assemblage of happy faces. Mr. and Mrs. Rodney had no wish beyond the limits of their domestic circle, unless such as philanthropy dictated. Their children and dependants were emulous of their smiles; around them the despotism of patriarchal government was unknown; to signify their will was to be obeyed with pleasure. As the companion of their son, I met an exhilarating welcome. A change had passed upon my being, and I seemed to inhale the air of a milder world.-O household harmony!-holiest guardian of the hearth why is thy shrine so oft made desolate!

Frank was delighted in leading me wherever he could hope to afford wonder or gratification. We threaded the woodlands, rambled over hill and dale, studied the secrets of the brook, gambolled on the fresh-mown hay, and uttered at random every fleeting thought born of our joyous impulses. Weary with wandering, we preferred at sunset the repose of the drawing-room. Groups of deer browzing in the park, to me a novelty, led Mr. Rodney to discourse on natural history. He displayed a rare collection of insects, with preparations and engravings of the large animals, and described their habits and organization. By the aid of a power ful microscope, he showed how bountifully Providence has distributed his gifts to his creatures; how that the little living things which spend their brief existence within the limits of a green leaf, are as perfect in their proportions, in as full possession of the spirit of vitality, as the far-darting eagle or the tree-rending elephant. Great and little, he said, were merely relative terms, invented to express the difference of the magnitude of bodies, but intrinsically inapplicable to animated nature; the gnat being as important in the eye of its Maker as the lion. The same observa tions applid to time and the duration of life. With Him to whom there was no beginning, to whom there could be no end-before whose space-exploring glance one day is as a thousand years, a thousand years as one day-the few genial hours in which the ephemeral fly flutters its wing, propagates its kind, and dies, are as complete a cycle as the most extended compass allotted to humanity.-Pp. 78–81.

What an excellent picture of domestic felicity! How much is it to be regretted that such men as Mr. Rodney (for there have been others like him), so well qualified to lead

their children from nature to nature's God, should destine their sons for the ruthless profession of war: but so it is; and this visit gave young Earnshaw the first hankering after military fame.

The amusements of the young people cherished the latent spark.

The evening was closed with music, for which Ellen, Mr. Rodney's eldest daughtion she bestowed on the accomplishment. ter, evinced a taste that justified the attenShe played the simple melodies pleasant to an untutored ear, which I loved as early as I could distinguish a tune; which continue to captivate still.

After hearing a military march, peculiarly agreeable to Frank, we retired for the night; my friend having arranged that we should sleep in the same apartment. The great clock struck two ere we ceased to converse. We recounted the events we had witnessed at Mount Monasticon, and speculated upon the chances of our future career. Both longed to share the adventurous gaiety of the soldier, to wear the nodding plume, the glittering epaulet, the glancing sword; to be captains of troops and companies; to have our outgoing and incoming heralded by trumpet and drum. Slumber stole upon us in the midst of parades, sieges, and battles; and the "pride, pomp, and circumstance Pp. 81-83. of glorious war" mingled with our visions.

Upon his return home Frank accompanied him, and the conversation naturally turned upon the subject that engrossed their attention.

The hour was beguiled by the repetition of imaginary grievances; my companion denouncing the yoke of the university: I lamenting the unrelenting rigour that forced me to study a profession I detested. We united in thinking that the army was the sphere in which we were destined to astonish the world, and vowed to take the first step to heroism at the earliest opportunity.-P. 88.

After this visit these two youthful friends were for some time separated. Frank Rodney went to Oxford, to complete his studies before he entered into the army, and Earnshaw took a journey to Glasgow, to enter on a medical curriculum. Ardent and highly imaginative, prudence and

economy were but little consulted by our hero; he was, however, preserved from the grossness of vice. He again incurred his father's displeasure, which increased the distance between the father and the son, and by making home irksome to him, facilitated his acceptance of Frank Rodney's invitation to quit the paternal roof for the army. He went to see Frank at St. Aymers, after his return from Oxford, and found his friend had commenced a military training, under the inspection of a recruiting sergeant. Rodney invited him to join his corps as a gentleman volunteer, saying he might command his influence, and be his comrade in fortress and field.

"You're a generous fellow, Rodney." "Nonsense!-I consult my own enjoyment. Yes, or no?"

"I should like to accept your offer, but-"

"You dread the obligation. Come, come-don't be nice about nothing. For resolute spirits the skies of the Peninsula rain commissions; and when you awaken some fine morning with an epaulet on your shoulder, why we can talk of a bill for meat, drink, washing, and lodging.' There are glorious opportunities nowWellington has done wonders-Junot beaten at Vimeiro-Victor at TalaveyraMassena at Busaco. I almost fear the sport will be over before I'm on the ground-but Napoleon's staunch. Your decision, old chum !—a blade of blue steel, or a gold-headed cane?”

"My hand; Rodney-I am yours!”Pp. 151, 152.

· Our

young hero's enthusiastic feelings are well described in the following passage. To explain some allusions in it, it is necessary to ob

serve that he had formed an attachment for Rodney's sister.

Telling my friend that I should depart from St. Aymers at day-break, we exchanged a heavy good night.

In the darkness and quietude of the bed-chamber, with nothing to disturb the stream of thought, the occurrences of the day arising before me in all their magnitude, brought a burning flush to my cheek. Spain, Portugal, the army-it was no illu

VOL. VIII. NEW SERIES.

sion!-I should actually witness the grand array of battle, and traverse the enchanting

scenes to which I had been often transdared to address the language of passion ported on the wings of fiction! I had to the peerless daughter of an ancient house! What would be her opinion of me? How should I meet her again? Yet she was not unmoved; she had not discouraged me; she had already confessed esteem, and this, from her, was no light acknowledgment.

What was there to beget despair? I was young, enterprising, educated, matched to the genius of the times, which laughed to scorn the pretensions of hereditary superiority. Junot had risen from the ranks; Lasnes gloried in having been a grenadier; their compeers, the children of a revolution, reaped their honours with the sabre. Napoleon himself had been a needy adventurer, born in a paltry island, where distinction was a farce-a king of which had pined a pauper in an English prison.

To hail our native shore after a season of successful strife, crowned with fame and fortune-Rodney a colonel-I a general! The chance was cheap at any hazard. How exultingly should I lead Ellen to the altar-the lady of Lieutenant General Sir Robert Earnshaw !-O youth!-youth!— Pp. 159, 160.

house to meet Rodney at the Isle of By appointment he left his father's Wight, where the regiment lay, when his father thought he was gone to Edinburgh, to finish his medical studies; an act of filial disobedience, of which he afterwards had cause deeply to repent. His reflections on the road will close the extracts we have selected to illustrate the military ardour which excites inexperienced youth to leave their peaceful home for the perilous scenes of war and carnage.

Change of scene, and the rush of newborn hopes, dissipated, or alleviated the regrets which clogged my receding steps from the abode of honest independence. As the coach whirled along, I conjured up brilliant images of military life: horsed and plumed like Murat, I headed the charge, awoke the trumpet among the hills, or made town and tower tremble before the roar of artillery. To the sublimity of siege and battle succeeded the revelling of victory- the studied magnificence: of

H

triumph. On the hard-fought field, hosts of the brave paid homage to the conqueror; in the vast square of the imperial city he rode conspicuous amidst armed multitudes, waving banners, the smiles of beauty, and the acclamations of the populace!-P. 174.

These descriptions of excitement to heroic achievements are no fiction, no imagination; we still retain a vivid recollection of the time, though now long gone by, when similar

emotions were awakened in our bosom, not by tales of fiction, but by reading the realities of history through a false colouring, which crowned the hero and conqueror with never-fading laurels, and sunk into contempt the arts of peace as tame and inspiring to no noble deeds. Happily for us, holier impressions were, at an early period, made upon the mind, which for ever dissipated the military mania that might otherwise, had opportunity offered, have hurried us to make the same desperate experiment as young Earnshaw. Notwithstanding Earnshaw's predilection for a military life, he might probably have been prevented from entering it, had his father more studied his son's temper and disposition, and so acted as to conciliate his love and esteem. The father having returned home from a journey,.

The sight of his fireside had a genial influence on his disposition, which was thawed towards us all. I was drawn to him by "the cords of love," and while he spoke mildly and persuasively, there was no sacrifice to filial obedience I was not willing to make. He trusted I would give him no farther cause of uneasiness, but persevere manfully and steadily in a line of action calculated to insure my own happiness, and to impart peace to his soul ere he descended to the "narrow house."

This appeal to kindlier feelings touched me to the quick. I meditated abandoning the military project, and revoking the pledge to Rodney.—Pp. 162, 163.

This was only a temporary gleam of sunshine; a subsequent display of his father's displeasure, which was not often proportioned to the occa

sion, destroyed all his good resolutions ; so much more beneficially influential is kindness than severity over the mind. Some judicious remarks of our author, on the ill effects of undue severity, are too valuable to be omitted.

Over-severity of punishment always defeats its object, hardening, in place of table correction might have the most benemollifying, the disposition, on which equificial operation. It dishonours Penitence by attiring her in the weeds of Meanness, and invests Obduracy with the toga virilis of Resolution. There are many points of resemblance between unsophisticated boyhood and uncivilized man: none more marked than their mutually ready discernment of, and acquiescent respect for Justice. If parents err in its distribution, it ought to be on the side of clemency. Children cannot penetrate beyond the surface; the look, the word, and the blow, are to them the ultimate signs of condemnation; when these are dealt forth in too hard a measure, they come, like me, to indulge the destructive notion that they are the victims of passion, and that the pains or privations, to which they are compelled to submit, are less the penalty of the offence, than the misfortune of the offender.-Pp. 92, 93.

These observations would equally apply to our penal statutes as to our domestic discipline. We now return to our narrative, which proves that the beau ideal of heroism ill accords with the real details of a military life. After our hero had reached Weymouth he proceeded, by a coasting vessel, to the Isle of Wight.

Following the directions given in Rodney's letter, I speedily discovered him. Our meeting was characterized by the warmth that animates hearts on which the world has not yet set its seal. He repeated the assurances of his friendship; entreated me to be perfectly at ease as to regimental concerns; introduced me to his acquaintances; and aided in arranging the preliminaries by which I was to become regularly attached to the service.

ters among the officers at the depôt There was a strange medley of charac-' English, Welsh, Irish, and Scotch: some smoothed by friction with society, others bristling with nationalities, Among them

I recognized my arrogant school-fellow Peel, who had been promoted to a lieutenancy in our corps.

When the gloss of novelty had worn away, I began to tire of the island and inactivity. My conception of the military gentleman was borrowed from the antique portraiture of Plutarch, and the highcoloured records of knighthood. In the majority of my associates, I discerned none of the qualities which constitute the ideal hero. Dinners, wines, wagers, and prospects of advancement, were their graver themes; stale jokes, and marvellous sporting anecdotes, thickly garnished with oaths, formed their staple of entertainment. Frontless and monopolizing selfishness was apparent nearly in all, except those who had lately attained their "blushing honours." With few of them was I disposed to mingle.-Pp. 177, 178. The troops at length sailed from the Isle of Wight for Lisbon, and they joined the army under the command of Lord Wellington, within the lines of Torres Vedras. Our hero's introductory reflections, upon the opening of his campaigning in Portugal and Spain, are fraught with good sense and intelligence; they are, indeed, the language of experience, bringing under our review the multitudinous evils which are brought upon mankind by war.

volunteered by the sons of the sword, of the defences, natural and artificial, by which we were protected on the heights of Torres Vedras. Whether the lines were works entirely new, or old ones reconstructed; whether the glory of their erection belonged to the Portuguese engineers, or to the hero of Waterloo, are points with respect to which I feel in the last degree indifferent.

There are recollections of the period that leave the mind no room for entertaining the dull technicalities of slaughter. The country had been deserted on the advance of the invading army. The forlorn inhabitants, homeless, penniless, and despairing, thronged towards the capital, darkening its vicinity by the dismal aspect of the most grievous suffering. Of many piteous sights I was the unwilling witness: I was informed of others still more appalling. Like deer driven into a narrow through a band of savage hunters, the fastness, whence there is no egress but unhappy children of the soil were cooped within the confined district between the western extremity of the mountainous chain called the Sierra de Estrella, the Tagus, and the sea. Thither had they flocked at an adverse season of the year old and much as was portable of what the poor young, vigorous and infirm; bearing as are fain to dignify by the name of property, and groaning under the dire conviction that their habitations would be given to the flames-their gardens trampled under the horse-hoofs of hostile squadrons-their vineyards and olivegrounds made utterly, and for them irre

Happy in her insular situation, England knows not by experience the multitudinous calamities of the devoted territory on which kings and conquerors celebrate their sanguinary revels. Perhaps she had been morally wiser and better for receiving one fearful lesson from the destroyers. Peace might then have been to her a word of holier import. Yet I cannot, from any hope of ulterior good, wish her the pos→ session of knowledge at so heavy a price. Fancy shudders at the thought of foreign legions polluting our domestic sanctuaries, recklessly converting whatever is most dear to virtuous tranquillity to the black purposes of havoc and spoliation. We refuse to admit the horrid possibility of our churches being turned into loop-holed defences or ruinous shelters for the drowsy soldiery; our spacious highways, noble bridges, and magnificent streets, broken

and blown up in the retreat or the siege; our fruit-trees and ornamental shrubs cut down for watch - fires; our hoarded

treasures prodigally scattered among the ruffian followers of the camp; the privacy of our most hallowed retirements laid bare to every ribald musketeer; the sacred hearth, where the embers have shed their cheerful light on honoured ancestral faces, flooded with kindred blood; the recesses to which wives, sisters, and daughters have flown in the tremendous hour of the assault, burst open by wretches veiling the passions of hell under the features of humanity: we arm the spirit against the intrusion of such hideous imaginings; but we contemplate without regret, not unfrequently with satisfaction, our agency in bringing the scourge of war upon other nations, and read of the extermination of thousands of our fellowcreatures with an interest as inconsiderate as that excited by the perusal of the fantastic combats in a poetic tale.

The reflection may be premature, yet I cannot restrain the expression of astonishment at the homage paid to the fell system by which the ills that afflict mankind are increased an hundred fold. It is marvel

lous that he who, by felicitous invention, or exquisite skill, has pre-eminently ministered to the happiness of society, should not receive a tithe of the proud acknowledgment vouchsafed to him who, accidentally elevated to command, obtains the devilish distinction of marshalling the march of ruin; of consigning the flower of the youth of many lands to a common charnel-pit; of making wives, widowsparents, childless-children, fatherless. The idle delight still taken by Europeans in military gewgawry, demonstrates that they have yet to attain intellectual civilization; they continue to unite with the savage in admiration of bawbles and feathers;

and until the name of a mercenary soldier shall sink into a term of reproach, the most polished community in Christendom will in vain presume upon its freedom from the darkest taint of barbarism. -Pp. 183-188.

[To be continued.]

I. The Slavery of the British West India Colonies delineated as it exists both in Law and Practice, and compared with the Slavery of other Countries, ancient and modern. By JAMES STEPHEN, Esq. Vol. II. being

a Delineation of the State in point of Practice. London: 1830. II. The Substance of a Course of Lectures on British Colonial Slavery, delivered at Bradford, York. and Scarborough. By the Rev. BENJAMIN GODWIN, Classical Tutor of Horton College, Bradford, Yorkshire. London: 1830.

THE present crisis demands unity of purpose, and energy of conduct in the friends of the African race. This unity, this energy, are essential to the attainment of their common object. A correct view of the colonial system of slavery; of the conduct of the planters from the commencement of the memorable contest in 1788, which terminated in the abolition of the African Slave Trade, in the year 1807; and of their subsequent conduct to the present period, will assist us in forming a judgment on the measures that are now proper to be pursued to restore to our colonial bondmen their rights, which have been so long and pertinaciously withheld from them. The repeated discussions in parliament between the years 1788 and 1807, on the subject of the slave trade, produced some modification in the colonial slave laws, but in general they were a dead letter, in operation, intended only for Great Britain, and came under the lash of Mr. Buck's stricture, "It is arrant trifling, they have done little, and what they have done, is good for nothing. It is totally destitute of an executive principle." It was sup

posed that the abolition of the trade, which filled up the vacancies made in the slave population by coercive labour and harsh treatment, would have produced a favourable change in their condition, and lightened the yoke of the oppressor; but, alas! the iron still continued to enter into their soul, and their cries to ascend into the ears of the God of Sabaoth.

The prospect of the cessation of slavery, or of any mitigation of its