seen.

as Mr. Bancroft observes, "is indestructible," the indecency of burying her would have been frightful, and it is well that the eloquent orator has warned us in time. A country which "had for its allies the river Mississippi which would not be divided, or the range of mountains which carried the stronghold of the free through Western Virginia and Kentucky and Tennessee to the highlands of Alabama," and which "invoked the still higher power of immortal justice," would certainly have tested the utmost energies of any dead nation to bury it, - so that we might have been warned off the task by considerations at least as urgent as the moral impropriety of attempting it.

but

"While the vitality of America," assailed, grave displeasure, if expressed at
all, should be expressed negatively, by
weighty and impressive allusion. A man
who feels he has grave cause of offence
against another may, if he meets him at
another's table, ignore his acquaintance, or
recognize it by the coldest of bows,
what should we think of his dignity and
self-respect if he began a regular assault
upon him in the presence of others, and a
pompous enumeration of his grievances ?
The Americans are puzzled why we are so
unjust to them. Cannot Mr. Bancroft
teach them the true cause? The true
reason is that in England few are aware of
the significance of the silent qualities of
Americans - their indomitable energy and
tenacity, their kindliness of temper, their
love of freedom, their profoundly patriotic
feeling. But many hear their noisy folly,
and interpret its significance at something
far above what it deserves. How is it pos-
sible to read such an oration as Mr. Ban-
croft's, -the selected orator of a State cere-
mony, and not feel something like scorn?
What would not Mr. Gladstone have said
on any similar occasion as the spokesman
of the English nation! What did he not
say on one far less important only yesterday
week, when pressed to declare whether we
had applied to the Government of the Unit-
ed States to suppress the Fenian prepara-
tions in that country? Was not his lan-
guage self-restrained, dignified, weighty,
and calculated to fill his audience with self-
restraint and dignity also? Did he not tell
us how poor and unworthy a figure England
would make, if she went whining to the
United States about their not doing for her
what she had been, in her own case, so un-
able if not reluctant to do for them? As
to the comparative public conduct of Eng-
land and the United States as nations, there
may of course be very different opinions.
It is natural and right that an American
should believe that his own nation has far
excelled ours, and even the most prejudiced
of Englishmen may concede that we have
made blunders, and been guilty of injustice
which an American could not overlook.
But as to the comparative public language
adopted by the two countries, it is impossi-
ble to feel any doubt. Mr. Seward himself,
while wise in action, has been boastful and
vulgar upon paper. And now here is the
official spokesman of a great occasion actu-
ally decoying, as it were, the Ambassadors.
of foreign countries to come and hear them-
selves denounced with all the insulting ges-
ticulation of a rhetorician making points for
the galleries. Nor is this sort of thing ex-

Now this sort of nonsense would have
been worthy of no attention, however tran-
sient, if it had been uttered at a common
meeting on a common occasion. If Mr.
Bancroft had spoken in Faneuil Hall, or
Tammany Hall, or any other of the great
party meeting-places, we should have
thought just as little and just as much about
it as we should of a lunatic speech from Mr.
Roebuck to his constituents at Sheffield, or
an oration from Mr Beresford Hope on the
glories of slavery. But when an orator is
selected by public or by official choice, and
speaks in the presence of Congress and the
representatives of foreign nations on a great
State occasion, the first qualities that we
look for are dignity and reticence, and the
power of suppressing idle irritation; and if
he does not possess these qualities, some of
the discredit attaching to his folly and his
weakness is necessarily inflicted on the offi-
cials who chose and the public who ap-
plauded him. We do not deny,- indeed
we have often maintained, and shall often
have to maintain again, that England
gave grave cause for offence to a great
friendly people, by the needless and wilful
injustice of her prejudice with regard to a
quarrel, in which, by all our antecedents
and principles, we were bound to have
taken the other side. We were heatily
ashamed of the public tone of England
then, and we are not going to apologize for
it now.
We believe that no American
could have spoken of Mr. Lincoln's noble
career, and the many and grave difficulties
which he had to encounter, without a feeling
of quiet but grave displeasure at the temper
of the dominant class in England which
caused him so many of those difficulties.
But on public and official occasions, and in
the presence of those who, while they have
no power to reply, still represent the nation

ceptional in the United States. There pub- How is it that Americans, with all their lic men's mode of expressing themselves wonderful qualities, qualities in which, as seems to be habitually so wanting in dignity we quite admit, they often far surpass and reticence, that it was long before the their English cousins, cannot see the neworld began to believe that people who cessity of bridling their tongues a little, if could talk so. big, were capable of the only in order to give weight to what they greatness in action which they have since do say? How could any one hear Mr. shown. Mr. Bancroft is supposed to stand Bancroft's rubbish, and not feel rather more to the United States in something of the than before that American talk is a little same relation in which Mr. Hallam once of the nature of wind? Sir Frederick stood to England. And what would Eng- Bruce, with notice, to some extent, of the lish society have thought of such an attack assault to be made on him, quietly and wiseon a public occasion by Mr. Hallam, on ly, we think, attended and sat out the nonthe foreign countries whose Ministers had sense, and we wish he had not thought it been invited expressly to hear him speak of necessary, as we see he is reported to have the achievements of a great English states- done, to have refused to meet Mr. Bancroft man? If Mr. Thompson's proposal to subsequently in private. For our part, we found a lectureship of American history at should as soon have thought of refusing to Cambridge had not been already rejected, meet a jester. The mischief of these fiasthis folly on the part of one of the men coes is not in any immediate effect, which is who had been spoken of as possible nomi- nil, but in the false impression they produce nees for the lectureship, would probably of the emptiness and vanity of one of the have put a final end to the chances of the greatest and most earnest nations on the proposal. If the graver historians of Ameri- face of the earth. The erroneous Europeca can shriek criticism of this sort on for- an prejudice that braggadocio and a noble eign countries when they are supposed to earnestness of purpose can never go tobe teaching the history of their own, for-gether is so strongly rooted, that a few offieigners will scarcely be likely to profit cial displays of Young Columbianism do almuch by their lessons. Cambridge under- most as much to eradicate the impression graduates might not improbably indeed at- produced by the great actions of the great tend the lectures of A Young Columbian,' men of silence, like Lincoln, Grant, and in sufficient masses. It would be great fun Sherman, as if they were displays of unto them to hear him challenging the British stable national purpose, instead of mere lion to come forth at once to the contest: symptoms of 'gas on the brain.' Some of "Here,' said the Young Columbian,' on us know how false and injurious that notion this native altar,- here,' said the Young is, but it obtains nevertheless, and it would Columbian, idealizing the dining-table, on do more to give America her true place ancestral ashes, cemented with the blood among the nations, that her tongue should poured forth like water on our native plains become a little less glib and her language a of Chickabiddy Lick." But the instruc- little less grandiloquent, than even that her tion derived from such lectures would be in- actions should grow rapidly in magnitude, finitesimal, and the larks' to which they and her substantial statesmanship in wiswould give rise would distract the authori- dom. ties.

6

pulsive in Jess, on the contrary, as she out- | of Birkholm. The fields were all heights grew the boisterousness of her childhood- and hollows, sunshine and shade, like dimwhen she distressed her mother by playing pled faces. There were hedges tedded with more uniformly at boys' games (Sandy in dog-roses and honeysuckles; water-courses his tender years took up with an old-fash-yellow with kingcups; feal-dykes nodding ioned, hard-featured doll, Jess's rejected with harebells, and twittering with the property), and destroying three times as swallows nestling beneath their eaves. At many clothes as Sandy, there was the pros- Clovenford manse the servant lasses still pect of her growing up a woman of noble span and sang ballants every afternoon proportions. There was a charm in Jess's on the bink by the kitchen-fire in winter, fresh, candid, intelligent faceAndro - her short, and at the back door in sutamer. thick black curls in a crop about her brow Cornfoot, the minister's man, lived with and neck; her tall, broad-shouldered, firm, his deaf wife and his catecheesed laddie, erect figure at least equal to that of San- the minister's herd, in the thatched cotdy's bright blue eyes, sanguine complexion, tage at the manse offices, came to, the house and slight but active, long, elegant limbs. every evening and was present with the Jess was the young queen of the parish, and family at the worship,' when the minister the position lent her an ease, a power, an commended his house, people, kirk, country, air of born authority and command which and the world to the care of the Great Creabecame the girl, and which did not tor. Andro came again at sunrise to awake leave her when she passed from the yeo- the lasses, and to speak in at the minister's men's houses to those of the gentry, where window and tell him what the weather was she could claim no precedence of birth and like, never thinking to avert his light greybreeding, and where, on the other hand, green fishy eyes from the nightcap, broadher best cloth mantle and white muslin bordered, and with a large bow right over frock were homely and out of date. Young the forehead, which bore the picturesque Adam Spottiswoode, of Birkholm, his own Kilmarnock cowl loving company on the master, who opened the balls at Woodend, pillow. would rather dance a reel with the minister's than a minuet- with the member's daughter. Jess could dance minuets, too; a little French dancing-master, a poor emigré, had imported the true Minuets de la Cour at the service of the public of Woodend, but Jess's reels were something inspiriting.

The cloud, the size of a man's hand, in the Clovenford sky began with the expenses of Sandy's college terms; notwithstanding they were met without flinching, bravely borne, and every member of the family took a part in defraying them. The minister trudged many a long and weary mile to do duty at neighbouring kirks and canonical meetings, Again, Jess, with the few old and ailing in place of hiring a gig from the Crown in men and women who were on the box Woodend. Mrs. Stewart gave up much of (that is, parish paupers), with bairns, with her visiting, for the reason that she was deher mother's endless trains of calves, chick-licate and unable to accompany the minisens, dogs, cats, pigeons, laverocks, linties, ter in his long walks. Jess could walk was also beyond compare.' Jess, carrying the best, and thought nothing of crossing the a stray lamb in ber arms, or a broken-wing- parish, six miles from one end to the other, ed bird in her bosom, showed unmistakably and dancing half the night afterwards; but whether she was womanly- that is, moth- Jess was called on to resign all the little aderly or no. vantages and enjoyments such as even the farmers' daughters could claim. These were her going to Edinburgh and lodging with her Aunt Peggy, the writer to the signet's widow, in the High Street, and there learning to bake pastry and cut out patterns for her gowns; and her attending the dancing and singing classes for grown-up ladies and gentlemen, opened every winter in Woodend. The very table at the manse was rendered plainer and more frugal on Sandy's account. The box which travelled every fortnight with the carrier to Edinburgh seemed to carry away all the dainties. Mrs. Stewart relinquished her little cup of tea in the morning, protesting she found it

Clovenford kirk and manse, with moss, lichen, and weather-stain doing something to redeem the barn and bothy order of architecture, lay in a nest of wooded and bare hills. The parish did not have the grander and more peculiar features of Scottish landscapeneither the height nor the breadth of savage mountains and moors, where the eagle rears her bloody-beaked young, and the whaup cries dreary.' But it had the Fir Tap and the Beld Law, the Hare Water and the Den of blackthorns and whitethorns, crabs and jeans, ending in the feathery birks and stiff dark-green boxes and hollies round the old white house FOURTH SERIES. LIVING AGE. VOL. I. 4.

bad for her nerves, and made a fashion of supping porridge along with the minister and Jess. The minister denied himself his bit of Stilton cheese and glass of Edinburgh ale after dinner, pretending they made him sleepy. Jess had to be more sparing in preserving the fruit, though it was hanging in abundance in the garden, and the whole cost was the sugar; and to substitute for the old home-brewed wines, the currant, ginger, elder-flower, and elder-berry-welcome cordials to the sick of narrow means, who knew no better- the still humbler beverage of treacle beer.

At first all these sacrifices, regarded as temporary in their nature, were made light of. But as sessions came and went, and Sandy brought home no honours, got no bursary to ease the burden, no private teaching, except once a summer tutorship, they pressed more heavily.

as

a

stockings were a fond transfer of the last pair of six-and-thirty shillings' worth present to Mrs. Stewart, in handsome discount from the gallant old bachelor, the true kirk man, in his snuff-brown wig and purple rig and fur stockings, whom she called genteelly her merchant' in Woodend. Mrs. Stewart would ten times rather see the stockings on Sandy's legs than her own, that for once she might have the pleasure of looking on her bonnie laddie in the guise of a fine gentleman, as gentlemen at the Queen's levees and State footmen still figure. It was neither just nor generous in Mr. Stewart to taunt Sandy with his mother's silk stockings, and to add the gratuitous reflection that puppies neither cared where their indulgences came from nor to what they led; but the minister's big heart was sore.

On the other side, Sandy had a hasty as The fact was, that young Sandy Stew-well as an affectionate temper, and was in art, in the most critical years of his life, in constant danger of rebutting unfair asperplace of settling down to hard head work, sions, and speaking back to his father words was fightier and more prone to trifling- ill-considered and unjustifiable in the cirit was regarded at Clovenford-than ever. cumstances. He showed himself addicted to company; not bad company a true son of the manse could not at once have degraded himself so far without great moral corruption but to free mixed company, the company at harvest-homes, fairs, and the clubs, in which Woodend aped more famous places. Gentlemen of higher degree than the minister's Sandy the young Laird of Birkholm, for instance and even ladies, the eccentric old dowagers and spinsters of the period, frequented these scenes blamelessly; but no one of them was to be a minister. a Presbyterian divine, whom a single breath of scan-heritance. dal was sufficient to blast.

The word was not widely applied then, but Sandy was tainted with Bohemianism. And the lad was still fonder of making facsimiles of the rural and genial life, inanimate and animated, he loved; the very materials a waste of money, and the practice, which might have been amusing enough to his family in other circumstances, miserable child's play in a lacking divinity student.

Lines of care began to be drawn on Mr. Stewart's full massive face. He left off, with scornful magnanimity, inquiring into his son's progress in his classes, when the result was invariably disappointment; but he suffered his tongue to scoff bitterly at the degeneracy of the times, and the effeminate puppyism of 'birkies' who put their pride in tying up their hair with ribands, and sporting tights and silk stockings.

The ribands at least were cheap, and the

Mrs. Stewart, moving gently about in her little apple-green shawl, filled in with what manufacturers and women call 'pines,' and the cap of her own netting as fine as gossamer, a light cloud about a face still fair and delicate too fair and delicate for her vears was kept with both body and mind on the rack, acting as a mediator between her two sovereigns.

Yet, Mr. Stewart had not swerved for a moment from his purpose, and never supposed that Sandy had committed any grave offence to forfeit what was in a sort his in

Mr. Stewart knew full well

that many a distinguished divine and good man had begun life by sowing a crop of wild oats. Could the minister have been aware of it, his heart might have been comforted by the seeming coincidence that grey old St. Regulus was ringing at that moment with the characteristic exploits of Mad Tam Chaumers,' as Scotland was yet to ring with the virtues and renown of her great orator and philanthropist. And the minister would spare his bread as well as his cheese; he would take off his coat, and break stones by a dyke side for day's wages, if the laws of the kirk and his parishioners would suffer it, sooner than Sandy should miss his natural call to do his family, his parish, it might be his country and the world, credit.

It was Jess who came to a different conclusion. It was Jess who declared plainly in her secret chamber, 'I don't believe our