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titled to live in Boston, and must take steps for settling there forthwith. A good many of the jokes about Boston exclusiveness and conceit come, as the Boston people do not fail to remark, from places which have no literature and no culture. The stranger finds Boston a genial, hospitable, and thoroughly delightful place. I fear the time is not far distant when its supremacy in letters and scholarship will have become a tradition. As London swallows up all the independent literary life of Edinburgh and Dublin and makes it her own, so New York is doing with Boston. The literature goes where the money is, in the long run. A New York publisher has already, I believe, bought up the monthly magazine 1 which for so many years was Boston's special pride, and which would have done credit to any city in the world. But while the present generation of Boston celebrities endures, no New York can eclipse or even pretend to rival her fame. New York has not Emerson and Longfellow, and Lowell and Wendell Holmes, and Wendell Phillips and Edwin Whipple. Agassiz and Charles Sumner have too lately passed away not to leave the prestige of their memory still shining over Boston.

The working lifetime of Mr. Lowell has been passed among Boston people. I have said that he succeeded Longfellow as Professor of Modern Languages and Belles Lettres at Harvard University, and Harvard is at Cambridge, a pretty village so near to Boston that it might, with a little allowance for exaggeration, be said to lie under the sheltering shadow of the monument on Bunker Hill. Mr. Lowell's home is but a stone's-throw from that of Mr. Longfellow. I am not going to describe the homes of American gentlemen who have been kind enough to open their doors to me; but I may say that a quiet student and thoughtful poet could hardly have a more genial retreat than either of these can enjoy. Mr. Lowell has indeed been absent from his home for nearly two years. On the marriage of his only daughter he put in execution a longcherished design of revisiting Europe and spending some time among its old books and its Art collections - the treasures that no energy, wealth, or ambition can confer upon the newer world. He is a man of secluded habits; friendly to genuine warmth with those whom he knows, but shunning the crowd wherever he can. His life in Europe has therefore been that of a retiring student. When in Paris he lived on the south side principally, away from the glitter and noise of the American and English quarter; at home and happy among old libraries, and delighted, as Charles Sumner used to be, in hunting out quaint and rare editions among those fascinating bookstalls that line the quays. Even when at home among his own people, Lowell's life has been one of a certain kind of seclusion; I do not mean seclusion in the sense of isolation or retirement, for no one could have mingled more freely with his friends; but he was not easily to be drawn into general society of any kind, and wherever there was a crowd, it would be safe not to look for him. I have not heard of his attending public meetings or delighting in the delivery of speeches anywhere; and although he is an accomplished and successful lecturer among a community where lecturing is one of the indispensable things of existence, he has seldom been persuaded to appear on the public platform. A Boston friend wrote to me three years ago or thereabouts, while Lowell was still in his home: " Longfellow and Holmes I see often, but Lowell does not come out of Cambridge this season much. He can't leave the birds long enough for a stay in town."

In conversation with Mr. Lowell people are sometimes surprised to find that there is not more of the Radical in his political views. He never could have been a fanatic, but I cannot help thinking that a certain Conservative tendency, so hard to keep off from advancing years, is already and prematurely showing itself in Mr. Lowell's views of life. His country has had to pass through so many terrible ordeals in his time, that perhaps he is more anxious that for a while she should rest and be thankful than do anything else. A man with such a mind and temperament as his 1 Here Mr. McCarthy falls into an error. - ED. EVERY SATURDAY.

could have but little sympathy with some of the rather aggressive and enterprising forms in which new ideas have lately manifested themselves now and then in the United States. I have no doubt that he thought the process of pouring the new wine into the old bottles had been carried on with rather too liberal and reckless a hand in the sudden elevation of the negro population to full citizenship everywhere over the States; and he must have found some of the Woman's Rights "developments" rather trying occasionally. Perhaps he thinks America has had lately more sentiment of all kinds than was quite good for her. Certainly his conversation on political and social subjects seems of a much shrewder and less enthusiastic kind than one might have expected who remembered the early apostrophes to Lamartine and Kossuth, and the fervor, hardly veiled even in sarcasm, of the "Biglow Papers." Without suggesting any comparison between two men and two careers so unlike, I cannot help thinking that Mr. Lowell holds now, with regard to the politics of the United States, something like the views which Mr. Bright is understood to entertain with regard to those of England. Each is content with a great good done, but sees that it cost trouble and sacrifice to do it, and is not anxious that any new enterprises should soon be undertaken. People who have lately conversed with Mr. Bright, and had only known him before through newspapers, are always telling us how surprised they were to find him so conservative in his opinions. I can easily understand that the same thing might be said of Mr. Lowell.

But whatever this person or that may think of the particular views he happens to express, I, for myself, very much doubt whether Mr. Lowell is ever more brilliant and delightful than he shows himself in conversation. He is not, by any means, what people would have called some years ago a great talker; he never keeps all the talk to himself, or pours forth long and flowing sentences, or showers down the sparkling spray of witticisms over an admiring and watchful company. He is not in the least like a Coleridge or Macaulay; nor does he rush along in unbroken monologues like his countryman, the late Mr. Seward; nor has he the overpowering conversational energy of another countryman of his, the late Mr. Charles Sumner. The charm of Mr. Lowell's conversation is, that it is conversation and not soliloquy, or sermon, or the elaborate display of the professional wit. Mr. Lowell talks, in fact, after the fashion of ordinary people, except that he always talks well; that when most others of us say commonplace things, he says something brilliant, or deep, or thoughtful, or sometimes poetic, or not uncommonly paradoxical. He suggests, perhaps, some new and odd way of looking at an old subject; he extracts some humorous conceit from a very familiar thought or fact; he draws at will upon the rich resource of a scholarship the most varied and liberal. Few Englishmen are so well acquainted, I should think, with English literature at its best periods, and he appears to have a not less thorough acquaintance with the literature of Greece and Rome, of France and Germany, of Italy and Spain. Nothing is more perilous than any effort to reproduce in cold blood some bright thoughts suggested in passing conversation; and I almost fear to do Mr. Lowell an injustice by attempting to describe the impression produced on me by this or that phrase or suggestion of his. Two or three points, however, I feel tempted to recall. He talked once of collisions at sea, suggested by some recent casualty, and he mentioned how much he had been struck by a passage he had read in the evidence of a man saved from such a calamity. The man stated. that the vessel in which he sailed ran right into another vessel, literally cutting her in two; and all he could tell of the passengers in the destroyed ship was, that he became conscious of seeing a person who was lying in bis berth reading a newspaper by the light of a lamp, and this person looked up startled for a moment, and no more was seen of ship or passengers. Mr. Lowell made, in a few words, and without any appearance of either painting or moralizing, a wonderful picture

of this little incident, of the quiet reader suddenly startled from his paper, and meeting in the gleam of light the pale, horrified face of his innocent destroyer, and then gone forever into the darkness. Another time he told us of some wine of marvellous price, of which he had drunk one glass, for the sake, as he put it, of swallowing so much liquid wealth; and the number of quaint conceits which he caused to come up like bubbles on the surface of that precious glass, the variety of ways in which he illustrated the possible value of the draught, might have either delighted an epicurean or a teetotaller according as one chose to look at it, or according as he supposed Mr. Lowell to be in jest or earnest. His love of paradoxes made a visitor from England once say that he felt reminded, while listening to him, of some of Mr. Lowe's more remarkable speeches. Oddly enough, Mr. Lowell mentioned the fact that he once crossed the Atlantic with Mr. Lowe, and found the conversation of the latter peculiarly interesting and congenial. Speaking of English poets, Mr. Lowell observed of one of them, that he "started with a finer outfit" than any other, but that his stock got so crowded up; he became less able to use it to any purpose the longer he went on. Of a certain tendency in the modern poetry of England, he quietly observed, "I don't believe true art ever goes about patting the passions on the back."

Mr. Lowell, it will probably occur to the reader, is more of a literary man than most of our living English poets, and more of a poet than most of our literary men. He is more fully rounded, one might say, than most of his English peers and rivals. I have said hardly anything of Mr. Lowell's later poems, although some of these, I think, make a truer claim for him to the title of poet than the more impulsive and ambitious efforts of his younger days. But, as I have observed before, this sketch does not pretend to be a criticism, and I shall only say that I think in "The Cathedral" and "Under the Willows" are some of the finest poetic passages their author has written. It is true that they are sometimes over-weighted with thought, and that the ray of pure poetry struggles here and there through cloud-masses of meditation; but the ray is there, and it makes the cloud-masses beautiful. It is true, too, that the great variety of Mr. Lowell's reading expresses itself sometimes in allusions, and even in phrases, which to many readers come in like citations from a foreign tongue, and must give to certain passages the appearance of something pedantic, or at least too purely professorial. These are but occasional defects; the poet is often as simple in language as he is true in thought. I do not know of anything more entirely pathetic than the verses entitled, "After the Burial," in which the familiar conventionalities are firmly and sadly repelled:

"In the breaking gulfs of sorrow,

When the helpless feet stretch out, And find in the deeps of darkness No footing so solid as doubt,

"Then better one spar of Memory,

One broken plank of the Past,
That our human heart may cling to,
Though hopeless of shore at last.

"To the spirit its splendid conjectures;
To the flesh its sweet despair;
Its tears o'er the thin, worn locket,
With its anguish of deathless hair!
"Console, if you will; I can bear it;

"T is a well-meant alms of breath;
But not all the preaching since Adam
Has made Death other than Death!"

In this country, I know, many well-qualified critics still hold that Mr. Lowell is only a poet in the limited sense which allows the title to George Eliot and Dr. Newman; the author, that is, of fine thoughts put into verse. I shall not enter into the question a vague and barren one, I think as to the possibility of defining the exact difference between a great poetic thinker and a poet. I shall only record my own belief that Mr. Lowell has, in many of

his works, proved his title to be placed in the higher rank. The distinction of which we have all lately been reading between poetry and eloquence-that the latter is heard while the former is overheard must apply, I presume, to lyric poetry only. It could not well apply to Homer or to Dante, to say nothing of the dramatic poets. One can hardly imagine the "Iliad" poured forth as a mere cry to the wandering stars, or the story of Francesca called aloud to solitude. But as lyric poems some of Lowell's seem to me fairly to answer the terms of the definition they are overheard; they come straight from spirit and sense, sent directly forth into the air, because the poet must give them out, and with no thought of audience. I have heard Americans compare Lowell with Wordsworth. In the "Fable for Critics" Lowell himself has rather sharply complained of admiring countrymen calling some New World singer the "American Wordsworth," adds, that

"Wordsworth

and

Is worth near as much as your whole tuneful herd's worth." I shall not make the comparison, being well convinced that there is room for a very genuine poet a good many degrees below Wordsworth. But there is this much resemblance between Wordsworth and Lowell-that in both alike thought and not passion is the habitual source of inspiration. If one may make any comparison of names, however, I should say that Lowell seems to me not a lower Wordsworth but a higher Matthew Arnold — a robuster Matthew Arnold, with genius.

A MODERN REBECCA: A WELSH SKETCH.

BY ANNIE BEALE.

ACCIDENTS or offences originate half of our institutions. One need breeds another, and too many needs breed discontent. Thus carriages and carts demanded roads, roads brought turnpike-gates and their tolls, and the tolls induced riots. We crave smooth government, yet grumble at the taxes; and farmers rejoiced in level roads, but murmured at the gates. In truth, they were sufficiently numerous, and the poor lime and coal carriers were therefore heavily taxed. So were cattle-drovers, pig-drivers, and marketers generally. Pence, sixpences, and shillings were doled out at the pikes with ever-increasing reluctance, and underbreath mutterings rumbled through the land.

The Welsh are naturally a peace-loving, patriotic people enough; but we all know how hard it is to bear a constant inroad into our pockets, especially when they are empty. They found it intolerable to be pulled up every three or four miles for money they did not possess; so they re

belled.

The Welsh being a religious people, the malcontents searched the Bible for a text to represent their grievances, and found a prophecy written on purpose for them, about three thousand six hundred and ninety years before, in the 60th verse of the 24th chapter of Genesis. It was concerning Rebekah, and was as follows: "Let thy seed possess the gate of those which hate them." As Cambrian philologists had asserted that Welsh was the language spoken in Paradise, it was not difficult to trace the origin of a people using that ancient tongue to Rebekah; and the time had arrived for the fulfilment of the prophecy by her somewhat remote descendants.

So the quiet hills and valleys of our peaceful districts were suddenly aroused by loud knocking at the turnpike gates, and what were afterwards termed "the Rebecca Riots" began by the demolition of one or more of these obnoxious barriers. Toll-takers were aroused at dead of night by an army of black-faced demons, who summoned them to surrender on pain of torture, and who set to work to hack or burn posts and planks. The terrified gatekeepers fled, and the assailants had the field to themselves. In the morning there was no trace of the demons, but all the country-side was aroused, and everybody went to see

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the mischief. Some thought it a good joke to frighten the sleepy magistrates; others that it was a conspiracy of the disaffected. Meanwhile the sleepy magistrates woke up to a sense of responsibility and danger, and talked much, as magistrates will. One advised one thing, one another, and nothing was done.

Trefavon and its neighborhood shared the fate of the South Wales districts generally, and will serve as an example. They had imagined themselves safe, and were much surprised to learn, on awaking one morning, that Llanfach gate had been destroyed during the night. This was a tiresome little toll in a poor, mountainous part, set as a kind of trap for such mean-spirited creatures as would take by-roads to avoid the big gate of Llanmawr. What was to be done? The magistrates trembled in their shoes, for they knew that if they dared to be decided, worse would follow. Still, it does not do for men high in authority to show fear, whatever they may feel, so they made a commotion, and the whole town grew excited. It was rumored that other gates would be demolished the following night, and nobody could tell where the mischief would end. So the valorous magistrates and townspeople resolved that there should be a speedy enrolment of special constables. In those days Trefavon had no police force, and Mr. Superintendent Pryse had not been appointed to keep the refractory in check by his mien and club.

There was a running to and fro in the land, much fun, some anxiety, and a great display of courage. We all know how our valiant Riflemen have turned out to drills, sham-fights, inspections, loss of time, and personal expense, for the defence, real or imaginary, of their dearly-beloved country so did the specials, as they were called. Professionals, tradesmen, mechanics, - some of whom, it was whispered, favored Rebecca, - started out as one man, and were declared constables for the nonce. They would defend their homes and gates against all invaders, and armed with bludgeons they made a formidable array. A wag said they wanted but hoofs to be an army of Centaurs. Indeed, jests burst over their heads like crackers. Some of them had been in the army, others were in the militia, and therefore understood the tactics of war. These constituted themselves leaders, and there was one who especially distinguished himself. This was Lieutenant Pryse, afterwards the dreaded and respected superintendent of police. There were only two cowards in the district, and these were the doctor and lawyer: they positively refused to be enrolled, the one on the plea that he could not fight and dress wounds at the same time; the other, as being clerk to the magistrates, declared that it was as much as he could do to take care of his masters. Thus, Dr. Jones and Jenkins the lawyer chuckled and made their jokes over their rubber at home, with their excellent helpmates, while the specials went forth in the dead of night as their defenders.

Solemnly and silently this valorous troop left their trembling households, to patrol, not "the deck," but the roads and lanes around the threatened fortresses.

It was afterwards understood that the wily Rebecca had emissaries every where; but in those early days no one knew anything of her talent for organization, so the specials were easily imposed upon. While zealously keeping their eyes and ears open at one point of the compass, scarcely daring to breathe lest the expected enemy should find them out and so escape, a breathless spy came to give information that the rioters were actually pulling down a gate at another point, two miles off. Thankful for a diversion, the specials took to furious running. This was the more admirable as many of them were stout, comfortable citizens, unused to that particular kind of exercise. It was no joke for men who had not, as yet, learnt the double-quick step in which our volunteers are now such adepts, to run two miles; and one cannot be surprised if some of them were left behind in the race. Remember, also, that it was dark, that Wales is a hilly country, and that they had great-coats on their backs and clubs in their hands.

It often happens that the rear guard has the best of it, and so it was on this occasion. Puffing, panting, swearing at Rebecca, they toiled on a mile and a half, struggling

after the van. They were suddenly arrested by the sound of footsteps, not few and measured, but many and hurried. They all felt intuitively that it was Rebecca running for her life from the specials, who had reached the gate in time to defend it. They stood to take breath, and one whispered, in the inspiration of latent military genius, that they should form a rank across the road, hold firm, and present staves. This was done, and the clattering steps drew nearer.

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On came the rioters, and the resolute specials had not time to say In the Queen's name!" when their rank and file was broken in the dark. They belabored right and left with their clubs, and were belabored in return. "Surrender in the Queen's name, rioters!" The words struggled out at last, and the lieutenant's voice was loudest. He had collared a special who recognized its commanding tones. "Let me alone, man! I'm Thomas Evans, Gwaelodymaes," cried the collared. "Then why the did you attack me!" rejoined the lieutenant, oblivious for once of his resolve never to use naughty words. "I thought you were Rebecca." "Halt-hold! I verily believe we're all friends!" shouted the lieutenant.

And so they were. The vanguard had reached the gate indicated, and found it still the insuperable barrier that it was intended to be. There was no Rebecca. They knocked up the terrified gate-keeper, who put his head out of the window and cried for quarter. Finding they were friends, he told them he had ventured to go to bed because a man had been there who had assured him that the rioters were attacking Tygwyn gate. The lieutenant instantly led his van towards Tygwyn, and so doing fell in with his

rear.

"You've cracked my skull!” cried one; “ And broken my ribs!" another; "Confound those clubs!" a third; "And Rebecca!" a fourth.

There was a short cut to Tygwyn up a by-road that crossed what was called the "Little Mountain." The lieutenant, who had once seen service, cried "Come on!" But many of the specials had had enough for one night, and said they should return and get the doctor to examine their bruises. They did so, while the more courageous scaled the hill. They were lighted to its summit by a watch-fire where Rebecca had apparently been but was not. They fancied they heard shouting and laughter somewhere, but the mocking demons were invisible.

It was morning when they reached Tygwyn, and the sun was rising over a scene tranquil and beautiful as Eden. A small gate-house lay at the foot of a mountain road, nestled amongst trees, and untroubled by this visionary Rebecca. Beneath a one-arched bridge close by ran a babbling, noisy little river, that fretted restlessly over large, moss-adorned stones, and tumbled over a rock as a water-fall, into a bed of rock, hard as poverty. The spray sparkled like brilliants in the dawn-gleams, the dew on herb and flower kindled into radiance, the mists melted from mountain and meadow and vanished in ghostly white folds into dim distance; while the grand and glorious sun rose slowly over the sleeping scene.

The lieutenant paused to admire, for he was a lover of nature in all her moods, times, and seasons. His friends, tired and cross, paused to grumble. Nothing had been done, and there was nothing to do, but to waken up another trembling toll-keeper, and learn that some messenger unknown had preceded them with the news that Rebecca was at Llanfach. This was the place from whence they started, and they had scoured the country and worn out strength and shoe-leather in vain. They returned crestfallen to Trefavon, and were greeted by many jests and much laughter, for Rebecca had not sallied out that night.

By degrees matters grew more serious, and suspected persons were arrested. The justices were either not numerous or not courageous enough for the occasion, and a new batch of magistrates was made. It was a fine time for men ambitious of forensic honors, and many had to thank Rebecca for a seat on the Bench which they would never have occupied without her. Laughter increased with them, and wonderful stories circulated of honorable gentlemen

said never to have read a book in their lives, and seen with huge folios open before them, grimly studying law. Jenkins, magistrate's clerk, declared that he was worked off his legs in running from one to the other to explain what their brains were never intended to hold. The capacity of your Justice Shallows is soon measured by the multitude, and the rioters were not abashed by their new judges. They not only continued their raids on the pikes, but they found new sources of amusement. Ominous placards appeared on gates and walls denouncing any magistrate who dared to convict an offender. Unearthly silhouettes of men and outlines of donkeys illustrated them; while anonymous letters terrified the uneasy Dictators. Squire Rhys, Plas Clogyfrane, found his grave dug in his own park, and Ap Madoc of Maesgwynne -a new magistrate more celebrated for drinking than wit - saw such a terrific ghost near the church-yard, that he took to his bed instead of the Bench.

All this was done during the night, but in broad daylight the Rebeccaites were mild as milk and stolid as their own donkeys. Neither magistrates nor specials were equal to the occasion; so at last down came the military.

Trefavon was in its glory, for a detachment of bold dragoons was quartered upon it. Never had it witnessed such excitement before. Rebecca was forgotten in the dazzling uniforms, prancing horses, stalwart soldiers, drillings, drummings, church-goings, and all the magnificent apparatus of war. Never had there been such entertainments, dancings, dressings, flirtings, and caracolings. But opposition breeds resistance, and Rebecca grew the more resolute and irritable as she was determinately opposed. Incendiarism began its dastardly work, and the secret but skilful organization of the riots became apparent. All the wit and daring of the civil and military powers were required to suppress

them.

Suddenly, at dead of night, uprose a huge bonfire on the summit of the old British encampment, Garngoch, and immediately another hill blazed, and another and another, "Till like volcanoes flared to heaven the stormy hills of Wales." As in the time of the Spanish Armada, the mountains were the signal-posts.

Garngoch, the stronghold of Caractacus, now one of Rebecca's citadels, was considered impregnable. It was covered with the large stones of which the Ancient Britons made their encampments, and of these the rioters formed a huge cairn, on the top of which they kindled their bonfire. The military were more than once picketed round their mountain, secretly, silently as Rebecca herself: but not so secretly and silently but that she was kept informed of their movements by her scouts. Up shot the flame, and up galloped the soldiers, guided by the light and previous information. They were soon at the encampment, but there were no rioters-nothing but the flaring fire on the summit of the cairn. Dr. Jones laughed in his sleeve as usual, for he, who knew most things, had seen what the bold dragoons could not find. He was crossing Garngoch on a night black as Erebus, on his way to a patient, and lost his path. His horse was at fault for the moment, so they stood to consider. The cairn was alight simultaneously.

"So ho! my friends," ejaculated the doctor with a chuckle, and turned his horse towards the bonfire. Standing at a distance he considered a scene as weird as a witch's ball-room. Some hundreds of men were assembled round the cairn. Their faces were blackened, they wore grotesque frocks or gowns over their clothes, and had all sorts of agricultural and mechanical instruments in their hands. Their leader was distinguished by a white shirt. It was evident that they were enjoying a good joke, for laughter circulated. They looked like demons round their enormous cairn. Unfortunately the doctor's dog, Jumper, barked and made an instantaneous diversion, and he, nothing daunted, rode in amongst them exclaiming, "I know you all, you scoundrels." "Not a bit of it, doctor bach: but we won't be hurting you, if you'll hold your tongue," was the rejoinder. "If you peach we'll make you swallow your surgery."

The doctor loved a joke, but would not laugh. On the contrary, he began to make an oration, in which he advised

a return to peace and order. All he got for his pains was, "Stop you, doctor. That's not your trade, but the parson's. Come you; we'll send for you when we want you. You shall be surgeon in ordinary to her Majesty Rebecca." Somebody took hold of his bridle and led his horse back into the right path, muttering, "Take you care, doctor. If it was anybody else, he would n't have seen Trefovon for a week or so." The doctor followed the advice, took care, and held his tongue.

It was difficult for the soldiers to do much execution by night in a strange country, still they held themselves ready. Belted and spurred, they waited and amused themselves. The officers were fêted everywhere, and Rebecca had to answer for many an interruption to many a dinner, dance, and flirtation. An orderly appeared and all the red-coats vanished. Who shall say how much of feminine pleasure and interest vanished with them? Certain it is that fear succeeded amusement, and that everybody expected the rioters where the soldiers were not. And their expectations were not always disappointed.

When the echoes of the horses' hoofs were no longer heard, and the troop was in search of visionary belligerents afar, the rioters were pulling down a gate, or setting fire to a hay-stack, close at hand. On one occasion they returned to their beds at dawn, from a skirmish with a handful of stray demons, having secured a prisoner or so, and learnt that a gate had been demolished at midnight within a quarter of a mile of the town. Before noon this spot was festive. What a pretty scene it was! A small gate-house on a pleasant country-road; hedges of hawthorn and wild roses on one side; a park-wall topped with giant beeches on the other; a vista of cottages, trees, and lanes in front; meadows, a winding river, and mountains in the distance; on either side the road, blackened and charred posts and the wreck of a gate, and people everywhere. There were gallant officers trying to look grave as they discussed matters with solemn magistrates, snuff-box in hand and law on lip; smart ladies glancing at their defenders; men jesting at a slumbering military and a waking Rebecca; highhatted, short-coated peasants gazing inhocently; quadrupeds and bipeds passing the ruin triumphantly, unchallenged for toll, and the gate-keeper going over his "oft-told tale" to every questioner.

He had been summoned - had resisted and was compelled to surrender. This was the pith of most gatekeepers' stories, but some, who had resolutely taken toll by day, at gates demolished by night, fared worse. One old man and woman were ducked in a neighboring pond, another was beaten, another dragged from his bed.

At last the soldiers came fairly upon the rioters, and the usual results ensued. A fierce nightly skirmish, a few wounds, and one or two prisoners. The new justices sat in solemn quorum, and having received many threatening communications, heard the evidence leniently. Not only the prisoners but the witnesses swore that they were chance passers-by, attracted by the fight, and, as everybody knew, quiet, inoffensive people, who would as much think of joining Rebecca as of murdering their worships. It was so evident that they were lambs caught by wolves, that they were let off, and the wolves shrugged their shoulders.

Fear is a sad perverter of justice, and during the months that the riots lasted, conservative squires were afraid. Lawyer Jenkins said that if Rebecca had been a poacher she would have been at the Antipodes; but being only an incendiary with other incendiaries in her train, she remained among her native mountains. The truth was, that the Welsh were too patriotic to transport a Welshman, and were even sore at the intervention of the soldiery. What right had they, after all, mongrel Saxons as they were, to come with sword and gun to attack a few natives who were only amusing themselves?

But examples must be made; so as time went on some of the rioters were even sent to prison, while the military protected the barns and granaries of the brave magistrates, and feasted and made merry in their halls and kitchens. Friends at a distance were alarmed, and wrote heart-rending letters to entreat everybody to leave so riotous a coun

try; letters to ask if we were alive or dead, and to assure us that the writers knew no peace on our account. This while excitement and festivity counterbalanced terror in all but the authorities.

When the sessions and assizes came round, there was a goodly number of Rebeccaites to be tried. The judges were not much wiser than the magistrates, for the witnesses swore anything but the truth, and juries sided with them. What should Saesoneg judges know of Cymreig rioters? Not much, apparently. In the first place, the very language had to be translated, and the translator was a Welshman. If sectarian partisanship is supposed to influence the translation of the Bible, how much more may compatriot partisanship influence the law courts. The turn of a word or expression might give a judge an impression quite at variance from the original, and the jurymen understood as it pleased them. The judges pricked their ears to make the best of Welsh which they did not understand, of Welsh-English almost as incomprehensible, and of a translation garbled at best. Witnesses swore, with grave, impenetrable pertinacity, to the most outrageous statements. All were of opinion that Rebecca and Satan were identical. One had seen her vanish in a sulphurous flame before his eyes. Another had been seized and carried through the air from place to place. A third had never seen her at all, on his very deed. Alibis were winged for the occasion, and blindness was a universal disease. Here and there a straightforward Lieutenant Pryse stood up and resolutely spoke the truth. "There's brave you are; but what use? said the rest. It certainly was not of much use, for there were few convictions.

However, the Rebecca riots, like other similar demonstrations, were suppressed at last. There is pretty sure to be a real grievance at the root of popular discontent, and perhaps if rulers and ruled were patient one with the other, it might be removed without misrule on the one side and ill-rule on the other. In the present instance many of the obnoxious gates were quietly done away with, and the roads did not suffer; the real grievance was removed, and the malcontents returned to every-day life. But they and their families had endured much needless privation, and had helped to pay an increased taxation.

It was two years before the country was reported tranquil and the soldiers were withdrawn from the rural districts, leaving them to a newly-created police force, and Trefavon, in especial, to the care of Mr. Superintendent Pryse.

ON COMING DOWN IN A PARACHUTE. A PECULIARLY PERSONAL EXPERIENCE.

BY GEORGE AUGUSTUS SALA.

66

SORTING the innumerable scraps of intelligence which I am compelled, for journalistic purposes, to cut from the newspapers every morning at breakfast, I came recently upon a paragraph, setting forth how a certain Monsieur de Groof, a Belgian, and known as L'Homme Volant," had arrived in this country with the aerial machine he had invented, and proposed to give practical illustrations of the art of flying at Cremorne Gardens and elsewhere. I dimly remembered to have seen something of the Flying Man before in print. It was at Brussels, I think, that he attempted to cleave the air with artificial wings; but some contretemps arriving, the experiment was a failure. He very narrowly escaped being smashed; and the crowdBelgian crowd is about the coarsest and most savage mob imaginable- tore his machine to ribbons; and but that he timeously fled would have rent him in pieces as well. Having some knowledge and experience of aeronautics and aeronauts, I noted this De Groof in a mental memorandum-book, and affixed the "par." relating to his proximate performances on the looking-glass. Shortly afterwards I lighted on another paragraph, setting forth how the adventurous Fleming had begun to fly, and, it was

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claimed, with complete success. He, standing in the centre of his apparatus, which comprised wings and a tail of wicker-work covered with silk, and which resembled, it was said, a gigantic Japanese "bird-kite," had been cut loose from the cord by which he was suspended from the car of a balloon; and he had descended from a considerable height in safety. Another ascent and another trial of the flying machine were to be made, at an early date, from Cremorne, the energetic manager of which - Mr. John Baum was prepared to use every precaution to prevent this new Icarus from imperilling his life, if the state of the weather or any other obvious circumstances appeared to present obstacles to the successful accomplishment of his voyage. M. de Groof himself was fully satisfied as to the safety of his apparatus, and as to his having at last solved the problem of human volitation. "So far so good," you may say. "So far so bad," I thought, "and worse will come." I did not think that worse might come; I was convinced that it would. I made a memorandum - this time in writing of the existing state of the De Groof business, and I sent it to the editor of a newpaper. Twice in the course of a dozen lines I wrote down these words, underscoring them (a bad habit in general) to give emphasis to my opinion: "This man will be killed." I pointed out that, with however much of a show of sham science his apparatus might be described, it could be nothing but a duplex parachute, and that, structurally, there could not be much difference between it and the barbarous and cruel old contrivance figured in one of Hogarth's "Stages of Cruelty," and in which there is represented a cat tied between two inflated ox-bladders, and so launched by some infernally mischievous boys from the top of a house. The fact of such a device being a popular amusement with the little blackguards of the eighteenth century (some thirty years, it will be remembered, prior to the beneficent discovery of the Montgolfiers), would seem to show that the idea of a parachute was anterior to that of an air-balloon, and to favor the assumption that pussy occasionally survived her involuntary aerial voyage. But then cats are accustomed to spring from heights impossible, proportionably speaking, to human beings; and again, cats have nine lives, and men fortunately have only one. I say fortunately. The vast majority of mankind do so much harm to each other and to themselves during their single tenure of existence, that it may be deemed providentially merciful that they are not permitted to enjoy new leases of life. But we will let that pass; else we may drift into a discussion of the doctrine of metempsychosis — which way madness lies. For the rest, I frankly owned, in the memorandum of which I speak, that it was just possible for a man to come down safely in a parachute, whether of the single or umbrella, or the double or winged form; and to this I appended, for reasons which I shall presently explain, the remark, Experto crede. I nevertheless insisted that the chances against a safe descent, and in favor of the adventurer being smashed, were at least ten thousand to one: first, because parachutes have only a descending power-they can only fall, they cannot rise; and next, because accidents of incalculable number, and impossible to foresee, may at any moment occur to throw the most carefully constructed and cunningly devised machinery out of gear, and to bring about fatal disaster. In a simple balloon you have always two chances of safety: if you find yourself descending too rapidly, you may throw out ballast, and. the car being thus lightened of so much dead weight, the balloon (if there be any gas left in it) must consequently rise; in the next, if you wish to descend, and espy a convenient place for that purpose, you can pull your valvestring and let out gas, so that the density of the balloon being increased, it will gently sink. Thus you can really navigate a balloon upwards and downwards; but not all the rudders and flappers, or other more or less "bogus " forms of steering apparatus," which have been affixed by enthusiasts or by impostors - the numbers of the one and the other class are about equal in the history of aerostatics can ever enable the aeronaut to navigate his machine horizontally, to one hand or the other of the air plane on

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