66

Ah, Stevins, how d'ye do?" said Upton. "You've had a cold journey over the Cenis."

"Came by the Splugen, your Excellency. I went round by Vienna, and Maurice Esterhazy took me as far as Milan."

The Princess stared with some astonishment. That the messenger should thus familiarly style one of that great family was indeed matter of wonderment to her; nor was it lessened as Upton whispered her, "Ask him to dine."

"And London, how is it? Very empty, Stevins ?" continued he.

A desert," was the answer. "Where's Lord Adderley?" "At Brighton. The King can't do without him, greatly to Adderley's disgust, for he is dying to have a week's shooting in the Highlands."

"And Cantworth, where is he?"

"He's off for Vienna, and a short trip to Hungary. I met him at dinner at the mess while waiting for the Dover packet. By the way, I saw a friend of your Excellency's-Har

come out by the frigate, and the down mattrass at the same time."

"Just do me the favor to open the bag, my dear Stevins. I am utterly without aid here," said Upton, sighing drearily; and the other proceeded to litter the table and the floor with a variety of strange and incongruous parcels.

"Report of factory commissioners," cried he, throwing down a weighty quarto. "Yarmouth bloaters-Atkinson's cerulean paste for the eyebrows-Worcester sauce--trade returns for Tahiti-a set of shoemaking tools-eight bottles of Darby's pyloric corrector buffalo flesh brushes, devilish hard they seem-Hume's speech on the reduction of foreign legations novels from Bull's top boots for a tiger, and a mass of letters," said Stevins, throwing them broadcast over the sofa.

"I don't know-at any hour," sighed Upton, as he opened one of his letters and began to read, and Stevins bowed and withdrew, totally unnoticed and unrecognized as he slipped from the room.

One after another Upton threw down, after reading half a dozen lines, muttering some indistinct syllables over the dreary stupidity of letter writers in general. Occasionally he came upon some pressing appeal for money-some urgent request for even a small remittance by the next post, and these he only smiled at, while he refolded them with a studious care and neatness. Why will you not help me with this chaos, dear Princess ?" said he, at last.

"I am only waiting to be asked,"

"Dear Upton,

said he, bowing

"Let us have a respite from tariffs and trade talk for a month or two, and tell me rather what the world is doing around you. We have never got the right end of that story about the Princess Celestine as yet. Who was he? Not Labinsky, I'll be sworn. The K- insists it was Roseville, and I hope you may be able to assure me that he is mistaken. He is worse tempered than ever. That Glencore business has exasperated him greatly. Could'nt your Princess-the world calls her yours--" ["How good of the world, and how delicate of your friend!" said she, smiling superciliously. "Let us see who the writer is. Oh! a great man -the Lord Adderley," and went on with her reading.] "Could'nt your Princess find out something of real consequence to us about the Q

"What Queen does he mean," cried she, stopping.

"The queen of Sheba, perhaps," said Upton, biting his lips with anger, while he made an attempt to take the letter from her.

"Pardon, this is interesting," said she, and went on : "We shall want it soon; that is, if the manufacturing districts will not kindly afford us a diversion by some open-air demonstrations and a collision with the troops. We have offered them a most taking bait, by announcing, wrongfully, the departure of six regiments for India; thus leaving the large towns in the north apparently ungarrisoned. They are such poltroons that the chances are they'll not bite! You were right about Emerson. We have made his brother a bishop, and he voted with us on the arms bill. Cole is a sterling patriot and an old whig. He says nothing shall seduce him

from his party, save a Lordship of the Admiralty. Corruption everywhere, my dear Upton, except on the Treasury benches!

"Holecroft insists on being sent to Petersburg, and having ascertained that the Emperor will not accept him, I have induced the K- to nominate him to the post. Non culpa nostra, &c. He can scarcely vote against us after such an evidence of our good will. Find out what will give most umbrage to your Court, and I'll tell you why in my next.

"Don't bother yourself about the Greeks. The time is not come yet, nor will it till it suit our policy to loosen the ties with Russia. As to France, there is not, nor will there be in our time at least, any government there. We must deal with them as with a public meeting, which may reverse to-morrow the resolutions they have adopted to-day. The French will never be formidable till they are unanimous. They'll never be unanimous till we declare war with them! Remember, I don't want anything serious with Cineselli. Irritate and worry as much as you

can.

Send even for a ship or two from Malta, but go no further. I want this for our radicals at home. Our own friends are in the secret. Write me a short despatch about our good relations with the Two Sicilies; and send me some news in a private letter. Let me have some ortolans in the bag, and believe me yours, "ADDERLEY."

There," ," said she, turning over a number of letters with a mere glance at their contents, "these are all trash

-shooting and fox-hunting news, which one reads in the newspapers better, or at least more briefly narrated, with all that death and marriage intelligence which you English are so fond of parading before the world. But what is this literary gem here? Where did the paper come from? And that wonderful seal, and still more wonderful address? his Worshipful Excellency the Truly Worthy and Right Honourable Sir Horace Upton, Plenipotentiary, Negociator, and Extraordinary Diplomatist, living at Naples,'

"To

"What can it mean?" said he, languidly.

"You shall hear," said she, break

ing the massive seal of green wax, which, to the size of a crown piece, ornamented one side of the epistle. "It is dated Schwats, Tyrol, and begins, 'Venerated and Reverend Excellency, when these unsymmetrically designed, and not more ingeniously conceived syllables'-Let us see his name," said she, stopping suddenly, and, turning to the last page, read, "W. T. vulgo, Billy Traynor, a name cognate to your Worshipful Eminence in times past.'

"To be sure, I remember him perfectly-a strange creature, that came out here with that boy you heard me speak of. Pray, read on."

"I stopped at 'syllables.' Yeswhen these curiously conceived syllables, then, come under the visionary apertures of your acute understanding, they will disclose to your much reflecting and nice discriminating mind, as cruel and murderous a deed as ever a miscreant imagination suggested to a diabolically constructed and nefariously fashioned organization, showing that nature in her bland adaptiveness never imposes a mistaken fruit on a genuine arborescence."

"Do you understand him?" asked she.

"Partly, perhaps," continued he. "Let us have the subject.-'Not to weary your exalted and never enough to be esteemed intelligence, I will proceed without further ambiguities or circumgyratory evolutions, to the main body of my allegation. It happened in this way. Charley-your venerated worship knows who I nean-Charley, ever deep in marmorial pursuits, and far progressed in sculptorial excellence, with a genius that Phidias, if he did not envy, would esteem

"Really I cannot go on with these interminable parentheses," said she. You must decypher them yourself."

Upton took the letter, and read it, at first hastily, and then recommencing, with more of care and attention, occasionally stopping to reflect and consider the details. "This is likely to be a troublesome business," said he. "This boy has got himself in a considerable scrape. Love and a duel are bad enough; but an Austrian state prison, and a sentence of twenty years in irons, are even worse. So far as I can make out from my not

over lucid correspondent, he had conceived a violent affection for a young lady at Massa, to whose favour a young Austrian of high rank at the same time pretended.

"Wahnsdorf, I'm certain," broke in the Princess-“and the girl, that Mademoiselle

"Harley," interposed Sir Horace. "Just so-Harley-pray go on," said she, eagerly.

"A very serious altercation and a duel were the consequences of this rivalry, and Wahnsdorf has been dangerously wounded; his life is still in peril. The Harleys have been sent out of the country, and my unlucky protégé, handed over to the Austrians, has been tried, condemned, and sentenced to twenty years in Kuffstein, a Tyrol fortress where great severity is practised; from the neighborhood of which this letter is written, entreating my speedy interference and protection.

"What can you do? It is not even within your jurisdiction," said she, carelessly.

"True, nor was the capture by the Austrians within theirs, Princess. It is a case where assuredly everybody was in the wrong, and therefore admirably adapted for nice negociation." "Who and what is the youth?" "I have called him a protégé."

"Has he no more tender claim to the affectionate solicitude of Sir Horace Upton ?" said she, with an easy air of sarcasm.

"None, on my honor," said he eagerly. "None at least of the kind you infer. His is a very sad story, which I'll

tell

you about at another time. For the present I may say that he is English, and as such must be protected by the English authorities. The government of Massa have clearly committed a great fault in handing him over to the Austriaus. Stubber must be brought to book for this, in the first instance. By this we shall obtain a perfect insight into the whole affair."

"The Imperial family will never forgive an insult offered to one of their own blood," said the Princess, haughtily.

"We shall not ask them to forgive anything, my dear Princess. We shall only prevent their natural feelings betraying them into an act of injustice. The boy's offence, whatever

it was, occurred outside the frontier, as I apprehend."

"How delighted you English are when you can convert an individual case into an international question. You would at any moment sacrifice an ancient alliance to the trumpery claim of an aggrieved tourist !" said she, rising angrily, and swept out of the room ere Sir Horace could arise to open the door for her,

Upton walked slowly to the chim ney and rang the bell. "I shall want the caleche and post-horses at eight o'clock, Antoine. Put up sole things for me, and get all my furs ready." And with this he measured forty drops from a small phial he carried in his waistcoat pocket, and sat down to pare his nails with a very diminutive penknife.

THIS is a volume of very considerable interest-and though it may be described as almost growing out of an accident, well deserves careful perusal. The example of Lord Carlisle and other eminent men has led to the delivery of lectures at Mechanics' Institutes, and called into active authorship a number of educated men, who, under other circumstances, would probably have pursued such studies as their taste suggested, without being led to communicate to the public the result of their investigations. When, however, an essay has been read aloud to a large assembly, when it has been the subject of discussion, and its several statements been impeached or vindicated in local circles, it seems next to impossible for the writer not to wish for a larger audience; and thus it is that within the last three or four years essays read at Mechanics' Institutes have been published, and promise in some cases to make valuable additions to our permanent literature.

The president of the Mechanics' Institute at Carlisle is Mr. Ferguson, one of the members of parliament for that city. This rendered it necessary for his family to do whatever lay in their power to assist the institution; and among the distinguished persons who, from time to time, have lectured there, were his sons. The volume before us has grown out of one of these lectures.

His first thought was to do little more than select from Mr. Worsaae's "Danes and Norwegians in England,"

such leading facts as might be supposed most interesting to a Cumberland audience. The study of the subject led him, however, to conclusions not inconsistent with Mr. Warsaae's, but which are properly his own. Mr. Ferguson has satisfied himself that a considerable portion of the population of Cumberland and Westmoreland has arisen from an immigration more peculiarly Norwegian, proceeding from the western side of the island. Hitherto antiquarians were contented with referring to the invasion of Cumberland in 875, from Lincolnshire and Yorkshire. Mr. Ferguson's object is to show that the principal part of the Scandinavian colonization in Cumberland and Westmoreland did not proceed from this source-which was properly Danish, as distinguished from Norwegian-but that it was Norwegian, and must have occurred a century later.

In Lincolnshire and Yorkshire the names of places are Danish in Cumberland and Westmoreland Norwegian-pointing to another and distinct immigration. Neither does it appear that such immigration was from the Scottish side; for, "notwithstanding the strong Scandinavian element to be found in the language of Scotland and the character of the lowland Scots, the number of Seandinavian names of places is comparatively small, and of those the most strongly marked are to be found along the Cumberland border, gradually diminishing as we advance fur

That the occupation of an island such as that of Man would be the final object of what was evidently a powerful stream is hardly to be supposed, and we find accordingly that they made energetic attempts, attended with considerable success, to obtain a footing on the shore of Ireland. We find that, evidently masters of the sea, they took possession of most of the small islands both along the Scottish and English coasts, and succeeded in some instances in making small settlements upon the main land. One of the principal of these appears to have been in Pembrokeshire, and chiefly about Milford Haven, in the vicinity of that magnificent arm of the sea which runs up, like a Norwe gian fjord, into the land. We find here a number of Scandinavian names of places, and moreover bearing, as it seems to me, a considerable resemblance to those of Cumberland.

We can scarcely suppose then that the nearest part of England, the coast of Cumberland, would remain long unattempted by a brave and adventurous people, eager to obtain a settlement, and having a strong entrepot within a short distance from its shores. It is then from this quarter that I suppose the Norwegian settlers of Cumberland and Westmoreland to have been derived, and assuming their Norwegian character to be satisfactorily established, it is only from this quarter that they could have been derived.

Of such immigration there is no mention in English chroniclers; but Snorro Sturleson mentions Cumberland and Wales among the countries visited by the Norwegian sea-rover, Olaf. Olaf was born in 970, and came to the throne of Norway in 995. His warlike expeditions must have been in the interval. Mr. Ferguson thinks, from other circumstances, about 990. This was about the same period that the Icelanders discovered Greenland.

The ancient inhabitants of British descent were still lingering in the

mountains of Cumberland when this immigration took place. What became, asks Mr. Ferguson, of this ancient race? There is no vestige of a Celtic origin in the characteristics, physical or moral, of the present inhabitants of the district. The names of some of the mountain heights are,

or

seem to be, Celtic. This alone speaks of a people past utterly away. The Welsh writers assert that the Cumberland Britons, distracted by the continual incursions of Danes, Saxons, and Scots, migrated to Wales. Of the insecurity of the district we may judge from the fact that Carlisle, destroyed by the Danes in 875, was not rebuilt till the time of William Rufus. The last record of the Cumberland Britons is their conquest in 945, by the Saxon Edmund; when our author, adopting the view which has been advocated by Pinkerton, thinks it probable that the remnant of the Britons migrated to Wales.

Mr. Ferguson supposes Cumberland almost without inhabitants from the causes we have indicated, when the Norwegians, already possessed of the Isle of Man, were led to make a settlement there:-

Even supposing that they had not to make their way with the sword, they had a wild and an untamed country to encounter, and it would be with much toil and not a little endurance that a subsistence would be won from the dense forests and the rocky mountains of their new home. But they came from a country wilder and poorer still, where they had long been inured to both. The district of the Tellemark, so magnificent and so desolate the mountains of the Hardanger, a name signifying, in the expressive language of the Old Norse, "a place of hunger and poverty"- were among the districts from which I suppose these Northern emigrants to have proceeded. And how these stont colonists cleared for themselves homes amid the forest, and gathered tribute from the mountain side, and how they protected the fruit of their industry with fences and walls -the "thwaites," and the "seats," and the "garths" of Cumberland will tell.

It

As to the period over which the Norwegian colonization extended-the work may have been rapidly consummatel, or it may have proceeded gradually a13 at intervals. may have been that the last settlers were received when, as the Norwegian power declined in Man, the Northmen deserted the soil which they could no longer hold in subjection, for the shores where their countrymen were in stronger force; while, on the other hand, the Britons, such of them as might