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ing upon whose shoulders the real responsibility should rest.

tion, I should like to have one other glimpse of a contested election. Vivid in my memory are recollections of large turnip-faced men, of fozy intellect, who upon such occasions are invariably placed upon the committees of agents, some sharp as needles, others helpless as mooncalves, rushing to and fro in quest of fugitive or recalcitrating electors of the yells of the crowd before the hustings, who enjoy their day's hooting with intense gusto-of the stammering, stuttering, and vehement gesticulation of the candidates, who have rarely the sense to go through their part of the ceremony in dumb show-of the forest of unwashed hands-of the pointless placards which are meant to be extremely witty-of the triumph of the winning party, and the rage, agony, and despair of those who lose. Such scenes and ebullitions, being genuine exponents of feeling, are useful and comforting in their way; and I hope that in our time they will never be abolished to make room for the sneaking ballot, which is a system suitable only to a community of hypocritical slaves. I no not object to the ballot from party considerations. I am firmly convinced that, if it were introduced to-morrow, the Tories would be the gainers, for coercion in election matters is practised only by the ignoble and tyrannical, and I am proud to say that men of that stamp are not numerous on our side. But I like to see public opinion, even though I differ from its course, expressing itself freely and openly; and I hold that it would be a gross act of injustice to the non-electors to allow those who have the franchise to exercise their privilege in secret. It would be, on a smaller and yet wider scale, to adopt the Palmerstonian policy, which is one of secresy and silence, without the chance, in the event of misfortune or calamity, of ascertain

So, then, I bid you, in the mean time, farewell. I am somewhat in the condition of Cassius; for "thoughts of great value, worthy cogitations," have been simmering in my brain; but what would be the use of enunciating them now, when the whole British public are thronging tumultuously to the poll? I have told you, in accordance with your kind permission, what I think of the present crisis; but, however the elections may go, I feel no manner of alarm. We may have to pass through a period of suffering, occasioned by the policy of our rulers (or rather ruler), in embarking in an unrighteous and wicked war-we may have again to submit to taxation from which we trusted that we were freed -we may have to endure some calamity, deprivation, and restriction of the comforts of the poor-but, for all that, the nation will right itself at last, like a ship when its lumber is thrown overboard; or rather like that vessel from Joppa to Tarshish, which contained the inconsistent prophet Jonah, who paid the fare thereof. Palmerston no doubt will try to throw out tubs to the whale; but, in the long run, he will himself be thrown overboard; and in that case, after his deliverance from physical, though not political death, he may possibly understand how the following text is applicable to the recent deplorable and iniquitous treatment of Canton : "Should I not spare Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more than sixscore thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand, and also much cattle?"

I add nothing more; but remain always, your affectionate Contributor, PHOSPHORUS.

Pictarnie Lighthouse,

North Britain.

Printed by William Blackwood & Sons, Edinburgh.

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CATERINA tore herself from Anthony with the desperate effort of one who has just self-recollection enough left to be conscious that the fumes of charcoal will master his senses unless he bursts a way for himself to the fresh air; but when she reached her own room, she was still too intoxicated with that momentary revival of old emotions, too much agitated by the sudden return of tenderness in her lover, to know whether pain or pleasure predominated. It was as if a miracle had happened in her little world of feeling, and made the future all vaguea dim morning haze of possibilities, instead of the sombre wintry daylight and clear rigid outline of painful certainty.

She felt the need of rapid movement. She must walk out in spite of the rain. Happily, there was a thin place in the curtain of clouds which seemed to promise that now, about noon, the day had a mind to clear up. Caterina thought to herself, "I will walk to the Mosslands, and carry Mr Bates the comforter I have made for him, and then Lady Cheverel will not wonder so much at my going out." At the hall door she found

VOL. LXXXI.-NO. CCCCXCIX.

Rupert, the old bloodhound, stationed on the mat, with the determination that the first person who was sensible enough to take a walk that morning should have the honour of his approbation and society. As he thrust his great black and tawny head under her hand, and wagged his tail with vigorous eloquence, and reached the climax of his welcome by jumping up to lick her face, which was at a convenient licking height for him, Caterina felt quite grateful to the old dog for his friendliness. Animals are such agreeable friends-they ask no questions, they pass no criticisms.

"The Mosslands" was a remota part of the grounds, encircled by the little stream issuing from the poole and certainly, for a wet day, Caterin; could hardly have chosen a less suitable walk, for though the rain was abating, and presently ceased altogether, there was still a smart shower falling from the trees which arched over the greater part of her way. But she found just the desired relief from her feverish excitement in labouring along the wet paths with an umbrella that made her arm ache. This amount of exertion was to her tiny body

2 L

will have been made in vain. I am not versed in Parliamentary history or precedent, and therefore I can only speak doubtfully on such a matter; but I cannot argue myself into the conviction that Lord Palmerston was entitled, in consequence of the recent vote of the House of Commons, to propose a dissolution. The Home Government was not bound by the acts of Sir J. Bowring or Admiral Seymour, unless these were the consequents of express instructions; a position which the Ministry have carefully repudiated. Therefore, undoubtedly, the censure of the House of Commons was directed against the officials as having, on their own responsibility, acted illegally and unwisely, and in a manner calculated to tarnish the reputation and character of Great Britain. The censure did not apply to the Ministry, because the acts complained of were not traceable to their policy or instructions; and even though the Ministry thought fit to vindicate the conduct of their subordinates, a parliamentary condemnation of the latter was by no means equivalent to a vote of censure against the former. It seems to me very essential that this should be kept in view, the more especially as the partisans and placemen who are now preparing for the hustings, have hazarded, on more than one occasion, the false and preposterous assertion that the recent vote was the result of an unprincipled conspiracy. It was nothing of the kind. No resolution at all impugning the conduct or policy of the Ministry was proposed. The blow was levelled, not at Cæsar, but at Caesar's incompetent bondsman; and Palmerston, in calling together a new Parliament, is not asking a vote of confidence in his own favour or that of his colleagues, but in favour of Bowring, whose singular fortune it has been to originate a war with the Celestial Empire, and to break up a Parlia

ment at home!

Providence, it has been truly said, sometimes works by strange instruments. The Roman capital was saved by the cackling of a ganderthe operations of a mole, whom the old Jacobites affectionately designated as "the little gentleman in black

velvet," cut short the career of William of Orange; and finally Bowring, formerly known as the most stupendous bore in the House of Commons, has raised a storm which has shaken the East, overthrown a Parliament, and agitated the British Isles! But the worst of it is, that Palmerston, after having risked so much in defence of this wonderful man, who has achieved immortality at last, though it may only be that of Erostratus, has actually thrown him overboard, and declared, by the most significant act in his power, his want of confidence in the discretion or the ability (for it does not signify which) of the Governor of Hong-Kong, by sending out a plenipotentiary to supersede him! This is a mode of proceeding purely Oriental. In former days, whenever a pasha had, by rapacity or violence, exhausted the patience of a province, or committed some other act which excited the ire of the sultan, the latter thought it beneath his dignity to pass any audible censure on the offender. He would not even allow his misdeeds to be canvassed in open divan; but despatched a successor with a firman in one hand, and a silken cord in the other, which tokens being presented to the culprit, he straightway kissed the firman, adjusted the cord round his own neck, and was strangled, to the extreme edification of a select company of the faithful. Upon this model acts Sultan Palmerston. He dismisses the divan because they ventured to blame the doings of Pasha Bowring, but, notwithstanding, he sends out the firman and the cord!

If this is not a farce, and a sorry one, I have read Mrs Inchbald's collection of comic afterpieces in vain. I. look upon it as very degrading indeed; and I am surprised that a statesman of Palmerston's position should have had recourse to such petty expedients. For it is clear beyond dispute that, if Lord Palmerston had announced during the recent debate that the Government were about to despatch to China a plenipotentiary to investigate all the circumstances which led to this unhappy quarrel, and to act accordingly, the House of Commons would at

once have accepted the proposition, and would have refrained from expressing any opinion upon what had taken place. But, although urged by several members, who usually gave him their support, to adopt this or a similar course, Lord Palmerston doggedly declined, even going the length, as Mr Lindsay the member for Tynemouth states, that he confirmed the whole of the acts of Sir John Bowring, and that he did not consider any inquiry necessary. In consequence of that declaration he was left in a minority; and in the course of a week he so far acquiesces in the vote of the House of Commons, that he announces his intention of sending out a plenipotentiary, to do that which he refused to do before the House had declared its opinion. What, then, is the new House of Commons to do in respect to the Chinese question? Is it to vote confidence in Bowring before the plenipotentiary has reported upon his conduct? and if not, how is it possible to justify Lord Palmerston for resorting to the extreme measure of a dissolution of Parliament?

If he wished to try the experiment of strengthening his hands by reverting to the country, he ought, in common decency, to have waited until some vote expressive of censure upon his government had been carried. A general election, so far from being desired by the country, is looked upon as a positive nuisance; so much so, that all agitation on the subject of annual or triennial parliaments has died away, and even Radical cobblers no longer attempt to pledge candidates in that direction. The nation is too busy to be subjected to wanton interruptions, and therefore the Minister who dissolves Parliament without imperious necessity, is guilty of a culpable trifling with the interests of the people. All that the majority of the House of Commons wished has been done by Lord Palmerston, of his own free will, since the vote was recorded. The majority did not wish to give a political vote condemnatory of his government they did not care sixpence whether Bowring was dead or alive -they did not want to stigmatise that ridiculous Pundit in his own

proper person-they simply passed a resolution to the effect that the papers laid before them "fail to establish satisfactory grounds for the violent measures resorted to at Canton in the late affair of the Arrow." A milder motion could not, under the circumstances, have been made. It casts censure directly upon no one. It was a mere proposition that the information afforded as to the cause was not sufficient to account for the undoubted effect, and it went no further. View it as you will, it was to all intents and purposes a motion for inquiry, such as became the representatives of a great nation, in a matter so delicate and important; and the Prime Minister, after the vote has been given, acquiesces in the judgment, and sends out a plenipotentiary to inquire, punishing in the mean time the House by dissolving it, because it would not submit to his dictatorial will. I know of no historical parallel to this I can only conceive one. What if King John, after signing Magna Charta at Runnymede, had ordered the Barons to be beheaded?

On the subject of the Chinese war itself I shall say little, because the matter was most amply discussed in all its bearings in both Houses of Parliament, and every man who has had the curiosity or interest to peruse the debates, must have been able therefrom to form an impartial opinion. I read them very attentively during the midnight watch, and with such complete absorption that Ibecame insensible to the storm which was raging without, and heard not the sleet dashing on the windows. Only once, during the perusal of the speech of the Duke of Argyll, I was startled by a most tremendous thump overhead, the cause of which I could not divine; but next morning, on going out into the gallery which surrounds the lamp, the phenomenon was accounted for by my finding the carcass of a luckless bird, which, bewildered by the tempest, and attracted by the glare, had dashed itself against the outer panes, and suffered dislocation of the neck. I felt nervous for some time afterwards, the place being eery, and my imagination somewhat excited. In read

ag the debates I was particularly k with the complacent tone of wca che ministerial speakers, who termed the Chinese "barbarians; using precisely the same word which The Chiese employ when they mean to designate ourselves. This did somewhat tickle my spleen, and I could not abstain from cacchination, remembering that the Greeks were woat to apply the same term to the Persians, who were in reality fifty times more civilised than themselves. Also that the Romans, who were incapable of originating, and careless about cultivating art, directed that identical slang, first against the Etrurians, a polished people whom they annihilated-next against the Carthaginians, who alone of the ancients understood and practised commerce-then against the Egyptians, the most colossal architects and ingenious inventors of the older world -and, finally, against the Greeks, by that time degenerated, through political empiricism and the influence of mean democracy, into a race of scoundrels. I laughed, I say; and laughed more heartily than any addle-pated supporter of Palmerston who sits on third Treasury bench, and, in obedience to the signal of Hayter, roars at the stale jests of his leader. After which, when relieved from duty, I went to bed; and, in the language of John Bunyan, "lo! I dreamed a dream."

I was transported to a country, the aspect of which was to me unknown, but all was fair and pleasant. I stood upon the summit of a hill surrounded by many others, all cultivated to the tops, and planted with a fragrant shrub, the leaves of which were being collected by hundreds of peasants, fantastically but comfortably attired. Descending toward the plain, I entered a grove of mulberry-trees, which, like the gardens of Damascus, was interspersed with summer-houses, wherein the mysterious worms that spin the silk were fed and tended until they resolved themselves into cocoons. Further down by the margin of the stream were silk and paper factories, the low fields were covered with crops of millet and other grain, and the marshy grounds were luxuriant fields of rice. In every direction

canals stretched into the country, not only affording an easy mode of communication, but acting as irrigators in summer, and stimulating the vegetable growth. No spot of land seemed to be thrown away. All was reclaimed by man, and rendered useful and productive for the maintenance of the people. I entered a noble city, along the streets of which the tide of population flowed as briskly as in London. I saw porcelain towers of enormous magnitude, in the construction of which more ingenuity had been expended than would have sufficed for the rearing of twenty crystal palaces. I passed into the bazaar, where all kinds of manufactures were exposed for sale. Silk, woollen, and cotton fabrics were in abundance, of all sorts of workmanship, from tissues which a prince might wear on his wedding-day, down to the homely cloth most suitable for the labouring man. Nor were the ornamental arts neglected. There was silver filagree work of exceeding fineness, and matchless carvings out of ivory, not formed by machinery, but by the dexterous and practised labour of a single hand. There, too, I saw in tempting profusion, "The candied apple, quince, and plum, and gourd,

With jellies soother than the creamy curd, And lucid syrops tinct with cinnamon; Manna and dates, in argosy transferr'd From Fez; and spiced dainties, every one, From silken Samarcand, to cedar'd Lebanon."

More extraordinary still, I saw, in vases of porcelain ware, miniatures of forest trees which apparently had been dwarfed-oaks, gnarled enough to have been centuries old, bearing tiny leaves and acorns-orange trees laden with golden fruit not much bigger than peas, but to all appearance perfectly complete and healthy. I saw, too, specimens of painting and sculpture, and many books; while in almost every street there seemed to be a school, and a large building was indicated to me as the university. I went down to the port: it was crowded with vessels of the kind described by Trelawney in his Adventures of a Younger Son: "She was flat-bottomed and flat-sided; decorations of green and yellow dragons were painted and gilded all over her;

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