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ing a clean contrary theory, undertook to convert the natives by wholesale. It was not in his power to imitate the Russians, who coax or force a whole pagan tribe to wade through a river, and then swear they have been baptised. As Mynheer's means were humble, his achievements were so also; but he did ultimately succeed in persuading large numbers of people to call themselves Protestants. Shortly, however, after he had accomplished this undertaking, there happened a considerable derangement in the seasons, and the usual rains did not fall, which occasioned great scarcity and suffering among the ignorant islanders, who, regard ing it as a chastisement inflicted on them by their ancient gods in revenge for having been abandoned by them, unanimously came to the resolution to return to their original creed, which they did, and the enterprising Dutch missionary, finding himself exceedingly unpopular, moved off to some new field of exertion. But this could not have happened had the natives been first instructed in those departments of knowledge best calculated to enlarge their minds.

In the arts of life several tribes inhabiting these groups have made more progress than might have been imagined. Necessity has taught them the practice of navigation, and the elementary processes of agriculture. But they have proceeded in many cases far beyond these; entered upon the manufacturing career; taught themselves, or have been taught by others, the working of the precious metals, the cutting and setting of gems, the fabrication of jewellery, particularly of the most delicate filagree work, and the preparation of luxuries coveted by the most refined nations of the East. For much of this progress they are indebted, it must be confessed, to Mohammedanism, in common, perhaps, with the greater part of the East. Several recent writers have been be trayed by their zeal into very erroneous notions on this subject. Imagining, apparently, that to acknowledge the beneficial effects of Islamism in any degree would be to be guilty of religious indifference. This, however, is a mistake. Imperfectly as the Mohammedans are civilised by their creed, they are taught some truths which Paganism does not recognise, and are incited to aim at many virtues to which Paganism can lay no claim. Even the practice of making pilgrimage to Mecca is highly beneficial, since it subjects the Hadjis to a variety of influences, most of them favourable to civilization, so that the Moslem, who has visited the holy cities, is generally more agreeable in his manners and in

finitely better informed than his countrymen, who remain at home. It is true that the professors of Islam in the eastern Archipelago are often hostile to the Pagan tribes, such as the Dyaks and the Papuas, who consequently regard them with apprehension. But trade breaks down even this barrier, and engages the professors of every variety of creed to tolerate each other for their mutual advantage. We may now safely calculate on the introduction of a new element of civilization which will probably mingle with and leaven the whole mass of society. But to produce this effect we must not content ourselves with a solitary station, since the Archipelago is so immense that it would take ages to exert an influence over it all from a point like Labuan, lying at its north-western extremity. We must judiciously select other positions from time to time as opportunity offers, that we may faithfully discharge towards the natives of that part of Asia the obligations we tacitly take upon ourselves by settling permanently among them.

AUGUST VISIONS-A WHIMSY.
BY PAUL BELL.

Ir is written among the tales of the Wise Men of the East, that" once upon a time "-there was a certain Ben Somebody, who, desiring to guide the people as a Prophet, and to receive, in repayment of his oracles, precious robes, slaves of rare price, jewels, and jars of honey; announced himself to the citizens of Bagdad as the Pilgrim who had travelled to the end of the World, and looked over the Wall! The people heard him, and trembled. "What a depth of experience must Ben Somebody's be!" said they. "Who might open their mouths when he told them of the Limbo of Aged Moons: and described how the Planets were hung -each by its long golden chain?" So they brought to him their wives and their little ones when sick, and they entreated him in seasons of drought with skins of rich wine, that he might promise them Rain; and they built him a house, and they appointed one with a trumpet to stand at the gate thereof, and to cry aloud, "This is the house of Ben Somebody, the Wise Man, who hath been to the end of the World and looked over the Wall!"

Now, there were others in Bagdad, besides Ben Somebody, who

would fain be wise men also, for the sake of the rich garments and the moon-faced slaves, and chiefly for the trumpeter at the gate! And one of these went forth in the streets, with a round ball in his hand, and cried aloud as he went,-" Lo! this is the World, and it hath no end!" And he pointed out to the people the place where the name of their city of Bagdad was written. And when the people saw the written name they were amazed, saying, "This must needs be true!" And the fame of the New Prophet spread, and the men of Bagdad went to the gate of Ben Somebody, and took him with the trumpet thence, and bade him follow the New Prophet, crying, "This is a wiser man than Ben Somebody, for he hath shown us that the world hath no end, neither wall; also, the place on which the name of our city of Bagdad is written!?' And the gates of Ben Somebody were deserted, and his wealth failed him, and he fell sick, and gave up the ghost, and was laid in a sepulchre. Yet left he sons and daughters-and some of their seed are still alive in the kingdoms of the earth-and they are known as the tribe of Ben Somebody, "who had been to the end of the world ;" and a remnant believe in them, even unto this day.

Well, we have of late years been treated to a prodigious amount of talk in the highways, to remind us of the existence of this strange tribe. Who can have escaped the arguments brought against certain changes-not as being bad in themselves. O, no! but as destroying "the People's trust in all public men." Now, far be it from me to determine how far individuals are hit by this -how far Sir Robert is indicated to be a Whited Sepulchre, full of dead Protectionists' bones-how far Lord John may be placed under suspicion as a quiet volcano, capable at any instant of "breaking out in a fresh place." It is the principle laid down, which, however showy in the eyes of the vulgar, must, methinks, be felt as so strange by all thinking men. The tribe of Ben Somebody forget that their ancestor himself changed the opinions of mankind by acquainting them that the world had an end, and everything stood fast thereon! Just as much as his successor, who showed to their eyes that our globe was a round one; and that, insomuch as it was perpetually rolling, nothing could, by mathematical certainty, remain precisely stable in its old original place, form, and fashion.

But what is odder-behold! by a whimsical inconsistencyvery children of Ben Somebody, who would have it so few

these

weeks ago that the world stands fast-that the Planets of light wax not old-that the Cedars of strength decay not at heart-that the Sea eateth not the Earth-nor the Earth pusheth forth into the Sea, these same Anti-Change Apostles, I say, (as such vaunting their own infallibility and omnipotence) now make a bold stroke to get the man with the trumpet back to their gates, by declaring that the world is not stable, because it goeth back. And, see how Jargon is crying in the streets; calling, for instance, the sweep, the straw-bonnet merchant, and the "knives-to-grind" man with one leg, "the industrial classes;" preaching in all manner of pulpits; here, open-mouthed against " development;" there, silver-tongued for "Antagonism ;" and remarking how men are overcome by the same. The sons and daughters of Ben Somebody have wisely got hold of a big word of their own, whereby they hope to achieve great things, to make the ignorant believe, and the unbelieving worship, and the word is REACTION.

How every process has its period!· -so many days for the moon to change in, so many centuries required for wood to become coal, or for rock to crumble into turf. These children of Ben Somebody omit to mention "how far the world is to go back," or to tell us what, as Miss Le Grand puts it, is to stop it "then." Suppose that every revolution of "la ronde machine," as Rabelais calls the Earth, is to take us back a century! Sitting in my elbow chair a night or two since ('tis now the last week of August), with the papers on one side, and on the other, that best of all loungers' books, Horace Walpole's letters, I could not help spinning a few fancies to the tune of "the Light of other Days," which my oneeyed friend, the black a-vised Italian, was droning out on his hurdy-gurdy; and, though they be of the commonest and most obvious kind, perchance you will give a corner to them, Sir, for the sake of all such as believe that the world has a wall, and that Ben Somebody looked over it; or that we are on our way back towards the times of Voltaire, Bloody Mary, Barbarossa, or Monarch Cheops!

The great show of August 1746 was the Trial and the Execution of the Rebel Lords! "As it was the most interesting sight" -says Walpole, to whom, I take it (for all his fine phrases), an Opera, or a beheading, or a Strawberry feast, with the Sunnings sitting in the shell, came much the same "it was the most solemn and fine: a coronation is a puppet-show, and all the splendour of it idle; but this sight at once feasted one's eyes, and

engaged all one's passions.""The whole ceremony," he continues, "was conducted with the most awful solemnity and decency;" and adds a neat compliment to the Royal Family on their good taste in not being present. Then comes the detail of the trial, with all its piquant anecdotes; what "old Norsa" said, "the father of my brother's concubine, an old Jew that kept a tavern;" and how Lady Townsend felt, who, sweet soul! had a passion for the rebels, and liked, it seems, running from rout to rout in a sort of "O la !" state of distress and misery, which reminds one of the historical enthusiasm of Mistress Finch, in Crabbe's "Preceptor Husband :"

"how the Martyrs to the flames were led,
The good old Bishops, I forget their names,
But they were all committed to the flames;
Maidens and widows, bachelors and wives,-
The very babes and sucklings lost their lives!"

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Then we hear of Lord Kilmarnock's "fine voice and fine speech ;" of Duke Hamilton's intercession at Court; of the King's fancy for elemency-the Duke of Cumberland's appetite for butchery; next, the details of the beheading, done in the most charming Watteau style conceivable. Don't think me frivolous, Sir, or trying-poor, lame bagman that I am-to ape the Walpole cotillon step, if I that all this mixture of London whims, and Twickenham gossip, with judicial murder for high treason-this prattle of "the lozenge coach," Lord Middlesex, and the Tesi, and the scaffold newstrewed with sawdust, the block new-covered, the executioner newdressed" for "old Balmerino," who came, "treading with the air of a General;"-this sandwiching of the rivalries between the Haidi and the Violette (afterwards Mrs. Garrick); with the agonies of Lady Cromartie, who was "big with child and very handsome," give a sort of meanness and immorality to the thing a theatrical air: as if symbolical of the fact, that the heart of Civil Discord was even then dead in our land, and but its Cade'stinsel left-a worn-out frippery, which took its turn among the other London fripperies got up to amuse our Young London' Nobles, with their muffs and their solitaires-their powdered heads, and their sedans. And yet, what a century of inventions in the cause of peace, goodwill, and manliness, lies between Lady Townsend declining to dine out "for fear of meeting with a rebelpie!" and Lady sinking down into the depths of her crinoline, in a dead faint, because the Culloden Railway Bill was

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