the Mikado. The almost childish gayety, the courteous and gentle demeanor, of the latter class nearly disarms criticism, and the passing traveler is not tempted to look beneath so charming a surface. But to residents the uglier depths of the national character become, perforce, revealed, and the judgment the two distinguished native gentlemen whom we have already mentioned, Akamatzu and Neesima, expressed to Miss Bird-that the principal faults of their countrymen are the grave ones of "lying and licentiousness "—is difficult of rebuttal. Dr. Hepburn, a very old resident and a favorable witness, says, "The youth seems to be a model of all that is frank, noble, impulsive, obedient, grateful, and polite. The same individual as an official often appears the incarnation of meanness, deceit, ingratitude, and untruth, though always outwardly polite." Their courtesy, even, is much more significant than real, and often wears a look of servility, the outcome of centuries of oppression, and of a minute and burdensome ceremonial that took the place of moral code. The specimens of the ordinary epistolary style, given by Miss Bird, are astonishing instances of cringing hypocrisy. Women are not treated with either courtesy or chivalry; they are the mere toys and slaves of the men, and, as we have already seen, are even yet afforded but a meager protection by the law.

The history of the country and the character of the laws and instistitutions of Old Japan, sufficiently show the national capacity for ferocity underlying the superficial smoothness of ordinary intercourse. The popular novels and plays are made up of scenes of slaughter and license. The terrible punishment of the former régime will be familiar to all who remember the Shinagowa execution-ground previous to 1868. As late as 1875 the cries of tortured prisoners in the Yokahama Kencho formed the subject of complaint by foreign residents in the neighborhood, to whom the horrid din had become intolerable, and the prisoners were in consequence put to the question elsewhere.* We must judge of a tree by its fruits, and up to the time of the Restoration the Japanese had little if at all improved upon the civilization introduced twelve or thirteen centuries earlier from the Middle Kingdom. That civilization is now being discarded, save as regards literature, for the civilization of the West, but much more in the grosser material than in the subtler moral and spiritual forms of modern European society.

The Japanese of the ruling classes are distinguished by great natural intelligence and quickness of parts; by considerable powers of mental application and concentration; and, above all, by a splendid memory. In the possession of these qualities they much resemble the Bengalese; but, like these, are deficient in modesty, patience,

* Out of some two hundred soldiers, recently found guilty of mutiny, fiftythree were condemned to death and shot.

and reflection, and have not hitherto displayed much originality of thought or power of invention, or shown themselves to be endowed with any considerable degree of imagination or fancy..

There is, however, no reason to suppose that the Japanese, of the samurai class at all events, are racially or radically inferior in mental and moral potentialities to any of the peoples of the West. Their defects are easily explicable by reference to their past history and the present social and physical conditions of their national existence, with the amelioration of which the development of a healthier and higher culture may confidently be looked for a development to which an abandonment of the Chinese written character would lend a powerful impetus. The principal dangers that threaten Japan seem to be the temptation her rulers have once or twice nearly yilded to of involving her in Continental politics by interference with Corea-which would at once bring her into antagonistic contact with both China and Russia-and the tendency to concentrate all political power in the hands of an irresponsible oligarchy of bureaucrats, more or less tinctured with European notions, likely to be torn by constant internal feuds and exercising a despotic sway over the masses of the people. Against this tendency the only safeguard lies in the creation of a really representative legislature; and, despite obvious difficulties and inconveniences, we believe a wide liberality in the matter of popular representation to be the wiser course. The members of the present cabinet are able and conscientious men, prudent in their foreign policy when not influenced by irresponsible and interested foreign "advisers"; as liberal, probably, as for the moment they dare to be in their domestic policy. We trust we shall not be misunderstood in venturing to hint that more consideration is, perhaps. given to the relations of Japan with foreign powers than their importance, compared with that of the development of the resources of the country, actually calls for. We do not regard Japan as being or likely to be a wealthy country. We agree with the views expressed by the Hon. F. Plunkett, formerly our chargé d'affaires at Yedo, in a recent admirable report on the mineral resources of Japan, that the mineral wealth of the empire has been greatly exaggerated. No considerable extension of the cultivation of tea and silk is to be looked for; the amount of rice-land is limited in quantity; and though wheat might be cultivated on a much larger scale than is actually practiced, the cereal would find neither a home nor a foreign market. There is no capital in the country, while foreign capital is excluded; and without its aid no great development of private enterprise is possible. But in certain branches of manufacturing industry Japan enjoys and may maintain an undoubted supremacy, and in the extension of her fisheries she may find a new source of wealth. She may degenerate into the condition of a South American Republic; she may, and we believe and fervently hope she will, become a fairly prosperous and fairly powerful

country. No complications, external or internal, of any moment, beset her path; she may never rank among the great powers of the earth, but the glory will always be hers of having first among Asiatic states shown herself capable of marching in the forefront of civilization, almost abreast with the most advanced nations of the vaunted West.-Quarterly Review.

SHERIDAN.

“IN society I have met Sheridan frequently; he was superb!" So said Byron, who had met him often and heard him quiz De Staël and snub Colman, and who said that "Sheridan could soften even an attorney." "Whatever Sheridan has done, or chosen to do," says Byron, “has been par excellence, always the best of its kind. He has written the best comedy ["School for Scandal"], the best drama the best farce and the best address [monologue on Garrick], and to crown all, delivered the very best oration [the famous Begum speech] ever conceived or heard in this country.'

A wit rather than a humorist, an orator more than a statesman, a brilliant writer of comedy and farce, Sheridan was equally at home in the salons of the great, in the repartee of the clubs, in the badinage and persiflage of the green-room, or in the debates and conflicts of the House of Commons.

Born of a mother of whom Dr. Parr said, "I once or twice met his mother, she was quite celestial," and of a father who was a man of letters, the instructor of Wedderburne, and the manager of a theater, he yet started in life without means or powerful friends, and rose to be-alas for him!-the friend of princes, in whom he put his trust, and, more fortunately, the support of Fox and the Whig party, and their finest orator. He lived to give to the stage a comedy so bright and witty, so graceful and mirthful, that it keeps its popularity to this day, and he added the weight of his genius to the persecution of Warren Hastings in a speech which worked an assembly, already excited by the eloquent imagery of Burke, into a frenzy of enthusiasm.

This man, with all his genius, wit, eloquence, and fascinating manners, with inherited and acquired abilities, who had overcome all obstacles, and stood in the first rank in society and in the House of Commons, died poor, worn out by debauchery, and with bailiffs about him. Nevertheless, in recognition of the purity of his political life, in admiration of his splendid talents, when he passed away he was carried, with the consent of the nation, to that Abbey to lie wherein is the secret hope of all our great men.

Richard Brinsley Sheridan was born in Dublin in 1751; his grand

father was a scholar and the friend of Swift; his father was an actor of some celebrity in his day, a rival of Garrick, a teacher of elocution, and the author of a well-known pronouncing dictionary; his mother was the authoress of several plays, novels, and other works, now wholly forgotten. At nine years of age Brinsley was brought over to England and placed at Harrow, where, Moore tells us that "he was remarkable only as a very idle, careless boy, who contrived to win the affections and even admiration of the whole school, both masters and pupils, by the mere charm of his frank, genial manners, and by the occasional gleams of superior intellect which broke through all the indolence and indifference of his character." At Harrow his scholastic education may be said to have commenced and ended, for his father's circumstances were not sufficiently flourishing to admit of his being sent to a university, and in his twentieth year we find him an idler in Bath society-in which city his father was acting at the time-writing, in conjunction with a schoolfellow named Halked, a three-act farce, which no manager would accept, translating the "Epistles of Aristænetus," publishing a miscellany, which never went beyond the first number, and projecting other things which they fondly hoped would bring them fame and fortune, but which nobody appreciated except themselves. Some of the poems, however, that young Sheridan composed at this time, addressed to the reigning favorites of the pump-room, were far above mediocrity, although his invocations to Delia, and the complaints of Sylvio, would not be at all to modern taste.

Every one knows what the Bath of that day was like; it was the resort of valetudinarian reputations as well as of impaired constitutions, of gamblers, adventurers, fortune-hunters, scandal-mongersand much worse. It was not a healthy atmosphere for a goodlooking, fascinating, clever young fellow of twenty, who, his mother being dead and his father being continually engaged in professional duties, was left to do very much as he liked; and one of the least reprehensible things he did was to fall in love with the most beautiful and accomplished woman he met. This was the daughter of the well-known composer, Elizabeth Linley, the famous singercalled by some the fair maid of Bath, by others St. Cecilia--with whom every man was in love, including Brinsley's friend Halked, his own brother Charles, rich Mr. Long, Sir Thomas Clarges, and one Captain Matthews, a fashionable roué, a married man, who had known her from her childhood. The latter, a man of fortune and intellect, was a welcome and respected visitor at her father's house, and took advantage of his position to endeavor to entangle her affections. But young Sheridan won the victory over all his rivals, and to him Miss Linley told the story of Captain Matthews's persecutions -how he had sworn to destroy himself upon her refusing to see him; how, terrified by these threats, her resolution had given way; how, as soon as he entered the room where she was, he had drawn a pistol L. M. VII.-8

from his pocket and, after locking the door, threatened to shoot himself before her eyes if she did not bind herself to see him again upon his return from London; and how, when he found her inexorable to his base proposals, he had vowed to destroy her reputation. Brinsley, who knew the man well, instead of playing the part of a chivalric lover, insinuated himself into Matthews's confidence, in order to obtain proofs of his true designs for Miss Linley, womanlike, was too apt to believe in the sincerity of his ravings. On the very evening that he brought her certain letters which placed the roué's villainous intentions beyond a doubt, he found her dangerously ill from a dose of poison which she had swallowed while in a state of distraction,

Antidotes being promptly applied, the young lady recovered, but so great was her mortification that she protested she would not remain in Bath another day, and Sheridan offered to escort her to France, and there place her in a convent. Having every confidence in his honor she consented, and, while her father and brother were engaged at a concert, she and her lover, accompanied by a maid, were dashing along the London road in a postchaise. Upon arriving in the metropolis he took her to a friend of his family's, who was no other than Charles Lamb's uncle, the tallow-chandler and the theatergoer, whom Elia has immortalized in one of his delightful essays, and who offered the runaways a passage on board one of his own ships that was just about to sail for Dunkirk. Soon after they arrived in France, Miss Linley became Mrs. Sheridan.

In the meantime Brinsley had received a copy of the Bath Chronicle, in which there was a furious attack upon himself by Matthews, and a threat to inflict public chastisement upon him the first time they met. No man of honor could live under such an insult in those days, and our young benedict at once returned to England, challenged his calumniator, and a meeting was arranged in Hyde Park. The weapons were to be swords; the hour arranged was six in the evening; the spot the Ring, the Rotten Row of that time. Upon arriving there, however, Matthews objected to certain persons who were loitering about, and it was mutually agreed that the combatants should proceed to a coffee-house. After being refused accommodation at the Bedford they adjourned to a private room of the Castle Tavern, Henrietta street, Covent Garden. In a letter to Captain Knight, Matthews's second, Sheridan thus describes what followed: "Almost immediately on entering the room we engaged. I struck Mr. Matthews's point so much out of the line, that I stepped up and caught hold of his wrist, or the hilt of his sword, while the point of mine was at his breast. You ran in and caught hold of my arm exclaiming, Don't kill him.' I struggled hard to disengage my arm, and said his sword was in my power. Mr. Matthews called out twice or thrice, 'I beg my life.' We were parted. Mr. Matthews then hinted that I was rather obliged to your interposition