And

prise to the most) shooting Niagara, to the bottom? above all, what are the possibilities, resources, impediments, conceivable methods and attemptings of its ever getting out again?" Darker subject of Prophecy can be laid before no man; and to be candid with myself, up to this date I have never seriously meditated it, far less grappled with it as a Problem in any sort practical. Let me avoid branch first of this inquiry altogether. If 'immortal smash,' and shooting of the Falls, be the one issue ahead, our and the reformed Parliament's procedures and adventures in arriving there are not worth conjecturing, in comparison ! — And yet the inquiry means withal, both branches of it mean, "What are the duties of good citizens in it, now and onwards?" Meditated it must be, and light sought on it, however hard or impossible to find! It is not always the part of the infinitesimally small minority of wise men and good citizens to sit silent; idle they should never sit.

Supposing the Commonwealth established, and Democracy rampant, as in America, or in France by fits for 70 odd years past, -it is a favourable fact that our Aristocracy, in their essential height of position, and capability (or possibility) of doing good, are not at once likely to be interfered with; that they will be continued farther on their trial, and only the question somewhat more stringently put to them, "What are you good for, then? Show us, show us; or else disappear!" I regard this as potentially a great benefit ;-springing from what seems a mad enough phenomenon, the fervid zeal in behalf of this "new Reform Bill" and all kindred objects, which is manifested by the better kind of our young Lords and Honourables; a thing very curious to me. Somewhat resembling that bet of the impetuous Irish carpenter, astride of his plank firmly stuck out of window in the sixth story, "Two to one, I can saw this plank in so many minutes;" and sawing accordingly, fiercely impetuous, with success! But from the maddest thing, as we said, there usually may come some particle of good withal (if any poor particle of good did lie in it, waiting to be disengaged!)—and this is a signal instance of that kind. Our Aristocracy are not hated or disliked by any Class of the People, but on the contrary are looked up to,

with a certain vulgarly human admiration, and spontaneous recognition of their good qualities and good fortune, which is by no means wholly envious or wholly servile, -by all classes, lower and lowest class included. And indeed, in spite of lamentable exceptions too visible all round, my vote would still be, That from Plebs to Princeps, there was still no Class among us intrinsically so valuable and recommendable.

What the possibilities of our Aristocracy might still be? this is a question I have often asked myself. Surely their possibilities might still be considerable; though I confess they lie in a most abstruse, and as yet quite uninvestigated condition. But a body of brave men, and of beautiful polite women, furnished gratis as they are,—some of them (as my Lord Derby, I am told, in a few years will be) with not far from two-thirds of a million sterling annually,-ought to be good for something, in a society mostly fallen vulgar and chaotic like ours! More than once I have been affected with a deep sorrow and respect for noble souls among them, and their high stoicism, and silent resignation to a kind of life which they individually could not alter, and saw to be so empty and paltry; life of giving and receiving Hospitalities in a gracefully splendid manner. "This, then" (such mute soliloquy I have read on some noble brow), “this, and something of Village-schools, of Consulting with the Parson, care of Peasant Cottages and Economies, is to be all our task in the world? Well, well; let us at least do this, in our most perfect way!"

In past years, I have sometimes thought what a thing it would be, could the Queen 'in Council' (in Parliament or wherever it were) pick out some gallant-minded, stout, wellgifted Cadet,—younger Son of a Duke, of an Earl, of a Queen herself; younger Son doomed now to go mainly to the Devil, for absolute want of a career;—and say to him, "Young fellow, if there do lie in you potentialities of governing, of gradually guiding, leading and coercing to a noble goal, how sad is it they should be all lost! They are the grandest gifts a mortal can have; and they are, of all, the most necessary to other mortals in this world. See, I have scores on scores of 'Colonies,' all ungoverned, and nine-tenths of them full of jungles, boa-constrictors, rattlesnakes, Parliamentary Eloquences, and Emancipated Niggers ripening towards nothing but destruc

tion: one of these you shall have, you as Vice-King; on rational conditions, and ad vitam aut culpam it shall be yours (and perhaps your posterity's if worthy): go you and buckle with it, in the name of Heaven; and let us see what you will build it to!" To something how much better than the Parliamentary Eloquences are doing,-thinks the reader? Good Heavens, these West-India Islands, some of them, appear to be the richest and most favoured spots on the Planet Earth. Jamaica is an angry subject, and I am shy to speak of it. Poor Dominica itself is described to me in a way to kindle a heroic young heart; look at Dominica for an instant.

Hemispherical, they say, or in the shape of an Inverted Washbowl; rim of it, first twenty miles of it all round, starting from the sea, is flat alluvium, the fruitfulest in Nature, fit for any noblest spice or product, but unwholesome except for Niggers held steadily to their work: ground then gradually rises, umbrageously rich throughout, becomes fit for coffee; still rises, now bears oak woods, cereals, Indian corn, English wheat, and in this upper portion is salubrious and delightful for the European,-who might there spread and grow, according to the wisdom given him; say only to a population of 100,000 adult men; well fit to defend their Island against all comers, and beneficently keep steady to their work a million of Niggers on the lower ranges. What a kingdom my poor Friedrich Wilhelm, followed by his Friedrich, would have made of this Inverted Washbowl; clasped round and lovingly kissed and laved by the beautifulest seas in the world, and beshone by the grandest sun and sky!

"Forever impossible," say you; I contrary to all our notions, regulations and ways of proceeding or of thinking"? Well, I daresay. And the state your regulations have it in, at present, is Population of 100 white men (by no means of select type); unknown cipher of rattlesnakes, profligate Niggers and Mulattoes; governed by a Piebald Parliament of Eleven (head Demosthenes there a Nigger Tinman),—and so exquisite a care of Being and of Well-being that the old Fortifications have become jungle-quarries (Tinman "at liberty to tax himself"), vigorous roots penetrating the old ashlar, dislocating it everywhere, with tropical effect; old cannon going quietly to honeycomb and oxide of iron, in the vigorous embrace of

jungle military force nil, police force next to nil an Island capable of being taken by the crew of a man-of-war's boat. And indeed it was nearly lost, the other year, by an accidental collision of two Niggers on the street, and a concourse of other idle Niggers to see, who would not go away again, but idly re-assembled with increased numbers on the morrow, and with ditto the next day; assemblage pointing ad infinitum seemingly, had not some charitable small French Governor, from his bit of Island within reach, sent over a Lieutenant and twenty soldiers, to extinguish the devouring absurdity, and order it home straightway to its bed. Which instantly saved this valuable Possession of ours, and left our Demosthenic Tinman and his Ten, with their liberty to tax themselves as heretofore. Is not Self-government" a sublime thing, in Colonial Islands and some others?-But to leave all this.

V.

I almost think, when once we have made the Niagara leap, the better kind of our Nobility, perhaps after experimenting, will more and more withdraw themselves from the Parliamentary, Oratorical or Political element; leaving that to such Cleon the Tanner and Company as it rightfully belongs to; and be far more chary of their speech than now. Speech issuing in no deed is hateful and contemptible :-how can a man have any nobleness who knows not that? In God's name, let us find out what of noble and profitable we can do; if it be nothing, let us at least keep silence, and bear gracefully our strange lot!—

The English Nobleman has still left in him, after such sorrowful erosions, something considerable of chivalry and magnanimity polite he is, in the finest form; politeness, modest, simple, veritable, ineradicable, dwells in him to the bone; I incline to call him the politest kind of nobleman or man (especially his wife the politest and gracefulest kind of woman) you will find in any country. An immense endowment this, if you consider it well! A very great and indispensable help to whatever other faculties of kingship a man may have. Indeed it springs from them all (its sources, every kingly faculty lying in you); and is as the beautiful natural skin, and visible sanction, index and outcome of them all. No king can rule without it; none but potential kings can really have it. In the

crude, what we call unbred or Orson form, all 'men of genius have it; but see what it avails some of them,—your Samuel Johnson, for instance,—in that crude form, who was so rich in it, too, in the crude way!

Withal it is perhaps a fortunate circumstance, that the population has no wild notions, no political enthusiasms of a "New Era" or the like. This, though in itself a dreary and ignoble item, in respect of the revolutionary Many, may nevertheless be for good, if the Few shall be really high and brave, as things roll on.

Certain it is, there is nothing but vulgarity in our People's expectations, resolutions or desires, in this Epoch. It is all a peaceable mouldering or tumbling down from mere rottenness and decay; whether slowly mouldering or rapidly tumbling, there will be nothing found of real or true in the rubbish-heap, but a most true desire of making money easily, and of eating it pleasantly. A poor ideal for “reformers," sure enough. But it is the fruit of long antecedents, too; and from of old, our habits in regard to “reformation," or repairing what went wrong (as something is always doing), have been strangely didactic! And to such length have we at last brought it, by our wilful, conscious, and now long-continued method of using varnish, instead of actual repair by honest carpentry, of what we all knew and saw to have gone undeniably wrong in our procedures and affairs! Method deliberately, steadily, and even solemnly continued, with much admiration of it from ourselves and others, as the best and only good one, for above two hundred years.

Ever since that annus mirabilis of 1660, when Oliver Cromwell's dead clay was hung on the gibbet, and a much easier "reign of Christ" under the divine gentleman called Charles II. was thought the fit thing, this has been our steady method: varnish, varnish; if a thing have grown so rotten that it yawns palpable, and is so inexpressibly ugly that the eyes of the very populace discern it and detest it,―bring out a new pot of varnish, with the requisite supply of putty; and lay it on handsomely. Don't spare varnish; how well it will all look in a few days, if laid on well! Varnish alone is cheap and is safe; avoid carpentering, chiselling, sawing and ham