made in the defence-the least opening left in the line of the Hindoo Koosh, would in such circumstances involve most embarrassing consequences to the defenders. Nevertheless it is equally obvious that such a quarter is ill suited to be made the object of the main attack, and that it is rather to be regarded as a flank movement subsidiary to, and in support of, the main line of Russo-Persian attack, via Astrabad and Meshed, against Herat.

One important object which, it seems to us, Russia has in advancing by Khiva and the Oxus, is the power which it will confer of winning or coercing the hardy tribes of Turkistan, which she will thus, as it were, catch in a net between her two lines of advance. Horses, cattle, and camels are the staple products of the region, and will thus be procured in great abundance; while the horsemen of the steppes, greedy of gain and fond of warlike adventure, would readily join in any enterprise against the regions of the south. For such auxiliaries, and even for a European corps, there is another route from the Oxus than that which leads to the Bameean passes of the Hindoo Koosh. Instead of proceeding all the way up the Oxus to Balkh, and thence crossing the mountains to Cabool, this other route leaves the banks of the Oxus at Charjooee (half-way between the Aral Sea and Balkh), and strikes due south wards by Merv to Herat. The desert between Charjooee and Merv was crossed by Burnes in 1832, and does not present the difficulties which he anticipated. It is crossed almost annually by the khans of Khiva and Bokhara, at the head of expeditions sometimes numbering ten or twelve thousand horse; and M. Ferrier, who believes this route practicable for an army, states, that in the winter and spring even the desert steppes are covered with sufficient herbage to meet the requirements of an army. From Charjooee to Merv is about 130 miles; from Merv to Herat, about 240,-in all, 370. But the difficulties of the route terminate at Merv, where there is a well-watered oasis; and from thence the expeditionary force could march along the banks

of the Morghab river for nearly the whole way to Herat.

Thus, while flank-attacks might be made by the passes of the Hindoo Koosh upon Cabool, everything conspires to show that the main attack upon Affghanistan must take place by Herat. We have already described the importance of this place. "Herat," said Captain Conolly, twenty-seven years ago, "could be made a place of considerable strength. Nothing can exceed the plenty and excellence of the supplies from the valley; and an army might be garrisoned there for years with every necessary within its reach." That is just what the Russians will do with it, if ever it falls into their power. They will establish themselves there,

solidify their communications with the Caspian, by improving the roads and sinking wells,-push forward the sap of bribery and fair promises through Affghanistan, and excite disquiet and disaffection in India, until all things are ready for the grand assault and invasion. On the other hand, were Herat maintained by a British army, it would be almost impossible for either Persian or Russian to win a footing in its fertile valley. For it is one of the necessities of desert travelling, that an army can never march in a united body. It must advance in separate divisions, by different routes, or with intervals of one or more days' march between each corps, from the difficulty of maintaining a large force at any one halting-place, and in order that the scanty wells may have time to refill themselves. The consequence is, that were an efficient force concentrated about Gorian, at the western extremity of the Herat valley, it could attack the invading army with decisive advantage as the wearied corps came up in succession, or by separate routes, from their thirsty march through northern

Khorassan.

Other topics connected with the war in Asia invite attention, and may be treated of in a future article. It will suffice for the present to have directed attention to the slow and sure advance of a rival European Power towards our Indian "garden,"-to the circumstances out of which has

arisen the present war with Persia and the immense importance of Herat as the door of Affghanistan and key to the mountain-portals of our Indian empire. As to the merits of the war with Persia, we have clearly expressed ourselves. The grounds upon which our Government, in the proclamation of war, has justified a recourse to hostilities, are quite inadmissible; for they are founded upon a treaty which never was ratified. But, though wrong in its plea, the British Government was perfectly justified in having recourse to hostilities,-nay, more, it was imperatively called upon by the interests of the empire to take such a course. It is a strange misfortune that the treaty of 1853 was never ratified by the Aberdeen Government, and in such circumstances it was a grievous error of the present Go vernment to found upon a document so obviously null. But the grand and simple justification of hostilities remains-namely, that apart from all conventions, if Persia choose to attack Affghanistan, we have an equal right to act in its defence; and that every principle of national interest concurred in urging us so to act. It will be a sad day for our Indian empire when Persia succeeds in establishing her power in Affghanistan.

As to the military measures of the Government, the least that we can say is that they have failed in warding off the most pressing danger. Not only Herat, but the whole western front of Affghanistan, embracing a third of the entire region, is in the hands of the Persians, who are doubtless consolidating their position there. The expedition to the Persian Gulf is a most important movement as regards ulterior results, but all the easures of actual defence for Affghanistan have been marked by a dilatorness which has rendered them ruess The plan of the Government was that a select band of sculd proceed to Herat to ts defence,—and had they a ty in time it would va and; but although

ach longer than was Fans were maswe British officers

had set out on their journey! Money and arms, too, were ordered by the Home Government to be transmitted to Dost Mahomed, in order that he might manoeuvre to raise the siege; but so tardily was the resolution taken that even yet no news has arrived of these supplies having reached Candahar! The fact is, our Indian Government ought to have been left to deal with Persia when that Power makes any attack upon Affghanistan; for in no other way can the requisite celerity of movement be attained. An army from the Caspian can reach Herat before the news of its starting can reach England, and Herat be easily captured before an answer from Downing Street be received at Bombay! In truth, even with the entire direction of affairs committed to the Indian Government, the chances are, that our measures of defence will be taken too late. The frontier of the Indus is too distant from Herat to allow of our maintaining that watch over its independence which is imperatively demanded by a regard for the safety of India. In 1839 our army, including a short halt at Khelat, took from the 23d February to the 25th April to march from Shikarpoor on the Indus to Candahar-about sixty days, a period that would suffice to bring an army to Herat from the Caspian; and other four hundred miles intervene between Candahar and Herat. In fact, the journey from the Indus to Herat is fully a half longer than that from Astrabad to the same place. These facts suggest grave reflections, which we cannot enter upon at the close of an article. But let the Government and public of this country lay this to heart, that a Russian corps could be landed at Astrabad, and be far on its march to Herat, before any intelligence of the event could reach England, or even India; and that the presence of a couple of Russian brigades, and a few engineers of the Todleben school, could hold the earthen defences of Herat for years against any force which we could bring against it. Even if the present danger blow over, these are facts which demand the most earnest attention of the Government and our military authorities.

THE REV. Amos Barton, whose sad fortunes I have undertaken to relate, was, you perceive, in no respect an ideal or exceptional character, and perhaps I am doing a bold thing to bespeak your sympathy on behalf of a man who was so very far from remarkable, a man whose virtues were not heroic, and who had no undetected crime within his breast; who had not the slightest mystery hanging about him, but was palpably and unmistakably commonplace; who was not even in love, but had had that complaint favourably many years ago. "An utterly uninteresting character!" I think I hear a lady reader exclaim-Mrs Farthingale, for example, who prefers the ideal in fiction; to whom tragedy means ermine tippets, adultery, and murder; and comedy, the adventures of some personage who is "quite a character." But, my dear madam, it is so very large a majority of your fellow-countrymen that are of this insignificant stamp. At least eighty out of a hundred of your adult male fellowBritons returned in the last census, are neither extraordinarily silly, nor extraordinarily wicked, nor extraordinarily wise; their eyes are neither deep and liquid with sentiment, nor sparkling with suppressed witticisms; they have probably had no hairbreadth escapes or thrilling adventures; their brains are certainly not pregnant with genius, and their passions have not manifested themselves at all after the fashion of a volcano. They are simply men of complexions more or less muddy, whose conversation is more or less bald and disjointed. Yet these commonplace people-many of them-bear a conscience, and have felt the sublime prompting to do the painful right; they have their unspoken sorrows, and their sacred joys; their hearts have perhaps gone out towards their first-born, and they have mourned over the irreclaimable dead. Nay, is

VOL. LXXXI.-NO. CCCCXCVI.

there not a pathos in their very insignificance, in our comparison of their dim and narrow existence with the glorious possibilities of that human nature which they share?

Depend upon it, my dear lady, you would gain unspeakably if you would learn with me to see some of the poetry and the pathos, the tragedy and the comedy, lying in the experience of a human soul that looks out through dull grey eyes, and that speaks in a voice of quite ordinary tones. In that case, I should have no fear of your not caring to know what farther befell the Rev. Amos Barton, or of your thinking the homely details I have to tell at all beneath your attention. As it is, you can, if you please, decline to pursue my story farther; and you will easily find reading more to your taste, since I learn from the newspapers that many remarkable novels, full of striking situations, thrilling incidents, and eloquent writing, have appeared only within the last season.

Meanwhile, readers who have begun to feel an interest in the Rev. Amos Barton and his wife, will be glad to learn that Mr Oldinport lent the twenty pounds. But twenty pounds are soon exhausted when twelve are due as back payment to the butcher, and when the possession of eight extra sovereigns in February weather is an irresistible temptation to order a new greatcoat. And though Mr Bridmain so far departed from the necessary economy entailed on him by the Countess's elegant toilette and pensive maid, as to choose a handsome black silk, stiff, as his experienced eye discerned, with the genuine strength of its own texture, and not with the factitious strength of gum, and present it to Mrs Barton, in retrieval of the accident that had occurred at his table, yet, dear me as every husband has heard-what is the present of a gown, when you are deficiently furnished with the

ex

et-ceteras of apparel, and when, moreover, there are six children whose wear and tear of clothes is something incredible to the non-maternal mind?

Indeed, the equation of income and expenditure was offering new and constantly accumulating difficulties to Mr and Mrs Barton; for shortly after the birth of little Walter, Milly's aunt, who had lived with her ever since her marriage, had withdrawn herself, her furniture, and her yearly income, to the household of another niece; prompted to that step, very probably, by a slight "tiff" with the Rev. Amos, which occurred while Milly was up-stairs, and proved one too many for the elderly lady's patience and magnanimity. Mr Barton's temper was a little warm, but, on the other hand, elderly maiden ladies are known to be susceptible; so we will not suppose that all the blame lay on his side the less so, as he had every motive for humouring an inmate whose presence kept the wolf from the door. It was now nearly a year since Miss Jackson's departure, and, to a fine ear, the howl of the wolf was audibly approaching.

were

It was a sad thing, too, that when the last snow had melted, when the purple and yellow crocuses coming up in the garden, and the old church was already half pulled down, Milly had an illness which made her lips look pale, and rendered it absolutely necessary that she should not exert herself for some time. Mr Brand, the Shepperton doctor so obnoxious to Mr Pillgrim, ordered her to drink port-wine, and it was quite necessary to have a charwoman very often, to assist Nanny in all the extra work that fell upon

her.

Mrs Hackit, who hardly ever paid a visit to any one but her oldest and nearest neighbour Mrs Patten, now took the unusual step of calling at the vicarage one morning; and the tears came into her unsentimental eyes as she saw Milly seated pale and feeble in the parlour, unable to persevere in sewing the pinafore that lay on the table beside her. Little Dickey, a boisterous boy of five, with large pink cheeks and sturdy legs, was having his turn to sit with

Mamma, and was squatting quiet as a mouse at her knee, holding her soft white hand between his little red, black-nailed fists. He was a boy whom Mrs Hackit, in a severe mood, had pronounced "stocky" (a word that etymologically, in all probability, conveys some allusion to an instrument of punishment for the refractory); but seeing him thus subdued into goodness, she smiled at him with her kindest smile, and, stooping down, suggested a kiss-a favour which Dickey resolutely declined.

"Now do you take nourishing things anuff?" was one of Mrs Hackit's first questions, and Milly endeavoured to make it appear that no woman was ever so much in danger of being over-fed and led into self-indulgent habits as herself. But Mrs Hackit gathered one fact from her replies, namely, that Mr Brand had ordered port-wine.

While this conversation was going forward, Dickey had been furtively stroking and kissing the soft white hand; so that at last, when a pause came, his mother said,smilingly, "Why are you kissing my hand, Dickey?"

"It id to yovely," answered Dickey, who, you observe, was decidedly backward in his pronunciation.

Mrs Hackit remembered this little scene in after days, and thought with peculiar tenderness and pity of the stocky boy."

The next day there came a hamper with Mrs Hackit's respects; and on being opened, it was found to contain half-a-dozen of port-wine and two couples of fowls. Mrs Farquhar, too, was very kind; insisted on Mrs Barton's rejecting all arrow-root but hers, which was genuine Indian, and carried away Sophy and Fred to stay with her a fortnight. These and other good-natured attentions made the trouble of Milly's illness more bearable; but they could not prevent it from swelling expenses, and Mr Barton began to have serious thoughts of representing his case to a certain charity for the relief of needy curates.

Altogether, as matters stood in Shepperton, the parishioners were more likely to have a strong sense that the clergyman needed their material aid, than that they needed his

spiritual aid, not the best state of things in this age and country, where faith in men solely on the ground of their spiritual gifts has considerably diminished, and especially unfavourable to the influence of the Rev. Amos, whose spiritual gifts would not have had a very commanding power even in an age of faith.

But, you ask, did not the Countess Czerlaski pay any attention to her friends all this time? To be sure she did. She was indefatigable in visiting her "sweet Milly," and sitting with her for hours together; and it may seem remarkable to you that she neither thought of taking away any of the children, nor of providing for any of Milly's probable wants; but ladies of rank and of luxurious habits, you know, cannot be expected to surmise the details of poverty. She put a great deal of eau-de-Cologne on Mrs Barton's pocket-handkerchief, rearranged her pillow and footstool, kissed her cheeks, wrapped her in a soft warm shawl from her own shoulders, and amused her with stories of the life she had seen abroad. When Mr Barton joined them, she talked of Tractarianism, of her determination not to re-enter the vortex of fashionable life, and of her anxiety to see him in a sphere large enough for his talents. Milly thought her sprightliness and affectionate warmth quite charming, and was very fond of her; while the Rev. Amos had a vague consciousness that he had risen into aristocratic life, and only associated with his middle-class parishioners in a pastoral and parenthetic manner..

However, as the days brightened, Milly's cheeks and lips brightened too; and in a few weeks she was almost as active as ever, though watchful eyes might have seen that activity was not easy to her. Mrs Hackit's eyes were of that kind, and one day that Mr and Mrs Barton had been dining with her for the first time since Milly's illness, she observed to her husband-"That poor thing's dreadful weak an' delicate, she won't stan' havin' many more children."

Mr Barton, meanwhile, had been indefatigable in his vocation. He had preached two extemporary ser

mons every Sunday at the workhouse, where a room had been fitted up for divine service, pending the alterations in the church; and had walked the same evening to a cottage at one or other extremity of his parish to deliver another sermon, still more extemporary, in an atmosphere impregnated with spring-flowers and perspiration. After all these labours you will easily conceive that he was considerably exhausted by half-past nine o'clock in the evening, and that a supper at a friendly parishioner's, with a glass, or even two glasses, of brandyand-water after it, was a welcome reinforcement. Mr Barton was not at all an ascetic; he thought the benefits of fasting were entirely confined to the Old Testament dispensation; he was fond of relaxing himself with a little gossip; indeed, Miss Bond, and other ladies of enthusiastic views, sometimes regretted that Mr Barton did not more uninterruptedly exhibit a superiority to the things of the flesh. Thin ladies, who take little exercise, and whose livers are not strong enough to bear stimulants, are so extremely critical about one's personal habits! And, after all, the Rev. Amos never came near the borders of a vice. His very faults were middling he was not very ungrammatical. It was not in his nature to be superlative in anything; unless, indeed, he was superlatively middling, the quintessential extract of mediocrity. If there was any one point on which he showed an inclination to be excessive, it was confidence in his own shrewdness and ability in practical matters, so that he was very full of plans which were something like his moves in chessadmirably well calculated, supposing the state of the case were otherwise. For example, that notable plan of introducing anti-dissenting books into his lending library did not in the least appear to have bruised the head of Dissent, though it had certainly made Dissent strongly inclined to bite the Rev. Amos's heel. Again, he vexed the souls of his churchwardens and influential parishioners by his fertile suggestiveness as to what it would be well for them to do in the matter of the church repairs, and other ecclesiastical secularities.