Chapter II: Part 2

'Millions, sir! and neither I nor any one else in the trade here could purchase it, unless as a joint concern, and in case of a coronation or a marriage in one of the royal houses of Europe, for such an occasion alone could make it not a risk to buy it. But meanwhile I will, if you wish, mention it to some of the trade.'

'I am in no hurry,' said Simon, almost bewildered by the possession of such a treasure. 'I may as well wait for some such occasion, and in the meantime can make any necessary advances to the abbess. Perhaps I may call on you again.'

The first day of the year 1795 had just dawned, and there was a thick and chilling fog. The abbess and her faithful servant felt this day more than usually depressed, for fifteen months had now elapsed since the 1500 francs had been received for the ruby, and there now remained provision only for a few days longer. 'I have got no answer from M. Simon,' said the abbess; and in giving utterance to her own thought, she was replying to what was at that moment passing through Margaret's mind. 'I fear he has not been able to get more for the ruby than he thinks fair interest for the money he advanced to me.'

'It is most likely,' said Margaret; and both relapsed into their former desponding silence.

'What a dreary New-Year's Day!' resumed Madame de Vatteville, in a melancholy tone.

'Oh, why can I not help you, dear mistress?' exclaimed Margaret, suddenly starting from her reverie. 'Cheerfully would I lay down my life for you!'

'And why can I not return in any way your devoted attachment, my poor Margaret?'

At this instant, two loud and hurried knocks at the door startled them both from their seats, and it was with a trembling hand Margaret opened it to admit the old porter, and a servant with a letter in his hand.

'Thank you, thank you, M. Thiebaut: this letter is for my mistress.' But the inquisitive old man either did not or would not understand Margaret's hint to him to retire, and Madame de Vatteville was obliged to tell him to leave the room.

'Not a penny to bless herself with, though she has come to a better apartment!' muttered he, enraged at the disappointment to his curiosity--'and yet as proud as an aristocrat!'

The abbess approached the casement, broke the seal with trembling hand, and read as follows:--

'I have at length been able to treat with a merchant for the
article in question, and have, after much difficulty,
obtained a sum of 25,000 francs--far beyond anything I could
have hoped. But the sum is to be paid in instalments, at
long intervals. It may therefore be more convenient for you,
under your peculiar circumstances, to accept the offer I now
make of a pension of 1500 francs, to revert after your
decease to the servant whom you mentioned as so devotedly
attached to you. If you are willing to accept this offer,
the bearer will hand you the necessary documents, by which
you are to make over to me all further claim upon the
property placed in my hands; and on your affixing your
signature, he will pay you the first year in advance.

SIMON.'

'What a worthy, excellent man!' joyfully exclaimed the abbess; for, in the noble integrity of her heart, she had no suspicion that he could take advantage of her circumstances.

However Simon settled the matter with his conscience, the abbess, trained in the school of adversity to be content with being preserved from absolute want, passed the remainder of her life quietly and happily with her good Margaret, both every day invoking blessings on the head of him whom they regarded as a generous benefactor. Madame de Vatteville lived to the age of one hundred, and her faithful Margaret survived only a few months the mistress to whom she had given such affecting proofs of attachment.

But Simon's detestable fraud proved of no use to him. After keeping his treasure for several years, he thought the Emperor's coronation presented a favourable opportunity for disposing of it. Unfortunately for him, his grasping avarice one morning suggested a thought which his ignorance prevented his rejecting: 'Since this ruby--old-fashioned and stained as it is--can be worth so much, what would be its value if freed from all defect, and in modern setting?' And he soon found a lapidary, who, for a sum of 3000 francs, modernised it, and effaced the spot, and with it the impress, the stamp of its antiquity--all that gave it value, beauty, worth! This wanting, no jeweller could recognise it: it was no longer worth a thousand crowns.

It was thus that the most splendid ruby in Europe lost its value and its fame; and its name is now only to be found in _The Lapidaries' Guide_, as that which had once been the most costly of gems. It seemed as if it could not survive the last of the illustrious house to which it owed its introduction into Europe, and its name.

HENRY TAYLOR.

'There is delight in singing, though none hear
Beside the singer: and there is delight
In praising, though the praiser sit alone,
And see the praised far off him, far above.'
--W.S. LANDOR.

It has been said, with more of truth than flattery, that literature of any kind which requires the reader himself to think, in order to enjoy, can never be popular. The writings of Mr Henry Taylor are to be classed in this category. The reader of his dramas must study in order to relish them; and their audience, therefore, must be of the fit, though few kind. Goethe somewhere remarks, that it is not what we take from a book so much as what we bring to it that actually profits us. But this is hard doctrine, caviare to the multitude. And so long as popular indolence and popular distaste for habits of reflection shall continue the order of the day, so long will it be difficult for writers of Mr Taylor's type to popularise their meditations; to see themselves quoted in every provincial newspaper and twelfth-rate magazine; to be gloriously pirated by eager hordes at Brussels and New York; or to create a furor in 'the Row' on the day of publication, and turn bibliopolic premises into 'overflowing houses.' The public asks for glaring effects, palpable hits, double-dyed colours, treble X inspirations, concentrated essence of sentiments, and emotions up to French-romance pitch. With such a public, what has our author in common? While _they_ make literary demands after their own heart, and expect every candidate for their _not_ evergreen laurels to conform to their rules, Mr Taylor calmly unfolds his theory, that it is from 'deep self-possession, an intense repose' that all genuine emanations of poetic genius proceed, and expresses his doubt whether any high endeavour of poetic art ever has been or ever will be promoted by the stimulation of popular applause.[2] He denies that youth is the poet's prime. He contends that what constitutes a great poet is a rare and peculiar balance of all the faculties--the balance of reason with imagination, passion with self-possession, abundance with reserve, and inventive conception with executive ability. He insists that no man is worthy of the name of a poet who would not rather be read a hundred times by one reader than once by a hundred. He affirms that poetry, unless written simply to please and pamper, and not to elevate or instruct, will do little indeed towards procuring its writer a subsistence, and that it will probably not even yield him such a return as would suffice to support a labouring man for one month out of the twelve.[3] Tenets like these are not for the million. The propounder they regard as talking at them, not to them. His principles and practice, his canons of taste, and his literary achievements, are far above out of their sight--his merit they are content to take on trust, by the hearing of the ear, a mystery of faith alone.

Perhaps men shrewder than good Sir Roger de Coverley might aver that much is to be said on both sides--that there may be something of fallacy on the part of poet as well as people in this controversy. It is possible to set the standard too high as well as too low--to plant it on an elevation so distant that its symbol can no longer be deciphered, as well as to fix it so low that its folds draggle in mire and dust. If genius systematically appeal only to the initiated few, it must learn to do without the homage of the outer multitude. For its slender income of fame, it has mainly itself to thank. These remarks apply with primary force to that class of contemporary poets who delight in the mystic and enigmatical, and whose ideas are so apt to vanish, like Homer's heroes, in a cloud--among whom Robert Browning and Philip J. Bailey are conspicuous names; and in a secondary degree to that other class, lucid indeed in thought, and classically definite in expression, but otherwise too scholastic and abstract for popular sympathies--among whom we may cite Walter Savage Landor and Henry Taylor. Coleridge[4] tells us that, to enjoy poetry, we must combine a more than ordinary sympathy with the objects, emotions, or incidents contemplated by the poet, consequent on rare sensibility, with a more than ordinary activity of the mind in respect of the fancy and imagination. This more than ordinary mental activity is especially demanded from the readers--say rather the students--of _Philip van Artevelde_ and its kindred dramas. Those who are thus equipped will commonly be found to agree in admiring the writings of this author; among them he is unquestionably 'popular,' if it be any test of popularity to send forth a second edition three months after the first. Scholarship can appreciate, pure intellect can find nutriment in, his reflective and carefully-wrought pages. His heroes and heroines, cold and unimpassioned to the man of society, are classic and genial to the man of thought. A Quarterly Reviewer observes, that the blended dignity of thought, and a sedate moral habit, invests his poetry with a stateliness in which the drama is generally deficient, and makes his writings illustrate, in some degree, a new form of the art. In all that he writes he stands revealed the true English gentleman, 'that grand old name,' as Tennyson calls it,

Defamed by every charlatan,
And soiled with all ignoble use.'

_Isaac Comnenus_--in which a recent critic discovers much of that Byronian vein upon which Mr Taylor is severe in his own criticisms--being little remarkable in itself, as well as the least remarkable of his dramatic performances, need not detain us. The career of _Philip van Artevelde_ belongs to an era when, as Sir James Stephen remarks, the whole of Europe, under the influence of some strange sympathy, was agitated by the simultaneous discontents of all her great civic populations--when the insurgent spirit, commencing in the Italian republics, had spread from the south to the north of the Alps, everywhere marking its advance by tumult, spoil, and bloodshed. 'Wat Tyler and his bands had menaced London; and the communes of Flanders, under the command of Philip van Artevelde, had broken out into open war with the counts, their seigneurs, and with their suzerain lord, the Duke of Burgundy. On the issue of that attempt the fate of the royal and baronial power seemed to hang in France, not less than in Flanders.'[5] The drama composed by Mr Taylor to represent the fortunes of the 'Chief Captain of the White Hoods and of Ghent,' consists of two plays and an interlude--_The Lay of Elena_--and being, as he says in his preface, equal in length to about six such plays as are adapted to the stage, was not, of course, intended to solicit the most sweet voices of pit and gallery, although it has since been subjected to that ordeal at the instance of Mr Macready. Historic truth is said to be preserved in it, as far as the material events are concerned--with the usual exception of such occasional dilatations and compressions of time as are required in dramatic composition. And notwithstanding the limited imagination and the too artificial passion which characterise it, _Philip van Artevelde_ is in very many respects a noble work, as it certainly is its author's chef-d'oeuvre. It has been pronounced by no mean authority the superior of every dramatic composition of modern times, including the _Sardanapalus_ of Lord Byron, the _Remorse_ of Coleridge, and the _Cenci_ of Shelley. The portraiture of Philip is one of those elaborate and highly-finished studies which repay as well as require minute investigation. He is at once profoundly meditative and surpassingly active. His energy of brain is only rivalled by his readiness of hand. In him the active mood and the passive--the practical and the ideal--the objective and the subjective--are not as parallel lines that never meet, but are sections of one line, describing the circle of his all-embracing mind. His youth has been, that of a dreamy recluse, the scorn of men of the world. 'Oh, fear him not, my lord,' says one of them to the Earl of Flanders:

--'His father's name
Is all that from his father[6] he derives.
He is a man of singular address
In catching river fish. His life hath been
Till now, more like a peasant's or a monk's,
Than like the issue of so great a man.'

Similarly the earl himself describes him as 'a man that as much knowledge has of war as I of brewing mead--a bookish nursling of the monks--a meacock.' But when the last scene of all has closed his strange eventful history, the testimony of a nobler, wiser foe,[7] ascribes to him great gifts of courage, discretion, wit, an equal temper, an ample soul, rock-bound and fortified against assaults of transitory passion, but founded on a surging subterranean fire that stirs him to lofty enterprise--a man prompt, capable, and calm, wanting nothing in soldiership except good-fortune. Ever tempted to reverie, he yet refuses, even for one little hour, to yield up the weal of Flanders to idle thought or vacant retrospect. Having once put his hand to the plough of action, with clear foresight, not blindfold bravery, his language is--'Though I indulge no more the dream of living, as I hoped I might have lived, a life of temperate and thoughtful joy, yet I repine not, and from this time forth will cast no look behind.' The first part of the drama leaves him an exultant victor, an honourable prosperous, and happy man. The second part--which alike in interest and treatment is very inferior to the first--finds him falling, and leaves him 'fallen, fallen, fallen, from his high estate.' His sun, no longer trailing clouds of glory, sets in a wintry and misty gloom. And yet in the act of dying he emits flashes of the ancient brightness, and we feel that so dies a hero. The other _dramatis personæ_ pale their ineffectual fires before his central light.

After a silence of nearly ten years--characteristic of Mr Taylor's deliberative and disciplined mind--he produced (1842) _Edwin the Fair_, of whose story the little that was known, he observes, was romantic enough to have impressed itself on the popular memory--the tale of _Edwy and Elgiva_ having been current in the nursery long before it came to be studied as a historical question. In illustrating this tale he borrows from the bordering reigns 'incidents which were characteristic of the times,' though some are of opinion, that his deviation from historical truth has rather impaired than aided the poetical effect of the drama. With artistic skill, and often with sustained energy, he develops the career of the 'All-Fair' prince, and his relation to the monkish struggle of the tenth century; the hostile intrigues and stormy violence of Dunstan; the loyal tenacity and Saxon frank-heartedness of Earl Leolf and his allies; the celebrated coronation-scene, and 'most admired disorder' of the banquet; the discovery and denunciation of Edwin's secret nuptials; his imprisonment in the Tower of London; the confusion and dispersion of his adherents; the ecclesiastical finesse and conjuror-tricks of Dunstan; the king's rescue and temporary success; the murder of Elgiva, and Edwin's own death in the essay to avenge her. It is around Dunstan, the representative of spiritual despotism, that the interest centres. The character of this 'Saint,' like that of Hildebrand and à Becket, has been made one of the problems of history. Mr Taylor's reading of the part is masterly, and we think correct. His Dunstan is not wholly sane; he believes himself inspired to read the alphabet of Heaven's stars, and to behold visions beyond the bounds of human foresight; one of the few to whom, 'and not in mercy, is it given to read the mixed celestial cypher: not in mercy, save as a penance merciful in issue.' His mischievous influence over the popular mind is sealed by the partial and latent degree of his insanity, for 'madness that doth least declare itself endangers most, and ever most infects the unsound many.' His great natural powers are tainted by the one black spot; his youth has been devoted to books, to the study of chemistry and mechanics; his manhood to observing 'the ways of men and policies of state' in the court of Edred; 'and were he not pushed sometimes past the confines of his reason, he would o'ertop the world.' Next to him in interest comes Earl Leolf, from whose lips proceed some of the finest poetry in the play, especially that exquisite soliloquy[8] on the sea-shore at Hastings. Athulf, the brother of Elgiva, is another happy portrait--a man bright and jocund as the morn, who can and will detect the springs of fruitfulness and joy in earth's waste places, and whose bluff dislike of Dunstan is aptly illustrated in the scene where he brings the king's commands, and is kept waiting by the monks during Dunstan's matutinal flagellation:--

_'Athulf._ But, sirs, it is in haste--in haste extreme--
Matters of state, and hot with haste.

_Second Monk_. My lord,
We will so say, but truly at this present
He is about to scourge himself.

_Athulf_. I'll wait.
For a king's ransom would I not cut short
So good a work! I pray you, for how long?

_Second Monk_. For twice the _De Profundis_, sung in slow time.

_Athulf_. Please him to make it ten times, I will wait.
And could I be of use, this knotted trifle,
This dog-whip here has oft been worse employed.'

In his recent play, _The Virgin Widow_ (1850), Mr Taylor declines from the promise of his earlier efforts. The preface suggests great things; but they are not forthcoming. There is much careful finish, much sententious rhetoric, much elegant description; but there is little of racy humour (the play is a 'romantic comedy'), little of poetical freshness, little of lively flesh and blood portraiture, and more of melodramatic expedience than dramatic construction. Neither comedy nor melodrama is our author's _forte_.

In 1836 Mr Taylor published _The Statesman_, a book which contained the 'views and maxims respecting the transaction of public business,' which had been suggested to its author by twelve years' experience of official life. He has since then allowed that it was wanting in that general interest which might possibly have been felt in the results of a more extensive and varied conversancy with public life.[9] In 1848 he produced _Notes from Life_, professedly a kind of supplemental volume to the former, embodying the conclusions of an attentive observation of life at large. The first essay investigates in detail the right measure and manner to be adopted in getting, saving, spending, giving, taking, lending, borrowing, and bequeathing 'money;' and a weighty, valuable essay it is, with no lack of golden grains and eke of diamond-dust in its composition. The thoughts are not given in the bullion lump, but are well refined, and having passed through the engraver's hands, they shine with the true polish, ring with the true sound. In terse, pregnant, and somewhat oracular diction, we are here instructed how to avoid the evils contingent upon bold commercial enterprise--how to guard against excesses of the accumulative instinct--how to exercise a thoroughly conscientious mode of regulating expenditure, eschewing prodigality, that vice of a weak nature, as avarice is of a strong one--how to be generous in giving; 'for the essence of generosity is in self-sacrifice, waste, on the contrary, comes always by self-indulgence'--how to withstand solicitations for loans, when the loans are to accommodate weak men in sacrificing the future to the present. The essay on _Humility and Independence_ is equally good, and pleasantly demonstrates the proposition, that Humility is the true mother of Independence; and that Pride, which is so often supposed to stand to her in that relation, is in reality the step-mother by whom is wrought the very destruction and ruin of Independence. False humilities are ordered into court, and summarily convicted by this single-eyed judge, whose cross-examination of these 'sham respectabilities' elicits many a suggestive practical truth. There is more of philosophy and prudence than of romance in the excursus on _Choice in Marriage_; but the philosophy is shrewd and instructive, uttering many a homely hint of value in its way: as where we are reminded that if marrying _for_ money is to be justified only in the case of those unhappy persons who are fit for nothing better, it does not follow that marrying _without_ money is to be justified in others; and again, that the negotiations and transactions connected with marriage-settlements are eminently useful, as searching character and testing affection, before an irrevocable step be taken; and again, that when two very young persons are joined together in matrimony, it is as if one sweet-pea should be put as a prop to another. The essay on _Wisdom_ is elevated and thoughtful, like most of the essayist's papers, but somewhat too heavy for miscellaneous readers. With his wonted clearness he distinguishes Wisdom from understanding, talents, capacity, ability, sagacity, sense, &c. and defines it as that exercise of the reason into which the heart enters--a structure of the understanding rising out of the moral and spiritual nature. Then follows a section on _Children_, which explodes not a few educational fallacies, and propounds certain articles of faith and practice wholesome for these times, though it will probably wear a prim and quakerish aspect to the admirers of Jean Paul's famous tractate[10] on the same theme. The concluding paper in this series, entitled _The Life Poetic_, is the liveliest, if not the most valuable of the six: it has, however, been charged, with considerable show of justice, with a tendency to strip genius of all that is individual and spontaneous, or to accredit it only 'when it moves abroad sedately, clad in the uniform of a peculiar college.' Mr Taylor's 'solicitous and premeditated formalism' of poetical doctrine is, it must be confessed, a little too strait-laced. The true poet is born, not made. Still, in their place, our author's dogmas have their use, and might, if duly marked and inwardly digested, annually deter many aspirants who are _not_ poets from proving so incontestably to the careless public that negative fact.

_Notes from Books_ followed within a few months, but met with a less cordial reception. Of the four essays comprised in this volume, three are reprinted contributions to the _Quarterly Review_, being criticisms on the poetry of Wordsworth and Aubrey de Vere; and worthily do they illustrate--those on Wordsworth at least--Mr Taylor's composite faculty of depth and delicacy in poetical exposition. Of Wordsworth's many and gifted commentators--among them Wilson, Coleridge, Hazlitt, De Quincey, Lamb, Moir, Sterling--few have shewn a happier insight into the idiosyncrasy, or done more justice to the beauties of the patriarch of the Lakes. With Wordsworth for a subject, and the _Quarterly Review_ for a 'door of utterance,' Mr Taylor is quite in his element. The fourth essay, on the _Ways of the Rich and Great_, is enriched with wise saws and modern instances. Its _matériel_ is composed of ripe observation and reflective good sense; but the manner is objected to as marred by conceits of style--a sin not very safely to be committed by so stern a censor of it in others. His authoritative air in laying down the law is also occasionally unpleasing to some readers; and great as his tact in essay-writing is, he wants that easy grace and pervading _bonhomie_ which imparts such a charm to the works of one with whom he has been erroneously identified--the anonymous author of _Friends in Council_. But, after all, he is one of those writers to whom our current literature is really indebted, and whose sage, sententious, and well-hammered thoughts may be profitably, as well as safely, commended to every thinking soul among us.

* * * * *

FOOTNOTES:

[2] _Notes from Life._

[3] Ibid.

[4] _Literary Remains._

[5] _Lectures on the History of France._

[6] Namely, Jacques van Artevelde, 'the noblest and the wisest man that ever ruled in Ghent,' and whom the factious citizens slew at his own door.

[7] Duke of Burgundy, in the last scene of Part II.

[8] Beginning:--

'Rocks that beheld my boyhood! Perilous shelf
That nursed my infant courage! Once again
I, stand before you--not as in other days
In your gray faces smiling; but like you
The worse for weather.'...

How sweet the lines:--

The sun shall soon
Dip westerly; but oh! how little like
Are life's two twilights! Would the last were first,
And the first last! that so we might he soothed
Upon the thoroughfares of busy life
Beneath the noon-day sun, with hope of joy
Fresh as the morn,' &c.
--_Act II. scene ii._

[9] Preface to _Notes from Life._

[10] _Levana_, of which an able translation was published by Messrs Longman in 1848.

RAILWAY JUBILEE IN AMERICA.

The opening in September last of the grand railway which unites Massachusetts with British North America is one of the most noticeable events of our times. Before this, the commercial path of transit from Europe lay from the Atlantic up the St Lawrence, the navigation of which--at all times difficult and dangerous--is closed by ice during five months of the year, and thus all intercourse through the States, except by sleighs, stopped. Now, goods may be brought direct to Boston and shipped to Europe, or unshipped at Boston for the Canadas without interruption. But in a moral and social point of view, the subject is still more important. Rivalry and bad feeling vanish before intercourse, and the locomotive mows down prejudices faster than corn falls before the Yankee reaping-machine.

When I heard that there was to be a _procession_, the word vulgarised the whole affair. It conjured up before my mind's eye our doings of the sort in England, with the Lord Mayor's Show at the head of them; and I concluded that the Yankee attempt would be still more trashy. Let us see how it turned out. I send you a newspaper for the details; but _here_ you must be a spectator, with the whole picture dashing, mass by mass, upon your sensorium.

As the first requisite for enjoyment, it was a glorious day even for this climate. Nothing shews off a pageant like fine weather. I left home shortly after daybreak, and went to the Common, as it is called--a Park about as large as St James's, handsomely laid out, with long alleys, some parallel, others crossing at various angles, and all shaded by fine trees. The scene presented by this Park reminded me of Camacho's wedding in _Don Quixote_, on a large scale. There stood the tent for the banquet, constructed to dine 3000 persons, and decorated with the flags of America and England streaming from the top, with the flags of other nations below. Close by, were large tents for the preparation of viands, surrounded with all the paraphernalia of a feast. In various places, booths had been erected by the city, for the gratuitous supply of all comers with pure iced water, and these were thronged throughout the day, especially with children. The pedestrian portion of the procession assembled in the Park, while the vehicles crowded all the adjacent streets. And now might be observed the various societies, with their bands of music; volunteer companies marching here and there, getting into step, arranging their order and practising their tunes. I was chatting with a raw Vermonter, who was as much a stranger as myself. 'In the name of creation,' he suddenly exclaimed, 'what tarnal screeching is that yonder?' 'That,' I said, 'is the bagpipes, the national music of Scotland.' 'That?' said he: 'it would clear a State of racoons in no time!' But the Scots had determined to shine, and they advanced: a tall Highlander first, in full costume, and blowing the pipes at his loudest; after him ten others, in full Highland costume, with a banner--the Scottish Friends; and about 200 with silk sashes, and walking three abreast. The Catholic Irishmen followed, with a banner displaying a portrait of the Pope and other Catholic emblems; and directly after came the Protestant Irishmen, with their banners and music. Why will they not associate thus in their own land? A very interesting portion of the assembling was a party of about a thousand fine-looking, hardy men, all remarkably clean, dressed in labourers' costume--blue blouses and white trousers--headed by a band of music playing Irish popular tunes, with a large banner of the stars and stripes, and the word 'Liberty,' with the inscription--'The Irish Labourers. Under this we find Protection for our Labour.'

The Park is an irregular square. On the north side, on the highest point of the city, stands the State-House, where the legislature meets. Near that is the house which was formerly inhabited by the governor, at the time the British flag waved where there now fly, glancing in the sun, the stars and stripes. As the president was expected at the State-House, and the procession was to start from thence, that was the point of attraction, where the spectators formed into a vast, dense, and steady mass. We English are in the habit of seeing the paraphernalia of courts, and are slow to disconnect the ideas of pomp and state from the persons of those who hold power and distinction; but the chief of this great nation, together with the secretary of state, had arrived in town by railway in an ordinary carriage, without the least parade, and the corporation had hired for the occasion an open carriage-and-four--such an equipage as would have passed quite unnoticed in an English provincial town. Let me here observe, that by an ordinary carriage I mean a carriage open to all; for in America there are no locomotive distinctions of 1st, 2d, and 3d classes. I never saw expectation more on tiptoe. A rattle round the corner was heard; then the noise of the wheels ceased, and then the president--a tall, gentlemanly-looking, elderly man--was ascending the steps of the State-House; and as soon as his gray locks were seen by the immense multitude, such a shout arose as only Anglo-Saxon lungs can raise and prolong. The president turned round on the landing of the steps, took off his hat, bowed, and entered the hall. I have seen many ceremonies, regal and imperial, which passed off very much like a scene at a theatre; but I felt the sublime simplicity of this. There is no road to distinction here but talent; and as the fine old man stood on the steps bowing, with Mr Webster, Secretary of State, by his side, they looked the very embodiment of intellect, and the manly, overpowering shout of the crowd the recognition of it. The multitudinous voices died away in the distance with a peculiar effect. No firing of guns. While on this part of the subject, I may mention my strong impression, that in no place is the government so much respected as in America. The public press may ridicule and joke upon certain acts of individuals; but whatever side is taken, there is nothing that can bring the laws, or those who administer them, into disrespect. This produces order to an extent unknown elsewhere. No one seems to question the law or the commands of its officers excepting Europeans, who bring their turbulent habits with them.

Leaving this imposing scene, I turned to the route of the procession, which had been advertised to pass through certain streets. In some degree to account for the masses of human beings that filled them, the three railways had kept pouring people in for three days, and the trains, immediately on arrival, turned back to fetch the thousands they had left waiting at the stations. It was said that there never was such a gathering in one place since the independence of the States. The arrangements of the pageant were made by the committee of the city; but the audience, or public, arranged themselves, and never was there anything better done. Along the whole line of streets, about three miles in length, the goods had been removed from the shop-windows, and their places filled with ladies. Every window that commanded a view was appropriated to females and children, who were likewise in many cases on the tops of the houses. Men occupied the pavement to the kerbstone. The roadway was kept by deputy-marshals, who rode up and down, in black dress suits, cocked, open hats, and white sashes; and in this vast assemblage their every request was immediately attended to. At the end of every street, carriages of all descriptions were placed, filled with people. As an instance of the courtesy of the spectators, my wife had handed our Little Red Ridinghood to some gentleman on the top of an omnibus, who very kindly held her up to see the show, and took charge of her while Mrs W---- found her way to the window where her place had been kept. If anything could mark the kindly disposition and good order of the crowd, it was the fact, that although I should think all the children in the city were there, not one was hurt, but everybody exerted himself to accommodate this interesting portion of the community. Across the streets, and at all available points, the stars and stripes waved proudly in the air, and altogether the scene was most beautiful and imposing. I walked the whole length of the route before the procession moved, and the _coup d'oeil_ was perfect. The military portion looked remarkably well; but when the open carriage appeared in which rode Lord Elgin and his friends, the representative of Great Britain was greeted with such shouts and by such waving of handkerchiefs from the windows by crowds of elegantly dressed females, as I am sure his lordship can never forget. On his part, Lord Elgin continued bowing in acknowledgment, almost without intermission, for two hours and twenty minutes--the time occupied in passing.

Nearly equal to this was the enthusiasm elicited by the appearance of an open carriage, drawn by four grays, and containing only two men, wellnigh ninety years of age, then the sole survivors, in the State of Massachusetts, of those who fought in the War of Independence. It is the custom to shew honour to the survivors of that event on all public occasions. On the 4th of July last, the last public gathering, there were four in the carriage: two are gone. Before the carriage, was carried the banner of Washington, used in the struggle. When these old men raised their withered hands to remove their hats, in reply to the welcome of the crowd, they appeared like spirits of the past. In all probability, they will not appear in public again; but the fruits of their courage will live for ever. The appropriateness and beauty of the arrangement of details were remarkable in the representation of the particular trades. The most imposing objects were the two new locomotives, shining brilliantly in their might of brass and steel, and richly painted; and as they loomed in sight, turning the bends of the streets, they were truly magnificent and appropriate objects. Each was raised upon a car, so that, on the whole, it was thirty feet high; it was drawn by eighteen iron-gray horses, all in line, decorated with blue ribbons, and handsomely caparisoned; each horse being led by a workman, in clean, new, working costume. The next was a procession on foot. Eight negroes, in Eastern costume, walked as guards round a platform, carried palanquin-fashion by four negroes, with 5000 ounces of manufactured silver-plate, built up in a pyramid, and forming a splendid object, fully equal in workmanship to anything of the kind I have seen. A very interesting part of the pageant was the children of the different schools, in four-wheeled cars, covered with drapery, and decorated with flowers and plants; and it was really pleasing to see the happy little creatures enjoying such a holiday as they would never forget. It is impossible to give a third of the details of this unique procession; but I cannot omit to notice the last feature--the labourers on their truck-horses. These were the carmen of the town. Their clean, healthy, happy faces, with their glossy horses, decorated with ribbons, made me regard them as the best and proudest cavalry a nation could have. These are all men who, a very short time since, landed from the Old World--fugitives from misery and starvation.

I had a ticket offered me for the banquet, but I preferred being outside among the people. I have had enough of dinner-speeches in my time, although this occasion was one of peculiar interest. The Park continued to be crowded to excess; and as the company arrived, they were greeted by the people and the bands of music stationed here and there. But what sound is that? They are drinking toasts within; and one is now given which stirs the vast multitude like an electrical shock. I cannot hear at first, the roar is so deafening: but presently I am able to analyse the sounds that have caused the commotion; and I confess it is with a beating heart, and a sort of choking sensation in the throat, I hear every lip repeat--'The Queen of England!' and every band in the Park take up from the music in the tent our own national strain, till the whole atmosphere vibrates with _God save the Queen!_ The effect was magical, and I felt gratified beyond measure--not alone at the compliment to our country, but as evidence that the Anglo-Saxons are still one great community, and that the proceedings of that day would rivet between the two countries the bond of common blood. The day closed as happily as it had begun, and the streets were crowded up to a late hour. I was in all the thickest of the press, and I know that there was not a single accident, nor did I see or hear of any instance of drunkenness or disorder. All was harmony and good-humour.

I would mention, as a strong proof of the growing interest felt for the old country here, in New England especially, that almost every family is desirous of being known to be connected with it. They have all English names; and a numerous society have employed a gentleman of skill in such matters for the last ten years in England in tracing out the English branches of the different families, in the State, so as to have the genealogy complete. This has become a passion; and I have found every person I met who could trace his descent from the mother-country proud of it. I fell in, the other day, with a highly intelligent American, who told me with quite a feeling of pride, that his grandfather and grandmother were English, and his wife's father a Scot.

THINGS TALKED OF IN LONDON.

_January 1852._

Notwithstanding our busy and acquisitive propensities, we of the metropolis have found time to wish one another a happy new-year, and to send friendly greetings to our country cousins also. We don't like to take the step from one year into another without a _coup d'amitié_. Besides all which, we are in the habit of considering ourselves at the present season more than ever entitled to partake of the recreations offered us, whether theatrical, musical, pictorial, saltatorial, philosophical, or scientific. And so, while simple-minded people are looking into the new almanacs to test the accuracy of the predictions, I must try to fill a page or two with such matters of talk as will bear reproduction in print.

First of all, among the discussions and communications at the Astronomical Society, it is stated that the term 'meteoric astronomy' is one which we shall shortly be able to use with almost absolute certainty, as M. Petit of Toulouse has succeeded in determining the orbits of meteors relatively to the sun as well as to the earth. His conclusions are considered valuable, especially with respect to the meteor of August 19, 1847, which, it appears, came 'from the regions of space beyond our system;' having, as is estimated, occupied more than 373,000 years in passing from its point of departure to its fall in the North Sea, near the shores of Belgium! This is another addition to our knowledge of meteoric phenomena which affords promise of further results. Certain members of the same society are still at work on what has been a tedious task--the restoration of the standard yard, rendered necessary, as you will remember, by the destruction of the original in the Parliament-House conflagration, more than ten years ago. The work proceeds slowly but surely, as the extremest pains are taken to insure accuracy, the measurements, bisections, and graduations being read off with a microscope. When finished, it will be centuplicated or more, if necessary, and, as is said, a copy deposited in every corporate town in the kingdom. This restoration of the standard is not so easy a task as would be commonly supposed, for apart from the determination of the yard with mathematical accuracy, alternations of heat and cold have to be taken into account; for, as is well known, a strip of metal which measures thirty-six inches long in a temperature of 70 degrees, will not measure the same in 50 degrees. Connected with this subject, it was stated at one of the meetings of the society, that the ancient Saxon yard was nearly identical with the modern French _mètre_; whence a suggestion of 'the possibility of the Saxon yard being actually derived from a former measure of the earth, made at a period beyond the range of history, the results of which have been preserved during many centuries of barbarism.' Be this as it may, we are now given to understand that the Egyptian Pyramids, whether originally erected for purposes of sepulture or not, are, at the same time, definite portions of a degree of the earth's surface in the meridian of Egypt; and it has been proposed, as these mighty structures are far more durable even now than anything which we could build in England, that when our standard shall be re-established, the length shall be cut on the side of one of the pyramids, together with such explanatory particulars as may he necessary, so as to preserve the record for all coming time. Modern science thus availing itself of the labours of the past, would be a remarkable incident in the history of philosophy.

The appearance of extraordinary spots on the sun has attracted a more than ordinary degree of attention to that luminary, and to Mr J. Nasmyth's 'views respecting the source of light,' which, though published a few months since, are now again talked about. Mr Nasmyth, after several years' observation, comes to the conclusion, 'that whatever be the source of light, its production appears to result from an action induced on the _exterior surface_ of the solar sphere;' and he believes it reasonable to 'consider the true source of the latent element of light to reside, _not in the solar orb_, but in space itself; and that the grand function and duty of the sun is to act as an agent for the bringing forth into vivid existence its due portion of the illuminating or luciferous element; which element he supposes to be diffused throughout the boundless regions of space, and which in that case must be perfectly exhaustless. Further, assuming this luciferous element to be not equally diffused through space, we find a reason why in some ages of the earth's history the heat should have been greater than at others, why stars have been seen to vary in brightness, and why there was that puzzle to geologists--a glacial period. During that period, according to Mr Nasmyth, with whose words I finish this part of my communication, 'an arctic climate spread from the poles towards the equator, and left the record of such a condition in glacial handwriting on the mountain walls of our elder mountain ravines, of which there is such abundant and unquestionable evidence.'

Our Microscopical Society have made a discovery in an all but invisible subject: they now state the _Volvox globator_ to be a vegetable, and not, as has long been supposed, an animal, as its cells, presumed to be ova, are produced in the same way as in certain kinds of _algæ_. In the discussion excited by this announcement, it came out that several other minute forms, classed by Ehrenberg among living animalcules, are in reality vegetable; which, if true, shews that a good deal of microscopical work will have to be done over again. The Syro-Egyptian Society, too, have heard something relating to the same subject--a paper on Ehrenberg's examination by the microscope of the anciently deposited alluvium of the Nile, from which it appears that 'microscopic animals' in countless numbers were the cause of the remarkable fertility of the soil, and not vegetable or unctuous matters. Talking of deposits reminds me of a little fact which I must not forget to mention--the finding of a fossil reptile in the 'Old Red' of your county of Moray is, barring the alarm, as much a cause of astonishment to our geologists, as was the mark of the foot on the sand to Robinson Crusoe.

Now for a few gatherings from the continent. M. Chalambel has laid before the Académie at Paris a 'Note on a Modification to be introduced in the Preparation of Butter, which improves its Quality and prolongs its Preservation.' 'If butter,' he observes, 'contained only the fat parts of milk, it would undergo only very slow alterations when in contact with the air; but it retains a certain quantity of _caseum_, found in the cream, which caseum, by its fermentation, produces butyric-acid, and to which is owing the disagreeable flavour of rancid butter. The usual washing of butter rids it but very imperfectly of this cause of alteration, for the water does not wet the butter, and cannot dissolve the caseum, which has become insoluble under the influence of the acids that develop themselves in the cream. A more complete separation would be obtained if these acids were saturated; the caseum would again be soluble, and consequently the quantity retained in the butter would be almost entirely carried away by the washing-water.'

The remedy proposed is: 'When the cream is in the churn, pour in--a little at a time, and keep stirring--enough of lime-wash to destroy the acidity entirely. The cream is then to be churned until the butter separates; but before it forms into lumps, the buttermilk is to be poured off, and replaced by cold water, in which the churning is to be continued until the butter is complete, when it is to be taken from the churn and treated as usual. I have,' says M. Chalambel, 'by following this method, obtained butter always better, and which kept longer, than when made in the ordinary way. The buttermilk, deprived of its sharp taste, was drunk with pleasure by men and animals, and had lost its laxative properties.' By means of lime-wash or lime-water, he has restored butter so 'far gone' that it could only have been recovered by melting; but any alkaline lixivium will answer the same purpose.

I have more than once kept you informed of the inquiry concerning the effects of iodine on the human system, which has so long engaged the attention of several eminent chemists on the continent; and now have to report something further by M. Fourcault, whose communication thereupon to the Académie is entitled, 'On the Absence of Iodine in Water and Alimentary Substances, considered as Cause of Goître and Crétinism, and on the Means of Preventing the Development of these Affections.' He has investigated the subject profoundly and analytically, and concludes that 'the absence or insufficiency of iodine in water and in alimentary substances, is to be considered as the primitive cause, special or _sui generis_, of goître and Crétinism;' that the existence of the diseases does not depend on the presence more or less of sulphate of lime or magnesia in the animal economy; that 'iodine acts in goître as iron in chlorosis--by restoring to the system one of its essential principles;' and that 'the most powerful secondary or auxiliary causes are: a coarse and uniform vegetable regimen; living at the bottom of deep, enclosed valleys; in low and damp houses, into which air and light penetrate with difficulty; the alliance of infected families among themselves; and the want of such employment as would yield a comfortable subsistence and proper development of the physical forces.' In commenting on these statements, Baron Thénard observed that M. Chatain, in the course of his able researches on iodine, had analysed the waters of those Alpine valleys most subject to goître, and found that mineral almost entirely wanting. And it has been proved that sea-salt, containing a minute quantity of ioduret of potassium, acted as a preservative from goître on all the inhabitants of a district who made use of it. The air, too, has been examined as well as the water, and, so far as yet ascertained, the proportion of iodine in the atmosphere is variable, and much greater in amount in some regions than in others. The activity prevailing in this particular branch of inquiry is the more encouraging, as the maladies which it aims at removing are of so peculiarly distressing a nature; and the investigation is one likely to lead also to valuable incidental results.

Next, M. Abeille, chief physician to the hospital at Ajaccio, has an interesting communication--On the employment of electricity to counteract the accidents arising from too long inhalation of ether or chloroform. He found that patients submitted to galvano-puncture could not be rendered insensible by the effects of ether--the galvanism invariably restored sensation--and taking this accidentally-discovered fact as the basis of further research, he set to work and made a series of experiments on living animals, and arrived at results which in a brief summary are: that electricity, made to operate by means of needles implanted in several parts of the body, especially in the direction of the cerebro-spinal axis, reawakes sensibility, and immediately puts the relaxed muscles into play. 'It constitutes,' he adds, 'according to my experiments, the most prompt and efficacious means--I may say the only efficacious--to restore to life any person whose inhalation of chloroform has been prolonged beyond the time prescribed by prudence. It is the first means to which recourse ought to be had; and trials made in other ways appeared to me to lead to nothing but loss of time, which in many cases would be fatal.'

M.H. Deschamps says, that there is a 'certain sign of death,' which, if attended to, will entirely prevent risk of that much-dreaded accident--premature interment. It is a certain green tinge which always makes its appearance on the abdomen, even before the cadaverous smell, and is a positive evidence that decomposition has begun. There are some people to whom the knowledge of this fact will be a satisfaction; but if, as is popularly supposed, bodies are not unfrequently buried alive, how is it that we never hear of a revival in a dissecting-room? Then, on another point of physiology, M. Payerne states, with regard to the distress experienced by many persons in the ascent of a high mountain, 'that the lassitude and breathlessness felt in elevated places appear to proceed, not from an insufficiency of oxygen, but rather from the rupture of the equilibrium between the tension of the fluids contained in our organs and that of the ambient air, whatever be the way in which the rupture is produced.' And, to close these physiological matters, M. Chuart begs the Académie to include among their premiums for rendering arts or trades less insalubrious, one for 'different inventions designed to diminish the frequency of accidents which take place in coal-mines from explosions of gas.' How much such inventions are needed, recent events in our own coal districts but too painfully demonstrate.