FOOTNOTES:

The autumn was well advanced beforePepys could obtain leave to go down into the country, whither at length he proceeded, not to shoot partridges or pheasants, but to disinter his buried treasure. We doubt whether ever resurrectionist felt himself in such a quandary.

"My father and I with a dark-lantern, being now night, into the garden with my wife, and there went about our great work to dig up my gold. But, Lord! what a tosse I was for some time in, that they could not justly tell where it was; that I began hastily to sweat, and be angry that they could not agree better upon the place, and at last to fear that it was gone: but by-and-by, poking with a spit, we found it, and then began with a spudd to lift up the ground. But, good God! to see how sillily they did it, not half a foot under ground, and in the sight of the world from a hundred places, if anybody by accident were near hand, and within sight of a neighbour's window: only my father says that he saw them all gone to church before he began the work, when he laid the money. But I was out of my wits almost, and the more for that, upon my lifting up the earth with the spudd, I did discern that I had scattered the pieces of gold round about the ground among the grass and loose earth; and taking up the iron headpieces wherever they were put, I perceived the earth was got among the gold, and wet, so that the bags were all rotten, and all the notes, that I could not tell what in the world to say to it, not knowing how to judge what was wanting, or what had been lost by Gibson in his coming down; which, all put together, did make me mad; and at last I was fixed to take up the headpieces, dirt and all, and as many of the scattered pieces as I could with the dirt discern by candle-light, and carry them into my brother's chamber, and there lock them up till I had eat a little supper; and then, all people going to bed, W. Hewer and I did all alone, with several pails of water and besoms, at last wash the dirt off the pieces, and parted the pieces and the dirt, and then began to tell them by a note which I had of the value of the whole, in my pocket; and do find that there was short above a hundred pieces; which did make me mad; and considering that the neighbour's house was so near that we could not possibly speak one to another in the garden at that place where the gold lay—especially my father being deaf—but they must know what we had been doing, I feared that they might in the night come and gather some pieces and prevent us the next morning; so W. Hewer and I out again about midnight, for it was now grown so late, and there by candle-light did make shift to gather forty-five pieces more. And so in, and to cleanse them; and by this time it was past two in the morning; and so to bed, with my mind pretty quiet to think that I have recovered so many, I lay in the trundle-bed, the girl being gone to bed to my wife, and there lay in some disquiet all night, telling of the clock till it was daylight."

Then ensued a scene of washing for gold, the study of which may be useful to any intending emigrant to California.

"And then W. Hewer and I, with pails and a sieve, did lock ourselves into the garden, and there gather all the earth about the place into pails, and then sift those pails in one of the summer-houses, just as they do for diamonds in other parts of the world; and there, to our great content, did by nine o'clock make the last night's forty-five up seventy-nine: so that we are come to about twenty or thirty of what the true number should be; and perhaps within less; and of them I may reasonably think that Mr Gibson might lose some: so that I am pretty well satisfied that my loss is not great, and do bless God that all is so well. So do leave my father to make a second examination of the dirt; and my mind at rest on it, being but an accident: and so gives me some kind of content to remember how painful it is sometimes to keep money, as well as to get it, and how doubtful I was to keep it all night, and how to secure it in London: so got all my gold put up in bags."

And then did Samuel Pepys return to London rejoicing, not one whit the worse for all his care and anxiety, yet still incubating on his treasure, which he had prudently stowed away beneath him, and, says he, "my work every quarter of an hour was to look to see whether all was well; and I did ride in great fear all the day."

We have already hinted that Pepys was by no means a Hector in valour. The sight of a suspicious bumpkin armed with a cudgel, on the road, always gave him qualms of apprehension; and in the night-season his dreams were commonly of robbery and murder. For many nights after the great fire, he started from sleep under the conviction that his premises were in a bright flame: the creaking of a door after midnight threw him into a cold perspiration; and a reported noise on the leads nearly drove himpast his judgment. He thus reports his sensations on the occurrence of the latter phenomenon:—

"Knowing that I have a great sum of money in the house, this puts me into a most mighty affright, that for more than two hours, I could not almost tell what to do or say, but feared this night, and remembered that this morning I saw a woman and two men stand suspiciously in the entry, in the dark; I calling to them, they made me only this answer, the woman saying that the men only come to see her; but who she was, I cannot tell. The truth is, my house is mighty dangerous, having so many ways to be come to; and at my windows, over the stairs, to see who goes up and down; but if I escape to-night, I will remedy it. God preserve us this night safe! So, at almost two o'clock I home to my house, and, in great fear, to bed, thinking every running of a mouse really a thief; and so to sleep, very brokenly, all night long, and found all safe in the morning."

All of us have, doubtless, on occasion, been wakened from slumber by a hollow bellowing, as if an ox had, somehow or other, fallen half way down the chimney. Once, in a remote country district, we were roused from our dreams by a hideous flapping of wings in the same locality, and certainly did, for a moment, conjecture that the foul fiend was flying away with our portmanteau. The first of these untimeous sounds usually proceeds from a gentleman of Ethiopian complexion, who is perched somewhere among the chimney-pots; the latter we discovered to arise from the involuntary struggles of a goose, who had been cruelly compelled to assist in the dislodgement of the soot. Some degree of tremor on such occasions is admissible without reproach, but surely old Trapbois himself could hardly have behaved worse than Pepys upon the following alarm.

"Waked about seven o'clock this morning, with a noise I supposed I heard near our chamber, of knocking, which by-and-by increased; and I, now awake, could distinguish it better. I then waked my wife, and both of us wondered at it, and lay so a great while, while that increased, and at last heard it plainer, knocking, as it were breaking down a window for people to get out; and then removing of stools and chairs; and plainly, by-and-by, going up and down our stairs. We lay, both of us, afraid; yet I would have rose, but my wife would not let me. Besides, I could not do it without making noise; and we did both conclude that thieves were in the house, but wondered what our people did, whom we thought either killed, or afraid as we were. Thus we lay till the clock struck eight, and high day. At last, I removed my gown and slippers safely to the other side of the bed, over my wife; and there safely rose, and put on my gown and breeches, and then, with a firebrand in my hand, safely opened the door, and saw nor heard anything. Then, with fear, I confess, went to the maid's chamber door, and all quiet and safe. Called Jane up, and went down safely, and opened my chamber door, where all well. Then more freely about, and to the kitchen, where the cookmaid up, and all safe. So up again, and when Jane came, and we demanded whether she heard no noise, she said "Yes, but was afraid," but rose with the other maid and found nothing; but heard a noise in the great stack of chimneys that goes from Sir J. Minnes's through our house; and so we sent, and their chimneys have been swept this morning, and the noise was that, and nothing else.It is one of the most extraordinary accidents in my life, and gives ground to think of Don Quixote's adventures, how people may be surprised; and the more from an accident last night, that our young gibb-cat did leap down our stairs, from top to bottom, at two leaps, and frighted us, that we could not tell whether it was the cat or a spirit, and do sometimes think this morning that the house might be haunted."

Had our space admitted of it, we should have been glad to copy a few of the anecdotes narrated by Pepys regarding the court of King Charles. These are not always to be depended upon as correct, for Pepys usually received them at second hand, and put them down immediately without further inquiry. We all know, from experience, what exaggeration prevails in the promulgation of gossip, and how difficult it is at any time to ascertain the real merits of a story. The raw material of a scandalous anecdote passes first into the hands of a skilful manufacturer, who knows how to give it due colour and fit proportion; and when, after undergoing this process, it is presented to the public, it would puzzle any of the parties concerned to reconcile it with the actual facts. In a court like that of Charles, there is always mixed up with the profligacya considerable deal of wit. Such men as Sedley, Rochester, Etherege, and Killigrew, were privileged characters, and never scrupled to lay on the varnish, if by so doing they could heighten the effect. Neither the station, nor the manners, nor, indeed, the tastes of Pepys, qualified him to mix with such society, and therefore he can only retail to us the articles which came adulterated to his hand. It is rash in any historian to trust implicitly to memoirs. They may, indeed, give an accurate general picture, but they cannot be depended on for particulars: for example, we entertain a strong suspicion that one-half at least of the personal anecdotes related by Count Anthony Hamilton are, if not absolutely false, at least most grossly exaggerated. We shall allude merely to one notable instance of this kind of misrepresentation which occurs in Pepys. Frances, more commonly known as La Belle Stewart, a lady of the noble house of Blantyre, was beloved by Charles II., with probably as much infusion of the purer passion as could be felt by so sated a voluptuary. So strong was his admiration, that it was currently believed that the fair Stewart, failing Katherine, had an excellent chance of being elevated to the throne; and it is quite well known that her virtue was as spotless as her beauty was unrivalled. In spite of the opposition of the king, she married Charles, Duke of Lennox and Richmond; and her resolute and spirited conduct on that occasion, under very trying circumstances, was much and deservedly extolled. And yet we find in the earlier pages of Pepys most scandalous anecdotes to her discredit. In the second volume there is an account of a mock marriage between her and Lady Castlemaine, in which the latter personated the bridegroom, making way, when the company had retired, for the entry of her royal paramour. On several other occasions Pepys alludes to her as the notorious mistress of the king, and it was only after her marriage that he appears to have been undeceived. His informant on this occasion was the honourable Evelyn, and it may not displease our readers to hear his vindication of the lady—

"He told me," says Pepys, "the whole story of Mrs Stewart's going away from Court, he knowing her well, and believes her, up to her leaving the Court, to be as virtuous as any woman in the world: and told me, from a lord that she told it to but yesterday, with her own mouth, and a sober man, that when the Duke of Richmond did make love to her she did ask the King, and he did the like also, and that the King did not deny it: and told this lord that she was come to that pass as to have resolved to have married any gentleman of £1500 a year that would have had her in honour; for it was come to that pass, that she would not longer continue at Court without yielding herself to the King, whom she had so long kept off, though he had liberty more than any other had, or he ought to have, as to dalliance. She told this lord that she had reflected upon the occasion she had given the world to think her a bad woman, and that she had no way but to marry and leave the Court, rather in this way of discontent than otherwise, that the world might see that she sought not anything but her honour; and that she will never come to live at Court more than when she comes to town to kiss the Queen her mistress's hand: and hopes, though she hath little reason to hope, she can please her lord so as to reclaim him, that they may yet live comfortably in the country on his estate."

"A worthy woman," added Evelyn, "and in that hath done as great an act of honour as ever was done by woman." The fact is, that it was next thing to impossible for any lady to preserve her reputation at the court of King Charles. Those who handle pitch cannot hope to escape defilement; and daily association with the Duchess of Cleveland, and other acknowledged mistresses of the king, was not the best mode of impressing the public with the idea of a woman's virtue. Frances Stuart, a poor unprotected girl, did, we verily believe, pass through as severe an ordeal as well can be imagined: the cruel accusations which were raised up against her, were no more than the penalty of her position; but no stain of disgrace remains on the memory of her, whose fair and faultless form was selected as the fittest model for the effigy of the Genius of Britain.

In a small way, Pepys had some intercourse with the ladies of the court, though it must be confessed that his acquaintances were rather ofthe lower sphere. He was a staunch admirer of that splendid spitfire, Lady Castlemaine, whose portrait he greatly coveted. "It is," quoth he, "a most blessed picture, and one I must have a copy of." Mary Davis seems to have been no favourite of his, principally because she was an object of especial detestation to the monopolising Castlemaine. He styled her an "impertinent slut," and, one night at the theatre, "it vexed me to see Moll Davis, in the box over the king's, and my Lady Castlemaine's, look down upon the king, and he up to her; and so did my Lady Castlemaine once, to see who it was; but when she saw Moll Davis, she looked like fire, which troubled me." Why it should have troubled Pepys, we cannot perfectly comprehend. With Nell Gwynne, Samuel was upon exceedingly easy terms; and no wonder, for she and Knipp belonged to the same company.

"To the King's house: and there, going in, met with Knipp, and she took us up into the tireing-rooms; and to the women's shift, where Nell was dressing herself, and was all unready, and as very pretty, prettier than I thought. And into the scene-room, and there sat down, and she gave us fruit; and here I read the questions to Knipp, while she answered me, through all her part of "Flora Figarys," which was acted to-day. But, Lord! to see how they were both painted would make a man mad, and did make me loathe them; and what base company of men comes among them, and how lewdly they talk! and how poor the men are in clothes, and yet what a show they make upon the stage by candle-light, is very observable. But to see how Nell cursed, for having so few people in the pit, was pretty; the other house carrying away all the people at the new play, and is said, now-a-days, to have generally most company, as being better players. By-and-by into the pit, and there saw the play, which is pretty good."

We dare wager a trifle that Mrs Pepys died in total ignorance of her husband having been behind the scenes. Probably Nelly's style of conversation would have found less favour in her eyes. True, she had been introduced to Nelly on a previous occasion; but the little lady seems then to have been on her good behaviour, and had not made herself notorious with Lord Buckhurst, and Sir Charles Sedley, as was the case when Sam assisted at her toilet. Here again we find that arch-intriguer, Knipp, countermining the domestic peace of poor innocent Mrs Pepys. "Thence to the King's house, and there sawThe Humorous Lieutenant, a silly play, I think; only the Spirit in it that grows very tall, and then sinks again to nothing, having two heads breeding upon one; and then Knipp's singing did please us. Here, in a box above, we spied Mrs Pierce; and, going out, they called us, and brought to us Nelly, a most pretty woman, who acted the great part of Cœlia to-day very fine, and did it pretty well. I kissed her, and so did my wife; and a mighty pretty soul she is. We also saw Mrs Bell, which is my little Roman-nose black girl, that is mighty pretty: she is usually called Betty. Knipp made us stay in a box and see the dancing—preparatory to to-morrow, forThe Goblins, a play of Suckling's, not acted these twenty-five years—which was pretty; and so away thence, pleased with this sight also, and specially kissing of Nell."

We have searched these volumes with some curiosity for entries which might throw any light on the history and character of the Duke of Monmouth. Of late he has been exalted to the rank of a champion of the Protestant cause, and figures in party chronicles rather as a martyr than a rebel. Now, although there is no doubt that he was privy to the designs of Sydney and Russell, the object of his joining that faction still remains a mystery to be explained. We can understand the spirit that animated the Whig Lords and Republican plotters, in attempting to subvert the power of the crown, which they deemed exorbitant and dangerous to the liberties of the subject. The personal character of the men was quite reconcilable with the motives they professed, and the principles they avowed. But that Monmouth—the gay, fickle, licentious, and pampered Monmouth—had any thought beyond his own aggrandisement, in committing such an act of monstrous ingratitude as rebellion against his indulgent father, seems to us an hypothesis unsubstantiated byeven a shadow of proof. We do not here allude to his second treason, which brought him to the scaffold—his motives on that occasion are sufficiently clear: he never was a favourite with his uncle; he aimed at the crown through a false assertion of his legitimacy; and the knaves and fools who were his counsellors made use of the cry of Protestantism merely as a cover to their designs. Monmouth's first treason was undoubtedly his blackest crime: for, had he been the rightful heir of Britain, he could not have experienced at the hands of Charles more ample honour and affection. It is, therefore, valuable to know what position he occupied during the earlier period of his life.

The following are some of Pepys' entries, which we think are historically valuable:—

"31st Dec. 1662.—The Duke of Monmouth is in so great splendour at court, and so dandled by the King, that some doubt that, if the King should have no child by the Queen, which there is yet no appearance of, whether he would not be acknowledged as a lawful son; and that there will be a difference between the Duke of York and him, which God prevent!... 8th Feb. 1663.—The little Duke of Monmouth, it seems, is ordered to take place of all Dukes, and so do follow Prince Rupert now, before the Duke of Buckingham, or any else.... 27th April.—The Queen, which I did not know, it seems was at Windsor, at the late St George's feast there; and the Duke of Monmouth dancing with her, with his hat in his hand, the King came in and kissed him, and made him put on his hat, which everybody took notice of.... 4th May.—I to the garden with my Lord Sandwich, after we had sat an hour at the Tangier committee, and after talking largely of his own businesses, we began to talk how matters are at court: and though he did not fully tell me any such thing, yet I do suspect that all is not kind between the King and the Duke, (York) and that the King's fondness to the little Duke do occasion it; and it may be that there is some fear of his being made heir to the crown.... 22d Feb. 1664.—He (Charles) loves not the Queen at all, but is rather sullen to her; and she, by all reports, incapable of children. He is so fond of the Duke of Monmouth that everybody admires it; and he says that the Duke hath said, that he would be the death of any man that says the King was not married to his mother.... 11th September 1667.—Here came Mr Moore, and sat and conversed with me of public matters, the sum of which is, that he has no doubt there is more at the bottom than the removal of the Chancellor; that is, he do verily believe that the King do resolve to declare the Duke of Monmouth legitimate, and that we shall soon see it. This I do not think the Duke of York will endure without blows."

These are but a few of Pepys' notes relative to this subject, and we think there is much significancy in them. The fondness of Charles for Monmouth was, to say the least of it, extravagant and injudicious. He promoted him to the highest grade of the nobility; he procured for him a match with one of the wealthiest heiresses in Britain; and he allowed and encouraged him to assume outward marks of distinction which had always been considered the prerogative of Princes of the blood royal. In the words of Dryden—

"His favour leaves me nothing to require,Prevents my wishes and outruns desire;What more can I expect while David lives?All but his kingly diadem he gives."

Such unprecedented honours heaped upon the eldest of the bastards of Charles must necessarily have been extremely annoying to the Duke of York, and were ill-calculated to conciliate his favour, in the event of his succeeding to the crown. They certainly were enough to give much weight to the rumour long current in the nation, that Charles contemplated the step of declaring Monmouth legitimate, and of course they excited in the mind of the youth aspirations of the most dangerous nature. At no period of his career did the son of Lucy Walters display qualities which can fairly entitle him to our esteem. As a husband, he was false and heartless; as a son, he was undutiful and treacherous. Pepys always speaks of him disparagingly, as a dissipated, profligate young man; and he is borne out in this testimony by the shameful outrage committed on the person of Sir John Coventry, at his direct instigation. Again he says, "16th December 1666—Lord Brouncker tells me, that he do not believe the Duke of York will go to sea again, though there are many about the king that would be glad of any occasion to takehim out of the world, he standing in their ways: and seemed to mean the Duke of Monmouth, who spends his time the most viciously and idle of any man, nor will be fit for anything; yet he speaks as if it were not impossible but the king would own him for his son, and that there was marriage between his mother and him." This was a strange champion to put forward in the cause of liberty and religion.

We now take our leave of these volumes, the perusal of which has afforded us some pleasant hours. Every one must regret that the health of Pepys compelled him to abandon his daily task so early; for by far the most interesting period of the reign of Charles remains unillustrated by his pen. Had his Diary been continued down to the Revolution, with the same spirit which characterises the extant portion, it would have been one of the most useful historical records in the English language. Pepys, beyond the immediate sphere of his own office, was no partisan. He never throws an unnecessary mantle over the faults even of his friends and patrons. No man was more alive to the criminal conduct of Charles, and his shameful neglect of public duty. He has his quips and girds at the Duke of York, though he entertained a high, and, we think, a just opinion of the natural abilities of that prince: and while he gives him due credit for a sincere desire to reform abuses in that public department which was under his superintendence, he shows himself by no means blind to his vices, and besetting obstinacy. Even the Earl of Sandwich, to whom he was so much indebted, does not escape. On one occasion, Pepys took upon himself to perform the dangerous office of a Mentor to that high-spirited nobleman, and it is to the credit of both parties that no breach of friendship ensued. Good advice was an article which Samuel was ever ready to volunteer, and his natural shrewdness rendered his councils really valuable. But, like many other people, he was not always so ready with his purse. Considering that he owed everything he possessed in the world to the earl, we think he might have opened his coffers, at such a pinch as the following, without any Israelitish contemplation of security. "After dinner comes Mr Moore, and he and I alone awhile, he telling me my Lord Sandwich's credit was like to be undone, if the bill of £200 my Lord Hinchingbroke wrote to me about be not paid to-morrow, and that, if I do not help them about it, they have no way but to let it be protested. So, finding that Creed had supplied them with £150 in their straits, and that this was no bigger sum, I am very willing to serve my lord, though not in this kind; but yet I will endeavour to get this done for them, and the rather because of some plate that was lodged the other day with me, by my lady's order, which may be in part security for my money. This do trouble me; but yet it is good luck that the sum is no bigger." We cannot agree with Lord Braybrooke that Pepys was a liberal man, even to his own relations. We do not go the length of saying that he was deficient in family duties, but it seems to us that he might have selected a fitter gift for his father than his old shoes; and surely, when his sister Paulina came to stay with him, there was no necessity for insisting that she should eat with the maids, and consider herself on the footing of a servant. Whatever Pepys may have been in after life, he portrays himself in his Diary as a singularly selfish man; nor is that character at all inconsistent with the shrewd, but sensual, and somewhat coarse expression of his features in the frontispiece. Yet it is impossible to read the Diary without liking him, with all his faults. There was, to be sure, a great deal of clay in his composition, but also many sparkles of valuable metal; and perhaps these are seen the better from the roughness of the material in which they are embedded. This at least must be conceded, that these volumes are unique in literature, and so they will probably remain.

Printed by William Blackwood and Sons, Edinburgh.

FOOTNOTES:[1]Cowley'sOde to Light.[2]Cowley onTown and Country. (Discourse on Agriculture.)[3]How true are the following remarks:—"Action is the first great requisite of a colonist, (that is, a pastoral or agricultural settler.) With a young man, the tone of his mind is more important than his previous pursuits. I have known men of an active, energetic, contented disposition, with a good flow of animal spirits, who had been bred in luxury and refinement, succeed better than men bred as farmers, who were always hankering after bread and beer, and market ordinaries of Old England.... To be dreaming when you should be looking after your cattle, is a terrible drawback.... There are certain persons who, too lazy and too extravagant to succeed in Europe, sail for Australia under the idea that fortunes are to be made there by a sort of legerdemain, spend or lose their capital in a very short space of time, and return to England to abuse the place, the people, and everything connected with colonisation."—Sidney's Australian Handbook—admirable for its wisdom and compactness.[4]Lest this seem an exaggeration, I venture to annex an extract from a MS. letter to the author from Mr George Blakeston Wilkinson, author ofSouth Australia."I will instance the case of one person who had been a farmer in England, and emigrated with about £2000 about seven years since. On his arrival, he found that the prices of sheep had fallen from about 30s. to 5s. or 6s. per head, and he bought some well-bred flocks at these prices. He was fortunate in obtaining a good and extensiverun, and he devoted the whole of his time to improving his flocks, and encouraged his shepherds by rewards; so that, in about four years, his original number of sheep had increased from 2500 (which cost him £700) to 7000; and the breed and wool were also so much improved that he could obtain £1 per head for 2000 fat sheep, and 15s. per head for the other 5000, and this at a time when the general price of sheep was from 10s. to 16s. This alone increased his original capital, invested in sheep, from £700 to £5700. The profits from the wool paid the whole of his expenses and wages for his men."[5]I felt sure, from the first, that the system called "The Wakefield" could never fairly represent the ideas of Mr Wakefield himself, whose singular breadth of understanding, and various knowledge of mankind, belied the notion that fathered on him the clumsy execution of a theory wholly inapplicable to a social state like Australia. I am glad to see that he has vindicated himself from the discreditable paternity. But I grieve to find that he still clings to one cardinal error of the system, in the discouragement of small holdings, and that he evades, more ingeniously than ingenuously, the important question—"What should be the minimum price of land?"[6]"The profits of cattle-farming are smaller than those of the sheep-owner, (if the latter have good luck, for much depends upon that,) but cattle-farming is much more safe as a speculation, and less care, knowledge, and management are required. £2000, laid out on 700 head of cattle, if good runs be procured, might increase the capital in five years, from £2000 to £6000, besides enabling the owner to maintain himself, pay wages, &c."—MS. letter from G. B. Wilkinson.[7]Dingoes—the name given by Australian natives to the wild dogs.[8]Not having again to advert to Uncle Jack, I may be pardoned for informing the reader, by way of annotation, that he continues to prosper surprisingly in Australia, though the Tibbets' Wheal stands still for want of workmen. Despite of a few ups and downs, I have had no fear of his success until this year, (1849,) when I tremble to think what effect the discovery of the gold mines in California may have on his lively imagination. If thou escapist that snare, Uncle Jack,res age, tutus eris,—thou art safe for life![9]Light of Nature—chapter on Judgment.—See the very ingenious illustration of doubt, "whether the part is always greater than the whole"—taken from time, or rather eternity.[10]Sir Philip Sidney.[11]Lord Hervey'sMemoirs of George II.[12]Shaftesbury.[13]Quere—Liberator?[14]Physical Geography.ByMary Somerville.The Physical Atlas.ByAlexander Keith Johnston.[15]"Nor are there," writes Humboldt, "any constant relations between the distances of the planets from the central body round which they revolve, and their absolute magnitudes, densities, times of rotation, eccentricities and inclinations of orbit and of axis. We find Mars, though more distant from the sun than either the earth or Venus, inferior to them in magnitude; Saturn is less than Jupiter, and yet much larger than Uranus. The zone of the telescopic planets, which are so inconsiderable in point of volume, viewed in the series of distances commencing from the sun, comes next before Jupiter, the greatest in size of all the planetary bodies. Remarkable as is the small density of all the colossal planets which are farthest from the sun, yet neither in this respect can we recognise any regular succession. Uranus appears to be denser than Saturn, and (though the inner group of planets differ but little from each other in this particular) we find both Venus and Mars less dense than the earth, which is situated between them. The time of rotation increases, on the whole, with increasing solar distance, but yet it is greater in Mars than in the earth, and in Saturn than in Jupiter." After other remarks of the same character, he adds, "The planetary system, in its relation of absolute magnitude, relative position of the axis, density, time of rotation, and different degrees of eccentricity of the orbits, has, to our apprehension, nothing more of natural necessity than the relative distribution of land and water on the surface of our globe, the configuration of continents, or the elevation of mountain chains. No general law, in these respects, is discoverable either in the regions of space or in the irregularities of the crust of the earth."[16]Lyell'sPrinciples of Geology, p. 536.[17]Lady Madeline Gordon.[18]"Vast distances."—One case was familiar to mail-coach travellers, where two mails in opposite directions, north and south, starting at the same minute from points six hundred miles apart, met almost constantly at a particular bridge which exactly bisected the total distance.[19]"Resident."—The number on the books was far greater, many of whom kept up an intermitting communication with Oxford. But I speak of those only who were steadily pursuing their academic studies, and of those who resided constantly asfellows.[20]"Snobs," an its antithesis, "nobs," arose among the internal factions of shoe-makers perhaps ten years later. Possibly enough, the terms may have existed much earlier; but they were then first made known, picturesquely and effectively, by a trial at some assizes which happened to fix the public attention.[21]"False echoes"—yes, false! for the words ascribed to Napoleon, as breathed to the memory of Desaix, never were uttered at all. They stand in the same category of theatrical inventions as the cry of the founderingVengeur, as the vaunt of General Cambronne at Waterloo, "La Garde meurt, mais ne se rend pas," as the repartees of Talleyrand.[22]"Privileged few." The general impression was that this splendid costume belonged of right to the mail coachmen as their professional dress. But that was an error. To the guard itdidbelong as a matter of course, and was essential as an official warrant, and a means of instant identification for his person, in the discharge of his important public duties. But the coachman, and especially if his place in the series did not connect him immediately with London and the General Post-Office, obtained the scarlet coat only as an honorary distinction after long or special service.[23]"Households."—Roe-deer do not congregate in herds like the fallow or the red deer, but by separate families, parents, and children; which feature of approximation to the sanctity of human hearths, added to their comparatively miniature and graceful proportions, conciliate to them an interest of a peculiarly tender character, if less dignified by the grandeurs of savage and forest life.[24]"However visionary."—Butarethey always visionary? The unicorn, the kraken, the sea-serpent, are all, perhaps, zoological facts. The unicorn, for instance, so far from being a lie, is rathertootrue; for, simply as amonokeras, he is found in the Himalaya, in Africa, and elsewhere, rather too often for the peace of what in Scotland would be called theintendingtraveller. That which reallyisa lie in the account of the unicorn—viz., his legendary rivalship with the lion—which lie may God preserve, in preserving the mighty imperial shield that embalms it—cannot be more destructive to the zoological pretensions of the unicorn, than are to the same pretensions in the lion our many popular crazes about his goodness and magnanimity, or the old fancy (adopted by Spenser, and noticed by so many among our elder poets) of his graciousness to maiden innocence. The wretch is the basest and most cowardly among the forest tribes; nor has the sublime courage of the English bull-dog ever been so memorably exhibited as in his hopeless fight at Warwick with the cowardly and cruel lion called Wallace. Another of the traditional creatures, still doubtful, is the mermaid, upon which Southey once remarked to me, that, if it had been differently named, (as, suppose, a mer-ape) nobody would have questioned its existence any more than that of sea-cows, sea-lions, &c. The mermaid has been discredited by her human name and her legendary human habits. If she would not coquette so much with melancholy sailors, and brush her hair so assiduously upon solitary rocks, she would be carried on our books for as honest a reality, as decent a female, as many that are assessed to the poor-rates.[25]"Audacity!" Such the French accounted it, and it has struck me that Soult would not have been so popular in London, at the period of her present Majesty's coronation, or in Manchester, on occasion of his visit to that town, if they had been aware of the insolence with which he spoke of us in notes written at intervals from the field of Waterloo. As though it had been mere felony in our army to look a French one in the face, he said more than once—"Here are the English—we have them: they are caughten flagrant delit." Yet no man should have known us better; no man had drunk deeper from the cup of humiliation than Soult had in the north of Portugal, during his flight from an English army, and subsequently at Albuera, in the bloodiest of recorded battles.[26]"Three hundred." Of necessity this scale of measurement, to an American, if he happens to be a thoughtless man, must sound ludicrous. Accordingly, I remember a case in which an American writer indulges himself in the luxury of a little lying, by ascribing to an Englishman a pompous account of the Thames, constructed entirely upon American ideas of grandeur, and concluding in something like these terms:—"And, sir, arriving at London, this mighty father of rivers attains a breadth of at least two furlongs, having, in its winding course, traversed the astonishing distance of 170 miles." And this the candid American thinks it fair to contrast with the scale of the Mississippi. Now, it is hardly worth while to answer a pure falsehood gravely, else one might say that no Englishman out of Bedlam ever thought of looking in an island for the rivers of a continent; nor, consequently, could have thought of looking for the peculiar grandeur of the Thames in the length of its course, or in the extent of soil which it drains: yet, if hehadbeen so absurd, the American might have recollected that a river, not to be compared with the Thames even as to volume of water—viz. the Tiber—has contrived to make itself heard of in this world for twenty-five centuries to an extent not reached, nor likely to be reached very soon, by any river, however corpulent, of his own land. The glory of the Thames is measured by the density of the population to which it ministers, by the commerce which it supports, by the grandeur of the empire in which, though far from the largest, it is the most influential stream. Upon some such scale, and not by a transfer of Columbian standards, is the course of our English mails to be valued. The American may fancy the effect of his own valuations to our English ears, by supposing the case of a Siberian glorifying his country in these terms:—"Those rascals, sir, in France and England, cannot march half a mile in any direction without finding a house where food can be had and lodging: whereas, such is the noble desolation of our magnificent country, that in many a direction for a thousand miles, I will engage a dog shall not find shelter from a snow-storm, nor a wren find an apology for breakfast."[27]Diary and Correspondence of Samuel Pepys, F.R.S., Secretary at the Admiralty in the Reigns of Charles II. and James II.With a Life and Notes byRichard Lord Braybrooke. Third edition considerably enlarged. London, 1849.

[1]Cowley'sOde to Light.

[2]Cowley onTown and Country. (Discourse on Agriculture.)

[3]How true are the following remarks:—"Action is the first great requisite of a colonist, (that is, a pastoral or agricultural settler.) With a young man, the tone of his mind is more important than his previous pursuits. I have known men of an active, energetic, contented disposition, with a good flow of animal spirits, who had been bred in luxury and refinement, succeed better than men bred as farmers, who were always hankering after bread and beer, and market ordinaries of Old England.... To be dreaming when you should be looking after your cattle, is a terrible drawback.... There are certain persons who, too lazy and too extravagant to succeed in Europe, sail for Australia under the idea that fortunes are to be made there by a sort of legerdemain, spend or lose their capital in a very short space of time, and return to England to abuse the place, the people, and everything connected with colonisation."—Sidney's Australian Handbook—admirable for its wisdom and compactness.

[3]How true are the following remarks:—

"Action is the first great requisite of a colonist, (that is, a pastoral or agricultural settler.) With a young man, the tone of his mind is more important than his previous pursuits. I have known men of an active, energetic, contented disposition, with a good flow of animal spirits, who had been bred in luxury and refinement, succeed better than men bred as farmers, who were always hankering after bread and beer, and market ordinaries of Old England.... To be dreaming when you should be looking after your cattle, is a terrible drawback.... There are certain persons who, too lazy and too extravagant to succeed in Europe, sail for Australia under the idea that fortunes are to be made there by a sort of legerdemain, spend or lose their capital in a very short space of time, and return to England to abuse the place, the people, and everything connected with colonisation."—Sidney's Australian Handbook—admirable for its wisdom and compactness.

[4]Lest this seem an exaggeration, I venture to annex an extract from a MS. letter to the author from Mr George Blakeston Wilkinson, author ofSouth Australia."I will instance the case of one person who had been a farmer in England, and emigrated with about £2000 about seven years since. On his arrival, he found that the prices of sheep had fallen from about 30s. to 5s. or 6s. per head, and he bought some well-bred flocks at these prices. He was fortunate in obtaining a good and extensiverun, and he devoted the whole of his time to improving his flocks, and encouraged his shepherds by rewards; so that, in about four years, his original number of sheep had increased from 2500 (which cost him £700) to 7000; and the breed and wool were also so much improved that he could obtain £1 per head for 2000 fat sheep, and 15s. per head for the other 5000, and this at a time when the general price of sheep was from 10s. to 16s. This alone increased his original capital, invested in sheep, from £700 to £5700. The profits from the wool paid the whole of his expenses and wages for his men."

[4]Lest this seem an exaggeration, I venture to annex an extract from a MS. letter to the author from Mr George Blakeston Wilkinson, author ofSouth Australia.

"I will instance the case of one person who had been a farmer in England, and emigrated with about £2000 about seven years since. On his arrival, he found that the prices of sheep had fallen from about 30s. to 5s. or 6s. per head, and he bought some well-bred flocks at these prices. He was fortunate in obtaining a good and extensiverun, and he devoted the whole of his time to improving his flocks, and encouraged his shepherds by rewards; so that, in about four years, his original number of sheep had increased from 2500 (which cost him £700) to 7000; and the breed and wool were also so much improved that he could obtain £1 per head for 2000 fat sheep, and 15s. per head for the other 5000, and this at a time when the general price of sheep was from 10s. to 16s. This alone increased his original capital, invested in sheep, from £700 to £5700. The profits from the wool paid the whole of his expenses and wages for his men."

[5]I felt sure, from the first, that the system called "The Wakefield" could never fairly represent the ideas of Mr Wakefield himself, whose singular breadth of understanding, and various knowledge of mankind, belied the notion that fathered on him the clumsy execution of a theory wholly inapplicable to a social state like Australia. I am glad to see that he has vindicated himself from the discreditable paternity. But I grieve to find that he still clings to one cardinal error of the system, in the discouragement of small holdings, and that he evades, more ingeniously than ingenuously, the important question—"What should be the minimum price of land?"

[6]"The profits of cattle-farming are smaller than those of the sheep-owner, (if the latter have good luck, for much depends upon that,) but cattle-farming is much more safe as a speculation, and less care, knowledge, and management are required. £2000, laid out on 700 head of cattle, if good runs be procured, might increase the capital in five years, from £2000 to £6000, besides enabling the owner to maintain himself, pay wages, &c."—MS. letter from G. B. Wilkinson.

[7]Dingoes—the name given by Australian natives to the wild dogs.

[8]Not having again to advert to Uncle Jack, I may be pardoned for informing the reader, by way of annotation, that he continues to prosper surprisingly in Australia, though the Tibbets' Wheal stands still for want of workmen. Despite of a few ups and downs, I have had no fear of his success until this year, (1849,) when I tremble to think what effect the discovery of the gold mines in California may have on his lively imagination. If thou escapist that snare, Uncle Jack,res age, tutus eris,—thou art safe for life!

[9]Light of Nature—chapter on Judgment.—See the very ingenious illustration of doubt, "whether the part is always greater than the whole"—taken from time, or rather eternity.

[10]Sir Philip Sidney.

[11]Lord Hervey'sMemoirs of George II.

[12]Shaftesbury.

[13]Quere—Liberator?

[14]Physical Geography.ByMary Somerville.The Physical Atlas.ByAlexander Keith Johnston.

[14]Physical Geography.ByMary Somerville.

The Physical Atlas.ByAlexander Keith Johnston.

[15]"Nor are there," writes Humboldt, "any constant relations between the distances of the planets from the central body round which they revolve, and their absolute magnitudes, densities, times of rotation, eccentricities and inclinations of orbit and of axis. We find Mars, though more distant from the sun than either the earth or Venus, inferior to them in magnitude; Saturn is less than Jupiter, and yet much larger than Uranus. The zone of the telescopic planets, which are so inconsiderable in point of volume, viewed in the series of distances commencing from the sun, comes next before Jupiter, the greatest in size of all the planetary bodies. Remarkable as is the small density of all the colossal planets which are farthest from the sun, yet neither in this respect can we recognise any regular succession. Uranus appears to be denser than Saturn, and (though the inner group of planets differ but little from each other in this particular) we find both Venus and Mars less dense than the earth, which is situated between them. The time of rotation increases, on the whole, with increasing solar distance, but yet it is greater in Mars than in the earth, and in Saturn than in Jupiter." After other remarks of the same character, he adds, "The planetary system, in its relation of absolute magnitude, relative position of the axis, density, time of rotation, and different degrees of eccentricity of the orbits, has, to our apprehension, nothing more of natural necessity than the relative distribution of land and water on the surface of our globe, the configuration of continents, or the elevation of mountain chains. No general law, in these respects, is discoverable either in the regions of space or in the irregularities of the crust of the earth."

[16]Lyell'sPrinciples of Geology, p. 536.

[17]Lady Madeline Gordon.

[18]"Vast distances."—One case was familiar to mail-coach travellers, where two mails in opposite directions, north and south, starting at the same minute from points six hundred miles apart, met almost constantly at a particular bridge which exactly bisected the total distance.

[19]"Resident."—The number on the books was far greater, many of whom kept up an intermitting communication with Oxford. But I speak of those only who were steadily pursuing their academic studies, and of those who resided constantly asfellows.

[20]"Snobs," an its antithesis, "nobs," arose among the internal factions of shoe-makers perhaps ten years later. Possibly enough, the terms may have existed much earlier; but they were then first made known, picturesquely and effectively, by a trial at some assizes which happened to fix the public attention.

[21]"False echoes"—yes, false! for the words ascribed to Napoleon, as breathed to the memory of Desaix, never were uttered at all. They stand in the same category of theatrical inventions as the cry of the founderingVengeur, as the vaunt of General Cambronne at Waterloo, "La Garde meurt, mais ne se rend pas," as the repartees of Talleyrand.

[22]"Privileged few." The general impression was that this splendid costume belonged of right to the mail coachmen as their professional dress. But that was an error. To the guard itdidbelong as a matter of course, and was essential as an official warrant, and a means of instant identification for his person, in the discharge of his important public duties. But the coachman, and especially if his place in the series did not connect him immediately with London and the General Post-Office, obtained the scarlet coat only as an honorary distinction after long or special service.

[23]"Households."—Roe-deer do not congregate in herds like the fallow or the red deer, but by separate families, parents, and children; which feature of approximation to the sanctity of human hearths, added to their comparatively miniature and graceful proportions, conciliate to them an interest of a peculiarly tender character, if less dignified by the grandeurs of savage and forest life.

[24]"However visionary."—Butarethey always visionary? The unicorn, the kraken, the sea-serpent, are all, perhaps, zoological facts. The unicorn, for instance, so far from being a lie, is rathertootrue; for, simply as amonokeras, he is found in the Himalaya, in Africa, and elsewhere, rather too often for the peace of what in Scotland would be called theintendingtraveller. That which reallyisa lie in the account of the unicorn—viz., his legendary rivalship with the lion—which lie may God preserve, in preserving the mighty imperial shield that embalms it—cannot be more destructive to the zoological pretensions of the unicorn, than are to the same pretensions in the lion our many popular crazes about his goodness and magnanimity, or the old fancy (adopted by Spenser, and noticed by so many among our elder poets) of his graciousness to maiden innocence. The wretch is the basest and most cowardly among the forest tribes; nor has the sublime courage of the English bull-dog ever been so memorably exhibited as in his hopeless fight at Warwick with the cowardly and cruel lion called Wallace. Another of the traditional creatures, still doubtful, is the mermaid, upon which Southey once remarked to me, that, if it had been differently named, (as, suppose, a mer-ape) nobody would have questioned its existence any more than that of sea-cows, sea-lions, &c. The mermaid has been discredited by her human name and her legendary human habits. If she would not coquette so much with melancholy sailors, and brush her hair so assiduously upon solitary rocks, she would be carried on our books for as honest a reality, as decent a female, as many that are assessed to the poor-rates.

[25]"Audacity!" Such the French accounted it, and it has struck me that Soult would not have been so popular in London, at the period of her present Majesty's coronation, or in Manchester, on occasion of his visit to that town, if they had been aware of the insolence with which he spoke of us in notes written at intervals from the field of Waterloo. As though it had been mere felony in our army to look a French one in the face, he said more than once—"Here are the English—we have them: they are caughten flagrant delit." Yet no man should have known us better; no man had drunk deeper from the cup of humiliation than Soult had in the north of Portugal, during his flight from an English army, and subsequently at Albuera, in the bloodiest of recorded battles.

[26]"Three hundred." Of necessity this scale of measurement, to an American, if he happens to be a thoughtless man, must sound ludicrous. Accordingly, I remember a case in which an American writer indulges himself in the luxury of a little lying, by ascribing to an Englishman a pompous account of the Thames, constructed entirely upon American ideas of grandeur, and concluding in something like these terms:—"And, sir, arriving at London, this mighty father of rivers attains a breadth of at least two furlongs, having, in its winding course, traversed the astonishing distance of 170 miles." And this the candid American thinks it fair to contrast with the scale of the Mississippi. Now, it is hardly worth while to answer a pure falsehood gravely, else one might say that no Englishman out of Bedlam ever thought of looking in an island for the rivers of a continent; nor, consequently, could have thought of looking for the peculiar grandeur of the Thames in the length of its course, or in the extent of soil which it drains: yet, if hehadbeen so absurd, the American might have recollected that a river, not to be compared with the Thames even as to volume of water—viz. the Tiber—has contrived to make itself heard of in this world for twenty-five centuries to an extent not reached, nor likely to be reached very soon, by any river, however corpulent, of his own land. The glory of the Thames is measured by the density of the population to which it ministers, by the commerce which it supports, by the grandeur of the empire in which, though far from the largest, it is the most influential stream. Upon some such scale, and not by a transfer of Columbian standards, is the course of our English mails to be valued. The American may fancy the effect of his own valuations to our English ears, by supposing the case of a Siberian glorifying his country in these terms:—"Those rascals, sir, in France and England, cannot march half a mile in any direction without finding a house where food can be had and lodging: whereas, such is the noble desolation of our magnificent country, that in many a direction for a thousand miles, I will engage a dog shall not find shelter from a snow-storm, nor a wren find an apology for breakfast."

[27]Diary and Correspondence of Samuel Pepys, F.R.S., Secretary at the Admiralty in the Reigns of Charles II. and James II.With a Life and Notes byRichard Lord Braybrooke. Third edition considerably enlarged. London, 1849.

Transcriber's Notes:Simple spelling, grammar, and typographical errors were corrected.Punctuation normalized.Anachronistic and non-standard spellings retained as printed.

Transcriber's Notes:

Simple spelling, grammar, and typographical errors were corrected.

Punctuation normalized.

Anachronistic and non-standard spellings retained as printed.

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