nified, of course, but I cared very little for that; for, I repeat, I was happy. I knew, moreover, that he would never remember the circumstances of our engagement, any more than the day of the week, month, or year in which it took place. We sat there, I cannot tell how long, among the gently falling blossoms of the jessamine, and the sad dark foliage of the passion-flower.

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dreaded, I crept out of Markham Hall at the earliest dawn, and, meeting Colonel Solmes at the park-gate, walked two miles with him to the station - went up to London by the express; rested at his sister's house while he made the necessary arrangements, and stood at the altar by his side, probably at the very hour when James Kennet was claiming me from Lady Markham as his promised bride.

One more little paroxysm of suffering, or rather of excitement, I had to pass through I only hope Sir Robert and Carl Toolou when he proposed that we should go at once arrived at the same moment; I have often and tell Cousin Mary. He had already for- laughed at the idea of their discomfiture. gotten my perplexities. I stopped him with But I try to think as little as possible of a vehement flow of words; and after some poor Arthur Kingsley and dear Mr. Dow. consideration, and bringing his mind to bear I was much amused at Colonel Solmes's on the given point-as I impudently ad- horror at discovering that he had positively vised him to do- he remembered that at ran away with an heiress, and I could not the first moment that the idea of marrying resist the pleasure of advising him to devote me himself had occurred to him, it had been my fortune to the endowment of an asylum coupled with the conviction that it must of for orphan mastodons and the extinct man necessity be a case of running away. In when found. point of fact it was quite an exceptional case. We should not be running away to be married. Quite the reverse. We agreed to be married merely that I might be able to run away from my difficulties. Which I did.

On that Thursday, the very day so

And now, my dears, my story is finished. Thank you for listening so patiently. In conclusion, I have only to add that we sailed for India within ten days of our marriage — that Colonel Solmes is quite charming, and, I, myself, the happiest wife in the world.

THE death of Mr. Mark Lemon, for thirty years Editor of Punch, should not be allowed to pass without a note. Mr. Lemon's own capacity might easily be overrated, but no man had a quicker eye for ability of the kind he needed, or greater success in keeping his company together, - success which, when artists, literateurs, and the public are all to work together, it is not given to many to obtain. A genuine humorist and most genial man, Mr. Lemon was perhaps of all editors of satirical journals in the world the one who did least moral harm, and his journal the one which has done least to create in its readers the jeering tone of mind. That he kept it clean is nothing uncleanness would kill it in a week, — but he kept it reverential of all worthy things as no paper of the kind ever has been. He often gave the reins to international hate, but never vilified a political foe, and a personal foe he probably never had.

a speech, the point of which was that the Emperor had laid down the basis of a Parliamentary system, and then Napoleon read his long-expected reply. It is rather vague. Our adversaries, said the Emperor, extended the Plebiscite, originally intended to confirm a liberal reform, into a question between the Empire and Revolution. The country has decided in favour of the Empire. The Government, without partialities, but also without weakness, will know how to cause the national will to be respected, I will calm party passions, insure public security, preserve social interests from the contagion of false doctrines," and seek the means of increasing the greatness and the prosperity of France. "To diffuse education; to simplify the administrative machinery; to carry activity from the centre, where it superabounds, to the extremities, where it is wanting; to introduce into our codes of laws, which are monuments, the improvements justified by experience; to multiply the general agencies of production and riches; and, finally, to find the best distribution of the burdens which press upon the taxpayers. Such is our programme." It is a good programme, but its goodness does not prove that the Emperor is less than master, or that France could not carry it out without his aid.

From The Saturday Review.
BELGIUM.

Ir a country is happy that has no history, Belgium ought to be very happy so far as we in England know, for it is only recalled to our recollection when the King pays one of his welcome visits to this country. He is here now, and how very glad he must be that his father had the sense not to accept the throne of Greece, and wait for that of Belgium instead. It is perhaps easy to forget how great a success the Kingdom of Belgium has been, partly owing to the wisdom and immense experience of the late King, and partly to its enjoying a European guarantee from spoliation, but very much owing to the people of Belgium themselves. Belgium was to all appearance a very artificial contrivance. It had never had an existence in history. It had been successively the possession of Spain, of Austria, of France, and of Holland. It had never been accustomed to freedom or to free political institutions. Its ancient military history was that of being the cockpit of Europe; its recent military history was not re-assuring. It comprised two distinct and alien populations, and even now a Flemish labourer will remain half-starved and half-employed rather than move a few miles away to get nearly double the wages in a Walloon district. Its population is indeed all of one religious faith, but it would be difficult to adduce an instance of a fiercer fight within constitutional limits than has been fought since 1830 between the priestly and the Liberal parties in Belgium, with a slight but steady victory for the latter. Diversities of condition, of habits, and possibly of race, are great obstacles in the way of the cohesion of the different parts of a territory that is suddenly told to consider itself a country. But from one cause or another Belgium did cohere, and there is always something in success that defies analysis; and now that it has cohered we are able to see how much life and vigour are imparted to its social and political existence by the great variety to be found in its different districts. Considering how small a portion of Europe Belgium occupies, and that in spite of the density of population in some of its provinces the total population is under five millions, it is astonishing how many and great are the diversities of people, of soil, and of industries that Belgium presents. There is the special district of small cultivation, the cockpit of political economists, comprising the sandy districts of East and West Flanders, the Pays de Waes, and the Campine. Then there are the two great Walloon districts of Hainault and Liège, the first rich in mines, the latter in manufac

tures, where the soil, naturally better, is held in larger holdings, and where land occupies a secondary place in the thoughts of men; and lastly, there is the district of Luxembourg, mostly in the hands of considerable proprietors. If, on the one hand, it is true that the intense Conservatism which seems everywhere to go with what is very inaccurately termed peasant proprietorship has had much to do with the cohesion of Belgium, and has furnished, as in France, a useful counterpoise to the socialism of the large towns, it is also certain that Belgium has grown into a nation because it had other elements of social life than the cultivation of land on a small scale can supply, and that its manufacturing industry, and its aristocracy, with estates of very considerable extent and fair revenue, have combined to make it what it is.

The Government plays in Belgium a part which seems admirably adapted to the circumstances of the country. There is much less interference of the police in Belgium than in France, and a greater reliance on the ordinary operacion of the law. Fiveand-twenty years ago there was in South Belgium a widely spread agrarian agitation, full of the horrors of arson and assassination so familiar to the readers of recent Irish news, and arising from new tenants being admitted without the out-going tenant being recouped for what he considered he had laid out. The out-going tenants went on in fact just as if they had been in Ireland; but they found out their mistake. The agitation had spread into France, and the Belgian and French Governments determined to put it down, and their different modes of proceeding are very suggestive of the difference between the two countries. The French Government with that ingenuity and that indifference to anything but results which distinguish it, hit upon the effective plan of forcing the out-going tenant to domicile himself near his old holding, and then seizing on him and making him liable if damage was done. They used him as a hostage, and rather than submit to that he preferred to give up murder. In Belgium the Government declined to do more than put the ordinary law in force; but then they did put it in force, and the agitation died out with the execution of a hired assassin who had undertaken to soothe the feelings of an injured tenant for ninety francs. The Belgian Government, again, does little to interfere directly for the promotion of prosperity in particular places, after the fashion so popular in Imperial France. It tried some years ago to set up a sort of agricultural colony in one of the most barren

and unpromising parts of the Campine, but | cautious people to pretend to decide with it found the enterprise a failure. The col- any great degree of confidence. But there onists would not work, for they considered are a few general remarks on the small culthat the Government was bound to provide for them; and it was only when Government sold off its property for a sixth of its cost, and a spirited proprietor began to grind the tenants as Belgian tenants are accustomed to be ground, that the concern took a new start. On the other hand, the Government has interfered to promote the general prosperity of the country by becoming possessed of the great channels of communication, to an extent not known in any other country. Almost all the canals belong to the Government, which allows lime and manure to pass free of dues; and, as lately in the Campine, the Government constructs canals through barren districts as a means both of communication and irrigation. The railways, too, are in a large measure State property, and within the last few days a debate of more than usual liveliness has taken place on a proposal of the Government to purchase a large group of railways under the control of a Company. There are of course objections to the purchase and working of railways and canals by the State with which we are sufficiently familiar in England. But the balance of opinion in Belgium appears to be most decidedly in favour of the system. There can be no doubt that the extreme cheapness with which passengers and goods are carried in Belgium has had much to do with the development of the resources of the country. But the possession of all the principal arteries of circulation by the State has also had in Belgium the effect, of which there was there especial need, of making the whole body feel itself to be one. The cohesion of the nation has been materially aided by the general feeling that the district of Belgium was more than a geographical expression, and that it meant a territory the parts of which were bound together by a network of communication having a national character. It was probably the fear lest this feeling should be impaired, much more than the fear of direct aggression from France, that led the Belgian Government to insist so positively, at the risk of offending the French Government, on forbidding the transfer of the Luxemburg line to a French Company.

All disputants who wish to write up or to write down small cultivation fly to Belgium for illustrations, and the economical condition of Belgium is deserving undoubtedly of the most attentive study. What the final conclusion to be deduced from this study ought to be, too little even yet is known perhaps for

tivation of Belgium, which may be safely made. In the first place, small cultivation, where it answers, does answer very well. More is got out of the land than in any other way, and the combination of capital and of minute personal skill and attention, which is commonly found in Belgium, produces marvellous results in getting a great variety of crops out of very poor soil. But when this is once said, we may go on to observe that the general position of those engaged in small cultivation in Belgium is very different from that which is supposed to be the condition of peasant proprietors. In Belgium the small cultivators are, as a rule, not proprietors, but tenants. In some parts of Belgium, where small cultivation is most developed, there is only one proprietor cultivating his land to five tenants cultivating the lands of small proprietors. The small proprietors reside in the towns, are engaged in other forms of industry, and let off the whole or part of their lands. These small tenants of small proprietors seem to lead very unattractive lives. They are the servants of many masters; for, in order to get land lying together, they are obliged to get one piece from one man and another piece from another, and the opportunity for petty tyranny thus presented is not neglected. The grocer who lets the tenant have the piece he wants, expects him to come for sugar and candles to his landlord; and if he cared for electoral liberty he would have to stifle his feelings, for he is always beset by the solicitations or orders of those who can aid or injure him. He has no lease, as a general rule, to protect him; the law gives him no claim for improvements, and the legal machinery for distress and execution would have been thought satisfactory even by a Parliament of Irish landlords. Leases for more than nine years are almost unknown in Belgium, and in proportion as the cultivation is not small the leases begin to exist and to increase in length within the nine years' limit. The tenant has naturally to give up every thought, and retain every member of his family, male and female, in carrying on his anxious struggle for existence. Small cultivators will not send their children even to schools where the education is gratuitous, and as small cultivation advances, ignorance advances also. The Belgian tenants make money in spite of everything, and this is the one charm of their lives. It is a great charm, and money, which is the root of all evil, is also the root of many virtues; but it is de

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sirable to understand at what a cost this the men who do honour and service to money is made. Lastly, Belgium shows the country." Personally, he was indifferplainly what is so often forgotten when ent to the distinctions usually coveted by small cultivation is talked of- that to be genius; and he felt that he had enough, able to cultivate land profitably on a small if he had the means at his disposal to scale is an art, and a difficult art, the fruit carry on a constant investigation of the of long years, and perhaps centuries, of en- wonders and beauties of nature, and to addeavour, ingenuity, and patience. The vance the progress of truth; and England poor Belgian has learnt from his cradle the was willing to leave him to this contentment, peculiar knack of getting crops out of a lit- not having that love of glory, or, as it is ile plot of bad land, just as the Swiss peas- sometimes called in speaking of other naant girl learns the peculiar knack of mak- tions, that vanity, which takes delight in ing watch-springs, and the Leicestershire adding lustre to the illustrious among her dairy woman learns the peculiar knack of sons, but rather that reasonable thrift which making Stilton cheeses. There are parts is bent upon making the most of their gifts of Belgium where the small cultivator of at the least possible expense to the nation. his own land makes but a miserable figure, and gets little out of the soil. The attempts made by Feargus O'Connor and others to set up small cultivation suddenly and violently have necessarily failed because the small cultivators knew nothing whatever of a very special business. Generations of Flemings have been learning this business in Belgium and teaching it each to its successor, and this is the reason why small cultivation produces there results which with a less apt and disciplined population it could not attain.

From St. Paul's.

MICHAEL FARADAY.

A COLLECTION of Michael Faraday's letters, carefully selected and well arranged by Dr. Bence Jones, affords the opportunity to those who know how to use it, of studying the ways of thought, the ways of life, the intellectual and the moral character of a man who, from every point of view, was truly great. He could not be too closely approached. There were no shabby places or ugly corners in his mind; the ascendancy of his genius was the more complete because of his virtues which were developed with it; and though he chanced to be the citizen of a country little disposed to honour the scientific discoverer, he did achieve for himself a position there which gave him free scope for his labours, and which enabled him to win the regard, admiration, and esteem of all the most distinguished men of other countries. "I have," he says, in a letter addressed to Lord Wrottesley, "as a scientific man received from foreign countries and sovereigns honours which surpass in my opinion anything which it is in the power of my own to bestow." In the same letter he says, "For its own sake, the Government should honour

It may be well for the sake of a few readers who may be ignorant of the leading facts of Faraday's life, to give here a short summary of his scientific career; for, without that, his singular merits, his self-abnegation, and his devotion to a great calling, cannot be understood; without that, the absence of pretension, the constant consideration for others, the simplicity of life, the admirable control of temper, the true modesty and the humble faith which must be recognized in their combination as constituting his personal character, cannot be fully appreciated.

Michael Faraday was born at Newington Butts, near London, in 1791. He was placed in his boyhood under a bookbinder in the neighbourhood of Baker Street, and he read a large number of the books he bound; scientific books especially made a deep impression upon him, and the interest excited by Mrs. Marcet's " Conversations on Chemistry " turned his mind to the investigation of chemical phenomena. He never forgot the gratitude due to her on this account. In 1812 Faraday was presented with a ticket for Sir H. Davy's course of lectures on Chemistry at the Royal Institution. He took notes of these lectures, and sent the notes to Sir H. Davy, expressing to him his strong desire to leave his present mechanical work, and to learn something of natural philosophy. Sir H. Davy was struck with the accuracy of his notes and with the expressions of his letter, and in 1813 he engaged him as his assistant in the laboratory of the Royal Institution. In 1821 Faraday made the discovery of the relations between electricity and magnetism, in which his subsequent researches were so important as to change the whole condition of electro-magnetic and chemical science. The construction of the electric telegraph was a practical result of his inquiries into the nature of electricity, and a discovery made by him in the laboratory of the Royal Institution brought into existence those beautiful ani

line dyes which are so important in the heart of his congregation; and when he manufacturing world. His discoveries were spoke, it was felt that the stir of his voice announced in a series of papers in the Phi- and the fervour of his words could belong losophical Transactions, beginning in the only to the owner of those kindling eyes. year 1831; and they were collected and re- His thought was rapid, and made itself a published in three volumes, appearing in the way in new phrases, if it found none ready years 1839, 1844, and 1855. His book, made, - as the mountaineer cuts steps in called "Chemical Manipulation," was pub- the most hazardous ascent with his own axe. lished in the year 1827, and was of great His enthusiasm sometimes carried him to value to those engaged in the study of the point of ecstasy when he expatiated on chemistry. In 1823 he was admitted as the beauties of nature, and when he lifted corresponding member of the French Acad-the veil from her deep mysteries. His body emy of Sciences, and in 1825 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society. He received the gold medal of the Royal Society, and the Rumford medal. In 1833 he accepted a pension of £300 per annum from the fund at the disposal of the British Government for the benefit or reward of literary or sci-thought or the after-pursuit, each hearer for entific men. He received many marks of distinction from the Governments of foreign countries. He declined any actual title. In 1858 the use of a house at Hampton Court was granted to him by the Queen, and at this house, in the year 1867, he died.

then took motion from his mind; his hair streamed out from his head, his hands were full of nervous action, his light, lithe body seemed to quiver with its eager life. His audience took fire with him, and every face was flushed. Whatever might be the after

the time shared his zeal and his delight; and with some listeners the impression made was so deep as to lead them into the laborious paths of philosophy, in spite of all the obstacles which the daily life of society opposes to such undertakings. One instance of this kind is given in Dr. Bence Jones's volumes. It was a young lady who was thus inspired, and her case is not a solitary one. There are instances where a strong effect is produced by a speaker who is conscious of it and who strives for it; but with Faraday the effect was due to his unconsciousness, to his forgetfulness of himself, and to the concentration of all his intellect and all his emotion upon the thing he was teaching.

No person could read with attention this bare outline of the life of Faraday, and fail to attribute to him high intellectual and moral qualities; but the simple telling of such and such abstract virtues in a man does not convey a sufficient idea of his individuality, and it is fitting that those who knew anything of him personally should strive to make some record of the attributes which distinguished him from other good and great men. He should be remembered in his A pleasant vein of humour accompanied characteristic phases; first, as he stood at his ardent imagination, and occasionally, the lecture-table, with his voltaic batteries, not too often, relieved the tension of thought his electro-magnetic helix, his large elec-imposed upon his pupils. He would play trical machine, his glass retorts, and all his experimental apparatus about him, the whole of it being in such perfect order that he could without fail lay his hand upon the right thing at the right moment, and that, if his assistant by any chance made a blunder, he could, without a sign of discomposure, set it right. His instruments were never in his way, and his manipulation never interfered with his discourse. He was completely master of the situation; he had his audience at his command, as he had himself and all his belongings; he had nothing to fret him, and he could give his eloquence full sway. It was an irresistible eloquence, which compelled attention and insisted upon sympathy. It waked the young from their visions and the old from their dreams. There was a gleaming in his eyes which no painter could copy and which no poet could describe. Their radiance seemed to send a strange light into the very

with his subject now and then, but very delicately; his sport was only just enough to enliven the effort of attention. He never suffered an experiment to allure him away from his theme. Every touch of his hand was a true illustration of his argument. Foreigners, children, and fine ladies felt as if they understood what he told them, partly because of the simplicity and sincerity of his manner, and partly because he excited their enthusiasm so much that they did not question their understanding. But his meaning was sometimes beyond the conception of those whom he addressed. When, however, he lectured to children, he was careful to be perfectly distinct, and never allowed his ideas to outrun their intelligence. He took great delight in talking to them, and easily won their confidence. The vivacity of his manner and of his countenance, and his pleasant laugh, the frankness of his whole bearing attracted them to him. They