cated that the ship was bringing to them three passengers -to launch their whale-boat. In half an hour's time it was alongside, followed by a canoe, in which were old Adams, son, and grandson. Their rapture on again seeing their pastor, and an ordained clergyman, may be imagined. The Admiral and several others accompanied Mr Nobbs to the island, and were grieved greatly on seeing how ill and poor the hapless inhabitants were, whom a failure of their crops had driven, for months, to subsist on pumpkins, berries, cocoa-nuts, and beans. Poor souls, they all appeared so sad, thin, and care-worn! Shortly afterwards the Admiral returned to the island, having, in passing, been met by a boat from it, containing the melancholy news that four-fifths of the inhabitants were prostrated by influenza!

It is clear that the island is no longer capable of supporting this interesting and primitive community; who, become sensible of the fact, have petitioned to be removed, by the British Government, to some not far-distant, but salubrious spot, exempt from the visitation of famine. They themselves indicated Norfolk Island, as soon as it should have completely ceased to be a penal settlement; but their removal thither is at present uncertain, owing to unavoidable delays in the complete evacuation of it by its present criminal occupants. Doubtless steps will be taken, as soon as practicable, to secure the permanent comfort of these our distant, humble, and interesting fellow-countrymen.

"Our

On the 27th July 1853, the islanders transmitted, through Admiral Moresby, a present of "a small chest of drawers, of their own manufacture, of island.” means are very limited, and our mechanical skill also; and we will esteem it a great favour, if your Majesty would condescend to accept of it as a token of our loyalty and respect." Need we say, that our good Queen did so? and " very graciously. I am further to state," said the minister, "that her Majesty expressed her gratification at

receiving this mark of loyalty and esteem from her subjects in Pitcairn's Island."

A sad accident happened to several of the islanders on the 26th January 1853. Intending to fire a parting salute to H.M. Steamer Virago, which had come to them on an errand of kindness, Matthew M'Coy, the Chief Magistrate, and two others, were loading their famous old gun from the Bounty, and used as a rammer an old rafter, on the top of which was a nail. This caused an explosion, blowing the three men to a great distance, and so seriously injuring the Chief Magistrate, M'Coy, that he died within twelve hours of his arm being amputated. He was a grandson of William M'Coy, the mutineer, and about thirty-five years of age, and was married to a sister of Mr Nobbs, and has left a large family. The old gun has been since spiked, and so silenced for ever.

These foregoing, and other interesting circumstances, are communicated to the public in a fourth edition of Mr Murray's interesting work-being the third which has appeared since this article was written. It was at the house of this gentleman that the author of these papers, at the earnest request of Mr Nobbs, was introduced to him.

UNCLE TOM'S CABIN.*

LET us imagine one of our critical successors of a century hence, that is, in the month of October 1953, sitting musingly before a copy of a work called UNCLE TOM'S CABIN, which a few days previously he had taken down by chance from one of the least-used shelves of his library. May one also amuse one's imagination by a picture of the possible state of things then existing on the other side of the Atlantic, by the light of which our shadowy friend of 1953 has read the work which his substantial predecessor of 1853 has just laid down?

-The present United States of America, after having been, perhaps, more than once split asunder and soldered together again-or the whole, or a large portion voluntarily reannexed to the mother country, and by and by again detached-after these and other, possibly more or less sudden, violent, and bloody vicissitudes-may have become a great Empire, under the stern, but salutary, onewilled sway of the Emperor of America: his majesty a jet black, who had shown consummate and unexpected high qualities for acquiring and retaining the fear and submission of millions of the stormiest tempers of mankind; but his lovely empress a white. He has an immense army, devoted to his person and will, composed of men of * Blackwood's Magazine, October 1853.

Uncle Tom's Cabin: A Picture of Slave Life in America. By HARRIET BEECHER STOWE. 1852.

The Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin: Presenting the original Facts and Documents upon which the Story is founded. By HARRIET BEECHER STOWE, author of Uncle Tom's Cabin. 1853.

every complexion—from black, through copper middletints, down to white; and correspondingly diversified are his banners, but black, of course, the predominant: a quadroon being commander-in-chief. As for his majesty's civil service, he has a coal-black chancellor, equally at home in the profoundest mysteries of white and black letter; a mulatto minister of instruction, and a white secretary of state; black and white clergy, and a similarly constituted bar-here a big black face frowning out of a white wig, and there a little white face, grinning out of a black wig, with black and white bands, and gowns varied ad libitum. And the laws which they are concerned in administering, accord with these harmonious diversitiesit being, for instance, enacted under heavy penalties, that no black shall, by gesture, speech, or otherwise, presume to ridicule a white because of his colour, nor, vice versâ, shall a white affect to disparage a black because of his complexion; that the emperor and empress shall always be of different colours, and that the succession to the throne shall alternate between black and white, or mulatto, members of the imperial family. By this and other provisions have been secured a complete fusion between North and South, between black and white, glitteringly typified by intermingled gems in the imperial crown; the central one being the identical black diamond that figured in the famous Exhibition in Great Britain in 1851, and presented to the emperor by one of the descendants of her Majesty Queen Victoria, then on the British throne! "To this complexion" shall it be that matters will have "come at last?"

Or will our sturdy cousins of 1953 be still republican, a united republic, but with offices, honours, rights, and privileges, equally distributed, as in our fancied empire, among those of every shade of colour? Or, after a fearful succession of struggles between black and white, * * * the *** is predominant; *** slavery, after a *** sangor a noble spontaneous * * * †

Here the MS. becomes unfortunately illegible for some lines.

From a preliminary dissertation prefixed to the book, our critic of 1953 learns that it excited, almost immediately on its appearance, a prodigious sensation among all classes, both in Europe and America; that both sexes, high and low, young and old, literate and illiterate, vulgar and refined, phlegmatic and excitable, shed tears over it, and wrote, talked, and even ranted, about it everywhere; that, within a few months' time, impressions of it were multiplied by millions, and in most languages of the civilised world. That its writer, an American woman, immediately came over to England, and made her appearance in public assemblies, called in honour of her; and she was also "lionised" [a word explained, in a long note, as indicating a custom prevalent in that day, among weak persons, of running after any notorious person weak enough to appear pleased with it] among the fashionables and philanthropists of the day, but preserved, nevertheless, amidst it all, true modesty of demeanour and silence amidst extravagant eulogy. Inflamed with curiosity, our shadowy successor sits down to peruse a work-then possibly little, if ever, mentioned-anxious to see what could have produced such a marvellous effect, in the middle of the intelligent nineteenth century, on all classes of readers; and whether it produced permanent results, or passed away as a nine days' wonder. Having at length closed the pages of Uncle Tom's Cabin, and judged it according to the critical canons of 1953, will he deem it adequate to have produced such effects? What estimate will he form of our intellectual calibre?

We cannot tell, and shall not attempt to conjecture. Dismissing, therefore, but for a while only, the imaginary occupant of our critical chair a century hence, let us say for ourselves, that though our silence, and that of one or two quarterly contemporaries, may have excited notice, both in America and this country, we have been by no means indifferent spectators of the reception which this singularly successful book has met with; regarding