of the catastrophe, Mr. Cobden only remarked that he had sometimes regretted not having kept his temper a little longer at the interview above described, for he should have liked to know the price at which the fellow had ' valued his honesty.' was too inveterate to be overcome. He had cutwater for the gorgeous and heavy-laden never been recognized as worthy of such barge he was about to launch; and, having honour in his own country, he said, and seated himself and thrown open his furred how could he accept it therefore in anoth- pelisse, he began his revelations in the cuser? Lest his refusal should in any sense tomary strain. His host listened with illbe taken amiss, he supplemented his polit-concealed impatience, and eventually cut ical apology with one on the score of short the interview by unconditionally rehealth, which he pleaded as disabling him fusing to take the matter into consideration, from enjoying just then the excitement stating his opinion that, if any public man of so luxurious and glittering a sphere. in France or England lent his sanction to During his stay in Paris, he was beset the speculation, he would be guilty of comwith applications for his name and influence plicity in something little short of swindling. in the promotion of joint-stock companies The scheme, however, was too splendid to of various kinds. Hardly a day passed be abandoned. It did not fail; but not without letters from sanguine projectors, very long afterwards its author did, under offering him directorships in their promisful circumstances that gave rise to litigation in undertakings, with the usual guarantee many ways remarkable. When informed against loss, and upon any terms as to shares he chose to name. His sense of what was due to himself, to his character as the representative of his country, and to the cause he had in hand, rendered it impossible that he should entertain any of these proposals. He referred them all to One letter only out of a great number his friend Mr. Ellison, with whom an inti- that now lie before us we shall give in exmacy of many years had begotten confi-tenso. Some temptations are irresistible. dence the most completely unreserved; and Is not this one? He had promised Mr. Elby him they were generally answered. Or- lison to let him know the moment the Treadinary speculators were thus easily got rid ty was actually signed. There had been of, and were heard of by him no more, his many delays, and to the last some misgivfriend's position as a banker in Paris en- ings. At length it was a great fact accomabling him to discriminate in what terms plished; and the haste of joy is obvious in each of the various applications ought most the wording of the following note: fitly do be declined. There were some whose imposing air and provoking tone of bienfaisance disturbed for the moment the negotiator's equanimity. One day he received a courteous but somewhat condeThe Treaty is signed, and will, scending intimation, that one of the great commercial relations of the two countries. I I hope, in a few years change and improve the, est financial adventurers of the day intended have lost no time, according to promise, in givto call on him on the morrow, with the viewing you this information. Believe me, of laying before him a forthcoming scheme of more than ordinary magnificence, and which, in the slang of the Bourse, would be found to present features of peculiar importance to those who might be fortunate enough to be connected with it. Mr. Cobden requested his confidential adviser to be present at the interview, which the latter declined upon the ground that his doing so would probably prove a restraint, and would consequently lead only to a second visit or a correspondence, both of which it was desirable to avoid. But he consented to be within reach should anything occur rendering reference to him necessary. At the hour appointed the subtle weaver of golden dreams appeared, bowed benignantly to the un-worldly wise diplomatist, whose singleheartedness he probably pitied, while he thought it might be turned to account as a THIRD SERIES. LIVING AGE. VOL. XXXII. 'Private. 'MY DEAR SIR, 'M. Maurice Ellison. 23rd January, 1860. 'COBDEN.' It is hardly worth while recalling now the forebodings of failure, and the thwartings of faction and folly on our own side of the Channel, which had beset every step of the protracted negotiation. Even after the Treaty was signed, there were many in Parliament and in the press who strove to depreciate its importance, and to misrepresent it as a departure from true economic principle. The public judgment, however, was not disturbed by these cavillings, and the tangible proofs of the worth of the new international compact became month after month more and more incontestable in the returns of the Board of Trade. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, in acknowledging the obligation which Mr. Cobden had conferred on the country and the Government, 1480. felicitously noted the rare fortune which, after an interval of many years, had a second time enabled the same man to render a signal and splendid service to the State. Lord Palmerston was permitted by the Queen to offer a baronetcy and the rank of Privy Councillor to Mr. Cobden, as some recompense for that service, but he would have none; and, with his accustomed gentleness and absence of wordy egotism, he begged that he might be excused. Among the many congratulations from eminent persons abroad, came one especially cordial, both on political and personal grounds, from Mr. Charles Sumner, who, when in Europe, had entered fully into Mr. Cobden's anxiety to allay international feelings of distrust, and his unbelief in the danger of French invasion. I am happy,' he wrote, in your true success. You are the great volunteer, with something in your hand better than a musket. This Commercial Treaty seems like a harbinger of glad tidings. Let that get into full operation, and the war system must be discontinued.' The following winter and spring he spent at Algiers, for the benefit of his health. He had become of late years more susceptible of cold, which affected him with loss of voice, and at times with difficulty of breathing. In the charming climate of the southern shore of the Mediterranean he eluded for the time the attacks of his only enemy; and in the enjoyment of that best of material blessings, the unconsciousness of physical weakness. He seemed, on his return to England in May 1861, to have grown young again. His correspondence, like his conversation, at this period was full of solicitude about the course of events in America, and the consequences to Europe. An antislavery President had been elected, and the civil war had begun. From the outset he avowed his conviction that the geographical difficulties in the way of separation between North and South would prove insurmountable. The Western States, he thought, would never agree to leave the gates of their export trade, as he termed the mouths of the Mississippi, in hands that might at any time be hostile. He knew from personal acquaintance, that communities living by agriculture were less likely to be soon depressed by the financial changes incident to civil war than their brethren of the seaboard. He regarded President Lincoln as the impersonation of their indomita *16th February, 1860. ble will, and felt persuaded that they would persist in the prolongation of the war until the overmatched Confederates were exhausted. The proposal of the French Government to ours for joint intervention he strongly disapproved, not only on general grounds of principle, but because he was satisfied that it would fail. It would be impossible, as he conceived, to transport across the Ocean any force capable of coercing the United States into separation. The improvements made in the munitions of war tended greatly, in his view, to strengthen those who stood on the defensive against assault from a distant enemy. The engines of warfare had become so vast and so complicated in their appliances, that they were not easily conveyed for a long distance from home. This was, he thought, a salutary tendency in human affairs, as it was to be presumed 'that they who fought on their own soil were more likely to be in the right, than they who went far away from home to find a battle-field.' He sympathised intensely with the sufferings of Lancashire, and pleaded hard, though long in vain, that the factory hands should by timely measures be saved from sinking to the level of pauperism before receiving public aid. In this as in other instances his wise council was disregarded, until many of the evils it would have averted had been realized; and then the truth, officially re-discovered, was tardily confessed, and its demands conceded. But we must bring our recollections to a close. His last speech in public was addressed to his constituents at Rochdale early in November 1864. The weather was inclement and the place of meeting cold. He spoke at greater length than usual on the various topics of the day; and after the excitement and exertion were over he felt a chill which he was unable for many hours to shake off. He returned to Dunford, and, yielding to the advice of his physician, hardly left his house for the three ensuing months. When the proposal was made in Parliament, however, to vote large sums of money for fortifications in Canada, his desire to take part in opposing the scheme out-weighed all considertions of prudence; and on one of the coldest days of the coldest March within our recollection he came to town. The consequences of that fatal journey are well known. After a few days' suffering he sunk to rest, his life-work done-such work as few in any age or country have been good and great enough to do. From the Reader, 27th January. We are indebted to the Magazin für die Literatur des Auslandes for the knowledge of a rising poet in the far west, of whom we believe none of our readers have yet heard, but whose name will certainly ere long become familiar to all lovers of true poetry. Two years ago, in the midst of the great American struggle between North and South, a society was formed of men residing in the Western States who had been educated at any of the great public schools of the Republic. The society, which numbers between 500 and 600 members, held its second annual meeting in June last, and issued an octavo pamphlet of 108 pages, under the title of "Oration, Poem, and Speeches delivered at the Second Annual Meeting of the Associated Alumni of the Pacific Coast, held at Oakland, California, June 6, 1865. Published by the Association. (San Francisco: Towne and Bacon.)" Mr. Edward Rowland Sill, a young banker of San Francisco, wrote the poem on President Lincoln's death, which we quote at length from the pages of our German contemporary, extracted probably from the only copy of the pamphlet to be met with on this side of the Atlantic. We have headed it.: It was up with the jib and the topsail ; It was up, and sheet home, and belay;— She was all that he had or he cared for; - And gaily she went and quickly, Till half the voyage was o'er; For there and then :- but well you ken- 'Tis an old, old tale-up came the gale- He was not drowned, the skipper Nor I, who tell you the tale; For-ask not how I consoled him, LORD CLARENDON'S LIFE.* From the Saturday Review. | ness was only to be rich, and was generally beloved and esteemed by most persons of condition and great reputation." His acmost interesting passage of his writings. It count of these pleasant days is by far the is composed of characters of Ben Jonson, Selden, Sir Kenelm Digby, May, the historian of the Long Parliament, Lord FalkArchbishop of Canterbury, Hales, Chillingland, Waller the poet, Sheldon, afterwards WE made some remarks not very long ago on Lord Clarendon's History of the Rebellion. His autobiography - which is partly supplementary to, and partly a continuation of, his more famous work throws a good deal of additional light on the character of the author and on the age in which he lived. There are three principal periods accounts of Falkland and Chillingworth are worth, and some others of less note. The which the memoirs illustrate. First, the early part of his life, down to the meeting and deserve to be described as portraits of memorable passages in English literature, of the Long Parliament (birth, 18th Febru- the highest excellence. The other charary, 1609, to November, 1640). Secondly, acters are rather collections of remarks some parts of the history of the Long Par- than pictures. Clarendon's History and his liament and the civil war, and of the resi- Memoirs are full of interest, but their interdence of Charles II. abroad (1640-1660). est is that of the conversation of an experiThirdly, the Restoration, the early years of enced public man, who was, besides, one of Charles II.'s reign (1660-1667), and the the strongest of all conceivable partisans. six years which Clarendon passed in ban- It is not the interest of a work of art. ishment, until his death on December 9th, Moreover, his extreme gravity and stateliThe first period is much the most enter-ness, though it allowed him to be sarcastic taining. Clarendon was not industrious in from devising any of those pointed vigorous and occasionally humorous, prevented him his youth. He learnt very little at Col- expressions which, as Mr. Carlyle says of lege, where indeed he was a mere boy; and his life as a law student "was without great trait in three scratches and a dot. some of Mirabeau's, make a complete porThis application to the study of the law for some renders his portraits far less amusing than years, it being then a time when the town they would otherwise have been, and in endon's partisanship continually blinded his some respects less instructive. That Clarjudgment is painfully obvious. This appears strikingly in the worship which he deems his fault by his views of the Stuart lavished on Charles I.; but he partially reticular. His account of him and his brothfamily in general, and of Charles II. in parer is an admirable specimen of the sarcastic vein which he sometimes indulged :— 1673. was full of soldiers. And he had gotten into the acquaintance of many of those officers, which took up too much of his time for one year." He read some "polite literature and history," however, and, as he remarked in his old age, "lived cautè if not castè." He had, however, the means of seeing good society. He was connected by marriage with the family of the Marquis of Hamilton, and he was brought very early in his career into business of importance. In particular, he vindicated beIt was the unhappy fate of that family that fore the Privy Council the rights of the they trusted naturally the judgments of those merchants of London in a dispute which who were as much inferior to them in underaffected the revenue; and, in consequence standing as they were in quality. . . . They of his management of the case, he was in- were too much inclined to like men at first troduced to Archbishop Laud. His profes- sight, and did not love the conversation of men sional success and distinction put him in of many more years than themselves, and very pleasant circumstances. "He grew thought age not only troublesome but impertievery day in practice, of which he had as nent. They did not love to deny, and less to much as he desired; and, having a compe- bounty or generosity, which was a flower that strangers than to their friends; not out of tent estate of his own, he enjoyed a very did never grow naturally in the heart of either pleasant and a plentiful life, living much of the families-that of Stuart or the other of above the rank of those lawyers whose busi-Bourbon - but out of an unskilfulness and defect in the countenance; and when they preThe Life of Edward, Earl of Clarendon, Lord vailed with themselves to make some pause High Chancellor of England, and Chancellor of the University of Oxford. Containing, I. An Account rather than to deny, importunities removed all of the Chancellor's Life from his Birth to the Res-resolution, which they knew not how to shut toration in 1660; 2. A Continuation of the same, and out nor defend themselves against, even when it of his History of the Great Rebellion from the Res toration to his Banishment in 1667. Written by was evident enough that they had much rather If the Duke seemed more Himself. Oxford: 1761. not consent. We get, however, from Clarendon a very pleasing notion of his early friends. Perhaps the most characteristic point about them is their great intellectual activity, and the extraordinary degree of learning that some of them attained to. Falkland appears to have formed a kind of centre for the whole party, when he was little over twenty; and the well-known passage in which his pursuits are described is so beau passage fixed and firm in his resolutions, it was rather thirteen lines more, which we spare our from an obstinacy in his will than from the con- readers; but this is what it comes to. This stancy of his judgment. to which other well-known facts correspond as, for instance, the prodiA delightful character, from the most faith-gious learning of Selden, and the curiously ful servant and most zealous partisan that minute acquaintance with all the details of ever any family had. English history which was shown in the great Parliamentary debates of the period, and of which Mr. Forster's Life of Eliot supplies numerous illustrations raises the question whether men in those days were more energetic and industrious than in our own. To discuss it at length would lead us far from our present subject, but Clarendon's Life throws some light upon the matter. There would seem to have been hardly any light literature in those days, plays excepted; and the common subjects of education were fewer than at present. Falkland, for instance, who was carefully educated at Dublin, knew no Greek till he taught it himself long afterwards. Clarendon learnt French only during his second exile, " not " he says, "towards speaking it, the defect of which he found many conveniences in, but for the reading any books." A man might get through a great deal of reading if there were no circulating library works, no periodical literature, and only one language besides his own, or at most two, which he had any occasion to understand. tiful that we transcribe it : there. His whole conversation was one continued convivium philosophicum or convivium theologicum, enlivened and refreshed with all the facetiousness of wit and good humour, and pleasantness of discourse, which made the argument itself (whatever it was) very delectable. His house, where he usually resided (Tew or Burford in Oxfordshire), being within ten or twelve miles of the University, looked like the University itself, by the company that was always found There were Dr. Sheldon, Dr. Morley, Dr. Hammond, Dr. Earles, Mr. Chillingworth, and indeed all men of eminent parts and faculties at Oxford, besides those who resorted thither from London; who all found their lodgings there as ready as in the colleges; nor did the lord of the house know of their coming or going, nor who were in his house, till he came to dinner or supper, where all still met; otherwise there was no troublesome ceremony or constraint to forbid men to come to the house, or to make them weary of staying there; so that many came thither to study in a better air, find ing all the books they could desire in his library, and all the persons together whose company they could wish, and not find in any other society. Here Mr. Chillingworth wrote and formed and modelled his excellent book against the learned Jesuit Mr. Knott, after frequent debates upon the most important particulars. Next to his own immediate friends, the most interesting personages described in the early part of Clarendon's Life are Archbishop Laud and Clarendon himself. He was very fond of Laud; he "had so great an affection and reverence for his memory" that he "believed him to be a man of the most exemplar virtue and piety of any of that age." Laud took notice of him as he was just rising into large business at the Bar, and when life in general must have looked very bright to him; and probably some of the rays of that brightness fell upon the Archbishop. The only fault that he could, or would, see in him was the roughness of his manner. Clarendon probably secretly Lord Falkland's own studies were remark-liked him all the better for defects which he able: There were very few classic authors in the Greek or Latin tongue that he had not read with great exactness; he had read all the Greek and Latin fathers, all the most allowed and authentic ecclesiastical writers, and all the Councils, with wonderful care and observation; for in religion he thought too careful and too curious an inquiry could not be made amongst those whose purity was not questioned and whose authority was appealed to on both sides. The sentence meanders on for was conscious of not sharing, though he had It is the misfortune of most persons of that education (how worthy soever) that they have rarely friendships with men above their own condition, and that their ascent being commonly sudden from low to high, they have afterwards rather dependants than friends, and are still deceived by keeping somewhat in reserve to themselves even from those with whom they seem most openly to communicate, and, which |