or the common cradle-rocker, while the rays of the sun poured down on their heads with an intensity exceeding any thing we ever experienced at home, though it was but the middle of April. The thirst for gold and the labour of acquisition overruled all else, and totally absorbed every faculty. Complete silence reigned among the miners: they addressed not a word to each other, and seemed averse to all conversation."

After digging and washing twenty bucketfuls of earth, Mr Johnson's party had obtained but four dollars' worth of gold. At noon, the sun's heat being intolerable, they knocked off from work; not much encouraged by the result. This, however, they admit, was a poor digging, the stream being yet too high, and the bar not sufficiently exposed-to say nothing of their being novices at the work. They persisted little, however: another trial was made with no better result; and, in short, a week's effort and observation sickened them of a toil so far less lucrative than they had anticipated. Two of the party (Mr Johnson was one of them) resolved to return to San Francisco till the healthier season of winter; a third, having some goods, took to trading; the fourth and last, a hardy little downeaster from Maine, stuck to the diggings.

By this time, we are not entirely dependent on American books or newspaper correspondence for intelligence from the Californian mines. Some portion of the gold that has come to this country has been brought by the finders; and only the other day, a party of them reached England, having left the diggings as lately as the beginning of October. The details obtained from these men, who are of various European countries, confirm, in all important particulars, the statements of Mr Johnson, with merely the difference of tint imparted by failure and success. Either easily discouraged or physically unequal to encounter the hardships inseparable from the search for and extraction of the gold, Mr Johnson, disappointed in his sanguine expectations, makes a sombre report of the speculation; whereas these more persevering and prosperous miners, having safely returned to Europe, their pockets full of

"chunks," scales and dust of the most undeniable purity and excellence, naturally give a more rose-coloured view of the enterprise. They admit, however, (to use the words of one of them,) that "it takes a smart lad to do good in California," and that it is useless for any one to go thither unless prepared to rough it, in the fullest sense of the word. At first, they inform us the amount of theft and outrage was very great; but summary and severe punishment checked this. Mr Johnson deplores the existence of Lynch-law. It really appears to us that California is the very place where such a system is not only justifiable, but indispensable. One miner stated that he belonged to a band or club, thirty in number, who threw together all the gold they found, and shared alike; sharp penalties being denounced against any member of the society who attempted to divert his findings from the common stock. The amount obtained by each member of this jointstock company during the season of eight or nine months was equivalent to thirteen or fourteen hundred pounds sterling. Not quite the "adequate competency' anticipated by Mr Theodore T. Johnson, but still a very pretty gain for men, most of whom would probably have found it impossible, in any other way, and in the same time, to earn a tithe of the amount. More than one of them proposed, after depositing his treasure safely in Europe, to augment it by a second trip to the gold region; and held the time occupied by the voyage to and fro as little loss, digging being impeded by the winter snows. The winter of 1848-9 was very severe, the snow lying four feet deep on the mountains, and having fallen even on the coast; a circumstance unprecedented in California, whose Spanish and Indian inhabitants attributed the disagreeable phenomenon to the American intruders. Notwithstanding this unwonted rigour, however, we learn from Mr Johnson that "large numbers of hardy and industrious Oregonians spent the last winter in the mines of California, generally with success commensurate with their perseverance, prudence, and sobriety." The lumps of gold, according to the account of the miners already referred

to, (and which tallies exactly in this particular with Mr Johnson's statement) are found in what are called the dry diggings, in the red sandy clay of the ravines on the mountain sides; whilst the dust and scales are obtained by washing the earth and sand from the rivers. Lumps of pure gold, with a greater or less admixture of quartz, are also found in the crevices of a white-veined rock.

Whilst denouncing the expense of health and labour at which the Californian gold is obtained, Mr Johnson admits the vast quantity of the metal that has been and still is being collected. In town, fort, and settlement,-in every place, in short, where a score or two of men were congregated, he beheld astonishing evidence of its abundance. "Quarts of the dust or scale gold were to be seen on the tables or counters, or in the safes of all classes of men; and although the form of small scales was most common, yet pieces or lumps of a quarter to three ounces were to be seen everywhere; and among several chunks one was shown us by C. L. Ross, Esq., weighing eighty-one ounces. This was solid pure gold with only the appearance of a little quartz in it." In one day he saw bushels of gold, most of it too pure for jewellery or coin, without alloy. Although the price of the metal was maintained at sixteen dollars per ounce, its depreciation in comparison with labour and merchandise was enormous; and in the mines, during the winter of 1848, "a good deal of gold was sold for three or four dollars the ounce." Carpenters and blacksmiths received an ounce a-day. Lumber was at six hundred dollars per thousand feet. A lot of land, purchased two years previously for a cask of brandy, fetched eighteen thousand dollars. At a French café, a cup of coffee, bit of ham, and two eggs, cost three dollars, or 12s. 6d. A host of details of this kind are added, most of which have already been given in the American and English newspapers. Captain Sutter's saw-mill was earning a thousand dollars a-day. At the Stanislaus diggings, in the winter of 1848-9, a box of raisins, greatly needed for the cure of scurvy, then raging there without remedy, sold for its weight in gold dust, or four thousand dollars! Reckless

expenditure is the natural consequence of easily-acquired wealth. The diggers, after a brief period of severe labour, would come into town for what they called "a burst," and scatter their gold dust and ingots like sand and pebbles, keeping "upon the ball" for three or four days and nights, or even for a week together, drinking brandy at eight and champagne at sixteen dollars the bottle, often getting helplessly drunk and losing the whole of their gains. One fellow, during a three days' drunken fit, got rid of sixteen thousand dollars in gold. Two hopeful youths, known as Bill and Gus, who took an especial liking to Mr Johnson and his party, had come in for " a particular, general, and universal burst;" and they carried out their intentions most completely. They were tender in their liquor, and, in the excess of their drunken philanthropy, they purchased a barrel of ale at three dollars a bottle, and a parcel of sardinas at eight dollars a box, and patrolled the district, forcing every one to drink. In paying for something, Bill dropped a lump of gold, worth two or three dollars, which Mr Johnson picked up, and handed to him. "Without taking it, he looked at us with a comical mixture of amazement and ill-humour, and at length broke out with- Well, stranger, you are a curiosity; I guess you hain't been in the diggins long, and better keep that for a sample.' Even in all sobriety, miners would not be troubled with anything less than dollars, and often scattered small coins by handfuls in the streets, rather than count or carry them. And as neither exorbitant prices nor drunken bursts sufficed to exhaust the resources of the gold-laden diggers, gambling went on upon all sides. "Talk of placers," cried an American, who had just cleared his thousand dollars in ten minutes, at a monte-table in San Francisco; "what better placer need a man want than this?" At Sutter's Fort, a haltingplace of the miners, gambling prevailed without limit or stint, men often losing in a single night the result of many months' severe toil. Drunkenness and fighting diversified the scene. "Hundreds of dollars were often spent in a night, and thousands

on Sunday, when Pandemonium was in full blast." Such iniquities were no more than might be expected amongst the ragamuffin crew assembled in California, and which included discharged convicts from New South Wales, Mexicans, Kanakas, Peruvians, Chilians, representatives of every European nation, and thousands of the more dissolute and reckless class of United States men.

some

It is not surprising that of the minority of honest and respectable men, who found themselves mingled with the mob of ruffians and outlaws assembled in California, thought the prospect of wealth dearly purchased by a prolonged residence in vile society and a most trying climate, and by labour and exposure destructive to health. Mr Johnson assures us that, among the miners who had been long at the diggings, he saw very few who were not suffering from disease-emaciated by fever till they were mere walking shadows, or tormented by frequently recurring attacks of scurvy and rheumatism. If there was a constant stream of adventurers proceeding to the diggings, there was also a pretty steady flow of weary and sickly men returning thence. It would seem, from Mr Johnson's account, that no previous habit of hard labour qualifies the human frame to follow, without injury, the trying trade of a gold-grubber. "We met a party of six sailors, of the Pacific whalers, who were returning to go before the mast again, swearing, sailor-fashion, that they would rather go a whaling at half wages than dig gold any more." Mr Johnson was somewhat of the same way of thinking. He sums up a general review of California in the following words :—

"So large an emigration of the American people, as have gone to that territory, must make something of the country They will make it one of the states of this Union, at all events, and speedily, too and although the country is only adapted by nature for mining and grazing, yet a constant trade must result from the former, and more or less agriculture be added to the latter, from the necessity of the case. A few have made, and will

hereafter make fortunes there, and very many of those who remain long enough will accumulate something; but the great mass, all of whom expected to acquire large amounts of gold in a short time, must be comparatively disappointed. The writer visited California to dig gold, but chose to abandon that purpose rather than expose his life and health in the mines; and as numbers were already seeking employment in San Francisco without success, and he had neither the means nor the inclination to speculate, he concluded to return to his family and home industry."

Finally, the disappointed goldseeker addresses to his readers a parting hint, apprehensive, seemingly, of their supposing that his own illsuccess has warped his judgment, or induced him to calumniate the country. "If you think," he says, we have not shown you enough of the elephant, but got on the wrong way and slid off backwards, please to mount him and take a view for yourself." By which metaphorical phrase, if the worthy Johnson means that we are to go to the diggings, and judge for ourselves, we can only say we had much rather take his word than his advice, and read his book by our fireside than tread in his footsteps amongst the mountains of California.

I

Without further comment, but with a warm recommendation, we close these three American volumes. It were idle to subject to minute criticism books that make no pretensions to literary merit, and which, professing only to give, in plain language, an account of the writers' personal adventures and experiences, are written in off-hand style, and are wholly free from pedantry and affectation. they are occasionally somewhat rude in form, like the men and countries they portray, they at least are frank and honest in substance; and they contain more novelty, amusement, and information, than are to be found in any dozen of those vapid narratives of fashionable tourists with which the Bentley and Colburn presses annually cram the nauseated public. We have been much pleased and diverted by the unsophisticated pages of Messrs Johnson, Wise, and Parkman.

VOL. LXVII.-NO. CCCCXI.

D

To add another to the numerous eulogies which have been justly bestowed on the memory of Howard the philanthropist, is not our object. We are far from making the attempt: our aim is to contribute something to the more accurate and familiar knowledge of the man himself-his life, his character, his career, his services.

It not unfrequently happens that the great men of history, whom we have admired in our youth, sink grievously in our estimation, and lose their heroic port and proportions, when we survey them more nearly, and at a season of maturer judgment. They shrink into the bounds and limits of commonplace mortality. We venture even to administer reproof and castigation, where, perhaps, we had venerated almost to idolatry. Such is not the case with Howard. Poets have sung his praises, and his name has rounded many an eloquent period. Howard the philanthropist becomes very soon a name as familiar to us as those of the kings and queens who have sat upon our throne; but the vague admiration, thus early instilled into us, suffers no diminution when, at an after period, we become intimately acquainted with the character of the man. We may approach the idol here without danger to our faith. We may analyse the motive-we may "vex, probe, and criticise ”—it is all sound. Take your stethoscope and listen-there is no hollow here every pulse beats true.

The Howard that poets and orators had taught us to admire loses none of its greatness on a near approach. But it undergoes a remarkable transformation. The real Howard, who devoted his life to the jail and the lazaretto, was a very different person from that ideal of benevolence which the verse of Darwin, or the eloquence of Burke, had called up into our minds. Instead of this faint and classic ideal, we have the intensely and somewhat sternly religious man, guided and sustained, every step of his way, not

alone, nor principally, by the amiable but vacillating sentiment which passes under the name of philanthropy, but by an exalted, severe, imperative sense of duty. It is Howard the Christian, Howard the Puritan, that stands revealed before us. The form changes, but only to grow more distinct and intelligible. The features have no longer that classic outline we had attributed to them; but they bear henceforth the stamp of reality

of a man who, without doubt, had lived and moved amongst us.

Those who have rested content (and we think there are many such) with that impression of Howard which is derived from the panegyrics scattered through our polite literature, and who accordingly attribute to him, as the master-motive of his conduct, simply a wide benevolence-a sentiment of humanity exalted to a passion-must be conscious of a certain uneasy sense of doubt, an involuntary scepticism; must feel that there is something here unexplained, or singularly exaggerated. Their Howard, if they should scrutinise their impression, is a quite anomalous person. No philanthropist they have ever heard of-no mere lover of his kind, sustained only by the bland sentiment of humanity, not even supported by any new enthusiastic faith in the perfectibility of the species-ever lived the life of this man, or passed through a tithe of his voluntary toils and sufferings. Philanthropists are generally distinguished for their love of speculation; they prefer to think rather than to act; and their labours are chiefly bestowed on the composition of their books. Philanthropists have occasionally ruined themselves; but their rash schemes are more notorious for leading to the ruin of others. As a race, they are not distinguished for self-sacrifice, or for practical and strenuous effort. There must, therefore, to the persons we are describing, be a certain doubt and obscurity hanging over the name of Howard

the philanthropist. It must sound like a myth or fable; they must half suspect that, if some Niebuhr should look into the matter, their heroic figure would vanish into thin air.

Let them, however, proceed to the study of the veritable Howard, and all the mystery clears up. The philanthropist of the orator gives place to one who, in the essential elements of his character, may be ranked with Christian missionaries and Christian martyrs. Instead of the half-pagan ideal, or personification of benevolence, there rises before them a character which a rigorous analysis might justly class with those of St Francis or Loyola, or whatever the Christian church has at any time exhibited of exalted piety and complete self-devotion. The same spirit which, in past times, has driven men into the desert, or shut them up in cells with the Scourge and the crucifix; the same spirit which has impelled them to brave all the dangers of noxious climates and of savage passions, to extend the knowledge of religion amongst barbarous nations-was animating Howard when he journeyed incessantly from prison to prison, tracking human misery into all its hidden and most loathsome recesses. He who, in another century, would have been the founder of a new order of barefooted monks, became, in Protestant England, the great exemplar of philanthropic heroism. Perhaps he too, in one sense, may be said to have founded a new religious order, though it is not bound together by common rules, and each member of it follows, as he best may, the career of charitable enterprise that lies open before him. The mystery, we say, clears up. Benevolent our Howard was, undoubtedly, by nature, as by nature also he was somewhat imperious; but that which converted his benevolence into a ceaseless motive of strenuous action, of toil, and of sacrifice; that which utilised his natural love of authority, transforming it into that requisite firmness and predominance over others without which no man, at least no reformer, can be rigidly just, and, face to face, admonish, threaten, and reprove; that which constituted the mainspring and vital force of his character, was intense piety, and the

all-prevailing sense of duty to his God. The craving of his soul was some great task-work, to be done in the eye of Heaven. Not the love of man, nor the praise of man, but conscience, and to be a servant of the Most High, were his constant motive and desire.

Men of ardent piety generally apply themselves immediately to the reproduction in others of that piety which they feel to be of such incomparable importance. This becomes the predominant, often the sole object of their lives. It is natural it should be so. In such minds all the concerns of the present world sink into insignificance; and their fellow-men are nothing, except as they are, or are not, fellow-Christians, Howard was an exception to this rule. Owing to certain circumstances in his own life; to the manner of his education; to his deficiency in some intellectual qualifications, and his pre-eminence in others, he was led to take the domain of physical suffering of earthly wretchedness-for the province in which to exert his zeal. For the preacher, or the writer, he was not formed, either by education or by natural endowment; but he was a man of shrewd observation, of great administrative talent, of untiring perseverance, and of an insatiable energy. The St Francis of Protestant England did not, therefore, go forth as a missionary; nor did he become the founder of a new sect, distinguished by any doctrinal peculiarity; but he girded himself up to visit, round the world, the cell of the prisoner-to examine the food he ate, the air he breathed, to rid him of the jail-fever, to drive famine out of its secret haunts, and from its neglected prey. It was this peculiarity which led men to segregate Howard from the class to which, by the great elements of his character, he belongs. To relieve the common wants of our humanity was his object

to war against hunger and disease, and unjust cruelties inflicted by man on man, was his chosen task-work; therefore was it vaguely supposed that the sentiment of humanity was his great predominant motive, and that he was driven about the world by compassion and benevolence.

His remains lie buried in Russia. Dr Clarke, in his travels through that