this description, which certainly overrates Eschines, as a sort of political disease cerBrougham's social qualities, is again quite tain to break out afresh whenever any new as evident in the exaggerated description malady weakened the nation's constitution. of his pride and contempt for dependents, Mr. Disraeli, on the other hand, has risen at its close. Lord Brougham evidently to the top by the perfect "detachment" of piqued himself on the romantic ruggedness his intellect from all personal passions, by of his own character, and forgot the most his wonderful power of watching, from a unromantic of all personal characteristics, position quite outside his own desires, what vanity, in this Salvator-Rosa-like sketch of he can best do to forward them, and strikhimself. ing in, either without or with the appearance of resentment, as best suits his purpose, in the coolest. spirit of generalship. But Brougham has at least one advantage over his still more successful contemporary. On Mr. Disraeli's fall we unfortunately cannot as yet philosophize; but we do know that he rose by casting out the little ballast of principle which he may possibly --we speak on mere hypothesis at one time have possessed. Brougham's rise, on the contrary, was not due to any dereliction of principle, but was finally barred by his defects. He rose by the vehemence of his best sympa- so that his enemies often re-thies; he fell by the outbreak of his worst garded him much as Demosthenes, with frailties. He at least earned his success, that exquisite acrimony which Brougham if he also earned the failure of his latter himself so keenly appreciated, regarded days.

How curious and striking is the contrast between the genius of the two men who alone in this century have risen from the lowest to the highest point of political fame by the unaided force of their own talents and ambition, Brougham and Disraeli. We should say that the great force of the one lay in his intellectual carnality, if we may use the expression, the absolute fusion of his passions and his intelligence, the stimulus which ambition gave to thought, vanity to knowledge, contempt to savoir-faire, anger to insight, vindictiveness to reason,

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SET YOUR HOUSE IN ORDER.-It is well known that Mr. Bright, for instance, in the House of Commons, is not called Mr. Bright, but the Honourable Member for Birmingham, and that he will, when Mr. Gladstone comes to be Prime Minister, very likely be called the Right Honourable Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer. This is the rule of Parliament; and its observance, in the Lower House, is perfectly easy. In the House of Lords, however, as the Pall Mall Gazette has pointed out, "con--Punch. fusion is, no doubt, sometimes occasioned by a reference to the noble Lord on the other side of the House, who followed the noble Earl on the cross benches in replying to the remarks of my noble friend behind me."" This confusion might be prevented by adopting a method of personal reference which would involve nothing more than a slight sacrifice of dignity.

A very great humorist once, speaking in a convivial assembly which included, some who were strangers to him, indicated one of them as "the gentleman with the foreign waistcoat and domestic countenance." Their Lordships the Peers might, in mentioning one another, adopt similar methods of description. They might particularize the noble Duke with the sandy hair, the noble Earl with the Roman nose, the right reverend Prelate with the red face, or the noble Lord who squints.

If any of these descriptions were found to give offence to Peers unable to take a joke, peculiari

ties of attire or ornament might be adverted to instead of distinctions of form and feature. There could be nothing unpleasant in calling a Peer the noble Marquis in the white tie, or the noble Lord with the eye-glass. Mistakes would thus be effectually precluded, and noble Lords would be enabled to observe a maxim which all boys either born to or destined for seats in the High Court of Parliament, should be taught to write in their copy-books: "Avoid circumlocution.”

LORD BROUGHAM died, apparently in his sleep, at Cannes, on Thursday, the 8th inst. We have endeavoured elsewhere to sum up the force and feebleness of his public character, and have succeeded in disinterring from one of the scarcest of books, his suppressed novel, his own estimate of himself, an estimate which shows how strongly he prided himself on the ruggedness of his character, and the unpleasant abruptness of his manners. Lord Brougham had, we believe, lost the use of his memory some time before his death, and in the last few weeks of his life his mind was awake only for a few seconds at a time. An old acquaintance who called upon him about a month since was informed by his physician that one minute was the longest conversation he could be allowed to sustain. - Spectator, 16 May.

From the Contemporary Review.

Max Havelaar: or, The Coffee Auctions of the Dutch Trading Company. By MULTATULI. Translated from the original manuscript by BARON ALPHONSE NAHUIJS. Edinburgh: Edmonston and Douglas. 1868.

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into Malay, Javanese, &c., and sharpen scimitars and sabres by warlike songs, so as to give "delivery and help, lawfully if possible, lawfully with violence if need be and that would be very pernicious to the coffee auctions of the Dutch Trading Company!" Clearly, a man like this must be followed upon his own ground, measured by his own standard. Though he may be only a Dutch-built leviathan, still he is of the breed; there is no putting "an hook into his nose," or boring "his jaw through with a thorn; no playing with him "as with a bird," nor binding him for our maidens.

19

66

THIS is a remarkable book. Yet it is one which it is very hard for a foreign critic to judge of fairly. The translator tells us in his preface that it was published a few years ago, and caused such a sensation in Holland as was never before experienced in that country." He compares it to "Uncle Tom's Cabin," but sets the authorEdward Douwes Dekker, formerly Assistant-Resident of the Dutch Government in Java-far above Mrs. Stowe, as having "sacrificed future fortune, and all that makes life agreeable, for a principle- for right and equity." It is "immortal;" it will "do honour to the literature of any language; it has been "written by a genius of that order which only appears at fong intervals in the world's history." But distance is a dispassionate arbiter, and looked at from across the sea, the first impression which "Max Havelaar" produces is that of an attempt to blend in one a political pamphlet, a novel, and a collection of thoughts and opinions on things in general, which has spoilt all three. The pamphlet is high-toned and sincere, but is deprived of weight by the form adopted; the novel shows power, but loses interest through the intermixture of extraneous elements; the thoughts and opinions are often striking, but out of place. But after coming to such conclusions one feels that they are but platitudes, when the author, dismissing his personages with contempt, tells us that he will make no excuses for the form of his book; that he has simply written it to be read; that read he will be by statesmen, by men of letters, by merchants, by lady's-maids, by governors-general in retirement, by ministers, "by the lackeys of these excellencies, by mutes-who more majorum will say that I attack God Almighty where I attack only the god which they have made according to their own imageby the members of the representative chambers;" that "the greater the disapprobation of my book the better I shall be pleased, for the chance of being heard will be so much the greater; when he -as in our own Orissa, alas! - that labour threatens to translate his book into all was habitually exacted without payment European languages, till in every capital both by native and European officials, catthe refrain shall be heard, "There is a band tle and produce taken away by robbery of robbers between Germany and the and extortion; that "endless expeditions" Scheldt;" if this fails, to translate it again were sent, and "heroic deeds performed,

The only true way of judging the book, then, is not to view it as a book, but to look upon both book and man as factsvery surprising and portentous facts, it would seem, to the Dutch nation, and surprising, too, to some other nations also. For it had gone forth to the whole world that the Dutch Government of Java of late years was a great success— - anomalous indeed, in some respects, according to political economy, since it rested upon monopoly and regulated cultivation, but undeniable, unmistakable. To the Dutchman himself this was a tenet of positive faith, which he drank down afresh with every cupful of his Java coffee, which he saw confirmed day after day at the auctions of his great Handelsmaatschappy, or Trading Company, in which his king was known to be a leading shareholder. Foreign visitors confirmed these conclusions, English above allamongst whom it will be sufficient to name Mr. Money, whose "Java" is little more than a panegyric on Dutch, as compared with British, India.

In the midst of this state of things a book like "Max Havelaar" would explode like a shell. Here was a man, speaking from seventeen years' official experience, who declared that the profit of the Trading Company "was only obtained by paying the Javanese just enough to keep him from starving; " that he was "driven away from his rice-fields" in order to cultivate other products which the Government compelled him to grow, and compelled him to sell to itself, at the price it fixed for itself; that famine was often the consequence, by which sometimes "whole districts were depopulated, mothers offered to sell their children for food, mothers ate their own children"

This again is terrible :

"Wawelaar himself has said that God so di

against poor miserable creatures
duced by starvation to skeletons
whose ill-treatment has driven them to re-
volt;" that European officials connived at
wrong-doing, or were silent about it where
they did not participate in it, knowing that
an upright discharge of their duties would
only bring on them reproof, disgrace, or
ruin; that the official reports of the func-
tionaries to the island Government, and
those from the island to the mother country,
were "for the greater and more impor-
tant part untrue," the financial accounts
ridiculously false; that a "mild and sub-
missive" population "has complained year
after year of tyranny," yet sees resident
after resident depart without anything be-
ing ever done towards the redress of its
grievances; that the end of all this" would
be a "Jacquerie."

rects all things that orthodoxy leads to wealth. Look only,' he said, is there not much wealth in Holland? That is because of the faith. Is there not in France every day murder and homicide? That is because there are Roman Catholics there. Are not the Javanese poor? They with the Javanese the more wealth will be here are Pagans. The more the Dutch have to do and the more poverty there.'. I am astonished at Wawelaar's penetration; for it is the truth that I, who am exact in religion, see that my business increases every year, and Busselinck and Waterman, who do not care about God or the Commandments, will remain bunglers as long as they live. The Rosemeyers, too, who The news in itself was startling, and the trade in sugar, and have a Roman Catholic mode of delivering it was of a nature to maid-servant, had a short time ago to accept 27 make it more so. For a more stinging sat- per cent. out of the estate of a Jew who became ire of the lower propensities of the Dutch bankrupt. The more I reflect the further I adcharacter could hardly be conceived than vance in tracing the unspeakable ways of God. that embodied in the Amsterdam coffee- Lately it appeared that thirty millions had been broker, Batavus Drystubble, the supposed gained on the sale of products furnished by author of the work, the contrast between Pagans, and in this is not included what I have whom and the chivalrous, unworldly Have- business. Is not that as if the Lord said,— gained thereby, and others who live by this laar is most powerfully brought out, though Here you have thirty millions as a reward for by very inartistic means. Overdone as the your faith? Is not that the finger of God who picture is, Batavus Drystubble certainly causes the wicked one to labour to preserve the stands out as one of the most remarkable righteous one? Is not that a hint for us to go on embodiments of money-grubbing Pharisee- in the right way, and to cause those far away to ism which literature has yet produced; and produce much, and to stand fast here to the true this, although the first sketch of the person-religion? Is it not, therefore, Pray and la age is far from consistent with his fuller bour,' that we should pray and have the work portrait, giving a curious instance, in done by those who do not know the Lord's fact, of the way in which a character may he calls the yoke of God light! How easy the Prayer? Oh, how truly Wawelaar speaks when grow into life and truth in the author's own burthen is to every one who believes! I am mind, if only steadily looked at. Nothing can be better hit off than Drystubble's firm please to Driebergen, and see how it ends with only a few years past forty, and can retire when rich man's faith that a poor man must be a others who forsake the Lord."

I

scoundrel: -

re

"Mark that Shawlman. He left the ways of the Lord; now he is poor, and lives in a little garret that is the consequence of immorality and bad conduct. He does not know what time it is, and his little boy wears knee breeches."

The naïf selfishness of this is equally masterly :

"Why do they want buffaloes, those black fellows? I never had a buffalo, and yet I am contented; there are men who are always complaining: And as regards that scoffing at forced labour, I perceive that he had not heard that sermon of Domine Wawelaar's, otherwise he would know how useful labour is in the extension of the kingdom of God. It is true he is a Lutheran."

Add this touch also to the last: :

"I did not speak to him of the Lord, because he is a Lutheran; but I worked on his mind and his honour."

Thackeray himself could not have surpassed this scathing page. It is immortal, come what may to the book which contains it.

Max Havelaar himself, though the conception of his character is a subtle one, and is on the whole well brought out at once dreamy and practical, lavish and self-stinting, indulgent and rigid, irregular in his impulses, and yet bent on enforcing order is of far less worth artistically than the coffee-broker, and there is a constant tendency to rhetorical self-assertion about him which one fears is characteristic of the writer himself. The plot is really too slight to be worth analyzing in detail; suffice it to say that Havelaar is an Assistant-Resident in Java, intent on doing justice, and who

of men throwing water on the fire to kill it. -I shall not hear it.

"I do not know where I shall die.

thereby only brings disgrace upon himself. | And outside of the house there will be many cries More than one such tale might be told from the records of British India; and it is indeed remarkable that the worst excesses which the book complains of are laid to the I charge of the native officials, although the burden of the vicious system of government, with which the tolerance of their mal-If I fall out of a klappa-tree I shall lie dead bepractices seems almost irretrievably bound up, lies of course with the European Then rulers.

Havelaar's random opinions, de omnibus rebus, are often full of quaint power and humour; as when he complains of guidebook measurements which require you to have so many "feet of admiration at hand not to be taken for a Turk or a bagman," or inveighs against cataracts because they tell him nothing:

"They make a noise, but don't speak. They cry, 'rroo,' 'rroo,' 'rroo.' Try crying, 'rroo, rroo,' for six thousand years or more, and you will see how few persons will think you an amusing man."

A full idea of the book cannot, however,

I

saw the little Si-Oenah fall out of a klappa-tree, when he plucked a klappa [cocoa-nut] for his mother;

low in the shrubs like Si-Oenah. my mother will not weep, for she is dead. But others will say with a loud voice, 'See, there lies Saidjah.'

-I shall not hear it.

"I'do not know where I shall die. have seen the corpse of Palisoe, who died of old If I die of old age, with white hairs, age, for his hairs were white:

And

I

hired women will stand weeping near my

"I do not know where I shall die.

have seen at Badoer many that were dead. They were dressed in white shrouds, and were buried in the earth.

dessah [village], eastward against the hill, where the grass is high,

be given without a sample of its pathos. If I die at Badoer, and am buried beyond the Here is a perfectly exquisite piece of metreless poetry, which, if not translated from the Javanese, but the work of Mr. Douwes Then Dekker himself, is simply a nineteenth-century miracle:

"I do not know when I shall die.

I saw the great sea on the south coast when I
was there with my father making salt.*
If I die at sea and my body is thrown into the
deep water, then sharks will come;
They will swim round my corpse, and ask,
Which of us shall devour the body that
goes down into the water?'
-I shall not hear it.

"I do not know where I shall die.

I saw in a blaze the house of Pa-ansoe, which he himself has set on fire, because he was mata glap; +

If I die in a burning house, glowing embers will fall on my corpse;

will Adinda pass by there, and the border of her sarong will sweep softly along the grass.

-I shall hear it."

Will not any gentlemen or ladies with volumes of poems ready, or preparing, or accumulating for publication, after reading the above, oblige their contemporaries and posterity by throwing their manuscripts into the fire?

There remains to be added that Mr. Douwes Dekker has, the preface tells us, in vain challenged a refutation of his charges

e. g., at the International Congress for the Promotion of Social Science at Amsterdam in 1863-and that he has been declared to have understated rather than overstated the truth. One word must finally be said in favour of Baron Nahuijs's translation, the English of which might put to

* An offence in Java, as in British India, salt be- the blush many of our professed translaing a Government monopoly.

In a state of frenzy.

tors.

66

CHAPTER XV.

THE GHOST'S SEAT.

"Therefore, while in that state of mind," I remarked, "had you been one of the laity, and doomed to confront it, you would have stayed away from worship."

"A pretty morbid state of mind it must have been," said Ruth. "I can't understand such weakness."

"Then thank God, my sister," I observed, and so pity those who can."

66

Surely you can't," she answered, somewhat sharply, as if resenting the possibility of such weakness in so near a relation.

MR. WESTON kept his second promise of 'calling again soon," and very agreeable he made himself in his own simple country fashion. But he went away remarkably early. He said he was not going straight home. Two or three days after, when Phil-" lis returned from buying some tapes for my sister, she told us she thought we should have Mr. Weston to tea, for she saw him in the High Street. But he did not come. However, he arrived duly next week, and spent two or three hours with us. And when he rose to go, he found courage to announce openly that he intended to "look in" at the Refuge. He blushed a little as he said it, and stroked his hat.

Nobody made any comment-only Ruth sent a message to Alice. When next we saw Alice she remarked that she had received this message, and executed whatever its directions were, which I forget. ing more.

"Not in my own spirit, God be praised," I replied; "but none the less I know it exists, as I know of blindness, or palsy, or other evils I have never suffered, or of poetry, or music, or other gifts which I have not-yet."

"But such weakness, however pardonable, should be conquered, and not humoured," said Ruth, rather more gently.

"If you had a broken leg to be made whole," I argued, "would you walk upon Noth-it or rest it?"

"If it were mine, would you tell me to do the same ?" I queried.

"You would not mind me if I did," said she, "for you are naturally lazy!

"H'm-I don't know," she retorted; "I One evening, still early in May, Ruth daresay I should use it more quickly than and I were taking a little stroll in the mead-most people." ows, when we met Mr. Marten. He was in high spirits; in fact, that was now his normal condition. I was very glad to see him, because, at that particular time, I wanted to consult him about the terrible coloured window of St. Cross. I wished to get his consent for its removal. If I succeeded, I would substitute another at my own sole_expense, quite apart from any assistance I rendered to the fund for general repairs.

Accordingly, I introduced the subject, without any preamble, candidly adding, that I was prepared for objections, inasmuch as I believed my own sister did not share my views on the matter.

"I'm glad you tell that, Edward," said Ruth, for it is the truth. Why should people's nerves be so fine as to shrink from the sight of what HE endured? His own mother was strong enough to see it."

66

"Can't you abstract all personalities from the question," I said, warming just a little, "and answer me fairly which you would recommend as the best course?

"Well," she answered, "in the first instance I should recommend the owner of the leg to take care it did not get broken, and I should say the same of hearts or spirits, or whatever region is the seat of the whims you're talking about."

66

But, in all cases, some unavoidable accidents will happen," I pleaded.

"So they will," said she.

"Then granting that, which is the best and surest cure-perfect rest, or exercise, while the limb is in a diseased state ?" I questioned.

Ah, so she was," I responded; "but, "Depends upon the patient," she replied, depend on it, she never spoke about it after-shortly. "If it were my duty to walk, then wards. And, Ruth, I fancy it would be it would do me less harm than lying still; those wrenched and worn with agony some- for that would set me in a fever." thing like hers, who would shrink most from "But if you were the nurse, should not that picture, because they only would feel you think it your duty to keep the invalid all its terrible meaning. I know I don't, calm and but it pains me for their sake."

"Stop, Edward, stop," said my sister; "I daresay I do not realize its horrors"we need not argue it. You can do as you more than you do, sir," said the rector; like about the window. I don't wish to "but yet it pains me for my own sake,- hinder you." or rather, it did so, for I doubt if it would have the same power now. I was often heroic enough to rejoice it was behind me.”

"I always thought you could give an argument fair hearing, Ruth,” I remarked, a little hurt.