The disappointment and reaction which tariff, which is only an incentive to the followed the insalubrity of the 'land of opulent traders of Marseilles, damps the enpromise' were greatly increased by the rash eagerness of the first emigrants to purchase land from the Mussulmen, though they did not understand the nature of the interests they were buying, and were, in fact, entirely ignorant of the tenure of real property among the Algerines. Dispositions of estates, entailed by a species of mortmain, were extremely common. M. Blanqui, who was deputed by L'Academie des Sciences at Paris to investigate the causes of the failure of colonization in Algeria, informs us that those properties are called habous or engagés, of which the legal estate has been vested by some individual in an eleemosynary or other corporation, while the beneficial interest is reserved to himself and his successors in some determinate line. The confusion which would flow from this separation of the legal ownership from the actual enjoyment, in the alienation of land, may easily be imagined when we reflect, that in general its existence was unsuspected by the credulous emigrant, and undisclosed by the roguish vender! The effect of these improvident or fraudulent transactions has been to render the titles to property throughout the Regency extremely insecure; and this, combined with the destructive influence of malaria, has deprived France of that nucleus of enterprising and thriving colonists, without which any attempt to radiate over a more extended region must be futile, or at best unstable.

But as if France had been determined to afford her infant colonies on the African coast no aid she could possibly withhold, she has thought fit to fetter their foreign traffic, by the perfect freedom of which they could alone have hoped to surmount their other disadvantages, with trammels which are only suited to a city in its maturity. The

aventuré sans guide et sans précaution sur ce terrain en apparence si uni et si facile à parcourir ! S'il y aborde au temps des hautes herbes, il court le risque d'être enseveli dans ces forêts de graminées colos-ales qui paraissent de loin un tapis de gazon: S'il y círcule à l'époque des chaleurs de l'été, la terre entr'ouverte lui envoie des bouffées de gaz pestilentiels qui donnent la fièvre et la mort: enfin, dans la saisons des pluies, tout se change en cloaques fangeux ou en marais profonds qui recèlent autant de piéges et qui sont plus dangereux que la fièvre." Algerie, Par M. Blanqui,' p. 12. The attention of the French government has lately been ably called to the necessity of systematic cultivation. Vide Memoires au Roi sur la Colonisation de L'Algerie par L'Abbé Landmann. Paris. 1845.

terprise of the Algerines. They might well have imitated our example at Singapore, which, itself also formerly a mere nest of pirates, has, from the simple expedient of throwing open its ports, become a thriving city of 30,000 inhabitants: but the French, by establishing a douane before there was any commerce to tax, have rendered the first nugatory, and have paralyzed the latter. The peculiarites of the people among whom they were thrown, presented additional difficulties to the French. The features of the Arab character are strongly defined; and in a general way attach to the Kabyles, the Bedouins, the Beni Ammer, the Flittahs, and all that host of tribes, with the names of which the despatches of Marshal Bugeaud have made us familiar. Avarice, restlessness, treachery, and fanaticism: hospitality, hardihood, intelligence, and devotion, are some of the antagonistic traits which an Arab of the desert exhibits. In person, too, they all bear to each other a strong family resemblance. Well formed, clean limbed, muscular, and of middle stature, they are the very build for guerrilla troops. Their complexion is of a clear olive tint, often deeply browned by exposure to the sun; their eyes are dark and sparkling; their hair black, coarse, and luxuriant. Their senses are sharpened by constant exercise to a degree rivalling the acuteness of the North American Indians. A Bedouin will hear the murmuring of distant warfare, or detect in a cloud of dust an approaching caravan, where a European is utterly at fault. So far from dreading war, it is their choice and their pastime. An Arabian in his war-saddle would not exchange his seat for the softest divan in Persia. To slay a Christian he exultingly sacrifices his own life-for he well believes, that

"They that shall fall in march or fight,
Are called by Allah to realms of light;
Where in giant pearls the houris dwell,
And reach to the faithful, the wine-red shell;
With their words so sweet, and their forms so
fair,

Their gazelle-like eyes, and their raven hair;
Where the raptured ear may drink its fill
Of the heavenly music of Izrahil;

And bending from Allah's throne on high
Is the Tree of Immortality."

Such is the crafty creed which the Koran inculcates; and the Moslem too often shames the Christian in his choice between the Future and the Present.

Thus warlike in their tastes, the Arabs have thrown themselves heart and soul into the melée.

From Tait's Magazine.

Religion and interest, duty and NOTES ON GILFILLAN'S "GALLERY OF
LITERARY PORTRAITS."

pleasure, point towards the same path; and
it would require far more tact and circum-
spection than the French seem disposed to
exert to divert them from its pursuit.

But the truth is, that our volatile neigh

BY THOMAS DE QUINCEY.

[Continued.]

JOHN KEATS.

bors have not the gift of colonization." A Gallery of Literary Portraits." By They never have, and never will, succeed George Gilfillan. Edinburgh: Wm. in attaching the affections of a foreign peo- Tait. ple. The feelings of a nation, when conquered, are in a high state of irritation. That irritation must be allayed; but a MR. GILFILLAN introduces this section Frenchman has neither tact nor persever- with a discussion upon the constitutional ance to do so. Again; when once the peculiarities ascribed to men of genius; solid fruits of victory have been obtained, such as nervousness of temperament, idlea wise foe will refrain from glorying over ness, vanity, irritability, and other disahis opponent; but a Frenchman's vanity is greeable tendencies ending in ty or in ness; stronger than his prudence, and the bom- one of the ties being "poverty;" which bastic manifestoes of Bugeaud have use- disease is at least not amongst those morlessly exacerbated the enmity of the emir bidly cherished by the patients. All that and his followers. Once more: there is can be asked from the most penitent man no feeling stronger in the Arab bosom than of genius is, that he should humbly confess a veneration for domestic ties, and a regard his own besetting infirmities, and endeavor for female purity. The French have violat- to hate them and as respects this one ined the one, and have outraged the other; firmity at least, I never heard of any man and the result has been a loathing hatred (however eccentric in genius) who did of French habits and domination, which otherwise. But what special relation has seems to leave no hope of conciliation. such a preface to Keats? His whole article The war must now be one of extermination. occupies twelve pages; and six of these The only alternative is that of abandon- are allotted to this preliminanry discussion, ment—a measure that adverse circumstan- which perhaps equally concerns ces may hereafter force France to embrace other man in the household of literature. -but which we fear it would be vain to Mr. Gilfillan seems to have been acting hope from her moderation or her magnan- here on celebrated precedents. The imity. "Omnes homines qui sese student præstare cæteris animalibus" has long been “smok"Le grand argument," says M. Blanqui, Ped" by a wicked posterity as an old hack 101, " des puritains Maures ou Arabes a toujours été la corruption de nos mœurs plutôt que la différence des deux religions."

every

of Sallust's, fitted on with paste and scissors to the Catilinarian conspiracy. Cicero candidly admits that he kept in his writing desk an assortment of moveable prefaces, beautifully fitted (by means of avoiding all questions but "the general question") for parading, en grand costume, beAnd Cole

RELIGIOUS TOLERATION IN CHINA.-A letter has been issued by Keying, the high imperial commissioner of the Celestial ruler of the Chinese Empire, granting toleration to all sects of fore any conceivable book. Christians throughout the five ports (and, we presume, wherever they are permitted to be), in which this great functionary proclaims the following liberal principles: I do not understand drawing a line of demarcation between the religious ceremonies of the various nations; but virtuous Chinese shall by no means be punished on account of the religion they hold. No matter whether they worship images or do not worship images, there are no prohibitions against them, if, when practising their creed, they act well. You, the honorable envoy, need therefore not to be solicitous about this matter, for all western nations shall in this respect certainly be treated upon the same footing and receive the same protection."

ridge, in his earlier days, used the image of a man's "sleeping under a manchineel tree," alternately with the case of Alexander's killing his friend Clitus, as resources for illustration which Providence had bountifully made inexhaustible in their applications. No emergency could by possibility arise to puzzle the poet, or the orator, but should be made to meet it. So long as the one of these similes (please Heaven!) manchineel continued to blister with poisonous dews those who confided in its shel

ter, so long as Niebuhr should kindly forbear to prove that Alexander of Macedon was a hoax, and his friend Clitus a myth, so long was Samuel Taylor Coleridge fixed and obdurate in his determination that one or other of these images should come upon duty whenever, as a youthful writer, he found himself on the brink of insolvency.

weaving of an exquisite cambric. The curiosa felicitas of Horace in his lyric compositions, the elaborate delicacy of workmanship in his thoughts and in his style, argue a scale of labor that, as against any equal number of lines in Lucretius, would measure itself by months against days. There are single odes in Horace that must have cost him a six weeks' seclusion from the wickedness of Rome. Do I then question the extraordinary power of Lucretius? On the contrary, I admire him as the first of demoniacs; the frenzy of an earth-born or a hell-born inspiration; divinity of stormy music sweeping around us in eddies, in order to prove that for us there could be nothing divine; the grandeur of a prophet's voice rising in angry gusts, by way of convincing us that prophets were swindlers; oracular scorn of oracles; frantic efforts, such as might seem reasonable in one who was scaling the heavens, for the purpose of degrading all things, making man to be the most abject of necessities as regarded his causes, to be the blindest of accidents as regarded his expectations; these fierce antinomies expose a mode of insanity, but of an insanity affecting a sublime intellect.* One would suppose him partially mad by the savagery of his headlong manner. And most people who read Lucretius at all are aware of the traditional story current in Rome, that he did actually write in a delirious state; not under any figurative disturbance of brain, but under a real physical disturbance caused by philtres administered to him without his own knowledge. But this kind of super

But it is less the generality of this preface, or even its disproportion, which fixes the eye, than the questionableness of its particular statements. In that part which reviews the idleness of authors, Horace is given up as too notoriously indolent: the thing, it seems, is past denying: but "not so Lucretius." Indeed! and how shall this be brought to proof? Perhaps the reader has heard of that barbarian prince, who sent to Europe for a large map of the world accompanied by the best of English razors: and the clever use which he made of his importation was, that, first cutting out with exquisite accuracy the whole ring-fence of his own dominions, and then doing the same office, with the same equity, (barbarous or barber-ous,) for the dominions of a hostile neighbor, next he proceeded to weigh off the rival segments against each other in a pair of gold scales; after which, of course, he arrived at a satisfactory algebraic equation between himself and his enemy. Now, upon this principle of comparison, if we should take any common edition (as the Delphin or the Variorum) of Horace and Lucretius, strictly shaving away all notes, prefaces, editorial absurdities, &c. all "flotsom" and "jetsom" that may have gathered like barnacles about the two weather-beaten hulks; in that case we should have the two old files undressed, and in puris naturalibus: they would be prepared for being weighed; and, going to the nearest grocer's we might then settle the point at once, as to which of the two had been the idler man. I back Horace for my part; and it is my private opinion that, in the case of a quarto edition, the grocer would have to throw at least a two ounce weight into the scale of Lucretius, before he could be made to draw against the other. Yet, after all, this would only be a collation of quantity against quantity; whilst, upon a second collation of quality against quality, (I do not mean quality as regards the final merit of the composition, but quality as regards the difficulties in the process of composition,) the difference in amount of labor would appear to be as between the weaving of a blanket and theated.

There is one peculiarity about Lucretius, which even in the absence of all anecdotes to that effect would have led an observing reader to suspect some unsoundness in his brain. It is this, and it lies in his manner. In all poetic enits compass, so long as it is healthy and natural, thusiasm, however grand and sweeping may be there is a principle of self-restoration in the opposite direction: there is a counter state of repose, a compensatory state, as in the tides of the sea, which tends continually to re-establish the equipoise. The lull is no less intense than the fury of commotion. But in Lucretius there is no lull. Nor would there seem to be any, were it not for two accidents: 1st, the occasional pause in his episode; 2dly, the restraints (or at least the susraving tone enforced by the interruption of an pensions) imposed upon him by the difficulties of argument conducted in verse. To dispute metrically, is as embarrassing as to run or dance when knee-keep in sand. Else, and apart from these counteractions, the motion of the style is not stormy, but self-kindling and continually acceler

natural afflatus did not deliver into words tion for us, however, is, not what nature and metre by lingering oscillations, and prompted him to do, but what he did. If through processes of self-correction: it he had an extra difficulty to fight with in threw itself forward, and precipitated its attempting to labor, the more was his merit own utterance, with the hurrying and in the known result, that he did fight with bounding of a cataract. It was an astrum, a that difficulty, and that he conquered it. rapture, the bounding of a monad, by which This is undeniable. And the attempt to the muse of Lucretius lived and moved. deny it presents itself in a comic shape, So much is known by the impression about when one imagines some ancient shelf in a him current amongst his contemporaries: library, that has groaned for nearly a censo much is evident in the characteristic tury under the weight of the doctor's works, manner of his poem, if all anecdotes had demanding, "How say you? Is this Sam perished. And upon the whole let the pro- Johnson, whose Dictionary alone is a load portions of power between Horace and for a camel, one of those authors whom Lucretius be what they may, the propor-you call idle? Then Heaven preserve us tions of labor are absolutely incommensur-poor oppressed book-shelves from such as able: in Horace the labor was directly as you will consider active." George III. in the power, in Lucretius inversely as the a compliment as happily turned as if it power. Whatsoever in Horace was best-had proceeded from Louis XIV. expressed had been obtained by most labor; whatso-his opinion upon this question of the docever in Lucretius was best-by least. In tor's industry by saying, that he also should Horace, the exquisite skill co-operated join in thinking Johnson too voluminous a with the exquisite nature; in Lucretius, contributor to literature, were it not for the the powerful nature disdained the skill, extraordinary merit of his contributions. which, indeed, would not have been applicable to his theme, or to his treatment of it, and triumphed by means of mere precipitation, of volume, and of headlong fury.

Now it would be an odd way of turning the royal praise into a reproach, if we should say; "Sam, had you been a pretty good writer, we, your countrymen, should have held you to be also an industrious writer: but, because you are a very good writer, therefore we pronounce you a lazy vagabond."

Another paradox of Mr. Gilfillan's under this head, is, that he classes Dr. Johnson as indolent; and it is the more startling, because he does not utter it as a careless Upon other points in this discussion opinion upon which he might have been there is some room to differ from Mr. Gilthrown by inconsideration, but as a con- fillan. For instance, with respect to the cession extorted from him reluctantly: he question of the comparative happiness enhad sought to evade it, but could not.joyed by men of genius, it is not necessary Now, that Dr. Johnson had a morbid predisposition to decline labor from his scrofulous habit of body,† is probable. The ques

ents.

to argue, nor does it seem possible to prove, even in the case of any one individual poet, that, on the whole, he was either more

"Habit of body:" but much more from mis- Doctor rose about eleven A. M. This, he fancied management of his body. Dr. Johnson tampered was shocking; he was determined to rise at with medical studies, and fancied himself learned eight, or at seven. Very well; why not? But enough to prescribe for his female correspond-will it be credited that the one sole change ocThe affectionateness with which he some- curring to the Doctor's mind, was to take a flytimes did this, is interesting; but his ignoranceing leap backwards from eleven to eight, without of the subject is not the less apparent. In his own case he had the merit of one heroic self-conquest; he weaned himself from wine, having once become convinced that it was injurious. But he never brought himself to take regular exercise. He ate too much at all times of his life. And in another point, he betrayed a thoughtless ness, which (though really common as laughter) is yet extravagantly childish. Every body knows that Dr. Johnson was all his life reproaching himself with lying too long in bed. Always he was sinning, (for he thought it a sin :) always he was repenting; always he was vainly endeavoring to reform. But why vainly? Cannot a resolute than in six weeks bring himself to rise at any hour of the twenty-four? Certainly he can; but not without appropriate means. Now the

any corresponding leap at the other terminus of his sleep. To rise at eight instead of eleven, presupposes that a man goes off to bed at twelve instead of three. Yet this recondite truth, never to his dying day dawned on Dr. Johnson's mind. The conscientious man continued to offend; continued to repent; continued to pave a disagreeable place with good intentions, and daily resolutions of amendment; but at length died full of years, without having once seen the sun rise, except in some Homeric description, written [as Mr. Clifton makes it probable,] thirty centuries before. The fact of the sun's rising at all, the Doctor adopted as a point of faith, and by no means of personal knowledge, from an insinuation to that effect in the most ancient of Greek books.

happy or less happy than the average mass supports his prevailing views, they will be of his fellow men: far less could this be construed by any ten thousand men in ten argued as to the whole class of poets. What thousand separate modes. The objections seems really open to proof, is, that men of are so endless, that it would be abusing the genius have a larger capacity of happiness, reader's time to urge them; especially as which capacity, both from within and from every man of the ten thousand will be wrong, without, may be defeated in ten thousand and will also be right, in all varieties of proways. This seems involved in the very portion. Two only it may be useful to notice word genius. For, after all the pretended as examples, involving some degree of erand hollow attempts to distinguish genius ror, viz. Addison and Homer. As to the from talent, I shall continue to think (what first, the error, if an error, is one of fact heretofore I have explained) that no dis- only. Lord Byron had said of Addison, tinction in the case is tenable for a mo- that he "died drunk." This seems to Mr. ment but this: viz. that genius is that Gilfillan a "horrible statement;" for which mode of intellectual power which moves in he supposes that no authority can exist but alliance with the genial nature, i. e. with "a rumor circulated by an inveterate gosthe capacities of pleasure and pain; where- sip," meaning Horace Walpole. But gossips as talent has no vestige of such an alliance, usually go upon some foundation, broad or and is perfectly independent of all human narrow; and, until the rumor had been ausensibilities. Consequently, genius is a thentically put down, Mr. Gilfillan should not voice or breathing that represents the total have pronounced it a "malignant calumny.” nature of man; whilst, on the contrary, Me this story caused to laugh exceedingly; talent represents only a single function of not at Addison, whose fine genius extorts that nature. Genius is the language which pity and tenderness towards his infirmities; interprets the synthesis of the human spirit but at the characteristic misanthropy of with the human intellect, each acting Lord Byron, who chuckles as he would do through the other; whilst talent speaks only from the insulated intellect, And hence also it is that, besides its relation to suffering and enjoyment, genius always implies a deeper relation to virtue and vice: whereas talent has no shadow of a relation to moral qualities, any more than it has to vital sensibilities. A man of the highest talent is often obtuse and below the ordinary standard of men in his feelings; but no man of genius can unyoke himself from the society of moral perceptions that are brighter, and sensibilities that are more tremulous, than those of men in general.

As to the examples* by which Mr. Gilfillan

over a glass of nectar, on this opportunity for confronting the old solemn legend about Addison's sending for his step-son, Lord Warwick, to witness the peaceful death of a Christian, with so rich a story as this, that he, the said Christian, 66 died drunk." Supposing that he did, the mere physical fact of inebriation, in a stage of debility where so small an excess of stimulating liquor (though given medicinally) sometimes causes such an appearance, would not infer the moral blame of drunkenness ; and if such a thing were ever said by any person present at the bed-side, I should feel next to certain that it was said in that spirit of exaggeration to which most men * One of these examples is equivocal, in a way are tempted by circumstances unusually fitthat Mr. Gilfillan is apparently not aware of. He ted to impress a startling picturesqueness cites Tickell," whose very name" [he says,] "savors of laughter," as being, "in fact, a very upon the statement. But, without insisting happy fellow." In the first place, Tickell would on Lord Byron's way of putting the case, I have been likely to " square at Mr. Gilfillan for believe it is generally understood that, latthat liberty taken with his name; or might even, terly, Addison gave way to habits of intemin Falstaff's language, have tried to "tickle his catastrophe." It is a ticklish thing to lark with perance. He suffered, not only from his honest men's names. But, secondly, which Tick-wife's dissatisfied temper, but also (and proell? For there are two at the least in the field of bably much more) from ennui. He did not English literature: and if one of them was "very walk one mile a-day, and he ought to have happy," the chances are, according to D. Bernoulli and De Moivre, that the other was particularly miserable. The first Tickell, who may be de- tion," in which he anticipated and dramatically scribed as Addison's Tickell, never tickled any rehearsed the course of a whole parliamentary thing, that I know of, except Addison's vanity. debate, (on the king's speech,) which did not take But Tickell the second, who came into working place till a week or two afterwards. Such a order about fifty years later, was really a very mimicry was easy enough, but that did not prevent pleasant fellow. In the time of Burke he divert- its fidelity and characteristic truth from delighting ed the whole nation by his poem of "Anticipa- | the political world.