two falling head over heels, and breaking his bottle of "stink-water" to pieces. to pieces. When the Colonel walked through the streets on the week-day no drunken New Zealander could be detected. When he watched the natives on the day they received their week's pay, he saw the Maori workmen spending their wages in objects of utility, but not a farthing in drink. The New Zealander, in fact, understands both how to spend money and how to make it. His connexion with the English has informed him of the fact, of which he was before quite ignorant, that the Maori is a born trader. The love of traffic and the desire of gain recently evinced by the natives will certainly do more to reconcile them to British rule than any amount of official government, or of petty but destructive warfare. The "spirit of the till," writes the Colonel, "is rapidly infusing itself into the native character and dealings," and men whose fathers formerly pursued white men for the sole object of eating and enjoying what they gravely called "long pig," are mainly solicitous now to meet the two-legged porkers in question in the capacity of rival hucksterers and dealers. The Hon. Arthur Petre, in his travels through New Zealand, encountered a New Zealander who would have found himself no stranger in Manchester or Sheffield. He charged the hon. gentleman 17. for ferrying him across. a river; and he replied to remonstrance with an indisputable argument-"I go to Arekana (Auckland)," said he; "I see blankets and tomahawks in the shops; do the shopmen give them to me without purchase? I see the dealings of the Pakehas among themselves are there any gifts? No; all is buying and selling." THE GOLD DISCOVERY. 189 Colonel Mundy, who, as we have said, was in Australia when the gold discovery was made, who witnessed the very first flash of the storm, who noted the various and wondrous effects of the gold news as it reached the ears of the pastoral and trading people, who himself went “off to the diggings" and beheld with his own eyes an individual who had struck from the rock a lump that realized upwards of 4,0007., as well as other less fortunate individuals, who went empty to the diggings and came empty away, and to whom the pathetic inquiry of "Have you sold your cradle ?" was affectionately addressed again and again, on their melancholy homeward journey,-Colonel Mundy, we say, corroborates all the accounts that have appeared in this journal of the exhaustless yield, and the extraordinary changes which the discovery is daily working in the minds and habits of the population. But, abundant as the supply of the precious metal has proved within the last few months, he regards the accumulations as the mere droppings from hills and mountains which have yet to be tapped for the bulk of their produce. The Australian gold-seeker, according to this authority, is yet on the threshold of his trade, gathering crumbs and mere wastings washed down by the thunderstorms of ages. In a very short time machinery and science will enable him to pierce the crust of the auriferous sierras, and then gold will be raised like iron or copper, with an inexhaustible yield, so long as the demand remains. But the cry is still for men! that the mother-country will now, ness, respond to the summons? And who doubts but with maternal eagerWhat happens when poor relations, whom we have deliberately neglected and disowned all our lives, suddenly and unexpectedly tumble into wealth? How beautifully interest unfolds in favour of our charming cousins! How sensible we become of the sacred ties of blood and nature! Don't we ask them to dinner? Don't we introduce them to our best acquaintance? Don't we condescend to lie down and bask in the sunshine of their good fortune, and magnanimously permit them to extend to us the favours which we invariably refused to them? "A scientific gentleman, long resident in the colony, has boldly declared that the gold-field of Australia extends over an area of 14,000 square miles." When we add that California is quite as many miles behind South Australia in the conditions of climate, comfort, accessibility, steady government, and social order, need we fear that England will any longer deny to her "dear, dear relative," at the antipodes, the labour for which she has been screaming in vain these many years, and the steam communication for want of which she has been hindered at every step of her vigorous career? When Australia had only sheep at 2d. a-pound to offer the emigrant, the meat was hung out in vain. The fleece has proved to be golden; the sheep are not mere mutton, but the living originals of the fictitious animals. that dangle occasionally over our hosiers' shops. Australia may, therefore, cease to scream. Nature has already responded to her cries. She shall have her harbours filled with British steamers,-that she shall, and more hands to help her in her search for gold than she ever dreamt of asking in her most agonizing times of need. 1852. LORD HOLLAND AND HIS REMINISCENCES. 191 LORD HOLLAND AND HIS FOREIGN We obtained the exact measure of Lord Holland when Mr. Macaulay, in his short essay upon this nobleman's Opinions, published in the Edinburgh Review, in 1841, preferred the description of Holland-house and its gossipping circle, to any elaborate analysis of Lord Holland's intellectual achievements. To appreciate the master of Holland-house, it was necessary, we were informed, to enter "that venerable chamber in which all the antique gravity of a college library was so singularly blended with all that female grace and wit could devise to embellish a drawing-room," and to listen with rapt and enchanted ear, now to a discussion upon the last debate, now to comments upon the last new comedy; here to the quiet criticisms of Wilkie, there to the animated and brilliant descriptions of Talleyrand, and finally, and above all, to "that constant flow of conversation-that wit which never gave a wound, that exquisite mimicry which ennobled instead of degrading," that manly, chivalrous, and perfect bearing, all so characteristic of the "frank and benignant" host himself. Lord Holland, in fact, was the axis upon which the small privileged world of intellect revolved, not the bright centre from which its greatness radiated. The posthumous work of Lord Holland elicits, possibly from the same eloquent pen, the same equivocal panegyric. Today, as ten years ago, the friends of the noble author seek refuge from irksome criticism in "that gallery, in which the luxuries of modern refinement were united with the picturesque architecture of past times," and strive to forget the literary offences of a writer in calling to mind the unmatched resources and splendid hospitality of a departed ally. The public have not this great advantage. They have not cherished recollections to console them for present disappointment; nor can they make good the deficiencies of a book by pensively dwelling upon social enjoyments in which they were never invited to participate. The Foreign Reminiscences of Lord Holland are to them the recorded and published views of a nobleman of mark; and Holland-house can no more interfere to disturb their judgment in the matter, than Pope's villa at Twickenham, or Dr. Johnson's happy sanctuary on Streatham-common. We regret to say, in the name of the public, that the good service which Hollandhouse cannot extend to the volume before us, the volume fails to perform for itself. Had these Reminiscences been offered as the sweepings of the humblest corner of that far-famed gallery— a corner into which the attachés of second-rate ministers at second-rate courts may have crept, quite out of the atmosphere of wit and brilliant repartée, to enjoy their own peculiar drivel-we should have taken no pains to disturb or sift the worthless heap. The posthumous writings of Lord Holland, however, are not to be so superciliously neglected. The nephew of Charles James Fox had rare opportunities for inquiring into the |