his family." They talk as friend to friend. There's a Richard for you." "Bravo, Philip! You should join a fellowship of players. You would beat the varlet with the hump that mouthed it on Tuesday. But why so hard upon the rhetoric of the vagabonds? Your favourite Gorboduc is full of such trash!" "Yes, and faulty even as this True tragedy of Richard the Third, in time and place. In two hours of the Mayor's play, we had Shore's wife in Cheapside, and poor dead Richard about to be drawn through Leicester on a collier's horse." 66 Suppose there were painted scenes, as some of the playhouses have, instead of the door painted in great letters-couldn't the imagination go from Cheapside to Leicester in spite of Aristotle? and can't it, even with the help of the painted board? But here we are at Battlefield." I "I never walk over these meadows," exclaimed Sidney, "without deep emotion. was reading Hall just before my father came. How graphic these chroniclers are, compared with the ranting players." “What you read, I read, Philip." "As we walked through the Eastgate, I could not but think of that day when Henry came with his host into Shrewsbury, and being advertised that the Earls were at hand with banners displayed and battles ranged, marched suddenly out by the Eastgate, and there encamped." "An evening of parley and defiance, followed by a bloody morning." "The next day, in the morning early, which was the vigil of Mary Magdalene, the king set his battle in good order-and so his enemies. There, on that gentle rise, Greville, must the rebel host have been arrayed. Then suddenly the trumpets blew. The cry of St. George went up on the King's part-and that cry was answered by Esperancé Percy. By Heaven, the tale moves me like the old song of Percy and Douglas!" "Not when they make him whimper about revenge, suns, moons, and planets; silly lambs and croaking ravens-all crying for "Here is a theme for the players. Write revenge upon him? Heavens! what stuff!" the tragedy of Hotspur, Philip." "Rare stuff! How is it that these play "Nonsense. What could I do with it, even writers cannot make their people talk like if I were a maker? The story begins with Englishmen and Christians? When the the deposition of Richard. It is an epic, and board is up-Bosworth Field'-and two armies fly in, represented by four swords and bucklers-and the usurper dashes about, despite his wounds,-hear how he wastes his precious time. Do you remember?" "Yes, yes-" "Fly, my lord, and save your life.' "I have it" Fly, villain! look I as though I would fly? not a tragedy. And yet, Fulke, when I see the effect these acted histories produce upon the people, I am tempted, in spite of Aristotle, to wish that some real poet would take in hand our country's annals. The teaching of our day is taking that form. The Players are the successors of the Bards." "What a character is that young Harry of Monmouth-the profligate and the hero! Something might be made of these contending elements.' "Yes, the players would do it bravely. How they would make him swagger and bully-strike the chief justice and slaughter the Welshmen. Harry of Monmouth was a gentleman, and the players could not touch him." "If the stage is to teach the people, surely mate that the mails on the six or seven right teachers will arise. Look at our preachers. thousand routes would average one hunThey stir the dull clowns and the sleepy bur- dred pounds each passage, three trips a gesses with passionate eloquence, and yet they week-the receipts to the government preach as scholars. They never lower themselves to their audiences. And why should would be more than thirty millions of dolthe stage be the low thing which we see, lars a year. Looking at the American when it addresses the same classes?" Post Office as a business establishment, "There may be a change some day; but conducted upon the simple principles of not through any theorick about it. England business for carrying freight at one cent may have her schylus-when the man an ounce, and what intelligent business comes; perchance in our age-more likely man can come to any other result in a calbarbarism are swept away-for we are bar-culation, but vast resources? By railroad barians yet, Greville." when all the dust and cobwebs of our semi "Come, come-your fine Italian reading has spoiled you for our brave old English. We have poety in us if we would trust to nature. There is the ancient blind crowder that sits at our school-gate, with his ballads of love and war, which you like as much as I do. Has he no poetry to tell of? As good, I think, as the sonnets of Master Francis Petrarch." "Don't be a heretic, Greville. But see, the sun is sinking behind that bosky hill, from which Hotspur, looking to the East, saw it rise for the last time. We must be home ward." "And here, where the chapel bell is tolling a few priests to even-song, forty thousand men were fighting, a century and a half ago -for what?" conveyance freight is carried from New York to Cincinnati for one dollar, and one fifty cents, a hundred pounds. Under the proposed plan the government would receive sixteen dollars a hundred from New York to Brooklyn, a passage of fifteen minutes; and from each of the twenty thousand post offices to its nearest neighbor, be it ten miles, or half a mile." -The Japan Expedition has been detained much beyond the time designed, by the failure of the government contractor the steam vessels, far beyond the day preto complete the new machinery of one of scribed. All told there will be but six vessels, and these six will carry only 80 "And for the same doubtful cause went on guns. There should be a more imposing fighting for three quarters of a century. force if we would make an impression on What a sturdy heart must our England have the Japanese.. to bear these things and yet live!" "Times are changed, Philip! have any civil strife in our day?" "Papist and Puritan would like to be at it. But the rule of the law is too strong for them. Yet my father says that the fighting days will come over again-not for questions of sovereign lineage, but of vulgar opinion. The reforms of religion have produced sturdy thinkers. There is a beast with many heads called the Commonalty, growing stronger every day; and it is difficult to chain him or pare his claws." Shall we Well, well, Philip, we are young politicians, and need not trouble our heads yet about such matters. You are going to Oxford. What will the good mother make of you --a statesman, a soldier, or a scholar?" "Must the characters be separable? What ever I am, dear Fulke, I will not shame my ancestry." "And I, dear Philip, will never abate my love for you; and that will keep me honest." Mr. Holbrook advocates "cent-anounce system of postage, for all matter, at all distances." "A cent an ounce," he observes, "is sixteen dollars a hundred pounds, or three hundred and twenty dollar a ton. At that rate-forming an esti It is much easier to think right without doing right than to do right without thinking right. Just thoughts may, and wofully often do, fail of producing just deeds; but just deeds are sure to beget just thoughts. For when the heart is pure and straight there is hardly anything which can mislead the understanding in matters of immediate personal concernment. But the clearest understanding can do little in purifying an impure heart, and the strongest little in straightening a crooked one. cannot reason or talk an Augean stable into A single day's work would make more progress in such a task than a century's cleanliness. words. You A dentist, whose skill at teeth-pulling is well known, was recently called upon by a wag carrying an old garden rake. "Doctor," said he, "I want you to pull a couple of teeth for me.' Very well," replied the doctor, "take a seat in that chair, and show me the teeth." "Well, doctor," said the wag, "I want you to pull these two broken teeth out of this rake !” For a moment the doctor was nonplused by let me have it; I might as well take the teeth the joke, but recovering himself, replied. “Well, from one rake as another." He did so, and demanded his fee of a dollar. UP VESUVIUS. I ROSE in particularly good time, and proceeded at once to Portici by the first train. The reader must be informed, or reminded, of the existence of a snug little railway in this part of the world, that runs along the smiling shore of the Bay of Naples, and connects the capital with the charming watering-place of Castel-a-mare. On this railway, Portici the nearest and most convenient startingpoint for Vesuvius, is one of the stations; and another station, a few miles further down the line, is the town of Pompeii. The dry bones may hope to live now that Pompeii is become a railway station. Getting out of the carriage at Portici, I walked on to the neighbouring village of Resina, and there halted for breakfast. Most of the Vesuvian guides live here; and, while I was cracking my eggs and sipping my coffee, a posse of these worthies were noisily disputing outside for possession of my person. Putting my head out of the window, I presumed to choose my own custodian; beckoned one, who seemed the most intelligent, up to my room, and made an arrangement by which I agreed to give him for the day's services the sum of one piashe (about four shillings), and the customary drink-money. A traveller in Italy, or indeed in any other country, will always find his wheels oiled as he passes through it, if he make a point of quietly acceding to the expectations of the people in such little matters. By eight A.M., under orders of the guide, I had left Resina, and we were on our way to Mount Vesuvius. The road beyond the village was tolerably easy, until we came to the edge of an extensive bed or stream of hard irregular lava that had found its way out of the volcano in the year 1849. The eruption of that year caused considerable damage to the vineyards, burning them up, and completely destroying the fertility of the ground for some miles around the base of the mountain. The grapes cultivated on these slopes produce an excellent wine called Lacryma Christi; it has some resemblance to Champagne, and fetches a high price. We walked, or rather, stumbled, across this sterile tract; and, in about an hour and a half, reached a small hermitage, where visitors can have the pleasure of signing their names in a book, and of being fleeced in the purchase of a box, containing minute fragments of granite, and other equally scarce pieces of stone. There is always something to be bought on a show-mountain; on Snowdon they sell worsted stockings. attempting to ascend this cone-which is by far At length, after some severe struggling, varied by sundry slips, and an occasional pause for breath, I stood on the true summit of Vesuvius. The surface all around was quite warm, and everywhere intersected by numerous crevices, from which there were escaping little wreaths of smoke. We first looked for the crater of 1849, and walked round its edge. The interior was encrusted with a coating of sulphur of various shades and tints, which had a peculiar effect when the sun shone on A little farther on, stands the Royal Obser- it; a sulphurous vapour issued from the abyss vatory. A small company of soldiers are beneath, and enveloped us in its annoying stationed here for the protection of travellers fumes. We then went to the old and large -a precaution by no means needless-against crater: here the heat of the surrounding surrobbers; guides included, for they look upon face was considerably greater; so great, a traveller a little too much as a bit of booty. indeed, as to penetrate through thick-soled Another hour's hard toiling brought us to the boots, and to be intolerable to the naked base of the cone; for so the upper part of the hand. At this spot my guide commenced a mountain near its mouth is termed. Before series of experiments, of a highly interesting and philosophical character; the first of them consisted in thrusting a stick into one of the many crevices or fissures in the earth, and immediately bringing it out in a state of ignition. This was a waste of timber; but the next experiment had a more useful and economic bearing; it was none other than the cooking in one of the said cracks of some eggs, which were produced unexpectedly out of the guide's coat-pocket. These eggs, being hus cooked, I ate. I was not hungry; but it is one of the uses of a volcano that eggs may be roasted in its crater, and it would have ill become a traveller, after ascending Mount Vesuvius, to slight whatever efforts the old fellow might make to offer him refreshment and amusement. Travellers may generally safely descend for some depth into the mouth of the volcano; but at the time of my visit, the suffocating fumes of sulphur were rolling out more copiously than usual, and the guide dissuaded me from a too hazardous attempt. The view, of course, was grand, extending completely over the bay, with the beautiful little towns skirting its edge, including also in the distance the islands of Capri, Ischia, and Procida, and the deeply interesting and classical region of the Bay of Baiæ. Almost immediately under us, to the left, was the railway station of Pompeii. If we turned round to look inland, the country, so far as the eye could scan, was studded with white palaces and houses, which in this pure and clear atmosphere, really continue white all the year round, without the bespattering of whitewash every spring. Vesuvius, though generally represented in prints as a regular truncated cone, is, in reality, a mountain from which rise two distinct cones; the one out of whose crater issued the fatal stream that overwhelmed Pompeii and Herculaneum, has long since spent its fury, and become quite still. Its companion every now and then, however, gives unequivocal evidence of life. I remained at the top for about an hour, and then made preparations for descending. In proportion as the ascent of the cone is, from its exceedingly abrupt steepness, more difficult than the ascent of almost any other mountain, so is its descent in equal degree more easy. It requires a good hour to reach the top, but less than five minutes are enough to see us to the bottom. The rapidity and ease of the downward motion are really quite surprising; it is a downward flight. The wayfarer leans backward at an angle of about fifty degrees, and begins to take enormous strides or plunges. At each step he sinks deeply into the powdered ashes, so that he cannot lose his footing, or roll over; the only nervousness or apprehension that can be experienced, is derived from a conviction of the utter impossibility of stopping himself until he reaches his journey's end; if in his progress the foot should unluckily be caught against piece of rock or lava, concealed THE GREAT CHOWSEMPOOR BANK. presuming. The young captain of light-infantry, who condescended to act as secretary Ir has long been a prevalent idea with that on three thousand rupees a month, informed benighted creature, "the million," that to the public, in the virgin Chowsempoor cir follow the avocation of a banker, requires a cular, that their capital was intended to be long life of training in the deep, mysterious limited to a lac, or ten thousand pounds. workings of complicated accounts, interest- But, the ten thousand became augmented to tables, and something more than mere mul- twenty, and then to fifty thousand. Neither tiplication; that to become an expert and was it very long before the majors, and successful banker, involves deep and patient collectors, and magistrates forming the Board study, long practice, and an unblemished discovered, that such places as Blankpoor and career; in short, that bankers, like bishops, Anditorbad, and other minor hill stations can hardly be worth anything until their hair were far too circumscribed a field for their is grey. It has been the task of the Anglo-growing operations. They must extend their Indian community of the present century to influence through other channels; they must demonstrate the hollowness of this long-have a branch establishment at the great cherished belief. The wise men of the East metropolis of the Presidency; accordingly a have flung the antiquated Lombard Street branch was formed - a branch which was creed far into the shade; they have de-fated to outgrow the parent institution in monstrated to a nicety that what Lord Byron more respects than mere extent of opeonce wrote of criticism may now be equally rations. applied to the banker's craft: "A man must serve his time to every trade Save banking, bankers all are ready made." By way of a little variety, a few merchants were admitted into the branch direction; this imparted fresh vigour to the system, and the Hooghly Bund Branch of the Great ChowsemUnder the genial influence of a tropical poor Bank bade fair to do all in its power to climate, the development of a bank far out- develope the resources of that portion of strips the fabled worth of Jack's magic bean-British India, on the most approved modern stalk. While some institutions on the old principle. system, in the old country, would be issuing A spacious building was appropriated for circulars and preparing their ledgers; in the the "Branch," in the most commanding and East, young military subs and beardless expensive part of the capital. The house was civilians spring up into full-grown, "first-fitted and furnished in true Oriental style and chop" bank directors. People were lost in amazement at it. Even the cunning old foxes of natives were not prepared for it-and they are usually prepared for a good deal. Bramins and Zemindars became envious of the Great Chowsempoor Bank, and determined to become shareholders. It was not long before the list of directors contained the revered names of Baboo Futty Maund, and Dustomiewallah Dutt. costliness, and was tended and guarded by a It was in the latter part of the year little army of retainers. Not the least splendid eighteen hundred and something-not so long were the suite of apartments devoted to the since, but that I perfectly remember all the local manager-a skilful penman, a mighty circumstances, and I am not an old man yet, warrior in figures, a special pleader in when a party of officers and civilians sitting conversation, in deeds something more: in round the mess-table at Blankpoor, a military short, precisely the man to make such a station in the largest presidency of our Indian child as he had in hand, walk alone before it Empire, agreed among themselves to "get was a year old. It was perfectly marvellous up" a bank; the want of "accommodation to see how the institution grew and throve. being then much felt in that part of the world. Before they rose from the table, the amount of capital had been agreed upon, the scrip apportioned, the "direction" filled, and the secretary and managers appointed. No time was lost. It was discovered that what looked so beautifully rose-colour after a dozen of Champagne, wore an equally cheerful aspect when looked at the following morning over Bass's pale ale. The thing was not long The resources of the Presidency were now in embryo. Within a week the Great Chow-being fully developed-in vulgar words, the sempoor Bank was a fact. The Bank had exports were doubled; credit was lavishly directors and a regular working staff; the directors had shares; and, by some complication of circumstances, before a dozer accounts were opened, the shares got up to a premium. Residents at the other neighbouring stations, military and civil, thirsted for bank honours, and scrip was applied for from all quarters, and in any quantity. For some brief period the Chowsempoor institution wore an appearance of intense humility and modesty. It would not for the world have been thought ambitious or even given, and as freely taken. Small men of a few odd thousands shipped produce to the extent of hundreds of thousands, and they were not over particular as to what they shipped. Shopkeepers swelled into merchants. Merchants expanded into princes. Civil servants turned up their official noses at their dry routine duties, thought seriously of retiring from the service, and, as they revelled in the winning Hookah, gave themselves up to dreams, which in fairy splendour and impossible magnificence, could only have found |