Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 66 No.406, August 1849

by Various

A "SHORT" YARN.—PART III.

The evening after that in which the commander of the Gloucester Indiaman introduced his adventures, nearly the same party met on the poop to hear them continued.

"Well then," began Captain Collins, leaning back against a stanchion of the quarter-rail, with folded arms, legs crossed, and his eyes fixed on the weather-leech of the mizen-topsail to collect his thoughts;—"well then, try to fancy the Seringapatam in chase of the Gloucester; and if I do use a few extra sea-terms, I consider the ladies good enough sailors for them already. At any rate, just throw a glance aloft now and then, and our good old lady will explain herself; to her own sex, she's as good as a dictionary without words!"

The second day out we had the wind more from seaward, which broke up the haze into bales of cloud, and away they went rolling in for the Bay of Biscay; with a longer wave and darker water, and the big old Indiaman surged over it as easily as might be, the blue breeze gushing right into her main-tack through the heave of the following seas, and the tail of the trade-wind flying high above her trucks in shreds and patches. Things got more ship-shape on deck; anchor-flukes brought inboard on the head-rail, and cables stowed away—the very best sign you can have of being clear of the land. The first officer, as they called him, was a good-looking fellow, that thought no small-beer of himself, with his glossy blue jacket and Company's buttons, white trowsers, and a gold thread round his cap: he had it stuck askew to show how his hair was brushed, and changed his boots every time he came on deck. Still he looked like a sailor, if but for the East India brown on his face, and there was no mistake about his knowing how to set a sail, trim yards, or put the ship about; so that the stiff old skipper left a great deal to him, besides trusting in him for a first-rate navigator that had learned headwork at a naval school. The crew were to be seen all mustering before tea-time in the dog-watch, with their feet just seen under the foot mat of the fore-course, like actors behind a playhouse curtain: men that I warrant you had seen every country under heaven amongst them, as private as possible, and ready to enjoy their pots of tea upon the forecastle, as well as their talk.

The old judge evidently fought shy of company, and perhaps meant to have his own mess-table under the poop as long as the voyage lasted: scarcely any of the ladies had apparently got their sea-qualms over yet, and, for all I knew, she might not be on board at all; or, if she were, her father seemed quite Turk enough to keep her boxed up with jalousie-blinds, Calcutta fashion, and give her a walk in the middle watch, with the poop tabooed till morning! The jolly, red-faced indigo-planter was the only one that tried to get up anything like spirit at the table; indeed, he would have scraped acquaintance with me if I had been in a mood for it: all I did was to say 'Yes' and 'No,' and to take wine with him. "Poor fellow!" said he, turning to three or four of the cadets, that stuck by him like pilot-fish to an old shark, "he's thinking of his mother at home, I daresay." The fools thought this was meant as a joke, and began to laugh. "Why, you unfledged griffins you," said the planter, "what d'ye see to nicker at, like so many jackals in a trap? D'ye suppose one thinks the less of a man for having a heart to be sick in, as well as a stomach—eh?" "Oh, don't speak of it, Mr Rollock!" said one. "Come, come, old boy!" said another, with a white mustache on his lip, "'twon't do for you to go the sentimental, you know!" "Capsize my main-spanker, 'tis too funny, though!" put in a fellow who wore a glazed hat on deck, and put down all the ropes with numbers on paper, as soon as he had done being sick. The planter leant back in his chair, looked at them coolly, and burst out a-laughing. "Catch me ever 'going home' again!" said he. "Of all the absurd occasions for impudence with the egg-shell on its head coming out, hang me if these fifteen thousand miles of infernal sea-water ain't the worst! India for ever!—that's the place to try a man! He's either sobered or gets room to work there; and just wait, my fine fellows, till I see you on the Custom-house Bunda at Bombay, or setting off up country—you're all of you the very food for sircars and coolies! That quiet lad there, now, soft as he looks,—I can tell by his eye he won't be long a griff—He'll do something! I tell you what, as soon as he's tasted a mango-fish, he'll understand the country! Why, sir!" said he again, smacking his lips, "'tis worth the voyage of itself—you begin a new existence, so to speak! I'll be bound all this lot o' water don't contain one single mango-fish! Remember, boys, I promised you all a regular blow-out of mango-fish, and florican with bread sauce, whenever you can get across to Chuckbully Factory!" "Blow good breeze, then; blow away the main jib!" said the nautical young gentleman; "I'll join you, old fellow!" "Not the best way to bring it about, though!" said the indigo-planter, good-naturedly, not knowing but there was such a sail on the ship.

The yellow setting sun was striking over the starboard quarter-boat, and the Bay of Biscay lay broad down to leeward for a view—a couple of large craft, with all studding-sails set before the wind, making for land, far enough off to bring their canvass in a piece, and begin to look blue with the air—one like a milkwoman with pitchers and a hoop; the other like a girl carrying a big bucketful of water, and leaning the opposite way to steady herself. There was one far to north-east, too, no more than a white speck in the gray sky; and the land-cloud went up over it into so many sea-lions' heads, all looking out of their manes. The children clapped their hands and laughed; and the ladies talked about the vessels, and thought they saw land—Spain or the Pyrenees, perhaps. However, it wasn't long before my American friend Snout caught sight of me in the midst of his meditations, as he turned bolt round on his toes to hurry aft again. "The fact is, mister," said he, "I'm riled a little at the 'tarnation pride of you Britishers. There now," said he, pointing at the blaze of the sun to westward, with his chin, "there's a consolation! I calculate the sun's just over Noo-York, which I expect to give you old country folks considerable pain!"

"No doubt!" said I, with a sigh, "one can't help thinking of a banker run off with ever so much English gold!" "You're a sensible chap, you are. It's a right-down asylum for oppressed Europains, that can't be denied." "And Africans too," I put in. "Indy, now," said he, "I reckon there's a sight of dollars made in that country—you don't s'pose I'm goin' out there for nothing? We'll just take it out o' your hands yet, mister. I don't ought to let you into the scheme till I know you better, you see; but I expect to want a sort o' company got up before we land. There's one of your nabobs, now, came into the ship at Possmouth with a whole tail of niggers-dressed-up ----." "And a lady with him, I think?" said I, as coolly as I could.—"I'll somehow open on that chap about British tyranny, I guess, after gettin' a little knowledge out of him. We'd just rise the niggurs, if they had not such a right-down cur'ous my-thullogy—but I tell you now, mister, that's one of the very p'ints I expect to meet. Miss'naries won't do it so slick off in two thousand years, I kinder think, as this indentical specoolation will in ten,—besides payin' like Peruvain mines, which the miss'nary line don't. I'm a regoolar Down-easter, ye see—kinder piercin' into a subject, like our nation in gin'ral—and the whull schim hangs together a little, I calculate, mister?" "So I should think, Mr Snout, indeed," I said. Here the American gave another chuckle, and turned to again on his walk, double quick, till you'd have thought the whole length of the poop shook: when who should I see with the tail of my eye, but my friend the Kitmagar salaaming to Mr Snout, by the break of the quarterdeck. The Yankee seemed rather taken aback at first, and didn't know what to make of him. "S'laam, sah'b," said the dark servant, with an impudent look, and loud enough for me to hear, as I stepped from aft,—"Judge sahib i-send genteeman salaam—say too much hivvy boot he got—all same as Illimphant! S'pose master not so much loud walk, this side?" "Well!" broke out the American, looking at the Bengalee's flat turban and mustache, as if he were too great a curiosity to be angry with, then, turning on his heel to proceed with his walk, "Now, mister," said he to me, "that's what I call an incalculable impudent black—but he's the first I ever saw with hair on his lip, it's a fact!" "Master not mind?" said the Kitmagar, raising his key next time Mr Snout wheeled round. "Judge sahib burra burra buhadoorkea!—ver' great man!" "D—— niggur!" said Mr Snout, tramping away aft; "there's your British regoolations, I say, young man! niggurs bààing on the quarterdeck, and free-born citizens put off it!" "Bhote khoob, mistree!" squeaked out the native again; "burra judge sahib not i-sleep apter he dine?—veri well—I tell the sahib, passiger mistree moor stamp-i-stamp all the moor I can say!" So off he went to report in the poop-cabin. A little after, up shot a head wrapped in a yellow bandanna, just on the level of the poop-deck, looking through the breast-rail; and the next thing I saw was the great East Indian himself, with a broad-flapped Manilla hat over this top-gear, and a red-flowered dressing-gown, standing beside the binnacle with Captain Williamson. "What the deuce, Captain Williamson!" said the judge, with an angry glance up to the poop, "cannot I close my eyelids after dinner for one instant—in my own private apartments, sir—for this hideous noise! Who the deuce is that person there—eh, eh?" "He's an American gentleman, I believe, Sir Charles," replied the captain. "Believe, sir!" said the judge, "you ought to know every individual, I think, Captain Williamson, whom you admitted into this vessel! I expressly stipulated for quiet, sir—I understood that no suspicious or exceptionable persons should travel in the same conveyance with my suwarry. I'd have taken the whole ship, sir!" "I've no more to do than tell him the regulations aboard, Sir Charles," said the captain, "and the annoyance will cease." "Tell him, indeed!" said the judge, a little more good-humouredly, "why, captain, the man looks like a sea-pirate! You should have taken only such raw griffins as that young lad on the other side. Ho, kitmagar!" "Maharaj?" said the footman, bowing down to the deck. "Slippers lao!" "Jee, khodabund," answered the native, and immediately after he reappeared from the round-house door, with a pair of turned-up yellow slippers. "Take them up with my salaam to that gentleman there," said Sir Charles, in Hindostance, "and ask him to use them." "Hullo!," sung out Mr Snout, on being hove-to by the kitmagar, with one hand on his breast and the other holding the slippers, "this won't do! You'd better not rile me again, you cussed niggur you—out o' my way!" There they went at it along the poop together, Mr Snout striding right forward with his long legs, and the kitmagar hopping backward out of his way, as he tried to make himself understood; till, all at once, the poor fellow lost his balance at the ladder-head, and over he went with a smash fit to have broken his neck, if the captain's broad back hadn't fortunately been there to receive it. The rage of Sir Charles at this was quite beyond joking; nothing else would satisfy him but the unlucky Yankee's being shoved off the poop by main force, and taken below—the one stamping and roaring like an old buffalo, and the other testifying against all "aristocratycal tyranny."

At eight bells, again, I found it a fine breezy night, the two upper mates walking the weather quarterdeck in blue-water style, six steps and a look to windward, then a wheel round, and, now and then, a glance into the binnacle. I went aft and leant over the Seringapatam's lee quarter, looking at the white backwash running aft from her bows, in green sparks, into the smooth alongside, and the surge coming round her counter to meet it. Everything was set aloft that could draw, even to a starboard main-topmast-stunsail; the high Indiaman being lighter than if homeward-bound, and the breeze strong abeam, she had a good heel-over to port: but she went easily through the water, and it was only at the other side you heard it rattling both ways along the bends. The shadow of her went far to leeward, except where a gleam came on the top of a wave or two between the sails and under their foot. Just below the sheer of the hull aft it was as dark as night, though now and then the light from a port struck on it and went in again; but every time she sank, the bight of her wake from astern swelled up away round the counter, with its black side as smooth as a looking-glass. I kept peering into it, and expecting to see my own face, while all the time I was very naturally thinking of one quite different, and felt uneasy till I should actually see her. "Confound it!" I thought, "were it only a house, one might walk round and round it till he found out the window!" I fancied her bewitching face through the garden door, as clearly as if I saw it in the dark head of the swell; but I'd have given more only to hear that imp of a cockatoo scream once—whereas there was nothing but the water working up into the rudder-case; the pintles creaking, and the tiller-ropes cheeping as they traversed; and the long welter of the sea when the ship eased down, with the surgeon and his friends walking about and laughing up to windward. From that, again, I ran on putting things together, till, in fact, Jacobs's notion of a shipwreck seemed by far the best. No doubt Jacobs and Westwood, with a few others, would be saved, while I didn't even object much to the old nabob himself, for respectability's sake, and to spare crape. But, by Jove, wouldn't one bring him to his bearings soon enough there! Every sailor gets hold of this notion some night-watch or other, leaning over the side, with pretty creatures aboard he can scarce speak to otherwise; and I was coiling it down so fast myself, at the moment, that I had just begun to pitch into the nabob about our all being Adam's sons and daughters, under a knot of green palm-trees, at the door of a wooden house, half thatched with leaves, when I was brought up with a round turn by seeing a light shining through the hazy bull's-eye in the deck where I stood. No doubt the sweet girl I had been thinking of was actually there, and going to bed! I stretched over the quarter, but the heavy mouldings were in the way of seeing more than the green bars of the after window—all turned edgeways to the water, where the gallery hung out like a corner turret from the ship's side. Now and then, however, when she careened a little more than ordinary, and the smooth lee swell went heaping up opposite, I could notice the light through the venetians from the state-room come out upon the dark water in broad bright lines, like the grate across a fire, then disappearing in a ripple, till it was gone again, or somebody's shadow moved inside. It was the only lighted window in the gallery, and I looked every time it came as if I could see in; when at last, you may fancy my satisfaction, as, all of a sudden, one long slow heave-over of the ship showed me the whole bright opening of the port, squared out of her shadow, where it shone upon the glassy round of the swell. 'Twas as plain as from a mirror in a closet,—the lighted gallery window with its frame swung in, a bit of the deck-roof I was standing on, and two female figures at the window—mere dark shapes against the lamp. I almost started back at the notion of their seeing me, but away lengthened the light on the breast of the swell, and it sank slowly down into a black hollow, as the Indiaman eased up to windward. Minute by minute, quite breathless, did I watch for such another chance; but next time she leant over as much, the port had been closed, and all was dark; although those few moments were enough to send the heart into my mouth with sheer delight. The figure I had seen holding with one hand by the portsill, and apparently keeping up her dress with the other, as if she were looking down steadily on the heave of the sea below—it couldn't be mistaken. The line of her head, neck, and shoulders, came out more certain than if they hadn't been filled up with nothing but a black shadow; it was just Lota Hyde's, as she sat in the ball-room amongst the crowd, I'd have bet the Victory to a bumboat on it: only her hair hung loose on one side, while the girl behind seemed to be dressing the other, for it was turned back, so that I saw clear past her cheek and neck to where the lamp was, and her ear gleamed to the light. For one moment nothing could be plainer, than the glimpse old Davy Jones gave me by one of his tricks; but the old fellow was quite as decorous in his way as a chamberblind, and swallowed his pretty little bit of blab as quickly as if it had been a mermaid caught at her morning toilet. Whenever I found there was to be no more of it for the night, the best thing to calm one's feelings was to light a cigar and walk out the watch; but I took care it should rather be over the nabob's head than his daughter's, and went up to the weather side, where there was nobody else by this time, wishing her the sweetest of dreams, and not doubting I should see her next day.

I daresay I should have walked out the first watch, and the second too, if Westwood hadn't come up beside me before he turned in.

"Why, you look like the officer of the watch, Ned!" said my friend, after taking a glance, round at the night. "Yes—what?—a—a—I don't think so," stammered I, not knowing what he said, or at least the meaning of it, though certainly it was not so deep. "I hope not though, Tom!" said I again, "'tis the very thing I don't want to look like!" "You seem bent on keeping it up, and coming the innocent, at any rate," said he; "I really didn't know you the first time I saw you in the cuddy." "Why, man, you never saw our theatricals in the dear old Iris, on the African station! I was our best female actor of tragedy there, and did Desdemona so well that the black cook who stood for Othello, actually cried. He said, 'Nobody but 'ee dibble umself go forsmudder missee Dasdemoner!'" "I daresay," said Westwood; "but what is the need for it now, even if you could serve as a blind for me?" "My dear fellow!" said I, "not at all—you've kept it up very well so far—just go on." "Keep it up, Ned?" inquired he, "what do you mean? I've done nothing except keep quiet, from mere want of spirits." "So much the better," I said; "I never saw a man look more like a prophet in the wilderness; it doesn't cost you the least trouble—why you'd have done for Hamlet in the Iris, if for nothing else! After all, though, a missionary don't wear blue pilot-cloth trousers, nor tie his neckerchief as you do, Tom. You must bend a white neckcloth to-morrow morning! I'm quite serious, Westwood, I assure you," continued I. "Just think of the suspicious look of two navy men being aboard an Indiaman, nobody knows how! Why, the first frigate we speak, or port we touch at, they'd hand one or both of us over at once—which I, for my part, shouldn't at all like!" "Indeed, Collins," said Tom, turning round, "I really cannot understand why you went out in her! It distresses me to think that here you've got yourself into this scrape on my account! At least you'll put back in the first home-bound ship we——"

"Oh!" exclaimed I, blushing a little in the dark though, both at Westwood's simplicity and my not wishing to tell him my secret yet—"I'm tired of shore—I want to see India again—I'm thinking of going into the army, curse it!" "The army, indeed!" said Westwood, laughing for the first time, "and you midshipman all over. No—no—that won't do! I see your drift, you can't deceive me! You're a true friend, Ned,—to stand by an old schoolmate so!" "No, Tom!" said I; "'tis yourself has too kind a heart, and more of a sailor's, all fair and above-board, than I can manage! I won't humbug you, at any rate—I tell you I've got a scheme of my own, and you'll know more of it soon." Tom whistled; however I went on to tell him, "The long and the short of it is, Westwood, you'll bring both of us by the head if you don't keep up the missionary." "Missionary!" repeated he; "you don't mean to say you and Neville intended all that long toggery you supplied my kit with, for me to sail under missionary colours? I tell you what, Ned, it's not a character I like to cut jokes upon, much less to sham!" "Jokes!" said I; "there's no joking about it; 'tis serious enough." "Why," said Westwood, "now I know the reason of a person like a clergyman sighting me through his spectacles for half an hour together, these two evenings below! This very afternoon he called me his brother, and began asking me all manner of questions which I could no more answer than the cook's mate." "Clergyman be hanged!" said I, "you must steer clear of him, Tom—take care you don't bowse up your jib too much within hail of him! Mind, I gave your name, both to the head-steward and the skipper, as the Reverend Mr Thomas, going back to Bombay." "The devil you did!" "Why there was nothing else for it, Westwood," I said, "when you were beyond thinking for yourself. All you've got to do with that solemn chap in the spectacles, is just to look as wise as possible, and let him know you belong to the Church. And as for shamming, you needn't sham a bit—taketoit my dear fellow, if that will do you good!" I said this in joke, but Westwood seemed to ponder on it for a minute or two. "Indeed, Collins," said he gravely, "I do think you're right. What do we sailors do, but give up everything in life for a mere schoolboy notion, and keep turning up salt water for years together like the old monks did the ground; only they grew corn and apples for their pains, and we have nothing but ever so many dull watches and wild cruises ashore to remember! How many sailors have turned preachers and missionaries, just because something, by accident as it were, taught them to put to account what you can't help feeling now and then in the very look of the sea? What does it mean in the Scriptures, Ned, about 'seeing the wonders of the Lord in the deep?'" As Westwood said this, both of us stopped on the taffrail, and, somehow or other, a touch of I didn't well know what went through me. I held my breath, with his hand on my arm, just at the sight I had seen a thousand times—the white wake running broad away astern, with a mark in the middle as if it had been torn, on to the green yeast of the waves, then right to their black crests plunging in the dark. It was midnight ahead, and the clouds risen aloft over where I had been looking half all hour before; but the long ragged split to westward was opened up, and a clear glaring glance of the sky, as pale as death, shot through it on the horizon. "I can't be sorry for having gone to sea," said Westwood again; "but isn't it a better thing to leave home and friends, as those men do, for the sake of carrying the gospel to the heathen?" As soon as we wheeled round, with the ship before us, leaning over and mounting to the heave, and her spread of canvass looming out on the dark, my thoughts righted. "Well," said I, "it may be all very well for some—every one to his rope; but, for my part, I think if a man hadn't been made for the sea, he couldn't have built a ship, and where would your missionaries be then? You're older than I am, Westwood, or I'd say you let some of your notions run away with you, like a Yankee ship with her short-handed crew!" "Oh, Ned," said he, "of all places in the world for one's actions coming back on him the sea is the worst, especially when you're an idler, and have nothing to do but count the sails, or listen to the passengers' feet on deck. These two days, now, I've thought more than I ever did in my life. I can't get that man's death out of my head; every time, the sea flashes round me as I come from below, I think of him—it seems to me he is lying yet by the side of the Channel. I can't help having the notion he perhaps fired in the air!" "'Twas a base lie!" said I; "If he weren't there, you wouldn't be here, I call tell you, Westwood." "I don't know how I shall ever drag through this voyage," continued he. "If there were a French gunboat to cut out to-morrow morning, or if we were only to have a calm some day in sight of a Spanish slaver,—'tis nothing but a jogging old Indiaman though! I shall never more see the flag over my head with pride—every prospect I had was in the service!"

Next morning was fine, and promised to be hot; the ship still with a sidewind from near south-west, which 'twas easy to see had slackened since midnight with a pour of rain, the sails being all wet, and coats hung to dry in the fore-rigging; she was going little more than five or six knots headway. The water was bluer, lifting in long waves, scarce a speck of foam except about the ship; but instead of having broke up with the sun, or sunk below the level, the long white clouds were risen high to leeward, wandering away at the top and facing us steady below out of the sky, a pretty sure sign they had more to do. However, the Indiaman was all alive from stem to stern: decks drying as clean as a table; hens and ducks clucking in the coops at their food; pigs grunting; stewards and cabin-boys going fore and aft, below and above, and the men from aloft coming slowly down for breakfast, with an eye into the galley funnel. Most of the passengers were upon deck, in knots all along the poop-nettings, to look out for Corvo and Flores, the westernmost of the Azores, which we had passed before daybreak.

"I say, Fawd!" said the warlike cadet with the mustache, all of a sudden yawning and stretching himself, as if he'd been struck with the thing himself, "Cussed dull this vessel already, ain't it?" "Blast me, no, you fellow!" said Ford, the nautical man—"that's because you're not interested in the ocean—the sea—as I am! You should study the craft, Bob, my boy! I'll teach you to go aloft. I only wish it would blow harder—not a mere capful of wind, you know, but a tempest!" "By Jove! Fawd," said the other, "how we shall enjoy India—even that breakfast with old Rollock! By the bye, ain't breakfast ready yet?" These two fellows, for my part, I took for a joint-model, just trying to hit a mid-helm betwixt them, else I couldn't have got through it: accordingly they both patronised me. "Haw, Cawlins!" said one, nodding to me. "Is that you, my boy?" said the other; "now you're a fellow never would make a sailor!" "I daresay not," I said, gravely, "if they have all to commence as horse-marines." "Now, such ignorance!" said Ford; "marines don't ride horses, Collins, you fellow!—how d'you think they could be fed at sea—eh?" "Well—now—that didn't occur to me!" said I, in the cadet key. "Fawd, my boy, you—demmee—you know too much—you're quite a sea-cook!" "Oh, now! But I'm afraid, Winterton, I never shall land ashore in India—I am tempted to go into the navy instead." "I say, Mr Ford," put in a fat unlicked cub of a tea-middy, grinning as he listened, "I've put you up to a few rises aboard, but I don't think I told you we've got a dozen or so of donkeys[8] below in the steerage?" "Donkeys!—no?" said the griffin. "Yes," replied the midshipman; "they kick like blazes, though, if they get loose in a gale—why mine, now, would knock a hole through the side in no time—I'll show you them for a glass of grog, Mr Ford." "Done!" and away they went. "That fool, Fawd, you know, Cawlins, makes one sick with his stuff; I declare he chews little bits of tobacco in our room till he vomits as much as before," said Winterton. "I tell you what, Cawlins, you're a sensible man—I'll let you into a secret! What do you think—there's the deucedest pretty girl in the vessel, we've none of us seen except myself; I caught a sight of her this very mawning. She don't visit the cuddy at all; papa's proud, you pusseeve—a nabob in short!" "Oh, dear!" said I. "Yes, I do assure you, quite a bew-ty! What's to be done?—we absolutely must meet her—eh, Cawlins?" Here I mused a bit. "Oh!" said I, looking up again, "shall we send a deputation, do you think?" "Or get up a ball, Cawlins?—Hallo, what's this?" said he, leaning over the breast-rail to look at a stout lady who was lugging a chubby little boy of three or four, half-dressed, up the poop-stair, while her careful husband and a couple of daughters blocked it up above. "See, Tommy, dear!" said she, "look at the land—the nice, land, you know, Tommy." "Come away, my love," said her spouse, "else you won't see it." Tommy, however, hung back manfully. "Tommy don't want wook at yand," sang out he, kicking the deck; "it all such 'mell of a sheep, ma; me wook at 'at man wis gate feel. Fare other feel, man? Oh, fat a ugwy man!" The honest tar at the wheel pulled up his shirt, and looked terribly cut at this plain remark on his phiz, which certainly wasn't the most beautiful; meanwhile he had the leech of the main to'gallant sail shaking. "Mind your helm, there," sung out the second mate from the capstan. "My good man," said the lady, "will you be so kind as to show us the land?" "Ay, ay, sir," growled he, putting up his weather spokes; "sorry I carn't, ma'am—please not to speak to the man at the wheel." Jacobs was coiling down the ropes on a carronade close by, and stepped forward: "Beg your ladyship's pardon," said he, but if ye'll give me charge o' the youngster till you goes on the poop—why, I've got a babby at home myself." The stout lady handed him over, and Jacobs managed the little chap wonderfully. This was the first time Tommy had been on deck since leaving home, and he couldn't see over the high bulwarks, so he fancied it was a house he was in. "Oh, suts big tees, man!" shouted he, clapping his hands as soon as he noticed the sails and rigging aloft; "suts warge birds in a tees!" "Ay, ay, my little man," answered Jacobs, "that's the wonderfowl tree! Did ye ever hear Jack and the Bean-stalk, Tommy?" "Oh, 'ess, to be soo, man!" said Tommy, scornfully, as if he should think he had. "Well, little un," said Jacobs, "that's it, ye see. It grows up every night afore Jack's door—and them's Jack an' his brothers a-comin' down out on the wonderfowl country aloft, with fruits in their hands." The little fellow was delighted, and for going aloft at once. "Ye must wait a bit, Tommy, my lad, till you're bigger," said Jacobs; "here I'll show you the country, though;" so he lifted the boy up to let him see the bright blue sea lying high away round the sky. In place of crying, as he would have done otherwise, Tommy stared with pleasure, and finished by vowing to get as soon big as possible, Jacobs advising him to eat always as hard as he had been doing hitherto.

This morning the breakfast party was in high spirits: Mr Finch, the chief officer, rigged up to the nines in white trowsers and Company's jacket, laying himself out to please the young ladies, with whom he began to be a regular hero. He was as blustering as a young lion, and as salt-tongued as a Channel pilot to the men; but with the ladies, on the poop or in the cabin, he was always twisting his sea-talk into fine language, like what you see in books, as if the real thing weren't good enough. He rubbed his hands at hearing the mate on deck singing out over the skylight to trim yards, and gave a look along to the captain. "You must understand, ladies," said the mate, "this is what we mariners call the 'ladies' wind!'" "Oh delightful!" "Oh so nice!" "You sailors are so polite!" exclaimed the young ladies—"then does it actually belong to us?" "Why it's a Trade wind, Miss Fortescue!" said Ford the nautical cadet, venturing to put in a word; but the ladies paid no attention to him, and the chief mate gave him a look of contempt. "You see, ladies, the reason is," said the mate, in a flourishing way, "because it's so regular, and as gentle as—as—why it wafts your bark into the region of, you see,—the—" "The 'Doldrums,'" put in the third mate, who was a brinier individual by far, and a true seaman, but wished to pay his compliments too, between his mouthfuls. "At any rate," Finch went on, "it's congenial, I may say, to the feelings of the fair—you need never touch her braces from one day to another. I just wish, Miss Fortescue, you'd allow me the felicity of letting you see how to put the ship about!" "A soldier might put her in stays, miss," said the third mate again, encouragingly, "and out of 'em again; she's a remarkable easy craft, owing to her——" "Confound it! Mr Rickett," said the first mate, turning round to his unlucky inferior, "you're a sight too coarse for talking to ladies. Well the captain didn't hear you!" Rickett looked dumbfounded, not knowing what was wrong; the old ladies frowned; the young ones either blushed or put their handkerchiefs to their mouths, and some took the occasion for walking off.

The weather began to have a different turn already by the time we got up—the clouds banking to leeward, the sea dusky under them, and the air-line between rather bluish. Two or three lazy gulls in our wake began to look alive, and show themselves, and a whole black shoal of porpoises went tumbling and rolling across the bows for half an hour, till down they dived of a sudden, head-foremost, one after another in the same spot, like so many sheep through a gap.

My gentleman-mate was to be seen everywhere about the decks, and active enough, I must say: the next minute he was amongst two or three young ladies aft, as polite as a dancing-master, showing them everything in board and out, as if nobody knew it except himself. Here a young girl, one of Master Tommy's sisters, came skipping aft, half in a fright. "Oh, Miss Fortescue!" cried she, "just think!—I peeped over into a nasty black hole there, with a ladder in it, and saw ever so many common sailors hung up in bags from the ceiling. Oh, what do you think, one of them actually kissed his hand to me!" "Only one of the watch below awake, Miss," said the mate; "impertinent swab!—I only wish I knew which it was." "Poor fellows!" said the young ladies; "pray, don't be harsh to them—but what have they been doing?" "Oh, nothing," said he, with a laugh, "but swing in their hammocks since eight bells." "Then are they so lazy as to dislike getting up to such delightful-looking occupations?" "Why, ma'am," said the mate, staring a little, "they've been on deck last night two watches, of four hours each, I must say that for them." "Dear me!" broke out the ladies; and on this the chief officer took occasion to launch out again concerning "the weary vigils," as he called them, "which we mariners have to keep, far distant from land, without a smile from the eyes of the fair to bless us! But, however, the very thought of it gives courage to the sailor's manly heart, to disregard the billows' fearful rage, and reef topsails in the tempest's angry height!" Thought I, "he'd much better do it before." However, the young ladies didn't seem to see that, evidently looking upon the mate as the very pink of seamen; and he actually set a second lower stud-sail, to show them how fast she could walk.

"D'ye know, sir," put in the third mate, coming from forward, "I'm in doubt it's going to be rather a sneezer, sir, if ye look round the larboard stuns'ls." Sure enough, if our fine gentleman had had time, amidst his politeness, just to cast an eye beyond his spread of cloth, he would have noticed the clouds gathered all in a lump to north-eastward, one shooting into another—the breast of them lowering down to the horizon, and getting the same colour as the waves, till it bulked out bodily in the middle. You'd have fancied the belly of it scarce half a mile off from the white yard-arms, and the hollow of it twenty—coming as stealthily as a ghost, that walks without feet after you, its face to yours, and the skirt of its winding-sheet in "kingdom come" all the while. I went up on the poop, and away behind the spanker I could see the sun gleam for one minute right on the eye of stray cloud risen to nor'-west, with two short streaks of red, purple, and yellow together—what is called a "wind-gall;" then it was gone. The American was talking away with jovial old Rollock and Ford, who began to look wise, and think there was mischief brewing in the weather. "Mind your helm there, sirrah!" sung out the mate, walking aft to the wheel, as everything aloft fluttered. "She won't lie her course, sir!" said the man. "All aback for'ud!" hailed the men at work on the bowsprit; and hard at it went all hands, trimming yards over and over again; the wind freshening fast, stunsails flapping, booms bending, and the whole spread of canvass in a cumber, to teach the mate not to be in such a hurry with his infernal merchantman's side-wings next time. The last stunsail he hauled down caught full aback before the wheel could keep her away quick enough; the sheet of it hitched foul at the boom-end, and crack through went the boom itself, with a smash that made the ladies think it a case of shipwreck commencing. The loose scud was flying fast out from behind the top of the clouds, and spreading away overhead, as if it would catch us on the other side; while the clouds themselves broke up slowly to both hands, and the north-east breeze came sweeping along right into the three topsails, the wind one way and the sea another. As she rounded away steadying before it, you felt the masts shake in her till the topsails blew out full; she gave one sudden bolt up with her stern, like an old jackass striking behind, which capsized three or four passengers in a heap; and next minute she was surging along through the wide heave of the water as gallantly as heart could wish, driving a wave under her bows that swung back under the forechains on both sides, with two boys running up the rigging far aloft on each mast to stow the royals. The next thing I looked at was poor Ford's nautical hat lifting alongside on the top of a wave, as if it were being handed up to him; but no sooner seen, than it was down in the hollow a quarter of a mile off, a couple of white gulls making snatches at it and one another, and hanging over it again with a doubtful sort of a scream. Still the wind was as yet nothing to speak of when once aft; the sea was getting up slowly, and the Indiaman's easy roll over it made every one cheerful, in spite of the shifts they were put to for getting below. When the bell struck for dinner, the sun was pretty clear, away on our starboard bow; the waves to south-westward glittered as they rose; one side of the ship shone bright to the leech of the mainto'gallant-sail, and we left the second mate hauling down the jibs for want of use for them.

The splendid pace she went at was plain, below in the cuddy, to everybody; you felt her shoving the long seas aside with the force of a thousand horses in one, then sweep they came after her, her stern lifted, she rolled round, and made a floating rush ahead. In the middle of it all, something darkened the half-open skylight, where I perceived the Scotch second-mate's twisted nose and red whiskers, as he squinted down with one eye aloft, and disappeared again; after which I heard them clue up to'gallant-sails. Still she was driving through it rather too bodily to let the seas rise under her; you heard the wind hum of the main-topsail, and sing through betwixt it and the main-course, the scud flying over the skysail-mast truck, which I could see from below. The second mate looked in once more, caught the first officer's eye with a glance aloft, and the gallant mate left attending to the ladies to go on deck. Down went the skylight frame, and somebody carefully threw a tarpaulin over it, so that there was only the light from the port-windows, by which a dozen faces turned still whiter.

The moment I shoved my head out of the booby-hatch, I saw it was like to turn out a regular gale from nor'-east. Both courses brailed close-up, and blowing out like rows of big-bladders; the three topsail-yards down on the caps to reef, their canvass swelling and thundering on the stays like so many mad elephants breaking loose; the wild sky ahead of us staring right through in triumph, as it were, and the wind roaring from aft in her bare rigging; while a crowd of men in each top were laying out along the foot-ropes to both yard-arms. Below, they were singing out at the reef-tackles, the idlers tailing on behind from the cook to the cabin-boys, a mate to each gang, and the first officer with his hands to his mouth before the wheel, shouting "Bear a hand!—d'ye hear!—two reefs!" It did one's heart good, and I entered into the spirit of it, almost forgiving Finch his fine puppy lingo, when I saw him take it so coolly, standing like a seaman, and sending his bull's voice right up with the wind into the bellies of the topsails—so I e'en fell-to myself, and dragged with the steward upon the mizen reef-tackle till it was chock up. There we were, running dead before it, the huge waves swelling long and dark after us out of the mist, then the tops of them scattered into spray; the glaring white yards swayed slowly over aloft, each dotted with ten or a dozen sturdy figures, that leant over with the reef-points in their hands, waiting till the men at the earings gave the word; and Jacobs's face, as he looked round to do so—hanging on heaven knows what at one of the ends—was as distinct as possible against the gray scud miles off, and sixty feet above the water. A middy, without his cap, and his hair blowing out, stood holding on in the main-top to quicken them; the first mate waved his hand for the helmsman to "luff a little." The ship's head was rounding slowly up as she rose on a big blue swell, that caught a wild gleam on it from westward, when I happened to glance towards the wheel. I could scarcely trust my eyes—in fact it had never been less in my mind since coming aboard than at that very point—but outside one of the round-house doors, which was half open, a few feet from the bulwark I leant over—of all moments in the day, there stood Lota Hyde herself at last! Speak of faces!—why, I hadn't even power to turn farther round, and if I was half out of breath before, what with the wind and with pulling my share, I was breathless now—all my notions of her never came up to the look of her face at that instant! She just half stopped, as it were, at sight of the state of things, her hands letting go of the large shawl, and her hair streaming from under a straw hat tied down with a ribbon—her lips parted betwixt dread and bewilderment, and her eyes wandering round till they settled a-gazing straight at the scene ahead, in pure delight. I actually looked away aloft from her again, to catch what it was she seemed to see that could be so beautiful!—the second reef just made fast, men crowding in to run down and hoist away with the rest, till, as they tailed along decks, the three shortened topsails rose faster up against the scud, and their hearty roaring chorus was as loud as the gale. "Keep her away, my lad!" said the mate, with another wave of his hand; the topsails swelled fair before it, and the Indiaman gave a plunge right through the next sea, rising easily to it, heave after heave. The setting sun struck two or three misty spokes of his wheel through a cloud, that made a big wave here and there glitter; the ship's white yards caught some of it, and a row of broad backs, with their feet stretching the foot-rope as they stowed the foresail, shone bright out, red, blue, and striped, upon the hollow of the yellow fore-topsail, in the midst of the gale; while just under the bowsprit you saw her black figure-head, with his white turban, and his hand to his breast, giving a cool salaam now and then to the spray from her bows. At that moment, though, Lota Hyde's eye was the brightest thing I could find—all the blue gone out of the waves was in it. As for her seeing myself, I hadn't had space to think of it yet, when all of a sudden I noticed her glance light for the first time, as it were, on the mate, who was standing all the while with his back to her, on the same plank of the quarterdeck. "Down main-course!" he sung out, putting one hand in his jacket-pocket; "down both tacks—that's it, my men—down with it!"—and out it flapped, slapping fiercely as they dragged it by main force into the bulwark-cleats, till it swelled steady above the main-stay, and the old ship sprang forward faster than before, with a wild wash of the Atlantic past her sides. "Another hand to the wheel, here!" said the first officer. He took a look aloft, leaning to the rise of her bows, then to windward as she rolled; everything looked trim and weatherly, so he stepped to the binnacle, where the lamp was ready lighted, and it just struck me what a smart, good-looking fellow the mate was, with his sun-burnt face; and when he went to work, straight-forward, no notion of showing off. "Confound it, though!" thought I of a sudden, seeing her eyes fixed on him again, and then to seaward. "Mr Macleod," said he to the second mate, "send below the watch, if you please. This breeze is first-rate, though!" When he turned round, he noticed Miss Hyde, started, and took off his cap with a fine bow. "I beg pardon, ma'am," said he, "a trifle of wind we have! I hope, Miss Hyde, it hasn't troubled you in the round-house?" What Miss Hyde might have said I don't know, but her shawl caught a gust out of the spanker, though she was in the lee of the high poop; it blew over her head, and then loose—I sprang forward—but the mate had hold of it, and put it over her again. The young lady smiled politely to the mate, and gave a cold glance of surprise, as I thought, at me. I felt, that moment, I could have knocked the mate down and died happy. "Why, sir," said he, with a cool half sneer, "I fancied none of you gentlemen would have favoured us this capful of wind—plenty of air there is on deck, though." It just flashed through my mind what sort of rig I was in—I looked over my infernal 'long-shore toggery, and no wonder she didn't recollect me at all! "Curse this confounded folly!" muttered I, and made a dart to run up the poop-steps, where the breeze took me slap aback, just as the judge himself opened the larboard door. "Why, Violet!" exclaimed he, surprised at seeing his daughter, "are you exposing yourself to this disagreeable—I declare a perfect storm!" "But see, papa!" said she, taking hold of his arm, "how changed the sea is!—and the ship!—just look where the sun was!" "Get in—get in, do!" kept on her father; "you can see all that again in some finer place; you should have had a servant with you, at least, Violet." "I shall come out oftener than I thought, papa, I can tell you!" said she, in an arch sort of way, before she disappeared. The mate touched his cap to the judge, who asked where the captain was. "'Gad sir," said the judge crossly, "the floor resembles an earthquake—every piece of furniture swings, sir; 'tis well enough for sleeping, but my family find it impossible to dine. If this oolta-poolta continues in my apartments, I must speak to Captain Williamson about it! He must manage to get into some other part of the sea, where it is less rough," saying which he swayed himself in and shut the door. I still kept thinking and picturing her face—Lota Hyde's—when she noticed the mate. After all, any one that knew tack from bowline might reef topsails in a fair wind; but a girl like that would make more count of a man knowing how to manage wind and sea, than of the Duke on his horse at Waterloo beating Bonaparte; and as for talk, he would jaw away the whole voyage, no doubt, about moonlight and the ocean, and your genteel fancy mariners! "By George, though!" thought I, "if the mate's a better man than me, hang me—it's all right; but burn my wig if I don't go and turn a Hindoo fakeer, with my one arm stuck up in the air till I die! Go it, old lady!" said I, as I glanced over the side before going below for the night, "roll away, only shake something or other to do out of the pace you're going at!"

The next morning, when Westwood and I went on deck, there was still a long sea running after us. However, by noon the sun came sifting through aloft, the breeze got warm, the decks were dry as a bone, and one just saw the large dark-blue swells lift up alongside with a shower of spray, between the seams of the bulwarks. By six o'clock, again, it was got pretty dusk ahead, and I strolled forward right to the heel of the bowsprit, with Westwood, looking down through her head-boards into the heap of white foam that washed up among the woodwork every time she plunged. One knot of the men were sitting with their legs over the break of the top-gallant forecastle, swinging as she rolled—laughing, roaring, and singing as loud as they could bawl, since the wind carried it all forward out of the officers' hearing. I was rather surprised to see and hear that Jacobs's friends, Bill Dykes and Tom, were there: the rogues were taking back their savage to the Andaman Isles again, I suppose. "Well, my lads," said Tom, a regular sample of the man-o'-war's-man: "this is what I calls balling it off! That mate knows how to make her go, any how!" "We'll soon be into tropical regents, I consider!" remarked Bill, who made a point of never using sea-phrases except ashore, when he came out double salt, to make up for his gentility afloat. "Hum," grumbled a big ugly fellow, the same so flattered at the wheel by little Tommy, "I doesn't like your fair winds! I'll tell you what, mates, we'll be havin' it puff more from east'ard ere third watch." "What's the odds, Harry, old ship?" said Tom, "a fair wind still!" "I say, my lads," exclaimed Tom again, looking along toward the poop, "yonder's the ould naboob squinting out of the round-house doors!—what's he after now, I wonder?" On stooping down, accordingly, I could see the judge's face with the binnacle-light shining on it, as he swayed to and fro in the doorway, seemingly in a passion at something or other. "Why," said Bill, "I consider he can't altogether circumstand the shindy as this here roll kicks up inside of his blessed paliss!" "Nabob, does ye call him!" said Harry, sulkily; "I'll tell you what, 'mates, he ben't nothin' but a reg'lar bloody ould tyrant! T'other mornin' there, I just chances to brush against him as I kiles up a rope, says he 'Fellow!' an' says he to the skipper, 'I'd take it kind,' says he, 'if ye'd horder them commin sailors for to pay more contention alongside o' my legs, Captin Willumsen!' Why, do the old beggar not think as a feller ben't a man as well as hisself, with his commin sailors, an' be blowed to him!" "Well though, Harry, old ship," said Tom, "an't that daurter of his'n a jewel! I say, 'mates, she's all rounded into the head, and a clear run from aft, like a corvette model! My eye, that hair of hers is worth gold; I'd go down on the deck to please her, d'ye see!" "No doubt," says Bill, "she's what I call a exact sparkler!" "Well, I doesn't know," said Harry. "Last vy'ge but one we'd got one aboard, a'most beautifuller—half as high again, an' twice her beam—I'm not sure but she—" "All my eye, messmates!" broke in Tom; "that one were built for stowing, ye see, bo', like yer cargo lumpers. Now, this here young gal minds me o' no other blessed thing but the Nymph corvette's figure-head—and that warn't her match, neither! She don't look down upon a sailor, I can tell ye; there I see her t'other morning-watch a talkin' to Jacobs yonder, as pleasant and cheery as——Hullo, there's the captain comed out o' the naboob's cabin, and speaking with the mate by the compass,—blessed if they an't agoin' to alter her course!"

"Send aft here to the braces!" sung out the first officer to the boatswain. "Blow me, shipmates, that's yeer naboob now, I'll bet a week's grog," growled Harry; "ship's course as fair as a handspike through a grummet; couldn't bring the wind more aft; b—t my eyes, the sea's comin' to be bought and sold!" Whatever it might be for, in came the starboard yard-arms till she lay over a little; down studding and top-gallant sails, as neither of them could stand it except from aft; and off went the old ship rising high athwart the seas, her head sou'-south-east, and one streak of broken yellow light, low down to westward on her lee quarter. It was beginning to blow harder, too, and by eight bells it was "Reef topsails, single reef!" The waves played slap on her weather side, the heavy sprays came showering over her bulwarks forward, and the forecastle planks were far from being so comfortable for a snooze as the night before. As soon as the wheel was relieved, and the other watch below, the "ugly man" and his companions returned. "Mates," said he, solemnly, planting his back against the bitts, "I've sailed this five-and-twenty year before the mast, an' I never yet seed the likes o' that! Take my say for it, we're on a wind now, but afore next mornin' we'll be close-hauled, beating up against it." "Well," said another, "she leaks a deal in the eyes of her below; in that case, Harry, your watch as slings in the fore-peak'll be all afloat by that time." "What day did this here craft sail on, I asks?" said the sailmaker gravely. "Why, a Thursday night, old ship," replied several eagerly. "No," went on the sailmaker; "you counts sea-fashion, shipmates; but till ye're clear o' the pilot, ye know, its land fashion ye ought for to go by. 'Twas a Friday by that 'ere said reckoning, shipmates." "No! so it was though," said the rest—"it don't look well." "Howsomedever I'm not goin' to come for to go and be a croaker," continued the sailmaker in a voice like a ghost's. "Well, luck or no luck, 'mates," grumbled big Harry, "if so be them larboard bowlines is hauled taut by the morning watch, blow me if I don't be upsides with that 'ere bloody ould naboob—that's all."

Next morning, after all, it was easy to feel the ship had really been hauled close on a wind. When we went up, the weather was clearing, though with a strongish gale from eastward, a heavy sea running, on which the Indiaman strained and creaked as she rose, rolling slowly to windward with her three double-reefed topsails strained full, then pitched head into it, as a cloud of foam and spray flew over her weather bow. It was quite early, the decks lately washed down, and the Indian judge walking the weather quarterdeck as grave and comfortable as if it was all right. The captain was with him, and two mates to leeward. "Sail O!" hailed a man on the foreyard. "Where away?" sung out the mate of the watch. "Broad abeam!" The captain went up to the poop, and I stood on the foremost carronade near the main rigging, where I could just see her now and then white against the blue haze between the hollows of the waves, as the Indiaman lifted. "There she is!" said I, thinking it was Westwood that stopped behind me; it was the judge, however, and as soon as I got down he stepped up, holding on with one hand to a backstay. The ship was rising after a pitch, every bulkhead and timber in her creaking, when all of a sudden I felt by my feet what all sailors feel the same way—she was coming up in the wind too fast to mount with the next wave, and a regular comber it was going to be. I looked to the wheel—there was big Harry himself with a grin on his face, and his eye on Sir Charles, as he coolly gave her half a weather-spoke more, and then whirled it back again to meet her. "For heaven's sake, look out, sir!" exclaimed I. "Why so I do," said the judge, rather good-naturedly. "'Zounds! what's—" You felt the whole ship stop creaking for a moment, as she hung with the last wave—"Hold on!" shouted a mid—she gave a dull quiver from stem to stern, and I fairly pulled the judge close into the bulwark, just as smash, like thunder, came a tremendous green sea over us, three in one, washing down into the lee scuppers. The old gentleman staggered up, dripping like a poodle, and unable to see—one heard the water trickling through the skylights, and stepping away down stairs like a fellow with iron heels; while there was the sailor at the wheel grinding down his spokes in right earnest, looking aloft at the shaking fore-topsail, and the Indiaman seemingly doubtful whether to fall off or broach-to. Up she rose again, however, and drove round with her Turk-head in the air, then dip through the spray as gallantly as ever. "Send that lubber from the wheel, Mr Macleod!" said the captain angrily, when he came down, "he nearly broached the ship to just now!" The "ugly man" put on a double-gloomy face, and grumbled something about her "steering wild;" but the knowing squint he gave Jacobs, who relieved him, was enough to show me he was one of the best helmsmen aboard. As for the judge, he hadn't the least notion it was anything more than a natural mischance, owing to exposing himself. He eyed the bulwark as if he couldn't understand how any wave was able to rise over it, while the captain was apologising, and hoping he wouldn't be the worse. "Eh, young gentleman!" said Sir Charles of a sudden, turning round to me, after a glance from the weather side to the lee one, "now I observe the circumstances, the probability is I should have had myself severely injured on the opposite side there, had it not been for your presence of mind, sir—eh?" Here I made a bow, and looked as modest as I could. "I perceive you are wet, young gentleman," said he again; "you'd better change your dress—eh?" "Thank you, sir!" I said; and as he walked off quite drenched to his cabin, with the captain, I heard him remark it was "wonderfully intelligent in a mere griffin."

However, the wind soon got down to a fine top-gallant breeze; less of a sea on, the clouds sunk in a long gray bank to leeward, and the strange sail plain abeam of us—a large ship steering seemingly more off the wind than the Seringapatam, with top-gallant-sails set—you could just see the heads of her courses, and her black lower-yards, when both of us rose together. Our first officer was all alive at the sight; the reefs were out of our topsails already, and he soon had us ploughing along under ordinary canvass, though still hugging the wind. In a short time the stranger appeared to take the challenge, for he slanted his yards, clapped on royals, and hauled down a stunsail, heading our course, till he was one body of white cloth on the horizon. For a while we seemed to gain on her; but after dinner, there was the other ship's hull up on our lee-bow, rising her white streak out of the water steadily, and just lifting at times on the long blue seas: she was fore-reaching on us, as plain as could be. The mate gave a stamp on the deck, and kept her away a little to set a stunsail. "Why," said I to Westwood, "he'll fall to leeward of himself!" "She's too much by the head, Collins," said Westwood; "that's it!" "Hasn't he the sense to take the fore-course off her?" said I, "instead of packing more on! Why, that craft weathers on us like a schooner—I wish you and I had the Indiaman for an hour or two, Tom!" It wasn't an hour before we could see the very waves splashing up under her black weather-side, and over her high bows, as she slanted right through it and rose to windward again, standing up to cross our course—a fine frigate-built Indiaman, sharper stemmed than her kind in ordinary, and square in her spread; one yardarm just looking over the other as they ranged aloft, and all signs of a weatherly craft. "That's the Duke o' Bedford!" said a sailor at the braces to his companions, "all oak planks, and not a splinter of teak in her! No chance!" Out flew the British colours from her mizen-peak, and next the Company's striped ensign at her fore-royal-mast head, as a signal to speak. However, the Seringapatam only answered by showing her colours, and held on. All of a sudden the other Indiaman was seen slowly falling off before the wind, as if in scorn at such rude manners, and sure of passing us if she chose. For a moment the red sunset glanced through betwixt all three of her masts, every rope as fine as wire; then the canvass swung broad against it, blood-red from the sun, and she showed us her quarter-gallery, with a glimpse of her stern-windows glittering,—you even made out the crowd of passengers and soldiers on her poop, and a man or two going up her rigging. The sea beyond her lay as blue as blue could be, what with the crimson streak that came zig-zag on both sides of her shadow, and gleamed along the smooth troughs, taking a crest or two to dance on by the way; and what with the rough of it near at hand, where the tops of the dark waves ran hither and thither in broad white flakes, we surging heavily over them.

In a few minutes more the sun was not only down, but the clouds banked up to westward, of a deep purple; and almost at once you saw nothing of the other ship, except when a stray streak somehow or other caught her rising, or her mast-heads came across a pale line in the clouds. The breeze got pleasanter as the night went on, and the Seringapatam rattled away in fine style, careening to it by herself.

Well, you know, nothing could be better for a good understanding and high spirits amongst us than a fast course, fine weather, and entering the tropics. As for the tropics, if you have only a roomy ship and a good run of wind, as we had, in those latitudes everything outside of you seems almost to have double the stuff in it that air and water have in other places; while inside of one, again, one felt twice the life he had before, and everybody else came out newer a good deal than on the parlour rug at home. As the days got each hotter than the last, and the sea bluer and bluer, we began to think better of the heavy old Seringapatam's pace, teak though she was, and her sole good point right before the wind. Every night she lighted her binnacle sooner, till deuce the bit of twilight there was, and the dark sky came down on us like the extinguisher over a candle. However, the looks of things round and aloft made full amends for it, as long as we held the "Trades;" old Neptune shifting his scenes there so quickly, that nobody missed getting weather and air, more than he could help, were it only a sight of how the Indiaman got on, without trouble to any living soul save the man at the wheel, as one long, big, bright wave shoved her to another, and the slower they rose the more business she seemed to do of herself. By the time they had furbished her up at their leisure, the Seringapatam had a queer Eastern style, too, throughout; with her grass mattings and husky coir chafing-gear, the yellow varnish about her, and her three topsails of country-canvass, cut narrow towards the head—bamboo stunsail booms, and spare bits of bamboo always ready for everything; besides the bilious-like gold-coloured patches here and there in the rest of her sails, and the outlandish figure-head, that made you sometimes think there might be twenty thousand of them under the bows, dancing away with her like Juggernaut's travelling pagoda. The decks were lively enough to look at; the men working quietly by twos and threes about the bulwarks all day long, and pairs of them to be made out at different points aloft, yarning away comfortably together, as the one passed the ball for the other's serving-mallet, with now a glance at the horizon, and now a grin at the passengers below, or a cautious squint at the top of the mate's cap. White awnings triced over poop and quarterdeck, the cover of the waist hammock-netting clean scrubbed, and the big shady main-course half brailed-up, rustling and bulging above the boats and booms amidships; every hatchway and door with a round funnel of a wind-sail swelling into it, and their bellies moving like so many boa-constrictors come down from aloft, and going in to catch cadets. You saw the bright white sky dazzling along under the awning-cheeks, that glared on it like snow; and the open quarterdeck ports let in so many squares of shifting blue light, with a draught of air into the hot carronade muzzles, that seemed to gasp for it with their red tompions stuck out like tongues. The very look of the lifting blue water on the shady side was refreshing, and the brighter the light got, it grew the darker blue. You listened for every cool splash of it on the bends, and every rustle of the canvass aloft; and instead of thinking, as the landsmen did, of green leaves and a lazy nook for shelter, why, to my fancy there's a deuced sigh more satisfaction in good dark blue, with a spray over the cat-head to show you're going, and with somewhat to go for! For want of better, one would have given his ears to jump in head-foremost, and have a first-rate bathe—the very sea itself kept rising up alongside to make an easy dive for one, and sinking into little round troughs again, where the surges would have sprinkled over your head. Now and then a bigger wave than ordinary would go swelling up, and out sprang a whole glittering shower of flying-fish, freckling the dark side with drops, and went flittering over into the next, or skimming the crests out of sight into a hollow. The writers and cadets were in high feather at knowing they were in the same latitude as India, and appeared in all sorts of straw hats, white trousers, and white jackets. Ford had left off talking of going aloft for a while, to flourish about his swimming—when he looked over with the surgeon into the smooth of a hollow, and saw something big and green, like all immense cucumber, floating along within a fathom or two of the ship, deep down in the blue water. While the griffin asked what it was, a little ripple broke above, a wet black horn came right out of it, and two devilish round eyes glared up at us ahead of it, as we leant over the quarter, set wide in a broad black snout, shaped like a gravedigger's shovel; then it sank away into the next wave. Ford shivered, in spite of the heat. "The devil?" inquired one of the writers, coolly, to the surgeon. "Not just him," said the Scotchman; "it's only the first shark!"

The young ladies, in their white dresses, now made you think of angels gliding about: as to the only one I had an eye for, by this time it wasn't of not seeing her often enough I had to complain, as she seemed to delight in nothing else but being somewhere or other upon deck; first one part of the ship, then another, as if to see how different the look-out could be made, or to watch something in the waves or the horizon. Instead of sitting with a needle or a book, like the rest, with the corner of one eye toward the gentlemen, or talking and giggling away at no allowance, she would be noticing a man aloft as if she were there herself, or trying to see past a sail, as if she fancied there was something strange on the other side of it. The rest of the girls appeared shy of her at first, no doubt on account of the Judge's separate quarters and his grandee style; next, they made acquaintance, she speaking and smiling just as if she had known them before; then, again, most of them seemingly got jealous because the cadets squinted after her; while old Rollock said Miss Hyde would be the beauty on Chowringee Course, and the first officer was eternally pointing out things to her, like a showman at a fair. However, she seemed not to mind it at all, either way: those that did talk to her would scarce hear her answer ere they lost her, and there she was, looking quietly down by herself into the ripples alongside; a minute after, she would be half-playing with little Tommy, and making companions of Tommy's young sisters, to see the sheep, the pigs, and the cow, or feed the poultry. As for the handsome "first officer," when he caught occasion for his politeness, she took it graciously enough, and listened to all he said; till, of a sudden, a smile would break over her face, and she seemed to me to put him off as easy as a duchess—on the score, it might be, of the Judge's looking for her off the poop, or something else of the kind. 'Twas the more curious how much at home she seemed amongst the men at work, when she chanced to go "forward" with Tommy and his sisters, as they skipped hither and thither: the rough, blue-shirted fellows took the quids out of their cheeks as soon as they saw the party coming from aft, and began to smirk, shoving the tar-buckets and ropes aside. One forenoon, an old lady under the poop awning, where she and her daughter were sewing together at a bright strip of needlework, asked me to hold her woollen yarns for her as she balled them off—being the red coat for a sepoy killing a tiger, which her daughter was making in yellow. I couldn't well refuse, seeing that amongst the ladies I was reckoned a mild, quiet young man. Even in these days, I must say I had a good deal of that look, and at home they used always to call me "quiet Ned." My mother, good soul, never would believe I broke windows, killed cats, or fought, and the mystery to her always is why the neighbours had a spite at me; for if I had been a wild boy, she said, or as noisy as little Brown next door, why she wouldn't have objected to my going to sea!—that noisy little Brown, by the bye, is a fat banker. So in I had to stick my thumbs at arms'-length, and stoop down to the old lady, the more with a will since I guessed what they were talking of. "Well though, Kate," continued the old lady, winding away at the thread, "you cannot deny her to be a charming creature, my love?" "Oh, if you mean pretty!" said the girl, "I don't want to deny it—not I, ma'am!—why should I, indeed?" "Pity she's a little light-headed," said her mother in a musing way. "Affected, you mean, mother!" said Miss Fortescue, "and haughty." "Do you know, Kate," replied the old lady, sighing, "I fear she'll soon go in India!" "Go?" said the daughter sharply. "Yes; she won't stand the hot season as I did—these flighty girls never do. Poor thing! she certainly hasn't your stamina now, my love!" Here Miss Fortescue bit her lip, tossed her head, and was saying that wasn't what she cared about, though in fact she looked ready to cry; when just at the moment I saw Lota Hyde herself half above the little gallery stair, gazing straight at me, for the first time, too; a curious kind of half-smile on her face, as I stood with my paws out, the old lady jerking the yarn off my wrists, and I staring right over her big bonnet at the sky astern of the awning, pretending not to listen. All at once my mouth fell, and before she could turn her face away from the funny countenance I no doubt put on, I saw her cheek rosy and her eyes sparkle with laughter, instead of seeming like one to die soon. For my part I couldn't stand it at all, so I just bolted sheer round and made three strides to the poop ladder, as dignified as was possible with ever so many plies of red yarn foul of my wrists, and a big red ball hopping after me when I'd vanished, like a fellow running from a hot shot! I daresay they thought on the poop I'd had a stroke of the sun on my brain; but till next day I kept clear of the passengers, and took to swigging off stiff nor'-westers of grog, as long as Westwood would let me.

Next evening, when the cuddy dinner was scarce over, I went up to the poop, where there was no one to be seen; the sun just setting on our starboard-quarter in a golden blaze that stretched overhead, with flakes of it melting, as 'twere, all over the sky to port, and dropping in it like threads of oil in water; the ship with a light breeze aft, and stunsails packed large upon her, running almost due for the Line. The waves to westward were like liquid light, and the eddies round our counter came glittering out, the whole spread of her mizen and main canvass shining like gold cloth against the fore: then 'twas but the royals and skysails brighter than ever, as the big round sun dipped down with a red streak or two, and the red waterline, against his hot old face. Every blue surge between had a clear green edge about its crest, the hollows turning themselves inside out from deep purple into bright blue, and outside in again,—and the whole rim of the sea grew out cool and clear away from the ship's taffrail. A pair of sharp-headed dolphins that had kept alongside for the last few minutes, swimming near the surface, turned tail round, the moment I put my nose over the bulwark, and shot off like two streaks of a rainbow after the flying-fish. I was just wondering where Lota Hyde could be, this time, when on a sudden I observed little Tommy poke his curly head out of the booby-hatch, peeping cautiously round; seeing nobody, however, save the man at the wheel, who was looking over his shoulder at the sun, the small rogue made a bolt out of the companion, and scampered aft under the awning to the Judge's starboard door, with nothing on but his nightshirt. There he commenced kicking and shoving with his bare feet and arms, till the door flew open, and over went Tommy on his nose, singing out in fine style. The next thing I heard was a laugh like the sound of a silver bell; and just as the boy's sister ran up in a fright lest he had gone overboard, Violet Hyde came out leading the little chap wrapped in a long shawl that trailed astern of him, herself with a straw bonnet barely thrown upon her head. "Tommy says you put him to bed too soon, Jane!" said she smiling. "Iss!" said Master Thomas, stoutly, "go 'way, Dzane!" "You hadn't bid me good-night—wasn't that it, Tom? But oh! what a sea!" exclaimed she, catching sight of it under the awning. The little fellow wanted to see it too, so the young lady lifted him up in her arms, no small weight I daresay, and they both looked over the bulwark: the whole sky far out of the awning to westward being spotted with orange scales, turning almost scarlet, faster than the dusk from both ends could close in; the clear greenish tint of it above the openings of the canvass, going up into fathomless blue overhead, the horizon purple, and one or two still, black clouds tipped with vermilion against the far sky—while the Indiaman stole along, scarce plashing under her bends. Every now and then you heard a whizz and a flutter, as the flying-fish broke out of a bigger surge, sometimes just missing the ship's side: at last two or three fell over the mizen chains, and pop came one all of a sudden right into the white breast of Miss Hyde's dress inside her scarf, where only the wings kept it from disappearing. She started, Jane screamed, but the little boy coolly pulled it out, commencing to overhaul it in great delight. "Oh fat a funny ickoo bird!" shouted he, "it's fell down out of 'ese t'ees!" looking aloft. "No, no," said Miss Hyde, laughing, as she drew her shoulders together with a shiver, "birds' noses don't drop water! 'Twill die if you don't put it in again, Tommy—'tis a fish!" "A fish!" said he, opening his eyes wider, and smacking his lips, "yes, Tommy eat it for my beckfust!" However the young lady took it out of his hand and dropped it overboard; on which the small ogre went off rather discontented, and kissed her more as a favour than otherwise. It was almost dark already, the water shining up in the ship's wake, and the stars coming out aloft; so I was left wondering at the impudence of flying-fish, and the blessings of being a fat little imp in a frock and trousers, compared with this puzzle of a "traverse," betwixt being a third lieutenant and hailing for a "griffin."

The night following, after a sultry hot day, the wind had varied a good deal, and the ship was running almost close-hauled on a warm south-easterly breeze, with somewhat of a swell in the water. Early in the first watch there was a heavy shower, after which I went on deck, leaving Westwood at his book. The half-moon was just getting down to leeward, clear of a ragged dark cloud, and a long space of faint white light spread away on the horizon, behind the sheets of the sails hauled aft; so that you just saw a sort of a glimmer under them, on the black heave of the swell between. Every time she rolled to leeward on it, a gleam of the moonshine slipped inside the shadow of her high bulwarks, from one wet carronade to another, and went glistening over the moist decks, and among the boats and booms, that looked like some big brute or other lying stretched out on his paws, till you saw the men's faces on the forecastle as if they were so many mutineers skulking in the dark before they rushed aft: then up she righted again, and all was dark inboard. The awnings were off, and the gruff third mate creaking slowly to and fro in his soaked shoes; the Judge stood talking with the captain before one of the round-house doors; directly after I noticed a young lady's figure in a white dress close by the mizen-rigging, apparently intent on the sea to leeward. "Well, now or never!" thought I, stepping over in the shadow of the main-sheet. I heard her draw a long breath: and then, without turning her head at the sound of my foot, "I wonder if there is anything so strange in India," exclaimed she; "is there now?" "No, by——, no, madam!" said I, starting, and watching as the huge cloud grew darker, with a rusty stain in it, while three or four broad-backed swells, one beyond the other, rose up black against the setting moon, as if they'd plunge right into her. Miss Hyde turned round, with one hand on the bulwark to steady herself, and half looked at me. "I thought—" said she; "where is papa?—I thought my father—" I begged pardon for intruding, but next minute she appeared to have forgotten it, and said, in a musing sort of way, partly to herself, partly to me—"I seem to remember it all—as if I just saw that black wave—and—that monstrous cloud—over again! Oh! really that is the very same top it had then—see!" "Yes," said I, leaning forward, with a notion I had seen it before, though heaven knew when. "Did you ever read about Columbus and Vasco da Gama?" asked she, though directly afterwards her features broke into a laughing smile as she caught sight of mine—at the thought, I suppose, of my ridiculous figure the last time she saw me. "No, never," said I; "but look to windward, ma'am; 'tis coming on a squall again. For heaven's sake, Miss Hyde, go in! We're to have another shower, and that pretty thick. I wonder the mate don't stow the royals." "What do you mean?" said she, turning. "Why are you alarmed, sir? I see nothing particular." The sea was coming over, in a smooth, round-backed swell, out of a dirty, thick jumble of a sky, with a pitchblack line behind—what Ford would have called "wild" by daylight; but the young lady's eye naturally saw no more in it than a dark night. Here the Judge came over from the binnacle, giving me a nod, as much as to say he recollected me. "I am afraid, sir," said I, "if you don't make haste, you'll get wet." "How!" said Sir Charles, "'tis an exceedingly pleasant night, I think, after such a deuced hot day. They don't know how to cool rooms here—this perpetual wood retains heat till midnight, sir! That detestable pitch precludes walking—the sea absolutely glares like tin. Why do you suppose so now—eh, young gentleman?" said he again, turning back, all of a sudden, with his daughter on his arm. "Why—why—why, Sir Charles," said I, hesitating betwixt sham innocence and scarce knowing what reason to give; "why, I just think—that is to say, it's my feeling, you see." "Ah, ah, I do see," replied the Judge, good-humouredly; "but you shouldn't ape the sailor, my good fellow, as I fancy you do a little. I don't particularly admire the class, but they always have grounds for what they say in their profession, frequently even acute. At your aunt's, Lady Somers's, now, Violet, who was naturally so surrounded by naval officers, what I had to object to was, not their want of intelligence, but their forwardness. Eh! eh! who—what is that?" exclaimed he suddenly, looking straight up into the dark, as five or six large drops fell on his face out of it. All at once you heard a long sigh, as it were, in the canvass aloft, a clap like two or three carronades fired off, as all the sails together went in to the masts—then a hum in the air far and near—and whish! rush! came the rain in sheets and bucketfuls off the edge of a cloud over our very heads, plashing and washing about the deck with coils of rope; ship rolling without a breath of wind in her sails; sails flapping out and in; the rain pouring down ten times faster than the scupper-holes would let it out, and smoking gray in the dark hollow of the swells, that sank under the force of it. The first officer came on deck, roaring in the hubbub to clue up and furl the royals before the wind came again. It got pitch-dark, you couldn't see your hand before you, and we had all lost mark of each other, as the men came shoving in between us. However I knew whereabouts Miss Hyde was, so I felt along the larboard rigging till I found a backstay clasped in her hands, and the soaked sleeve of her muslin dress, while she leant back on a carronade, to keep from being jerked down in the water that washed up over her feet with every roll, full of ropes and a capstan-bar or two. Without saying a word, I took up Lota in my arms, and carried her aft in spite of the roll and confusion, steering for the glimmer of the binnacle, till I got her inside one of their own cabins, where there was a lamp swinging about, and laid her on a sofa. I felt somehow or other, as I went, that the sweet creature hadn't fainted, though all the while as still as death; accordingly I made off again at once to find the Judge, who, no doubt, was calling for his daughter, with a poor chance of being heard. In a minute or two more the rain was over; it was light enough to make out the horizon, as the belt of foam came broadening out of it; the ship gave two or three wild bounds, the wheel jolting and creaking: up swelled the black waves again over one side, the topsails flapped full as the squall rushed roaring into them, and away she rose; then tore into it like a scared horse, shaking her head and throwing the snow-white foam into her forechains. 'Twas as much as three men could do to grind down her wheel, leaning and grinning to it; you saw just the Indiaman herself, scarce so far forward as the booms, and the broad swell mounting with her out of the dark, as she slowly squared yards before it, taking in to'gallant-sails while she did so, with her topsail-yards lowered on the caps. However, the look of it was worse than its force, else the swell wouldn't have risen so fast, as every sailor knew; and by two bells of the mid-watch she was bowling under all, as easy as before, the mate of the watch setting a stunsail.

When I went down, shaking myself like a Newfoundland, Westwood was swinging in his cot with a book turned to the lamp, reading Don Quixote in Spanish. "Bless me, Ned!" said he, "you seem to like it! paying fair and weathering it too!" "Only a little adventure, Westwood!" said I, laughing. "Why, here have I been enjoying better adventures than we seem likely to have," said he, "without stirring a hand, except for the wild swings you gave me from deck. Here's Don Quixote—" "Don Quixote be hanged!" said I: "I'd rather wear ship in a gale, myself, than all the humbug that never happened—out of an infernal play-book. What's the use of thinking you see service, when you don't? After all, you couldn't expect much till we've crossed the Line—nothing like the tropics, or the Cape, for thickening a plot, Tom. Then there's the Mozambique, you know!" "Well, we'll see," said Westwood, lazily, and half asleep.

The whole next day would have been weary enough in itself, as not a single glimpse of the fair Lota could I catch; and the weather, between the little puffs of air and squalls we had, was fit to have melted poor Ford to the bone, but for the rain. However, that day was sufficient, by fits and starts, to bring us up to the Line; and, before crossing it, which we did by six o'clock in one of the black squalls, half of the passengers had been pretty well ducked by Neptune and his gang, besides. Rare fun we had of it for three or four hours on end; the cadets and writers showing fight in a body, the Yankee being regularly keelhauled, tarred, and feathered, though I believe he had crossed the Line twice by land; while the Scotch surgeon was found out, in spite of his caution, never to have been lower than the West Indies—so he got double ration. A word to Jacobs took Westwood Scot-free; but, for my own part, wishing of course to blind the officers, I let the men stick the tar-brush in my mouth the first word I spoke, and was shaved like the mischief, not to speak of plumping afterwards behind the studding-sail curtain into three feet of water, where I absolutely saved Ford from drowning, he being as sick as a dog.

Late at night, the breeze held and freshened; and, being Saturday night, the gentlemen in the cuddy kept it uproariously after their troubles, drinking and singing songs, Tom Little's and your sentimental affairs; till, being a bit flushed myself, I was on the point of giving them one of Dibdin's, when I thought better of it, and went on deck instead. The mate was there, however, and his red-whiskered Scotch sub with the twisted snout, leaning on the capstan with their noses together. The night was dark, and the ship made a good noise through the water; so "hang it!" thought I, "somehow or other I'll have out a stave of 'Black-eyed Susan' at the top of my pipe, though overboard I go for it!" There was an old spare topsail-yard slung alongside to larboard, as far as the quarter-boat, and I went up to the poop to get over and sit on it; especially when I found Ford's friend, the fat midshipman, was in the boat itself, "caulking"[9] his watch out, as he did every night in a fresh place. I was no sooner there, again, than I saw a light in the aftermost gallery window, and took it in my head if I sung there, why, in place of being afraid there was some one under her casement, that and the wind and water together would put her to sleep, if she was the worse of last night—in fact I may say I was a little "slewed"[10] at the time. How to get there, though, was the matter, it being rather nice practice to sling over an Indiaman's quarter-gallery, bulging out from her steep counter: accordingly, first I took the end of a coil round the mizen-shrouds, and made a bowline-knot to creep down the stern-mouldings with, and then swing free by help of a guide-line to boot. Just before letting go of the taffrail, another fancy struck me, to hitch the guide-line to the trigger of the life-buoy that hung ready for use; not that I'd the notion of saving myself if I went overboard, but just because of the good joke of a fellow slipping his own life-buoy, and then cruising away with a light at his masthead back to the Line. 'Twas curious—but when I was "two or three cloths in the wind," far from growing stupid, I used always to get a sort of cunning that would have made me try and cheat a purser; so away I lowered myself till the rope was taut, when I slipped easy enough round the counter, below the window. Every time she rolled, out I swung, and in again, till I steadied with my feet, slacking off the other line from one hand. Then I began to give voice like old Boreas himself, with a sort of a notion, at each shove I got, how I was rocking the Indiaman like a big cradle, as Jacobs did his baby. All at once, I felt the rope was giving off the belaying-pin, till I came down with a jolt under the window below; only singing the louder, as it was half open, and I could just look in. With every wash of the waves, the water, a couple of fathoms under my feet, blazed up like fire, and the wake ran boiling out from the black stern by the rudder, like the iron out of a furnace: now and then there came a sulky flare of dumb lightning to leeward, and showed the black swell out of the dark for miles. I fancied I didn't care for the water, but I began to think 'twas rather uncomfortable the notion of sousing into such an infernally flame-looking stream: I was actually in a fright at being boiled, and not able to swim. So I dropped chorus to haul myself up; when of a sudden, by the lamp inside the state-room, I saw Winterton and Ford come reeling in, one after the other, as drunk as lords. Winterton swayed about quietly on his legs for a minute, and then looked gravely at Ford, as if he'd got a dreadful secret to make known. "Ford!" said he. "Ay," said Ford, feeling to haul off his trousers,—"ay—avast you—blub-lub-lubber!" "I say, Ford!" said the cadet again, in a melancholy way, fit to melt a marlinspike, and then fell to cry—Ford all the time pulling off his trousers, with a cigar in his mouth, till he got on a chest, and contrived to flounder into his cot with his coat on. After that he stretched over to put the lamp out, carefully enough; but he let fall his cigar, and one leg of his nankeen trousers hung out of the cot, just scraping the deck every time he swung. I watched, accordingly, holding on by the sill, till I saw a spark catch in the stuff—and there it was, swinging slowly away in the dark, with a fiery ring creeping round the leg of the trousers, ready to blow into a flame as soon as it had a clear swing. No doubt the fool would come down safe enough himself with his cot; but I knew Winterton kept powder in the cabin sufficient to blow up the deck above, where that sweet girl was sleeping at the moment. "Confound it!" I thought, quite cooled by the sight, "the sooner I get on deck the better!" However, you may fancy my thoughts when I heard men at the taffrail, hauling on the spanker-boom guys, so I held on till they'd go forward again: suddenly the mate's voice sung out to know "what lubber had belayed the slack of a topsail-clueline here?" Down I went with the word, as the rope was thrown off, with just time to save myself by a clutch of the portsill at arm's-length—where, heaven knew, I couldn't keep long. The mate looked over and caught sight of my face, by a flicker of the summer lightning, as I was slipping down: I gave him one curse as loud as I could hail, and let go the moulding—"Man overboard!" shouted he, and the men after him: however I wasn't altogether overboard yet, for I felt the other part of the rope bring me up with a jerk and a swing right under the quarter-boat, where I clung like a cat. How to get on deck again, without being seen, was the question, and anxious enough I was at thought of the burning train inside; when out jumped some one over my head: I heard a splash in the water, and saw a fellow's face go sinking into the bright wake astern, while the boat itself was coming down over me from the davits. I still had the guide-line from the life-buoy round my wrist, and one moment's thought was enough to make me give it a furious tug, when away I sprang clear into the eddies. The first thing I saw at coming up was the ships' lighted stern-windows driving to leeward, then the life-buoy flaring and dipping on a swell, and a bare head, with two hands, sinking a few feet off. I made for him at once, and held him up by the hair as I struck out for the buoy. A couple of minutes after, the men in the boat had hold of us and it; the ship came sheering round to the wind, and we were very shortly aboard again. "Confound it, Simm, what took you overboard, man?" asked the mid in the boat at his dripping messmate, the fat reefer. "Oh, bother!" said he, "if you must know—why, I mistook the quarter-boats; I thought 'twas the other I was in, when you kicked up that shindy! Now I remember, though, there was too much rain in it for comfort!" "Well, youngster," said Tom, the man-o'-war'sman, "this here gentleman saved your life, anyhow!" "Why, mate," whispered Bill, "'tis the wery same greenhorn we puckalowed so to-day! Didn't he jump sharp over, too?" "Pull! for your lives, my lads!" said I, looking up at Ford's window; and the moment we got on deck, below I ran into the state-room, and cut Ford down by the heels, with the tinder hanging from him, and one leg of his trousers half gone. As for the poor reefer, a pretty blowing-up he got; the men swore I had jumped overboard after him, and the mate would have it that, instead of sleeping, he wanted to get into the Judge's cabins; especially when next day Sir Charles was in a rage at his daughter being disturbed by some sailor or other singing outside.

---

[FOR THE LAST PAGE OF "OUR ALBUM."]

At length our pens must find repose!
With verse, or with poetic prose,
Filled is each nook;
And these poor little rhymes must close
Our pleasant book!

Its every page is filled at last!
When on these leaves my eyes I cast,
Dull thoughts to cheer,
How many memories of the past
Seem written here!

Those who behold a river run
Bright glittering in the noonday sun,
See not its source;
And few can know whence has begun
Its giddy course!

And thus the feelings that gave rise
To many a verse that meets their eyes
How few can tell!
Yet for those feelings gone, I prize
And love it well!

Some stanzas were composed to grace
An hour of pleasure,—some to chase
Sad care away;
And some to help on time's slow pace
Which would delay!

In some, we trace affection's tone
To friends then kind,—now colder grown
By force or art:
In some, the shade of hopes, now gone,
Then, next the heart!

Such fancies with each line I weave,
And thus our book I cannot leave
Without a sigh!
Fond recollections make me grieve
To lay it by!

How other hands, perchance, than mine,
A fairer wreath for it might twine,
'Twere vain to tell;
I can but say, in one brief line,
Dear Book, Farewell!

---

[THE INSURRECTION IN BADEN.]

(TO THE EDITOR OF BLACKWOOD'S MAGAZINE.)

Sir,—I chanced to be at Heidelberg at the outbreak of the late revolutionary movement, and remained there, or in the neighbourhood, during its entire duration. It occurs to me that a brief narrative of the leading events of that period of confusion and anarchy, from the pen of one who was not only an eyewitness of all that passed, but who, from long residence in this part of Germany, has a pretty intimate acquaintance with the real condition and feelings of the people, may prove suitable to the pages, and not uninteresting to the readers, of Blackwood's Magazine.

At a public meeting held at Offenburg, in the duchy of Baden, on the 13th of May 1849, and which was attended by many of the most violent members of the German republican party, it was resolved that the constitution voted by the national assembly at Frankfort should be acknowledged; that Brentano and Peter should be charged with the formation of a new ministry; that Struve, and all other political offenders, should be forthwith set at liberty; that the selection of officers for the army should be left to the choice of the privates; and lastly, that the movement in the Palatinate (Rhenish Bavaria) should be fully supported by the government of Baden.

For the information of those who have not closely followed the late course of events in Germany, it may be necessary to mention, that early in the month of May a revolutionary movement, the avowed object of which was to force the King to acknowledge the constitution drawn up by the parliament at Frankfort, had broken out in Rhenish Bavaria. A provisional government had been formed, the public money seized, forced contributions levied, and the entire Palatinate declared independent of Bavaria. The leaders of the insurrection had been joined by a portion of discontented military; and, in an incredibly short space of time, the whole province, with the exception of the fortresses of Germersheim and Landau, had fallen into their hands.

Although the declared motive of the Offenburg assembly was to support this movement, and thus oblige the reigning princes to bow to the decrees of the central parliament, there is little doubt that a long-formed and widely-extended conspiracy existed, the object of which was to proclaim a republic throughout Germany. The meeting in question was attended by upwards of twenty thousand persons, many of whom were soldiers, seduced by promises of increased pay, and of the future right to elect their officers. Money was plentifully distributed; and towards evening the mob, mad with drink and excitement, returned, howling revolutionary songs, to their homes. At the very time this was going on, a mutiny in the garrison of Rastadt had placed that fortress in the power of about four thousand soldiers, many of them raw recruits. This extraordinary event, apparently the result of a drunken quarrel, was shrewdly suspected to be part of a deep-laid scheme for supporting the movement, which was expected to follow the next day's meeting at Offenburg. If such were the hopes of the leaders, they were not disappointed; the train was laid, and wanted but a spark to fire it. The result of the Offenburg meeting was known at Carlsruhe by six o'clock in the evening of the day of its occurrence; and on the same evening, some riotous soldiers having been placed in confinement, their comrades insisted on their release. In vain did the officers, headed by Prince Frederick, (the Grand-duke's second son,) endeavour to appease them; they were grossly insulted, and the prince received a sabre cut on the head. It is thought by many persons that if, at this time, energetic measures had been taken, the whole movement might have been crushed.

But with citizens timid or lukewarm, and soldiers the greater number of whom were in open mutiny, it is difficult to say where the repressive power was to have been found. Be this as it may, the barracks were demolished, the stores broken open and robbed; and by eleven o'clock that night the ducal family, and as many of the ministers and attendants as could find the means of evasion, were in full flight. With arms supplied by the plunder of the barracks, the mob next attacked the arsenal, which was under the protection of the national guard. A squadron of dragoons who came to assist the latter were fired on by both parties, and the captain, a promising young officer, was killed on the spot. The dragoons, seeing their efforts to support the citizens thus misinterpreted, retired, and left the arsenal to its fate.

Early next morning, a provisional government, headed by Brentano and Fickler, was proclaimed, to which all people were summoned to swear obedience; and, absurdly enough, the very men, soldiers and citizens, who the day before had, with the acquiescence of the duke, taken an oath of allegiance to the empire, now swore to be faithful to the new order of things. The news of the outbreak spread like wildfire. It was received with particular exultation in the towns of Mannheim and Heidelberg; in the latter of which a very republican spirit prevailed, and where, at the first call, the national guard assembled, eager to display their valour—in words. It was not long before their mettle was put to the proof. The Duke, who had taken refuge in the fortress of Germersheim, had been escorted in his flight by about three hundred dragoons, with sixteen pieces of artillery. These brave fellows, who had remained faithful to their sovereign, attempted, after leaving him in safety, to make their way to Frankfort. As every inch of the country they had to traverse was in open revolt, the circumstance was soon known at Heidelberg, where, late in the evening, the tocsin rang, to summon the peasants from the neighbouring villages, and the générale beat through the streets to call the citizens to arms, in order that parties might be sent out to intercept the soldiers. It would be difficult to describe the panic that prevailed in Heidelberg at the first sound of this terrible drum. The most ridiculous and contradictory reports were circulated. That some great danger was at hand, all agreed; and the story generally credited was, that the peasants of the Odenwald were coming down, ten thousand strong, to plunder the town. When the real cause of the disturbance was discovered, it may be doubted whether, to many, the case appeared much mended; for, besides the disinclination a set of peaceable tradesmen might feel to attack a body of dragoons, backed by sixteen pieces of artillery, many of those who were summoned from their beds were secretly opposed to the cause they were called upon to serve. But there was no remedy; and, amidst the tears and shrieks of women, the ringing of bells, and beating of drums, the first detachment marched off. No sooner did they arrive at the supposed scene of action, than, seized with a sudden panic, caused by a row of trees which, in the dark, they mistook for the enemy in battle array, they faced about, and fairly ran for it till they found themselves once more in Heidelberg.

The consequences were more serious to some of the members of a second party, despatched to Ladenburg. In the middle of the night, the sentry posted on the bridge mistook the trotting of some stray donkey for a charge of dragoons, and firing his rifle, without farther deliberation he threw himself over the bridge, breaking a thigh and a couple of ribs in the fall. The others stood their ground; but it is well known that several of the party were laid up next day with nerven feber, (a sort of low typhus,) brought on by the fear and agitation they had undergone.

These facts are merely mentioned to show that, had the government, at the commencement of the outbreak, made the slightest show of firmness, they would not have met with the resistance which they afterwards found.

The dragoons, after dodging about for two days and nights, worn out with fatigue and hunger, at length allowed themselves to be captured near the frontiers of Würtemberg. It seems that the soldiers positively refused to make use of their arms after the Duke's flight, which, indeed, is the only way of accounting for three hundred mounted dragoons, with sixteen pieces of artillery fully supplied with ammunition, falling into the hands of as many peasants, who would undoubtedly have fled at the first shot fired.

Whilst these events passed, the reins of government at Carlsruhe had been seized by Brentano, Peter, Fickler, and Goegg—the latter a convicted felon. Struve and Blind, condemned to eight years' imprisonment for their rebellion the year before, were released, and, with their friends, took a prominent part in the formation of the new ministry. The war department was given to a Lieutenant Eichfeld, who, by the way, had some time previously quitted the service, on account of a duel in which he displayed the white feather. His first measure was to order the whole body of soldiers, now entirely deprived of their officers, to select others from the ranks. The choice was just what might have been expected; and instances occurred in which recruits of three weeks' standing passed at once to the rank of captain and major. All discipline was soon at an end. The army, consisting of 17,000 men, was placed under the command of Lieutenant Sigel, a young man of twenty-two, whose sole claims to preferment seem to have been, that he was compromised in Struve's abortive attempt at Friburg, and had since contributed a number of articles, violently abusive of the government, to some low revolutionary newspapers. Headquarters were established at Heidelberg, where Sigel, accompanied by Eichfeld, arrived on the 19th of May.

The pecuniary affairs of the insurgents were in the most flourishing condition. Seven millions of florins (about £560,000) were found in the war-chest, besides two and a half millions of paper-money, and large sums belonging to other departments of the ministry. Their stock of arms consisted of seventy thousand muskets, without reckoning those of the national guard and military. Thus equipped and supplied, they would have been able, with a little drill, and if properly commanded, to make a long stand against the regular forces sent against them. By this time, too, the country was fast filling with political refugees of all shades of opinion. Italians, Swiss, Poles, and French were daily pouring in; and the well-known Metternich, of Mayence celebrity, who had not been heard of since his flight from the barricades at Frankfort, again turned up as commander of a free corps. A sketch of his costume will give a pretty fair idea of that adopted by all those who wished to distinguish themselves as ultra-liberals. He wore a white broad-brimmed felt hat, turned up on one side, with a large red feather; a blue kittel or smock-frock; a long cavalry sabre swung from his belt, in which were stuck a pair of ponderous horse pistols; troopers' boots, reaching to the middle of the thigh, were garnished with enormous spurs, and across his breast flamed a crimson scarf, the badge of the red republican.

In order to extend the revolt, and to place Baden in a state of defence before the governments should recover from their panic, the most energetic measures were taken. A decree was issued for arming the whole male population, from eighteen to thirty years of age; and as in many instances the peasantry proved refractory, a tax of fifty florins per day was laid on all recusants, who, when discovered, were taken by force to join the army. Raveaux, Trutschler, Erbe, and Fröbel, the latter that friend of Robert Blum, who so narrowly escaped the cord when his companion was shot,—made their appearance at Carlsruhe. They issued a violent proclamation against the King of Prussia, and, the better to disguise their real object, called on all Germany to arm in defence of the parliament at Frankfort, and the provisional government of Baden. Every artifice, no matter how disreputable, that could serve the cause, was unscrupulously resorted to. It was officially announced that Würtemberg and Hesse-Darmstadt were only waiting a favourable opportunity to join the movement; and to further this object, a public meeting (which it was hoped would bring forth the same fruits at Darmstadt, as that of Offenburg had produced at Carlsruhe) was called by the radicals of the Odenwald. It took place at Laudenbach, a village situated about three miles within the Hessian frontier, and was attended by upwards of six thousand armed peasants, and by three or four thousand of the Baden free corps. The authorities were, however, on the alert; and after a fruitless summons to the insurgents to quit the territory, the military were called out. Before orders to fire were given, the civil commissary, desirous to avoid effusion of blood, advanced alone towards the crowd, endeavouring to persuade them to retire peaceably. He was barbarously murdered; and the sight of his dead body so incensed the Hessian soldiers, that they rushed forward without waiting for the word of command, and with one volley put the whole mob of insurgents to flight.

The spirit displayed on this occasion probably saved the country from a bloody civil war; for had the revolutionary movement passed the frontiers of Baden, at that moment the flame would doubtless have spread to Würtemberg, and thence not improbably to the whole of Germany, with the exception perhaps of Prussia.

To counteract the very unsatisfactory effect of the meeting at Laudenbach, it was resolved, by a council held at Carlsruhe, that a bold stroke should be struck. The Hessians, hitherto unsupported by other troops, could not command anything like the numerical force of Baden, and Sigel received orders to cross the frontier with all his disposable troops. Four battalions of the line, with about six thousand volunteers, were reviewed at Heidelberg before taking the field. They were indeed a motley crew! The soldiers, who had helped themselves from the stores at Carlsruhe to whatever best suited their fancy, appeared on parade equipped accordingly. Shakos, helmets, caps, greatcoats, frocks, full-dress and undress uniforms, all figured in the same ranks. The so-called officers, in particular, cut a pitiful figure. If the smart uniform and epaulette could have disguised the clownish recruit, who had perhaps figured but a few weeks in the ranks, the license of his conduct would soon have betrayed him; for officers and privates, arm in arm, and excessively drunk, might constantly be seen reeling through the streets. The free corps, unwilling to be outdone by the regulars, indulged in all sorts of theatrical dresses, yellow and red boots being in great favour; whilst one fellow, claiming no lower rank than that of colonel, actually rode about in a blouse and white cotton drawers, with Hessian boots and large gold tassels.

As it was strongly suspected that the soldiers placed little confidence in their new leaders, and the free corps, many of whom were serving against their own wishes, seemed equally unwilling to risk their lives under such commanders as Metternich and Bönin, (a watchmaker from Wiesbaden,) all sorts of artifices were resorted to, to encourage both regulars and irregulars. Their whole force might amount to thirty thousand men; but, by marches and countermarches, similar to those by which, in a theatre, a few dozen of soldiers are made to represent thousands, they so dazzled the eyes of the ignorant, that it was believed their army numbered nearly a hundred thousand men. The cavalry, in particular, which were quartered in Heidelberg, were marched out and in again five times in as many days—at each appearance being hailed as a fresh regiment. Soothsayers and prophets were also consulted, and interpreted divers passages in holy writ as foretelling the defeat of the Prussians, and the success of the "Army of Freedom." But the trick which, no doubt, had the greatest influence on the minds of the poor duped people was a forged declaration, purporting to be one put forth by the Hessian troops, professing their intention of throwing down their arms on the approach of their "German brothers."

On the 28th of May, the insurgents, ten thousand in number, crossed the frontier of Hesse-Darmstadt. The Hessians, with three battalions of infantry, a couple of six-pounders, and a squadron of light cavalry, waited their approach; and having withdrawn their outposts, (a movement interpreted into a flight by the opposite party,) they suddenly opened a severe fire on the advancing columns—driving them back to Weinheim, with a loss of upwards of fifty killed and wounded. The affair commenced at four o'clock in the afternoon, and by ten at night the whole insurgent force arrived pell-mell at Heidelberg. Officers and dragoons led the van, followed by artillery, infantry, baggage-waggons, and free corps, mingled together in the utmost disorder. They had run from Weinheim, a distance of twelve miles, in three hours—driven by their fears only; for the Hessians, too weak to take advantage of their victory, and content with driving them from their own territory, waited for reinforcements before attempting farther hostilities.

This check was a sad damper to the ardour of the insurgents. It was necessary to find some one on whom to fix the blame; and as the dragoons were known to be unfavourable to the new order of things, the official account of the affair stated that the enemy would have been thoroughly beaten, had the cavalry charged when ordered so to do.

This was the only action fought under Sigel's generalship—as a specimen of which it may be mentioned that the band of the Guards was sent into action at the head of the regiment, and lost five men by the first volley fired. Whatever the reason, Sigel was removed from his functions next day, and Eichfeld, disgusted with such an opening to the campaign, changed his place of minister of war for a colonelcy in the Guards; and, pocketing a month's pay, took himself quietly off, and has never been heard of since.

As it was now evident there could be no hopes of the Hessians joining the movement, the tactics were changed, and the most violent abuse was lavished on them by the organs of the provisional government. The vilest calumnies were resorted to, to exasperate the Baden troops against them, such as that they tortured and massacred their prisoners, &c.

Sigel had succeeded Eichfeld as minister of war; and as it was tolerably clear that they possessed no general fit to lead their army to the field, Meiroslawski was invited to take the command. A large sum of money was sent to him in Paris, and, while waiting his arrival, it was determined to act strictly on the defensive. With this object the whole line of the Neckar, from Mannheim to Eberbach and Mosbach, was strongly fortified; and the regular troops were withdrawn from Rastadt, and concentrated on the Hessian frontier.

At length the Polish adventurer, whose arrival had been so impatiently expected, made his appearance at Heidelberg. Meiroslawski, a native of the grand-duchy of Posen, began his career as a cadet in the Prussian service. In the Polish revolution of 1832 he played an active part, and was deeply implicated in the plot concocted at Cracow in 1846, which brought such dreadful calamities on the unfortunate inhabitants of Gallicia. For the second time he took refuge in France, and only returned to his native country to join the outbreak at Posen in 1848. There he contrived to get himself into a Prussian prison, from which, however, he was after a time released. He next led the ranks of the Sicilian insurgents; and on the submission of the island to the Neapolitan troops, had scarcely time to gain his old asylum, France, before he was called on to aid the revolutionists of Baden. He is a man of about forty years of age, of middle height, slightly built, and, so long as he is on foot, of military carriage and appearance; but seen on horseback, riding like a postilion rather than a soldier, the effect is not so good. His eyes are large and expressive, his nose aquiline, and the lower part of his face covered with a large sandy beard, which descends to the middle of his breast. Sixty of the Duke's horses, left in the stables at Carlsruhe, were sent to mount him and his aides-de-camp. Poles, Swiss, desperadoes of every description, received commissions, and were attached to the staff, the members of which, when assembled, were not unlike a group of masqueraders. Accidents, such as stumbling over their own sabres or their comrades' spurs, were of common occurrence. Sometimes a horse and his rider would be seen rolling over together; for, excepting one gentleman, whose rank I could not learn, but who had figured as rider at an equestrian circus that had attended the fair, none of the party looked as if they had ever mounted a horse before.

The first step taken by the government, after Meiroslawski's arrival, was to make a formal treaty of alliance with the provisional government of Rhenish Bavaria, in pursuance of one of whose provisions a plentiful supply of artillery was sent from the fortress of Rastadt, to furnish the army in that part of the country. That the two governments were in constant communication with Ledru Rollin and his friends, is now an authenticated fact, as well as that their chief hopes of success were built on the assistance they expected to receive from Paris. So confidently did they anticipate the overthrow, by the Montagne party, of the present order of things in France, that on the very morning the attempt took place in Paris, placards were posted up in Carlsruhe, Mannheim, and Heidelberg, announcing that the citadel of Strasburg was in the hands of the democrats, who were hastening with a hundred thousand men to the assistance of their friends in Baden.

Until the arrival of Meiroslawski, Brentano had refused to put in execution the rigorous measures urged on him by Struve and his party; but things were now conducted differently. Numbers of persons were cast into prison without any formal accusation. One clergyman in particular, thrown into a miserable dungeon, and kept for weeks in solitary confinement, entirely lost his senses, and, on the arrival of his liberators, the Prussians, had to be taken to a lunatic asylum, where he still remains. The whole country was declared to be under martial law, and notice was given that anybody expressing dissatisfaction with the government would be severely punished. No person whom the malice or ignorance of the mob might choose to consider a spy was safe: many of the principal shops in the towns were closed, the proprietors having sent off or concealed their goods, and fled the country. Persons known to be inimical to the government were punished for their opinions by contributions being levied on their property, or soldiers billeted in their houses. Count Obendorf, who has a chateau in the vicinity of Heidelberg, had no less than seven hundred and twenty men quartered on him at one time. Complaint was unavailing; tyranny and terrorism reigned throughout the land.

In order to give the semblance of legality to their proceedings, the elections for a new chamber commenced. It will readily be imagined that none but the friends of those in power presented themselves as candidates: the deputies were therefore, without exception, the intimates or supporters of Brentano & Co. The first act of the new assembly was to dissolve the Landes-auschuss, or provisional government, as being too numerous a body to act with the required vigour; and a dictatorial triumvirate, composed of Brentano, Peter, and Goegg, was appointed in its stead.

By this time serious dissensions had broken out among the leading members of the democratic party. Brentano had quarrelled with Struve, who was resolved on nothing less than the proclamation of the red republic. Finding his friends at Carlsruhe opposed to this attempt, he called a public meeting at Mannheim. Here again his efforts were unsuccessful, the soldiers especially being opposed to his doctrines. As the Würtemberg deputies had always figured among the most violent of the left, or republican party, at Frankfort, and late events had given rise to the idea that the people of that country were disposed to support the movement in Baden, Fickler was sent to Stuttgart, with a considerable sum of money to corrupt the soldiers; and in full expectation of the success of his mission, billets were made out for three thousand men, who, it was stated, were to arrive in the evening at Heidelberg. Disappointment ensued. The Würtembergers, satisfied with having forced from their king a promise to accept the constitution in support of which the Badeners professed to be fighting, were not inclined to bring further trouble and confusion into their country, and Fickler was thrown into prison. This untoward event, had the Baden revolution lasted much longer, was to have produced a terrible war between the two countries. The Würtemberg minister, however, laughed at the insurgent government's absurd and impotent threats, and Fickler still remains in confinement.

The first week after Meiroslawski's arrival was taken up with preparations for opening the campaign on a grand scale. Upwards of fifty thousand men were collected on the Hessian frontiers, from which side it was expected that the enemy would make their attack. At the same time, the Hessians having been reinforced by troops from Mecklenburg, Nassau, Hesse-Cassel, and Prussia, prepared to take the field in earnest. Whilst the first division of the army, under the command of the Prince of Prussia and General Hirschfeld, entered the Palatinate between Kreutznach and Saarbrucken, and advanced to the relief of Germersheim and Landau; Meiroslawski was held in check by continual feints, made along the whole line of the Neckar. On the 15th of June, a battalion of Mecklenburgers, with a squadron of Hessian light cavalry, and a couple of guns, advanced from Weinheim as far as Ladenburg. The village was taken at the point of the bayonet; but, ignorant of the immense force of the insurgents, or perhaps from undervaluing their courage, the troops allowed themselves to be almost surrounded by the enemy. With great difficulty they succeeded in regaining their old position; while the major who commanded the party, and ten privates, were left in the hands of the rebels. The loss on both sides was considerable, but was in some degree compensated to the Imperial troops, by two companies of the Baden Guards passing over to them. This slight success was boasted of by Meiroslawski as a splendid victory, in the following bulletin:—

"Headquarters, Heidelberg,
16th June 1849.

"Our operations against the advancing enemy have been crowned with success. Yesterday, our brave army was simultaneously attacked on all sides.

"In Rhenish Bavaria the Prussians were driven back with great loss. At Ladenburg, Colonel Sigel engaged the enemy, who had advanced in front; while a column, under the command of the valiant Oborski, attacked them in rear. The enemy was defeated on all points, and driven back in the greatest confusion.

"It is only to be regretted that want of cavalry prevented our following and completely annihilating them.

"Many prisoners were made, and their loss in arms, ammunition, and baggage, all of which fell into our hands, was considerable.

"Inhabitants of Heidelberg, fear nothing for the future. Continue to provide the intrepid army under my command with necessaries for continuing the campaign so gloriously commenced, and I will answer for the result. Strict obedience to my orders is all I require from you, to prevent the enemy from overrunning the country.

"In commemoration of the victory of yesterday, so gloriously obtained, the town of Heidelberg will be illuminated. The lights will be left burning till daybreak, and the beer-houses will remain open the whole night.

"(Signed) Louis Meiroslawski,
General-in-Chief of the Army."

This bombastic effusion was followed by several others equally false and ridiculous. The Prussians had advanced as far as Ludwigshafen, opposite Mannheim, without encountering any serious resistance. The insurgent army in the Pfalz, numbering about twelve thousand men, under the command of the Polish General Sznayda, had abandoned their intrenchments almost without striking a blow, and, with the provisional government, fled to Knielingen, from whence they crossed the Rhine into Baden. The only serious impediment encountered by the Prussians was at Ludwigshafen, which suffered immense damage from the heavy and constant bombardment kept up from batteries erected at the opposite town of Mannheim. The railway station was burned to the ground, and the value of property destroyed in the store-houses alone has been calculated at two millions of florins, (£170,000.) On the 17th, Landau and Germersheim were relieved; and the Prince of Prussia, with his whole force concentrated before the latter fortress, prepared to cross the Rhine under the protection of its guns.

Having thus fully accomplished the first part of his arduous undertaking, by re-establishing order in the Pfalz, the Prince of Prussia prepared to effect a junction with the second and third divisions of the army, under the command of General Von Gröben, and Peucker, the former of whom had again advanced to Ladenburg, on the right bank of the Neckar. Meiroslawski, in the mean time, remained totally inactive from the 15th to the 20th inst. Upwards of fifty thousand men had been reviewed by him in Heidelberg and its vicinity; besides this, the twelve thousand Bavarian insurgents, under the command of Sznayda, were in the neighbourhood of Bruchsal; and with such a force, anything like a determined resistance would have compelled the Prussians to purchase victory by a heavy loss. Whatever may be his reputation for talent, Meiroslawski showed but little skill as a general during his short command in Baden. Instead of opposing the crossing of the Rhine by the Prussians, which, with so large a force, and fifty-four pieces of well-served artillery, he might easily have done, the Prince of Prussia, with a division of fifteen thousand men, was allowed to obtain a secure footing in his rear, almost unopposed.

From this moment the position of the insurgents became critical in the extreme. The line of the Neckar was occupied on the right bank by the second and third divisions of the army, comprising upwards of thirty thousand men. Although hitherto held in check by the strong intrenchments that had been thrown up, they might still advance in front; whilst the high road to Rastadt was effectually cut off by the Prince of Prussia, whose headquarters were now at Phillipsburg.

The Rhine had been crossed by the Prussians on the 20th, and on the evening of that day Meiroslawski, for the first time, showed a disposition to move from his comfortable quarters at the Prince Carl hotel in Heidelberg. Collecting all his force, (with the exception of three or four thousand men, who were left in the intrenchments before Ladenburg and on the line of the Neckar,) he left Heidelberg "to drive the Prussians," as he announced, "into the Rhine," and effect a junction with Sznayda's corps in the neighbourhood of Carlsruhe. The plan was a bold one; but Meiroslawski ought to have known better than to attempt its execution with the undisciplined force he commanded. He, however, appears to have entertained no doubt of the result; for the commissariat, baggage, and even the military chest were sent forward, he himself following in a carriage and four.

Early on the morning of the 21st the action commenced, and Meiroslawski found to his cost that six thousand well-disciplined Prussians were more than a match for his whole army. At ten o'clock on the same morning a proclamation was issued at Heidelberg by Struve, stating "that the Prussians were beaten on all points, that their retreat to the Rhine was cut off, and that ten thousand prisoners would be sent to Heidelberg in the evening. The loss on the side of the "Army of Freedom" was eight slightly hurt, and two severely wounded—no killed!"

In spite of the obvious absurdity of this proclamation, most of the townspeople believed it; and it was not till two o'clock in the afternoon that their eyes were opened to the deception practised on them, by the arrival of between thirty and forty cart-loads of wounded insurgents. Before nightfall, upwards of three hundred suffering wretches filled the hospitals. Crowds of fugitives flocked into the town, and every appearance of discipline was at an end. It seems that, on the approach of the enemy, the Prussian advanced guard, composed of one battalion only, retired till they drew the insurgents into the very centre of their line, which lay concealed in the neighbourhood of Wagheusel. This movement was interpreted into a flight by Meiroslawski; a halt was called; and whilst he was refreshing himself at a roadside inn, and his troops were in imagination swallowing dozens of Prussians with every fresh glass of beer, they suddenly found themselves almost surrounded by the royal forces. At the very first volley fired by the Prussians, many of the Baden heroes threw down their arms, and took to their heels; the artillery and baggage waggons, which were most unaccountably in advance, faced about, and drove through the ranks at full speed, overthrowing and crushing whole companies of insurgents. The panic soon became general: dragoons, infantry, baggage-waggons, and artillery, got mingled together in the most inextricable confusion, and those who could, fled to the woods for safety. The approach of night prevented the Prince of Prussia from following up his victory, but he established his headquarters at Langenbruken, within nine miles of the town.

Whilst the hopes of the insurgents received a deathblow in this quarter, General Peucker had pushed with his division through the Odenwald, and, after some insignificant skirmishing at Hirschhorn, crossed the Neckar in the vicinity of Zwingenberg, with the intention of advancing on Sinsheim, and cutting off the retreat of the rebels in that direction. Von Gröben, who, on account of the bridges at Ladenburg, Mannheim, and Heidelberg, being undermined, was unwilling to cross the Neckar, sent a small reconnoitring party over the hills, and, to the great consternation of the inhabitants, the Prussians suddenly made their appearance on the heights above the village of Neuenheim, thus commanding the town of Heidelberg. Four hundred of the foreign legion immediately sallied over the bridge, and, posting themselves in some houses on that side of the river, kept up a desperate firing, though the enemy were too far above their heads for their bullets to take effect. The Prussians for some time looked on with indifference, but, before retiring, they gave the insurgents a taste of what their newly-invented[11] zund-nadel muskets could accomplish. Out of four shots fired, at a distance of full fifteen hundred yards, two took effect; the one killing an insurgent on the bridge, and the other wounding one of the free corps in the town.

To return to Meiroslawski's army. After those who had been fortunate enough to reach Heidelberg had taken a few hours' rest and refreshment, the entire mass moved off in the direction of Sinsheim, their only hope of escape being to pass that town before the arrival of General Peucker's division. Thousands had thrown away their arms and fled; and most of the soldiers, anxious to escape another collision with the Prussians, threw off their uniforms and concealed themselves in the woods. One-half of the rebels were disbanded, or had been taken prisoners; and Meiroslawski, with the remnant, made all speed to quit the town. Every horse in the neighbourhood was put into requisition to aid them in their flight, and the whole gang of civil authorities, headed by Struve and his wife in a carriage, (well filled with plunder,) followed the great body of fugitives. The intrenchments at Ladenburg, &c., were abandoned, and by 7 o'clock on the evening of the 22d, the town of Heidelberg was once more left to the peaceable possession of its terrified inhabitants. The foreign legion, composed of Poles, Italians, Swiss, French—in short, the refuse of all nations—were the last to leave; nor did they do so, till they had helped themselves to whatever they could conveniently carry off: indeed, the near vicinity of the Prussians alone prevented the complete plunder of the town. During the night, the better disposed citizens removed the powder that undermined the bridge, and a deputation was sent to inform General von Gröben that he could advance without impediment. At 4 o'clock on the morning of the 23d, to the great joy of every respectable inhabitant of Heidelberg, he made his entry into the town. Mannheim had also been taken possession of without firing a shot, and the communication between the first and second divisions of the royal army was now open.

After leaving Heidelberg, Meiroslawski succeeded in once more uniting about fifteen thousand of the fugitives under his banner. General Peucker's attempt to intercept him at Sinsheim had failed, the insurgent general having reached it two hours before him. Taking to the hills, he got out in rear of the Prince of Prussia's division, and joined his force to that of Sznayda, which was before Carlsruhe. Robbery and plunder marked the entire line of march. Wine and provisions that could not be carried off, were wantonly destroyed, and the inhabitants of the villages traversed by this undisciplined horde, will long have reason to remember the passage of the self-styled "Army of Freedom."

At Upsdal, Durlach, and Bruchsal, the rebels made a more energetic resistance than they had yet done; and it was not without a hard struggle, and great loss on both sides, that the Prince of Prussia, at the head of the three divisions off his army, (now united, and numbering upwards of forty thousand men,) entered Carlsruhe on the 25th of June. On the approach of the Prussians, the provisional government, the members of the chamber, and the civil authorities of every description, having emptied the treasury, and carried off all the public money on which they could lay their hands, made their escape to join the remains of the Rump parliament, who, since they had been kicked out of Würtemberg, had established themselves at Freiburg.

After a rest of two days in the capital of Baden, the Prussian army was again put in motion to attack the insurgents, now strongly intrenched along the valley of the Murg, the narrowest part of the duchy. Owing to the numerous and well-served artillery of the insurgents, it was not without severe fighting, and great sacrifice of life, that they were driven from their positions. Another disorderly flight succeeded; and by the 30th of the month, the Prussians were in quiet possession of Baden-Baden, Oos, Offenburg, and Kebl, besides having completely surrounded Rastadt, and cut off every hope of retreat from that fortress. The remainder of Meiroslawski's force was entirely dispersed, the greater number being captured, or escaping in small parties into France or Switzerland. A few hundreds only remained in Freiburg, under the command of Sigel. Meiroslawski took refuge in Basle, having held the command of the Baden forces exactly three weeks; and Brentano, after having remained just long enough to be abused and threatened by his own party, made his escape with most of the other revolutionary leaders into Switzerland, from which he issued the following justification of his conduct. As the document contains a tolerably faithful sketch of the revolution, with the opinion of one who may certainly be considered as an unprejudiced judge, we give it in full:—

"To the People of Baden.

"Fellow-citizens! Before leaving the town of Freiburg and the duchy of Baden, on the night of the 28th June, I informed the president of the constitutional assembly that it was my intention to justify my conduct towards the people of Baden, but not towards an assembly that had treated me with outrage. If I did not do this at the time I left the country for which I have acted all through with a clear conscience, and from which I was driven by a tyrannical and selfish party, it was because I wished to see what this party would say against the absent. To-day I have seen their accusation, and no longer delay my defence, in order that you may judge whether I have merited the title of traitor; or whether the people's cause—the cause of freedom, for which your sons, your brothers, have bled—can prosper in the hands of men who only seek to hide personal cowardice by barbarity, mental incapacity by lies, and low selfishness by hypocrisy.

"Fellow-citizens! Since the month of February I have strained every nerve in the cause of freedom. Since the month of February, I have sacrificed my own affairs to the defence of persecuted republicans. I have willingly stood up for all who claimed my assistance; and let any say if I have been reimbursed one kreutzer of the hundreds I have expended. Fellow-citizens! I am loath to call to mind the sacrifices I have made; but a handful of men are shameless enough to call me traitor; a handful of men, partly those in whose defence I disinterestedly strained every nerve, would have me brought to 'well-deserved punishment:' these men, whose sole merit consists in tending to bring discredit on freedom's cause, through their incapacity, barbarity, and terrorism; and whose unheard-of extravagance has brought us to the brink of ruin.

"I did not return home after Fickler's trial. The exertion I had used in his defence had injured my health, and I went for medical advice to Baden-Baden. On the 14th of May, I was fetched from my bed; but, in spite of bodily weakness, I was unwilling to remain behind. I wished to see the cause of freedom free from all dirty machinations, I wished to prevent the holy cause from falling into disrepute through disgraceful traffic; I wished to keep order, and to protect life and property. For some time I was enabled to effect this: I endeavoured to prevent injustice of all kinds, and in every place, and whenever I was called on; I strove to protect the innocent against force, and to prove that even the complete overthrow of the government could be accomplished without allowing anarchy to reign in its stead.

"Fellow-citizens! However my conduct as a revolutionist may be judged, I have a clear conscience. Not a deed of injustice can be laid to my door: not a kreutzer of your money have I allowed to be squandered, not a heller has gone into my pocket! But this I must say, you will be astonished, if ever you see the accounts, to find how your money has been wasted, and how few there were who sacrificed anything to the holy cause of the people, and how many took care to be well paid out of the national coffers for every service rendered.

"No sooner had the revolution broken out than hundreds of adventurers swarmed into the land, with boasts of having suffered in freedom's cause: they claimed their reward in hard cash from your coffers. There was no crossing the streets of Carlsruhe for the crowds of uniformed, sabre-carrying clerks; and whilst this herd of idlers revelled on your money, your half-famished sons were exposing their breasts to the bullets of the enemy in freedom's cause. But whoever set himself to oppose this order of things was proclaimed to be a mean and narrow-minded citizen; whoever showed a disinclination to persecute his political adversary à la Windischgratz, was a réactionnaire or a traitor.

"At the head of this party was Struve, the man whose part I took before the tribunal at Freiburg—not as a legal adviser, but as a friend; the man whose absurd plan for giving the ministers salaries of six thousand florins; of sending ambassadors to Rome and Venice, and agents to St. Petersburg and Hungary, I overruled; the man whose endeavour to give every situation to which a good salary was attached to foreign adventurers, was effectually opposed by me. This man, despised for his personal cowardice, whose dismissal from the provisional government was demanded by the entire army—this man, instead of supporting and strengthening the government as he promised, tried, because his ambitious views found no encouragement, and with the assistance of foreign adventurers, to overthrow me; and when I showed him the force that was drawn up ready to oppose him, he took refuge in base lies, and had not even sufficient courage to go home, till I, whom he had just tried to overthrow, protected him with my own body to his house.

"The people had chosen between us, for at the elections he had been first thrown out, and he only obtained three thousand votes as a substitute, whilst I had been elected by seven thousand voices.

"I had placed all my hopes in the Constitutional Assembly. I thought that men elected by the free choice of the people would duly support my honest endeavours. I was mistaken. An assembly, the majority of whose members were mere ranters, totally incapable of fulfilling the task imposed on them, and who sought to conceal their ignorance by proposing revolutionary measures—which were carried one day, to be revoked as impracticable the next—was the result of the election. That I should prove a thorn in the sides of such men was clear; and as it was not in their power to get rid of me, they sought to make me a powerless tool, by creating a three-headed dictatorship, with the evident intention of making use of my name, whilst holding me in check by the other two dictators. Although such a situation might be undignified, still, from love of the cause, I determined to accept it. I scarcely ever saw my colleagues in Carlsruhe, as they found it more agreeable to run after the army. No reports from the seat of war ever reached me; and yet the assembly demanded from me, as being the only one present, accounts of what I had received no report of. All responsibility was thrown on my shoulders. If the minister of war neglected to supply the army with arms or ammunition, the fault was mine; if the minister of finance wanted money, I was to blame; and if the army was beaten, my want of energy was the cause of it!

"Thus was I abandoned at Carlsruhe in the last most dangerous days, and left with a set of deputies who, for the most part, had not even sufficient courage to sleep in the capital. My co-dictators found it more convenient to play the easier part of mock heroes with the army. Thousands can bear witness that I shrunk from no work, however trivial; but I can prove to most of these pot-valiant heroes, that they put off the most urgent motions as 'not pressing,' whilst they clung to others that were of no importance, merely because they carried them out of all danger at the national expense.

"In Offenburg we were joined by the newly-elected member Gustavus Struve, who immediately demanded my dismissal from the government. On being told that this was impossible, he next wished me to be taken from the dictatorship, and to be given one of the minister's places. He talked of the want of energy displayed by the government, called it little better than treason, and tried to learn from my friends what plans I intended to adopt. He demanded that the fugitives from the Pfalz should be placed in office, though, God knows, we owed them nothing. Indignant at such conduct, I took no part in the secret council held at Freiburg, although I informed several of the deputies of my intention to resign, unless I received full satisfaction for the machinations of Struve.

"The first public meeting of the assembly took place on the evening of the 28th June, when Struve brought forward the following motion:—

"'That every effort at negotiation with the enemy be considered and punished as high treason.' Considering what had before taken place, I could not do less than oppose the motion, which I did on the grounds that, as such negotiations could only proceed from the government, the motion was tantamount to a vote of want of confidence. In spite of this declaration on my part, the motion was carried by twenty-eight against fifteen votes, and the contest between Struve and Brentano was decided in favour of the former. Although some few of the deputies declared their vote not to imply want of confidence, the assembly did not, in that capacity, express such an opinion. If they did, I call on them to produce the notes of such a resolution having been carried; and if they fail to do so, I brand them with the name of infamous liars. After this, I did what all honourable men would have done—I resigned. Who, I ask, was to prevent my doing so; and why am I to be branded with the name of traitor? I laugh those fools to scorn who imagine they could prevent freedom of action in a man who, having been shamefully ill-used, chose to withdraw from public life.

"I do not fear inquiry, and demand from the national assembly that the result of their investigation be made public, as it can only terminate in victory for me and destruction to my adversaries. Why did this same assembly keep secret the fact that, on the 28th of June, they decided to send me a deputation the next morning, in order to beg I would remain in power—I the traitor, I who was to be brought to 'well-merited punishment!' It was easy to foresee the personal danger I was exposed to if I refused, and I therefore preferred seeking quiet and repose in Switzerland, to enjoying the rags of freedom emitted under Struve's dictatorship in Baden.

"I am to be called to account! My acts are open to the world. No money ever came under my superintendence—this was taken care of by men who had been employed in the department for years. My salary as head of the government was three florins per day, and I have paid all travelling expenses out of my own pocket. But if those are to be called to account who had charge of the public money, and became my enemies because I would not have it squandered, then, people of Baden! you will open your eyes with astonishment; then, brave combatants, you will learn that, whilst you fasted, others feasted!

"The people of Baden will not be thankful for a 'Struve government,' but they will have to support it; and over the grave of freedom, over the graves of their children, will they learn to know those who were their friends and those who only sought for self-aggrandisement and tyranny!

"And when the time comes that the people are in want of me again, my ear will not be deaf to the call! But I will never serve a government of tyrants, who can only keep in power by adopting measures that we have learned to despise, as worthy of a Windischgratz or a Wrangel!

"Fellow-citizens! I have not entered into details. I have only drawn a general sketch, which it will require time to fill up. Accused of treason by the princes, accused of treason by the deputies of Freiburg, I leave you to decide whether I have merited the title.

"Feuerthalen bei Schaffhausen,
1 July, 1849.
"Louis Brentano."

At this time of writing, Rastadt still remains in possession of two or three thousand insurgents; but, almost without provisions, and deprived of all hopes of assistance, the fortress may be daily expected to surrender. Such is the termination of an insurrection of seven weeks' duration, which is calculated to have cost the country thirty millions of florins and four thousand lives. There is no denying that, at one time, it assumed a most formidable aspect; and had the people of Würtemberg given it the support its leaders confidently expected from them, it might, aided by the discontent that undoubtedly prevails in many other parts of Germany, long have baffled the efforts of Prussia to put it down. Yet there are few persons, even among those who witnessed the outbreak from its commencement, who can tell what was the object of its promoters, unless plunder and personal aggrandisement be assigned as their incentives. Their professed motive was to support the union of Germany in one empire; but, as the Grand-duke of Baden had already taken the oath to obey and defend the constitution framed at Frankfort, there was not the slightest pretext for upsetting his government. It is certain that the republicans played a most active part in the affair—their intention no doubt being, as soon as they found themselves victorious under the banner of the empire, to hoist a democratic flag of their own. Many who were not inclined to go so far, joined them upon doubts of the fair intentions of the Germanic princes towards their subjects. Some were perhaps glad of any sort of change, other turbulent spirits were anxious for a row, but, from first to last, none seem to have had any clearly defined object, or anything to offer in extenuation of such waste of blood and treasure. The next striking circumstance is the evident incapacity of the chiefs, civil and military. Throughout the affair, we do not see one proof of superior talent, or a single act of daring courage. The only useful reflection it affords is one that is perhaps worthy the attention of the rulers of Germany. Last year, Struve's attempt to revolutionise the country was principally supported by ignorant peasants, mad students, and a few ultra-liberals and republicans, and it was in great measure put down by the soldiers of Baden. This year, a great proportion of the citizens in the principal towns were openly in favour of the movement, and nearly the whole Baden army joined the revolt.

Heidelberg, 15th July 1849.

---

[LAMARTINE'S REVOLUTION OF 1848.]

So completely was the ordinary framework of European society broken up in France by the Revolution of 1789, that the leaders of every great political movement, since that time, have sprung from an entirely different class of society from what they were before that event. The old territorial noblesse no longer appear as the leaders in action, or the rulers of thought. The time has gone by when an Admiral de Coligny, or a Henry of Béarn, stood forth as the chiefs of the Reformed movement; a Duc d'Orleans no longer heads the defection of the nobles from the throne, or a Mirabeau rouse a resistance to the mandates of the sovereign. Not only the powers of the sword, not only the political lead of the people, but the direction of their thoughts, has passed from the old nobility. The confiscation of their property has destroyed their consequence, the dispersion of their families ruined their influence. Neither collectively nor individually can they now lead the people. The revolution of 1830, begun by Thiers and the writers in the National newspaper, was carried out by Lafitte the great banker. That of 1848, springing from the columns of the Réforme and the Démocratie Pacifique, soon fell under the lead of M. Marrast the journalist, and M. Lamartine the romancer and poet. And now the latter of these authors has come forth, not only as the leader but as the historian of the movement. Like Cæsar, he appears as the annalist of his own exploits: like him, he no doubt flatters himself he can say, "I came, I saw, I conquered."

The reason is, that mankind cannot exist even for a day but under the lead of a few. Self-government is the dream of the enthusiast, the vision of the inexperienced: oligarchy is the history of man. In vain are institutions popularised, nobles destroyed, masses elevated, education diffused, self-government established: all that will not alter the character of man; it will not qualify the multitude for self-direction; it will not obviate that first of necessities to mankind—the necessity of being governed. What is the first act of every assembly of men associated together for any purpose, social, political, or charitable? To nominate a committee by whom their common affairs are to be regulated. What is the first act of that committee? To nominate a sub-committee of two or three, in whom the direction of affairs is practically to be vested. Begin, if you please, with universal suffrage: call six millions of electors to the poll, as in France at this time, or four millions, as in America—the sway of two or three, ultimately of one, is not the less inevitable. Not only does the huge mass ultimately fall under the direction of one or two leading characters, but from the very first it is swayed by their impulsion. The millions repeat the thoughts of two or three journals, they elaborate the ideas of two or three men. What is the origin of the whole free-trade principles which have totally altered the policy, and probably shortened the existence, of the British empire? The ideas of Adam Smith, nurtured in the solitude of Kirkaldy. Would you learn what are the opinions generally prevalent in the urban circles in England, in whom political power is practically vested, on Wednesday or Thursday? Read the leading articles of the Times on Monday or Tuesday. The more men are educated, the more that instruction is diffused, the more widely that journals are read, the more vehement the political excitement that prevails, the more is the sway of this oligarchy established, for the greater is the aptitude of the general mind to receive the impulse communicated to it by the leaders of thought. The nation, in such circumstances, becomes a vast electric-machine, which vibrates with the slightest movement of the central battery.

Lamartine, as an author, can never be mentioned without the highest respect. The impress of genius is to be seen in all his works: nature has marked him for one of the leaders of thought. A mind naturally ardent and enthusiastic, has been nurtured by travel, enriched by reflection, chastened by suffering. His descriptive powers are of the very highest order. We have already done justice, and not more than justice, to the extreme beauty of his descriptions of Oriental scenery.[12] They are the finest in the French, second to none in the English language. His mind is essentially poetical. Many of his effusions in verse are touching and beautiful, though they do not possess the exquisite grace and delicate expression of Beranger. But his prose is poetry itself: so deeply is his mind imbued with poetical images—so sensitive is his taste to the grand and the beautiful—so enthusiastic is his admiration of the elevated, whether in nature or art, that he cannot treat even an ordinary subject without tinging it with the colours of romance.

From this peculiar texture of Lamartine's mind arises both the excellences and defects of his historical compositions. He has all the romantic and poetical, but few of the intellectual qualities of an historian. Eminently dramatic in his description of event, powerful in the delineation of character, elevated in feeling, generous in sentiment, lofty in speculation—he is yet destitute of the sober judgment and rational views which are the only solid foundation for either general utility or durable fame in historical composition. He has the conceptions of genius and the fire of poetry in his narrative, but little good sense, and still less of practical acquaintance with mankind. That is his great defect, and it is a defect so serious that it will probably, in the end, deprive his historical works of the place in general estimation to which, from the beauty of their composition and the rich veins of romance with which they abound, they are justly entitled. These imaginative qualities are invaluable additions to the sterling qualities of truth, judgment, and trust-worthiness; but they can never supply their place. They are the colouring of history; they give infinite grace to its composition; they deck it out with all the charms of light and shade: but they can never make up for the want of accurate drawing from nature, and a faithful delineation of objects as they really exist in the world around us. Nay, an undue preponderance of the imaginative qualities in an historian, if not accompanied by a scrupulous regard to truth, tends rather to lessen the weight due to his narrative, by inspiring a constant dread that he is either passing off imaginary scenes for real events, or colouring reality so highly that it is little better than fiction. This is more especially the case with a writer such as Lamartine, whose thoughts are so vivid and style so poetical, that, even when he is describing events in themselves perfectly true, his narrative is so embellished that it assumes the character of romance, and is distrusted from a suspicion that it is a mere creation of the imagination.

In addition to this, there is a capital deficiency in Lamartine's historical works, for which no qualities of style or power of composition, how brilliant soever, can compensate; and which, if not supplied in some future editions, will go far to deprive them of all credit or authority with future times. This is the entire want of all authorities or references, either at the bottom, of the page or at the end of the work. In the eight volumes of the History of the Girondists, and the four on the Revolution of 1848, now before us, we do not recollect ever having met with a single reference or footnote containing a quotation from any state paper, speech, or official document. It is impossible to overestimate the magnitude of this defect; and it is astonishing how so able and well-informed a writer as Lamartine should have fallen into it. Does he suppose that the world are to take everything he says off his hand, without reference or examination; or imagine that the brilliant and attractive graces of his style do not increase the necessity for such authorities, from the constant suspicion they beget that they have been drawn from the store of his imagination, not the archives of history? No brilliancy of description, no richness of colouring, no amount of dramatic power, can make up for a want of the one thing needful—trust in the TRUTH of the narrative. Observe children: every one knows how passionately fond they are of having stories told them, and how much they prefer them to any of the ordinary pastimes suited to their years. How often, however, do you hear them say, But is it all true? It is by making them believe that fiction is the narrative of real event that the principal interest is communicated to the story. Where the annals of event are coloured as Lamartine knows how to colour them, they become more attractive than any romance. The great success of his History of the Girondists, and of Macaulay's History of England, is a sufficient proof of this. But still the question will recur to men and women, as well as children—"But is it all true?" And truth in his hands wears so much the air of romance, that he would do well, by all possible adjuncts, to convey the impression that it is in every respect founded in reality.

There is no work which has been published in France, of late years, which has met with anything like the success which his History of the Girondists has had. We have heard that fifty thousand copies of it were sold in the first year. Beyond all doubt, it had a material effect in producing the Revolution of 1848, and precipitating Louis Philippe from the throne. It was thus popular, from the same cause which attracts boys to narratives of shipwrecks, or crowds to representations of woe on the theatre—deep interest in tragic events. He represented the heroes of the first great convulsion in such attractive colours, that men, and still more women, were not only fascinated by the narrative and deeply interested in the characters, but inspired by a desire to plunge into similar scenes of excitement themselves—just as boys become sailors from reading terrific tales of shipwreck, or soldiers, from stories of perils in the deadly breach. In his hands, vice equally with virtue, weakness with resolution, became attractive. He communicated the deepest interest to Robespierre himself, who is the real hero of his story, as Satan is of the Paradise Lost. He drew no veil over the weakness, the irresolution, the personal ambition of the Girondists, so fatal in their consequences to the cause of freedom in France, and through it to that of liberty over the whole world; but he contrived to make them interesting notwithstanding their faults—nay, in consequence of those very faults. He borrowed from romance, where it has been long understood and successfully practised, especially in France, the dangerous secret of making characters of imperfect goodness the real heroes of his tale. He knew that none of the leading characters at Paris were Sir Charles Grandisons; and he knew that, if they had been so, their adventures would have excited, comparatively speaking, very little interest. But he knew that many of them were political Lovelaces; and he knew well that it is by such characters that in public, equally as private life, the weakness of the world is fascinated, and their feelings enchained. And it is in the deep interest which his genius has communicated to really worthless characters, and the brilliant colours in which he has clothed the most sinister and selfish enterprises, that the real danger of his work consists, and the secret of the terrible consequences with which its publication was followed is to be found.

In truth, however, the real cause of those terrible consequences lies deeper, and a fault of a more fundamental kind than any glossing over the frailties of historical characters has at once rendered his work so popular and its consequences so tremendous. Rely upon it, truth and reason, all-powerful and even victorious in the end, are never a match for sophistry and passion in the outset. When you hear of a philosophical historical work going through half-a-dozen editions in six months, or selling fifty thousand copies in a year, you may be sure that there is a large intermixture of error, misrepresentation, and one-sidedness in its composition. The cause is, that truth and reason are in general distasteful in the outset to the human mind; and it is by slow degrees, and the force of experience alone, that their ascendency is established. What attracts, in the first instance, in thought, independent of the charms of eloquence and the graces of composition—which of course are indispensable to great success—is coincidence with the tendency and aspirations of general thought. But so prone to error and delusion is the human mind, from its inherent character and original texture, that it is a hundred to one that general thought at any one time, especially if it is one of considerable excitement or vehement feeling, is founded in error. And thus it often happens, that the works which have the most unbounded success at their first publication, and for a considerable time after, are precisely those which contain the largest portion of error, and are likely, when reduced into practice, to have the most fatal effects upon the best interests of the species. Witness the works of Rousseau and Voltaire in France, to whose influence the first revolution is mainly to be ascribed; those of Lamartine, Victor Hugo, and Eugene Sue, who have been chiefly instrumental in bringing about the still more widespread convulsions of our times.

The fundamental principle of Lamartine's political philosophy, and which we regard as his grand error, and the cause at once of his success in the outset and his failure in the end, is the principle of the general innocence and perfectibility of human nature. It is this principle, so directly repugnant to the fundamental doctrines of Christianity, that it may be regarded as literally speaking the "banner-cry of hell," which is at the bottom of the whole revolutionary maxims; and it is so flattering to the hopes, and agreeable to the weakness of human nature, that it can scarcely ever fail, when brought forward with earnestness and enforced by eloquence, to captivate the great majority of mankind. Rousseau proclaimed it in the loudest terms in all his works; it was the great secret of his success. According to him, man was born innocent, and with dispositions only to virtue: all his vices arose from the absurdity of the teachers who tortured his youth, all his sufferings from the tyranny of the rulers who oppressed his manhood. Lamartine, taught by the crimes, persuaded by the sufferings of the first Revolution, has modified this principle without abandoning its main doctrines, and thus succeeded in rendering it more practically dangerous, because less repugnant to the common sense and general experience of mankind. His principle is, that démagogie is always selfish and dangerous; démocratie always safe and elevating. The ascendency of a few ambitious or worthless leaders precipitates the masses, when they first rise against their oppressors, into acts of violence, which throw a stain upon the cause of freedom, and often retard for a season its advance. But that advance is inevitable: it is only suspended for a time by the reaction against bloodshed; and in the progressive elevation of the millions of mankind to general intelligence, and the direction of affairs, he sees the practical development of the doctrines of the gospel, and the only secure foundation for general felicity. He is no friend to the extreme doctrines of the Socialists and Communists, and is a stanch supporter of the rights of property—and the most important of all rights, those of marriage and family. But he sees in the sway of the multitude the only real basis of general happiness, and the only security against the inroads of selfishness; and he regards the advances towards this grand consummation as being certain and irresistible as the advance of the tide upon the sand, or the progress from night to morning. In this way he hopes to reconcile the grand doctrine of human perfectibility with the universal failure of all attempts at its practical establishment; and continues to dream of the irresistible and blessed march of democracy, while recounting alike the weakness of the Girondists, and the crimes of the Jacobins—the woful result of the Revolution of 1789—and the still more rapid and signal failure of that which convulsed the world sixty years afterwards.

The simple answer to all these absurdities and errors, productive of such disastrous consequences when reduced into practice, is this—"The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked."—"There is none that doeth good, no, not one." It is from this universal and inevitable tendency to wickedness, that the practical impossibility of establishing democratic institutions, without utter ruin to the best interests of society, arises. You seek in vain to escape from the consequences of this universal corruption, by committing power to a multitude of individuals, or extinguishing the government of a few in the sway of numbers. The multitude are themselves as bad by nature as the few, and, for the discharge of the political duties with which they are intrusted, incomparably worse; for, in their case, numbers annihilate responsibility without conferring wisdom, and the contagion of common opinions inflames passion without strengthening reason. In the government of a few, capacity is generally looked for, because it is felt to be beneficial by the depositaries of power; but in that of numbers it is as commonly rejected, because it excites general jealousy, without the prospect of individual benefit. Democratic communities are ruined, no one knows how, or by whom. It is impossible to find any one who is responsible for whatever is done. The ostensible leaders are driven forward by an unseen power, which they are incapable alike of regulating or withstanding: the real leaders—the directors of thought—are unseen and irresponsible. If disasters occur, they ascribe them to the incapacity of the statesmen at the head of affairs: they relieve themselves of responsibility, by alleging, with truth, the irresistible influence of an unknown power. No one is trained to the duties of statesmanship, because no one knows who is to be a statesman. Ignorance, presumption, and ambition, generally mount to the head of affairs: the wheel of fortune, or the favour of a multitude incapable of judging of the subject, determines everything. The only effectual security against spoliation by the rulers of men, the dread of being spoliated themselves, is lost when these rulers are men who are not worth spoliating. Durable interest in the fortunes of the community is no longer felt, when durable tenure of power is known to be impossible. The only motive which remains is, that of making the most of a tenure of power which is universally known to be as short-lived as it is precarious; and prolonging it as long as possible, by bending, in every instance, to the passions or fantasies of the multitude, nominally vested with supreme power, really entirely guided by a few insolvent and ambitious demagogues—

"Ces petits souverains qu'il fait pour un année,
Voyant d'un temps si court leur puissance bornée,
Des plus heureux desseins font avorter le fruit,
De peur de le laiser à celui qui le suit;
Comme ils ont peu de part aux biens dont ils ordonnent,
Dans le champs du public largement ils moissonnent;
Assurés que chacun leur pardonne aisément,
Espérant à son tour un pareil traitement;
Le pire des états, c'est l'état populaire."[13]

Lamartine, regarding the march of democracy as universal and inevitable, is noways disconcerted by the uniform failure of all attempts in old communities to establish it, or the dreadful catastrophes to which they have invariably led. These are merely the breaking of the waves of the advancing tide; but the rise of the flood is not the less progressive and inevitable. He would do well to consider, however, whether there is not a limit to human suffering; whether successive generations will consent to immolate themselves and their children for no other motive than that of advancing an abstract principle, or vindicating privileges for the people fatal to their best interests; and whether resisted attempts, and failures at the establishment of republican institutions, will not, in the end, lead to a lasting apathy and despair in the public mind. Certain it is, that this was the fate of popular institutions in Greece, in Rome, and modern Italy: all of which fell under the yoke of servitude, from a settled conviction, founded on experience, that anything was preferable to the tempests of anarchy. Symptoms, and those too of the most unequivocal kind, may be observed of a similar disposition in the great majority, at least of the rural population, both in France and England. The election of Prince Louis Napoleon by four millions out of six millions of electors, in the former country—the quiet despair with which measures of the most ruinous kind to general industry are submitted to in the latter, are so many proofs of this disposition. The bayonets of Changarnier, the devastating measures of free trade and a restricted currency, are submitted to in both countries, because anything is better than shaking the foundations of government.

In treating of the causes which have led to the revolution of 1848, Lamartine imputes a great deal too much, in our estimation, to individual men or shades of opinion, and too little to general causes, and the ruinous effects of the first great convulsion. He ascribes it to the personal unpopularity of M. Guizot, the selfish and corrupt system of government which the king had established, and the discontent at the national risks incurred by France for the interests only of the Orleans dynasty, in the Montpensier alliance. This tendency arises partly from the constitution of Lamartine's mind, which is poetical and dramatic rather than philosophical; and partly from the disinclination felt by all intelligent liberal writers to ascribe the failure of their measures to their natural and inevitable effects, rather than the errors or crimes of individual men. In this respect, doubtless, he is more consistent and intelligible than M. Thiers, who, in his History of the French Revolution, ascribes the whole calamities which occurred to the inevitable march of events in such convulsions—forgetting that he could not in any other way so severely condemn his own principles, and that it is little for the interest of men to embrace a cause which, in that view, necessarily and inevitably leads to ruin. Lamartine, in running into the opposite extreme, and ascribing everything to the misconduct and errors of individual men, is more consistent, because he saves the principle. But he is not the less in error. The general discontent to which he ascribes so much, the universal selfishness and corruption which he justly considers as so alarming, were themselves the result of previous events: they were the effects, not the causes, of political change. And without disputing the influence, to a certain extent, of the individual men to whose agency he ascribes everything, it may safely be affirmed that there are four causes of paramount importance which concurred in bringing about the late French revolution; and which will for a very long period, perhaps for ever, prevent the establishment of anything like real freedom in that country.

The first of these is the universal disruption of all the old bonds of society, which took place in the first Revolution, and the general fretting against all restraint, human or divine, which arose from the ruin of religion and confusion of morals which then took place. These evils have only been partially remedied by the re-establishment of the Christian faith over the whole realm, and the sway which it has undoubtedly acquired in the rural districts. The active and energetic inhabitants of the great towns still continue influenced by the Revolutionary passions, the strongest of which is the thirst for present enjoyment, and the impatience of any restraint, whether from the influence of conscience or the authority of law. This distinctly appears from the licentious style of the novels which have now for a quarter of a century issued from the press of Paris, and which is in general such that, though very frequently read in England, it is very seldom, especially by women, that this reading is admitted. The drama, that mirror of the public mind, is another indication of the general prevalence of the same licentious feeling: it is for the most part such, that few even of the least tight-laced English ladies can sit out the representation. The irreligion, or rather general oblivion of religion, which commonly prevails in the towns, is a part, though doubtless a most important part, of this universal disposition: Christianity is abjured or forgotten, not because it is disbelieved, but because it is disagreeable. Men do not give themselves the trouble to inquire whether it is true or false; they simply give it the go-by, and pass quietly on the other side, because it imposes a restraint, to them insupportable, on their passions. Dispositions of this sort are the true feeders of revolution, because they generate at once its convulsions in like manner, as passions which require gratification, poverty which demands food, and activity which pines for employment. Foreign war or domestic convulsion are the only alternatives which, in such a state of society, remain to government. Napoleon tried the first, and he brought the Cossacks to Paris; Louis Philippe strove to become the Napoleon of peace, but he succeeded only in being the pioneer of revolution.

The great and durable interests of society, which the indulgence of such passions inevitably ruins, are the barrier which, in ordinary circumstances, is opposed to these disorders; and it is this influence which has so long prevented any serious outbreak of anarchy in Great Britain. But the immense extent of the confiscation of landed property during the first Revolution, and the total ruin of commercial and movable wealth, from the events of the maritime war, and the effects of the enormous issue of assignats, has prevented the construction of this barrier in anything like sufficient strength to withstand the forces which pressed against it. Nine-tenths of the realised wealth of the country was destroyed during the convulsion; what remained was for the most part concentrated in the hands of a few bankers and moneyed men, who aimed at cheapening everything, and depressing industry, in order to augment the value of their metallic riches. The influence of the natural leaders of the producing class, the great proprietors of land, was at an end, for they were almost all destroyed. The six millions of separate landed proprietors, who had come in their place, had scarcely any influence in the state; for the great majority of them were too poor to pay 200 francs a-year (£8) direct taxes—the necessary condition towards an admission into the electoral body—and as individuals they were in too humble circumstances to have any influence in the state. The returns of the "Impôt foncière," or land-tax, showed that above four millions of this immense body had properties varying from £2 to £10 a-year each—not more than is enjoyed by an Irish bogtrotter. In these circumstances, not only was the steadying influence of property in general unfelt in the state, but the property which did make itself felt was of a disturbing rather than a pacifying tendency; for it was that of bankers and money-lenders, whose interests, being those of consumers, not producers, went to support measures calculated to depress industry rather than elevate it, and thereby augment rather than diminish the distress which, from these causes, soon came to press so severely upon the urban population.

These causes were the necessary results of the dreadful waste of property, and ruin of industry, which had taken place during the first Revolution. The multitude of little proprietors with which France was overspread, could furnish nothing to the metropolis but an endless succession of robust hands to compete with its industry, and starving mouths to share its resources. What could the six millions of French landowners, the majority of them at the plough, afford to lay aside for the luxuries of Paris? Nothing. You might as well expect the West-End shopkeepers of London to be sustained by the starving western Highlanders of Scotland, or the famished crowds of Irish cottars. The natural flow of the wealth of the land to the capital of the kingdom, which invariably sets in when agricultural property is unequally distributed, and a considerable part of it is vested in the hands of territorial magnates, was at once stopped when it became divided among a multitude of persons, not one of whom could afford to travel ten miles from home, or to buy anything but a rustic dress and a blouse to cover it. At least sixty millions sterling, out of the eighty millions which constitute the net territorial produce of France, was turned aside from Paris, and spent entirely in the purchase of the coarsest manufactures or rude subsistence in the provinces. The metropolis came to depend mainly on the expenditure of foreigners, or of the civil and military employés of government. This woful defalcation in its resources occurred at a time, too, when the influx of needy adventurers from the country was daily increasing, from the impossibility of earning a livelihood, amidst the desperate competition of its squalid landowners, and the decline of agriculture, which necessarily resulted from their inability to adopt any of its improvements. Thus the condition of the working classes in Paris went on getting constantly worse, during the whole reign of Louis Philippe; and it was only in consequence of the vast influx of foreigners, which the maintenance of peace and the attractions of the court occasioned, that they were not reduced many years before to the despair and misery which at once occasioned and followed the last revolution.

Amidst a population excited to discontent by these causes, another circumstance has operated with peculiar force, which we do not recollect to have seen hitherto noticed in disquisitions on this subject—this is the prodigious number of natural children and foundlings at Paris. It is well known that ever since the close of the first Revolution the number of illegitimate births in Paris has borne a very great proportion to the legitimate; they are generally as 10,000 to 18,000 or 19,000. For a long time past, every third child seen in the streets of Paris has been a bastard. Hitherto this important feature of society has been considered with reference to the state of morality in regard to the relation of the sexes which it indicates; but attend to its social and political effects. These bastards do not always remain children; they grow up to be men and women. The foundlings of Paris, already sufficiently numerous, are swelled by a vast concourse of a similar class over all France, who flock, when they have the means of transport, to the capital as the common sewer of the commonwealth. There are at present about 1,050,000 souls in the French metropolis. Suppose that a third of these are natural children, there are then 350,000 persons, most of them foundlings of illegitimate birth, in that capital. Taking a fourth of them as capable of bearing arms, we have 85,000 bastards constantly ready to fight in Paris.

Consider only the inevitable results of such a state of things in an old and luxurious metropolis, teeming with indigence, abounding with temptation, overflowing with stimulants to the passions. The enfant trouvé of Paris, when grown up, becomes a gamin de Paris, just as naturally and inevitably as a chrysalis becomes a butterfly. He has obtained enough of instruction to enable him to imbibe temptation, and not enough to enable him to combat it. He has in general received the rudiments of education: he can read the novels of Victor Hugo, Eugene Sue, and George Sand; he can study daily the Réforme or National, or Démocratie Pacifique. He looks upon political strife as a game at hazard, in which the winning party obtain wealth and honour, mistresses, fortunes, and enjoyments. As to religion, he has never heard of it, except as a curious relic of the olden time, sometimes very effective on the opera stage; as to industry, he knows not what it is; as to self-control, he regards it as downright folly where self-indulgence is practicable. The most powerful restraints on the passions of men—parents, children, property—are to him unknown. He knows not to whom he owes his birth; his offspring are as strange to him as his parents, for they, like him, are consigned to the Foundling Hospital: he has nothing in the world he can call his own, except a pair of stout arms to aid in the formation of barricades, and a dauntless heart ready at any moment to accept the hazard of death or pleasure. Hanging midway, as it were, between the past and the future, he has inherited nothing from the former but its vices, he will transmit nothing to the latter but its passions. Whoever considers the inevitable results of eighty or ninety thousand men in the prime of life actuated by these dispositions, associating with an equal number of women of the same class, affected by the same misfortune in their birth, and influenced by the same passions, constantly existing in a state of indigence and destitution in the heart of Paris, will have no difficulty in accounting for the extraordinary difficulty which, for the last half century, has been experienced in governing France, and will probably despair of ever succeeding in it but by force of arms.

We hear nothing of these facts from Lamartine, whose mind is essentially dramatic, and who represents revolutions, as he evidently considers them, as the work of individual men, working upon the inevitable march of society towards extreme republican institutions. He gives us no statistics; he never refers to general causes, except the universal progress towards democracy, which he regards as irresistible. Least of all is he alive to the ruinous effects of the first great disruption of the bonds of society which naturally followed the Revolution of 1789, or disposed to regard the subsequent convulsions, as what they really are—the inevitable result and just punishment of the enormous sins of the Revolution. And—mark-worthy circumstance!—these consequences are the obvious result of the great crimes committed in its course; the confiscation of property which it occasioned, the overthrow of religion and morals with which it was attended. They have fallen with peculiar severity upon Paris, the centre of the revolutionary faction, and the focus from which all its iniquities emanated, and where the blood of its noblest victims was shed. And if revolutions such as we have witnessed or read of in that country are indeed inevitable, and part of the mysterious system of Providence in the regulation of human affairs, we can regard them as nothing but a realisation of that general tendency to evil which is so clearly foretold in prophecy, and indications of the advent of those disastrous times which are to be closed by the second coming of the Messiah.

We have all heard of the mingled treachery and irresolution—treachery in the national guard, irresolution in the royal family—which brought about the revolution which Lamartine has so eloquently described. It is evident, even from his account—which, it may be supposed, is not unduly hostile to the popular side—that it was the bar-sinister in its birth which proved fatal, in the decisive moment, to the Throne of the Barricades; and that the revolution might with ease have been suppressed, if any other power had been called to combat it but that which owed its existence to a similar convulsion.

"The King was lost in thought, while the tocsin was sounding, on the means by which it might yet be possible to calm the people, and restrain the revolution, in which he persisted in seeing nothing but a riot. The abdication of his external-political system, personified in M. Guizot, M. Duchatel, and the majority of the Chambers entirely devoted to his interests, appeared to him to amount to more than the renunciation of his crown; it was the abandonment of his thoughts, of his wisdom, of the prestige of his infallibility in the eyes of Europe, of his family, of his people. To yield a throne to adverse fortune, is little to a great mind. To yield his renown and authority to triumphant adverse opinion and implacable history, is the most painful effort which can be required of a man, for it at once destroys and humbles him. But the King was not one of those hardy characters who enjoy, with sang-froid, the destruction of a people for the gratification of their pride. He had read much of history, acted much in troubled times, reflected much. He could not conceal from himself, that a dynasty which should reconquer Paris by means of grape-shot and bombs would be for ever besieged by the horror of the people. His field of battle had always been opinion. It was on it that he wished to act; he hoped to regain it by timely concessions. Only, like a prudent economist, he higgled with opinion like a Jewish pawnbroker, in the hopes of purchasing it at the smallest possible sacrifice of his system and dignity. He flattered himself he had several steps of popularity to descend before quitting the throne."—(Vol. i., p. 102.)

The immediate cause of the overthrow of the throne, it is well known, was the fatal order which the delusion of M. Thiers, when called to the ministry, extorted from the weakness of the King, to stop firing—to cease resistance—to succumb to the assailants. Marshal Bugeaud was perfectly firm; the troops were steady; ample military force was at their command; everything promised decisive success to vigorous operations. Marshal Bugeaud's plan was of the simplest but most efficacious kind.

"Marshal Bugeaud, with his military instinct, matured by experience and the habit of handling troops, knew that immobility is the ruin of the morale of soldiers. He changed in a moment the plan of operations submitted to him. He instantly called around him the officers commanding corps. The one was Tiburie Sebastiani, brother of the marshal of the same name, a calm and faithful officer; the other, General Bedeau, whose name, made illustrious by his exploits in Africa, carried respect with it, to his companions in arms in Paris. He ordered them to form two columns of 3500 men each, and to advance into the centre of Paris—the one by the streets which traverse it from the Boulevards to the Hôtel de Ville, the other by streets which cross it from the quays. Each of the columns had artillery, and their instructions were to carry, in their advance, all the barricades, to destroy these fortresses of the insurrection, to cannonade the masses, and concentrate their columns on the Hôtel de Ville, the decisive point of the day. General Lamoricière was to command a reserve of 9000 men, stationed around the palace."—(Vol. i., pp. 136, 137.)

The despair of the troops when compelled to retire before a tumultuous mob—to confess defeat in their own capital, and in the face of Europe, is thus described:—

"At daybreak the two columns of troops set out on their march; their progress was, every ten minutes, reported by staff-officers in disguise. They experienced no serious resistance on their way to the Hôtel de Ville; the crowd opened as they advanced, with cries of 'Vive la Réforme!' they trampled under foot, without firing a shot, the beginnings of the barricades. Nevertheless, the uncertainty of what was passing in the Tuileries paralysed the arms in the hands of the soldiers. The Marshal, at length constrained by the reiterated orders of the King, sent orders to his lieutenants to make the troops fall back. Marshal Bedeau, upon this, made his battalions retire. Some soldiers threw their muskets on the ground, as a sign of despair or fraternisation. Their return across Paris had the appearance of a defection, or of the advanced guard of the revolution marching on the Tuileries. The troops, already vanquished by these orders, took up their position, untouched but powerless, on the Place de la Concorde, in the Champs Elysées, in the Rue de Rivoli. The French troops, when disgraced, are no longer an army. They felt in their hearts the bitterness of that retreat; they feel it still."—(Vol. i., p. 139.)

But it was soon found that these disgraceful concessions to mob violence would avail nothing; that M. Thiers and M. Odillon Barrot were alike unequal to stemming the torrent which they had put in motion; and that the King, as a reward for his humane order to the troops not to fire upon the people, was to be called on to abdicate! In the disgraceful scene of pusillanimity and weakness which ensued, we regret to say the princes of the royal family, and especially the Duke de Montpensier, evinced as much cowardice as the princesses did courage;—exemplifying thus again what Napoleon said of the Bourbons in 1815, that there was only one man in the family, and that man was a woman. The decisive moment is thus described with dramatic power, but, we have no doubt, historic truth, by M. Lamartine:—

"M. Girardin, in a few brief and sad words, which abridged minutes and cut short objections, said to the King with mournful respect, that changes of ministry were no longer in season; that the moment was sweeping away the throne with the councils, and that there was but one word suitable to the urgency of the occasion, and that word was 'abdication.'

"The King was in one of those moments when truths strike without offending. Nevertheless, he let fall, upon hearing these words, from his hands the pen with which he was arranging the names of the new ministry. He was desirous of discussing the question. M. Girardin, pitiless as evidence, pressing as time, would not even admit of discussion. 'Sire!' said he, 'the abdication of the king, or the abdication of the monarchy—there is the alternative. Circumstances will not admit even of a minute to find a third issue from the straits in which we are placed.' While he thus spoke, M. Girardin placed before the King the draft of a proclamation which he had prepared and he wished to have printed. That proclamation, concise as a fact, consisted only of four lines, calculated to attract the eyes of the people.

The abdication of the King.

The regency of the Duchess of Orleans.

The dissolution of the Chamber of Deputies.

A general amnesty.

"The King hesitated. The Duke de Montpensier his son, carried away, doubtless, by the energetic expression in the physiognomy, gesticulations, and words of M. Girardin, pressed his father with more vehemence than rank, age, and misfortunes should have permitted to the respect of a son. The pen was presented, and the crown torn from the monarch by an impatience which could not wait for his full and free conviction. The rudeness of fortune towards the King was forgotten in the precipitance of the council. On the other hand, blood was beginning to flow, the throne was gliding away. The lives even of the King and his family might be endangered. Everything can be explained by the solicitude and the tenderness of the councillors. History should ever take the version which least humiliates and bruises least the human heart."—(Vol. i., p. 127.)

Observe the poetic justice of this consummation. The member of his family, who at the decisive moment failed in his duty, and compelled his infirm and gray-haired father to abdicate, was the Duc de Montpensier—the very prince for whose elevation he had perilled the English alliance, violated his plighted word, endangered the peace of Europe! The heir-presumptive of the crown of Spain was the first to shake the crown of France from his father's head! Vanquished by his personal fears, unworthy of his high rank and higher prospects, a disgrace to his country, he evinced, what is rare in France in any station, not merely moral, but physical pusillanimity. To this end have the intrigues of the Orleans family, from Egalité downwards, ultimately tended. They have not only lost the crown, to win which they forgot their allegiance and violated their oaths, but they have lost it with dishonour and disgrace: they are not only exiles, but they are despised exiles. Such have been the fruits of the Orleans intrigues to gain the crown of France.

As a bright contrast to this woful exhibition, we gladly translate M. Lamartine's account of the memorable scene in the chambers, where the Duchess of Orleans nobly contended with an infuriated and bloodthirsty rabble for the crown, now devolved to her son by his grandfather's abdication. Had such spirited devotion been found in her husband's family, they might have transmitted the honours they had won in the Orleans dynasty.

"The great door opposite the tribune, on a level with the most elevated benches in the hall, opened; a woman appeared dressed in mourning: it was the Duchess of Orleans. Her veil, half raised on her hat, allowed her countenance to be seen, bearing the marks of an emotion and sadness which heightened the interest of youth and beauty. Her pale cheeks bore the traces of the tears of the widow, the anxieties of the mother. No man could look on those features without emotion. At their aspect, all resentment against the monarchy fled from the mind. The blue eyes of the princess wandered over the scene, with which she had been a moment dazzled, as if to implore aid by her looks. Her slender but elegant form bowed at the applause which saluted her. A slight colour—the dawn of hope amidst ruin—of joy amidst sorrow—suffused her cheeks. A smile of gratitude beamed through her tears. She felt herself surrounded by friends. With one hand she held the young king, who stumbled on the steps, with the other the young Duke of Chartres: infants to whom the catastrophe which destroyed them was a subject of amusement. They were both clothed in short black dresses. A white shirt-collar was turned over their dresses, as in the portraits by Vandyke of the children of Charles I.

"The Duke of Nemours walked beside the princess, faithful to the memory of his brother in his nephews; a protector who would ere long stand in need of protection himself. The figure of that prince, ennobled by misfortune, breathed the courageous but modest satisfaction of a duty discharged at the hazard of his life. Some generals in uniform, and officers of the national guard, followed her steps. She bowed with timid grace to the assembly, and sat down motionless at the foot of the tribune, an innocent accused person before a tribunal without appeal, which was about to judge the cause of royalty. At that moment, that cause was gained in the eyes and hearts of all."—(Vol i. p. 177.)

But it was all in vain. The mob on the outside broke into the assembly. The national guard, as usual, failed at the decisive moment, and royalty was lost.

"An unwonted noise was heard at the door on the left of the tribune. Unknown persons, national guards with arms in their hands, common people in their working-dresses, break open the doors, overthrow the officers who surround the tribune, invade the assembly, and, with loud cries, demand the Duke of Nemours. Some deputies rose from their seats to make a rampart with their bodies around the princess. M. Mauguin calmly urged them to retire. General Oudinot addressed them with martial indignation. Finding words unavailing, he hastily traversed the crowd to demand the support of the national guard. He represented to them the inviolability of the assembly, and the respect due to a princess and a woman insulted amidst French bayonets. The national guards heard him, feigned to be indignant, but slowly took up their arms, and ended by doing nothing."—(Vol. i. p. 180.)

In justice to Lamartine also, we must give an abstract of his animated and eloquent account of the most honourable event in his life, and one which should cover a multitude of sins—the moment when he singly contended with the maddened rabble who had triumphed over the throne, and, by the mere force of moral courage and eloquent expression, defeated the Red Republicans, who were desirous to hoist the drapeau rouge, the well-known signal of bloodshed and devastation:—

"In this moment of popular frenzy, Lamartine succeeded in calming the people by a sort of patriotic hymn on their victory—so sudden, so complete, so unlooked-for even by the most ardent friends of liberty. He called God to witness the admirable humanity and religious moderation which the people had hitherto shown alike in the combat and their triumph. He placed prominently forward that sublime instinct which, the evening before, had thrown them, when still armed, but already disciplined and obedient, into the arms of a few men who had submitted themselves to calumny, exhaustion, and death, for the safety of all. 'That,' said Lamartine, 'was what the sun beheld yesterday, and what would he shine upon to-day? He would behold a people the more furious that there was no longer any enemies to combat; distrusting the men whom but yesterday it had intrusted with the lead,—constraining them in their liberty, insulting them in their dignity, disavowing their authority, substituting a revolution of vengeance and punishment for one of unanimity and fraternity, and commanding the government to hoist, in token of concord, the standard of a combat to the death between the citizens of the same country! That red flag, which was sometimes raised as the standard against our enemies when blood was flowing, should be furled after the combat, in token of reconciliation and peace. I would rather see the black flag which they hoist sometimes in a besieged town as a symbol of death, to designate to the bombs the edifices consecrated to humanity, and which even the balls of the enemy respect. Do you wish, then, that the symbol of your republic should be more menacing and more sinister than the colours of a besieged city?' 'No no!' cried some of the crowd, 'Lamartine is right: let us not keep that standard, the symbol of terror, for our citizens.' 'Yes, yes!' cried others, 'it is ours—it is that of the people—it is that with which we have conquered. Why should we not keep, after the conflict, the colours which we have stained with our blood?'—'Citizens!' said Lamartine, after having exhausted every argument calculated to affect the imagination of the people, 'you may do violence to the government: you may command it to change the colours of the nation and the colours of France. If you are so ill advised and so obstinate in error as to impose on it a republic of party and flag of terror, the government is as decided as myself to die rather than dishonour itself by obeying you: for myself, my hand shall never sign that decree: I will resist even to the death that symbol of blood; and you should repudiate it as well as I; for the red flag which you bring us has never gone beyond the Champ de Mars, dragged red in the blood of the people in '91 and '93; but the tricolor flag has made the tour of the world, with the name, the glory, and the liberty of our country.' At these words, Lamartine, interrupted by the unanimous cries of enthusiasm, fell from the chair which served for his tribune, into the arms stretched out on all sides to receive him. The cause of the new republic was triumphant over the bloody recollections which they wished to substitute for it. The hideous crowd which filled the hall retired, amidst cries of 'Vive Lamartine!—Vive le Drapeau Tricolor!'

"The danger, however, was not over. The crowd which had been carried away by his words was met by another crowd which had not hitherto been able to penetrate into the hall, and which was more vehement in words and gesticulations. Menacing expressions, ardent vociferations, cries of suffocation, threatening gestures, discharges of firearms on the stair, tatters of a red flag waved by naked arms above the sea of heads, rendered this one of the most frightful scenes of the Revolution. 'Down with Lamartine! Death to Lamartine! no Temporising,—the Decree, the Decree, or the Government of Traitors to the lamp-post!' exclaimed the assailants. These cries neither caused Lamartine to hesitate, to retire, nor to turn pale. At the sight of him the fury of the assailants, instead of being appeased, increased tenfold. Muskets were directed at his head, the nearest brandished bayonets in his face, and a savage group of twenty, with brutal drunken visages, charged forward with their heads down, as if to break through with an enormous battering-ram the circle which surrounded him. The foremost appeared bereft of reason. Naked sabres reached the head of the orator, whose hand was slightly wounded. The critical moment had arrived; nothing was yet decided. Hazard determined which should prevail. Lamartine expected momentarily to be thrown down and trampled under foot. At that instant one of the populace sprang from the crowd, a ball discharged from below grazed his face and stained it with blood; while it still flowed, he stretched out his arms to Lamartine—'Let me see him, let me touch him,' cried he, 'let me kiss his hand! Listen to him, oh, my citizens! follow his councils: you shall strike me before touching him. I will die a thousand times to preserve that good citizen for my country.' With these words he precipitated himself into his arms, and held him convulsively embraced. The people were moved at this scene; and a hundred voices again exclaimed 'Vive le Gouvernement Provisoire!—Vive Lamartine!'"—(Vol. i. pp. 393, 402.)

We purposely close our account of Lamartine's personal career with this splendid passage in his life. His subsequent conduct, it is well known, has ill accorded with this beginning. His popularity in Paris fell as rapidly as it had risen; and on occasion of the terrible revolt of June 1848, he retired from the government, with all his colleagues, from acknowledged inability to meet the crisis which had arisen. We have heard different accounts of the real causes of his mysterious alliance with his former opponent, and the head of the Red Republicans, M. Ledru Rollin, to which this fall was owing. Some of these stories are little to his credit. We forbear to mention them, lest we should unwittingly disseminate falsehood in regard to a man of undoubted genius and great acquirements. Perhaps, in some future "Confidences," he may be able to explain much which undoubtedly at present stands in need of explanation. We gladly leave this dubious subject, to give a place to his dramatic account of the dreadful conflict in June, in the streets of Paris, which is the more entitled to credit, as he was an eyewitness of several of its most terrible scenes:—

"Assemblages of eight or ten thousand persons were already formed on the Place of the Pantheon to attack the Luxembourg. M. Arago harangued them and persuaded them to disperse; but it was only to meet again in the quarters adjoining the Seine, in the Faubourg St Antoine, and on the Boulevards. At the sight of them the faubourgs turned out—the streets were filled—the Ateliers Nationaux turned out their hordes—the populace, excited by some chief, began to raise barricades. These chiefs were, for the most part, brigadiers of the national workshops, the pillars of sedition and of the clubs, irritated at the disbanding of their corps, the wages of which, passing through their hands, had been applied, it is said, to paying the Revolution. From the barriers of Charenton, Fontainebleau, and Menilmontant, to the heart of Paris, the entire capital was in the hands of a few thousand men. The rappel called to their standards 200,000 National Guards, ten times sufficient to overthrow those assemblages of the seditious, and to destroy their fortifications. But it must be said, to the disgrace of that day, and for the instruction of posterity, that the National Guard at that decisive moment did not answer in a body to the appeal of the government. Their tardiness, their disinclination, their inertness, left the streets in some quarters open to sedition. They looked on with calm eyes on the erection of thousands of barricades, which they had afterwards to reconquer with torrents of blood. Soon the government quitted the Luxembourg and took refuge in the National Assembly, where, at the headquarters of General Cavaignac, was established the supreme council of the nation.

"Government had reckoned on the support of the National Guard; but the incessant beating of the rappel failed in bringing it forth to its standards. In several quarters they were imprisoned by the insurgents. In fine, be it tardiness, or be it fatality, the army was far from responding in a body to the imminence and universality of the peril. Its numerical weakness aggravated the danger. General Lamoricière, invincible, though soon besieged by 200,000 men, occupied the whole extent from the Rue du Temple to the Madeleine, from the Rue de Clichy to the Louvre—constantly on horseback, ever foremost in fire, he had two horses shot under him—his countenance black with powder, his forehead running down with sweat, his voice hoarse with giving the word of command, but his eye serene and calm as a soldier in his native element, he restored spirit to his men, confidence to the National Guards. His reports to government breathed the intrepidity of his soul, but he made no concealment of the imminence of the danger, and the insufficiency of the troops at his disposal. He painted the immense multitude of the assailants and the vast network of barricades which stretched between the Bastile and the Chateau d'Eau, between the barriers and the Boulevard. Incessantly he implored reinforcements, which the government as continually summoned to its support by the telegraph, and officers specially despatched. At length the National Guards of the neighbourhood of Paris began to arrive, and, ranging themselves round the Assembly, furnished an example to those of the capital. Then, and not till then, confidence began to be felt in the midst of the chances of the combat."—(Vol. ii., pp. 480-481.)

It was a most fortunate event for the cause of order, and, with it, of real freedom throughout the world, that this great revolt was so completely suppressed, though at the cost of a greater number of lives, particularly in general officers, than fell in many a bloody battle, by the efforts of General Cavaignac and his brave companions in arms. It is said that their measures, at first, were not skilfully taken—that they lost time, and occasioned unnecessary bloodshed at the outset, by neglecting to attack the barricades when they began to be formed; and certainly the easy and bloodless suppression of the late revolt against the government of Prince Louis Napoleon, by General Changarnier, seems to favour this opinion. It must be recollected, however, that the revolt of May 1849 occurred when the memory of the popular overthrow of June 1848 was still fresh in the minds of the people; and it is not easy to overestimate the effect of that decisive defeat in paralysing revolt on the one side, and adding nerve to resistance on the other. It is evident that Louis Napoleon is not a Duc de Montpensier—he will not surrender his authority without a fight. But supposing that there was some tardiness in adopting decisive measures on occasion of the June revolt, that only makes the lesson more complete, by demonstrating the inability of the bravest and most determined populace to contend with a regular military force, when the troops are steady to their duty, and bravely led by their chiefs. The subsequent suppression of the revolts in Prague, Vienna, Madrid, and Rome, have confirmed the same important truth. Henceforth, it is evident, the horrors of revolution may always be averted, when government is firm, and the military are faithful.

And these horrors are in truth such, that it becomes evidently the first of political and social duties for the rulers of men to justify the eminence of their rank by their courage, and the troops to vindicate the trust reposed in them by their fidelity. Passing by the woful exposé of the almost hopeless state of the French finances, with a deficit of above Twelve Millions sterling, despite an addition of forty-five per cent to the direct taxes, made by Prince Louis Napoleon to the National Assembly, we rest on the following curious and important details taken from the Times of July 12, in regard to the effect of the revolution of 1848 upon the comforts and condition of the labouring classes in France:—

"It appears it is the middle class of tradesmen that are now most suffering from the effects of revolution. The funds on which this class had been living, in the hope that better days would soon arrive, and which amongst some of the small tradesmen formed their capital, have become exhausted. Those who had no money had, at all events, some credit; but both money and credit are now gone. The result is, that even in this period of comparative tranquillity more shops are closed than in the days of turbulence.

"The following statement of the fluctuations of the revenues of the city of Paris, occasioned also by revolution, and which goes back to 1826, is taken from the Débats:—

"'The returns of the produce of indirect impost is the unfailing testimony to the progress or decrease of public tranquillity. We proved this truth yesterday in publishing, on the authority of a well-informed journal, the comparative state of the receipts of the Paris octroi for the first six months of the years 1847, 1848, and 1849. It is still further proved by valuable documents which we have at this moment before us. Thus, the produce of the octroi was, in 1847, 34,511,389 francs; and in 1848, only 26,519,627 francs, showing a difference of 7,991,762 francs. This decrease is enormous, in relation to the immense necessities created by the political and social crisis, the works undertaken by the city, and the previous expenses it had to provide for. We could analyse the different chapters of this municipal revenue, which affords life to so many branches of Parisian industry; but it is useless to inquire, for each of these chapters, the particular causes of diminution. With the great event of 1848 before us, all details disappear. One sole cause has produced a decrease in the receipts, and that is the revolution of February; which, at first menacing society itself by the voice of democratic orators and the pens of demagogue writers, frightened away capital and annihilated industry of all kinds. In order to be able to judge of the influence of great political events on the receipts of the Paris octroi, it will be sufficient to recur to the years which preceded and followed the revolution of 1830:—

	Francs.
In 1826 the produce was	31,057,000
In 1827 (the first shock in consequence of the progress of the opposition in the country, and the dissolution of the national guard)	29,215,000
In 1828 (fall of the Villèle ministry—continuation of the political movement notwithstanding the Montignac ministry)	28,927,000
In 1829 (ministry of the 8th August—presentiments of a struggle between the crown and country)	27,695,000
In 1830 (July Revolution)	26,240,000
In 1831 (incessant agitation—repeated outbreaks)	24,035,000
In 1832 (continuation of revolutionary movement—events of the 5th and 6th June)	22,798,000
In 1833 (progressive establishment of tranquillity)	26,667,000
In 1834 (the situation becomes better, with the exception of the events of the 13th and 14th April, which, however, were brief)	27,458,000
From 1835 to 1838 (calm—cabinet of 15th April—the produce in the latter year)	31,518,000
In 1839 (Parliamentary coalition, 12th May)	30,654,000
In 1840 (fears of war—rupture of the English Alliance, &c.)	29,906,000
From 1841 to 1845 (calm—progressive increase in the latter year)	34,165,000
In 1846 (notwithstanding the dearness of food, the receipts were)	33,990,000
In 1847 (commercial crisis, &c.)	33,033,000
In 1848 (revolution of February)	26,519,000

"The following from La Patrie gives a good idea of the effects of an unquiet state of society:—

"'Revolutions cost dear. They, in the first place, augment the public expenses and diminish the general resources. Occasionally they yield something, but before gathering in the profits the bill must be paid. M. Audiganne, chef de bureau at the department of commerce and agriculture, has published a curious work on the industrial crisis brought on by the revolution of February. M. Audiganne has examined all branches of manufactures, and has shown that the crisis affected every one. In the Nord, at Lisle, cotton-spinning, which occupied thirty-four considerable establishments, employing a capital of 7,000,000f. or 8,000,000f.; and tulle making, employing 195 looms, were obliged to reduce their production one-half. At Turcoing and Roubaix, where cloth and carpet manufactories occupied 12,000 workmen, the produce went down two-thirds, and 8000 men were thrown out of work. In the Pas-de-Calais the fabrication of lace and cambrics was obliged to stop before a fall of twenty-five per cent. The linen factory of Capecure, founded in 1836, and which employed 1800 men, was in vain aided by the Municipal Council of Boulogne and the local banks; it at last succumbed to the crisis. In the department of the Somme, 142,000 workmen, who were employed in the woollen, cotton, stocking, and velvet manufactories, were reduced to idleness. In the arrondissement of Abbeville, where the business, known by the name of 'lockwork' of Picardy, yielded an annual produce of 4,000,000f., the orders stopped completely, and the unfortunate workmen were obliged to go and beg their bread in the environs. At Rouen, where the cotton trade gave an annual produce of more than 250,000,000f., there were the same disasters; yet the common goods continued to find purchasers, owing to their low price. At Caen, the lace manufacture, which in 1847 employed upwards of 50,000 persons, or one-eighth of the population of Calvados, was totally paralysed. At St Quentin, tulle embroidery, which gave a living to 1500 women, received just as severe a blow as in March and April, 1848; almost all the workshops were obliged to close. In the east the loss was not less considerable. Rheims was obliged to close its woollen-thread factories during the months of March, April, and May, 1848. The communal workshop absorbed in some weeks an extraordinary loan of 430,000f. Fortunately, an order for 1,500,000f. of merinos, from New York, allowed the interrupted factories to reopen, and spared the town fresh sacrifices. The revolutionary tempest penetrated into Alsace and there swept away two-thirds of the production. Muhlhausen stopped for several months the greater number of its looms, and diminished one-half the length of labour in the workshops, which remained open. Lyons also felt all the horrors of the crisis. In the same way as muslin and lace, silk found its consumption stopped. For several months the unfortunate Lyons' workmen had for sole subsistence the produce of the colours and scarfs ordered by the Provisional Government. At St Etienne and St Chamond, the principal points of our ribbon and velvet manufacture, and where 85,000 workmen were employed, the production went down two-thirds. At Paris M. Audiganne estimates the loss in what is called Paris goods at nine-tenths of the production. The loss on other articles, he considers, on the contrary, to have been only two-thirds on the sale, and a little more than one-half on the amount of the produce. We only touch in these remarks on the most striking points of the calculation; the total loss, according to M. Audiganne, amounts, for the workmen alone, to upwards of 300,000,000f.'"

	Francs.
In 1826 the produce was	31,057,000
In 1827 (the first shock in consequence of the progress of the opposition in the country, and the dissolution of the national guard)	29,215,000
In 1828 (fall of the Villèle ministry—continuation of the political movement notwithstanding the Montignac ministry)	28,927,000
In 1829 (ministry of the 8th August—presentiments of a struggle between the crown and country)	27,695,000
In 1830 (July Revolution)	26,240,000
In 1831 (incessant agitation—repeated outbreaks)	24,035,000
In 1832 (continuation of revolutionary movement—events of the 5th and 6th June)	22,798,000
In 1833 (progressive establishment of tranquillity)	26,667,000
In 1834 (the situation becomes better, with the exception of the events of the 13th and 14th April, which, however, were brief)	27,458,000
From 1835 to 1838 (calm—cabinet of 15th April—the produce in the latter year)	31,518,000
In 1839 (Parliamentary coalition, 12th May)	30,654,000
In 1840 (fears of war—rupture of the English Alliance, &c.)	29,906,000
From 1841 to 1845 (calm—progressive increase in the latter year)	34,165,000
In 1846 (notwithstanding the dearness of food, the receipts were)	33,990,000
In 1847 (commercial crisis, &c.)	33,033,000
In 1848 (revolution of February)	26,519,000

Such have been the consequences to the people of listening to the voice of their demagogues, who impelled them into the revolution of 1848—to the national guards, of hanging back at the decisive moment, and forgetting their oaths in the intoxication of popular enthusiasm.

And if any one supposes that these effects were only temporary, and that lasting freedom is to be won for France by these sacrifices, we recommend him to consider the present state of France, a year and a half after the revolution of 1848, as painted by one of its ablest supporters, M. Louis Blanc.