equal to the control of British-born settlers, half a dozen of whom are more difficult to rule than half a million of natives. There prevails among Englishmen of every grade a notion of the East India Company being a body of a somewhat foreign stamp, to whose servants it is almost degrading for a free-born Britain to be obliged to submit.

The amalgamation of the Queen's and the Company's superior tribunals, known at Calcutta as the Supreme, and the Sudder, Courts, would, by coupling the home-bred judges appointed by the Crown with the countrytrained nominees of the local government, give a weight to the magistracy acting under this combined authority, and thus fit it for the better discharge of the difficult duty of controlling and correcting the excesses of Englishmen settled in the interior. These settlers often find in the menace of an action or prosecution before a remote and somewhat prejudiced tribunal, a weapon wherewith to combat the immediate power of a functionary, amenable individually to the Queen's Court in Calcutta, for every act which legal ingenuity can represent to be personal, and so beyond the pale of official protection.

The fusion of the two superior courts will not, in fact, lessen the personal responsibility of the English magistrate; but it will remove an apparent antagonism, calculated to keep alive a spirit of defiance towards the local authority in the breast of many an English settler, the effects of which, as described in the extract above given, from the letter of a Bengal gentleman, are felt by every native with whom he may have any dealings. Much has been written and spoken about the duty of protecting the people of India from being oppressed by the Government and its agents, but few seem to have thought of that more searching tyranny which

a few strong-nerved and coarse-minded Englishmen in the interior, invested with power by the possession of land, may exercise over the people among whom they are located, and from whom they are eager to extract the wealth which they long to enjoy in a more congenial climate.

This species of tyranny will of course be most felt among the feeblest, and is, consequently, likely to be more grievous in Bengal than among the hardier population of Upper India. But wherever the Anglo-Saxon goes, he will carry with him his instinctive contempt for tribes of a dusky complexion; and where this is not counteracted by the imposed courtesies of official life, or checked by the presence of a sufficient controlling authority, it will ever be ready to break out in a manner injurious to the interests and feelings of those subject to his power.

Our future rule will, it is evident, become daily more and more European in its tone, and there will consequently be an increasing call upon those engaged in its direction to watch over the conduct of the dominant race, to restrain its arrogance, and to see that the equality announced in the laws does not evaporate in print, but is something real and substantial, to be felt and enjoyed in the ordinary everyday intercourse of life.

If this can be accomplished by legislation, the new Commissions and Councils will not have been created in vain; but if their labours end in merely adding to the existing tomes of benevolent enactments, without effectual provision for their enforcement, then we cannot but fear that our projected measures of improvement, being all of a European character, will add little to the happiness of our subjects on the banks of the Ganges, and be regarded by them merely as ingenious contrivances for extending our own power, and completing their subjugation.

THE Willoughby family, as has been already said, left England for the Continent; and the spring which succeeded Sir John's death found them temporarily residing in Paris. It was very far from the Colonel's intention, however, to remain there long; the household was only incomplete, as yet, without Francis, who in a few weeks would join it on leaving Oxford; and there had to be some consideration before finally settling, from among no slight variety of advertisements in the public journals, what district of the provinces might be best suited for a retreat, probably during some years. One or two points of business, also, requiring attention to his English letters, continued to make their early arrival a convenience; not so much from the Devonshire lawyer, whose methodical regularity left nothing to desire, as with regard to the sale of Sir Godfrey's commission, and some arrangements left unfinished in town, of that tedious nature which characterises stockbroking. Meanwhile their establishment was certainly simple compared with that lately given up in Golden Square, where society, at no time deficient to the Willoughbies, had, since the Colonel's last return home, been doubling itself every year, and had begun, since his brother's death, absolutely to send visitingcards by footmen, to call in carriages, to bespeak the earliest possible share of their company at dinner: contrasted with the extent which must have been necessary for Stoke, it was diminutive. Yet it was by no means one of a restricted kind, although the income from Lady Willoughby's own small fortune would alone have sufficed to keep it up, leaving some surplus; so that, living as yet without

ROUSSEAU.

new acquaintances, and, so far as their countrymen were concerned, in perfect obscurity, they had not a wish which it did not suffice for; as long, at least, as the vast, strange city held its first influences over them. To these, probably, it was owing that Colonel Willoughby appeared for some time to have had no other object in coming to Paris; if distinctly aware of any, beyond the facilities there for choosing a place of residence in the provinces, for awaiting his son Francis, and finishing the more important part of his correspondence, with the convenience of respectable banking-houses-besides the possibility of avoiding English acquaintances, which at Dieppe or Boulogne would not have been so easy-then he would without doubt have mentioned it to his wife. A reserved man, and in the strictest sense a proud one, he was amongst the last to have secrets; they would have sat on his brow, and troubled his manner; nor had be at any time had such a thing apart from her. During the whole course of their wedded life, whether together or separated, by word or letter, their mutual confidence had increased: for her part, she was of that easy, placid, seemingly almost torpid nature, which, save in a receipt of housekeeping, or a triumph of domestic management, appears merely to produce in it nothing worth the hiding, nor to receive, either, anything of that serious kind; while the course of time, that had begun to turn the fair features of Mrs Willoughby rather large, giving her form a somewhat more than matronly fulness, had so increased this peculiarity in her disposition as to make strangers think her insipid. Older friends thought very far otherwise, and it was, in

some way, chiefly old friends Mrs Willoughby had had at all; but neither they, the oldest of them, nor even her children, perhaps, could so much as imagine the truth of heart, the perfect trust, the intimate, unhesitating appreciation, which, since they were first gained by him, her husband had been ever knowing better. Indolently placid as she might seem even to ordinary troubles, tumults, and embarrassments, as if the world's care entered no imagination of hers quietly busied, with attention fixed on household matters, knitting or sewing in her endless, noiseless manner-yet if his eye had shown anxiety, if he had ceased to read, if he paced the room, or had been very silent, a kind of divination there was, that, without any watching or any questioning, would have roused her upthe work suspended on her lap, her cheek losing the old dimple-mark which maturity had deepened there, and her glance widened with concern; till, if he had still not spoken, Lady Willoughby would have risen up gradually, looking round as if startled from a sort of mild dream, and have moved towards him, beginning of her own accord which was a rare thing to speak. Not necessarily, indeed, though they had been alone in the room, to invite confidence by any inquiry; but rather in the way of performing some slight office that might have been neglected, or with endeavours at such interesting news and small-talk as, to speak truth, she scarcely shone in, unsupported-nor any the better for the confused sense she evidently had at these times of having been by some means in fault, and having failed to be a very lively companion. She was of a plain country squire's family, in fact; and in her day, if sent at all to boardingschools, they had not lingered long over music, still less at flower-painting or the sciences; while with successive sisters waiting at home for their turn, as she had had, it was but to finish off baking and mending, with dancing and embroidery, then to come back, and bake and mend again. So when the dancing ended with marriage, the embroidery at the first birth, it might have been thought the officer had gained no very valuable

society, sometimes in barrack-lodgings, sometimes abroad, sometimes for distant communication by letter; she might, at least, have been expected to form no great ornament in London circles, or among country people at Stoke Manor-house. Still there had been nothing in all their previous intercourse so precious to him as his wife's letters, when almost for the first time, in her own natural way, she had to attempt expressing fond thoughts, soothing motives, and yet confessions of impatience-mixed up with accounts of children's complaints, their faults, and their schooling-country gossip, and fashionable arrivals, with some stray suggestions and admissions, never before confided to him, of a pious kind: and when long afterwards came the events at Stoke, instead of any undue flutter or sense of importance being caused in her, she had fallen in as naturally to title or prospects, as she had sat before that at the head of their dinnertable in Golden Square. It was no doll's disposition, as had been at the time hinted round some ill-natured card-tables in that region; if one thing more than another troubled Sir Godfrey in their present plans, it was that he believed devoutly in his wife's aptitude for a high station, where expectations would be formed and occasions raised; his feeling wasand the partiality was excusablethat her chief value lay obscured in ordinary circumstances. Whereas at the new abode in Paris, with ample scope and convenience, all the earlier habits of domestic superintendence seemed returning, the making, baking, mending-almost even to washing; in reference to which alone Lady Willoughby seemed really active, and the more so that everything might go on as in England, had the mere economy of the thing not been a vital point. Her pleased air would alone have hindered him from reasoning it with her, had Sir Godfrey so much as dreamt, in the latter respect, how their case really stood: and when, indeed, there did lie any care on his mind, which he might be unwilling she should share, yet so gently did the conversation win it from him, and so quietly did something like the old manner woo him to bear no burden

alone, that, ere he knew, it was no longer his, but they were talking of it plainly. What tranquil reassurance then, and grave, prompt advertence to the point and pure sympathy, and that repose of soul from which a woman's instinct can express so much by a tone, a look, silence itself! Sir Godfrey had sometimes been ashamed to find how much more he could be disturbed by trifles, or how cautiously he had been underrating his wife's affection. So that she knew as well as he did, and almost as soon, how affairs stood at Stoke, with the tenor of his brother's intended will, and any the slightest incident which could concern them. He had even casually mentioned, as among the more trivial, Sir John's wishes for the benefit of the person entitled Suzanne Deroux, for Lady Willoughby had long known, of course, what of Sir John's early history his brother knew. The matter had well-nigh escaped his memory, he said; till on happening to want a banker in Paris, it struck him that the house formerly employed by his brother, in the payment of the annuity referred to, might suit himself. To these gentlemen, accordingly, he had sent a memorandum of the address left by Sir John, with a request that they would have the money paid to her. It was a small sum, but might be important to the people, whoever they were, living in one of the poorest and most wretchedlycrowded quarters of Paris. Still, as Sir Godfrey smiled on that occasion cheerfully, and resumed his English newspaper, he did not, he could not tell all the painful and pertinacious impressions, of circumstances unknown or acts untraced, which any allusion to his late brother's former stay in Paris still called up.

Everything did not exactly go on in the household as in England, indeed, but all was as nearly so as a quiet assiduity could make it. The house, a somewhat dull and dilapidated mansion, very barely furnished, and taken by the month from an adjoining notary, stood far to the western or court-end of the city, though rather involved in the dinginess of a sort of minor fauxbourg, where, in those days, between the sudden curve

of the river and the lesser alleys of the Champs Elysées, a motley population still clustered about the tanpits or dye-houses, and towards the bridge and quays: it occupied one corner of a short, deserted-looking street, the other end of which was reduced to a narrow lane by the high enclosure of a convent; in front was a small paved court, very shady and damp, by the help of two or three stunted poplars it contained, yet not by any means private, being overlooked by dusty or broken staircase windows, one over the other, from at hand; while it, nevertheless, could boast of a wall surmounted by a railing, with a heavily-pillared gate of open ironwork, a little lodge on one side within, where the porter livedat one end of the house a diminutive stable and coach-shed, at the other an entrance to a high-walled garden, laid out in intricate confusion, without sign of flowers, and overgrown with a luxury of weeds. Some rising bourgeois had probably at first designed it, with a moderate eye to fashion; although its prime recommendation from the notary was, that successive families of the English nobility had chosen it for their temporary residence; nor did the old concierge fail to point out, with some emphasis, when showing the garden, that it was in the English style. The place was, at all events, at a convenient distance from the central parts of Paris, and within an easy drive to the Protestant Episcopal chapel. At a sharp angle with the street ran a main thoroughfare from the city barrier, one way confused in the dense suburb, the other way breaking towards a leafy promenade of the public park; sending all day a busy throng of passengers into that brighter current, where it glimpsed broad past the gap of light, with the glitter of equipages, the shifting glow of dresses, and the constant hum and babble of its gaiety; while nearer by was an opening in the contiguous street, through which the first-floor windows of their house looked at the motion along the quay, and saw the stately piles of building on the opposite bank, in brighter perspective, curve away from the eastern avenue of the Champ de Mars, with the bending of the river. They had

still a carriage, too, though it was merely hired by the month, like the house, from the nearest livery-stables —a light, English-shaped barouche, with its pair of soot-black, long-legged Flemish horses, long-tailed and squarenosed, barrel-bodied and hollow-backed, and formally-stepping, which the owner called English also, for everything English seemed the rage: they were objects of no slight scorn, in that light, to Sir Godfrey's groom, a stiff old trooper, who, with his duties to wards his master's horse, Black Rupert (the only possession they had brought from Stoke, save the title), had soon to unite that of coachman. Since besides Jackson himself, there was not merely an English housemaid, but there was young Mr Charles's tutor, a grave, rather middle-aged bachelor of arts from Cambridge, and in clerical orders, who was to make up for the lost advantages of Eton, while he looked forward to the first opening in the curacy at Stoke: there was Miss Willoughby's governess, a lady apparently also of middle age, whose perfect breeding and great accomplishments had made her acceptance of the position a favour, when the sudden necessity arose for the young lady's leaving school; she had been in the highest families, and her conversational powers were of a superior order, so that there was a continual silent gratitude towards her on the part of Lady Willoughby. To the latter, indeed, whose whole heart lay in her family, these unavoidable changes had been a source of pure satisfaction, so far as she was concerned; compared with the privilege of having their children about them, educated under their own eye, expecting Frank so soon, too, nothing else was a deprivation; she merely missed England and English habits when some one else did, and had seen Stoke but once; only through the occasional abstracted looks of Sir Godfrey did she regret its postponement. As for the old French concierge at the gate, indeed, with his wife, family, and friends, she could have gladly spared them; but the concierge was indispensable- he lived there he went with the house, in fact; and at the very hint of his being superfluous, the old cracked-voiced porter had drawn himself up indignantly in his

chair, while his bare-armed, blackbrowed wife had turned her leatherlike face up from her tub, looking daggers. True, the English family had, in the mean time, no visitors, but the concierge had ;-he was well known to his respectable neighbours; and, besides, it was possible that the misanthropy of the Chevalier Vilby and of Madame might be to some extent diminished; they would probably yet enter into society-all the previous tenants of the mansion had done so; Paris was, in reality, so attractive a capital. Such had been the response to the diplomacy of Jackson, who, having once been a French prisoner, far abroad, knew the language after a fashion of his own; and he received it in grim silence. The truth was, the gossipping receptions at the little lodge were somewhat troublesome, and seemed to concern themselves greatly with the affairs of the household within, had there been nothing else than the general interest taken in it by the adjacent windows, or the popularity of the whole family, collectively or individually, which had sometimes accompanied their exit or entrance with applause from crowds of street children-a prestige which had as evidently deserted them afterwards, to be replaced by tenfold scrutiny of a less partial kind, not unmingled with sundry trivial annoyances. Nor, although it resulted, with Lady Willoughby's usual easy disposition, in her employing the services of the porter's daughter within the house, did the one parent open the gate with less sullen dignity, and the other seem less jealously watchful against some abstraction of the furniture, or nocturnal evasion of the rent.

The

Nevertheless, Paris itself was not more restless or more lively than the spirits of the young people in their first enjoyment of its scenes. earliest summer had begun to lighten up what was already bright with heat that came before the leaves, quickly as these were bursting into verdure along every avenue; and when the dust is hovering in the sun, when the level light streams along causeway and pavement, crossed by cooler vistas, when the morning water-carts go slowly hissing past, the shopmen sprinkling their door-steps, putting