Volume 76 / Part 1 — MRS STOWE’S SUNNY MEMORIES.[43]

MRS STOWE’S SUNNY MEMORIES.^[43]

It is, we think, to be regretted that those who intend to lay before the public their impressions of foreign travel, should so often have recourse to the form of letters purporting to be addressed to friends or relatives at home. We admit that, for purposes of fiction, the epistolary style is convenient. Testy Mathew Bramble, his tyrannical sister Tabitha, and the lovelorn Winifred Jenkins, may, by their several lucubrations, unite to form the most amusing of family chronicles; but Smollett, when he compiled Humphrey Clinker, took care that the expression of each character should be perfectly natural. So with Lever’s Dodd Family, and the immortal letters of Mrs Ramsbottom. But the case of a party deliberately penning letters, in his or her own name, not for the private gratification of a select circle, or the information of those to whom they are addressed, but directly for the press and the public, is very different. In the first place, every one knows and feels that the letters are not genuine. The most gifted of our race, in addressing a mother, a sister, or a child, do not think it necessary to indulge in fine writing, or in long elaborate descriptions, or in statistical details. They write simply—generally shortly; and a good deal of their matter would, if submitted to the eye of a stranger, appear to be unmeaning gossip, not improbably approaching to twaddle. We doubt not that, in the real letters which Mrs Stowe despatched across the Atlantic, there were many household inquiries, suggestions, and remembrances—domestic precepts and home-thoughts—kind, motherly, or friendly words, such as render letters doubly delightful to the recipients. But these formal epistles which she has now given to the world under the collective title of Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands, bear falsity in their very face, and, in all human probability, the printer’s devil was the first person that perused them. They are all pitched in one key. Her despatches to the home nursery are as elaborate efforts of composition, as those which are nominally addressed to her father, or to “Dear Aunt E.”;—and, as a necessary consequence, they are frigid in the extreme. This is an artistic blunder, which cannot fail to detract very much from the interest of what Mrs Stowe had written. It was not perhaps to be expected, nor indeed desired, that she should have printed her genuine letters; but surely there was no occasion for recasting her diary or memoranda in a purely fictitious form.

We have, however, no reason to doubt that these volumes contain a faithful record of Mrs Beecher Stowe’s impressions of such parts of Europe as she has visited; and we so receive them. In her preface she requests “the English reader to bear in mind that the book has not been prepared in reference to an English, but an American public, and to make due allowance for that fact.”—We do not think that any explanation of the kind was required. Mrs Stowe says plainly enough, that “the object of publishing these letters is to give to those who are true-hearted and honest the same agreeable picture of life and manners which met the writer’s own eyes.”—In short, she was delighted with her tour and reception, and generally pleased with the people whom she met; and she wishes to communicate her own agreeable impressions to her countrymen. No one, on this side of the water at least, is likely to object to so kindly and benevolent a design. And we are bound to say, that had she prepared this book with the sole object of gratifying the people of Great Britain by indiscriminate praise of everything which met her eye, she could hardly have been more eulogistic than she is. Nor is this at all surprising, when we remember under what circumstances her journey to this country was made.

302No work published within our memory made so rapid an impression on the public mind as Mrs Stowe’s novel, Uncle Tom’s Cabin. It became famous among us almost as soon as it was imported from America. The theme was of surpassing interest, the characters were powerfully drawn; there was enthusiasm and pathos enough to thrill the heart, to call up tears, and to awaken the general sympathies of the free for the wrongs of the persecuted negro. It brought home to the minds of all of us the horrors of slavery in its worst and most unendurable form. The separation of husband and wife—the sale of children—the exposure in the public market of men and women, whose education was often superior to that of the brutes who bought and sold them: all these things, so revolting to humanity, were described with an energy and power greater, perhaps, than have been exhibited by any recent writer. Add to this that the tone of the novel was eminently religious, and calculated to make it find its way into circles from which other works of fiction were studiously banished; and it is easy to account for its immense and sudden popularity. Thousands of persons who would have thought it a positive sin to indulge in the perusal of a romance by Scott or Lytton, devoured the pages of Mrs Stowe with an avidity the more intense from their habits of previous abstinence. It was a book much patronised by the Quakers, and greatly in favour among the Methodists. It was multiplied by countless editions; it was to be seen in the drawing-room of the noble, and in the humble home of the mechanic; and from men of all classes throughout Great Britain it met with a cordial acceptance.

Unfortunately, however, it entered into the heads of certain wiseacres, that they might produce a great moral sensation, and promote other causes besides that of emancipation, by inducing Mrs Beecher Stowe to visit this country, and by parading her as an object of interest. Far be it from us to attempt to dictate to the gentlemen and ladies who are the principal promoters of the Peace Society, and the most active in the distribution of Olive-leaves, or to those who make total abstinence a leading article of their faith. But we may be allowed, with all deference, to hint our opinion that, in inviting Mrs Stowe to undergo the ordeal of a public ovation, they were not acting altogether fairly by the lady whom they professed to honour. We trust that we have said enough, both now and previously, to testify the sincere admiration in which we regard her talents as exhibited in her famous novel, and our sympathy for the cause in which that genius was displayed. Our tribute of praise, however humble in its kind, has not been niggardly bestowed; but we demur altogether to the propriety of making a public show and spectacle of the authoress of the most popular work, upon even the best or the holiest subject. We should demur to the propriety of such an exhibition, were it even demanded by the general voice—we condemn it when it is notoriously got up for sectarian glorification. Yet such undoubtedly was the case with Mrs Stowe. At Liverpool, at Glasgow, and at Edinburgh, her self-constituted friends determined that she should be received with demonstrations which were, in the eyes of the unexcited, purely ridiculous. There were to be anti-slavery meetings, working-men’s soirées, presentation of addresses and offerings, and an immense deal of the same kind of thing which was utterly unsuited to the occasion; and the result was, that Mrs Stowe, in so far as the north of Britain was concerned, saw little of that society which gives the intellectual stamp to the country, and derived her impressions almost entirely from the conversation of a limited coterie. How could it be otherwise? Mrs Stowe was undoubtedly a very clever woman—she had written an admirable novel upon a most interesting subject—and every one was delighted both with its matter and its success. But was that any reason why town-councils should receive her at railways—why people should be urged to present addresses to her as though she had been a Boadicea, or a Joan d’Arc—or why her presence should be made an excuse for indulging in unmeasured speeches, or in violent objurgations 303against the legislature of America, for continuing a system which we have nationally decreed to be vile in our own dominions, and have taken every means in our power to discountenance elsewhere? Opinion in this country, in so far as it can be expressed—and it has been expressed in thousands of ways—is unanimous for the emancipation of the negro. One and all of us consider the continuance of slavery, as it exists in America, a foul blot upon the nation, which proclaims itself as peculiarly free; and we have said so in anything but undecisive terms. Still, what we have said, is the expression of an opinion only. We may object to slavery in America, as we may object to the same institution in Turkey, or to serfage in Russia, or to anything else beyond our cognisance and jurisdiction; but we are not entitled to usurp the right, which every separate nation possesses, of regulating its own laws according to its peculiar position. We say this, because, of late years, the tendency towards popular demonstrations and sympathising meetings in England, has increased to such a degree as even to embarrass our relations with foreign powers. Well-meaning, but supremely ignorant vestry-men, bustling civic magistrates, and conceited members of town-councils, consider themselves entitled to sit in judgment and give sentence upon all questions of European politics. The moment a political exile of any note arrives in this country, he is fêted, and cheered, and made a hero of by municipal dignitaries, who seize the occasion as a capital opportunity for making ungrammatical professions of their ardent adoration of liberty. Their sympathy in favour of insurgents is perfectly unbounded. They have sympathised with the Hungarians—they have sympathised with the Italians—and, until very lately, they showed great sympathy for those gentlemen who were compelled to leave France for their conspiracies against the existing government. It is not a little amusing to contrast the tone which is now assumed by the liberal press and by the municipalities of England towards Louis Napoleon, with that which was prevalent some eighteen months ago! We should like to see an ovation attempted now in honour of the French republicans. And yet what change has taken place? Ledru Rollin is as good a patriot now as ever; the title of the Emperor to the throne of France is not one whit better than it was before. We are now engaged in war; and the utmost efforts of our statesmen have been used to induce Austria to join with the Western Powers. And yet, in the face of these negotiations, we find that, in the large towns of England, Kossuth is declaring to immense and sympathising audiences that the accession of Austria to our side would be the means of riveting the chains on the oppressed nationality of Hungary! This conduct on the part of the English public, or rather that portion of it which has an inveterate itch for meddling with what it does not and cannot understand, is not only silly, but positively dangerous. If the people of every State were to act in this way, war would not be the exception, but a perpetually existing calamity; and nation would rise against nation, not on account of acts of positive aggression, but because each objected to the mode in which the other administered its own affairs. We have no scruple in expressing our conviction that, since this sympathising mania commenced, Great Britain has lost much of her influence as a first-rate European power. It has the effect of placing, apparently at least, the Government and the people in antagonism—of detracting from the power of the one, and unduly adding to that of the other. And—what we regret most deeply to see—it has raised and fostered the impression that we are collectively a nation of braggarts. It is most natural that it should be so, for we are perpetually vaunting about the force of public opinion in this country, and declaring that nothing can stand against it. On the Continent the voice of the towns is considered as the sure index of public opinion; and if that voice had been taken, not very long ago, we should ere now have been engaged in liberating crusades in behalf of Hungary and Italy. The Government, of course, and the vast bulk of the educated and thinking classes throughout Great Britain, estimate these ridiculous 304exhibitions at their proper value, and treat them with silent contempt;—not so foreigners; who, being assured that in the principal towns of England immense meetings have been held and resolutions passed in favour of insurgency, conclude, naturally enough, that these are demonstrations of that public opinion of which they have heard so much, and that the British Government cannot do otherwise than yield to the pressure from without. Perhaps the most absurd commentary upon this exceedingly reprehensible system of sympathising may be found in the fact, that while our mayors, provosts, aldermen, bailies, and other civic small-deer, are sympathising with the oppressed nationalities of Europe, various of their Transatlantic brethren are doing the same in behalf of Ireland and the Irish, and holding up the people of England to the scorn and detestation of the universe, as the cold-blooded, fiendish, and systematic torturers of the oppressed Celtic nationality!

But we must not diverge too much from our immediate subject. It seems to us that there really was no occasion for holding public meetings to show that the sympathy of this country was decidedly in favour of the cause of emancipation, or to irritate the Americans by a vain-glorious comparison of our own conduct contrasted with theirs. We ought, in common decency, to remember that no very great tract of time has elapsed since slavery was abolished in the British colonies; and as, in matters of this kind, interest is always a ruling motive, we should also bear in mind that the prosperity of those colonies has not been increased by the substitution of free for forced labour. Very few of us, on this side of the Atlantic, are able to give a competent opinion as to what effect immediate and unconditional emancipation might produce upon the slave-holding States of America; and therefore we are hardly entitled to do more than to assert the general principle, which condemns the absolute property of man in man. How entire emancipation, which we trust, before long, every State in America will adopt, can be carried out, must be left to the wisdom and discretion of the local legislatures. No change so great as this can be wrought suddenly. Christianity itself must be inculcated, not coerced, for violence never yet made converts; nor was the blood-red baptism of Valverde, who held the cross in the one hand and the sword in the other, equal in efficacy to the calm expositions of Xavier. Now, it is very plain to us that, in her own way, Mrs Beecher Stowe is a zealot. She has been writing and working at this subject of emancipation, until she has ceased to see any practical difficulty between her vision and its realisation, and wants to persuade all others that no practical difficulty exists. We agree with her so far, that we contemplate not only as desirable, but as necessary for the political existence of the United States of America, a measure for the ultimate and entire emancipation of the negro; but we cannot take upon ourselves the responsibility of urging an immediate change, which might have the effect, in many important respects, of deteriorating instead of bettering the condition of the black population. What more, by any possible effort, can the people of Great Britain do than they have done? Every man in America knows that we detest the system of slavery. We have shown that by a long series of legislative measures, and by national grants to purchase the freedom of our slaves in the colonies; and very few names, indeed, are held in greater honour in this country than those of Clarkson and Wilberforce. But most assuredly we have no right to dictate to other nations, or to insist that they shall adopt our views in the regulation of their internal policy. We might just as well attempt to coerce them in matters of religion, and, founding upon our belief in the purity of Protestantism, insist that the Catholic states shall renounce the authority of Rome. Certainly we shall not improve the cause of the American negro by indulging in bitter terms and unlimited objurgation against the States which do not, as yet, see their way to immediate emancipation. All the great reforms of the world have been progressive. To hasten them unduly, and until men are fit to receive them, is the mere work of 305anarchy; and the world-history of the last sixty years, whilst it conveys a terrible warning against the neglect of a despised population, shows us that, in order to be permanent, all social ameliorations must be carefully and cautiously introduced.

But we feel that we owe an apology to Mrs Stowe for this digression. It was no fault of hers that she had to run the gauntlet through so many soirées, or to appear perpetually in the disagreeable character of a lionne. The whole programme was arranged before she set foot in this country; and she had nothing else for it than to go through her allotted part with patience and equanimity. We must admit that she was sorely tried during her sojourn in the north. She seems to have been under the custody of a special dissenting body-guard, with about as little liberty of action as the unfortunate Lady Grange. No wonder that Scotland appeared to her a very different country from the land of her imagination. Not one of those by whom she was surrounded possessed a spark of romantic enthusiasm, or cared about the associations which have shed the light of poetry over the land. “One thing,” says Mrs Stowe, “has surprised, and rather disappointed us. Our enthusiasm for Walter Scott does not apparently meet a response in the popular breast.” Very little indeed does the lady know of the beating of the national heart of Scotland, or the veneration in which the memory of our greatest poet is held by his countrymen. But it is not at soirées, or meetings such as she witnessed or attended, that the national feeling finds a voice; nor have the writings of Sir Walter Scott been ever favourably regarded by the rigid sectarians among whom she moved. His thoughts were not as their thoughts are, nor would it be possible that any sympathy should exist between minds so differently constituted. We cannot expect Mr Sturge to take much delight in the “Lay of the Last Minstrel,” or a sleek member of the Peace Society to feel his spirit moved by the chaunt of the “Field of Flodden.” What has amused us most in the perusal of this book is, the evident influence which the dislike of her friends to the martial strains of Scott produced at length upon herself. She seems to have entered Scotland in a sort of fever of enthusiasm, as is testified by the perpetual quotations from Sir Walter’s poetry—rather common, by the way, for they are to be found in all the guide-books—in which she indulges. By-and-by she begins to find that her raptures are coldly listened to by the society in which she moves; and ultimately she seems to have adopted the view that in some respects her friends were right. The following is a very pretty morçeau of criticism: “The most objectionable thing, perhaps, about his influence is its sympathy with the war spirit. A person Christianly educated can hardly read some of his descriptions in the Lady of the Lake and Marmion without an emotion of disgust, like what is excited by the same things in Homer: and as the world comes more and more under the influence of Christ, it will recede more and more from this kind of literature.” We marvel that Mrs Stowe, who is a clever woman, does not perceive that the people of a country in which the spirit which she pleases to reprehend becomes extinct, must necessarily be in time succeeded by a race of unresisting slaves. The remark, too, comes with a peculiarly bad grace from a lady who is not only proud of the independence of her country, but affects intense enthusiasm for the struggles of the Puritans and Covenanters in Great Britain. However, we suppose she thought it polite to the members of the Peace Society, among whom she was moving, to give this little jog to their principles; and it may be that, after all, her intimacy with the writings of Scott is considerably less than one would conclude from the quantity of quotation. Certainly we were surprised to find it stated by a lady of so much literary pretension and apparent acquaintance with the personal history of Sir Walter, that Abbotsford “is at present the property of Scott’s only surviving daughter;” and we must also confess that some of her quotations unsettle our ancient ideas as to the limits of the Border. For example, she says with reference to a visit paid at the Earl of Carlisle’s—“I was also interested in 306a portrait of an ancestor of the family, the identical “Belted Will” who figures in Scott’s “Lay.””

“‘Belted Will Howard shall come with speed,

And William of Deloraine, good at need.’”

Possibly Lord Carlisle was not previously aware that his ancestor was a Scotsman, and a retainer of the house of Buccleuch. With equal propriety might Omer Pasha be described as a hetman of the Cossacks, rushing to the rescue of Gortschakoff.

On the whole, we are inclined to think that the American public will not derive much enlightenment on the subject of Scotland and the Scots from the revelations of Mrs Stowe. We can assure them that the general aspect, tone, and sentiments of society here do not at all correspond with what is represented in her pages. It is not the fact that the greater part of our time is occupied by delivering or listening to wish-washy platform speeches, or even to such as have “the promising fault of too much elaboration or ornament,” on the subjects of tee-totalism, olive-leavery, or any of the other mild absurdities of the day. It is not the fact that we have lost all grateful memory for the warlike deeds of our ancestors, or for the poets who have worthily recorded them. And, above all, it is not the fact that Mrs Stowe had a fair opportunity of forming a judgment, on almost any point, of the views entertained by the bulk of the more educated classes of society. We do not say this at all in disparagement of the parties among whom she moved, and by whom she was so hospitably entertained. We have every respect for their worth, position, and acquirements; and we are well aware that among the ministers of various denominations to whom she was introduced, and of whom she speaks affectionately, there are many whose talent, learning, and devotion have made their names known beyond the waters of the Atlantic. It must have been peculiarly gratifying to her to receive the congratulations of the late venerable Dr Wardlaw of Glasgow, of Dr John Brown of Edinburgh, whom she rightly calls “one of the best exegetical scholars in Europe,” and other lights of the United Presbyterian and Congregationalist Churches. In Edinburgh, Glasgow, and Aberdeen she received much civic kindness and attention; but we are at a loss, after reading her book, to discover much trace of her intercourse with general society beyond a very limited coterie. True, she refers to some persons “from ancient families, distinguished in Scottish history both for rank and piety,”—and especially to a “Lady Carstairs,” of whose corporeal existence we can find no trace in any Book of Dignity within our reach. All that, however, is of little moment; and we never should have thought of alluding to such circumstances, were it not that, so very much having been said in America on the subject of Mrs Stowe’s reception in Scotland, her account of what she saw may naturally be received as an accurate picture of the country. We have no doubt whatever of her general accuracy in describing what she saw. We are very proud to think that she was received with much enthusiasm and cordiality; and nothing could be more genuine than the expression of feeling on the part of the working-classes. Her book undoubtedly struck most deeply in the popular mind; producing a sensation which we have never seen equalled, inasmuch as it extended through every grade of society. And we can very well understand the intensity of the feeling which must have thrilled Mrs Stowe, when she found that even in sequestered villages in Scotland her work had been moistened with tears, and that the people, on the announcement of her approach, thronged to welcome the woman who had exercised so mighty a spell over their intellect and their passions. There was, really, no delusion in the matter, in so far as admiration of her talent and respect for her intrepidity were concerned; but we may, at the same time, be allowed to regret that she was made part of a premeditated pageant. The utter want of delicacy which marked the whole arrangements was most extraordinary. We are sure that Mrs Stowe must have been surprised, if not disgusted, at finding herself announced as ready to receive deputations and addresses at certain stated hours, and at the invitation 307of crowds to attend in order to cheer her at railway stations. There is something elevating in spontaneous enthusiasm, even when it is carried beyond the limits of strict propriety; but demonstrations such as those to which we have alluded, are not only unfair to the party paraded, but border closely on the ludicrous. No quackery of the kind was required to insure Mrs Stowe a cordial reception in Scotland; and we fear that in some respects it operated rather to her disadvantage than otherwise.

We confess to have been greatly disappointed in the perusal of her northern tour. We had expected to derive some amusement, if not edification, from the remarks of a lady whose previous publications had manifested considerable power in the depiction of character, not unmixed with occasional glimpses of humour; the more especially as there is much in the northern idiosyncrasy which must appear peculiar in the eyes of a stranger. Nothing of the sort, however, is to be found in the pages of Mrs Stowe. Read her work, omitting the familiar names of places, and one would be utterly at a loss to suppose that she is describing Scotland and its inhabitants either outwardly or inwardly. Saunders, as she depicts him, is a sort of sentimental Treddles, minding every body’s business more than his own, intoning peace speeches on a platform with a strong nasal twang, and refreshing himself, after his labours, with oceans of the weakest and the worst of tea. It is ten thousand pities that Mrs Stowe should not have witnessed either a Lowland kirn or a regular Highland meeting. Possibly the sounds either of fiddle or of bagpipe might have grated harshly on her ear; and the “twasome” reel or that of Houlakin been regarded as forbidden vanities; still she would have been infinitely the better of some more diversified experience, which might at least have caused her to avoid the error of depicting us as a nation of Mucklewraths, Hammeryaws, and Kettledrummles. As for her outward sketches, we must say that we greatly prefer the ordinary guide-books. They have at least the merit of being concise, and do not usually confound localities and historical events, as Mrs Stowe certainly does when she indicates Glammis Castle as the scene of the tragedy in Macbeth.

Moving southwards, Mrs Stowe seems to have been surrendered, in the Midland Counties, almost entirely into the hands of the Quakers. They appear to have acted towards her with considerable indulgence; for her host, albeit one of the most eminent of his sect, consented to join a party to Stratford-on-Avon. Mrs Stowe’s Shakespearian remarks do not appear to us either so novel or profound as to justify any lengthy extract—indeed, they are chiefly confined to speculations as to what Shakespeare might have done or said had he been born under different circumstances and in a different age. Disquisitions of this sort appear to us very nearly as sensible and profitable as the question, once gravely argued in the German schools, whether Adam, if born in the fifteenth century, would instinctively have betaken himself to the occupation of a gardener. Mrs Stowe, upon the whole, inclines to the opinion that Shakespeare would have ranked with the Tories. She says—“That he did have thoughts whose roots ran far beyond the depth of the age in which he lived, is plain enough from numberless indications in his plays; but whether he would have taken any practical interest in the world’s movements, is a fair question. The poetic mind is not always the progressive one; it has, like moss and ivy, a need for something old to cling to and germinate upon. The artistic temperament, too, is soft and sensitive; so there are all these reasons for thinking that perhaps he would have been for keeping out of the way of the heat and dust of modern progress.” Certainly, understanding progress in the sense which Mrs Stowe attaches to it, we cordially agree with her that Shakespeare would have kept out of its way; but it does seem to us a most monstrous assumption that he would have taken no practical interest in the world’s movements. Of all the poets that ever lived, Shakespeare was decidedly the most practical and comprehensive in his views. So far from being addicted to clinging to old things, from mere want of moral stamina, he has created a new world of his own; and no man 308ever possessed so keen a power of analysis of human character, and perception of the springs of action. But possibly we do her wrong. The word “practical” nowadays has divers significations; and if Mrs Stowe simply means to express her belief that Shakespeare, had he existed in our time, would neither have been a habitual spouter upon platforms, a vegetarian, a tee-totaller, a member of the Peace Congress, nor a unit of the Manchester phalanx, we beg leave to record our entire acquiescence in her estimate. Also we think that, as an eminent vice-president of the Fogie Club lately phrased it, she has hit the nail on the point, when she adds—“One thing is quite certain, that he would have said very shrewd things about all the matters that move the world now, as he certainly did about all matters that he was cognisant of in his own day.” We have not the least doubt of it.

The Stratford pilgrimage, however, seems to have given little gratification to any of the party except Mrs Stowe, who considered it in the light of a duty. Her brother, the Rev. C. Beecher, who was of the party, doing a little independent platform business whenever he could with propriety, and whose journal materially swells the bulk of the second volume, seems to be quite the sort of man whom Prynne would have delighted to have honoured. Relic-hunting after professors of the lewd art of play-making, was by no means to his taste; and accordingly we find the following commentary delivered over the tea and crumpets on the questionable amusements of the day:—“As we sat, in the drizzly evening, over our comfortable tea-table, C—— ventured to intimate pretty decidedly that he considered the whole thing a bore; whereat I thought I saw a sly twinkle round the eyes and mouth of our most Christian and patient friend, Joseph Sturge. Mr S. laughingly told him that he thought it the greatest exercise of Christian tolerance, that he should have trailed round in the mud with us all day in our sight-seeing, bearing with our unreasonable raptures. He smiled, and said quietly—‘I must confess that I was a little pleased that our friend Harriet was so zealous to see Shakespeare’s house, when it wasn’t his house, and so earnest to get sprigs from his mulberry, when it wasn’t his mulberry.’ We were quite ready to allow the foolishness of the thing, and join the laugh at our own expense.”

Warwick Castle, where Mrs Stowe grows critical upon art, after a very peculiar fashion—and Kenilworth, at which she indulges in the somewhat singular remark that “it was a beautiful conception, this making of birds”!—need not detain us. The pleasure trip was succeeded by a penance, in the shape of a lecture “against the temptations of too much flattery and applause, and against the worldliness which might beset me in London,” delivered by a celebrated female preacher, belonging to the Society of Quakers, of the name of Sibyl Jones, who had “a concern upon her mind for me.” That Sibyl possessed somewhat of the prophetic spirit, appears plain from the commentary of Mrs Stowe, who was sensibly touched by the hints which she received, and very likely began to feel that she had been somewhat over-elevated by the inflation of the northern Puffendorffs. In all seriousness, we believe that the lesson was both well meant and well timed; but the commentary appended is but one of the many proofs contained in these volumes, that Mrs Stowe is something more than a passive spectator of the Transatlantic movement for establishing what are called the “Rights of Woman”—in more vulgar language, the superiority of the grey mare, and the supremacy of the petticoat over the breeches. Now, as to the supremacy of women, we never had any doubt about it—few men, who have been married for a year, can be sceptical upon that point—and the utmost that men can demand from their wives as to the respective ranking of the garments, is, in the ancient and significant language of the Highlanders, to be allowed “to cast their clothes together.” Moreover, to the wife is invariably committed that highest symbol of authority known as “the power of the keys;” so that she has it in her power at all times to coerce her husband by the simplest and the readiest means. In fact, she has him at a 309dead lock, and possesses the entire command of the press. Young Hampden may talk as much as he pleases, at his Club, about the liberty of the press, and its being as essential as the air he breathes; but, when he returns home, about one in the morning, he is very fain to take his candle, and move up-stairs as quietly as possible, without attempting to enfranchise any incarcerated spirits. We do not hesitate to declare ourselves in favour of the supremacy of the wife in her own household, believing that it is, in almost every case, an unavoidable consummation, and, upon the whole, the very best arrangement that human ingenuity could devise. But the American notion goes far beyond this. The advocates of the “Rights of Woman” admit of no such paltry compromise as the surrender of domestic authority. What you as a man can do, of that your wife is equally capable, and may lawfully exert herself accordingly. Are you a barrister—why should not your wife, who has studied as a juris-consult, and been admitted to the honours of the forensic gown more legitimately than Portia, take a fee from the opposite party, and, by an influence only known to herself, cause you to quail before you have proceeded half-way in the exposition of the cause of your client? Or are you a doctor—Harriet Hunt, M.D., forgive us for this supposition; for your image, albeit we never saw you and never may, often haunts us in our dreams, and from your imaginary hand have we received multitudes of indescribable but seemingly celestial pills—how would you like your wife to be called in as an adviser on the homœopathic principle, after you had staked your existence on the superiority of the drastic method, and see her recover a patient in less than a week, whereas you had calculated upon a month’s legitimate fees under the ordinary curatory process? Or let us suppose that one of the fairest dreams of the strong-minded women of our generation should be realised, and that all political disabilities were removed from the fair sex, so that they might be admitted to sit and vote in Parliament. We scorn to take up the objection which might occur to a common mind of the impossibility of the Speaker maintaining order—we shall suppose a far worse case; and that is the possible disagreement between man and wife in political principle and conduct. How could you possibly endure the spectacle of your spouse accompanying the smiling Mr Gladstone to a division in one lobby, whilst your stern sense of duty compelled you to retire into another? How could you possibly remain at bed and board with a woman who was in the habit of attending those meetings at Chesham Place, which Lord John Russell is so fond of calling whenever he requires a friendly castigation, as Henry II. bared his brawny shoulders to the monks? And how, as a gentleman and a man of honour, could you reconcile it with your conscience to lay your head on the same pillow with a woman who can support the Coalition Ministry, and even go the length of declaring that she has confidence in the Earl of Aberdeen? Or we shall come to preaching, which is perhaps the more germain to the matter. The Rev. Asahel Groanings, of some undefined shadow of dissent, marries Miss Naomi Starcher of corresponding principles, with a fortune of some few hundred pounds, which are speedily sunk, beyond hope of extrication, in the erection of an Ebenezer. Both are licensed to the ministry, Asahel officiating in the morning and his helpmate in the afternoon. But somehow or other, Asahel is not popular with his congregation. His style of oratory reminds one unpleasantly of the exercitations of a seasick passenger in a steamboat, and his visage is ghastly to look upon, being distorted as if he laboured under a permanent attack of colic. Whereas, the voice of Naomi is soft as that of a dove cooing in a thicket of pomegranates, her countenance is fair and comely, and the thoughts of the elders, as they gaze upon her, revert to the apocryphal history of Susannah. The result is, that Asahel utters his ululations to empty benches, whilst Naomi attracts hundreds of the rising youth of dissenting Christendom. How can their union possibly be a happy one; or how can they continue to fructify in the same theatre of usefulness? 310Yet Mrs Beecher Stowe absolutely goes the length of recommending, or at least sanctioning, the view that ladies should be allowed to preach. She says, “The calling of women to distinct religious vocations, it appears to me, was a part of primitive Christianity; has been one of the most efficient elements of power in the Romish church; obtained among the Methodists in England; and has in all these cases been productive of great good. The deaconesses whom the apostle mentions with honour in his epistle, Madame Guyon in the Romish church, Mrs Fletcher, Elizabeth Fry, are instances which show how much may be done for mankind by women who feel themselves impelled to a special religious vocation.” Then she goes on to cite the case of the prophetesses, and tells us that “the example of the Quakers is a sufficient proof, that acting upon this idea does not produce discord and domestic disorder.” We are afraid that Mrs Stowe’s platform experiences have tended somewhat to warp her better judgment upon this point; and we beg to submit that, according to her own showing, the ladies of America have quite as much to do, in the interior of their households, as they can possibly manage to accomplish, without entering into any of the learned professions, or attempting to eclipse their husbands. The following extract is certainly a curious one. We, of course, are not answerable for the correctness or colouring of the picture, these being matters for which Mrs Stowe is amenable to the consciences of her countrywomen.

“There is one thing more which goes a long way towards the continued health of these English ladies, and therefore towards their beauty; and that is, the quietude and perpetuity of their domestic institutions. They do not, like us, fade their cheeks lying awake nights ruminating the awful question who shall do the washing next week, or who shall take the chamber-maid’s place, who is going to be married, or that of the cook who has signified her intention of parting with her mistress. Their hospitality is never embarrassed by the consideration that their whole kitchen cabinet may desert at the moment that their guests arrive. They are not obliged to choose between washing their own dishes, or having their cutglass, silver, and china, left at the mercy of a foreigner, who has never done anything but field-work. And last, not least, they are not possessed of that ambition to do the impossible in all branches, which, I believe, is the death of a third of the women in America. What is there ever read of in books or described in foreign travel, as attained by people in possession of every means and appliance, which our women will not undertake, single-handed, in spite of every providential indication to the contrary? Who is not cognisant of dinner-parties invited, in which the lady of the house has figured successively as confectioner, cook, dining-room girl, and, lastly, rushed up-stairs to bathe her glowing cheeks, smooth her hair, draw on satin dress and kid gloves, and appear in the drawing-room as if nothing were the matter? Certainly the undaunted bravery of our American females can never enough be admired. Other women can play gracefully the head of the establishment; but who, like them, could be head, hand, and foot, all at once?”

This passage is very suggestive in two ways. In the first place, we humbly venture to think that it contains many excellent reasons why the ladies of America should mitigate their inordinate desire for sharing in what hitherto have been considered the appropriate employments of men. It appears, by Mrs Stowe’s evidence, that they have already so much domestic work to perform, that they are compelled to sacrifice both their health and beauty, which certainly are the two last things that a woman would be inclined to part with. Therefore it seems to us unwise, and even preposterous, that any portion of them should be clamorous in demanding a further increase of duty, unless, like the gude-wife of Auchtermuchty in the old Scots ballad, they are prepared to make an entire interchange of occupation with their husbands, and can persuade the latter to whip cream, concoct soup, wash the dishes, and arrange the table, whilst they are pleading at the bar, prescribing for half the young fellows in the neighbourhood, gesticulating at public meetings, or receiving the incense of deputations. In the second place, these particulars of American society may, in reality, have more to do with the evident dislike to emancipation of the slaves which evidently prevails in many parts of the United States, than 311Mrs Stowe was aware of when she penned the passage. If it is true that the ladies of America—using the term in the same sense as Mrs Stowe does, for she is comparing the personal appearance of women of the richer and more independent class in the two countries—if it is the fact that the American ladies in the free States have to undergo the drudgery which she describes, and that not from choice, but from absolute inability to obtain proper assistance; then we have a distinct and intelligible motive assigned to us why many excellent and humane people in the slave States hesitate to join the movement in behalf of emancipation. We have often suspected that some strong social reasons, unknown to us and to the British public, must exist, to account for the continuance of the slave system; and we think that Mrs Stowe has, albeit unwittingly, disclosed one of them. For what does her sentiment amount to, but an acknowledgment that, in the great enlightened republic of America, it is impossible to procure decent or permanent service—that, as there is no acknowledgment of anything like rank or gradation, the servants consider themselves in all respects as good as their master or mistress, will not obey them unless it suits their humour, and are always ready to decamp? That must be the case, unless we are to suppose that the American ladies, answering to the aristocracy here, have a diseased appetite for performing the offices of scullion, cook, and table-maid. Now, it may be thought a very strong statement on our part, but we venture to say, that were slavery existing at the present time in Great Britain, and were the kind of free service procurable on any terms, no better than that which Mrs Stowe and all other writers have described as existing in America, emancipation would be a decidedly unpopular proposal in these Islands. Is it possible to doubt that? Look at the history of the Factories Bill, opposed, defeated, and evaded in every possible way, by the very same men who proclaim themselves as the warmest friends of the negro. They thought it as nothing that the bodies and souls of the young children within their factories should be distorted and uncared for, whilst at the same time they were ready to expend their gratuitous sympathy on the American slave. But we shall not refer solely to them. Our remark applies to every class; and we put the question to the ladies of this country, from the Duchess of Sutherland downwards, whether, if they had been born slave-owners, they would at once have relinquished their control over those whom they could treat kindly, and whose affections they could secure, to pass to a system which would have sent them down from the drawing-room to slave themselves in the pantry or the kitchen? Is that an argument for slavery? Heaven forbid! We intend nothing of the kind, and should be very sorry to see our meaning so twisted and distorted. But it is an argument of the very strongest description against republicanism and republican institutions, and against those absurd notions of equality which, under philosophical cover, are making such rapid progress in this country. Slavery, we are convinced, has in all times existed rather as a social necessity, than from any abstract wish in man to own property in man. The idea is of itself repugnant. Not much more than a hundred years ago, the Earls of Sutherland were, in effect, considerable serf-owners. The patriarchal rule of the chief was more despotic than is the sway of the proprietor of slaves in America; for if the Mhor-ar-chat, which we apprehend to be the most ancient designation of the family, had desired Dugald or Donald to pitch his recusant brother into the loch, with some hundred-weight of granite attached to his neck by a plaid, “nae doubt the laird’s pleasure suld be obeyed.” Fortunately we are past that phase of existence. The feudal system has decayed and died, which we are not by any means sorry for; but, on the other hand, we have not yet arrived at the point when the descendants of Dugald and Donald consider themselves as ranking in the same degree of the social scale with the great Lady of Dunrobin. Feudal service has given way to a better-ordered, more convenient, and more profitable system. But still, among us, the 312gradations of rank are recognised and acted on; and it is because the feelings and institutions of the country are essentially aristocratic, that our domestic arrangements and social intercourse are so decidedly superior to those of America, or indeed of any other country in the world. We have equal laws, to which noble and yeoman are alike amenable; but we do not insist upon the recognition of what has absurdly and mischievously been termed, the law of universal equality. Admirably has Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton, in one of his earlier writings, exposed the fallacy of those who confound equal rights with absolute parity in society. “If the whole world conspired to enforce the falsehood, they could not make it law. Level all conditions to-day, and you only smoothe away all obstacles to tyranny to-morrow. A nation that aspires to equality is unfit for freedom.” How is an army led? By subordination only. Remove that principle, and the army resolves itself into a mob. So is it with all society. Let men talk of the absurdities of chivalry as they please, it is the influence of the chivalrous institutions still remaining among us which leavens the whole mass of British society. Pothouse philosophers may sneer at this assertion, and, in their usual elegant style of language, talk of “flunkeyism,” a phrase which, of late, has been very frequently in their mouths. Let us see what they understand by it. Do they mean to object to service altogether? Do they consider the waiter at the Thistlewood Arms, who supplies them with their nocturnal allowances of gin, degraded by the act of fetching? Doubtless they would infinitely prefer to help themselves, and to be the sole supervisors of the score; but as that is a degree of liberty which no law could possibly allow, or landlord tolerate, they are very fain to avail themselves of the spirituous ministry of Trinculo. But do they consider him on a level with themselves? Not at all. They bully him for his blunders in the transmission of half-and-half and kidneys, with a ferocity truly unfraternal; and if he were to propose to take a place at the table of their democratic worships, he would be taught a due reverence to the rules of society and breeding by the application of a pint-pot to his cranium. We have very little doubt that the wretched kind of domestic economy which prevails in the free States of America has had a strong influence in preventing the spread of emancipation principles; and we believe that to the very same cause may be traced the continuance of slavery in ancient Rome as part of their social system. The Roman plebeian was quite as surly a republican as the descendant of the Pilgrim Fathers. He would not stoop to act in the capacity of a servant—hardly in that of a help, which we believe to be the recognised American term; and consequently the Cornelias, Livias, and Tullias of Rome, had either to avail themselves of the ministry of slaves who formed part of the household, or to submit to the personal drudgery of cleaning the lampreys and opening the oysters for the suppers of their luxurious lords Titius or Mœvius, or any other of the fellows of the common sort who had a tribune of their own, would not have consented to brush the toga or clean the sandals even of a senator. At the bare mention of such a thing they would have been ready to rush to the Mons Sacer, for it is a curious fact that in all ages the disaffected have manifested a propensity for taking to the hills. Chivalry put an end to this; and by establishing gradation of orders and of rank, laid the foundation for the freedom which now prevails throughout the states of Europe. It was no disgrace for the squire to obey the orders of the knight, or for the yeoman to serve the squire. The lady in her bower had the attendance of damsel and of page; and the great model of a well-regulated household was then framed and introduced. But not one atom of chivalrous feeling was conveyed by the Mayflower to New England. The spirit of the sourest republicanism pervaded that whole cargo of human verjuice; and instead of bearing with them to the west the seeds of civilisation, they carried those of intolerance and slavery. Very wise, in more senses than one, is the old proverb, which, in all matters of reformation, desires us to look primarily to home, 313and to set our houses in order. There are many social reforms, besides emancipation, required in America; and some which we almost venture to think must necessarily precede it. For at present, according to Mrs Stowe’s own showing and testimony, there is a vast gap in society occasioned by the republican abhorrence of anything like menial service, and the jealous and almost defiant spirit with which the semblance of authority is resisted. In a word, we believe that until civilisation in America has proceeded so far as to assimilate its social condition to that of the older states of Europe, very material obstacles will impede the triumph of that cause which Mrs Stowe has so enthusiastically advocated.

Mrs Stowe, like many others of her ardent countrywomen, has a decided turn for crotchets. She next falls in with Elihu Burritt, and begins an eulogistic commentary on the “movement which many, in our half-Christianised times, regard with as much incredulity as the grim, old, warlike barons did the suspicious imbecilities of reading and writing. The sword now, as then, seems so much more direct a way to terminate controversies, that many Christian men, even, cannot conceive how the world is to get along without it.” We suspect that, by this time, exceeding grave doubts as to the practicability of his views, and the termination of all disputes by arbitration, must have penetrated even the jolter-pate of the pragmatic Elihu, and that he must be mourning over the enormous waste of olive-leaves for so little good purpose. We sincerely hope, for his sake, that he has been allowed a liberal commission or per-centage on the circulation. As Mrs Stowe seems to have been admitted to his secrets, we may as well insert her account of the operations of the Peace Society.

“Burritt’s mode of operation has been by the silent organisation of circles of ladies in all the different towns of the United Kingdom, who raise a certain sum for the diffusion of the principles of peace on earth and good-will to men. Articles, setting forth the evils of war, moral, political, and social, being prepared, these circles pay for their insertion in all the principal newspapers of the Continent. They have secured to themselves in this way a continual utterance in France, Spain, Italy, Switzerland, Austria, and Germany; so that from week to week, and month to month, they can insert articles upon these subjects. Many times the editors insert the articles as editorial, which still further favours their design. In addition to this, the ladies of these circles in England correspond with the ladies of similar circles existing in other countries; and in this way there is a mutual kindliness of feeling established through these countries.”

We have already recorded in the Magazine our opinion of the character of these olive-leaves, as well as of the articles avowedly emanating from the pen of the inspired Elihu; and therefore we need not trouble ourselves by again disturbing the rubbish. If there are any sincere but weak people who were inclined to view favourably the movements of the Peace Society, the transactions in Europe during the last twelve months must have convinced them of the utter impossibility of creating any general court of arbitration, by means of which international disputes may be adjusted. At the present moment, Russia stands condemned for her aggression by every state in Europe. Even Prussia does not venture to defend the forcible occupation of the Danubian principalities; and every species of persuasion and representation was employed to induce the Czar to abandon his purpose, or at all events to retrace his steps. So unwilling were the western powers to draw the sword, that they allowed a great deal of valuable time to be expended in negotiation, before they took any decided step; and the general opinion in England is, that the British Government was rather too tardy in its movements. And yet, without a single declared ally, and with the unanimous voice of Europe against him, Nicholas has thrown down the gauntlet, and the fleets of Britain and France are in the Black and the Baltic Seas. After this, it is inconceivable that there should be found any people besotted enough to talk about arbitration. We should not, however, omit to notice the last dying speech and final confession of the Peace Society, as delivered by a leash of Quakers before his Majesty the Emperor 314of all the Russias, and reported on their return with so much unction by the highly-gifted and exulting Pease. There is no tragedy so deep and solemn as to be entirely without a farcical element; and we can remember nothing, in the shape of burlesque, to compete with the apparition of those diffident Quakers at St Petersburg. But the fact is, that the leading members of the Peace Society, amongst whom rank conspicuously the chiefs of the Manchester school, were perfectly well aware that the notion of arbitration was a mere chimera. Their real object was to promote the spread of democratic principles; and, if possible, to weaken the power of every existing government by strewing dissatisfaction among their subjects. This is not our allegation only—it is in perfect consonance with what Mrs Stowe records in repeating her conversations with the leading apostles of peace; and we really think that the following revelation as to ultimate views, is by no means the least valuable or interesting part of her work. She says—

“When we ask these reformers how people are to be freed from the yoke of despotism without war, they answer, ‘By the diffusion of ideas among the masses—by teaching the bayonets to think.’ They say, ‘If we convince every individual soldier of a despot’s army that war is ruinous, immoral, and unchristian, we take the instrument out of the tyrant’s hand. If each individual man would refuse to rob and murder for the Emperor of Austria and the Emperor of Russia, where would be their power to hold Hungary? What gave power to the masses in the French Revolution, but that the army, pervaded by new ideas, refused any longer to keep the people down?’

“These views are daily gaining strength in England. They are supported by the whole body of the Quakers, who maintain them with that degree of inflexible perseverance and never-dying activity which have rendered the benevolent actions of that body so efficient.”

Very good, Mrs Stowe! But are no soldiers to be allowed to think, except those belonging to a despot’s army? And is every individual soldier to be permitted to act exclusively upon his own impressions of the abstract propriety or justice of the service in which he is engaged? Passages such as these—and they are not unfrequent in her work—go far indeed to unsettle our faith in the sense, judgment, and discretion of Mrs Stowe—qualities without which even the highest talent fails in attaining at its aims.

But we must now follow Mrs Stowe to London, where her reception was of a most marked and gratifying kind. Our readers cannot have forgotten the remonstrance or expostulation which was addressed by the ladies of Great Britain, under the generalship of the Duchess of Sutherland, to the ladies of America, on the subject of the emancipation of the slaves. That document was freely commented upon at the time; and, if we recollect aright, some rather pungent strictures were made upon it, even by writers in this country, as if, by taking this step, the fair remonstrants had somewhat transgressed the reserve which is expected from their sex. In that view we cannot join. We have intimated, perhaps broadly enough, our objections to the American notion of the “Rights of Woman;” but we trust to stand acquitted of entertaining any such discourteous view as might preclude the ladies from a fair expression of their opinion. In a question such as this, embracing all the domestic considerations and feelings to which women are more alive than men, it was not only well and commendable, but noble and Christian, that women should take a decided part, and attempt, at least, by an appeal to the common sympathies of the sex, to awaken commiseration for the degraded condition of thousands of their human sisters, and to urge an effort in their behalf. We really think that one such representation, addressed by women to women, is more likely to have a lasting and salutary effect, than five hundred public meetings, such as Mrs Stowe witnessed at Glasgow and elsewhere, where bull-throated ministers and blethering bailies assemble to make trial of their powers of oratory. Notwithstanding the reply of Juliana Tyler, who came forward as the champion on the other side, we believe that the appeal, on the part of the ladies of Great Britain, must have made a deep impression on the minds of many in America. We do not feel ourselves called upon to discuss the arguments 315which Mrs Tyler employed; for in a ladies’ controversy, no male has a right to interfere. Mrs Stowe tells us that the origin of the address was this: “Fearful of the jealousy of political interference, Lord Shaftesbury published an address to the ladies of England, in which he told them that he felt himself moved by an irresistible impulse to entreat them to raise their voice, in the name of their common Christianity and womanhood, to their American sisters.” We shall add, what Mrs Stowe is too modest to say, or perhaps what she does not know, that, but for the publication of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, and the interest excited thereby, Lord Shaftesbury might have worn his pen to the stump before he could have succeeded in eliciting any such remonstrance.

Most graceful indeed, and becoming, was the attention which was lavished, on the part of the Duchess of Sutherland and her kindred, upon Mrs Stowe; and to us by far the most pleasing portion of the book is that in which she records her impressions of London society. In the very highest circles of the metropolis, and while moving for a time in a sphere which might very well dazzle and perplex one to whom such scenes must have appeared like a fairy dream, she really appears to have kept her equilibrium, and preserved her coolness of judgment much better than when she was greeted by civic demonstrations in the North, or by gatherings of the peaceful but somewhat prosy and dogmatic brotherhood of the Quakers in the Midland Counties. To our great astonishment we have observed that poor Mrs Stowe has been accused by various liberal journals in England, of “flunkeyism,” for conveying to her friends an accurate account of what she saw at Stafford House, and one or two other mansions to which she was invited. Anything more unfair and even monstrous than this style of criticism it is impossible to conceive. Mrs Stowe is writing her impressions of British society for the information of her friends in America. In London it was her good fortune to be received cordially and hospitably by several of the most distinguished and estimable of the nobility and public characters; and because she gives a fair, and by no means too minute relation of what she saw and heard, she is scoffed at, by a certain section of the liberal gentry of the London press, as a kind of parasite. This is really very shabby and disgusting; for we do think that her modest, unaffected, and sometimes naïve observations upon what she saw passing around her, might have saved her from any such reflection. She enjoyed in England particular advantages such as very few Americans could boast of. Had N. P. Willis ever been able to compass an admission to Stafford House, his literary fortune would have been made. We should have heard no more of Count Spiridion Ballardos, or any such small-deer; but the intrepid Penciller would have fixed at once upon the Duke of Argyll as his victim, and have magnified himself in some inconceivable way, by introducing Philip Slingsby as the triumphant rival and competitor of the MacCallum-Mhor. Mrs Stowe does not try by any means to exalt herself—indeed her figure does not appear at all prominently in the picture. She has endeavoured to give as accurate a sketch as she could of London society, and in some respects has succeeded pretty well. Blunders there are of course, but that was unavoidable, and a good deal of what appears to us to be gossip, but which possibly may have a higher value in the eyes of her Transatlantic readers. She very fairly admits in her preface, that her narrative may be tinged couleur de rose; and we are only surprised, considering the temptations in her way, that she has used the Claude Lorraine glass with so much discretion. Society is quite as intoxicating as champagne; and it is impossible to write a book of this kind, without recalling, to a considerable extent, the feeling of the bygone excitement. We have no doubt that the printed narrative would seem peculiarly sober, could we be favoured with a perusal of the actual letters which Mrs Stowe despatched to America from the bewildering whirl of London.

One thing, however, we have remarked with pain; and that is the introduction by Mrs Stowe of an elaborate defence or explanation of what were called the “Sutherland Clearings.” 316Her motive for doing so is quite apparent; but we cannot help thinking that she has placed both herself, and the noble family for whom she appears as an advocate, in a false and disagreeable position, by putting forth statements of the accuracy of which she had no means of judging. The transactions to which she refers are of an old date; and they occurred in a district of which she has absolutely no personal knowledge. She never was in Sutherland, or indeed any other part of the Highlands, and therefore she was not entitled in any way to deal with such a subject. That she was furnished with materials for the purposes of publication seems more than probable: if so, we cannot commend the prudence of those who took so singular a method of refuting what may very possibly be calumny or misrepresentation. With the merits of the case we have nothing to do, nor shall we express any opinion upon them; but it does seem to us a most extraordinary circumstance that Mrs Stowe should have been induced to put forth a long, elaborate, and statistical argument upon a subject of which she is wholly ignorant. A defence of this kind—supposing that any defence was required—is positively hurtful to the parties whose conduct has been called in question; and anything but creditable to their discretion if they consented to its issue.

Interspersed with the actual narrative, are commentaries, or rather criticisms, upon art and literature, which, for the sake of the authoress, we could wish omitted. Her taste, upon all subjects of the kind, is either wholly uncultivated or radically bad—indeed it would be absolutely cruel to quote her observations on the works of the old masters. In literature she prefers Dr Watts, as a poet, to Dryden, and has the calm temerity to proceed to quotation. She says, “For instance, take these lines:—

“‘Wide as his vast dominion lies

Let the Creator’s name be known;

Loud as his thunder shout his praise,

And sound it lofty as his throne.

Speak of the wonders of that love

Which Gabriel plays on every chord,

From all below and all above

Loud hallelujahs to the Lord.’

“Simply as a specimen of harmonious versification, I would place this paraphrase by Dr Watts above everything in the English language, not even excepting Pope’s Messiah”!!! Whereas, to any one possessing a common ear, the lines must rank as absolute doggrel, and the ideas which they convey are commonplace and wretchedly expressed. Elsewhere she says:—“I certainly do not worship the old English poets. With the exception of Milton and Shakespeare, there is more poetry in the works of the writers of the last fifty years than in all the rest together.” We wonder if she ever read a line of Chaucer or of Spenser, not to speak of Pope and Dryden. But she objects even to Milton. Here is a piece of criticism which we defy the world to match: “There is a coldness about all the luscious exuberance of Milton, like the wind that blows from the glaciers across these flowery valleys. How serene his angels in their adamantine virtue! yet what sinning, suffering soul could find sympathy in them? The utter want of sympathy for the fallen angels, in the whole celestial circle, is shocking. Satan is the only one who weeps

“‘For millions of spirits for his faults amerced,

And from eternal splendours flung—’

“God does not care, nor his angels.” Our readers, we hope, will understand why we leave this passage without comment. But it may be worth while to show them the sort of poetry (beyond Watts) which Mrs Stowe does admire, and she favours us with the following as a “beautiful aspiration” from an American poet of the name of Lowell:—

“Surely the wiser time shall come

When this fine overplus of might,

No longer sullen, slow or dumb,

Shall leap to music and to light.

In that new childhood of the world,

Life of itself shall dance and play,

Fresh blood through Time’s shrunk veins be hurled,

And labour meet delight half way.”

Beautiful aspirations—lovely lines! Why—they are absolute nonsense; and the mere silent reading of them has set our teeth on edge. Try to recite them, and you are inevitably booked for a catarrh! In like manner she refers to some rubbish of Mr Whittier, an American rhymer, as a “beautiful ballad, called ‘Barclay of Ury.’” We have a distinct recollection of having read that ballad some years ago, and of our impression that it was incomparably the worst which we ever encountered; though, if a naked sword were at this moment to be presented to our throat, we could depone nothing further, than that “rising in a fury,” rhymed to “Barclay of Ury;” and also, that “frowning very darkly,” chimed in to the name of “Barclay.” But it was woeful stuff; and it lingers in our memory solely by reason of its absurdity. However, as Mrs Stowe prefers this sort of thing to Spenser, we have nothing for it except to make our bow, regretting that our æsthetical notions are so far apart, that, under no circumstances whatever, can we foresee the possibility of a coalition.

Beyond the Channel we shall not follow her; the more especially as the greater part of the Continental tour is described in the journal of the Rev. Charles Beecher, an individual with whose proceedings, thoughts, and raptures, we have not been able to conjure up the slightest sympathy. In fact, taking Mr Beecher at his own estimate and valuation, and making every allowance for playfulness of manner, we should by no means covet his company in any part of Europe; and we are only surprised that, in one or two places (as for instance Cologne), he did not receive an emphatic check to his outrageous hilarity. But as he seems to have been impressed with the idea that he exhibited himself rather in a humorous and attractive light, we have no intention of dispelling the dream—we are only sorry that Mrs Stowe should have thought it worth while to increase the bulk of her book by admitting her relative’s inflated, ill-written, and singularly silly lucubrations, as part of a work which, considering her literary celebrity, and the interest of the theme, will in all probability have an extensive circulation.

After making every allowance for the difficulty attendant upon the task of portraying with fidelity and spirit the customs of a foreign country, we cannot, with truth, express an opinion that Mrs Stowe has been successful in her effort. Far more interesting and agreeable volumes have been written by women of less natural ability; and we are constrained to dismiss, with a feeling of decided disappointment, a book which we opened with the anticipation of a very different result.

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