THE COVENANTERS' NIGHT-HYMN.

"As the ghost of Homer clingsRound Scamander's wasting springs;As divinest Shakspeare's mightFills Avon and the world with light;"

—so we may not well pass unaffected by the congregation of priest, and poet, and sage, whose recollections consecrate the banks of our academic rivers. As we go beneath "Bacon's mansion," or about Milton's mulberry tree; as we kneel where Newton knelt, or dine in halls where the portraits of Erasmus, and Fisher, and Taylor, look down upon us,—these are not times and places for the dogmatism and arrogance of "the nineteenth century"—for bragging of our advance and illumination, or sneering at "the good old times." This is in accordance with the law of our nature; but these recollections, and the lessons which they teach, are not, if rightly laid hold of, such as to induce a mere blind attachment to the skeletons of dead notions and practices. And although it may, perhaps must, happen that, at any given time, there may be found relics adhering to the system, whose vitality and meaning have been withdrawn by time, and left them dry and sapless, yet we will venture to assert that, if a dogged adherence to antiquated forms could fairly be charged on the universities, they could never have maintained their ground amidst the mighty historical transmutations that have passed over their heads. Civil wars and popular tumults have raged around them; the throne has yielded to violence and to intrigue; the Church has admitted modifications, both of her doctrine and her discipline; and, more than all, the still more important, though silent and gradual changes—changes to which the striking and salient events of history are but the indexes and visible signs—changes of thought and rule of action—have risen and sunk, and ebbed and flowed, and still these stable monuments of the piety and munificence of men whose names are almost unknown, remain unshorn of their ancient vigour, and intimately entwined with our social system.

But it is time that we should come to particulars, and make known to our readers, as briefly as we can, the nature of the alterations recently introduced at Cambridge, which have called forth so much objurgatory commendation from quarters, which were commonly considered to entertain tolerably destructive views in regard to the universities. We say objurgatory commendation, because the faint praise of a "move in the right direction" was generally more or less coupled with vigorous denunciation of the antiquated obstinacy which had so long kept in the wrong. And here we must premise the statement of certain qualities of the age in which we live, which will have fallen under the notice of all observers. Perhaps the most distinguishing feature of our time is the principle which forms the life and soul of retail trade—the principle which sets men to busy themselves about small and immediate returns for outlay; which looks more to the gains across the counter, than to the advantage which is general, or distant, or future. In a word,practicalityis the ruling passion of our day. As might have been expected, education, among other things, has been subjected to this huckstering test. People have asked, what is the market value of this or that branch of learning? Will it get a boy on in the world? Will it enable him to provide for himself soon? Will the returns for the expenditure I am going to make be quick and certain? Cowper represents the father of a son intended for the church as speculating on his young hopeful's prospects after the following fashion:—

"Let reverend churls his ignorance rebuke,Who starve upon a dog's-eared Pentateuch,The parson knows enough who knows a duke."

In these days the acquaintance of a duke is not of the same relative value as it was when Cowper wrote; but this sort of worldly-wise calculation is more prevalent than ever, and the cry of the largest class of the public is—give us such knowledge as willpay. Those who took this commercial view of education derived no small encouragementfrom the circumstance that Prince Albert, the learned field-marshal, and warlike chancellor of Cambridge University, had interfered to promote the culture of modern languages in these venerable precincts of Eton, where for many a year Henry's holy shade had watched the growth of an education of less obvious utility. How was young Thomas or William "the better off" for being able to con "the tale of Troy divine?" But teach him to mince a little French, simper a little Italian, snarl a little German, and there he is at once accomplished for anattaché, a correspondent, or a bagman—profitable walks of life all of them. And the same notions mounted still higher in the ascendant, when the senate of the University of Cambridge apparently evinced a desire to examine the requirements of that body by the same standard.

The first step of this kind was taken about three years ago. Most of our readers are aware that, at Cambridge, those candidates for a degree who do not aspire to honours are said to go out in thepoll; this being the abbreviated term to denote those who were classically designated ὁι πολλοι. Now the qualifications required for attaining this poll degree consisted of an acquaintance with a part of Homer, a part of Virgil, a part of the Greek Testament, and Paley'sEvidences of Christianity, over and above the mathematics, of which we shall speak presently. By what curious infelicity the recondite, and, in many particulars, inexplicable language of Homer has been so commonly selected for beginners in Greek at school, and, as in this case, for those who were not expected to appear as accomplished scholars—we need not here stop to inquire. Suffice it to say that the university, in this initial reform, ousted Homer and Virgil from the course, and supplied their places with a Latin and Greek author, to be varied in each successive year. This was decidedly an improvement, at least as regards Homer, for the reason we have alluded to above. Perhaps a better innovation would have been to have followed the Oxford system, and allowed to the student a choice of his author. But it is a great misfortune that the university, in recasting this course, did not substitute a work of some one of the logical or philosophical authors current in the English language, for the shallow and plausible book of Paley's above mentioned—with regard to which it would be difficult to say whether it is worse chosen as a model of reasoning, or as a proof of Christian facts.

The mathematical portion of this course consisted of Euclid, algebra, and trigonometry, the student being thus trained in the model processes of pure mathematical reasoning left us by the first, and also brought acquainted with the elementary operations of analysis. As a matter of mental training, the most valuable portion of this curriculum was the knowledge acquired of the geometrical processes employed by Euclid, as familiarising the mind of the student with the severest forms of reasoning, and the steps whereby indubitable verity is attained. This portion, however, was most especially selected for curtailment by the reforms to which we are alluding. In the stead of the requirements thus displaced, a motley amount of elementary propositions in statics, dynamics, and hydrostatics, were substituted—useful information enough as instances of the simpler applications of the analytical machinery of mathematics, but comparatively worthless as an exercise of the mind. Country clergymen, whose forgotten mathematics loomed grandly on their minds through the mist of years, were confounded with disappointment at beholding their sons, in whom they expected to find philosophers, return to them with an examination paper, apparently rather calculated to unfold the mysteries of engineering, well-sinking, and carpentering.

This object—the practicability and immediate utility of the studies pursued, in preference to the superiority of mental training derivable from them—seems to be simply that which has dictated the recent innovations of 1848. The principle which entered into both measures may easily be traced in the prevalent phases of literature and science throughout the public at large. A few years ago, every one fancied himself a philosopher. Little volumes, cabinet cyclopædias and the like, swarmed on thebooksellers' shelves, containing a string of disjointed and bald scientific facts, involving no truth and expressive of no law, but more or less adroitly arranged under several heads, with asavantair. The man of business—the apprentice—the boarding-school miss—took it into their heads that a royal road was thus opened to all branches of useful and entertaining knowledge,—that the acquirements of Bacon were "in this wonderful age" brought within the reach of every one who had an occasional hour or two in the day to spare from more mechanical employments; and that the progress from ignorance to philosophy was as much facilitated by these little-book contrivances, as the journey from London to Birmingham, by the rushing railway-train, was an advance upon the week's toil of our forefathers in accomplishing the same space. Much of this mania for desultory knowledge has evaporated, but its influences are still distinctly to be traced among us. It is not surprising that those influences should in some measure have affected the universities. In accordance with the popular notions afloat, the Cambridge legislators followed up the alteration which we have been describing by the adoption of their recent measures, by which they effected an extension of their field of "honours" similar to that which they had already accomplished in the qualifications for the ordinary degree. To the old "triposes," or classes of honours in mathematics and classics, they have now added two more—namely, one in moral sciences and one in natural sciences.

Before, however, we offer any conjectures as to the probable effect of these yet untried changes, we must remind our readers of a certain characteristic of the Cambridge system, which is important in estimating the internal relations of the late reforms. The academic life of Cambridge circulates through two concurrent systems, which we may term the university and the collegiate system. The university is one corporation, and each individual college is altogether another. The union between the two systems might be dissolved without difficulty. If the university were to abandon her ancient seat, and take up some new abode, as she did for a time at Northampton some centuries ago, the colleges might still remain as places of education, with but little modification of their present character. The older system—the university—has had its functions gradually absorbed in a great measure by the collegiate. The earliest form in which Cambridge appears, dimly seen in hoar antiquity, is that of a congregation of students, commonly living together for mutual convenience in hostels, governed by a code of statutes, and endowed with the privilege of granting degrees. Then came the founders of colleges, with their noble endowments, and reared edifices, in which societies of these students should live together under a common rule, and form distinct corporations by themselves, for purposes connected with, and auxiliary to, those of the university. The latter body has from time immemorial matriculated only those who were already members of some one or other of the colleges; but there probably was a time at which a student in the university was not necessarily a member of any college, until by degrees these foundations absorbed into their composition the whole of the academic population. By-and-by, the principal part of the functions of teaching also lapsed into the hands of the colleges. In the old times, the university discharged this duty by means of the public readings or lectures by the newly admitted masters of arts, (termedregents,) and by the keeping of acts and opponencies—being certainvivâ vocedisputations—by the students. To this system, comprehending the main studies of the place, was superadded, by individual endowment or royal beneficence, the collateral information on special subjects given by the professors. The colleges were altogether subsidiary to this mode of instruction—the practice being that every student who enrolled himself in the ranks of a particular college, must do so under the charge of some one of the fellows of the college, who became a kind of private tutor to him. Hence arose college tutors; and as their lectures, given in each separate college, were found to be the most efficient aids in prosecuting the university studies, thereadings of the masters of arts gradually fell altogether into disuse, and thevivâ voceexercises of the students have nearly done so.

Possibly, along with the transfer of the functions of lecturing from the university regents to the college tutors, the professorial chairs may also have declined in importance as an element of the academic education. But, as we have before seen, these were never the main vehicle for the dispensation of knowledge on the part of the university. Nevertheless, we suspect that one object of the recently erected triposes is to revive the importance of the professors' lectures in the university course. For it is now required that every one who presents himself as a candidate for the ordinary orpolldegree, shall have attended the lectures of some one of the professors at his individual choice; and these lectures will, moreover, be necessary guides in the studies required of those who aim at the honours of the new triposes. It seems clear, therefore, that the devisers of the scheme had it in contemplation, through the medium of their changes, to fill the class-rooms of the professors, and so far to assimilate the modern system to the ancient, by bringing the university instruction into more active play. We are disposed to question the wisdom of these proceedings. Until now, the university and the colleges had apportioned their several functions, by assigning to the latter the duty of imparting proficiency in the studies cultivated; to the former, that of testing proficiency attained. The two systems had thus harmonised, as we believe, in conformity with the requirements of the age by lapse of time; and if it was deemed desirable to disturb this arrangement, and restore the faculty of teaching to the university, this should rather have been done, we think, by reviving the system ofvivâ vocedisputations, now altogether disused except in the progress to a degree in law, physic, or divinity; but which would form, under proper regulations, an important adjunct to the ordinary course, by cultivating a decision, a readiness, and an ingenuity in reasoning, which are comparatively left dormant by a written examination. Again, it is, as we consider, altogether a mistake to suppose that the primary end of a professorial existence is to deliver lectures. The endowment of a professorship is rather, as we take it, to enable the holder of it to give up his time to the particular science to which he is devoted; and it is by no means necessary, especially in these days, when words are so easily winged by the printer's devil, that the results of his labours should be given forth by oral lectures. At the same time, when his subject, and his manner of treating it, were such as to command interest, he was at no loss for an audience. The professorships, however, being mostly established for the purpose of aiding the pursuit of the inductive sciences, side by side with the severer studies of the university, fell under the patronage of the spirit of the age. Whether the sciences, for the promotion of which they were founded, will be materially advanced by this sort of "protection," remains to be seen.

It is likely enough, we think, that some confusion may arise from this revival of the lecturing powers of the university. This, however, will be easily obviated in practice, as the two systems have never, so far as we are aware, manifested anything like a mutual antagonism or jealousy of each other. A greater practical difficulty is one which appears to be left untouched by the new regime. We allude to the growing plan of instruction by private tutors—a calling which has sprang up, in the strictest principles of demand and supply, to meet the eagerness for external aid which has been induced by the great competition for university honours. The existence and increasing importance of the class of private tutors has been decried as an evil; and it, no doubt, enhances considerably the expenses attendant on a college education. But, after all, this is only part and parcel of the lot which has fallen to us in these latter days of merry England. There are so many of us, and we keep so constantly adding to our numbers, that we must not be surprised at more pushing and contrivance being required to realise a livelihood than heretofore; and as the end to be attained increases in its relative importance, the outlay attendant on its attainment will, in the ordinary course of things, be augmentedalso. It is not our intention, however, to discuss at this time the merits or demerits of the private-tutor system; it suffices for our purpose to notice it as the reappearance, in another form, of the old functions of instruction, as lodged in the hands of the university regents. As the collegiate system gradually supplanted that pristine form, so the office of the private tutors is, to a certain extent, supplanting the collegiate system. These instructors are likely, as we before said, to occupy, under the new rules, much the same place as they held under the old; and indeed it appears that, whether desirable or not, it would be extremely difficult to get rid of them; at all events the colleges, being now trenched upon by the university professors on the one hand, and by the private tutors on the other, must exert themselves to ascertain their proper functions, and to fulfil them with zeal and energy.

As for the new triposes themselves, it may be doubted whether the name given to them is not the most unfortunate part of them. The common name of Tripos looks like a confusion of ideas on the part of the university itself, and a want of discrimination between its old studies and its new. At first, probably, the recent triposes will be comparatively neglected, and on that ground alone it is both misjudging and unfair to include in the same category of "honours" and "tripos," classes which are respectively the subject of ardent competition and of none at all. But supposing that the new classes attracted their fair share of competitors, it would still be a grievous fault in the university to hold out to the world so false an estimate of the vehicle of mental training, as it would appear to do by placing on a par the new studies and the old—by assuming, or seeming to assume, that ratiocinative thought may be as well employed about the fallacies of Mr Ricardo, as the exact reasoning and indubitable verities of Euclid and Newton; or that the faculties of discrimination and speculation may be unfolded by the "getting up" of botanical or chemical nomenclature, not less than by the new world of thought opened through the authors of Greece and Rome. We must, however, confess that we are now taking the most unfavourable view of the matter. With respect, indeed, to the natural sciences' tripos, we cannot help being fully of opinion, that it should have been distinctly recognised as subsidiary to the main vehicles of education adopted at Cambridge. But the moral sciences' tripos furnishes, if properly constructed, an excellent means for training thought. It is a great misfortune that the study of Aristotle has been suffered at Cambridge to fall almost into desuetude: we speak of the philosophical study of his works in contradistinction to the philological. The former is maintained at Oxford with great success; thus combining, with Oxford scholarship, a training of the reasoning powers which is almost an equivalent for the mathematical studies of her sister university. Moreover, the literature of Great Britain boasts of a band of moral philosophers far greater than any other modern nation can produce. The works of Butler, Cudworth, Berkeley, Hume, Reid, and Stewart, with many others, form a group of authorities worthy of the groves of Academus. The metaphysics of Locke—we should rather say, the wall which Locke has built up between the English mind and the science of metaphysics—has too long prevented the moral reasoners of this country from duly availing themselves of the treasures at their command. Under the guidance of such lights as those we have enumerated, we may hope to see a school of metaphysical thinkers arise in England, whose exertions may dissipate the mist of half-thought in which Teutonic speculation has involved the science of its choice. If, however, the tap-root of our metaphysical thought is to be cut through by the study of the plausibilities of Locke and Paley, (no very unlikely issue, we should fear, at least under present circumstances,) then this moral sciences' tripos also is one of those things which had better never have been.

We repeat that Cambridge has incurred great blame, if she has allowed herself to mislead, or to seem to mislead, the popular mind on these matters. The more talkative portion ofthe public, and the newspapers which commonly represent that more talkative portion, have evidently been inclined to interpret this movement of Cambridge as an indication of a most utilitarian system of education coming to supplant the old rules. They anticipate all sorts of civil engineering, butterfly-dissecting, light geology, and a whole Babel of modern languages, to be victoriously let loose on the home where for many a century Wisdom has sat with the scroll of Plato on her knee, and Science has unravelled the wizard lore of fluxion and equation. The senate of Cambridge is egregiously mistaken if it supposes that it will win over to its body the students of these popular branches of knowledge, by following the dictation of the popular taste. Those who want to be civil engineers will not come to a university to learn their art. They will follow Brunel and Stephenson, and see how the work is actually done in practice; and those who do so will soon prove themselves far superior,quoadcivil engineering, to the Cambridge-bred theorist. In like manner, a month's flirtation in Paris, or a few games atécartéwith a German baron, will teach the student of modern languages more French or German than all the philologists of Oxford, Cambridge, or Eton can impart in a year.

"Quam quisque nôrit artem, in hâc se exerceat."

If the public have mistaken the functions of the university, it is the more incumbent on her to assert them correctly. Nor is the outcry less groundless, that the universities have failed to furnish the best men in law and medicine. With regard to the law, certain gentlemen were even cited by name, in leading articles of newspapers, as types of the class of men who were now taking the lead at the bar, and representing an altogether different school from that trained at the universities. The fact of the university men being supplanted, or being likely to be supplanted, at the bar, may admit of considerable question. But it is not, after all, the question by which the universities are to be judged. They do not undertake to make men great lawyers or skilful physicians; this, where it does belong to their functions, is a collateral duty, and not the main object of their training. That object is distinctly avowed in their own formularies. That noble clause in the "bidding prayer" will attach itself to the memories of most of those who have heard it:

"And that there never may be wanting a supply of persons duly qualified to serve God, both in Church and State, let us pray for a blessing on all seminaries of sound learning and religious education, particularly the universities of this realm."

A higher end to be attained, perhaps, than that of merely qualifying the student to "get on in the world." His university education is not so much to enable him to attain those eminent stations which are the prizes of ability and industry, as to fit him to adorn and fill worthily those stations when he has attained them. In truth, we think it is not desirable, any more than necessary, that a degree should be an essential opening to the bar, the profession of medicine, or even the Church. The university is injured by being too much regarded as a step to be got over with the view of reaching some ulterior end.

We dwell on this point with the more interest, because we are satisfied that a still greater responsibility rests with the universities, to guard the fountains of knowledge pure and unsullied, in those days of professed knowledge, than in the so-called dark ages. Our day is rich in the knowledge offacts; there were manytruthsinfluencing those men of the times we please to call dark, which we have ignored or forgotten. The general demand for information—for this knowledge of facts—has made it a marketable commodity, a subject of commercial speculation; consequently, a vast deal that is shallow and desultory, a vast deal, too, that is counterfeit and fraudulent, is abroad, made up for the market, and circulates among multitudes who are incapable of separating the grain from the chaff. It is therefore, we repeat, even more important that the sources of learning should be guarded from contamination, now that the antagonistic principles are the knowledge of truth and the subserviency to falsehood, than when, at the revival of literature, the strugglewas between knowledge and ignorance.

We would have the universities remember that it is their best policy as corporations, as well as a duty they owe to those great medieval spirits who planted them where they stand, to own a better principle than that which would lead them to succumb to what is called popular opinion—in other words, the floating fallacy of the day—and aim at producing the shallow party leaders and favourite writers of the passing moment. They cannot control the frothy surface and the deep under-current at the same time. It would be a sacrifice to expediency which, after all, would not serve their turn. There are institutions which will do that work, and which will beat them in the race. Let all such take their own course.

"Let Gryll be Gryll, and have his hoggish kinde:" let Stinkomalee train the statesmen for the League and the jokers forPunch,—but Oxford and Cambridge have other rôles.

It is true, we are told there is a new aristocracy rising in England, and that the English universities are gaining no hold upon the coming generation of "chiefs of industry." It would be far better for our social condition that these same chiefs of industry should be educated men, and should pass through a training which might tend to neutralise the power of the mercantile iron in entering into their soul. But at present the race to be rich is so strong and hardly contested, that this class is hardly likely, in general, to devote their scions to academical studies of any description; and the merchant or manufacturer who came from the banks of Isis or Cam, at the age of twenty-one, to the Exchange or the Cloth-hall, would find himself starting under a most heavy disadvantage as compared with his neighbour of the same age, who had spent the last three or four years in a counting-house. The reason that this class is not commonly trained in the national seminaries, is to be sought in the habit and requirements of the class, and not in the nature of the education afforded them.

We have spoken chiefly of Cambridge, because Cambridge has put herself forward as the representative of a system of so-called university reform—of a certain movement in the direction of that principle which would accommodate the education of our higher classes to the caprice of a popular cry or cant phrase. We care not so much whether that movement in itself be advantageous or the reverse: it is against the principles supposed to be involved in it that we protest. The report goes, that changes of some kind or other are contemplated at Oxford also. If these changes be made, we trust that they will not be devised in deference to the noisier portion of the public, or to that fondness for short-cuts to knowledge, which fritters away the energies of the rising man in the collection of desultory facts, and the dependence upon shallow plausibilities. The Scottish universities, too, are likely to be put to the test in the same manner as their sisters of the Southern kingdom; and the questions raised cannot be uninteresting to them.

Nor, indeed, can the whole nation be otherwise than deeply concerned in this matter; and we are not surprised, at the interest which has been excited by the recent alterations at Cambridge, though not measures in themselves of any great importance. While we have contended for a higher ground on the part of the universities than that of merely finding such knowledge as is required by the popular taste, and happens to be most current in the market, and have called upon them to lead the public mind in these matters, we need hardly say that we must not be understood as failing to see the necessity of those institutions closely observing the shifting relations of our social equilibrium, and adapting their policy by judicious change, if need be, to the circumstances in which they find themselves. We might perhaps adduce the altered position of the Church with respect to the nation at large, as an instance of these changes. We have before hinted that the universities have, as we think, in some degree aimed at being too exclusively the training-schools of the clergy; and this circumstance, in our judgment, so far as England is concerned, has both narrowed the operations of the Church and the influence of the universities. TheChurch and European civilisation—the latter having grown up under the tutelage of the former—stand no longer in the relation of nurse and bantling, though Heaven forbid that they should ever be other than firm friends and allies! But the Church is no longer the exclusive teacher of the world: mankind are in a great measure taught by books. Viewing the clergy not in respect of their sacerdotal functions, but as the instructors of mankind, we find their office shared by a motley crowd of authors, pamphleteers, newspaper editors, magazine contributors,quales nos vel Cluvienus. It is incumbent, then, on the universities to consider how they may bring within the sphere of that control which they exercised in old times over the clergy, this mixed multitude of public instructors; how they may become not merely the schools of the clerical order, but also the nurseries of a future caste of literary men, who are to bear their part with that order in the coming development of human thought.

[Making all allowances for the many over-coloured pictures, nay, often onesided statements of such apologetic chroniclers as Knox, Melville, Calderwood, and Row, it is yet difficult to divest the mind of a strong leaning towards the old Presbyterians and champions of the Covenant—probably because we believe them to have been sincere, and know them to have been persecuted and oppressed. Nevertheless, the liking is as often allied to sympathy as to approbation; for a sifting of motives exhibits, in but too many instances, a sad commixture of the chaff of selfishness with the grain of principle—an exhibition of the over and over again played game, by which the gullible many are made the tools of the crafty and designing few. Be it allowed that, both in their preachings from the pulpit and their teachings by example, the Covenanters frequently proceeded more in the spirit of fanaticism than of sober religious feeling; and that, in their antagonistic ardour, they did not hesitate to carry the persecutions of which they themselves so justly complained into the camp of the adversary—sacrificing in their mistaken zeal even the ennobling arts of architecture, sculpture, and painting, as adjuncts of idol-worship—still it is to be remembered, that the aggression emanated not from them; and that the rights they contended for were the most sacred and invaluable that man can possess—the freedom of worshipping God according to the dictates of conscience. They sincerely believed that the principles which they maintained were right: and their adherence to these with unalterable constancy, through good report and through bad report; in the hour of privation and suffering, of danger and death; in the silence of the prison-cell, not less than in the excitement of the battle-field; by the blood-stained hearth, on the scaffold, and at the stake,—forms a noble chapter in the history of the human mind—of man as an accountable creature.

Be it remembered, also, that these religious persecutions were not mere things of a day, but were continued through at least three entire generations. They extended from the accession of James VI. to the English throne, (testibusthe rhymes of Sir David Lyndsay, and the classic prose of Buchanan,) down to the Revolution of 1688—almost a century, during which many thousands tyrannically perished, without in the least degree loosening that tenacity of purpose, or subduing thatperfervidum ingenium, which, according to Thuanus, have been national characteristics.

As in almost all similar cases, the cause of the Covenanters, so strenuously and unflinchingly maintained, ultimately resulted in the victory of Protestantism—that victory, the fruits of which we have seemed of late years so readily inclined to throw away; and, in its rural districts more especially, of nothing are the people more justly proud than

——"the talesOf persecution and the Covenant,Whose echo rings through Scotland to this hour."

So says Wordsworth. These traditions have been emblazoned by the pens of Scott, M'Crie, Galt, Hogg, Wilson, Grahame, and Pollok, and by the pencils of Wilkie, Harvey, and Duncan,—each regarding them with the eye of his peculiar genius.

In reference to the following stanzas, it should be remembered that, during the holding of their conventicles,—which frequently, in the more troublous times, took place amid mountain solitudes, and during the night,—a sentinel was stationed on some commanding height in the neighbourhood, to give warning of the approach of danger.]

Ho! plaided watcher of the hill,What of the night?—what of the night?The winds are lown, the woods are still,The countless stars are sparkling bright;From out this heathery moorland glen,By the shy wild-fowl only trod,We raise our hymn, unheard of men,To Thee—an omnipresent God!

II.

Jehovah! though no sign appear,Through earth our aimless path to lead,We know, we feel Thee ever near,A present help in time of need—Near, as when, pointing out the way,For ever in thy people's sight,A pillared wreath of smoke by day,Which turned to fiery flame at night!

III.

Whence came the summons forth to go?—From Thee awoke the warning sound!"Out to your tents, O Israel! Lo!The heathen's warfare girds thee round.Sons of the faithful! up—away!The lamb must of the wolf beware;The falcon seeks the dove for prey;The fowler spreads his cunning snare!"

IV.

Day set in gold; 'twas peace around—'Twas seeming peace by field and flood:We woke, and on our lintels foundThe cross of wrath—the mark of blood.Lord! in thy cause we mocked at fears,We scorned the ungodly's threatening words—Beat out our pruning-hooks to spears,And turned our ploughshares into swords!

Degenerate Scotland! days have beenThy soil when only freemen trod—When mountain-crag and valley greenPoured forth the loud acclaim to God!—The fire which liberty imparts,Refulgent in each patriot eye,And, graven on a nation's hearts,The Word—for which we stand or die!

VI.

Unholy change! The scorner's chairIs now the seat of those who rule;Tortures, and bonds, and death, the shareOf all except the tyrant's tool.That faith in which our fathers breathed,And had their life, for which they died—That priceless heirloom they bequeathedTheir sons—our impious foes deride!

VII.

So We have left our homes behind,And We have belted on the sword,And We in solemn league have joined,Yea! covenanted with the Lord,Never to seek those homes again,Never to give the sword its sheath,Until our rights of faith remainUnfettered as the air we breathe!

VIII.

O Thou, who rulest above the sky,Begirt about with starry thrones,Cast from the Heaven of Heavens thine eyeDown on our wives and little ones—From Hallelujahs surging round,Oh! for a moment turn thine ear,The widow prostrate on the ground,The famished orphan's cries to hear!

IX.

And Thou wilt hear! it cannot be,That Thou wilt list the raven's brood,When from their nest they scream to Thee,And in due season send them food;It cannot be that Thou wilt weaveThe lily such superb array,And yet unfed, unsheltered, leaveThy children—as if less than they!

We have no hearths—the ashes lieIn blackness where they brightly shone;We have no homes—the desert skyOur covering, earth our couch alone:We have no heritage—deprivenOf these, we ask not such on earth;Our hearts are sealed; we seek in heaven,For heritage, and home, and hearth!

XI.

O Salem, city of the saint,And holy men made perfect! WePant for thy gates, our spirits faintThy glorious golden streets to see;—To mark the rapture that inspiresThe ransomed, and redeemed by grace;To listen to the seraphs' lyres,And meet the angels face to face!

XII.

Father in Heaven! we turn not back,Though briers and thorns choke up the path;Rather the tortures of the rack,Than tread the winepress of Thy wrath.Let thunders crash, let torrents shower,Let whirlwinds churn the howling sea,What is the turmoil of an hour,To an eternal calm with Thee?

The debates in the Cortes, and the increasing development of the civil war in Catalonia, have again called attention to the affairs of Spain. Three months ago we glanced at the state of that country, briefly and broadly sketching its political history since the royal marriages. The quarter of a year that has since elapsed has been a busy one in Spain. Two things have been clearly proved: first, that the Carlist insurrection is a very different affair from the paltry gathering of banditti, as which the Moderados and their newspapers so long persisted in depicting it; and, secondly, that the Madrid government are heartily repentant of their unceremonious dismissal of a British ambassador. Christina and her Camarilla scarcely know which most deeply to deplore—the intrusion of Cabrera or the expulsion of Bulwer.

In Catalonia, we have a striking example of what may be accomplished, under most unfavourable circumstances, by one man's energy and talent. Nine months ago there was not a single company of Carlist soldiers in the field. A few irregular bands, insignificant in numbers, without uniform and imperfectly armed, roamed in the mountains, fearing to enter the plain, hunted down like wolves, and punished as malefactors when captured. To persons ignorant how great was the difference made by the fall of Louis Philippe in the chances of the Spanish Carlists, the cause of these never appeared more hopeless than in the spring of 1848. Suddenly a man, who for seven years had basked in the orange groves of Hyères, and listlessly lingered in the mountain solitudes of Auvergne,—reposing his body, scarred and weary from many a desperate combat, and recruiting his health, impaired by exertion and hardship—crossed the Pyrenees, and appeared upon the scene of his former exploits. The news of his arrival spread fast, but for a time found few believers. Cabrera, said the incredulous, who evacuated Spain at the head of ten thousand hardy and well-armed soldiers, because he would not condescend to a guerilla warfare, after having held towns and fortresses, and won pitched battles in the field—Cabrera would never re-enter the country to take command of a few hundred scattered adventurers. Others denied his presence, because he had not immediately signalised it by some dashing feat, worthy the conqueror of Morella and Maella. Various reports were circulated by those interested to discredit the arrival of the redoubted chief. He was ill, they said; he had never entered Spain or dreamed of so doing; he had come to Catalonia, others admitted, but was so disgusted at the scanty resources of his party, at the few men in the field, at the lack of arms, money, organisation,—of everything, in short, necessary for the prosecution of a war,—that he cursed the lying representations which had lured him from retirement, and was again upon the wing for France. The truth was in none of these statements. If Cabrera sounded a retreat in 1840, when ten thousand warlike and devoted followers were still at his orders, it was because the Carlistprestigewas gone for a time, the country was exhausted by war, anarchy reigned in the camp, and he himself was prostrated by sickness. In seven years, circumstances had entirely changed; the country, galled by misgovernment and oppression, was ripe for insurrection; the intermeddling of foreign powers was no longer to be apprehended; and Cabrera emerged from his retirement, not expecting to find an army, or money, or organisation, but prepared to create all three. In various ingenious and impenetrable disguises he moved rapidly about eastern Spain; fearlessly entering the towns, visiting his old partisans, and reviving their dormant zeal by ardent and confident speech; giving fresh spirit to the timid, shaming the apathetic, and enlisting recruits. His unremitting efforts were crowned with success. Numbers of his former followers rallied round him; secret adherents of thecause contributed funds; arms and equipments, purchased in France and England, safely arrived; officers of rank and talent, distinguished in former wars, raised their banners and mustered companies and even battalions; and soon Cabrera was strong enough to traverse Catalonia in all directions, and to collect from the inhabitants regular contributions, in almost every instance willingly paid, and gathered often within cannon-shot of the enemy's forts. He seemed ubiquitous. He was heard of everywhere, but more rarely seen, at least in his own character. In various assumed ones, not unfrequently in the garb of a priest, he accompanied small detachments sent to collect imposts; doing subaltern's rather than general's duty, ascertaining by personal observation the temper and disposition of the peasantry, and making himself known when a point was to be gained by the influence of his name and presence. His prodigious activity and perseverance wrought miracles in a country where those qualities by no means abound. Doubtless he has been well seconded, but his has been the master-spirit. The result of his exertions is best shown by a statement of the present Carlist strength in Catalonia. We have already mentioned what it was eight or nine months ago—a few hundred men, half-armed and ill disciplined, wandering amongst ravines and precipices. At the close of 1848, the Moderado papers, without means of obtaining correct information, estimated the Carlist army in Catalonia at 8000 men. The Carlists themselves, whose present policy is rather to under-state their strength, admitted 10,000. Their real numbers—and the accuracy of these statistics may be relied upon—are 12,000 bayonets and sabres, exclusive of small guerilla parties, known asvolantes, and other irregulars. A large proportion of the 12,000 are old soldiers, who served in the last war; and all are well armed, equipped, and disciplined, and superior to their opponents in power of endurance, and of effecting those tremendous marches for which Spanish troops are celebrated. Regularly rationed and supplied with tobacco, they wait cheerfully till the military chest is in condition to disburse arrears. The curious in costume may like to hear something of their appearance. The brigade under the immediate orders of Cabrera wears a green uniform with black facings: Ramonet's men have dark blue jackets; there is a corps clothedà l'Anglaise, in scarlet coats and blue continuations, which is known as Count Montemolin's own regiment. The oldboinaor flat cap, and a sort of light, low-crowned shako, such as is worn by the French in Africa, compose the convenient and appropriate head-dress. With the important arms of artillery and cavalry, in which armies raised as this one has been are apt to be deficient, Cabrera is well provided. A number of guns were buried and otherwise concealed in Spain ever since the last war, and others have been procured from France. As to cavalry, the want of which was so frequently and severely felt by the Carlists during the former struggle, the Christinos will be surprised, one of these days, to find how formidable a body of dragoons their opponents can bring into the field, although at the present moment they have but few squadrons under arms. Nearly four thousand horses are distributed in various country districts, comfortably housed in farm and convent stables, and divided amongst the inhabitants by twos and threes. They are well cared for, and kept in good condition, ready to muster and march whenever required.

What the Catalonian Carlists are now most in want of, is a centre of operations, a strong fortress—a Morella or a Berga—whither to retreat and recruit when necessary. That Cabrera feels this want is evident from the various attempts he has made to surprise fortified towns, with a view to hold them against the Christinos. Hitherto these attempts have been unsuccessful, but we may be prepared to hear any day of his having made one with a different result.

When the general tranquillity of Europe brought Spanish dissensions into relief, a vast deal of romance was written in France, Spain, and England, in the guise of memoirs of Cabrera, and of other distinguished leaders of the civil war, and not a little was swallowed by the simple as historical fact. We remember tohave seen the Convention of Bergara accounted for in print by a game at cards between Espartero and Maroto, who, both being represented as desperate gamblers, met at night at a lone farm-house between their respective lines, and played for the crown of Spain. Espartero won; and Maroto, more loyal as a gamester than to his king, brought over his army to the queen. This marvellous tale, although not exactly vouched for in the original English, was gravely translated in French periodicals; and the chances are that a portion of the French nation believe to the present hour that Isabella owes her crown to a lucky hit atmonté. Fables equally preposterous have been circulated about Cabrera. Of his personal appearance, especially, the most absurd accounts have been published; and type and graver have furnished so many fantastical and imaginary portraits of him, that one from the life may have its interest. Ramon Cabrera is about five feet eight inches in height, square built, muscular, and active. He is rather round-shouldered; his hair is abundant and very black; his grayish-brown eyes must be admitted, even by his admirers, to have a cruel expression. His complexion is tawny, his nose aquiline; he has nothing remarkable or striking in his appearance, and is neither ugly nor handsome, but of the two may be accounted rather good-looking than otherwise. He has neither an assassin-scowl nor an expression like a bilious hyena, nor any other of the little physiognomicalagrémenswith which imaginative painters have so frequently embellished his countenance. His character, as well as his face, has suffered from misrepresentation. He has been depicted as a Nero on a small scale, dividing his time between fiddling and massacre. There is some exaggeration in the statement. Unquestionably he is neither mild nor merciful; he has shed much blood, and has been guilty of divers acts of cruelty, but more of these have been attributed to him than he ever committed. His mother's death by Christino bullets inspired him with a burning desire of revenge. The system of reprisals, so largely adopted by both sides, during the late civil war in Spain, will account for many of his atrocities, although it may hardly be held to justify them. But in the present contest he has hitherto gone upon a totally different plan. Mercy and humanity seem to be his device, as they are undoubtedly his best policy. His aim is to win followers, by clemency and conciliation, instead of compelling them by intimidation and cruelty. There is as yet no authenticated account of an execution occurring by his order. One man was shot at Vich by the troops blockading the place; but he was known as a spy, and was twice warned not to enter the town. He pretended to retire, made a circuit, tried another entrance, and met his death. As to Cabrera's having shot four or five officers for a plot against his life, as was recently reported in Spanish papers, and repeated by English ones, the tale is unconfirmed, and has every appearance of a fabrication. There is no doubt he finds it necessary to keep a tight hand over his subordinates, especially in presence of the recent defection of some of their number, whose treachery, however, is not likely to be very advantageous to the Christinos. The troops whom Pozas, Pons, Monserrat, and the other renegade chiefs induced to accompany them, have for the most part returned to their banners, and the queen has gained nothing but a few very untrustworthy officers. These, by one of the conditions of their desertion, her generals are compelled to employ, thus creating much discontent among those officers of the Christino army over whose heads the traitors are placed. The principal traitor, General Miguel Pons, better known as Bep-al-Oli, has been known as a Carlist ever since the rising in Catalonia in 1827, when he was captured by the famous Count d'Espagne, and was condemned to the galleys, as was his brother Antonio Pons, one of those whom Cabrera was lately falsely reported to have shot. After the death of Ferdinand, both brothers served under their former persecutor, who thought to extinguish their resentment by good treatment and promotion, in spite of which precaution a share in his assassination is pretty generally attributed to Antonio Pons. Bep-al-Oli is Catalan for Joseph-in-oil,or Oily Joe, a slippery cognomen, which his recent change of sides seems to justify. Still he is a model of consistency compared to many Spanish officers, who have changed sides half-a-dozen times in the last fifteen years. And, indeed, after one-and-twenty years' stanch and active Carlism, the sincerity of Bep's conversion may perhaps be considered dubious. It would be no way surprising if he were to return to his first love, carrying with him, of course, the large sum for which he was bought. Another chief, Monserrat, passed over to the Christinos with two or three companions, and the very next week he had the misfortune to fall asleep, whereupon the better half of his band took advantage of his slumbers to go back to their colours, much comforted by the gratuities they had received for changing sides. When Monserrat awoke, he was furious at this defection, and instantly pursued his stray sheep. Not having been heard of since, it is not unlikely he may ultimately have followed their example. Of course, money is the means employed to seduce these fickle partisans. They are all bought at their own price, which rate is generally so high as to preclude profit. The cash-keepers at Madrid will soon get tired of such purchases. The regular expenses of the war are enormous, without squandering thousands for a few days' use of men who cannot be depended upon. It is notorious that immense offers were made to Cabrera to induce him to abandon the cause of Charles VI., of which he is the life and soul. Gold, titles, rank, governorships, have been in turn and together paraded before him, but in vain.Hewould indeed be worth buying, at almost any price; for he could not be replaced, and his loss would be a death-blow to the Carlist cause. Knowing this, and finding him incorruptible, it were not surprising if certain unscrupulous persons at Madrid sought other means of removing him from the scene. Cabrera, aware of the great importance of his life, very prudently takes his precautions. He has done so, to some extent, at various periods of his career. During the early portion of his exile in France, when that country, especially its southern provinces, swarmed with Spanish emigrants, many of whom had deep motives for hating him—whilst others, needy and starving, and inured to crime and bloodshed, might have been tempted to knife him for the contents of his pockets—the refugee chief wore a shirt of mail beneath his sheepskin jacket. He had also a celebrated pair of leathern trousers, which were generally believed to have a metallic lining. And, at the present time, report says that his head is the only vulnerable part of his person.

In presence of their Catalonian anxieties, of Cabrera's rapidly increasing strength, and of the impotence of Christino generals, who start for the insurgent districts with premature vaunts of their triumphs, and return to Madrid, baffled and crestfallen, to wrangle in the senate and divulge state secrets—the Narvaez government is secretly most anxious to make up its differences with England. This anxiety has been made sufficiently manifest by the recent discussions in the Cortes. Notwithstanding his assumed indifference and vain-glorious self-gratulation, the Duke of Valencia would gladly give a year's salary, perquisites, and plunder, to recall the impolitic act by which a British envoy was expelled the Spanish capital. Señor Cortina, the Progresista deputy, after denying that there were sufficient grounds for Sir Henry Bulwer's dismissal, and lamenting the rupture that has been its consequence, politely advised Narvaez to resign office, as almost the only means of repairing the dangerous breach. The recommendation, of course, was purely ironical. General Narvaez is the last man to play the Curtius, and plunge, for his country's sake, into the gulf of political extinction. In his scale of patriotism, the good of Spain is secondary to the advantage of Ramon Narvaez. We can imagine the broad grins of the Opposition, and the suppressed titter of his own friends, upon his having the face to declare, that, when the French Revolution broke out, he was actually planning a transfer of the reins of government into the hands of theProgresistas. The bad example of democratic France frustrated his disinterested designs, changed his benevolent intentions, and compelled him to transport and imprison, by wholesale, the very men towards whom, a few weeks previously, he was so magnanimously disposed. Returns of more than fifteen hundred persons, thus arbitrarily torn from their homes and families, were moved for early in the session; but only the names were granted, the charges against them being kept secret, in order not to give the lie to the ministerial assertion that but a small minority were condemned for political offences. As to the dispute with England, although Narvaez' pride will not suffer him to admit his blunder and his regrets, many of his party make no secret of their desire for a reconciliation at any price; fondly believing, perhaps, that it would be followed, upon theamantium iræprinciple, by warmer love and closer union than before. The slumbers of theseojalateropoliticians are haunted by sweet visions of a British steam-flotilla cruising off the Catalonian coast, of Carlist supplies intercepted, of British batteries mounted on the shores of Spain, and manned by British marines—the sight of whose red jackets might serve, at a pinch, to bolster up the wavering courage of a Christino division—and of English commodores and artillery-colonels supplying such deficient gentlemen as Messrs Cordova and Concha with the military skill which, in Spain, is by no means an indispensable qualification for a lieutenant-general's commission. Doubtless, if the alliance between Lord Palmerston and Queen Christina had continued, we should have had something of this sort, some more petty intermeddling and minute military operations, consumptive of English stores, and discreditable to English reputation. As it is, there seems a chance of the quarrel being fairly fought out; of the Spaniards being permitted to settle amongst themselves a question which concerns themselves alone. If the Carlists get the better of the struggle, (and it were unsafe to give long odds against them,) it is undeniable that they began with small resources, and that their triumph will have been achieved by their own unaided pluck and perseverance.

Puzzled how to make his peace with England, without too great mortification to his vanity and too great sacrifice of what he calls his dignity, Narvaez falls back upon France, and does his best to curry favour there by a fulsome acknowledgment of the evils averted from Spain by the friendly offices of Messrs Lamartine and Bastide, and of "the illustrious General Cavaignac." The fact is, that during the first six months of the republic, nobody in France had leisure to give a thought to Spain, and Carlists and Progresistas were allowed to concert plans and make purchases in France without the slightest molestation. At last, General Cavaignac, worried by Sotomayor—and partly, perhaps, through sympathy with his brother-dictator, Narvaez—sent to the frontier one Lebrière, a sort of thieftaker or political Vidocq, who already had been similarly employed by Louis Philippe. This man was to stir up the authorities and thwart the Carlists, and at first he did hamper the latter a little; but whether it was that he was worse paid than on his former mission—Cavaignac's interest in the affair being less personal than that of the King of the French—or that some other reason relaxed his activity, he did not long prove efficient. Then came the elections, and the success of Louis Napoleon was unwelcome intelligence to the Madrid government—it being feared that old friendship might dispose him to favour Count Montemolin as far as lay in his power: whereupon—the influence of woman being a lever not unnaturally resorted to by a party which owes its rise mainly to bedchamber intrigue and to the patronage of Madame Muñoz—the notable discovery was made that the Duchess of Valencia (a Frenchwoman by birth) is a connexion of the Buonaparte family, and her Grace was forthwith despatched to Paris to exercise her coquetries and fascinations upon her far-off cousin, and to intrigue, in concert with the Duke of Sotomayor, for the benefit of her husband's government. The result of her mission is not yet apparent. Putting all direct intervention completely out of the question, Francehas still a vast deal in her power in all cases of insurrection in the northern and eastern provinces of Spain. A sharp look-out on the frontier, seizure of arms destined for the insurgents, and the removal of Spanish refugees to remote parts of France, are measures that would greatly harass and impede Carlist operations; much less so now, however, than three or four months ago. Most of the emigrants have now entered Spain; and horses and arms—the latter in large numbers—have crossed the frontier.

Up to the middle of January, the Montemolinist insurrection was confined to Catalonia, where alone the insurgents were numerous and organised. This apparent inactivity in other districts, where a rising might be expected, was to be attributed to the season. The quantity of snow that had fallen in the northern provinces was a clog upon military operations. About the middle of the month, a thousand men, including three hundred cavalry, made their appearance in Navarre, headed by Colonel Montero, an old and experienced officer of the peninsular war, who served on the staff so far back as the battle of Baylen. This force is to serve as a nucleus. The conscription for 1849 has been anticipated; that is to say, the young soldiers who should have joined their colours at the end of the year, are called for at its commencement; and it is expected that many of these conscripts, discontented at the premature summons, will prefer joining the Carlists. When the weather clears, it is confidently anticipated that two or three thousand hardy recruits will make the valleys of Biscay and Navarre ring once more with their Basque war-cries, headed by men whose names will astonish those who still discredit the virtual union of Carlists and Progresistas.

The masses of troops sent into Catalonia have as yet effected literally nothing, not having been able to prevent the enemy even from recruiting and organising. General Cordova made a military promenade, lost a few hundred men—slain or taken prisoners with their brigadier at their head—and resigned the command. He has been succeeded by Concha, a somewhat better soldier than Cordova, who was never anything but a parade butterfly of the very shallowest capacity. Concha has as yet done little more than his predecessor, (his reported victory over Cabrera between Vich and St Hippolito was a barefaced invention, without a shadow of foundation,) although his force is larger than Cordova's was, and his promises of what hewoulddo have been all along most magnificent. Already there has been talk of his resignation, which doubtless will soon occur, and Villalonga is spoken of to succeed him. This general, lately created Marquis of the Maestrazgo for his cruelty and oppression of the peasantry in that district, will hardly win his dukedom in Catalonia, although dukedoms in Spain are now to be had almost for the asking. Indeed, they have become so common that, the other day, General Narvaez, Duke of Valencia, anxious for distinction from the vulgar herd, was about to create himself prince; but having unfortunately selected Concord for his intended title, and the accounts from Catalonia being just then anything but peaceable, he was fain to postpone his promotion till it should be morede circonstance. The Prince of Concord would be a worthy successor to the Prince of the Peace. Spain was once proud of her nobility and choice of her titles. Alas! how changed are the times! What a pretty list of grandees andtitulos de Castillathe Spanish peerage now exhibits! Mr Sotomayor, the other day a bookseller's clerk, then sub-secretary in a ministry, then understrapper to Gonzales Bravo, now duke and ambassador at Paris! What a successor to the princely and magnificent envoys of a Philip and a Charles! And Mr Sartorius, lately a petty jobber on the Madrid Bolsa, is now Count of St Louis, secretary of state, &c.! When the Legion of Honour was prostituted in France by lavish and indiscriminate distribution, and by conversion into an electioneering bribe and a means of corruption, many old soldiers, who had won their cross upon the battle-fields of the Empire, had the date of its bestowal affixed in silver figures to their red ribbon. The old nobility of Spain must soon resort to a similar plan, and sign their date of creation after their names, ifthey would be distinguished from the horde of disreputable adventurers on whom titles have of late years been infamously squandered.

When the Madrid government has performed its promise, so often repeated during the last six months, of extinguishing the Carlists and restoring peace to Spain, we hope those ill-treated gentlemen in the city of London, who, from time to time, draw up a respectful representation to General Narvaez on the subject of Spanish debts—a representation which that officer blandly receives, and takes an early opportunity of forgetting—will pluck up courage and sternly urge the Duke of Valencia and the finance minister of the day to apply to the liquidation of Spanish bondholders' claims a part, at least, of the resources now expended on military operations. Forty-five millions of reals, about half-a-million of pounds sterling, are now, we are credibly informed, the monthly expenditure of the war department of Spain. That this is squeezed out of the country, by some means or other, is manifest, since nobody now lends money to Spain. A very large part of this very considerable sum being expended in Catalonia, goes into the pockets of the inhabitants of that province, who pay it over to the Carlists in the shape of contributions, and still make a profit by the transaction—so that they are in no hurry to finish the war; and Catalonia presents at this moment the singular spectacle of two contending armies paid out of the same military chest. But Spain is the country of anomalies; and nothing in the conduct of Spaniards will ever surprise us, until we find them, by some extraordinary chance, conducting their affairs according to the rules of common sense and the dictates of ordinary prudence.

Printed by William Blackwood and Sons, Edinburgh.

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