posts three yards apart. They showed no style, and, in but very few instances, any pace. The best time I saw done by any out of two hundred competitors was twenty-four and a half seconds for the one hundred and eighty-six yards; and many were twenty-eight or twenty-nine seconds. They had none of the “springy or elastic action of a good sprint runner, but a short, slouching style of going, such as one sees in a man quite out of condition after he has run three hundred yards. The Gladly, when the long series of foot-races were over, we turned to the horse (Pferd), and watched with interest the feats thereon performed. contest was carried on on the same principles as those described before at the bars; and the feats themselves consisted chiefly of some difficult vaulting feats, and twisting the body between, round, and over the hands, which firmly grasped the projecting ribs. My companions and I attempted several, but found them very difficult, though they evidently required more knack than strength. At the close of this contest we were compelled to leave, so that we did not witness the ceremony of crowning the victors. Throughout the whole of these games I was astonished at seeing so very few uniformly well-developed men; in many cases there was a wonderful development of particular muscles, but in very few the symmetry arising from active exercise in youth. But throughout there was the German spirit of enthusiasm and fellow-feeling, infusing such life into the whole proceedings as one never sees among others than Germans, a spirit quite different from the clamorous partisanship which the impulsive English nature adopts, but a more quiet, peculiar method of taking the whole as part of the duty of every German. The whole nation, men, women, and children, seem to be alike imbued with the love of the exercises, and all seem to know one another perfectly, owing to that national fellow-feeling which, as I have said, so strongly pervades all they undertake. I think it is this feeling which we want a little more in England, the feeling which makes one say, "Well done, old fellow!" to the man who beats you; and the movements now being made in all parts of England to make these gatherings general will doubtless tend greatly to this, as well as other good objects. Much I learned, and much, I believe, we might all learn, from an athletic meeting in Germany, although we are so apt to think Germans indolent and lazy. KEEPING his word, the promised Roman kept To life. But the House-master would know how SYDNEY DOBELL. VOL. I.] A Journal of Choice Beading, SELECTED FROM FOREIGN CURRENT LITERATURE. SATURDAY, MARCH 31, 1866. 66 MR. BANCROFT AS THE YOUNG CO- AMERICA does great things, but is too apt to say small and silly ones. This is certainly, we fear, the case with the great oration of Mr. Bancroft before the House of Representatives on the birthday of the late President, and it is the more to be regretted because Mr. Lincoln, of all American statesmen, showed the most power of maintaining the dignity and reserve of his country, by reticence of feeling, and luminous impartiality of thought. [No. 13. then why do American politicians like rant so very silly as this? When Mr. Roebuck the Cassius Clay of England, as he has been called-speaks of England driving every American flag from the sea forever, the House of Commons does laugh as it catches the echo of these tremendous words, and Mr. Roebuck is aware that he is esteemed a goose. But let us see the equally impressive language which Mr. Bancroft uses of our dead Constitution. After he has fairly got "the mighty winds blowing from every quarter to fan the flame of the sacred and unquenchable fire" of liberty, a very curious There was something singularly fatuous in cele- meteorological phenomenon, by the way, by the side brating the birth of so simply great and so humor- of which the spiral hurricanes of the tropics seem ously wise a man as Mr. Lincoln by bombastic devoid of all interest,-Mr. Bancroft artfully intropanegyrics on the greatness of America, and thrill- duces England looking coldly on at this curious coning invectives against the iniquity of England and vergence of the winds. "There was a kingdom," France. It is, we know, nearly the unforgivable sin he says, with a grand indefiniteness, "whose people in America to maintain that any part of Mr. Dick- had in an eminent degree attained to freedom of ens's caricature is founded in truth; and we are well industry and the security of person and property," aware that our able and instructive New York cor- but a people whose "grasping ambition had dotted respondent will convict us of showing ignorance so the world with military ports, kept watch over our gross in what we are about to say, that Mr. Thomp-boundaries on the Northeast, at the Bermudas, in son, pointing to our bewilderment, may obtain a the West Indies, held the gates of the Pacific, of the fresh chance of carrying his point with the Univer- Southern and the Indian Ocean, hovered on our sity of Cambridge, getting the recent vote rescinded, Northwest at Vancouver, held the whole of the and a professorship of American history, literature, newest continent, and the entrance to the old Medand institutions founded out of hand. Still, even iterranean and the Red Sea, and garrisoned forts with this deep moral conviction of our doom before all the way from Madras to China. That aristocour eyes, we cannot help saying that Mr. Bancroft racy" [which we conclude is the English] "had has apparently proved Mr. Dickens's "Young Co- gazed with terror on the growth of a commonwealth lumbian" to be a real and not a fictitious person. where freeholds existed by the million, and religion Was it not he who was engaged in an imaginary was not in bondage to the state, and now they could struggle with the British lion, very much like that in not repress their joy at its perils." Then Lord Ruswhich Mr. Bancroft engaged heart and soul before sell, as Foreign Secretary, had spoken of the "late the House of Representatives and the Senate the Union," and this gives our "Young Columbian" his Senatus populusque Americanus of Washington? opportunity for his grand burst of invective: "But "Bring forth that lion," said the Young Columbian; it is written, 'Let the dead bury the dead.' They "I dare that lion, I taunt that lion; I tell that lion, may not bury the living. Let the dead bury their that Freedom's hand once twisted in his mane he dead. Let a Bill of Reform remove the worn-out lies a corse before me, and the eagles of the great government of a class, and infuse new life into the Republic laugh ha! ha!" Mr. Bancroft was almost British Constitution by confiding rightful power to as impassioned. He indeed divided his metaphors, the people. It was no doubt well that Mr. Banand kept the wild laughter of nature for the rebel- croft pointed out the impropriety of the dead burylious Southerners, and the "corse" for the British ing the living, as the difficult and recondite characConstitution. Of the Slaveowners he said that they ter of the suggestion itself might otherwise have maintained that "the slavery of the black man is prevented the gross impropriety involved in that good in itself, he shall serve the white man for- procedure from being clearly seen. "While the And nature which better understood the vitality of America," as Mr. Bancroft observes, "is quality of fleeting interest and passion - laughed, indestructible," the indecency of burying her would as it caught the echo 'man' and 'forever."" Did have been frightful, and it is well that the eloquent Mr. Bancroft's audience laugh when they caught orator has warned us in time. A country which the echo 'man' and 'forever'? We fear that Mr."had for its allies the river Mississippi, which would Bancroft understood his audience too well. But not be divided, or the range of mountains which car ever. ried the stronghold of the free through Western Vir- Now this sort of nonsense would have been worthy of no attention, however transient, if it had been uttered at a common meeting on a common occasion. If Mr. Bancroft had spoken in Faneuil Hall, or Tammany Hall, or any other of the great party meeting-places, we should have thought just as little and just as much about it as we should of a lunatic speech from Mr. Roebuck to his constituents at Sheffield, or an oration from Mr. Beresford Hope on the glories of slavery. But when an orator is selected by public or by official choice, and speaks in the presence of Congress and the representatives of foreign nations on a great state occasion, the first qualities that we look for are dignity and reticence, and the power of suppressing idle irritation; and if he does not possess these qualities, some of the discredit attaching to his folly and his weakness is necessarily inflicted on the officials who chose and the public who applauded him. not language self-restrained, dignified, weighty, and calculated to fill his audience with self-restraint and dignity also? Did he not tell us how poor and unworthy a figure England would make, if she went whining to the United States about their not doing for her what she had been, in her own case, so unable if not reluctant to do for them? As to the comparative public conduct of England and the United States as nations, there may of course be very different opinions. It is natural and right that an American should believe that his own nation has far excelled ours, and even the most prejudiced of Englishmen may concede that we have made blunders, and been guilty of injustice which an American could not overlook. But as to the comparative public language adopted by the two countries, it is impossible to feel any doubt. Mr. Seward himself, while wise in action, has been boastful and vulgar upon paper. And now here is the official spokesman of a great occasion actually decoying, as it were, the ambassadors of foreign countries to come and hear themselves denounced with all the insulting gesticulation of a rhetorician making points for the galleries. Nor is this sort of thing exceptional in the United States. There public men's mode of expressing themselves seems to be habitually so wanting in dignity and reticence, that it was long before the world began to believe that people who could talk so big were capable of the greatness in action which they have since shown. We do not deny, indeed we have often maintained, and shall often have to maintain again, that England gave grave cause for offence to a great, friendly people, by the needless and wilful injustice of her prejudice with regard to a quarrel, in which, by all our antecedents and principles, we were bound to have taken the other side. We were heartily ashamed of the public tone of England then, and we are not going to apologize for it now. We believe that no American could have spoken of Mr. Lincoln's noble career, and the many and grave difficulties which he had to encounter, without a feeling of quiet but grave displeasure at the temper of the dominant class in England which caused him so many of those difficulties. But on public and official occasions, and in the presence of those who, while they have no power to reply, still represent the nation assailed, grave displeasure, if expressed at all, should be expressed negatively, by weighty and impressive allusion. A man who feels he has grave cause of offence against another may, if he meets him at another's table, ignore his acquaintance, or recognize it by the coldest of bows, but what should we think of his dignity and self-respect if he began a regular assault upon him in the pres-challenging the British lion to come forth at once to ence of others, and a pompous enumeration of his grievances? Mr. Bancroft is supposed to stand to the United States in something of the same relation in which Mr. Hallam once stood to England. And what would English society have thought of such an attack on a public occasion by Mr. Hallam, on the foreign countries whose ministers had been invited expressly to hear him speak of the achievements of a great English statesman? If Mr. Thompson's proposal to found a lectureship of American history at Cambridge had not been already rejected, this folly on the part of one of the men who had been spoken of as possible nominees for the lectureship would probably have put a final end to the chances of the proposal. If the graver historians of America can shriek criticism of this sort on foreign countries when they are supposed to be teaching the history of their own, foreigners will scarcely be likely to profit much by their lessons. Cambridge undergraduates might not improbably indeed attend the lectures of A Young Columbian" in sufficient masses. It would be great fun to them to hear him the contest: " Here," said the Young Columbian, "on this native altar, — here," said the Young Columbian, idealizing the dining-table, " on ancestral ashes, cemented with the blood poured forth like water on our native plains of Chickabiddy Lick." But the instruction derived from such lectures would be infinitesimal, and the "larks" to which they would give rise would distract the authorities. The Americans are puzzled why we are so unjust to them. Cannot Mr. Bancroft teach them the true cause? The true reason is, that in England few are aware of the significance of the silent qualities of Americans, their indomitable energy and tenacity, their kindliness of temper, their love of freedom, their profoundly patriotic feeling. But many hear How is it that Americans, with all their wondertheir noisy folly, and interpret its significance at ful qualities, qualities in which, as we quite adsomething far above what it deserves. How is it mit, they often far surpass their English cousins, possible to read such an oration as Mr. Bancroft's, - cannot see the necessity of bridling their tongues a the selected orator of a state ceremony, and not little, if only in order to give weight to what they feel something like scorn? What would not Mr. do say? How could any one hear Mr. Bancroft's Gladstone have said on any similar occasion as the rubbish, and not feel rather more than before that spokesman of the English nation! What did he not American talk is a little of the nature of wind? say on one far less important only yesterday week, Sir Frederick Bruce, with notice, to some extent, when pressed to declare whether we had applied to of the assault to be made on him, quietly and wisethe government of the United States to suppressly, we think, attended and sat out the nonsense, and the Fenian preparations in that country? Was his we wish he had not thought it necessary, as we see he is reported to have done, to have refused to meet | ally taken in Clapham. The cottage, in a few Mr. Bancroft subsequently in private. For our part, we should as soon have thought of refusing to meet a jester. The mischief of these fiascoes is, not in any immediate effect, which is nil, but in the false impression they produce of the emptiness and vanity of one of the greatest and most earnest nations on the face of the earth. THE LAW OF BOROUGH ENGLISH. years, was exchanged for a house, and as more money came in, the country house was left for a mansion in the then fashionable Russell Square. During his residence there he was elected Lord Mayor; and a grand civic reception being given to royalty that year, he was knighted. His children, two boys, were now at school. John, The erroneous European prejudice that bragga- the eldest, was at Eton. He had been destined docio and a noble earnestness of purpose can never from his cradle to be the "gentleman," and repgo together is so strongly rooted, that a few official resentative to the world of the Williams family. displays of Young Columbianism do almost as much But the mode in which he was to represent its greatto eradicate the impression produced by the greatness altered with the increasing wealth of the yarn actions of the great men of silence, like Lincoln, and worsted shop. So that at the period of which Grant, and Sherman, as if they were displays of un- we now speak, the business having been sold to a stable national purpose, instead of mere symptoms "Limited Liability Company," and Sir John having of gas on the brain." Some of us know how false purchased Eastwood Park, young John was to enter and injurious that notion is, but it obtains neverthe- the cavalry for a few years, so that, if a baronetcy less, and it would do more to give America her true could not be obtained, he might put something more place among the nations, that her tongue should be- than mere "Esquire" after his name. The second come a little less glib and her language a little less son, William, might go into any profession and work grandiloquent, than even that her actions should his own way; he would have a comfortable fortune; grow rapidly in magnitude, and her substantial but it was absolutely necessary that the ex-city statesmanship in wisdom. merchant should make more impression on the world than he would have done by merely leaving two sons well off. No! there must be an "eldest son and heir, and the world should know it: unfortunately John knew it too soon, he was utterly spoilt: and still more unfortunate, though destined to be the "gentleman," he was not one. The cloven foot would peep out through the polished boot, meanness would display itself despite the well-filled purse; in short, the prudence and sharpness which had enabled John Williams, senior, to make an honest livelihood, were exaggerated into meanness and cunning in John Williams, junior; and, with the addition of selfishness, gross tastes, and want of principle, helped to make him a scamp and a scoundrel. As is, however, so often the case, the more anxiety and trouble he gave his parents, the more favor did he receive. William, the second son, was, on the other hand, a puzzle and mystery to his parents. They did not know what to make of him; he was a sort of ugly duckling,- an oddity. He was not dashing like John, nor mildly commonplace like his parents. What was he? No wonder he was a puzzle to himself as well as to others: for he was a thinker and an honest man. WE often speak of "an adverse fate," or "a piece of good luck," and with that definition of our good or bad fortune most of us stop; only a few thinkers go deeper into the question in what fate or luck may be. Philosophers and theologians have expressed many and diverse opinions thereupon; their explanations usually taking the view, either that the world, with its vast and multitudinous lives and activities (including its journey round the sun and the pilgrimage of a child to the school round the corner), is one great machine, wound up by some unknown power ages ago, and now left to go on wheels by itself, like a clock, those wheels being what they call "the laws of nature"; or that it is under the constant supervision and interfering care | of some great Being whose hand is continually turning our earth round and round, and arranging the minutest accidents of our lives. Between those two extreme views are various modifications, one of the simplest of which seems to be this: The world is ruled by an individual, supervising Being, who has Now thinkers and honest men are raræ aves, and given laws for its government, and who has multitu- are not generally the best climbers to the top of that dinous servants at his command to carry out His tree whose fruits are the good things of this world. behests. His servants vary in the perfection of their Though thought and honesty are grand qualificaobedience, and His laws are diverse, and sometimes tions, it is odd to see what useless creatures some apparently contradictory. Some of them are known thinkers are; and as to honest men, - why, in this to us, of others we have no idea, and hence what clever world of ours, some of them seem absolute may seem to us an unexpected piece of luck or an fools! The fault lies partly in themselves, and partunfortunate accident may simply be the interfer-ly in the world, which cannot understand them, or ence of one law with another, or superseding it. An example of this, drawn from daily life, will show what we mean. understands them only enough to abuse them. The mere theorist is only half a man: to complete himself he must be practical also; thought and honesty are useless, unless they can be brought to bear on the matters of daily life. The thinker is simply a dreamer, unless he can seize hold of facts and mould them and his theories together. As to the honest man who cannot understand selfishness and deceit, he is truly to be pitied, for he must suffer; he must go to the wall, unless he can kill his conscience and learn to cheat like his neighbors : not even the wisdom of the serpent united with such innocence would be sufficient now-a-days. Sir John Williams, knight, of Eastwood Park, Co. Herts, who died a few years ago, began life as "John Williams, yarn and worsted merchant, Clerkenwell, City." He started in business with a small competence as junior partner in an old house. The firm was prudent, and trade was good, and as the elder partners died off he purchased the whole business. By degrees he amassed a large fortune, and became a member of the corporation. He had married early, and his first abode after that act was over the shop; but as his children increased in William, luckily, was not a mere dreamer; he was number and requirements, a cottage was occasion- | of a practical and combative disposition, and conse "If my expectations are good," said William, "then I don't need an heiress. But good or bad, Mary and I love each other, so there is no further question. Father, will you give me £ 300 a year to start on?" quently could not be moulded into any form to | William, and the remainder of his fortune, £40,000, which his parent might desire to shape him. At to John with the estate. school he had held his own and had more warm admirers than enemies, though he could not bring himself to the school-boy's code of honor: the master was not fair game, in his eyes, just because he was the master, nor the "softy" because he was a simpleton. He had strong ideas of right and wrong, and in a quiet way he put them into practice; and though not a general favorite, in time he commanded a great deal of respect, and was hated by none but the most evil disposed. "Not a penny till you have a profession and can make an income for yourself." The wisdom of this economy did not appear to William, who was thus brought to a standstill. Now this peculiar young man had thought it best not to ask Mr. Ilsted for his daughter till he could say he had the wherewithal to marry upon. But, after this decided rebuff from his father, he went to the Rector with this simple statement and request: "Sir, I love your daughter Mary, and she loves me; will you give your consent to our engagement till I have the means of taking care of her, as my father will not give me the money to marry upon yet? Rector gave great affront to Lady Williams, and caused a coldness between their two families. When he left school his profession could have been easily chosen, as far as his parent's choice was concerned; for Sir John was growing daily more indifferent to the interests of his younger son in his anxiety to transmit to posterity "a name": this he thought could be done only by making an heir of the eldest son and by changing the knighthood into a baronetcy, which feat he hoped to accomplish in his son's person if not in his own. And as a baronetcy cannot be obtained by merely the asking, he thought And the Rector, counting over the pros and cons, the nearest road to it would be via politics, for which consented; for he thought," the money must come purpose money must be spent. So Sir John became some day to the lad. I have six girls and no pora strong conservative, and purposed standing at the tion for them; and living here they are not likely to next election; and by thus diligently serving his take the world by storm." Moreover, he had an esparty, and by cleverly making a show of his good teem for William, knowing his sterling worth and deeds, he hoped in time to receive from the govern-being able to appreciate it. This conduct of the ment a reward for his zeal in the shape of a baronetcy. But all this would require money; therefore much could not be spent on William, who might William having now an object for making money, thus have chosen any profession in which he could went to London at once, entered at the Inner Temmake his way. Had he not been a thinker he ple, and worked closely for the law. Here he remight have gone into the Church, but his honesty mained till startled by the news of Mr. Ilsted's sudprevented him from entering a profession (the high-den death, by which his family were thrown adrift est of all in intention, he called it) for which he on the world, nearly beggars. The change in their would have to belie himself and to forswear liberty circumstances was greater than can be imagined by of thought. At a counting-house he kicked and any one who has not witnessed the effect of a recshied. The bar was open to him, and he would attor's death. With the small but certain tithes from once have joined it, but that for some time he could the living, Mr. Ilsted and his family could live comnot find it in his conscience to "make the worse ap-fortably, though not affluently; they were respected pear the better part," as he might be called on to do. So he went abroad for a year or so, and at nineteen behold him at home (“ more crotchety than ever," his mother said), an idle fellow, but a little demigod to a certain set of youngsters, who had a glimmering notion that somehow Will Williams had got hold of a good idea when he said that honesty would master falsehood in the long run, and that there were other things in this life more desirable than money and the praise of men. These quaint ideas of his gave a charm and grace to his demeanor, and made him a true gentleman. He was not really idle; he was reading, thinking, learning, teaching his adorers, and making love to Mary Ilsted, the eldest of the Rector of Eastwood's six daughters; and so after half a year's wooing, having found out Miss Mary's opinion, he asked his father's leave to marry at once. Of course by "leave" he meant " the money." Arguing that since he and Mary loved each other, they ought to marry, he did not imagine that any substantial objection could be raised; but Sir John was not a philosopher, at least not of the same school as was his son. "Too young, too young," said he; "no profession, no means yet." And Lady Williams chimed in, "She's a penniless girl, William, and with your expectations you might marry anybody"; anybody meaning an heiress. These expectations were well known to the boys. It was their father's intention to leave £20,000 to and looked up to by the lower and middling classes, and could mix with their wealthier neighbors on the footing of equality given by the rector's cloth. But when her husband died Mrs. Ilsted was no longer mistress of the Rectory; she was merely "a clergyman's widow," and she soon learnt the painful difference of her position. Of course she left Eastwood, and as she obtained a clerkship for her son in the city, she went to live in the suburbs of London so as to be near him. he The poverty of the Ilsteds' circumstances made William more than ever anxious to marry at once, but his father would still do nothing for him, so he returned again to London; and, after keeping all his terms, he took up any law business that he could find, and made a small purse by writing, preparing notes on divers subjects for other men, and so forth. So that when, at the end of three or four years, was sure of a small income, he went to Mrs. Ilsted and asked for her daughter. Mary's prudence urged her still to wait, but consideration for her mother's scanty means urged her the other way. Therefore they were quietly married, and as quietly they lived in London. Before his marriage he informed his parents of the step he was taking; his mother wrote to "hope he would be happy, despite his unfortunate circumstances." As he solicited no aid, he was agreeably surprised by the £500 check which arrived on his wedding-day; but that was all the notice or help he ever received. John, now a dashing captain, had of course noth |