Page images
PDF
EPUB

intending his model farms, surveying with a master's eye his cattle, his crops, his gardens, his fields. Perhaps one of the causes of the imperfect sympathy of a certain class of English society with the prince's tastes and aims was due to the fact that, although an active and even ardent sportsman at his own times and seasons, a bold rider, and a good shot enough, he had never the ambition to qualify himself for the post of a "whip" or a game-keeper, and could never bring himself to believe that sport was the one thing worth living for, out of town. To cultivate the arts, to be a student of the sciences, to seek a recreation from politics in social economy, in practical philanthropy, in schemes of university reform and national education, in providing comfortable homes for the poor and re-constituting their friendly societies on a sounder basis of self-help, besides being an occasional foxhunter and deer-stalker all this many-sided activity may have seemed a little “un-English" to worthy gentlemen who never read a book, and who spent half their lives in going out to kill something; as the prince's ideas of an international tournament of industry appeared a little un-English to the parochial mind. Happily the prince was spared to see the blossoming if not the fruit of his labors, and to feel assured that he had bequeathed to succeeding generations a record of good works more enduring than bronze or marble. Her Majesty has enriched this volume with many trivial fond records of a wife's affection; and among these unrestrained outpourings of tenderness and gratitude to Heaven for having granted her so pure and priceless a gift as her husband's sustaining love, there are two that it is difficult to read without a dimness of the eyes:

Albert [the queen writes to King Leopold in February, 1852,] grows daily fonder and fonder of politics and business, and is wonderfully fit for both- showing such perspicuity and such courage—and I grow daily to dislike them both more and more. We women are not made for governing: and if we are good women, we must dislike these masculine occupations. But these are times which force one to

take interest in them, mal gré bon gré, and, of course therefore, I feel this interest now intensely.

The other is a passage in a private memorandum of the queen's written in 1844, in which her Majesty laments that the pressure of public duty made it impossible to keep the religious training of the princess royal wholly within her own hands.

It is already a hard case for me that my occupations prevent me being with her when she says her prayers. .. I am quite clear that she should be taught to have great reverence for God and for religion, but that she should have the feeling of devotion and love which our Heavenly Father encourages His earthly children to have for Him, and not one of fear and trembling; and that the thoughts of death and an after life should not be represented in an alarming and forbidding view, and that she should be made to know as yet no difference of creeds, and not think that she can only pray on her knees, or that those who do not kneel are less fervent and devout in their prayers.

And now we must regretfully close a volume which is not only a permanent contribution to English biographical literature but to English history. No one will read it once only. To have written it is not only to have written a good book, but to have done a good action. It is the picture of a character of stainless eminence, and the story of a career of uninterrupted service to England and to the welfare of mankind.

Throughout the space of the years we have traversed under Mr. Martin's sympathetic guidance, in the footsteps of the prince, there is not a single day in which we have not found him, as Goethe said of Karl August, "busied with something to be devised and effected for the good of the country; something calculated to better the condition of each individual in it." In his deep and constant devotion to duty he brought his natural instincts and disposition, his temperament and his tastes, under the strictest discipline, and into the most absolute subjection. His health and strength were consumed by the unresting ardor of his passion for the public good, and by the concentration of all the powers

of his intellect and all the emotions of his heart upon the fulfilment of his responsibilities. What, under other circumstances, and in other conditions, might have been desultoriness in youth, or dreaminess or dilettanteism in manhood, became stability of will and steadfastness of purpose, as consort, as father, as "the first of subjects." Who can read aloud the last sentence in this volume? It suspends the utterance and shakes the heart. It is from a letter written by the queen, in February 1854, on the anniversary of her marriage, to Baron Stockmar:

This blessed day is full of joyful and tender emotions. Fourteen happy and blessed years have passed, and I confidently trust many more will, and find us in old age as we are now, happily and devotedly united. Trials

we must have, but what are they, if we are together?

Si quâ fata aspera rumpas. We who know what is to come, seem to trace in these loving words the lengthening shadows of the too early autumn. Have we not been haunted through these pages by the foreboding consciousness that such a life could never suffer the lingering degeneration of old age? Let us be consoled by the reflection that if the magnanimity that held its peace amidst the murmur of evil tongues was not undepressed by grief at being misjudged; if that bright, eager soul was too early wearing out its vesture of decay, it was a soul exalted above calumny and calamity, and borne by its own sustaining strength into a calmer and clearer air than that which vulgar natures breathe.

How often in later days has our country learned to regret the loss of that large and luminous mind; that sedate and temperate judgment; that wide-reaching solicitude, and that perfect self-control, for which the civium ardor prava jubentium had neither terrors nor temptations; that fine and firm intelligence, unfalteringly guided by right reason, never destitute of heart, unceasingly consulting the true and vital interests of England without dissociating them from the better future of the world!

From The Spectator.

THE NEW-FOUND ENEMIES OF MAN.

CIVILIZED man, having conquered the most visible of his enemies,-savages and wild beasts of the more visible and tangible kind, has nevertheless not by any means attained a state of even comparative security. It is true that the newest of his enemies are minute, sometimes even of the more or less microscopic kind, but Sir Wilfrid Lawson was not far wrong when he said that an invasion from the Colorado beetle was much more to be feared than an invasion from Germany or France. With regard to the human invader, we have at least the "streak of silver sea" and a powerful navy to rely on; but with regard to the Colorado beetle, it seems that it would take its passage just as cheerfully on our own ironclads as on any other craft by which it could cross the Atlantic, and would probably have an excellent chance of landing successfully on our shores from the very navy which defends them against a less formidable foe. The Canadian minister of agriculture has

just assured Lord Carnarvon that this destructive creature not only flies, but navigates smooth water, and travels of course without charge-by railway carriages, and on all sorts of ships. Not only so, but the creature seems to have a wonderful power either of subsiding into a kind of inert life when it cannot get food suitable for it, or of getting enough food to sustain life in all sorts of situations where we should suppose that it could get none, and then returning to full activity and vigor whenever it finds itself in the neighborhood of suitable nourishment. Indeed, the Canadian minister of agriculture declares that the notion of preventing the introduction of the Colorado potatobeetle into any part of the earth with which human beings keep up active communication is perfectly chimerical. All that can be done to keep him under is to destroy the eggs and larvæ as effectually as possible as soon as their existence is detected, and before the beetle itself is hatched. By a sufficient expenditure of money and time, says the Canadian minister of agriculture, this may be fairly done. The eggs deposited on the under side of the leaves of the potato-vine should be destroyed as soon as discovered. The buds and leaves should be watched for grubs, which may be destroyed by the use of "Paris green,' and the beetle itself should be crushed whenever seen. These remedies are, he says, fairly effectual in keeping the plague under, though of course they will add materially to the cost of potato-culture, and enhance the price of an article which it takes such elaborate care to protect. Nor is the Colorado beetle the only minute foe whose invasion we have to fear. Six of the Southern States of America are concerting measures against grass-hoppers, which infest them with a milder form of the same evil caused by the great locust invasions from which the coasts of the Mediterranean have so often suffered. Then, again, the husbandmen of the vine, in vinegrowing countries, have to provide against the phylloxera plague, and the cultivators of silkworms have to provide against the pibrine plague. Worse still, there are small organisms of various kinds which are but too apt to supplant the proper ferments in all processes of fermentation, and which, if they get into the malt, spoil the beer, and if into the grape-juice, spoil the wine, and against these practically invisible enemies all sorts of expensive precautions have to be used. Lastly, and most important of all, there are certain spores which grow and multiply rapidly

[ocr errors]

of plagues, is obviously in one respect not the better, but the worse for the knowledge which teaches him how to evade the worst consequences of these plagues. He has less to fear from them individually, but they have more part in him than they had when they produced more deadly results. They have inoculated him, and though they count fewer victims slain, they transmit into a remoter future the weakness and suffering which they cause. The race of men whom the common germ-poisons no longer kill off retains more of the stamp of their paralyzing effects than the race of men which succumbed at once to the first onset of the unknown foe.

66

when fed on animal blood, and which | life itself is haunted by all sorts of minute produce the various diseases known as spores which so feed on his blood as to blood-poisoning of various kinds. There generate fever, cholera, and a great variety is the seed whose growth causes cholera, and another whose growth causes scarlet fever, and another whose presence means typhoid, and another which results in splenic fever, and another which generates small-pox, and probably many more besides, which grow at the expense of animal life or health, of some of which Professor Tyndall has given a graphic account in the paper on fermentation in the November Fortnightly. Unquestionably, either the minute organic world is beginning to avail itself of the great advantages which its all but invisibility gives it in competing with men, or if it is only doing now what it has always done, but what is only just beginning to be understood; a greater im- This is why we cannot altogether share portance is now attached to its proceed- the enthusiasm, and can by no means ings, partly because the danger is under-adopt the sentiment, of that somewhat destood, and partly, perhaps even more, clamatory peroration to Professor Tyn- because the weaker constitution of mod- dall's Glasgow audience which ends the ern man is now so much protected against lecture published in the last Fortnightly. these dangers that the race suffers more, "This preventible destruction," says Prothough the individuals suffer less. Of fessor Tyndall, referring to the havoc course it is obvious that, when fewer effec- caused by germs of disease floating about tive causes are at work to thin out the the air, is going on to-day, and it has stock, those which injure it, without dimin- been permitted to go on for ages, without ishing its fertility, tend to render it more a whisper of information regarding its sensitive to all external influences for the cause being vouchsafed to the suffering, future, and therefore make the very disease sentient world. We have been scourged against the power of which the new reme- by invisible thongs, attacked from impenedies or alleviations have been found, more trable ambuscades, and it is only to-day menacing in some respects to the health that the light of science is being let in of the race, though less so to the individ-upon the murderous dominions of our foes. uals who suffer from it, than it was at a time when it was more generally fatal. It may well be that the very knowledge which science has gained of the new dangers to which man is subject, has rendered these diseases of greater physical consequence by diminishing their fatality. The more delicate, better-guarded, longer-lived, but more sensitive constitutions which science has taught us how to protect to an average age beyond that to which even the healthy lived in former times, are necessarily more overshadowed by the physical ills of which we know so much more than not only because of our new knowledge, but because the tenderer inherited constitution, which has been piloted through so many dangers, is more keenly alive to such dangers than were the more hardy constitutions which had survived in spite of running the gauntlet of much more fatal ills. Modern man, whose food and drink are beset by Colorado beetles and phylloxera, whose clothing is threatened by pibrine, and whose

our ancestors ever were,

Men of Glasgow, facts like these excite in me the thought that the rule and governance of this universe are different from what we in our youth supposed them to be, that the inscrutable Power, at once terrible and beneficent, in whom we live and move and have our being and our end, is to be propitiated by means different from those usually resorted to. The first requisite towards such propitiation is knowledge; the second is action, shaped and illuminated by that knowledge. `Of knowledge we already see the dawn, which will open out by-and-by to perfect day; while the action which is to follow, has its unfailing source and stimulus in the moral and emotional nature of man, in his desire for present well-being, in his sense of duty, in his compassionate sympathy with the sufferings of his fellow-men." And the drift of all this rather excited eloquence was not merely what is here implied; the true clue is given by a previous passage, in which it is intimated that man ought to seek this all-potent knowledge at the ex

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

pense of violence done to almost any kindly | Professor Tyndall's address to the "men sympathy, though not "sympathy with of Glasgow" so as to make it suit the imfellow-men." Professor Tyndall had de- pression which his lecture and the discusscribed how the origin and rationale, sion to which he refers have made upon though not the cure, of certain painful ourselves, we should couch it in terms diseases had been discovered, partly by something like these: "Preventible dethe use of the microscope, partly by in- struction is going on to-day, and it has oculating certain living creatures with been permitted to go on for ages, without the most terrible of those diseases at vari- a whisper of information regarding its ous stages; and this triumphant outburst cause being vouchsafed to the suffering, over the results which Professor Tyndall sentient world. We have been scourged anticipates in his scientific vision, they by invisible thongs, attacked from imperare not yet attained,—is meant in great ceptible ambuscades, and it is only to-day degree to persuade his audience that sci- that the light of science is being let in ence must be allowed to be a law unto upon the dominions of our seeming foes. itself, excepting, we suppose, it should Even now that it is let in, its result is by invade the life of man himself with its ex- no means unadulterated good. Destrucperimentation, nor do we see that Profes- tion prevented, means, too often, weakness sor Tyndall suggests ground for even this transmitted. The invisible thongs which limitation, in endeavoring to ascertain scourged one generation not unfrequently the sources of human suffering, and the saved the next from the scourges of thongs remedies or alleviations which may be more frightful still. While the total result applied. Leave it alone, he says, don't for good in human life has been to extend reproach it with cruelty because it causes by a few years the average age of man in a certain amount of limited suffering, civilized countries, and to extinguish a good and "its dawn will open out by-and-by to many of the worst spasms of human anperfect day." Now, our answer to that is guish, that result probably includes quite twofold, first, that it is quite certain that as much effect in transmitting hereditary it will not open out to perfect day, but at feebleness or taints to future generations, best to a less dim twilight; and next, that as in saving men altogether from the asthe access of twilight so gained, in ninety- saults of disease. Let science grow as it nine cases out of a hundred, instead of will, human life will continue to be leading to action which extinguishes the hemmed in by all sorts of visible and inevil, will only lead to action which will visible ills with the totality of which we attenuate it to the individual at the ex- must never cease to struggle, but with pense of the race. That, of course, is no which our struggle is never likely to be, on reason at all why this knowledge should the whole, much more successful than it not be diligently sought, and sought with now is. What we gain in one way, we all the fervor of Professor Tyndall him- shall probably lose in another; as some of self, unless it is sought at the cost of onr unknown foes are discovered and deprinciples and sympathies which are as feated, the very means which discover and precious as human life itself, and far defeat them will make other foes more more precious than a slight extension of formidable; and after all, our chief rethe average term of life to individuals. source will lie in the future, as it does in But the dimness of our knowledge, the present, in the undaunted courage of the uncertainty whether even our clear- our fight, the unquailing fortitude of our est knowledge of ills will suggest any endurance, and in our firm faith in God adequate remedy for them, the absolute here, and a higher life with Him beyond. certainty that the knowledge which saves Considerations like these excite in us the and protects the weak does tend to lower thought that the rule and governance of the standard of complete health in the this universe is not very different from future of our race, even while it increases what in our youth we supposed it to be, our available resources against individual that the Power, at once terrible and benefiailments, should, we think, help to make cent, in whom we live and move and have us acquiesce gladly in every restriction our being and our end, is not to be propiwhich the healthy moral nature of man tiated by any mere advance of knowledge. imposes on the sources of discovery, and The first requisite towards such propitiato warn us that far more evil than good tion is right action in the light we have, may come of the assumption that to the the second, to increase that light wherever genuine search after knowledge, no means, we can do so by means which do not lower however revolting to our nature, is for- us in God's eyes and our own. The debidden. If we might be permitted to alter sire to know, like almost all other desires,

if unbridled, may lead men into actions which would make knowledge sin. It is well, therefore, to realize that even some of the most beneficent results of knowledge have yielded consequences of a double kind, have weakened the winnowing power of physical disease on the human stock, by virtue of the very principle by which they alleviated its assaults. This should teach us that if at any time we have to choose between extending knowledge at the expense of what is noblest in us, and leaving a window closed which we might otherwise open into the secrets of nature, we may be quite safe in preferring the latter course, if only because to violate our moral ideal is a certain and irreparable evil, while the extension of knowledge is at best in comparison but an uncertain good."

From The Academy.

THE SEA OF ANCIENT ICE.

ONE of the very interesting subjects of investigation connected with the discoveries of the Arctic Expedition is that relating to the ancient ice met with north of Robeson Channel, which is similar to that described in Admiral Sherard Osborn's "Discovery of a North-West Passage." We used to call this ancient formation "M'Clure's ice," for want of a better name, but a special name is much needed to obviate confusion, and to distinguish this ice from ordinary old pack. The name palaeocrystic was adopted by the officers at the time; but for present purposes I will use the expression "the sea of ancient ice." By ancient I mean the ice many years old of the area about to be defined, as distinguished from the old pack-ice met with in any other sea.

1,140 miles, upon which this ancient ice rests.

The sea of ancient ice was first seen by Captain M‘Clure when, on August 19, 1850, the "Investigator" ran into apparently open water off the mouth of the Mackenzie River in a north-eastern direction. But it was soon discovered that they were running into a trap in the main pack, consisting of ice of stupendous thickness, the surface rugged with the frosts and thaws of centuries, and totally unlike any ice ever met with in Baffin's Bay and adjacent seas. They ran up the blind lead in this dangerous ice for ninety miles; but, fortunately, the ship was put about in time, and escaped before the ice closed. There were no two opinions in the ship as to what would have been her fate if the floes had closed upon her.

In August, 1851, the "Investigator " passed along the west coast of Banks Island, and Captain M'Clure again had opportunities of examining the sea of ancient ice. The pack was of the same fearful description as that encountered in the offing of the Mackenzie River, at least eighty feet thick. The surface of the floes resembled rolling hills, some of them 100 feet from base to summit; and the edge of this wonderful oceanic ice rose in places from the water as high as the Investigator's" lower yards.

66

Captain Collinson, in the "Enterprise," also passed along the southern flank of the sea of ancient ice, and his description agrees with that of his second in command. In the spring of 1854, when wintering at Camden Bay on the coast of North America, Captain Collinson made an attempt to travel over it with a sledge. He came upon it at a distance of about seven miles from the ship, but he found it to be of such a character as to render all travelling impracticable. His sledge was It now appears that this sea of ancient broken, one of the men fractured his ice is of much greater extent than was thigh, and he was obliged to return after a supposed by Admiral Sherard Osborn. few days. McClintock and Mecham We know that it extends from near the found the same ancient ice along the west coast of North America to the northwest coast of Prince Patrick Island. Mecham extremity of Prince Patrick Island, a dis- terms this ice "tremendous;" and no one tance of 420 miles. There is then an un- who has travelled elsewhere in the Arctic known gap of about 420 miles from Prince regions has ever met with similar oceanic Patrick Island to Aldrich's furthest, which ice. Along the coast discovered by Capis probably occupied by islands and coast-tain Nares the same ice was met with, not line. Thirdly, there is the coast-line dis- as a narrow belt along the shore, but becovered by Captain Nares, extending over coming worse and more formidable to seaabout 300 miles from Aldrich's to Beau- ward, and composing the whole surface of mont's furthest. We thus have a line this palaeocrystic sea. extending from the American coast to The officers of the "Alert" had longer Beaumont's furthest, in a north-east and and better opportunities of carefully examsouth-west direction, for a distance of lining this most important phenomenon in

« PreviousContinue »