from the latitude of 30 deg. to 60 deg. north, and within the limits of which Vancouver's Island is situated with that island. This fishery, as at present arranged, commences in April and terminates in October, but if there was a station at Vancouver's Island, at which the vessels could discharge their cargoes and get a refit, the vessels, instead of returning to the Aucklands, could prosecute the sperm whale fishery from October to May; or if found advisable, some of them might be employed in conveying coals or in trading to India, China, Japan, or other places in the Pacific Ocean, thus extending British commerce, as also connecting British interests in those seas.

Now that the Americans have acquired possession of California, Mr. Enderby remarks there can be little question that they will, in future, refresh and refit at one or other of their own settlements there, rather than at Vancouver's Island, and in preference even to the Sandwich Islands, which they have raised into prosperity, by making them hitherto the chief place of their rendezvous. In order to induce parties to settle in Vancouver's Island, Mr. Enderby adds, "You should be prepared to showfirst, that the ports will be frequented by shipping; and, secondly, that there will be a demand for the produce of the soil, viz., corn, animal food, wool, timber, coals, &c., over and above that of the consumers themselves -expectations which I confidently predict, can alone be realised by making Vancouver's Island a whaling station in the manner stated." In the case of the first settlement in Australia (Botany Bay), the governors, emigrants, and convicts, were conveyed out in whaling ships, and, in the first instance, the visits of whaling ships were the means of saving the colonists from starvation. If California produces no coal, Vancouver's Island will be the intermediate station in steam communication between Panama and China, but should coal be also found in California, steamvessels will cross the Pacific by the way of the Sandwich Islands. In any case, if the company's vessels now obtain full freights out and home, they cannot convey the goods or produce of the colonists; they could, in fact, only do so in cases where the outward and homeward freights in bulk or weight did not happen to be equal.

Every thing then, the objects and means of the Hudson's Bay Company, the importance of Vancouver's Island as a station in the steam navigation of the coast-and of the North Pacific, also as a station for the north-west whale fishery, as well as a general maritime station in the future Mediterranean of the New World; point out that there is now not only a great and worthy opportunity of planting a society of Englishmen, which, in the words of Mr. Gladstone, "If it did not afford a precise copy of our institutions, might still present a reflex of that truth, integrity, and independence, which constituted at this moment the orna ment and glory of the country;" but there is also an opportunity of establishing a bulwark to our power in North America, of securing the best harbour on the north-western coast, and of resolving that if there is to be a Tyre in the North Pacific, its riches and its greatness shall be gathered into the lap of Britons.

BRIGHTON IN THE AUTUMN.

THANKS to the events which have made the Continent one vast battlefield, of fact or of opinion, from the southern extremity of the Italian peninsula to the northernmost point of Germany, from the eastern frontiers of Hungary to the western shores of France, the "tribes of the wandering foot and weary breast"-the travelling English-have this year been compelled to forego their usual course of migration, and circumscribe their desires within the limits of the seas of Britain. The Highlands of Scotland, the mountains of Wales, the valleys of Derbyshire and the sweet streams of Devon, heretofore sought at this season only by the sportsman and the artist, have suddenly developed charms to the eyes of the traveller which, in his search after remoter beauties, he had hitherto, in a great degree, neglected; unwisely perhaps, but, as it so happens, not unfortunately. Instead of roaming to the shores of the blue Mediterranean, scaling the passes of Alp and Appenine, or tracking the Danube's flood, the tourist has returned perforce to the rich store of enjoyment which this island offers to all who choose to go in quest of it. It may be and is, no doubt, a pleasant thing enough, to visit picturegalleries, dine at superlative table-d'hôtes, wear a long beard, smoke a short pipe, and baragouiner half the languages of Europe with the grace and elegance of an experienced courier, but he who climbs Ben Nevis or Snowdon, lingers amid the shades of Val Crucis, or smokes his cigar by moonlight on the chain-pier at Brighton, dining on unapproachable mutton, grouse, or partridge, as the locality suggests, and speaking no language but his mother tongue, the "dim Sassenach" of the Welsh having no terror to his ear when compared with the untranslateable wants of the Continent-he, we repeat, who is in this position, has no need to envy the man who is perpetually putting on his seven-leagued boots to put 66 a girdle round the earth in forty minutes."

We have ourselves, this summer, visited scenes both in England and Scotland, which had long been a reproach to our consciences, and whereever we went, in spite of the weather, the pleasure-seekers and, as it seemed, the pleasure-finders too, abounded. But, as an Englishman turns as naturally towards salt-water as a Frenchman retreats from it, after various wanderings over flood and fell, we found that our peregrinations had led us, like Byron's pilgrim, to the sea-side, though not, perhaps, in exactly the same contemplative spirit as the noble Childe. As the place was Brighton, this is not to be wondered at, though even there exists food for contemplation and "meditation chastened down enough," as the indigenous Brightonians (they who let their houses and prey upon their fellow-men) have of late years had leisure to discover. But this is past; the gates of the temple of Janus (at Ostend and Boulogne) are closed, and Brighton is filling again as it used to fill of yore, not altogether, it may be, with the same kind of people, for while grouse, partridge, and pheasant, have their attractions on heather, in stubble, or in cover, their fashionable destroyers keep away, and, moreover, retain those who give to fashion all its charm. The fop whom Pope called Sporus, said in the last century that the world was made up of " men, women, and Herveys;" the same may be said now, but with this difference, that the "Herveys" are in a decided minority, and that the " men and women" have it; so that their absence can be

borne as long as the pleasant Sussex shore is covered with the smiling faces and enlivened by the bright glances of the gay crowds who will have Brighton at any price, even though the Pavilion is a dreary shell, and the clock-tower has had its eyes put out.

Colonel Amaranth, for example, is as content to wear his white coat (with a perennial flower in his button-hole), and drive his phaeton (with a poodle for his sole companion) up and down the cliff, as if the eyes of the western and not the eastern world were admiringly fixed upon his equipage; Lady Lucy Bellairs canters along with as much grace and insouciance as if she were in the ring of Hyde Park; the great Austrian diplomatist, "the world forgetting, by the world forgot," commits himself irrevocably to the care of the Master of the Ceremonies; the Dragoon Guards, four-fifths of them marriageable, scorn not to join the promenade when their band invites to the sward in Regency-square; and we who indite these remarks, albeit accustomed to the recherché banquets of Carlton Gardens and May Fair, do not disdain a dinner at the Bedford, or even a scrambling, heterogeneous, table-d'hôtish, boarding-house spread, by way of a change, less, perchance, for the style in which the board is covered than for the way in which it is surrounded.

Odd people are assembled at these places and odd notions prevail. A particular class of old lady is, for instance, a curious psychological study at these réunions. She knows every thing, and even a little more, though whence she derives her information it would puzzle a clairvoyant to say. It was but a day or two since we happened to be present, and after the French republic, the Frankfort parliament, the Irish insurrection, the coming cholera, and the unforgotten bores of the House of Commons (the sidera lucida of Youghal and Stafford) had been discussed-on all of which subjects the profoundest and aptest opinions were expressed, the conversation turned upon the literature of the day, and the character and habits of three of its brightest ornaments in the world of fiction were brought on the tapis. Our old lady (may she be a bright constellation at some future time, to shine on some unknown world), took the matter in hand.

"Ah," said she, with an air of extreme satisfaction, and perfectly convinced that she knew "all about it," "those three are very remarkable individuals,-very."

It may be as well to observe,-lest in these days of contested superiority claimants not duly authorised should appear, that the "three" referred to were the authors of "Dombey," of "Harold,” and of “The Lancashire Witches," to advert to them by their latest works.

"Mr. D," said Mrs. Endor, herself, in this respect, an undoubted witch, "Mr. D. is a very singular old man.”

"An old man ?" we inquired, innocently, believing him as well as the other two to be in the prime of life.

"Yes, sir,-very old,-seventy at the least; I am sixty-five myself. He has long white hair which reaches half-way down his back, and what is more extraordinary, he has not eaten animal food ever since he was a boy of fifteen (they do say in consequence of a vow); and I can tell you another thing to my certain knowledge he never goes to bed, but passes his nights in the streets of London picking up materials for his

stories."

This was information certainly, and of the kind to make us anxious for

more.

"What kind of person," we asked, "is Sir Edward?”

66

Altogether different," replied Mrs. Endor; "he never gets up at all -except just to have his bed made, and even then he always remains in a horizontal position,-I may say, quite flat; of course, he doesn't write his own books,-I mean with his own hands,-but keeps four young men constantly employed, day and night, taking down to his dictation till the work he is engaged upon is finished. He then covers the clothes over his head, and, perhaps, doesn't speak to any body for a month; some say he sleeps all that time, but my private opinion is that he hasn't had a wink for years!"

Marvelling greatly at Sir Edward's pertinacious vitality,-for, by Mrs. Endor's account, it appeared as if he abstained, not only from animal food, but from food altogether, we ventured a request as to the pursuits of the third novelist.

"That gentleman," said our old lady, "is the most extraordinary of them all. He lives on board his yacht almost all the year round, and writes best in a gale of wind. Whenever he comes down to Brighton, and he is often here, though I must say I have never seen him, he at once goes on board of his vessel, no matter what the weather is, and as soon as a storm comes on he begins to write. Where he goes to I don't pretend to know," and here Mrs. Endor nodded her head in a very mysterious manner; "I have heard to the coast of Afriky, for there it was he met with the loss of his right hand in an engagement with the slave-drivers; but one thing I do know, and that is, that he has always a drawn sword on the table beside him; and never," she added emphatically, "never sleeps in a night-cap."

To endeavour to remove any pre-conceived impressions, in the face of facts so startling as those of Mrs. Endor would, of course, have been useless; the boldness of her assertions had carried her audience along with her, and, though we are of opinion that we could have disproved every word she said, we were much too wise to make the attempt. A fair proportion of the population of Brighton are, therefore, by this time, in full possession of the information imparted by this intelligent old lady.

Out of doors' life is, however, what every body prefers at Brighton when the weather is such as it has been during the past month of September. At no former seasons, not even in the days when William the Fourth was king, do we remember such an army of fair equestrians, such a staff of riding-masters, whose time, by the way, must be pleasantly enough employed in the duties of cavalière servente to such bevies of pretty women. We were on our way to the Dyke, the other day, and had just emerged from the little wood that crowns the height above Patcham, when we were suddenly aware of a nymph gently cantering along the hill side, and close at her bridle as obsequious a squire of dames in the shape of one of these riding-masters as ever had the good fortune to ride by a lady's side. He performed his spiriting deftly, and with all reverent courtesy, but we could not help thinking that there was some danger in the temptation to which he was exposed ;-alone thus, on the broad downs with a fair young creature, full of animal spirits, and under the exhilarating influence of pure air and rapid motion. Had we been the young lady's papa, we should have thought twice of it before the horses' heads were turned in the direction of the Dyke.

Apropos of the Dyke, now we are in that direction. What a glorious scene bursts on the view when the summit of the hill is gained! Without attaching implicit belief to the eloquent words of Mr. Thacker, who keeps the Dyke Inn, and whose programme is a model of composition (in the manner of the late George Robins), the ocean of landscape spread at our feet is wide enough for the indulgence of a most capacious fancy. Nearly the whole weald of Sussex is visible, a vast wooded plain, whose boundaries are the South Downs and the hills of Kent and Surrey,-conspicuous amongst them being Chanctonbury Ring, with its woody crest, Leith Hill with its tower, and Box Hill frowning on the "Sullen Mole." The handbill says that Nettlebed in Oxfordshire, and the Round Tower of Windsor Castle are also visible, together with no less than sixty churches, but as these objects require the aid of a telescope to distinguish them they go for nothing in our estimation of the charms of a landscape. Without "the assistance of art," as Mr. Thacker says, enough is visible to render the view from the Devil's Dyke one of the most striking in England. The worthy, but somewhat laconic, individual to whom we have twice alluded, is not one of those who despises these appliances, for the bill of fare displayed on the lintels of his door-posts is as ample as that of the London Tavern, and, to judge by the same document, his cellars must be equally capacious. His larder, in short, contains every thing, and the "everything" of an innkeeper has such a generalising propensity, that under whatever name it is dressed it eats so like mutton, he must be a skilful gastronome who could detect any other flavour. Of the "Champagne A. 1," we say nothing, not having ventured into that sublime region, neither can we speak of the merits of " Laroze,"-a claret which is probably peculiar to the Sussex Downs; but we can safely commend the ale, the brewage of the respectable Smithers. Were the family of Thacker, including his wife and son, a little more disposed to a genial loquaciousness, the sense of enjoyment on the part of the guest would certainly be more complete; but the cause of their taciturnity is, perhaps, to be found in the fact that they pass the whole year round on the edge of the Dyke, and, for nine months out of the twelve, have only the pleasure of each other's society.

We were about to wish them good bye, but on reflection we find that we have not yet said a word about Nibbs! This would have been a most unpardonable solecism, for Nibbs is the artist whose genius not only embellishes the walls of Thacker, but has depicted (on the top of dinner-bills) a most vivid and startling likeness of the exterior of the Dyke Inn, with the standard of Thacker given to the breeze, two goats, a dog, and a number of ladies and gentlemen in the foreground, a car full of visitors drawn by a very prancing horse in the middle distance, and the sign-post gallantly swinging athwart the azure sky. But the chef d'œuvre of Nibbs is to be seen within, in the little parlour on the right hand, like the "Cena" of Leonardo in the refectory of the Dominican convent at Milan, -it is the portrait of "The Blind Girl of Edburton," and there is a legend attached to it which says, that it is "a sketch from life by Nibbs." It is a classical, graceful, and original production; it is drawn in profile, and that there may be no doubt about the poor girl's blindness the ingenious pencil of Nibbs has covered her eye with an enormous winker. There is only one fault we have to find with Nibbs, he has not left us any clue to his address.