THE

AMERICAN
QUARTERLY REVIEW.

No. XVII.

MARCH, 1831.

Philadelphia:
CAREY & LEA.
SOLD IN PHILADELPHIA BY E. L. CAREY & A. HART.
NEW-YORK, BY G. & C. & H. CARVILL.
LONDON:—R. J. KENNETT, 59 GREAT QUEEN STREET.
PARIS:—A. & W. GALIGNANI, RUE VIVIENNE.

Transcriber's notes: Minor typos have been corrected. Table of contents has been generated for HTML version.

[Art. I.—France in 1829-30. By Lady Morgan.]
[Art. II.—Physiologie des Passions.]
[Art. III.—Travels in Kamtchatka and Siberia.]
[Art. IV.—Précis de la Geographie Universelle.]
[Art. V.—Auto-biography Of Thieves.]
[Art. VI.—Tobacco.]
[Art. VII.—Voyages and Discoveries of the Companions of Columbus.]
[Art. VIII.—The History of Louisiana, from the earliest period.]
[Art. IX.—A Full and Accurate Method of Curing Dyspepsia.]
[Art. X.—Bank Of The United States.]

AMERICAN QUARTERLY REVIEW.

No. XVII.

MARCH, 1831.

Art. I.—France in 1829-30. By Lady Morgan. Author of "France in 1816," "Italy," &c. &c. &c. 2 vols. J. & J. Harper: New-York.

It was that solemn hour of the night, when, in the words of the poet, "creation sleeps;"—a silence as of the dead reigned amid the streets and alleys of the great city of Dublin, interrupted, ever and anon, only by the solitary voice of the watchman, announcing the time, and the prospects of fair or foul weather for the ensuing day. Even the noise of carriages returning from revels and festive scenes of various kinds, was no longer heard—

"The diligence of trades and noiseful gain,
And luxury more late, asleep were laid:
All was the night's:"

All! save the inhabitants of one mansion, situated in Kildare street, who were still invading nature's rest. Why were they alone up and stirring? Why were they debarred from taking their needful repose, and obliged to employ the time which should have been devoted to it, in active occupation? The reason is easily understood. Early in the morning, the master and mistress were to set off on a trip to Paris, and there was no small quantity of "packing up" yet to be done. Trunks innumerable lay scattered about a romantically furnished bed-chamber; some were partly filled with different articles of female habiliment; others seemed to be appropriated to literary purposes, and books without number, and of all descriptions, were lying around them—here was a pile of novels, amongst which, the titles of "The Novice of St. Dominick," "Ida of Athens," "The Wild Irish Girl," &c. &c. could be discerned—there was a heap of "Travels," composed of "Italy," "France in 1816," and others:—a couple of volumes, entitled "Life and Times of Salvator Rosa," were reposing in graceful dignity on the open lid of a portmanteau. Several maids were exerting all their activity to get every thing properly arranged; all was bustle and preparation.

Adjoining the chamber was a boudoir, furnished likewise in the most romantic manner, in which sat a lady of even a more romantic appearance than that of either of the apartments. How shall we describe her? She certainly (we must tell the truth, and shame you know whom) did not seem to be of that delightful age, in which a due regard to veracity would allow us to apply to her the line of the poet, "Le printemps dans sa fleur sur son visage est peint." Her cheeks, to be sure, were deeply tinged with a roseate hue, but it was not that with which nature loves to paint the face of spring; the colour proved too palpably, that it had been placed there by the exercise of those "curious arts" with which the sex are enabled to revive dim charms, "and triumph in the bloom of fifty-five." Her dress was romantic in the extreme. Of the unity of time, at all events, it was in direct violation, for its "gay rainbow colours," and modish arrangement, were out of all keeping with her matronly age. One would easily have inferred from it that she was fully impressed with the conviction, that the years which had glided over her head, were not of the old-fashioned kind that contain twelve months, or at least, that she did not consider the lapse of time as at all calculated to impair the attractions of her physiognomy, however prejudicial its effect might be upon the faces of the rest of the female part of the creation. In her countenance there was such an expression of blended affectation and self-complacency, that it was impossible to look upon it without feeling an inclination to smile. She was sitting near a prettily ornamented writing-desk, surmounted by a mirror (in which, by the way, she always found her greatest admirer), with her head reclining on her open hand, her elbow resting on a volume which bore on its back the appropriate title of "The Book of the Boudoir," and her eyes directed, we need hardly say where,—for who does not love to be admired? Her reflections were suddenly disturbed by a knock at the door, which she answered by an "Entrez!" "Ah, Sir Charles, c'est vous," she lisped, as the door opened, and a person in male attire entered, "eh bien, is every thing prêt for our voyage?" "Yes, my dear"—we presume, from this appellation, that the gentleman was her caro sposo, as she might say,—"or at least every thing will be ready shortly; but let me essay again to dissuade you from this foolish expedition"—"de grâce, Sir Charles, ayez pitié de moi; do not pester me with your bétises; I am determined to faire une autre visite to my cher Paris, so that all you may say will be tout à fait inutile." "Well," sighed the caro sposo, "just as you please," and he returned to direct the "packing up," while she began to revel in the anticipations of triumphs, both personal and intellectual, which she intended to gain in the fashionable and literary capital of the world. Alas! "oft expectation fails, and most oft there where most it promises."

Who is this lady? Had she lived in the days of Juvenal, it might have been supposed that he had her in his eye, when he drew, in his sixth satire, the picture of the "greatest of all plagues"—had her existence been cast in the time of the prince of French comic writers, she would undoubtedly have been presumed to be the prototype of the heroine in one of his most exquisite comedies; we need hardly say, therefore, that she is, in the words of Boileau, "une précieuse,

"Reste de ces esprits jadis si renommés
Que d'un coup de son art Molière a diffamés."

Pity, then, kind reader, pity the lot of the unfortunate gentleman whom we have just introduced to your acquaintance. A further account of this dame may prove not unacceptable.

Her father was an honest actor, accustomed to afford great delight to those deities who inhabit the one shilling galleries of English and Irish theatres, and to receive, himself, vast gratification from worshipping at the shrine of Bacchus. The daughter having given early indications of quickness and pertness, came to be considered quite a genius by her family and friends, whose natural partiality soon induced her to entertain the same opinion. Determined, accordingly, not to hide her light under a bushel, she made her appearance before the world as an authoress, from which it may very reasonably be inferred that she had not yet attained the years of discretion. Her début, of course, was as a wanderer in the realms of imagination, alias, a novel-writer, and in this capacity she continued to make the public stare for a series of years. We say stare, for we can find no more appropriate word for expressing the feelings which her fictions are calculated to excite. With plots of almost incomprehensible absurdity, they combine a style more inflated than any balloon in which Madame Blanchard ever sailed through the regions of air—a language, or rather jargon, composed of the pickings of nearly every idiom that ever did live, or is at present in existence, and sentiments which would be often of a highly mischievous tendency, if they were not rendered ridiculous by the manner in which they are expressed. The singularity of these productions excited a good deal of sensation, and, if we believe her own words, she was placed by them "in a definite rank among authors, and in no undistinguished circle of society." In some of the principal journals, however, the lady was severely taken to task, at the same time that she was counselled to obtain for herself a partner in weal and wo, by which she might be brought down from her foolish vagaries, to the sober realities of domestic duty. Wonderful to relate, she followed the advice of those whom her vanity must have taught her to consider as her bitterest foes, namely critics,—and as

"Nought but a genius can a genius fit,
A wit herself, Amelia weds a wit."

This wit was a regular knight of the pestle and mortar—a physician, whose pills and draughts had acquired for him the enviable right of placing that dignified appellation, Sir, before his Christian name, by which our authoress became entitled to be addressed as "Your Ladyship," as much as if she had married an Earl or a Marquis. Oh! how delighted the ci-devant plain "Miss" must have been at hearing the servants say to her, "Yes, my lady,"—"No, my lady."—The year in which the ceremony was performed that gave her a lord and master, we cannot precisely ascertain; but as the happy pair favoured the capital of France with their presence in 1816, it may not be unreasonable to suppose, that they went there to spend the honeymoon. Miraculous as are the changes which matrimony sometimes operates, it was powerless in its influence upon her Ladyship's propensities, and, consequently, not very long after returning to her "maison bijou" in Dublin, she put forth a quarto! with the magnificent title of "France." There are phenomena in the physical world, in the moral world, in the intellectual world, but this book was a phenomenon that beat them all. It was absolutely wonderful how so much ignorance, nonsense, vanity, and folly, could be compressed within the compass even of a quarto. All the sense that could be discerned in it, was contained in four or five essays, upon Love, Law and Physic, and Politics, contributed by Sir the husband. Being anxious that "France" should have a companion, she subsequently made an expedition to the land of the Dilettanti, in company with the dear man who had made her, "she trusts, a respectable, and she is sure, a happy mistress of a family," and forthwith "Italy" appeared to sustain her well-earned reputation for qualities, which she has the singular felicity of possessing without exciting envy. But her "never ending, still beginning" pen, was not satisfied with two volumes as the fruits of her Italian campaigning, especially as there happened to be a goodly quantity of memoranda in the "diary" which had not yet been turned to any use. Some subject, therefore, was to be hit upon for another publication, in which they could be inserted, when beat out into a sizeable shape; and what could be better adapted for that purpose than the biography of a great Italian artist? The life of poor Salvator Rosa was, in consequence, attempted. Just think of making one of the greatest geniuses that ever lived, a peg to hang notes upon! The next offspring of her Ladyship's brain, was, we believe, another novel, which was as like its predecessors as possible. In the period that elapsed between this birth, and the moment in which we have had the honour of introducing her to our readers, her literary family was increased by another child, with the delightful name of "The Book of the Boudoir."

We hope we have not been understood as meaning to insinuate, that because her Ladyship is the mother of a couple of dozen of volumes, she is on that account a précieuse ridicule. This was far, very far from our intention. None can take more pleasure than ourselves in rendering all homage to genuine female talent, employed for useful and honourable purposes, or be more willing to acknowledge the peculiar excellence by which its productions are frequently marked. Were it our pleasant duty at present to notice the works of an Edgeworth, a Hemans, a Mitford, a Sedgwick, or of any others of that fair and brilliant assemblage, who reflect so great a lustre upon the literature of this age, we should use language as eulogistic as their warmest admirers could desire. But we have to do now with a person of a very different description from those bright ornaments of their sex—with one in whose mind, whatever flowers Nature may originally have planted, have been almost completely choked by the rank weeds of ignorance, presumption, frivolity, and vanity beyond measurement—who, in a list of works as long, to use one of her own delicate illustrations, as "Leporello's catalogue of Don Juan's mistresses," has given little or no aid to the cause of virtue generally, or evinced the slightest anxiety to improve and benefit her sex, but has devoted all her faculties to the erection of an altar on which she might worship herself, and only herself—who has even afforded cause, by the frequently extreme levity of her expressions, for the charge of lending countenance to licentiousness and impiety—whose writings, in fine, are calculated to inflict serious injury upon the tastes, the understandings, and the hearts of her youthful female readers, by accustoming them to a vicious and ridiculous style, by filling their minds with false and perverted sentiments and wrong impressions upon some of the most important matters, and by setting before them the example of a woman who boasts of being a member of no undistinguished circle of society, and yet constantly violates those laws of delicacy and refinement, the full observance of which is indispensable for every female who aspires to the name and character of a lady.

Pale Aurora began now to appear, "Tiphoni croceum linquens cubile," in vulgar parlance, day began to break. Behold our couple setting forth on their Parisian expedition. Some months afterwards, the "maison bijou," in Kildare street, again was illumined by the presence of our fair traveller, whose pen was soon mended, dipped in ink, and busily employed. In due time its labours were brought to a termination, and two goodly volumes were ushered into the light of day, purporting to contain an account of "France in 1829-30." These are the identical volumes which it is our design in this article to notice.

"Facit indignatio versus," exclaimed the old Roman satirist, and "indignation makes us write," would we exclaim, in assigning our motives for devoting a number of our pages to "France in 1829-30," could we for a moment be persuaded that our readers would credit the assertion. It seems to us, that we already behold every one of them smiling in derision, and giving an incredulous shake of the head, at the bare idea of a cold-blooded reviewer being actuated by indignant feelings to place his critical lance in rest, and run a course against an unfortunate author. We must, nevertheless, be permitted to protest, that we do feel a considerable quantity of very honest and virtuous indignation against the trash last put forth by Miladi—quite as much, we are sure, as impelled Juvenal to the composition of his searing satires. We may be told, however, that we are waging battle with a lady, and that we should be upon our guard not to give fresh cause for the exclamation, that "the age of chivalry is gone." A lady, true; but, when in your boasted "age of chivalry," persons of her sex buckled on armour and rushed into the melée, were they spared by the courteous knights with whom they measured swords? Did not Clorinda receive her death wound from the hand of Tancred? And why should the Amazon who wields the pen, be more gently dealt with than she who meddles with cold iron? In literature, as in war, there is no distinction of sex. We hope, therefore, we shall not be accused of ungallant, or anti-chivalric bearing, on account of the blows we may inflict upon the literary person of a most daring Thalestris, especially as her vanity is a panoply of proof.

In her preface, Lady M. says, that a second work on France from her pen could only be justified by the novelty of its matter, or by the merit of its execution. Then do we pronounce this second work, this "France in 1829-30," to be the most unjustifiable imposition on the good nature of the reading community that ever was practised. Its matter is nothing more nor less than Miladi herself; and is she a novelty? Something less than half a century ago, her Ladyship undoubtedly was a novelty, and one too of an extraordinary kind. As to the "merit of its execution," it is quite sufficient to know that it is the work of Lady Morgan, to form an idea of that requisite for its "justification." Out of thine own mouth have we condemned thee. The fact is, that "France in 1829-30," is almost, the counterpart of "France in 1816," and the same remarks may be made concerning it which we have already applied to the latter. All the information we could discover we had obtained from it on finishing its perusal, was that its author had improved in neither wisdom, knowledge, nor modesty, since her first visit to the land after which both of these productions have been christened. France! and what right have they to that name? Would it not induce one to suppose, that their author had at least travelled through the greater portion of that beautiful country, and eked out a number of her pages from the notes, such as they might be, made during the tour? And yet her Ladyship, on both occasions, went to Paris by the high road of Calais, remained in the capital a few months, and then returned by another high road. Even "Paris in 1816," "Paris in 1829-30," would be titles with which these publications would possess scarcely more affinity, than that by which children, on whom the preposterous fondness of their parents has bestowed the high-sounding appellations of warriors and monarchs, are connected with those worthies. Their only appropriate names would be, "Lady Morgan in 1816," "Lady Morgan in 1829-30;" for what information do they give about France or Paris, and what information do they not give about Lady Morgan? they even let us into the secrets of her Ladyship's wardrobe. It was Paris that saw Lady Morgan, and not Lady Morgan that saw Paris, in the same way as, according to Dr. Franklin, it was Philadelphia that took Sir William Howe, and not Sir William Howe that took Philadelphia.

To collect materials for a book of travels, it is necessary to be all eyes and ears with regard to every thing but one's self. Her Ladyship, however, was just the reverse throughout the whole period of her absence from Kildare street,—it seems always to have been her object to attract, and not to bestow, attention. In the volumes before us, it is her perpetual endeavour to win admiration by making known the admiration she entertains for herself, as well as that which she supposes she excites in others. They are consequently, in great measure, filled with what was said to Lady Morgan, and what Lady Morgan did and said during her last visit to Paris. While discoursing about anything else than herself, she appears to be on thorns until she gets back to that all absorbing subject, and no matter what is the title of the chapter, she generally contrives, by hook or by crook, to bring herself into it as the main object of interest. The poor reader is thus often sadly disappointed in the expectations he may form of deriving pleasure or information from various parts of her work, in consequence of the promises held out by their "headings." He almost always eventually discovers, that however he may have been induced to anticipate a meeting with other persons or matters, it is still "Monsieur Tonson come again." We must confess, that it is rather too bad to be Morbleued in this way; though it is but fair to acknowledge, that her Ladyship is not an intentional tormentor, like the malicious wags by whom the unfortunate Frenchman was teased out of house and home. On the contrary, her design is one altogether consonant to the general benevolence of her character. It is to give pleasure; and as her greatest delight arises from the contemplation of herself, she has presumed, naturally enough if we may believe the philosophers, that the same cause will produce the same effect upon the rest of the world. All her pictures, therefore, like those of the painter who doated upon his mistress to such a degree as to introduce her face into every one of his works, contain the object of her idolatry, either prominently in the foreground, or so ingeniously placed in the background, as to be quite as well fitted to draw attention.—But it is time to follow her in some of her peregrinations.

On a certain day of the year 1829, which she has not had the goodness to designate, she arrived at Calais. She was accompanied by an Irish footman,—not, we presume, the "illiterate literatus," whom she has immortalized in her first "France,"—and by a person whom she once or twice alludes to in her volumes; first, by acknowledging her obligations to a "Sir C. M." for some articles which had been contributed by him to swell the dimensions of her work; and, secondly, by mentioning that somebody sent a "flask of genuine potteen," to her Ladyship's great delight, "with Mr. Somebody's compliments to Sir C. M." As there is an individual designated once or twice also as "my husband," we have shrewd suspicions that he and this Sir C. M. are one and the same being. The first thing that Miladi does at Calais, is to experience a "burst of agreeable sensations;" and the next, to feel a considerable degree of surprise at being delighted again with that renowned place—renowned for having been several times visited by Lady Morgan, besides other minor causes of celebrity, such as its sieges, and its having been the place where Yorick commenced his sentimental journey; but these have been completely forgotten since the year 1816. After her "little heart" had been fluttered by those agreeable and wonderful sensations, the nature of its palpitations was unfortunately changed by the indignation with which it was filled on her discovering "how English" every thing appeared. "English carpets, and English cleanliness; English delf and English damask," with various other Englishiana, gave such a John Bull aspect to the room of the hotel into which she was ushered, that she was on the point of swooning, when her ears were suddenly assailed by a loud sound—Gracious heavens! What noise is that? Her delicate little head is in a twinkling thrust out of the window, and she beholds,—oh horror of horrors—she beholds a mail-coach, built on the regular English plan, cantering into the yard, with all its concomitants completely à l'Anglaise—"horses curvetting, and not a hair turned—a whip that 'tips the silk' like a feather—'ribbons,' not ropes—a coachman, all capes and castor—a guard that cries 'all right,'" and who was at that moment puffing most manfully into a "reg'lar mail-coach horn." This was too much, and her Ladyship would inevitably have been driven distracted, or, at least, have gone into hysterics, had not a most delicious idea interposed its aid, and she exclaimed, "What luck to have written my France, while France was still so French!"—and what luck, say we, to have so commodious a safety-valve as vanity, by means of which to let off the superabundant steam of one's ire!

Now, as to her Ladyship's having written her "France," while France was still "so French," this we do not deny; but we do deny that her France itself is "so French." It would be an affair of some considerable difficulty, in our humble opinion, to find any thing French either about it or the "France" we are now reviewing, except their titles, and innumerable scraps of the French language, not unfrequently so expressed and so applied that they would do honour to Mrs. Malaprop herself.

Lady M.'s fondness for generalizing, has led her to relate this apparition of the "Bang-up" in such a way as would induce any one who did not know better, to suppose that the "Coach" had entirely superseded the "Diligence" upon the French roads. Truly would such a change be a cause of regret; for the traveller in France would thus be deprived of a fruitful source of amusement. But we have the pleasure of announcing, for the satisfaction of such of our readers as may entertain the design of paying a visit to that country, that the coach which Lady Morgan saw, was the only vehicle of the kind with which her eyes could have been annoyed. We speak understandingly on the subject, as we happened to be in France about the same time as her Ladyship. This coach, which, if we recollect aright, was called the Telegraph, and not the "Bang-up," was a speculation of some Englishman, who ran it for a short time between Boulogne and Calais, but without much success. The old national vehicle had too strong a hold upon the affections of the most national people in the world, to be pushed from the field by any foreign opponent, and the slow, sure, and comfortable Diligence kept on the even tenor of its way, while the dashing, rapid Telegraph arrived prematurely at the end of its journeying.

We do not deem ourselves competent to decide upon so momentous a subject as the respective merits of the English and French stages, to give them our technical appellation; but it may be remarked as perhaps somewhat singular, that with regard to comfort—a matter respecting which the French are as noted for their general heedlessness as the English are for their almost uniform concern—the Diligence can lay claim to unquestionable superiority over the coach. On the other hand, the coach is constructed in such a way as to possess far greater facilities for rapidity of locomotion,—a quality which it might be supposed the quick vivacious temperament of the French would especially prize in their conveyances. As to appearance also, the English vehicle is certainly a good deal better off than the French. Nothing, indeed, that a stranger may have heard or read about the latter, can prepare him for it sufficiently, to prevent him on first beholding it from giving way to something more than a smile. It is not, however, so much the mere machine itself that operates upon his risible faculties, as the whole equipage, or atalage,—the scare-crow horses, that seem to have been once the property of the keeper of some museum by whom their bones have been linked together and covered with skin as well as they might be, without inserting something between as a substitute for flesh; the non-descript gear by which these living anatomies are kept together and attached to the vehicle, composed of rope, leather, iron, steel, brass, and every thing else that could by any possibility be used for the purpose; the queer-looking postillion, with his long cue, huge boots, and pipe, all combine with the grotesque appearance of the Diligence itself, to form an ensemble irresistibly ludicrous.

What a difference, too, there is in the facility with which they get "under weigh." One crack of the coachman's whip, causes his fine animals to give "a long pull, a strong pull, and a pull together," and away you whirl in an instant. But the traveller in France does not find starting so easy a matter. He gets into the Diligence; every thing seems ready. The passengers are all in their places, and have saluted each other with true French politeness, except some gruff John Bull sitting in a corner seat and eyeing his associates with mingled scorn and distrust—the five or six apologies for horses are standing in an attitude of the greatest patience, waiting for the signal to make an attempt at putting one foot before the other—the conducteur, a person who has the supreme direction of the movements of the Diligence, is in his place on the top—the boots in which the legs of the postillion are buried, are dangling on both sides of the wheel horse on the left—crack! goes his whip—a jingling sound responds, caused by the endeavours of the "cattle" to advance—"mais que diable"—crack! crack! crack!—something like motion is experienced, when there is a sudden stop, and the conducteur is seen descending from his eminence, muttering sundry expressions of no very gentle nature—"what the devil's the matter now," growls a more than bass voice out of one window—"qu'est ce que c'est, conducteur," simultaneously demand a treble and a tenor from another window—"rien, Madame," the answer is always addressed to the lady, "rien du tout," he replies whilst endeavouring to repair some part of the "rigging" that could not stand the efforts of the poor beasts to move from their position. At length, however, you get fairly under weigh, with about a four knot breeze, and continue to make some progress for an hour or two amidst a noise caused by the rumbling of the vehicle, the creaking, jingling, rattling, and clanking, of the atalage, the unceasing crack of the whip, and the chattering of your companions, to which the sounds at Babel were music. The movement then becomes adagio, and soon afterwards the conducteur's voice is heard, begging the passengers in all parts of the vehicle to descend. Wondering what is the matter, you get out with the rest, and find the cause of this commotion to be a grande Montagne—anglicè, a little hill—in mounting which, the tender care that is taken of the animals upon the road, however much the state of their flesh shows it is diminished in the stable, renders it indispensable that they should be relieved of every possible weight. To this inconvenience you are subjected on approaching almost every little elevation, the like of which in England or the United States, would not cause the slightest diminution of speed. But it must be confessed, that occasionally, a hill is to be passed of a magnitude which the steeds could never surmount without diminishing their load, and then the notice that is said to have been affixed to one of the Diligences, may very well be appended to all. "MM. les voyageurs, sont priés, quand ils descendent, de ne pas aller plus vite que la voiture:" passengers are requested, when they descend, not to go faster than the vehicle. A most necessary request! La Fontaine, when he wrote the fable in which he gives an account of a vehicle ascending a steep eminence, and the exertions of a fly to assist the horses, must have just returned from some excursion in a Diligence, during which he was witness to the creeping, toiling, panting of the animals pulling it up a hill. Pauvres diables! as the women are constantly exclaiming, a fly might really lend them some aid in their efforts. About every eight miles, fresh horses are in readiness, but the change is rarely for the better,—for the worse it cannot be.

It is only on the road that the postillions drive slowly; when they enter a town it is a sort of signal for them to dash on at a furious rate, notwithstanding the danger of going rapidly through streets which are little better than alleys, and in which there are no side-pavements to mark the limits for pedestrians. We never before experienced such philanthropic alarm for the safety of our fellow-mortals, as on the evening of our arrival in Paris, whilst whirling at a furious rate through its narrow streets, which were thronged with people, when it was so dark that their ears alone could give them warning to get out of the way. No accident, however, occurred. The French drivers, it must be confessed, though not very elegant or stylish "whips," are very sure; they contrive to guide the immense Diligences through the crowded labyrinths of a large city with wonderful safety, notwithstanding the swiftness with which they generally pass through them, and the loose manner in which the horses are linked together.

But where did we leave our Ladyship? Oh, with her head out of the window of the hotel, saying something about her France and the other France. We really beg her pardon for keeping her so long in such a situation, and hasten to relieve her from it, by placing her, together with Sir C. M. and the Irish footman, in a,—but here again we are at fault. She has not had the kindness to inform us what was the species of conveyance that she consecrated to eternal veneration by employing for her journey to Paris, and as we have neither time nor space for an adequate investigation of this important point, we must leave it to be mooted by other commentators, contenting ourselves with the knowledge that the illustrious trio arrived safely at the capital.

On reaching the hotel in the Rue de Rivoli, which she had resolved upon immortalizing by residing in it during her sojourn in Paris, she was again fearfully agitated by that dreadful fondness for things English, in France, by which her nervous system had before been so greatly discomposed. Woful to relate, she was received by "a smart, dapper, English-innkeeper-looking landlord," and conducted to apartments "which were a box of boudoirs, as compact as a Chinese toy." "There were carpets on every floor, chairs that were moveable, mirrors that reflected, sofas to sink on, footstools to stumble over; in a word, all the incommodious commodities of my own cabin in Kildare street." Poor Miladi! this was really too provoking, to have all the trouble and expense of journeying from Dublin to see just what was to be seen there; but no matter, it will serve for the subject of some twenty pages in your intended book. But then the change, so trying to the nerves of a romantic lady, which had taken place since 1816. In that year, she remembered, on driving into the paved court of the hotel d'Orleans, she had seen "an elderly gentleman, sitting under the shelter of a vine, and looking like a specimen of the restored emigration. His white hair, powdered and dressed à l'oiseau royale; his Persian slippers and robe de chambre, à grand ramage, (we hope, reader, you have a French dictionary near you) spoke of principles as old as his toilet. He was reading, too, a loyal paper, loyal, at least, in those days,—the Journal des Débats. Bowing, as we passed, he consigned us, with a graceful wave of the hand, to the care of Pierre, the frotteur. I took him for some fragment of a duc et pair of the old school; but, on putting the question to the frotteur, who himself might have passed for a figurante at the opera, he informed us that he was 'Notre bourgeois,' the master of the hotel." It is quite wonderful to us how Miladi could have survived to relate so shocking a metamorphosis. Ovid has nothing half so strange and heart-rending.

The instances we have mentioned are far from being the only ones in which her Ladyship was "put out of sorts" by the Anglomania, which, she would make us believe, is operating at present as great a revolution in the social, as was effected in '98 in the political condition of France. All along the road from Calais to Paris, she sees nothing but "youths galloping their horses in the cavalry costume of Hyde Park," "smart gigs and natty dennets," "cottages of gentility, with white walls and green shutters, and neat offices, rivalling the diversified orders of the Wyatvilles of Islington and Highgate," in short, nothing but "English neatness and propriety on every side," with one terrible exception, however, "an Irish jaunting car!" of which she chanced, to her infinite dismay, to catch a glimpse. The second appearance that she makes in the streets of Paris, is for the purpose of buying some "bonbons, diablotins en papillotes, Pastilles de Nantes, and other sugared prettinesses," for which Parisian confectioners are so renowned. Accordingly, she goes into a shop where she supposes that "fanciful idealities, sweet nothings, candied epics and eclogues in spun sugar, so light, and so perfumed as to resemble (was there ever such nonsense) congealed odours, or a crystallization of the essence of sweet flowers," are to be sold, but on inquiry she is told by a "demoiselle behind the counter, as neat as English muslin and French (what a wonder it wasn't English) tournure could make her," that 'we sell no such a ting,' but that she might have 'de cracker, de bun, de plom-cake, de spice gingerbread, de mutton and de mince pye, de crompet and de muffin, de gelée of de calves foot, and de apple dumplin.' Reader, Lady Morgan "was struck dumb!" She purchased a bundle of crackers, "hard enough to crack the teeth of an elephant," and hurried from the shop. But misfortunes never come single, and her ladyship, though an exception to most other general rules, was not destined to prove the correctness of that one in this instance, for just as she was escaping from the place where she had experienced the serious inconvenience of being "struck dumb," she was struck in another way—viz. on the left cheek, by the explosion of a bottle of "Whitbread's entire," the consequence of which was, that the exterior of her head became covered with precisely the same thing with which its interior is filled—"froth."—

Foaming with rage and brown-stout, her Ladyship was hastening home as fast as her "little feet" could carry her, when a perfumer's shop "caught the most acute of all her senses."—What a delightful mode, by the way, her ladyship has, of imparting knowledge en passant, as it were; here we have the important information communicated to us, that her "acutest sense" is situated in her nose, just because she happened to pass by a perfumery store; but what a nose her ladyship's nose must be, since it is endowed with more wonderful faculties than her eyes, which possess such miraculous powers as to enable her to see things in France perceptible by no other mortal optics! But to proceed with our dismal story. Her ladyship's olfactory nerves, as we have already mentioned, having made her aware of the proximity of a perfumer's shop, she was induced to go into it by the desire of procuring something which might relieve them from the torture produced by the exhalations of 'Whitbread's entire.' But here again she was doomed to disappointment. She asked for various "eaux, essences, and extraits," and was presented with bottles of "lavendre vatre, honey vatre, and tief his vinaigre;" she asked for savons, and was shown cakes of "Vindsor soap," and "de Regent's vashball." In an agony of despair, she rushes from the shop, first taking care, however, to "gather up her purse and reticule," and soon arrives at her—alas! English furnished apartments. After stumbling over a footstool, and being incommoded by other "incommodious commodities," she at length sinks exhausted upon a sofa, just opposite to a "mirror that reflected." But what other singular looking object, besides Miladi's face, is it that forms a subject of that glass's reflections, and is lying on a table just behind her? It is a little basket, the contents of which her ladyship soon begins to investigate,—and what do you suppose she finds?—"A flask of genuine potteen!!" This time she is struck loquacious, and she shrieks out, "this is too much! was it for this we left the snugness and economical comfort of our Irish home, and encountered the expensive inconveniencies of a foreign journey, in the hope of seeing nothing British, 'till the threshold of that home should be passed by our feet;'—to meet at every step with all that taste, health, and civilization (exemplified by 'lavendre vatre,' 'vindsor soap,' and 'a flask of potteen,') we cry down at home, as cheap and as abundant abroad," &c. &c. The piercing key on which her Ladyship pitched her voice while declaiming this magnificent soliloquy, brought Sir C. M., the Irish footman, and the English-looking landlord into the room, in a terrible flurry. "My dearest dear what is the matter?"—"Och! my leddy, what is it now that ails you?"—"Ah! madame, mille pardons, qu'est ce que c'est?" simultaneously issue from the mouths of the three worthies. "Avaunt! get out of my sight, you maudit imitateur; and you Sir Charles, et vous, Patrick, see that tout est preparé for returning to Dublin dans l'heure même," meekly responds Miladi. But a sudden change comes over her countenance—sudden as that which took place in the aspect of Juno when she beheld the waves raised to the very heavens by the power of Neptune, and supposed that they had overwhelmed the bark which carried Æneas and his companions, the objects of her eternal hatred. She smiled, as the face of Nature smiles when the clouds that have long covered it with gloom, have disappeared before the potent influence of the "glorious orb that gives the day," and at length she rapturously cried out, "How lucky to have written my France, while France was still so French!"—Lady Morgan was herself again.

Now we beg leave to observe, that this Anglomania bugbear, by which her ladyship pretends to have been so much distressed, is the merest piece of nonsense and affectation in the world. We will not be so ungallant as to suppose that Lady Morgan has intentionally related what is not altogether so true as might be, but she has been accustomed for such a length of time to roam about the varied realms of fancy, that it would be impossible for her ever to descend to the flat regions of fact. Besides, as we have already stated, she has been gifted with powers of vision more surprising than those of the lynx or the seer—the first can only see through a stone, the second can only see things which may exist at a future day, when they will be visible to every one else—but she sees things existing at present, that defy the ken of all other animals, rational and irrational. While reading her account of the English vehicles, English cottages, &c. &c. which she observed in her journey from Calais to Paris, we could not help asking ourselves, where were our eyes during the time we travelled that road? We are satisfied, however, that they were in their right place, and tolerably well employed; and that if they did not encounter the signs of Anglomania mentioned by her Ladyship, it was because these were to be perceived by no one but herself. Wide indeed is the difference between travelling in France and England! The poet Grey, in one of his charming letters, affirms, that in the former country it would be the finest in the world, were it not for the terrible state of the inns; but it must have greatly deteriorated there, or have improved in his native isle since his time, for there can not be the slightest question as to the superior delights of journeying in the latter at present. The inns in France are still bad enough, in all conscience, and offer but a dreary welcome to one who has been accustomed to the neatness and comforts of English hostels. There are, however, various other particulars of importance for a traveller's enjoyment, which Shakspeare's "sea-walled garden" furnishes in by far the greater abundance. In France the roads are comparatively much inferior, and the general appearance of the country is less pleasing. You meet there with few or none of those detached farm-houses, with their little dependencies of cottages, which everywhere greet the eye in England, bespeaking the honest and well-conditioned yeoman, and presenting a picture of prosperity and contentment,—the villages through which you pass, mostly wear a decayed and squalid appearance—the magnificent country-seats, with their parks and other appurtenances, whose frequent recurrence in England constitutes so rich a feast for the gaze of the stranger, are rarely rivalled in France—the landscape here, also, is much seldomer able to borrow that venerable grace and romantic charm which the remains of feudal ages alone can lend. This last circumstance is one greatly to be regretted; for perhaps the most exquisite gratification to be derived from travelling through a country, where for centuries civilization in a greater or less degree has exercised sway, arises from the contemplation of the various monuments of by-gone days, some slowly mouldering into dust, others still proudly defying the assaults of the great destroyer. The mind dwells upon them with a species of pensive delight, and that peculiar charm which their association with the fictions and annals of times past inspires. It would seem, that France should be especially rich in the relics of that feudalism of which for a long time it was the chief seat, but a reason for their scantiness may be found in the policy which caused Louis XI., and which was subsequently pursued by Richelieu, and completed by Louis le Grand, to call the nobles from their estates, where they exercised almost sovereign authority, to the capital, and convert them into mere hangers on of the court—in the destructive hostilities which have almost incessantly desolated the kingdom—and especially in the determined war that was made upon castles by the patriots of the Revolution. These, at all events, are the causes which Sir Walter Scott, in his "Paul's Letters to his Kinsfolk," assigns for the circumstance we are lamenting. The first one of them had also been previously intimated by that worthy personage, the father of Tristram Shandy,—"Why are there so few palaces and gentlemen's seats, (he would ask with some emotion, as he walked across the room,) throughout so many delicious provinces in France? Whence is it that the few remaining chateaux amongst them are so dismantled, so unfurnished, and in so ruinous and desolate a condition?—Because, sir, (he would say,) in that kingdom no man has any country-interest to support:—the little interest of any kind which any man has anywhere in it, is concentrated in the court, and the looks of the Grand Monarch; by the sunshine of whose countenance, or the clouds which pass across it, every Frenchman lives or dies." This, however, is certainly not the case with Frenchmen of the present day.

But the principal drawback upon the pleasure of travelling in France, is decidedly the multitude of mendicants by whom you are continually annoyed, and whose miserable appearance offends the eye, while it sickens the heart. Scarcely ever does the vehicle stop without being immediately surrounded by the most distressing objects that the mind can conceive, in such numbers as to render it impossible for any one except the possessor of Fortunatus's or Rothschild's purse, to bestow alms, however inconsiderable, upon them all. A humane individual, who should attempt to do it, with a pocket of but moderate dimensions, would soon be reduced to the necessity of enrolling himself in the mendicant band, and crying out with the rest of them, in their peculiar tone, "Donnez un sous, à un pauvre malheureux, pour l'amour de Dieu, et de la Sainte Vierge." "Give a sous to a poor unfortunate, for the love of God and of the Holy Virgin." The crowds of these beggars upon the French roads, lead the stranger to apprehend that in Paris they will swarm to such an extent as to mar in a degree the pleasure of his residence there; he is, however, agreeably disappointed at finding in his perambulations through its streets, that they are completely free from them, in consequence of the admirable regulations of the police. It is worthy of remark, that the reverse of this is the case in England. There the roads and villages rarely afford cause for the tear of compassion, or the exclamation of disgust, elicited by scenes of misery; but in walking about London, one must be made of sterner stuff than was sentimental Yorick, who can avoid endeavouring to repeat "Psha! with an air of carelessness," at almost every step, after being obliged to refuse infinitely stronger claims upon charity than those which were advanced by the poor Franciscan.

We have thus enumerated most of the reasons why travelling in England is preferable to that in France, yet there is one circumstance to be remarked in favour of the latter, which almost counterbalances every consideration of an unfavourable kind. We allude to the facility with which a stranger can make acquaintance with his fellow passengers, in the "gay, smiling land of social mirth and ease." In England he may journey from Plymouth to Berwick without speaking more than ten words to any persons who chance to be his companions in the coach, or hearing ten words spoken by them if they happen not to know each other; but in a French public conveyance, only a short time elapses before all its occupants are as much at ease, and upon as good terms with each other, as if they were familiar acquaintances. Many a pleasant hour have we spent in a diligence, in consequence of the conversations we have fallen into with individuals whom we have there encountered, some of which were of a highly ludicrous character. We shall never forget a series of interrogatories put to us by a loquacious fellow next to whom we were seated in the diligence in going from Rouen to Paris, and who was about as ignorant as he was garrulous. Hearing us say, in answer to a question of another person, that we were from the United States, he asked us how we liked Italy; and on our telling him we had never been there, inquired with a face of great surprise, whether the United States was not on the other side of Italy? After endeavouring to give him an idea of the situation of our country, he asked successively, if we had crossed the ocean in a steam-boat, if the United States belonged to England or to France, and if Philadelphia was not the place where the great revolt of the Negroes took place. But we must return to her Ladyship, with the wish that she would contrive to render her company more agreeable, that we might have less temptation to wander from her at this rate.

With regard to the English furniture of her Ladyship's apartments, and the English confectionaries and perfumeries which gave rise to the memorable adventures we have related above, we may remark that it may have been so ordained by fate that she should light upon one of the very few hotels, one of the very few confectionary shops, and one of the very few perfumery stores in Paris, in which matters are ordered in the English style; but to give us to understand, in consequence, that all the hotels are furnished in the same way, and that bonbons, extraits, &c. are not to be procured, is like the proceeding of the Hon. Frederick de Roos, R. N. who affirms, in his sapient work on the United States, that all the inhabitants in Philadelphia take tea on the steps before their doors in summer evenings, because, forsooth, he saw a family sitting on those of the house in which they lived, in order to enjoy a July twilight.

One of the first things that her Ladyship does on the morning subsequent to her arrival, is to give notice to her friends of that important event,—a gratuitous piece of kindness altogether, as it seems to us, for it must doubtless have been announced by as many portentous signs as accompanied the birth of Owen Glendower. Nevertheless, in order to make assurance doubly sure, she despatched 'cards to some, and notes to others, after the Parisian fashion,' but previously indulged in a very pretty sentimental fit. This was caused by the first name that met her eye as she opened her 'old Paris visiting book for 1818'—that of Denon, "the page, minister, and gentilhomme de la chambre of Louis XV., the friend of Voltaire, the intimate of Napoleon, the traveller and historian of Modern Egypt, the director of the Musée of France," &c. &c., who, we are informed, used always to be so particularly delighted with her Ladyship's visits to Paris, that he was wont to hail them with his hand, and welcome them with a cordial smile. Alas! death had overtaken him, notwithstanding his friendship with Lady Morgan; and she could no longer expect his salutations. "Other hands were now extended, other smiles beamed now as brightly; but his were dimmed for ever!" How kind her Ladyship is! Fearing her readers might be distressed by the idea, that, in consequence of the decease of Denon, she might have been in some want of welcoming, she has taken the precaution of setting them at ease upon that point, by the above ingenious sentence. In mentioning the reasons of her intimacy with Denon, she employs language of a very singular kind, which, if maliciously interpreted to the letter, might subject her to uncomfortable remarks, though we are sure it is nothing but an effusion of gurgling vanity. It is an instance, however, to what a degree that sentiment, when extreme, gets the better of all sense of propriety and decorum. She says, that even if Denon had not been such a person as she describes him, "still, he suited me, I suited him. There was between us that sympathy, in spite of the disparity of years and talents, which, whether in trifles or essentials,—between the frivolous or the profound,—makes the true basis of those ties, so sweet to bind, so bitter to break!" It is well for Sir Charles Morgan's peace of mind, that he is acquainted, as he must be, with his wife's frivolity and egotism. How, indeed, he could have allowed her to come before the world with such phraseology in her mouth, we cannot imagine, unless on the supposition that he is such a husband as La Bruyère has described. "Il ne sert dans sa famille qu' à montrer l'exemple, d'un silence timide et d'une parfaite soumission. Il ne lui est dû ni douaire ni conventions; mais à cela près, et qu'il n'accouche pas, il est la femme, et elle le mari."

After her Ladyship had "shuddered," and "felt as if she was throwing earth upon Denon's grave whilst drawing her pen across his precious and historical name," she spent about half an hour in weeping, "like a fair flower surcharged with dew," over the names of others of her departed friends, Guinguené, Talma, Langlois, Lanjuinais, &c., until she fortunately recollected that the climate of Paris is one that "developes a sensibility prompt, not deep." Lucky thought! She immediately threw down the visiting-book, threw up the window to let in the climate, wiped from her eyes the tears "which parted thence, as pearls from diamonds dropp'd," and began to think of "all that death had left her, of the 'greater still behind,'—of friends, each in his way, a specimen of that genius and virtue, which, in all regions, and in all ages, make the ne plus ultra of human excellence." Admire the delicacy of the method by which Miladi lets us into the secret of her being a ne plus ultra; it is not by a bold assertion, but by a modest inuendo. She keeps company with ne plus ultras—birds of the same feather flock together—ergo, she is a ne plus ultra herself. And so she is, but in her own way. "Il y a malheureusement," observes a French writer of the present day "plus d'une manière de se rendre célèbre,"—"there is, unfortunately, more than one method of becoming celebrated,"—and as this writer is an acquaintance of Lady Morgan, we are half inclined to think he committed that sentence to paper after returning from a visit to her Celebrityship.

We may as well cite here a few more instances of her ingenuity in communicating, obliquely, how distinguished a personage she is,—a quality she possesses in a degree that we do not recollect ever to have seen rivalled. We copy verbatim.

"The other day I dined in the Chaussée d'Antin, in that house where it is always such a privilege to dine; where the wit of the host, like the menus of his table, combines all that is best in French or Irish peculiarity; and where the society is chosen with reference to no other qualities than merit and agreeability."

Speaking of the weekly assemblies at an eminent individual's house, at which she was a constant attendant, she says, they

"Are among the most select and remarkable in Paris. Inaccessible to commonplace mediocrity and pushing pretension, their visitor must be ticketted in some way or another" (by writing a "France," or an "Italy," for instance,) "to obtain a presentation."

With regard to another circle of which she was a large segment, she observes,—

"It is sufficient to have merit, agreeability, or the claims of old acquaintance to belong to it, but, truth to tell, it is still so far exclusive, that what Madame Roland calls l'universelle mediocrité, gains no admission there."

Again:—

"I happened one night at Gen. La Fayette's to say that I should remain at home on the following morning, and the information brought us a numerous circle of morning visitors; others dropped in by chance, and some by appointment. From twelve till four, my little salon was a congress composed of the representatives of every vocation of arts, letters, science, bon ton," (the Congress of Vienna was nothing to this,) "and philosophy, in which, as in the Italian opera-boxes of Milan and Naples, the comers and goers succeeded each other, as the narrow limits of the space required that the earliest visitor should make room for the last arrival."

We might fill pages with similar specimens of her modesty, but we must proceed.

The notes and cards being all despatched, authentic intelligence is at length diffused throughout Paris of her arrival, and such a commotion is forthwith excited as had never been seen even in that city of commotions, since the time the Giraffe made her entrée into it, and said to the gaping multitude, "Mes amis, il n'y a qu'une bête de plus." Perhaps the sensation might be excepted which was created by "Messieurs les Osages," the American deputation whose "France" has not yet, we believe, appeared in either hemisphere. The Rue de Rivoli was instantly crowded with "old friends" and "intimate acquaintances," ne plus ultras included, besides various others anxious for the honour of an introduction, all striving who should get first into the "Hôtel de la Terrasse;" and such was the press of visits, dinner-parties, suppers, balls, &c. &c. that for a period her Ladyship could not, as she says, "find leisure to register a single impression for her own amusement, or haply for that of a world, which, it must be allowed, is not very difficult to amuse." In this sentiment we request leave, before going further, to record our unqualified concurrence, and also to state, that we know of no one from whom it could proceed with more propriety and weight than from Miladi. It has been, doubtless, expressed before, by various other book-makers, but never, we feel confident, by one whose career affords fuller evidence of its correctness, or who could adduce more forcible proofs in support of it, should they be required. In such case, the simple fact need only be cited, that "France in 1830" is the work of the same hand which indited "Ida of Athens," some twenty years previous, and which, during that interval, has furnished the world almost annually, with quartos, octavos, or duodecimos.

The accounts that her Ladyship gives of the various festive entertainments of which she partook, constitute the matter of a large number of her pages. If it be true, however, that in order to observe well, one ought to screen one's self from observation, she could have had little opportunity of obtaining acquaintance with the constitution of French society; for, if we believe her own story, there was no social assemblage of any kind to which she went, where she was not the observed of every one, the centre of attraction, the nucleus of excellence. And what information is to be derived from her relation of a ball here, or a soirée there, beyond the very interesting, highly important, and most credible intelligence, that as soon as the announcement of Lady Morgan's name falls upon the ears of the company, everything else is forgotten; a dead silence instantaneously takes place of the conversational hum that before prevailed; all eyes are directed towards the door; Lady Morgan enters; a buzz of admiration succeeds; she advances with a dignified air towards the hostess, or rather the hostess runs eagerly forward to meet her; she drops a romantic curtesy; she sits down; and thenceforward nothing is thought of by any of the guests but Miladi, and the pearls that fall from her lips. As the French are fond of forming queues, or files, for the purpose of avoiding confusion, when there is any great earnestness among a large collection of persons with regard to any object of curiosity, we can imagine the whole assemblage falling into one as soon as she takes her seat, and thus enjoying, each in turn, the coveted delight.—But we mistake; other information respecting French society is communicated, unwittingly however, by her Ladyship. It is this: that they are as fond of ridicule in 1830, as they were in 1816, and as they have ever been. We have little difficulty in believing, that her Ladyship received a vast deal of attention in Paris; still, we must confess, that it appears to us impossible not to be convinced, from her own story, that it was owing to a very different reason from the one to which it is attributed by her self-love. If there is any feature in the French character peculiarly salient or prominent, it is the love of ridicule. "Take care," said a lady to her son, who was on the eve of departure for his travels, "of the Inquisition at Madrid, of the mob at London, and of ridicule at Paris." Nothing that is at all calculated to excite an ironical smile or a sarcastic remark, escapes a "fasting Monsieur's" observation, and even the greatest virtues and genius, if combined with any quality which can afford matter for a joke, will scarcely prevent their possessor from being made a laughing-stock. Napoleon was so well aware of this propensity of his subjects, that he was prevented by it from placing his own figure in the car which surmounts the triumphal arch erected between the Court of the Tuileries and the Place du Carousal, being apprehensive that the wags would avail themselves of the opportunity thus afforded of punning at his expense—le char le tient—le charlatan. What a delectable tit-bit, consequently, for this appetite of the Parisians, must be a darling little philosopher in petticoats, (not quite sexagenary,) who dabbles in all sciences and arts, and is at the same time a pretender to the pretty affectations and hoydenish manners of a youthful belle! Such a person, especially if she possess that happy opinion of herself, which prevents her from having the slightest suspicion that she can be the object of anything but admiration with all, is regarded by them as a legitimate subject for a mystification, which, in our vernacular, means hoax,—elle se prête au ridicule, as they say, she lends herself, as it were, to ridicule; and to be convinced that they know how to take consummate advantage of the loan, it is only necessary to glance over "France in 1830." Every one who does so will, we feel confident, understand in the same manner as ourselves, the meaning of that "brilliant welcome," which Miladi, with so much complacency, informs us she received "in the capital of European intellect." From beginning to end, these volumes afford almost continued specimens of perfection in the art of "quizzing," and may therefore be particularly indicated to such as are anxious to acquire proficiency in that way. We are glad that we have at length discovered a description of persons to whom we can conscientiously recommend the work we are reviewing, as calculated to afford desirable information.

There is another cause, besides this fondness for ridicule, to which the mystification of her Ladyship may be attributed. Whoever is at all acquainted with her writings, must be aware that she pretends to be a great republican, and to entertain a most orthodox horror of royalism and the appendages thereof, and that she has called the royalist party in France all the hard names she could find in the most approved collection of opprobrious epithets. This circumstance, it is easy to imagine, may have excited a slight desire of revenge in the breasts of some of the younger members of that party.

In her very preface, we have an evidence of her having been the victim of as well concerted and admirably conducted a hoax, as was ever played off upon any one—it surpasses that which was put upon poor Malvolio in "Twelfth Night." After making the remark upon which we have already commented, that a second work on France from her pen could "alone be justified by the novelty of its matter, or by the merit of its execution," she says—

"It may serve, however, as an excuse, and an authentication of the attempt, that I was called to the task by some of the most influential organs of public opinion, in that great country. They relied upon my impartiality (for I had proved it, at the expense of proscription abroad, and persecution at home); and, desiring only to be represented as they are, they deemed even my humble talents not wholly inadequate to an enterprise whose first requisite was the honesty that tells the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth."

Oh you wicked wags! If the abolition of capital punishment be effected in France, we hope you will be specially excepted as unworthy of mercy for this cruel plot to make Miladi Morgan expose herself thus to the sneers of an ill-natured world. We think we see you in conclave, laughing and joking over an epistle you have just concocted and signed with the names of half a dozen of the leaders of the liberals, in which her Ladyship is earnestly conjured to cross the Irish and the English channels and hasten to Paris, in order to dispel by the effulgence of her intellectual rays, the mists and darkness that the fiend of ultraism had spread over the political horizon. Seriously speaking, we cannot divine any other than this or a similar manner of accounting for her Ladyship's assertion, that "she was called to the task by some of the most influential organs of public opinion in France;"—she would not certainly affirm what she knew to be false, and the idea that she did receive a bonâ fide request of the above purport from such individuals, is too absurd to command belief for a moment. Would any one in his senses, who is "desirous of being represented as he is," put in requisition the pencil of an artist by which he would be sure to be caricatured?

The "persecution at home," that her Ladyship affects to have suffered, refers, we suppose, to sundry articles in the Quarterly Review and other Journals, in which she was rather roughly handled. We all know, however, what a pleasant thing it is to deem ourselves the objects of persecution, when it does not interfere with our profit—it is a flattering unction we love to lay to the soul, as it seems to augment our importance—and Miladi appears to have been highly delighted with the persecutions she has encountered. She is continually alluding to the attacks of the Quarterly, and whenever an opportunity occurs, favours us with extracts from them, and now and then she slips in some satirical observation concerning herself from the Journal des Débats. The different manner in which she has been treated by the Edinburgh and Quarterly Reviews, is an exemplification of the potent influence which party spirit exercises over those journals. In the latter, one or two of her works have been criticised with overwhelming power, and in a tone and spirit superlatively bitter. In the former, on the contrary, she is spoken of with studied lenity, although the Reviewer is obliged to confess that he is not one of her particular admirers, and seems to be perpetually restraining himself from indulging in the language of raillery and sarcasm. We need hardly add that the political principles which her Ladyship professes to entertain, are the main cause of this discrepancy. For our own part, we conscientiously believe that the English journal has not gone half so far beyond the truth as its Scotch rival has fallen short of it, in their respective strictures. With regard to the republican bursts of Lady Morgan, we cannot help suspecting that there is more affectation and cant in them than sincerity:—she is too anxious to let it be known that she is caressed every where by the ne plus ultras of aristocracy and rank, as well as by those of intellect, and, at the same time, there is too much parade and ostentatious vehemence in her explosions against the royalist party.

As to the other article which her Ladyship says she has received in exchange for her impartiality!—"proscription abroad,"—we feel pretty confident that it exists no where but in her own imagination. There it has, doubtless, been engendered by the malice of some ultra in disguise, who has made her Ladyship believe, that the Emperor of Austria, the Grand Signior, the King of Owyhee, and the other despots of the earth, have forbidden, on pain of racking, roasting, and every kind of torture, the importation of her books into their dominions, lest these should be revolutionized by them forthwith. Heaven defend us! we are very much afraid that Lady Morgan will set this world of ours on fire, somewhere about the time when it comes in contact with the comet. It is not mere supposition on our part that her Ladyship deems herself an object of dread to the Austrian government at least;—read what she says àpropos of the entrée of its ambassador into a ball-room where she was making all the lamps and candles hide their diminished heads. "When his Austrian excellence was announced, how I started, with all the weight of Aulic proscription on my head! The representative of the long-armed monarch of Hapsburg so near me,—of him, who, could he only once get his fidgetty fingers on my little neck, would give it a twist, that would save his custom-house officers all future trouble of breaking carriages and harassing travellers, in search of the pestilent writings of 'Ladi Morgan.' I did not breathe freely, till his excellency had passed on with his glittering train, into the illumined conservatory, and was lost in a wilderness of flowering shrubs and orange trees." Ought not this ambassador to be recalled for his negligence, his want of loyalty, in not attempting to get his fingers about Miladi's 'little neck,' in order to restore his Imperial master to peace and tranquillity of mind? Poor Francis! still are you doomed to be fidgetty on your throne. We think we see you receiving intelligence of the appearance of this last emanation from Ladi Morgan's untiring pen—a mortal paleness overspreads your face, as Metternich rushes into your presence with terror depicted in his countenance, articulating only "Ladi Morgan, Ladi Morgan," having just obtained himself a knowledge of the dreadful fact from an almost breathless courier—in an agony of suspense you gaze wildly at your faithful counsellor, until he has recovered composure sufficient to unfold to you the whole tale of horror. It is told! The monarch in whose hands are the lives of fifty millions of subjects, lies himself, to all appearance, deprived of existence. But see! he revives—his lips move—what are the words which fall faintly upon the ears of the bewildered attendants who have been called into the apartment by the cries of the prime minister? They are words of malediction, of the same purport as those which Henry II. of England uttered against his servants, for their want of zeal in allowing him to be so long tormented by Thomas à Becket, and which caused that prelate's death. But alas! for your repose, Imperial Cæsar, it is not so easy at the present day, as in former times, for de Luces and de Morevilles to gratify the vengeful wishes of their masters, and Lady Morgan yet breathes the breath of life (although it is true she did not do it "freely," according to her own account, while in the vicinity of your ambassador in Paris,) to keep your nervous system in disorder, and for the continued vexation of the rational part of the reading world.

Multifarious are the other instances we might cite of the manner in which her simple Ladyship was mystified by the ironical propensities of some, and the malicious ultraism of others, during her visit to Paris in 1829-30. "There are certain characters," observes M. Jouy, "who may be considered as the scourges of whatever is ridiculous (les fleaux du ridicule;) they discover it under whatever form it may be hid, and pitilessly immolate it with the weapon of irony," and into the hands of persons of this merciless tribe she seems to have been perpetually falling. We must content ourselves, however, with referring to but one example more; a conversation between herself and a young Frenchman, about Romanticism and Classicism, which she has detailed in her first volume. This is a subject, which, as every one must know, has set all Paris by the ears, and attracts almost as much attention there as the overthrow of one dynasty and the creation of another. Lady Morgan, of course, is a thorough-going romantique, and demonstrates the greater excellence of the school of which she deems herself the chief support and brightest ornament, in pretty much the same way as the superiority of modern writers over the ancients used to be proved by the advocates of the former, viz. by two methods, reason and example, the first of which they derived from their own taste, and the second from their own works. At the time she was delivered of her quarto about France in 1810, Paris was still immersed in classical darkness, and it may therefore be fairly inferred that the romantic light with which it has since been illumined, radiated from that same tome. What can be more natural? When she left France, "the word 'Romanticism' was unknown (or nearly so) in the circles of Paris; the writers à la mode, whether ultra or liberal, were, or thought themselves to be, supporters and practisers of the old school of literature;" in the interval of her absence she published a work in which she told the Parisians that Racine was no poet, and gave them other valuable information of the kind, calculated to dispel their classical infatuation:—when she returned, every thing was changed; poets and prosers were vieing with each other in gloriously offending against all rules and canons; Romanticism, in short, was, as she asserts, completely the order of the day. The classical wrath of one man was the source of unnumbered woes to ancient Greece, and why may not the romantic wrath of one woman—a woman too, who keeps autocrats and sultans fidgetty on their thrones, be the cause of a change in the literature of a country? This change, at all events, however it may have been operated, seems to have inspired her with additional courage in her assaults, and additional fury in her anathemas upon the poor French authors whom the ignorant world has hitherto been in the habit of regarding as objects of admiration. She now asserts, in "France in 1829-30," that the whole classic literature of that country is "feeble and unuseful," nay, even fitted to "enervate and degrade;" and in a wonderfully luminous chapter about modern literature, she has shown as clearly as Hudibras could have proved by "force of argument" that "a man's no horse," that Classicism is the ally of despotism, and that it was the policy of arbitrary power to encourage a fondness for the ancient authors!

Fiercely romantic, however, as her Ladyship is, she is mild as a cooing dove in comparison with the male interlocutor in the famous conversation to which we have alluded. This personage completely out-herods Herod; but that he was an ultra in disguise, endeavouring to make her Ladyship write down absurdities, is a conviction which 'fire and water could not drive out of' us;—even she, herself, at one period of the dialogue, can not help doubting whether she "is or is not the subject of what in England is called a hoax, and in France a mystification," and when she doubts upon such a point, it would be extremely difficult for any one else not to deem it a matter of certainty. Had we space sufficient, we should transcribe the whole of this colloquy, as it deserves repetition; but we can only give a small specimen of it for the amusement of our readers. The gentleman having informed Miladi, that Racine, Corneille, and Voltaire, are "dethroned monarchs," and no longer tolerated at the Theatre, she asks him what is to be seen or heard there, to which he answers:—

"'Our great historic dramas, written not in pompous Alexandrines, but in prose, the style of truth, the language of life and nature, and composed boldly, in defiance of Aristotle and Boileau. Their plot may run to any number of acts, and the time to any number of nights, months, or years; or if the author pleases, it may take in a century, or a millennium: and then, for the place, the first scene may be laid in Paris, and the last in Kamschatka. In short, France has recovered her literary liberty, and makes free use of it.'

"'Oui da!' I rejoined, a little bothered, and not knowing well what to say, but still looking very wise, 'In fact, then, you take some of those liberties, that you used to laugh at, in our poor Shakspeare?'

"'Your poor Shakspeare! your divine, immortal Shakspeare, the idol of new France!—you must see him played textuellement at the Français, and not in the diffuse and feeble parodies of Ducis.'

"'Shakspeare played textuellement at the Français!" I exclaimed—'O, par exemple!'

"'Yes, certainly. Othello is now in preparation; and Hamlet and Macbeth are stock pieces. But even your Shakspeare was far from the truth, the great truth, that the drama should represent the progress, development, and accomplishment of the natural and moral world, without reference to time or locality. Unknown to himself, his mighty genius was mastered by the fatal prejudices and unnatural restrictions of the perruques of antiquity. Does nature unfold her plots in five acts? or confine her operations to three hours by the parish clock?'

"'Certainly not, Monsieur; but still....'

"'Mais, mais, un moment, chère Miladi. The drama is one great illusion of the senses, founded on facts admitted by the understanding, and presented in real life, past or present. When you give yourself up to believe that Talma was Nero, or Lafont Britannicus, or that the Rue Richelieu is the palace of the Cæsars, you admit all that at first appears to outrage possibility. Starting, then, from that point, I see no absurdity in the tragedy, which my friend Albert de S—— says he has written for the express purpose of trying how far the neglect of the unities may be carried. The title and subject of this piece is "the Creation," beginning from Chaos (and what scenery and machinery it will admit!) and ending with the French revolution; the scene, infinite space; and the time, according to the Mosaic account, some 6000 years.'

"'And the protagonist, Monsieur? Surely you don't mean to revive the allegorical personages in the mysteries of the middle ages?'

"'Ah ça! pour le protagoniste, c'est le diable. He is the only contemporaneous person in the universe that we know of, whom in these days of cagoterie we can venture to bring on the stage, and who could be perpetually before the scene, as a protagonist should be. He is particularly suited, by our received ideas of his energy and restlessness, for the principal character. The devil of the German patriarch's Faust is, after all, but a profligate casuist; and the high poetical tone of sublimity of Milton's Satan is no less to be avoided in a delineation that has truth and nature for its inspiration. In short, the devil, the true romantic devil, must speak, as the devil would naturally speak, under the various circumstances in which his immortal ambition and ceaseless malignity may place him. In the first act, he should assume the tone of the fallen hero, which would by no means become him when in corporal possession of a Jewish epileptic, and bargaining for his pis aller in a herd of swine. Then again, as a leader of the army of St. Dominick, he should have a fiercer tone of bigotry, and less political finesse, than as a privy councillor in the cabinet of the Cardinal de Richelieu. At the end of the fourth act, as a guest at the table of Baron Holbach, he may even be witty; while as a minister of police, he should be precisely the devil of the schoolmen, leading his victim into temptation, and triumphing in all the petty artifices and verbal sophistries of a bachelor of the Sorbonne. But as the march of intellect advances, this would by no means be appropriate; and before the play is over, he must by turns imitate the patelinage of a Jesuit à robe courte, the pleading of a procureur général, the splendid bile of a deputy of the côté droit, and should even talk political economy like an article in the 'Globe.' But the author shall read you his piece—'La Création! drame Historique et Romantique, in six acts, allowing a thousand years to each act. C'est l'homme marquant de son siècle.''

"'But,' said I, 'I shall remain in Paris only a few weeks, and he will never get through it in so short a time.'

"'Pardonnez moi, madame, he will get through it in six nights—the time to be actually occupied by the performance; an act a night, to be distributed among the different theatres in succession, beginning at the Français and ending at the Ambigu.'"

It is here that her Ladyship begins to doubt whether this romantic gentleman was not hoaxing her, and certes it was time; but 'melt and disperse ye spectre doubts!' an attempt to hoax Lady Morgan, impossible! They do quickly pass away, and the conversation is pursued in the same strain, until "Monsieur de ——one of the conscript fathers of classicism" is announced. No sooner has his name passed the lips of the servant, than the romantic gentleman snatches up his hat, and endeavours to make an exit from the room, in as much consternation as if the "protagonist" himself were about to appear. But Monsieur de ——the classicist, enters before he can escape; "he draws up." The two then "glanced cold looks at each other, bowed formally, and the romanticist retired, roughing his wild locks, and panting like a hero of a tragedy." What a picture! We venture to affirm, however, that had an attentive observer been present, he would have seen something like a wink or a covert glance passing between the two worthies as they enacted the above scene, which might have led him to suspect that they knew each other better than Miladi supposed: it was only on the previous evening, be it stated, on her own authority, that she had made the acquaintance of the romanticist, whom she describes as having "something of an exalté in his air, in his open shirt collar, black head, and wild and melancholy look." The dialogue that ensues with the classicist after the disappearance of the other, is quite as ridiculous as the foregoing one, and quite as well calculated to give her Ladyship a fit of the "doubts," though it does not appear that she suffered by them a second time. We may mention, before leaving this subject, that when the romanticist told her, in the extract we have just made, that Othello was in preparation for the Theâtre Français, he told her truth; but, if we are not very much mistaken, the other piece of information he communicated—that Hamlet and Macbeth are stock-tragedies at that theatre—could only have been related by a gentleman of great fertility of imagination. Othello, we know, was actually performed, and went off tolerably well until the final scene, but then the nerves of the Frenchmen were put to a trial they could not by any possibility endure. The sight of a Moor and an Infidel, endeavouring to smother a lady and a Christian, so completely aroused all the gallant and religious sensibilities of the audience, that shouts of terrible, abominable, resounded from every part of the house, and Monsieur Othello was (theatrically) damned for his wickedness. As far as we know, he never showed his copper-coloured visage again at the Theâtre Français, but contented himself thenceforward with running after poor Desdemona, and stabbing her behind the scene at the opera, where this minor exhibition of cruelty is tolerated in consideration of the roulades, with which he smooths her passage into the other world.

Speaking of theatres puts us in mind, as the story-tellers say, of a remark made by her Ladyship in the chapter she has devoted to the theatres of Paris, which we wish to notice. She says, "it is strange, that among the many men of genius who have treated the subject of the unities, none should have clearly laid it down, that the great object of dramatic composition is the satisfaction of the audience, no matter by what means." What a fine thing it is to be endowed with uncommon powers of original thought! It is so delightful to be able to belie the assertion, that it is too late now to think of propounding any new idea, every thing having already been said that can be said about any thing! Here, ye croakers about modern degeneracy, here is something that should cover you with confusion and shame. Lady Morgan, after having read all, aye, all, that has been written about a certain subject by all the "many men of genius" who have treated it—which it would only require the lifetime of a Methuselah to do—has discovered an idea relating to it, which is to be found in none of the works of those "many men of genius," and this she has revealed for the edification and astonishment of the world, in the sentence we have quoted above. How every lover of new ideas now living, should bless his stars for having cast his existence in the same period as that of her Ladyship! It is, however, our melancholy duty, to be obliged to deprive our generation of the glory which would be shed upon it by such an intellectual invention as the foregoing. Though it has undoubtedly never been adverted to in any way, since she so asserts the fact, by any of the "many men of genius" who have exercised their minds upon the topic of the unities, yet by a singular chance we have fallen upon something very much like it in the petty effusions of two or three subordinate scribblers, who have presumed to hint at what was not excogitated by their betters. One of those effusions is a paper called a "Preface to Shakspeare," written about fifty years ago, as we have discovered, after long research and a great deal of trouble, by a certain Samuel Johnson, who dubbed himself Doctor, and published likewise, if our investigations have informed us rightly, other works, under the titles of "The Rambler," "Rasselas," "Biographies of the British Poets," &c., and tradition even says that he attempted a dictionary of the English language. Another of those effusions is an "Essay upon the Drama," by a person called Walter Scott, who, it is affirmed, is still in the land of the living, but where he dwelleth, and what other productions he hath printed, we have been able to obtain no clue for finding out. It must indeed be confessed, that neither of those individuals has so "clearly laid it down" as her Ladyship, that the audience should be pleased, "no matter by what means," though they certainly have intimated that its gratification ought to be one of the principal objects of a dramatic author. They were foolish enough to think, that to pander to the tastes of an audience, if corrupt and vitiated, is paltry, is despicable; that to consult its inclinations when at war with sound taste or proper decorum, is to do the work of those who are influenced only by a love of sordid gain, reckless of every pure and elevated feeling—that "the end of all writing is to instruct, the end of all poetry, to instruct by pleasing." This is the difference between the sentiment of the authors and that of the authoress; but were that same Samuel Johnson now alive, sooner than maintain an opinion in any the slightest manner at variance with one expressed by her Ladyship, he would,—as he was ready to do, according to his own avowal, when asserting something that was denied by persons scarcely more important than himself,—"sink down in reverential silence, as Æneas withdrew from the defence of Troy, when he saw Neptune shaking the wall, and Juno heading the besiegers."

We do not wish to insinuate that her Ladyship has derived any advantage from consulting the pages of either the Preface or the Essay to which we have alluded. By no means. Nothing would be more unjust; for how could she be indebted for any thing to what may be contained in a couple of insignificant pamphlets, whose scarcity is such, that we might almost suppose our copies of them to be the only ones in existence? How they came into our hands, is a point we leave for elucidation to those who find pleasure or profit in unravelling mysteries. There is, to be sure, a wonderful similitude throughout, between her reflections upon the classical and romantic drama, and those which may be read in the Essay; but this circumstance must unquestionably be considered one of those "remarkable coincidences" that every now and then prompt the cry of "a miracle!" It must, else, be accounted for, by supposing that the author of the Essay is gifted with a power over future operations of mind, similar to that which was possessed over future events, by the wizard who warned Lochiel against the fatal day at Culloden, and that he is thus enabled, by his "mystical lore," to make

"Coming ideas cast their shadow before."

Seriously, however, the observations of her Ladyship on this head, furnish as nice an instance of plagiarism as we recollect. The best of the matter is, that after filling nearly a couple of pages with remarks, amongst which not a single original idea is to be found, save perhaps the rather novel one, that "in Macbeth the interest is suspended at the death of Duncan, and does not revive until that of the tyrant is at hand;" she winds up with saying, "obvious as this train of reasoning appears, it has been overlooked equally by the opponents and the sticklers for the old canons of criticism; a lamentable instance of the influence of authority, and of the spirit of party, on the judgments of the most cultivated minds." This is a sample of modest assurance in perfection. There is another "remarkable coincidence" in these volumes, between the biography they contain of General Lafayette, and an article about "the Nation's Guest" in a number of the North American Review for 1825. But we leave it to our contemporary to take her Ladyship to task for this appropriation of his property.

In our foregoing remarks we have confined ourselves, in great measure, to some of those portions of the volumes before us, which are most susceptible of ridicule, though we have adverted to only a few even of those—there are others, however, that would require a graver tone. The sickly sentimentalism about Ninon de l'Enclos, La Vallière, Madame d'Houdetot, and other strumpets—such "free" conversations as those which are detailed at page 138, in the first volume, and page 108, in the second; especially as they were held in the presence of a young girl, her Ladyship's niece, who was doubtless one of the chief causes why so many gentlemen came "pour faire leurs hommages" to the aunt—and various expressions upon matters appertaining to religion, deserve reprehension in no measured terms. But we have not space enough at our disposal to bestow any further notice upon these, or to glance at other parts of "France in 1829-30," although we have reaped but a small portion of the harvest which it contains.

And this is the writer who pretends to enlighten the world upon the "state of society" in one of the greatest countries of the earth! This is the work by means of which she flatters herself that such an object is to be effected,—and this too, (proh pudor!) is the kind of work that can be republished in our country with a certainty of success! Should the fact come to the knowledge of posterity, what will be thought of the literary taste of this generation? We have, however, a cause for consolation—if that can be termed consolation which ministers only to selfish vanity, and is a source of pain to every better feeling—in the assurance that the literary history of future times, judging from the experience of the past, will present similar instances of depravity of intellectual appetite. We wonder now, how our ancestors could have relished what we regard with indifference if not with disgust, in the same way that our taste in some respects will be a matter of surprise with our descendants, and as theirs will be with those by whom they may be succeeded on the stage of life. Every age, since books have been written and books have been read, has furnished, and we may therefore assert, every age will furnish, reason upon reason for making the remark of the philosophic author of the "Caractères," that not to hazard sometimes a great deal of nonsense, is to manifest ignorance of the public taste—"c'est ignorer le goût du peuple, que de ne pas hasarder quelquefois de grandes fadaises." We do not wish to deny that Lady Morgan has been gifted with a modicum of talent; even in the work before us, there is occasional evidence of natural ability, which, had it been properly cultivated and modestly employed, might have earned for her honourable fame. But what advantage—we speak, of course, with reference to reputation; as to pecuniary profit we have no doubt that she has found her account in her 'fadaises,' or else they would not have been multiplied to such an extent—what advantage, we ask, has she derived from her faculty of scribbling, except that she has made herself pretty widely known, and ridiculed wherever she is known? Presumptuous ignorance, and overweening conceit, have, in her case, completely nullified, nay worse, have converted into a curse, in some respects, what was intended every way for a blessing. If Lady Morgan would forego her mongrel idiom, and use the English language; if she would confine herself to subjects with which she has some acquaintance; if she would substitute a simple in the stead of her inflated style; and above all, if she could forget herself, she might write tolerably well; but there are too many ifs to render it probable, or even possible, that the defects to which they relate will ever be overcome. This being the case, we take leave of you, Miladi, not with the au revoir of which you are so fond, but with the parting salutation of Louis the Fourteenth to James the Second, when sending him with an army to recover his forfeited crown, "Adieu, and may we never meet again."

Art. II.—Physiologie des Passions, ou nouvelle Doctrine des Sentimens Moraux; par J. L. Alibert. Chapitre XI. de l'Ennui. Physiology of the Passions; or a New Theory of Moral Sentiments. Chap. XI. of Ennui.

This book is neither exact nor eloquent. The thoughts are not precise; the expressions are vague; and, of consequence, the reasonings of no value. The attempts at rich displays of imaginative power are contrasted with a want of invention; and illustrative stories, of feeble execution, are lavished abundantly in lieu of physiological facts. The volumes are too insipid to cheat an idle hour of its weariness; they rather engender fatigue than relieve it. The author will never enter the true elysium of glory; he has not substance enough to proceed straight up the ascent; but will certainly be "blown transverse into the devious air." Like most of the literature of the day, this new Theory of Moral Sentiments is essentially transient. It will pass, like anti-masonry, without producing an era.

Yet the chapter on Ennui is tolerably sensible. It is neither brilliant nor acute; but gives a superficial sketch of that state of being with considerable accuracy. To be sure, it is not from a Frenchman, that the best account of ennui should be expected. Of all nations of Europe, the French have the least of it, though they invented the word; while the Turks, with their untiring gravity, their lethargic dignity, their blind fatalism, their opium-eating, and midnight profligacies, have undoubtedly the largest share. But the Turks are only philosophers in practice; the theory they leave to others. Now next to the Turks, the English suffer most from ennui. Do but hear the account which their finest poetical genius of the present century gives of himself, when he was hardly of age.

"With pleasure drugged he almost longed for wo,
And e'en for change of scene would seek the shades below."

The complaints of a young man in the bloom of life and the vigour of early hope, cannot excite much sympathy. But he interests all our feelings, when in the fullest maturity to which Lord Byron was permitted to attain, he still draws from his own bosom the appalling picture of unalleviated feelings, and describes the horrors of permanent ennui, in language that was doubtless but the mournful echo of an unhappy mind.

"'Tis time this heart should be unmoved,
Since others it has ceased to move;
Yet, though I cannot be beloved,
Still let me love.

My days are in the yellow leaf;
The flowers and fruits of love are gone;
The worm, the canker, and the grief,
Are mine alone.

The fire that in my bosom preys
Is like to some volcanic isle;
No torch is kindled at his blaze—
A funeral pile.

The hope, the fears, the jealous care,
The exalted portion of the pain
And power of love I cannot share,
But wear the chain."

Such was the harassed state of Lord Byron's mind, at the epoch of his life which seemed to promise a crowded abundance of exciting sensations. He had hastened to the consecrated haunts of classic associations; he was struggling for honour on the parent soil of glory; he was surrounded by the stir and tumult of barbarous warfare; he had the consciousness, that the eyes of the civilized world were fixed upon his actions; he professed to feel the impulse of enthusiasm in behalf of liberty; and yet there was not irritation enough in the new and busy life of a soldier, to overcome his apathy, and restore him to happy activity. He only sought to give away his breath on the field, and to take his rest in a soldier's grave.

The literature of the day is essentially transient. The rapid circulation of intelligence enriches the public mind by imparting and diffusing every discovery; and the active spirit of man, quickened by the easy possession of practical knowledge, rightly claims the instant distribution of useful truth. But with this is connected a feverish excitement for novelty. The world, in the earliest days of which accounts have reached us, followed after the newest strains; and now the lessons of former ages, though they have a persuasive eloquence for the tranquil listener, are as blank and as silent as the grave to the general ear. The voice of the past, all musical as it is with the finest harmonies of human intelligence, is lost in the jangling din of temporary discussions. Philosophy steals from the crowd, and hides herself in retirement, awaiting a better day; true learning is undervalued, and almost disappears from among men. It would seem, as though the wise men of old frowned in anger on the turbulence of the petty passions, and withdrew from the noisy and contentious haunts, where wisdom has no votaries, and tranquillity no followers. In the days of ancient liberty, the public places rung with the nervous eloquence of sublime philosophy; and the streets of Athens offered nothing more attractive than the keen discussions, the piercing satire, and the calm philanthropy of Socrates. But now it is politics which rules the city and the country; the times of deep reflection, of slowly maturing thought, are past; and now that erudition is a jest, ancient learning an exploded chimera, and elaborated eloquence known chiefly by recollection, the ample gazette runs its daily career, and heralds, in ephemeral language, the deeds of the passing hours. The age of accumulated learning is past, and every thing is carried along the rushing current of public economy, or of private business.—Life is divided between excited passions and morbid apathy.

And is this current so strong, that it cannot be resisted? Are we borne without hope of rest upon the ebbing tide? Can we never separate ourselves from the theory, and with the coolness of an observer, watch the various emotions, motives, and passions by which the human world is moulded and swayed? Can we not trace the influence of the changes and chances of this mortal state on the character and minds of mortal men?

Life is a pursuit. The moralists, who utter their heathenish oracles in the commonplace complaints of a heathenish discontent, tell us, that we are born but to pursue, and pursue but to be deceived. They say, that man in his career after earthly honours, is like the child that chases the gaudy insect; the pursuit idle; the object worthless. They tell us, that it is but a deceitful though a deceptive star, which beams from the summit of the distant hill; advance, and its light recedes; ascend, and a higher hill is seen beyond, and a wider space is yet to be traversed. And they tell us, that this is vanity; this the worthlessness of human desire; this the misery and desolation of the human heart. But how little do they know of the throbbings of that heart! How poorly have they studied the secrets of the human breast! How imperfectly do they understand the feebleness and the strength of man's fortitude and will! If the bright object still gleams in the horizon, if the brilliancy of glory is still spread on the remotest hill, if the distant sky is still invested with the delicate hues of promise, and the gentle radiance of hope, pursuit remains a pleasure; and the pilgrim, ever light-hearted, passes heedlessly over the barren wastes, and climbs with cheerful ardour each rugged mountain. But suppose that brilliant star to be blotted out of the sky; suppose the lustre of the horizon to have faded into the dank and gloomy shades of a cloudy evening; suppose the pursuit to be now without an object, and the blood which hope had sent merrily through the veins, to gather and curdle round the desponding heart. Then it is, that life is abandoned to persecuting fiends, and the springs of joy are poisoned by the demons of listlessness.

The scholar and the Christian have theirs guarantied against despair. The desire for intelligence is never satisfied but with the attainment of that wisdom which passes all understanding; and the eye discerning the bright lineaments of its perfect exemplar, can set no limits to the sacred passion, which recognises the connexion of the human mind with the divine, and places before itself a career of advancement, to which time itself can never prescribe bounds. But it is not with these high questions that we are at present engaged. We have thrown open the book of human life; we are to read there of this world and its littleness, of the springs of present action, of the relief of present restlessness.

We have said, that the pursuit of a noble object is in itself a pleasure. It is to the mind which holds up no definite object to its wishes, that the universe seems deficient in the means of happiness, and joy becomes a prey to the fiend of ennui.

Let us develop this principle more accurately. Let us examine into the nature of ennui, and fix with exactness its true signification. Let us see if it be a principle of action widely diffused. Let us ascertain the limits of its power; let us trace its influences on individual character. Perhaps the investigation may lead us to a more intimate acquaintance with our nature.

Ennui is the desire of activity without the fit means of gratifying the desire. It presupposes an acknowledgment of exertion as a duty, and a consciousness of the possession of powers suited to making an exertion. It is itself a state of idleness, yet of disquiet. It is inert, yet discontented.

Such is ennui in itself. In its effects, it embraces a large class of human actions, and its influences are widely spread throughout every portion of mental or physical effort. To trace these effects, and to prescribe their limits, will be a part of our object; at present we would observe, that wherever a course of conduct is the result of physical want, of a passion for intelligence, a zeal for glory, or to sum up a great variety of theories in one, of a just and enlightened self-love, there there is no trace of ennui. But when the primary motives of human conduct have failed of their effect, and the mind has become a prey to listlessness, the career, then pursued, let it be what it may, is to be ascribed to the pain of ennui. When the mind gnaws upon itself, we have ennui; the course which is pursued to call the mind from this self-destructive process, is to be ascribed to the influence of that passion.

Are our definitions indistinct? Let us attempt illustration. When the several powers and affections of man are, in the usual course of existence, called into healthy exercise, on objects sufficient to interest and satisfy them; this is happiness. When those powers and affections are exercised by objects sufficient to excite them in their highest degree, but where, being thus excited, there exists no harmony between the mind and its pursuits, where the affections are aroused without being soothed, where the chime is rung, but rung discordantly, there is misery. Where the powers of the mind are vigorous but unoccupied; where there exist a restless craving, an inquiet mobility, yet without any definite purpose or commensurate object, there is ennui.

The state of mind is strongly delineated in the language of the sacred writer.—

"I looked on all the works that my hands had wrought, and on the labour that I had laboured to do; and behold all was vanity and vexation of spirit, and there was no profit under the sun. And I turned myself to behold wisdom, and madness, and folly; for what can the man do that cometh after the king? Even that which hath already been done. Then I saw that wisdom excelleth folly, as far as light excelleth darkness. The wise man's eyes are in his head; but the fool walketh in darkness; and I perceived also, that one event happeneth to them all. Then I said in my heart, As it happeneth to the fool, so it happeneth even to me; and why was I then more wise? Then I said in my heart, that this also is vanity. For there is no remembrance of the wise more than of the fool for ever; seeing that which now is, in the days to come shall all be forgotten. And how dieth the wise man? As the fool. Therefore, I hated life; because the work that is wrought under the sun is grievous unto me; for all is vanity and vexation of spirit."

Or, to take an example from the earliest monument of Grecian genius. Achilles, in the pride of youth, engaged in his favourite profession of arms, making his way to an immortality secured to him by the voice of his goddess mother, sure to gain the victory in any contest, and selecting for his reward the richest spoils and the fairest maid. Achilles, the heroic heathen, was then fully and satisfactorily employed, and according to his semi-barbarous notions of joy and right, was happy within his own breast, and was happy in the world around him. When the same youthful warrior was insulted by the leader under whose banners he had rallied, when the private recesses of his tent were invaded, and his domestic peace disturbed, his mind was strongly agitated by love, anger, hatred, the passion for strife, and the intense effort at forbearance; and though there was here room enough for activity, there was nothing but pain and misery. But when the dispute was over, and the pupil of the Centaur, trained for strife, and victory, and glory, separated from the army, and gave himself up to an inactive contemplation of the struggle against Troy, his mind was abandoned to the sentiment of discontent, and his passions were absorbed in the morbid feeling of ennui. Homer was an exact painter of the human passions. The picture which he draws of Achilles,[1] receiving the subsequent deputation from the Greeks, illustrates our subject exactly. It was in vain for the hero to attempt to sooth his mind with the melodies of the lyre; his blood kindled only at the music of war; it was idle for him to seek sufficient pleasure in celebrating the renown of heroes; this was but a vain effort to quell the burning passion for surpassing them in glory. He listens to the deputation, not tranquilly, but peevishly. He charges them with duplicity, and avows that he loathes their king like the gates of hell.[2] He next reverts to himself: The warrior has no thanks, he exclaims in the bitterness of disappointment—"The coward and the brave man are held in equal honour." Nay, he goes further, and quarrels with providence and fixed destiny.—"After all, the idler, and the man of many achievements, each must die."[3] To-morrow, he adds, his vessels shall float on the Hellespont. The morning dawned; but the ships of Achilles still lingered near the banks of the Scamander. The notes of battle sounded, and his mind was still in suspense between the fiery impulse for war and the haughty reserve of revenge.

When Bruce found himself approaching the sources of the Nile, a thousand sentiments of pride rushed upon his mind; it seemed to him, that destiny had marked out for him a more fortunate and more glorious career, than for any European, kings or warriors, conquerors or travellers, that had ever attempted to penetrate into the interior of Africa. This was a moment of exultation and triumphant delight. But when that same traveller had actually reached the ultimate object of his research, he has himself recorded the emotions which were awakened within him. At the fountain-head of the Nile, Bruce was almost a victim to sentimental ennui.

In this anecdote of the Abyssinian traveller, we have an example of the rapidity with which ennui treads on the heels of triumph, and banishes the feelings of exulting joy. We will cite another, where misery was followed and consummated by ennui. The most eloquent of the Girondists was Vergniaud. It was he that in the spirit of prophecy compared the French revolution to Saturn, since it was about to devour successively all its children, and finally to establish despotism with its attendant calamities. The rivalship of the Mountain in the Convention, the unsuccessful attack on Robespierre, the trial and condemnation of Louis XVI., the defection of Dumourier and its consequences, had doubtless roused the mind of the fervent but unsuccessful orator to the highest efforts which the decline of power, and the consciousness of wavering fortunes, and the menace of utter ruin, patriotism, honour, and love of life, could call forth. At last came the day, fraught with horrors, when the clamours of a despotic and inexorable mob, claimed of the convention Vergniaud and his associates, the little refuse of republican sincerity, to be the victims of their fiendish avidity for blood. Who will doubt, that during that fearful session the mind of Vergniaud was agitated in the extreme, that the highest possible excitement called him into the highest possible activity? Here there was no room for listlessness, and quite as little for happiness. The guarantees of order were failing, and the friends of order were to be buried under the same ruins with the remains of regular legislative authority. Vergniaud retired from the scenes where the foulest of the dogs of war were howling for their prey, and when Gregoire found him out in his hiding-place, the republican orator, though robbery and massacre were triumphant in the city, was discovered reading Tacitus. Why? From affectation? Surely not; Gregoire's visit was unexpected. From cool philosophy? still less, for it was the season of peril for an irritable man. The studies of Vergniaud on that day were the studies of one suffering from ennui.

Ennui was the necromancer which conjured up the ghost of Cæsar on the eve of the battle of Philippi. And when Brutus esteemed that battle lost, which in truth had been won, he had yet to wrestle with that unseen enemy, and enter on a new contest, where he was sure to be overthrown. The execution of Madame Roland was a scene, as far as she was concerned, of intense and unmitigated suffering; but when Brutus dared to despair of virtue, the atrocious sentiment was dictated, not by the spirit that had dared to plan the liberties of the world, but by the demon of ennui, which in an evil hour had possessed himself of the patriot's soul.

Finally, for we have surely made ourselves intelligible, if it is possible for us to do so—the timid lover, whose affections are moved, yet not tranquillized, who gazes with the eyes of fondness on an object that seems to be of a higher world, and admires as the stars are admired, which are acknowledged to be beautiful yet are never possessed; the timid lover, neither wholly doubting, nor wholly hoping, the sport alternately of joy and of sorrow, full of thought and full of longing, feeling the sentiment of rapture yield to the faintness of uncertain hope, is half his time a true personification of ennui.

That ennui is a principle of action widely diffused, will hardly be denied by any careful observer of human nature. No individual can conscientiously claim to have been always and wholly free from its influences, except where there has been a life springing from the purest sources, sanctified by the early influence of religious motives, and protected from erroneous judgments by the constant exercise of a healthful understanding. For the rest, though few are constantly afflicted with it as an incurable evil, there are still fewer who are not at times made to suffer from its influence. It stretches its heavy hand on the man of business and the recluse; it makes its favourite haunts in the city, but it chases the aspirant after rural felicity, into the scenes of his rural listlessness; it makes the young melancholy, and the aged garrulous; it haunts the sailor and the merchant; it appears to the warrior and to the statesman; it takes its place in the curule chair, and sits also at the frugal board of old fashioned simplicity. You cannot flee from it; you cannot hide from it; it is swifter than the birds of passage, and swifter than the breezes that scatter clouds. It climbs the ship of the restless who long for the suns of Europe; it jumps up behind the horseman who scours the woods of Michigan; it throws its scowling glances on the attempt at present enjoyment; it scares the epicurean from his voluptuousness, and when the ascetic has finished his vow, it compels him once more to repeat the tale of his beads.

To the influence of ennui must be traced the passion for strong excitement. When life has become almost stagnant, when the ordinary course of events has been unable to excite any strong interest, ennui assumes a terrific power over the mind, and clamours for emotion, though that emotion is to be purchased by scenes of horror and of crime. "What a magnificent spectacle," said the Parisian mob, "how interesting a spectacle to see a woman of the wit and courage of Madame Roland on the scaffold!" And it is precisely the same power, which excites the sensitive admirer of works of fiction to ransack the shelves of a library for works of thrilling and "painful" interest.

To the same kind of restless curiosity we have to ascribe the passionate declamations of the tragic actor, and the splendid music of the opera; the cunning feats of the village conjuror, and the lascivious pantomime of the city ballet-dancers; the disgusting varieties of bull-fights, and the celebrated feats of pugilism; the locomotive zeal of the great pedestrians, and the perfect quiescence of the "pillar saints."

The habits of ancient Rome illustrate most clearly the extent to which this passion for strong sensations may hurry the public mind into extravagances, and repress every sentiment of sympathy and generosity. Ambition itself is not so reckless of human life as ennui; clemency is the favourite attribute of the former; but ennui has the tastes of a cannibal, and the sight of human blood, shed for its amusement, makes it greedy after a renewal of the dreadful indulgence. No one need be informed, that the shows of ancient gladiators were attended by an infinitely more numerous throng than is ever gathered by any modern spectacle. And let it not be supposed, that the life of one of these combatants was the more safe, because it depended on the interposition of the Roman fair. The fondness for murderous exhibitions finally raged with such vehemence, that they were at length introduced as an attraction at a banquet, and the guests, as they reclined at table in the luxury of physical ease, have been wet by the life-blood from the veins of the wounded gladiators.

Quinetiam exhilarare viris convivia cæde
Mos olim, et miscere epulis spectacula dira
Certantum ferro, sæpe et super ipsa cadentum
Pocula, respersis non parco sanguine mensis.

Time would fail us were we to illustrate the various horrors which attended these amusements, designed to entertain the most refined population of Rome. Time would fail us were we to enumerate the various classifications in the art of murder on the stage, the signals which were made by the multitude in token of relenting clemency, the more usual signal, made by virgins and matrons, demanding the continuance of the combat unto death. Do we not call Titus the delight of the human race? Do we not praise his commonplace puerility, perdidi diem, the exclamation of conceit, rather than of manliness? And yet it was this philanthropist, this favourite of humanity, who caused the vast amphitheatre to be erected, as it were a monument to all ages of the barbarous civilization of the capital of his empire. And as to the numbers who appeared on these occasions, do we suppose it was a pair? or a score? We will not ask after the horrors commended and consummated by a Tiberius or a Caligula. Was not Trajan a moderate prince? Was he not disposed to introduce habits of a reasonable industry? Yet the active Trajan kept up a succession of games to cheat the population of Rome of ennui, during a hundred and twenty-three days, in which time ten thousand gladiators were decked for sacrifice.

Thus the vehemence of this passion is evident from the atrocity of the resources by which its cravings are satisfied. We may also remark, that superstition itself, interwoven as it is with all the fears and weaknesses of humanity, subjects the human mind to a bondage less severe and less permanent than that of the terrific craving after something to dissipate the weariness of the heart. At Rome the sacrifices to the heathen deities were abolished before the games of the gladiators were suppressed; it was less difficult to take from the priests their spoils, from the altars their victims, from the prejudices of the people their religious faith, than to rescue from ennui the miserable wretches whose lives were to be the sport of the idle. The laws already forbade the offering the bull to Jove, when the poet still had to pray that none might perish in the city under the condemnation of pleasure,

Nullus in urbe cadat, cujus sit pœna voluptas.

Philosophy itself offers no guarantee against the common infirmities of listlessness. Many a stoic has resisted the attacks of external evils with an exemplary fortitude; and has yet failed in his encounters with time. Strange indeed that time should be an encumbrance to a sage! Strange indeed, that, when life is so short, and philosophy boundless, and time a gift of the most precious nature, dealt out to us in successive moments, a possession which is most coveted, and can the least be hoarded, which comes, but never returns, which departs as soon as given, and is lost even in the receiving,—strange indeed that such a gift, so precious, so transient, so fleeting, should ever press severely upon a philosopher!

And yet wisdom is no security against ennui. The man who made Europe ring with his eloquence, and largely contributed to the spirit of republican enthusiasm, wasted away for months in a state of the most foolish languor, under the idea that he was dying of a polypus at his heart.[4] Nay, this philosopher, who presumed to believe himself skilled in the ways of man, and an adept in the character of women, who dared to expound religion and proposed to reform Christianity, who committed and confessed the meanest actions,—and yet, as if in the presence of the Supreme Arbiter of life and before the tribunal of Eternal Justice, arrogated to himself an equality with the purest in the innumerable crowd of immortal souls,—he, the proud one, would so far yield to ennui, as to put the final and eternal welfare of his soul at issue on the throw of a stone. La Harpe, no correct writer, nor sound critic, affirms, that Rousseau undertook to decide the question of a Superintending Providence by throwing stones at a tree. That would have been not merely an imbecile but a blasphemous act. As the case stood, Jean Jacques must be acquitted of any charge worse than that of excessive and even ridiculous weakness. "Je m'en vais," he says to himself, "je m'en vais jeter cette pierre contre l'arbre qui est vis-a-vis de moi: si je le touche, signe de salut; si je le marque, signe de damnation."

But Jean Jacques passes for an inspired madman. What shall we say to the temperate Spinoza, whose life was not variegated by the brightness of domestic scenes, and who, being cut off from active life and from social love, necessarily encountered a void within himself. It was his favourite resource against the visits of ennui, to catch spiders and teach them to fight; and when he had so far made himself master of the nature of these animals, that he could get them as angry as game cocks, he would, all thin and feeble as he was, break out into a roar of laughter, and chuckle to see his champions engage, as if they, too, were fighting for honour.

Poor Spinoza! It may indeed be questioned, whether his whole philosophy was not a sort of pastime with him. It may be, that after all he was ingenious because he could not be quiet, and wrote his attacks on religion from a want of something to do. At any rate it has fared strangely with his works. The world had well nigh become persuaded, that Spinoza was but a name for a degraded atheism, and now we have him zealously defended, and in fact we have seen him denominated a saint.[5] So near are extremes: the ridiculous borders on the sublime; and the same man is denounced as a parricide of society, and again extolled as a model of sanctity.

But we have a stronger example than either of these. The very philosopher, who first declared experience to be the basis of knowledge, and found his way to truth through the safe places of observation, gives in his own character some evidences of participation in the common infirmity. He said very truly, that there is a foolish corner even in the wise man's brain. Yet, if there has ever appeared on earth, a man possessed of reason in its highest perfection, it was Aristotle. He had the gift of seeing the forms of things, undisturbed by the confusing splendour of colours; his mind, like the art of sculpture, represented objects with the most precise outlines and exact images; but the world in his mind was a colourless world. He understood and has explained the secrets of the human heart, the workings of the human passions; but he performs all these moral dissections with the coolness of an anatomist, engaged in a delicate operation. The nicety of his distinctions, and his deep insight into the nature of man, are displayed without passion, while his constant effort after the discovery of new truth, never for one moment betrays him into mysticism, or tempts him to substitute shadows for realities. One would think, that such a philosopher was the personification of self-possession; that his unruffled mind would always dwell in the serene regions of intelligence; that his step would be on the firm ground of experience; that his progress to the sublime temple of truth and of fame, would have been ever secure and progressive; that happiness itself would have blessed him for his tranquil and dispassionate devotedness to exalted pursuits.

But perhaps the clear perception of the realities of life is not the secret source of contentment. Many a scholar has shrunk from the contest of transient interests, and sought happiness rather in the world of contemplation; and perhaps the studies of antiquity derive a part of their charm, from their affording us a place of refuge against the clamours and persecutions which belong to present rivalries. If the view of human nature, adopted by a large portion of our theologians, is a just one, the heart must recoil with horror from the true consideration of the human world in its natural unmitigated depravity, and throw itself rather into the hopes that belong to the future, and the mercies that attach to the Supreme Intelligence, for relief against the apathy which so cold a contemplation of unmingled evil might naturally produce.

In the mouth of Pindar, life might be called a dream, and it would but pass for the effusion of poetic melancholy. But when the sagacious philosopher asserts it, that all hope is but the dream of waking man, a latent discontent broken from the concealment of an unsatisfied curiosity, a baffled pursuit; when his mind had arrived at that state, nothing but its remarkable vigour could have preserved him from settled gloom.

Again the venerable sage examined into the sources of happiness. It does not consist, he affirms, in voluptuous pleasures, for they are transient, brutalizing, and injurious to the mind; nor in public honours, for they depend on those who bestow them, and it is not felicity to be the recipient of an uncertain bounty; nor yet does happiness consist in riches, for the care of them is but a toil; and if they are expended, it is plainly a proof, that contentment is sought for in the possession of other things. In the view of the Stagyrite, happiness consists in the pursuit of knowledge, and in the practice of virtue, under the auspices of mind, and nature, and fortune. He that is intelligent, and young, and handsome, and vigorous, and rich, is alone the happy man. Did the world need the sublime wisdom, the high mental endowment of the Stagyrite, to learn, that neither the poor, nor the dull, nor the aged, nor the sick, can share in the highest bounty of the Universal Father? When it is remembered that Aristotle was favoured above all his contemporaries in intellectual gifts, we ask the reader to draw an inference as to the state of his mind, which still demanded the beauties of personal attractions, and the lavish liberality of fortune.

When asked what is the most transient of fleeting things, the philosopher made but a harsh answer, in naming "gratitude;" but his mind must have been sadly a prey to ennui, when he could exclaim, "my friends! there are no friends."

He could not be content to sit or stand, when he gave lessons in moral science, but walked to and fro in constant restlessness; and, indeed, if tradition reports rightly, he could not wait the will of Heaven for his release from weariness, but in spite of all his sublime philosophy, and all his expansive genius, he was content to die as the fool dieth.

But ennui kills others beside philosophers. It is not without example, that men have committed suicide, because they have attained their utmost wishes. The man of business, finding himself possessed of a sufficient fortune, retires from active life; but the habit of action remains, and becomes a power of terrific force. In such cases, the sufferer sits away listless hours of intense suffering; the mind preys upon itself, and sometimes madness ensues, sometimes suicide is committed.

Saul went out to find his father's asses. With the humble employment he seems to have been reasonably pleased, and probably made search with a light heart and an honest one. But, seeking asses, he found a kingdom; and contentment fled when possession was full. In him, the reproofs of conscience and discontent with the world produced a morbid melancholy, and pain itself would have been to him a welcome refuge from ennui.

We detect the same subtle spirit at work, in the slanders in which gossips find relief. Truth is not exciting enough to those who depend on the characters and lives of their neighbours for all their amusement; and if a story is told of more than common interest, ennui is sure to have its joy in adding a few embellishments. If time did not hang heavy, what would become of scandal? Time, the common enemy, must be passed, as the phrase is, and the phrase bears its own commentary; and since the days of gladiators are passed, where can be the harm of blackening the reputation of the living? To the pusillanimous and the idle, scandal is the condiment of life; and while back-biting furnishes their entertainment abroad, domestic quarrelling fills up the leisure hours at home. It is a pretty general rule, that the médisante is a termagant in her household; and, as for our own sex, depend upon it, in nine cases out of ten, the evil tongue belongs to a disappointed man. In the tenth case, the man is an imbécile.

Fashion, also, in its excess, is but a relief against ennui; and it is rather strong evidence of the universal prevalence of listlessness, that a change in dress at Paris, can, within a few months, be imitated in St. Louis. Yet, in the young and the fair, a milder sentiment influences conduct. In them, the latent consciousness of beauty, the charm of an existence that is opening in the fulness of its attractions, the becoming loveliness of innocence and youth, the simple cheerfulness of inexperience, lead to a modest and decorous display. Broadway, the unrivalled Broadway, is not without its loungers; yet the young and the gay are not discontented ones. They move in the strength of their own beauty, like the patriot statesman, neither shunning, nor yet courting admiration; and tripping along the brilliant street, half coveting half refusing attention,

"They feel that they are happier than they know."

From Broadway we pass to the crowded haunts of business. Is there ennui there? Do the money changers grow weary of profits? Is business so dull that bankers have nothing to do? Are doubtful notes so uncommon, that there is no latitude for shaving? Have the underwriters nothing at sea to be anxious about? Do the insurers on life omit to look after those who have taken out policies, and exhort them to temperance and exercise? These are all busy enough; too much engaged, and too little romantic to be much moved by sentimental regrets. But there are those, who plunge headlong into affairs from the restlessness of their nature, and who hurry into bold speculations, because they cannot endure to be idle. Now, business, like poetry, requires a tranquil mind. But there are those, who venture upon the career of business, under the impulse of ennui. How shall the young and haughty heirs of large fortunes rid themselves of their time, and acquit themselves in the eye of the public of their imagined responsibilities? One writes a tale for the Souvenirs, another speculates in the stocks. The former is laughed at, yet hoards an estate; the latter is food for hungry sharks. Then comes bankruptcy; sober thought repels the fiend that had been making a waste of life, or the same passion drives its possessor to become a busy body and zealot in the current excitement of the times; or absolute despair, ennui in its intensity, leads to insanity.

For the mad house, too, as well as the debtor's gaol, is in part peopled by the same blighting power, and nature recovers itself from a state of languid apathy, only by the terrific excitement of frenzy. Or a passion for suicide ensues; the mind revels in the contemplation of the grave, and covets the aspect of the countenance of death as the face of a familiar friend. The mind invests itself in the sombre shades of a melancholy longing after eternal rest—a longing which is sometimes connected with unqualified disbelief, and sometimes associates itself with an undefined desire of a purely spiritual existence.

We might multiply examples of the very extensive prevalence of that unhappy languor of which we are treating. Let us aim rather at observing the limit of its power.

It was a foolish philosophy, which believed in ennui as an evidence and a means of human perfectibility. The only exertions which it is capable of producing, are of a subordinate character. It may give to passion a fearful intensity, consequent on a state of moral disease; but human virtue must be the result of far higher causes. The exercise of principle, the generous force of purified emotions, cheerful desire, and willing industry, are the parents of real greatness. If we look through the various departments of public and of intellectual action, we shall find the mark of inferiority upon every thing which has sprung from ennui. In philosophy, it might produce the follies of Cynic oddity, but not the sublime lessons of Pythagoras or Socrates. In poetry, it may produce effusions from persons of quality, devoid of wit, but it never could have pointed the satire of Pope. In the mechanic arts it may contrive a balloon, but never could invent a steam-boat. In religion, it stumbles at a thousand knotty points in metaphysical theology, but it never led the soul to intercourse with heaven, or to the contemplation of divine truth.

The celebrated son of Philip was a man of exalted genius; and political wisdom had its share in his career. Ennui could never have produced Macedonia's madman, but it may well put in its claim to the Swede. Or let us look rather for a conqueror, who dreamed that he had genius to rival Achilles, and yet never had a settled plan of action. The famous king of Epirus has seemed to be an historical puzzle, so uncertain was his purpose, so wavering his character. Will you know the whole truth about him? Pyrrhus was an ennuyé.

When a painter, in the pursuit of his vocation, is obliged to give a likeness of a person that has neither beauty nor soul, he may perhaps draw figures in the air, or spoil his picture by an inconsiderate flourish of his pencil. He dislikes his task, and his work will show it.

When a poet writes a song for hire, or solely to be sung to some favourite air, it is more than probable his verses will be languid, and his meaning doubtful. Thus, for example,—

"The smiles of joy, the tears of wo
Deceitful shine, deceitful flow."

This is sheer nonsense. Joy smiles in good earnest, and many an aching heart knows too well the deep truth of distress.

The fervent eloquence of true piety springs from conviction, and reaches the heart; but we have sometimes listened to a dull sermon, which proceeded from weariness more than from zeal, and belonged to ennui more than to the stirring action of eloquent religion. The lawyer, too, is sometimes overborne in his plea by disgust with his work, and in his tiresome repetitions you may plainly see how he loathes—

"To drudge for the dregs of men,
And scrawl strange words with the barbarous pen."

The life of Napoleon, in its busiest period, presents a remarkable instance of ennui. While the allies were collecting around him in their utmost strength, he was himself wavering in his purposes, and reluctant to decide on the retreat to Leipsic. Strange, that at such a time he should have given way to an overwhelming and almost childish languor. Yet an eyewitness relates, "I have seen him at that time, seated on a sofa, beside a table on which lay his charts, totally unemployed, unless in scribbling mechanically large letters on a sheet of white paper." Such was the power of ennui over Napoleon, at a time, when, in his own language, nothing but a thunderbolt could save him.

It is dangerous for a man of superior ability to find himself thrown upon the world without some regular employment. The restlessness inherent in genius being thus left undirected by any permanent influence, frames for itself occupations out of accidents. Moral integrity sometimes falls a prey to this want of fixed pursuits; and the man who receives his direction in active life from the fortuitous impulse of circumstances, will be very apt to receive his principles likewise from chance. Genius, under such guidance, attains no noble ends; but resembles rather a copious spring, conveyed in a falling aqueduct; where the waters continually escape through the frequent crevices, and waste themselves ineffectually on their passage. The law of nature is here, as elsewhere, binding; and no powerful results ever ensue from the trivial exercise of high endowments. The finest mind, when thus destitute of a fixed purpose, passes away without leaving permanent traces of its existence; losing its energy by turning aside from its course, it becomes as harmless and inefficient as the lightning, which, of itself irresistible, may yet be rendered powerless by a slight conductor.

These remarks apply perhaps in some measure even to Leibnitz, whose sublime intelligence and mental activity were the wonder of his age. He attained a celebrity of reputation, but hardly a contented spirit; at times he descended to the consideration of magnitudes infinitely small, and at times rose to the belief that he heard the universal harmony of nature; for years he was devoted to illustrating the antiquities of the family of a petty prince; and then again he assumed the sublime office of defending the perfections of Providence. Yet with all this variety of pursuit, the great philosopher was hardly to be called a happy man; and it almost fills us with melancholy to find, that the very theologian who would have proved this to be absolutely the best of all possible worlds, died after all of chagrin.

Yet the name of Leibnitz is one which should rather excite unmingled admiration; for the rich endowments of Heaven distinguished him as one of the most favoured in that intellectual superiority which is the choicest gift of God. Our subject is more fully illustrated in the case of a less gifted, though a notorious man; one whose qualities have been recently held up to admiration, yet for whom we find it impossible to conceive sentiments of respect. We mean Lord Bolingbroke.

His talents as a writer have secured to him a very distinguished place in the literature of England; and his political services, during the reign of Queen Anne, have rendered him illustrious in English history. But though he was possessed of wit, eloquence, family, wealth, and opportunity, he never displayed true dignity of character, nor real greatness of soul. He seemed to have no fixed principles of action; and to have loved contest more than victory. Wherever there was strife, there you might surely expect to meet St. John; and his public career almost justifies the inference, that apostacy (if indeed a man who has no principles can be called an apostate) would have seemed to him, after his defeat, a moderate price for permission to appear again in the lists. But as he had always coveted power with an insatiable avidity, he never could rest long enough to acquire it. On the stormy sea of public life, he was for ever struggling to be on the topmost wave; but the waves receded as fast as he advanced; and fate seemed to have destined him to waste his life in fruitless efforts and as fruitless changes.

In early life he sought distinction by his debaucheries; and from the accounts of his biographer, it would seem, that he succeeded in becoming the most daring profligate in London. Tired of the excess of dissipation, he attempted the career of politics, and found his way into Parliament under the auspices of the whigs. When politics failed, he put on the mask of a metaphysician. Tired of that costume, he next attempted to play the farmer. Dissatisfied with farming, he wrote political pamphlets. Still discontented with his condition in the world, he strove to undermine the basis of religion.

He began public life as a whig; but as the tories were in the ascendant, he rapidly ripened into a tory; he ended his political career by deserting the tories and avowing the doctrines of staunch and uncompromising whigs. He tried libertinism, married life, politics, power, exile, restoration, the House of Commons, the House of Lords, the city, the country, foreign travel, study, authorship, metaphysics, infidelity, farming, treason, submission, dereliction,—but ennui held him with a firm grasp all the while, and it was only in the grave that he ceased from troubling.

To an observer who peruses his writings with this view of his character, many of his expressions of wise indifference and calm resignation, have even a ludicrous aspect. The truth breaks forth from all his attempts at disguise. The philosopher's robes could not hide the stately wrecks of his political passions. They say, that round Vesuvius, the lava of former eruptions has so entirely resolved itself into soil, that vineyards thrive on the black ruins of the volcano; and that the ancient devastation could hardly be recognised, except for an occasional dark mass, which, not yet decomposed, frowns here and there over the surrounding fertility. Something like this was true of St. John; he believed his ambition extinct, and attempted to gather round its ruins all the beauties and splendour of contented wisdom; but his nature was still ungovernably fierce; and to the last, his passions lowered angrily on the quiet scenes of his literary retirement.

There is no clue to his character, except in supposing him to have been under the influence of ennui, which was perpetually terrifying him into the grossest contradictions. He could not be said to have had any principles, or to have belonged to any party; and to whatever party he rallied, he was sure to become utterly faithless. He was not less false to the Pretender than to the King, to Ormond than to Walpole. He was false to the tories and false to the whigs; he was false to his country, for he attempted to involve her in civil war; and false to his God, for he combated religion. He was not swayed by a passion for glory, for he did not pursue it steadily,—nor by a passion for power, for he quarrelled with the only man by whose aid he could have maintained it. He was rather driven to and fro by a wild restlessness, which led him into gross contradictions "for his sins." Nor was his falsehood without its punishment. What could be more pitifully degrading, than for one who had been a successful British minister of state, and had displayed in the face of Europe his capacity for business and his powers of eloquence, to have finally stooped to accept a seat in the Pretender's cabinet, where pimps and prostitutes were the prime agents and counsellors?

There exists a very pleasant letter from Pope, giving an account of Bolingbroke's rural occupations, during his country life in England, after the reversal of his attainder. He insisted on being a farmer; and to prove himself so, hired a painter to fill the walls of his parlour with rude pictures of the implements of husbandry. The poet describes him between two haycocks, watching the clouds with all the apparent anxiety of a husbandman; but to us it seems, that his mind was at that time no more in the skies than when he quoted Anaxagoras, and declared heaven to be the wise man's home. His heart clung to earth, and to earthly strife; and his uneasiness must at last have become deplorably wretched, since he could consent to pick up stale arguments against Christianity, and leave a piece of patchwork, made up of the shreds of other men's scepticism, as his especial legacy to posterity, in proof of the masterly independence of his mind.

Thus we have endeavoured to explain the nature of that apathy which is worse than positive pain, and which impels to greater madness than the fiercest passions,—which kings and sages have not been able to resist, nor wealth nor pleasures to subdue. We have described ennui as a power for evil rather than for good; and we infer, that it was an absurd philosophy which classed it among the causes of human superiority, and the means of human improvement. It is the curse pronounced upon voluptuous indolence and on excessive passion; on those who decline active exertion, and thus throw away the privileges of existence; and on those who live a feverish life, in the constant frenzy of stimulated desires. There is but one cure for it: and that is found in moderation; the exercise of the human faculties in their natural and healthful state; the quiet performance of duty, in meek submission to the controlling Providence, which has set bounds to our achievements in setting limits to our power. Briefly: our ability is limited by Heaven—our desires are unlimited, except by ourselves—ennui can be avoided only by conforming the passions of the human breast to the conditions of human existence.

In pursuing this investigation, which we now bring to a close, we have not attempted to exhaust the subject; we refer it rather to the calm meditations of others, who will find materials enough within themselves. And lest the impatient should throw aside our essay with the disgust of satiety, or the persevering should by our prolixity be vexed with the very spirit which we would rather teach them to exorcise, we here take a respectful leave, with our sincerest wishes, that life may be to the reader a succession of pleasant emotions, and death a resting place neither coveted nor feared.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Iliad, ix. 187-190.

[2] Iliad, ix. 310-320.

[3] Iliad. Pope renders this—Alike regretted in the dust he lies. But it is an expression of discontent with destiny, which sets a common limit to life, and not to men, whose regrets may be unequal.

[4] Jean Jacques Rousseau. Confessions, p. 1. l. vi.

[5] We remember perfectly well the beginning of an apostrophe to the Jewish philosopher; "Du heiliger Spinoza." Herder, too, has a good deal to say in defence of him.

Art. III.—Travels in Kamtchatka and Siberia; with a Narrative of a Residence in China. By Peter Dobell. 2 vols. 12mo. 1830.

Mr. Dobell, the author of these volumes, is an American gentleman, who formerly resided in the city of Philadelphia, where he was known as an enterprising and intelligent merchant. Commercial business led him to make several voyages, beyond the Cape of Good Hope; and circumstances at length induced him to prolong his residence in Asia. He established himself at Canton, where he lived for some years, and undertook, from time to time, trading expeditions to various ports on the shore of the Pacific Ocean. In the course of these, frequent opportunities were afforded of noticing the manners, country, and state of society in China, superior to such as occur to ordinary travellers; and much too of the remote people of Eastern Russia, who are very little known to those inhabiting the civilized portions of the world. These voyages were succeeded by more than one journey across the country to St. Petersburg, in which he observed, with an attentive eye and inquisitive disposition, the extensive regions forming the penetralia of that vast empire. His intelligence and exertions were noticed and rewarded by the confidence of the government, who conferred on him the office of Consul at some Eastern port, and he was subsequently raised to the post of "Counsellor of the court" of his Imperial Majesty, a rank which he still retains, having probably relinquished the intention of returning to his own country.

The account of China, which, in the natural order, would form the first portion of his narrative, is comprised in a sort of supplement to the travels in Siberia, and contains in a more compendious form, a good sketch of the manners and state of society in that singular country. The means of observation, and of obtaining information, are indeed greatly diminished, by the well known jealousy of the Chinese towards strangers, and the extreme vanity and exaggeration with which they speak of themselves and their country; but the pursuits of Mr. Dobell, together with the recurrence of the opportunities by which he profited, give to his account a considerable degree of novelty, and certainly entitle it to more than ordinary confidence.

On his first arrival at Canton, he was struck with the new and interesting scene that presented itself. Islands, hills, canals, and rivers, were scattered around. The verdure was lively, the population excessive, the vegetation and general appearance of the country totally different from those he had elsewhere beheld, and the waters glittered with innumerable fleets of boats of various sizes and descriptions. The boatmen and pilots addressed him in a language which he afterwards found to prevail extensively at Canton, and which was called English; it is, in truth, a bad dialect of that language, the composition and pronunciation of which are so curious and difficult, that a residence of a year or two is necessary for its acquisition. None of the Chinese, rich or poor, understand those who speak plain English. The first intercourse of a foreigner with the natives, displays that imposition and venality which are more strongly exhibited, during every month of his residence among them. He is at once surrounded by persons, called compradors, who offer their assistance in supplying him with provisions of every description; they serve him without wages, although they are obliged to pay the Mandarins for the privilege of affording their generous aid to strangers; the consequence is, they take especial care to remunerate themselves handsomely at the expense of those to whom they extend their kindness. Besides this, as they bribe the custom-house officers, they are able to offer many facilities, and to carry on an extensive contraband commerce. Those officers are sent to a vessel immediately on her arrival, and their boats, called hoppoo-boats are constantly attached to her stern while she remains in port; their consciences, however, are easily satisfied by the liberality of the comprador, and they pass their time in smoking, sleeping, and playing at cards; indeed, if any extraordinary smuggling is desired to be accomplished, they protect the offender against the officious interference of other officers: they keep shops on board of their boats, where they exercise their expertness in cheating, and, as every thing is sold by weight, it is necessary to weigh for yourself what you buy, to avoid the tricks which they always endeavour to play.

Undoubtedly, the venality of the Chinese has been increased by the introduction of commerce from beyond the Cape of Good Hope; but there is no doubt also, that its existence is of very old date, and that it is owing to the nature and conduct of the government, more than to the character of the people. There are so many prohibitions and enormous duties to tempt their prevailing passion, avarice, that vast numbers engage in the contraband trade, as being the most profitable; moderate duties, and freedom of importation, would destroy the temptation, and render smuggling dangerous and unprofitable; at present it has become an organized system of plunder, protected by the Mandarins themselves.

"The opium trade," says Mr. Dobell, "with the exception of ten chests of that pernicious drug, that are allowed to be imported into Macao, for medicinal purposes, is entirely conducted by smugglers. In defiance of an annual edict from the Emperor, making it death to smuggle opium, the enormous quantity of nearly four thousand chests is imported every year to Macao and Whampoa; the greater part, however, goes to the former place. When I inform my readers that each chest weighs a pecul, that is to say, 133-1/3 English pounds, and that it sells for twelve to fifteen hundred, and sometimes two thousand Spanish dollars a chest, they may form some judgment of the value and extent of smuggling in China. It is a business that all the inferior Mandarins, and some of the higher ones, their protectors, are engaged in; so that opium is carried through the streets of Macao, in the most bare-faced manner, in the open day. The opium dealers at Whampoa, formerly took it away by night, but latterly I have seen them go to the ship, with the linguist of the Whampoa custom-house officer, and take it out in the day time. Sixty Spanish dollars is the bribe paid for each chest of opium sold at Macao; and if it goes to Canton, it pays sixty more on its arrival there. Large boats armed, and having from thirty to forty men, called opium boats, ply between Macao and Canton, when that market offers an advantage in price. These boats carry this drug, and are sanctioned by the custom-house officers, who, of course, receive for this business likewise, a good bribe."

The only attempts made to suppress this practice, are on the initiation into office of new foo-yunes, or governors, who have not yet perfectly learned the established usages, or who have not been propitiated by the necessary gratuities. In these cases, a terrible revolution occurs in the peaceful and quiet frauds of the smugglers; their shops are broken up, their property confiscated without mercy, and all the terrors of the law invoked upon the persons of such, who indeed are few, as have not alertness and foresight enough to keep out of the way. This excess of virtue does not endure long however; and the liberal generosity of the traders generally contrives, in a month, to overcome the scruples of the most resolute.

"During my residence, however," says Mr. Dobell, "a foo-yune arrived, who proved incorruptible, and he almost destroyed the smugglers, as well as the profits of his colleagues; which latter, becoming tired of his persecutions, united together, and by their intrigues had him advanced to a much higher station. Being a man of talent, he got another step again in a short time, and at length came back to Canton as Tsan-tuk or viceroy. The opium dealers and smugglers were greatly alarmed, shut up their shops, and secreted themselves for some time. It appeared their fears were groundless. This artful man, who formerly persecuted them from political motives, to insure his advancement, was now as mild and propitious as possible. Having arrived at an elevated station, with the certainty of rising still higher, he sought to enrich himself, in order to be more sure of gratifying his ambition. Accordingly, he proved kind to his colleagues, and polite to Europeans; and by his affability of deportment, contrived to amass the largest fortune that ever fell to the share of a viceroy of Canton. He was afterwards made a member of the emperor's council at Pekin."

The robbery of the government, if conducted with sufficient skill and boldness, seems to be as successful as smuggling—indeed, it is a maxim with those in power, never to risk a defeat, and that it is best to accomplish their ends, by a crafty and cautious delay until a favourable moment for executing them arrives. The salt trade is one of the most lucrative, important, and extensive, and is conducted entirely under special licenses from Mandarins, appointed by the crown. Some years since, the pirates on the coast intercepted the salt-junks, and compelled the monopolists to negotiate with them, and pay a certain sum for the safe passage of every vessel. After a while, this intercourse led to a regular trade, by which the captains of the salt-junks supplied the pirates with arms and ammunition, and the government discovering it, an entire stop was put to the salt trade. The pirates, however, were not to be so easily frightened or defeated; their admiral, Apo-Tsy, forthwith commenced an offensive warfare; assembled an immense fleet of junks and a force of upwards of twenty thousand men, invaded the country near Macao, cut all the ripe rice, and carried it off, as well as a great number of women, whom he presented to his followers. In vain did the viceroy attack the piratical fleet,—he was defeated in every engagement, and the affair was only terminated by making Apo-Tsy governor of the province of Fokien, and pardoning all his followers! Matters however did not stop here; in some of his battles, Apo-Tsy had taken prisoner an admiral nearly related to the heir to the crown, and cut off his head; as soon as the relative ascended the throne, he despatched a polite message to the governor of Fokien, to say, that the laws of the empire required blood for blood, and that his excellency's head was therefore required instead of the admiral's. There was no excuse to be made, and the twenty thousand pirates were no longer at hand, so that Apo-Tsy's head was conveyed to Pekin.

This salt trade is very extensive; no less than twenty thousand tons of shipping being occupied in it alone. Indeed the great commerce of the Chinese appears to be that carried on by their own junks to the Indo-Chinese islands. One of these vessels will carry a cargo of from three to five thousand dollars value, in earthenware, silks, nankeens, ironmongery, tea, and other productions and manufactures of the Chinese. They have settlements on all these islands, and are certainly invaluable colonists, as they have sufficiently proved wherever they are established. They work the mines, plant cotton, make indigo and sugar, and acquire large fortunes among the slothful and careless Malays. Though they intermarry with these people, they never adopt their habits or religion, but remain, as well as their descendants, a distinct race; and wherever found, their settlements present a complete miniature picture of China. It is indeed a gross error to consider China a country wholly agricultural and manufacturing; on the contrary, the Chinese are one of the most commercial nations of the globe. It is true, they affect themselves to hold the trade which they carry on with distant nations, as comparatively unimportant, and assert that with the contiguous islands to be infinitely more lucrative; yet this is to be ascribed to their habit of decrying other countries; and it is not to be doubted that the revenue derived from the commerce they thus contemn, is very great. The importations into Canton from England, America, Holland, France, Sweden, Denmark, Manilla, and India, in European and American ships, in money and merchandise, must be annually from thirty to forty millions of dollars. The bad policy which occasions the immense contraband trade in opium, deprives the government of duties, annually, to the amount of four or five millions of dollars. Their commercial system with foreigners, shows a great deal of deep cunning, but it is repulsive to wisdom and good policy, and by no means calculated to afford them the advantages they might derive from that intercourse.

The highly wrought principles and moral maxims, which abound in the writings of the lawgivers and philosophers of China, have been sometimes cited to prove the existence of a superior system of institutions and laws. Theoretical speculations, vanity, and self adulation, are one thing; wise administration, and practical justice, are another. The doctrines of Confucius are worthy to be placed with those of Solon; the rescripts of the celestial emperor, abound in common-places of unbending integrity and the sternest equity; but notwithstanding all this, the morals of the people are debased, the very foundations of virtue are sapped by bribery and corruption, with all their concomitant vices; the sword of justice is arrested; and license is widely given to the violation of public and private rights. Some instances of this unblushing venality are mentioned by Mr. Dobell.

"By the law of homicide, life must atone for life; and, if a person dies suddenly, the master of the house is treated in the same manner as if he had been guilty, until he proves the fact. This keeps the Chinese always on their guard, and ready to deceive the mandarins, or to bribe them, if necessity should require. A person of my acquaintance related to me, that he had a large garden, where there were some nice fruits, which were often stolen; and although his servants had frequently watched, they could not detect the offender. He therefore determined to watch with them; and, having armed himself with a pike, accompanied his two servants in the night, to try and detect the thief. Not long after he had placed himself at his post, he saw a naked man approach the trees near where he stood. He called to him to stand still or he would kill him. The fellow, frightened at this summons, made off with all speed; and the master of the house, seeing him about to escape, threw his pike at him, which killed him on the spot. He was much alarmed at the accident; but recollecting himself, he promised his servants a handsome present to keep the affair secret; and with their assistance, threw the dead body over the wall, into his neighbour's garden. This, too, was managed in so careful manner, as to render it impossible to discover whence the body came. His neighbour, who was a very rich tea-merchant, felt no less alarmed than astonished, on the following morning, when his servants informed him that a dead man had been found in the garden, who to all appearance had been murdered. The story soon reached the mandarin of the district, who proceeded, in all due form, to execute the duties of his office, and examine the body; not a little delighted to have to deal with such a man as the rich tea-merchant. A corpse found in this way cannot be touched or removed until the police-mandarin of the district comes and inquires into the manner of the person's death; and if there is any thing suspicious, he will not suffer the dead man to be taken away, before he has had some satisfactory proofs of the cause of his death. As none such could be elicited from the merchant, who, conscious of his innocence, thought the mandarin could do him no harm, the latter commenced a regular process, and made him daily visits, besides sending for him frequently, and thus perplexed him exceedingly. All this time the dead man was left in the garden, which being near the house, and the body beginning to putrefy, such an odour was caused as became almost insupportable. At length, the merchant, overpowered by the bad smell, and alarmed by the measures the mandarin was preparing to prove him culpable, was happy to compromise the affair, and have the dead body removed, on paying the sum of four thousand five hundred Spanish dollars!"

Nor was this the end of the adventure, which reminds one of the story of the Little Hunch-back, in the Arabian Nights Entertainments:—

"A few years after, the person who put the dead man into the merchant's garden, had himself a disagreeable affair, though it cost him less trouble and money to get rid of it. In the street where he lived, and not far from his house, was an eating house for the lower classes. A beggar, who had been half-starved, receiving from some compassionate person enough to purchase himself a very ample repast, repaired to this eating house, and called for several things at the same moment, which he ate most voraciously. The owner of the eating house requested him to stop a while before he ate again, as he perceived it must have been some time since he had satisfied his hunger. The beggar, however, would not listen to reason; he demanded food for his money till it was all expended, and then dropped down dead. This happened towards evening; and when the host perceived that it was dark, he and his servants took up the dead mendicant, and placed him at the door of the person before mentioned. On the following morning, the beggar-mandarin of the district came to him, and was very troublesome, declaring the beggar had been killed by some of his family, and that he should institute a process against him immediately. The accused, however, had the good fortune to find a witness, who had seen the keeper of the eating house and his servants put the body at his door. Although the beggar-mandarin could now do nothing against him in law, he refused to take the corpse away; and he was obliged to pay him two hundred dollars to have it removed before it became offensive. No doubt he got a good fee likewise from the master of the eating house."

The accounts we have of the population of China, greatly exaggerate it in the opinion of Mr. Dobell. The persons by whom these statements are given, have been generally ambassadors, missionaries and others, who were, from political motives, as well as convenience of travelling, conducted in boats on the canals and rivers which intersect the richest, best cultivated and most populous parts of the empire. But it is ridiculous to calculate the number of inhabitants, by assuming, as the basis, the population of a square league so settled, and to imagine that all the land is equally well cultivated. The truth is, that all the rice grounds of the empire—and the whole population eats rice—would be utterly insufficient to afford the necessary quantity, for any thing approaching to the numbers which it is currently asserted to contain.

The system of husbandry, too, is defective, though the cultivators of the soil are industrious; about Canton and Macao, they transplant every stalk of rice by hand with great regularity, and make two crops in the year; one in July, the other in October. In the cultivation of vegetables of all sorts, they are not surpassed by any nation of the globe. Rents are usually paid in cattle, hogs, fowls, rice, and the various productions of the soil, and the tenure is a species of feudal one, derived primarily from the emperor, who is considered theoretically as the actual proprietor of all the soil.[6] Fruits are so plentiful, that there is less attention paid to them than in colder climates; almost every month of the year has its peculiar fruits; but those most esteemed are the oranges, mangoes, and lichees. Of the productions of the soil, however, that most prized by foreigners, as well as most used and esteemed in China, is tea. To the history of this celebrated plant, Mr. Dobell has devoted a whole chapter, but we confess that we have found it less perspicuous, except as to the commercial value of the various qualities offered for sale, than we desired or expected, after the opportunities of observation which he possessed. We infer, that he agrees with the prevailing opinion, that there is but one species of the tea plant. He speaks of four stocks, by which he seems to mean the varieties arising from a difference of cultivation, soil, or temperature. These four stocks are Bohea, Ankay, Hyson, and Singlo—names derived from the places in which they are particularly cultivated. From the two former are prepared what we call black teas, from the two latter green teas. According to the season at which the leaves are gathered, and the manner in which they are subsequently prepared, is the excellence of each kind. Of black teas, the Bohea kinds are superior to the Ankay; thus, the simplest or commonest sort of the first, sells at Canton for twelve to fourteen taels per pecul,[7] of the other for eight to ten; and the finest sort of the first, Bohea Pecho, brings from forty to one hundred and twenty taels; but of the latter, Ankay Pecho, only thirty-two to forty-two taels. In like manner of green teas, the Hyson kinds are superior to the Singlo; thus the commonest sort of the first, called Hyson Skin, sells for twenty-six to thirty taels, while that of the latter, called Singlo Skin, sells at twenty-two to twenty-five taels; and the finest sort of the first, or Hyson Gunpowder, brings eighty to one hundred and twenty taels, while Singlo Gunpowder brings only fifty to eighty taels. As the subject is one of considerable interest, we have condensed into a short table the comparative qualities and values of the different kinds of teas, so far as we can do so from the remarks of Mr. Dobell:—the value is reduced to our own currency, and the quantity to our own weights; the price is that of the Canton market.

Black Teas.

Green Teas.

Tea is the common beverage of all classes, and is always drunk warm, even in the hottest weather, and at all hours of the day. It is prepared by putting a small quantity of the leaves in a fine porcelain cup; boiling water is then poured on it, and it is covered immediately with another cup fitting closely: as soon as the flavour of the tea is slightly extracted, it is sipped hot, as it is, great strength being avoided; the cup is then filled again with boiling water, until all the flavour of the herb is exhausted. Mechanics and labourers, who cannot afford to drink it in this manner, draw it in a large block-tin tea-pot, cased with wood, and having cotton wool put between the wood and the vessel to preserve the warmth longer. The extreme heat of the tea, as preferred by the Chinese, is one of the causes, perhaps, that tend to produce the relaxation, weakness of digestion, and languor of nerve, with which they are much afflicted.

The perfection of many of the mechanic arts in China, which cannot be denied in some instances, results less from any scientific skill, than from the laboured experience of ages brought slowly to a certain point. Beyond that, no discoveries of modern knowledge have led them. Thus, the brightness and permanence of colouring in their silk manufactures, are not produced by any secret mordents or process, but derived from a very nice experience of the climate, and certain concurrent circumstances. For instance, great numbers of persons are employed, so that great rapidity in the execution of the process is assured. The north wind, called Pak-fung, is the only period at which the silks are dried. And when they are packed up for exportation, great care is taken to avoid a time when there is the slightest dampness.

Nothing has ever been more exaggerated, than the state of civilization and social advancement among the Chinese. They are, in general, a frugal, sober, and industrious people; but the accounts of their government, sciences, religion, public institutions, and improvement in morals and arts, are both false and ridiculous. The administration of public affairs, is such as would disgrace any country on the globe; and the code of laws which is expressed in such high flown metaphors, and boasts such wonderful wisdom in its doctrines, serves, in truth, but as a cloak to hide injustice and oppression. In former times, the mandarins or nobles were said to be chosen from amongst the best of the nation, by wise men sent for that purpose by the emperor; at present, money wins its way more easily than talent or virtue, to the hearts of these electors. The poorer classes live in a state of extreme wretchedness; their houses are low, confined, and filthy, and they crowd together in great numbers; on the coasts, those who live in boats,—and they are stated to amount at Canton to sixty or eighty thousand souls,—have much cleaner and more commodious habitations. There is said to be more deformity among them than among any other people; and all classes are subject to the complaints which result from debauchery and the use of opium. In the latter, they appear to find an almost inexpressible delight. The Chinese have no surgeons, and are almost totally ignorant of anatomy; the first physicians of Canton, have none but the most confused notions of the circulation of the blood; they believe it flows differently on the right and left sides of the body, and they therefore feel both pulses when they visit a patient.

At Canton, during the summer months, the thermometer varies from 82° to 92°. There is but little frost in winter, and not much rain. The streets are only made for foot passengers. The mandarins ride in sedan-chairs of large size, with glass windows, carried on the shoulders of four, six, ten, or twelve men; several fellows run before with whips, which they apply without mercy to any one obstructing the way; others beat gongs to warn the crowd; whilst some cry out, with a shrill voice, like the howling of dogs. The Chinese, indeed, though supposed to be a grave nation, are remarkably fond of personal display; few countries abound more with fops. The dress of an exquisite is very expensive, being composed of the most costly crapes or silks; his boots or shoes are of a particular shape, and made of the richest black satin of Nankin, with soles of a certain height; his knee caps are elegantly embroidered; his cap and button are of the neatest cut; his pipes elegant and high-priced; his tobacco of the best manufacture of Fokien; an English gold watch; a tooth-pick hung at his button, with a string of valuable pearls; and a fan from Nankin, scented with chulan flowers—such are his personal appointments. He is attended by servants in costly liveries; and, when he meets an acquaintance, his studied manners and ceremonial are as carefully displayed, as the airs of the most accomplished dandy in Christian countries.

All amusements are anxiously sought after. Theatrical exhibitions constantly take place after dinner in the houses of the rich. Cards and dice abound every where. Besides these, they have many other sports and games of chance, peculiar to the country. Cricket fighting and quail fighting are very common. To make two male crickets fight, they are placed in an earthen bowl, about five or eight inches in diameter; the owner of each, tickles his cricket with a feather, which makes them both run round the bowl different ways, frequently jostling one another as they pass. After several meetings in this way, they at length become exasperated, and fight with great fury until they literally tear each other limb from limb.

Quails for fighting are prepared with great care. Every one has a separate keeper, who has his bird confined in a small bag, which he carries with him wherever he goes. The poor prisoner is rarely permitted to see the light, except when he is fed, or it is deemed necessary for his health; he is then held by the keeper on his hand, sometimes for hours. When two quails are brought to fight, they are placed in a thing like a large sieve, in the centre of a table, round which the spectators stand to witness the battle and make their bets. Some grains of millet seed are put into the sieve, and the quails are taken from the bags and placed near it, opposite to each other. If they are birds of courage, the moment one begins to eat he is attacked by the other, and they fight hard for a few minutes. The quail that is beaten flies up, and the conqueror remains to eat the seed. The best fights seldom last more than five minutes. Immense sums of money are lost and won on them, for they are very uncertain; sometimes one quail has been known to win several hundred battles, and then suddenly to be beaten by a new and untutored bird.

Next to quail fighting, the flower-boats occupy most of a Chinese gentleman's leisure hours. They are the residence of women, generally of agreeable conversation and lively manners, but not of the purest character. The vessels are so called, from having the sides, windows, and doors, carved in flowers, and painted green and gilded. They are divided into rooms, which are well ventilated and fitted up with verandas, galleries, and all the conveniences of comfort, luxury, and dissipation. The gentlemen go to them in the afternoon; parties are formed; they all sit round a large table, well furnished, and eat, drink, sing, and play, until morning. It is said that from forty to fifty thousand dollars are spent daily in the flower-boats of Canton. By an ancient custom, the Hong-merchants there, when making their contracts for tea, (which is generally done a year in advance,) are obliged to invite the persons with whom they wish to contract, to partake of a repast in one of those boats. The bargain is always easy in proportion to the sumptuousness and splendour of the supper, during which it is concluded; and although very expensive, is fully repaid by the advantages gained in the contract.

When a Chinese gives a ceremonious dinner, it is done with great splendour. Several days before, a large red paper is sent to the guests, on which the invitation is written in the politest terms of the language. On the day preceding the party, another invitation is sent on rose coloured paper, to remind them of it, and to ascertain whether they are coming. Again, on the next day, a short time before the hour appointed, the invitation is repeated, to inform them that the feast is prepared and awaits them. A great number of dishes are served on small ebony tables, and dressed in the most piquant manner; there are several courses; and, in addition to various wines, cordials of a fiery nature are offered from time to time. When two persons wish to pledge one another, they leave the tables, go into the middle of the room, and take care to place the cups to their lips exactly at the same instant. They are not apt to become intoxicated. Between the courses they rise from the table and walk about. The most expensive delicacy they can offer is birds' nest soup, with pigeons' or plovers' eggs floating on it. The birds' nests, so used, are formed of a mucilage supposed to be collected from certain weeds floating on the sea, by the swallows of the Indian, Chinese, and Pacific oceans; some of the best come from Batavia and the Nikobar Islands; they are sold by weight, and a catty (one pound and three quarters) of the best parts, sells for the enormous price of forty-five to sixty dollars.

The Chinese do not appear to be governed by fixed and solid principles of religion, such as the Christian faith, produced by conviction or reason. They have a superstitious reverence for certain ceremonies, rights, and ancient customs, which have prevailed for ages; and these serve, in many respects, to cover various vices and habits which are prevalent. They seem, however, to believe in a Supreme Being, called the Great Joss, or Yook-Chee, represented only to the mind, and not allowing his image to be made on earth; and they say, should any one be rash enough to make a statue of him, he would be immediately struck dead. He is, however, described on paper, holding the little finger of his right hand across the first joint of the middle finger, the fore-finger resting on the point of the little finger, and the third finger bent round it, whilst the thumb is also bent upwards, a very curious and difficult position to place the fingers in. They believe that when he opens his hand, the world and mankind are to be destroyed; and they consider all the other deities and spirits, to whom, however, they do not pay a very great adoration, as sent by him to the world. These are supposed to preside over rain, crops, dreams, &c., and have various attributes, which it would require volumes to explain. The Chinese have no regular priesthood, supported by the government; it depends on voluntary contributions and endowments of the rich; it has its monasteries, where numbers of both sexes devote themselves to celibacy; but, in general, it seems, as a body, to have less influence than in most countries. In all rich families, there is a shing-shang, or astrologer, who is consulted on all occasions; he is the tutor, and generally the writer; and thus becomes a man of much importance. The funerals are objects of great attention; and, where it is possible, great expense is bestowed on them; every care is taken to choose a lucky spot for interment, and the tombs are made very splendid.

These are a few of the facts we have noted with regard to the Chinese, in perusing Mr. Dobell's volumes; and but a very few. Those who are desirous to obtain a fuller account of the country, manners, and state of society of that singular people, than our limited space will permit us to give, may turn to them with great profit. He has evidently devoted much attention to the collection of information; and, resulting as it does, from the observations of a number of years, with an opportunity of correcting and comparing accounts and impressions, received at various times and under various circumstances, we believe that just and great reliance may be placed on it. We must now leave China, however, and follow him on his expedition to the north of Asia.

Leaving Canton, and proceeding along the western shore of the Pacific ocean, he landed at the harbour of St. Peter and St. Paul, on the 25th of August, 1812. He describes the bay of the Avatcha, which forms the port, as forty versts in circumference, encompassed by forest-covered mountains and extensive meadows. It is so capacious and safe, that large fleets may securely lie there; and it affords a combination of picturesque beauty, grandeur, and security, rarely equalled in other parts of the globe. Immense tracts of low ground extend along the outlet of the river Avatcha, which present the appearance of having been banked out in former times, to prevent their being overflowed. So numerous, indeed, are these embankments, and so far beyond the necessities or ability of such a population as the present, to erect, that they are by many of the inhabitants supposed to be natural mounds. This conjecture, however, Mr. Dobell was convinced was incorrect, from repeated observation.

"Evident marks remain," he observes, "where the earth has been dug out and thrown up; the holes, which were very deep, are now ponds, whilst the shallower ones have been filled up with soft mud, and have a thick surface of turf upon them, resembling what is called a shaking bog. There is no doubt of their being the work of man; but when and how it was performed was what I could not discover. The Kamtchatdales themselves could have had no inducement to undertake such a laborious task; as, when they were first known, they had neither horned cattle nor horses. They were probably made after the conquest of that country by the Russians, when domestic animals were introduced; as they are evidently intended to preserve the low lands for hay and pasture. This has been so well accomplished, that the greater part of them are still actually in good order."

After passing a few days at Avatcha, and gratifying the inhabitants with a ball on board of his vessel, Mr. Dobell set out, on the first of September, for Nijna Kamtchatsk, a town seven hundred and fifty miles distant, the residence of the governor, whom it was necessary for him to see, in order to make the commercial arrangements he desired. He ascended the Avatcha river, the banks of which are for the most part composed of fine meadow land, or hills thickly covered with birch. Early on the following day, the party left their boats, and proceeded on horseback over two or three very steep mountains, and amid clouds of mosquitoes, which tormented them exceedingly. The houses at which they stopped, from time to time, were in general black, smoky, and dirty, but the inhabitants kind and hospitable beyond measure, though poor. The universal food is fish—men, dogs, bears, wolves, and birds of prey, all live upon them, and indeed they abound, in quantities fully sufficient to supply all; they are seen in the streams sporting about by thousands, and even the shores are covered with dead ones thrown up by the current.

The dwelling of the Kamtchatdales is of two kinds—for the summer and the winter. The former, which is called a ballagan, is a building of a conical form, composed of poles fourteen or fifteen feet long, laid up from the edge of a circle, ten or twelve feet in diameter, the tops meeting at the centre, and tied there by ozier twigs or ropes. The outside of these is covered with birch or pine bark, over which there is sometimes a thatching of coarse grass, fastened down by other poles and oziers. This kind of hut is generally erected in the centre of a square platform, elevated ten or twelve feet, upon large posts planted deep in the ground. Poles are again placed in rows under the building and between the posts, where they dry their fish, which the hut serves to cover from the weather, as well as to store and preserve them when dried. The door of the ballagan is always opposite to the water; the fire-place on a bed of earth outside, at one corner of the platform. A large piece of timber, with notches cut in it instead of steps, and placed against the platform at an angle of forty-five degrees, is the method of ascending and descending, particularly unsafe and inconvenient for those not accustomed to so uncouth a staircase.

The winter house, or jourta, is a sort of subterranean dwelling. It generally consists of a frame of timber, put into a square hole four or five feet deep, and within the frame a quantity of stakes are set close together, inclining a little inwards, and the earth thrown against them. The stakes are left round on the outside, but hewn within, and the top is framed over in the same manner and arched and supported by stanchions. In the centre of the roof is a square hole, which serves the double purpose of a door and a chimney, the inhabitants passing in or out by means of a piece of timber with notches cut in it, such as we have before described. The top and sides of the jourta are covered outside with a quantity of earth and sodded. At one end, there is a large hole with a stopper to it, which is opened when the oven is heating, to force the smoke out at the door. When once heated, and the stopper closed, jourtas are warm, and, were it not for the smoke, would be comfortable. The description of such subterranean habitations, and of the lives led by these rude people during their long and bitter winters, cannot be read without reviving in the memory those lines of Virgil, which describe a race similar in all respects—even to the acid liquors they distil; but dwelling in regions far less remote from the warm skies of Italy.—

"Ipsi in defossis specubus secura sub altâ
Otia agunt terrâ; congestaque robora, totasque
Advolvêre focis ulmos, ignique dedêre.
Hic noctem ludo ducunt, et pocula læti
Fermento atque acidis imitantur vitea sorbis.
Talis hyperboreo septem subjecta trioni
Gens effræna virûm Riphæo tunditur Euro
Et pecudum fulvis velantur corpora setis."

The increase of civilization, wealth, and intercourse with other nations, has however effected a great change in the mode of life among this remote people. Cottages, made generally of logs, are substituted for these ruder mansions, especially in the neighbourhood of the sea-ports; and a traveller occasionally meets with much that reminds him of fairer climes, and a state of society less primitive.

"On reaching Sherrom, a cottage was pointed out to us as the habitation of the Toyune, the outward appearance of which was too engaging not to excite anticipations of good cheer within. As it was a low building, I put my head into one of the windows that was open, and was quite surprised to see so neat and clean a dwelling in that country. The name of the owner, who was Toyune of Sherrom, was Conon Merlin. He and his wife were absent fishing, but we were not less hospitably received by his daughter and daughter-in-law, two clean dressed pretty young women, who welcomed us with their smiles, and made us imagine, that, instead of Kamtchatka, we had got into the land of enchantment. Every thing about them seemed in unison with their appearance. The tables and stools were of poplar white as snow; no vermin was to be seen on the walls, which were hewn smooth and whitened; and the whole presented a picture of neatness, cleanliness, and comfort, such as we had not yet seen in Kamtchatka. In fifteen minutes after our arrival, a refreshing cup of tea was prepared, with fresh butter, cream, and milk; and their being served up in so neat a manner, made them taste more delicious than usual. Our hostess being a well-behaved young woman, we requested her to do the honours of the table, which she performed with the utmost cheerfulness and politeness, just as if she had been bred in a city. In the evening the old Toyune and his wife returned from fishing, and seemed quite overjoyed to see us, as such guests, they said, were not common; and they certainly took uncommon pains to treat and to please us. The old man appeared between sixty and seventy years of age, with a long white beard and moustachios, which, added to a mild, sensible, and prepossessing countenance, gave him a most sage and respectable appearance, and personified to my imagination the wise enchanter whose name he bore. Conon Merlin had been educated by the famous Mr. Evashkin, a Russian nobleman, who was banished to Kamtchatka during the reign of Catharine II., and is since dead; but who was well known to former travellers in Kamtchatka. Our Toyune, therefore, could write and read Russian well, knew most of the dialects of Kamtchatka, and was certainly the most intelligent man I ever met among the natives."

On the morning of the 13th, soon after leaving the village of Klutchee, they beheld the majestic volcano of Klootchefsky, rearing its awful and flaming head far above the clouds. This huge mountain, towering to the skies, is a perfect cone, decreasing gradually from its enormous base to the summit; its top is whitened by perpetual snow, and the flame and smoke, for ever issuing from its crater, are seen shading the sky at the distance of many miles. Sometimes quantities of ashes are thrown out, so fine as to impregnate the atmosphere, and be inhaled in breathing; and, it is said, that occasionally a white clammy substance, resembling, perhaps, the honey dew elsewhere observed, has flowed from the crater, sweet to the taste, and very adhesive when touched. Altogether, this mountain is one of the most picturesque and sublime of the volcanoes described by travellers, though from its remote situation it has been, and probably long will be, visited but by few.

Mr. Dobell reached Nijna Kamtchatsk on the 14th of September, and was most kindly received and treated by the governor, General Petrowsky, with whom he made all the arrangements he desired, and, after a visit of six days, returned to St. Peter and St. Paul. He describes the town of Nijna Kamtchatsk as one of eighty or ninety houses, and between four and five hundred inhabitants. Its situation is not good, the ground being low and moist. It is on the bank of the river Kamtchatka, about thirty-five versts from the sea. Since the period we allude to, the seat of government has been removed to St. Peter and St. Paul, and the town has lost nearly all its population, there being but five or six families left there.

On his way back he again visited his kind host, the Toyune of Sherrom, whom he found laying in his winter stock of provisions, which offered a good example of the economy, wants, and supplies of a Kamtchatdale family. He assured Mr. Dobell that himself and his sons had killed twelve bears, eleven mountain sheep, several reindeer, a large number of geese, ducks, and tiel, and a few swans and pheasants. "In November," said he, "we shall catch many hares and partridges; and I have one thousand fresh salmon, lately caught, and now frozen for our winter's stock. Added to this, in my cellar there is a good supply of cabbages, turnips, and potatoes, with various sorts of berries, and about thirty poods of sarannas, the greater part of which we have stolen from the field mice, who collect them in large quantities for the winter." In the spring, the Kamtchatdales supply themselves with the skins of the hair seals and other sea animals, from whose fat also they obtain oil. The hunting of these is therefore a matter of no small importance, and carries many of the Kamtchatdales down to the coast. It is accompanied with great fatigue and occasional risk.

"The Toyune of Malka," says Mr. Dobell, "related to me a curious adventure that occurred to him and two of his friends. They repaired in the latter part of April to their usual hunting place, where they found the sea still covered with ice for a considerable extent. Each had a sledge and five dogs, and although the wind blew strongly off shore, they did not hesitate to go on the ice in search of seals, as it seemed firmly attached to the shore, and they observed some Kamtchatdales hunting on it farther up the coast. They discovered some seals at a considerable distance out, and repaired thither to kill them. Already had they killed two, and were preparing to tie them with thongs on their sledges, when one of the party, who staid a little behind, came to them of a sudden, crying that the ice was moving, and that all the other Kamtchatdales had gone to the shore! This news alarmed them so much, that they left their seals on the ice, and seating themselves on their sankas or sledges, pushed their dogs at full speed to regain the shore. Unfortunately they arrived too late; the ice had already separated from the land to the extent of a hundred yards; and as it began to break into pieces, they were obliged to return to the part that appeared to them the strongest and thickest. As the wind now blew extremely hard, they were soon driven out to sea, where the swell being very heavy, the ice began to break again all round them, leaving them at last on a solid clump, from forty to fifty feet in circumference, that was of great thickness and kept entire. They were now out of sight of land, driven before a gale of wind and a heavy sea, and their icy vessel rolled so dreadfully that they had much difficulty to keep themselves on its surface. However, being furnished with ostals, (poles pointed with iron,) they made holes and planted them firmly in the ice; and then tied themselves, their dogs, and sankas, fast to them. Without this precaution, the Toyune said they would all have been thrown into the sea. They were sea-sick and disheartened; but nevertheless, said Spiridon, (the Toyune,) 'I had hopes, and I told my comrades I thought we should be thrown on some coast.' It was now two days they had been at sea, and towards evening the wind abated a little, the weather cleared off, and they saw land not far off, which one of them, who had been formerly at the Kurile islands, knew to be Poromochin, and they now fully expected to be drifted on its shores. However, as the night approached, the wind changed to the very opposite direction, and blew even more violently than before. The clump of ice was tossed about in a most uneasy manner, and several times the ostals and the thongs were in danger of being broken by the violent concussion of the waves against the ice.

"All that night and all the next day the storm continued with unceasing violence. On the morning of the fourth day, before daylight, they found that their clump had been driven amongst other cakes of ice, and was closely surrounded on all sides. When the day broke, how great was their joy and astonishment to perceive themselves near the land, and within about twenty versts of the place whence they had been driven! They had suffered much from thirst, as they found the ice salt as well as the water. Not having either eaten or drunk during all the time, they found themselves so weak that they had the greatest difficulty in preparing their sledges, and in getting from the ice to the land. The moment they landed, they offered up their prayers and thanks to God. Spiridon charged his companions not to eat snow or drink much water at a time, although they were almost dying with thirst; as they could soon get to an ostrog that was only about twenty or thirty versts distant. They had not proceeded far before Spiridon saw the tracks of some reindeer; he therefore made his companions stop, and, taking his gun, walked gently round a high bluff on the coast, whither the deer had gone, and had the good fortune to shoot one of them. His companions no sooner heard the noise of the gun than they came to him. They cut the throat of the deer immediately, and drank his blood while warm. Spiridon said that they felt their strength revived almost immediately after drinking the blood. Having given some of the meat to the dogs, they rested themselves about an hour, and then set off for the ostrog, where they arrived safely. One of them, who indulged too much in eating at first, died a short time after; the other two survived; but Spiridon said he had ever since been afflicted with a complaint in his breast and shortness of breath."

On the 21st of October the winter set in, and made the travelling much more difficult and uncomfortable. The cold, however, in Kamtchatka, is by no means so severe as is generally supposed. About the sea coast, the thermometer rarely passes 15° to 20° of Reaumur, and in the interior, seldom exceeds 20° to 25°; and even this but for a short time. The ordinary cold is about 8° to 10°.

After remaining nearly three months at St. Peter and St. Paul, Mr. Dobell set out on his expedition to Russia. He left the former place on the 15th of January, with the determination to proceed along the Aleuters or north-east coast of the peninsula of Kamtchatka, thence cross over to Kammina at the head of the sea of Ochotsk, and proceed along the eastern shore of that large bay to the town of Ochotsk itself. He was accompanied by two Chinese servants, and proceeded in sledges drawn by dogs. He had frequent occasions to confirm the sentiments he had previously entertained of the hospitable and honest character of the inhabitants of the peninsula of Kamtchatka; and he found the climate and natural resources of the country far superior to what he had been led to expect. He combats the opinion, long prevalent, that it is a barren and desolate country, depopulated of the aborigines through the extreme poverty of its resources; and contends that few parts of the world would more amply repay the industry of the inhabitants, if well peopled and wisely governed.

The dogs displayed all the sagacity, perseverance, and swiftness for which they have been celebrated by travellers in northern regions, and he had frequent opportunities of observing the instinct or skill with which they pursued their way in the midst of the most violent storms, when every trace of the road had disappeared. He gives them a decided preference over the reindeer, though he states that the latter are more fleet, when put to their full speed. They are not docile however. When the snows are deep, and the roads difficult, if the reindeer be pressed to exert himself he becomes restive and stubborn, and neither beating nor coaxing will move him. He will lie down and remain in one spot for several hours, until hunger presses him forward; and if at the second attempt he is again embarrassed, he will lie down and perish in the snow for want of food. Reindeer consequently require a great deal of care and management, and should never be treated too roughly, or they become totally unmanageable. Besides, great attention must be paid to them in summer, and their pastures often changed, or they contract diseases and die fast.

At Veyteway, the most northern point on the eastern coast visited by Mr. Dobell, he found a Toyune who had come a hundred and fifty versts, from motives of curiosity, to meet him. Though he had never before seen any one adopting the customs of civilized life, he behaved with great propriety, and did not seem in the least embarrassed. Some of the trunks which were covered with lackered leather and full of brass nails, excited his astonishment, and indeed proved a fund of amusement for the natives on all the road. Bets were made constantly as to the number of nails on each trunk, and they were counted over and over, a hundred times, with the greatest care. From this point Mr. Dobell struck across the peninsula, and reached Kammina, at the head of the sea of Ochotsk, on the 24th of March.

In proceeding southwardly along the coast, the hardiness of his dogs was strongly put to the test. An insufficient supply of provisions had been laid in, and some time before they reached Igiga, the first town where a fresh stock could be obtained, they were reduced to an allowance of half a fish each, daily. When the dried fish were consumed, they were fed on reindeer meat and biscuit, of which but a very small supply was left; but it refreshed and strengthened them, so that one of the party, whose dogs were strongest, was enabled to go on more rapidly to Igiga, to beg from the commandant assistance and food for the rest of the party. When the poor creatures who were left perceived the dogs coming to assist them, nothing could exceed their joy. They sprang into the air, barked aloud, and set forward with such eagerness to meet them, that restraint was impossible. When they came up, they jumped and fawned upon them, and licked them with an expression of pleasure and satisfaction which it was impossible to mistake. As they approached the town, it was utterly in vain to hold them back, they set off at full speed, and if it had not been for the assistance of several of the inhabitants, who ran and caught hold of them, the sledges would have been upset, and every thing broken to pieces.

Leaving Igiga, Mr. Dobell continued his journey by Yamsk and Towisk, through the country of the Tongusees. He found these people active, persevering, and obliging; those whom he employed performing every sort of service with cheerfulness. They are men of small stature, slightly made, and resembling the northern Chinese in features. Their countenances generally were indicative of a tractable mild disposition, and bore a strong Asiatic cast of character, which is indeed found amongst all the natives throughout Siberia. Their fidelity, however, was not on an equality with their other good characteristics, as our travellers had soon an opportunity of learning, by an event which placed their lives in most imminent peril. The provisions laid in at Towisk were nearly consumed, and the time at which they should have reached the next town had arrived, when the native guides confessed that they had mistaken the road, and there was every prospect of the whole party perishing in the desert. What were the feelings of Mr. Dobell, when awaking one morning, in this situation, he found that the Tongusees were no longer with him; the rascals had gone off in the night, not leaving a single deer for food, and deserting a party of five in number, all strangers, on one of the highest mountains of Siberia, in a wild and uninhabited country! In this emergency Mr. Dobell displayed great firmness, resolution, and all the energy and resources of an experienced traveller; indeed the portion of his volumes which contains the account of his escape from the perilous situation in which he was left, and of the sufferings he endured, and the expedients to which he was obliged to resort, is peculiarly and highly interesting. With the aid of a partial map of Kamtchatka, and a pocket compass, he set out to regain the sea coast, from which they were, as he supposed, not very far distant. Leaving all their clothes, and every article with which they could possibly dispense, they put the rest of their baggage on two sleds, which they dragged with them. They limited their nourishment to the least possible quantity of food, drinking tea, of which they had a small supply, twice in twenty-four hours, and in the morning taking some thin rice water, with a small lump of chocolate each, to make it palatable. They were obliged to construct bridges of logs over numerous rivulets, swelled with the snows, which crossed their path, and they were exposed to a succession of furious storms. On the twentieth day they arrived at what they supposed a long narrow lake, and determined there to pass the night. Having left his companions to make what preparations for so doing their wretched situation afforded, Mr. Dobell went to examine the lake. On approaching the bank, he discovered two small ducks, quite near the shore, and had the good fortune to shoot them both at one shot. "Running to the water to pick them up," he says, "God only knows the inexpressible joy that filled my heart, at beholding the water move, and finding that we were on the banks of a large river." They all set to work actively the next day, and had soon completed a raft on which they embarked, and trusted themselves to the current to reach the ocean, so long and eagerly desired.

"We had" says Mr. Dobell, "a most unpleasant time, but anxious to arrive at the ocean, would not lie by—particularly as the stream increased greatly in rapidity, and hurried us along with considerable swiftness. About one o'clock on the 10th of June, although we were nearly in the middle of the river, which was here upwards of a verst wide, we were suddenly seized by a whirlpool, and in spite of our utmost efforts, having nothing but poles to guide the raft, were drawn violently towards the left bank, and forced under some large trees which had been undermined by the water and hung over the surface of the stream, the roots still holding them fast to the shore. I perceived the danger to which we were exposed, and called out to every one to lie flat on his face and hold fast to the baggage. The branches were so thick it was impossible for all to escape, and there being barely room to admit the raft under them, they swept off the two Chinese, the Karaikee, my tin-box with all my papers and valuables, our soup-kettle, &c. Nothing now remained but a small tea-kettle, and a few other things that happened to be tied fast with thongs. The Karaikee and one of the Chinese seized hold of the branches that swept them off, and held their heads above water, but the youngest of the Chinese having floated away with the current, the Cossack and myself had the greatest difficulty in paddling the raft up to him. We came just in time to poke our poles down after him as he sunk for the third time, which he fortunately seized, and we drew him upon the raft half drowned. As the current was running at the rate of six or seven miles an hour, we were carried more than half a verst down before we gained the shore; the other Chinese and the Karaikee crying out for assistance. I ran up the shore as quickly as possible, taking a long pole with me, and leaving the Cossack to take care of the raft and the young Chinese. When I arrived at the spot, my Chinese cook informed me he had seized my tin-box with one hand, and was so tired of holding with the other, that if I did not come soon to his assistance he must leave it to the mercy of the current. Whilst I attempted to walk out on the body of the tree whose branches they were holding, one of the roots broke and very nearly separated it from the shore; I was therefore obliged to jump off and stride to one that was nearly two feet under water, hauling myself along by the branches of the others, and at length I got near enough to give the Chinese the pole. He seized fast hold and I pulled him between two branches, enabling him to get a leg over one and keep his body above water. Thus placed he tied the tin-box with his handkerchief to the pole, and I got it safely ashore. I was now obliged to return and assist the Karaikee, who held by some branches far out, and where there were no others near enough for him to reach in order to draw himself in. After half an hour's labour I got them both on the bank, neither of them knowing how to swim, and both much exhausted by the cold, and the difficulty of holding so long against a rapid current."

They continued for several days longer buffeting with the stream, and exposed to all the inclemencies of the weather. Their food depended on the scanty supplies of wild fowl they could shoot, and their stock of cooking utensils was reduced to a small tea-kettle and the lid of the tin box saved by the Chinese.

Between two and three o'clock in the afternoon of the seventh day since they had embarked on board their frail vessel, and nearly a month since they had been deserted on the mountains by the treacherous Tongusees, they found themselves in a fine wide channel, with a moderate current, and on a beach not far below descried a man and two boys mending a canoe. The effect the sight of human beings had upon them was deeply interesting. Every soul shed tears of joy, and when the natives approached to assist them in landing, they were unable for some minutes to reply to their inquiries, and could only answer by hasty signs. The elder person proved to be a Yakut who had seen Mr. Dobell before; as soon as he recognised him, he sprung into the raft, clasped him in his arms, and shed tears in abundance, exclaiming "thank God, thank God! you are all saved!" He informed them that the Tongusees having returned and confessed their treachery, an old chief living near Towisk had despatched his son with a party in search of them, but that every one there had given them up for lost, knowing how difficult it was to procure food on those deserted plains and mountains in the spring of the year. The miraculous escape of the party, after having been left in such a wilderness, was indeed a matter of surprise to every one; and they had particular reason to rejoice in having taken the route they did, as they found on inquiry that had they pursued any other they must infallibly have perished.

After remaining three days with the hospitable people whom they so fortunately encountered, and recovering their baggage which had been left on the mountain, by means of the party sent in search of them from Towisk, they resumed their journey, and reached Ochotsk without further accident, on the 4th of July.

Ochotsk, the capital of the Russian province of the same name, which embraces the most easterly portion of that vast empire, is a town composed of between two and three hundred houses, and about two thousand inhabitants. It is situated in north latitude 59° 20' 22", and east longitude from Greenwich 143° 20' 23", on a small island or sand bank, three versts and three hundred paces in length, and two hundred in breadth, where the town stands. The admiralty, marine stores, magazines, and workshops, were examined by Mr. Dobell, and found to be disposed in perfectly good order, and prepared for service in the best possible manner. In the admiralty, there are a school, and shops for coopers, turners, and blockmakers. There are also large forges, ropewalks, and all the establishments necessary for a complete naval arsenal. Whilst Mr. Dobell was there, a large cable was prepared for the frigate Diana, in the course of four or five days, and appeared quite as well made as a European cable. The flour magazines are large, and well supplied by Yakut convoys, which constantly arrive and discharge their loads there. These convoys consist generally of ten to thirteen horses, having seldom more than two men to take care of them. Each horse carries on his back six pood weight of rye flour, packed in two leathern bags, called in Russian sumas, impenetrable to all sorts of weather, and extremely convenient for carriage, hanging one on each side of the horse. These bags are of green hide, without the hair; the flour is forced as tightly as possible into them while they are damp, and when dry the surface is as hard as stone. On opening them, the flour, for about half an inch deep, is attached in a hard cake to the bag, and, if originally good, is preserved in a very perfect state, and will keep for a great length of time. Some of them have been known to remain all the winter under the snow without being damaged; nor does it seem possible to carry over land this important article of life, by any other method so safely and conveniently as in sumas. Notwithstanding, however, all the attention which is thus exhibited on the part of the Russian government to make Ochotsk a complete and valuable naval station; and the care paid to its arrangement and furnishing supplies, there yet exists an insuperable obstacle to all their efforts, from the fact that it has not a good port. No vessel of any great burthen, carrying guns, can enter or be wintered there, without incurring the risk of being bilged by the ice of the river Ochota, which flows into or forms the harbour.

On the 19th of July Mr. Dobell left Ochotsk. He now turned inland, and leaving the shores of the Pacific ocean, directed his course westerly to Yakutsk, which was distant six hundred and fifty miles. He was accompanied a short distance by a young officer named Ivan Ivanovitch Kruz, who was forest-master at the first station called Maitah, fifty-four versts off. Such a companion was not less unexpected than agreeable, in so remote a corner of the world. He was a very good botanist, and understood French and Latin; a modest, sensible, genteel young man, and what must appear a little singular, perfectly happy and satisfied with his situation. Even in those wild regions he filled up his leisure hours with study and the chase, and said that he never found the time hang heavy on his hands.

On the road they met many convoys of horses carrying provisions to Ochotsk; and were obliged to keep a strict watch, in order to guard against the depredations of the Yakuts, by whom they were conducted. These people are in the habit of stealing horses for food, whenever a good opportunity offers on the road, being fonder of horse flesh than of any other. When they get possession of a horse, they contrive to decamp suddenly, and ride several versts off, where they kill the animal, bury his bones, and conceal the flesh in their bags, before the person robbed discovers the theft. They are men generally of small stature, light, and very active when they choose to exert themselves; indefatigable on the road, and surpassing every other people in conducting and taking care of horses. In features they resemble strongly the Chinese of Nankin. The Tongusees, on the other hand, bear a striking resemblance to the Tartars who conquered China. The Yakuts and Tongusees however wear very much the same costume. The hair of the women, which hangs in two or three braids behind, is stuck over with small copper or silver plates, more or less rich in proportion to the fortune of the wearer. Sometimes a silver or copper plate is placed on the forehead. They occasionally wear a close cap, adorned likewise with plates and beads, and often ornament their boots with beads of various colours, having much the appearance of the work on the wampum belts of our Indians. The dress of the Tongusee men is a close coat, fitting tight round the body, with skirts reaching half way down the legs, and resembling a frock coat. It is composed of deer or dog skin, with the hair inward. In very cold weather they wear a shorter coat over this, as well as parkas and kokclankas or riding coats, which are nothing more than loose jackets or cloaks of skin, with sleeves reaching below the knees. The Yakut dress is made in the same way, but usually of horse or cow hide.

On the 25th, the party crossed the ridge of mountains which extends from the great central chain of Asia, towards the north-east, and divides the waters falling into the sea of Ochotsk, from those flowing through the more central parts of Siberia, towards the west and the north. On the western side of the ridge they passed a large lake, the source of the river Udama, surrounded by mountains, and three or four versts in length. The Udama is a fine river, and though not abounding either with fish or water in summer, is plentifully supplied with both in spring and autumn, and then navigable for boats of a considerable size. It falls into the Maia; the Maia into the Aldan; the Aldan into the Lena, one of whose branches ascends to within three hundred and fifty versts of Irkutsk, and which flows into the Northern ocean. A navigation is thus afforded through the very centre of Siberia for more than two thousand miles. It is also well adapted to the introduction of steam navigation; and flat bottomed boats drawing little water might be successfully used on most of these streams during a considerable portion of the year. The adoption of such a system would tend immensely to the improvement of a vast country, where the population is thin, but of which the natural resources and advantages are very great. It is a mistake to suppose, as is usually done, that it is an ungrateful wilderness, fit only for the reception of criminals, or the home of wandering savages; no where is nature more profusely grand and magnificent than in Siberia; and she has offered many attractions to human industry and improvement in those remote regions. It cannot be denied that there are some parts totally incorrigible, owing to the severity of climate, bad soil, and other causes; but there is ample testimony that by far the largest portion of that country possesses resources, soil, and climate, very superior to what is generally believed, and that it would advance rapidly if well governed and better peopled.

On the 5th of August Mr. Dobell reached the river Aldan, one of the principal tributaries of the Lena, and found it a very deep stream, about a verst and a half wide, abounding with fish. On the western shore he saw several jourtas beautifully situated, and on inquiry was informed they contained a colony of banished men, sent there by order of the government. They appeared very well off, having comfortable houses, with cattle, an abundant supply of fish, and good pastures, so that they could never suffer from want, unless too indolent to secure the necessaries of life. They call themselves Possellencies or colonists, but are stiled Neshchastnie Loodie, or unfortunate people, by the natives, who avoid, even by a name, to remind them of their unhappy fate.

"Banishment, then," remarks Mr. Dobell, "to such a country as Siberia, is certainly no such terrible infliction, except to a Russian, who, perhaps, of all beings upon earth, possesses the strongest attachment to the soil on which he grows—taking root like the trees that surround him, and pining when transplanted to another spot, even though it should be a neighbouring province, better than his own. Too much praise cannot be bestowed on the humane system adopted by the Russian government in saving the lives of criminals without distinction, and transporting them to Siberia, to augment the population of a fine country, much in want of inhabitants, where their morals are strictly watched, and where they soon become useful, good people. Death, in fact, is so transitory a punishment, that unless a man has religion, and a perfect idea of rewards and penalties in a world to come, it may have no terrors for him, nor will its anticipation ever prevent the commission of crimes so well as the idea of banishment and long suffering. I would not be thought to be the advocate of cruelty; on the contrary, I warmly espouse the principle of producing a perfect contrition and change of sentiments and actions in the criminal, ere we send him into the presence of his God. To bring about this in an effectual manner, and be satisfied it springs from a thorough conviction of his error, we must not confine him in chains, with a priest praying at his side, until the moment he is launched into eternity. He should be made, as he generally is in Siberia, so far a free agent, as to have the power of again doing wrong; else his firmness and resolution are never put to the test; nor can that repentance be called sincere, which springs from the imperious necessity of immediately making his peace with his offended God, before whose awful tribunal his merciless government sends him suddenly to appear, with all his crimes fresh upon him. There are certainly instances in Siberia, where convicts have again committed crimes, and some of them even murder, and such are confined to the mines for life; but there are few examples of this sort, and the majority of the convicts acquire habits of industry and good conduct superior to the same class of people in Russia. Having seen the good effects of the Russian penal code, what I say on the subject is no more than what truth and justice demand; and I wish, that for humanity's sake, so bright an example, which sheds a ray of unsullied glory on her sovereignty, may be followed with equal success by every nation of the earth."

The route of Mr. Dobell continued to lead him through the country of the Yakuts, a pastoral and industrious people, sufficient in numbers to relieve his mind from the painful idea that so fine a country should be destitute of inhabitants. Their whole attention is turned to the rearing of horned cattle and horses. Milk, prepared in various ways, is their principal sustenance; fish and water-fowl they obtain in abundance, except in the depth of winter; but pigs, sheep, or poultry, are never seen. On the 14th of August, he descended into an immense and fertile plain, through which he beheld the noble Lena flowing along, and reached the town of Yakutsk early in the evening.

This town was, at that time, composed of two hundred and seventy houses, and two thousand five hundred Russian inhabitants, besides a very considerable population of Yakuts, in and about it; since then, however, it is much increased and improved in every way. As regards climate, it is in winter the coldest spot in all Siberia, the frost often exceeding 40° of Reaumur; the average heat of summer is not beyond 16°, though there are periods at which it is as hot as in the torrid zone. The public buildings are well constructed, and kept in excellent order. There is an ancient citadel of wood, built by the Cossacks nearly two hundred years ago, which still forms a strong and good defence; and affords evidence of the courage, perseverance, and intelligence, of the conquerors of Siberia, who, with a handful of men, could erect such a fortress in the heart of an enemy's country, and during their daily attacks.

At Yakutsk, Mr. Dobell fell into the track of the carrying trade over land, which is pursued to so immense an extent through the Russian empire. The equipage, consisting of the pack-saddles, mats, girths, &c., is the manufacture of the Yakuts themselves, for the most part, and though exceedingly light, is not so constructed as to enable the horse to carry his burthen with ease. From this circumstance, great numbers of horses are lost in their long journeys. The Yakuts, however, are themselves excellent grooms, and, in general, kind and attentive to their animals. They seldom beat them, and many instances are exhibited of strong attachment between them. It is so much so, that a herd of horses will not proceed without their master, should he stop and leave them. They are turned out to feed at night, and are always collected in the morning by hallooing to them. Should any of them get out of hearing, the Yakut jumps on one of the others, who is sure to find his companions in a very short time. When the Yakut calls, the first horse that hears answers by neighing, and immediately the whole herd begin to neigh and run to the keeper.

Mr. Dobell speaks of the society of Yakutsk as hospitable, kind, and gay. He was at several balls; found the belles well-mannered, and their dress, like that of their fair countrywomen farther west, an object of peculiar study. He describes the ceremonies of a Siberian wedding, which may amuse the votaries of Hymen, whose matrimonial customs are varied by half the circumference of the globe.

"In the evening, the Governor waited on me, and invited me to accompany him to a house, to see a ceremony performed, previously to a wedding that was to take place the next day. We repaired to the house, where we found a large party of gentlemen and ladies assembled. The bride and her attendants occupied one end of the room, near a large table, on which were placed fruits, cakes, wines, &c. Tea and coffee were then served. Afterwards, I was called to look at a procession from an opposite building or store, called in this country an anbar, where every sort of provisions, effects, &c. are kept. I saw several low, four-wheeled vehicles, each drawn by a single ox, loaded with furniture, bedding, clothing, &c. &c. for the new married couple. Lights were carried before them, and a number of young girls, assembled near the door of the anbar, sang in concert, as each vehicle was loaded with the effects of the bride. This ended, the party returned to the house, when dancing commenced, and was kept up with spirit the whole night. Before quitting the house, the parents of the young bridegroom requested me to come the following morning, and witness the ceremony of his taking leave of them, previously to his going to church. At twelve o'clock, on the 22d, we attended at the father's house, where a number of the friends of the bridegroom were collected: several large tables were laid for dinner, and at the principal one, near the images, which in a Russian house are always at the eastern corner of the room, sat the bridegroom and his attendants. A female relative, representing the bride, was placed in the chair on the left hand of the bridegroom; and the father and mother sat at the opposite side of the table. Three dishes of cold meat were placed before the principal attendant, and wine and watky being at the same time handed round, he cut a large cross on the first one, placing it aside; then the second, then the third, in the same way; and, at the cutting of each, wine and watky were handed round to the company, who rose, and drank to the wedding party. Nothing was eaten, this being merely a ceremony to prepare the feast for the young couple when they should return from the church. After this, the bridegroom went round to the opposite side of the table, holding the image of the Virgin in his hand, and crossed himself on his knees, and bowed his head three times to the ground, before his father, who, when he rose, took the image from him, kissed him, and crossed him with it on his head. The same homage was paid to his mother, on which she delivered the image to another person, who preceded the bridegroom and his party to the church, where they met the bride and her attendants; and the couple were then led to the altar, and united in the holy bands of wedlock, by the Protopope, or Chief of the Clergy. The ceremony resembles that of the Catholic church, except that, towards the close, the priest places a hymeneal crown on the heads of the man and woman, and they walk three times round a table, where lie the cross and the Bible. This part of the proceeding is regarded as alternately binding them in strict allegiance to each other during the rest of their lives. There are also two rings used, which are exchanged, from the man to the woman, during the ceremony. The whole party now returned to the house of the bridegroom's father, where a repast was prepared for them, resembling all large entertainments of this sort. The healths of the principal persons of the place were drunk, and followed by a salute of three guns after each toast. The evening was crowned with an illumination, and a ball, at which, as a stranger, I had the honour of leading off the bride."

At Yakutsk Mr. Dobell embarked in a large covered boat on the Lena, which he ascended on his way to Irkutsk. He left the former place on the 29th of August, being drawn by horses, with the assistance of six peasants, whom he hired to go fifteen hundred versts to Kiringee, and who were employed at places where it was difficult for the horses. The banks of the river were varied and picturesque; sometimes steep cliffs and uncouth heaps of rock, in the most fantastic shapes, rose to a great height; sometimes the shores sloped away into mountains covered with thick forests of pine and spruce.

On the 5th of October he arrived at Olekma, a town six hundred versts above Yakutsk, in latitude 60° 22', and east longitude 89° 15' from St. Petersburg. He found it to contain four or five hundred inhabitants. It was, in former times, the place whence the Cossacks set out, when they waged their wars against the Chinese, and carried their depredations as far as the Amour. It is said, that three hundred and fifty of these barbarian warriors were once besieged in a fortress by twenty-two thousand Chinese, and held out against them a whole year, until a capitulation was agreed upon, at a period when their force was reduced to one hundred and fifty men.

At Olekma, the season had become so cold, and there was so much floating ice in the Lena, as to render it impossible to proceed any longer by water. The road lay along the shores of the river, frequently obstructed by half frozen torrents rushing into it, and occasionally cut off by points and precipices which compelled the party to venture on the ice.

"At Matcha, I found a clean, comfortable dwelling, and a hospitable reception from the hostess, an old woman, who said she had been seventeen years in Siberia, having been sent by the Government from Archangel, to assist in increasing the population; but she thanked God, at the same time, that she had not been banished for misconduct. She told me she had always lived much better than she did in Russia, and had been so happily situated as to have never felt a wish to return. Having received from her a fine fat fowl, some cream, vegetables, &c. I asked her in the morning what I must pay for them. She replied, 'a little tea and sugar, a piece of soap, and above all, a few glasses of watky—though I would not have you suppose I am addicted to liquor, for I only take a little now and then to preserve my health.' Her emaciated frame and sallow countenance belied her assertion. Complying with her request, I begged her to preserve her health by using as little of the spirit as possible, as it often had the opposite effect to that of assisting the health. She laughed, and drinking a bumper to my advice, wished me a safe journey."

Passing Veeteem and Kiringee, two considerable towns on the Lena, Mr. Dobell found the country improve gradually, and the post-houses throughout comfortable, clean, and convenient; much more so than could have been expected in remote Siberia. The horses were also furnished with great alacrity, and the inhabitants generally were kind and hospitable. On the 30th of October he passed Katchuk, the place where all the merchandise is embarked in the spring for Yakutsk and other towns on the Lena. The river is generally free enough from ice by the 5th to the 12th of May, and but fourteen days are required for the voyage. From Katchuk to Irkutsk, the road leaves the Lena, and passes through a fine extensive plain, bounded on either side by well cultivated hills, and having villages and farm houses dispersed over it in all directions. This plain is principally inhabited by a horde called Burettas, who are, for the most part, Christians, and have taken to agriculture with a great deal of industry and zeal. The richer class live in log houses, but the great part dwell in cabins, similar to the winter jourtas of the more eastern hordes. Their clothing consists of a pelisse of dressed goat or sheep skin, with the wool inside, trimmed with fur, and painted in black and white stripes round the shoulders.

Irkutsk, the capital of eastern Siberia, is in latitude 52° 16' 41", and east longitude from St. Petersburg, 73° 51' 48". It is built on the margin of the river Angarra, and contains a population now probably exceeding twenty thousand souls. The markets are good, the society is pleasant, and a traveller finds in the very heart of Siberia almost all the luxuries of life. In visiting the public works, the governor took Mr. Dobell to an immense brick building, where he found the workshops of the exiles.

"In that large range, one sees joiners, carpenters, carriage-makers, saddlers, blacksmiths, and in short, all sorts of tradesmen, busily occupied, and all provided with comfortable apartments, clean clothing, and wholesome food. From this we passed to the cloth factory, the contemplation of which afforded me much pleasure, when I recollected that those beings before me, who were once the victims of depravity, exhibited no longer any thing to inspire me with the idea of their having been criminals. All was gaiety and cheerfulness. There I saw men, women, and children, all industriously employed in weaving, spinning, carding, picking wool, &c. They were arranged in several large, clean, warm, and comfortable apartments; and they really appeared as contented as any labourers I ever saw; for they looked fat and healthy.

"The cloth is made from the wool and hair of the Buretta sheep, camels, and goats. It stands the Government in about a rouble the arshin, and sells for two roubles. This profit, after paying the expenses of the manufactory, leaves a surplus that is used to furnish the hospitals, and for other laudable purposes. Such an institution does honour to any country; nor can there be a more praiseworthy application of the industry of those exiles than that which operates to relieve the sick, the fatherless, and the widow.

"There is every reason to conclude, from the examples which have been furnished by those countries which have adopted this system, that the idea of confinement and hard labour is a more powerful preventive of the commission of crimes than the fear of death."

At the public ship yard, Mr. Dobell saw a brig on the stocks, destined to navigate the Baikal. The vessels generally used on that sea are built on its shores, on account of the difficulty of ascending against the current of the Angarra. Those belonging to the government are employed principally to carry convicts and stores to Nerchinsk, where there are mines of silver, gold, and precious stones, as well as a fine grain country. The neighbourhood of Irkutsk is fertile and prolific, and the population increasing. The climate is the mildest of Siberia, the thermometer of Reaumur seldom exceeding 30° to 34° of cold, and that but for short intervals.

On the 25th of November, having taken leave of his hospitable acquaintances, Mr. Dobell left Irkutsk on his journey towards St. Petersburg. He had fresh occasion to notice the kindness and simplicity of the people, which his subsequent visits to the country tended to confirm. On one occasion, at the village of Krasnoyesk, in this province, he took, at the recommendation of the governor, instead of the usual Cossack guides, two soldiers, one a grenadier of the guards of the regiment of Moscow, and the other of the Semenofsky, who, having been allowed a certain time to go and see their friends in Siberia, from whom they had been absent eleven years, were anxious to return to St. Petersburg, and had not money to hire a conveyance.

"They had travelled from Russia on foot, near five thousand versts, to see their relations. The elder of the two had a wife and two children. He related to me that when he returned to his family, his wife, who knew him immediately, was so frightened that she fell into a swoon; and it was nearly an hour before she recovered her senses. His parting with his wife and children again affected us exceedingly; but he seemed to bear it with firmness, and said, 'God bless you, put your trust in God: I shall return to you.' Both those men, but particularly the married one, were the most faithful, obedient, well-behaved men I ever saw, and proved of infinite service to me on the road, as I travelled not with the post-horses, but with those of the common peasants. This gives me an opportunity of expatiating again on the moral and religious character of the Siberians, as well as their intelligence, generosity, and hospitality. I found on the road, even amongst the peasants, a sympathy, a kindness and attention to the wants of my family and myself, and a disinterestedness, that I have no where else experienced. Many times it occurred that we lodged in a house for the night, were furnished with bread, milk, cream, and a supper for four servants, and I had a difficulty to make the man of the house accept of a couple of roubles. The demand was fifty to seventy kopeks; and sometimes payment was refused altogether. I met a carrier who was conveying goods from Tumen to Tomsk, a distance of about one thousand five hundred versts, for two and a half roubles per pood! On questioning him, how he could possibly afford to take merchandise at so cheap a rate, he said, 'the people of my country are kind and hospitable. I live about Tomsk, so that I must return thither; and I get a man and a horse found a whole day for fifteen kopeks.' The grenadier also assured me that the only expense his journey on foot to see his family had cost him, was about twenty-five roubles; and those were spent between St. Petersburg and Ecatherineburg. 'After getting fairly into Siberia,' said he, 'no one would ever receive a kopek from me for either food or lodging.'

"After we got into Russia, and began to suffer certain impositions which are put upon travellers on the great roads in every country, he would often exclaim, 'God be with me and my beloved Siberia! There people have their consciences and their hearts in the right place!'"

Tomsk is fifteen hundred versts from Irkutsk, and four thousand five hundred from St. Petersburg, being in latitude 56° 29' 6", and longitude 54° 50' 6" from the latter place. Its population is about ten thousand. It has many manufactories, and a number of handsome houses, with a pleasant though small society. After leaving it, the traveller passes the vast and fertile plain of Baraba, where he is whirled along at the rate of two hundred and seventy versts a day.

The first place of importance which he reaches after crossing it, is Tobolsk, the chief town of the province of that name, and formerly of Siberia. Its latitude is 55° 11' 14", and its longitude 37° 46' 14" east from St. Petersburg, from which, and from Irkutsk, it is distant three thousand versts. Fourteen years ago its population amounted to thirty thousand inhabitants, since when it has in all probability very much increased. Its manufactories are numerous; its society is agreeable, and gives evidence of the same hospitality which is witnessed so generally and so gratefully by the traveller, in those remote regions; but has it not in its very name a charm to the reader who peruses an account of it, in its connexion with those incidents, fictitious or true, which have been formed into one of the most simple, beautiful, and touching tales, that have ever flowed from the imagination or the heart?

From Tobolsk, Mr. Dobell passed rapidly through the surrounding district of the same name, visited Ecatherineburg, where he admired, so far beyond the ordinary limits of the arts, works in marble, agate, and precious stones, which would have done honour to Italian artists; and arriving at the geographical boundary that divides Siberia from Russia, closes the narrative of his travels, which we would willingly have seen continued to the gates of the imperial capital of the north.

"I assure the reader," he says at the close of his truly interesting account, "that in my humble attempt to describe what I have seen and experienced, I have been governed by no partial motives whatever. On the contrary, I have laboured to represent every object faithfully as it has affected my senses. I am, however, conscious at the same time, that it requires an abler pen than mine to delineate adequately the sublime and majestic works of nature in the regions I have been describing, and to portray them to the imagination in all their simplicity, beauty, and grandeur. Siberia does not possess the climate of Italy, nor the luxurious productions of India; but she possesses a fertile soil, a climate much better than is generally believed, and natural resources of the highest value; and she presents to the traveller such a magnificent picture of natural objects, as is no where to be equalled except on the immense continent of America. There is no longer any doubt but the greater part of her territory is susceptible of high cultivation, having a strong fertile soil, covered with superb forests, and intersected by fine rivers, or watered by numerous lakes, many of which may fairly be called seas.

"The race of men produced there, are uncommonly tall, stout, and robust; certainly the best looking people I have ever seen, particularly those of the Western parts. My readers will now, I am sure, agree with me, that this country, hitherto considered the Ultima Thule, or the finis mundi, has been highly gifted by its Creator, and only wants population and improvement to render it the most valuable portion of his Imperial Majesty's dominions."

FOOTNOTES:

[6] The old English lawyers puzzled themselves greatly in tracing the origin of the feudal tenures. The truth is, they may be found in the incipient stages of society in nearly every nation. They existed, in fact, in Hindostan, China, and many other countries, for centuries before the time of the comites of the German princes, mentioned by Tacitus, who are supposed to have founded them. The services of the tenant varied according to the character and condition of the people—the principle was every where the same.

[7] The tael is $1.66; the pecul, 133-1/3 pounds.

Art. IV.—Précis de la Geographie Universelle ou Description de toutes les parties du Monde, sur un plan Nouveau D'aprês les grandes divisions Naturelles du Globe, &c. Par Malte-Brun: Bruxelles, 1829.

We place at the head of our article, which we mean to devote to Physical Geography, the title of the latest edition that we have seen of the great work of Malte-Brun. This, which has already become well known to our American public in translation, has received some additions from its Belgian editors, but has not been fully brought up to the present state of Science, nor does it contain all the new discoveries which have been made in that part, namely, physical geography, to which our attention is more immediately directed. We shall, however, endeavour to supply these deficiencies so far as lies in our power.

Physical geography stands in immediate connexion with subjects which have already been presented to the readers of this journal, namely with Celestial Mechanics,[8] and with the Phenomena of our Atmosphere.[9] It shall be our endeavour to proceed from the facts laid down in the first of the two articles to which we have referred, to the more particular consideration of the state, the structure, and the condition of the globe we inhabit.

The earth is a planet of the solar system, the third in distance from the sun, revolving upon its own axis, and around that central body attended by a satellite; circumstances which affect in a most important manner the phenomena that are observed upon its surface. Composed of material substances that mutually attract each other, each particle of which has a greater or less centrifugal force in proportion to its distance from the axis of rotation, it has a figure that is consistent with a state of equilibrium under the joint action of these two forces, and which is such as would have been assumed by a fluid body actuated by them. The figure that fulfils these conditions is an oblate spheroid, the axis of the generating ellipse coinciding with the polar diameter of the body. Had the earth a figure absolutely spherical, or less flattened than is consistent with the conditions of equilibrium, the ocean, by which so large a part of its surface is covered, would have arranged itself in a meniscoid zone around its equatorial regions; were the figure, on the other hand, one of greater oblateness, the waters would have been divided and accumulated at either pole, leaving the equatorial regions dry. But did its figure fulfil the conditions of equilibrium, the fluid mass would tend to distribute itself equally over the whole surface, unless prevented by irregularities in the solid mass. The last is the actual state of things; the ocean occupies a bed formed of cavities, lying below the mean surface of the spheroid, and the land presents to us those asperities and elevations, which rise, although to a comparatively small height, above the general level.

Was then the earth originally in a fluid state, and has it assumed its present form under the strict action of mechanical laws, on a body of that class? are the bed of the ocean and the continents merely crusts formed upon the surface of a liquid globe? Does the interior still remain liquid, or has the induration proceeded until the whole internal mass has become solid? Nay, may not the interior be hollow, as we have recently seen gravely maintained, and heard sage legislatures recommend to the public attention?

Mathematical investigations of incontrovertible evidence, show us that were the earth of equal density throughout, the flattening at the poles would be 1/234 of the equatorial diameter; that in the hypothetical case of infinite density at the centre, and infinite rarity at the surface, the flattening would be no more than 1/578; while, were the surface more dense than the interior, or did a cavity exist within, the oblateness must be greater than 1/234. Actual measurements of portions of the surface, the variation in the length of the pendulum which beats seconds in different latitudes, and the effect of the earth's figure on the lunar motions, show us that the earth cannot be flattened more than 1/289, nor less than 1/312, or may, at a mean, be considered as a spheroid, whose polar and equatorial diameters are in the relation of 299 to 300.

Astronomers have ascertained the deflection of plumb lines from the vertical, by the action of mountains. The attraction of a projecting mass of known bulk and density, with one whose bulk alone is known, is thus determined, and hence the density of the latter may be calculated.

Even comparatively small masses of matter may be placed under such circumstances at the surface of the earth, that their mutual action can be observed uninfluenced by the preponderating attraction of the earth, and thus a new means of comparison obtained.

The pendulum whose vibrations ought to vary according to a definite law, as we recede from the surface of the earth, has that law affected by the elevated ground on which it is placed, and here again a comparison may be instituted between the general and local attractions.

All these modes of investigation concur in, and confirm the general result, that the mean density of the earth is about five times as great as that of water. Now as a great portion of the surface is composed of that fluid, and as the general density of the land is little more than twice as great as that of water, it follows incontestably that the interior of the earth is far more dense than its outer covering.

All material substances are capable of assuming, under proper modifications of latent heat, either the solid, the liquid, or the gaseous form; yet all are beyond doubt composed of atoms, solid, hard, and incapable of further division. Under their own mutual attraction these particles tend to unite, and cohere in solid masses, and to this attractive force the repulsive power of heat is constantly opposed, tending to prevent their aggregation, and retaining them, according to its intensity, in the gaseous or liquid form.

The heat necessary to maintain these states of existence in bodies, may be produced in various ways. Our usual experience leads us to consider it as more generally arising from two causes, radiation from the sun, and the chemical action causing combustion. The former could never have produced the temperature known to exist at present upon the surface of the globe, for the earth radiates as well as the sun, and is constantly throwing off heat into the surrounding space. We know that these two actions have for twenty centuries exactly balanced each other, and that the mean temperature of the earth has neither increased nor diminished in all that period. Had the solar radiation been, previously to that epoch, in excess, it must at the more recent periods, counted backwards, have been but slightly so, and ages unnumbered must have elapsed, before the state of equilibrium which now exists could have been reached. The earth too, at distant periods, must have been colder than at present, while that the contrary is true is shown by numerous observations.

Neither could chemical action have had any great agency in establishing the present temperature of the earth. The substances which burn are but a small portion of the crust of the earth, and their combustion, if all fired at a time, would cause no perceptible effect on the sensible heat of the surface of our globe. Were combustible bodies even infinitely more abundant, the supporters are insufficient to keep up their combustion for any length of time, without sensible diminution, and this would be the case, even were the whole of the oxygen that now exists as a component of the waters of the ocean added to their present amount. It is indeed possible that the outer shell of the earth, which is no more than a crust of oxidated matter, may have existed at first in the metallic state, but that crust has long intervened, and prevented any contact between the air or ocean, and the metallic bases of the earths, that in this case must lie beneath.

In spite of these obvious objections to their theory, some geologists have madly fancied to themselves a great internal fire, maintained by actual combustion, a fancy but little more rational than that which seeks, in the present order of things, precipitation from some vast quantity of a liquid menstruum, every trace of whose existence has now vanished.

There is, however, yet another source of heat, if indeed solar heat be not a mere case of its general action, far more general and universal, which has its origin in the bodies themselves, and has no reference to any extrinsic cause. All bodies are sensibly heated when condensed, and lose sensible heat when they expand, so that their temperatures vary with the greater or less distance of their particles. The atmosphere of the earth furnishes a marked illustration of this fact. Of nearly uniform chemical composition throughout, its elastic nature, conflicting with its gravity, renders it more dense in its lower than in its higher regions. The former are in consequence warmer than the latter, and the mean temperature of our climates is in fact due to this character of our atmosphere. But this mean temperature could not be maintained, were not that of the earth itself in harmony with it. The surface might, no doubt, be cooled or heated by the adjacent air, but the heat, if given out from an earth warmer than the atmosphere, would be rapidly replaced from within, and a constant accumulation ensue in the air, while, if the earth were cooler, a diminution, equally constant, of the temperature of the atmosphere, must take place. The earth is, however, itself subject to the same law. All the materials of which it is composed, are capable of compression, in a greater or less degree, and of being heated by compression. The tendency of all material substances to the centre of attraction, loads the parts nearest to that centre with the whole weight of the superincumbent mass. And in the depth of four thousand miles, which intervenes between the centre and the surface, the heat must be far more than equal to that obtained by the compound blow-pipe or galvanic deflagrator, under whose intense energies the most refractory substances liquefy. Hence it may be inferred as a fact, as certain as any in physical science, that the interior of the earth is at present in a state resembling igneous fusion, not produced, however, by any of the more familiar sources of heat, but by the intense pressure the upper masses exert upon those nearer to the centre.

Here, then, we find the reason of the earth's having assumed a figure consistent with the equilibrium of a fluid mass, whose particles are endued with a mutual attraction, and which has a motion around an axis.

Let us suppose all the particles which now constitute the earth, to have been originally disseminated throughout a vast space, and to have approached their common centre of gravity by the force of mutual attraction; the consideration thus caused would have produced the state of intense heat that is now kept up within by pressure; and the conducting power of the bodies would have propagated the heat nearly equal throughout the mass. The surface would then have existed in a liquid state as well as that beneath. But as the radiation from the surface of a heated body is in exact proportion to its temperature, this cause of cooling would have been intense, and a crust must soon have formed upon the outer surface; this crust would have increased in thickness so long as the heat thrown off by radiation exceeded that received from the sun. When this state of equilibrium was finally attained, all the great phenomena which a body thus heated could exhibit, would cease, and the subsequent changes would become due only to forces such as we now see acting upon the surface, or would be the completion of actions commenced during the previous state.

We know, from astronomical investigations, that this state of equilibrium has existed for upwards of twenty centuries, while analogy would lead us to infer that it must have been attained at no long period after the last great catastrophe to which our planet was subjected.

Let us now see whether the fact of the interior of the globe being more intensely heated than its surface, can be inferred in any other manner than from the course of reasoning whose principles are here cited. The feeble power of man, feeble at least compared to the size of the globe he inhabits, has been able to penetrate to but small depths in its outer shell, but even at these small depths, an increase of temperature has been remarked, and so frequently and carefully observed, as to leave no doubt of its being a general law. This increase, too, appears exactly consistent with that which it might be inferred ought to take place. But we, even to the present day, occasionally see the igneous fluid from beneath forced up to the surface, and spreading from volcanic craters over great regions. Observation shows us that at remote epochs such phenomena were much more frequent than at present. We want no more positive proofs that the interior of the earth is still intensely heated, and that the bed of the ocean and the solid land are mere crusts formed upon the surface of a mass in a state analogous to that of igneous fusion.

Were the surface, as we have inferred it must have been, ever itself intensely heated, the volatile and gaseous matters which now constitute our atmosphere and oceans, must have united to form an atmosphere of far greater extent than it is at present. The aqueous matter rising into regions where the rarity of the air would cause cold sufficient to condense it, would have been in a state of constant motion, boiling in the lower regions, being precipitated in the higher, and acting most energetically to promote the general cooling. And so soon as the surface became cooler than 212°, the water would begin to settle upon its surface, forming at first lakes in its basins or cavities, and finally extending itself into one vast ocean, covering the whole or parts of the solid crust according to its greater or less degree of uniformity.

The conversion of the igneous liquid surface into solid matter, could only have taken place in successive shells or concentric layers; hence would arise a stratified character. And as the cooling proceeded, lowering the mean temperature of the whole mass, a consequent diminution of bulk must have taken place, according to the well known law of expansion by heat and contraction on cooling. Such diminution in bulk must have broken the strata into fragments, through the fissures of which, according to the laws of hydrostatics, the fluid mass beneath would rise until the equilibrium of rotation would have been obtained, and the strata, originally concentric, would be dislocated and turned in every possible direction, pierced with veins and dikes of all possible magnitude, from slender threads to mountain masses, caused by the cooling and consolidation of the rising fluid, and occasionally spreading in overlying currents, congealed and fixed in ridges and chains. These veins and dykes would present different characters, according to the dates of their elevation. If raised at a period when the surface was still of high temperature, they must have crystallized slowly, and in a perfect manner; at diminished temperatures, the crystallization would be less complete; if raised into the mass of ocean, they would assume one character; if coming in contact with air, another. A breaking of the bed of the ocean, and bringing its waters in contact with the liquid mass beneath, might produce consequences extending in their action to districts of the globe, the most remote from those in which the convulsion occurred; for the water, rising into vapour, would tend to extend itself in one uniform atmosphere over the whole surface of the globe, and might be precipitated in unusual abundance wherever causes of condensation existed. Thus, partial, or even total deluges, may have occurred, great portions of the ocean being hurried in vapour from its bed, and precipitated upon the land whose temperature is not affected by the distant catastrophe.

The waters might, in some cases, flow directly back to the ocean, in others might accumulate in basins and form lakes, fresh at first, and gradually becoming saline. These in turn might burst their bounds, carrying ruin and devastation in their course, or might by evaporation be dried up, and be again filled by a recurrence of the original cause of supply.

Such violent and rapid action would finally be exhausted by the gradual cooling of the earth, but the outer crust would still press on the igneous fluid beneath, and although far less liable to rupture, its fluid action might yet enable it to force its way occasionally to the surface, but at distant intervals, and with diminished energy. Now, a new series of phenomena must occur, similar to the more familiar of those we see acting at present; at first more intense, but finally, when the state of equilibrium of temperature is reached, exactly such as we now find them both in kind and in energy.

To see how far such a view of what might have occurred, under the action of well known causes, in case of a certain original order of things, is correct, let us examine the appearances our globe actually presents.

To a systematized and general examination, it presents the appearance of a great ocean, covering about three-fourths of its whole surface, and surrounding two great, and a number almost infinite of smaller islands. The two great islands are the old and the new continents; the largest of those that remain is New-Holland. To exhibit this great ocean in its most general aspect, take an artificial globe, raise the south pole 50° above the horizon, and bring New-Zealand to the meridian. The hemisphere above the horizon will now be wholly of water, with the exception of the southern part of South America on the one side, and New-Holland, with the Indian archipelago, on the other. These bear, when united, but a small proportion to the entire hemisphere. The opposite hemisphere contains more land than water; and when it is in its turn placed above the horizon, the Atlantic will be seen lying almost wholly on the western side of the meridian, and forming, with the Arctic ocean, a species of channel, narrowing from the latitude of the Cape of Good Hope towards the northern pole, and communicating with the great ocean which lies principally in the opposite hemisphere by Behring's straits. On this hemisphere are also seen parts of the Pacific and Indian oceans, which are considerably more than equal in surface to the lands which project into the opposite one.

If we turn our attention to the land, we find it unequal in its surface; and although compared with the whole diameter of the earth, the inequalities be very small, yet, compared with our own stature, they often present an imposing magnitude. These greater elevations are mountains; and we find them sometimes united in chains, sometimes isolated, and at other times uniting to form elevated plains or table lands. These table lands sometimes slope outwards, at others they are surrounded by eminences that prevent the efflux of the waters, or only admit them to pass through apertures made by their own action. Upon our continent, table lands of the latter description are to be found of great magnitude, entering as parts of the great system of the Cordilleras or Andes; in Europe they are rare, but in Tartary, Persia, and in central Africa, they occur, forming regions of great extent. In general, the greater part of the mountains of a continent appear to have a connexion more or less obvious; it has even been conceived that they form the skeleton upon which the rest of the land has been deposited, and which has determined the form of the continent. Thus we speak habitually of chains of mountains. Mountains, however, do not always present a continuous ridge, from which the peaks or more elevated summits rise, but occasionally, the groups we call chains, are composed of separate mountains divided by valleys; such are the mountains of Scotland, of Sweden, and Norway; and such is the general structure of the chain of mountains called in the state of New-York the Highlands, of whose connexion and grouping we shall hereafter speak.

This being understood, namely, that by a chain or ridge of mountains we do not necessarily intend a continuous elevation, the term may be conveniently used in order to express the configuration of mountains. These chains surround or border upon greater or less basins, which are each distinguished by the name of the principal stream that conveys its surface waters to the ocean, or they may, as has been stated, envelop a table land, whence there is no issue for the waters, or no more than a mere passage sufficient to afford them an outlet. Even if a map contain no expression of the position of mountains, we can, by mere inspection of the courses of rivers, determine the lines in which the chains are directed, and, from the size of the rivers, judge in some measure of the elevation of the district. Thus, on inspection of the map of Europe, we find four of its greatest rivers rising at no great distance from each other, the Rhine, the Rhone, the Danube, and the Po; here, then, we might infer a great elevation, and here we accordingly find its highest mountains, the Alps. In another part of this continent, we see the Dwina, the Nieper, and the Volga, diverge from points not far distant from each other, and here accordingly we find an elevated table land, two hundred miles in length by fifty in breadth, marked however by no mountain summits. In central Asia, we see a vast space inclosed by lines joining the sources of a number of mighty rivers, the Indus, the Ganges, the Barrampooter, the Irrawaddy, the Houng Ha, and Kiang Ku, the Amour, the Lena, the Yermisir, and the Oby; accordingly, here we find the greatest table land surrounded by the highest mountains of the globe. Still, however, the instance we have cited of the rivers of Russia shows, that the land whence great rivers take their rise, is not necessarily mountainous; in this case the ascent is almost imperceptible, and the summit offers the aspect of a level and marshy plain. Such also occurs in the famous boundary between the United States and Canada, where the highlands that figured in two successive treaties have disappeared, and in their supposed place has been found a series of swamps.

Attempts have been made to arrange the chains of mountains into connected systems. Of these the most successful is that of Malte-Brun.

"If we draw a line from the centre of Thibet, across Chinese Mongolia towards Ochotsk, and thence towards Cape Tchutscki, the eastern promontory of Asia, this line will in general coincide with a great chain of mountains which runs from the south-west to the north-east, and which every where descends rapidly towards the Indian and Pacific oceans, while on the contrary, it extends itself towards the Frozen ocean in high plains and secondary hills. It is probable that we may some day refer to the same rule the chain of Lapata, called the backbone of the world, in Africa; at any rate this chain runs from the Cape of Good Hope to that of Gardafui, in a direction south-east and north-west, and therefore in nearly the same direction as the great chain of Asia, but we are ignorant of the disposition of the slopes of these mountains. We may regard the mountains of the Happy Arabia, which are both steep and lofty, as the link that connects the mountains of Lapata with the table lands and mountains of Persia, which proceed from the mountains of Thibet.

"If we follow the western coasts of America, from Behring's straits, which hardly form a sensible interruption, to Cape Horn, we find an uninterrupted chain of mountains. From time to time this chain retires a little into the interior, but more frequently it immediately borders upon the great ocean, in immense cliffs, and often by frightful precipices. On the other side of it, the manner in which the lakes discharge themselves, and the direction of the great rivers, show sufficiently, that the surface of America inclines gently towards the Atlantic ocean.

"It results from a combination of these observations, that the greatest chains of mountains on our globe, are ranged in an arc of a circle around the great ocean, and the sea of India; that they seem to present rapid descents towards the immense basin they surround, and gentle slopes on their opposite sides; in fine, from the Cape of Good Hope to Behring's straits, and thence to Cape Horn, the eye of the most timid observer cannot fail to see some trace of an arrangement, as surprising from its uniformity, as from the vast extent of ground which it embraces.

"Let us pause for an instant to consider this great fact of physical geography. If we conceive ourselves placed in New South Wales, with our face turned towards the north, we have America on our right hand, Africa and Asia on our left. These continents, which we hardly before ventured to approach in our imagination, considered in this point of view, form a consistent system, whose structure, as far as we are acquainted with it, presents in its great features an astonishing symmetry. A chain of enormous mountains surrounds an enormous basin; this basin, divided into two by a vast collection of islands, often bathes with its waves the feet of this great primary chain of the earth."

In this chain lie the greatest mountains of the globe. One peak of the Himmalayah rises nearly five miles above the level of the sea; another has a height of 25,500 feet; and a third of 22,217 feet. In South America are Soratu, in height 25,250 feet.

not to mention Antisana, Mauflos, Chillau, Cotopaxi, all of which exceed in height any mountains that do not lie in this great system. Nay, did not the great Volcano of Owyhee enter into the order with a height of 18,000 feet, the list of those surpassing the other mountains of the globe, might be very much extended.

We shall have occasion hereafter to speak of the volcanic energies still exerted in this vast stony girdle, and shall therefore confine ourselves strictly to mere external form.

The arms and branches of mountain chains enclose as has been seen, basins marked by rivers which convey their surface waters to the ocean. The rains which fall on the sides of mountains and hills, unite in torrents and streams, which follow the lines of most rapid slope in their course to the sea.

The greater rivers mark the lowest part of a principal basin, on each side of which, at a greater or less distance, are to be found rising grounds, themselves hollowed out into lateral secondary basins, containing courses of water less considerable than the first, into which they cast themselves, and whose branches they are. The borders of these secondary basins are again hollowed out into basins of a third order, whose slopes also contain water courses less considerable than the preceding, into which they in turn discharge themselves. This ramification continues until we reach the smallest ravines of the boundary mountains, and the map appears, as it were, covered with a net work of rivers and lesser streams. The great valley of the Mississippi and Missouri, forms perhaps the most striking instance of this sort, upon the surface of our globe.

Rivers and streams are constantly exerting a mechanical action on the surfaces over which they run; abrading and tearing off fragments even of the hardest rocks, they roll them in their course until the velocity becomes insufficient to transport them farther. At diminished velocities they move fragments of less size, down to the smallest pebbles; at still less velocities, they transport sand, and finally earthy matter, in the most minute division. These are deposited in succession in positions corresponding to the rapidity of the stream, and hence the beds of rivers present at each of their different sections, materials of magnitude and quality corresponding to the rate at which the stream usually flows. The increase in the magnitude of streams, due to violent rains and the melting of the snows, changes the position of the substances that compose their bed, and the more easily suspended materials are often held until the stream actually meets the ocean. In such sudden increases, the streams often overflow their usual banks, and make their deposits laterally, until the constant succession of such deposits raises the adjacent ground high enough to set bounds to the further spreading of the stream. This deposit is remarkable for its taking place in greatest quantity close to the usual bed of the stream; and thus it speedily opposes natural dykes to its own redundant waters. This action is most conspicuous at points where marked changes take place either permanently or periodically in the rapidity of running water: when streams descend from mountains into lines of less descent, a deposit uniformly takes place, forming flats or intervals, as they are styled in the United States, of which we have such beautiful instances in the valleys of the Connecticut and Mohawk, and that part of the Hudson near Albany; again, where rivers meet the sea, they are interrupted in their course by the rise of the tides of the ocean, and here again deposits take place, sometimes forming shoals and banks in the ocean itself; at other times, bars and obstructions at their own mouths; and again, deltas of solid land, constantly encroaching upon the sea. This action, which is continually going forward, is called alluvial. The delta of greatest fame, and from which the others have derived their generic name, is that of the Nile; this we have evidence, almost historic, to prove to be wholly the gift of the river. And if it no longer increase as rapidly as in former ages, the cause is obvious, for the alluvion has been pushed so far forward as to meet a strong current that sweeps along the African coast, and must carry off much of the earth the Nile discharges into the Mediterranean. The great rivers of Asia and of America carry still greater quantities of solid matter, but we have not the same distant traditions to refer to for the amount of the increase they have caused; still, however, we know that the mouth of the Mississippi has been advanced into the Gulf of Mexico several leagues since the settlement of Louisiana; and that islands of great extent are frequently formed, in the course of a single year, by the deposits of the Ganges.

We however find traces of aqueous action far more extensive and powerful than those which are now taking place under our eyes by fluviatile action. There is no part of the globe that has been examined, which does not show that it has been subjected to the action of water, in floods far more powerful than any we now are in the habit of seeing. Every where, except in the case of rocky cliffs, and steep mountains, or where we see obvious evidence of a recent elevation, we find the surface strewn with the deposits of water: boulders of greater or less size, beds of gravel, sand, and clay, form the present outer coating of the greatest part of the land. These deposits were long confounded with the alluvial, but have at length been proved, by incontrovertible evidence, to be the results of an action, which if not contemporaneous, must have been universal. We have seen an able attempt to show that this species of deposit did not take place at one and the same period, but was merely the general consequence of similar causes acting at different epochs. Our impression, we must however confess to be, that the action was not only co-extensive with the globe, but contemporaneous. It at any rate exhibits proofs the most satisfactory, that the last great and extensive change which our earth has undergone, was effected by the agency of water, in a state of rapid and violent motion. Ascribing this deposit to a single flood, it has been styled diluvial.

There are cases where alluvial deposits rest upon the diluvium, and from the depth of these it has been attempted to calculate the time that has elapsed since the former of these actions was resumed. The diluvium has also been found in caverns lying upon an ancient stalagmite, and covered again with a new formation of that modification of carbonate of lime. The thickness of the latter deposit has also been made the basis of a calculation, and although neither of these methods is to be considered as approaching to an accuracy more perfect than some hundreds of years, the two methods confirm each other in the general result, which is, that, at a date not more remote than fifty or sixty centuries, there must have taken place a total submersion of all the land, except, perhaps, the tops of high mountains, did they then exist. We have in the sacred volume, a record of such a catastrophe, the flood of Noah, and from that time to the present, no convulsion, equally extensive in its influence, has devastated the globe. Have not then the geologists who have seen in these indications the convincing evidence of that occurrence, been warranted in their inference, of the identity of an event pointed out by undeniable physical evidence, with one recorded in a history to which one of the most confirmed sceptics has recently admitted the merit of truth?

The diluvial deposits are found not only in the lower grounds, but on the tops and sides of lofty mountains; we have ourselves noted them distinctly characterized at high elevations upon the Kaatskills; they are found among the Alps at Valorsine, 6000 feet above the level of the sea, and in another place at more than 7000 feet. The excavations made in the extension of the city of New-York at Corlaer's Hook, have laid open a vast mass of diluvium, and afforded means for studying it with great facility. It in fact presented the appearance of a great cabinet of specimens of primitive and transition rocks, and it was possible in many cases to determine the very mountain whence the fragments had been torn. The most remarkable boulder, for instance, of a weight of at least an hundred tons, was distinctly recognisable as identical in every respect with the granitic syenite of Schooley's mountain, distant at least forty miles. Others had no known type nearer than Connecticut, in the opposite direction, while the gneiss and mica slate of the island of New-York, with their various embedded minerals, the serpentine and many of the magnesian minerals of Hoboken, with sandstone and trap of the Pallisadoc range, were distinctly recognisable. In this great excavation, where a region of a mile square was wholly removed, to a depth, in many places, of thirty feet, no animal remains, as far as can be learnt, were detected; thus marking a most important difference between these deposits and those of the Old continent. Such is the remark of an intelligent geologist, whom we are proud to reckon as our collaborateur, and to whom that branch of Natural History is under no small obligations.

"Fragments of granite and other primitive rocks, cast here and there upon stratified formations, and interpersed in diluvium,[10] present a fact as certain as it is astonishing. All the chains of Mount Jura, all the mountains that precede the Alps, the hills and plains of Germany and Italy, are strewn with blocks of granite, often of a great dimension, and always of a composition as pure, and as perfect a crystallization, as the granites of the higher Alps. The same phenomenon is repeated in the plains of Russia, of Poland, of Prussia, of Denmark, and of Sweden. From Holstein to Eastern Prussia, diluvial[11]grounds, sand and clay, are covered with an immense number of blocks of granite. Near the island of Usedom, several points of granite rock rise from the bottom of the Baltic. We see in like manner, Scania and Jutland so filled with these fragments, that they construct of them enclosures, houses and churches. In the Lymfiord, a gulf of Jutland, and at some places on the western side of that peninsula, great points of granite rise from the bottom of the waters. But what is still more remarkable, is to see immense masses of granite lying on the tops of Rœduburg and Osmond, which are more than 6000 feet in height, and are therefore among the highest mountains in the North of Europe."

Beneath the diluvial deposit, we find beds and strata of substances of different character, and which appear on a cursory view to be involved in inextricable confusion. Long and careful examination has at length been efficient in ascertaining that in this apparent disorder are to be seen the traces of an order, as perfect as that of any other mechanism of nature, and of a succession of changes by which the earth has been finally fitted for the habitation of man. These strata have been finally arranged into five distinct classes, differing in their characters and position. These have been so fully described in a former article in this Journal, by the distinguished associate whom we have already quoted, that no more remains for us to say, than what is merely necessary to keep up the connexion of our subject.

These stratified rocks or formations are remarkable for the regular order in which they succeed and overlie each other, furnishing distinct and indisputable evidence of their having been formed in succession. The first set of strata, which are never covered by any of the others, and hence are conceived to be of most recent formation, lie inclined at a small angle to the horizon. In many cases they do not assume the character of rocks, but although distinctly stratified, are often soft and friable, presenting beds of marle and clay, and thick deposits of sand. In some cases their appearance is so similar to diluvial or even alluvial deposits, that they might be mistaken for them, were it not for their more regular stratification. These are the tertiary formations of the German school, the superior order of Coneybeare and Philips.

Issuing from beneath these, and forming in their turn a considerable portion of the surface of the earth, rising occasionally into considerable hills, are strata of less uniform and regular inclination, forming basins and cavities in which the tertiary deposits are often found to lie, curved to conform to the bottoms of these basins.

The third and fourth series issue in their turn from beneath the preceding, as does the fifth from beneath the fourth. Each is marked in succession, by a greater degree of confusion or distortion in the stratification, until the last, which is apparently upheaved and thrown about without any regularity, its strata being occasionally found in positions almost vertical. Not only is the succession of the five different orders of rocks constant, but so is that in which the several rocks of each series overlie each other. This regularity of succession is, however, subject to this law; namely, that rocks of particular orders, or even the whole order itself, may be wanting in particular districts; thus, tertiary formations may be directly upon the lower order, and the second, third, and fourth, may not be present; or any one of the higher orders may lie directly upon any one of those we have stated to be inferior to it; but it has never been observed that the arrangement itself has been inverted, or that a rock which is in one place inferior, becomes, in its turn, superior in another.

The fifth, or inferior order, is uniformly found beneath one or all of the others; and, we may infer, that it in fact underlies the whole surface of the globe, forming not only the foundation of the solid land, but the original bottom on which the present bed of the sea is deposited. The rocks that compose this series are all highly crystalline in their character, are mostly composed of substances wholly or nearly insoluble in water, are wholly devoid of organic remains, and are in fact such substances as might be supposed to have been formed by slow cooling, from a state of igneous fusion. Is it then assuming too much to infer, that they are in fact the crust which has been first formed upon the surface of the earth, intensely heated by its own condensation, under the action of the gravitating force, that, communicated to it by the hand of the Creator, determined its figure, and still maintains its equilibrium. We do not include in this class, as is usually done, the crystalline rocks not stratified, as we conceive them to have been formed in another manner, to which we shall hereafter refer. All the four higher series of strata show, in the most evident manner, that their formation has been due to the action of water; the grauwacke is, perhaps, the only rock that exists among them, in which the question could, even on simple inspection of specimens, appear doubtful; but this rock lies at the base of the old red sandstone, and upon the limestone of the submedial order, or transition, as it is styled by the Wernerians, and is equally regular in its stratification with either; we cannot, therefore, admit any other cause of its formation than what is common to them.

Some of these strata are obviously mechanical, others chemical deposits; thus, the sandstones and conglomerates are certainly the products of the disintegration of older rocks by a violent abrasion of running water, and have settled when the currents have ceased to flow; all calcareous rocks, except the limestones of the inferior or fifth order, the primitive of Werner, on the other hand, appear to have been products of chemical precipitation; while there are a few cases, as in the beds of rock salt, where the deposit must have been due to evaporation.

Of all these rocks and formations, the primitive, as has already been stated, and the sandstones, are wholly devoid of organic remains. And even the last rule is to be received as not wholly free from exception; for vegetable impressions have been found, as we are credibly informed, in sandstone, at Nyack on the Hudson, and near Belleville in New-Jersey, besides some other similar cases we shall hereafter note. All the other strata present a greater or less abundance of the traces of the organic kingdoms, from the slate, which lies lowest of the fourth order, to the most recent beds of the tertiary, and to so much of the diluvium as has been examined in the old continent. And although in the isolated case of the diluvium at New-York, no fossil remains have been found, we are yet unprepared to admit this as more than an exception, and are inclined to think that the remains of the mastodon, for instance, must be diluvian, or pre-diluvian. In this opinion, however, we know that we are opposed by high authority, and therefore do not express it without hesitation.