were further depressed by a cause which I will now state. At this period I had resolved gradually to wean myself from opium, and, after terrible struggles and enormous sufferings, had succeeded in limiting myself to a pint and a half of laudanum per diem. Now, on this particular day I had taken only a pint, for the following reason: the druggist with whom I generally dealt, had sent me a batch of 144 dozen, in which my experienced palate at once detected adulteration. I had therefore returned it, retaining only a bottle for the day's consumption. With this bottle in my hand I had gone down to the kitchen to speak to my cook-maid, when a family of beggars made their appearance at the door, consisting of a father, mother, and two children. The plaintive tones in which they entreated charity went to my heart. Ye gods! I said, here are people hungry, cold, miserable, craving a morsel of food, while I hold in my hand this bottle, the key of the seventh heaven. Ám I justified in withholding the celestial panacea? Shall I not say, drink and be happy? In compliance with this natural impulse, I at once gave each of them a glass of laudanum, which they drank in solemn silence and went away. What became of them I cannot say; but as I never heard of any family being poisoned about that time, I conclude they were all confirmed opium-eaters. However, this liberality on my part reduced my dose for that day to about a pint, and I was now beginning to feel the effects of this unusual abstinence; the chief of which effects was of course depression of spirits-gradually my head sank on my bosom. I ceased to respond to Bill's call of "No heeltaps;" the liquor I craved was not the growth of Oporto. It was then that Bill, seeing my condition, but ascribing it to a wrong cause, used this remarkable expression : He's pretty near done-let's finish him ;" and the woman going to a cupboard returned with a bottle, which Bill uncorked, and filling my glass from it, pressed me to drink. Half-absently, I complied; but the moment I put my lips to it I started with joy. Could Bill, then, read my heart?-could he pry into my soul? Why, here was the very potion for which I had been thirsting as never Arab thirsted in the desert, and now (here I sipped again)—it was no mirage, but the divine nectar itself. Tossing off my glass, I at once resumed my wonted cheerfulness. The I noticed that, instead of talking as before, Bill and the woman now intently watched me (Squabby was by this time very nearly blind-drunk); and my intellect regaining its usual vigorous clearness, I at once perceived that Bill, with what design I knew not, intended to "hocuss" me. absurdity of an attempt to render me insensible with laudanum presented itself so vividly to my mind, that I had much difficulty in preventing myself from exploding in laughter. However, I managed to preserve my gravity, and, entering into the humour of the thing, at once resolved to drink against my entertainerLaudanum versus Port-and thus astonish his debile faculties as Jack did the Giant's in the matter of the hasty-pudding, only that, instead of merely pretending by a mean subterfuge to consume my share, as Jack did, I would drink glass for glass. What a triumph of opium-eating! How would the great Coleridge scowl in envious bitterness of spirit, when he learned that I had achieved a feat which he well knew he never could hope to surpass ! Now then for it! Bill drinks, and offers to fill my glass. I fill it myself, quaff it off, and continue to converse cheerfully. Bill drinks againI imitate him-Bill stares and looks astounded, but nevertheless continues to drink so do I. We each stick to our own bottles, the liquor in which grows rapidly lower. Bill gets confused, and is no longer master of his utterance-I become calmer and calmer, and flow on in a rapt strain of eloquence which immeasurably delights myself. Presently, however, my attention is arrested by a change in Bill's aspect; he has fixed on me a gaze of unutterable malignity. He mutters to the woman in a thick husky whisper, that "he ain't a-goin' to stand this much longer." In a moment I became alive to the situation I was in. I was in the presence of an exasperated ruffian, who saw in It may easily be imagined that I now lifted up my head, and watched them with intense interest. The room they entered was small, and its only furniture were a bed and a sack. The bed was peculiar, consisting of two thick mattresses, without bedclothes, and a complication of ropes, pulleys, and weights. Presently Bill and the woman, each seizing a rope, began pulling, and the upper mattress slowly rose. Heaven and earth! what a thought flashed across my mind! I had heard of such things before the unhappy being, stupefied by opium, was placed between two mattresses, and smothered so as to produce the appearance of natural death, and his body sold to the surgeons! The sack was irresistible evidence-it must be so! I was in the company of body-snatchers, and was about to be BURKED!!! The thrill of horror which now naturally passed through my heart, did not prevent me from seeing the case in all its philosophic bearings. My natural impulse was, of course, self-preservation; but still, as a philosopher, I was bound to consider also the interests of the public. I had every reason to believe that my organs and functions had become so vitiated by the use of opium, as to insure, to him who should lay bare, with scientific knife and anxious inquiry, this earthly tabernacle, the disclosure of the most remarkabe phenomena. Had I then, as s citizen, the right to withhold this perishable frame, which would inev ably be dissolved in a few years, an perhaps under far less important con ditions (for I might leave off opium. and, thus restoring my body to a healthy condition, render it compars tively valueless), when I might, by submitting to the fate designed for me, remain for ages, in spirits of wine. monument of opium-eating! This was one view of the case; but pr sently, with that clear view of thing which the practised metaphysician inevitably acquires, I perceived an objection. I remembered that my body would probably-nay certainly be sold to some surgeon totally acquainted with my person and habits, and who would therefore be wholly incompetent to explain the remarkable appearances which dis section would reveal; and the theories broached to account for them, being thus based on mere supposition, might probably perples science instead of advancing it. This view of the case, coupled with a de sire to live my appointed time, decided me, and I took my measures accordingly. All this time I have left Bill and the woman standing by the fatal bed, where Death so often took his re pose, with the ropes in their hands Fastening them so as to allow the upper mattress to remain uplifted, they turned towards me; but before they did so, and while I was still left in almost complete obscurity, I filled from my bottle of laudanum both their glasses. The perplexity of the woman, and the drunken astonishment of Bill, when, on returning for the supposed insensible victim, they found me seated upright and cheer fully surveying them, have probably never been equalled except in that remarkable passage of the literature of my childhood when Mother Hubbard, having gone to the undertaker's to buy a coffin for her dog (whom she had every reason to suppose dead), returns, and finds the presumed corpse They were so astonished that, when in a state of cacchination or laughter. I desired them to be mechanically complic her ! **** ing them in a little speech, I proposed the health of the lady as a convivial toast, and, tossing off my glass, invited them to pledge me. Totally bewildered they did so, and sat for a time staring at me, while I watched them with calm certainty. Well did I know the train of symptoms by which they who dare to trespass, without due initiation and neophytism, on the imperial domains of opium, approach insensibility. Gradually their muscles relaxed their heads sank-their inspirations lengthened and deepened till they sank side by side on the floor, not in the divine dream of the qualified practitioner, but in the dull stagnation of the presumptuous quack. Having now the field to myself, and my mind being relieved from the sudden strain, I allowed myself to lapse into one of those peculiar and refreshing trances which opium commands. The vision I beheld was no doubt suggested by the events of the evening. Methought that I actually beheld my body laid upon the hateful bed which, uplifted by countless myriads of Squabbies and Longnosed Bills, was borne through the air, while I, seeming to have a separate existence from the body (a species of duality I have often observed in these trances), was compelled to follow and observe. After floating apparently for centuries through immeasurable regions of space, the bier was laid in a vast hall surrounded by skeletons, who shouted from their fleshless jaws, in full chorus, as my body was borne in, "Room for the Opium-eater!" and all the echoes answered, "Room for the Opiumeater!"-like the people answering the priest in the service of a cathedral. Then flocked in, in endless procession, all the mighty surgeons and physicians whom the world ever saw, headed by the divine Esculapius in classic robes, and whose ample brows were crowned by a chaplet. Galen followed, and Hippocrates, and Celsus and the wizard-physician Cornelius Agrippa, and Garth and Harvey and Hunter, with all their contemporaries, till Astley Cooper headed the College of Surgeons of our days. Then the doors were closed with a mighty sound-silence was proclaimed by a herald-and the whole procession, filing past the bier, bowed to it as an army to its warriorchief. Again the herald proclaimed silence, and the venerable Esculapius, standing forth before all, said, in purest Attic Greek, in solemn tones, Let us dissect the Opium-eater!" and all answered, "Let us dissect him." Then the shadow of the great father of physic, approaching with reverence the bier, laid open the temple of the brain, when lo! there straightway issued forth such a swarm of ideas that the vast hall could not contain them. Upward they floated, bright conceptions, melodious utterances, imperishable images, unutterable thoughts, and thronged the atmosphere from pavement to roof; while still from that small skull flowed the unending stream, like the mighty and fertilising Nile from its fountain-source. Upward still they pressed, till their accumulation grew irresistible-joist and rafter gave way with a crashing sound (it was the triumph of mind over matter), and forth floated the joyous liberated thoughts to their kindred sky. And all the multitude bowed down and acknowledged the might and majesty of genius. I know not how long the vision occupied, but when I ceased to dream, the candle was low in the socket, or rather the bottle. My companions were still prostrate, and showed no sign of existence except their heavy stertorous breathing. They might, however, shortly recover, and I therefore resolved to go at once, while they were still insensible to my movements. Hastily finishing the laudanum which remained in the bottle, I took up the candle and proceeded down stairs. I think I had got down about ten stories, when, taking the wrong turn at the foot of the stairs, I opened the door of a room which I found full of lumber and straw. As I turned to leave it, the candle fell from the bottle among the straw, which was instantly in a flame. If I had raised an alarm, the question of how I happened to be there? might have arisen, which I have already said it did not suit me to answer; and if I staid to attempt to extinguish the flames, I might fail to escape, for the fire spread ness. than before. Still upward till they have reached the chamber whe I passed the night. Bill, my p posed destroyer, where art thon where too is thy partner, she h sleeps in thy bosom?-shall she eve again repose there? Ha, Squabl not all thy gibes and jewellery as avail thee now! See, the fire has e compassed them-see, the shadows hurrying frantically on the ceili show that the floor is in a blaze! An now they rush to the window. Eva at this distance I recognise Bill the length of his nose he tears the woman from the window and locks down. Shall he leap? No! sixte stories is a height to appal th bravest. Destruction in front, struction in rear! to be roasted a smashed!-dreadful the alternative William-vain the hope of escape And now the problem, which dare not solve for himself, is solved for him. The woman from behi casts her arms about his neck with frantic gesture, and both fall back into the room. Higher rush the re joicing and victorious flames, arching their crests and crackling joyously. till the walls crumble and sink, bury ing in their ruins the ashes of the Body-snatchers. As the wind, rising by degrees, first sports with the dead leaves, then rattles at the casements, till tile and rooftree go down before the hurricane, so arose the alarm of FIRE. First a watchman shouted-a chance passenger joined him; those who lived on the basements and ground floors next issued forth, and the chorus surged and swelled into a mighty diapason. Clattering through the streets come the fire-engines on their errand of salvation; beside them run the firemen. Gallant Phoenix, brave Sun!-well done both brigades! But this night your efforts shall be in vain! For see, the flames leap forth at every window! Higher they climb, story after story, with rapid step. They lick the walls-they swallow the rafters and ever still their progress is upward, like bright thoughts pointing heavenward; while the base mortar and stones and clay, falling inward like low material natures trying to smother the light of genius, raise for a moment a dust, which vanishes, leaving the flames brighter OUR INDIAN EMPIRE. IN ancient Rome, the triumphal ed solemnly in the Imperial City. processions that ever and anon pass- We have a homelier way of doing ed along the Via Sacra, "purpling things now. Europe, as she gets the street," served vividly to impress older, is losing her regard for page the minds even of the unthinking antry. Far in the depths of Scythia, masses with the far-reaching extent indeed-in a region then so waste and grandeur of the empire that own- that Roman Legionary never pressed ed the sway of the Legions. Stal- its soil-we have just witnessed a sudwart Angli and blue-eyed Germans, den outburst of imperial pageantries, -Persians and Parthians from their with the fame of whose magnificence Orient hills and sands, a queen from Europe is still ringing, and which lonely Palmyra, Jews turn from Jerufind a parallel only in the pages salem, dusky plaves from the Nile, of Roman history, or in the sculp paintings and statues from tured processions of the ancient EmGreece, alternating with troops of pires of the Orient. It needs symbol wild busts of strange aspect or startling Imlk from the African de- Moscow, to pierce the wastes of Muspassed in turn before the proud covite darkness, and make known to ing symbols and brilliant samples of and resources of the Czar. But the eye of the Roman multitude. Livthe dull unlettered mujik the might Berts and ceremony, and a mighty dazzle at re transported bodily and exhibit- their Government s read, and them simply through blue-books and the press. It is in this unostentatious way that, to the nation at large, is made known the condition of the various parts of our far-spread empire. From Canada and snowy Oregon, from Jamaica and the tropical Islands of the Gulf, from New Zealand and Australia, from India and our settlements in the Pacific, official reports are ever pouring into the little island of the North Atlantic which has bred the lordly race that owns all these possessions. These reports of our prefects are our true triumphal processions. And if they elicit less fervid emotions and Io-pæans than saluted the purple Triumphs of the Roman chiefs, they at least tell their tale more clearly and to a wider audience, and give better assurance that the national rejoicing is not bestowed upon a mask, but upon a reality. The proud phlegm natural to the Briton, and the familiarity with success taught him by the marvellous past of his nation, conspire to make him the most impassible of men in presence of triumphs, though sufficiently impatient of failure or reverse. Silence with him is approbation. He is often most satisfied when he says nothing. As long as he is satisfied, he exhibits an indifference that must be provoking to those who strive for his regard. And if the statesmanly exploits be not done within the parent isle of his race-that goodly nook wherein he has garnered up wealth and power untold, and every acre, right, or custom in which is sacred in his eyes,-but in one of our colonies or empires beyond the seas, it is hopeless to expect from John Bull the slightest mark of enthusiasm. Once a-year, and generally in the last days of the session, there is gone through in the House of Commons a piece of work which seems to be regarded by every one as a bore. A gentleman rises on the Ministerial benches, and, undismayed by the general secession of the House, delivers a three hours' speech to the thirty Members or so who still keep their places. At almost any time during the delivery of this oration the proceedings could be abruptly terminated by a count-out;" but as it is not a question of home politics, the Minister is allowed to bring his lengthy address to a close. It is the Indian Budget speech; and the House has been listening to a report on the state and prospects of an empire one-half the size of Europe, and comprising an eighth part of the entire human race. But with the exception of some Manchester politician, who thinks that India grows too little cotton, or some lawyer, who holds a brief from a deposed Rajah, no one rises to comment or discuss, the House turns with alacrity to other business, and the speech is left to be circulated and criticised by the press. Our Indian Empire constitutes so vast a subject of inquiry that our national Representatives may be excused from plunging into its abysses, so long as matters go on smoothly. And that India does, on the whole, progress favourably, is our honest conviction, as well as, we conceive, a fair inference from the seeming apathy of our legislators. In so vast a fabric, it is easy to pick out a defective stone here or there, or even a buttress that does not look seemly by itself; but the same things may be found at home, where we have been planning and building and taking down and rebuilding incessantly for generations, under much more favourable circumstances than have surrounded the builders of our foreign empire in the East. It is not, however, with the design of defending the East India Company's rule, or of discussing moot points, that we address ourselves to our present subject, but simply with the purpose of passing in review the leading features of our Indian empire, as a theme worthy of national attention, and as a groundwork for any criticisms of detail which may be rendered necessary by the future. British sway now dominates over the whole peninsula of India. All within the outer girdle of mountains, formed by the snow-capped Himalayas and the sterile Suleyman range, British power is supreme; and from Attock in the north-west, to Comorin in the south, two thousand miles of territory own the guardianship of the Viceroy of England. But here, on the very threshold, a grave error |