UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNI 
 AT LOS ANGELES
 
 IJOoA Oul-. J)9-e»c/€n 
 
 REVIEWS AND DISCUSSIONS.
 
 EEVIEWS AND DISCUSSIONS 
 
 LITERAKY, TOLITICAL, AKIJ IJISTOIUCAL, 
 
 NOT RELATING TO BACON. 
 
 i;y 
 
 JAMES SPEDDINa. 
 
 '1* ■»«»' » ■'• • 
 ' ' a • • » • , 
 
 LONDON: 
 C. KEGAN PAUL & CO, 1, I'ATEKNO.STEK {-QUAUE.
 
 (The rights of traniilaiion and of reproduction arc reserved.)
 
 PV-. 
 
 5^70 
 
 TREFACE 
 
 Almost all these papers were written, not Lecause I 
 wanted a subject for an article, but because an article 
 on the subject was wanted at the time. The occasions 
 have passed away, and the particular value which they 
 then possessed has passed away with them. But the 
 subjects — whether notable books, or characters of in- 
 teresting men, or disputable questions in policy or 
 literature — are for the most part still open for discussion, 
 and liable to reappear on the stage from time to time. 
 Now, when I have had to study a question myself, I 
 have always wished to know something of its history, 
 and what was thought and written about it in its 
 former stages. Each of these Essays may be regarded as 
 a chapter or section in the history of the question it deals 
 with ; and as they were all written carefully, and upon 
 good information, and with no other object than to 
 represent the case truly as it then appeared to me, it has 
 been thought worth while to collect them into a volume, 
 where they may be found by tliofee whom they concern.
 
 Vi TREB^ACE. 
 
 Taken as representing the opinions of an individual 
 inquirer, and not of a judicial Loai"d, they may carry less 
 weight in tlic reader's estimation, hut he can judge better 
 what weight is due to them. 
 
 I have reprinted them without other alteration than 
 the correction of misprints or awkward sentences, the 
 omission of one or two passages which I do not now 
 altogether approve, and the restoration of the original 
 text where alterations, which I did not think improve- 
 ments, had been made by the editor.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 PACE 
 
 ' I. Henry Taylor's Statesman ... ... ... ••• ••• 1 
 
 11. The Working of Negro Apprenticeship in 1838 ... ... 35 
 
 III. Bill for the Suspension of the Jamaica Constitution, 1839 ... 87 
 
 IV. Tales by the Author op "Headlong Hall" ... ... 121 
 
 V. The Wakefield Theory of Colonization ... ... ... l.')3 
 
 YI. South Australia in 1841 ... ... ... ... 187 
 
 /II. Expedition to the Niger in 1841. Civilization of Africa ... 214 
 
 '/HI. Dickens's American Notes ... ... ... ... 240 
 
 IX. Tennyson's Poems ... ... ... ... ... ... 277 
 
 X. Hartley Coleridge ... ... ... ... ..; 299 
 
 XI. English Hexameters ... ... ... ... ... 31 G 
 
 XII. "Twelfth Night" at the Olympic Theatre in 1SG5 ... 344 
 
 XIII. The " Merchant op Venice " at the Prince of Wales's Theatre 
 
 in 1S75 ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 357 
 
 XIV. On the Authorship of the Plays attributed to Shakespeare 3G9 
 
 XV. On a Question concerning a Supposed Specfmen of Shakespeare's 
 
 Handwriting ... ... ... ... ... .37G 
 
 XVI. The Duty of Advocates in Criminal Trials ... ... 385 
 
 XVII. A Question concerning Books Published on Commission ... 390 
 
 XVIII. On some Oversights in Eecent Histories ... ... ... 395 
 
 XIX. Teaching to Kead ... ... ... ... ... 409
 
 HENRY TAYLOE'S STATESMAN. 
 
 A REVIEW.* 
 
 This is a book full of excellent matter, on a subject which has 
 hitherto occupied very little attention. It consists of Essays on 
 various points connected with the administration of Government ; 
 written, it would seem, at different times and in different moods, 
 as the sundry experiences of a life occupied in public business 
 have happened to suggest them. Its more immediate and especial 
 importance lies in its bearing upon our present system of Executive 
 Government ; the manifold defects of which, both in theory and 
 in practice, are well held up to the public view, and a plan of 
 reform suggested and urged with earnest eloquence upon the 
 general attention, which needs nothing but a strong call from 
 without to be introduced with the greatest ease and advantage. 
 It is in the hope, we imagine, of awaking such a call, that the 
 book has been published in its present somew^hat immature and 
 undigested state. The essays, though composed with the intention 
 of working them up afterwards into a complete body of doctrine, 
 have been hurried into the world almost as they were originally 
 written, for the professed purpose of " diverting the attention of 
 thoughtful men from the forms of government to the business of 
 governing ; " — with a view (we may add) to such a reconstitution 
 of Gur executive establishment as may ensure for the public service 
 both a more plentiful supply of able men and a fairer scope for 
 the exercise of their abilities. But although, to tliose who are 
 capable of entering fully into the author's views, this will form 
 
 * EcUnhurgh Eeview, October, 1836, 
 
 B
 
 2 HENRY TAYLOIl'S STATESMAN. 
 
 the point of main and central interest, it is not by any means the 
 only point of interest which the book possesses. Though the 
 questions discussed in it relate especially to government and 
 persons governing, the manner in which they are discussed is 
 pregnant with instruction for all persons, and applicable to a great 
 variety of occasions ; and everybody who cares about the govern- 
 ment of life, or takes a serious interest in the philosophical 
 knowledge of men and manners, will find his account in a diligent 
 study of it. 
 
 Much wanted, however, and well timed as the book appears to 
 us to be, it is in danger, we fear, of falling into temporary neglect ; 
 and we could almost wish it had been aimed more to catch im- 
 mediate attention, though at the risk of detracting something 
 from its permanent value. It is written in a tone of subdued 
 earnestness, with an almost total abstinence from false effects and 
 exaggerated expressions ; and its leading characteristic is un- 
 qualified, uncompromising good sense, brought to the consideration 
 of all matters, great and small ; with a steady resolution to treat no 
 subject as unworthy to be gravely written about, which is worthy 
 to be seriously entertained by a wise man with a view to conduct 
 and action. These qualities, while they stamp it unequivocally 
 as a sterling and standard work, must at the same time prevent 
 it from being immediately appreciated as it deserves, except by 
 those who may be disposed to read it with a kind of interest which 
 is rarely felt by contemporary readers in any work which is not 
 posthumous. 13y the generality, the work of a living author will 
 always be read carelessly and inadvertently ; for they always 
 expect to find everything done to their hands by him ; and if 
 they miss any of his meanings, they are satisfied with thinking, 
 not only that it is his fault — which it may or may not be, — but 
 that he is the loser, which, if the meanings be \Yorth anything, he 
 certainly is not. We have endeavoured, for our own part, to keep 
 clear of this delusion, and to read the book as if it were our 
 business, not to deal out critical judgments for the sake of the 
 author and his publisher, but to understand its value for our own 
 benefit, and to proclaim it for the benefit of the public. 
 
 Tfte task of pointing out defects we would willingly dispense 
 with altogether; kuowing how much healthier it is for the mind
 
 HENRY TAYLOR'S STATESMAN. 3 
 
 to be eDgagod iu feeding freel)'' on what is good than in pointino- 
 out what is bad. But it sometimes happens that the detection of 
 one error is tlie removal of many. A defect in one part will often, 
 by placing the reader in a false position, make other parts appear 
 defective likewise, which are not so in reality. And few persons 
 will be at the pains of correcting the fault and re-adjusting their 
 position for themselves. The principal faults which we have 
 observed in this book are of this kind ; and do in fact, as it appears 
 to us, throw more difficulties in the way of ordinary readers than 
 they can be reasonably expected to overcome. 
 
 In the first place, the title (which is not so unimportant a 
 thing as it may be thought, for it gives the first direction to the 
 reader's expectation) seems to us ill chosen ; as tending to raise 
 anticipations which the work itself is neither calculated nor 
 intended to fulfil. The name seems to promise a finished portrait 
 of a Statesman, ideal or actual, — or at least a finished sketch, 
 more or less roughly executed, but made out iu all its parts, and 
 exhibiting all his proportions ; whereas we are presented only 
 with the difijecta memhra, thrown together with little regard to 
 their comp'eteness, and with no attempt at all to show how they 
 will compose into a consistent figure. We cannot regard this as 
 a trifle. On all subjects which do not admit of exact treatment 
 it is necessary to have a constant reference to the purpose of the 
 writer in order to interpret his meanings rightly. If we set out 
 with a wrong notion of this purpose, we are less likely to correct 
 that notion as we proceed, than to misinterpret everything else 
 with reference to it. " The Statesman " must look to suffer much 
 irrelevant criticism from this cause. People will perplex themselves 
 with attempting to discover in each paragraph a more direct 
 bearing on the character of the Statesman, than it was meant to 
 have. Hence the meaning of some passages will be distorted ; 
 that of others overstretched ; detached observations will be mis • 
 construed with reference to what goes before ; what are meant 
 merely for remarks will be taken for precepts ; qualities and 
 practices which are only described will be understood as recom- 
 mended. 
 
 The difficulty is increased by the division of the book into 
 chapters, and still further by the orderly arrangement of the
 
 4 HENRY TAYLOR S STATESMAN. 
 
 ilrst (\ye or sis of tbera ; in ^v]Hch tlie education, the fortunes, 
 and the duties of a statesman are treated of, if not with complete- 
 ness, yet with a coherency which prolongs the promise of the 
 title-page. 
 
 It must at the same time be observed, that this fault, whatever 
 it be, is entirely confined to the title and the typographical 
 arrangement. The preface and the conclusion warn us what to 
 look for. But as it is usual to skip the preface, and at least not 
 to begin with the conclusion, we suspect that the original mis- 
 direction will send more people the wrong way than the warning- 
 will set right again. Otherwise we should have had nothing to 
 object ; for we cannot better describe the real nature, purposes, 
 and pretensions of the book, than in ]Mr. Taylor's own words. In 
 the preface, after speaking of the want of some coherent body of 
 doctrine on administrative government, as it ought to be exercised 
 in a free state, he proceeds — 
 
 " I should be much indeed misunderstood, if, in pointing to this want in 
 our literature, I were supposed to advance, on the part of the volume thus 
 introtluced, the slightest pretension to supply it. Amongst the dreams of 
 juvenile presumption, it had, I acknowledge, at one time entered into my fancy, 
 that if life should be long continued to me, and leisure should by any happy 
 accident accrue upon it, I might, in the course of years, undertake such an 
 enterprise. When this vision lost some of its original brightness, I still con- 
 ceived that I might be enabled to blot from Bacon's note of ' deficients' so much 
 of the doctrine * De Neyotiis ' as belongs to the division which he has entitled 
 ' De Occasionibus Sparsis.^ But the colours of this exhalation also faded in due 
 season ; and when the scheme came to be chilled and condensed, the contents of 
 the following volume were the only result that, for the present at least, I could 
 hope to realize." — Preface, p. x. 
 
 On reviewing these contents, he speuks in his Conclusion 
 thus — 
 
 " I close these dissertations with a full sense of the incoherent manner in 
 which they have been brought together, — shaping themselves into no s^'stem, 
 falling into no methodized sequence, and holding to each other by hardly any- 
 thing beyond their relevancy to one subject. My apology for so offering them 
 is, that if I had applied myself to devise a system, or even a connected succes- 
 sion, I must necessarily have written more from speculative meditation, less 
 from knowledge. What I knew practically, or by reflection flowing from cir- 
 cumstances, must have been connected by what I might persuade myself that I 
 knew inventively, or by reflection flowing from reflection. I am well aware of 
 the wei^^ht and value which is given to a work by a just and harmonious in-
 
 HENTtY TAYLOR S STATESMAN. 5 
 
 corporation of its parts. But I may be permitted to say, that there is also a 
 value currently and not unduly attached to what men are prompted to think 
 concerning matters within their knowledge. Perceiving that I was not in a 
 condition to undertake such a work as might combine both values, the alter- 
 native which I have chosen is that of treating the topics severally, as they were 
 thrown up by the sundry suggestion of experience. 
 
 " It is possible, indeed, that by postponing my work to a future period, a 
 further accumulation of 'experience might have enabled me to improve it in the 
 matter of connection and completeness, without derogating from the other claim. 
 But it has appeared to me that there are considerations which render the present 
 time seasonable for the publication of a book even thus imperfect upon this 
 theme."— P. 261. 
 
 That the work does not possess that double value which Mr. 
 Taylor distinctly disclaims for it, we have certainly no right to 
 complain, even if we were otherwise disposed to regret it. But 
 we do in fact rate so highly that kind of value which it does 
 possess, that we are glad he did not risk the loss of that in an 
 attempt to combine the other with it. Where the object is general 
 instruction, inquiry, or illumination, and not to prove some specific 
 point or recommend some specific act, dispersed and aphoristic 
 writing is on many accounts the best. Dispersed observations 
 can be better depended on for sincerity than those which are 
 made to complete a treatise or to support a theory ; for in the 
 latter case, if they do not fit their place naturally, there is a 
 strong temptation to adapt them to it. And, if not insincere, 
 they W'ill often be found to be empty. Thoughts called forth by 
 the passing occasion, or strongly suggested by present experience 
 are always valuable so far as they go — for they represent some- 
 thing in nature. Those suggested only by general theory and 
 speculation have often no value at all, and represent nothing. 
 Moreover the former, if written down as occasion presses them 
 from the mind, are certain to be not only more sincere and sub- 
 stantial in themselves, but more just and forcible in the expression. 
 Like notes made on the spot, or sketches taken from nature, they 
 are better left as they are. Every attempt to retouch them from 
 imagination or from memory diminishes their force and truth. 
 Add to this, that as knowledge, when conveyed in a dispersed 
 manner, is handled with more soundness and vigour in the w riting, 
 so it is commonly better digested in the reading. When presented 
 in a com})lete and systematic form, it is generally either swallowed
 
 6 HENRY TAYLOR'S STATESMAN. 
 
 whole or dismissed altogether. The particular truths which 
 build up and vivify the system— if not corrupted to give a show 
 of support to it — pass alike untasted by those who accept and by 
 those who reject the whole. By the one they are indolently 
 received as true ; by the other they are not less indolently set 
 aside as false or from the purpose. In neither case is the reader 
 induced to turn his own mind loose upon the matter presented 
 to it, to work upon and digest it for itself and derive its own 
 conclusion ; which is the only just and reasonable process by 
 which mind acts upon mind, and. knowledge is increased and 
 multiplied. 
 
 There is something, no doubt, very noble and. imposing in a 
 complete and comprehensive system, made out in all its features, 
 and supported by the coherency of its parts. But such systems 
 are rarely vdthout some mixture of falsehood, and the falsehood 
 passes current with the rest. These are the false gods that steal 
 away men's worship from the truth. Not only is the mind of the 
 reader dazzled and won by their beauty, their pretensions, and 
 the final rest to inquiry which they seem to promise ; but the 
 patient and laborious circumspection with which the inventor 
 himself sets out is not unfrequently exhausted in the construction 
 of them, and turns into mere devotion before they are completed. 
 Of all the systems invented to provide a final solution for the 
 doubts and difficulties which perplex an intricate question, where 
 is that one which does not contain, in one part or another, some 
 prodigious assumption ? 
 
 " We figure to ourselves 
 The thing we like ; and tlien we build it up, 
 As chance will have it, on the rock or sand: 
 For Tiiouglit is tired of wandering tlirough the world, 
 And homebound Fancy runs her lark ashore ; " — * 
 
 Words which we would almost venture to fix as a motto to every 
 book that ever professed to contain a system. 
 
 For his own personal reputation, indeed, I^Fr. Taylor might 
 have done better had he given to his book that appearance of 
 absoluteness and pretension which is fitted to catch indolent 
 attentions, and to make men think less of the quality of the 
 
 * Philip van Artevelde.
 
 HENRY TAYLOR'S STATESMAN. 7 
 
 matter and more of the authority of the writer. But his object 
 being not to provide men with opinions on administrative govern- 
 ment, but to set their minds freely at work about it ; " to ring a 
 bell to call other wits together — which is the meaner oflice ; " to 
 draw attention to the subject rather than to himself; to excite 
 inquiry rather than satisfy it; — he has on all accounts, we think, 
 judged wisely in choosing the dispersed manner of discussion. 
 
 At any rate, whatever may be thought about the mode of 
 treatment which Mr. Taylor has thought fit to adopt, the book 
 must be taken for what it is. It distinctly professes to be in its 
 nature fragmentary. We are not, therefore, to look for complete- 
 ness in its several parts ; we are not to fancy that questions which 
 are not discussed are thereby represented as unimportant; that 
 duties which are not nrged are meant to be considered un- 
 essential ; that distinctions not dwelt on have been therefore 
 overlooked. The reader must 13 11 up the picture for himself. He 
 is not to inquire whether the writer has said everything in the 
 way of qualitication and explanation which is necessary to pre- 
 vent his judgments and precepts from being misunderstood; but 
 whether they are capable of being so explained and qualified as 
 to be free from objection. Obvious however as this is, it is 
 not less obvious that such a task requires more candour and 
 a more simple and serious spirit than is usually brought to the 
 perusal of a " new work, by the author of," etc., and more trouble 
 than the generality of readers will think fit to im230se upon 
 themselves ; and that much misconception and some offence will 
 arise in consequence. We certainly wish that Mr. Taylor had 
 provided against this more carefully ; which he might have done, 
 without endangering the freshness of his matter, by merely 
 adopting a different arrangement of topics and interposing a few 
 sentences here and there to keep the reader in company with him. 
 
 It occasionally happens that in the pursuit of his argument 
 he just crosses the border of some neighbouring question of great 
 extent and importance, and passes out again, not only without 
 surveying it, but without any apparent notice of its existence. 
 In consequence of this, some readers will not be aware that any- 
 thing lies beyond ; and of those who are, the greater number will 
 suppose that Mr. T'aylor is ignorant of it himself. A simple
 
 8 IIENEY TAYLOK'S STATESJIAX. 
 
 sentence of wanung, conveying some general idea, however dim 
 and undefined, of the direction, the nature, and the extent of the 
 inquiry wliich it did not suit him to pursue, would have prevented 
 botli these misapprehensions. To take the first example which 
 offers itself. Speaking in the second page of the course of educa- 
 tion which parents should provide for those sons whom they 
 design for political life, he says, "At the age of sixteen, or 
 thereabouts, the general education of the boy should be for the 
 most part completed ; and whether or not it be completed, at 
 that age, or but little later, the specific should begin." He then 
 goes on to recommend a variety of studies and exercises in which 
 the boy should be worked,— all with a view to his efiiciency as a 
 practical statesman, — not to the integrity and expansion of his 
 character as a man. Now Mr. Taylor cannot mean that, by the 
 age of sixteen, the character can (generally speaking) have had 
 room and time to expand freely in all directions ; still less can he 
 recommend such an education as would cripple or neglect one 
 half of the character, in order to give greater intensity and effect 
 to the other. But his expressions do not preclude such an inter- 
 ])retation ; and we the rather mention it, because it is the tendency 
 of these times to run headlong into the very error which he has 
 omitted to guard against. If he were himself charged with 
 assenting to this doctrine, he would probably say that, by the 
 " general education of the boy," he meant only that elementary 
 education, which has no reference to any specific career, and 
 furnishes no preparation for the performance of any specific duty ; 
 that, by the commencement of the specific education at the age 
 of sixteen, he meant only that it sliould then begin to mix with 
 the general ; that, at that age, such a direction should be given 
 to the general education as might gradually take in more and 
 more of the peculiar studies requisite for the after career, and 
 without interfering with the development of the other faculties, 
 might call gradually into more especial activity those which 
 would be more especially wanted for the business of life ; not that 
 the education should cease, but that the apprenticeshiiJ* should 
 
 * We borrow this expression from a hook which has attracted less attention than, 
 coDBiflerintj its attractive qualities, we can well account for, — Mr. Hartley Cole- 
 riilge's "Biographia Borealis; " a book which has every title to be popular, which a
 
 HENRY TAYLOR'S STATESMAN, 9 
 
 begin. And certainly looking to the large field of a statesman's 
 operations, the variety of powers and knowledge which he should 
 
 light and entertaining suljjcct, a masterly treatment, singular fulness and variety of 
 iuteresting m itter, and a playful brilliancy of execution, can give. There are few 
 subjects of much interest either to men or philosopiicrs, in which something may 
 not be found in it either wise or witty, generally both. The passage to which we 
 have adverted in the text, is so valuable in itself, and so much to our present 
 purpose, that we take leave to extract it entire. 
 
 " The position is simply this — a mere apprenticeship is not a good education. 
 
 " Whatever system of tuition is solely adapted to enable the pupil to play a 
 certain part in the world's drama, whether for his own earthly advantage, or for 
 that of any other man or community of men, is a mere apprenticeship. It matters 
 not whether that part be high or low — the hero or the fool. 
 
 " A good education, on the other hand, looks primarily to the right formation of 
 the Man in man, and its final cause is the well-being of the pupil, as he is a 
 moral, responsible, or immortal being. 
 
 " But, because to every man there is appointed a certain ministry and service, a 
 path prescribed to duty, a work to perform, and a race to run, an office in the 
 economy of Providence, — a good education always provides a good apprenticeship; 
 for usefulness is a necessary property of goodness. 
 
 " The moral culture of man, and so much of intellectual culture as is conducive 
 thereto, is essential to education. Whatever of intellectual culture is beyond this 
 should be regarded as pertaining to apprenticeship, and should be apportioned to the 
 demands of the vocation for which that apprenticeship is designed to qualfy. 
 
 "A man whose education is without apprentices! lip will be useless; a man 
 whose education is all apprenticeship will be bad, and therefore pernicious, and the 
 more pernicious in proportion as his function is high, noble, or influential. 
 
 " Most of the systems of tuition provided for the subordinate classes have been 
 defective ; as aiming either solely to qualify the pupil for his station, or to give him 
 a chance and hope of rising above that station ; either to make the man a mere 
 labourer, or to turn the labourer into a gentleman, — the d scipline or improvement 
 of the man being too often postponed or omitted. The tuition of the higher castes 
 is equally defective, when it forms gentlemen to be mere gentlemen ; where it refers 
 the primary duties to the rank, not to universal obligation. Secondly, when it 
 inculcates the acquirement of mental or personal accomplishments as ultimate ends, 
 without reference either to practical utility or to self-edification. Thirdly, when all 
 apprenticeship is omitted, or an apprenticeship given wholly alien from the peculiar, 
 individual, and functionary duties ; as e.g., when a scion of nobility is crammed 
 with the arbitrary technicals of professional scholarship, or wastes his time in 
 learning to do for himself what his steward, his gamekeeper, or his chaplain could 
 do better for him. Fourthly, where the whole educatijn is subservient to the 
 apprenticeship. This is perhaps the commonest fault of all, especially with that 
 unfortunate class whoso education is to be their portion and means of advancement. 
 It bears a creditable semblance of steadiness and industry, it wins the applause of 
 parents and tutors, it makes shining and rising young men, and sometimes judges, 
 chancellors, ambassadors, and ministers of State. But it does not make good men 
 or wise men either. Even if it leave the heart uninjured, it keeps the mind un- 
 naturally ignorant ; for, viewing all things in an artificial relation to one object, it 
 sees, and therefore knows, nothing in its true relations to man and the universe. 
 The more their knowledge the greater their errors. The greater their command of
 
 10 HENRY TAYLOE'S STATESMAN. 
 
 possess, the variety of interests which he should enhirge his 
 uuderstanding to comprehend and his heart to sympathize with ; 
 and hooking also to the neglected state in which the whole region 
 of this power and knowledge is left by the ordinary liberal 
 education of these times ; he might well urge that the early 
 intermixture of such studies as he recommends ouo;ht to be con- 
 sidered not as a crippling of any other faculties or a usurpation of 
 the time due to them, but as an essential element in the education, 
 not of the statesman only, but of the man ; indispensable to the 
 harmonious development of the entire character — to the accom- 
 plishment of the mind in one of tlie three graces which constitute 
 its perfection. "For as the good of the body is divided into 
 health, beauty, strength, and pleasure ; so the good of the mind, 
 inquired in rational and moral knowledges, tendeth to this — to 
 make the mind sound and without perturbation ; beautiful and 
 graced with decency; and strong and agile for all duties of life." 
 
 There is evidence elsewhere in the volume that ]\Ir. Taylor 
 does by no means overlook or underestimate these considerations. 
 We doubt not that in speaking of the specific education he saw it 
 in its due subordination to that which has for its object the 
 formation of a manly character. What we complain of is, that 
 he has not taken care that his reader shall see it in the same 
 relation, and from the same point of view. 
 
 As another example of the same defect, we may mention the 
 omission, in the earlier part of the book, of any reference to the 
 ends which a statesman should propose, and the spirit in which 
 he should enter his career. Yet is this the most important thing 
 of all ; for it is the constant pursuit of a good end which can 
 alone guide a man safely through the more perplexed paths and 
 difficult dilemmas of duty : the end which each action proposes 
 not only determines its direction, so that it can rarely be erroneous, 
 but imparts its savour, so that it can never be corrupt, — a security 
 this, which doctrine cannot teach ; for there is no precept for the 
 politic government of a man's actions, which may not be used or 
 
 facts the more perilously false their inferences. They may, indeed, be wise in their 
 own craft, but they are pitiful blunderers when they step beyond it. Be it recol- 
 tected that we aic not speaking of that devotion of time to a professioudl study 
 whicli may be a duty, but of that perversion of self-government which makes the 
 profession all in all." — Life of Kostoc, Note.
 
 HEXRY TAYLOR'S STATESMAN. 11 
 
 construed basely, unless each action be tested by the only true 
 criterion of its fitness — its conformity to a noble purpose. 
 
 The very familiarity of this contemplation to Mr. Taylor's 
 own mind, may be one reason why he has not thought it neces- 
 sary to dilate upon it. His own imagination is filled, as we shall 
 presently have occasion to show, with an august conception of the 
 ends to which a statesman ought to dedicate himself, and the faith 
 in which he ought to live. To him therefore it did not seem 
 necessary to introduce cautions and qualifications of this kind ; 
 for to a mind so occupied every precept presents itself at once 
 corrected and justified by a silent reference to this standard : base 
 actions are base of course; misapplied precepts stand detected 
 beyond the necessity of exposure. But here again he has for- 
 gotten to carry his reader along with him, which he might and 
 should have done. It was not necessary to discuss the subject ; 
 perhaps it was judicious to avoid it. But it ought not to have 
 been silently dismissed. Something should have been said to raise 
 the reader to the same point of view, and fill his imagination, if not 
 with the same idea, at least with some vague conception of noble 
 aims to be accomplished, towards the accomplishment of which 
 every action which does not directly or indirectly work is under- 
 stood to be condemned. 
 
 There is another defect of a somewhat different kind, but 
 which will equally give rise to misconceptions and interfere with 
 the just impression which the work is otherwise calculated to 
 produce. In treating of the several qualifications which a states- 
 man should possess and the rules which he should observe, there 
 is no attempt to mark their relative importance as compared one 
 with another. Questions, not indeed unworthy of consideration, 
 but certainly of no vital interest, are introduced with as much 
 formality, and discussed as gravely, as minutely, and as earnestly 
 as others with which his gravest duties and permanent wellbeing 
 are intimately connected. IMatters so unlike in their relative 
 importance that they ought not, in the popular phrase, to be 
 mentioned in the same day, are handled, one after another, with 
 no difference in the manner of treatment, and no pause between 
 to mark the transition. As many pages of grave advice and 
 sound argument are devoted to the arrangement of the statesman's
 
 12 HEXEY TAYLOE'S STATESMAN. 
 
 drawing-room, as to tlie management of Lis office ; — to the regula- 
 tion of his diet, as to that of his conscience. The background (so 
 to speak) and the distance are not less distinct in their forms and 
 bright in their colours than the foreground, and are thus brought 
 too close to the eye. Hence the book is out of perspective, and 
 the first impression is one of disproportion and incongruity, — a 
 thing to be avoided at any rate, because it is ludicrous ; but more 
 epecially to be avoided here, because most readers, not feeling a 
 real interest in the subject, will exert themselves rather to enjoy 
 the impression than to overcome it ; and such readers, whatever 
 other claims to respect they may want, will have at least the 
 respectability of numbers, and due allowance should have been 
 made for their infirmity. This might have been done, either by 
 simply throwing all these lesser matters together into one section ; 
 with a few words of introduction, explaining their real bearing on 
 the statesman's character and the space which they might justly 
 occupy in his thoughts ; or, which is better, by a more careless 
 and disengaged way of handling them,- — by treading, as it were, 
 more lightly over the ground, and playing a little with the argu- 
 ment. This latter method demands however for its execution a 
 peculiar genius, and not a common one, which Mr. Taylor either 
 does not possess or does not think it honest to indulge. If so, we 
 disagree with him ; for as a truth is not the less deep and touch- 
 ing for being presented in a ludicrous aspect, so the discussion 
 of it need not be the less grave and earnest for mixing a little 
 laughter with its gravity. 
 
 We beg it at the same time to be understood, that it is to 
 the manner of these discussions, and to the manner only, that we 
 object. The Imbit of earnestly investigating and meditating 
 upon ordinary matters we strongly approve. There is scarcely 
 anything so trivial, but a wise man will be wiser for knowing 
 exactly how and what it is ; and that, not so much because it is 
 always worth while to do in the best way possible whatever must 
 ha done in one way or another, as for the sake of the princijjles 
 wdiich the inquiry is sure to disclose. It may be said of the 
 human as truly as of the physical w'orld, that " they be not the 
 highest instances which give the securest information ; " and that 
 " mean and small things can discover great, better than great can
 
 HENRY TAYLOR'S STATESMAN. 13 
 
 discover the small." F(^r the knowledge of human nature, and 
 the government of human conduct, more light is gained by 
 watching a man in his ordinary and familiar concerns, in which 
 he is most true to himself, and least an actor to the world, than 
 in tlie execution of his more ambitious and agonistic duties. The 
 principle of the action is developed as perfectly in the small as in 
 the great ; but the case being simpler, of more common occur- 
 rence, and taking less hold on the imagination and affections, it 
 is much more open to a steady examination. 
 
 We would therefore recommend every man to cultivate this 
 habit of philosophical meditation on " familiar matters of to-day " 
 — on the ordinary life and conversation both of himself and of 
 other men ; and only to beware of announcing the result of his 
 meditations with too much pomp and circumstance ; — remember- 
 ing that they who hear him will compare the tone of announce- 
 ment with the instance, which is trivial ; not with the principle 
 involved, which in its wider and remoter applications may be of 
 infinite importance. 
 
 It may be thought that we have insisted more on this want of 
 keeping and proportion than we had any right to do, considering 
 that the book does not profess to be a complete and harmonious 
 whole. But the fact is, that whatever the book may profess to 
 be, people reading a volume consecutively will always regard it 
 more or less as one thing, and its several parts as belonging to 
 each other ; and they will not the less feel the effect of any dis- 
 proportion, for being warned, however distinctly, that proportion 
 is not meant to be preserved. 
 
 Perhaps it is worth while to show in an example how the same 
 kind of speculation looks, when drawn, as it were, in its proper 
 perspective ; and we select the example by an obvious preference 
 from Mr. Taylor's own writings. In " Philip van Artevelde " there 
 are several passages in which a few hasty words serve to inform 
 us that the thoughts of the hero have been gravely occupied on 
 matters no less trivial than dress and diet ; and that he could, if 
 necessary, have given a great deal of detailed advice to statesmen 
 on these subjects, which they might have followed with great 
 advantage. Yet we will venture to assert that these passages 
 have struck nobody as ludicrous ; because in that finished work
 
 11 HENRY TAYLOR'S STATESMAN. 
 
 the picture is complete, and every lesser matter in due subordina- 
 tion to the greater. The following soliloquy, for instance, is the 
 fruit of a meditation on the importance which a statesman should 
 attach to eating and sleeping. Artevelde is on the tower at 
 daybreak, overlooking the town, then suffering under the double 
 misery of plague and famine. After a while it occurs to him that 
 he has been watching all night — 
 
 " I liave not slept ; T am to blame for that ; 
 Long vigils, joined with scant and meagre food, 
 Must needs impair that promptitude of mind 
 And cheerfulness of spirit, which, in hitn 
 Who leads a multitude, is past all price. 
 I think I might redeem an hour's repose 
 Out of the night that I have squandered yet. 
 The breezes launched upon their early voyage 
 Play with a pleasing freshness on my face. 
 I will enfold my cloak about my limbs 
 Aud lie where I may front them— here, I think — 
 
 (5e lies down.) 
 
 If this were over, — blessed be the calm 
 Which comes on me at last — a friend in need 
 Is Nature to us — that when all is spent, 
 Brings slumber — bountifully — whereupon 
 We give her sleepy w'elcome — If all this 
 Were honourably over — Adriana " 
 
 lie then sleeps for a moment, but starts up again suddenly at the 
 sound of the horse's foot ; and this little " Chapter concerning 
 Sleep " (most skilfully subdued, while it lasts, by the inter- 
 mingling of deeper interests) passes away altogether ; absorbed in 
 " the cares and mighty troubles of the times," from which it has 
 aflforded, like sleep itself, a brief recess. 
 
 Oiir meaning will be better understood if we add, that the 
 substance of those chapters in the " Statesman " wh ch relate to 
 ordinary matters — as chairs, tables, candles, or dessert — is as 
 proper and pertinent as the reflections above quoted ; but that 
 the manner in which they are introduced produces something of 
 the effect which would have been felt, if Artevelde had been 
 introduced address'ug Van den Bosch in a formal speech on the 
 propriety of not forgetting to go to bed. 
 
 Having said thus much by way of preparation, we beg to indulge
 
 HENRY TAYLOR'S STATESMAN. 15 
 
 our readers with the following sketch of the statesman's drawing- 
 room, which, we think, deserves attention, if not for its import- 
 ance to his Majesty's Government, at least for its beauty as an 
 interior : — 
 
 " But as there will not always be life enough in the society of books to afford 
 enjoyment to a statesman, let him step from the library to the drawing-room. 
 A small society should not infrequently be formed there, consisting for the most 
 part — but not wholly — of intimate acquaintances, and they should be persons of 
 lively conversation — but above all, of easy natures. Knowledge and wit will 
 naturally be found in sufficient proportions in the society of a man of talents 
 occupying an eminent position ; but if knowledge be argumentative and wit 
 agonistic, the society becomes an arena, and loses all merit as a mode of re- 
 laxation. An adequate proportion of women will slacken the tone of conversa- 
 tion in these particulars, and yet tend to animate it also. And there is this 
 advantage in the company of women — especially if some of th'-m be beautiful 
 and innocent — that breaks in conversation are not felt to be blanks ; for the 
 sense of such a presence will serve to fill up voids and interstices. But though 
 knowledge, wit, wisdom, and beauty should be found in this circle, there should 
 be no sedulous exclusion of such persons not possessed of these recommendations, 
 as would otherwise naturally find a place there. For unless the statesman 
 between the business and the pleasures of the world have lost sight of its 
 charities, he will not find his society the less of a relaxation for mixing some of 
 the duties and benevolences of life with its enjoyments, and he will count 
 amongst its amenities, if not amongst its charms, some proportion of attentions 
 to the iiged, and kindness to the dull and unattractive. It may also be ohserved 
 that duluess, like a drab ground, serves to give an enhanced effect to the livelier 
 colours of society. 
 
 " it will be perhaps equally desirable for the statesman whose business 
 exhausts his excitability, and for him whose excitement, beginning in business, 
 pursues him in his social hours, that the society which they cultivate should be 
 quittly gay. Exuberant noisy gaiety will overbear the spirits of the exhausted 
 man, and over-stimulate those of the other. Some reference should be had to 
 this object in the lighting of his rooms, for the loud or low talking of a company, 
 together with the tone of mind belonging to the tone of voice, very much 
 depends upon that, — as any canary-bird will teach us when a handkerchief is 
 thrown over Ids cage. 
 
 "Music is an excellent mode of relaxation to those who possess — I will not 
 siy an ear fur it, because that seems a shallow expression — but a fitculty of the 
 mind lor it. Yet unless a man's susceptibility in this kind be veiy peculiar, he 
 will generally prefer music which mixes itself with conversation, or alternates 
 with it by lirief returns, to music which sets it aside. Instrumental music, 
 exciting without engrossing the mind, will often rather stimulate and inspire 
 conversation than suppress it ; though to take this advantage of it, the company 
 must break up into retired groups or couples, speaking low in corners. But the 
 singing of ladies is a thing which, in courtesy if not for enjoyment, must be 
 heard in silence ; unless (which is best) it be heard from an adjoining room,
 
 IG HENRY TAYLOR'S STATESMAN. 
 
 til rough an open door, so that they who" desire to listen to tlie song closely may 
 pass in, and they who would listen more loosely and talk the while, may stay 
 out. But under all circumstances, and not for the sake of the talk only, but for 
 the sake of the songs, it is well that there should be some pause and space 
 between one and another of them — filled up with instrumental music, if you 
 will. For a song which has a wholeness in itself should be suffered to stand by 
 itself, and then to die away in the mind of the hearer, time being allowed for the 
 efl'ect of a preceding song to get out of the way of the effect of one which is to 
 follow. It would be well therefore if ladies, who are often slow to begin their 
 songs, would not be, when once begun, unknowing to intermit them." 
 
 A third fault produced by this defective method of arrangement 
 is of a more serious kind. We allude to the mixing up of two 
 subjects which ought to be kept distinct, — the doctrine which 
 teaches a man to do well for himself, with that which teaches 
 him to do his duty. There is a chapter on the " Arts of Eising ; " 
 another on " Manners ; " and a few paragraphs • here and there 
 occurring, in which gentlemen whose object it is to get on in the 
 world are informed how they may best secure a reputation with 
 the world for abilities and virtues which they do not possess. 
 These chapters are so grave in their tone, so reasonable in many 
 of their suggestions, and come in company with so many earnest 
 appeals to the sense of duty and serious prece23ts for the govern- 
 ment of life, that it is not at once obvious in what character they 
 are presented to us. They have no mark on their forehead to 
 distinguish them from their betters. One of them, to be sure, is 
 introduced with the following paragraph : " The arts of rising, 
 properly so called, have commonl/j some mixture of baseness, — more 
 or less according as the aid from natural endowments is less or 
 more." And the other concludes with an admonition that these 
 are the " mere tricks of statesmanship, ivhicli it may he quite as well 
 to despise as to practise." But this is not enough to consign them 
 to their proper rank — to brand them as belonging to a different 
 class of doctrines ; — a class which cannot be safely approached 
 by any one without great caution and without a mind strongly 
 preoccupied with the primum qiiierite. Lord Bacon saw this so 
 clearly that he took care doubly and trebly to guard against 
 misapplication his elaborate and masterly treatise on the raising of 
 ii man's fortune. He separated it from the rest of his book, " De 
 Xegotiis" under a distinct head, — "De Amhitu Vitas." He introduced
 
 HENRY TAYLOB'S STATESMAN. 17 
 
 it with an elaborate apology and explanation ; and concluded it 
 with a solemn denunciation of all practices for the pressing of 
 fortune, which should either lead a man to violate the laws of 
 charity and integrity, or engage him in an "incessant and Sab- 
 bathless pursuit." We certainly wish Mr. Taylor had followed 
 this example ; for we cannot but think that in assuming the base 
 nature of the practices described to be too obvious to need 
 denouncing, he pays a greater compliment to his readers than 
 many of them will deserve. If they all fe!t as natural a contempt 
 for whatever "has some mixture of baseness," as it is obvious from 
 other parts of the book that he himself feels, there would be no 
 danger of a misapprehension. But he should have remembered 
 that the many highly respectable persons who know by precept, 
 but do not feel in their hearts, the baseness of selfish cunning, 
 will not perceive that these practices are spoken of with scorn. 
 
 Due allowance being made, however, for this objection, these 
 cha})ters are heartily welcome to us on a double account. While 
 they detect and put to shame the tricks of selfish ambition — and 
 he who practices to gain favour in men's eyes for no end which 
 he can justify, and in no spirit which he can honourably avow, 
 will always be put to shame by detection — they at the same time 
 contain much useful instruction for the man who seeks worldly 
 honour and advancement in the spirit of duty. For it mu>!t never 
 be forgotten that he who would not only keep his vessel pure but 
 use it for the benefit of mankind, especially if his functions be of 
 that kind which can only be exercised by woi-king on and through 
 the opinions and aiiectious of other men, must stand well with the 
 world no less than with his own conscience. For this end the 
 simple possession of integrity is not enough. To the harmlessness 
 of the dove he must unite the wisdom of the serpent. He must 
 not despise the lesson which the unjust steward could teach him ; 
 for the children of light are not so wise but that they may learn 
 something from the children of this world, who are in their 
 generation wiser. 
 
 To wdiat extent this wisdom may be safel>/ practised — what 
 kinds of artifice in this way are lawful — to what practices a man 
 may bend himself without compromising his integrity — how low 
 he may stoop to raise his neighbour without falling himself — how 
 
 c
 
 18 HEXRY TAYLOR'S STATESMAN. 
 
 unclean materials he may with clean hands work upon — how coarse 
 may be the texture of his honour ; — these are hard and dangerous 
 questions, which can be adequately solved only by the fine sense 
 of an honourable nature seeking a purpose purely honest with a 
 resolution truly moral.* It is better therefore that they be not 
 reduced to precept, nor discussed till they present themselves for 
 practical decision ; but left to be decided in each case as it arises, 
 and for that case only, by the individual conscience. 
 
 The same defect of arrangement has led to a fourth fault of 
 a kind exactly opposite to the last ; which may be almost described 
 as the mixing up of sacred with profane. As in the cases there 
 referred to the tone of discussion sinks, or seems to sink, suddenly 
 below the general level of the work, so in some other parts it 
 rises as suddenly above it. There, in the midst of grave admoni- 
 tions of what wise and good men ought to do, we stumble upon a 
 description of what base men do. Here, in the midst of practical 
 jjreeepts and discussions addressed to the plain business-like 
 understanding, we pass with imaginations imawakened and affec- 
 tions unprepared to strains of higher mood and far other interest, 
 — vocal only to the purged ear and softened heart. We all know 
 the effect of a pathetic speech on a mind not capable of, or not 
 ])repared for, the pathos. Such will be the effect of two or three 
 chapters in this volume, which have reference to deeper interests, 
 and point to perils and deliverances more intimate and spiritual, 
 than the reader's mind has been instructed or his imagination 
 raised to understand. The course of our criticisms may perhaps 
 conduct us into this region before we conclude ; but for the 
 present we are in too profane a mood to approach it nearer. 
 
 We have now pretty well exhausted our stock of objections ; 
 and it is time to present our readers with a sample of the work 
 itself — its substance and main import. 
 
 We have already said that it is chiefly important from its 
 bearing on our system of executive government. The " lieform 
 of tlie Executive" is treated in two successive chapters, which 
 form together the most complete disquisition in the book. The 
 
 * " Whereas the resolution of men truly moral ought to be such as the same 
 Consalvo said the honour of a soldier should be, e tela crasdore, and not so fine as 
 that evcrytliing sliould catch in it, and endanger it." — Adc. of Learning.
 
 HEXllY TAYLOJl'S STATESMAN. 19 
 
 , subject is discussod from beginning to end, — the disease exposed, 
 and the remedy prescribed. The remedy miglit be readily and 
 safely applied ; but they from whom it should proceed are not at 
 leisure ; and even if they were, would doubtless wait, as the 
 appeal is addressed to the public, till the public shall take up 
 the cry. We wisli these chapters had stood more in the front of 
 the book ; for the public is busy with novels and newspapers, 
 and will not hear unless loudly addressed. The interior workings 
 of Government, the slow processes by which measures are con- 
 ceived, digested, and matured, are of necessity so reserved and 
 noiseless and removed from public observation, — have so little in 
 them of the interest which attaches to personal and party warfare, 
 — that popular attention can never be naturally attracted towards 
 those silent operations. Yet it might be thought that the magni- 
 tude of the results dependent upon them, together with a certain 
 mystery which hangs about them, might be sufficient to awaken 
 some passing interest, and draw away the public curiosity 
 occasionally, and for a while, from the election, the elopement, or 
 the last new novel. Consider how many things the Government 
 has to attend to — the complication of affairs which it has to 
 control — the enormous magnitude and variety of interests of 
 which it is (nominally at least) the guardian, and which are, in 
 fact, continually appealing to its protection. Where is the eye 
 that watches, the head that comprehends, the hand that manages 
 these many and conflicting matters? "The Providence," s-.tys 
 Ulysses — being in office, and speaking officially — 
 
 " The Providence that's in a watchful state 
 Knows ahuost every grain of Plutus' gold ; 
 Finds bottom in the uncomprehensive deep ; 
 Keeps pace with thought ; and almost, like the gods, 
 Does thoughts unveil in their dumb cradles. 
 There is a mystery (with which relation 
 Durst never meddle) in the soul of state, 
 Which hath an operation more divine 
 Than breath or pen can give expressure to." 
 
 Now, without daring to meddle with the deeper mystery which 
 is here pointed at, we shall have mystery enough on our hands 
 for the present, if we say that all this is done (so far as it is done) 
 by human heads — by men with Christian names and surnames,
 
 20 HENRY TAYLOR'S STATESMAN. 
 
 who may be seen in the flesh. Does anybody know who these 
 are, or where they come from ? The heads of departments indeed 
 we know, and their under-secretaries ; but we know also how 
 insecure is their official existence— how rapidly Tories give place 
 to Whi'^s. and Whijrs to Tories— how incessantly they are occupied 
 durint'- their short career — and what kinds of business their heads 
 and hands are full of during the parliamentary session. They 
 are responsible to Parliament for all that is done ; but it is 
 obviously impossible that they can effectually superintend in 
 person any considerable proportion of the matters which are trans- 
 acted in their name. Duties of vast extent and importance must 
 be devolved upon others. Can any one tell us who these persons 
 are ? AVhenco they are supplied ? How they have been educated ? 
 What are their qualifications ? We believe, that so far from being 
 provided with an answer to these questions, most persons will 
 have to pause before they perceive the difficulty at which they 
 point. Ask why it is that, whenever an able and accomplished 
 physician, lawyer, or clergyman is wanted, the difficulty is not 
 to find but to choose — the answer is ready. They have their 
 colleges, lecturers, tutors, professors; high prizes are offered; 
 into one or other of these professions almost everybody is drawn 
 who has his fortune to make, or any natural gifts to make it with. 
 Year after vear we see multitudes venturing their hopes and 
 talents on those seas, and of those multitudes there are always 
 some who prevail and prosper. But how are we supplied with 
 able and accomplished statesmen ? It cannot be said that abilities 
 and accomplishments are unnecessary, or that those which are 
 \\ill come of themselves. Their duties are not less wide, less 
 complicated, or less important than those which belong to the 
 liberal professions. They stand in need of qualifications, certainly 
 not inferior, nor to be acquired by a less engrossing application ; 
 nor can the number of those who try to acquire them and fail be 
 smaller in proportion. Yet where is the stream and succession of 
 candidates from whom, as in the other case, the most eminent 
 may be chosen for the highest offices? Of the few stragglers 
 who, being independent by inheritance, are nevertheless not 
 indisposed to do their work in the world, those who enter public 
 life are for the most part drawn away at once by one or other of
 
 IIENllY TAYLOR'S STATESMAN. 21 
 
 the noisy questions which happen to be agitating the public 
 mind at home from the multitude of pregnant interests — certainly 
 more numerous and often far more important — which call from 
 distant lauds or from remote times. A few more there are who 
 being, though not independent, yet enterprising and ambitious, 
 also enter the public service ; but they enter it as political 
 adventurers, and, if not narrowed in their moral character by that 
 most dangerous trade, are at least shut up in the creed and hopes 
 of a political party. But these (such as they are) are before the 
 public eye. Where are those whose operation is behind the 
 scenes, and for whose ability to discharge their duties a more 
 careful security ought to be taken in proportion as they are less 
 watched in the exercise of it? We do not pretend to answer this 
 question ourselves ; but beg instead to call attention to the 
 following extract, which we are unable either to enlarge upon 
 with advantage, or to abridge without injury. It will probably 
 suggest the answer which Mr. Taylor (who professes to speak 
 " concerning matters within his own knowledge ") would give. 
 We do not venture to pronounce it to be the true one ; but we 
 have not any better to suggest. 
 
 " The minister being thus relieved during the whole year, and his parlia- 
 mentary assistant during the session of Parliament, it remains to inquire how 
 the office business (setting aside the mere routine and mechanical part) is to be 
 done without their help. The theory says, by one permanent and experienced 
 officer. Whether we admit tliat the theory speaks the truth, depends entirely 
 upon the view wliich we take of what the duties are, and of the manner in which 
 they ought to be executed. 
 
 "Descriptive and authenticated estimates of such duties are manifestly im- 
 possible to be given ; but let some considerations be deemed worthy to_be well 
 weighed. 
 
 " The far greater proportion of the duties which are performed in the office of 
 a minister are and must be performed under no effective responsibility. AVhere 
 politics and parties are not affected by the matter in question, and so long as 
 there is no flagrant neglect or glaiing injustice to individuals, which a party can 
 take hold of, the responsibility to Parliament is merely nominal, or falls otherwise 
 only through casualty, caprice, and a misemployment of the time due from Par- 
 liament to legislative affairs. Thus the business of the office may be reduced 
 within a very manageable compass without creating public scandal. By evading 
 decisions wherever tiiey can be evaded; by shifting them on other departments 
 or authorities, where by any possibility they can be shifted ; by giving decisions 
 upon superficial examinatiuns, categorically, so as not to expose the superficiality 
 in propounding the reasons; by deferring questions till, as Lord Bacon says,
 
 22 HENRY TAYLOR'S STATESMAN. 
 
 'they resolve of themselves;' by undertakmg nothing for the public good 
 which the public voice does not call for ; by conciliating loud and energetic 
 individuals at the exiiense of such public interests as are dumb or do not attract 
 attention ; by sacrificing everywhere what is feeble and obscure to what is in- 
 fluential and cognizable ; by such means and shifts as these, the single functionary 
 granted by the theory may reduce his business within his powers, and perhaps 
 obtain for himself the most valuable of all reputations in this line of life, that of 
 ' a safe man ; ' and if his business even thus reduced strains, as it well may, his 
 powers and industry to the utmost, then (whatever may be said of the theory) 
 the man may be without reproach ; without other reproach at least than that 
 which belongs to men placing themselves in a way to have their imderstandings 
 abused and debased, their sense of justice corrupted, their public spirit and 
 aijpreciation of public objects undermined. 
 
 " Turning (I would almost say revolting) from this to another view of what 
 these duties are, and of the manner in which they ought to be performed, I 
 would in the first place earnestly insist upon this, — that in all cases concerning 
 points of conduct and quarrels of subordinate officers, in all cases of individual 
 claims upon the public and public claims upon individuals, in short, in all cases 
 (and such commonly constitute the bulk of a minister's unpolitical business) 
 wherein the minister is called upon to deliver a quasi-judicial decision, he should 
 on. no consideration peimit himself to pronounce such decision rmaccompanied 
 by a detailed statement of all the material facts and reasons upon which his 
 judgment proceeds. I know well the inconveniencies of this course ; I know 
 that authority is most imposing without reason alleged ; I know that the reasons 
 will rarely satisfy, and will sometimes tend to irritate the losing party, who 
 would be better content to think himself overborne than convicted ; I am aware 
 that the minister may be sometimes by this course inevitably drawn into pro- 
 tracted argumentation with parties whose whole time and understanding is devottd 
 to getting advantages over him ; and with a full appreciation of these difficulties 
 I am still of opinion, that for the sake of justice they ought to be encountered 
 and dealt with. One who delivers awards from which there is no appeal, for 
 which no one can call him to account (and such, as has been said, is practically 
 his exemption), if he do not subject himself to this discipline, if he do not render 
 himself amenable to confutation, will inevitably contract careless and precipitate 
 habits of judgment ; and the case which is not to be openly expounded will 
 seldom be searchingly investigated. In various cases, also, which concern public 
 measures as well as those which are questions of justice, ample written and 
 recorded discussion is desirable. Few questions are well considered till they are 
 largely written aljout ; and the minds and judgments of great functionaries 
 transacting business inter mxnia labour under a deficiency of bold checks from 
 ojtpugnant minds. 
 
 " Again, in the view of those duties to which I would point, let this be in- 
 cluded, that the department of the highest authority in the state should always 
 be ready to take the lion's share of responsibility .md labour where the import- 
 ance of the affair invites it. Where there is hazard and difficulty the inclination 
 on the part of the superior authority should be that of the stronger nature, rather 
 to assume than to devolve. For it is in this harmony between official power and 
 natural strength that the state is justified.
 
 HENRY TAYLOR'S STATESMAN. 213 
 
 " Further, it is one business to do what must be done, another to devise what 
 ought to be done. It is in the spirit of the British government as hitherto 
 existing, to transact only the former business, and the reform which it requires 
 is to enlarge tliat spirit so as to include the latter. Of and from amongst those 
 measures which are forced uioon him, to choose that which will bring him the 
 most credit with the least trouble, has hitherto been the sole care of a statesman 
 in office ; and as a statesman's official establishment has been heretofore consti- 
 tuted, it is care enough for any man. Every day, every hour, has its exigencies, 
 its immediate demands ; and he who has hardly time to eat his meals, cannot be 
 expected to occui)y himself in devising good for mankind. ' I am,' says Mr. 
 Lander's statesman, ' a waiter at a tavern, where every hour is dinner-time, and 
 pick a bone upon a silver dish.' The current compulsory business he gets 
 through as he may ; some is undone, some is ill-done, but at least to get it done 
 is an object which he proposes to himself. But as to the inventive and sug- 
 gestive portions of a statesman's functions, he would think himself a Utopian 
 dreamer if he undertook them ; and such he would be if he undertook them in 
 any other way than through a reconatitution and reform of his establishment. 
 
 "And what then is the field lor these iuventive and self-suggested opeiations ; 
 and if practicable, would they be less important than those which are called fur 
 by the obstreperous voices of to-day and to-morrow ? 
 
 " I am aware that under popular institutions there are many measures of 
 exceeding advantage to the pco[)le, which it would be in vain for a Minister to 
 project, until the people, or an influential portion of the people, should become 
 apprised of the advantage, and ask for it ; many which can only be carried by 
 overcoming resistance, much resistance only to be overcome with the support of 
 popular opinion and general solicitude for the object. And, looking no further, 
 it might seem that what is not immediately called for by the public voice was 
 not within the sphere of practical dealing. But I am also aware, that in the in- 
 calculable extent and multifarious nature of the public interests which lie open 
 to the operations of a statesman in this country, one whose faculties should le 
 adequate, would find (in every month that he should devote to the search) 
 measures of great value and magnitude, which time and thought only were 
 wanting to render practicable. He would find them, not certainly by shutting 
 himself up in his closet and inventing what had not been thought of before, but 
 by holding himself on the alert ; by listening with all his ears (and he should 
 have many ears abroad in the world) for the suggestions of circumstance ; by 
 catching the first moment of public complaint agaiust real evil, encouraging it 
 and turning it to account ; by devising how to throw valuable measures that do 
 not excite popular interest into one boat with those that do ; by knowing (as a 
 statesman who is competent to operations on a large scale may know) how tu 
 carry a measure by enlargement, such as shall merge specific objections that 
 would be insurmountable in general ones that can be met : in short, by a thousand 
 means and projects lying in the region between absolute spontaneous invention 
 on the one hand, and mere slavish adoption on the other ; such means and pro- 
 jects as will suggest themselves to one who meditates the good of mankind — 
 ' sagacious of his quarry from afar,' — but not to a INIinister whose whole soul 
 is, and must be, in the 'notices of motions,' and the order-b>ok of the House of
 
 24 HENRY TAYLOR'S STATESMAN. 
 
 Commons, and who has no one behind to prompt him to other enterprise, no 
 closet or oflice-statesmau for him to fall back upon as upon an inner mind. 
 
 " This then is the great evil and want — that there is not within the pale of 
 our Government any adequately numerous body of efficient statesmen, some to 
 be more externally active and answer the demands of the day, others to be some- 
 what more retired and meditative, in order that they may take thought for the 
 morrow. How great the evil of this want is, it may require peculiar opportu- 
 nities of observation fully to understand and feel ; but one who with competent 
 knowledge should consider well the number and maguitude of those measures 
 which nre postponed for years, or totally pretermitted, not for want of practica- 
 bility, but for want of time and thought ; one who should proceed with such 
 knowledge to consider the great means and appliances of wisdom which lie 
 scattered through this intellectual country, — squandered upon individual pur- 
 poses, not for the want of applicability to national ones, but for want of being 
 brought together and directed ; one who, surveying these things with a heart 
 capable of a people's joys and sorrows, their happy virtue or miserable guilt "on 
 tliese things dependent, should duly estimate the abundant means unemployed, 
 the exalted ends unaccompli>hed, could not choose, I think, but say witiiin him- 
 self, that there must be something fatally amiss in the very idea of statesmanship 
 on which our system of administration is based, or that there must be some 
 mortal apathy at what should be the very centre and seat of life in a country, 
 that the golden bowl must be broken at the fountain, and the wheel broken at 
 the cistern. 
 
 " How this state of things is to be amended, it may be hard to teach, at least 
 to minds which are flutteiing in the perpetual agitation of current politics, or to 
 those who have stiffened in established customs. But to a free and balanci.d 
 understanding, I would freely say, that whatever other things be necessary (and 
 they are many), it is in the first place indispensable to a reform of the Executive 
 Government of this country, that every Minister of State charged with a par- 
 ticular department of public business, should be provided with four or six perma- 
 nent under-secretaries instead of one ; — that all of those four or six should be 
 efficient closet-statesmen, and two of them at the least be endowed, in addition 
 to their practical aVnlities, with some gifts of p»hilosophy and speculation well 
 cultivated, disciplined, and prepared for use, 
 
 " Yet such is the prevalent insensibility to that which constitutes the real 
 treasure and resources of the country — its serviceable and statesmanlike minds — 
 and so far are men in ])ower from f-earching the country through for such minds, 
 or men in Piirliament from promoting or permitting the search, that I hardly 
 know if that Minister has existed in the present generation who, if such a mind 
 were casually ])resented to him, would not forego the use of it lather than hazard 
 a debate in the House of Commons upon an additional item in his estimates. 
 
 " Till the Government ot the country shall become a nucleus at which the 
 best wisdom in the country contained shall be perpetually forming itself in 
 deposit, it will be, except as regards the shuffling of power from hand to hand, 
 and class to class, liitle better than a government of fetches, shifts, and hand-to- 
 mouth expedients. Till a wise and constant instrumentality at work upon 
 administrative measures (distinguished as they might be from measures of 
 political jjarties) shall be understood to be essential to the government of a
 
 IlENKY TAYLOR'S STATESMAN. 25 
 
 country, that country c;iii be considered to enjoy nothing more than the embryo 
 of a government, — a means towanls producing, through changes in its own 
 structure and constitution, and in tlio poliiical elements acting upon it, some- 
 thing worthy to be called a government at some future time. For governing a 
 country is a very different thing from upholding a government. 'Alia res 
 sceptrum, alia plectrum.' " 
 
 Mr. Taylor then proceeds to consider in detail the establish- 
 ment which a minister of state, according to the foregoing estimate 
 of his duties, ought to command ; the fimctions which should be 
 assigned to his clerks ; and the principles which shoiiLI ba observed 
 in selecting, in remunerating, and in pi-omoting them. We have 
 not time to accompany him through this discussion; but we may 
 briefly state the practical suggestions to which it conducts him. 
 In the first place, he would have the mechanical part of the 
 office-business entirely separated from the intellectual, and 
 assigned to a separate class of persons, whose views and prospects 
 should be confined within their own sphere ; — ^all the copying — 
 which is often of great importance in the transaction of business 
 — to be performed by hired writers, attached to the office, but 
 paid by the job ; allowing only " a small class of salaried clerks 
 for the despatch of such part of it as requires secrecy." In the 
 second place, in order to secure a fit selection from among the 
 candidates for the intellectual department, he recommends that 
 there should be probationary appointments as well as confirmed 
 ones ; and that for each vacant clerkship, not less than three 
 probationers should compete ; and for each vacancy among the 
 probationers, not less than three candidates. 
 
 With respect to remuneration, Mr. Taylor decides that, on the 
 whole, " what is most conducive to good appointments in the first 
 instance, and thenceforward to deriving benefit from them, is to 
 offer a small remuneration to tiie beginner, with successive ex- 
 pectancies proportioned to the merits which he shall manifest, 
 and of such increasing amount as shall be calculated to keep easy, 
 through the progressive wants of single and married life, the 
 mind of a prudent man. Upon such a system, if unfit men belong- 
 ing to influential families shall make good an entrance into the 
 service, they will be more easily got rid of; since, finding that 
 they have got but little in hand, and have but little more to 
 look to, they will harJly be desirous to continue in a career in
 
 26 IIKXKY TAYLOll'S STATESMAN. 
 
 which they must exjieet to see their competitors shoot ahead of 
 them." 
 
 But remuneration in money will not be enough to keep long 
 in a state of contentment men gifted with the energy and ability 
 which is requisite for this kind of work. " Active and intelligent 
 men will, by the common ordinances of nature become discon- 
 tented, and gather some rust upon the edge of their serviceable 
 quality, if, whilst they find themselves going with large steps 
 down the vale of years, they do not fancy themselves to be at 
 the same time making proportionate approximations to some 
 summit of fortune, which they shall have proposed to themselves 
 to attain." Mr. Taylor is therefore of opinion, that the system 
 should be so contrived that a " meritorious man may find some 
 advancement accrue to him at least once in every ten years ; " 
 and that, wherever there is a marked distinction of merit, prefer- 
 ment should invariably go by that, not by seniority. The security 
 against abusive patronage would, he thinks, be adequate in the 
 main ; because " it is in the nature of industrious ability, acting 
 through various methods and upon various motives, to vindicate 
 its own claims under any system in which those claims are 
 recognized; and the system which shall conform to this natural 
 tendency, and be so framed as to legitimate the rising of what is 
 luoyant, will be found to work the best." 
 
 There can be no doubt, we think, as to the wisdom of these 
 suggestions, and the very great superiority which such a consti- 
 tution of the Executive would have over the present system. The 
 improvement, so far as we can judge, would be both immediate 
 and unmixed. 
 
 It may still, however, be doubted whether this department of 
 the public service, excluding as it does all political and parlia- 
 mentary distinction, would, even thus constituted, be rich enough 
 in worldly advantages and temptations to attract candidates of 
 the best quality in sufficient numbers. The advantages which it 
 ludds out to young men of ability and enterprise are attended 
 with some material drawbacks. The remuneration, though cer- 
 tain, is small ; the higher prizes are few and far between ; the 
 labour and confinement, sometimes the anxiety, not inconsider- 
 able ; and all the reputution which can be acquired is confined
 
 IILXIIY TAYLOR S STATESMAN. 27 
 
 uithin the walls of the office. But there is yet a more serious 
 disadvantage, wiiich will be most felt by the best men. The life 
 is essentially a subordinate, and may almost be termed an unreal 
 one. Everything the clerk does must be done in the name, and 
 subject to the approval, and (nominally, at least) under the direc- 
 tion of another. Thus he is always working on another man's 
 ground, and seems to have no property in what he does. This 
 want of something felt and recognized as proceeding from himself 
 — of something for which he may claim credit, and which he may 
 be called on to answer for — this privation, as it were, of a personal 
 existence, we cannot but regard as a very serious evil in this kind 
 of life ; and as very likely not only to make a man dissatisfied, 
 but to induce habits of indifference, to damp the spirit of energy 
 and enterprise, and to enfeeble the sense of duty. To separate the 
 man from his business is bad for both. 
 
 To a certain extent, indeed, the evil is inseparable from the 
 thing, for somebody must be master ; but we think it might be 
 considerably alleviated, with great advantage to all parties con- 
 cerned. The business, be it remembered, of the " indoor states- 
 man " is not to execute only, but to consider, to devise, to 
 suggest, to do everything but direct and decide. Many matters, 
 therefore, must be trusted to him of great importance, and requir- 
 ing the full weight and application of his mind. This he will 
 rarely lend, unless he feel either that the whole transaction is to 
 proceed from himself; or, at least, that in all which does proceed 
 from him his own character is implicated. It appears to us, 
 therefore, that those persons who are trusted for suggesting what 
 is to be done, ought to be made publicly and jjersonally respon- 
 sible for all that they suggest ; not, of course, that their names 
 should ordinarily appear, but that they should be liable to appear, 
 in case any transactions in which they have had a hand should 
 be called in question. There would be no difficulty in effecting 
 this. The under-secretary, we will suppose, or the clerk, draws 
 up a paper for the information of the Secretary of State, recom- 
 mending a decision. That decision is either adopted entirely, or 
 adopted only in part, or set aside altogether. If adopted, let the 
 paper on which it is founded remain as an official document, — 
 producible, should the matter be inquired into, in the name, and
 
 2S IIF.XKY TAYLOk's STATESMAN'. 
 
 as the production of the author ; — so he will be answerable for all 
 that is his own. If partly set aside, let the original paper remain 
 as before, with a note of the points overruled, and the reasons for 
 overruling them — so he will be answerable for nothing which is 
 not his own. If set aside altogether, — that is, if the matter be 
 taken entirely out of his hands, — his paper may be cancelled at 
 once. Under such a regulation his heart would be in his business. 
 But a man can hardly be expected to apply the full force of his 
 mind and conscience to the consideration of a question, when (as 
 under the present system) he knows that he is thinking only for 
 another, — that his opinion may very likely be overruled, — and 
 that he is in no way responsible for the ultimate decision. It 
 must often happen that an inferior functionary drawing up a 
 paper for the approval of his superior, entertains a different 
 opinion on the principle of the question at issue from that which 
 his superior is known to entertain. In that case, the best he can 
 do is to argue as well as he can on principles to which his own 
 mind does not assent, — i^enerally a lame operation; adding, 
 perhaps, if he be solicitous to absolve himself from all respon- 
 sibility, that in his private opinon the decision is an unjust one, 
 hut ivith that he has nothing to do. It is more probable, however, 
 ihat he will not think it necessary to interpose such protest; and 
 then, in addition to the lameness of the operation, the responsibility 
 of the unjust decision falling between the two, is felt by neither. 
 If he knew himself liable to be called on to stand father to all 
 liis own recommendations, he would take more care to keep the 
 breed pure. 
 
 We submit that this plan would be of advantage to all parties : 
 to the minister, because his position would be less false — he would 
 have less to avow of wliut he did not perform ; to the clerk, 
 because he would have more to avow of what he did perform ; to 
 the service generally, both because it would nourish a deeper 
 sincerity in devising, a bolder integrity in urging, and a more 
 hearty activity in executing ; and because, by opening a new path 
 to ambition — an ambition humble indeed, but of the most whole- 
 some kind — the ambition to enjoy a reputation for doing good 
 service in obscurity — it would increase the dignity of the profes- 
 sion, and temi)t more aspirants into its ranks.
 
 IIi:XRY TAYLOR'S STATESMAN. 29 
 
 If the public service held out to young men of aspiring natures 
 yet too poor or too wise to trust themselves in the hazardous 
 game of party politics, such temptations as might enable it to 
 compete with the liberal professions, able men would never be 
 wanted for it : they would present themselves unsought. As it 
 is, a man can hardly be recommended to enter the public service, 
 who has reasonable prospect of success in any other career; and 
 while it remains thus, the selection of able men must be left to 
 chance, or to the watchfulness and zeal of public men on behalf 
 of the public ; which (if we may trust the spirit of Mr. Taylor's 
 censures) is not much more to be depended on. 
 
 We have dwelt thus largely on this part of the book, not only 
 because of its immediate practical importance, and because the 
 Reform proposed is one of those towards which no step will be 
 taken by those within, except through the influence of importunacy 
 from without ; — but because, in order to understand the full value 
 and meaning of the book, it is necessary that this question should 
 be prominent in the reader's mind. An indifferent and inex- 
 perienced person will not readily appreciate the case and the 
 importance of it; but in reading these scattered essays (in which 
 the subject is touched and crossed and approached in a variety of 
 ways and moods), with a constant reference, direct or indirect, to 
 the practical question, an impression will gradually work itself on 
 the mind, of the great abilities, natural and acquired, which are 
 requisite for the competent discharge of the public service; of the 
 cultivation necessary to endow a man with such abilities; of the 
 absence of any attempt in this country to provide a systematic 
 education for that end ; of the consequent "solitude of able men " 
 to serve in affairs of state ; and of the manifold duties undis- 
 charged or ill discharged, from the mere want of strength and 
 spirit to guide the councils and execute the decisions of the 
 Government ; — an adequate appreciation of all which things 
 cannot but inspire him with a zealous interest in the question 
 concerning the remedy. 
 
 We had intended to enter at some length into Mr. Taylor's 
 more miscellaneous disquisitions ; and to endeavour, by gathering 
 up and arranging his scattered notices and precepts, to put together 
 a Statesman, such as he would approve, out of the materials which
 
 'HO IIENKY TAYLOR'S STATESMAN. 
 
 lie has supplied to our hands. But we must be content with 
 recommending our readers to attempt this for themselves. Such 
 an exercise will at once disperse those misapprehensions which we 
 have pointed out as likely to mislead careless perusers. It will 
 keep their minds at that elevation, and in that state of activity, 
 which may enable them to fill up or allow for the breaks and 
 gaps; to entertain with a light attention the lighter matters ; to 
 mark strongly whatever is essential and important; and so to see 
 the whole picture in proportion and perspective. Nor will the 
 study which this may require be otherwise thrown away; for the 
 reflections which they will meet with at every step (though so 
 just as to seem obvious, and to be actually barren to an inattentive 
 observer) will be found, by one who gives them time to unfold, 
 pregnant with meanings, and must be tasted curiously and digested 
 leisurely that their full \ irtue may be felt. We must be satisfied 
 with a single extract taken almost at random, which we submit 
 both as a sample of the work and as a theme for meditation. It 
 relates to " a statesman's most pregnant function — the choice and 
 use of instruments." 
 
 " It is less desirable to be surrounded and served by men of a shallow clever- 
 ness and sliuht character, than by men of even less talent who are of sound and 
 
 stable character. 
 
 ******* 
 
 " But if there be in the character not only sense and soundness, but virtue of 
 a high order, then, however little appearance there may be of to?e?(^, a certain 
 portion of wisdom may be relied upon almost implicitly. For the correspond- 
 ences of wisdom and goodness are manifold ; and that they will accompany each 
 other is to be inferred, not only because men's wisdom makes them good, but 
 also because their goodness makes them wise. Questions of right and wrong are 
 a perpetual exercise of the faculties of those who are solicitous as to the right 
 and wrong of what they do and see ; and a deep interest of the heart in these 
 questions carries with it a deeper cultivation of the understanding than can be 
 easily effected by any other excitement to intellectual activity. Although, there- 
 fore, simple goodness does not imply every sort of wisdom, it unerringly imjjlies 
 some essential conditions of wisdom ; it implies a negative on folly, and an 
 exercised judgment within such limits as Nature shall have prescribed to the 
 capacity. And where virtue and extent of capacity are combined, there is 
 implied the highest wisdom, being that which includes the worldly wisdom with 
 the spiritual. 
 
 " A statesman who numbers the wise and good amongst his political friends, 
 men of sense and respectability among his adherents ; who demeans himself in a 
 spirit of liberal but disengaged good-will towards his ordinary partisans, and
 
 IIKNRY TAYI^OR'S STATESIMAN. 3l 
 
 holds himself towards his tosls in no reciprocity of that relation ; who enlists in 
 the public service all the capable men he can find, and renders them available to 
 the extent of their capibilities, all other men's jealousies notwithstanding, 
 and any jealousy of his own out of the question ; — such a statesman has already, 
 in the commonwealth of his own nature, given to the nobler functions the higher 
 place; and as a minister, therefore, he is one whom his country may be satisfied 
 to trust, and its best men be glad to serve. He, on the other hand, who sees in 
 the party lie forms only the pedestal of his own statue, or the plinth of a column 
 to be erected to his honour, may, by inferior means and lower service, accomplish 
 his purposes, such as they are; but he must be content with vulgar admiration, 
 and lay out of account the respect of those who will reserve that tribute from what 
 is merely powerful, and render it only to wliat is great. ' He thatseeketh to be 
 eminent amongst able men,' says Lord Bacon, ' hath a great task ; but that is 
 ever good for the public. But he that plots to be the only figure amongst 
 ciphers, is the decay of a whole age.' " 
 
 The part of the book which is least satisftictoiy to us is the 
 chapter " ou the Ethics of Politics." We have not time to enter 
 at large into the subject, and only mention it for the sake of 
 keeping it in agitation ; for there is no subject which needs 
 agitating more. 
 
 The evils resulting from the unsettled state of this science as 
 at present existing, and the perplexities which beset the path of 
 a public man, whetlier he adopt the stricter or the looser creed, 
 Mr. Taylor seems to us to estimate very justly. Those who would 
 apply to political transactions the recognized rules of private 
 morality cannot act up to their principle ; those who deny their 
 applicability "are often unable to find footing on any principle 
 whatever." 
 
 We do not, however, think him happy either in the examples 
 which he gives of the dilemma or in the solution which he offers. 
 He attempts to find footing for himself on a distinction in j^rinciple 
 between political and private ethics ; and proposes to permit the 
 statesman to set aside any precept of private morals, when he 
 thinks that less harm will be done by the violation of the rule 
 than by the action which the rule would prescribe. 
 
 The distinction, we think, is not a sound one ; and is, in fact, 
 a step the wrong way. To say that the violation of a principle 
 of morality, whether in public or private life, can ever be morally 
 justifiable, is little better than a contradiction in terms. To say 
 that cases may occur in which the rules of morality must be
 
 32 HENRY TAYLOR S STATESMAN. 
 
 violated in order to preserve the iirinciphs inviolate, is as true in ' 
 private as in political matters. No doubt the cases are so very 
 different, that the same principle applied to both prescribes a 
 different set of rules for each ; and for want of observing this, the 
 recognized code of political morality (so far as any code is recog- 
 nized) is miserably defective; as appears from the number of 
 doubtful actions which everybody pronounces wrong, yet everybody 
 admits must be done " under existing circumstances." That the 
 authorized bounds of morality, public or private, should be so 
 strictly defined, that every action which they include may be set 
 down as lawful, every action which they exclude as unlawful, is 
 not perhaps to be wished ; for the conscience can perceive subtler 
 distinctions than any words can define. But they should be made 
 to include all actions to which a man will ordinarily have to 
 consent; leaving a few doubtful ones outside, that they may not 
 be assumed on general authority to be allowable, but explicitly 
 sanctioned in each case by the individual conscience, duly exercised 
 and awakened by the peril of responsibility. So far is our code 
 of political morals from hitting the just boundary, that everybody 
 actively engaged in politics is of necessity, with regard to that 
 code, a truant and a vagabond ; — what he must do leaves out of 
 sight what he must profess to ap]>rove of doing. 
 
 Fully conceding, however, to ]Mr. Taylor, that our creed stands 
 in these respects grievously in need of revision, we cannot but 
 think that the disease lies far deeper than any revision of the 
 creed can reach ; and that the cure must be effected not by drawing 
 the distinctions, but by pressing the analogies, between public 
 and private duty. The root of the disease is this — there is no 
 genuine sense of obligation towards the public. Among the 
 motives to action of a sane man, mere public spirit is hardly 
 recognized as one. In all dealings with the public, every man is 
 assumed to be acting from motives of private interest. If any 
 selfish motive be apparent, his conduct is accounted for at once 
 and nobody wonders ; if none can be assigned, he is suspected of 
 some siVm-^er object, and people like him the worse ; if he persevere 
 in a consistent course of action to his manifest disadvantage, he is 
 pitied and forgiven as an enthusiast. Till of late years this state 
 of feeling manifested itself in shameless dissoluteness. We are
 
 HENRY TAYLOR'S STATESMAN. 33 
 
 now more refined, ami though our hearts arc not better our con- 
 versation and professions are much more virtuous. Though we 
 do not " appreciate in feeling " the importance of public duties, 
 we at least "magnify them in words," From strumpets we are 
 turned prudes. This is an improvement, no doubt, so far as it 
 goes; for in all the ordinary duties which can be learned by rote 
 prudery will go along with virtue. But as soon as a question 
 ])resents itself which is not set down in the book, and requires for 
 its solution the living and thinking principles of virtue and the 
 delicate sense of honour, it is at once thrown out and lost. 
 
 How is this to be reformed ? How is a vital principle of duty 
 to be substituted for this heartless form of words? A manly 
 consistency of action, for the mere movement in a straiglit line ? 
 We answer, — not by relaxing the code (for it is not by unlacing 
 a prude that you can make modesty sit easily on her), but by 
 teaching men to feel the same interest and sense of obligation in 
 their dealings with the public which they do feel in their daily 
 dealings with each other, and then to carry whole into the wider 
 sphere the same principles of action which their heart and con- 
 science have prescribed and sanctioned in the narrower. Nobody 
 could execute this task better than Mr. Taylor, and we earnestly 
 hope that he may hereafter apply himself to it. 
 
 When all is done, however, the principle of public obligation 
 will in most men be comparatively weak — the rules intricate and 
 diflicult of application — the path of duty slippery and surrounded 
 by temptations. The statesman must still " be engaged in a field 
 of action which is one of great danger to truthfulness and sincerity," 
 — his conscience must still *' walk too like the ghost of a conscience, 
 in darkness or twilight." In all these perils he must look for 
 light to show him the way, and strength to carry him through, to 
 the experiences and exercises of his private life in the duties 
 between man and man. For this reason it is more peculiarly 
 incumbent on him to preserve that side of his character sound 
 and healthy ; and to endeavour in all ways and at all times — by 
 a stricter performance of all private duties — a deeper appreciation 
 of private virtues — by exercising and enlarging his heart in 
 domestic affections and neighbourly charities — to guard on all 
 sides his private conscience from assault, and keep that vessel 
 
 D
 
 34 HENRY TAYLOR'S STATESMAN. 
 
 pure ; that his political conscience, parched with restless anxieties 
 and exhausted by incessant attention to duties which it has not 
 leisure to feel, may draw from it continually fresh supplies of 
 health and nourishment. 
 
 To this division of the subject three chapters must be referred, 
 — which we have already alluded to as likely to provoke a laugh, 
 ■ — because likely to be read in a different spirit from that in which 
 they were written ; the chapters on Marriage, on Order, and on 
 the " Statesman out of Office." We have already transgressed our 
 limits, or we should be tempted to quote them here, for the benefit 
 of all those who are capable of appreciating the peril and the 
 deliverance ; — of all who can be made sad by the thought how 
 easily the man may be absorbed in the Statesman, — may learn to 
 know himself only as the controller of public interests, or the 
 leader of a political party ; — of all into whose imagination it has 
 entered to conceive the dismal possibility of a man, through long 
 practice in official transactions, official manners, and official forms 
 of speech, acquiring in the end an official heart ! 
 
 But we must content ouselves with recommending the book 
 itself; and so break off. The peculiar conciseness and pregnancy 
 of the style requires that it should be read slowly and every 
 sentence tasted.
 
 II. 
 
 THE WOEKING OF NEGEO APPRENTICESHIP IN 1838.* 
 
 The quantity of talking and writing which goes on under the sun 
 lias grown of late years into a practical inconvenience, towards the 
 diminution of which every man ought, we think, to do something. 
 Accordingly, having nothing conclusive to make known, we have 
 been silent for some years on the condition of the negroes in the 
 West Indies. Soon after we last addressed our readers on this 
 subject, the object which we had so long laboured without ceasing 
 to bring about was taken up in the true spirit by those to whom 
 it especially belonged, and put in a way to be speedily and satis- 
 factorily accomplished. The old language of argument and 
 admonition, which had been vainly persevered in till it had 
 become little better than a mockery and pretext for delay, was at 
 length abandoned ; and a new language was adopted which the 
 Colonial Assemblies could hear. On the 28th of August, 1833, 
 their consent to the Abolition of Slavery was secured by an 
 Act of Parliament, declaring that, whether they consented or not, 
 within twelve months slavery should positively be abolished ; 
 and they were invited to anticipate the operation of that law by 
 making one in the meantime for themselves. For the loss of 
 property thence accruing, ample compensation in sterling money 
 was provided ; and by withholding the payment of that com- 
 pensation until effectual measures should be passed for the pro- 
 tection of the newly emancipated population, a further secui\ty 
 
 * 1. "Report of the Select Committie appointed to enquire into the working of 
 tlie Negro Apprenticeship " Lontln: I8S7. 2. "Tapers relative to the Abolition 
 of Slavery." i'aitsl., II., III. London: 1837. {Edinbunjh Iteview, January, IS3S.)
 
 36 NEGKO APPRENTICESHIP IN 1838. 
 
 was taken for their co-operation in that work also. The enactment 
 of proper laws being thus secured, it remained only to secure the 
 proper administration of them. This was effected by intrusting it 
 to a body of magistrates sent out from England, paid by Govern- 
 ment, independent of all local authorities, unconnected with all 
 local interests, and, above all, " unacquainted with the negro 
 character ; " — capable, that is, of believing that black men are 
 born not merely to raise sugar for white men, but to die and rise 
 again for themselves. 
 
 Since the change was thus fairly set on foot, and the conduct 
 of it was placed in willing and trustworthy hands, we have been 
 content to watch its progress in silence ; and though we have seen 
 many things to deplore and some things to disapprove, we are 
 bound to confess that our predominant feeling has been one of 
 triumphant satisfaction. Many things we have seen to remind us 
 how grievously the nature of a man may be defaced and degraded 
 by the tyranny of his brother ; but more to assure us how much 
 will remain undestroyed, after all that tyranny can do ; — how 
 safely we may trust that good will be called forth by good, and 
 that the place on which mercy drops will never long be barren ; 
 to teach us, not indeed for the first time, but by the largest and 
 most striking example which has yet been given to the world, 
 that neither complexion, nor climate, nor oppression itself, can 
 make the condition of a man desperate, or exclude him from the 
 great brotherhood of humanity. In watching the progress of this, 
 • — the newest and the noblest experiment in this kind, — we have 
 seen the most sanguine hopes which in the confidence of our 
 common humanity we venture to entertain, fulfilled one by one 
 even beyond our expectations and taking their place among 
 established truths ; while the predictions of those who in the con- 
 fidence of an exclusive acquaintance with the negro as distinguished 
 from the human character so scornfully rejected them, we have 
 seen one by one pass onwards to the proof, burst, and be forgotten. 
 Already have the original disasters, announced for twenty years 
 as unavoidable if ever slavery should be abolished, yet as more to 
 be avoided than sin itself, been left in the secure distance. The 
 cheerful augurs have forgotten their own presage. Other new 
 forebodings have bubbled up in their place to meet the shifting
 
 NEGRO APPRENTICESHIP IN 1838. 37 
 
 occasion, and to vanish along with it, each swallowed by its 
 practical refutation faster than we can pursue them ; and so 
 chasing each other to the place whither all false things go. The 
 experiment has not yet reached its close. The prophetic soul of 
 the planting interest has yet many things to dream of which are 
 not to come. Many a fatal fear has to be engendered, announced, 
 and forgotten, within the next few years. Such fears requiring 
 no ground to stand on, and taking up no room in the mind, are 
 not to be counted for their number ; nor will they be all set at 
 rest until the new system shall have had time to adjust itself, and 
 the account of hopes and fears shall be finally closed. We have 
 no wish to anticipate that natural consummation. Why should 
 they die before their time? That the matter will finally issue in 
 a state of enduring good, which will leave room for only one 
 opinion with regard to the abolition of slavery, — namely, that it 
 was in every view expedient and ought not to have been delayed 
 a day longer ; — for only one regret, namely, that it was not done 
 sooner and done more boldly ; that in the framing of the new law, 
 the negroes were not trusted more and their masters less ; — all 
 this we seem to foresee so clearly, that we would willingly wait in 
 silence for the due arrival of that day, rather than vex the subject 
 with premature and needless disputation. Till that day arrives, 
 the closing chapter in the history of the Abolition of Slavery 
 — perhaps the most instructive of all human histories — will be 
 wanting, and it will be too soon to take a final review of it. 
 
 But though we have no wish to pursue a fruitless triumph 
 in honour of ourselves, or to interfere with the progress of the 
 measure which is going on, if not in all respects as well as we 
 could wish, at least as well as we could hope to make it ; and 
 though to those who have watched it like ourselves we have in 
 fact nothing of importance to say, yet for the benefit of others 
 who, being unacquainted with the real state of the case, are likely, 
 from representations recently put forth, to take a very false impres- 
 sion of it, we have thought that we might now perform a useful 
 service by exhibiting the actual results of the measure so far as it 
 has yet proceeded ; — giving, as far as may be, distinct references 
 to the facts on which we rest our conclusions and the sources from 
 which we draw our information.
 
 38 NEGRO ArPRENTICESHIP IN 1838. 
 
 Purely good those results cannot well be. A single Act of 
 Parliament may release all slaves from their servitude, and deprive 
 all slave-owners of their authority ; but to change a slavish 
 multitude into an orderly and happy peasantry, a slave-driving 
 oligarchy, deformed and made fierce by their false attitude, into a 
 natural upper class, must be the slow work of time. In order to 
 judge how well the experiment has succeeded, we must endeavour 
 to remember the position in which we stood before, and the diffi- 
 culties and perils which seemed to beset us whichever way we 
 turned. The evils of slavery were, indeed, pretty generally 
 admitted, and were becoming more and more obvious every day. 
 Slave property, from being an object of greedy, gambling specula- 
 tion, in pursuit of which so many fortunes had been lost and won, 
 had become valueless in the market : — ruined, as some said, by 
 the interference of the mother country — ^dying, as we say, of its 
 own inherent sinfulness, the wages of which is death. Gangs of 
 slaves could be bought for almost any thing. Estates could not 
 be sold at all. The slave proprietors themselves had begun to 
 feel that they would gladly escape from their position, if they 
 knew how to do it, without putting themselves in a worse. But 
 how to get rid of slavery, without drawing down some very serious 
 calamity on one side or the other — either by the sudden ruin, not 
 of the proprietors alone, but of all those whose incomes were 
 derived directly or indirectly from the many millions annually 
 paid for the exported produce of the West Indies, or from the 
 inroads on social peace and security which could not but be appre- 
 hended from a mass of slaves suddenly let loose — was at that time 
 a problem by which the wisest as well as the most sanguine 
 abolitionists were perplexed. The sudden cessation of sugar 
 cultivation in our slave colonies would be a lighter calamity than 
 the perpetuation of slavery. Still it would be a serious and sub- 
 stantial disaster, which it was most desirable to avoid. The 
 relapse of the slave population, sudden or gradual, into a primitive 
 condition of society, without effective civil government or organi- 
 zation ; without any principle of order within, or any power to 
 impose order from without ; without any securities for the weak 
 and simple against the tyranny of the strong and cunning ; and, 
 above all, inaccessible to the influence of teachers and preachers —
 
 NEGRO APPRENTICESHIP IN 1838'. 39 
 
 their relapse into such a state would be a lighter evil than a con- 
 tinuance in their former condition, by just so much as such a state 
 of society would be better than slavery. Still it would be an evil 
 of great magnitude ; and if they could be made to pass from 
 bondage to freedom without overthrowing the existing apparatus 
 of social order in the passage, a considerable sacrifice might well 
 be made by all parties, themselves not excluded, for the sake of 
 so bringing the matter about. 
 
 To devise a measure, then, which should secure the immediate 
 extinction of slavery, and some immediate relief to the slaves, 
 without involving any of the evils above mentioned, was the 
 problem to be solved ; and the measure, into the success of which 
 we are about to inquire, is to be regarded as an experiment 
 towards the solution of it — a measure which, at the time of its 
 introduction, was attended with more anxiety, and involved in 
 more uncertainty as to its immediate issue, than it is easy to 
 remember now that the issue is known. 
 
 To discuss the a priori probabilities of success would be beside 
 our purpose. Enough that it has succeeded. But in order to 
 judge how far that success ought to be considered as a matter of 
 congratulation, it is essential that we should call to mind what we 
 thought ourselves entitled beforehand to expect — how we stood, 
 and what we looked for five years ago. Five years ago controversy 
 was cut short. It was finally resolved that, come what might, 
 slavery should be abolished without delay ; and we were left to 
 anticipate the issue in silence. 
 
 Now, endeavouring to recall our own feelings at that crisis, — ■ 
 our confusion of hopes and fears, — we well remember, predominant 
 above all other feelings, an unshaken conviction that nothing 
 permanently bad could come of it ; and, at all events, that, come 
 of it good or bad, it was right that it should be done ; but, as to 
 the immediate issue, we remember some strange misgivings. That 
 so inveterate a sin could be purged away, and no penalty exacted ; 
 — that nature had no revenge to take for the long violation which 
 she had suffered ; that the transition from an unnatural to a 
 natural state would be itself natural and easy, and society restored 
 to health without passing through some paiiiful discipline ; — it 
 was almost impossible to hope. Eight hundred thousand human
 
 40 NEGRO APPRENTICESHIP IN 1838. 
 
 beings, from whom all instruction had been withheld, in whom all 
 exercise in the duties between man and man had been discouraged, 
 all sense of responsibility repressed — who had never been asked 
 for love or pity — who owed no love or pity— who had rather been 
 taught that love, pity, forbearance, fellowship in humtin rights 
 and duties, were not for them — who had been taught to fear 
 nothing but the lash, to hope for nothing but exemption from 
 animal pain— to whom industry had been made odious, obedience 
 a blind necessity, mercy itself a thankless and degrading boon- 
 eight hundred thousand human beings, in whom all the gentler 
 and more ennobling sentiments of humanity, "self-reverence, self- 
 knowledge, and self-power," had been thus checked in their growth, 
 while the lower passions and instincts must have been, under that 
 very discipline, growing stronger — eight hundred thousand 
 human beings, so trained and taught, were to be told to come 
 forth and be free ; to go where they would, seek their food where 
 they could find it, to be henceforth their own masters ; still how- 
 ever holding themselves subject to the necessary regulations of 
 society— subject, that is, to a life of labour and privation, and all 
 the hard conditions attaching to ignorance and poverty in lands 
 where rich men rule. To these conditions (hard surely, though, 
 it may be, inevitable) they were to be told to submit cheerfully. 
 From what motive, or on what consideration ? Not as being a 
 powerless minority, who might understand the necessity if not the 
 justice of the case; they formed everywhere a large majority — a 
 majority conscious of their strength and numbers, and wearing an 
 indelible badge, which, while it divided them from the overruling 
 minority, united tliem to each other by the assurance of sympathy 
 and a common cause. Not because their minds had been subdued 
 into apathy : on the contrary, their discontents had but just before 
 broken out in open insurrection, and their hearts were still 
 inflamed and agitated by the fierce passions which had been 
 generated in the struggle. Not because they would have nothing 
 more to wish for : they would wish to find in freedom that golden 
 state which they had dreamed of. For their submission to the 
 necessary regulations of society we could trust to none of these 
 things, but only to their respect for the laws of the world — a world 
 which had never been their friend — for obligations, the sense of
 
 NEGRO ArPRKNTICESHIP IN 1838. 41 
 
 which had never been called forth in them — for the mutual 
 charities of a society from which they had been scornfully 
 excluded — for personal interests which they had never been 
 qualified to understand — for common duties which they had never 
 been allowed the opportunity to practise, involved in common 
 rights which had never before been recognized. 
 
 Such, and no less, would have been the experiment of an 
 emancipation, immediate and unqualified, of the slaves in the 
 West Indies. Could it have been safely made ? Seen from the 
 position in which we stood then, we should say it was scarcely 
 reasonable to ho^^e so. Seen from the position in which we stand 
 now, we should still say it was impossible to be confident of it. 
 Knowing now all that we did not know then, we are still disposed 
 to think that, had the slaves in all our colonies, as in the very 
 favourable case of Antigua, been emancipated at once and abso- 
 lutely, though it is very possible that no great disaster would 
 have followed, it is scarcely to be affirmed that no great ruh 
 would have been run. Where there is on one side ignorance, 
 excitability, natural causes of discontent, and overpowering 
 numbers; on the other, violence, intemperance and a disposition 
 to provoke ; there are the elements of an explosion. And though 
 the explosion may not come for years or for ages, still there is 
 every day a danger of its coming, and at the end of each day it is 
 impossible to say how many times a mere breath may have 
 averted it. That state of things is not safe, on the stability of 
 which, or at least on its speedy restoration in case of disturbance, 
 it is impossible to calculate. That community could not have 
 been safe, the peace of which depended in any considerable degree 
 upon a population of slaves newly emancipated not proving 
 inflammable — a magistracy of managers and overseers newly dis- 
 whipped not scattering fire — a colonial police newdy organized 
 being able promptly to extinguish the flame — or a colonial militia 
 not making more mischief than it found. 
 
 Smoothly, therefore, as this critical time has passed ; few and 
 trifling as are the disturbances which have occurred and the 
 dangers which we have seen; and secure as the rest of the way 
 now appears to be ; we are far from believing that unqualified 
 emancipation, especially if forced on the colonial legislatures
 
 42 XEGEO APrRENTICESHIP IN 1838. 
 
 against their will, would have been either politic or justifiable. 
 At all events, without pretending to say that the probationary- 
 state of Apprenticeship could not have been safely spared, we can 
 at least say this — that under this probationary state much has 
 been done : uncertainty and alarm have vanished ; many dangers, 
 which seemed to lie in the path, have been passed over safely and 
 without risk ; some advances have been made in civilization ; 
 some hearty co-operation has been secured towards a further 
 advance ; nothing as yet has gone backward. And very sure we 
 are, that if among the numerous plans for the abolition of slavery, 
 sudden or gradual, which were rife in 1832, any one could have 
 been ensured to work as well as this has done, — as well and no 
 better — it would have been eagerly accepted by all parties. 
 
 Before we proceed to examine how far the objects of the 
 measure have been attained, we must state briefly what we con- 
 ceive them to have been. The main ends proposed were, as it 
 appears to us, — 
 
 1st, The immediate and absolute extinction of the essential 
 2mnci])le of slavery, — that principle which recognized the slave 
 only as a chattel, subject not to the law but to the mere will of his 
 master, and capable of legal protection only as horses and cats 
 are protected by Mr. Martin's Act. From the hour when the 
 Abolition Act came into operation, the slave became in all respects 
 a ijerson ; having his rights and duties defined by law ; entitled 
 for any infringement of the former to a definite legal remedy, and 
 liable for any infringement of the latter to a definite legal penalty. 
 The show of conferring and protecting such rights which had 
 been previously made by inoperative meliorating laws, was to be 
 now realized by the operation of laws revised by the Crown, and 
 administered by the Crown's paid servants. 
 
 2ndly. The immediate extinction not only of the principle of 
 slavery, but of every remnant of the servile relation, in respect of 
 all persons not yet involved in it ; — every child born within the 
 six years previous to the passing of the Act being placed at once 
 on the same footing with other British subjects. 
 
 3rdly. Some immediate relief in the physical condition of those 
 who were not to be immediately released from all their existing 
 obligations ; — one-fourth of the time which had previously been at 
 their masters' disposal being at once placed at their own.
 
 NEHRO ArrREXTICESIIIP IN 1838. 43 
 
 4thly. The immediate removal of the more important impedi- 
 ments to the civilisation of the existing servile population ; by- 
 admitting their evidence in courts of justice, by encouraging them 
 to make contracts and receive wages ; by recognizing the validity 
 of their marriages ; by introducing new facilities for education ; 
 by removing all restraints upon the free communication of 
 religious knowledge ; by qualifying them to demand their entire 
 freedom on tenderins; the fair value of their remaininor services; 
 by exempting females from the lash ; and by some other pro- 
 visions of the same nature. 
 
 5thly. The maintenance, in the meantime, of the existing 
 order and framework of society ; the protection of the proprietors 
 against the sudden paralyzation of the immense capital invested 
 in West Indian property, — of commerce against the sudden 
 stoppage of a most fruitful source of productive industry, the 
 failure of which would leave a hundred channels dry, — of the 
 community generally (the labouring population not excluded) 
 against that dissolution of all social polity which the subversion 
 of the existing order would carry with it. This was to be effected 
 by upholding the former barriers of society, confining labour 
 within its former channels, and enforcing the performance of 
 certain mutual obligations between the master and the slave, 
 similar to those formerly subsisting, though curtailed in extent 
 and under a new sanction,— for such limited period as might 
 allow each party to feel their way through the change, gradually 
 to adjust themselves to their new position, and to prepare their 
 minds and fortunes for whatever might befall. 
 
 Such we take to have been the main ends of the new law, the 
 attainment of which was essential to its successful operation. 
 
 The next point was to contrive that they should be carried 
 into effect according to the design, by the enactment in the 
 several colonies of laws adequate for that purpose. This was a 
 point which could of course be only partially attained. There 
 was never yet a law so well devised and so faithfully administered, 
 as altogether to defy encroachment, evasion, violation, or defeat ; 
 scarcely one (always excepting laws made for the protection of the 
 law-makers or lawyers) under which the injured party could be 
 secure of a remedy adequate to the injury sustained. Murderers,
 
 44 NEGRO APPEENTICESniP IN 1838. 
 
 robbers, seducers, slanderers, may be made to suffer, but not to 
 restore what they have taken ; the debtor may be made to pay 
 his debt, but cannot repay the cost, the time, or the anxiety of 
 the prosecution : in cases of disputed property the ruinous effects 
 of " going to law " have passed into a proverb. And if this be the 
 case in England, with her impartial judges, her learned lawyers, 
 her competent juries, her magistrates, if not always learned and 
 impartial, yet with every chance of being so which general educa- 
 tion and a jealous public opinion can secure ; how much more so 
 in the West Indies, where for so many years all the education, 
 and with it all the making, administering, and interpreting of the 
 law, and all the public opinion which can make itself heard, has 
 been confined to a small minority, — interested, as all ruling 
 minorities must be, against justice, — and as if by a common con- 
 spiracy of legislature, judges, grand jurymen, petit jurymen, 
 magistrates, and journalists, deliberately set to defeat its ends. 
 Moreover, in the legislative colonies, this difficulty was formidably 
 increased by a condition conceded to the legislature as the price 
 of their cordial co-operation ; namely, that they should be per- 
 mitted to make these laws themselves. The Government might 
 disallow all acts containing improper provisions, and withhold the 
 compensation until proper ones should be substituted : but was 
 not at liberty to dictate the terms. How hard it must have been 
 in the hurry of that time to overcome this disadvantage altogether, 
 may be readily conceived. In such a society, indeed, and under 
 such conditions, to contrive that laws should be passed within 
 twelve months, not only faithfully declaring the new rights of the 
 emancipated population, but so framed as to preclude the possibility 
 of any violation of them, was a thing not to be expected. Though 
 the colonial legislatures might have every wish to pass a perfect 
 la\y, they had scarcely the skill. Though the Government might 
 be perfectly acute and vigilant, it could hardly clear away all 
 loose phraseology and all objectionable provisions, without tender- 
 ing more assistance than the Assemblies would accept. Even 
 though a perfect law were passed, it would be impossible to secure 
 for it a perfect administration ; or to ensure it against misinterpre- 
 tation by the colonial courts. Difficulties and obstructions would 
 rise at every step. First there were the Assemblies, above
 
 NEGRO APPRENTICESinP IN 1838. 45 
 
 dictation, but not above blunders, and with their hearts not in 
 their work : — They were to frame the law. Then there were the 
 attorneys, managers, overseers, and book-keepers, interested in 
 every way — by old prejudices, by fresh mortifications, by the 
 thirst of gain — in trenching upon the new rights of the negro and 
 defeating the law framed for his protection : — They were to be 
 kept from encroaching. Next there were the negroes themselves, 
 with all the taint of their former condition upon them, — suspicious, 
 cunning, deceitful, ignorant, callous to shame, and too much used 
 to the lash to be reclaimable by light correction : — -They were to 
 be made to work their forty-five hours weekly. Then again there 
 were the special magistrates, a miscellaneous body with heavy 
 dnties and light pay ; called suddenly to a most critical and 
 laborious office, with no precedents to guide them ; unpractised in 
 the kind of duty, and exposed to a variety of vexations and 
 obstructions in the performance of it : — They were to administer 
 the law. Lastly, there were the colonial courts, filled by persons 
 deeply interested in West Indian property, swelling with West 
 Indian prejudices, exasperated against the special magistrates as 
 being trusted with an authority from which their own class was 
 jealously excluded : — In cases of appeal or prosecution they were 
 to interpret the law. 
 
 Here were traces of slavery which it was beyond the power of 
 Parliament to abolish. The natural effects of these it was impos- 
 sible altogether to escape or overcome. That in many individual 
 instances the negroes would not be perfectly protected against 
 hardship, oppression, or cruelty, and that their duties could not 
 be always enforced without a degree of severity shocking to 
 those who measure severity by an English standard, might as 
 surely have been predicted beforehand as it is loudly proclaimed 
 now; and might be better used as an argument for immediately 
 setting about the abolition of slavery wherever it exists, than as a 
 proof that the measure adopted with that view in this instance has 
 not worked well. 
 
 We have dwelt on this part of the subject longer than we 
 should have done — longer perhaps than our limits justify — because 
 we perceive that some persons have conceived great disappoint- 
 ment and indignation at finding that the negroes are still liable to
 
 46 NEGllO ArrRENTICESHIP IN 1838. 
 
 frauds and injuries ; — are still exposed to some hardships, and 
 may still, in case of misbehaviour, be flogged or sent to the 
 tread-mill. And this unreasonable disappointment we believe to 
 have arisen simply from their not adverting to the inevitable con- 
 ditions of the case. It is not that they have neglected to make 
 honest inquiries ; nor that in pursuing them they have indulged 
 in a partial credulity ; still less that they have endeavoured 
 to miscolour the facts ; but simply that it has never occurred to 
 them to view the subject in this its proper and natural light. 
 
 Assuming, then, that we are not to look for results ^urehj 
 satisfactory, but only for successive states of improvement, and a 
 new condition of society good only as compared with that which 
 went before, we shall now proceed to trace briefly the stages of 
 this great progress. Brief our statement must be ; and more of 
 it than we could wish must rest, we fear, upon our own credit ; for 
 to produce all the evidence from which we have drawn our 
 conclusions and guard it with the necessary qualifications, ex- 
 planations, and discussions, would require such another volume as 
 those in which it is contained. 
 
 In this inquiry we shall confine ourselves chiefly to Jamaica ; 
 partly because it is the most important of all our West Indian 
 colonies in extent and population ; partly because it is probably 
 the least favourable instance — as the one in which public opinion 
 is in the most diseased state, in which faction is most rife and 
 virulent, in which the whites and blacks were on the worst terms 
 to begin with — the slaves most inflamed with discontent, and the 
 masters (as shown in 1831) most prone to reckless acts of oppres- 
 sion — in which the superintendence of the governor, by reason of 
 the multitude of duties and the extent of surface, was likely to be 
 least effectual ; and in whicli (we must add) the law itself, which 
 was permitted to take effect, was the least adequate for its 
 purposes ; but chiefly because we have fuller and completer infor- 
 mation about this than about any of the other colonies. It is, in 
 fact, the only one concerning tlie state of which all parties have 
 had an opportunity of giving evidence, and the evidence of each 
 has been submitted to a rigid cross-examination. In relation to 
 Jamaica, we have, in the first place, Lord Sligo's Despatches, — 
 showing proof of unwearied vigilance which avoids no labour and
 
 NEGRO APPRENTICESHIP IN 1838. 47 
 
 blinks no difficulty, — written in a tone of frank and careless 
 candour, the sincerity of which it is impossible for a moment to 
 doubt, — ^clearly and faithfully reflecting all his impressions with 
 regard to the internal state of the island from the very beginning, 
 each as it arose in his mind, and (which is of great importance) 
 reflecting his confused and half-formed impressions not less faith- 
 fully than his deliberate and grounded conclusions. In the second 
 place, we have a multitude of Eejwrts from the special magistrates, 
 weekly, monthly, and quarterly, fresh as they were written, and 
 evidently representing what they thought, saw, and did ; — their 
 value of course varying with the various powers of thinking* 
 seeing, and acting, with which the writers were gifted. Lastly, 
 we have the Evidence published by the Apprenticeship Committee 
 of the House of Commons, before which a variety of witnesses 
 were examined, comprising representatives of each interest con- 
 cerned, from Mr. Beaumont, the hot and hotly persecuted Jamaica 
 abolitionist, to Mr. Burge, the professional advocate of the slave- 
 owners. And thus we have altogether a body of various and 
 conflicting evidence, from which the true state of the case, in its 
 main features, may be faithfully enough inferred by any one who 
 really desires to find it. 
 
 With respect to the progress of the measure in the remaining 
 colonies, our information is much less ample. But, judging by the 
 broad results, we should infer that the general success has been of 
 the same kind, and the general movement in the same direction ; 
 though more or less smooth and rapid according to accidental 
 circumstances ; and, upon the whole, that the conclusions suggested 
 by the case of Jamaica may be transferred to the others without 
 any material error. 
 
 The first announcement of the Abolition Act in Jamaica 
 seems to have produced nothing of great note. The dismay 
 spread by Lord Stanley's original Kesolutions of the 14th of 
 May, in which the only compensation proposed was a loan of 
 fifteen millions, had been allayed by the grant of twenty millions, 
 which was announced about a month after. And when, on the 
 8th of October, Lord Mulgrave, in fair, firm words, commended 
 the measure to the attention of the assembled legislature, as a 
 thing that was to be; — reminding them of the danger of delay
 
 48 NEGRO APPRENTICESHir IN 1838. 
 
 and agitation, and cheering them with the promise of better times 
 to come, and "the prolific expansion of hitherto unexplored re- 
 sources ; " — they seem to have received the message with a kind 
 of sullen tranquillity. They were willing that it should be so ; 
 they had never advocated slavery as a good thing in itself, but 
 only as a thing profitable to them ; no Englishman could desire 
 the improvement of the negro population more sincerely than 
 they, — let but the proof of this cost them nothing, and they would 
 be proud to prove it ; they would do their best to secure all the 
 good that could, to avert all the evil that might, arise from an 
 experiment in legislation, of which the history of the world fur- 
 nished no parallel ; nor were they without hope, so ably had Lord 
 Mulgrave disposed the forces at his command, that the island 
 might, after all, be preserved in peace ; — that the perilous con- 
 dition of the colony would ever settle into permanent prosperity, 
 they were less sanguine — but at that also, should the period ever 
 arrive, they would be ready to rejoice.* 
 
 To the work, however, which was assigned them, they applied 
 in earnest ; and by the middle of December an Auxiliary Act had 
 passed through all its stages, and was sent home for Lord Stanley's 
 approval. Lord Stanley had promised to construe any such act 
 candidly and liberally, according to the desire rather than the 
 performance ; and most liberally did he redeem his pledge. The 
 Act in question was in its supplemental parts extremely deficient, 
 as he seems to have perceived ; though we cannot think that he 
 perceived the whole length and breadth of the deficiency. Many 
 necessary clauses were omitted, some objectionable ones inserted, 
 from which much inconvenience has been already felt, and more 
 is to be felt yet. The offences which might be committed by 
 apprenticed labourers, and the penalties attached to them, were 
 very loosely defined; the obligations of the master towards the 
 apprentice more loosely still. The supplies of food, clothing, 
 medicine, etc., were not defined at all — they were to be "cus- 
 tomary" or "sufficient"^ — and how much was to be considered 
 " sufficient " was left to the decision of the parish vestry ; that is, 
 of the masters themselves. No security was taken against the 
 
 * See ParliamfTituiy Tapers, I., p. 26. It is proper to state that we give the 
 meaning only, not tlie words, of the address.
 
 NEGRO APPRENTICESHIP IN 1838. 49 
 
 use of improper whips, or improper places of confinement. Worst 
 of all, one mode of arbitrary punishment, and that no light one, 
 was still left in the masters' hands. If he had a complaint against 
 an apprentice, and the special magistrate were not by, he might 
 order him into confinement till the magistrate could be sent for ; 
 provided only that the complaint was to be preferred when he did 
 come, and that if he did not come within twenty-four hours the 
 apprentice was to be released. The pretext for this clause was 
 safe custody — a thing not wanted in one case out of a hundred — 
 but its practical operation would obviously be to leave a punish- 
 ment of undefined severity in the hands of the master ; with no 
 better security against the abuse of it than a small fine in case the 
 complaint should be adjudged frivolous. Moreover, the Act con- 
 tained no adequate provision for determining the chiss to which 
 each apprentice belonged ; and the regulations for comjiulsory 
 manumissions were in many material points defective. Some 
 other objections, of less practical importance, we pass over ; but 
 IVIr. Jeremie has made the worst of them in his evidence before 
 the Apprenticeship Committee, which the curious may consult. 
 
 All these defects were, however, regarded by Lord Stanley 
 (perhaps justly enough) as oversights, rather than intentional 
 departures from the spirit of the British Act ; — as entitled, there- 
 fore, to the promised indulgence. Accordingly, while he drew the 
 attention of the legislature to several of them as requiring amend- 
 ment, he at the same time declared that the Act was " adequate 
 and satisfactory," and that Jamaica was entitled to her share of 
 the compensation ; in the romantic assurance that they would 
 appreciate and respond to a style of dealing so "frank and un- 
 reserved," and would make their Act really " adequate and satis- 
 factory," not for money but for love.* 
 
 This, it seems to us, was a mistake ; and, to say the truth, it 
 is much easier to understand and sympathize with the feelings 
 under which Lord Stanley acted, than to justify his yielding to 
 them. We cannot but think that, instead of encourairinf!: the 
 Assembly and indulging his own courteous impulses with promises 
 of liberal dealing and constructions of law according to the pre- 
 sumed intention rather than the actual effect, he would have dona 
 
 * Parliamentary Papers, I. pi 33. 
 
 E
 
 50 NEGRO APPRENTICESHIP IN 1838. 
 
 better had he reminded them that all liberal dealing was forbidden 
 him by the public duty he was charged with ; that he was bound 
 to the most jealous and rigid construction of all their enactments ; 
 that the intentions of one Assembly were no security for the 
 intentions of another ; and that even if they were, the construction 
 which the law would bear in Courts of Justice had nothing to do 
 with the construction which its makers intended it to bear. 
 Neither was the promptitude of the Assembly, however laudable 
 in itself and however beneficial as an example, in passing their 
 imperfect law, any good reason for granting them this indulgence.* 
 If the promptitude was catching, so was the imperfection. If 
 speedy legislation in one colony was likely to speed legislation in 
 others, it should have been remembered that one imperfect Act 
 approved was likely to entail its imperfections on the rest. What- 
 ever was accepted as adequate in the first, could not be rejected 
 as inadequate in those which followed. Neither can the event be 
 pleaded in justification. If it was an error at all, it has certainly 
 not proved a lucky one. To this original mistake most of the 
 imperfections which We shall have to notice in the working of the 
 new system may be distinctly traced. Of the very inconsiderable 
 portion of truth which, by the admixture of some unnamed 
 ingredient, has on certain recent occasions made itself appear so 
 terrible ; which has filled the capacious lungs of Mr. O'Connell, 
 expanded to the full dimensions of Exeter Hall, and after forcing 
 conviction like a shock through a thousand hearts, has been 
 condensed into six columns of the Times ; — of the very incon- 
 siderable number of facts which were swelled into so considerable 
 a manifestation, we believe that the greater number would never 
 have happened, if all the objectionable provisions in the first 
 Jamaica Act had been resisted as they ought to have been, and 
 the compensation withheld until every defect, whether in design 
 or execution, had been removed, — until really adequate and sati.s- 
 factory provision had been made for giving effect to the British xVct. 
 However, the deed was done — the money was paid. Thence- 
 forth, whatever amendments the Assembly might think it right 
 in delicacy to pass, must in prudence be accepted, as so much 
 better than nothing. 
 
 * Parliamentary Papers, I. p. 29-36.
 
 NEGRO ArPRENTICESHIP IX 1838. 51 
 
 Meantime, Lord Mnlgrave prorogued the Assembly in a speeeli 
 of just congratulation, in which they could hardly join, mixed with 
 good advice, which they do not seem to have generally followed ; 
 and the members returned home to assist in allaying any excite- 
 ment or misapprehensions which the agitation of the great news 
 might have excited among their shxves, and which might possibly 
 break out during the licence and relaxed discipline of the Christmas 
 holidays in some disturbance. At the same time the number of 
 troops was doubled ; the militia was warned to be in immediate 
 readiness; and Lord Mulgrave himself went round the island 
 diffusing confidence and tranquillity. But there was nothing to 
 fear, — the news had only excited in the negroes a greater content, 
 cheerfulness, and alacrity. 
 
 The preparations for the 1st of August went on slowly. Special 
 magistrates began to arrive by twos and threes — here and there a 
 planter might be seen modifying his system and sloping the way 
 to the change — and measures were in progress for the organization 
 of. an efficient police : in the midst of which Lord Mulgrave 
 quitted the government on account of failing health. He was 
 succeeded in March by Lord Sligo, himself an owner of property 
 in Jamaica, and at one time, we believe, an opponent of emanci- 
 pation ; but really a noble lord ; humane and earnest in his purposes 
 — clear and frank in his dealings ; teeming with unwearied 
 activities ; plunging boldly into the middle of all businesses in 
 the confidence of a just intention, and writing like a man. The 
 interval between his arrival and the 1st of August seems to have 
 passed in inquiries and observations, in tours of inspection, in 
 distributing proclamations to be read among the slaves, in re- 
 ceiving, disposing, and instructing the special magistrates. On 
 the 26th of June the Assembly met again, and having passed the 
 Police bill, proceeded to take into consideration the suggested 
 amendments in the Abolition Act. Several of them they adopted 
 in a new act passed on the 4th of July ; taking care, however 
 (with a caution which Lord Stanley had probably not permitted 
 himself* to anticipate), that it should expire at the end of 1835. 
 This Act Lord Aberdeen accepted f as a satisfactory compliance 
 with Lord Stanley's suggestions — as indeed what else could he 
 * Parliamentary Papers, I. p. 36. t Ibid. p. 41.
 
 52 NEGRO APPRENTrCESHIP IX 1838. 
 
 do?— objoeting only to the period of its expiration, wliich he left 
 
 them to alter if they would. 
 
 Thus the time wore on to the 1st of August — the eventful 
 
 day, big with the fate of planters and their prophecies, which was 
 
 to settle the long-disputed question, whether the driver's whip 
 
 could indeed be laid down without blood. Here is Lord Sligo's 
 
 Report, written on the 13th : 
 
 " In all parts of the island with the exception alone of Saint Ann's parish, 
 the transition from slavery to apprenticeship has been effected in the most satis- 
 factory manner. It is a remarkable feature in the pros^ress of that transition, 
 that the first of August was devoted in most parts of the island to devotional 
 exercises. In the sectarian chapels the service was performed several times in 
 the course of the day; in fact, as long as a fresh succession of auditors presented 
 themselves. It has been generally remarked, that hardly a drunken man was 
 seen in the streets on that day ; the Saturday was divided between business and 
 ])leasnre ; they were fully aware that the next day's market would be abolished, 
 and in consequence of this, being a holiday besides, the markets on that day 
 have been remarked everywhere to have been unusually large. Towards even- 
 ing the streets were crowded with parties of John-Canoe Men and their usual 
 noisj' accompaniments. At night in some of the towns there were fancy balls, 
 in which the authorities of the island, past and present, were represented. Several 
 individuals in the towns had given dinners to their new apprentices on the 
 previous day, and on very many of the estates steers were killed by the 
 proprietors and given to the negroes, besides their usual holiday allowances of 
 sugar, rum, and salt-fish ; so that both in the country and in the towns the 
 apprentices had their due share of amusements. On Sunday, the places of 
 worshi]) were again unusually crowded, and the day passed over in the most orderly 
 and quiet manner. My reports from all parts of the island, with the exception 
 of St. Ann's alone, state that on Monday the apprentices turned out to their 
 work with even more than usual readiness, in some places with alacrity, and all 
 with good humour." — P. 44. 
 
 It appeared afterwards that in four or five parishes some petty 
 disturbances had taken place, owing chiefly to the indiscretion of 
 overseers and managers, who had withdrawn the nurses and field- 
 cooks, had stopped the paths leading from the negro huts to their 
 provision grounds, or had refused to the mothers the time necessary 
 for suckling their children ; * but all of these had been easily 
 quelled. In one instance, there had been an obstinate strike of 
 work, which was not overcome without some severe punishments, 
 and some show of military force. In another, an attempt was 
 made to rescue some apprentices from punishment, and in the 
 confusion a trash-house was set on fire ; but it was found that 
 
 * Parliamentary Papers, p. 45.
 
 NEGRO APPRENTICESHIP IN 1838. 63 
 
 only two men had been concerned in it, and order was very soon 
 restored without resorting to any farther severity.* The rest of the 
 ishxud appears to have been perfectly tranquil, and so the terror 
 of that day passed by. The driver's whip had been resigned to the 
 magistrate ; sudden destruction had not come to man or beast. 
 
 But though a negro could be quiet without whipping, it did 
 not follow that he would work. All practical men knew that he 
 would not, and now the time was come to prove it. August, 
 September, October passed on, and the new system was still 
 struggling doubtfully. It had not yet got under way. The 
 practical men sate inactive, — waiting for the fulfilment of their 
 prediction. The number of special magistrates was insufficient. 
 The cane-pieces were growing foul. Crop time was approaching ; 
 and how was the crop to be taken off? All parties agreed that, 
 in the forty-five hours a- week allowed by law, it could liot be done ; 
 and Reports were coming in to Lord Sligo from all quarters, that 
 "the apprentices were most unwilling to work for hire." f It 
 was time for the Assembly to interfere : a case could now be 
 made out against the new system.J Three committees were 
 appointed to inquire how it was working, and how it could be 
 made to work better. The greater part of November was spent 
 in taking the opinions of practical men. Thirty-two persons 
 connected with the management of sugar estates were examined ; 
 of these twenty-seven agreed that the system was working ill, and 
 anticipated a ruinous deficiency of produce ; — nine of them esti- 
 mating the probable falling off at not less than one-half; twelve 
 at not less than one-third ; a twenty-eighth thought the system 
 was working pretty well, and the produce would not fall off more 
 than one-fourth. The remaining four reported favourably, and 
 anticipated no great difference.§ On the 13th of November, the 
 first of these committees arrived at the following conclusion, — not 
 an unimportant one in the history of West Indian prophecy : 
 
 " That the new system is not succeeiling ; that forty and a half hours of 
 labour in the week are inadequate to enable the cultivation of the country to be 
 continued ; that the negroes are performing no fair proportion of work, even 
 during that limited number of hours, and that during their own time very few 
 
 * Parliamentary Papers, I. p. 47. t lb. I. p. 48. 
 
 J pp. 75, 108, § p. 49.
 
 64 NEGEO APPEENTICESHIP IN 1838. 
 
 of them will work for such rate of wages as sugar cultivation can afford to pay ; 
 that iJlfUcss and contempt of authority are daily becoming more apparent and 
 alarming; that tlie pimento crop, the only article that has come to maturity 
 since the 1st of August, has been, to a great extent, lost to the proprietors, from 
 the impossibility of getting it gathered in ; that the coffee crop, now commencing, 
 is likely to share a similar fate; and that the prospect to the proprietors of 
 sugar estates is still more desperate, in the certainty that their canes must rot 
 tqyon the ground, from the absolute impossibility of manufacturing the juice into 
 sugar during the limited number of hours which the factories can be kept in 
 operation." — p. 49. 
 
 Divers recommendations followed ; and the Report having 
 been discussed in the Council and Assembly, was forwarded to 
 Lord Sligo on the 26th of November, with an xlddress, requesting 
 him, as the only chance of averting all this ruin, to invest forth- 
 with a suflficieut number of local magistrates with the special 
 commission. He replied, that he could not do that, but that 
 more special magistrates were already on their way from England ; 
 that he would make the system work well enough if they would 
 but lend him their hearty co-operation ; and that, if they would 
 not, they must take the consequences themselves.* 
 
 In the mean time, the special magistrates had not been idle. 
 While the Assembly was busy in proving that tlie system worked 
 ill, they were occupied in making it work well ; and by the time 
 that the Assembly had got all their proofs in order, the case was 
 altogether altered. The jealousies and misapprehensions which 
 clouded the minds of the apprentices had been cleared away. 
 And scarcely had Lord Sligo replied to the Address when letters 
 began to come in from all quarters, reporting that arrangements 
 had been made for taking off the crops, with every prospect of 
 success ; and that there was no difficulty in inducing the negroes 
 to do extra work for such wages as the estates might very well 
 afford. On the 9th of December he writes : — 
 
 " I am happy, however, at being able in conclusion to state, that in spite of 
 all the obstacles which I have met with, matters are, up to this date, hourly 
 couiing into a more healthy state. The masters arc becoming more reconciled 
 to the new system, and the apprentices more reasonable. The consequence is, 
 tliat the negroes are falling by degrees into a steady system, advantageous alike 
 to themselves and the proprietors. I cannot help thinking that tlie managers 
 will now, when the imi^^rtant season of crop is arri\'cd, feel tliat their interests 
 arc too important to be trifled with ; that ruin must follow their want of success; 
 
 * p. 49.
 
 NEGRO APPRENTICESHIP IN 1838. 65 
 
 that all chance of recovering their lost power of punishment is passed by ; will 
 really co-operate, and each in their own interior adopt their only resource, a 
 humane but energetic system, which will produce the best effects on the minds 
 of the apprentices. In that confidence, I look now with much kss apprehension 
 on the result of the present crop, than I did some few weeks ago, although I 
 have no certainty on the subject. 
 
 "I have not the slightest apprehension of any disturbance at Christmas; but 
 at the same time I think it expedient to send out the usual detachments, which 
 will move on the 17th, and, I trust, return home on the 10th January. I do 
 hope that after this occasion there will no longer be found any necessity for the 
 adoption of this expensive measure," — p. 63. 
 
 The new system was now fairly under way. Each succeeding 
 report was more favourable than its foreruniier. The planters 
 were growing daily more reconciled ; all alarms of disturbance 
 and insurrection had vanished ; and doubts began to arise whether, 
 after all, the canes would really rot in the ground. The 
 Christmas holidays came, were spent merrily, and passed off 
 quietly ; the negroes returned cheerfully to their work. On the 
 1st of January, Lord Sligo sent extracts from all the letters which 
 he had received on the subject, — showing that all over the island 
 they were behaving as well as need be. The rest of that month 
 and the next was occupied in receiving more Reports to the same 
 effect. " On all the estates, where hard labour had gone on for 
 two or three weeks, and wages ivere regularly paid on Saturday 
 night, any extent of work might be performed." * 
 
 Thus the first chapter of the experiment was closing, to the 
 surprise of practical men. But one thing was yet wanting to 
 wind it up ; to clench the conclusions which it pointed at ; and 
 finally to dismiss into oblivion the Evidence, the Eeport, and the 
 Recommendations of the November committee. The special 
 magistrates had indeed said that the crop could be taken off; but 
 they might be partial, or ignorant ; whatever they might know of 
 the new negro character, they knew nothing about the raising of 
 sugar; what had been done? This last refuge of destitute dis- 
 content Lord Sligo, who shuns no inquiry and fears the face of no 
 fact in the world, determined to overthrow. He called for as 
 many returns as could be procured from the managers, of the 
 quantity of sugar which had been actually made up to the latest 
 
 * Parliamentary Papers, p. 115.
 
 56 
 
 NEGRO APrREXTICESHIP IN 1838. 
 
 period, as compared with the quantity made up to a corresponding 
 period the year before. These returns may be found at pages 20 
 and 36 of the second part of the Parliamentary papers, in the 
 state in which he received them. The result may be best seen in 
 the following summary, which we have made by our own private 
 arithmetic. 
 
 Summary of Returns showing the number of hogsheads of sugar made on 
 several estates in Jamaica up to the 28th of February, 1834, and up to the 
 same date 1835 ; amounting to something less than one-fifth of the whole. 
 
 Parishes. 
 
 1834. 
 
 1835. 
 
 Increase. 
 
 Decrease. 
 
 Per Cent. 
 
 
 St. Andrews . 
 
 357 
 
 318 
 
 
 39 
 
 10-9 
 
 
 St. Catherine . 
 
 25 
 
 18 
 
 
 7 
 
 28 
 
 
 Clarendon 
 
 SSI 
 
 849 
 
 
 5 
 
 0-5 
 
 
 St. David's 
 
 551 
 
 377 
 
 
 174 
 
 31-5 
 
 
 St. Dorothy's . 
 
 184 
 
 248 
 
 64 
 
 
 3-4 
 
 Incr. 
 
 St. George's 
 
 12 
 
 17 
 
 5 
 
 
 41-6 
 
 do. 
 
 Hanover . 
 
 774 
 
 616 
 
 
 158 
 
 20 3 
 
 
 St. James's 
 
 1801 
 
 1332 
 
 
 529 
 
 38-4 
 
 
 St. Jolui's 
 
 118 
 
 128 
 
 10 
 
 
 8-4 
 
 do. 
 
 St. Mary's 
 
 204 
 
 147 
 
 
 57 
 
 27-9 
 
 
 St. Thomas in Kast . 
 
 1851 
 
 1602 
 
 
 249 
 
 13-3 
 
 
 St. Thomas in Yale . 
 
 376 
 
 305 
 
 
 71 
 
 18-8 
 
 
 Trelawney 
 
 16G0 
 
 1572 
 
 
 88 
 
 5-3 
 
 
 Vere 
 
 lOGtJ 
 
 1171 
 
 105 
 
 
 9-8 
 
 
 Westmoreland . 
 
 5820 
 
 5051 
 
 
 769 
 
 13-2 
 
 do. 
 
 Totals 
 
 15713 
 
 13751 
 
 184 
 
 2146 
 
 12-5 
 
 Dec. 
 
 Thus we see that at the end of February the produce had 
 fallen below that of the preceding year by not more than twelve 
 per cent. ; though, only three months before, a falling off of at 
 least thirty-three per cent, had been confidently predicted by 
 twenty-seven planters out of thirty-two. And this comparatively 
 trifling deficiency was afterwards reduced by about a third. The 
 whole crop of 1835 fell below that of 1834 by about 8*5 per cent. 
 
 It was now therefore clear, even to experienced persons, that 
 the crop then on the ground would be got off, and got off without 
 difficulty or ruinous expense. Thus far the visionaries had proved 
 the truer prophets. The predictions of the November committee 
 might be put by. All alarms on that score fled from the minds 
 of men, and took refuge in the newspapers — the last refuge which 
 false things find on earth before they take their final departure to 
 the place ai)pointed for them.
 
 NEGRO ArrREXTICESIIIP IN 1838. 57 
 
 But what matter ? Experience was not yet exhausted ; other 
 predictions might yet be made. The negroes might work in 
 taking off the crop ; it was a kind of work which they had always 
 liked.* But would they work in digging the ground ? Experi- 
 ence answered NO. Ruin, then, would come in 1836 instead of 
 1835. In a Memorial drawn up in May, 1835, by the proprietors, 
 planters, and other persons connected with the management of 
 plantations in Trelawney, this new prophecy found fit utterance. 
 The Memorial showed that the apprenticeship system " had, after 
 nine months' trial, confirmed the anticipations of all practical 
 men of -its ruinous consequenc s ; " the present sugar crop, for want 
 of the requisite labour, did not promise to be " even an average 
 one ; " such as it was, it had been purchased at the expense of the 
 necessary preparations for the next ; the falling off next year 
 would be more serious, the year after more serious still, and so on 
 till the system terminated in the gradual throwing up of sugar 
 estates ; thus " they had the miserable prospect before them, that 
 in a short period the cultivation of the staple productions in the 
 island must cease : " the only chance left was a large emigration 
 of whites at the expense of the mother country.! 
 
 This Memorial was signed by seventy -three persons, and at 
 their request was immediately forwarded by Lord Sligo to the 
 Secretary of State. Close upon its heels followed letters from 
 each of the special magistrates whose districts lay in that parish, 
 written of their own accord,t denying, on the authority of the 
 overseers themselves, that the statements were true as regarded 
 that immediate neighbourhood ; § and about a month afterwards 
 came a host of Reports from all parts of the island relative to the 
 state of cultivation and the prospects of. next year's crop ; |j — the 
 sum of which was, that on 224 out of 762 estates, the cultivation 
 was from various causes more or less backward ; a result more 
 favourable than Lord Sligo had anticipated, and readily enough 
 accounted for without adopting the conclusion of that melancholy 
 Memorial. 
 
 But crop was now over, or nearly so ; and this last best 
 
 * See tlio evidence given before the Committee of 1832. 
 
 t rarliamcntaiy Tapers, 11. j). 44. X p. 21.5. 
 
 § p. 15-17. II Parliamentary Tapers, 221—239, 270.
 
 58 NEGRO APPRENTICESHIP IN 1838. 
 
 prediction was coming, like its predecessors, to the proof. That 
 it was not conlirmed by the event does not appear to have been the 
 fault of the planters. The interval which was yet theirs seems to 
 Lave been used in a strano;e manner — used in devisino- new modes 
 of vexation, in reviving a system of opppression not the less 
 odious because it was now altogether ineffectual, in spreading dis- 
 content and distrust all around them. Before the last crop com- 
 menced they had done simply nothing; when it came on, and 
 they found that " their interests were not to be trifled with," they 
 had adopted a more liberal and conciliatory system with complete 
 success ; but now that tlie pressure and alarm were over, their 
 hearts were hardened, and they would fain recover what they had 
 lost. Such instruments of arbitrary annoyance as were still un- 
 happily within their reach they eagerly grasped at. Indulgences, 
 which custom had made necessaries, were withdrawn, or extra 
 labour exacted in return for them. Old and feeble persons, 
 mothers of many children, — " sitting down people," as they were 
 called, — were employed in labours which the customs of slavery 
 had spared them. Women in the latter stages of pregnancy, or 
 soon after confinement, were ordered to work in the field. The 
 " eight hour system " * — an arrangement, of which the object, and 
 apparently the only object, was to deprive the negroes of their 
 half holiday on Friday — was generally adopted. Though it was 
 visibly spreading discontent all over the island, it became so 
 favourite an object with many of the planters, that meetings were 
 got up in various places to bring it into fashion, and remonstrances 
 only made them the more determined to have their way.f 
 
 By such devices as these, a considerable number of the planters 
 seem to have hoped, in spite of all reason and all experience, — 
 experience so plentiful that it might be had for the picking up, — 
 to make the negroes work freely in the kind of work which was 
 least agreeable to them. That there was much positive cruelty 
 in their proceedings, — that in physical comfort, indeed, the 
 negroes were much the worse for them, — we see no reason to 
 
 * The system under which the apprenticed lahourers were made to work eight 
 lioura for the fiiht five days in tlie week: instead of nine for the first four, and four 
 and a half on the fifth, Tlie law admitted either arrangement. 
 
 t Sec Mr. liravo's Letter, III. i». b7.
 
 NEGRO APrEENTICICSIIir IN 1838. 59 
 
 believe. But morally and politically, the effect must have been 
 extremely bad ; worse, probably, than the planters themselves can 
 be made to understand. It was a most false step at a most critical 
 conjuncture. How many hearts willing and ready to learn that a 
 master might be a friend, — how many confiding dispositions then 
 timidly venturing forth — shrunk back corrected by those most 
 foolish proceedings and relapsed into their former not unreason- 
 able jealousy, must be for ever left to conjecture. 
 
 With all these exertions, however, they did not succeed in 
 bringing to pass the evils which they had predicted. From this 
 time Lord Sligo's Despatches come thicker and thicker. The 
 special magistrates' Reports grow longer and more numerous. 
 Every successive packet brings in a cloud of anecdotes, facts, 
 opinions, and anticipations, of various tendency, credibility, and 
 weight ; but carrying with them altogether indubitable evidence 
 of a general advance on the part of the negroes both forwards and 
 upwards ; — offences less frequent ; their new position and obliga- 
 tions better understood ; instances of mutual confidence more 
 common ; marriages coming into fashion ; more wages paid ; more 
 work done ; cultivation recovering its proper forwardness, in some 
 instances extending itself; the digging of cane holes becoming 
 the favourite, because the most profitable, kind of work ; * here 
 and there a plough taking place of the hoe gang— it being found 
 " that even negroes could guide and manage it ; that they could 
 see straight enough ; which till of late seems to have been 
 generally disbelieved ; " f — in a word, the last best prediction of 
 the practical men not coming true.| The Trelawney Memorialists 
 may cheer up. Their Memorial may be put by. 
 
 * Mr. Price's Letter, III. p. 374. 
 
 t Mr. Daughtry's Letter, II. p. 264. 
 
 X It is of course impossible to make distinct references in support of a general 
 statement like this. The better, however, to assure ourselves that it is tl»e result of 
 no vague impression made up of what is most agreeable in the evidence, but of a 
 fair judgment upon the whole, we have thought it worth while carefully to analyze 
 tlic entire series of Reports for October, 1835, and we have noted the following con- 
 clusions, as distinctly deducible from them : — 
 
 1. Tliroughout the island, without excption, the apprentices showed uo disposi- 
 tion to bi- insubordinate as a body. 
 
 2. In every district, without exception, they are represented as improving. 
 
 3. In every district except two (Jones and Harris, St. Thomas in the Vale), in
 
 60 NEGRO AlTKENTICESHir IN 1838. 
 
 From this time to the end of June, wlien the correspondence 
 terminates, the tenor of these Eeports continues much the same, 
 so far as the general working of the xippreuticeship is concerned. 
 Crimes continued to grow less frequent ; com[)laints between 
 master and apprentice fewer ; corporal punishment was more 
 rarely inflicted. In the early part of December "an extra- 
 ordinary revolution all over the island " * was announced by Lord 
 Sligo in the feeling between master and apprentice. The planters 
 " appeared to be aware of the perilous consequences of harshness. 
 An(;l (with a few obstinate exceptions) a totally diiferent manner 
 of treatment had been adopted, which promised the happiest 
 results."t It was observed also that the Christmas holidays had 
 passed over more rationally than was ever before known ; that 
 there had been less " John Canoeing " than usual ; and that 
 Christmas-day and Sunday had been spent in a remarkably 
 serious manner. In the meantime, the cry of ruin was no longer 
 
 ■which they are described as sullen and obstinate, their behaviour to their masters 
 was proper and respectful. 
 
 4. In every district except six (Hulme, Hanover ; Jones and Harris, St. Thomas 
 in the Vale; Dawson, Willis, and T. Baines, St. Thomas in the East), they were 
 doing a fair proportion of work in their ma^turs' time. 
 
 5. During crop they had in almost every instance laboured in their own time for 
 wages willingly and well. 
 
 6. Both in and out of crop, where high enough wages were offered {i.e., more 
 than they could make by working on thuir ov/n grounds), they were in the great 
 majority of cases willing to work for hire. 
 
 7. During the hours of labour they were doing at least as much work as they did 
 during slavery — generally mucli more. 
 
 8. In working by the task, they had in all cases shown unusual energy and 
 activity. 
 
 9. Of the six properties on which the apprentices were described as not doing 
 their fair work, there was only one on which the cultivation was said to be back- 
 ward, or the prospect of tlie ensuing crop unpromising. Wherever else the cultiva- 
 tion was backward, it was ascribed to weather, mismanagement, scarcity of hands, 
 or other causes ; but not to any misconduct on the part of the negroes. 
 
 10. In the cultivation of sugar, much labour and expense might be saved by 
 using the plough. Where it had been tried, it had been perfectly successful. 
 
 11. Tlie planters themselves were beginning to be of opinion, that during the 
 apprenticeship the staple articles might still bu succes-sfully cultivated. This 
 appeared, in some cases, by their own confession ; — in others, by their more extensive 
 preparations for ensuing crops. 
 
 12. In general a better feeling was growing up between master and apprentice. 
 I'd. Crimes of a serious kind were rare. 
 
 * p. 150. t Parliamentary Papers, p. 161.
 
 NEGRO ArrRENTICESniP IN 183S. fil 
 
 heard. Silence, more siguificant than speecli, had fallen upon 
 the planting interest. A severe drought during October and 
 November had blighted the promise of the ensuing crop ; heavy- 
 rains during the following summer had retarded the gathering ; it 
 was the shortest that had been for many years ; yet the planters 
 did not despair. Their hopes had risen with the price of sugar. 
 Ruin was not to come till 1840 at least. Instead of preparing 
 t-liemselves for " the gradual throwing up of sugar estates," they 
 began to enlarge their cane-pieces ; to pay higher wages ; in many 
 instances to restore old indulgences which had been withdrawn ; 
 and, in short, to bid boldly for their share iu the expected profits of 
 the apprenticeship. 
 
 The foregoing pages contain, we believe, a fair picture of the 
 progress of the Apprenticeship in Jamaica, in its broad and 
 general features. For the truth of it we appeal with confidence to 
 the testimony of the special magistrates ; — a confidence not shaken 
 by the scorn with which some persons — who would be thought to 
 know what they are speaking of — have set aside that testimony 
 as worthless. We are not unaware of the light in which these 
 gentlemen have been held up in pamphlets and at public meet- 
 ings, nor of the plausibility of the arguments and anecdotes which 
 have been advanced in illustration. iStories have been told, many 
 of which we can well believe to be true, of secret oppressions 
 passing undetected by them, or detected too late for redress ; of 
 piteous tales summarily set aside as frivolous ; of lashes inflicted 
 for offences apparently slight ; of stinted allowances and medical 
 neglect ; of pieces of plate presented by the planters to magis- 
 trates dismissed for misconduct. Stories like these, told confidently 
 one after another, without any allusion to the countless stories of 
 exactly opposite tendency which might be told, will naturally 
 make a deep impression on persons unprepared by an acquaintance 
 with the whole matter to assign to them their proper place and 
 comparative importance. They may even seem to countenance 
 the opinion that the special magistrates are the mere agents of 
 the overseers and managers, and their reports worthless, as 
 excluding everything which is either disagreeable to the planters 
 or discreditable to themselves. We, however, who have been led
 
 62 NEGRO ArrREXTICESHir IN 1838. 
 
 in pursuit of the truth to peruse the Reports in question — stretch- 
 ing as they do over many scores of closely-printed folio pages, — • 
 to read them all through, and to scrutinize many of them very 
 closely, — are bound to say that the opinion is most unjust and 
 injurious, and altogether destitute of plausibility. We will 
 venture to add, that no reasonable person who has read any con- 
 siderable proportion of the Reports contained in these volumes 
 can believe it to be true. There is nothing for which these com- 
 positions are more remarkable than the distinct impress which 
 they bear of the temper and spirit in which they are written. 
 We almost feel personally acquainted with the greater number of 
 the writers. We could almost point out by their styles the good, 
 the bad, and the indifferent. One writes himself down a feeble 
 magistrate ; another harsh ; another careless ; another pompous. 
 One or two we place no faith in ; and there are a few who give us 
 little or no information. But taking them as a miscellaneous body 
 of men, — who have to ride two or three hundred miles and dispose 
 of five or six hundred complaints every month, and to receive 
 only £450 a year, — we must say that they have discharged their 
 most important, but at the same time most difficult, laborious, 
 harassing, and thankless duties, with a degree of zeal, ability, and 
 integrity which deserves some other reward than these idle 
 aspersions. That they have not succeeded in protecting all 
 apprentices against all injustice, is most true. That they have 
 not even detected all the injuries to which the apprentices have 
 been exposed, is most probable. That where they have detected 
 the injury, they have in some cases been unable to afford redress, 
 we are not prepared to deny. But that complaints have been pre- 
 ferred and not listened to — abuses and oppressions detected and 
 passed over — injuries proved and not redressed, so far as redress 
 was practicable — we have yet to learn. That such things have 
 happened in any considerable number of instances we should find 
 it very hard to believe ; and, to say the truth, we could well wish 
 that those who are so dissatisfied with the measure of justice 
 which the negroes obtain under the xVpprenticeship system, would 
 suggest the means of securing for them as fair a measure when 
 the Apprenticeship shall be over. As far as we can make out, the 
 worst injuries to which the apprentices are exjjosed have been
 
 NEGEO ArPREXTICESIIIP IN 1838. 03 
 
 inflicted by tho overseers and managers, acquiesced in by the local 
 justices, brcuglit to light by the special magistrates, prosecuted 
 by the Attorney-General, and finally secured from punishment by 
 the Grand Jury throwing out the bilL* We fear that all this 
 indicates an inveterate disease whicli will hardly yield to tho 
 simple specific proposed by IMr. Beaumont — an extension to them 
 of the elective franchise.f Elect who will, be returned who may, 
 summary justice there must still bo ; and it will bo but Jamaica 
 justice when all is done. 
 
 What, then, after all, has been the eifect of the change upon 
 the interests of the two parties more immediately concerned — the 
 Planters and the Apprentices ? 
 
 That the effect upon the planters has been less injurious than 
 they expected, will hardly be denied, lluin was to have met 
 them at every step. First, the negroes would never be restrained 
 from violence ; then they would never be compelled to work 
 without the driver and his whip ; then they would never do extra 
 work in crop-time for wages ; then they would never do extra 
 work out of crop-time for wages, and so on. All these fears are 
 blown away. It is quite clear that the planters are not yet 
 ruined. But there is yrt room for one fear more. Though they 
 can get as much labour as they want, it does not follow that they 
 can afford to pay for it. Though sugar cultivation be carried on, 
 it may be carried on at a loss, or at a profit so much reduced that 
 the planter may have a right to complain. 
 
 Let us now inquire how the matter really stands. Unfortu- 
 nately, our information on this head is very partial and incom- 
 plete. The few cases, however, on which we have sufficient data 
 for comparing the present with the former profits of sugar estates 
 will perhaps, if rightly weighed, justify a pretty large conjecture 
 as to the rest. Or though they may not help us to a knowledge 
 of the profits which have been actually made by the Jamaica 
 proprietors since the Apprenticeship began, they will at least 
 enable us to judge with some accuracy what might have been 
 made by a judicious management. 
 
 * See " Correspondence relative to Maltrratraent of Prisoners in the House of 
 Correction," etc. Printed for tlic House of Lords, loth July. IX'M. 
 
 t See Evidence taken before the Apprenticeship Committee, 4294, seq.
 
 64 NEGRO APPRENTICESHIP IN 1838. 
 
 It must be remembered that besides the gratuitous labour of 
 each apprentice for forty hours and a half during the week, which 
 the proprietor still retains, he has received, in compensation for 
 wliat was taken away, a sum of money, of which the annual 
 interest amounts, in Jamaica, to about £1 sterling for each 
 apprentice.* This he may do what he likes with. He may throw 
 it into the Thames or the Mersey in disgust ; he may keep it in 
 a napkin, to show how much less it is than what he has lost by 
 tlie diminished produce of his estates ; he may place it in the 
 Funds, as so much saved from the wreck ; he may invest it in lan<l 
 or railroad shares at home, or send it abroad on other adventures. 
 But unless he spends it upon his estates in Jamaica, he has no 
 right to complain that the produce of those estates is falling off. 
 
 Now, though we know how much sugar has been annually 
 made by the apprentices, at what prices it has sold, and what is 
 the amount of compensation, we cannot ascertain generally what 
 has been the additional cost of production. We cannot therefore 
 represent in figures how much the Jamaica proprietors have gained 
 or lost by the change ; or how much of the diminution of produce 
 is to be charged upon themselves, as not having laid out in wages 
 all the money which was given them for that purpose. We have 
 little doubt that if the truth could be known, nearly the whole 
 deficiency of the sugar crops of 1835 and 183G might be accounted 
 for in this way. We believe that a very small portion of the 
 interest of the compensation has been applied to this purpose ; 
 and that much even of that has been applied injudiciously in 
 hiring jobbers at an enormous price, when the apprentices mi^ht 
 liave been induced to do all the work that was wanted by a 
 comparatively trifling advcxnce in the rate of wages. This, how- 
 ever, without having access to the estates' books, we cannot prove. 
 We can only prove that the evidence we have, so far as it goes, 
 points that way. 
 
 This evidence was given before the Apprenticeship Committee, 
 in 1836, by four different planters, all sensible and liberal men, 
 each of whom adopted a different style of management with 
 answerable results. 
 
 First, there was Mr. Maurice Jones, with about 6000 negroes 
 * See Mr. Shirley's evidence before tlie Appreuticeship Committee, 5050, seq.
 
 NEGRO APrREXTICESHIP IN 1838. 65 
 
 under his management,* who set out with an unfavourable opinion 
 of the Apprenticeship, wliich has not been altogether removed, 
 and is "now anxious (solely, he says, in consequence of the abolition 
 of slavery) to separate himself altogether from Jamaica.f This 
 gentleman began by assuming that sullicient labour to keep up 
 his former cultivation would not be procurable, and at once threw 
 up one-third.l He did not, however, reduce his former expenses. 
 He continued all the old allowances and indulgences,§ and paid 
 wages for all the extra labour which was wanted for the cultivation 
 of the remaining two-thirds of his estates. || This extra labour 
 cost him £336 currency, where formerly it used to cost him only 
 £200.T[ The issue was, that two-thirds of an aveiage crop were 
 produced. The two estates used to produce three hundred hogs- 
 heads. One-third being abandoned, they produced only two 
 hundred.** 
 
 Now, the interest of the compensation money would have 
 enabled Mr. Jones to lay out £500 sterling in extra labour, in 
 addition to his usual outlay ; whereas he only laid out £136 
 currency, or about £80 sterling. The remaining £420 remained 
 idle. Had this sum been employed in cultivating the abandoned 
 portion of the property, it is not impossible (as Mr. Jones does 
 not seem to have found any difficulty in procuring labour) that 
 the other hundred hogsheads might have been made. 
 
 Next comes Mr. Miller, who also began with a bad opinion of 
 the Apprenticeship,tt though he now entertains a better. He 
 had several estates under his management, and did not manao^e 
 them all alike ; but he has furnished full particulars of the 
 expenses connected with one of them, which may be taken, we 
 presume, as a fair specimen. 
 
 He also, in common with all the large attorneys, continued 
 the old allowances and indulgences as usual,J| but abandoned no 
 part of his cultivation. During the first four months of the 
 Apprenticeship he paid no wages — appears, indeed, to have made 
 no attempt to obtain extra work;§§ but in December he made 
 
 * See App. Cora., 5316. f 5i89-90. J 5369. § 5354. 
 
 II 5318, 5324, 5431-6. 1 5397-8. ** 5383. 
 
 tt See his evidence before the Jamaica Committee of November, 1834. Parlia- 
 meutary Papers, I. p. 98. 
 
 XX 3651-5. §§ Parliamentary Papers, I. p. 98. 
 
 F
 
 66 NEGRO APPRENTICESHIP IN 1838. 
 
 arrangements for taking off the crop. The estate in question 
 contained 320 apprentices. To these, during the eighteen weeks 
 of crop, he paid wages for extra work at the rate of about £13 
 currency a-week.* His whole additional expense, therefore, 
 amounted to £234 cnrreucy — about £137 sterling ; and the 
 result was, that the produce of the estate fell off by not more 
 than one-tenth ; f and that falliug-off was owing, he says, to 
 " want of labour." 
 
 Now, supposing the interest of the compensation to have been 
 about £320 sterling, we find that Mr. Miller could have afforded 
 to pay £183 sterling more than he did; and that would have 
 enabled him to keep up the same quantity of extra labour for 
 five or six months longer, — which labour, judiciously applied, 
 would have probably ensured not only an average crop that year, 
 but adequate preparations for the next. 
 
 Next comes Mr. Oldham, a proprietor and attorney, with 4000 
 negroes under his charge,:j: who entertains a favourable opinion 
 of the Apprenticeship,§ and thinks Jamaica property a good 
 speculation. 
 
 He also continued all the usual indulgences and allowances,! 
 and paid liberal wages. In return, he found no difficulty in 
 getting as much work as he wanted,1[ except on Saturdays, when 
 he was obliged to hire jobbers. 
 
 His extra expenses amounted in twenty-two months to about 
 £2000 currency for wages, and about £8000 currency paid to 
 jobbers.** 
 
 Now, the interest of the compensation during the same period 
 amounted to about £10,728 currency. Nearly the whole of this, 
 therefore, he had spent in the proper way. And what was the 
 result ? That the crops pioduced were about equal to those 
 produced during slavery ,tt or rather more.|| 
 
 Lastly, we come to the plan adopted by Mr. Shirley, apparently 
 the most judicious of all. It was he who gave it as his opinion,§§ 
 before the Jamaica Committee, in November, 1834, that the 
 
 * 3556, eeq. t 3591. J 4581-4. § 4818-9. 
 
 II 4004-70. 1 4743-8. ** 4802-3G, 4865, 4900-17. 
 
 ft 4812. XX Letter to Lord Sligo ; Parliamentary Papers, III. p. 378. 
 
 §§ Parliamentary Papers, I. p. 01.
 
 NECEO ATTRENTICESHir TN 1838. 07 
 
 Apprenticeship would do very well ; and was taunted * in return 
 with his short residence in the island and his unacquaiutance with 
 the negro character. 
 
 He seems to have been the only proprietor whose plans extended 
 beyond the term of Apprenticeship. Most of them seem to have 
 thought only of geting off the current crop. Others looked 
 forward to the year beyond, and laid out money in the neci ssary 
 cultivation. Others again went farther, and, by general liindness 
 and liberality, by promoting education, and encouraging the 
 negroes to work for wages, endeavoured to secure their lasting 
 confidence and goodwill. But Mr. Shirley alone seems to have 
 aimed at altering and elevating their position ; — at making them 
 feel less like apprentices, and more like hired labourers ;^aud 
 thus at giving them a foretaste of independence, and of tliat 
 feeling of responsibility to themselves for their own actions which 
 goes along with it. 
 
 He began by explaining j to them how much labour he had 
 a right to require from them — 40| hours weekly, at a rate of 
 not more than nine hours a day. This was an hour less than 
 their accustomed day's work, and might possibly give rise to 
 disputes. To avoid this, he proposed (it appears to us most 
 judiciously), that they should go on as they had been used to 
 do, — working ten hours a day for the first four days in the week ; 
 and then, if they would agree to work the fifth day also, he would 
 allow them for that clay's work the highest wages which he could 
 afford to pay ; and this arrangement should extend to the whole 
 gang, and continue the whole year roimd.| To this they assented 
 readily ; and it was settled that they were to work for him in the 
 ordinary way for five days in the week, receiving wages every 
 fifth day. 
 
 But this was not all. It was desirable to accustom them not 
 only to receive wages regularly, but to look to them as a part of 
 their ordinary means of subsistence, instead of a mere matter of 
 extra luxury ; § — to accustom them, in short, to labour for their 
 daily bread. With this view, he immediately withdrew such 
 usual supplies and allowances as he could withdraw legally ; on 
 
 * Parliamentary Papers, I. p. 5099. t Parliumentary Papers, 5037, sej, 
 
 X 5092. § 50U0, ol02, 510G.
 
 68 NEGRO ArrRENTPCESHIP IN 1838. 
 
 the iiuderstanding that the value of them was to be added to 
 their Friday's wages. By adding the sum thus saved to the 
 interest of the compensation, he found that he could afford to 
 pay them for their fifth day's work a sum equal to the highest 
 sum paid to jobbers. The whole arrangement appears to have 
 been fully understood by them, and cheerfully assented to. 
 
 In this way, having laid out the entire interest of the com- 
 pensation and the entire value of the withdrawn allowances in 
 wages for extra work to the whole gang the whole year round, 
 JMr. Shirley found that he had made as much sugar as he could 
 have made if slavery had been continued ; * that his pre- 
 parations for the succeeding crop were just as forward as usual ; 
 and, in addition to all this, that he had put his Apprentices 
 in the fairest way to understand the duties and appreciate 
 the position of the free labourers which they were shortly to 
 become. 
 
 It may, perhaps, be suspected that these cases have been 
 selected for show, out of many others which would have given a 
 different result. This, however, is not true. These four cases 
 are all that we have been able to find, in which particulars enough 
 are given for comparing the present with the former position of 
 the Jamaica proprietors. So far as they go, they appear to justify 
 the inference, that if any planter be a loser under the new system, 
 it is only because he has not used his capital judiciously. To say 
 positively that no instance has occurred in which the whole 
 interest of the compensation has been laid out on the property, 
 and yet the produce has fallen off, is of course impossible. We 
 can only say, that, if any such case has been brought forward, we 
 have not succeeded in discovering it.f 
 
 * 5084. 
 
 t A case of increase in the value of property since the Apprenticeship, is men- 
 tioned by Mr. I'ennel, a special justice; I'ar. I'apers, III. p. 207. " An estate in njy 
 district was rented at the commencement of the apprenticeship system by Mr. Walcott 
 of this palish, from Mr. I^yons of London, on the following terms : — Forty hhds. to 
 be given yearly, and everything rephiced at tlie end of the apprenticeship that may 
 be defi''ient. I am given to understand that, for many years past, this estate has 
 not paid one fraction to the proprietor, and that Mr. Walcott has, notwithstanding, 
 been so fortunate as to clear £1200 on the last crop, and will probably continue to 
 do so (if not even better) to the end of the time." 
 
 It is to be regretted that tbe mode of management adopted by Mr. Walcott is nut 
 menlioncd. A case somewhat similar is reJaleJ by Mr. Inues, in Antigua.
 
 NEGRO APPRENTICESHIP IN 1838. 69 
 
 If our inference be correct — and we claim for it no more 
 authority than appears in the premises — it is one of considerable 
 importance ; because we cannot find any other statistical infor- 
 mation from which a safe conclusion can be drawn as to the 
 prospects of the planters, and the work that may be looked for 
 from the apprenticed Libourers. 
 
 For indications of the value of Jamaica property in the market, 
 we have searched in vain. Some large assertions have been made 
 about it, but they appear to rest on the credit of the asserters. 
 Captain Oidrey, in his evidence before the Apprenticeship Com- 
 mittee, said he could prove that it had risen from 30 to 50 per 
 cent ; * and Mr. Beaumont declared that it had risen at least 
 25 per cent.t But no proof was offered in support of these 
 opinions ; and the truth seems to be, that, though notoriously 
 more valuable than it has been, it has not yet acquired any settled 
 price in the market ; and therefore no accurate estimate of its 
 comparative value can be formed. Some estates have been sold, 
 others offered for sale ; but they were valued according to the 
 returns which they might be expected to make during the re- 
 maining years of the Apprenticeship, without reference to their 
 value afterwards.! Mr. Miller § and Mr. Oldham || both agree 
 that they would not give more than four years' purchase for an 
 estate ; though the former admits that " it is a matter of feeling," 
 and that " persons disposed to speculate might give more; " and 
 the latter confessedly does not share in the general anticipation 
 of " a total failure after 1840."1[ It would appear, therefore, that 
 the remaining term of Apprenticeship has a value in the market, 
 though the land itself has not ; not because it is worth nothing, 
 but because people are waiting to see what it is worth. It is 
 clear that it is worth something, in Mr. Oldham's eyes ; for he is 
 himself a buyer ; ** though he will not say, and very likely does 
 not know, how much. In fact, from the tenor of his evidence on 
 this subject (which is not quite consistent), it may be inferred that 
 he has made no very definite calculations as to the probable 
 profits of sugar cultivation in future ; but has certain general 
 
 * Pari. Papers, 31-12. t 1169. 
 
 X See Miller's evidence, 3798, et seq. ; and Oldham's, 4851. 
 
 § 3728. II 4815. t Pari. Papers, 4837. 
 
 ** See Letter to Lord Sligo, Parliamentary Papers, III. p. 378.
 
 70 ^^EGRO APrRENTlCESHIP IN 1838. 
 
 favourable anticipations which induce him to speculate in West 
 Indian property himself, bat not to overpraise the thing which 
 he wishes to buy. And the general result of the inquiry appears 
 to be (as might have been anticipated), that there is nothing in 
 the state of the market from which any inference can be drawn 
 as to the value of property in Jamaica, one way or other. Each 
 person must be left to form his own anticipations. 
 
 Neither does the amount of produce, actually made since the 
 Apprenticeship began, afford a fair criterion of the state of 
 productive industry in Jamaica. Each of the crops has been 
 affected by a variety of accidental causes, which will account for 
 a temporary diminution ; and by one permanent cause from which 
 a constant diminution must always be expected and allowed for. 
 We allude to the number of poor weak-handed estates which have 
 hitherto been kept up in profitable cultivation, by over-working 
 the slaves in a way which ought never to have been permitted, 
 and therefore for the prevention of which no compensation is due ; 
 as well as to the number of properties which have been already 
 worked out, which are naturally producing less and less every 
 year, and are to be considered as having already paid their 
 owners. 
 
 Independently of this, the croj) of 1835 was subject to dis- 
 turbing causes in two ways. First, the amount of the crop (as 
 observed by Mr. Shirley) depends chiefly upon the quantity of 
 plants put in, and the state of cultivation in the previous year. 
 Ail that was to be done in that year, was to take off, by ap- 
 prenticed labour, the crop which had been reared under the whip. 
 Had the crop of 1835, therefore, been a plentiful one, it would 
 only have proved that, under the apprenticeship a plentiful crop 
 could be tahen off, — not that it could be raised. As it was, it 
 only proved that a short crop could be taken off. But then again 
 the shortness of the crop may have been owing neither to the 
 weather, nor to the want of work, but to the distrust of the 
 proprietors ; of whom it is probable that many besides Mr. Maurice 
 Jones, abandoned a considerable portion of their cultivation, on 
 the assumption that labour for getting off an average crop would 
 not be procurable. 
 
 All that can be said is this, — that though several planters talk
 
 NEGRO APPRENTICESIIir IN 1838. 71 
 
 of the falling off of this crop as owing entirely to " want of 
 labour," and the difficulty of obtaining extra work for hire 
 (evidently meaning a dilliculty created by the new system), it 
 has not been stated any where, so far as our recollection serves us, 
 that any part of the crop of 1835 was lost for want of labour. 
 Nothing has been stated from which it can be inferred that — if, 
 at the commencement of crop, the old system had been restored 
 and the masters reinvested with all the power they ever had, and 
 all the rest they ever wished for, — one hogshead more of sugar 
 could have been made. Upon the whole, the only safe inference 
 uhich can be drawn from the amount of produce made in 1835 
 appears to be this — that the negroes had worked better than the 
 majority of planters expected, — for that they did get off the whole 
 crop, of which it was predicted by the Jamaica Committee that a 
 considerable portion was to rot in the ground. 
 
 The crop of 1836, however, was raised entirely by apprentices ; 
 and it may be thought that whatever falling off there was in that, 
 must be ascribed to the want of labour consequent upon emanci- 
 pation. But here again considerable deductions must be made on 
 account, not only of injudicious management, but of the difficul- 
 ties in getting the new system under way. 
 
 1st. It was impossible to prevent many of the negroes from 
 expecting more than they were to get. It was impossible also to 
 inspire them at once with confidence in the fair dealing of their 
 masters, — to whose proposals they were afraid of acceding, lest 
 they should be falling into some trap, and committing themselves 
 to some new mode of servitude. They feared, likewise, that the 
 wa^es liberally offered would not be faithfully paid. And other 
 misapprehensions there were which obstructed the operation of 
 the new system ; — misapprehensions very natural and reasonable ; 
 — the fruit and just recompense of the unnatural and unreasonable 
 position in which they had been placed. These misapprehensions 
 and jealousies were indeed rapidly removed. Being trusted, the 
 negroes were not slow to trust again ; being treated with considera- 
 tion, they could be considerate in return ; being paid for their 
 labour, they were not unwilling to labour for pay. But, at the 
 same time, there can be no doubt that some time was necessary to 
 learn these lessons, — and that so much time was lost to the estate.
 
 72 NEGRO ATTRENTICESIIir IX 1838. 
 
 Hence an undue proportion of the labour procurable was spent in 
 getting off the current crop ; to the neglect of the necessary pre- 
 paration for the next. 
 
 2ndJij. Independently of the real difficulty Avhich did at first 
 exist in procuring labour for wages, there was a good deal of 
 imaginary difficulty. Many of the planters made up their minds 
 that the necessary labour was not to be obtained at all, and there- 
 fore did not take the necessary steps to obtain it. Up to 
 Kovember 1835, there were as many as 237 estates on which 
 wages had not even been offered.* On many of those on which 
 they had been offered and accepted, it was only during crop. Mr. 
 Shirley predicted a considerable falling off* in the crops in 
 Trelawney, owing entirely to this cause. (See 5086 — 93.) 
 Whereas on his own estates, on which extra labour had been 
 employed all the year round, he looked for an increase instead of 
 a decrease in 1836. Again, of those who did offer wages out of 
 crop, as well as during crop, many did not bid high enough. The 
 negroes could make more than the wages by raising provisions on 
 their own grounds. Some abandoned part of the cultivation in 
 despair; others kept up the quantity of plant, but from want of 
 the necessary labour (that is, from not laying out enough money 
 in wages) neglected the cleaning.! 
 
 In March, 1835, Lord Sligo predicted a falling off generally 
 throughout the island from these causes ; % and, in June 1835, he 
 sent home a set of Reports on the actual state of cultivation in all 
 the properties concerning which he could obtain the information. 
 The result was, that out of 762 estates, the cultivation was more 
 or less backward on 224. . 
 
 Zrdly. Another cause of diminution of crop must be added, in 
 which certainly the negroes are not concerned ; and of which we 
 have the following timely and emphatic notice by Lord Sligo. 
 
 * Apprent. Com. App. p. 131. f Mr. Shirley's Evidence, 5092. 
 
 X " That the crop of next year will be somewhat deficient I have reason )o fear. 
 Such has been the dread of not gi tting off this crop, that all tl;e exertion which w;is 
 formerly applied to the double object of ti'king the year's crop and preparing for 
 the next year's, has been devoted to this year's service. That tliere may have been 
 guod and sound )easons, etc. etc., but I think the appieutice has, in most places, 
 now acquired such an avidity for money, as to remove from my mind the apprehen- 
 hv<r\ that any falling off in tlie crop of the year after next will be experienced." — 
 March 27, 1835, I'arl. II. p. 19.
 
 NEGRO ArPREXTICESIIIP IN 1838. 73 
 
 In a Despatch, dated loth December, 1835, he says, "The com- 
 mimicatiou I have to himent is the fact reported to me by almost 
 all the special magistrates in their weekly journals, that owing to 
 the unusual absence of the October seasons, the canes in most 
 parts of the island have begun to arrow ; the canes never grow 
 after this has taken place, and as they were much stunted 
 before, in consequence of the drought, I fear that the crop will 
 be very short this year. It is, however, well that this should 
 be known before the crop commences, in order that those who 
 are anxious to misrepresent matters, if such there be, may not 
 attribute to the misconduct of the apprentices what is the act 
 of God."* 
 
 Before, therefore, we can safely draw inferences from the 
 amount of produce in 1836, as to the work that may be expected 
 from the Apprentices, we must make allowance for these 
 things : — 
 
 1. The unsettled state of their minds for the first three or four 
 months after they were made free. Hardly any extra work was 
 done till the beginning of December, when crop began. 
 
 2. When extra labour was procured, the absorption of the 
 whole of it in the taking off of the crop, to the neglect of the next 
 year's preparations. 
 
 3. The voluntary and probably unnecessary abandonment of a 
 considerable quantity of cultivation, in despair of obtaining extra 
 labour to keep it up, 
 
 4. The number of exhausted j^roperties which (slavery or no 
 slavery) must every year yield less and less produce in proportion 
 to the labour spent on them. 
 
 5. The number of short-handed estates which have hitherto 
 kept up their cultivation and got off their crops by working the 
 slaves more severely than they had any right to do.f 
 
 6. The early arrowing of the canes, which prevented that 
 portion of the land which was still planted, and kept in good 
 order, from yielding its fair quantity of sugar. 
 
 * Parliamentary Papers, I. p. 150. 
 
 t "But this [diminution] may be principally owing to the short-handed estates 
 being obliged to be thiown up, for these estates only made sugar out of the very 
 heart's-gore of the former slave." — Gkegg, June, 1835, p. 241.
 
 74 NEGEO APPRENTICESHIP IX 1838. 
 
 7. The fact that some of the produce was sent to i\.merica, and 
 does not therefore appear in the returns of produce imported into 
 Great Britain, from which all these calculations are taken.* 
 
 The result was, that the crop of 1836 fell below that of 1835 
 by about one-twelfth — below the average of 1833 and 1834 by 
 about one-sixth — and below the average of the six years previous 
 to emancipation by about one-fourth — a deficiency which, after 
 making the above-mentioned allowances, will scarcely appear 
 sufficient to justify any inference against the general prospects 
 of the island, or the industrious disjjositions of the negroes. 
 
 The produce of 1837 should have been a fairer instance. After 
 the experience of the past year, the minds of the negroes were 
 more settled ; liberal wages were more generally offered ; cultiva- 
 tion, which had been thrown up, was again extended ; and thus 
 the first three disadvantages, noted in the preceding list, were in 
 great part removed. The official returns of the amount of produce 
 imported during this year have not yet been published. It is 
 known, however, that Jamaica has been visited during the last 
 year with one of the severest droughts ever known ; and it is 
 imderstood that, owing to that cause and to it alone, the crop of 
 1837 is still shorter than that of 1836. 
 
 It appears then, ujjon the whole, that we have as yet no statis- 
 tical data for an inference with regard to the future prospects of 
 Jamaica; and that we must look for the promise of other years in 
 the general progress and struggle from bad to good, and from 
 good to better, which in the foregoing pages we have endeavoured 
 to trace. 
 
 In the meantime, we believe it will be found, that in spite of 
 the diminution of produce, the actual income of the proprietary 
 body has been increased and not diminished by the change ; — as 
 will appear from the following calculation, which, though not 
 pretending to exactitude, is probably exact enough for the 
 purpose. 
 
 For the six years immediately preceding the abolition of slavery, 
 the average sugar crop in Jamaica was 1,362,748 cwt., and the 
 
 * " The total failure of the sugar crop in the slave states of America, has raiseil 
 the price heie so enormously, that when estates are unembarrassed, most advan- 
 tageous sales have been made in this is 'and for the American market." — Lord 
 Sligo'b Desp. 24th May, 18^0. Purliameutary Papers, III. p. 375.
 
 NEGRO APrRENTICESIIIP IN 1838. 75 
 
 average price about £1 6s. per cwt. For the years 1835 and 1836 
 the average crop has been 1,101,400 cwt., and the price about 
 £1 17s. Id. 
 
 Hence the value of a year's produce since the abolition would 
 be £2,009,794 
 
 Before 1,839,779 
 
 £230,015 
 
 And thus (assuming that the additional cost of production was 
 not more than the interest of the compensation) we have a balance 
 in favour of the Jamaica proprietors of more than £230,000 
 sterling. 
 
 Our limits forbid us to follow our inquiry through the remain- 
 ing colonies. Due allowance being made for the circumstances 
 pointed out in the first part of this article, as distinguishing the 
 case of Jamaica from the rest, the main features of the progress 
 seem to have been much alike in all ; — the same trifling agita- 
 tions and misunderstandings at the outset, giving way with the 
 same readiness before the friendly interference of the special 
 magistrates or the governors, and subsiding with the same rapidity 
 into tranquil, orderly, and not uncheerful industry. The various 
 degrees of prosperity attained, and of ease in the attainment, may 
 be, for the most part, accounted for by varieties of soil, climate, 
 laws, or customs, into the consideration of which it is impossible to 
 enter. A view of the general results in each colony (so far as the 
 quantity of sugar made can be taken to represent them), will bo 
 found in the subjoined table. The first column gives the average 
 proportion which the quantity of sugar annually raised bore to 
 the numbers of the slave population, for the six years immediately 
 preceding the abolition of slavery. It is intended as a kind of 
 scale (a very rough one, it must be owned, but the best we have 
 been able to invent), by w^hich the comparative lorodudiveness of 
 the several colonies may be measured. According to this scale 
 we arranged them, expecting to find that as in Jamaica the most 
 niggardly management seems to have been the least prosperous, 
 so the falling off of produce in the several colonies would bear 
 some sort of proportion to their comparative wealth. The result
 
 76 NEGEO APPEEXTICESHIP IX 1838. 
 
 has answered our expectations about as well as so rude an opera- 
 tion could admit ; and if some necessary qualifications and correc- 
 tions were introduced, it would answer much better.* 
 
 This table does not otherwise present any result so striking as 
 to call for explanation ; unless it be the unexamj)led prosperity of 
 British Guiana; which, under the threefold advantage of an 
 exhaustless soil, a most intelligent and energetic governor, and no 
 independent legislature, has been, from the very beginning, 
 making uninterrupted advances in every direction. 
 
 
 
 
 Average 
 proportion 
 of Sugar to 
 Population. 
 
 Average Sugar 
 Crop from 1829 
 to 1«34, in cwts. 
 
 Average Sugar 
 
 Crop iu 1»35 
 
 and 1836. 
 
 Difference 
 per cent. 
 
 Virgin Islands t • 
 
 3-4 
 
 17,763 
 
 13,615 
 
 23-4 dec. 
 
 Montserrat 
 
 
 
 3-5 
 
 22,835 
 
 14,206 
 
 33-4 do. 
 
 Dominica . 
 
 
 
 3-8 
 
 5.1,539 
 
 30,113 
 
 45-7 do. 
 
 Barbadoes . 
 
 
 
 4-1 
 
 343,513 
 
 359,058 
 
 4-5 inc. 
 
 Jamaica t . 
 
 
 
 4-3 
 
 1,362,798 
 
 1,101,400 
 
 19-3 dec. 
 
 Ht. Lucia t . 
 
 
 
 4-9 
 
 66,828 
 
 46,413 
 
 30-5 do. 
 
 St. Kitts t . 
 
 
 
 5 
 
 104,809 
 
 76.015 
 
 27-4 do. 
 
 Kevis 
 
 
 
 5-7 
 
 49,647 
 
 32,180 
 
 35-1 do. 
 
 Antigua 
 
 
 
 5-9 
 
 173,947 
 
 1.57,149 
 
 9-6 do. 
 
 Tobago 
 
 
 
 81 
 
 93,157 
 
 97,450 
 
 4-5 inc. 
 
 Grenada 
 
 
 
 8-5 
 
 200,708 
 
 103 295 
 
 18-6 dec. 
 
 St. Vincents t 
 
 
 
 9-6 
 
 222,732 
 
 190,770 
 
 14-3 do. 
 
 B. Guiana . 
 
 
 
 10-2 
 
 874,347 
 
 1,032,342 
 
 18 inc. 
 
 Trinidad 
 
 
 
 13-4 
 
 310,797 
 
 300,766 
 
 3-2 dec. 
 
 Thus much for the working of the Apprenticeship as it regards 
 the Planters. Let us now inquire how it has worked for the 
 Negroes. 
 
 We have already explained the relief which was designed for 
 them ; the causes, inherent or accidental, which were likely to 
 interfere with the operation of that design ; and the manner in 
 which it has in some instances been actually thwarted. We have 
 endeavoured to represent the matter faithfully ; and we do not 
 believe that in the picture which we have drawn, we have given 
 to the exceptions less prominence than they deserved. But for 
 the sake of presenting in a clearer light the amount of benefit 
 
 * The poinfs in which the test fails with regard to the thicldy inhabited Barbadoes 
 arc oTfvious enough. 
 
 t hi these colonies the crops had been gradually fulling oiY before 1834.
 
 NEGRO ArrREXTICESHIP IN 1838. 77 
 
 which the Apprenticeship, with all its restrictions, drawbacks, and 
 inconveniences, has already conferred upon the negroes, we must 
 briefly recur to the subject. 
 
 We shall not pause again to inquire whether a probationary 
 term of restricted liberty was really necessary ; nor to explain why 
 it is that liberty with every restriction is preferable to slavery 
 with every indulgence, — the reign of justice, however armed with 
 terror, to the reign of terror, however administered with justice. 
 Enough that it was so decided. A certain quantity of labour was 
 still to be enforced by law ; certain powers of coercion were still 
 necessary to enforce it. So far the condition of the apprentice was 
 still to resemble that of the slave. But if the labour required of 
 the apprentice is lighter than that exacted from the slave and the 
 means of enforcing it less painful or less terrible, by so much is 
 his condition improved, even though the moral elevation which 
 has come to him — the possession of duties, rights, and hojjes, — be 
 thrown aside as weightless in the scale. 
 
 Now, before the 1st of August, 1834, the great body of slaves 
 in Jamaica were required, during seven months of the year, to 
 work upwards of sixty hours weekly ; during the remaining five, 
 upwards of seventy. To make them work their best, the driver 
 followed them with his cart-whip; which he used at his own and 
 the overseer's discretion; either as a simple persuasive and stimulant 
 to quicken their exertions ; or as a summary punishment in case 
 of nefi^ligence, insolence, or obstinacy ; or as a ready instrument 
 of passion and revenge in case of displeasure. Nor was this all. 
 Where the whip was not terrible enough, there was the terror of 
 the chain-gang, the chain and collar, the loathsome plantation 
 duuo-eon, with its filth, darkness, solitude, and starvation. All 
 these instruments of coercion were at the master's absolute 
 disposal ; guarded only by some professed restrictions which 
 notoriously came to nothing. This, then, is what slavery was, — 
 these the alternatives to which every slave, man or woman, was 
 daily liable to be reduced. Let us now turn to wdiat Apprentice- 
 ship is. 
 
 In the first place, no apprentice is required to work, in or out 
 of crop, for more than forty-five hours in the week ; nor to work 
 harder during these forty-five hours than the special magistrate,
 
 78 NEftEO ArrEENTTCESHIP IN 1838. 
 
 a disinterested English gentleman, shall think reasonable. In 
 the second place, for refusing or neglecting to do such reasonable 
 proportion of work, he cannot be punished without the express 
 authority in writing of the special magistrate, who is sworn to use 
 his authority justly, and liable to be deprived of it on the first 
 proof of abuse. In the third place, even with that authority, he 
 cannot be punished for such offence with more than twenty 
 lashes. In the fourth place, no female apprentice can be punished 
 with flogging at all. In the fifth place, no apprentice, male or 
 female, can be made, for any offence whatever, to work beyond 
 the ordinary time for more than fifteen hours during any one 
 week ; so that the full amount of labour which can be exacted as 
 a punishment from the apprentice, is not more than the ordinary 
 portion of the slave. In the sixth place, the worst offence which 
 an apprentice can commit against the abolition law cannot be 
 punished, on any authority whatever, with more than fifty 
 lashes. 
 
 These, however, are the extreme limits of legal coercion ; the 
 worst that an apprentice can possibly suffer. The question is 
 what he does actually suffer as compared with what he used to suffer 
 in his former condition. This indeed cannot be exactly deter- 
 mined. How much use was made during slavery of the whip, the 
 chain, and the dungeon, we can never know. Nor have we access 
 to any records, though such records exist, from which the 
 amount of punishment by imprisonment and hard labour which 
 has been inflicted since the apprenticeship began, can be 
 ascertained. Judging, however, from the reason of the case, 
 and from such information as we do possess, we can have no 
 doubt that the practical amelioration quite corresponds to the 
 theoretical. 
 
 That the cart- whip was very freely used during slavery may 
 be inferred from the opinion then universal among slave-drivers, 
 that nothing less could make the negroes work ; — an opinion 
 since proved to be so merely and absolutely groundless, that its 
 prevalence can only be accounted for by snpposing that it had 
 never before been put to the test. As for the other instruments 
 of terror or torture, what use was made of them will not be known 
 till every secret tiling shall be brought to light. In the mean-
 
 NEGRO ArPRENTICEPHIP IN 1838. 70 
 
 time, let us hope that tbey were only resorted to when " necessary ; " 
 — that is, when the sixty or seventy hours of weekly labour could 
 not be obtained without them. 
 
 Now, on the 1st of August, 1834, upwards of 300,000 slaves 
 exchanged the coercion at will for the coercion according to law ; 
 — the overseer's mercy for the special magistrate's justice. Ever 
 since, the number of punishments inflicted during each month 
 has been steadily decreasing. By reference to a return annexed 
 to the Jamaica Correspondence,* it will be seen that within the 
 ten months ending in May, 1836, punishments of all kinds had 
 been reduced by about one-fourth ; corporal punishments by not 
 less than two-thirds. In taking, therefore, the general average 
 on the whole of that period, we do the Apprenticeship less than 
 justice ; because we do not get any measure of its improving 
 tendency. But let this pass. The monthly average of floggings 
 inflicted during these ten months was not more than 364 ; of 
 punishments generally (including the lightest with the heaviest), 
 not more than 3302 : — a dreadful amount indeed when compared 
 with happier communities ; — a degree of severity which, to those 
 who have passionately pitied the negro till they have learned to 
 regard him as an object of no feeling but pity, — who have hated 
 his wrongs till they have forgotten what his wrongs have made 
 him, — may well seem intolerable — may well make 630,000 British 
 ladies cry " shame, shame," and demand the repeal of the law 
 which sanctioned it. We also can sympathize with the emotion, 
 though we may not yield to it. In our zeal against slavery, we 
 have urged its brutalizing effect upon the character of the slave. 
 In pleading the cause of the slave, we must not forget that therein 
 we spoke the truth. The slave is — that which we have made him. 
 In every community of slaves there must be a larger proportion 
 than elsewhere of such characters as in this country are marked 
 for the tread-mill or the hulks. Let us not, however, mistake the 
 exception for the rule ; let us look at the face of the picture ; let 
 us learn the meaning of the result by comparing it, not with what 
 England is, but with what Jamaica was.f If during each month 
 
 * Parliamentary Papers, III. p. 408. 
 
 t In British Guiana, a Crown colony, with the advantage of a slave protector, and 
 an enforced return of all punishments inflicted on each estate, — therefore, probably,
 
 80 
 
 NEGRO APrRENTICESHIP IN 1838. 
 
 many apprentices have been punished, have not a hundred times 
 as many gone unpunished ? If many have been fliogged, have 
 not a thousand times as many gone uuflogged ? and have not all 
 been relieved from one-fourth of their former labours ? Can it be 
 said that before the 1st of August, 18o4, a single month ever 
 passed in Jamaica, at the end of which 299,636 slaves could say, 
 that not one of them had worked more than 180 hours * — yet not 
 one had felt the lash ; and 296,698 of them could add, that they 
 had not suffered any punishment of any kind, not even the terror 
 of it? 
 
 But, it will be said, though these severities be all we hear 
 of, who knows what goes on in secret ? Who knows how many 
 apprentices are daily robbed of their time, their food, their liberty, 
 — assaulted, terrified, overworked, — and yet never complain ; either 
 because they do not know their rights or because they dare not 
 claim them ? True, indeed ; who does know ? Such things 
 must no doubt have occurred. This law, like others, cauuot have 
 
 not so bad a case as Jamaica, — we have the following progressive decrease of corporal 
 punishments : — 
 
 
 
 Average 
 
 
 
 Average 
 
 
 Period. 
 
 Floggings 
 per Month. 
 
 
 Period. 
 
 Floggings 
 p -r Month. 
 
 1831 
 
 Jnlv to December 
 
 1039 
 
 1835 
 
 November 
 
 55 
 
 1832 
 
 Jitnuarv to ,Tun« 
 
 860 
 
 
 
 December 
 
 21 
 
 1832-3 
 
 July to September 
 
 734 
 
 LS36 
 
 January 
 
 47 
 
 1833-4 
 
 October to April 
 
 484 
 
 
 
 February 
 
 34 
 
 1834-5 
 
 August to August 
 
 181 
 
 
 March 
 
 46 
 
 1835 
 
 August ... 
 
 88 
 
 
 
 April 
 
 19 
 
 
 Scptemljcr 
 October ... 
 
 79 
 
 77 
 
 
 May 
 
 25 
 
 
 
 
 
 Since that time, we believe that flogging has been almost entirely discontinued in 
 this wcll-govornod colony. 
 
 In the Bahamas, it has been for some time abolished by law, owing to the 
 excellent exertions of Sir William Colebroke. We are truly glad to find that the 
 mild activity and earnest per.suasive humanity of this gentleman have now been 
 tran.sfurred to the wider sjjhere of the Leeward I.slands, of which he is Governor-in- 
 Chief. 
 
 * Strictly speaking, we should have excepted the non priedials, whose weekly 
 amount of labour has not been reduced. The nature of their occupations made this 
 impracticable ; but their period of apprenticeship was shortened in proportion, and 
 they become absolutely free in August, 1838. The distinction, it will be seen, does 
 not affect the argument.
 
 NEGRO APPIIENTICESIIIP IN 1808. 81 
 
 been carried perfectly into effect. "Where a brutal overseer has 
 met with a feeble magistrate, it is impossible to say how much 
 advantage may have been taken of the ignorance of the negroes. 
 Violence we know is occasionally committed; the twenty-four 
 hours' confinement we know has been occasionally abused ; some- 
 times hospitals have been made prisons under pretence of sanitary 
 regulations. In the absence of clocks and watches, gangs may 
 have been here and there worked beyond the legal hours. Special 
 magistrates have been obstructed in their attempts to detect these 
 offences. Indictments against detected offenders have been thrown 
 out with contumely. But though it must be admitted that great 
 injustice may have been extensively committed in these ways, it 
 may be confidently asserted that great cruelty cannot.* Cruelties 
 may have been inflicted in individual cases, more than we dream 
 of. Many we know have been brought to light by the merest 
 accident. But had any considerable degree of cruelty been 
 extensively or systematically carried on, it is hardly to be believed 
 that complaints could have been effectually stifled. It is well 
 known, in every district, that scarce a month passes in wiiich 
 some overseer is not punished on a complaint brought by some 
 apprentice. The special magistrate is, generally speaking, 
 studiously accessible to complaints. Even if the injured party 
 wants the wit or the courage to complain himself, he has friends, 
 missionaries or others, who will be glad to complain for him. 
 Even if the special magistrate's ears should be closed (and among 
 
 * Mr. O'Connell will not agree with us here. He believes that it is the interest 
 of the planters to "work the negro out of his existence" before the end of the 
 apprenticeship ; that they ;irc accordingly now about it ; and that such necessary 
 cruelty must therefore be now going on in Jamaica as may end in the death of the 
 whole apprenticed population by the 1st of August, 1840. " Already," he says, " the 
 negro's life is counted by the hour — but before the expiration of the apprenticeship, 
 it will be counted by the minute." (See the proceedings of the Anti-Slavery meeting 
 in Exeter Hall, on the 23rd of November, as reported in the Times.) This is one of 
 those prodigious assertions which that large nature seems to generate without an 
 effort. If Mr. O'Connell had considered for a moment, he must have seen that no 
 single case of this kind can by possibility occur. How can an apprentice be worked 
 to death unless he wishes it ? Though this was the biggest thing of the kind, it was 
 not the only one uttered on that occasion. In fact, all the arguments derived their 
 force from a single figure of speech ; — that of representing whatever is not impossible 
 as having been done, and whatever has been done once as liaving been done gene- 
 rally ; — and of assuming that wherever any discretion has been permitted to a special 
 
 magistrate it has been carefully abused. 
 
 G
 
 82 NEGRO APrRENTICESIIIP IN 1838. 
 
 the seventy or eighty gentlemen who have filled that office some 
 must have been harder of hearing than others), the governor's at 
 least are open. And in spite of some idle speeches which have 
 been tossed about, we believe that both Lord Sligo and Sir Lionel 
 Smith may frankly challenge all Aldermanbury to produce a 
 single instance of a complaint made against a special magistrate 
 and not inquired into, or of a magistrate convicted of misconduct 
 and not either sharply rejirimanded or shortly dismissed. 
 
 That the abuses practised in houses of correction have not 
 been of an intolerable kind, we unfortunately have not a like 
 assurance. There the local magistracy — the parish vestry — rules 
 supreme. The regulations are at their entire disposal ; and under 
 that name lie cart-whips, chains, collars, and solitary cells, to 
 which all prisoners, male and female, apprenticed and free, are alike 
 exposed. The special magistrate's authority is set at nought ; 
 the governor himself cannot interfere ; and all appeals to the 
 Grand Court of Jamaica justice are voted nuisances. We are 
 glad to find that an officer has been sent out specially to inspect 
 these places. It is quite clear that some law is wanted here, and 
 that the Jamaica constitution must again be violated unless the 
 Assembly think fit to pass one without delay. 
 
 In the meantime it must be remembered that grievous as 
 such things are, they are not to be taken as a measure of the 
 working of the Apprenticeship ; because the great mass of ap- 
 prentices are, in fact, scarcely affected by them. Every effort 
 has been made to detect abuses of this kind in which apprentices 
 have been the sufferers ; and the number of those which have 
 been brought to light, though very large considered by itself, 
 bears no proportion to the body of the apprenticed population, 
 and can hardly interrupt their ease or retard their progress. And 
 since these secrets have been revealed, the special magistrates 
 have been instructed to abstain from committing apprentices to 
 any house of correction where such atrocities can occur.* 
 
 Here we must for the present take leave of Jamaica ; we wait 
 with interest, but without anxiety, for the sequel of the corres- 
 pondence, which is shortly to appear. Meanwhile we leave the 
 interests of the apprentices in hands that may be trusted. Lord 
 
 * See Lord Glenclg's Despatdi, Htli June, 183(j.— Pari, rapers, III, p. 30(j.
 
 NEGKO APruENTiCESiiir IN 18:38. 83 
 
 Sligo is indeed gone ; but his place has been taken by Sir Lionel 
 Smith ; as different a man in many respects as could have been 
 found ; but one whose character for general zeal in the cause of 
 humanity, for clearness of purpose, and plain vigour of execution, 
 is above suspicion or reproach. We perceive by his last opening 
 speech that he is still on courteous terms with the Assembly. 
 So much the better. He is not a man to persevere in refreshing 
 that parched land with idle compliments, if he shall see that no 
 fruit is to come of it. The Assembly may before this hour have 
 discerned and redeemed the time. If not, the hour has come 
 when they may properly be assisted. 
 
 The condition of the Apprentices in the other colonies we 
 cannot now discuss. Our readers will readily spare us an inquiry 
 which from the incompleteness of our information could not be 
 conducted within any reasonable limits to any profitable result. 
 In its general aspect, their condition is undoubtedly not less 
 favourable, — for the most part we should say much more favour- 
 able, — than in Jamaica. But as the same labourers have not 
 been at work there, it is impossible to say how many individual 
 cases of hardship might not be raked up from the bottom, nor 
 how the general aspect might be changed if all these cases were 
 carefully placed at the top. 
 
 Neither can we venture, in the short space which is left us, to 
 penetrate the cloud which still hangs over the period beyond 
 ] 840, and which the experience of the last three years has not 
 done much to clear away. Antigua, it is true, keeps up its crops 
 nearly to the same extent as before ; though at what increase of 
 cost we are unable to ascertain. But there are very few of the 
 colonies in which the labouring class, when free, will continue so 
 dependent on the proprietors for their subsistence as they are in 
 Antigua. It is also true that the apprentices almost everywhere 
 work freely for hire : but because a labouring man bound to work 
 for forty-five hours during the week is willing for two or three 
 shillings to work a few hours more, it cannot safely be concluded 
 that he will continue to live the life of a labouring man, when he 
 finds that he can exchange it for a better. On the other hand, 
 however, if we cannot say how much scarcer or dearer labour may 
 become after 1840, neither can we say how much more may be
 
 84 NEGRO ArprvEXTiCESHir IN 1838. 
 
 made of it. It is easy to believe that half the number of hands 
 now employed might be made to produce more sugar than is now 
 raised. Till now, the total want of any free circulation of social 
 interests and energies has rendered every attempt to economize 
 labour both objectless and ineffectual. The amount of waste and 
 refuse is therefore enormous. With the breaking up of the old 
 system this will be changed. The command over industry will be 
 lost, but its limbs will be unbound. After 1840 every new inven- 
 tion by which one pair of hands may be enabled to do the work 
 of two, every new division of employments by which two pair may 
 be enabled to do the work of three, will have its separate value. 
 In this field hope may range at will, for everything is yet to be 
 done. It must however be admitted that those colonies which 
 have been forcing the cultivation of sugar against natural disad- 
 vantages may in the end have partly to give it up. How far this 
 is to be deprecated is a question which we cannot stay to consider. 
 For the present we would only refer to the example of the 
 Bahama Islands, which, barren and scattered as they are, appear 
 to be rapidly covering themselves with flourishing townships, 
 and a contented peasantry, as suggesting a hope that, even 
 where the present field of production must be deserted, other 
 sources of social prosperity may discover themselves ; — that 
 the reduction of commercial importance may not leave the land 
 naked, but may be silently replaced by new undergrowths of 
 industry, humbler perhaps, but more natural, wholesome, and 
 enduring. 
 
 In the meantime we shall content ourselves with repeating 
 our conviction, that the results of this measure, so far as it has 
 yet proceeded, are matter of just and earnest congratulation ; and 
 with expressing a hope that all parties will exert themselves to 
 make the best of it, and not the worst. The planters, to judge 
 by their silence, have hope ; let them show it in liberality and 
 enterprise. Why should they fold their hands together and eat 
 their own flesh ? The Friends and the Ladies are disappointed. 
 Be it so. It spurs them to labours, which upon the whole are 
 good. We do not desire that Aldermanbury should sleep. 
 Humanity, even when it runs wild, is a noble passion ; and the 
 best Government will be the better for being troubled. One thing
 
 NEGRO APPRENTICESHIP IN 1838. 85 
 
 however we do desire of them — to be a little nicer as to what they 
 believe, a little more cautious as to what they infer ; and above all 
 not to labour to persuade the world that the greatest work which has 
 been done in these times, and at the noblest sacrifice, has been 
 done in vain ; that the cause of human nature, which has borne all 
 else, has not borne the test of success; that this, perhaps the 
 noblest example ever set to the nations, is one to be shunned, not 
 followed. They may be well assured that such will be the 
 tendency, how far soever from the intention, of their labours. 
 They indeed would have it inferred that as slavery cannot bo 
 mitio-ated, it ouo-ht to be abolished. But the inference which will 
 in fact be drawn by less sanguine or more interested men will be 
 that since slavery cannot be abolished suddenly without ruin 
 to the planter, and since it now appears that slavery cannot 
 be modified without injury to the apprentice, it must be left 
 as it is. 
 
 NOTE. 
 
 The inquiry into the management of the Jamaica prisons (see above, p. 82) 
 h;cl to the " Abolition Act Amendment BiLl," whicli transferred the authority in 
 all cases concerning apprenticed labourers from the parish vestry to the Governor 
 in Council. The jmssing of this Bill by Parliament led to a resolution by the 
 Jamaica Assembly to put an end to the apprenticeship at once. The announce- 
 ment in England that the apprentices would all be free labourers on the 1st of 
 August 1840 (whereby they would again come under the control of the parish 
 vestries) led to the " Jamaica Prisons Act." The Prisons Act led to a declaration 
 by the Assembly that they would do no more work, and that declaration (repeated 
 by a new house elected after a dissolution) led the Ministry to bring in a Bill 
 for a suspension of their legislative functions, and the temporary substitution of 
 government by Governor in Council, as in a Crown colony. 
 
 The previous measures had been passed wdth general consent both of 
 Parliament and people. The House of Commons understood the wrongs of the 
 negro, and were ready in any particular case where he was concerned to overrule 
 the legislation of the Jamaica Assembly. But to suspend their legislative 
 functions altogether was to violate a popular constitution ; for which they were 
 the less prepared, because the history of the relations of that Assembly with the 
 Crown ever since the Home Government took action against the slave trade and 
 in defence of the slave, was very little known to our represcutativcs in 1838.
 
 80 NEGRO APPRENTICESHIP IN 1838. 
 
 The Bill was earned by so small a majority that the Ministers did not think 
 themselves strong enough to proceed with it. They resigned ; but Sir Robert 
 Peel (who as the lender of the opposition against the hill was invited to take 
 their place) not tl.inkitig his own party stroiig enough to govern, Lord John 
 Russell consented to return ; substituted a less stringent measure; and addressed 
 himself to make the best of the business with such powers as it put into his 
 hands. 
 
 It was at this crisis that the following article was written, to the argu- 
 ment of which later events have added a fresh significance and a conspicuous 
 illustration.
 
 III. 
 
 BILL FOR THE SUSPENSION OF THE JAMAICA 
 CONSTITUTION, 1839.* 
 
 The events which followed the defeat of the Bill for the temporary 
 government of Jamaica, though they have somewhat damped the 
 interest, have not diminished the importance, of that question. 
 The new measure which the anomalous position of the Ministry, 
 on their return to office, compelled them to introduce, must be 
 regarded as a temporary expedient at best. Should it be carried, 
 it will prevent some very serious evils, but it will not stop the 
 source out of which all evils flow. The quarrel between the 
 Assembly of Jamaica, and the Government and Parliament of 
 Great Britain, springs from an incompatibility of feeling, an 
 opposition of purposes, and an unhappy divorce betwen constitu- 
 tional privilege and natural right, which no forms of speech can 
 remove, and which occasional exertions of power rather aggravate 
 than allay. It must therefore be expected that the original 
 question (which by the original Bill would have been set finally 
 and hajipily at rest) will rise again ; in what precise shape it 
 would be rash to predict; but certainly in some shape or other 
 more difficult to deal with than the present. In whatever form 
 it may present itself, however, it is of the highest importance that 
 the Public should be prepared, by a knowledge of what the tiling 
 itself is, to resist impressions which are due only to the names by 
 which it may be called. In what motives the opposition to the 
 dropped Bill originated, we do not pretend to say ; nor would we 
 hastily presume that the leaders of it were incapable of being 
 
 * i.'duibur<jli Itcvieiv, July, 1839.
 
 88 THE JAMAICA CITJ. OF 1839. 
 
 imposed on by their own arguments ; but of this we are sure, tbat 
 if the real nature of the question had been generally understood, 
 those arguments could never have prevailed with half the House 
 of Commons. By a review of the debate, it would be easy to 
 remove all the grounds of objection which were then urged ; but 
 this would be hardly worth while ; for the stock of bad objections 
 is inexhaustible. We prefer to present a plain statement of the 
 circumstances which made the measure necessary ; leaving all 
 objections, past and future, to fall away of themselves. 
 
 The knowledge of the question with which gentlemen came 
 away from the debate, does not appear to have been considerable. 
 That an Act for the regulation of Prisons in Jamaica was hurried 
 through Parliament, towards the close of last session, with unusual 
 rapidity, attracting little notice and meeting with no opposition ; 
 that this Act interfered with certain jnivileges of the local 
 Legislature ; that the Assembly took offence at it, and refused to 
 proceed with their business until some reparation should be 
 made ; that the reparation which they desired could not be 
 conceded ; that the Ministry proposed, therefore, to suspend their 
 functions at once ; but that Sir Kobert Peel thought it better to 
 give them a locus loonnitentise, and try whether they would not 
 resume their functions when duly warned of the consequences of 
 continuing refractory; — such, we conceive, would be the best 
 account of the question which an ordinary member of the Opposi- 
 tion could give. Some may know a little more, and some a little 
 loss ; but this we take to be the average acquaintance with the 
 subject, in virtue of which the two hundred and eighty-nine 
 gentlemen who voted against the Jamaica Bill, thought it their 
 duty to take the management of the business ujion themselves. 
 
 Now, if this were all; — if it were the first time the Jamaica 
 Assembly had taken offence at an Act of Parliament; if their 
 dispositions and intentions were to be interpreted from this par- 
 ticular act alone ; if there were no points in their past career from 
 which their present direction and future course might be deter- 
 mined ; if the circumstances of the time were ordinary, and could 
 be trusted to regulate themselves ; — in short, if neither" the past, 
 nor the present, nor the future, had any bearing upon the question, 
 we should ourselves be inclined to agree with Sir liobert, that the
 
 THE JAMAICA BIT.L OF 1830. 89 
 
 effect of a warning ought to be tried in the first instance. But 
 wlien we know that this is not the first, nor the second, nor the 
 tiiird time, that they have become refractory upon this very same 
 quarrel ; — that the locus pmnitentise, in all its shapes, has been 
 already resorted to rather than bring it to a final issue ; that 
 reasoning, entreaty, admonition, intimidation, promises, and large 
 sums of money, have in turn been tried for the chance of avoiding 
 a rupture ; that they have still persisted in their original demand, 
 and shown a fixed determination to be neither begged off, nor 
 reasoned off, nor bought off, from the assertion of what they deem 
 their rights ; that the daring step which they have now taken 
 has not been taken in ignorance or momentary passion, but with 
 the deliberate purpose of cutting short all further evasion, and 
 forcing Parliament to decide the question at once, yes or no ; 
 when we know that the quarrel is not accidental, but inherent in 
 the relation in which the bodies permanently stand towards each 
 other ; — when we remember all this, we cannot consent with Sir 
 Eobert Peel, with Lord Stanley, even (strange to say) with Mr. 
 Gladstone, to argue the question without reference to anything 
 which has gone before. We need make no apology, therefore, for 
 entering upon a history of past transactions, which will be thought 
 irrelevant by those persons alone, who care for nothing in the 
 present question beyond its bearing upon the interests of political 
 parties in this country. 
 
 The constitution of Jamaica was framed upon the model of our 
 own — very much as the " High life below Stairs " was framed 
 upon the model of the high life above ; only that, in the latter 
 case, together with the names of the original, something of its 
 intrinsic properties and relations is retained in the copy ; whereas, 
 in the other, they are entirely wanting. The privileges and forms 
 of the House of Commons are transferred to an Assembly repre- 
 senting a constituency of 2000, in a community of nearly 400,000 ; 
 those of the House of Lords are entrusted to a Council appointed 
 by the Governor, and removable at his pleasure ; the prerogatives 
 of the Crown are vested in a Governor, who has no natural 
 influence or authority in the colony — whose name commands no 
 reverence, whose powers are sufiicient to make him obnoxious.
 
 90 THE JAMAICA BILL OF 1839. 
 
 ^^ itlioiit procuring for him either fear or respect ; who represents 
 nothing but the policy of the British Government, which, for the 
 hist fifty years, the dominant classes in Jamaica have always 
 hated. Such is the parody of the Three Estates, which is now 
 extant in the local constitution of Jamaica. Upon the laws 
 passed by these powers, the Crown has a veto, and Parliament has 
 its transcendental authority over all — an authority not continable 
 within definite limits, but the exercise of which is generally 
 understood to be an awful thing, not to be resorted to except in 
 extremity. 
 
 Now, so long as these several powers were of the same mind 
 on all important questions, they might proceed together harmo- 
 niously enough. But it must have been obvious from the begin- 
 ning, that so soon as a difference of policy should arise between 
 the Assembly and the Home Government, a war of legislation 
 must follow, in which the latter must either give way or call in 
 the aid of Parliament ; and that a direct collision must then take 
 place between the local and the imperial Legislature. Accordingly 
 we find, from the Journals of the Jamaica Assembly, that alterca- 
 tions between them and the Government commenced at a very 
 early period, and were renewed from time to time ; but that, the 
 matters at issue attracting no national interest, they always 
 succeeded in carrying their point ; to their own great profit and 
 triumph, and to the serious inconvenience of the public. But as 
 soon as the agitation of the Slave Trade question, towards the 
 close of the last century, roused the people of England to take a 
 ]»art in the quarrel, it assumed at once a different aspect ; and 
 discerning men soon saw that it could end only in one way, and 
 the sooner the better. It soon became apparent that the prospect 
 of inducing the Assembly to conform its policy to that of the 
 mother country was quite hopeless. All the arts of encourage- 
 ment were tried in vain. Every step, every pretence of a step, in 
 the riglit direction, was hailed with delight as a pledge of future 
 progress ; everything was conceded which could be conceded, 
 w ithout abandoning the cause ; nothing was insisted on which was 
 not essential ; whatever it was necessary to urge, was urged in the 
 tenderest manner, with anxious professions of respect and deference 
 — with unweariable confidence in their good intentions — with
 
 THE JAMAICA BILL OF 1839. 91 
 
 patient reasoning. But all was worse than fruitless. Everytliinf^ 
 turned into bitterness. The whole conciliatory process served only 
 to fill them with folse ideas of their own importance; to render 
 them more obstinate in their prejudices, more tenacious of their 
 rights, more reckless in their actions ; — to aggravate the original 
 difference into an abiding system of hostility, which drew away the 
 attention of the Legislature from all public objects, bred nothing 
 but altercation, and made the hopes of a final reconciliation more 
 distant every session. This tendency was so evident from the 
 first, that the process ought to have been cut short long ago. 
 The authority which, it was plain, must be resorted to at last, 
 should have been used at once. So, the disease would not have 
 settled into the constitution, and the civilization of Jamaica might 
 have commenced half a century the sooner. But distant evils, of 
 which, though we know the magnitude, we do not feel the smart, 
 are most easily dealt with by hoping that they will abate ; and 
 there is probably no hope which will outlive so many disappoint- 
 ments. Thus we have gone on for more than forty years — grieving 
 that each successive effort to secure the cordial co-operation of 
 the Jamaica Assembly had only exasperated their hostility, but 
 still hoping that the next effort would be successful ; and now, in 
 1839, we are as ready to hope as ever that a few fair words, and a 
 locus pcenitentise, will really turn their hearts towards us. 
 
 Now, patience is a great virtue ; but, when cultivated at other 
 people's expense, it is apt to be abused; and hope, indulged 
 beyond a certain point, may become criminal as well as foolish. 
 ]iet us review the history of our attempts to conciliate the co- 
 operation of the Jamaica Assembly, since the beginning of the 
 great quarrel ; with what forlorn prospects they were commenced ; 
 with what patient perseverance, under what manifold discourage- 
 ments, they were renewed ; in what mere failure they have all 
 ended ; and let us then ask, whether we have any right to persist 
 in the same course still. 
 
 The temper in which a proposal to co-operate for the extinc- 
 tion of the Slave Trade, in 1797, would probably be entertained 
 by the Assembly of Jamaica, might have been inferred from a 
 variety of reports and protests which they had been putting forth 
 during the ten years preceding. j\Ir. Wilberl'orce's Bill was
 
 02 TUE JAMAICA BILL OF 1839. 
 
 denounced, not merely as an invasion of their constitutional 
 privileges, but as an act of spoliation ; — " an absolute breach of 
 the solemn assurances held forth by repeated proclamations and 
 Acts of Parliament, to supply the sugar colonies with labourers 
 from Africa, which must ultimately alienate the minds of his 
 ]\rajesty's subjects in those colonies."* But when the hoping 
 faculty is strong, protests like this only act as stimulants. And 
 when, in 1797, the question of immediate abolition was revived, 
 it was suggested by persons friendly to the object, that the 
 Colonial Assemblies would be best able to bring it about. Certain 
 preliminary measures were necessary to prepare the way ; — the 
 condition of the slaves must be improved, and the annual decrease 
 of their numbers checked, and then the trade would come to a 
 natural end, to the general benefit of all. But these measures 
 must be left to the local legislatures. The Jamaica Assembly 
 had said, indeed, that the abolition of the trade would certainly 
 ruin them, and that they would resist it by all constitutional 
 means ; but they only meant to protest against its being done by 
 the Imperial Parliament : — let them be requested to do it them- 
 selves, and those " who were best acquainted with their feelings " 
 undertook for them that they would cheerfully set about it. The 
 experiment was not a very hopeful one ; but, perhaps, it was worth 
 trying for once. And so it was resolved to try it. A recommen- 
 dation from the King was laid before the Jamaica Assembly, in 
 August, 1797, that they should adopt " such measures as might 
 appear to them best calculated gradually to diminish the neces- 
 sity of the slave trade, and ultimately to lead to its final extinc- 
 tion."t In December they sent their answer. They had already 
 l>assed two Bills for the benefit of the negroes ; one to increase 
 the efficiency of the clergy, the other to prohibit the importation 
 of Africans above twenty-five years old ; they would do more as 
 they saw occasion ; but they " must at the same time declare that 
 they were actuated by feelings of humanity only, and not with 
 any view to the abolition of the slave trade : " the right of obtain- 
 ing labourers from Africa, was an essential right, " which they 
 
 * Resolution of Assembly, 8tli November, 1792. See Journals, x. p. 130. 
 t Sue debate on Mr. C. 11. ElLb's motion. Hansard, vol. xxxiii. jx 252.
 
 THE JAMAICA BILL OF 1839. 93 
 
 oonld noTor give up, nor do any thing that might render it 
 doubtful."* 
 
 Such was the result of the first experiment towards securing 
 the cordial co-operation of the Jamaica Assembly by conciliation. 
 It might have been thought sufficient to extinguish for ever so 
 youDg and so forlorn a hope. But no ! Gentlemen who were 
 acquainted with their feelings assured the House of Commons 
 that their meaning had been misunderstood : when they said they 
 would never give up the slave trade, they only meant that they 
 would not give it wp for fear of Mr. Wilberforce.^ So conciliation 
 was still to be the order of the day. What they had done was 
 accepted as a pledge of their good intentions ; for what they said 
 they meant to do, they were liberally thanked ; what they said 
 they meant not to do, was overlooked. A year or two was allowed 
 to pass, that the first wound might have time to heal ; and then, 
 by way of a gentle stimulant, a series of suggestions was laid 
 before them, concerning the best means of carrying their inten- 
 tions into effect. They were proposed in the most delicate 
 manner — rather as inquiries for the information of Government, 
 than as hints for their own guidance. But they drew forth 
 nothing except a Report on the general state of the island, 
 declaring that everything which could be done for the benefit of 
 the slaves, " consistently with their reasonable services, and with 
 the safety of the white inhabitants," had been done already ; — 
 that on this point they alone were competent to form an opinion ; 
 that the policy of Ministers was unwise, unjust, and cruel ; that 
 " the being supplied with labourers from Africa, for supporting, 
 improving, and extending settlements already made, and also for 
 making new settlements," was a sacred right, in the defence of 
 which it was their duty to resort to every constitutional measure ; 
 and concluding with an intimation that, should the present course 
 be persevered in, they would not be able to raise the taxes from 
 which alone their engagements with the British Government could 
 be made good.| 
 
 Here was another extinguisher. If hope could be defeated by 
 
 * Journals, vol. x. p. 99. 
 
 t Mr. Sewtll's speech, Pari. Hist. vol. xxxiv. p. 531. 
 
 X Journals, vol. x. p. 41G.
 
 94 THE ja:maica bill of 1839. 
 
 words alone, this should have been enough. But no : they were 
 only words — the outbreak of a natural irritation : only let them 
 alone, and see what they would do. It was plain that nothing 
 could be said which would not provoke hostility, but they might 
 perhaps be moved by silence. Silence, however, did not answer. 
 For two years they did nothing which even an agent could 
 represent as tending to follow out the recommendations of the 
 Government ; and in the third they did worse. In 1802 they 
 passed an Act to prevent unlicensed preaching ; the intention and 
 practical effect of which was to silence the missionaries ; — to cut 
 off all the moral and religious instruction which could really find 
 its way to the heart of the slave. The system of saying nothing, 
 therefore, proved the greatest failure of all : bad deeds were worse 
 than bad words. It was next determined to try the eifect of a 
 definite recommendation, backed by the show of authority. In 
 signifying the disallowance of the Act in question, as contrary to 
 all principles of toleration. Lord Camden forwarded, for the infor- 
 mation of the Assembly, the draft of a Bill which, if passed in 
 Jamaica, would be confirmed by the Crown. If the recommenda- 
 tions of Government were to have any influence with them what- 
 ever, such a communication would at least be entertained with 
 respect. But it only called forth a resolution, that the projDOsi- 
 tion was an unconstitutional interference with the appropriate 
 functions of the House, " which it was their bounden duty never 
 to submit to."* 
 
 This at last appears to have been decisive. When their friends 
 in England found that seven years' conciliation had procured no 
 measure affecting the condition of the slaves, except one to their 
 disadvantage ; when they found that the Slave Trade was going 
 on with greater activity than ever, and was as far as ever from its 
 termination ; when they found that general intimations of the 
 wishes of Parliament produced nothing but flat refusals to comply 
 with them ; that specific inquiries were treated with neglect, 
 specific recommendations rejected as dictation — they do seem to 
 have inferred that cordial co-operation for the suppression of the 
 Slave Trade was not to be obtained by that process. They agreed 
 therefore to abolish it at once. 
 
 * Journiil.s. vol. xii. p. 153.
 
 THE JAMAICA BILL OF 1839. 95 
 
 Such was the grand result of the first series of attempts at 
 conciliation. The trade was abolished in 1807. Why should it 
 not have been abolished in 1792? The slave population was not 
 worse prepared for it ; the Colonial Assemblies could not have 
 been worse disposed to co-operate ; fifteen years would not have 
 been lost ; hundred of thousands of Africans would not have been 
 imported into the West Indies ; the difference between the 
 Jamaica Assembly and the Government would not have been 
 fretted into a never-ending quarrel, which has now become a 
 parcel of its constitution. 
 
 The immediate result of the Act was, of course, a furious pro- 
 test, with threats of resistance. Unless their grievances were 
 redressed (that is, unless the Act were repealed, full compensation 
 granted for all losses and disappointments, military protection 
 provided at the expense of the mother country, and all preten- 
 sions to interfere with their internal government and affairs 
 abandoned by Parliament), they could not again vote the usual 
 provisions for the troops ; and in the meantime all grants for 
 public buildings, barracks, etc., would be suspended.* All this 
 was very properly received in silence. It was hoped that the 
 cause of quarrel was now removed. The supply of slaves being 
 stopped, the planters must, for their own sake, improve the 
 condition of the existing stock ; and their interests might be 
 safely left to the Assembly and to time. This new hope seemed 
 more reasonable than the last ; but that it was not the less to be 
 disappointed, the very next proceeding of the Assembly plainly 
 showed. A Bill for the prevention of unlicensed preaching 
 (framed, we presume, on the model of Lord Camden's draft), 
 was brought in and rejected. They had not given up their own 
 measure yet ; and they were resolved that, by fair means or by 
 foul, the disallowed law should still be the law of Jamaica. 
 They therefore passed an Act, such as it had been usual to pass 
 from time to time, consolidating in one all former laws for the 
 order and government of slaves ; and in the middle of this Act they 
 silently inserted a proviso which had never been inserted before, 
 — namely, " that no method ist missionary, or other sectary, or 
 preacher, should presume to instruct the slaves, or to receive them 
 
 * Journals, vol. xi. p. 287.
 
 96 THE JAMAICA BILL OF 1839. 
 
 in their houses, chapels, or conventicles of any sort or descrip- 
 tion." This Act became law in Jamaica in November, 1807, 
 but was not forwarded to England in the usual course. As soon 
 as it did arrive, it was of course disallowed, and (the better to 
 provide against the repetition of such an act of treachery) the 
 Governor was forbidden to sanction any Bill touching on religious 
 liberty, unless it contained a clause making it inoperative until 
 specially confirmed by the Crown.* 
 
 Here, again, was a case from which the hopelessness of getting 
 any good out of the Assembly might have been learned. If the 
 wishes and recommendations of the Government, acting in accord- 
 ance with the known views of Parliament, were to have any 
 weight w'ith them, this surely should have been decisive. Yet 
 mark the result ! They promptly resolved that this new instruction 
 was " a violation of their birthrights ; " — they had an indefeasible 
 right to enjoy the immediate operation of such acts, " without the 
 same being suppressed in their progress to his Majesty by the 
 arbitrary fiat of a minister," (meaning the Governor's veto) — they 
 would not submit to this — -they would grant the usual provision 
 for the troops for one quarter more ; but after that, unless their 
 grievances were redressed (i. e. unless the instruction were with- 
 drawn), they would refuse it.-f* This was a little too much, and 
 that Assembly was dissolved. It would appear, however, that 
 nothing is gained by dissolutions in Jamaica. The new Assembly, 
 indeed — so decidedly did Lord Liverpool refuse to withdraw the 
 instruction — durst not openhj re-af(irm tlie original resolution. 
 They intimated their dissatisfaction, and re-asserted their right ; 
 but said noticing about the supplies.t They had, however, one 
 trick left ; and they were silently resolved not to be beaten. They 
 passed a new Bill for the prevention of unlicensed preaching, 
 containing the same forbidden and now twice-rejected provisions ; 
 on the 14th of November (by what art we cannot learn) they 
 obtained the Governor's assent to it;§ and on tlie 15th they con- 
 sented to vote the supplies for the troops ! || 
 
 Such are the manceuvres by which a legislature " co-operating " 
 on tlie spot, may defeat a policy which it disapproves. During 
 
 * Jmirnals, vol. xii. p. 153. f II)i(l. p. 24L 
 
 $ JIjiM. p. 2;-)!. § ll.iil. p. '275. || Ibid. p. 277.
 
 THE JAMAICA BILL OF 1839. 97 
 
 the fourteen years which had now ehipsed since the Jamaica 
 Assembly was first invited to assist in devising measures for the 
 benefit of the negro population, they had so far prevailed against 
 the direct, the repeated, the strictly constitutional resistance 
 of a strong Government, backed, if necessary, by an over- 
 whelming majority in the House of Commons, that this ob- 
 noxious law had actually been in force in Jamaica for separate 
 periods amounting in all to five years. Yet we are still called 
 upon to seek the accomplishment of our hated purposes, by 
 trusting it to them ! 
 
 It is perhaps to be regretted that this last act of contumacy 
 did not lead at once to an open and final rupture. But such a 
 quarrel was not forced upon the Government, and they did not 
 choose to seek it. The Assembly, knowing that the law would 
 be disallowed as soon as it reached England, had enacted it for 
 one year only, and it expired a few weeks before the disallowance 
 reached Jamaica. They did not venture to renew it. They had 
 found by this time that a fresh season of patience had set in 
 upon the people of England; and they could best effect their own 
 purposes by avoiding any further collision. The missionaries 
 might be silenced by other means than legal ones. The matter 
 therefore was permitted to drop. Session after session the 
 people waited, and the slave code remained unaltered. At last 
 they became sensible that something more must be done. Eight 
 years had elapsed since the passing of the Abolition Act, and not 
 one of those measures had been adopted by the Jamaica 
 Assembly which their friends had promised, in 1797, that they 
 would adopt at once if they were but asked to do so. In 1815 
 therefore Mr. Wilberforce proposed his Slave Eegistrj^ Bill ; and 
 the revived threat of Parliamentary interference reminded them 
 of the expediency of seeming to be doing something for the 
 amelioration of the condition of the negroes. The subject was 
 dealt with in an elaborate Eeport drawn up towards the close of 
 that year ; which is interesting as giving their own account of 
 what they had done for that object since the matter was first 
 agitated in Parliament. By their own showing they had done 
 nothing. To prove the charge of inattention to the welfare of 
 the negroes groundless, they appeal — to what ? — to a succession 
 
 H
 
 98 THE JAMAICA BILL OF 1839. 
 
 of Acts for bumanizmg their condition, raising their morals, 
 enlightening their minds, secm-ing them more effectually against 
 oppression ? By no means : no such Acts existed. They appeal 
 to an Act for their better order and government, passed in 1784 ! 
 to that Act of which Bm-ke spoke in 1792, when he said — "I 
 have seen what has been done by the West Indian Assemblies. 
 It is arrant trifling. They have done little; and what they 
 have done is good for nothing, for it is totally destitute of 
 an executory principle."* To this Act they appeal in 1815, 
 as containing everything needful for the good of the servile 
 population ! f 
 
 Mr. Wilberforce's Bill was of course denounced with the 
 usual epithets. But the passion for conciliation had not yet 
 abated. Gentlemen who understood the feelings of the Colonial 
 Assemblies were as ready as ever with assurances, which Ministers 
 were as ready as ever to confide in, that in their hearts they 
 were anxious to pass such a Bill. In virtue of these promises 
 the measure was withdrawn, and the subject was recommended 
 to the consideration of the Assembly, with a warning which, 
 since the Abolition Act, had acquired some significance ; — 
 namely, " that should the recommendation be wholly disre- 
 garded, or should some measure be adopted altogether nugatory, 
 however much, in the present agitated state of the population in 
 the West Indies, the interference of the British Parliament was 
 to be deprecated on a question of this description, his Majesty's 
 Ministers were persuaded that this interference could not be 
 effectually resisted."! This was to the purpose. To avoid this 
 dreaded interference, and put off for an indefinite period the 
 adoption of effectual measures, they must at least pretend to be 
 doing something. And let us now enquire how they sped in so 
 novel an enterprise. 
 
 First, they passed a Slave Registry Bill, which, though not 
 perfect, was eagerly hailed as a pledge of the best intentions in 
 the world — as the commencement of a new era of justice and 
 liberality. In fact, it was so far from perfect, that it might 
 almost have been described as nugatory. The object was to 
 
 * Burko's Works, vol. ix. p. 283. t Journals, vol. xii. p. 791. 
 
 X jMinutf'S of Afcsemljly, 181(;, p. 18.
 
 THE JAMAICA BILL OF 1839. 99 
 
 in-event the smuggling of slaves into the island : it was to be 
 effected by compelling every owner to send in periodically a 
 return of the names and descriptions of all the slaves in his 
 possession. Of com^se the efficacy of the measm-e depended upon 
 the accuracy of these returns. But this Bill provided no 
 sufficient regulations for identifying the persons named in the 
 retm*n ; nor any security against the falsification of their numhers. 
 A slave-owner, therefore, who intended to increase his stock, 
 could escape detection by simply returning the names of as many 
 slaves as he expected to have before the next census. For the 
 pm-pose in view, this bill was worth little or nothing. Secondly, 
 they passed a revised Slave Act, containing little new except a 
 clause prohibiting the purchase of slaves by middlemen — a real 
 improvement, though a slight one ; and another, enlarging the 
 IDOwers of vestries, as a council of protection for negroes wronged 
 by then' masters — a clause practically worthless, because the 
 vestries consisted of masters. Thh-dly, they passed an Act for 
 appointing twelve additional curates, making the number of 
 clergy in the island twenty-four — about one clergyman to every 
 14,000 slaves ; — an improvement certainly, but so utterly in- 
 adequate, that it could hardly make itself felt as a practical 
 benefit : an admu'able show measure, but not a working one. 
 Altogether the improvement was not considerable. Still they 
 were all steps in the right direction, and were hailed with 
 applause as promising marvellous things. The defects in the 
 Eegistry Bill were ascribed to inadvertence; the animus was 
 inferred from the rest. The age of liberality and justice was 
 setting in in earnest, and the people need only wait to hear of 
 the good things that were coming to the negroes. So they waited 
 for seven years more ; and then they inquu'ed whether anything 
 had been done ; and the answer was, in this as in all former 
 cases, nothing. 
 
 Now came the question. How long was this to last ? — Was 
 Slavery, or was it not, to continue for ever ? Fifteen j^ears had 
 now passed since by the abolition of the Slave Trade it was sup- 
 posed to have become the interest of the planters to adopt such 
 measures as might gradually prepare the slave population for 
 freedom ; and, in Jamaica at least, no such measures had been
 
 100 THE JAMAICA BILL OF ISoP. 
 
 taken. In 1823 the prospect of ultimate emancipation seemed 
 no nearer than in 1807. Such being the history of former hopes, 
 what mere mockery to renew them now ! Surely now at least 
 Parliament would assume another tone, and insist upon the pre- 
 paratory measures being passed at once. But it was not to be 
 so. After so many trials, all ending in disappointment, it was 
 yet determmed to try once more. General resolutions were 
 passed by Parliament ; specific measures were to be proposed by 
 Government ; the Colonial legislatures were to be recommended 
 to adopt them : should they refuse contumaciously, it would be 
 then time to take further measures. Such was the result of Mr. 
 Buxton's motion in 1823. Once more the co-operation of Jamaica 
 was to be sought by conciliation ; once more her friends in 
 England came forward with liberal promises on her behalf; once 
 more let us ask what was the result ? 
 
 The result was not long in coming. The resolutions of the 
 House of Commons, indicating the general wishes and views of 
 Parliament, were laid before the Assembly, and were answered 
 by an angry protest and a flat refusal to comply. " So long as 
 the right of unqualified legislation was denied, the House could not 
 yield to any measure proposed for their consideration, however 
 specious the object might be, or however high the authority from 
 which it emanated."* Was not this enough? Simple admoni- 
 tion had always been unavailing ; to give the admonition weight, 
 you accompany it with a menace ; and now you are told that, 
 until that menace be withdrawn, your suggestions cannot even 
 be taken into consideration. Surely if authority is to be used at 
 all, it should be used now. 
 
 But no : not yet ! That would be to unveil the transcen- 
 dental majesty — to take the arcanum out of the penetralia. 
 Gentler methods were not yet exhausted. It was true that argu- 
 ment and persuasion had been tried in vain ; true that sugges- 
 tions had been rejected as dictation ; advice resented as unjusti- 
 fiable interference ; the declared wishes of the Parliament and 
 the people of England entertained with contumely ; their resolu- 
 tions and deliberate determinations answered with defiance ; — 
 true that tlie show of compliance which the dread of Parliamen- 
 
 ♦ I'arlianicntary Papers, 1824, No. 2, p. 7.
 
 THE JAMAICA BILL OF 1839. 101 
 
 tary interference had extorted was too plainly a mere pretence ; 
 true that year after year had passed away since our eyes were 
 opened to the iniquity of the system, leaving us still burdened 
 with the sin, the shame, and the growing danger involved in it — 
 a burden which a word would relieve us from ; — but all was not 
 done yet: one course yet remained, "the slow and steady course 
 of temperate but authoritative admonition."* Here, then, was a 
 new experiment, or series of experiments, to be entered on, which 
 certainly could not be tried out within any assignable period, and 
 might easily be made to last for ever. With a view to the ques- 
 tion before us, the results of this experiment (though we have 
 not room to trace them in detail), are well worth a careful study; 
 for they show us what is to be expected from a body like the 
 Jamaica Assembly, in circumstances very closely resembling 
 those in which it has recently been proposed to place them. The 
 system of conciliation was to be partly abandoned ; a series of 
 specific measm*es was to be proposed to them for adoption, with 
 a fair warning that, in case of refusal, those measures would be 
 forced upon them by the supreme authority of Parliament. The 
 issue of this policy can only lead, we think, to one conclusion — 
 that it ought never to be tried again ; — a policy which, under 
 pretence of avoiding an appeal to the transcendental powers of 
 Parliament, escaped none of the evils of such an a^^peal, while it 
 missed almost all the good ; wdiich, under pretence of forbear- 
 ance and conciliation, bred nothing but controversy the most 
 irritating, and agitation the most dangerous ; which, under pre- 
 tence of securing the co-operation of the Assembly in a work of 
 great moment, urgenc}^, and necessity, did in fact only postpone 
 the commencement of that work for many years ; which, after 
 all, left the original evil unsur mounted and unabated ; — for the 
 transcendental powers of Parliament had to be appealed to in the 
 end, in circumstances much less favom-able than before. We 
 must content ourselves with a hasty review of the principal 
 stages of the controversy. 
 
 A coj)y of a law framed for the CrowTi Colonies was sent to 
 Jamaica in 1824. The Governor, having called the attention of 
 the Assembly to it in two successive sessions, rej^orted (22ud 
 
 * Mr. Ciiuuiug'ti spceuli iu IH'H.
 
 102 THE JAMAICA BILL OF 1839. 
 
 December 1825), that "there was no hoi^e of persuading that 
 House to do anythmg effectual for the rehef of the slaves." * On 
 the 13th of March following, he was instructed by Lord Bathurst 
 to dissolve them. For the information of the new House, eight 
 separate Bills were drawn up, embodying the measures proposed 
 by the Government for their adoption. The new House replied 
 (November, 1826), that such measures, " if adopted in that 
 island in their present shape, would not only endanger their hves 
 and properties, but would ultimately terminate in the ruin and 
 destruction of the colony."! They felt, however, that something 
 must be done : another fiat refusal to do anything would be 
 beyond the patience of Parliament. They would, therefore, do 
 something: — "sincerely actuated by that ardent desire, which 
 had long distinguished the Assembly of Jamaica, to embrace 
 every opportunity of improving the condition of the slave popula- 
 tion," they passed an Act, "to alter and amend the slave laws 
 of the island." We have now to see what sort of things these 
 gentlemen do when they can no longer persist in doing nothing. 
 Into this new Slave Act, which (though falling far- short of what 
 was wanted, and still subject to Burke's censure — worthless, 
 because destitute of an executory princix^le) did certainly contain 
 many plausible appearances of improvement upon the old one, 
 they introduced restraints upon the free communication of 
 religious instruction, which would unquestionably have operated 
 as a great hindrance everywhere, and might easily be abused 
 into a total and absolute stoppage of all those sources of instruc- 
 tion from which the slaves drew real benefit. But this was to 
 bo the price of their approaches — their distant and ineffectual 
 approaches — to a compliance with the wishes of Parliament. 
 Only let the planters have the benefit of the preaching clauses, 
 and the slaves were welcome to all the benefit they could get out 
 of the others. This would never do : the law was disallowed. 
 The reasons were stated Ijy Mr. Huskisson in a long despatch, 
 very liberal of compliments for what had been done — most 
 l^atient in explanations of what had been left undone, — full of 
 regret at the course which it had been necessary to pursue — and 
 of hope that they would speedily pass another Bill free from 
 
 ♦ Piirliamentavy Papf rs, 1826 (2), p. 5, t Ibid. 1S2S (1), p. GO.
 
 THE JAMAICA BILL OF 1839. 103 
 
 those insuperable objections. At the same time the Governor 
 was reminded of the instruction whicli forbade him to sanction 
 any law infringing on rehgious liberty, unless it had a suspend- 
 ing clause.* But the Assembly were not to be argued into 
 liberality, or complimented into co-operation. They resolved 
 that " the disallowed law contained every real and substantial 
 improvement which could he adopted with safety to the country 
 and benefit to the slave ; they could not (for the purpose of 
 gratifying the Parliament and Government of Great Britain) 
 agree to ado^^t measures incompatible with the best interests of 
 the colonies ; and as the Governor was forbidden to sanction any 
 bill on the subject of religion unless it had a suspending clause, 
 and as they ivould never make a deliberate surrender of tlieir un- 
 doubted and acknowledged rights, by legislating in the manner 
 prescribed, they would not present any Bill respecting the slave 
 population."t This was in December 1827. Thus the " slow 
 and steady com-se " had now continued for four years ; and the 
 slave law was scarcely better by a single clause than it had been 
 in 1784.. A long reply to Mr. Huskisson's objections, and a long 
 rejoinder from him, consumed one season more ; and then a 
 change of Government made fresh explanations necessary. Sir 
 George Murray, adopting the policy and the tone of his prede- 
 cessor, pointed out the various measm'es to which the Govern- 
 ment and Parliament were pledged by the resolutions of 1823 ;. 
 and urged them, for their own sakes, at least to pass some 
 measure which might satisfy people that something was about 
 to be done ; for the people were impatient, and it would be im- 
 possible much longer to avoid some efficient and authoritative 
 interference. J. 
 
 A few years before this prospect might have alai'med them-,. 
 But what did they care for such a threat now, when they had 
 been braving it for the last five years with impunity '? The dis- 
 allowed Bill was brought in again, and passed the House in 
 precisely the same words as before, with the difference only of 
 dates ; and the Governor of com'se refused his assent.§ Still no 
 
 * Parliamentary Papers, 1828. f Ibid. 1828, p. 8. 
 
 X Parliamentary Papers, 1S29, pp. 5-9. 
 
 § ISir J. Ktiiuc's Dcspalch. Parliamentary Papers, p. 10,
 
 104 THE JAJIAICA BILL OF 1839. 
 
 svmptons of coercion. A new Governor was going out, and 
 perliaps he would find a new people. But Lord Belmore himself 
 could not prevent a third Act from passing which contained the 
 same ohnoxious clauses, only more rigorous than before ; and 
 Sir George Murray had no choice but to disallow it. Still, how- 
 ever, as if each successive Secretary of State felt bound to reject 
 as irrelevant all the experience of his predecessors, he persevered 
 in hoping that on reconsideration the Assembly would abandon 
 their present course ;* and, when pressed in the House of Com- 
 mons to say what he meant to do, he seemed to think this quite 
 enough.. "The resolutions of 1823 were, in his opinion, sufficient 
 warrant for him " — to do what ? To come down to Parliament 
 for powers to carry them into execution? No — "to continue 
 urging these ameliorating measures as raj)idly as they could 
 be urged." t In other words, the "course of temj^erate but 
 authoritative admonition " had been pursued for sev^n years 
 without intermission; nothing had been gained by it, except 
 accumulated proofs of its fruitlessness ; therefore, it might still 
 go on. 
 
 At length, however, this wretched hope was cheered with a 
 brief gleam of encouragement — a lightening before death. In 
 February 1831, a law was actually passed (without the inadmis- 
 sible clauses,) by which the Ministers were at length able to say 
 that, upon the whole, the existing slave code would be improved. 
 It was accepted, as usual, wdth many compliments and thanks ; 
 and the many defects which made it utterly inadequate to its 
 professed purposes, were, as usual, patiently pointed out ; — of 
 course with the usual result. The Assembly declined to hazard 
 any further changes in a law so recently passed, t 
 
 There w^as now no further colour for prolonging the experi- 
 ment. It was clear that Parliament must either recede from its 
 determination, or prepare to enforce it by some other means ; 
 and it was resolved to try whether the co-operation which could 
 not be conceded to reason, to entreaty, or to menaces, might 
 not, after all, be had for money. A new law was framed for the 
 Crown Colonies, embodying all the measures of amelioration 
 
 * Parliamentary Papers, 1830, p. 35. f Debate of July 13, 1830. 
 
 + Parliamentary Papers, 1832, p. II).
 
 THE JAMAICA BILL OF 1839 105 
 
 which were then thought requisite, and rehef from certain fiscal 
 burdens was promised to all the legislative colonies which should 
 adoi)t them. The strength of the principle so often avowed hy 
 the Assembly of Jamaica, and never for a moment receded from 
 — not to endure dictation in whatever form it might come — was 
 now to be fairly tested : and it stood the test bravely. The 
 proposition was met by a direct refusal " to entertain any pro- 
 position for the further amelioration of the slave j)opulation, 
 ichich did not emanate from themselves" This determination was 
 communicated by the Governor on the 8th of March, 1832, with 
 an intimation that nothing could be gained by a dissolution. 
 Thus, in the ninth year of its progress, the "slow and steady 
 course of temperate but authoritative admonition," which had been 
 growing slower and steadier every year, at last stood quite still ; 
 and the hope of ending the difference without a quarrel was 
 finally extinguished. Surely not too soon ! But all its fruits were 
 not yet gathered. Had it led to nothing more than a nine years' 
 postponement of the commencement of a work most urgent and 
 necessary, that fact would have been enough to condemn it. 
 But this was not all. The long vexation of these questions had 
 fretted the Planters into wild and impotent fury. During 
 1831, Jamaica swarmed with parochial meetings, where language 
 was used, and resolutions were adopted, which filled the slaves 
 with such terror and suspicion — such vague surmises of evil 
 meditated against them by their masters, and of good unjustly 
 withheld — that the next year they rose up in open insurrection. 
 
 We might almost stop here, and leave Sir Eobert Peel and his 
 locus pcenitentise to be judged by the very example to which he 
 had the simplicity, or the effrontery, to appeal. A course of 
 treatment is tried for the cure of an enormous and admitted 
 evil : for eight years it produces nothing but barren controversy, 
 and in the ninth a rebellion — the evil remaining all the while 
 unmitigated. Is this a course of treatment to be tried again ? 
 But we must still go on ; for another experiment upon the gentler 
 sensibilities of this Assembly was still in store ; another result 
 of experience was to be laid up for our guidance. 
 
 For a few years, indeed, it appeared that the last lesson had 
 not been taught in vain. Conciliation was abandoned. Com-
 
 106 THE JAMAICA BILL OF 1839. 
 
 mittees of both Houses of Parliament were appointed to inquire 
 into the question ; and their Eeport was speedily followed by the 
 Act for the total abolition of slavery throughout the British 
 dominions. The Jamaica Assembly were induced to co-operate 
 in this work by a clause declaring the compensation money 
 payable only on that condition ; — effectual co-operation the 
 condition, Government the judge. Among the innumerable 
 inducements which had been held out with the same view for 
 the last forty years, this, it will be seen, was the first which 
 answered its purpose. A prudent statesman would have been 
 the more careful to keep it in reserve till the work was done. 
 But in this there seemed something ungracious, as implying 
 suspicion ; and something impolitic, as tending to check the 
 growth of that friendly feeling which can never thrive under 
 the consciousness of distrust. There were many instances on 
 record (especially in works of fiction) in which a generous nature 
 had won the entire confidence of another heart by suddenly 
 bestowing all his own ; or escaped a fight by simply throwing 
 away his weapon; or changed an inveterate enemy into an 
 eternal friend by putting himself entirely in his power; and 
 Lord Stanley resolved to try a similar experiment upon the 
 Jamaica Assembly. By paying the money before all the work 
 was done, he could at once give them a clear proof that he did 
 really confide in the fairness of their intentions, and an excellent 
 opportunity for showing that his confidence was not misplaced. 
 This was the last experiment. The particulars we need not 
 detail here, as they may be found in a former number of this 
 Jom-nal ; * but we must briefly notice the result. Out of this 
 very display of unnecessary and misplaced confidence, there grew 
 the necessity for three separate acts of super-legislation ; three 
 separate violations of the constitution of Jamaica within the 
 sj)ace of three years ; and finally, the precipitate, if not jDre- 
 mature, breaking up of the whole system. To conciliate the 
 Assembly, Lord Stanley had shut his eyes to many serious 
 defects in their first Abolition Act, and trusted to them for the 
 removal of the rest. In gratitude to Lord Stanley, the Assembly 
 consented to adopt many of his suggestions for one year ; but 
 
 ■* Edinhurijh llcvieic, No. lol, ji. 188. Sec above, p. 48.
 
 THE JAMAICA BILL OF 1839. 107 
 
 after that tliey were inexorable. Tlicy presented a third Bill 
 more objectionable than the first ; and with one or other of 
 those Government was to be contented. The second, the 
 partially amended Act, was re-enacted, in 1836, by a unanimous 
 Parliament. But this was not the end. Out of the many 
 defects which had been allowed to remain in this Act (Lord 
 Stanley having, from delicacy to the Assembly, refrained from 
 insisting on the removal of them), there arose that brood of 
 practical abuses and oppressions of which we have all heard too 
 much ; — which, in spite of unwearied exertions on the part of 
 Lord Sligo first, then of Sir Lionel Smith — in spite of the most 
 earnest representations, remonstrances, and lastly admonitions, 
 of the Government — the Assembly would not stir a finger to 
 remedy ; — which were allowed to go on month after month, and 
 year after year, unabated, rather aggravated, by the discussion ; 
 which finally set all England in an uproar, and raised a storm 
 of opinion that swept everything before it ; and ended in another 
 Act of " super-legislation," against which, though most stringent 
 and arbitrary in its provisions, not a single voice was raised in 
 remonstrance. This same clamour it was that -drove the 
 Assembly to abandon the Apprenticeship of their own accord ; 
 and lastly, out of the sudden announcement of that resolution, 
 arose the necessity of suddenl}^ passing the very Prisons Act, 
 which has brought everything to a standstill. 
 
 From all this miserable history of delays, disappointments, 
 and disasters, it must, we think, ai)X3ear that the quarrel between 
 Parliament and the Jamaica Assembly (whatever may have been 
 the particular occasion of the last outbreak) is not about the 
 terms of a Despatch or the form of a communication ; but about 
 the possession of substantial powers for working effects of great 
 practical moment. They think our whole policy with regard to 
 the negroes wrong, and are determined to defeat it if they can ; 
 we think it right, and are determined that it shall prevail. For 
 carrying this policy into effect, no means have been left untried ; 
 and two only have been successful ; — namel}^ the direct appli- 
 cation of authority, and the payment of sterling money. Our 
 money has been already paid away ; and the question now is,
 
 108 THE JAMAICA BILL OF 1839. 
 
 whether our authority is to be promised away — which, as things 
 at present stand, would be nothing less than an abandonment of 
 our* policy. That this is the real condition which the Assembly 
 demand, and that they really mean to be satisfied with nothing 
 less, cannot, we think, be reasonably doubted by any one who, 
 bearing in mind the events which we have already gone through, 
 attends to then* words and deeds during the few months which 
 preceded the final rupture. 
 
 We have seen how jealous they have always been of inter- 
 ference in all its shapes. Not merely super-legislation by Par- 
 liament, not merely authoritative advice proceeding from the 
 Secretary of State, but even the exercise of the Eoyal Veto, has 
 always been regarded as a grievance. Since the abolition of 
 slavery this power has been called for very often, as occasions 
 for fresh legislation with reference to the negroes (that is, for 
 fresh attempts on their part to defeat the policy of this country) 
 have become more frequent. Towards the end of the Appren- 
 ticeship the number of disallowed laws had become so great as 
 to induce a distinct declaration that if their power of legislation 
 was to be thus fettered and controlled it were better they should 
 be deprived of the power at once.* While they were making 
 this complaint, the Abolition Act Amendment Bill (the history of 
 which is sufficiently familiar to our readers) was passing through 
 Parliament without a dissentient voice. On its arrival in 
 Jamaica it was received with an indignant protest ; as a usurpa- 
 tion of their privileges hardly compatible with their continued 
 existence as a legislative body. It might indeed be enforced ; 
 "but titerc could not he two Legislatures in one State. If the 
 British Parliament was to make laws for Jamaica, it must 
 exercise that prerogative without a partner ; the freeholders of 
 Jamaica would not send representatives to a mock Assembly, 
 nor would representatives be found to accept a service so docked 
 and crippled ; the popular branch of the legislature would cease 
 to exist, and, if any taxes were demanded, they must be demanded 
 at the point of the sword. "f Such was their feeling with regard 
 
 * See Report of Committee, dated March 24, 1838: puLlishcd in iho Jamaica 
 Gazelle, p. 340. 
 
 t I'rotcst of Abbonbly, Purl. Papcrt;, p. ot).
 
 THE JAIMAICA BITX OP 1830. 100 
 
 to an Act which was carried with approbation so undivided that 
 even Mr. Burge did not hazard a protest against it, and which 
 Mr. Gladstone has since described as " not involving any assump- 
 tion or aggression on the part of the British Parliament, but as 
 only a part of the great compact of 1833,"-* But to do the 
 Assembly justice, they have never been wanting in courage, how- 
 ever wanting in all those other qualities without which courage 
 is apt to become a public nuisance ; and they now determined to 
 bring the question between them and Parliament to an immediate 
 issue. They resolved to abolish the remaining term of Appren- 
 ticeship at once ; and, having thus got rid of the compact, to 
 make a resolute stand against any further super-legislation. In 
 announcing their intention to pass such a Bill, they took occasion 
 to express an " anxious hope that they would then be left in the 
 exercise of their constitutional privileges, ivithout any fartlier 
 Parliamentary interference,^ Now it so happened that another 
 case of this very interference which they so much deprecated 
 w^as inevitably brought on by this very announcement. We 
 believe that the consequence was unforeseen, but it was not the 
 less unavoidable. It will be remembered that the worst abuses 
 which had arisen under the Apprenticeship law were owing to 
 the prison regulations, over which the Executive Government 
 had no control. X To transfer the management of all places of 
 confinement, so far as Aj^prentices were concerned (and almost 
 all the inmates were Apprentices), from the parish vestries to 
 the Governor in Council, was one of the main objects of the 
 Abolition Act Amendment Bill. This law was to continue in 
 force so long as the Apprenticeship lasted; and so long, its pro- 
 visions were stringent enough to prevent any evils that could 
 reasonably be apprehended. But the moment the Apprentice- 
 ship expired those provisions expired with it ; and under his new 
 name of free labourer, every negro who might be committed to 
 a house of correction by any Justice of the Peace, was in danger 
 of all the collars, chains, cart-whips, and solitary cells, of the 
 familiar application of which under the management of the 
 parish vestries such ample evidence had been j^roduced. It was 
 
 * Speech on Janiaica Bill, May 7. t 5th June, Pail. Papers, p. 45. 
 
 X Kdinhunjh lirritw, N(i. VM, p. 511). See above, p. 82.
 
 110 THE JAMAICA BILL OF 1839. 
 
 absolutely iiecessaiy, therefore, as soon as news came from 
 Jamaica tliat the Apprenticeship was to cease on the 1st of 
 August by Act of Assembly, to pass through Parliament, without 
 a moment's delay, a fresh Bill to revive those provisions ; and 
 such was the object of all that was obnoxious in the Prisons Act 
 — an Act hurried through Parliament, not without notice, though 
 altogether without opposition. 
 
 The Assembly saw at once that, now or never, they must 
 mate then* intended stand. They no sooner met in November 
 than they resolved that the Prisons Act was illegal and ought 
 not to be obeyed; and — seeing "the continued aggressions of 
 the British Parliament, and the confusion and mischief which 
 must result from the present anomalous system of government " 
 — they proceeded to declare, that " they would abstain from the 
 exercise of any legislative function, except such as might be 
 necessary to preserve inviolate the faith of the island with the 
 public creditor, until they should he left to the free exercise of their 
 inherent rights as British subjects.''* Upon this, Sir Lionel 
 Smith prorogued them for a few days, that they might have 
 time for reconsideration ; and, in calling them together again, 
 reminded them of the many measures which it was important to 
 pass, and of the many explanatory communications from the 
 Secretary of State which he had to lay before them. But it 
 would not do. They wanted no explanations ; they were well 
 aware of the difficulties in which their conduct would place the 
 colony; but "then- legislative rights had been violated, and so 
 long as those rights continued to he invaded, they must adhere to 
 their resolutions'." f As it was plainly impossible for Sir Lionel 
 to promise them either satisfaction for the past or security 
 against future invasions of these privileges, he could only dissolve 
 them at once. A new Assembly met on the 18th of December; 
 but their spirit was not changed. They also felt the evils 
 attending their course ; they knew how much laws were wanted ; 
 " but the power was no longer left in their hands to apply the 
 remedy;" " their legislative rights had been invaded by Parlia- 
 ment ; " and " even in their ordinary legislative proceedings they 
 
 * Afldiess, 2n(l Xov., rarliaraentaiy Papers, p. 154, 
 t Parliamcntaiy Pnpcrs, ji. 1;5G.
 
 THE JAMAICA BILL OF 1839. Ill 
 
 were fettered by an over-ruling authority" (meaning the Veto of 
 the Crown) ; — they must, therefore, " adhere to the determination 
 which was come to by the late House of Assembly." * 
 
 Now we put it to any unbiassed man, whether the meaning 
 of all this is not as gross and palpable as words and actions can 
 make it. Doubts, we know, have been raised upon this point ; 
 and curious interpretations have been devised, which considering 
 the quarter they jDroceed fi'om, we can only regard with un- 
 feigned wonder, as specimens of the desperate ingenuity of a 
 very clever man, who has placed himself very strangely in the 
 WTong. For ourselves, w^e must be permitted to believe that the 
 Assembly mean neither more nor less than this — that they will 
 not proceed with their work till some secm'ity be given them 
 against further Parliamentary interference. We believe that 
 they not only meant to say this, but mean to stand by it ; that 
 nothing short of some assurance of the kind will satisfy them ; 
 that no such assurance can be given which would not be con- 
 strued into a distinct renunciation of the right to interfere ; and 
 that, had the Government pretended to miderstand their words 
 in any other sense, they would have been justly chargeable Avith 
 stooping to a miserable and most unseemly quibble, for fear of 
 frankly accepting a challenge which could not have been more 
 frankly offered. 
 
 Such, then, being the condition on which alone they offer to 
 resume their functions, the question is, whether it ought or ought 
 not to be complied with ? That it ought to be complied with, 
 no one has ventured dh-ectly to maintain ; and only one speaker 
 of note seemed disposed to recommend. Lord Stanley, we think, 
 implied as much ; though it is not easy to disentangle his arc/u- 
 mentum ad rem from the argumenta ad homines in which it is 
 wrapped up. For although he praised Sir Eobert Peel's proposal 
 of a locus pcenitenti^ backed by a threat, he recommended some- 
 thing very different ; — namely, a mode of dealing at once " plain, 
 frank, sincere, and conciliatory ; " — conditions which it is plainly 
 impossible to combine in any course which does not involve a 
 promise of non-interference for the future. As Lord Stanley's 
 personal experience in dealing with the Assembly gives a pecuhar 
 
 t Pailianiontary Papors, p. 160.
 
 112 THE JAMAICA BILL OF 1830. 
 
 weight to his opinion in such a matter, we must explain our own 
 reasons for believing that there never was a time at which such 
 a promise could have been less safely made ; or at which a 
 prompt and decided refusal was more urgently called for. 
 
 That the interests ■ of aU classes in Jamaica demand the 
 enactment of many new laws, adapted to their new relations, 
 will hardl}' be disputed. The means which have hitherto been 
 available for protecting the mutual interests and regulating the 
 mutual duties of the different classes into which society is 
 distributed, and for guiding the labour of the population into 
 profitable channels, have suddenly ceased to exist. Hitherto 
 seven-eighths of the population have been held under a super- 
 vision and control, which provided sufficient securities for the 
 peace of society, the productiveness of capital, the competent 
 supply of labour, the orderly subsistence of the lower classes, the 
 relief of the poor and infirm, and the prevention and punishment 
 of crime. But these ends were attained by sacrificing the 
 freedom of seven-eighths of the population. They must now be 
 secured without that sacrifice. Without interfering with the 
 freedom of locomotion, of speech, of intercourse between famihes, 
 of assemblage for lawful and inoffensive pm-poses, of choice of 
 abode, sufficient securities are yet to be taken against crime, 
 riot, vagrancy, squatting, and the like. To the labom-er the 
 profits of his labour are to be secured — to the capitalist the 
 produce of his caj)ital. For the improvement of the social 
 condition of Jamaica much more is required ; but thus much, 
 at least, is necessary for the protection of the mere riyJtts of 
 each class. 
 
 Now, that these ends are not duly provided for by the existing 
 code of Jamaica might be proved by reference to the practical 
 working of all her institutions, from her high courts of justice to 
 her parish vestries ; for it must be remarked, as one consequence 
 of the long controversy in which she has been engaged with this 
 countr}', that, pending that controversy, all imblic objects have 
 been neglected. But a single illustration will be sufficient. The 
 following case may occur at any time ; — may be occurring whilst 
 we write. — It is known that the great mass of labourers are 
 tenants at will of their former masters, and have no homes but
 
 THE JAMAICA BILL OF 1839. 113 
 
 such as belong to them. The manager (having pre^-iously 
 given to all or any of the labourers dwelling on the estate three 
 months' notice to quit — a precaution which in many caees has 
 been actually taken) calls on them to enter into a contract, 
 involving heavy duties and small pay, and lasting for a long 
 time. If they consent, they bind themselves to a bad bargain ; 
 and in case of any kind of failure to fulfil the entire conditions 
 of it f which need not he expressed in writing J, they may be 
 deprived of all their wages, or imprisoned with hard labour for 
 three months in a Jamaica prison, at the discretion of any 
 justice of the peace.* If they refuse, they are liable, at the 
 discretion of any two justices, to be summarily ejected from the 
 estate : f being ejected, they may be brought before the nearest 
 justice as vagrants, proved to have been found " wandering 
 abroad," homeless, "not having wherewith to maintain them- 
 selves;" and to have "refused to work for the usual and 
 common wages ; " and thereupon sentenced to hard labom* in the 
 house of correction for six months 4 If they have wandered far 
 from their native parish before they are taken up, they may 
 besides (be they males or females) receive thirty-nine lashes ; 
 and so be sent from parish to parish the nearest way to the 
 place they came from ; where the original alternative awaits 
 them. Various other mischances might be pointed out to which 
 they would be exposed in the event of their escaping these. But 
 this is enough to show that the existing law of Jamaica, far from 
 providing adequate protection for the labouring population, may 
 readily be used to deprive almost the whole of that population of 
 their liberty. 
 
 Does it, on the other hand, afford sufficient protection for 
 society? Far from it. The police law has expired. The 
 trespass law has expired. There is no law to j)revent squatting. 
 The courts of law are so overcrowded with business (350,000 
 persons having been recently brought within their jurisdiction, 
 in addition to the 50,000 which it formerly embraced), that the 
 Chief Justice complains of the consequent delay as " almost 
 amounting to a denial of justice." § The prisons are at once 
 
 * Contract Law. t A|)prentipeship Abilition Act. 
 
 X Yagra;icy Law. § I'uiliaineiitajy Pup is, I. p. 1*12. 
 
 1
 
 114 THE JAMAICA BILL OF 1839. 
 
 badly regulated and insecure ; judges are incompetent ; juries 
 are corrupt ; the colony is deeply in debt, and money is ex- 
 travagantly dear. 
 
 Lastlj^ does the existing law provide sufficient protection 
 even for the proprietary body, by whom and for whom it was 
 made? We believe that in this also it will be found to fail. 
 We believe that the planting interest has grasped at so much 
 that it is in imminent danger of losing all. The contract law is 
 so severe that no one dares to enter into a contract. The eject- 
 ment law, connected with the contract law, may be made such 
 an instrument of oppression that arrangements have been made 
 in some places by benevolent individuals to provide independent 
 locations for all labourers who may be ejected from estates. 
 The vagrancy law, boldly executed, is indeed stringent enough to 
 compel the peasantry into contracts of service ; but, so executed, 
 it would be a tyranny too tremendous to be safely enforced 
 without the aid of soldiers. The local magistracy have so much 
 of the confidence of the planters that they can enjoy no con- 
 fidence fi'om the other party. 
 
 The effect of all these laws put together is general discontent, 
 distrust, and alarm. The peasantry feel their liberties insecure. 
 They begin to be unsettled in their thoughts and habits, and 
 anxious to be independent. A few months more of this uncer- 
 tainty, and we shall see them rapidly drawing off the estates, 
 and establishing themselves in independent freeholds ; or, if any 
 attempt be made to enforce a more rigorous discipline, we may 
 f-ee them marching off in bodies and taking possession of unoc- 
 cupied lands, which abound in Jamaica, and where in the present 
 state of the law it would not be easy to prevent them from estab- 
 lishing themselves, still less easy to dislodge them when once 
 established, probably impossible to tempt them back to a life of 
 regular labour. 
 
 Such is the state of the law as at present in force in Jamaica ; 
 and such it must remain unless the Assembly choose to alter it, 
 or unless Parliament interfere. Is there, then, any reason to 
 hope that the Assembly w^ould consent to make such alterations 
 in the law as are required by the exigency ? And is the reason 
 strong enough to justify Parliament in encountering the danger
 
 THE JAMAICA BILL OF 1839. 115 
 
 of delay ? Surely there is no ground whatever for such a hope. 
 Look back through the last half century. From November 
 1784 to December 1838, what can you see but bad laws, no 
 laws, nugatory laws, or laws enacted by the Parliament of Great 
 Britain? Has the civilization of the colony during all these 
 years been advanced a single step by its own agency? Yes, 
 one ! — one gleam of light to make the darkness visible ! Free 
 people of colour have been admitted, first, to give evidence in the 
 courts of justice; and next, to the same political privileges with 
 their whiter neighbours : yet even these measures were only 
 conceded for the purpose of strengthening the white interest 
 against the great body of the black. What, then, has happened 
 now to work the sudden conversion of the Assembly ? Cu-cum- 
 stances have changed ; but the dispositions and interests of the 
 planters (their immediate interests at least) remain unaltered. 
 It has been said that their consent to terminate the Apprentice- 
 ship before its time " proved them to possess moderation and 
 firmness." We say, no : it proved only that they felt, in common 
 with the proprietary body and their friends in England, that the 
 violence of public opinion could not at that time be safely or 
 successfully resisted. It has been said that "their interests 
 are now identified with the interests of the whole community." 
 We say, no : it is their interest to oppress the labouring popula- 
 tion as much as they can, and as much as they dare ; and (only 
 let them have the making of their own laws and the support of 
 the Government in executing them), they will be able to do much 
 in that way, and will perhaps dare still more. It has been 
 urged that their dispositions must have changed with their 
 circumstances. Again we say, no : what their dispositions were 
 in the times of Slavery, the same they continued in the times of 
 Apprenticeship ; and every manifestation of their feeling during 
 the last year — reports, protests, addresses, resolutions, debates 
 — show that they continue the same still. 
 
 Suppose, then, that between the smiles of Lord Stanley and 
 the terrors of Sir Eobert Peel, the Assembly should consent to 
 abandon their present position, and resume their functions : — 
 What will be the consequence ? First, with regard to the pro- 
 tection of the labom-ing classes, two com'ses are open to them
 
 116 THE JAMAICA BILL OF 1839. 
 
 They ■^ill (unless their sj^irit is indeed changed, the probability 
 of which it lies ^Yith the asserter to make out) either simply 
 refuse to repeal the existing laws, which have been shown to be 
 utterl}' insufficient to secure the labourers from a fresh Appren- 
 ticeship deprived of the protection which they enjoyed under the 
 old one (and this would be the most favourable case ; because a 
 flat refusal would be met at once by suspension or abolition, which 
 need not take more than ten or twelve months to carry) ; or, 
 secondly, they will have recourse, as in former cases, to evasion 
 and delay. They will pass amendment laws — that is, laws pro- 
 fessing to be amended, and really altered. These laws must be 
 sent home, examined, reported on, and disallowed. Then other 
 alterations will be introduced — amendments, perhaps, so far as 
 they go — but still not going far enough to reach the object. 
 The same process must then be gone through again. The ex- 
 isting Vagrancy and Contract Laws might receive successive 
 amendments for ten successive years, and still be unallowable. 
 Yet all this time there might occur no single period in the 
 controversy at which they could be convicted so clearly as now 
 of a deliberate determination not to co-operate with the Govern- 
 ment for the jDrotection of the newly emancipated population. 
 At this moment distrust and disapproval of the i)olicy of the 
 mother country are written on every act and every expression ; 
 and they have deliberately chosen their own ground to try which 
 is the stronger — which policy is to prevail. 
 
 So much for the chance of obtaining adequate laws for the 
 protection of the labouring classes. Now for society. Acting in 
 the same spirit, they will pass a Police Bill speedily enough ; 
 but it will contain the same clauses which on the 11th of April, 
 1838 — (in violation of then constitutional privileges — Lord 
 Stanley himself standing by) — were repealed by a unanimous 
 Parliament. Both in the Pieport of their Committee of the 24th 
 March 1838, to which w'e have alluded, and in the debates 
 which followed the announcement of the Amendment Act, tjie 
 repeal of these clauses is spoken of in terms of complaint which 
 leave no doubt that they will be obstinately adhered to. Their 
 Police Act, therefore, must be disallowed. Then they will pass 
 a Trespass Act; but it will contain some clause which may be
 
 THE JAMAICA BILL OF 1839. 117 
 
 used to prevent labourers from visiting each other's dwelhngs 
 without the express permission of the overseer. This Act must 
 likewise be disallowed. A law for the prevention of squatting 
 may easily be made to contain most dangerous and oppressive 
 provisions ; and this law must be disallowed like the rest ; though 
 it is much w^anted even now, and, if the present state of things 
 be suffered to continue, it will soon become indispensable. 
 Again, what will they do for the improvement of the prisons ? 
 "What do they care about the loathsome condition of these places, 
 or their defective disciphne ? They can think of nothing but the 
 violation of their constitutional privileges by the Prisons Act. 
 This Act, therefore, will remain inoperative, so far as the im- 
 provement of the system goes, for want of funds.* Will they 
 agree to provide a new court of law, and a new judge with an 
 adequate salary ? "Will they take measures to cleanse the exist- 
 ing com-ts, and invent some new machinery for dispensing equal 
 justice to all complexions? Will they take the election and 
 control of the militia out of hands that are likely to abuse 
 their power ? — for if we are prepared for another beginning of 
 the ''slow and steady course " of 1823, we should be prepared 
 also for another termination like that of 1832 ; and we have not 
 yet forgotten the bloody work in which the Jamaica militia then 
 figured ; not in the fight only, but in the courts-martial, regular 
 or at the drum-head, after the fight was over. Will they pass a 
 law declaring the vaHdity of marriages celebrated by dissenters 
 and missionaries? Will they make proper provision for the 
 destitute and aged, without reserving to the planter that quantity 
 of discretion in granting it, which may make the relief an act of 
 indulgence, and the threat of withholding it a means of oppres- 
 sion ? Is it not evident that every one of these laws will raise 
 questions for dispute between two authorities which think 
 differently on all the subjects with which they are connected ? 
 Yet the worst of the laws which will be proposed (bad as it will 
 probably be) may perhaps produce less practical evil than the 
 non-existence of any law at all. 
 
 Such, we believe, would be the practical result of any measure 
 which should imply any kind of promise that the system of 
 
 * ParliamentLiry Pupers, I. p. 1G9,
 
 118 THE JAMAICA BILL OF 1839. 
 
 super-legislation shall hereafter be abandoned. Since the As- 
 sembly have declared as distinctly as their gift of sjDeech enables 
 them to do, that they will not be satisfied with anything less 
 than such a promise ; since such a promise would be thus highly 
 inexpedient ; and since Jamaica cannot be safely left at this 
 juncture without a legislature of some kind or other — it follows, 
 that they must be dealt with as a body which cannot be satisfied, 
 and ought therefore to be superseded. 
 
 For these reasons (for in the foregoing pages we have but 
 explained and justified the allegations contained in the preamble 
 of the defeated Bill) — and to meet promptly an occasion which 
 can ill brook delay — the Mmistry proposed to transfer to the 
 Governor and Council, for a limited time, the power of making 
 laws for Jamaica. Such a constitution would have difl'ered from 
 the existing constitution of om* Crown colonies in two material 
 points only ; three salaried commissioners, selected in England 
 for that ofiice, were to be added to the Council ; and all legis- 
 lative proceedings were to pass more immediately under the 
 supeiTision of Parliament. It was to last for two years and a 
 half. That such a Government would have been much better, 
 and much more truly representative of the entke people of 
 Jamaica (counting, of course, the 320,000 blacks), and of her 
 several interests, than any Government she has yet had, or can 
 hope to have under the existing law for many years to come, no 
 one, we presume, can seriously doubt.* Once admit that Parlia- 
 ment ought not to abandon its authority (and in such a case to 
 hesitate is to give way), once admit that some coercive measure 
 is required, and the objections to the measm-e proposed — such as 
 the danger of enforcing it, which is nothing ; the fear that it may 
 be pennanently enforced, which it cannot be without a fresh Act 
 of Parliament ; the difficulty of doterminmg whether to call it a 
 penal measure or a measure of general policy (seeing that it is 
 in fact a measure of general policy brought on by the misconduct 
 of the parties whose privileges it happens to interfere with) — 
 these and the like objections may be safely left to themselves. 
 
 * The House of Lords has profluccd, since this was written, an ilhistrious excep- 
 tion. The Duke of WtUington seriously believes, Ihut under such a goveinment no 
 white man could have remained in Jamaica ! The Duke's authoi ity is fairly against 
 us, we admit. But no authority can give weight to such an opinion.
 
 THE JAMAICA BILL OF 1839. 119 
 
 The advantages, direct and collateral, wliicli would have flowed 
 from such a measure to Jamaica first, and through her to all 
 cm* West Indian possessions, would be a more fruitful topic. 
 But it is idle to dwell upon them now, since the occasion f(jr 
 securing them has been so miserably thrown away. The mis- 
 chief is ah-eady done, and w^ill hardly be retrieved. The Bill now 
 before Parliament, if it be allowed to pass, will save something 
 from the wreck. Three important measures will be gained ; but 
 the rest is to be left to chance. The management of this most 
 critical time, in w^hich five-sixths of the people of Jamaica are 
 passing fi-om slaves into citizens — in which " the full light of 
 liberty is suddenly let in upon the scarcely unsealed eyes ; " * — 
 this most difficult and delicate task of securing to the negroes 
 the enjoyment of real freedom, and at the same time making it 
 their real interest, and making them feel and understand that it 
 is their real interest, to remain in the condition of a labouring 
 peasantry in the service of their former masters — a task requu-- 
 ing, if ever any did, both strength, and skill, and zeal — is to be 
 trusted to the present House of Assembly ; a body how qualified 
 at any time for such a task we know too well, and now worse 
 disposed than ever ; — irritated by opposition, insolent fi'om a 
 victory over the Government, and emboldened by a belief that 
 Parliament no longer cares, or no longer dares, to interfere. f 
 Meantime, this very body is standing on the brink of a vast, a 
 sudden, and (cheerfully as our Conservatives regard it) we must 
 
 * Canning in 1823. 
 
 t This was a mistake, as the event showed. The vigour of the attempt, and the 
 narrowness of the escape, did in fact convince them that Parliament both cared and 
 dared, and in thnt respect had the same effect as if it had succeeded. This, aildcd 
 to tlie timely death of several principal members of the Assembly, which happened 
 that year, the Admirable judgment of Sir Charles Metcalfe in choosing his position, 
 and the no less admirable temper of Lord John Kussell in supporting him in it, 
 brought the affair to a very different issue from that which I had anticipated. 
 
 [This note was written in the margin of my copy of the Review, in June 1844 • 
 But the history of the next twenty years proved that the anticipated issue, though 
 postponed, was not escaped. The legislative action of the Assembly during tho.-e 
 years brought the affairs of the colony by degrees into such a condition, that in 18G5 
 they gave up their constitution in despair, their legislative functims were trans- 
 ferred to the Crown by their own desire, and the Government of Jamaica was reduced 
 for good (in both senses of the word) inta the condition in which the bill of 1839 
 proposed to place it for two years and a half.]
 
 120 THE JAMAICA BILL OF 1830. 
 
 add, a very perilous change. For one or two j^ears more, it will 
 continue to represent the existing constituency of 2000 whites, 
 who were slave-drivers a few months ago ; the year after, that 
 constituency may be augmented by an overwhelming and rapidly 
 increasing majority of blacks, who a few months ago were slaves. 
 Who can tell how such a change will w^ork hereafter, or how the 
 temi)er of the Assembly may be affected by such a prospect 
 now? Thanks to the Conservative party, we have lost the 
 means of watching and guiding the present, and of preparing to 
 meet the future. A competent Legislature on the spot, desiring 
 the real welfare of the whole community, and able not only to 
 make laws but to superintend their operation and remodify them 
 as occasion may suggest — able to feel their way as they proceed 
 — they will not let us have. For what to them is the good of a 
 distant colony, though linked with the prosperity of a mighty 
 cause, when weighed against the inconvenience of a majority for 
 Ministers ?
 
 IV. 
 
 TALES BY THE AUTHOR OF "HEADLONG HALL."* 
 
 There was an officer attached to one of the ancient regal estab- 
 lishments whose business was to appear before the king every 
 morning and gravely remind him that he was mortal. How long 
 this office was endured, and what was the fate of the person who 
 first held it, we are not informed. It probably soon sank mto a 
 sinecure, its active duties being discharged in deputy by a death's 
 head, till the times of change came when among other bulwarks 
 of that constitution it was swept away altogether. But though 
 names change and salaries cease, wants remain. Courts still 
 stood in need of some such monitor ; and in the person of the 
 king's jester the old office was revived in an improved form and 
 with additional duties. The jester was licensed to utter other 
 and newer truths than that one, so long as he did not seem to be 
 uttering them in earnest ; and the king could listen patiently to 
 speeches by which his own follies were anatomized, so long as it 
 was understood that the speaker, not himself, was the fool. The 
 profession of the jester was simply to make sport for the great ; 
 but his real use was to tell unwelcome truths ; his privilege to 
 tell them without offence ; and his great art and faculty (suppos- 
 ing him duly qualified for his office" was one in which no lover of 
 truth should omit to exercise himself, — that of detecting secret 
 resemblances between things most distant and in common esti- 
 
 1. " Headlong Hall." " Nightmare Abbey." " Maid Marian." " Crotchet 
 Castle." (Standard Novels, No. 57.) 8vo. London : 1837. 2. " Melincourt." London. 
 3. " The Mibfortunes of Elphiu." London. (^Edinhxinjli Bevuiv, January, ISo'J.)
 
 122 TALES BY THE AUTHOR OF "HEADLONG HALL." 
 
 mation most unlike ; and of searching the substance of popular 
 judgments by turning the seam}^ side outward. It was a sad day 
 for kings when that divine right passed from them of hearing 
 reason only from the lijos of fools. It came however in its 
 appointed time. Truths of the most uncourtly kind found their 
 way to com'ts unbidden and undisguised, and the jester's office 
 became obsolete. But though in courts it is now perhaps but 
 little needed, there are many places in which it might, we think, 
 be revived with great advantage. The immunity which passed 
 from the Crown was divided among the public. Every man's 
 house became his castle. Every man's peculiar set, creed, 
 system, or Jjarty became a kind of court, in which he might live 
 surrounded by the echoes of his own thoughts and flattered by a 
 convincing uniformity of sentiment, as secure as kings were once 
 fi-om the intrusion of unwelcome censm-es. But this is a secm'ity 
 which a man who duly distrusts his own skill or courage in self- 
 dissection can hardly wish to enjoy ; though if he distrusts like- 
 wise his resolution to com-t annoyances because they are whole- 
 some which he might exclude because ihej are disagreeable, he 
 will wish it broken as inoffensively as possible, and with as few 
 of those shocks and mortifications from which correction, in 
 whatever form it comes, can never be wholly free. It is for this 
 pm-pose that, if it were possible to restore dead fashions to life, 
 we would revive the office of jester. It is by the squandering 
 glances of the fool that the wise man's folly is anatomized with 
 least discomfort. From the j)rofessed fool he may receive the 
 reproof without feeling the humiliation of it ; and the medicine 
 wiU not work the worse, but the better, for being administered 
 under the disguise of indulgence or recreation. It would be well 
 indeed if every man could keep a licensed jester who, whether in 
 thought or action, has too much his own way. All coteries, 
 literary, pohtical, or fashionable, which enjoy the dangerous 
 privilege of leading the tastes and opinions of the little circle 
 which is their world, ought certainly to keep one as part of their 
 estabhshment. The House of Commons, being at once the most 
 powerful body on the earth and the most intolerant of criticism, 
 stands especially in need of an officer who may speak out at 
 random without fear of Newgate. Every philosopher who has a
 
 TALES BY THE AUTHOR OF "HEADLOXG HALL." 123 
 
 sj'stem, every theologian -who heads a sect, every projector who 
 gathers a company, every mterest that can command a party, 
 would do wisely to retain a privileged jester. The difficulty is to 
 find a becoming disguise under which the exercise of such a 
 privilege would be pleasant or even endurable. The motley and 
 the coxcomb are obsolete. They belonged to the " free and 
 holiday-rejoicing" youth of England, and have no mirth in them 
 for us. To the nineteenth century, in which every hour must 
 have its end to attain and its account to render, and every soul 
 must be restlessly bent on providing wares for the market or 
 seeking a market for its wares (which is what we now mean by 
 *' doing well "), the foolishness of fools is only folly. A modern 
 Jacques, desirous of a fool's license to speak his mind and of 
 procuring from the infected world a patient reception of his 
 cleansing medicines, must find some other passport into its 
 self-included and self- applauding circles, — some other stalking- 
 horse than professional foolery, — under which to shoot his wit. 
 But in one form or other the heart of man will have its holiday ; 
 and whichever of the pursuits of the day has in it most of relax- 
 ation and amusement and least of conscious object, whichever is 
 most popular yet least prized — the favourite that has no friend — 
 will supply a suitable mask under which freedom of speech may 
 still be carried on. This in our day is unquestionably the novel. 
 It is over novels in three volumes that the mind of this genera- 
 tion relaxes itself from its severer pm'suits into that state of 
 dreamy inadvertency which is the best condition for the altera- 
 tive treatment which we recommend. It is a maxim that " the 
 mmd is brought to anything better, and with more sweetness 
 and happiness, if that whereunto you pretend be not first in the 
 intention, but tanquani aliud agendo," — and certainly the mind of a 
 modern novel reader, forgetting its graver purposes in a j)leasure- 
 able anxiety for the marriage of the hero and heroine, — purified 
 by terror and pity, — perpetual pity for their crosses, and occa- 
 sional terror for their fate, — may be brought by the way to 
 imbibe many strange and salutary lessons, which, if formally 
 addressed to it, would have been rejected at once as tedious, 
 mischievous, or unprofitable. The truth of this has in practice 
 been largely recognized. Politics, rehgion, criticism, metaphysics,
 
 124 TALES BY THE AUTHOR OF "HEADLONG HALL." 
 
 have all used this introduction to the heart of the public ; and 
 the disguise is at least equally well fitted for the purposes of that 
 philosophy, the fmiction of which is to detect the sore places in 
 favoui-ite creeds, doctrines, or fashions, by the test of half-earnest 
 ridicule ; to insinuate the vanity of popular judgments which 
 are too popular to be openly assailed with success ; to steal on 
 men's minds some suspicion of the frauds and corruptions and 
 inanities ahd absurdities, which pass current in the world under 
 the protection of names too sacred to be called in question with- 
 out impiety. 
 
 The author of the works which we are about to review is in 
 many respects eminently qualified for this office ; in which he 
 has for some years been labouring with great skill and assiduity. 
 His influence indeed does not seem as yet to have been consider- 
 able. The popularity of his works has been just sufficient to 
 make them scarce ; which implies that they are highly esteemed, 
 but by a limited circle of readers. In fact, an early popularity 
 was not to be expected for them ; and it may be doubted whether 
 they will ever attain a place in our circulating literature. Their 
 rare excellence in some qualities carries them too high above the 
 taste of ordinary readers ; while their serious deficiency in some 
 others will prevent them from obtaining a permanent value in 
 the estimation of a better class. The refined beauty of the com- 
 position, pure as daylight from the glaring colom-s by which 
 vulgar tastes are attracted, " as wholesome as sweet and by 
 very much more handsome than fine," is of itself sufficient to keep 
 them on the upper shelves of circulating libraries ; while certain 
 shallows and questionable regions in the author's philosophy will 
 make them uninteresting to many deeper judges. 
 
 For our ovm part however we are not so easily deterred. 
 Good books are not so plentiful that we can afford to throw them 
 away because they are not better ; and though fully prepared to 
 be just judges in public, we must take the liberty to be familiar 
 in private, and keep a copy of these questionable volumes within 
 reach of our easier chair. In truth we much doubt the wisdom 
 of Hving only in the company of such as are perfect. It is to go 
 out of the world before our time ; to deal with the children of the 
 world as if they were no wiser in thek generation than ourselves.
 
 TALES BY THE AUTHOR OE "HEADLONG HALL." 125 
 
 Mental and moral obliquities are to be censured of course 
 wherever we meet them, and if possible amended. Yet it cannot 
 be denied that they help to perform much necessary service 
 which could not be done so well without them. The economy of 
 the world requires characters and talents adapted to various 
 offices, low as well as high ; and it is vain to deny that the lower 
 offices will be most readily undertaken and most efficiently dis- 
 charged by minds which are defective in some of the higher 
 attributes. There is work to be done in the state which a 
 man may be too good to qualify himself for without in some 
 degree contracting the circle of his goodness ; and there is work 
 to be done in the province of knowledge and literature to which 
 the deepest and largest and best-balanced intellects cannot 
 address themselves with eager interest or undivided attention. 
 We must have spies as well as soldiers, hangmen and informers 
 as well as magistrates and lawgivers, advocates as well as judges, 
 antiquaries as well as historians, critics as well as poets, pullers 
 down as well as builders up, scoffers to scourge falsehood as well 
 as philosophers to worship truth. There is a place as well as a 
 time for all things, and a hand for every work that is done under 
 the sun. 
 
 Whether indeed these works are so necessary as to justify us 
 in educating workmen to excel in them, we are happily not con- 
 cerned to enquire. There is no danger of a scarcity. When we 
 have done all we can to extend education and raise the tone of 
 public feeling, and train all men to the noblest functions of which 
 they are capable, there will still be more than enough of coarse 
 grain and tortuous grow^th, whose abilities will be well enough 
 adapted to the narrower spheres, whose asiDirations will not rise 
 higher, and who will really, in performing these necessary works, 
 be cultivating their talents to the best advantage. Being there, 
 the only question is how they shall be dealt with ; whether they 
 shall be acknowledged as good after their kind, or cast out as 
 unworthy of our better company ; praised for being faithful over 
 a few things, or condemned because so few have been entrusted 
 to them. For om'selves we have no hesitation in preferring the 
 humaner alternative. It is our favourite belief that there is in 
 every man and in every thing a germ of good, which, if judiciously
 
 126 TALES BY THE AUTIIOK OF "HEADLONG HALL." 
 
 educed and fostered, may be made gradually to prevail over tlie 
 surroundiug bad, and convert it more and more into its own 
 likeness. But this must be done by favour and encouragement. 
 It is not by whipping the faults, but by expressing a just sym- 
 pathy with the virtues, that the final predominance of the better 
 nature is to be brought about. And if it is for their interest that 
 this treatment should be adopted, it will be our own fault if we 
 do not turn it to advantage for ourselves. The labours of men 
 who are pursuing anything with an earnest desire to find it can 
 never be positively worthless. They are sure to make out some- 
 thing which is worth knowing ; the possession of which can only 
 be injurious when improperly applied or valued at more than its 
 real worth ; the pursuit of which can only become mischievous or 
 unprofitable when it involves the sacrifice or interferes with the 
 attainment of something better. Wealth, distinction, power, 
 though not worth living for, are well worth having while we live. 
 A fragment of truth is a good thing so far as it goes. Wit does 
 not lose its value as wit when it mistakes itself for wisdom. The 
 things themselves are of sterling worth ; they lose the value 
 which they have only by arrogating a value which they have 
 not ; and it is our own fault if we cannot restore them to their 
 proper place, and make that good for us by regarding it in its 
 true character, which is bad where we find it only because it 
 affects a higher. 
 
 It is not to be denied that this faculty is called into unusual 
 activity by the works before us. The reader must bring with 
 him his own philosoi)hy, moral, religious, and political. The 
 feast is ample and various, but every man must help and digest 
 for himself. Indeed the very aim and idea of them requires that 
 it should be so. That the author should come before us not as 
 a teacher but as a questioner of what others teach, is of the 
 essence of his privilege. For this puri3ose something of way- 
 wardness and levity ; some apparent looseness, inconsistency, or 
 absurd liberty ; some daring claim to allowance and indulgence 
 too extravagant to be meant or taken in earnest, — is as neces- 
 sary to him as motley to the jester, or bluntness and oddity of 
 manners to the humorist. It is the pretext and excuse for his 
 raillery ; the illusion (more or less discerned, but willingly sub-
 
 TALES BY THE AUTHOR OF "HEADLONG HALL." 127 
 
 mitted to) which disarms resentment and makes censure and 
 earnest opposition seem ridiculous and out of place ; which 
 enables us, in the words of Jacques, — 
 
 " To wcctl our laettcr judgments 
 Of all opinion that grows rank in them 
 That he is wise." 
 
 He must not mean all he says, or he could not say all he means. 
 
 It is for us to find out for ourselves how much is to be taken in 
 
 earnest. He appears not as a judge, but as an advocate ; 
 
 licensed to espouse either side, and to defend it by bad evidence 
 
 as well as good ; by sophistry where sound arguments are not 
 
 forthcoming ; and by improvements on the truth where the 
 
 simple truth will not serve his turn. It is for his opponent to 
 
 argue the question on the opposite side ; and for us the judges to 
 
 bear a wary eye and catch the truth which is struck forth from 
 
 the collision of the two. The motto which he has prefixed to his 
 
 earliest work gives us the key to all — 
 
 " All philosophers who find 
 Some iavourite system to their mind ; 
 In every point to make it fit, 
 Will force all nature to submit." 
 
 He is the disturber-general of favourite systems ; the self-re- 
 tained advocate of nature against all philosophers who affect to 
 discern her secrets. 
 
 Among the various offices, high and low, by which the pur- 
 poses of society are served and for which a supply of fit candi- 
 dates is never wanting, we shall not be suspected, after what we 
 have said, of placing this too high in point of dignity, whatever 
 we may think of its usefulness. But that which justifies a man 
 in following any vocation, is not its dignity, but its adaptation to 
 his own nature ; and it would be hard to find another for which 
 om- author is so well fitted by natural constitution and cajpacity 
 as for this. A wandering and contemplative turn of mind ; a 
 patient conviction of the vanity of all human conclusions ; an 
 impatient sense of the absurdity of all human pretensions, 
 quickened by a habitual suspicion of their insincerity ; an eye 
 and a heart open enough to impressions and opinions of all 
 kinds, so that vanity be the end of all ; a perception of the
 
 128 TALES BY THE AUTHOR OF " HEADLONG HALL 
 
 j» 
 
 strangeness and mystery which involves our hfe, keen enough 
 to enhven the curiosity, hut not to disturh or depress the spirit ; 
 with faith in some possible hut unattainable solution just suffi- 
 cient to make him watch with interest the abortive endeavours 
 of more sanguine men, but not to engage him in the pursuit 
 himself ; a questioning, not a denying spirit, — but questioning 
 without waiting for an answer; an understanding very quick 
 and bright, — not narrow in its range, though wanting in the 
 dejitli which only deeper purposes can impart ; a fancy of 
 singular play and delicacy ; a light sympathy with the common 
 hopes and fears, joys and sorrows of mankind, which gives him 
 an interest in their occupations just enough for the purposes of 
 observation and intelligent amusement ; a poetical faculty, not 
 of a very high order, but quite capable of harmonizing the 
 scattered notes of fancy and observation, and reproducing them 
 in a graceful whole ; — such, if we have read him rightly, are the 
 dispositions and faculties with which he has been turned forth 
 into this bustling world of speculation, enterprise, imposture, 
 and credulity, with its multiplying spawn of cant, quackery, and 
 pretension ; — such the original constitution which seems to point 
 out as his natural and genial vocation the hue and cry after 
 folly in its grave disguises ; the philosophy of irreverence and 
 incredulity ; the light and bloodless warfare, between jest and 
 earnest, against all new doctrines, accepted or proclaimed for 
 acceptance, — clamorously hailed by the many, or maintained in 
 defiant complacency by the self-constituted " fit and few." 
 
 The impartiality with which he quits himself in this warfare 
 is marvellous, and scarcely explicable unless on the supposition 
 that he has within a deeper and more substantial faith to repose 
 on than any which he allows to appear. Naked scepticism, — 
 blank privation of faith and hope, — can never be really impartial; 
 it is an uncertain succession of fleeting partialities ; vain, queru- 
 lous, discontented, full of quarrel and unquietness, full of spite 
 and favouritism, full, above all, of itself. Not so with our 
 author. He stands among the disputing opinions of the time, 
 a disengaged and disinterested looker-on ; among them, but not 
 of them ; showing neither malice nor favour, but a certain 
 sympathy, companionable rather than brotlierly, with all ; with
 
 TALES BY THE AUTHOR OP "HEADLONG HALL." 129 
 
 natural glee cheering on the combatants to their discom- 
 fiture, and as each rides his hobby boldly to the destruction 
 prepared for him, regarding them all alike with the same smile 
 of half compassionate amusement. Of all the philosophies 
 Avhich are encouraged to expose themselves in these pages, we 
 have endeavoured in vain to conjecture which enjoys the largest 
 or which the smallest share of his sympathy. Could we find 
 one constantly associated with more agreeable personal qualities, 
 or with more brilliant conversation, or with sounder argument, 
 than any other ; — were there any which he seemed to handle 
 with peculiar tenderness, or in the showing up of which he 
 appeared to take peculiar pleasure ; we might suspect that we 
 had discovered the secret of his preference or aversion. But no 
 such clue is offered to us. The instances of the kind which we 
 have been able to detect serve only, when rightly understood, to 
 baffle us more completely. It might certainly seem that his 
 respect for the good old times of roast-beef and quarter-staff, 
 and his contempt for the "march of intellect," have a touch of 
 earnestness in them ; — that of all theories of human life, that 
 which maintains the superiority in all that concerns man's real 
 welfare of the twelfth century to the nineteenth, has most of his 
 secret sympathy ; and that that which is advocated in broken 
 Scotch by certain imaginary members of our own fraternity, and 
 which may be called the politico-economical theory, is most to 
 his personal distaste ; that of all characters his favourite is the 
 worldly man who boldly proclaims and acquiesces in his infirmity ; 
 his aversion, the worldly man whose weakness is disguised by 
 himself under the affectation of something better, or protected 
 from the censure of society by the sanctity of his profession or his 
 order. But, rightly considered, these apparent sympathies and 
 antipathies are not to be taken as an index to his real feelings. 
 It is not their greater or less conformity to his own tastes, but 
 their greater or less acceptance in the world, by which he is 
 repelled or attracted. We see in them only the working of a 
 scepticism truly impartial and insatiable, which, after knocking 
 down all the opinions which are current in the world, proceeds 
 to set up an opinion made up of all that is not current in the 
 world, that when that falls too, the desolation may be complete.
 
 130 TALES BY THE AUTHOR OF "HEADLONG HALL." 
 
 Hence his tenderness to tlie twelfth century. The worshippers 
 of the twelfth century are a race extinct. It is a fallen image, to 
 insult which would be to flatter not to oppose the dogmatists of 
 the time. That which has no friends he can treat with tender- 
 ness ; that which others have thrown aside as false, his vocation 
 requires or his genius moves him to seek some truth in. Our 
 own philosophj^ on the contrary, is of a newer fashion. It 
 draws the largest audience ; therefore the largest variety of folly, 
 pretension, and credulity, as well as of their opposites. It is 
 the article which best meets the wants of the time, and is there- 
 fore most puffed, hawked, and counterfeited. It provides him, 
 we need not care to confess, with a great deal of legitimate work ; 
 nor do we desire to exclude him from our precincts. The light 
 shafts which he employs cannot hurt us where we are sound ; 
 and where they do touch us, we are not above profiting by the 
 hint. We will not fall into the common error of taking what we 
 see to be good physic in our neighbour's case to be poison in 
 our own. His apparent predilections with regard to personal 
 character are to be explained in the same way. Some predi- 
 lection for something, it was necessary to feel or feign. Other- 
 vdse, his fictions would have wanted warmth and a body. They 
 would have wanted that reference to something positive, with- 
 out which his world of negations could not have been made 
 palpable ; that standard of substance, without which the empti- 
 ness of the surrounding shadows could not have been explained. 
 Being obliged to represent some character or other as an object 
 of sympathy, he naturally fixes on that with which no one 
 professes to sympathize. Projects for the diffusion of knowledge, 
 the suppression of vice, the advancement of science, the regene- 
 ration of i:)hilosophy, or the purification of politics, are enter- 
 tained as amusing vanities ; but a genuine devotion to good 
 eating and drinking, neither disguised nor excused, but studiously 
 indulged and boldly professed as the natural occupation of a 
 sound mind in a sound bodj'^, is a quality on which his eye 
 l^auses with an enjoyment almost akin to love. Not that he 
 really esteems it (we know nothing of him, but imagine him a 
 temperate man, with a thorough contempt for made dishes), but 
 because it is his calling and his delight thus audaciously to
 
 TALES BY Tim AUTHOR OF "HEADLONG HALL." 101 
 
 reverse the opinion of the world ; and to make all the idols for 
 the worship of which men quarrel appear hollow and ridiculous 
 in the presence of that which they agree in despising. On the 
 same principle it may be observed that the desire of Dinner is in 
 these novels the one touch of nature that makes the whole world 
 Idn ; the one thing good for man all the days of this vain life 
 which he spendeth as a shadow, on which all philosophers agree, 
 — the one thing which abides with him of his labour. All con- 
 flicting theories shake hands at the sound of the dinner-bell. 
 All controversies, however divergent, where the disputants are 
 growing ever hotter and wider asunder as they j)roceed, strangely 
 converge and meet in the common centre of the dinner-table. 
 The following discussion, much injured by the necessary reduc- 
 tions, may serve as an example : 
 
 "ilfr. Crotchet,, jun. Pray, gentlemen, pocket your manuscripts; fill your 
 glasses; and consider what we shall do with our money. 
 
 " Mr. MacQnedy. Build lecture rooms and schools for all. 
 
 " Mr. Trillo. Revive the Athenian theatre ; regenerate the lyrical drama. 
 
 "Mr. Toogood. Build a grand co-operative parallelogram, with a steam-engine 
 in the middle for a maid of all work. 
 
 " Mr. Firedamp. Drain the country, and get rid of malaria, by abolishing 
 duck-ponds. 
 
 " Dr. Morlific. Found a philanthropic college of anti-contagionists, where all 
 the members shall be inoculated with the virus of all known diseases. Try the 
 experiment on a erand scale. 
 
 " Mr. Chainmail. Build a great dining-hall ; endow it with beef and ale, and 
 hang the hall round with arms to defend the provisions. 
 
 " Mr. Henbane. Found a toxicological institution for trying all poisons and 
 antidotes. I myself have killed a frog twelve times, and brought him to life 
 eleven ; but the twelfth time he died. I have a phial of the drug which killed 
 him in my pocket, and shall not rest till I have discovered its antidote. 
 
 " Hev. Dr. Folllot. I move that the last speaker be dispossessed of his phial, 
 and that it be forthwith thrown into the Thames. 
 
 " Mr. Henbane. How, sir ? my invaluable, etc. 
 
 ******* 
 
 "Mr. Crotchet, jun. Pray, gentlemen, return to the point. How shall we 
 employ our fund ? 
 
 "Mr. Philpot. Surely in no way so beneficially as in exploring rivers. Send 
 a fleet of steamboats down the Niger, and another up the Nile. So shall you 
 civilize Africa, and establish stocking factories in Abyssinia and Bambo. 
 
 " Bev. Dr. Folliot. With all submission, breeches and petticoats must precede 
 stockings. Send out a crew of tailors. Try if the king of Bambo will invest 
 itK'Xjiressililes.
 
 132 TALES BY THE AUTHOR OE "HEADLONG HALL." 
 
 " ^^l•. Crotchet, jun. Gentlemen, it is not for partial, but for general benefit, 
 that this fund is proposeil : a grand and universally applicable scheme for the 
 amelioration of the condition of man. 
 
 " Several voices. That is my scheme. I have not heard a scheme but my own 
 that has a grain of common-sense. 
 
 ******* 
 
 " Hev. Dr. Folliot. Well, of all these schemes, I am for Mr. Trillo's. Kegenerate 
 tlie Athenian theatre. * * * 'Qwt^ sir, I further propose that the 
 Athenian theatre being resuscitated, the admission shall be free to all who can 
 expound the Greek choruses, constructively, mythologically, and metrically, and 
 to none others. So shall all the world learn Greek : Greek, the Alpha and 
 Omega of all knowledge. At him who sits not in the theatre shall be pointed 
 tlie finger of scorn : he shall be called in the highway of the city, ' a fellow with- 
 »>ut Greek.' 
 
 "Mr. TrilJo. But the ladies, sir, the ladies. 
 
 " liev. Dr. Folliot. Every man may take in a lady : and she who can con- 
 strue and metricise a chorus, shall, if she so please, pass in by herself. 
 
 " Mr. TriUo. But, sir, you will shut me out of my own theatre. Let there 
 at least be a double passport, Greek and Italian. 
 
 " Jfev. Dr. Folliot. No, sir ; I am inexorable. No Greek, no theatre. 
 
 "Mr. Trillo. Sir, I cannot consent to be shut out from my own theatre. 
 
 "Rev. Dr. Folliot. You see how it is. Squire Crotchet the younger: you can 
 ficarcely find two to agree on a scheme, and no two of those can agree on the 
 details. Keep your money in your pocket. And so ends the fund for regenerat- 
 ing the world. 
 
 "Mr. MacQuedy. Nay, by no means. We are all agreed on deliberative 
 dinners. 
 
 "Rev. Dr. Folliot. Very true ; we will dine and discuss. We will sing with 
 Robin Hood, ' If I drink water while this doth last ; ' and while it lasts we will 
 have no adjournment, if not to the Athenian thentre. 
 
 "Mr. Trillo. Well, gentlemen, I hope this chorus at least will please you. 
 
 ' If T drink water while this doth last, 
 
 May I never again drink wine : 
 For how can a man, in his life of a span, 
 
 Do anything better than dine ? 
 We'll dine and drink, and say if we think 
 
 That anything better can be ; 
 And when we have dined, wish all mankind 
 
 May dine as well as we.' 
 
 " The schemes for the world's regeneration evaporated in a tumult of voices." 
 — Crotchet Castle, p. 325. 
 
 It may seem superfluous to observe that this is not a conclu- 
 sion in which it is meant that we should r^t. It is but a more 
 substantial vanity held up for a while to define and relieve the 
 less palpable, then left to fall of itself; a grosser bubble among
 
 TALES BY THE AUTIIOIl OF "HEADLONG HALL." lo3 
 
 bubbles, which, having swallowed up the rest, breaks aiid leaves 
 a blank, shutting up the story of the vanity like a dream within 
 a dream; — the vanity of vanities, which gone, all is vanity. 
 We close the volume, and from the masque and fantastic mockery 
 of the world, we wake refreshed and not uninstructed into the 
 world itself ; there to build up for om-selves our own theory that 
 shall not pass away ; or to muse in vain, what, after all, may be 
 the secret faith by which the author lives, in the silent assurance 
 of which he can thus bear to dally with peri^lexity and dwell 
 among confusions. Doubtless his spirit has a home of its own. 
 to go to, or it could not so take its ease in its inn. 
 
 We have been unconsciously led into this discussion of the 
 genius and intention of our author, by a wish to justify the 
 pleasure which, whether justifiable or not, we certainly do take 
 in his company. If our theory be good for nothing else, it may 
 serve him to make sport with in his next production. In the 
 meantime the fact remams, that his books are to us very pleasant 
 reading, and fertile enough in grave suggestions to the mind that 
 can take them rightly. 
 
 Assuming the legitimacy of his general design, the praise of 
 great skill in the execution will hardly be denied him. He shows 
 a free delight and a prevaihng thirst for excellence in his art, 
 which places him in our estimation decidedly among men of 
 genius, properly so called ; men, that is, whose minds are moved 
 and controlled by an inner spirit, working restlessly towards 
 some end of its own, in the simple attainment of wiiich, inde- 
 pendently of any use to be made of it, and in that alone, it finds 
 satisfaction. Hence his rare accomplishment in the use of his 
 weapons, which he wields with a grace, a dexterity, and (except- 
 ing a few cases, in which, not content with public conduct and 
 opinions, he undertakes, not very happily, to interpret motives 
 and exhibit personal qualities) with a gay good-humour which 
 takes away all offence from his raillery, and secures for him a 
 free toleration in the exercise of his pri-salege. The spirit 
 of frolic exaggeration in which the characters are conceived, 
 — each a walking epitome of all that is absurd in himself, 
 — the ludicrous felicity of self-exposm-e with which they are 
 made to talk and act, — and the tone of decided though refined
 
 131 TALES BY THE AUTHOR OF "HEADLONG HALL." 
 
 caricature whicli runs through the whole, unite to set grave 
 remonstrance fairly at defiance. And while the imagination is 
 thus forced into the current of his humour, the taste is charmed 
 by a refinement of manners, and by a classical purity and 
 reserved grace of style, which carries all sense of coarseness or 
 vulgarity clean away ; and the understanding is attracted and 
 exercised by the sterling quality of the wit, the brillianc}^ fullness, 
 and solidity of the dialogue, the keenness of observation, the 
 sharpness and intelligence, if not the delicacy or philosophical 
 depth, of satire ; and a certain roguish familiarity with the 
 deceitfulness of human nature, from which we may derive many 
 useful hints, to be improved at pleasure. Add to this, that 
 although he dwells more habitually among doubts and negations 
 than we believe to be good for any man, he is not without 
 positive impulses, — generous and earnest, so far as they go, — 
 which impart a uniformly healthy tone to his writings. There 
 are many things both good and bad which lie does not recognize ; 
 but the good which he does recognize is really good ; the bad 
 really bad. Explicit faith of his own he seems to have none ; 
 the creeds, systems, and theories of other men he treats alike as 
 toys to play with ; his humour, though pure, is shallow : his 
 irony covers little or none of that latent reverence and sympathy, 
 — rarely awakens within that " sweet recoil of love and pity," — 
 which gives to irony its deepest meaning, and makes it in many 
 minds the purest, if not the only natural language of tender and 
 profound emotion ; his general survey of life has something of 
 coldness and hardness, so that much good seed falls in vain and 
 withers on the surface. But his nature bears no weeds, and the 
 natural products of the soil are healthy and hardy. Inhumanity, 
 oppression, cant,* and false pretensions of all kinds are hated 
 
 * Except, perhaps, in the case of rrei whose opinions have been moflificd by age 
 and experience into better accord with the majority. Tliere are some passages in 
 ■\vliifli he seems to countf-nance the doctrine that when a man, who in tlie glow of 
 yoiitli and hope lias chiefly signalized himself by an imIlas^si()ncd proclamation of the 
 rifjhfit of men, tnrns in his maturer age to warn them of their duties,— such change 
 can only be considered as an act of deliberate apo.slacy from the trnth, in con- 
 sideiation of value received. This we call cant; imd we would alnio.st .stake the 
 justice of the censure upon his own answer to a plain question — Did he, when he 
 Bpoke of Edmund Burke as "having prostituted his own soul, and l)etrayed his 
 country and mankind for i:i200 a-year," really belie ve that he was ape<iking the
 
 TALES BY THE AUTHOR OF "HEADLONG HALL." 135 
 
 with a just hatred; mh'th, simshme, and good fellowship are 
 relished with a hearty relish ; simplicity, unassuming goodness, 
 and the pure face of nature never fail to touch him with natural 
 delight. It is most pleasant and encouraging to observe these 
 better qualities gradually prevailing and exercising in each suc- 
 cessive production a larger influence. The humour seems to 
 run deeper ; the ridicule is informed with a juster appreciation 
 of the meaning of the thing ridiculed ; the disputants are more 
 in earnest, and less like scoffers* in disguise ; there is more of 
 natural warmth and life in the characters ; and, altogether, 
 there is a humaner spirit over his later works, and a kindlier 
 sympathy with his subject. 
 
 A corresijonding improvement may also be observed in the 
 management of his plots — in the skill with which the incidents 
 are interwoven with the conversations, and made to assist in 
 developing the humours of the dialogue. In the two earliest of 
 them indeed, "Headlong Hall" and " Melincourt," the whole 
 story might be stripped off, so as to leave a series of separate 
 dialogues scarcely injured by the change. We should miss only, 
 what indeed we should be very sorry to miss, the picturesque 
 grouping and lively satirical narrative by which they are 
 accompanied and relieved. In " Nightmare Abbey " this could 
 not be so easily done. Without the successive situations which 
 form the story, the humour of character (which is more consider- 
 able m this than in the two foregoing tales) could hardly be brought 
 out. Scythrop, the gloomy and mystical regenerator, who builds 
 
 triitli? Had if, in fact, ever occiured to him to consider whether the tiling he vras 
 saying was true or false? He could surely give but one answer. That Burke . 
 was wrong — that his feelings being too much ahead of Ms judgment, all facts 
 came before him through a fiery medium of pity or indignation, or religious love — 
 and that his understanding working on data tlius distortrd, led him to unreasonable 
 conclusion.-!, — any man with a mind differently constituted from Burke's may easily 
 believe. But that his adoption of those conclu.^ions can only be regarded as an act 
 of deliberate and vemd falsehood, is a monstrous proposition, which the man who 
 can truly believe, must have a narrower understanding and a shallower heart than 
 we can believe our author to possess. No— he hais in this instance, and in some 
 others (which, lest our censure should preserve the allusions from becoming unin- 
 telligible, we pa-s by silently), allowed himself to adopt a species of cant, familiar 
 and excusable amongst schoolboys, but as much to be hated in a grown man as 
 any of the many cants which are so successfully held up in these volumes to the 
 scorn they deserve.
 
 130 TALES BY THE ArTIIOR OF "HEADLONG HALL.'^ 
 
 morbid hoj>es for the future upon a morLid discontent with the 
 present, — Mr, Glowry, the large-landed misanthropist, to whose 
 table all men are welcome, who can find nothing in the world for 
 a reasonable man to enjoy, — and Mr. Toobad, the Manichean 
 millennarian, who can see nothing there except the devil himself, 
 having great wrath — could hardly have been displayed in full 
 character without the loves, jealousies, and contradictions which 
 it is the business of the narrative to develope. In " Maid 
 Marian " and " Crotchet Castle," the interest lies in a kind of 
 commentary on the action ; which would lose its meaning if the 
 scene and story were taken away. In " Crotchet Castle," the 
 incidents are employed to bring out the humours of individual 
 character, and are so well wrought into the texture of the work, 
 that, slight as they are, they could not be separated from it 
 without material injury. It is not that truth to natm'e is more 
 strictly preserved in the later than in the earlier tales, for the 
 spirit of exaggeration and caricature is still kept up ; but that 
 the caricature is deeper and more pervasive, and better harmo- 
 nized. In the later, the characters lire upon their hobbies ; in 
 the earher, they only mount them to dispute ujjon. 
 
 But though the management of the plots is in this res|)ect 
 very skilful, the author has wisely abstained (except in one 
 instance, which we shall notice presently) from attempting to 
 give them any independent interest as stories. They are of the 
 simplest construction, and the incidents are taken from everyday 
 life. A hospitable house, a variety of guests, and an occasion 
 which may bring them together on easy terms, are all he wants ; 
 no matter whether it be a Christmas partj^, a wedding party, a 
 party of speculators in philosophy or in the stocks, or a party of 
 rival suitors to an attractive heiress. The course of true love 
 cannot run too smoothly ; virtue cannot triumph with too little 
 help from accident or superhuman effort, — need not indeed 
 triumph at all ; the true heir cannot be in too little danger of 
 losing his inheritance ; the meeting of the guests cannot be too 
 easily brought about, or the parting cause too few tears. The 
 business of the fiction lies in the dialogues, and would only lie 
 injua'ed and embarrassed by any independent interest that mig.it 
 be combined with it of an exciting or pathetic nature.
 
 ■ TALES BY TTTE ArTTIO-R OF " irEADLONa IIAIJ." ]o7 
 
 The importance of observing this principle may be best seen 
 in the effect which, in tlie instance to which we have alhicled, is 
 produced by a departure from it. Antheha MeHncourt is an 
 heiress endowed with all virtues of mind and body, — not without 
 an estate of ten thousand a-year to make them manifest to the 
 apprehension and operative upon the happiness of mankind. 
 These combined attractions draw together a sufficient variety of 
 suitors, and supply them with a fair opportunity for exhibiting 
 their peculiarities. Aristocracy, landed propriety, established 
 churchmanship, political economy, match-making maternit}^ 
 barouche-driving baronetcy, and chivalry in modern attire, — all 
 gather round her as principals or as seconds. They must dis- 
 perse again as soon as her choice is made. In the meantime 
 there is plenty of mutton to eat, of wine to drink, and of subjects 
 to dispute about. Such circumstances would in the common 
 course of things breed crosses and misunderstandings quite 
 enough for all the author's purposes, without extorting from 
 nature any unnecessary exertions. But instead of contenting 
 himself with these, he has borrowed on this one occasion the 
 common-place-book of a melodramatist, and tried the fortitude 
 of his heroine by a forcible abduction, and the constancy of his 
 hero (and indeed of his reader) by an anxious pursuit. She is 
 carried off by a noble suitor, and shut up in a solitary castle, 
 nobody knows where. Her lover sets off' on foot to find her; 
 accompanied by a political economist with whom he may hold 
 dialogues by the way. He wanders about for some days, discus- 
 sing in a very calm and philosophical spirit a variety of questions 
 suggested by the scenes through which they pass — such as paper- 
 money, surplus population, epitaphs, apparitions, the probable 
 stature of the Patagonians, mountains, and the hopes of the 
 world — but meets with no trace whatever of the heroine ; till at 
 length, by the most fortunate accident in the world, he suddenly 
 stumbles upon her, at that precise moment of time when, if he 
 had not, — the author must have found some difficulty in going 
 on. The dialogues and conversations by which the weariness of 
 this journey is beguiled are most of them very elegant and 
 spirited compositions ; but they have so little to do with the 
 heroine or the stor}^ that they might be left out without
 
 108 TALES BY THE AUTHOR OF "HEADLONG HALL." 
 
 diminishing the interest of the tale, and published as separate 
 papers \^ithout losing any of their own. And, indeed, every 
 reader who feels anxious for the fate of Anthelia — which, to 
 confess the truth, we ourselves do not — had better pass at once 
 from the first chapter of the thii-d volume to the last, and read 
 the rest at his leisure as an independent work of a quite 
 different character. He cannot have sympathy in him for both 
 at once. 
 
 Nor is this the only demand which is made on the reader m 
 this work for moods of sym^Dathy incompatible with each other. 
 It presents a worse combination than that of moving accidents 
 and melodramatic escapes with miscellaneous dialogue of a 
 philosophical cast ; — a combination, to our taste still more in- 
 harmonious, of the reality with the masquerade of life ; the 
 comedy with the farce ; of grave questions for the conscience 
 with the merest buffooneries of wit ; of touching appeals to the 
 affections with absurd assaults upon the risibility. And no 
 attempt seems to have been made to reconcile these incompatible 
 moods — to make them blend with each other by the interfusion 
 of some sentiment common to both, or relieve each other by the 
 force of just and harmonious contrast. 
 
 It was probably from a consciousness of these defects that 
 the author determined to exclude this tale from the collection 
 before us, though it is evident that no small pains have been 
 bestowed on it ; and we suspect that at the time of composition 
 it was a favourite. Its purposes appear to be graver, its preten- 
 sions loftier than the others ; and although from the defects we 
 have mentioned it must be pronounced a comparative failure, it 
 contains, if we mistake not, indications of a capacity for a better 
 and a higher strain than he has yet attempted. 
 
 To make this appear, it will be necessary to go somewhat 
 into detail, and to hazard another speculation as to the history 
 and development of his mind. The pains will be well repaid, 
 if he should be induced to reconsider the capabilities of the 
 work and recast it for some future collection in a more perfect 
 form. 
 
 Our theory is, that during the composition of " Melincourt " 
 a struggle was going on in his mind between his better and his
 
 TALES BY THE AUTHOR OF " IIEADLOXG HALL." 139 
 
 worse genius, and that the contest was neither decided nor com- 
 promised, but drawn, — each party chiiming the victory, and set- 
 ting up a trophy, after the fashion of the Greek armies in Thucy- 
 dides, on its own side of the field. We have already adverted to 
 his tenderness for the former times, and ascribed it to the natural 
 reaction in a mind like his against the clamorous pretensions of 
 modern refinement. And we have little doubt that it began m 
 this ; but had the tale before us been fresher in our memory, we 
 should not perhaps have asserted so roundly that his mind was 
 really as free from bias in this direction as in others. He began 
 in joke, but he seems to have narrowly escaped ending in earnest. 
 He amused his fancy, or gratified his spleen, by setting forth the 
 rival pretensions of the barbarous ages, till he fell in love with 
 the picture he had drawn, — half persuaded himself that civiliza- 
 tion was a downward progress, and had more than half a mind 
 to turn preacher against it in good faith. But here his habitual 
 scepticism, aided probably by his sound sense of the ridiculous, 
 stands in the way. He has not faith enough to turn devotee. 
 He shrinks from the solemnity of the task in which the con- 
 sistent pursuit of such a purpose must involve him ; and, after 
 a brief struggle during which he wavers indecisively between 
 the graver service of truth and the more exciting persecution 
 of error, he relapses into the original condition which wc 
 have already endeavoured to describe — betakes himself to the 
 work of destruction rather than edification — to the pulling down 
 of other men's systems instead of building up a better of his 
 own. 
 
 It is at least certain that this question concerning the respec- 
 tive pretensions of the dark and of the enlightened ages did at 
 one time occupy an unusual space in his contemplations ; that 
 throughout his two earliest works it is distinguished by very 
 marked attentions, — with this difference, that what was only 
 llirtation in the first, assumes the aspect of a serious intention in 
 the second ; and that for some reason or other the serious tone 
 is afterwards abandoned, and the flirtation renewed, though in a 
 more sober way. In "Headlong Hall" the argument on the side 
 of deterioration is conducted by Mr. Escot with great force and 
 spirit; but enough of extravagance, inconsistency, and caricatui-e
 
 140 TALES BY THE AUTHOR OF "HEADLONG HALL." 
 
 is mixed up with it, to mark it as a theory to which the author 
 is iu no way committed ; which reason and nature have nothing 
 to do with ; and which leads to no conclusion. If Mr. Escot 
 holds that the manners of this generation are worse than those 
 of the last, he holds also that each succeeding generation has in 
 like manner been worse than its predecessor, ever since men 
 learned the use of fire. If he denounces animal food as noxious, 
 sinful, and unnatural, it is while he is helping himself to a slice 
 of cold beef. If he inveighs against dancing, as foreign to the 
 calm and contemplative habits of the original wild man of the 
 woods, it is only when he is w^aiting to stand up again with the 
 beautiful Cephalis. Moreover, the argument on the opposite 
 side is maintained with equal spirit, and rather less incon- 
 sistency, by Mr. Foster the perfectibilian ; and the last word 
 remains clearly with Mr. Jenkinson the statu-qao-ite, who, believ- 
 ing that all opposing arguments are held in eternal equipoise, 
 sets up no theory on any subject ; but on all questions which 
 present themselves for practical solution, gives the casting vote 
 to his inclination for the time being.* Add to this, that though 
 this question forms the principal topic of discussion, the action is 
 unaffected by the decision of it. The deteriorationist and the per- 
 fectibilian dine, drink, dance, and are married, just as if neither 
 deterioration nor perfectibility had ever been thought of. The 
 question is dissolved, rather than solved ; it disappears, and the 
 action closes over it. 
 
 In " Melincourt " the same subject is resumed, but in a 
 graver strain. The motto, the opening, the purpose proposed, 
 are all grave. The heroine is very grave. The title-page informs 
 us that, if the maxims of romance and chivalry have come to be 
 ridiculous in our eyes, it is not because our minds are more en- 
 liglitened, but because our manners are more corrupt. The first 
 chapter introduces the heroine herself, as a character " really 
 romantic and unworldly," made up of all the cardinal virtues, 
 without a spark of fun. The business is to fit her with a 
 
 * " In the controversy between animal and vegetable food," said Mr. Jenkinson, 
 " there is miu'li to be f^aid on botli .siiles ; and the qtiestion being in equi]ioise, 1 
 content myself with a mixed diet, and make a point of eating whatever is placed 
 before me, imjvidcd it be goud in iUi kiul." — p. 7.
 
 TALES BY THE AUTHOR OF " ITEADLOXG HALL" 141 
 
 »._ -, 
 
 liiisband — also a grave matter ; more especially when coupled 
 with the following formal enoiincement of " her ideas on the 
 subject of marriage : " — 
 
 " She explicitly ma<le known to all her suitors her ideas on the suhject of 
 marriage. She had never perverted the s'mplicity of her mind by indulging in 
 the usual cant of young ladies that she should prefer a single life ; but she 
 assured them tliat the spirit of the age of :]dvalry manifested in the forms of 
 modern life would constitute the only character on ivhich she could fix her 
 affections.'" 
 
 Without stopping to discuss this specimen of "simplicity" 
 (which we suspect to he no true growth either of chivalry or of 
 Old England, but a manufacture quite as modern as the affecta- 
 tions with which it is contrasted), it is enough to say that it is 
 certainly meant to be received as the genuine article ; that the 
 j)roblem thus enounced is certainly not an absurd one, and is 
 proposed with all apparent gravity for practical solution in the 
 course of the three volumes ; that a suitor does at length appear 
 who embodies, in no high Quixotic phrensy, but in a useful, 
 honourable, consistent, and perfectly sane life, the very spirit 
 which she loves ; and that after passing through various scenes, 
 in which the sincerity of his principles is attested by his practice, 
 and the wisdom of his practice is justified by its operation, he is 
 duly accepted as the very character which she had believed it 
 possible to find, — a gentleman " in a brown coat in the nine- 
 teenth century," yet as true a Imight- errant as any that wore 
 golden armour in the days of Charlemagne. " Oh, Forester," 
 said Anthelia, " you have realized my highest wishes. I have 
 found you the friend of the poor, the enthusiast of truth, the dis- 
 interested cultivator of the rural virtues, the active promoter of 
 the cause of human liberty. It only remained that you should 
 emancipate a captive damsel, who, however, will but change the 
 mode of her dm-ance and become your captive for life." And 
 then they are married and the story is done. 
 
 This, then, is no jest, but a serious thing ; — a grave delinea- 
 tion of two lives, shaped according to a peculiar theory, such as 
 anybody in these days might lead (anybody, at least, with suffi- 
 cient landed property) — yet so piu-e, prosperous, and j^revailing, 
 that, were the example generally followed, there would be neither 
 poverty nor distress in the world. Forester, though in some
 
 142 TALES BY THE AUTHOR OF "HEADLONG HALL." 
 
 resj)ects onl}' a reproduction of Escot, is a character far more 
 life-like and earnest ; free from contradictions and inconsis- 
 tencies ; an enthusiast indeed, yet one whose enthusiasm is 
 neither wild nor vain, but a noble hope for human nature, an 
 inspired confidence in truth and vii'tue, and an absolute devotion 
 to their service. Anthelia, " howbeit that we endure her not," 
 is a character of the same mould. There is nothing in either 
 which seems meant to be ridiculous ; their theories, though 
 romantic, are not chimerical ; the measures by which they hope 
 to realize them are not only sane but successful ; nature herseK 
 is represented as sanctioning their enterprizes; substantial virtue 
 and happiness spring up beneath their footsteps. 
 
 Had the business ended here we should have thought that the 
 author's better genius had prevailed. We might indeed have 
 questioned many of his doctrines, both social and political ; and 
 shown cause to doubt whether in the faithful bosom of real 
 nature they would yield so fair a harvest as in the more accom- 
 modating soil of fiction. But we should have met him with un- 
 divided sympathy, as no idle talker on no trivial theme. This, 
 however, his worse genius interferes to prevent. He has only a 
 half faith in the cause he has espoused, and dares not let go his 
 interest with the other party. It is as if, having in sport or 
 curiosity raised the veil of truth, he had felt rebuked by the 
 severity of her aspect, and turned for relief to more than usual 
 levity and mockery. Hence the perpetual interruption of the 
 serious and affecting, and sometimes even awful, interest which 
 belongs to the main argument of the piece, by scenes of farcical 
 and extravagant caricature, which might be j)leasant enough as 
 varieties in that farce of unreason with which he usually enter- 
 tains us, but which, coming upon the mind in a state of serious 
 emotions, are offensive and disagreeable. The two styles appeal 
 to two opposite and incompatible moods ; and it is im230ssible so 
 to govern the imagination or the sympathies as to be in the 
 humom* for both. If you are not disgusted with the lighter, you 
 cannot but be wearied with the graver. 
 
 The incongruity is indeed so remarkable, especially in so 
 artist-like a writer, that we have many times paused to consider 
 whether Forester and Anthelia may not after all have been
 
 TALES BY THE AUTHOR OF "HEADLONG HALL." 143 
 
 meant to be langbcd at too. But if so, the theory by which they 
 hve must be in our author's eyes more obviously and intrinsically 
 ridiculous than we can well believe : if not, then it bears an 
 application to the life of every man who reads, too urgent and 
 vital to be a proper subject of buffoonery. Yet in what other 
 light can we view the introduction of Forester's friend, the dumb 
 Baronet? His theory concerning the true and original man 
 might have passed for the dream of an enthusiast. But when 
 coupled with the introduction in person of Sir Oran Haut-ton, 
 Bart., — that is to say, of a real Oran Outang, caught young in 
 the woods of Angola, brought up in society, and now mixing 
 freely with his degenerate fellow-creatures, and wanting nothing 
 of the civilized man except his vices and his powers of speech, — 
 what is it but buffoonery ? and what sort of nondescript does it 
 make of Forester himself ? And how are we to regard but as 
 buffoonery, more or less Aristophanic, the election for the 
 borough of One-vote — the description of Cimmerian Lodge, and 
 the symposium at Mainchance Villa ? All these are farce ; the 
 two former of the best kind, the two latter of the worst ; but 
 broad farce all : quite inadmissible even between the acts of 
 a piece in which any natural character or quality is allowed to 
 appear, or any train of serious feeling to be aw^akened. 
 
 The author may indeed have persuaded himself that such 
 gross pictures of corruption, quackery, and worldliuess, would 
 heighten by contrast the beauty of the opposite qualities as set 
 forth in the life and doctrine of the principal characters. So, he 
 might say, Caliban sets off Miranda. But the cases are not 
 alike. If Caliban, instead of being a real monster, had only been 
 a Christian gentleman endued with the qualities of a monster, he 
 w^ould have been as much out of place in the Tempest as the 
 humours of Mainchance Villa are out of place in Melincourt. As 
 it is, this affected contrast, instead of bringing the virtue of his 
 hero into stronger relief, serves only to make more conspicuous 
 his own want of constancy to his purposes and faith in his 
 principles. 
 
 We should not have dwelt so long upon the faults of a work 
 like this, had it been too late to mend them. But the author 
 may yet have occasion to republish it in a future collection. In
 
 Irtl TALES BY THE AUTPIOR OF "HEADLONG HALL." 
 
 that case, ^xe would earnestly suggest to him the expediency of 
 separating the better from the worser half of it. Let him turn it 
 into two distinct tales ; the election of Sir Oran for the Borough 
 of One-vote being the subject of one, in which (if, after having 
 lived and thought for twenty years longer, he still continues to 
 admire them) he may introduce the humours of Mainchance 
 Villa ; the graver question concerning the realization of the 
 spirit of chivalry under the forms of modern society being the 
 argument of the other, with Forester and Anthelia for the central 
 figures. If he would but set about this latter task in a faithful 
 spirit, we do not fear to predict, from the sj)ecimen which the 
 tale before us even in its present state exhibits, that he would 
 produce a work of a far higher and more enduring interest than 
 any he has yet attempted. As an indication of his capacity for 
 such a task, we select from many passages in a similar spu-it the 
 following fragment of a conversation which, though immediately 
 referring to a question with which England is happily no longer 
 concerned, will not lose its meaning or its force so long as there 
 is a national object left to be attained, or a private duty to be 
 done. 
 
 " Sir Telegraph Pararett. Be that as it may, every man will continue to 
 follow his own fancy. The world is bad enough, I dare say, but it is not for you 
 or me to 'mend it. 
 
 " 3Ir. Furtster. There is the keystone of the evil — mistrust of the influence 
 of individual example. 'We are bnd ourselves, because we despair of the good- 
 ness of others.' * Yet the history of the world abounds with sudden and 
 extraordinary revolutions in the oi^inions of mankind, which have been effected 
 by single enthusiasts. 
 
 " Sir Telegraph Paxarett. Speculative opinions have been sometimes changed 
 by the efforts of roaring fanatics. Men have been found very easily permutable 
 into ites and onions, avians and arians, Wesleyites or Wliitfieldites, Hunting- 
 tonians or Muggletonians, Moravians, Trinitarians, Unitarians, anythingarians ; 
 but the metamorphosis only affects a few obscure notions concerning types, 
 symbols, and mysteries, which have scarcely any effect on moral theory, and, of 
 course, a /o>-< /or/, none whatever on moral practice: The latter is for the most 
 part governed by the general habits of the society we live in. One man may 
 twang responses with the parish-clerk ; another may sit silent in a Quaker's 
 meeting waiting for the illuminati(jn of the Spirit; a third may groan and howl 
 in a tabernacle ; a fourth may breakfast, dine, and sup, in a Sandemaiuan chapel ; 
 but meet any of the four in the common intercourse of society, you will scarcely 
 
 * Coleridge's Friend.
 
 TALES BY THE AUTHOR OF " IIEADLOXG HALL." 145 
 
 know one from another. The single adage, charity hegins at home, will furnish 
 a complete key to the souls of all four ; for I have found, as far as my observation 
 has extended, that men carry their religion in other men's heads, and their 
 morality in their own pockets. 
 
 " Mr. Forester. I tlnnk it will be found, that individual example has in many 
 instances produced great moral effects on the practice of society. Even if it 
 were otherwise, is it not better to be Abdiel among the fiends, than to be lost 
 and confounded in the legion of imps grovelling in the train of the evil power? 
 
 " Sir Telegraph Paxarett. There is something in that. 
 
 " Mr. Forester. To borrow an allegory from Homer : I would say society is 
 composed of two urns, one of good and one of evil I will suppose that every 
 individual of the human species receives from his natal genius a little phial 
 containing one drop of a fluid, which shall be evil if ^wured into the urn of 
 evil, and good if into that of good. If you were proceeding to the station of the 
 urns with ten thousand persons, every one of them predetermined to empty his 
 phial into the urn of evil, which I fear is too true a picture of the practice of 
 society, should you consider their example, if you were hemmed in in the centre 
 of them, a sufficient excuse for not breaking from them and approaching the 
 neglected urn ? Would you say, ' the urn will derive little increase from my 
 solitary drop, and one more or less will make very little difference in the urn of ill ; 
 I will spare myself trouble, do as the world does, and let the urn of good take its 
 chance from those who can approach it with less difficulty?' No: you would 
 rather say, ' That neglected urn contains the hopes of the human species ; little, 
 indeed, is the addition I can make to it, but it will be good so far as it goes ; ' 
 and if, on approaching the urn, you should find it not so empty as you had 
 anticipated, if the genius appointed to guard it should say to you, 'There is 
 enough in this urn already to allow a reasonable expectation that it will one day 
 be full, and yet it has only accumulated drop by drop through the efforts of 
 individuals who broke through the pale and pressure of the multitude, and did 
 not despair of human virtue ; ' would you not feel ten thousand times repaid for 
 the difficulties you had overcome, and the scoffs of the fools and knaves you had 
 abandoned, by the single reflection that would then rush upon your mind, — / am 
 one of these f 
 
 " Sir Ttlegraph Paxarett. Gad, very likely : I never considered the subject 
 in that light."— A' ol. i. p. 56-62. 
 
 " That strain we heard was of a higher mood ! " 
 
 It has been silent since, and we would gladly hear it tried 
 again. Yet though this transient passion — this struggle towards 
 a more earnest life — has yielded to a relapse, its salutary effects 
 have not been wholly obliterated. The hope may have faded, 
 the pursuit may have been abandoned, but the genial glow 
 which it insphed has not departed with it ; and its influence 
 may still be traced, mellowing the cruder thoughts, softening 
 the harsher touches, making the heart and head work more 
 
 L
 
 140 TALES BY THE AUTHOR OP " IIEADLONa HALL." 
 
 harmoniously together. Even in " Nightmare Abbey," which 
 was produced in the following year, we seem to perceive traces 
 of this improvement, especially in a point which we have already 
 noticed, — the better development of the humour of character as 
 distinguished from the mere battle of opinions. This is a quality 
 Avhich it is of course difficult to exhibit in an extract ; but we 
 may refer as a striking illustration to the difference between the 
 two representations of transcendentalism in this and the preceding 
 work — between Moly Mystic, whose conversation seems to be 
 mere jargon, quite unworthy of the writer, — exposing nothing 
 except his own inability to see any meaning in what he is 
 laughing at ; and Ferdinando Flosk}^ in whose person he deals 
 many shari) and dexterous strokes, which, though passing wide 
 enough of the individual at whom they appear to have been 
 aimed, do much wholesome execution elsewhere. Here is a 
 specimen : — 
 
 " Mr. Floshy. It is very certain, and much to be rejoiced at, that our litera- 
 ture is hag-ridden. Tea lias shattered our nerves ; late dinners make us slaves 
 of indigestion ; the French Kevolution has made us shrink from the name of, 
 philosophy, and has destroyed in the more refined part of the community (of 
 Avhich number I am one) all enthusiasm for political liberty. That part of the 
 reading jmblic which shuns the solid food of reason for the light diet of fiction, 
 requires a perpetual adhibition of sauce piquante to the palate of its depraved 
 imagination. It lived upon ghosts, goblins, and skeletons (I and my friend Mr. 
 Sackbut served up a few of the best), till even the devil himself, though magni- 
 fied to the size of Mount Athos, became too base, common, and popular for its 
 surfeited appetite. The ghosts have therefore been laid, and the devil has been 
 cast into outer darkness, and now the delight of our spirits is to dwell in all the 
 vices and blackest passions of our nature, tricked out in a masquerade dress of 
 heroism and disappointed benevolence ; the whole secret of which lies in forming 
 combinations that contradict all our experience, and affixing the purple thread 
 of some particular virtue to that precise character in which we should be most 
 certain not to find it in the living world ; and making this single virtue not only 
 redeem all the real and manifest vices of the character, but making them actually 
 pass for necessary adjuncts, and indispensable accompaniments and character- 
 istics of the said virtue. 
 
 " Mr. Toobad. That is because the devil has come among us, and finds it for 
 his interest to destroy all our perceptions of the distinctions of right and wronfT. 
 
 "Marionette. I do not precisely enter into your meaning, Mr. Flosky, and 
 should be glad if you would make it a little more clear to me. 
 
 "Mr. Flosky. One or two examples will do it, Miss O'Carroll. If I were to 
 take all the mean and sordid qualities of a money-dealing Jew, and tack on to 
 them, as with a nail, the quality of extreme benevolence, I should have a very
 
 TALES BY THE AUTHOR OF "HEADLONG HALL." 117 
 
 decent hero for a niciera novel ; and should contribute my quota to the fashion- 
 able method of administering; a mass of vice under a thin and unnatural covering 
 of virtue, like a spider wrapt in a bit of gold leaf and administered as a whole- 
 some pill. On the same principle, if a man knocks me down, and takes my 
 purse and watch by main force, I turn him to account, and set him forth in a 
 tragedy as a dashing young fellow, disinherited for his romantic generosity, and 
 full of a most amiable hatred of the world in general, and his own coimtiy in 
 particuliir, and of a most enlightened and chivalrous affection for himself: then, 
 with the addition of a wild girl to fall in love with him, and a series of adventures 
 in which they break all the Ten Commandments in succession (always, you will 
 observe, from some sublime motive, which must be carefully analyzed in its 
 progress), I have as amiable a pair of tragic characters as ever issued from that 
 new region of the belles lettres, which I have called the Morbid Anatomy of 
 Black Bile, and which is greatly to be admired and rejoiced at, as affording a fine 
 scope for the exhibition of mental power." — p, 118. 
 
 We must here observe, however, that the persons in this ttale 
 are not represented as natural characters, but as masks through 
 which the writer speaks under an ironical assumption of the 
 character, on a principle similar to that laid down by Mr. 
 Sarcastic, in Melincourt : — "I ascertain the practice of those 
 I talk to, and present it to them as from myself in the shape of 
 theory; the consequence of which is, that I am universally 
 stigmatized as a promulgator of rascally doctrines." 
 
 Mr. Skionar, transcendentalist of " Crotchet Castle," is yet 
 again an improvement upon Mr. Flosky ; the rather perhaps 
 because he says very little. What he does say has so much of 
 the sound and movement of the true transcendentalism, that it 
 requires some knowledge of the matter to detect the counterfeit. 
 And as many of the characters reappear in each succeeding Tale 
 under new names, the progress of the author's mind may be 
 easily traced by comparing them with each other. Compare, 
 for instance. Squire Headlong in the earliest of them with Mr. 
 Hilary in the next, and again with the Baron in Maid Marian ; 
 — all belonging to that class of men who take life as it comes, 
 and enjoy it, without caring to understand or to mend it. 
 Observe how crude and thin a creation is Mr. Escot, with his 
 wild man of the woods and his skull of Cadwallader, when 
 compared with Mr. Chainmail and his old baronial hall hung 
 with old armour and banners, — his boar's head and wassail 
 bowl, his old poetry and old manners copied from the twelfth
 
 148 TALES BY THE AUTHOR OF "HEADLONG HALL." 
 
 century. Or observe the various representatives of the Church 
 estabhshed, — the Eev. Dr. Gaster, the more genial Mr. Larynx, 
 and the most genial Dr. Folliot. It is easy to see that the dif- 
 ference is not accidental, but springs from the deeper and kindlier 
 impulses under which the later characters were moulded. It is 
 like the difference between a Bobadil and a Falstaif, which might 
 be taken as a measure of the humanity of the hearts, not less 
 than of the pregnancy of the wits in which they were conceived. 
 But this i^rogressive triumph of the gentler nature is nowhere 
 displayed so strikingly as in his heroines. The mere misses 
 and coquettes w^ho fill that place in his earlier works (Anthelia 
 Melincom-t we have already noticed as an exception, though not 
 a very successful one) seem to have been created solely for the 
 j)urpose of making a story to set the dialogues in ; yet even 
 there, the secret delight in beauty shows itself at intervals in 
 shy touches of delicacy and grace. Gradually the feeling gi'owing 
 stronger and more impatient insists on a fuller utterance, and is 
 at length permitted to have its way, and to mould the entu-e 
 characters of Maid Marian and the heroine of Crotchet Castle 
 at its own delighted will, for its own pure satisfaction. The 
 difficulty of finding quotations to justify our praise is itself a 
 praise of no common order. Though it would be easy to fill a 
 considerable volume with very choice " beauties " selected from 
 these volumes, it w^ould be hard to find one of them which would 
 not lose half its beauty by separation from its native context. 
 "We cannot introduce Maid Marian in person without dimming 
 her brightness ; but brother Michael shall set forth her graces 
 in the following racy description. 
 
 " ' A mad girl, a mad girl/ said the little friar. 
 
 " ' How a rnad girl ? ' said brother Michael. ' Has she not beauty, grace, wit, 
 sense, discretion, dexterity, learning, and valour ? ' 
 
 "'Learning!' exclaimed the little friar; 'what has a woman to do with 
 learning ? And valour ! who ever heard a woman commended for valour ? 
 Meekness, and mildness, and softness, and gentleness, and tenderness, and 
 humility, and obedience to her hu.sband, and faith in her confessor, and domes- 
 ticity, or, as learned doctors call it, the faculty of stay-at-homeitiveness, and 
 embroidery, and music, and pickling, and preserving, and the whole complex and 
 niultiplex detail of the noble science of dinner, as well in preparation for the 
 table, as in arrangement over it, and in distribution around it to knights, and
 
 TALES BY THE AUTHOR OF "HEADLONG ILVLL." 149 
 
 squires, and ghostly fricars, — these are female virtues; but valour — why, who 
 
 ever lieard ' 
 
 " ' She is the all in all/ said brother Michael, 'gentle as a ring-dove, yet high 
 soaring as a falcon: humble below her deserving, yet deserving beyond the 
 estimate of panegyric : an exact economist in all superfluits', yet a most bountiful 
 dispenser in all liberality : the chief regulator of her household, the fairest pillar 
 of her hall, and the sweetest blossom of her bower : having in all opposite pro- 
 posings, sense to understand, judgment to weigh, discretion to choose, firmness 
 to undertake, diligence to conduct, perseverance to accomplish, and resolution to 
 maintain. For obedience to her husband, that is not to be tried till she has one : 
 for faith in her confessor, she has as much as the law prescribes : for embroidery, 
 an Arachne : for music, a Siren : and, for pickling and preserving, did not one of 
 her jars of sugared apricots give you your last surfeit at Arlingford Castle? ' 
 ******* 
 
 " ' Indeed, reverend father,' said Sir Ralph, ' if the young lady be half what 
 you describe, she must be a paragon : but your commending her for valour does 
 somewhat amaze me.' 
 
 " ' She can fence,' said the little friar, ' and draw the long bow, and play at 
 single-stick and quarter-staff.' 
 
 " 'Yet, mark you,' said brother Michael, 'not like a virago or a hoyden, or 
 one that would crack a serving-man's head for spilling gravy on her ruff, but with 
 such womanly grace and temperate self-command, as if those manly exercises 
 belonged to her only, and were become for her sake feminine.'" — Maid 
 Marian, p. 180. 
 
 The story is the happiest, in our juclgmerrfc, of all our author's 
 productions. The plan of the tale, requiring that the bright 
 instead of the blank side of the manners he is describing should 
 be turned towards us, keeps him throughout in his most genial 
 mood, and calls forth all the warmth and sunshine of his nature. 
 To exhibit the inconsistency of the popular theory of legitimate 
 government by gravely applying it to the case reversed, is the 
 idea with which he sets out. That "to the principles of free- 
 bootery, diversely developed, belong all the qualities to which 
 song or story concede renown;" that legitimate authority always 
 means the authority of the stronger party ; and that the common 
 principle of all governments is to "keep what they have and to 
 catch what they can," — are his cardinal maxims, assumed in 
 silent gravity. His idea is to be worked out, not by degrading 
 kingcraft to the level of " freebootery," which would have 
 involved him in a course of detractive satire, but by drawing 
 such a picture of freebootery as may raise it to the level of king- 
 craft. The irony and the moral, without being allowed to
 
 150 TALES BY THE AUTHOR OF "HEADLONG HALL 
 
 >> 
 
 encumber the narrative or obstruct the flow of the humour, are 
 yet kept sufdciently in sight to conciUate the sympathy of the 
 reader. Sherwood Forest is the scene, and Robin Hood is the 
 hero, in who-se person and court the manners, virtues, principles, 
 and prerogatives of a prince are to be displayed in their fairest 
 coloiu's. Never was there a more fortunate congeniality between 
 the taste and the task. All the irony of his nature finds a happy 
 vent in disclosing the more latent qualities of legitimacy ; all his 
 sj'mpathy with beauty, inward or outward, is called forth to 
 ennoble and embellish them. A pure delight in the freshness 
 of uninclosed nature pervades and inspires the whole. The 
 scenery is not described, but present as in life. " Wherever the 
 free range of the hart marks out the bounds of the forest," the 
 natural greenwood, with its glades and thickets, stretches beyond 
 us, "rolling its verdant gulfs of every hue." We seem to hear 
 the songs of the fnar coming before himself through the trees, 
 and to feel the silent presence of Maid Marian diffusing health 
 and purity through all. Nor is the human world out of keeping 
 with the x^lace and season. Himself a kind of outlaw — his own 
 vocation as a writer being to make depredations upon received 
 opinions, and to redress the inequalities in our popular morality 
 by raising those who are too poor in the world's esteem at the 
 exj^ense of those who are too rich, — ^lie has a natural fellow- 
 feeling with the dynasty of Sherwood. He paints them as if he 
 loved them. In no real commonwealth, and not in every Utopia, 
 is there to be found a community so happy and well ordered, a 
 coui-t so pure and loyal, a rule so mild, subjects so obedient, 
 justice so equally administered. Whatever may be our graver 
 conclusions, it is certain that the principles and practice of the 
 forest, of which the following speech of Friar Tuck supplies a 
 succinct recapitulation with appropriate commentary, command 
 our afifections for the time. 
 
 " ' I am in fine company,' said the baron. 
 
 " ' In the very best of company/ said the friar, ' in the high court of Nature, 
 and in the midst of her own nobility. Is it nut so? This goodly grove is our 
 pjalace : the oak and the beech are its colonnade and its canopy : the sun, and the 
 Etifxjn, and the stars are its everlasting lamps : the grass, and the daisy, and the 
 primrose, and the violet, are its many-coloured floor of green, white, yellow, and 
 blue ; the may-flower, and the woodbine, and the c^kutiue, and the ivy, are its
 
 TALES BY THE AUTHOR OF "HEADLONG HALL." 151 
 
 decorations, its curtains, and its tapestry : the lark, and the thrush, and the linnet, 
 and the nightingale, are its unhired minstrels and musicians. Kobin Hood is kincr 
 of the forest botli by dignity of birth and by virtue of his standing army ; to say 
 nothing of the free clioice of his people, wliich he has indeed, but I pass it by as 
 an illegitimate basis of power. He holds his dominion over the forest, and its 
 honied multitude of citizen-deer, and its swinish multitude or peasantry of wild 
 boars, by riglit of conquest and force of arms. He levies contributions among 
 them by the free consent of his archers, their virtual re2)resentatives. If they 
 should find a voice to complain that we are "tyrants and usurpers to kill and 
 cook them up in their assigned and native dwelling-place," we should most con- 
 vincingly admonish them, with jKjint of arrow, that they have nothing to do 
 with our laws but to obey them. Is it not written that the fat ribs of the herd 
 shall be fed upon by the mighty in the land ? And have not they withal my 
 blessing? my orthodox, canonical, and archiepiscopal blessing ? Do I not give 
 thanks for them when they are well roasted and smoking under my nose ? What 
 title had William of Normandy to England, that Kobin of Locksley has not to 
 merry Sherwood ? William fought for his claim. So does Eobin. With whom 
 both? With any that would or will dispute it. William raised contributions. 
 So does Robin. From whom both ? From all that they cuuld or can make pay 
 them. Why did any pay them to William? Why do any pay them to Uobin ? 
 For the same reason to both : because they could not or cannot help it. They 
 differ indeed in this, that William took from the poor and gave to the rich ; and 
 Robin takes from the rich and gives to the poor ; and therein is Robin illegiti- 
 mate ; though in all else he is true prince. Scarlet and John, are they not j^eers 
 of the forest ? loi'ds temporal of Sherwood ? And am not I lord spiritual ? Am 
 I not Archbishop? Am I not Pope? Do I not consecrate their banner and 
 absolve their sins ? Are not they State, and am not I Church ? Are not they 
 State monarclucal, and am not I Church militant ? Do I not excommunicate 
 our enemies from venison and brawn, and by 'r Lady ! when need calls, beat 
 them down under my feet? The State levies tax, ami the Church levies tithe. 
 Even so do we. Mass! we take all at once. What then? It is tax by 
 redemption, and tithe by commutation. Your William and Richard can cut and 
 come again, but our Eobin deals with slippery subjects that come not twice to 
 his exchequer. AVhat need we then to constitute a court, except a fool and a 
 laureate? For (he fool, his only use is to make false knaves merry by art, and 
 we are true men and are merry by nature. For the laureate, his only office is . 
 to find virtues in those who have none, and to drink sack for his pains. AVe 
 have quite virtue enough to need him not, and can drink our sack for our- 
 selves.' " — Maid Marian, p. 231. 
 
 ** Crotchet Castle " recalls us to the less genial atmosphere 
 of the nmeteenth century. But the presiding genius of Dr. 
 Folliot, the delineation of whose character must have been a 
 work of sincere enjoyment, and the touching simplicity of the 
 heroine, unite to throw over it a warmth of life, and a glow of 
 romantic beauty, which make it sm good perhaps in its kind as
 
 152 TALES BY THE AUTHOR OF "HEADLONG HALL." 
 
 Maid Marian. It abounds in passages wliicli we should be glad 
 to extract. But our limits are full, and with a hearty recom- 
 mendation to general acceptance as a most witty, shrewd, and 
 entertaining companion, we take our leave of this disturber of 
 the peace of coteries.
 
 V. 
 THE WAKEFIELD THEORY OF COLONIZATION.* 
 
 We have observed with great satisfaction the general and in- 
 creasing interest which has recently been shown concerning the 
 condition and management of our colonies ; and esjDecially the 
 stream of enterprise which is daily setting more and more 
 strongly towards Australia. Not only are emigrants of the lower 
 classes proceeding thither annually by thousands instead of by 
 hundreds ; but gentlemen whose fortunes are to seek are beginning 
 to suspect that those countries offer a better field than the over- 
 crowded liberal professions for ripening competency into affluence 
 — large capitalists begin to look thither for the chance of a 
 larger dividend upon their capital — companies are formed for all 
 manner of enterprises, and the shares are at a premium in the 
 market — thousands of pounds are paid down in London for 
 projierty in lands at the Antipodes, of which nothing is known 
 beyond the latitude and longitude — the surveyor is despatched 
 before to mark out the site of the capital — the governor, the 
 j)ublic officers, the people, and the capital itself — houses, 
 churches, and public buildings — follow him within a few 
 months and boldly commence their national existence and 
 their newspaper. It is partly, no doubt, to the natural rest- 
 lessness of a people who must be doing, and have nothing to 
 
 * 1. "Letter from Sydney." ]2mo. I-ondon : 1829. 2. " Eeport of the Com- 
 mittee on the Disposal of Lands in the British Colonies." Printed by Order of the 
 House of Commons : 183(3. 3. " In.structions to the Colonial Land.s and Emigiation 
 Commitsioners : " ISiO. (^Edinbuiyh liecicw, July, 18i0.)
 
 15 i WAKEFIELD THEORY OF COLONIZATION. 
 
 do ; and partly to the uneasy longing for elbow-room and pros- 
 pect in minds weary of the crowd and the beaten ways of an old 
 and overpeopled country, that we must ascribe this sudden rush 
 of adventure to the opposite corner of the globe : but we believe 
 it must be in a still greater degree attributed to a recent dis- 
 covery in colonization, now familiarly talked of under the name 
 of " the Wakefield Principle ; " dignified with capital letters, and 
 notorious to all readers of the Spectator, the Colonial Gazette, and 
 the Weekly Chronicle, as the one thing needful to make mankind 
 rich, vii'tuous, and happy, for the rest of their time on earth — a 
 specific for all the disorders of the world, so simple and so 
 efficacious that the whole efforts and skill of the Colonial Office 
 can hardly prevent it from taking effect. 
 
 But though the name and the j)retensions of this principle 
 have become so familiar, we have some doubts whether the prin- 
 ciple itself has been much studied or generally understood. It 
 has not indeed had its fair chance of free examination and dis- 
 cussion ; because, while many persons are deeply interested in 
 persuading others to believe in it, nobody has anything to gain 
 by calling it in question. There is no opposition princii)le bid- 
 ding against it in the market ; nor has it become a field for 
 party contention in Parliament. On the other hand, large sums 
 of money have been wagered upon it ; and every shareholder is 
 directly interested in raising the public opinion of its virtues, in 
 which opinion resides the value of his share. The greater his 
 oww misgivings, the more will he strive to sustain the confidence 
 of his neighbours ; and all the tricks of the money market must 
 be expected to be emploj-cd in magnifying the evidences of success 
 and concealing all indications the other way. Even those who 
 have taken up the scheme, as the originators did, as a purely 
 political speculation, without any notion of making money by it, 
 must be supposed to have contracted undue prejudices in its 
 favour, and undue suspicions of persons less sanguine than them- 
 selves and less disposed to make all other considerations give 
 way to the pretensions of the favourite theory. It must also be 
 remembered that these persons have haj^pened, or have contrived, 
 in advocating their cause to stand in a position peculiarly 
 favourable for producing an effect upon disengaged bystanders.
 
 WAKEFIELD TIIEOft¥ OF COLONIZATION. 155 
 
 Without ever exposing themselves to explanation or contradiction, 
 they have adopted the tone of tlnvarted and misrepresented men. 
 Fortunate is the disputant who seems to stand on the defensive, 
 because the sense of justice and the hope of a fight secures him 
 sympathy and a hearing ; more fortunate still, if his supposed an- 
 tagonist be not in a condition to meet and answer him, because 
 then he gets all the credit of a victory without risking the chance 
 of defeat. The advocates of the " Wakefield theory of coloniza- 
 tion " have formed a small compact body, with great vigour, 
 ability, and perseverance ; — not restrained by any diffidence, or 
 by many charitable scruples on their own part ; not crossing 
 the jmth of any opposing interest, and therefore unchecked by 
 hostile criticism from others. For the last eight or nine years 
 they have been attacking without remorse all persons hostile, or 
 supj)osed to be hostile, to any of their views ; coolly charging 
 them, as if on the authority of personal knowledge (which, by the 
 way, it is hardly credible that they can possess), with the 
 basest motives and the most disingenuous artifices ; and these 
 attacks they have been repeating week after week, without calling 
 forth any one to contradict or question them — not because they 
 are unanswerable, but because the only persons concerned to 
 answer have been either ministers, who cannot enter into con- 
 troversy with the periodical Press, or subordinate officers respon- 
 sible only to the chief under whose directions they are presumed 
 to act — who, in their official capacity, and therefore in defence of 
 their official conduct, can say nothing except what he directs 
 them to say. Thus, while there are so many motives abroad, 
 and so much opportunity for preaching up the theory, there is 
 no corresponding inducement to x^reach it down. ' Its patrons 
 have had all the talk to themselves, and the other side is still to 
 be heard. Until some equally active party shall be engaged in 
 opposition and set themselves with the zeal of partisans to detect 
 failures and obstructions, it will be difficult for any one to form 
 a fair and comprehensive estimate of the real merits of the theory 
 in question, and of the amount of substantial benefit which may 
 be reasonably expected from its practical operation. 
 
 We have thought it the more necessary to suggest these con- 
 siderations, because we have no intention of undertaking that
 
 156 "WAKEFIELD TIIEOEY OF COLONIZATION. 
 
 task ourselves ; and we wish our own speculations on the matter 
 to be taken with all due cautions and abatements, and to pass 
 for no more than we feel them to be really worth. So far as we 
 can understand the system, and foresee its probable working — 
 which, considering the novelty of all the circumstances and the 
 imperfect knowledge under which for the present we must be 
 content to labour, we cannot pretend to do with any confidence — 
 we believe it to be sound in principle and heartily wish it success. 
 The magnificent achievements which are promised in its name 
 we cannot hope to see completely realized : unforeseen reverses 
 are, no doubt, lying in w'ait for it ; the large historical experiences 
 which are quoted in its behalf we cannot receive in evidence 
 without further cross-examination ; the expectation that it will 
 be successful in all quarters of the world alike, without considera- 
 tion of j)osition, habits, or natural advantages, we may reject 
 at once as arguing the want of a discriminating judgment ; and 
 all charges against imblic men of groundless enmity, jealous}'-, 
 or trickery (advanced to account for the lamentable but indubit- 
 able fact, that the condition of mankind has not materially 
 changed nor the prosperity of all classes commenced its career 
 durmg the ten years which have now passed since the revelation 
 was first made), together with all the anecdotes told in illustra- 
 tion, we must be allowed to entertain with simple incredulity. 
 Knowing by daily experience how transactions of which every 
 part has passed in public, and been placed on record accessible 
 to every body, are hourly misrepresented, not only by newspapers, 
 but by gentlemen with unhidden faces — noble, right-reverend, 
 learned, and honourable persons, who desire to speak the truth 
 and expect to be believed — we cannot consent to take any im- 
 pression whatever from newspaper histories of official transac- 
 tions, or to believe any assertion whatever on the strength of 
 private information quoted by an anonymous writer. Such 
 stories are easily made up ; plausibly enough, perhaps, to impose 
 on the teller himself. By first framing a theory of the proceed- 
 ing he wishes to describe, and then fitting into it such discon- 
 nected points of information as he can pick up, any man with a 
 bad opinion of his neighbour and a good opinion of himself may 
 misrepresent the truth to any conceivable extent. Whenever
 
 WAKEFIELD THEORY OF COLONIZATION. 157 
 
 Lord John Russell shall undertake in addition to his other 
 duties the task of answering the weekly attacks upon him and 
 his office in the Spectator and the Colonial Gazette, we shall be in 
 a condition to estimate the real worth of w4iat might be called 
 the Wakefield theory of the Colonial Office. In the meantime, 
 we must be permitted to set it aside, together with all the stories 
 on which it rests, and all the others which rest upon it, as 
 involving moral improbahilities which it would require very 
 strong authority to overcome, while they depend upon authority 
 which is worth nothing. It is much easier to believe that Mr. 
 Wakefield overrates himself and his theory than that all 
 secretaries and under-secretaries of State are in a perpetual 
 conspiracy to defeat his efforts for the good of mankind. 
 
 Subject, however, to these explanations and allowances, we 
 believe, as we have said, that the new theory of colonization is a 
 sound one ; and though we cannot repose such absolute faith as 
 some do in its superiority to all accidents, and its universal ap- 
 plicability as a remedy for all disorders, we can truly say that few 
 things would disappoint us more than the failure of the experi- 
 ment ; few things give us greater pleasure than its entire success. 
 
 We shall confine ourselves for the present to an explanation 
 and examination of the principle, as applicable to countries like 
 Australia, which offer the fairest field for its undisturbed opera- 
 tion, and with a view to which it was, in fact, originally sug- 
 gested ; and we wish to be understood as desiring rather to 
 invite attention to the subject and engage other minds in the 
 study of its many bearings than to establish any peculiar 
 doctrine of our own. 
 
 It is a serious defect in the constitution of om- executive 
 Government, that it keeps no minds at work to foresee difficulties 
 before they come, and prepare to meet them ; and the practical 
 inconvenience arising from this defect is strikingly illustrated by 
 the history upon w^hich we are about to enter. The gradual en- 
 croachment of population upon territory, with its attendant evils 
 of labom'ers wanting work and capitalists w^anting employment 
 for their capital, was no new phenomenon in the history of the 
 world. Sooner or later, and more or less, it must, we conceive.
 
 li)8 "WAKEFIELD THEORY OF COLONIZATION. 
 
 liave been experienced in every country of not unlimited terri- 
 tory which ever prosj)ered. The chief difference was, that in 
 former times the means of reHef were at hand, and the evil was 
 no sooner felt than remedied. If the parent hive became too 
 full, there were trees enough in the land ; the surplus population 
 had but to swarm, and make for themselves another. The 
 faster the mother city grew, the sooner her boughs touched the 
 earth, and became dp.ughters to renew and cherish mstead of 
 bui'dens to exhaust her. At length however, by the continual 
 pressure of population ui^on subsistence, the world has been 
 partly peopled ; and some of the peopled parts have grown so 
 full that no vacant spaces are left in the neighbourhood into 
 which the superabundance may be drawn off, as it used to be. 
 If Ireland were at this moment uninhabited, those who are now 
 uneasy with the elbowing and competition in England would 
 straightway cross the Channel and set up a more comfortable 
 England for themselves. Malthus might still be studied by a 
 few political economists and denounced by a few priests and sen- 
 timentalists. But neither the Government, nor the Parliament, 
 nor the people, would ever trouble themselves about the law of 
 population, or care to anticipate the day when, Ireland being 
 filled as full as England, and her sons nevertheless continuing 
 to increase and multiply, the competition and elbowing should 
 begin again ; — when no second Ireland should be at hand, to offer 
 a retreat to the discontented and subsistence to the unem- 
 ployed ; — when, if any man should find his lot at home i)ress 
 hard uj)on him, he must either make up his mind to endure it, 
 with the prospect of its growing daily worse, or else raise money 
 to cross the Atlantic, and summon courage to face, with wife and 
 family, the unknown conditions of existence which might wait 
 for him on the other side. Yet that such a day must inevitably 
 come, though Ireland were at this hour as empty as New 
 Holland, would not be less certain than that (Ireland being long 
 since brimful) such a day has already arrived. The state oi 
 things which became visible in England soon after she settled 
 into peace might have been predicted at least half a century 
 before, as a state which she was rapidly approaching, and must, 
 unless some season of calamity should intervene, soon reach.
 
 WAKRFIELD THEORY OF COLOXTZATION". 159 
 
 A Government duly equipped and duly vigilant should Lave had 
 some mind on the watch to understand and anticipate that day ; 
 to anticipate it at least in imagination ; and to consider what 
 might be done with it when it came. There would not have 
 been wanting in the history of the rise and fall of nations indi- 
 cations of the quarter in which the remedy must be looked for, 
 as well as proofs that it would certainly be needed. The means 
 of maldng distant colonies available for drawing off a surplus 
 population at home should have been for the last half century a 
 familiar study, if not to all statesmen, at least to many callable 
 minds set to work by statesmen for their instruction. 
 
 But sufficient unto the Government of the day are the evils 
 of the day ; and before any thought had been taken to meet 
 the approaching emergency it was already upon us and around 
 us. A preternatural thirst for speculation, rushing into the void 
 left by the preternatural excitement of the war, hastened the 
 crisis. Banks breaking, discontents rising, masses of people 
 thrown out of employment, the poor starving for want of work, 
 the rich impoverished by maintaining the superfluous hands 
 which could not raise so much produce as they consumed, rents 
 eaten up by rates ; — these instant and surrounding disasters 
 awoke our legislators to the necessity of inquiring whence they 
 came and how they were to be dealt with. It was found upon 
 inquiry that the people had indeed been multi^Dlying too fast, 
 and that they were now too many for the land. The theory 
 which accounted for the fact was still indeed oj)en to debate ; 
 and some time was lost in disputing whether the increase and 
 multiplication of mankind, which had always been regarded as 
 both a duty and a blessing, could lead to evil ; but about the 
 fact itself there could be no doubt ; and the majority were con- 
 tent to believe, since the event had certainly come, that it had 
 com.e according to the laws of nature. It was found likewise (as 
 might also have been anticipated) that the natural and the 
 only discoverable way of re-adjusting the proportion between the 
 claimants for wages and the fund out of which wages were paid 
 was emigration. The recognition of this fact was a great point 
 gained ; for it immediately turned the inquiry towards the much 
 more difficult and really novel question — how such emigi-ation
 
 IGO WAKEFIELD THEORY OF COLONIZATION. 
 
 might be effected on a scale adequate to the emergency. This 
 question was elaborately investigated by two Committees of the 
 House of Commons in 1826 and 1827. They reported that the 
 British colonies supplied room enough ; and that by the assist- 
 ance of the Government, though at great cost, a sufficient 
 number of the labouring population to relieve the immediate 
 pressure might be enabled to go over and settle on colonial 
 wastes. We need not particularize the measures adopted or 
 contemplated during the next four or five years for carrying 
 this project into effect. It is enough to say that no considerable 
 l^rogress was made. The heavy expense to be borne in the first 
 instance by the public, and the difficulty of obtaining repayment 
 from the parties more immediately benefited, made the operation 
 too costly to be popular. The parishes, though by the removal 
 of so heavy a burden upon their funds they would upon the 
 whole have been the greatest gainers, shrank from the heavy 
 debt in which it must involve them, and preferred to hope that 
 times would mend. From the emigrants themselves, though 
 out of the profits of their labour in Canada they might within a 
 few years have easily repaid the whole cost, it was hardly prac- 
 ticable to enforce the repayment. The Canadian capitalists, 
 though they too must have been benefited by the immigration, 
 did not derive from the settlement of paupers upon the waste 
 lands any advantage equal, or nearly equal, to the cost of the 
 proceeding. Moreover, while the country was thus deterred 
 from offering to the pauper population the means of emigration, 
 rumours of the many evils and accidents to which poor settlers 
 on colonial wastes were exposed discouraged the paupers them- 
 selves from taking advantage of the offer. Hence, during these 
 years, though much good was done by the agitation of the 
 measure and the better understanding of the difficulties to be 
 sm'mountod, the immediate relief secured was not considerable. 
 It may also be observed that the measures proj)osed, had they 
 been carried out to the full extent, would not have reached the 
 seat of the disorder. The remedy, with all its expenses and 
 difficulties, was after all only a remedy for the day. It aimed 
 only by a violent effort to relieve an extreme pressm-e, not to 
 provide what was really wanted — a natural and continual source
 
 WAKEFIELD THEORY OF COLONIZATION. IGl 
 
 of relief for a pressure which must be continually recurring. It 
 did nothing towards bringing the under-peopled colony within 
 easy reach of the actual and immediate sufferers from the first 
 approaches of over-population in the mother country. For 
 preventing the recurrence of such another crisis, we were to 
 trust to a better internal administration, to hope and chance, 
 and to the ingenuity of those whom it might more directly con- 
 cern. Enough for us to throw off the disease : to restore and 
 invigorate the constitution would be work for another day. 
 
 It was during the pressure of these difUculties that Mr. 
 Edward Gibbon Wakefield was led to take an interest in the 
 condition of the colonies in New South Wales and Van Diemen's 
 Land, and to inquire whether something might not be done to 
 improve them. In those colonies he found all the raw materials 
 of prosperity and civilization lying about, abundant and inex- 
 haustible ; — a genial climate ; a fertile soil of unbounded extent ; 
 exportable produce, unlimited in quantity, mirivalled in. value, 
 and raised with little difficulty and at little cost ; ports and har- 
 bours ; an enterprising population ; and a revenue ah-eady 
 flourishing. But civilization itself — the powers, the arts, the 
 virtues, and the enjoyments of social man — did not appear to be 
 advancing with corresponding rapidity. Even their commercial 
 prosperity did not seem to have grown natui-ally out of all those 
 natural advantages ; but to dej^end upon an accidental arrange- 
 ment, itself one of the main obstructions to civilization, and a 
 source of infinite moral pollution — the quantity of penal labour 
 at command. Had there been no convicts, where would have 
 been the wealth of New South Wales ? Lying hidden within 
 the bosom of the land, or standing ungathered along the surface 
 of the sheep-walks. Stop the supply of convicts, and what 
 would become of it even now ? Yet there were at this time in 
 the colony 50,000 free persons of British origin, who, had they 
 been thrown together in an English county, would have formed 
 a very civilized community. Why should they not do here as 
 they would have done in England, follow the same pursuits, 
 set up the same institutions, and enjoy the same comforts ? 
 The answer to this question explained the case. In an English 
 county, so many people living together could not all have been 
 
 M
 
 162 WAKEFIELD THEORY OF COLONIZATION. 
 
 landholders, nor able to purchase land. Some would have 
 looked to live by wages ; they would have tilled the soil ; — «ome 
 by trade ; they would have kept shoj^s ; — some by handicraft ; 
 these would have made houses, clothes, furniture, and utensils ; — 
 some, again, would have taught, some preached, and some would 
 have lived by managing their neighbours' quarrels. But here, 
 where every man might live upon his own estate, why should he 
 labour on another's ? "Where all might be masters, why should 
 any be a servant ? " Because " (it will be said, and said with 
 truth) " the life of a servant, in a coimtry where servants are 
 plentiful and well paid, is more eligible than the life of a 
 master, where servants are not to be had ; and therefore, by 
 voluntarily doing here what they would have been forced to do 
 in a country where land was scarce, they would have promoted 
 not only the general interests of all, but the individual com- 
 forts of each." This we believe to be strictly true; and we be- 
 lieve, moreover, that if all these individuals could have been 
 endowed with one mind to understand their interests and con- 
 trol their movements, this is precisely what they would have 
 done. They would have remained together, observing " degree, 
 priority, and place," each consenting to forego his immediate 
 gratification for the sake of the greater share which (all the rest 
 acting on the same principle) would have fallen to him in the 
 end. They would have been as "members one of another." In 
 some particular circumstances indeed, and in some small 
 degree, examj)les of such conduct have been actually seen ; and 
 cases may be readily imagined in which a religious community, 
 for instance, or a Highland clan, or even a sensible family 
 settling in the wilderness, might set such an example, and the 
 happy consequences of it might induce others to follow and so 
 bring it into fashion. In like manner, it is possible to conceive 
 that some particular crowd may, on some remarkable occasion, 
 have been induced to go out of a theatre on fire without tramp- 
 ling each other to death, or choking up the avenues. But m 
 general it must clearly be assumed that many minds will not be 
 governed by one intention, and that where a crowd is left to its 
 own guidance within reach of objects of desire the shares will 
 be settled by scramble, not by distribution. So with the settlers
 
 WAKEFIELD TlIEOllY OF COLONIZATION. 1G3 
 
 in a new colony. Instead of remaining together like civilized 
 men, and combining their industry to make the territory yield 
 its largest produce, that so the share of each may be the larger, 
 they rush abroad in all directions to obtain land, of which, for 
 want of combmation, they can make no use when they have got 
 it. To obtain the fruits of civilization therefore, it is necessary 
 that the population should remain together ; and since they are 
 not likely to resist of their own accord the temptation to dis- 
 perse, they must be prevented. Settling upon land must be 
 made more difficult. 
 
 These views Mr. Wakefield put forth in 1829, in a small 
 volume, entitled " A Letter from Sydney," which professed to record 
 the experience of a gentleman, who, having been tempted by the 
 cheapness of land to settle in New South Wales, was speedily 
 convinced, by a series of difficulties, disappointments, and dis- 
 gusts, that this very cheapness was the main impediment to the 
 civilization of the colony ; because, so long as land was cheap, 
 the population would be scattered ; and so long as poj^ulation 
 was scattered, the land would be worthless and the society bar- 
 barous. The story is, of course, a fiction, and the facts it records 
 invented, we presume, for the i)^"pose of illustration. The very 
 striking picture, too, which it exhibits of the habits, manners, 
 tastes, and occupations peculiar to a new country, is probably 
 drawn in a great measure from imagination. But the object of 
 the book, light and lively as it reads, is serious and business-like; 
 and the argument is contrived with great skill to lead the reader 
 on by easy but inevitable approaches to the important conclu- 
 sion — (peculiarly important for its bearing on the question of 
 emigration from Great Britain, to which we shall presently 
 return) — that the root of all evil in a new colony is the super- 
 abundance of territory in proportion to the labouring population; 
 that by fixing a sufficient i^rice upon new land and requiring the 
 money to be paid down, it would be at once arrested ; and that, 
 by ai)plying the proceeds of all future sales to introduce labour- 
 ing families, it would be speedily removed. 
 
 Hence it appeared that the cure for the diseases of the old 
 country, which was too full, and of the new country, which was 
 not full enough, would be found by creating a channtd through
 
 164 -WAKEFIELD THEORY OF COLONIZATION. 
 
 \vbich the poiralation of the one should overflow into the other. 
 To make the overflow at once natural and contmual, it was only 
 necessary that it should support itself — that is, that it should be 
 accomplished in the ordinary course of commerce, without re- 
 C2uiring from any of the parties concerned any unusual sacrifice 
 or exertion. Already it was the immediate interest of the par- 
 ishes to be relieved from their j)auper population ; of the pauper 
 poi)ulation to go; of the Government to facilitate their going; 
 and of the colonists to receive them. It only remained to make 
 it the immediate interest of somebody to pay the expense. Now, 
 BO long as waste land might be obtained in the colony for the 
 asking — (and the system of granting titles at once, on conditions 
 to be performed afterwards, did, in fact, come very nearly to this; 
 for the conditions w^ere almost always evaded) — the tendency 
 above noticed, to disperse and settle, made the influx of a labour- 
 ing population almost useless. No sooner did they touch the 
 colony than they ceased to be a labouring population ; labour 
 ■was almost as scarce as ever, and the demand for it was greater ; 
 new territory was appropriated, while the value of that already 
 occupied was hardly increased. But once refuse to grant away 
 another acre without a considerable price paid down, and every 
 shipful of jDOor immigrants helps to fill the labour-market and 
 enrich the land ; and it becomes the interest of every estate in 
 the colony to contribute something towards the cost of their 
 p)assage. The rapid accumulation of wealth through the labour 
 of convicts — the only labour which can be commanded in New 
 South Wales in sufficient quantities and at reasonable cost — 
 shows what large sums might be profitably laid out on immigra- 
 tion, provided the prices of land were so adjusted as to keep the 
 labour-market at all times sufficiently full. By the same process, 
 while the landlords grew rich, the community would be civilized. 
 The people would be kept together. All the blessings that wait 
 upon plenty, and progress, and human neighbourhood, would 
 gradually develope themselves — churches, schools, hospitals, 
 colleges — light from the intercourse of minds, strength from 
 the combination of hands, activity from the communion of 
 wants ; all the conveniences, the luxuries, and the graces of life ; 
 all, in short, that man in combination with man can do,
 
 WAKEFIELD THEORY OF COLONIZATION. 105 
 
 create, or enjoy — all that men, scattered and separated, must do 
 without. 
 
 Here then is the very channel which we want, costing no 
 more than it will amply repay even in money's worth, and pro- 
 mising advantages which money cannot purchase or measure to 
 all parties concerned ; — a channel through which, when a few 
 experiments shall have made it familiar, it seems not unreason- 
 able to hope that a continual stream may flow, of poor men 
 going to be made rich — of the superfluous numbers, that would 
 otherwise be feeding on the life of England, going to infuse new 
 life and strength into her remote dependencies. 
 
 Such were the main features of the scheme suggested by Mr. 
 Wakefield in this volume (to which an outline was annexed of 
 the principal regulations which would be requisite to carry it 
 into effect), and such the great ends to which, if faithfully 
 followed out, it might eventually lead. It is now ten years since 
 it was announced ; and considering the many prejudices to be 
 overcome, the many minds and interests that must be induced 
 to co-operate, the many unforeseen difficulties and obstructions 
 which must be dealt with one by one, the many lions which are 
 seen by ingenious and thinking men of a certain class in every 
 strange path, the many questions of more immediate interest, 
 and if not larger, at least larger looking, which have occupied 
 the public attention during these years — the Poor-laws, for in- 
 stance, and the Eeform Bill ; — above all, considering the long 
 prevalence of an opposite system, and the heavy growths of evil 
 which must die out before the fruits of the new one can be put 
 fairly forth, we see no just reason to be discouraged by the rate 
 of its progress. On some other occasion we may probably re- 
 sume the consideration of the subject more in detail ; but at 
 present we must content ourselves with a rapid sketch of the 
 progress which it has actually made, and the position in which it 
 now stands. 
 
 The "Letter from Sydney" soon attracted attention; and in 
 1830 a society was formed under the name of the National Coloniz- 
 ation Society for promoting the scheme. The society was broken 
 up shortly after, by a disagreement among its more prominent 
 members; but its effects remained in the very able pamphlet
 
 106 "WAKEFIELD THEORY OF COLONIZATIOX. 
 
 which had been put forth in explanation of its principles, and a 
 series of controversial letters which followed. Early in the 
 following 5'ear, the principle of selling all new lands was adopted 
 by the Government ; and the governors, both in Canada and 
 Australia, were forbidden by Lord Eipon (then Secretary of State 
 for the Colonies) to make any more grants of territory belonging to 
 the Crown : in future, all land which was disposed of at all, was 
 without exception to be disposed of by sale to the highest bidder 
 ■ — the upset price being five shillings per acre. About the same 
 time a Commission was appointed by Government to take mea- 
 sures for the encouragement of emigration and the protection of 
 emigrants. Through the exertions of the Commissioners, a 
 great deal of useful information was circulated through the 
 country relative to the condition of the colonies and the attrac- 
 tions they presented to persons of the labouring class ; arrange- 
 ments were made, by which the cost of a passage to New Holland 
 was reduced by almost a half ; money was advanced from the 
 English Treasury, and applied by way of loans (which were 
 afterwards converted into gifts) to pay the passage-money of 
 families of working people, and in bounties towards the convey- 
 ance of single women. The general effect of these proceedings 
 was to call into existence a disposition on the part of our labour- 
 ing population to resort to Australia ; and so give an effectual 
 commencement to a system of voluntary emigration thither, 
 which has been increasing since. During the four years before 
 the operations of the Commissioners commenced, the total emi- 
 gration annually to the Australian colonies was on the average 
 only 1469 ; during the five years succeeding, the number of per- 
 sons annually assisted to go by the Government, alone exceeded 
 that average ; while the entire number of emigrants reached an 
 average of 3124. During the latter portion of this period — the 
 Emigration Commission having been dissolved in 1832, and Mr. 
 Frederick Elliot (who had acted as secretary to that Commis- 
 sion, and on whom the duty of carrying on the system which 
 they had set on foot had practically devolved) being absent in 
 Canada — things appear to have gone wrong. Comj)laints were 
 made with regard to the selection of the emigrants, and disease 
 and irregularities broke out in some of the vessels. Soon after
 
 WAKEFIELD THEORY OF COLONIZATION. J (17 
 
 Mr. Elliot's return to England, the whole department was again 
 placed under his management, as agent-general for emigration. 
 In the mean time the revenue from the sale of lands in New 
 South Wales (upon which, after several projects for raising an 
 additional emigration fund from other sources, the whole burden 
 seems ultimately to have fallen) was rapidly increasing ; and 
 though, in 1831, the annual proceeds of the sales had not been 
 estimated at more than i^lO,000, Mr. Elliot found, when he 
 entered on his new office, an income from that source of upwards 
 of X'132,000 realized during 1836, and of i^l20,000 estimated 
 for the two following years. The measures which he adopted to 
 make the emigration commensurate with the fund, we shall give 
 in his own words : — 
 
 "It is scarcely surprising that so extraordinary a fruit of the rapid develop- 
 ment of wealth in this flourishing colony far outstripped the arrangements which 
 had been instituted at home for its beneficial application ; neither were the 
 demands for labour quite so urgently pressed then as since. But in entering on 
 my duties, I felt very desirous, in conformity with what I knew also to be your 
 Lordship's wish, to extend the emigration in some proportion to the increased 
 funds, and. the increased wants of the colony, 
 
 " In the year 1837, therefore, there were despatched to New South Wales and 
 Yan Diemen's Land ten ships, hired, fitted, and provisioned by the Government, 
 containing, within a few, 3000 men, women, and children. Of these jieople 300 
 sailed for Van Diemen's Land; but no more have been sent there since, in 
 consequence of Sir J. Franklin's despatch to your Lordship, dated the 12th of 
 April, 1837, which seems to show that there is not any longer, in that colony, a 
 demand for the introduction of large bodies of labouring people. The remaining 
 2700 emigrants were destined to New South Wales. 
 
 " In 1838 five ships have gone, up to the present date of the 28th of April, 
 and arrangements are made for seven more to sail before the end of June, all 
 twelve to New South Wales ; which, even though the average number in each 
 be estimated so low as 260, will take fiom hence upwards of 3100 souls in the 
 first six months of this year. Of these ships four have been filled from England, 
 four from Scotland, and the remaining four from Ireland. A more detailed 
 statement of the ships, and of the number and description of the passengers, sent 
 in 1837, will be found in the Appendix. 
 
 " The average annual number of emigrants sent to New South Wales, previously 
 to the present system, has been mentioned above to have been 800; more than 
 three times as many, therefore, were sent to the colony last year ; and about four 
 times as many are to be sent in the first half of this 3^ear, being at the rate of 
 eight times as many per annum. The people may be said to be now going as 
 fast as is required for the complete expenditure of the fimd applicable to the 
 object. Further advices may show a fresh augmentation of this remarkable
 
 ]G8 WAKEFIELD THEORY OF COLONIZATION, 
 
 branch of revenue ; but by the Eeport of a Committee of Council which accom- 
 panied Sir Eichard Bourk's despatch of the 8th of September, 1837, the proceeds 
 of the lands, for two years to come, seem estimated at £120,000 per annum, of 
 which one-third is reserved for the bounties, payable in the colony, on accoiint 
 of emigrants introduced by resident settlers. The remainder is £80,000, which 
 is not a sum that would admit of more than twenty ships being sent in the year. 
 In leaving this part of the subject, it is gratifying to state, that while the 
 number of people sent out in public vessels has been so largely extended, there 
 does not appear to have been any diminution, but on the contrary, an increase of 
 emigration through other channels. 
 
 "There was not at first much alacrity to emigrate from England in the 
 public vessels. Dr. Galloway stated that he had to travel over a considerable 
 part of Wiltshire, Dorsetshire, and Hampshire, and also to visit the eastern part 
 of Sussex, in order to provide a sufficient number of passengers for the small ship 
 Augusta Jessie, which sailed from Portsmouth in June, 1837 ; and in July, I 
 found it expedient to take the occasion of a temporary pressure in the weaving 
 districts of Gloucestershire, to send a ship from Bristol with people taken from 
 that part of the country. In the autumn a vessel was allotted to the coimty of 
 Norfolk ; but, although the measure had been settled for some months, and 
 expressly to meet the convenience of the parties, the whole of them changed 
 their minds at the last moment ; and, within a fortnight of the time ai)pointed 
 for the shij)'s sailing, with a certain expenditure of between £4000 and £5000 
 incurred, we found ourselves with just three families who remained willing to go. 
 This is a specimen of the difficulties to which the service is exposed. I did not 
 hesitate, however, what course to pursue. Late as the time had become, I 
 immediately issued advertisements, and opened a rendezvous at Lieutenant 
 Lean's office in London ; and I declined listening to any intimations of a fresh 
 change of disposition in Nwfolk; for it seemed to me of paramount importance 
 to the interests of all concerned, that people should be led to understand that 
 the benefits so liberally held out through the funds supplied from the Colony 
 are not to be trifled with. I am happy to say, that the vessel was filled from 
 other quarters by the time appointed ; and that, owing to the efforts which were 
 made, I have every reason to hope that the passengers selected for her will prove 
 as useful an acquisition to the Colony as any that have sailed. 
 
 "Circumstances are much changed this year. We have found no difficulty 
 in filling four ships already from the county of Kent alone, and have numbers 
 of candidates there besides, "wliom we have been obliged to reject for want of 
 room. I also look forward to an opportunity of sending from Wiltshire and 
 Hampshire later in the year; in fact, we may be said to have more need of 
 exertion, just at present, in preventing ourselves from being overflowed with ap- 
 plications, than in obtaining all that our resources could possibly sjitisfy. 
 
 "From Scotlaixl and Ireland the supply of emigrants has never been scanty 
 since the first months of 1837." — {Eeport, April 8, 1838.) 
 
 Our limits will not allow us to enter into the very interesting 
 account of the reforms which Mr. Elliot then proceeded to 
 introduce in the management and superintendence of his
 
 WAKEFIELD THEORY OF COLONIZATION. 1G9 
 
 emigrant ships. We are glad to find that the new arrangements 
 have been universally approved and adopted ; and that the 
 results have been even more favourable than could have been 
 anticipated. The advance which emigration has made under 
 his auspices may be seen from the following statement : — Up to 
 1836, the average number of emigrants proceeding annually 
 to Australia by the assistance of Government, was 1569 ; the 
 average emigration of all kinds, only 3124. In 1837, the 
 number of emigrants sent by Government was 2991 ; the 
 number altogether, 5054. In 1838, the number dispatched by 
 Government was 6463; the entire number, 14,021. In 1839, 
 " in consequence of the accounts of the continued drought, and 
 the high prices of provisions, accompanied by a falling off in the 
 land revenue, and a temporary diminution of candidates to 
 emigrate from home," it was not thought advisable to send out 
 in the Government ships more than 4096 ; but the total number 
 of emigrants to the Australian colonies during that year was not 
 less than 15,786. 
 
 Had this been the sole practical result achieved by the new 
 principle within the first ten years after the announcement of it, 
 there would have been no cause for discouragement. In all 
 such cases, the first grand object is to clear and try the way 
 and to taste the fruits. Accidents and oversights will commonly 
 occur, which, if experienced on a small scale, may be rectified, 
 and the experience will inspire confidence rather than alarm. 
 But a single great mistake in the outset, however easily -pre- 
 vented from recurring — a single fatal disaster on the threshold 
 of the enterprise, however certain the precautions which might 
 be taken against a second of the kind — would probably stifle the 
 experiment in its bii'th. A heavy return of mortality among 
 the emigrants to Australia during the first year, either on the 
 passage or on their first settlement, might have procured an Act 
 of Parliament to prohibit emigration. The tentative process 
 which has been followed, while it has happily been unattended 
 by any serious calamity, has at the same time suggested such 
 improvements and percautions as may fairly set at rest all 
 apprehensions on that score. The channel is now shaped out, 
 and the stream may henceforth flow as fast as it will.
 
 170 WAKKFIKLP TIIEOllY OF COLONIZATION. 
 
 But this is not all that has been clone. In New South Wales, 
 so much land had already been granted away under the system 
 which prevailed up to 1831, the settlers were so scattered, and 
 society so little advanced, — whilst the continued importation 
 and assignment of convicts had filled the country with a popula- 
 tion so depraved, and so ill-i3roj)ortioned as to sexes, — that the 
 better system could not for many years be exj)ected to put forth 
 its full fruits. Its advocates determined, therefore, to seek a 
 fairer field, and try a more decisive experiment. Persons who 
 had visited the southern coast of Australia had returned with 
 news of good harbourage and anchorage for shipping ; of one 
 or two rivers, seen or suspected ; of fresh water to be had by 
 digging for it ; of a fine and healthy climate ; of woody and 
 grassy tracts that appeared to stretch inland ; of gi'eat scarcity 
 of men, and great plenty of kangaroos, seals, and whales ; and 
 aU this in a part of the continent sufficiently remote from the 
 penal settlements. In this region, a square portion containing 
 nearly two hundred millions of acres was marked out upon the 
 map, and granted by the Crown in trust to Commissioners, for 
 purposes and under conditions defined by an Act of Parliament. 
 The land was to be sold at a price of not less than twelve 
 shillings an acre ; the whole proceeds to be employed as an 
 emigration fund, — the expenses of settlement and government 
 were to be defrayed by money borrowed on the security of the 
 future revenue ; a sum of £20,000 in the funds was to be vested 
 in trustees, as a guarantee against any charges which might 
 ba entailed on the public ; and nothing was to be done until 
 £'35,000 had been realized in this country by the sale of the 
 lands. The legislative and executive powers were to reside in a 
 governor and council, as in the Crown colonies ; the sale of land 
 and the emigration were to be managed by the Commissioners. 
 The Act was passed in August, 1834, and a company was soon 
 after formed with a large capital, to be employed in the improve- 
 ment of the colony. In the course of the following year, the 
 preliminary arrangements were completed. On the 24th of 
 February 1836, the governor was gazetted. The surveyor with 
 Ijis staff reached the colony in August, and chose the site of the 
 first settlement. In December, arrived the governor with the
 
 ^^^\KEFIELD THEORY OF COLONIZATION. 171 
 
 first body of settlers, and the province of South Australia was 
 proclaimed. Unhappily, the first thing he did was to quarrel 
 with the surveyor about the site of the capital ; and a furious 
 controversy followed between the Government party and the 
 Commissioners' pai-ty, which divided against itself the infant 
 and yet unbuilt city ; stoj^ped the progress of the surveys ; and 
 ended in the indignant resignation of the surveyor-general and 
 his whole staff (though the Commissioners seem to have done 
 what they could to support him), and we believe in the recall of 
 the governor. This quarrel however, though it must have made 
 the settlement uncomfortable, does not seem to have materially 
 retarded its growth or damped the spirit of speculation ; for we 
 find that at the close of 1838, the population was supposed to be 
 not less than 7000 (5322 having emigrated from this country) ; 
 that the land sales had been gradually increasing up to the date 
 of the latest account ; and that the sums received on that 
 account amounted altogether to £111,055. What may be the 
 ultimate prospects of this enterprising community, it is of course 
 impossible to say, until we see what it can do for itself in the 
 way of exports and revenue. At present we can only conclude 
 that its prospects are well thought of in the money market, and 
 that if it fail to thrive it is not for want of encouragement. AVe 
 are glad to avail ourselves — in the following extract of a letter 
 which was called forth from Colonel Torrens by some depreciat- 
 ing statements — of the latest intelligence from an unsuspected 
 quarter that has fallen in our way. 
 
 " The colony attained the age of three years, on the 2Sth of last December, 
 and its third anniversary was celebrated by a public dinner given by the colonists 
 to Colonel Gawler, the governor and resident commissioner. On this occasion, 
 Colonel Gawler thus expressed himself: — 'It is in point of numbers and import- 
 ance an old colony. We have a population of from 10,000 to 11,000, a town as 
 large as the capital of most of the older British colonies, with an interest extending 
 over a distance of 120 miles, and an immense commerce. It has been said that 
 we have tracts of barren country. True, we have some tracts of barren land ; 
 but I would ask, what country has not ? England has its tracts of barren land, 
 and they are not few in number ; America, where I have been, has large tracts 
 of barren land; the continent of Europe has large tracts of barren land ; and our 
 neighbours of New South Wales have large tracts of land which is of little use. 
 Here we have some barren land as well as they ; it is out of the question to 
 think of having a country containing nothing but fertile valleys. But then look
 
 172 WAKEFIELD THEORY OF COLONIZATION". 
 
 at the good laud we have, and we may safely put up with a few hundred acres 
 of barren land at intervals. There is only one other topic to which I would 
 advert ; and this is the amelioration of the condition of those from whom we 
 derive this fine country. Let us do what we can to civilize and Christianize 
 them. And now, gentlemen, let British capital continue to flow into this ]>ro- 
 vince ; let us keep up a high tone of society ; let us bring our sable brothers into 
 a more comfortable state, and there will not be such a colony in the world as 
 our colony.' — In a despatch which is now before me, dated October 5, 1839, and 
 addressed to the colonization commissioners, Colonel Gawler states, that in the 
 province of South Australia, ' private pursuits are so lucrative to really intelligent, 
 honourable, and experienced men, that they will hardly accept even permanent 
 situations under Government.''' — {Morning Chronicle.) 
 
 No doubt — "Let British capital continue to flow" — and 
 many people will grow rich upon it ; but British capital flows 
 nowhere without expecting something to come back with the ebb. 
 South Australia must cultivate something more exportable than 
 a high tone of society, or British capital will turn to other 
 shores. We confess a great anxiet}^ to hear of exports ; for the 
 continued flow of capital, though a sufficient proof that much is 
 expected, is no proof that anything is to come. Many a bubble 
 has found as many capitalists willing to stake their fortunes 
 upon its substantiality. 
 
 It is honourable to all parties concerned in this enterprise 
 that the protection of the Ahoricfines has from the first formed a 
 main feature of the scheme — and it may be regarded as a fair 
 experiment, not only to test the practical working of the new 
 theory of colonization — but to try whether the decline and rapid 
 extermination of the native races, either by violence or by disease, 
 be an unavoidable, as it has hitherto been an invariable, conse- 
 quence of white men settling upon their shores. Unless it can 
 be shown that these races are already in decay ; that their 
 business on earth has already been accomplished, and that they 
 were destined from the beginning to die out in these times and 
 leave room for a superior people — (a supj^osition neither in- 
 credible nor inconsistent with the great ordinances of Life and 
 Death throughout the world) — we may well doubt whether civili- 
 zation carries with it any divine commission to undertake so 
 awful a responsibility ; and we could have wished to see the 
 results of this experiment before we proceeded further in the
 
 WAKEFIELD THEORY OF COLONIZATION. 173 
 
 course. On this account we cannot but regret the measures 
 which have forced us into the colonization of New Zealand, 
 before the success of the precautions taken in South Australia 
 has been fairly j^roved ; neither can we regard without appre- 
 hension the example which has been thus set of a few private 
 speculators compelhng the authorities of the country to mider- 
 take one of two responsibilities — either to assume the control of 
 an enterprise which they disapprove, or, by refusing, to leave 
 the undertakers of it without any control whatever — a course 
 which certainly might, and probably would, lead to disorders 
 and aggressions against which the good mtentions of the pro- 
 jectors are no security. In this case however (whatever measures 
 may be taken against a repetition of it) the decision appears to 
 have been inevitable ; and the Colony of New Zealand is already 
 planted ; with every prospect, we trust, of advantage to Great 
 Britain — though too probably to the destruction of the finest of 
 the aboriginal races that has yet been discovered. 
 
 Thus far, then, has the new theory had all necessary oppor- 
 tunities (and one, as we think, more than necessary) of trying 
 its fortunes in the world. To the promulgation and agitation of 
 it must be ascribed one other consequence, which we regard with 
 unmixed satisfaction ; — the general recognition of the importance 
 of a proj)er management of the vast colonial territories at the 
 disposal of the Crown, and the constitution of a competent 
 superintending authority. The whole subject was closely in- 
 vestigated by a Committee of the House of Commons in 1836 ; 
 by which the general principles advocated by Mr. Wakefield and 
 ah'eady in successful operation in the United States were ap- 
 proved, and recommended for adoption throughout the colonies, 
 under the control of a central Board of Commissioners, to be 
 appointed for that office, and resident in London. In the begin- 
 ning of this year such a board was constituted by Lord John 
 Kussell, under the title of " Colonial Land and Emigration 
 Commission ; " and upon that Board the superintendence of this 
 whole department will henceforth devolve ; — the duties hitherto 
 separately discharged by the South Australian Commissioners 
 and the Agent-General for Emigration being united and trans- 
 ferred to it.
 
 171 WAKEFIELD THEOKY OF COLONIZATION. 
 
 Such, then, has been the progress actually made within the 
 last ten years, towards the colonization of New Holland on the 
 improved principle. To this extent the channel has been made, 
 and the stream of emigration has begun to flow ; — a progress 
 small, no doubt, when compared with that which remains to be 
 accomplished ; and slow, perhaps, if measured by the anticipa- 
 tions of confident and sanguine theorists ; but compared with a 
 movement in the opposite direction, vast and full of encourage- 
 ment. The impulse has been given, and the way made clear : 
 unless the substantial benefits it is to lead to have been much 
 overrated, the natural attraction of mutual advantage may be 
 trusted for the rest. The many important and difficult questions 
 which remain to be discussed and arranged have been referred 
 by Lord John Eussell to the consideration of the new Commis- 
 sioners ; who are to make a general rej)ort, twice in each year, 
 of the progress and the results of their labours. These reports 
 will, we presume, be laid before Parliament ; and will probably 
 aflbrd us an opportunity of i-esuming the subject, and entering 
 more at large into the doubtful or disputed topics which it 
 presents. 
 
 It may be well, however, before we conclude, to point out the 
 main differences — the differences in principle — between the Go- 
 vernment and the original patrons of the scheme. We have been 
 both gratified and surprised to find that these are neither many 
 nor material in their practical bearing. The recommendations 
 of Mr. Ward's Committee in 1836, may be taken, we believe, as 
 satisfying the views of the party at whose instance that Com- 
 mittee was appointed ; and in all that is most material in those 
 recommendations, whether as respects the general principle or 
 the subordinate regulations, the Government appears to have 
 concurred so cordially, and to have taken such effectual mea- 
 sures for carrying them out, that we find it difficult to 
 account for the spirit of opposition and the tone of scorn 
 with wliich it has been assailed. Let us first review the 
 points of agreement. That the prosperit}' of the colonies 
 mainly depends upon the abundance of combinable labour 
 in proportion to occupied territory ; — that tliis abundance is to 
 be secured Ijy introducing labourers from overpeopled coun-
 
 WAKEFIELD THEORY OF COLONIZATION. 375 
 
 tries, and taking measures to keep them for some considerable 
 time in the condition of labourers living by wages ; — that the 
 revenue derived from the sale of new land is the fund out of 
 which the cost of introducing them ought to be defrayed ; — that 
 the most convenient way of preventing them from rising too 
 rapidly from labourers into employers of labour is to sell the 
 new land at a sufficiently high price ; — that the adjustment of 
 that price, and the apphcation of the fund derived from it in 
 promoting the emigration of fit persons, should be entrusted to 
 a Central Board of Commissioners resident in London ; — that 
 the emigrants should consist of men and women, as nearly equal 
 in numbers and with as few young children as possible — young 
 married people without children being, if willing to go, the most 
 ehgible of all ; and that the minimum price of land in any 
 colony being once determined, the rule of selling no land what- 
 ever, within the limits of that colony, at a lower price, should be 
 fixed and unalterable : — thus far all parties agree. The points 
 of difference appear to be only these : — First, It was recom- 
 mended by Mr. Ward's Committee that the principle of Lord 
 Eipon's regulations in 1831 should be affirmed by an act of the 
 legislature, and not be allowed to rest only upon a secretary of 
 state's instruction, which another secretary may revoke. This 
 has not yet been done ; and though we certainly think it most 
 desirable that such an act should be passed, it seems not less 
 desirable that it should be postponed for the present, until the 
 experience of the Commissioners may be made use of in drawing 
 it up. No harm can happen in the mean time ; for on this point 
 the Government is so pledged, that no succeeding government 
 could in practice alter the regulation. A secretary of state's in- 
 struction, the revocation of which would attack so many pockets 
 and awaken so much just complaint, is in practice quite as nre- 
 vocable as an act of the legislature. Secondly, the committee 
 recommended that " the net proceeds of the land-sales, in all 
 colonies the climate of which is not unfavourable to the European 
 frame, should be employed as an emigration fund ; each colony 
 being furnished with emigrant labour in exact i^roportion to its 
 own laud sales." On this resolution the Committee were equally 
 divided, and it was carried by the casting vote of Mr. Ward him-
 
 170 WAKEFIELD THEORY OF COLONIZATION. 
 
 self. On the principle which it involves, there appears to be 
 a decided opposition between Mr. Ward's adherents and the 
 Government. The ground and extent of the difference will be 
 best explained b}' the following passage from Lord John Eussell's 
 instruction to the Colonial Land Commissioners. " The funds 
 raised by the sale of lands in the colonies will be applicable to 
 the conveyance of emigrants thither, so far, but only so far, as 
 the use of the fund may be compatible with a due regard for the 
 pressing and necessary demands of the local governments, for 
 which no other resource can be fomid. While fully admitting 
 and insisting on the principle that the Crown lands in the colo- 
 nies are held in trust, not merely for the existing colonists, but 
 for the people of the British empire collectively, it is perfectly 
 consistent with that principle to maintain, that in applying the 
 proceeds of the sales to the essential purposes of local good 
 government, which must be otherwise unprovided for, the real 
 interests of the empire at large, not less than that of the colony 
 itself, will be best .consulted. I shall, however, be happy to find 
 the colonies providing for such purposes by import-duties and 
 other means, thus leaving the produce from the sale of lands free 
 for the promotion of emigration from the United Kingdom." 
 Practically, therefore, we trust that the refusal of the Govern- 
 ment to declare the land-fund absolutely inapplicable to any 
 other purpose than emigration will not make any material 
 difference in the amount actually applied in that way. Theo- 
 retically, they appear to us to be clearly in the right. Indeed, 
 setting aside the political considerations involved, we cannot but 
 think that, with a view merely to economy and judicious farming, 
 it would be unwise to insist that no part of the land-fund shall 
 ever be spent otherwise than in the importation of labourers ; 
 nor can we see any reasonable ground for restricting the Govern- 
 ment in the application of this fund, except the assumed ten- 
 dency of government to abuse all the liberty it has ; fi'om which 
 it follows that the less it has the better. And this we believe to 
 be the feeling which is really at the bottom of the objections in 
 this particular case. 
 
 W^e are aware, however, that Mr. Wakefield has endeavoured 
 to place the (question upon more scientific grounds. "\\'c have
 
 WAKEFIELD THEORY OF COLONIZATION. 177 
 
 clone our best to understand liis position and his arguments, and 
 it is only because they seem to us so utterly inconclusive, that we 
 are led to doubt whether we have understood them rightly. As 
 his authority in this matter is not to be lightly set aside, we will 
 explain, as fairly and as clearly as we can, both his views and our 
 own reasons for remaining unconvinced by them. Mr. Wake- 
 field's doctrine appears to us, then, to be this — There is a certain 
 ratio between the supply of labour in the market and the surface 
 of land under cultivation — a ratio varying indeed with the vary- 
 ing circumstances of the case, but in each case discoverable — by 
 which the greatest quantity of produce will be raised. If you 
 miss this ratio either way, you fall into the evils, on the one side 
 of an underpeopled country, in which the land is scratched and 
 the population scattered ; in the other, of an overpeopled coun- 
 try, in which the competition of labourers reduces wages to a 
 minimum, and the competition of capitalists reduces j)rofits to a 
 minimum, and the land will not yield enough to feed the people. 
 To keep up always the proper ratio, you must keep the ratio 
 constant between the immigration of hireable labourers and the 
 price of unsold land ; and this must be done by first fixing the 
 just price, and then determining to apply the ^vliole of that price 
 to the introduction of immigrants. You might indeed fix a 
 higher price in the fkst instance than would be necessary to bring 
 in the just supply of labour, and in that case you might use the 
 surplus fund for other purposes, without losing the desired pro- 
 portion between land and labour : but you would introduce an 
 evil of another kind — you would place an unnecessary restriction 
 upon the field of cultivation : with a lower price, the same money 
 would have been spent in buying more land, which land would 
 have supported more labourers, which labourers would have 
 raised more produce : and the maney you want would be obtained 
 at less cost by taxing the produce raised, than by taking the 
 fund which goes to raise it. 
 
 On the same principle, Mr. Wakefield has latterly objected to 
 the sale of lands by auction — a plan which he originally recom- 
 mended. Find your sufficient price, and let the first man who 
 comes and pays it carry away the title in his pocket. There are 
 many objections to auction, — as delay, favouritism, etc. — and 
 
 N
 
 178 WAKEFIELD THEORY OF COLONIZATION. 
 
 if your fixed price be sufficient there can be no advantage ; the 
 only object of the auction being to raise the price, which by the 
 supposition is itself no good, but an evil. We have not quoted 
 Mr. Wakefield's own words ; the form in which his opinions were 
 delivered makes that hardly practicable ; but we believe that we 
 have faithfully represented his doctrine, as explained before Mr. 
 Ward's committee. 
 
 Now this view of the matter has so many advantages, on the 
 ground of simplicity and certainty of operation — saves so much 
 trouble, and promises a growth of prosperity, at once so rapid, 
 so secure, and so unlimited — that we greatly wish we could see it 
 well made out. We are bound, however, after much study of the 
 evidence and repeated endeavours to find some reason for be- 
 lieving that a theory which certainly has other recommendations 
 possesses that of being true, frankly to confess that we can make 
 nothing of it. So far from finding it well made out, we greatly 
 doubt whether it has been well considered. We are at a loss to 
 understand how this " sufficient price," this " due proj)ortion 
 between land and labour," this " golden mean between disT)ersion 
 and density of population," or by whatever name it may be called, 
 is to be determined ; — by what calculations it is to be discovered ; 
 by what signs recognized when we have it. If, indeed, the rate of 
 wages were invariable, a little experience would show how many 
 labourers could be profitably employed upon a given surface of 
 land ; and this might be set down as the due proportion. Or 
 again, if the rate of wages were such as could not be reduced 
 without introducing the evils incident to an overpeopled country, 
 then we might ascertain how many labourers could be imported 
 without reducing wages — and this might be regarded as the 
 mean between dispersion and density : a greater number would 
 be injurious to the general interests of society. But it appears 
 to us that, so long as land is dear, an increase in the number of 
 candidates for employment would cause a reduction of wages, 
 and thereby enable the landholder either to employ a greater 
 number of hands and so mcrease his produce, or the same num- 
 ber at a less cost and so increase his profits ; — and, on the other 
 hand, that so long as wages are high enough to enable an indus- 
 trious man to save his £20 a-year, the effect of a reduction
 
 WAKEFIELD THEORY OF COLONIZATION. 179 
 
 would be to keep him longer in the condition of a labourer, but 
 not to contract the comforts attached to that condition. If this 
 be true, where is your measure of the due proportion ? How 
 will you know when you have got your sufficient price ? Tell us 
 what proportion of labourers can cultivate the land well, and we 
 will tell you of a proportion which will cultivate it better. Name 
 any price which will secure a large produce, and we will name 
 one which will secure a larger. So long as a larger amount of 
 human skill and industry can be had for the same cost, and can 
 be applied to quicken the productive powers of nature, it seems 
 vain to suppose that you have obtained the maximum of produce ; 
 and so long as the produce can be increased without increasing 
 in proportion the non-productive consumers of produce, you have 
 not reached the highest point of prosperity which the land will 
 bear. 
 
 To make our meaning clearer, we will suppose a case : It is 
 reckoned by Colonel Torrens, that in South Australia fom* agri- 
 cultural labourers would suffice for 100 acres ; meaning, we pre- 
 sume, not that the labour of six could produce no more out of 
 100 acres than the labour of four, but that the new hands would 
 absorb as much as they could produce ; therefore, that (wages 
 remaining the same) the additional produce would not pay for 
 the additional cost of production ; — in short, that if the farmer 
 had the offer of two more hands he would not employ them. 
 Now, let us suppose the price of land raised, and the importation 
 of labourers increased in proportion, so that there should be (say) 
 six men in search of' employment where only four are wanted. 
 What would be the consequence ? Surely they would underbid 
 each other, and so bring down wages to such a rate as the farmer 
 could afford to pay ; then, whatever work he might put the new- 
 comers to — whether to the more effectual tillage of the soil, the 
 tending of stock, the making of roads, the draining of marshes, 
 or the cutting of water-courses, (for it is not to be supposed that 
 four men can do all that can be done for the improvement of 100 
 acres in South Australia) — it would be just so much gain : his 
 estate and the colony would be just so much the better for it. It 
 would appear, therefore, that the more people you can introduce 
 iiito a new colony, who cannot subsist without labour, and can
 
 ISO AVAKEFIELD THEORY OF COLONIZATION. 
 
 subsist comfortably with it, the more rapidly will the colony 
 thrive; that the only "due proportion of labourers to land" is 
 that proportion which you can induce to remain contented on 
 these conditions; — the only "sufficient" price of land is the 
 highest which anybody thinks it worth while to give. And if 
 this — the highest degree of production — be really the object at 
 which, in regulating the price of land, it is necessary to aim, we 
 know not how it is to be pursued with any chance of success, unless 
 by selling the land to the highest bidder, and applying the pro- 
 ceeds to the introduction, not of "a certain amount of combinable 
 labom-," but of as much combinable labour as the landowners 
 can afford to employ, at such wages as will keep the labouring 
 class in comfort and contentment. The minimum price need 
 only be so high as to interrupt any fatal tendency to dispersion 
 by which the source of combinable labour would be drained away ; 
 and the quantity of land offered to public competition at that 
 upset price should not be otherwise limited. By this rule, the 
 field of production would not be unnecessarily restricted; the 
 amount of productive labour would be the greatest possible ; yet, 
 for all that, there might be a portion of the land-fund remaining 
 which could not be profitably applied in bringing in more 
 labourers, and might be jDrofitably applied in other ways. If we 
 were asked how we should know when the supply of labour began 
 to exceed the just measure, we should answer that there would 
 be many sufficient indications observable, long before any of 
 the evils of an overpeopled country began to appear. The com- 
 petition of rival settlements, and the facility of settling on 
 unoccupied lands, would immediately correct any mistake on 
 that side ; while the prices offered for lands sold by auction 
 would supply a test of their actual value, which might be useful 
 in adjusting the upset price. 
 
 Let us not be misunderstood. We are not aware of the many 
 objections and inconveniences attending the auction plan ; nor 
 do we mean to maintain that they are overbalanced by the 
 advantages. The system of a uniform price, and an immediate 
 unconditional sale of all lands without exception, has the advan- 
 tage in almost all other resi)ects ; and the experience of the 
 South Australian Commissioners tells strongly for it. 13ut
 
 WAKEFIET.D THEORY OF COLONIZATION. 181 
 
 whatever may be the superiority of that plan, we must think that 
 it has not been argued upon the proper grounds ; and that Mr. 
 Wakefield especially rests his decision in favour of it upon an 
 assumption which he certainly has not succeeded in justifying — 
 which we can hardly believe he has taken any pains to examine, — ■ 
 and which, in our judgment, will not bear examination. That 
 assumption — (namely, that there is some definite ascertainable 
 ratio between land and labour — therefore, some definite ascertain- 
 able price of land — which "should be both the maximum and 
 the minimum;" which "would tend to make the produce of 
 industry as great as possible ; " which " would tend to the greatest 
 possible profits to be divided between eai)italists and labourers ") 
 — appears to us to run through the whole of his reasoning upon 
 this part of the subject. Grant it ; and nobody, we think, can 
 dispute his conclusion, that every impediment to the obtaining 
 of land beyond the exaction of this price, every difficulty or delay 
 interposed, must be an evil. But before we grant it, we must 
 ask how it is to be ascertained. We do not ask what it is ; for 
 he would very reasonably say that that depends upon the circum- 
 stances of each particular case ; but we are entitled to ask on 
 what principle, in any given case, he would go about to discover 
 it. On this point, he was closely cross-examined in the Com- 
 mittee. The question was put to him in various forms, and it is 
 remarkable that he seems to have been totally unprepared for it. 
 Not only was he betrayed into several inconsiderate and incon- 
 sistent answers, hardly to be expected from so bold and so ready 
 a disputant ; but we really believe — though we have not come to 
 the conclusion without wonder and hesitation — that he had no 
 answer to give. The inconsistencies we pass over, because they 
 may have arisen from hurry or accident ; what we want to arrive 
 at is the sum. We believe it is to be found in the following 
 sentences — we have searched curiously, and this is all we can 
 find : — 1st, " The sufficient price is such a price as will keep the 
 wages of labour and the profits of capital at thp maximum — as 
 high as possible." (868). 2nd, " I look to no other proof of the 
 sufficiency of the price." (870.) "By having attained the 
 maximum of profits and wages I ascertain that I have reached 
 the proper price." (873.) 3rd, " How do you ascertain when you
 
 182 WAKEFIELD THEOIIY OF COLOXTZATION. 
 
 have reached the maximum of profits and wages ? The answer 
 to that question requires a good deal of reflection, and a full 
 answer would require a good deal of explanation. But I should 
 he quite satisfied that I had attained the maximum, if I had attained 
 a hiffher rate of profits and ivages than had ever existed before in 
 any other colony ; or e\^n if the rate of profits and wages 
 
 WERE HIGHER IX THAT COLONY THAN THEY HAD EVER BEEN BEFORE." 
 
 Mr. Wakefield was not asked whether he was satisfied that the 
 maximum has been attained at Swan Eiver, which was at that 
 time recovering itself from a state of no profits and no wages. 
 We are sorry the question was not put, for we should have been 
 curious to see his answer. But the meaning of all this is just 
 what we should have expected. The "maximum of production " 
 and the " sufiicient price " are, after all, merely arbitrary terms : 
 — a reasonable amount of production would do just as well, and a 
 fair price — such a price, in short, as Mr. Wakefield would not 
 think either too high or too low ; and such an amount of pro- 
 duction as Mr. Wakefield would be satisfied with. Neither are 
 we prej)ared to say that this is an unreasonable way of settling 
 the matter. It is Mr. Wakefield who insists upon precision — not 
 we. We can well believe that a uniform price, judiciously 
 guessed at, and not far wrong, would be much better, though you 
 sacrificed some revenue and permitted too much dispersion in 
 consequence, than the highest price you could get by the auction 
 system ; and we are glad to see that Lord John Russell has 
 referred this question specially to the consideration of the 
 Colonial Land Commissioners.* 
 
 * In a l>ook published in 1849 (" A View of the Art of Colonization "), Mr. Wake- 
 field noticed this passage ; and after observing that his motive for declining to " name 
 a price and attemiit to justify the decision by reasons," was that, if he had, he would 
 have "got into a mess," proceeded to explain at great length how "the sufficient 
 price " was to be practically determined. If I collect his meaning rightly (of which I 
 am not sure, for it is defined with less precision thim is usual with him), the practical 
 process would be this. The legislature in Downing Street must asi'ertaiii what pric« 
 would be sufficient in each case " to prevent labourers from turning into landowners 
 too soon." The evidence upon wliich it mu.st form its judgment " would he all the 
 fards which shew whether labour is scarce or superabundant, or neither the one nor the 
 other." " If the lawgiver saw that labour was scarce, and the price too low, he would 
 raise the price; if he saw that labour was superabundant, and the piico too high, he 
 would lower tlie pric^ ; if he saw that labour was neither i-carce nor superabundant,
 
 WAKEFIELD THEORY OF COI,ONIZATIOy. 183 
 
 To return for a moment to the other favourite doctrine of Mr. 
 Wakefield, which we have ah-eady adverted to as the point on 
 which Mr. Ward's Committee and the Government are most 
 decidedly at variance — the maxim that, in order to secure the 
 most rapid progress of the best sort of colonization, the whole pro- 
 ceeds of the land-fund, without exception, should be employed as an 
 immigration fund. This maxim also will be found to rest entirely 
 upon that assumption, the grounds of which we have just ex- 
 amined. It seems to be a doctrine which requires some special 
 justification ; for it is not by any means the most natural view 
 of the matter. The most natural idea would have been, that 
 supposing such a price fixed on land and such a portion of it 
 spent on immigration as should secure a competency of combin- 
 able labour (meaning by comj^etency, not the greatest quantity 
 wliich could be turned to advantage, but enough to enable the 
 colony to advance and prosper) — we should have thought it 
 would then become a question for consideration, which would 
 hasten that advance the more rapidlj^ — a still greater amount of 
 such labour, or a judicious apj^lication of the existing amount 
 upon works of general benefit ? And here again we will put a 
 case — a case, we should think, very likely to occur. Sup- 
 he would not alter the price, because he would see that it was neither too high nor 
 too low, but sufficient." For the knowledge of all the facts which would enable him 
 to see all this, he must rely upon the legislature of the colony ; for " a Downing 
 Street legislature judging for the distant colonies .... would be apt to make 
 terrihle mistakes;" but the colonial legislnture, "possessing an intimate know- 
 ledge of the colony," and being " deeply interested in coming to a just judg- 
 ment," would have no difficulty : the facts by which to determine the question 
 " whether labour was too plentiful or too scarce " would be plain to the dullest eye. 
 An answer which he need not (so far as I can see) have withheld from the com- 
 mittee of 1836 ; but upon which the natural comment would have been, " Then you 
 mean that the price which is found upon trial to prevent labourers from becoming 
 landholders sooner than the colonial legislature thinks desirahle, is the sufficient price." 
 With regard to the private history of this article Mhich is given in p. 352, Mr. 
 Wakefield must have been misinformed as to my part in it. The first I heard of 
 the matter was in a letter from the editor of the Edinburgh Review to myself, request- 
 ing an article on the subject of colonization — a subject which I had never thought of 
 taking up. Having ascertained that there would be no objection to my dealing with 
 it in my own way. I undertook it. I never wrote anything under less restraint, or 
 with less direction either to help or hinder. No one except the editor saw what I 
 wrote before it was published ; and all that he did was to strike out a few expressions 
 in which I had spoken of the theory more hopefully than he thought prudent, and 
 which I have now restored.
 
 184 WAKEFIELD THEOEY OF COLONIZATION. 
 
 pose two fertile valleys separated from each other by a barren 
 tract. On the uniform price system, the fertile would be bought 
 up and cultivated, the barren left waste and unappropriated. 
 An easy communication between these fertile tracts would no 
 doubt increase the value of both ; but whose interest would it be 
 to make it ? Import as much combinable labour as you will, 
 two hands will not be combined for this object. As fast as you 
 can pom- it in, it will be bought up by the purchasers of the good 
 land, so long as any good land remains to be purchased. Yet it 
 is not the less certain, that by employing a portion of the labour 
 actually in the colony, to make a good road between the two, 
 you might increase the value of both in a much greater degree 
 than the temporary subtraction of that labour from cultivation 
 would diminish it. Not to mention the political and social 
 advantages that would come from thus correcting the evils of 
 dispersion, every individual proprietor of that fertile land would 
 gain more in the actual value of the produce of that land, than 
 he would have gained by his share of the additional combinable 
 labour which the same sum spent on immigration would have 
 placed at his command. How can it be said that in such a case, 
 by the application of a portion of the land-fund to such an 
 object, the progress of the best sort of colonization would be 
 retarded ? Yet to the reservation of any such discretionary 
 power, Mr. Wakefield decidedly objects. Why ? Because, either 
 by disturbing the ratio between land and labour, (which was 
 assumed to be the exact ratio that would make profits and wages 
 as high as possible), or by altering the price of land (which was 
 assumed to be the exact price that would keep up that ratio), it 
 would diminish the produce of the colony ; and would therefore, 
 however desirable the object, be an expensive method of obtaining 
 it. It is clear to us that, unless this ratio and this price can be 
 determined with the precision which Mr. Wakefield's assumption 
 implies, the whole of this reasoning falls to the ground ; and 
 until we can find some more promising clew to the discovery of 
 them than Mr. Wakefield's evidence supplies, we must continue 
 to believe that there are occasions when some portion of the 
 land-fund may be appropriated to other uses than the introduc- 
 tion of immigrants, not only without injury, but with the
 
 WAKEFIELD THEORY OF COLONIZATION. 185 
 
 greatest benefit to those who paid it ; and therefore that the 
 Government was quite right (if it were for this consideration 
 alone) in refusing to divest the Crown of such discretionary 
 power. We agree with Mr. Wakefield that the land-fund ought 
 to be wholly spent in promoting the best interests of the colony : 
 we agree with him that the introduction of immigrants is one of 
 the most effectual ways to advance those interests ; we differ 
 from him only in supposing that it is not the only way. 
 
 These, as far as we can make out, are the only points of 
 difference with regard to the principles and main objects of Aus- 
 tralian colonization between Mr. Wakefield and the Government : 
 compared with the points of agreement we cannot but think 
 them of very small moment. Other differences no doubt there 
 are, and will always be, concerning matters of detail — concern- 
 ing the manner of carrying those principles into practice — and 
 concerning the complex questions which will arise when collateral 
 objects are to be taken into the account. Such differences have 
 arisen with regard to New Zealand, to Port Natal, to the West 
 Indies, to Canada, to the convict establishment in New South 
 Wales ; they must be expected to arise in many other quarters ; 
 and where all the authority, the responsibility, the duty of taking 
 into consideration contending and collateral principles and pur- 
 poses, and we may add, where all the authentic information is 
 on one side — whilst all the facilities of writing and talking, 
 and, if not all the zeal, at least all the partiality for a favourite 
 theory, is on the other — we must expect to find such differences 
 made the most of, and imputed to the corrupt will of office. But 
 into such questions it is useless to enter at all, without being 
 l)repared to go fairly through them. At present we will only 
 suggest by way of caution, that in these times a writer in a 
 newspaper, a private gentleman, an orator at a public meeting, 
 or even an independent Member of Parliament, has much less 
 to fear from making an unjust charge against a responsible 
 minister, than that minister has to fear from exposing himself to 
 a just one. 
 
 For our own part, after what we have said concerning the 
 nature and objects of the new theory, we can hardly be suspected 
 of entertaining any hostility to it. If we have succeeded in
 
 186 WAKEFIELD THEORY OF COLONIZATION. 
 
 showing tliat the resistance of the Government to some of the 
 doctrines of its propagators and more zealous advocates, may be 
 accounted for in other ways than by supposing them secretly 
 hostile to it or incapable of carrying it out ; still more, if we 
 have succeeded in turning the attention of those advocates to a 
 reconsideration of their doctrines ; and above all, if we have 
 interested in the progress and prospects of the system minds not 
 hitherto engaged in the consideration of it ; this paper, imperfect 
 as it is, will not be without its use.
 
 VI. 
 SOUTH AUSTRALIA IN 1841.* 
 
 In the discussion of the " Wakefield Theory of Colonization," 
 which appeared in a former number of this Journal, we briefly 
 noticed the settlement of South Australia as an experiment, 
 devised by the especial patrons of that theory, for the purpose of 
 bringing its merits to a practical proof — an experiment of which 
 the issue was still to be seen. We exj^lained the circumstances 
 out of which the scheme arose, the general principles by which 
 it was distinguished from previous enterprises of the same kind, 
 and its progress up to the date of the latest accounts then acces- 
 sible to the public ; and without presuming to treat it as a 
 failure, merely because the boasted evidences of success appeared 
 to us to be fallacious, we confessed a growing anxiety to receive 
 some indications of stable and permanent prosperity more sub- 
 stantial than the value of Bonds in the market, or the number 
 of capitalists who might be willing to stake large sums of money 
 upon the chances of the speculation turning out well. For at 
 that time, though we had heard much of the increasing value of 
 land, as indicated by the enormous j)rices paid for lots in favour- 
 able situations — much of the unexampled "attractiveness" of 
 the new colony, its streets, squares, wharfs, public buildings, 
 and club-houses — much of the rapid influx of settlers and of 
 British capital, and something of a growing revenue derived 
 
 * Second Eeport from the Select Committee on South Australia. Ordered by 
 the House of Commons to be printed, 10th June, 1841. Fdinlurgh Beiiew, April 
 1842.
 
 188 SOUTH AUSTRALIA IN 1841. 
 
 from customs' duties upon goods imported ; we had as yet heard 
 nothing of exports or of internal production — nothing of new 
 sources of wealth opened in the colony itself — nothing, in short, 
 of the creation of that promised fund from which was to be 
 derived the interest upon all the capital permanently invested 
 there, as well as the means of repaying all the borrowed money 
 which had been laid out in making the colony " attractive." Of 
 the creation and growth of this fund we were anxious to hear ; 
 because, unless the bosom of the new land should prove capable 
 of i^roducing supplies of new wealth sufficient to remunerate the 
 capitalist for his advances, it was plain that — how long soever 
 the game of speculation might be carried on, how long soever 
 the money might be shifted from hand to hand, how many 
 fortunes soever might be made and lost before the cheat was 
 finally detected, and upon whomsoever the loss might ultimately 
 fall — it must end at last in failure and disaster. 
 
 Not many weeks after our remarks were written, serious 
 apprehensions began to prevail that all was not so well in South 
 Australia as it had been represented, and South Australian 
 revenue Bonds were no longer negotiable ; and these apprehen- 
 sions were shortly confirmed by the refusal of the Commissioners 
 to honour bills drawn upon them by their own officer resident in 
 the colony — a virtual declaration of insolvency ; and a reference 
 of the whole matter to Government, on the ground that they 
 could no longer carry out the provisions of the act without 
 further powers than those with which it entrusted them. The 
 result of this reference, as om* readers are aware, was the ap- 
 pointment of a select Committee of the House of Commons, by 
 whom the whole case was minutely investigated, and on whose 
 recommendation a temporary advance of ^6155, 000 was made by 
 Parliament to enable the Commissioners to meet the immediate 
 emergency. Their second Report, containing a series of recom- 
 mendations as to the future government of the colony, lies before 
 us (with evidence and appendix) in one of those huge folios in 
 which our legislators think it expedient to seclude from idle 
 curiosity the fruits of their graver deliberations, and will, accord- 
 ing to an intimation given by Lord Stanley in the House of 
 Commons, speedily occupy the attention of Parliament. Had
 
 SOUTH AUSTRALIA IN 1841. 189 
 
 the getters up of this and similar experiments used a simihir 
 vehicle for the conveyance of their communications to the public, 
 we might have been content to leave this history of the progress 
 and issue of it to make its own impression. Bat advertisements, 
 prospectuses, leading articles in newspapers, and even pamphlets, 
 find their way into heads where no folio can follow them ; and 
 we hope, therefore, that in reducing to a ch-culable shape the 
 more material results of this important investigation and com- 
 mitting them to the wings of our lighter octavo, we shall be 
 performing no unacceptible service to the idler public, whom it 
 much concerns to be truly informed of the fate of such projects ; 
 inasmuch as it is to the idler public that all new projects, re- 
 quiring borrowed money to set them on foot, especially addi'ess 
 themselves. The broad fact, indeed, that up to this period the 
 experiment has proved a failure, is sufficiently notorious. The 
 creation within so short a time of so great a financial embarrass- 
 ment — the demand upon the public for <£155,000 before four 
 years were out, to save from absolute ruin a colony in behalf of 
 which it had been constantly promised that it would at least cost 
 nothing to the mother country — speaks for itself in language 
 which everybody can understand and nobody can dispute. 
 Which of the parties concerned has been most to blame may 
 admit of controversy ; but the result which they have brought 
 out among them will not be popularly recognised under any 
 better name than failure. Admitting, then, that the experiment 
 has failed, the question is, what and how much we are to infer 
 from the failure ; what light does it really throw upon that theory 
 of colonization which it was meant to bring to the test ; and 
 whether, giving up as vicious the principles of the South Austra- 
 lian colonization act, we must give up the " Wakefield principle " 
 along with them. Our own opinion is, that the question as to 
 the soundness and practical efficacy of that principle, as ex- 
 pounded by us on a former occasion, remains exactly where it 
 was, and is not at all affected by the issue of this experiment ; 
 the miscarriage of which is sufficiently accounted for by other 
 parts of the scheme quite apart and separable from it, though 
 unfortunately placed in the same boat. The principles of navi- 
 gation are not answerable for the wreck uf a vessel entrusted to
 
 190 SOUTH AUSTRALIA IN 1841. 
 
 an ignorant pilot or sent out without pro^^er equipments ; nor 
 must Mr. Wakelield's theory of colonization be too hastily con- 
 demned because it has not been able to overcome the threefold 
 disadvantage under which he was content that it should be tried 
 — of a territory unexplored and unfavourable, a Board of 
 managers inexperienced and irresponsible, and a supply of 
 money drawn from a source at once expensive and uncertain. 
 We formerly intimated our opinion that, in expecting it to 
 triumph over all natural disadvantages, its patrons expected too 
 much from it. Our belief that it was sound, and our hope that 
 results of great practical imj^ortance might be expected from its 
 operation, we as yet see no reason to abandon. But to make 
 our conclusions more intelligible, it will be convenient to begin 
 with some account of the negotiations and the abortive schemes 
 that preceded the introduction of the measure w^hich was finally 
 adopted. 
 
 That Mr. Wakefield, once satisfied as to the value of his 
 theory, should be in a hurry to see it at work, was natural and 
 laudable ; that he should be duly cautious and deliberate in 
 maturing his plans and surveying his ground, was hardly to be 
 expected. How soon after the promulgation of his doctrine 
 South Australia was fixed on as a fit field of operation, we are 
 not informed : but the choice seems to have cost very little 
 trouble. Of the huge cantle which w^as to be cut out of the 
 globe for this purpose, scarcely anything was then known — 
 except the latitude and longitude, the general temperature of 
 the climate, and the aspect of the land as seen from the coast. 
 How far the fertility extended inwards, whether the appearances 
 of fertility on the coasts were not themselves sui)erficial, what 
 Bui)ply there was of water, what the soil was capable of growing, 
 whether the selected territory consisted chiefly of grass or jungle, 
 sand or rock, mountain, plain, or swamp — all this was left to 
 the imagination. But where nothing is known, more may be 
 hoped — and, whatever might be the qualities of the land, at all 
 events it was waste, and remote from other settlements. The 
 very beauty of the theory was, that by securing the just propor- 
 tion between the surface of the land and the labouring poj)u- 
 lation, it would make ail lauds alike fertile. If the soil proved
 
 SOUTH AUSTKALIA IN 1841. 191 
 
 less rich than was expected, it was only to bestow more labour 
 upon it — if more labour were wanted, it was only to pour in 
 emigrants more rapidly — if more means of emigration were 
 required, it was only to raise the price of land. Certainly an 
 only child does not suffer more from the blindness of parental 
 affection than an only theory. The territory "lying between 
 the 132nd and 141st degrees of east longitude, and between the 
 20th parallel of south latitude on the north, and the Southern 
 Pacific Ocean on the South," was voted " eminently fit for the 
 reception of emigrants or settlers " — and negotiations com- 
 menced accordingly with the Colonial Office in the beginning of 
 1831. 
 
 Lord Howick, then Under Secretary for the Colonies, thought 
 favourably of the principle, and was disposed, under proper 
 cautions, to make the trial ; and Lord Eipon had no objection, 
 provided it could be done without an additional item in the 
 estimates, and without involving the Government, should the 
 scheme prove unsuccessful, in the discredit of the failm-e. To 
 provide against this, it was proposed that the Government 
 should have nothing to do with it ; but that it should be under- 
 taken by a Company with a paid-up capital, upon whom, along 
 with the management, would devolve all the risk and all the 
 responsibility. A company, with a capital of £500,000, was to 
 undertake the charge of founding, peopling, and governing the 
 new settlement ; of managing the land sales according to certain 
 principles to be defined in their charter ; of applying the proceeds 
 to emigration ; and of advancing money to defray the prehminary 
 outlay ; and if, on trial, the plan did not succeed — i.e. if the 
 population did not reach a certain amount within a certain 
 period — it was to be given up ; i.e. the peculiar principles on 
 which the Colony was to be established were no longer to be 
 insisted on : South Australia was to be as New South Wales,. 
 or as Van Diemen's Land. This sounded fairly. But if the 
 Company were thus to undertake all the responsibilities of 
 Government, they must, of course, be trusted with the authority 
 of Government likewise ; and the authority which they required 
 amounted to little less than a delegation of all the substantial 
 powers of sovereignty. This Lord Eipon was not prepared to
 
 192 SOUTH AUSTRALIA IN 18^1. 
 
 sanction ; and without this the project could not proceed. Ac- 
 cordingly, after a year and a half spent in fruitless endeavours 
 to adjust the difficulty, the proposition was abandoned. And in 
 truth it might as well have been given up at first ; for the con- 
 dition required by Lord Eipon was obviously impracticable. 
 Unless it could have been contrived that in case of failure not 
 only the pecuniary losses, but the social and political conse- 
 quences also, should fall upon the projectors alone, it was plainly 
 impossible for Government to escape responsibility for the issue 
 of an experiment which could not be tried without its express 
 sanction. By deputing others to conduct it, Lord Eipon might 
 indeed throw upon them a subordinate responsibility ; but so far 
 from absolving the Ministers of the Crown by that means of the 
 responsibility in chief, he would rather involve them in a double 
 responsibility — making them answerable, not only for the pro- 
 priety of the experiment, but also for the fitness of the instru- 
 ments. 
 
 Up to this point, it might be thought the obstacle to this 
 undertaking lay solely with Lord Eipon, who demanded a condi- 
 tion from the undertakers which he refused them the means of 
 fulfilling. But from the correspondence which took place on the 
 revival of the project during Lord Stanley's administration of 
 the Colonial dej)artment, it appears that this condition of the 
 scheme — namely, that the Government should have no concern 
 in the practical management — was one which the undertakers 
 themselves were prepared to insist on quite as obstinately as 
 Lord Eipon ; for Lord Stanley interposed no such stipulation, 
 but, having made up his mind to sanction the experiment, was 
 quite ready to take his share in the charge of it. The idea of a 
 Sovereign Company being now abandoned, the following plan 
 was next proposed: — The limits of the Colony being marked out, 
 a guarantee was to be given by Government that no land should 
 ever be sold within those limits below a certain i)rice — that 
 the whole of the sum derived from the sale of land should be 
 employed in conveying to the Colony young pauper labourers of 
 both sexes in equal proportions — and that the maximum price of 
 Government land, though it was to be advanced from time to 
 time, should never be reduced. The Governor and all the
 
 SOUTH AUSTRALIA IN 1841. 193 
 
 officers were to be appointed by the Crowii : and upon the 
 Governor was to devolve the whole power and responsibility of 
 the government, "until the Colony should be thought sufficiently 
 advanced to receive the grant of a Legislative Assembly." But 
 since the entire revenue derived from land sales was to be spent 
 in emigration, a fund would still be wanting for the purposes of 
 the civil government. Provision was to be made for this by a 
 Joint Stock Company, who were to make themselves " responsible 
 to the Government for a paid annual income " during a certain 
 period — the money so advanced constituting a colonial debt : in 
 consideration of which they were to have the pre-emption of 
 100,000 acres, to be selected within a given time, at the first 
 minimnm price ; and the privilege, so long as those advances 
 should be continued, of selecting the emigrants. 
 
 This scheme was at least intelligible and feasible. South 
 Australia was to be a Crown colony, governed in the usual way ; 
 only that the expenses of Government, instead of being provided 
 by a Parliamentary grant, were to be advanced on speculation 
 by a Joint Stock Company trading in land, and looking to the 
 profits of that trade to pay the interest and cover the risk. To 
 a project framed on these principles. Lord Stanley was ready to 
 accede, subject to certain stipulations ; of which the chief was, 
 that the security for the fixed income applicable to the civil 
 government should be good. This was in August, 1833. But 
 though the proposal originated with the South Australian Associa- 
 tion, it appears to have been premature. If the conditions satisfied 
 Lord Stanley, they certainly did not satisfy the Association. 
 Whether it was that capitalists hung back, and would not sub- 
 scribe on such conditions ; or that the distrust of the colonial 
 office had been revived by the intervening discussions ; or that 
 the practical management had got into other hands ; or that the 
 plans had been originally proposed in the hope that Lord Stanley 
 would object, as Lord Piipon had done before, to risk his credit 
 by taking any direct part in carrying it out, and that so the 
 demand for larger powers might seem to be forced upon the 
 Association against their own desire ; whatever may have been 
 the cause, certain it is, that when the plan came to be drawn out 
 in detail, it had assumed an aspect so different that it can hardly
 
 104 SOUTH AUSTRALIA IN 1841. 
 
 be recognized as the same. By the draft Charter, which was 
 submitted to Lord Stanley in February, 1834, it was proposed to 
 transfer to the proposed Company not merely all the requisite 
 powers for managing the emigration and trading in the land, but 
 the entire authority of government, checked by a veto on the 
 part of the crown. They were to have power to make, or delegate 
 the power of making, all laws, institutions, ordinances, &c. ; to 
 constitute all courts ; to appoint all governors, judges, and 
 magistrates ; and to levy all rates, taxes, and duties. To the 
 Crown was reserved the power of disallowing any of their acts 
 and appointments in the first instance, and of removing their 
 officers in case of misconduct ; but it was to originate nothing ; 
 nor could it otherwise interfere. When Lord Stanley objected to 
 this delegation of authority, and refused to entertain the project 
 further unless it were agreed that " the government of the colony 
 should be left in the hands of the Crown and its constitutional 
 advisers until it should be able to govern itself," he was informed 
 by Mr. Grote, writing in behalf of the Association, that his objec- 
 tion was "fatal to the jDroject of a chartered colony; for, of 
 course, no body of persons would consent to take the trouble and 
 responsibility of such an undertaking, without at the same time 
 obtaining sufficient authority for carrying their objects into 
 effect ; " and as he declared, at the same time, that to be a joint 
 stock company for the purchase of land never was the object of 
 the Association, and that " for such a comjDany to purchase land 
 at a lower price than that which should afterwards be paid by 
 others," would be directly contrary to one of their first prin- 
 ciples,* it was plain that that project was at an end. 
 
 * Tliese fissertions contrast so strangely, not only with the actual provisions, 
 but with the professed object of the original scheme, that one would almost think 
 an entire chapter, in the course of which the views of both parties had completely 
 changed, had dropped out of the correspondence. On the 6th July, 1833, Mr. 
 "VVhitmore forwards to Lord Stanley " a project for founding a new colony on the 
 southern coast of Australia, by the means of the purchs^se of waste lands from 
 Government, by a joint stock company and by individuals;" and the views of this 
 proposed company he thus explains :— " The inducement to the company to found 
 this colony is this rijiht of jire-emption at the first minimum price. Having the 
 first choice of land, they will be able to select tliat upon which the seat of govern- 
 ment will be placc'l, &c. The profit of the company will arise from the additional 
 value which the iiicreaee of ijopulation, and the growth of capital, always confer
 
 SOUTH AUSTRALIA IN 1841 195 
 
 It appears, however, that the difficulty was not in finding 
 persons who would take the "trouble and responsibility," but 
 who would purchase shares, " without having sufficient authority 
 to carry their objects into effect ; " for it was next proposed to 
 try whether the project of a colony founded on Wakefield princi- 
 ples would not have credit enough in the money market to enable 
 them to raise the requisite fund by way of loan, on the security 
 of its future revenues. The fundamental principle of selling the 
 land at the minimum price, and spending the entire proceeds 
 upon immigration, was to be established by act of Parliament ; 
 the management of the land sale and the immigration to be 
 entrusted to a Board of Commissioners, who were to be further 
 charged with the duty of raising the loans ; the powers of govern- 
 ment to be vested in the Crown. To this proposition Lord 
 Stanley was also ready to accede, provided he could be satisfied 
 that the territory selected was fit for the purposes of colonization 
 — that at least £35,000 would be invested in the pm-chase of 
 land — that there were persons read}/ to embark for the colony 
 with a capital of not less than ^£50,000 ; and that an annual 
 income, applicable to " the support of such parts of the establish- 
 naent of the colony as might seem to her Majesty's Government 
 
 upon land, and from the increase in the minimum price at which the Government 
 land will be sold ; while the price paid by the company for their land will be 
 uniform at whatever period it may be taken up." On the 2lBt March, 1834, Mr. 
 Grote replying, in the absence of Mr. Whitmore, to Lord Stanley's remarks oa the 
 draft charter, says : — " It is true that at the interview to which you refer, Mr. 
 Stanley suggested that the Association should be a joint stock company for the 
 purchase and sale of land; but this never was the object of the present Association; 
 and I may add, that the proposal at the conclusion of your letter, for bestowing land 
 on such a company at a lower price than hat which should afterwards be paid by 
 others, is directly contrary to one of the chief objects of the Association ; viz. that in 
 the intended colony land should be uniformly sold upon equal terms to all appli- 
 cants." It would appear that there must have been somebody behind the curtain 
 who understood the objects of the Association much better than its more prominent 
 members ; for we observe that in the draft charter, though it was provided that the 
 company, instead of any right of pre-emption, should have the whole territory con- 
 veyed to them in trust, — therefore, that in their corporate capacity they could not 
 trade in land, — yet, by the 34th clause, they were to have the power of incorporating 
 as many land-trading companies as they pleased, on such condiiiuns as tiiey i)lcased 
 — a privilege much more extensive, and one which might be made much more profit- 
 able. For it does not seem that they were prL eluded from incorporating themselves, 
 or any number of themselves, for these purposes.
 
 106 SOUTH AUSTRALIA IN 1841. 
 
 absolutely essential," of £5000 for the first three years, £8000 
 for the next three, and £10,000 for the four following, could be 
 effectually guaranteed. The Committee of the Association under- 
 took to satisfy him upon all these points : but before the negotia- 
 tions were concluded Lord Stanley resigned his office, and the 
 final decision upon the proposition devolved upon his successor. 
 In urging the new Secretary not to delay that decision, the 
 Committee rej^resented the plan as one which had been already 
 approved — every condition required by his predecessor having 
 been complied with ; and "which only waited for an official 
 announcement of the official sanction which it had already 
 received. How far this representation was just, we cannot tell 
 — Lord Stanlej^'s latest views having been explained at an inter- 
 view of which there is no record in these papers. All we can 
 say is, that if he was really prepared to sanction the measure in 
 the shape which it ultimately assumed, he must either have 
 misapprehended the effect of some of its provisions, or altered 
 his mind on two important points which, once at least, he had 
 been prepared to insist on. The question as to the fitness of the 
 territory for colonization was expressly waived as one on which 
 those who proposed to emigrate must judge for themselves ; and 
 the clauses relating to the revenue fund, instead of securing to 
 the Croivn a fixed income for carrying on the government of the 
 colony, left to the Commissioners (apparently, however, through 
 some oversight) not merely the duty of raising, but the right of 
 appropriating, the loan at their own discretion, without any 
 check whatever ; except one which made the arrangements with 
 regard to salaries contingent upon the approbation of the Trea- 
 sury. By this arrangement, whether attributable to oversight 
 or to foresight, the clauses which reserved to the Crown all the 
 ordinary powers of government became practically useless. The 
 blood and sinews of the Government being under the control of 
 the Commissioners, the Crown with all its powers had no effectual 
 authority. The Commissioners could do many things without 
 the consent of the Crown ; but the Crown could scarcely carry a 
 single point against the Commissioners. Even the power of 
 appointing and removing at pleasure the members of the Com- 
 mission was one of which practically but little use could be
 
 SOUTH AUSTRALIA IX 1841. 107 
 
 made. The sole chance of getting the project started under such 
 conditions, rested in the confidence reposed by a section of the 
 public in the new principle ; and it was notorious that the faith 
 of that section in the Wakefield theory of colonization was not 
 more deeply rooted than their faith in what we have called the 
 Wakefield theory of the Colonial office ; — their settled distrust of 
 the capacity, the intentions, and the integrity of all ministers of 
 that department. To intrust the duty of the Commissioners to 
 any person enjoying the confidence of the Government, but not 
 enjoying the confidence of what now began to be called " the 
 South Australian public," would have been the same thing as to 
 crush the scheme. None but the immediate disciples and known 
 supporters of Mr. Wakefield would have had either the zeal or 
 the influence necessary for overcoming the preliminary difficul- 
 ties. Accordingly, it was left to the chairman of the Association 
 to suggest the names of the Commissioners ; and of the eight 
 gentlemen recommended by him no objection was taken to any ; 
 and the two others who were added as representatives of the 
 Government, do not ajjpear to have taken any active part in the 
 proceedings. Under these auspices, the great experiment was 
 at length afloat, with every prospect of success — if success were 
 to be ensured by giving the projectors their o^^^l way ; but with 
 many chances of failure should they prove unequal to the man- 
 agement of it. 
 
 It was necessary to go through these details, in order to show 
 clearly in what relation the several parties concerned in this 
 project really stood towards each other — a relation which the 
 mere terms of the act, and the power of the Commission, with- 
 out reference to the preceding correspondence, from which are to 
 be gathered the feelings and purposes, the understood expecta- 
 tions on one side, and the understood admissions on the other, 
 and all the indirect and unexpressed obligations of the parties, 
 would very imperfectly rej^resent. At this point it will be con- 
 venient to examine the project more carefully, and to consider 
 how far it can be regarded as a fair trial of the Wakefield prin- 
 ciple, and how far we are bound to abide by the issue. 
 
 Now, in the first place, it is to be observed that this project 
 involved not a simple but a complex experiment — not one but
 
 198 SOUTH AUSTRALIA IN 1841. 
 
 three princiiDles of colonization, hitherto untried, were to be 
 tried all at once in the case of South Australia. It was to be a 
 ** self-supporting " colony — that was one principle. It was to 
 be a colony governed by a few private gentlemen, without any 
 previous experience in such a task, without any effective check 
 upon their proceedings, without responsibility to any other 
 department of the State, and without any direct interest in the 
 success of their experiment — that was a second principle. And 
 thii'dly, it was to be a colony founded on the system of selling 
 the land, and spending the proceeds on immigration. So far as 
 this last is concerned, we will not go so far as to say with Mr. 
 Wakefield that the experiment has been " eminently successful " 
 — but we will say that there has been no indication of failm^e. 
 The rapid influx of capital and of population during the first 
 three years did not prove that the system was a sound one, but 
 only that many persons believed it to be sound. The sudden 
 check and financial embarrassment in the fourth, did not prove 
 it to be unsound ; but only that speculation had been carried too 
 far, and that the finances had been mismanaged. The tree was 
 in blossom, and has suffered a blight. We must wait for another 
 season before we can know, by proof, what kind of fruit it will 
 bear. Leaving, therefore, the Wakefield theory of colonization 
 as still subject to the remarks with which we quitted it a year and 
 a half ago, we turn to the two collateral novelties involved in the 
 project, concerning which the issue proves much. To the " self- 
 supporting" system, and to the usurpation by private gentlemen 
 of the proper functions of Government, may be distinctly traced 
 the diiticulties which have arisen ; and we believe it to be far 
 from unfortunate that these popular parts of the scheme have 
 been so soon and so fairly brought to the test, and illustrated by 
 80 conspicuous an example. 
 
 By the " self-supporting system of colonization " (the notion 
 of which Mr. Wakefield seems to us to treat with more ridicule 
 than it deserves), we understand that system, on the credit — 
 that is to say, on the stipposcd merits — of which you can borrow 
 the means of founding, settling, and peopling a colony — support- 
 ing it on the promise of the future revenue, until such revenue 
 shall be actually forthcoming. Every moneyless inventor who
 
 SOUTH AUSTRALIA IN 1841. 109 
 
 brings his invention into the market by means of capital 
 borrowed on the faith of its future value proceeds on the self- 
 suj)porting system. The man who persuades his friend that ho 
 has discovered a secret in fanning by which he can make his 
 fortune, and so obtains a loan of money to buy land for the pur- 
 pose of trying it, is a self-supporting farmer. So the South 
 Australian Association proclaim a new mode of colonization, by 
 which a large revenue may be raised within a short time ; and, 
 having no money of their own, persuade people to lend them 
 money at ten per cent, to carry this scheme into execution. If 
 they are right — if the new system prospers and creates a revenue 
 equal to the payment of the debt and the interest— then all is 
 well. The colony, most strictly speaking, has supported itself. 
 There it is ; and it has cost nothing to anybody. 
 
 But though we see nothing absurd in the notion of a self- 
 supporting colony, nor feel justified in calling the name, as Mr. 
 Wakefield does, "a kind of puff," — (though no doubt it has 
 been much used for puffing purposes) — yet to the manner m 
 which South Australia has been required to support itself we 
 see very serious objections ; nor can we perceive any correspond- 
 ing advantage. By refusing to advance any public money, and 
 throwing the colony upon the money market for supplies, it was 
 intended to hold the public safe, and throw the whole risk upon 
 l^rivate speculators. And if the failm-e of the speculation had 
 involved nothing more than the ruin of those private specula- 
 tors, the precaution would have been effectual, and not unreason- 
 able. But the fact is, that the insolvency of a colony, estab- 
 lished under the sanction of Government, with thousands of 
 people in it, is a calamity which Government can never throw 
 aside as the result of a private speculation with which it had 
 nothing to do. If not bound to uphold its credit (a point which 
 it would not be easy to maintain) it is at least bound to save 
 the inhabitants from destruction. If the speculation be a good 
 one — that is, if the money be lent on good interest and good 
 security — it is much better that the mother country should make 
 the advance, which it can do on much better terms to both 
 parties than private capitalists : if not, then it ought not to be 
 sanctioned at all. For, if unsafe with public money lent at four
 
 200 SOUTH AUSTRALIA IN 1841. 
 
 per cent., it must be many times more unsafe with private money 
 lent at ten ; and if it fail, the failure must be a public, and not 
 a private matter. The mother country must pay for the losses, 
 whoever may have the benefit of the gains. But there is a more 
 serious objection to this mode of raising supplies than either its 
 extravagance, or its futilitj' as a security against expense to the 
 mother country, or the almost irresistible temptation which 
 it offers to a sj^stem of puffing — namely, its precariousness. 
 During its earlier years, not only the prosperity of the colony, 
 but the very lives of the inhabitants, depend upon the regularity 
 of the supplies ; and that regularity depends upon the facility of 
 borrowing money from private capitalists ; who, being only con- 
 cerned for the security of their own speculations, will refuse to 
 lend the moment they apprehend any difficulty about the repay- 
 ment. Twenty accidents, against which no foresight can pro- 
 vide, may discredit the speculation in their eyes. There need 
 not even be any just ground for alarm. A false rumour will stop 
 the supplies for the time as effectually as a true one. The 
 colony may be ruined by a leading article as suddenly as it was 
 created. A puff' may break it, as a puff has made. In the short 
 history of South Australia, something of this has been actually 
 experienced, and more is suggested. We trust that the lesson 
 has not been read in vain, and that no second experiment resem- 
 bling it in this feature will be attempted. 
 
 Nor is this short history less valuable for the considerations 
 it suggests with regard to the other novel feature which we have 
 noticed — the delegation to private projectors of the duties which 
 belong properly to the recognized and responsible authorities of 
 the country. There is scarcely any popular prejudice more un- 
 reasonable, but there is scarcely any more prevalent, than that 
 which leads men to place more confidence in those of whom they 
 know nothing, than those of whom they know much. Hoping 
 always for more than we can have, and knowing that we cannot 
 get what we want from the one, we turn to the other, of whom, 
 knowing nothing, we do not know even that. Thus it is in the 
 disputes between Government and projectors. Government has 
 existed for centuries, and has wrought no miracle ; whilst every 
 year sends forth some sanguine or interested projector, burning
 
 SOUTH AUSTRATJA IX 1841. 201 
 
 with anxiety to show how some miracle may he wrought. The 
 ohjections which he is met with fail to convince him ; the dis- 
 couragement makes him fierce. The refusal to adopt his views 
 he attrihutes to secret hostility. The puhlic fake part with the 
 untried promiser against the tried non-performer. The matter 
 is brought before Parliament. The ignorant lookers-on (who 
 form a considerable majority in both Houses) are easily per- 
 suaded that the thing is an experiment and ought to be tried ; 
 and that since the responsible officers of the CrowTi say they 
 cannot undertake to bring it to a successful issue, the trial must 
 be made by the projector himself, who says he can. The neces- 
 sary powers are accordingly conveyed to him by Act of Parlia- 
 ment, and the Government is only too happy to get rid of the 
 responsibility, the trouble, the importmiity, and the abuse, all at 
 the same time. 
 
 Nor is this arrangement without its plausibilities. The pre- 
 sumptions against Government in respect both to zeal and ability 
 for making the best of a new thing, are not altogether unfair. 
 To plod on in the old ruts, to be jealous of all nostrums and 
 novel theories, will always be the tendency of the executive, 
 constitute it as you may ; because the credit of success in such 
 cases bears no proportion to the discredit of failm-e. They are 
 the trustees of the nation ; and, like all trustees, are more con- 
 cerned to keep things from growing worse than to make them 
 better. Therefore, under the best-constituted executive, many 
 good things will be left for private projectors to suggest; and 
 these projectors will have many plausible, and probably some just 
 grounds of complaint. In the case of our own Government, this 
 aversion from all that is unprecedented is unduly strong, and 
 amounts to a serious defect. It is not to be denied that the in- 
 ventive department, owing to the total want of any agency work- 
 ing in that direction, is weak and languid, and the distrust of 
 other men's inventions proportionally active. Nor is it less true 
 that, from want of a better supply of effective servants, and of 
 stimulants to zeal and activity, many of its duties are neglected 
 and mismanaged. The popular error is not in apprehending 
 that the Government will do the work ill, but in assuming that 
 the projector will do it better ; as if the censure of blunders in
 
 202 SOUTH AUSTEAIJA IN 1841. 
 
 others offered any security that the censurer will commit no 
 blunders himself. The delusion is a gross one, which the least 
 reflection must dissipate ; hut it is wonderful how few of us are 
 not, more or less, under its power. Let the securities for zeal 
 and ability and integrity in the discharge of their office by the 
 ministers of the Crown be as defective as the most discontented 
 projector can assert ; jei it is obvious that they are better than 
 YOU have anywhere else. However defective the instruments 
 they have to work with, they have at least a more extensive 
 command than any other body of the best instruments that are 
 to be had. However inadequate the responsibility under which 
 they act, they at least act under a more definite and effective 
 responsibility than can be thrown upon any private person or 
 Board of persons. However prone to avail themselves of the 
 l^rivilege of office for the purpose of shielding from inquiry what 
 will not bear inspection, they are at least well known themselves 
 — are liable to be called to a severe account in case of ultimate 
 failure or palpable misconduct ; and, conscious of living in the 
 jmblic eye, are deeply sensitive to public censure. Whatever 
 objections may be urged against their methods of transacting 
 business, their methods are at least the gradual growth of many 
 years of trial ; they include all the improvements i)rompted by 
 long experience — all the securities against irregularity, all the 
 precautions, checks, and helps of which time has suggested the 
 expediency. That each man, indeed, should believe of himself 
 that he could arrange everything much better (especially having 
 never tried) is not surprising ; but why we, his neighbours, 
 should believe it of him, is a matter of much wonder, though as 
 old as the world. To anyone who thinks, it must appear unde- 
 niable that though the securities for the good management of a 
 new experiment in the hands of Government are bad enough, 
 compared with what they ought to be, yet compared with the 
 security we have when the management of it is transferred to a 
 Board of private gentlemen labouring under a superfluity of 
 pul;hc spirit, they are ample, and worthy of all confidence. The 
 case before us supplies as apt an illustration as we could wish. 
 Nearly seven years ago the charge of colonizing South Aus- 
 tralia, with all powers and privileges appertaining, was com-
 
 gOUTH AUSTRALIA TX 1941. 203 
 
 mitted to eight gentlemen unconnected with the Colonial Office ; 
 because the Colonial Office, not having due faith in the j^rin- 
 ciple, could not be trusted for carrying it out. They had every 
 facility for conducting their own scheme in their own way. They 
 were allowed to select then' own officers ; and we doubt whether 
 they could quote a single measure which they were prevented 
 from taking, or a single important point in which they were 
 thwarted, from the day of their aj)pointment to that of their 
 dismissal. It is now notorious that in the hands of these eight 
 gentlemen (for it is to be observed that the embarrassments had 
 risen under tJieir instructions, and before the news of the revo- 
 cation of their commission had reached the colony, though the 
 duty of dealing with them was inherited by their successors) 
 this great charge has miscarried ; that the result of their five 
 years' administration has been an advance of £155,000 by the 
 mother country, as the only means of avoiding immediate and 
 extensive disasters in South Australia. How many of our 
 readers can rej^eat the names of these eight gentlemen ? Mr. 
 Wakefield was not among them. He abjures all responsibilit}^ 
 and now declares that he always apprehended some evil results 
 from the arrangement. Had the responsibility been laid upon 
 any of the regular departments of state, the issue would have 
 remained as a personal blot upon the reputation of the minister 
 at the head of it. As it is, it rests upon who knows whom ? 
 
 That it was only an experiment, cannot be admitted as an 
 excuse for thus confiding the conduct of it to inexperienced 
 hands. There is a mischievous fallacy lurking under that word 
 experiment. " If you will not try my experiment yourselves, 
 stand aside and let me try it," is the cry of the projector to a 
 distrusting Government, and all the people think it reasonable. 
 Go into the fever ward of an hospital, announce an improved 
 mode of treatment, and caU on the surgeon either to try it him- 
 self or to let you try it — he will answer that he has no right 
 to do either the one or the other — either to make experiments, or 
 to allow them to be made upon the patients under his charge — • 
 the failure of the experiment may be the death of the patient. 
 But let the inventor of an improved method of colonization 
 demand of the State, that if his method be not adopted
 
 204 SOUTH AUSTRALIA IN 1841. 
 
 generally, he shall at least have a colony made over to him to 
 try it on, and nobody doubts the reasonableness of the demand. 
 It is forgotten that the trial cannot be made at the sole risk of 
 the inventor, and that the State is fully as answerable for evils 
 that may arise from permitting hazardous experiments to be 
 tried by others, as for refusing to adopt wise and safe ones 
 itself. The duty of the Government in such cases is plain — to 
 entertain all projects for the good of the community ; to take up 
 and give effect to those of the wisdom of which it is satisfied ; 
 and resolutely to refuse its sanction to all such as it is not 
 IDrepared to adopt. 
 
 We have dwelt thus long on this part of the subject, because 
 we regard the establishment and the clear convincing illustration 
 of these positions (obvious as they seem) as by far the most im- 
 portant result of this South Australian embarrassment. It is of 
 little consequence comparatively to trace the chain of events 
 which led to it, or to settle who has been most in fault ; provided 
 the result itself be set up as a conspicuous and standing example 
 to warn all Statesmen and Parliaments against giving way to 
 these popular delusions, or indulging themselves in this indolent 
 legislation. The remedy for the many defects of our administra- 
 tive government is to be sought in the improvement, and, if 
 necessary, the reconstitution of the establishment itself — a work 
 which will find all reformers enough to do — not in transferring 
 its duties to other and untried hands. 
 
 With regard to the eight South Australian Commissioners 
 themselves, we cannot fairly charge them either with any great 
 negligence, or any great incapacity in the discharge of their 
 trust. They appear to have been active and painstaking — the 
 immigration department seems to have been prosperously con- 
 ducted — there has been no lack of exact and careful instructions ; 
 and, considering the novelty of the circumstances and their own 
 inexperience, we do not know that it could have been reason- 
 ably expected of them that they should do the work better. The 
 thing they had to do had never been attempted before — the 
 means by which it was to be done had never been employed 
 before — they themselves had neither precedent to guide them 
 nor previous experience in the kind of duties which had devolved
 
 SOUTH AUSTRALIA IN 1841. 205 
 
 upon them. " The act," (says the Eeport of the Committee) 
 " required that provision should be made for the reception, in a 
 vast unexplored wilderness, and for the protection and good 
 government of a population flowing in at a rate of unprecedented 
 rapidity. The making of all necessary arrangements for that 
 purpose was confided to a board of private gentlemen, not 
 placed by their commission under any adequate control in the 
 exercise of their duties ; and acting at a distance of 16,000 
 miles from the scene on which the experiment was to be tried. 
 The only provision placed at their disposal for defraying the costs 
 of the undertaldug, was a power to borrow money from private 
 capitahsts on the security of the future revenues of that unex- 
 plored wilderness ; a precarious provision therefore, and subject 
 to interruption from a variety of accidents which they could 
 neither foresee nor control.* We do not quarrel with them for 
 failing in the execution of such a charge ; their great error was 
 in consenting to undertake it. 
 
 To transfer to an unwatered wilderness, root, branch, and 
 blossom, the conceptions w4iich flourished so fairly in Adelphi 
 Terrace, and make them prosper there, was no easy task. Their 
 policy, their plans, and their precautipns, read smoothly enough 
 on paper, and everything seems provided for. The design is 
 clearly and carefully drawn. But when we turn to the impres- 
 sion which was actually printed off on the rugged and uneven 
 ground of South Australia, a most distorted, blotted, and imper- 
 fect figure presents itself. The internal history of the colony 
 exhibits a series of miscarriages, one treading upon the heels of 
 another. First, the Governor quarrels with the Surveyor-General 
 about the site of the capital ; and the colonists split into factions 
 before they have set up their houses. Then the Surveyor- 
 General quarrels with his instructions, and throws up his office 
 in disgust. Then the surveys stand still, to the great incon- 
 venience of the purchasers of land, who have been promised 
 immediate possession. Then, in the urgent necessity of carrying 
 the surveys forward at any cost, vast unforeseen expenses are 
 incurred. Then the Governor quarrels with the resident Com- 
 missioner, and must be recalled. Then the resident Commis- 
 
 * Report, p. 9.
 
 206 SOUTH AUSTRAIJA IN 1841. 
 
 sioner with whom lie quarrelled is convicted of gross irregulari- 
 ties in his capacity of Colonial Treasurer, and is dismissed under 
 serious suspicion of peculation. Then this Colonial Treasurer is 
 rej)laced by another, " who appears to have been most irregular," 
 and who was shortly obliged to be placed in the hands of the 
 Attorney-General for not rendering his accounts. Then the 
 Colonial Storekeeper is found to have been guilty of great irre- 
 gularity, proceeding " partly from the confusion of the Colony," 
 but principally from his "utter unacquaintance with the prin- 
 ciples of public duty ; " a deficiency for which ''several other 
 heads of departments had to be dismissed," and which ^ had 
 been, and still was, a great cause of the difficulties of the colony." 
 Then the new Governor, in his zeal to correct all these kregu- 
 larities, is obliged to treble the charges of the civil establishment ; 
 and under the inevitable necessity of providing for the stream of 
 immigration which was poured in upon him, together with 
 his great anxiety to prevent what he calls " stagnation," is in- 
 volved in an expenditure not only beyond his authority, but 
 beyond his power of calculation, and beyond the utmost means 
 of the Commissioners to meet ; — an expenditure of which he was 
 unable to form the roughest estimate, but which was increasing 
 quarter by quarter from a rate of £12,000 per annum to a rate 
 of £140,000; and all this without even the advantage of a 
 knowledge on the part of the Commissioners of the demands 
 which were coming upon them. Upon a comparison of Colonel 
 Gawler's despatches, announcing the progress of his expenditure 
 (which will be found at pp. 220-266 of the appendix to the 
 report), with the dates of the bills drawn by him upon the Board 
 in England (which will be found at p. 172 of the same), it may 
 be distinctly shown that before June, 1840, the Commissioners 
 had no reason to suppose that the annual demands upon them 
 would exceed £42,000 per annum; that the bills presented for 
 payment during that month indicated a demand of £140,000 ; 
 and that the next month brought them, along with the first 
 complete financial statement which they had received, a warning 
 that for some time to come they must expect no less. This it 
 was which brought the matter to a crisis ; for it was now plain 
 that the powers of borrowing with which they were entrusted
 
 SOUTH AUSTRALIA IN 1841. 207 
 
 by tlie act, even if used to their fullest extent, would not enable 
 them to satisfy all their liabiUties. Accordingly, in August, 
 they suspended all further payments, and then threw themselves 
 upon the Government. Colonel Gawler was recalled, and Captain 
 Grey was sent out to declare a bankruptcy and commence a 
 system of rigorous retrenchments ; and all other questions con- 
 nected with the subject were to stand over until a committee of 
 the House of Commons should have reported upon them. 
 
 The recommendations of the Committee are embodied in a 
 series of resolutions, which are introduced by an explanatory 
 report, containing a statement of the grounds of them, a rapid 
 but fair account of the origin and nature of the embarrassment, 
 and a judgment upon the conduct of the several parties impli- 
 cated. Of the measures recommended by the Committee with a 
 view to the better administration of the affairs of the colony m 
 future, the most important are — 
 
 1. The dissolution of the Board of Commissioners ; and the 
 placing of South Australia, as to its general government, on 
 the same footing with other colonies belonging to the British 
 Crown. 
 
 2. The making of provision by Parliament for such advances 
 of money as may be necessary for maintaining its existence ; 
 the advances, with interest at not more than four per cent., to 
 be charged to the colony as public debt. 
 
 3. The relaxation of the existing rule as to the disposal of 
 land, so far as to allow one-half of the proceeds to form part of 
 the general revenue, the other half being still devoted to immi- 
 gration ; to admit of the reservation by the Crown of any lands 
 required for public purposes, or for the benefit of the aborigines ; 
 and to throw the cost of survey upon the purchaser, by an 
 acreable charge in addition to the purchase money, instead of 
 charging it as heretofore to the general revenue. 
 
 4. The establishment, instead of the uniform price system 
 which has hitherto been adopted, of that of public auction at a 
 minimum upset price : with some modifications, however, tending 
 to combine the advantages of both ; — namely, first, a provision 
 that the ^ales by auction shall take place periodically ; second, 
 that between these periods any land which has been put up and
 
 208 SOUTH AUSTRALIA IN 1841. 
 
 not sold shall be purchasable by the first applicant at the 
 minimum upset price ; third, that blocks of land, containing not 
 less than 20,000 acres each, may be sold by private contract, 
 only not below the minimum price ; and lastly, that the minimum 
 price itself may be raised above its present amount of ^61 per acre, 
 " with a view to the principle of maintaining such an amount as 
 may tend to remedy the evils arising out of too great a facility 
 of obtaining landed property, and a consequently disproportionate 
 suj)ply of labour, and exorbitant rate ofwages.^' 
 
 It will be seen, therefore, that if the recommendations of the 
 Committee be adopted, the Wakefield principle will at length 
 have a fair trial in South Australia ; as soon, at least, as the 
 arrears due to past mismanagement shall be paid off ; for it will 
 no longer be in the same boat with the two companion principles 
 which we have spoken of above. The colony will have a source 
 of supply not liable to fail in a case of extremity, because it is a 
 case of extremity ; and it will have the best security for good 
 government during its infancy which the nation has been able 
 to devise. At the same time the "Wakefield principle of coloni- 
 zation," proj^erly so called, is retained entire ; excepting only 
 those parts of it (relating to the " sufficient " price and the 
 application of the entire proceeds to immigration, and to the 
 uviform price as distinguished from the auction system), against 
 which we argued at length on a former occasion ; and one of 
 which at least Mr. Wakefield himself has now given up. 
 
 The only part of these recommendations to which we are 
 disposed to demur, is that which relates to the raising of the 
 minimum price. Not that we have any positive reason for 
 thinking that the price of land in South Australia will not bear 
 to be raised higher, but we do not see our way through the 
 process by which it is proposed to determine it. It appears to 
 us that there lie at the bottom of the reasoning on this matter, 
 two assumptions which will not be found to bear the test of 
 experience. The first is, that the value of the land may be 
 increased to any extent by increasing the price. The second is, 
 that by regulating the minimum price and the quantity of 
 immigration, it is possible in a new country to reduce the price 
 of labour ; that is, to place the labourer so far at the mercy of
 
 SOUTH AUSTRALIA IN 1841. 209 
 
 his employer as to force him to be content with less than he 
 wants. " In a colony," says the Report, " where the extent of 
 available land may, when compared with the population, be 
 practically considered as unlimited, ordinary land, if all were 
 allowed to appropriate what they pleased, would have no value 
 whatever, and it only acquires a value from the policy of not 
 allowing it to be appropriated, except by those who purchase it 
 on certain terms." All this we admit ; but we are not so clear 
 as to the inference which is drawn from it in the next sentence. 
 " As the value acquired by land under such circumstances is 
 artificial, so it may be made higher or lower at the discretion of the 
 authority by which it is created.'" Now, surely there are other 
 limits to the value of land besides the price demanded for it. 
 By raising the price as high as you please, you may make it as 
 difficult as you please to get ; but not therefore as much worth 
 having. You may make a thing so dear that it is not worth 
 buying at the price. You may make a penny roll as dear as a 
 quartern loaf, if you have the command of the wheat market, 
 but you cannot make it feed as many people. Make bread so 
 dear that people cannot buy enough to live on, and they will 
 feed on potatoes. So with land. So long as the produce of the 
 soil will pay a reasonable interest on the price demanded, you 
 can raise the value by creating an artificial scarcity ; but as 
 soon as the price rises above that point, the artificial scarcity 
 will operate only as a prohibition upon the sale. The question 
 is, how high you can price waste land in South Australia without 
 making the purchase of it a bad investment of capital, or a worse 
 than can be had elsewhere. 
 
 If indeed by applying the additional price to the introduction 
 of labour, you could be sure to cheapen labour in proportion, 
 this artificial value might be increased indefinitel}'-, until the 
 productive powers of the land, as well as the value of its produce, 
 reached their maximum. But this brings us to the other question : 
 Is it practicable by any regulations to make a labouring jjopula- 
 tion in a new colony so dependent upon the employer of labour, 
 that the rate of wages shall sink in anything like that proportion 
 — or indeed that it shall sink at all ? Certainly no tendency 
 of the kind has appeared in South Australia. And we strongly 
 
 p
 
 210 SOUTH AUSTRALIA IX 1841. 
 
 suspect, tliat if the principle recommended b}" the Committee be 
 adopted, of " progressively increasing the price of land until the 
 object of establishing a due proportion between the supply and 
 demand for labour, and between the population and the extent 
 of territory occupied by it, shall have been accomjDlished " — or as 
 it is expressed in another page, until such a price be imposed 
 " as shall i^revent a greater quantity of land from being bought 
 than the number of inhabitants is sufficient to make use of to 
 advantage" — one of two things must happen; either such a 
 price must be demanded as no capitalist can afford to give ; or 
 such stringent regulations with regard to the labouring popula- 
 tion must be adopted, as no Government will be able to enforce. 
 Labom' may be made more plentiful, we doubt not ; but we doubt 
 whether within any assignable period it will become more cheap. 
 The value of the land will in that case be determined by the nett 
 profits of the produce which it can be made to yield ; and the 
 j)rice must follow the value. 
 
 There is one other point on which the EeiJort is not quite 
 satisfactory to us. In their judgment upon the conduct of the 
 several parties who have been imjDlicated in the affairs which 
 have led to this embarrassment, they appear to us to have 
 extended thek indulgence to Colonel Gawler too far. No doubt, 
 a man who has not had an opportunity of making his defence is 
 entitled to large allowances ; and although it is difficult to 
 believe that he has not done things on too grand a scale, and 
 been far more liberal in his expenditure for the benefit of the 
 colony than its pecuniary circumstances justified, we are not 
 masters of the circumstances sufficiently to say positively that, 
 had he not determined to incur that expenditure, a worse result 
 might not have happened. But the charge against him is not 
 merely that he involved his emploj^ers in a debt so far beyond 
 his authority, and beyond even their means to pay — circum- 
 stances may be imagined in which an officer is justified in 
 assuming such a responsibility — but that he did it without giving 
 them any adequate warning of the extent to which he was pre- 
 pared to go. He not only drew bills upon them for thousands 
 upon thousands beyond his authority, without specifying the 
 jjarticular services for which they were drawn— this, in the
 
 SOUTH AUSTRALIA IN 1841. 211 
 
 confused state of affairs, it may have been impossible to do with 
 exactness — but he did not furnish them with the means of con- 
 jecturing within any reasonable limits of approximation what 
 amount they were to be prepared for. It is true that he kept 
 warning them in general terms that he was forced to incur 
 " enormous " expenses, the responsibility for which " filled him 
 with anxiety; " but what did an " enormous " expenditure mean, 
 when the authorized expenditure was £12,000 a year? Was it 
 twice as much, or three times, or four times as much ? The 
 only account (previous to that upon the receipt of which the 
 Commissioners threw up then- charge) on which any definite 
 conjecture could be built as to the total amount for which they 
 must in future be prepared, was that which accompanied the 
 half-year's report dated 26th November 1839, and must have 
 been received by thom in February 1840. In this despatch he 
 recounts the causes which have made his actual expenditure so 
 much exceed the regulated estimate ; gives a list of the things 
 he has had to do ; and adds, all this has been done (not " has yet 
 to be done") "in a very expensive period.'' This account there- 
 fore did not indicate an increased, but rather a diminished 
 expenditm-e thereafter. Now, the bills drawn by Colonel Gawler, 
 in excess of the regulated estimate, for the services of this year, 
 amounted to £42,000 ; — an excess quite large enough to answer 
 the general terms in which he had spoken, and to justify his 
 anxiety. But while this account was on its way home, at what 
 rate was Colonel Gawler actually drawing upon them ? At a 
 rate of £50,000 per annum, or £60,000, or £100,000 ? No, but 
 of £140,000 ! Now, we contend that Colonel Gawler — however 
 impossible it may have been for him to form an exact estimate, 
 or even an estimate nearly approaching to accuracy, of the 
 expenditure for the half year before him — ought to have been 
 able to make a guess within a hundred thousand pounds. He 
 should have been able to give his employers some idea whether, 
 when he talked of enormous excesses above the regulated esti- 
 mate, he meant twice as much, or twelve times as much. And 
 this was the rather required of him, because the very ground on 
 which he justifies his assumption of such responsibility is the 
 total incapacity of the Commissioners to form any judgment for
 
 212 SOUTH AFSTEALTA IN 1841. 
 
 themselves ; and beeanse he knew that their resources were not 
 imHmited, and that his drafts must be trespassing very closely 
 on the limits of them. 
 
 The Committee say that they " are not prepared to affirm the 
 insufficiency of the grounds on which he has alleged his inability 
 to furnish information as to the specific services for which he 
 was about to draw, or to supply any estimates of the total 
 amount he should be compelled to draw in the course of the 
 year." It appears to us that the Committee ought to have been 
 prepared to allege the insufficiency of these grounds ; and that 
 from the principle involved in their hesitation to do so inferences 
 may be dra^vn, of which veiy inconvenient and dangerous applica- 
 tions may be made by all officers serving the Government in 
 distant places. If the excuse is good for the expenditure of 
 unauthorized hundreds of thousands, it is as good or better for 
 the expenditure of unauthorized millions ; inasmuch as the 
 inability to "furnish information as to the specific services, and 
 to supply estimates of the total amount;" would be ten times as 
 great. We regret this piece of false candour and indulgence 
 on the part of the Committee ; because it may be construed 
 into an intimation that there were not sufficient grounds for 
 recalling Colonel Gawler — a measure than which none w^as ever 
 more imperatively called for. In other respects the Eeport 
 appears to us to contain a fair judgment upon the conduct of all 
 parties. 
 
 The evidence contains a good deal of interesting and conflict- 
 ing testimony as to the natural productive capacities of South 
 Australia ; of which Mr. Angus has a high opinion. But there 
 is so little solid experience as yet to build on, that such oj)inions 
 can be entertained only as conjectures ; and, as we said before, 
 we must wait to see what fruit the tree will bear, and what it 
 will sell for, before we can form any grounded conclusions. What 
 is certain is, that a very large proportion of this selected territory 
 turns out to be unavailable from natural sterility — so barren 
 that it will be worth nothing to a purchaser, however much you 
 may make him pay for it — and so much of it, that it was at one 
 time thought advisable to alter the boundaries of the colony, for 
 the i)urpose of taking in a more fertile tract between it and Port
 
 SOUTH AUSTRALIA IN 1841. 213 
 
 Philip. Some considerable tracts of very good land have how- 
 ever been discovered since ; and we hope that the barren parts 
 will only operate as an anti-dispersive, and that no practical 
 evil will result from the unfortunate selection of the held of 
 operations. With regard to this part of the question however, 
 pending the arrival of some more decisive indications, we must 
 be content with quoting, in their own words, the result of the 
 inquiries of the Committee as to the present position and pros- 
 pects of the province : — 
 
 " The public debt charged on the future revenues of South Australia, includ- 
 ing the sums raised by the Commissioners, the advance recently made by 
 Parliament, and the proposed further advance to the Emigration Fund, will 
 amount to £296,000. The annual interest payable upon it will be about £15,000. 
 The number of inhabitants is supposed to be about 15,000. The ordinary revenue, 
 which has been progressively increasing, may now be estimated at about £30,000 
 per annum. The ordinary expenditure, which has been increasing still more 
 rapidly, is now proceeding at a rate amounting, together with the interest of the 
 loan, to about £70,000 a year ; and although it may be hoped that some reduc- 
 tion may be effected by the present (Governor, your Committee are unable, from 
 want of detailed evidence in this country, to speak with any confidence on tho 
 subject. 
 
 " With regard to the natural I'esources of the colony, the value of the produce 
 and the amount of revenue which it may hereafter yield, your Committee have 
 not been able to obtain sufficient data to justify them in pronouncing a decided 
 opinion ; they would, however, refer to the evidence given by Mr. Angus, as 
 showing the recent progress of agriculture, and the aptness of the soil for raising 
 grain, and for pasturage ; to that of Mr. Elliot in explanation of the quantity 
 of available land still unsold ; to a statistical report transmitted by Colonel 
 Gawler, and to the general tenor of his despatches, as encouraging the hope that, 
 after making allowance for very large tracts of wholly unavailable land, the 
 natural capacities of the colony are considerable ; and that as its tillage extends, 
 and its stock multiplies, it may in due time yield an ample revenue, and become 
 a valuable appendage to the British Crown. For the present, however, it does 
 not appear to your Committee that there are any certain grounds for expecting 
 either such an increase of revenue or such a reduction of expenditure as would 
 obviate the necessity of making provision out of some fund, over and above tho 
 oidinary revenue, for an annual deficit of a large amount." — {lie/wrt, p. x.)
 
 VII. 
 
 EXPEDITION TO THE NIGEE IN 1841. CIVILIZATION 
 
 OF AFEICA.* 
 
 Sir T. Buxton's estimate of the extent of the Afi-ican Slave 
 Trade, the probable efficacy of the measures which he pro^DOses 
 for the extinction of it, and the general character of his work, 
 were discussed in our last number. To this jDart of the subject 
 we do not here propose to return. For the present we shall 
 confine ourselves to the consideration of the preliminary measure 
 in fiu'therance of Sir Thomas Buxton's views which the Govern- 
 ment has consented to adoj)t — a measure which has been much 
 j)raised and much censured, but of which the true scope and 
 grounds have not, as it appears to us, been duly considered. 
 That three iron steam-vessels have been built by Government, 
 and are on the point of proceeding, under the command of three 
 captains of the vojal navy, up the Niger — that the object of the 
 expedition is to prepare the way for the extinction of the Slave 
 Trade by means of the civilization of Africa — and that it is to 
 cost £'61,000 — are facts sufiiciently well known, and upon which 
 
 * 1. Correspondence relative to the Niger Expedition. Printed by order of the 
 House of Commons. February, 1840. 2. Appeal to the People and Government of 
 r.'reat Britain against the Niger Expedition: a Letter addressed to the Eight 
 Honourable Lord John Kussell. By PiObeut Jasiiesox, Esq. London : 1S40. 3. 
 Letters to the Right Honourable Lord John Eussell, on the Plans of the Society for 
 the Civilization of Africa. By Sir George Stephen. London: 1810. 4. Address 
 of Joseph R. Ingersoll at the Annual Meeting of the Pennsylvania Colonization 
 Society. 1838. 5. Address on African Colonization. By R. R. Gurley. 1839. 6. 
 Seventh Annual Report of the Colonization Society of the City of New York. 
 (^Edinburgh Review, January, 1841.)
 
 CIVILIZATION OF AFRICA. 215 
 
 much debate has arisen. One party sees in the enterprise only 
 the final overthrow of the hated slave trade ; another regards it 
 as nothing better than the opening of a new unhappy chapter in 
 the history of African colonization — another costly and miserable 
 failure, fraught with great waste of British life and treasure, 
 and bringing no good to Africa. The great meeting in Exeter 
 Hall is still fi'esh in remembrance, at which the most eminent 
 persons of all parties laid their differences aside to sanction and 
 ftromote the Niger expedition, and claim a share in the glory 
 and responsibility of the work ; whilst Mr. Jamieson's appeal in 
 behalf of the mercantile community against the intermeddling of 
 Government in matters which would prosper better vathout its 
 aid, and the wilder denunciations of the Times newspaper, have 
 drawn attention, though rather late in the day, to the doubts 
 and difficulties by which the project is certainly not unattended. 
 But what the expedition is to do — what are the immediate pm-- 
 poses, and what the probable issues of it — upon what grounds 
 of knowledge and reasonable expectation the attempt is justified 
 — what will be the extent of evil if it fail, and of good if it 
 succeed — these are points which seem to be lost sight of in the 
 controversy. The indignation of the Times flies much too high 
 to touch them, and the statements on which Mr. Jamieson rests 
 his appeal might, as it seems to us, be quoted with more pro- 
 j)riety on the other side. The expedition,, as we understand it, 
 has one object — namely, to explore and survey the ground, with 
 a view to ascertain the practicability of further measui-es and 
 the most effectual way of conducting them : and there is one 
 question to be previously determined — namely, whether the 
 reasons for expecting some considerable benefit to issue from 
 such a survey are strong enough to justify the risk and outlay 
 which must attend it. Our present object is simply and briefly 
 to set forth our grounds for deciding this question in the affirma- 
 tive. To us it appears that within the last few years a new hope 
 has been opened for Africa — a new opportunity, distinct in some 
 essential features from any that has hitherto presented itself, of 
 bringing into cultivation some portions, at least, of this vast 
 neglected estate, to the great benefit of the world ; that it lies 
 with England to improve this opportunity ; and that the first
 
 216 EXPEDITION TO THE NIGER IN 1841. 
 
 and indispensable condition of any successful movement in that 
 direction, is to send out an expedition duly equipped and ap- 
 pointed to examine and explore the path ; — the information which 
 we now possess being sufficient, as we think, to prove that much 
 may be done ; but neither full enough nor certain enough to 
 teach us either how much, or what, or in what way. If it be 
 reasonable to believe that we can carry into Africa the seeds of 
 a civilization which shall take root and spread, then we hold the 
 expedition to be justified ; if otherwise, not. 
 
 The position, the extent, the inexhaustible fertility, and the 
 many natural advantages of the central region of this continent, 
 as well as the worse than neglected state in which its vast capa- 
 bilities are still left, and the scanty measure in which man has 
 done his duty by them, are matters on which, as notorious and 
 undisputed, we need not dwell. But inasmuch as there lies a 
 prima facie presumption against the intrinsic capacity for im- 
 provement of what has so long resisted the efforts of man and 
 the improving influences of time, it is necessary in the first place 
 to look somewhat more narrowly into the nature of the experi- 
 ments which have been already made and the opportunities 
 which have presented themselves. Now the great civilizer of 
 mankind is intercourse between nation and nation ; and from 
 this the middle regions of Africa have been almost entirely shut 
 out. There have been but four channels through which the arts, 
 manners, and experiences of people farther advanced in civiliza- 
 tion have had any chance of making their way thither ; first, 
 the transatlantic slave trade ; secondly, the European settle- 
 ments planted along the western coast ; thirdly, the palm-oil 
 trade ; and fourthly, the trade with the northern parts of the 
 continent carried on by Ai'ab and Moorish merchants across the 
 Great Desert. 
 
 Of the first of these it is scarcely necessary to say that it has 
 done much more to obstruct than to advance civilization. Some 
 specimens ox European manufacture — guns, powder and ball, 
 rum, Manchester cottons, Portuguese cloths, pots and pans, 
 buttons, &c. — it may have brought the natives on the coast ac- 
 quainted with ; but it has not had the efi'ect of carrying even 
 these far inwards. In the mean time, the manners and habits
 
 CTTILIZATION OF AFRICA. 217 
 
 which have heen imported along with them are of the worst 
 kind — more fitted to corrupt than to improve. And while the 
 advantages this trade brings are thus trilling in themselves and 
 confined in their operation, it is not so with the evils. Of the 
 European productions derived through this channel all traces 
 are quickly lost ; hut the European demand for slaves carries its 
 message into the heart of the continent, and offers such a pre- 
 mium upon internal rapine and disorder that industry and inge- 
 nuity have neither peace nor leisure to try their fortune there. 
 So long as the export trade of Africa consists chiefly of slaves, 
 it is vain to hope that any systematic and effectual attention 
 will be paid to the cultivation of cotton, coffee, or ginger. 
 
 The effects of the English and American settlements on the 
 western coast have given rise to disputes, into the merits of 
 which we cannot at present stay to enter. But the truth seems 
 to be that although if we measure them either by the expense of 
 life and treasure which they have involved, or by the aims and 
 hopes of their founders, or by the ends wiiich remain to be ac- 
 complished, they may be pronounced failures ; yet their operation 
 has been, with reference to those parts of Africa, decidedly, and 
 in no trifling degree, beneficial.* The countries in the imme- 
 diate neighbourhood of these settlements are in a better con- 
 dition than they were ; property is more secure ; the culture of 
 the soil is more attended to ; the advantages of commerce are 
 beginning to be felt ; Christianity has made some small advances ; 
 the people have shown some anxiety to have their children 
 educated ; and the slave trade has entirely (or almost entirely) 
 
 * In the Reports of the American Colonization Society, and the addresses of Mr. 
 Gurley and Mr. Ingersoll, the titles of which appear at the head of this article, 
 much information will be found concerning the proceedings and views of that society. 
 To these interestinir, and in this country little known tracts, we must be content to 
 refer our readers. The number of coloured persons who may be disposed to emigrate 
 to Africa rises into a question of unusual importance, now that an opening is made 
 for colonization on a larger scale, which can hardly be effected without a lamentable 
 destruction of life by Europeans ; and tlie encouragement of this spirit is one of 
 the great objects of the society. The official reports of the progress of Liberia (the 
 name of the American colony) — though conveyed in a style so glowing and rhetorical 
 as to suggest some doubt whether they can be relied on as the results of dispassionate 
 inquiry — strike us as most encouraging, and as indicating a regular advance in the 
 right direction, not inconsiderable even now, and which may be expected to proceed 
 every year with increasing rapidity.
 
 218 EXPEDTTIOX TO THE NIGER IX 1S41. 
 
 forsaken those shores. But why have they done no more ? for 
 if this is to be all, it becomes a serious question whether it be 
 worth the sacrifice ; whether the same lives, energies, and sums 
 of money might not be better employed elsewhere. A glance at 
 the map answers the question. These settlements are all on 
 the outside, as it were, of the continent, and in a place where 
 they have no means of getting in. Indeed, considering the 
 liroad belt of malaria which nature has drawn along the tropical 
 coasts of Africa, and the savage manners and habits with which 
 the slave trade has lined them, we may almost say that the 
 largest of the navigable rivers in those parts does not penetrate 
 beyond the husk and rind of the continent, and cannot, therefore, 
 bring us into contact with the sensible and vital parts. The 
 utmost efforts to civilize Africa through Gambia, Sierra Leone, 
 Cape Coast Castle, or Liberia, can be but as a flesh-brush 
 applied to an elephant ; they can never affect the circulation. 
 Or, to take a less remote analogy, suppose England were still as 
 Caesar found her ; suppose a settlement were j)lanted at the 
 mouth of some brook on the Welsh coast, and an attempt made 
 from that as from a centre to diffuse laws, arts, and manners 
 through the country ; and suppose, at the same time, that slave- 
 trading merchants in great numbers frequented the mouth of 
 the Thames, — what wonder if the slavers carried the day, and 
 the influence of the civilizers were felt only through a county 
 or two on the coast, while theirs circulated all through the land ? 
 The palm-oil trade is young, and labours under some heavy 
 disadvantages. For though the locality commands a wide range, 
 it is a locality already occuj)ied by the slave trade, against the 
 immediate competition of which the new comer is involved in an 
 unequal struggle ; and besides, the command of the inner country 
 is in some degree thrown away upon a trade which is essentially 
 a coast trade, inasmuch as the produce in which it deals does not 
 grow far inland. Moreover, the climate and the difficulty of 
 navigation throws the Liverpool trader too much into the power 
 of the chiefs inhabiting the delta of the Niger, whose interest it 
 is to keep the trade as much as possible to themselves, and to 
 prevent communication with the interior. We cannot, therefore, 
 expect from this trade such an extensive circulation of commer-
 
 CIVILIZATION' OF AFRICA. 219 
 
 cial intercourse as may reach the heart of Africa and materially 
 affect its condition : neither the Liverpool traders themselves, 
 nor the agents in their employment and in direct communication 
 with them, have been induced to traverse the interior, nor even 
 until lately to pass up the river. Yet in this case also the results 
 are encouraging so far as they go. The trade has done con- 
 siderable good within the limited range of its operation, and 
 might probably in no long time grow strong enough, if not to 
 exj)el the slave trade from the river, at least to compete success- 
 fully with it in the immediate neighbourhood. 
 
 The desert trade with Northern Afi'ica has penetrated fm-ther 
 than any of these, and produced more effect, and would by this 
 time have laid secure foundations for a better order of things, 
 but that it also labours under some heavy and peculiar disad- 
 vantages. The greatest is, that the Arab merchants come chiefly 
 for slaves : and hence the trade they drive does nearly as much 
 to obstruct the civilization of Africa by stimulating wars and 
 slave-hunts as to advance it by the introduction of knowledge 
 and the intercourse it 023ens between the Africans and a superior 
 race. Next, the Arabs are not good civilizers ; ignorant, un- 
 settled, lawless, rapacious, cruel, and deceitful, they are bad 
 instructors to impart knowledge and to teach the value of secu- 
 rity, mutual confidence, settled habits, and the like. Moreover, 
 the religion which they bring, though superior to the Paganism 
 which they find, is not a cuilizing religion : it is very good for 
 conquering, but very bad for improving the conquered. Further, 
 the length, difficulty, danger, and cost of the passage across the 
 desert drags so heavily upon this trade that it cannot thrive 
 properly, and interposes such a gulf between the merchants who 
 venture and the countries from which they come, that it camiot 
 be subjected to proper authority and regulations. Their own 
 government, if it had the will, has not the hands to reach them 
 at such a distance. Nevertheless, when we foUow Captain Clap- 
 perton along the route of the caravans fi'om Bornou to Soccatoo, 
 and read the accounts which are given of Timbuctoo and Jenne, 
 and observe the superiority in respect of government, organiza- 
 tion, industry, and manners of the kingdoms lying between these 
 points along the borders of the desert; we cannot doubt that in
 
 220 EXPKDITIOX TO THE NIGER IX 1841. 
 
 spite of all its drawLacks this trade lias actually effected some- 
 thing considerahle towards the improvement of the country. 
 
 Now, with regard to this traffic, let us suppose four things 
 changed. Suppose, first, that in the parts of Africa whence these 
 traders come there were no market for slaves ; suppose, secondly, 
 that there were a market of unlimited extent for raw cotton, or 
 some other natural production of Central Africa not requuing 
 much skill or capital to raise it ; suppose, thirdly, that between 
 the two there were no Desert, but a canal, a navigable river, a 
 railroad, or any other easy and safe approach for merchants 
 with heavy goods ; suppose, lastly, that these merchants were 
 not Arabs, professing the religion of Mahomet, and subject to 
 Morocco, Tunis, or Tripoli, but of a nation eminent for order, 
 honesty, and humanity — professing a religion which teaches the 
 equality of all men in the eye of God, inculcates at once self- 
 respect and humility, and insists in an especial manner upon 
 the duty of justice and mercy from every man to every other 
 man — subject to a government vigilant enough to superintend, 
 strong enough to control, scrupulously respectful of the rights of 
 others, and inexorable in enforcing fair dealing wherever its au- 
 thority extends. Suppose all this — who can doubt that the whole 
 face of Africa would speedily be changed ? 
 
 Upon this consideration it is that we rest our hopes of much 
 better and larger results from the enterprise now in contempla- 
 tion, and refuse to admit the failure of previous experiments • 
 or the non-improvement of previous opportunities in evidence 
 against it. Now, for the first time, these four things meet. 
 Between the richest regions of Central Africa and the most insa- 
 tiable market in the world for the produce of those regions, a 
 communication, safe, expeditious, and available for the cheap 
 carriage of hea^T" goods, is now for the first time opened. The 
 traders who supply this market are Englishmen and Christians ; 
 and while they will buy as much raw cotton as the industry of 
 man will ever raise in Africa, they will not buy a single man, 
 woman, or child. If there were in Africa any authority capable 
 of understanding the full benefit of opening this communication, 
 and with power to enforce the necessary conditions and regula- 
 tions, there can be no doubt, we think, that a flourishing trade
 
 CIVITJZATIOX OF AFRICA. 221 
 
 would immediately commence, and that the spirit of civilization 
 would begin to spread. How fast and how far it would spread 
 would depend mainly upon the judgment and energy of mis- 
 sionary and commercial and agricultural societies, and all the 
 rest, for whose labours a fair field would be opened. But in the 
 mean time the doubtful question is, whether in the present cir- 
 cumstances of Africa — looking at the disorganized condition of 
 society, the universal prevalence of the slave trade, and the fatal 
 qualities of the climate which may perhaps make it impossible 
 for English merchants to transact their own business there — it 
 be practicable to set the trade well on foot ; to make such a 
 commencement that the benefits shall be felt at once, and felt 
 widely enough to secure for it the necessary protection from 
 those who have influence enough to afford it. 
 
 For the climate, it must be admitted that appearances are 
 against it ; yet it may turn out that, in the interior at least, it 
 is not more fatal to European constitutions than other tropical 
 climates. Of the many travellers who have died there, we cannot 
 hear of one who has been in a condition to take proj^er care of 
 himself. A gentleman is attacked with fever or with dysentery ; 
 takes a sharp dose of calomel ; is obliged, though hardly able to 
 sit on his horse, to spend all the day in travelling; gets wet 
 above the middle in crossing a river ; lets his clothes dry on his? 
 back ; and when at length he stretches himself on his mat for a 
 night's rest, is stung to distraction by mosquitoes and black ants. 
 That anybody has survived such attacks is a greater wonder 
 than that so many have died under them, and can only be as- 
 cribed to that excitement of novelty and exertion which bears the 
 frame up under hardships, half of which would kill most of us 
 who are living at ease in England. It must also be remembered 
 that medical science has yet to be brought to bear upon this 
 question. It is not impossible that a few precautions and a 
 better method of treatment may make the climate innoxious. 
 Should it however prove invincible, it will still be practicable to 
 employ negroes or men of colour to transact business in the in- 
 terior ; of whom we do not doubt that there wiU be found many 
 equal to that work. 
 
 As for the slave trade, though it will retard the growth of a
 
 22*2 EXPEDITION TO THE NIGER IN 1841. 
 
 legitimate commerce, it will not, we tliiiik, universal as it is, 
 have power to strangle it. There is room for a commencement ; 
 and when once both are fairly in the field together, the more 
 profitable will carry the day. 
 
 The disorganized condition of the comitry does indeed present 
 some serious difficulties. It limits the power of the chiefs, 
 causes kingdoms to change hands rapidly, raises hostile neigh- 
 bours and unruly subjects, compels authority to be violent and 
 arbitrary, unsettles the minds and habits of [the people, and 
 induces that carelessness of human life which naturally follows 
 where its tenure is so precarious. Here jon find a chief eager 
 to embrace your offers, enforce your regulations, and protect 
 your people ; but his neighbour prefers wars and slave-hunts ; 
 or his more distant subjects are hard to manage, and he can- 
 not afford any effectual protection beyond his own immediate 
 territory. This year you find an honest man and a friend; next 
 year a knave and an enemy has taken his place. Your traders, 
 who are courted and protected this month, may perhaps be 
 robbed and murdered the next. Nay, the same man may be 
 your fi'iend to-day and your enemy to-morrow; the same childish 
 delight in novelties which made him embrace you at first, making 
 him suspect you soon after. 
 
 These are serious difficulties, which in such a case as this it 
 would be worse than weak to overlook or neglect. The question 
 is whether, looking them fairly in the face, they appear insur- 
 mountal)le. Are the elements of society so disordered and un- 
 certain that no lasting impression can be made upon them, and 
 that every attempt to organize them must simply fail ? Shifting 
 and chaotic as they are, is there not after all among these 
 African nations coherence, order, and intelligence enough to 
 retain something at least, however little, of whatever civilizing 
 influences we may pour in ; so that, while much is wasted and 
 rejected, some may go to convert and alter the system ? 
 
 It appears to us that there is reason to think so ; and in 
 order to prove it, we would point out the various centres of trade 
 already existing in the country, and the circumference of the 
 trade which centres there ; from which it will be seen that, in 
 spite of all the drawbacks and disadvantages under which com-
 
 CIVILIZATION OF AFRICA. 223 
 
 merce labours, there does actually exist both the spirit of traffic 
 to a very great extent, and security to a considerable extent ; and 
 that in all the articles for which there is any demand, an active 
 trade is continually going on from one end of the country to the 
 other. The facts we have to state are familiar to all readers of 
 African travels ; but their bearing upon this question may pro- 
 bably have escaped those who have not put them together for the 
 purpose. The most convenient way of approaching the subject 
 will be to follow the course of the expedition. 
 
 Passing as quickly as possible through the delta of the Niger, 
 where the malaria is most fatal and the inhabitants most 
 wretched and demoralized, we come to Ehoe, a town with a 
 population of 50,000 or 60,000, " the most enterprising and in- 
 dustrious traders (says Mr. Laird) on the Niger ; " governed by 
 King Obie, who boasts himself to be the greatest of the palm-oil 
 kings, has the command of the river, and insists that all traders 
 shall buy and sell with him before they go further up. From his 
 dominions (passing however through the hands of the chiefs on 
 the coasts, who no doubt deduct their full share of the profits,) 
 the Liverpool traders at the mouth of the river Nun — who have 
 for many years past been carrying on, though at a miserable 
 expense of Hfe and health, a regular and rapidly increasing trade 
 in palm-oil — receive their largest supplies of that article. In 
 exchange for their palm-oil, the people of Eboe receive various 
 articles of EngHsh manufacture — guns, powder and ball, showy 
 Manchester cottons, looking-glasses, knives, rum, &c. — the ex- 
 change being commonly effected through the medium of shells 
 or cowries, which are their money, and pass current far into the 
 interior of Africa. 
 
 Above this town the trade is carried on still more busily. The 
 banks of the river are thickly studded with towns and villages, 
 between which there is a great deal of intercourse ; the popula- 
 tion of a superior character; life and property more secm^e; men, 
 women, and children all engaged in their several ways in trafdc ; 
 of which (according to Dr. Briggs, who accompanied Mr. Laird) 
 there appeared to be twice as much as on the upper part of the 
 Ehine. The great centre of all this truiJtic lies more than a
 
 224 EXrEDITIOX to the NIGER IN 1841. 
 
 hundred miles above Eboe, and is well known through all that 
 part of the country under the name of Bocqua or Iccory. It is 
 situated not very far below the conj&uence of the Shadda with the 
 Niger ; and is celebrated for a market, or rather fair, which lasts 
 for three days at a time, and is held every ten days ; when it is 
 attended by traders from all the towns on the Niger, both above 
 and below, within a range of more than a hundred miles, and by 
 great numbers from the interior. Some notion of the importance 
 of this place may be drawn from the fact stated by Mr. Laird, 
 that while his vessel lay aground in the neighbourhood for some 
 months he used to observe as many as twenty-five canoes, each 
 containing from forty to sixty people, passing every ten days on 
 then- way to attend the market ; and such is the throng which it 
 brings together, the bustle, the animation, the variety, not only 
 in the wares brought for sale, but in the dress, features, and 
 complexion of the sellers, that even Mr. Oldfield rises into liveli- 
 ness as he describes it. To this market the Eboe traders bring 
 for sale the European goods they have received from the coast — 
 red cloth, velvet, mock coral beads, knives, snuff-boxes, looking- 
 glasses, etc. — while the traders from the upper and inner coun- 
 tries bring (besides slaves, which here as elsewhere are the chief 
 article of commerce) cloths of native manufacture, ivory, horses, 
 saddles and bridles, tobes, straw hats, country-made mats, and 
 various kinds of food; the traffic being carried on as at Eboe, not 
 by barter, but by money in the form of cowries. 
 
 The range and attraction of this market extends, as we have 
 intimated, to a considerable distance both upwards and inwards. 
 About three days' journey to the east lies Fundah, once a kind of 
 entrepot where the Arabs and Fellatahs from the north exchanged 
 European goods for slaves, and a place of considerable trade. 
 The trade is now interrupted by the disorders of the country 
 beyond ; but the fact that it did flourish does not the less indicate 
 an aptitude by natural position for commerce, which will revive 
 when the disorders subside. Here native cotton is raised, " of a 
 very fine staple," out of which they manufacture " durable and 
 heavy cloths ; " there are also considerable dye-works ; and j^lenty 
 of iron and copper, which are wrought into various articles. 
 About thirty miles further to the east, and within fifty of the
 
 CIVILIZATION OF AFRICA. 225 
 
 navigable Sliadda, lies Toto, a town not yet visited by any of our 
 travellers, but said to be the largest in that part of the country ; 
 having a king who is anxious to trade, and a population at once 
 warlike and industrious, and skilful in the working of copper and 
 iron. Goods purchased at Bocqua are occasionally carried 
 thither for sale ; and ivory, Arabian horses, bullocks, sheep, 
 camels, &c., may be had there in exchange. 
 
 Further than this, in this direction, we know nothing. The 
 Shadda was ascended for more than a hundred miles ; but the 
 natives being then in continual dread of incursions by the copper- 
 coloured Fellatahs (a complexion which there passes for white) 
 would enter into no communications with the white strangers. 
 Eeturning, therefore, to Bocqua, and turnmg northwards up the 
 Niger for forty or fifty miles, we come to Kattam Karafi ; another 
 well-known market place for the usual inland produce, both raw 
 and manufactured, which is brought down the river in canoes. 
 A few miles further on we pass Kakiuida, the capital of an inde- 
 pendent kingdom lying to the west ; the people peaceable and 
 industrious, and though apparently not very adventurous, in the 
 habit of trading down the river as far as Bocqua. Advancing 
 still farther in the same direction, we reach a more important 
 place, Egga ; a populous town and much frequented — having a 
 large market filled with sharp bargainers, whose custom it is 
 " as in every other part of Africa " (so says Mr. Oldfield,) " to 
 get the most for every article ; " and with the usual variety of 
 wares, which make the shops of the large traders look like 
 English toyshops. Here too they raise indigo of a superior quality, 
 and a little very fine cotton ; dyeing yards are also to be seen of 
 considerable extent ; spinning walks and weaving machines 
 resembling our shuttle ; and cocoa-nuts (imported from some 
 neighbouring country) are sold in the streets in great quantities., 
 It was here that Lander, in his first descent of the river, first 
 met with Benin and Portuguese clothes in common wear. " The 
 people" (he says) "are very speculative and enterprising, and 
 numbers of them employ all their time solely in trading up and 
 down the Niger. They live entirely in canoes, over which they 
 have a shed that answers every purpose; so that in their 
 constant peregrinations they have no need of any other dwelling 
 
 Q
 
 220 EXrEDITIOX TO THE NIGER IN 1841. 
 
 or shelter than what their canoes afford them." It seems also 
 that the desire of wealth in the abstract, indej^endently of any 
 tempting objects to be purchased with it, is not unknown here. 
 Mr. Oldfield found here an old Mallam who had two or three 
 houses (African of course) filled with cowries ; he purchased 
 goods to a considerable amount, and would be glad (he said) to 
 purchase ten or twelve ship-loads if they would stay. 
 
 At this point we come among a new people ; and it is satis- 
 factory to find that as we advance farther into the heart of the 
 country the population improves. The reputation of the people 
 of Kyffe for skill and industry reached Captain Clapperton in 
 1824 at Kano and Soccatoo ; it met Lander in descending the 
 Niger from Boussa ; and Mr. Oldfield found it in full force as 
 he ascen-ded from Bocqua. They are more especially celebrated 
 for the manufacture of cloths, plain or dyed, which are the best 
 in Africa. Along the borders of this kingdom the river continues 
 to be navigable by an iron steamer, and brings us (some hundred 
 miles further up) to the capital of it, Rahhah ; where at length 
 the trade — which we have accompanied in its course from the 
 mouth of the Nun upwards — meets and mixes, not indeed with 
 the main tide, but with a kind of overflow or eddy of that mam 
 tide of commerce, which, being dra"vsTi across the Desert from the 
 shores of the Mediterranean, flows along the northern borders 
 of Central Africa and passes out by the Desert again. The 
 country round about, though disturbed by predatory and civil 
 war, is populous, and abounds with the usual agricultural pro- 
 duce ; besides which, they have for the export trade, ivory, 
 indigo, ostriches, camels, leopards' skins, bees' wax, (of which 
 latter it is supposed that any quantity might be obtained, if 
 there was a regular demand for it,) not to mention mats and 
 sandals ; in the manufactm-e of which they are said to be un- 
 rivalled. Eabbah has a large market, well regulated, and dis- 
 tributed into separate departments for separate articles — to 
 which the Arabs (for whom, and for all strangers, an enclosure 
 of dwellings in the suburbs of the town is set apart) bring for 
 sale horses, asses, raw silk, red caps from Tripoli, armlets, 
 anklets, and trona or natron, which comes from Bornou, and 
 is used by the natives as a substitute for salt, and given as a
 
 CIVILIZATION OF AFRICA. 227 
 
 medicine to cattle. When Mr. Oldfield was at Eabbah, there were 
 several caravans of merchants staying there from the Haussa 
 country, from Soccatoo, from Kano, and from Tripoli. Some 
 were taking their departure eastward to Bornou, others north- 
 ward to Timbuctoo. Nor is this all. In the middle of the river, 
 and within sight of Eabbah, lies the flourishing island of 
 Zagozhie ; mentioned by Lander as one of the most extensive 
 and thickly inhabited towns, as well as one of the most extensive 
 trading places, in the whole kingdom of Nyffe ; " and described 
 by Mr. Oldfield, with unusual force, as the " Manchester " of 
 Africa. " The cloths which they manufacture, (says Lander,) 
 and the tobes and trousers which they make, are most excellent, 
 and would not disgrace an European manufactory ; they are 
 worn and valued by kings, chiefs, and great men, and are the 
 admiration of the neighbouring countries, which vainly attempt 
 to imitate them. We have also seen a variety of caps, which 
 are worn solely by females, and made of cotton interwoven wdth 
 silk, of the most exquisite workmanship. The people here are 
 uncommonly industrious, both males and females, who are always 
 busy either in culinary or in other domestic occupations. In 
 our walks we see groups of people employed in spinning cotton 
 and silk ; others in making wooden bowls and dishes, mats of 
 various patterns, shoes, sandals, cotton dresses, and caps and the 
 like ; others busily employed in fashioning brass and iron 
 stirrups, bits for bridles, hoes, chains, fetters, etc., and others 
 again in making saddles and various horse accoutrements. 
 These various articles, which are intended for the Eabbah 
 market, evince considerable taste and ingenuity." Personally, 
 the inhabitants of this island are represented as superior to 
 other Africans. " They have liberty stamped upon their features : 
 and lightness and activity, so rarely to be seen in this country 
 of sluggards, are observable in all their actions. The generality 
 of the people are well behaved ; they are hospitable and obliging 
 to strangers, they dwell in amity with their neighbours, they live 
 in unity, peace, and social intercom-se with themselves. They 
 are made bold by freedom, affluent by industry and frugality, 
 healthy by exercise and labour, and happy by a combination of 
 all these blessings." Such were the impressions — heightened
 
 228 EXPEDITION TO THE NIGER IN 1841. 
 
 a little, it may be, by the pleasure of turning a good sentence, 
 but faithful no doubt in the main — -which ten days' residence in 
 the island produced upon the two Landers. We have the rather 
 given them at length, because the secret of all this prosperity is 
 pecuHarly worth enquiring for, with reference to our present 
 subject. Whence so many points of difference between these 
 islanders and their neighbours ? They are of the same race — ■ 
 negroes, as black as coal ; the island is not large, only fifteen 
 miles long, and three broad ; the land, though rich, is so low 
 and moist as to form one continued bog, the greater part over- 
 flowed in the rainy season ; the houses standing in the water, 
 and many of them carried away when the river rises very high ; 
 no missionary has been among them ; no European trader, not 
 even an Arab chief or merchant, has taken up his abode there ; 
 with persons of superior race or education they have had still 
 less communication than their neighbours. What then have 
 they, which their neighbours want, that they should so far 
 surpass them? The answer is given in a word — they have 
 security. The chief of Zagozhie, " king of the dark w^ater," has 
 a fleet of six hundred canoes, and fears no invasion ; his people 
 are bred io the w^ater, they live secure in person and property 
 within their wooden walls, they are the only ferrymen, and all 
 the trade by the river is in their hands. 
 
 But to pass on : — cross the river, and within two or three 
 days' journey, besides the two rising Fellatah toTMis of Eaka and 
 Alorie, concerning which we have no detailed information, we 
 find Katiiiuja ; a city with seven daily markets, the residence of 
 the King of Yarribah, whose power de jure extends westward as 
 far as the coast of Guinea, and must de facto be considerable, if 
 we may judge from the security, both of person and property, 
 with which all strangers coming to visit him are conveyed from 
 place to place. The country round contains many other con- 
 siderable towns, with well supplied and much frequented 
 markets ; and is traversed in more than one direction by parties 
 of merchants — branches of the great stream which we have 
 spoken of — who carry the produce of central Negi'oland 
 (elephants' teeth, natron, rock salt, and Nyffe cloths) as far as 
 Ashantee and the country round Cape Coast Castle.
 
 CIVILIZATION OF AFRICA. 229 
 
 Thus far, tlien, we have found a regular chain of commercial 
 intercourse and exchange — rude, indeed, and scanty, but un- 
 interrupted — by which each impulse given to commerce at the 
 mouth of the Nun, makes itself felt, however feebly, for several 
 hundred miles up the Niger, and over considerable spaces on 
 either side. We have seen that European goods, purchased with 
 palm-oil or with slaves, are carried from Eboe to Bocqua ; and 
 thence dispersed through the adjoining countries, or carried up 
 to Egga and Eabbah, where they are exchanged for the ivory 
 and the manufactures of the Upper Niger, which are thus carried 
 down to Eboe ; and again, that the goods which thus make their 
 way to Eabbah, are carried (or would be, if duly selected to hit 
 the wants or fancies of the people) on one side into the heart of 
 Negroland, and the regular caravan route from Bornou to Tim- 
 buctoo ; and on the other side through Yarribah to the Atlantic ; 
 — that the channel therefore is formed, and the stream does 
 already flow in some quantity ; and that, be it as meagre and 
 as much obstructed as it may, there can be no doubt that if 
 more were drawn into it more would flow. It would not be lost 
 as in a swamp nor absorbed as in a desert, but would enter into 
 the veins and enrich the natural circulation. 
 
 Here then, if necessary, we might be content to stop. Open 
 at Kabbah an extensive market for European goods and an ex- 
 tensive demand for the productions of the interior, and it would 
 not be long before some considerable portion of the main stream 
 would be drawn thither ; the tendency of which miLst plainly be 
 to raise the value of man's labour, and to diminish the (ex- 
 changeable) value of man himself; and so give birth to a rival 
 trade, which, if it prosper, must ultimately swallow up the slave 
 trade. How fast the transmutation may proceed, it is hardly 
 possible to form any well-grounded conjectm'e. It must depend 
 upon many facts of which we are not informed and many 
 accidents which we can neither foresee nor controL But that a 
 slip thus planted would take root and grow — ^that tliere would 
 be life in it — we do not see on what i)rinciple any one can doubt. 
 But we have stopped short of om* full case. Some damage 
 done to the machinery of Mr. Oldfield's vessel, made it unsafe to 
 put on power enough to ascend the ciu-rent fm'ther; and how
 
 230 EXPEDITION TO THE NIGEK IN 1841. 
 
 far above Eabbah the river continues navigable for a vessel of 
 that size we cannot tell. It appears however that Lander, who 
 had the best means of judging, was not without hope of ad- 
 vancmg some hundred miles fui'ther ; as far as the ferry at 
 Comie. They would then have been no longer on the borders 
 and outsliii-ts, but at once in the very highway of that portion of 
 the inland traffic which branches off from the main route of the 
 caravans ; — the way by which all the merchants who trade to 
 the countries west of the Niger pass out of the central region. 
 From this ferry, along this much-frequented road, it is but three 
 days' journey to one of the great centres of the inland traffic, 
 the town of Coolfii ; in which all the larger streams meet, and 
 from which all the smaller radiate. Of the nature of the traffic 
 at this place, we have a full account from Captain Clapperton, 
 who, on his second journey, was detained there a good while ; 
 and his account is well worth the attention of all who wish to 
 know, not only the natural capabilities of Africa for sustaining 
 a large commerce with England, but the extent and depth of the 
 channels which are already there, waiting to receive and diffuse 
 it. Presuming then that an iron steamer, laden with goods 
 from Manchester and Liverpool, may be brought without loss, 
 damage, or danger (the danger from the climate excepted), 
 within easy reach of Coolfu ; and remembering that the countries 
 round have never (we believe) enjoyed a settled peace, but have 
 always been exposed to disturbance by conquests, insurrections, 
 or petty predatory warfare ; — that at the very time when the 
 account was written, a civil war had been " desolating the 
 country for the last seven years," during which the inhabitants 
 had been twice burned out of the town ; — that there does not 
 appear to exist at Coolfu, more than in any other part of the 
 country, any settled constitution or form of government : — there- 
 fore, that all the accidents by which commerce is promoted or 
 depressed were at that time against, not for, it ; — bearing these 
 things in mind, let us see what is the actual state of it — what 
 progress, vidth opportunities so limited and against such heavy 
 disadvantages, commerce has actually made. 
 
 At Coolfu then, besides the daily market attended by the 
 inhabitants, there are two markets held weekly which are re-
 
 CIVITJZATION OF AFRICA. 231 
 
 Borted to by strangers. The extent of their attraction may be 
 thus ex2)lained. From Bornou, far to the east ; from Cubbi, 
 Yaoori, Zamfra, and the borders of the desert, on the north ; 
 from Yarribah and the Gold Coast, westward ; and from Benin, 
 Jaboo, and the furthest part of Nyffe, to the south ; there resort 
 to this market parties of regular merchants, bringing the j^roduce 
 of their several countries for sale : as, for instance, salt from the 
 north ; red wood, peppers, and European cloths from the south ; 
 kolla and goora nuts, gold, woollen cloths and printed cottons, 
 brass and pewter dishes, earthenware, and muskets, from the 
 western coast ; horses, natron, unwrought silk, undyed tobes, 
 from Bornou ; besides a variety of articles which find their way 
 across the desert — Venetian beads, Maltese swords, Italian 
 looking-glasses, gums and scented woods of the east; silks, 
 turbans, and tunics of checked silk and linen from Egypt ; and 
 many more ; all of which are to be had at Coolfu, and meet with 
 a ready sale. Some of these merchants erect tents for them- 
 selves outside the walls, where they sell their wares ; others send 
 them by their slaves to the market, and round to the different 
 houses ; others entrust them to brokers, of w^hom there are many 
 in the town, both male and female ; others live in the houses 
 of their friends. And besides these regular merchants, there is 
 a great number of petty traders, chiefly women, who come from 
 the towns lying to the west of the Niger in Yarribah and Borgoo, 
 many days' journey distant ; carrying their goods on their heads, 
 and trading at the several markets as they pass. These lodge 
 in the town, and, while they attend the markets daily, support 
 themselves by spinning cotton during their spare time. As soon 
 as they have sold what they have, and bought what they want, 
 they return to their homes again. The inhabitants likewise (not 
 excepting the artizans and manufacturers, of whom there are 
 many), are mostly engaged in buying and selling.* 
 
 From these facts some notion may be drawn of the disposi- 
 tions and habits of people in this part of Africa with regard to 
 trading. The demand must be considerable which draws to- 
 gether such a variety of goods from such distant places ; the 
 enterprise must be considerable which carries people such long 
 
 * C]ap{)e^•tou, p. 135, el seq.
 
 232 EXPEDITION TO THE NIGEK IN 1841. 
 
 journeys to buy or sell them ; the security considerable which 
 makes it practicable to accomplish these journeys with safety. 
 At present, no doubt, theii- wants are simple and few, and it may 
 be asked whether there is any reason to expect that they will 
 expand ; the supply, it may be thought, has hitherto followed 
 the demand, such as it is ; but the demand being now satisfied, 
 and the vessel full, any further supply would only be wasted. 
 And certainly, knowing so little as we do of the history and 
 gro^^•th of their wants ; not knowing whether they have pre- 
 ceded, or kept pace with, or lagged behind their opportunities ; 
 hardly knowing for certain whether they are at this moment in- 
 creasing or declining — we must admit this question to be a fair 
 matter of doubt and speculation. It ajjpears however to us 
 that the manners and customs of these people indicate any- 
 thing rather than an indifference to superfluous luxm'ies or a 
 disposition to rest contented with a bare supply of the more im- 
 portunate wants of nature. " Allow not natm-e more than 
 needs, man's life is cheap as beast's " ; which is by no means 
 the case in Negroland. Their life is full of toys and superfluities 
 and social vanities ; and their appetite for these appears to be 
 as insatiable as a child's. The following sketch of the daily life 
 of the inhabitants of Coolfu is worth attention, as showing how 
 far they have advanced in artificial habits — a better measure of 
 the nature and strength of their wants than that eagerness for 
 new ornaments and playthings of which accomits reach us in 
 every page ; because the existence of such habits proves not 
 only then* taste for superfluities, but the systematic and diligent 
 cultivation of it : — 
 
 "At daylight the whule household arise; the women begin to clean the 
 house, the men to wash from head to foot ; the women and children are then 
 washed in water, in which the leaf of a bush has been boiled, called ['anibarnia ; 
 when this is done, breakfast of cocoa is served out, every one having their sepa- 
 rate dish, the women and children eating together. Alter breakfast the women 
 and children rub themselves over with the pounded red wood and a little grease, 
 which lightens ihe darkness of the black skin. A score or jjatch of the red 
 jjowder is put on some place where it will show to the best advantage. The eyes 
 are blacked with khol. The mistress and better-looking females stain their 
 teeth and the inside of their lips of a yellow colour with gora, the flower of the 
 tobacco plant, anil the V^ark of a root ; the outer part of the lij)s, hair, and eye- 
 brows, are stained with shani or prepared indigo. Then the women who atleud
 
 CIVILIZATION OF AFRICA. 233 
 
 the market prepare their wares, and when ready, go. The elderly women pre- 
 pare, clean, aud spin cotton at home, and cook the victuals ; the younger females 
 are generally sent round the town selling the small rice balls, fried beans, &c. 
 'J'he master of the house generally takes a walk to the market, or sits in the 
 shade at the door of his house, hearing the news or speaking of the price of 
 natron or other goods. The weavers are daily employed at their trade ; some 
 are sent to cut wood and bring it to the market ; others to bring grass for the 
 horses that may belong to the house, or to take to the market to sell ; numbers, 
 at the beginning of the rainy season, are employed in clearing the ground for 
 sowing the maize or millet ; some are sent on distant journeys to buy or sell for 
 their master and mistress, and very rarely betray their trust. About noon they 
 return home, when all have a mess of the pudding called waki, or boiled beans ; 
 and about two or three in the afternoon they return to their different employ- 
 ments, in which they remain till near sunset, when they count their gains to 
 their master or mistress, who receives it and puts it away carefully in the strong 
 room. They then have a meal of pudding or a little fat stew. The mistress of 
 the house, when she goes to rest, has her feet put into a cold poultice of the 
 pounded henna leaves. The young then go to dance and play if it is moon- 
 Ii;j;ht, and the old to lounge and converse in the open square of the house, or in 
 the outer coozie, where they remain till the cool of the night." * 
 
 Whether a population which has reached this stage shall 
 stand still or go on, will depend in a great measure upon acci- 
 dental facilities, opportunities, and temptations. The demands 
 of the body being satisfied, and objects of ambition being pre- 
 sented to the mind, simple indeed, but sufficient to exercise the 
 faculties and engage them in pursuit, they may remain content 
 with what they have, so long as nothing is presented to them 
 which they like better. The King of Eyeo or Kiama glories in 
 gilt brass buttons ; and will not cease to glory in them, until he 
 finds that they tarnish, while golden buttons retain their bright- 
 ness. But as soon as he knows this, his desire changes ; he 
 despises brass, and sends a score of his more elderly wives, laden 
 with the work of their hands, to bring him gold buttons from 
 the furthest parts of Ashantee. The spinning w^omen at Kano 
 and Soccatoo are all equipped with pocket mirrors, which they 
 carry in their cotton baskets ; appealing to them every five 
 minutes to reflect the pleasm-e of the vanity. Though these 
 mirrors are no flatterers, and can embrace only a feature or two 
 at a time, their owners are nevertheless well pleased, and will 
 continue to smile upon them until some brighter rival shall 
 
 * Clapperton, p. 110.
 
 234 KxrF.DiTiox to the nicer tx is-ii. 
 
 appear — larger, and showing a fairer image ; from which moment 
 every sj^inuing Moman in Kano and Soccatoo will be more or less 
 uuhapj)}^ until her basket shall be equipped wdth a better 
 looking-glass. All will turn on the opportunity and encourage- 
 ment which shall be afforded. Throw in their path better things 
 than they now have, and if they can be made to understand the 
 superiority, no doubt they will wish to have them; ask in ex- 
 change for these such articles as they can best afford to supply, 
 and thej' will soon learn to apply themselves to the production 
 of those articles. Hitherto they have never been asked for raw 
 cotton, hardly for ivory. Only spread before them the glittering 
 treasures of Birmingham and Manchester, asking for these in 
 return, and they will soon begin to raise cotton for export, and 
 to circumvent the elephants which infest their forests. 
 
 Following the caravan route eastward (for be it remembered 
 that we are still within three days' journey of our own vessel), 
 and passing several populous towns with considerable markets, 
 we arrive in about thirty days at Kano, the next great centre of 
 trade, lying halfway between the capitals of the two most power- 
 ful nations of central Africa, the Bornouese and the Fellatahs. 
 Here again we find a population by no means unprepared to 
 profit by new opportunities and examj^les of civilization ; a 
 people ingenious and industrious, and full of the sj)irit of traffic ; 
 some curious manufactures ; a well-frequented and well-supplied 
 market ; an organized and regulated trade, and all the operations 
 of buying and selling in full activity. Here is Captain Clapper- 
 ton's account of the regulations of the market, taken fi'om the 
 narrative of his first journey in 1824 : — 
 
 " The soug or market is well supplied with every necessary and luxury ia 
 request among the people of the interior. . . . There is no market in Africa so 
 well regulated. The sheikh of the soug lets the stalls at so much a month, and 
 the rent forms a part of the revenues of the Governor. The sheikh of the soug 
 also fixes the prices of all wares, for which he is entitled to a small commission, 
 at the rate of fifty whydah or cowries on every sale amounting to four dollars, 
 or 8000 cowries, according to the standard exchange between silver money and 
 this shell currency. There is another custom, regulated with equal certainty, 
 and in universal practice ; the seller returns to the buyer a stated part of the 
 pi ice, by way of blessing, as they term it, or of luck-penny according to our 
 less devout phraseology. This is a discount of 2 per cent, on the purchase 
 money ; but if the bargain is made in a hired house, it is the landlord who
 
 CIVILIZATION OF AFRICA. 235 
 
 receives the luck-penny. I may here notice the crreat convenience of the cowrie, 
 which no forgery can imitate ; and which, by the dexterity of the natives in 
 reckoning the largest sums, foj-ms a ready medium of exciiange in all transac- 
 tions, from the lowest to the highest. Particular quarters are assigned to dis- 
 tinct articles ; the smaller wares being set in booths in the middle, and cattle 
 and bulky commodities being exposed to sale in the outskirts of the market 
 place ; wood, dyed grass, bean straw for provender, beans, Guinea corn, Indian corn, 
 wheat, etc., are in one quarter : goats, sheep, asses, bullocks, horses, and camels, 
 in another : earthenware and indigo in a third : vegetables and fruit of all de- 
 scriptions, such as yams, sweet potatoes, water and musk melons, papau fruit, 
 limes, casheu nuts, plums, mangoes, shaldocks, dates, etc., in a fourth, and so 
 on. . . . The interior of the market is filled with stalls of bamboo, laid out in 
 regular streets, where the most costly wares are sold, and articles of dress, and 
 other little matters of use or ornament made and repaired. Bands of musicians 
 parade up and down, to attract purchasers to particular booths. Here are dis- 
 played, coarse writing-paper of Frencli manufacture, brought from Barbary ; 
 scissors and knives of native workmanship ; crude antimony and tin, both the 
 produce of the country ; unwrought silk of a red colour, which they make into 
 belts or slings, or weave into the finest cotton tobes ; armlets or bracelets of 
 brass; beads of glass, coral, and amber; finger-rings of pewter, and a few silver 
 trinkets, but none of gold ; tobes, turkadees, and turban shawls ; coarse woollen 
 cloths of all colours ; coarse calico ; Moorish dresses ; the cast-off gaudy garbs 
 of the Mamelukes of Barbary : pieces of Egyptian linen checked or striped with 
 gold; sword-blades from Malta, etc. The market is crowded from sunrise to 
 sunset every day, not excepting their Sabbath, which is kept on Friday. The 
 merchants understand the benefits of monopoly as well as any people in the 
 world ; they take good care never to overstock the market, and, if anything falls 
 iu price, it is immediately withdrawn for a few days. The market is regulated 
 Avith the greatest fiiirncss, and the regulations are strictly and impartially enforced. 
 If a tobe or turkadee, purchased here, is carried to Burnou, or any distant place, 
 without being opened, and is there discovered to be of inferior quality, it is im- 
 mediately sent back as a matter of course ; the name of the dylala or broker 
 being written inside every parcel. In this case the dylala must find out the 
 seller, who, by the laws of Kano, is forthwith obliged to refund the purchase 
 money." * 
 
 It was here that Captain Clapperton was surprised to find 
 English green cotton umhrellas not uncommon. f They were 
 brought from the shores of the Mediterranean, by the way of 
 Ghadames ; how much less convenient a road than the Niger ! 
 
 Since the people of Nyffe (among whom, it will be remem- 
 bered, our steamer must remain) will be the chief receivers and 
 transmitters of our goods, it is satisfactory to know that they 
 bore as high a reputation at Kano in 1824, as we have seen that 
 
 * Vol. iv. p. 31. t "^ol. iv. p. 38.
 
 236 EXrEDITIOX to the NIGER IN 1841. 
 
 they now do all along the Niger. " Of all the various people 
 ■who frequent Kano, the Nj-ffeans are most celebrated for their 
 industry ; as soon as they arise, they go to market and buy cotton 
 for their women to spin, who, if not emploj^ed in this way, make 
 hilhim for sale, which is a kind of flummery made of flom- and 
 tamarinds. The very slaves of this people are in great request, 
 being invariably excellent tradesmen ; and, when once obtained, 
 are never sold again out of the country." * 
 
 CaiDtain Clapi^ei'ton then proceeds to describe with some 
 minuteness the several processes of spinning, weaving, preparing 
 indigo, dyeing, tamiing, and manufactming leathern jars ; in all 
 of which the people of Kano show considerable skill. 
 
 Eastward of Kano, some thirty daj^s' journey, lies Kouka, 
 the capital of Bornou; where, according to Major Denham, 
 writing in 1824, the Sheikh El Kanem}' — by whose vigour and 
 wisdom the kingdom had within a very few years been delivered 
 fi'om subjection to the Fellatahs, and subjected to law and 
 government of its own — was extremely anxious to promote com- 
 merce ; where all the merchants who have ventui-ed thither are 
 encouraged and treated with liberality — and some are known to 
 have returned, after a residence of less than nine years, mth 
 fortunes of 15,000 or 20,000 dollars ; where Englishmen es- 
 pecially are sure of a kind reception : and where " the roads are 
 probably as safe as in England." Beyond this lies the Desert 
 on one side, and on the other barbarous nations of which we 
 know nothing. 
 
 Westward of Kano, some twenty days' journey, we come to 
 Soccatoo, the capital of the Fellatah empire — the most populous 
 town which Captain Clapperton had seen in Africa — where we 
 again find the usual appearances of order and social life, with 
 its established customs, and formal vanities, and round of daily 
 occupation. It seems to be less of a trading place than Kano, 
 though it lies in the route of the caravans ; but we find the 
 usual species of traffic going on, and the ordinary works both in 
 agriculture and manufactm-e ; grain in abundance ; indigo and 
 cotton plantations ; dyeing-houses, weaving machines, tan-yards, 
 etc. ; and Captain Clapi)erton is said to have declared that in 
 
 * Vol. iii, p. 19G.
 
 CIVILIZATION OF AFRICA. 237 
 
 this town he could have negotiated a bill on the Treasury of 
 London. 
 
 Of the countries Ij'ing between this city and the famous 
 Timbuctoo, towards which the caravan route now takes its way, 
 our information is less detailed and not so much to be relied 
 upon ; though if it be true that between Mushgrelia and Haussa 
 there are more boats employed on the river than between Eosetta 
 and Cairo, and that the fields are enclosed and irrigated by 
 canals and water-wheels,* it seems to indicate a state of advance- 
 ment and a capacity for imi:)rovement not inferior to that which 
 we have been describing. 
 
 But we have already proceeded far enough to make out a 
 prima facie case for trying the experiment of a trade up the 
 Niger. To this conclusion we wish for the present to limit our- 
 selves. The establishment of factories, the acquisition of terri- 
 tory, and the organization of companies, involve questions of 
 great moment and difficulty, upon which we cannot now enter. 
 The course and final destinies of the work it would be idle to 
 speculate upon : but it is important, in this more than in almost 
 any other enterprise, that we should proceed with eyes open and 
 feelings uninflamed — as there is none in which a false step, 
 or a fall across the threshold, is likely to involve more, important 
 consequences. We are not among those who regard no public 
 undertaking as justifiable which is likely to cost good lives and 
 limbs in the prosecution of it. No great thing is accomplished 
 without great sacrifices on the part of those who lead the way. 
 Not in wars only, but in religion, in politics, in civilization, in 
 commerce, even in science and literatui-e — each in its several 
 kind — the world has always marched on to take possession of 
 its conquests over the dead bodies of the forlorn hope : — a melan- 
 choly thing to reflect upon, did not reflection likewise teach us, 
 that between the few who die to w^in the conquest and the many 
 who live to enjoy it, the real difference amounts after all but to 
 this — the first die, having done something, to-day ; the others 
 die, having done nothing, to-morrow. And certainly, when we 
 consider the mfinite nature of the benefit which will be secured 
 if this vast continent should ever be reclaimed to Christianity 
 
 * Buxton, J). 475.
 
 2118 EXPEDITION TO THE NIGER IN 1841. 
 
 and the use of man, we cannot but think that human Hfe may 
 be worse wasted than in taking whatever measures may be in the 
 first instance necessary for setting the work on foot. 
 
 The opportunity is now before us ; it lies with England to 
 take the first step. If England does nothing, nothing will be 
 done. If the Government does nothing, nothing will be done as 
 it should be. Private adventurers, pursuing their own ends in 
 their own ways, cannot act largely or systematically enough ; 
 cannot make the sacrifices which will occasionally be required by 
 consistent dealing on a great scale. They will sometimes be 
 reduced to straits which will tempt them to acts of violence or of 
 subterfuge, ruinous to the moral effect of example, and destruc- 
 tive of the confidence upon which all prosperous intercourse must 
 be built. What then is the step which the Government is called 
 on to take ? We recur to our original iDosition : it is the busi- 
 ness of Government to lead and feel the way ; neither keeping 
 aloof, as Mr. Jamieson recommends, and leaving the work wholly 
 to private adventure ; nor plunging, as others would have it, 
 headlong and irrevocably into the middle; but sending out proper 
 persons to explore the ground ; to open communications with the 
 several chiefs ; to make them understand the advantages of a 
 commercial intercourse with England ; to persuade them to 
 agree to certain conditions of protection and immunity ; to es- 
 tablish a regular system of duties and customs ; to devise, if 
 possible, some unobnoxious method of enforcing the observance 
 of such conditions and regulations by either party ; to provide 
 our traders (which will probably prove the most difficult, as it is 
 one of the most important, points to accomplish) with some 
 better way of obtaining redress, when they are cheated, than 
 those to which the Liverpool expedition was reduced — namely, 
 the pointing of great guns, the firing of villages, and the seizure 
 of innocent persons for hostages ; to make, or to rej)ort upon 
 the practicability of making treaties for the suppression of the 
 slave trade ; to examine the probable advantages or disadvan- 
 tages of erecting a fort on the Niger, to be commanded by an 
 officer who may act as arbiter in disputes, protector of British 
 subjects, and representative of the British Government ; and, 
 above all, to supply more accurate and more complete informa-
 
 CIVILIZATION OF AFRICA. 2^9 
 
 tion than we now possess concerning the condition of the country, 
 the systems of law and government (if such they can be called), 
 and the proper way of infusing into them a better life, and estab- 
 lishing permanent and prosperous relations. If these things can 
 be done, the trade which has already commenced will imme- 
 diately be placed upon a much better footing, and we shall be 
 able to proceed to the adoption of further measures with some 
 knowledge of what we are about. Such we take to be the objects 
 of the forthgoing expedition, and on such grounds we hold it to 
 be good. 
 
 NOTE. 
 
 The expeflition sailed at the time appointed. But thou;;}! every precaution 
 had been talten which science could suggest for the prevention or mitigation of 
 the coast fever, the mortality proved so great that nothing could he done, and 
 the outcry at home so vehement that no second attempt of the kind under the 
 authority of the Government could ever he thought of. And though private 
 vessels have since made their way up and down the Niger on private business 
 without exposing their owners to public reprobation, no important advance 
 appears to have been made (as indeed little was to be expected) in the way of open- 
 ing a civilizing intercourse with Negroland by that road. That the Government 
 should have been compelled to abandon all further attempts of the kind is the 
 more to be regretted, because the exceptional mortality in this expedition appears 
 to have been due to an oversight which could be easily avoided. When I was at 
 Washington in 1842,1 met a gentleman who had just returned from Liberia. 
 He was a medical man, and had served for some years as the chief medical 
 officer of the Government there. The news of the fate of our Niger expedition 
 had reached me not long before, and I asked him whether he thought that in an 
 expedition up the Niger with a European crew the risk of such a number of 
 deaths was unavoidable. He thought not : " But then," he said, " you must 
 have acclimatised constitutions for your crew." Now I believe that in our enter- 
 prise, that was the one precaution which was not taken. The selection of the 
 crew was, of course, the last of the preparations. The others had taken so much 
 time that there was danger of the season passing by. What remained was done 
 in a hurry, and the crew consisted chiefly, I believe, of healthy young English- 
 men or Scotchmen, — the favourite victims ol the African coast fever. Let us 
 hope that the measures now in progress for carrying commerce and civilization 
 into the interior of Africa from the eastern side will prove more fortunate.
 
 VIII. 
 DICKENS'S AMERICAN NOTES.* 
 
 Travellers should be well-instructed and conscientious men, for 
 the reputation of nations is in their hands. Lawyers, physicians, 
 and clergymen, must pass their examinations, and receive their 
 credentials, before they can give opinions which the public are 
 authorized to confide in ; but for a man who has been where no 
 man else has been, it is enough if he can write — spelling, punc- 
 tuation, and sjTitax, will be fm-nished by his publisher ; and there 
 is no continent so large but he can pronounce upon the character 
 of its laws, government, and manners, with an authority which 
 few professors enjoy. If there be any Englishman living who 
 has smuggled himself through the interior of China, ascertained 
 the colour of the Emperor's eyes and beard, eluded the officers 
 of justice, and escaped from bowstring and bastinado down the 
 river Yang-tse-Kiang, now is his time for a book on China and 
 the Chinese. For three months to come, he will be an absolute 
 authority on all the internal affairs of a third of the human race. 
 Everybody will read his book, and everybody will believe all he 
 Bays. But he must not lose his tide ; if he let anybody get the 
 Btai-t of him, his authority will go for little more than it is worth 
 — unless he be able, not only to write, but to write the more 
 readable book ; for it may be generally observed, that where we 
 have conflicting accounts of a foreign country, the opinion which 
 carries the day is not that of the person who has taken most 
 
 * " American Notes for General Cirrulatinn." By Charles Dickens. 2 vols., 
 8vo. London: 1842. Edinhuryh Ilevieic, January, 1843.
 
 DICKENS'S AMERICAN NOTES. 241 
 
 pains, or had the best opportunities, or is best qualified by edu- 
 cation and natural ability, for forming a judgment, but that of 
 the most agreeable writer. 
 
 We say this only of the " reading public " in general. Very 
 many, no doubt, there are amongst us of whom it is not true. 
 Very many there are, who are more particular about the forma- 
 tion of their opinions on such matters — who hold it to be not 
 foolish only, but wrong, to let false impressions settle in the 
 mind ; and who, remembering that a few weeks' residence among 
 strangers will not qualify a man to judge of the character of 
 nations and governments, whose opinion nobody would ask on 
 the working of the Poor Law or the Corporation Act in his own 
 parish, require some better assurance of the worth of a traveller's 
 judgment before they will take the character of a continent from 
 his representation. With such fastidious readers, in entering 
 upon a book of travels, to learn something of the character and 
 capacity of the writer is a primary object. Unfortunately, 
 printed books having no physiognomy, but being all alike plau- 
 sible, it is an object scarcely attainable, except where the writer 
 has the rare art of impressing his character upon his composi- 
 tion, or where he has already written on matters which others 
 understand. It is on this account that we have looked forward 
 with considerable interest to a work on America by Mr. Dickens ; 
 — not as a man whose views on such a subject were likely to 
 have any conclusive value, but as one with whom the public is 
 personally acquainted through his former works. We all know 
 "Boz," though we may not have seen his face. We know what 
 he thinks about affairs at home, with which we are all conversant 
 — about poor-laws and rich-laws, elections, schools, courts of 
 justice, magistrates, policemen, cab-drivers, and housebreakers — 
 matters which lie round about us, and which we flatter ourselves 
 we understand as well as he. We know, therefore, what to infer 
 from his pictures of society abroad ; what weight to attribute to 
 his representations ; with what caution and allowance to enter- 
 tain them. If his book abound in broad pictures of social 
 absm-dities and vulgarities, we know that he commenced his 
 literary career as an illustrator of Seymour's cockney caricatures, 
 and that his tendency in that direction is so strong, that, though 
 
 It
 
 242 DICKENS'S AMERICAN NOTES. 
 
 possessing sources of far finer and deeper humour, he can hardly 
 refrain from indulging it to excess. If he draw bitter pictures 
 of harsh jailers and languishing prisoners, we know that his 
 sj-mpathy for human suffering sometimes betrays him into an 
 unjust antipathy to those whose duty it is to carry into effect the 
 severities of justice. If he grow learned on questions of govern- 
 ment and politics, we know that his opinions on such matters 
 are not much enquired after at home. We know, in short, where 
 we may trust his judgment, where we must take it with caution, 
 and where we may neglect it. 
 
 Mr. Dickens has many qualities which make his testimonj^ 
 as a j)assing observer in a strange country, unusually valuable. 
 A truly genial nature ; an unweariable spirit of observation, 
 quickened by continual exercise ; an intimate acquaintance with 
 the many varieties of life and character which are to be met 
 with in large cities ; a clear eye to see through the surface and 
 false disguises of things ; a desire to see things truly ; a respect 
 for the human soul, and the genuine face and voice of nature, 
 under whatever disadvantages of person, situation, or repute m 
 the world ; a mind which, if it be too much to call it original in 
 the highest sense of the word, yet uses always its own eyes, and 
 applies itself to see the object before it takes the impression — to 
 understand the case before it passes judgment ; a wide range of 
 sympathy, moreover — with sweetness, and a certain steady self- 
 respect, which keeps the spirit clear from perturbations, and free 
 to receive an untroubled image ; — a mind, in short, which moves 
 with freedom and pleasure in a wider world than has been thrown 
 open to the generality of men. This happy combination of rare 
 qualities, which Mr. Dickens's previous works show that he pos- 
 sesses, would seem to qualify him, in some respects, beyond any 
 English traveller that has yet written about the United States, — • 
 if not to discuss the political prospects of that country, or to 
 di-aw comparisons between monarchical and republican institu- 
 tions, — yet to receive and reproduce for the information of the 
 British public a just image of its existing social condition. To 
 balance these, however, it must be confessed that he labours 
 under some considerable disadvantages. His education must 
 have been desultory, and not of a kind likely to train him to
 
 DICKENS'S AMERICAN NOTES. 243 
 
 habits of grave and solid speculation. A young man, a satirist 
 both by profession and by humour, whose studies have lain 
 almost exclusively among the odd characters in the odd corners 
 of London, who does not appear to have attempted the system- 
 atic cultivation of his powers, or indeed to have been aware of 
 them, until they were revealed to him by a sudden blaze of 
 popularity which would have turned a weaker head — who has 
 since been constantly occupied in his own peculiar field of fiction 
 and humour — how can he have acquired the knowledge and the 
 speculative powers necessary for estimating the character of a 
 great people, placed in circumstances not only strange to him, 
 but new in the history of mankind ; or the working of institu- 
 tions which are yet in their infancy, their hour of trial not yet 
 come — in their present state resembling nothing by the analogy 
 of which their tendency and final scope may be guessed at? 
 Should he wander into proi)hecies or philosophic speculations, it 
 is clear that such a guide must be followed with considerable 
 distrust. Nor, indeed, can his opinions be taken without abate- 
 ment and allowance, even in that which belongs more especially 
 to his own province — the aspect and character of society as it 
 exists. As a comic satirist, with a strong tendency to caricature, 
 it has been his business to observe society in its irregularities 
 and incongruities, not in the sum and total result of its opera- 
 tion ; a habit which, even in scenes with which we are most 
 famihar, can hardly be indulged without disturbing the judg- 
 ment ; and which, among strange men and manners, may easily 
 mislead the fancy beyond the power of the most vigilant under- 
 standing to set it right. It is the nature of an Englishman to 
 think everything ridiculous which contrasts with what he has 
 been used to; and it costs some effort of his reflective and imagina- 
 tive powers to make him feel that the absurdity is in himself, 
 and not in the thing he sees. In a strange country, where the 
 conventional manners and regulations of society are not the 
 same as in England, every room and every street must teem with 
 provocations to this kind of amusement, which will keep a good- 
 humoured English traveller, of average reflective powers, in 
 continual laughter. And though Mr. Dickens hiows better, it is 
 too much to expect of him that he should have always acted
 
 244 DICKEXS'S AMERICAN NOTES. 
 
 upon his better knowledge ; especially when we consider that he 
 had his character as an amusing writer to keep up. The obliga- 
 tion which he undoubtedly lies under to keep his readers well 
 entertained, (failing which, any book by " Boz " would be univer- 
 sally denounced as a catchpenny,) must have involved him in 
 many temptations quite foreign to his business as an impartial 
 observer ; for any man who would resolutely abstain from seeing 
 things in false lights, must make up his mind to forego half hi3 
 triumjjhs as a wit, and vice versa. Even his habits as a writer 
 of fiction must have been against him; for such a man will 
 always be tempted to study society, with a view to gather sugges- 
 tions and materials for his creative faculty to work upon, rather 
 than simply to consider and understand it. The author of 
 " Pickwick " will study the present as our historical novelists 
 study the past — to find not what it is, but what he can make 
 of it. 
 
 It is further to be borne in mind, in estimating Mr. Dickens's 
 claims to attention, that the study of America does not appear to 
 have been his primary object in going, nor his main business 
 while there. He is understood to have gone out as a kind of 
 missionary in the cause of international copyright ; * with the 
 design of persuading the American public (for it was the public 
 to which he seems to have addressed himself) to abandon their 
 present privilege of enjoying the produce of all the literary 
 industry of Great Britain without paying for it ; — an excellent 
 recommendation, the adoption of which would, no doubt, in the 
 end prove a vast national benefit. In the mean time, however, 
 as it cannot be carried into effect except by taxing the very 
 many who read for the benefit of the very few who write and the 
 present for the benefit of the future — to attempt to get it adopted 
 by a legislature over which the will of the many has any para- 
 mount influence, would seem to be a very arduous, if not an 
 altogether hopeless enterprise. In this arduous, if not hopeless 
 enterprise, Mr. Dickens, having once engaged himself, must be 
 presumed, during the short period of his visit, to have chiefly 
 occupied his thoughts ; therefore the gathering of materials for a 
 
 • "With regard to this sentence, which gave great offence to Mr. Dickens, see the 
 note at the end of the paper.
 
 DICKENS'S AMERICAN NOTES. 245 
 
 book about America must be regarded as a subordinate and inci- 
 dental task — the produce of such hours as he could sj)are from 
 his main employment. Nor must it be forgotten that in this, 
 the primary object of his visit, he decidedly failed ; a circum- 
 stance (not unimportant when we are considering his position 
 and opportunities as an observer of manners in a strange coun- 
 try) to which we draw attention, the rather because Mr. Dickens 
 makes no allusion to it himself. A man may read the volumes 
 through without knowing that the question of international 
 cop^Tight has ever been raised on either side of the Atlantic. 
 
 Om- catalogue of cautions and drawbacks grows long ; but 
 there is yet another point to which, as it does not appear on the 
 face of the book itself, we must advert. Though Mr. Dickens 
 does not tell us of it, it is a notorious fact, that throughout his 
 stay in the United States he was besieged by the whole host 
 of lion-hunters, whose name in that land of liberty and equality 
 is legion. In England, we preserve our lions : to be admitted 
 to the sight of one, except on public occasions, is a privilege 
 granted only to the select. Persons of a certain distinction in 
 the fashionable world are alone licensed to exhibit him ; and the 
 exhibition is open to those only whom such distinguished persons 
 may choose to honour by admission. In America (always ex- 
 cepting a skin of the right colour), the pursuit of this kind of 
 game requires no qualification whatever ; for though society 
 seems to form itself there, just as it does with us, into a series of 
 circles, self-distinguished and excluded one from the other, yet 
 there does not appear to be any generally acknowledged scale 
 of social dignity. Each circle may assert its own pretensions, 
 and act upon them ; but they are not binding upon the rest. 
 One citizen may not choose to dine with another, just as one 
 party may refuse to act with another in politics ; but they are 
 not the less equal in the eye of the law. In the eye of the law 
 and of the universe, a citizen is a citizen, and, as such, has a 
 right to do the honom*s of his country to a stranger ; and though 
 there are doubtless many circles in which the stranger is pitied 
 for having to receive such promiscuous attentions, there is none 
 which seems to consider itself excluded from the privilege of 
 offering them. Of the evils w^hich necessarily beset a man whom
 
 2\.Q DICKENS'S AMERICAN NOTES. 
 
 everybody is agog to see, this is a very serious aggravation. 
 In London bis condition is bad enough ; for the attentions which 
 are prompted not by respect but by this prurient cm-iosity 
 must always be troublesome and thankless. But in America 
 the whole population tui-ns out, and the hmited animal has no 
 escape. The popularity of Mr. Dickens's works is said to be 
 even greater there than it is at home. Coi)ies are cu'culated 
 through all corners of the land at a tenth of the native cost ; 
 readers therefore are ten times as numerous. The curiosity to 
 see him, hear him, and touch him, was accordingly universal ; 
 and (if we may trust cm-rent report) his time must have been 
 passed in one continual levee. It was not merely the profusion 
 of hospitable offers — the crowd of callers that besieged his lodg- 
 ings, — the criticisms upon his person, — and the regular announce- 
 ment of his movements in the newspapers : — But if he walked 
 in the street, he was followed ; if he went to the play, he had to 
 pass through a lane formed by rows of uncovered citizens ; if he 
 took his seat in the railway car a few minutes before the time of 
 starting, the idlers in the neighbom-hood came about him, and 
 feU to discussing his personal ai)pearance ; if he sat in his room, 
 boys fi-om the street came in to look at him, and from the 
 window beckoned their companions to follow (vol. i. p. 277) ; if 
 he took the wings of the evening, and fled to the farthest limits 
 of geography, even there his notoriety pursued him. As he lay 
 reading in a steam-boat, between Sandusky and Buffalo, he was 
 startled by a whisj)er in his ear (which came, however, from the 
 adjoining cabin, and was not addressed to him), "Boz is on 
 board still, my dear." Again, after a pause (complainingly) 
 ** Boz keeps himself very close." And once more, after a long 
 interval of silence, " I suppose that Boz wiU be writing a book 
 by-and-by, and putting all our names in it." This is the very 
 miseiy of kings, who can enjoy no privacy, nor ever see the 
 natural face of the world they live in, but see only their own 
 importance reflected in the faces of the gaping crowd that sur- 
 rounds them. We set down the circumstance among Mr. 
 Dickens's most serious disadvantages — not because we sujipose 
 his judgment to have been biassed by it, for he has too much 
 sense to be gratified by this kind of homage, and too much
 
 Dickens's ameeican notes. 247 
 
 good natiu'e to take it unkindly ; but because it must have pre- 
 vented him from seeing society in its natm-al condition : it must 
 have presented the New World to his eyes under circumstances 
 of disturbance, which brought an undue proportion of the sedi- 
 ment to the surface, and thereby made his position as an observer 
 very unfavourable. In the New World as in the Old, and in all 
 classes, from the highest to the lowest, the curiosity which besets 
 the paths of every much-talked-of man is essentially vulgar ; 
 and, in such a case as tliis, can hardly fail to leave upon the 
 mind of the sufferer an undue impression of disgust. 
 
 Such being our opinion of JVIr. Dickens's faculties and oppor- 
 tunities for observation, we expected from him a book, not without 
 large defects both positive and negative, but containing some 
 substantial and valuable addition to our stock of information 
 with regard to this most interesting country — interesting not 
 only for the indissoluble connexion of its interests with om* 
 own, but likewise as the quarter from which we must look for 
 light on the great question of these times, — What is to become 
 of Democracy, and how is it to be dealt with ? We cannot say 
 that our expectations are justified by the result. Though the 
 book is said to have given great offence on the other side of the 
 Atlantic, we cannot see any sufficient reason for it. To us it 
 appears that Mr. Dickens deserves great praise for the care with 
 which he has avoided all offensive topics, and abstained fi-om 
 amusing his readers at the expense of his entertainers ; and if 
 we had an accomit of the temptations in this kind which he has 
 resisted, we do not doubt that the reserve and self-control which 
 he has exercised would appear scarcely less than heroical. But, 
 on the other hand, we cannot say that his book throws any new 
 light on his subject. He has done little more than confide to 
 the public what should have been a series of letters for the 
 entertainment of his private friends. Very agreeable and 
 amusing letters they would have been ; and as such, had they 
 been posthumously published, would have been read with inte- 
 rest and pleasure. As it is, in the middle of our amusement 
 at the graphic sketches of life and manners, the ludicrous inci- 
 dents, the w^ayside conversations about nothing, so happily told, 
 and the lively remarks, with which these " Notes " abound — in
 
 248 DICKENS'S AMERICAN NOTES. 
 
 the middle of our respect for the tone of good sense and good 
 humour which runs through them — and in spite of a high appre- 
 ciation of the gentlemanly feeling which has induced him to 
 refrain from all personal allusions and criticisms, and for the 
 modesty which has kept him silent on so many subjects, con- 
 cerning which most persons in the same situation (not being 
 reminded of the worthlessness of their opinions ,by the general 
 inattention of mankind to what they say) are betrayed into the 
 delivery of oracles — in the middle of all this we cannot help 
 feeling that we should have respected Mr. Dickens more if he 
 had kept his book to himself ; if he had been so far dissatisfied 
 with these " American Notes " as to shrink from the "general 
 circulation " of them ; if he had felt unwilling to stand by and 
 see his nothings trumpeted to all corners of the earth, quoted 
 and criticised in every newspaper, passing through edition after 
 edition in England, and settling in clouds of sixpenny co^^ies all 
 over the United States. That he had nothing better to say is 
 no reproach to him. He had much to say about international 
 copyright, and that, we doubt not, was well worth hearing ; we 
 only wish it had been heard with more favour. But, having 
 nothing better to say, why say anything? Or why, at least, 
 sound a trumpet before him to call men away from their business 
 to listen ? To us it seems to imply a want of respect either for 
 himself or for his subject, that he should be thus prompt to 
 gratify the prurient public appetite for novelty, by bringing the 
 fruits of his mind into the market unripe. This, however, is a 
 matter of taste. In reputation, so easy and abundant a writer 
 will suffer little from an occasional mistake. Though this book 
 should only live till New Year's Day, it will have lived long 
 enough for his fame ; for on that day we observe that he is him- 
 self to come forth again in a series of monthly numbers, so that 
 none but himself will be his extinguisher. In the mean time, 
 as a candidate for "general circulation," it stands before us for 
 judgment, and must be dealt with according to its deserts. 
 
 Concerning America in her graver aspects, we have already 
 Raid that it does not add much to our existing stock of informa- 
 tion. In comprehensiveness, completeness, and soHdity, the 
 fruits of a judicial temper, patient and persevering observation,
 
 DICKENS'S AMETITCAN NOTES. 249 
 
 and a mind accustomed to questions of politics and government, 
 it is not to be compared to the work entitled " Men and Manners 
 in America," by the author of " Cyril Thornton." Any one who is 
 curious about the state of things in that country, and wishes to 
 form some idea of its real condition, should look there for it, and 
 not here. There he will find the matter discussed and illustrated; 
 here he will find little more than a loose record of the travelling 
 impressions of Mr. Dickens, Still, even this is not without its 
 value. To know the impression made by the first aspect of a 
 country upon a mind like his, is to know something of the 
 country itself. The good things he has been able to say, and 
 the good stories he has met with in his travels, are things of 
 less real interest, though a good deal more entertaining. Good 
 stories grow wild in all societies ; no man who can tell one when 
 found had ever any difdculty in finding one to tell. Sketches of 
 odd characters, specimens of the slang of coachmen and porters, 
 ludicrous incidents, picturesque groups, whimsical phrases, or 
 Buch as sound whimsical to strange ears — these things (though 
 it is of such that the better part of these volumes consists) tell 
 us nothing about a country. We want to know the total aspect, 
 complexion, and constitution of society ; these are only its flying 
 humours. Leaving these, therefore, to the newspapers (which 
 have rarely come in for such a windfall during the recess) we 
 shall apply ourselves to discover from such hints as these volumes 
 supply, what kind of people these transatlantic brethren of ours 
 really are, and what kind of life they live. We shall not, indeed, 
 inquire at what hour they dine ; whether they wear their hair 
 long or short ; how they pronounce certain words ; how they 
 take their tobacco ; and whether, when they wish to soften the 
 absoluteness of their positives or negatives, they say, " I guess," 
 or "I suppose," "I e:rpect," or " I s^tspect." In these and the 
 like matters, the nations have our good leave to please them- 
 selves. We want to know how they act and feel in the substantial 
 relations and emergencies of life ; in their marryings and givings 
 in marriage ; in their parental, conjugal, filial duties ; in the 
 neighbourly charities ; in the offices of friendship. The fireside, 
 the market-place, the sick-room, the place of worship and the 
 court of justice, the school, the library — it is in the arrange-
 
 2.'0 Dickens's American notes. 
 
 ment of these that the life and being of a people must be looked 
 for, not in their di'ess, or dialect, or rules of etiquette. 
 
 We must confess, indeed, that to gather any sound knowledge, 
 and form any just opinions on these points, is a matter of extreme 
 difficulty; and when we say that Mr. Dickens has not given us 
 much information about them, we are far from meaning it as a 
 rei^roach. " He that hath knowledge spareth his words" — and 
 the stranger who thinks to understand a people in a fortnight, is 
 not wise. In all his observations on a strange society, a man 
 must have a reference, more or less direct, to that with which 
 he is familiar at home. Without reference to some such standard 
 he cannot explain his feehng to himself — much less to another. 
 Yet to compare a familiar world with a strange one, — what is it 
 but comparing the ore as it comes out of the smelting-house, 
 with the ore as it comes out of the mine ? In remembering his 
 own country, a man takes no account of the dross ; in observing 
 another, he values the gross lump — dross and gold together. At 
 home he has made himself comfortable — that is, he has gradually 
 settled into the ways he likes, gathered about him the people he 
 likes : of the things he did Jiot hke, he has got rid of what he 
 could, reconciled himself to what he must, and forgotten all 
 about the rest. Out of a hundred i^ersons whose acquaintance 
 he might have cultivated, he has cultivated ten. Out of a dozen 
 places of resort that are open to him, he resorts to one. He has 
 tried three or four servants, and at last found one that suits him. 
 They gave him damp sheets and a bad breakfast at the Crown 
 Inn : instead of making a note of the fact for general circulation, 
 he went to the Bell, where they serve him better, and forgot it. 
 And thus, out of the jarring elements of the world into which he 
 was born, he has shaped out a small peculiar world expressly for 
 himself, which fits him; and this private world it is that he 
 boasts of to others, grumbles at to himself, and carries about in 
 his thoughts as a standard to measure foreign pretensions by. In 
 the foreign world, meanwhile, he can make neither selections 
 nor distinctions ; he looks at everything alike, and everything he 
 looks at he sets down as alike characteristic. Some delusion 
 from so unequal a comparison it is impossible to avoid. But 
 it may be ^jurtly corrected — some estimate at least may be
 
 DICKENS'S AMERICAN NOTES. 251 
 
 formed of the extent of correction required — by taking any given 
 surface of ground at home, the inhabitants of which have been 
 drawn together, not by any common interest or pursuit, but each 
 by his several occasion ; supposing yourself suddenly set down 
 among them without any previous knowledge of then* characters ; 
 and endeavouring to imagine the impression you would take of 
 the place and people during the fu'st exchange of visits ; how 
 they would figure in yom- journal in that period of probation, 
 before you had learned to treat them according to theii* qualities 
 — to cultivate the estimable, to avoid the disagreeable, to be 
 inattentive to the tiresome, and to think nothing about the 
 greater number. 
 
 Fully aware, no doubt, of all this — desiring to be just and 
 liberal in his observations — intending to write a book, but remem- 
 bering withal that " in the multitude of words there wanteth 
 not sin," and firmly resolved to violate neither the confidence 
 of social intercourse by revealmg private conversations, nor the 
 decency of manners by publishing criticisms upon the character 
 and appearance of the ladies and gentlemen at whose houses he 
 might be received — (a modern practice which, considering the 
 activity of the press, the rapidity and regularity of communica- 
 tion between the two countries, and the scandalous appetite for 
 personal sketches which afilicts both, is little better than to talk 
 of people before their faces ; and can be compared to nothing so 
 aptly as to the conduct of the street boys in Baltimore, who came 
 to inspect " Boz " as he sat in the railway car*) — Mr, D. landed 
 at Boston on the 22nd of January 1842. Having remained 
 there about a fortnight, he proceeded towards New York, where 
 he arrived on the 13th of February. How long he stayed we 
 
 * " Being rather early, those men and boys who happened to have notliiug 
 particular to do, and were curious in foreigners, came (according to custom) round 
 the carriage in which I sat; Lt down all tlie windows ; thrust in their heads and 
 shoulders; hooked themselves on conveniently by their elbows ; and fell to compar- 
 ing notes on the subject of my personal appearance, ivith as much indifference as if I 
 were a stuffed fiijure. 1 never gained so much uncompromii^ing information icilh 
 reference to my own nose and eyes, the various impressions wrought by my mouth and 
 chin on different minds, and how my head looks from behind, as on these occasions." 
 — (Vol. i. p. 277.) The street boys we cau excuse ; but our literary ladies and 
 gentlemen sliould know better.
 
 2.'2 DICKENS'S AMERICAN NOTES. 
 
 cannot learn ; but in the middle of March we find him at Eich- 
 mond in Virginia, having akeady seen all he meant to see of 
 Philadelphia, Washington, and Baltimore, and now tm-ning his 
 face towards the great West. The next six or seven weeks must 
 have been spent almost entirely in coaches and steam-boats ; for 
 we find him passing from Eichmond back to Baltimore ; thence 
 up the valley of the Susquehanna to Harrisburg ; across the 
 Alleghany mountains to Pittsburg ; down the whole length of 
 the Ohio river to its junction with the Mississippi ; up the Mis- 
 sissippi to St. Louis ; back again as far as Cincinnati ; thence 
 across the State of Ohio, tw6 or three hundred miles northward, 
 as far as Sandusky ; from Sandusky traversing the whole length 
 of Lake Erie; and so proceeding by way of Buffalo to the Falls 
 of Niagara, which he reached about the end of April, and remained 
 there for ten days, in a confusion of sublime emotions, upon 
 which he has enlarged in a passage which is meant to be itself 
 subhme ; though we think it would tell better as burlesque. The 
 next three weeks were devoted to Canada ; after which he had 
 only time for a rapid journey to New York by way of Lake 
 Champlain, and one spare day, which he devoted to the 
 " Shakers" at Lebanon. 
 
 If to these dates (which we have gathered with some difficulty) 
 we could add an account of the distances between place and 
 place, (distances of which we, who are confined within our four 
 seas, can form no practical concei^tion), it would be sufficiently 
 apparent that, during the last half of Mr. Dickens's sojourn in 
 the United States, he did not stay long enough in any one place 
 to become even tolerably well acquainted with its society ; and 
 that his impressions of social character throughout the vast 
 regions lying to the west of Washington, must have been drawn 
 entirely from the company he travelled with — a class of persons 
 whose manners must, in all countries, be far below the average. 
 Any general judgments he may hazard must therefore be taken 
 with the requisite allowance. A fortnight well spent in Boston, 
 and a month between New York, Philadelphia, and Washington, 
 may enable a wise man to say something about the people. The 
 rest of Mr. Dickens's experience qualified him admirably well to 
 tell us what to expect in coacheS; canal boats, railway carriages,
 
 PICKENS'S AMERICAN NOTES. 253' 
 
 and hotels ; and in these matters, if allowance be made for his 
 habitual exaggeration — (a fault, by the way, and a vulgarity 
 which, we fear, increases upon him) — we dare say his authority 
 is as good as any man's. But, as we should be sorry to have the 
 character of England inferred from the manners of the road ; or 
 indeed to have any conclusions drawn as to our own personal 
 proficiency in the courtesies of life, from our demeanour in the 
 traveller's room ; we shall leave his westward observations un- 
 noticed, and endeavour to make out what kind of people he 
 found in the drawing-rooms at Boston, Philadelphia, and Wash- 
 ington. 
 
 Every country — especially a new one — has a right to be 
 
 judged by the best of its natural growths ; for the best is that 
 
 towards which the rest aspire. Of the manners and character 
 
 of the best class in America, Mr. Dickens (in common, we believe, 
 
 with every gentleman who has had an opportunity of judging) 
 
 gives a very favourable impression. On quitting New York, after 
 
 not more than a fortnight's stay there, he says : — " I never 
 
 thought that going back to England, returning to all who are 
 
 dear to me, and to pursuits that have insensibly grown to be a 
 
 part of my nature, I could have felt so much sorrow as I endured, 
 
 when I parted at last on board this ship with the friends that 
 
 accompanied me from this city. I never thought the name of 
 
 any place so far away, and so lately known, could ever associate 
 
 itself in my mind with the crowd of affectionate remembrances 
 
 that now cluster about it." And then follows one of Mr. 
 
 Dickens's fine passages, which we wish to be understood as 
 
 quoting, not because we admire it, but because it shows that the 
 
 last sentence was not strong enough to satisfy his feelings : — 
 
 " There are those in this city who would brighten, to me, the 
 
 darkest winter day that ever glimmered and went out in Lapland ; 
 
 and before whose presence even home grew dim, when they and 
 
 I exchanged that painful word which mingles with our every 
 
 thought and deed ; which haunts our cradle-heads in infancy, 
 
 and closes up the vista of our lives in age." — (Vol. i. p. 230.) 
 
 And in his concluding remarks, he deliberately repeats the same 
 
 sentiment as applicable, not to New York only, but to the nation 
 
 generally : — " They are by nature frank, brave, cordial, hospitable,
 
 254 DICKENS'S AMERICAN NOTES. 
 
 and affectionate. Cultivation and refinement seem but to en- 
 hance their -svarmth of heart and ardent enthusiasm : and it is 
 the possession of these latter qualities in a most remarkable 
 degree, which renders an educated American one of the most 
 endearing and most generous of friends. I never was so won 
 ujDon as by this class ; never yielded up my full confidence and 
 esteem so readily and pleasantly as to them ; never can make 
 again, in half a year, so many friends for whom I seem to 
 entertain the regard of half a life." — (Vol. ii. p. 288.) Acknow- 
 ledgments, scarcely less strong than these, of the merits of the 
 best class of American gentry, are scattered through Captain 
 Hamilton's book ; and even Captain Basil Hall, in spite of his 
 l^rejudices and conventional feelings — his horror at words wrong 
 pronounced, and meats ungracefully swallowed, and his com- 
 placent persuasion that whatever is the fashion in England is 
 right in the eye of the universal reason — tells us, in his gossiping, 
 good-humoured way, the very same thing. Of the manners and 
 distinguishing qualities of the class to which the individuals 
 belong, who called forth the above expressions of admiration, we 
 regret that little or nothing more can be collected from these 
 volumes. The tone of society in Boston is only described as 
 being " one of perfect politeness, courtesy, and good breeding." 
 The ladies, we learn, are beautiful ; and " their education much 
 as with us." Their parties take place at more rational hours, 
 and the conversation ''may possibly be a little louder and more 
 cheerful " than with us. In other resj)ects, a party in Boston 
 appeared to Mr. Dickens just like a party in London. In New 
 York, we are only told that "the tone of the best society is like 
 that of Boston : here and there, it may be, with a greater in- 
 fusion of the mercantile spirit, but generall}^ polished and refined, 
 and always most hospitable. The houses and tables are elegant ; 
 the hours later, and more rakish ; and there is perhaps a greater 
 spirit of contention in reference to appearances, and the display 
 of wealth and costly living : " the ladies are again described as 
 " singularly beautiful." Of the society in Philadelphia, we only 
 learn that " what he saw of it he greatly liked " — but that it was 
 more " provincial " than at Boston or New York ; and apparently 
 rather too blue for his taste. But his stay was very short. At
 
 DICKENS'S AMERICAN NOTES. 255 
 
 Washington he confines himself to legislators ; and of them he 
 speaks only as he finds them in the arena where they exhibit. 
 His remarks on them we shall pass over — for, being in quest of 
 the best manners in the country, we must of course avoid all 
 places consecrated to public debate. To learn the true character 
 and manners of the English bar, you must look at lawyers any- 
 where but in court ; and before we pronounce upon the breeding 
 of a member of Congress, we must see him in a private drawing- 
 room. The only persons whom he speaks of as having personally 
 known, are those whom he specially excepts from his general 
 censures. Of these — " the foremost among those politicians who 
 are known in Europe" — he says — "to the most favourable 
 accounts that have been written of them, I more than fully and 
 most heartily subscribe : and personal intercourse and free com- 
 munication have bred within me, not the result predicted in the 
 very doubtful proverb, but increased admiration and respect. 
 They are striking men to look at, hard to deceive, prompt to act, 
 lions in energy, Crichtons in varied accomj)lishment, Indians in 
 fire of eye and gesture, Americans in strong and generous impulse ; 
 and they as well represent the honour and wisdom of their 
 country at home, as the distinguished gentleman who is now its 
 minister at the British court sustains its highest character 
 abroad." (Vol. i. p. 292.) This is another of those ambition.-? 
 sentences, from which we can gather no distinct idea except that 
 these gentlemen have insj)ired Mr. Dickens with a strong desire 
 to pay them a splendid compliment. We cannot doubt that his 
 admiration of them is sincere ; and we may take his known 
 character and ability as a guarantee that it is well founded. 
 
 We do not suppose that his conversation has lain much 
 among professors, or that his thoughts on Universities are 
 entitled to much authority ; but we must not omit to mention, 
 in this place, his notice of the University of Cambridge, and its 
 influence upon the society around. " The resident professors at 
 that University are gentlemen of learning and varied attain- 
 ments ; and are, without one exception that I can call to mind, 
 men who would shed a grace upon, and do honour to, any society 
 in the civilized world. Many of the resident gentry, in Boston 
 and in its neighbourhood, and I think I am not mistaken in
 
 256 DICKENS'S AMERICAN NOTES. 
 
 adding, a large majority of those who are attached to the Hberal 
 professions there, have been educated at this same school. ... It 
 was a source of inexpressible pleasure to me to observe the 
 almost imperceptible, but not less certain, effect wrought by 
 this institution among the small community at Boston ; and to 
 note, at every turn, the humanizing tastes and desires it has 
 engendered — the affectionate friendships to which it has given 
 rise — the amount of vanity and prejudice it has dispelled." 
 
 As we are not writing an essay upon the social condition of 
 America, but trying to collect Mr, Dickens's impressions of it, 
 we must be content with these somewhat meagre notices of the 
 manners and character of its best society. For further evidence 
 as to its qualities, we must look to its fruits. And the fruits of 
 the social character, as distinguished from the political regula- 
 tions, of a country, are to be looked for in those matters in 
 which (the baser appetites and worse dispositions of men having 
 no temptation to interfere), sense, character, knowledge, and 
 virtue have their natural influence. Not, therefore, in the Legis- 
 lature ; for the composition of that depends upon the law of 
 election and the amount of qualification ; nor in the Press, for 
 the character of that depends upon the cost of printing and 
 paper, and the amount of taxes, direct and indirect, upon what 
 by courtesy is called knowledge. The Press and the Legislature 
 react upon the social character, but are not to be taken as 
 representing it. The composition of the House of Kepresenta- 
 tives is not so much an index to the feelings and opinions of the 
 American gentry, as to the number of Irish labourers who have 
 votes. And the character of the daily and weekly Press is a 
 measure rather of the number of uneducated persons who can 
 read, than of the taste of the educated. But there are some 
 departments in the social establishment, which the worse half 
 of society silently leaves to the care and taste of the better. 
 Among these, the most conspicuous are charities of all kinds, 
 public and private ; arrangements for the education of the 
 people ; asylums for persons labouring under natural defects ; 
 provisions for the relief of sick persons and young children ; for 
 the treatment of prisoners, and the like. Institutions of this 
 kind are probably the fairest expression that can be had of the
 
 DICKENS'S AMERICAN NOTES. 257 
 
 feeling and character of a people, properly considered ; reckon- 
 ing, that is, not by numbers but by weight — counting every man 
 as two whose opinion carries another along with it. Now, in 
 these matters, Mr. Dickens's testimony is not only very favour- 
 able and very strongly expressed, but really of great value. 
 Prisons and madhouses have always had strong attractions for 
 him ; he went out with the advantage of a very extensive 
 acquaintance with establishments of this kind in England ; and, 
 wherever he heard of one in America, he appears to have stayed 
 and seen it. His report leads irresistibly to the conclusion, that 
 in this department New England has, as a people, taken the 
 lead of the civilized world ; and that Old England, though 
 beginning to follow, is still a good way behind. And the superi- 
 ority lies not merely in the practical recognition of the principle 
 that the care of these things belongs properly to the state, and 
 should not be left, as with us, to the charity and judgment of 
 individuals, however securely that charity may be relied on ; 
 but in the excellence of the institutions themselves in respect of 
 arrangement and management. Our limits will not allow us to 
 follow him through his observations and remarks on this subject ; 
 which are, however, upon the whole, the most valuable and 
 interesting part of the book. He carefully inspected not less (we 
 think) than ten institutions of this class ; and of these he has 
 given minute descriptions. Those at Boston, he believes to be 
 " as perfect as the most considerate wisdom, benevolence, and 
 humanity can make them." " In all of them, the un- 
 fortunate or degenerate citizens of the State are carefully in- 
 structed in their duties both to God and man ; are surrounded 
 by all reasonable means of comfort and happiness that their 
 condition will well admit of ; are appealed to as members of the 
 great human family, however afflicted, indigent, or fallen ; are 
 ruled by the strong heart, and not by the strong (though im- 
 measurably weaker) hand." And the rest, (with the exception of 
 a lunatic asylum in Long Island, and a prison nicknamed " The 
 Tombs" at New York), appear to deserve, so far at least as the 
 design and the management go, the same praise. Upon one 
 doubtful and difficult question, which has of late excited a good 
 deal of controversy in England, Mr. Dickens's observations will 
 
 s
 
 258 DICKENS'S AMERICAN NOTES. 
 
 be read witli great interest — we allude to the effects of the 
 solitary as contrasted with the silent system. Against the 
 solitary system Mr. Dickens gives his most emphatic testimony ; 
 which will, no doubt, have due weight with the department on 
 which the consideration of this question, with reference to our 
 own prison system, devolves. For our own part, we must 
 confess that, highly as we esteem his opinion in such a matter, 
 and free as we are from any prejudice in favour of the system 
 which he condemns, we are not altogether satisfied. His manner 
 of handling the question does not assure us that he is master 
 of it. His facts, as stated by himself, do not appear to us to fit 
 his theory. If not inconsistent with it, they are certainly not 
 conclusive in favour of it. We sometimes cannot help doubting 
 whether his judging faculty is strongly developed, and whether 
 he does not sometimes mistake pictures in his mind for facts in 
 natm-e. He is evidently proud of his powers of intuition — of his 
 faculty of inferring a whole history from a passing expression. 
 Show him any man's face, and he will immediately tell you his 
 life and adventures. A very pretty and probable story he will 
 make of it ; and, provided we do not forget that it is all fiction, 
 a very instructive one. But, in discussing disputed points in 
 nature or policy, we cannot admit these works of his imagination 
 as legitimate evidence. The case before us supplies a striking 
 illustration of Mr. Dickens's power in this way; and likewise, 
 we suspect, of his tendency to be misled by it. We shall take 
 the opportunity of quoting a long passage, which will serve the 
 threefold purpose of exhibiting a favourable specimen of Mr. 
 Dickens's style, of justifying the doubts we have expressed as to 
 his judging faculty, and of presenting one side of the question 
 concerning the solitary system in a strong light. 
 
 He commences his remarks on the subject by declaring his 
 belief " that very few men are capable of estimating the immense 
 amount of tortm-e and agony which this dreadful punishment, 
 prolonged for years, inflicts upon the sufferers," and that, "in 
 guessing at it himself, and in reasoning from what he has seen 
 written upon their faces, and what to his certain knowledge they 
 feel within, he is only the more convinced that there is a depth 
 of terrible endurance in it, which none but the sufferers them-
 
 DICKENS S AMERICAN NOTES. 259 
 
 selves can fathom, and which no man has a right to inflict upon 
 his fellow-creature." — (Vol. i. p. 239.) He then proceeds to 
 describe the regulations of the prison, and the condition and 
 appearance of several of the prisoners. The sight, and the feel- 
 ings of awe and pity which the sight awakens, set his " shaping 
 spirit of imagination " at work, and he thus goes on : — - 
 
 "As I walked among these solitary cells, and looked at the faces of the men 
 •within them, 1 tried to picture to myself the thoughts and feelings natural to 
 their condition ; I imagined the hood just taken off, and the scene of their 
 captivity disclosed to them in all its dismal monotony. 
 
 " At first, the man is stunned. His confinement is a hideous vision ; and 
 his old life a reality. He throws himself upon his bed, and lies there abandoned 
 to despair. By de^irees the insupportable solitude and barrenness of the place 
 rouses him from this stupor, and when the trap in his grated door is opened, 
 lie humbly begs and prays for work. ' Give me some work to do, or I shall go 
 raving mad ! ' 
 
 " He has it ; and by fits and starts applies himself to labour ; but every now 
 and then there comes upon him a burning sense of the years that must be 
 wasted in that stone coffin, and an agony so piercing in the recollection of those 
 who are hidden from his view and knowledge, that he starts from his seat, and 
 striding up and down the narrow room, with both hands clasped on his uplifted 
 head, hears spirits tempting him to beat his brains out on the wall. 
 
 " Again he falls upon his bed, and lies there, moaning. Suddenly he starts 
 up, wondering whether any other man is near ; whether there is another cell like 
 that on either side of him ; and listens keenly. 
 
 " There is no sound : but other prisoners may be near for all that. He 
 remembers to have heard once— when he little thought of coming there himself — 
 that the cells were so constructed that the prisoners could not hear each other, 
 though the officers could hear them. Where is the nearest man — upon the right 
 or on the left? or is there one in both directions? Where is he sitting now — 
 with his face to the light? or is he walking to and fro? How is he dressed? 
 Has he been there long ? Is he much worn away ? Is he very white and 
 spectre-like ? Does he think of his neighbour too ? 
 
 "Scarcely venturing to breathe, and listening while he thinks, he conjures 
 up a figure with its back towards him, and imagines it moving about in this 
 next cell. He has no idea of the face ; but he is certain of the dark form of a 
 stooping man. In the cell upon the other side, he puts another figure, whose 
 face is hidden from him also. Day after day, and often when he wakes up in 
 the middle of the night, he thinks of these two men until he is almost distracted. 
 He never changes them. There they are always as he first imagined them — an 
 old man on the right; a younger man on the left — whose hidden features 
 torture him to death, and have a mystery that makes him tremble. 
 
 " The weary days pa>^s on with solemn pace, like mourners at a funeral; and 
 slowly he begins to feel that the white walls of his cell have something dreadful 
 in them : that their colour is horrible : that their smooth surface chills his
 
 200 DICKENS'S AMERICAN NOTES, 
 
 blood : that there is oue hateful corner which torments him. Every morning 
 ■wlien he wakes, he hides his head beneath the coverlet, and shudders to see the 
 ghastly ceiling looking down upon him. The blessed light of day itself peeps 
 in — an ugly phantom face — through the unchangeable crevice which is his 
 prison window. 
 
 "By slow but sure degrees, the terrors of that hateful corner swell until they 
 beset him at all times ; invade his rest, make his dreams hidtous, and his nights 
 dreadful. At first, he took a strange dislike to it ; feeling as though it gave 
 birth in his brain to something of corresponding shape, which ought not to be 
 there, and racked his head with pains. Then he began to fear it, theu to dream 
 of it ; and of men whispering its name and pointing to it. Then he could not 
 bear to look at it, nor yet to turn his back upon it. Now, it is every night the 
 lurking place of a ghost — a shadow — a silent something, horrible to see; but 
 whether bird or beast, or mufHed human shape, he cannot tell. 
 
 " When he is in his cell by day, he fears the little yard without. When he 
 is in the yard, he dreads to re-enter the celL When night comes, there stamls 
 the phantom in the corntr. If he have the courage to stand in its place and 
 drive it out, (he had once, being desperate,) it broods upon his bed. In the 
 twilight, and always at the same hour, s, voice calls to him by name ; as the 
 darkness thickens, his loom begins to live ; and even that, his comfort, is a 
 hideous figure, watching him till daybreak. 
 
 '^ Again, by slow degrees, these horrible fancies depart from him one by one ; 
 returning sometimes unexpectedly, but at longer intervals, and in less alarming 
 shapes. He has talked upon religious matters with the gentk'man who visits 
 him ; and has read his Bible, and has written a prayer upon his slate, and has 
 hung it up as a kind of protection, and an assurance of heavenly companionship. 
 He dreams now sometimes of his children or his wife, but is sure that they are 
 dead or have deserted him. He is easily moved to tears; is gentle, submissive, 
 and broken-spirited. Occasionally the old agony comes back ; a very little thing 
 will revive it ; even a familiar sound, or the scent of summer flowers in the air ; 
 but it does not last long now ; for the world without has come to be the vision 
 and this solitary life the sad reality. 
 
 " If his term of imprisonment be short — I mean comparatively, for short it 
 cannot be — the last half-year is alnwst worse than all ; for then he thinks the 
 prison will take fire and he be burned in the ruins, or that he is doomed to die 
 within the walls, or that he will be detained on some false charge and sentenced 
 for another term : or that something, no matter what, must happen to prevent 
 his going at large. And this is natural, and impossible to be reasoned against ; 
 because, after his long sejjaration from human life, and his great suffering, any 
 event will appear to him more probable in the contemjjlation than the being 
 restored to liberty and his fellow-creatures. 
 
 " If his period of confinement have been very long, the prospect of release 
 bewilders and confuses him. His broken heart may flutter for a moment when 
 he thinks of the world outside, and what it might have been to him in all those 
 lonely years; but that is all. The cell door has been closed too long on all his 
 hopes and cares. Better to have hang'^l him in the beginning than bring him to 
 this 2>ass, and send him forth among his kind, who are his kind no more."
 
 DICKENS'S A:\rERTCAX NOTES. 2(11 
 
 Now this is a. most powerful sketch of a jiossiJAe case. Had 
 it occurred in a professed work of fiction, as a description of the 
 actual condition of one of the characters, we should have thought 
 it remarkable not only for force but for truth. It is terrible, but 
 not monstrous ; we can imagine a man feeling and doing all that 
 is described. But when we are enquiring into the actual and 
 ordinary effects of solitary confinement upon the mind of a 
 prisoner, we are constrained to ask Mr. Dickens what authority 
 he has for his many facts ? How does he know that prisoners 
 are affected in this manner ? And, above all, how does he know 
 that it is the general case ? He will say that he saw it in their 
 faces ; the}'^ had all the same expression ; and that expression 
 told him the whole story. But he should at least show that his 
 interpretation of the countenance was corroborated by other 
 indications of less doubtful character. Let us refer to the 
 individual sufferers whom he saw and conversed with in several 
 stages of punishment, and see whether their demeanour (as he 
 himself describes it) accords with his supposition. There are 
 but' nine cases of which he gives any detailed report : we will 
 take them all, placing them however in our own order. First, 
 a German who had been brought in the day before — he was im- 
 ploring for work. Second, an English thief, who had been in 
 only a few days ; still savage. These two cases may be set aside : 
 the effects of the system not having had time to show themselves. 
 Third, a man convicted as a receiver of stolen goods ; but who 
 denied his guilt. He had been in for six years, and was to 
 remain three more. " He stoi:)ped his work when we went in, 
 took off his spectacles, and answered freely to everything that 
 was said to him. . . . He wore a paper hat of his own making, 
 and was pleased to have it noticed and commended. He had 
 very ingeniously manufactured a sort of Dutch clock from some 
 disregarded odds and ends ; and his vinegar bottle served for the 
 pendulum. Seeing me interested in this contrivance, he looked 
 up at it with a great deal of pride, and said that he had been 
 thinking of improving it, and that he hoped the hammer and 
 a little piece of broken glass beside it would play music before 
 long. He had extracted some colours from the yarn with which 
 he worked, and painted a few poor figures on the wall." Surely
 
 262 DICKENS'S AMERICAN NQTES. 
 
 this is not the demeanour, nor these the ways, of a man whose 
 spirit is crushed and faculties destroyed — who suffers day and 
 night from horrihle fancies. Fourth, a German imprisoned for 
 lai'ceny; has heen in for two years, and has three to come. 
 " With colours prepared in the same manner, he had painted 
 every inch of the walls and ceiling quite heautifully. He had 
 laid out the few feet of ground hehind with exquisite neatness, 
 and had made a little bed in the centre, which looked, by the by, 
 like a grave. The taste and ingenuity he had displayed in every 
 thing were most extraordinary." Here again is very strange 
 evidence of the destructive effects of solitude upon the faculties. 
 Mr. Dickens goes on, it is true, to assure us that " he never saw 
 such a picture of forlorn affiiction and distress of mind ; " that 
 " his heart bled for him," etc. And very unhappy he may well 
 have been ; people are not sent to prison to be made happy ; but 
 the question is, whether he was the worse or the better for it. 
 Fifth, a negro burglar, notorious for his boldness and hardihood, 
 and for the number of i^revious convictions — his tune nearly out. 
 He was at work making screws. "He entertained us with a 
 long account of his achievements, which he narrated with such 
 infinite relish that he actually seemed to lick his lips as he told 
 us racy anecdotes of stolen plate," etc. Here, at any rate, we 
 have a man who has not been made too miserable. Sixth, a 
 man, of whom we are told no more than that he was allowed to 
 keep rabbits as an indulgence ; that he came out of his cell with 
 one in his breast, and that Mr. Dickens thought it hard to say 
 which was the nobler animal of the two. Seventh, " a poet, 
 who, after doing two days' ivork in every four-and-tiventy hours, 
 one for himself and one for the prison, ivrote verses about ships, 
 (he was by trade a mariner,) and ' the maddening wine-cup,' and 
 his friends at home." Here again ! Mr. Dickens must have 
 selected his examples very oddly — or one would think that 
 solitary confinement called out a man's resources instead of 
 paralyzing them. Eighth ; at last we come to a case (xDrobably 
 the case) in point : a sailor who had been confined for eleven 
 years, and would be free in a few months. Mr. Dickens does 
 indeed here draw the picture of a man stupefied by suffering ; 
 and we can well believe that the picture is just. But the most
 
 DICKENS'S AMEKICAN NOTES. 203 
 
 strenuous advocates of the solitary system will hardly maintain 
 that there may not be too much of it. Try a man who has been 
 in two years, and is going to be released next day, and see 
 whether his case is hopeless. And here we have him ; number 
 nine. " I have the face of this man before me now. It is almost 
 more memorable in its happiness than the other faces in their 
 misery. How easy and how natural was it for him to say that 
 the system was a good one; and that the time went 'pretty 
 quick considering ; ' and that, when a man once felt he had 
 offended the law and must satisfy it, ' he got along somehow ;" ' 
 and so forth ! " Upon women Mr. Dickens acknowledges that 
 the effect of this punishment is different. He thinks it quite as 
 %\Tong and cruel in their case ; but admits that their faces are 
 humanized and refined by it, and thinks it may be " because of 
 their better nature, which is elicited in solitude J' 
 
 Upon the question at issue,^ we offer no ox^inion ; but with 
 these discrepancies between Mr. Dickens's facts and fancies, we 
 can hardly be rash in saying that his authority, great as it is, 
 should not be taken as decisive. Commending the matter, 
 therefore, to the further consideration of the inspectors of 
 prisons, we shall return to our own prox^er subject ; which is the 
 character of the American j)eox)le as expressed in their civil 
 institutions. In the case of this Philadelphia prison, Mr. 
 Dickens's objections are confined to the princix)le. To the inten- 
 tions, motives, and characters of those who are concerned in the 
 management of it, as well as to the efficacy of the arrangements, 
 he gives unqualified j)raise. 
 
 Another thing on which the true character of a peoj^le in its 
 substantial qualities must be expected to impress itself, is the 
 administration of justice ; and we wish that Mr. Dickens had 
 frequented the courts a little more. Except on extraordinary 
 occasions, politics and party find no business there ; and where 
 that is the case, the ablest man will naturally have the best 
 l^lace yielded to him, and the true interests (as distinguished 
 from the fleeting inclinations) of the public will be consulted 
 in all forms and proceedings ; and in this, after all, consists 
 the true health of the body politic. Let person and property 
 be secured from violence, and let affairs be equitably adjusted
 
 264 DICKENS'S AMERICAN NOTES. 
 
 between man and man, and what reasonable person would grudge 
 his legislators their long speeches, their personal altercations, 
 or even theii' si^ittoons ? From the scanty notices on this head 
 scattered through these volumes, we should infer that America 
 has no reason to shrink from this test. The high character of. 
 the Supreme Court is notorious through Europe. And Mr. 
 Dickens tells us that in every place he visited, the judges were 
 men of high character and attainments ; which is saying much, 
 considering that in some of the States they are, we believe, 
 annually elected by the people. Of their modes of proceeding 
 he tells us nothing beyond the general picturesque effect ; and 
 we are left to infer from his silence, that the want of wigs and 
 gowns, and of raised platforms for witnesses and prisoners, does 
 not obstruct the course of justice. 
 
 The condition of the Church in America is another thing 
 which should throw great light on the character of the people ; 
 for in this also politics do not interfere : each party can do as it 
 pleases, and therefore no two need quarrel. Unfortunately there 
 is a great want of sound information on this subject in England ; 
 the popular notion of the style of religious worship in America 
 being built, we believe, upon Mrs. Trollope's account of a, Revival. 
 Mr. Dickens does not tell us much : but from what he does say 
 we should imagine that the prevailing character of the Church in 
 New England, has more of old Puritanism in it than of modern 
 Methodism ; and we have heard it maintained by gentlemen 
 wdio have resided in America for months together, and visited 
 different places of worship, that they have rarely met with any 
 symptoms of fanaticism or sycophancy in the preacher, or of 
 enthusiasm in the congregation ; but that the service, whatever 
 the persuasion, was generally characterized by decency and 
 dulness. 
 
 Of the system of education in the United States and the 
 provision for it (which should stand, perhaps, next in order as 
 an illustration of the social character), Mr. Dickens says but 
 little. We hear occasionally of a college or a school, and we 
 gather generally that sufficient provision is made by each State 
 to enable every citizen to receive some degree of education. The 
 proportion of adults who cannot read and write is consequently
 
 DICKENS'S a:mei{ican notes. 2G5 
 
 extremely small ; and among these we believe there are scarcely 
 any native Americans. Beyond this fact, which is of great im- 
 portance, we can learn nothing that is much to om' purpose. We 
 could have wished to know, first, the amount of knowledge and 
 the kind of intellectual cultivation which a man must have, in 
 order to take rank in general opinion as a well-educated man ; 
 and, next, the stj'le and amount of accomplishments which are 
 requisite to distinguish him in that rank. This would show in 
 what direction the great body of the intellect of the country is 
 working. It would also be very interesting to know something 
 about the composition of American libraries, especially private 
 ones. What kind of books do you find permanently established 
 on the shelves in a gentleman's study, and of these which appear 
 to have been most used ? We say permanently, because it is of 
 much less consequence to know which among the publications 
 of the day are the most popular. These are read, as newspapers 
 are, not because they are congenial to the taste, but because 
 reading is fashionable, and they are of the newest fashion. Their 
 universal popularity indicates little in the national character 
 beyond a general appetite for light stimulants, and produces 
 little alteration in it, except perhaps some general debilitation 
 from swallowing such a deluge of slops. But for the most 
 j)art, we believe this kind of literature passes through the mind 
 with as little effect upon it for good or for evil as the conversation 
 of a morning caller. It is the favourite, not the fashionable 
 book that betrays the character of the man ; and it is the book 
 which works itself into public favour against the fashion that 
 indicates the character of the people. That the miscellaneous 
 writings of Mr. Carlyle had been collected and printed in 
 America before his name was generally known in England is a 
 fact which tells much more about the intellectual and spiritual 
 capacities of the people, than we can infer from knowing that 
 the whole brood of New Burlington Street are cii'culated as fast 
 as they come out for an annual subscription of a few dollars. 
 The character of the native periodical literature of the costlier 
 class, and therefore of more limited circulation, would throw 
 further light on the matter ; for it would show not only what the 
 more select class of readers will pay for, but what the better
 
 2GG DICKENS'S AMERICAN NOTES. 
 
 class of writers can produce. The North American Review, and 
 the New York, for instance, will give a juster, as well as a higher 
 idea of the tendencies and prospects of American literatm-e, than 
 the most ambitious and elaborate pamphlets, speeches, and 
 state papers — all of which are addressed to a wider, but a lower 
 circle. 
 
 "Whether Mr. Dickens has much considered the subject of 
 American literature in its true bearings, we are not informed. 
 From these volumes, we can only gather that he is deeply read 
 in their newspapers, the character of which he denounces in his 
 bitterest, and by no means his best, style. Of the justice of his 
 censures, not having ourselves gone through the nauseous course 
 of reading, by which he has qualified himself to speak, we can 
 form no opinion. We shall only say, that, looking at the con- 
 dition of our own Daily Press, and imagining what it would be 
 were it turned loose in a land of cheajD printing and no stamp 
 duties — where everybody could read, and everybody took a part 
 in politics ; and without any capital city in which public opinion 
 might gather to a head and ex2)ress itself with authority — we 
 can readily believe it to be true in the full extent. Thanks to 
 London, which concentrates and represents the feelings of the 
 British people, the leading London journals (and from them the 
 provincial Press throughout the country takes its tone) are held 
 under some restraint. Gross violations of manners are not 
 countenanced, and wanton slander of private persons would not 
 be tolerated. Moreover, the enormous amount of information 
 which is demanded of an English newspaper, cannot be supplied 
 at first hand without a costly establishment and machinery ; and 
 this, requiring large capital to start with, excludes the worst 
 class of adventurers from competition, and insures in the pro- 
 prietor that kind and amount of respectability which in England 
 always accompanies substance. A man with something to lose 
 will not offend the feelings of the mass of his customers ; a man 
 with nothing cannot get up a paper which has any chance of 
 general circulation. We fear, however, that it is impossible to 
 answer for more than this. Private houses, we trust, are (from 
 tlie stamped Press at least) secure. But what conspicuous public 
 man can be insured against the most malignant slander from
 
 DICKENS'S AMERICAN NOTES. 267 
 
 one party, and the grossest adulation from the other — both 
 equally unprincipled ? What measure of what party was ever 
 discussed by the Daily Press, on either side, upon its real merits, 
 or with a desire to represent it truly ? What misrei^resentation 
 is too gross for our most resj)ectable newspapers to take up ? 
 What rumour too injurious and too ill-founded for them to 
 spread ? What sophism so palpable, that if it can be used with 
 effect to damage the character of a political opponent, they will 
 not employ it ? And the worst is, that in the guilt of this, the 
 Eespectability of England is directly implicated. It cannot be 
 said that the disease is incident to liberty, and must be borne 
 with ; for, strange to say, this kind of licentious writing (known 
 as it is, and thoroughly understood to be licentious), is what the 
 great mass of news readers like. The writer has no interest in 
 his malice ; he may be a very good-humoured man, with no 
 wish to injure anybody. But the readers must have what they 
 call vigour. Their party spirit must be at once roused and 
 gratified by powerful attacks and powerful vindications. A lead- 
 ing article, written in a spirit of candour and justice (unless it 
 be known to proceed from some responsible quarter, in which 
 case it has a separate and superior interest), is felt to be insipid. 
 It is true that the influence of these compositions is not so great 
 as might appear at first, because they impose on nobody ; every- 
 body knows that they are full of falsehoods. Convict a news- 
 paper of the grossest intentional misrepresentation, and which 
 of its "constant readers" will be shocked? Their influence is, 
 however, considerable, and, so far as it goes, most pernicious. 
 We cannot but regard the condition of our own Daily Press as a 
 morning and evening witness against the moral character of the 
 people ; for if this kind of scurrility were as distasteful to the 
 public as the grosser kinds of licentiousness are, it would at once 
 disappear. That its condition is still worse in America, we can, 
 for the reasons above indicated, easily believe ; but we doubt 
 whether it be fair to draw the same inference from the fact as to 
 the moral tastes and feelings of the people ; for the Piespecta- 
 bility of America, not having the same means of expressing its 
 will that the Eespectability of England has, cannot be held in 
 the same degree answerable. In the mean time, we hope that
 
 268 PICKENS'S AMERICAN NOTES. 
 
 Mr. Dickens is mistaken as to the degree in which the Press in 
 the United States expresses and influences the general feehng. 
 "We cannot but think that, if his description of it be just, the 
 strength of the jjoison must act as an antidote. Does any Avell- 
 educated man in America read these papers icith respect ? 
 
 Among other circumstances from which something as to the 
 social characteristics of the people may be safely inferred, certain 
 definite and generally established regulations of society may 
 be mentioned ; such, for instance, as the courtesy which every- 
 body is expected, as a matter of course, to pay to women and to 
 strangers. And we should be inclined to draw very favourable 
 inferences from the fact, that in all public places, including 
 public conveyances, a woman is entitled to the best place, occu- 
 pied or unoccupied ; for possession on the part of the man goes 
 for nothing ; and also from the courtesies of the Custom House, 
 which, we believe, all foreigners will bear witness to. Captain 
 Hamilton, indeed, was so possessed with the notion that this 
 business could not be transacted without intolerable annoyance, 
 that he kept away. But Caj^tain Basil Hall gives a pleasant 
 anecdote, to show in how gentlemanly a manner the thing may 
 be done. And Mr. Dickens commends to our special considera- 
 tion and imitation the " attention, politeness, and good-humour, 
 with which the Custom House officers at Boston discharged their 
 duty." 
 
 We have now nearly exhausted these volumes of the inform- 
 ation which they suj^ply, available for the purpose with which 
 we set out. Of the manners of the mass of the people, Mr. 
 Dickens gives many amusing illustrations ; most of which have 
 been already quoted in various publications, and have made us 
 all very merry. It is but justice to him, however, to say, that he 
 saw all these things in their true light ; and that, while indulgmg 
 his sense of the ludicrous by a hearty English laugh, he was not 
 betrayed by them into any foolish conclusions, or illiberal (we 
 wish we could add un-English) contempt. The following sensible 
 remarks are worth extracting, not because they tell us anything 
 which is not obvious to any man who thinks ; but because so few 
 people troul)le themselves with thinking about the matter. The 
 scene is Sandusk}', at the south-western extremity of Lake Erie.
 
 DICKENS'S AMERICAN NOTES. 2GI7 
 
 " We put up at a comfortable little hotel Our host, who was very- 
 attentive, and anxious to make us comfortable, was a handsome, middle-aged 
 man, who had come to this town from New England, in which part of the 
 country he was 'raised.' When I say that he constantly walked in and out of 
 the room with his hat on, and stopped to converse in the same free-and-easy 
 state, and lay down on our sofa, and })ulled his newspaper out of his pocket 
 and read it at his ease — I merely mention these traits as characteristic of the 
 country; not at all as being matter of complaint, or as having been disagreeable 
 to me. I should undoubtedly be offended by such proceedings at home, because 
 there they are not the custom, and where they are not, they would be imperti- 
 nences. But in America the only desire of a good-natured fellow of this kind is 
 to treat his guests hospitably and well : and I had no more right, and I can truly 
 say no more disposition, to measure his conduct by our English rule and standard, 
 than I had to quarrel with him for not being of the exact stature which would 
 qualify him for admission into the Queen's Urenadier Guards. As little inclina- 
 tion had I to find fault with a funny old lady, who was an upper domestic in 
 this establishment, and who, when she came to wait upon us at any meal, sat her- 
 self down comfortably in the most convenient chair, and, producing a large pin 
 to pick her teeth with, remained performing that ceremony, and steadfastly re- 
 garding us meanwhile with much gravity and composure (now and then pressing 
 us to eat a little more), until it was time to clear away. It was enough for us, 
 tliat whatever we wished done was done with great civility and readiness, and a 
 desire to oblic^e, not only here but everywhere else; and that all our wants were 
 in general zealously anticipated." — Vol. ii. p. 170. 
 
 Further on in the volume, a good story about an American 
 bootmaker, which has been quoted everywhere, is introduced by 
 the following general remark, which has not yet, we believe, been 
 anywhere quoted. 
 
 " The republican institutions of Anierica undoubtedly leave the people to 
 assert their self-respect and their equality ; but a traveller is bound to bear those 
 institutions in his mind, and not hastily to resent the near approach of a class 
 of strangers, who at home would keep aloof. This characteristic, when it is 
 tinctured by no foolish pride, and stops short of no honest service, never offendid 
 me ; and I very seldom, if ever, experienced its rude or unbecoming display." — • 
 Vol ii. p. 300. 
 
 The political condition of the United States has been dis- 
 cussed, on various occasions, in this Journal. Mr. Dickens's 
 Notes do not throw any new hght upon it ; and, as no peculiar 
 interest attaches to his opinions on such subjects, we do not feel 
 called upon to criticise them. We have treated the work gravety, 
 out of deference to the gravity of the subject ; and partly because 
 the superior attractiveness and quotability of the lighter parts 
 are likely, we fear, to give a false impression of the tone and
 
 270 DICKENS'S AMERICAN NOTES. 
 
 spirit of the whole. In thus endeavouring to collect the sub- 
 stance of his more serious observations, vpe have no doubt, in a 
 great measure, lost sight of the prevailing character and spirit 
 of his book. But of this it is enough to say, that it leaves our 
 opinion of Mr. Dickens's powers unaltered. 
 
 NOTE. 
 
 There being a passage in this article which brought upon the editor of tho 
 Edinhurgh Review a warm remonstrance, and the necessity (as he fancied) of 
 publicly expressing regret for having admitted into it an unwarranted and 
 injurious statement ; and the fact that such a charge was so made and so 
 acknowledged being now to be found without further explanation in more than 
 one book that is likelj^ to hold its place in literature ; I cannot let the article go 
 forth as mine without a counter-statement on my own part, which I have not yet 
 had any opportunity to make. 
 
 It was undertaken at short notice by the editor's express desire ; who con- 
 sidered it important that a review of tlie book should appear in his next number ; 
 his motive for applying to me being partly that I had lately returned from 
 Washington, where I had spent four months shortly after Mr. Dickens passed 
 through, and partly that I thought the book had merits which entitled it to 
 graver and more respectful treatment than it had generally met with. When 
 he saw what I had done, he was, for his own part, very well pleased with it. 
 One or two short passages, which he " thought would be reckoned rather severe," 
 he struck out ; and (though " some would think it too favourable,") he did not 
 expect it to "quite please the author;" but he accepted it as "done in the 
 proper spirit, and with judgment and discrimination," and as " altogether an 
 instructive and agreeable article " — and this after reading it through in the proof 
 and making such alterations as he thought expedient. 
 
 That my criticism of his book should " quite please the author," was not to 
 be expected. Though both in praising what was good and in passing by what 
 was nut so good I had gone quite as far as I felt justified in going, to him it 
 would naturally seem short measure ; and I should not have been surprised to 
 find him treating it with contempt. But I was not prepared for a charge of 
 malicious misrepresentation : least of all in the point which he selected as the 
 <:round for such a charge; — which was the allusion to his labours in the cause of 
 international copyright, — labours which I had all the while been thinking of 
 with the most respectful sympathy. Where the offence was, I am still unable 
 to perceive : but the immediate effect was a letter to the Times, written to 
 clear liimself of what by some strange misconception he took for an implied 
 impiitatinn of something discreditable. Quoting the words of the article, — " He 
 went out, if we are rightly informed, as a kind of missionary in the cause of 
 iuteruational copyright '' — " I deny it wholly," he wrote. " He [the writer of
 
 DICKKXS'S AMERICAN NOTES. 271 
 
 the article] is wrongly informed, and reports without enquiry a piece of informa- 
 tion which I could only characterise by using one of the shortest and strongest 
 wo:ds in the language." — (Forster's Life of Dickens, ii. 29). 
 
 Whatever the offence, tlie offender was myself only ; and I lost no time in 
 writing to the editor: Avith what result the following extracts will show. I 
 quote in my own part from the rough drafts, which are all I have ; but if the 
 fair copies differed from them, the difference was only verbal. 
 
 To the Editor. 
 
 IG January. 
 " That IMr. Dickens should be so angry, (see his letter in to-day's Times), I 
 certainly did not expect, and I only wish to say that if you can set your rclationa 
 witli him rigiit by mentioning my name as responsible for the article, I have not 
 the least objection. I certainly never inquired of himself or any of his friends 
 what he went to America for ; but I think I may answer for it that, in America 
 at least, there was a very general impression fliat he came chiefly to agitate for 
 international copyright ; insomuch that I distinctly remember seeing the word 
 "mission" somewhere applied to his visit. And the tone of a letter which he 
 wrote to a Washington paper before he left America, and still more of one w hich 
 he addressed to the Morning Chronicle when he returned to England, was so much 
 in accordance with the general impression that I never thought of doubting it." 
 
 From the Editor. 
 
 19 January. 
 " Whatever may be thought of the tone and taste of Dickens's letter, there can 
 be no doubt that, as the i-tatement was rather disparaging, and at any rate made 
 witliout any direct authority, he had good reason to complain. He would not expect 
 any false view of the object of his American visit from me, and I confess I am 
 heartily sorry that a statement so uncalled for, and unwarranted, was made and 
 published under my hand. I have written him at some length, and I have also 
 given him, for publication if he thinks it worth wliile, a retractation of the offensive 
 statement ; expressing, however, that the writer had no intention whatever of 
 injuring or disparaging him. I have not given your name, but I have, as the 
 defence of the writer of the article, quoted what you urge to me as the grounds of 
 your belief. Having retracted the allegation, and laid before him the grounds 
 of belief, I thought I did enough without giving your name." 
 
 To the Editor. 
 
 21 January. 
 " In case you propose to insert a note in your next number retracting the asper- 
 Bion (if aspersion it must be called), I think it would be desirable to add (what is 
 strictly true) that it never crossed the mind of the writer that the woid ' missionary * 
 could be understood as implying any reproach or disparagement. Where the offence 
 shoidd be I must confess myself still unable to guess; unless a ' missionary ' be 
 supposed to mean a man acting under ordt-rs, or for hire, — whicii I do not ihink it 
 dues. To me the word suggests no ideas but those of self-sacrifice and devotion, — 
 labour voluntarily undertaken for the benefit of others. Neither should it be over- 
 looked that the statement is qualified with an ' if.' I confess that ' if we are rightly 
 informed^ does look as if the statement had been made on the strength of some 
 definite information, and not merely of general notoriety. But did it stand so in my 
 manuscript? Surely I wrote, ' He is understood to have gone out, etc.,' or somethin*'
 
 272 DICKENS'S AMERICAN NOTES. 
 
 to that effect. It is so written in my draft, and I cannot conceive why I should have 
 altered it." 
 
 This ended the matter, as far as I had any part in it. As I was not to 
 appear and answer in my own person, I could interfere no further. The retracta- 
 tion, with which I had nothing to do (and which was harmless enough ; for 
 though very apologetic in tone, it admitted nothing more than an erroneous 
 impression as to the motive of Dickens's visit to America, which nobody but 
 himself could know) appeared in the next number of the Edinburgh Eeview, 
 and I heard no more. 
 
 I now find however that on the same day on which I offered these suggestions 
 as to the form of retractation, Mr. Dickens was expressing his own feelings as to 
 the matter to be retracted. Hovf the editor had put it to him I do not know ; 
 but the efifect of the communication will be seen in the following letter, which 
 appears among the selections from the editor's correspondence, recently published. 
 
 January 21st, 1843. 
 My dear Sir, 
 
 Let me hasten to say in the fullest and most explicit manner that you have 
 acted a most honourable, open, fair, and manly part in tlie matter of my complaint, 
 for which I beg you to accept my best thanks, and the nssurauce of my friendship 
 and regard. I would on no account publish the letter you have sent me for that 
 purpose; as I conceive that by doing so I should not reciprocate the spirit in which 
 you have written to me privately. But if you should upon consideration, think it 
 not inexpedient to set the Review right with regard to this point of fact, by a note 
 in the next number, I should be glad to see it there. 
 
 In reference to the article itself, it did by repeating this statement, hurt my feel- 
 ings excessively ; and is, in this respect, I still conceive, most unworthy of its 
 author. I am at a loss to divine who its author is. I hnow he read in some cut- 
 throat American paper this and other monstrous statements, wliich I could at any 
 time have converted into sickening praise by the payment of some fifty dollars. I 
 know that he is perfectly aware that his statement in the Review, in corroboration of 
 these lies, will be disseminated through the whole of the United States ; and that 
 my contradiction will never be heard of. And though I care very little for the 
 opinion of any person who will set the statement of an American editor (almost 
 invariably an atrocious scoundrel) against my character and conduct, such as they 
 may be ; still my sense of justice does revolt from this most cavalier and careless 
 exhibition of me to a whole people as a traveller under false pretences and a disap- 
 pointed intriguer. The better the acquaintance with America, the more defenceless 
 and inexcusable such conduct is. For 1 solemnly declare (and appeal to any man 
 but the writer of this pajjer, who has travelled in that country, for confirmation of 
 my statement) that the source from which lie drew the " information " so recklessly 
 put forth again in England, is infinitely more obscene, disgusting, and brutal, than 
 the very worst Sunday newspaper that has ever been printed in Great Britain 
 Conceive the Edinburgh Review quoting The Satirist or Tlie Man about Town, as an 
 authority against a man with one grain of honour, or feather-weight of reputation. 
 
 With regard to yourself, let me say again that I thank you with all sincertiy and 
 heartiness ; and fully acquit you of anything but kind and generous intentions to- 
 wards me. In proof of which, I do assure you that I am even more desirous than 
 before to write for the Review, and to find some topic which would at once please me 
 aud you. Always faithfully yours, 
 
 Charles Dickens,
 
 DICKENS'S AMERICAN NOTES. 273 
 
 I do not know whether the editor was content to accept " acquittal " on these 
 terms. His letter to me was written before he received this : and the only notice 
 taken of it, so far as I am aware, was the apologetic note in the next number of 
 the Review, which implied nothing more than a regret that " Mr. Dickens's visit 
 to America " had been, through misinformation, " ascribed to an erroneous cause." 
 My name not having been mentioned, I was not held to be a party concerned, 
 and remained in happy ignorance of Mr. Dickens's opinion of " the article itself" 
 and of all he " knew " about the writer of it. 
 
 But the case is now changed. Appearing in the character of the person, 
 against whom these remarks were directed, — as I now do, — I feel that some 
 explanation may be expected from me. The explanation is simple, and (as far as 
 my proceedings are concerned) complete ; though it leaves the cause of offence in 
 him more inexplicable than ever. 
 
 " The source from which I drew my information " was neither an editor nor 
 a newspaper, but the general conversation of Washington in the spring and 
 summer of 1842 ; when Congress was sitting, and when therefore it contained 
 samples of American society from all points of the compass. When I arrived 
 there, in April, Dickens and the international copyright were among the com- 
 monest topics of conversation ; and as he had made no secret of the part he took 
 everybody knew and talked of it. That he entered into the cause of international 
 copyright with what I should call the spirit of a missionary — meaning a man 
 who goes into far countries to preach the gospel — I knew, as I know that Mr. 
 Gladstone took a leading part in the agitation for autonomy in Bulgaria. That 
 he went to America for the purpose of helping in that work, I inferred from the 
 coincidence of time and place ; just as when I hear that Mr. Gladstone has made 
 a speech at St. James's Hall, I infer that he went thither for the purpose of 
 speaking. And since it was obviously impossible for me to hnow what Mr. 
 Dickens's private intentions were, except by putting the question to himself 
 — which he would have thought odd from a stranger — it seemed impossible that 
 anybody could take it for anything more or other than an inference. Nor was the 
 question itself a matter of importance. The material fact was that when he 
 arrived in America a movement was on foot for an International Copyright Act ; 
 that he went into it immediately with all his heart, and that it was the business 
 in which he appeared to take the greatest interest, and did play the most con- 
 spicuous part, during the first half of his visit. So much the people who formed 
 the society of Washington during the session of 1842 could know and did know ; 
 and no one who was living among them could doubt it. To this fact I alluded 
 merely as a thing to be remembered in comparing his advantages and disadvan- 
 tages as an observer in a foreign country. A cause which interested him so 
 deeply must have interfered, I thought, with his study of the place and the 
 people generally. But I especially mentioned it as a good cause — too good in- 
 deed to have much chance of prevailing under the conditions ; and so far was I 
 from seeing anything unworthy of him in going from England to America to 
 promote it, that I did in f^ict look iqTOn his zeal in this business as the feature of 
 his visit in which he showed to most advantage. 
 
 What he secretly believed my " statement " to be or to imply, and what he 
 was himself to be understood as " denying " when he denied what he called
 
 274 DICKENS'S AJIERICAN NOTES. 
 
 " it" I should have liked to know ; hut I had no opportunity of asking. And 
 as hotli his own letters leave hoth points entirely unexplained, it seems hoiieless 
 now to inquire what offended him, or what the " point of fact" was in which he 
 wished " the Review to be set right." All that is material, however, in the state- 
 ment itself still admits of easy and ample justification by evidence even more 
 imquestionable than that upon which it was originally made. If anyone wishes 
 to know what I mean by a man who " went out as a kind of missionary in the 
 cause of international copyright," and made the promotion of it " his main em- 
 ]>loyment " during the short period of his visit, let him read the following 
 extracts from Dickens's own Life and Letters. He landed at Boston, it will be 
 remembered, on the 22nd of January 1842. 
 
 1. 
 
 " His second letter," says his biographer, " was dated from the Carleton Hotel, 
 Kew York, on the 14th of February; but its only allusion of any public interest 
 was to the beginning of his agitation of the question of international copyriiiht. 
 He went to America with no express intention of starting this question in any 
 way, and certainly with no belief that such remarks upon it as a person in his 
 situation could alone be expected to make would be resented strongly by any 
 section of the American people. But he was not long left with doubt on this 
 head. He had spoken upon it twice publicly, ' to the great indignation of some 
 of the editors here, who are attacking me for so doing right and left.' On the 
 other hand, all the best men had assured him that, if only at once followed up 
 in England, the blow struck might bring about a change in the law ; and yield- 
 ing to the i^leasant hope that the best men could be a match for the worst, he 
 urged me to enlist on his side what force I could ; and in particular, as he had 
 made Scott's claim his war-cry, to bring Lockhart into the field." Vol. i. 291. 
 
 2. 
 
 " I spoke, as you know, of international copyright at Boston. I spoke of it 
 again at Hartford. My friends were paralyzed with wonder at such audacious 
 daring. . . . It is nothing that of all men living I am the greatest loser by it " 
 [i.e., by the " atrocious state of the law"]. " It is nothing that I have a claim to 
 speak and be heard. ... I wish you could have seen the faces that I saw down 
 both sides of the table at Hartford, when I began to talk about Scott. I wish 
 you could have heard how I gave it out. My blood so boiled as I thought of the 
 monstrous injustice that I felt as if I were twelve feet high when I thrust it 
 down their throats. 
 
 " I had no sooner made that second speech than such an outcry began (for 
 the purpose of deterring me from doing the like in this city) as an Englishman 
 can have no notion of Anonymous letters, verbal dissuasions, newspaper 
 attacks. . . . came pouring in upon me every day. The dinner committee were 
 so dismayed that they besought me not to pursue the subject, although they 
 everyone agreed ivith me. I answered that I would, that nothing should deter 
 me. , . . Accordingly when the ni^iht came I asserted my right, with all the 
 means I could command to give it/ dignity in face, manner, and words ; and I 
 believe that if ynu could have seen and heard me," etc. Ibid. p. 294.
 
 DICKENS'S AMERICAN NOTES. 275 
 
 3. 
 
 "The effect of all this agitation at least has been to awaken a great sensation 
 on both sides of the subject ; the respectable newspapers and reviews taking up 
 the cudgels as strongly in my favour as the others have done against me." Ibid, 
 p. 303. 
 
 " I should like to have a short letter addressed to me by the principal 
 English authors who signed the international copyright petition, expressive of 
 their sense that I have done my duty to the cause. I am sure I deserve it, but 
 I don't wish it on that ground. It is because its publication in the best 
 journals here would unquestionably do great good. As the gauntlet is down, let 
 us go on. Clay has already sent a gentleman to me express from Washington 
 (where I shall be on the 6th or 7th of next month) to declare his strong interest 
 in the matter, his cordial approval of the " manly" course I have held in refer- 
 ence to it, and his desire to stir in it, if possible. I have lighted up such a blaze 
 that a meeting of the foremost people on the other side (very resjjectfuUy and 
 properly conducted in reference to me personally, I am bound to say) was held 
 in this town 'tother night. And it would be a thousand pities if we did not 
 strike as hard as we can, now that the iron is so hot." Ibid. p. 301. 
 
 " I have in my portmanteau a petition for an international copyright, signed 
 by all the best American writers, with Washington Irving at their head. They 
 have requested me to hand it to Clay for presentation, and to back it with any 
 remarks which I may think fit to offer. So ' hoo-roar for the principle, as the 
 money-lender said ven he vooldn't renoo the bill.' " Ibid. p. 310. 
 
 " You will see by my other letter how there is war to the knife about 
 
 the international copyright, and how I will speak about it, and decline to be put 
 down." Ibid. p. 312. 
 
 7. 
 
 A letter from Mr. Carlyle to Dickens, 26th March 1842, begins:— "We 
 learn by the newspapers that you everywhere in America stir up the question 
 of international copyright, and thereby awake huge dissonance, where all else 
 were triumphant unison for you." Ibid. p. 313. 
 
 8. 
 
 " He " pSIr. Preston, a senator] " so solemnly assures me that the international 
 copyright shall and will be passed, that I almost begin to hope ; and I shall be 
 entitled to say, if it be, that I have brought it about. You have no idea how 
 universal the discussion of its merits and demerits has become ; or how eager 
 for a change I have made a portion of the people." Ibid. p. 330. 
 
 That to represent the cause of international copyright as Mr.^ Dickens's primary
 
 276 DICKENS'S AMERICAN NOTES. 
 
 object and main employment during his visit was " to exhibit him to a whole 
 people as a traveller under false pretences and a disappointed intriguer," is an 
 assertion in which I can see no meaning. For the story, as I understood it, left 
 no room (unless he could have been suspected of secretly wishing the cause to 
 be defeated) for so much as a suspicion either of intrigue or false pretences. But 
 his fancy was working in a wrong direction, and it may be that something had 
 passed between him and one of the editors which made my words seem to mean 
 more than they expressed. WJiat else they can have seemed to mean, I cannot 
 guess. But before I should have felt justified in retracting anything at all 
 material which they either expressed or implied, or could have suggested to anj^- 
 body but himself, I must have had his own express and personal authority for 
 stating that he did not take a leading part in the agitation for an International 
 Copyright Act during the first two months of his visit.
 
 IX. 
 
 TENNYSON'S POEMS. 
 
 [The following article was written in pursuance of an engagement, made when Mr. 
 Tennyson's two fii'st volumes were out of j^rint, tliat if he would publish a new 
 edition I would try to get leave to review it in the Edinburgh. Upon my 
 assurance that, though an intimate friend and an advanced believer, I would not 
 commit the Review to any praises or prophecies that would endanger its reputa- 
 tion, the editor consented. But though I kept carefully within bounds, I found 
 by an alteration in the last paragraph, slight in itself, but considerable in eifect 
 and significance, that I had after all gone a little further than he thought 
 prudent. The credit of the Review not being now at stake, I have taken the 
 reputation of the imprudence upon myself and restored the original reading.] 
 
 One of the severest tests by which a poet cau try the true worth 
 of his book, is to let it continue for two or three years out of print. 
 The first flush of poj)ularity cannot be trusted. Admu'ation is 
 contagious, and means often Httle more than sympathy with the 
 general feeling — the pleasm-e of being in the fashion. A book 
 which is praised in all the Reviews, thousands will not only buy 
 but be delighted with ; and thus a judicious publisher may con- 
 trive, by keeping it cleverly in people's way, to preserve for 
 years a popularity which is merely accidental and ephemeral. But 
 if this be all, the interest in it will cease as soon as it becomes 
 difficult to procm-e. Let a man ask for it two or three times 
 without getting it, he will take to something else ; and his 
 curiosity, unless founded on something more substantial than a 
 wish to see what others are looking at, and a disposition to be 
 
 * "Poems," by Alfred Tennyson. 2 vols. 12mo. London, 1842. Edinburgh 
 Bfipiejo, April, 1S43.
 
 278 TENNYSON'S POEMS. 
 
 pleased with what others praise, will die away. If, on the other 
 hand, a new edition he perseveringly demanded, and when it 
 comes he eagerly bought, we may safely conclude that the work 
 has something in it of abiding interest and permanent value ; for 
 then we know that many people have been so pleased or so 
 edified by the reading that they cannot be content without the 
 possession. To this severe test the author of the unpretending 
 volumes before us has submitted an infant, and what seemed to 
 many a baseless and precarious, reputation ; and so well has it 
 stood the test — for we understand that preparations are already 
 makmg for another edition — as to give him an undeniable claim 
 to the respectful attention of all critics. 
 
 The book must not be treated as one collection of poems, but 
 as three separate ones, belonging to three different periods in the 
 development of his mind, and to be judged accordingly. Mr. 
 Tennyson's first book was published in 1830, when he was at 
 college. His second followed in 1832. Their reception, though 
 far from triumphant, was not inauspicious; for while they gained 
 him many warm admirers, they were treated, even by those 
 critics whose admiration, like their charity, begins and ends at 
 home, as sufficiently notable to be worth some not unelaborate 
 ridicule. The admiration and the ridicule served alike to bring 
 them into notice, and they have both been for some years out of 
 print. As many of these productions as Mr. Tennyson has cared 
 to preserve are contained in the first volume of the present 
 edition. The second consists entirely of poems not hitherto 
 published ; which, though composed probably at various intervals 
 during the ten intervening years, have all, we presume, had the 
 benefit of his latest correcting hand. In subject, style, and the 
 kinds of excellence which they severally attain or aim at, they 
 are at once so various and so peculiar, that we cannot affect to 
 convey any adequate idea of the general character of the collec- 
 tion ; unless we should go through the table of contents, giving 
 as we go a description and a sample of each poem. Neither 
 shall we trouble ourselves to assign to the author his exact 
 rank among the poets of the day. We trust we have room 
 enough in our hearts for as many true poets, each moving in 
 his just and entire orbit, as the land can produce ; we are not,
 
 TENNYSON'S POEMS. 279 
 
 therefore, concerned to inquire how far one differs from another 
 in glory : 
 
 ndvra 5e t' etSerai &(TTpa' yeyride Se re <ppiva iroiixriv. 
 
 We shall content ourselves with endeavouring to form a true 
 estimate of the man himself, and his claims upon the public 
 -attention, both for what he has done and for what is to be 
 expected of him hereafter ; — which, if we are not much mis- 
 taken, (and supposing, what as yet however we have no absolute 
 assurance of, that he possesses the one great faculty of holding 
 all his other faculties in full and sustained exertion,) is some- 
 thing that will make all he has yet produced appear only like 
 preliminary essays and experiments. For the indications of im- 
 proving taste and increasing power exhibited not only in tlie 
 results of his later labours, but in the omission of some and the 
 alteration of others among his earlier, lead us to infer that his 
 faculties have not yet reached their highest development ; and, 
 even as they are now, he has not yet ventured upon a subject 
 large enough to bring them all into play together. 
 
 His earliest published volume — though it contains one or two 
 poems, as " Mariana " for instance, which must always rank 
 among his very best — is to be referred to rather as a point from 
 which to measure his subsequent progress, than for specimens of 
 what he is. The very vigour and abimdance of a poet's powers 
 will commonly be in his way at first, and produce faults. But 
 such faults are by no means unpromising. Indeed it is better 
 that the genius should be allowed to run rather wild and wanton 
 during its nonage ; for a poet will hardly have the free command 
 of his faculties when full grown, unless he allow them free play 
 during growth. Too severe a repression of their young activities 
 will stunt and cripple them, so that their aid will not be forth- 
 coming when it is wanted; while, on the other hand, a free 
 indulgence of them will bring in the end a double advantage — 
 they will be not only more fully developed by exercise, but 
 (having sown their wild oats) more readily brought into discipline 
 when business begins. 
 
 Eegarded as a crop of wild oats, Mr. Tennyson's first collec- 
 tion of poems, as originally published, cannot but be accounted 
 a production of unusual promise. The natural faults of youth —
 
 280 TENNYSON'S POEMS. 
 
 exuberance, prodigality, lightness of heart and head, ingenuity 
 wasted upon nothing, the want of sustained effort and a deter- 
 mined course, together with some vanities and fopperies — it may 
 well afford to be charged with. The untried genius needed to be 
 assured of its powers by putting them forth — to feel itself alive 
 through all its capacities by living acts of creation. Hence his 
 early efforts are, many of them, rather exercises than works- 
 gymnastic exercises for the fancy, the intellect, the imagination, 
 the power of language, and even for the feelings — valuable, as 
 the games and tasks of schoolboys are valuable, not for the thing 
 done, but for the practice, strength, and dexterity acquired in 
 doing it. Here we have a succession of vague melodies, in 
 which the power of musical expression tries how far it can go ; 
 there a group of abstract ideas, turned, for the satisfaction' of the 
 creative genius, into shapes ready for the sculptor : — here a 
 conceit, in which the fancy admires its own ingenuity ; there a 
 thought, of no great worth or novelty perhaps, but expressed 
 mth cm-ious felicity : — presently we find ourselves surrounded by 
 a bevy of first-loves — Adelines, Madelines, and Lilians, more 
 than we can remember — phantoms of female grace in every style, 
 but all belonging to the land of shadows : then again come 
 delineations of every state of mind, from that of the mystic who 
 has nearly reached the highest circle, to the " second-rate sensi- 
 tive mind not at unity with itself;" and of every variety of 
 untried being, on earth or in water, or on the earth under the 
 water, from the grasshopper with his " short youth, sunny and 
 free," to the kraken sleeping for ages in the central depths, 
 among millennial sjDonges and giant-finned polypi : whilst at 
 intervals we recognize a genuine touch of common humanity — a 
 "Character," (p. 44) — a "Circumstance," (p. 67) — or a sketch 
 truly drawn from homeliest nature, which needs, however, no 
 fancy dress to make it beautiful, but will remain for ever fresh 
 when all that "airy stream of lively portraiture" has faded 
 before the increasing daylight : — 
 
 " No matter what the sketch might be ; 
 Whether the high field on the bushless Pike, 
 Or even a sand-built ridge 
 Of lieaped hills that mound the sea.
 
 TENNYSON'S TOEMS. 281 
 
 Overblown with murmurs harsh, 
 
 Or even a lowly cottage whence we see 
 
 Stretch'd wide and wild the waste enormous marsh, 
 
 Where from the frequent bridge, 
 
 Like emblems of infinity, 
 
 The trenched waters run from sky to sky." 
 
 itt Hf * * * * 
 
 " Come from the woods that belt the gray hill -side, 
 The seven elms, the poplars four, 
 That stand beside my father's door ; 
 And chiefly from the brook that loves 
 To purl o'er matted cress and ribbed sand, 
 Or dimple in the dark of rushy coves, 
 Drawing into his narrow earthen urn, 
 
 In every elbow and turn, 
 The filter'd tribute of the rough woodland. 
 
 ! hither lead thy feet ! 
 Pour round mine ears the livelong bleat 
 Of the thick-fleeced sheep from wattled folds. 
 
 Upon the ridged wolds, 
 When the first matin-song hath waken'd loud. 
 Over the dark dewy earth forlorn. 
 What time the amber morn 
 Forth gushes from beneath a low-hung cloud." 
 
 Ode to Memory, vol. i. p. 34. 
 
 In the course of these exercises, though Mr. Tennyson may 
 not have produced much that he now sets any high vakie on, yet 
 he made himself master of a great variety of instruments ; and 
 his next appearance, only two j-ears after, showed manifest 
 symptoms of the benefit derived both from what he had acquired 
 and fi'om what he had thrown off. The superiority of his second 
 collection of poems lay not so much in the superior workman- 
 ship, (it contained perhaps fewer that were equally perfect in 
 their kind,) as in the general aim and character. If some of the 
 blossom was gone, it was amply repaid by the more certain 
 promise of fruit. Not only was the aim generally larger, the 
 subjects and interest more substantial, and the endeavour more 
 sustained, but the original and distinctive character of the man 
 appeared more plainly. His genius was manifestly shaping a 
 peculiar course for itself, and finding out its proper business ; 
 the moral soul was beginning more and more to assume its due 
 predominance — not in the way of formal prcachirg, (the proper
 
 282 TENNYSON'S POEMS. 
 
 vehicle of which is prose,") — hut in the sha^De and colour which 
 his creations unconsciously took, and the feelings which they 
 were made insensibly to suggest. Considerable faults, however, 
 still remained ; a tendency, for example, arising from the fulness 
 of a mind which had not yet learned to master its resources 
 freely, to overcrowd his composition with imagery ; a habit also 
 (caused by that dissatisfaction with himself, which, so long as it 
 does not depress the spirits too much, a poet ought to cultivate 
 rather than to repress) of adding, altering, and retouching, till 
 in trjang to improve the form he lost the spirit and h-eshness of 
 his work, and blurred the impression ; — to which may be added 
 an over-indulgence in the luxuries of the senses — a profusion of 
 splendours, harmonies, perfumes, gorgeous apparel, luscious 
 meats and drinks, and such "creature comforts," which rather 
 pall upon the sense, and make the glories of the outward world a 
 little to obscure and overshadow the world within. 
 
 In all these respects, the decade during which Mr. Tennyson 
 has remained silent has wrought a great im]3rovement. The 
 handling in his later pieces is much lighter and freer; the 
 interest deeper and pm^er ; — there is more humanity with less 
 imagery and drapery ; a closer adherence to truth ; a greater 
 reliance for effect upon the simplicity of nature. Moral and 
 spiritual traits of character are more dwelt upon, in place of 
 external scenery and circumstance. He addresses himself more 
 to the heart, and less to the ear and eye. This change, which is 
 felt in its results throughout the second volume, may in the 
 latter half of the first be traced in its process. The poems 
 originally published in 1832, are many of them largely altered ; 
 generally with great judgment, and always with a view to strip 
 off redundances — to make the expression simpler and clearer, to 
 substitute thought for imagery, and substance for shadow. "The 
 Lady of Shalott," for instance, (p. 77) is stripped of all her 
 finery ; her pearl garland, her velvet bed, her royal apparel, and 
 her "blinding diamond bright," are all gone; and certainly, in 
 the simple white robe which she now wears, her native beauty 
 shows to much greater advantage. The " Miller's Daughter," 
 again, is greatly enriched by the introduction of the mother of 
 the lover ; and the following beautiful stanzas (which many
 
 TENNYSON'S POEMS. 283 
 
 people, however, will be ill satisfied to miss) are displaced, to 
 make room for beauty of a much, higher order : — • 
 
 " Remember you the clear moonlight 
 
 That whiteu'd all the eastern ridge, 
 When o'er the water, dancing white, 
 
 I stepp'd upon the old mill-bridge? 
 I heard you whisper from above, 
 
 A lute-toned whisper, ' I am here ! ' 
 I murmur 'd, ' Speak again, my love, 
 
 The stream is loud : I cannot hear ! ' 
 
 " I heard, as I have seem'd to hear 
 
 When all the under-air was still. 
 The low voice of the glad new year 
 
 Call to the freshly-flowered hill. 
 I heard, as I have often heard 
 
 The nightingale in leafj' woods 
 Call to its mate, when nothing stirr'd 
 
 To left or right but falling floods." 
 
 These, we observe, are aw^ay ; and the following graceful and 
 tender picture, full of the spirit of English rural life, appears in 
 their place. (The late squii'e's son, we should premise, is bent 
 on marrying the daughter of the wealthy miller : — ) 
 
 " And slowly was my mother brought 
 
 To yield consent to my desire : 
 She wished me happy, but she thought 
 
 I might have look'd a little higher ; 
 And I was young — too young to wed : 
 
 ' Yet must I love her for your sake ; 
 Go fetch your Alice here,' she said ; 
 
 Her eyelid quiver'd as she spake. 
 
 " And down I went to fetch my bride : 
 
 But, Alice, you were ill at ease ; 
 This dress and that by turns you tried. 
 
 Too fearful that you should not please. 
 I loved you better for your fears, 
 
 I knew you could not look but well ; 
 And dews that would have fall'n in tears, 
 
 I kiss'd away before they fell. 
 
 " I watch'd the little flutterings. 
 
 The doubt my mother would not see ; 
 She spoke at large of many things. 
 And at the last she spoke of me j
 
 281 TENNYSON S TOEMS. 
 
 And turning look'd upon your face, 
 
 As near this door you sat apart, 
 And rose, and, witli a silent grace 
 
 Approaching, press'd you lieart to heart. ' 
 Vol. i. p. 109. 
 
 In the song of the " Lotos-Eaters " — which, as an expression 
 of the loathing of exertion supposed to be produced by that plant, 
 and as a picturesque and melodious assemblage of all images in 
 nature that can suggest or persuade repose, hardly admitted of 
 improvement — Mr. Tennyson has added some touches of deeper 
 significance, indicating the first effects of the physical disease 
 upon the moral and intellectual nature : — 
 
 " Dear is the memory of our wedded lives. 
 And dear the last embraces of our wives 
 And their warm tears : bnt all hath suffer'd change ; 
 For surely now our household hearths are cold : 
 Our sons inherit us : our looks are strange : 
 And we should come like ghosts to trouble joy. 
 Or else the island princes over-bold 
 Have eat our substance, and the minstrel sings 
 Before them of the ten -years' war in "J'roy, 
 And our great deeds, as half-forgotten things. 
 Is there confusion in the little isle ? 
 Let what is broken so remain, 
 The Gods are hard to reconcile : 
 "lis hard to settle order once again. 
 There is confusion worse than death, 
 Trouble on trouble, pain on pain. 
 Long labour unto aged breath, 
 Sore task to hearts worn out with many wars. 
 And eyes grown dim with gazing on the pilot-stars." 
 
 Vol. i. p. 182. 
 
 At the end of the same poem there will be found an altera- 
 tion of similar tendency, but of still more awful import ; where, 
 for the flow of triumphant enjoyment, in the contemplation of 
 merely sensual ease and luxurious repose, with which it origin- 
 ally closed, a higher strain is substituted, which is meant 
 apparently to show the effect of lotos-eating upon the religious 
 feelings. The gods of the Lotos-eaters, it is worth Imowing, are 
 altogether Lucretian. 
 
 Another instance, more convenient for quotation, of Mr. 
 Tennyson's growing tendency to seek deeper for sources of
 
 TENNYSON'S POEMS. 285 
 
 interest is tlie third and concluding part (which is entirely new) 
 of the " May Queen." Many of our readers are probably famiHar 
 with the first two parts of this poem ; in the latter of which the 
 natural pathos of the situation — a beautiful gu'l dying in her 
 prime, before Hfe has lost its freshness, before decay and sorrow 
 have made her familiar with the thought of death — is wrought up 
 with so much truth and tenderness, that there seemed to be little 
 room for more. It is a picture of resignation to a fate felt to be 
 a hard one— the reluctant abandonment of pleasures which she 
 is content to resign since she needs must, but would fain be per- 
 mitted to keep ; the case of thousands, the rudest delineation of 
 which must always be affecting. With Mr. Tennyson's treat- 
 ment of it no fault can be found. The homely pleasures, the 
 sports, the cares, the vanities of her little life — the familiar 
 places she must leave, the familiar process of the seasons, 
 hitherto bringing to the dehghted spirit only a succession of 
 delights, now sad and sacred because watched for the last time 
 — all her shining world, as it was when she moved the centre of 
 it, as it will be when she is no longer there — pass over her mind 
 like shadows, and are touched with exquisite sweetness and 
 simplicity. But he saw in the situation materials for a deeper 
 and loftier strain. Hitherto so full of life, what should she 
 know of death ? A blank negation it seemed ; the non-existence 
 to her of all that existed ; no positive image. But as she grows 
 familiar with the thought of total separation from all she knows, 
 new interests disclose themselves, and death appears but as the 
 passage to a new life. That life she has long known of, indeed, 
 and looked forward to ; but idly, as a thing far off, which did 
 not yet practically concern her; a proposition assented to, but 
 not comprehended ; a book possessed and known to contain 
 precious things, but not yet read — or at most read with a truant 
 attention, 
 
 " Like words 
 That leave upon the still susceptive sense 
 A message undeliver'd, till the mind 
 Awakes to apprehensiveness, and takes it." 
 
 But now the formless void takes shape and substance as she 
 gazes into it, and di-aws her whole spirit that way, mitil akeady
 
 286 Tennyson's poems. 
 
 iu imagination death is swallowed up in victory. The theme is 
 as trite as can be, and the treatment as simple ; but it is not the 
 less original. There are probably not less than a thousand 
 persons now Hving who could have made elegant and touching 
 verses upon it — one set, perhaps, not greatly differing from 
 another. But of all the thousand poems we will venture to say 
 that not one would have resembled this : — 
 
 " I thought to pass away before, and yet alive I am ; 
 And in the fields all round I hear the bleating of the lamb. 
 How sadly, I remember, rose the morning of the year ! 
 To die before the snowdrop came, and now the violet's here. 
 
 " sweet is the new violet, that comes beneath the skies, 
 And sweeter is the young lamb's voice to me that cannot rise, 
 And sweet is all the land about, and all the flowers that blow. 
 And sweeter far is death than life to me that long to go. 
 
 to"- 
 
 " It seem'd so hard at first, mother, to leave the blessed sun. 
 And now it seems as hard to stay, and yet His will be done ! 
 But still it can't be long, mother, before I find release ; 
 And that good man, the clergyman, he preaches words of peace. 
 * ^ * * * m * 
 
 " He show'd me all the mercy, for he taught me all the sin. 
 Now, though my lamp was lighted late, there's One will let me in 
 Nor would 1 now be well, mother, again, if that could be, 
 For my desire is but to pass to Him that died for me. 
 
 " I did not hear the dog howl, mother, or the death-watch beat, 
 There came a sweeter token when the night and morning meet: 
 But sit beside my bed, mother, and put your hand in mine. 
 And Effie on the other side, and I will tell the sign. 
 
 " All in the wild March-morning I heard the angels call; 
 It was when the moon was setting, and the dark was over all ; 
 The trees began to whisper, and the wind began to roll. 
 And in the wild March-morning I heard them call my soul. 
 
 " For lying broad awake I thought of you and Effie dear ; 
 I saw you sitting in the house, and 1 no longer here ; 
 With all my strength I pray'd for both, and so I felt resign'd. 
 And up the valley came a swell of music on the wind. 
 
 " I thought that it was fancy, and I listen'd in my bed, 
 And then did something speak to me — I know not what was said ; 
 For great delight and shuddering took hold of all my mind, 
 And up the valley came again the music on the wind.
 
 TENNYSON'S POEMS. 287 
 
 " But you were sleeping ; and I said, ' It's not for them : it's mine.' 
 And if it comes three times, I thought, I take it for a sign. 
 And once attain it came, and close beside the window bars, 
 Then seem'd to go right up to heaven and die among the stars. 
 
 Hi Hi if * * * * 
 
 " look ! the sun begins to rise, the heavens are in a glow ; 
 He shines upon a hundred fields, and all of them I know. 
 And there I move no longer now and there his light may shine^ 
 Wild flowers in the valley for other hands than mine. 
 
 " sweet and strange it seems to me, that ere this day is done 
 The voice that now is speaking, may be beyond the sun — 
 For ever and for ever with those just souls and true — 
 And what is life, that we should moan ? why make we such ado ? 
 
 " For ever and for ever, all in a blessed home — 
 And there to wait a little while till you and Effie come — 
 To lie within the light of God, as I lie upon your breast — 
 And the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest." 
 
 These specimens may serve to show that the full blossom 
 which distinguished the " Poems chiefly Lyrical," contained no 
 deceitful promise. But it is a small thing that the genius pos- 
 sesses the command of all its instruments, if it be not itself in 
 tune with nature. All that is of true and lasting worth in poetry, 
 must have its root in a sound view of human life and the condi- 
 tion of man in the world ; a just feeling with regard to the things 
 in which we are all concerned. Where this is not, the most con- 
 summate art can produce nothing which men will long care for— 
 where it is, the rudest will never want audience ; for then nothing 
 is trivial — the most ordinary incidents of dail}^ life are invested 
 with an interest as deep as the springs of emotion in the heart — 
 as deep as pity, and love, and fear, and awe. In this requisite 
 Mr. Tennyson will not be found wanting. The human soul, in 
 its infinite variety of moods and trials, is his favourite haunt ; 
 nor can he dwell long upon any subject, however remote appar- 
 ently from the scenes and objects of modern sympathy, without 
 touching some string which brings it within the range of our 
 common life. His moral views, whether directly or indii-ectly 
 conveyed, are healthy, manly, and simple ; and the truth and 
 delicacy of his sentiments is attested by the depth of the pathos 
 which he can evoke from the commonest incidents, told in the
 
 288 TENNYSON'S POEMS. 
 
 simplest manner, yet deriving all their interest from the manner 
 of telling. See, for instance, the story of "Dora,"' (vol. ii. p. 33,) 
 and "The Lord of Burleigh," (p. 201). What is there in these 
 that should so move us ? Quarrels and reconciliations among 
 kindred happen daily. Hopeless affection, secretly, without 
 complaint, cherished to the end, is a grief commoner than we 
 know of. Many a woman marries ahove her natural rank, and 
 afterwards dies of a decline. How is it that we do not pass these 
 stories by as commonjjlace — so like what we see every day that 
 we want no more of them ? It is because they are disclosed to 
 us, not as ive are in the habit of seeing such things, through the 
 face they present to the outward world — but as they stand re- 
 corded in the silent heart, to whose tragic theatre none but itself 
 (and the poet) may be admitted as a spectator. And many a 
 lighted drawing-room is doubtless the scene of tragedies as deep 
 as Hamlet, which pass into the long night unwept, only for want 
 of some rates sacer to make them visible. As a specimen of the 
 same kind of power in quite another style, take the following 
 stanzas, entitled " A Farewell," the pathos of which, if it be 
 difficult to account for, it is not the less impossible to resist : — 
 
 " Flow down, cold rivulet, to the sea, 
 Thy tribute wave deliver : 
 No more by thee ray steps shall be. 
 For ever and for ever. 
 
 " Flow, softly flow, by lawn and lea, 
 A rivulet, then a river : 
 No where by thee my steps shall he, 
 For ever and for ever, 
 
 " But here will sigh thine alder-tree, 
 And here thine aspen shiver ; 
 And here by thee will hum the bee, 
 P'or ever and for ever. 
 
 "A hundred suns will stream on thee, 
 A thousand moons will quiver ; 
 But not by thee my steps shall be, 
 For ever and for ever." 
 
 A simple touch this — a mere ejaculation of tender emotion, which 
 seems as if it might have escaped from anybody ; yet it shows, 
 as well as a more elaborate performance could have done, how
 
 TENNYSON'S POEMS. 289 
 
 truly the poet's feeling vibrates in sympathy with nature ; other- 
 wise how should so simple a tone out of his heart awaken such 
 an echo in our own ? 
 
 But there are four poems in which Mr. Tennyson has ex- 
 pressly treated of certain morbid states of the mind ; and from 
 these we may gather, not indeed his creed, but some hints con- 
 cerning his moral theory of life and its issues, and of that which 
 constitutes a sound condition of the soul. These are the " Palace 
 of Ai-t," the " St. Simeon Stylites," the "Two Voices," and the 
 " Vision of Sin." The " Palace of Art " represents allegori- 
 cally the condition of a mind which, in the love of beauty and 
 the triumphant consciousness of knowledge and intellectual 
 supremacy, in the intense enjoyment of its own power and 
 glory, has lost sight of its relation to man and to God. 
 
 " I built my soul a lordly pleasure-house, 
 Wherein at ease for aye to dwell. 
 I said, ' soul, make merry and carouse, 
 Dear soul, for all is well ! * 
 
 " To which my soul made answer readily : 
 ' Trust me, in bliss I shall abide 
 In this great mansion, that is built for me. 
 So royal-rich, and wide.' " 
 
 There she gathers round her whatever is beautiful in nature, 
 perfect in art, noble and moving in history — all objects, from all 
 climates and ages, that can inspire the imagination, flatter the 
 senses, or charm the heart ; in the midst of which she " lives 
 alone unto herself," till she feels beyond the reach of change or 
 chance. 
 
 *' Then of the moral instinct would she prate. 
 And of the rising from the dead, 
 As hers by right of full accomplished Fate ; 
 And at the last she said : 
 
 " * I take possession of men's minds and deeds. 
 I live in all things great and small. 
 I sit apart, holding no forms of creeds, 
 But contemplating all.' " 
 
 The very remembrance of human misery and weakness — " the 
 riddle of the painful earth " — though it crosses her thoughts, does 
 
 U
 
 200 TENNYSON'S TOEMS. 
 
 not disturb her triumph. But such immunity from the common 
 
 yoke of mortahty is not given to mortal ; for a man (as our 
 
 author expresses it elsewhere) 
 
 " is not as God ; 
 But then most Godlike, being most a man." 
 
 The sin of self-absolution from human cares and duties, finds its 
 appropriate retribution in the despair which the sense of being 
 cut off from human sympathy, when it once forces itself on the 
 mind, inevitably brings ; — a truth which Shakespeare has indi- 
 cated in the case of Richard III. ; when he " that had no brother, 
 that was like no brother," — " he that had neither pity, love, nor 
 fear," — was shaken by his conscience in sleep. 
 
 " There is no creature loves me ; 
 And if I die no soul shall pity me : — 
 I shall despair." 
 
 "We have not room for the whole passage in which Mr. Tennyson 
 describes the despair of this soul, when, in the midst of her 
 solitary delights, " deep dread and loathing of her solitude " fell 
 upon her. But the concluding stanzas (as conveying the moral, 
 and especially as showing that it is not the enjoyment, but the 
 selfish enjoyment, of her intellectual supremacy — not the gifts, 
 but the gifts as divorced from charity — which he holds to be 
 sinful) must find a place. 
 
 " Back on herself her serpent pride had curl'd. 
 
 ' No voice,' she shriek'd in that lone hall, 
 ' No voice breaks thro' the stillness of this world : 
 
 One deep, deep silence all 1 ' 
 
 " She, mouldering with the dull earth's mouldering sod, 
 Inwrapt tenfold in slothful shame. 
 Lay there exiled from eternal God, 
 Lost to her place and name ; 
 
 " And death and life she hated equally, 
 And nothing saw, for her despair, 
 But dreadful time, dreadful eternity, 
 No comfort anywhere ; 
 
 " Bemaining utterly confused with fears. 
 And ever worse with growing time. 
 And ever unrelieved by dismal tuars, 
 And all alone in crime :
 
 TENNYSON'S POEMS. 291 
 
 " Shut up as in a crumbling tomb, girt round 
 With blackness as a solid wall, 
 Far off she seem'd to hear the dully sound 
 Of human footsteps fall. 
 
 " As in strange lands a traveller walking slow, 
 In doubt and great perplexity, 
 A little before moonrise hears the low 
 Moan of an unknown sea. 
 
 " And knows not if it be thunder or a sound 
 Of stones thrown down, or one deep cry 
 Of great wild beasts ; then thinketh, ' I have found 
 A new land, but I die. ' 
 
 " She howl'd aloud, ' I am on fire within, 
 There comes no murmur of reply. 
 What is that will take away my sin, 
 And save me lest I die ?' 
 
 " So when four years were wholly finished, 
 
 She threw her royal robes away. 
 ' Make me a cottage in the vale,' she said, 
 
 ' Where I may mourn and pray. 
 
 " ' Yet pull not down my palace towers, that are 
 So lightly, beautifully built : 
 Perchance I may return with others there, 
 When I have purged my guilt.' " 
 
 As the " Palace of Art " represents the pride of voluptuoug 
 enjoyment m its noblest form, the " St. Simeon Stylites " repre- 
 sents the pride of asceticism in its basest. To shadow forth 
 dramatically the faith, the feelings, and the hopes, which support 
 the man who, being taught that the rewards of another life will 
 be proportioned to the misery voluntarily undergone in this, is 
 bent on qualifying himself for the best place — appears to be the 
 design, or the running idea, of the poem. It is done with great 
 force and effect ; and, as far as we can guess, with gl-eat fidelity 
 to nature. Of this, however, we must confess that we are not 
 competent judges. Holding, as we do, that all self-torment in- 
 flicted for its own sake — all mortification beyond what is neces- 
 sary to keep the powers of self-command and self-restraint in 
 exercise, and the lower parts of our nature in due subjection to 
 the higher — is a thing unblest ; and that the man who thinks to
 
 202 TENNYSON'S TOEMS. 
 
 propitiate God by degrading bis image and making bis temple 
 loatbsome, must bave bis wbole beart out of tune, and be in the 
 right way to the wrong place — we must confess that we cannot 
 so expand om* human sympathy as to reach the case of St. 
 Simeon. We notice the poem for the light it throws on Mr. 
 Tennyson's feeling with regard to this disease of the mind ; 
 which, if we collect it rightly — (for, as the saint has all the talk 
 to himself, it cannot of course be conveyed directly) — is, that 
 selfishness, sensuality, and carnal pride, are really at the bottom 
 of it ; and this, however paradoxical it may appear, we believe 
 to be quite true. 
 
 In the " Two Voices " we have a history of the agitations, the 
 suggestions, and counter suggestions, of a mind sunk in hopeless 
 despondency, and meditating self-destruction ; together with the 
 manner of its recovery to a more healthy condition. Though 
 not one of the most perfect, it is one of the most remarkable of 
 Mr. Tennyson's productions. An analysis of the arguments 
 urged on either side, would present nothing very new or striking; 
 and in point of poetical management — though rising occasion- 
 ally into passages of great power and beauty, and though in- 
 dicating throughout a subtle and comprehensive intellect, well 
 fitted for handling such questions — it api^ears to us to be too 
 long drawn out, and too full of a certain tender and passionate 
 eloquence, hardly compatible with that dreary and barren 
 misery in which the mind is supposed to be languishing. The 
 dry and severe style with which the poem begins, should have 
 been kept up, we think, through the greater portion of the 
 dialogue, especially on the part of the " dull and bitter " voice, 
 which sustains the character of a tempting MephistoiDheles. 
 These, however, are points of minute criticism, into which we 
 have not room to enter. What we are at present concerned 
 with, is the moral bearing of the poem. The disease is familiar; 
 but where are we to look for the remedy ? Many persons would 
 have thought it enough to administer a little religious consola- 
 tion to the diseased mind ; but unfortunately despondency is no 
 more like ignorance than atrophy is like hunger ; and as the 
 most nutritious food will not nourish the latter, so the most 
 comfortable doctrine will not refresh the former. Not the want
 
 TENNYSON'S POEMS. 203 
 
 of consoling topics, but the incapacity to receive consolation, 
 constitutes the disease. Others would have been content to 
 give the bad voice the worst of the argument ; but, un- 
 happily, all moral reasoning must ultimately rest on the 
 internal evidence of the moral sense ; and where this is dis- 
 ordered, the most unquestionable logic can conclude nothing, 
 because it is the first principles which are at issue ; the major 
 is not admitted. Mr. Temiyson's treatment of the case is more 
 scientific. We quote it, not indeed as new or original, — (it has 
 been anticipated, and may perhaps have heen suggested, by Mr. 
 Wordsworth, in the memorable passage at the close of the 
 fourth book of the " Excursion,") — but for the soundness of the 
 philosophy, and the poetic beauty of the handling. The dialogue 
 ends (as such a dialogue, if truly reported, must always do), 
 leaving everythmg unsettled, and nothing concluded. Then the 
 speaker, having answered the tempter's arguments, but gathered 
 no practical assurance from his own, opens the window and 
 looks forth into the early Sabbath morning : — 
 
 " And I arose, and I released 
 The casement, aud the light increased 
 AVith freshness in the dawning east. 
 
 " Like soften'd airs that blowing steal, 
 "When meres begin to uncongeal, 
 The sweet church-bells began to peal. 
 
 On to God's house the people prcst. 
 Passing the place where each must rest. 
 Each enter'd like a welcome guest. 
 
 " One walk'd between his wife and child. 
 With measured footfall firm and mild. 
 And now and then he gravely smiled. 
 
 " The prudent partner of his blood 
 Lean'd on him, faithful, gentle, good, 
 Wearing the rose of womanhood. 
 
 " And, in their double love secure, 
 Tiie little maiden Avalk'd demure, 
 Pacing with downward eyelids pure.
 
 29i TENNYSON'S POEMS. 
 
 " These three made unity so sweet, 
 My frozen heart began to beat, 
 Remembering its ancient heat. 
 
 " I blest them, and they wander'd on : 
 I spoke, but answer came there none : 
 The dull and bitter voice was gone. 
 
 " A second voice was at mine ear, 
 A little whisper, silver-clear, 
 A murmur, ' Be of better cheer.' 
 
 " As from some blissful neighbourhood, 
 A notice faintly understood, 
 ' I see the end, and know the good.' 
 
 " A little hint to solace woe, 
 A hint, a whisper breathing low, 
 ' I may not speak of what I know.' 
 
 " Like an ^olian harp, that wakes 
 No cei*tain air, but overtakes 
 Far thought with music that it makes. 
 
 " Such seem'd the whisper at my side : 
 ' What is it thou knowest, sweet voice ? ' I cried. 
 ' A hidden hoj)e,' the voice replied : 
 
 " So heavenly-toned, that in that hour 
 From out my sullen heart a power 
 Broke, like the rainbow from the shower. 
 
 " To feel, although no tongue can prove, 
 That every cloud that spreads above 
 And veileth love, itself is love. 
 
 " And forth into the fields I went, l 
 
 And Nature's living motion lent 
 The pulse of hope to discontent. 
 
 " I wonder'd at the bounteous hours, 
 The slow result of winter showers : 
 You scarce could see the grass for flowers. 
 
 " I wonder'd, while I paced along. 
 The woods were fiU'd so full with song, 
 There seem'd no room for sense of wrong. 
 
 *' So variously seem'd all things wrought, 
 I marvell'd how the mind was brought 
 To anchor by one gloomy thought ;
 
 TENNYSON'S TOEMS. 2!J5 
 
 "And wherefore rather I made choice 
 To conimuue with that barren voice 
 Than him that said, ' Eejoice ! rejoice ! ' " 
 
 The '' Vision of Sin " touches upon a more awful subject than 
 any of these ; — the end, here and hereafter, of the msrely 
 Bensual man : — 
 
 " I had a vision when the night was late : 
 A youth came riding toward a palace-gate. 
 He rode a horse with wings, that would have flown, 
 But that his heavy ridt-r kept him down. 
 And from the i)alace came a child of sin. 
 And took him by the curls and led him in." 
 
 Then follows a passage of great lyrical power, representing, 
 under the figui'e of Music, the gradual yielding up of the soul to 
 Bensual excitement, in its successive stages of languor, luxury, 
 agitation, madness, and triumph : — 
 
 " Till, kill'd with some luxurious agony, 
 The nerve-dissolving melody 
 Flutter'd headlong from the sky." 
 
 This is the sensual life to w^hich the youth is supposed to be 
 given up. Meantime, the inevitable, irrevocable judgment comes 
 slowly on, — not without due token and warning, but without 
 regard : — 
 
 -o'- 
 
 " And then I look'd up toward a mountain-tract, 
 That girt the region with high cliff and lawn : 
 I saw that every morning, far withdrawn 
 Beyond the darkness and the cataract, 
 God made Himself an awful rose of dawn, 
 Unheeded : and detaching, fold by fold. 
 From those still heights, and, slowly drawing near, 
 A vapour heavy, hucless, formless, cold, 
 Came floating on for many a month and year, 
 Unheeded ; and I thought I would have spoken. 
 And warn'd that madman ere it grew too late : 
 But, as in dreams, 1 could not. Mine was broken, 
 When that cold vapour touch'd the palace-gate, 
 And link'd again. I saw within my head 
 A grey and gap-tooth'd man as lean as death, 
 Who slowly rode aciuss a wiLhei'd heath, 
 And lighted at a ruiu'd iuu "
 
 29G TENNYSON'S POEMS. 
 
 This is the j'outh, the winged steed, and the palace — the 
 warm blood, the mounting spirit, and the lustful body — now 
 chilled, jaded, and ruined : the cup of pleasure drained to the 
 di'egs ; the senses exhausted of their power to enjoy, the spu'it of 
 its wish to aspire : nothing left but " loathing, craving, and 
 rottenness."* His mental and moral state is developed in a 
 song, or rather a lyric si)eech, too long to quote ; and of which, 
 without quoting, we cannot attempt to convey an idea; — a 
 ghastly picture (lightened only by a seasoning of wild inhuman 
 humour) of misery and mockery, impotent malice and im- 
 penitent regret ; " languid enjoyment of evil with utter in- 
 capacity to good."t Such is his end on earth. But the end 
 of all ? 
 
 " The voice grew faint : there came a further change ; 
 Again arose the mystic mountain-range : 
 Below were men and horaes pierced with worms. 
 And slowly quickening into lower forms ; 
 By shards and scurf of salt, and scum of dross, 
 Old plash of rains and refuse patch'd with moss. 
 Then some one said, ' Behold ! it was a crime 
 Of sense avenged by sense that wore with time.' 
 Another said, ' The crime of sense became 
 The crime of malice, and is equal blame.' 
 And one : ' He had not wholly quench'd his power ; 
 A little grain of conscience made him sour.' 
 At last I heard a voice upon the slope 
 Cry to the summit — ' Is there any ho[ie ! ' 
 To which an answer peal'd from that high land, 
 But in a tongue no man could understand ; 
 And on the glimmering limit, far-withdrawn, 
 God made Himself an awful rose of dawn." 
 
 Into the final mysteries of judgment and of mercy let no man 
 presume to inquire further. Enough for us to know what for 
 us is evil. Be the rest left to Him with whom nothing is im- 
 possible ! 
 
 We have dwelt longer on these four poems than either their 
 prominence or their relative poetic merit would have led us to' 
 do ; because, though they may not show the author's art in its 
 most perfect or most attractive form, they show the depth from 
 
 * IJcrlceley. f Larab.
 
 TENNYSON'S POEMS. 297 
 
 w}/.icli it springs ; they show that it is no trick of these versify- 
 ing times — born of a superficial sensibility to beauty and a turn 
 for setting to music the current doctrines and fashionable feel- 
 ings of the day ; but a genuine growth of nature, having its root 
 deep in the pensive heart — a heart accustomed to meditate 
 earnestly, and feel truly, upon the prime duties and interests 
 of man. 
 
 Having ascertained the depth and quality, we should next 
 inquire into the compass, of his power, and the manner in which 
 it has hitherto been most completely and characteristically 
 developed. But we have akeady transgressed our limits, and 
 must leave the book to speak for itself on these points. Such 
 poems as the "Morte d'Arthur," the "Pictures," the "Talking 
 Oak," the " Day Dream," and many others, could derive no 
 additional interest from any comment of ours ; and if there be 
 persons to whom a few of the lighter pieces — such as " Audley 
 Court," "Walking to the Mail," "Will Waterproof," or 
 " Amphion " — appear idle and foolish, we see no help for it ; 
 nor, in the meantime, any harm. Those whose humours (to 
 borrow Falstaff's phrase) they happen to "jump with," will 
 relish them : the rest may pass on. 
 
 We cannot, however, conclude without reminding Mr. Tenny- 
 son, that, highly as we value the Poems which he has produced, 
 we cannot accept them as a satisfactory account of the gifts 
 wliicli they show that he possesses ; any more than we could 
 take a painter's collection of studies for a pictm'e, in place of the 
 picture itself. Powers are displaj^ed in these volumes, adequate 
 to the production of a very great work ; at least we should find 
 it difficult to say which of the requisite powers is wanting. But 
 they are displayed in fi-agments and snatches, having no con- 
 nexion, and therefore deriving no light or fresh interest the one 
 from the other. By this their effective value is incalculably 
 diminished. Take the very best scenes in Shakespeare — detach 
 them from the context — and suppose all the rest to have 
 l^erished, or never to have been written — where would be the 
 evidence of the power which created Lear and Hamlet? Yet 
 perhaps not one of those scenes could have been produced by 
 a man who was nut capable of producing the whole. If
 
 298 TENNYSON'S POEMS. 
 
 Mr. Tennyson can find a subject large enough to take the entire 
 impress of bis mind, and energy persevering enougb to work it 
 faitbfull}' out as one "wbole, we are convinced that be may pro- 
 duce a work, wbicb, tbougb occup3'ing no larger space tban the 
 contents of tbese volumes, sball as mucb exceed tbem in value, 
 as a series of quantities multiplied into eacb other exceeds in 
 value the same series simply added together.
 
 X. 
 
 HARTLEY COLERIDGE.* 
 
 It is a common weakness in persons who are not so handsome 
 as they would be, or have been, to abhor a faithful portrait- 
 painter ; and a still commoner weakness in their friends to 
 I)refer what they call an " idealised " likeness of them, by which 
 they mean, not one in which the true and j)ermanent character 
 prevails over the accidental peculiarities of the face, but one 
 which, being sufficiently like to be recognised, approaches other- 
 wise as nearly as may be to the academical standard of beauty. 
 A similar weakness j)revails with regard to men's lives and 
 characters, and a biograxDher who so portraj's his subject that 
 those who did not know the man may know what he was like, 
 must not expect to escape popular censure. Yet we all long to 
 have some definite image both of the features and the character 
 of any man in whom we are interested, whether the interest be 
 excited by his writings or his actions ; and it is only when a 
 faithful record of the face or the life destroys some cherished 
 ideal that the minutest personal details are unwelcome. Then, 
 indeed, when the real man falls short of the ideal formed of him 
 from his writings, people are apt to exclaim, " Why undeceive 
 us ? Why publish what might have been kept private ? That 
 part of his life and character which his works reveal is all that 
 the world has interest in ; why not leave it to speak for itself ? " 
 To this appeal the obvious and sufficient answer is, that if the 
 
 * Poems by Hartley Coleridge ; with a Memoir of his Life, by his Brother, lu 
 two volumes. Loud. 1851. GeiillemaiCs Magazine, June, 1851.
 
 300 HARTLEY COLERIDGE. 
 
 works bespeak a life and character which does not correspond 
 with the fact, they speak falsely, and those who so interpret 
 them are living in a false belief, which to hold unconsciously is 
 an evil, to cherish deliberately is a sin. Some jDrovinces of the 
 intellect there are, indeed, which may be said to be independent 
 of the moral character. We may inherit the full fi'uits of a life 
 devoted to science, for instance, without caring to imagine or to 
 ask what sort of man he was who bequeathed them to us. In 
 such cases, if the life be otherwise unworthy of remembrance, let 
 it by all means be forgotten. But it is not so with the poet. All 
 poetry which is worth anything is a voice out of a human heart, 
 and every human heart beats in some individual man. We must 
 sympathize, and we cannot sjmipathize with an abstraction. If 
 we do not know what he was like, we imagine him — we make a 
 pictm'e of him in om* mind — and if we imagine him other than 
 he was, we deceive ourselves, and, so far, the truth is not in us. 
 
 To us, therefore, when a poet dies whose works are worthy oi- 
 likely to Uve, a candid account of his personal history shall 
 always be welcome, and, provided it reveals the truth, it shall 
 not be the less welcome though the truth be painful. Indeed we 
 are persuaded that, even where the truth is most painful, it is for 
 the interest of the poet's own memory that it should be frankly 
 told. To estimate the strength of a man's virtue we must know 
 the constitutional weaknesses against which it had to struggle. 
 In them we shall find at once the explanation and the excuse of 
 his shortcomings ; and far better it is that they should be fau-ly 
 expounded by a friend who understands the whole case, than 
 that scattered evidences of them should be picked up one by one 
 and exhibited as cm'iosities and fi-agments of " truth brought to 
 light by time," — such fragments being often only scandals and 
 errors which truth had in their own day disowned and dismissed 
 to obhvion. 
 
 All this we believe to be eminently true with regard to 
 Hartley Coleridge, and in the copious and candid memoir pre- 
 fixed to these volumes we think the editor has not only rendered 
 a service to literary history, by contributing to it the portrait of 
 a man in all ways interesting and in many ways remarkable, but 
 has also performed an ollice of piety to the memory of his
 
 ITARTLEY COLERIDGE. HOI 
 
 brother. We should have preferred, indeed, a tone less elabor- 
 ately apologetic, a more sparing introduction of censures and 
 regrets, and generally a style of narrative more concise, and 
 simple, and straight-onward. But when we remember tlie 
 relation in which the editor stands to his brother and his family 
 on one side, and to a jealous and not very reasonable public on 
 the other, we feel that it would be rash to pronounce judgment 
 on the execution of a task so very delicate and difficult. Enough 
 that the story which he has recorded is full of interest and in- 
 struction, and as we have good reason to believe that no material 
 part of the case has been suppressed or misrepresented, those 
 who are dissatisfied with his treatment of it may treat it better 
 for themselves. 
 
 Hartley Coleridge was born at Clevedon on the 19th of 
 September, 1796, the eldest son of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and 
 therefore with a hereditary title both to gifts of the intellect and 
 infirmities of the will. About the end of his fourth year his 
 home was transferred from the banks of the Severn to the lakes 
 of Cumberland and Westmoreland, and fixed in the house which 
 will long be remembered as the residence of Southey. He 
 appears to have been distinguished from other children at a very 
 early age by a certain oddity of manner and absence of mind, 
 and by a constitutional inaptitude for all games requiring atten- 
 tion and manual dexterity. This, rather than any premature 
 devotion to books or aversion from the society of playmates, pre- 
 vented him from mixing in childish sports, and caused him to 
 spend the greater part of his time in an imaginary world of his 
 own, strangely peopled with shadows abstracted from the real 
 world in which he lived, and of the concerns of which he was at 
 the same time no inattentive observer. How far he was distin- 
 guished from others of the same age by any extraordinary powers 
 of mind it is not easy to gather. There is hardly any child 
 whose mind, when subjected to the inspection of poets and meta- 
 physicians, is not full of wonders ; and we may more confidently 
 infer that Hartley was an extraordinary child from the fact that 
 he certainly grew up to be no ordinary man, than from the im- 
 pressions he made on Wordsworth at six years old, or from his 
 father's report of the metaphysical mysteries with which his
 
 r>02 HARTLEY COLERIDGE. 
 
 cliildisli understanding perplexed itself.* Though a clever boy, 
 and not idle, it seems that he made no remarkable progress in 
 his school-studies, and it is rather singular that the faculties by 
 which he was most decidedly distinguished from other boys were 
 not those which he much cultivated or much excelled in after- 
 wards. That he lived a great deal in a phantom- world we 
 should not mention as anything singular — all children do so. 
 Chairs are turned into carriages and horses, passages into tm-n- 
 pike roads, sofas into market-towns, faster than by the slap of 
 Harlequin's sword. But in ordinary cases these brain-creations 
 are abstracted from the simple events of everyday life, and pass 
 like the day-dreams of maturer age in swift succession, having 
 no coherency, and leaving no trace. The instances must be very 
 rare in which this imaginative faculty is equal to the foundation, 
 peopling, and government of an empire ; rarer still in which it 
 can maintain the illusion for years together, and carry on the 
 history of the ideal people through all the vicissitudes of peace 
 and war and social progress. Yet it seems that Hartley Cole- 
 ridge not only imagined such a kingdom at a very early age, and 
 made a map of it, and peopled it with " many nations, conti- 
 nental and insular, each with its separate history, civil, ecclesias- 
 tical, and literary, its forms of religion and government, and 
 specific national character," but actually continued to govern it, 
 as seriously as an ordinary child rides his stick, for years 
 together, till he was on the verge of manhood. This fact rests 
 upon no vague or doubtful tradition, but upon the distinct 
 testimony of the editor, who was his brother's companion and 
 confidant all the time, and to whom the substance of all "letters 
 and papers from Ejuxria " was regularly imparted as they were 
 8upj)0sed to arrive. Probably this process of imparting the news 
 
 * "Hartley, when about five years old, was asked a question about himself 
 being called Hartley. 'Which Hartley?' asked the boy. 'Why, is there more 
 than one Hartley ? ' ' Yes,' he replied, ' there's a deal of Hartleys.' ' How so ? ' 
 ' There's Picture-Hartley (Hazlitt had painted a portrait of him) and Shadow- 
 Hartley, and tiiere's Echo-Hartley, and there's Catch-me-Fast-Hartley,' at the same 
 time seizing his own arm witli the other hand very eagerly, an action which shews 
 that his mind must have been drawn to reflect on what Kant calls the great and 
 inexplicable mystery, viz. that man should be both his own subject and object, and 
 that these two should be one." — p. 27. I venture to guess that he was only 
 thiuking of the difference between the substance ami tlie shadow.
 
 HAETLEY COLERIDGE. HO 3 
 
 to a listener who seems to have been almost as much in earnest 
 as himself, helped to feed and stimulate the fancy and preserve 
 the outward form of the fiction from its natural dissolution ; and 
 the brother of twelve years old may have fancied the brother of 
 sixteen more in earnest than he really was. But, when all 
 allowances have been made, there still remains a very singular 
 and interesting stoiy, well worth recording for the consideration 
 of psychologists. It will be found at pp. 36 — 42 of the memoir. 
 From this, and other similar amusements of his childhood, it 
 might have been supposed that the creative imagination was un- 
 usually strong in Hartley ; and yet the productions of his after- 
 life show scarcely any traces of such a gift. 
 
 His tenth year must have contributed largely to the history 
 of Ejuxria. In the days of the terror of Napoleon and the glory 
 of Grimaldi (not to mention the abolition of the slave trade, and 
 the noises of a change of ministry, a dissolution of Parliament, 
 and a general election,) he passed the spring of 1807 at Sir George 
 Beaumont's in Leicestershire, where Wordsworth and Willdo 
 were ; the summer in London with Mr. and Mrs. Montagu ; the 
 autumn at Bristol with his mother's family. He " read every 
 word about the battle of Eylau, and was enraged if a doubt were 
 hinted of the Russian victory." He saw the Wood Demon and 
 Jack Bannister at Drury Lane, Mother Goose and Grimaldi at 
 Covent Garden ; went over the Tower in company with Words- 
 worth and Walter Scott ; and was introduced to the wonders of 
 chemistry by Sir Humphry Davy : a year of impressions never 
 to be forgotten. 
 
 In the summer of 1808 he was sent with his brother to a 
 small school at Ambleside, kept by a gentleman of manly 
 character and vigorous understanding, but no great scholar ; 
 fortunate, it seems, in the character of his schoolfellows, and in 
 an ample allowance of leism'e and mountain-liberty ; eminently 
 fortunate in the neighbourhood of some of his father's most dis- 
 tinguished friends ; not very fortunate in his initiation into the 
 nicer mysteries of Greek and Latin. Here he remained for seven 
 or eight years, composing themes and verses, not in any remark- 
 able degree superior to those of his schoolfellows, and with 
 visible effort ; wandering at large among the hills with one
 
 304 HAETLEY COLERIDGE. 
 
 intimate companion, or gathering desuitorj^ knowledge from the 
 libraries and conyersation of Wordsworth, Wilson, De Qiiincey, 
 and Charles Llo3^d ; helping his school-mates to construe their 
 lessons, or entertaining them with tales ; say rather with one 
 continuous tale, having for its moral the injustice of society, 
 which he spim on night after night (we are told) for years 
 together ; admired and loved, yet suffering the penalty of his 
 small stature and odd ways in being plagued and teased ; joining 
 in no school-games, and forming no intimacies; but "reading, 
 walldng, dreaming to himself, or talking his dreams to others." 
 The immediate result was such as might have been antici- 
 pated. He went to Oxford in his nineteenth year with no very 
 accurate knowledge of Greek and Latin, therefore no match for 
 Eton-trained scholars in competition for distinctions awarded 
 according to Etonian standards, but with a mind full of original 
 thoughts and general knowledge, and a rare gift of lively and 
 eloquent discourse. " He would hold forth by the hour (for no 
 one wished to interrupt him) on whatever subject might have 
 been started, either of literatm^e, politics, or religion, with an 
 originality of thought, a force of illustration, and a facility and 
 beauty of expression, which I question (says Mr. Dyce, writing 
 in the year 1849) whether any man then living, except his father, 
 could have surpassed." Whether the popularity at wine-parties 
 which was the inevitable consequence of such a gift, interfered 
 much with his reading during this first year or two of his resi- 
 dence, we are not informed. But in the summer of 1818, as we 
 learn from Mr. C. H. Townshend (who then first met him, and 
 has recorded his impressions in a long and interesting letter) he 
 was ceiiainly reading hard. At Michaelmas following he took a 
 second class in Uteris humaniorihus ; his deficiencies in what is 
 exclusively, and somewhat arbitrarily, called " scholarshii?," 
 sinking him below the place to which his " talent and general 
 knowledge " w^ould have raised him. Soon after, he obtained an 
 Oriel fellowship with great distinction ; and it seemed as if he 
 were now honourably provided for, and as if the kindness of the 
 friends by whose help he had been sent to college had received 
 its best rew^ard. 
 
 Had it turned out so, it is probable that the brief outline
 
 HARTLEY COLERIDGE. 305 
 
 which we have given of his school and college life might have 
 been thought to contain all that need be remembered of it. It 
 might not have been suspected that any material feature of his 
 character remained unnoticed. But a fellow-elect of Oriel has to 
 pass one year of probation, at the end of which, in case of mis- 
 conduct, his election may be cancelled. At the close of this pro- 
 bationary year, Hartley Coleridge was judged to have forfeited 
 his fellowship, " on the ground mainly of intemperance." Great 
 efforts were made in vain at the time to get the decision reversed ; 
 and severe comments have been made upon it since. We have 
 ourselves heard it confidently asserted by a very high and grave 
 authority, — a man by no means given to think indulgently of 
 intemperance, or suspiciously of dignities, and one whom the 
 question must have deeply interested at the time, — that the 
 charge of intemperance was in fact a pretext only, and that the 
 real offence was of quite another kind, less venial perhaps in the 
 eyes of college authorities, though not so easily reached by their 
 statutes, and, in the eyes of the world, no offence at all, — namely, 
 an indiscreet freedom of speech with regard to University 
 reforms. Upon this point we can only say that the narrative 
 before us gives us no means of forming an opinion. We have no 
 account either of the specific charges, or of the evidence, or of 
 the answers. Judging, however, from the tenor of Hai-tley's 
 subsequent life, we can hardly assume that he had been guilty of 
 no irregularities which formed a fair pretext for rejecting him, 
 and (remembering how just his views were, and how pungent his 
 remarks, upon established institutions in general,) we can have 
 little doubt that he had said many things extremely offensive to 
 the ears of authority, though perhaps not on that account the less 
 wholesome, had they been weighed and considered. 
 
 But what, it will be asked, were these irregularities ? And 
 how did they come upon him ? For hitherto we have heard of 
 no evil tendencies of any kind. To this question neither his 
 brother's recollections nor the evidence which he has collected 
 from others, enable us to give a satisfactory answer. We cannot 
 attach much weight to early manifestations of "intense sensi- 
 bility" not mider proper control; of " impatience of constraint; " 
 of a disi)osition to " shrink from mental pain ; " of occasional 
 
 X
 
 306 HARTLEY COLEEIDGE. 
 
 "paroxysms of rage, dui-ing which he bit his arm or finger 
 violently;" of a proneness "to yield unconsciously to slight 
 temptations, as if swayed by a mechanical impulse apart from 
 his volition;" for not only are such infirmities incident more or 
 less to the youth of all large and sensitive natures, but it does 
 not appear that they overcame him in the struggle. Where he 
 was left to himself, they led him into no evil that we can hear of. 
 Where, as in the duties of school, he had work to do or con- 
 straint to endm'e, it seems that he did the work and submitted to 
 the constraint. Where the sensibility was most cruelly tried by 
 the thoughtless persecutions of bigger boys — persecutions the 
 remembrance of which became the ever-recm'ring torment of his 
 dreams in later life — he must have borne them with great 
 patience and sweetness ; for we are told that he retained the 
 admu-ation and love of his school-fellows, though he did not 
 share then- amusements. In what respect then was it that " a 
 certain infirmity of the will, the specific evil of his life, had 
 ah-eady manifested itself?" It is possible that a school or 
 college companion of his own age, or a little older, could have 
 explained this to us. His brother was too much the younger to 
 "look into him with inquiring eyes;" and we have no re^^ort 
 fi'om any other observer who was intimate with him during those 
 years. Nevertheless it is undoubtedly true that "a certain 
 infkmity of the will " did constitute the specific evil of his later 
 nfe, and it was in all probability connected in some mysterious 
 way with that specific peculiarity of his boyhood, to which we 
 have already alluded. "He never played. He was indeed in- 
 ca2:>ablc of the adi'oitness and presence of mind required in the 
 most ordinary sports. His uncle used to tell him that he had tivo 
 left hands." Could science anatomize the material organization 
 through which the mind acts upon the body — through which 
 
 the brain 
 
 Says to the foot, now move, now rest again, — 
 
 it would perhaps be found that in such cases the will also has 
 two left hands. That such a constitutional infirmity should 
 prevail more against the grown man than the growing boy, is 
 not surprising. The fuU flow of hope and youth counteracted
 
 HARTLEY COLEKIDGE. 307 
 
 but did not extinguish it. Youth and hope ebbing, left the 
 man without energy enough to continue the struggle. 
 
 However this may be, Hartley Coleridge — whose spirits were 
 subject to those vicissitudes which so often afflict the tjenus 
 irritahile vatum, especially where the nature is exquisitely tender 
 and affectionate, and a strong thirst for sympathy is irritated by 
 a depressing consciousness of personal disadvantages — had 
 occasionally found a temporary relief from painful sensations 
 in wine. His popularity as a guest exposed him to the tempta- 
 tion ; and his constitution was such that a small quantity 
 excited him. Hence a fau' pretext, if not a just ground, for 
 taking away his fellowship ; and he left Oxford (with ^£300 given 
 him by the college by way of mitigation) for London, meaning 
 to support himself by his pen. This he could easily have done ; 
 for there were few departments of popular literature in which he 
 was not eminently qualified to shine. But infirmities which are 
 not eradicated in youth commonly increase with age. The very 
 habit of introspection, though it be with the purpose of under- 
 standing and ejecting them, makes a man familiar with their 
 company, and aggravates the evil. The direction which Hartley's 
 infirmity took was not one of the worst either for body or mind, — 
 certainly not so bad as opium-eating, — but it had a worse name. 
 And though his health was little if at all injured, and his mind 
 not at all corrupted by it, his self-respect (with which self-com- 
 mand is closely allied) was shaken. Then came (to use his own 
 significant words) " that helxDiess consciousness of faults which 
 conduces to anythmg rather than amendment." A habit of 
 j)rocrastination followed — part of the same disease. After two 
 years' trial, dm-ing which he resided chiefly with ]\[r. and Mrs. 
 Montagu, it appeared plainly that London was not the best place 
 for him. He returned to Westmoreland ; and (yielding against 
 his own better judgment to the urgency of friends) endeavoiu'ed 
 to establish himself as a schoolmaster at Ambleside. But, after 
 four or five years' trial, he was obHged to abandon the scheme 
 as a failure. 
 
 This was his last attempt to achieve a position in the world. 
 After this he submitted to his destiny, as " a waif of natm*e : " 
 and, though perhaps no man ever felt a stronger yearning for
 
 308 HAKTLEY COLERIDGE. 
 
 the blessings from which his " fault or fate " excluded him, it 
 was probably the best condition which his very peculiar case 
 admitted. Here he lived (with one or two short intervals which 
 we need not stay to describe) the life of a soHtary student by the 
 banks of Grasmere and Eydal ; dependent indeed upon the help 
 of his relations for what small provision he needed, but requiring 
 no more than they could cheerfully supply ; condemned indeed 
 to hopeless poverty and (which to him was a sadder thought) to 
 hopeless celibacy — but everywhere a welcome guest to the high 
 and the low, the learned and the ignorant; producing little 
 indeed which brought him money, but much which will be found 
 to be of more real worth than the most marketable j)roduce which 
 he could have raised. For it was part of his singular case that 
 the conditions which steady the character and stimulate the 
 powers of other men had the contrary effect upon him. By 
 some strange misdirection of the moral sensibility, which seems 
 indeed to have been hereditary, a formal engagement to do a 
 thing fiightened him from his purpose, and paralysed his power 
 of performance. It is Cowper, we think, who somewhere says 
 that he could sit in his room all day without desiring to go out, 
 until the door were locked upon him ; but the moment he felt 
 that he could not let himself out when he pleased, it became a 
 misery to him to stay in. So Hartley Coleridge could read and 
 write assiduously and copiously, so long as he did not feel 
 himself under an obligation to go on ; but a promise to finish 
 took away his power to proceed. 
 
 The lot therefore upon which he had at last fallen, with all 
 its privations and disadvantages, gave probably the freest scope 
 to his peculiar faculties of which they were capable. Here his 
 defects could do least injury to himself or others ; here his genius 
 could bear its best fruit. His wanderings were but transient 
 eclipses. The shadow past, he came forth as pure and bright as 
 before. Never, perhaps, was a man who was so unlike other men 
 more justly appreciated by those among whom he hved. We 
 doubt whether they could have understood him half so well at 
 Oriel. The breeze which is so healthful and so refreshing in its 
 native mountains would spread consternation through the Combi- 
 nation Eoom ; and Hartley's mind flowed where it listed, obedient
 
 HARTLEY COLERIDGE. 309 
 
 to the inner impulses, with little respect for persons or places. 
 What the tutors might have thought of it we do not know ; but 
 the " untutored dales " were charmed with the various stream of 
 his talk, so singular yet so unaffected, so familiar yet so unvulgar, 
 so full of drollery and yet by fits so pensive, so unstudied yet so 
 full of wisdom, so keen and pungent and yet so truly genial, 
 liberal, and humane. Those who never heard him talk will get 
 the best notion of his manner from the letters of Mr. Thomas 
 Blackburn (pp. 115 — 132), who has the art of picturesque 
 narration, and from whom we should be glad to have a fuller 
 reminiscence and a more comjDlete delineation. But no report 
 of what he said can convey the effect, or even the true meaning 
 of his words, unless a notion could at the same time be given of 
 the rapid transitions of his eye and voice from boisterous mirth 
 to thoughtfulness, tenderness, or sadness, as one idea called up 
 another. Therefore the peculiar charm of his conversation will 
 probably live only in tradition. It was not in his conversation 
 however, only or chiefly, that the real spell lay. It was his 
 affectionate and large-hearted sympathy with man, woman, and 
 child, of whatever degree — his true delicacy and generosity of 
 nature — that endeared him to all hearts. Several years ago, 
 when some of his friends thought of asking him to visit them in 
 the south of England, the project being mentioned to Words- 
 worth, he strongly disapproved of it : " It is far better for him," 
 said he (we heard the words ourselves), " to remain where he is, 
 — where everybody knows kirn, and everybody loves and takes care 
 of him.'" What can be added to such testimony from such a 
 witness ? 
 
 The literary produce of these later years, when aU is gathered 
 together, will amount to something very considerable, both in 
 quantity and quality. The excitement of conversation did not 
 exhaust, but rather stimulated him, and he would often on 
 returning from a party fall to his desk and continue writing far 
 into the night. 
 
 " Tlie quantity, (says his brother, p. 144) the variety, and I venture to add 
 the quality, of the thought which passed througli his mind during these latter 
 years, judgiug only from his note-books and niiscellaneous papers, and taking no 
 account of that which perished with liim, would surely have ranked him among
 
 310 HAKTLEY COLERIDGE. 
 
 the most copious and most instructive, as well as the most delightful, writers of 
 his age, had he exerted the resolution or possessed the faculty of combining his 
 materials on any considerable scale or on any given plan. The hope and intention 
 of turning his literary talent to account in this way he never ceased to cherish, 
 and he was not wanting in exertion. He mastered several modern languages, 
 French, Italian, and German, which it had not fallen in his way to acquire in 
 youth. He had commenced the study of Hebrew, expressly with a view to 
 theological investigation, and had begun to apply his knowledge, rudimental as 
 it was, to good purposes. He read and wrote incessantly; he made copious 
 collections ; the margins of his books are filled with carefully-written annotations, 
 evidently intended for futui'e use, to which in some few cases they had been 
 actually applied ; but by far the largest portion is unpublished. His note-books, 
 which are very numerous, and bear quaint names, are full of original matter, 
 little cycles of speculation, sometimes profound, often acute and sagacious, almost 
 always original and characteristic, but thrown together without an attempt at 
 method. These are always written in the first person, somewhat after the 
 manner of Montaigne. Even extracts from books, lexicography, facts in natural 
 history, etc. are interveined with something of his own, aiad not unfrequently of 
 himself." 
 
 From these note-books, etc. it is intended to publish a 
 selection. We hope it will be a copious one ; for we expect to 
 fmd in such dispersed observations some of the very best fruits 
 of his mind. We do not anticipate the less from them, because 
 they are desultory and without method. Thick books are im- 
 posing things, and treatises which comprehend and exhaust the 
 subject they treat of have a value of their own ; but in most 
 cases the reader has to pay for the completeness of the whole in 
 an inferior treatment of many parts. The thought which rises 
 to the surface without pressing, generally contains all the cream. 
 And, after all, what worse name do such scattered contempla- 
 tions deserve than that of essays? Essays they are, according 
 to the true meaning of the word and truest use of the thing : not 
 prize essays, in which the writer labours to say all that can be 
 said, but natural essays, in which, without binding himself to 
 any formal method, he sets down whatever occurs to him as 
 worth saying. From these promised selections, therefore, we 
 hope to derive new and important evidence as to the scope and 
 character of Hartley Coleridge's mind, and it would be premature 
 to attempt an estimate of it until they appear.* 
 
 * Since this was written, the "E.?say3 and Marginalia" have appeared, in two 
 volumes; tlie first consLsting of papers formerly contri])utcd to magazines and 
 annuali, with a few others found among the author's MS.S. ; the second, cliieilv of
 
 HARTLEY COLERIDGE. 311 
 
 We have expressed a hope that the selection will be copious. 
 Let us hope also that it will not be timid. He was a devout 
 Christian, but a great foe to sectarianism within the Church as 
 well as without, and if he has spoken his mind freely on the 
 religious questions of the day, he must have said much that 
 neither Oriel nor Exeter Hall will willingly sanction. We trust 
 the editor will remember that he is not responsible for his 
 brother's opinions, but that he is responsible for giving a faithful 
 rej^resentation of them. The views of a devout layman, who 
 has bound himself by no Articles, are very valuable just now ; 
 and the editor should consider what his views were, not what 
 will be thought of them. 
 
 As a poet, his character must be judged by the volumes 
 before us, which contain all he left which has been thought 
 worth publishing. The j)oems in the first volume have been 
 familiar to us for the last sixteen years ; and, as we find that 
 our interest in them has not abated, we cannot doubt that their 
 worth is genuine and their charm will last. We have left our- 
 selves but little room to speak of them ; but they stand in no 
 need of a lecturer to show them off. If we should attempt 
 indeed to fix their exact place in the scale of poetical merit we 
 should have to begin a long discussion. But why trouble our- 
 selves to fix their place ? They advance no pretensions ; they 
 demand of no man to admire them beyond their worth ; but they 
 have a beauty of their own, which those who have a sense for it 
 will feel at once, without being told why or how. Only we will 
 say, by way of warning, that Hartley Coleridge's excellence lies, 
 not in the creative, but in the reflective department of the 
 imagination. He reveals no new worlds ; but he can set the 
 profounder emotions suggested by his own experience to a 
 delicate and peculiar music ; and when a thought strikes him — 
 an intellectual perception, which if di\yly told m prose would be 
 
 notes written in margins of hooks ; but some extracts from the Note-books are' 
 interspersed. These quicken our appetite for a second selection, which is to follow 
 " if the reception of the present volumes justify the undertaking." Of this we trust 
 there can be no doubt. The Essays, though printed before, have lost none of their 
 interest, and to nine readers in ten are new. The Marginalia are all well worth 
 presei-ving. And the Note-books promise to be better still ; for Hartley Coleridge, 
 naturally concise and pithy, writes best when he has most room.
 
 312 HARTLEY COLERIDGE. 
 
 accepted as a fine and striking observation — he can deck it out 
 with a profusion of ilhistrative imagery, so apt, so fanciful, and 
 so graceful, that it becomes doubtful where the charm most lies 
 — in the sense, the sentiment, or the setting forth. We must 
 content ourselves with two or three sjoecimens, taken almost at 
 random, for the variety of choice perplexes us. 
 
 First, however, let us hear his own estimate of his pretensions 
 as a poet — an estimate which we have reason to believe contains 
 his real and deliberate judgment — before we form an opinion of 
 om* own : — 
 
 POIETES APOIETES. 
 
 " No hope have I to live a deathless name, 
 A power immortal in the world of mind, 
 A sun to light with intellectual flame 
 The universal soul of human kind. 
 
 " Not mine the skill in memorable phrase 
 The hidden truths of passion to reveal, 
 To bring to light the intermingling ways 
 
 By which unconscious motives darkling steal. 
 
 " To show how forms the sentient heart affect, 
 How thoughts and feelings mutually combine, 
 How oft the jjure impassive intellect 
 
 Shares the mischances of its mortal shrine. 
 
 " Nor can I summon from the dark abyss 
 Of time the spirit of forgotten things. 
 Bestow unfading life on transient bliss — 
 
 Bid memory live ' with healing on its wings.' 
 
 " Or give a substance to the haunting shades 
 Whose visitation shames our vulgar earth, 
 Before whose light the ray of morning fades, 
 And hollow yearning chills the soul of mirth. 
 
 " I have no charm to renovate the youth 
 Of old authentic dictates of the heart — 
 To wash the wrinkles from the face of truth, 
 And out of nature form creative art. 
 
 " Divinest poesy ! 'tis thine to make 
 
 Age young — youth old— to baffle tyrant time; 
 From antique strains the hoary dust to shake. 
 And with familiar grace to crown n(!W rliyme.
 
 HARTLEY COLERIDGE. 31.1 
 
 "Long have I loved tliee — long have loved in vain, 
 Yet large the debt my spirit owes to thee. 
 Thou wreatliMst my first liours in a rosy chain, 
 Rocking the cradle of my infancy. 
 
 " The lovely images of earth and sky 
 
 From thee I learnt within my soul to treasure, 
 And the strong magic of thy minstrelsy 
 
 Charms the world's tempest to a sweet sad measure, 
 
 " Not fortune's spite," etc. 
 
 Vol. i. p. 130. 
 
 Take next a Sonnet, as an example of his moral vein : — 
 
 " Pains have I known that cannot be again, 
 
 And pleasures too that never can be more. 
 
 For loss of pleasure I was never sore. 
 But worse, far worse it is, to feel no pain. 
 The throes and agonies of a heart explain 
 
 Its very depth of want at inmost core ; 
 
 Prove that it does believe, and would adore, 
 And doth with ill for ever strive and strain. 
 
 " I not lament for happy childish years, 
 
 For loves departed that have had their day, 
 Or hopes that faded when my head was grey ; 
 For death hath left me last of my compeers; 
 But for the pain I felt, the gushing tears 
 I used to shed, when I had gone astray." 
 
 Vol. ii. p. 7. 
 
 As an example of thought playing with fancy perhaps we 
 cannot choose a better than the lines on " Fairy Land : " — 
 
 " My fairy land was never upon earth, 
 Nor in the Heaven to which 1 hoped to go ; 
 For it was always by the glimmering hearth, 
 When the last faggot gave its reddest glow. 
 And voice of eld waxed tremulous and low, 
 And the slow taper's intermittent light 
 Like a slow-tolling bell declared good-night. 
 Then could I think of Peri and of Fay, 
 As if their deeds were things of yesterday. 
 1 felt the wee maid in her scarlet hood. 
 Real as the babes that wandered in the wood. 
 And could as well believe a wolf could talk. 
 As that a man beside the babes could walk 
 With gloomy thoughts of nmrder in his brain ; 
 And then I thought how long the lovely twain
 
 o 
 
 14 HARTLEY COLERIDGE. 
 
 Q'hreaded tlie paths that wound among the trees, 
 And how at last they sank upon their knees, 
 And said their little prayers, as prettily ' 
 As e'er they said them at their mother's knee, 
 And went to sleep, I deemed them still asleep. 
 Clasped in each others' arms, beside a heap 
 Of fragrant leaves ; so little then knew I 
 Of bare-bone famine's ghastly misery. 
 Yet I could weep and cry and sob amain 
 Because they never were to wake again. 
 But if 'twas said " they'll wake at the last day," 
 Then all the vision melted quite away ; 
 As from the steel the passing stain of breath, 
 So quickly parts the fancy from the faith. 
 And I thought the dear babes in the wood no more true 
 Than Red Ridinghood — aye, or the grim loup-garou 
 That the poor little maid for her granny mistook. 
 I knew they were both only tales in a book." 
 
 Vol. ii. p. 173. 
 
 We cannot attempt to give samples of each variety of excel 
 lence which the book exhibits, but we must make room for one 
 specimen of the playful-pathetic, which might be mistaken foi 
 Cowper : — 
 
 TO A CAT. 
 
 " Nelly, methinks, 'twixt thee and me 
 
 There is a kind of sympathy ; 
 
 And could we interchange our nature — 
 
 If I were cat, thou human creature — 
 
 I should, like thee, be no great mouser, 
 
 And thou, like me, no great composer ; 
 
 For, like thy plaintive mews, my muse 
 
 With villainous whine doth fate abuse, 
 . Because it hath not made me sleek 
 
 As golden down on Cupid's cheek ; 
 
 And yet thou canst upon the rug lie. 
 
 Stretched out like snail, or curled up snugly. 
 
 As if thou wert not lean or ugly ; 
 
 And I, who in poetic flights 
 
 Sometimes complain of sleepless nights, 
 
 Regardless of the sun in Heaven, 
 
 Am apt to dose till past eleven. 
 
 The world would just the same go round, 
 
 If L were hanged and thou wert drowned ; 
 
 There is one difference, 'tis true, — 
 
 Thou dost not know it, and I do." 
 
 Vol. ii. p. 252.
 
 HARTLEY COLERIDGE. 315 
 
 Beautiful and touching as these poems are, we are by no 
 means sure that the editor is right in suj^posing that it is as a 
 poet that his brother will be best remembered. He was a clear, 
 earnest, and original thinker ; and he delivered his thoughts in 
 a manner so persj)icuous and lively, with the peculiar humour 
 of his own character so shining through, that his essays, which 
 would be worth studying for the sense they contain, though the 
 style were dull, are among the pleasantest things to read in the 
 language. When all are gathered together they will fill, we 
 sujDpose, several moderate-sized volumes. If so, and if we are 
 not greatly mistaken as to the quality of the volumes which are 
 to come, we may surely (without raising vain questions as to 
 what he might have done if he had not been what he was) say 
 that the last half of his life, though spent in cloud and shadow, 
 has not been spent in vain. 
 
 He died on the 6th of January, 1849, after a short illness, 
 the consequence of an attack of bronchitis. Wordsworth marked 
 out a space for his grave, next to the spot destined for his own, 
 and they now lie side by side in the quiet churchyard of Gras- 
 mere, — all that was mortal of them. But 
 
 "The sage, the poet, lives for all mankind, 
 So long as truth is true and beauty fair ; 
 The soul that ever sought its God to find, 
 
 Has found him now — no matter how or where." 
 
 Vol. ii. p. 58.
 
 XI. 
 ENGLISH HEXAMETERS.* 
 
 " The object of these Lectures " (says Notes on Books), " is to 
 determine the most essential characteristics of Homer's poetry ; 
 to point out how, from faihng to preserve faithfully one or other 
 of them, every English translation of the Iliad up to the present 
 time has been a false rendering of Homer ; and to give advice to 
 the future translator as to the best means for retaining these 
 characteristics in his own version." 
 
 Upon the two first branches of the inquiry I have little to 
 say, except to express my admiration of Mr. Arnold's criticism. 
 But in his practical advice there is one point which seems to 
 me to requu'e reconsideration. I agree that a translation of the 
 Iliad should be "rapid in movement, plain in words and style, 
 simple in ideas, and noble in manner ; " but I cannot think that 
 it should be in English hexameter ; and since the recommenda- 
 tion comes from a scholar and a poet, as the result of an inquiry 
 showing a very remarkable combination of scholar-like taste 
 with poetic sensibility, it deserves a fuller and graver answer 
 than I should otherwise have thought necessary. If indeed the 
 l^ractical question at issue were one in which scholars only are 
 interested, I would leave them to settle it among themselves. 
 But if another attempt is to be made to produce a translation of 
 the Iliad for the benefit of those who cannot read the original, 
 the feelings of the patient should be taken into consideration ; 
 
 * "On Translating Homer." Three Lectures given at Oxford by Matthew 
 Arnold, M.A. London : Longman and Co. 1801.
 
 ENGLISH HEXAMETERS. 317 
 
 and one whose Greek has long been at grass is in some respects 
 better qualified to understand the case of the " English reader " 
 than those who have kei)t it in daily exercise. 
 
 According to Mr. Arnold, indeed, the appeal in this case lies 
 to scholars, and scholars only : for " they alone can say whether 
 the translation produces, more or less, the same effect upon 
 them as the original." But this is not exactly the question, 
 though it comes very near it. The true question, in my opinion, 
 is this — Does the translation produce upon one who cannot read 
 the original the same effect, more or less, which the original 
 produces upon one who can ? Now, the innumerable associations 
 of which the jDractised scholar cannot divest himself make it 
 very hard for him to judge what the effect will be upon those 
 whose associations are quite different. To him the original 
 shows through the translation, and gives it new colours and 
 quaUties. In reading the English he feels the Greek within 
 it ; and the illusion thereby produced is seen in no more con- 
 spicuous example than that of a scholar reading a page of 
 English hexameters, and fancying that the " movement " of 
 them is like that of the Greek or Latin. " Apphed to Homer," 
 says Mr. Arnold, "this metre affords to the translator the 
 immense support of keeping him more nearly than any other metre 
 to Homer's movement ; and since a poet's movement makes so 
 large a part of his general effect, and to reproduce this general 
 effect is at once the translator's indispensable business, and so 
 difficult for him, it is a great thing to have this part of your 
 model's general effect already given you in your metre, instead of 
 having to get it entirely for yourself." 
 
 Now, to my ear the movement of the best English hexameters 
 which I have seen is so very unlike the movement of any Greek 
 or Latin hexameters that I remember, since the days when I 
 had to scayi the verse in order to understand the measure, count- 
 ing the feet with my voice by throwing a strong accent upon 
 the first syllable of each; and the movement produced by the 
 scanning process was so very unlike that with which even then 
 I read them when I was called up to construe ; that unless Mr. 
 Arnold either reads Homer very oddly, or means by English 
 hexameter a measure constructed upon a principle totally and
 
 r> 
 
 iS ENGLISH HEXAMETERS. 
 
 essentially different fi-om any that I have seen attempted, his 
 ear is surely under some strange delusion. 
 
 I do not suppose he reads Homer differently from other 
 people. For though in the note on p. 95 he seems to imply that 
 we ought to read Greek according to the Greek accentuation — 
 aioXog tTTTTOc as if it were otoXXoc t-mrog, Aiog aijioxoio as if it 
 were Atoo-o-' aiyioKxoio — he seems at the same time to admit 
 that we do not in fact read it so. And since the effect of the 
 Greek upon the ear of a modern scholar is by himself proposed 
 as the only standard of reference, I infer that when he speaks 
 of the movement of Homer he means the movement which the 
 ear of a modern scholar recognises. If not, the whole dispute is 
 at an end. For though there may be some way of training the 
 ear to understand the measm-e so read, it is a training which 
 has to be begun from the beginning with every one of us ; nay, 
 further back than that ; for before we can begin we must get 
 rid of all our existing prepossessions. 
 
 Assuming, then, that Mr. Arnold means the Greek hexameter 
 to be read in the usual way, does he propose any new way of 
 writing the English hexameter ? I find no hint to that effect. 
 He says, indeed, that he is not quite satisfied with any attempt 
 that has yet been made in it on any considerable scale. He 
 recommends a freer introduction of spondees (meaning by 
 spondee a foot of two syllables, the first of which takes the 
 accent) ; a little (and. only a little) more attention to quantity ; 
 and a good deal of care to make the accents which are suggested 
 by the sense coincide with those which are required by the 
 rhythm. But he suggests no change in the fundamental law 
 of the metre ; and it is plain that the measure which he recom- 
 mends as possessing so much rapidity, so much natural dignity, 
 and a movement so like Homer's, is nothing but the common 
 English hexameter with which we are all painfully familiar, and 
 of which the earliest specimen I ever heard (combining, as by 
 anticipation it does, all the suggested improvements) may serve 
 for a typical example : 
 
 Here we go up, up, up ; and here we go down, down, dowuy ; 
 Here we go backwards and forwards, and hey fur — 
 
 But the poet unfortunately had not sufficient faith in his rhythm ;
 
 ENGLISH HEXAMETERS. 319 
 
 and by introducing here the aHen element of rhyme altered its 
 character. A very slight alteration will remove this blemish, 
 and then the two verses may stand together as fair representa- 
 tives of the family — the first exhibiting the spondaic effect, the 
 second the dactylic ; both being rapid in movement, plain in 
 words and style, and simple in ideas ; quantity being neither 
 outrageously violated nor pedantically affected, and the accents 
 falling of themselves into the right places. 
 
 Here we go up, np, up ; and here we go down, down downy ; 
 
 Here we go backwards and forwards ; and bey for tbe city of London. 
 
 What effects the metre of which I seriously assert that these 
 two lines are a favourable example, may or may not be capable 
 of in the hands of an artist, I do not undertake to say. But 
 taking it as I find it, and as managed by the best artists who 
 have yet made the experiment, I will venture to affirm that it 
 is the metre which a translator of Homer should of all others 
 avoid; the resemblance which its movement bears to Homer's 
 movement being the resemblance not of mimicry but of mockery : 
 a mere exaggeration of the characteristic peculiarity, without 
 any of the other features by which it is balanced, softened, 
 varied, or harmonized ; and the conditions being such, that the 
 better you make your English hexameter, the more it will 
 resemble the worst form of the measure which the Greek allows. 
 And that this must be so, unless an entirely new element be in- 
 troduced into the English, I think I can show, provided we first 
 come to a proper understanding as to the difference between 
 quantity and accent. 
 
 In all om' English metres quantity is held of so little accomit 
 — the essential metrical conditions are so independent of quan- 
 tity — that many people seem to doubt whether our tongues and 
 ears are capable of distinguishing between long and short. The 
 Greeks and Eomans, it is thought, had some art of pronuncia- 
 tion by which an accented syllable might sound short and an un- 
 accented syllable long ; but an Englishman has no way of mark- 
 ing length or shortness except by accent or no accent. This I take 
 to be a mere delusion. The quantity — the length of any syllable 
 measured in time — is distinguishable in English through all its 
 degrees, by any ear that will attend to it. Slumbers is a word
 
 320 ENGLISH HEXAMETEKS. 
 
 of two long syllables, with the accent on the first. Suppei' is a 
 word of two short syllables, also with the accent on the first. 
 Bittern has its first syllable short but accented, its second long 
 but not accented. Quantity is a dactyl ; quiddity a tribrach : 
 the first syllable in both being accented, but in one long, in the 
 other short. Honestly is a word to which we find no parallel in 
 Latin ; the first short but accented, the second long but un- 
 accented, the third short. And so on to the end of the dic- 
 tionary. The degrees of length being infinite in number, there 
 are of course many syllables which are doubtful or common ; 
 either you cannot tell whether to class them with the long or 
 the short, or you may make them which you please by your 
 pronunciation. But, in general, you can tell the quantity of 
 every syllable at once, if you only listen for it, and may soon 
 learn to be as much shocked by a false quantity in English, as 
 if you knew it to be against a written rule. 
 
 Sweetly cometh slumber, closing th' o'erwearied eyelid, 
 
 is a correct Vu-gilian hexameter, like 
 
 Ipsa tibi blandos fundent cunabula flores. 
 
 Sweetly falletli slumber, closing the wearied eyelid, 
 
 contains two shocking false quantities. 
 
 The truth is, that we spoil our ears for this w^ork, not only by 
 want of attention to quantity in English, but by forcing our- 
 selves to overlook a number of false quantities which we habitu- 
 ally make in Latin and Greek. For as no Englishman sounds 
 the double consonant in such words as annus, tellus, terra, vacca, 
 gemma, and the like, and the vowel in all such words is short, he 
 has no means of lengthening the syllable. Therefore to dis- 
 tinguish anus, (for instance) from annus, he lengthens the short 
 a ; and generally learns his lesson so well that he fancies he 
 hears a short syllable in anus (pronounced exactly like cdnus) and 
 a long one in annus ; whereas he does really hear exactly the 
 reverse. And even the Carthusians, who know better than that, 
 fancy that they hear a long syllable in one of the words, though 
 they pronounce both exactly alike and as short as possible. A 
 long list of similar deceptions of the ear might easily be drawn 
 out. But if any one doubts whether English syllables difi'er in
 
 ENGLISH HEXAMETERS. 821 
 
 length as well as in accent, I can assure him that if he will 
 make a little experiment which I have just been making, and of 
 which I will presently exhibit the result, he will become pain- 
 fully conscious of the fact. 
 
 This distinction between accent and quantity being clearly 
 understood, a simple comparison of the rules by which the 
 classical and the English hexameter are respectively governed, 
 is enough to show how unlike they must be in movement. Let 
 us avoid all questions of dimeter and trimeter, all talk of dactyls, 
 sjDondees, and catalexis, and all phrases which are encumbered 
 with distm'bing associations ; and merely describe the two in 
 such English as any lady will understand. 
 First, what is an English hexameter ? 
 
 A regular English hexameter is a line coniaming qix distinctly 
 accented syllables ; of which (the first syllable in the line 
 being always one) the first, second, third, and fourth are 
 each followed either by one or by two unaccented syllables ; 
 the fifth by two ; the sixth by one. Any series of words in which 
 the accents can be so placed without violence, is within the law 
 of the metre. Quantity — that is, length measured in time — may 
 be entirely disregarded. Any of the seventeen syllables which 
 the line admits may be either long or short, by nature, by 
 position, or by both. The rhythmical effect depends, of course, 
 upon quantit}'', pause, division, alliteration, and many other 
 conditions ; but it is the peculiar arrangement of the accents 
 which makes the metre. With the accents placed according to 
 the rule which I have given, a hne may be good or bad, smooth 
 or rough, quick or slow, but it is certain to be an English hexa- 
 meter. With the accents placed otherwise, it may easily be a 
 much better thing, but it will not be recognized as a hexameter 
 by any English-trained ear. 
 
 What, on the other hand, is a classical hexameter ? 
 A regular Vu'gilian hexameter is a line containing six lony 
 syllables, of which (the first syllable in the line being always 
 one) the first, second, third, and fourth are each followed either 
 by two short syllables or by one long ; the fifth by two short, 
 the sixth by one which may be either long or short. This is 
 the complete and invariable rule with regard to quantity. But
 
 322 ENGLISH HEXAMETERS. 
 
 quantity, thougli the fundamental and indispensable, is not the 
 only condition of the metre. Of these groups of long and short 
 syllables (which we commonly call feet) either the second or the 
 thii-d must be divided between two w^ords — must be part in one 
 word and part in another ; this is the rule for what they call 
 the cassura* The accent also must be distributed according to 
 certain laws. Of the six long syllables the two last must be 
 accented. Of the remaining four, any one, two, or three ma]/ 
 be accented. All four must not.'\ Subject to these conditions, 
 the accent may be placed anj^diere, and the rhythmical effect 
 depends mainly upon the management of it ; but any series of 
 Greek or Latin words in which these conditions are fulfilled 
 will be found to be a correct and regular hexameter. 
 
 Thus it appears that the only points in which the laws of 
 the two metres concur, are the number of the syllables and the 
 place of the two last accents. In all other respects they are 
 different, and in one contradictory. The English takes account 
 of accent only, and pays no regard to quantity or ceesura. The 
 Latin is inexorable as to quantity and cwsura, requires the time 
 of each syllable to be distinctly felt and measm-ed, and allows 
 no choice but between one long and two short ; while wdth regard 
 to accent it gives much liberty. The English insists that the 
 fii-st fom* accents shall all be placed where the first four long 
 s^ilables are placed in the Latin ; the Latin insists that all four 
 shall never be so placed. 
 
 I take the laws of the classical hexameter from Virgil, because 
 his is the most perfectly developed form of the metre under con- 
 ditions which enable us to judge of it. For whatever mistakes 
 we make in sounding his vowels and consonants (and I have no 
 doubt we make many), yet, as far as accentuation goes, we do 
 pronounce Latin as Virgil did. The rule of pronunciation, as 
 explained by Quintilian {Inst. Orat. i. 5, 30), amounts in effect 
 to this : — Every word takes one accent, and only one. In a 
 word of more than two syllables, it is always placed on the last 
 
 * The Lucretian line " Et membratim vitalem deperdere sensum " breaks this 
 rule. But to my ear it is not a hexameter. 
 
 t There are, however, several lines in Virgil in wliicli the accents do coincide 
 viiih. the long syllables. . See Munro's paper on the Inscription at Cirta, p. 16.
 
 ENGLISH HEXA3IETEKS. 323 
 
 but two, except where the last but one is long ; in that case, and 
 in dis^dlables, always on the last but one. And this is an exact 
 description of our English practice. Of the Greek pronunciation, 
 all we know is that the rule of accentuation was in Quintilian's 
 time different from the Latin. What it was in Homer's time, 
 Quintilian himself probably did not know. Oar mode of read- 
 ing Homer, therefore, may be right or may be wrong. But in 
 the meantime we do read Greek, in respect of accent, exactly as 
 we read Latin; and we find that the Homeric hexameter, so 
 read, is in its fundamental conditions the same as the Yu-gilian. 
 In regard to quantity, it is quite as regular and inexorable ; the 
 greater licence which it admits being in the pronunciation, not 
 in the measure. In Homer we have sometimes to dwell on a 
 syllable naturally short so as to mahe it long, in a way which we 
 are rarely or never called on to do in Virgil, as in 
 
 ^ hivpo jjiey iirovro vhcra iyl TrovTonSpoicrw- 
 
 But we are just as much obliged to feel the length of it ; and if 
 the ear once misapprehends the quantity, we have to correct it 
 and begin the line again, in order to make the measure in- 
 telligible ; whereas in English we have to do this only when we 
 happen to misplace the accent : a mistake in quantity may make 
 the measure clumsy, but never makes it unintelligible. With 
 regard, again, to the placing of the accents, the Homeric hexa- 
 meter, though less strict than the VirgQian, follows ordinarily 
 the same rule. In Homer we do find now and then a line which 
 reads like an English hexameter — viz., a line in which all the 
 six long syllables are accented, as 
 
 or (to take a less exceptional example, and one which, owing to 
 some peculiar effect of the caesura, reads well in Greek, although 
 a similarly constructed line would read well in Enghsh) : — 
 
 ws 5' ot' eV ovpav(i> &ffrpa (paeiuriv ifi((>l (Te\rivr]v. 
 
 Such lines are rare, even in Homer, as any one may satisfy 
 himself if he will read a few pages of the Iliad as if he were 
 
 * I doubt whether oven this would have been allowed without the long pause 
 after avris, which is connected with the preceding line. Even in a case of imitative 
 sound, I suspect that avrap eTreira ireSovSe, etc., would not have been endm-ed.
 
 324 ENGLISH HEXAMETERS. 
 
 scanniufi the verses, and count the number of lines which read 
 naturally so. Still they do occur here and there ; and so far the 
 Homeric hexameter does, no doubt, come nearer to the Enghsh. 
 But to balance this, it admits fi-eely and frequently another 
 irregularity, which we never, or hardly ever, meet with in Virgil. 
 It does not insist absolutely that the two last accents shall 
 coincide with the two last long syllables ; and thus allows lines 
 of which the measure would be quite unintelligible in English. 
 What, for instance, could be made of a line like 
 
 rhv 8' avre irpoaefiirf 0o^v ayadhs Aiofj.r]57]s. 
 
 Try an Englishman wdth 
 
 Then straightway said in answer honest General Garibaldi, 
 
 (which, in accent and quantity both, is really a correct Homeric 
 verse), — he will not know how to read it into metre at all. 
 
 These general considerations sufficiently explain the difference 
 of the effect which the two metres have always had upon my 
 ear ; and they ought, I think, to suggest to those who have not 
 yet perceived it, that a difference there is and must be as long 
 as their respective laws are so widely and radically at variance. 
 But general considerations are dry, and an example or two will 
 make the case clearer. 
 
 Fu'st, therefore, to show how very widely the respective 
 systems of accentuation differ, let us take a few lines of Virgil, 
 and observe how often the accent coincides with any of the four 
 first long syllables. I distinguish the long syllable by the usual 
 mark, and the accented syllable by italics. 
 
 Me vcrO przmiim dwlces ante omnia MtZsae, 
 .Quanim sacra fero, ingentl percwlsns amore, 
 Accz'piant : coclTque vias et s^dera monstrent : 
 Dcfectus soils variOs, lun«quc labores ; 
 U7ide tremor terris ; qua vi maria alta tumescant 
 Objwibus r«ptTs, rursMsque in se »psa residant : 
 Quzd t«ntum oceano properent se ti^ngere soles 
 Hibernl, vol quE tardls mora noctibus obstet. 
 
 Here we see that the accent coincides with one of the first 
 four long syllables, in the 1st, 3rd, Gth, 7th, and 8th lines only 
 once ; in the 2nd and 5th only twice ; in the 4th not at all ; 
 while the places in which it falls are scarcely twice alike.
 
 EXGLISH HEXAMETERS. 325 
 
 Now let us try a few of Mr. Arnold's. We may as well take 
 the first that come, p. 93. 
 
 So shone forth m front of Troy, by the led of Xani\mi 
 
 i?etweeQ that and the ships, the T/'cjans' numexows, fires. 
 
 In the jdain there were Z^mdled a thoii'AwciCi fires : by each one 
 
 There sate fifty men, in the Uyht of the rufMy fire. 
 
 By their cAuriots stood the steeds, and champed the white Parley, 
 
 W7w7e their masters sate by the^/'e, and ivaitQ(\. for ?raorning. 
 
 Here we find the six accents punctually falling every time in 
 exactly the same places ; varied a little in effect, indeed, by the 
 different degrees of violence which are required to force them in, 
 but bound to occupy those places and no other, upon peril of 
 confounding the metre. All relations of quantity are so dis- 
 ordered or disregarded, that I presume Mr. Arnold seeks in 
 that mode of u-regularity some relief from the monotony which, 
 in a succession of three or fom* smooth lines, becomes intolerable. 
 If it were not the special object of his work to. recommend 
 hexameter, I could even think that he meant to extend the 
 irregularity to the accents also, allowing the reader to drop the 
 first altogether, and so begin the hue with two unaccented 
 syllables — a liberty which in five lines out of the six would be a 
 great relief. But that would transform it at once into another 
 metre, which could have no pretence to the name of hexa- 
 meter. And yet, from his obvious dislike to begin the line with 
 a word which will naturally bear the accent, I almost think that 
 this is what he privately does himself, and that that other metre 
 is what he hears in his own head. Does he really read "between 
 that and the ships," "In the plain," ''There sate fifty men," 
 "By their chariots," "While their masters?" Would any of 
 these lines read itself so ? Eead any of them naturally, and 
 what happens ? It becomes immediately a line with only five 
 accented syllables — an ordinary blank verse, in fact, varied and 
 made dactylic by the introduction of a few redundant unaccented 
 syllables (after the manner of that variety of the ordinary octo- 
 syllabic couplet with which Scott and Byron have made us 
 
 familiar. 
 
 But it is not to list to the waterfall 
 
 That Parisiua leaves her hall ; 
 
 And it is not to gaze on the heavenly light 
 
 That the lady walks iu the shadow of night, etc.)
 
 326 ENGLISH HEXAMETERS. 
 
 A metre of which very good use might probably be made, and 
 which may possibly prove after all the best English representa- 
 tive of the classic hexameter, but certainly not itself a hexa- 
 meter, and certainly not that which Mr. Arnold meant to write 
 and means to recommend. I may say more of it presently ; 
 but I want first to dispose of the first question, which relates 
 to the respective movement of the Greek and English hexameter 
 properly so called. 
 
 In Mr. Arnold's lines I have distinguished by italics the 
 syllables on which I presume that he intends the accent to fall. 
 ComiDare with them the original Greek, accented according to 
 our pronunciation. 
 
 Toffffa fxeffr^yv vtuv rjSe s.avOoio poaoov 
 Tpdcov KaiSvTwv irvpa (paivero IKlodi irpo. 
 XiAt' ap (V TreSio} irvpa kuUto' trdp Se eKacTTtfi 
 EtaTO Tr€VTr]K6vTa, creAa nvpos aiOofxevoio. 
 "inirot 56, Kpi KevKOV fpeTrTd/xevoi Kai oAvpas, 
 EffTcioTes Trap' ox^cr^ty^ evOpovov ■Jjco jxifivov. 
 
 Here we see that the accent coincides in each line with only 
 two of the first four long syllables ; and in what respect the 
 movement of the English resembles that of the Greek, I profess 
 myself unable to perceive. 
 
 But the most effective mode of exhibiting the contrast would 
 be by producing, if it were possible, specimens of both in the 
 same language. If one could but construct with Latin words a 
 hexameter on the English model, or with English words one on 
 the Latin model, I think no ear could help perceiving that the 
 movement is essentially and irreconcilably different. It is not 
 easy to do this in either case, so many words in each language 
 are by the conditions excluded ; but if sense be not too strictly 
 insisted upon, the sound may be obtained. 
 
 Incipe parve puer visu cognoscere matrem : 
 Matri longa decern tulerunt fastidia menses, 
 Incipe parve puer : cui non risere parentes, 
 Nee Deus hunc mensa, etc. 
 
 Can anybody produce me an English hexameter resembling, 
 in the succession of sounds, any one of these three lines ? I 
 think not. But if I shift the accents a little, and write,
 
 ENGLISH HEXAMETERS. 327 
 
 Incipe parve puercule, risu noscere matrem. 
 Matri longa tulOrunt sex fastidia menses : 
 Incipe parvc puercule, fac ridere parentes, — 
 
 do we not all recognize at once the movement of our new friend ? 
 
 -Why dost thou prophesy so my death to me, Xanthus? It needs not, etc. 
 
 Two or three lines in Latin made of words exactly correspond- 
 ing in length, divisions, pause, accent, and all other metrical 
 conditions (except quantity, which is of course out of the 
 question), with the component words of two or three approved 
 English hexameters, would he a fairer and more satisfactory 
 test ; hut I douht whether they can he made. I find, however, 
 that true Virgilian hexameters — accent, caesura, quantity, and 
 all — may be constructed in English words, and in that way the 
 true movement of the classical measure may he fairly contrasted 
 with that of its modern representative. 
 
 In the following hexametrical dialogue, A speaks in Virgilian 
 measure, B in that of Longfellow. 
 
 A. 
 Verses so modulate, so tuned, so varied in accent. 
 Rich with unexpected changes, smooth, stately, sonorous, 
 Eolling ever forward, tidelike, with thunder, in endless 
 Procession, complex melodies — pause, quantity, accent, 
 After Virgilian precedent and practice, in order i 
 Distributed — could these gratify th' Etonian ear-drum ? 
 
 B. 
 
 How should Etonian ears that are trained in Virgil and Homer 
 
 Follow a measure like that ? Where, where are your dactyls ? I counted 
 
 Two in each line at most. Hexameter always in my time 
 
 Stept on his dactyls along, like a toe-tripping queen of the ballet. 
 
 Yours on accents false goes hobbling. Vain your endeavour 
 
 Long to distinguish from short : long or short is all one to us English. 
 
 A. 
 
 Virgil my model is : accent, ca?sura, division, 
 
 His practice regulates ; his laws my quantity obeyeth. 
 
 B. 
 
 Longfellow most pleases mc ; no trouble his quantity gives me, 
 Each verse bounding along like a ship that bounds through the waters. 
 ******* 
 
 * How different the movement of these two measures is will 
 probably be made manifest by a practical test ; for I fully expect
 
 328 ENGLISH HEXAMETERS. 
 
 that Etonian ears will at first be quite puzzled by A.'s verses, 
 and that ears not trained in Yirgil and Homer will not be able 
 to make out the metre at all, while B's will be understood at 
 once by everybody. 
 
 To me, I confess, the effect of the metre constructed upon A's 
 system is not bad. But unless the same effect can be obtained 
 by some other process than that of composing it with words 
 resembling Latin or Greek words in their metrical conditions, it 
 is useless for any practical purpose ; because it excludes more 
 than half the words, and I suppose nine-tenths of the combina- 
 tions of words, in the language. I can conceive it possible 
 indeed that a new English metre may be invented, resting upon 
 six regularly recurring accents as the ground, and made musical 
 by some variation played upon it with quantity; just as the 
 Latin takes quantity for its ground, and obtains its variations 
 through the management of the accent. But it will take some 
 time to invent, and more to make it familiar. And in the 
 meantime, what need is there to seek for a new metre at all ? 
 
 Mr. Arnold is curiously coy on this point. He carefully 
 avoids all mention of the word hexameter, until he has passed in 
 review what we are to consider as all the remaining alternatives, 
 and successively rejected them. "^ATien he has led us to the 
 brink of despair, he at last tells us that there is still one metre 
 remaining which has not been condemned ; and we seem to be 
 driven to the dilemma of accepting this or making up our minds 
 to go without any translation of the Iliad. If this were so, I 
 should have no objection to an attempt being made in English 
 hexameter, provided I am not myself bound to read it. But Mr. 
 Arnold's enumeration of the possibihties appears to me to be 
 very arbitrary and very incomplete. When he is reminded that 
 hexameters have not been used in English on any considerable 
 scale with success, he is content to reply (p. 7G), Solvitur amhu- 
 liindo : the objection may be removed hy producing good English 
 hexameters. Yet the ten-syllable couplet is rejected because 
 rhyme, as Pope uses it, " tends to pair lines which in the original 
 are independent, and thus the movement of the poem is 
 changed; " and because Chaucefs narrative manner, "though a 
 very good and sound manner, is neither grand nor Homeric."
 
 ENGLISH HEXAMETERS. 329 
 
 Ten-syllable stanzas with interwoven rhymes are rejected, 
 because, if the simpler system of correspondences changes the 
 movement of Homer, the more intricate system of correspondences 
 must change it more profoundly. AH varieties of ballad-metre 
 are rejected, because Dr. Maginii has turned a passage of the 
 Odyssey into a- jig ; and Walte?^ Scott, not being " one of the five 
 or six supreme poets of the world," has failed to attain "the 
 grand mamier." Blank- verse is condemned because Milton's 
 movement, though grand, is unlike Homer's ; because Cowper 
 imitates Milton ; because Tennyson has written three lines in 
 which the thought belongs to another order of ideas than 
 Homer's, and the rhythm to another order of movement ; while 
 the blank-verse in which the most rapid passages of Shakespeare's 
 plays are written forms a mould into which Homer could not be 
 poured without being first entirely broken up, melted down, and 
 composed afresh. And this, as far as I can make out, is all. 
 Surely one may reply in Mr. Ai-nold's own words, Sohitur 
 amhulando : the objections may be met hy i^roducing a form of 
 the rhymed couplet, of the ten-syllable stanza, of the ballad- 
 stanza, or of blank-verse, of which the movement is not at 
 variance with the movement of Homer. The paces to which 
 Pope trained the heroic couplet, Milton the blank-verse, Scott 
 the octo-syllabic rhyme, are surely not the only paces of which 
 those several metres are capable. If Chaucer failed to rise to 
 the true epic dignity, it was not because his measure kept him 
 down. The rhymed couplet, as he manages it, follows freely 
 wherever the imagination leads ; and if he had had an Hiad in 
 him would have served him for a vehicle of expression perfectly 
 well. The measure which is best for a ballad- is not likely to be 
 good for an epic ; and therefore I should not look among Percy's 
 relics for the best metre to imitate Homer in ; but the common 
 ballad-metre admits of many variations of movement ; and we 
 do not know what might be done with it if a man of genius took 
 it in hand. For large and long-sustained effects, however, I 
 suppose the line of five accents, in one form or another, will 
 always be the favourite in English. The Alexandi-ine, w^hich has 
 six, is too slow, and indeed intolerable, except as recurring at 
 measured and rather distant intervals ; or by way of an occa-
 
 330 ENGLISH HEXAMETERS. 
 
 sional ebaiige, as at tlio close of a Drydenian triplet. The 
 octo-syllabic, ^-liicli has four, is too light in its rapidity : it 
 wants stateliness. But among the various arrangements of the 
 ten-syllable line in stanza with rhyme, there are some which 
 lend themselves with great facility to almost any movement 
 which is wanted. The Bon Juan stanza, for instance, has a 
 remarkable power of rising and sinking, of passing from grandeur 
 to familiarity, from the pathetic to the playful, and vice versa, 
 without effort or abruptness : and this is one of the requisites 
 which a translator of Homer cannot dispense with. He must be 
 able to pass at once from the famous nod of Jupiter (-Z7. i. 528) 
 to his altercation with Juno (of the nobleness in manner of 
 which, by the way — an invariable Homeric attribute, according 
 to Mr. Arnold, p. 36 — we should be better judges if we could 
 compare it with the prose Billingsgate of Homer's day) ; then to 
 the relenting smile of the white-armed goddess, when Vulcan 
 intercedes and offers her the cup ; and the inexhaustible merri- 
 ment of the Olympian party as he hands it round ; and to do 
 this easily and naturally. 
 
 Therewith to all the gods in order due 
 
 He poured sweet wine, and played the cuphearer ; 
 
 And the gods laughed with all their hearts to view 
 Lame Vulcan like a young page serving there : 
 
 And so they feasted all the long day through. 
 Till the sun set, and feasted well they were. 
 
 To grace the feast his harp Apollo strung, 
 
 And all in parts the sweet-voiced Muses sung. 
 
 The necessity, however, of having two sets of triple rhymes 
 in every stanza limits the resom^ces of the translator incon- 
 veniently, and forms a serious objection to this measure, as well 
 as to Chaucer's seven-line stanza ; either of which might other- 
 wise be used with very good effect. But where is the objection 
 to our own natural blank-verse ? — a measure into which English 
 speech rises of itself the moment it aspires to speak in measm-e 
 at all — a measure in which we know from Shakespeare that every 
 condition of feeling, every action of intellect, every mood of 
 imagination, can find fit utterance — a measure with the normal 
 structure of which all our ears are so familiar, that any variety 
 of modulation may be introduced without danger of confusion — a
 
 ENGLISH HEXAMETERS. .ool 
 
 measure in which if Tennyson has written three lines of which 
 the movement is too slow for Homer, he has written hundreds in 
 which all the characteristic qualities which Mr. Arnold finds in 
 Homer — rapidity of movement, plainness of words and style, 
 simplicity and dnectness of ideas, and above all, nobleness of 
 manner, are as conspicuous as in Homer himself — a measure of 
 which the very difficulty lies in the abundance of its liberty and 
 resources, which are dangerous to those who do not know how 
 to use them, but an unmixed advantage and facility to those who 
 do. Where is its defect ? I cannot think that the difference in 
 length, as compared with the hexameter, forms any objection ; 
 for the different constitution of the languages makes it impossible 
 to i)resent the thoughts in the same order and within the same 
 spaces, clause for clause, and cadence for cadence ; as we may 
 learn at once from Mr. iVrnold's prose version of one of the 
 passages selected for illustration : — 
 
 Tocrca, ixfa"t\yv vewv r)Se advdoio podoou, 
 Tpciooi' Kai6vTci)v TTvpa (paiv€To- 
 
 Presented in this order, the Greek words are as simple, natural, 
 and straightforward as possible. Present the best English 
 equivalents in the same order, and the construction is involved, 
 unnatural, and hardly intelligible. To make it read like sense, 
 Mr. Ai-nold has been obliged to alter the order of the clauses. 
 By that necessary alteration he has quite changed the cadence 
 and emphasis ; and after all, he has not succeeded in giving 
 even the meaning correctly. " So many in number, between the 
 ships and the streams of Xanthus, shone forth in front of Troy 
 the fires kindled by the Trojans." " So many in number shone 
 the fires," is not the same as roacra irvpu <pan>eTo — " so many 
 fires shone ; " and the closing of the sentence with Upwdiv 
 nmovThjv, instead of Trvpa <^aivtTo, alters the effect far more than 
 a much more extensive change of construction need have done. 
 This Mr. Arnold has himself felt, and in his metrical version has 
 put the clauses together in a different way, though without 
 attempting to keep the order of the original. In fact, if Homer 
 is to be translated into English at all, whether in prose or verse, 
 the translator must be prepared to break him up and reproduce 
 him ; and even if he had a metre exactly the same, it does not
 
 332 ENGLISH HEXAMETERS, 
 
 follow that he could make it fit. What he wants is not a line of 
 the same length, but a measure which is easy, flowing, familiar, 
 stately, unshackled, and capable of variety. Any such measure, 
 however different it be in structure, will supply means of repre- 
 senting the metrical effect of the Homeric hexameter, just as the 
 English language supplies means of representing the sense ; but 
 it must do it in its own way. 
 
 Mr. Arnold will perhaps ask for an example ; for of his own 
 attemjDts he speaks very modestly, and he may fairly claim to 
 have his translation judged by comparison, not with the original, 
 but with another translation. Well, the question is as to the 
 metrical effect involved in rival metres ; for otherwise I have no 
 exception to take to the princij)les which he lays down. Now 
 we have seen his translation into hexameter of the passage last 
 mentioned. Here is one in blank verse : — 
 
 Not fewer slione before the walls of Troy, 
 Between the rolling Xanthus and the ships, 
 The camping Trojans' watch-fires. In the plain 
 A thousand fires were burning, and by each, 
 Grouped round the ruddy light, sate fifty men; 
 While the steeds mouthed tlieir corn aloof, and stood 
 Beside the chariots, waiting for the dawn. 
 
 Take a man or a woman who cannot read Greek ; would the 
 hexameters convey to him or her a truer idea of Homer's manner, 
 an impression more like that which the original conveys to Mr. 
 Arnold himself, than the blank verse? I suspect not. 
 
 But Mr. Arnold may perhaps insist on appearing by his 
 champion, and refer me to Dr. Hawtrey. 
 
 " The most successful attempt (says he) hitherto made at rendering Homer 
 into English, the attempt in which Homer's general effect has been best retained, 
 
 is an attempt made in the hexameter measure The passafje is 
 
 short; and Dr. Hawtrey's version of it is suffused with a pensive grace, which is 
 perhaps rather more Virgilian than Homeric; still it is the one version of am/ 
 of the 'Iliad' vjhich in some defjree i'eproducts for me the original effect 0/ 
 Homer : it is the best, and it is in hexameters." — (p. 77.) 
 
 I have already said that the proper issue is not how far the 
 translation reproduces for Mr. Arnold the effect which is produced 
 on him by the original ; but how far it lyroduces that effect upon 
 one to whom the original is unknown. Upon this issue the 
 challenge is fair, and I accept it.
 
 ENGLISPI HEXAMETERS. 333 
 
 As readers of Fraser do not all carry a Homer in their pockets, 
 it may be convenient to begin with the original : — 
 
 Nf/j/ S' &\Kovs fj-fv irdvTas 6pa> eK'tKoivai Axaiouy, 
 
 Oi/'j Kev ii) yvoi-qv, Koi Tovyofj.a /j.vOriaaliJ.rii'' 
 
 Aoioi 5' oil Swafxai tSittv KoafxrjTopi Kauv, 
 
 KdffTopa 6' 'nnr68afJLOv koI 7ri;| ayadhu TIoKvSiVKea, 
 
 AvTOKacriyvriTw, tw fioi jxia yeivaTO fj.7iTr]p. 
 
 *H ovx k(nTe'ad7]v AaKi5aifj.ovo9 i^ epanivris ; 
 
 "H Sevpo fiev (ttovto viiacr' ivl trovTOTropoiai, 
 
 Nvv S' avr ovK edeAovai fJ-cixv KaraSv/xevai aySpuy, 
 
 AiV^fa SeSiSrfs Kal ovfidea ir6\\^ a fiot eariv ; 
 
 "ris <paro' Toi/y 8' •^Stj Karix^^ <pv(n^oos oda 
 
 'Ev AaKeSaifiovi aZdi, <pl\r) ivl trarpldi yairi. 
 
 Dr. Hawtrey's version is thus given by Mr. Arnold : 
 
 Clearly the rest I behold of the dark-eyed sons of Achaia ; 
 Known to me well are the faces of all ; their names I remember. 
 Two, two only remain, whom I see not among the commanders, 
 Castor fleet in the car — Polydeukes, brave with the cestus^ 
 Own dear brethren of mine — one parent loved us as infants. 
 Are they not here in the host, from the shores of lov'd Lacedjemon, 
 Or, though they came with the rest in ships that bound through the waters, 
 Dare they not enter the fight or stand in the Council of Heroes, 
 All for fear of the shame and the taunts my crime has awakened ? 
 So said she : — they long since in Earth's soft arms were reposing. 
 There in their own dear land, their father-land, Lacedajmon. 
 
 Now, I admit that there is a certain grace here even in the 
 versification, and that for ten or twelve lines it is not an un- 
 pleasant kind of canter ; but I doubt whether another dozen of 
 the same would be agreeable, and I deny altogether that the 
 metrical movement has any resemblance whatever to that of the 
 Greek lines which we have just read. I should expect that 
 the following translation in blank verse would give anybody who 
 was not acquainted with the Greek measure a much better idea 
 of what it is like to me : — 
 
 Yet still, though all the other Greeks I see 
 Whom I should know by person and by name. 
 Two chiefs I miss, — Castor, for horsemanship 
 Far-famed, and Pollux, matchless in the ring, — 
 My brethren : yea, one mother bare us all. 
 Came they not over from sweet Laccdajmon 
 In the sea-travelling ships ? Or are they loth, 
 Being here, to mix with the others in the field, 
 Fearing reproach and scorn because of me ?
 
 O 
 
 o-i ENGLISH HEXAMETEKS. 
 
 So spake she : knowing not that they long since, 
 Lapped in the bosom of the teeming earth, 
 In Lacedsemon lay, their native land, 
 
 I meant to confine mj^self to a protest against English hexa- 
 meters, which I hold to be admirably adapted for a translation 
 of Fropria quse maribus and As in prmsenti, and for nothing else. 
 But I ^Yill take the opportunity of adding a few words in favour 
 of an entirely different way of dealing with the Iliad — a way 
 which nobody seems to have thought of, though it offers a great 
 field for an enterprising genius. 
 
 To scholars " who possess at the same time with knowledge 
 of Greek adequate poetical taste and feeling," Mr. Arnold tells 
 us (p. 4), "no translation will seem of much worth compared 
 with the original." If this be so, is it judicious to attempt a 
 translation which shall aspire to present itself for comparison 
 with the original before that tribunal ? If the true effect of 
 Homer cannot be reproduced in a translation, is it well that 
 anyone should take upon him a task which makes such repro- 
 duction "his indispensable business?" Is it not better that 
 those who wish to know what Homer is really like should be 
 recommended, as the shortest way, to learn Greek and read 
 him ? 
 
 But though we cannot have Homer himself in English, there 
 is no reason why we should not have in English the story which 
 Homer told. Wh}^ should not the Iliad be made an English 
 book like ih.Q Arabian Nights? I want somebody to invite the 
 men and women, the boys and girls, now living m England, to 
 listen to an old story : and to tell them all about the quarrel 
 between Agamemnon and Achilles, and what came of it. He 
 may choose prose or verse, as he finds most convenient ; he may 
 Ijorrow from Homer as much as he pleases ; he may leave out 
 wliatcver he cannot bring in with a good effect. But he must 
 addi'ess his audience in his own and their own language, in such 
 forms as may find easiest passage through their ears into their 
 hearts, and such cadences as are most agreeable to them. 
 Though his inspiration and his matter come from Homer, his 
 feeling, taste, and mauner must be his own. Imitation he must
 
 ENGLISH HEXAMETERS. 335 
 
 not think of. He must consider himself rather as a rival than 
 an imitator. If he can tell any part of the story Letter than 
 Homer, let him by all means do so ; at all events, let him not 
 deliberately prefer the worse effect to the better, in order to 
 make it more lihe the effect which the original produces upon 
 the mind of a Greek professor. Pope did not trouble himself 
 much with fidelitv to the effect of Homer : but he would have 
 made a much better poem of the Iliad if he had not attended to 
 it at all. As it is, it is in vu'tue of the freedom which he used 
 in making it "a pretty poem but not Homer," that it still 
 remains the only version of "the tale of Troy divine" which 
 has obtained a popular audience in England. Pope's genius, 
 however, was not of the epic order ; it was not a good subject 
 for him. But what if Tennyson had taken the story of the Iliad 
 for his subject, and treated it, not in Homer's manner, but in 
 his own ? I believe that England would have had an epic added 
 to her literature as popular as Waverleij and as great as Paradise 
 Lost. Is there no one among us with spirit for such an enter- 
 prise ? 
 
 COEEECTIOKS AND EXPLANATIONS: JUNE, 1862. 
 
 Concerning the merits and capabilities of the English hex- 
 ameter as a representative of the movement of Homer, I wish 
 to add a few words — but only in the way of exj)lanation and 
 correction. The question, so far as I meant to meddle with 
 it, has been fairly discussed, and may go to the jury as it is. I 
 wished only to remind scholars of the fact, so generally over- 
 looked, that to the ear of a modern Englishman the effect of the 
 metre which we call English hexameter, whether agreeable or 
 not, is at any rate quite different from the effect of the classical 
 metre as we all hear and read it; and therefore not a good 
 representative of it : and my argument having been listened to 
 with all the attention I could desire, I resi)ectfuUy leave the 
 decision with the people ; promising for my own part, as one of
 
 336 ENGLISH HEXAMETERS. 
 
 that miscellaneous body, that if any one succeeds in translating 
 the Iliad into such English hexameters as I can read with 
 pleasure, I will read them, and exhorting others to do the same ; 
 though I must still be permitted to hojje (even after reading 
 Dr. Whewell's last remarks) that poets and scholars will refrain 
 from an enterprise upon which I still think, for the reasons 
 which I have already given, that their labom- will be bestowed in 
 vain. 
 
 But though both my conclusion and the reason it rests on 
 still seem good to me, there was an error in the exposition of 
 them, which I wish to acknowledge and correct ; and there 
 appears also to have been some misapprehension as to their 
 scope and intention, which I wish to clear away. 
 
 The error is easily rectified ; and if the notice taken of my 
 argument by Mr. Munro in the appendix to his learned paper on 
 the inscription at Cirta, and by Mr. Arnold in his Last Words on 
 Translating Homer, should induce anybody to turn back to 
 Eraser's Magazine of June, 1861, he will oblige me by introducing 
 three corrections. 
 
 1st. After the word " metre " in the sixth line from the 
 bottom of the first column of page 706, insert — " Of these groups 
 of long and short syllables (which we commonly call feet), either 
 the second or the third must be divided between two words — 
 must be part in one word and part in another. This is the rule 
 for what they call the Csesura.'" 
 
 2nd. For the note which now stands at the bottom of that 
 page, substitute — " There are, however, several lines in Virgil 
 in which the accents do coincide with the long syllables. See a 
 paper read by Mr. Munro at the Cambridge Philosophical 
 Society, Feb. 13, 1860, on a metrical inscription at Cirta, p. 16." 
 3rd. For " quantity," in the ninth line of the next paragraph, 
 read " quantity or caesura ,- " and in the tenth " quantity and 
 cxsura." * 
 
 Thus corrected, it will be found, I think, that the statement 
 is accm-ate, and the argument will not be affected by the 
 change. 
 
 In another statement, rather more important to the question 
 
 * In the reprint these corrections have, of course, been made.
 
 ENGLISH HEXAMETERS. 337 
 
 at issue, of which Mr.- Munro denies the accuracy, I cannot yet 
 see that any correction is required. I said that verses in which 
 the accent falls on every one of the six long syllahles (that is, on 
 the first syllahle of every foot) are rare even in Homer ; that if 
 any one will read a few pages of the Iliad, as if he were scanning 
 the verses, and count the lines which read naturally so, he will 
 be satisfied of that fact ; that nevertheless they do occur now and 
 then. Mr. Munro says that " such verses, instead of being rare, 
 are among the very commonest types of Homeric rhythm," and 
 that he has " counted sixteen or seventeen of them between 
 w. 78 and 178 of the Iliad.'" I suppose he does not read Homer 
 as I was taught to do. For certainly, in the first two hundred 
 and fifteen lines of the Iliad, I could not when I wrote the 
 remark, and cannot now upon a second trial, find more than five 
 in which, as I should naturally read them, the accent — the 
 predominant stress — falls upon the first syllable of each of the 
 six feet. These are vv. 95, 121, 126, 173, 214. In every one of 
 the others, if I want to mark the beginning of each foot by stress 
 of voice, I am obliged in one place or another either to lay the 
 accent on a syllable on which I should not naturally lay it, or to 
 lay it more lightly than I should otherwise do upon the neigh- 
 bouring syllable upon which it naturally falls. Now, when I am 
 contrasting a metre in which this kind of verse occurs two or 
 three times in every hundred with one in which it occurs, I 
 suppose, at least ninety-five times in every hundred, I call it 
 " rare " — a thing which occurs " now and then." 
 
 One point more there is, in which, though I am not prepared 
 to offer a correction or to acknowledge an error, I wish to 
 withdraw an assumption which, not knowing that it was 
 disputable, I had adopted too hastily. I allude to the general 
 question concerning the peculiarities of ancient Eoman j^ro- 
 nunciation, and the true relation between accent and quantity in 
 the days when both (it seems) were essentially different fi'om 
 anything that has been known in the world for 1500 3'ears. 
 Upon this I can only say that, had I known there was a doubt, 
 I should not have ventured an opinion, I had been told of the 
 passage in Quintilian ; had referred to it, and thought I under- 
 stood it; and not knowing that there was a question among 
 
 z
 
 338 ENGLISH HEXAMETERS. 
 
 scholars as to the nature of the thing spoken of, had assumed 
 that, Virgil's accent being placed exactly where we place it, his 
 pronunciation was in that one respect like our own. This 
 assumption I am quite ready to withdraw for further considera- 
 tion, and to allow in the meantime that we know as little about 
 Yii-gil's pronunciation in that particular as in others — that we 
 know, in fact, nothing whatever about it. 
 
 I do not find, however, that these corrections and concessions 
 at all affect the substance of my argument ; and this leads me to 
 the other branch of the explanation which I wish to offer. 
 
 The effect of Virgil's verse on the ear of Horace or Augustus, 
 has nothing to do with the question as I handle it ; except in so 
 far as there may be reason for supposing that it was in some 
 respects similar to the effect which it has upon our ears. At 
 best, the resemblance must be very imperfect. That neither his 
 metre nor his words can possibly affect the mind of a modern 
 Englishman in the same way in which they affected the minds 
 of his contemporaries, — that the poetical meanings which they 
 had for them must have been very unlike the meanings they have 
 for us, — is a conclusion too obvious to need enforcement. The finer 
 effects of poetry depend upon the ideas which associate them- 
 selves with the words : and the ideas which associate themselves 
 wdth the words of a dead language, laboriously acquired through 
 grammars and dictionaries with a view to examination, must he 
 so different from those associated with the words of a livmg 
 language familiar from infancy and in daily use for all the 
 common business of life, that they cannot be reasonably sup- 
 posed to produce similar impressions on the imagination. Still 
 less can we suppose that the rhythmical effect of Virgil's lines is 
 the same for us as it was for them ; for here not only the 
 associations, but the sounds themselves in which the rhythm 
 consists, are changed. We read them for our own pleasure in a 
 way which we know to be very different from that in which they 
 were meant to be read. Nay, if I understand Mr. Munro 
 rightly, we cannot even conceive how they were meant to 
 be read. The peculiar intellectual instinct which gave them 
 all their meaning strangely departed from mankind 1500 
 years ago; and wc know of it only as we know of a dog's
 
 ENGLISH HEXAMETERS. 339 
 
 scent — by the acts which it prompted. " The old Greeks and 
 Eomans (he tells us, p. 30) had an instinctive feeling for and 
 knowledge of quantity : upon which instinct depended the whole 
 force and meaning of their rhythmical measured verse." But in 
 the course of the third century " quantity perished " — perished 
 so completely from the earth that "it does not exist even 
 potentially in any modern language." No modern ear can 
 recognize it ; we know it " only by the rules of prosody." 
 Consequently, *' our English reading of Homer and Virgil has 
 in itself wo meaning" (p. 31). How, then, do we put a meaning 
 into it? Thus. Upon the unmeaning sounds which we utter 
 with our lips and listen to with our ears, we " superinduce by a 
 mental process our acquired knowledge of the quantity and 
 rhythm ; " that is to say, we call to mind that by the rule of the 
 metre this syllable must, in some inexplicable way, have been felt 
 by Virgil to be long, and that syllable to be short ; and though we 
 cannot ourselves perceive that it is so, or understand how it could 
 be so, we take into consideration the fact that it was so. And the 
 result is, " all that wondrous harmony which we feel." The 
 quantity, upon an instinctive sense of which all the real harmony 
 depended, we cannot feel ; but a harmony of some kind we 
 somehow do feel. Be it so. But since this harmony comes to 
 us by so very different a process, I can hardly be rash in con- 
 cluding that it must be a very different kind of thing from that 
 which sounded in the ears of Virgil or Horace ; and it is the 
 effect of the harmony as we feel it, not as they felt it, that we 
 talk of endeavouring to imitate in English. 
 
 Upon the question of historical fact, — the alleged existence in 
 ancient times of a natural instinct for the rules of prosody 
 (pp. 2, 3), which having been perfect in everybody from the days 
 of Homer to those of Plautus — as XDerfect in the swineherd as in 
 the poet — was lost by everybody before the end of the third 
 century, — I have nothing to say. I know nothing of the 
 evidence from which it is inferred, and I do not see how evidence 
 can exist which to me would seem satisfactory. Descriptions 
 may remain of the old Eoman pronunciation, hj grammarians 
 who had heard it; but who can assm-e me that they were 
 qualified to report what they heard ? It is far from a common
 
 SdO ENGLISH HEXAMETERS. 
 
 accomplishment. How do I know that they refrained, until they 
 had finished their description, from " superinducing upon the 
 sounds they heard, their acquired knowledge," — that they did 
 not, by a mental process, hear with their eyes instead of their 
 ears? There are hundreds of grammarians now in England 
 who would tell me that i is a simple vowel, and au a diphthong ; 
 hundi-eds of scholars who would tell me that the first syllable in 
 niger, as commonly pronounced, sounds short, the first syllable 
 in nigger, long ; though any clock that beats half seconds can 
 tell them that the difference is exactly the other way. Think, 
 if English were a dead language, what strange conclusions a 
 scholar would be led to in trying to determine the pronunciation, 
 with such data to perplex him. Mr. Munro himself, admitting 
 that "two or more consonants take longer time in enunciating 
 than one " (p. 33), declares in the same sentence (p. 32) that 
 " neither his ear nor his reason recognizes any reed distinction of 
 quantity, except that which is produced by accentuated and 
 unaccentuated syllables." If his paper survives the spoken 
 language, and Lord Macaulay's New Zealander meets with it, 
 what will he infer as to the pronunciation of ancient English ? 
 Two or more consonants, he will say, took longer time in enun- 
 ciating than one. Yet in syllaUes, there was no real difference 
 in quantity,'' except accent and no accent. How could this be? 
 Was it that in a syllable involving two consonants the vowel was 
 shortened in proportion to the increase of time taken in articula- 
 ting the consonants ? Or was it that the ancient Enghsh ear 
 could not recognize differences of time in the act of enunciating 
 consonants, but only in vowels ; and that all vowels were 
 pronounced in equal times ? Or was it that by " quantity " they 
 meant length measured in space, not in time, and reckoned a 
 syllable long or short, according to the number of letters in it ? 
 The difficulties of the question would be insuperable, and a just 
 conclusion hopeless. 
 
 Leaving the historical question, then, for scholars to debate 
 at their leisure, I come back to the effect of the classical hexa- 
 meter upon the ear of a modern Englishman, about which we 
 do know something, and to which I say that question is altogether 
 ii-relevant. For myself, at least, I positively declare that when
 
 ENGLISH HEXAMETERS. 341 
 
 I si)eak of the effect of Virgil's verse, I speak of the effect which 
 the sounds I utter make upon my own ear. And my case is, in 
 fact, the very reverse of Mr. Munro's. For me, my EngHsh 
 reading of Virgil has "in itself" a meaning; it is the rules of 
 prosody (many of them) that have no meaning for me. That 
 they had a meaning in connexion with the native pronunciation 
 I do not douht ; but the pronunciation being changed, the 
 principle is in many cases no longer ai^plicable, and the meaning 
 is gone. Words which, as spoken by Virgil, would have violated 
 the law of the metre, accord with it as spoken by me ; and a vast 
 number of what we call false quantities may be committed 
 without the least offence to any faculty which I possess, physical 
 or intellectual. Take, for instance, fater and mater; both 
 jDronounced (as I was taught, absurdly enough, to pronounce 
 them) like our English ivaiter. Can any one pretend that his 
 ear is offended by hearing j^ater used when the verse requires a 
 long syllable, or inater when it requires a short one ? To us they 
 are both common — admit of being pronounced either long or 
 short, as we like ; just as patrem was to Virgil himself; the mute 
 followed by the liquid forming a combination which could at 
 IDleasure be uttered raj)idly or dwelt on long,, and being capable, 
 therefore, when preceded by a short vowel, of any length which 
 the verse required. If a modern reader feels any horror at 
 seeing such a line as Ipsa inater, media nimhorum in node, etc, 
 it is not that the sound offends him, but that he knows there is 
 a false quantity in it,, and remembers the days when he would 
 have been punished or laughed at for making a false quantity. 
 Take, again, itur and iter. If " sic itur ad astra " sounds well, 
 can it be said without absurdity that " Hie iter ad astra " sounds 
 ill, — supposing the i to be pronounced long in both,, as I was 
 taught to pronounce it ? Here to ma the real false quantity 
 •would be committed in making the first syllable of iter, so 
 l^ronounced, do duty for a sliort syllable. Our long i and u are 
 both diphthongs ; and so long by nature — that is,, by the impos- 
 sibility of articulating them rapidly — that we caimot put them 
 in the short places without injuring the rhythm. A worse 
 offence to my ear, and one which I have never been able to 
 reconcile myself to, is the elision before words beginning with Oi
 
 342 ENGLISH HEXAMETERS. 
 
 vowel of syllables ending in m. With the Romans I suppose m 
 represented a nasal vowel, which could not be sounded before 
 another vowel without a hiatus : but with us there is no pretence 
 for elision. The quam in " Tempore qimnquam illo," etc., strikes 
 my ear as a real false quantity — a combination inconsistent with 
 the law of the metre ; and my only reason for acquiescing in it 
 (so far as I do acquiesce), is that it accords with the written rule 
 — ^just as my reason for objecting to fysa mater (so far as I do 
 object) is only that it is against the written rule. 
 
 With me, therefore, however it may be with others, an 
 acquired knowledge of the rules of prosody does tiot overrule the 
 sense of hearing, or make me feel a wondrous harmony in sounds 
 which are themselves unmetrical. Virgil's hexameters, as I read 
 them, are no doubt very different and very inferior in melody to 
 W'hat they were as he read them. But it does not follow that 
 the sound of them is not to me really beautiful — 
 
 Tale tuum cannen nobis, divine poeta, 
 Quale sopor fessis in gramine ; quale per gestum 
 . Dulcis aqufe saliente sitim restinguere rivo. 
 
 In these there is a measure perfectly intelligible — an expectation 
 of the ear delicately played with, a ground with fine changes, 
 demanding no acquired knowledge to explain it to the ear, except 
 a know'ledge of the intention of the metre — the general law 
 which governs it. And the result (in spite of five false quantities, 
 which I confess with shame that I have always made in reading 
 the lines, and never observed them till now — tuum, sopor, fessts, 
 dquie, and sltim) is a sense of exquisite pleasure — the sort of 
 pleasure which music gives. Mr. Munro would have me believe 
 that an acquired knowledge of the rules of playing on the 
 pianoforte might, by a mental process, be so superinduced upon 
 the sense of the sounds actually emitted by an instrument false 
 in every note, that to one who knew that the keys were rightly 
 touched, even though he did not know what the sounds them- 
 selves our/M to he, the result would be a feeling of " wondrous 
 harmony." But I think he will hardly induce two musicians to 
 make the experiment — one playing, the other reading and listen- 
 ing ; and yet the mental feat would be much easier to them than 
 the analogous mental feat which he supposes to be unconsciously
 
 ENGLISH HEXAMETERS. 313 
 
 performed by all modern scholars ; for the musicians have a 
 clear conception of what the sounds ought to he, and if the 
 instrument were silenced, could hear them in their minds : 
 whereas the scholar only hears a jangle, and believes that the 
 sound would be melodious if the instrument were rightly tuned, 
 but has no conception whatever of the sort of sounds which the 
 rightly-tuned instrument would make.
 
 ^M 
 
 ix^ij. 
 
 XII. 
 "TWELFTH NIGHT" AT THE OLYMPIC THEATKL.* 
 
 The recent revival of Twelfih Night at the Olympic ...j-,ci.' 
 deserves special notice for two reasons. It is the first time in 
 England" that the difficulty of finding two actors ;uficiently alike 
 to be mistakable for each other has been met by the oi^Fiot;- 
 expedient of making the same person play both parts : and ' 
 the first opportunity we have had of seeing Miss Kate Terry 
 l^art fine enough to test her capacity for acting " Shckespearc'- 
 
 "women." 
 
 Though the experiment was tried under accidental disadvan- 
 tages, which greatly impaired the general effect, and made the 
 piece much less attractive tlian it deserves to be, the result was 
 satisfactory on both points. It has been practically proved that 
 in a ijlot which turns upon the perfect resemblance of two 
 persons, actual identity need cause no confusion ; and though we 
 do not profess to be perfectly satisfied with Miss Kate Terry's 
 performance, either in conception or execution, it has fully 
 satisfied us of this — that nature has endowed her with all the 
 gifts, both mental and corporeal, which are requii-ed for the task, 
 and that there are very few of Shakespeare's women whom it 
 does not lie within her power to act better than we of this genera- 
 tion have ever seen them acted. Hoping, therefore, that the 
 play-going public will want to see more of her in such parts, — 
 that so rare a chance may lead to the formation of a company 
 qualified to support her in them, — and that the successful intro- 
 duction of one novelty may make way for other much needed 
 
 * Fruzer's Mafjuziuc, Au;^u«t, 1SC5.
 
 "TWELFTH night" AT THE OLYMriC THEATRE. 845 
 
 improvements, — we propose to explain in some detail the points 
 in which her performance (though in all points highly interest- 
 ing, graceful, and clever) was to us unsatisfactory. 
 
 But we will speak first of some defects in the arrangements 
 vvith which she is not personally concerned, except as suffering 
 from the effect of them in the general impression made by the 
 whole. 
 
 A company got together for the performance of the domestic 
 sensational prosaic drama upon which the Olympic has flourished 
 of late could not be expected to furnish a fit cast for Ticelftii 
 Nif/ht — a play written for Burbage's company in its full strength, 
 and containing so many characters that require acting of the 
 highest order. As far as the Olympic company is concerned, the 
 actors all deserve praise for the pains they took to do justice to 
 their several parts, and many of them for no inconsiderable 
 success. But in considering the effect of the play itself, and its 
 capacities for popular attraction, it must not be forgotten that 
 the love-sick Duke is meant to be a man of the fmest manners 
 and tastes : — 
 
 Of great estate, of fresh, and stainless youth, 
 In voices well divulged, free, Icarn'd, and valiant, 
 And in dimension and the shape of nature 
 A gracious person : — * 
 
 Olivia to be a woman of dazzling beauty, high breeding, and 
 imperial manners : — Sir Toby, though a drunken reprobate, and 
 too fond of practical jokes, to be a gentleman of good birth, a 
 soldier, and a man of humour; ready to fight with anybody, 
 though not wishing to hurt anybody ; ready also to take the 
 consequences without complaint or resentment w^hen he is hm't 
 himself ; whose language, whenever he is tolerably sober, is that 
 of a well-bred man ; and who certainly did not end every 
 sentence wdth " haw ! haw ! " or carry his mouth in a perpetual 
 grin: — also that the Fool was not a merry, mischievous boy, but a 
 thoughtful man, something of a scholar, and full of music, whose 
 favourite songs were plaintive and pathetic. The loss of these 
 
 * These lines, we observe, are left out in the acting, which is surely a great 
 mistake. As addressed by Olivia to Viola, tJiey have a peculiar and pathetic 
 meaning, and it is strange that the uaxed emotion.s which they uuist have excited 
 in her ahould not have been made one of the '" points " in the iilay.
 
 346 "TWELFTH NIGHT" AT THE OLYMPIC THEATRE. 
 
 features puts the whole composition out of tune, and prevents the 
 tragic and comic elements from combining. For in this, as in 
 all Shakespeare's later comedies, the serious interest is allied, 
 through the depth and tenderness of the sentiment, rather to 
 tragedy than to comedy; and though the end is marriage and 
 happiness ever after, the predominant impression is one of' sad- 
 ness rather than mirth — the sadness which accompanies a deep 
 sense of beauty. 
 
 Perhaps these deficiencies could not have been avoided. But 
 there was one part of the arrangement which had a very bad 
 effect, and might certamly be corrected. The difficulty of repre- 
 senting on the stage a brother and a sister so like that they 
 cannot be distinguished was not so great in Shakespeare's time 
 as in ours. When women were acted by boys, two boys like 
 enough for the purpose may have been procurable ; though even 
 then it must have been hard to find two boy-actors of original 
 genius, resembling each other in action, voice, and manner ; 
 unless they were real twins, such as we occasionally meet with, 
 and such as may possibly have been at this time in Burbage's 
 company. In the present day we doubt whether all the theatres 
 in London combined could produce a pan of actors qualified 
 physically and morally to represent the two Antipholuses in the 
 Comedy of Errors. But to find a man and a woman qualified to 
 act Sebastian and Viola, and at the same time like enough to be 
 mistaken for each other, is plainly impossible. The voice alone 
 is fatal to the resemblance. In making the same person act 
 both (a device which we are told has been long j)ractised in 
 Germany) there is no difficulty whatever until we come to the 
 last scene ; for until the last scene they cannot by the nature of 
 the case appear on the stage together. When they do, the diffi- 
 culty does no doubt arise, and cannot be avoided. But that 
 scene is never long ; it is at least easier to find an actress who 
 can look and speak like another through one or two speeches 
 than through several scenes of various emotion ; and even if she 
 fails, the play is so nearly over that no great harm is done. But 
 in dealing with this difficulty the managers of the Olympic have 
 fallen, we thmk, into a great mistake ; and by making that con- 
 cluding scene not merely imperfect, but incredible and ridiculous,
 
 "TWELFTH NIGHT" AT THE OLYMriC THEATRE. 317 
 
 have endangered the success of the whole experiment. We 
 would readily excuse the representative of Sebastian for not 
 speaking so well as Miss Kate Terry, but we cannot excuse her 
 for not speaking at all. That a young gentleman, so spirited, so 
 affectionate, so frank and bold, so ready and graceful in speech, 
 as we have seen him in Miss Terry's admirable and almost fault- 
 less rendering, should come before such a company in such cir- 
 cumstances and not have one word to say, is so very absurd that 
 it produces a shock of disappointment sufficient to damp the 
 effect of the whole piece ; not to add, that it spoils the part of 
 Viola herself, by obliging her to assume a prominence which is 
 out of character and unbecoming. Surely Miss Terry might 
 teach some one to deliver Sebastian's speeches well enough to 
 leave her her own part in the scene of recognition. Perfect 
 physical resemblance is comparatively unimportant ; for play- 
 goers are not used to be very exacting in such cases, and would 
 readily accept a skilful " get up " as sufficient for the occasion. 
 We can connive at some difference of features ; but the total 
 want of a tongue is too much for us. Until this defect is re- 
 moved, it is vain to expect that the play will go off with triumph. 
 A sense of disappointment coming upon an audience in the crisis 
 of the last scene interrupts the current of sympathy, and deprives 
 them of the power of hearty applause. And to this more than 
 to anything else we attribute the fact that while the newspaper 
 critics agreed in admiring and praising, the audience, though 
 attentive and well pleased, saw the curtain fall night after night 
 without any of the usual manifestations of delight. 
 
 With regard to Miss Terry's own performance — which is an 
 event of higher importance, and may come hereafter to have a 
 kind of classical interest — we cannot assent to what seems to be 
 the general verdict of the critics, — namely, that it wanted 
 nothing but power. We saw no want of power ; we saw, on the 
 contrary, unmistakable evidence that she has all the power which 
 the part requires. And it was in fact fi-om the remarkable skill 
 and force with which she embodied her own conception, that we 
 were enabled to see where the defect of her performance really 
 lay. Following probably the traditions of the stage, which by 
 successive corruptions have degraded this finest of all comedies
 
 348 "TWELFTH NIGHT" AT THE OLYMPIC THEATRE. 
 
 almost into farce, she pitched all Viola's conversations with 
 Olivia — which are as full of tender feeling as anything 
 Shakespeare ever wrote — in far too light a key. So much so, 
 that had we seen her in those scenes only, we should have 
 douhted whether she had sufficient feeling for poetry, or sufficient 
 sympathy with the deeper moods of poetic passion. But the 
 scenes with the Duke prove beyond all doubt that she has no 
 such defect ; for when was deep and tender passion more touch- 
 ingly expressed, or in a form more graceful and poetic ? It 
 cannot be therefore that she wanted power to express the same 
 in the scenes with Olivia : she was trying to express something 
 else. She did not give Viola credit for the depth and tenderness 
 and delicacy, which to us are not less conspicuous in these 
 scenes than in the other ; and played them with a light and 
 laughing heart. And it is not to ])e denied that she may cite in 
 her justification some grave authorities. A charge has been 
 made agamst Viola by at least two eminent critics, which if just 
 would deprive her of all pretensions to those feminine attributes. 
 In a note upon the scene in which she first appears, Dr. Johnson 
 observes, " Viola seems to have formed a very deep design with 
 very little j)remeditation. She is thrown by shipwreck on an un- 
 known coast, hears that the prince is a bachelor, and resolves io 
 supjplant the lady whom he courts." Hallam, following in his 
 wake, says that "Viola would be more interesting if she had not, 
 indelicately as ivell as unfairly toivards Olivia, determined to ivin the 
 Duke's heart before she had seen him." And Miss Terry (though 
 she tried to soften the effect by betraying an emotion at the 
 mention of the Duke's name, which imj^lied an attachment 
 already formed, or at least a fancy already engaged) appears to 
 have put the same construction upon the only j)assage by wiiich 
 this most injm-ious imputation can have been suggested. To us, 
 however, the words convey no such meaning, but imply rather 
 the very contrary. And the question is worth examining ; for 
 our conception of Viola's very nature, and with it the spirit of 
 every scene in which she subsequently appears, and the com- 
 plexion of the whole play, depends upon the answer. 
 
 How then stands the case ? Viola has just escaped from 
 shipwreck, having lost her twin brother — her only natm^al pro-
 
 "TWELFTH NinilT" AT THE OLYMriC THEATRE. 349 
 
 tector — and everything else except her purse with a little money 
 in it. A beautiful, high-bred girl, alone in a strange country — 
 what is she to do ? * Where is she to lodge ? How to procure 
 food ? The captain and the sailors are kind and respectful, but 
 they are poor men, and have been wrecked as well as she. But 
 she has sense and courage and character and accomplishments, 
 and addresses herself at once to meet the difficulty. For a lady 
 of her birth and breeding, the court was the natural place to look 
 to for shelter and sympathy; and she asks who is governor. 
 Duke Orsino. Orsino ! She remembered the name ; she had 
 heard her father speak of him. But " he was a bachelor then," 
 she adds; thinking no doubt that if he were still a bachelor there 
 would be no female court ; therefore no fit place for her. Hear- 
 ing that he was not married, but going to be, her next most 
 natm-al resource would be the lady he was going to marry — a 
 lady, it seemed, well suited to her case ; for she also was an 
 orphan maid, mourning the recent loss of an only brother ; f and 
 it was only on learning that there was no chance of obtaining 
 access to her, that she resolved to disguise her sex and seek 
 service at the court in the character of a page. This would pro- 
 vide for her immediate necessity; and for her next step she 
 would wait till she saw her way. There is not the shadow of a 
 reason for supposing that in wishing to serve either Ohvia or the 
 Duke she had any other motive or design; the suggestion of 
 which is the more unjustifiable and unaccountable, because in 
 all her subsequent intercom'se between them (though she had 
 then come to have a very deep and painful interest of her own in 
 the matter) she shows herself as fair and loyal, as unselfish, as 
 
 * Cap. This is Illyria, lady. 
 
 Vio. And what should I do in Illyria? 
 My brother ! he is in Elysium. 
 t A virtuous maid, tlie daughter of a count, 
 
 That died some twelve months since, then leaving her 
 In the protection of his son, her brother, 
 "Who shortly also died ; for whose dear love 
 They say she hath abjured the company 
 And siglit of men. 
 Vio. Oh, that I served that lady ! 
 Surely it was not by accident that the wish followed so immediately upon the 
 report of a circumstance forming so uatuial a bond of sympathy.
 
 350 "TWELFTH XIGIIT" AT THE OLYMPIC THEATRE. 
 
 tenderly considerate towards both, as it is possible for a woman 
 to be. Three days of confidential communication in so tender 
 an argument as unrequited love had kindled indeed in her own 
 breast a love which could not hope and did not ask for requital. 
 But where are the traces of design, or intrigue, or endeavour to 
 use oj^portunities for her own advantage ? Out of the experience 
 of her own sad and hopeless passion she borrows imagery 
 and eloquence to set forth her master's ; and the sincerity with 
 which she does it is proved by the effect. How she might have 
 been affected if the tenderness which her eloquence kindles in 
 01i\da's hitherto unapproachable heart had turned it towards the 
 Duke, Shakspcare only knows. He spared her that trial. But 
 wh.'it she had to do she did with perfect loyalty and good faith ; 
 her own love — though restlessly struggling to utter itself — re- 
 maining to the last her own sad secret. 
 
 From overlooking or not appreciating the painful conflict 
 between her office and her feelings, and the fine grace with which 
 she manages it. Miss Terry seemed to us to miss many delicate 
 touches of nature, for the exhibition of which her powers are well 
 suited. Nothing could be prettier or more proper than the 
 assumed sauciness with which she forced herself upon Olivia, 
 and hegan the conversation ; but to keep it uj) to the end of the 
 scene was surely a mistake. The " skipping dialogue " is main- 
 tained only so long as others are present ; as soon as the two 
 are alone, it gives place first to seriousness and then to deep 
 
 emotion : — 
 
 01. Heave you no more to say? 
 
 Vio. Good madam, let me see your face. 
 
 Now why was Viola so anxious to see Olivia's face? Not 
 surely that she might make a pert remark or a cold criticism. 
 She wanted to see the face that had so enchanted Orsino. And 
 when she does see it, what feelings does it excite ? Jealous dis- 
 like, or a desire to depreciate ? No : but earnest admiration of 
 her beauty and deep sympathy with her lover, v/hose cause she 
 immediately proceeds to plead as passionately as if it were her 
 own. Not another light word passes her lips. And that her 
 feeling towards Olivia herself was not less delicate and sympa- 
 thetic, we may gather not only from her language during the
 
 "TWELFTH NICIIT" AT THE OLYMTIC THEATRE. 351 
 
 rest of the interview, but still more from a passage in the next 
 scene, which though it has puzzled many commentators, has 
 always appeared to us one of the finest touches in the play. 
 When Malvolio overtakes her with the ring which the Countess 
 pretended that she had left, her immediate answer is : — 
 
 She took the ring of me : I'll none of it. 
 
 Now, as she had not left any ring, it has been thought that there 
 must be some mistake here, and that we should either read " no 
 ring " instead of " the ring ; " or make an interrogative exclama- 
 tion of it (as Miss Terry did), " She took the ring of me ! " But 
 it is plain from Malvolio's reply, " Come, sii", you peevishly 
 threw it to her," etc., that he understood her to mean that she 
 had left it. And so no doubt she did. For though taken quite 
 by surprise, and not knowing at first what it exactly meant, she 
 saw at once thus much, — that the message contained a secret of 
 some kind which had not been confided to the messenger ; and 
 with her quick wit and sympathetic delicacy suppressed the 
 surprise which might have betrayed it. 
 
 The messenger being gone, she proceeds to consider what 
 the meaning of it is. And it is in the soliloquy which follows 
 (though delivered with admirable spirit and skill) that Miss 
 Terry seemed to us to commit her gravest fault. Following 
 again the traditions of the stage — where " I am the man " is 
 commonly made the "point " of the speech — and forgetting how 
 sad Viola's heart was, and how forlorn her prosjDeets — she 
 represented her as taking a light pleasure, as of gratified vanity, 
 in Olivia's mistake, and as rather enjoying the perplexity of the 
 situation ; for she made her exit with a laugh, musical enough 
 in itself, but terribly out of tune with the sentiment of the play. 
 According to Shakespeare, Viola's sense of the humour of the 
 situation is immediately lost in sympathy and sad reflection, 
 accompanied with a kind of self-reproach : — • 
 
 If it be so, — as 'tis — 
 Poor lady, she were better love a dream. 
 Disguise, I see thou art a wickedness, etc. 
 
 And most certainly it is with a sigh and not with a laugh, that 
 she gives up the attempt to see how it can all end : —
 
 352 "TWELFTH night" AT THE OLYMPIC THEATRE. 
 
 AVliat will become of this ? as I am man, 
 My state is desperate for my master's love- 
 As I am woman, — now, alas, the daj', 
 What thriftless sighs shall poor Olivia breathe ! 
 Oh Time, thou must untangle this, not I ; 
 It is too hard a knot for me to untie ! 
 
 And if further evidence were wanted of the gravity with 
 which she regards the comphcation, we may find it in her 
 subsequent interviews with OHvia, in which the Hght tone is 
 entirely abandoned and exchanged for one of reserved, cold, and 
 lofty, though not untender, reproof ; meant to discourage hope 
 without giving pain, and successful at least in the latter. 
 
 Another oversight, growing no doubt out of the same miscon- 
 ception, we observed m the beginning of the same scene, where 
 Yiola walking home (with too light a step, we thought, for one 
 whose heart was so heavy-laden) is first overtaken by Malvolio. 
 Here Miss Terry, after lightly answering his first question, 
 turned immediately to walk on again as before. Now his 
 question, " Were you not even now with the Countess Olivia ? " 
 implied that he had something to say; and Viola must, in 
 common courtesy, have paused to hear what it was, unless she 
 w^anted to get away, for which there was no reason. This is a 
 small thing ; but small things help to give general impressions ; 
 and the impression produced by that slight action on one who 
 did not know the plot, must have been either that Viola was 
 very careless and thoughtless, or that she had some reason for 
 being in a hurry to escape without further speech. 
 
 These arc things which lie within the actress's own control ; 
 and if Miss Terry will but reconsider the original imputation 
 against Viola, and acquit her of being a heartless schemer, 
 planning to win the Duke and supplant Olivia before she had 
 seen either of them, or knew how they stood affected towards 
 each other, they will correct themselves. It will be self-evident 
 that whatever is inconsistent with truth and tenderness of heart 
 is impossible wdth Viola ; and it will also follow naturally to 
 speak the verse a little slower. For Viola, though very ready 
 in apprehension, never spettZrs without pausing to think ; and in 
 her lightest and gayest moods (never very light or gay) cannot 
 have spoken quick at any time.
 
 "TWELFTH night" AT THE OLYMPIC TIHV^-TRE. 353 
 
 That the humours of the duel-scene will ever be brought l)ack 
 within the text of Shakespeare, and the limits of becoming mirth, 
 is more than we can hope. Managers can hardly be expected to 
 sacrifice a piece of farce, which always makes the audience very 
 merry ; though Shakespeare has evidently taken pains to preserve 
 Viola from the ridiculous attitude in which it places her, and 
 she can never be seen as she was meant to be until it is reformed. 
 Miss Terry made the best of it, and acted it with great skill, 
 according to the directions in the stage copy. But if she will 
 carefully examine the original text, which contains no directions 
 except for the exits and entrances, she will find that the situation 
 gives scope for skill of a finer and subtler kind. Viola, it must 
 be remembered, has to sustain the part of a young gentleman, 
 who must not seem to be afraid of a drawn sword, or unused to 
 handle one. If she cannot contrive to avoid the fight handsomely, 
 the resource, she looks too is not flight but confession^-a con- 
 fession of her disguise. "Pray God defend me," she says to 
 herself when it is coming to extremity, " a little thing would 
 make me " — not take to my heels — but " tell them how much I 
 lack of a man." How she would have done it we do not know ; 
 but we may be sure that she would have known how to do it 
 gracefully and without loss of feminine dignity. But being a 
 person of great feminine (though not masculine) courage, of 
 remarkable composure and presence of mind and ready wit, she 
 reserves that for the last extremity; hoping by judgment, 
 gentleness, pacific bearing, and intervention of Providence, to 
 avoid the necessity of so inconvenient a disclosure. Of the 
 attempts to run away, and the dragging back and pushing on 
 by main force, it is not enough to say that there is no trace in 
 the original text ; they are inconsistent with it. For up to the 
 very last, when there seemed to be no chance of escape left, the 
 only evidence she had given of the fear which she had such good 
 right to feel was " panting and looking pale." And even when 
 she is obliged to draw her sword, or prepare to draw it (for it is 
 doubtful whether Shakespeare intended to expose her to so severe 
 a trial as the actual crossing of weapons), her words are still 
 calm, and such as any gentleman might have used — "I do 
 assure you, 'tis against my will." Indeed, from the beginning 
 
 2 A
 
 o54 "TWELFTH NIGHT" AT THE OLYMriC THEATRE. 
 
 to the end of the adventure she neither docs nor says anything 
 (her complexion and the beating of her heart excepted) that 
 would have misbecome a well-behaved, peaceful yomig gentleman, 
 who disliked to be drawn by a bully into a brawl. She acts 
 throughout with discretion, intelligence, and a collected judg- 
 ment. When first warned of the danger, in terms meant to 
 inspire alarm in a man, she proposes to "return again into the 
 house, and desire some conduct of the lady — she is no fighter ; 
 she has heard of some kind of men that put quarrels purposely 
 upon others to taste their valour ; belike this is a man of that 
 quirk." When she finds that line of retreat cut off, not by being 
 forcibly held, but by Sir Toby's threat to make it a quarrel of 
 his own, she begs that she may at least " know of the Imight 
 what her offence to him is ; it is something of her negligence, 
 nothing of her purpose." When Fabian, staying by her, and 
 making it still impossible for her to get handsomely away, offers 
 to make her peace if he can, she takes the opportunity to repeat 
 her disavowal of a love for fighting, " I shall be much bound to 
 you for it : I am one that had rather go with Sir Priest than Sir 
 Knight : I care not who knows so much of my mettle." * But 
 she goes forward notwithstanding to the place where the danger 
 is ; and there is not the slightest indication that she is either 
 pushed or pulled : so far, therefore, she has contrived to perform 
 her part without betraying more than had appeared before in 
 her countenance and behaviour : she " bore in her visage no 
 great presage of cruelty." And when it comes at last to a crisis, 
 in which she must either have disgraced her man's apparel or 
 betraj'ed her secret, the sudden api)earance of Antonio rescues 
 her from the indignity ; and drawing Sir Toby and Fabian out 
 of the way, enables her for the first time, with a simple, "Pray 
 sir, put up your sword, if you please," to settle the quarrel with 
 the principal for herself. 
 
 Now we submit that this struggle between woman's fear and 
 
 * The attempt at a swafrger with which Miss Terry gave these words would 
 deserve all the praise it has received as an excellent piece of comic acting, if it were 
 not directly at variance with the words themselves. If Viola had professed that she 
 had rather go with Sir Knight than Sir Priest, it would have been in place. But 
 her anxiety was to put her pretensions to valour as hiv as, consistently with her 
 assumed character of a young gentleman wearing a sword, she possibly could.
 
 ^'TWELFTH NIGHT" AT THE OLYMPIC THEATRE. o55 
 
 woman's courage, wit, and self-respect, — gently, gracefully, 
 l)ravely, and successfully carried through under very trying 
 circumstances — is much finer comedy, as well as much more 
 in harmony with the sentiment of the play, than the mere 
 terrors and perplexities of a young woman frightened out of her 
 wits at the idea of a naked sword, — though executed (as in this 
 case it was) to perfection. The inward sinking of the heart may 
 be made visible enough to the audience without any display of 
 unseemly terror ; and Miss Terry's command of expression by 
 play of countenance and action is so perfect, that an affectation 
 of composure would be in no danger of being mistaken for an 
 absence of fear. 
 
 We are aware that among the critics to whose judgment she 
 will naturally look with most deference, there are many who 
 will give very different advice. First impressions received early 
 in life from a well-acted play are not easily removed or suspended 
 for impartial reconsideration ; and those to whom the broader 
 humours of the mock-duel, with Viola's ostentatious terrors, 
 Fabian's shoulder applied from behind, and Sir Andrew's dis- 
 appearance up the tree, are coeval with their first acquaintance 
 with Twelfth Night, will hardly imagine what the play would be 
 without them. Our own idea was formed fi'om reading before 
 M'e saw it on the stage ; and to us these humours have always 
 been in the highest degree discordant and intolerable. But let 
 Miss Terry take the case into her own consideration. The rare 
 and peculiar merits which distinguish her acting are not such as 
 she can have learned either from actors or critics. Her own 
 feeUng and imagination must have been her real tutors ; and it 
 is to then- decision we would refer her. Forgetting for awhile 
 all that she may have seen or heard of other people's conceptions, 
 let her conceive for herself the feelings of a tenderly-bred girl 
 cast up from shipwreck on a strange coast, her affections all 
 engrossed with grief for her lost brother, her wits all occupied 
 in devising what to do ; and let her then accompany Viola 
 through her various adventures, imagining what she must have 
 felt in each situation, and how she must have spoken. She will 
 feel, we think, in the first j)lace, that a pretty and smiling con- 
 sciousness of personal interest in the Duke's bachelor condition
 
 356 "TTN'ELFTII NIGHT" AT THE OLYMPIC THEATRE. 
 
 is out of i^lace in that sad and forlorn hour; not an hour for 
 Tfinity to take effect in a heart not disposed to vanity. She 
 will find her, on that first acquaintance, affectionate, gentle, 
 thoughtful, wise, pure, and brave; with manners that inspire 
 respect and tenderness in all she speaks to. On her next 
 appearance, after she has been listening for three days to the 
 Duke's eloquent description of his grief, she will find her changed 
 only in this — her heart has been smitten with a new affection, 
 apparently hopeless, and for which there seems to be no cure 
 but patience. It was nobody's fault. She has no complaint to 
 make, and she makes none ; and patience does not fail her. But 
 though to the world she can still show a clear countenance and 
 a bright vvit — never losing her dignity and grace of manner, her 
 quick intelligence, or her composure and self-possession — it must 
 not be forgotten that her days of mirth, if she ever had any, 
 are past, and that it is tragic business that is going on within. 
 Remembering this. Miss Terry will find no difficulty in following 
 all the changes of emotion in her interviews with Olivia, both 
 while she urges the Duke's suit, and while she rejects for herself 
 the passion she has involuntarily excited. We hope also that 
 she will feel — what Shakespeare plainly felt — that Viola must 
 not be exhibited in any attitude w^hich is inconsistent with grace 
 and serious sympathy. And if on the next opportunity she will 
 try the experiment of playing the whole part according to this 
 conception and in this spirit, she may indeed disappoint some 
 " barren spectators " who came to laugh, but the effect of the 
 whole ought to be so beautiful and touching that we can hardly 
 imagine it not carrying the sympathies of the house with it ; in 
 which case it may set a new fashion, and be the beginning of a 
 reform which will lead to the purification and regeneration of 
 our whole Shakesperian theatre.
 
 XIII. 
 
 THE "MERCHANT OF VENICE" AT THE PKINCE OF 
 WALES'S THEATEE IN 1875.* 
 
 The decay of the legitimate drama has long been a subject of 
 complaint ; and if by the legitimate be meant the 2^oetiG drama, 
 it must be admitted that fashion has not run strongly enough in 
 that direction of late years to encourage managers to collect and 
 train companies for the proper performance of it. A particular 
 actor appears from time to time, and makes a name, by merit 
 or otherwise, as representative of one of Shakespeare's great 
 characters ; and then a company of some kind is got together 
 to support him. But it is long since we had a theatre that 
 made the representation of the poetic di-ama its proper aim and 
 business. 
 
 The immediate cause of this is not far to seek. The demand 
 for the higher art is not sufficient to draw the supply ; conse- 
 quently the supply is not sufficient to encourage the demand. 
 Playgoers do not ask for the great plays, because there is nobody 
 to act them ; managers do not procui-e people to act them, 
 because playgoers do not ask for them. It is a difficult}^ which 
 cannot be dealt with by way of precontract, for there is no way 
 of engaging the public beforehand to supply full houses. The 
 experiment must be made at the risk of the management, and 
 the risk must be considerable. But it is all the more to be 
 wished that when it is made, and made in a manner which 
 deserves success, it should not fail for want of due information or 
 appreciation on the part of the public. And here it is that the 
 
 * Frazcr'i Maijazinc, July, 1875.
 
 358 THE "MERCHANT OF VENICE" 
 
 Press has the power of doing both good and ill service. Though 
 the concm-rent applause of all the newspapers cannot make 
 people take pleasure in a thing which does not amuse or interest 
 them, it can make them go once to see it. Concurrent depre- 
 ciation, on the other hand, by two or three will deter vast 
 numbers fi'om going at all, and so cut off the appeal which 
 should lie fi'om the judgment of the critic to the feeling of the 
 audience. Thus it comes that the success of such adventm-es 
 rests in great part with the theatrical columns of the daily 
 Press ; columns very unlike the columns^ that Horace speaks of, 
 to which mediocrity was intolerable. 
 
 Through what we take to be nothing worse than thoughtless- 
 ness on the part of these invisible powers, a very praiseworthy 
 experiment of the kind has lately fallen far short of the success 
 it deserved, and is in danger of caiTying with it in its fall a 
 chance for the poetic drama which can hardly be expected to 
 offer itself again. The managers of the Prince of Wales's 
 Theatre having, by great care and skill, trained a company to 
 act a certain class of popular plays (not of the poetic order) as 
 well, perhaps, as they deserve to be acted, and thereby estab- 
 lished for their house a well-merited reputation, were inspired 
 with a laudable ambition to try the effect of the same care and 
 skill in a higher region, and see wdiether one of Shakespeare's 
 comedies could not be got up as perfectly, according to its kind, 
 as School or Society. They chose a play which, though often 
 acted, always pleasing, and containing one famous part, and 
 one famous speech in another part, has never had justice done 
 to it as a whole. They set it forth with scenery, costume, 
 grouping, and general pictorial effect, equal to anything of the 
 land that has been produced in these times, when the arts of 
 decoration have been so much studied. They took great pains 
 both with the dialogue and the action, in all the parts, and in 
 the minutest particulars. And though the best training for the 
 Ptobertsonian drama leaves much to be learnt, and much also 
 to be unlearnt, by an actor before he is fit for Shakespeare, they 
 Bucceeded at least in inspiring every one of the company with a 
 desire to do his best with the part assigned to him. More than 
 all — because without some additional feature of special interest
 
 AT THE TKINCE OF WALES'S THEATRE. 3o0 
 
 the best under such conditions would not, perhaps, have been 
 good enough to make the Merchant of Venice attractive to a 
 pubhc which, if it will allow us to say so, requires " education " 
 for the enjoyment of this kind of art no less than the players for 
 the performance of it — they engaged for the principal j)art a 
 lady ready furnished with all the qualities needed in it, who 
 could show how "one of Shakespeare's women " may be and ought 
 to be acted, and of whose performance it is not too much to say 
 that it would of itself have gone far to supply that very " educa- 
 tion " which both audience and actors stand so much in need of. 
 This being beyond all question the most important novelty 
 and the great distinction of the enterprise, it might have been 
 exj)ected that judicious critics would try to make it conspicuous 
 as a great event for playgoers, and a thing to be seen. And 
 that they failed to do so is the more surprising because the 
 merit of the performance, and even the singularity of its merit, 
 a2)pears to have been felt by them all. But unfortunately, while 
 they agreed in distinguishing Miss Ellen Terry's Portia with excep- 
 tional praise, at once intelligent, discriminating, and um-eserved, 
 they agreed also in hcginning then- several notices with com- 
 plaints of the unsatisfactory character and announcements of 
 the imperfect success of the whole experiment, the effect of 
 which must have been simply to warn people away ; and which 
 have, in fact, resulted in the premature withdi'awal of the piece 
 before half the playgoing world have had a chance of seeing it. 
 If the critics (who in these daj^s of small theatres can make any 
 play fail by calling it a failure, and give any play a chance of 
 succeeding by calling it a success) had only begun by advising 
 everybody to go and see Miss Terry in Portia — which was no 
 more than the just inference from their own reports — they might 
 have indulged themselves in what censm-es they pleased upon 
 the rest, and done no harm. Those who went might have 
 agreed with them or might have differed — all that we have 
 happened to meet with did, in fact, differ with them widely and 
 vehemently — but in either case they would have seen the play. 
 
 To us this prematm-e withdrawal, though we cannot believe 
 it to be final, seems an accident very much to be regretted, not 
 only as tending to discourage a kind of enterprise which ought
 
 860 THE •* MERCHANT OF VENICE" 
 
 by all means to be encouraged, but because it will be difficult to 
 find another part so well suited to the exercise of Miss Terry's 
 peculiar gifts, and impossible to find another actress so well 
 qualified to represent one of the most delightful of Shakespeare's 
 female creations. 
 
 Mrs. Jameson, in attempting to classify the poet's women 
 according to their characteristic qualities — as characters in 
 which intellect and wit, passion and fancy, or the moral senti- 
 ments and aft'ections, severally predominated — placed Portia 
 among the women of intellect. But when we read her analysis 
 of the character — one of the best things in a book which con- 
 tains some of the best Shakesperian criticism that we possess — 
 it becomes plain that a fourth class should have been provided 
 for her — a class in which none of these qualities predominated, 
 but all were equally developed ; and if one was at any time 
 more conspicuous than the rest, it was only because the acci- 
 dents of the situation gave more occasion and scope for the 
 exercise or exhibition of it. Suppose Portia's situation changed, 
 and you feel at once that it would call u^ the appropriate 
 feeling and be met in the appropriate attitude : for each of the 
 enumerated qualities has its proper place in her nature, and is 
 ready to answer the moment it is called upon. Even in the 
 part which she has to play, bright, joyous, and happy as it is — a 
 succession of fortunate adventures crowned with complete success 
 — the occasional shadows which cross and threaten it are suffi- 
 cient to draw out the virtues which she holds in reserve, and to 
 reveal the latent capacities of her being ; giving certain assurance 
 that tenderness, sweetness, modesty, afl'ection, moral elevation, 
 charity, self-denial, and magnanimity, are as inseparable from 
 her nature as intellectual power and ready wit ; that she is 
 capable of as much passion as is consistent with self-control, of 
 as much imagination and fancy as can keep company with 
 reason, of as much play of humour and sportive mischief as 
 can be mdulged without doing harm or giving pain. For though 
 her lot is unusually free from strong contrasts of bright and 
 dark, it is chequered with continual interchanges of light and 
 shadow, which supply a succession of picturesque effects, and 
 impart more real variety to her character than is to be found in
 
 AT THE PRINCE OF WALES'S THEATRE. 3G1 
 
 many of those which arc made to i^ass through opposite 
 extremities of passion or fortune. 
 
 And if this variety of graces distinguishes the character of 
 Portia as designed by Shakespeare, it was not less the distinc- 
 tion of it as acted by Miss Terry. As she moved through the 
 changing scene, every new incident seemed to touch some new 
 feeKng; and each change of feehng expressed itself by voice, 
 countenance, or gesture in a maimer so lively and natural that 
 it was felt at once to be both true in itself and in harmony with 
 the rest. Everything that she had to do seemed to come 
 equally easy to her, and was done equally well ; and the critic 
 who would undertake to define the limits within which her 
 power lies must be either very sagacious or very blind and deaf. 
 Putting aside the foolish prejudice which appropriates to a 
 particular character a particular type of face — which supposes, 
 for instance, that Lady Macbeth cannot be acted by a woman 
 whose face and figure cannot be made up into some kind of 
 resemblance to Mrs. Siddons — and remembering that where the 
 feeling is, any face can express it, if we ask ourselves what 
 forms of human feeling lie beyond the ftossible range of Miss 
 Terry's sympathetic conceiotion, we find the question hard to 
 answer. We knew before that, within a certain range, she was 
 mistress of her art. We know now that her range is both wide 
 and high. The part of Portia is not a long one, but the memor- 
 able features in her performance of it make a long list. Eemember 
 — we are sorry that we cannot now say, observe — in the 
 scene where according to the new stage-arrangement she first 
 appeared, the reserved and stately com-tesy with which she 
 received the Prince of Morocco, and explained to him the con- 
 ditions of his ventm'e ; her momentary flutter of alarm as he 
 went to make his choice ; her sudden relief, mixed with amuse- 
 ment, when he began by dismissing the leaden casket with 
 contempt ; her conversation with Nerissa (properly her first 
 scene), half plaintive, half playful, in which she bemoaned her 
 fortune, and discussed the characters of the suitors — bringing 
 out every shade of humorous meaning in perfect relief, and yet 
 without the least coarseness or exaggeration ; the delicate em- 
 barrassment of her first interview with Bassauio, when, in
 
 362 THE "MERCHANT OF VENICE" 
 
 desiring him to postpone his trial, she was betrayed into an 
 avowal of her love ; her deeper agitations of fear and hope as he 
 deliberated over the caskets, and her outburst of passionate 
 emotion when he concluded at last in favour of the right one ; 
 the sweet dignity with which she surrendered to him herself and 
 all that was hers ; her quick alarm at his change of counte- 
 nance on reading Antonio's letter ; her eager sympathy and 
 impetuous resolution when she heard the contents ; the hurried 
 despatch of her letter to Bellario, writing and carrying on her 
 conversation with Lorenzo at the same time (a novelty, by the 
 way, required by the new scenic arrangements, but, as she 
 handled it, a real improvement and enrichment of the text), and 
 the bright i3romptitude of all her arrangements for departure, — 
 all in the best blank verse, yet all so life-like ; her perfect as- 
 sumption of the manner and demeanour of the young and 
 learned, and very gentlemanly, doctor of laws ; the touching 
 earnestness of her appeals to Shylock's better nature, as if 
 desh'ing to save him fi-om the penalty of his act by persuading 
 him to forbear it ; the silent accumulation of moral anger as he 
 rejected each overture, and insisted wpon pressing to extremity 
 his legal advantage, till she seemed to feel for the moment a 
 kind of scornful pleasure in offering him his own cup to drink ; 
 and at last, when, all serious business being happily over, she 
 was at leism'e to contemplate the situation, her infinite enjoy- 
 ment of the humour of it — it would take a column to describe 
 all that passed through her mind, and looked out of her eyes, as 
 she said to Bassanio : 
 
 " I pray you know me wben we meet again ; " 
 
 the gaiety of heart which prompted her demand of the ring as a 
 fee, and the abounding sphit of affectionate mischief with which 
 she pursued the jest to its happy conclusion — all this, executed 
 so perfectly as it was, — with a delivery of the words, whether 
 verse and prose, so modulated that the ear was never for a 
 moment weary ; the action so delicately suited to the word and 
 the word to the action ; the meaning never missed and never 
 obtruded ; the modesty of nature never overstej^ped — implies, 
 to our thinking, a degree of intelligence, imagination, feeling,
 
 AT THE PRINCE OF WAT.ES'S THEATRE. 3G3 
 
 humour, and taste, which (comhined as it is with such perfect 
 command of all the organs of expression) should suffice for the 
 representation of any female character that is truly drawn by- 
 art from nature. And if, when such an artist appears, she may 
 not act Shakespeare's women because the rest of the company 
 have acquired a reputation for acting Kobertson's men, who 
 can wonder that the legitimate drama declines ? 
 
 Every theatre in London has a public of its own, composed 
 of those members of the general jiublic who are attracted by the 
 kind of entertainment in which it excels. The attraction held 
 out by the Prince of Wales's has been what is called " pleasant 
 comedy;" by which is meant correct imitations of the surface 
 and slang of modern London life, with a careful setting of rooms 
 and furniture and street landscapes very like the reality, and a 
 careful avoidance of everything that appeals to the imagination 
 or the heart. That a public brought together in the way of 
 natural selection by a common taste for this kind of entertain- 
 ment should find the Merchant of Venice less attractive, was to be 
 expected. And though London contains other i^ubhcs to which 
 it was certain to prove much more attractive, and which would 
 in due time have made up for secessions, time was requu-ed for 
 the attraction to take effect uj)on them. They had to learn that 
 there was something at the theatre worth seeing, and probably 
 to alter domestic arrangements made on the assumption that 
 there was not. But though this would be enough to account for 
 a temporary falling-off in the attendance, it does not explain the 
 chorus of depreciatory criticism with which the performance 
 itself has been assailed, and which (there being so little apparent 
 occasion for it) must be owing to some popular delusion with 
 regard to the play itself. That in the representation at the 
 Prince of Wales's Portia seemed for the first time a more 
 interesting person than Shylock was a remark made by one of 
 the critics, and made as much in derision of the whole perform- 
 ance as in compliment to the exceptional merit of Miss E. Terr3\ 
 Whether it was the fii-st time that this has happened we cannot 
 undertake to say, but if it was, it must be the first time that the 
 play has been properly put upon the stage. For who that reads 
 it as Shakespeare left it can doubt that this was his intention ?
 
 30-1 THE "MERCHANT OF VENICE" 
 
 Those \\-bo Imow it only on the stage may doubt ; for smce the 
 great tragic actors took up the part of Shylock the rest of the 
 l)lay (which was originally a comedy) has been sacrificed to it. 
 The pruning-knife has been applied so freely to Bassanio (a part 
 worthy of Charles Kemble in his prime) that no actor of 
 eminence now takes it. The scenes at Belmont have been so 
 handled that they might almost be left out without being missed. 
 And though Portia has remained in j)ossession of the chief 
 actress in the company, she is associated in popular imagination 
 chiefly with the elegant-extract speech in praise of mercy, which 
 is remembered as the distinguishing featm-e of Mrs. Siddons' 
 l^erformance (and in that rather as a specimen of declamation 
 than of true dramatic effect), and has never been reckoned among 
 the great parts. In the case of Shylock, on the contrary, the 
 admii'ation and sympathy properly due to the actor — generally 
 the great tragedian of the da}^, and personally more interesting 
 than all the rest of the company put together — have been trans- 
 ferred to himself ; till we have come to regard one of the 
 harshest pictures of malignity and depravity that Shakespeare 
 ever exhibited in human shape as a kind of tragic hero, with 
 something of the Miltouic Satan in him — 
 
 The uuconqucrable will, 
 And study of levenge, immortal liate, 
 And courage never to submit or yield, 
 And what is else not to be overcome. 
 
 Heroic qualities, which, joined with a feehng (belonging more to 
 our own centm-y than the sixteenth) that they are partly justified 
 by provocation and hard usage and insults from baser natures, 
 enable the actor to make his exit with an aii- of contemptuous 
 superiority that imposes upon the audience, and brings them 
 into a mood so sympathetic that if the end of the trial were the 
 end of the play they would probably be quite satisfied, and care 
 no more what becomes of Portia and the rest of her party. 
 Indeed, we can remember long ago to have heard a good 
 authority speak of the fifth act of the Merchant of Venice as an 
 extraordinary instance of Shakespeare's inequality, all the 
 interest having ended with the fourth ; and extraordinary it 
 would certainly be if the interest was meant to centre in Shylock.
 
 AT THE TRIXCE OF WALES'S THEATRE. 3G5 
 
 But read the play as it was written, and imagine all the parts 
 acted equally well : — What title has Shylock to be the central 
 figure ? There is nothing in him either good, or affecting, or 
 amusing, or terrible, or magnanimous. Passipn there is, and 
 intellectual power; but it is passion of the meanest and most 
 malignant kind. There is no mystery about him. His first 
 soliloquy introduces him to us exactly as he is — a Jewish usurer, 
 who hates all Christians, but especially Christians who are 
 simple enough to lend money gratis ; hates them because they 
 bring down the rate of usance, and means to be revenged when 
 he can. A chance offers itself at the moment. Antonio, a 
 gi-atuitous lender, who has often spoiled his bargains by redeem- 
 ing his debtors from forfeiture, wants to borrow money himself. 
 He offers it, under pretence of kindness, as a loan without 
 interest ; but contrives, under cover of a jest, to engage the 
 borrower's life as security for the repayment of the principal. 
 There you have the whole case — the man, the motive, the design. 
 The hard words and indignities to his beard and gaberdine which 
 he has suffered in former disputes with Antonio are of small 
 account with him. Those he has always been content to let pass 
 with a shrug, and only remembers now for purposes of rhetoric. 
 But the delivery of debtors from forfeiture is an injury not to be 
 forgiven, and he deliberately resolves to kill him out of his way 
 if he has the chance. Who can suppose that Shakespeare would 
 have introduced into a comedy such a character as this, with 
 intent to make him an ol)ject either of admiration or pity, or 
 even of abhorrence ? Is it not plain that, for purposes of 
 comedy, his proper fate is to be baffled and defeated, and then 
 dismissed with contempt ? And so in the real play he is; for his 
 fate is no way tragical ; and his punishment, while it is appro- 
 priate enough to satisfy the sense of justice, is not so heavy as to 
 cast a shadow inconsistent with merriment. One-half of his 
 goods is restored to him at Antonio's request ; the other is to be 
 held in trast for his son-in-law, payable upon his own death ; and 
 though the condition that he should "presently become a 
 Christian " may seem to us an inhuman and unnecessary 
 aggravation, we must remember that in those days a Christian 
 was a Christian, and that to the audience at the Globe it would
 
 SC)G THE "MERCHANT OF VENICE" 
 
 seem neither a punishment nor an indignity. Antonio meant it, 
 we fancy, for a mercy ; thinking that Shylock's soul, which he 
 had some reason for supposing to be in a bad condition, would 
 be the better for it. 
 
 The Shylock of the modern stage is said to have been 
 invented and brought into fashion by Macklin in 1741. In the 
 primitive times it was treated, no doubt, according to the descrii)- 
 tion in the title-page of the Comical History of the Merchant of 
 Venice, simply as "Shylock the Jew," whose "extreme cruelty 
 towards the said merchant in cutting a just pound of his flesh" 
 was advertised as one of the attractions. In the late revival, the 
 restoration of Portia to her legitimate pre-eminence had the 
 effect of reducing Shjdock to his proper place. But the popular 
 tradition of a century is not easily overcome, and its influence 
 was traceable in the conception of the character. Mr. Coghlan, 
 coming to his task with a reputation for success in the lightest 
 and most modern comedy, has of course been reproved for aspir- 
 ing to rise above it. It is the regular remark in all such cases. 
 As it appeared to us, however, it was not the accomplishments 
 of the light comedian so much as the exam2)le of the great 
 tragedians, that really stood in his way. It betrayed him into 
 an ambition to make too much of the part. His long pauses, 
 his elaborate by-play, his exaggerated emphasis, were meant to 
 make it impressive, and were in themselves skilful ; but they did 
 in fact make it slow and heavy, and combined with the tedious 
 intervals between the acts (necessary, we su^jpose, for the 
 arrangement of the scenery) to make the whole play drag. In 
 addressing Antonio, he spoke of the insults he had received from 
 him with an emphasis and angry bitterness which would have 
 been very effective in the proper place, but were here against his 
 meaning and inconsistent with his own game — which was to 
 make Antonio believe that he was ready to forget all such things, 
 and to deserve his love by friendly dealing. In the trial-scene 
 he was so excessively deliberate in all his movements, so long in 
 answering questions, so slow of delivery both in the set speeches 
 and in the scornful retorts, that all the eagerness and impatience 
 in pursuit of his prey which makes itself felt so strongly in read- 
 ing appeared to have died out of him. A quicker movement all
 
 AT THE PRINCE OF WALES'S THEATRE. 307 
 
 through would have corrected the principal defects of the person- 
 ation, and, whatever the critics might say, it would have had its 
 effect upon the audience. And if, at the same time, it had been 
 l)0ssible to shorten the intervals between the scenes, and restore 
 them to their proper order, the action would have been found to 
 be much lighter and livelier, and more harmonious. Shakespeare 
 w^as not troubled with complicated scenery. A room in Portia's 
 house at Belmont was easily changed into a street in Venice ; and 
 a great part of his art in constructing plays so that they should 
 " please " consisted in the rapid interchange of short scenes. As 
 a series of pictorial illustrations, the scenic arrangements at the 
 Prince of Wales's cannot be too much praised. The living and 
 moving groups, as well as the painted scenes, formed a succession 
 of fine Venetian pictures. But it must be owned that the delaj^s 
 which they involved interfered very materially with the enjoy- 
 ment of the play. 
 
 But whatever improvements it admitted of, we must repeat 
 the expression of our regret that it has not proved attractive 
 enough to be continued ; that the managers have had to fall 
 back again upon the humours of the club, the street, and the 
 drawing-room ; and that the critics are all applauding them for 
 having so graciously submitted to " the judgment of the public," 
 and by the simple expedient of substituting Money for the 
 Merchant of Venice, made their house once more " the home of 
 pleasant comedy." 
 
 For those who are ready to accept Money as the representa- 
 tive of pleasant comedy, its old attractions would probably have 
 been sufficient. But, in justice to the managers, and for the 
 encouragement of those who, like ourselves, have had enough of 
 such humours, it is right to add that it now aj^pears with some 
 new attractions which will be more to their taste. Mrs. Ban- 
 croft's lively widow is a new thing, and a great improvement 
 upon the original type. And the heroine, who used to be a 
 somewhat doleful, sentimental, uninteresting piece of unhappy 
 virtue, reappears in Miss E. Terry as a true woman, full of 
 genuine feeling, and so natural in every tone and gesture that 
 (as a judicious critic has remarked) she makes the rest of the 
 piece unreal by contrast. This is indeed a new creation, worthy
 
 308 THE "MEECHANT OF VENICE." 
 
 of a permanent place among the classical figures of the poetic 
 drama ; and though the passion is really tragic throughout, the 
 authority of Lord Lytton will probably obtain leave for it to keep 
 its place in pleasant comedy. We have been rather alarmed, 
 however, by a remark which has been called forth by a still later 
 exhibition of the same merits in a different subject. In a 
 comedietta — very lively comedy from beginning to end — Miss 
 Terry acted a young wife, and the remark was that she threw 
 into her personation an amount of earnestness, pathos and real 
 feeling, which, though very wonderful and admirable in itself, was 
 perhaps hardly " suitable." It appears, therefore, that the 
 p-estige of this meritorious little theatre is in peril this way too. 
 Is it beyond hope that, among so many rival candidates for 
 popular attraction, some enterprising manager may train a 
 company expressly for the exhibition of these very qualities, and 
 establish for his house a 'prestige which can only be endangered 
 by producing something for which they are not suitable.
 
 XIV. 
 
 ON THE AUTHOESHir OF THE PLAYS ATTEIBUTED TO 
 
 SHAKESPEAEE.* 
 
 I HAVE read your book on the authorship of Shakespeare faithfully 
 
 to the end. and if my report of the result is to be equally faithful, 
 
 I must declare myself not only unconvinced, but undisturbed. 
 
 To ask me to believe that the man who was accepted by all the 
 
 people of his own time, to many of whom he was personally 
 
 known, as the undoubted author of the best plays then going, 
 
 was not the author of them — is like asking me to believe that 
 
 Charles Dickens was not the author of " Pickwick." To ask me 
 
 to believe tnat a man who was famous for a variety of other 
 
 accomplishments, whose life was divided between public business, 
 
 the practice of a laborious profession, and private study of the 
 
 art of investigating the material laws of nature, — a man of large 
 
 acquaintance, of note from early manhood, and one of the busiest 
 
 men of his time — but who was never suspected of wasting time in 
 
 writing poetry, and is not known to have written a single blank 
 
 verse in all his life, — that this man was the author of fourteen 
 
 comedies, ten historical plays, and eleven tragedies, exhibiting 
 
 the greatest and the greatest variety of excellence that has been 
 
 attained in that kind of composition, — is like asking me to 
 
 believe that Lord Brougham was the author not only of Dickens' 
 
 novels, but of Thackeray's also, and of Tennyson's poems besides. 
 
 That the author of " Pickwick " was a man called Charles Dickens 
 
 I know upon no better authority than that upon which I know 
 
 that the author of Hamlet was a man called "William Shake- 
 
 * From a letter to Professor Nathaniel Holmes, 15th February, 18G7. 
 
 2 B
 
 370 AUTIIOESHIP OF PLAYS ATTRIBUTED TO SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 speare. And in what respect is the one more difficult to believe 
 than the other ? A boy born and bred like Charles Dickens was 
 as unlikely a priori to become famous over Europe and America 
 for a never-ending series of original stories, as a boy born and 
 bred like "William Shakespeare to become the author of the most 
 wonderful series of dramas in the world. It is true that Shake- 
 speare's gifts were higher and rarer; but the wonder is that 
 amj man should have possessed them, not that the man to 
 whose lot they fell was the son of a poor man called John 
 Shakespeare, and that he was christened William. That he 
 was not a man otherwise known to the world is not strange at 
 all. Nature's great lottery being open to everybody, the chances 
 that the supreme prize will be drawn by an unknown man are 
 as the numbers of the unknown to the known — millions to 
 hundreds. It is not the famous man that becomes a great 
 inventor ; the great inventor becomes a famous man. Faraday 
 was a bookbinder's apprentice, who in binding a copy of Mrs. 
 IMarcet's Conversations on Chemistry, was attracted to the study, 
 got employed as an assistant to Sir Humphrey Davy — an 
 assistant in so humble a capacity that wishing to make the 
 acquaintance of some of the scientific men on the continent, he 
 actually went with him to Geneva as his servant — and by his 
 own genius, virtue, and industry, made himself the most famous 
 man (probably) now living in England. Burns was a plough- 
 man. Keats was a surgeon's apprentice. George Stephenson a 
 lad employed in a colliery. Newton did not become Newton 
 because he was sent to Cambridge ; he was sent to Cambridge 
 ])ecause he was Newton — because he had been endowed by nature 
 with the singular gifts which made him Newton. But for the 
 genius which nature gave them without any consideration of 
 position or advantages, what would have been known of any one 
 of these ? 
 
 If Shakespeare was not trained as a scholar or a man of 
 science, neither do the works attributed to him show traces of 
 tramed scholarship or scientific education. Given the faculties 
 (wliich nature bestows as freely on the poor as on the rich), you 
 will find that all the acquired knowledge, art, and dexterity which 
 the Shakespearian plays imply, were easily attainable l)y a man
 
 AUTIIOIISIIIP OF PLAYS ATTRIBUTED TO SHAKESPEARE. 871 
 
 who was labouring in his vocation and had nothing else to do. 
 Or if you find this difficult to believe of such a man as you 
 assume Shakespeare to have been, try Bacon. Suppose Francis 
 Bacon, instead of being trained as a scholar, a statesman, and a 
 lawyer, and seeking his fortune from the patronage of the great, 
 had been turned loose into the world without means or friends, 
 and joined a company of plaj^ers as the readiest resource for a 
 livelihood. Do you doubt that he would soon have tried his 
 hand at writing a play ? that he would have found out how to 
 write better plays than were then the fashion ? that he would 
 have cultivated an art which he found profitable and prosperous, 
 and sought about for such knowledge as would help him in it, — 
 reading his Plutarch, and his Seneca, and his Hollinshead, and 
 all the novels and play-books that came in his way ; studying 
 life and conversation by all the opportunities which his position 
 permitted ; and generally seeking to enrich his thought with 
 observation ? Do not you think that Francis Bacon would have 
 been capable of learning in that way everything which there 
 is any reason to think the writer of the Shakespearian plays 
 knew? And if Francis Bacon could, why could not William 
 Shakespeare ? 
 
 If therefore your theory involved no difficulties of its own — 
 if you merely proposed the substitution of one man for another 
 • — I should still have asked why I should doubt the tradition ; — 
 where was the difficulty which made the old story hard to 
 believe. I see none. That which is extraordinary in the case, 
 and against which therefore there lies i)rima facie some pre- 
 sumption, is that any man should possess such a combination 
 of faculties as must have met in the author of these plays. But 
 that is a difficulty which cannot be avoided. There must have 
 been somehody in whom the requisite combination of faculties 
 did meet : for there the plays are : and by supposing that this 
 somebody was a man who at the same time possessed a com- 
 bination of other faculties, themselves sufficient to make him an 
 extraordinary man too, you do not diminish the wonder but 
 increase it. Aristotle was an extraordinary man. Plato was 
 an extraordinary man. That two men each severally so extra- 
 ordinary should have been living at the same time in the same
 
 372 AUTHORSHIP OF PLAYS ATTRIBUTED TO SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 country, was a very extraordinary thing. But would it diminish 
 the wonder to suppose the two to be one ? So I say of Bacon 
 and Shakespeare. That a human being possessed of the faculties 
 necessary to make a Shakespeare should exist, is extraordinary. 
 That a human being possessed of the faculties necessary to 
 make a Bacon should exist, is extraordinary. That two such 
 human beings should have been living in London at the same 
 time was more extraordinary still. But that one man should 
 have existed possessing the faculties and opportunities neces- 
 sary to make both, would have been the most extraordinary 
 thing of all. 
 
 You will not deny that tradition goes for something : that in 
 the absence of any reason for doubting it, the concurrent and 
 undisputed testimony to a fact of all who had the best means of 
 knowing it, is a reason for believing it : or at least for thinking 
 it more probable than any other given fact, not compatible with 
 it, which is not so supported. On this ground alone, without 
 inquiring further, I believe that the author of the plays published 
 in 1623 was a man called William Shakespeare. It was believed 
 by those who had the best means of knowing : and I know no 
 reason for doubting it. The reasons for doubting which j^ou 
 suggest seem all to rest upon a latent assumption that William 
 Shakespeare could not have possessed any remarkable faculties : 
 a fact which would no doubt settle the question if it were estab- 
 lished. But what should make me think so ? It was not the 
 opinion of anybody who was acquainted with him, so far as we 
 know ; and why was a man of that name less likely than another 
 to possess remarkable faculties ? 
 
 With one to whom the simple story as it comes presents no 
 difficulty, you will not expect that the other considerations which 
 you iu"ge should have much weight. Kesemblances both in 
 thought and language are inevitable between writers nourished 
 upon a common literature, addressing popular audiences in a 
 common language, and surrounded by a common atmosphere of 
 knowledge and opinion. But to me, I confess, the resemblances 
 between Shakespeare and Bacon are not so striking as the dif- 
 ferences. Strange as it seems that two such minds, both so 
 vocal, should have existed within each other's hearing without
 
 AUTHORSHIP OF PLAYS ATTllIBUTED TO SHAKESPEARE. 373 
 
 mutually affecting each other, I find so few traces of any influ- 
 ence exercised by Shakespeare upon Bacon, that I have great 
 doubt whether Bacon knew any more about him than Gladstone 
 (probably) knows about Tom Taylor (in his dramatic capacity). 
 Shakespeare may have derived a good deal from Bacon. He 
 had no doubt read the Advancement of Learning and the first 
 edition of the Essays, and most likely had frequently heard him 
 speak in the Courts and the Star Chamber. But among all 
 the parallelisms which you have collected with such industry 
 to illustrate the identity of the writer, I have not observed one 
 in which I should not have inferred from the difference of 
 style a difference of hand. Great writers, especially being con- 
 temporary, have many featm-es in common ; but if they are 
 really great writers they write naturally, and nature is always 
 individual. I doubt whether there are five lines together to be 
 found in Bacon which could be mistaken for Shakespeare, or 
 five lines in Shakespeare which could be mistaken for Bacon, by 
 one who was familiar with their several styles and practised in 
 - such observations. I was myself well read in Shakespeare before 
 I began with Bacon ; and I have been forced to cultivate what 
 skill I have in distinguishing Bacon's style to a high degree ; 
 because in sifting the genuine from the spurious I had commonly 
 nothing but the style to guide me. And to me, if it were proved 
 that any one of the plays attributed to Shakespeare was really 
 written by Bacon, not the least extraordinary thing about it 
 would be the power which it would show in him of laying aside 
 his individual peculiarities and assuming those of a different 
 man. 
 
 If you ask me what I say to Bacon's own confession in the 
 case of Eichard II., I say that your inference is founded entirely 
 upon a misconstruction of a relative pronoun. " About the 
 same time I remember an answer of mine in a matter which 
 had some affinity with my lord's cause, which though it grew 
 from me went after about in others' names," I say that 
 *' which " means not the matter but the answer * You make it 
 
 * Professor Holmes bad assumed the " story of the first j'ear of King Henry IV." 
 (which was the matter in question) to be the Shakespearian play of Richard II. : 
 and argued that, in saying that "i( [namely the play] grew from him," Bacou
 
 374 AUTHORSHIP OF PLAYS ATTRIBUTED TO SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 appear to refer to the " raatter " only by inserting " and " 
 (p. 251, 1. 8), which is not in the original : and if so there is an 
 end of your whole superstructure. When the queen asked him 
 whether there was not treason in Dr. Hay ward's history of the 
 first year of Henry IV. he parried the question by an evasive 
 answer; which was quoted afterwards and ascribed in conver- 
 sation to other people, but was really his own. Even if it were 
 possible to believe that the " matter " in question was the play 
 of Richard II., the only inference that could be drawn as to the 
 authorship is that the ostensible author was a doctor. But for 
 my part I can see nothing in it but a reference to Dr. Hayward's 
 historical tract. 
 
 These are my reasons for rejecting your theory. If you had 
 fixed upon anybody else rather than Bacon as the true author- 
 anybody of whom I knew nothing— I should have been scarcely 
 less mcredulous ; because I deny that aprma/ac«e case is made 
 out for questioning Shakespeare's title. But if there were any 
 reason for supposing that somebody else was the real author, I 
 think I am in a condition to say that, whoever it was, it was not 
 Bacon. The difficulties which such a supposition would involve 
 would be almost innumerable and altogether insurmountable. 
 But if what I have said does not excuse me from saying more, 
 what I might say more would be equally ineffectual, 
 
 I ought perhaps to apologize for speaking with such con- 
 fidence on the question of style in a matter where my judgment 
 is opposed to yours. But you must remember that style is hke 
 hand-writing— not easy to recognize at first, but unmistakable 
 when you are familiar enough with it. When some twenty-five 
 years ago I began the work of collating the manuscripts with the 
 printed copies, and plunged into a volume of miscellaneous 
 letters written in the beginning of the seventeenth centmy, I 
 could scarcely distinguish one hand from another, and it was 
 some time before I discovered which was Bacon's own. But 
 after a little of the close and continuous attention which col- 
 lating and copying involves, I began to feel as if I could know it 
 
 confoHScd himself the real author. Mr. 11. allows that he had misconstrued ' ' which," 
 and that this point of the confession must be given up, hut remains otherwise 
 satisfied that Dacon ivan the author and that the queen knew it.
 
 AUTHORSHIP OF PLAYS ATTRIBUTED TO SHAKESPEARE. 375 
 
 tliroiigli all its varieties, from the stateliest Italian to the most 
 sprawling black-letter, and almost swear to a semi-colon. And 
 I am convinced that I could produce many cases in whicli the 
 most expert palaeographers and fac-similists would at the first 
 view pronounce two hands different, yet find on examination 
 that they were the same. Now it is the same with a man's 
 manner of expressing himself. The unconscious gestures of the 
 style, scarcely discernible at first, are scarcely mistakable after. 
 The time may have been — I do not know — when I could have 
 believed the style of Hamlet and of the Advancement of Learning 
 to be the style of the same man : and the time may yet come 
 when you will yourself wonder that you did not perceive the 
 difference.
 
 XV. 
 
 ON A QUESTION CONCERNING A SUPPOSED SPECIMEN 
 OF SHAKESPEAEE'S HANDWRITING.* 
 
 Mr. Richard Simpson's note on this subject (4th S., viii. 1) has 
 not received so much attention from Shakespearian scholars as 
 I expected. If there is in the British Museum an enth-e dramatic 
 scene, fining three pages of fifty lines each, composed by Shake- 
 speare when he was about twenty-five years old, and written out 
 with his own hand, it is a "new fact " of much more value than 
 all the new facts put together, which have caused from time to 
 time so much hot controversy of late years. As a curiosity it 
 would command a high j)rice ; but it is better than a curiosity. 
 To know what kind of hand Shakes^Deare wrote would often help 
 to discover what words he wrote. Is it x^ossible that we have 
 here a sample, not only of his handwriting, but of his handwi-it- 
 ing imder the heat and impulse of composition ? This is Mr. 
 Simpson's question ; and though he does not pretend to offer 
 proof oi the fact, he gives reasons for thinking it likely, which 
 certainly deserve serious consideration. 
 
 A play on the subject of the life and death of Sir Thomas 
 More, supposed on other grounds to have been the proj^erty of 
 the company of players to which Shakespeare belonged, and to 
 have been written about the year 1590, may still be read — all 
 but a scene or tw^o — in the shape in which it was originally 
 suljmitted to the Master of the Pievels for his license (Harl. MS. 
 7368). Large alterations have been made in it ; whole scenes 
 have been added or rewritten. The rewritten scenes are found 
 * Notes and Queries, September 21, 1872.
 
 A QUESTION CONCERNING SHAKESPEARE'S HANDWRITING. 377 
 
 on separate sheets of paper, and in different handwritings ; and 
 being also very different in style, may be supposed to have been 
 contributed by their several authors in the state in which they 
 are. One of them shows so marked a superiority to the rest, in 
 every quality of dramatic composition, as to suggest the ques- 
 tion : Who was there then living that could have written it ? 
 Now it has always been supposed that one of Shakespeare's 
 employments, in the beginning of his theatrical career, was the 
 revision and adaptation to the stage of other men's compositions. 
 In this case the Master of the Revels had taken alarm at a scene 
 representing a popular insurrection, and ordered it to be struck 
 out. How it had been handled in the original copy we cannot 
 tell ; for the leaf which contained it has been removed, and we 
 only know that it ended with the submission of the insurgents, 
 after a speech from More, concluding with a promise to intercede 
 for their i)ardon. From the closing sentence (top of page 30, 
 Dyce's edition), it may be inferred that this speech was in x^rose ; 
 and if the argument was weakly handled — as from the rest of 
 the composition seems very likely — the young Shakespeare may 
 have been called in to mend and strengthen it. If the substi- 
 tuted scene was his answer to the call, no difficulty presents 
 itself for explanation ; for, though a very good specimen of his 
 powers as a di'amatic wi'iter, we know that it was not beyond 
 them. But if it was not his, there must have been somebody 
 else then living who could write as well as he ; and the difficulty 
 is to name him. These considerations are sufficient to make out 
 a case for mquiry, and the questions to be asked are two : — 
 1. Does the workmanship of this scene bear internal evidence 
 that Shakespeare was the workman ? 2. Does the penmanship 
 bear internal evidence that the penman was the author ? 
 
 The data for an answer to the ffrst of these questions are 
 within the reach of most people who think the matter worth a 
 little trouble. The play has been printed by the Shakespeare 
 Society ; and though the condition of the manuscript as to hand- 
 writing is imperfectly^ explained, every reader m.a,j judge for him- 
 self whether it contains any scene or scenes implying a different 
 and superior author to the rest, and how far they go to prove that 
 that author was Shakesx^eare. What he has to do is only to
 
 378 A QUESTION CONCERNING 
 
 read the whole phay straight through with a free attention, and 
 then to apply himself particularly to that part which begins near 
 the top of p. 24 (Dyce's edition), and ends at the bottom of 
 p. 29. If he finds nothing there but what miglit have been 
 written by anybody, he need not trouble himself with any 
 fm-ther inquiry ; for the second question will have no interest for 
 him. But if he finds in it, as I do, a stronger resemblance to 
 the acknowledged works of Shakespeare's youth than to those of 
 any other poet with whom he is acquainted, he will naturally 
 wish to know whether the hand that wrote the lines belonged to 
 the mind that invented them. 
 
 For this, as the case now stands, he must have recourse to the 
 original manuscript — a condition which unfortunately excludes 
 many persons otherwise well qualified to judge. For the manu- 
 script can only be examined at the British Museum, and the cha- 
 racter of the handwriting can only be understood by those who are 
 familiar with the ordinary handwriting of the period. But those 
 who are, and who can spare time for an attentive examination, 
 will conclude, I think, that the penman was the author : for 
 though the corrections are very few, they will see that those 
 which do occur are not like corrections of mistakes made in 
 copying, but like alterations introduced in the com^se of composi- 
 tion (see the lines quoted in note 2, p. 28). They will also see that 
 it is a hand which answers to all we know about Shakespeare's. 
 It agrees with his signatm-e ; which is a simple one, written in 
 the ordinary character of the time, and exactly such a one as 
 would be expected from the writer of this scene, if his name was 
 William Shakspere, and he wrote it in the same way. It 
 agrees with the tradition, that his first occupation was that of a 
 " Noverint," a lawyer's copying clerk : for in that case he must 
 have acquired in early youth a hand of that type, which, when 
 he left copying and took to original composition, would naturally 
 grow into such a hand as we have here. It agrees also with the 
 report of his first editors, that they had " received from him 
 scarcely a blot in his writings," he " flowed with such facihty." 
 And it shows more than one instance of a fault which has caused 
 much trouble to his later editors — a fault incident to that very 
 facility — the occasional omission of a word in the eagerness of
 
 Shakespeare's handwriting. 379 
 
 comi:)osition. There are at least two places in which the metre 
 halts, though no irregularity can have been intended (see p. 382, 
 line 33 and p. 383, 1. 2) ; doubtless from this cause. As for 
 its aj)j)earance and character, that is a thing which can hardly 
 be conveyed by description ; but those who are possessed of 
 Netherclift's " Handbook to Autographs " will find, in the auto- 
 graph of Edmund Spenser, a hand a good deal like it; the 
 letters are formed upon the same model, and there is some 
 resemblance in the execution. 
 
 These, however, are mere opinions, not entitled to any 
 authority. The point will never be settled unless people can see 
 the evidence for themselves. And to bring it within reach of the 
 generality of readers, I would suggest the publication in fac- 
 simile of the whole scene in question ; together with a line or two 
 of each of the other hands contained in the manuscript (of which I 
 make out five), by way of specimen, that the differences may })e 
 clearly shown. For Mr. Simpson takes both the scene im- 
 mediately preceding (j)p. 22-24), and the subsequent scenes from 
 p. 39 to p. 53, to be in the same hand ; whereas I take them to 
 be certainly in another, as far at least as the twentieth line of 
 p. 51, where a change occm*s ; the remainder of the dialogue 
 having evidently been added by a different and very superior 
 penman ; though whether or not by the same who penned the 
 insurrection scene, I should not like to say positively without 
 taking the opinion of an expert. But any question which may 
 arise on this point may be allowed to stand over. The inquiry 
 will be much simpler if confined to the authorship and penman- 
 ship- of the insurrection scene; the handwriting of which, 
 though of the ordinary type, is far from ordinary in character, 
 but might be easily recognized wherever met with, and (with the 
 help of the proposed fac-simile) identified. 
 
 If the question should prove interesting enough to call for a 
 reprint of Dyce's edition of the whole play, it should be carefully 
 collated : for, though generally very correct, I have noticed some 
 errors and omissions.
 
 380 A QUESTION CONCERNING 
 
 NOTE. 
 
 The wliole scene from which Mr. Simpson's first quotation is taken runs thus, 
 
 in modern spelling. 
 
 Enter Lincoln, Doll, Clown, George Betts, Williamson, others, and a 
 
 Sergeant-at-Arms. 
 
 Lincoln. Peace, hear me : He that will not see a red-herring at a Harry groat, 
 butter at elevenpence a pound, meal at nine shillings a bushel, and beef at four 
 nobles a stone, list to me. 
 
 George Betts. It will come to that pass if strangers be suffered. Mark him. 
 
 Lincoln. Our country is a great eating country. Argo, they eat more in our 
 country than they do in their o\vn. 
 
 Betts, Clown. By a halfpenny loaf a day, troy weight. 
 
 Lincoln. They bring in strange roots, which is merely to the undoing of poor 
 prentices : for what's a sorry parsnip to a good heart ? 
 
 Williamson. Trash, trash ; they breed sore eyes ; and 'tis enough to infect the 
 city with the palsy. 
 
 Lincoln. Nay, it has infected it with the palsy : for these bastards of dung, as 
 you know they grow in dung, have infected us, and it is our infection will make the 
 city shake : which partly comes through the eating of parsnips. 
 
 Cloicn, Betts. True ; and pumpions together. 
 
 Enter Sergeant. 
 
 Sergeant. What say ye to the mercy of the king ? 
 Do ye refuse it ? 
 
 Lincoln. You would have us upon the hip, would you ? No many, do we not : 
 we accept of the king's mercy, but we will show no mercy upon the strangers. 
 
 Sergeant. You are the simplest things that ever stood 
 In such a question. 
 
 Lincoln. How say ye now, prentices? prentices simple! Down with him ! 
 
 All. Prentices simple ! Prentices simple ! 
 
 Enter The Lord Mayor, Surrey, Shrewsbury. 
 
 Mayor. Hold ! in the King's name hold ! 
 
 Surrey. Friends, masters, countrymen 
 
 Mayor. Peace, ho, peace ! I charge you keep the peace ! 
 
 Shreicshury. My masters, countrymen 
 
 Williamson. The noble Earl of Shrewsbury, let's hear him. 
 
 George Betts. We'll hear the Earl of Surrey. 
 
 Lincoln. The Earl of Shrewsbury. 
 
 Betts. We'll hear both. 
 
 All. Both, both, both, both ! 
 
 Lincoln. Peace, I say, peace ! Are you men of wisdom, or what are you ? 
 
 Surrey. What you will have them, but not men of wisdom. 
 
 All. We'll not hear rny Lord of Surrey ; no, no, no, no ! Shrewsbury, Shrewsbury 1
 
 SHAKESPEARE'tS HANDWRITING. 381 
 
 Moor. Whiles they are o'er the bank of their obedience, 
 Thus will they bear down all things. 
 
 Lincoln. Slirief Moor speaks, ^hall we hear Shrief Moor speak ? 
 
 Boll. Let's hear him : a keeps a plentiful shrievaltry, and a made my brother 
 Arthur Watchins Sergeant Safe's yeoman : let's hear Shreve Moor ! 
 
 All. Shreve IMoor, i\Ioor, More, Shreve Moor ! 
 
 Moor. Even by the rule you have among yourselves, 
 Command still audience. 
 
 All. Surrey, Surrey ! 
 
 All. Moor, l\Ioor ! 
 
 Lincoln, Bett<. Peace, peace, silence, peace ! 
 
 Moor. You that have voice and credit with the number 
 Command them to a stillness. 
 
 Lincoln. A jilague on them, they will not hold their peace ; 
 The devil cannot rule them. 
 
 Moor. Then what a rough and riotous charge have you 
 To lead those that the devil cannot rule ! — 
 Good masters, hear me speak. 
 
 Doll. Ay, by the Mass will we, Moor : thou art a good housekeeper, and I thank 
 thy good worship for my brother Arthur Watchins. 
 
 All. Peace, peace 1 
 
 Moor. Look what you do oifend you cry upon : 
 That is the peace. Not [one] of you here present, 
 Had there such fellows lived when you were babes 
 That could have kept ' the peace as now you would, 
 The peace wherein you have till now grown up 
 Had been ta'en from you, and the bloody times 
 Could not have brought you to the state of men. 
 Alas, poor things, what is it you have got 
 Although we grant you get the thing you seek ? 
 
 Bttts. ]\Iarry, the removing of the strangers, which cannot choose but much 
 advantage the poor handicrafts of the city. 
 
 Moor. Grant them removed, and grant that this your noise 
 Hath chid down all the majesty of England. 
 Imagine that you see the wretched strangers, 
 Their babies at their backs and their poor luggage. 
 Plodding to the ports and coasts for transportation, 
 And that you sit as kings in your desires, 
 Authority quite silenced by your brawl, 
 And you in ruff of your opinions clothed ; — 
 What had you got ? I'll tell you : you had taught 
 How insolence and strong hand should prevail. 
 How order should be quelled ; and by this pattern 
 Not one of you should live an aged man. 
 For other ruffians, as their fancies wrought, 
 With self-same hand, self-reasons, and self-right, 
 Would shark on you, and men like ravenous fishes 
 Would feed on one another. 
 
 ' So the MS. as I read it. Dyce read it " topt."
 
 382 A QUESTION CONCERNING 
 
 Doll. Before God, that's as true as the gospel. 
 
 Lincoln. Nay, this is a sound fellow, I tell you : let's mark him. 
 
 Moor. Let me set up before your thoughts, good friends, 
 One supposition : which if you will mark 
 You shall perceive liow horrible a shape 
 Your innovation bears. First, 'tis a sin 
 Whicli oft the Apostle did forewarn us of, 
 Urging obedience to authority. 
 
 And 'twere no error if I told you all • 
 
 You were in arms against your [God himself.] ' 
 
 All. Marry, God forbid that. 
 
 Moor. Nay, certainly you are. 
 For to the king God hath his office lent 
 Of dread, of justice, power and command. 
 Hath bid him'rule and willed you to obey : 
 And to add ampler majesty to this. 
 He hath not only lent the king his figure, 
 His throne and sword, but given him his own name, 
 Called him a god on earth. What do you then. 
 Rising 'gainst him that God himself instals, 
 But rise 'gainst God ? What do you to your souls 
 In doing this ? O desperate as you are. 
 Wash your foul minds with tears, and those same hands 
 That you like rebels lift against the peace. 
 Lift up for peace ; and your unreverent knees 
 Make them your feet to kneel to be forgiven. 
 Tell me but this : what rebel captain. 
 As mutinies are incident, by his name 
 Can still the rout ? Who will obey a traitor ? 
 Or how can well that proclamation sound 
 Where there is no addition but a rebel 
 To qualify a rebel ? You'll put down strangers, 
 Kill them, cut their throats, possess their houses. 
 And lead the majesty of law in liom 
 To slip him like a hound. Say now the king 
 (As he is clement if the offender mourn) 
 Sliould so much come too short of your great trespass 
 As but to banish you, whither would you go? 
 What country by the nature of your error 
 Should give you harbour ? Go you to France or Flanders, 
 To any German province, to Spain or Portugal, 
 Nay, any where that not adheres to England, — 
 Why you must needs be strangers : would you be pleased 
 To find a nation of sucli barbarous temper 
 Tliat breaking out in hideous violence 
 Would not afford you an abode on earth, 
 Whet their detested knives against your throats. 
 Spurn you like dogs, and like as if that God 
 
 ' Dycc supplied the blank with "sovereign." The context seems to me to 
 require " God."
 
 SHAKESPEARE'S IIANDWIMTING. 383 
 
 Owed not nor made not yon, nor tliat the elements 
 Were not all appropriate to your comforts ' 
 But cliartered unto them, — what would you think 
 To be thus used ? This is tlie strangers' case ; 
 And tills your mountainish inhumanity. 
 
 All. Faith a says true : let's do as we may be done by. 
 
 Lincoln. We'll be ruled by you, Master Moor, if you'll stand our friend to 
 procure our pardon. 
 
 3Ioor. Sul>mit you to these noble gentlemen, 
 Entreat their mediation to the king. 
 Give up yourself to form, obey the magistrate, 
 And there's no doubt that mercy may be found. 
 If you so seek. 
 
 [From " Sir Thomas More, a play now first printed, edited by the Rev. Alexander 
 Dyce. London : printed for the Shakespeare Society. 1844." pp. 24-29.] 
 
 The interpolated scene ends at the bottom of p, 29 of Dyce's edition. Tlic 
 three prose lines which follow at the top of page 30 appear to have been the 
 conclusion of the same scene as originally written ; and were meant, no doubt, 
 to be struck out, along with the rest ; which is lost ; the leaf or leaves which 
 contained it having been taken out when the new scene was pasted in. 
 
 But there is another scene which occurs further on, and forms part of the 
 original MS. as it was sent to the licenser before any alterations were made in it, 
 which shows that more hands than one had already been concerned in the com- 
 position. It cannot have been the work of the same person who composed the 
 body of the play ; and as a piece of dramatic blank verse written (see Dyce's 
 preface) " about 1590 or perhaps a little earlier," is remarkable enough to be 
 worth extracting. It will be found in its place at p. 75. 
 
 Enter the Lady Moore, her two daughters, and Master Roper, as walking. 
 
 Roper. Madame, what ayles yee for to looke so sad ? 
 
 Lady. Troth, sonne, I knowe not what ; I am not sick. 
 And yet I am not well. I would be merie ; 
 But somewhat lyes so heavie on my hart, 
 I cannot chuso but sigh. You are a scholler ; 
 I pray ye, tell me, may one credit dreames ? 
 • Roper. Wliy ask you that, dear madame ? 
 
 Lady. Because to-night I had the straungest dreame 
 That ere my sleep was troubled with. Me thought 'twas night, 
 And tliat the king and queene went on tlie Themes 
 In bardges to heare musique : my lord and I 
 Were in a little boate me thought, — Lord, Lord, 
 What straunge things live in slumbers ! — and beeingneere, 
 We grapled to the bardgo that bare the king. 
 But after many pleasing voyces spent 
 In that still mooving musiquo house, me thought 
 The violence of the streame did sever us 
 
 • So in the BIS. There is something wrong in the line. A word omitted 
 probably ; or " all " written instead of " alike."
 
 384 A QUESTION CONCERNING SHAKESPEARE'S HANDWRITING. 
 
 Quite from the golden fleet, aucl liunicd us 
 Unto the bridge, which with unused horror 
 We entered at full tide : thence some slight sh(wte 
 Seeing caried by the waves, our boate stood still 
 Just opposite the Tower, and there it turnde 
 And turnde about, as when a whirle-poole sucks 
 The circkled waters : me thought that we both cryed 
 Till that we suuck ; where arm in arm we dyed. 
 
 Roper. Give no respect, deare madame, to fond dreames ; 
 They are but slight illusions of the blood. 
 
 Lady. Tell me not all are so ; fur often dreames 
 Are true diviners, either of good or ill : 
 I cannot be in quiet till I heare . 
 How my lord fares. 
 
 Roper (aside). Nor I. — Come hether, wife ; 
 I will not fright tliy mother, to interprete 
 The nature of a dreame ; but trust me, sweete, 
 This night I have bin troubled with thy father 
 Beyond all thought. 
 
 Roper's Wife. Truely, and so have I : 
 
 Methought I sawe him heere in Chelsey churche 
 Standing upon the roodloft, now dtfacde ; 
 And whilste he kneeld and piayd before the ymage, 
 It fell with him into the upper-quier. 
 Where my jjoore father lay all staiude in blood. 
 
 Roper. Our dieams all meet in one conclusion, 
 Fatall, I feare. 
 
 Lady. What's that you talke ? I pray ye, let me knowe it. 
 
 Roper' a Wife. Nothing, good mother. 
 
 Lady. This is your fashion still ; I must know nothing. 
 Call Maister Catesbie ; he shall straite to courte, 
 And see how my lord does : I shall not rest, 
 Until my liart ieaue panting on his breast.
 
 XVI. 
 THE DUTY OF ADVOCATES IN CKIMINAL TKIALS.* 
 
 I. 
 
 Why is it that when a criminal has a defence made for him 
 which the judge considers as an aggravation of his crime so 
 great that, if the law allowed it, he would give him hard lahour 
 in addition to imprisonment, the lawyers through whom the 
 defence is made pass uncensm'ed, as if they had merely done 
 their duty ? 
 
 This question is suggested by a case tried last week at the 
 assizes in a country town. A young gentleman of twenty-three 
 was indicted for taking away from her father a girl of humble 
 birth under sixteen. He had induced her to leave her home 
 and go with him to a house of ill-fame, where he kept her for 
 some days, living with the inmates, till they were found there 
 by the defendant's father, who took his son home, and sent the 
 girl to the house of a relation. The defence was that he was 
 the seduced rather than the seducer ; and the proof was, first, 
 that his attentions had been connived at by the parents in the 
 hope of entrapping him into a marriage (for it was not even pre- 
 tended that they had connived at the ahchiction), and secondly 
 that she had gone willingly and remained without showing signs 
 of discontent. In support of the first allegation it does not 
 appear that any proof was offered. In support of the second, 
 women were produced who had seen the girl at the house in 
 question, and swore that she had drunk, laughed, and played 
 at cards, and lived comfortably with the defendant and the 
 
 * The Examiner, April, 1852. 
 
 2c
 
 386 THE DUTY OF ADVOCATES IN CRIMINAL TEIALS. 
 
 inmates and visitors of the establishment, till the father came 
 and took them n^xsiy. On this i^oint " a great body of evidence 
 vas adduced." 
 
 With all this the jury had of course nothing to do ; the 
 question for them being merely whether the father had connived 
 at the abduction ; which they found that he had not, and re- 
 tm-ned a verdict of guilty. It was for the judge to consider 
 whether the evidence on the other point justified any mitigation 
 of punishment. What said the judge ? He " could not attach 
 any credit to these creatures. It was repugnant to human 
 nature that a girl brought up in habits of modesty, etc. It 
 would have been far better if the defendant had offered her some 
 compensation before the prosecution : but so far from doing so, 
 he had to-day sought to heaj) injury upon injury, by blasting her 
 rejmtation as he had before ruined her virtue. Such conduct 
 deserved the utmost severity of punishment, and he regretted 
 that the law did not admit of his awarding him hard labour in 
 addition to his term of imprisonment.'' 
 
 Such was the judge's opinion of the defence set up on behalf 
 of the defendant. For setting up such a defence he deserved 
 hard labour in a house of correction. Did the defendant then 
 conduct his own case ? No, it was conducted for him by a 
 regular counsel. ^\Tio suggested it ? Who got it up ? Who 
 procm-ed these creatures of the brothel to bear what the judge 
 believes to he false witness against a gM whom the law presumes 
 to be helpless — the effect of which is to "heap injury upon 
 injury" by "blasting her reputation?" Who endeavoured to 
 persuade the jm'y that it was true ? Will anybody believe that 
 all this was done by the youth himself? Can anybody doubt 
 that it was all done by professional advice, labour, and skill ? 
 And if, supposing it all the act of the defendant himself (who 
 had at least the fear of punishment to plead in excuse) it was 
 an additional crime that deserved the treadmill, what is to be 
 said of those professional gentlemen whose act it really was, 
 and who had no such excuse ? what of the rules of a profession 
 which allows such crimes to be committed as a matter of com*se ? 
 what of the judge himself, who in delivering so heavy a censure 
 against the defendant, who was in all probability only a con-
 
 THE DUTY OF ADVOCATES IN CRIMINAL TRIALS. 387 
 
 sonting party, passes by without a word of reproof, admonition, 
 or regret, those whom he must have known to be the real 
 originators and contrivers of it ? It may be impossible to 
 prevent these things from being done, but it must be possible, 
 when they thus come to light, to make them infamous. 
 
 II. 
 
 With reference to the remarks which we made last week upon 
 a criminal trial in which the judge denounced the defence as an 
 aggravation of the crime, and yet found no fault with the pro- 
 fessional advisers by whom it was got uj), a correspondent asks 
 what a barrister ought to do in such cases ; and whether we are 
 prepared to say that '' no advocate should attempt to persuade 
 a jury to believe that of which he is not himself satisfied." 
 
 If this question were advanced by way of objection to what 
 we said, we should merely answer that at all events an advocate 
 ought not to do that which was done in the case to which we 
 refer (and which is done, we may add, in almost every case of 
 seduction where the woman is the injured party), that is, to 
 assist in a proceeding which adds a fi-esh injury to the injury 
 already done. If a particular line of defence be one which the 
 accused party is not justified in pursuing, it is also one which a 
 lawyer cannot be justified in suggesting or advising or preparing 
 or maintaining. With whom individually the responsibility 
 rests, we leave the members of the profession to settle among 
 themselves. We only contend that it rests among them. It is 
 not the client, but his professional advisers, upon whom it 
 depends whether a line of defence shall or shall not be taken. 
 That the defence taken in this case was an immoral one ; that 
 the attempt to make it good, instead of " conducing to the ends 
 of justice," was itself a new act of injustice, which deserved 
 punishment ; all this we take upon the authority of the judge 
 himseK. If he was wrong let it be said so. If the defence, how- 
 ever false and injurious in the particular case, was one of a class 
 which cannot be generally proscribed without injury upon the 
 whole to the cause of justice, let that be made out. If the 
 attorney who got it up believed the story which his witnesses
 
 388 THE DUTY OF ADVOCATES IN CEIMINAL TRIALS. 
 
 told, or if the lawyers acted according to instructions which they 
 were not at liberty to disobey, let that be said. So the whole 
 guilt rests "^ith the criminal, and the profession stands clear. 
 
 But as the matter stands, we must still say that the censure 
 which the judge dh-eeted against the defendant does in fact fall 
 upon the profession, and that they ought to be made to feel it. 
 A gross injury has been committed. It has been committed, if 
 not by the advice, at least with the consent and help of members 
 of a XDrofession which aspires to be considered an honom-able 
 one. Who they are, though it is not known to us, can be no 
 secret to their brethren, and yet they are not treated as if they 
 had done anything wrong. How should this be ? 
 
 We do not however understand our correspondent as meaning 
 to dispute this j)osition ; but only as wishing to raise the larger 
 and more difficult question, which stands next in order, as to 
 the duty of an advocate. With regard to the defence of bad 
 cases, we have no hesitation in saying that we would not have 
 an advocate forbidden to argue in favour of the side which he 
 himself believes to be wrong. We do not want to assign to the 
 advocate the office of the judge. We believe that the true 
 interests of justice are best served, by having each side of the 
 case presented successively to the jury by a person whose special 
 duty it is to make the most that can he fairly made of the argu- 
 ments on his own side. But what, it will be asked, is the most 
 that can be fairly made ? Who shall say what is fair in an 
 argument, and what is unfair ? To this we reply that though 
 no general rule can be laid down, and though many jparticular 
 cases will occur in W'hich oi)inions will be divided, yet in a vast 
 number of cases, including all the gross ones, the common sense 
 and natm*al justice of mankind will settle the question by accla- 
 mation. As it is, there occur now and then abuses of advocacy 
 BO extreme that even lawyers censure them as dishonourable, 
 and that censure it is which makes them rare. A thing which 
 is discountenanced by the profession to which a man belongs 
 he will not often do. We wish to see this power exercised far 
 more extensively and far more consistently than it is now ; and 
 especially by the judges, who have the best means of under- 
 standing where fair-play ends and foul-play begins; under
 
 THE DUTY OF ADVOCATES IN CRIMINAL TRIALS. 389 
 
 whose eyes the iniquities are practised, and whose deUberate 
 discountenance (which need only, one would think, be the 
 natural expression of inward aversion) would have such great 
 effect in checking them. Sophistry and unfairness there will 
 always be as long as there are parties ; but it may be reduced 
 indefinitely both in quantity and quality. Members of Parlia- 
 ment on both sides of the House are continually unfair and 
 sophistical ; but would the most miscrupulous partisan in the 
 House venture to use such liberties as a lawyer uses before the 
 judge ? The point of honour is as strong with barristers as with 
 the rest of us. What does any lawyer fear more than the doing 
 what is unprofessional ? Let it be considered unprofessional in 
 an advocate to defend a cause by evidence of witnesses whom he 
 has reason to believe perjured, or by reasoning which he feels 
 to be false ; and which he can therefore only make tell in his 
 favour by confusing, misleading, and abusing the understandings 
 of the jury.
 
 XVII. 
 
 A QUESTION CONCEENING BOOKS PUBLISHED 
 ON COMMISSION. 
 
 In a little book published in 1867 I tried to show that the 
 payment of a percentage upon the receipts for copies sold was 
 the form of agreement between authors and publishers most con- 
 venient for both parties. Among the daily and weekly critics 
 who noticed the book, the only one that went into a discussion 
 of the question was a writer in the Spectator, whose practical 
 conclusion (though he wrote as an opponent and did not seem 
 to be aware of it) was exactly and in all respects the same as 
 my own. 
 
 But in proceeding to explain on behalf of the pubHshers why 
 the share of the profits which they reserve for themselves is not 
 more than their due — a charge by the way, made by other 
 people, but not by me — he put it upon a ground which seems to 
 me inconsistent with their treatment of books for which they 
 are asked to risk nothing. According to him, theii' right to a 
 share, which to the uninitiated may seem exorbitant, in the 
 proceeds of all their publications rests upon this calculation : — In 
 the case of new books by unknown authors so many fail to pay 
 their expenses that a publisher who does not make sure of 
 at least thirty per cent, upon his outlay in the case of those which 
 do pay, will be in danger of bankruptcy. " The books which 
 swim," he said, " must bear the loss of those which sink." 
 
 Be it so. He must calculate the chances for himself, and it 
 is not for me, when asking for an advance of money on such 
 doubtful security, to find fault with the terms upon which it is
 
 PUBLISHING ON COMMISSION. 391 
 
 offered, otherwise than by refusing to accept them. But how 
 if I offer to advance the money myself ? If the risk of sinking 
 in every such case be so great, such an arrangement must surely 
 be for the publisher's advantage ; publication by commission 
 should be his favourite form of agreement, and with a view to 
 his own interest he ought to make it as eligible as he can to all 
 unknown authors who can afford it, by helping them to make it 
 succeed ; that is to make the printing cost as little and the book 
 sell as fast as possible ; for in that case it would be for their 
 interest also. 
 
 Upon the Spectator's account of the matter, this inference 
 seemed so inevitable, and the fact (if it were a fact) so well worth 
 knowing, that I tried to call attention to it at the time in a letter 
 to the editor ; which, as I heard no more of it then, and as I still 
 feel curious about the explanation, I take this opportunity of 
 laying before other people. I am aware that there are some 
 publishers who are glad to publish on commission books which 
 they would not venture to publish at their own risk. But I have 
 reason to believe that there are others who decline (or at any rate 
 are not glad) to publish on commission any book which is not 
 likely to have a sale large enough to repay its own cost. Though 
 they are sm-e of a profit of ten per cent, upon that cost under 
 any circumstances, with the chance of ten per cent, more upon 
 the proceeds of all the copies they succeed in selluig, the thing 
 is not worth doing for the money. Authors who addi-ess a small 
 number of readers scattered here and there about the land are 
 thus left at a loss for convenient means of finding who they are 
 and where ; and for the benefit of the writers of books that are 
 to be commercially unsuccessful — no inconsiderable body — 
 those publishers who find it for their interest to do publishers' 
 work on these conditions would find it worth while to advertise 
 the fact. 
 
 To the Editor of the " Spectator.'' 
 
 ISth March, 1867. 
 Sir, — I was very glad to see the remarks in your number for 
 March 9 on " Authors and Pubhshers," because, if I understood 
 them rightly, your practical conclusion is exactly the same as
 
 392 PUBLISHING ON COMMISSION. 
 
 mine : namely, that the fairest form of agreement between author 
 and pubhsher would be this : — For every copy that the publisher 
 shall sell, or if that be objected to, for every copy that he shall 
 sell above a certain number to be named beforehand, let him 
 agree to pay the author a fixed sum. This kind of agreement 
 you think would be readily accepted by the publishers. If it be 
 so, and if it be known that it is so, I have no more to say : for it 
 is exactly what I proposed, and all I proposed. If authors, 
 having the choice, do not prefer it to a share in the profits, I 
 think them unwise : but it is their own affair. 
 
 How far publishers are in the habit of undertaking, or authors 
 of asking them to undertake, the expense of publications which 
 are not likely to repay the outlay, I have no means of knowing, 
 I can only say for myself that no publisher ever incurred either 
 loss or risk of loss on my account, I never asked a publisher 
 to advance sixpence upon any literary adventure of mine, or to 
 pay sixpence for any help I have given him in any adventure of 
 his own. There have been cases in which I have had something 
 to say which I wished to publish, and there have been cases in 
 which, finding a publisher engaged in an enterj)rise which I 
 wished to succeed, I have given the best help I could. But 
 wherever he has undertaken the expense he has had all the 
 proceeds, and wherever I have retained any interest in the 
 proceeds, I have undergone aU the expense. If therefore he is 
 obliged to take thirty per cent, out of the gains of other men's 
 books, it is not to reimburse himself for anything he has lost by 
 mine. 
 
 But the price he demands for his services does not in my 
 opinion require any such justification. In my opinion he may 
 fairly demand whatever he can fairly get. I mean by " fairly," 
 without fraud and without concealment. If I could do any 
 service for him which he could not afford to forego, would I let 
 him have it for less than he could afford to give ? Not I. I 
 would screw him to the sticking place. If I offer to do his work 
 for nothing, it is when I wish the work to be done to my own liking ; 
 and therefore to make it his interest to let me do it rather than 
 someone else whose work I might not like so well. What I 
 objected and still object to in the general practice (for in my
 
 PUBLISHING ON COMMISSION. 393 
 
 own case, as I have said, I have no ground of complaint what- 
 ever) is not that he makes too good a bargain for himself, or 
 that he credits himself with ten per cent, upon all the money he 
 expends, or that he buys at trade prices and charges for what 
 he has bought at gentleman's prices, and so forth ; but that he 
 does these things without letting it be known that he does them, 
 and so makes it impossible for the other party to know what the 
 bargain really is. Nay, if his friends and allies are to be 
 believed, he even resists and resents the attempt to investigate 
 the conditions of it. For when I try by the application of a 
 little arithmetic to find out what profit is made by each, and 
 how, they warn me to expect disastrous consequences ; and the 
 fairest of inquiries into the practice of publishers is spoken of 
 for shortness as an attack upon the trade. But however that 
 may be, the adoption of the " royalty " plan would remove the 
 obscurity of the bargain without altering the substance of it. 
 The substance would be determined by the condition of the 
 market. 
 
 From what you say of the risks of the trade and the 
 chances of success and failure in books by unknown writers, and 
 the balance of obUgations between author and publisher, I do 
 not distinctly gather on which side you suppose the chances to 
 be. But I fancy you would agree with those who think that 
 more books sink than swim ; and that when a publisher under- 
 takes the publication of a work of which he knows nothing else, 
 he knows that it will prohahly be a losing bargain. This at any 
 rate is the opinion of some persons who profess to have had 
 means of judging. But if it be so, I cannot understand why in 
 such cases he does not decidedly prefer publishing by commission, 
 if he can ; the author taking all the expense and risk, and himself 
 receiving his percentage upon the sales, whether they reimburse 
 the author or not. Yet I have always been told that this 
 arrangement is considered a bad one for the author, because the 
 publishers do not like it, and not liking do not care to make the 
 best of it. Now, if they really prefer to pay the expenses them- 
 selves and take half the profits, it must surely be because they 
 expect not to lose by the bargain, but to gain ; and to gain 
 something more than ten j)er cent, upon the sales (which the
 
 394 PUBLISHING ON COMMISSION. 
 
 commission secm*es to them) ^Z?(s the interest of the money 
 advanced, which you say pays ten per cent, where it is. If on 
 the contrary they really prefer the other arrangement wherq 
 they can get it, and will take as much pains to promote the sale 
 of a commission-book as of one published at half profits, it is 
 a pity the fact is not known : for the class of books which are 
 most likely to be the subject of such an arrangement, books 
 which are wanted in the standard but not in the circulating 
 library, is one of great value to literature ; and it is most 
 desirable, if it be practicable, to relieve them from so heavy a 
 tax as thirty per cent., added to the cost for the benefit of a 
 middleman, whose services (it would seem, upon this supposi- 
 tion) can be secured for ten per cent, with conditions more 
 agreeable to himself. — I am, etc.
 
 XVIII. 
 ON SOME OVEESIGHTS IN EECENT HISTORIES. 
 
 ALLEGED CONFESSION OF INTENDED PIRACY BY 
 SIR WALTER RALEGH.* 
 
 In one of the most original and valuable contributions to the 
 biography of Sir Walter Ralegh which I have met with {Edin- 
 hurgh Review, April, 1840), f the writer, in discussing the great 
 question whether upon the failm-e of his last expedition to Guiana 
 he had a deliberate intention to retrieve his fortune by piracy, 
 produces two pieces of evidence as " settling the question." One 
 is derived, through Mr. Tytler or Mr. Jardine, from the State- 
 paper Office ; the other directly, it would seem, from the British 
 Museum. And certainly, as they stand in the Eeview, they have 
 a very conclusive appearance. I had occasion, however, some 
 time ago, while engaged in a different inquiry, to examine the 
 original manuscripts in both cases ; and I think I can show that 
 in one of them the meaning has been misunderstood, and that 
 in the other a circumstance has been overlooked which takes away 
 the force of the evidence ; and that, instead of settling the question 
 at issue, they do in fact leave it precisely where it was. I hope 
 you will think a page or two of your Magazine properly employed 
 in pointing out the error ; the rather because it is one which 
 would hardly be detected except by accident. 
 
 After arguing upon other grounds that " piracy was in 
 
 * Gentleman's Magazine, April, 1850. 
 
 t The article alluded to was written by Professor Napier, at that time editor of 
 the EiUnhnnjh Review. He long contemplated a new edition cjf the works of 
 Raleigh.— Ed.
 
 396 ON SOME OVERSIGHTS IN RECENT HISTORIES. 
 
 Ealegh's immediate view " (a point which I do not mean to 
 dispute ; for I think the appearances are very strong against 
 him), the reviewer proceeds thus : — 
 
 " But there is further and conclusive evidence of the fact. It appears that 
 at one of the meetings of the Commission appointed, after his return, to inquire 
 into his conduct, he was examined upon this point, in presence of two of his 
 captains, and constrained to make a confession which settles the question. There 
 is a minute of the proceedings of this Commission, in the handwriting of Sir 
 Julius Caesar, one of the body, which bears that, ' on being confronted with 
 Captains St. Leger and Pennington, he confessed that he proposed the taking of 
 the Mexico fleet, if the mine failed.'* Mr. Tytler could not have been aware of 
 this decisive admission, otherwise he would not have attempted to discredit the 
 following remarkable anecdote, preserved in Sir Thomas Wilson's report of his 
 conversations with Ealeigh : — ' This day,' says the spy, * he told me what dis- 
 course he and my Lord Chancellor had had about the t;\king of the Plate fleet, 
 which he confessed he would have taken had he lighted upon it. To which my 
 Lord Chancellor said, " Why, you would have been a pirate ! " " Oh," quoth 
 he, " did you ever know of any that were pirates for millions ? They only that 
 work for small things are pirates." ' Looking to the character in which Wilson 
 writes, and unacquainted with Pialeigh's admission in presence of the Com- 
 missioners, Mr. Tytler represents the report of the former as more than sus- 
 picious ; adding however, inconsistently enough, that ' the observation ascribed 
 to Ealeigh is characteristic' If characteristic, does not that imply authenticity? 
 The observation is indeed strongly stamped with Raleigh's mind and character ; 
 and, his intentions respjecting the Plate fleet being otherwise certain, we cannot 
 for a moment doubt that it was truly reported." (pp. 87, 8.) 
 
 The original note from which this anecdote is taken (for it is 
 not a report, but a rough note of the conversation ; an important 
 distinction, as will appear presently,) may be seen in the State- 
 paper Office, vol. 73, Domestic, fo. 304. It is in Sir T. Wilson's 
 band, and runs thus : — 
 
 "26 Sept. 1618. This day he fell of himself into discourse, in telling me 
 what the lords asked him yesterday and what he answered : and after told me 
 how Secretary Winwood carried him twice to the French ambassador's Monsieur 
 Marettz, to dispute with him about Sir John Fern's ship being taken in one of 
 our ports after he had a commission from France to go to the Indies ; and what 
 discourse he and my Lord Chancellor had about taking the Plate fleet, which he 
 confessed he would have taken if he could have lighted on it right, and that when 
 my Lord Chancellor said, ' Why then you would have been a pirate ! ' ' Oh,' 
 quoth he, ' did you ever know of any that were pirates for millions ? They that 
 mych for small things are pirates. 1 could have given 10,000 to this, and 10,000 
 to such an one, and 600,000 to the king, and secured enough besides.' " 
 
 * Brit. Mus. Lansdowne MSS. 142, fo. 412.
 
 RALEGH'S INTENTION OF PIRACY. 397 
 
 Now it is true that any one reading this note by itself, and 
 not knowing or not considering the other circumstances of the 
 case, might naturally suppose that this conversation with my 
 Lord Chancellor was part of what had passed the day before in 
 presence of the council. A little consideration should indeed 
 have suggested that the thing was incredible. Whatever 
 Ealegh may have told Sir Thomas Wilson that he had said, it is 
 impossible to suppose that on such an occasion he really did 
 make a ^'onfession so fatal, accompanied with a jn-ofession so 
 audacious ; and more impossible still to suppose that, if he did, 
 the fact could have been left unnoticed in the king's " Declara- 
 tion," which was put forth shortly after in justification of the 
 execution. If the words admitted of no other explanation, one 
 could only suppose either that they were falsely rejDorted or that 
 Sir Walter had been amusing himself by making a fool of Sir 
 Thomas. But the truth is that this conversation (which Ealegh 
 related to Wilson, you will observe, after he had told him what 
 passed between him and the lords on the preceding day,) was 
 not related as having taken place then, but long before. This is 
 proved by a paper which may be seen at p. 314 of the same 
 volume, and which is not a rough note, but the draft of a collection 
 of all that Sir Thomas Wilson had elicited from Sir Walter 
 Ealegh. It contains the following passage : — 
 
 " He hath always protested that he had never any purpose to hurt any of 
 his Majesty's friends, neither Spaniard nor other ; and yet now he confesseth 
 that, he/ore he went, having conference with some great lords his friends, who 
 told him that they doubted he would be prizing if he could do it handsomely, 
 ' Yea (saith he), if I can light right on the Plate fleet, you will think I were mad 
 if I should refuse it ; ' to whom they answering, ' Why, then you will be a 
 pirate ! ' ' Tush,' quoth he, ' my lord, did you ever hear of any that was counted 
 a pirate for taking millions ? They are poor mychers that are called in question 
 for piracy, that are not able to make their peace with that they get. If I can 
 catch the fleet I can give this man ten thousand, and that man ten thousand, 
 and fiOO thousand to the king, and yet keep enough for myself and all my 
 company.' " 
 
 Now, if you bear in mind that this last is from the draft of a 
 formal statement, meant, no doubt, for the king's information, 
 W'hereas the other is only a loose note jotted hastily down at the 
 time for the assistance of Sir Thomas's own memory, you will
 
 398 ON SOME OVERSIGHTS IN RECENT HISTORIES. 
 
 have no doubt that we have here the true explanation of the 
 matter. It was before Sir Walter set out on his expedition, when 
 he was newly set at liberty, and was making his preparations, 
 that he had this cm-ious conversation with Bacon, then Lord 
 Keeper, now Lord Chancellor ; and it is credible enough that in 
 the gaiety of his spirits he may have talked at that time in that 
 idle way; pai-tly in mere jest, and partly, perhaps, by way of 
 feeler. Such talk at such a time was characteristic of the man, 
 and could only pass for nonsense. He may very likely have 
 been reminded of it afterwards before the Council ; but to quote 
 it in support of a serious charge would have been absui'd. This 
 piece of evidence, therefore, whether urged as a direct j)roof, or 
 only as corroborative, must in common reason and justice be set 
 aside altogether, as having no real bearing on the point at issue. 
 But what shall we say of Sir Julius Caesar's minute, which 
 states that, being confronted before the Council with two of his 
 captains. Sir Walter "confessed that he proposed the taking of 
 the Mexican fleet, if the mine failed ? " In this there is nothing, 
 on the face of it, difficult to believe ; he may not only have pro- 
 p>osed such a thing to his captains on the voyage, but, being con- 
 fronted with them afterwards, he may have been driven to 
 confess that he did. To " propose," however, is not necessarily 
 to " intend ; " and it is the intention with which we are con- 
 cerned. Now it is stated in the king's "Declaration" that he 
 made this admission ; but it is added that he explained it away 
 by saying, that " he did it only to keep his men together ; " that is 
 to say, he admitted that he had proposed, but denied that he 
 had intended, to take the Mexican fleet. In reply to another of 
 the charges — that of having procured a French commission — he 
 stood upon the same distinction. 
 
 " ' I urging him further,' says Sir T. Wilson, in a letter to the king, 21 Sept. 
 1618, ' that himself had said that he had a commission out of France, and that 
 it was told at M. de Marettz table before his going hence, he said 'tis true that he 
 said so ; for, saith he, when we found so ill success at S. Thome we fell to counsel 
 about taking the Plate fleet or the Mexican fleet, at which, said some, what shall 
 we be the better? for, when we come homo, the king will have what we have 
 gotten, and we shall be hanged. Then, quoth Rawley, you shall not need to fear 
 that ; for I have a French commission, by which it is lawful to take any beyond 
 the Canaries. And I have another, quoth Sir John Feme, and by that we may
 
 RALEGH'S INTENTION OF PIRACY. 399 
 
 go lie under Brest or Bell He, and with one p.art thereof satisfy France, and with 
 another procure our peace with England. But he saith he liud no such commis- 
 sion ; hut spulce it only to keep the fleet together, which else he found were apt to 
 jjart and fall on pirating y (S. I'. 0. Domestic, 1618.) 
 
 That the confession is important, and the explanation far 
 from satisfactory, is not to be denied ; but to urge it as an ad- 
 mission which " settles the question," and leaves no doubt as to 
 his intentions, is manifestly unjust. 
 
 It may be urged indeed that the statement in Sir Julius 
 Caesar's minute is absolute, and not followed by any qualifying 
 explanation ; and this brings me to the circumstance which I 
 have mentioned as having been overlooked. Sir Julius Ca3sar's 
 minute is written upon a single sheet, which has been folded up 
 so as to contain eight narrow pages. They have [been taken in 
 the order which the folded sheet naturally loresented, but being 
 now spread out and bound up in a folio volume the order is not 
 easily discernible. Upon a careful examination however it will 
 be found that they are all filled, and that the sentence cited by 
 the reviewer is written at the bottom of the last (with the exception 
 only of a single line of reference which appears to refer to some- 
 thing else), and I have little doubt that the notes were continued 
 on another sheet, which has not been preserved. That the 
 explanation therefore which is set forth in the "Declaration" 
 does not appear in the minute, is an accident from which no fair 
 inference can be drawn. 
 
 It is true that a table of contents is prefixed to the volume, 
 drawn up apparently by Sir Julius himself : and that a descrip- 
 tion of this minute is entered there, without any intimation that 
 it is incomplete. But this also is an accident from which nothing 
 can be inferred. For it is evident that whoever inserted the 
 description of it in that table had not looked to the end of the 
 sheet, for it is described quite inaccurately as relating to Sir 
 Walter's trial at Winton, which was in 1603. It so haj)pens that 
 the fu'st column which meets the eye as it lies in the bound 
 volume does relate to that trial ; but the minute itself is of the 
 proceedings before the commissioners in London in 1618 ; and 
 gives an abstract of the formal charge made against Sir Walter, 
 first by the Attorney and next by the Solicitor-General, for his
 
 400 ON SOME OVERSIGHTS IN RECENT HISTORIES. 
 
 conduct before, during, and after bis voyage to Guiana, and of 
 bis ans-wers. It is pity tbere is no more of it, for I do not 
 doubt tbat it would bave confirmed all tbe statements in the 
 king's Declaration, wbicb in all tbe jiarts where I bave been able 
 to test it by comparison with tbe original depositions is careful 
 and accurate. 
 
 Tbe true version of tbe conversation with Bacon about tbe 
 taking of the Plate fleet may help us to tbe true explanation of 
 another anecdote with which tbe reviewer confesses himself 
 perplexed. 
 
 " Immediately after the death of Elizabeth (he says) a meeting took place at 
 Whitehall of the chief public men then in London. . . . Aubrey .... ascribes 
 to Ealeigh a proposal not a little calculated to awaken curiositj'' ; but to which 
 neither Mr, Tytler nor Dr. Southey adverts — a proposal to pull down the mo- 
 narchy and substitute a republic ! Aubrey avers that this proposition was 
 advanced by Raleigh at the above-mentioned meeting at Whitehall. ' Let us 
 keep the staff in our own hands, and set up a commonwealth, and not remain 
 subject to a needy and beggarly nation ! ' — were the astounding words he is 
 represented to have there uttered. Dr. Warton might well consider this a very 
 remarkable anecdote, if indeed it could be viewed as true. But it rests wholly 
 on the authority of this credulous collector of historical gossip ; and, though it 
 partakes of Raleigh's bold, aspiring, and scheming disposition, the supposition 
 of the possibility of establishing a republic at that time, and in the then state of 
 England, is much too chimerical to allow us to imagine that it could be broached 
 by a man of his understanding, and to such an assembly as that to which it was 
 said to have been addressed." (p. 42.) 
 
 We have only to suppose that he said it in jest, and the 
 wonder vanishes. Ealeigh was a gay, bold talker, who cared 
 very little for the impression he made upon his bearers ; prob- 
 ably liked to astonish them. Compare tbe two anecdotes, and 
 you will see at once tbe same man in both. 
 
 QUEEN ELIZABETH IN THE CAMP AT TILBURY. 
 (From the Notes to " A Conference of Pleasure," 1870.) 
 
 In Mr. Motley's " History of the United Netherlands," vol. ii. 
 p. 512, tbere is a passage relating to Queen Ebzabetb's appear- 
 ance at Tilbury, which tends indirectly and unintentionally to
 
 QUEEN ELIZABETH AT TILBURY. 401 
 
 throw undeserved discredit upon a very meritorious man. 
 " Great (be says) was the enthusiasm certainly of the English 
 people as the volunteers marched through London to the place 
 of rendezvous, and tremendous were the cheers when the brave 
 Queen rode on horseback along the lines of Tilbury. . . . *It was 
 a pleasant sight,' says that enthusiastic merchant-tailor John 
 Stow, ' to behold the cheerful countenances, courageous words 
 and gestures of the soldiers as they marched to Tilbmy, dancing, 
 leaping, wherever they came, as joyful at the news of the foe's 
 approach as if lusty giants were to run a race. And Bellona-like 
 did the Queen infuse a sacred spirit of loyalty, love, and resolu- 
 tion into every soldier of her army, who, ravished with their 
 sovereign's sight, prayed heartily that the Sj)amards might land 
 quickly, and when they heard they were fled, began to lament.' " 
 This he gives as if it were an extract from Stow's Chronicle ; and 
 then proceeds to remark that at the time of Elizabeth's appear- 
 ance in the camp there was no longer any danger to be appre- 
 hended. " If a Spanish army had ever landed in England at all, 
 that event must have occurred on the 7th of August. . . . For 
 aught that Leicester, or Burghley, or Queen Elizabeth knew at 
 the time, the army of Farnese might, on Monday, have been 
 marching upon London. Now on that Monday morning the 
 army of Lord Hunsden was not assembled at all, and Leicester, 
 with but four thousand men under his command, was just com- 
 mencing his camp at Tilbury. The ' Bellona-like ' appearance 
 of the Queen on her white palfrey, with truncheon in hand, 
 addressing her troops in that magnificent burst of eloquence 
 which has so often been repeated, was not till eleven days after- 
 wards, August 1^, not till the great Armada, shattered and tem- 
 pest-tossed, had been, a week long, dashing itself against the 
 cliffs of Norway and the Faroes on its forlorn retreat to Spain." 
 (p. 514.) 
 
 Had this passage not been given as a quotation from John 
 Stow himself, I should not have thought it worth noticing. If 
 the Queen had been in personal danger at Tilbury, she would 
 have had no right, except in a last extremity, to be there ; and it 
 was no fault of hers that a fine writer chose to compare her to 
 Bellona. But though Elizabeth's reputation is not concerned, 
 
 2 D
 
 402 ON SOME OVERSIGHTS IN RECENT HISTORIES. 
 
 Stow's is ; and if this be accepted as a specimen of the style of 
 his " Chronicle," it must materially affect the reputation of that 
 valuable work. The fact appears to be, that Mr. Motley, using 
 one of the later editions of Stow, "continued and augmented 
 with matters foreign and domestic, ancient and modern," by 
 Howes, and not remembering that additional matter may be 
 inserted in the middle of a book as well as at the end, assumed 
 that in quoting the description of a scene which occurred long 
 before Stow's death, he was quoting Stow himself. But this is 
 not so. The passage in question, the substance of it at least, 
 may be seen in Nichols's "Progresses of Queen EHzabeth," vol. ii. 
 p. 534 ; where it seems to be taken from an account in some con- 
 temx^orary tract, the title of which is not given, of the jDrepara- 
 tions for resisting the Spanish invasion. This account was 
 worked up by Howes, or some other unskiKul redactor (for the 
 fragments are very badly pieced together), and interpolated into 
 the chronicle ; but Stow's own account of the matter is in quite a 
 different style. In an old black-letter copy, published by himself, 
 and bringing the history up to the year 1592, the account of the 
 Queen's visit to the camp at Tilbury stands thus : — 
 
 " Now (as you have heard before) the campe in this meane 
 time, being kept at Tilbury in Essex, under the charge of the 
 erle of Leicester L. Steward, etc. ; the 9 of August, hir 
 Majesty repaired thither, where al the whole campe being set in 
 order of battell, both horse and footemen, she passed through 
 every ranke of them, to their great comfort and rejoycing, and 
 was lodged that night and the night next following, in the house 
 of Master Edward Pdch, a justice of that shire, in the parish of 
 Hornedon. On the next morrow, being the tenth of August, 
 hir majesty returning to the campe, beheld the same, they being 
 all trained in the best order that might be, and on the eleventh 
 of August retm*ned to St. James', and shortely after the campe 
 was dissolved." 
 
 If too much was made of the matter, it was clearly not the 
 fault of John Stow. But though Mr. Motley may not have 
 exaggerated the danger that was past, I cannot but think that 
 he rather undervalues that which remained. On the tenth of 
 August, while the Queen was still at the camp. Sir Francis
 
 THE DAY AT ZUXrHEN. 403 
 
 Drake himself wrote thus to Sir Francis Walsingham : — ** The 
 Prince of Parma, I take him to be as a beare robbed of her 
 whelps ; and no doubt but being so great a soldiour as he is, that 
 he will presently, if he may, undertake some great matter, for 
 his credit will stand nowe thereupon. . . . Wrytten with much 
 haste, for that we are ready to set sayl to prevent the Duke of 
 Parma this southerly wynd, if it please God, for truly my poor 
 opinion is that we should have a great eye upon him. 
 
 August 10th, 1588. 
 
 " Postscript. Sithens the wryting herof, I have spoken with 
 an Englishman which came from Dunku-k yesterday, who sayth, 
 upon his hfe there is no fear of the fleet. Yet would I willingly 
 see it ! " * 
 
 THE DAY AT ZUTPHEN. 
 
 (From the same.) 
 
 This was the action of 22nd September, 1589, in which Sir 
 Phihp Sydney received his mortal wound ; and it is strange that 
 Bacon in his " Considerations touching a War with Spam," where 
 he is producing evidence to prove that " in all actions of war or 
 arms, great and small, which have happened these many years, 
 ever since Spain and England have had anything to debate one 
 with the other, the English upon all encounters have perpetually 
 come off with honour and with the better," should have forgotten 
 to mention it. For whatever else may be said of it, there was 
 never any which proved more signally the superiority of the 
 English troops in an " encounter." The odds were in fact so 
 great that it is difficult to understand either how so experienced 
 a soldier as Sir John Norris (who was in command of the ser- 
 vice and led the charge) could have risked an engagement on 
 such conditions, or how so great a commander as the Prince of 
 Parma could have failed to improve the opportunity to their 
 utter destruction. " If you saw the ground," said the Earl of 
 Leicester, writing to Walsingham a week after from the camp, 
 " with the numbers of the enemy, and the advantage they had 
 • Wright's " Elizabeth and her Tunes," vol. ii., p. 389.
 
 404 ON SOME OVERSIGHTS IN RECENT HISTORIES. 
 
 of the ground, 3-011 would marvel that even any one man escaped 
 of our side." Yet what is certain is that 250 horse and 300 foot 
 of the English attacked upwards of a thousand horse and two 
 or three thousand foot of the Spanish, in a strong position and 
 prepared to receive them, and after a hand-to-hand fight of an 
 hour and a half, within short range of the enemy's muskets, 
 drew off in good order, with the loss of only 13 horsemen and 
 22 footmen, and were not pursued. 
 
 The English reports are so much occupied with the personal 
 exploits of the several knights in that fierce encounter, that they 
 take no notice of the difficulty, and instead of supplying a 
 satisfactory explanation, scarcely leave room for one. But in 
 Grimestone's " History of the Netherlands," (a translation from 
 John Francis Petit,) I find an account of the action, which, 
 though the construction is m several places obscure, makes the 
 conduct of it intelligible. 
 
 " The Prince of Parma fearing that the Earl of Leicester 
 might do something against Zutphen .... went to Bunckloo, 
 from whence he sent certain victuals into Zutphen, going him- 
 self in person with his vanguard ; which the Earl of Leicester, 
 knowing that the town was not yet fully victualled, he thought 
 the next time they victualled it to set upon the convoy ; where- 
 unto he appointed Sir John Norris and Sir William Stanley, 
 with certain foot, and others with some troops of horsemen. 
 The 22nd of September, in the morning betimes, the Prince of 
 Parma caused more victuals to be sent unto Zutphen with the 
 same convoy of his vanguard as they had before ; being 600 or 
 700 horse, and 2,000 pikes and musketeers. They staying in a 
 strong place, by a village called Warnsvelt, half a mile from the 
 town, and so let the carts and wagons pass along, which, being 
 discovered by a troop of 30 horse. Sir John Norris, the Earl of 
 Essex, the Lord Willoughby, Sir William Stanley, Sir Philip 
 Sydney, Sir William Piussell, and others, rode thither, with 
 about 200 horse and 1,500 musketeers and pikes, meeting ivith 
 their enemies before they exjiected them, by reason it teas then very 
 misty ; they of the Prince of Parma's side, led by the Marquis 
 of Guast [Vasto], upon their watchword given, began to shoot 
 furiously out of their ambuscadoes, being a place of great advan-
 
 THE DAY AT ZUTPIIEN. 405 
 
 tage, as if it bad been a sconce : wbicb tbey on tbe Earl of 
 Leicester's side manfully -svitlistood, not any one once retiring 
 out of bis place, to tbe no little amazement of tbe enemy, wbicb 
 being past, and the enemy not knowing hoiv strong the Englishmen 
 were, and perceiving tbem to advance, tbey sent out a cornet of 
 borse under tbe leading of Ca]Dtain George Cressier, an Albanois, 
 wbicb was presently overtbrown, and tbe Captain bimself taken 
 prisoner ; after tbat tbey sent Count Hannibal Gonzaga witb bis 
 cornet of borse, tbe wbicb was likewise valiantly cbarged, put to 
 rout, and part tbereof slain, and be bimself slain, or deadly 
 wounded ; tbey pursued tbe rest close under tbeir sliot, wbere 
 tbe tbird cornet made sbow to come to charge tbem ; but it 
 being likewise driven back, tbey parted one from tbe otber, in 
 regard tbat tbe Prince of Parma began to send more men to 
 strengthen tbem .... whereupon tbe English, not knorving how 
 strong the enemy loas, withdrew themselves unto their camp, and 
 so did tbe Prince of Parma unto his." (Lib. 13, p. 926.) 
 
 Except for a difference as to numbers (which shows tbat this 
 account did not come from the English side, for the numbers of 
 the Spanish convoy are diminished by about a third, and those of 
 tbe English infantry increased five-fold) — there is nothing here 
 inconsistent witb the facts which come out in tbe letters of the 
 Earl of Leicester : namely, that tbe service committed to Sir 
 John Norris was only the interception of a convoy ; that there 
 was no expectation of such a force coming with it, nor any 
 preparation for such an encounter ; tbat tbe English troops, 
 advancing through a fog, came suddenly upon " an ambuscade " 
 of 3000 men, "the most muskets, the rest pikes;" that the 
 English horsemen being foremost " would not turn, but passed 
 through " — tbat is, as I understand it, x^assed through the fire 
 of tbe infantr}^ — " and cbarged tbe Horsemen that flede {sic) 
 at tbe back of tbeir Footemen " — that is, cbarged the cavab-y, 
 wbicb had withdrawn to leave tbe passage clear for the mus- 
 keteers to fire — and tbat this charge was mainly assisted by 
 those principal noblemen and gentlemen, who having been stay- 
 ing by tbe Earl of Leicester in tbe mist, as soon as tbey knew 
 where tbe fighting was to be, " went on till tbey found Sir John 
 Norris; to whom " (adds the Earl) "I had committed this ser-
 
 406 ON SOME OVEESIGHTS IN KECENT HISTOEIES. 
 
 vice only to have impeached a convoy ; hut he, seeing these 
 young fellows, indeed, led them to this charge, and all these 
 joined in front together," etc. (Le^'^cester Correspondence. Camd. 
 Soc. p. 416.) The expression "went on till they found Sir John 
 Norris," coming as it does immediately after the mention of 
 the mist in which they were staying, seems to imply rather that 
 the mist continued than that it had dispersed. And it is a 
 circumstance of some importance. Both Mr. Bruce and Mr. 
 Motley reiDresent it as suddenly clearing off. " Suddenly," says 
 Mr. Motley, "the fog, which had shrouded the scene so closely, 
 rolled away like a curtain, and in the full light of an Octoher 
 mornmg, the English found themselves face to face with a com- 
 pact body of more than three thousand men." Now it may be 
 that there is some contemporary authority for that picturesque 
 incident, but I find no trace of it in any of the original English 
 reports, and picturesque incidents, being easily imagined, require 
 the more confirmation. Unless there is very good authority for 
 saying that the fog cleared away before the fight began, I shall 
 believe that it took place while the fog was still thick enough to 
 prevent either party from seeing more than what was imme- 
 diately before them. In that case, as soon as the foremost 
 English horsemen came within sight of the Spanish musketeers, 
 they would be fired upon, and would fall back upon the main 
 body. The gentlemen who were with Leicester, learning by the 
 fire where the fight was to be, would make for the scene of 
 action ; and the whole 200, thus increased to 250, knowing the 
 position but not the numbers of the enemy, would advance 
 against those they saw. The Spaniards, on their part, unable to 
 guess the strength of the force that threatened them, would stand 
 upon the defensive. Failing to drive them off by their musketry, 
 they would meet them with cavalry ; and when three several com- 
 panies had been sent against them, one after another, and each in 
 its turn had been broken and overthrown by the impetuosity of 
 the charge, they would be in no good condition to molest them 
 in their retreat. For by this time, whether the fog had dispersed 
 or not, Norris had got near enough to form some idea of the 
 strength of the body he was attacking, and to understand that 
 without some very large reinforcements he could do no more.
 
 ITIK DAY AT ZUTPHEN. 407 
 
 Sir William Stanley also, with his 300 foot (which Parma sup- 
 posed to be 3000), must have come to the same conclusion. And 
 as reinforcements to the extent required were not forthcoming 
 (no action on that scale having been contemplated), the best 
 thing to be done was to get handsomely away. And the manner 
 in which this was effected may fairly be counted among the 
 felicities of the day. The account given in Stow's Chronicle 
 seems to be the personal narrative of one who was present, and 
 completes the history of the "day at Zutphen." 
 
 " All the time this skirmish was with these cornets" — that 
 was the cavalry fight under Sir John Norris — " so our footemen 
 were in fight with the enimie, and by fine force made them once 
 again retire to their safetie. The enimie being retired to his 
 strength, all our horse made a stand by the musket shot, which 
 plaide on them sore, and braved the enimie, bidding him come 
 foorth if he durst, but he would not ; which Sir John Norris 
 seeing, rode to his excellencie and bade him be merrie, for said 
 be, you have had this day the honorablest day that ever you 
 had, for a handful of your men have driven the enimie three 
 times to retrait this one day. Further he willed his excellencie 
 either to send for more strength, or else to sound the retrait ; 
 which last request he graunted, for that his strengthes were other- 
 wise emploied, and so the retrait being sounded both by drumme 
 and trumpet, our captaines came backe in good order, every man 
 to his quarter, with great praise and honour." Stow, p. 1253. 
 
 But what became of the convoy of victuals about which all 
 this dispute was ? The old chroniclers say nothing of it, and 
 the later historians tell strangely different stories. Mr. John 
 Bruce — a writer habitually and studiously accurate — describing 
 the result of the day according to the best English authorities 
 as late as the year 1844, says, " The result was glorious. The 
 enemy were driven from their position, compelled to abandon 
 their attempt to succour Zutphen, and to retreat with great loss 
 in killed and wounded." (Leicester Correspondence, p. 414, note.) 
 Mr. Motley, writing in 18G0, with the help of the best Spanish 
 authorities, says, " The heroism which had been displayed was 
 fruitless, except as a proof — and so Leicester wrote to the Palatine 
 John Casimir — that the Spaniards were not invincible. Two
 
 408 ON SOME OVERSIGHTS IN RECENT HISTORIES. 
 
 thousand men now sallied from the Loor gate, under Verdugo 
 and Tassis, to join the force under Vasto, and the English were 
 forced to retreat. The icliole convoy was then carried into the 
 city, and the Sj^aniards remained masters of the field.'" 
 
 The fact is, that of the two persons who should have known 
 best, one says the one thing, the other says the other. Leicester, 
 writing to Burghley, distinctly states that "notwithstanding all 
 these trooiDS, the Prince did not put in one waggon, save thirty 
 which got in in the night," — meaning, I suppose, the night 
 before. The Prince, writing to the King of Spain, congratulates 
 him upon the issue, seeing that they had comj^letely succeeded 
 in what they wanted to do. Leicester is not the best of wit- 
 nesses, though his letters concerning this day's work are not 
 written at all in the spirit of a man who is making a report in 
 his own honour or justification ; and Parma's evidence would 
 have had more weight, if he had not in the same sentence pre- 
 tended to have maintained the fight with few against many (a la 
 harha de tan buen numero con tanta jJoca gente) : a gratuitous mis- 
 representation which deprives his testimony on the other point 
 of all value. But there is a better reason than the Prince's 
 assertion of the fact for thinking that the waggons did get into 
 Zutphen ; which is, that we hear of no further fighting ; and, 
 without a fight, what could have prevented 3000 men (though 
 reduced by the two or three hundred who may have been killed 
 or disabled in the morning) fi'om carrymg them in after dinner ? 
 They were on the road, not above a mile off : * and it was never 
 said that any of them were destroyed or carried away by the 
 English. 
 
 * Warnsfeld, where the action took place, was " about au Engli-sh mile from 
 Zutphen." Motley, vol. i. p. 45.
 
 XIX. 
 TEACHING TO EEAD.* 
 
 The late discussions at the London School Board on the best 
 method of simplifying and shortening the process of teaching 
 children to read, raised as they have been in the way of business 
 by those who have the thing to do, can hardly fail to produce 
 some good effect, unless the movers defeat their object by trying 
 to do too much. If an attempt be made to introduce any change 
 which would cause inconvenience, trouble, or offence to the mul- 
 titudes who can read and write already, it will certainly fail. 
 Old fashions go out and new come in — convenient or inconvenient 
 as it may happen — but not upon the recommendation of Eoyal 
 Commissions, or because they are likely to benefit another genera- 
 tion. In the mean time reading and writing are accomplishments 
 too hardly acquired and too constantly in demand to be inter- 
 fered with. All eyes, ears, fingers, and vocal organs would 
 unite in indignant protest against any change of fashion which 
 would make them less automatic, though it were but for a little 
 while. To make the Times a little more difficult to read for a 
 single day would be to raise a storm which the Times itself would 
 hardly survive. If, on the other hand, an attempt be made to 
 teach reading too curiously — to distinguish by letters all the 
 minuter differences of speech, and requu-e them to be learned — 
 the lesson will be too hard for the learner. He will have too 
 many things to remember ; he will learn it imperfectly ; a habit 
 of reading without regard to the rules will soon destroy the con- 
 nection in his mind between the rule and the practice, and in a 
 
 * Nineteenth Century, June, 1877.
 
 410 TEACHING TO READ. 
 
 short time he will he in as had a condition as he is now ; when, 
 however perfect he may he in his alphabet, he has still to learn 
 the relation between the letters and the spoken word hy a sepa- 
 rate act of memory in each case — each word being possibly, and 
 not improbably, an exception to the rule which ought apparently 
 to govern it. 
 
 Fortunately it is not necessary to encounter either of these 
 difficulties ; for it is certainly possible, by a simple change in 
 the method of instruction — which nobody who can read akeady 
 need trouble himself with — which will task the learner's memory 
 much less severely than the present method — and which anybody 
 can easily try — to teach children to read books jDrinted in the 
 ordinary way both faster and more pleasantly and more perfectly 
 than they are now taught. 
 
 I assume, of course, that the object is not to make them 
 either etymologists or mimics, but only to teach them to read 
 and write modern English as it is now spoken and written by 
 educated people. Now, though the sounds which good speakers 
 actually utter in speaking are innumerable, the sounds which 
 the}^ intend to utter are limited in number and definite in form. 
 They correspond to certain definable positions of the vocal organs 
 of which the number (for English; is not more than forty-two.* 
 That with an alphabet containing forty-two letters, each letter 
 being understood to represent only one sound, and each sound 
 to be represented by only one letter, the proper pronunciation 
 
 * Though there is much difference of opinion as to the form in ■which these 
 sounds may be most conveniently represented, tliere is room for little or none as to 
 the sounds themselves which the representation of good modern Englisli speech 
 requires to be known and discriminated. Tliere are indeed some obscure, uncertain, 
 and almost indcecriljable modifications of these sounds which introduce themselves 
 uniritention;illy and unconsciously, and of which I shall tay more presently. But any 
 alphabet which contains a distinct symbol for each sound in the following list will 
 be found capable of spelling any modern Englisli word so as to show how it ought 
 to be spoken — in the opinion, of course, of the speller. 
 
 1. The Irmg vowels heard in the words feel, fail, fah, fall, foal, fool. 
 
 2. The short vowels heard in tlie words knit, net, gnat, not, nut, foot, 
 
 3. The diphthongs heard in tlic words file, foil, foul, few. 
 
 4. The sounds of y in yea, w in way, wh in whey, and h in hay ; of the following 
 consonants, as ordinarily pronounced, p, h, t, d, ch,j, I; fj (hard as in go),/, v, s, z, I, 
 m, n, nrj ; of the two sounds of th as in thin and as in then, of sh as in rush and as 
 in roufje, and of r as in ear and as in ring.
 
 TEACHIXG TO READ. 411 
 
 of any English word may be inclicated intelligibly and with suf- 
 ficient accuracy for all the ordinary purposes of speech, has 
 been amply proved by practical trial in the special work of 
 which I speak, the teaching of children to read. Several such 
 alphabets have been proposed ; but the one which is readiest 
 for English use, and has also been best tested by actual work, 
 is Mr. A. J. Ellis's, in which, the letters of the orthodox alphabet 
 being used as far as possible for the same sounds. which in the 
 ordinary orthography they most frequently represent, any one 
 who can read will find himself at home almost immediately — • 
 there being, in fact, more hiends than strangers in the company. 
 For him, to understand the notation and its rules thoroughly is 
 the work of a few hours ; and with a few days' reading he will 
 find it as familiar as the one he has been used to. Any man 
 who has made himself master of this alphabet is qualified to 
 take a pupil ; and if he wishes to teach a child to read, he has 
 only to show him the letters, tell him the sound which belongs 
 to each, explain to him how to make it, and remind him that 
 whenever he sees that letter he is to make that sound, whenever 
 he hears that sound he is to think of that letter. 
 
 So far all is as easy as AB C, and no easier. But when he has 
 gone through the whole forty-two in this way, he will find himself 
 in a very different condition from the boy we read of in "Pick- 
 wick," who, having mastered the orthodox twenty-six, thought he 
 had gone through a great deal to learn very little. He will find 
 that he has learned a great deal ; no less, in fact, than all he 
 need know in order to read correctly any word of one syllable. 
 Take what monosyllable you please. Put the right letters in the 
 right order, and tell him to make the sounds one after another, 
 quickly, without pausing between. He will at once pronounce 
 the word ; he will not be able to help it. Before he advances to 
 polysyllables he must learn one thing more, for the mark of 
 accent must be introduced. He must be told that whenever he 
 sees that particular mark over a letter, he must pronounce that 
 syllable more strongly than the others, and he will then be able 
 to pronounce correctly any word which may be sho"\\'n to him, if 
 it is correctly printed or written in those characters. 
 
 All this, however, is only by way of preparation ; for we do
 
 4] 2 TEACHING TO BEAD. 
 
 not propose to alter our alphabet or our orthography for him, 
 and we must teach him to read our books. As soon, therefore, 
 as he is perfect in the new (which I shall make bold to call the 
 rational) alphabet — which, having no exceptions or irregularities 
 to perplex his mind and burden his memory, he will not find 
 difficult — he must be confronted with the orthodox or u'rational 
 alphabet, which he will have to work with in his generation. 
 Then it will be found that the judicious arrangement of Mr. 
 Ellis's notation, which made the transition from the old style to 
 the new so easy for his master, will, for the like reason, make 
 the transition from the new to the old easy for him. Take a list 
 of words fi-om any common spelling-book ; opposite to each in 
 another column place the same word spelt according to the 
 rational system : tell him that the word which is pronounced as 
 in the second column is to be written as in the first. He will find 
 the two so much alike that, in spite of the differences, he will 
 easily recognize them as the same. He will see, almost without 
 the help of the key, what the spelling-book words are meant for, 
 and will be able to read them almost at once. But then will 
 come the really hard part of his task, for he must still learn to 
 spell them as they are spelt in the book ; and, having no principle 
 to guide him, while such rules as he is troubled with are subject 
 to so many exceptions that they give him no real help, he must 
 do it by simple memory. He must endeavour to remember the 
 letters which compose each word, and the order of them, and 
 he must fix the impression in his mind by continually renewing 
 it. In this respect, however, if he is no better off than the rest 
 of us, neither is he worse off. It is by reading that we all learn 
 to spell, and having once learned to read spelling-book English 
 he will learn to spell by the same process, even without help, as 
 fast as another — while under a judicious master his progress will 
 be quickened by a simple exercise, the benefit of which will also 
 be felt in other ways. If it be made one of his regular tasks to 
 translate into the phonetic character sentences printed in the 
 received orthography and (inversely) to translate into the received 
 orthography sentences written in the phonetic, it will supply him 
 with the very best kind of exercise both in spelling and pro- 
 nunciation ; and wlien he is perfect in it who shall say that
 
 TEACHING TO READ. 413 
 
 he has not been taught to read and write as well as the best 
 
 of us ? 
 
 It may be objected perhaps that, though he may have learned 
 it at last, yet, having had so much more to learn by the way, he 
 must have been longer about it. But that is a mistake. It is 
 long since I happened to see any reports from phonetic teachers, 
 but in the days of the Phonetic Neivs I used to see many ; and 
 their tenor w^as uniform, to the effect that children who began 
 with the phonetic could read and spell in the ordinary ortho- 
 graphy both sooner and better than those who went by the old 
 road. And this brings me to the practical question for the sake 
 of which I have thought it worth while to call attention to these 
 things, obvious as they must be to all who have considered the 
 matter seriously. If this be so, and if, among the many school- 
 masters whose business it now is to teach poor men's children to 
 read, there are some who, believing that they can get through 
 their work better and faster in this way, wish to be allowed to 
 try it — is there any reason why they should be forbidden ? If 
 they fail, the harm done cannot be much ; the worst would be 
 that the time spent by some of the classes in learning how to 
 pronounce their words has left them a little less forward in 
 remembering how to spell them. If they succeed, the gain is 
 substantial and not inconsiderable ; for poor men cannot so well 
 afford to keep their childi-en at school longer than is necessary. 
 Considered only as an experiment, it is surely worth the cost of 
 trial ; and the cost will be small, for everything is ready. . I 
 am told that the School Boards or schoolmasters are divided in 
 opinion, some approving and some disapproving the proposed 
 reform. So much the better. Let us have a match. Let the 
 disapprovers with their twenty-six letters, and the approvers 
 with their forty-two, try which can turn out the best spelling 
 class (old style) within a given time ; and if the forty-two carry 
 it, let it be resolved that aU teachers who find them useful shall 
 be permitted to use them hereafter if they like. This would be 
 all that is necessary — perhaps all that is desirable — for the 
 present. If the forty-two letters continue to prove their superi- 
 ority by results, they may be trusted to take care of themselves, 
 education being now a matter of business which will not consent
 
 414 TEACHING TO READ. 
 
 to \\"aste time and money for the convenience of etymologists 
 whose objects are quite different, and whose means of pursuing 
 them will not be in any way interfered with. The question which 
 is sacred in the eyes of an etymologist is how a particular com- 
 bination of letters came into use as the name of a particular 
 thing. He follows its history back through all its recorded 
 changes, and if he can trace it to some other combination of 
 letters, supposed to represent a sound which was once used some- 
 where else as the name of the same thing (or some other), he is 
 satisfied. With this the School Boards have nothing to do. 
 Their business is to teach children the use of the language as it 
 is, not to inquire into the series of changes through which it 
 came to be what it is. But if they cannot help him in his work, 
 neither do they threaten him with any hindrance. Some etymo- 
 logists do indeed w^ite as if a change in the orthography of the 
 future would destroy all traces of the orthography of to-day — an 
 aj^prehension which seems more strange in the mouth of an 
 etymologist than of anybody else ; for if each successive change 
 in the state of a language must destroy the traces of the state 
 W'hich i^receded, what becomes of the science of etymology ? 
 And if there is any stage in the progress of the English language 
 in which the received orthography must be always ascertainable, 
 it is surely the x)resent. If all the world agreed to disuse it 
 to-morrow, if not another book were printed in it, if ordinary 
 readers lost the power of interpreting it, the etymologist would 
 still find a perfect record of it in every book that has been printed 
 within the last fifty years. Till every such book has been not 
 only set aside but destroyed, the sacred record of the latest 
 form of prephonetic orthography will be preserved intact for the 
 learned. That joart of our language of which every change does 
 really " destroy the record " is the pronunciation. The most 
 learned philologist of this generation does not know how his 
 great-grandfather pronounced any single word. And it is satis- 
 factory to think that, whatever be the fate of the present contro- 
 versy, one result is secure — our posterity will, at any rate, have 
 the means of knowing how English was spoken in the latter half 
 of the nineteenth century, with a nearer approach to exactness 
 than has ever been attainable by a third generation in any
 
 TEACHING TO READ. 415 
 
 language. Of that the phoneticians of the present have ah'cacly 
 set down, for the benefit of etymologists of the future, a record 
 which will remain. 
 
 But the registering of the sounds of the spoken language for 
 scientific pm'poses is a collateral advantage which does not con- 
 cern our immediate business, and must not be allowed to interfere 
 with it. The forty-two symbols of Mr. Ellis's alphabet will serve 
 to rej)resent with sufficient accuracy all the sounds which a good 
 speaker intends to utter. To represent all the sounds which are 
 actually uttered in ordinary speech w^ould requu-e a great many 
 more ; and though scientific philology, seeking to determine the 
 laws which govern the changes of pronunciation in different 
 languages, requires to know and compare them in all their 
 modifications, yet the simple art of correct pronunciation in a 
 living language wants no more than practical directions for 
 making them. Now it will be observed that, in the mouth of 
 correct speakers with good articulation, all accented syllables 
 have a determinate character of their own by which we can dis- 
 tinguish them from each other. Though each speaker sounds 
 them somewhat differently, we all know which sound he means, 
 and can reproduce our own variety of it in our own way. These 
 are the forty-two sounds which form Mr, Ellis's alphabet. But 
 who shall number or define the sounds of the unaccented syllables. 
 They are indispensable constituents of every polysyllabic word, 
 and of every combination of words into which unemphatic mono- 
 syllables enter ; yet the most practised phoneticians cannot 
 agree as to what they are or what vocal configurations they 
 depend upon. How then are they to be represented on paper ? 
 and how are children to be taught to make them ? 
 
 Now, though I should be very sorry to have to define or 
 describe them, yet when I observe the conditions under which 
 they present themselves, I think I see how they may be com- 
 manded. Ask a gentleman how he spells a word which he has 
 just pronounced, — circumstances for instance, — distinguishing the 
 several syllables in spelling-book fashion. He will say, * c, i, r, 
 cir ; c, u, m, cum, — cir-cum ; s, t, a, n, stan — cir-cum-stan ; c, e, s, 
 ces — cir -cum- Stan- ces.' But when he uttered the word in conver- 
 sation just before, there was only one of the four syllables to
 
 416 TEACHING TO READ. 
 
 which he gave the same sound which he gives in spelhng it. 
 Try him with another, m which an miaccented comes before the 
 accented sj-llahle ; say, committal; c, o, m, com; m, i, t, mit — 
 com-mit; t, a, I, tal — com-mit-tal. When he pronounces the word 
 without spelUng it, you find that both the first and the last 
 syllable have changed then* character — com has almost turned 
 into cum, and tal mto tul. Now why is this ? He does not do 
 it on pm-pose ; he is not aware probably that he does it at all. 
 He does it simply because it is the easiest way — because he 
 could not do it otherwise without trouble. And this it is that 
 suggests what I believe to be the true, exact, and sufficient direc- 
 tion for the formation of all these obscure and indescribable 
 sounds, in all their varieties, as they are heard in the language 
 of the best speakers. Each of them being in fact the nearest 
 approach to the sound aimed at that can be made from the posi- 
 tion into which the vocal organs have been brought by their last 
 action, or have to bring themselves in order to be ready for the 
 next, the practical direction for making it is to give to every 
 sjilable as much of its proper sound — of the sound you give it 
 when you pronounce it by itself — as, without sacrificing the pre- 
 dominance of the accented syllable, you conveniently can. The 
 best speakers are those who (subject to this last condition) 
 preserve most of the characteristic sound in each case. It is a 
 slovenly pronunciation which leaves it doubtful whether you 
 said cymbals or symbols. 
 
 Even with accented syllables the same difficulty sometimes 
 occm's, and is to be dealt with in the same way. When I say 
 "fair face,^' or " bolt the door,'^ I 7nean to give exactly the same 
 sound to the ai and a in the first case, and to the o and oo in the 
 second. The sounds I do give them are widely different. Yet it 
 is not a case of obscurity, for the vowels into which the ai and 
 the 00 have transformed themselves are clearly and firmly enun- 
 ciated, and in foreign languages, as well as in our own provincial 
 dialects, hold a conspicuous place. But they are vowels which 
 the English of the schools and the di"awing-room does all it can 
 to repudiate. They have no place in the alphabet or the spelling- 
 book, and I doubt whether any polished English speaker ever 
 utters either of them distinctly when he can avoid it. But here
 
 TEACHING TO READ. 417 
 
 again we Lave no need of additional letters ; for the same neces- 
 sity wliicli causes the change of sound supplies an infallible 
 direction for making the change correctly. Try to i^rolong the 
 sound of (I in the first case {a as heard in face), and of o in the 
 second (o as heard in holt), until j'our tongue is in a position 
 to form an untrillcd r : the required modification of the Towel 
 sound in both cases will be the inevitable result.*' 
 
 I hold it certain, therefore, that with an alphabet of forty-two 
 letters sufficient directions may be given for i)ronouncing English 
 as correctly as it is usually pronounced in societ}', and with no 
 wider variations from the standard, if there be such a thing, 
 than are commonly heard wherever half-a-dozen Englishmen are 
 talking together in a drawing-room. The only difficulty which 
 appears to stand in the way is the choice of the particular 
 alphabet to be used and the rules for using it. Upon this it is 
 probable that opinions will differ. And yet, unless the several 
 teachers can agree to use the same in the same way, a great part 
 of the benefit will be lost ; for the pupils of the several schools 
 will not have a common sj'stem upon which they can interchange 
 communications. And besides, though one of the rival systems 
 maj^ be as good as another for the purpose of instruction in the 
 sounds ; and, if they are all equallj^ successful in shortening the 
 process of teaching to read common books, the immediate object 
 of them all is equally well answered ; — it must not be supposed 
 that this is the only advantage which the pupils are to derive 
 from the course of instruction they will have to go through. It 
 must be remembered that all who learn the use of such a pho- 
 netic ali^habet will possess for the rest of their lives an accom- 
 plishment of great value — so great, indeed, that it may be said 
 without any exaggeration to be coextensive with the value of 
 letters. They will be able to describe on paper by writing or 
 
 * Even if this be not, as I think it is, tlic most scientific direction for llic pro- 
 duction of the required sound in these cases, it has a collateral merit not to be- 
 despised. It avoids in a vast number of cases the necessity of changing the vowels,. 
 and so producing that strangeness of appearance which, besides oflending scholars 
 (who seem to think it not only awkward but sinful), does really make the refi rni a 
 little more difficult. It is obvious that the liker to one another the words in the 
 two styles looli, tlic more readily will they be recognized as the same, and therefore- 
 that both the jihonLtic teacher will sooner be able to read easily in the new stvlc, 
 and the phonetic pupil hi the old ; W'hich is the end we aim at.
 
 418 TEACHING TO READ. 
 
 print the pronunciation of words, where it is impossible or in- 
 convenient to impart it by speech, and the most ingenious 
 manipulation of the sacred twenty-six, from A to Z, will fail to 
 convey a notion of it. It is true that at first they will have it all 
 to themselves, for their uninstructed elders and betters will not 
 be able to profit by the information. But this will be only for a 
 while. As soon as a knowledge of the phonetic characters be- 
 comes an indispensable part of general education, and is required 
 by schools and colleges and Civil Service Commissioners (as it 
 will be when its value comes to be generally understood), news- 
 paper correspondents will be able to tell us what to call the people 
 and the places about whom they are enlightening us ; books of 
 travels will be readable aloud without the interruption of a stumble 
 and an apology at every proper name ; missionaries will be able 
 to give information which will be of use to comparative philolo- 
 gists about the languages of the countries in which they are 
 labom-ing ; we shall know whether another Captain Burnaby 
 rides to Ivliiva or Kheva, and shall accompany another Com- 
 mander Cameron with much greater comfort through regions 
 that are now (because of the number of consonants without any 
 vowel between which they require us to pronounce) not to be 
 named. Of its uses in these ways I can speak confidently from 
 jDersonal exjierience ; for I read the accounts of the Hungarian 
 war of 1849 in the Phonetic Neivs, where all the proper names 
 were carefully spelt. But it is not merely in the foreign names 
 which perplex us in English books that we shall feel the benefit ; 
 the foreign languages will be better and more easily learned, 
 especially by those who aspire to teach themselves. The many 
 scholars who have to learn these languages from books will be 
 furnished with directions for the pronunciation that will serve 
 them almost as well as a skilled teacher ; and much better than an 
 unskilled one, however good his own pronunciation may be. The 
 latest reformation in the way of reading Latin and Greek may be 
 circulated by post to all grammar schools. And in short, as 
 soon as the accomplishment becomes as common as reading, it 
 will be found that its uses are as various and as valuable as 
 those of writing. Making it possil)lo to hear by the eye (like a 
 musician, who, having the benefit of a phonetic notation, hears
 
 TEACHING TO HEAD. 410 
 
 tlio music as he reads it), it will cxtcaid the range of earshot 
 both in time and space indefinitely. A man will be able to 
 make his words heard in Australia with the next mail, and heard 
 by the next ages as long as his book endureth. I know a poet who 
 is happy in most things, but most unhappy in an apprehension 
 that peoi)le who have not heard his poems read w'ill never know 
 how to read them. He will be able to stereotype the sounds, the 
 quantities, the pauses, the intonations, the accents, and the em- 
 phases, for all the peoples in all the times. He will only have 
 to publish a phonetic edition. 
 
 These results will depend upon the consistent use and the 
 general acceptance of the alphabet which shall be chosen ; and 
 the very variety of the persons and causes that are interested in 
 it will divide opinions and make the choice more difficult. It 
 may be hoped, however, that if the reforming teachers keep to 
 their own business and take counsel together, — leaving etymolo- 
 gists to invent a system of etymological orthography for them- 
 selves ; foreign linguists to construct such alphabets as are 
 easiest for tliem to work, as ours is easiest for us ; making no 
 attempt to convert or conciliate anti-reformers who regard the 
 (piestion as unworthy of serious consideration, and therefore have 
 never considered it seriously ; but applying themselves solely to 
 find out the best method of teaching English boys and girls to 
 read and write modern English for modern purposes — they will 
 be able to agree upon one set of symbols and one set of rules to 
 be used by all ; and that such an alphabet, having the great ad- 
 vantage of being in possession of the field, will be strong enough 
 to resist foolish changes, to entertain friendly suggestions, to 
 test and adopt real improvements without breaking up, and to 
 serve for the foundation of a system of phonetic notation, the 
 powers and uses of which may be gradually extended to meet all 
 the requirements of the science of language. 
 
 PRINTED AT THE CAXTON TRESS, EECCLES.
 
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