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you of your New Year's present. Rather let me add a pound to it, to remember me by."

He arose, brought a paper from another room, opened it and said, "You know this bond and your signature? I give it to you and your children." He tore the paper in two, and placed it in my hand.

I could find no words, I was so deeply moved. My eyes filled. He saw that I would thank him, but could not, and he said, "Hush! hush! not a syllable, I pray you. This is the only thanks I desire of you. I would gladly have forgiven poor Brook the debt, had he only dealt frankly with me."

I don't know a more noble-hearted man than Mr. Withell. He was too kind. He would have me relate to him much of my past history. He introduced me to his wife, and to the young gentleman his son. He had my little bundle, containing my old clothes, brought from the inn, and kept me at his house. The entertainment was princely. The chamber in which I slept, the carpet, the bed, were so splendid and costly that I hardly dared to make use of them.

The next day Mr. Withell sent me home in his own elegant carriage. I parted with my benefactor with a heart deeply moved. My children wept with me for joy, when I showed them, the bond. "See," said I, "this light piece of paper was the heaviest burthen of my life, and now it is generously cancelled. Pray for the life and prosperity of our deliverer!"

Jan. 16.-Yesterday was the most remarkable day of my life. We were sitting together in the forenoon; I was rocking the cradle, Polly was reading aloud, and Jenny was seated at the window with her needle, when she suddenly jumped up, and then fell back again deadly pale into her chair. We were all alarmed, and cried, "What is the matter?" She forced a smile, and said, "He is coming!"

The door opened, and in came Mr. Fleetman in a beautiful travelling cloak. We greeted him right heartily, and were truly glad to see him so unexpectedly, and, as it appeared, in so much better circumstances than before. He embraced me, kissed Polly, and bowed to Jenny, who had not yet recovered from her agitation. Her pale looks did not escape him. He inquired anxiously about her health. Polly replied to his questions, and he then kissed Jenny's hand, as though he would beg her pardon for having occasioned her such an alarm. But there was nothing to be said about it, for the poor girl grew red again like a newly-blown rose.

I called for cake and wine, to treat my guest and benefactor better than on a former occasion; but he declined, as he could not tarry long, and he had company at the inn. Yet at Jenny's request, he sate down and took some wine with us.

As he had spoken of the company which had come with him, I supposed that it must be a company of comedians, and inquired whether

they intended to stop and play in C—, observ ing that the place was too poor. He laughed out, and replied, "Yes, we shall play a comedy, but altogether gratis." Polly was beside herself with joy, for she had long wanted to see a play. She told Jenny, who had gone for the cake and wine. Polly inquired whether many actors had come with him. "A gentleman and lady," said he, "but excellent players."

Jenny appeared unusually serious. She cast a sad look at Fleetman, and asked, “And you— will you also appear?" This was said in that tone peculiarly soft, yet very penetrating, which I have seldom observed in her, and only upon rare occasions, and at the most serious moments.

Poor Fleetman himself trembled at her tone, so like the voice of the angel of doom. He looked up to her with an earnest gaze, and appeared to struggle with himself for an answer, and then advancing towards her a step, he said, Miss, by my God and yours, you alone can decide that!"

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Jenny dropped her eyes. He continued to speak. She answered. I could not comprehend what they were about. They spokePolly and I listened with the greatest attention, but we neither of us understood a word, or rather we heard words without any sense. And yet Fleetman and Jenny appeared not only to understand one another perfectly, but, what struck me as very strange, Fleetman was deeply moved by Jenny's answers, although they expressed the veriest trifles. At last Fleetman clasped his hands passionately to his breast, raised his eyes, streaming with tears, to heaven, and with an impressive appearance of emotion, exclaimed, "Then am I indeed unhappy!"

Polly could hold out no longer. With a comical vivacity, she looked from one to the other, and at last cried out, "I do believe that you two are beginning to play already!”

He pressed Polly's hand warmly, and said, "Ah! that it were so!"

I put an end to the confusion by pouring out the wine. We drank to the welfare of our friend. Fleetman turned to Jenny, and stammered out, "Miss, in earnest, my welfare?" She laid her hand upon her heart, cast down her eyes, and drank.

Fleetman immediately became more composed. He went to the cradle, looked at the child, and when Polly and I had told him its history, he said to Polly, with a smile, "Then you have not discovered that I sent you this New Year's present?"

We all exclaimed in utter amazement, "Who! you?" He then proceeded to relate what follows: "My name," said he, "is not Fleetman. I am Sir Cecil Fairford. My sister and myself have been kept out of our rightful property by my father's brother, who took advantage of certain ambiguous conditions in my father's will, and involved us in a long and embarrassing lawsuit. We have hitherto lived with difficulty upon the little property left us by our mother,

who died early. My sister has suffered most from the tyranny of her uncle, who was her guardian, and who had destined her for the son of an intimate and powerful friend of his. But my sister, on the other hand, was secretly contracted to the young Lord Sandom, whose father, then living, was opposed to their marriage. Without the knowledge either of my uncle or the old lord, they were secretly married. The little Alfred is their son. My sister, under the pretence of benefiting her health and availing herself of sea-bathing, left the house of her guardian, and put herself under my protection. When the child was born, our great concern was to find a place for it where it would have the tenderest care. I accidentally heard a touching account of the poverty and humanity of the parish minister of C—, and I came hither to satisfy myself. The manner in which I was treated by you decided me.

"I have forgotten to mention that my sister never returned to her guardian. For about six months ago I won the suit against him, and entered into possession of my patrimony. My uncle instituted a new suit against me for withdrawing my sister from his charge; but the old Lord Sandom died suddenly a few days ago of apoplexy, and my brother-in-law has made his marriage public. So that the suit falls to the ground, and all cause for keeping the child's birth secret is removed. Its parents have now come with me to take the child away, and I have come to take away you and your family, if the proposal I make you shall be accepted.

"During the lawsuit in which I have been engaged, the living, which is in the gift of my family, has remained unoccupied. I have at my disposal this situation, which yields over £200 per annum. You, sir, have lost your place. I shall not be happy unless you come and reside near me, and accept this living."

God only knows how I was affected at these words. My eyes were blinded with tears of joy. I stretched out my hands to the man who came a messenger from heaven. I fell upon his breast. Polly threw her arms around him with a cry of delight. Jenny thankfully kissed the baronet's hand. But he snatched it from her with visible agitation, and left us.

My happy children were still holding me in their embraces, and we were still mingling our tears and congratulations, when the baronet returned, bringing his brother-in-law, Lord Sandom, with his wife. The latter was an uncommonly beautiful young lady. Without saluting us, she ran to the cradle of her child. She knelt down over the little Alfred, kissed his

cheeks, and wept freely with mingled pain and delight. Her lord raised her up, and had much trouble in composing her.

When she had recovered her composure, and apologized to us all for her behaviour, she thanked first me and then Polly, in the most touching terms. Polly disowned all obligation, and pointed to Jenny, who had withdrawn to the window, and said, "My sister there has been its mother!"

Lady Sandom approached Jenny, gazed at her long in silence, and with evidently delighted surprise, and then glanced at her brother with a smile, and folded Jenny in her arms. The dear Jenny, in her modesty, scarcely dared to look up. "I am your debtor," said my lady, "but the service you have rendered to a mother's heart it is impossible for me to repay. Become a sister to me, lovely Jenny; sisters can have no obligations between them." As they embraced each other, the baronet approached. "There stands my poor brother," said my lady; "as you are now my sister, he may stand nearer to your heart, dear Jenny, may he not?"

Jenny blushed and said, "He is my father's benefactor."

"Will you not be," replied the lady, "the benefactress of my poor brother? Look kindly on him. If you only knew how he loves you!"

The baronet took Jenny's hand and kissed it, and said, as Jenny struggled to withdraw it, "Miss, will you be unkind to me? I am unhappy without this hand." Jenny, much disturbed, let her hand remain in his. The baronet then led my daughter to me, and begged me for my blessing.

"Jenny," said I, "it depends upon thee. Do we dream? Canst thou love him? Do thou decide."

She then turned to the baronet, who stood before her, deeply agitated, and cast upon him a full, penetrating look, and then took his hand in both hers, pressed it to her breast, looked up to heaven, and softly whispered, "God has decided."

I blessed my son and my daughter. They embraced. There was a solemn silence. All eyes were wet.

Suddenly Polly sprang up, laughing through her tears, and flung herself upon my neck, while she cried, "There! we have it! The New Year's present! Bishop's mitres upon bishop's mitres !"

Little Alfred awoke.

It is in vain-I cannot describe this day. My happy heart is full, and I am continually interrupted.

FRIEDRICH VON SCHLEGEL.

Born 1772. Died 1829.

FRIEDRICH, a younger brother of A. W. von Schlegel, was born at Hanover, five years later. Destined by his father to mercantile pursuits, he was placed for that purpose in a counting-room at Leipzig; but feeling a strong predilection for Letters, and discovering more than ordinary capacity, he was recalled and suffered to take his own course. He studied Philology in Göttingen and in Leipzig, during which time he read every author of note in the Latin and Greek languages. He then resided for awhile in Berlin and in Dresden, published his "Greeks and Romans," 1797, and the following year, his "Poetry of the Greeks and Romans," a continuation of the former. In 1800, he went as Privatdocent (private teacher)| to Jena, where he labored in conjunction with his brother and others, of like views, and published several poems. In 1803, at Cologne, he went over to the Roman Catholic church,* together with his wife, a daughter of Mendelssohn. He next resided for several years in Paris, where he lectured on Philosophy, and where he published his "Europa." While here he devoted himself to the study of the southern languages, and particularly to that of India. He also published, 1804, a collection of romantic poems of the middle ages, from printed sources and manuscripts; and illustrations of the history of Joan of Arc, drawn from the Notices et Extraits. His Sprache und Weisheit der Indier belongs to this period.

In 1808 he returned to Germany, and was made secretary of the Austrian Government at Vienna, where he exerted a powerful influence by his proclamations against Napoleon. After the conclusion of the peace, he gave lectures in Vienna, on modern history and on the literature of all nations. In 1815, he was appointed by Prince Metternich, Austrian Counsellor of Legation at the Diet in Frankfort. In 1818 he returned to Vienna, where he lived as Secretary of the Court, and devoted himself

According to Wolff in the Encyclopädie der Deutschen Nationallitteratur. The Conversationslexicon refers this apostasy to a later date,-1808.

to literary pursuits. During this period he published his "View of the present Political Relations." In 1820 he undertook a periodical called Concordia, the object of which was to reconcile the different opinions on Church and State. In 1827 he gave a course of lectures in Vienna, on the Philosophy of Life, which was published the following year. In December 1828, he began another course in Dresden, on the Philosophy of Language and of the Word. These lectures he did not live to complete, but died in the midst of the course, January 11th, 1829. It has been noted as emblematic of the man, that the last word which came from his pen was aber (but). This was written at eleven o'clock at night. At one, he breathed his last.

Friedrich von Schlegel is thought to have surpassed his brother in originality, to have equalled him in depth and extent of learning, but to fall far behind him in point of taste and clearness. "Like his brother he opened to Poetry and to Science in Germany, new and hitherto unknown regions. He was the first who specially directed attention to the great intellectual treasures of the Indians, and introduced among us the studies relating to these. Later, after his change of faith, he assailed, in the most decided manner, French democracy and frivolity; but then, in his capacity of philosophical historian, he became an opponent of religious and political liberty and enlightenment, and completely lost himself at last in misty speculations and politico-religious vagaries."* With regard to this "change of faith,” and the criticisms and imputations to which it gave rise, Mr. Carlyle judges thus: "Of Schlegel himself and his character and spiritual history we can profess no thorough or final understanding; yet enough to make us view him with admiration and pity, nowise with harsh, contemptuous censure; and must say, with clearest persuasion, that the outcry of his being 'a renegade,' &c., is but like other such out

Wolff's Encyclopädie.

cries, a judgment where there was neither jury, nor evidence, nor judge. The candid reader in this book itself,* to say nothing of all the rest, will find traces of a high, far-seeing, ear

* Schlegel's last work; Lectures on the Philosophy of Language, &c.

nest spirit, to whom Austrian Pensions' and the Kaiser's crown and Austria altogether, were but a light matter to the finding and vitally appropriating of truth. Let us respect the sacred mystery of a Person; rush not irreverently into man's Holy of Holies!"

LECTURES ON THE PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY.

From the Translation of Robinson.

THE CHINESE EMPIRE.

THE Chinese empire is the largest of all the monarchies now existing on the earth, and on this account alone may well challenge the attention of the historical inquirer. It is not absolutely the greatest in territorial extent, though even in this respect it is scarcely inferior to the greatest; but in point of population it is, in all probability, the first. Spain, could we now include in the number of her possessions her American colonies, would exceed all other empires in extent. The same may be said of Russia, with her colonies and boundless provinces in the north of Asia. But, great as the population of Russia may be, considered in itself and relatively to the other European states, it can sustain no comparison with that of China. England, with the East Indies and her colonial possessions in the three divisions of the globe, Polynesh, Africa, and America, has indeed a very wide extent, and perhaps, including the hundred and ten millions that own her sway in India, comes the nearest, in point of population, to China. Of the amount of the Chinese population, which is not certainly known, that of India may furnish a criterion for a conjectural and probable estimate. However, as this vast region is everywhere intersected by navigable rivers and canals, e'erywhere studded with large and populous cities, and enjoys a climate as genial, or even still more genial, and certainly far more salubrious, than that of India; as, like the latter country, it everywhere presents to the eye the richest culture, and is in all appearance as much peopled, or over-peopled, we may take India, whose total population is by no means included in the hundred and ten millions under British rule, as furnishing a pretty accurate standard for the computation of the Chinese population. Now, when we consider that even China proper is larger than the whole western peninsula of India and that the vast countries dependent on China, such as Thibet and Southern Tartary, a very populous, the conjectural calculation of the English writer whom I follow in these remarks on the Chinese population, and who reckons it at one hundred and fifty millions, may be regarded as very moderate, and might, with perfect safety, be considerably raised. Thus then the Chinese popu. lation is nearly as large as the whole population

of Europe, and constitutes, if not a fourth, at least a fifth, of the total population of the globe.

Cursory comparisons of this kind are not without value. The history of civilization, forming the basis, and as it were the outward body, of the philosophy of history, which should be the inner and highest sense of the whole, is deeply interesting in all that refers to the general condition of humanity. And such an interest, which does not of itself lie in mere statistical calculations, but in the outward condition of mankind, as the symbol of its inward state, may very well belong to comparisons of this

nature.

The interest, however, which the philosophic historian should take in all that relates to humanity in general, and to the various nations of the earth, ought not to be regulated by the false standard of an indiscriminate equality, considering all nations of equal importance, and paying equal attention to all, without distinction. This would imply insensibility to man's higher nature, or ignorance of it. But this interest should be measured not merely by the population of a state, or by geographical extent of territory, or by external power, but by population, territory and power combined-by moral worth and intellectual pre-eminence, by the scale of civilization to which the nation has attained. The Tongoosses, though a very widely-diffused race the Calmucks, though they have much to claim our attention, compared with the other nations of central Asia, cannot certainly excite equal interest, or hold a place in the history of human civilization with the Greeks or the Egyptians; though the territory of Egypt itself is certainly not particularly large, nor, according to our customary standard of population, were its inhabitants, in all probability, ever very numerous. In the same way, the Empire of the Moguls, which embraced China itself, has not the same importance in our eyes as the Roman Empire, either in its rise or in its fall. Writers of universal history have not however always avoided this fault, and have been too much disposed to place all nations on the same historical footing,-on the false level of an indiscriminate equality; and to regard humanity in a mere physical point of view, and according to the natural classification of tribes and races. In these sketches of history, the high and the noble is often ranked with the low and the vulgar; and neither what is truly great, nor what is of lesser importance (for this, too, should

not be overlooked), has its due place in these portraits of mankind.

A numerous, or even excessive population, is undoubtedly an essential element of political power in a state; but it is not the only, nor in any respect the principal indication of the civilization of a country. It is only in regard to civilization that the population of China deserves our consideration. Although in these latter times, when Europe, by her political ascendancy over the other parts of the world, has proved the pre-eminence of her arts and civilization, England and Russia have become the immediate neighbors of China towards the north and west, yet these territorial relations affect not the rest of Europe; and China, when we leave out of consideration its very important commerce, cannot certainly be accounted a political power in the general system. Even in ancient, as well as in modern times, China never figured in the history of Western Asia or Europe, and had no connection whatever with their inhabitants; but this great country has ever stood apart, like a world within itself, in the remote, unknown Eastern Asia. Hence, the earlier writers of universal history have taken little or no notice of this great empire, shut out as it was from the confined horizon of their views. And this was natural, when we consider that the conquests and expeditions of the Asiatic nations were considered by these writers as subjects of the first importance. No conquerors have ever marched from China into Western Asia, like Xerxes, for instance, who passed from the interior of Persia to Athens; or Alexander the Great, who extended his victorious march from his small paternal province of Macedon to beyond the Indus, and almost to the borders of the Ganges, though the latter river, in despite of all his efforts, he was unable to reach. But great victorious expeditions have proceeded not from China, but from Central Asia, and the nations of Tartary, who have invaded China itself; though in those invasions the manners, mind, and civilization of the Chinese have evinced their power, since their Tartar conquerors, in the earliest as in the latest times, have, after a few generations, invariably conformed to the manners and civilization of the conquered nation, and become more or less Chinese. Not only the great population and flourishing agriculture of this fruitful country, but the cultivation of silk, for which it has been celebrated from all antiquity, the culture of the tea-plant, which forms such an important article of European trade, as well as the knowledge of several most useful medicinal productions of nature, and unique, and, in their way, excellent products of industry and manufacture, prove the very high degree of civilization to which this people have attained. And why should not that people be entitled to a high place, or one of the highest among civilized nations, which had known, many centuries before Europe, the

art of printing, gunpowder, and the magnet— those three so highly celebrated and valuable discoveries of European skill? Instead of the regular art of printing with transposable letters, which would not suit the Chinese system of writing, this people make use of a species of lithography, which, to all essential purposes, is the same, and attended with the same effects. Gunpowder serves in China, as it did in Europe in the infancy of the discovery, rather for amusement and fireworks, than for the more serious purposes of war and conquest; and though this people are acquainted with the magnetic needle, they have never made a like extended applicaation of its powers, and never employ it, either in a confined river and coasting navigation, or on the wide ocean, on which they never venture.

The Chinese are remarkable, too, for the utmost polish and refinement of manners, and even for a precise civility and love of stately ceremonial. In many respects, indeed, their politeness and refinement almost equal those of European nations, or at least are far supe rior to what we usually designate by the term of oriental manners-a term which, in our sense, can apply only to the nearer Mahometan countries of the Levant. Of this assertion, we may find a sufficient proof in any single tale that portrays the present Chinese life and manners; in the novel, for instance, translated by M. Remusat. In their present manners and fashions, however, there are many things utterly at variance with European taste and feelings; I need only mention the custom of the dignitaries, functionaries, and literary men letting their nails grow to the length of birds' claws, and that other custom in women of rank, of compressing their feet to an extreme diminutiveness. Both customs, according to the recent account of a very intelligent Englishman, serve to mark and distinguish the upper class; for the former renders the men totally incapa ble of hard or manual labor, and the latter impedes the woman of rank in walking, or at least gives her a mincing gait, and a languid, delicate and interesting air. These minute traits of manners should not be overlooked in the general sketch of the nation, for they perfectly correspond to many other characteristic marks and indications of the unnatural stiffness, childish vanity, and exaggerated refinement, which we meet with in the more important province of its intelectual character. Even in the basis of all intellectual culture, the language, or rather the writing of the Chinese, this character of refinement pushed beyond all bounds and all conception, is visible, while, on the other hand, it is coupled with great intellectual poverty and jejuleness. A language where there are not many more than three hundred, not near four hundred, and (according to the most recent critical investigation) only 272 monosyllabic primitive oots without any kind of grammar; where the aot merely various, but utterly unconnected significations of one and the

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