somewhat amusing at this day to the English traveller to hear at Rotterdam the carping statements of Dutch merchants, and to witness their eagerness to disparage the trade of Antwerp; and at Antwerp to see the efforts made to exhibit its small commerce to the best advantage. It is, on a large scale, the spectacle of a village shop-partnership dissolved in a quarrel, where each party keeps a watch over his neighbour's custom, and is sure he cannot live by it, while neither wishes that the two concerns should come together again. The rest of the world hopes that there may be business enough for both; and in the separation of Holland and Belgium, both had

the good wishes of England. The Dutch heirapparent had been educated by an English archbishop, and had been a suitor for the hand of the Princess Charlotte-a suitor refused only by herself, and not from any ill-will in other quarters; and the prince finally chosen by the Belgians to be their new king was the husband of the Princess Charlotte, and the uncle of the presumptive heiress of the British throne. Thus was England in amity with both countries when Prince Leopold became King of the Belgians. There was trouble for some time afterwards, from the difficulty that was naturally found in bringing the Dutch government to acquiesce

CHAP. XIII.]

in the new arrangements, and from some fear that France and England might have to sustain the cause of Belgium against Holland, supported by the other allied powers. It was by French arms at last that the citadel of Antwerp was compelled to evacuate its Dutch garrison. France was by this time closely united to the interests of Belgium. The King of the French refused the sovereignty for his son, the Duke de Nemours, to whom it was offered at the beginning of the struggle; but he gave his eldest daughter to share the throne of Belgium with Leopold, the marriage taking place in the autumn of 1832.

It was in the autumn of 1830, that the little duchy of Brunswick threw off the annoyance of its turbulent young ruler. By advice of the British and other sovereigns, the brother of the absconding duke assumed his place and government, according to the invitation of his subjects.-In Saxony, the cry for various reforms was so strong that the king, an indolent devotee, associated his nephew with him in the government, as joint-regent, the young man's father, Duke Maximilian, passing over in his favour his own right of succession to the throne. Duke Frederick Augustus thus became the virtual ruler of Saxony.-In Hesse Cassel, the people were up, demanding and obtaining a constitution.-There was a dispute about the succession at Baden.-In Switzerland, the governments of the respective cantons, threatened by the stir within and beyond their country, hastened to propitiate popular feeling by a reform of abuses, and amelioration of institutions, and a grant of stronger guarantees of liberty. -In the next year, there were insurrections in several of the Italian statcs; but the troops of Austria marched down, presently restored order, and precluded all ameliorations in the government. -In Spain, the king died in 1833, of apoplexy, occasioned by over-eating. His little daughter, then three years old, was declared queen, under the regency of her mother, that Christina of whom France and England have since had occasion to know so much. These two governments were the first to acknowledge the young Queen of Spain. The other governments of Europe kept aloof till it could be seen what would become of Don Carlos, the pretender, who had now been driven from the soil of Spain, and had taken refuge in Portugal. This pretender was, for a course of years after this, of some consequence to England; for he served as a last refuge for the sympathies and hopes of the extreme Tories, when disappointed of all that they desired and hoped at home. It is necessary for such sympathies, and for that royalist imagination which has in it much that is venerable and beautiful, to have some object on which to exercise themselves; and the world is seldom without some fugitive prince, devoutly persuaded of his own right to some throne, who leads brave men with him, and is cheered on by romantic admirers from afar. There were now no more Stuarts; and Don Miguel, of Portugal, was too bad even for romance to advocate; but here was Don Carlos of Spain, whose case actually bore a dispute, who had lived among mountain fastnesses, and was now in exile, but likely to return; and here was the Whig administra

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tion espousing without hesitation, and in conjunction with revolutionary France, the cause of the infant queen, and hastening to acknowledge her sovereignty. It was no wonder that a peer here and there, and a few rich commoners, seeing all going to wreck at home in the passage of the Reform Bill, retired to their estates, and there studied the map of Spain, and thence wrote to the Spanish pretender accounts of the progress of revolution in England, and offers of sympathy, service, and hospitality, in case of need. In Portugal, Don Pedro conducted the war against his guilty brother in person-amidst much hardship and many reverses, till, in 1834, having been assisted by British ships and a Spanish army, he drove the usurper from the Peninsula, assembled the cortes, was appointed to the regency on the 28th of August, and died on the 22d of September. Two days before his death, the queen was declared of age by a decree of the cortes, who feared to commit the powers of government to any other hand. Some steps had been already taken in regard to her marriage, and on the 1st of December she married the Duke de Leuchtenberg, the son of Eugene Beauharnois, and already a family connection by marriage. The union seemed to promise well, as far as the character of the young man was concerned; but it was presently dissolved. The marriage had taken place by proxy; the prince arrived in Portugal in February, and in March died of sore throat occasioned by cold.

These events in the west of Europe were interesting; but less so than what was going on in the east. The Pacha of Egypt was acquiring the possessions of Turkey almost as fast as his forces could march over them. Under the command of his adopted son and avowed heir, Ibrahim Pacha, his army had taken possession of the whole of Syria-perhaps not much to the discontent of the Syrians themselves-and by the end of 1832, the Egyptian general had passed the Taurus, on his way to Constantinople. The abasement of Turkey was extreme. It was this Egyptian vassal whose aid had supported her in her struggle with the three powers; and now, what could she do but appeal to Russia for assistance against her own vassal? The next year, she did so appeal, to the great annoyance of France and England, whose object was to keep Turkey out of the grasp of Russia. Mohammed Ali was remonstrated with; and he shewed great moderation in the midst of some anger. He had made war only when the Porte had interfered with what he considered his right to conduct a quarrel of his own with a brother vassal-the governor of Acre. He made no difficulty about stopping the march of his army; but, before Ibrahim turned back, he had obtained from the Porte all that he chose to demand. Early in the summer of 1833, Mohammed Ali found himself master of all the provinces from the borders of Asia Minor to the unknown retreats of the infant Nile; and he had himself learned, and had shewn the world, how easy it was to march upon Constantinople, and knock at the doors of the sultan's seraglio. It was of his own free pleasure that Ibrahim turned back now. He was soon seen in every part of the Syria he had won for his father, taking barbarous vengeance on his

enemies, when so inclined; but, at the same time, building hospitals, repairing mosques, promoting agriculture, taking an interest in manufactures, and everywhere securing, with the whole force of his authority, toleration and good treatment of the Christians.

Russia had answered promptly and gladly to the appeal of the Porte for protection; but she had some engrossing affairs on her hands elsewhere. It was during the revolutionary autumn of 1830-that season of political earthquake-that the oppressions of the Russian Grand-duke Constantine at Warsaw became so intolerable, that it may be questioned whether they would not have produced the same results, whether the rest of Europe were on the stir or in a dead sleep. Some students of the military school had drunk to the memory of Kosciuszko, and other heroes. The grand-duke caused two successive commissions to sit on this offence; and the decision being, in each case, that there was no ground for punishment, the grand-duke took the affair into his own hands, and, without warrant of law, ordered some of the youths to be flogged and others imprisoned. The young men rose; the Polish part of the garrison joined them; and then the towns-people began to act. They helped themselves with arms from the arsenal, and aided in driving out the Russian soldiery, amidst fearful bloodshed, from the streets of Warsaw. It was on the 29th of November that the students rose; and on the 3d of December, Constantine was travelling towards the frontier, having recommended all establishments, persons, and property, to the protection of the Polish nation.

In this short interval, six Polish nobles had taken the place of some obnoxious members in the administrative council, and had presented to the grand-duke their propositions for various reforms, and their demand for the fulfilment of the constitution. Everything was still done in the name of the emperor. When Constantine set out on his journey home, it was thought at Warsaw so doubtful how the emperor would receive the tidings of what had happened, that it would be as well to provide for defence, if he should be very angry. The Poles did not yet know Nicholas, and the character and power of his wrath. The day was coming when fierce torture of the heart and mind was to shew what it was. It was nothing uncommon to be forming and exercising a force, as the Poles now were. They were a military people, and their organisation had been kept up by Russia. The worst feature in their case was the absence of any port. They had no command of the sea, either for the arrival of aid, or for facility of escape. At the close of the year their prospect was an anxious one. If Russia should be incensed, Prussia and Austria would join her to put down the nuisance of Poland. But the die was cast. News must soon arrive. Meantime, the commanderin-chief, Klopicki, was made dictator, in case of its being necessary to prosecute the rebellion. It was necessary. The first news from St Petersburg was, that the emperor promised to inflict signal vengeance for the horrid treason' of the Poles.

And the emperor kept his word. At the beginning of the year 1831, his wrath was announced to the

Polish nation; and at the beginning of February, his armies began to pass over the frontier. When it had become clear that Poland must declare for independence, the dictatorship had been exchanged for a council of state, consisting of a few of the most eminent patriots. Before the end of the year, all was over; the constitution of Poland was withdrawn; she was declared an integral part of Russia; her nobles were on the way to Siberia; her high-born ladies were delivered over for wives to the common soldiers on the frontier; her tenderly reared infants were carried away in wagon-loads to be made Russians, and trained to worship the czar. Polish law was abolished; the Polish language was prohibited; and the emperor uttered his declaration to listening Europe: Order reigns in Warsaw.'

The spectacle of the conflict had been one of intense interest to the world outside. The struggle had been a brave, an able, and, under the circumstances, a long one; and there were times when the most anxious observers had some hope that the Poles might succeed. The word 'hope' may be used here without reserve, because the sympathy was almost all on one side. The highest conservatives might and did sympathise with the Polish rebels; for there were no higher conservatives in the world than these Polish rebels themselves. If their deeprooted conservatism, their intensely aristocratic spirit, had been understood by the liberals of Europe and America from the beginning, there would perhaps have been less sympathy in their efforts, and certainly less hope of their success. It was not till long afterwards that the discovery was made that the Poles had been fighting-for nationality, it is truebut not for national freedom; that they had not the remotest idea of giving any liberty to the middle and lower classes of their people; and that they carried their proud oligarchical spirit with them into the mines of Siberia, the drawing-rooms of London and Paris, and the retreats of the Mississippi valley. This is not mentioned as a matter of censure, but of plain fact, which it is necessary to know, in order to the understanding of their case. They strove for all that they understood; and they did, for the rescue of their nationality, all that bravery and devotedness could do. To contend for popular freedom was another kind of enterprise, of which they had no conception, and for not understanding which, therefore, they cannot be blamed. But it is to this inability that their utter destruction is now, at last, seen or believed to be owing. They themselves impute their latter disasters to dissensions among themselves; and there were dissensions enough to account for any degree of failure. But it also seems clear that their cause was doomed from the beginning, from the absence of any basis of popular sympathy. The great masses were indifferent, or rather disposed in favour of Russian than of Polish rule. They did not know that they should be better off under a change, and they might be worse; so they let the armies pass their fields, and scarcely looked up as they went by. No cause could prosper under such a dead-weight as this. This view, now generally taken, is borne out by the impressions left by the exiles in the countries where

CHAP. XIV.]

they have taken refuge. Everywhere, all homes, all hearts, all purses, have been open to them-for hard and narrow must be the hearts and homes that would not welcome and receive strangers so cruelly afflicted, and so insufferably oppressed; and everywhere the impression left seems to be the samethat the Poles undertook an enterprise for which they were not morally prepared. They could sacrifice their lives and fortunes; and they could fight bravely and most skilfully for any cause to which they would give the lustre of their arms. But something more than these things, fine as they are, is required to entitle men to the honour of the last contention for nationality: an humble industry must be united to the magnanimous courage of the battle-field; aristocratic pride must be laid down when its insignia are thrown into the common cause; and the most intense hatred of tyranny is an insufficient qualification, if it be not accompanied by an answering enthusiasm for human liberties wherever there are human hearts to be ennobled by the aspiration. Many of the Polish exiles have caught something of this enthusiasm in the countries over which they have been scattered by their revolution; but it does not appear to have been the moving force of their struggle for nationality in 1831.

CHAPTER XIV.

HE accession of William IV. was really enjoyed by his people, as affording exercise to their loyal feelings, and giving them the opportunity so dear to Englishmen of talking about royal doings, and obtaining an occasional glimpse of regality itself. Through the illness of George III. and the morbid fancies of his successor, royalty had for many years lived so retired as to be known only in its burdens and its perplexities. Now it came forth again, not only on Windsor Terrace, but into the very streets, and sometimes on foot-with friendly face and cordial manners. Amusing stories-amusing to most people, but shocking to Lord Eldonwere soon abroad of the curious liberties taken by forward and zealous people, in their delight at finding themselves not afraid of royalty. On one of the first occasions of their majesties' going to the theatre in state, there was an exhibition of placards in gallery and pit, evidently by concert-placards bearing the words 'Reform' and 'Glorious King.' At a word from a policeman, the placards were withdrawn; but here was a 'revolutionary symptom' for the timid to exercise their apprehensions upon. The coronation, which took place on the 8th of September 1831, was a quiet affair, befitting the accession of a sovereign who was humbly and reasonably aware that his reign must be short, and undistinguished by any energetic personal action. There was no banquet, and the royal procession returned through the streets at three o'clock. The king and his ministers gave great dinners at home, and London

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was illuminated in the evening. There was one person, present in all minds, who was absent from the ceremony-she who was, in all probability, to fill the principal place at the next. It was given out that the state of the Princess Victoria's health made it desirable that she should remain in retirement in the Isle of Wight; and perhaps it was best, considering her tender age, and her peculiar position, that she should. She was only twelve years old; and, if certain authorities are to be trusted, had only within a year become fully aware that a regal destiny was before her.

It was now time that overt preparation for that destiny should be made, if it was to be done, as it ought to be done, gradually. In the next year, we see her beginning a series of tours, wherein were embraced all the good objects of health, of her becoming acquainted with the principal institutions, monuments, and scenes of the country of which she was to be sovereign, and of her being inured to move in public. In 1831, the journey comprehended the singular old city of Chester, several cathedrals, some noblemen's seats, where the royal party were entertained, and ending with the University of Oxford. During these tours, the young princess, who at home was wont to walk out in thick shoes and a warm cloak, in all weathers, on a common or through fields and lanes, was familiarised with the gaze of a multitude, and with processions, addresses, and observances, such as she must hereafter be accustomed to for her whole life. The management was good; and we may suppose the recreation was pleasant, for it has been kept up. Of all royal recreations, there can be none more unquestionably good than that of an annual tour. If there is more dulness and constraint, and less intellectual freedom and stir, in royal life than in any other, this is a natural safeguard and remedy, as far as it goes. A large accession of ideas must accrue from annual travel; and there is no other method by which the distance between sovereign and people can be so much and so naturally diminished as by the sovereign going forth from the palace among universities, and towns, and villages, and scattered dwellers on wild heaths and the sea-shore. To those that hope that the practice and its pleasures may be renewed for many, many years, it is interesting to mark its formal beginning, in the autumn of 1832.

Amidst all the alarms talked about by the antireformers during the 'revolutionary period' under our notice, there was less danger and even disrespect to majesty than has been common in much quieter times. It was impossible for a sovereign to incur the consequences of a change of mind about a course of policy to which he stood pledged without suffering more or less; but William IV. was gently dealt with, considering the circumstances. The utmost suspicion could not make out that his life was in danger from political discontents; and on the two occasions when his life was threatened, the ill-conditioned wretches who threw the stone and wrote the letter gave their private wrongs and wants as their excuse. On the first occasion, a depraved old pensioner, five times turned out of Greenwich Hospital for misconduct, thought he would have a shy at the

king,' and put stones in his pocket for the purpose. At the first shy,' he struck the king on the forehead, as his majesty was looking out of the window at Ascot races. But that he wore his hat, the king might have been seriously hurt. As it was, he was somewhat stunned, but presented himself again at the window before there was time for alarm. Though this happened at so critical a season as June 1832, it was impossible for the most ingenious alarmist to connect it with politics.

There is little in this period to yield comfort as to the state of popular enlightenment. The proceedings of the Dorsetshire labourers were marked by an astonishing barbarism. In introducing agricultural labourers into their union, they used death's-heads, and hobgoblin mysteries, the very mention of which carries back the imagination five hundred years.— During the years 1831 and 1832, we find records of enclosure riots, of a formidable kind. In one place, the poor people fancied that fencing in boggy land was against the law altogether; and in another, that the law expired in twenty-one years from the first enclosure in 1808; and in both these instances, the levelling of fences went on, night after night, till nothing was left; and the soldiers were pelted, and exasperated proprietors were wounded, and a world of mischief done, because the poor people knew no better than to suppose they were struggling for their rights. -Then, we have more combination horrors-more ferocity towards capitalists, and tyranny over operatives, exercised by a very few worthless meddlers, who feasted on the earnings of the honest but unenlightened men whom they made their tools.

We

find the leaders of strikes cutting pieces out of the looms, and thrashing and stabbing men who were content with their wages, and only anxious to be left free to maintain their families by their own industry. -One of the most formidable riots of the time took place on the day appointed for a general fast, on account of the cholera-the 21st of March 1832. An ignorant and violent association, which called itself the Political Union of the Working-classes, and which subsisted for only a short time, failing in all its aims, raised a fearful mob-power by offering to feed the hungry with bread and meat, in Finsbury Square, instead of observing the fast. Alarmed at their prospect when it was too late, they failed to appear; and no bread and meat were forthcoming. It is said that the assemblage of the hungry that day—amidst a season of deep distress-was enough to appal the stoutest heart. The emaciated frames and haggard faces were sad to see; but far worse was the wrath in their eyes at the mockery, as they conceived it, of an order to fast to avert the cholera, when here were above 20,000 poor creatures in danger of cholera from fasting and other evils of destitution. As their wrath and their hunger increased, and the women among them grew excited, conflicts with the police began; and before the multitude were dispersed to their wretched lurking-places, more hungry than they came, there had been some severe fighting. More than twenty of the police were wounded, and many of the crowd.-The incitements to rick-burning, machine-breaking, and seizure of corn, addressed to the agricultural population in 1831 by Carlile and

Cobbett, were so gross as would not have been dreamed of in any country where the barbarous ignorance of the rural labourers might not be confidently reckoned on. Whether it was wise in the government to prosecute these two profligate writers, affording thereby an effectual advertisement of their sedition, may be a question; but the trials stand out as an exposition of the popular barbarism, and the low demagogism of the time.-The murders for the sake of selling bodies for dissection did not cease after the retribution on Burke and Hare, but rather increased as it is usual for fantastic or ferocious crimes to do, while the public mind is strongly excited about them. The disappearance and proved murder of Italian boys and other homeless and defenceless beings was hastening the day when the law should be so altered as to permit anatomy to find its own resources in a legal and recognised manner; and the settlement of the matter was further accelerated by an incident which fixed a good deal of attention in 1832. A woman who knew herself to be likely to die, and believed that her disease was an unusual one, desired her brother to deliver over her corpse to a public hospital, and to spend in charity what her funeral would have cost. The brother obeyed the directions. As it appeared that the law rendered interment necessary, the remains were buried from the hospital. The brother was brought before the Hatton Garden magistrate under a vague notion of his having done something shocking and illegal. On a full hearing on a subsequent day, it appeared that he and the officers of the hospital were entirely blameless; the magistrate closing the business by informing the prisoner that he had not violated the laws of the country, but, on the other hand, had acted in strict accordance with them.' As far as the public were concerned, the sister's memory was not left without its share of admiring gratitude. In the next session, Mr Warburton introduced and carried a bill, by which the provision for the dissection of bodies of murderers was repealed, and the association of disgrace with dissection thereby extinguished; and by which facilities were offered for anatomists to avail themselves of the wish or permission of dying persons and survivors, while abuse was excluded by a machinery of certificates and registration.

By this time, the imperfect character of medical education was beginning to be seen and admitted; and in 1830, we find great improvements in course of introduction by the Society of Apothecaries' Hall, and prescribed to students as regulations. In 1828, the student was not obliged to attend more than six courses of lectures; in 1829, it must be ten courses; in 1830, fourteen. There must be more hospital practice, and a more extended examination, before candidates could be admitted to the profession. The subject of medical qualification was kept painfully before the public mind, in this and two succeeding years, by the results of the quack-practice of a young man, once a portrait-painter, named St John Long, who believed that he had discovered an infallible ointment, and method of treating the sores that it caused. While mourning over the ignorance of the populace, we must not lose sight of that of the