'his listlessness reaches even to his two pet pursuits, negroes and partridges'-(it would have sounded better and been more true to say partridges and planters): but he assumed for the motto to his knightly escutcheon the last five syllables of the text, Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might;' and we hope the title gratified himself, besides flattering (which was of course the object) his anti-pomp-and-vanity associates. He soon recovered his sporting ardour-for one of the next letters is chiefly on the merits of a new shooting pony, by name Abraham, who is fond of porter, and prefers ours.' He spent the winter of 1840-1 at Rome and Naples, and his journal is largely diversified with anecdotes of boar-hunting-which he confesses rather put him out of conceit with the tamer diversions of Norfolk. He also, however, gave attention to the Prisons of both states; nor was he without curiosity for their antiquities, though he seems to have had little or none for their picturegalleries. His sketch of Pompeii is readable even after Lord Dudley's. On his return in autumn, he went to see a daughter married in Scotland, and then visited several renowned preserves in the Highlands among others Lord Breadalbane's at the Black Mount where he made his debût as a deerstalker. He felt anxious to make an appropriate return; and a cousin of his being then in Norway, requested him to collect a flock of capercailzies. This was set about by a new movement of the religious public'— namely, by getting a score of the mountain clergy to offer rewards for so many cocks and hens from the pulpit after sermon. However, cocks and hens were procured-Sir Fowell's gamekeeper went to Norway, and thence carried them in safety to Taymouth-and thus we owe to the new brewing baronet the restoration of the feathered giant of the Grampian forests. The birds have so multiplied that they are again game, and Sir Fowell's son was complimented with being invited to shoot the first capercailzie when her Majesty honoured the Marquis with a visit two or three years ago. But now came heavy tidings. Let the affectionate biographer speak : It may well be conceived with what anguish Sir Fowell Buxton received the melancholy tidings of the Niger Expedition. His health, which had been undermined before, became gradually more feeble, and he could no longer bear any sustained mental exertion, especially if attended by any sense of responsibility. To a man, the law of whose nature it was to be at work with head, hand, and heart, it was no slight trial to be thus prematurely laid aside. He was only fifty-five years of age, but already the evening was come of his day of ceaseless toil, nor was its close brightened by the beams of success and joy. When unconscious M 2 unconscious that he was observed, he would at times utter such groans as if his heart were sinking beneath its load. But his grief was not of that kind described by South, which "runs out in voice." He rarely spoke of the Expedition-to Captain Bird Allen's death he could scarcely allude at all; but his grave demeanour, his worn, pale face, the abstraction of his manner, and the intense fervour of his supplications that God would "pity poor Africa"-these showed too well the poignancy of his feelings.'-p. 553. Sir Fowell survived for three years after this-but they were melancholy years: his energies dwindled-he could hardly sit Abraham long enough to fill a very modest bag-and though while he was at all able to leave home he was very ready to attend any meetings connected with the African cause, and as his son says, while candidly admitting the ruin of his own scheme, cherished hopes that the same great end might be accomplished in some other and better way' (p. 553)—we do not suppose that any readers of the book, or even of our imperfect summary, will doubt that the blow of that grand disappointment was more than he could bear. Nor will many of them confound his case with that of a mere politician whose calculations and predictions have been put to the test and failed. We quoted, several pages back, in reference to a different subject, some paragraphs from his diary, in which he records the minuteness of his prayers, and the assurance he felt that, with rare exceptions, his petitions had been answered with favour. He says that he offered up his prayers for everything that concerned him' (p. 197); and-whether or not he had his private Collects for the 12th of August, the 1st of October, &c.-there can be no doubt that he includes the least of African incidents among the things that concerned him.'-Moreover he was not free from a superstition that had, we thought, died out long before his day: he evidently made a practice of opening his Bible, in moments of emergence and anxiety, on the principle of the Sortes Virgiliana. What then must have been his misgivings when the crushing catastrophe came? But we have no desire to dwell on matters of this sort. Indeed we do not think his character, however salient some of its inconsistencies, is one on the whole difficult to be understood. It was very right that his Biography should be written and since his friends are subscribing for a statue in Westminster Abbey, we have only to hope that they may select a sculptor capable of doing justice to all his 'pet pursuits' in the relievos of the pedestal—and that the monument may be visible before our Colonial Empire has disappeared. ART. ART. VI.-1. Voyage en Icarie. Par M. Cabet. Paris, 1848. 2. Organisation du Travail. Par M. Louis Blanc. 1847. 3. Organisation du Crédit et de la Circulation, et Solution du Problème Social. Par P. J. Proudhon. Paris, 1848. 4. Letters to the Mob. London, 1848. IT T was with some scientific curiosity, even in the midst of our alarms, that we looked to the progress of this new revolution in France for a practical solution of various questions which had before been only written and talked about. The Provisional Government seemed disposed, like Mr. Ryan at the Polytechnic Institution, to exhibit a series of experiments to an admiring audience, while civilized Europe was admitted into the galleries to look on and be instructed. Nor were we disappointed. The superior economy of a mob-appointed government, the security of property not only for the rich, but even for the savings of the poor, the inviolability of the magistracy, nay of justice itself, under mob-rule-these and many other experiments of a like nature were oculis subjecta fidelibus with a rapidity and a completeness that outdid Mr. Ryan. Still there was one class belonging more particularly to the domain of political economy, which, while promising wonders, had not yet been fairly tested in performance-we allude to the questions connected with the mutual dependence of labour and capital. On such deep and serious problems we could never have anticipated express-train velocity; and as to them accordingly we for some time awaited the consummating enlightenment with much the same sort of patience which distinguished the crowds assembled at Brighton for the grand hour of Mr. Warner's destructive and exploding mysteries. Everything encouraged us. Louis Blanc was established at the Luxembourg; Cabet in correspondence with Lamartine-his 'Voyage en Icarie' running through innumerable editions; while the Parisian public showed a marked preference for Blanqui in 'le Club Central' over Lafont at the Variétés. All went on swimmingly till the famous 15th of May. What could we have desired better than a Provisional Government which represented all the various dogmas of the day-each of these opposed to every other? Blanqui, who supports Cabet and Communism, took the lead; then followed Proudhon, the inventor of banks without capital, who describes the ideas of his Communist colleague as 'l'absurde système de l'identité absolue, c'est-à-dire, du néant absolu: ce n'est rien de moins que le mouvement et la vie qu'on veut retrancher du corps social,' (Organisation du Crédit, p. 4.) Next came Louis Blanc, the ex-director 6 ex-director of national workshops, the patron of the idle and incompetent workman, the advocate for equality of remuneration-with certain exceptions of which he made himself the firstLouis Blanc, of whose panacea it is said by the same weighty Proudhon, quand vous parlez d'organiser le travail, c'est comme si vous proposiez de crever les yeux à la liberté.' (Ibid., p. 3.) Lastly, there was Barbès, who takes a still shorter cut to Communism by means of an immediate appropriation of forty millions sterling from the rich. We rubbed our hands in expectation! We hoped to see a section of France devoted to each theory. In one corner, Phalansterians with their equilateral portions of unappropriated soil; in another, Icarian towns traversed by gratuitous vehicles, and furnishing to each citizen, as a right, daily dinners worthy of our own Reform Club and M. Soyer; in a third, work parcelled out, not according to the wants and capacities of individuals which can be ascertained and measured by vulgar rules, but the general interests of society,' which would require higher expounding-while the rich of yesterday should to-day choose between the forced loans of Barbès, the billets de Banque d'Echange of Proudhon, or the more genial and generous expedients of Cabet. One short hour and all was over. Blanqui -Barbès-Louis Blanc-where are they all? And what remains for us but to extract what substitute we can for the expected 'wisdom teaching by facts' from the imaginative masterpiece of the most eloquent of Communists? M. Cabet's Voyage en Icarie,' though connected most essentially with this new revolution in France, is not one of the thousand brochures called forth by the excitement of the moment, but a solemn philosophical romance of some 600 pages, to which the author, turning aside from his historical performances, devoted two years of intense thought and labour. It has already gone through five editions-there is not a shop or stall in Paris where copies are not in readiness for a constant influx of purchasers-hardly a drawing-room table on which it is not to be seen; and if it has not equally attracted the attention of all the wise of all countries, the fact can only furnish another proof of the general indisposition of mankind 'To suck the sweets of sweet philosophy.' Citizen Cabet candidly confesses his obligations to Sir Thomas More for the conception. Once started, however, we must confess he far surpasses his original. Utopia was intended to show en grand what old Sir Thomas rather wished than hoped ;' but Icaria is the minutely detailed picture of a state of perfect happiness of which nothing can prevent the realization except the the preposterous folly of not adopting a few simple alterations in policy suggested by Citizen Cabet. On reflection, we think it due to him to exhibit his title-page in full : AU BUREAU DU POPULAIRE, RUE JEAN-JACQUES-ROUSSEAU, 18. 1848 Our author has been most unjustly accused and maligned. He is no self-seeking plunderer of the rich. He clearly sees, and manfully |