Chapter IV: Part 4

We passed rapidly through the Russian provinces, and, intending to embark in one of our frigates cruising the Baltic, felt all the delight of having at length left the damp and dreary forests of Livonia far down in the horizon, and again feeling the breezes blowing from that ocean which the Englishman instinctively regards as a portion of his home. But, as we drove along the smooth sands which line so many leagues of the Baltic, and enjoyed with the full sense of novelty the various contrast of sea and shore, we were startled by the roar of guns from the ramparts of Riga, followed by the peal of bells. What victory, what defeat, what great event, did those announce? The intelligence at length broke on us at the gates; and it was well worth all our interest. "Peace with France." The English ambassador had arrived in Paris. "War was at end, and the world was to be at rest once more." I changed my route immediately, and flew on the road to Paris.

My life was destined to be a succession of scenes. It had been thrown into a whirl of memorable incidents, any one of which would have served for the tumult of fifty years, and for the meditation of the fifty after. But this was the period of powerful, sometimes of terrible, vicissitudes. All ranks of men were reached by them. Kings and statesmen only felt them first: they penetrated to the peasant; and the Continent underwent a moral convulsion--an outpouring of the general elements of society--like that of some vast inundation, sweeping away the landmarks, and uprooting the produce of the soil; until it subsided, leaving the soil in some places irreparably stripped--in others, filled with a new fertility.

I found France in a state of the highest exultation. The national cry was, "that she had covered herself with glory;" and to earn that cry, probably, no Frenchman who ever existed would hesitate to march to Timbuctoo, or swim across the Atlantic. The name of "conquest" is a spell which no brain, from Calais to Bayonne, has ever thought of resisting. The same spell lives, masters, domineers over the national mind, to this hour; and will last, long after Paris has dropped into the depths of its own catacombs, and its fifteen fortresses are calcined under the cannon of some Austrian or Russian invader. It will be impossible to tell future ages the scene which France then presented to the mind. If objects are capable of record, impressions are beyond the power of the pen. No image can be conveyed to posterity by the sensations which crowded on Europe in the course of the French Revolution--the rapidity, the startling lustre, and the deep despair; as it went forth crushing all that the earth had of solid or sacred. It was now only in its midway. The pause had come; but it was only the pause in the hurricane--the still heavier trial was at hand. Even as a stranger, I could see that it was but a lull. Every thing that met the eye in Paris was a preparative for war. The soldier was every thing, and every where. I looked in vain for the Republican costumes which I so fearfully remembered. They had been flung aside for the uniform of the Imperial Guard; or were to be seen only on a few haggard and desolate men, who came out in the twilight, and sat in silence, and gloomy dreams of revenge, in some suburb _cafe_. Where were the deadly tribunals, with their drunken judges, their half-naked assassins, and the eternal clank of the guillotines?--all vanished; the whole sullen furniture of the Republican drama flung behind the scenes, and the stage filled with the song and the dance--the pageant and the feast--with all France gazing and delighted at the spectacle. But, my still stronger curiosity was fixed on the one man who had been the soul of the transformation. I have before my eye at this moment his slender and _spirituel_ figure; his calm, but most subtle glance; and the incomparable expression of his smile. His face was classic--the _ideal_ of thought; and, when Canova afterwards transferred it to marble, he could not have made it less like flesh and blood. It was intensely pale--pure, profound, Italian.

A LETTER FROM LONDON.

BY A RAILWAY WITNESS.

MY DEAR BOGLE,--It is ten thousand pities that you are not here. Why the deuce can't you make yourself useful to the commonwealth, by calculating a gradient, laying down a curve, or preparing a table of traffic, in order to obtain the proper qualification for a railway witness? Nothing in this world is easier. You have only to sit at your window for a given amount of hours once a-week, and note down the number of the cabs and carts which jolt and jingle to the Broomielaw; or, if you like that better, to ascertain the quality of the soil three feet beneath your own wine-cellar; and you are booked for a month's residence in London, free quarters in a first-rate hotel, five guineas a-day, and all expenses paid. I confess that this regimen seems to me both profitable and pleasant. I have been here for six weeks feeding on the fat of the land, drinking claret which even a Leith man would scarcely venture to anathematize, white-baiting at Blackwall, and varying these sensual qualifications with an occasional trip to Richmond and Ascot races. I have, moreover, mark you, a bunch of as pretty bank paper in my pocket as ever was paid into the Exchequer; and the whole equivalent I have given for this kind and liberal treatment was certain evidence touching the iron-trade of Ayrshire, which I poured into the drowsy ears of five worthy gentlemen, about as familiar with that subject as you are with the mythology of the Chinese. Long life to the railway mania, say I! It has been treasure-trove to some of us. The only thing I regret is my inability to carry the war into the enemy's country, and make my fortune out of the English companies. I have the appetite but not the power; and, after all, it would hardly make up for Flodden.

I like this sort of life much better than assorting cargoes and superintending the arrival of sugar casks. There is no want of society, for I find myself here surrounded by the old familiar faces. I do not think there is a soul in this hotel except townsmen of our own. You meet in the committee rooms the same excellent fellows whom you have daily encountered for the last ten years on the Exchange, and they are all getting fatter upon their work. Edinburgh, too, has furnished her quota. We have Writers to the Signet by the score, and a sprinkling of the young Advocates whom we are accustomed to meet upon circuit. Poor lads! it does one good to see them thriving. This must be a very different sort of business from the weariful Parliament House, and the two square yards of processes, with a fee of three guineas for many an interminable condescendence. I believe they would have no objection if the Session of Parliament were declared perpetual; and for that matter no more would I.

Certainly, of all tribunals ever invented by the ingenuity of man, a Parliamentary Committee is the most extraordinary. It is a court of enquiry consisting of five members, whose principal qualification is absolute previous ignorance of the localities and conflicting interests with regard to which they must decide. Of their impartiality, therefore, there can be no doubt. You or I might just as well sit down at a moment's notice, and adjudicate upon the merits of three competing lines between Pekin and Canton, with an equal chance of arriving at a satisfactory conclusion. Of course they must be guided entirely by evidence, and have plenty of materials laid before them from which they may pick and choose. It is the richest thing in the world to see two crack engineers pitted against each other. The first, who appears on behalf of the line, does not know and cannot conceive the slightest engineering difficulty. If a mountain stands in his way, he plunges fearlessly into its bowels, finds in the interior strata of surpassing mineral wealth, yet marvellously adapted for the purposes of a four-mile tunnel, and brings you out sound and safe at the opposite side, as though he had been perforating a gigantic cheese instead of hammering his path through whinstone coeval with the creation. If a lake stands in the way, he will undertake to drain it, with immense advantage to the neighbouring proprietors. If a valley intervenes, he will bridge it with a viaduct, which shall put to shame the grandest relics of antiquity. He has no knowledge of such bugbears as steep gradients or dangerous curves; a little hocus-pocus with the compasses transforms all these into gentle undulations, and sweeps of the most graceful description. He will run you his rails right through the heart of the most populous city,--yea, even Glasgow herself,--and across the streets, without the slightest interruption to the traffic. He will contrive so, that the hissing of the locomotive shall be as graceful a sound as the plashing of a fountain in the midst of our bisected squares; and he is indignant at the supposition that any human being can be besotted enough to prefer the prospect of a budding garden, to a clean double pair of rails beneath his bedroom window, with a jolly train steaming it along at the rate of some fifty miles per hour.

The opposing engineer has a contrary story to tell. He has the utmost confidence in the general ability of his scientific friend, but on this occasion he has the misfortune to differ in opinion. Very carefully has he gone over the whole of the line surveyed. He is sorry to say that the gradients are utterly impossible, and the curves approaching to a circle. Tunnelling is out of the question. How are two miles of quicksand and two of basaltic rock to be gone through? The first is deeper than the Serbonian bog, and would swallow up the whole British army. The second could not be pierced in a shorter time than Pharaoh took to construct the pyramids of Egypt. He considers a railway in the heart of a town to be an absolute and intolerable nuisance; and, on the whole, looking at the plan before him, he has come to the conclusion, that a more dangerous and impracticable line was never yet laid before a committee of the United Parliament of Great Britain.

So much for the engineering Hector and Achilles. Out of these two opinions, of necessity, must the five respectable members on the bench form their judgment; for of themselves they know nothing, having been purposely selected on account of their superior ignorance. Cross-examination makes the matter still worse. A cantankerous waspish counsel, with the voice of an exasperated cockatoo, endeavours to make the opposing engineer contradict himself. He might as well try to overturn Ailsa Crag. He of the impossible gradients is the hero of a hundred committees, quite accustomed to legal artifice, cool, wary, and self-collected. He receives every thrust with a pleasant smile, and sometimes returns them with damaging effect. If close pressed, he is conscious that behind him is a thicket of algebra, into which neither counsel nor judges will dare to follow; and so fortified by the mysteries of his calling, he is ready to defy the universe. Then come the hordes of subordinate witnesses, the gentlemen who are to give evidence for and against the bill. One side represents the country as abounding in mineral produce and agricultural wealth: the other likens it unto Patmos, or the stony Arabia. Tims swears that the people of his district are mad, insane, rabid in favour of the line. Jenkins, his next-door neighbour, on the contrary, protests that if the rails were laid down to-morrow, they would be torn up by an insurrection of the populace _en masse_. John thinks the Dreep-daily Extension is the only one at all suited to supply the wants of the country; Sandy opines that the Powhead's Junction is the true and genuine potato; and both John and Sandy, Tims and Jenkins, are backed by a host of corroborators. Then come the speeches of the counsel, and rare specimens they are of unadulterated oratory. I swear to you, Bogle, that, no later than a week ago, I listened to such a picture of Glasgow and the Clyde, from the lips of a gentleman eminent alike in law and letters, as would have thrown a diorama of Damascus into the shade. He had it all, sir, from the orchards of Clydesdale to the banks of Bothwell, the pastoral slopes of Ruglen, and the emerald solitudes of the Green. The river flowed down towards the sea in translucent waves of crystal. From the parapets of the bridge you watched the salmon cleaving their way upwards in vivid lines of light. Never did Phoebus beam upon a lovelier object than the fair suburb of the Gorbals, as seen from the Broomielaw, reposing upon its shadow in perfect stillness. Then came the forest of masts, the activity of the dockyards, and

"The impress of shipwrights, whose hard toil
Doth scarce divide the Sunday from the week."

Further down, the villas of the merchant princes burst upon your view, each of them a perfect Sirmio--then Port-Glasgow, half spanned by the arch of a dissolving rainbow--Dumbarton, grand and solemn as became the death-place of the Bruce--Ben Lomond, with its hoary head swathed in impenetrable clouds--and lo! the ocean and the isles. Not a Glasgow man in the committee-room but yearned with love and admiration towards the gifted speaker, who certainly did make out a case for the Queen of the West such as no matter-of-fact person could possibly have believed. And all this was done by merely substituting a Claude Lorraine glass for our ordinary dingy atmosphere. The outline was most correct and graphic, but the secret lay in the handling and distribution of the colours. I shall not wonder if the whole committee, clerk included come down this autumn to catch a glimpse of that terrestrial paradise.

Such is a brief and unexaggerated abstract of the transactions of these railway committees; and you may judge for yourself how far the members are likely to understand the true circumstances of the case from evidence so singularly conflicting. Sometimes three or four days are wasted before they can even comprehend the precise position of the lines which they are required to consider, and, after all, these impressions must be of the haziest description. For my own part, I think the legislature has made a most palpable mistake in not intrusting such important functions to parties who possess competent local knowledge; and I am satisfied that the result of the present session has proved the insufficiency of the system. I demur altogether to the propriety of devolving upon Members of Parliament the duties of a civil jury. They have surely enough to do in weighing and determining the larger questions of policy, without entering into the minute details necessarily involved in the consideration of railways, roads, bridges, and canals. These should be transferred to parties conversant with such subjects, and responsible to the public for their decisions. Besides this, the direct pecuniary loss to Scotland by the present system of sending witnesses to London--though personally I have no reason to complain--is quite enormous, and demands attention in a national point of view. It is calculated that not less than a million and a half sterling, has been expended in the course of last year in carrying the Scottish bills through Parliament, and by far the greater part of this sum has been absorbed by plethoric London, and cannot by possibility return. Now, the whole annual value of the lands and houses in Scotland does not exceed ten millions, (in 1843, it was little more than nine)--an amount which is totally inadequate to afford so prodigious a deduction as this, for the mere purpose of procuring authority to carry our own schemes into execution. That the seventh part of the rental of a country should be drawn away from it, and expended beyond its boundaries, in the course of simple preliminary investigations, is not only an exorbitant abuse, but, to my mind, a clear demonstration of the total falsity of the system. It may have worked tolerably when there was less work to do; but the amazing increase of private bills during the last few years must render a new arrangement necessary. I wish our countrymen would be a little more alive to the vast benefit of local institutions in a pecuniary point of view. Can there be any doubt, that, if the details connected with all the private bills applicable to Scotland, were referred to a paid board of commissioners sitting permanently in Edinburgh, whose judgment of course would be subject to the review of Parliament, the business would be got through, not only more cheaply, but with greater satisfaction and dispatch? I cannot see why London should be entitled to this exclusive monopoly, or the principle of centralization pushed so far as to injure the extremities of the empire. The private committee business has already become an absolute nuisance to the whole bulk of the members. It is a function for which few of them have been educated, which is in itself highly distasteful, and, moreover, interferes most materially with their public duties. Let them, then, be freed from this thraldom, and Scotland will have no reason to complain. We don't ask for any power of legislation; we only require that within and among ourselves the necessary investigations shall be made. This can be done in Edinburgh quite as well as in London; and very sorely does our poor Metropolis stand in need of such indigenous support. Dublin has its viceregal court, and therefore can make some stand against centralization. Edinburgh has nothing left her except the courts of law, which have been pared down by ignorant experimentalists to the smallest possible substance. All that could be taken from her has been transferred to London. Her local boards, her officers of state, have vanished one by one; and scarce any remonstrance has been made against these useless and unjustifiable aggressions.

I find myself getting into the Malagrowther vein, so I had better pull up in time, without hinting at the existence of claymores. Only this, should there ever be a decent agitation in Scotland, you will find the old Tories at the head of it, demanding the restitution of certain ancient rights, which Whiggery has subverted, and Conservatism trodden under foot. Undoubtedly, at no very distant period, the great questions of centralization and uniformity will be gravely and considerately discussed, both within and without the walls of the British Parliament. Next year it is probable that the transit between Edinburgh and London will be effected in fourteen hours. That of itself will go far to bring matters to a crisis. If we are to be centralized, let the work be thoroughly done; if not, let us get back at least a reasonable portion of our own.

But to the committees. You can have no idea, Bogle, of the excitement caused by any of their decisions. At the close of the evidence, counsel, agents, and spectators are unceremoniously hustled out of the room, to give leisure for the selected senators to make up their minds on the propriety of passing or rejecting the preamble of the bill. In the lobby all is confusion. Near the door stand five-and-twenty speculators, all of them heavy holders of stock, some flushed in the face like peonies, some pale and trembling with excitement. The barristers, for the most part, have a devil-may-care look, as if it mattered little to them, whether the Dreep-daily or Powhead's gentry shall carry the day. And, in truth, it is of little consequence. The sittings of this committee cannot by possibility be prolonged, and as most of the legal gentlemen have other briefs--

"To-morrow to fresh fields and pastures new."

The magistrates of Camlachie, though sorely agitated for the integrity of that important borough, threatened by the Dreep-daily Extension with immediate intersection, yet preserve a becoming decorum of feature. The senior bailie bows a dignified assent to the protestations of the Parliamentary solicitor, that it is quite impossible the bill can pass--such an interference with vested rights never can be sanctioned by a British House of Commons, &c. &c.; and then, with a shrewd eye to future proceedings, the wily Machiavel hints that at all events the House of Lords will be sure to put the matter right. What in the name of torture can make the committee deliberate so long? Two hours have elapsed since we were excluded, and yet there is no indication of a judgment. The chairman of the Powhead's line, which on the whole has had the worst of it in evidence, begins to gain confidence from the delay. Whispers arise and circulate that the committee are two to two, the chairman not being able to make up his mind either way; but as his wife is a third cousin of a Powheads director, there may yet be balm in Gilead. Hark! the tinkling of a bell--there is a buzz as of a hive overturned, the doors are opened, and the whole crowd rush elbowing in. How provokingly calm are the countenances of the five legislators! Not a twinkle in the eye of any of them to betray the nature of their decision--nay, with a refinement of cruelty positively appalling, the chairman is elaborating a quill into a toothpick until order shall be partially restored. Now for the dictum--"The Committee, having heard evidence, are of opinion that the preamble of the Dreep-daily Extension Bill has not been proved, and further, that the preamble of the Powheads Junction Bill has been satisfactorily proved, and they intend to report accordingly." One second's pause, and a triumphant cheer bursts from the dignitaries of Camlachie. The five-and-twenty speculators darting at once to the door, choke up the entrance for a time--divers coat-tails give way, and hats disappear in the scuffle--at last they break out from the Cloisters like so many demoniacs, fling themselves into four-and-twenty cabs, and offer triple fares for immediate transmission to the City. One, more knowing than the rest, sneaks down to Westminster Bridge, finds a steamer just starting, makes his way by water to the Exchange; and five minutes before the earliest cab, obstructed by a covey of coal-carts in the Strand, can fetch its agitated inmate to his broker, his speedier rival has sold several thousand Dreep-dailys to unwitting and unfortunate purchasers, and has become the coveted possessor of every Powhead scrip then negotiable in the London market. If there is any caricature in this sketch I shall submit to do penance in the pillory.

I think I have now bored you sufficiently with railway matters: being a literary character, you may like to know how I otherwise employ my time. _Imprimis_, I have not attended a single debate in the House of Commons. It is quite enough to spell one's way through the dreary columns of the _Times_ after the matutinal muffin, without exposing the mind to the cruelties of a Maynooth debate, or the body to the tender mercies of the novel mode of ventilation. I find the theatres much more amusing, not from the excellence of the dramatic performances, but from their sheer and gross absurdity, which, without actual experience, is almost too monstrous for belief. The fact is, that a new Cockney school has arisen, ten times more twaddling and impotent than the ancient academy of that name. The old professors, for whom I always had a sneaking kindness, affected a sort of solitary grandeur, deported themselves with the conscious swagger of genius, read Tooke's Pantheon, and prated of the Heathen gods. This was very harmless and innocent pastime; tiresome, to be sure, yet laughable withal; nor did it call for any further rebuke than an occasional tap upon the cranium of some blockhead who forsook his legitimate sphere, thrust himself in your way, and became unsufferably blatant. Now the spirit of the times has changed. The literary youth of London are all in the facetious line. They have regular clubs, at which they meet to collate the gathered slang and pilfered witticisms of the week; periodical compotations to work these materials into something like a readable shape; and hebdomadal journals, by means of which their choice productions are issued to a wondering world. Now, though a single gnat can give you very little annoyance in the course of a summer's night, the evil becomes serious when you are surrounded with whole scores of these diminutive vermin, singing in your ears, buzzing in your hair, and lighting incessantly on your face. In vain you turn aside, in hopes to get rid of the nuisance. Go where you will, a perfect cloud of midges keeps hovering round your head, each tiny bloodsucker sounding his diminutive horn, in the full and perfect belief that he discourses most excellent music. Even so, in London, are you surrounded with these philosophers of the Cider-cellar. Their works stare you every where in the face; the magazines abound with their wit; their songs, consisting for the most part of prurient parodies, are resonant throughout the purlieus of Covent Garden. What is worse than all, they have wriggled themselves into a sort of monopoly of the theatres, persuaded the public to cashier Shakespeare, who is now utterly out of date, and to instal in his place a certain Mr J.R. Planche as the leading swan of the Thames. In giving him this prominent place, I merely echo the opinions of his compeers, who with much modesty, but at the same time with praiseworthy candour, have acknowledged his pre-eminence in the modern walk of the drama, and with him they decline competition. The new Beaumont and Fletcher, J. Taylor and Albert Smith, Esquires, thus bear testimony to his merits in one of their inimitable prologues:

"'Fair One with Golden Locks:' no, you won't do--
PLANCHE has taken the shine out of you:
Who runs with HIM, it may be safely reckon'd,
Whate'er the odds, must come in 'a bad second.'"

Ben Jonson never penned a more delicate or classical compliment, albeit it halteth a little. Let us then submit to the better judgment of our brethren, and bow down promiscuously before any brazen calf which their eager idolatry may rear. Let London promulgate the law of letters, as well as the statutes of the land. Therefore, say I, away with Romeo, and give us Cinderella; banish Hamlet, and welcome Sleeping Beauty; let the Tempest make room for Fortunio; and Venice Preserved for the gentle Graciosa and Percinet! Do you, Bogle, disencumber your study as fast as you can of these absurd busts of the older dramatists, now fit for nothing but targets in a shooting-gallery. Fling the effigies, one and all, into the area; and let us see, in their stead, each on its appropriate pedestal, with some culinary garland round the head, new stucco casts of J. R. Planche, Albert Smith, and Gilbert a-Beckett, Esquires.

After all, is it to be wondered at if the public lacketh novelty? Shakespeare has had possession of the stage for nearly two centuries--quite enough, one would think, to pacify his unconscionable _Manes_. We have been dosed with his dramas from our youth upwards. Two generations of the race of Kean have, in our own day, perished, after a series of air-stabs, upon Bosworth field. We have seen twenty different Hamlets appear upon the damp chill platform of Elsinore, and fully as many Romeos in the sunny streets of Verona. The nightingale in the pomegranate-tree was beginning to sing hoarsely and out of tune; therefore it was full time that our ears should be dieted with other sounds. Well, no sooner was the wish expressed, than we were presented with "Nina Sforza," the "Legend of Florence," and several other dramas of the highest class. Sheridan Knowles and Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton professed themselves ready to administer any amount of food to the craving appetite of the age--but all in vain. Tragedy was not what we wanted--nor comedy--no, nor even passable melodrama. We sighed for something of a more ethereal sort, and--laud we the gods!--the manna has descended in showers. Go into any of the London theatres now, and the following is your bill of fare. Fairies you have by scores in flesh-coloured tights, spangles, and paucity of petticoats; gnomes of every description, from the gigantic glittering diamond beetle, to the grotesque and dusky tadpole. Epicene princes, whose taper limbs and swelling busts are well worth the scrutiny of the opera-glass--dragons vomiting at once red flames and witticisms about the fountains in Trafalgar Square--Dan O'Connell figuring in the feathers of a Milesian owl--and the Seven Champions of Christendom smoking cigars upon the parapets of Hungerford Bridge! All these things have I seen, Bogle, yea, and cheered them to the echo, in company with some thousand Cockneys, all agape at the glitter of tinselled pasteboard, and the glories of the Catharine-wheel. Such is the intellectual banquet which London, queen of literature, presents to her fastidious children!

The form of dramatic composition now most in vogue is the burlesque; or, in the language of the great Planche, "the original, grand, comic, romantic, operatic, melo-dramatic, fairy extravaganza!" There is a title for you, that would have put Polonius to the blush. I have invested some three shillings in the purchase of several of these works, in order that I might study at leisure the bold and brilliant wit, the elegant language, and the ingenious metaphors which had entranced me when I heard them uttered from the stage. I am now tolerably master of the subject, and therefore beg leave, before condescending upon details, to hand you a recipe for the concoction of one of these delectable dishes. Take my advice, and make the experiment yourself. Red Riding-Hood, I think, is still a virgin story; but, unless you make haste, she will be snapped up, for they are rapidly exhausting the stores of the "_Contes des Fees_." Alexander will probably give you something for it, or you can try our old friend Miller at the Green. The process is shortly this. Select a fairy tale, or a chapter from the Arabian Nights; write out the _dramatis personae_, taking care that you have plenty of supernaturals, genii, elves, gnomes, ghouls, or vampires, to make up a competent _corps de ballet_; work out your dialogue in slipshod verse, with as much slang repartee as you possibly can cram in, and let every couplet contain either a pun or some innuendo upon the passing events of the day. This in London is considered as the highest species of wit, and seldom fails to bring down three distinct rounds of applause from the galleries. I fear you may be trammelled a little by the scantiness of local allusions. Hungerford Bridge and Trafalgar Square, as I have already hinted, have kept the Cockneys in roars of laughter for years, and are dragged forward with unrelenting perseverance, but still undiminished effect, in each successive extravaganza. I suspect you will find that the populace of Glasgow are less easy to be tickled, and somewhat jealous of quips at their familiar haunts. However, don't be down-hearted. Go boldly at the Gorbals, the Goosedubs, and the great chimney-stalk of St Rollox; it is impossible to predict how boldly the municipal pulse may bound beneath the pressure of a dexterous finger. Next, you must compose some stanzas, as vapid as you please, to be sung by the leading virgin in pantaloons; or, what is better still, a few parodies adapted to the most popular airs. I see a fine field for your ingenuity in the Jacobite relics; they are entwined with our most sacred national recollections, and therefore may be desecrated at will. Never lose sight for a moment of the manifold advantages derivable from a free use of the trap-door and the flying-wires; throw in a transparency, an Elysian field, a dissolving view, and a miniature Vesuvius, and

"My basnet to a 'prentice cap,
Lord Surrey's o'er the Till,"

you will take all Glasgow by storm, and stand henceforward crowned as the young Euripides of the West.

You and I, in the course of our early German studies, lighted, as I can well remember, upon the Phantasus of Ludwig Tieck. I attribute your loss of the first prize in the Moral Philosophy class to the enthusiasm with which you threw yourself into his glorious Bluebeard and Fortunatus. In truth it was like hearing the tales of childhood told anew, only with a manlier tone, and a clearer and more dignified purpose. How lucidly the early, half-forgotten images were restored under the touch of that inimitable artist! What a luxury it was to revel with the first favourites of our childhood, now developed into full life, and strength, and stately beauty! With these before us, how could we dare be infidels and recreants to our earlier faith, or smile in scorn at the fanciful loves and cherished dreams of infancy? Such were our feelings, nor could it well be otherwise; for Tieck was, and is, a poet of the highest grade--not a playwright and systematic jest-hunter; and would as soon have put forth his hand in impious challenge against the Ark, as have stooped to become a buffooning pander to the idle follies of the million. It remained for England--great and classic England--no, by heavens! I will not do her that wrong--but for London, and London _artists_!--I believe that is the proper phrase--after having exhausted every other subject of parody, sacred and profane, to invade the sanctuary of childhood, and vulgarize the very earliest impressions which are conveyed to the infant. Are not the men who sit down deliberately to such a task more culpable than even the nursery jade who administers gin and opium to her charge, in order that she may steal to the back-door undisturbed, and there indulge in surreptitious dalliance with the dustman? Far better had they stuck to their old trade of twisting travesties from Shakespeare for the amusement of elderly idiots, than attempted to people Fairyland with the palpable denizens of St Giles. The Seven Champions of Christendom, indeed! They may well lay claim to the title of Champions of Cockneydom incarnate, setting forth on their heroic quest from the rendezvous in the Seven Dials.

Let us look a little into their individual feats, although I must needs say, that the whole of these productions bear a marvellous resemblance to each other. There is no more variety in any of them than can be found in the copious advertisements of the Messrs Doudney. Still, it cannot but be that some gems shall scintillate more than others, or, at all events, be of coarser and duller water. With conscious impartiality, and without imputing the palm of slang to any particular individual, I shall give the precedence to Gemini, and their last approved duodecimo. Messrs Taylor and Smith have bestowed upon the public three dramas--to wit, Valentine and Orson, Whittington and his Cat, and Cinderella. I have not been fortunate enough to meet with the earlier portions of this trilogy; but I have got by me Cinderella, of which title the authors, with characteristic purity, confess

"'Twould be proper _er_
To say, 'La Cenerentola,' from the opera."

You shall have a specimen, Bogle, of this extremely racy production, which I strongly recommend you to keep in view as model. You cannot have forgotten the tale of the poor deserted maiden, whose loneliness is thus touchingly described--

"From poker, tongs, and kitchen stove,
To the neglected cellar,
Is all the change I ever know--
Oh, hapless Cinderella!"

But dear Cinderella_r_ is not doomed to mourn in dust and ashes for ever. A prince is coming to her rescue, but in disguise, having changed suits with his own valet. Let us mark the manner of his introduction to the interesting family of the Baron:--

_Baron._--The Baron Soldoff, Baroness, and Misses!
I thought the Prince was here!
(_To_ CINDERELLA.) Tell me who this is.

_Rodo._--(_Bowing._) I'm but a humble servant of his Highness.

_Baron._--Where is he?

_Rodo._--Sir, he waits down-stairs from shyness.

_Baron._--Give him the Baron's compliments, who begs
To this poor hall he'll stir his princely pegs.

[C. _Exit_ RODOLOPH, _bowing_.

(_To musicians._) Now change your costumes, quick as you are
able,
And be in readiness to wait at table;
Here are the pantry keys, (_throws them up_,) and there the
cellar's.
Now, try and look _distingue_--that's good fellows.

[L. _Exeunt musicians._

_Baroness._--What will the Browns say when this visit's told of?
'Tis a new era for the house of Soldoff!

QUARTETTE.--The BARON, BARONESS, CINDERELLA, and PATCHOULIA.
AIR.--'_The Campbells are coming._'

The Prince is a-coming, oh dear, oh dear,
The prince is a-coming, oh dear!
The Prince is a-coming, with piping and drumming,
The Prince is a-coming, oh dear, oh dear!

[C. _A grand march. Some hunters appear marching in at the
door, when_ CAPILLAIRE, _in the ducal cap, puts his head in
at the entrance and shouts._

_Capil._--Hold hard! (_music and procession stop._) Come back, you
muffs, that's not correct,
You're spoiling a magnificent effect.
Down those two staircases you've got to go'
A la 'The Daughter of St Mark,' you know.

[C. _They retire._

_Baron._--That was the Prince who show'd his face just now.

_Baroness._--What a fine voice!

_Ronde._--What eyes!

_Patch._--And what a brow!

_Cin._--(_aside._) To my mind, as a casual spectator,
If that's the Prince, he's very like a waiter.

[_March begins again. A grand procession enters the gallery, and deploying in the centre, proceeds down the two staircases simultaneously. Pages with hawks on their wrists. Hunters with dead game, deer, herons, wild-ducks, &c. Men-at-Arms. Banners with the Prince's Arms, &c. Ladies and Cavaliers. Flowergirls strewing flowers._ RODOLPE _with wand._ CAPILLAIRE _as the Prince. His train held up by two diminutive pages._

_Capil._--(_as soon as he reaches the stage, advancing to the front is almost tripped up by the pages mismanaging his train. He turns round sharply._)

If you do that again, you'll get a whipping;
It won't do for a Duke to be caught tripping.
Let our train go. [_Some of the procession are moving off._ R.
What are you at? Dear, dear!
We don't mean that train there, but this train here.

(_Pointing to the train of his robe, the pages leave their hold of it._)

_Baron._--This princely visit is a condescension--

_Capil._--Now don't--

_Baroness._--(_curtsies_) A grace to which we've no pretension,

_Capil._--Bless me!

_Patch._--(_curtseying_) An honour not to be believed.

_Capil._--Oh, Lord!

_Patch._--(_curtseying_) A favour thankfully received.

_Baron._--(_bowing again_) This princely visit--

_Capil._--(_impatiently_) You've said that before.
Gammon! We know we're a tremendous bore.
We're a plain man, and don't like all this fuss;
Accept our game, but don't make game of us.
(_Looking about him._)

Well, Baron, these are comfortable quarters,

(_Examining Rondeletia and Patchoulia._)

And you hang out two very 'plummy' daughters.

_Ronde._--What wit!

_Patch._--What humour!

_Cin._--(_aside_) And what language--'plummy!'

_Capil._--We like your wife, too. Tho' not young she's 'crummy.'

_Cin._--(_aside_) And 'crummy,' too. Well, these are odd words, very!
I'm sure they're not in Johnson's Dictionary.

(_Attendant throws open door._ L.)

_Atten._--Wittles is on the table.

_Baron._--(_interrupting him_) Hush, you lout.
He means, you grace, the banquet waits without.
If at our humble board you'll deign to sit?

_Capil._--Oh, I'm not proud. I'll peck a little bit.

_Baron._--For your attendants--

_Capil._--Don't mind them at all.
Stick the low fellows in the servants' hall.
_Baron._--(_presenting the Baroness for Capillaire to take to dinner._)
My wife.

_Capil._--No, no, old chap, you take the mother.
Young 'uns for me (_takes Patchoulia under one arm._)
Here's one, (_takes Rondeletia,_)
And here's another.

[_As they are going out_ ( L.) _the_ PRINCE, _forgetting
himself, passes before_ CAPILLAIRE.

Capil.--Halloa! where are you shoving to, you scrub?
Now for pot-luck, and woe betide the grub."

Match me that, Bogle, if you can! There is wit, genius, and polish for you! No wonder that the "School for Scandal" has been driven off the field. But we must positively indulge ourselves with a love scene, were it merely to qualify the convulsions into which we have been thrown by the humour of these funny fellows. Mark, learn, and understand how ladies are to be wooed and won--

"[(_Enter_ PRINCE RODOLPH.) L.

_Rodo._--How's this--what, tears!--Enough to float a frigate!

_Patch._--Sir!

_Ronde._--Sir!

_Rodo._--Oh, it's the valet they look big at!
Come, what's the row?--peace-maker's my capacity.

_Ronde._--Low wretch!

_Patch._--I shudder, man, at your audacity!
How dare you interfere 'twixt your superiors?

_Rodo._--'Twas pity!

_Ronde._--Gracious! pity from inferiors!

_Rodo._--Nay, dry your eyes, your quarrel's cause I've found,
(_sings_) Oh, 'tis love, 'tis love,
'tis love that makes the world go round
The Prince is a sad dog, he'll pop away,
And bag you ten and twenty hearts a-day;
Knocks ladies down like nine-pins, with a look,
And worst of all can not be brought to book.
He sha'n't dim those eyes long, my darlings, shall he?

_Patch._--_Why, you mad flunky!_

_Ronde._--Why, you maniac valet!

_Patch._--Why, you impertinent piece of pretension!

_Ronde._--To call him man would be a condescension.
A valet, paugh! (_going._)

_Prince._--A clear case of cold shoulder.

_Patch._--We'll have you trounced, e'er you're a minute older!

[_Exeunt_ RONDELETIA _and_ PATCHOULIA. ( R.)

_Prince_--(R.) But listen, for a moment. No, they're gone,
Well, this is Cocker's old rule, 'set down one.'
I had no notion, while I was genteel,
How very small indeed a man may feel.
I've made what Capillaire calls a 'diskivery.'
I wonder what's my value out of livery!
But here comes humble little Cinderella ( R.);
I feel I love her--let's see, shall I tell her?

[_Enter_ CINDERELLA.

_Cin._--I've taken up the coffee, not too soon,
And made all tidy for the afternoon.
I think--

_Prince_--What do you think, you little gipsy?

_Cin._--I think the Prince and Pa are getting tipsy.

_Prince_--Well, darling, here I am again you see.

_Cin._--You don't mean you were waiting here for me?

_Prince_--Yes, but I was though; and can't you guess why?

_Cin._--You thought that I popp'd out upon the sly?

_Prince_--I have a secret for you--I'm in love!

_Cin._--(_dolefully_) Who with?

_Prince._--With you--fact! There's my hand and glove--
Do you return my passion and forgive me?

_Cin._--I never do return what people give me.

_Prince._--Then keep my heart!

_Cin._--Mine kicks up such a bobbery,
I'll give it you; exchange, you know, 's no robbery.

_Prince_--We'll wed next week--a house I'll see about.

_Cin._--I'd go with you--but I've no Sunday out."

Beaumont and Fletcher, did I say? Rather Ovid and Tibullus. What a beautiful picture of innocence is conveyed in that suggestive line--

"You thought that I popp'd out upon the sly!"

It is too natural for fiction. It must be a reminiscence of departed bliss--a sigh wafted from the street-door of a furnished lodging-house in Bloomsbury, when our authors plied the bistoury at Guy's. Bogle, if you ever should be in love, take a lesson from these great masters, and your suit is sure to prosper. Not a serving-maid in the Saltmarket but must yield to such fervid and impassioned eloquence.

Talking of songs, I shall just give you the interesting ditty with which this excellent extravaganza concludes. There is fine moral in it, which will do well to lay to heart.

"CINDERELLA _sings_.
When lords shall fall before my throne,
And dare not call their souls their own
On my slippery path, lest I should fall,
I'll think on the COAL-HOLE, and sing so small--
With my slipper so fine.
Tra-la, Tra-la!

GORGEOUS TABLEAU.

[_Curtain falls._"

Yes! there can be little doubt that, after all the Coal-hole _is_ their genuine Aganippe.

Would you like to have a slight specimen of Planche, by way of change? It is not fair to give an entire monopoly to Messrs Taylor and Smith, however eminent their deserts, so let us dedicate a moment to the substitute for Shakespeare. From six fairy dramas, composed by the Witty Wizard, I shall select "Graciosa and Percinet." A very short sample will, I opine, convince you that his popularity is as deserved as it assuredly is extensive. Hasten we, then, to the glorious tournament of the Cockneys.

"_Enter_ (C.) _the_ KING, _Heralds, Nobles, and Ladies of the
Court, the Six Knights, viz._:--SIR REGENT CIRCUS, _Knight of the
Bull and Mouth;_ SIR LAD LANE, _Knight of the Swan with Two Necks;_
SIR SNOW HILL, _Knight of the Saracen's Head;_ SIR LUDGATE HILL,
_Knight of the Belle Sauvage;_ SIR FLEET STREET, _Knight of the
Bolt-in-Tun; and_ SIR CHARING CROSS, _Knight of the Golden Cross._

CHORUS

('_To the Gay Tournament._')

To the gay tournament
The Queen of Beauty goes;
He shall gain a prize from her
Who most his courage shows--
Singing, singing, 'Though others fair may be,
Nobody, nobody, can be compare to thee!'

_Grog._--Soon will the conqueror,
With trophy and with wreath,
Kneel on his bended knee
My throne low beneath--
Singing, singing, 'Though others fair may be,
Nobody, nobody can be compared with me.'

_King, Lord Nimroddy, and Graciosa,_ (_aside,_)

Bold must the champion be
Who can that boast maintain;
He, for audacity,
The prize must surely gain.
Swinging, hanging on the highest tree,
For such a lie, such a lie, he deserves to be.

_Cho._--To the gay tournament, &c. [_Exeunt._ (R.)

SCENE IV. TILT-YARD OF THE PALACE. _The Lists set out for a Tournament. Throne for the_ QUEEN OF BEAUTY; _another for the_ KING; _a Chair of State for the_ PRINCESS. _Pavilions of the Knights-Challengers, &c._

GROGNON, KING, GRACIOSA, _Knights, Courtiers, Guards, Heralds, &c.,
discovered_.

_Herald._--O yes! O yes! O yes! take notice, pray,
Here are six noble knights, in arms to-day;
Who swear, that never yet was lady seen
So lovely as our new-elected Queen!
Against all comers they will prove 'tis so.
Oh yes! oh yes! oh yes!

_Enter_ PERCINET ( L.) _in Green Armour._

_Per._--I say, oh no!

_Grog._--Who's this Jack in the green?

_Gra._ [_aside_] Sure, _I_ know who!

_King._--Do you know what you say?

_Per._--And mean it, too!

_King._--How! come to court, and say just what you mean!
You're a Green Knight, indeed!

_Per._--Sir Turnham Green!
Of Brentford's royal house a princely scion,
Knight of its ancient order, the Red Lion;
Baron of Hammersmith, a Count of Kew,
Marquis of Kensington, and Lord knows who.
But all these titles willingly I waive
For one more dear--Fair Graciosa's slave!
I'll prove it, on the crest of great or small,
She's Beauty's Queen, who holds my heart in thrall,
And Grognon is a foul and ugly witch!

_King._--If you're a gentleman, behave as _sich_!

_Per._--Come one, come all! here, I throw down my gage!

_King._--A green gage, seemingly!

_Grog._--I choke with rage!
To arms! my knights!

[_The Knights enter their Pavilions._

_Gra._--I'll bet a crown he mills 'em!

_King._--Laissez Aller! That's go it, if it kills 'em!"

I have no patience for such pitiful slaver! And yet this is the sort of trash which half London is flocking nightly to see, and for which the glorious English drama has been discarded and disdained!

I lay down my pen in utter weariness of the flesh. The jingle of that last jargon is still ringing in my ears; and in order to get rid of it--for if I do not speedily, I am booked as a Bauldie for life--I shall step down to Astley's, and refresh my British feelings by beholding Mr Gomersal overthrown (for the twentieth time this season) upon the field of Waterloo.

PRIESTS, WOMEN, AND FAMILIES.

This remarkable book contains a denunciation, by an angry and an able man, of some of the most pressing practical evils of the Roman Catholic system. The celibacy of the priesthood, the mysteries of the confessional, the usurpations of priestly direction in the economy of families, in the control of women, and in the education of children--these are the objects against which the historian of France now directs the arrows of his indignation, and which he seeks to drive from among his countrymen by his earnest and energetic attacks. His hostility has probably been prompted, in part, by the strong feelings of jealousy at present existing in France between the Universities and the Church. But his work is not professedly, nor principally, directed to that subject of controversy. It embraces a larger question, affecting the various relations of private life, and not confined to one form or phasis of fanaticism. It deserves the anxious consideration of all who are interested in the progress of European civilization, and may teach a valuable lesson to many who may, at first sight, seem to be far removed from the mischief which it seeks to remedy.

For centuries past, it may be said, that the great disease of France has been the disorder in its domestic relations. That amidst the general surrender of its upper classes in former times to levity, "and something more," there were many exceptions of family happiness and purity, is as certain as that human nature, in its worst state of depravity, will ever assert its better tendencies, and give indications of the ethereal source from which it has sprung. But, that the prevailing tone of those who ought to have given the tone to others, was long of the most lax or licentious character, admits of little doubt; nor is it wonderful that public corruption and anarchy should have followed fast upon the dissolution of private restraints. The same form of the evil may not now exist; but the book before us exhibits proofs that there is still a want of that harmony in conjugal life that is essential as the foundation of solid virtue and social prosperity. The husband and the wife are still separated from each other; not, it may be, by a lover, but by a priest. There is the same want of sympathy as ever, the same mutual alienation of hearts, the same absence of that kindly agency of mind on mind, which is needed to strengthen the intellect of the woman and to purify the spirit of the man. It is this state of things that has roused the energies of a writer not remarkable for his prejudices against the Catholic church in her earlier constitution, but who thinks he sees her now at his own door, undermining household authority, and stealing from every man the affections of those who are united to him by the tenderest ties, and whom he cannot cease to love, even when his love has ceased to be returned.

Michelet's book is divided into three parts. The first treats of "Direction," or spiritual superintendence in the seventeenth century; containing a historical view of clerical influence during that period; and more particularly of the policy and power of the Jesuits. The second discusses the character of "Direction" in general, and particularly in the nineteenth century. The third is specially devoted to the subject "Of the Family," and winds up the work, by showing the operation of the poison in the most vital part of the frame.

The preface to the first edition contains powerful passages. We extract some of the best of them from the English translation by Mr Cocks, which is sufficiently respectable for our present purpose.

"The question is about our family:--that sacred asylum in which we
all desire to seek the repose of the heart, when our endeavours
have proved fruitless, and our illusions are no more. We return
exhausted to the domestic hearth; but do we find there the repose
we sigh for?

"Let us not dissemble, but acknowledge to ourselves how things are:
there is in our family a sad difference of sentiment, and the most
serious of all.

"We may speak to our mothers, wives, and daughters, on any of the
subjects which form the topics of our conversation with indifferent
persons, such as business or the news of the day, but never on
subjects that affect the heart and moral life, such as eternity,
religion, the soul, and God.

"Choose, for instance, the moment when we naturally feel disposed
to meditate with our family in common thought, some quiet evening
at the family-table; venture even there, in your own house, at your
own fireside, to say one word about these things; your mother sadly
shakes her head, your wife contradicts you, your daughter, by her
very silence, shows her disapprobation. They are on one side of the
table, and you on the other--and alone.

"One would think that in the midst of them, and opposite you, was
seated an invisible personage to contradict _whatever you may say_.

"But how can we be astonished at this state of our family? Our
wives and daughters are brought up and governed by _our enemies!_

* * * * *

"_Our enemies_, I repeat it, in a more direct sense, as they are
naturally envious of marriage and family life. This, I know full
well, is rather their misfortune than their fault. An old lifeless
system, of mechanical functions, can want but lifeless partisans.
Nature, however, reclaims her rights: they feel painfully that
family is denied them, and they console themselves _only by
troubling ours_.

* * * * *