of very strong beer, eked out with a fair allowance of claret, and wind up with five or six glasses of light but spirited champagne, taken with her dessert. The only effect it seemed to produce upon her was visible in the diminished languor of her manner, and the increased brilliancy of her eyes. I hoped at first that she was an exception; but I was very soon convinced that she but exemplified the general rule. It is in this manner that the majority of English ladies combat the lassitude of mind and body induced by the climate; but the time soon comes when such a regimen as this destroys their health. They are then compelled to leave their husbands, and return with their children to Europe. But the fatal habit is contracted; the voyage home only tends to strengthen it. As time advances, it becomes more deeply rooted; and too often the brandy bottle is the miserable finale of the sweet creatures, who left their mother's arms and their father's roof all bright in purity and beauty. This picture is of course represented as ludicrously absurd. The count's mistake, we are told, arises from the custom, still extant in India, of asking people to take wine. The glass of the lady of the house may thus be in part replenished a dozen times, but it would be monstrous to assert that she drinks a dozen glasses of wine. He might have added, that returned Indian ladies are not more famous for brandy-drinking than other ladies in England. Let us note also, that, for the sake of the climax, the poor, plain, and ungenteel adventuress is now supposed to have been the pure and beautiful darling of a tender home.

We have now done with Count de Warren, and shall give the reviewer's opinion of married life in India:'We do not hesitate to express an opinion to the effect, that in no community with whose social characteristics we are acquainted, is there more married happiness than among the English in the East. . . . There are many circumstances peculiar to India favourable to the development of married happiness; none which are unfavourable to it, in the aspects represented by our author. Husbands and wives are more dependent on each other in this country than at home. Necessitated during the greater part of the day to remain within doors, the married officer seldom fails to derive comfort and consolation from the companionship of his wife; he has a betterordered house, a better-regulated establishment; and what a difference when sickness is there! There is no place in the world where a man stands more in need of such companionship; and if imprudent marriages are sometimes perpetrated, there is everything to excuse them. In a worldly sense, doubtless poverty is a great evil; domestic privations, whether in one hemisphere or another, are not very pleasant to bear; but in India, poverty has rarely that very humiliating aspect which it so frequently wears at home. Poverty, we repeat, does not rub against us so painfully as it does in England; it is not so palpable-its evils are not so omnipresent. Neither the physical nor the moral evils are so keenly felt, for there is no want; and where debt has not come to humble us, there is no degradation. Look at the struggles of poor people in England! We do not speak of poor people, but of poor rich people. How painful their efforts to appear respectable-to conceal the deprivations which they endure! Poverty in this country is not an unforgiveable offence. Here a man may have a very small income, and a very large circle of friends. At home, this phenomenon may sometimes be seen in the person of a clever and agreeable bachelor. But let him marry, and the scene is changed. Here poor married people are not, as such, cut off from society; they are not regarded as people to be avoided; they are not taught by their richer neighbours to feel what it is to be poor. Neither is the name of poverty inseparably associated with ideas of maids-of-all-work, hashed mutton, soap-suds, and tallow-candle-ends.'

Being able to sift the evidence on both sides, with the assistance of more than one score of conflicting witnesses, we are of opinion that Count de Warren's pictures are grossly and ridiculously overcharged, and also that

the reviewer paints a little too much en beau. A mighty improvement has taken place of late years in AngloIndian society; but there still remains much to be done. Society in India is composed, almost exclusively, of reasonably well-educated people; and much more may justly be expected of them than if they were intermixed, as in this country, with the ignorant. But they have still a great deal of trash and frippery to get rid of. The enervating influence of the climate can be no excuse for these in social life, for, as regards serious duties, no country under heaven produces more brilliant examples both of physical and intellectual energy. Nay, even the Calcutta belle, who passes a great part of the day annihilated' by the heat, rushes into the dance in the evening with an enthusiasm and perseverance unequalled at Almacks. The import trade in books, however, languishes. We believe we are correct in stating that, notwithstanding the movement in the population, not the slightest improvement has taken place for many years; whereas the import trade in millinery continues to make a steady and triumphant progress! These are awkward signs of the times-and we venture to suggest that they would afford a good subject for the earnest and able pen of the reviewer.

JAMES CROWTHER, THE NATURALIST. IT is somewhat remarkable that there has long been at Manchester a set of men in humble life who devote their leisure time chiefly to the study of natural history. The newspapers lately gave an account of a member of this corps, which has struck our minds not merely as a curious and interesting piece of biography, but as something singularly affecting. James Crowther, though known in the scientific world for his having discovered many British plants in situations where they were not previously suspected, was never in any superior position in life to that of a warehouse porter. He died in January of the present year, at the age of seventy-eight, in obscure and necessitous circumstances even, we regret to think, under a certain degree of privation; that is to say, while not without the common necessaries of life, he entirely wanted those comforts which his age and ailments demanded. Yet this seems to have been rather owing to his own modesty, in not making his wants known, than to any indifference on the part of his neighbours, and those who knew his acquirements as a naturalist. Still, it is sad to think that this worthy old man had only a pension of three shillings a-week to depend upon-the bounty of a Society for the Relief and Encouragement of Scientific Men in Humble Life-and that one of the seven sovereigns which were subscribed for his funeral and the erection of a little stone over his grave, would have been felt by him as a blessing at any time during the few weeks preceding his decease.

Crowther was a native of Manchester, and from nine years of age, when he became a draw-boy, he formed a unit among the toiling thousands of that seat of industry. He had previously attended various schools, and thus entered life as a man not wholly illiterate. From his earliest years, he delighted to examine every natural object which came in his way, and plants, above all things, attracted him. He soon came into connexion with the group of working-men who then associated in Manchester for the cultivation of botany. It was not uncommon for forty such persons to meet together weekly in the spring and summer seasons, in order to show to each other the rare plants they had collected, and discuss their characters. To pursue the account of Crowther, read some years ago before the society which latterly contributed to his support- Often after he had finished his day's work, he would set off and walk fifteen or twenty miles out of town, to collect a plant he had been informed of. He generally managed to reach the place of his destination at dawn of day, before any of the people were stirring, and thus escaped being taken up as a thief or a poacher, and was able to return to

at the end of this long rod were two hooks, one sharpened at the inner edge, in the form of a sickle, with which he cut off plants growing far in the water, and with the other hook, which was not sharpened, he angled the plants to the bank. Once while thus engaged in a mere, or piece of water, on the estate of Mr Egerton, two gamekeepers came up and seized him; and notwithstanding all his protestations to the contrary, and his assurances that he was not fishing for fish, but for plants, took him before Mr Egerton on a charge of poaching, Mr Egerton interrogated him, and Crowther told him what his pursuit really was, and exhibited his tackle and hooks, which it was at once seen were not very well adapted for angling for carp, perch, or trout; and the result was, that Mr Egerton directed that he should be immediately liberated, saying to the keepers, "Let him go wherever he has a mind in future, and do not molest him any more." 'Another of Crowther's perils was from a savage bull. It was his habit, in the Whitsuntide week, when the annual races gave a general holiday to the workpeople of the town and neighbourhood, to make a pedestrian botanical excursion to Craven, Yorkshire; and he visited that neighbourhood several years at that period. On one occasion, while botanising there, he found a bull coming directly towards him, with most unequivocal symptoms of intending mischief. The hilly fields in that neighbourhood are all divided by stone fences, some of these being walls of considerable height. He succeeded in reaching and climbing one of these high walls before the bull reached the spot. There stood the savage animal just below him, bellowing, lashing his tail, and exhibiting every mark of fury. Crowther, as he sat on the coping of the wall, just out of reach of the bull, thought, if he could detach a large stone from it, he might give the animal a temporary quietus. He succeeded in loosening a large and heavy stone, and poising it with both hands, he launched it with all his force at the bull's head, and with such effect, that the animal dropped on the ground as if killed. Crowther stayed not to see the issue of his adventure, but ran off on the other side of the wall. When telling this adventure, he invariably expressed his belief that he had really killed the bull.'

Our humble botanist seems to have been at all times a sober and well-behaved man. In the various notices respecting him, we hear of no blame whatever attending his modest but persevering love of natural history. He seems to have borne the penury of his latter years with the most perfect resignation, as befitted the pure and unsophisticated lover of nature. His last wish was, that he might be laid in St George's burial-ground at Hulme, next the remains of his old friend Hobson, with whom, when alive, he had passed his happiest hours. It was a 'last wish' worthy of the simple and amiable character of the man, and of course it was fulfilled.

Amongst the various means of superseding mean with worthy and innocent indulgences, we are surprised that natural history has met with so little attention. As a source of gratification and amusement, taking it in its lowest aspect, we know nothing so exempt from all corrupting tendency. It seems to have the irresistible effect of abstracting the mind from all that is gross and sordid. The first simplicity is sustained by nothing so well as by natural history. Perhaps we should not be saying too much if we said that the elements of a beautiful religion lay in this study, when its study is set about in a right manner. Why, then, are not our youth more generally initiated in natural history as a branch of education? In no rank would it fail to work to good ends. The poorest class of workmen would possess 'riches fineless,' in a taste like that of Crowther and Hobson. The common soldier, if acquainted in even a small measure with botany or entomology, would have at command a means of enjoyment which would make the dreariest of home or foreign stations to him a paradise. And the researches of such persons, both at home and abroad, would, we cannot doubt, help much

to advance science itself. Nor should we overlook the important effects of such studies in bringing men of different classes together on a footing of equality, which must tend to make the social machine the firmer in its joinings. On the other hand, what a redemption is furnished by natural history for the young man of fortune! Those energies, those precious possessions, which are too often squandered on the turf, or dissipated in tiresome idleness, how might they be converted to noble uses, if our youth of the higher classes were inspired with a love of natural history! On this subject we shall relate an illustrative anecdote, which may form an appropriate conclusion to the present paper. An ingenious naturalist was lecturing a few years ago at a watering-place on certain curious preparations of the lower marine animals, which he had spent years in elaborating. Amongst the audience was a peer, who had spent a brilliant fortune in the follies which beset his class, and was now in much reduced circumstances, but who had naturally some good dispositions. This gentleman listened to the lecture with the keenest interest, and after its conclusion, lingered behind to examine the specimens, and converse with the lecturer. 'Oh God!' he at last exclaimed, had I but been taught a little of this science in my early days, from what it might have saved me!'

In all ages of the world, and almost everywhere in the world, there have been social meetings for the purpose of eating and drinking. These are the grand staples of mutual entertainment, pitched upon by the general instinct of mankind, and the exceptions are so few, as to prove the rule. We live, however, in an age that has very little respect for customs, merely because they are old; and perhaps the fulness of time has come when it will not be thought downright impiety to inquire whether there is any extraordinary merit in a social dinner? Eating and drinking are mere animal necessities, which can hardly be supposed to require encouragement; and if it is not for the purpose of encouragement, surely it is a little absurd to invest them with so much state and dignity. Why choose this instinct for patronage in preference to any of the rest? Why elevate hunger into a virtue? We really cannot tell. All we know is, that mankind in all ages have had a pleasure in eating and drinking together. The practice infers hospitable and social feelings: there is friendship, it is said, even in the interchange of a pinch of snuff! Social meetings being universally acknowledged to be one of the good old ways of securing a little happiness, it strikes us that it is of importance to do the thing well. Some people perhaps imagine that money is the great moving power in social intercourse. Nobody of course can eat and drink without having a purse of some kind to draw on; but money, after all, is only a subordinate in the affair-there must be something else; and it is for want of consideration on this point that social dinners, so called, are often so terribly dull. What, too often, is a modern dinner? Some dozen or so of ladies and gentlemen meet in a drawing-room, all nicely dressed, all desperately dull, few perhaps acquainted with each other, none knowing exactly what to say, or caring to say it if he did, and everybody wondering when that horrible quarter of an hour is to end. At length the welcome announcement is heard. The party move off in pairs, and down stairs they trip, with the decorum of the company entering the ark, each male and female after its kind.'

'Is this a dinner? this a genial room?

No: 'tis a temple and a hecatomb!' The more quiet people have dined hours ago, for it is now far on in the evening; but they look at their neighbours satisfying their hunger, and amuse themselves with the brilliance of the equipage and the flavour of the wines. As for the conversation, there is no such thing-and there can be none. The host has pro

vided food and drink in every imaginable varietyporcelain, crystal, silver, till the eyes ache with splendour; but as for conversation-as for the means of passing the time otherwise than in the exercise of the animal instincts-it has not entered his thoughts. The very highest point to which his intelligence has soared in the selection of the company, is with reference to the balance of the sexes. Beyond this, he cares nothing about the matter. His dinner, according to rule made and provided, is to be a mere feast of the senses, intended for the gratification of the lower instincts of his guests. There, then, lies the error. A dinner, to be worth anything, must not only be a good dinner in the usual sense of the word-it must be enjoyed by a properly-assorted company; a happy party, each contributing his share of conversation and pleasantry to the feast. As all this seems unrealisable, we very nearly bring ourselves to the fancy that dinners will not long be able to keep their ground. If not revolutionised, the system must inevitably disappear.

So also must there be a power of amusing to some distinct purpose in all other kinds of social meetings. In private evening entertainments, the French have always beat the English. What interesting accounts could be given of the literary soirées of the seventeenth century in Paris! Among other places attractive for their intellectual brilliancy, was the residence of the beautiful and eccentric Marchioness Rombouillet. The interior of her hotel was of her own design; and with the fearlessness of genius, she even painted the walls of another colour than the red and tawny to which Paris was before restricted, calling one of her rooms the Blue Chamber. It was in this room, which was furnished in blue velvet, embroidered with gold and silver, that she received her visitors; and it set the example of a light and elegant fashion, which subsequently became popular both in France and England-its windows sweeping down without interruption from the ceiling to the floor, and thus affording free entrance to the air, and a complete view of the garden without. Hither crowded, for nearly half a century, the most distinguished authors of the day, and here they were met, on common ground, by the aristocracy of rank. Admission to this enchanted circle fixed a man's position in society. The reunions at the house of Paul Scarron, the buffoon writer-deformed, gouty, and poor-comprised most of the first wits, male and female, of the time. There Lafontaine recited his fables, Matta told his stories, and Ninon sang her songs. And so on with many other evening meetings, to which the charms of literature lent their attractions. In the present day, though under a different style of manners, the evening parties in the French capital are conducted on a principle of rational intercourse, without either the formalities or the expense which, oppress London entertainments. What we would wish to see is a little more intellectuality in our reunions; a little more ease, love, and kindness, would likewise be an improvement. The following seems to be a pretty common receipt for making up evening parties:

Take a certain number of ladies, and scatter them about one end of the room on chairs, two or three feet apart, each lady overflowing her chair with her ample drapery. Send in among them a forlorn-hope of white cravats, the main body of which remains at the other end of the room. Let a buzz of conversation arise from committees of rarely more than two, and never more than three in number; while many of the guests-perhaps the majority-show their talent for silence by holding their tongues. Set a young lady down to the piano, and there let her murder an Italian song, while she might have imparted some pleasure by giving a native melody. Let the servants glide through the assembly from time to time with coffee, and after the ennui has become insupportable, let everybody go away. Sometimes literary people, or those who affect to be such, form an element in these meetings; but somehow, even with their aid, the affair is triste. Men of

any note do not like to be invited on the principle of being shown off, and therefore, possibly, they revenge themselves by being nobody.

Perhaps the best London parties of late years were those of Dr Kitchener, where there was not only excellent company, but excellent amusement. Usually, first-rate vocalists were frequently present; there was always the telescope in the observatory, and sometimes the moon out of doors to be looked at; and at the end there was a repast, curious from its gastronomical treasures. But the doctor himself was the great curiosity of the evening-the spectacle, as it were, on which the attention of the company was fixed-a marvel to his guests in astronomy, gastronomy, physic, music, and optics. One grand regulation of these parties was, that no one was allowed to stay beyond a certain houreleven o'clock.

We remember some parties at John Martin's the painter, which were tolerably pleasant, apparently because they were small, and almost all the company well acquainted with each other. But when our host accidentally picked up a superb Venus at an old-furniture shop, and placed her behind a curtain in one of the rooms, it is surprising what a fillip this gave to the enjoyment of the evening. It was an object for all the company to look at and think of; it was an object of social attraction, which directed the current of conversation; and it set afloat more poetical ideas, and elicited more striking criticisms in art, than we had ever met with before at an evening party, or ever met with again.

From these illustrations, it may be observed that givers of parties should aim at something more than the mere trifling away of time, or the overpowering of the senses with splendour. We confess the difficulty of the subject, the more especially as all are not favourably situated for following out enlarged notions of social intercourse. Fashion, that terrible bugbear, must also be overcome. We are not without the impression that, if evening parties were well organised, they would go far towards putting down dinners, which, with all that can be said for them, are a sort of ancestral absurdity-an excrescence clinging to the civilisation of the age. And in putting down dinners, they would add to the general amount of sociality. Dinners, as usually conducted, are not only strictly unsocial themselves, but the cause of unsociableness in other things. In spite of their rich meats and luscious wines, they give a dry and hard tone to society. The display, which is their being, extends throughout all the relations of life. If dinners were at an end-if we broke ourselves of the habit of looking to them as the grand resource, we should by and by get the length even of visiting, in a friendly way, at each others' houses, like fellow-denizens of the earth, brethren and sisters of humanity, without an invitation at all!

AN ADVENTURE IN HUNGARY.
FROM THE GERMAN.

ON the third day after his departure from Vienna, a horse-dealer alighted at an inn situated at the entrance of a little town, which, to all appearance, was respectable and quiet. He recommended his horse to the care of the landlord, dried his clothes at the fire, and as soon as supper was ready, sat down to table with the host and his family, who appeared to be decent people.

During supper, the traveller was asked where he came from, and on his answering from Vienna, they were all anxious to hear some news of the capital. The horsedealer told them all he knew. The landlord then asked him what business had taken him to Vienna, to which the latter replied that he had been there to sell some of the very finest horses that had ever appeared in the market there. At these words the landlord looked very significantly at a young man who sat opposite to him, and who appeared to be his son. His expressive glance did not escape the observation of the traveller, who, however, took no notice of it; yet he very soon after