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My good lord chamberlain,
Well are you welcome to this open air!

From the Spectator.

in impressing upon all concerned a desire for their | ceremonies a little more into the outer world, and exact fulfilment. It is not so much because of cordially to give him the greeting, any inconsistencies on this particular occasion, as because the lord chamberlain's office is the last stronghold of an enormous amount of tomfoolery, which is infinitely better done upon the stage in Tom Thumb, which is cumberous and burdensome to all outside the office itself, and which is negative for any good purpose, and often positive for much harm, as making things ridiculous or repulsive which can only exist beneficially in the general love and respect, that we take this occasion of hoping that it is fast on the decline.

THE NILE BOAT.*

exhausted theme. In The Nile Boat, he has rendered attractive the still triter subject of a steam voyage from Marseilles to Alexandria, the passage thence to Cairo, an ascent of the Nile, with an exploration of Egyptian antiquities.

In addition to his natural and professional ad

MR. BARTLETT is known to the public as a traveller who can impart freshness and interest to beaten routes, by the vivacity of his mind and his artistical training. Wherever form or description is the essence of his subject, the eye of the artist This is not the first occasion on which we have enables him to select the characteristic traits, while observed upon the preposterous constraints and his literary ability presents them with graphic efforms that set a mark upon the English court fect. Often as the Desert and Mount Sinai have among the nations of Europe, and amaze Europe-been visited of late years, Mr. Bartlett gave novan sovereigns when they first become its guests.elty and information to what would appear an In times that are marked beyond all others by rapidity of change, and by the condensation of centuries into years in respect of great advances, it is in the nature of things that these constraints and forms should yearly, daily, and hourly, become more preposterous. What was obsolete at first, is rendered, in such circumstances, a thou-vantages, Mr. Bartlett has the experience of a sand times more obsolete by every new stride that traveller and a knowledge of the East. He can is made in the onward road. A court that does adapt himself to circumstances, and bring out the not keep pace with a people will look smaller, qualities of the persons with whom he comes in through the tube which Mr. Stephenson is throw-contact; while his familiarity with the East has ing across the Menai Straits, than it looked given him great advantages over a raw tourist in before. casual meetings with the people. He has also, It is typical of the English court that its state be it said, the experience of a bookmaker; he dresses, though greatly in advance of its ceremo-knows what to put in, and what to leave out. nies, are always behind the time. We would The illustrations are another feature of Mr. bring it up to the time, that it may have the greater Bartlett's works; being really illustrations, not share in, and the stronger hold upon, the affec-plates inserted; the text and the plates belong to tions of the time. The spectacle of a court each other. This is more especially the case going down to Windsor by the Great Western with the volume before us; where street views, Railway, to do, from morning to night, what is buildings, ruins, and water scenery, predominate five hundred years out of date; or sending such over landscape. Of course there is no comparison messages to Garter by electric telegraph, as between Mr. Bartlett's octavo and the splendid Garter might have received in the lists, in the folios that have been published on the Egyptian days of King Richard the First; is not a good monuments; but it presents a very good idea of one The example of the dowager queen, the subject upon a small scale. The artist is also reviving and improving on the example of the displayed in the descriptive comments: we not late Duke of Sussex, makes the present no unfit only have the impression made upon the mind, but occasion for the utterance of a hope that these the cause of it. Information is given from the things are at last progressing, changing, and works of Sharpe, Wilkinson, and others; at the resolving themselves into harmony with all other same time, modern Egypt is not overlooked. The things around them. It is particularly important street scenes of Cairo and Alexandria convey a that this should be the case when a new line of lively idea of Egyptian life and Oriental architecsovereigns is stretching out before us. It is par- ture, if the squalidness and inferior material are ticularly important that this should be the case not sunk in the plates. For their accuracy of when the hopes, the happiness, the property, the form Mr. Bartlett vouches: "the whole of the liberties, the lives of innumerable people may, illustrations were drawn upon the spot, many with and in great measure must, depend on royal child-the camera lucida.” Were it not for the intellihood not being too thickly hedged in, or loftily gible though subdued description of certain Orienwalled round, from a great range of human sym-tal practices, The Nile Boat would be a capital pathy, access, and knowledge. Therefore we substitute for the Annuals. It is a handsomer could desire to have the words of their departed book for the table; the plates are much more nurelative, "We are all alike before the Throne of merous and interesting; the literature is at once God," commended to the earliest understanding of our rising princes and princesses. Therefore we could desire to bring the chief of the court

*The Nile Boat; or Glimpses of the Land of Egypt. By W. H. Bartlett, Author of "Forty Days in the Desert." Published by Hall, Virtue, and Co.

instructive and amusing. The book is a compen- | source of delay also has arisen in the Ramadan. dious coup-d'œil of Egypt as it is.

Besides all these, there are the story and incidents of a book of travels, with sketches of manners and society; for Mr. Bartlett can perceive the mental and moral characteristics as well as those of the external form. This is a smart little portrait of the gamin of Cairo.

sand lashes. I asked if this merciful provision also

extended to the Reis and sailors; but this idea he

the "month of fasting," whose inauspicious moon succeeded this night. My servant is a rigid and times a day he prostrates himself upon the deck. pious Mussulman, and pilgrim to boot; several Happily, his zeal in my service seems to keep pace with his piety, and his fury against the worthless Reis more than equals the fervor of his prayers. 1 was condoling with him on the hardship of preThe Caireen donkey-boy is quite a character, and paring so many good dishes, of which he could not partake on account of his religious principles; mine in particular was a perfect original. He was when he gravely smiled, and assured me that I small and spare of frame; his rich brown face relieved by the whitest of teeth and the most bril- tion in behalf of travellers, who, in consideration was under a mistake, there being a special exempliant black eyes; and his face beamed with a of their fatigues, were allowed to perform their merry yet roguish expression, like that of the Span-month's fasting by future instalments, à discretion, ish or rather Moorish boy in Murillo's well-in the same manner as Sancho liquidated his thouknown masterpiece, with whom he was probably of cognate blood. Living in the streets from infancy, and familiar with all the chances of out- indignantly repudiated; as they were only laboring door life and with every description of character in their ordinary vocation, the exemption did not -waiting at the door of a mosque or a café, or apply to them; and this curious distinction without crouching in a corner of the bazaar-he had aca difference themselves admitted, all but the Reis quired a thorough acquaintance with Caireen life; himself-a man of no religion-a practical infideland his intellect, and I fear his vices, had become a Kafir, as Saline indignantly told him, who, insomewhat prematurely developed. But the finish- stead of religiously working and not eating, would ing-touch to his education was undoubtedly given only eat and not work, sleeping like a dog during by the European travellers whom he had served; the greater part of the day. The rest, from the and of whom he had, with the imitativeness of his old steersman to the last of the crew, never, to my age, picked up a variety of little accomplishments, knowledge, infringed in the slightest instance the particularly the oaths of different languages. His terrible rigor of this prohibition; the cravings of audacity had thus become consummate; and I have hunger they indeed contrived in some measure to heard him send his fellows to as coolly and in satisfy, by taking their meals shortly before sunas good English as any prototype of our own me- rise; but, with their beloved Nile at hand, not a tropolis. His Mussulman prejudices sat very loosely upon him, and in the midst of religious ob- drop of water passed their lips during the burning summer's day; nor were they even free to amuse servances he grew up indifferent and prayerless. the vacuum of their stomachs by the fumes of the With this inevitable laxity of faith and morals, consoling pipe; listless and languid, they labored contracted by his early vagabondage, he at least at the toilsome tracking as usual, though with diacquired an emancipation from prejudice, and dis-minished energy, until the hour of sunset. played a craving after miscellaneous information, the welcome pipe might safely be taken up; for 1 to which his European masters were often tasked remarked they always began with it; and after to contribute. Thrown almost in childhood upon their temperate meal they were full of merriment, their own resources, the energy and perseverance singing often to a late hour in the night. I frequentof these boys is remarkable. My little lad had, ly endeavored insidiously to undermine the faith of for instance, been up the country with some Eng- the poor old steersman with arguments of expedilish travellers, in whose service he had saved four or five hundred piastres, (47. or 57.) with which he ency drawn from his weakness and from the combought the animal which I bestrode; on whose passion of Allah, urging him to take the food which his infirmities really required; but he remained sprightliness and good qualities he was never tired impenetrable to all my infidel solicitations and of expatiating, and with the proceeds of whose tempting offers. labor he supported his mother and himself. He had but one habitual subject of discontent-the heavy tax imposed upon his donkey by Mehemet Ali; upon whom he invoked the curse of God-a curse, it is to be feared, uttered not loud but deep by all classes save the employés of government. His wind and endurance were surprising: he would trot after his donkey by the hour together; urging and prodding it along with a pointed stick, as readily in the burning sandy environs, and under the noon-day sun, as in the cool and shady alleys of the crowded capital: running, dodging, striking, and shouting with all the strength of his lungs, through the midst of its labyrinthine obstructions.

In all countries the national prejudices linger longest amongst the poor, and Egypt is not an exception to the rule. True Mahometanism, which is leaving most other classes, takes refuge with the

boatmen of the Nile.

Tracking is toilsome for the men, and small is the progress thus made against the current; a new

Then

It is probable that the Western peoples have little conception of the true state of social morals in the East, from the difficulty of stating the truth without offending. Polygamy—the practical if not theological notion of the soulless nature of women-the absence of intellectual pursuits in all classes-the fineness of the climate, which does not require the hard labor of northern regionswith the system of domestic slavery, mild as it is -corrupt society to its very core.

We have often

had descriptions of dancing-girls, but we never

before saw the sensual character of the exhibition and its admirers so clearly brought out.

About noon the following day, we saw the groves and minarets of Beni-souef, the first town of importance on the western bank of the Nile. A few articles of provision were wanting, and the boat was towed on to the usual landing-place; while I preferred walking along the shore. I found it so

excessively hot as to wish myself back again; and Besides the use made of his works in the course was about to hail the vessel, when the sound of of the travels, Mr. Sharpe supplies an Historical music caught my ears, and I perceived an assem- Introduction, which gives a sketch of Egyptian blage of people under the shade of a cluster of sonthistory from the earliest ages to the Mahometan trees near the river, and, rising now and then over their heads, the braceleted arms and castanets of conquest; and as Mr. Bartlett introduces a good the famous "Ghawazee," or dancing-girls; who, deal of modern history into the text, the reader banished from the capital, were forced to carry has a summary of the subject. This is useful, their voluptuous allurements further up the river. and gives variety; but the literary character of Having often wished for an opportunity of witness-the book depends upon that matter which is more ing their performances, I slipped among the mis- directly the product of observation. cellaneous assemblage who clustered around an elevated platform on which the girls were dancing, and, as I flattered myself, unperceived; for, on such occasions as these, one is not curious to be conspicuous. But my Frank hat, and the umbrella which I carried on account of the heat, betrayed me; and an officer of the pasha, leaping up from his seat, pushed aside the rabble, and, taking me by the hand, hoisted me up on the platform, and made me sit down by his side; a distinction which I was equally unwilling to accept or, without offence, unable to decline.

From the Examiner.

Passages in the Life of Mrs. Margaret Maitland, of Sunnyside. Written by Herself. Three vols. Colburn.

which we do not altogether go along with her; being a more resolute partisan of Free Kirk than ourselves, and having, as far as we can gather, less faith than we think desirable in sanitary and other material reforms as applicable to even the spiritual wants of the poor. But she enforces respect for her opinions by her mode of urging them, and every page of her book testifies to her sincerity, her simplicity of feeling and good faith, and her uncanting piety.

WE have read this book with unusual pleasure. It has points of merit in the delineation of middleclass Scottish life and character, which may compare with Miss Ferrier, Galt, Lockhart, and WilThe stage or platform might have been some son; and the spirit in which it is written is at thirty feet square, partly overshadowed with trees, once singularly quiet and modest, and full of shrewdand partly covered with a rude awning of palmness and good sense. The author has opinions in leaves; yet the heat was almost overpowering the river floated slowly past like boiling oil, and the distance was one undistinguishable blaze of heated mist. Around the platform were grouped a number of the pasha's officers, civil and military, some on low seats, and others squatted on the ground. The most part seemed men grown gray under a system of cruel oppression, of which they were the agents; their faces were grave to coldness; hard and cruel lines were about their eyes and mouths, and they rarely moved a muscle but when some little by-play of the dancers specially addressed to themselves brought a hideously sensual smile The story is very inartificial, and in several across their pallid faces. These personages occupoints not very probable. Its interest is almost pied the seats of honor; and behind them, as well solely derived from the tone and manner of the as below, were crowded together fellahs and boat- supposed narrator-Mrs. Margaret Maitland. She men, women and children of all ages, equally in- writes in the dialect common to gentlewomen of tent upon enjoying what may be considered the the middle class in the country places of Scotland. national dance. The two dancing-girls who were She is of a family of "ministers," who have long ministering to the delight of this respectable audience seemed half overcome with the heat, the preached the gospel in the parish of Pasturelands excitement, and raki, which an old white-bearded and we have a glimpse of her childhood and youth fellow from a neighboring café administered at the in the quiet manse, just enough to explain the forend of every dance. They had once been hand-mation of her character, and the sober, thoughtful, some, but were now, though young, decidedly humble, yet not uncheerful tone of her mind. She usé, worn out with early profligacy, and bedaubed has had a love engagement, which she has herself ad nauseam with a thick layer of vermilion. Their closed on finding the character of her lover to be dress consisted of very large loose trousers of silk,

and a tight-bodied vest open at the bosom, and at variance with the humble and religious habits having long sleeves, with a large shawl wreathed of her family and home-but this circumstance round and supporting their languid figures; they were also profusely decorated with gold coins and bracelets. When I ascended to my post of honor, or rather humiliation, they were merely figuring in lazy and somewhat graceful attitudes around the platform, clicking their castanets, and exchanging speaking glances with the hoary sinners around; but on my seating myself, one of them saluted me with a pas of such an equally original and unequivocal character as elicited a burst of laughter and applause from old and young, brought the blood into my cheeks, and made me wish myself anywhere else than where I was. The dance then began but I am not going, like some travellers, to give what Byron calls "a chaste description" of it; suffice to say, that at first modestly coquettish, it became by degrees the excitement of wanton phrensy, and at length died away in languor.

does not appear, save in her manner of looking at worldly and unworldly things, until towards the end of the story. Meanwhile, the generation living in her youth has passed away, and a second and third have taken its place. She has remained unmarried, still faithful where she had loved first; and is become mistress of Sunnyside. Her brother has succeeded to the kirk and manse of Pasturelands, and his children, boys and girls, are growing up around her. Then comes the incident on which the main story turns. She receives a supposed orphan child of her own name, but not otherwise related to her, Grace Maitland, to whom she gives the shelter of her home, the utmost care and love of her heart, and the benefit of her thoughts and precepts; till the relatives of the child reclaim

her for their own purposes. These latter form | spirit was stirred within me there, standing at the the subsequent adventures and vicissitudes of the gate of Sunnyside with the bairn's hand in mine. book, and are baffled by the clear sight and right-and her eyes shining into me, as if she was reading principled soul which the persecuted girl has inher-my very heart; the bit little thing! with the spirit

ited from Mrs. Margaret Maitland. We may call this the moral of the story-and it is an excellent one. If the heroines of romance generally did but receive and retain such advantages, half the horrors and sufferings which form the staple of their woes would have no peg of probability to hang upon. The story has a quiet happy ending, as befits what has gone before.

within her that would never die: and I resolved within myself, from that day, that the bairn the Lord had sent to my lone and quiet house should be to me as my own blood and kin.

JOURNAL-KEEPING AND ITS CONSEQUENCES.

You want me to keep a journal, Mary. It would not do; so long as one's life consists of things done, it is well enough; but when it is things thought, and things imagined, that are uppermost and most important, then I am afraid it would be a very unhealthy amusement, the keeping of a journal. You will see it illustrated in some religious biographies which you and I have read together, where was laid bare the nervous anatomy of some mind-the bitterness which the heart only knoweth--the joys fluctuating feelings which do not remain the same which a stranger may not intermeddle with-the for an hour, set down and dwelt upon till the autobiographer grew morbid. So let us eschew journal-keeping, Mary, until we have attained that time (if we ever attain it) when my aunt and I shall have set up our peaceful reign at Oakenshaw, our dominion of placidness and good-will-and I would herself, had a tendency to look back instead of foreven debar it then, if any one of us, even my aunt ward, and to grow melancholy.

A SCOTTISH DOMINIE.

What we have said, however, can but convey an idea of its framework. Its beauty is in the minute and truthful touches of detail, and in the exact verisimilitude of the pictures of Scottish life in the condition described. Nor, even if we had space, could this be better exhibited by extracts. No extract could convey correctly, for example, Mrs. Maitland's pious habit of measuring things by Scripture teachings, and of squaring all she thinks and does to the verity of Christian precept and Biblical example. It would be as difficult to transfer the picture of a Scottish servant which is so vividly yet steadily presented in the little character of Jenny. And we should vainly attempt to give the reader a notion of the humble and elderly Scottish dominie, Reuben Reid, wind-bound on his way to the pulpit and driven by a stress of no-talents to the school, yet an aspirant notwithstanding to He had been licensed by the kirk as a preacher the hand of Mrs. Margaret in her elderly spinster- of the Gospel in his young days, but, being in no hood, and rejected by the latter with a most good-manner gifted in respect of preaching, had never natured sense of his merits as well as his defects. been called by any people. Also being but a poor The reader must be referred to the book itself. man's son, he never had interest enough to get a He will find it as full of homely and small details called, no long since, by one that has just a bye-orpresentation, and therefore was (as I have seen it as one of Wilkie's pictures, and hardly less true. dinary gift in the way of writing books and papers) He will find very little that is sudden or startling--wind-bound in a school: the which means (in my what there is of that kind, such as the character comprehension) comparing a man to a boat, that of Grace's father and the elopement of her cousin, he had not strength enough, nor sails enough, to is not at all good. But he will enjoy the unaffected, simple, commonlife tone of the book, and occasionally be as touched by its truth as if Miss Ferrier were not yet silent, or the authors of Lights and Shadows and Adam Blair were peopling Scottish manses again. The meeting, at the close of the tale, of Mrs. Margaret and the lover of her youth, (rich and an old bachelor-for he has remained single too,) is perhaps one of the best specimens we could mention of the power and tact of the writer in avoiding the propensity to exaggerate in circumstances of great temptation.

We do not profess to exhibit the merits of Mrs. Margaret Maitland by means of quotation-but we give a few brief touches of a clever and pleasing

kind.

THE FIRST GLIMPSE OF GRACE MAITLAND.

She was a bit little thin genty-looking bairn, with a face no to be forgotten, though I could not say it was bonnie. There was no color in her cheeks, and she had dark hair; but the eyes! I never saw the like of them. The little face was like a shady corner when they were cast down, and when she lifted them it was like the rising of the stars in the sky: no that they were sharp, but like a deep stream flowing dark and full. Truly my

carry him over the wild sea or down great waters, but was just blown by the lown land breeze to shelter in the crook of a quiet burn, and by reason of the hurry and troubling of the bigger streams, could not win out again. Also he was an inoffensive body, and had a manner of lifting up his hands, and crying" Eh, me!" when he was surprised, that made folk laugh at him.

PHILOSOPHY OF THE TAWSE.

I laugh while to myself, (said Reuben,) at the way the wee vexations take their pawmios, for ye can have a perception of the bairn's nature, mair mostly in that way than in any other. There are some of a fearful nature, that will draw back the hand when the tawse comes down, in an unwise coward spirit, seeing they maun bear the pain some time, whether they will or no. And there are some that hold their arm bold out, to get it ower at once; and there are some mair especial the women bairns, (for ye are ever a pawkie sect, Miss Marget,) that will look me fair in the een, as if they thought their bit shining faces would stop my hand. There is one lassie wean-puir wee wifie, she has had a sore time of it with the measles-Femis Telfer, wha will glint at me with her blue een and her smile till I can scarce think to bring down the tawse. It's aye a light pawmie Femic gets, for a'that she 's as tricky as a young foal.

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From the Spectator of 15 Dec. BRITISH REPUDIATION.

COMMERCIALISM, says Mr. Milner Gibson, has succeeded to the ascendency of the Feudalism which it conquered. But if we are to accept the ingenious gentleman's declaration of mercantile morals, the commercialism of our day, we must conclude, has degenerated from the commercialism which conquered feudalism, and is bent on committing bankruptcy and suicide. In Mr. Gibson's picture, the old commercialism is to the modern what a merchant-prince of old might be to a modern embezzling clerk. Modern commercialism, wise in its generation, has discovered that the test of all truth is the balance in the profit and loss account; ancient commercialism took a higher and broader view. Mr. Milner Gibson-member of Parliament for Manchester, ex-minister of trade, and candidate prospectively for a higher office-carries the modern spirit into statesmanship, and advocates a national movement for making a 66 tremendous sweep" of certain expenditure, by favor of a newly-imported moral principle. He is speaking of the annual charge on the Consolidated Fund

He did not think that any contracts, although they might be settled by act of Parliament, were permanent if they were not rightly settled. He believed that the government should only have as much money given to it as would pay for the services to be rendered. If they adopted such a principle as that, it would make a tremendous sweep.

ments. Perhaps Manchester may still retain a lingering regard for honesty. Now, although a contract may be vicious in its origin, and therefore open to be annulled, you cannot in common trading honestly annul it except upon one condition-that you return all the fruits which have accrued to you under the contract. Granting that the Parliament of 1810 could not bind the Parliament of 1850, and that the latter can refuse the bill drawn upon it by the former, still the repudiator is bound to return all that has been obtained under the contract of 1810. How would you effect that? Surely you are not going to refuse the bill and at the same time keep the goods consigned to you, on which that bill was drawn? No; the lowest trading honesty forbids any such swindling.

Try it by broader principles of justice, this new Manchester doctrine-upon the broad principles which are eternal. The Parliament of 1810, having made a vicious contract, cannot bind the Parliament and generation of 1850; but you are not in a condition to annul the contract and restore things to the footing of 1810 you must take things as you find them, and if not morally bound by the letter of 1810, you are in spirit bound to treat the interests concerned according to the actual merits of the case. Now take the position of the actual fundholder, or even any grant-holder, on its merits, in regard to commercial equity, humanity, and national faith; and say how, with a view to those great principles, you will wipe out the contracts of 1810.

It is true that Mr. Gibson seems to apply this It is said that the Parliament, elected by the to charges upon the Consolidated Fund not of the living and constituted for a term, has only a temnature of interest for the national debt; but the porary function and cannot decree a permanent principle is manifestly applicable to the whole obligation; which is true in so far as the decree charge on the Consolidated Fund. Is this the must remain subject to the acquiescence of future Manchester echo of Mr. Francis Newman's argu- parliaments; but the principle on which the argumentative pamphlet on our national obligations- ment is founded goes much further than that. the first whisper of an English "repudiation" in | Speaking strictly, no earthly power is continuous the market-place-the "point of the wedge?"-neither hereditary nor transmitted, according to If so, the debt is doomed, and we now living may expect to hear among fundholders the panic cry of" Sauve qui peut!"

Such a revolution would make mince-meat of "commercialism,”—that is, it would destroy all the credit on which commerce subsists, and would convert all commerce into retail trading over the counter. But retail trading over the counter is impracticable for great and civilized nations. Is Mr. Milner Gibson desirous of consummating the reign of his boasted commercialism on its funeral pyre, and instituting the reign of its successor and antagonist, Communism?

Commercialism had better take a thought before it accept the fatal gift of repudiation. It is not quite such common sense or such practical policy as it seems to 'cute Anglo-Yankees. It is true that a contract originally wrong cannot be logically upheld; but there are a thousand reasons which may forbid its repudiation. We will say nothing of honor and dignity, because Manchester, for the moment, is not disposed to listen to those argu

The polit

But

the common acceptation of the terms. ical intelligence and action of to-day have been developed by the intelligence and action of our forefathers; but the institutions which they planted continue only by our sufferance, and would fall to the ground but for our voluntary and active support. A nation, like an individual, may at any day discontinue its practice and begin anew. Thus each day the institutions of the country subsist as it were by a renewed act of creation. happy is it for the country whose intelligence and faith are such that the renewed creations of each successive day exactly resemble those of the last, until full and deliberate judgment sees fit to substitute for an institution to be changed, one not lower but higher and more powerful. That is true organic energy, that is symmetrical development, that is vigorous freedom, that is strength of intelligent will. In this view, though the Parliament of 1850 is not bound by the Parliament of 1810, it will renew the institutions renewed by the Parliament of 1849, and so on from year to year

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