stanzas, partly because there is really a dash of sparkle and spirit about them, and partly because we must beg that farming operations should in future be included in some measure among the labours of steam. In the darksome depths of the fathomless mine Where the rocks ne'er saw the sun decline, Or the dawn of the glorious day. And I make the fountain's granite cup I blow the bellows, I forge the steel, I hammer the ore and turn the wheel I manage the furnace, the mill, the mint; And all my doings I put into print I've no muscle to weary, no breast to decay, And soon I intend you may all go and play For I scorn the strength of your puny hands, Without going so far as to expect that we may all 'go and play,' while steam manages the world by itself, we may undoubtedly expect that many hard and laborious kinds of field-labour will, more and more every year, be effected by steam, which has no muscle to weary, no breast to decay.' We have only to look at the groups of implements and machines proceeding from the well-known firms of Ransome, Wedlake, Garrett, Crosskill, Hornsby, Dray, &c.; or to look through the lists and catalogues of those manufacturers: the evidence of the fact becomes then very apparent. Let us very briefly glance at the matter. Here are the productions of Messrs Clayton and Shuttleworth of Lincoln, among which a three horsepower portable steam-engine is conspicuous. This compact affair is shaped something like a locomotive; it weighs about a ton and a half, and its provender consists of three hundredweights of coal and 270 gallons of water per day of ten hours. With this moving power, it will thrash out twenty quarters of corn per day; and when it has done its work in one barn or thrashingfloor, a horse will easily draw it to another. Similar engines are made of four, five, six, seven, eight, and nine horse-power, all presenting this analogy-that the number of horse-power produced is about equal to the number of hundredweights of coal consumed in a working-day of ten hours-a convenient rule for estimating the efficiency of the power. The larger of these portable steam-engines require two horses to draw them from place to place; but in return for this, they will thrash out a larger quantity of corn per day, and become applicable also to grinding, sowing, pumping, and other operations necessary on a large farm. The sevenhorse engine is large enough to be made available for a remarkable system' which has sprung up in some districts-namely, the letting out of steam-power: a portable steam-engine travels about from farm to farm, doing the thrashing and sowing, and grinding and pumping for each in succession-a system susceptible of wonderful expansion. Then there are fixed steamengines for farm-work, of four to ten horse-power each. Another ingenious apparatus is a portable thrashingmachine. This is not a steam-engine, but a capacious vehicle on four wheels, having thrashing mechanism within, and pulleys and bands on the outside to enable it to be worked by a steam-engine, either portable or fixed. The facilities thus afforded are remarkable; for you may either take the steam-engine to thrash, or bring the corn to be thrashed, according to the arrangements of the farm. The corn is bundled into the vehicle; the steam-power commences its activity, and revolving arms proceed to thrash out the grain with great rapidity. In one form of the machine, the whole of the processes of thrashing, straw-shaking, riddling, winnowing, and bolting, are performed by steam-power, and in their proper order. How there must be certain revolving arms, and certain revolving cylinders, and certain wriggling or vibrating troughs, will be evident to those who consider the nature of these operations. Then there are straw-shaking machines, and corngrinding mills, and bone-crushing mills, all worked by steam-power, and all applicable to farm-labour. Here are Messrs Dray's portable steam - engines; and here Messrs Hornsby's; and here Messrs Garrett's, and Messrs Barrett's, and Messrs Ransome's; and so on. The relative merits of each, and the trade competition between them, we have nothing to do with here. The great point is to know that there are a dozen firms or more manufacturing these powerful aids to agriculSome excel in the rapidity with which steam is got up; while others excel in the amount of horsepower produced by the consumption of a given weight of coal. ture. The Royal Agricultural Society was mainly instrumental in bringing forward the movable steam-engines for farms, in the interval between 1841 and 1851. Mr Pusey, a great authority on all these matters, has thus noticed the advantages of portable over fixed engines for farm-work: If a farm be a large one, and especially if, as is often the case, it be of an irregular shape, there is great waste of labour for horses and men in bringing home all the corn in the straw to one point, and in again carrying out the dung to a distance of perhaps two or three miles; it is therefore common, and should be general, to have a second outlying yard; and this accommodation cannot be reconciled with a fixed engine. If the farm be of a moderate size, it will hardly and if small, will certainly not-bear the expense of a fixed engine; there would be waste of capital in multiplying fixed engines to be worked but a few days in a year. It is now common, therefore, in some counties, for a man to invest a small capital in a movable engine, and earn his livelihood by letting it out to the farmer. But there is a further advantage in these movable engines, little, I believe, if at all known. Hitherto, corn has been thrashed under cover in barns; but with these engines, and the improved thrashing-machines, we can thrash the rick in the open air at once as it stands. It will be said: How can you thrash out of doors on a wet day? The answer is simple: neither can you move the rick into your barn on a wet day: and so rapid is the work of the new thrashing-machines, that it takes no more time to thrash the corn than to move it.' But steam does something more than this for the farmer: it helps to make pipes for draining his land; and it helps to steam potatoes and other roots as fodder for animals; and it helps to plough his land-although it must be owned that ploughing-machines have not yet come much into use. In respect to steaming potatoes for pigs, it has been remarked that even diseased potatoes, if not too far gone, by being thus treated may be rendered wholesome, and may be stored up for months. If the visitor to a cattle-show, who spends a reasonable time in the implement-galleries or yards, would choose to extend his thoughts a little from steam among the farmers to machinery among the farmers, he would soon find how wonderfully the use of such machinery has spread within the last few years. In nearly everything which can be called a machine in respect to farming, one of these three things is Nay, not only do farmers now display all this ability, but they have actually become poetical, which the world in general is perhaps not aware of. That Messrs Moses and Hyam, as Messrs Warren and Day and Martin formerly did, throw around their business proceedings a halo of poetry, everybody knows; but it has, until lately, been new to us that an agricultural implement-maker thinks it worth his while to lisp in numbers; and as it is not to be supposed that he would bring ploughs and poetry together, unless the farmers were pleased thereat, the latter must also have a share of the credit. Listen: Iron-ploughs as Kimble's, as Howard's, and as Ball; 1 The tipping apparatus is simple and sound, With a little chaff, we have done Sir, have you chaff-machines now worked by man? observable-that a man turns a handle, that a horse exerts its pulling force, or that a steam-engine puts forth its multiform power; and it is only those who have watched the progress of recent improvement, who can form even a guess of the wide extent to which the simple hand-instruments-such as the spade, the rake, the hoe, the dibble, the flail, &c.—have been superseded on large farms by skilfully constructed machines. The old ploughs, with wheels and gallows, required four horses to draw them; but two horses can now do as much work with a plough of lighter and more scientific construction. The old harrows had their tines or teeth at a definite distance apart; but our farmers can now obtain expanding harrows, which can be adapted to the state of the land. The old rollers, in many cases, were simply tree-trunks rudely fashioned into cylindrical shape, having their framework loaded with rough materials to give them weight; but now we have iron rollers which will last for ever. The old farmers were wont to attempt, sometimes hopelessly, to break heavy clods by the alternate use of the roller and the harrow; but the farmers of the new school have now their powerful and efficient clod-crushers, whereby turnip-land can be prepared for corn with celerity and success. The old plough was expected to do more work than it could do well; but the scarifiers, and grubbers, and cultivators of the present day are analogous to a large party of ploughs all working at once, whereby a large percentage of horse-power is saved. The old seed-lip and dibble deposited the seed very slowly; but the modern drill does this with astonishing quickness; and not only so, but it will even deposit manure and water with the seed in the hollows made for its reception. The old hoe was 'slow,' both figuratively and really; but the modern horsehoe is a compound of four, six, or eight hoes at once, each working more quickly than the original handimplement. The old sickle was the only instrument used by our fathers and grandfathers for cutting corn; but the M'Cormicks, and Husseys, and Beils have shewn us what can be done by reaping-machines. The old rake was the only implement for gathering stray hay and corn; but the modern horse-rake will do the same work ten or twenty times as rapidly. The old hay-fields exhibited simply the handicraft labour which supplied so many Daphnes and Colins to the pastoral poets; but the haymaking-machines now give a different aspect to the affair. The old carts and wagons in which the farmer conveyed his produce from the field to the barn, and from thence to market, were a terrible drag to the horses; but now, like clippers on another element, they weigh less, carry more, and move more quickly. The old flail beat about the corn in a rude way on the barn-floor; but the new thrashing-machine enables either horses or steam to do the work more conveniently and more expeditiously. The old process of winnowing left the wind to blow away the chaff in a blind and capricious manner; but I AM far frae being clear that Nature hersel', though a the modern winnowing-machines have such a discri- kindly auld carline, has been a'thegither just to Scotminating power, that they can separate the grain into land, seeing that she has sae contrived that some o' our 'good corn,' 'good tail,'' tail,'' whites,'' screenings,' and 'chaff,' thus enabling the farmer to carry to market greatest men, that ought by richts to hae been Scotchproduce the quality of which can be exactly deter-men, were born in England and other countries, and sae mined. The sheep and lambs of old days had to munch hae been kenned as Englishers, or else something no away at whole turnips, as best they might; but the quite sae guid. modern turnip-cutter, by presenting the root in nice mouthfuls, economises the muscular power of the animal, and gives him an increased value in the market. The old chaff was cut by hand with a sort of chopping or guillotine action; but the chaff-cutters now made perform the work with far greater celerity. The old farmers drained their land, if at all, by using handmade tiles, and pipes laid in hand-made grooves and gutters; but the new farmers can reap the advantages of the ingenious tile-machines, and can lay down the pipes by the still more ingenious draining-plough. That give satisfaction to farmers around. And if you should doubt it-hear what I now sayYou can go to see them: they're at work to-day. I fix it for cutting aloft, if you please; And one horse can work it-an old hack with ease. Without e'er a driver, one man with two boys, Can cut eighty bushels an hour without noise. Opinions may possibly differ as to the merits of this poetical effusion; but there is no difference of opinion as to the simple fact that agricultural implement-makers have placed the means of great advancement within the reach of farmers. In 1851, Mr Pusey made this important statement-that the improvement in farmingimplements made within the preceding dozen years, had been such as to insure a saving on outgoings, or an increase of incomings, of not less than one-half on all the main branches of farming-labour. MAUNDERING S. BY A SCOTCH MAN. There's glorious old Ben Jonson, the dramatic poet and scholar, that everybody taks for a regular Londoner, merely because he happened to be born there. Ben's father, it's weel kent, was a Johnston o' Annandale in Dumfriesshire, a bauld guid family there to this day. He is alloo't to hae been a gentleman, even by the English biographers o' his son; and, dootless, sae he was, sin' he was an Annandale Johnston. He had gane up to London, about the time o' Queen Mary, and was amang them that suffered under that sour uphalder o' popery. Ben, puir chield, had the misfortune first to see the light somewhere aboot Charing Cross, instead o' the bonnie leas o' Ecclefechan, where his poetic soul wad hae been on far better feedin'-grund, I reckon. But, nae doot, he cam to sit contented under the dispensations o' Providence. Howsomever, he ought to be now ranked amang Scotchmen, that's a'. There was a still greater man in that same century, that's generally set down as a Lincolnshire-man, but ought to be looked on as next thing till a Scotchman, if no a Scotchman out and out; and that's Sir Isaac Newton. They speak o' his forebears as come frae Newton in Lancashire; but the honest man himsel's the best authority aboot his ancestry, I should think; and didna he say to his friend Gregory ae day: 'Gregory, ye warna aware that I'm o' the same country wi' yoursel'-I'm a Scotchman.' It wad appear that Sir Isaac had an idea in his head, that he had come somehow o' a Scotch baronet o' the name o' Newton; and nothing can be better attested than that there was a Scotchman o' that name wha became a baronet by favour o' King James the Sixt (what for aye ca' him James the First ?), having served that wise-headed king as preceptor to his eldest son, Prince Henry. Sae, ye see, there having been a Scotch Newton wha was a baronet, and Sir Isaac thinking he cam o' sic a man, the thing looks unco like as if it were a fact. It's the mair likely, too, frae Sir Adam Newton having been a grand scholar and a man o' great natural ingenuity o' mind; for, as we a' ken right weel, bright abilities gang in families. There's a chield o' my acquentance that disna think the dates answer sae weel as they ought to do; but he ance lived a twalmonth in England, and I'm feared he's grown a wee thing prejudiced. Sae we'll say nae mair aboot him. Then, there was Willie Cowper, the author o' the Task, John Gilpin, and mony other poems. If ye were to gie implicit credence to his English biographers, ye wad believe that he cam o' an auld Sussex family. But Cowper himsel' aye insisted that he had come o' a Fife gentleman o' lang syne, that had been fain to flit southwards, having mair guid blude in his veins than siller in his purse belike, as has been the case wi' mony a guid fallow before noo. It's certain that the town o' Cupar, whilk may hae gi'en the family its name, is the head town o' that county to this day. There was ane Willie Cowper, Bishop o' Galloway in the time o' King Jamie-a real guid exerceesed Christian, although a bishop-and the poet jaloosed that this worthy man had been ane o' his relations. I dinna pretend to ken how the matter really stood; but it doesna look very likely that Cowper could hae taken up the notion o' a Scotch ancestry, if there hadna been some tradition to that effeck. I'm particularly vext that our country was cheated out o' haeing Cowper for ane o' her sons, for I trow he was weel worthy o' the honour; and if Providence had willed that he should hae been born and brought up in Scotland, I haena the least doot that he wad hae been a minister, and ane, too, that wad hae pleased the folk just extrornar. There was a German philosopher in the last century, that made a great noise wi' a book o' his that explored and explained a' the in-throughs and out-throughs o' the human mind. His name was Immanuel Kant; and the Kantian philosophy is weel kent as something originating wi' him. Weel, this Kant ought to hae been a Scotchman; or, rather, he was a Scotchman; but only, owing to some grandfather or great-grandfather having come to live in Königsberg, in Prussia, ye'll no hinder Immanuel frae being born there-whilk of coorse was a pity for a' parties except Prussia, that gets credit by the circumstance. The father o' the philosopher was an honest saddler o' the name o' Cant, his ancestor having been ane o' the Cants o' Aberdeenshire, and maybe a relation o' Andrew Cant, for onything I ken. It was the philosopher that changed the C for the K, to avoid the foreign look of the word, our letter C not belonging to the German alphabet. I'm rale sorry that Kant did not spring up in Scotland, where his metaphysical studies wad hae been on friendly grund. But I'm quite sure, an he had visited Scotland, and come to Aberdeenshire, he wad hae fund a guid number o' his relations, that wad hae been very glad to see him, and never thought the less o' him for being merely a philosopher. Weel, we've got down a guid way noo, and the next man I find that ought by richts to hae been a Scotchman is that deil's bucky o' a poet, Lord Byron. I'm no saying that Lord Byron was a'thegither a respectable character, ye see; but there can be nae manner o' doot that he wrote grand poetry, and got a great name by it. Noo, Lord Byron was born in London-I'm no mother was a Scotch leddy, and she and her husband denyin' what Tammy Muir says on that score-but his settled in Scotland after their marriage, and of coorse their son wad hae been born there in due time, had it no been that the husband's debts obliged them to gang, first to France, and after that to London, where the leddy cam to hae her downlying, as has already been said. This, it plainly appears to me, was a great injustice to Scotland. My greatest grudge o' a' is regarding that bright genius for historical composition, Thomas Babington Macaulay, M.P. for Edinburgh. Aboot the year 1790, the minister o' the parish o' Cardross, in Dumbartonshire, was a Mr M'Aulay, a north-country man, it's said, and a man o' uncommon abilities. It was in his parish that that other bright genius, Tobias Smollett, was born, and, if a' bowls had rowed richt, sae should T. B. M. But it was otherwise ordeened. A son o' this minister having become preceptor to a Mr Babington, a young man o' fortune in England, it sae cam aboot that this youth and his preceptor's sister, wha was an extrornar bonny lass, drew up thegither, and were married. That led to ane o' the minister's sons going to England-namely, Mr Zachary, the father o' our member; and thus it was that we were cheated out o' the honour o' having T. B. as an out-and-out Scotsman, whilk it's evident he ought to hae been, sin' it's no natural to England to bring forth sic geniuses, weary fa' it, that I should say sae. I'm sure I wiss that the bonny lass had been far eneuch, afore she brought about this strange cantrip o' fortune, or that she had contented hersel' wi' an honest Greenock gentleman that wanted her, and wha, I've been tauld, de'ed no aboon three year syne. Naebody that kens me will ever suppose that I'm vain either aboot mysel' or my country. I wot weel, when we consider what frail miserable creatures we are, we hae little need for being proud o' onything. Yet, somehow, I aye like to hear the name o' puir auld Scotland brought aboon board, so that it is na for things even-down disrespectable. Some years ago, we used to hear a great deal aboot a light-headed jillet they ca' Lola Montes, that had become quite an important political character at the coort o' the king o' Bavaria. Noo, although I believe it's a fact that Lola's father was a Scotch officer o' the army, I set nae store by her ava-I turn the back o' my hand on a' sic cutties as her. Only, it is a fact that she comes o' huz-o' that there can be nae doot, be it creditable or no. Weel, ye see, there's another very distinguished leddy o' modern times, that's no to be spoken o' in the same breath wi' that Lady Lighthead. This is the new empress o' France. A fine-looking quean she is, I'm tauld. Weel, it's quite positive aboot her, that her mother was a Kirkpatrick, come o' the house o' Closeburn, in the same county that Ben Jonson's father cam frae. The Kirkpatricks have had land in Dumfriesshire since the days o' Bruce, whose friend ane o' them was, at the time when he killed the Red Cummin; but Closeburn has lang passed away frae them, and now belangs to Mr Baird, the great ironmaster o' the west o' Scotland. Howsomever, the folk thereaboots hae a queer story aboot a servant-lass that was in the house in the days o' the empress's greatgrandfather like. She married a man o' the name o' Paterson, and gaed to America, and her son cam to be a great merchant, and his daughter again becam Prince Jerome Bonaparte's wife; and sae it happens that a lady come frae the parlour o' Closeburn sits on the throne o' France, while a prince come frae the kitchen o' the same place is its heir-presumptive! I'm no sure that the hale o' this story is quite the thing; but I tell it as it was tauld to me. I'm no ane that taks up my head muckle wi' public singers, playactors, composers o' music, and folk o' that kind; but yet we a' ken that some o' them atteen to a great deal o' distinction, and are muckle ta'en out by the nobility and gentry. Weel, I'm tauld (for I ken naething about him mysel') that there was ane Donizetti, a great composer o' operas, no very lang sin-syne. Now, Donizetti, as we've been tauld i' the public papers, was the son o' a Scotchman. His father was a Highlandman called Donald Izett, wha left his native Perthshire as a soldier-maist likely the Duke o' Atholl pressed him into the service as ane o' his volunteers-and Donald, having quitted the army somewhere abroad, set up in some business, wi' Dox. IZETT over his door, whilk the senseless folk thereabouts soon transformed into Donizetti; and thus it cam aboot that his son, wha turned out a braw musician, bore this name frae first to last, and dootless left it to his posterity. I ken weel that Izett is a Perthshire name, and there was ane o' the clan some years sin' in business in the North Brig o' Edinburgh, and a rale guid honest man he was, I can tell ye, and a very sensible Ye'll see his head-stane ony day i' the Grayfriers. And this is guid evidence to me that Donizetti was, properly speaking, a Scotchman. It's a sair pity for himsel' that he wasna born, as he should hae been, on the braes o' Atholl, for then he wad nae doot hae learned the richt music, that is played there sae finely on the fiddle-namely, recls and strathspeys; and I dinna ken but, wi' proper instruction, he micht hae rivalled Neil Gow himsel'. man too. o' Great Britons are Englishmen, may enterteen some jealousy on the subjeck. If that be the case, the sooner that the Association for Redress o' Scottish Grievances taks up the question the better. LOCAL COLOURING. LOCAL COLOURING-couleur locale—is a modern expression signifying the accordance, or keeping, of the adjuncts in a work of art, whether literary or pictorial, with the principal figure or subject. To ancient novelists and dramatists, local colouring was unknown, chiefly because the limited intercourse between nations precluded an acquaintance with the habits of foreign countries; but still more because the idea of such a necessity had not dawned on the minds of men. Each nation, with that ridiculous pride and egotism some people consider patriotism, thought the world epitomised in itself; it imagined no difference under distance of either place or time. Thus Ariosto's knights in the rude era of Charlemagne have all the polish of the courtiers of the poet's own day, and he attributes smart and witty sayings to personages who lived long before wit could be said to be in fashion. His queen of Cathay, too, journeys about with a freedom unchecked by the habits of seclusion to which she, like her subjects, would in reality have been condemned, and walks with an utter disregard to the incapacity of feet that must have been swaddled and cramped from her babyhood. Shakspeare, who had less education than the more refined Italian, is more excusable in his defalcations; but they are, it must be confessed, plenty as blackberries,' as often as the scene lies in a foreign land. In As You Like It, we find the Forêt des Ardennes stocked with roaring lions, and Arcadian shepherds and shepherdesses. Although all the characters ought to have been French, Touchstone and Audrey are regular English villagers, and no explanation is given of the why and wherefore of such inconsistency. In Catherine and Petruchio, the housekeeper of this Italian couple is plain Mrs Curtis. Again, in Much Ado about Nothing, we have a regular English watchman and English magistrate in the heart of Italy-to say nothing of the lower characters refreshing themselves in an ale-house in a country where wine would be the only beverage. We have also jokes about a hot January, as a thing impossible in Southern Italy, where a cold January Ye've a' heard o' Jenny Lind, the Swedish nightingale, would be the greater wonder of the two; and a as they fulishly ca' her, as if there ever were ony nightin-February face,' probably meaning showery, in a climate gales in Sweden. She's a vera fine creature, this Jenny where even February is more kindly than April is with Lind, no greedy o' siller, as sae mony are, but aye us. Sir Toby Belch and Sir Andrew Aguecheek-in willing to exerceese her gift for the guid o' the sick and Twelfth Night-are two downright English worthies, the puir. She's, in fact, just sie a young woman as we although purporting to be citizens of Illyria. In Midmicht expeck Scotland to produce, if it ever produced summer Night's Dream, Theseus is Duke of Athens before public singers. Weel, Jenny, I'm tauld, is another o' dukes were known; still more inadmissible are the coats that great band o' distinguished persons that ought to of heraldry which Helena and Hermia have worked on hae been born in Scotland, for it's said her great- their sampler, and the pagan duke's expression of grandfather (I'm no preceese as to the generation) was becoming a nun, applied to Hermia's intention of turna Scotchman that gaed lang syne to spouss his fortune ing priestess of Diana. Again, in Measure for Measure, abroad, and chanced to settle in Sweden, where he had we find Italian names, although the scene is in Vienna. sons and daughters born to him. There's a gey wheen Wherefore these offences against taste?--Shakspeare Linds about Mid-Calder, honest farmer-folk, to this had never heard of local colouring. day; sae I'm thinkin' there's no muckle room for doot as to the fack. Noo, having shewn sic a lang list o' mischances as to the nativity o' Scotch folk o' eminence, I think ye'll alloo that we puir bodies in the north hae some occasion for complent. As we are a' in Providence's hand, we canna of coorse prevent some o' our best countrymen frae coming into the world in wrang places-sic as Sir Isaac Newton in Lincolnshire, whilk I think an uncommon pity-but what's to hinder sic persons frae being reputed and held as Scotchmen notwithstanding? I'm sure I ken o' nae objection, except it maybe that our friends i' the south, feeling what a sma' proportion In Comus, Milton mixes pagan divinities with the more modern mythology of elves and fairies; in Il Penseroso, heathen goddesses jostle Christian nuns; and the chorus in Samson Agonistes, in a passage justly ridiculed by Johnson, observes that 'evil news rides post,' thereby calling up a host of modern associations, that sadly impugn the great poet's accuracy on the score of local colouring. Addison and Johnson might have described their so-called Eastern fictions in the Spectator and the Rambler, as Gray did his Eastern eclogues when he called them his Irish eclogues. Racine, whose verses are both elegant and tender, has metamorphosed the ladies and gentlemen of Versailles merely by giving them Greek and Roman or Eastern names. You feel no classic atmosphere about his pieces. You might call his characters Messieurs and Mesdames, and they would be far better placed in a salon than in a Roman hall or Grecian city. Neither is his Turk Bajazet one whit more Turkish than Rasselas is Persian. He is merely Monsieur le Marquis of anything, rather embarrassed at carrying on an intrigue with two fair ones at the same time. Racine would have thought he overstepped the proprieties of etiquette, had he given anything like local colouring to his subjects. Voltaire, although so much in advance of his age, has sinned in exactly the same way in his Zaïre, when he makes an ignorant Eastern damsel, such as the charming Zaïre must, after all, have been, argue shrewdly on love and religion, and affirm that she would have been a Christian had she been born in Paris. Neither does he mend the matter in his tales, in most of which he peoples other countries with petits maîtres or beaux esprits of eminently French character, such as could not have existed in the remote times or places referred to. Perhaps, like the Athenians, who knew politeness, but did not practise it, Voltaire might have had an inkling of local colouring, only did not take the trouble to make use of it in days when it was 'caviare to the general.' Schiller, in his Turandot, has upset all our diligently acquired notions of the habits and manners prevailing in the Celestial Empire. Nevertheless, we forgive him in favour of the amusement the piece affords us; but Turandot is no Chinese, and never had her feet compressed into a shoe too small for a baby-of that we feel certain. We miss the local colouring of mandarins, pagodas, drums, lanterns, and all the paraphernalia we have a right to expect in the land belonging to the Brother of the Sun and Moon. Madame Cottin has charmed the youthful days of every one of us with her delightful Malek Adhel. Who has not wept over the fate of that most chivalrous of lovers, and sighed over poor Matilda's misfortunes? But if we open the book a few years later in life, certain misgivings step in to qualify our enjoyment of the book. We are fain to inquire in what language the lovers could address each other, as Matilda knew no Arabic, and Malek no English. Again, is not Malek Adhel himself, with his refined delicacy of sentiment combined with so ardent a passion, a strange anomaly in a country where women are held to be beings of an inferior order, and where a sultan's brother would have naturally thought of either buying Matilda or kidnapping her? Still pass we over this, as love may effect wonders in refining even an Eastern despot; but does not the whole mise en scène, even down to the dress of the Princess Matilda on the day of the ball, betray an utter recklessness of local colouring? Query, did the novice learn to dance in her convent? and how was Malek Adhel able to dance a pas de deux, in a country where royal personages dance only by proxy, thinking it too much trouble to do that which can be paid for? Madame de Staël has committed less excusable blunders in her Corinne, which belongs almost to our own times. The crowning of an improvisatrice at the Capitol is, to say the least of it, an anachronism. Her Italy is a fictitious one, for it lacks local colouring. As to the shortcomings and incorrectnesses on the subject of Italy, chargeable to Anne Ratcliffe and other novelists of the same period, they are too numerous to dwell on. They manufactured a theatrical Italy where every tenth man was a bravo, and every husband hornmad-although the apathy of Italian husbands with regard to the cavaliere servente shews that they carry philosophic indifference in this respect to its extremest limit. In like manner there is a conventional Spain, which the writers of comedy, not excepting Sheridan, have dressed up according to their fancy, where the young ladies are invariably watched over with a degree of strictness at utter variance with Spanish habits; the fact being, that in no country have young ladies so much liberty, being free to walk out, to flirt, to pick up acquaintances as they list, in a manner which would shock the sober ideas of English people. The so-called Spanish comedies have as little of the local colouring of real Spain, as the dress of the songstress who personates Rosina in Rossini's Barbiere generally bears to the genuine Spanish costume. Walter Scott was probably one of the first who introduced local colouring, and his example has been followed by many modern novelists. There is a colour of the times as well as a local colouring, and the learned Scotch novelist was indefatigable in his antiquarian researches, which impart a great value to his writings. Victor Hugo, in his Notre Dame, has shewn the same care in carrying us back to Paris in the olden time. Eugène Sue, too, has almost turned antiquary in his Mystères du Peuple, which, however inferior to his other works in point of misapplied genius, must be respected as a praiseworthy effort to give vitality to remote ages. But how is it that, in spite of these examples, we constantly stumble on the grossest sins against local colouring, committed mutually by the two countries nearest and best known to each other-namely, England and France? When a Frenchman lays the scene in the former, and an Englishman in the latter, it would seem each strove to prove that railways have effected nothing towards approximating the intellects of mankind, though they may have approximated countries. We remember reading, a very few years ago, a novel by a young lady, who places society in France before the great Revolution on exactly the same footing as it is in England at the present day. The heroine rides out daily, although, as an amusement for ladies, riding was scarcely known at that period; and has a lover in time when no high-born maid was suffered to see the husband chosen for her, till every arrangement was concluded by the parents. The fair writer had given French names to her characters, but forgotten that this would not transform them into French personages. But how much more glaring, because committed by a writer of considerable merit, are the grotesque blunders of Paul Féval, in the otherwise interesting and stirring pages of Le Fils du Diable. To say nothing of the absurdity of the three bankers who seek concealment in Germany and France in the year 1840, wearing scarlet mantles as a disguise in the teeth of fashion and paletôts-the author introduces us to a Magyar, who has become a London merchant, exercising his calling in the unromantic purlieus of St Paul's, and daily going to 'Change with pistols and dagger in his belt, greatly to the alarm of the peaceful denizens of Cheapside, and of his fellow-merchants, who, of course, forget that they can apply to the first policeman to rid them of his threats and bravadoes. This same inerchant-Magyar lives in a house of Oriental splendour, with an endless suite of gorgeous rooms fitted up in the Levantine style-and what think you, gentle reader, is the locality of this sumptuous habitation? Belgravia-or May Fair? No such thing-but plain Paul's Chain, where this magnificent establishment is connected with his counting-house, and apparently all upon the groundfloor. Paul Féval lacks the organ, if there be one, of local colouring; but the mere general data to be gathered from a journey to London by the excursion train, would have prevented his falling into such egregious absurdities, and we wonder it did not occur to him. Even Eugène Sue, whom we have praised for the pains he took in reproducing a faithful picture of society as it lived, thought, and acted hundreds of years back, has shewn the same slipshod indifference |