Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXVI. October, 1843. Vol. LIV.

by Various

A Tale of Doom.

It was on a sultry July evening that a joyous party of young men were assembled in the principal room of a wine house, outside the Potsdam gate of Berlin. One of their number, a Saxon painter, by name Carl Solling, was about to take his departure for Italy. His place was taken in the Halle mail, his luggage sent to the office, and the coach was to call for him at midnight at the tavern, whither a number of his most intimate friends had accompanied him, to drink a parting glass of Rhenish wine to his prosperous journey.

Supper was over, and some magnificent melons, and peaches, and plates of caviare, and other incentives to drinking, placed upon the table; a row of empty bottles already graced the sideboard, while full ones of that venerable cobweb-mantle appearance, so dear to the toper, were forthcoming as rapidly as the thirstiest throats could desire. The conviviality was at its height, and numerous toasts had been given, among which the health of the traveller, the prosperity of the art which he cultivated, and of the land of poetry and song to which he was proceeding, had not been forgotten. Indeed, it was becoming difficult to find any thing to toast, but the thirst of the party was still unquenched, and apparently unquenchable.

Suddenly a young man started up, in dress and appearance the very model of a German student—in short frock coat and loose sacklike trousers, long curling hair hanging over his shoulders, pointed beard and mustache, and the scars of one or two sabre cuts on his handsome animated countenance.

"You want a toast, my friends!" cried he. "An excuse to drink, as though drinking needed an excuse when the wine is good. I will give you one, and a right worthy one too. Our noble selves here assembled; all, so many as we are!" And he glanced round the table, counting the number of the guests. "One, two, three, four—thirteen. We are Thirteen. Es lebe die Dreizehn!"

He raised his glass, in which the golden liquor flashed and sparkled, and set it down, drained to the last drop.

"Thirteen!" exclaimed a pale-faced, dark-eyed youth named Raphael, starting from his seat, and in his turn counting the company. "'Tis true. My friends, ill luck will attend us. We are Thirteen, seated at a round table."

There was evidently an unpleasant impression made upon the guests by this announcement. The toast-giver threw a scornful glance around him—

"What!" cried he, "are we believers in such nursery tales and old wives' superstitions? Pshaw! The charm shall soon be broken. Halls! Franz! Winebutt! Thieving innkeeper! Rascally corkdrawer! where are you hidden? Come forth! Appear!"

Thus invoked, there toddled into the room the master of the tavern—a round-bellied, short-legged individual, whose rosy gills and Bacchus-like appearance proved his devotion to the jolly god whose high-priest he was.

"Sit down here!" cried the mad student, forcing him into a chair; "and now, Raphael and gentlemen all, be pleased to shorten your faces again, and drink your wine as if one with a three after it were an unknown combination of numerals."

The conversation now took a direction naturally given to it by what had just occurred, and the origin and causes of the popular prejudice against the number Thirteen were discussed.

"It cannot be denied that there is something mysterious in the connection and combination of numbers," observed a student in philosophy; "and Pythagoras was right enough when he sought the foundation of all human knowledge in the even and uneven. All over the world the idea of something complete and perfect is associated with even numbers, and of something imperfect and defective with uneven ones. The ancients, too, considered even numbers of good omen, and uneven ones as unpropitious."

"It is really a pity," cried the mad student, "that you philosophers should not be allowed to invert and re-arrange history in the manner you deem fitting. You would soon torture the crooked stream of time into a straight line. I should like to know from what authors you derive your very original ideas in favour of even numbers. As far as my reading goes, I find that number three was considered a sacred and a fortunate number by nearly all the sects of antiquity, not excepting the Pythagoreans. And the early Romans had such a respect for the uneven numbers, that they never allowed a flock of sheep to be of any number divisible by two."

The philosopher did not seem immediately prepared with a reply to this attack.

"You are all of you looking too far back for the origin of the curse that attends the number Thirteen," interposed Raphael. "Think only of the Lord's Supper, which is rather nearer to our time than Pythagoras and the Roman shepherds. It is since then that Thirteen has been a stigmatized and fatal number. Judas Iscariot was the Thirteenth at that sacred table and believe me it is no childish superstition that makes men shun so unblest a number."

"Here is Solling, who has not given his opinion yet," cried another of the party, "and yet I am sure he has something to say on the subject. How now, Carl, what ails thee, man? Why so sad and silent?"

The painter who, at the commencement of the evening, had entered frankly and willingly into the joyous humour of his friends, had become totally changed since the commencement of this discussion on the number Thirteen. He sat silent and thoughtful in his chair, and left his glass untasted before him, while his thoughts were evidently occupied by some unpleasant subject. His companions pressed him for the cause of this change, and after for some time evading their questions, he at last confessed that the turn the conversation had taken had brought painful recollections to his mind.

"It is a matter I love not to speak about," said he; "but it is no secret, and least of all could I have any wish to conceal it from you, my good and kind friends. We have yet an hour before the arrival of the mail, and if you are disposed to listen, I will relate to you the strange incidents, the recollection of which has saddened me."

The painter's offer was eagerly accepted; the young men drew their chairs round the table, and Solling commenced as follows:—

"I am a native of the small town of Geyer, in Saxony, of the tin mines of which place my father was inspector. I was the twelfth child of my parents and half an hour after I saw the light my mother give birth to a Thirteenth, also a boy. Death, however, was busy in this numerous family. Several had died while yet infants, and there now survive only three besides myself, and perhaps my twin brother.

"The latter, who was christened Bernard, gave indications at a very early age of an eccentric and violent disposition. Precocious in growth and strength, wild as a young foal, headstrong and passionate, full of spiteful tricks and breakneck pranks, he was the terror of the family and the neighbours. In spite of his unamiable qualities, he was the pet of his father, who pardoned or laughed at all his mischief, and the consequence was, that he became an object of fear and hatred to his brothers and sisters. Our hatred, however, was unjust; for Bernard's heart was good, and he would have gone through fire and water for any of us. But he was rough and violent in whatever he did, and we dreaded the fits of affection he sometimes took for us, almost as much as his less amiable humours.

"As far back as I can remember, Bernard received not only from his brothers, but also from all our playfellows, the nickname of the Thirteenth, in allusion, of course, to his being my mother's thirteenth child. At first this offended him grievously, and many were the sound thrashings he inflicted in his endeavours to get rid of the obnoxious title. Finally he succeeded, but scarcely had he done so when, from some strange perversity of character, he adopted as an honourable distinction the very name he had taken such pains to suppress.

"We were playing one Sunday afternoon in the large court of our house; several of the neighbours' children were there, and it chanced that we were exactly twelve in number. We had wooden swords, and were having a sort of tournament, from which, however, we had managed to exclude Bernard, who, in such games, was accustomed to hit rather too hard. Suddenly he bounded over a wall, and fell amongst us like a thunderbolt. He had painted his face in red and black stripes, and made himself a pair of wings out of an old leathern apron; and thus equipped and armed with the largest broomstick he had been able to find, he showered his blows around him, driving us right and left, and shouting out, 'Room, room for the mad Thirteenth!'

"Soon after this incident my father died. Bernard, who had been his favourite, was as violent in his grief as he had already shown himself to be in every thing else. He wept and screamed like a mad creature, tore his hair, bit his hands till they bled, and struck his head against the wall; raved and flew at every body who came near him, and was obliged to be shut up when his father's coffin was carried out of the house, or he would inevitably have done himself or somebody else a mischief.

"My mother had an unmarried brother in the town of Marienberg, a wealthy man, and who was Bernard's godfather. On learning my father's death he came to Geyer, and invited his sister and her children to go and take up their abode with him. But the worthy man little knew the plague he was receiving into his house in the person of his godson. Himself of a mild, quiet disposition, he was greatly scandalized by the wild pranks of his nephew, and made vain attempts to restrain him within some bounds; but by so doing he became the aversion of my brother, who showed his dislike in every possible way. He gave him nicknames, broke his china cups and saucers, by which the old gentleman set great store, splashed his white silk stockings with mud as he went to church, put the house clock an hour forward or back, and tormented his kind godfather in every way he could devise.

"Bernard had not forgotten his title of the Thirteenth; but it was probable he would soon have got tired of it, for it was not his custom to adhere long to any thing, had not my uncle, who was a little superstitious, strictly forbidden him to adopt it. This opposition was all that was wanting to make my brother bring forward the unlucky number upon every possible occasion. When any body mentioned the number twelve before him, or called any thing the twelfth, Bernard would immediately cry out, 'And I am the Thirteenth!'

"No matter when it was, or before whom; time, place, and persons were to him alike indifferent. For instance, one Sunday in church, when the clergyman in the course of the service said, 'Let us sing a portion of such a psalm, beginning at the twelfth verse,' Bernard immediately screamed out, 'And I am the Thirteenth!'

"This was a grievous scandal to my uncle, and Bernard was called that evening before a tribunal, composed of his godfather, my mother, and the old clergyman whom he had so gracelessly interrupted, and who was also teacher of Latin and theology at the school to which Bernard and I went. But all their reproaches and remonstrances were lost upon my brother, who had evidently much difficulty to keep himself from laughing in their faces. My mother wept, my uncle paced the room in great perplexity, and the worthy old dominie clasped his hands together, and exclaimed, 'My child! I fear me, God's chastisement will be needed to amend you.' The event proved that he was right.

"It was on the Friday before Christmas-day, and we were assembled in school. The near approach of the holidays had made the boys somewhat turbulent, and the poor old dominie had had much to suffer during the whole day from their tricks and unruliness. My brother, of course, had contributed largely to the disorder, much to the delight of his bosom friend and companion, the only son of the master. This boy, whose name was Albert, was a blue-eyed, fair haired lad, gentle as a girl. Bernard had conceived a violent friendship for him, and had taken him under his protection. Albert's father, as may be supposed, was little pleased at this intimacy, but yet, out of consideration for my uncle, he did not entirely forbid it; and the more so as he perceived that his son in no respect imitated his wild playmate, but contented himself with admiring him beyond all created beings, and repaying with the warmest affection Bernard's watchful and jealous guardianship.

"On the afternoon in question, my brother surpassed himself in wayward conceits and mischievous tricks, to the infinite delight of Albert, who rocked with laughter at each new prank. The good dominie, who was indulgence itself, was instructing us in Bible history, and had to interrupt himself every moment to repress the unruliness of his pupils, and especially of Bernard.

"It seemed pre-ordained that the lesson should be an unlucky one. Every thing concurred to make it so. Our instructor had occasion to speak of the twelve tribes of Israel, of the twelve patriarchs, of the twelve gates of the holy city. Each of these served as a cue to my brother, who immediately shouted out, 'And I am the Thirteenth!' and each time Albert threw himself back shrieking with laughter, thus encouraging Bernard to give full scope to his mad humour. The poor dominie remonstrated, menaced, supplicated, but all in vain. I saw the blood rising into his pale face, and at last his bald head, in spite of the powder which sprinkled it, became red all over. He contained himself, however, and proceeded to the account of the Lord's Supper. He began, 'And when the hour was come, he sat down, and the twelve apostles with him.'

"'And I am the Thirteenth!' yelled Bernard.

"Scarcely were the words uttered, when a Bible flew across the school, the noise of a blow, and a cry of anguish followed, and the old man fell senseless to the ground. The heavy Bible, the corners of which were bound with silver, and that he had hurled in a moment of uncontrollable passion at my brother, had missed its mark, and struck his own son on the head. Albert lay bleeding on the floor, while Bernard hung over him like one beside himself, weeping, and kissing his wounds.

"The boys ran, one and all, out of the school-room, shrieking for assistance. Our cries soon brought the servants to the spot, who, on learning what had happened, hastened with us back to the school, and lifted up the old master, who was still lying on the ground near his desk. He had been struck with apoplexy, and survived but a few hours. Albert was wounded in two places, one of the sharp corners of the Bible having cut open his forehead, while another had injured his left eye. After much suffering he recovered, but the sight of the eye was gone.

"Bernard, however, had disappeared. When we re-entered the school-room, a window which looked into the playground was open, and there were marks of footsteps on the snow without. A short distance further were traces of blood, where the fugitive had apparently washed his face and hands in the snow. We have never seen him since that day."

The painter paused, and his friends remained some moments silent, musing on the tragical history they had heard.

"And do you know nothing whatever of your brother's fate?" enquired Raphael at last.

"Next to nothing. My uncle caused enquiries to be made in every direction, but without success. Once only a neighbour at Marienberg, who had been travelling on the Bohemian frontier, told us that he had met at a village inn a wandering clarinet-player, who bore so strong a resemblance to my brother that he accosted him by his name. The musician seemed confused, and muttering some unintelligible reply, left the house in haste. What renders it probable that this was Bernard is, that he had a great natural talent for music, and at the time he left home, had already attained considerable proficiency on the clarinet."

"How old was your brother when he so strangely disappeared?" asked one of the party.

"Fifteen, but he looked at least two years older, for he was stout and manly in person beyond his age."

At this moment the rattling of wheels, and sound of a postilion's horn, was heard. The Halle mail drove up to the door, the guard bawling out for his passenger. The young painter took a hasty leave of his friends, and sprang into the vehicle, which the next instant disappeared in the darkness.

There was an overplus of travellers by the mail that night, and the carriage in which Solling had got, was not the mail itself, but a calèche, holding four persons, which was used as a sort of supplement, and followed close to the other carriage. Two of the places were occupied by a Jew horse-dealer and a sergeant of hussars, who were engaged in an animated, and to them most interesting conversation, on the subject of horse-flesh, to which the painter paid little attention; but leaning back in his corner, remained absorbed in the painful reflections which the incidents he had been narrating had called up in his mind. In spite of his brother's eccentricities, he was truly attached to him; and although eight years had elapsed since his disappearance, he had not yet given up hopes of finding him, if still alive. The enquiries that he and his uncle had unceasingly made after their lost relative, had put them, about three years previous to this time, upon the trace of a clarinet-player who had been seen at Venice and Trieste, and went by the name of Voltojo. This might have been a name adopted by Bernard, as being nearly the Italian equivalent of Geyer, or hawk, the name of his native town; and Solling was not without a faint hope, that in the course of his journey to Rome he might obtain some tidings of his brother.

He was roused from his reverie by the postilion shouting out to the guard of the mail, which was just before them on the road, to know when they were to take up the passenger who was to occupy the remaining seat in the calèche.

"Where will the Thirteenth meet us?" asked the man.

"At the inn at Schoneber," replied the guard.

The Thirteenth! The word made the painter's blood run cold. The horse-dealer and the sergeant, who had begun to doze in their respective corners, were also disturbed by the ill-omened sound.

"The Thirteenth! The Thirteenth!" muttered the Jew in his beard, still half asleep. "God forbid! Let's have no thirteenth!"

A company of travelling comedians, who occupied the mail, took up the word. "The Thirteenth is coming," said one.

"Somebody will die," cried another.

"Or we shall be upset and break our necks," exclaimed a third.

"No Thirteenth!" cried they all in chorus. "Drive on! drive on! he sha'n't get in!"

This was addressed to the postilion, who just then pulled up at the door of a village inn, and giving a blast with his horn, shouted loudly for his remaining passenger to appear.

The door of the public-house opened, and a tall figure, with a small knap-sack on his shoulder and a knotty stick in his hand, stepped out and approached the mail. But when he heard the cries of the comedians, who were still protesting against the admission of a Thirteenth traveller, he started suddenly back, swinging his cudgel in the air.

"To the devil with you all, vagabonds that ye are!" vociferated he. "Drive on, postilion, with your cage of monkeys. I shall walk."

At the sound of the stranger's voice, Solling sprang up in the carriage and seized the handle of the door. But as he did so, a strong arm grasped him by the collar, and pulled him back into his seat. At the same moment the carriage drove on.

"The man is drunk," said the sergeant, who had misinterpreted his fellow-passenger's intentions. "It is not worth while dirtying your hands, and perhaps getting an ugly blow, in a scuffle with such a fellow."

"Stop, postilion, stop!" shouted Solling. But the postilion either did not or would not hear, and some time elapsed before the painter could persuade his well-meaning companion of his peaceable intentions. At length he did so, and the carriage, which had meanwhile been going at full speed, was stopped.

"You will leave my luggage at the first post-house," said Solling, jumping out and beginning to retrace his steps to the village, which they had now left some distance behind them.

The night was pitch-dark, so dark that the painter was compelled to feel his way, and guide himself by the line of trees that bordered the road. He reached the village without meeting a living creature, and strode down the narrow street amid the baying of the dogs, disturbed by his footfall at that silent hour of the night. The inn door was shut, but there was a light glimmering in one of the casements. He knocked several times without any body answering. At length a woman's head was put out of an upper window.

"Go your ways," cried a shrill voice, "and don't come disturbing honest folk at this time o' night. Do you think we have nought to do but to open the door for such raff as you? Be off with you, you vagabond, and blow your clarinet elsewhere."

"You are mistaken, madam," said Solling; "I am no vagabond, but a passenger by the Halle mail, and"—

"What brings you here, then?" interrupted the virago; "the Halle mail is far enough off by this."

"My good madam," replied the painter in his softest tone, "for God's sake tell me who and where is the person who was waiting for the mail at your hotel."

"Ha! ha!" laughed the hostess, considerably mollified by the madam and the hotel. "The mad Italian musician, the clarinet fellow? Why, I took you for him at first, and wondered what brought him back, for he started as soon as the mail left the door. He'd have done better to have got into it, with a dark night and a long road before him. Ha! ha! He's mad, to be sure."

"His name! His name!" cried Solling, impatiently.

"His name? How can I recollect his outlandish name? Fol—Vol——"

"Voltojo!" cried the painter.

"Voltojo! yes, that's it. Ha! ha! What a name!"

"It is he!" cried Solling, and without another word dashed off full speed along the road he had just come. He kept in the middle of the causeway, straining his eyes to see into the darkness on either side of him, and wondering how it was he had not met the object of his search as he came to the village. He ran on, occasionally taking trees and fingerposts for men, and cursing his ill luck when he saw his mistake. The sweat poured down his face in streams, and his knees began to knock together with fatigue. Suddenly he struck his foot against a stone lying in the road, and fell, cutting his forehead severely upon some pebbles. The sharp pain drew a cry from him, and a man who had been lying on the grass at the roadside, sprang up and hastened to his assistance. At that moment a flash of summer lightning lit up the road.

"Bernard! Bernard!" cried the painter, throwing his arms round the stranger's neck. It was his brother.

Bernard started back with a cry of horror.

"Albert!" he exclaimed in a hollow voice, "Cannot your spirit rest? Do you rise from the grave to persecute me?"

"In God's name, my dear brother, what mean you? I am Carl—Carl, your twin brother."

"Carl? No! Albert! I see that horrid wound on your brow. It still bleeds!"

The painter grasped his brother's hand.

"I am flesh and blood," said he, "and no spirit. Albert still lives."

"He lives!" exclaimed Bernard, and clasped his brother in his arms.

Explanations followed, and the brothers took the road to Berlin. When the painter had replied to Bernard's questions concerning their family, he in his turn begged his brother to relate his adventures since they parted, and above all to give his reasons for remaining so long severed from his friends and home.

"Although I fully believed Albert killed by the blow he received," replied Bernard, "it was no fear of punishment for my indirect share in his death, that induced me to fly. But when I saw the father senseless on the ground, and the son expiring before my eyes, I felt as if I was accursed, as if the brand of Cain were on my brow, and that it was my fate to roam through the world an isolated and wretched being. When you all ran out of the school to fetch assistance, it seemed to me as though each chair and bench and table in the room received the power of speech, and yelled and bellowed in my ears the fatal number which has been the cause of all my misfortunes—'Thirteen! Thirteen! Thou art the Thirteenth, the Accursed One!'

"I fled, and since that day no rest or peace has been mine. Like my shadow has this unholy number clung to me. Wherever I went, in all the many lands I have wandered through, I carried with me the curse of my birth. At every turn it met me, aggravating my numerous hardships, embittering my rare moments of joy. If I entered a room where a cheerful party was assembled, all rose and shrunk from me as from one plague-tainted. They were twelve—I was the Thirteenth. If I sat down at a dinner-table, my neighbour left his chair, and the others would say, 'He fears to sit by you. You are the Thirteenth.' If I slept at an inn—there were sure to be twelve persons sleeping there; my bed was the Thirteenth, or my room would be number Thirteen, and I was told that the former landlord had shot or hung himself in it.

"At length I left Germany, in the vain hope that the spell would not extend beyond the land of my birth. I took ship at Trieste for Venice. Scarcely were we out of port when a violent storm arose, and we were driven rapidly towards a rocky and dangerous coast. The steersman counted the seamen and passengers, and crossed himself. We were thirteen.

"Lots were drawn who should be sacrificed for the salvation of the others. I drew number thirteen, and they put me ashore on a barren rock, where I passed a day and night half dead with cold and drenched with sea water. At length an Illyrian fisherman espied me, and took me off in his boat.

"It is unnecessary to relate to you in detail my wanderings during the last eight years, or if I do, it shall be at some future time. My clarinet enables me to live in the humble manner I have always done. You remember, probably, that I had some skill in it, which I have since much improved. When travelling, my music was generally taken as payment for my bed and supper at the petty hostelries at which I put up; and when I came to a large town, I remained a few days, and usually gained more than my expenses.

"About a year since, I made some stay at Copenhagen, and at last, getting wearied of that city, I put myself on board a ship, without enquiring whither it was bound. It took me to Stralsund.

"The day of my arrival, there was a shooting-match in the suburb beyond the Knieper, and I hastened thither with my clarinet. It was a sort of fair, and I wandered from one booth to the other, playing the joyous mountain melodies which I had not once played since my departure from Marienberg. God knows what brought them into my head again; but it did my heart good to play them, and a feeling came over me, that I should like once more to have a home, and to leave the weary rambling life I had so long led.

"I had great success that day, and the people thronged to hear the wandering Italian musician. Many were the jugs of beer and glasses of wine offered to me, and my plate was soon full of shillings. As I left off playing, an old greyheaded man pressed through the crowd, and gazed earnestly at me. His eyes filled with tears, and he was evidently much moved.

"'What a likeness!' he exclaimed. 'He is the very picture of my Amadeus. I could fancy he had risen out of the sea. The same features, the sane voice and manner.'

"He came up to me and took my hand. 'If you do not fear a high staircase,' said he with a kindly smile, 'come and visit me. I live on the tower of St Nicholas's Church. Your clarinet will sound well in the free fresh air, and you will find those there who will gladly listen.' So saying, he left me.

"The old man's name was Elias Kranhelm, better known in Stralsund as the old Swede; he was the town musician, and had the care of the bells of St Nicholas. The next day was Sunday, and I hastened to visit him. His kind manner had touched me, unaccustomed as I was to kindness or sympathy from the strangers amongst whom I always lived. When I was halfway up the stairs leading to the tower, the organ began to play below me, and I recognised a psalm tune which we used often to sing for our old schoolmaster at Marienberg. I stopped a moment to listen, and thoughts of rest and home again came over me.

"I was met at the tower door by old Kranhelm, in his Sunday suit of black; large silver buckles at his knees and shoes, and a round black velvet cap over his long white hair. His clear grey eyes smiled so kindly upon me, his voice was so mild, and his greeting so cordial, that I thought I had never seen a more pleasing old man. He welcomed me as though I had been an old friend, and without further preface, asked me if I should like to become his substitute, and perform the duties for which his great age had begun to unfit him. His only son, on whom he had reckoned to take his place, had left him some time previously, to become a sailor on board a Norwegian ship, and had been drowned in his very first voyage. It was my extraordinary likeness to this son that had made him notice me; and the good, simple-hearted old man seemed to think that resemblance a sufficient guarantee against any risk in admitting a perfect stranger into his house and intimacy.

"'My post is a profitable one,' said he; 'and, in consideration of my long services, the worshipful burgomaster has given me leave to seek an assistant, now that I am getting too old for my office. Consider then, my son, if the offer suits you. You please me, and I mean you well. But here comes my Elizabeth, who will soon learn to like you if you are a good lad.'

"As he spoke, a young girl entered the room, with a psalm-book in her hand, and attired in an old-fashioned dress, which was not able, however, to conceal the elegance of her figure, and the charms of her blooming countenance.

"'How think you, Elizabeth?' said her father. 'Is he not as like our poor Amadeus as one egg is to another?'

"'I do not see the likeness, my dear father,' replied Elizabeth, looking timidly at me, and then casting down her eyes, and blushing.

"I accepted the old man's offer with joy, and took up my dwelling in the other turret of the church tower. My occupation was to keep the clock wound up, to play the evening hymn on the balcony of the tower, and to strike the hours upon the great bell with a heavy hammer.

"I soon felt the good effect of repose, and of the happy, tranquil life I now led; my spirits improved, and I began to forget the curse which hung over me—to forget, in short, that I was the unlucky Thirteenth. Old Kranhelm's liking for me increased rapidly, and, in less than three months, I was Elizabeth's accepted lover. Time flew on; the wedding-day was fixed, and the bridal-chamber prepared.

"It was on Friday evening, exactly eight days ago, that I went out with Elizabeth, and walked down to the port to look at a large Swedish ship that had just arrived. The passengers were landing, and one amongst them immediately attracted our attention.

"This was a tall, lean, raw-boned woman, apparently about forty years of age, who held in her hand a long, smooth staff, which she waved about her, nodding her head, and muttering, as she went, in some strange, unintelligible dialect. Her dress consisted of a huge black fur cloak, and a cape of the same colour fringed with red. Her whole manner and appearance were so strange, that a crowd assembled round her as soon as she set foot on shore.

"'Hallo! comrade,' cried one of the sailors of the vessel that had brought her, to a boatman who was passing. 'Hallo! comrade, do you want a job? Here's a witch to take to Hiddensee.'

"We asked the sailor what he meant; and he told us that this strange woman was a Lapland witch, who every year, in the dog-days, made a journey to the island of Hiddensee, to gather an herb which only grew there, and was essential in her incantations.

"Meantime, the witch was calling for a boat, but no one understood her language, or else they did not choose to come. My unfortunate propensity to all that is supernatural or fantastic impelled me, with irresistible force, towards her. In vain Elizabeth held me back. I pushed my way through the crowd, until we found ourselves close to the Lapland woman, who measured us from head to foot with her bright and glittering eyes. Slipping a florin into her hand, I gave her to understand, as well as I could, that we wished to have our fortunes told. She took my hand, and, after examining it, made a sign that she either could or would tell me nothing. She then took the hand of Elizabeth, who hung upon my arm, trembling like an aspen leaf, and gazing intently upon it, muttered a few words in broken Swedish. I did not understand them, but Elizabeth did, and, starting back, drew me hastily out of the crowd.

"'What did she say?' enquired I, as soon as we were clear of the throng.

"Elizabeth seemed much agitated, and had evidently to make a strong effort before she could reply.

"'Nothing,' answered she, at last; 'nothing, at least, worth repeating. And yet 'tis strange; it tallies exactly with a prediction made to my mother when I was an infant, that I should one day be in peril from the number Thirteen. This strange woman cautioned me against the same number, and bade me beware of you, for that you were the Thirteenth!'

"Had the earth opened under my feet, or the lightning from heaven fallen on my head, I could not have felt a greater shock than was communicated to me by these words. I know not what I said in reply, or how I got home. Elizabeth, doubtless, observed my agitation, but she made no remark on it. I felt her arm tremble upon mine as we walked along, and by a furtive glance at her face saw that she was pale as death. Not a word passed between us during our walk back to the tower, on reaching which she shut herself up in her room. I pleaded a severe headach and wish to lie down; and, begging the old man to strike the hours for me, retired to my chamber.

"It would be impossible to give an idea of the agony of mind I suffered during that evening. I thought at times I was going mad, and there were moments when I felt disposed to put an end to my existence by a leap from the tower window. Again, then, this curse that hung over me was in full force. Again had that fatal number raised itself before me like an iron wall, interposed between me and all earthly happiness. Wearied out at length by the storm within me, I fell asleep.

"As may be supposed, I was followed in my troubled slumbers by the recollection of my misery. Each hour that struck awoke me out of the most hideous dreams to a scarce less hideous reality. When midnight came, and the hammer clanged upon the great bell, a strange fancy took possession of my mind that it would this night strike Thirteen, and that at the thirteenth stroke the clock, the tower, the city, and the whole world, would crumble into atoms. Again I fell asleep and dreamt. I thought that my head was changed into a mighty bronze bell, and that I hung in the tower and heard the clock beside me strike Thirteen. Then came the old schoolmaster, who yet, at the same time, had the features of Elizabeth's father; and, as he drew near me, I saw that the hammer he held in his hand was no hammer, but a large silver-bound Bible. In my despair I made frightful efforts to cry out and to tell him that I was no bell, but a man, and that he should not strike me; but my voice refused its service and my tongue clove to my palate. The greyhaired old man came up to me, and struck thirteen times on my forehead, till my brains gushed out at my eyes.

"By daybreak the next morning I was two leagues from Stralsund, having left a few hurried ill-written lines in my room, pleading I know not what urgent family affairs, and a dislike to leave-taking, as excuses for my sudden departure. Over field and meadow, through rivers and forests, on I went, as though hell were at my heels, flying from my destiny. But the further I got from Stralsund the more did I regret all I left there—my beautiful and affectionate mistress, her kind-hearted father, the peaceful happy life I led on the top of the old tower. The vow I had made to fly from the haunts of men, and seek in some desert the repose which my evil fate denied me among my fellows, that vow became daily more difficult to keep. And yet I went on, dreading to depart from my determination, lest I should encounter some of those bitter deceptions and cruel disappointments that had hitherto been my lot in life. Shame, too, at the manner in which I had left the tower, withheld me, or else I think I should already be on my road back to Stralsund. But now I have met you, brother, and that my mind is relieved by the knowledge that I have not, even indirectly, Albert's death to reproach myself with, I must hasten to my Elizabeth to relieve her anxiety, and dry the tears which I am well assured each moment of my absence causes her to shed. Come with me, dearest Carl, and you shall see her, my beautiful Elizabeth, and her good old father, and the tower and the bell. Ho! the bell, the jolly old bell!"

The painter looked kindly but anxiously in his brother's face. There was a mildness in his manner that startled him, accustomed as he had been to his eccentricities when a boy.

"You are tired, brother," said he. "You need repose after the emotions and fatigues of the last week. I, too, shall not be sorry to sleep. Let us to bed for a few hours, and then we will have post-horses and be off to Stralsund."

"I have no need of rest," replied Bernard, "and each moment seems to me an eternity till I can again clasp my Elizabeth to my heart. Let us delay, then, as little as may be."

As he spoke they entered the gates of Berlin. The sun was risen, and the hotels and taverns were beginning to open their doors. Seeing Bernard's anxiety to depart, the painter abandoned his intention of taking some repose, and after hasty breakfast, a post-chaise was brought to the door, and the brothers stepping in, were whirled off on their road northwards.

The sun was about to set when the travellers came in sight of the spires of Stralsund, among which the church of St Nicholas reared its double-headed tower. Bernard had enlivened the journey by his wild sallies, and merry but extravagant humour. Now, however, that the goal was almost reached, he became silent and anxious. The hours appeared to go too slowly for him, and his restlessness was extreme.

"Faster! postilion," cried Carl, observing his brother's impatience. "Faster! You shall be paid double."

The man flogged his horses till they flew rather than galloped over the broad level road. Suddenly, however, a strap broke, and the postilion got off his seat to tie it up. Through the stillness of the evening, no longer broken by the rattle of the wheels and clatter of the horses' feet, a clock was heard striking the hour. Another repeated it, and a third, of deeper tone than the two preceding ones, took up the chime. Bernard started to his feet, and leaned so far out of the carriage that his brother seized hold of him, expecting him to lose his balance and fall out.

"It is she!" exclaimed Bernard. "'Tis the bell of St Nicholas. Listen, Carl—my Elizabeth calls me. She strikes the bell. I come, dearest, I come!"

And with these words he sprang out of the carriage, and set off at full speed towards the town, leaving his brother thunderstruck at his mad impatience and vehemence.

Running at the top of his speed, Bernard soon reached the city gate, and proceeded rapidly through the streets in the direction of St Nicholas's church. It seemed to him as though he had been absent for years instead of a few days, and he felt quite surprised at finding no change in the city since his departure. All was as he had left it; all conspired to lull him into security. An old fruitwoman, of whom he had bought cherries the very day of his last walk with Elizabeth, was in her usual place, and, as he passed, extolled the beauty of her fruit, and asked him to buy. A large rose-tree, at the door of a silversmith's shop, which Elizabeth had often admired, was still in full bloom; through the window of a house in the market-place, he saw a young girl, Elizabeth's dearest friend, dressing her hair at a looking-glass, and as he passed the churchyard, the old dumb sexton, who appeared to be hunting about for a place for a grave, nodded his head in mute recognition.

Bernard opened the tower door, and darted up the staircase. He was not far from the top when he heard the voices of two men above him. They were resting on one of the landing-places of the ladderlike stairs.

"It is a singular case, doctor," said one; "a strange and incomprehensible case. It is evidently a disease more of the mind than the body."

"Yes," replied the other, by his voice apparently an old man. "If we could only get a clue to the cause, any thing to go upon, something might be done, but at present it is a perfect riddle."

Bernard heard no more, for the men continued their ascent.

"The old father must be ill," said he to himself; but as he said it a feeling of dread and anxiety, a presentiment of evil, came over him, and he stood for a few moments unable to proceed. The door at the top of the stairs was now opened, and shut with evident care to avoid noise. "The old man must be very ill," said Bernard, as if trying to persuade himself of it. He reached the door, and his hand shook as he laid it upon the latch. At length he lifted it, and entered the room. It was empty; but, just then, the door of Elizabeth's chamber opened, and old Kranhelm stepped out. On beholding Bernard, he started back as though he had seen a ghost. He said a word or two in a low voice to somebody in the inner room, and then shutting the door, bolted it, and placed his back against it, as if to prevent Bernard from going in.

"Begone!" cried he in a tremulous voice; "in the name of God, begone! thou evil spirit of my house;" and he stretched out his arms towards Bernard as though to prohibit his approach. No longer master of himself, the young man sprang towards him, and, grasping his arm, thundered in his ear the question—

"Where is my Elizabeth?"

The words rang through the old tower, and the confused murmuring of voices in the inner room was heard. Bernard listened, and thought he distinguished the voice of Elizabeth repeating, in tones of agony, the fatal number.

One of the physicians knocked, and begged to be let out. The old tower-keeper opened the door cautiously, and, when the doctor had passed through, carefully shut and barred it. But during the moment that it had remained open, Bernard heard too plainly what his ears had at first been unwilling to believe.

"Is that the man?" demanded the physician hastily. "In God's name, be silent. You will kill the patient. She recognized your voice, and fell immediately into the most fearful paroxysm. She has got back again to the infernal number with which her delirium began, and she shrieks it out perpetually. It is a frightful relapse. Begone! young man; yet stay—I will go with you. You can, doubtless, give us a key to this mystery."

The old physician took Bernard's arm to lead him away; but at that very moment there was a shrill scream from the next room, and Elizabeth's voice was heard calling upon Bernard by name. The unfortunate young man could not restrain himself. Shaking off the grasp of the physician, he pushed old Kranhelm aside, tore back the bolts, and flung open the door. There lay Elizabeth on her deathbed, her arms stretched out towards him, her mild countenance ashy pale and frightfully distorted, her soft blue eyes straining from their orbits. She made a violent effort to speak, but death was too near at hand; the sound died away upon her lips, and her uplifted arms dropped powerless upon the bed; her head fell back—a convulsive shudder came over her: she was dead. Her unhappy lover fell senseless to the ground.

When Bernard awoke out of a long and deathlike swoon, it was night, and all around him was still and dark. He was lying on the stone floor outside Kranhelm's dwelling. The physicians had removed him thither; and, being occupied with the old tower-keeper and his daughter, they had thought no more about him. On first recovering sensation, he had but an indistinct idea of where he was, or what had happened. By degrees his senses returned to a certain extent—he knew that something horrible had occurred, but without remembering exactly what it was.

He felt about him, and touched a railing. It was the balustrade round the open turret where hung the great bell. He was lying under the bell itself, and, as he gazed up into its brazen throat, the recollection of the frightful dream which had persecuted him the night before his flight from Stralsund came vividly to his mind; he appeared to himself to be still dreaming, and yet his visions were mixed up with the realities of his everyday occupations.

He had just stepped out, he thought, to strike the hour on the bell, and rising with some difficulty from the hard couch which had stiffened his limbs, he sought about for the hammer. He made no effort to shake off the sort of dreaming semi-consciousness which seemed to prevent him from feeling the horror and anguish of reality.

"Thirteen strokes," thought he; "thirteen strokes, and at the Thirteenth the tower will fall, the city crumble to dust, the world be at an end." Such had been his dream, and the moment of its accomplishment was come.

He found the hammer, and struck with all his force upon the bell. He repeated the blow; twelve times he struck, and each stroke rang with deafening violence through his brain; but at the Thirteenth, as he raised his arms high above his head, and leaning back against the railing, threw his whole strength and energy into the blow, the frail balustrade gave way under his weight, and he fell headlong from the tower. The last stroke tolled out, sad and hollow as a funereal knell, and the sound mingled with the death-cry of the luckless Thirteenth!

---

REMINISCENCES OF SYRIA.[15]

Galloping, gossiping, flirting and fighting, feasting and starving, but always in high spirits and the best possible humour, Colonel Napier might answer an advertisement for "A Pleasant Companion in a Post-chaise," without the slightest chance of rejection. But it is difficult to imagine so dashing a traveller, boxed up in a civilized conveyance, rolling quietly along a macadamized road, with a diversity of milestones and an occasional turnpike gate, the only incidents by the way—no wild Maronite glimpsing at him over the hedge; no black-eyed houri peeping over the balustrades of the caravanserai, (called by vulgar men the Bricklayers' Arms)—no Saïces to help John Hostler to change horses; but dulness, uniformity, and most tiresome and unromantic safety. England, we are sorry to confess it, is not the land of stirring adventures or hair-breadth 'scapes—a railway coach occasionally blows up; a blind leader occasionally bolts into a ditch; a wheel comes occasionally into dangerous collision with one of Pickford's vans; but these are the utmost that can be hoped for in the way of peril, and other excitement there is positively none. We have treated life as the mathematician did Paradise Lost—we have struck out all its similes—obliterated its flights—expunged its glorious visions—we have made it prose. But fortunately for us—for Colonel Napier—for the reading public—there is a land where mathematicians are unknown, and where poetry continues to flourish in the full vigour of cimeters and turbans—the region of the sun—

"The first of Eastern lands he shines upon."

It was in this very beautiful, but rather overdone portion of earth's surface, that the adventures occurred of which we are now to give some account; and as probably most of our readers have heard the name of Syria pretty often of late, we need not display much geographical erudition in pointing out where it lies. It would be pleasant to us if we could atone for brevity in this respect, by illuminating the reader on the causes that have brought Syria so prominently forward; but on this point we confess, with shame and confusion of face, that we know no more than Lord Ponsonby or M. Thiers. The truth seems to be, that some time, about two or three years ago, five or six people in influential stations went mad, and our Secretary for Foreign Affairs took the infection. He showed his teeth and raised his "birse," and barked in a most audacious manner, till the French kennel answered the challenge; an old dog in Egypt cocked his tail at the same time, and the world began to be afraid that hydrophobia would be universal. All parties were delighted to let the rival yelpers fight it out on so distant a field as Syria; and in that country of heat and dryness, of poverty, anarchy, cruelty, and superstition, there was a skrimmage that kept all Christendom on the tenter-hooks for half-a-year; and this we believe to be the policy of the Syrian campaign. Better for all parties concerned, that a few thousand turbaned and malignant Turks or Egyptians should bite the dust, than that there should be another Austerlitz or Waterloo. So the signal was accordingly given, and the work began.

Wherever there is any fighting it is not to be doubted that the English hurra will be heard—and an apparition had been seen in the smoke of battle, which had sorely puzzled the wisest of the soothsayers of Egypt to explain. It was of a being apparently human, but dressed as if to represent Mars and Neptune at the same time, charging along the tops of houses, with the jolly cocked-hat of a captain of a British man-of-war on the point of his sword, and a variety of exclamations in his mouth, more complimentary to the enemy's speed than his courage. The muftis, we have said, were sorely puzzled, and at last set it down as an infallible truth that he must be none other than Old Harry, whereas there was not a sailor in the fleet that did not know that it was none other than Old Charley. And this identical Old Charley, in a style of communication almost as rapid as his military evolutions, had indited the following epistle to the author of the volumes before us:—

"Headquarters of the Army of Lebanon.—Djouni, Sept. 1840.

"My dear Edward—I have hoisted my broad pendant on Mount Lebanon, and mean to advance against the Egyptians with a considerable force under my command; you may be of use here; therefore go to Sir John M'Donald, and ask him to get leave for you to join me without delay.

"Your affectionate father,
Charles Napier."

And the dutiful son, who seems to have no inconsiderable portion of the paternal penchant for broken heads and other similar divertisements, in three weeks from the receipt of the letter found himself on board the Hydra, and rapidly approaching the classic shores of Sidon, Tyre, Ptolemais; the scenes of scriptural records and deeds of chivalry—Palestine—the Holy Land. But the broad pendant in the mean time had been pulled down on Mount Lebanon, and once more fluttered to the sea breezes on board the Powerful. Sir Charles Smith had assumed the command of the land forces, and whether from ill-humour at finding half the work done during his absence by the amphibious commodore, or from some other cause, his reception of the author was, at first, far from cordial. Instead of being useful, as he had hoped, he found the sturdy old general blind to the value of his accession; and when the Powerful sailed he found himself without quarters appointed him, or even an invitation to join the officers' mess. But with the usual good-luck of people who bear disappointments well, all turned out for the best, as will be seen by the following extract:

"I had, on board the Powerful, a few days before, formed the acquaintance of a young Syrian of the name of Assaade el Khyat, who, brought up at one of our universities, was at heart a true Englishman, spoke fluently our own and several other European and Eastern languages, and whom I found, on the whole, a sensible, well-informed young man, and a most agreeable companion. As I was sitting alone, after a solitary dinner, (in the miserable hotel at Beyrout,) musing in a brown study over a bottle of red Cyprus wine, my new acquaintance was ushered into the apartment; I made no secret to him of my extremely uncomfortable position, when he, with great kindness and liberality, overcoming the usual prejudices of his country, offered me an asylum in his own family, which offer I most gladly accepted, and was accordingly the next morning comfortably installed in my new quarters, whereof I will endeavour to give the reader a slight description.

"The house of which I had just so unexpectedly become an inmate, was situated in one of the most retired and out of the way parts of the town, (and it was not before considerable time had elapsed, and then with difficulty, that I became acquainted with the labyrinth of narrow lanes, alleys, and dark passages which it was requisite to thread in order to arrive at this desired haven,) the property of a young man of the name of Giorgio Habbit Jummal—brother-in-law of my friend Assaade, to whom one of his sisters was married, and whom, as he spoke Italian with fluency and ease, I at once engaged as my dragoman or interpreter.

"By a strange coincidence, I, under the roof of Giorgio, for the first time became acquainted with Mr Hunter, the author of the Expedition to Syria, who, placed in similar circumstances with myself, was likewise an inmate of the same house, and of whom, as we were subsequently much known together during our residence in this country, I shall after have occasion to mention: at present I will take the liberty of borrowing from his amusing narrative the following account of the inmates of our new domicile. 'We lived in the house of a respectable Syrian family, that of Habbit Jummal, or interpreted, the esteemed camel-driver. Our landlord, Giorgius, the head of this family, was a young man hardly out of his teens; and having some competency, and being moreover un beau garçon, did not follow either his ancestral, or any other avocation. The harem, or woman's portion of the house, was composed of his mother, a fair widow of forty, and her two daughters, both Eastern beauties of their kind, Sarah and Nasarah (meaning Victory or Victoria;) the first, a laughing black eyed houri, with mischief in every dimple in her pretty face; the other, a more portly damsel, of a melancholy but not less pleasing expression. There were besides these, three younger children with equally poetic names, (Nassif, Iskunder, and Furkha,) and included in the coterie was a good-humoured negress, the general handmaid, whose original cognomen of Saade, was lost in the apposite soubriquet of Snowball.'—Although the greater part of the inhabitants of Beyrout are Christians, generally speaking, of the Greek Church, to which persuasion likewise belonged the family of our host Giorgio; still in this land of bigotry and oppression—to such an extent is carried suspicion and jealousy, and so far have Mahommedan prejudices in this respect been adopted, that all the women (those of the peasantry alone excepted) lead nearly as secluded a life as the Osmanli ladies of Constantinople or Smyrna. On venturing abroad, which they seldom do, unless when the knessi or humaum (church or bath) are the limits of their excursions, they are so closely shrouded in the izar, or long white garment, which, coming over the head and hiding the face, falls in numerous folds to the ground, as to be scarcely recognizable by their nearest friends or relations. To allow, therefore, two unknown and friendless strangers to become familiar inmates of an Eastern family, exposing wives, daughters, and sisters, to their unhallowed gaze, was a favour and mark of confidence on the part of Assaade which we duly appreciated, nor ever abused; it was, however, a privilege to which no other stranger in the place was admitted, and affording, as it did, such opportunities of acquiring the Arabic language, I eagerly embraced it without any feeling of regret at the inhospitality to which I was originally indebted for my admission behind the scenes of Oriental life.

"The bare, gloomy, and massive stone walls of the exterior of our habitation had not prepared us for the comforts we found inside; and as for the first time we followed Giorgio and his brother-in-law up the rude and narrow stone staircase, which appeared to be scarped out of the very thickness of the wall—an open sesame from the former causing a strong iron studded door to fly back on its hinges, disclosed a handsome patis or court paved with black and white marble, along the sides of which were luxuriantly growing, and imparting a cooling freshness to the scene, the perfumed orange-tree, bearing at the same time both fruit and blossoms, and flanked by green myrtles and flowering geraniums; whilst an apartment opening on this garden terrace, and which appeared from the carpets and cushions scattered around the still smoking narghilis, (or water-pipe, in which is smoked the tumbic or Persian tobacco,) and other sundry traces of female industry, to be appropriated as the common sitting-room of the family, was on our entrance precipitately deserted by all its occupants, save one fine-looking matronly lady, whom Giorgio introduced as his mother; and while she was welcoming us with many 'Fāddālls,' and politely repeating, Anna mugsond shoufuk, (be seated, I am delighted to see you,) with innumerable other euphonious phrases, as we afterwards found high-flown Eastern compliments, but which at the time were sadly wasted on our Frankish ignorance, he, following the fair fugitives, soon brought back in each hand the blushing deserters, who have already been introduced to the reader as Mesdemoiselles Sarah and Nasarah. Pipes, narghilis, sherbet, and coffee followed in quick succession; the young negress, Saade, acting as Hebe on the occasion; and the ladies, at first timid as gazelles of the desert, soon, like those pretty creatures when reclaimed from the wilderness, became quite domesticated, acquired confidence, and freely joined in the conversation, which was with volubility carried on through the medium of Giorgio and Assaade; and ere an hour had elapsed, we were all on the friendly and easy footing of old acquaintances; when, taking leave for the time, we hastened to make the necessary arrangements for the conveyance of our goods and chattels to the capital billets we had had the good fortune to stumble on."

The colonel made good use of his opportunity, and, by a diligent perusal of Miss Sarah's eyes, and an attentive study of Miss Nasarah's dimple, managed to acquire a smattering of Arabic in a far shorter time than would have been required in the most assiduous turning over of dictionaries and grammars. But our school-boy days can't last for ever—and, ere a fortnight elapsed, an order arrived from England for the hopeful scholar to be placed on the returns of the Syrian army, and to draw his field allowance, rations, and forage, as assistant adjutant-general of the British force. Dictionaries and eyes, grammars and dimples, were now exchanged for less pleasing pursuits. Fifteen thousand troops were by this time assembled at Beyrout, and rumour kept perpetually blowing the charge against Ibrahim Pasha, who was still encamped at Zachli, with an army much superior to that of the allies. Booted and spurred—with a long sword, saddle, bridle, and all the other paraphernalia so captivating to an ancient fair, as recorded in one of the lays of Old England by some forgotten Macaulay of former times—the colonel is intent on some doughty deed, and already in imagination sees captive Egyptians following his triumphal car. When all of a sudden, the sad news gets spread abroad that the old commodore has concluded a convention with Mehemet Ali, and that all the pomp and circumstance of glorious war is at an end. One only chance remained, and that was, that as all the big-wigs protested with all their might against the convention; and the fleet, in the midst of protestation and repudiations of all sorts and kinds, was forced by a severe gale to up anchor and run for Marmorice Bay, Ibrahim Pasha might perhaps be tempted to protest also in a still more unpleasant manner, and pay a visit to Beyrout in the absence of the navy. The very thoughts of it, however the English auxiliaries may have felt on the subject, gave an attack of fever to the unfortunate inhabitants, who devoutly prayed for a speedy fall of tubbish, (or snow,) by which his dreaded approach might be impeded. "Had such a movement on his part taken place at this critical moment, it is not improbable that it might have proved successful; as amid the variety of religious and conflicting interests, by which the people of Beyrout were influenced, Ibrahim had no doubt many friends in the town; and it is certain that he was moreover regularly made acquainted with every occurrence which took place, through the medium, as was supposed, of French agency and espionage."

Ibrahim, however, had had enough of red coats and blue jackets, and left the people of Beyrout to themselves—an example which was followed by the author, who, being foiled in his expectations of riding down the Egyptians on the noble Arab left to him by the commodore, determined to put that fiery animal (the Arab) to its paces in scouring the country in all directions. It is not often that an assistant adjutant-general sets out on a tour in search of the picturesque; but in this instance the search was completely successful. Rock, ravine, precipice, and dell—running waters and waving woods, come as naturally to his pen as returns of effective force and other professional details; and, whatever the writing of them may be, we are prepared to contend that the reading of them is infinitely pleasanter. But as travellers and poets have of late left few mountains or molehills unsung in Palestine, we prefer extracting a picturesque account of a venerable abbess, who threw the light of Christian goodness over that benighted land about a century ago, and must have impressed the heathens in the neighbourhood with an exalted notion of the virtues of a nunnery:—

"Héndia was a Maronite girl, possessing extraordinary personal charms, who, in 1755, first brought herself into notice by her pretended piety and attention to her religious duties, till at last she was by this simple and credulous people considered almost in the light of a saint or prophetess. When she had thus established a reputation for sanctity, she next thought of becoming the head and chief of an extensive establishment of monks and nuns, to receive whom, with the aid of large contributions raised among her credulous admirers and followers, she erected two spacious stone buildings, which soon became filled with proselytes of both sexes. The patriarch of Lebanon was named the director of this establishment, and for twenty years Héndia reigned with unbounded sway over the little community—performing miracles, uttering prophecies, and giving other tokens of being in the performance of a divine mission; and though it was remarked that many deaths yearly occurred among the nuns, the circumstance was generally attributed to disease incident to the insalubrity of the situation. At last, chance brought to light the cause of this very great mortality, and disclosed all the secret horrors which had so long remained covered by the veil of mystery in this abode of monastic abominations. A traveller, on his way from Damascus to the coast, happened to arrive one fine summer night at a late hour before the convent gates, which he found closed, and not wishing to disturb its inmates, who had apparently retired to rest, he spread his travelling rug under some neighbouring trees, and laid himself down to sleep. His slumbers were, however, shortly disturbed by a number of persons, who, issuing from the convent, appeared to be clandestinely bearing away what seemed to be a heavy bundle. Prompted by curiosity, he cautiously followed the party, who, after going a short distance, deposited their burden, and commenced digging a deep hole, into which having placed and covered with earth what was evidently a dead body, they immediately took their departure. Astonished, and rather dismayed, at an occurrence of so mysterious a nature, the traveller lost no time in mounting his mule, and on arriving at Beyrout made known the extraordinary occurrence to which he had been witness the night before. This account reached the ears of a merchant who happened to have two daughters undergoing their noviciate at El Kourket, and reports had lately reached him of the illness of one of his children; this, together with the numerous deaths which had lately taken place at the convent, coupled with the traveller's narrative, excited in his mind the most serious apprehensions. He gave information on the subject, and laid a complaint before the Grand Prince at Dahr-el-Kamar, and, accompanied by his informant and a troop of horsemen furnished by the Emir, hastened to the spot of the alleged mysterious burial, when to his horror, on opening the newly made grave, he discovered it to contain the corpse of his youngest daughter! Frantic at this sight, he desired instant admission, in order to ascertain the safety of her sister. On this being refused, the gates were forced open, and the unfortunate girl was found closely confined in a dungeon, on the point of death, but retaining still strength enough to disclose horrors which led to an investigation, implicating the patriarch, the abbess, and several priests. This transaction, which happened in 1776, was submitted for the decision of the Papal See; when it appeared that the pretended prophetess had, by means of many ingenious mechanical devices, thus long imposed on public credulity, whilst in the retirement of the cloister the most licentious and profligate occurrences nightly took place; and that when any unfortunate nun gave offence, either by refusing to be sacrificed at the shrine of infamy, or that it became desirable to get rid of her, in order to appropriate for the convent the amount of her property, she was immured in a dungeon, left to perish by a lingering and miserable death, and then privately buried in the night. In consequence of these shocking discoveries, the patriarch was deposed—the priests, his accomplices, were severely punished, and the high priestess of this temple of cruelty and debauchery was immured in confinement, and survived for many years to repent of all the atrocities she had previously committed."

We should like to know the colonel's authority for this circumstantial account. It bears at present a startling resemblance to the confession of Maria Monk, and the villanies recorded of the nunnery at Montreal; and we will hope in the mean time, that the devil, even in the shape of a lady abbess, is not quite so black as he is painted. The present abbess of El Kourket is already as black as need be, for we are told she is an Ethiopian negress.

The war carried on in Syria after the decisive battle of Boharsef, seems to have been on the model of those recorded by Major Sturgeon, and to have consisted of marching and counter-marching, without any definite object, except, perhaps, the somewhat Universal-Peace-Society one of getting out of the enemy's way. General Jochmus, we guess from his name, was a Scotch schoolmaster, with a Latin termination—there being no mistaking the Jock—and in his religious tenets we feel sure he was a Quaker. The English officers attached to the staff had immense difficulty in bringing the troops (if they deserve to be called so) to the scratch; and we trust that, in all future commentaries on the Art of War, the method adopted by Commodore Napier, of throwing stones at his gallant army to force them forward, will not be forgotten. The author before us had no sinecure, and after the news of Ibrahim's retreat, galloped hither and thither, like the wild huntsman of a German story, to discover by what route the vanquished lion was growling his way to his den. With a hundred irregular horse, furnished him by Osman Aga, he set out on a foray beyond Jordan; and we do not wonder his two friends, Captain Lane, a Prussian edition of Don Quixote, and Mr Hunter, who has written an excellent account of his expedition to Syria, besides his old Beyrout friend Giorgio, volunteered to accompany him.

"My motley troop, apparently composed of every tribe from the Caspian to the Red Sea, displayed no less variety in arms and accoutrements than in their personal appearance, varying from the sturdy-looking Kourd, mounted on his strong powerful steed, to the swarthy, spare, and sinewy Arab, with his long reed-like spear, his head encircled with the Kéfiah, or thick rope of twisted camels' hair; whilst the flowing 'abbage' waved gracefully down the shining flanks of the high-mettled steed of the desert. In short, such an assemblage of cut-throat looking ruffians was probably never before seen; and whilst the Prussian military eye of old Lane glanced down our wide-spread and irregular line, I could see a curl of contempt on his grey mustaches, though his weather-beaten countenance maintained all the gravity of Frederick the Great. The troop appeared to be divided into two distinct parties—one Arab, the other Turkish; and, on directing the two chiefs to call the 'roll' of their respective forces, I found that many were absent without leave, and the party which should have amounted to a hundred cavaliers only mustered between seventy and eighty. However, on the assurance that the rest would speedily follow—as there was no time to spare, after making them a short harangue, in which I promised abundance of nehub (plunder) whenever we came across the enemy, to which they responded by a wild yell of approbation—I gave the signal to move off, which was instantly obeyed, amidst joyous shouts, the brandishing of spears, and promiscuous discharge of fire-arms. Having thus got them under weigh, the next difficulty I experienced was to keep them together. I tried to form a rearguard to bring up the stragglers, but the guard would not remain behind, nor the stragglers keep up with the main body; and I soon, finding that something more persuasive than mere words was requisite to maintain them in order, took the first opportunity of getting a stout cudgel, with which I soundly belaboured all those whom I found guilty of thus disobeying my commands. The Eastern does not understand the suaviter in modo;—behave to him like a human being, he fancies you fear him, and he sets you at defiance—kick him and cuff him, treat him like a dog, and he crouches at your feet, the humble slave of your slightest wishes."

Discipline of so perfect a nature must have inspired the gallant colonel with the strongest hopes of success in case of an onslaught on the forces of Ibrahim Pasha, and in all probability his efforts, with those of Captain Lane, Hunter, and Giorgio, might have produced something like a skrimmage when they came near the tents of the Egyptians; but it would seem that the cudgels wielded by the Musree commanders were either not so strong or not so well applied, for on the first appearance of the hostile squadron, the heroes of Nezib evaporated as if by magic, but not before a similar feat of legerdemain had been performed by the rabble rout of Turks and Arabs; and on looking round, to inspire his followers with a speech after the manner of Thucydides, the colonel discovered the last of his escort disappearing at full speed on the other side of the plain, and the Europeans were left alone in their glory. As they had nobody to attack, (the enemy continuing still in a state of evaporation,) every thing ended well; and, if the trumpeter had not been among the fugitives, there might have been a triumphal blow performed although no blow had been struck. We do not believe in the courage of the Arabs. No amount of kicking and cuffing could cow a nation's spirit that had once been brave; and we therefore consider it the greatest marvel in history how the Arabians managed at one time to conquer half the world. They must have been very different fellows from the chicken-hearted children of the desert recorded in these volumes. One thing only is certain, that they have left their anti-fighting propensities to their mongrel descendants in Spain; for a series of actions—that is, jinking and skulking, and running up and down, hiding themselves as if they were the personages of a writ—more distinctly Arabian than the late campaign which ended in the overthrow of Espartero, could not have been performed under the shadows of Mount Ebal. All the nobility that we are so fond of picturing to ourselves in the deeds and thoughts of Saladin, has gone over to the horse. The wild steed retains its fire, though the miserable horseman would do for a Madrileno aide-de-camp. And yet this is the way they are treated:—

"It was a matter of surprise to us, how our horses stood without injury all the exposure, severe work, and often short commons, to which they were constantly subjected. When we came to a place where barley was to be procured, the grooms carried away as much as they could; when none was to be had, we gave our nags peas and tibbin, (chopped straw, the only forage used in the East,) or any thing we could lay hands on; they had little or no grooming, and frequently the saddles were not even removed from their backs. But I believe that nothing save the high mettle of the desert blood would carry an animal through all this toil and privation; and as to the much-extolled kindness of the Arab towards his horse, although it may be the case in the far deserts of the Hedged and Hedjar, I can avow that I never saw these noble animals treated with more inhuman neglect than I witnessed in the whole of my wanderings through Syria."

The dreariness of a ride through the desolate plains and rugged rocks of Palestine, was diversified with startling adventures; and the fact of several of the powers of Europe and many of the tribes of Asia having chosen that sterile region for their battle-place, gave rise to some very odd coincidences. People from all the ends of the earth, who were lounging away their existence some three or four months before, without any anticipation of treading in the footsteps of the crusaders—some smoking strong tobacco in the coffeehouses of Berlin, or leaning gracefully (like the Chinese Admiral Kwang) against the pillars of the Junior United Service Club in London—or driving a heavy curricle in the Prado at Vienna—or reading powerfully for honours at the Great Go at Oxford—or climbing Albanian hills—or reclining in the silken recesses of a harem at Constantinople—all were thrown together in such unexpected groups, and found themselves so curiously banded together, that the tame realities of an ordinary campaign were thrown completely into the shade. The following introduces us to another member of the foray, whose character seems to have been such a combination of the gallant soldier and light-hearted troubadour, that we read of his after fate, in dying of the plague at Damascus, with great regret:—

"My troop had not yet cleared a difficult pass close to the khan, running between an abrupt face of the hill and the river, when the advanced guard came back at full speed with the announcement that a body of the enemy's infantry was near at hand. Closely jammed in a narrow defile, between inaccessible cliffs and the precipitous banks of the Jordan, with nothing but cavalry at my disposal, I was placed in rather a disagreeable position. There remained, however, no alternative but to put spurs to our horses, push forward through the pass, deploy on the level ground beyond it, and then trust to the chances of war. Having explained these intentions to the Sheikh and Aga, we lost no time in carrying them into effect; and on taking extended order after clearing the pass, saw immediately in front of us what we took to be an advanced guard of the enemy, consisting of some twenty or thirty soldiers, whom their white foustanellis" (the foustanellis is that part of the Albanian costume corresponding with the highland kilt) "and tall active forms immediately marked as Arnouts, or Albanians. Seeing, probably, that we had now the advantage of the ground, they hastily retired, recrossing a ravine which intersected the path, and extending in capital light infantry style, were soon sheltered behind the stones and rocks on the opposite bank, over the brow of which nought was to be seen but the protruding muzzles and long shining barrels of their firelocks. All this was the work of a few seconds, and passed in a much briefer space of time than it has taken to relate. I had now the greatest difficulty in keeping Mahommed Aga and his men from charging up to enemies who, from their present position, could have picked them easily off with perfect safety to themselves; and riding rapidly forward with Captain Lane, to see if we could by some means turn their flank, a few horsemen at this moment suddenly appeared over the swell on the opposite side of the ravine, the foremost of whom, whilst making many friendly signals, galloped across the intervening space, hailing us a friend, and at the same time waving his hand, to prevent his own people from opening their fire. Lane and myself were not backward in returning this greeting; and on approaching we beheld a handsome young man, dressed in the showy Austrian uniform, with a black Tartar sheepskin cap on his head, who, coming up, accosted us in French, and with all the frankness of a soldier, introduced himself as Count Szechinge, a captain of Austrian dragoons, then on his way from Tiberias with a party composed of one or two Turkish lancers, about twenty-five Albanian deserters, his German servant, dragoman, and suite, to raise troops in the Adjelloun hills—a mission very similar to the one I was myself employed on at Naplouse."

An acquaintance begun under such circumstances grows into friendship with amazing rapidity; and many are the joyous hours the foragers spend together, in spite of intolerable weather and storms of sleet and snow, which bear a far greater resemblance to the climate of Lochaber than to that of Syria, "land of roses." Reinforced with the count and his companions, Colonel Napier pushes on—gets into the vicinity of Ibrahim—his rabble rout turn tail, in case of being swallowed alive by the ferocious pasha, whose reputation for cruelty and all manner of iniquities seems well deserved, and having ascertained the movements of that formidable ruffian, he returned to Naplouse to take the command of 1500 half-tamed, undisciplined savages, with whom to oppose his retreat. Luckily, the ratification of the convention come in the nick of time; for it is very evident that the best cudgels that were ever cut in "the classic woods of Hawthornden," could not have awakened a spark of military ardour in the wretched riff-raff assemblage appointed for this service—and of all the abortive efforts at generalship we have ever read of, the attempt of the Turkish commanders was infinitely the worse—no foresight in providing for difficulties—no valour in fighting their way out of them; but, to compensate for these trifling deficiencies, a plentiful supply of pride and cruelty, with a due admixture of dishonesty. We heartily join, with Colonel Napier, in wondering where the deuce the "integrity of the Ottoman empire" is to be found, as, beyond all doubt, not a particle of it exists in any of its subjects. The pashas of Egypt, bad as they undoubtedly are, have redeeming points about them, which the Hassans, and Izzets, and Reschids of the Turks have no conception of; and, lively and sparkling as the gallant colonel's narrative is, we confess it leaves a sadder impression on our minds of the hopelessness and the degeneracy of the Moslems, than any book we have met with. Turk and Egyptian should equally be whipped back into the desert, and the fairest portions of the world be won over to civilization, wealth, and happiness. The present volumes close at the end of January 1841, and perhaps they are among the best results of the campaign. We shall be glad to see the proceedings at Alexandria sketched off in the same pleasant style.

---

THE FATE OF POLYCRATES.—Herod. iii. 124-126.

"Oh! go not forth, my father dear—oh! I go not forth to-day,
And trust not thou that Satrap dark, for he fawns but to betray;
His courteous smiles are treacherous wiles, his foul designs to hide;
Then go not forth, my father dear—in thy own fair towers abide."

"Now, say not so, dear daughter mine—I pray thee, say not so!
Where glory calls, a monarch's feet should never fear to go;
And safe to-day will be my way through proud Magnesia's halls,
As if I stood 'mid my bowmen good beneath my Samian walls.

"The Satrap is my friend, sweet child—my trusty friend is he—
The ruddy gold his coffers hold he shares it all with me;
No more amid these clustering isles alone shall be my sway,
But Hellas wide, from side to side, thy empire shall obey!

"And of all the maids of Hellas, though they be rich and fair,
With the daughter of Polycrates, oh! who shall then compare?
Then dry thy tears—no idle fears should damp our joy to-day—
And let me see thee smile once more before I haste away!"

"Oh! false would be the smile, my sire, that I should wear this morn,
For of all my country's daughters I shall soon be most forlorn;
I know, I know,—ah, thought of woe!—I ne'er shall see again
My father's ship come sailing home across the Icarian main.

"Each gifted seer, with words of fear, forbids thee to depart,
And their warning strains an echo find in every faithful heart;
A maiden weak, e'en I must speak—ye gods, assist me now!
The characters of doom and death are graven on thy brow!

"Last night, my sire, a vision dire thy daughter's eyes did see,
Suspended in mid air there hung a form resembling thee;
Nay, frown not thus, my father dear; my tale will soon be done—
Methought that form was bathed by Jove, and anointed by the sun!"

"My child, my child, thy fancies wild I may not stay to hear.
A friend goes forth to meet a friend—then wherefore should'st thou fear?
Though moonstruck seers with idle fears beguile a maiden weak,
They cannot stay thy father's hand, or blanch thy father's cheek.

"Let cowards keep within their holds, and on peril fear to run!
Such shame," quoth he, "is not for me, fair Fortune's favourite son!"
Yet still the maiden did repeat her melancholy strain—
"I ne'er shall see my father's fleet come sailing home again!"

The monarch call'd his seamen good, they muster'd on the shore,
Waved in the gale the snow-white sail, and dash'd the sparkling oar;
But by the flood that maiden stood—loud rose her piteous cry—
"Oh! go not forth, my dear, dear sire—oh, go not forth to die!"

A frown was on that monarch's brow, and he said as he turn'd away,
"Full soon shall Samos' lord return to Samos' lovely bay;
But thou shalt aye a maiden lone within my courts abide—
No chief of fame shall ever claim my daughter for his bride!

"A long, long maidenhood to thee thy prophet tongue hath given—"
"Oh would, my sire," that maid replied, "such were the will of Heaven!
Though I a loveless maiden lone must evermore remain,
Still let me hear that voice so dear in my native isle again!"

'Twas all in vain that warning strain—the king has crost the tide—
But never more off Samos shore his bark was seen to ride!
The Satrap false his life has ta'en, that monarch bold and free,
And his limbs are black'ning in the blast, nail'd to the gallows-tree!

That night the rain came down apace, and wash'd each gory stain,
But the sun's bright ray, the next noonday, glared fiercely on the slain;
And the oozing gore began once more from his wounded sides to run;
Good-sooth, that form was bathed by Jove, and anointed by the Sun!

---

MODERN PAINTERS.[16]

We read this title with some pain, not doubting but that our modern landscape painters were severely handled in an ironical satire; and we determined to defend them. "Their superiority to all the ancient masters"—that was too hard a hit to come from any but an enemy! We must measure our man—a graduate of Oxford! The "scholar armed," without doubt. He comes, too, vauntingly up to us, with his contempt for us and all critics that ever were, or will be; we are all little Davids in the eye of this Goliath. Nevertheless, we will put a pebble in our sling. We saw this contempt of us, in dipping at hap-hazard into the volume. But what was our astonishment to find, upon looking further, that we had altogether mistaken the intent of the author, and that we should probably have not one Goliath, but many, to encounter; while our own particular friends, to whom we might look for help, were, alas! all dead men. We found that there were not "giants" in those days, but in these days—that the author, in his most superlative praise, is not ironical at all, but a most serious panegyrist, who never laughs, but does sometimes make his readers laugh, when they see his very unbecoming, mocking grimaces against the "old masters"—not that it can be fairly asserted that it is a laughable book. It has much conceit, and but little merriment; there is nothing really funny after you have got over, (vide page 6,) that he "looks with contempt on Claude, Salvator, and Gaspar Poussin." This contempt, however, being too limited for the "graduate of Oxford," in the next page he enlarges the scope of his enmity; "speaking generally of the old masters, I refer only to Claude, Gaspar Poussin, Salvator Rosa, Cuyp, Berghem, Both, Ruysdael, Hobbima, Teniers (in his landscapes,) P. Potter, Canaletti, and the various Van Somethings and Back Somethings, more especially and malignantly those who have libelled the sea." Self-convicted of malice, he has not the slightest suspicion of his ignorance; whereas he knows nothing of these masters whom he maligns. Still is he ready to be their general accuser—has not the slightest respect for the accumulated opinions of the best judges for these two or three hundred years—he puts them by with the wave of his hand, very like the unfortunate gentleman in an establishment of "unsound opinions," who gravely said—"The world and I differed in opinion—I was right, the world wrong; but they were too many for me, and put me here." We daresay that, in such establishments may be found many similar opinions to those our author promulgates, though, as yet, none of our respectable publishers have been convicted of a congenial folly. We said, that he suspects not his ignorance of the masters he maligns. Let it not hence be inferred that it is the work of an ignorant man. He is only ignorant with a prejudice. We will not say that it is not the work of a man who thinks, who has been habituated to a sort of scholastic reasoning, which he brings to bear, with no little parade and display, upon technicalities and distinctions. He can tutor secundum artem, lacking only, in the first point, that he has not tutored himself. With all his arrangements and distinctions laid down, as the very grammar of art, he confuses himself with his "truths," forgetting that, in matters of art, truths of fact must be referable to truths of mind. It is not what things in all respects really are, but what they appear, and how they are convertible by the mind into what they are not in many ways, respects, and degrees, that we have to consider, before we can venture to draw rules from any truths whatever. For art is something besides nature; and taste and feeling are first—precede practical art; and though greatly enhanced by that practical cultivation, might exist without it—nay, often do; and true taste always walks a step in advance of what has been done, and ever desires to do, and from itself, more than it sees. We discover, therefore, a fallacy in the very proposal of his undertaking, when he says that he is prepared "to advance nothing which does not, at least in his own conviction, rest on surer ground than mere feeling or taste." Notwithstanding, however, that our graduate of Oxford puts his "demonstrations" upon an equality with "the demonstrations of Euclid," and "thinks it proper for the public to know, that the writer is no mere theorist, but has been devoted from his youth to the laborious study of practical art," and that he is "a graduate of Oxford;" we do not look upon him as a bit the better judge for all that, seeing that many have practised it too fondly and too ignorantly all their lives, and that Claude, and Salvator, and Gaspar Poussin must, according to him, have been in this predicament, and more especially do we decline from bowing down at his dictation, when we find him advocating any "surer ground than feeling or taste." Now, considering that thus, in initio, he sets aside feeling and taste, the reader will not be astonished to find a very substantial reason given for his contempt of the afore-mentioned old masters; it is, he says, "because I look with the most devoted veneration upon Michael Angelo, Raffaelle, and Da Vinci, that I do not distrust the principles which induce me to look with contempt," &c. We do not exactly see how these great men, who were not landscape painters, can very well be compared with those who were, but from some general principles of art, in which the world have not as yet found any very extraordinary difference. But we do humbly suggest, that Michael Angelo, Raffaelle, and Da Vinci, are in their practice, and principles, if you please, quite as unlike Messrs David Cox, Copley Fielding, J. D. Harding, Clarkson Stanfield, and Turner—the very men whom our author brings forward as the excellent of the earth, in opposition to all old masters whatever, excepting only Michael Angelo, Raffaelle, and Da Vinci, to whom nevertheless, by a perverse pertinacity of their respective geniuses, they bear no resemblance whatever—as they are to Claude, Salvator, and Gaspar Poussin. We do not by any means intend to speak disrespectfully of these our English artists, but we must either mistrust those principles which cause them to stand in opposition to the great Italians, or to conceive that our author has really discovered no such differing principles, and which possibly may not exist at all. Nor will we think so meanly of the taste, the good feeling, and the good sense of these men, as to believe that they think themselves at all flattered by any admiration founded on such an irrational contempt. They well know that Michael Angelo, Raffaelle, and Da Vinci, have been admired, together with Claude, Salvator, and Gaspar Poussin, and they do not themselves desire to be put upon a separate list. The author concludes his introduction with a very bad reason for his partiality to modern masters, and it is put in most ambitious language, very readily learned in the "Fudge School,"—a style of language with which our author is very apt to indulge himself; but the argument it so ostentatiously clothes, and which we hesitate not to call a bad one, is nothing more than this, (if we understand it,)—that the dead are dead, and cannot hear our praise; that the living are living, and therefore our love is not lost; in short, as a non-sequitur, "that if honour be for the dead, gratitude can only be for the living." This might have been simply said; but we are taken to the grave—with "He who has once stood beside the grave," &c. &c.; we have "wild love—keen sorrow—pleasure to pulseless hearts—debt to the heart—to be discharged to the dust—the garland—the tombstone—the crowned brow—the ashes and the spirit—heaven-toned voices and heaven-lighted lamps—the learning—sweetness by silence—and light by decay;" all which, we conceive, might have been very excusable in a young curate's sermon during his first year of probation, and might have won for him more nosegays and favours than golden opinions, but which we here feel inclined to put our pen across, as so we remember many similarly ambitious passages to have been served, before we were graduate of Oxford, with the insignificant signification from the pen of our informator of nihil ad rem. As the author threatens the public with another, or more volumes, we venture to throw out a recommendation, that at least one volume may serve the purpose and do the real work of two, if he will check this propensity to unnecessary redundancy. His numerous passages of this kind are for the most part extremely unintelligible; and when we have unraveled the several coatings, we too often find the ribs of the mummy are not human. We think it right to object, in this place, to an affectation in phraseology offensive to those who think seriously of breaking the third commandment—he scarcely speaks of mountains without taking the sacred name in vain; there is likewise a constant repetition of expressions of very doubtful meaning in the first use, for the most part quite devoid of meaning in their application. One of these is "palpitating." Light is "palpitating," darkness is "palpitating"—every conceivable thing is "palpitating." We must, however, in justice say, that by far the best part of the book, the laying down rules and the elucidating principles, is clearly and expressively written. In this part of the work there is greater expansion than the student will generally find in books on art. Not that we are aware of the advancement of any thing new; but the admitted maxims of art are, as it were, grammatically analysed, and in a manner to assist the beginner in thinking upon art. To those who have already thought, this very studied analysis and arrangement will be tedious enough.

In the "Definition of Greatness in Art," we find—"If I say that the greatest picture is that which conveys to the mind of the spectator the greatest number of the greatest ideas, I have a definition which will include as subjects of comparison every pleasure which art is capable of conveying." Now, there are great ideas which are so conflicting as to annul the force of each other. This is not enough; there must be a congruity of great ideas—nay, in some instances, we can conceive one idea to be so great, as in a work of art not to admit of the juxtaposition of others. This is the principle upon which the sonnet is built, and the sonnet illustrates the picture not unaptly. "Ideas of Power" are great ideas—not always are ideas of beauty great; yet is there a tempering the one with the other, which it is the special province of art to attain, and that for its highest and most moral purposes. In his "Ideas of Power," he distinguishes the term "excellent" from the terms "beautiful," "useful," "good," &c.; thus—"And we shall always, in future, use the word excellent, as signifying that the thing to which it is applied required a great power for its production." Is not this doubtful? Does it not limit the perception of excellence to artists who can alone from their practice, and, as it were, measurement of powers with their difficulties, learn and feel its existence in the sense to which it is limited. The inference would be, that none but artists can be critics, as none but artists can perceive excellence, and we think in more than one place some such assertion is made. This is startling—"Power is never wasted; whatever power has been employed, produces excellence in proportion to its own dignity and exertion; and the faculty of perceiving this exertion, and approaching this dignity, is the faculty of perceiving excellence." "It is this faculty in which men, even of the most cultivated taste, must always be wanting, unless they have added practice to reflection; because none can estimate the power manifested in victory, unless they have personally measured the strength to be overcome." For the word strength use difficulty, and we should say that, to the unpractised, the difficulties must always appear greatest. He gives, as illustration, "Titian's flesh tint;" it may be possible that, by some felicitous invention, some new technicality of his art, Titian might have produced this excellence, and to him there would have been no such great measurement of the difficulty or strength to be overcome; while the admirer of the work, ignorant of the happy means, fancies the exertion of powers which were not exerted. In his chapter on "Ideas of Imitation," he imagines that Fuseli and Coleridge falsely apply the term imitation, making "a distinction between imitation and copying, representing the first as the legitimate function of art—the latter as its corruption." Yet we think he comes pretty much to the same conclusion. In like manner, he seems to disagree with Burke in a passage which he quotes, but in reality he agrees with him; for surely the "power of the imitation" is but a power of the "jugglery," to be sensible of which, if we understand him, is necessary to our sense of imitation. "When the object," says Burke, "represented in poetry or painting is such as we could have no desire of seeing in the reality, then we may be sure that its power in poetry or painting is owing to the power of imitation." "We may," says our author, "be sure of the contrary; for if the object be undesirable in itself, the closer the imitation the less will be the pleasure." Certainly not; for Burke of course implied, and included in his sense of imitation, that it should be consistent with a knowledge in the spectator, that a certain trick of art was put upon him. And our author says the same—"Whenever the work is seen to resemble something which we know it is not, we receive what I call an idea of imitation." Again—"Now, two things are requisite to our complete and most pleasurable perception of this: first, that the resemblance be so perfect as to amount to deception; secondly, that there be some means of proving at the same moment that it is a deception." He justly considers "the pleasures resulting from imitation the most contemptible that can be received from art." He thus happily illustrates his meaning—"We may consider tears as a result of agony or of art, whichever we please, but not of both at the same moment. If we are surprised by them as an attainment of the one, it is impossible we can be moved by them as a sign of the other." This will explain why we are pleased with the exact imitation of the dewdrop on the peach, and why we are disgusted with the Magdalen's tears by Vanderwerf; and we further draw this inevitable conclusion, of very important consequence to artists, who have very erroneous notions upon the subject, that this sort of imitation, which, by the deception of its name, should be most like, is actually less like nature, because it takes from nature its impression by substituting a sense of the jugglery. This chapter on ideas of imitation is good and useful. We think, in the after part of his work, wherein is much criticism on pictures by the old masters and by moderns, our author must have lost the remembrance of what he has so well said on his ideas of imitation; and in the following chapter on "Ideas of Truth." "The word truth, as applied to art, signifies the faithful statement, either to the mind or senses, of any fact of nature." The reader will readily see how "ideas of truth" differ from "ideas of imitation." The latter relating only to material objects, the former taking in the conceptions of the mind—may be conveyed by signs or symbols, "themselves no image nor likeness of any thing." "An idea of truth exists in the statement of one attribute of any thing; but an idea of imitation only in the resemblance of as many attributes as we are usually cognizant of in its real presence." Hence it follows that ideas of truth are inconsistent with ideas of imitation; for, as we before said, ideas of imitation remove the impression by an ever-present sense of the deception or falsehood. This is put very conclusively—"so that the moment ideas of truth are grouped together, so as to give rise to an idea of imitation, they change their very nature—lose their essence as ideas of truth—and are corrupted and degraded, so as to share in the treachery of what they have produced. Hence, finally, ideas of truth are the foundation, and ideas of imitation the distinction, of all art. We shall be better able to appreciate their relative dignity after the investigation which we propose of functions of the former; but we may as well now express the conclusion to which we shall then be led—that no picture can be good which deceives by its imitation; for the very reason that nothing can be beautiful which is not true." This is perhaps rather too indiscriminate. It has been shown that ideas of imitation do give pleasure; by them, too, objects of beauty may be represented. We should not say that a picture by Gerard Dow or Van Eyck; even with the down on the peach and the dew on the leaf, were not good pictures. They are good if they please. It is true, they ought to do more, and even that in a higher degree; they cannot be works of greatness—and greatness was probably meant in the word good. In his chapter on "Ideas of Beauty," he considers that we derive, naturally and instinctively, pleasure from the contemplation of certain material objects; for which no other reason can be given than that it is our instinct—the will of our Maker—we enjoy them "instinctively and necessarily, as we derive sensual pleasure from the scent of a rose." But we have instinctively aversion as well as desire; though he admits this, he seems to lose sight of it in the following—"And it would appear that we are intended by the Deity to be constantly under their influence, (ideas of beauty;) because there is not one single object in nature which is not capable of conveying them," &c. We are not satisfied; if the instinctive desire be the index to what is beautiful, so must the instinctive aversion be the index to its opposite. We have an instinctive dislike to many reptiles, to many beasts—as apes. These may have in them some beauty; we only object to the author's want of clearness. If there be no ugliness there is no beauty, for every thing has its opposite; so that we think he has not yet discovered and clearly put before us what beauty consists in. He shows how it happens that we do admire it instinctively; but that does not tell us what it is, and possibly, after all that has been said about it, it yet remains to be told. Nor are we satisfied with his definition of taste—"Perfect taste is the faculty of receiving the greatest possible pleasure from those material sources which are attractive to our moral nature in its purity and perfection." This will not do; for taste will take material sources, unattractive in themselves, and by combination, or for their contrast, receive pleasure from them. All literature and all art show this. That taste, like life itself, is instinctive in its origin and first motion, we doubt not; but what it is by and in its cultivation, and in its application to art, is a thing not to be altogether so cursorily discussed and dismissed. The distinction is laid down between taste and judgment—judgment being the action of the intellect; taste "the instinctive and instant preferring of one material object to another without any obvious reason," except that it is proper to human nature in its perfection so to do. But leaving this discussion of this original taste, taste in art is surely, as it is a thing cultivated, that for which a reason can be given, and in some measure, therefore, the result of judgment. For by the cultivation of taste we are actually led to love, admire, and desire many things of which we have no instinctive love at all; so that the taste for them arises from the intellect and the moral sense—our judgment. He proceeds to "Ideas of Relation," by which he means "to express all those sources of pleasure, which involve and require at the instant of their perception, active exertion of the intellectual powers." As this is to be more easily comprehended by an illustration, we have one in an incident of one of Turner's pictures, and, considering the object, it is surprising the author did not find one more important; but he herein shows that, in his eyes, every stroke of the brush by Mr Turner is important—indeed, is a considerable addition to our national wealth. In the picture of the "Building of Carthage," the foreground is occupied by a group of children sailing toy-boats, which he thinks to be an "exquisite choice of incident expressive of the ruling passion." He, with a whimsical extravagance in praise of Turner, which, commencing here, runs throughout all the rest of the volume, says—"Such a thought as this is something far above all art; it is epic poetry of the highest order." Epic poetry of the highest order! Ungrateful will be our future epic poets if they do not learn from this—if such is done by boys sailing toy-boats, surely boys flying a kite will illustrate far better the great astronomical knowledge of our days. But he is rather unfortunate in this bit of criticism; for he compares this incident with one of Claude's, which we, however, think a far better and more poetical incident. "Claude, in subjects of the same kind," (not, by the by, a very fair statement,) "commonly introduces people carrying red trunks with iron locks about, and dwells, with infantine delight, on the lustre of the leather and the ornaments of the iron. The intellect can have no occupation here, we must look to the imitation or to nothing." As to the "infantine delight," we presume it is rather with the boys and their toy-boats; but let us look a little into these trunks—no, we may not—there is something more in them than our graduate imagines—the very iron locks and precious leather mean to tell you there is something still more precious within, worth all the cost of freightage; and you see, a little off, the great argosie that has brought the riches; and we humbly think that the ruling passion of a people whose "princes were merchants, and whose merchants princes," as happily expressed by the said "red trunks" as the rise of Carthage by the boys and boats; and in the fervour of this bit of "exquisite" epic choice, probably Claude did look with delight on the locks and the leather; and, whenever we look upon that picture again, we shall be ready to join in the delight, and say, in spite of our graduate's "contempt," there is nothing like leather. If the boys and boats express the beginning, the red trunks express the thing done—merchandise "brought home to every man's door;" so that the one serves for an "idea of relation," quite as well as the other. And here ends section the first.

The study of ideas of imitation are thrown out of the consideration of ideas of power, as unworthy the pursuit of an artist, whose purpose is not to deceive, and because they are only the result of a particular association of ideas of truth. "There are two modes in which we receive the conception of power; one, the most just, when by a perfect knowledge of the difficulty to be overcome, and the means employed, we form a right estimate of the faculties exerted; the other, when without possessing such intimate and accurate knowledge, we are impressed by a sensation of power in visible action. If these two modes of receiving the impression agree in the result, and if the sensation be equal to the estimate, we receive the utmost possible idea of power. But this is the case perhaps with the works of only one man out of the whole circle of the fathers of art, of him to whom we have just referred—Michael Angelo. In others the estimate and the sensation are constantly unequal, and often contradictory." There is a distinction between the sensation of power and the intellectual perception of it. A slight sketch will give the sensation; the greater power is in the completion, not so manifest, but of which there is a more intellectual cognizance. He instances the drawings of Frederick Tayler for sensations of power, considering the apparent means; and those of John Lewis for more complete ideas of power, in reference to the greater difficulties overcome, and the more complicated means employed. We think him unfortunate in his selection, as the subjects of these artists are not such as, of themselves, justly to receive ideas of power, therefore not the best to illustrate them. He proceeds to "ideas of power, as they are dependent on execution." There are six legitimate sources of pleasure in execution—truth, simplicity, mystery, inadequacy, decision, velocity. "Decision" we should think involved in "truth;" as so involved, not necessarily different from velocity. Mystery and inadequacy require explanation. "Nature is always mysterious and secret in her use of means; and art is always likest her when it is most inexplicable." Execution, therefore, should be "incomprehensible." "Inadequacy" can hardly, we think, be said to be a quality of execution, as it has only reference to means employed. Insufficient means, according to him, give ideas of power. We otherwise conclude—namely, that if the inadequacy of the means is shown, we receive ideas of weakness. "Ars est celare artem"—so is it to conceal the means. Strangeness in execution, not a legitimate source of pleasure, is illustrated by the execution of a bull's head by Rubens, and of the same by Berghem. Of the six qualities of execution, the three first are the greatest, the three last the most attractive. He considers Berghem and Salvator to have carried their fondness for these lowest qualities to a vice. We can scarcely agree with him, as their execution seems most appropriate to the character of their subjects—to arise, in fact, out of their "ideas of truth." There is appended a good note on the execution of the "drawing-master," that, under the title of boldness, will admit of no touch less than the tenth of an inch broad, and on the tricks of engravers' handling.

Our graduate dismisses the "sublime" in about two pages; in fact, he considers sublimity not to be a specific term, nor "descriptive of the effect of a particular class of ideas;" but as he immediately asserts that it is "greatness of any kind," and "the effect of greatness upon the feelings," we should have expected to have heard a little more about what constitutes this "greatness," this "sublime," which "elevates the mind," something more than that "Burke's theory of the nature of the sublime is incorrect." The sublime not being "distinct from what is beautiful," he confines his subject to "ideas of truth, beauty, and relation," and by these he proposes to test all artists. Truth of facts and truth of thoughts are here considered; the first necessary, but the latter the highest: we should say that it is the latter which alone constitutes art, and that here art begins where nature ends. Facts are the foundation necessary to the superstructure; the foundation of which must be there, though unseen, unnoticed in contemplation of the noble edifice. Very great stress is laid upon "the exceeding importance of truth;" which none will question, reminding us of the commencement of Bacon's essay, "What is truth? said laughing Pilate, and would not wait for an answer." "Nothing," says our author, "can atone for the want of truth, not the most brilliant imagination, the most playful fancy, the most pure feeling (supposing that feeling could be pure and false at the same time,) not the most exalted conception, nor the most comprehensive grasp of intellect, can make amends for the want of truth." Now, there is much parade in all this, surely truth, as such in reference to art, is in the brilliancy of imagination, in the playfulness, without which is no fancy, in the feeling, and in the very exaltation of a conception; and intellect has no grasp that does not grasp a truth. When he speaks of nature as "immeasurably superior to all that the human mind can conceive," and professes to "pay no regard whatsoever to what may be thought beautiful, or sublime, or imaginative," and to "look only for truth, bare, clear downright statement of facts," he seems to forget what nature is, as adopted by, as taken into art; it is not only external nature, but external nature in conjunction with the human mind. Nor does he, in fact, adhere in the subsequent part of his work to this his declaration; for he loses it in his "fervour of imagination," when he actually examines the works of "the great living painter, who is, I believe, imagined by the majority of the public to paint more falsehood and less fact than any other known master." Here our author jumps at once into his monomania—his adoration of the works of Turner, which he examines largely and microscopically, as it suits his whim, and imagines all the while he is describing and examining nature; and not unfrequently he tells you, that nature and Turner are the same, and that he "invites the same ceaseless study as the works of nature herself." This is "coming it pretty strong." We confess we are with the majority—not that we wish to depreciate Turner. He is, or has been, unquestionably, a man of genius, and that is a great admission. He has, perhaps, done in art what never has been done before. He has illuminated "Views," if not with local, with a splendid truth. His views of towns are the finest; he led the way to this walk of art, and is far superior to all in it. We speak of his works collectively. Some of his earlier, more imaginative, were unquestionably poetical, though not, perhaps, of a very high character. We believe he has been better acquainted with many of the truths of nature, particularly those which came within the compass of his line of views, than any other artist, ancient or modern; but we believe he has neglected others, and some important ones too, and to which the old masters paid the greatest attention, and devoted the utmost study. We have spoken frequently, unhesitatingly, of the late extraordinary productions of his pencil, as altogether unworthy his real genius; it is in these we see, with the majority of the public, "more falsehood and less fact" than in any other known master—a defiance of the "known truths" in drawing, colour, and composition, for which we can only account upon the supposition, that his eye misrepresents to him the work of his hands. We see, in the almost adoration of his few admirers, that if it be difficult, and not always dependent, on merit to attain to eminence in the world's estimation, it is nearly as difficult altogether to fall from it; and that nothing the artist can do, though they be the veriest "ægri somnia," will separate from him habitual followers, who, with a zeal in proportion to the extravagances he may perpetrate, will lose their relish for, and depreciate the great masters, whose very principles he seems capriciously in his age to set aside, and they will from followers become his worshippers, and in pertinacity exact entire compliance, and assent to every, the silliest, dictation of their monomania. We subjoin a specimen of this kind of worship, which will be found fully to justify our observations, and which, considering it speaks of mortal man, is somewhat blaspheming Divine attributes; we know not really whether we should pity the condition of the author, or reprehend the passage. After speaking of other modern painters, who are so superior to the old, he says: "and Turner—glorious in conception—unfathomable in knowledge—solitary in power—with the elements waiting upon his will, and the night and the morning obedient to his call, sent as a prophet of God to reveal to men the mysteries of his universe, standing, like the great angel of the Apocalypse, clothed with a cloud, and with a rainbow upon his head, and with the sun and stars given into his hand." Little as we are disposed to laugh at any such aberrations, we must, to remove from our minds the greater, the more serious offence, indulge in a small degree of justifiable ridicule; and ask what will sculptor or painter make of this description, should the reluctant public be convinced by the "graduate," and in their penitential reverence order statue or painting of Mr Turner for the Temple of Fame, which it is presumed Parliament, in their artistic zeal, mean to erect? How will they venture to represent Mr Turner looking like an angel—in that dress which would make any man look like a fool—his cloud nightcap tied with rainbow riband round his head, calling to night and morning, and little caring which comes, making "ducks and drakes" of the sun and the stars, put into his hand for that purpose? We will only suggest one addition, as it completes the grand idea, and is in some degree characteristic of Mr Turner's peculiar execution, that, with the sun and stars, there should be delivered into his hand a comet, whose tail should serve him for a brush, and supply itself with colour. We do not see, however, why the moon should have been omitted; sun, moon, and stars, generally go together. Is the author as jealous as the "majority of the public" may be suspicious of her influence? And let not the reader believe that Mr Turner is thus called a prophet in mere joke, or a fashion of words—his prophetic power is advanced in another passage, wherein it is asserted that Mr Turner not only tells us in his works what nature has done in hers, but what she will do. "In fact," says our author, "the great quality about Mr Turner's drawings, which more especially proves their transcendant truth, is the capability they afford us of reasoning on past and future phenomena." The book teems with extravagant bombastic praise like this. Mr Turner is more than the Magnus Apollo. Yet other English artists are brought forward, immediately preceding the above panegyric; we know not if we do them justice, by noticing what is said of them. There is a curious description of David Cos lying on the ground "to possess his spirit in humility and peace," of Copley Fielding, as an aeronaut, "casting his whole soul into space." We really cannot follow him, "exulting like the wild deer in the motion of the swift mists," and "flying with the wild wind and sifted spray along the white driving desolate sea, with the passion for nature's freedom burning in his heart;" for such a chase and such a heart-burn must have a frightful termination, unless it be mere nightmare. We see "J. D. Harding, brilliant and vigorous," &c., "following with his quick, keen dash the sunlight into the crannies of the rocks, and the wind into the tangling of the grass, and the bright colour into the fall of the sea-foam—various, universal in his aim;" after which very fatiguing pursuit, we are happy to find him "under the shade of some spreading elm;" yet his heart is oak—and he is "English, all English at his heart." But Mr Clarkson Stanfield is a man of men—"firm, and fearless, and unerring in his knowledge—stern and decisive in his truth—perfect and certain in composition—shunning nothing, concealing nothing, and falsifying nothing—never affected, never morbid, never failing—conscious of his strength, but never ostentatious of it—acquainted with every line and hue of the deep sea—chiseling his waves with unhesitating knowledge of every curve of their anatomy, and every moment of their motion—building his mountains rock by rock, with wind in every fissure, and weight in every stone—and modeling the masses of his sky with the strength of tempest in their every fold." It is curious—yet a searcher after nature's truths ought to know, as he is here told, that waves may be anatomized, and must be chiseled, and that mountains are and ought to be built up rock by rock, as a wall brick by brick; no easy task considering that there is a disagreeable "wind in every fissure, and weight in every stone"—and that the aerial sky, incapable to touch, must be "modeled in masses." All this is given after an equally extravagant abuse of Claude, of Salvator Rosa, and Poussin. He finds fault with Claude, because his sea does not "upset the flower-pots on the wall," forgetting that they are put there because the sea could not—with Salvator, for his "contemptible fragment of splintery crag, which an Alpine snow-wreath" (which would have no business there) "would smother in its first swell, with a stunted bush or two growing out of it, and a Dudley or Halifax-like volume of smoke for a sky"—with Poussin, for that he treats foliage (whereof "every bough is a revelation!") as "a black round mass of impenetrable paint, diverging into feathers instead of leaves, and supported on a stick instead of a trunk." A page or two from this, our author sadly abuses poor Canaletti, as far as we can see, for not painting a tumbled-down wall, which perhaps, in his day, was not in a ruinous state at all; it is a curious passage—and shows how much may be made out of a wall. Pyramus's chink was nothing to this—behold a specimen of "fine writing!" "Well: take the next house. We remember that too; it was mouldering inch by inch into the canal, and the bricks had fallen away from its shattered marble shafts, and left them white and skeleton-like, yet with their fretwork of cold flowers wreathed about them still, untouched by time; and through the rents of the wall behind them there used to come long sunbeams gleamed by the weeds through which they pierced, which flitted, and fell one by one round those grey and quiet shafts, catching here a leaf and there a leaf, and gliding over the illumined edges and delicate fissures until they sank into the deep dark hollow between the marble blocks of the sunk foundation, lighting every other moment one isolated emerald lamp on the crest of the intermittent waves, when the wild sea-weeds and crimson lichens drifted and crawled with their thousand colours and fine branches over its decay, and the black, clogging, accumulated limpets hung in ropy clusters from the dripping and tinkling stone. What has Canaletti given us for this?" Alas, neither a crawling lichen, nor clogging limpets, nor a tinkling stone, but "one square, red mass, composed of—let me count—five-and-fifty—no, six-and-fifty—no, I was right at first, five-and-fifty bricks," &c. The picture, if it be painted by the graduate, must be a curiosity—we can make neither head nor tail of his words. But let us find another strange specimen—where he compares his own observations of nature with Poussin and Turner. Every one must remember a very pretty little picture of no great consequence by Gaspar Poussin—a view of some buildings of a town said to be Aricia, the modern La Riccia—just take it for what it is intended to be, a quiet, modest, agreeable scene—very true and sweetly painted. How unfit to be compared with an ambitious description of a combination of views from Rome to the Alban Mount, for that is the range of the description, though, perhaps, the description is taken from a poetical view of one of Turner's incomprehensibles, which may account for the conclusion, "Tell me who is likest this, Poussin or Turner?" Now, though Poussin never intended to be like this, let us see the graduate's description of it. We know the little town; it received us as well as our author, having left Rome to visit it.

"Egressum magnâ me accepit Aricia Roma."

Our author, however, doubts if it be the place, though he unhesitatingly abuses Poussin, as if he had fully intended to have painted nothing else than what was seen by the travelling graduate. "At any rate, it is a town on a hill, wooded with two-and-thirty bushes, of very uniform size, and possessing about the same number of leaves each. These bushes are all painted in with one dull opaque brown, becoming very slightly greenish towards the lights, and discover in one place a bit of rock, which of course would in nature have been cool and grey beside the lustrous hues of foliage, and which, therefore, being moreover completely in shade, is consistently and scientifically painted of a very clear, pretty, and positive brick red, the only thing like colour in the picture. The foreground is a piece of road, which, in order to make allowance for its greater nearness, for its being completely in light, and, it may be presumed, for the quantity of vegetation usually present on carriage roads, is given in a very cool green-grey, and the truthful colouring of the picture is completed by a number of dots in the sky on the right, with a stalk to them, of a sober and similar brown." We need not say how unlike is this description of the picture. We pass on to—"Not long ago, I was slowly descending this very bit of carriage road, the first turn after you leave Albano;—it had been wild weather when I left Rome, and all across the Campagna the clouds were sweeping in sulphurous blue, with a clap of thunder or two, and breaking gleams of sun along the Claudian aqueduct, lighting up the infinity of its arches like the bridge of Chaos. But as I climbed the long slope of the Alban mount, the storm swept finally to the north, and the noble outline of the domes of Albano, and graceful darkness of its ilex grove rose against pure streaks of alternate blue and amber, the upper sky gradually flushing through the last fragments of rain-cloud in deep, palpitating azure, half æther half dew. The noonday sun came slanting down the rocky slopes of La Riccia, and its masses of entangled and tall foliage, whose autumnal tints were mixed with the wet verdure of a thousand evergreens, were penetrated with it as with rain. I cannot call it colour, it was conflagration. Purple, and crimson, and scarlet, like the curtains of God's tabernacle, the rejoicing trees sank into the valley in showers of light, every separate leaf quivering with buoyant and burning life; each, as it turned to reflect or to transmit the sunbeam, first a torch and then an emerald. Far up into the recesses of the valley, the green vistas arched like the hollows of mighty waves of some crystalline sea, with the arbutus flowers dashed along their flanks for foam, and silver flakes of orange spray tossed into the air around them, breaking over the grey walls of rock into a thousand separate stars, fading and kindling alternately as the weak wind lifted and let them fall. Every glade of grass burned like the golden floor of heaven, opening in sudden gleams as the foliage broke and closed above it, as sheet lightning opens in a cloud at sunset; the motionless masses of dark rock—dark though flushed with scarlet lichen—casting their quiet shadows across its restless radiance, the fountain underneath them filling its marble hollow with blue mist and fitful sound, and over all—the multitudinous bars of amber and rose, the sacred clouds that have no darkness, and only exist to illumine, were seen in fathomless intervals between the solemn and orbed repose of the stone pines, passing to lose themselves in the last, white, blinding lustre of the measureless line where the Campagna melted into the blaze of the sea." In verity, this is no "Campana Supellex." It is a riddle! Is he going up or down hill—or both at once? No human being can tell. He did not like the "sulphur and treacle" of "our Scotch connoisseurs;" but what colours has he not added here to his sulphur—colours, too, that we fear for the "idea of truth" cannot coexist! And how, in the name of optics, could it be possible for any painter to take in all this, with the "fathomless intervals," into an angle of vision of forty-five degrees? It is quite superfluous to ask "who is likest this, Turner or Poussin?" There immediately follows a remark upon another picture in the National Gallery, the "Mercury and Woodman," by Salvator Rosa, than which nothing can be more untrue to the original. He asserts that Salvator painted the distant mountains, "throughout, without one instant of variation. But what is its colour? Pure sky-blue, without one grain of grey, or any modifying hue whatsoever;—the same brush which had just given the bluest parts of the sky, has been more loaded at the same part of the pallette, and the whole mountain throw in with unmitigated ultramarine." Now the fact is, that the picture has, in this part, been so injured, that it is hard to say what colour is under the dirty brown-asphaltum hue and texture that covers it. It is certainly not blue now, not "pure blue"—unless pictures change like the cameleon. We know the picture well, and have seen another of the same subject, where the mountains have variety, and yet are blue. We believe a great sum was given for this picture—far more than its condition justifies. We must return—we left the graduate discussing ideas of truth. There is a chapter to show that the truth of nature is not to be discerned by the uneducated senses. As we do not perceive all sounds that enter the ear, so do we not perceive all that is cognizable by the eye—we have, that is, a power of nullifying an impression; that this habit is so common, that from the abstraction of their minds to other subjects, there are probably persons who never saw any thing beautiful. Sensibility to the power of beauty is required—and to see rightly, there should be a perfect state of moral feeling. Even when we think we see with our eyes, our perception is often the result of memory, of previous knowledge; and it is in this way he accounts for the mistake painters and others make with respect to Italian skies. What will Mr Uwin and his followers in blue say to this, alas—Italian skies are not blue? "How many people are misled by what has been said and sung of the serenity of Italian skies, to suppose they must be more blue than the skies of the north, and think that they see them so; whereas the sky of Italy is far more dull and grey in colour than the skies of the north, and is distinguished only by its intense repose of light." Benevenuto Cellini speaks of the mist of Italy. "Repose of light" is rather a novelty—he is fond of it. But then Turner paints with pure white—for ourselves we are with the generality of mankind who prefer the "repose" of shade. "Ask a connoisseur, who has scampered over all Europe, the shape of the leaf of an elm, and the chances are ninety to one that he cannot tell you; and yet he will be voluble of criticism on every painted landscape from Dresden to Madrid"—and why not? The chances are ninety to one that the merits of not a single picture shall depend upon this knowledge, and yet the pictures shall be good and the connoisseur right. One man sees what another does not see in portraits. Undoubtedly; but how any one is to find in a portrait the following, we are at a loss to conceive. "The third has caught the trace of all that was most hidden and most mighty, when all hypocrisy and all habit, and all petty and passing emotion—the ice, and the bank, and the foam of the immortal river—were shivered and broken, and swallowed up in the awakening of its inward strength," &c. How can a man with a pen in his hand let such stuff as this drop from his fingers' ends?

In the chapter "on the relative importance of truths," there is a little needless display of logic—needless, for we find, after all, he does not dispute "the kind of truths proper to be represented by the painter or sculptor," though he combats the maxim that general truths are preferable to particular. His examples are quite out of art, whether one be spoken of as a man or as Sir Isaac Newton. Even logically speaking, Sir Isaac Newton may be the whole of the subject, and as such a whole might require a generality. There may be many particulars that are best sunk. So, in a picture made up of many parts, it should have a generality totally independent of the particularities of the parts, which must be so represented as not to interfere with that general idea, and which may be altogether in the mind of the artist. This little discussion seems to arise from a sort of quibble on the word important. Sir Joshua and others, who abet the generality maxim, mean no more than that it is of importance to a picture that it contain, fully expressed, one general idea, with which no parts are to interfere, but that the parts will interfere if each part be represented with its most particular truth—and that, therefore, drapery should be drapery merely, not silk or satin, where high truths of the subject are to be impressed.

"Colour is a secondary truth, therefore less important than form." "He, therefore, who has neglected a truth of form for a truth of colour, has neglected a greater truth for a less one." It is true with regard to any individual object—but we doubt if it be always so in picture. The character of the picture may not at all depend upon form—nay, it is possible that the painter may wish to draw away the mind altogether from the beauty, and even correctness of form, his subject being effect and colour, that shall be predominant, and to which form shall be quite subservient, and little more of it than such as chiaro-scuro shall give; and in such a case colour is the more important truth, because in it lies the sentiment of the picture. The mystery of Rembrandt would vanish were beauty of form introduced in many of his pictures. We remember a picture, the most impressive picture perhaps ever painted, and that by a modern too, Danby's "Opening of the Sixth Seal." Now, though there are fine parts in this picture, the real power of the picture is in its colour—it is awful. We are no enemy to modern painters; we think this a work of the highest genius—and as such, should be most proud to see it deposited in our National Gallery. We further say, that in some respects it carries the art beyond the old practice. But, then, we may say it is a new subject. "It is not certain whether any two people see the same colours in things." Though that does not affect the question of the importance of colour, for it must imply a defect in the individuals, for undoubtedly there is such a thing as nature's harmony of colour; yet it may be admitted, that things are not always known by their colour; nay, that the actual local colour of objects is mainly altered by effects of light, and we are accustomed to see the same things, quoad colour, variously presented to us—and the inference that we think artists may draw from this fact is, that there will be allowed them a great licence in all cases of colour, and that naturalness may be preserved without exactness—and here will lie the value of a true theory of the harmony of colours, and the application of colouring to pictures, most suitable to the intended impression, not the most appropriate to the objects. We have often laid some stress upon this in the pages of Maga—and we think it has been too much omitted in the consideration of artists. Every one knows what is called a Claude glass. We see nature through a coloured medium—yet we do not doubt that we are looking at nature—at trees, at water, at skies—nay, we admire the colour—see its harmony and many beauties—yet we know them to be, if we may use the term, misrepresented. While speaking of the Claude glass, it will not be amiss to notice a peculiarity. It shows a picture—when the unaided eye will not; it heightens illumination—brings out the most delicate lights, scarcely perceptible to the naked eye, and gives greater power to the shades, yet preserves their delicacy. It seems to annihilate all those rays of light, which, as it were, intercept the picture—that come between the eye and the object. But to return to colour—we say that it must, in the midst of its license, preserve its naturalness—which it will do if it have a meaning in itself. But when we are called upon to question what is the meaning of this or that colour, how does its effect agree with the subject? why is it outrageously yellow or white, or blue or red, or a jumble of all these?—which are questions, we confess, that we and the public have often asked, with regard to Turner's late pictures—we do not acknowledge a naturalness—the license has been abused—not "sumpta pudenter." It is not because the vividness of "a blade of grass or a scarlet flower" shall be beyond the power of pigment, that a general glare and obtrusion of such colours throughout a picture can be justified. We are astonished that any man with eyes should see the unnaturalness in colour of Salvator and Titian, and not see it in Turner's recent pictures, where it is offensive because more glaring. Those masters sacrificed, if it be a sacrifice, something to repose—repose is the thing to be sacrificed according to the notions of too many of our modern schools. It is likewise singular, after all the falsehoods which he asserts the old masters to have painted, that he should speak of "imitation"—as their whole aim, their sole intention to deceive; and yet he describes their pictures as unlike nature in the detail and in the general as can be, strangely missing their object—deception. We fear the truths, particulars of which occupy the remainder of the volume—of earth, water, skies, &c.—are very minute truths, which, whether true or false, are of very little importance to art, unless it be to those branches of art which may treat the whole of each particular truth as the whole of a subject, a line of art that may produce a multitude of works, like certain scenes of dramatic effect, surprising to see once, but are soon powerless—can we hope to say of such, "decies repetita placebunt?" They will be the fascinations of the view schools, nay, may even delight the geologist and the herbalist, but utterly disgust the imaginative. This kind of "knowledge" is not "power" in art. We want not to see water anatomized; the Alps may be tomahawked and scalped by geologists, yet may they be sorry painters. And we can point to the general admiration of the world, learned and unlearned, that a "contemptible fragment of a splintery crag" has been found to answer all the purposes of an impression of the greatness of nature, her free, great, and awful forms, and that depth, shades, power of chiaro-scuro, are found in nature to be strongest in objects of no very great magnitude; for our vision requires nearness, and we want not the knowledge that a mountain is 20,000 feet high, to be convinced that it is quite large enough to crush man and all his works; and that they, who, in their terror of a greater pressure, would call upon the mountains to cover them, and the holes of rocks to hide them, would think very little of the measurement of the mountains, or how the caverns of the earth are made. Greatness and sublimity are quite other things.

We shall not very systematically carry our views, therefore, into the detail of these truths, but shall just pick here and there a passage or so, that may strike us either for its utility or its absurdity.

With regard to truth of tone, he observes—that "the finely-toned pictures of the old masters are some of the notes of nature played two or three octaves below her key, the dark objects in the middle distance having precisely the same relation to the light of the sky which they have in nature, but the light being necessarily infinitely lowered, and the mass of the shadow deepened in the same degree. I have often been struck, when looking at a camera-obscura on a dark day, with the exact resemblance the image bore to one of the finest pictures of the old masters." We only ask if, when looking at the picture in the camera, he did not still recognize nature—and then, if it was beautiful, we might ask him if it was not true; and then when he asserts our highest light being white paper, and that not white enough for the light of nature—we would ask if, in the camera, he did not see the picture on white paper—and if the whiteness of paper be not the exact whiteness of nature, or white as ordinary nature? But there is a quality in the light of nature that mere whiteness will not give, and which, in fact, is scarcely ever seen in nature merely in what is quite white; we mean brilliancy—that glaze, as it were, between the object and the eye which makes it not so much light as bright. Now this quality of light was thought by the old masters to be the most important one of light, extending to the half tones and even in the shadows, where there is still light; and this by art and lowering the tone they were able to give, so that we see not the value of the praise when he says—

"Turner starts from the beginning with a totally different principle. He boldly takes pure white—and justly, for it is the sign of the most intense sunbeams—for his highest light, and lamp-black for his deepest shade," &c. Now, if white be the sign of the most intense sunbeams, it is as we never wish to see them; what under a tropical sun may be white is not quite white with us; and we always find it disagreeable in proportion as it approaches to pure white. We never saw yet in nature a sky or a cloud pure white; so that here certainly is one of the "fallacies," we will not call them falsehoods. But as far as we can judge of nature's ideas of light and colour, it is her object to tone them down, and to give us very little, if any, of this raw white, and we would not say that the old masters did not follow her method of doing it. But we will say, that the object of art, at any rate, is to make all things look agreeable; and that human eyes cannot bear without pain those raw whites and too searching lights; and that nature has given to them an ever present power of glazing down and reducing them, when she added to the eye the sieve, our eyelashes, through which we look, which we employ for this purpose, and desire not to be dragged at any time—"Sub curru nimium propinqui solis."

After this praise of white, one does not expect—"I think nature mixes yellow with almost every one of her hues;" but this is said merely in aversion to purple. "I think the first approach to viciousness of colour in any master, is commonly indicated chiefly by a prevalence of purple and an absence of yellow." "I am equally certain that Turner is distinguished from all the vicious colourists of the present day, by the foundation of all his tones being black, yellow, and intermediate greys, while the tendency of our common glare-seekers is invariably to pure, cold, impossible purples."

"Silent nymph, with curious eye,
Who the purple evening lie,"

saith Dyer, in his landscape of "Grongar Hill." The "glare-seekers" is curious enough, when we remember the graduate's description of landscapes, (of course Turner's,) and his excursions; but we think we have seen many purples in Turner, and that opposed to his flaming red in sunsets. He prefers warmth where most people feel cold—this is not surprising; but as to picture "is it true?" "My own feelings would guide me rather to the warm greys of such pictures as the 'Snow-Storm,' or the glowing scarlet and gold of the 'Napoleon' and the 'Slave Ship.'" The two latter must be well remembered by all Exhibition visitors; they were the strangest things imaginable in colour as in every particle that should be art or nature. There is a whimsical quotation from Wordsworth, the "keenest-eyed," page 145. His object is to show the strength of shadow—how "the shadows on the trunk of the tree become darker and more conspicuous than any part of the boughs or limbs;" so, for this strength and blackness, we have—

"At the root
Of that tall pine, the shadow of whose bare
And slender stem, while here I sit at eve,
Oft stretches tow'rds me, like a long straight path,
Traced faintly in the greensward."

"Of the truth of space," he says that "in a real landscape, we can see the whole of what would be called the middle distance and distance together, with facility and clearness; but while we do so, we can see nothing in the foreground beyond a vague and indistinct arrangement of lines and colours; and that if, on the contrary, we look at any foreground object, so as to receive a distinct impression of it, the distance and middle distance become all disorder and mystery. And therefore, if in a painting our foreground is any thing, our distance must be nothing, and vice versa." "Now, to this fact and principle, no landscape painter of the old school, as far as I remember, ever paid the slightest attention. Finishing their foregrounds clearly and sharply, and with vigorous impression on the eye, giving even the leaves of their bushes and grass with perfect edge and shape, they proceeded into the distance with equal attention to what they could see of its details," &c. But he had blamed Claude for not having given the exactness and distinct shape and colour of leaves in foreground. The fact is, the picture should be as a piece of nature framed in. Within that frame, we should not see distinctly the foreground and distance at the same instant: but, as we have stated, the eye and mind are rapid, the one to see, the other to combine; and as a horse let loose into a field, runs to the extremity of it and around it, the first thing he does—so do we range over every part of the picture, but with wondrous rapidity, before our impression of the whole is perfect. We must not, therefore, slur over any thing; the difficulty in art is to give the necessary, and so made necessary, detail of foreground unostentatiously—to paint nothing, that which is to tell as nothing, but so as it shall satisfy upon examination; and we think so the old masters did paint the foregrounds, particularly Gaspar Poussin—so Titian, so Domenichino, and all of any merit. But this is merely an introduction, not to a palliation of, but the approbation and praise of a glaring defect in Turner. "Turner introduced a new era in landscape art, by showing that the foreground might be sunk for the distance, and that it was possible to express immediate proximity to the spectator, without giving any thing like completeness to the forms of the near objects." We are now, therefore, prepared for an absurd "justification of the want of drawing in Turner's figures," thus contemptuously, with regard to all but himself, accounted for. "And now we see the reason for the singular, and, to the ignorant in art, the offensive execution of Turner's figures. I do not mean to assert that there is any reason whatsoever for bad drawing, (though in landscape it matters exceedingly little;) but there is both reason and necessity for that want of drawing which gives even the nearest figures round balls with four pink spots in them instead of faces, and four dashes of the brush instead of hands and feet; for it is totally impossible that if the eye be adapted to receive the rays proceeding from the utmost distance, and some partial impression from all the distances, it should be capable of perceiving more of the forms and features of near figures than Turner gives." Yet what wonderful detail has he required from Canaletti and others?—But is there any reason why we should have "pink spots?"—is there any reason why Turner's foreground figures should resemble penny German dolls?—and for the reason we have above given, there ought to be reason why the figures should be made out, at least as they are in a camera-obscura. We here speak of nature, of "truth," and with him ask, it may be all very well—but "is it true?" But we have another fault to find with Turner's figures; they are often bad in intention. What can be more absurd and incongruous, for instance, than in a picture of "elemental war"—a sea-coast—than to put a child and its nurse in foreground, the child crying because it has lost its hoop, or some such thing? It is according to his truth of space, that distances should have every "hair's-breadth" filled up, all its "infinity," with infinities of objects, but that whatever is near, if figures, may be "pink spots," and "four dashes of the brush." While with Poussin—"masses which result from the eclipse of details are contemptible and painful;" and he thinks Poussin has but "meaningless tricks of clever execution"—forgetting that all art is but a trick—yet one of those tricks worth knowing, and yet which how few have acquired! Surely our author is not well acquainted with Hobbima's works; that painter had not a niggling execution. "A single dusty roll of Turner's brush is more truly expressive of the infinity of foliage, than the niggling of Hobbima could have rendered his canvass, if he had worked on it till doomsday." Our author seems to have studied skies, such as they are in Turner or in nature. He talks of them with no inconsiderable swagger of observation, while the old masters had no observation at all;—"their blunt and feelingless eyes never perceived it in nature; and their untaught imaginations were not likely to originate it in study." What is the it, will be asked—we believe it to be a "cirrus," and that a cirrus is the subject of a chapter to itself. This beard of the sky, however, instead of growing below, is quite above, "never formed below an elevation of at least 15,000 feet, are motionless, multitudinous lines of delicate vapour, with which the blue of the open sky is commonly streaked or speckled after several days of fine weather. They are more commonly known as 'mare's tails.'" Having found this "mare's nest," he delights in it. It is the glory of modern masters. He becomes inflated, and lifts himself 15,000 feet above the level of the understanding of all old masters, and, as we think, of most modern readers, as thus:—"One alone has taken notice of the neglected upper sky; it is his peculiar and favourite field; he has watched its every modification, and given its every phase and feature; at all hours, in all seasons, he has followed its passions and its changes, and has brought down and laid open to the world another apocalypse of heaven." Very well, considering that the cirrus never touches even the highest mountains of Europe, to follow its phase (query faces) and feature 15,000 feet high, and given pink dots, four pink dots for the faces and features of human beings within fifteen feet of his brush. We will not say whether the old masters painted this cirrus or not. We believe they painted what they and we see, at least so much as suited their pictures—but as they were not, generally speaking, exclusively sky-painters, but painters of subjects to which the skies were subordinate, they may be fairly held excused for this their lack of ballooning after the "cirrus;" and we thank them that they were not "glare-seekers," "threading" their way, with it before them, "among the then transparent clouds, while all around the sun is unshadowed fire." We lose him altogether in the "central cloud region," where he helps nature pretty considerably as she "melts even the unoccupied azure into palpitating shades," and hopelessly turns the corner of common observation, and escapes among the "fifty aisles penetrating through angelic chapels to the shechinah of the blue." We must expect him to descend a little vain of his exploit, and so he does—and wonders not that the form and colour of Turner should be misunderstood, for "they require for the full perception of their meaning and truth, such knowledge and such time as not one in a thousand possesses, or can bestow." The inference is, that the graduate has graduated a successful phæton, driving Mr Turner's chariot through all the signs of the zodiac. So he sends all artists, ancient and modern, to Mr Turner's country, as "a magnificent statement, all truth"—that is, "impetuous clouds, twisted rain, flickering sunshine, fleeting shadow, gushing water, and oppressed cattle"—yes, more, it wants repose, and there it is—"High and far above the dark volumes of the swift rain-cloud, are seen on the left, through their opening, the quiet, horizontal, silent flakes of the highest cirrus, resting in the repose of the deep sky;" and there they are, "delicate, soft, passing vapours," and there is "the exquisite depth and palpitating tenderness of the blue with which they are islanded." Thus islanded in tenderness, what wonder is it if Ixion embraced a cloud? Let not the modern lover of nature entertain such a thought; "Bright Phœbus" is no minor canon to smile complacently on the matter; he has a jealousy in him, and won't let any be in a melting mood with the clouds but himself; he tears aside your curtains, and steam-like rags of capricious vapour—"the mouldering sun, seeming not far away, but burning like a red-hot ball beside you, and as if you could reach it, plunges through the rushing wind and rolling cloud with headlong fall, as if it meant to rise no more, dyeing all the air about it with blood." This is no fanciful description, but among the comparative views of nature's and of Turner's skies, as seen, and verified upon his affidavit, by a graduate of Oxford; who may have an indisposition to boast of his exclusive privilege.

"Ἀεροβατῶ και περιφρονῶ τὸν ἥλιον."

Accordingly, in "the effects of light rendered by modern art," our author is very particular indeed. His extraordinary knowledge of the sun's position, to a hair's-breadth in Mr Turner's pictures, and minute of the day, is quite surprising. He gives a table of two pages and a-half, of position and moment, "morning, noon, and afternoon," "evening and night." In more than one instance, he is so close, as "five minutes before sunset."

Having settled the matter of the sky, our author takes the earth in hand, and tosses it about like a Titan. "The spirit of the hills is action, that of the lowlands, repose; and between these there is to be found every variety of motion and of rest, from the inactive plain, sleeping like the firmament, with cities for stars, to the fiery peaks which, with heaving bosoms and exulting limbs, with clouds drifting like hair from their bright foreheads, lift up their Titan hands to heaven saying, 'I live for ever.'" We learn, too, a wonderful power in the excited earth, far beyond that which other "naturalists" describe of the lobster, who only, ad libitum, casts off a claw or so. "But there is this difference between the action of the earth and that of a living creature, that while the exerted limb marks its bones and tendons through the flesh, the excited earth casts off the flesh altogether, and its bones come out from beneath. Mountains are the bones of the earth, their highest peaks are invariably those parts of its anatomy, which in the plains lie buried under five-and-twenty thousand feet of solid thickness of superincumbent soil, and which spring up in the mountain ranges in vast pyramids or wedges, flinging their garment of earth away from them on each side." If the gentle sketcher should happily escape a cuff from these cast-off clothes flung by excited earth from her extremities, he may be satisfied with repose in the lap of mother earth, who must be considerably fat and cushioned, though some may entertain a fear of being overlaid. What is the artist to do with an earth like this, body and bones? When he sits down to sketch some placid landscape, is he to think of poor nature with her bones sticking out from twenty-five thousand feet of her solid flesh! Mother of Gargantia—thou wert but a dwarf! Salvator Rosa could not paint rock; Gaspar Poussin could not paint rock. A rock, in short, is such a thing as nobody ought to paint, or can paint but Turner; and all that, after his description of rock, we believe; but were not prepared to learn that "the foreground of the 'Napoleon' in last year's Academy," is "one of the most exquisite pieces of rock truth ever put on canvass." In fact, we really, in ignorance to be ashamed of, did not know there was any rock there at all. We only remember Napoleon and his cocked-hat—now, this is extraordinary; for as we only or chiefly remember the cocked-hat, so he sees the said cocked-hat in Salvator's rocks, where we never saw such a thing, though "he has succeeded in covering his foregrounds with forms which approximate to those of drapery, of ribands, of crushed cocked-hats, of locks of hair, of waves, of leaves, or any thing, in short, flexible or tough, but which, of course, are not only unlike, but directly contrary to the forms which nature has impressed on rocks." And the nature of rocks he must know, having the "Napoleon" before him. "In the 'Napoleon' I can illustrate by no better example, for I can reason as well from this as I could with my foot on the native rock." What rocks of Salvator's, besides the No. 220 of the Dulwich gallery, he has seen, we cannot pretend to say; we have, within these few days, seen one, and could not discover the "commas," the "Chinese for rocks," nor Sanscrit for rocks, but did read the language of nature, without the necessity of any writing under—"This is a rock." Poor Claude, he knew nothing of perspective, and his efforts "invariably ended in reducing his pond to the form of a round O, and making it look perpendicular;" but in one instance Claude luckily hits upon "a little bit of accidental truth;" he is circumstantial in its locality—"the little piece of ground above the cattle, between the head of the brown cow and the tail of the white one, is well articulated, just where it turns into shade."

After the entire failure of all artists that ever lived before Turner in land and skies, we are prepared to find that they had not the least idea of water. When they thought they painted water, in fact, they were like "those happier children, sliding on dry ground," and had not the chance of wetting a foot. Water, too, is a thing to be anatomized, a sort of rib-fluidity. The moving, transparent water, in shallow and in depth, of Vandervelde and Backhuysen, is not the least like water; they are men who "libelled the sea." Many of our moderns—Stanfield in particular—seem naturally web-footed; but the real Triton of the sea, as he was Titan of the earth, is Turner. To our own eyes, in this respect, he stands indebted to the engraver; for we do not remember a single sea-piece by Turner, in water-colour or oil, in which the water is liquid. What it is like, in the picture of the Slave-ship, which is considered one of his very finest productions, we defy any one to tell. We are led to guess it is meant for water, by the strange fish that take their pastime. A year or two ago were exhibited two sea-pieces, of nearly equal size, at the British Institution, by Vandervelde and Turner. It was certainly one of Turner's best; but how inferior was the water and the sky to the water and sky in Vandervelde! In Turner they were both rocky. We say not this to the disparagement of Turner's genius. He had not studied these elements as did Vandervelde. The two painters ought not to be compared together; and we humbly think that any man who should pronounce of Vandervelde and Backhuysen, that they "libelled the sea," convicts himself of a wondrous lack of taste and feeling. Of their works he thus speaks—"As it is, I believe there is scarcely such another instance to be found in the history of man, of the epidemic aberration of mind into which multitudes fall by infection, as is furnished by the value set upon the works of these men." Of water, he says—"Nothing can hinder water from being a reflecting medium but dry dust or filth of some kind on its surface. Dirty water, if the foul matter be dissolved or suspended in the liquid, reflects just as clearly and sharply as pure water, only the image is coloured by the hue of the mixed matter, and becomes comparatively brown or dark." We entirely deny this, from constant observation. Within this week we have been studying a stream, which has alternated in its clearness and muddiness. We found the reflection not only less clear in the latter case, but instead of brown and dark, to have lost its brownness, and to have become lighter. To understand the "curves" of water being beyond the reach of most who are not graduates of Oxford; and painters and admirers of old masters being people without sense, at least in comparison with the graduate, he thus disposes of his learned difficulty:—"This is a point, however, on which it is impossible to argue without going into high mathematics, and even then the nature of particular curves, as given by the brush, would be scarcely demonstrable; and I am the less disposed to take much trouble about it, because I think that the persons who are really fond of these works are almost beyond the reach of argument." The celebrated Mrs Partington once endeavoured, at Sidmouth, to dispose of these "curves," and failed; and we suspect a stronger reason than the incapacity of his readers for our author's thus disposing of the subject. We believe the world would not give a pin's head for all the seas that ever might be painted upon these mathematical curves; and that, in painting, even a graduate's "high mathematics" are but a very low affair. But let us enliven the reader with something really high—and here is, in very high-flown prose, part of a description of a waterfall; and it will tell him a secret, that in the midst of these fine falls, nature keeps a furnace and steam-engine continually at work, and having the fire at hand, sends up rockets—if you doubt—read:—"And how all the hollows of that foam burn with green fire, like so much shattering chrysoprase; and how, ever and anon, startling you with its white flash, a jet of spray leaps hissing out of the fall, like a rocket, bursting in the wind, and driven away in dust, filling the air with light; and how, through the curdling wreaths of the restless, crashing abyss below, the blue of the water, paled by the foam in its body, shows purer than the sky through white rain-cloud, while the shuddering iris stoops in tremulous stillness over all, fading and flashing alternately through the choking spray and shattered sunshine, hiding itself at last among the thick golden leaves, which toss to and fro in sympathy with the wild water, their dripping masses lifted at intervals, like sheaves of loaded corn, by some stronger gush from the cataract, and bowed again upon the mossy rocks as its roar dies away." "Satque superque satis"—we cannot go on. There is nothing like calling things by their contraries—it is truly startling. Whenever you speak of water, treat it as fire—of fire, vice versa, as water; and be sure to send them all shattering out of reach and discrimination of all sense; and look into a dictionary for some such word as "chrysoprase," which we find to come from χρυσος gold, and πρασον a leek, and means a precious stone; it is capable of being shattered, together with "sunshine"—the reader will think the whole passage a "flash" of moonshine. But there is a discovery—"I believe, when you have stood by this for half an hour, you will have discovered that there is something more in nature than has been given by Ruysdaël." You will indeed—if this be nature! But, alas, what have we not to undergo—to discover what water is, and to become capable of judging of Turner! It is a comfort, however, that he is likely to have but few judges. Graduate has courage to undergo any thing. Ariel was nothing in his ubiquity to him, though he put a span about the world in forty minutes; "but there was some apology for the public's not understanding this, for few people have had the opportunity of seeing the sea at such a time, and when they have, cannot face it. To hold by a mast or rock, and watch it, is a prolonged endurance of drowning, which few people have courage to go through. To those who have, it is one of the noblest lessons in nature." Very few people, indeed, and those few "involuntary experimentalists."

We are glad to get on dry land again, "brown furze or any thing"—and here we must question one of his truths of vegetation: he asserts, that the stems of all trees, the "ordinary trees of Europe, do not taper, but grow up or out, in undiminished thickness, till they throw out branch and bud, and then go off again to the next of equal thickness." We have carefully examined many trees this last week, and find it is not the case; in almost all, the bulging at the bottom, nearest the root, is manifest. There is an early association in our minds, that the birch for instance is remarkably tapering in its twigs. We would rather refer our "sworn measurer" to the factor than the painter, and we very much question whether his "top and top" will meet the market. We are satisfied the fact is not as he states it, and surely nature works not by such measure rule. We suspect, for nature we should here read Turner, for his trees, certainly, are strange things; it is true, he generally shirks them. We do not remember one picture that has a good, true, bona fide, conspicuous tree in it. The reader will not be surprised to learn that the worst painter of trees was Gaspar Poussin! and that the perfection of trees is to be found in Turner's "Marley," where most people will think the trees look more like brooms than trees. The chapter on "the Truth of Turner" concludes with a quotation—we presume the extract from a letter from Mr Turner to the author. If so, Mr Turner has somewhat caught the author's style, and tells very simple truths in a very fine manner, thus:—"I cannot gather the sunbeams out of the east, or I would make them tell you what I have seen; but read this, and interpret this, and let us remember together. I cannot gather the gloom out of the night-sky, or I would make that teach you what I have seen; but read this, and interpret this, and let us feel together." We must pause. Really we do not see the slightest necessity of an interpretation here. It is a simple fact. He cannot extract "sunbeams" from cucumbers—from the east, we should say. The only riddle seems to be, that they should, in one instance, remember together, and in the other, feel together; only we guess that, being night-gloom, people naturally feel about them in the dark. But he proceeds—"And if you have not that within you which I can summon to my aid, if you have not the sun in your spirit, and the passion in your heart, which my words may awaken, though they be indistinct and swift, leave me." We must pause again; here is a riddle: what can be the meaning of having the sun in one's spirit?—is it any thing like having the moon in one's head? We give it up. The passion in the heart we suppose to be dead asleep, and the words and voice harsh and grating, and so it is awakened. But what that if, or if not, has to do with "leave me," we cannot conjecture; but this we do venture to conjecture, that to expect our graduate ever to leave Mr Turner is one of the most hopeless of all Mr Turner's "Fallacies of Hope." But the writer proceeds with a for—that appears, nevertheless, a pretty considerable non-sequitur. "For I will give you no patient mockery, no laborious insult of that glorious nature, whose I am and whom I serve." Here the graduate is treated as a servant, and the writer of the letter assumes the Pythian, the truly oracular vein. "Let other servants imitate the voice and the gesture of their master while they forget his message. Hear that message from me, but remember that the teaching of Divine Truth must still be a mystery." "Like master like man." Both are in the "Cambyses' vein."

We do not think that landscape painters will either gain or lose much by the publication of this volume, unless it be some mortification to be so sillily lauded as some of our very respectable painters are. We do not think that the pictorial world, either in taste or practice, will be Turnerized by this palpably fulsome, nonsensical praise. In this our graduate is semper idem, and to keep up his idolatry to the sticking-point, terminates the volume with a prayer, and begs all the people of England to join in it—a prayer to Mr Turner!

---

A ROYAL SALUTE.

"Should you like to be a queen, Christina?"

This question was addressed by an old man, whose head was bent carefully over a chess-board, to a young lady who was apparently rather tired of the lesson she had taken in that interesting game.

"Queen of hearts, do you mean?" answered the girl, patting with the greatest appearance of fondness a dreadfully ugly little dog that lay in her lap.

"Queen of hearts," replied the minister, with a smile; "you are that already, my dear. But have you no other ambition?" he added, tapping sagaciously the lid of a magnificently ornamented snuff-box, on which was depicted one of the ugliest monarchs that ever puzzled a court-painter to make him human.

"Why should my ambition go further?" said Christina. "I have more subjects already than I know how to govern."

"No doubt—no doubt—I knew very well that you could not avoid having subjects; but I hope and trust you have had too much sense to receive their allegiance."

The old man was proud of carrying on the metaphor so well, and of asking the question so delicately. It was quite evident he had been in the diplomatic line.

"How can I help it?" enquired the young beauty, passing her hand over the back of the disgusting little pet, which showed its teeth in a very uncouth fashion whenever the paternal voice was raised a little too high. "But, I assure you, I pay no attention to allegiance, which I consider my right. There is but one person's homage I care for"——

The brow of the Prime Minister of Sweden grew very black, and his face had something of the benign expression of the growling pug on his daughter's knee.

"Who is that person, Christina?"

But Christina looked at her father with an alarmed glance, which she shortly after converted into a smile, and went on in her pleasing occupation of smoothing the raven down of her favourite, but did not say a word.

The father, who seemed to be no great judge of pantomime, repeated his question.

"Who is that person, Christina?"

Christina disdained hypocrisy, and, moreover, was immensely spoiled.

"Who should it be, but your gallant nephew, Adolphus Hesse, dear father?"

"You haven't had the impudence, I hope, to engage yourself to that boy?"

"Boy—why he is twenty-one! He is my oldest friend—we learned all our lessons together. I can't recollect the time we were not engaged, it is so long since we loved each other!"

"Nonsense! You were brought up together by his mother; it is nothing but sisterly affection."

"Not at all—not at all!" cried Christina; "it would make me quite miserable if Adolphus were my brother."

"It is all you must think him, nevertheless. He has no fortune; he has nothing but his commission; and my generosity is"——

"Immense, my dear father; inexhaustible! And then Adolphus is so brave—so magnanimous; and, upon my word, when I saw how much he liked me, and heard him speak so much more delightfully than any body else, I never thought of asking if he was rich; and you know you love him yourself, dear father."

Christina neglected the pug in her lap for a moment, and laid her hand coaxingly on the old man's shoulder.

"But not enough to make him my heir," said the Count, gruffly. Christina renewed her attentions to the dog.

"He would be your heir notwithstanding," she said, "if I were to die."

There was something in the tone of her voice, or the idea suggested of her death, that softened the old man. He looked for a long time at the young and beautiful face of his child; and the shade of uneasiness her words had raised, disappeared from his brow.

"There is nothing but life there," he said, gently tapping her on the forehead; "and therefore I must marry you, my girl!"

"And you will make us the happiest couple in the world. Adolphus will be so grateful," said Christina, her bright eyes sparkling through tears.

"Who the devil said a word about Adolphus?" said the father, looking angrily at Christina; but he added immediately in a softer tone, when he saw the real emotion of his daughter—"Poor girl, you have been sadly spoiled! You have had too much of your own way, and now you ask me to do what is impossible. Be a reasonable girl, there's a darling! and your aunt will present you at court. You will see such grand things—you will know our gallant young King—only be reasonable!"

"The rude monster!" cried Christina, starting up as if tired of the conversation. "I have no wish to know him. They say he hates women."

"A calumny, my dear girl; he is very fond of one at all events."

"Is she pretty?"

"And mischievous as yourself."

"As I?" enquired Christina, and fell into a long reverie, while the Count smiled as if he had made an excellent hit.

"But I have never seen him, papa," she said, awakening all of a sudden.

"He may have seen you though; and he says"——

"Oh, what does he say? Do tell me what the King says?"

"Poh! What do you want to know about what a rude monster says—that hates women?" answered the father with another smile of satisfaction.

"But he is a king, papa! What does he say? I am quite anxious to know."

But the minister of state had gained his object; he had excited curiosity, and determined not to gratify it. At last he said, as he rose to quit the apartment—"Let us turn the conversation, Christina; we have nothing to do with kings, and must content ourselves with humbler subjects. An officer will sup with us to-night, whom I wish you very much to please. He has influence with the King; and if you have any regard for my interest you will receive him well. I intend him for your husband."

"I won't have him!" cried Christina, running after her father as he left the room. "I won't have him! If I don't marry Adolphus, I won't marry at all!"

"Heaven grant it, sweet cousin!" said Adolphus Hesse in propria persona, emerging from behind the window-curtains, where, by some miraculous concatenation of events, he had found himself ensconced for the last hour. "'Tis delightful to act the spy, and hear an advocate so persuasive as you have been, Christina—but the cause is desperate."

"Who told you, sir, the cause was desperate?" said Christina, pretending to look offended. "The battle is half gained—my father's anger disappears in a moment. Now, dear Adolphus, don't sigh—don't cross your arms—don't look up to the sky with that heroic frown—I can't bear to groan and be dismal—I want to be gay—to have a ball—to——We shall have such a ball the day of our wedding, Adolphus!"

"Your hopes deceive you, dearest Christina. I know your father better than you do. Ah!" he added, gazing sadly on the beautiful features of the young girl who looked on him so brightly, "you will never be able to resist the brilliant offer that will be made you in exchange for one faithful, loving heart."

"Indeed!" replied Christina, feeling her eyes filling with tears, but endeavouring at the same time to conceal her emotion under an affectation of anger, "your opinion of me is not very flattering; and it is not in very good taste, methinks, to play the despairing lover, especially after the conversation you so honourably overheard."

"Dry that tear, dear girl!" said Adolphus, "I will believe any thing you like."

"Why do you make me cry then? Is it only to have the pleasure of telling me to dry my tears? Or did you think you had some rival; some splendid cavalier that it was impossible to resist—Count Ericson, for instance?"

"Oh! as to Ericson I am not at all uneasy. I know you hate him; and besides he is not much richer than myself; but, dear Christina"——

"Well—go on," said the girl, mocking the lugubrious tone of her cousin—"what are you sighing again for?"

"Your father is going to bring you a new lover this evening, and poor Adolphus will be forgotten."

"You deserve it for all your ridiculous suspicions: but you are my cousin, and I forgive you this once." She looked at him with so sunny a smile, and so clear and open-hearted a countenance, that it was impossible to entertain a doubt.

"You love me really, then?" he said—"truly—faithfully?"

"I have told you so a hundred times," replied his cousin. "I am astonished you are not tired of hearing the same thing over and over again."

"'Tis so sweet, so new a thing for me," said Adolphus, "and I could listen to it for ever."

"Well, then, we love each other—that's very clear," said Christina, with the solemnity of the foreman of a jury delivering a verdict on the clearest evidence; "but since my father won't let us marry, we must wait—that is almost as clear as the other."

"And if he never consents?" enquired Adolphus.

"Never!" exclaimed Christina, to whom such an idea seemed never to have occurred, "can it be possible he will never consent?"

"I fear it is too possible," replied Adolphus, and the shadow fell on his face again.

"Well," said Christina, after a minute's pause, as if she had come to a resolution, "we must always stay as we are. Happiness is never increased by an act of disobedience."

"I think as you do," said the young soldier, admiring her all the more for the death-blow to his hopes; "and are you happy, quite happy, Christina?"

"What a question! Don't I see you every day? Isn't every body kind to me? Is there any thing I want?"

A different answer would have pleased the lover more. He looked at her for some time in silence—at last, in an altered tone, he said—

"I congratulate you on your prudence, Christina."

"I cannot break my father's heart."

"No, but mine, Christina!"

"Adolphus," said the young beauty solemnly, "if I cannot be your wife with the consent of my father, I never will marry another. This is all you can ask; all I can promise."

Filial affection was not quite so strong in Adolphus as in his cousin, and his face was by no means brightened on hearing this declaration. It was so uncommonly proper that it seemed nearly bordering on the cold and heartless. He tried to hate her; he walked up and down the room at a tremendous pace, stopping every now and then to take another glance at the tyrant who had pronounced his doom, and looked as beautiful as ever. He found it impossible to hate her, though we shall not enquire what were his sentiments towards her worthy progenitor, Count Ericson, the unknown lover, and even the young heroic King; for the sagacious reader must now be informed that this wonderful lovers' quarrel took place in the reign of Charles XII. Our fear is that he disliked all four. Christina found it very difficult to preserve the gravity essential to a heroine's appearance when she saw the long strides and bent brows of her lover. A smile was ready, on the slightest provocation, to make a dimple in her beautiful cheek, and all the biting she bestowed on her lips only made them redder and rosier. Adolphus had no inclination to smile, and could not believe that any body could see the least temptation to indulge in such a ridiculous occupation on such a momentous occasion. He was a regular lover, as Mr Weller would say, and no mistake. He saw in his fair cousin only a treasure of inestimable price, guarded by two monsters that made his approaches hopeless—avarice and ambition. How differently those two young people viewed the same event! Christina, knowing her power over her father, and unluckily not knowing that fathers (even though they are prime ministers, and are as courtier-like as Polonius) have flinty hearts when their interests are concerned, saw nothing in the present state of affairs to despair about; and in fact, as we have said already, was nearly committing the unpardonable crime of laughing at the grimaces of her cousin. He, poor fellow, knew the world a little better, and perceived in a moment that the new lover whom the ambitious father was going to present to his daughter, was some favourite of the king; and he was well aware, that any one backed by that impetuous monarch, was in a fair way to success. The king had seen Christina too—and though despising love himself, was in the habit of rewarding his favourite officers with the hand of the beauties or heiresses of his court; and when, as in this instance, the lady chosen was both—how could he doubt that the king had already resolved that she should be the bride of some lucky rival, against whose claims it would be impossible to contend? And Christina standing all the while before him, scarcely able to restrain a laugh! He was only twenty-one—and not half so steady as his grandfather would probably have shown himself in the same circumstances, and being unable to vent his rage on any body else, he poured it all forth upon himself.

"What a fool I have been!—an ass—a dolt—to have been so blinded! But I see now—I deserve all I have got! To have been so deceived by an absurd fit of love—that has lasted all my life, too! But no!—I shall not repay my uncle's kindness to me by robbing him of his only child. I shall go at once to my regiment—I may be lucky enough to get into the way of a cannon—you will think kindly of me when I am gone, though you are so unk"——

The word died away upon his lips. Large tears filled Christina's eyes, and all her inclination to smile had disappeared. There was something either in his looks or the tone of his voice, or the thought of his being killed, that banished all her gaiety; and in a few minutes the quarrel was made up—the tears dried in the usual manner—vows made—hands joined—and resolutions passed and carried with the utmost unanimity, that no power on earth should keep them from being married. And a very good resolution it was. The only pity was, that it was not very likely to be carried into effect. A father, an unknown lover, and a king, all joined against a poor boy and girl. The odds are very much against Adolphus and Christina.

Now let us examine the real state of affairs as dispassionately as we can. The Count Gyllenborg was ambitious, as became a courtier with an only daughter who was acknowledged on all sides to be the most beautiful girl in Sweden; and as he was aware of the full value of red lips and sparkling eyes in the commerce of life, he was determined to make the most of these perishable commodities while they were at their best, and the particular make and colour of them were in fashion. The Count was rich—and with amply sufficient brains, according to the dictum of one of his predecessors, to govern a kingdom; but he was not warlike; and Charles, who had lately taken the power into his own hands, knew nothing of mankind further than that they were made to be drawn up in opposite lines, and make holes in each other as scientifically as they could. Count Gyllenborg had a decided objection to being made a receptacle for lead bullets or steel swords; and was by no means anxious to murder a single Russian or German, for the sake of the honour of the thing, or for the good of his country. His power resting only on his adroitness in civil affairs, was therefore not on the surest foundation; and a prop to it was accordingly wanted. Such a prop had never been seen before, with such sunny looks, and such a happy musical laugh. The looks and the laugh between them, converted the atmosphere of Stockholm into the climate of Italy; and the politician, almost without knowing it, began to be thawed into a father. But the fear of a rival in the King's favour—some gallant soldier—and dozens of them were reported every week—made him resolve once more to bring his daughter's beauties into play. The king had seen her, and, in his boorish way, had expressed his admiration; and Gyllenborg felt assured, that if he should marry his daughter according to the King's wishes, his influence would be greater than ever; and, in fact, that the premiership would be his for life.

Great preparations accordingly were made for the reception of the powerful stranger, the announcement of whose appearance at supper had spread such dismay in the hearts of the two lovers. Christina knew almost instinctively her father's plan, and determined to counteract it. She felt sure that the officer for whom she was destined, and whom she had been ordered to receive so particularly, was one of the new favourites of the warlike king; some leader of a forlorn-hope, created colonel on the field of battle; some young general fresh from some heroic achievement, that had endeared him to his chief; but whoever it was, she was resolved to show him that the crown of Sweden was a very limited monarchy in regard to its female subjects, and that she would have nobody for her husband—neither count, nor colonel, nor general—but only her cousin Adolphus, lieutenant in the Dalecarlian hussars. Notwithstanding this resolution, it is astonishing what a time she stayed before the glass—how often she tried different coloured roses in her hair—how carefully she fitted on her new Parisian robes, and, in short, did every thing in her power to look her very best. What did all this arise from? She wished to show this young favourite, whoever he might be, that she was really as beautiful as people had told him; she wished to convince him that her smile was as sweet, her teeth as white, her eyes as captivating, her figure as superb, as he had heard them described—and then she wished to show him that all these—smiles—eyes—teeth—figure, were given, along with the heart that made them truly valuable, to another! and that other no favourite of a king—nor even of a minister, but only of a young girl of eighteen.

Radiant with beauty, and conscious of the sensation she was certain to create, she entered the magnificent apartment where supper was prepared—a supper splendid and costly enough to have satisfied a whole army of epicures, though only intended for her father, the stranger, and herself; and if you, oh reader! had been there, you would have thought Christina lovely enough to have excited the admiration of a whole court instead of an old man—and that, too, her father—and a young one, and that none other, to Christina's infinite disgust, than the very Count Ericson whose acquaintance she had already made, and whom she infinitely and unappeasably disliked. He was the most awkward, stupid-looking young man she ever saw, and had furnished her with a butt for her malicious pleasantries ever since she had known him. He rose to lead her to her seat. "How different from Adolphus! If he is no better performer in the battle-field than at the supper-table, the King must be very ill off for soldiers. What can papa mean by asking such a horrid being to his house? I am certain I shall laugh outright if I look again at his silly grey eyes and long yellow hair, as ragged as a pony's mane."

Such were Christina's thoughts, while she bit her lips to hide if possible her inclination to be angry, and to laugh at the same time. And in truth her dislike of the Count did not exaggerate the ridiculousness of the appearance of the tall ungainly figure—large-boned and stiff-backed—that now stood before her—with a nose so absurdly aquiline that it would have done for a caricature—coarse-skinned cheeks, and a stare of military impudence that shocked and nearly frightened the high-bred, elegant-looking beauty on whom it was fixed. And yet this individual, such as we have described, had been fixed on by the higher powers for her husband—was this night to be treated as her accepted lover, and, in short, had been closeted for hours every day with her father—settling all the preliminaries of course—for the last six weeks. Christina looked once more at the insolent stare of the triumphant soldier, and made a vow to die rather than speak to him—that is, in the affirmative.

But thoughts of affirmatives and negatives did not seem to enter Count Ericson's head—his grammatical education having probably been neglected. He stood gaping at his prey as a tiger may be supposed to cast insinuating looks upon a lamb, and made every now and then an attempt to conceal either his awkwardness, or satisfaction, or both, in immense fits of laughter, which formed the accompaniment of all the remarks—and they were nearly as heavy as himself—with which he favoured the company. Christina, on her part, if she had given way to the dictates of her indignation, would have also favoured the company with a few remarks, that in all probability would have put a stop to the laughter of the lover, and choked her old father by making a fish-bone stick in his throat. She was angry for twenty reasons, one of them was having wasted a moment over her toilette to receive such a visitor as Count Ericson; another was her father having dared to offer her hand to such an uncouth wooer and intolerable bore; and the principal one of all, was his having rejected his own nephew—undoubtedly the handsomest of Dalecarlian hussars—in favour of such a vulgar, ugly individual. The subject of these flattering considerations seemed to feel at last that he ought to say something to the young beauty, on whose pouting lip had gathered something which was very different indeed from a smile, and yet nearly as captivating. He accordingly turned his large light eyes from his plate for a moment, and with a mouth still filled with a leg and wing of a capercailzie, enquired—

"What do you think of Alexander the Great, madam?"

This was too much. Even her rage disappeared, and she burst into a loud laugh at the serious face of the querist.

"I never think of Alexander the Great at all," she said. "I only recollect, that when I was reading his history, I could hardly make out whether he was most of a fool or a madman."

Ericson swallowed the leg and the wing of the capercailzie without any further mastication, and launched out in a torrent of admiration of the most prodigious courage the world had ever seen.

"If he had been as prodigiously wise," replied Christina, "as he was prodigiously courageous, he would have learned to govern himself before he attempted to govern the world."

Ericson blushed from chin to forehead with vexation, and answered in an offended tone—

"How can a woman enter into the fever of noble thoughts that impels a brave man to rush into the midst of dangers, and leads him to despise life and all its petty enjoyments to gain undying fame?"

"No, indeed," she replied, "I have no fever, and have no sympathy with destroyers. Oh, if I wished for fame, I should try to gain it by gathering round me the blessings of all who saw me! Yes, father," she went on, paying no regard to the signs and winks of the agonized Count Gyllenborg, "I would rather that countless thousands should live to bless me, than that they should die in heaping curses on my name! Men-killers—though you dignify them with the name of heroes—are atrocious. Let us speak of them, my lord, no more, unless to pray heaven to rid the earth of such monsters."

A feather of the smallest of birds would have knocked down the Prime Minister of Sweden; and Count Ericson appeared, from his stupefied look, to have gone through the process already—the difficulty was to lift him up again.

"Come, Count," cried the Minister, filling up Ericson's glass with champagne, "to Alexander's glory!"

"With all my heart," cried Ericson, moistening his rage with the delicious sparkler. "Come, fair savage," he added, addressing Christina, and touching her glass with such force that it fell in a thousand pieces on the table—"to Alexander's glory!"

"I have no wish to drink to such a toast," replied Christina, more offended than ever; "I can't endure those scourges of human kind who hide the skin of the tiger beneath the royal robe."

"The girl is mad!" exclaimed the astonished father, who seemed to begin to be slightly alarmed at the flashes of indignation that burst from Count Ericson's wild-looking eyes. "Don't mind what such a silly thing says; she does it only to show her cleverness. What does she know of war or warriors? She cares for nothing yet but her puppy-dog. She pats it all day, and lets it bite her pretty little hand. Such a hand it is to refuse a pledge to Alexander!"

The politician was on the right track; for such a pretty hand was not in Sweden—nor probably in Denmark either—and the cunning old minister took it between his finger and thumb, and placed it almost on the lip of the irate young worshipper of glory; if it did not actually touch the lip it went very near it, and distinctly moved one or two of the most prominent tufts of the stout yellow mustache. "The little goose," pursued the respectable sire, "to pretend to have an opinion on any subject except the colour of a riband. Upon my honour, I believe she presumes to be a critic of warriors, because she plays a good game of chess. It is one of her accomplishments, Count; and if you will take a little of the conceit out of her, you will confer an infinite obligation on both of us."

Saying this, he lifted with his own ministerial fingers a small table from a corner of the room, and placed it in front of the youthful couple, with the men all ready laid out. Ericson's eyes sparkled at the sight of his favourite game; and he determined to display his utmost skill, and teach his antagonist a few secrets of the art of (mimic) war. But determinations, as has been remarked by several sages, past and present, are sometimes vain. Nothing, one would think, could be so likely to restore a man's self-possession as a quiet game of chess—an occupation as efficacious in soothing the savage breast as music itself. But Ericson seemed still agitated from the contradictions he had encountered from the free-spoken Christina, and threw a little more politeness into his manner than he had hitherto vouchsafed to show, when he invited her to be his adversary in a game.

"But, if I beat you?" she said ominously, holding up one of the fair fingers to which his attention had been so particularly called, and implying by the question, if you get angry when I only refuse your toast, won't you eat me if I am the winner at chess? "But, if I beat you?" she said.

"That will not be the only occasion on which you will have triumphed over me, you—you"——He seemed greatly at a loss for a word, and concluded his speech with—"beauty!" This expression, which was, no doubt, intended for the most complimentary he could find, was accompanied with a look of admiration so long, so broad, and so impudent, that she blushed, and a squeeze of her hand so hard, so rough, and so continued, that she screamed. She threw a glance of inexpressible disdain on the insolent wooer, and looked for protection to her father; but that venerable individual was at that moment so sound asleep on one of the sofas at the other end of the room, that no noise whatever could have awakened him. Ericson seemed totally unmoved by all the contempt she could express in her looks, and probably thought he was in a thriving condition, from the fact (somewhat unusual) of his being looked at at all. She lost her temper altogether. She covered her cheek, which was flushed with anger, with the little hand that was reddened with pain, and resolved to play her worst to spite her ill-mannered antagonist. But all her attempts at bad play were useless. The board shook beneath the immense hands of Ericson, who was in a tremendous state of agitation, and hardly knew the pieces. He pushed then hither and thither—made his knights slide along with the episcopal propriety of bishops, and made his bishops caracole across the squares with the unseemly elasticity of knights. His game got into such confusion, that Christina could not avoid winning, and at last—enjoying the victory she had determined not to win—she cried out, with a voice of triumph, "Check to the king by the queen."

"Cruel girl!" exclaimed the Count, dashing his hand among the pieces with an energy that scattered them all upon the floor. "Haven't you been anxious to make the king your prisoner?"

"But there is nothing to hinder him from saving himself," answered Christina, looking round once more to her father, who, however, pursued his slumber with the utmost assiduity and had apparently a very agreeable dream, for a smile was evident at the corners of his mouth. "It is impossible to place the board as it was," she continued, trying to gather up the pieces, and place castles, knights, and pawns in their proper position again.

"Don't try it—don't try it," cried Ericson, losing all command of himself, and pushing the board away from him, till it spun over with all its men on the carpet. "The game is over—you have given me check, and mated me!" And in a moment, as if ashamed of the influence exercised over him by so very unwarlike an individual as a little girl of eighteen, he hurried from the room, stumbling over his enormous sword, which got, somehow or other, between his legs, and cursing his awkwardness and the absurd excess of admiration which caused it.

"That man will surely never come here again," said Christina to her father, as he entered the room an hour after the incidents of the chess-board; for the obsequious minister had followed Ericson in his rapid retreat, and now returned radiant with joy, as if his guest had been the most fascinating of men.

"Not come here again!" chuckled the father. "That's all you know about it. He is dying with impatience to return, and is angry with himself for having wasted the two precious hours of your society in the way he did. He never had two such happy hours in his life."

"Happy! is that what he calls happiness?" answered Christina, opening her eyes in amazement. "I don't know what his notions may be—but mine——oh, father!" she cried, emboldened by the smile she saw on the old man's countenance, "you are only trying me; say you are only proving my constancy, by persuading me that such a being as that has any wish to please me. He is more in love with Alexander the Great than with me; and he is quite right, for he has a far better chance of a return."

"An enthusiasm excusable, my dear, in a young warrior of twenty years of age, whose savage ambition it will be your delightful task to tame. He is in a terrible state of agitation—a most flattering thing, let me tell you, to a young gipsy like you—and you must humour him a little, and not break out quite so fiercely, you minx; and yet you managed very well, too. A fine fellow, Ericson, though a little wild; rich, powerful, nobly born—what can you wish for better?"

"My cousin," answered Christina, with a bluntness that astonished the advocate of Ericson's claims; "my cousin Adolphus, and no other. He is braver than this savage; and as to nobility, he is as nobly born as my own right honourable papa, and that is high enough for me."

"Go, go," said the courtier, a little puzzled by the openness of his daughter's confession, and kissing her forehead at the same time; "go to bed, my girl, and pray for your father's advancement."

Christina, like a dutiful child, prayed as she was told for her father's success and happiness, and then added a petition of her own, shorter, perhaps, but quite as sincere, for her cousin Adolphus. If she added one for herself, it was a work of supererogation, for she felt that in praying for the happiness of her lover, she was not unmindful of her own.

For some days after the supper recorded above, she was too happy tormenting the very object of all these aspirations, to trouble her head about the awkward and ill-mannered protégé of her father, whom she hated with as much cordiality as the most jealous of rivals could desire. But of course she was extremely careful to let no glimpse of this unchristian feeling towards Count Ericson be perceptible to the person who would have rejoiced in it so much. In fact, she carried her philanthropy to such a pitch, that she never mentioned any of the bad qualities of her new admirer, and Adolphus very naturally concluded that she felt as she spoke on the interesting subject. So, all of a sudden, Adolphus, who was prouder than Christina, perhaps because he was poorer, would not condescend to be made a fool of, as he magnanimously thought it, any longer. He had the immense satisfaction of staying away from the house for nearly half a week, and then, when he did pay a visit, he was almost as cold as the formal piece of diplomacy in the bag-wig and ruffles whom he called his uncle; and a great deal stiffer than the beautiful piece of pique, in silk gown and white satin corset, whom he called his cousin. Christina was dismayed at the sudden change—Adolphus never spoke to her, seldom looked at her, and evidently left the coast clear—so she thought—for the rich and powerful rival her father had so strongly supported. After much thinking, some sulkiness, and a good many fits of crying, Christina resolved, as the best way of recovering her own peace of mind, and the love of her cousin Adolphus, to put an end in a very decided manner to the pretensions of the Count. One day, accordingly, she watched her opportunity, and followed with anxious eyes her father's retreat from the room, under pretence of some important despatches to be sent off. She found herself alone with the object of her dislike—and only waited for a beginning to the conversation, that she might astonish his weak mind with the severity of her invectives. In fact, she had determined, according to the vulgar phrase, to tell him a bit of her mind—and a very small bit of it, she was well aware, would be sufficient to satisfy Count Ericson of the condition of all the rest. But the lover was in a contemplative mood, and stood as silent as a milestone, and looking almost as animated and profound. She sighed, she coughed, she drops her handkerchief. All wouldn't do—the milestone took no notice—Christina at last grew angry, and could contain herself no longer.

"I dreamt of you last night," she said by way of a beginning. "I hope in future you will leave my sleep undisturbed by your presumptuous presence. It is bad enough to be forced to see you when one is awake."

"And I, also, had a dream," replied Ericson, starting from his reverie, confused and only having heard the first part of the somewhat fierce attack. "I dreamt that you looked at me with a smile, a long, long look, so sweet, so winning. It was a happy dream!"

"It was a false one," she said, with tremendous bitterness. "I know better where to direct my smiles, whether I am awake or asleep."

"And how did I appear to you?" asked the Count, presenting a splendid specimen in his astonished look of the state of mind called "the dumfoundered" by some learned philosophers, and by others "the flabbergasted."

"You appeared to me like the nightmare! frightful and unsupportable as you do to me now," was the answer, accompanied with the look and manner that showed she was a judge of nightmares, and thought him a very unfavourable specimen of the animal.

"Ill-natured little tyrant!" cried Ericson, rushing to her, "teach me how you would have me love you, and I will do everything you ask!" In a moment he had seized her in his arms, and imprinted a kiss of prodigious violence on her cheek, which was redder than fire with rage and surprise!

But the assault did not go unpunished. The might of Samson woke in that insulted bosom, and lent such incredible weight to the blow that fell on the aggressor's ear, that it took him a long time to believe that the thump proceeded from the beautiful little hand he had so often admired; or, in short, from any thing but a twenty-four pounder. He rubbed the wounded organ with astonishing assiduity for some time. At last he said, in a very calm and measured voice,

"Your father has deceived me, young lady. He led me to believe you did not receive my visits with indifference."

"My father knows nothing about things of that kind," replied Christina, still flaming with indignation, "or he never would have let such an ill-mannered monster into his house. But he was right in saying I did not receive your visits with indifference; your visits, Count Ericson, can never be indifferent to me, and"——

What more she would have said, it is impossible to discover, for she was interrupted by the sudden entrance of her cousin, who only heard her last words, and started back at what he considered so open a declaration of her attachment.

"Who are you, sir?" asked Ericson in an angry tone, and with such an assumption of superiority, that Christina's hand tingled to give him a mark of regard on his other ear.

"A soldier," answered Adolphus, drawing his sword from its sheath and instead of directing it against his rival, laying it haughtily on the table. "A soldier who has bled for his country, and would be happy," he added, "to die for it."

"Say you so?" said Ericson, "then we are friends." He held out his hand.

"We are rivals," replied Adolphus, drawing back.

"Christina loves you, then?" enquired the Count.

"She has told me so; and I was foolish enough to believe her. It is now your turn to trust to the truth of a heartless woman.—She has told you you are not an object of indifference to her, and I resign my pretensions in your favour."

"In whose favour?" cried Christina, trembling; while tears sprang to her eyes.

"The King's!" replied Adolphus, retiring sorrowfully.

Christina sank on a seat, and covered her face with her hands.

"Stay," cried Charles the Twelfth in a voice of thunder; "stay, I command you."

The young man obeyed; biting his lip to conceal his emotion, till the blood came.

"I have seen you," said the King, "but not in this house."

"It was shut against me by my uncle when you were expected," said Adolphus.

"And yet I have seen you somewhere. What is your name?"

"Adolphus Hesse; the son of a brave officer who died fighting for you, and leaving me his misfortunes and the tears of his widow."

"Who told you I was not Count Ericson?"

"My eyes. I know you well."

"And I recollect you also," said Charles, advancing to the young man with a manner very different from that which characterized him in his intercourse with the softer sex. "Where did you get that scar on the left temple?"

"At Nerva, sire, where we tamed the pride of the Russians."

"True, true!" cried Charles, his nostrils dilated as if he snuffed up the carnage of the battle. "You need but this as your passport," he continued, placing his finger on the wound, "to ask me any favour, ay, even to measure swords with you, as I daresay you would be delighted to do in so noble a quarrel as the present; for on the day of that glorious fight, I learned, like you, the duty of a soldier, and the true dignity of a brave man. By the balls that rattled about our heads so playfully, give me your hand, brother, for we were baptized together in fire!"

Charles appeared to Christina, at this time, quite a different man addressing his fellow soldier, from what he had done upsetting the chess-board. Curiosity had dried her eyes, and she lost not a word of the conversation. The King turned to her with a smile.

"By my sword, Christina! I am but a poor wooer; one movement of your hand," and he touched his ear playfully as he spoke, "has banished all the silly thoughts that in a most traitorous manner had taken my heart prisoner. Speak, then, as forcibly as you act. Do you love this brave soldier?"

"Yes, sire."

"Who hinders the marriage?"

"The courtship of Count Ericson, with which my father perpetually threatens me."

"O ho!" thought Charles, "I see how it is. The King must console himself with the kiss, and pass the blow on the ear to the minister. Christina," he added aloud, "your father refuses to give you to the man you love; but he'll do it now, for it is my will. You'll confess, I am sure that if I was your nightmare as a lover, I am not your enemy as king."

"I confess it on my knees;" replied the humble beauty, taking her place beside her cousin, who knelt to his sovereign. While Charles joined the hands of the youthful pair, he imprinted a kiss on the fair brow of Christina; the last he ever bestowed on woman.

"Your Majesty pardons me then?" enquired the trembling girl. "If I had known it was the King, I would not have hit so hard."

That same evening Count Gyllenborg signed a contract of marriage, to which the name of Count Ericson was not appended, though it was witnessed by Charles the Twelfth; and in a few days afterwards, the old politician presided at the wedding dinner, and, by royal command, did the honours so nobly, and appeared so well pleased on the occasion, that nobody suspected that he had ever had higher dreams of ambition than to see his daughter happy; and if such had been his object, all Sweden knew that in bestowing her on her cousin he was eminently successful.

---

PHYSICAL SCIENCE IN ENGLAND.

If Alexander and Archimedes, evoked from their long sleep, were to contemplate, with minds calmed by removal from contemporaneous interests, the state of mankind in the present year, with what different feelings would they regard the influence of their respective lives upon the existing human world of 1843! The Macedonian would find the empire which it was the labour of his life to aggrandize, frittered into parcels, modeled, remodeled, subjected to various dynasties; Turks, Greeks, Russians, still contending for portions of the territory which he had conjoined only to be dismembered; he would find in these little or no trace of his ever having existed; he would find that the unity of his vast political power had been severed before his body was yet entombed, and his prediction, that his funeral obsequies would be performed with bloody hands, verily fulfilled. In parts of the world which his living grasp had not seized, he would also see little to remind him of his past existence. Would not mortification darken the brow of the resuscitated conqueror on discovering, that when his name was mentioned in historic annals, it was less as a polar star to guide, than as a beacon to be avoided?

What would the Syracusan see in this present epoch to remind him of himself? Would he see the man of 212 B.C., at all connected with the men of 1843 A.D.? Yes. In Prussia, Austria, France, England, America, in every city of every civilized nation, he would find the lever, the pulley, the mirror, the specific gravimeter, the geometric demonstration; he would trace the influence of his mind in the power-loom, the steam-engine, in the building of the Royal Exchange, in the Great Britain steam-ship; he would find an application of his well-known invention, the subject of a patent, an important auxiliary to navigation. Alexander was a hero; Archimedes is one.

Are we guilty of exaggeration in this contrast of the hero of War with him of Science? We think not. It may undoubtedly be argued that Alexander's life was productive of ultimate good, that he did much to open Asia to European civilization; but would that consideration serve to soothe the gloomy Shade? To what does it amount but to the assertion that out of evil cometh good? It was through no aim of his mind that this resulted, nor are mankind indebted to him personally for a collateral effect of his existence.

As an instance of men of a more modern era, let us take Napoleon Buonaparte, Emperor of France, and James Watt of Greenock, civil engineer.

The former applied the energies of a sagacious and comprehensive intellect to his own political aggrandizement; the latter devoted his more modest talents to the improvement of a mechanical engine. The former was and is, par excellence, a hero of history—we should scarcely find in the works of the most voluminous annalists the name of the latter. What has Napoleon done to entitle his name to occupy so prominent a position? He has been the cause, mediate or immediate, of sacrificing the lives of two millions of men.[17]

Has the obscure Watt done nothing to merit a page in the records of mankind? Walk ten miles in any manufacturing district, enter any coal-mine, examine the bank of England, travel by the Great Western railway, or navigate the Danube, the Mediterranean, the Indian or the Atlantic Ocean—in each and all of these, that giant slave, the steam-engine, will be seen, an ever-living testimony to the services rendered to mankind by its subjugator.

Attachment to a favourite pursuit is undoubtedly calculated to bias the judgment; but, however liable may be the obscure votary of science to override his hobby, Francis Bacon, Lord High Chancellor of England, in ascribing to scientific discoverers a higher merit than to legislators, emperors, or patriots, cannot be open to the charge of egoistic partiality. What, then, says this illustrious witness?—"The introduction of noble inventions seems to hold by far the most excellent place among all human actions. And this was the judgment of antiquity, which attributed divine honours to inventors, but conferred only heroical honours upon those who deserve well in civil affairs, such as the founders of empires, legislators, and deliverers of their country. And whoever rightly considers it, will find this a judicious custom in former ages, since the benefits of inventors may extend to all mankind, but civil benefits only to particular countries or seats of men; and these civil benefits seldom descend to more than a few ages, whereas inventions are perpetuated through the course of time. Besides, a state is seldom amended in its civil affairs without force and perturbation; whilst inventions spread their advantage without doing injury or causing disturbance."[18]

The opinion of a man who had reached the highest point to which a civilian could aspire, cannot, when he estimates the honours of the Chancellor as inferior to those of the natural philosopher, be ascribed to misjudging enthusiasm or personal disappointment. Without, however, seeking, for the sake of antithetic contrast, to underrate the importance of political services, civil or military, or to exaggerate those of the man of science, few, we think, will be disposed to deny that, although the one may be temporarily more urgent and necessary to the well-being of an existing race, yet that the benefits of the other are more lasting and universal. If, then, the influence on mankind of the secluded inventor be more extensive and durable than that of the active politician—if there be any truth in the opinion of Bacon, that the greatest political changes are wrought by the peaceful under-current of science; why is it that those who occupy the highest place as permanent benefactors of mankind, are, during their lifetime, neglected and comparatively unknown;—that they obtain neither the tangible advantages of pecuniary emolument, nor the more suitable, but less lucrative, honours of grateful homage? It is the common cry to exclaim against the neglect of science in the present day. Alas! history does not show us that our predecessors were more just to their scientific contemporaries. The evil is to a great extent remediless, the complaint to some extent irrational, and unworthy the dignity of the cause. The labourer in the field of science works not for the present, but for succeeding generations; he plants oaks for posterity, and must not look for the gratitude of contemporaries. Men will remunerate less, and be less grateful for, prospective than for present good—for benefits secured to their posterity than to themselves; the realization of the advantages is so distant, that the amount of discount is coextensive with the debt: it is only as the applications of science become more immediate, that the cultivators of science can reasonably expect an adequate reward or appreciation.

Even when practically applied, we too frequently see that the original discoveries of the physical philosopher are but little valued by those who make a daily, a most extensive, and a most lucrative use of their results. Men talk of "a million;" how few have ever counted one! Men walk along the Strand, Fleet Street, Ludgate Hill; how few think of the multiplied passions and powers which flit by them on their way—of the separate world which surrounds each passer-by—of the separate history, external and internal, of each—each possessing feelings, motives of action, characters, differing from the others, as the stamp of nature on his brow differs from his fellows! Thus, also, men's ears ring with the advancement of science, men's beards wag with repetition of the novel powers which have been educed from material nature; and if, in our daily traffic, we traverse without attention countless sands of thought, how much more, in our hackneyed talk of science, do we neglect the debt we owe to thought—thought, not the mere normal impulse of humanity, but the carefully elaborated lucubration of minds, of which the term thinking is emphatically predicable! Names which are met with but once in the annals of science, and there, dimly seen as a star of the least magnitude, have perhaps earned that remote and obscure corner by painful self-denial, by unwearied toil! And yet not only these, but others who have added to diligence high mental acumen or profundity, whose wells of thought are, compared with those of the general mass, unfathomable, earn but a careless, occasional notice—are known but to few of those who daily reap the harvest which they have sown, and who even boast of seeing further than they did, as the dwarf on the shoulders of a giant can see further than the giant. The first step of the unthinking is to deny the possibility of a given discovery, the next is to assert that any one could have foreseen such discovery.

There are, however, points of higher import than gain or glory to which the philosopher must ever look, and the absence of which must be a source of bitter disappointment and ground of just complaint. The most important of these is, that, by national neglect, the cause of science is injured, her progress retarded. Not only is she not honoured, she is dishonoured; and in no civilized nation is this contempt of physical science carried to a greater extent than in England, the country of commerce and of manufactures.

In this country, should a father observe in his gifted son a tendency to physical philosophy, he anxiously endeavours to dissuade him from this career, knowing that not only will it tend to no worldly aggrandizement, but that it will have the inevitable effect of lowering his position in what is called, and justly called, good society—the society of the most highly educated classes. At one of our universities, physical science is utterly neglected; at the other, only certain branches of it are cultivated. There are, it is true, university professors of each branch of physics, some of whom are able to collect a moderate number of pupils; others are obliged to carry with them an assistant, to whom alone they lecture, as Dean Swift preached to his clerk. But what part of the regular academic education does the study of Natural Philosophy occupy? It forms no necessary part of the examinations for degrees; no credit is attached to those who excel in its pursuit; no prizes, no fellowships, no university distinction, conferred upon its most successful votaries. On the contrary, physical, or at all events experimental, science is tabooed; it is written down "snobbish," and its being so considered has much influence in making it so: the necessity of manipulation is a sad drawback to the gentlemanliness of a pursuit. Bacon rebuked this fastidiousness, but in vain. "We will, moreover, show those who, in love with contemplation, regard our frequent mention of experiments as something harsh, unworthy, and mechanical, how they oppose the attainment of their own wishes, since abstract contemplation, and the construction and invention of experiments, rest upon the same principles, and are brought to perfection in a similar manner."[19]

Unfortunately, the fact of experimental science being rejected by the educated classes and thrown in a great measure upon the artizans of a country, has conducted, among other evils, to one of a most detrimental character; viz. the want of accuracy in scientific language, and consequently the want of accuracy in ideas. Perfection in language, as in every thing else, is not to be attained, and doubtless there are few of the most highly educated who would not, in many cases, assign different meanings to the same word; but if some confusion on this subject is unavoidable, how much is that confusion increased, as regards scientific subjects, by the mass of memoirs written by parties, who, however acute their mental perceptions may be, yet, from want of early education, do not assign to words that accuracy of signification, and do not possess that perspicuity of style, which is absolutely necessary for the communication of ideas! Those, therefore, who, with different notions of language, read the writings of such as we are alluding to, either fail to attach to them any definite meaning, or attach one different from that which the authors intended to convey; whence arises a want of reciprocal intelligence, a want of unity of thought and purpose. Another defect arising from the circumstance that persons of a high order of education have not been generally the cultivators of experimental science in this country, is, that the path is thereby rendered more accessible to empiricism. Science, beautiful in herself, has thence a class of deformed disciples, who succeed in entangling their false pretensions with the claims of true merit. So much dust is puffed into the eyes of the public, that it can hardly distinguish between works of durable importance and the ephemeral productions of empirics; and those who would otherwise disdain the notoriety acquired by advertisement, end in adopting the system as the only means to avoid the mortification of seeing their own ideas appropriated and uttered in another form and in another's name.[20]

While the evils to which science is exposed by the necessarily unfashionable character of experimental manipulation are neither few nor trivial, there are still evils which arise from the directly opposite cause—from excess of intellectual cultivation; as is shown in the exclusive love of mathematics by a great number of philosophers. Minds which, left to themselves, might have eliminated the most valuable results, have, dazzled by the lustre cast by fashion upon abstract mathematical speculations, lost themselves in a mazy labyrinth of transcendentals. The fashion of mathematics has ruined many who might be most useful experimentalists; but who, wishing to take a higher flight, seek to attain distinction in mathematical analysis, and having acquired a certain celebrity for experimental research, dissipate, in simple equations, the fame they had acquired in a field equally productive, but not so select. Like Claude, who in his later years said, "Buy my figures, and I will give you my landscapes for nothing;" they fall in love with their own weakness, and estimate their merit by the labour they have undergone, not by the results they have deduced. M. Comte expresses himself well on this subject. "Mathematicians, too frequently taking the means for the end, have embarrassed Natural Philosophy with a crowd of analytical labours, founded upon hypotheses extremely hazardous, or even upon conceptions purely visionary; and consequently sober-minded people can see in them really nothing more than simple mathematical exercises, of which the abstract value is sometimes very striking, without their influence, in the slightest degree, accelerating the natural progress of Physics."[21]

The cultivators of science, despite the want of encouragement, have, like every other branch of the population, increased rapidly in number, and, being thrown upon their own resources, have organized Societies, the number of which is daily increasing, which do much good, which do much harm. They do good, in so far as they carry out their professed objects of facilitating intercourse between votaries of similar branches of study—they do good by the more attainable communication of the researches of those who cannot afford, or will not dare, the ordinary channels of publication; but who, sanctioned by the judgment of a select tribunal, are glad to work and to impart to the public the fruits of their labour—they give an esprit de corps, which forms a bond of union to each section, and induces a moral discipline in its ranks. The investment of their funds in the collection of libraries or of apparatus, the use of which becomes thus accessible to individuals, to whom otherwise such acquisitions would have been hopeless, is another meritorious object of their institution; an object in many cases successfully carried out. On the other hand, they do harm, by becoming the channels of selfish speculation, their honorary offices being used as stepping-stones to lucrative ones, thereby causing their influential members to please the givers of "situations," and to publish the trash of the impertinently ambitious, the Titmice of the Credulous Societies! The ultra-ridiculous parade with which they have decked fair science, giving her a vest of unmeaning hieroglyphics, and thereby exposing her to the finger of scorn, is another prominent and unsightly feature of such societies; they do harm by the cliquerie which they generate, collecting little knots of little men, no individual of whom can stand his own ground, but a group of whom, by leaning hard together, can, and do, exercise a most pernicious influence; seeking petty gain and class celebrity, they exert their joint-stock brains to convert science into pounds, shillings, and pence; and, when they have managed to poke one foot upon the ladder of notoriety, use the other to kick furiously at the poor aspirants who attempt to follow them.

It has been frequently and strenuously urged, that these societies, or some of them, should be supported by government, and not dependent upon the subscriptions of their members. The arguments in favour of such a measure are, that by thus being accessible only to merit, and not depending upon money, their position would be more honourable and advantageous to the progress of science. With regard to such societies generally, this proposition is incapable of realization; every year sees a new society of this description; to annex many of these to government, would involve difficulties which, in the present state of politics, would be insurmountable. Who, for instance, would pay taxes for them? Another, and more reasonable, proposition is, that the government should establish and support one academy as a head and front of the others, accessible only to men of high distinction, who would be thus constituted the oligarchs of science. Of the advantage of this we have some doubts. Politics are already too much mixed up with all government appointments in England: their influence is at present scarcely felt in science, and we would not willingly risk an introduction so fraught with danger. The want of such an academy certainly lessens the English in the eyes of the continental savans; but could not such a one be organized, and perhaps endowed, by government, without any permanent connexion with it?

If we compare the proceedings, undoubtedly dignified and decorous, of our Royal Society with those of the French Academy, we fear the balance will be found to be in favour of the latter. At Somerset House, after the list of donations and abstract of former proceedings, a paper, or a portion of a paper, is read upon some abstruse scientific subject, and the meeting is adjourned in solemn silence, no observation can be made upon it, no question asked, or explanation given. The public is excluded,[22] and the greater part of the members generally exclude themselves, very few having resolution enough to leave a comfortable dinner-table to bear the solemn formalities of such an evening. The paper is next committed, it is not known to whom, reported on in private, and either published, or deposited in the archives of the Society, according to the judgment of the unknown irresponsible parties to whom it is committed. Let us now look at the proceedings of the French Academy; it is open to the public, and the public take so great an interest in it, that to secure a seat an early attendance is always requisite. Every scientific point of daily and passing interest is brought before it—comments, such as occur at the time, are made upon various points by the secretary, or any other member who likes to make an observation—the more elaborate memoirs are read by the authors themselves, and if any quære or suggestion occurs to a member present, he has an opportunity of being answered. The memoir is then committed to parties whose names are publicly mentioned, who bring out their report in public, which report is read in public, and may be answered by the author if he object to it. Lastly, the whole proceedings are printed and published verbatim, and circulated at the next weekly meeting, while, in the mean time, the public press notices them freely. That, with all these advantages, the French Academy is not free from faults, we are far from asserting; that there is as much unseen manœuvring and petty tyranny in this as in most other institutions, is far from improbable;[23] but the effect upon the public, and the zest and vitality which its proceedings give to science, are undeniable, and it is also undeniable that we have no scientific institution approaching to it in interest or value.

The present perpetual secretary of the Academy, Arago, with much of prejudice, much of egotism, has talents most plastic, an energy of character, an indomitable will, a force and perspicuity of expression, which alone give to the sittings of the French Academy a peculiar and surpassing interest, but which, in the English Society, would be entirely lost.

In quitting, for the present, the subject of scientific societies, we must advert to a consequence of the increased number of candidates for scientific distinction of late years; of which increase the number of these societies may be regarded as an exponent. This increase, although on the whole both a cause and a consequence of the advancement of science, yet has in some respects lowered the high character of her cultivators by the competition it has necessarily engendered. Books tell us that the cultivation of science must elevate and expand the mind, by keeping it apart from the jangling of worldly interests. This dogma has its false as well as its true side, more especially when in this, as in every other field of human activity, the number of competitors is rapidly increasing; great watchfulness is requisite to resist temptations which beset the aspirant to success on this arena, more perhaps than in any other. The difficulty which the most honest find to avoid treading in the footsteps of others—the different aspect in which the same phenomena present themselves to different minds—the unwillingness which the mind experiences in renouncing published but erroneous opinions—are points of human weakness which, not to mislead, must be watched with assiduous care. Again, the ease with which plagiarism is committed from the number of roads by which the same point may be reached, is a great temptation to the waverer, and a great trial of temper to the victim. The disputants on the arenæ of law, politics, or other pursuits, the ostensible aim of which is worldly aggrandizement, however animated in debate, unsparing in satire, reckless in their invective and recrimination, seldom fail in their private intercourse to throw off the armour of professional antagonism, and to extend to each other the ungloved hand of social cordiality. On the other hand, it is too frequent a spectacle in scientific circles to behold a careful wording of public controversy, a gentle, apologetic phraseology, a correspondence never going beyond the "retort courteous," or "quip modest," while there exists an under-current of the bitterest personal jealousy, the outward philosopher being strangely at variance with the inward man.

Among the various circumstances which influence the progress of physical science in this country, one of the most prominent is the Patent law—a law in its intention beneficent; but whether the practical working of it be useful, either to science or its cultivators, is a matter of grave doubt. Of the greater number of patents enrolled in that depot of practical science, Chancery Lane, by far the majority are beneficial only to the revenue; and on the question of public economy, whether or not the price paid by miscalculating ingenuity is a fair and politic source of revenue, we shall not enter; but on the reasons which lead so many to be dupes of their own self-esteem, a few words may not be misspent. The chief reason why a vast number of patents are unsuccessful, is, that it takes a long time (longer generally than fourteen years, the statutable limit of patent grants) to make the workmen of a country familiar with a new manufacture. A party, therefore, who proposes patenting an invention, and who sits down and calculates the value of the material, the time necessary for its manufacture, and other essential data; comparing these with the price at which it can be sold to obtain a remunerative profit, seldom takes into consideration the time necessary, first, to accustom the journeymen workers to its construction, and secondly, to make known to the public its real value. In the present universal competition, puffing is carried on to such an extent, that, to give a fair chance of success, not only must the first expense of a patent be incurred—no inconsiderable one either, even supposing the patentee fortunate enough to escape litigation—but a large sum of money must be invested in advertisements, with little immediate return; hence it is that the most valuable patents, viewed in relation to their scientific importance, their ultimate public benefit, and the merits of their inventors, are seldom the most lucrative, while a patent inkstand, a boot-heel, a shaving case, or a button, become rapidly a source of no inconsiderable profit. Is this beneficial to inventors? Is it an encouragement of science, or a proper object of legislative provision, that the improver of the most trivial mechanical application should be carefully protected, while those who open the hidden sources of myriads of patents, are unrewarded, and incapable of remunerating themselves? We seriously incline to think that, as the matter at present stands, an entire erasure from the statute-books of patent provision would be of service to science, and perhaps to the community; each tradesman would depend for success upon his own activity, and the perfection he could give his manufacture, and the scientific searcher after experimental truths would not find his path barred by prohibitions from speculative empirics.

According to the present patent laws, it is more than questionable whether the discoverer of a great scientific principle could pursue his own discovery, or whether he would not be arrested on the threshold by a subsequent patentee; if Jacobi lived in constitutional England instead of despotic Russia, it is doubtful if he could work out his discovery of the electrotype—we say doubtful; for, as far as we can learn, it seems hitherto judicially undecided whether the mere use of a patent, not for sale or a lucrative object, is such a use within the statute of James as would be an infringement of a patentee's rights. It appears to be settled, that a previous experimental and unpublished use by one party, does not prevent another subsequent inventor of the same process from patenting it; and, by parity of reasoning, we should say, that if a party have the advantage of patenting an invention which can be found to have been previously used, but not for sale, he should not have the additional privilege of prohibiting the same party, or others, from proceeding with their experiments. There are, however, not wanting arguments for the other view. The practice of a patented invention, for one's own benefit or pleasure, deprives the patentee of a possible source of profit; for it cannot be said that the party experimenting, if prohibited, might not apply for a license to the patentee. Take, for instance, the notorious and justly censured patent of Daguerre. Supposing, for argument's sake, this patent to be valid, can a private individual, under the existing patent laws, take photographic views or portraits for his own amusement, or in pursuance of scientific investigations? If he cannot, then is an exquisitely beautiful path of physics to be shut up for fourteen years; or if he can, then is the licensee, a purchaser for value, to be excluded from very many sources of pecuniary emolument? To us, the injury to the public, in this and similar cases, appears of incomparably greater consequence than that to the individual; but what the authorities at Westminster Hall may say is another question. Even could the patent laws be so modified, that the benefits derived from them could fall upon those scientific discoverers most justly entitled, we are still doubtful as to their utility, or whether they would contribute to the advancement of science, which is the point of view in which we here principally regard them. It would scarcely add to the dignity of philosophy, or to the reverence due to its votaries, to see them running with their various inventions to the patent office, and afterwards spending their time in the courts of law, defending their several claims. They would thus entirely lose the respect due to them from their contemporaries and posterity, and waste, in pecuniary speculation, time which might be more advantageously, and without doubt more agreeably, employed. If parties look to money as their reward, they have no right to look for fame; to those who sell the produce of their brains, the public owes no debt.

We have observed recently a strong tendency in men of no mean scientific pretensions to patent the results of their labours. We blame them not: it is a matter of free election on their part, but we cannot praise them. A writer in a recent number of the Edinburgh Review, has the following remarks on the subject of Mr Talbot's patented invention of the Calotype. "Nor does the fate of the Calotype redeem the treatment of her sister art, (the Daguerreotype.) The Royal Society, the philosophical organ of the nation, has refused to publish its processes in her transactions. * * * No representatives of the people unanimously recommended a national reward. * * * It gives us great pleasure to learn, that though none of his (Mr Talbot's) photographical discoveries adorn the transactions of the Royal Society, yet the president and the council have adjudged him the Rumford medals for the last biennial period."[24]

The notion of a "national reward" for the Calotype scarcely requires a remark. If, after a discovery is once made and published, every subsequent new process in the same art is to be nationally rewarded, the income-tax must be at least quadrupled. The complaint, however, against the Royal Society, is not altogether groundless. True it is that the first paper of Mr Talbot did not contain an account of the processes employed by him, and therefore should not have been even read to the Society; but the paper on the Calotype did contain such description, and we see no reason why a society for the advancement of knowledge should not give publicity to a valuable process, though made the subject of a patent—but it certainly should not bestow an honorary reward upon an inventor who has withheld from the Royal Society and the public the practice of the invention whose processes he communicates. Mr Talbot had a perfect right to patent his invention, but has on that account no claim in respect of the same invention to an honorary reward. The Royal Society did not publish his paper, but awarded him a medal. In our opinion, they should have published his paper and not awarded him a medal.

Regarded as to her national encouragement of science, there are some features in which England differs not from other countries; there are others in which she may be strikingly contrasted with them; and, with all our love for her, we fear she will suffer by the contrast. A learned writer of the present day, has the following passage in reference to the state of science in England as contrasted with other countries:—"When the proud science of England pines in obscurity, blighted by the absence of the royal favour and the nation's sympathy; when her chivalry fall unwept and unhonoured, how can it sustain the conflict against the honoured and marshalled genius of foreign lands?"[25]

This, to be sure, is somewhat "tumultuous." We do not, however, cite it as a specimen of composition, but as an expression of a very prevalent feeling; the opinion involved in the concluding quære is open to doubt—England does sustain the conflict, if any conflict there be to sustain; but we are bound to admit, that in no country are the soldiers of science militant less honoured or rewarded. It is no uncommon remark, that despotic governments are the most favourable to the cultivation of the arts and sciences. There is, perhaps, a general truth in this, and the causes are not difficult of recognition. In a republican or constitutional government, politics are the all-engrossing topics of a people's thought, the never-ending theme of conversation;—in purely despotic states, such discussions are prohibited, and the contemplation of such subjects confined to a few restless or patriotic spirits. It must also be ever the policy of absolute monarchs to open channels for the public mind, which may divert it from political considerations. Take America and Austria as existing instances of this contrast: in the former, the universality of political conversation is an object of remark to all travellers; in the latter, even books which touch at all on political matters are rigidly excluded. These are among the causes which strike us as most prominent, but whose effects obtain only when despotism is not so gross as to be an incubus upon the whole moral and intellectual energies of a people.

We should lose sight of the objects proposed in these pages, and also transgress our assigned limits, were we to enter into detail upon the present state of science in Europe, or trace the causes which have influenced her progress in each state. This would form a sufficient thesis for a separate essay; but we will not pass over this branch of our subject, without venturing to express an opinion on the delicate and embarrassing question as to what rank each nation holds as a promoter of physical science.

In experimental and theoretical Physics, we should be inclined to place the German nations in the first rank; in pure and applied mathematics, France. The former nations far excel all others in the independence and impartiality with which they view scientific results; researches of any value, from whatever part of the world they emanate, instantly find a place in their periodicals; and they generally estimate more justly the relative value of different discoveries than any other European nation; the æsthetical power which enables them to seize and appreciate what is beautiful in art, gives them perception and discrimination in science; but they are not great as originators. The French, notwithstanding the high pitch at which they have undoubtedly arrived in mathematical investigation, not withstanding the general accuracy of their experimental researches, have more of the pedantry of science; their papers are too professional—too much selon les règles; there are too many minutiæ; the reader is tempted to exclaim with Jacques—"I think of as many matters as he; but I give Heaven thanks, and make no boast of them." Their accuracy frequently degenerates into affectation and parade. We have now before us a paper in the Annales de Chimie, containing some chemical researches, in which, though the difference of each experiment in a small number, put together for average, amounts to several units, the weights are given to the fifth place of decimals. England, which we should place next, is by no means exempt from these trappings of science. Many English scientific papers seem written as if with the resolute purpose of filling a certain number of pages, and many of their writers seem to think a paper per annum, good or bad, necessary to indicate their philosophical existence. They write, not because they have made a discovery, but because their period of hybernation has expired. Still, in England, there is a strong vein of original thought. Competition, if it lead to puffing and quackery, yet stimulates the perceptions; and, in England, competition has done its worst and its best; in original chemical discovery, England has latterly been unrivalled.

Next to England we should place Sweden and Denmark—for their population they have done much, and done it well; then Italy—in Italy science is well organized, and the rulers of her petty states seem to feel a proper emulation in promoting scientific merit—in which laudable rivalry the Archduke of Tuscany deserves honourable mention; America and Russia come next—the former state is zealous, ready at practical application, and promises much for the future, but as yet has not done enough in original research to entitle her to be placed in the van. Russia at present possesses few, if any, native philosophers—her discoverers and discoveries are all imported; but the emperor's zeal and patronage (a word which we scarcely like to apply to science) is doing much to organize her forces, and the mercenary troops may impart vigour, and induce discipline into the national body. In this short enumeration, we have considered each country, not according to the number of its very eminent men; for though far from denying the right which each undoubtedly possesses to shine by the reflected lustre of her stars, yet in looking, as it were, from an external point, it is more just to regard the general character of each people than to classify them according as they may happen to be the birthplace of those

"To whom all scenes of Europe homage owe."

A misunderstanding of the proper use of theory is among the prevalent scientific errors of the present day. Among one set of men of considerable intelligence, but who are not habitually conversant with physical science, there is a general tendency to despise theory. This contempt appears to rest on somewhat plausible grounds; as an instance of it, we may take the following passage from the fitful writings of Mr Carlyle:—"Hardened round us, encasing wholly every notion we form, is a wrappage of traditions, hearsays, mere words: we call that fire of the black thunder-cloud electricity, and lecture learnedly about it, and grind the like of it out of glass and silk, but what is it? Whence comes it? Where goes it?"[26]

However the experienced philosopher may be convinced that in themselves theories are nothing—that they are but collations of phenomena under a generic formula, which is useful only inasmuch as it groups these phenomena; yet it is difficult to see how, without these imperfect generalizations, any mind can retain the endless variety of facts and relations which every branch of science presents; still less, how these can be taught, learned, reasoned upon, or used. How could the facts of geology be recollected, or how, indeed, could they constitute a science without reference to some real or supposed bond of union, some aqueous or igneous theory? How could two chemists converse on chemistry without the use of the term affinity, and the theoretical conception it involves? How could a name be applied, or a nomenclature adopted, without that imperfect, or more or less perfect grouping of facts, which involves theory? As far as we can recollect, all the alterations of nomenclature which have been introduced, or attempted, proceed upon some alteration of theory.

If not theory but hypothesis be objected to—not the imperfect generalization of phenomena, but a gratuitous assumption for the sake of collating them, this, although ground which should be trodden more cautiously, appears in certain cases unavoidable; in fact, is scarcely separable from theory. Had men not "lectured learnedly" about the two fluids of electricity, we should not now possess many of the discoveries with which this science is enriched, although we do not, and probably never shall, know what electricity is.

On the other hand, among professed physical philosophers, the great abuse of theories and hypotheses is, that their promulgators soon regard them, not as aids to science, to be changed if occasion should require, but as absolute natural truths; they look to that as an end, which is in fact but a means; their theories become part of their mental constitution, idiosyncrasies; and they themselves become partizans of a faction, and cease to be inductive philosophers.

Another injury to science, in a great measure peculiar to the present day, arises from the number of speculations which are ushered into the world to account for the same phenomena; every one, like Sir Andrew Aguecheek, when he wished to cudgel a Puritan, has for his opinion "no exquisite reasons, but reasons good enough." In the periods of science immediately subsequent to the time of Bacon, men commenced their career by successful experiment; and having convinced the world of their aptitude for perceiving the relations of natural phenomena, enounced theories which they believed the most efficient to give a comprehensive generality to the whole. Men now, however, commence with theories, though, alas! the converse does not hold good—they do not always end with experiment.

As, in the promulgation of theories, every aspirant is anxious to propound different news, so, in nomenclature, there is a strong tendency to promiscuous coining. The great commentator on the laws of England, Sir William Blackstone, observes, "As to the impression, the stamping of coin is the unquestionable prerogative of the crown, * * * the king may also, by his proclamation, legitimate foreign coin, and make it current here."[27]

As coinage of money is the undoubted prerogative of the crown; so generally coinage of words has been the undoubted prerogative of the kings of science—those to whom mankind have bent as to unquestionable authority. But even these royal dignitaries have generally been sparing in the exercise of this prerogative, and used it only on rare occasions and when absolutely necessary, either from the discovery of new things requiring new names, or upon entire revolutions of theory.

"Si forte necesse est
Indiciis monstrare recentibus abdita rerum,
Fingere cinctutis non exaudita cethegis
Continget, labiturque licentia sumpta pudenter."

But now there is no "pudor" in the matter. Every man has his own mint; and although their several coins do not pass current very generally, yet they are taken here and there by a few disciples, and throw some standard money out of the market. The want of consideration evinced in these novel vocabularies is remarkable. Whewell, whose scientific position and dialectic turn of mind may fairly qualify him to be a word-maker, seems peculiarly deficient in ear. Take, as an instance, "idiopts," an uncomfortable word, barely necessary, as the persons to whom it applies are comparatively rare, and will scarcely thank the Master of Trinity College for approximating them in name to a more numerous and more unfortunate class—the word physicists, where four sibilant consonants fizz like a squib. In these, and we might add many from other sources, euphony is wantonly disregarded; by other authors of smaller calibre, classical associations are curiously violated. We may take, as an instance, platinode, Spanish-American joined to ancient Greek. In chemistry there is a profusion of new coin. Sulphate of ammonia—oxi-sulphion of ammonium—sulphat-oxide of ammonium—three names for one substance. This mania is by no means common to England. In Liebig's Chemistry, Vol. ii. p. 313, we have the following passage:—"It should be remarked that some chemists designate artificial camphor by the name of hydrochlorate of camphor. Deville calls it bihydrochlorate of térèbène, and Souberaine and Capelaine call it hydrochlorate of pencylène."

So generally does this prevail, that in chemical treatises the names of substances are frequently given with a tail of synonymes. Numerous words might be cited which are names for non-existences—mere hypothetic groupings; and yet so rapidly are these increasing, that it seems not impossible, in process of time, there will be more names for things that are not than for things that are. If this work go on, the scientific public must elect a censor whose fiat shall be final; otherwise, as every small philosopher is encouraged or tolerated in framing ad libitum a nomenclature of his own, the inevitable effect will be, that no man will be able to understand his brother, and a confusion of tongues will ensue, to be likened only to that which occasioned the memorable dispersion at Babel.

Many of the defects to which we have alluded in the course of this paper, time alone can remedy. In spite of all drawbacks, the progress of science has been vast and rapidly increasing; the very rapidity of its progress brings with it difficulties. So many points, once considered impossible, have been proved possible, that to some minds the suggestion of impossibility seems an argument in favour of possibility. Because steam-travelling was once laughed at as visionary, aerial navigation is to be regarded as practicable—perhaps, indeed, it will be so, give but the time proportionably requisite to master its difficulties, as there was given to steam. What proportion this should be we will not venture to predict. There can be little doubt that the most effectual way to induce a more accurate public discrimination of scientific efforts is to turn somewhat more in that direction the current of national education. Prizes at the universities for efficiency in the physics of light, heat, electricity, magnetism, or chemistry, could, we conceive, do no harm. Why should not similar honours be conferred on those students who advance the progress of an infant science, as on those who work out with facility the formulæ of an exact one; and why should not acquirements in either, rank equally high with the critical knowledge of the digamma or the à priori philosophy of Aristotle? Is not Bacon's Novum Organon as much entitled to be made a standard book for the schools as Aldrich's logic? Venerating English universities, we approve not the inconsiderate outcries against systematic and time-honoured educational discipline; but it would increase our love for these seminaries of sound learning, could we more frequently see such men as Davy emanate from Oxford, instead of from the pneumatic institution of Bristol.

Provided science be kept separate from political excitement, we should like to see an English Academy, constituted of men having fair claims to scientific distinction, and not "deserving of that honour because they are attached to science."

It is unnecessary here to touch upon the details of such an Academy. The proposition is by no means new. On the contrary, we believe a wish for some such change pretty generally exists. Iteration is sometimes more useful than originality. The more frequently the point is brought before the public, the more probable is it that steps will be taken by those who are qualified to move in such a matter. The more the present defective state of our scientific organization is commented on, the more likely is it to be remedied; for the patency of error is ever a sure prelude to its extirpation.

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CHRONICLES OF PARIS.