services; 'you are very kind, but I should prefer to accompany you.' I found the sparkling eyes of my fair cicerone-who, be it said en passant, was dressed in a brown surtout and knee-breeches, which admirably suited her somewhat embonpoint style of beauty-rather distracting; but in time I contrived to acquire, with her assistance, a tolerable conception of the revolution that had been achieved. I first examined a new universal history, which filled about twenty folio volumes, and which I found, when looking through the last, had not then reached the creation of the world. "The history of society' -this was the opening paragraph -'has been called the history of mankind. The classification is superficial. Universal history is not the history of men: it is the history of chemical combinations. The devil,' it proceeded, 'is the maker of the world' (nothing very new in that, I reflected; many people, from the north country, used to be of that opinion in my time), and the devil is a deposit of sulphuric acid and phosphate of carbon.' History, as well as theology, had evidently undergone a reconstruction. I turned from speculation to the works that bore upon practical life. I learned that in politics the cardinal principle had become 'the greatest circumference of the greatest number.' "That certainly is new to me,' I remarked; 'pray, madam, may I ask how it is applied? A benevolent despotism,' was the answer. 'No talk, and plenty of beer. Our most brilliant writers have shown that Liberty is a mistake. The most convincing statistics prove conclusively that men become fatter under despotic than under parliamentary government.' We then investigated the chamber devoted to the poets, and here I found myself even more at sea than elsewhere. If a man cannot comprehend the minstrelsy of his own age, how can he master that of another? And the revolution in poetry had been terribly complete. The new combinations were unutterably perplexing. Luna had dropped her VOL LXIII. NO. CCCLXXIII. 95 white virgin veil, and was drinking hard with Bacchus. Cleopatra had become the equivalent for chastity, and the fickle sea was the emblem of constancy. Here, too, I was assured of a fact which the society of the black-eyed librarian had led me to suspect. It was clear that in the new arrangements the fair sex had got the upper hand. All the most passionate anacreontics were now written by women. Phyllis was transformed into the amorous swain who sued her reluctant and petticoated lover. He, poor soul, instead of raving about the tender snow-white shoulder which, moving, comes peeping over heavy dark-grey linen,' was commonly represented in tears and damaged virtue-an outraged Lucretia. The opening verse of one of these idylls still haunts my memory; it was entitled 'A maiden's moan to her coy lover,' and was, if I am not mistaken, set to an American air. Why so coy, my Francis? Thy blue eyes smell like pansies, 'Sybilline spirit-dances,' I repeated; 'surely I have heard that before. It recals my departed friend Bl-kie in his less heroic mood. Still it is a real poem, full of fine sentiment and true feeling. But is there no one here I knew when in the body?' I looked in vain along the virgin shelves-not a single familiar face. I recognised Mr. Bailey's Festus, indeed, but with him I had had merely a bowing acquaintance; and I was giving up the search as desperate, when my eye lighted upon a gaily-bound little volume, around whose margin ran in golden letters the quaint legend, The Lily and the Bee By an M. P. "Yes,' said the black-eyed cicerone, 'he was unintelligible to you, G but we have made him out. He is remembered and revered (and read occasionally), though the Norman lilies have faded and the bees have left Hymettus.' Certainly Certainly that girl had a very sweet voice, and stooping a little closer to catch the fragrant syllables, at that moment, could it be?-it must be -neither mortal man nor disembodied shade could mistake that memorable profile-assuredly it was the immortal, the perennial B-gham! 'Eternal heavens!' I exclaimed in a loud tone, thrown off my guard; 'is he still living? He was ninety-nine years old the day I died.' A strange expression swept through the eyes of my beautiful guide; the old gentleman, hearing himself appealed to, turned sharply round, and- * * * I awoke, and behold it was but a dream, and Mr. Martin Tupper's last volume (which is written to prove conclusively and for ever that the last state of a man may be worse than the beginning) was lying below my pillow. What an awakening! The auspicious reform which the sleeping imagination had consummated was not even begun. Finding that this was the state of affairs, and impressed with the conviction that it was impossible any longer to avert exposure, we boldly determined to take the bull by the horns, sacrifice ourselves for the welfare of the commonwealth, and, like the Tories, bring in a Reform Bill. With the kind aid of the Attorney-General we immediately sketched out the leading provisions of an act for the abolition of the writers of books, the preamble of which declares that 'Whereas Chaucer, and Spenser, and Shakspeare, and Milton, and John Dryden, and Alexander Pope, and the Editor of Fraser's Magazine, have written, printed, and published various works, the titles of which are more fully set forth in the body of this act, so that through their researches the available field of human inquiry has been exhausted, and there remains nothing to be said which has not been said, or to be written which has not been written; and whereas, if our trusty lieges read all that is already written they will read as much as is good for them, and more than is necessary; and whereas, notwithstanding this is, or ought to be, matter of public notoriety, there are to be found in divers parts of our realm sundry honest and decent citizens who still remain in ignorance of the same, and who are therefore liable to be deceived and imposed upon thereanent; and whereas many wicked and evil-disposed persons are reported to have passed off as genuine, damaged literary wares which they had either stolen or theftuously appropriated with intent to defraud, and to the great skaith and detriment of the lieges ; BE IT THEREFORE ENACTED, &c. &c.' The enacting clauses are copied verbatim from an old Puritan act 'anent the repression of vagabond minstrels and players, and other sturdy and valiant beggars'-the punishments continuing substantially the same (viz., 'to be imprisoned for any period not exceeding the number of pages of which the said writing consists,' and to be branded on the right hand with the letter R, which was used originally as the initial letter of rogue, and is also 'providentially,' as Lord Malmesbury piously remarked, 'the first letter of 'writer'), with the addition, however, of a month's hard labour over Dr. Cumming's Apocryphal Apocalypse or Lord John's Constitutional Treadmill-ad lib. In view of the penalties which it creates, the afflicted patriarch's petition, 'O that mine enemy would write a book,' may shortly, it is to be hoped, become a practical threat of no little significance. The Bill is to be introduced into the Commons by Mr. Disraeli and Mr. Kinglake, who though at one time implicated in the illicit traffic, have latterly repudiated the connexion, and entered a respectable House. And now to cast into a final paragraph the 'moral' of these remarks. There can be no doubt that our standard literature' is very little read now. Few Englishmen or women are acquainted 1861.] Injurious Effects of Contemporary Literature. with the great masters of their mother tongue. It was once the custom to read Spenser and Shakspeare, and Fletcher and Addison, and Jeremy Taylor and Hooker. This was at a time when the circulating library was filled exclusively with fictions of the Minerva school, or with poetry such as Hayley wrote. There was no great temptation in that time of dearth to confine one's reading to the contemporary literature. But times are changed. The shelves of our great reading-clubs and libraries are crowded with the novels of Thackeray, Dickens, Lytton, Bronte, Kingsley; with the histories of Carlyle, Froude, Macaulay; with the poetry of Tennyson and Ruskin; with the theology of Maurice, Jowett, and Robertson, and with a host of authorities on science and travel. Such a literature as this is more than sufficient for the time and capacity of an ordinary student, and we need not wonder that the number of readers who limit their reading to the publications of the twelvemonth should increase every day. Yet we may be sure that such a limitation has an essentially narrowing influence, and produces a very injurious effect on the mind. All the writers of an age, however diversified their styles, and however peculiar their mental habits, are en rapport. They breathe the same air, they handle the same topics, they are acted upon by the same influences. So that a critic can tell, not more from the occurrence in their works of direct allusion to contemporary events, than from some trick of manner, some habit of thought, or some trait of feeling or character, whether an author belongs to the age of Elizabeth, or of Charles, or of Anne, or of the Georges. Every generation has a 'personality' of its own. Now the reader who reads the writings of his contemporaries only, cannot escape their influence. He bows slavishly to their authority; their taste becomes his taste, their prejudices his prejudices. The intense pressure which writers who are near to us exercise upon our feel ac ings and convictions, requires, if we would preserve intellectual manliness and moderation, to be staved off; and this can only be done by making ourselves quainted with the modifications of taste and opinion which have obtained in different ages of literature. A reader of Modern Painters, for instance, will obtain much more real benefit from that most noble treatise on Art if he has read Sir Joshua's Lectures and Vasari's Lives, and has looked upon the marbles of Florence and Rome. So strengthened and fortified he will be able to resist the exquisite fascination of that syren-like eloquence-to avoid that slavery of the intellect which is baser than the slavery of the body and to assimilate all that is good and true in the book without being hurried into the adoption of views which have been dictated by passion or caprice. The exclusive devotion which we pay to contemporary literature, and the neglect which is shown to the writings of our forefathers, will ultimately produce the result at which we point. The taste and judgment of the country will be permanently hurt. The next generation will witness a literature in which the peculiarities of Thackeray, and Carlyle, and Dickens will be caricatured. Ímitation alway exaggerates; and when none of the restraints of criticism are felt by the imitator, his imitation is sure to be very gross. None of us would be the worse of Thackeray's cynicism or of Dickens's cockneyism, if we knew by experience that many able writers had been genial and wise, and that much admirable humour had been expressed in classical English. We would then be able to set a proper value upon the specialties of these writers-neither unduly depreciating them nor unduly exalting them. So that if our Bill to abolish the Writing of Books be considered rather stringent, one at least to force us and our children to read some of the books that have been written, could not surely be opposed-unless by the representatives of the metropolitan constituencies. SHIRLEY. A BLUE MUTINY. WHAT shall we do, suppose there are two crowds?' says the apprehensive Mr. Winkle to the sagacious Mr. Pickwick, when the latter gentleman is assuring the supporters of the Honourable Mr. Slumkey, at Eatanswill, that his wishes are with them. 'Shout with the loudest!' is the answer; and as the humorous novelist tells us, volumes could not have said more.' The worth of this maxim is incalculable, especially to those who desire to deaden the calm voice of truth by the clamour of misrepresentation, and it has never been more remarkably exemplified than by the events which have taken place this past year in a portion of our Indian dominions. Most of our readers are aware that considerable discontent has been evinced for some months by a number of agriculturists, or, in Indian phraseology, of Ryots, who have hitherto grown for Europeans the plant which produces the blue dye called indica, or, familiarly, indigo. We had had enough of a red rebellion, and of the green flags which the bigoted Mohammedan waved over the heads of his followers to incite them to acts of personal daring. We had had enough also of the discontent with which the white soldier looked on his transfer from the Company to the Crown, which was carried out, indeed, as if he had been a mere piece of stock, to be described and ticketed in the inventory made over to the new proprietor. It seemed, however, that we were destined to face a calamity more disastrous in its ultimate effects than the defection or revolt of an unwieldy army, in the shape of a regular agrarian rising. Mail after mail came accounts of gentlemen attacked in their factories by crowds of infuriated Bengalís, of emissaries in the pay of wealthy natives who were spreading sedition everywhere, of ill-judging missionaries who had done their utmost to foment the disturbances, of officials who gladly seized on this opportunity for evincing their_antipathy to the independent Eng lishman, and of a vast amount of capital, skill, and enterprise which, under the above disadvantages, was threatened with absolute annihilation. But after every precaution had been taken in the spring of the year to prevent any general outbreak, and after a special, sharp, and summary law had been hurried through the Legislative Council to save the capital of Europeans— said to be in jeopardy-by making a breach of contract for the delivery of the indigo plant punishable as a misdemeanour, the Indian Government adopted the usual expedient of a commission of inquiry into the relations between the European planters and the Bengal ryots. The result of the labours of that Commission has reached England in the shape of one of those ponderous Blue Books, appropriately termed in this instance, which form the terror of fox-hunting squires and the delight of rising young members of the house. By their report and by the evidence, we hope to place before our readers a clear and impartial account of what has been hitherto designated as a struggle between capital and labour, between landlord and tenant, between civilization and barbarism; between the honesty, the energy, and the philanthropy of the Anglo-Saxon on the one hand, and the procrastination, deceit, and supineness of the Oriental on the other. It appears, then, that there are a large number of factories erected in many districts within the Bengal Presidency, in which every year is manufactured, under direct European superintendence, some of the best indigo that the world produces. Indigo, it is well known, is far older than even the Mohammedan invasion of Hindostan. It was worked into dye on the native system in the time of Pliny. A considerable indigenous manufacture was still carried on when British rule supplanted the falling Mohammedan power. But it is to the skill, perseverance, and continuity of purpose exhibited by Europeans that the high price of the first-rate Indian article, as com 1861.] The European Indigo Planter. pared with that of Java and the New World, is mainly due. Nothing less than an active manager, often from north of the Tweed, could give the cakes of Bengal indigo their uniform texture, even substance, and rich colour. The out-turn of indigo from the Bengal Presidency is, we are told, on the average, one hundred thousand chests; and as far as prices and supply are concerned, there can be no question that even in the last century the sharp and practised eye of the European at once seized on a native staple, improved the mode of its manufacture, enlarged the yearly out-turn, and almost created the trade. It But the present question is really not one of manufacturing the produce, but of cultivating the plant, and it now turns out that an enormous amount of misrepresentation on this head has been circulated amongst the English community both at home and in India. seems that, attached to most factories, are certain lands on which the indigo plant is grown by an establishment of ploughs, bullocks, and servants, maintained at the planter's expense.' Of these lands the European must have acquired the tenant-right or the right of actual occupancy. Even if he becomes a zemindar or landholder, he is not in a position to treat all the lands within his zemindary as his own-cancelling a lease here, ousting a tenant there, introducing a new cultivation in one place, or building a row of model cottages in another. The ryots of Bengal, with that inveterate tenacity which has distinguished their brethren in the village communities of Upper India, have managed, in spite of neglect or inefficient laws, to maintain their position as the undoubted occupants, and in many cases as the real and tangible owners of the soil. Wherever the planter cultivates indigo with his own ploughs and servants, he either holds the lands as a house farm, or he takes a lease of waste or unoccupied lands within a zemindary, or he rents or purchases outright the actual rights of the tenant from the tenant himself. But without such rights, rented or purchased, he can do literally nothing in the way of agriculture. All planters, it now turns out, adopt this system to a certain extent. Some till a score or even a few hundreds of acres; others, whose predecessors came early to the country, when there was much land to be reclaimed from the jungle, cultivate and manufacture indigo by this system alone. But one thing is established beyond question, which is, that there are hardly any disputes, disturbances, or outbreaks of feeling where this sound and healthy system prevails. The land is acquired by the European; the bullocks and ploughmen are maintained at his cost, or hired and paid for in cash; the various processes of agriculture, from the first tilling of the land to the cutting and carrying of the last sheaves or bundles of the indigo plant, are undertaken by the European, who in this view is planter as well as manufacturer; the expenditure of money, the wear and tear of materials and live stock, the chances of the climate, the trials of temper, the risks of the season, are his and his alone. If an acre of land well ploughed and pulverized, and sown at the right moment, should, owing to a due succession of sunshine and showers, yield the unusual return of sixty or seventy bundles, the whole profit is enjoyed by the European. Should the same extent of land, after the same careful cultivation, be dried by the sun or drenched by unseasonable rains, and yield nothing but a dry bundle of sticks, with a few sere and yellow leaves hanging about them, the undivided loss will fall on the planter. No dark-coloured agriculturists come in between to share the burdens or to partake the |