having fairly picked it to the bone, concluded by saying, “but, I ought to apologize for having occupied your attention, and the more so as Mr. Creevey, who is to address you after me, has a great deal of new and interesting matter to submit to you." "Come, come, the fellow does show some symp- And now for a few miscellaneons matters of my time." Talked of Sir David Baird, his well worth quoting. Bowles (between whom, by the by, and Hobhouse there was a peace-making to-day, both shaking hands) told me that the house near Devizes with the ridiculous image of Apollo in the garden, naked and as large as life, is always pointed out by the stage coachmen as mine, the passengers exclaiming, " And an Apollo in the garden; how very appropriate." Walked with Sydney Smith; told me his age: turned sixty. Asked me how I felt about dying. Answered that if my mind was but at case about the comfort of those I left behind, I should leave the world without much regret, having passed a very happy life, and enjoyed (as much, perhaps, as ever man did yet) all that is enjoyable in it; the only single thing I have had to complain of being want of money. I could therefore die with the same words that Jortin died: "I have had enough of everything." Apropos of loss of friends, somebody was saying the other day, before Morgan, the great calculator of lives, that they had lost so many friends (mentioning the number) in a certain space of time; upon which Morgan, coolly taking down a book from his office-shelf, and looking into it, said: "So you ought, sir, and three more." But some of Lord Lansdowne's stories are among the very best recorded; and with these we shall conclude for the present. In speaking of French readings, Lord L. told very livelily of his being nailed one evening, after a dinner at Benjamin Constant's, to hear Benjamin read a novel: he (Lord L.) wanting to go somewhere else. Two long hours was he kept under this operation, seated next Madame Constant; when by good luck for him her favorite Tom-cat, which had, contrary to custom, been excluded, on this occasion watched its opportunity of entrance and made a sudden irruption into the room. Instantly (says Lord Lansdowne), with an adroitness of which I could have hardly thought myself capable, I started up, as if indignant at the interruption, and seizing the cat in my arms, rushed out with him upon the landingplace, from whence I lost no time in escaping as fast as possible to the hall door." 66 Lord L. mentioned the circumstance of Van sittart going to see the Millbank Penitentiary, on a day as it happened, when the prisoners, who had been long discontented with their bread, Dined at Lady Davy's. Story of the man ask- meant to take vengeance on the governor, by ing another, whom he was about to help to chick-shying their loaves at him. Poor Van, having en, whether he wished the leg or wing? "It is a matter of perfect indifference to me," said the other; and infinitely more so to me," replied the carver, laying down the knife and fork and resuming his own dinner. been recommended to sit down in the governor's chair, as the best place to see the prison from, was no sooner seated than a shower of these loaves from all quarters flew about his ears, and almost annihilated him. Talked of Erskine's speech in defence of Peter Pindar for a libel against Lord Lonsdale, in which he had compared Lord Lonsdale to the devil. Erskine dwelt on the grandeur of the devil as described by Milton, and insisted that it was rather he that should be displeased at being compared to Lord Lonsdale. The devil (Lord Lansdowne said) was always a favorite theme with Erskine, and he had once heard him say that he looked upon him as "a great celestial statesman out of place!" Scott mentioned the contrast in the behavior of two criminals, whom he had himself seen the one a woman who had poisoned her husband in some drink, which she gave him while he was ill; the man not having the least suspicion, but leaning his head on her lap, while she still mixed more poison in the drink, as he became thirsty and asked for it. The other a man, who had made a bargain to sell a subject (a young child) to a surgeon; his bringing it at night in a bag; the the surgeon's surprise at hearing it cry out; the man then saying, "Oh, you wanted it dead, did you?" and stepping behind a tree and killing it. Lord L. told of some one who mentioned at a The woman (who was brought up to judgment large dinner that he had seen that day in the with a child at her breast) stood with the utmost street a most extraordinary sight; namely, a very calmness to hear her sentence; while the man, handsome carriage driving about with four monon the contrary, yelled out, and showed the most keys in it. "Pardon, monsieur," said a little Prusdisgusting cowardice. Scott added that this sug-sian nobleman who was among the company, gested to him the scene in "Marmion." "c'étoit moi et mes trois singes." Story of Lord Ellenborough's saying, when Lord yawned during his own speech: Lord L. said that the late Duke of Marlborough having been forbid all sorts of excitement (or being himself afraid of it), the invitations of the duchess were always accompanied with a promise that the person invited should not make the duke laugh; if any such effect was likely to be produced, the guest must stay away. The duke at one time did not speak for three years; and the first thing that made him break this long silence was hearing that Madame de Stael was coming to Blenheim, when he exclaimed, "Take me away!" That last touch conveys to us decidedly the most vivid notion of Madame de Staël that we have ever received. We shall not hereafter think so ill of Napoleon for his extreme desire that somebody should take her away. From the Athenæum. AMELIA OPIE. name with Opera so long as the chronicles of Music shall be written. In these pursuits, accomplishments and successes, the girlhood, married life, and first years of widowhood of Amelia Opie passed over. Then came a change: strange, though not without its parallel in the history of women of beauty, genius, and social success. She became tired of the world, its pomps, pleasures, and vanities,and, attracted, it is believed, by the influence exercised over her mind by Mr. Joseph John Gurone of the most learned and refined of Quakers,) ney of Earlham, (the brother of Mrs. Fry, and Amelia Opie sought and obtained a membership in that sect, of which the ordinances admit neither music, nor tale-telling, nor the entrance of frivolous and imaginative gaiety in any form. When she repaired to London from Norwich, it was to the Friends' yearly Meeting, or to the platform of some philanthropic assembly,-on which the slave, the prisoner, or some other desolate and oppressed" creature was the magnet of attraction. What was more noticeable still by way of attesting the sincerity of a neophyte, Amelia Opie did her best to force her old self, the novelist, into her new uniform of staid silk bonnet and dove-colored shawl. After having ceased for some years from imaginative creation, the newly-fledged Friend suddenly appeared as the authoress of Illustrations of Lying," a work in which Fiction, by thought, word, or work, was whimsically denounced in a series of small fictions. This was followed by "Detraction Displayed."- a second draught from the same fountain. But neither in the world she had quitted nor in the world she had entered were these hybrid attempts to reconcile “old things with new" received with any extraordinary complacency. The fame of "The Father and Daughter" and of the opera "Agnese" could not be got rid of, could not be dyed drab,and, for its sake, the worldly world of critics forgave the feebleness and unconscious disingenuous callings, habits, and associations essentially and sternly irreconcilable. THE death of Amelia Opie, aged eighty-five, is one among the thick-coming mementos which mark not merely the flight of Time, but the quality of popular fame. In her day, the part played by Mrs. Opie was not an obscure one. She was first known in her birth-place, Norwich, as the beautiful and accomplished daughter of Dr. Alderson, a physician of that cathedral town -and this at a time when Norwich possessed other local celebrities besides herself. Subsequently, as the fascinating second wife of the "Cornish wonder," Mrs. Opie, by her grace and her musical talents, drew a circle round her in London, only broken up by the untimely death of her husband the Painter, in 1807. This social reputation, too, was largely helped- nay, in the first instance, perhaps, created by the attention which Mrs. Opie excited and retained as a novelist. She was sought and prized as one of the women of genius of her time,- and the list then included Harriet Lee, Charlotte Smith, Madame D' Arblay, Mrs. Inchbald, the Porters, Lady Mor-ness of Amelia Opie's later attempts to reconcile gan, Miss Edgeworth, and Anne Radcliffe: most of these pioneers, if not positive inventors in fiction, who opened in Romance, historical After some years of these new efforts, Amelia and supernatural, in Domestic fiction, and in the Opie gently and gracefully oscillated back to National tale,-paths that the proudest men (as some place and pleasure in the world, where her Sir Walter Scott bears witness for us) were only earlier, and, we think, her more real life had been too glad to follow further, when their turn and led. She was once more seen, though still as a time of appeal to the public came. Were they Friend, in general society,- and when seen there now published, Mrs. Opie's "Simple Tales," her was always welcome for the vivacity of her man"Tales of the Heart," her "Father and Daugh-ner, the kindliness of her heart, and her anecdotes ter," (the most popular, perhaps of her novels) and reminiscences of gone-by worlds of Art and would be thought to want both body and soul; Fancy. By those who were personally acquainted to be poor as regards invention, slight in manner with her, Amelia Opie must be always pleasantly unreal in sentiment, and they are so, if they remembered;-by those who knew her not, she be tried against the best writings by the Authors can never be overlooked, when the works and of "The Admiral's Daughter," and "Mary Bar- claims of the English authoresses of the nineton," and "Jane Eyre." In their day, however, teenth century have to be summed up. they were cherished, and wept over, as moving and truthful. They won for their authoress a Continental reputation; and one of them," The Father and Daughter," in its translated and dramatized form as the opera "Agnese," with Paër's expressive music (some of Paer's best) and Ambrogetti's harrowing personation of the principal character, will connect Amelia Opie's A letter from Athens states that a German sculptor named Siogel has discovered the longlost quarries of the red and green antique marbles; the red antique on the Southern part of the chain of Taygete, and the green on the Northern side of the island of Tinos. From The Athenæum. Western India: Reports addressed to the very few exceptions those of a man who wrote from the fullness of his own command over the subject he had in hand. And this was Mr. Mackay's great merit. Tried by other tests, it would be easy to find serious faults; but no criticism can ever invalidate his claim to be regarded as a witness of intelligence, firmness and integrity, and of a singular calmness and strength of judgment. His connection with the daily press was of mixed advantage to him as the author of works of magnitude. On the one hand, it gave him great readiness and resources of language, but, on the other, it led him into a conventional and frequently a verbose style. If he had lived to reach England in health, after a suc cessful completion of his Indian mission, we may assume that a career of honorable distinction, would have added in his case another illustration to those already existing of men of distinguished eminence springing form the ranks of the leading portion of the Press. It will be very well remembered in several quarters that, in 1850, Mr. Mackay was sent by the cotton manufacturers to India, for the purpose of reporting on the circumstances which render the cotton trade of that country so unsatisfactory. It was considered at the time, and this volume will amply confirm the impression, that in obtaining Mr. Mackay as their commissioner, the manufacturers were in no ordinary degree successful. For some years Mr. Mackay was a resident in the United States as the correspondent of the Morning Chronicle:- and his book entitled "The Western World," published within the last five years, is admitted on good grounds to be one of the most faithful and intelligent des- The volume of Reports, now published, criptions of the people and institutions of will increase Mr. Mackay's reputation. In the Union hitherto written. On Mr. Mackay's many respects it is the best book which has return to England he took an important posi- hitherto appeared on the apparently infinite tion in the service of the journal for which he question of Indian cotton. The writer was had acted in America; and he was one of the well qualified for his task; and he was enabled principal contributors to the series of papers to prosecute his labors in connection with that on Labor and the Poor, which appeared in task at full leisure, and in the midst of the the Morning Chronicle in the course of 1849 circumstances and facts to be described. The and 1850. His engagement for the Indian book is, therefore, elaborate and genuine; mission was his next employment. He sailed and it will go further towards clearing the for Bombay in the early part of 1851, and question of difficulties than any publication entered immediately upon the duties he had which has, so far, appeared on the side of the undertaken. He appears to have thoroughly manufacturers. explored the great cotton region of Guzerat, We cannot, however, praise the manner in and to have acquired considerable personal which the book is laid before the public. Mr. knowledge of the other provinces of the Bom- Bazley inserts a long preface, without any bay Presidency. But a constitution never very distinct purpose, and Mr. Robertson's robust gave way under the climate and the duties as editor are, apparently, confined fatigue. He found himself rapidly sinking at within exceedingly narrow limits. It may be the end of the summer of last year (1852), said that no extraneous information was reand he hastened to embark for Europe. He quired by those who, as the retainers of Mr. Mackay, were fully acquainted with his own There can be little doubt that by the pre-history and with that of his mission. The mature death of Mr. Mackay-for we believe answer might be conclusive if the book had his age did not much exceed thirty-the been a private document confined to private country sustained a loss. Raising himself distribution:- but when it was determined solely by his attainments and his energy from to appeal through Mr. Mackay's Reports to a humble sphere, peculiar circumstances the public, proper and reasonable care should placed him in possession while yet very young have been taken that the public had the of an extent and maturity of knowledge very whole case before them. A concise and simrarely found in a person starting with limited ple outline of Mr. Mackay's title to attention advantages; and in his case it happened that would have been worth at least a dozen of Mr. a calm and firm judgment enabled him to ap- Bazley's prefaces, and a similar practical préply with great practical sagacity the infor- cis of the history of the cotton controversy, mation of which he made himself master. In and of the events which led to Mr. Mackay's Mr. Mackay's book on America, in the papers employment, would have done credit to Mr. on Labor and the Poor, and in the Reports Robertson, and good service to the cause in now published, it is impossible not to be struck which he labors. It is particularly unfortuwith the clearness and force of the writer. nate that in a publication where so much deThe descriptions and the reasonings are with pends on the character of the reporter, effec died before the steamer reached Suez. tual care has not been taken to indicate Mr. | Liverpool at 3d. per pound; but were such to Mackay's career and qualifications. In a continue its price for two or three consecutive few particulars respecting him, just given by years, cotton would soon disappear from the ourselves, we have written mostly from memory. Bombay Green as an article of export. Guzerat may be from 100 to 120 rupees. But unless, tak lays to which the cultivator is at present subjecting one year with another (in view of the outed), its average price rose to upwards of 90 rupees, the production of cotton in Guzerat would speedily be annihilated. In the eight years from 1834 to 1841, both inclusive, it only once dipped below 90, viz., in February and March, 1840, hav ing been up as high as 185 in August, 1836, and at 210 in September, 1835. In 1842, it dropped to 90 in May; but throughout July and August ranged as high as 105. Throughout the whole it was about 97. Next year was a year of de of 1846 its average price was about 80. In 1847, pression, the price throughout March and part of April having been about 90; from which it rapidly fell in May to 80, and reached 65 by the close of the year. In 1849 it rose to 105. In 1850, for three months, it ranged about 145, and in 1851 it fell again to about 105. It will thus cotton cannot at present be laid down in Liverpool at 3d. per pound without entailing heavy Mr. Mackay's Reports will add strength to losses upon some or all of those engaged in the the arguments of those who maintain that, but trade antecedent to the shipper in Bombay. In for artificial hindrances, India would be a for- such case, the losses which might be at first dismidable and constant competitor with America tributed, would soon be made to accumulate upon in the cotton markets of this country, and, the cultivator, who would speedily sink under Mr. Mackay thinks, even at Lowell itself. them, unless Government came forward and The minute and specific statements in the shared them by granting him remissions. The volume before us of excessive assessment of losses of one year, when cotton sells at 75 rupees slovenly and ineffective agriculture of abo- per candy, may be made up the next, when its price minable roads - of gross carelessness throughout the whole of the processes preliminary to the shipment of the cotton at Bombay-and of a land tenure which, in effect, amounts to no more than a tenancy at will, and deprives the ryot of all substantial motive for vigorous exertion-will not fail to produce considerable effect. Mr. Mackay's statements, if open to criticism on the ground of local inaccuracy, will no doubt call forth the proper answers. If they are not questioned, it will remain with the parties mainly interested to take care that an adequate remedy for these evils be sought in the right quarter. Hitherto the manufacturers have made slow progress in their schemes of Indian cotton growing, because they have taken no effectual steps to help themselves. Experiments and inquiries on the spot, the specific evidence of intelligent and trustworthy be seen that for the last eighteen years prices men, who have ascertained by trial in India have, on the whole, been maintained at above 90; the vices of the present system, but with the terrible depressions of 1846 and - are worth 1848 still fresh in their remembrance, the shipa wilderness of disquisitions and a century of pers here are not without apprehension that the Parliamentary Committees. There seems to remunerating price, in view of the present cost be no doubt whatever that Western India can of production, cannot, on the average of years, grow cotton as well as, and more cheaply than, be maintained, and that consequently the culti America, and we repeat, that it will do so, vation of cotton, and with it the cotton trade, if the party who sent out Mr. Mackay will must decline. To meet so probable an emer follow up their judicious and practical mea-gency, one obvious resource is, to lower the resures with the energy and common sense, of munerating point at which cotton can be purwhich Lancashire is supposed to be the cenchased here for export, by reducing the cost of tral region. production. Another is, to enhance the price of Indian cotton in the Liverpool market, by imWe will endeavor to assist the manufac-proving its quality. Unless something of the kind turers in their national object by quoting the be done, Indian cotton must continue to struggle passage in which Mr. Mackay certainly ap- with its rival under great disadvantages. Amerpears to establish on good grounds the possi-ican cotton is produced and forwarded to market, bility of raising cheap cotton in India. The under every advantage which it can ever enjoy. passage is rather long, but it will repay Indian cotton must be put upon the same footsal. It is as follows: ing; it also must be cultivated under every possi ble advantage, ere it can be expected to engage in I am prepared for being met with the assertion, successful competition. The struggle will be a that Indian cotton can be laid down in Liverpool more equal one when both articles are thus proat a cheaper rate than 4d. per pound. How far duced under every possible advantage; and there that may be the case with cotton produced in is all the more reason to get rid of every artifi other parts of the country, I am not now preparcial drawback in its way, seeing that even then. ed to say; nor do I doubt that cotton from Guze-in distance from market, Indian cotton must still rat has been frequently imported at a lower rate continue to labor under an insurmountable natuthan that specified. But that entirely depends ral disadvantage. But the two can never ap upon cotton being parted with on the Bombay proximate an equality of advantages so long as Green at a sacrifice. If cotton is bought there in a variety of ways, the cost of producing one at 75 rupees per candy, it may be laid down in of them is subjected to an artificial enhancement peru Price of the kuppas Minor charges at Bombay R. a. p. 50 0 5 0 10 3 1 0 Total cost at port of shipment, per candy 60 4000000 0 0 0 or about 13d. per lb., say 2d. per lb. If to this be added d. per lb., as before, -d. for freight to Liverpool, and d. for insurance and charges in Liverpool, we have 23d. as the cost price of Guzerat cotton in Liverpool, instead of 4d. as before. Comparing this with the cost price of American from which the other is exempt. Let us see, I might be made to the freight to Liverpool from then, at what a cost, under a more liberal fiscal the partial swelling of the bales on their way to system, cotton might be produced in Guzerat, so Bombay. Taking all these charges however, the as successfully to compete with American cotton same as before, we should have the cost price at at all times and at all prices. There are some, as Bombay made up as followsalready noticed, who think that before agriculture in Guzerat can attain its proper footing, the assessment must be lowered to twelve anas, or three-quarters of a rupee per beega. But let us suppose that it is reduced to a rupee,-no very extravagant supposition, seeing that a rupee is twenty per cent. of the value of the cotton produce, and about twenty-five per cent. of the general produce (cotton and grain) of the beega; and, also, that such a reduction would only be an extension of the principle on which Government professes to act in revising the assessment of the Deccan. I have already shown the other outlays of the cultivator to amount to 1 rupee 10 anas per beega; but under a more improved system of husbandry these outlays might be reduced to 1 rupee 4 anas, or a rupee and a quarter per bee-cotton at Liverpool, we have a difference of 35 ga. That this is not too great a reduction to an- per cent. in the relative prices of the two articles, ticipate will be seen from the fact, that Mr. Lan- that of the Indian cotton being a reduction to don, of Broach, has cultivated a beega at the that extent on the price of American. Between cost of 1 rupee. With the landed system of the their relative values, as before stated, there is geprovince on a proper footing- that is to say,nerally a difference of 25 per cent, on account with the beegotee system prevailing a host of of their difference as regards quality. Here, then, middlemen, in the shape of bhagdars, etc., would we have a gain on the score of price, of 10 per be got rid of, whose exactions now add materially cent. on the difference on the score of quality. to the cost of cultivation. Were the means of Under such circumstances, the quality of Indian communication improved, and the country pro- cotton would be much improved; and that, comperly opened up, the European would soon take bined with moderate prices, would lead to an unthe place of the Wakharia, and the native agent precedented increase of consumption in Engbe entirely dispensed with. With proper presses, land; and with so great a difference in price too, established in the country, and Europeans to compensating for the difference in quality, Amerdeal with, in whom confidence could be placed as ican" boweds" and "uplands" might, for most regards the quality and condition of the cotton, purposes of the manufacturer, find in Indian cotthe cost of re-pressing in Bombay might be en- ton a very formidable competitor, even in the martirely got rid of. With the cultivation of cotton ket of Lowell itself. and the trade in it once on this footing, its cost price to the cultivator and exporter respectively would be as follows: During the last two or three years the public have been exceedingly fortunate in the appearace of a considerable number of books on India remarkable for great excellencies; and to the list of these works, works which will contribute in no small degree to the im0 provement of India and the advantage of this country, we have now to add these posthu mous papers of Mr. Mackay. 0 0 0 or close upon 14d. per lb. Allowing him a profit of 20 per cent. upon all his outlays, which is more than in the former case, this would bring DUMAS IN AMERICA. -Alexander Dumas has the remunerating price to the cultivator up to written a letter to a friend in New York, in which 1 d. per lb., or 48 rupees, say 50 rupees per he says: "Find for me on the St. Lawrence, the candy, in other words, 20 rupees per bhar of kup- Hudson, the Delaware, or the Ohio, a corner pas. Supposing the Wakharia supplanted by the where, surrounded by my chosen friends, I may European, and allowing him 9 per cent., the same spend my last days, and die in tranquillity under rate of profits as the Wakharia, his profit would the sun of liberty." It is stated that M. Dumas be 43, or say 5 rupees upon a candy. The na- has already confided several manuscript works to tive agent would be dispensed with; while there the hands of his agents, who have established a would be a fall in the item of insurance, on ac-publishing house in New York, for the purpose count of the fall in value of the article insured; of bringing them out originally and exclusively in together with a fall in the freight from Guzerat this city. The manuscript of his comedy, the to Bombay, owing to the smaller size of the bales" Youth of Louis XIV." which was prohibited at from superior pressing. The fall in the two the Theatre Français, is in the hands of his agents items of freight and insurance would go far to- Several of the New York managers are in negowards counterbalancing any small addition which tiation for its production. |