berg and the Erebus, collision was inevitable. We instantly hove all aback to diminish the violence of the shock: but the concussion when she struck us was such as to throw almost every one off his feet: our bowsprit, fore-topmast, and other smaller spars, were carried away; and the ships, hanging together, entangled by their rigging, and dashing against each other with fearful violence, were falling down upon the weather-face of the lofty berg under our lee, against which the waves were breaking and foaming to near the summit of its perpendicular cliffs. Sometimes she rose high above us, almost exposing her keel to view, and again descended as we in our turn rose to the top of the wave, threatening to bury her beneath us, whilst the crashing of the breaking upperworks and boats increased the horror of the scene. Providentially they gradually forged past each other and separated before we drifted down amongst the foaming breakers-and we had the gratification of seeing her clear the end of the berg and of feeling that she was safe. But she left us completely disabled; the wreck of the spars so encumbered the lower yards, that we were unable to make sail, so as to get headway on the ship; nor had we room to wear round, being by this time so close to the berg that the waves, when they struck against it, threw back their sprays into the ship. The only way left to us to extricate ourselves from this awful and appalling situation was by resorting to the hazardous expedient of a stern-board, which nothing could justify during such a gale and with so high a sea running, but to avert the danger which every moment threatened us of being dashed to pieces. The heavy rolling of the vessel, and the probability of the masts giving way each time the lower yard-arms struck against the cliffs, which were towering high above our mast-heads, rendered it a service of extreme danger to loose the mainsail; but no sooner was the order given than the daring spirit of the British seaman manifested itself. The men ran

up the rigging with as much alacrity as on any ordinary occasion; and although more than once driven off the yard, they, after a short time, succeeded in loosing the sail. Amidst the roar of the wind and sea, it was difficult both to hear and to execute the orders that were given, so that it was three-quarters of an hour before we could get the yards braced bye, and the maintack hauled on board sharp aback-an expedient that, perhaps, had never before been resorted to by seamen in such weather; but it had the desired effect. The ship gathered stern-way; plunging her stern into the sea, washing away the gig and quarter-boats, and with her lower yard-arms scraping the rugged face of the berg, we in a few minutes reached its western termination. The "under tow," as it is called, or the reaction of the water from its vertical cliffs, alone preventing us being driven to atoms against it. No sooner had we cleared it, than another was seen directly astern of us, against which we were running; and the difficulty now was to get the ship's head turned round and pointed fairly through between the two bergs, the breadth of the intervening space not exceeding three times her own breadth; this, however, we happily accomplished; and in a few minutes after getting before the wind, she dashed through the narrow channel, between two perpendicular walls of ice, and the foaming

breakers

breakers which stretched across it, and the next moment we were in smooth water under its lee.

'The Terror's light was immediately seen and answered: she had rounded-to, waiting for us, and the painful state of suspense her people must have endured as to our fate could not have been much less than our own; for the necessity of constant and energetic action to meet the momentarily varying circumstances of our situation, left us no time to reflect on our imminent danger.

We hove-to on the port tack, under the lee of the berg, which now afforded us invaluable protection from the fury of the storm, which was still raging above and around us; and commenced clearing away the wreck of the broken spars, saving as much of the rigging as possible; whilst a party were engaged preparing others to replace them.

'As soon as day broke we had the gratification of learning that the Terror had only lost two or three small spars, and had not suffered any serious damage; the signal of "all 's well," which we hoisted before there was light enough for them to see it, and kept flying until it was answered, served to relieve their minds as speedily as possible of any remaining anxiety on our account.

A cluster of bergs was seen to windward, extending as far as the eye could discern, and so closely connected, that, except the small opening by which we had escaped, they appeared to form an unbroken continuous line; it seems, therefore, not at all improbable that the collision with the Terror was the means of our preservation, by forcing us backwards to the only practicable channel, instead of permitting us, as we were endeavouring, to run to the eastward, and become entangled in a labyrinth of heavy bergs, from which escape might have been impracticable.'-vol. ii. pp. 217-221.

The harbour of Port Sims was reached on the 7th of April; and the interval from this date to the close of the year was occupied in the refitting of the ships, in the prosecution of scientific occupations, and in a voyage to and from Cape Horn.

We shall not at present offer any detailed remarks on the last and least successful of the three voyages. The lottery, in which Weddell had drawn the prize of a mild season and an open sea, presented to Ross nothing but the blank of pack-ice, contrary gales, and, in one quarter, a barrier much resembling that of the 78th degree, though of inferior altitude. Before these obstacles, and the near approach of the Antarctic winter, the ships were finally put about in the 71st degree, on the 7th March. They came safely to anchor at the Cape of Good Hope on the 4th April, 1843.

One sailor, washed overboard near Kerguelen Island, and a quarter-master, James Angelly, who fell from the mainyard on their return from the second cruise, make up the whole list of fatal casualties for the three years of toil and danger. The sick list is equally compendious-a single officer and sailor invalided,

and

and since recovered. These statistics are the best commentary on the management, as well as the outfit, of the expedition.

One important branch of the commission intrusted to it has been admirably carried out by its botanist, Mr. S. D. Hooker, a worthy son of the learned Director of the Kew Gardens. It must be remembered that the operations of the expedition, though they were extended beyond the regions of vegetable life, were not confined to such barren latitudes. The ships were in no instance frozen up, and the long intervals of nautical inaction were fertile in employment for Mr. Hooker, in such localities as the Falkland Islands and New Zealand. We believe that a moderate government grant was never more scrupulously and ably applied than the 500l. allotted for his publication of the Flora Antarctica'- -a book which must find its place in every botanist's library, and which contains much matter interesting to other classes of readers.

The extracts which we have given may save us the trouble of commenting on Sir James Ross's work, as respects literary execution. They will speak better than we could for the plain, modest, and manly taste of the author-which seems entirely worthy of his high professional character and signal services.

We must beg a parting word with those who persevere in asking the old utilitarian question, What good is to result from these discoveries? What interest shall we receive for the expense of outfit, pay, and allowances? We are not about to make a flourish about national reputation, the advance of science, or other topics of small interest to such questioners. Let them study the pamphlet of Mr. C. Enderby in connexion with the description of the Auckland Islands given in the sixth chapter of Sir James Ross's first volume. They will learn that this little group is singularly adapted, by position and other natural features, to assist the revival of a most important, though at present, to all appearance, moribund department of British industry, the Southern Whale-fishery. We care not whether the term be used in that extensive sense which it has derived from the circumstance that the vessels destined for it take a southern departure from England, or whether it be used with more limited reference to the southern circumpolar regions. In the former sense, it may be said to embrace the whole extent of ocean minus the Greenland If the time should arrive, perhaps some symptoms of its approach are discernible, when Englishmen can find capital, leisure, and intellect, for any object and any enterprise other than that of connecting points in space by intervening bars of iron, we believe that few speculations will be found more sound, more

seas.

profitable,

profitable, and more congenial to our national habits than that suggested by the present grantee of the Auckland Islands, which were discovered under his auspices-the industrious, the liberal, and the eminently sagacious and practical Mr. Enderby.

ART. VII.-Mémoires de Fléchier sur les Grands Jours tenus à Clermont, en 1665-1666. Publiés par M. Gonod, Bibliothécaire de la ville de Clermont. pp. 461. Paris, 1844.

T

6

HIS work, the editor informs us, is published under the patronage of the French government, and especially of the enlightened Minister of Public Instruction, M. Villemain,' and whatever we may think of its literary merits, its historical interest certainly justifies its publication. M. Gonod thinks that the graces of the style, the flow of the narrative, and the benevolence of the sentiments, more remarkable than even the events narrated, will add to the reputation of the amiable and eloquent Bishop of Nismes. We venture to be of a quite different opinion: we think that a most curious and interesting subject is very much marred by the trivial and superficial style in which it is treated. Flechier has always been considered as rather a brilliant orator than a profound thinker: this work certainly confirms that judgment, and to a much greater degree than we could have expected. The Grands Jours de Clermont' exhibited the closing scene of a very strange and picturesque state of society -a series of historical pictures of life and manners at the critical period when the individualities of the feudal system were making their last ineffectual struggles with the unity and vigour of a central sovereign authority. But Flechier saw it all from a lower point of view, and has treated these remarkable days as topics of sentimental gossip and flowery narratives, in the very bad style of the Scuderys-alternating criminal atrocities and rural felicities, passing from executions to flirtations, and interspersing the deepest tragedies with madrigals and sonnets-in elegant language indeed, but, as it seems to us, with marvellous bad taste and a strange misconception of the moral and historical interest of the scenes which he witnessed. There are also several passages in which the clergy—the monastic orders-and other still more serious subjects, are treated in an irreverent tone, so unlike the times and so little becoming the sacerdotal character, that we have been more than once inclined to suspect that the work was

bers of the Grands Jours d'Auvergne to have sat in Guienne or Britanny. We doubt also whether M. Gonod's derivation of the name itself does not partake of the same error. It certainly differs from that given by, we think, better authorities. 'Les Grands Jours ont été ainsi appellés comme qui dirait Grands Plaids.'-(Menage.) 'Les Grands Jours sont ainsi nommés à la différence des jours-c'est à dire des plaids-ordinaires.'(Loiseau.) In fine, these Grands Jours had a strong analogy to our assizes, except that, unfortunately for France, they were neither so general, so frequent, nor so regular as amongst us.*

To understand in any degree the state of society which this work develops, we must recollect that France was still subjected to all the forms, and in a great degree to the substantial evils, of the old feudal system. In those disorderly times,' says Adam Smith, every great landlord was a sort of petty prince: his tenants were his subjects. He was their judge; and in some respects their legislator in peace and their leader in war. He made war according to his own discretion, frequently against his neighbours, and sometimes against his sovereign.'-(W. of N., b. iii. c. 2.) The landlords were vassals of the Crown, and the tenants were vassals of the landlord, and these, instead of paying for the land they occupied in the shape of a fixed rent, were subjected to duties, services, and supplies in kind, and their natural consequences, aids, that is, fines or compositions in money in lieu of such duties and supplies. This system, so pregnant with exaction and oppression, was never so severe or general in England as on the continent of Europe, in the eastern parts of which it is still to be found; but even in England, where liberty dawned earliest, it was not legally extinguished till the 12th of Charles II., and in truth there still remain some traces of it in our copyhold tenures, by which, although pretty generally mitigated and regulated by legal custom, the lord still has in too many cases heriots, uncertain fines, and other arbitrary dues. It was not till the reign of George II., after the rebellion of 1745, that the heritable jurisdictions were abolished in Scotland; and even in 1773 Dr. Johnson and Boswell were startled at hearing Sir Alexander MacLean say to one of his highlanders who had neglected to send him a bottle of rum, You rascal don't you know that I can hang you if I please?' They at first thought that the Baronet knew of some misdeed of the fellow's which would have exposed him to the capital vengeance of the law; but it turned out to be only the good gentleman's recollection of his primitive authority, recently

The Parliaments of Toulouse and Bordeaux were directed by a royal ordonnance in 1498 to hold their Grands Jours biennially in the various towns of their jurisdictions.

abolished