at his easel, even in the dark northern December. His rapidity and facility were marvellous. He tells us he finished an otter, which had a great success, in thirteen hours. The laborious work sounds like drudgery, yet he always gave soul and character to the birds and beasts. There is an infinity of suggestive romance in the pathos and comedy of his sylvan studies. Like Joseph Wolf, he knew the art of enveloping the night-prowlers in shadow, dim moonlight, and mystery. As a tangible and material proof of his mastership, for drawings that had cost him but a day or two of toil £100 or even £200 were offered. He did well as it was; but it would seem he might have made his fortune had he renounced scientific ambition for lucrative engagements.

He was sufficiently nervous when he made the acquaintance of Dr. Brewster. Reading to him, on the first introduction, a paper on the habits of the carrion crow, "About midway, my nervousness affected my respiration. I paused a moment, and he was good. enough to say it was highly interesting. . . . I felt the penetrating looks and keen observation of the learned man before me, so that the cold sweat started from me." But that was nothing to his excitement and emotion when at length he saw the author of "Waverley" in the flesh. The meeting had been looked forward to, and longed for, and deferred, like that of Boswell with Johnson. Here is the entry in the journal on that memorable Monday:

"I was painting diligently when Captain Hall came in and said, 'Put on your coat and come with me to Sir Walter Scott: he wishes to see you now.' In a moment I was ready, for I really believe my coat and hat came to me instead of my going to them. My heart trembled. I longed for the meeting, yet wished it over. Had not his wondrous pen penetrated my soul with the consciousness that here was a genius from God's hand? . . . Sir Walter came forward, pressed my hand, and said he was glad to have the honor of meeting me.' His long, loose, silvery locks struck me: he looked like Franklin at his best. He also reminded me of Benjamin West: he had the great benevolence of William Roscoe about him, and a kindness most prepossessing. I watched his movements as I would those of a celestial

being his long, heavy, white eyebrows struck me forcibly. . . . There was much conversation. I talked little, but, believe me, I listened and observed."

On the following day, when Sir Walter shook hands with him at a meeting of the Royal Society, "the mark of attention was observed by other members, who looked at me as if I had been a distinguished stranger." One other extract, and, reluctantly as Audubon, we must tear ourselves away from Edinburgh. Indeed, there is nothing of equal interest recorded elsewhere, except when he met Bewick at Newcastle, and perhaps when he was presented to Cuvier in Paris. Although he seems to have preferred worshipping in the woods to services in temples made with hands, he went to church in George Street on one noteworthy occasion:

"But Sydney Smith preached. Oh, what a soul there must be in the body of that great man! What sweet yet energetic thoughts, what goodness he must possess ! It was a sermon to me. He made me smile, and he made me think deeply. He pleased me at times by painting my foibles with due care, and again I felt the color come to my cheeks as he portrayed my sins. I left the church, full of veneration not only toward God, but toward the wonderful man who so beautifully illustrates his noblest handiwork."

Much as we admire Sydney Smith's versatile talents, we must say, as Dugald Dalgetty said to Argyle in the marquis's dungeon, that we never heard so much good of him as a preacher before.

The most eloquent and sympathetic tribute of a compatriot to the wonderful creative genius of the peasant-born Bewick is to be found in Howitt's "Visits to Remarkable Places; " but Audubon, with his deeper and more technical acquaintance with nature, does not vield to Howitt in unstinted admiration for "the wonderful man. I call him wonderful because I am sincerely of opinion that his work on wood is. superior to anything ever attempted in ornithology." For the sake of Bewick the banks of Tyne had been as much enchanted ground to him as those of Tweed for the love of Scott. He saw the venerable engraver for the first time, and several times afterward, in

"a half-clean cotton nightcap, tinged with the smoke of the place," and he was not disenchanted. From the first they met and talked on the footing of old and familiar friends, for each had studied and appreciated the work of the other. His reception by Cuvier and Geoffrey St. Hilaire in Paris, though courteous and even cordial, was less gratifying. It was mortifying to the American "woodsman" to find that these illustrious French savants had never heard of him or of his ornithological labors; but French appreciation is not cosmopolitan, and is limited by its ignorance of foreign languages.

We shall not touch on the elaborate journals kept faithfully as ever on the Upper Missouri and in Labrador. Though full of incident and abounding

in reminiscences of perils, from storm and flood, from fevers and dysenteries, from wild Indians and wild animals, they merely amplify in somewhat monotonous detail the picturesque retrospects of the "Episodes." Temperate habits, iron health, and long days in the open air stood the great naturalist in good stead to the last. Whatever the date of his birth may have been, he was certainly well over the threescore years and ten when he died in New York in 1851, of no active disease, but of a sudden and easy collapse. He lies in a beautiful suburban cemetery, among the flowers and beneath the trees he loved so well, and under a stately monument erected to his memory by the New York Academy of Sciences.Blackwood's Magazine.

HISTORY, according to Gibbon, is little more than the register of the crimes, follies, and misfortunes of mankind. Whatever the truth of this aphorism in the abstract, it is unquestionably applicable to the record of British influence in China, where the folly of a Government, devoid of knowledge and lacking in policy, has culminated in a series of misfortunes, which no amount of belated energy will suffice to redeem. The chronicle of events of the past six months in the Far East is one which may have the gravest outcome in the history of Great Britain. Assailed by the conflicting interests of rival Powers, we have failed to hold our own in the struggle for pre-eminence, and our policy of drift has been defeated at every point, as such exhibitions of incapacity invariably are.

The story of the present crisis is too recent to require elucidation. The descent of Russia upon Manchuria, the quibble respecting Port Arthur and Talien-wan, the moral capture of the Chinese conscience by M. Pavloff, and the acquisition of various railway concessions inimical to British interests,

have all been dwelt on in the public press, and discussed in Parliament. Every intelligent subject of the Queen is acquainted with the false position into which British prestige has become plunged, and every loyal Englishman realizes the fact that this country has lost her status as leader among nations, and has been beaten by the abilities of Russian diplomatists. The position, long since rendered irksome, has ended by becoming intolerable, and from one end of the country to the other there is but a single expression of opinion-one of keen indignation at the incapacity responsible for the status quo. It has become realized that Lord Salisbury has proved himself utterly unfitted to deal with, or to appreciate, the true inwardness of Russian finesse. And even his staunchest supporters are fain to admit that he has been badly beaten in his efforts. Manchuria, the exploitation of which was due to British enterprise, is lost to us. Our influence at Peking is gone. Even the Valley of the Yangtse, that wonderful preserve comprising the richest territory on the surface of the globe; which we have

been assured, on at least a dozen occasions, was pledged to the commerce of Great Britain; is being invaded by rival Powers, and our prospects there endangered. And yet, with every pledge broken, and every understanding denied, our Government clings to that most egregious fiction, the policy of the "open door," and refrains from taking a stand on the admitted rights of Great Britain in China.

The present position of affairs at Pekin has been brought about by a combination of ignorance, indolence, and lack of courage. China, the richest country in the world, with its vast possibilities and its immense population, has never been deemed worthy of especial study by a British Minister of the front rank. Situated at the other end of the world, it has come to be regarded as a semi-savage country, which it may one day be worth while to open up. In the present, the Celestials have always been left pretty much to themselves. And thus, while English Ministers have busied themselves over minor legislation of a domestic nature, the exploitation of this land flowing with milk and honey has been left to chance, or individual effort, with the result that other nations have entered on the task we have neglected, and have snatched our opportunities from within. our reach. It would be difficult to exaggerate the sheer apathy which has always existed among our rulers anent the Flowery Land. Even to-day, after a lapse of two hundred years since British trade first found a vent on the Canton River, our knowledge of the Celestial Empire is mainly due to foreign effort. If the student desires a reliable map of any portion of the eighteen provinces, he is impelled to invest in a product of either Russian or German ingenuity, while the only satisfactory account of the geography of China is the work of a German scientist. And the result of this widespread ignorance may be noted when the Prime Minister speaks of the Yangtse-Kiang River and Bay of Talien-wan. It was only the other day that Mr. Balfour seriously stated in the House of Commons that Port Arthur would be "far less suit

able to us than Wei Hai Wei from a naval and strategic point of view," and the newly appointed Viceroy of India, himself a supposititious expert on things Chinese, denied that Wei Hai Wei was fortified, at a time when every illustrated paper was publishing photographs proving the contrary.

The lack of energy which has always characterized our intercourse with the Chinese, is responsible for the inordinately slow progress which we have made in their confidence, and for the ease with which our representatives are worsted by rival diplomatists at Peking. Never having taken pains to appreciate the Chinese character, it follows that we have never rightly understood how to deal with the Chinese people. More than this, we have consistently refrained from bringing the experience we have obtained in India to bear upon our relations with the Celestials. Like all Oriental peoples, the Chinese are amenable only to superior force. To reason with such as they is but to exhibit weakness. It is the inborn suspicion, ever latent in the Eastern mind, which has taught this remarkable race to avoid all intercourse with foreign nations, and to shut themselves up within their proper territory. It was only after we had taught the Mandarin that we were a strong power, and able to enforce our will, that they climbed out of their exclusiveness and consented to have relations with us at all. It was the subsequent discovery that we did not always exercise our strength, that encouraged the Chinese to withdraw the pledges previously given. Had we been consistent in our dealings with them; had we shown them, as we have shown the natives of India, that behind a policy of moderation there was an always available force, ready to be employed immediately any evasion of an understanding was attempted, the British record in China would have been a very different one, and the results attained infinitely greater and more valuable. The policy of this country in the Far East has, however, always consisted of a weak opportunism untempered by discretion, a policy of vacillation, without the capacity for taking advantage

of windfalls, fully justifying the comparison between those responsible and the imbecile who sat down and waited for the river to run dry before he should attempt to cross.

Nor are these idiosyncrasies of recent development. From the withdrawal of the monopoly enjoyed by the East India Company, to the present day, British action in China has been injudicious and inconsequent. The Government has rarely had a definite policy in view, and when a line of conduct has been determined on, it has, in nearly every instance, been abandoned ere sufficient time has been allowed for it to produce any tangible result. We have, it is true, had good men at the front, but their action has been cramped, and their efforts counteracted, by the eccentricities of the Government at home. Thus, as we to-day stand discredited before the world, after being worsted by the Chinese, the Russians, and the French in turn, so have we almost invariably been hoist on our own petard in our efforts to dominate the Far East, without bringing either energy or ability to bear upon our aim.

The political relations between Great Britain and China may be said to have commenced with the visit of Lord Macartney to Peking, in 1793. This, the first mission sent to the Chinese Capital by a Western Power, was upon the whole a success. And we showed our appreciation of the fact by sending a subsequent mission to convey a number of costly gifts, as a bribe for further favors, to the Emperor's chief Mandarin, Sung Tojan, thereby prejudicing the "son of heaven" against us, and causing our best friend at court to be deposed. The return of the bribes, accompanied by a sarcastic letter, addressed to George III. by Kia King, is a matter of every-day history. It was in the hope of undoing the mischief which arose from the above-named incident, that Lord Amherst was despatched to China, in charge of a second Embassy, in 1816. The Emperor, on hearing of the arrival of the Ambassador, at Tientsin, gave orders for him to be escorted to Peking with all haste, and, on his

ar

rival, sent a high official to bid him. come to an immediate audience. Lord Amherst appears to have thought more about his personal dignity than of the importance of his mission, and refused to keep the appointment made, on the plea that he was fatigued and required rest. A second summons from Kia King met with a similar rebuff, and the Emperor, incensed at the repulse of his friendly overtures, ordered that the Barbarian" and his escort should be forthwith sent to the coast. Thus, what might have proved a valuable factor in the relations between this country and China, came to nought through the self-sufficiency of an opinionated_ambassador. The attitude assumed by Lord Napier toward the Viceroy of the two Kwan, on his appointment as superintendent of British trade, would have been amusing had it not proved idiotic. Resenting the reserve of the Mandarin with whom he was brought into contact, and despite the fact that he was without the force necessary to carry out his threats, he despatched a bombastic proclamation, which resulted. in a state of siege being introduced. into the British settlement. Whereupon the official who had brought about our trouble promptly retreated to Macao, and left the Chinese masters of the situation. His successor, Captain Elliot, followed in his footsteps, and there can be no question but that his want of tact, and ignorance of the race with whom he had to deal, were entirely responsible for the outbreak of the misnamed "opium" war.

After the British fleet, which was sent out on the declaration of war in December, 1839, had failed to obtain a messenger to carry a despatch to Peking, it was decided that the only course was to sail north and make for Tientsin. This was done, and the Emperor Taoukwang came speedily to his senses. Captain Elliot was received at the mouth of the Peiho by an accredited Mandarin, who persuaded him that negotiations would be conducted far more satisfactorily at Canton than at Peking. Accordingly, the British agent surrendered all the advantage he had attained, and withdrew his fleet southward, with

results which were most disastrous. And the simplicity exhibited on this occasion was more than once repeated during the operations on the Canton River. Nor are the terms of the Nankin Treaty, which ended the war, suitable as between the rulers of two equal nations. No able diplomatist, representing a first-class power, would have consented to sign such a document.

The occupation of the Treaty Ports, opened under the compact of 1842, passed off satisfactorily, and for a while a period of good understanding existed. After a brief interval, however, the natives were secretly encouraged to cause trouble in the hope or getting rid of the "barbarian" invaders. The city of Foochow set the example of attacking all foreigners who appeared in the streets. Assaults became common. Consular attachés were stoned, and the precedent set on the Min River was speedily imitated at Canton, where the Vice-Consul and two other Englishmen were set upon, pinioned, robbed, and grievously maltreated. Shortly after this, Commander Giffard was attacked at Whampoa; and Governor Davis, finding ordinary measures useless, determined to exact reparation for these insults. He was promptly "snubbed " by Lord Aberdeen, the then Foreign Minister, and had to forego his intention, with the result that a general rising against the English took place, causing much damage and loss. Six Englishmen were murdered in Canton in 1848, and in the same year three missionaries were mobbed and badly injured at Shanghai. Consul Alcock, who was at the time stationed on the Woosung River, finding that there was little chance of the malefactors being punished without rigorous measures being pursued, decided to take the matter into his own hands. He forthwith blockaded the port, and refused to permit any grain junks to leave their moorings until the guilty persons were given over to justice. This move was immediately successful. Ten prisoners were brought to Shanghai and duly recognized by their victims, and they were severely punished. There can be no question as to the common sense of

Mr. Alcock's procedure. He not only gave the Chinese a salutary lesson in manners, but did much to retrieve the reputation for weakness which had followed the vacillations of Lord Amherst and Captain Elliot. No sooner, however, were the events recorded reported to Mr. Bonham, the British Plenipotentiary at Hong Kong, than the Consul was severely taken to task, and informed. that Her Majesty's Government had peremptorily forbidden the taking of offensive operations without the previous sanction of the Colonial Secretary! And when, later on, Dr. Bowring insisted on the opening of Canton to British trade, he was himself "sententiously rebuked by that most sapient of Foreign Secretaries," the Earl of Malmesbury.

In

It would be easy to quote further instances of eccentricity on the part of the British Government. One more will suffice our immediate purpose. 1858, notwithstanding the provisions of the Treaty of Nanking, it was found unsafe to go even a mile beyond the city walls of Canton. Cases of robbery and assault were frequent, and the matter was referred to Lord Elgin, the High Commissioner entrusted with the settlement of Chinese troubles. That enlightened diplomatist met the grievance brought before him by declaring that, as it was unsafe to go a mile beyond the city, no British subject should go outside the walls; and this in face of the country round about being declared open to the British by Treaty. Well might Sir Harry Parkes write "Oh for the time when one may be able to bid adieu to official life, and take to growing cabbages!"

In 1858 Lord Elgin succeeded in obtaining the Treaty of Tientsin. The various concessions made in this Treaty were agreed to by the Chinese under fear of the war being prolonged, and possibly waged round the northern capital. There was not the slightest intention of observing the conditions one. instant longer than could be helped. All that the Emperor desired was to get rid of his unwelcome visitors. Accordingly, Lord Elgin, with that extraordinary fatuousness which has