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them of direct complicity with Barnum. Such, at least, is the deduction which every unprejudiced reader must form from a perusal of his book; but, as the man is obviously not to be relied on, this may possibly be a slander. In Great Britain, the character of the press, generally speaking, is high; but it might yet be higher. We know that whenever there is a case of palpable abuse, a corrective is sure to follow; but we wish that there were fewer instances of abuse. Above all, we would impress most strongly upon our journalists, who have a most important function to perform, the absolute necessity which exists of applying themselves vigorously to the detection and exposure of the frauds which are now constantly attempted to be palmed upon the public. Let us state instances. About two years ago, if so much, a couple of wretched little dwarfs, called Aztecs, were exhibted here by people of the stamp of Barnum. They were, unquestionably, greater curiosities in conformation than General Tom Thumb, for they were not merely dwarfs, but they seemed hardly allied to the human family. They were, if we recollect aright, stated to be children of the Incas-hereditary priests of the sun carried off by the survivor of two or three daring explorers, who had ventured their lives by penetrating into a still-existing city of the ancient Peruvians in Central America; and we have a lively recollection of the woodcuts which pourtrayed the escape of the heroic Yankee from the town, clasping the two sacerdotal pledges with one hand to his bosom, whilst the other was more formidably occupied by the presentation of a Colt's revolver towards thousands of bereaved worshippers. The only mistake which the Aztec showmen committed, was that they did not lie with sufficient confidence. They were timid in their statements. They merely said, that such was the story they had received from the individual who first brought these interesting little objects within the pale and ken of civilisation, &c.; and by declining to indorse the lie authoritatively, they gave occasion for suspicion. It is now understood that the poor little things were mere cretins

from some Indian community, selected because they were so miserably small, decrepid, and helpless, and then hawked about, for enlightened European exhibition, under cover of a story which was really more preposterous than any which Barnum has devised, or, at all events, chronicled in his confessions. It was not the fact, but the fiction, which, in the case of the Aztecs as well as in that of Tom Thumb, excited the curiosity of the public. The humble showman who attacked Barnum at Warwick, hit the nail on the head when he exclaimed, "Tom Thumb has got the name, and you all know the name's everything. Tom Thumb couldn't never shine, even in my van, 'longside of a dozen dwarfs I knows, if this Yankee hadn't bamboozled our Queen-God bless herby getting him afore her half-a-dozen times." Barnum deliberately falsified the age of his dwarf; the exhibitors of the Aztecs got up a spurious history for theirs-and in both instances the success was mainly owing to the deception. Nobody would pay sixpence for the sight of an ordinary monkey without a story or a pedigree ; but if any showman possessed ingenuity enough to persuade the public that an ape in his possession had been the pet Jocko of the Queen of Sheba, and had received nuts from the hand of Solomon, his caravan would be crammed to overflowing. Many of us who sneer at the folly of clowns who have been victimised by pretended fortune-tellers, or at the intense stupidity of the farmer who has been pillaged by the adepts in thimble-rig, have, in our own persons, been quite as egregiously gulled. John Bull laughs with scorn at the mention of Popish relics, and professes himself unable to comprehend the imbecility of those who make pilgrimages to visit them; yet within half an hour afterwards, the excellent man takes Mrs Bull and the junior members of his family to see the wonderful exhibition of two infant priests, brought from a mysterious city in Central America, as detailed in a newspaper account which he read that morning with infinite gratification and amazement!

Great, indeed, is the power of humbug! In the absence of literary no

1855.]

Revelations of a Showman.

velties from the pens of living authors,
we are to be regaled with fiction, in
the double sense, from the dead.
Scarcely had Mr Lockhart, Scott's
son-in-law and literary executor, been
laid in the grave, than a gentleman in
Paris announced that he had in his
possession a most valuable curiosity,
in the shape of an unpublished ro-
mance by the author of Waverley!
Of course, there is no want of vouch-
ers; nay, there is a letter said to be
in Scott's handwriting, which accom-
panied the present of the manuscript.
It is judiciously stated that the work
itself is not of the highest degree of
literary merit-not likely, in short, to
rival Ivanhoe, or Guy Mannering, or
the Heart of Midlothian in public esti-
mation; but that it contains unmis-
takable traces of the hand of its great
composer. In short, the authenticity
of Moredun, a romance, is now posi-
tively asserted. We are asked to be-
lieve that Scott was in the habit of
bestowing valuable works of fiction
upon his acquaintances, just as the
Count of Monte Christo is described
as acknowledging the most petty ser-
vices with such trifles as diamonds and
rubies, of which, it appears, he always
kept a large stock in his waistcoat
pocket. Moredun is not mentioned
in Scott's diary, which affords a most
accurate record of his literary labours:

but what of that? When the book comes out, my masters, you can read and judge for yourselves. Surely you know the style of the old master too well to be misled by a counterfeit ;is it conceivable that any one would attempt a hoax which is so easy of detection? Alas! the good public has, times without number, been taken in by hoaxes quite as desperate as this. There was George Psalmanazar with his history and dictionary of Formosa, Chatterton with his Rowley poetry, and Ireland with his lost tragedy by The adroit urchin in Shakespeare. the brook always tickles his trout before he seizes it. There is no surer way to deceive the public than to appeal boldly to its discrimination-no better method of vending spurious ware, than an expressed appeal to the general verdict. How are men to judge unless they read-how can they read unless they buy?

Ambrose de Lamela! thy lot was cast centuries too early. Hadst thou lived in these latter days, we might have seen thee domiciled in a Pavilion, with any amount of dollars in the bank, enlightening and improving the world by virtuous precept and example, and claiming to be "a public benefactor, to an extent seldom paralelled in the histories of professed and professional philanthropists!"

THE LIFE OF LORD METCALFE.

IN the commencement of the present century, at his residence in Portland Place, London, there was living a Major and Sir Thomas Metcalfe, a baronet, an East India Director, and member of Parliament for the borough of Abingdon. His fortune and his military rank had been obtained in India; his baronetcy had been won in Parliament by steady voting for the ministry of Pitt. Sir Thomas Metcalfe had two sons at Eton, Theophilus and Charles. The younger of these, having survived his brother, succeeded to the baronetcy, and was afterwards elevated to the peerage under the title of Lord Metcalfe. Leaving England at a very early age, as "writer" to the East India Company, he rose to be Governor-general of India; he afterwards served his country, at a very critical period, as governor of Jamaica; and finally, under circumstances still more difficult and discouraging, accepted and filled most creditably the office of Governorgeneral of Canada. There are few civilians who have rendered more substantial, laborious, unostentatious service to the State; there are few men whose lives, public and private, better deserve a record. More brilliant reputations may easily be found, but it would be difficult to select a safer example by which to stimulate our youth to honourable ambition. Lord Metcalfe rose by toil to the highest posts, and attained the prize without a speck upon his character. Amidst unremitting and often very anxious labour, he retained unimpaired a kind and amiable disposition. A firmness and determination, which might have become a military hero, were in him based entirely on sense of duty, not on the sentiment of personal pride, and were therefore compatible in him with a simplicity and gentleness of temper which might have become a woman. Nowhere surely shall we find, in more complete unison, an affectionate nature and

the spirit and talents which constitute the able governor.

Mr Kaye in these memoirs has done justice to his subject. The only objection to which his work appears to us to lie exposed is, that it is somewhat more bulky than was necessary. This is owing to the number of letters and other documents introduced; but his own narrative would be also improved, if it proceeded with rather more rapidity and precision. We forget who it was that, at the end of a long epistle to his friend, apologised for its length on the ground that "he had not time to write a shorter." Mr Kaye would probably make the same apology. He is lengthy out of haste. With a little more time, or a little more care, he would have produced a shorter book, and without the sacrifice of a single fact or a single thought. There are too many extracts. Some of these are furnished by a journal or commonplace-book kept by Metcalfe when very young. Now, nothing is more interesting than the narrative of the early days of men who have distinguished themselves, but nothing can be less entertaining or less instructive than the early efforts of composition which the clever lad makes, whether under the head of essay, or theme, or moral reflection. You might as well present us with the child's copybook, and show us how he made his pothooks. They can, at best, be characteristic only of the sort of tuition he is then and there growing under. Some long letters, addresses, and other state papers, might have been omitted with advantage. Though it is the habit or necessity of Indian statesmen to write much, it is not the habit of English readers to plod diligently through official correspondence. Mr Kaye seems aware that he has made some mistake of this description; but as the book was written, he contents himself with answering some imaginary objections in the preface. These objections-which are not

The Life and Correspondence of Charles Lord Metcalfe. By WILLIAM Kaye.

precisely the same as his reader will be disposed to make-are answered in a manner so easy and ingenious, and which admits of so ready an application to every possible dilemma in which an author can find himself, that it would be injustice to pass it unnoticed. Mr Kaye says in his preface "The records of Metcalfe's early life some may think have, in these pages, been unduly amplified. But, rightly or wrongly, what I have done, I have done advisedly, systematically." And further on, when he presumes his reader may object to his fulness of historical detail, he says, "Such a stricture would not be without justice so far, at least, as regards the fact. But here again, if I have erred, I have erred designedly, and after mature consideration." Whether the reader will derive any comfort or satisfaction from being told that the weariness which occasionally oppresses him was inflicted systematically, designedly, and "after mature consideration," may perhaps be doubtful. Something, indeed, seems to be added about the system which is accompanied with this inconvenient result; but the whole ends in this, that whatever Mr Kaye does, he does with his eyes perfectly wide open-a fact which we have not the least disposition to dispute, and which, it seems, ought to silence any further opposition.

The defence, however, is as grave probably as the nature of the fault required. Some share of tediousness, more or less, seems inevitable in the biography of a civilian and a statesman. Besides, what could Mr Kaye do? The friends or the trustee of the deceased commit to his discretion whole boxes of letters, memoranda, diaries, addresses, one knows not what. Not to select a considerable handful from all these boxes would seem to cast a slight upon their contents. And after all, the reader has his remedy in his own hands-at his fingers' ends; and we can conscientiously say, that, with the aid occasionally of a rapid manipulation of the pages, these memoirs of Lord Metcalfe will be found both an entertaining and instructive work. For our part, we shall endeavour to put together, in a brief compass, some portion of its most interesting matter.

VOL. LXXVII.-NO. CCCCLXXII.

If Mr Kaye objects to this usage of his book, as being somewhat of a piratical character, we shall content ourselves with replying that, "Rightly or wrongly, we do it systematically -advisedly."

It does not appear to us that Mr Kaye is open to the charge of writing in that spirit of adulation so often displayed by the friendly biographer; and we are therefore a little surprised that he should deal so liberally, especially at the outset, in an epithet which the world in general confines to a chosen few. "When Metcalfe became great," "before his greatness," are expressions which startled us a little. Receiving our impression entirely from the memoirs before us, we yet should not speak of Mr Metcalfe as a great man. He was an excellent man, and amongst the highest order of public servants, and a better man than many whom we call great; but he does not stand out so completely from the throng of men as to justify this epithet. We really think that Mr Kaye was led into the use of it by an unconscious imitation of that youthful diary from which he has been extracting, and where it is a very favourite word. What we find in the character and career of Metcalfe, is a noble specimen of the men whom England breeds in her public schools and public life: a man of practical sagacity, of steadfast determination, of unimpeachable integrity; generous and affectionate in his private life, and animated by a due admixture of personal ambition and sense of duty in his public career. We say a due admixture of these, because a man will do very little in the world at all, unless he feels the promptings of ambition; and certainly very little good in it, unless he is directed by a strong sense of duty.

One trait in his intellectual character presents itself at the outset, and it is distinctive not only of himself, but of the majority of educated Englishmen. The sagacity requisite for the hour is combined with decision, and steadfastness of purpose; you have the man of action, of administrative ability, completely before you; but there is the utter absence of all speculative thought. Beyond the emergency of the present times, or the

plain duties for the next generation, whether these concern government, or laws, or religion-he neither sees, nor makes effort to see. Neither in the youth fresh from Eton, nor in the ruler of Brahminical India, do we trace the least tendency to speculative thinking. There is no admixture of the philosophic element. Perhaps it could only have been purchased by the sacrifice of some portion of the courage, decision, and activity of the man. We are compelled reluctantly to confess that this is the penalty generally paid down for a participation in the meditative spirit. A Sir James Mackintosh and a Sir Charles Metcalfe could hardly have been united in the same person. If the laws of mental chemistry do not absolutely forbid such a combination, it is so rare that we have no right to feel disappointment at not meeting with it. We mention the fact as characteristic of his class. The young Etonian (and if it had been the young Oxonian, the case would not have been different) was not likely to quit the shores of England with any speculative tastes. In the classical education of England there is little room for philosophy. The camp, the court, the republican city-war and peace Homer and Horace-something the young spirit learns of these. A long line of Pagan deities is seen retreating through some Gothic vista. But, for the rest, if anything divides the allegiance he pays to his own spiritual hierarchy, it is Zeus and Pallas, Apollo and the Nine-not any abstraction of philosophy. He may have almost made room in his imagination for more gods than his Church is cognisant of, but it is not the clouds which metaphysicians, those untamable Titans, raise up against all spiritual thrones, which have bewildered him. "Metaphysics, I abhor you!" cries young Metcalfe, then between the ages of eighteen and nineteen. One glance he must have thrown in that direction even to have abhorred; but everything assures that it was a very hasty glance. Judging from the materials his biographer has given us, he was never tempted into a nearer acquaintance with this detested shadow. Here is a quotation from the Commonplace Book. "[Etat. 18-19.] "HUMAN MIND.-M- is a strong in

stance of the weakness of the human mind. He has entered on a discussion of too great magnitude for his understanding. He has adopted the modern notion that Reason-Blessed Reason-ought to be our guide in matters of religion and by all the rights of man to oppose whatgovernment, and that we are authorised ever is opposite to our reason. It is this fallacious, detestable principle which has loaded the world for the last twenty years with crime and misery. It is the doctrine of Paine, Godwin, and the Devil the root of all vice and the bane of every virtue. O Lord, I humbly call upon you to release me from this abominable spirit, and to keep me steadfast in the right way!"

The piety of this prayer who can doubt? But one cannot help remarking that a Scotch youth of the same age might be equally pious, equally steadfast in his faith, and perhaps more conversant with the several articles of his creed, but he never would have expressed the tenacity of his convictions in this manner,―never would have spoken of "blessed reason" ironically. He never for a moment could have put his Faith in antagonism to Reason, however he might have thought this latter word abused by the Paines and Godwins of the day. His first and last boast would have been that his faith was the perfection of reason. A Scotch lad who had only breathed the air of Glasgow, or of Edinburgh, would have never shrunk from intellectual contest, or professed that the creed he held and cherished was not in perfect harmony with the truly blessed reason. He would as soon have thought of proclaiming himself a lunatic in the public streets, and avowing a preference for a slight shade of insanity. Such distinction we cannot help noticing between the systems of education in England and Scotland, but we have no intention of pursuing the subject, or drawing any laboured comparison between their respective merits.

Still less do we by this observation intend to throw disparagement on the subject of these memoirs. Academical education of any kind was dealt in very scanty measure; and if he does not rise into higher regions of thought than his own duties require, he is always seen equal to those duties.

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