borrowed a bridesmaid, carried off the bride, and now restore her." She led the Mountain-daisy to her grand-aunt's arms. The old woman caught her to her bosom.

"Don't do so again, wench," and she hugged and kissed her.

"May I die first if she does," gaily cried young long Tom Parkinson, and he leaped his own height with joy.

"And now to dinner," said long Tom, drawing the arm of cousin Madge within his own "There's a first rate larder at the Lion,' and a very genteel parlour."

"Avast!" roared old Hal, "you dine in my house, every mother's son of ye! Didn't my Baby Bess run off to be married to young Tom, the rascal? Isn't she come back on her bended knees, the silly hussy? Oh how comically his eyes twinkled at the widow, and how comically Baby Bess plumped on her knees to beg pardon; "and, damme! where should she eat her wedding dinner but in her father's house?'

There was some remonstrance from dame Measham. "'T wont do, old lass," cried stout Hal, gaily flourishing his hand; "a-hoy, there!" The door of the best parlour was thrown open; the room was made ready for a festival. Men and maids were there in holiday garb; there were fresh beaupots in every window, and clear curtains tied up with pink ribbons. A large round table, covered with snowy damask, groaned under the weight of good things; cold lamb and chickens, and pies, and tarts, and fruits, bottles of nut-brown ale and gooseberry wine, and a case of old particular usquebaugh for the grey-beards of the party. There were silver tankards and mugs, the best old china, and the long-hoarded green hafted knives and forks, and beside each plate was a fresh-gathered posy. But, oh! Baby Bess, with thy pea-jacket and sou-wester, thy view-halloo and thy hearty "How do?" who would have given thee credit for the delicate little sentiment? a sprig of orange-blossom peeped out from the cluster of young roses and wild violets that marked the bride's place at table.

"All provided for, old lass!" roared stout Hal leading the way, and winking furiously; "everything seen aforehand, and measures took accordingly. A-hoy, there!" A violin and harp advanced from the orchard at this signal, and commenced playing by the open windows, while a group of neighbours, hastily assembled, came to honour the wedding-feast.

"Hurrah! this is as it ought to be," cried long Tom Parkinson when the company was seated; "let by-gones be by-gones."

"With all my heart, ugly cre'tur'!" laughed cousin Madge.

'Always said it-the softest heart and prettiest face in all the shire!" cried long Tom, slapping the table; "though long Tom Parkinson's son had no chance of wedding the Mountain-daisy but by running away with-"

"My BABY BESS!" cried old Hal, with his eyes twinkling brimful of fun over the rim of the silver tankard. 66 Baby Bess" was toasted with all the honours; and the triumph of the bride was scarcely more complete.

THE jealous seclusion in which the Celestial Empire has been shrouded from the earliest period of its authentic history can no longer be maintained. Whether for good or evil, the barriers which severed China from all the other nations of the earth have been irretrievably destroyed; five hundred millions of people, if any reliance can be placed on official estimates of the population, are about to be received into the civilised cycle of commerce and diplomacy, introducing into that cycle usages, policy, and relations, which hitherto have been so imperfectly known that they may still be regarded as portentous novelties. Had the wise and statesmanlike views of Sir Stamford Raffles been adopted by the administration of his day, Java, in the hands of the English, would have become the centre of the commerce of the Eastern seas. But Lord Bathurst, to whom the destinies of the colonies had been in an evil hour committed, was too ignorant to appreciate, and too indolent to investigate the representations addressed to him. Indeed, it has been stated on some authority, and never yet contradicted, that one of the most important despatches sent home by Sir Stamford Raffles was found unopened in the Colonial Office several years after the date of its reception. Inestimable advantages to the commerce of England were bowed and complimented away at the Treaty of Vienna;-a treaty which we have lived to see torn to pieces, and its fragments given to the winds. Holland, however, still retains possession of Java, holding it as the Sultan

Five Years in China, &c. by Lieut. Forbes, R.N.

does the beauties of his harem, by which he cannot profit himself, while the enjoyment is prohibited to all others.

The northern clusters of islands in the Indian archipelago separate the seas of India from those of China. These islands have long been the haunts of desperate pirates, mostly of the Malay race, whose cruelties and depredations have long been the terror of every mercantile marine. In these islands trees, with long and drooping branches, grow down to the very edge of a rock-bound coast; the boats of the pirates can be hidden underneath these natural arbours; they come out suddenly on the unwary voyager, and are often on board him before he can prepare for resistance. In the recent case of a Spanish brigantine, which only escaped from the Malays by accident, the captain on being asked why he allowed himself to be taken unprepared? replied by the very natural question, "Who, in the name of the Virgin, would have expected to see ships issuing out of a wood?" The interests of commerce, and, we may add, the interests of civilization and general humanity, require the establishment in the Indian archipelago of a naval supremacy, sufficiently strong to overcome the Malays, and sufficiently unselfish not to restrict its guardianship to its own subjects. The benefits which the Raja of Sarawak has conferred, not merely on the commerce of England, but on the commerce of the whole civilized world, must be viewed not with reference to the productive powers of Borneo alone; they must not even be limited to the Indian archipelago; they include security for European traffic with China, and probably, at no distant date, with the empire of Japan.

Most European writers have formed their estimate of the Chinese character from their limited opportunities of observations at Canton. Lieutenant Forbes justly observes that it would be equally fair to take the back-streets of Chatham or the purlieus of Wapping, as fair specimens of English morality and civilization. The population of Canton has been thoroughly demoralized, and the East India Company, during the days of its monopoly, had no small share in the work of corruption. Submission to the insolence and dictation of a mob can only purchase present security at the expense of future injury and degradation. France submitted to a provisional government, elected by about two thousand of the lowest rabble of Paris, admitted by the treachery of Ledru Rollin into the Chamber of Deputies. That general submission legalized the title of the Provisional Government, but it also gave reason and plausibility to the demand that a republic, formed by the rabble, should be administered for the rabble, and that King Mob ought to be an absolute dictator in France. In the same way the Company and its representatives servilely submitted to the petulance, the insolence, and even the downright violence of the people of Canton, ready at all times to sacrifice, for a cargo of tea, the honour of the British nation, until the people of Canton became thoroughly convinced that all Europeans were a set of cowardly poltroons, and treated them accordingly. The evil effects of this selfish and impolitic timidity will not disappear in more than one generation. We have, it is true, given some sharp lessons to the people of Canton; but in the East, as nearer home, the achievements of our arms have been neutralized by the errors of our diplomacy; too great haste has been shewn in patching up accommodations, and if the Cantonese have abandoned their preposterous notions of personal superiority, they have adopted in their stead the equally pernicious belief that they

could do very well without us, but that we could not possibly do without

them.

Though we think that Lieutenant Forbes takes rather too favourable a view of the Chinese system of government, and its influences on morality and civilization, he still appears to have made out a case for rejecting the wholesale condemnation which it has been too much the fashion to pronounce, indiscriminately, on all the institutions of the Celestial Empire.

The government is not so much a patriarchy as a theocracy; "the divinity that doth hedge a king" is not in China a mere allegorical expression, but an essential fact in policy and administration. The subordination through all the grades of state is a hierarchy, and not a political or administrative arrangement. Mr. Forbes informs us that an employé is seldom or never appointed to any situation in his own province, and that he cannot be on terms of intimacy with any person of lower rank than himself, even though it should be his nearest and dearest relation. This isolation corresponds to some extent with the institution of celibacy in the Roman Catholic church, and is designed to serve the same purpose, to prevent the natural affections from interfering with the rigid discharge of official duty.

A theocracy is a form of government expressly instituted to keep things as they are, and to prevent any possibility of change or progress. It generally provides against physical wants, but it tries to prevent even the perception of moral wants. We unite with Lieutenant Forbes in admiring the great encouragement given to agriculture, and the gigantic roads and canals constructed for facilitating trade. But we must remind him that there is something to be set off in both respects; the agricultural implements of the Chinese are about the worst used in any country that has escaped from barbarism; and instead of the canals being accommodated to trade, trade has been forced to accommodate itself to the canals. A very slight acquaintance with Chinese history shews that famines have been of more frequent occurrence than Mr. Forbes seems to suppose.

Thus far only are we tempted to be critical. From the moment that Lieutenant Forbes enters on the description of social life in China, he carries his readers with him so completely that they are too excited and too interested to pause and criticise. What can be more delightfully graphic than the following picture for a picture it is, though in words of a silk-shop at Shanghae.

"The richest shops, both in appearance and reality, are the silkshops, although their attraction, in some towns, is denied to the street, from their standing much in the rear. They are entered by a plain gateway, illuminated by several gaudy lanterns, and the sign alone directs attention, such as Chaw-twan-foo, silk and satin shop. Passing through this gateway, you enter a paved courtyard, fitted en grotte with several large vases of gold fish, and many exotics, often covered in with trellis-work and vines, hung with numbers of cages, containing singing and other birds, the most famous of which is the Soo-chow mockingbird, a species of lark, which mocks all sounds.

"Facing the entrance are three apartments, hung with variegated lanterns, supported by splendidly carved pillars, &c., generally of polished wood; the centre apartment is fitted as a receiving room, with handsome furniture, and here one of the partners attends, to whom the

customer's wants are explained, and by whom a seat and tea are offered; the various articles are brought from the other two apartments, divided from you and the courtyard only by rectangular counters. The general contents of the shops are blazoned forth in gold letters, or varnished black boards, or painted characters, on light-coloured boards, such as 'Pekin satins and Canton crapes,' Hang-chow reeled silks and Hoochow crapes,'' Hoo-chow cottons and Ningpo senshaws,' 'Gauzes, lawns, pongees, and satins.'

6

Take again the travelling trades, among which we were at once amazed and amused, to find the dentist, the fortune-teller, and the craniologist enumerated.

"The dentist no sooner pitches his tent on arriving, than he unfolds to the admiring crowd a huge scroll, on which, at the left side, are set forth his home, place of birth, &c.; the rest of the scroll speaks of his fame and skill in cleaning, curing, and extracting teeth, and knowledge of the mouth in general; if this fail to obtain a customer, he opens box after box, producing hundreds of human teeth, on which he lectures, declaring each large and more decayed tooth to have belonged to a prince, duke, or high mandarin, who honoured him with his patronage, and saved himself from the most terrific tortures. Should a bystander at last be attracted and offer his mouth for inspection, the instruments are produced, and, if extraction be required, it is done with much expertness: he shews the instrument to the crowd, describes its use and power, and, as an illustration of it, draws the tooth, while the sufferer imagines he is merely going to shew how he would do it; if cleaning is required he exhibits his instruments one by one, and using each, keeps up a chaunt and lecture alternately; after the operation is performed he recommends his powders; I tried several, and detected a strong mixture of camphor in all. Thus he continues, until having remained a short space without a customer, he packs up and moves to another convenient spot. "The fortune-teller is a cunning, mysterious looking rascal; he is seated at a table under an awning, before him his magic mirror, books, pencils, ink, &c. So intent is he on his studies, that the vociferations of a country looking bumpkin, which have attracted a crowd of gazers, have failed to awaken him. Slowly he rouses himself from the trance of his meditations, and with a mysterious shudder and start he excuses himself hastily, shuts his book with an air, talks of the spirits having deceived him in causing him to believe that a poor man, destined to fill a high office, humbly awaited him at the gate of celestial bliss; is much surprised when his clownish customer calls upon him to unfold his prophetic powers, and relate what heaven may have in store for him. Having asked him if he is sure they have not met before, which question confirms the bumpkin in the opinion that he must have been the cause of this extraordinary vision, he places a stool for him opposite, and then commences the divination of futurity. After asking a few questions, he places his mirror so as to reflect the heavens, and inscribes thereon certain mystic signs, these he continually changes (having referred to a number of books and talking all the time aloud), writing now and then on a slip of paper; he at last fills up all he requires, and hands it to the delighted and deluded simpleton; then falling into a reverie awaits the arrival of another, who is not slow in arriving: one fool makes many, and the trade is a good one.

"The craniologist unfolds his plates, and, if no one will come for