Chapter XVII (1)

Left to myself in the earlier part of the day, I wandered, wistful and lonely, through the vast wilderness of London. By degrees I familiarised myself with that populous solitude. I ceased to pine for the green fields. That active energy all around, at first saddening, became soon exhilarating, and at last contagious. To an industrious mind nothing is so catching as industry! I began to grow weary of my golden holiday of unlaborious childhood, to sigh for toil, to look around me for a career. The University, which I had before anticipated with pleasure, seemed now to fade into a dull monastic prospect: after having trod the streets of London, to wander through cloisters was to go back in life. Day by day, my mind grew sensibly within me; it came out from the rosy twilight of boyhood--it felt the doom of Cain, under the broad sun of man.

Uncle Jack soon became absorbed in his new speculation for the good of the human race, and, except at meals, (whereat, to do him justice, he was punctual enough, though he did not keep us in ignorance of the sacrifices he made, and the invitations he refused, for our sake,) we seldom saw him. The Captain, too, generally vanished after breakfast; seldom dined with us; and it was often late before he returned. He had the latch-key of the house, and let himself in when he pleased. Sometimes (for his chamber was next to mine) his step on the stairs awoke me; and sometimes I heard him pace his room with perturbed strides, or fancied that I caught a low groan. He became every day more care-worn in appearance, and every day the hair seemed more gray. Yet he talked to us all easily and cheerfully; and I thought that I was the only one in the house who perceived the gnawing pangs over which the stout old Spartan drew the decorous cloak.

Pity, blended with admiration, made me curious to learn how these absent days, that brought nights so disturbed, were consumed. I felt that if I could master his secret, I might win the right both to comfort and to aid.

I resolved at length, after many conscientious scruples, to endeavour to satisfy a curiosity, excused by its motives.

Accordingly, one morning, after watching him from the house, I stole in his track, and followed him at a distance.

And this was the outline of his day. He set off at first with a firm stride, despite his lameness--his gaunt figure erect, the soldierly chest well thrown out from the threadbare but speckless coat. First, he took his way towards the purlieus of Leicester Square; several times, to and fro, did he pace the isthmus that leads from Piccadilly into that reservoir of foreigners, and the lanes and courts that start thence towards St Martin's. After an hour or two so passed, the step became more slow; and often the sleek napless hat was lifted up, and the brow wiped. At length he bent his way towards the two great theatres, paused before the play-bills, as if deliberating seriously on the chances of entertainment they severally proffered, wandered slowly through the small streets that surround those temples of the muse, and finally emerged into the Strand. There he rested himself for an hour at a small cook-shop; and, as I passed the window, and glanced within, I could see him seated before the simple dinner, which he scarcely touched, and poring over the advertisement columns of the _Times_. The _Times_ finished, and a few morsels distastefully swallowed, the Captain put down his shilling in silence, received his pence in exchange, and I had just time to slip aside as he reappeared at the threshold. He looked round as he lingered, but I took care he should not detect me; and then struck off towards the more fashionable quarters of the town. It was now the afternoon, and, though not yet the season, the streets swarmed with life. As he came into Waterloo Place, a slight figure buttoned up across the breast, like his own, cantered by on a handsome bay horse--every eye was on that figure. Uncle Roland stopped short, and lifted his hand to his hat; the rider touched his own with his fore-finger, and cantered on,--Uncle Roland turned round and gazed.

"Who," I asked, of a shop-boy just before me, who was also staring with all his eyes--"who is that gentleman on horseback?"

"Why, the Duke, to be sure," said the boy, contemptuously.

"The Duke?"

"Wellington--stu-pid!"

"Thank you," said I meekly. Uncle Roland had moved on into Regent Street, but with a brisker step: the sight of the old chief had done the old soldier good. Here again he paced to and fro; till I, watching him from the other side the way, was ready to drop with fatigue, stout walker though I was. But the Captain's day was not half done. He took out his watch, put it to his ear, and then, replacing it, passed into Bond Street, and thence into Hyde Park. There, evidently wearied out, he leant against the rails, near the bronze statue, in an attitude that spoke despondency. I seated myself on the grass near the statue and gazed at him: the park was empty compared with the streets, but still there were some equestrian idlers and many foot-loungers. My uncle's eye turned wistfully on each: once or twice, some gentleman of a military aspect (which I had already learned to detect) stopped, looked at him, approached and spoke; but the Captain seemed as if ashamed of such greetings. He answered shortly, and turned again.

The day waned--evening came on--the Captain again looked at his watch--shook his head, and made his way to a bench, where he sat perfectly motionless; his hat over his brows, his arms folded; till uprose the moon. I had tasted nothing since breakfast; I was famished, but I still kept my post like an old Roman sentinel.

At length the Captain rose, and re-entered Piccadilly; but how different his mien and bearing! languid, stooping, his chest sunk--his head inclined--his limbs dragging one after the other, his lameness painfully perceptible. What a contrast in the broken invalid at night, from the stalwart veteran of the morning!

How I longed to spring forward to offer my arm! but I did not dare.

The Captain stopped near a cab-stand. He put his hand in his pocket--he drew out his purse--he passed his fingers over the net-work; the purse slipped again into the pocket, and as if with a heroic effort, my uncle drew up his head, and walked on sturdily.

'Where next?' thought I. 'Surely home! No, he is pitiless.'

The Captain stopped not till he arrived at one of the small theatres in the Strand; then he read the bill, and asked if half-price was begun. "Just begun," was the answer, and the Captain entered. I also took a ticket and followed. Passing by the open doors of a refreshment room, I fortified myself with some biscuits and soda water. And in another minute, for the first time in my life I beheld a play. But the play did not fascinate me. It was the middle of some jocular after-piece, roars of laughter resounded round me. I could detect nothing to laugh at, and sending my keen eyes into every corner, I perceived at last, in the uppermost tier, one face as saturnine as my own. _Eureka!_ It was the Captain's! 'Why should he go to a play if he enjoys it so little?' thought I: 'better have spent a shilling on a cab, poor old fellow!'

But soon came smart-looking men, and still smarter-looking ladies, around the solitary corner of the poor Captain. He grew fidgety--he rose--he vanished. I left my place, and stood without the box to watch for him. Down stairs he stumped--I recoiled into the shade; and after standing a moment or two, as in doubt, he entered boldly the refreshment room, or saloon.

Now, since I had left that saloon, it had become crowded, and I slipped in unobserved. Strange was it, grotesque, yet pathetic, to mark the old soldier in the midst of that gay swarm. He towered above all like a Homeric hero, a head taller than the tallest; and his appearance was so remarkable, that it invited the instant attention of the fair. I, in my simplicity, thought it was the natural tenderness of that amiable and penetrating sex, ever quick to detect trouble, and anxious to relieve it, that induced three ladies, in silk attire--one having a hat and plume, the other two with a profusion of ringlets--to leave a little knot of gentlemen with whom they were conversing, and to plant themselves before my uncle. I advanced through the press to hear what passed.

"You are looking for some one, I'm sure," quoth one familiarly, tapping his arm with her fan.

The Captain started. "Ma'am, you are not wrong," said he.

"Can I do as well?" said one of those compassionate angels, with heavenly sweetness.

"You are very kind, I thank you: no, no, Ma'am," said the Captain, with his best bow.

"Do take a glass of negus," said another, as her friend gave way to her. "You seem tired, and so am I. Here, this way;" and she took hold of his arm to lead him to the table. The Captain shook his head mournfully; and then, as if become suddenly aware of the nature of the attention so lavished on him, he looked down upon these fair Armidas with a look of such mild reproach--such sweet compassion--not shaking off the hand in his chivalrous devotion to the sex, which extended even to all its outcasts--that each bold eye fell abashed. The hand was timidly and involuntarily withdrawn from the arm, and my uncle passed his way.

He threaded the crowd, passed out at the farther door, and I, guessing his intention, was in waiting for his steps in the street.

"Now home at last, thank heaven!" thought I. Mistaken still! My uncle went first towards that popular haunt, which I have since discovered is called "the Shades;" but he soon re-emerged, and finally he knocked at the door of a private house, in one of the streets out of St James's. It was opened jealously, and closed as he entered, leaving me without. What could this house be? As I stood and watched, some other men approached,--again the low single knock,--again the jealous opening, and the stealthy entrance.

A policeman passed and repassed me. "Don't be tempted, young man," said he, looking hard at me: "take my advice, and go home."

"What is that house, then?" said I, with a sort of shudder at this ominous warning.

"Oh, you know."

"Not I. I am new to London."

"It is a hell," said the policeman--satisfied, by my frank manner, that I spoke the truth.

"God bless me,--a what! I could not have heard you rightly?"

"A hell; a gambling-house!"

"Oh!" and I moved on. Could Captain Roland, the rigid, the thrifty, the penurious, be a gambler? The light broke on me at once; the unhappy father sought his son! I leant against the post, and tried hard not to sob.

By-and-by, I heard the door open: the Captain came out and took the way homeward. I ran on before, and got in first, to the inexpressible relief both of father and mother, who had not seen me since breakfast, and who were in equal consternation at my absence. I submitted to be scolded with a good grace. "I had been sight-seeing, and lost my way;" begged for some supper, and slunk to bed; and five minutes afterwards the Captain's jaded step came wearily up the stairs.

MODERN TOURISM.[15]

[15] _Eastern Life, Past and Present._ By HARRIET MARTINEAU.

The merits of the railroad and the steam-boat have been prodigiously vaunted, and we have no desire to depreciate the advantages of either. No doubt they carry us from town to town with greater rapidity than our fathers ever dreamt of; and instead of the "High-flyer coach, averaging ten miles an hour," whirl us over fifty. No doubt they are convenient for the viator who desires to reach America in a fortnight, or for the Queen's messenger who must be in Paris within the next twelve hours. No doubt they are first-rate inventions for an elopement, a fugitive debtor, or a banished king. But, they have afflicted our generation with one desperate evil; they have covered Europe with Tourists, all pen in hand, all determined not to let a henroost remain undescribed, all portfolioed, all handbooked, all "getting up a Journal," and all pouring their busy nothings on the "reading public," without compassion or conscience, at the beginning of the "season."

That the ignorant should write ignorantly, that professional sight-hunters should go sight-hunting to the ends of the earth, that minds born for nothing but scribbling should scribble to their last drop of ink or blood, can neither surprise nor irritate; but that they should publish, is the crime.

If we are told that this is but a harmless impertinence after all, we reply--No, it does general mischief; it spoils all rational travel; it disgusts all intelligent curiosity; it repels the student, the philosopher, and the manly investigator, from subjects which have been thus trampled into mire by the hoofs of a whole tribe of travelling bipeds, who might rejoice to exchange brains with the animals which they ride.

No sooner does the year shake off its robe of snow, and the sun begin to glimmer again, than the whole tribe are in motion; no matter where, all places are alike to their pens--the North Pole or the Antarctic. One of them thinks America an unexhausted subject, and we find her instantly on board the good ship Columbia, flying in the teeth of wind and tide, to caricature New York. Another puts on her wings for that unknown spot called Vienna; sends in her card to nobles and ministers; caricatures them too; talks of faces which she had never seen, describes fêtes to which she would never have been admitted, and quotes conversations which she never heard. Another takes a sweep of the French coast, and showers us with worn-out romance and modern vapidity, till we are sick of the art of printing, and long for the return of that happy period when the chief occupations of the fair sex were cookery and samplers. To all this, however, there _are_ exceptions; some of the sex, modest, well-informed, and capable of informing others, indulge the world, from time to time, with works which "it would not willingly let die." But our _horror_ is the professional tourist; the woman who runs abroad to forage for publication; reimports her baggage, bursting with a periodical gathering of nonsense; and with a freight of folly, at once empty as air and heavy as lead, discharges the whole at the heads of a suffering people.

Miss Martineau, however, deserves to stand in another category. She is a lively writer; if she seldom enlightens the reader of her pages, she seldom sends him to sleep; she prattles amusingly; and by the help of Wilkinson and Lane for the antique, and her own ear-trumpet and spectacles for the modern, she makes out of an Egyptian ramble a very readable book. And this book is by no means a superfluity; for, excepting Palestine, there is no country on earth which possesses so strong an interest for the Biblical student; or will, within a few years, possess so strong an interest for the whole political world. France, Russia, and Italy, are probably at this moment alike speculating on the changes which threaten Egypt. The death of Mehemet Ali cannot be far off. Ibrahim is sickly. The succession of eastern dynasties is the reverse of regular; and if by any chance war were lighted up at one end of the Mediterranean, it would be sure to burst out at the other. Egypt would be the prize of battle. To England the possession would be of little value; she has colonies enough, and she certainly will not be guilty of the crime of usurpation; but it will be of first-rate importance to her that Egypt shall not fall into the hands of a hostile power; for she cannot suffer her road to India to be barred up. Her natural policy would be to see it restored to the Ottoman. But how long will the Ottoman himself last? A Russian fleet at the mouth of the Bosphorus, with a Russian army encamped on the plains of Adrianople, would settle the occupancy in a week. In the mean time, France keeps up a powerful army in Algeria; and the question is, which would be first in the race for Alexandria? We observe that Ibrahim is building fortifications, and concentrating his strength on the sea-side; and the sagacity of this gallant son of a gallant father must often look to the sands of the Libyan desert, and listen for the sounds of the trumpet from the shores of Cyreniaca.

Miss Martineau is lady-president of the gossip school; and it is one of the especial characters of that school, to think that every trivial occurrence of their lives merits the attention of mankind. She thus informs us of the first _idea_ of her journey.

"In the autumn of 1846, I left home for, as I supposed, a few weeks, to visit some of my family and friends. At Liverpool, I was invited by my friends, Mr and Mrs Richard V. Yates, to accompany them in their proposed travels in the East. At Malta, we fell in with Mr Joseph C. Ewart, who presently joined our party, and remained with us till we reached Malta on our return. There is nothing that I do not owe to my companions for their unceasing care. They permitted me to read to them my Egyptian Journal. There was not time for the others." All this is in the purest style of gossipry. Her first views of Africa belong to the same style. On a "lurid evening in November," she saw a something, which, however, was _not_ the African shore, but an island. At last, however she saw a headland, a sandy shore, a tower; but even this was _not_ Egypt. So she steamed on, until certain signs gave the presumption that Alexandria lay in the distance. She "expected" to have arrived at noon, but was detained until twilight! All those things might have happened to her if she had been sitting in a bathing machine any where between Brighton and Dover,--the Martello supplying the place of the Arab tower, to considerable advantage. She then followed the route of the million, the Cairan canal, Cairo, and the Nile, up to the Cataracts.

She has a picturesque pen, and describes well; her art being to strike off the first impression on her mind, with the first impression on her eye. One of her fellow-travellers had asked her whether she would wish to have the first glimpse of the Pyramids; she made her way through the passengers to the bows of the boat, and there indulged herself with her triumph over the "careless talkers."

"In a minute, I saw them, emerging from behind a sandhill. They were very small, for we were still twenty-five miles from Cairo. But there could be no doubt about them for a moment, so sharp and clear were the light and shadow on the two sides which we saw. I had been assured that I should be disappointed in the first sight of the Pyramids. And I had maintained that I could not be disappointed, as of all the wonders of the world this is the most literal, and to a dweller among mountains, like myself, the least imposing. I now found both my informant and myself mistaken. So far from being disappointed, I was filled with surprise and awe; and so far from having anticipated what I saw, I felt as if I had never before looked on any thing so new, as those clear, vivid masses, with their sharp blue shadows, standing firm and alone in their expanse of sand. In a few minutes they appeared to grow wonderfully larger, and they looked lustrous and most imposing in the evening light. This impression of the Pyramids was never fully renewed. I admired them every evening from my window at Cairo, and I took the surest means of convincing myself of their vastness, by going to the top of the largest; but this first view of them was the most moving, and I cannot think of it now without emotion."

It is remarkable that, after some thousand years of ancient inquiry, and at least a century of keen and even of toilsome research, by modern scholarship, the world knows little more of the Pyramids than it knew, when the priesthood kept all the secrets of Egypt. By whom they were built, for what, or when, have given birth to volumes of researches; but to those questions no answers have been given worth the paper they cost in answering. Whether they were built by Israelite slaves or by Asiatic invaders, for sacrifice or for sepulture, or for both, or for the glory of individual kings, or for the memory of dynasties, or for treasure-houses, or for astronomical purposes, or for the mere employment of the multitude--workhouses having probably found their origin in Egypt--or for the rough ostentation of royal power: all are points undetermined since the travels of Herodotus. But that they must have cost stupendous toil, there is full evidence--the great Pyramid covering thirteen acres; exhibiting a mass of stone equal to _six_ Plymouth break-waters, and rising to a height of 479 feet, or 15 feet higher than St Peter's spire, and 119 higher than St Paul's.

But this style of monstrous building perplexes as much by its general diffusion, as by the magnitude of its several instances. We find it not only in Egypt, where the Pyramids spread for _seventy_ miles along the western shore of the Nile, and once evidently clustered like Arab tents, but in Upper Egypt and Nubia: they are to be found also in Mesopotamia. The Birs Nimrod, (the temple of Belus,) and the Mujelibè, near Babylon, were evidently built on the pyramidal plan, if not actual pyramids. They have been found in India. They have been found even on the other side of the Atlantic; and the largest in the world is the pyramid of Cholula, in Mexico, covering an area of more than forty-seven acres, or above _three_ times the base of the greatest Egyptian pyramid. All the pyramids, in both Asia, Africa, and America, have the sides facing the cardinal points, excepting those of Nubia,--an exception probably arising from the rudeness of the people. In many of those pyramids, remnants of the dead, and bones of the lower animals, have been found; but both may have been placed there for purposes of superstition. The resistance of the pyramidal form to the effects of climate has been surmised as the origin of the choice; but the equatorial countries of the East know little of the weather which, among us, destroys public constructions. It is at least possible, that a form so little adapted to dwelling, or to any of the common uses of life, or even to the direct purposes of sepulture, may have been chosen, from its resemblance to the shape of flame kindled on a large scale. The Egyptians chiefly buried their dead in catacombs. The pyramid was undoubtedly borrowed from the East; and, like the obelisk--also an Eastern memorial, whose general uselessness still perplexes inquiry--may have been an emblem of that worship of fire, which ascends to so remote an antiquity, was the worship of the early East, and was, we are strongly inclined to believe, the general worship of the apostate antediluvian world.

There is no country on earth which more curiously substantiates the saying of the wisest of kings, that "there, is nothing new under the sun," than Egypt. Every art of European life, and even of European luxury, finds its delineation among the tombs; every incident of society, whether serious or trifling, has its record on those subterranean walls; we find every occupation, every enjoyment, every national festivity, and every sport, from the nursery up to the assemblage of the wrestler, the runner, and the dancer, in short, the whole course of public and private existence, three thousand years ago, is revealed and revived for the intelligence and admiration of the nineteenth century of the Christian era. Why those miscellanies of life should be in tombs, where they must have been shut up from the living eye--why such labour of delineation, why such incongruity of subject to the place, why such cost lavished on designs in the grave, are all problems, which must remain beyond human answer, but which render Egypt the most interesting of all dead nations to the living world. Are those wonders, those intimations of greater wonders, those achievements of the arts, fully explored? Certainly not. We quite agree with Miss Martineau, that the most fortunate boon for Europe would be some mighty van or ventilator, which will blow away all the sands of Egypt. What a scene would then be opened!

"One statue and sarcophagus, brought from Memphis, was buried 130 feet below the surface. Who knows but that the greater part of old Memphis, and of other glorious cities, lies almost unharmed beneath the sand? Who can say what armies of sphinxes might start up on the banks of the river, or come forth from the hill-sides of the interior, when the cloud of sand had been wafted away? The ruins which we now go to study might then occupy only eminences, while below might be miles of colonnade, temples intact, and gods and goddesses safe in their sanctuaries!"

If this is the language of enthusiasm, there can be no question that barbarism and time have covered a large portion of the old glories of Egypt from the eye of man; and that, while what remains for the view of the traveller is mutilated and worn away, the much finer portion may be reserved for the triumph of the investigator spade in hand.

One of the best features of the book is the dexterity with which those tomb-pictures are interpreted by Miss Martineau's narrative. Every one knows, that the majority of those pictures, though often brilliantly coloured, exhibit nothing but isolated or ill-placed figures, of the rudest outline, and the most ungainly attitudes. They have a meaning; yet to ascertain that meaning, and combine their action, demands considerable imaginative skill. We have a clever instance of this art in the description of one of the tombs.

The writer sees, in one compartment, the master of a family. He is evidently opulent--a man of large possessions--a landlord; he has his people round him--ploughing, sowing, harrowing, reaping, thrashing, winnowing.

But the landlord is also a sportsman; he has round him game, geese, and fish. He is also a man of luxury; he has a barge on the river, and a pavilion built upon it. He is also a man of hospitality; there is a banquet, with the master and his wife in a great chair; every lady has a flower in her hand; a monkey is tied to the host's chair; and there are musicians with a harp and the double pipe. But there is also a final scene; the host dies, the banquets are no more, his _mummy_ is in the consecrated boat, which is to carry him over the river of death, and which deposits him in the land unknown.

All this is ingenious and probable, and if Miss Martineau had confined herself to the picturesque, had sported her fancies in Egypt alone, and never ventured beyond the Red Sea, we might close the book, giving it all the praise due to an original and lively narrative. But when she plays the theologian, we must stop, as we wish that she had done.

On leaving Egypt, her party turn their faces towards the Wilderness; and here the pen of the rash writer rambles away into lucubrations, neither consistent with the facts of history, nor suitable to the feelings of the scene. She begins by manufacturing a romance for Moses. She first tells us that he was "of the priestly _caste_," a matter rendered utterly improbable by the declaration of Scripture, that "by _faith_, when he was come to years, he refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter, choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God." She then proceeds to tell us a great many things, of which Moses has told us nothing: for example, that in the desert, which she regards as a place peculiarly "fruitful of meditation," (we doubt whether it produces much of this fruit among the Bedouins,) Moses and "_Mahomet after him_" (valuable companionship!) learned from the Past how to prophesy of the future.

"There," says Miss Martineau, "as Moses sat under the shrubby palm, and its moist rock, did the Past come at the call of his instructed memory, and tell him how those mighty Egyptians had been slaves, as his Hebrew brethren now were," &c., and came to the conclusion (by no means an unnatural one in any case of slavery,) "that the Hebrews must be _removed_ and educated, before they could be established." We then arrive at the confidential part of the story.

"In following up this course of speculation, he was led to perceive a _mighty truth_, which appears to have been known to no man before him,--the truth that all ideas are the common heritage of all men. (!)... As the images crossed him in his solitude, of the religious feasts of the Egyptians, the gross brute-worship into which they had sunk, &c., he conceived the brave purpose, the noblest enterprise, I believe, on record, of admitting every one of Jehovah's people to the fullest possible knowledge of them."

Of all these meditations not an iota is mentioned in the Scriptures. The story, however, goes on: Moses decided that the people must be removed. It does not tell us _how_. But it was done. Three millions of slaves were torn from the grasp of a king, at the head of an army of six hundred chariots and horsemen. But the grand difficulty arose--if they must be educated, where was to be the national school? who to be their tutors? Moses _meditated_ again, and the difficulty vanished. He had known the Arabs of the Wilderness long. Miss Martineau tells us that he knew their honour, their virtues, their "_comparative_ piety!" &c., &c.; and he determined to make them the teachers of his Egyptianised people. In this fortunate expedient, she forgot, and probably did not know, that those sons of desert simplicity, hospitality, piety, and so forth, were the Amalekites, one of the most ferocious tribes of earth, the savage borderers of Sinai; who no sooner saw the advance of the Israelites than, instead of teaching them the "virtues," they made a desperate _foray_ on them, and would have butchered the whole population if they had not been beaten by a miracle.

We are also entirely left in the dark, in this theory, as to the means by which the nation were subsisted for forty years in the Wilderness, where the thousandth part of their number could never since have subsisted for as many days; how they swept before their undisciplined crowd the armies of Palestine, stormed their fortresses, and took possession of their land; how they acquired the most perfect system of legislation in the ancient world; how they formed a religion unrivalled in purity, truth, and sanctity; how they conceived a ceremonial which was almost wholly a prophecy, the revelation of a mightier than Moses to come, the pledge of a more comprehensive religion, and the dawn of that triumph of truth over falsehood, which was to be the hope, the consolation, and ultimately the glory of mankind.

Need we remind the Christian, that the Scriptures account for all those mighty things by the power and the mercy of the God of Israel alone; that Moses was simply an instrument in the hand of Providence; that so far from meditating in the desert, plans of Jewish liberation, he was even a reluctant instrument. Every part of his character and condition repelled the very idea of his acting from himself. He was eighty years old; he had been forty years without seeing the face of his countrymen; his bold spirit had been so much changed by time, as to render him the "meekest" of men; and even when the miracle of the Divine presence was before him, he pleaded his unfitness for the task, and at length yielded only to the repeated command of Jehovah.

Willingly acquitting the writer of these volumes of all evil intention, we regret that she should have touched on Palestine at all. Whatever weakness there may be in her lucubrations on Moses, it is fully matched by her lucubrations on what she calls "Bibliolatry." But we shall not follow her rambles through subjects on which no mind ought to look but with a sense of the narrowness of human faculties, and with an humble and necessary solicitation for that loftier enlightenment which is given only to the humble heart. The knowledge of Scripture is to be attained only by the sincere search after truth, by natural homage in the presence of Infinite Wisdom, and by the intelligent exertion of mind, and the faithful gratitude, which alike rejoice in obeying the revealed will of Heaven.

EIGHTEEN HUNDRED AND TWELVE.

A RETROSPECTIVE REVIEW.

In the spring of the year 1815, a youth of sixteen, Lewis Rellstab by name, whom death had recently deprived of his father, left the Berlin academy, where he was pursuing, with much success, the study of music, to enter the Prussian army as a volunteer. Napoleon's return from Elba had just called Germany to arms; and the rising generation, emulous of their elder brethren, whose scars and decorations recalled the glorious campaign of 1813, flocked to the Prussian banner. But young Rellstab's moral courage and patriotic zeal exceeded his physical capabilities. Recruiting officers shook their heads at his delicate frame, and inspecting surgeons refused to pass him as able-bodied. Rejected, he still persevered, entered a military school, and in due time became officer of artillery. Leaving the service in 1821, he fixed himself at Berlin, and applied diligently to literary pursuits. He was already known as the author of songs of fair average merit, some of which are popular in Germany to the present day; but now he took up literature as a profession, stimulated to industry by loss of fortune in an unlucky speculation. Of great perseverance and active mind, he essayed his talents in various departments of the belles-lettres, in journalism, polemics, and criticism. As a musical critic, he ranks amongst the best. One of his early works, a satirical tale entitled, "Henrietta, or the Beautiful Singer," was disapproved by the authorities, and procured him several months' imprisonment in the fortress of Spandau. At a later period, his systematic and incessant opposition to Spontini the composer, from whose appointment as director of the Berlin opera he foretold the ruin of the German school of music, procured him other six weeks of similar punishment. He has managed several newspapers in succession, and, in the intervals of his editorial labours, has produced a number of tales and novels, three sketchy volumes entitled "Paris and Algiers," and a tragedy called "Eugene Aram." Simultaneously with these various occupations, he has found time to form some excellent singers for the German stage, and to advocate, with unwearying and successful zeal, the adoption of railroads in Germany. With such accumulated avocations, it is not surprising if his writings sometimes exhibit that lengthiness and verbal superfluity, the usual consequence of hurried composition and imperfect revision. Some of his best-conceived and most original tales lose power from prolixity: his good materials, too, often lack arrangement, and are encumbered with inferior matter. Still, he is one of the few living German novelists whose works rise high above the present dull, stagnant level of the light literature of his country. It is not now our intention minutely to analyse Mr Rellstab's general literary abilities, or to criticise the twenty compendious volumes forming the latest edition of his complete works. We propose confining ourselves to one novel, which we consider his masterpiece, as it also is his longest and most important work, and the one most popular in Germany. Notwithstanding the faults we have glanced at, we hold "1812" the best novel of its class that for a long time has appeared in the German language. Its historical and military chapters would, by their fidelity and spirit, give it high rank in whatever tongue it had been written. And the blemishes observable in its more imaginative and romantic portions are chargeable less upon the author than upon the foibles of the school and country to which he belongs.

It is a strong argument, were any needed, in favour of the superiority of the English literature of the day over that of Germany, that twenty English novels are translated into German for every German one that appears in English. To say nothing of high class books which are dished up in the Deutsch with incredible rapidity, (of Mr Warren's last work, three translations appeared within a few days after it was possible the original could have reached Germany,) all our more prolific and popular English novelists receive the honours of Germanisation. Not a catalogue of a German library or bookseller but exhibits the names of Messrs Marryat, Dickens, James, Ainsworth, Lever, &c., occupying the high places--exalted at the tops of columns, in all the glory of Roman capitals; and truly not without reason, when compared with most of the gentry that succeed and precede them. Their works appear in every possible form,--detached, in "complete editions," in "choice collections of foreign literature," even in monthly parts, when so published in England. Authors who have written less, or anonymously, or who are less known, must often be content to forego the immortalisation of a Leipsic catalogue, although their books will not the less be found there, sometimes with the bare notification that they are from English sources; at others, unceremoniously appropriated by the translator as results of his own unaided genius. Equal liberties are taken with the romantic literature of France and Sweden. Very different is the state of things in England. A translation from the German, unless it be of a short tale in a periodical, is a thing almost unknown--certainly of rare occurrence. Miss Bremer's poultry-yard romances, and Christian Andersen's novels, reached us through a German medium, but are originally Scandinavian. The only other recent translations of novels, in amount and volume worth the naming, are those from the French of Sue, Dumas, and Co., amusing gentlemen enough; but the circulation of whose works had, perhaps, just as well been confined to those capable of reading them in the original. The German literature of the last twenty years has yielded little to the English translator, or rather has been little made use of; for, without entertaining a very exalted opinion of its value and merit, it were absurd to suppose that some good things might not be selected from the hundreds of novels, tales, and romances, that each successive year brings forth in a country where any man who can hold a pen, and is acquainted with orthography, deems himself qualified for an author, and where an astonishingly large proportion of the population act upon this conviction. Mr Rellstab's "1812" is one of the few ears of wheat worthy of extraction from the wilderness of tares and stubble. Its great length, which might, however, have been advantageously curtailed, has, perhaps, proved an obstacle to its translation. Moreover, it is but partially known, even amongst the very limited number of English persons (chiefly ladies) addicted to German reading. Of one thing we are convinced,--that a book of equal merit appearing in England is certain of prompt and reiterated reproduction in Germany; not only in the language of that country, but in those piratical reprints which give in an eighteen-penny duodecimo the contents of three half-guinea post-octavos.

It is quite natural that Mr Rellstab, whose youthful predilections were so strongly military, who himself wore the uniform during his first six years of manhood, and who was contemporary, at the age when impressions are strongest, of the gigantic wars waged by Napoleon in Spain, Germany, and Russia, should recall with peculiar pleasure, at a later period of his life, the martial deeds with which in his boyhood all men's mouths were filled; that he should select them as a subject for his pen, dwell willingly upon their details, and bestow the utmost pains upon their illustration. His original plan of an historical romance was far more comprehensive than the one to which he finally adhered. He proposed employing as a stage for his actors all the European countries then the theatre of war. This bold plan gave great scope for contrast, allowing him to exhibit his personages, chiefly military men, engaged alternately with the Cossack and the Guerilla--alternately broiling under the sun of Castile, and frozen in Muscovy's snows. But the project was more easily formed than executed; and Mr Rellstab soon found (to use his own words) that he had taken Hercules' club for a plaything. The mass was too ponderous to wield; to interweave the entire military history of so busy a period with the plot of a romance, entailed an army of characters and a series of complications difficult to manage; and that might have ended by wearying the reader. Convinced that his design was too ambitious, he reduced it; limiting himself to the Russian campaign--itself no trifle to grapple with. This plan he successfully carried out. He had hoped to do so, he says, in three volumes, but was compelled to extend his limits, and fill four. The necessity is not obvious. In our opinion, "1812" would gain by compression (especially of the first half) within the limits originally proposed. Although some well-drawn and well-sustained characters are early introduced, and although the reader obtains, in the very first chapter, a mystery to ruminate, whilst of incident there is certainly an abundance, the real fascination of the book resides in the account of the advance to Moscow, of the conflagration of the city, and the subsequent retreat. The great power and truthfulness with which these events are depicted, convey the impression that the writer was an eyewitness of the scenes he so well describes. As this was not the case, we cannot doubt that Mr Rellstab obtained much information from some who made that terrible campaign. He acknowledges his great obligation to Count Segur's remarkable history.

As regards Mr Rellstab's plot, its ingenuity is undeniable, and, in fact, excessive. More ingenious than probable, the coincidences are too numerous and striking; the artist's hand is too visible. The characters are too obliging in their exits and entrances; ever vanishing and reappearing just at the right moment, and meeting each other in the most unexpected and extraordinary manner. It is difficult to lose sight of the wires; the movements of the puppets are manifestly strained for the exhibitor's convenience. One never feels sure who is the hero of the book; the young German most prominent in its earlier portion, and who is intended for the principal character, is a tame youth, and cuts quite a secondary figure in the latter volumes. His friend Bernard, a joyous artist, whom circumstances convert into a private soldier, and his commander the Polish Colonel Rasinski, a worthy comrade of the heroic Poniatowsky, are much more lifelike and interesting. The mysteries of the tale, and the difficulties which of course beset the paths of the various pairs of lovers, are pretty well cleared up and dispelled at the end of the third volume. The fourth, which includes the worst portion of the retreat, is perhaps the most interesting; partly for the very reason that we have got rid of the private entanglements of the principal personages, who are seen grouped together, and, including a lady, struggling against the frightful hardships and dangers of that unparalleled military disaster. It will give an idea of the tangled nature of Mr Rellstab's plot and under-plots (all finally unravelled with considerable cleverness) to state, that in the foremost row stand five gentlemen and three ladies; that each of the ladies is beloved, at one period or other of the story, by at least two of the gentlemen, who, on the other hand, are all five bosom friends, and, in this capacity, make the most magnanimous sacrifices of love to friendship. Manifestly, the only way of getting out of such a fix, is to kill freely, which Mr Rellstab accordingly does, the retreat from Moscow affording him fine opportunities, whereof he unsparingly avails himself. The closing chapter shows us the very numerous _dramatis personæ_ reduced to two happy couples, dwelling, turtle-dove fashion, in a garden near Dresden, and to an elderly Polish lady, on the wing for America. Having thus told the end--a matter of very slight importance to the interest of the book--we will take a glance at the commencement.

The opening scene introduces us to a young German, who, after twelve months passed in Italy at the conclusion of his academical studies, is on his way back to his native land. The entrance of Napoleon's armies is once more converting Northern Germany into a vast camp, and Ludwig Rosen is hurrying homewards to the protection of his sister and widowed mother, then living in retirement at Dresden. Upon his journey to Italy, a year previously, he had encountered in the valley of Aosta a party of travellers, to one of whom, a young and very lovely woman, he restored a bracelet she had dropped upon the highway. Although this led to no acquaintance or intercourse beyond the exchange of a few sentences, the beauty of the foreigner (for such she certainly was, although of what country it was hard to decide,) had left a very strong impression upon the young man's memory and imagination. During his residence in Italy he sought her every where, but in vain. He could not trace her route; ignorant of her name, he knew not for whom to inquire. Once more upon the threshold of Italy, about to quit the romantic land where her image had so often filled his daydreams, he pauses at the outskirts of Duomo d' Ossola, the last Italian town, to take a fond and final look at the paradise he is on the point of leaving. Travelling on foot, his motions depend but on his own caprice, and he leaves the high-road to ascend an adjacent hillock, commanding a fine view. The blast of a post-horn and crack of whips break in upon his meditations, and an open travelling carriage rolls rapidly along the causeway. In one of two women who occupy it, Rosen thinks he recognises his incognita, but before he can reach the road, the vehicle is in the town. It is evening, and Rosen, persuaded the travellers will halt for the night at Duomo d' Ossola, hurries after them to the open square where the guardhouse and the principal inn are situated. The carriage stands at the door of the latter, but fresh horses are being harnessed, and the youth's hopes of passing the night under the same roof with the lady of his thoughts, and of improving his very slight acquaintance with her, begin to vanish in vapour. An unexpected incident again gives them consistence:--

"A large circle of idlers had collected round the travellers. An officer, issuing from the guardhouse, a paper in his hand, made his way through the crowd and approached the carriage-door: on his appearance the young lady got out, and took a few steps to meet him. The officer bowed and addressed her with great courtesy; but his manner, and the deprecating shrug of his shoulders, indicated inability to comply with some wish she had expressed. Ludwig drew nearer; but as the lady--of whose identity with her he sought he grew each moment more convinced--had her face turned from him, he made the circuit of the crowd to obtain a sight of her countenance. Heavens, it was herself! Her features were paler and more anxious than at their last meeting, and a tear trembled in her beauteous blue eye. Yielding to an irresistible impulse, Ludwig approached her, resolved, at risk of offence, to greet the lovely being whose apparition had gladdened his entrance into the glorious land he now was quitting, and to remind her of the moment of their first meeting and too speedy separation. He was encouraged to this step by beholding her unaccompanied, save by an old servant seated upon the box, and by an elderly woman, to all appearance an attendant, or humble companion. He hastily stepped forward out of the crowd, which had fallen a little back. As he did so, the lady's glance met his, and so sudden and joyful a glow over-spread her features, that he could not for an instant doubt her recognition of him. He was about to salute and address her, when, with startling haste, she exclaimed in French, 'Here is my brother!' and hurried to meet him. Before Ludwig, astounded at what he took for an extraordinary mistake, had time to utter a word, she continued in Italian, and in a loud tone, so that all around might hear and understand, 'Thank God, brother, you are come at last!' Then, in a rapid whisper, and in German, 'I am lost,' she said, 'if you deny me.' With prompt decision, she turned to the officer, took the paper from his hand and presented it to Ludwig. 'This gentleman would not admit the regularity of our passport because you were not present,' said she, reverting to the French language. 'See what trouble you give us, dear brother, by your romantic partiality for byways! You are Count Wallersheim,' she whispered in German.

"Startled and confounded as Ludwig was by this strange adventure, he retained sufficient presence of mind to understand that it was in his power to render important service to the beautiful woman who stood anxious and tearful before him. Readily taking his cue, his reply was prompt. 'Be not uneasy, dear sister,' he said, 'I will explain to the gentleman.' He turned to the Frenchman, and in order to gain time and some insight into the circumstances of the case, 'I must beg you, sir,' he said 'to repeat your objections to our passport. Ladies have little experience in such matters.' 'I have now,' replied the officer 'not the slightest objection to make. You are set down in the passport as the companion of the countess your sister and yet you were not with her. The passport was, consequently, not in order. The countess certainly told me you had left her only for a short time, to ramble on foot, and that you would rejoin her beyond the town; but at frontier places, like Duomo d' Ossola, our orders are so strict that I should have been compelled to detain the young lady till you made your appearance. Rest assured, however, count, that I should, have held it my duty to have had you sought upon the road to Sempione, to inform you of the obstacle to your sister's progress. I strongly advise you to remain with the countess so long as you are in this district, or you will inevitably encounter delay and annoyance. Once over the Swiss frontier, you are out of our jurisdiction, and travelling is easier.'

"Ludwig stood mute with astonishment, whilst the old servant got off the box,--took from him, without observation, the light travelling pouch that hung on his shoulder,--laid it in the carriage, and asked him if he would be pleased to get in. Scarce conscious of what he said, he gave the officer his hand, and uttered a few polite words. The servant put down the carriage steps,--the gallant Frenchman assisted the lady, who had muffled herself in her veil, to ascend them,--bowed low, and repeated his wishes for their pleasant journey. Ludwig, almost without knowing what he was about, took his place by the side of the enigmatical fair one, whose duenna had discreetly transferred herself to the opposite seat, and the carriage rattled through the streets."