V.

LIONS.

IT is a necessity of human civilization that the floating capital of inquisitiveness, public spirit, and gossip, should be provided with a nucleus. The social, like the individual heart, requires an object. The magnetism not exhausted by private demand, is caught up by the common interest of the hour. In the intervals of personal occupation, the restless mind seeks a popular theme, and delights to expatiate in the vast world of opinion and sympathy. In the social economy this demand is essential also to financial success; the caterers to the appetite for excitement need a subject as much as the anatomist, either to dissect or to embalm. How could the trade of playwrights, caricaturists, and editors, flourish without lions? The amphitheatres of Rome, in the palmiest of her circus days, were not more impera tive in their requisition. The eagerness of the crowds round a shop-window, the absorption of the news

paper-reader, the hushed attention of the pit, and the vociferous disputations heard in rail cars and coffee-rooms, are but the daily proofs of the need of a lion to give zest and impulse to civic life; and I know of no method which affords a more direct and reliable insight of national character than the analysis of this phenomenon; for its development varies according to latitude. In Paris, the accidental prism made by the crack of a shop-window, the striking resemblance of an actor to Bonaparte, or some other fanciful object, answers for the ninedays' wonder of an easily-amused capital; in America, a personage who furnishes occasion for a grand dinner or military parade, and can be brought into relation to the idea of progress and republicanism, is most available; while, in England, the organs of combativeness and self-esteem, which predominate in John Bull, must be excited in order to realize a genuine lion. During my visit, there were two lions—one an imaginary character, and the other a dead hero-Uncle Tom, and the Iron Duke; and nothing could be more characteristic than the philosophy of their advent.

Perhaps it is the hunting propensity, so largely developed in the English character, which leads them to run their lions to death; in other words, to multiply the forms of the same idea, and reassert the same dogma, until, by a natural reaction, they are consigned to total oblivion, or reduced to a vul

gar standard. Few of the minor inflictions are more irritating to a sensitive mind than this unceasing repetition. The senses fairly ache with the monotonous refrain. It is like the infernal punishment of the tyrant who destroyed his victim by single drops of water falling on his head at regular intervals. In vain we try to escape; whichever direction we take, "there is a lion in the way," and, unfortunately, always the same beast. At first he At first he may excite curiosity, perhaps interest, which, if left to work its legitimate course, may not be without practical result; but thrust in our faces at every step, dinged in our ears each hour, and intruded under all possible disguises, we at length feel as if possessed by a demon, haunted by a familiar, and remember, with unwonted sympathy, the fate of Sinbad and Monsieur Tonson.

A few months before my embarkation, a story had appeared, illustrative of slave-life in the southern states of America. The incidents were frequently exciting, some of the scenes cleverly drawn, and a very judicious mingling of humor and pathos introduced; some of the characters, too, were effectively modelled, and the narrative interest was well sustained. Such were the literary merits of the tale, and they are the same which have secured for many fictions decided popularity; but an additional éclat attended this novel, if such it may be called. To elevate negroes and negresses into heroes and

heroines was a new experiment; and to expose to the world, as this book professed to do, a monstrous social evil, awakened the ardent sympathy of philanthropists and reformers. These effects were not diminished by the gross exaggeration and caricature displayed in the story, regarded as a picture of actual life. Indeed, the basis of truth was not examined among the partisans who adopted the work as an exposition of American slavery. The appeal it made to the pity and moral indignation of the public, by high-wrought and exceptional scenes of cruelty and degradation, found an immediate response; the intelligent minority alone compared its revelations with facts, or applied to them the test of reason and charity.

The hero of this African romance is a pious negro called "Uncle Tom"-on the same principle that Goldsmith was called "Goldy"—the epithet being indicative of the confidence and affection he inspired. The idea of showing up a social evil by means of an affecting tale, is not new. Two of the most successful instances occurred in this very country where Uncle Tom became an idol: the eloquent invective of the corn law rhymer has seldom been equalled; and the cruelty of English law has found dramatic expositors; the dreadful abuse of the workhouse system was exhibited, in a way that brought tears and protests from thousands, in "Oliver Twist;" while the author of "Mary Barton" drew a picture

of the misery of the English operative more tragic than the imagination of the uninitiated ever conceived; the inhumanities incident to the two English customs of flogging and fagging have been painfully illustrated in the same way: yet neither Oliver Twist nor Mary Barton became lions. Why was this honor reserved for Uncle Tom? Because he was the type of an evil which England has had the good fortune to cast off, and because he is the symbol of reproach to America. Thus the national pride was doubly gratified by this canonization; and what rendered the apotheosis more delectable was, that its ostensible, and in part doubtless its real motive, was philanthropy. Thus, during my brief visit, Uncle Tom was the lion.

After passing Holyhead, it was useless to gaze from the wet deck, as we approached the Mersey, a mist concealing every object from view, except the beacons, and, therefore, there was a general rendezvous about the fortunate passenger who had obtained the one journal brought by the pilot. Forming a circle around him in the cabin, we listened with the avidity incident to a fortnight's abstinence from that vital commodity-news; and the first item read was, an account of a meeting of ladies, to present a memorial to the authoress of "Uncle Tom." Thus the initiative breath of English air was prophetic of this tenacious companion. In a few hours I had landed, and after a hasty toilet,