and their auxiliaries can muster that large force north of Varna, which is competent to give battle to the Russians, they have but to pass the Danube, in order to compel the Russians to a general engagement, and to the evacuation of Wallachia in case of failure.

Such appear to be the chances and principal points in a campaign, for the defence of Turkey, upon the Danube. It is, however, forcibly demanded by the interests of England, not only that Russia should receive such a blow, as would deprive her of her present guardianship of the mouth of the Danube, but that she should, at the same time, be driven from her present advanced position south of the Caucasus, or, at least be so weakened there, as no longer to have Persia, as well as Turkey, in her grasp.

The most severe blow that could be dealt to Russia,-indeed, the only blow, that can ever induce her to draw back from her present advanced position, would be the conquest of the Crimea. It is the only very vulnerable point of Russia to a naval power. It is, to all purpose, an Island, assailable and defensible on all sides, by sea. There is an isthmus, or narrow neck of land at Perekop, across which fortifications of any strength could be erected, and which it might be rendered impossible for any Russian force to overcome. Within the Peninsula, too, is Sevastopol, the southern arsenal of Russia. If the weak point of Turkey be the Bosphorus-at which Russia has ever aimed-the Crimea may be equally the aim of Turkey, and the maritime powers. The strongest motive with Russia, for entering upon these and other wars, is, that she has nothing to lose, and that even, if defeated, an enemy cannot penetrate into the interior of the country, occupy the capitals, or permanently subjugate her. But let us show Russia that she may be deprived of the Crimea, as the result of a war with the maritime powers, and she will then feel that same salutary reluctance to war, which the Western powers feel, who know what damage must be dealt, in case of war, to commerce and to credit, and to that ideal world of riches piled upon them.

It would require an article, or a chapter, of itself, to point out all the consequences, if the Porte, or the Powers of Western Europe, wrest the Crimea from Russia. It contains a Mussulman population, Tartar in origin, tongue, habits, and recollections. A Mahomedan power and dynasty resuscitated there, and having claim to the respect and support of all the Mahomedan tribes eastward, would erect a barrier against Russia on the side of Asia far more impregnable and more formidable than the Danube and the Balkan. Sixty thousand French and English flung into the Crimea would soon bring Russia to reason, and compel her to conform to the laws of Europe. At all events, the Black Sea being left open, Russia must be taught her vulnerability on this point. And a sense of that vulnerability can alone render her amenable to the laws and dictates of common sense and common right.

VOL. XXXV.

A A

CONFESSIONS OF A MIDDLE-AGED GENTLEMAN.

BY ALFRED W. COLE.

THE world has grown curious to an excess. Nothing so eagerly read as confessions, revelations, private journals, autobiographies, and correspondences. What most concerns the world to know, the world cares nothing about, or very little; but what is of no earthly consequence to the world or to any human being but one-videlicet, the private acts, thoughts, troubles, annoyances, embarrassments, and petty vexations of an individual-every word that tells of these things will be eagerly devoured by men and women of all ranks and all nations, from the duchess to the housemaid, the prince to the footman, from "May Fair to Marathon."

This is a very depraved taste of the world, and ought not to be encouraged. It should be "put down," as Sir Peter would say. The world ought to know better. Why did not the world purchase Mr. Daubley's pictures in his lifetime at high prices, if the world considered Mr. Daubley a great painter? And, if the world did not think so, what does the world mean by poring over Mr. Daubley's autobiography so eagerly now? If Mr. Daubley was a bad painter, a man of large vanity and small powers (and the world, right or wrong, must have thought so as it would not buy his pictures), what has the world to do with poor Daubley's life? Nothing at all-and for that very reason the world takes such an interest in it, and gloats over every page recording the unhappy Daubley's struggles and necessities, and sheds crocodile's tears over Daubley's visits to the pawnbroker to get money for mutton chops for Mrs. Daubley and the little Daubleys. Are you not ashamed of yourself, Ŏ hypocritical world, to have forced poor Daubley, by pure neglect of his works, to pay such visits? Do you answer "No"? Then what earthly interest can you take in Daubley's autobiography? Bah! it is curiosity, vulgar, flunkeylike, letter-opening, keyhole-peeping curiosity. You ought to be ashamed of yourself; but so you ought any time during these six thousand years of your existence, and you never have been yet, and never will be.

A strange opening this for a paper of confessions, is it not? Am I not about to gratify the very taste I have been abusing? Que voulez vous, my dear reader? I am but a man and an author. If I don't tickle your taste I cannot live-and you ought to allow me to give a little salve to my conscience by abusing you first if I try to please you afterwards.

My confessions! What have I to confess? What long concealed crime am I about to reveal? rankling in my bosom, forces me at last self its author? Am I spring-heeled

What evil, whose memory remorsefully to avow myJack ?-the murderer of

Eliza Grimwood?-the perpetrator of the undiscovered Bank robbery ?-a member of the Frimley gang? Certainly not! I have nothing half so interesting or romantic about me as any of those individuals. I could not even occupy two lines of contemptuous notice in the Newgate Calendar as a third-rate pickpocket, or a detected "area sneak." I am, on the contrary, considered by my friends as a highly respectable, steady, middleaged bachelor, with a tolerably clear conscience, a sufficiently healthy digestion, and a fair balance at my banker's.

"Then, in the name of common sense," you exclaim, "what can you have to confess? You must be a regular impostor, and deserve a fortnight at Holloway for obtaining our attention under false pretences!" Ah! it's very natural for you to think so, my good sir, but you never knew Amelia Jellicoe! Had I never known her-but

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Those Oxford and Cambridge boat races are the cause of a great deal of mischief. I am not at all sure that they, also, ought not to be "put down." Indeed, the more I see of the world-the longer I live in it-the more inclined I feel to put down a great many things. At twenty I would have put down nothing but "Governors; at thirty my destructive organs would have exercised themselves on literary ladies, and hobble-de-hoys with the first sprouts of a moustache on their lips; at forty I took a much wider range in my view of things and people to be utterly abolished; and at fifty-but what am I talking about? pray don't imagine, my dear madam, that I am fifty-I began to get grey at five-andtwenty I assure you, and I had an accident about the same time which deprived me of my front teeth, so don't judge me by those points. As for figure, the absurdly loose degagé style of costume in vogue at present is quite sufficient to account for a more extensive proportion of waist than you, perhaps, consider symmetrical; but to my theme.

These boat-races are serious matters. I don't care a button about cockneys in their wherries being capsized, and ducked or drowned-it's their affair, not mine. Steamers may be overcrowded-the greater fools they who go on board of them. Undergraduates may drink too much beer-nasty fellows! Pickpockets may reap a harvest-fault of the police. Young gents who follow the race on horseback along the banks of the river may tumble off, or their horses may tumble down-serve them right, for mounting when they don't know how to ride. The evil that I complain of is infinitely greater than all these-it is a moral evil, and one from which a man can scarce protect himself-it is the dreadful and deliberate system of flirtation practised and encouraged at these meetings!

Jellicoe, of Cornhill and Fulham, was an old friend of mine-a City acquaintance of twen (ahem!) I mean of some years' standing. We did not visit one another's houses, but we were very intimate on 'Change. Jellicoe was a married man; I was a bachelor. Jellicoe pitied me; I had a strong compassion for Jel

licoe. He imagined that a bachelor's dinner must be a wretched affair, and a bachelor's dwelling an unhappy place. I, on the other hand, had strong suspicions that a married man's repast was often a cold one, off the yesterday's leg of mutton, with, perhaps, a fried sole or a rice pudding to pass it off; and I greatly preferred my vermicelli soup, cutlet aux pointes d'asperge, and quiet woodcock, at my West-end club. I was also morally convinced that Jellicoe was not allowed to lounge in his dressing-gown and slippers in the evening, to put his feet on the fender, to smoke in the house, or to have a fire in his dressing-room, and his bed properly warmed every winter's night. These I regarded as essentials to every man's real happiness, and I was duly thankful that I possessed them, instead of noisy children, a piano-thumping daughter, and a wife with a mania for tidiness and domestic propriety. And thus, Jellicoe's ideas and mine being so decidedly opposed (at least, he professed, poor fellow, not to care for my style of comforts), it was not very likely that we should trouble one another's homes much. Besides which, I lived in St. James's, as every one who wishes to be happy should, while poor Jellicoe lived in the suburbs-at Fulham-where he had a villa which he thought healthy and rural. It is astonishing how men of business can go and bury themselves in "froggeries" (as Theodore Hook, sensible fellow, called these Thames Villas), where they must rise by candle-light in the winter, to be in the City by post-time; and stifle themselves for two hours daily in dirty, stuffy omnibuses backwards and forwards. And all for the possession of half an acre of sloppy ground, called a garden! Can't I walk in St. James's Park, if I care for damp gravel and sickly flower-beds?

One day Jellico said to me

By-the-bye, Jones, have you ever seen the Oxford and Cambridge boat-race?"

"Never," I replied; "and I don't intend to see it. It's not worth the trouble. A man always looks like a fool when he's rowing, and is one, in my opinion, unless he's getting his living by it."

Well," said Jellicoe, smiling, "I'm sorry you say you won't go, because I was going to ask you if you'd join us at Fulham tomorrow, to see this very boat-race. We shall have a few friends down; the weather promises to be very fine, and Mrs. Jellicoe is really very anxious to be introduced to you."

"My dear fellow," I answered, " don't suppose that my peculiar ideas about boat-races would prevent me from accepting your hospitality. And really, after Mrs. Jellicoe's kindness in wishing to see me, if I were to refuse to come, I should be a perfect Goth, and I don't think I'm that," and here, I believe, I passed my hands through my curls, and glanced towards the place where the mirror ought to have been, but was not-for we were in my countinghouse only.

"Then the thing's settled," said Jellicoe, “and I'm really delighted that you're coming. Be down about one, will you? You know the address-Calcutta Lodge. The omnibus-"

"Thank you-I'll take a Hansom-"

"Oh-ah-yes--you don't like omnibuses, I know. Very well: at one then. Good day."

What it was that made me peculiarly careful about my toilet the next morning I can hardly say. Jellicoe had a wife and a daughter certainly, and probably there would be several other ladies present. But what of that? I was a bachelor on principle and on determination. I was a perfectly independent man. It did not matter a button to me what all the ladies in Christendom thought of me. To be sure a man ought at all times to make the best of his personal appearance, and I always endeavour to do so; but I must confess that I was unusually anxious on the subject to-day.

I took breakfast at the Club, skimmed all the morning papers, and lounged about till twelve, when I sent for a Hansom cab and drove to Fulham.

Calcutta Lodge is not a bad place for a villa. It has a great deal of verandah and stucco, and the usual concomitants of what has been aptly termed the " pastry-cook" order of architecture. Still it looks pleasing; the grounds about it are very well kept; the lawn deliciously smooth and soft; the gravel fine and hard; the flowerbeds prettily arranged; and the supply of shrubs, and even of goodsized trees, not bad.

There was a tent on the lawn to-day; and a very fair band was playing in it. There were forty or fifty ladies and gentlemen assembled in the grounds, and conspicuous among them by his tremendous white waistcoat (married men are so fond of white waistcoats, though they seldom get them washed well), was my friend Jellicoe. He hastened forward to greet me, and presented me to Mrs. Jellicoe, who was just what I imagined-short, stout, florid, a little bit verging towards vulgar, and rather too fine in her dress.

Mrs. Jellicoe was very gracious, and after expressing her great delight at seeing so very old a friend of her husband, &c., she introduced me to-" My daughter Amelia."

Amelia Jellicoe was perfectly unlike her father, and very little like her mother. She lost nothing in either instance by her want of resemblance to her parents. She was a very pretty girl-a decidedly pretty girl. I defy any one to say otherwise without telling a downright, palpable falsehood.

"I'm so glad you have come, Mr. Jones," said Amelia.

"Indeed, Miss Jellicoe, if my presence gives you pleasure, my own happiness is very great," replied I-and I don't think I said it badly either.

"I assure you I was most anxious to see you," she continued; "for I have heard papa speak of you so constantly ever since I was quite a baby."

"Upon my word-no, really, Miss Jellicoe-you must be mistaken-some other Mr. Jones-very common name," I said. Hang it! making me appear so ridiculously old to a pretty girl like tuat. "Well really, now I see you, Mr. Jones," replied Amelia, in the most charming tone, "I cannot help thinking it must be another