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Prince-Regent: Another at James Ballantyne's, on the birtheve of a Waverley Novel. A Sunday-morning ramble. Abbotsford infested with tourists and wonder-hunters, what Schiller calls flesh-flies:' Captain Basil Hall compressed. The good Sir Walter bore it as he could; and did not sweep his premises clear of them. His guests not all of the bluebottle sort: A Boccaccio picture: Singular brute-attachments to Sir Walter Scott: A wise little Blenheim cocker: Strange animal and human resemblances. Alas, Scott, with all his health, became infected: The inane racket must now be kept up, and rise ever higher. A black speck in every soul. (219).— Had Literature no task but that of harmlessly amusing, the Waverley Novels were the perfection of Literature. Difference in drawing a character, between a Scott, a Shakspeare and Goethe. Not by quaintness of costume, can romance-heroes continue to interest us; but simply and solely by being men. Incalculable service these Historical Novels have rendered History. (237). The extempore style of writing. No great thing ever done without difficulty: The 'soul's travail.' Cease, O ready-writer, to brag openly of thy rapidity and facility! Quality, not quantity, the one thing needful. (241). Scott's career, of writing impromptu novels to buy farms with, could not in any case have ended in good. Alas, in one day his high-heaped money-wages became fairy-money and nonentity. It was a hard trial: He met it proudly, bravely; like a brave proud man of the world. The noble Warhorse that once laughed at the shaking of the spear, how is he doomed to toil himself dead, dragging ignoble wheels! Extracts from his Diary: His Wife's death: Lonely, aged, deprived of all; an impoverished, embarrassed man. Adieu, Sir Walter, pride of all Scotchmen, farewell! (246).

VARNHAGEN VON ENSE'S MEMOIRS.

Inexhaustible interest of Veracity and Memoir-writing: Varnhagen's peculiar gifts and qualifications. (p. 252). — Glimpses of literary worthies; Schleiermacher; Wolf; La Fontaine. A pleasant visit to Jean Paul, at his little home in Baireuth. A Battle-piece: Napoleon at Wagram; and Varnhagen's first experience of War. Varnhagen at the Court of Napoleon: What he saw; and what he thought of the Emperor. The eye sees only what it brings the means of seeing: Mystery and strength of originality. (257). - Varnhagen most of all rejoices in the memory of Rahel, his deceased wife. A kind of spiritual queen in Germany: One of the first to recognise the significance of Goethe. Her face with no pretensions to beauty, yet lovable and attractive in a singular degree: Its characteristics. Her Letters, of the subjective sort; an unprofitable kind of writing. Not by looking at itself, but by ascertaining and ruling things out of itself, can the mind become known. (270). — Her brilliant conversational powers. A few short extracts from her Letters: Obscure glimpses of the wealth and beauty of her loving woman's-soul. Her deathbed. That such a woman should have lived unknown, and as it were silent to the world, a suggestive

lesson to our time: Blessed are the humble, they that are not known. 'Seekest thou great things, seek them not;' live where thou art, wisely, diligently. The Working of the good and brave, seen or unseen, endures literally forever, and cannot die. (273).

PETITION ON THE COPYRIGHT BILL.

Assuring to each man the just recompense of his labour, the business of all Legislation and Government among men. To have written a genuine enduring book, not a sufficient reason for the forfeiture of the Law's protection. Why then should extraneous persons be allowed to steal from the poor book-writer the poor market-price of his labours? (p. 282).

ON THE SINKING OF THE VENGEUR.

The first public notice in England of Lord Howe's victory and the destruction of the Vengeur. (p. 285). — The French Convention, in its Reign of Terror, had to give its own version of the matter. Barrère reports it as a glorious victory for France: At length, unable to conceal the defeat, he pictures the manner of it as a spectacle for the gods. His Report translated, and published without comment, in the Morning Chronicle. The French naturally proud of so heroic a feat. It finds its way into English History. Extract from Carlyle's French Revolution:' Letter from RearAdmiral Griffiths, denying altogether the correctness of the account. Another Letter, giving an emphatic statement of the facts, as witnessed by himself. Letter from T. Carlyle to a distinguished French friend:' In the interest of all whom it may concern, let the truth be known. (286). — Letter from Rear-Admiral Griffiths to T. Carlyle, enclosing a Copy of Letter from Rear-Admiral Renaudin, Captain of the sunken Vengeur. The French Journals and official persons in no haste to canvass the awkwardlooking case. Response of one who did respond: Not a recantation of an impudent amazing falsehood; but a faint whimper of admission that it is probably false. Every windbag at length ripped; in the long-run no lie can be successful. Of Nothing you can, with much lost labour, make only Nothing. (294).

BAILLIE THE COVENANTER.

Mr. Robert Baillie, a solid comfortable Parish Minister of Kilwinning: How he became gradually heated to the welding-pitch, by the troubles of the Seventeenth Century. (p. 304). Happily his copious loquacity prompted him to use pen as well as tongue without stint. A collection of his Letters printed, and reprinted. Like the hasty, breathless, confused

talk of a man, looking face to face on that great whirl of things. Strange to consider; it, the very phenomenon itself, does stand depictured there, had we intellect enough to decipher it: With intellect enough, even 'your constant assured friend Charles Rex' were no longer an enigma and chimera. Duty of every reader to read faithfully; and of every writer to write his wisest: Shall stealing the money of a man be a crime; and stealing the time and brains of innumerable men be none? Warm-hearted, canny, blundering, babbling Baillie! The daily tattle of men, as the air carried it two-hundred years ago, becomes audible in these pages: With all its shortcomings, perhaps no book of that period will better reward the trouble of reading. (306). His account of the Scotch Encampment on the Hill of Dunse; King Charles looking on it with a spy-glass; though without much profit to himself. A far-off look into the domesticities of Baillie: A journey to London: All here weary of bishops: Strafford caged; Canterbury to be pulled down; and everywhere a mighty drama going on. (317). Impressive passages in the Impeachment and Trial of Strafford. How different from the dreary vacuity of Philosophy teaching by experience,' is the living picture of the fact; such as even a Boswell or Baillie can give, if they will honestly look! Our far-off Fathers, face to face; alive, and yet not alive. On our horizon, too, loom now inevitabilities no less stern; one knows not sometimes, whether not very near at hand. (325).

DR. FRANCIA.

The South-American Revolution, and set of revolutions, a great confused phenomenon; worthy of better knowledge than men have of it. (p. 339). — Liberator Bolivar, a much-enduring and many-counselled man. Of General San Martin, too, there is something to be said: His march over the Andes into Chile; a feat worth looking at. Might not the Chilenos as well have taken him for their Napoleon? Don Ambrosio O'Higgins: His industry and skill in road-making. O'Higgins the Second: Governing a rude business everywhere; but in South America of quite primitive rudeness. Ecclesiastic Vampire-bats. An immense increase of soap-andwater, the basis of all improvements in Chile. (340). By far the notablest of these South-American phenomena, Dr. Francia and his Dictatorship in Paraguay. Nothing could well shock the constitutional mind like this tawny-visaged, lean, inexorable Dr. Francia. Our chief source of information about him, a little Book by Messrs. Rengger and Longchamp: An endless merit in a man's knowing when to have done. The Messrs. Robertson, and their Francia's Reign of Terror and other books: Given a cubic inch of Castile soap, to lather it up in water so as to fill a winepuncheon. How every idle volume flies abroad like idle thistle-down; frightful to think of, were it not for reaphook and rake. In all human likelihood this sanguinary tyrant of Paraguay did mean something, could we in quietness ascertain What. (349).-Francia born about the year 1757;

of Portuguese or French extraction. Intended for a priest. Subject to the terriblest fits of hypochondria. Sent to the University of Cordova in Tucuman. Lank sallow boys in the Tucuman and other high seminaries, often dreadfully ill-dealt with, as times go: So much is unspeakable; and a most strange Universe, this, to be born into! Francia, arrived at man's years, changes from Divinity to Law. Had doubtless gained some insight into the veritable workings of the Universe: Endless heavy fodderings of Jesuit-theology he did not take-in. French-Encyclopedic influences, and Gospel according to Volney, Jean-Jacques and Company: An ill-fed, ghastly-looking flame; but a needful, and even kind of sacred one. Francia perhaps the best and justest Advocate that ever took briefs in that distant Assumpcion City. The people of that profuse climate in careless abundance, troubling themselves about few things: One art they seem to have perfected, that of riding. Their lives, like empty capacious bottles, calling to the Heavens and the earth, and to all Dr. Francias who may pass that way. Francia a lonesome, down-looking man, apt to be solitary even in the press of men: Passes every where for a man of veracity, punctuality, of iron methodic rigour and rectitude. A Law-case; an unjust judge discomfited. Francia's quarrel with his Father. A most barren time: Not so much as a pair of Andalusian eyes, that can lasso him permanently. But now, far over the waters there have been Federations, Sansculottism: In the new Hemisphere, too, arise wild projects, armed gatherings, invasions and revolts. A new figure of existence is cut-out for the Assumpcion Advocate. (359). — Not till a year after, did the Paraguenos, by spontaneous movement resolve on a career of freedom. National Congress: Papers 'compiled chiefly out of Rollin's Ancient History.' Paraguay Republic: Don Fulgencio Yegros, President; two Assessors; Francia, Secretary. Alas, these Guacho populations are greedy, superstitious. vain, mendacious: We know for certain but of one man who would do himself an injury, to do a just or true thing under that sun. Secretary Francia flings-down his papers, and retires again into privacy: An accidental meeting; description of the man, and of his library. The reign of liberty becomes unendurable: A second Congress got together: Fulgencio and Francia, joint Consuls. Next year, a third Congress; and Francia gets himself declared Dictator. He never assembled any Congress more; having stolen the constitutional palladiums, and got his wicked will! (373). - A great improvement did, nevertheless, in all quarters forthwith show itself: Every official in Paraguay had to bethink him, and begin actually doing his work. The land had peace; a rabid dog-kennel wide as South America raging round it, but kept-out as by lock-and-key. A Conspiracy; to start with the massacre of Dr. Francia and others, whatever it might close with: Francia not a man to be trifled-with in plots. It was in this stern period he executed above forty persons. A visitation of locusts: Two harvests in one season. (378). Sauerteig's sunglances into the matter. No Reform, whether of an individual or a nation, can be effected without stern suffering, stern working: Pity it cannot be done by tremendous cheers.' What they say about 'love of power:' Love of 'power'

to make flunkeys come and go for you! A true man must tend to be king of his own world. This Paraguay got the one veracious man it had, to take lease of it. Funeral Eulogium, by the Reverend Manuel Perez: Life is sacred, thinks his Reverence; but there is something more sacred still. Dictator Francia, a man whose worth and meaning are not soon exhausted. His efforts to rebuild the City of Assumpcion. His desire to open a trade with the English Nation,-foolishly supposed to be represented, and made accessible, in the House of Commons: Francia's unreasonable detestation of a man who was not equal to his word. (382). — His sore struggle with imaginary workmen, cleric and laic: In despair he erected his Workman's Gallows:' Such an institution of society, adapted to our European ways, everywhere pressingly desirable. O Guachos, South-American and European, what a business is it, casting-out your Seven Devils! (391). Francia; as he looked and lived, managing that thousandfold business for his Paraguenos, and keeping a sharp eye for assassins. His treatment of M. Bonpland; of his old enemy Artigas: His rumoured conduct to his dying Father. His interest in any kind of intelligent human creature, when such by rarest chance could be fallen-in with. So lived, so laboured Dictator Francia; and had no rest but in Eternity. O Francia, though thou hadst to execute some forty persons, I am not without some pity for thee! (394).

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AN ELECTION TO THE LONG PARLIAMENT.

How Pym, Hampden and others, rode about the country to promote the election of their own faction. Our entire ignorance, but for this fact, how that celebrated Long Parliament was got together. (p. 400). — Welcome discovery of certain semi-official Documents, relative to the Election for Suffolk. Sir Simonds D'Ewes, a most spotless man and High-Sheriff; ambitious to be the very pink of Puritan magistrates: How shall any shadow of Impartiality be suffered to rest on his clear-polished character? Hence these Documents. General character of our Civil-War documents and records: Comparative emphasis and potency of Sir Simonds' affidavits. An old contemporary England at large, as it stood and lived on that 'extreme windy day,' may dimly suggest itself. (403). -Samuel Duncon, Town-constable, testifieth:- Unconsciously, How the Polling was managed in those old days. Consciously, How the Opposition Candidate was magnanimously allowed every precedence and facility; and yet couldn't win: And, How in the rage of their disappointment and ingratitude, his party scandalously upbraided the immaculate High-Sheriff himself with injustice towards them. The High-Sheriff's own Narrative of his admirable carriage, and ill-requited magnanimity. (407). - Another case Sir Simonds had to clear-up: Being High-Sheriff, he returned himself for Sudbury: In this too he prospered, and sat for that Borough. A thin highflown character, by no means without his uses. Colonel Pride in the end had to purge him out, with four or five score others. He died soon after;

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