sumptuous volume with its profuse variety of illustrations-we may refer to the plates of the interiors of the dining-room, the state-room, and the deck-house. Captain Cook and the earlier circumnavigators would have opened the eyes of astonishment at the pictures and objects of art which adorn the walls, the ceilings, and the side-tables. For sociability, the genial owners, who were welcomed everywhere by everybody, reversed the common order of things, and offered as much hospitality as they received. To those who are proof to the sorrows of seasickness-though Mrs. Brassey herself is not among the numberthe swift and commodious steam yacht is the most agreeable of all means of locomotion. The Sunbeam' was the best of introductions to Orientals, whose fancies were dazzled by the novelty as well as by the richness of her fittings. The Padishah himself was said to have set his affections on it; and the great ladies of the Harem, who made fêtes of their parties on board, could not be too civil to its mistress. So we have emphatically truthful pictures of some of the best society' of Constantinople; with the changes in its sentiments and circumstances that have taken place since the calamities of the war. We hear much that is interesting of the extravagant caprices of the Court and governing classes, of the progress of emancipation of the fair sex. So far the greater liberty accorded to the ladies, with the study of the lightest French literature among the most intelligent, has merely brought them to the stage of acute discontent in which they resent the restraints to which they are still submitted.

Though the yacht was admirably manned, and notwithstanding its master's seamanship, there was more than a dash of danger even in the Mediterranean cruises, and on several occasions it had narrow escapes. We are told, with an animation which makes us feelingly realize the scenes, how the 'Sunbeam' was twice nearly sunk in collisions; and in the worst gale they experienced, when off the rocky precipices of Milo in the Greek archipelago they ran through an ascending scale of sensations enough to satisfy the most blasé of tourists. Mr. Bingham's spirited pencil gives us a vivid conception of the situation in one of his exceedingly life-like illustrations, which add greatly to the attraction of the book. Among his other sketches which have specially taken our fancy, are the Naumachia at Cyzicus,' the Last of the Eurydice,' Lying off Ryde,' and views of some of the bold headlands in the Greek Islands.

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There is satisfaction in knowing that, notwithstanding all that has been done and written, the romance of travel is unexhausted

and

and inexhaustible. It is not only that countries like New Guinea remain to be explored; while communities like the populations of Thibet and China, wedded to their peculiar forms of civilization, still jealously resist the intrusion of strangers. But we must always have much left to learn of man in his moral aspects; and in the course of adventurous study we have barely penetrated beneath the surface of the idiosyncrasies and capacities for improvement of several of the races on the globe. It is the charm of travel seriously undertaken, that it not only, as Dr. Johnson expressed it, is the gratification of a wise and noble curiosity,' bringing its contributions to the general stock of knowledge; but that it may possibly be of benefit to the people we have been observing. In any case it must often be its own reward, by developing the manly virtues of energy, self-reliance, and firm endurance; and it is a hopeful sign of the future of an Empire that hardships and dangers are more and more courted by men who might abandon themselves to the life of the lotuseaters. We respect the courage of such a 'Pioneer of Commerce as the late Mr. Cooper, who penetrated alone through the interior of China, and tried hard to force the barriers of Thibet, with the purpose of surveying new channels for trade. Yet we admire still more the ideas of 'amusement' that send the heir to a great name and property to slave, on the verge of starvation, through the severities of a winter in the Hudson's Bay Territory. Lord Milton, with his companion, Dr. Cheadle, only extricated themselves by their indomitable pluck' from the labyrinths of the apparently impenetrable forests, in which they seemed lost beyond redemption. Englishmen, and their blood-relations the Germans, have conspicuously the tastes and gifts of the successful traveller. The practice of travel is become a tradition with us, and we fear that the fancy for telling travelling tales in print has been growing into a mania. Books, where the sparkle is chiefly on the covers, are multiplied most indiscreetly by men and women who have nothing or very little to say. But we can show a collection of the literature of travel of which we have good reason to be proud. In the present article we have not noticed a single work by those who are our great explorers par excellence; and the volumes we have referred to are but characteristic specimens among the unpretending narratives of personal adventure.

ART.

ART. VII.-1. Monarchy and Democracy. By the Duke of Somerset, K.G. London, 1880.

T is now rather more than a hundred years since the States

Independence, that all men were equal, and endowed by their Maker with inalienable rights.' The declaration' was admirably adapted to secure the object immediately in view. It rallied the scattered colonists, in defence of a lofty principle, against the disciplined forces of what they held to be oppression and wrong, and encouraged them to defy the distant power of the Mother Country. Thirteen years later Europe was startled at the promulgation of the same doctrines by the National Assembly of France; and in the Old World these appealed to the feelings and imagination of men with a force greater even than that which had been felt in America. Inequality, in its most odious and corrupt shape, prevailed over the Continent of Europe; the lower orders of people saw all the rights, which philosophers had taught them to be inalienable, withdrawn to support a government, which seemed constructed purposely for their own oppression. Under such circumstances they rose in a body, in the full belief that a destruction of the social system, which had produced the wrong-doers, would procure the immediate restoration of their liberties. Having destroyed legitimate authority, they found themselves, as the inevitable consequence, the mere instruments of a military despotism. Nevertheless their enthusiasm still survived, and compensated itself for the loss of freedom by foreign conquest. The French, to use the fine words of Tocqueville, carried the torch of revolution beyond their boundaries while they stifled its devouring flame in the bosom of their country.'

Democracy thus gave unmistakable proof of its energy as a principle of action; but its apostles claimed for it far higher virtues, and boasted that it would exercise a regenerating influence on human life. They firmly believed that human nature had been stunted by bad laws and governments; and that, when the cause of Democracy had finally triumphed, mankind would move rapidly on to the goal of Perfection. Thus Mackintosh declared that the French people had founded a Constitution on the immutable basis of natural right and general happiness'; and that accordingly the French nation, instead of the glories of war, would now seek a new splendour, in cultivating the arts of peace and extending the happiness of mankind.' Fox asserted of the Constitution framed by the General Assembly, that it was altogether the most stupendous

and

and glorious edifice of liberty which had been erected on the foundation of human integrity in any time or country.' The Reign of Terror in France and the twenty years' war that followed formed a striking commentary on these prophecies. Still it was open to the advocates of Democracy to argue that their principles had not yet had a fair trial; and under the Royalist Restoration and Reaction that followed the Napoleonic war, the Revolutionary rhetoric exerted its old power over the passions of the people. But it can hardly be maintained any longer that Democracy has failed, because thwarted by the influence of tyranny and superstition. It has enjoyed a hundred years of undisturbed possession in the United States; France proclaimed one Republic in 1848, and another, which still survives, in 1870; nor will it be alleged, either that the Legitimists had anything to do with the Coup d'état of 1852, or that they are the most powerful enemies of the existing régime. Democracy has passed out of the region of romance into that of experience; and the friends and foes of the system must henceforth be prepared to approve or condemn it on its own merits. Bearing this in mind, we looked with much. interest to Mr. Bright's speech at the late festive gathering at Rochdale, to see what points he would choose for the panegyric he was sure to pass on American institutions. There is something amiable in a romantic constancy of attachment; 'John Anderson my jo, John,' is an air which goes straight to the heart. Mr. Bright loved Democracy in the days when illusions about its real character were excusable; now that this is fully disclosed he seems to love it better than ever. There was a time when he had generally a word to say in favour of his own Sovereign, but this is no longer heard; his last speech was from beginning to end a laudation of the United States, as being a Republic.

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The grounds on which Mr. Bright asked his hearers to share his admiration and affection are remarkably suggestive. With one exception these were entirely negative. The single positive advantage of the United States on which he dwelt with enthusiasm was the bigness' of their territory. To his audience his rapturous statement of the superficial area of Texas appears to have conveyed new light, for it is reported to have produced 'expressions of surprise.' But even Mr. Bright would scarcely venture, in his sober moments, to maintain, that the vast resources of the virgin soil of America were called into being by the virtues of democracy, or that republican sagacity is demonstrated by the success of the American Government, in dealing with the feeble tribes whom the white men have pushed

from

from their lands. After a glowing eulogy on the physical advantages of the country which nobody disputes, Mr. Bright proceeded to dwell on its social perfection. 'I believe,' said he, 'what Mr. Potter says, that he only saw four drunken people in America.' Let us take Mr. Potter's evidence of American sobriety as conclusive; it does not, however, follow that this sobriety is caused by democratic institutions. The peoples of Spain and Italy who live under a monarchical form of government have an equal reputation for temperance. But Mr. Bright's speech very soon brings us to the real point at issue. Mr. Potter's admiration, it seems, was excited not only by the absence of drunkards, but by the absence of Kings. He did not see an Emperor, or an Empress, or Kings, or Queens, or Imperial, or Royal Princes, or Princesses.' He saw a standing army of only 25,000 men. He saw no bishops. He found that the people of the United States have not constructed a machine, mostly political and partly religious, in which the State bolsters up the religious, on the condition that the religious bolster up the State. They have not got any favoured church organization which will lend to the crimes of Monarchy and statesmen the sanction of the simulated voice of God, by which Christianity is demoralized and degraded.'

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No drunkards, no Royalty, no great military establishments, no bishops, no Established Church! O fortunatos nimium! That is, of course, the conclusion at which Mr. Bright meant his audience to arrive, with reference to the institutions under which the people of the United States enjoy such unalloyed happiness. And yet we suspect that there were some, even in the Town Hall of Rochdale, to whom the orator's rhetoric must have sounded hollow and out of date. For Mr. Bright Europe (with the exception of France) is still a world which kings and priests are plotting in.' Drunkenness, standing armies, and poverty are to him, as they were to philosophers a hundred years ago, the fruits of hereditary Monarchy and established Religion. We have said that this kind of reasoning was very well in the days of Rousseau and Robespierre, because at that time the Christian world had had but slender experience of democracy. But it is scarcely sufficient for our own more sceptical generation. We have seen quite enough of Republics to judge how far they have answered the expectations of Fox and Mackintosh. What we want now is not the heated language of hope and prophecy, but a calm consideration of the results of unrestricted democracy, of its probable prospects, and of the influence it is likely to exert over our own mixed Constitution.

To pass from a speech like that of Mr. Bright to the little