missile, by the extra size of the ball. So, that, after making an allowance, we find that our "screws" are no niggards with their shot, but that they throw an excess of 1000 lbs. of iron at every broadside, over one of Nelson's best ships of 104 guns. When, in addition to this startling disparity in the destructive force of the ships of the two epochs, it is remembered that the modern Ninety possesses a motive-power in the screw that renders her terrific batteries doubly effective, we can form a rough idea of the resistless power now concentrated in ships of war of the Agamemnon class. Let us hope, however, as science increases our powers of destruction, that war may become next to impossible. Viewed through this medium, it is gratifying to reflect that the first division of the Baltic fleet belongs to an age of mechanical invention; and the study necessary to make a good officer has produced a compensating advance in the character of the service. Educated officers have already effected a great many beneficial changes, and especially in forming a better class of seamen. The old vices of the profession are fading away before the elevation of character that seems inseparable from an age of general improvement. A constant supervision of skilled labor is requisite to manage huge red-hot furnaces in our wooden walls, and to restrain the "volcanic" fires of a "screw" within harmless bounds, when in proximity to the powder magazine. And yet, though but a few yards apart, a strict discipline secures to a thousand men refreshing sleep over both, in a modern "screw" line-of-battle ship. It may be thought premature to speculate upon the operations of our fleet in the Baltic before a shot has been fired. But we are told that the sympathies of the people of Northern Germany, Denmark, and Sweden, are enlisted on the side of the Western Powers, and that they flock to their coasts to witness our "screws" as they go "simmering" along under "easy" steam, to take up their berths at Kiel. ships cannot pass; consequently, the duty our blue-jackets will have to perform assumes a different aspect when this fact is known. No one doubts the determined gallantry of Admirals Napier, Corry, and Chads; wherever their ships can go, they will take them; but if the Russians skulk under their guns at Cronstadt, it must be left to the judgment of the Admiral to determine the propriety of attacking them under such circumstances. With respect to the foe he will have to contend with in the tideless waters of the Baltic, very little is known. The Russian fleet is numerous, and said to be a "hobby" of the Emperor's. Hitherto its enterprises have been confined to making voyages of discovery to Riga and Revel, and an occasional cruise to the waters of Copenhagen. The tactics learnt in a short summer's cruise in an internal tideless sea, cannot be equal to those acquired in the broad oceans navigated by our mariners. The Baltic has its own peculiar dangers, no doubt, one of which is ice, hitherto the most formidable enemy the Russian fleet has had to contend with. It will now have to stand the fire of the united navies of the two greatest powers in the world. But, perhaps, no feature connected with the operations against Russia presents to Englishmen a more pleasing novelty than that the navies of Britain and France, whose rivalries have hitherto disturbed the peace of the world, should now go forth, armed with mighty power as the champions of freedom, to fight for the liberties of oppressed nations, and the peace of mankind. A squadron of French ships of the line and frigates was originally intended to rendezvous with the British fleet, in the waters of the Baltic; but the French contingent is at present employed in transporting troops to the Black Sea, and France will, in the first instance, be represented in the Baltic by the "Austerlitz." At a later period the squadron of Admiral Parseval Deschênes, consisting of the "Hercules," " Duguesclin," and "Trident," is expected to join the fleet under Admiral Napier, and it will be their care that not an inch of Russian bunting shall flutter in any part of the globe. It will be a proud reflection for both nations, to date the era of a lasting friendship from the day when their sons stood "shoulder to shoulder" to defend the weak against the strong, and to establish, upon a safe and permanent basis, the balance of power and the independence of Europe. From Colburn's New Monthly. SIR THOMAS NOON TALFOURD. A FEW desultory, unprofessional recollections of the lamented Talfourd, even if hurriedly drawn from recollection, may not be unacceptable-alas," that our remembrances are so like unto ashes!" Where can any incident in connection with one so truly estimable in every walk of life be more in place than in your pages-"in the pages of a work," to use his own words, where he "wrote largely in the first days of his authorship" where is a record of him, however imperfect or brief, to be more appropriately placed? If the New Monthly had to boast of eminent names amongst its contributors, of none can it have more cause for self-congratulation than of him who, having had many difficulties to overcome in his career, found mortality alone too hard for him. For ten or eleven years prior to 1830, the conduct of the dramatic articles was confided to this lamented individual. In his contributions under this head, a hundred and twenty or more in number, he exhibited the kindest traits of character and critical discernment of the first order. In every thing he undertook, industry and punctuality were conspicuous. He was thoroughly reliable," if I may coin the word, and those intimate with the conduct of periodical works know the high value of that quality. During so long an intercourse he never pleaded for a substitute in a single instance through sickness or pleasure. Of his merits as a writer, in connection with histrionic literature, it would be superfluous-redundant-to express an opinion in which the world must join without a dissentient voice from a long knowledge of his merits. Singularities of expression and opinion upon actors and theatrical subjects marked his earlier articles, but sedulous attention, unwearied diligence, unswerving fidelity, and scrupulous conscientiousness were ever conspicuous in them. In passive fortitude he has seldom been exceeded; indeed, his chief excellences were of a passive nature. There was nothing impetuous about him; nothing of the waywardness, the impracticability of many individuals of a high order of genius, alternating with proportionate depressions. His equanimity and "beauty" of temperament, if I may so express myself, were remarkable. A delightful serenity governed him in social intercourse. He astonished few on a superficial acquaintance; on a more intimate knowedge he stamped indelible regard. How should it be otherwise with one of his kindliness of nature, generous feeling, and solid acquirements-his patient industry and expansive benevolence? He was that good man, that "gentle, sweet person," (avp Xpnoros,) who might have been quoted as an exemplification of the effect of the noblest principle of a Christian doctrine. In this respect he was surpassed by no contemporary. He was not enthusiastic, but he cherished high hopes-aspirations rather good than ambitious. He was no sordid, money-loving advocate, with whom gain is the end. With Talfourd his profession was a means only; a necessity of existence; a duty where there was no alternative; a task to be unflinchingly executed, while his heart was yearning after more generous pursuits. Destitute of fortune, and while at the bar a young practitioner naturally stinted in his "receipt of custom," with others whom he loved looking up to him for support, I knew him, unknown to the world, return to a literary man considerable professional fees when the case had concluded, the language of his generous nature whispering: "Thy necessity is yet greater than mine!" heart was as generous as it was just. He ever looked beyond the scope of external sense, and to the last "held communion sweet" with the shadowy past, cherishing kind hopes, and extending his mental vision for that purpose far beyond one dim spot. He was not a wit according to existing phraseology, being incapable of turning good into evil, the serious into the ridiculous, for the sake of raising a vacant risibility. Obliging and civil to all, he sometimes wasted his urbanity where the frugal use would have been more politic, considering the abuse of the commodity by unworthy objects; but with him it was too much the offspring of a sincere na His ture, looking at the hopeful side of things, beauty, and all around was in harmony with for him to restrain it on account of its solita- his own genial and harmonious temperament. ry misuse. He never made an easiness of The law notes made by this lamented man for principle; never failed in a sturdy adherence the Times in the days of the classical and to what he deemed rectitude, and what in hospitable Barnes, the editor, had naturally most cases it was impossible to challenge off no connection with the politics of the paper. that foundation. When great truths were Of his merits as a lawyer I am no way at stake, he did not shuffle, talk of expedien- qualified to give an opinion, but I should imcy, and declare he thought it better to leave agine nature fitted him for the judicial bench. things as they were than be troublesome by He was eminently patient, calm, just, and an impertinent wrangling for reformation. intelligent. I can fancy that to pronounce He was not formed for a politician, who re- sentence of death on a fellow-creature, howquires a more considerable stock of dishon- ever deserving of it, must have caused him esty than Talfourd's conscience could permit great pain. I never saw him on the bench, him to keep in hand. His generous spirit and seldom anywhere, after 1833, having could not be cordial with the trickery and been long absent from London. Going into subserviency, the wariness and want of prin- the court of the Stafford assizes-that court ciple of political men, ever intriguing and which neither he nor myself could then dream jealous, and pale with envious ambition. would be the closing scene of his existence The acts of the advocate, the why and -we met by accident. Only two or three wherefore, are well understood by the world, gentlemen of the bar had come in; the judge and are but repetitions. Political ability has had not yet made his appearance; we had a been the never-ending practice of frauds short conversation, and I did not see him from the past time to that of the Machiavel- again until he was elevated to the bench. lian Nicholas of Russia: he who is most able We shook hands upon his appointment. at overreaching truth and honesty cutting the He looked so changed that I could not help best figure. Talfourd's integrity of purpose saying, "Neither of us look younger since was above such displays of the darker part we met last." "True," he observed, "but of human nature. He was too high-minded to it is the course of nature." There was a "tell lies for the good of his country," even cast of heaviness, and apparent weight about had he studied politics, which I have no idea his head, that was not caused by advancing he ever did. He raised considerable expec- years, but something unusual, which forced tations, it is true, on entering the House of from me the above remark, that afterwards I Commons in 1835, as a representative for his wished, I knew not why, I had not made. native town of Reading, so flattering to his I feelings. His friends expected he would make a figure there. I was not deceived in thinking him no politician, though on legal questions he might have been distinguished in the House. The ministerial party expected something striking. Peel was observed to take out his pencil to make notes, and to listen attentively for a few minutes, and then to replace it deliberately in his pocket: his sagacity and long experience told him at once that the new member would not be a formidable political opponent. I do not remember Talfourd's writing a line on public affairs. Both the politics and the drama were exclusively in my department of this Magazine, and I must have known had he touched on topics of that nature here, and it is probable elsewhere too, I then so frequently called in Elm court for an hour's conversation. His management of the Copyright Bill in the Commons was no exception to the preceding remarks. The stormy sea of politics was not to his taste; he loved a calm sunlit ocean, where nature appeared in tranquil spoke of it to several persons before his decease. It is possible his past labors had even then made an inroad on his constitution-the more visible to me because I had not seen him for six or seven years. But this is only surmise; we sometimes, unconscious why, seek out a cause for the suspected vitality of others to uphold our own expectations of a more prolonged existence: All men think all men mortal but themselves! It It was in 1820, I think, and at the beginning of the year, that Talfourd first wrote in the old series of the New Monthly, to which I was myself also a contributor. was not then the practice to parade the name of the writer at the head of his article, any more than at the corner of the streets with those of the preachers of sermons. He wrote on the drama in both the volumes which appeared that year, a fondness for which seems to have been deeply impressed on his youthful mind. He declared "the decay of the theatre one of the saddest signs of the times." He lauded Macready to the skies. His style at that time, with great command of language, was exuberant and flowery to a fault, as is often the case with young authors. This he subsequently changed for a style more chaste, and imagery less affluent. Some of his articles besides notices of the drama, were, I think, "The Female Literature of the Age;" "On the Modern Novelists;" "On the Play of Virginius," with reference to Macready. He deeply enjoyed the fictions of the stage; in fact, it became almost a passion. He could lose himself with surprising facility in excursions into the regions of those "sweet fancies" which are only grateful to minds of the superior and more intelligent order. He wrote fresh "Remarks on Virginius;" "Remarks on the Writings of Charles Lamb," of whose poetry he was an admirer even to extravagance of praise; and an "Essay on Living Novelists." It was the same with Wordsworth, in a paper "On his Genius and Writings," evidently designed to be a reply to an article ridiculing the puerilities of that poet, which had been published in the Magazine a month or two before. These papers-for there were two-exhibit to excess the peculiarity of style in which their author sometimes indulged, and charged the impugners of Wordsworth's system with "misrepresentations" of "no common baseness," championing the Lake poet manfully, if not convincingly. These, with the drama, closed his labors in the last volume of the old series of the Magazine-now nearly forgotten. A new era in magazines was about to open. Campbell became editor of the New Monthly. In the small print which made every third volume, Talfourd regularly supplied the drama for ten consecutive years. His contributions to the first part of the new series of the Magazine were few. He always asserted that a magazine should be a repository for all sorts of opinions. This would be just enough when the editor was not a known character before the public, and when the writers were not anonymous. But the public, when only cognizant of one name, would naturally imagine sentiments diametrically opposite to those of a literary man of reputation, already avowed in print elsewhere, were written or sanctioned by him. This point is now of no moment in magazines. The names of the writers being affixed to the articles, there can be no mistake about the authorship. The consequence was, that Talfourd contributed few original articles, but a considerable number of reviews. His first article was entitled a [June, "Modern Improvements," in which he grieved over the changes time had wrought in the Temple and elsewhere; styled Waterloo Bridge a "splendid nuisance;" extolled sentiment above reason, and anathematized "Societies for the Suppression of Mendicity," giving more instances of the restless wisdom of the day. Finally, he concluded with a hope that this "bright and breathing world" might not be changed into a "penitentiary by the efforts of modern reformers." It was difficult to say whether the writer was in jest or earnest. Talfourd had no vein of humor, and Campbell, looking at the proof, tacked a postscript containing as small à quantum of humor as the original article, which he read for earnest, but which Talfourd assured me he meant for jest. A second article of Talfourd's was "A Call to the Bar," a sort of pendant to one that had before appeared, called "The Temple," written by the lamented Henry Roscoe. "A Chapter on Time" was his next contribution. I remember a paper entitled "The Profession of the Bar," to which there were several objections, as we were at the same moment publishing papers on the Irish Bar. difficult to refuse a paper of Talfourd's, It was necessary to vary the fare, and it was although it was unmercifully long. I wrote him, therefore, to request he would, if possible, shorten it. He replied by the following note. annoyed. I was mistaken: his amenity and I was at first apprehensive he was amiability of disposition suppressed any feeling of that sort, had it existed. "2, Elm court, Temple, Dec. 2. "DEAR SIR:-I have looked over my article on the Bar carefully, with a view to your suggestion, and have submitted it to the perusal of several legal friends, and the result of our review is, that it incomplete and partial. To do this would be I cannot materially shorten it without rendering really to render what would be left untrue, because it would want qualification and equipoise, and, therefore, I am reluctantly obliged to decline the task. I do not write with much hope that you will take the article as it is; and I should be sorry to impose on you the unpleasant duty of writing a positive refusal, therefore I will understand your silence for an expression of dissent, and, after Tuesday next, if I hear nothing, consider myself left to dispose of the paper as chance may offer or as I may be able to manage. "I probably view the subject through the medium of prejudice, but to me it seems very far from being confined in interest to the legal prointeresting to English readers as the Bar of Irefession. At all events, the Bar of England is as land, on which a long series of masterly articles is giving. is giving. Perhaps, however, I am ungrateful in making this allusion, for I half suspect that | the qualified approbation of the subject has been employed as a kind substitution for complaint of the manner in which it is treated. “When I find leisure, I shall try my fortune once more in an article; for I have a great desire to appear again in the pages of a work in which I wrote largely in the first days of my authorship -when the Magazine was very inferior to what it is now, and when I, perhaps, was less stupid. Meanwhile believe me, "With many thanks for your polite attention, "Yours faithfully, "C. Redding, Esq." "T. N. TALFourd. days-then wrote some additions, off-hand, to what Talfourd had sent. Not liking that Talfourd should attribute the alterations or additions to myself, as I had been so far scrupulous on the subject, I wrote to him, accounting for them in the way they really occurred. He wrote back: "Temple, Tuesday morning. Union under such auspices; but unless I can, "C. Redding, Esq." The continuation of the Irish Bar and the English at the same time was not politic. Talfourd had had no experience in the vexations of conducting a periodical work of the nature of this then complicated Magazine, and its double-column matter in addition, nor of the tact necessary to sustain it. The duty of using a negative, very often when it is not wished, was a disagreeable task. The above letter exhibits the mind of the man; there is temper, frankness, delicacy pervading it, though not convinced of the correctness of an opposing opinion. Besides his hundred and twenty dramatic articles, Talfourd wrote numerous reviews in the large print. I re-bury, March, 1828, he says, as an excuse for member among novels that he reviewed Kenilworth, the Fortunes of Nigel, Reuben Apsley, Highways and By-ways, both series; the Pirate, Brambletye House, the O'Hara Tales, the O'Briens, Salathiel, the Red Rover, the Abbot, Life of Mrs. Radcliffe, Tales of Indian Life, and many others. I was careful that no alterations should be made in his dramatic articles, solely on account of his fondness for the subject; an author writes well only when he is free to use his own words. The articles on this topic were wholly in my department, and while I thought sometimes they were too exclusively laudatory of a particular actor, I reflected that the public might be more of his opinion than mine. There was only one casual occurrence of the kind. Campbell was taking coffee with me in Frederick street one evening, when a letter was brought me enclosing the monthly article. I stated what it was, and the poet said, "Has he noticed Miss Kemble?" I replied that he had, glancing my eye over the article. I then read it. "Good," said Campbell; "but let us add a little more." Campbell, whose friendship was very great for Mrs. Siddons-she used to spend many an evening at his house in those pleasant I have no notes besides that bear an interest for others. In one dated from Shrews not attending to a request until his return to town, "I have been too much engrossed by business and by sorrow to do any thing." I have no idea to what he referred. No matter, business and sorrow can no longer concern him! There is a painful history connected with a student of the Temple named William Grenville Graham, who, with genius and accomplishments of a very high order, gave himself up to play, four or five years after the time to which I am going to allude. He forged a bill of exchange, got off to America, and was killed in a duel there about 1827. It was in 1820 that Graham, a member of the academics in Chancery lane, and Talfourd used to meet in forensic debate. They distanced all competitors, and their prowess became a topic of conversation among the students of the inns of court. Graham, who was born in America of British parentage, had studied the law two years before he came. to England. He had more genius than Talfourd, whose talents were rather the result of unwearied industry than the spontaneous gift of nature. Both orators read and made copious notes on the subject of each approaching debate. Sometimes one bore off the palm, sometimes the other. The facility of public speaking was thus rapidly acquired, while, |