Various
Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 368, June 1846

THE LITERATURE OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. ¹

Lord Brougham has resumed his memoirs of the eminent writers of England; and every lover of literature will feel gratified by this employment of his active research and of his vigorous pen.

One of the most striking distinctions of English public life from that of the Continent, is in the condition of statesmen after their casual retirement from power. The Foreign statesman seems to exist only in office. The moment that sees him "out of place," sees him extinguished. He is lost as suddenly to the public eye, as if he were carried to the tomb of his ancestors. He retires to his country-seat, and there subsides into the garrulous complainant against the caprices of fortune, or buries his calamities in the quiet indulgence of his appetites; smokes away his term of years, subsides into the lean and slippered pantaloon, occupies his studies with the Court Gazette, and his faculties with cards; and is finally deposited in the family vault, to continue the process of mouldering which had been begun in his arm-chair, to be remembered only in an epitaph. France, at the present day, alone seems to form an exception. Her legislature affords a new element in which statesmanship in abeyance can still float: the little vessel is there at least kept in view of mankind; if it makes no progress, it at least keeps above water; and, however incapable of reaching the port by its own means, the fluctuations of the national surge, sometimes so powerful, and always so contemptuous of calculation, may at some time or other carry the craziest craft into harbour. But the general order of continental ministers, even of the highest rank, when abandoned by the monarch, are like men consigned to the dungeon. They go to their place of sentence at once. The man who to-day figured in the highest robe of power, to-morrow wears the prison costume. His rise was the work of the royal will – his fall is equally the work of the royal will. Having no connexion with the national mind, he has no resource in the national sympathies. He has been a royal instrument: when his edge becomes dull, or the royal artificer finds a tool whose fashion he likes better, the old tool is flung by to rust, and no man asks where or why, his use is at an end, and the world and the workman, alike, "knoweth it no more."

But, in England, the condition of public life is wholly different. The statesman is the creation of the national will, and neither in office, nor in opposition, does the nation forget the product of its will. The minister is no offspring of slavery, no official negro, made to be sold, and, when sold, separated from his parentage once and for ever. If he sins in power, he is at worst but the Prodigal Son, watched in his career, and willingly welcomed when he has abjured his wanderings. Instead of being extinguished by the loss of power, he often more than compensates the change, by the revival of popularity. Disencumbered of the laced and embroidered drapery of office, he often exhibits the natural vigour and proportion of his faculties to higher advantage; cultivates his intellectual distinctions with more palpable success; refreshes his strength for nobler purposes than even those of ambition; and, if he should not exert his renewed popularity for a new conquest of power, only substitutes for place the more generous and exalted determination of deserving those tributes which men naturally offer to great abilities exerted for the good of present and future generations.

We must allude, for the national honour, to this characteristic of English feeling, in the changes of public men. On the Continent, the hour which deprived a statesman of office, at once deprived him of every thing. All the world ran away from him, as they would from a falling house. The crowded antechamber of yesterday, exhibited nothing to-day but utter solitude. The fallen minister was a leper; men shrank from his touch; the contagion of ill-luck was upon him; and every one dreaded to catch the disease. It was sometimes even worse. The loss of power was the ruin of fortune. The Dives had been suddenly transformed into the Lazarus; the purple and fine linen were "shreds and patches," and not even the dogs came to administer to his malady. But, among us, the breaking up of a cabinet often only gives rise to a bold and brilliant opposition. It is not like the breaking up of a ship, where the wreck is irreparable, and the timbers are shattered and scattered, and good for nothing; it is often more like the breaking up of a regiment in one of our colonies, where the once compact mass of force, which knew nothing but the command of its colonel, now takes, each man his own way, exhibits his own style of cleverness; instead of the one manual exercise of musket and bayonet, each individual takes the axe or the spade, the tool or the ploughshare, and works a new fertility out of the soil, according to his own "thews and sinews."

The moral of all this is, that the distinguished author of these Memoirs is now devoting himself to a career of literature, to which even his political services may have been of inferior utility. He is recalling the public memory to those eminent achievements, which have so powerfully advanced the mental grandeur of our era; and, while he thus gives due honour to the labours of the past, he is at once encouraging and illustrating the nobleness of the course which opens to posterity. But Lord Brougham's influence cannot be contented, we should hope, with merely speculative benefits; it is for him, and for men like him, to look with interest on the struggles of literary existence at the hour; to call the attention of government and the nation to the neglects, the narrowness, and the caprices of national patronage; to demand protection for genius depressed by the worldliness of the crowd; to point out to men of rank and wealth a path of service infinitely more honourable to their own taste, and infinitely more productive to their country, than ribands and stars; than the tinkling of a name, than pompous palaces, or picture galleries of royal price; to excite our nobles to constitute themselves the true patrons of the living genius of the land, and disdain to be content with either the offering of weak regrets or the tribute of worthless honours to the slumberers in the grave. A tenth part of the sums employed in raising obelisks to Burns, would have rescued one half of his life from poverty, and the other half from despair. The single sum which raised the monument to Sir Walter Scott in Edinburgh, would have saved him from the final pressure which broke his heart, elastic as it was, and dimmed his intellect, capable as he still was of throwing a splendour over his native soil.

This neglect is known and suffered in no other province of public service. The soldier, the sailor, the architect, the painter, are all within sight of the most lavish prizes of public liberality. Parliament has just given titles and superb pensions to the conquerors of the Sikhs. The India Company has followed its example. We applaud this munificent liberality in both instances. Two general officers have thus obtained the peerage, with £7000 and £5000 a-year. They deserved those rewards. But the whole literary encouragement of the British empire, with a revenue of fifty-two millions sterling, is £1200, little more than the tenth part of the pensions allotted to those two gallant men. £1200 for the whole literary encouragement of England! There can be no greater scandal to the intellectual honour of the country. The pettiest German principality scarcely limits its literary encouragement to this sum. We doubt whether Weimar, between literary offices and pensions, did not give twice the sum annually. But named in competition with the liberality of the leading sovereigns, it is utterly mean. Louis XIV., two hundred years ago, allotted 80,000 francs a-year to his forty members of the Academy, a sum equivalent in that day, and in France, to little less than £5000 a-year in our day, and in England. Frederic II. gave pensions and appointments to a whole corps of literary men. At this moment, there is scarcely a man of any literary distinction in Paris, who has not a share in the liberal and wise patronage of government, either in office or public pension.

But if we are to be answered by a class, plethoric with wealth and rank; that literature ought to be content with living on its own means; must not the obvious answer be – Is the author to be an author, down to his grave? Is there to be no relaxation of his toil? is there to be no allowance for the exhaustion of his overworked faculties? for the natural infirmities of years? for the vexations of a noble spirit compelled to submit to the caprices of public change? and with its full share of the common calamities of life, increasing their pressure at once by an inevitable sense of wrong, and by a feeling that the delight of his youth must be the drudgery of his age? When the great Dryden, in his seventieth year, was forced, in the bitterness of his heart, to exclaim, "Must I die in the harness!" his language was a brand on the common sense, as well as on the just generosity, of his country. We now abandon the topic with one remark. This want of the higher liberality of the nation has already produced the most injurious effects on our literature.

All the great works of our ancestral literature were the works of leisure and comparative competence. All the great dramatic poetry of France was the work of comparative competence. Its writers were not compelled to hurry after the popular tastes; they followed their own, and impressed its character upon the mind of the nation. The plays of Racine, Corneille, Molière, and Voltaire, are nobler trophies to the greatness of France than all the victories of Louis the XIV., than Versailles, than all the pomps of his splendid reign. Louis Philippe has adopted the same munificent policy, and it will be followed by the same honour with posterity. But, in England, the keeping of a stud of racehorses, the building of a dog-kennel, or the purchase of a foreign picture, is ignominiously and selfishly suffered to absorb a larger sum than the whole literary patronage of the most opulent empire that the sun ever shone upon. We recommend these considerations to Lord Brougham: they are nobler than politics; they are fitter for his combined character of statesman and philosopher; they will also combine with that character another which alone can give permanency to the fame of any public man – that of the philanthropist. His ability, his knowledge of human nature, and his passion for public service – qualities in which his merits are known to Europe – designate him as the founder of a great system of public liberality to the enterprise of genius. And when party is forgotten, and cabinets have perished; when, perhaps, even the boundaries of empire may have been changed, and new nations rise to claim the supremacy of arts and arms; the services of the protector of literature will stand out before the eye with increased honour, and his name be rescued from the common ruin which envelopes the memory of ostentatious conquerors and idle kings.

The present volume contains biographies of Johnson, Adam Smith, Lavoisier, Gibbon, Sir Joseph Banks, D'Alembert. We shall commence with the lives less known to the generality of readers than those of our great moralist and great political economist, reserving ourselves for sketches of their career, as our space may allow.

Lord Brougham commences his life of Sir Joseph Banks by a species of apology, for placing in the ranks of philosophers a man who had never written a book. But no one has ever doubted that a man may be a philosopher, without being an author. Some of the greatest inventions of philosophy, of science, and of practical power, have been the work of men who never wrote a book. In fact, the inventor is generally a man of few words; his disciples, or rivals, or imitators, are the men of description. The inventor gives the idea, the follower gives the treatise; but the inventor is the philosopher after all. The question, however, with Sir Joseph Banks is, whether he was any more an inventor than a writer. It does not appear that he was either. Of course, he has no right to rank among men of science. But he had merits of his own, and on those his distinctions ought to have been placed. He was a zealous, active, and influential friend of philosophers. He gave them his time, he received them in his house, and he assisted their progress. He volunteered to be the protector of their class; he sympathised with their pursuits; and, while adding little or nothing to their discoveries, he assisted in bringing those discoveries before the world. He loved to be thought the patriarch of British science; and, like the patriarch, he retained his authority even when he was past his labour. If he filled the throne of science feebly, none could deny that he filled it zealously. The true definition of him was, an English gentleman occupying his leisure with philosophical pursuits, and encouraging others of more powerful understanding to do the same.

Sir Joseph Banks was of an old and wealthy family, dating so far back as Edward III.; first settled in the West Riding of Yorkshire, and afterwards in the county of Lincoln. He was born in London in January 1743. At the age of nine he was sent to Harrow, and at thirteen to Eton, where the tutors observed, as has happened in many other instances, that he was fonder of play than of books. In about a twelvemonth, however, he became studious, though not to the taste of his schoolmasters. The origin of this change was described by himself, in a letter to Sir Everard Home, as accidental. One afternoon he had been bathing with some of the Eton boys, and, on returning to dress himself, found that they had left him alone. Walking down a green lane, whose sides exhibited the wild-flowers of the season, the thought occurred to him, how much more natural and useful would be the knowledge of plants, than of Greek and Latin. From this time he devoted himself to the study of botany, though still continuing that of the classics. On returning to his father's house, he found a copy of Gerard's Herbal, which fixed his taste. He now added to his collecting of plants that of butterflies and other insects. Lord Brougham mentions that his father was one of Banks's associates at this period, and that they employed themselves together in natural history.

Natural history has been so frequently the pursuit of studious triflers, that it is difficult to exempt it from the charge of trifling. To gather plants which have been gathered a thousand times before, to ascertain their names from an herbal, and classify them according to its list, seems to be little more than a grave apology for playing the fool. A determination to gather all the butterflies and blue-bottles within the limits of the realm, certainly has nothing that can dignify it with the name of scientific pursuit. The collecting of pebbles and shells, or even the arranging of animals in the cases of a museum, are accomplishments of so easy an order, and of so little actual use, that they serve for little else than to wile away the time. But this trifling assumes a more important shape when it rises to the acquisition of actual knowledge; when, instead of classifying plants, it develops their medicinal virtues, and, instead of embalming animals, it examines their structure, as throwing light on the conformation or diseases of man.

But Sir Joseph Banks was fortunately relieved from subsiding into this foppery, by circumstances which forced him into vigorous and useful exertion. An approaching transit of Venus had been long looked to, as giving an opportunity for ascertaining the distance of the sun from the earth. It was recommended, that observations on this phenomenon should be made from different stations on the globe. Accordingly, in 1761, the British government sent out two observers, one to the Cape and the other to St Helena. The French government at the same time sent out three – to Pondicherry, Siberia, and the Mauritius. But the weather was unfavourable, and the observations were to be regarded as a failure. But there was a second transit in 1769, and the leading powers of Europe sent out observers; England sending a vessel to the South Seas, an observer to India, and two to Hudson's Bay. Captain Wallace having lately made several discoveries in the Pacific, public attention had been strongly drawn to that hitherto scarcely known portion of the globe. The celebrated Captain Cook was appointed commander, and Sir Joseph Banks, stimulated by an honourable zeal and a rational desire of knowledge, obtained leave from his friend, Lord Sandwich, to join the expedition. He took with him Dr Solander the botanist, and two draughtsmen.

On the 25th of August 1768, Cook's vessel, the Endeavour, sailed from Plymouth Sound, and the first point of land at which they touched was the Terra del Fuego, the southern extremity of the American continent. There they encountered such severity of cold, that, although it was the summer of those regions, Banks and Solander, in one of their botanical excursions, had nearly shared the fate of three of their attendants, who perished from the intensity of the cold. The effect of this excess of low temperature has been often felt and often described. It was a general torpor of the frame, producing an almost irresistible propensity to sleep. Every exertion was painful, and the strongest desire was to lie down in the snow and give way to slumber. Solander, who had acquired his experience in botanizing among the Swedish mountains, warned the party of their danger. "Whoever," said he, "sits down, will sleep; whoever sleeps, will wake no more." Yet he himself was one of the first to yield; he insisted on lying down, fell asleep before he could be brought to the fire which Banks had kindled, and was restored with difficulty. His companion had felt a similar inclination, but resisted it, by the greater energy of youth, and probably of a more vigorous mind.

Cook then sailed for Otaheite, which he reached in April. The contrast of the luxurious climate with the inclement region which they had left behind them, was doubly striking to men who, for upwards of half a year, had seen nothing but the ocean or the deserts of Cape Horn. They now proceeded vigorously to the chief purposes of their voyage. The captain and his officers prepared their instruments to observe the transit, while Banks and his botanical attendants ranged the island, made themselves acquainted with its natural productions, and conciliated the natives. The effect of his intelligence and intrepidity was conspicuous on an occasion which might have involved the scientific fate of the expedition. The quadrant, though under charge of a sentinel, had been stolen by the adroitness of some of the natives. But without it no observation could be taken. Banks volunteered to go in search of it into the woods, made himself master of it, and conveyed it in safety to the observatory; though followed by parties of the natives, and occasionally compelled to keep them at bay by exhibiting his pistols.

The transit was successfully observed, but it took six hours for the operation. As the period approached, even the crew had felt the strongest anxiety for its success. The state of the sky was reported every half hour during the night before, and their spirits rose and fell as the report gave its answer, clear or cloudy. But at dawn the sky was brilliant, and the day passed without a cloud. Four other observations had been simultaneously made, in Siberia, Lapland, Hudson's Bay, and California. The general result gave the sun's distance at nearly ninety-four millions of miles.

The next object of the voyage was a search for the great southern continent, which the philosophers of the day had conceived to exist, as a "necessary balance" to the mass of land in the northern hemisphere. But conjectural philosophy is often at fault, and necessary as this terrestrial balance was asserted to be, no "great" southern continent has yet been found. For a while, even Cook's sagacity seems to have been deceived by the mountains of New Zealand, which had been discovered, in 1620, by Tasman. Cook sailed round it, and explored its shores for six months. He then, on his homeward voyage, examined the east coast of New Holland. Of course, it is not the intention of this paper to trace a career so well known as that of the celebrated navigator. We refer to its incidents, merely as connected with Sir Joseph Banks. They had run about thirteen hundred miles of the coast, when, after having received some alarm from the neighbourhood of coral reefs, the vessel suddenly struck. It was Cook's sagacious habit, nightly, to give all his orders and precautions before he went to rest; and thus, after having done all that prudence could do, he undressed, went to bed, and such was the composure of his mind that he instantly fell asleep. But immediately on the vessel's striking, the captain was on deck, and giving his orders with his characteristic coolness. The light of the moon showed the sheathing boards of the ship floating all round, and at last her false keel. Their fate appeared imminent, but it was only when the day broke, that they became fully sensible of their forlorn condition. The land was at eight leagues' distance. There were no intermediate islets on which the crew might be saved, and the boats were wholly insufficient to take them all at once. To lighten the ship was their first object. Guns, ballast, stores, every thing was thrown over. After two tides they were enabled to get the ship afloat. To their great relief, the leak did not seem to gain upon them, though to keep it down required the labour of the men night and day. At length a midshipman fortunately suggested an expedient which he had once seen adopted at sea. This was to draw under the ship's bottom a sail, to which were fastened oakum, flax, and other light substances. The sail thus covered the leak, and enabled the ship to swim. On pursuing their voyage, and reaching a river, in which they attempted to repair the ship, they found that her preservation, in the first instance, was owing to the extraordinary circumstance of a large fragment of rock which had stuck into the vessel, and thus partially stopped up the leak. In this most anxious emergency Sir Joseph Banks and his party exhibited all the coolness and intrepidity which were required; and in the subsequent account of the voyage, received from Cook himself well-merited praises.

Another peril likely to be attended with still more certain ruin, now assailed the crew. The scurvy began to make its appearance. The devastations of this dreadful disease, in the early history of our navigation, fortunately now appear almost fabulous. It was a real plague; it seemed almost to dissolve the whole frame; teeth fell out, limbs dropped off, and the sufferer sank into a rapid, and, as it was once thought, an inevitable grave. It is a remarkable instance of the powers which man possesses to counteract the most formidable evils, that this terrible disease is now scarcely known. It has been overpowered solely by such simple means as fresh meat and vegetables, and a drink medicated with lemon-juice. Simple as those expedients are, they have saved the lives of thousands and tens of thousands of the sea-going population of England.

But new hazards, arising alike from the imperfect condition of the vessel and their ignorance of the coast, continued to pursue them. Never was a voyage attempted with greater difficulties to surmount, or achieved with more triumphant success; after having explored two thousand miles of this perilous coast, Cook took possession of it in the name of his king, giving it the title of New South Wales.

At length he arrived at Batavia, where, on laying up his ship to repair, it was discovered that their preservation throughout this long voyage had been little less than miraculous, her planks having been in many instances worn "as thin as the sole of a shoe." But their trials were not yet over: the marsh fever quickly laid up the crew; the captain, Banks, and Solander, were taken seriously ill. They set sail from this pestilential island as soon as possible; but before they reached the Cape, three-and-twenty had died, including Green the astronomer, and the midshipman whose suggestion had saved the ship. At length, on the 12th of July 1771, they cast anchor in the Downs, and Cook and his companions were received with national acclamation.

The triumph of the navigation was naturally due to Cook, but the most important part of the knowledge which had been communicated to the empire was due to the labours of Banks. It was from his journals, that the chief details of the habits, manners, and resources of the natives were derived. The vegetable, mineral, and animal products of the Society Islands, and of New Holland, New Zealand, and New Guinea, had been explored, and a vast quantity of general intelligence was obtained relative to countries, which now form an essential portion of the British empire. The novelty of those possessions has now worn off, their value has made them familiar. We are fully acquainted with their products, however we may be still ignorant of their powers. But, at the period of this memorable voyage, the Southern Hemisphere was scarcely more known than the hemisphere of the moon. Every league of the coasts of New Holland, and the islands of the Great Southern Ocean, abounded with natural perils, heightened by the necessary ignorance of the navigator. Even to this day, many a fearful catastrophe attests the difficulties of the navigation; the coral rocks were a phenomenon wholly new to nautical experience; and, in all the modern improvements of nautical science, full room is left for wonder, at the skill, the intelligence, and the daring, which carried Cook and his companions safe through the perils of this gigantic navigation.

A new expedition was soon demanded at once by the curiosity of the people and the interests of science. The dream of a great southern continent was still the favourite topic of all who regarded themselves as philosophers in England, although Cook had sailed over an unfathomable ocean, in the very tract where he ought, according to this adventurous theory, to have found a continent. Sir Joseph Banks again gallantly volunteered to join the expedition which was equipped for the discovery. His large fortune enabled him to make unusual preparations; but such was his zeal, that he even raised a loan for the purpose. He engaged Zoffani, the painter, with three assistant draughtsmen. He selected two secretaries and nine attendants, instructed in the art of preserving plants and animals; he also provided books, drawings, and instruments. But his natural ambition was suddenly thwarted by the opposition of Sir Hugh Palliser, controller of the navy. For whatever reason – and it is now difficult to imagine any, except some jealousy too contemptible to name – so many obstructions were thrown in the way, that Banks relinquished the pursuit, and turned his attention to a voyage to Iceland. His suite, seamen and all, amounting to forty persons, reached the island in 1772, examined its chief natural phenomena, Hecla and its hot springs, and furnished its historian, Von Troil, with the materials for the most accurate history of this outpost of the northern world.

On his return to England, he commenced the career, natural to an opulent man of a cultivated mind, but yet so seldom followed in England by individuals of even higher means than his own. He fitted up a large house in Soho Square with all the preparatives for a life of literary association – a copious library, collections of natural history, and philosophical instruments. He held frequent conversaziones, gave dinners, and easily and naturally constituted himself the leader of the men of science in London. In Lincolnshire, where his chief property lay, he performed the part of the liberal and hospitable country gentleman on a large scale; while in London, he was the first person to whom scientific foreigners were introduced, and the principal patron and protector of ingenious men.

On the resignation of Sir John Pringle as President of the Royal Society, Sir Joseph Banks was placed in the chair, in 1778, almost by acclamation. He had some obvious qualifications for the office, but he as obviously wanted others. His opulence, his hospitality, and his zeal for science, were valuable, and are nearly indispensable in the president of a body which concentrates the chief intellectual force of the community. But his favourite pursuit, botany, has never deserved the name of a science, and inevitably bears a character of triviality in the eyes of the mathematician and the philosopher. The distinction given to a comparatively young man, known to the world only as a voyager, and a collector of plants and animals, not unnaturally tended to breed scoffing among the professors of the severe sciences. The feeling spread, and the opportunity for its expression was soon found. Dr Hutton, the mathematical professor at Woolwich, happened to be secretary for foreign correspondence. His residence at Woolwich was said to produce some inconvenience in his intercourse with the president; and the council passed a resolution, in 1783, recommending that "the foreign secretary should reside in London." The secret history of this transaction is, that Hutton was one of the mathematical party; though we cannot distinctly ascertain whether he had actually gone so far as to sneer at the president. Upon this Hutton resigned the office; to accept which, the emolument could not have been his object, the salary being but L.20 a-year – a sum that cannot be mentioned without a sense of disgrace to a society reckoning among its members some of the wealthiest men of England.

Hutton's resignation, or rather dismissal, produced an open war in the society. The mathematicians ranged themselves on the Huttonian side; the cultivators of natural history, and the cultivators of nothing, ranged themselves on the side of the president. The mathematicians were headed by Horsley, afterwards the bishop – a man whom Lord Brougham characterizes as extremely arrogant, of violent temper, and intoxicated with an extravagant sense of his own scientific merits, which his noble biographer pronounces to be altogether insignificant, heading this charge with the unkindest cut of all, namely, that he was "a priest." Horsley was certainly no great mathematician, as his publication of the Principia unluckily shows; but the picture is high coloured, which represents him as a hot-tempered, loud-tongued, bustling personage – a sort of bravo of science and theology, who took up the first opinion which occurred to him, scorned to rectify it by any after-thought, and plunged from one absurdity into another, for the sake of consistency. The eloquence of his attacks upon the chair, of whose possession he was supposed to be foolishly ambitious, was vaunted a good deal by his partisans. But, as the only evidence of his rhetoric in these squabbles ever quoted, is one sentence, it is like the pretension to wit on the strength of a single pun, and may be easily cast aside. This boasted sentence was uttered, in threatening the secession of the mathematical party. "The president will then be left with his train of feeble amateurs, and that toy (the mace) upon the table – the ghost of the Society in which Philosophy once reigned, and Newton officiated as her minister."

Horsley's theology was too nearly on a par with his mathematics – he was harsh and headlong. The fortunate folly of Priestley in challenging the English clergy to a trial of strength in the old arena of Unitarianism, gained him an opportunity of crushing an antagonist whose presumption was in proportion to his ignorance. Accordingly, the Unitarian was speedily put hors-de-combat, and Horsley was rewarded with a mitre.

The president had long felt that the purpose of this violent lover of parallelograms was, to unseat him. The question was therefore brought to a decision, in the shape of a resolution "approving of Sir Joseph Banks as president, and resolving to support him in his office." This resolution was carried by 119 to 43.

Honours began now to gather upon him. In 1788 he had been made a baronet. In 1795 he received the order of the Bath, then generally restricted to soldiers and diplomatists. In two years after, he was called to the Privy Council. On the death of the Duke of Ancaster he was chosen recorder of Boston; but, though often solicited to stand an election, he was never a member of Parliament. Though professing himself a Tory, he seems never to have taken any active part in politics, preserving a curious practical neutrality in Lincolnshire, and giving his interest to Mr Pelham, a Whig, and Mr Chaplin, a Tory. This, which his noble biographer curiously seems to consider as a happy proof of the absence of all party feelings, we should be apt to look upon as a proof of a degenerate wish to consult his own ease, and of a sluggish neutrality discreditable to the character of an Englishman.

However, he had more honourable distinctions. In the furious Revolutionary war – a war of principles and passions, not less than of public interests, the president of the Royal Society largely exerted his interest with both governments, to alleviate the sufferings of scientific men who happened to fall into the hands of the belligerents, and to effect the restoration of scientific property captured by our ships of war. In 1802 he was chosen one of the foreign members of the Institute of France; and his letter of thanks, a little too ardent in its gratitude, was said to have involved the baronet in some vexations peculiarly felt by his courtly temperament. He was instantly attacked for his Gallican panegyric, by a portion of the Royal Society. Cobbett, who was then looking out for a victim, and whose loyalty was at that period peculiarly glowing, flew at him like a tiger-cat; and, last and most dreaded of all, he was said to have received at Windsor some of those frowns, which to a courtier are a total eclipse of the sun. But the nation soon had higher things to think of than a slip of the President's pen, or a little betrayal of his vanity. Napoleon ascended the throne; and, when the thunderbolts began to fall, the squibs and crackers flung from hand to hand of little men are of necessity forgotten.

His latter years were signalized by acts of unequivocal public service. He is designated by Lord Brougham, and no one can have a better right to be informed of the fact, as the real founder of the African Association. – His lordship also regards him as the real founder of the colony of Botany Bay. – He was the first to suggest the transfer of the tropical fruits to the West India islands. – British horticulture owed him great services. – And the British Museum, during forty-two years of his trusteeship, was the object of his peculiar care, and finally received the bequest of his excellent library and of all his collections.

His career, however, was now, by the course of nature, drawing to its close. Yet, he had lived seventy-eight years in this anxious and disappointing world, in opulence, in peace, and in public estimation. But his lot had been singularly fortunate. Few men are without their share of those troubles which characterize the general condition of human nature. Sir Joseph Banks had his trial, in physical suffering. In the first portion of his life he had been remarkable for robust health and activity; but, from about his fortieth year, he suffered severely from attacks of gout, which increased so much, that for his last fourteen years he was scarcely able to walk. His robust mind, however, enabled him to encounter his disease by increased and extreme temperance. He gave up all fermented liquors and animal food. He seems to have derived considerable benefit from D'Huisson's medicine. But his hour was come; and on the 19th of June 1820, in the seventy-eighth year of his age, he died – just one year after his honoured and royal friend, George III.

Thus passed through the world one of those men who are among the most useful in their generation. It would be idle to pronounce him a genius, a discoverer, or a profound philosopher. But he served an important purpose in society; he suggested philosophical enterprise, he protected the honourable ambition of men whose career, without that protection, might have closed in obscure suffering: he gave the philosophy and literature of his time a leader, and formed it into a substantial shape. In this spirit he employed his life; and he accomplished his purpose with the constancy and determination of a sagacious and systematic mind. He might not be a pillar of the philosophical temple of his country, nor its architrave; but he performed the office of the clamp – he bound together the materials of both pillar and architrave, and sustained the edifice alike in its stateliness and in its security.

Lord Brougham's biography of D'Alembert commences with a brief dissertation on the interest which the mind takes in the study of mathematics. This study he regards as superior in gratification to every other, from its independence of external circumstances. In all other studies, he observes truly, that a large portion of the researches must depend upon facts imperfectly ascertained from the reports of others, and upon knowledge impeded by the capricious chances of things; while in pure science, the principles, the premises, and the conclusions, are wholly within our own power.

In a passage exhibiting the affluence of the noble lord's language, he says, "The life of a geometrician may well be supposed an uninterrupted calm, and the gratification which is derived from its researches, is of a pure and also of a lively kind – whether he contemplates the truths discovered by others, with the demonstrative evidence on which they rest, or carries the science further, and himself adds to the number of the interesting truths before known. He may be often stopt in his researches by the difficulties that beset his path; he may be frustrated in his attempts to discover relations, depending on complicated data, which he cannot unravel or reconcile; but his study is wholly independent of accident, his reliance is on his own powers. Contestation and uncertainty he never can know; a stranger to all controversy, above all mystery, he possesses his mind in unruffled peace. Bound by no authority, regardless of all consequences as of all opposition, he is entire master of his conclusions as of his operations, and feels even perfect indifference to the acceptance or objection of his doctrines, because he confidently looks forward to their universal and immediate admission the moment they are comprehended."

All this is strikingly expressed, yet it is after all but a showy hypothesis. That pure mathematics have nothing to do with external existence, may be easily granted; but that mathematicians are exempt from controversy, is no more a matter of experience than that all mathematical assertions are self-evident. The history of science is a direct contradiction of this halcyon hypothesis. The bitterest controversies, and the most ridiculous too, have been raised on mathematical opinions. Universal experience tends strongly to the proof, that no exclusive exertion of the mind is more fatal to its general vigour, more apt to narrow its range of conception; more distinctly operative, by its very exclusiveness, and by its making minute truths the especial object of the mind, in rendering it incapable of those loftier and broader truths on which depend all the great concerns of society, all the efficient progress of civilisation, and all the nobler growth of human powers – than the mere study of mathematics. A spider drawing his web out of his own fibres, and constructing his little lines and circles in his dusty corner, is the fittest emblem of the mere mathematician. In this language, we acknowledge the use of the science; we protest only against its pretence of superiority. Every man's experience of college studies may supply him with examples; but we have room but for one, and that of a sufficiently high order.

When Napoleon assumed the French throne, in his ambition of being regarded as the universal patron of science he appointed the author of the Méchanique Céleste a member of his privy council. But La Place, then and since, the first scientific name of France, was found utterly inadequate to even the almost sinecure duties of his office. Napoleon soon found that he could make no use of him. He accordingly consulted him no longer. "I found his mind," said he, "like his book, full of infiniments petits." Or if we look for further illustration among the French geometers – the only men among whom the trial can be made, from their opportunities of power in the Revolution – there was not one of them who exhibited any qualification for the higher duties of public life. Bailly, Condorcet, and their tribe, proved themselves utterly feeble, helpless, and trifling, where manliness, activity, and intelligence of mind were required. The Savans were swept away like a swarm of mice, or crushed like musquitoes, when they dared to buzz in the presence of the public. That they were first-rate mathematicians there can be no question; that they quarrelled about their mathematical theories with the bitterness, and not a little in the style of village gossips, is equally certain; and that, though the Encyclopedists had chiefly died off before the Revolution, their successors and imitators were extinguished by their preposterous combination of an avarice of power, and of an inadequacy to exertion, is a fact written unanswerably in the history of their trifling career, and of their early scaffolds. The ridiculous figure made in politics by the first astronomer of France, at this moment, only strengthens the conclusion.

The life of D'Alembert is, however, one of the happiest illustrations of the use to which science may be applied, in raising an obscure individual into public fame. Yet, it is not to be forgotten, that D'Alembert's European celebrity commenced only when he had laid aside the exclusive study of mathematics, and devoted himself to general literature, and, shaking off the dust of his closet, he became a man of the world.

Jean le Rond d'Alembert was born in November 1717, and was exposed as a foundling near the church of St Jean le Rond in Paris, and thus called by the name of the parish. The commissary of the district, taking pity upon the infant's apparently dying condition, instead of sending it to the hospital, where it would have inevitably died, gave it to be nursed by the wife of a poor glazier. In a few days, however, a person named D'Estouches, a commissary of artillery, came forward, acknowledged the child, and made provision for its support. The habits of foreign life are generally so scandalous, that they can scarcely be alluded to without offending our sense of delicacy. The mother of this infant was an unmarried woman, living in the very highest circles of Paris, the sister of Cardinal Tencin, archbishop of Lyons. This woman thus added to her vice the cruelty of exposing her unfortunate offspring to die of cold and hunger in the streets. It does not appear that her profligacy, though notorious, ever affected her position in society. Her coteries were as gay, her circle was as complete, and her rank as high, as ever. In the Paris of those days, "throwing the first stone" was unheard of; its reaction would have been an avalanche; there was no scandal where there was no concealment; there was no crime where there was no conscience; and thus danced the world away, until the scourge of a higher power swept the whole noblesse of France into beggary and exile.

D'Alembert seems to have taken his surname from that of his nurse, and was sent, when twelve years old, to the College of La Nation, then in the possession of the Jansenists. There he learned mathematics. On leaving the college, he returned to the glazier's house, there had one room for his bedroom and study, lived on the family fare, supported himself on a pension of £50 a-year left to him by his father, and in that house lived for forty years. He once made an abortive attempt to study the law and medicine, but soon grew weary of both, and returned to mathematics, for which he had a decided predilection. His application to this study, however, by no means pleased the homely sense of his old nurse. "You will never be any thing better than a philosopher," was her usual saying. "And what's a philosopher? – a fool, who wears out his life, to be spoken of after he is dead."

But D'Alembert had evidently a passion for science; and in his twenty-third year he sent to the Academy of Sciences an analytical paper, which attracted general notice. This was followed by his admission into the society, at the unusually early age of twenty-four. From this period, he proceeded for eighteen years, constantly furnishing the Academy with papers, which added greatly to its reputation and his own. In a note on the presumed discovery of Taylor's Theorem by D'Alembert, the noble biographer alludes to what he regards as a similar event, the discovery of the "Binomial Theorem" by himself. We must acknowledge, that we cannot easily comprehend how any student, within the last hundred years, could have had this "discovery" to make – the Binomial Theorem being one of the very first which meets the eye of the algebraist, in Newton's, and every other treatise on analysis. It seems to us very like an English reader's "discovery" of the alphabet, or, at least, of the recondite art of spelling words of two syllables. But D'Alembert was at length to find, that if he was to obtain either fame or fortune, he must seek them in some other road. At this period, infidelity had become the distinction of all who arrogated to themselves intellectual accomplishment. The power of the crown, and the power of the clergy, had hitherto made its expression dangerous; but the new liberalism of the throne having enfeebled its power, the reign of the libeller, the rebel, and the sceptic openly commenced. The opulence of the clergy increased the bitterness of their enemies; and the blow which was intended to lay the throne in the dust, was nominally aimed at religion. Voltaire had commenced this crusade half a century before; but the arch-infidel lived beyond the dominion of France, possessed an independent income, had acquired the reputation of the wittiest man in Europe, and had established a species of impunity by the pungency of his perpetual sneers. During this period, French infidelity had been silent through fear, but it was not the less virulent, active, and general. It appeared in the result, that almost the whole of the French higher orders were either deists or total unbelievers. All the literary men of France followed the example of Voltaire, and a scoff at religion was always accepted as an evidence of wit. France loves extremes; and, as the poplar literature of Paris is now plunged in impurity, fifty years ago it was characterized by outrageous blasphemy. The only religion which France knew, was certainly not calculated to repress the evil. Its fantastic exhibitions and grim formalities, were equally obnoxious to the human understanding. Its persecuting spirit insulted the growing passion of the people for liberty; while its fierce dogmas, contrasting with its ridiculous traditions, supplied the largest materials at once for horror and ridicule.

At length the storm broke forth. The infidelity which had danced and smiled, and made calembourgs and scoffed, in the full-dress circles of the nobles; made its appearance in the streets and highways, in rags and riot, with the axe for the pen, and blood for the ink, and trampled the whole polished race of scoffers in the mire of Revolution.

The Encyclopédie was the great text-book of the literary faction, and Diderot and D'Alembert were the editors of its first seven volumes – D'Alembert writing the preliminary discourse upon the progress of the sciences. But the latter mixed caution with his courage; for on the issue of the government prohibition of the work, he abandoned the editorship and left it to Diderot.

At length, in 1752, the King of Prussia, who, with all his fame, had the weakness of being emulous of French flattery, offered him an appointment at Berlin, with an allowance of five hundred pounds a-year, and the reversionary office of president of the academy. But this royal offer he refused, on the ground of his reluctance to quit Paris, and the fear that the employment would be inconsistent with his freedom. At this period his fixed income seemed to be about seventy pounds a-year; yet, when we suffer ourselves to be astonished at the apparent magnanimity of the refusal, we are to remember that this sum, a hundred years ago, and in Paris, would be about equivalent to two hundred pounds a-year in England at the present day; that, like all Frenchmen, he hated Germany; that Frederic's dealings with Voltaire gave by no means a favourable specimen of his friendships; and that, to a Frenchman of that day, Paris was all the world. But, ten years after, the Empress Catharine made him the much more tempting offer of the tutorship of her son, afterwards the unfortunate Emperor Paul. The salary was to be magnificent, no less than four thousand pounds a-year; still he refused the offer, and preferred remaining in Paris.

Whether we are to applaud his magnanimity, or blame his habits, on this occasion, may fairly be a question. The possession of the four thousand pounds a-year, even if it were limited to the period of tuition, would have made him opulent; and his opulence would undoubtedly have given him the means of extensive benevolence, of relieving private distress, of assisting his less fortunate literary brethren, of promoting public objects, and ultimately, perhaps, of founding some valuable institution which might last for ages. But D'Alembert, and men like him, seem to live only for themselves. It would have cost him an absence from Paris for a certain period to have obtained this power of public good; and he preferred living without it, and haunting, night after night, the coteries of the old blue-stockings who kept open house for the evening gossipry of the capital.

Nothing can form a stronger contrast to the general passion of the French character for change, than its devotion to the same coterie for half a century together. In the middle of the eighteenth century two houses in Paris were especially the rendezvous of the talkers, idlers, and philosophers of Paris. That some of those visitants were men of remarkable ability, there can be no doubt. But this perpetual haunting of the same coffee-cups, this regularity of trifling, this wretched inability to remain at home for a single evening, is so wholly irreconcilable with our English sense of domestic duties, of the attachment of parents to their families, and of the exercise of the natural affections, that we find it utterly impossible to attach any degree of respect to the perpetual lounger at another's fire-side. Madame Geoffrin had now succeeded to Madame de Tencin, as the receiver of the coterie. Madame du Deffand held a kind of rival, but inferior, coterie. The former had a house, the latter had only a lodging; the former was good-humoured, amiable, and kind – the latter satirical and cold; but both were clever, and, at all events, both received the gossips, wise and foolish, of Paris. At the lodging of Madame du Deffand, D'Alembert met Mademoiselle de l'Espinasse, a species of companion to Madame. She was the illegitimate daughter of a woman of fashion, as D'Alembert was the son. The circumstance was too common in Parisian high life, to involve any censure on the parents, or any disgrace on the children; but it may have produced a degree of sympathy, which suddenly rose to its height by their taking a lodging together! Those things, too, were so frequent in France, that, except the laugh of the moment, no one seems to have taken notice of the connexion; and they continued to carry it on, as well received as ever, and holding their evening coterie with undiminished applause.

"No one," observes the noble biographer, "whispered a syllable of suspicion, respecting a connexion which all were fully convinced could be only of the most innocent kind." This French credulity is too simple for our credence. That a he and she philosophic pair should have lived in the same apartments for a dozen years with perfect innocency, may have been the case in Paris; but the story would not be believed in any less immaculate region on the face of the earth. The plain truth seems to be, that the general looseness of Parisian society saw nothing gross in the grossest connexion. Even where they affected virtue, they palpably preferred their having an evening lounge open to them, to any consideration grounded on common propriety and a sense of shame.

But the philosopher was a dirty fellow after all, and it only does credit to his noble biographer's sense of propriety to admit, that "his conduct must seem strange to all men of right and honourable feelings." In fact, the philosopher seems to have lent his aid very zealously to a correspondence carried on by his sensitive fellow-lodger! with a view to a marriage with a Spanish Marquis Mora. Among other proofs, he went every morning to the post-office to receive the Spaniard's letters for the lady. "I confess," says Lord Brougham, "I am driven, how reluctantly soever, to the painful conclusion, that he lent himself to the plan of her inveigling the Spaniard into a marriage." And this was not the only instance of his by-play. Mademoiselle professed also to have fallen in love with a M. Guibert, known as a military writer. Guibert exhibited his best tactics, in keeping clear of the lady. "All this time, she continued," says his lordship, "to make D'Alembert believe, that she had no real passion for any one but himself." No one can easily suppose that they were not connected in a plan of obtaining for her a settlement in life by marriage. But, if this marriage-intrigue was in every sense, and on all sides, contemptible; what are we to think of the nature of the connexion existing between this sensitive lady and D'Alembert, living for years under the same roof? The whole matter would be too repulsive for the decorums of biography, if it were not among the evidences of that utter corruption of morals, and callousness of feeling, which were finally avenged in the havoc of the Revolution.

D'Alembert's income had been increased by his appointment to the office of secretary to the Academy, in 1772. Unfortunately for his literary fame, it became a part of his duty to write the éloges of the deceased members, an office which he fulfilled with equal diligence and unproductiveness; for, of those unfortunate performances he wrote no less than eighty-three. But the French are fond of fooleries of this kind; a few sounding sentences with them are biography; a few rambling sketches fill up the outline to their taste; and the whole forms a specimen of that eloquence which men are content to admire on the other side of the Channel.

At length his career drew to a close. Towards his sixty-fourth year, his health began to decline. It had never been robust, though his habits had been temperate; but feebleness of stomach, and an organic disease, predicted the approach of his dissolution. He died on the 29th of October 1783, in the sixty-seventh year of his age. Notwithstanding his feebleness of body, his intellectual vigour remained – thus adding one to the many proofs of the distinct natures of mind and body. In his intervals of ease, he continued to occupy himself with mathematical investigations. With a deplorable want of feeling, he talked with levity of his approaching departure – an event awful to the best, and, to the wisest, solemn in proportion to their wisdom. He died in the fulness of that scientific reputation which he deserved, and of that literary reputation which he did not deserve; but, by the combination of both, ranking as the most distinguished intellectual name of Europe in his day.

The life of a later philosopher, the unfortunate Lavoisier, gives Lord Brougham an opportunity of rendering justice to an eminent foreigner, and of vindicating the claims of his own still more memorable countrymen, Black and Watt. Chemistry is especially the science of the eighteenth century, as geometry was of the seventeenth. It is a characteristic of that great, however slow, change, which is now evidently in progress through Europe, that those sciences which most promote the comforts, the powers, and the progress of the multitude, obviously occupy the largest share of mental illustration. Of all the sciences, chemistry is that one which contributes most largely to the dominion of man over nature. It is the very handmaid of Wisdom, instructing us in the properties of things, and continually developing more and more the secrets of those vast and beneficent processes by which the physical frame of creation is rendered productive to man. It must thus be regarded as the most essential instrument of our physical well-being. It takes a part in all that administers to our wants and enjoyments. Our clothing, our medicine, our food; the cultivation of the ground, the salubrity of the atmosphere; the very blood, bone, and muscle of man, all depend on chemical evolutions. But it has its still loftier secrets; and the experimental philosopher is constantly stimulated and delighted by his approach to at least the borders of discoveries which promise to give a nobler insight into the laws of matter; to exhibit more fully the mechanism formed and moved by the Divine hand; and to develop the glories of the universe on a scale continually enlarging, and continually more luminous.

A matchless source of interest in this most effective and essential of all the sciences, is, that it seems capable of an infinite progress. The chemical philosopher cannot even conceive any limit to its variety, multitude, or utility of purpose. The more he discovers, the more he finds is still to be discovered. Every new property awakens him to the existence of some other property, more capacious and more profound. Every difficulty mastered, only leads him towards some deeper and more tempting problem. And, in addition to the ardour derived from this triumph of our intellectual ambition – as if all the incentives that can act upon man were expressly accumulated upon this pursuit – there is no science in which the actual triumphs are more directly connected with personal opulence. The invention of a new acid or alkali might create unbounded wealth. The discovery of a new principle of the most vulgar use – for tanning leather, for extracting oils, for strengthening soap, for purifying tallow, might place the discoverer in possession of wealth beyond the dreams of avarice. But a loftier ambition may still find its field in this science. A chemical discovery might change the face of the world. Gunpowder had already changed the whole form of European society. A chemical discovery might give us the power of managing at our will the storm and the lightning, of averting the pestilence, or of ensuring the fertility of the soil, and the regularity of the seasons. The Divine intention in placing us here, was evidently the perpetual exercise of the human understanding. For that purpose were given the wants, and the remedies of the wants, of man; for that purpose all sciences are perhaps inexhaustible; but of all, the most palpably inexhaustible, the most teeming with immediate results, and the most remedial as to human necessities, is Chemistry – fitted by its extent to supply the largest proportion of human objects, by its power to excite the most eager inquiry, and by its richness to reward the intelligent labour of man, to the last ages of the world.

Antoine Laurent Lavoisier was born in Paris in 1743, the son of one of the "farmers-general." As the office was nearly hereditary, and was proverbially connected with great opulence, the son of the rich functionary was highly educated. But science soon attracted all his study, and, devoting himself especially to chemistry, he made himself conspicuous among the leading philosophers of his time.

At the age of twenty-two, he presented to the Academy of Sciences an analysis of gypsum. At twenty-five he was admitted a member of the Academy, an unusually early age. In his next year he succeeded his father in his lucrative office. He then married the daughter of another farmer-general, and having made this provision for a life of luxury or public employment, with all that political ambition might offer in the old régime of France, he collected his books about him, shut himself up in his study, and gave up his time, fortune, and energy to the advancement of science.

After occupying himself for a brief period with geology, he commenced his chemical career by refuting the theories alike of Margraff and Stahl on the conversion of water into earth. The chemistry of the gases had made rapid progress in England; and the names of Black, Priestley, and Cavendish, had already attracted the attention of scientific Europe. Lavoisier followed in their track by a series of experiments in the calcination of metals, pursued with remarkable intelligence and industry. The biographer observes that he was now on the verge of two dazzling discoveries – the composition of the atmosphere, and the identity of the diamond with carbon. But he stopped short, and left the glory to more fortunate investigators.

We hasten from the controversies to which the claim of priority in those distinguished discoveries gave rise, and come to the more authentic services of Lavoisier. He was appointed by the minister to superintend the royal manufacture of gunpowder, which his chemical knowledge enabled him greatly to improve. He next, by appointment of the National Assembly, drew up his laborious and valuable memoir on the Territorial Wealth of France. He was now appointed one of the commissioners of the treasury, and introduced an unexampled regularity into the public accounts. He aided the formation of the metrical system, the security of the assignats against forgery, and seems to have borne an active part in every public matter in which practical science was concerned. In the mean time he employed himself in scientific agriculture, and set apart a tract of land on his estate for experimental farming. His style of living in Paris was at once rational and splendid. His house was open twice a-week for the reception of distinguished persons, both foreigners and natives, and especially if they brought with them the recommendation of scientific ability. With the finest philosophical apparatus in the possession of any individual in France, he was constantly carrying on experiments on his own account, or performing them for others whose means could not meet their expense. This conduct, united to remarkable amiability of manners, made him popular, and placed him at the head of French science in his day. But the evil time had come when opulence was to be a crime, and virtue was to be no longer a safe-guard. The democratic triumvirate of 1794 issued an order for the seizure of twenty-seven individuals who had been farmers-general before the Revolution. The true charge was the crime of being opulent. The popular and ridiculous charge was, their having mixed deleterious ingredients with the tobacco. Lavoisier having received information that the order was about to be executed, fled, and remained for some days in concealment. On understanding that his flight might injure the other prisoners, and as his father-in-law was among them, he, with a rash reliance on the public justice, yet with manly generosity, returned to Paris, and gave himself up to his oppressors. The course of the Revolution had been so palpably that of general plunder, that he had long expected the loss of fortune, and proposed, in case of ruin, to begin the world again, and live by the profession of medicine.

But, by a furious act of violence, he was condemned to die. He asked only a few days to complete some experiments which were going on during his imprisonment. The scoffing answer of this merciless tribunal was, that the Republic had no need of philosophers; and on the day after this sentence, the 8th of May 1794, he was hurried to the guillotine with no less than one hundred and twenty-three other victims, who all died within a few hours.

On this melancholy and desperate atrocity of republicanism, Lord Brougham makes the following remark, which, though natural in the lips of any human being, has double force as coming from one who has seen the operation of the revolutionary spirit on so large a scale, and during so extended a portion of his public career.

"The lustre," he observes, "which the labours of Lavoisier had shed over the scientific renown of France, the valuable services which he had rendered her in so many important departments of her affairs, the virtues which adorned his character and made his philosophy beloved as well as revered, were all destined to meet the reward with which the tyranny of vulgar faction is sure to recompense the good and the wise, as often as the base unlettered multitude are permitted to bear sway, and to place in the seat of dominion their idols, who dupe to betray, and finally punish them."

Lord Brougham justly reprobates the suspicious silence of the celebrated Carnot on this occasion, and the still more scandalous apathy of Fourcroix, who had been the pupil and panegyrist of the great chemist during many years. He acquits him of the deadly imputation, that he had even been instrumental in sending his master to the guillotine. But he praises, in contradistinction, M. Hallé, who had the honest courage to proclaim Lavoisier's public services before the dreadful tribunal, while he consigns the pupil to perpetual scorn. He was murdered in his fifty-first year.

Lord Brougham's French predilections do credit to his sense of cosmopolitism; but he appears to us somewhat more disposed to conciliate the jealousy of his very irritable French confrères, than to deal rigorous justice. No man deserves the reputation of science but a discoverer. To know all that has been hitherto known on a subject, deserves the character of diligence; to promote the progress of a science by largeness of expenditure, or steadiness of exertion, deserves the praise of liberality and labour; but the man who adds to the science by original invention, who enlarges its boundaries, and detects new principles, is the man alone to whom the name of genius can be applied. Lavoisier was, unquestionably, an important minister of science; he possessed singular assiduity, unwearied zeal, and remarkable sagacity. What these could do, he did; what knowledge could accomplish, he performed; but the inventors were of another country, and of a higher order, and he must be content with the honours due to imitation. Yet he had considerable happiness in the difficult art of communicating his knowledge. His Treatise on Chemistry, though now superseded by subsequent arrangements, is singularly clear; and no great teacher of chemistry has hitherto given the world a more striking example of exactness in detail, and clearness in conception.

His cruel death, too, may be almost said to have continued his services to society. It proved, with irresistible force, the true character of Infidel Revolution. It showed a noble-minded and benevolent man the victim of revolutionary rage; an intelligent, studious, and retired man, obnoxious to the rabble love of ruin; a mild, generous, and patriotic man, the instant prey of revolutionary government, which boasted of its superiority to the vices of kings, of its homage to intellect, and of its supreme value for the virtues of private life. Yet it murdered Lavoisier without a moment's hesitation, or a moment's remorse, and flung the first philosopher of France into a felon's grave.

The biography of Adam Smith gives Lord Brougham an opportunity of pouring out, at the distance of nearly half a century, that knowledge of Political Economy which first brought him into notice. His Colonial Policy, a remarkable performance for a student of eighteen, exhibited in miniature the principles and propensities which his long career has been expended in maturing and moulding. Adam Smith was the idol of all Scottish worship in the last century; and his originality of conception, the weight of his subject, and the clearness of his judgment, made him worthy of the elevation.

Adam Smith's birth was of a higher order than is often to be found in the instance of men destined to literary eminence. He was the son of a comptroller of the customs, who had been private secretary to Lord Loudoun, secretary of state, and keeper of the great seal.

An accident in infancy had nearly deprived the age of its first philosopher, even if it had not trained him to be hanged. At three years of age he was stolen by travelling tinkers, a race resembling the gipsies, and which in that day formed a numerous population in Scotland. But a pursuit being speedily set on foot, he was fortunately recovered. He was well educated, and, after the routine of school, was sent to Glasgow for three years, where he obtained an Exhibition to Baliol College. At Oxford he remained for seven years, chiefly addicted to mathematics – a study, however, which he subsequently wholly abandoned. He had been intended for the Church of England; but whether from dislike of its discipline, or from disappointment in his views, he retired to Scotland, to take his chance of employment in its colleges. In 1748 he settled in Edinburgh, and, for three years, read a course of lectures on rhetoric. His contemporaries, then obscure, became, in some instances, conspicuous; for among them were Hume, Robertson, and Wedderburne. In 1751, Smith was elected to the professorship of Logic in the University of Glasgow, which he soon after exchanged for that of Moral Philosophy.

Thus far we run on smoothly with Lord Brougham; but when he comes to discuss religion, we must occasionally doubt his guidance. For example, in speaking of Smith's lectures on Natural Theology, he denounces the jealousy of those who regard it as other than "the very foundation essential to support its fabric." From this opinion we totally dissent. It is perfectly true that natural religion and revelation are consistent with each other, as must be presumed from their being the work of the same Divine wisdom. But their foundations are wholly distinct. Why did the Jew believe the Mosaic revelation? Simply and solely, because it was delivered to him with such evidences of supernatural origin, in the thunders of Sinai, and substantiated at subsequent periods by miracle and prophecy, that he must receive it as divine. Why did the early converts receive Christianity? Simply on the same direct evidence supplied to their senses. No apostle sent them to examine their notions of the Godhead, or left them to inculcate the doctrines of the gospel by their reason. But he declared his doctrine as a new truth, and gave proof of its truth being divine, by working wonders palpably beyond the power of man. Of course, unless man knew what was meant by the power of the Deity, he could not have comprehended the simplest communication of the apostle. But we are speaking of the foundation of a belief – not the intelligibility of a language. We are entitled to go further still, and say, that the first idea of the being of a God was itself a revelation – a much plainer solution of the extraordinary circumstance, that so lofty and recondite a conception should have existed in the earliest and rudest ages of society; than to suppose that the antediluvian shepherd, or the postdiluvian hunter, should have ever thought of tracing effects and causes up to that extreme elevation, where a pure and supreme Spirit creates and governs the whole. We are entitled even to doubt whether the idea of Spirit was ever naturally conceived in the mind of any human being, difficult as is the conception to a creature surrounded with materiality, with every thought derived from his senses, and with the total incapacity of defining to this hour, or even imagining, the nature of Spirit. It will be fully admitted, that when the idea was once communicated, its reality was substantiated by the frame of nature, by the regularity, the extent, and the beneficence of the great physical system. But the origin was revelation. Lord Brougham quotes Tillotson; but the archbishop had earned his mitre by other means than the vigour of his understanding, and often trifles like other men.

In 1759, Smith published his Theory of Moral Sentiments– a work of skill and invention, but which has long since fallen into disuse with the intelligent world. It, however, had the rare good fortune of attracting the notice of an individual, possessed at once of the taste to honour, and the will to befriend, a man of original ability. This volume fell into the hands of the celebrated Charles Townsend, who proposed that the author should take charge of the young Duke of Buccleuch, whose mother, the dowager-duchess, he had married. Nothing in the life of Townsend was more honourable to him than this choice, not only for its judgment but for its rarity. The generality of men in possession of affluence think only of themselves, and would value the most common-place gratification more highly than the encouragement of the obscure genius, which wanted only that encouragement to shed a new lustre on its generation. The man of power in general feels its possession the primary object of his patronage, and sees no purpose in the immense opportunity given to him by his rank, but to obtain adherents, and make his power impregnable. Though there may be exceptions, such is the rule; and with this recollection of the established course of things, we give all honour to the memory of the man, without whose patronage the world would probably have lost the ablest work of its century, the immortal Wealth of Nations.

In 1763, Smith was appointed tutor to the young nobleman, resigned his professorship, and went with his pupil to France. After a residence of a year and a half at Toulouse, he travelled in Switzerland, and then, returning to Paris, spent ten months there. His French residence was peculiarly fortunate. It rubbed off the rust of his seclusion; it introduced him to the best society of courtly life; and it brought him into direct intercourse with that whole circle of active intellect and novel philosophy, which made the Parisian coteries at once the most bustling and brilliant of Europe. However the horrid profligacy of the court, and the contemptuous infidelity of high life, might have either disgusted the morals, or startled even the scepticism of the stranger, there can be no doubt of the interest which he felt in the society of such men as Turgot, Necker, D'Alembert, and Quesnay. Smith, some fifteen or twenty years before, had drawn up a sketch of the principles which he afterwards developed in his Wealth of Nations. Political economy was then beginning to take a form in French science. Whether it ever deserved the name of science, or will ever deserve it, may be a grave question. It depends upon such a multitude of facts, and the facts themselves vary so perpetually, the "principles" derived from those facts are so feeble and fluctuating, and common experience so provokingly contradicts, from day to day, the most laboured conclusions, that every new professor has a new theory, and every new theory turns the former into ridicule, itself to be burlesqued by the next that follows. This at least is known, that Fox declared his suspicion of the whole, saying, that it was at once too daring to be intelligible, and too indefinite to be reducible to practice. Even in our day, no two authors on the subject agree; all the successful measures of revenue and finance have been adopted in utter defiance of its dogmas; while all the modern attempts to act upon what are called its principles, have only convulsed commerce, shaken public credit, and substituted fantastic visions of prosperity for the old substantial wealth of England. No occupation could have been fitter for the half-frivolous, half-factious spirit of France. A revolution in revenue was openly regarded as the first step to revolution in power; the political economists indulged themselves in a philosophic conspiracy, and vented their sneers against the government, under pretext of recognising the rights of trade. It took but a little more than twenty years to mature this dexterous contrivance, and the meek friends of free trade had the happiness of seeing France in a blaze.

Smith, on his return, shut himself up in his study in Kirkcaldy for ten years. His friends in vain attempted to draw him from his solitude to Edinburgh: he steadily, we may almost say magnanimously, refused; and at the end of the tenth year, in 1776, he explained the mystery, by the publication of the two quarto volumes of his Enquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. The work was received with general congratulation; it was regarded as a new science, although it is well-known, as stated in the introduction to the biography, that many others had previously discussed the same subjects. Smith's views, however, were so much more comprehensive, his division so much more distinct, and his remarks so much more practical, that he deserved all the credit of the architect who combines in beauty and utility the beams and pillars which he finds scattered on the ground. And here we advert to the obvious benefit of that patronage which had been extended to this very able man by Townsend. The annuity which had been settled on him as tutor, had enabled Smith to give up the whole of his time, and the whole powers of his mind, during those ten years, to this great work. During nearly twenty years of lecturing, on the other hand, in which his pen was necessarily employed without ceasing, he seems to have published but one work, The Theory of Moral Sentiment. That he constantly formed ingenious conceptions, may be easily admitted; but that he wanted either time or inclination to complete them, is evident from the fact, that he never suffered them to appear in print, and that one of his dying directions was, that they should be destroyed by his executors.

He was now a man of fame, and to enjoy it came up to London, where he resided for two years in the midst of the best society, political and literary, to be found in England. He was now to be a man of fortune as well as of fame; he was appointed a commissioner of the customs in Scotland. He returned to Edinburgh, and commenced the agreeable life of a man at once distinguished, and opulent to the full extent of his simple desires, in a society whose names are still regarded as the lights of Scotland. He lived hospitably, and entertained good society, but he wrote no more; he was growing old, and Lord Brougham evidently thinks that the duties of his office exhausted his spirits and occupied his time. But those duties always partook largely of the nature of a sinecure; and there is every reason to doubt whether they could have worn down a man of regular habits, and who had been trained to the routine of daily business by an apprenticeship of a quarter of a century. The greater probability is, that Smith felt that he had done enough for fame; that, knowing the world, he was unwilling to expose himself to the caprices of critical applause; and that he even felt how inadequate the early theories which found admirers in the lecture-room, might be to sustain a character already brought into full publicity by his own volumes. The fact is certain, that he produced nothing more. In July 1790, he died, at the age of sixty-seven. It was his custom to give a supper on the Sunday evening to a numerous circle of friends. How far this entertainment, which was more consistent with the latitude of his Paris recollections, was reconcilable with the decorums of Scotland, we cannot say. But on one evening, after having destroyed his manuscripts, finding himself not so well as usual, he retired to bed before supper, and as he went, said to his friends, "I believe we must adjourn this meeting to some other place." He died in a very few days afterwards.

Lord Brougham has obviously expended his chief labour on the life of this favourite philosopher, of whom, fifty years ago, every Scottish economist was a devoted pupil. Times are changed, yet this intelligent biographer has given a very ample and accurate, so far as we can judge, analysis of the Enquiry. But he would have greatly increased the obligations of the reader, by giving some portion of his treatise to the questions which modern artifice has devised, and modern infatuation has adopted.

An interesting "memoir" of Johnson commences the volume; but the topic would lead us too far. The biographer gives that literary Samson full applause for the strength of his understanding, the boldness of his morality, and the pungency of his wit. Rather to our surprise, he pours out an eloquent panegyric on Boswell. That we are indebted to this versatile personage for one of the most amusing and instructive collections of reminiscences in the history of authorship, will be readily conceded. But this is the first time of our hearing a demand that we should pay him any more peculiar homage. But Lord Brougham is himself the head of a school: his ipse dixit demands acquiescence, and none can doubt that, if he is singular in his dogmas, he deserves attention for the vigour of his advocacy.

REYNARD THE FOX. ²

The natural history of the Cockney has been frequently illustrated, and never so successfully as in time past in the pages of Maga. But nature is inexhaustible in all her creations. You might study a lifetime, and yet not fully master the properties of one of those little Infusoria that wriggle or spin about in a phial of foul or fair water, and a still wider subject of study is of course supplied by any larger animal, such as a Cockney, placed as he is a little lower than the angels, and half-way down, or there abouts, between a man and a chimpanzee.

Upon careful inquiry it would probably be found, that in most nations the population, though all purporting to be men and women, consists in a good measure of beings that stand several degrees below the point of humanity. France, among several specimens of a higher order, has occasionally shown that a considerable proportion of its inhabitants was a hideous cross between the tiger and the baboon. Holland has had its Grotius and its Erasmus, but the otter and the beaver breed make up the mass of those who go by the name of Dutchmen. There has been no want in Germany of clear-sighted men, but the mole, the bat, and the owl furnish a large contingent to the ranks of its literati. In other nations we see a greater or less preponderance of the wolf or the bear, the goat or the goose, the ass, the hog, or the hippopotamus. Such being the universal condition of the world, we should rather be proud than otherwise, that, in England, we can boast of a secondary tribe, made, perhaps, by some of nature's journeymen, but that yet imitate humanity so respectably, so amiably, and so amusingly, as the Cockney must be admitted to do.

A Cockney is by locality very much what a tailor is by trade. Though a remote sub-multiple of a man, he is enterprising, indefatigable, cutting his way to his object through every thing with a ready tongue and a quick wit. Yet he is deficient in some qualities indispensable to the species homo. Courage the Cockney undoubtedly possesses, because he is always among those who are said to rush in where others fear to tread. But veneration is utterly wanting in his composition; and here the resemblance to the tailor is conspicuous; as we never knew a single snip that had the slightest reverence for any thing under heaven – if, indeed, the assertion should not be made in still broader terms. In the tailor this effect, defective, comes by an obvious cause. The intolerable liberties which the vulgar fraction is permitted to take with people's persons, divesting the best and bravest of us of the halo of heroism that surrounds us at a distance; and the fact that the great mysteries of dress, the paraphernalia of our dignity and decency, and the chief emblems of our manhood and domestic authority, emerge exclusively from the hands of this insignificant but indispensable maker of men, are enough to extinguish within him all sentiment of respect for any thing human or divine. The Cockney arrives at a similar state of easy and impudent non-chalance by a different process. Littered in London, and living there all his life, he is proud of its position among cites; and he comes, by a natural process of reasoning, to ascribe its importance to its connexion with his own person and people, and to see nothing better or greater in the universe than himself and what belongs to him. The feeling grows with his growth, and is fed by a full indulgence in all the good things with which the land of Cockayne abounds, and which the most morose of mortals must admit to be eminently conducive to self-complacency.

The Cockney, thus devoid of all diffidence in himself, is prepared for every thing in the scale of human thought or action; pleasuring or politics, theatricals or theology, an Epping hunt or an Epic poem. In literature we may say of him, nearly in the words applied by Dr Johnson to Goldsmith, that there is scarcely any kind of composition that he does not handle, and none that he handles which he does not adorn with graces all his own.

It is wonderful, however, to see with what success a Cockney can sometimes disguise himself. He will write you a book, in which, several pages on end, you think you are reading the thoughts of some ordinary mortal. But the cloven foot always appears before you are done with him. In poetry, indeed, you can go but a short way till the cat is let out of the bag. That unfortunate letter R! No lessons in elocution, no change of climate, can eradicate the deep-seated mischief of its mispronunciation in a Cockney whose years of pupilarity have been passed on the spot of his birth.

These remarks have been elicited by a disappointment we have recently suffered, in being led to purchase the book referred to at the commencement of this article. We saw it advertised by an alluring title – "Reynard the Fox – a renowned Apologue of the Middle Ages reproduced in Rhyme." We bought the book, and were delighted with its appearance. A quaint, antique, cream-coloured binding – a golden vignette on the outside, of the fox making his obeisance to Noble the king of the beasts, and the lioness his spouse – a beautiful paper and type within, with red and blue illuminations interspersed at the heads of chapters and paragraphs; – all this combined to whet our appetite for a delicious treat. We read the preface and introduction, if not with pleasure, at least with patience, and with wonderfully few misgivings as to the truth, the worst feature in them being the tendency to Carlyleism, to which, however offensive in itself, custom has made us somewhat callous. But we had not perused a page or two of the reproduction in rhyme itself, when we discovered that we were wandering in the regions of Cockneyland, with one of its most distinguished natives for our guide.

Our immediate purpose is to offer an exposition, not of the old Reynard, but of its present "reproduction." We may say, however, that we think the original work is one peculiarly ill-suited to be appreciated or reproduced by one of Mr Naylor's compatriots. It is a product of true genius, humour, and sagacity. The author must have looked at beasts and men with a keen eye, and from the vantage ground of a contemplative mind; and he has worked out his thoughts in a plain and simple style of illustration, and embodied them in easy and natural language. There is much merriment in his work, but no straining after wit. There is all the knowledge of the day that an accomplished man could be expected to possess, but no parade of learning. There is no quaintness in the style, and no effort in the verse. The age of Hudibras had not come; and that of the Ingoldsby Legends, or Miss Kilmansegg, was still further off. The old Flemish writers of Reynard exhibit judgment as well as talent, and their Low Saxon successor, though himself a reproducer, has asserted a claim both to freedom and originality. The quiet, sensible, unaffected treatment of their subject, which these old versifiers exhibit, where the topics offered so much temptation to burlesque and extravagance, is the thing of all others least likely to be comprehended or relished in the meridian of Bow Bells.

But, then, Goethe has successfully translated the book; and, therefore, Mr Naylor must do the same. This is a common mode of syllogising in Cockayne. Homer, Dante, Milton, Goethe, Wordsworth, have done such and such things, and therefore a Cockney is to do them also. Whatever may be the precise minor premise involved in this argument, we venture to suggest a doubt of its soundness. Mr Naylor tells us he has followed Alkmar's and Goethe's example, "mindful ever of the requisitions insisted on by Novalis in all paraphrastic translations, that they should convey accurately an idea of the first type, whilst, at the same time, the translator made his author speak after that appreciation of his work which exists in his own mind, no less than according to the poet's original conception." Mr Naylor may have succeeded in making his author speak after that appreciation of his work which exists in his own mind; but if the "first type" of Reynard had been no better than the reproduction gives us an idea of, the shapeless and sickly cub would not have lived an hour into the thirteenth century.

Before Mr Naylor resolved on reproducing Reynard in English rhyme, he should have inquired whether it was not already as well done as he was likely to do it. In his elaborate enumeration of his predecessors in the task of translation, he thus writes: – "There is also said to be a translation of Reynard into English doggerel, by one Soltau, a German" – "known," as he adds in a note, "as the translator of Hudibras into German." We have now before us the translation so slightingly alluded to, published at Hamburg in 1826. In all external and physical recommendations, this homely volume is far inferior to the London reproduction; but we shall immediately give our readers an opportunity of judging whether the doggerel of "one Soltau, a German," is not at least as good as that of "one Naylor, a Cockney."

Take the opening of the poem, which, in the original, is full of freshness and spirit, with all the joyousness of a holiday scene.

Soltau

"It happen'd on a Whitsunday,
When woods and fields look'd green and gay,
When balmy flow'rs and herbs were springing,
And feather'd folks were sweetly singing;
The morn was fine, the weather clear,
And fragrant odours fill'd the air,
When Noble, sov'reign king of beasts,
Proclaim'd a court and public feasts.
His loyal subjects, lords and commons,
Obey'd their master's royal summons;
And many a valiant knight and squire
To court repair'd in grand attire,
With their attendants, great and small —
'Twas difficult to count them all."

Naylor

"Now Pentecost, the feast, by some
Call'd 'merry Whitsuntide,' was come!
The fields show'd brave, with kingcups dight,
And hawthorns kercheft were in white:
Her low-breathed lute the fresh'ning rill
Unto the waken'd woods 'gan trill;
Whilst, hid in leafy bower remote,
The cuckoo tuned his herald-note;
The meads were prankt in gold and green,
And 'leetel fowles' of liveried sheen,
Their pipes with Jubilate! swelling,
From bush and spray were philomelling —
The breeze came balmy from the west,
And April, harness'd in her best,
The laughing sun led forth to see —
When Noble (lion-king was he,
And sceptre sway'd o'er bird and beast,)
Held ancient ways, and kept the feast,
The trumpets clang'd loud proclamation —
The couriers coursed throughout the nation —
Full many a Brave and many a Bold
Came hastening in troops untold."

The German translator here keeps precisely within the same compass of fourteen lines with his "first type," while the Londoner has one-half more. But this is not the main difference. The German is neater and more natural, and nearer the spirit as well as the letter of his model. All the trash in the new reproduction about hawthorns "kercheft in white," the low-breathed lute of the rill trilling, the cuckoo and his herald note, the 'leetel fowles' swelling and philomelling, and April harnessed in her best, are mere frippery sewed on by the reproducer, to make the venerable old garment look finer in the eyes of his co-Cockneys.

We next give the two translations of that part of the poem which represents the Cock's complaints against Reynard, for killing his daughter, and which is supposed to give so accurate a representation of the form of process in the Middle Ages in an accusation of murder.

Soltau

"Gray scarce had done, when Chanticleer
The Cock in mourning did appear;
Two sons accompanied their sire,
Like him in funeral attire,
With hoods of crape and torches lighted,
And doleful lays they both recited.
Two others follow'd with a bier;
Mournful and slowly they drew near,
With heartfelt sighs and deepest groan,
Their fav'rite sister to bemoan.
"The Cock in tears the throne approach'd,
And thus his sad harangue he broach'd:
'My Liege, have pity on a man,
The most distressed of his clan,
Who, with his children here before You,
Is come, for vengeance to implore You
On Reynard, who, with fell design,
Hath done great harm to me and mine.
When hoary Winter left the plain,
And Spring smiled on the world again,
When leaves were budding, daisies springing,
And tuneful birds in thickets singing,
The sun at dawn of morning found me
With my young family around me;
Ten sons and fourteen daughters fair,
Breathing with joy the genial air,
All of one breed, and full of life,
Brought up by my good prudent wife.
Protected by a massy wall
And six bold mastiffs, stout and tall,
They lived, in spite of Reynard crafty,
Within a cloister-yard in safety.
"But lo! our enemy contrived
Our joy, alas! should be short-lived.
In hermit's garb the traitor came,
With letters, written in your name,
Where strictest orders were express'd,
To keep peace between bird and beast.
He said, he scorn'd the joys of sense,
And led a life of penitence,
To expiate his former guilt,
And streams of blood, which he had spilt;
He vow'd, in future he would eat
No poultry, nor forbidden meat.
"All joyful, to my little crew,
To tell the happy news I flew,
That Reynard friar's garments wore,
And was our enemy no more.
Now for the first time we did venture
Out of our gate. A dire adventure
Awaited us; for whilst we stray'd
And sported on a sunny glade,
Reynard, conceal'd below a bush,
Upon us suddenly did rush;
One of my hopeful sons he slew,
And of my fairest daughters two. —
Five only out of twenty-four
Are left; the rest he did devour.
My daughter Rake-up, on this bier,
Slain by the murderer, lies here;
He bit her neck off yesterday —
Revenge her death, my liege, I pray.'
"'Sir Gray,(quoth Noble,) did you hear?
Fine things of th' hermit-fox appear.
Was't thus, that with his fasts he meant it?
Sure as I live he shall repent it!
"'Good Cock, we've heard your mournful tale,
And we your daughter's fate bewail;
Thus, first of all, we'll see the honour
Of funeral rites bestow'd upon her;
Next with our Council we shall further
Consult, how to revenge this murther.'"

Naylor

"He ceased; and scarce a sand had run
When Chanticleer and all his clan
Appear'd in court: right in the van
A pullet's corse accompanied,
'Clept Dem'selle Scratchclaw ere she died;
By Reynard's bite decapitated —
This wise the tidings were related.
Close to the throne the Cock drew nigh:
Deep anguish dimm'd his upturn'd eye:
Two little Bantams, right and left,
Wept bitter tears, as birds bereft.
Sir Flapwing was of high degree,
As fine a bantling as you'd see
'Twixt Amsterdam and Paris, he.
Sir Strain-neck was the other 'clept,
And, like the first one, proudly stept.
Before them each a torch they bear,
Alike the same; for twins they were.
Young Cocks yet twain bare up the pall,
And help'd the wail with voices small.
Then Chanticleer, before the King
Commenced, in tones deep harrowing:
'Ah, gracious Lord and King! give ear
To my disastrous tale! The tear
Of pity shed on us who stand
For justice, suppliants at your hand.
Sire! thus it chanced; – The frosted beard
Of Winter scarce had disappear'd;
Scarce had the thorny brake put by
Its hosiery of fleece, and I
As happy felt as though a chicken;
About me, strutting, crowing, picking,
In comeliness my little ones:
I counted up ten stalwart sons;
Of daughters, too, a wondrous store, —
Plump Ortolans, and full a score.
My dame, the thoughtful prudent Hen,
Had train'd their youth beneath her ken
All virtues cardinal to practise,
Best learned from mothers, as the fact is.
Our house was in the convent yard,
High wall'd around: six dogs stood guard; —
All kept for our peculiar care,
By night and day to shield us there.
Now, gracious Liege! mark what I tell.
Reynard, (the knave!) with cockle-shell
And pilgrim's staff, wellworn, appears,
Bearing a packet: as he nears,
I note your royal seal, and read
Announcement of the truce decreed:
No more, he said, he played the royster,
But sought repentance in a cloister:
Observed the rule o' th' strictest sect,
His sins to purge with sure effect;
Whereby myself might to the end
My life secure and fearless spend.
Said he, 'flesh diet I have sworn
Never to touch from night to morn.' —
Unto my children all, I stated
The royal message, then related
How Reynard had assumed the cowl,
And left off hankering after fowl.
Myself I led them far and wide,
When lo! the Fox's guile defied
My anxious cares: in that same hour
He'd mark'd a victim for his power!
Perdu behind a bush he lay,
And took, before mine eyes, his prey!
The best of all my brood he seized,
And ate her up. The morsel pleased
His scoundrel maw – 'twas dainty meat —
And soon he sought another treat. —
Full four-and twenty hopeful chicks
As e'er peck'd corn from out fresh ricks
Were mine, – and now, as I'm alive,
The villain's kill'd them all but five!
Pity, O King! my sorrowing tale:
Grant succour in this hour of wail!
But yesterday, the huntsman's cry
Surprised him in the act to fly
With Scratchclaw's body, which you see
Kill'd by his murd'rous tooth – ah me!
'Tis here as witness of my woe —
Oh that my hardhap to your heart may go!'
Enraged, the King: 'Sir Badger, ho!
The monk your uncle (troth!) doth know
To keep his fast, – the holy man! —
Match me the like of this who can?
What need of further question here?
Draw nigh and listen, Chanticleer!
Ourself your daughter dead will see
Entomb'd with all solemnity
Of dirge and mass, in her last slumber,
And vigils also without number.
This done, from these our lieges true
We'll crave their help and counsel too,
Touching the murder and the vengeance due.'
To Bruin then the King thus spake:
'Bruin! look well you undertake
This journey with dispatch – 'Tis I,
Your Sov'reign, calls upon you – fly!
Be wise and wary: Reynard's guile
Is practised in each crafty wile.'"

Neither of the translators is here very good, and Naylor is perhaps as near hitting the nail on the point (to use the phrase of a friend of ours of the Fogie Club) as his competitor. He still gives us, however, a great many silly superfluities, though some of them we have ventured to cut out.

Finally, as our readers may begin to think they have enough of this, we shall close our comparative view by some quotations from the Wager of Battle, by which the Wolf and the Fox ultimately terminate their disputes.

Soltau

"The trumpets then began to sound,
And next the wardens did appear,
And call'd the champions forth, to swear.
Growler advanced, his oath to take;
He swore, that Reynard was a rake,
A murd'rer, and a treach'rous wight,
For which assertion he would fight.
"Then Reynard in his turn did swear,
That Growler was a perjurer;
To prove his charge, he did defy him,
Because he basely did belie him.
"The wardens then admonish'd both,
To fight with honour and good troth.
This being done, the lists were clear'd,
Where both the combatants appear'd.
"The combatants with equal rage
And fury now began t'engage.
The Wolf, by dint of strength and art,
Attack'd the Fox with leap and start;
But Reynard, being shrewd and light,
Avoided him by cunning flight,
And while he ran, he did not fail
To water well his rugged tail.
When Growler meant to hold him fast,
He nimbly veer'd about at last,
And with his tail the dust and dirt
He full into his face did flirt.
Whilst Growler rubb'd his eyes with pain,
Reynard his flirts renew'd again,
Till Growler was quite spent at last,
And by the throat he held him fast.
'Sir Wolf,(he said,)if heretofore
Poor lambs and kids you oft have tore,
It is high time now to repent,
Before your last breath you have spent,
And with contrition to behave,
If you would wish your soul to save.'
"In this provoking style he spoke,
Striving his enemy to choke;
But Growler was for him too strong,
And broke loose from his hold erelong;
Though ere he got out of his jaws,
Reynard gall'd him with teeth and claws;
One of his eyes was almost out,
And streams of blood ran down his snout.
"As soon as he his blood did view,
At Reynard in a rage he flew;
He got him under, and his paw
He seized, and held it in his jaw.
'You caitiff, your last hour has come,
(Said he,) and you'll meet with your doom.
'T shall not avail you now, to shear,
To flirt, kick up a dust, and smear.
I'll make you pay for all your lies,
And for the damage of my eyes.'
"Whilst Growler kept hold of the paw,
Sly Reynard with his other claw
Seiz'd him in such a tender part,
That it made Growler howl with smart,
And forced him soon to ope his jaw,
And to let go the imprison'd paw.
Reynard now tugg'd, and pull'd, and tore,
And made the Wolf spit blood and gore;
He brought him senseless to the ground,
And dragg'd him through the lists around.
"When this his wife and friends perceived,
They were much terrified and grieved.
Then pray'd the king to use his right,
And to suspend the bloody fight.
"The king took their request to heart,
And bade the champions straight to part,
To whom the leopard and the ounce,
As wardens, did his will announce.
"Reynard," they said, "the king has sent
To let you know 'tis his intent
To put an end to all your strife.
He bids you to spare Growler's life;
For 'twould be a pity after all,
If either of you both should fall.
Meantime all, who are present, say
That you at last have won the day.'"

Naylor

"Hark! hark! the tuckets sound on high!
'He comes! Sir Isengrim!' they cry.
The Wolf and all his kith and kin
Approach in long array! The din
Their multitudinous trampling made
Resounded like a cavalcade
Of mailèd warriors on the march,
Or winds that, through a wood of larch,
The groaning branches swing and sway,
And thunder out and roar alway.
Still forward they their course observe,
Neither to right nor left they swerve;
But onward to the lists the band
March up, then halt, and take their stand.
When first the Wolf – 'I here repeat
The Fox a villain is, and cheat!
I brand him murderer to boot!
Adulterer! with heart, as soot
Is, black! that solemn truth do I
Wager on hazard of this die!'
Then Reynard – 'What the Wolf alleges
Are lies! I'll prove it! and my pledge is
The victory, which I by battle,
This day will gain o'er yon base cattle!'
The marshal of the lists then cried:
'The right shall by the might be tried,
What fair and fetis is, that do!
The god of battles prosper you!'
He said, then towards the side withdrew.
The rest soon follow'd; save the two,
Who occupied alone the space,
And stood for action face to face!
The marshal now, with plumed hat on,
Beside the barrier stood; his baton
Of office thrice he whirled aloft;
And not a soul or spake or cough'd.
'Oyez! oyez! oyez!' he cried,
'Will each of ye the issue bide?'
'We will!' they answer. 'Are ye ready?'
'Yes!' 'Yes!' – 'Then LAISSEZ ALLER!' said he.
Reynard address'd him then to fight;
And Isengrim commenced to bite
The air, and show'd his teeth, by way
Of prelude to the coming fray;
Next, rear'd his snout, and brought the jowl
To Reynard's level; one loud howl
He utter'd, ere he crouch'd, then bounded
To where the Fox, no whit astounded
By noises so unknightly, stood;
For raising lofty as he could
His voice, the foe the terms defied.
'Come on,' he resolutely cried.
The struggle was commenced! The sternest
There present felt it was right earnest;
The Fox, as smaller of the two,
Was favourite; and when he drew
'First claret,' at that tapping action
The mob express'd their satisfaction;
Exclaiming, 'go it! ten to oneUpon the varmint little 'un!'
By this time had Dan Phœbus clomb
The summit of his glowing dome,
And Isengrim his power to feel
Began, which made the Wolf to reel.
He mourn'd his hapless want of claws,
His teeth, too, batter'd by the paws
Of Reynard, woefully he miss'd;
For grasp'd within his well-clench'd fist,
The Fox a flint stone firmly held,
With which he deftly aim'd and fell'd
One after t'other every fang,
Till down his weasand, at each bang,
Successively they flew. This thing
To Isengrim so punishing,
Set him forthwith to calculate
The odds on his superior weight,
How best it might the foeman tell on —
Which done, he threw himself pêle-mêle on
The Fox, to bear him down intending.
But Reynard saw: instead of spending
His strength in any vain endeavour
'Gainst Isengrim, he waited ever
Upon the Wolf – so this time he
Perceived the rushing enemy,
And as he near'd him slipp'd aside.
The Wolf came on with awful stride,
But meeting not with Reynard there,
He buffeted the yielding air
Instead, found no impediment,
His force him to the barrier sent,
Where toppling heels o'er head he went
With emphasis – a heavy flop,
'My eyes,' the mob cry, 'what a whop!'
Then Reynard to the Wolf stepp'd close,
And said aloud, 'How lik'st the dose?
Friend Isengrim, there yet may be
For pardon opportunity
Ere thou departest, only speed ye,
Or else the wandering ghosts, I rede ye,
Of all the lambs and kids thou'st slain
Will haunt thee through the wide champain
Whither thou'rt ebbing fast, down yonder;
But softly, is he kill'd I wonder?'
For so it seem'd. Through that vast crowd
A pin drop had resounded loud.
Thought Reynard, he has got it now!
I'll rest awhile, for any how
If he the fight again begin
I'll try the trick upon his shin.
Stunn'd lay the prostrate Wolf quite still
And stiff, nor moved a peg until
His squires, much fearing for his life,
Rush'd in, preceded by his wife;
And lifting him upon their knees,
They gave him salts to make him sneeze,
Which thirteen times he did repeat,
Then started lively to his feet.
A feeling of relief ran through
The crowd, whose visages look'd rue,
To think their fun forestall'd and spent
By that untoward accident.
Again the tuckets sound – again
The dauntless heroes give the rein
To their revenge. The Fox now charges
The Wolf, and both his eyes enlarges,
With right and lefters planted well,
And punches on the nob that tell;
So hard and fast the bangs and thumps,
You'd thought that firemen at their pumps
Were working —
– crafty Reynard quick
Deliver'd him a villain kick
Right in the midriff – down he dropp'd!
Like some tall forester when lopp'd
By stroke of woodman's axe. 'Twas all
He spake, not groaned in his fall,
Outstretch'd upon the ground there lay
The Wolf – he'd fainted clean away.
No herald's voice, no tucket's cheer,
The noble Isengrim could hear;
An all but victor lately, now
Prostrated, palsied by one blow;
Nay, not so, by a kick unknightly,
Foul aim'd, yet for the mark too rightly,
Alas, its only merit that!
But what cared Reynard, it was pat,
And told, and did its business well;
'Twas every thing desirable.
The fight was o'er – the Wolf dragg'd out
More dead than living, 'mid the shout
Of rabble, whilst the heralds cry
'Largesse,' the others 'Victory.'
The air with noise and din resounded.
The friends of Isengrim, confounded,
Slunk off, whilst Reynard's stay'd; indeed
The very people who agreed
The Fox's death a public good
Had been, now 'mong the foremost stood,
By acclamations to attest
Regard outheroding the rest!"

We have not the heart to criticise this last and greatest effort of the reproducer. Its slang speaks for itself, and certainly carries along with it an undeniable "certificate of origin".

A good translation of any thing is perhaps an impossibility. But it must be confessed, that the attempt of the German foreigner is highly creditable to him, and, with a little amendment, would probably afford our countrymen as fair an idea of the original as they are ever likely to see. Certain it is, that Mr Naylor has not improved upon it.

If our readers think, that in the samples we have given of Mr Naylor's beauties, we have not sufficiently brought forward some of the more striking peculiarities of the Cockney school, we shall meet this complaint by presenting them with the subjoined anthology, the fragrance of which we think will satisfy their highest anticipations.

"The first in consequence at court,
As foremost in the public thought."

"Your cap and gloves you've left in pawn,
Thus adding ribaldry to scorn."

"What visitors had been? they tell her
How Reynard call'd, and said, 'nice fellow.'"

"Malkin should fall! and now the fork
By Martin turn'd to tomahawk."

"No sooner had the foe withdrawn
To howl around the priest forlorn."

"Besides, he must have more than thought once
Upon the very vast importance."

"Of solemn asses half-a-score,
Who kick, when tickled with a straw!"

"I left him trapp'd, and then made sheer off:
His sufferings you can't form idea of."

"From underneath the frame I draw
The pin that propp'd it: with a roar."

"Their eggs upon a heap of straw,
Then loitering hindermost, the more."

"When it was bruited round the court
How Reynard was by greybeard brought."

"Grimalkin there one eye had lost,
His scalp from Bruin's head been forced."

"With any thing, in short, to fasten
Guilt on him – burglary – e'en arson!"

"Than at the words the Queen, alarm'd,
Nigh swoon'd before her fears were calm'd."

"The son dishonour'd: not a straw
It weigh'd with him, to think how sore."

"There dwelt my father; him they sought,
And plotted, whilst they soak'd his port."

"To practise after my papa—
Through life my light and exemplar!"

"Another life to lead he's sworn:
And will to-morrow at the dawn."

"Then, turning to the Queen, besought
Her majesty in merry sport."

"Quoth Reynard, as with sudden thought
Before the portal stopping short."

"We have so many a sally-port,
And cul-de-sac, we can't be caught."

"Send far and near the heralds forth,
By blast of trump to tell my wrath."

"At Rome, I on our banker draw,
And when that's gone, I send for more."

"That none dared venture! This he saw
And felt his pluck return once more."

"But I've no claws
And therefore am not fit for wars."

"By envy eaten up, they saw
Me prosper; looking all before."

"And ever, when they walk'd abroad
Each arm'd with hunting-whip and cord."

If any of our readers doubt the authenticity of some of the rhymes above set down, we are willing that they should buy the book, as we have done, and ascertain for themselves.

Merciful as we are by nature, and growing more and more so every day by age, we yet feel that the enormities we have now denounced are beyond endurance. Such poetry as this, neither gods, men, nor booksellers should tolerate; and with the highest respect for the very excellent publishers who have assisted in the birth of this production, and to whom we owe so many useful and admirable contributions to knowledge and literature, we do venture humbly to submit, that their peculiar duty makes them somewhat more responsible for what is thus brought forth, than ordinary obstetrical practitioners can be for what they may help into the world. There is no reason that such a bantling should be born at all, and at least we would recommend the continuance of gestation for nine times the Horatian period. Seriously speaking, we always regret to miss the general security which the title-page should give us, that in what we buy, we shall have something for our money. A bad or inferior book may, inadvertently, issue from the most respectable quarter. But when a work is ushered into the light with such pomp and pageantry of paper, printing, and getting up, as are here lavished, we hold that the public have a right to expect that it has received the imprimatur of some discerning judge, and to enforce the implied warranty that the inside, as well as the outside, is a merchantable commodity in the market of Parnassus.

But the publisher's part of it is the least of the evil. It is obvious that the natives of Cockneyland are forgetting themselves. A new generation has sprung up that do not remember the castigations bestowed on their fathers of yore, and which for a time kept them in tolerable subjection. A young Londoner, who happens to have enthusiasm, or industry, or information, on a particular subject, may deserve commendation for the laudable direction of his private studies; but is he, therefore, entitled to haspire to write, and not to write merely, but to write poetry, and to disfigure a venerable old poem under pretence of reproducing it? That is a different question, which needs to be seriously and decidedly dealt with. This is not the first time, within a brief period, that we have been compelled to make an example of similar delinquencies; and, as sure as the crutch is in yonder corner, it shall not be the last, if the nuisance be not speedily and completely abated.

THE AMERICANS AND THE ABORIGINES

A Tale of the Short War. Part II

The conclusion of our first notice of "The Americans and the Aborigines," saw Hodges, the midshipman, on his way to the Mississippi, and, if he could find it, to his ship; whilst Tokeah and his Indians returned to their village upon the banks of the Natchez. There, upon the day after the arrival of the warriors, we find the Indians assembled and deliberating in their council-house. Some important matter is evidently in agitation: an ominous gloom hangs over the village; and Canondah, to whom her father has not spoken since his return, and who is in complete ignorance of what passed between him and Hodges, is shut up in her wigwam with Rosa. The absence of one of the Indians, sent as a guide with the Englishman, the silence of Tokeah, and their state of semi-captivity, render the two girls sad and anxious, and they busy themselves with a thousand conjectures as to what has occurred, when a shrill whistle attracts them to the window. The sight that there presents itself chases the blood from the cheeks of Rosa, and causes her to sink, terrified and half-fainting, into the arms of her friend.

A large boat, of similar build to the one in which Hodges had arrived, ascended the river, impelled by the strokes of six vigorous rowers. Besides these, two other men were seated in the skiff, which now entered the creek where the canoes were moored. The Englishman's boat was amongst the latter, and seemed to attract the particular notice of one of the two men; he glanced sharply at it, and then made a remark to his companion, who nodded his head, as if assenting to his observation. The man who had spoken stepped on shore. He was of the middle height and slightly made, with a sunburnt complexion, hollow cheeks, in which the smallpox had left black, unpleasant-looking scars, and a pointed and rather red nose. The expression of his eyes, which were sunken and of a dark-grey colour, and his enormous whiskers and mustaches, gave him any thing but an agreeable physiognomy. There was an air about him as if he strove to appear natural and unassuming, but at times his false side-glances and malicious smile more than neutralized all his efforts. His dress was a short blue frock, buttoned up to the chin, trousers of the same colour, and a cap. After addressing a few words to his companion, who had also come ashore, he walked with a quick step and military gait towards the Miko's wigwam. Just then the Indian council broke up; the old chief strode slowly and gravely towards his dwelling; whilst the warriors hurried in various directions to their respective wigwams. It seemed as if they avoided the new-comer; for not one of them crossed his path, although he evidently expected them so to do. He gazed silently after the receding groups, shook his head, and entered the Miko's hut.

"Here I am, friend Tokeah!" cried he, with a forced smile, stretching out his hand to the Miko, who was seated upon his couch, calm, and with his head bowed upon his breast. "I'm a man of my word, you see. Arrived only last night in the bay; but the devil take me if I could keep quiet: started off again, and rowed all night and all day; and here you see me, old friend, as hungry as a sea-lawyer, and as dry as a dolphin." He spoke in English, fluently enough, but with a strong French accent.

Tokeah knocked with his finger upon the table, and Canondah came out of her room.

"Canondah!" cried the man, stepping forward with an air of gallantry to salute her. The young girl avoided his embrace, and with the single word, "Welcome!" slipped out at the door. Our guest appeared thunderstruck.

"What does this mean, friend Miko?" cried he. "Am I in disgrace? Should really be sorry for it. As I came across the meadow, your people made all sail from me, as if I had been a privateer; and now you are as cold as a nor'-wester, and your daughter as stiff as a frozen cable. Apropos – you have had a visit. The young Englishman, I see, has been amongst you."

As he spoke these last words, the stranger cast a lowering glance at the old man.

"Of whom does my brother speak?" said the chief.

"Of a prisoner – a young fellow who escaped whilst I was at sea."

"My young brother has been here and is gone," replied Tokeah, dryly.

"Gone!" repeated the other; "you probably did not know that he had escaped from me. But it matters not," added he, indifferently.

"The Miko knew," replied the old man in a firm tone, "that his young brother had escaped from the chief of the Salt Lake. My brother ought not to have made him prisoner."

"What! would not the Miko of the Oconees seize the Yankee who came as a spy into his wigwam?"

"And was my young brother a Yankee?" inquired Tokeah, with a penetrating glance.

"Not exactly; but an enemy" —

"My brother," interrupted the Miko, "has too many enemies – the Yankees, and the warriors of the great father of the Canadas."

The man bit his lips. "Pshaw!" said he; "you have the Americans on the wrong side of your heart, and I have both. That's all the difference."

"The Miko," said the old chief, "lifts the war-hatchet to protect his people against the palefaces, and to avenge his slain brethren. But my brother has lifted the tomahawk against every one, and, like a thief, steals women and children."

A burning crimson overspread the countenance of Tokeah's visitor, and his teeth chattered with rage. "Truly, Miko," said he, "you say things which I can hardly stomach;" and with gleaming eye he measured the old man from head to foot. Suddenly, however, resuming his former smile – "Nonsense," said he; "we won't quarrel about trifles. Let every man do what he likes, and answer for what he does."

"When the Miko of the Oconees gave his right hand to the chief of the Salt Lake, and welcomed him to his wigwam, he held him for a friend and a brother, who had declared war against the Yengheese. Had he known that he was a thief" —

"Monsieur Miko!" interrupted the pirate, threateningly.

"He would not have taken him for his friend. Tokeah," continued the Indian with dignity, "lifted the tomahawk against the palefaces as the Miko of his people, but the chief of the Salt Lake has made him a robber. What shall he, the chief of the Oconees, say to the Yengheese warriors when he falls into their snares? They will hang him on a tree."

The truth, thus fearlessly and decidedly spoken, made an impression upon the pirate. He walked several times hastily up and down the room, and then again stopped opposite to the old man.

"We'll say no more about that, friend Tokeah," said he. "I do not count the scalps that you have stripped from the skulls of the Yankees, and you must not reckon too severely with me. What is done is done; but the future will be very different. I am fully decided to abandon my wild course of life, and then we'll sit down quietly, and live together in a little paradise, half à l'Indienne, half à la Francçaise. Jovial and joyous."

"The Miko of the Oconees," replied Tokeah, "has never stained his hand with the blood of his friends. He is poor, but his hand has never touched what belonged not to him. His fathers would look down on him with grief, if he lived in friendship with a thief; the Great Spirit would hide his face, if he disgraced his people by an alliance with the robber."

The Frenchman had listened to these words more tranquilly than might have been expected, but with a slight twitching of his features, that showed they touched him to the quick. Suddenly he turned away.

"Is that your way of thinking?" said he. "You fancy you can get on better without Lafitte? I've no objection. If I had known it sooner, I would have spared myself the trouble of listening to your insolence, and you that of uttering it. Adieu! Monsieur Miko."

"My brother is hungry," said the Indian, starting up, and greatly shocked. "He must eat. Canondah has prepared his favourite repast."

"And after he has eaten, he may make himself scarce?" said the pirate, surlily.

"My brother is welcome in the wigwam of the Miko. His hand never closes when it has once been opened," said the old nan, soothingly.

"Come, that sounds like reason. I thought my old friend had only caught a fit of spleen from the Englishman. I trust it will soon be over. Meanwhile, we'll see what the ladies are doing."

He stepped up to the curtain, and tried to open it, but in vain.

"Is it not allowed?" said he to the old man.

"My brother must seek another squaw. Rosa shall not enter his wigwam."

In the adjoining chamber a sound was heard. It resembled a cry of joy, but presently subsided into a gentle murmur, of one in prayer.

The pirate stood stupefied opposite to the curtain. "Our alliance broken off, the door shut in my face!" muttered he. "Eh bien! nous verrons." And so saying, he left the hut. The next minute he again put his head in at the door.

"I suppose I may make use of my own boat?" said he. "It is likely that I may have unwelcome visitors during my absence."

"When the chief of the Salt Lake is on the war-path, he knows how to meet his foes."

"Sensibly spoken for once," said the pirate.

"My brother is hungry," said the Miko, pointing to his daughter, who now entered the room with several dishes.

"We'll come directly. Duty before pleasure."

And so saying, the bucanier hurried down to the shore, and approached his companion, a short square-built man, who was walking up and down with folded arms, and whose dark olive countenance was so buried in an enormous beard, that scarcely any part of it, except a long fiery Bardolphian nose was visible. This man, so soon as he saw the pirate, assumed a less nonchalant attitude, and his hands fell by his side into the position proper to a subordinate.

"Nothing happened, lieutenant?" said Lafitte.

"So little, that I should almost doubt this to be the Miko's village, did not my eyes convince me of it. Beg pardon, captain, but what does it all mean?"

"I might ask you the same question," replied the other, sulkily.

"On our former visits," continued the lieutenant, "it was like a fair; but to-day not a creature comes near us. The squaws and girls seemed inclined to come down, but the men prevented them."

The lieutenant paused, for his commanding-officer was evidently getting more and more out of humour.

"How many hands have we below on Lake Sabine?"

"Thirty," was the reply. "To-morrow, the others will have finished clearing out."

"Giacomo and George," said the pirate, in a sharp peremptory tone, "will go back and take them orders to come up here. Let every man bring his musket and bayonet, pistols and hanger, and let them wait instructions in the great bend of the river, two miles below this place. Don't look down stream, and then at me," said he angrily to the lieutenant, who had cast a glance down the river. "The young Englishman has been here, and the old savage has let him go."

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1

Lives of Men of Letters and Science who Flourished in the Time of George III. By Henry Lord Brougham, with Portraits. London: Colburn.

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2

Reynard the Fox – a renowned Apologue of the Middle Ages reproduced in Rhyme. By S. Naylor. Longman & Co. London: 1845.

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