a group of children, he took and communicated enjoyment; and their sports were actually sport to the hunter of the tiger and hippopotamus. Even while these reminiscences are passing through the mind, a little group, with subdued voices, are recalling his kindly romps, and especially that occasion when an illustrious table was spread for him in vain, because it was a gala-day, and he could not drag himself from the genuine enjoyment he felt in the sports of a group of children who were making the long passages and hiding-holes of a quaint old house ring with their shouts and their laughter. This genial assimilation with young folks and their enjoyments was a very pleasing feature, but it was one of many that went together to form the noble simplicity of his nature. This was shown powerfully in the way in which he bore his honours. Both when he returned triumphant, and when he issued the wondrous narrative of his difficulties and their conquest, the great lionising world was roaring at his heels, demanding him as its prey, but he heeded it not. He did not, like vulgar repudiators of popularity, let it overtake him that he might conspicuously repel it, but he kept quiet at his work and among his friends, avoiding all occasions of notoriety. To this line of conduct he made one characteristic exception. Like many Englishmen who become famous, he had a little world of his own in his own county of Somerset, where his social position was possibly an object of as much real pride and satisfaction as his wide fame. He belonged to an old county family of worshipful repute for many centuries. So when one of the Spekes of Jordans became famous over the world, his fame was part of the property of the district, in which its inhabitants must partake; and in his kindly nature he submitted with the best grace to the ovation offered him in his native district, knowing that to evade it would be a sore mortification to old friends and good neighbours. One who had risen so high could not escape the fate of eminence to bring forth carpers and detractors. A solemn silence will now pervade the field of strife. We refer to it merely for the purpose of dropping a word of explanation on what seemed the most plausible charge brought forward by his censors-that in his books he has not done full justice to other persons who have laboured meritoriously, though with imperfect success, in the field of his triumph. It might be a sufficient answer to any such charge, that he does not profess to write the history of African exploration and discovery, but merely to narrate what he himself did and saw. But all who personally knew him would acquit him of any design to be even passively ungenerous. Every one who reads his fresh narratives will see that he has not been trained in the art and mystery of professional book-making. The book-writer, like the lawyer and the actor, has certain traditional conventionalities, and among them one of the most tiresome is the acknowledgment of obligations to intelligent assistants. If you analyse and estimate the rounded sentences in which these acknowledgments are usually expressed, you will invariably find that they tend to uplift the glory of the author. They place him in that rank most envied of all the niches in the temple of fame-that of the master-mind that can find good human tools wherewith his fame and fortune are to be hewn out. There are no better samples of insolent condescension to be found than these acknowledgments of assistance as they are commonly expressed. Speke was not sufficiently adroit in the craft of book-making to be acquainted with the method of that form of pride that apes humility; nor, if he had been instructed in it, would it probably have commended itself to his acceptance. He told his own story plainly and frankly, and left others to tell theirs. Before the world he thus put in no claim to the reputation of generosity; and the world did not know, and had no right to judge, whether generosity was or was not among his qualifications. Those who came close to him saw that he possessed it in large measure, and that nothing could be more contrary to his nature than to be penurious or unjust to any man. He was a cheerful giver. All men have their defects, and it was easy to see that careless profusion and inability to say "No," were among his. Without the unamiable antithesis attributed to the great Roman revolutionist of being alieni appetens, he had a disposition to be sui profusus. He was penurious to no one but himself. When saving funds for his great enterprise, he lived for some time with a parsimoniousness scarcely prudent; and, on the other hand, when he thought the Government had not dealt with proper generosity to his black assistants, he rewarded them liberally from his own resources. Our own readers have had the privilege of a longer and fuller acquaintance with Captain Speke than the rest of the world has enjoyed. It was here that, some six years ago, he gave the stirring narrative of his first adventures in Africa, and announced the dawning of his great discovery. In giving to the world a narrative of events so distant and marvellous, and so utterly out of the reach of all the ordinary checks on accuracy, everything depended on the character of the narrator; and the editor was thus brought into a communion with him much closer and more personal than is usually necessary in the communications of contributor and editor, The better he was known, the stronger became both the respect and the attachment he inspired. The two had many friendly communings, and one especially left an impression never to be effaced. It was a pleasant summer evening, and both were strolling together under the shadow of trees, smoking and talking over the great project. It was remarked to him that he had already risked his life to an extent far beyond the average dangers which the human being is likely to escape, and he should consider the feelings of those to whom he was dear-of his parents especially-before setting forth again. With a light in his eye never to be forgotten, he expressed the inner force that was driving him on to his destiny. He knew, he said, that he had hit on the Source of the Nile; he must complete his work. How would he feel if any foreigner should take from Britain the honour of the discovery?-rather die a hundred times! In this and many other conversations, he communicated so much confidence in his indomitable nature to his auditor, that when the months passed on without tidings, and the world gave him up as lost, there remained in one breast, at least, a faith that he would return, and return triumphant, as he did. It is fortunate for the world that the triumph preceded the catastrophe. It is the remaining consolation of his friends that no man of the age is safer for immortality. He who achieved what mankind had been struggling after for three thousand years, is sure to be remembered as long as the earth exists and is inhabited. Printed by William Blackwood & Sons, Edinburgh Ir is a queer sensation, that of awakening, after a long potent sleep, in the steamer to which you have committed yourself for removal from work-day life to holiday life. The sensation is one not belonging to the railway or any kind of landtravelling. While in that, you are liable to telegrams, or you have uneasy sensations about some important matter forgotten, which it is still possible to return and put right. In a steamer, however, you are fairly off, and irreclaimable, either to the call of your own nervous apprehensions about properly fulfilled duties, or the demands of the public-unless, indeed, just before starting, you may happen to have perpetrated so picturesque a murder that a fast-sailing Government steamer must be sent after you. The first touch of the new sensation affects personal identity. With not a single ounce of the weight of cares lately pressing on you, can you be actually the same person who, when you awoke yesterday morning, passed from laborious dreams to grapple with the possibility of so adjusting what was to be done to the hours and minutes VOL. XCVI.-NO. DLXXXIX. for doing it in, that the business left over might actually be overtaken in that last available day? A slight reactionary depression is produced by so sudden a contrast, but it wears away before the lively sensations caused by leisure, freedom, and novelty. Now begin the projects of the ramble to shape themselves in the mind- I approve not deep-laid plans framed beforehand. They are a gratuitous addition to the inevitable cares and toils of home life, and they generally fall to pieces. Project nothing more at the beginning than to get the German Ocean between you and your own special world, and then choose your pleasure-ground. Inclination gravitated, as usual, towards mountain scenery; and on this occasion fixed itself on the corner of the Alps where Austria and Bavaria meet. He who is at large for enjoyment will cheat himself of it if he establish some goal and rush at it like a courier on urgent business. There is a good deal to be seen and enjoyed between the ocean and the Alps; and I must admit that my interest in the intervening terri 2 N tories was considerably refreshed by the consideration that, since I last saw them, my old friends the Germans had come out in a somewhat new character. Discarding their reputation for innocence and somnolescent virtue, they had shown unexpected capabilities for cruelty, perfidy, and rapacity. So do surprises sometimes occur in individual life, when very quiet colourless people suddenly exhibit "a spice of the devil" in their natures. There is, for instance, that neighbour with the simple, punctual, inoffensive habits. It is almost painful to you to contemplate the uniform regularity of his walk, the dreary monotony of his life,-until the delusion is dispelled when the hue and cry is raised on him for having bolted with the funds of a savings-bank, and the property of half-a-dozen widows. So also of that picturesque cottage under the trees which, every time you pass it, refreshes you with the perfume of woodbine, the laugh of merry children, or some other token of rural enjoyment-there is little appearance of activity, enterprise, or wealth about it; but you feel, no doubt, that it is the abode of innocence and peace,—until all at once it acquires notoriety as the scene of a renowned murder. In either case, those who look back upon antecedents find that a high type of criminality did not sprout out at once, without premonitions visible to those who had occasion to look into the inner recesses of the domestic organisation. There is one thing we shall almost ever find when private families thus burst out into notoriety for crimes or scandals, that there has been going on within them an under-current of sensuality, in the midst of which evil passions have been silently nurtured and matured. We of Britain, whether we see the failings of other people or not, are sure to see and to proclaim our own. When will there be an end of our denunciations of our notable vices, especially of our drunkenness? We may or may not let a stray arrow fly at a neighbour who has done something offensive, but we never cease lashing ourselves with the penitential thongs. And in our attacks on our neighbours we have ever systematically exempted Germany. There are political reasons for this. Ever since the conclusion of the Thirty Years' War adjusted the partition of Europe between the old and the new Church, the natural allies of Britain on the Continent were the Dutch and the Protestant States of Germany. Then, in later times, and after the unpopularity of the earlier Georges had worn away, a feeling of kindly reverence for that portion of Europe which was set apart as the nursery of our royalties, and the feeling that there was nothing but goodness and gentleness in Germany gained strength by the example given us in the life of that good prince so lately departed. arose From such and other perhaps more occult causes, it happens that while denouncing the vices of mankind-our own especially and emphatically-we have generally passed over Germany. See how our respectabilities abuse the working classes for their drunkenness and culpable extravagance. See how these and their friends retaliate, calling upon the wealthy consumer of port and claret to pluck the beam out of his own eye before he vexes himself about the mote in that of his unwashed brother. While the contest rages, Herman takes his pot and pipe in peace, no one saying to him, in Irish phrase, “black's the white of your eye." Nay, he is even kindly patted on the back, told that he enjoys the bounties of Providence as a wise man should, and held up to the admiration of our debased and brutal population as a type of excellence. It seems to me that in this we have in some measure resembled the anchorite, whose prayers and confessions are rife with acknowledgments of his frailties and sins, and proclamations of the hold which the lusts of the flesh have taken on him, while his easy neighbour, who is ten times as amenable to the same charges, goes on sinning at large without disturbing his own conscience or the rest of the world about the matter. The raving there has been among us of late about narcotics and stimulants has, in fact, confused our vision and our faculties of discrimination. In their rage against the working man for offending them with the smell of his alcoholic compound and his bad tobacco, the respectables will not fairly measure his failings with those of the rest of mankind. But if we take averages, I am disposed to question whether he is much worse than his neighbours, and especially whether the average German is so much above him as many of our own people maintain him to be. On the contrary, looking upon our working population, head-workers as well as hand-workers, as the stamina of the country, and taking them as they are with all their defects, I see them elevating our country to an amount of material wealth and greatness far beyond the possible attainments of any other portion of the world. Be our defects what they may, other countries have graver. In Germany especially, I find four heavy weightscall them domestic, social, or by any other name you like-which press down the population, and while tolerated as they are, will ever prevent it from achieving any high position either of greatness or of goodness. These weights are— 1. Excess in eating. air. 2. Excess in beer-drinking. 3. Excess in smoking. 4. Excess in the inhaling of foul As to the first, there is no doubt a point up to which it is good both for his body and his mind that man should feed. There are instances only too abundant of degeneration caused by insufficiency of food. But there is mischief also from the habitual consumption of an excess over the quantity suited for health ful nourishment. This is one of the chief elements of mischief in those affairs where historians tell us of hardy and temperate soldiers enervated by the indolent and luxurious habits of the people they have invaded as in many instances, from Hannibal's army in Italy downwards. Their poverty, but not their will, consents in the general case of communities underfeeding themselves; where there are the means, the defect is apt to be on the other side. Nor do the fasting ordinances of the Church of Rome do much to avert the evil. Setting aside a portion of Ireland, Brittany, and some parts of Scandinavia, where there is extreme poverty-keeping in view only the portions of Europe where the people are well off, and adjust the scale of their living more by choice and taste than from necessity-I have no doubt that the people of Scotland are the most frugal feeders in Europe; and if we look for results, among what people shall we find a better development, whether of brain or muscle? We have been accustomed in the North to speak of the Englishman as a great eater, but in comparison with the German he is naught, and in a general estimate of the gluttonous propensities and capacities of European nations, I think it likely that he would hold a moderate place. He is apt to be fussy and talkative as to his eating, and to be loudly confessorial and deprecatory about it, as about all his other defects. Accustomed to being twitted by his northern neighbour on this head, he feels a diffidence about taking note of brother Herman's wonderful performances at table; but a Scotsman feels himself free to record his amazement that the human frame should be trained to the accomplishment of such achievements in gluttony. Take an average man of business in London or Liverpool. At ten o'clock he is delivered at the scene of his labours, say in the public service or in his own. From that |