Goose, the Tree 300 Medical Reform, 316 Rent, Explanation of 234 Visits to Remarkable Places, 28 260 Medical Schools, French and English 184 Medical Quackery, 357 Medicine to Infants, 374 Gossip about the Carse of Gowrie, Great, Difficulty of Becoming Hardress Fitzgerald, Story of Head and Heart, Heads of Americans, Heads of the French, Highland Laird, Howitt on Remarkable Places, 365, 390 Men, Distribution of 302 Metcalf, the Blind Surveyor, 277 Models and Manufactures Exhibited 40, 143 Molesworth on Colonisation, 147 Runjeet Sing, Camp of 149 Russell's Australian Tour, 93 Money, Metallic and Paper, 147, 155 309 Moth, Clothes' Scott, Conversation with 140 187 199 Scraps from Lorrequer, 28 Movement in Ireland, Temperance 380 320 Murat, Story of Achille 164 West Indies, Gurney's 311 Western, Letter-Bag of Great 52 Willis's Loiterings of Travel, 286 Witchcraft, Account of 96 Witchcraft in Scotland, 392 Rienzi, the Tribune, Walking Excursions of Young Men, 245 12 2 Washington, Guizot on 307 91 Weather-Wisdom, 157 138 Weavers, German and British 48 123 - 244 Wedderburne, Recollections of 20 173 99 Well-known Couplet, 256 Dinner-giving, Hints on 316 Dobbs and his Nag Nobbs, 62 Dog, Anecdote of a 168 Double-bedded Room, Story of a 276 Drama, the 78 Drug-taking, 367 Duelling in America, 251 Egyptian Coffee, 285 Either, Note on word 269 Emigration to Australia, Zoological Lectures in Dublin, 246 ANECDOTES & PARAGRAPHS. Erskine's Love of Animals, Fly-catcher, Spotted 208 Force, Moral and Physical 232 Foreign English, 240 Foresight, 64 French, King of the 165 Fruits of the Earth, 160 Gas, Natural 192 Gas, New 112 Geographical Primer, 208 Good and Bad, 160 Goodwin Sands, Beacon on 151 Health and Mortality, Public 20 Heir-looms, 48 Horses on a Journey, 160 Ideas, Treatment of New 360 Indians, Treatment of 200 Indian Manners, Native 360 Information for the People, New 240 Insult, Implied 224 Intemperance, 296 Irish Debt, 360 Irish Election, Old 280 Languages, the Learned Page 155 Literary Curiosity, 56 Literature under the Stuarts, 104 Logan, Laird of 392 Lopez the Carlist, 143 Lorrequer, Scraps from 288 Lost Days, 144 Love, 109 Malibran, Anecdote of 141 Macaire and the Dog, 16 Marriages, Early 24 Medicines, Careless Use of 48 Middleton, Maxims of 288 Milk as Diet, 200 Mind Diseased, 384 Mississippi, 232 Modern Travelling, 384 Music to a Maniac, 304 Naturalist, Enthusiastic 304 Nettle, Sting of the 8 Nitric Acid in Rain Water, 256 Novel-spinning, 372 Oddities of Great Men, 311 Odds and Ends, 384 Officials, Treasury 352 Paint, Injury from Black 263 Paradise Lost, Sale of 320 Pawnee Indians, 72 Pictures, Manufactured 336 Pleasures, Beauty of Simple 141 Poor Man, the 165 Portuguese Politeness, 232 Quebec and Montreal, 88 Rab Hamilton, Daft 256 Railways, Misconception of CONDUCTED BY WILLIAM AND ROBERT CHAMBERS, EDITORS OF “CHAMBERS'S INFORMATION FOR THE PEOPLE,” "CHAMBERS'S EDUCATIONAL COURSE," &c. NUMBER 417. NATIONAL DESPONDENCY. PRINTED BY BRADBURY AND ENANS, WHITEFRIARS, LONDON. SATURDAY, JANUARY 25, 1840. It seems that mankind are for ever destined to live under the nightmare of some alarming apprehension. The ancients were kept on the alert by ominous prognostications, derived from the entrails of beasts, from the flights of birds, or the equivocal responses of the A fear of nymph Egeria and the Delphic oracle. ghosts, witches, and apparitions, and a belief in the magic power of fairies, Pucks, charms, and incantations, were the penalties paid for ignorance by our more immediate ancestors. In the present day, the prevailing bugbear seems a dread of poverty, either individual or national. At every interval of three, four, or five years, the community is plunged in the greatest tribulation from the number of bankruptcies and general mercantile stagnation; pecuniary ruin stares every one in the face; innumerable pamphlets and periodical essays are shot forth, explaining the causes and remedies of existing disasters; and then, after the gloom and controversy have continued for a while, the nation, from some imperceptible causes, emerges from its difficulties, the banks resume payments in specie, all the mills and factories are working full time, the wharfs and docks are crowded with merchandise, exports and imports increase enormously, and, in short, every thing is joyous, hearty, and progressive "Richard is himself again!" These alternations of commercial prosperity and depression form a remarkable feature of modern times. Revulsions in trade are nearly as punctual, though not quite so frequent in their advent, as spring and autumn; and there is little doubt that their periodical return is governed by fixed laws, as well as the movements of the heavenly bodies. Like the plague, the sweating sickness, and cholera morbus, formerly, they occur at regular intervals, sweeping off their millions, not of human beings, but of sovereigns, and leaving woful blanks in our ledgers, that require years of anxiety and patient toil to fill up. They are the fevers of commerce, mostly brought on by the intemperance of enterprise and speculation; and as the researches of medical science have lessened both the frequency and intensity of epidemic maladies, there is no reason why our sages in political economy may not render a similar service to traffic, by explaining the causes which influence the fluctuations of the mercantile cycle. The vicissitudes of trade form only one of the many sources of those fits of despondency that have been wont to overshadow the realm. No lady or gentleman has been so frequently ruined and undone as poor Old England. How many inquests have been held over her remains by political soothsayers during the last century! Yet somehow or other she has always risen again in her might, to tower majestically onward in her prosperous course, like the Great Western across the Atlantic; or rather she has been like the patient supposed to be in the last stage of existence, and who, while the physicians were gravely debating about the symptoms of her malady, rose up and deliberately walked out of the apartment. Almost ever since the Revolution of 1688, the increase of the national debt has formed a constant theme of lugubrious forebodings. One now laughs at the ominous predictions and calculations of Davenant, Stewart, Hume, Price, and other writers of the last century. It is not, however, intended to underrate the ruinous tendencies of governments anticipating their resources by laying the burden on posterity. Recklessly incurring debt is a pernicious practice, either in individuals or nations. In the latter, it is among the greatest of public calamities, by affording VOL. IX. No. 1. too readily the means of lavish expenditure, and for Here is an extract from the celebrated Dr Dave nant :-" Unless this can be compassed (reducing the Another writer opens eleven years later with the Next follows a chapter of lamentations from the A brilliant paraphrase of the above passage ap- XV. 209. The most portentous sign in the air-the fiery cross PRICE THREE HALFPENCE. -the impending avalanche that was to overwhelm us, was, however, always the debt, concerning which dire infliction, Samuel Hannay, Esq., in 1756, reasons and concludes as under:-"It has been a generally received notion among political arithmeticians, that we may increase our national debt to one hundred millions; but they acknowledge that it must then cease by the debtor we shall stop."-A Journal of Eight Days, 4to, p. 218. becoming bankrupt. But it is very difficult to comprehend if we do not stop at seventy-five millions, where Mr Hume, who was cautious, and exempt from gloom and rashness, observes, that the first instance of a debt contracted upon parliamentary security, occurred in the reign of Henry VI. The commencement, he continues," of this pernicious practice deserves to be The ruinous effects of it are now become apparent, noted; a practice the more likely to become pernicious, the more a nation advances in opulence and credit. and threaten the very existence of the nation."—History of England, 8vo. edit. 1778, iii, 215. His illustrious contemporary appears to have caught a gleam of hope from past experience, but evidently labours under fearful misgivings for the future :66 seems to support "Great Britain," says Dr Smith, believed her capable of supporting. Let us not, howwith ease a burden which half a century ago nobody ever, upon this account, conclude that she is capable that she could support without great distress a burden of supporting any burden; nor even be too confident a little greater than that which has been laid upon her." -Wealth of Nations, ii. 363. Another trump or two only remain to be sounded on this painful subject. Pending hostilities with now involved in another war, and the public debts are America, the ingenious Dr Price observes, "We are make another great addition to them, and what they increasing again fast; the present year (1777) must will be at the end of these troubles no one can tell. might perhaps raise them to two hundred millions, but The union of a foreign war to the present civil war more probably it would sink them to nothing."-Additional Observations, &c., third edition, p. 148. The following is the funeral knell of this unhappy kingdom, and all that remains is to call in the undertaker:-" If the premises are just, or nearly just, and nothing effectual is done to prevent their consequences, the infallible, the inevitable conclusion that follows is, that the nation is a BANKRUPT, and that those who have trusted their all to the public faith are in very imminent danger of becoming (I die pronouncing it) BEGGARS."-An Argument to consider the State of the Nation. By John Earl of Stair. 1783. This is sixty years since, and how awfully solemn the noble earl's valedictory ejaculation! In death, truth and a veracious second sight are usually expected, and John Earl of Stair dies exclaiming more than half a century ago, that if his premises be just, we are in very imminent danger of becoming beggars. These excerpts are enough to inculcate caution in political prophesyings. It savours of presumption in the wisest attempting to predicate the fate of a nation. The most perspicuous are often baffled in their anticipations on the fortune of individuals, but how much more are they likely to be at fault in endeavouring to trammel up the issues of a community! It is a vast the ablest arithmeticians can never bring all the eleand complicated question, into the calculation of which a giant of vast proportions, whose limbs and sinews, ments essential to infallible conclusions. A nation is faculties and resources, can hardly ever be wholly comprehended. It is centuries in growing to maturity, and often as long in decaying, and many and heavy blows are necessary before life is extinct. Tak ing off the head is not enough. Governments may change often; commerce, trade, industrial pursuits, and manners, may alter; but the nation, or what really constitutes the nation, its people, morals, religion, usages, spirit, and municipal polity, still live under new dynasties. It is pride unbearable to arrogate the gift of foresight, to assume a prescience of the phases, progress, and destiny of empires. History is replete with examples of the fatuity of mal-assumptions, as the vicissitudes of Europe during the last fifty years abundantly testify. To compare the actual results of her revolutions with the hopes and anticipations of the acutest contemporary intellects, is quite enough to put an end to all speculation about a moral, religious, or political futurity. The use of the foregoing retrospection is to show the vanity of political dreaming, and the unreasonableness of despondency. The future must always lie hid below the horizon, and if it rises charged with public calamities, they will doubtless be accompanied with their appropriate remedies and allevia tions. Our business is not with it, but with our own times and our own evils, which we feel and can best comprehend, leaving posterity to grapple with theirs, as they will be better enabled to do than we can, having the benefit of our experience for guidance. RECOLLECTIONS OF AN AUTHORESS. HARRIET COUNTESS OF ROSSLYN. "I, too, have recollections of this lovely and fascinating woman," said I to myself, while reading the mention made of Lady Rosslyn in the interesting memoirs of Sir Walter Scott. And here they are: wards appeared, he was writing the Lay, and she told out a shirt or a sack." In that ever though a simple, a touching and enviable eulogy. SIR WALTER SCOTT. In the year 1816, I was invited to meet this celebrated but then untitled man, at breakfast, at the house of Sir George Ph—, in Mount Street. I had met him several times before, but had never had an opportunity of conversing with him. I therefore looked forward to this visit with unusual pleasure, taking care to arrive in Mount Street precisely at the time specified. Sir Walter, however, was there before me; and for some time, to my great satisfaction, no other guests came to interrupt the flow of conversation from the In the summer of 1806, my husband and myself, eloquent man's lips, who seemed to me to talk not accompanied by Wilkie, now Sir David Wilkie, went with any view of display, but merely because his mind on a visit to Southhill, the seat of our highly valued was full, and he could not help it. I know not what friends Samuel Whitbread and Lady Elizabeth Whit-led to the subject, but he gave us a most animated description of a Cockney's hunting in the Highlands. I think the person was a militia officer, but that is immaterial; suffice, that whoever he was, he seemed to live before us, as the narrator described his terrors when he found himself going full gallop up and down crags, steeps, and declivities, of which he had before no idea. bread. As I went to the chamber allotted to us, I saw in the long gallery or corridor leading to it, a nurse-maid and two children, and concluding that one of the latter was the youngest child of the family, I addressed her by her supposed name. "You are mistaken, madam," replied the nurse; "this is Lady Janet Sinclair, and this young gentleman is Lord Loughborough." At this last information I was seized with an almost irresistible desire to laugh, for, when very young, I had I cannot pretend to do justice to the spirit with which he gave this narration, but I know that it was so delightful to listen to him, that I congratulated myself on our superiority in punctuality to the other guests. At length, however, the rest of the company arrived. I think we were in all two-and-twenty, and me down stairs; consequently I sat by him at table. On my other hand was a young clergyman, who had lately published a prize poem.* his varied converse, and heard him go "from grave It was the last time I ever saw him, and the first also, according to the idea of him who said on the introduction of a stranger, "Speak! that I may see thee !" for as the face of Walter Scott, when speaking and animated, and the same face in a quiescent state, were two different things, I might say, with some truth, that when we met at Sir George Ph-'s, I saw him for the first time. I went to Edinburgh in the autumn of that year, and if I had then never seen Sir Walter Scott, I should have found means to be introduced to him at his own house; but as I never like to force myself on the acquaintance of distinguished persons, as my time Sir Walter's society so very recently, I was contented was limited, and I had had the pleasure of enjoying with seeing the tops of his chimnies and the roof of his not even begun. He did not visit Edinburgh during house as I passed it on my road to the beautiful city. He then lived near Gala water, and Abbotsford was the nine days of my happy residence there; but I had the pleasure of sitting opposite his picture by Raeburn every day at my kind friend Constable's, whose guest I was. Eagerly did I tell every one who would listen to me of my meeting him in London; but I was mortified, when, on my praising the beauty of his countenance while under strong excitement, and the fire of his blue-grey eye, Dr Brown, the celebrated professor of moral philosophy, interrupted me with," Nay, nay; do not go on with these flights of fancy; the face is only a roast-beef and plum-pudding face, say what you will !" Probably that loved and lamented man (Dr Brown), cut off in the prime of his life and talents, said this merely to bring me down from my romantic exaltation on this subject; but whatever Sir Walter Scott's face was, would I had had the pleasure of seeing it again! MR BRUCE'S REPORT ON ASSAM TEA. THE difficulty of carrying on dealings with China, which seems to be always increasing, has of late years led to an anxious discussion of the possibility of obtaining tea from a different source. A kindred plant, used as a tea in Paraguay, has been pointed out to the attention of British speculators; and of this article, it will be recollected, we lately gave an account from the writings of a great variety of travellers. It must be generally known that a prospect has also arisen of obtaining the ordinary tea from an Asiatic soil, near to, but independent of, China. In 1834, a committee was formed at Calcutta, gone into the assize court at N, where Lord Sir Walter Scott, to my great joy, was desired to hand for the purpose of promoting the culture of the teaLoughborough was sitting as judge, and his peculiarly bright eyes shining from under the judge's wig over a nose like a parrot's beak, had made an indelible impression on my memory; and now I beheld before me Lord Loughborough of three years old, the great nephew of the judge, in all the bloom of childish beauty. plant in British India, and steps were immediately taken for introducing seeds and plants from China. Before these were procured, it became known that the As the company was so large, there could not be much tea-plant grew naturally in Assam, a large region five general conversation, which was a subject for regret, hundred miles to the north of Calcutta, situated on as that distinguished poet and converser, Wordsworth, who came late, was one of the guests; but I own that the great Bramah-pootra river, and, though not subject I had no leisure for regrets, as I was enjoying an to the East India Company, yet under British influThe contrast was indeed ludicrous, but the rencontre opportunity which never might be mine again-that ence. Mr C. A. Bruce (who, it appears, made this was welcome, because, as the children of Lady Rosslyn of being able, owing to the size of the party, to keep discovery fourteen years ago) was immediately apSir Walter Scott's conversation to myself. One subwere at Southhill, no doubt she was there herself, ject succeeded another from his lips; and as he conde-pointed by the committee to survey the district, and scended to mention one of my productions to me, telling me I had made him shed many tears, I felt emboldened to refer to his own writings, and I asked him why, with such evident powers to produce dramatic effect, he had never written a tragedy? He replied that several reasons had prevented him from coming forward as a dramatic writer. Amongst others, he was, he said, a proud man, and his pride would have made him unable to dance attendance on managers, or consult the varied tastes of actors, and others, or words to that effect. But he owned that he had once serious thoughts of and I should at length see and know this much ad- Our dear host drove us out together more than once in his phaeton, and as we could not conveniently have the pleasure of conversing with him, we were obliged to converse with one another; consequently, report on its capabilities of producing the plant, under culture. A report from Mr Bruce, dated at Jaipore, June 10th, 1839, has just reached this country, and, having been favoured with an early copy of it, we propose making our readers acquainted with some of the principal facts which it presents. The districts of Muttock and Singpho, to which Mr Bruce's inquiries have as yet been confined, lie between the 26th and 28th degrees of north latitude, we did not long remain on distant terms. We visited writing a tragedy, on the same subject as that which and the 94th and 96th degrees of east longitude, a the new jail at Bedford, in which we found but one inmate, a man, of whom we bought some pincushions, the fruits of his industry and his solitude. We drove had been already so ably treated by his friend Joanna Baillie-namely, "The Family Legend," founded on a true story-that of a lady having been exposed by also to some gentlemen's seats in the neighbourhood. her husband on a rock in the Sound of Mull, and left At one of these, where our host left us while he had a mock funeral for her. Sir Walter Scott said to perish there, while he reported her to be dead, and transacted some business, Lady Rosslyn asked the that if he had written on this legend, he should have woman into whose care the house had been left, and had no love in his drama. His hero should have been who was then basting a leg of mutton, to fetch her a the uncle of the heroine; "a sort of misanthrope, with draught of new milk. Accordingly she laid down the only one affection in his heart-love for his wat basting-spoon, and eagerly ran to get it. like one solitary gleam of sunshine gilding the dark pity it would be," said the considerate Lady Rosslyn, tower of some ruined and lonely dwelling !" "if the mutton should burn while the good woman is employed in my service! I will baste the meat till she returns." So said, so done-and the graceful countess, seizing the ladle, commenced operations. "Well," cried I. admiring her benevolent care, "among the pleasing and curious sights of this morning I shall number that of seeing Harriet Countess of Rosslyn basting a leg of mutton!" "What a That evening, while talking over the beauties of the Lay of the Last Minstrel with Lady Elizabeth, Lady Rosslyn told us that the ballad of Rosabel was written at her instigation. She said that Sir Walter Scott was staying at Roslin, while, as it after Never can I forget the fine expression of his lifted morning been favoured with specimens of his two man- *I allude to Edward Smedley, who was taken away not long situation corresponding, in one important respect, to the best tea-districts in China, which lie between the 27th and 31st parallels. It is a country, with respect to agriculture and social institutions, in a very deplorable state; the people are of migratory habits, and dreadfully addicted to opium. It is amidst the widespread natural woods or jungles which cover a large portion of the country, and under favour of their shade, that Mr Bruce has found the tea-plant growing. It generally grows in tracts, a few hundred yards in extent, with occasional trees forming a sort of connection found a hundred and twenty such tracts. They are between one tract and another. Mr Bruce has now all on plains. The following extract will afford some idea of his procedure in searching for tea-tracts : "Last year, in going over one of the hills behind Jaipore, about 300 feet high, I came upon a tea-tract, in fact I did not see the end of it; the trees were in which must have been two or three miles in lengthmost parts as thick as they could grow, and the tea seeds (smaller than what I had seen before), fine and fresh, literally covered the ground: this was in the |