street. This little Loughborough. Episode would [lad," I replied, "I am more poor than thyself." have pleased Crabbe; and there is an"How is that?" 66 "Why," I said, "thou hast other, in a more comical vein, which a room to retire to, and a bed to repose upon, but I have neither home nor lodging, nor food, might well repay the illustrating graver of George Cruikshank. The whole chapter is them!" "Why then God help thee !" he said, nor a farthing of money towards procuring most diverting. On reaching London," thou art indeed worse off than myself, exBamford renews his attempts on the book-cept as to liberty."-"And that I may not have sellers. One potentate frankly told him he long."-He asked me what I meant; and I told would rather have a 16th share in a good him that I was come up from the country to new cookery book, than the copyright out receive judgment for attending the Manchesand out of a new Paradise Lost. Another ter meeting. "If that be the case," he said, come back in an hour, and if I get as much listened more leisurely—and at last said he as three-pence or sixpence, thou shalt have it." felt interested and disposed to make a lib-I thanked him sincerely, and gratefully, and eral offer-in short, he would run the risk promised I would come back if no better forof paper and print, and give the author tune befel me, and so, pleased that I had found half the profits, if any,' charging merely one friend in the course of the morning, I bade 'the usual commission." These technical him good bye, and went on towards Bridgephrases conveyed to the weaver bard no 'At sight of the bridge I recollected a genidea except that some artful dodge' was tleman on the other side of the river, who had meditated. He stepped eastward, west-behaved very kindly to me the last time I was ward, southward, and northward, but Par- in London, and I thought I might as well call son Adams with the portmanteau of Notes upon him, for, at all events, I could not be more I therefore on the Supplices and Sermons for the disappointed than I had been. Times, was but a type of the Middleton Tyrtæus. In general the shopman merely In general the shopman merely looked at him and said, 'Mr, was engaged.' 'To be sure, the booksellers were not entire-said: "Is that you, Mr. Bamford? Walk forly blameable; my appearance was no doubt, somewhat against me. My clothes and shoes were covered with dust, my linen soiled, and my features brown and weathered like leather, which circumstances, in combination with my stature and gaunt appearance, made me an object not of the most agreeable or poetical cast. Still I thought these booksellers must be very owls at mid-day, not to conceive the possibility of finding good ore under a rude exterior like mine. And then I bethought me,and comforted myself therewith-inasmuch as others had trodden the same weary road before me-of Otway, and Savage, and Chatterton, and of the great son of learning, as ungainly as myself-Samuel the lexicographer -and I might have added of Crabbe, and others of later date, but their names had not then caught my ear.' He was reduced to extreme distress. 'I was half inclined to believe that the people I met seemed as if they knew I was pennyless. I had become quite wolfish, and the sight of good substantial meats, and delicate viands in the windows of the eating-houses, all of which I stopped before and contemplated, tended to increase the pangs of hunger, which were no ways allayed by the savoury fumes arising from the cooking cellars. At last I wandered round Fleet-market, and coming to the prison, I found a poor debtor begging at the grate. "Please to bestow a trifle on a poor prisoner," he said. "God bless thee, passed over the bridge, and soon found the shop of my friend in the main thoroughfare, called Surrey-road, I think. Several young men were busy in the shop, and I asked one of them if Mr. Gibb was within? "Oh yes," he he'll be glad to see you; step in." I thought ward, he's in the sitting-room at breakfast; that was like a lucky beginning at any rate, and without a second invitation I entered the room. A glance of one moment brought the gentleman to his feet. He took my hand and made me sit down, and rang the bell, and ordered another cup, and more butter and toast, fasted, I suppose," he said. I replied that I and eggs and ham. "You have not breakhad not; it was just what I had been wanting to do the last hour and a half. "Bamford," he said, as we went on with our repast, "What's the matter with you? you don't seem as you did the last time you were in London."-" How am I changed?"-"Why the last time you were up, you were all life and cheerfulness when I saw you, and now you seem quite thoughtful. Are you afraid of being Fent to prison?" "No," I said, "I was not." "What's the reason you are so serious?"-I said, "I could not help being so." "What's the cause?" he said; "Tell me the reason of this great change?" "Well then, to tell you God's truth," I said, "I have not a farthing in the world, and I could not have had a meal if I had not come here." "Oh! if that's all, man,' he said, "make yourself easy again. Come! take some more, and make a good breakfast," and I took him at his word-I did make a good breakfast. When we had finished, he took me to his dressing-room, where were water and towels to wash. He also ordered the servant to clean my shoes, and found me a clean neckerchief, and a pair of stockings. When I re turned to the sitting-room, I was quite smart, comparatively. "Now, Bamford," he said, "this is my breakfast hour; at one we dine, at five take tea, and supper at eight; and so long as you are in London, my table is yours, if you will attend at meals. Take this one pound note," putting one into my hand, "and if there is not a change in your circumstances for the better, when that is done, come for another." I thanked him most sincerely. I never was more affected by an act of kindness in my life. He was, in truth, "a friend in need, a friend indeed." Before this kind baker's one pound note was expended, Bamford received a remittance of £10 from some Reform fund and thenceforth expected with resignation the day of judgment. 'The detection of Arthur Thistlewood and his companions took place, if I mistake not, during our trial at York; it caused a great sensation at the time, and the conviction of the same misguided men occurred soon after our arrival in London. It was the subject of general conversation, and particularly the intrepid bearing of the prisoners during their trial. Mrs. Thistlewood had an asylum with the family of our friend West, the wire-worker in the Strand, and I frequently saw the unfortunate woman there. She was rather low in stature; with handsome regular features of the Grecian cast; very pale, and with hair, eyes, and eyebrows as black as night. Still she was not what may be called interesting she had a coldness of manner, which was almost repulsive. She seemed as if she had no natural sensibilities, or as if affliction had benumbed them. She wore her hair very long, and when she went to visit her husband, which she did with devoted attention, she was strictly examined, and amongst other precautions, her long hair was unbound and combed out. Hunt frequently indulged in imprecations against Thistlewood and his party. He aspersed their courage, the fame of which seemed to have hurt him. But the worst Bamford was shocked to learn that Dr. Healey, though as poor as himself, had paid a guinea for a seat in a window command. ing a good view of the Debtors' door at the Old Bailey. On the 15th of May-when all Hunt's affidavits, &c., &c., had been disposed of— sentence was pronounced: Hunt to be con⚫ fined for two years and a half in Ilchester jail-and Healey and Bamford, among others, for one year at Lincoln. Mr. Bamford seems still to think he might have been more leniently dealt with, but for the peroration of his speech in mitigation of punishment, in which, after reasserting strenuously that behaviour to the Middleton men on the he had preached forbearance and orderly 16th of August, he added with fervor, that he would never again preach in such a strain until every drop of blood shed at Peterloo had been amply revenged.' At all events, this language could not have tended to the mitigation of his doom. He met it like a sensible man. By the kindness of Sir Charles Wolsely (who was himself in trouble enough at the time) he was set at ease as to his pecuniary matters during confinement. He procured books, and read diligently-among other things he fagged at a Spanish Grammar-and by his submissive and regular behavior conciliated the sympathy and esteem of the Lincoln magistrates,-insomuch that, when he was assailed with a threatening of a pulmonary disorder, they allowed him to send for his wife, and allotted him and her a comfortable room to themselves in the jail. This indulgence had the best effects on Bamford's health, moral as well as physical. It, however, was heard of with bitter dissatisfaction at Ilchester-for Hunt had been refused the society of Mrs. V; and he thing I ever knew him do was his slandering now turned against poor Bamford as if the of Mrs. Thistlewood, whom he represented as kindness shown to him were an aggravacarrying on a criminal intimacy with West, tion of the cruelty to himself. 'Surely,' during her husband's incarceration. A baser, says Bamford, there is some difference bemore unfounded, or more improbable slander tween being permitted to have one's own was never uttered. Its atrocity was its anti-wife with one, and being permitted to have dote. In fact, he would have said any thing another man's wife with one, in a prison.' of any one against whom he entertained a pique. My blind adherence to Hunt could not But Hunt could not see the reasonableness but be much shaken by such oft repeated instances of an ignoble mind. of this distinction, and Bamford prints sundry blustering, ungrammatical epistles, which at last dissolved their friendship.' It had been in a thawing condition for some time. It is impossible to conceive of 'On the morning of the execution of the conspirators, I remained in my room, earnestly praying God to sustain them in their last hour; for though they professed not to believe in a future existence, I did, and could therefore sin-a shabbier creature on the whole than Mr. cerely say, "Father, forgive them! they knew Orator Hunt, as depicted in these volumes. not what they did." At noon, when all was over, I came down stairs.' The cordiality between Bamford and Healey also came to a close during an early we period of their confinement; but the details [age within about three weeks, I said; and about the doctor are too dirty for quotation. she was mother to a fine girl, now in the It is obvious that he could not away with ninth year of her age." "Oh! she was sorthe superior attention which Bamford's su-ry to have mistaken us," she said; « should have a comfortable bed ready in a perior talents and wiser demeanor could not few minutes." And so saying, she left the but command from the visiting magistrates. room, satisfied, no doubt, with the explanaThe hour of delivery came at last. Mr. tion which had set at rest her troublesome Bamford's parting with the authorities at qualms of conscience. We had most excelLincoln was an affecting scene he had lent lodgings; and in the morning we rose been treated like an erring brother, and he early and commenced our journey by lanes felt accordingly. This over, he exchanges of flowers and echoing the music of birds.' and shady foot paths-sweet with the breath gifts of kind remembrance with jailer and -Vol. ii. p. 221. turnkey, and in company with his faithful We stopped not at Whaley helpmate the ever-tidy, ever-pleasing Je- Bridge, for the sun was getting low, but mima, turns his face once more towards hastened to Disley, and after a brief rest Middleton-a sobered man, with a fixed there, we again started, though neither I nor resolution to eschew demagogues and agi- my fellow-traveller were so alert as in the tation. Of the last and happiest walk here morning. In fact, our feet began to be worse for our two days' travel, and when we recorded we must take a paragraph or two. got upon the paved causeway betwixt Bul'We continued our journey through a lev-lock Smithy and Stockport, it was like treadel country, full of woods and plantations, tilling on red-hot stones. Thus, long after nightthe broad waters of the Trent suddenly' ap- fall, we went limping arm in arm into Stockpeared before us. A shout and a signal Moorhouse, at the lower end of the town, We found the dwelling of our friend port. brought the ferryman over, and after some persuasion, with fear and trembling, my wife and knocking at the door were received with at length went on board, and we were ferried every hospitality. over, and landed in the county of Nottingham. A short and very agreeable walk through a rural country, with pretty English cottages embowered in gardens and fruittrees, brought us to the village of Great Markham, where we entered a snug little public-house, and took up our quarters. 'We sat chatting over our tea until it was nearly bed-time, and when I requested that we should be shown to our room, the landlady gave an inquiring and dubious glance at us, and retired, evidently to take a second thought upon the subject. The servant-woman next came into the room, pretending to fetch something, but once or twice I observed her taking side-looks at us; and as I perceived there were misgivings of some sort, I ordered a glass of liquor and a pipe, resolved to amuse myself by watching the shifts and manœuvres of these simple country-folks. 'My friend and his wife bustled about, and did all they could to make us comfortable. and then essayed to go to rest, but my poor We got a supper of good refreshing tea, little companion had to mount the stairs on her knees, she would not be carried upand when her stockings were removed, her feet were found covered with blood-red blis ters. I got some hot water and soap,-washed her feet well,-wiped them carefully, till quite dry,-wrapped them in her flannel petticoat, and put her to bed. I then washed my own feet, for they were not much better than hers, and committing ourselves to weariness and anxiety, and on awaking the divine care, we were soon oblivious of all next morning, our feet were as sound, for any thing we felt, as they were when we set out from Lincoln. 'Our walk to Manchester the next morn soon made ourselves comfortable in our own humble dwelling; the fire was lighted, the. hearth was clean swept, friends came to welcome us, and we were once more at home. "The mistress brought the glass, and the ing was a mere pleasure trip. We scarcegirl brought the pipe, and each gave a scruly stopped there, but hastening onwards, we entered Middleton in the afternoon, and were tinizing glance, which we seemed not to notice. We were both ready to burst into met in the street by our dear child, who came laughter, only my wife was a little appre-running, wild with delight, to our arms. We hensive lest we should be turned out of doors. I thee'd and thou'd her in their presence, as a man might do his wife-and talked to her in my ordinary careless way; and at last the landlady came, and begging we would not be offended, asked if the young woman was my wife? I now laughed outright, and my wife could not refrain, though she covered her face,-I assured the good woman that my companion had been my wife many years. "Nay she had no ill opinion of her," she said "only she looked so young." "But young as she appears, she reckons to be my "Be it ever so humble, There's no place like home."'—Vol. ii. p. 230. We have reason to believe that since 1821, Mr. Bamford has adhered to the good resolutions with which he left Lincoln that his quiet course of industry has not been unrewarded, and that he is now look ed up to as one of the most respectable prose surely is remarkable. With a suffiseniors in Middleton. The little work, cient spice of the prevailing exaggeration, which we suspect has not until now been and here and there a laughable touch of noticed in any journal likely to come be- the bathos, his language is, on the whole fore our readers in London, has, we see by clear, lively, nervous-worthy of the man. the title-page, had a considerable circula- That such English should be at the comtion in his own province-and it has even mand of one who, it must be supposed, attracted notice, by whatever accident, seldom conversed during his prime except abroad. It has been translated into Ger- in the dialect of Doctor Healey, is a fact man, and made such an impression that a which may well give pause to many of highly-distinguished Prussian traveller some those whose houses are like museums.' weeks ago repaired to Lancashire, chiefly, But the great lesson is to be drawn from as he assured us, for the purpose of spend- the incidents themselves of his story-the ing an evening with Samuel Bamford. small incidents especially-and the feelings We have in a sense enabled others to do and reflections which these are seen to so-but we hope our extracts will not satis- have excited in the narrator. No kindness, fy very many of these. Mr. Bamford's no mark or token of human sympathy and narrative ought to be read as a whole; and good-will, appears ever to have been thrown however widely we must dissent from some away upon Bamford. He was betrayed by of the political opinions even of his sedate youthful vanity into unhappy and all but retirement, there is a very great deal in his fatal delusions and transgressions: he still, ultimate reflections on the state of England, according to our view, labors under the and especially of English society, which misfortune of a false political creed. But deserves the most serious attention. We he never was, never could have been, at have quoted purposely not a few passages heart a Radical. We see no traces in him in reference to the manners of the weal- of any thing like a cold, rooted aversion for thier classes, which must amuse, but ought the grand institutions of England. There not merely to amuse them. Let them see are, we sincerely believe, among the more and consider in what aspects they are re-intelligent of his class, few, very few, whose garded by thousands upon thousands of minds would not be found open to salutary their fellow countrymen-and-granting impressions on the subjects as to which that these aspects are extremely distorted ask deliberately whether there is no remedy within their own power for what they must feel to be about the worst mischief that could befall a nation-the habitual misunderstanding and misappreciation of certain comparatively fortunate orders of society by those less fortunate, but infinitely more numerous, and including a great and rapidly increasing proportion of not merely vigorous natural talent, but talent cultivated and directed in a degree and a manner of which former generations could scarcely have anticipated the possibility. they have been most generally led astray, were they but approached and dealt with by their superiors in worldly gifts, with a little more of that frankness and confidence which made Samuel Bamford take leave of the Lincoln magistrates' with tears in his eyes.' He himself admits in his closing chapter, that things are in this respect mended since 1820; and surely his book ought to accelerate the improvement which it acknowledges. Öf Mr. Bamford's poetry we have read only the few specimens interwoven in this LIGHTING THE METROPOLIS.-The following Autobiography; and we are forced to ac- curious statistics, prepared by one of the princiknowledge that, judging by them, the Lon-pal gas companies, will give some idea of the don booksellers acted prudently in declin-means at present employed for lighting London ing his advances. His verse is not astonishing.' He is no Burns-he is not even to be named with the living weaverpoet of Inverury, Mr. Thom.* But his There are and its suburbs :-There are 18 public gas-works, conducted by 12 companies; their capital amounts tanks, &c. The revenue derivable therefrom is to upwards of £2,800,000, employed in pipes, estimated at £450,000 per annum. about 180,000 tons of coal used annually; there *We are sorry to confess that we have not are 1,460,000,000 cubic feet of gas made; 134,300 seen Mr. Thom's book-but only some most private lights, 30,400 public lights; 380 lamplighttouching stanzas of his, given in a generous arti-ers, 176 gasometers, several of them double, and cle of the Examiner' newspaper for September 15, 1844. capable of storing 5,500,000 feet; and about 2,500 persons are employed in various ways.-Times. ENGLISH OPINIONS ON GERMANY. From the Foreign Quarterly Review, (October.) offends them when it is not cooked to their palate. Even the unalterable elements to which so much of the fashioning of human 1. The Rural and Domestic Life of Ger-institutions is unavoidably adapted, will many. By William Howitt. London: Longman and Co. 2. German Experiences: addressed to the sometimes excite a biliary derangement in the English. They will make little or no allowance for the inevitable effects of climate. They would carry their own climate every where that sullen climate which destroyed poor Weber, that yellow climate, loaded with sulphur and human steam. Conceive then an Englishman writing a table of all men sitting down to a subject which, of all others, demands the most patient investigation, and the most complete suppression of previous theories. THERE are no two countries in the civilized world so similar in some aspects, and so dissimilar in others, as Germany and Eng-book upon social Germany, the most intracland. And the points of resemblance are so close, as to make the points of contrast absolutely glaring-perhaps even to produce a painful sense of uneasiness or distrust upon the detection of them. It is to this sort of strange antagonism, expanding amidst family affinities and sympathies, that we must mainly attribute all the vexed problems into which our English writers upon Germany are constantly falling. It must not be supposed from this prelude that we are about to analyze the works whose titles we have placed at the head of this paper. They are too well known to require any such process at our hands. The well-merited reputation of the author There is no country so difficult of access has already secured to them a large and in its real inner character as Germany.- admiring circle of readers, and every body We must know the people long and inti- who feels any interest in Germany, or the mately, and become ourselves habituated to Germans, may be presumed to be already their usages and modes of thinking, before tolerably familiar with their contents. But we can reconcile their surface contradic- we propose to touch upon a few of the tions, and discover the true harmony that salient opinions expressed in them, not for lies beneath. It is the most difficult of all the sake of criticising Mr. Howitt's writcountries for a foreigner to write a bookings, but merely to indicate some of the about, that shall be both faithful and com- points upon which, as it seems to us, our 'prehensive. countrymen are apt to entertain erroneous impressions. And of all book-writing people the English are the last to produce works upon the We have observed that Englishmen are domestic life of other nations in the right, not the best adapted by constitution, or unbiassed, universal spirit. It is not that temperament, or hereditary position, for they do not possess in a very high degree writing sound books of travels-carefully the requisite qualifications,--knowledge, confining the observation, however, to the keen observation, sagacity; but that they social and domestic phases of the subject. are afflicted with serious disqualifications, We must be frank enough to say that we which do not exist elsewhere in such para- do not consider Mr. Howitt an exception mount force-insular prejudices, a perpetual to the general rule. He is a thorough-bred tendency to think every thing wrong that Englishman in his tastes and habits, in his does not assort with their own modes and likings and his dislikings, in the uncomnotions, a constant recurrence to the one promising energy of his mind, his education, rigid self-elected judgment. The English and the aims and produce of his whole life. cannot go out of themselves: they cannot Were we to select the writer who, in our enter into the circumstances of other races. estimation, was best qualified to penetrate They can hardly comprehend a people ex- the recesses of our society, and portray isting without such an eternal pressure upon faithfully the actual life of our people, we their faculties as shall literally absorb out should unquestionably name William Howof every-day life all traces of poetry and itt. But it may be fairly doubted whether romance. There cannot be a greater enig- one who is thus deeply imbued with Engma to them than the silent influence of lish feeling, and whose modes of thinking tradition in moulding living customs and are so thoroughly English, is exactly the manners. Every thing that is new to them fittest person to undertake the delineation jars against their habits. Pleasure itself of foreign life. Such a book in such hands |