of brief bursts of ecstasy, at long intervals, gradually growing duller and duller, till it ended in inane apathy. I will not dwell on the thought. It is one which mocks us in our happiest hour, and which not reason, faith alone can dispel.

But more desolate and dangerous emotions were awakened when illness came upon thee. There is nothing on earth so painful as to witness the sufferings of a child. We cannot divine their cause or nature, and it cannot tell the impotency of human desire so give relief, is never so painfully felt. The innocence and weakness, too, of the sufferer, conjure up rebellious thoughts. My God! I know that my own sufferings are the consequences of my own sins, but what has this innocent done? It is not alone when the little creature writhes in torture that we feel these misgivings its uncomplaining languor goes with more deadly certainty to the heart. Oh, what a relief it has been, after such a visitation, to see my child's eye brighten again, and hear its blessed, clear, soft, voice breathing of happiness!

:

It were hard to say whether thy sufferings or thy enjoyments most endeared you to me. You have been a dear good daughter to your father, and you understand the playful exaggeration of this nursery legend. And yet it is not all exaggeration.

But go! my tears are under my eyelids, and I shall make a fool of myself if I go on. You will understand me better when you repeat to a child of your own the tale your father told you the night before your marriage.

(TAIT'S EDINBURGH MAGAZINE.)

When the British historian of the next century sits down to write an account of our present war with China, although all the triumphs had attended it which our arms could obtain in such a contest, and although territorial aggrandizement and commercial prosperity should have been its fruits, we fear that his honest judgment will pronounce these advantages no compensation for the stain which our national charater will derive from the unrighteousness of its origin. If, on the other hand-an event we sincerely deprecate-the climate of China should sweep away our soldiers and sailors, and leave our ships of war an easy. conquest to the petty prowess of the Chinese, none but a very sturdy disbeliever in the direct intervention of Providence will refuse to see in such a calamity one of its justest visitations.

It is not a fitting occasion, in noticing a work like that before us, avowedly of a hasty and flimsy character, to go

(') Six Months with the Chinese Expedition; or Leaves from a Soldier's Note-Book. By LORD JOCELYN, late Military Secretary to the China Mission. London; 1841. Murray.

over again the causes which have led to this war; to show how, in the Charter discussions, every one of them had been foretold; how every measure of the government at home, as carried out by their representatives in China, seems to have been calculated to bring about the very evils which have happened; how the Chinese authorities have had rules and principles of action rudely forced upon them, the force of which they do not acknowledge, whilst their own laws and regulations were treated by us with scorn and contempt; how a poisonous drug was discharged upon their shores, under the cannon of English clippers, before the eyes of the representative of the sovereign of England; how that officer, when mildly and reasonably asked to restrain his countrymen from openly offending against the laws of China, declared his inability to do so, and told the Chinese authorities to take their own measures; and how, when they did as he suggested, this same officer, in his official capacity, identified himself with the smugglers, placed himself unnecessarily in durance along with them, and made himself the medium of surrendering the contraband article, apparently with no other object than to convert the quarrel from a private into a national one: these subjects may be better considered hereafter, when the transactions are brought to a close.

Meanwhile, we are as eager as any that the spirit and promptitude of the Home and Indian Governments, in despatching an expedition to China, and the reputation of our army and navy, should not be defeated and sullied by mismanagement at the scene of operations; and we opened Lord Jocelyn's little book with some impatience, expecting that, notwithstanding its modest size, it would tell us something of motives, as well as facts. It furnishes, however, very little of either the reader of this Journal will be in possession of a great deal more information on the subject of the «Chinese expedition," than is to be found in this work, written by the Military Secretary to the China Mission. »

Lord Jocelyn, being a soldier, has of course nothing to do with the justice of the war; he is bound by his professional obligations to believe that his Government is in the right; and therefore he begins his book with a few pro forma remarks

VOL. I.

11

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upon the attitude of defiance and insult» taken by the Chinese; their vanity and absurd pretensions: their false notions of political economy, on the subject of the oozing out of sycee silver, and the conduct of Commissioner Lin. He admits that the demoralizing effects of opium upon the people of China, not even the most strenuous partisans »- he does not say of whom or what- can deny ;" and he states that the opium-clippers, from Calcutta and Bombay; «armed to the teeth, wander along the coast of China, and that their cannon, nominally to protect them against pirates, are often turned upon the Chinese authorities. His lordship, however, for the sufficient reason we have mentioned, does not intimate an opinion that there is any thing in the slightest degree wrong in this, or that these atrocious acts of worse than piracy on our part are any set-off whatever against the vanity, absurdity, obstinacy, and culpable political economy of the Chinese statesmen.

Lord Jocelyn, with commendable vigilance, has not neglected the few objects met with in the voyage from Calcutta to the scene of warfare. He mentions a curious trait in a tribe of wild men who infest the jungle» near Malacca, and who stand four feet four, without their shoes; and he gives some slight statistical accounts of the trade of Singapore, which, though published in all the Eastern papers, may not be known at home. He records one circumstance, indeed, which is new to us, namely, the number of tigers that still roam about the purlieus of the town, entering even the gardens and compounds of the inhabitants, as if loth to leave their ancient domains. We had supposed (through erroneous information, no doubt) that the appearance of a tiger at Singapore was a very rare occurrence, (1) and occasioned as much stir as that of a mad dog in a village at home; seeing that the island is but small, there would, one might think, be hardly feed for

(1) The Singapore Free Press, of 23rd May, 1839, in noticing the destruction of life by a tiger, observes that it was only within the last year such a circumstance had occurred, and expresses a doubt whether there was more than one tiger in the whole island.

a congregation of these animals, The description given of the opium-shops is worth quoting :

One of the objects at this place that I had the curiosity to visit, was the opium-smoker in his heaven; and certainly it is a most fearful sight, although perhaps not so degrading to the eye as the drunkard from spirits, lowered to the level of the brute and wallowing in his filth. The idiot smile and deathlike stupor, however, of the opium debauchee, has something far more awful to the gaze than the latter. Pity, if possible, takes the place of other feelings, as we watch the faded cheek and haggard look of the being abandoned to the power of the drug; whilst disgust is uppermost at the sight of the human creature levelled to the beast by intoxication. One of the streets in the centre of the town is wholly devoted to the shops for the sale of this poison; and here in the evening may be seen, after the labours of the day are over, crowds of Chinese, who seek these places to satisfy their depraved appetites. The rooms where they sit and smoke are surrounded by wooden couches, with places for the head to rest upon, and generally a side-room is devoted to gambling. The pipe is a reed of about an inch in diameter, and the aperture in the bowl, for the admission of the opium, is not larger than a pin's head. The drug is prepared with some kind of conserve, and a very small portion is sufficient to charge it, one or two whiffs being the utmost that can be inhaled from a single pipe; and the smoke is taken into the lungs as from the hookah in India. On a beginner, one or two pipes will have an effect, but an old stager will continue smoking for hours. At the head of each couch is placed a small lamp, as fire must be held to the drug during the process of inhaling; and, from the difficulty of filling and properly lighting the pipe, there is generally a person who waits upon the smoker to perform the office. A few days of this fearful luxury, when taken to excess, will give a pallid and haggard look to the face; and a few months, or even weeks, will change the strong and healthy man into little better than an idiot skeleton. The pain they suffer when deprived of the drug, after long habit, no language can explain; and it is only when, to a