The plants from which it was grown were coarse and harsh; and the manufacture in no way improved the produce of the plantations; it was unskillfully conducted. To remedy these evils, by introducing the finest varieties of plants, together with skillful and intelligent workmen, was the special object of Mr. Fortune's efforts. He is now following up his previous exertions. In January, 1856, he left China for Calcutta, carrying with him half a dozen tea manufacturers, who understood the practice of scenting the leaf. In the previous September, he sent no fewer than seventeen manufacturers from the northern districts; so that now these plantations are well supplied with men, plants, and implements, from the very best tea districts of China.

The Himalayan plantations have consequently every chance of success. It remains to be seen whether their productions will materially affect the market price. Two things are necessary to this: their productions, besides being abundant in quantity, must be excellent in quality. These conditions being fulfilled, we may expect the monopoly of the tea trade to fall out of the grasp of the Chinaman. One great advantage he has, in the cheapness of labor. By this alone he might hold his monoply against all competitors in any part of the world, except against India itself. The struggle must lie be tween these two countries; and, perhaps, so far as the mere price of labor goes, India may yet have the best of it. In China, laborers' wages vary from 2d. to 5d. a day, with one or two meals in addition. An agricultural laborer receives 10s. a month; with, perhaps, one meal a day. In India, again, agricultural laborers may be hired at from 4s. to 6s. and 8s. a month, according to the district. And, from a calculation made by those who have long been practically acquainted with the subject in all its details, it appears that the same quality of tea which cost 7d. or 8d. alb. in China, at the seat of growth, can be shipped in India at 4d. or 5d. a lb. It will be some time, however, before this can take place, even supposing the experiment, which is a recent, though hopeful one, should eventually succeed. Recent disturbances at Canton may affect the price, though not for some time, as the present stock is unusually large.

From the steady increase in the consumption which has taken place during

VOL. XL.-NO. IV.

the last twenty years, there can be but little doubt that a much larger quantity of tea would be used, if it were only made. cheap enough. The average consumption of each individual in Great Britain is close upon 2 lbs. annually: in Guernsey and Jersey, where there are no duties, the average annual consumption of each individual amounts to 4 lbs.

But morally, as well as fiscally-in favor of the national character and habits, as well as in favor of the national pursethese tea-drinking propensities speak for themselves. This increase in the use of this harmless and exhilarating beverage has been rapid and great. The following statement will show the increase for the last twenty years:

Quantities of Tea and Coffee retained for Home Consumption during the years

On the history of this rising trade we shall say but a word. Among the first notices of the use of the article, is one by that indefatigable chronicler, Mr. Pepys. In his diary, 25th of Sept., 1661, he says, "I sent for a cup of tea, (a Chinese drink,) of which I had never drunk before." It is known, however, to have been used some years previously, even in this country.

The Dutch traders first brought it to Europe, in 1610. For a long period, the East India Company enjoyed the sole monopoly of the trade; and tea continued to be a rare and expensive luxury. It was sold in London, till about the year 1707, for 60s. per lb; at Batavia, where it was shipped, it cost 3s. or 3s. 6d! The duties and prices varied considerably till 1833, when the monopoly was taken out of the hands of the East-India Company; and the trade is now open to all who think it a profitable investment for capital, or choose to take out the license, and retail by the ounce or pound. To engage successfully in this trade, however, requires some skill and sagacity; acuteness of taste and smell may often stave off a bad bargain and the ill consequences which would otherwise follow.

The varieties of this article constantly in the market are very great. From a recent circular of a London house extensively engaged in the trade, we find, of

35

warehouse. But, that space or our readers' patience might forbid, we should venture to say a little about its influence on the intellectual and social habits of the community, to look at it as it appears in the drawing-room or in the parlor of the humble cottage. It is a great promoter of the amenities and charities of life. Even commercially, its influence is of this nature, since it brings together distant countries, and unites them, through the fraternal bonds of commerce. This again dispels those prejudices which mock and degrade the human understanding, and gives to millions of people mutual sympathies and interests. But more tangibly and perceptibly, by dispelling dyspeptic clouds and other noxious vapors which ascend to the brain, with fatal influence on the spirits of the individual, it causes the benignant rays of cheerfulness and good-humor to shed happiness and peace, where gloom and discontent must otherwise have darkened the whole domestic horizon. And about those little social gatherings and tea-meetings, how often are we told that, "before tea, the people seemed all very stiff, and not by any means enjoying themselves." The ease and perfect freedom from constraint which followed the main business of the evening, are usually attributed to the clatter of cups, and the mere occupation of drinking, which kindly intervened to break that dreadful silence that once or twice had settled down over the assembled guests; the mere remembrance of which makes

one shudder with affright. But we leave it with our reader to determine whether it was this merely, or not rather the enlivening influence of the warm liquor, which put every one on good terms with himself, through the mediation of his sto mach, by neutralizing the acid juices that remained after the process of midday digestion had been thoroughly completed; and so induced him to regard his next neighbor as a "decidedly more agreeable person" than had been at first supposed. And as a man's digestion unquestionably affects his modes of thinking, his currents of feeling, and all his behavior towards his fellows, whatever comes in to facilitate or put a graceful finish on this important process must be regarded as one of the greatest blessings; especially if it be a beverage so different in the ultimate consequences from the pernicious dram. Over the latter, men frequently become good-humored, even to a troublesome degree: that is, they become positively quarrelsome. The former "cheers but not inebriates," and generally disposes us to be, if not quite so hilarious, at least quite as agreeable as when we imbibe stronger waters. Society, as a whole, and each individual member of it, becomes a gainer in consequence; for it must not be forgotten, that if "all the world's a stage," it is also all "a looking-glass; and as we show to it a sour or pleasant countenance, must we expect it to exhibit to us a sour or pleasant face in return."

interesting statement in this connection is made by Mr. Thompson, one of the physicists, who, with Carnot, Soule, Meyer, and others, has largely contributed toward establishing the relations between heat and mechanical force, and who has extended his researches to the heat emitted by the sun; which heat, he observes, corresponds to the development of mechanical force, which, in the space of about a hundred years, is equivalent to the whole active force required to produce the movement of all the planets.

THEripened fame and acceptance of that extraordinary book, Boswell's Life of Johnson, gives an interest to the personality of the author, which no one seems to have felt when he was alive. A series of characteristic letters by him, illustrated by biographic particulars, is therefore pretty sure of attracting public attention. At first, we suspected it to be a volume of forgeries; but, on inspection, we find the genuineness of the letters to be beyond doubt. They were addresed, throughout the course of thirty-seven years, to a bosom-friend of the writer, a certain Rev. Mr. Temple, living in an obscure Cornish rectory. A most singular revelation of personal character they form-the outpouring of the feelings of a man not without talents, acquirements, and good aspirations, but altogether deficient in prudence, dignity, and suitableness for the world's ordinary affairs-one who was not much worse in essential respects than most of his neighbors, but who put himself at the feet of them all by his silly forwardness, love of notoriety, and the constant self composure of a babbling tongue. For the first half of the book we altogether doubted the use of its publication, beyond the gratification of those curious in literary history while of the justifiableness of making such an exposé of the personal vices, weaknesses, and domestic circumstances of one who died only sixty years since, and who has left numerous descendants, there seemed to us to be something more than doubts. But on reaching the end, our conception of the book underwent a change. We then found the life of the man showing so impressively the futility of all hopes of happiness based on the mere gratification of vanity and sensual appetites, we found the ultra-gayety of the clever, coxcombical youth ending in such expressions of pain and sorrow, the natural fruits of a long course of dissipation, that

*Bentley, London, 1857. 8vo, pp. 408.

BOSWELL.*

we believed the book might prove to have been well worth publishing.

Boswell occupied a position in society of which Englishmen, knowing him only by his books, have in general an inadequate conception. He was, by birth and connections, emphatically a gentleman. The eldest son and heir of a landed man occupying the dignified position of a judge, and himself a member of the Scotch bar, he had the fairest prospects in life-might have looked to a great marriage, to entering Parliament, to high state employment. We find that, even in his own time, the family estates were £1600 a year. In the ensuing generation, they were probably of considerably more than twice that value, and it seemed but in the fair course of things that a British baronetcy was then conferred on the family. All these advantages Boswell in a great measure forfeited by the literary and social tastes which led him to be the companion of London wits, and enabled him to pen the immortal book which bears his name. Perhaps it were impossible for any Englishman to imagine the eccentricity of Boswell as viewed in reference to the Ayrshire gentry and Edinburgh noblesse de robe amongst whom he sprang into existence, or those Calvinistic doctrines and sober maxims of life which ought in the course of nature to have descended to him.

The letters to Mr. Temple first exhibit Boswell in youth, enthusiastic in study, but doubtful how to direct himself in life. He is constantly engaged in some affair of the heart, which comes to nothing. Already, he haunts the society of such literary men as then dwelt in Edinburgh. Before he was full one-and-twenty, he had dipped into the gayeties of London, and found their congeniality. "A young fellow," he says, whose happiness was always centered in London, who had at last got there, and had begun to taste its delights, who had got his mind filled with the most gay ideas getting into the

Guards, being about court, enjoying the happiness of the beau monde and the company of men of genius, in short, everything that he could wish-consider this poor fellow hauled away to the town of Edinburgh, obliged to conform to every Scotch custom or be laughed at- Will you hae some jeel? oh fie! oh fie!-his flighty imagination quite cramped, and he obliged to study Corpus Juris Civilis, and live in his father's strict family; is there any wonder, sir, that the unlucky dog should be somewhat fretful? Yoke a Newmarket courser to a dung-cart, and I'll lay my life on't he'll either caper and kick most confoundedly, or be as stupid and restive as an old, battered post-horse."

His father early saw how much he was disposed to break bounds, and tried to control him with good counsel. "Honest man!" says Boswell, "he is now very happy: it is amazing to think how much he has had at heart my pursuing the road of civil life; he is anxious for fear I should fall off from my prudent system, and return to my dissipated, unsettled way of thinking; and, in order to make him easy, he insits on having my solemn promise that I will persist in the scheme on which he is so earnestly bent: he knows my fidelity, and he concludes that my promise will fix me. Indeed, he is much in the right; the only question is, how much I am to promise. I think I may promise thus much that I shall from this time study propriety of conduct, and to be a man of knowledge and prudence, as far as I can; that I shall make as much improvement as possible while I am abroad, and when I return, shall put on the gown as a member of the Faculty of Advocates, and be upon the footing of a gentleman of business, with a view to my getting into Parliament. My father talks of my setting out soon, but says he will soon write to me fixing my allowance; I imagine, therefore, that I shall go the week after next. I feel no small reluctance at leaving this great metropolis, which I heartily agree with you is the best place in the world to live in. My dear friend, I find that London must be the place where I shall pass a great part of my life, if I wish to pass it with satisfaction. I hope we shall spend many happy years there, when we are both settled as to views of life and habits of living; in the meantime, let me endeavor to acquire steadiness and constant propriety of conduct, without which

we never can enjoy what I fondly hope for."

He went to study law in Utrecht, and in 1766, when twenty-six years old, indued the gown of a Scotch advocate. For a time, he seems to have got some business, chiefly through the indirect ef fect of his father being on the bench. But Edinburgh was an alien scene, and the whim of the moment was always the guide of Boswell. With inconsistency in which he is, we fear, far from singular, he explicitly tells his clerical friend of a disgraceful connection he has formed, and in the same letter speaks with complacency of going to chapel, and "looking up to the Lord of the Universe with a grateful remembrance of the grand and mysterious propitiation which Christianity has announced." In the midst of the same circumstances, but writing from Auchinleck, his father's country-seat, he talks of a respectable marriage. "What say you to my marrying? intend, next autumn, to visit Miss Bosville, in Yorkshire; but I fear, my lot being cast in Scotland, that beauty would not be content. She is, however, grave; I shall see. There is a young lady in the neighborhood here who has an estate of her own-between two and three hundred a year-just eighteen, a genteel person, an agreeable face, of a good family, sensible, good-tempered, cheerful, pious. You know my grand object is the ancient family of Auchinleck -a venerable and noble principle. How would it do to conclude an alliance with the neighboring princess, and add her lands to our dominions? I should at once have a very pretty little estate, a good house, and a sweet place. My father is very fond of her; it would make him perfectly happy: he gives me hints in this way: 'I wish you had her - no bad scheme this; I think, a very good one.' But I will not be in a hurry; there is plenty of time. I will take to myself the advice I wrote to you from Naples, and go to London a while before I marry. I am not yet quite well, but am in as good a way as can be expected. My fair neighbor was a ward of my father's; she sits in our seat at church in Edinburgh; she would take possession here most naturally. This is a superb place; we have the noblest natural beauties, and my father has made most extensive improvements. We look ten miles out upon our own dominions; we have an excellent new house. I am now writing in a library forty feet