The opposite distemper is that which has been already noticed, namely, the case of those who consider that to wink at the minutest flaw, or the slightest transgression, is an offence of the kind which the law terms a misprision. They see every thing, and forgive nothing; they are the spies, informers, witnesses, prosecutors, and, we may add, unpaid beadles and volunteer executioners of the circle of society which they infest; and such is the sinfulness of the world, that they have only too much employment in their detestable vocation.

of winking, or what is equivalent thereto, the [or a physician's eye; and humanity to a ruffian sun makes a generous and considerate use of it. proves the utmost pitch of cruelty to the unofHe never sets without setting us an example offending public. the sublimest charity, deliberately closing his piercing eye to ten thousand rogueries, frauds, and treasons; ten thousand scenes of profligacy and haunts of dissipation. At what infinite intrigues, and assignations numberless, does he not mercifully wink? What myriads of follies and vices of all sorts might he not witness in every stage of their commission, by simply tarrying a few hours longer above the horizon, and exercising his talent of observation with a little human malice. But he is so far above such paltry curiosity, that he is recorded to have more than once in his career gone out of his But a closer examination of the visual organs way, actually left the high road of Heaven, to of persons of this character, leads us rather to avoid a spectacle of guilt-for instance, the hor-conclude that they have brought themselves to rid banquet of Thyestes. How superior to the use their eyelids very little, than that they are moon, who, after keeping her chamber the live- absolutely devoid of that ingenious provision of long day, while the inhabitants of the globe are our physical constitution. The fact is, that illabout their lawful business, and, generally natured people have lids to their eyes as well as speaking, conducting themselves with decorum, those who most abound with the milk and cream issues forth in the evening as it were, expressly of human kindness. It is also beyond dispute, to peep, or sometimes gaze with her full round that nature makes nothing in vain; and hence eye at the very doings which her brother has the question immediately suggests itself, of just plunged into the ocean to shun the sight what use is the eyelid to the multitudes of indiof! The moon is the very mistress of the|viduals who wink so seldom, that they are vulSchool for Scandal; but how many eyes imitate garly supposed never to wink at all. This is a her, and how few follow the example of the point of some difficulty; but we think we shall sun's! The gazers and starers are numerous explain it satisfactorily. sects, but the winkers are few indeed. Some What is right may be winked at as well as people appear never to wink at all, just as if what is wrong: and may not the eye be so their eyes had no lids to them, and they conse-constructed as to be only capable of closing quently observe every thing that is deformed, when the object presented to it is distinguished unsightly, disagreeable, or revolting in the by its physical or moral beauty? This, we beworld, which is, of course, an inconceivable sat-lieve, is a very common structure of the organ. isfaction to them, or they would learn to shut How many instances have we not known ourtheir eyes upon occasion like their less obser-selves of men who never in the course of their vant neighbors. Philosophers tell us that this defect in the apparatus for winking, is particularly striking in the case of those whose benevolent dispositions are none of the strongest, while the goodnatured man, on the contrary, is found to possess an uncommon flexibility of the eyelid, by virtue of which he winks a great deal, and thus avoids the observation of a thousand matters and incidents calculated to hurt the sight. In some men this facility of winking is excessive, and it leads them into every sort of extravagancy; they shut their eyes to the most enormous crimes, as well as to the most trifling peccadilloes. They are sure that the swindler intended to return the property of his dupe, and that the murderer never meant to hurt a hair of his victim's head. They wink at the most barbarous assassination, and amiably designate it a 'homicidal monomania.' If their sovereign is shot at by a traitor, they are the people who doubt that the pistol was loaded, and call for the production of the ball. This is the sort of vision which Shakspeare calls the perpetual wink,' and there is no doubt whatsoever but that it results from an unhealthy state of the organ, and ought particularly to engage the attention of the oculist. That the disorder is eminently favorable to the impunity of the most dangerous malefactors, is clear from tragical experience; the murderer may be said to escape in the twinkling of a juror's, a judge's,

lives winked at the slightest blemish in the character of their neighbor or their friend, yet who possessed, in an eminent degree, the gift of winking at his talents and his virtues! Even where observance was most conspicuous,

And multitudes of virtues passed along, Each pressing foremost in the mighty throng— they saw no more of the procession than a blind man does of the Lord Mayor's show. They winked until the pomp went by, and might have declared with perfect truth, that they saw nothing so lovely in an Eleanora, nothing so benevolent in a Howard, or nothing so great in a Chatham or a Franklin. Eyes of this description may be said to connive at worth, just as those of another formation connive at infirmities or foibles. They are perfectly incapable of the impertinence of remarking the good points of their acquaintance; they hold that nothing can be more rude than to stare at any man's amiable peculiarities; in a word, they pay Virtue the distinguished compliment of treating her as they treat the sun on the meridian, whose spots it is lawful to observe and gaze at, but whose glories may not be searched by mortal eye.

What is more familiar than the practical inversion of the poet's amiable precept,

Be to her virtues ever kind,
Be to her faults a little blind?

The reverse would seem to be a maxim in not a donkey; the Tories cry "a Numa!" or "a

a little vogue,

Be to her virtues ever blind,

Be to her failings never kind,

so completely has no small portion of mankind habituated their organs of observation to see nothing but the foul, and wink at nothing but the fair,-to connive at beauty, and feed their eyes upon the beast. The torture devised by the Roman satirist for the punishment of vice, is eluded by this method of eye-education.

Solon!" Another senator arrives in his cab-
the Tories pronounce him a knave and a job.
ber; the Whigs see a Fabricus or an Aristides;
the Radicals would appear not to see him at all,
as if he was but the ghost of a legislator, or Mr.
Nobody in proper person. Again a carriage
draws up, and behold a judge comes up the
scene.

"Scroggs!" growls one partisan.
"A Daniel!" exclaims his opponent.

portrait of Barnabas ;" or, if a devout Tory indeed, and one who has often shed salt tears for the poor estate of the church, he imagines that it is Lazarus himself he sees before him. Last arrives the minister.

To a third, the noble and learned lord is simply another Mansfield; to a fourth, as palpable Virtutem videant, intabescantque relictâ. a Jefferies as the eye of man ever beheld. Then How many thousands are there who would are seen two or three pedestrian senators walkno more recognise any one of the cardinal vir- ing arm-in-arm to the great council of the nation. tues, were they to meet her bodily in the streets One observer sees a flight of eagles; upon the of London, than they would Nebuchadnezzar or retina of another, the self-same objects paint the Abednego? Were the said virtues even to ap- forms of so many kites, or mousing-owls;" to pear in cardinal's hats, it is much to be doubted a third eye, they are a flock of plain geese as if ten men in England would recognise one of ever gabbled on, or in the Commons. The next the four. There are observers who behold comer is a right-reverend, or most reverend incarnate fiends wherever they turn, yet who bishop, in the purple and fine linen, borrowed never saw an incarnate angel in their lives. from the divine example of the millionaire in the Nay, when angels put on the flesh, they are apt parable. The Radical at once recognises my to be taken for demons by men who have Lord Dives; the Chartist takes him for lucifer, trained their retinas to receive no images but and peeps under the lawn for the cloven foot: those of deformity and vice. Thus Religion oft the Tory rounds his neighbor in the ear, and clothes herself in the flesh of the mitred pontiff, observes, "How like his lordship is to the piconly to be called intolerance, sensuality, or hy-ture of St. Peter!" or, "He might sit for the pocrisy. Thus Justice arrays herself in the human limbs of chancellors and judges, yet continues as much unknown as before her incarnation. Thus Wisdom, too, takes the shape and substance of some great minister, or shepherd of the people, and intending to reveal herself, only puts on a more complete disguise. Economy, in the form of a Chancellor of the Exchequer, is called Extravagance; and Liberty, in the likeness of a Secretary of State, is taken for Oppression. No wonder that public virtue, thus abused and dishonored, should soon 'shuffle off the mortal coil,' and leaving the ministerial frame to be animated by its own inferior spirit, and illuminated by its own feeble light, hasten to join Astræa in her kindred skies. This is perhaps the true explanation of the marvellously small stock of prudence with which the affairs of kingdoms are proverbially said to be administered; and it is also the best apology that can be suggested for the follies and absurdities of statesmen. The minister is reproached with casting off Wisdom, when the truth is, that Wisdom in despair has flung off the minister.

Here it may not be amiss to remark a very curious peculiarity in the organization of the human eye, and one which strikingly exemplifies the astonishing connexion between the body and the mind; we allude to the way in which the sight is influenced by political and party feeling. One would never suppose, arguing a priori, that the fact of being Whig, Tory, Radical, or Chartist, had any connexion whatever with the physical machinery by which we either see or wink; but experience assures us that the connexion is very close indeed. Of this any body may satisfy himself by planting himself in a group of politicians, close to the doors of either House of Parliament. A gentleman alights from his horse-the Whigs call him a goose or VOL. II. No. II.

13

"A present deity!" bursts from the ministerial section of the spectators.

"A demigod!"

"A devil!"

"Another Cecil!-a second Chatham !"
"A second Strafford !--another Walpole !"
"A Lamb!"
"A Wolf!"

"A modern Cicero !"

"The Mummius of his day!"
"And the Verres !"

"To the tower with him!"
"To the Pantheon !"
"A la lanterne !"

"Such is the effect of that particular acrid humor, called party-spirit, upon the optic nerve.— A blind man in the crowd, ignorant of the prevalence of this description of opthalmia amongst our countrymen, would suppose that some mighty wizard-a Merlin, a Michael Scott, or "thrice great Hermes" himself, hovered over Palace-yard, and entertained himself by momentary metamorphoses of the public characters of the day. This would satisfactorily explain how a man alighting from his coach, is cheered by some of the bystanders as an impersonation of virtue; and before he takes three steps across the flagway, hooted by others as the evil principle itself in the form of a lawgiver or ruler. The only other account of the phenomenon, is that which has been given above,--namely, a distemper of the vision which has hitherto eluded the skill of Mr. Alexander, and the other eminent oculists of Europe.

But still the question "what not to observe,"

They stem the current of that perilous gorge,
Their arms still strengthening with the strengthen-
ing heart,
Though danger, as the wreck is near'd, becomes
More imminent. Not unseen do they approach;
And rapture, with varieties of fear
Incessantly conflicting, thrills the frames
Of those who, in that dauntless energy,
Foretaste deliverance; but the least perturbed
Can scarcely trust his eyes, when he perceives
That of the pair-tossed on the waves to bring
Hope to the hopeless, to the dying life-
One is a woman, a poor earthly sister,
Or, be the visitant other than she seems,
A guardian spirit sent from pitying heaven,
In woman's shape. But why prolong the tale,
Casting weak words amidst a host of thoughts
Armed to repel them? Every hazard faced
| And difficulty mastered, with resolve
That no one breathing should be left to perish,
This last remainder of the crew are all

Through the whole land-to manhood, moven in Placed in the little boat, then o'er the deep
spite

Of the world's freezing care-to generous youth-And in fulfillment of God's mercy, lodged
To infancy, that lisps her praise-and age,
Whose eye reflects it glistening through a tear

Within the sheltering light-house. Shout, ye waves!
Pipe a glad song of triumph, ye fierce winds!

Ye screaming sea-mews, in the concert join!
And would that some immortal voice, a voice
Fitly attuned to all that gratitude

Breathes out from floor or couch, through pallid lips
Of the survivors, to the clouds might bear-
(Blended with praise of that parental love,
Beneath whose watchful eye the maiden grew
Pious and pure, modest, and yet so brave,
Though young so wise, though meek so resolute)
Might carry to the clouds and to the stars,
Yes, to celestial choirs, Grace Darling's name!

entirely lost, we would make no more sacrifices of the very serious and extensive nature which could alone be effectual, except under postive instructions from England, for the re-establishment of our supremacy throughout the country. We have particularly felt it our duty distinctly, at this distance, to give instructions applicable to all contingencies, and therefore to contemplate the most unfavorable issue to the struggle which our troops are maintaining at Cabul, and in this case, upon the anticipation of which we cannot conceal from ourselves the hazard of extending dangers, and of the insurrection assuming in other quarters also the same national and united character, we have authorized Gene

THE EVACUATION OF AFFGHANISTAN.ral Nott and Major Rawlinson, with such cau

From the Asiatic Journal.

THE papers laid before both Houses of Parliament, relating to the military operations in Affghanistan, besides throwing considerable light upon other subjects connected with that country, have decided the vexed question, by whom its evacuation by the British forces was first determined upon. Much obloquy has been cast upon the present Governor-General for having adopted the "cowardly" policy of withdrawing our armies within the Indus, and thus abandoning a country from the occupation of which his predecessor had intended to derive such great advantages to the political and commercial interests of British India. It turns out that the abandonment of Affghanistan, and with it all those delusive visions of security and prosperity which the retention of that country was expected to yield, was decided upon by Lord Auckland. We surmised as much from a remarkable expression which, in the heat of discussion, fell from Sir Robert Peel in the House of Commons on the 10th August last.

The insurrection broke out at Cabul in November, 1841; it reached its acme in the ensuing month, and the British army was annihilated in January, 1842. The very first paper in the collection, which is a dispatch from the late Governor-General in Council to the Secret Committee of the East-India Company, dated 22nd December, 1841, when nothing was known but the actual outbreak of the insurrection, contains the following passages:

We have applied ourselves immediately to concerting such measures, and issuing such instructions, as the exigency of the case seemed to require and admit.-It will be seen that we have laid it down as a rule of our conduct that we would do all in our power to rescue our detachments wherever they may be encompassed by danger; but that, if the position of command and influence which we have held at the capital of Affghanistan should once be absolutely and

tion and deliberation in their military and political proceedings as may serve to avoid discredit and to promise safety, so to shape their course as quishment of our direct control in the several best to promote the end of the eventual relinAfghan provinces, and to provide for the concentration of all forces and detachments, as may be most conducive to the security of the troops.

In their letter to the Commander-inChief, Sir Jasper Nicolls, dated 3rd December, the Governor-General in Council had distinctly enunciated the intention of "retiring from the country with the least possible discredit," collecting fresh forces on the frontier only for the sake of demonstration. This policy is adhered to in the next despatch to the Secret Committee (January 9th), and was not changed by the receipt of intelligence of the murder of the British Envoy and the extreme jeopardy of the army, farther than that orders were given for reinforcements "to strengthen our position on the Affghan frontier." The accounts of the destruction of the army induced Lord Aukland and his Council (as stated in their despatch of the 19th February, 1842) even to direct Major-General Pollock, then at Peshawur, to withdraw the garrison of Jellalabad, and the assemblage af all his force at or near Peshawur: "We have made our directions, in regard to withdrawal from Jellalabad," they say (p. 106), "clear and positive."

It appears that Mr. Clerk, the agent at Lahore, strenuously urged the policy of holding Jellalabad, with a view of advancing from it and Candahar upon Cabul, and having regained our former position there, and the influence which such proof of power must give," we should then withdraw with dignity and undiminished honor.' Sir Jasper Nicolls opposed this measure, on the ground (p. 118) that the means were inadequate, and the Governor-General in Council (p. 120) reiterate their directions that the garrison of Jellalabad should be withdrawn to Peshawur. In conformity with this direction, Sir Jasper Nicolls

Major-General Nott, at Candahar, was informed of these views of the Government, though his measures in relation to them were in a great measure left to his

discretion.

wrote to General Pollock on the 1st Febru-|" compel us to adopt the conclusion that ary: "You may deem it perfectly certain the possession of Affghanistan, could we that Government will not do more than recover it, would be a source of weakness detach this brigade, and this in view to rather than of strength, in resisting the support Major-General Sale, either at Jel- invasion of any army from the West, and lalabad, for a few weeks, or to aid his re- therefore, that the ground upon which the treat it is not intended to collect a force policy of the advance of our troops to that, for the re-conquest of Cabul." country mainly rested has altogether ceased to exist." The policy to be pursued, therefore, was, in their opinion, to be guided by military considerations-the safety of the detached bodies of our troops at Jellalabad, Ghuzni, and Candahar; the When Lord Ellenborough arrived and security of our forces then in the field from "and finally, the reassumed the government, he thus found unnecessary risk; " not only that the resolution had been form- establishment of our military reputation by ed to withdraw the forces from Affghanis- the infliction of some signal and decisive tan, and to abandon all intention of re-en-blow upon the Affghans, which may make tering the country, but that instructions, it appear to them, to our own subjects, and "clear and positive," had been given to to our allies, that we have the power of that effect to the British commanders. inflicting punishment upon those who comThe measures adopted by his lordship to carry into effect his predecessor's views in this respect appear somewhat vacillating, owing to the constant change and fluctuation of circumstances. In his first despatch to the Secret Committee, March 22nd,

he

says:

mit atrocities and violate their faith, and that we withdraw ultimately from Affghanistan, not from any deficiency of means to maintain our position, but because we are satisfied that the king we have set up has not, as we were erroneously led to imagine, the support of the nation over which he has been placed."

We have recently judged it expedient to enSubsequent to this despatch, although, ter again upon an exposition of our views regarding the line of policy which it may be pro- upon the whole, the prospects had to some per for us to pursue in relation to Affghanistan. extent improved, in his letter to the Secret To our despatch of the 15th inst. on this subject, Committee of April 22nd, Lord Ellenboaddressed to his Exc. the Commander-in-Chief, rough states that his deliberate opinion as we would solicit the particular attention of your to the expediency of withdrawing the hon. Committee. It contains our deliberate sentiments on the present position of affairs in that troops had in no respect altered, and that upon a general country, and the course we should pursue to- this opinion is founded " wards the retrieval of our late military disgrace, view of our military, political, and financial and our final withdrawal of our army from Aff- situation." Three days previously, orders ghanistan. It points out the conditions on which had been issued (p. 223) to Major-Gen. we can sanction the continuance during the Nott to evacuate Candahar and to retire to coming season of Major-General Pollock's force in the valley of Jellalabad, after he shall have Sukkur, the fall of Ghuzni, Lord EllenboSir Jasper Nicolls penetrated by force or by negotiation the Khy- rough observes to ber Pass. It discourages the expectation that (p. 224,) having removed the principal obMajor-Gen. Nott's force, though reinforced by ject for which it was expedient to retain that of Brig. England, will, in consequence of the force at Candahar, and the check susthe inefficiency of its field equipments, be able to tained by Brig. England "having crippled effect much more than the relief of the posts of the before limited means of movement and Kelat-i-Ghilzie and of Ghuznee, and the security of action which were possessed by MajorGen. Nott."

of its own retirement to the Indus.

In compliance with this resolution, peremptory orders were issued to General Pollock, who had the pass, and reached The Jellalabad, to retire from thence. want of carriage, however, which had prevented the general from advancing, opposed equal obstacles to his retiring; and General Nott, in a well reasoned despatch

The letter to the Commander-in-Chief, above referred to, lays fully before him "the deliberate views of the Government with respect to the measures to be pursued in Affghanistan." The disasters which had befallen our army at Cabul, "followed by the universal hostility of the whole people of Affghanistan, united against us in a war which has assumed a religious of March 24th (p. 244,) urges the inexpe"At the as well as a national character," the Gov-diency of a hasty retirement. ernor-General and his Council observe, present time," he observes, "the impres