FOOTNOTES:

Nor tree, nor plantGrows here, but what is fed with magic juice,All full of human souls.

Our military friend gives two other instances in which the effects produced were really and truly mesmeric, though of course ascribed to magic. He vouches for the facts, but leaves every one to form his own opinion:—

The wife of one of my grooms, a robust woman, and the mother of a large family, all living within my grounds, was bitten by a poisonous serpent, most probably a cobra, or coluber maja, and quickly felt the deadly effects of its venom. When the woman's powers were rapidly sinking, the servants came to my wife, torequest that the civil surgeon of the station might be called in to save her life. He immediately attended, and exerted his utmost skill, but in vain. In the usual time, the woman appeared to be lifeless, and he therefore left her, acknowledging that he could not be of any further service. On his reaching my bungalow, some of my servants stated, that in the neighbourhood a fakir, or wandering mendicant, resided, who could charm away the bites of snakes; and begged, if the doctor had no objection, that they might be permitted to send for him. He answered: 'Yes, of course: if the poor people would feel any consolation by his coming, they could bring him; but the woman is dead.'

After a considerable lapse of time, the magician arrived, and began his magical incantations. I was not present at the scene, but it occurred in my park, within a couple of hundred yards of my bungalow; and I am quite confident that any attempt to use medicines would have been quite useless, as the woman's powers were utterly exhausted, though her body was still warm. The fakir sat down at her side, and began to wave his arm over her body, at the same time muttering a charm; and he continued this process until she awoke from her insensibility, which was within a quarter of an hour.

The last instance we shall give occurred at Bombay. The writer says: On visiting Bombay in 1822, I was greatly diverted by a circumstance told to me by an old friend in the artillery there. He stated that he had had akulashee, or tent-pitcher, in his service for many years; that he was a most faithful and active man; but that he had all of a sudden, and without any visible cause, become very greatly emaciated, feeble, and ghastly. His master had sent him to the hospital, to have the benefit of the skill of the regimental surgeon; but after the lapse of some time, he was sent back, with the intimation that the surgeon could not discover any specific disease, and that he, therefore, could make nothing of his case. On bringing back this information, my friend began to cross-question his servant, who would not at first acknowledge the cause of his disease; but at last, after much persuasion, he candidly avowed to his master, in confidence, that he was labouring under the effect of witchcraft. 'And do you know,' said my friend, 'that the fellow actually believed it himself.' And we both laughed most heartily. His master continued his examination, until the kulashee confessed that a certain Brahmin, officiating at a large tank close to the fortress of Bombay, had threatened him with his revenge, and was now actually eating up his liver, by which process he would shortly be destroyed. 'I will tell you what I did: I no sooner got the Brahmin's name, than I ordered my buggy, and quickly drove down to the tank. On reaching it, I inquired for the magician; and on his arrival, I leaped down, seized him by the arm, and horsewhipped him within an inch of his life, now and then roaring out: "I'll teach you to bewitch my kulashee, you villain!" "How dare you injure my servant, you rascal?" and so forth. In a very few minutes, the liver-eating Brahmin declared that he would instantly release the kulashee from the spell; that, on reaching home, I would find him recovered; and ultimately he was perfectly released. And, believe me,' said my friend laughing, 'that the fellow mended from that hour, and is now a capital servant.'

In a series of interesting papers in theDublin University Magazine, called 'Waren, or the Divine Afflatus of the Hindoos,' the writer gives a lengthened description of that strange possession (which he callsdaimoniac, preferring that word todemoniac—the latter being exclusively evil or devilish, while the former implies a superhuman power for good as well as evil), with all its varied manifestations. This faith, if it may be so called, prevails over the whole of Western India, its greatest stronghold being the province of Concan, not far from Bombay. There are three kinds of waren: the hereditary or family waren; the transmitted or tribe waren; and that which is summoned by a variety of spells and incantations, called the village waren; the last being, of course, the most widely spread, as almost every village has a temple dedicated to Devee, the frightful goddess who presides over and is consulted on every calamity, giving her responses in the person of some waren selected for the purpose. In the hereditary and tribe waren, the visitation continues at intervals through life in the person once influenced, and it is always regarded as a proof of divine favour, being seldom exercised but for beneficent purposes. Its approach is made known by sundry sudden changes and tremblings,and alwaysby a nodding of the head. After heavings, pantings, gurglings, and moanings, composure returns, and the possessed begins his utterances, and always in the name of some divinity or other waren, speaking of himself as a distinct person, by the name ofMajhen Jhad,my tree, whom he reproves, admonishes, and advises, in such terms as 'My treehas broken such a vow'—'Ifmy treeacts thus,' &c. This phrase has been variously explained, as the spirit of the root-man or family ancestor, speaking of his descendant waren asmy tree, or as a simple allusion to his motionless condition.

The hereditary waren is the oracle of the household, as the village waren is of the entire neighbourhood, often usurping the functions of judge and jury, causing sometimes the innocent to suffer for the guilty, but also, by his prophecies, being the means of recovering stolen property. There are many other kinds of waren: a cholera waren, a sanitary waren, a necromantic waren; and so forth. The last named not only discovers the state of affairs of those who die suddenly, or disappear mysteriously, but pretends to raise the dead; and a story is recorded of an impudent impostor, taking advantage of the belief of the people in the identity of the persons thus raised, and personating so well a prince slain in battle some years before, that not only did his brother swear to his identity, but the widow actually threw off her weeds, and went to live with him!

When calamity or pestilence visits a place, the village oracle is consulted as to the cause of the anger of the goddess Devee, and the responses are given forth by her inspired waren, amidst a cloud of incense, strongly reminding us of the oracle of Delphi. When the sins have been pointed out which have caused the particular scourge, some sacrifice is prescribed, chiefly that of goats and cocks; sometimes the inspired waren desires a certain number of goats to be let loose, and driven beyond the boundary, and that he, the incarnation of the evil, will go with them. Of course, the scourge diminishes from that day. Several who have witnessed this practice in India, have been struck with the remarkable analogy it bears to the scape-goat of the Mosaic dispensation, sent into the wilderness burdened with the sins of the congregation.

The word waren signifies a dual possession—the one beneficent, and the other malignant. One curious instance is given of a man speakinginthe person of Devee, andofhimself as a third person, saying to a Brahmin: 'You are going to the Concan: takethis fellowwith you.Hewas happy and pure, performingmyworship,' &c. Under the influence of waren, mild persons have become so infuriated as to die under the visitation; and it is related that, during a procession in honour of the flagellating waren, the infection spread, the waren was propagated through the whole multitude, who became so excited by the beating of drums, tom-toms, horns, great brazen trumpets, and other instruments, that, with dishevelled hair, and backs streaming with blood from their own flagellations, they danced forward with a measured convulsive motion,bellowing out and shaking their heads; and so terrific was the excitement, that a Portuguese servant who was passing began making the same frantic gestures, and could only be recovered after repeated cuts with the horsewhip—the Hindoos, meanwhile, exulting that their goddess had entered into a Christian! That such powers are made a matter of merchandise follows of course; and, like the woman who brought her master much gain by soothsaying, so there are persons who make a trade of going about with some waren, who is consulted on secret affairs, who foretells the future, and whose utterances are sold for money. Extraordinary instances are also recounted of warens of the necromantic class, especially when they have worldly goods, becoming the dupes of those who foil them with their own weapons, that they may be the more readily despoiled. In the Mahratta country, except in the large towns, there are no physicians; and when simple remedies fail, they say: 'Send for the god,' or magician, just as in the case of our correspondent; and besides the sacrifice of goats and cocks, there is, under the name of religious fasts, a much more telling and significant prescription in the way of regimen.

It were impossible, in a space like ours, to give even an outline of the different species of waren and their strange practices, part of which would seem to be akin to what we call mesmerism and clairvoyance, with the addition of spells and sacrifices. We might write volumes, and search every volume that has been written on the subject, and we could expiscate nothing else than that from the beginning of the world, and we may say in every country in the world, there has been, under different names and forms, a very general belief in some supernatural power walking abroad on the earth, by which, when presuming on its possession, one man may rule over another to his own hurt or benefit, as the case may be. We have as little sympathy with those who pretend to account for everything, and would solve all mysteries by natural causes, as with those who yield implicit belief, and run after every new thing. If such powers are illusive—in their operations they are certainly not always so—and the illusion be mental; if faith be all that is needed, that strong faith which, if able on the one hand to remove mountains, on the other, causes scales to grow on the eyes of the mind, so that a man loses his identity, and is blindly led about by the will of another; or if the result of bodily disease, hysteria, or some other derangement of the nervous system, there still remains enough of mystery to awaken the solemn inquiry of the physician, the psychologist, the Christian, of every thinking man. Contradictions will meet him at every turn. He will find all theories more than usually fallacious. He will see a strictly matter-of-fact person, in seeming health, and of strong mind, so easily acted on as in a few seconds to present the appearance of a doting idiot; and a highly imaginative person, or one driven about by every wind of doctrine, who cannot be touched. He will see the healthy taken, and the sickly left. If, then, it be disease, and whether mental or bodily, such disease and its causes must be latent indeed; and we confess we look for no 'coming man' who is to solve the mystery.

That this power, which we call mesmerism, was also known to the priests of ancient Egypt, is supposed to be proved by carvings on the temples of priests making the passes with their hands, opposite other figures, to produce the sleep; a circumstance which has been recounted as proving a connection between the ancient religion in Egypt, and some unknown faith formerly prevalent in India, at the time the temples of Elephanta, Kennery, and others were built. We greatly admire the philanthropic Major Ludlow, who devoted his energies to the abolishing of the suttee; but whose labours met with very partial success, until, by searching their own Shasters, he discovered that there was a time at which the rite did not exist. A greater than he, however, must arise before the other still more ancient and wide-spread faith can either be explained or abolished.

FOOTNOTES:[2]Running-footmen, who attend the carriage or palanquin, go messages, carry books or letters, or any light thing they can take in their hands.

[2]Running-footmen, who attend the carriage or palanquin, go messages, carry books or letters, or any light thing they can take in their hands.

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Itis not only a well-understood fact, that the Great Metropolis is a sore puzzle to strangers, but even the dwellers therein are wont to give up, in despair, any attempt to define or limit it. WhatisLondon? There are two causes, or rather two sets of causes, which throw great doubt on the proper answer to this question. The one is the varying acreage or area comprised under this name, and the other is the natural increase of population over every part of the area. Let us shortly glance at both these groups of disturbing causes.

The original London was the nucleus of that which now constitutes theCityof London. The London of the Britons before the Romans landed, is supposed to have been little other than 'a collection of huts set down on a dry spot in the midst of the marshes;' a forest nearly bounded this spot, at no great distance from the Thames; and a lake or fen existed,outsideLondon, at or near the site now occupied by Finsbury Square. The area of London, at this early period, is supposed to have been bounded by—to use their modern designation—Tower Hill on the east, Dowgate Hill on the west, Lombard and Fenchurch Streets on the north, and of course the river on the south—a limited area, certainly, not much exceeding half a mile in length by a quarter in breadth. There are indications that brooks bounded this area on the north and west, and a marsh on the east; but there is no reason to believe that the city had walls. The terrible devastation in the time of Boadicea must have nearly destroyed London, destined to be replaced by one of Roman construction.

The Roman London was evidently of larger size. The ancient city-wall is known to have been of Roman substructure, although surmounted by work of later date. It had many turrets or towers, and seven double-gates, supposed to have been Ludgate, Newgate, Aldersgate, Cripplegate, Bishopsgate, Aldgate, and the Tower Postern-gate; and the streets now named from those gates will serve to mark out the included area. Roman London may be said to lie about sixteen feet belowourLondon, over all this area; about two feet being thedébrisof the Roman buildings, and the rest being subsequent accumulations of rubbish, at the rate, say, of a foot in a century. In the later Saxon and Norman times, the western portion of the wall was extended so as to include a somewhat larger area, the utmost limit of 'London within the walls' being 370 acres.

But London refused to stay within its walls; it walked forth into the country; and even so far back as 1662, London, beyond these limits, was four times as large as that 'within the walls.' Of this exterior portion, 230 acres constituted the 'city without the walls,' subjected to civic jurisdiction by successive grants; it formed a belt nearly around the portion 'within' the walls. These 600 acres, less than a square mile, have ever since constituted the 'city of London,' divided into two portions—'without' and 'within' the walls. There are ninety-eight parishes in the inner portion, and eleven in the outer; but the London which lay beyond the corporate rule had no social or political bounds placed to its extension. There were the ancient city of Westminster and the village of Charing, on the west; and London marched along the Strand to meet them: there were Kensington and Bayswater in the remoter west, and Piccadilly and Oxford Street became links to join them to London: there were Killurn and Hampstead and Highgate, Newington and Hornsey and Hackney, on the north; and London has travelled along half-a-dozen great roads northward to fraternise with them. So, likewise,on the east; and so, likewise, crossing the river to the south, do we find this same process to have been active: villages and hamlets have become absorbed into London, by London going to meet them.

If we now ask, Where does London end? it will be found that this ramification perplexes the subject greatly. Who shall say that such or such a hamlet isnotin London? Who is to draw the line, and where? It was said ten years ago, that the metropolis is ahundred and forty timesas large as thecityof London 'within the walls;' but even this is vague, unless we know where the limit is placed. One mode of grouping, adopted before the appointment of the Registrar-General of births, &c., depended on the 'London bills of mortality,' or the record of deaths preserved by the parish-clerks. London, in this sense, included the city within the walls, the city without the walls, Westminster, and about forty out-parishes. Southwark was not included in these bills originally, but became a component part afterwards. The Registrar-General, under the improved modern system, gives an immense range to London; it includes the City, Westminster, Southwark, all the out-parishes of the former system, and the villages or hamlets of Bow, Bromley, Brompton, Camberwell, Chelsea, Deptford, Fulham, Greenwich, Hammersmith, Hatcham, Kensington, Brompton, Marylebone, Paddington, Pancras, Highgate, Stoke-Newington, and Woolwich. It is true, he calls all this the 'metropolis;' but the metropolis is in common parlance identical with 'London.'

The population returns are not even a correct test in this matter, for they include different districts at different times. In 1821, of the eighteen villages or hamlets named above, only five were included in the 'metropolis;' and in 1831, there were two additional. The metropolitan population in 1841, in comparison with that of 1831, differs by no less than 200,000 on this mere question of nomenclature alone, independent of real increase on other grounds. The poor-law grouping differs again from that of the Registrar-General; the metropolis, or the 'London division,' does not include so many of the marginal parishes as the Registrar's system. Again, the Post-office arrangement is independent of all the others; for it is based upon taking St Paul's as a centre, and drawing circles around this at a definite number of miles' radius; and the metropolis is thus made expansible on geometrical principles. Then the parliamentary limit issui generis; for the metropolis here comprises the City of London, the city of Westminster, the borough of Southwark, and the five modern boroughs of Marylebone, Finsbury, Tower Hamlets, Greenwich, and Lambeth—a very capricious limit, truly; for while it includes the far east at Woolwich, it excludes Pimlico, Brompton, and a vast adjoining area. Lastly, to give one more mesh to this net, we find the police metropolis to be the most grasping of all: by the original act of 1829, the metropolis is made to fill a circle twenty-four miles in diameter, having Charing Cross in its centre; while in 1840, this circle was coolly stretched to a diameter of thirty miles.

When a reader, therefore, is told of the vast increase of population in London, let him sober down his astonishment until he knows which (among half-a-dozen different Londons) is the one alluded to. As 'our own country' may be taken to mean England only, or England and Wales, or Great Britain, or the United Kingdom, or the British Empire, in five different degrees of largeness, so may 'our metropolis' have at least as many significations. Tables of metropolitan population have been issued in the following form:—1750, 676,250; 1801, 900,000; 1811, 1,050,000; 1821, 1,274,800; 1831, 1,471,941; 1841, 1,873,676; 1851, about 2,250,000. But this table is subject to the correction above hinted at. Nearly a century ago, Maitland said: 'This ancient city has engulfed one city, one borough, and forty-three villages.' A formidable addition has since been made to this 'engulfed' family. So enigmatical is this metropolis of ours, that it would be equally true to state that 'London is rapidly increasing in population,' and that 'London is slowly decreasing in population.' The metropolis, as a whole, yearly increases its numbers; but theCity, the original London, is less populous now than a century ago, on account of the streets having been widened, and many small dwelling-houses removed, to make way for large commercial establishments, the managers and clerks of which almost all sleep out of London.

If we glance over a map of London, or, still better, take a resolute series of omnibus-rides or foot-rambles, we shall find ourselves as little able as before to settle the question, 'Where does London end?' That huge mass of small streets and poor houses, comprising the borough of the Tower Hamlets, allows us no rest till we get three miles eastward of St Paul's. Beyond this point, there are a few patches of Bow Common yet left; but Poplar and Blackwall, Bromley and Bow, tell us to go yet further eastward to the river Lea; and even West Ham and Stratford, though on the Essex side of the Lea, seem to claim a metropolitan position. Again, passing over Victoria Park—that pleasant oasis in a desert of houses—and bending round towards the north, we may ask where are the fields; and may wait until 'echo answers, Where.' Hackney and Homerton, Clapton and Dalston, Shacklewell and Newington, not only have the houses ranged themselves closely along the main roads to these villages, but have filled up nearly all the vacant ground between those roads. Is Tottenham to be included in our London; and if, not, why not? And at Highgate and Hampstead, as the rows of houses have ascended these hills, and climbed over the hills, why stop there? why not send London still further out of town? Look at the new town springing up around the Camden Station; at the Portland Town westward of Regent's Park; at the Westbourne Town far beyond the Paddington terminus; at the new town west of Kensington; at the vast mass of buildings between Kensington and the Thames—all these are the mere filling up of the districts which had before been marked out by the great roads; and the great roads themselves are carrying out their rows of houses still further into what we may, in courtesy, designate 'the fields.'

So it is on the south side of the river. Of the 13,000 vehicles which cross London Bridge in twelve hours on an average summer day, an immense number is employed in conveying 'City men' to and from their homes on the south of the Thames. Walworth, Camberwell, Kennington, and Brixton were once on the border region between town and country; nay, the city reallydidreach the country there; but now, all these belong to London. A bit of green at Kennington is, by good-luck, to be kept green as a people's park; but nearly all else has become brick and mortar; the City man has to go further to get a pleasant house and a good garden, andwehave to go further to ascertain—where does London end?

Among many curious proofs of the wide grasp of the all-absorbing metropolis, we may adduce the horror of the Pentonvillians at the proposed new cattle-market. How many years ago is it since Copenhagen Fields were almost beyond the regions of civilisation, known only as a prairie lying between London and the Copenhagen Tea-gardens? Let any one, whose knowledge of the district goes back fifteen or twenty years, answer this question. But now, Copenhagen House itself is brought within the limits of London, by rows of goodly houses belting it in on the north; and the gentilities of the new town are shocked at the threatened advent of bullocks and sheep.

If we look into the stupendousLondon Directory, itdoes not remove our troubles; it gives us the names of nearly 7000 streets, places, roads, squares, circuses, crescents, quadrants, rows, hills, lanes, yards, buildings, courts, alleys, gardens, greens, mews, terraces, and walks, but it does not tell us how far the suburbs are included, nor what are the principles which determine the inclusion or exclusion.

In short, we began by asking a question, and must end by leaving it unanswered. Although tolerably familiar with London, we cannot tell—'Where does London end?'

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Itis well known, that in the manufacture or preparation of most articles in the arts, the main cost lies in the judicious application of skilled labour. The value of the raw material is usually of comparative small amount. A pound's worth of iron makes six hundred pounds' worth of penknives; and cotton, which in the state of gingham may be bought at 3d. per yard, is sold for the same weight as gold in threads for Brussels lace.

It is therefore obvious, that the great advantage of cheap raw material is in the rude stages of manufactures, or when our skill in production is not inferior to that possessed by our neighbours. In a manufacture in which the cost of the finished article is several hundred times the price of the materials used to make it, it is skill, and not the original cost of the material, that determines successful competition.

We find that all European nations except England, have accepted this fact as a principle of state, and have founded schools and colleges to train their industrial population in the knowledge of art and science, which are the only true foundations of practical skill in an advanced stage of civilisation. In fact, we in this country have for some years seen this truth, so far as art is involved, and have established Schools of Design; but we have forgotten that art in industry is chiefly used to adorn the productions of science, and have neglected the latter. What circumstances have happened in the last few years in the history of the world, that compel an allusion to this neglect in a speech from the throne?

The marking features of our age are the great economy of time, and the practical abbreviation of space. Coal and iron are now transported by other means than by slow-going trains or coast-hugging luggers. Iron horses, which feed on coal and drink only water, go screaming over the country at a gigantic pace, dragging with them the whole produce of coalmines and ironworks. Marine monsters, related to these, plough the ocean, and scatter our natural riches over the world, receiving in exchange the produce of other climes. The earth is bound round by chains, which render geographical distribution arbitrary distinctions, and enable thought to be reciprocated without being arrested by distance in space. Blind must be the nation that does not see in all this an alteration of conditions, which introduce new elements into the competition of industry. The changes may be summed up in the remark, that as improved locomotion distributes raw material to all lands at a very slightly increased cost for the transit, manufacturing competition among nations is resolved into a race for intellectual pre-eminence.

This truth is less likely to be speedily acknowledged by us, because if our native science languishes, we have yet capital to import it; and we do not see that this is only accelerating our overthrow. But the relative influence of abundance in raw material, and the application of science to its development, may be seen by an illustration from a barbarous country, in which the former is plentiful, and the latter is beginning to shine on it by means of an enlightened prince.

Siam, as our readers know, is an important kingdom situated between the Burman Empire on the one hand, and Cochin-China on the other. It abounds in natural resources, but exports only sugar, spices, drugs, and lead, and these only in comparatively small quantity; yet it has gold enough to make pavements for the sacred white elephants, and to throw down into the unfathomed abyss in the Cavern of the Sun. Of antimony, there are stores sufficient to render lustrous the eyes of the black-teethed beauties of Siam; while silver, iron, copper, lead, and fuel, are known to abound in these favoured regions. Yet with all these local advantages, it is nearly certain that we could, in spite of the distance, successfully compete with the productions of copper and iron in their own markets, because we have applied science to their extraction and preparation.

Siam, like nations nearer home, is very proud of its own industry, and of its position among the states of the earth; and it may well be, seeing that its king is hereditary lord of the stars, and gives them permission to move in their orbits. The presumptive heir to the stars thought one day he would like to know what Europeans believed of his celestial powers, so he studied mathematics and astronomy from English books, afterwards extending his knowledge to navigation, to the natural sciences, and to English literature. Prince Chow Faa, who has, since April 1851, succeeded his sensual and ignorant brother, under the new appellation of King Somdet Phra Chom Klow, found his knowledge of science thus acquired a prodigious power in the improvement of his future terrestrial kingdom, although his celestial possessions vanished at the same time. Like Prince Henry of Portugal, the Siamese prince believed that the only princely talent worth cultivating, was 'the talent to do good;' and under his mental vigour, this distant kingdom began to develop in a wonderful manner. Like Peter the Great, he founded dockyards, and built ships of war equal to first-class English vessels, navigating them, not by eyes painted in front, as of old, but by chronometers and Greenwich tables. He introduced European discipline into the army, and taught it how to use artillery. He obtained miners of talent to examine into his mines, and the mode of working in them; but in his reforms he awakened the jealousy of the king and of the priesthood, and for the last few years has been obliged to conceal his talents and good designs under the yellow garb of a priest, which he threw off in the April of last year, a few days previous to the opening of our Great Exhibition.

In this case of a semi-barbarous nation, we see clearly that knowledge is power, and more surely is it so with regard to competing civilised nations. We, too, have a prince highly educated in science and in art, who is endeavouring to impress upon his nation the benefits of science. At the same time that the Siamese prince threw off the yellow robe of superstition and ignorance, the prince of this country invited all nations to throw off their robes of prejudice and vanity, and, in his own words, to commence at 'this new starting-point, from which all nations will be able to direct their future exertions.' It was a capital idea to make each nation the judge of its own position, by shewing to what point other states had attained. Our thinking men—our Brewsters, Herschels, Babbages, and a host of others—have declared that our deficiencies arise from neglecting science in its application to industry; and the general feeling of the public has ratified this judgment by their consent. In another article, we will allude to the means of accomplishing this want; but in the meanwhile may conclude by drawing attention to a couple of sentences uttered on a late occasion by Prince Albert:—'Man's reason being created after the image of God, he has to use it to discover the laws by which the Almighty governs his creation, and by making these laws his standard of action, toconquer nature to his use—himself a divine instrument. Science discovers these laws of power, motion, and transformation; industry applies them to the raw matter which the earth yields us in abundance, but which becomes valuable only by knowledge; art teaches us the immutable laws of beauty and symmetry, and gives to our productions forms in accordance with them.'

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Wheredid England plant her first colony? 'Why, in North America, to be sure,' says a transatlantic cousin: 'on those shores to which our fathers resorted during the seventeenth century, for the enjoyment of civil and religious liberty, and where they laid the foundation of those States whose wealth and power are now the wonder of the world.' Stay, Cousin Jonathan, not so fast. 'We reckon' that England made an experiment in colonisation some 250 years earlier than that, and one no less demonstrative of the enterprise and hardihood of our ancestors. There was a spot nearer home, the stronghold of a nest of pirates, who were to England such an annoyance as the corsairs of Algiers proved in later times to Southern Europe; and our monarch, provoked by their numerous and daring outrages, and carrying with him the enthusiastic concurrence of his people, resolved to dispossess them. Crossing the water in person, with 738 vessels of war, and a numerous army, he invested the place both by sea and land; and finding that it could not be taken by storm, he sat patiently down for nearly eleven months outside the walls, till the inhabitants were starved into a surrender. But every reader of history is familiar with the siege of Calais, so gallantly prosecuted by the English under Edward III., so gallantly endured by the French under Sir John de Vienne.

As soon as the keys were surrendered, the town was cleared not only of the soldiery, but of all the inhabitants, men, women, and children, the king's determination being to repeople it entirely with English. 'Thus all manner of people,' says a historian of 1688, 'were turned out of the town, except one priest, and two other ancient men, who understood the customs, laws, and ordinances of the place, and how to point out and assign the lands that lay about, as well as the several inheritances, as they had been divided before. And when all things were duly prepared for the king's reception, he mounted his war-horse, and rode into Calais with a triumphant clamour of trumpets, clarions, and tabours;' the drum now sounding for the first time on French ground. The great lords, who, with their feudal retinues, had assisted in the siege, were rewarded with gifts of 'many fair houses' and lands, that through their tenantry and retainers they might assist in defending the new colony. Abundant encouragement was also given for the emigration of the stout men of Kent, and the substantial citizens of London, with their families. The streets and principal buildings received English names, and the borough was organised in unison with English feeling, being governed by a mayor and corporation. Thus commenced in August 1347 England's first colony, which in due time was represented in the home parliament by two members of the House of Commons.

The English Pale, as this settlement was called, had a seaboard extending about eight leagues, while it stretched some three leagues into the interior. Within this space, a considerable population was located, not only much more numerous than in the present day, but including a much greater number of trades-people dealing in articles of luxury, as we infer from some records of Henry VIII.'s expenditure, which include, for instance, dealings with five different jewellers. There is still existing at Calais a curious chart, dated 1460, containing a minute specification of the roads, farm-steads, mills, quarries, and bulwarks, as they then existed. Here are 'English Street,' 'Knight Street,' 'Evelyne's Waye,' 'Yewaye from Marck to St Peter's,' and 'Yenew main Bank.' Many of the larger country dwellings, which are rudely depicted, appear more like rustic fortalices than farmhouses of our day. Numerous towers, marked as 'bulwarks,' seem to have commanded the boundary and other more exposed parts of the Pale. The only road across the 'marishes' on the south and south-west was commanded by Fort Nieulay—then called Newlandbridge—a place of great importance, originally built in an extensive morass, and furnished with sluice-gates to the sea, which enabled its holders to flood the surrounding country at will. Not only the fortifications then existing, but those which succeeded them in later times, are now in ruin; but the curious traveller finds remains enough to repay a stroll among the grass-covered bastions.

In the town, we find Castle Street, Duke Street, Hill Street, Shoe Lane, and Love Lane—names which smack unmistakably of the island home of John Gibbons, Hugh Giles, Richard Gilbert, and other colonial householders, whose names appear on a still existing rent-roll.

Though the English monarch was instigated to the capture and colonisation of Calais mainly with a view to dislodge the pirates, who issued from its fastnesses and harassed our navigation, yet he very soon learned to appreciate the possession of such a frontier port and fortress as a depôt for purposes of aggression, as well as a means of maritime protection. Moreover, it was afterwards perceived, that immense gain would accrue to the Exchequer from the maintenance of this station as a port ofentréeinto the Netherlands for English manufactures; and though at a day when knight-errantry was infinitely more in vogue than commercial enterprise, these interests were carefully studied, so that the conquest of a small piratical town was turned to vastly better account than had been anticipated.

The preservation of a settlement so important, and yet surrounded by an inveterately hostile people, demanded no ordinary vigilance. The keeping of it was accordingly always committed to one of the most trusty of the English barons, with the title of lord-deputy, and the command of a sufficient garrison; while no expense was spared on the works necessary for its maintenance. There were stringent laws for the daily opening and closing of the gates, which were superintended by a knight or master-porter, and a gentleman-porter, with a staff of subordinates. The lord-deputy himself received the keys every evening, and delivered them in the morning to the knight-porter, with orders as to the number of gates to be opened for the day. This was done as soon as the first watch-bell had tolled three times, and the guard turned out. During the time of dinner, which was an hour before noon, the gates were invariably closed, and the keys again delivered to the lord-deputy, by whom they were 'hidden in a safe place, known only to himself.' When the meal was ended, and business resumed, they were reopened with the same ceremony as in the morning; and at four o'clockp.m., they were shut for the night. Except by special order of the deputy, none but the Lanthorn Gate was opened during the herring season. There were strict regulations also with regard to strangers lodging in the town; the keepers of hostelries and lodging-houses being swornto make a daily report of the number and quality of their guests. The French, by the way, have deemed it proper to maintain this custom of the place, despite the lapse of four centuries since its peculiar position rendered such espionage a necessary precaution.

During the 200 years that we boasted the possession of Calais, it was often the scene of courtly festivities on a magnificent scale—oftener, perhaps, than any other spot under English dominion, except the metropolis. We need scarcely remind the reader of the marriage of Richard II. with the youthful Isabella of Valois in the church of St Nicholas, a fête which cost the English monarch 300,000 marks; nor the rendezvous of Henry VIII. and Francis I., called the Field of the Cloth of Gold from the sumptuousness of the royal pavilions, and other accessories, the preparation of which employed above 2000 English artificers. We have before us a collection of annals,[3]recently published, chiefly from rare and ancient documents, and affording such details of the 'fashionable arrivals' here as give us a high idea of what this our first colony was capable of doing in its palmy days.

There landed, for instance, on the 8th of May 1500, Henry VII., accompanied by his queen, the Bishop of London, the Duke of Buckingham, the Earls of Surrey and Essex, with several other noblemen. Closely following, came the Earl of Suffolk, with an immense retinue of esquires, gentlemen, and yeomen; the Bishop of Durham, the Earl of Ormond, with seven other noblemen and gentlemen of rank; and in the following month, the Earl of Northumberland, Lord Mountjoy, Lord Devonshire, Sir John Wyngfielde, and their retinues, to assist at a magnificent banquet given by Henry to the Archduke Philip of Burgundy. Nothing, as our annalist observes, but numbers, real names, and dates, can effectually enable the reader to form a notion of the state, 350 years ago, of this at present trist and unimportant frontier town. And even with these authentic data before us, it appears surprising how such a host of nobility, with their numerous retainers, should have been adequately lodged within the walls of Calais, on viewing the existing proportions of the town. The banquet was given at St Peter's, just without the walls—for it seems not to have been the mode to invite continental guests to 'walk inside'—the fine old parish church being partitioned off into various apartments for the guests, and richly hung with arras and cloth of gold.

'Our Lady's Chapel was set apart for the archduke's chamber, the walls being hung with arras representing the story of Ahasuerus and Esther, and the floor laid with carpets strewed with roses, lavender, and other sweet herbs. Another compartment of the church was hung with tapestry, representing the siege of Troy; the walls of the choir being covered with blue cloth, emblazoned withfleurs-de-luce. The vestry was hung with "red sarsenet, most richly beseen;" whilst the belfry was ordained for the offices of the pantry, confectionary, and cellar. There "lacked neither venison, cream, spice-cakes, strawberries, or wafers," as the chronicler expresses it; an English fat ox was "poudered and lesed;" an immense number of young kids and venison-pasties were consumed, besides "great plenty of divers sorts of wine, and two hogsheads of hippocrass." Seven horse-loads of cherries were eaten, besides "pypyns, grengenges, and other sugardys." The plenty was such, that the guests and their retainers could not consume all the viands the first day, wherefore the king ordered a second feast for the peasants, on the one following.'

One of the largest of the apartments formed in the church of St Pierre, was appropriated as the guest-chamber, in which Philip dined with Henry and his queen, the party eating off 'gold and silver vessels of goodlie fashion,' and pledging each other in 'cuppes and flagons of golde, garnyshed with perculles, rosys, and white hearts, in gemmes.' After dinner, the archduke 'daunced with the English ladyes,' then took leave of the king and queen, and rode the same evening to Gravelines.

Among the august personages who sojourned at Calais in days of yore, none excelled the gorgeous priest, Cardinal Wolsey, in the display of pomp, or in the number and quality of his retinue. On the 11th July 1527, his landingen routeto Boulogne was attended by the Earl of Derby, the Bishops of London and Dublin; the Lords Monteagle and Harredew, with a staff of knights, secretaries, physicians, gentlemen-ushers, officers of the household, gentlemen of the chapel, and other retainers; the legate's train of attendants alone requiring 900 horses. But at the same time came the pope's nuncios, the French king's ambassadors, and the captain of Boulogne, 'with a goodlie companie,' to welcome him. On the occasion of a previous visit, he brought over 12 chaplains, 50 gentlemen, 238 servants, and 150 horses.

The Harleian and Cottonian Manuscripts are rich in interesting details of another fashionable arrival at Calais—that of Anne of Cleves, on her way to England to be united in marriage to Henry VIII. Her train was composed of 263 persons, including the Earls of Oversteyn and Roussenbergh, with their 'gentlemen, ladies, pages, officers, and servants.' The Lord High Admiral of England came over expressly to take command of the vessel destined to convey the bride across the Channel. Accompanied by the lord-deputy of Calais, and a numerous retinue, he went forth to meet thefiancéeon her way from Gravelines. His dress, and that of his attendants, is recorded for our gratification:—'For he was apparelled in a coat of purple velvet, cut in cloth of gold, and tied with aigulets and trefoils of gold to the number of four hundred. Baldricwise, he wore a chain of strange fashion, to which was suspended a whistle of gold, set with precious stones of great value. The admiral's train consisted of thirty gentlemen of the king's household, apparelled with massive chains. Besides these, he had a great number of gentlemen of his own suite, in blue velvet and crimson satin, as well as the mariners of his ship, in satin of Bruges (blue), both coats and slops of the same colour—his yeomen being clad in blue damask.' A foul wind detained the lady here for fifteen days, 'during which time, in order to afford her recreation, jousts and banquets were got up by the authorities.' The simplicity with which our gracious Queen travels from the Isle of Wight to Aberdeenshire, or takes a trip across the Channel to see her uncle Leopold, makes us almost forget that such gorgeous state attended every step of royalty in the olden time. Glance we now a moment at the commercial aspect of Calais during the English occupancy.

The Staple-Hall or Wool Staple (now called the Cour de Guise) built by letters-patent from Richard II., dated 1389, was a singular combination of palace and market, exchequer and cloth-hall; the seat alike of royalty and trade; for here our English monarchs often lodged, and within these precincts our ancestors established their seat of custom, beneath the royal eye and roof-tree. Hither were not only the 'merchauntes and occupiers of all manner of wares and merchandizes' in England, but the 'merchauntes straungers' of the Low Countries invited by proclamation to resort and repair, from time to time, there to 'buy and sell, change and rechange, with perfect and equal freedom and immunity;' provided always the traffic or 'feates of merchandizes' were effected according to tariff; 'our dread and sovereigne lord the king mynding the wealth, increase, and enriching of his realm of England, and of this his town of Calais.' In the court of this ourCalaisian Guildhall, the iron-clad man-at-arms, the gaily-decked esquire, or captain of the guard, used to mingle with the staid wool-staplers, clothiers, cutlers, or weavers, just arrived from our primitive manufacturing districts, laden with bales and hardwares for bartering with their colonial and Flemish customers; whilst the nobles, princes, and at times even the king of England, sat at the upper casements, countenancing if not enjoying the bustle of the mart. Immense fortunes were realised by the merchants of the Staple; they were often in a position to aid the exchequer of the mother-country; and one of them named Fermour was, from some patriotic act in money-matters, raised to the peerage under the title of Lord Pomfret. We are told that a great revenue was derived to the crown from the customs' duty here levied on wool; that which passed into the Netherlands alone amounting to 50,000 crowns per annum—an enormous sum in those days. Modern Vandalism has done for this building what time had failed to effect; and now there is little remains of it to gratify the antiquary, save its metamorphosed contour and a fine old gateway.

That a handful of troops and emigrant residents should have enjoyed for above two centuries the unmolested occupation of a sea-port town, and an extensive adjacent district, in one of the most powerful and warlike kingdoms of Europe, is a singular episode in the history of the two nations. At length, after an almost fabulous retention of the place, the very facility of tenure having led to heedlessness and neglect of proper precaution, the day of reprisal came. In 1558, the Duke of Guise, being put in command of a powerful army, effected its recapture without any signal display of valour on the one hand, or heroism on the other. On its surrender, the lord-deputy, with 50 of his officers, were detained as prisoners of war; the residue of the inhabitants had to turn out, as the French had done before, and were compelled to retire either to England or Flanders. All the property of every description was placed at the disposal of the conqueror, in honour of whom our famous Wool Staple was thenceforth called the Cour de Guise. The booty in gold, silver, and valuable merchandise was enormous, and even the common soldiers, we are told, made fortunes by their share of it. So perished England's first colony!

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