurt her; she walks somehow over the tops of them as if they

were so many balls of Indian rubber, and has no compassion for her

gouty uncle."

"Oh, my dear uncle"----

"No, none at all; indeed you are not overburdened with that

sentiment at any time for your fellow-travellers. You bear all the

afflictions of the road--your own and other people's--very calmly."

"Don't mind him, my dear," said Miss Bloomfield, "he has been

exclaiming again and again what an excellent traveller you make;

nothing puts you out."

"That is just what I say--nothing does put her out. In that she is a

perfect Mephistophiles. You know the scene of confusion on board a

steamer when it arrives at Antwerp, and is moored in under the quay

on a hot day, with its full complement of passengers. There you are

baked by the sun and your own furnaces; stunned by the jabber around

you, and the abominable roar over your head made by the escape of

the steam; the deck strewed with baggage, which is then and there to

be publicly examined--turned over by the revenue officers, who leave

you to pack up your things in their original compass, if you can.

Well, in all this scene of confusion, there sat my niece with her

parasol over her little head, looking quite composedly at the great

cathedral spires, as if we were not all of us in a sort of infernal

region there."

"No, uncle, I looked every now and then at our baggage, too,

and watched that interesting process you have described of its

examination. And when the worthy officer was going to crush aunt's

bonnet by putting your dressing-case on the top of it, I rose, and

arrested him. I had my hand upon his arm. He thought I was going to

take him prisoner of war, for he was about to put his hand to his

sword; but a second look at his enemy reassured him."

"Oh, you did squeak when the bonnets were touched," cried the uncle,

"I am glad of that: it shows that you have some human, at least some

feminine, feeling in your composition."

"But _àpropos_ of the pavement," said the young stranger, who

could not join the uncle in this banter on his niece, and was

therefore glad to get back to some common ground. "I took up, in a

reading-room, the other day, a little pamphlet on phrenology, by

_M. Victor Idjiez_, _Fondateur du Musée Phrenologique_ at Brussels.

It might as well have been entitled, on animal magnetism, for he

is one of those who set the whole man in motion--mind and body

both--by electricity. Amongst other things, he has discovered that

that singular strength which madmen often display in their fits,

is merely a galvanic power which they draw (owing, I suppose, to

the peculiar state of their nerves,) from the common reservoir the

earth, and which, consequently, forsakes them when they are properly

isolated. In confirmation of this theory, he gives a singular _fact_

from a Brussels journal, showing that _asphalte pavement_ will

isolate the individual. A madman had contrived to make his escape

from confinement, having first thrown all the furniture of his room

out of the window, and knocked down and trampled upon his keeper.

Off he ran, and no one would venture to stop him. A corporal and

four soldiers were brought up to the attack: he made nothing of

them; after having beaten the four musketeers, he took the corporal

by the leg and again ran off, dragging him after upon the ground.

A crowd of work-people emerging from a factory met him in full

career with the corporal behind him, and undertook his capture. All

who approached him were immediately thrown down--scattered over

the plain. But his triumph was suddenly checked; he lighted upon

a piece of asphalte pavement. The moment he put his foot upon it,

his strength deserted him, and he was seized and taken prisoner.

The instant, however, he stepped off the pavement, his strength

revived, and he threw his assailants from him with the same ease as

before. And thus it continued: whenever he got off the pavement, his

strength was restored to him; the moment he touched it, he was again

captured with facility. The asphalte had completely isolated him."

"Ha! ha!" cried Mr Bloomfield; "the fellow, after all, was not

quite so mad as not to know what he was about. A Brussels pavement,

asphalte or not, is no place for a wrestling match. Isolated,

indeed! Oh, doubtless, it would isolate you most completely--at

least the soles of your feet--from all communication with the earth.

But does Mr--what do you call him?--proceed to theorise upon such

_facts_ as these?"

"You shall have another of them. Speaking of animal magnetism or

electricity, he says--'There are certain patients the iron nails

of whose shoes will fly out if they are laid in a direction due

north.'"[41]

[41] "Il existe des malades dont les clous jai'lissent des

chaussures quand ils sont étendus dans la direction du nord."

"But you are quoting from Baron Munchausen."

"Not precisely."

Miss Bloomfield, who had been watching her opportunity, here brought

in her contribution. "Pray, sir, do you believe the story they tell

of the architect of the Hotel de Ville--that he destroyed himself

on finding, after he had built it, that the tower was not in the

centre?"

"That the architect should not discover that till the building was

finished, is indeed _too good a story to be true_."

"But, then, why make the man kill himself? Something must have

happened; something must be true."

"Why, madam, there was, no doubt, a committee of taste in those days

as in ours. They destroyed the plan of the architect by cutting

short one of his wings, or prolonging the other; and he, out of

vexation, destroyed himself. This is the only explanation that

occurs to me. A committee of taste is always, in one sense at least,

the death of the artist."

"Yes, yes," said Mildred; "the artist can be no longer said to

exist, if he is not allowed, in his own sphere, to be supreme."

This brought them to the door of the hotel. They separated.

The next morning, on returning from their walk, the ladies found

a card upon their table which simply bore the name of "Alfred

Winston." The gentleman who called with it, the waiter said, had

left word that he regretted he was about to quit Brussels, that

evening, for Paris.

Mildred read the name several times--Alfred Winston. And this was

all she knew of him--the name upon this little card!

There were amongst the trio several discussions as to who or what

Mr Alfred Winston might be. Miss Bloomfield pronounced him to be

an artist, from his caustic observations on committees of taste,

and their meddling propensities. Mr Bloomfield, on the contrary,

surmised he was a literary man; for who but such a one would

think of occupying himself in a reading-room with a pamphlet on

phrenology, instead of the newspapers? And all ended in "wondering

if they should fall upon him again?"

THE LAW AND ITS PUNISHMENTS.

It is no uncommon boast in the mouth of Englishmen, that the system

of jurisprudence under which they have the happiness to live, is

the most perfect the world has ever seen. Having its foundation in

those cabalistic words, "Nullus liber homo," &c., engraved with

an iron pen upon the tablets of the constitution by the barons of

King John, the criminal law, in their estimation, has been steadily

improved by the wisdom of successive ages, until, in the present

day, it has reached a degree of excellence which it were rashness to

suppose can by any human sagacity be surpassed. Under its protecting

influence, society reposes in security; under its just, but merciful

administration, the accused finds every facility for establishing

his innocence, and is allowed the benefit of every doubt that

ingenuity can suggest to rebut the probability of guilt; before

its sacred tribunals, the weak and the powerful, the poor and the

rich, stand in complete equality; under its impartial sentence, all

who merit punishment are alike condemned, without respect of any

antecedents of rank, wealth, or station. In such a system, no change

can take place without injury, for it is (not to speak irreverently)

a system of perfection.

This is the dream of many--for we must characterise it rather as a

dream than a deliberate conviction. Reason, we fear, has but little

to do with the opinions of those who hold that English jurisprudence

has no need of reform.

The praises which are so lavishly bestowed upon our criminal law may

be, to a great extent, just; but it is to be doubted whether they

are altogether judicious. It is true, that in no other system of

jurisprudence throughout the civilised world, or among the nations

of antiquity, has there existed, or is there so tender a regard for

the rights of the accused. In Germany, the wretch who falls under

suspicion of the law is subjected to a tedious and inquisitorial

examination, with a view to elicit from his own lips the proof, and

even the confession of guilt. This mental torture, not to speak

of the imprisonment of the body, may be protracted for years, and

even for life. In France, the facts connected with an offence are

published by authority, and circulated throughout the country,

to be greedily devoured by innumerable lovers of unwholesome

excitement; and not the simple facts alone, but a thousand

incidental circumstances connected with the transaction, together

with the birth, parentage, and education, and all the previous

life of the supposed offender, making in the whole a romance of

considerable interest, and possessing an attraction beyond the

ordinary tales which fill the _feuilleton_ of a newspaper. In

England, the position of the accused is widely different. We avoid

the errors and the tyranny of our neighbours; but have we not fallen

into the opposite extreme? Our magistrates scrupulously caution

prisoners not to say any thing that may criminate themselves. Every

thing that authority can effect by means of advice, which, under

the circumstances, is equivalent to command, is carefully brought

forward to prevent a confession. And if, in spite of checks,

warnings, and commands, the accused, overcome by the pangs of

conscience, and urged by an irresistible impulse to disburden his

soul of guilt, should perchance confess, the testimony is sometimes

rejected upon some technical point of law, which would seem to have

been established for the express purpose of defeating the ends

of justice. Indeed, the technicalities which surround our legal

tribunals have been, until very lately, and are still, in too many

instances, most strangely favourable to the escape of criminals.

The idlest quibbles, most offensive to common sense, and utterly

disgraceful in a court of criminal investigation, have at various

times been allowed as valid pleas in defence of the most palpable

crimes. Many a thief has escaped, on the ground of some slight and

immaterial misdescription of the stolen article, such as a horse

instead of a mare, a cow instead of an ox, a sheep for a ewe, and

so on. True, these absurdities exist no longer; but others still

remain, less ridiculous perhaps, but not less obstructive of the

course of justice, and quite as pernicious in their example. Great

and beneficial changes have been effected in the criminal code, and

too much praise cannot be bestowed upon Sir Robert Peel for his

exertions in this behalf. To her Majesty's commissioners, also,

some thanks are due for the labour they have expended with a view

to the consolidation and subsequent codification of the various

statutes. Their labours, however, have not hitherto been very

largely productive. The excellent object of simplifying our criminal

laws still remains to be accomplished, and so long as it does so, so

long will it be obnoxious to the censures which are not unsparingly

heaped upon it.

But if our jurisprudence be in one respect too favourable to the

criminal, in another, as it appears to us, the balance is more than

restored to its equilibrium. If, in the process of investigation,

justice leans too much to the side of mercy, the inquiry once over,

she quickly repents of her excessive leniency, and is careful to

justify her ways by a rigorous severity. The accused, if he is not

lucky enough to avail himself of the thousand avenues of escape that

are open during the progress of his trial, must abandon all hope of

further consideration, and look to undergo a punishment, of which

the full extent cannot be estimated by any human sagacity. Once

condemned, he ceases to be an object of care or solicitude, except

so far as these are necessary to preserve his life and restrain

his liberty. Through crime he has forfeited all claim upon the

fostering care of the state. He is an alien and an outcast, and has

no pretence for expecting any thing but misery.

Surely there is something vindictive in all this--something not

quite consistent with the calm and unimpassioned administration of

justice. The first impressions of any man of ordinary humanity must

be very much against a system which fosters and encourages such a

state of things. We believe that those first impressions would be

confirmed by inquiry; and it is our purpose in the present article

briefly to state the reasons for our belief.

The treatment of criminals under sentence of imprisonment must now

be well known to the public. Repeated discussion and innumerable

writings have rendered it familiar to every body. A man is condemned

to undergo, let us say, three years' incarceration in a jail. A

portion of the time is to be spent in hard labour. He commences

his imprisonment with no other earthly object than to get through

it with the least possible amount of suffering. Employment, which

might, under better circumstances, be a pleasant resource, is

distasteful to him because it is compulsory, and because it is

productive of no benefit to himself. The hours that are unemployed

are passed in company with others as bad as, or worse than,

himself. They amuse themselves by recounting the history of their

lives, their hairbreadth escapes, their successful villanies. Each

profits by the experience of the whole number, and stores it in

his memory for future guidance. Every good impulse is checked, and

every better feeling stifled in the birth. There is no room in a

jail for the growth of virtue; the atmosphere is not congenial to

its development. The prisoner, however well disposed, cannot choose

but listen to the debasing talk of those with whom he is compelled

to associate. Should he resist the wicked influence for a while, he

can hardly do so long. The poison will work. By little and little

it insinuates itself into the mind, and vitiates all the springs of

good. In the end, he yields to the irresistible force of continued

bad example, and becomes as bad as the worst.

But let us believe, for an instant, that one prisoner has resisted

the ill effects of wicked association--let us suppose him to have

escaped the contamination of a jail, to have received no moral hurt

from bad example, to be untainted by the corrupting atmosphere of

congregated vice--in short, to return into the world at the end

of his imprisonment a better man than he was at its commencement.

Let us suppose all this, although the supposition, it must be

confessed, is unsupported by experience, and directly in the teeth

of probability. He sallies forth from his prison, full of good

resolutions, and determined to win the character of an honest man.

Perhaps he has a small sum of money, which helps him to reach a part

of the country most distant from the scene of his disgrace. He seeks

for work, and is fortunate enough to obtain it. For a short time,

all goes well with him. He is industrious and sober, and gains the

good-will of his employer. He is confirmed in his good intentions,

and fancies that his hopes of regaining his position in society are

about to be realised. Vain hopes! Rumour is busy with his name.

His fellow-labourers begin to look coldly on him. The master does

not long remain in ignorance. The discharged convict is taxed with

his former degradation, and made to suffer again the consequences

of a crime he has well and fully expiated. His brief hour of

prosperity is over. He is cast forth again upon the world, denied

the means of gaining an honest livelihood, with nothing before him

but starvation or a jail. What wonder should he choose the latter!

Goaded by despair, or stimulated by hunger, he yields to the first

temptation, and commits a crime which places him again within prison

walls. It is his second conviction. He is a marked man. He were more

than mortal if he escaped the deteriorating effects of repeated

association with the hardened and the vicious. His future career

is certain. He falls from bad to worse, and ends his life upon the

scaffold.

We have imagined, for the sake of argument, a case which, in one of

its features, is unfortunately of very rare occurrence. Criminals

seldom, perhaps never, leave a jail with the slightest inclination

to a course of honesty. Their downward progress, when they have

once been exposed to the contamination of a prison life, may be

calculated almost with certainty. No sooner is the term of their

imprisonment expired, than they step forth into the world, eager to

recommence the old career of systematic villany. Good intentions,

and the desire of doing well, are almost always strangers to their

breasts. But should they, perchance, be alive to better things, and

be moved by wholesome impulses, what an awful responsibility rests

upon those who, by individual acts, or by a pernicious system, check

and render abortive the efforts of a dawning virtue! In the case

we have supposed, there is doubtless much that must be laid to the

score of human nature. Men will not easily be persuaded, that he who

has once made a grievous lapse from the path of honesty, will not

be ever prone to repeat the offence. None but the truly charitable

(an infinitesimal portion of every community) will expose themselves

to the risk of employing a discharged convict. But whilst this much

evil is justly attributed to the selfish cruelty of society, a much

larger share of blame attaches to the system which affords too

plausible a pretext for such uncharitable conduct. It is not merely

because a man has offended against the laws, and been guilty of

what, in legal parlance, may be a simple misdemeanour, that he is

regarded with suspicion and treated with ignominy; but much more,

because he has been confined in a jail, and exposed to all the

pernicious influences which are known to be rife within its walls.

It is deemed a thing incredible, that a man can issue from a hot-bed

of corruption, and not be himself corrupt. To have undergone a term

of imprisonment, is very generally thought to be equivalent to

taking a degree in infamy. On the system, therefore, rests much of

the blame which would otherwise attach to the world's cold charity;

to its account must be charged every subject who might have been

saved, and who, through despair, is lost to the service of the state.

The evils we have described are patent and notorious; the only

question, therefore, that arises is, whether they are inevitable and

inherent in the nature of things, or whether they may be avoided

by greater care and an improved system. Before entering upon this

question, it may be well to notice briefly the various opinions

that are entertained concerning the proper end and aim of criminal

punishment. We take for granted, that in every community, under

whatever political constitution it may exist and be associated,

the sole object of criminal _law_ is the peace and security of

society. With regard to the means by which this object may be best

attained, or, in other words, with regard to the whole system of

jurisprudence, from a preventive police down to the discipline

of jails and the machinery of the scaffold, a great diversity

of sentiment must naturally be expected. The pure theorist and

the subtle disciple of Paley, maintain that the proper, nay, the

sole object of punishment should be the prevention of crime. The

philanthropic enthusiast, and the man of strict religious feeling,

reject all other motives save only that of reforming the criminal.

The dispassionate inquirer, the practical man, and he who has

learned his lessons in the school of experience, take a middle

course, though inclining a little to the theory of Paley. They

hold that, whilst the amount, and to some extent the quality, of

punishment should be settled and defined chiefly with a view to

prevent the increase of crime by the deterring effect of fear,

yet the details ought, if possible, to be so managed as in the

end to bring about the reformation of the prisoner. We have no

hesitation in avowing, that this last opinion is our own. There is

an argument in its favour, which the most rigid disciple of the

pure "prevention" theory must recognise immediately as one of his

own most valued weapons. The "peace and security of society" are

his watchwords. They are ours also. But whilst, in his opinion, the

only way to produce the desired result is by a system of terrorism,

such as will deter from the perpetration of crime, we believe that

a careful solicitude concerning the moral conduct of the criminal

during his imprisonment, and an anxious endeavour to instruct and

improve his mind, by enforcing good habits, and taking away bad

example, would be found equally powerful in their operation upon

the well-being of society. For although it is a lamentable fact,

that the number of our criminals is always being kept up to its full

complement, by the addition of juvenile offenders, so that it would

be vain to indulge a hope, without cutting off the feeding-springs,

of materially diminishing our criminal population; yet it is equally

true that the most desperate and dangerous offenders are they who

have served their apprenticeship in jails, and there accomplished

themselves in all the various devices of ingenious wickedness. It

is these who give the deepest shade to the calendar of crime, and

work incalculable mischief both in and out of prison, by instructing

the tyros in all the most subtle varieties of villany. To reform

such men may seem an arduous, perhaps an impossible task; but it is

far less arduous, and certainly not impossible, to prevent their

becoming the hardened ruffians which we have, without exaggeration,

described them.

The truth must be told. The system of secondary punishments (as

they are called, though why we know not) is radically wrong. There

is something radically wrong in the discipline and regulations of

our jails. The details of imprisonment are faulty and imperfect.

Surely this is proved, when it is shown that men are invariably

rendered worse, instead of better, by confinement in a jail. Even

though it be admitted, for the sake of argument, that the state lies

under no obligation to attempt the reformation of its criminals, the

admission serves no whit to support a system under which criminals

are confirmed and hardened in their vicious courses. The state may

refuse to succour, but it has no right to injure. This, as it seems

to us, is the strong point against our present system. It does not

so much punish the body as injure the mind of the criminal; and, in

so doing, it eventually endangers rather than secures the peace of

society.

Many remedies have been proposed, but all, with an exception that

will presently be mentioned, are rather palliative than corrective.

Solitary confinement, for instance, is an undoubted cure for

the diseases engendered by bad example and evil communications;

but it breeds a host of other diseases, peculiar to itself, and

in many cases worse than those it cures. Not to speak of the

indulgence which so much idleness allows for vicious thoughts and

recollections, the chief objection to solitary confinement is,

that, if continued for any length of time, it unfits a man wholly

for subsequent intercourse with the world. He leaves his prison

with a mind prostrated to imbecility, and a body reduced to utter

helplessness; yet he retains, perhaps, the cunning of the idiot, and

just sufficient use of his limbs to serve him for a bad purpose. On

these painful considerations, however, it is unnecessary to dwell

at length. Solitary confinement, without occupation and without

intervals of society, was an experiment upon the human animal. It

has been tried in this country and elsewhere, and has signally

failed. At this moment, we believe, it has few or no supporters.

The plan which has most largely and most deservedly attracted public

attention, is that of Captain Maconochie, known by the name of the

"Mark System." Captain Maconochie was superintendent of the penal

establishment at Norfolk Island, where he had constantly about

2000 prisoners under his command. This office he held for eight

years, and had, consequently, the most favourable opportunity of

observing the practical working of the old system. Finding it to

be defective, and injurious in every particular, he tried, with

certain unavoidable modifications, a plan of his own, which, as

he asserts, succeeded beyond his expectation. Having thus proved

its practicability in Norfolk Island, and satisfied himself of its

advantages, he wishes now to introduce it into England; and, with

a view of obtaining a favourable hearing and efficient support, he

has procured it to be referred to a committee of the "Society for

Promoting the Amendment of the Law." The committee have reported in

its favour; and their report, which is said to have been drawn up by

the learned Recorder of Birmingham, contains so concise and clear

a statement of the Captain's plan, that we take leave to extract a

portion of it:--

"Captain Maconochie's plan," says Mr M. D. Hill, "had its origin in

his experience of the evil tendency of sentences for a time certain,

and of fixed gratuitous jail rations of food. These he practically

found opposed to the reformation of the criminal. A man under a

time-sentence looks exclusively to the means of beguiling that

time. He is thereby led to evade labour, and to seek opportunities

of personal gratification, obtained, in extreme cases, even in

ways most horrible. His powers of deception are sharpened for the

purpose; and even, when unable to offend in act, he seeks in fancy

a gratification, by gloating over impure images. At the best,

his life stagnates, no proper object of pursuit being presented

to his thoughts. And the allotment of fixed gratuitous rations,

irrespective of conduct or exertion, further aggravates the evil,

by removing even the minor stimulus to action, furnished by the

necessity of procuring food, and by thus directly fostering those

habits of improvidence which, perhaps even more than determined

vice, lead to crime.

"In lieu of sentences to imprisonment or transportation, measured

thus by months or years, Captain Maconochie recommends sentences

to an amount of labour, measured by a given number of marks, to be

placed to the debit of the convict, in books to be kept for the

purpose. This debit to be from time to time increased by charges

made in the same currency, for all supplies of food and clothing,

and by any fines that may be imposed for misconduct. The duration

of his sentence will thus be made to depend on three circumstances.

_First_, The gravity of the original offence, or the estimate made

by the judge of the amount of discipline which the criminal ought

to undergo before he is restored to liberty. This regulates the

amount of the original debit. _Second_, The zeal, industry, and

effectiveness of his labour in the works allotted to him, which

furnish him with the means of payment, or of adding from time to

time to the credit side of his account. And, _Third_, His conduct

in confinement. If well conducted, he will avoid fines; and if

economical in food, and such other gratifications as he is permitted

to purchase with his marks, he will keep down the amount of his

debits.

"By these means, Captain Maconochie contends, that a term of

imprisonment may be brought to bear a close resemblance to adversity

in ordinary life, which, being deeply felt, is carefully shunned;

but which, nevertheless, when encountered in a manful spirit,

improves and elevates the character. All the objects of punishment

will be thus attained. There will be continued destitution, unless

relief is sought by exertion, and hence there will be labour and

suffering; but, with exertion, there will be not only the hope, but

the certainty of recovery--whence there will be improvement in good

habits, and right thinking. And the motives put into operation to

produce effort and economy, being also of the same character with

those in ordinary life, will advantageously prepare the prisoner for

their wholesome action on him after his discharge.

"The only other very distinctive feature in Captain Maconochie's

system is, his proposal that, after the prisoner has passed through

a term of probation, to be measured not by lapse of time, but by

his conduct as indicated by the state of his account, he shall be

advanced from separate confinement into a social state. For this

purpose, he shall become a member of a small class of six or eight,

these classes being capable of being separated from each other, just

as individuals are separated from individuals during the earlier

stage, the members of each class to have a common interest, the

marks earned or lost by each to count to the gain or loss of his

party, not of himself exclusively. By this means, Captain Maconochie

thinks prisoners will be rescued from the simply gregarious state

of existence, which is, in truth, a selfish one, now incident

to imprisonment in those jails to which the separate system is

not applied, and will be raised into a social existence. Captain

Maconochie is convinced, by experience, that much good feeling will

be elicited among them in consequence of this change. Indolence and

vice, which either prevent the prisoner from earning, or compel him

to forfeit his marks, will become unpopular in the community; and

industry and good conduct, as enabling him to acquire and preserve

them, will, on the contrary, obtain for him its approbation. On much

experience, he asserts that no portion of his _modus operandi_ is

more effective than this, by which, even in the depraved community

of Norfolk Island, he succeeded, in a wonderfully short time, in

giving an upward direction to the public opinion of the class of

prisoners themselves."

This brief outline of the Mark System undoubtedly presents to view

one of the boldest projects of reform that ever proceeded from a

private individual. It seeks to root up and utterly annihilate the

whole system of secondary punishments, and necessarily involves

a radical change in the criminal law. To a plan of so sweeping

a character, a thousand objections will of course be made. Some

will deny the necessity of so fundamental a change. Many will be

startled by the magnitude of the innovation alone, and refuse at

the very outset to accept a proposition which, whatever be its

intrinsic merits, presents itself to their imagination surrounded

with incalculable perils. Others will shake their heads, and doubt

the possibility of working out a problem, which, from the beginning

of time, has baffled the ingenuity of man. A few there may be, who

will regard the new system with a favourable eye, albeit on no other

ground than because it offers a prospect of escape from evils which

exist, and are increasing, and which can hardly be exchanged for

worse. For want of better companions, we shall take our position in

the last-mentioned class; confessing that there is much in Captain

Maconochie's system which seems at present Utopian, and savours too

strongly of an enthusiasm which can see none but its own colours,

but deeply impressed, at the same time, with the plausibility of his

general theory. It is vain to hope that the unaided efforts of the

chaplain will ever reform the inmates of a jail. No man was ever

yet preached into good habits, except by a miracle. It is vain to

hope that a discipline (if such it can be called) which enforces

sometimes idleness, and sometimes useless labour, providing at the

same time for all the wants of the body, with an abundance never

enjoyed beyond the prison walls, will ever make men industrious,

or frugal, or any thing else than dissolute and idle. In short, it

is vain to hope, in the present state of things, that the criminal

population of these kingdoms will ever be diminished, or even

checked in its steady tendency to increase. If, then, all these

hopes, which are exactly such as a philanthropist may reasonably

indulge, be vain and futile, no man would be open to a charge of

folly, should he embrace any, even the wildest proposition that

holds out the prospect of improvement.

Captain Maconochie's system may be divided into two distinct

and very different parts; namely, the general principles and

the details. Concerning the latter, we are unwilling to hazard

an opinion, deeming them peculiarly a matter of experiment, and

incapable of proof or refutation by any other test than experience.

But principles are universal, and, if true, may always be supported

by argument, and strengthened by discussion; those of the Mark

System, we think, will bear the application of both. No one

possessed of the smallest experience of the human mind, will deny

that it is utterly impossible to inculcate and fix good habits

by a process which is continually distasteful to the patient.

With regard to labour, which is compulsory and unproductive, the

labourer, so far from becoming habituated to it, loathes it the more

the longer he is obliged to continue it. Such labour, moreover,

has no good effect upon the mind; it produces nothing but disgust

and discontent. A similar result is produced upon the body under

similar circumstances. Exercise is only beneficial when taken with

a good will, and enjoyed with a zest: a man who should walk but

two or three miles, grumbling all the way, would be as tired at

the end as though he had walked twenty in a more contented mood.

What, then, will some one say, are prisoners not to be punished

at all? Is every thing to be made easy to them, and ingenuity

taxed for devices to render their sentences agreeable, and to take

the sting from imprisonment? The answer is ready. The law is not

vindictive, and does not pretend to inflict suffering beyond what is

necessary for the security of society. The thief and the homicide

cannot be allowed to go at large. They must either be sent out of

the country, or shut up within it. By some means or other, they

must be deprived of the power of inflicting further injury upon

their fellow-creatures. But how long are they to be cut off from

the world? For a time fixed and irrevocable, and irrespective of

subsequent good conduct, or reformation of character, or any other

consideration than only the magnitude of the original offence?

Surely neither reason nor humanity can approve such a doctrine;

for does it not, in fact, involve the very principle which our

law repudiates, namely, the principle that its punishments are

vindictive? If a man who steals a horse, and is condemned to three

years' imprisonment, be compelled to undergo the whole sentence,

without reference to his conduct under confinement, this surely is

vengeance, and not, what it assumes to be, a punishment proportioned

to the necessity of the case. It is, no doubt, proper that a

criminal should be condemned to suffer some loss of liberty, more

or less, according to the nature of his delinquency, and a minimum

should always be fixed; but it seems equally proper, and consistent

with acknowledged principles, that a power should reside somewhere

of diminishing the maximum, and where more advantageously than in

the criminal himself? If the motives which govern the world at

large, and operate upon men in ordinary life, to make them frugal

and industrious, and to keep them honest, can be brought to bear

upon the isolated community of a jail, why should they not? The

object is humane; not injurious, but, on the contrary, highly

beneficial to society; and not opposed to any established rule

of law or general policy. We can conceive no possible argument

against it, save that which we have already noticed, and, we trust,

satisfactorily.

It is worthy of notice, as being calculated to satisfy the scruples

of those who may be alarmed at the introduction of what they imagine

a novel principle into our criminal jurisprudence, that this, the

main feature of the Mark System, is not new. It is sanctioned by

long usage in our penal settlements. In the Australian colonies, a

man under sentence of transportation for years or for life may, by

his own conduct, both shorten the duration and mitigate the severity

of his punishment. By industry, by a peaceable demeanour, by the

exercise of skill and ingenuity acquired in better times, he may

obtain advantages which are not accorded to others. By a steady

continuance in such behaviour, he may acquire the privilege of

working for himself, and enjoying the produce of his labour. In the

end, he may even be rewarded by a free pardon. If all these things

may be done in Australia, why not also in England? Surely there is

more to be said on behalf of convicts sentenced to imprisonment than

for those sentenced to transportation. If our sympathy, or, to speak

more correctly, our mercy, is to be inversely to the enormity of the

offence, then the English prisoner is most entitled to our regard.

It is possible that the transportation system may be wrong, but, at

least, let us be consistent.

It is not necessary that Captain Maconochie's plan should be adopted

_in extenso_, to the immediate and active subversion of the ancient

system. We may feel our way. There is no reason why a single prison

should not be set apart, or, if necessary, specially constructed,

for the purpose of applying the test of practice to the new theory.

A short act might be passed, empowering the judges to inflict labour

instead of time-sentences--of course, within a certain limit as

to number. Captain Maconochie himself might be entrusted with the

superintendence of the experiment, in order to avoid the possibility

of a suspicion that it had not received a fair trial. If, with

every reasonable advantage, the scheme should eventually prove

impracticable, then, of course, it will sink into oblivion, and be

consigned to the limbo of impossible theories. The country will

have sustained no loss, save the insignificant expense of the model

machinery.

Considering the whole subject--its importance, its difficulty, the

novelty of the proposed amendments, and their magnitude--we are

disposed to agree with the learned Recorder of Birmingham, that

"the plan is highly deserving of notice." Objections, of course,

might be made in abundance, over and above those we have thought

proper to notice. These, however, may be all reduced to one, namely,

that the scheme is impracticable. That it may prove so, we do not

deny; nor could any one, with a grain of prudence, venture to deny

it, seeing how many promising projects are daily failing, not

through their own intrinsic defects, but through miscalculation

of opposing forces. The test of the Mark System, we repeat, must

be experience. All that we seek to establish in its favour is the

soundness of its principles. Of these we do not hesitate to avow a

perfect approval; and, in doing so, we do not fear being classed

among the disciples of the new school of pseudo-philanthropy, whose

academy is Exeter Hall, and whose teachers are such men as Lord

Nugent and Mr Fox. It is quite possible to feel compassion for the

guilty, and a solicitude for their temporal as well as eternal

welfare, without elevating them into the dignity of martyrs, and

fixing one's attention upon them, to the neglect of their more

honest and less protected neighbours. It is no uncommon thing to

hear comparisons drawn between the conditions of the prisoner and

the pauper--between the abundant nourishing food of the former,

and the scanty meagre rations of the latter! There is no doubt that

better fare is provided in a jail than in a workhouse. Good reasons,

perhaps, may be given for the distinction, but in appearance it is

horribly unjust. No system which proposed to encourage it would ever

receive our approbation. The Mark System is adverse to the pampering

of criminals. It seeks to enforce temperance and frugality, both

by positive rewards, and by punishing gluttony and indulgence.

Its object is the improvement, not of the physical, but the moral

condition of the prisoner. His mind, not his body, is its especial

care--a prudent, humane, we will even say, a pious care! Visionary

it may be, though we think not--absurd it can never be, except in

the eyes of those to whom the well-being of their fellow-creatures

is matter of indifference, and who, too frivolous to reflect, or too

shallow to penetrate the depths of things, seek to disguise their

ignorance and folly under cover of ridicule. To such we make no

appeal. But to the many really humane and sensible persons who are

alive to the importance of the subject, we recommend a deliberate

examination of the Mark System.

M.

LAYS AND LEGENDS OF THE THAMES.

Never was there such a summer on this side of the Tropics. How is

it possible to exist, with the thermometer up to boiling point!

London a vast caldron--the few people left in its habitable parts

strongly resembling stewed fish--the aristocratic portion of the

world flying in all directions, though there are three horticultural

fetes to come--the attachés to all the foreign embassies sending in

their resignations, rather than be roasted alive--the ambassadors

all on leave, in the direction of the North Pole--the new governor

of Canada congratulated, for the first time in national history,

on his banishment to a land where he has nine months winter;--and

a contract just entered into with the Wenham Lake Company for ten

thousand tons of ice, to rescue the metropolis from a general

conflagration.

--Went to dine with the new East India Director, in his Putney

paradise. Sir Charles gives dinners worthy of the Mogul, and

he wants nothing of the pomps and pleasures of the East but a

harem. But, in the mean time, he gathers round him a sort of

human menagerie; and every race of man, from the Hottentot to the

Highlander, is to be found feeding in his Louis Quatorze saloons.

This certainly variegates the scene considerably, and relieves us

of the intolerable topics, of Parliament, taxes, the last attempt

on Louis Philippe, the last adventure of Queen Christina, or the

last good thing of the last great bore of Belgrave Square; with

the other desperate expedients to avoid the inevitable yawn. We

had an Esquimaux chief, who, however, dwelt too long on the luxury

of porpoise steaks; a little plump Mandarin, who indulged us with

the tricks of the tea trade; the sheik Ben Hassan Ben Ali, who had

narrowly escaped hanging by the hands of the French; and a New

Zealand chief, strongly suspected of habits inconsistent with the

European _cuisine_, yet who restricted himself on this occasion to

every thing at the table.

At length, in a pause of the conversation, somebody asked where

somebody else was going, for the dog-days. The question engaged us

all. But, on comparing notes, every Englishman of the party had been

everywhere already--Cairo, Constantinople, Calcutta, Cape Horn.

There was not a corner of the world, where they had not drunk tea,

smoked cigars, and anathematised the country, the climate, and the

constitution. Every thing was _usé_--every soul was _blasé_. There

was no hope of novelty, except by an Artesian perforation to the

centre, or a voyage to the moon.

At last a curious old personage, with a nondescript visage, and who

might, from the jargon of his tongue and the mystery of his costume,

have been a lineal descendant of the Wandering Jew, asked, had any

one at table seen the Thames?

The question struck us all at once. It was a grand discovery; it

was a flash of light; it was the birth of a new idea; it was an

influx of brilliant inquiry. It was ascertained, that though we had

all steamed up and down the Thames times without number, not one of

us had seen the river. Some had always steamed it in their sleep;

some had plunged at once into the cabin, to avoid the passengers on

deck; some had escaped the vision by the clouds of a cigar; some by

a French novel and an English dinner. But not one could recollect

any thing more of it than it flowed through banks more or less

miry; that it was, to the best of their recollection, something

larger than the Regent's Canal; and some thought that they had seen

occasional masts and smoke flying by them.

My mind was made up on the spot. Novelty is my original passion--the

spring of all my virtues and vices--the stimulant of all my desires,

disasters, and distinctions. In short, I determined to see the

Thames.

* * * * *

Rose at daybreak--the sky blue, the wind fragrant, Putney throwing

up its first faint smokes; the villa all asleep. Leaving a billet

for Sir Charles, I ordered my cab, and set off for the Thames. "How

little," says Jonathan Swift, "does one-half of the world know what

the other is doing." I had left Putney the abode of silence, a

solitary policeman standing here and there, like the stork which our

modern painters regularly put into the corner of their landscapes to

express the sublime of solitude--no slipshod housemaid peeping from

her window; no sight or sound of life to be seen through the rows of

the flower-pots, or the lattices of the suburb gardens.

But, once in London, what a contrast. From the foot of London

bridge what a rush of life; what an incursion of cabs; what a

rattle of waggons; what a surge of population; what a chaos of

clamour; what volcanic volumes of everlasting smoke rolling up

against the unhappy face of the Adelaide hotel; what rushing of

porters, and trundling of trunks; what cries of every species,

utterable by that extraordinary machine the throat of man; what

solicitations to trust myself, for instant conveyance to the

remotest shore of the terraqueous globe!--"For Calais, sir? Boat

off in half-an-hour."--"For Constantinople? in a quarter."--"For

Alexandria? in five minutes."--"For the Cape? bell just going to

ring." In this confusion of tongues it was a thousand to one that I

had not jumped into the boat for the Niger, and before I recovered

my senses, been far on my way to Timbuctoo.

In a feeling little short of desperation, or of that perplexity

in which one labours to decypher the possible purport of a maiden

speech, I flung myself into the first steamer which I could reach,

and, to my genuine self-congratulation, found that I was under no

compulsion to be carried beyond the mouth of the Thames.

I had now leisure to look round me. The bell had not yet chimed:

passengers were dropping in. Carriages were still rolling down

to the landing-place, laden with mothers and daughters, lapdogs

and bandboxes, innumerable. The surrounding scenery came, as the

describers say, "in all its power on my eyes."--St Magnus, built by

Sir Christopher Wren, as dingy and massive as if it had been built

by Roderic the Goth; St Olave's, rising from its ruins, as fresh as

a fairy palace of gingerbread; the Shades, where men drink wine, as

Bacchus did, from the bunghole; the Bridge of Bridges, clambered

over and crowded with spectators as thick as hiving bees!

But--prose was never made for such things. I must be Pindaric.

LONDON BRIDGE.

_"My native land, good-night!"_

Adieu, adieu, thou huge, high bridge

A long and glad adieu!

I see above thy stony ridge

A most ill-favour'd crew.

The earth displays no dingier sight;

I bid the whole--Good-night, good-night!

There, hang between me and the sky

She who doth oysters sell,

The youth who parboil'd shrimps doth cry,

The shoeless beau and belle,

Blue-apron'd butchers, bakers white,

Creation's lords!--Good-night, good-night!

Some climb along the slippery wall,

Through balustrades some stare,

One wonders what has perch'd them all

Five hundred feet in air.

The Thames below flows, ready quite

To break their fall.--Good-night, good-night!

What visions fill my parting eyes!

St Magnus, thy grim tower,

_Almost_ as black as London skies!

The Shades, which are no bower;

St Olave's, on its new-built site,

In flaming brick.--Good-night, good-night!

The rope's thrown off, the paddles move,

We leave the bridge behind;

Beat tide below, and cloud above;--

Asylums for the blind,

Schools, storehouses, fly left and right;

Docks, locks, and blocks--Good-night, good-night!

In distance fifty steeples dance.

St Catherine's dashes by,

The Customhouse scarce gets a glance,

The sounds of Bowbell die.

With charger's speed, or arrow's flight,

We steam along.--Good-night, good-night!

The Tower seems whirling in a waltz,

As on we rush and roar.

Where impious man makes Cheltenham salts,

We shave the sullen shore;

Putting the wherries all in fright,

Swamping a few.--Good-night, good-night!

We brave the perils of the Pool;

Pass colliers chain'd in rows;

See coalheavers, as black and cool

As negroes without clothes,

Each bouncing, like an opera sprite,

Stript to the skin.--Good-night, good-night!

And now I glance along the deck

Our own live-stock to view--

Some matrons, much in fear of wreck;

Some lovers, two by two;

Some sharpers, come the clowns to bite;

Some plump John Bulls.--Good-night, good-night!

A shoal of spinsters, book'd for France,

(All talking of Cheapside;)

An old she-scribbler of romance,

All authorship and pride;

A diner-out, (timeworn and trite,)

A _gobe-mouche_ group.--Good-night, good-night!

A strolling actor and his wife,

Both going to "make hay;"

An Alderman, at fork and knife,

The wonder of his day!

Three Earls, without an appetite,

Gazing, in spleen.--Good-night, good-night!

Ye dear, delicious memories!

That to our midriffs cling

As children to their Christmas pies,

(So, all the New-School sing;

In collars loose, and waistcoats white,)

All, all farewell!--Good-night, good-night!

The charming author of that most charming of all brochures, _Le

Voyage autour de ma Chambre_, says, that the less a man has to

write about, the better he writes. But this charming author was a

Frenchman; he was born in the land where three dinners can be made

of one potato, and where moonshine is a substantial part of every

thing. He performed his voyage, standing on a waxed floor, and

making a circuit of his shelves; the titles of his books had been

his facts, and the titillations of his snuff the food of his fancy.

But John Bull is of another style of thinking. His appetite requires

solid realities, and I give him docks, wharfs, steam-engines, and

manufactures, for his powerful mastication.--But, what scents are

these, rising with such potentiality upon the morning breeze? What

sounds, "by distance made more sweet?" What a multitude of black,

brown, bustling beings are crushing up that narrow avenue, from

these open boats, like a new invasion of the pirate squadrons from

the north of old. Oh, Billingsgate!--I scent thee--

----"As when to them who sail

Beyond the Cape of Hope, and now are past

Mozambic, far at sea the north winds blow

Sabæan odours from the spicy shore

Of Araby the Blest. With such delay

Well-pleased, they slack their course, and many a league,

Cheer'd with the grateful smell, old Ocean smiles."

The effect was not equally rapturous in the Thames; but on we flew,

passing groups of buildings which would have overtopped all the

castles on the Rhine, had they but been on fair ground; depots of

wealth, which would have purchased half the provinces beyond the

girdle of the Black Forest; and huge steamers, which would have

towed a captive Armada to the Tower.

The TOWER! what memories are called up by the name! How frowning are

those black battlements, how strong those rugged walls, how massive

those iron-spiked gates! Every stone is historical, and every era

of its existence has been marked by the mightiest changes of men,

monarchs, and times; then I see the fortress, the palace and the

prison of kings!

But, let me people those resounding arches, dim passages, and

solemn subterraneans, with the past. Here, two thousand years ago,

Julius Cæsar kept his military court, with Quæstors, Prefects,

and Tribunes, for his secretaries of state; Centurions for his

chamberlains; and Augurs for his bishops. On this bank of the

stately river, on which no hovel had encroached, but which covered

with its unpolluted stream half the landscape, and rolled in quiet

majesty to meet the ocean; often stood the man, who was destined

to teach the Republican rabble of Rome that they had a master. I

leave antiquarians to settle the spot trodden by his iron sandal. I

disdain the minute meddling of the men of _fibulæ_ and _frustums_ of

pitchers. But I can see--"in my mind's eye, Horatio"--the stately

Roman casting many an eager glance eastward, and asking himself,

with an involuntary grasp of his hilt, and an unconscious curl of

his lip, how long he was to suffer the haranguers of the populace,

the pilferers of the public, the hirelings of Cinna and Sylla, and

of every man who would hire them, the whole miry mass of reformers,

leaguers, and cheap-bread men, to clap their wings like a flight of

crows over the bleeding majesty of Rome.

Then the chance sound of a trumpet, or the tread of a cohort along

the distant rampart, would make him turn back his glance, and think

of the twenty thousand first-rate soldiers whom a wave of his finger

would move across the Channel, send through Gaul, sacking Lutetia,

darting through the defiles of the Alps, and bringing him in triumph

through the Janiculum, up to the temple of the Capitoline Jove.

Glorious dreams, and gloriously realised! How vexatious is it that

we cannot see the past, that we cannot fly back from the bustle

of this blacksmith world, from the jargon of public life, and the

tameness of private toil; into those majestic ages, when the world

was as magnificent as a theatre; when nations were swallowed up in

the shifting of a scene; when all were fifth acts, and when every

catastrophe broke down an empire!

But, what sounds are these? The steamer had shot along during

my reverie, and was now passing a long line of low-built strong

vessels, moored in the centre of the river. I looked round, and here

was more than a dream of the past; here was the past itself--here

was man in his primitive state, as he had issued from the forest,

before a profane axe had cropped its brushwood. Here I saw perhaps

five hundred of my fellow-beings, no more indebted to the frippery

of civilisation than the court of Caractacus.--Bold figures, daring

brows, Herculean shapes, naked to the waist, and with skins of the

deepest bronze. Cast in metal, and fixed in a gallery, they would

have made an incomparable rank and file of gladiatorial statues.

The captain of the steamer explained the phenomenon. They were

individuals, who, for want of a clear perception of the line to be

drawn between _meum_ and _tuum_, had been sent on this half-marine

half-terrestrial service, to reinforce their morals. They were now

serving their country, by digging sand and deepening the channel of

the river. The scene of their patriotism was called the "hulks," and

the patriots themselves were technically designated felons.

Before I could give another glance, we had shot along; and, to my

surprise, I heard a chorus of their voices in the distance. I again

applied to my Cicerone, who told me that all other efforts having

failed to rectify their moral faculties; a missionary singing-master

had been sent down among them, and was reported to be making great

progress in their conversion.

I listened to the sounds, as they followed on the breeze. I am not

romantic; but I shall say no more. The novelty of this style of

reformation struck me. I regarded it as one of the evidences of

national advance.--My thoughts instinctively flowed into poetry.

SONG FOR THE MILLION.

_"Mirth, admit me of thy crew."_

Song, admit me of thy crew!

Minstrels, without shirt or shoe,

Geniuses with naked throats,

Bare of pence, yet full of _notes_.

Bards, before they've learn'd to write,

Issuing their notes at _sight_;

Notes, to tens of thousands mounting,

Careless of the Bank's discounting.

Leaving all the world behind,

England, in thy march of Mind.

Now, the carter drives his cart,

Whistling, as he goes, Mozart.

Now, a shilling to a guinea,

Dolly cook, _sol-fas_ Rossini.

While the high-soul'd housemaid, Betty,

Twirls her mop to Donizetti.

Or, the scullion scrubs her oven

To thy Runic hymns, Beethoven.

All the sevants' hall combined,

England, in thy march of Mind.

Now, may maidens of all ages

Look unharm'd on pretty _pages_.

Now, may paupers "_raise the wind_,"

Now, may _score_ the great undined.

Now, unblamed, may tender pairs

Give themselves the tenderest _airs_.

Now, may half-pay sons of Mars

Look in freedom through their _bars_,

Though upon a _Bench_ reclined,

England, in thy march of Mind.

Soon we'll hear our "London cries"

Dulcified to harmonies;

Mackerel sold in canzonets,

Milkmen "calling," in duets.

Postmen's bells no more shall bore us,

When their clappers ring in chorus.

Ears no more shall start at, Dust O!

When the thing is done with _gusto_.

E'en policemen grow refined,

England, in thy march of Mind.

Song shall settle Church and State,

Song shall supersede debate.

Owlet Joe no more shall screech,

We shall make him sing his speech.

Even the Iron Duke's "sic volo"

Shall be soften'd to a _solo_.

Discords then shall be disgrace,

Statesmen shall play _thorough base_;

Whigs and Tories intertwined,

England, in thy march of Mind.

Sailors, under canvass stiff,

Now no more shall dread a _cliff_.

From Bombay to Coromandel,

The Faqueers shall chorus Handel.

Arab sheik, and Persian maiden,

Simpering serenades from Haydn.

Crossing then the hemisphere,

Jonathan shall chant Auber,

All his love of pelf resign'd,

England, to thy march of Mind.

--Still moving on, still passing multitudinous agglomerations of

brick, mortar, stone, and iron, rather than houses.--Docks crowded

with masts, thicker than they ever grew in a pine forest, and

echoing with the sounds of hammers, cranes, forges and enginery,

making anchors for all the ships of ocean, rails for all the roads

of earth, and chain-cables for a dozen generations to come. In

front of one of those enormous forges, which, with its crowd of

brawny hammerers glaring in the illumination of the furnace, gave

me as complete a representation of the Cyclops and their cave, as

any thing that can be seen short of the bowels of Ætna; stood a

growing church, growing of iron; the walls were already half-way

grown up. I saw them already pullulating into windows, a half-budded

pulpit stood in the centre, and a Gothic arch was already beginning

to spread like the foliage of a huge tree over the aisle. It was

intended for one of the colonies, ten thousand miles off.

As the steamer is not suffered in this part of the river to run down

boats at the rate of more than five miles an hour; I had leisure

to see the operation. While I gazed, the roof had _leaved_; and my

parting glance showed me the whole on the point of flourishing among

the handsomest specimens of civic architecture.

In front of another forge stood a lighthouse; it was consigned to

the West Indies. Three of its stone predecessors had been engulfed

by earthquakes, a fourth had been swept off by a hurricane. This was

of iron, and was to defy all the chances of time and the elements,

by contract, for the next thousand years. It was an elegant

structure, built on the plan of the "Tower of the Winds." Every

square inch of its fabric, from the threshold to the vane, was iron!

"What will mankind come to," said George Canning, "in fifty years

hence? The present age is impudent enough, but I foresee that the

next will be all _Irony_ and _Raillery_."

But all here is a scene of miracle. In our perverseness we laugh

at our "Lady of Loretto," and pretend to doubt her house being

carried from Jerusalem on the backs of angels. But what right have

I to doubt, where so many millions are ready to take their oaths

to the fact? What is it to us how many angels might be required

for the operation? or how much their backs may have been galled in

the carriage? The result is every thing. But here we have before

our sceptical eyes the very same result. We have St Catherine's

hospital, fifty times the size, transported half-a-dozen miles, and

deposited in the Regent's Park. The Virgin came alone. The hospital

came, with all its fellows, their matrons, and their master. The

virgin-house left only a solitary excavation in a hillside. The

hospital left a mighty dock, filled with a fleet that would have

astonished Tyre and Sidon, buildings worthy of Babylon, and a

population that would have sacked Persepolis.

But, what is this strangely shaped vessel, which lies anchored stem

and stern in the centre of the stream, and bearing a flag covered

over with characters which as we pass look like hieroglyphics? The

barge which marks the Tunnel. We are now moving above the World's

Wonder! A thousand men, women, and children, have marched under

that barge's keel since morning; lamps are burning fifty feet under

water, human beings are breathing, where nothing but the bones of a

mammoth ever lay before, and check-takers are rattling pence, where

the sound of coin was never heard since the days of the original

Chaos.

What a field for theory! What a subject for a fashionable Lecturer!

What a topic for the gossipry of itinerant science, telling us (on

its own infallible authority) how the globe has been patched up for

us, the degenerated and late-born sons of Adam! How glowingly might

their fancy lucubrate on the history of the prior and primitive

races which may now be perforating the interior strata of the

globe--working by their own gas-light, manufacturing their own

metals, and, from their want of the Davy-lamp, (and of an Act of

Parliament, to make it burn,) producing those explosions which _we_

call earthquakes, while our volcanoes are merely the tops of their

chimneys!

I gave the Tunnel a parting aspiration--

THE TUNNEL.

Genii of the Diving-bell!

Sing Sir Is-mb-rt Br-n-l,

Whether ye parboil in steam,

Whether float in lightning's beam,

Whether in the Champs Elysés

Dance ye, like Carlotta Grisi.

Take your trumps, the fame to swell,

Of Sir Is-mb-rt Br-n-l.

Phantoms of the fiery crown!

Plunged ten thousand fathoms down

In the deep Pacific's wave,

In the Ocean's central cave,

Where the infant earthquakes sleep,

Where the young tornadoes creep.

Chant the praise, where'er ye dwell,

Of Sir Is-mb-rt Br-n-l.

What, if Green's Nassau balloon

(Ere its voyage to the moon)

'Twixt Vauxhall and Stepney plies,

Straining London's million eyes,

Dropping on the breezes bland,

(Good for gazers,) bags of sand;

Green's a blacksmith to a belle,

To Sir Is-mb-rt Br-n-l.

Great magician of the Tunnel!

Earth bows down before thy funnel,

Darting on through swamp and crag,

Faster than a Gaul can brag;

All Newmarket's tip-top speed,

To thy stud is broken-knee'd;

Zephyr spavin'd, lightning slow,

To thy fiery rush below.

Ships no more shall trust to sails,

Boats no more be swamp'd by whales,

Sailors sink no more in barks,

(Built by contract with the sharks,)

Though the tempest o'er us roar;

Flying through thy Tunnel's bore,

What care we for mount or main,

What can stop the Monster-Train?

There let Murchison and Lyell

Of our Tunnel make the trial.

We shall make them cross the Line,

Fifty miles below the brine--

Leaving blockheads to discuss

Paving-stones with Swiss or Russ,

Or in some Cathedral stall,

Still to play their cup and ball.

What, if rushes the Great Western

Rapid as a racer's pastern,

At each paddle's thundering stroke,

Blackening hemispheres with smoke,

Bouncing like a soda-cork;

Raising consols in New York,

E'er the lie has time to cool,

Forged in bustling Liverpool.

Yet, a river to a runnel,

To the steamer is the Tunnel;

Screw and sail alike shall lag,

To the "Rumour" in thy bag.

While _she_ puffs to make the land,

Thou shalt have the Stock in hand,

Smashing bill-broker and banker

Days, before she drops her anchor.

Then, if England has a foe,

We shall rout him from below.

Through our Ocean tunnel's arch,

Shall the bold battalions march,

Piled upon our flying waggons,

Spouting fire and smoke like dragons;

Sweeping on, like shooting-stars,

Guardsmen, rifles, and hussars.

We shall _tunnelize_ the Poles,

Bringing down the cost of coals;

Making Yankees sell their ice

At a Christian sort of price;

Making China's long-tail'd Khan

Sell his Congo as he can,

In our world of fire and shade,

Carrying on earth's grand "Free Trade."

We shall bore the broad Atlantic,

Making every grampus frantic;

Killing Jonathan with spite,

As the Train shoots up to light.

Mexico her hands shall clap,

Tahiti throw up her cap,

Till the globe one shout shall swell

To Sir Is-mb-rt Br-n-l.

But this scene is memorable for more ancient recollections. It was

in this spot, that once, every master of a merchant ship took off

his hat in reverence to the _genius loci_; but never dared to drop

his anchor. It was named the Pool, from the multitude of wrecks

which had occurred there in the most mysterious manner; until it was

ascertained that it was the chief resort of the mermen and mermaids,

who originally haunted the depths of the sylvan Thamesis.

There annually, from ages long before the Olympiads, the youths and

maidens came, to fling garlands into the stream, and inquire the

time proper for matrimony. It was from one of their chants, that

John Milton borrowed his pretty hymn to the presiding nymph--

"Listen, where thou art sitting,

Under the glassy, cool, translucent wave,

In twisted braids of lilies knitting

The loose trains of thy amber-dropping hair.

Listen, for dear honour's sake,

Goddess of the Silver Lake,

Listen and save!"

On the coast of Norway there is another Pool, entitled the

Maelstrom, where ships used to disappear, no one knew why. But

the manner was different; they no sooner touched the edge of the

prohibited spot than they were swept with the fury of a hurricane

into the centre, where they no sooner arrived than they were

pulled down, shattered into a thousand fragments, and never heard

of more. This was evidently the work of the mermen, who however,

being of Northern breed, had, like the usual generation of that

wild and winterly region, tempers of indigenous ferocity. But the

tenants of the Thames, inheriting the softer temper of their clime,

were gentler in their style of administering justice, which they

administered effectually, notwithstanding. Every unlucky vessel

which stopped upon the exclusive spot, quietly sank. The operation

regularly took place in the night. By morning the only remnant of

its existence was discoverable among the huts along the shore,

exhibiting foreign silks, Dutch drams, French brandy, and other

forbidden articles, which, somehow or other, had escaped from the

bosom of the deep.

The legend goes on to say, that from those fatalities the place was

cautiously avoided, until, about a hundred and fifty years ago, one

fine evening in May, a large merchantman came in full sail up the

river, and dropped her anchor exactly in the spot of peril. All the

people of the shore were astounded at this act of presumption, and

numberless boats put off to acquaint the skipper with his danger.

But, as the legend tells, "he was a bold vain man, with a huge

swaggering sword at his side, a purse in his girdle, and a pipe in

his mouth. Upon hearing of the aforesaid tale, he scoffed greatly,

saying, in most wicked and daring language, that he had came from

the East Indian possessions of the Dutch republic, where he had seen

jugglers and necromancers of all kinds; but he defied them all, and

cared not the lighting of his meerscham for all the mermaids under

the salt seas." Upon the hearing of which desperate speech all the

bystanders took to their boats, fearing that the good ship would be

plucked to the bottom of the river without delay.

But at morning dawn the good ship still was there, to the surprise

of all. However, the captain was to have a warning. As he was

looking over the stern, and laughing at the story, the steersman

saw him suddenly turn pale and fix his eyes upon the water, then

running by at the rate of about five knots. The crew hurried

forward, and lo and behold! there arose close to the ship a merman,

a very respectable-looking person, in Sunday clothes and with his

hair powdered, who desired the captain to carry his vessel from the

place, because "his anchor had dropt exactly against his hall door,

and prevented his family from going to church."

The whole history is well known at Deptford, Rotherhithe, and places

adjacent; and it finishes, by saying, that the captain, scoffing

at the request, the merman took his leave with an angry expression

on his countenance, a storm came on in the night, and nothing of

captain, crew, or ship, as ever heard of more.

But the spot is boundless in legendary lore. A prediction which

had for centuries puzzled all the readers of Mother Shipton, was

delivered by her in the small dwelling whose ruins are still visible

on the Wapping shore. The prophecy was as follows:--

Eighteene hundred thirty-five,

Which of us shall be alive?

Many a king shall ende his reign;

Many a knave his ende shall gain;

Many a statesman be in trouble;

Many a scheme the worlde shall bubble;

Many a man shall selle his vote;

Many a man shall turne his coat.

Righte be wronge, and wronge be righte,

By Westminster's candle-lighte.

But, when from the top of Bow

Shall the dragon stoop full low.

When from church of holy Paul

Shall come down both crosse and ball.

When all men shall see them meete

On the land, yet by the Fleet.

When below the Thamis bed

Shall be seen the furnace red;

When its bottom shall drop out,

Making hundreds swim about,

Where a fishe had never swum,

Then shall doleful tidings come.

Flood and famine, woe and taxe,

Melting England's strength like waxe;

Till she fights both France and Spain,

Then shall all be well again!

I shall have an infinite respect for Mother Shipton in future. All

was amply verified. The repairs of St Paul's, in the year stated,

required that the cross and ball should be taken down, which was

done accordingly. Bow Church, whose bells are supposed to thrill

the _intima præcordia_ of every Londoner's memory in every part of

the globe, happening to be in the same condition, the dragon on

the spire was also taken down, and cross, ball, and dragon, were

sent to a coppersmith's, in Ludgate Hill, beside the Fleet prison,

where they were to be seen by all the wondering population, lying

together. The third feature of the wisdom of Mother Shipton was

fulfilled with equal exactitude. The Thames Tunnel had been pushed

to the middle of the river's bed, when, coming to a loose portion of

the clay, the roof fell in; the Thames burst through its own bottom,

the Tunnel was instantly filled, and the workmen were forced to

swim for their lives. The remainder of the oracle, partly present,

is undeniable while we have an income tax, and the _finale_ may be

equally relied on, to the honour of the English Pythonness.

RECENT ROYAL MARRIAGES.

At this dull season, the long vacation of legislators, when

French deputies and English members, weary of bills and debates,

motions and amendments, take their autumnal ramble, or range

their well-stocked preserves, and when newspapers are at their

wits' end for subjects of discussion, a topic like the Spanish

marriages, intrinsically so important, in arrival so opportune, has

naturally monopolised the attention of the daily press. For some

time previously, the English public had paid little attention to

Spanish affairs. Men were weary of watching the constant changes,

the shameless corruption, the scandalous intrigues, from which

that unfortunate country and its unquiet population have so long

suffered; they had ceased in great measure to follow the thread of

Peninsular politics. The arbitrary and unconstitutional influences

employed at the last elections, and the tyranny exercised towards

the press, deprived foreigners of the most important data whence

to judge the real state of public feeling and opinion south of

the Pyrenees. The debates of Cortes elected under circumstances

of flagrant intimidation, and whose members, almost to a man,

were creatures of a _Camarilla_, were no guide to the sentiments

of a nation: journalists, sorely persecuted, writing in terror of

bayonets, in peril of ruinous fine and arbitrary imprisonment,

dared not speak the voice of truth, and feared to echo the wishes

and indignation of the vast but soldier-ridden majority of their

countrymen. Thus, without free papers or fair debates to guide them,

foreigners could attain but an imperfect perception of the state

of Spanish affairs. The view obtained was vague--the outline faint

and broken--details were wanting. Hence the Spanish marriages,

although so much has been written about them, have in England been

but partially understood. Much indignation and censure have been

expended upon those who achieved them; many conjectures have been

hazarded as to their proximate and remote consequences; but one very

curious point has barely been glanced at. Scarcely an attempt has

been made to investigate the singular state of parties, and strange

concurrence of circumstances, that have enabled a few score persons

to overbalance the will of a nation. How is it that a people, once

so great and powerful, still so easy to rouse, and jealous of its

independence, has suffered itself to be fooled by an abandoned

Italian woman, and a wily and unscrupulous foreign potentate--by a

corrupt _Camarilla_, and a party that is but a name? How is it that

Spain has thus unresistingly beheld the consummation of an alliance

so odious to her children, and against which, from Portugal to the

Mediterranean, from Gibraltar's straits to Cantabria's coast, but

one opinion is held, but one voice heard--a voice of reprobation and

aggrieved nationality?

Yes, within the last few weeks, wondering Europe has witnessed a

strange spectacle. A queen and her sister, children in years and

understanding, have been wedded--the former completely against her

inclinations, the latter in direct opposition to the wishes and

interests of her country, and in defiance of stern remonstrance and

angry protest from allied and powerful states--to most unsuitable

bridegrooms. The queen, Isabella of Spain, has, it is true, a

Spaniard for her husband; and him, therefore, her jealous and

suspicious subjects tolerate, though they cannot approve. Feeble

and undecided of character, unstable in his political opinions--if,

indeed, political opinions he have other than are supplied to him,

ready formed, by insidious and unworthy advisers--Don Francisco de

Assis is the last man to sit on the right hand of a youthful queen,

governing an unsettled country and a restless people, to inspire her

with energy and assist her with wise counsels. It redounds little

to the honour of the name of Bourbon, that if it was essential the

Queen should marry a member of that house, her present husband was,

with perhaps one exception, as eligible a candidate as could be

selected. That marriage decided upon, however, it became doubly

important to secure for the Infanta Luisa--the future Queen of Spain

should her sister die without issue--a husband in all respects

desirable; and, above all, one agreeable to the Spanish nation. Has

this been done? What advantages does the husband of the girl of

fourteen, of the heir-presumptive to the Spanish crown, bring to

Spain, in exchange for the rich dowery of his child-bride--for the

chance, not to say the probability, of being a queen's husband--and

for an immense accession of influence to his dynasty in the country

where that dynasty most covets it? The advantages are all of a

negative kind. By that marriage, Spain, delivered over to French

intrigues, exposed to the machinations and vampire-like endearments

of an ancient and hereditary foe, becomes _de facto_ a vassal to her

puissant neighbour.

The question of the Queen of Spain's marriage was first mooted

within a very few days after her birth. In the spring of 1830,

Queen Christina found herself with child for the first time; and

her husband, Ferdinand VII., amongst whose many bad and unkingly

qualities want of foresight could not be reckoned, published the

Pragmatic Sanction that secured the crown to his offspring should

it prove a girl. A girl it was; and scarcely had the infant been

baptised, when her father began to think of a husband for her. "She

shall be married," he said, "to a son of my brother Francisco."

By and by Christina bore a second daughter, and then the King

said--"They shall be married to the two eldest sons of my brother

Francisco."

Ferdinand died; and, as he had often predicted--comparing himself

to the cork of a bottle of beer, which restrains the fermented

liquor--at his death civil war broke out. Isabella was still an

infant; the first thing to be done was to secure her the crown; and

for the time, naturally enough, few thought about her marriage.

Queen Christina was an exception. She apparently remembered and

respected her husband's wishes; and in her conversations and

correspondence with her sister, Luisa Carlota, wife of the Infante

Don Francisco de Paulo, she frequently referred to them, and

expressed a strong desire for their fulfilment. In the month of

June of the present year, a Madrid newspaper, the _Clamor Publico_,

published a letter of hers, written most strongly in that sense. It

bears date the 23d of January 1836, and is the reply to one from

Doña Luisa Carlota, in which reference was made to conversations

between the two sisters and Ferdinand, respecting the marriage of

his daughters to the sons of Don Francisco. "The idea has always

flattered my heart," Christina wrote, "and I would fain see its

realisation near at hand; for it was the wish and will of the

beloved Ferdinand, which I will ever strive to fulfil in all that

depends on me. * * * Besides which, I believe that the national

representation, far from opposing, will approve these marriages,

as advantageous not only to our family, but to the nation itself,

your sons being Spanish princes. I will not fail to propose it

when the moment arrives." Notwithstanding these fair promises,

and her respect for the wishes of Ferdinand the well-beloved, we

find Christina, less than two years later, negotiating for her

royal daughter a very different alliance. Irritated, on the one

hand, against the Liberal party, to whose demands she had been

compelled to yield; and alarmed, upon the other, at the progress

of the Carlist armies, which were marching upon Madrid, then

defended only by the national guards, she treated with Don Carlos

for a marriage between the Queen and his eldest son. The Carlists

were driven back to their mountain strongholds, and, the pressing

danger over--although the war still continued with great fury--that

project of alliance was shelved, and another, a very important one,

broached. It was proposed to marry the Queen of Spain to an archduke

of Austria, who should command the Spanish army, and to whom

Christina expressed herself willing to give a share of the Regency,

or even to yield it entirely. This was the motive of the mission of

Zea Bermudez to Vienna. That envoy stipulated, as an indispensable

condition of the success of his negotiations, that they should be

kept a profound secret from the King of the French. The condition

was not observed. Christina herself, it is said, unable to keep

any thing from her dear uncle, told him all, and Bermudez had to

leave Vienna almost before the matter in hand had been entered

upon. Thereupon the queen-mother reverted to the marriage with a

son of Don Carlos. The Conde de Toreno, for a moment weak enough to

enter into her views, endeavoured to prepare the public for their

disclosure, by announcing in the Cortes, that wars like the one then

devastating Spain could only be terminated by a compromise--meaning

a marriage. The Cortes thought differently, and, by other means, the

war was brought to a close.

The year 1840 witnessed the expulsion of Christina from Spain, and

the appointment of Espartero to the Regency. During his three years'

sway, that general refused to make or meddle in any way with the

Queen's marriage. He said, that as she was not to marry till her

majority, and as he should then no longer be Regent, his government

had no occasion to busy itself with the matter. The friends of Spain

have reason to wish that the Duke de la Victoria had shown himself

less unassuming and reserved with respect to that most important

question. Whilst it was thus temporarily lost sight of at Madrid,

the queen-mother, in her retirement at Paris, took counsel with

the most wily and far-sighted sovereign of Europe, and from that

time must doubtless be dated the plans which Christina and Louis

Philippe have at last so victoriously carried out. They had each

their own interests in view--their own objects to accomplish--and

it so chanced that those interests and objects were easily made to

coincide. Concerning those of Christina, we shall presently speak

at some length; those of the French king are now so notorious, that

it is unnecessary to do more than glance at them. His first plan--a

bold one, certainly--was to marry the Queen of Spain to the Duke

d'Aumale. To this, Christina did not object. Her affection for

her daughter--since then grievously diminished--prompted her to

approve the match. The duke was a fine young man, and very rich.

To a tender mother--which she claimed to be--the temptation was

great. Doubtless, also, she received from Louis Philippe, as price

of her concurrence, an assurance that certain private views and

arrangements of her own should not to be interfered with--certain

guardianship accounts and unworthy peculations not too curiously

investigated. Of this, more hereafter. The result of the intrigues

and negotiations between the Tuileries and the Hotel de Courcelles,

was the diplomatic mission of M. Pageot, who was sent to London and

to the principal continental courts, to announce, on the part of

the King of the French, that, considering himself the chief of the

Bourbon family, he felt called upon to declare that, according to

the spirit of the treaty of Utrecht, the Queen of Spain could marry

none but a Bourbon prince. The success of this first move, intended

as a feeler to see how far he could venture to put forward a son

of his own, was not such as to flatter the wishes of the French

monarch. The reply of the British government was, that, according to

the constitution of Spain, the Cortes must decide who was to be the

Queen's husband and that he whom the Cortes should select, would,

for England, be the legitimate aspirant. Without being so liberal in

tone, the answers given by the cabinets of Vienna and Berlin were

not more satisfactory; and the spleen of the French king manifested

itself by the mouth of M. Guizot, who, with less than his usual

prudence, went so far as to menace Spain with a war, if the Queen

married any but a Bourbon. This occurred in March 1843.

In the following June, Espartero, in his turn, was driven from

power and from his country. Well known as it was, that French

manoeuvres and French gold had, by deluding the nation, and

corrupting the army, powerfully contributed to the overthrow of

the only conscientious and constitutional ruler with whom Spain

had for a long period been blessed, it was expected that Christina

and her friends would do their utmost to bring about the immediate

marriage of the Queen and the Duke d'Aumale. Then occurred the

long projected and much talked of visit of Queen Victoria to the

castle of Eu, where the question of Isabella's marriage was made

the subject of a conference between the sovereigns of France and

England, assisted by their ministers for foreign affairs, M. Guizot

and Lord Aberdeen. It was shortly afterwards known that the King

of the French had given the most satisfactory pledges, which were

communicated to the principal foreign courts, that he not only would

not strive to effect a marriage between the Queen of Spain and a

son of his, but that he would positively refuse his consent to any

such union. Further that if a marriage should be arranged between

the Duke of Montpensier and the Infanta Luisa, it should not take

place till Isabella was married and had issue. As an equivalent to

these concessions, the English minister for foreign affairs had to

declare, that without entering into an examination of the Treaty

of Utrecht, or recognising any right contrary to the complete

independence of the Spanish nation, it was desirable that the Queen

should wed a descendant of Philip the Fifth, provided always such

marriage was brought about conformably with the rules prescribed by

the constitution of Spain.

Compelled to abandon the design of marrying Isabella to a French

prince, Louis Philippe, like a wary and prudent general, applied

himself to improve the next best position, to which he had fallen

back, and where he determined to maintain himself. Aumale could not

have the Queen, but Montpensier should have the Infanta; and the

aim must now be to increase the value of prize No. 2, by throwing

prize No. 1 into the least worthy hands possible. In other words,

the Queen must be married to the most incapable and uninfluential

blockhead, who, being of Bourbon blood, could possibly be foisted

upon her and the Spanish nation. To this end Count Trapani was

pitched upon; and the first Narvaez ministry--including Señor Pedal

and other birds of the same disreputable feather--which succeeded

the one presided over by that indecent charlatan Gonzales Bravo,

did all in its power to forward the pretensions of the Neapolitan

prince, and accomplish his marriage with the Queen. To this end it

was absolutely necessary to dispense with the approbation of the

Cortes, required by the constitution. For although those Cortes had

been chosen without the concurrence of the Progresista party--whose

chiefs were all in exile, in prison, or prevented by the grossest

intimidation from voting at the elections--on the question of the

Trapani marriage they were found indocile. This profound contempt

and marked antipathy with which Spaniards view whatever comes from

Naples, and the offence given to the national dignity by the evident

fact, that this candidate was imposed upon the country by the

French government, convinced the latter, and that of Spain, which

was its instrument, that even the Cortes they themselves had picked

and chosen, lacked baseness or courage to consent to the Trapani

alliance. Then was resolved upon and effected the constitutional

REFORM, suppressing the article that required the approbation of

the Cortes, and replacing it by another, which only rendered it

compulsory to _announce_ to them the husband chosen by the Queen.

But the manoeuvres of France were too clumsy and palpable. It was

known that Christina had promised the hand of the Infanta to the

Duke of Montpensier; Louis Philippe's object in backing Trapani

was easily seen through; and so furious was the excitement of the

public mind throughout Spain, so alarming the indications of popular

exasperation, that the unlucky Neapolitan candidate was finally

thrown overboard.

Here we must retrace our steps, and consider Queen Christina's

motives in sacrificing what remained to her of prestige and

popularity in her adopted country, to assist, through thick and

thin, by deceit, subterfuge, and treachery, the ambitious and

encroaching views of her French uncle. There was a time--it is now

long past--when no name was more loved and respected by the whole

Spanish nation, excluding of course the Carlist party, than that of

Maria Christina de Borbon. She so frankly identified herself with

the country in which marriage fixed her lot, that in becoming a

Spanish queen she had apparently become a Spanish woman; and, in

spite of her Neapolitan birth, she speedily conquered the good-will

of her subjects. Thousands of political exiles, restored to home and

family by amnesties of her promotion, invoked blessings on her head:

the great majority of the nation, anxious to see Spain governed

mildly and constitutionally, not despotically and tyrannically,

hailed in her the good genius who was to accord them their desires.

Her real character was not yet seen through; with true Bourbon

dissimulation she knew how to veil her vices. She had the credit

also of being a tender and unselfish parent, ever ready to sacrifice

herself to the interests of her children. Her egotism was as yet

unsuspected, her avarice dormant, her sensuality unrevealed; and

none then dreamed that a day would come, when, impelled by the

meanest and most selfish motives, she would urge her weeping

daughter into the arms of a detested and incompetent bridegroom.

By her _liaison_ with Muñoz, the first blow was given to Christina's

character and popularity. This scandalous amour with the son of a

cigar-seller at Tarançon, a coarse and ignorant man, whose sole

recommendations were physical, and who, when first noticed by

the queen, occupied the humble post of a private garde-de-corps,

commenced, in the belief of many, previously to the death of

Ferdinand. Be that true or not, it is certain that towards the

close of the king's life, when he was helpless and worn out by

disease, the result of his reckless debaucheries, she sought the

society of the stalwart lifeguardsman, and distinguished him by

marks of favour. It was said to be through her interest that he was

promoted to the rank of cadet in the body-guard, which gave him

that of captain in the army. Ferdinand died, and her intrigue was

speedily manifest, to the disgust and grief of her subjects. In

time of peace her degrading devotion to a low-born paramour would

doubtless have called forth strong marks of popular indignation; but

the anxieties and horrors of a sanguinary civil war engrossed the

public attention, and secured her a partial impunity. As it was, her

misconduct was sufficiently detrimental to her daughter's cause. The

Carlists taunted their opponents with serving under the banner of

a wanton; and the Liberals, on their part, could not but feel that

their infant queen was in no good school or safe keeping.

The private fortune of Ferdinand the Seventh was well known to be

prodigious. Its sources were not difficult to trace. An absolute

monarch, without a civil list, when he wished for money he had but

to draw upon the public revenue for any funds the treasury might

contain. Of this power he made no sparing use. Then there was the

immense income derived from the Patrimonia Real, or Royal Patrimony,

vast possessions which descend from one King of Spain to another,

for their use and benefit so long as they occupy the throne. The

whole of the town of Aranjuez, the estates attached to the Pardo,

La Granja, the Escurial, and other palaces, form only a portion of

this magnificent property, yielding an enormous annual sum. Add to

these sources of wealth, property obtained by inheritance, his gains

in a nefariously conducted lottery, and other underhand and illicit

profits, and it is easy to comprehend that Ferdinand died the

richest capitalist in Europe. The amount of his savings could but be

guessed at. By some they were estimated at the incredibly large sum

of eight millions sterling. But no one could tell exactly, owing to

the manner in which the money was invested. It was dispersed in the

hands of various European bankers; also in those of certain American

ones, by whose failure great loss was sustained. No trifling sum was

represented by diamonds and jewels. It was hardly to be supposed

that the prudent owner of all this wealth would die intestate, and

there is scarcely a doubt that he left a will. To the universal

astonishment, however, upon his decease, none was forthcoming, and

his wole property was declared at sixty millions of francs, which,

according to the Spanish law, was divided between his daughters. No

one was at a loss to conjecture what became of the large residue

there unquestionably was. It was well understood, and her subsequent

conduct confirmed the belief, that the lion's share of the royal

spoils was appropriated by the young widow, whose grief for the loss

of the beloved Ferdinand was not so violent and engrossing as to

make her lose sight of the main chance. After so glorious a haul,

it might have been expected that she would hold her hand, and rest

contented with the pleasing consciousness, that should she ever be

induced or compelled to leave Spain, she had wherewithal to live in

queenly splendour and luxury. But her thirst of wealth is not of

those that can be assuaged even by rivers of gold. Though the bed of

the Manzanares were of the yellow metal, and she had the monopoly

of its sands, the mine would be all insufficient to satiate her

avarice. After appropriating her children's inheritance, she applied

herself to increase her store by a systematic pillage of the Queen

of Spain's revenues. As Isabella's guardian, the income derived from

the Patrimonio Real passed through her hands, to which the gold

adhered like steel-dust to a loadstone. Whilst the nation strained

each nerve, and submitted to the severest sacrifices, to meet the

expenses of a costly war--whilst the army was barefoot and hungered,

but still stanch in defence of the throne of Isabella--Christina,

with her mouth full of patriotism and love of Spain, remitted to

foreign capitalists the rich fruits of her peculations, provision

for the rainy day which came sooner than she anticipated,

future fortunes for Muñoz's children. The natural effect of her

disreputable intrigue or second marriage, whichever it at that

time was to be called, was to weaken her affection for her royal

daughters, especially when she found a second and numerous family

springing up around her. To her anxiety for this second family, and

to the influence of Muñoz, may be traced her adherence to the King

of the French, and the cruel and unmotherly part she has recently

acted towards the Queen of Spain.

Previously to Christina's expulsion from the Regency in the year

1840, little was seen or known of her children by Muñoz. During her

three years' residence at Paris, a similar silence and mystery was

observed respecting them, and they lived retired in a country-house

near Vevay, upon the Lake of Geneva, whither those born in the

French capital were also dispatched. This prudent reserve is now

at an end, and the grandchildren of the Tarançon tobacconist sit

around, almost on a level with, the throne of the Spanish Queen.

Titles are showered upon them, cringing courtiers wait upon their

nod, and the once proud and powerful grandees of Spain, descendants

of the haughty warriors who drove the Saracens from Iberian soil,

and stood covered in the presence of the Fifth Charles, adulate

the illegitimate progeny of a Muñoz and a Christina. Subtile have

been the calculations, countless the intrigues, shameful the

misdeeds that have led to this result, so much desired by parents

of the ennobled bastards, so undesirable for the honour and dignity

of Spain. It is obvious that, with the immense wealth, whose

acquisition has been already explained, Christina would have had no

difficulty in portioning off her half-score children, and enabling

them to live rich and independent in a foreign county. But this

arrangement did not suit her views; still less did it accord with

those of the Duke of Rianzares. He founded his objections upon a

patriotic pretext. He wished his children, he said, to be Spanish

citizens, not aliens--to hold property in their own country--to

live respected in Spain, and not as exiles in a foreign land. It

may be supposed there was no obstacle to their so doing, and that

in Spain, as elsewhere, they could reckon at least upon that amount

of ease and consideration which money can give. But here came the

sticking-point, the grand difficulty, only to be got over by grand

means and great ingenuity. Christina had been the guardian of the

Queen and Infanta during their long minority: guardians, upon the

expiration of their trust, are expected to render accounts; and

this the mother of Isabel was wholly unprepared to do, in such a

manner as would enable her to retain the plunder accumulated during

the period of her guardianship. She had certainly the option of

declining to render any--of taking herself and her wealth, her

husband and her children, out of Spain, and of living luxuriously

elsewhere. But it has already been seen, that neither she nor Muñoz

liked the prospect of such banishment, however magnificent and

numerous the appliances brought by wealth to render it endurable.

What, then, was to be done? It was quite positive that the husbands

of the Queen and Infanta would demand accounts of their wives'

fortune and of its management during their minority. How were their

demands to be met--how such difficulties got over? It was hard to

say. The position resembled what the Yankees call a "fix." The

cruel choice lay between a compulsary disgorgement of an amount of

ill-gotten gold, such as no moral emetic could ever have induced

Christina to render up, and the abandonment of Muñoz's darling

project of making himself and his children lords of the soil in

their native land. The only chance of an exit from this circle

of difficulties, was to be obtained by uniting the Queen and her

sister to men so weak and imbecile, or so under the dominion and

influence of Christina, that they would let bygones be bygones, take

what they could get and be grateful, without troubling themselves

about accounts, or claiming arrears. To find two such men, who

should also possess the various qualifications essential to the

husbands of a Queen and Infanta of Spain, certainly appeared no

easy matter--to say nothing of the odious selfishness and sin

of thus sacrificing two defenceless and inexperienced children.

But Christina's scruples were few; and, as to difficulties, her

resolution rose as they increased. Had she not also a wise and

willing counsellor in the most cunning man in Europe? Was not her

dear uncle and gossip at hand to quiet her qualms of conscience, if

by such she was tormented, and to demonstrate the feasibility--nay,

more, the propriety of her schemes? To him she resorted in her hour

of need, and with him she soon came to an understanding. He met her

half-way, with a bland smile and words of promise. "Marry one of

your daughters," was his sage and disinterested advice, "to a son of

mine, and be sure that my boys are too well bred to pry into your

little economics. We should prefer the Queen; but, if it cannot

be managed, we will take the Infanta. Isabella shall be given to

some good quiet fellow, not over clever, who will respect you far

too much to dream of asking for accounts. Of time we have plenty;

be stanch to me, and all shall go well." What wonder if from the

day this happy understanding, this real _entente cordiale_, was

come to, Christina was the docile agent, the obedient tool, of her

venerable confederate! No general in the jaws of a defile, with foes

in front and rear, was ever more thankful to the guide who led him

by stealthy paths from his pressing peril, than was the daughter of

Naples to her wary adviser and potent ally. And how charming was

the union of interest--how touching the unanimity of feeling--how

beautifully did the one's ambition and the other's avarice dovetail

and coincide! The King's gain was the Queen's profit: it was the

slaughter with one pebble of two much-coveted birds, fat and savoury

mouthfuls for the royal and politic fowlers.

In the secret conclave at the Tuileries, "all now went merry

as a marriage bell." In the ears of niece and uncle resounded,

by anticipation, the joyous chimes that should usher in the

Montpensier marriage, proclaim their triumph, drown the cries

of rage of the Spanish nation, and the indignant murmurs of

Europe;--not that the goal was so near, the prize so certain and

easy of attainment. Much yet remained to do; a false step might be

ruinous--over-precipitation ensure defeat. The King of the French

was not the man to make the one, or be guilty of the other. With

"slow and sure" for his motto, he patiently waited his opportunity.

In due season, and greatly aided by French machinations, the

downfall of the impracticable and incorruptible Espartero was

effected. But the government of Spain was still in the hands of the

Progresistas. For it will be remembered that the immediate cause

of Espartero's fall was the opposition of a section of his own

party, which, united now in their adversity, unfortunately tunately

knew not, in the days of their power, how to abstain from internal

dissensions. The Lopez ministry held the reins of government. It was

essential to oust it. As a first step, a _Camarilla_ was organised,

composed of the brutal and violent Narvaez, the daring and

disreputable Marchioness of Santa Cruz, and a few others of the same

stamp, all ultra-Moderados in politics, and fervent partisans of

Christina. So successfully did they use their backstairs influence,

and wield their weapons of corruption and intrigue, that, within

four months, and immediately after the accelerated declaration of

the Queen's majority, Lopez and his colleagues resigned. Olozaga

succeeded them; but he, too, was a Progresista and an upholder of

Spanish nationality; there was no hope of his giving in to the

plans of Christina the Afrancesada. Moreover, he was hated by the

_Camarilla_, and especially detested by the Queen-mother, whose

expulsion from Paris he had demanded when ambassador there from

Espartero's government. She determined on a signal vengeance. The

Palace Farce, that strange episode in the history of modern Spanish

courts, must be fresh in every one's memory. An accusation, as

malignant as absurd, was trumped up against Olozaga, of having

used force, unmanly and disloyal violence, to compel Isabella to

sign a decree for the dissolution of the Cortes. No one really

believed the ridiculous tale, or that Salustiano de Olozaga, the

high-bred gentleman, the uniformly respectful subject, could have

afforded by his conduct the shadow of a ground for the base charge.

Subsequently, in the Cortes, he nobly faced his foes, and, with

nervous and irresistible eloquence, hurled back the calumny in their

teeth. But it had already served their turn. To beat a dog any stick

will do; and the only care of the _Camarilla_ was to select the one

that would inflict the most poignant wound. Olozaga was hunted from

the ministry, and sought, in flight, safety from the assassin's

dagger. Those best informed entertained no doubt that his expulsion

was intimately connected with the marriage question. With him the

last of the Progresistas were got rid of, and all obstacles being

removed, the Queen-mother returned to Madrid.

Were the last crowning proof insufficient to carry conviction,

it would be easy to adduce innumerable minor ones of Christina's

heartless selfishness--of her disregard to the happiness, and

even to the commonest comforts, of her royal daughter. We read in

history of a child of France, the widow of an English king, who,

when a refugee in the capital of her ancestors, lacked fuel in a

French palace, and was fain to seek in bed the warmth of which the

parsimony of a griping Italian minister denied her the fitting

means. It is less generally known, that only six years ago, the

inheritress of the throne of Ferdinand and Isabella was despoiled of

the commonest necessaries of life by her own mother, a countrywoman

of the miserly cardinal at whose hands Henrietta of England

experienced such shameful neglect. When Christina quitted Spain

in 1840, she not only carried off an enormous amount of national

property, including the crown jewels, but also her daughter's own

ornaments; and, at the same time, even the wardrobe of the poor

child was mysteriously, but not unaccountably, abstracted: Isabella

was left literally short of linen. As to jewels, it was necessary

immediately to buy her a set of diamonds, in order that she might

make a proper appearance at her own court. Such was the considerate

and self-denying conduct of the affectionate mother, who, in the

winter of 1843, resumed her place in the palace and counsels of the

Queen of Spain. In her natural protector, the youthful sovereign

found her worst enemy.

Persons only superficially acquainted with Spanish politics commonly

fall into two errors. They are apt to believe, first, that the two

great parties which, with the exception of the minor factions of

Carlists and Republicans, divide Spain between them, are nearly

equally balanced and national; secondly, that Moderados and

Progresistas in Spain are equivalent to Conservatives and Radicals

in other countries. Blunders both. Eccentric in its politics, as in

most respects, Spain cannot be measured with the line and compass

employed to estimate its neighbours. It is impossible to conceal

the fact, that to-day the numerous and the national party in Spain

is that of the Progresistas. The tyranny of Narvaez, the misconduct

of Christina, and, above all, the French marriage, have greatly

strengthened their ranks and increased their popularity. Their

principles are not subversive, nor their demands exorbitant: they

aim at no monopoly of power. Three things they earnestly desire

and vehemently claim: the freedom of election guaranteed by the

existing constitution of Spain, but which has been so infamously

trampled upon by recent Spanish rulers, liberty of the press, and

the preservation of Spain from foreign influence and domination.

Let us examine the composition and conduct of the party called

Moderado. This party, now dominant, is unquestionably the most split

up and divided of any that flourish upon Spanish soil. It is not

deficient in men of capacity, but upon none of the grave questions

that agitate the country can these agree. When the Cortes sit, this

is manifest in their debates. Although purged of Progresistas, the

legislative chambers exhibit perpetual disagreement and wrangling.

At other times, the dissensions of the Moderados are made evident

by their organs of the press. In some of these appear articles

which would not sound discordant in the mouths of Progresistas; in

others are found doctrines and arguments worthy of the apostles

of absolutism. Between Narvaez and Pacheco the interval is wider

than between Pacheco and the Progresistas. The first, in order

to govern, sought support from the Absolutists; the second could

not rule without calling the Liberals to his aid. Subdivided into

fractions, this party, whose nomenclature is now complicated, relies

for existence less upon itself than upon extraneous circumstances,

foreign support, and the equilibrium of the elements opposed to it.

The anarchy to which it is a prey, has been especially manifest

upon the marriage question. Whilst one of its organs shamelessly

supported Trapani, others cried out for a Coburg; and, again, others

insisted that a Spanish prince was the only proper candidate--thus

coinciding with the Progresistas. In fact, the Moderados, afraid,

perhaps, of compromising their precarious existence had no candidate

of their own; and in their fluctuations between foreign influence

and interior exigencies, between court and people, between their

wish to remain in power and the difficulty of retaining it, they

left, in great measure, to chance, the election in which they

dared not openly meddle. This will sound strange to the many who,

as we have already observed, imagine the Moderado party to be the

Conservative one of England or France; but not to those aware of the

fact, that it is a collection of unities, brought together rather by

accidental circumstances than by homogeneity of principles, united

for the exclusion of others, and for their own interests, not by

conformity of doctrines and a sincere wish for their country's good.

Such was the party, unstable and unpatriotic, during whose

ascendancy Christina and her royal confederate resolved to carry

out their dishonest projects. The Queen-mother well knew that the

mass of the nation would be opposed to their realisation; but she

reckoned on means sufficiently powerful to render indignation

impotent, and frustrate revolt. She trusted to the adherence of

an army, purposely caressed, pampered, and corrupted; she felt

strong in the support of a monarch, whose interest in the affair

was at least equal to her own; she observed with satisfaction the

indifferent attitude assumed by the British government with respect

to Spanish affairs. A Progresista demonstration in Galicia, although

shared in by seven battalions of the army--an ugly symptom--was

promptly suppressed, owing to want of organisation, and to the

treachery or incapacity of its leader. The scaffold and the galleys,

prison and exile, disposed of a large proportion of the discontented

and dangerous. Arbitrary dismissals, of which, for the most part,

little was heard out of Spain, purified the army from the more

honest and independent of its officers, suspected of disaffection to

the existing government, or deemed capable of exerting themselves

to oppose an injurious or discreditable alliance. Time wore on;

the decisive moment approached. Each day it became more evident

that the Queen's marriage could not with propriety be much longer

deferred. Setting aside other considerations, she had already fully

attained the precocious womanhood of her country; and it was neither

safe nor fitting that she should continue to inhale the corrupt

atmosphere of the Madrid court without the protection of a husband.

At last the hour came; the plot was ripe, and nothing remained but

to secure the concurrence of the victim. One short night, a night of

tears and repugnance on the one hand, of flatteries, of menaces and

intimidation, on the other decided the fate of Isabella. With her

sister less trouble was requisite. It needed no great persuasive art

to induce a child of fourteen to accept a husband, as willingly as

she would have done a doll. It might have been thought necessary to

consult the will of the Spanish nation, fairly represented in freely

elected Cortes. Such, at least, was the course pointed out by the

constitution of the country. It would also have been but decorous to

seek the approval and concurrence of foreign and friendly states,

to establish beyond dispute, that the proposed marriages were in

contravention of no existing treaties; for, with respect to one of

them, this doubt might fairly be raised. But all such considerations

were waived; decency and courtesy alike forgotten. The double

marriage was effected in the manner of a surprise; and, if

creditable to the skill, it most assuredly was dishonourable to the

character of its contriver. Availing himself of the moment when the

legislative chambers of England, France, and Spain, had suspended

their sittings; although, as regards those of the latter country,

this mattered little, composed, as they are, of venal hirelings--the

French King achieved his grand stroke of policy, the project on

which, there can be little doubt, his eyes had for years been

fixed. His load of promises and pledges, whether contracted at Eu

or elsewhere, encumbered him little. They were a fragile commodity,

a brittle merchandise, more for show than use, easily hurled down

and broken. Striding over their shivered fragments, the Napoleon

of Peace bore his last unmarried son to the goal long marked out

by the paternal ambition. The consequences of the successful race

troubled him little. What cared he for offending a powerful ally and

personal friend? The arch-schemer made light of the fury of Spain,

of the discontent of England, of the opinion of Europe. He paused

not to reflect how far his Machiavelian policy would degrade him in

the eyes of the many with whom he had previously passed for wise

and good, as well as shrewd and far-sighted. Paramount to these

considerations was the gratification of his dynastic ambition.

For that he broke his plighted word, and sacrificed the good

understanding between the governments of two great countries. The

monarch of the barricades, the _Roi Populaire_, the chosen sovereign

of the men of July, at last plainly showed, what some had already

suspected, that the aggrandisement of his family, not the welfare

of France, was the object he chiefly coveted. Conviction may later

come to him, perhaps it has already come, that _le jeu ne valoit

pas la chandelle_, the game was not worth the wax-lights consumed

in playing it, and that his present bloodless victory must sooner

or later have sanguinary results. That this may not be the case,

we ardently desire; that it will be, we cannot doubt. The peace of

Europe may not be disturbed--pity that it should in such a quarrel;

but for poor Spain we foresee in the Montpensier alliance a gloomy

perspective of foreign domination and still recurring revolution.

A word or two respecting the King-consort of Spain, Don Francisco

de Assis. We have already intimated that, as a Spanish Bourbon,

he may pass muster. 'Tis saying very little. A more pitiful race

than these same Bourbons of Spain, surely the sun never shone upon.

In vain does one seek amongst them a name worthy of respect. What

a list to cull from! The feeble and imbecile Charles the Fourth;

Ferdinand, the cruel and treacherous, the tyrannical and profligate;

Carlos, the bigot and the hypocrite; Francisco, the incapable. Nor

is the rising generation an improvement upon the declining one. How

should it be, with only the Neapolitan cross to improve the breed?

Certainly Don Francisco de Assis is no favourable specimen, either

physically or morally, of the young Bourbon blood. For the sake of

the country whose queen is his wife, we would gladly think well of

him, gladly recognise in him qualities worthy the descendant of a

line of kings. It is impossible to do so. The evidence is too strong

the other way. If it be true, and we have reason to believe it is,

that he came forward with reluctance as a candidate for Isabella's

hand, chiefly through unwillingness to stand in the light of his

brother Don Enrique, partly perhaps through consciousness of his own

unfitness for the elevated station of king-consort, this at least

shows some good feeling and good sense. Unfortunately, it is the

only indication he has given of the latter quality. His objections

to a marriage with his royal cousin were overruled in a manner

that says little for his strength of character. When it was found

that his dislike to interfere with his brother's pretensions was

the chief stumbling-block, those interested in getting over it set

the priests at him. To their influence his weak and bigoted mind

was peculiarly accessible. Their task was to persuade him that Don

Enrique was no better than an atheist, and that his marriage with

the Queen would be ruinous to the cause of religion in Spain. This

was a mere fabrication. Enrique had never shown any particularly

pious dispositions, but there was no ground for accusing him of

irreligion, no reason to believe that, as the Queen's husband,

he would be found negligent of the church's forms, or setting a

bad example to the Spanish nation. The case, however, was made

out to the satisfaction of the feeble Francisco, whose credulity

and irresolution are only to be equalled in absurdity by the

piping treble of the voice with which, as a colonel of cavalry, he

endeavoured to convey orders to his squadrons. Sacrificing, as he

thought, fraternal affection to the good of his country, he accepted

the hand reluctantly placed in his, became a king by title, but

remained, what he ever must be, in reality a zero.

It was during the intrigues put in practice to force the Trapani

alliance upon Spain, that the Spanish people turned their eyes

to Don Francisco de Paulo's second son, who lived away from the

court, following with much zeal his profession of a sailor. Not

only the Progresistas, but that section of the Moderados whose

principles were most assimilated to theirs, looked upon Don Enrique

as the candidate to be preferred before all others. For this there

were many reasons. As a Spaniard he was naturally more pleasing

to them than a foreigner; in energy and decision of character he

was far superior to his brother. Little or nothing was known of

his political tendencies; but he had been brought up in a ship

and not in a palace, had lived apart from _Camarillas_ and their

evil influences, and might be expected to govern the country

constitutionally, by majorities in the Cortes, and not by the aid

and according to the wishes of a pet party. The general belief was,

that his marriage with Isabella would give increased popularity to

the throne, destroy illegitimate influences, and rid the Queen of

those interested and pernicious counsellors who so largely abused

her inexperience. These very reasons, which induced the great mass

of the nation to view Don Enrique with favour, drew upon him the

hatred of Christina and her friends. He was banished from Spain,

and became the object of vexatious persecutions. This increased

his popularity; and at one time, if his name had been taken as a

rallying cry, a flame might have been lighted up in the Peninsula

which years would not have extinguished. The opportunity was

inviting; but, to their honour be it said, those who would have

benefited by embracing it, resisted the temptation. It is no secret

that the means and appliances of a successful insurrection were

not wanting; that money wherewith to buy the army was liberally

forthcoming; that assistance of all kinds was offered them; and

that their influence in Spain was great; for in the eyes of the

nation they had expiated their errors, errors of judgment only, by

a long and painful exile. But, nevertheless, they would not avail

themselves of the favourable moment. So long as a hope remained of

obtaining their just desires by peaceable means, by the force of

reason and the _puissante propagande de la parole_, they refused

again to ensanguine their native soil, and to re-enter Spain on

the smoking ruins of its towns, over the lifeless bodies of their

mistaken countrymen.