already made have opened up great districts a more extended scale, the high price which to the plough, have made them convenient of is general in Europe, and which extends to access, and have brought them comparatively the United States, will everywhere induce an close to a large market, where there is a lively extension of cultivation. We shall only reand a continual demand for agricultural pro- quire to wait the return of one or two seasons ducts. A greater proportion, therefore, of to find our supplies of breadstuffs greatly inthe enterprise of the Americans will be this creased and the prices greatly reduced. The year and the next, and probably for some progress noticed in California of an extension years, directed to agriculture than of late. As of agriculture from an extension of mining low prices and small profits naturally drive operations, is a representation of what is natmen from any particular business or prevent urally going on throughout Europe and Amerthem from engaging in it, so high prices and ica. The increase latterly of a town population large profits naturally attract them to the busi- by the extension of trade, is causing a high nesses where they can be obtained. The high price of agricultural produce, and agriculture price of wheat now induces the farmers to sow will be extended in Europe as well as in Calmore in England, and, in like manner, but on ifornia. shall pay for uncounted years, was sacrificed for foreign purposes. tinental purposes. In this country, prejudice, OUR BILL FOR THE LAST WAR. and especially Royal prejudice, was engaged, THE Parliamentary paper just issued by the but the interests to be served, the personal purTreasury on the motion of Mr. Hume, exhibit- poses to be secured, the military objects to be ing the loans, subsidies, and other advances to attained, were those principally of the French, foreign states, from 1793 to 1853, is a useful me-Prussian, Austrian, and Russian, Royal Fami morandum; but it is one that, taken by itself, is lies; and the larger part of our expenditure was calculated to have an effect the very opposite to laid out to obtain those objects and purposes. that intended. Strict commercial men may be Unlike many other kinds of exports, a very dismayed at the expenditure of so much as 64, large part of this money positively went to the 000,000l. in the wars of other states; may be as- Continent, without commercial return. Quite tounded at the repayment of only 620.000l.; and independently of any question about the balmay be confirmed in their anti-military opinions ance of trade," therefore, we may safely say, that by such an array of figures. Others, less careful, the larger portion of that immense sum of may feel relieved that the whole amount of sac-money, towards which we are still paying, and rifice was only 60,000,000l.-not more than the gross of a year's income; and almost all of the loss was before 1816-more than a generation ago, What is now our repayment? We find that we in the days of our forefathers, when they were expended the larger part of that enormous sum not so wise as we are now. It is a bad debt, to set up, in Paris, an antiquated monarchy, easily forgotten, except as a matter of curiosity, which could not keep its own place, it was so But the direct payments incurred by the war, totally repugnant to the state of the time and in the form of loans and subsidies to foreign country; and that the permanent result of our states, were not all that we expended. We do effort has been to strengthen our arch-enemy, not here allude to more than a million and a and to establish that system by which he has half given in arms and clothing, provisions and gradually been rendering our allies his vassals. stores, to countries which, like Austria, Prussia, The object of the war expenditure was to estaband Russia, might have been supposed to be lish monarchy, non-constitutional, according to above aid of that kind. It would be an outra- the old "rights of monarchy;" and we have the geous under-statement, to reckon the sacrifice of reward of our infidelity to our national faith and our money to foreign states, at 50,000,000l. or standards. The subsidies are the smallest part 60,000,000l. It is, indeed, difficult to get at the of the bill; the new war expenditure is a reopenexact sum, but we can approach it, and to a cer- ing bill; but the money cost, large as it is, might tain extent estimate its enormity. During the be dismissed as dross, if we must not add to it, ten years, between 1803 and 1814, our govern- also, the blood, the misery, and the shame, that ment war expenditure exceeded 800,000,000l. ; we have expended to established that false sysbut even that does not represent the sacrifice.-tem, against which we, ourselves, are now With that expenditure, we ran largely into debt. obliged to join in conflict. Grant that Pitt set the fashion of borrowing at extravagant rates, and only redeemed his credit, as a financier towards the close of his life; grant that foreign states could not be answerable for our wasteful modes: still we must confess, that a heavy balance of the debt towards which we annually pay some 26,000,000l., or more, in the shape of interest, must be set down to that war, and, consequently, our annual payments of interest on the national debt equally belong to that privileged period. Now, that war was designed mainly for Con It has been our custom to consider foreign states only as "officially" represented; we did so throughout the old war: now we may learn, not only how much safer are constitutional states, with regard to the internal peace and welfare of their inhabitants, but how much safer they are as neighbors. Stronger to repel, they must be slower to attack; and they are more frank in the declaration of their purposes, whether in peace or war. We have worked out the moral of an old mistake of which the future should present the reverse.—Spectator, 25th Nov. From The Spectator. BELL'S EDITION OF WALLER.* THERE is luck in literary fame, as well as in more material things. This is shown in the long celebrity of Waller and his perhaps assured traditional reputation. For a century and a half, everybody admired or talked of his ease, his correctness, and what not. Pope, in early youth, seemed to think that excellence in verse was to be attained by combining the strength" " of Denham and the "sweetness" of Waller. In maturer age he diminished his praise by changing the epithet to "smoothness," and speaking of that slightly. แ "Waller was smooth; but Dryden taught to join The varying verse, the full resounding line, The long majestic march and energy divine." This smoothness, after all, was exaggerated, at first through comparison with the ruggedness and carelessness of his immediate contemporaries, Donne and others. Waller has some limping lines; very many are only verses tested by the fingers. They are continually affected or trifling in thought and feeble in expression. Neither is he entitled to the praise of so much originality as has generally been ascribed to him. He might be more regular throughout, than his predecessors of Elizabeth's age; regularity being measured by mechanical scanning. In spirit and varying melody he fell far below Spenser,whose style and versification (not his diction only) it was the fashion, from some caprice of taste, to depreciate for nearly two centuries. In the mechanism of verse, Waller was probably surpassed by Davies, as well as by his admitted master, Fairfax, and certainly by many of the dramatists. The fact had not escaped Johnson, though his studies were scarcely Elizabethan. Waller, he observes in the "Lives of the Poets," "certainly very much excelled in smoothness most of the writers who were living when his poetry commenced. The poets of Elizabeth had attained an art of modulation which was afterwards neglected or forgotten. Fairfax was acknowledged by him as his model; and he might have studied with advantage the poem of [Sir John] Davies, which, though merely philosophical, yet seldom leaves the car ungratified." In comprehensiveness Waller was not wanting; for many of his ideas are large and his lines weighty. His essential deficiency was that of vigor and carnestness. He seems to have looked on life like a gentleman whose troubles were limited to ill-success in gallantry, and whose aspirations reached no higher than fashions, lords, princes, kings and queens. He passed the greater part of his long life (1605-1687) in Parliaments. His judgment was sound, when not perverted by private passion, to which he is said to have been prone. His style was clear and pure; his argument telling, and seasoned by wit and pleasantry. With his audience he was popular; yet he had no political hold on any party. He was alike in life as in literature,ending as he began: A poet the first day he dipped his quill; He scarcely teaches; he never touches. Indeed, his subjects hardly admitted of either effect; for they were generally on love or compliment, or events connected with great persons, in which compliment was the main design. This choice of topics, in which his world was interested (for even his Flavias and Sylvias were doubtless known in their day), contributed to his reputation during life, but detracts from it now. Perhaps, however, he wanted strength to sustain himself on any subject. Cromwell was his loftiest theme; and had the entire Panegyric been equal to its opening and some particular stanzas, the fame of the poet would have been more real than it is. While with a strong and yet gentle hand Let partial spirits still aloud complain, Above the waves as Neptune showed his face, Waller was the poet of compliment; but occasionally a spice of satire may be detected under his choicest flatteries or his happiest turns. There seems a censure of regard for money in one of his most vigorous pieces,-the epitaph on Lady Sedley, mother of the poet: Here lies the learned Savil's heir; So early wise, and lasting fair, That none, except her years they told, Thought her a child, or thought her old. All that her father knew or got, His art, his wealth, fell to her lot; And she so well improved that stock, Both of his knowledge and his flock, That wit and fortune, reconciled In her, upon each other smiled. As we have said, he rarely pointed a lesson; when he did, it was generally epicurean. TO A LADY IN RETIREMENT. Sees not my love how Time resumes Though none should taste of their perfumes, Had Helen, or the Egyptian Queen, Her picture may be seen in the gallery at Penshurst. It disappoints, at first sight, the expectations raised by the descriptions of Waller; but upon closer examination, we may detect in its compound expression the blended features of Philoclea and Pamela, traced in it by the poet. Latent energy and a royal temper sleep under large, languishing eyes; and even in the softness of a commodious person, a blond complexion and sunny hair, there are unmistakable suggestions of pride and haughty reserve. The figure is voluptuous, has that exacting air of indolence which typifies perhaps a little coarse; and the whole character the union of a strong will and a constitutional love of ease. But whether Waller was the poet which our ancestors considered him for nearly two centuries, or the lucky versifier of fashion, which he will probably be deemed hereafter, his poems are essential to every book-case; and here they are in a very presentable form, at a price little This "coarseness," which time would develop, if at all beyond that for which they can be may account for the anecdote of the lover and picked up at a stall. His temporary allusions the lady meeting in old age, when Saccharissa render illustration very necessary; and such Mr. asked the poet, "when he would again write Bell has added in foot-notes. He has also gone such verses upon her." Unless there was someover Johnson's "Life of Waller," with omis- thing in the manner of the question to justify sions (not in every case commendable), and rebuke, the reply of Waller had a touch of additions of information since discovered, or malice in it: "When you are as young, madam, doubtful facts verified; with comments and in- and as handsome, as you were then." troductions in the modern manner,-such as this picture of Saccharissa: From the Economist, 25 Nov. It was supposed, too, that to give the soldier education and release him from the degrading discipline to which he was heretofore exposed, would make him less fit for his duties. The campaign in the Crimea, from the first day of landing to the date of the last despatches, is a refutation of the old theory, and affords a proud satisfaction to those amongst us who, for half a age of every part of the kingdom-Eliots, Paken hams, Hunter Blairs, and Cathcarts. All ranks have vied with each other. and the aristocratic classes, nursed in the utmost refinement of luxTHE Gazette on Wednesday published the offi-ury, have been distinguished for their daring and cial accounts of the Battle of Inkermann, one of their losses. the most severe ever fought, and one of the most honorable to the British arms. Their renown goes on increasing; and Inkermann, though not so fruitful in consequences as Waterloo, surpasses it probably by the prodigious exertions required to repel the force by which the Allies were assailed. Eight thousand English troops and six thousand French repulsed and defeated sixty thousand Russians, led on and en-century, have strenuously contended for the excouraged by a Royal Prince, and excited by the tension of freedom and humanity amongst all exhortations of their priests. The Russian sol- classes of the military. At no time has a greater diers, they were told, when taken prisoners, were readiness been exhibited by the multitude to cruelly tortured and starved by the Allies, and serve the State, whether in the army or navy, they were abjured in the name of their God and and never have the soldiers and sailors conducttheir Czar to extirpate the infidels and revenge ed themselves more honorably, more bravely, and their slaughtered countrymen. They were ani- more skilfully. They have shown themselves mated, too, by a grosser spirit than fanatacism; every way worthy of their country and of its but the combined influence of the priest and the progress in the civil arts. They have demonstrat Prince, of religion and of brandy, though it made ed that the highest refinement-that even woman them willingly sacrifice their lives, was insuffi- ly tenderness of manner-is not inconsistent with cient to overcome the steady, unflinching bravery the most manly courage. They have won a of their more enlightened opponents. A more proud name for themselves, and they have redeadly contest was hardly ever waged. The loss on the side of the Allies was 2,612 English killed, wounded, and missing, and 1,724 French -a total of 4,336 men. The French had one general and one colonel killed; we had three generals killed and four wounded, one of whom has since died. The Russians confess to a loss of 2,967 killed and 5,701 wounded. Among the latter are two generals and 201 superior and subaltern officers. General Soimonoff was killed. Lord Raglan, who was present at all the Duke of Wellington's great battles, "never be fore witnessed such a spectacle as the field presented," and he estimates the total loss of the Russians at not less than 15,000 men. The forces attacked destroyed or disabled a number of men almost equal to themselves, and more than a fourth of them met a like fate. For the Allies the victory was glorious, and, we believe, its consequences will be most important. A notion has got abroad, begotten perhaps by our own press, that the army was enfeebled. deemed civilization from a reproach. They have made themselves terrible to barbarians who have been taught to believe they could make an easy conquest of an enervated people, and have at once convinced them that to be great they, too, must become civilized. They have ensured, by the display of vigor and power, the future peace of society, and guaranteed its progress against all barbarian enterprise. Since the Romans, not knowing how to beat back the barbarians, bribed them to be temporarily quiet, and encouraged them to make further conquests, civilization has always appeared to be in danger from barbarism. The campaign in the Crimea has already put an end to this fear, and established for civilized men a superiority in arms as in the peaceful arts. It is not for us to re-describe a battle which Lord Raglan, in his despatches, has described with admirable simplicity and clearness; nor is it for us to mete out approbation to individuals in a case which lies beyond our ordinary pursuits, where all appear to have been equally brave and The long peace and the luxuries of our increas- skilful;-we can only record the general convicing civilization, it was supposed, had unfitted our tion that the army in the Crimea has equalled, army for the hardships of actual warfare. This if it have not surpassed, all the previous feats of delusion has been at once and forever dissipated, and it has been again proved, as of old it was remarked of the French nobility, that the refinements of life enhance the sensibility to reputation and increase the courage of the chivalrous soldier. Without honor, life has to him no charms, and the more he values the enjoyments of society, the more energetic he becomes in battle. Officers and soldiers have alike convinced the world of this truth. Crowds of youths of noble family or exalted station have shared all the dangers of this contest, and have fallen by the side of the humblest soldier. Among the slain are some of the noblest names of the peer our armies. On this occasion they were aided, cheered, and encouraged by the equally noble exertions of their Allies, and, as long as the English and French stand side by side, the peace of the whole world may be assured. A BAD BILL. An exchange, describing a counterfeit bank bill, says the vignette 'is cattle and hogs, with a church in the distance!" A good illustration of the world. From The Spectator. GERSTAECKER'S WILD SPORTS IN THE FAR WEST, AND TALES OF THE DESERT AND THE BUSH.* As long as the scanty funds he carried with him lasted, he travelled economically, but much like other people. When he reached the line of frontier States that stretch Southward from the Lakes to Texas, he travelled A NATURAL restlessness and love of ramb-on foot, and lived as he could. He shot game, ling, combined with a taste for field-sports, and ate it or sold it. Sometimes he fell in had much to do with Mr. Gerstäcker's adven- with a countryman, who welcomed him for tures in America. Neglect of good advice love of "fatherland." Occasionally he enlent a helping hand. While Gerstäcker was countered a hospitable settler, who lodged passing through a sort of quarantine at New him gratuitously for the night. When comYork, with a number of steerage passengers pletely "hard up," he took a spell of work; who had arrived from Bremen, a countryman but as the labor market was then fully suppresented himself and made a speech. plied from an influx of emigrants, or the Europeans were unfit for the kind of work required, he was thrown upon a very irksome species of toil. He was a baker, who had been about thirty years in America, and had realized a handsome fortune; he came with the praiseworthy intention of giving us good advice. The good man As nothing in the way of work was to be might have saved his trouble; for, wise in our found in the town [Little Rock], I went to the own conceits, like all new-comers, we knew bet-river to try and get something to do on board a ter than he did. He had lived principally in steamer. The steamers Fox and Harp were Pennsylvania, and like all the people of that moored side by side. I went first on board the State, he addressed each as "thou." He cau- Fox, and was engaged as fireman, at $30,00 a tioned us against the Americans, telling us that month. In an hour the boat started. I was they would cheat us whenever they could. quite contented, and had no trouble with my "But," said he, "if you must trust to any one, luggage. We ran down the Arkansas to its trust an American sooner than a German. It is mouth, then up the Mississippi to Memphis, and a disgrace to the Germans; but it is too true. back again to Little Rock. The work of a fireBeware of them, for they are much worse tow-man is as hard as any in the world; though he ards their own countrymen than others; be- has only four hours in the day and four in the cause," added he, confidentially, "they are the simplest. When you land at New York, don't go into any of the low public houses near the landing-place, William Tell,' and such like, they are all dens of thieves. And now if you do, -you have been warned,—it will be your own faults, and you can't complain." He continued for some time giving us advice on this subject; and although, at that time, I made no exception to the general rule of knowing better, disbelieving his calumnious warnings, because they did not agree with my preconceived fixed opinions, I found afterwards that his words were unfortunately but too true. night to keep up the fires, yet the heat of the boilers, the exposure to the cutting cold night air when in deep perspiration, the quantity of brandy he drinks to prevent falling sick, the icy cold water poured into the burning throat,must, sooner or later, destroy the soundest and strongest constitution. How I, unaccustomed to such work, managed to stand it, has often surprised me. In addition, there was the dangerous work of carrying wood, particularly in dark and wet nights. One has to carry logs of four or five feet in length, six or seven at a time, down a steep, slippery bank, sometimes 15 or 20 feet in height, when the water is low, and then to cross After he got tired of strolling about New a narrow, tottering plank, frequently covered York, Mr. Gerstäcker invested his funds in a with ice, when a single false step would precipitobacconist's shop in the Broadway, as part-tate the unfortunate fireman into the rapid, deep ner with a German. He had some misgivings, stream, an accident which indeed happened to but as everybody spoke well of his intended, me another time, in the Mississippi. It is alto he gulped them down. The confinement of business suited him less than doing nothing; so he started on a trip to Niagara and the West, with rather uncertain objects in view beyond amusement and observation. His partner remained behind to wind up matters, and transmit our green man his share of the proceeds of which he never touched a cent. gether a miserable life; offering, moreover, a fortune, thanks to the rashness of the American prospect of being blown up,-no uncommon misengineers. The greater part of the time M. Gerstäcker remained in the United States-1837-'42— was passed as a hunter in Arkansas and Texas; the game he shot supplying him with food, the skins of animals exchanging for dollars or such few articles as he required, and the hos pitality of acquaintances furnishing him with means of relaxation; or he undertook some work in connection with his farm. His book is full of adventures both as regards travel and sport. Some of them, indeed, |
