THE EMIGRANT IN PORT PHILLIP. [PRICE 1d. and professions overstocked, and the contest for life growing keener day by day. And there, meanwhile, across the ocean, is a fertile land of almost boundless capabilities of supporting life, wanting his labour, and waiting for his occupation. Those who have gone, call to him to come among them-thay want his help to till the land, and subdue it. He suffers at home, because society does not require his labour, and he goes unfed; they suffer in the colonies because they have not labour enough to make their property available, the food actually going to waste for want of mouths to consume it. "At no period since the foundation of the colony," says a recent report of the Legislative Council of New South Wales, "has there been so great, so urgent, and so pressing a demand for labour, as at the present moment; of that species of labour with which the most important interests of the colony are involved; namely, of shepherds and farm-servants. This want is daily increasing, and in the absence of any fresh accession of labourers by means of immigration, no alternative is presented to the proprietor of stock but the partial or entire abandonment of it. In many parts of the colony the expenses of labour are so immoderate, as to exceed all profits derivable from its application, and establishments in the interior are carried on in some instances at a positive loss to the owner-a state of things which is only perpetuated from the lingering hope that some change may be effected by the introduction of a fresh supply of immigrants." THE Australian colonies present a wide field for the unfettered industry of man. They are blessed with a genial climate, almost unequalled for salubrity. The remarkable mildness of the Australian winter ensures a perpetual spring. The grass grows there all the year round, and no artificial food being required for any description of farm stock, sheep and cattle can consequently be reared in far greater numbers, and with a far smaller proportion of human labour in tending them, than in any one of the countries of this northern hemisphere. The increase of flocks and herds in Australia has hence been prodigious. With a population not exceeding 200,000 souls, Eastern Australia (consisting of New South Wales and Port Phillip,) already contains a number of sheep equal to one-fourth, and of cattle, a proportion equal to one-seventh, of the total number contained in France. The whole of the Port Phillip country, and various districts in the older and settled parts of the eastern colony, as well as in its northern districts, and also that magnificent region recently discovered and described by Leichardt and Mitchell, are capable of yielding sustenance to millions of human beings. There is an immense supply of animal food provided in all parts of Australia, at the very cheapest rate, for the subsistence of the labourer, most of which at present goes to waste. The facilities for agricultural operations which present themselves are also considerable, though the agricultural The position of the emigrant in Australia is exceedare not to be compared with the pastoral capabilities of ingly favourable to health, prosperity, and happiness. the country. Unlike the dense and impervious forests of The soil is cheap and fruitful. Plenty of excellent land Canada, or some parts of the western settlements of the is to be had in all parts of Australia at the government United States, the richest and finest land in Australia minimum price of £1 an acre; and, in the course of a consists of open and undulating plains, which are capable few days, a man with a hoe may chip into the ground of at once receiving the plough. Mineral treasures also sufficient maize to supply him with food for a year. abound in most parts of Australia. But, neither the Butchers' meat of all kinds is to be had at two-pence a pastoral, nor the agricultural, nor the mineral riches of pound, and even under. Starvation is altogether unAustralia, can yet be realized, in consequence of the one known in Australia. But the man who would "get on," great social and all-pervading want-the want of labour. as the Englishman always wishes to do, must work; and Every report from Australia that reaches this country if he works as hard as he does at home, he cannot fail to repeats the same tale of want of population, and want of earn high wages. Labour is so well rewarded, that in labourers. The land is waiting for them; it lies for the the course of a few years, he can generally manage to most part idle and waste, untilled and untenanted. We save sufficient to enable him to purchase a little property wonder not, therefore, that the half-employed and ill- of his own, and then he is a free man for life, a prosremunerated labourers of Britain-a people as hardy perous future for his childten lying before him. If the and industrious as is to be found on the face of the globe, working man do not get on in Australia, it is because he is should look anxiously towards Australia, and long to be drunken, indolent, or profligate. There is always labour there, to marry their willing labour to its equally willing of some sort for all; and every man who has strength, soil. True, a change of country is a serious matter, and energy of character, and a determination not to shrink not to be lightly thought of. There are many dear ties from temporary difficulties, is certain of success in the which bind a man to his country, and we would be the last end. Mechanics may not fall in with exactly the kind to wish to weaken them. But a man thinks of the of employment they want; but, as the demand for outfuture, he thinks of his children, and of their future,-of-aoor labour is great, they have always opportunities of the intense competition for bread at home-all trades enough of turning their hands to some sort of remune rating labour at good wages. The jack-of-all-trades is an especially useful, and invariably successful man in Australia. may be in Port Phillip, they are certainly in a great minority in the neighbouring district of New South Wales, which was up to a very recent period a convict colony. Gippsland, to the east of Port Phillip Bay, and Portland district, on the western confines of the colony, including the splendid tract of country, fifty miles square, lying on the Wannon and Glenelg rivers, are also highly eligible districts for emigrants, who are steadily flowing towards them, While farmers and agriculturists are gradually, but, comparatively slowly, occupying the lands of the colony, mechanics and tradesmen are flowing into the towns. A brisk trade goes on, houses and warehouses are erected, and a large number of mechanics find steady employment, at wages of from 7s. to 9s. a day; common labourers are paid as much as 4s. a day. The demand for masons, carpenters, and bricklayers is great in Melbourne, consequent on the rapid extension of the place; but the great industry of the colony must ever be connected with its rich and teeming soil, with its flocks and produce. Abundant food is the basis of all prosperity and wealth; and food exists in Port Phillip without stint. The colonists already export large quantities of wheat and potatoes, besides their great staple-wool; and butchers' meat is cheap, almost beyond credibility in this country. By the latest intelligence from Melbourne, excellent legs of mutton were selling in that city for 6á. each; and fat bullocks, weighing seven cwts., were selling at £2 15s. per head, or less than 1d. a pound. From all the information in our possession, Port Phillip appears to us one of the most desirable portions of Australia, for the settlement of emigrants from this country. The climate is more temperate and equable than in the more northern districts of New South Wales, somewhat resembling that of Montpelier or Nice. Forming, as this colony does, the southernmost point of Australia, and the south-west wind prevailing there for about nine months in the year, blowing from the direction of the great southern ocean, genial showers often fall, so that vegetation there is rich and abundant all the year round. The winters are so mild as scarcely to interrupt vegetable growth, and two crops of potatoes, beans, onions, and other vegetables, can be grown in the course of the year. In the interior of New South Wales, droughts of long continuance occur; but these are much less frequent in Port Phillip, from the causes named. The country is finely diversified with hill and dale, plain and forest,-its pic-its herds; its crops of wheat, potatoes, flax, and other turesque character having induced Major Mitchell, its first explorer, to designate it by the name of Australia Felix. By far the largest proportion of the district of Port Phillip, containing the richest lands, is yet unoccupied, except by a few squatters with their flocks. Although it comprehends an area of about 100,000 square miles, its population does not yet amount to more than 40,000, about one-fourth of whom reside in Melbourne, the chief town. Melbourne is situated at the head of the beautiful bay of Port Phillip, near the mouth of the Yarra Yarra River. It has churches, schools, banks, and newspapers. Numerous steamers daily ply from it to Geelong, and other towns of the colony. It contains an active, industrious, and thriving population; and is daily increasing in size. The country for ten miles round it, towards the interior, is highly picturesque, and the soil of excellent quality, growing heavy crops of wheat, maize, and potatoes. All kinds of vegetables are remarkably" engaged" immediately on the arrival of the vessel in prolific. There are instances of the potatoe crops, for one year alone, paying the whole original cost of the land, and also the cost of cultivation. The country in the interior is uneven, in some places hilly and wooded; but, frequently expanding into extensive plains, naturally cleared, and thickly covered with grasses of different sorts. Thousands of acres may be met with in one block, quite ready for the plough. Perhaps the finest and most fertile region of Australia is that part of the Port Phillip district lying west of the town of Geelong and Bay of Port Phillip, known as the Western Plains. It lies along the south shore of Australia, and is about 200 miles in length, by about 25 miles in breadth, containing about 3,200,000 acres in one continuous stretch. The land here is of first-rate quality, and very easy of cultivation. This extensive country is naturally cleared, only occasional clumps of trees being seen in it, as in an English park. Numerous conical hills diversify the scenery; they are not of great height, and are obviously of volcanic origin. The soil of this district is a rich black mould, extremely productive, and suited to the growth of all kinds of European grain. On some parts of the plain the grass is so rich, and the climate so mild, that a single acre of ground, in its natural state, is capable of maintaining a bullock or heifer, without artificial food of any kind, all the year round; and from fifty to sixty bushels of wheat have been reaped per acre, though the general produce is thirty-five, with careless husbandry, and no manure of any kind. Only a very small portion of this district is yet occupied; but settlers are flocking into it from England and Scotland. It may be observed, that a large proportion of the colonists of Port Phillip are Scotch-a people not slow to discern and take advantage of the natural capabilities of a country. The Scotch of Port Phillip flatter themselves that however numerous they Whilst food is in such abundance, and the demand for labour is so great, it is not a matter of surprise that the colonists should so constantly and so eagerly reiterate their cry for "more men from England;" and, not only men, but they call out for women too; cooks, housemaids, dairymaids, governesses, sempstresses, and such like, are scarcely to be had at any price; almost all the women who land are married outright; some are the port; and the competition is sometimes highly amusing. There is no such dilly-dallying way of managing those matters as we observe at home; the Australian wooer is blunt; he comes at once to the point, and is generally successful. From the comparatively small number of women who emigrate, as compared with men, there is a great want of female servants of all kinds in the Australian colonies; hence the urgent request, on the part of the colonists of Port Phillip, that "at least one-half of the emigrants sent out by Government shall consist of females." The genus "cook" is said by the Colonial Secretary of South Australia to be "almost extinct" there; and the same may be said of Port Phillip. The Government emigration agent at Sydney says, "The want of female domestic servants is felt in every family throughout the colony; many families are constantly without the servants required by them." And of Port Phillip, he says, "That the demand for servants, of every description, is becoming very urgent, in both town and country; that wages are advancing to an unreasonably high rate; and that servants are becoming, in consequence, careless and unmanageable." The general scarcity of men's labour in Port Phillip within the last few years has also led to a large increase of the rate of wages. Farm labourers' and shepherds' wages have increased from £25 to £32 per annum, besides rations; the weekly rations consisting of 12lbs. of best flour, 12lbs. of fresh meat, 2ozs. of tea, lb. of moist sugar, and vegetables and milk at will, when these are at hand. The Emigration Agent states, on the evidence of intelligent witnesses, that 2,500 working men might be profitably introduced yearly into the district; but it is competent to afford room for a far larger number. By papers received from Melbourne, of date January 14th, it is stated, that though a considerable number of emigrants had arrived in the colony, they were immediately employed at high rates of wages, and that quadruple the number would, apparently, have made no impression on the "labour market." Mr. Westgarth says, in his recent report to the House of Lords' Committee on Colonization from Ireland, "The fineness of the climate, and the high rate of wages that usually prevails, are commonly considered as the chief grounds of preference for Australia. But a far more important reason exists in connection with masses of the emigrating poor. Australia can employ any description of labour; the male or the female, the skilled or the unskilled, can alike be made available on her pastoral stations; and a country whose produce consists chiefly of a readily available export, is susceptible of a progress and extension in the employment of labour, which cannot be suddenly communicated to colonies of a different character. Extension and improvement here only awaits an adequate supply of labour." The recent discovery of gold ore in the Australian Pyrenees, north of Melbourne, is a new feature in connection with this colony. The real wealth of the country must ever consist in the fruitfulness of its soil, and the industry of its population. It is probable, however, that the discovery of gold will have the beneficial effect of drawing population into the colony more rapidly, than any other event that could possibly have occurred. The following interesting example of rapid prosperity in Port Phillip was given by Dr. Lang, in his evidence before the Lords' Committee on Colonization from Ireland: "On my last visit to Port Phillip, in February, 1846, a reputable Scotch Highlander came up from his farm, about six miles distant from Melbourne, on hearing that I was coming to England, to request me to use any influence which I might have at home to induce as many of his poor unfortunate countrymen as I could to emigrate to the colony. He related to me the particulars of his own history, as a specimen of what could be effected in the colony, and left me to judge whether it was not a fair specimen of the capabilities of the country for emigrants generally. He was a native of the western Highlands, and having no means of subsistence for his increasing family, he had gone with them to endeavour to earn a livelihood in any way, in the town of Greenock, where he had been employed, precariously enough, for six years, as a common porter on the streets. The Highlanders, generally, are not taught any trade, and they have, consequently, no resource but that of unskilled labour in a menial capacity when they migrate to the Lowlands. He had a wife and ten children, the eldest under twenty years of age, and in the year 1840, in virtue of an arrangement which the government of the period were induced to make at my suggestion in the year 1837, when there was much destitution in the Highlands of Scotland, he got a free passage out to Australia for himself and family, as one of a number of Highland emigrants that were carried out at that period, at the expense of the Land Fund of New South Wales. He landed with scarcely a farthing. I believe, indeed, he had a few shillings, which he had earned on the way out, by some service he had rendered to one of the cabin-passengers on board ship. He landed at Melbourne either late in the year 1840 or early in 1841, and hired himself as a stonemason's labourer; and three of his children that were able to work, in any way, were hired out to any person that would employ them. With the first earnings of the family (they seem to have had a common purse) they purchased a cow, which, as cattle were at that time very dear in the Port Phillip district, cost them twelve pounds. They added another and another as they could. The mother of the children established a dairy, and by constant additions to their herd, by purchase as well as by the natural increase, they had accumulated a herd in the course of five years, at the period when I saw them in February, 1846, of no fewer than four hundred head, of all ages. I saw two of the elder sons of the family myself going in charge of this large herd to a station they had just taken up on the banks of the Murray River, about two hundred miles from Melbourne. They were then no longer allowed, as they had been previously in the infancy of the settlement, to graze their large herd in the neighbourhood of the principal town in the district, and they had, consequently, to go into the interior like other squatters, where for ten pounds a year they could have a government license to occupy a portion of waste land, sufficiently to graze their increasing herd. They would, probably, get an extent of land on these terms almost equal to an English county, to roam on with their cattle. In the meantime, the father of this family had purchased fortytwo acres of land, within six miles of Melbourne, at seven pounds an acre. An English gentleman, of considerable capital, had, in virtue of a temporary arrangement of the Colonial Office, purchased a large stock of 5,000 acres in that locality, of the minimum price of one pound an acre, and he sold it out again to such purchasers as the Highlander, in small farms, at seven pounds an acre, at least as much of it as he could dispose of in that way. The Highlander had cleared the whole of this land at the period of my visit (for I went to his place myself), had fenced it all off with post and rail fences, and had cropped it, and was reaping crops of wheat of 30 bushels an acre from it, although the soil appeared to be rather light. He had erected a brick-house upon it; he had a large stack of wheat in his farm-yard, and another of oaten hay, for oats are used as hay for horses in towns in the colony; and he considered himself worth, when I saw him, at least £1,100. I was informed, on mentioning this case, which I told several of the most respectable inhabitants of Port Phillip during my stay, that it was by no means an exaggerated specimen of the class to which the Highlander belonged, and that there are many other cases in the district still more favourable." THE HOT SEASON IN CALCUTTA. MANY persons who have not been within the tropics, are inclined to believe, that though the meridian heat in these latitudes is intense, the morning will be very pleasant; but this is not the case, particularly during the hot season. The sun seems, in equatorial regions, to rise with unnatural haste; when only a few degrees above the horizon, it pours down a flood of light and heat which dazzles and oppresses those who expose themselves. As noon approaches, the rays of the sun are of course more and more fervid; the solar orb has ascended in fiery splendour to its vertical altitude, and reigns for several hours a perfect tyrant over eastern creation; the sky is now, in the expressive language of Job, "a molten looking-glass." The sun is going down, clouds gather in the north. west, the lightning is more and more vivid, and the thunder is louder and louder; darkness now covers the earth, the dense masses of clouds have advanced, and every star is obscured,-then comes the north-wester. The lightning now flashes from horizon to horizon, the thunder roars tremendously, and then the rain falls in torrents. The black clouds soon roll away, the sky is serene, the stars sparkle brilliantly, and midnight is not so sultry after a north-wester. From two hours after sunrise to near sunset, in the warmest days in the hot season, man, quadruped, and bird, seek the coolest place of shade. There is not the possibility of a place over the length and breadth of the plains being then made pleasantly cool; the highest expectation is, that the coolest place in the dwelling will, as a retreat, be patiently endurable. The hot season is a period of stoical discipline to newly-arrived Europeans; every day and every night, from the beginning of March to the middle of June, have discomforts to them. The hot winds blow, the dust is raised and sweeps along; the nights are generally very warm and close; natives as well as Europeans would gladly dispense with the warmest days and the oppressive nights of the hot season, and every person then would fain have the sun moved many degrees lower. In Britain, ladies faint, and men become weak in the dog-days, when the heat in the sun is not more than 75 deg., they are ardently wishing for the coolness of October, and even prefer the cold of winter to this "scorching heat." but there is, meanwhile, no solace for him in scolding the bearers; these dusky hirelings are not interested in his comfort, but in his coppers; he may be as hot as a salamander, but this is a very trifling circumstance to them. Do not suppose that when the lately arrived European has reached his office, his hours of uneasiness in the hot season are all over until night, and that with the pleasures of industry there are not intermingling climate disadvantages. The office-books have been only an hour opened by him, when their pages are saturated with perspiration, the punkah swings over his head in vain, his hands swell, and he is not as energetic as he used to be. The petty troubles of life which are peculiar to Europeans in very hot weather, cannot easily be diminished or removed, solely by reason or indifference; something tangible and common-place is much more must at noon give place to Epicurus even in the office, and so, after three hours employment, the desk labours of the accounting European cease for some twenty minutes; the office khansamah or khidmutgar, says to him, "tiffin teor, sahib," and in a minute he has joined the other pale faces at the tiffin-table. Having, during their noon repast, done some measure of justice to themselves, to brandy-pawnie (brandy and water), claret, or Allsop's ale, the chotah sahibs (junior masters) resume their seats at the desks, the steam is now up, the machinery is again in better order, and they are willing to toil, as toil they should, till half-past four or five o'clock, when the office closes for the day. The warmest day in the south of England would now be considered by Europeans in the plains as delightfully cool; it is therefore not surprising that they should be fond of iced wines, iced ales, iced water, and iced creams, -that they should think that a day in the hot season seems nearly as long as a week at home, and fancy that the cold season will not soon return. Every hour, except the few passed in unconscious slumber, has a petty vexa-successful when the sun is shining perpendicularly. Zeno tion of some kind to sensitive fresh Europeans; ere sleep closes their eye-lids, the largest amount of patience may be exhausted, and no wonder, for since two hours after sunrise there has been experienced, what every person living in a temperate climate would term discomfort. Three or four hours repose is at length enjoyed; it passes swiftly with the slumberer, and before gun-fire, when the morning star is still sparkling, every European who values health and comfort aright is out of bed; the twilight coolness, evanescent though it be, is too valuable to be enjoyed within the mosquito gauze-curtain; indeed, the morning somnolency is forbidden by the surgeons, and disregarded by every old Indian; so every European ought to rise at day-break, and have a ride early in the morning. The sun rose when the health-seeking equestrians were at the distant extremity of the plain, and to their dwellings, old and young Europeans now hasten, before it ascends much above the low bank of clouds on the horizon, if they are anxious not to have a headache all day. These residents have arrived at their dwellings, have stretched themselves on couches, and are now heated, perspiring, and fatigued as if they had been for several hours before a furnace. Servants now fan their sahibs and bheebie-sahibs, the windows are darkened, the doors are closed, and the spiritless occupants recline on their sofas, enjoying the usual morning beverage, coffee; and though the indulgence of this beverage induces a second discharge from the pores, nevertheless it cannot be dispensed with, even in the hot season. An hour has passed away indolently, yet necessarily so; the sahib now leaves his couch, bathes, and changes his cottons, and is dressed for breakfast. The servant, or rather his servant, enters the room and says to him, "hadjere teor, sahib" (breakfast ready, master). The sahib is seated at the breakfast-table; fish, and rice, and dainties are before him, but very likely he has not a keen appetite-this blessing is rather scarce in the mornings of the hot season. The first, and perhaps the only, cup of tea or coffee drunk, is but half emptied, when lo! if the European is a griffin, that is, one not thoroughly parched, his face and body will be glistening with dew-drops, his arms, his neck, and body covered with perspiration, and he is as cool as he would be in a vapour-bath; every pore from head to foot now seems a well-spring, and every inch of him has a little fever for itself. The morning repast is over, and the European sahib is now ready for his office labours; and forthwith in palanquin is hurried to the office on the shoulders of four natives, at the speed of four and a half miles an hour. Of course, the sahib is now lying on his back, his legs strive which will be highest, and his arms are folded on his breast or above his head; the sliding doors of the palanquin are drawn aside, and there, exposed to the gaze of every body and looking at every body passing him, he is stretched and motionless. Perhaps the palanquin has been closed and exposed to the sun all the morning (a very likely case), so when the sahib places himself in it, he feels as cool as he would be in an oven; The fiery despot will now soon disappear among the bright purple and golden clouds of the western horizon. Sol is indeed a hard master within the tropics; from seven in the morning till half-past four during the hot season he has it all his own way. Europeans daily never look at the sun for nine long hours, but the perambulating poor natives must be pleased with him as they find him, and be content with thunder-storms, hailstones, clouds of dust, and whatever else of the out-door disagreeables of the season are experienced by them. The hour of liberty has again returned, and the Europeans have escaped from obscurity, from their drawing-rooms, and their offices. The streets are thronged, the terraces and house-tops are cooled, and Peripatetics are there pacing to and fro as customary. Mussulmans are in ranks in compounds and on house-tops repeating their evening prayers, and hundreds of charioteers and equestrians are as usual hastening to the esplanade. Supreme-court judges have laid aside their storyed wigs, red and silk gowns, and ministers their surplices; bankers have secured their money-bags, merchants have forgotten their cares, the section writers of government their drudgery, and pensioned native princes have put on their diamonds; all these facts occur simultaneously an hour before the going down of the sun. Calcutta, a city of bustle, noise, and confusion all day, is very quiet from sunset to sunrise, except when there is a native festival. In the dead hour of night, one so inclined may walk a long distance, and see only the chokeydars (watchmen) and scores of jackals; and the half-hourly call of the chokeydar, the occasional cries of the jackal, may only disturb the deep silence that, from ten in the evening till four in the morning pervades the streets, squares, and numberless compounds of the city. In the hot season, the beasts of labour fall down exhausted and sometimes dead under their loads, jackals hide in the coolest part of the thicket, and the birds are perched in the darkest part of the wood. Then the frogs die for want of water, crows gasp for breath, ducks are in desperation, bheesties, or carriers of water, are toiled like galley-slaves, fever is often prevalent, uninterrupted sleep is a great blessing, disastrous fires are more frequent, and the sun is shunned by every living thing except alligators, adjutants (large birds), certain native devotees, and butterflies.-Sketches of Calcutta. SAINTS AND HEROES. but a genuine, enduring saint. We have heard two persons dispute by the hour concerning the relative "Nature recognises in mankind only two immense classes of sub-greatness of Luther and Melancthon. The men were not stances and shadows." WE turn to consider the two classes into which the former species of immortal men, the substances subside themselves; namely, into saints and heroes. The non-appreciation of the distinction between these gives rise to infinite dispute and misunderstanding. There is a large party of hero-worshippers, and a still greater one, for weakness is ever more abundant than strength, of saint-lovers; and these two are sworn enemies, who, in debating clubs, reviews, books, and society, carry on a war of extermination. It is not clearly seen that they are but the passive and the active one, of the same quality. Saintship is purely negative. It is the high-minded indomitable endurance of calamity; the bearing up against the ills and inconveniences of life; the schooling of the mind to dwell amid an age of wrong, and be tranquilly right at the same time. Let that be gilded by a firm trust in a higher future, and you have a saint; a man in his peculiar style, a substance, and one whose real substances also will ever live. The hero is simply the positive of all this. He sees the wrong that exists, the falsehood, fraud, and injustice that runs riot here below; he sees that he must not be tainted with them, and, therefore, like the saint, he resolves not to be overcome by them. But he sees something higher than all this-something that, in his moments of strength, might reveal itself to the saint, but which he lacked the inner force to execute; he sees that it is just those evils that render earth and life the vast probationary battle that all great souls feel it to be; he sees that to trample those evils underfoot, is to accomplish the destiny of man; and he sees that as human ignorance, insincerity, and wickedness originate, so must human wisdom, sincerity, and virtue annihilate those evils. Seeing all this, he arises in rapt majesty, and strong in his intense earnestness, and in the conviction that God and nature do battle within, he sallies forth to grapple with the hydras of the earth. He knows that he cannot regenerate the world, that what he can accomplish will be but inconsiderable; that, in fact, he is on a chivalric forlorn-hope exploit. But he knows, also, that he can enact a true life which is something, and that before the city is stormed, the moat must be filled up with the dead bodies of the first assailants; and so he fights on, undismayed, unto his death. Such is the hero-the brightest form attainable by man; and when we stumble on an immortality such as his, we entwine ourselves around it with love, broad as the ocean, intense as the central fire, and with reverence and awe, second only to what we pay to the Great Father of heroes. to be compared-their idiosyncrasies were diametrically opposite. Luther was the hero, Melancthon the saint of the Reformation. One can love the mild Melancthon, and admire the calm placidity wherewith he endeavoured, in a stormy and corrupt age, to realize for himself a quiet life of truth. But one cannot avoid feeling, with all our admiration, how, infinitely grander was the positive force of Luther's moral daring, how, had the world had none other than Melancthon at that time, the Reformation might have postponed itself indefinitely. Both were useful, both were perfect in their respective spheres. Luther did the deed, and fought the battle, and Melancthon was there for him to point to, as a living sample of how goodly a thing that reformed religion was for which he fought. In like manner, also, how many sympathize with the Lady Russell, when in widowed constancy, she mourned her slaughtered led with prayerful piety, weeping herself blind for sorrow. But how few are so gifted as to sympathize to the full with the lovely maiden of Caen, who brooded over the horrors of the time, until an ancient valour, an ecstasy of republican heroism took possession of her, and she marched, solitary and unfriended, to the scene of blood, and in the resolute sternness of her just soul, slew the monster that was bringing shame on France, and then perished in her beauty, undismayed, upon the scaffold. But let us not confine ourselves wholly to the dead. We too have now a saint and a hero among us, second to few in any preceding eras. We have Wordsworth and Carlyle; both feel the emptiness, the paltry huxtering spirit of the age, the joint triumph of cant and mammon. Wordsworth retires away from it, burys himself among the green valleys and isle dotted lakes of Westmoreland, preserves his own individuality from the taint, and bears tacitly with the world he shuns. He produces poems which, speaking to men's sensibilities and reason, create a little avoidance of the evil, and a little silent toleration, and that is no small matter to achieve. Carlyle, on the other hand, does not so retire, but plunges himself into the thick of human struggling, madness, misery, and crime; and, alone among his compeers, stands up like a resuscitated Isaiah, rolling out the awful warnings of his prophetic soul, exciting the deep and noble qualities into zealous action, denouncing the froth and insanity of our superficial life, ringing the alarm bell to a sleeping people! By reason of advanced age, in the course of nature, it may not be that our philosophic poet-saint can. long be with us; but we may, for many years to come, boast the possession, as a living breathing man, of our mighty prophet hero. God grant it! From this analysis, while it is seen how they are both developments of one greatness, it will also be perceived The inexorable limits of space, and the admonitory how naturally it occurs that there are the widest diver-voice of a fair editor, here warns us to check our rhapsosities in the estimate of notable men. The weak, tender, dizing, and to conclude. We have glanced over our womanly temperament admires the saint, and depreciates subject rapidly, but, we hope, intelligibly. If we have the hero; the stern, uncompromising, high-striving spirit, led a thinking reader or two to see with keener, kindlier on the other hand, cleaves impetuously to the hero, and eye, the different aspects which it assumes, it is well. If scorns the saint. This is a want of catholicity in both. we have induced one earnest reader to rise in indignant Channing could not in the least understand Napoleon; resolve, and to determine to combat the social dragons he seemed to him nothing more than a large robber, liar, that infest us, a great thing, one strange to popular and cut-throat. Fenelon he could understand, he could periodicals, has been done. Saints we have. There is fuse his soul into Fenelon's, could love and reverence no lack of minds, who, quietly enough, are leading lives at him; and by that which would have reconciled him to variance with the age; if it were not so, the nation would both these, was Channing deficient as a man. So, in the collapse. The demand is now for the heroic quality, for reviews of the late memorials of Charles Lamb, the men who will have the courage to do battle with distinction has been universally overlooked, and that society, and to carry truth into the very citadel of falsesaint-like cheerful man has been lauded as a hero. hood. Such men are always slow in coming may they, Admirable, noble, and negatively heroic was that self- however, come quickly now, for their work a waits them. devotion to his suffering sister-was that cheerful, yet, In the meantime, for our enduring patient ones, we have sorrowful mind of his, like bright figures painted on a ample room and employment, as, indeed, we have, in gloomy ground. Yet, compare him with Cromwell, and the best of times, for both saints and heroes. you will see the difference-see that he was no hero, J. S. S. 8 |