turist would condemn as artificial, either I mistake, or all that Art has done here, unites yet more intimately Nature with the Mind of Man. For this seems to me the true excuse for what is called the artificial style of gardening-viz., that the statue, the fountain, the harmonies of form and colour into which even flowerbeds are arranged, do bring Nature into more familiar connection with all which has served to cultivate, sweeten, elevate the Mind of Man. All his arts, and not one alone, speak here! What images from the old classic world of poetry the mere shape of yon urn, or the gleam of yon statue, calls forth! And even in those flower-beds,-what science has been at patient work, for ages, before the gracious forms by which Geometry alone can realise the symmetries of beauty, or the harmonies of hue and tint which we owe to research into the secrets of light and colour, could have thus made Nature speak to us in the language of our choicest libraries, and symbolise, as it were, in the most pleas ing characters, whatever is most pleasing in the world of books."

In these lengthened disquisitions Tracey had not been uninterrupted. I had, from time to time, interposed dissentient remarks, which, being of little consequence, I have wellnigh forgotten, and it seems to me best, therefore, to preserve unbroken the chain of his discourse. But here, I repeated to my host the Painter's observation on the monotony of dressed ground in comparison with scenery altogether left to Nature, and asked Tracey if he thought the observation true.

"I suspect," he answered, "that it is true or false, very much according to the degree to which the spectator's mind has been cultivated by books, and reflections drawn from them. My friend the Painter is very young, and the extent of his reading, and, of course, the scope of his reflections, have been hitherto circumscribed. I think that artistic garden ground does, after a time, more than wildly natural landscape,

tire upon the eye not educated in the associations and reminiscences which preserve an artistic creation from monotony, to the gaze of one who draws fresh charms from it out of his own mind-a mind which has accustomed itself to revive remembered images or combine new reflections, at every renewed contemplation of that art which comprises the æsthetic history of man's relationship with nature. Now, our painter, habituated, very properly, to concentre his own thoughts on his own branch of art, observes, as something ever varying, the shadow that falls from the rude mountaintop on the crags and dells of the old forest land on the other side of the park, and does not observe that, as the sun shifts, it must equally bring out into new variations of light and shadow these lawns and flights of stairs; because he is not a painter of gardens, and he is a painter of forest scenery. Had he been a painter of gardens, he would have discovered variety in the garden, and complained of monotony in the forest land. So let any man who has not cultivated his mind in the study of poems or pictures, be called upon to look every day at Milton's 'Paradise Lost,' or Raffaele's 'Virgin,' he will certainly find in either a very great sameness; but let a man who, being either a very great poet, a very great painter, or a very profoundly educated critic on poetry or painting, look every day at the said poem or the said picture, and he will always find something new in what he contemplates - the novelty springing out of the fertility of perception which proceeds from the lengthened culture of his own taste. In short, there is nothing same or stale in any object of contemplation which is intimately allied to our own habits of culture; and that which is strange to those habits, becomes, however multiform and varying its charms to another may be, insipid and monotonous to ourselves, just as the world of ambition and of cities, with its infinite movement and play, to those whose

lives are one study of it, is to me 'weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable,' as all its uses seemed to Hamlet." Here our talk ended. Re-entering the library, we found Clara Thornhill at the piano, singing with ex

quisite spirit, and in the sweetest voice

"Under the greenwood tree,

Who loves to lie with me," &c. And so in song and music the rest of the evening wore away.

SINCE we last treated of China and the Chinese, our relations with that empire have reached a stage deserving of the earnest consideration of the western world. On behalf of a commerce of vast importance, capable of tenfold development -on behalf of an ancient civilisation, which, in spite of great defects, is immeasurably superior to that of any other Pagan state-we must interest ourselves in the solution of the crisis through which China is now passing. For that crisis we are in a great measure responsible; we have hastened it; but interest, honour, and necessity, now alike call upon us to assist in steering that Eastern State through the storm we have so largely contributed to raise. European commercial prosperity in eastern Asia, with China a prey to anarchy and rapine, is an impossibility. Individuals may make profit out of the miseries and pillage of a nation, but the foreign trade must needs suffer in the end. When all China has been thoroughly plundered, and the people under the Taeping dispensation trained into habits of armed hostility to order, commerce, and educated civilisation, the producer and purchaser of European exports and imports will alike disappear, and the land will lapse into the semi-barbarism of Cambodia, Cochin China, Pegu, and other states we could mention, and thus escape from European propagandism and interference by reason of its insecurity to life, property, and commerce. In striving, therefore, to bring the present condition of China, and our obligations, to the knowledge of our countrymen, we

need not seek for any higher motive than self-interest. Our boasted philanthropy, our duty as a nation in the vanguard of civilisation and truth, might, in the case of our relations with China, be put aside; and we could prove our case even by the standard of those political economists, who measure the duty of man towards his fellowman by yards of calico and pounds of tea.

We are totally indifferent about any especial dynasty; we care not one jot for Mongol, Ming, or Manchow; we plead the cause of the Chinese industrious masses, and urge that we must, in our own interest, assist to stay the present disorder, and teach the officials how to reorganise the departments of the state. The Chinaman, eminently practical as he is, will best appreciate us when we say we will advise you because it is our interest; we will instruct you in order that shame and misfortune come not upon our name and commerce. We have compelled your merchants to depart from their customs, and destroyed their monopolies; we have made your rulers alter their laws, and rendered them ridiculous in the eyes of the masses. We have laughed at your traditions, done our best to shake your faith, such as it is, and introduced doctrines that have spread anarchy through the land. We have done this, partly because we pleased, partly because we were compelled to do so, and partly through the faults of your rulers. But we will not see you founder unaided: we are to counsel you how troubles which der that

taking your place in the ranks of civilised powers. Of course it would be folly to adopt this line of conduct unless the Chinaman and his ruler were in a measure prepared for it, and willing to accept us as friends and advisers. Happily upon that point there is no longer much doubt, and we purpose producing testimony that the Chinese intellect has at last reached that enlightened condition. All will agree with us in saying that, however great may have been - our differences with the Government of China since the abolition of the East India monopoly, the masses of Chinese have been throughout eminently well disposed. If ever a nation deserved well at our hands, as distinguished from its rulers, the Chinese do. Had they cordially supported their officials-the Lins, the Yehs, and Sang-ko-lin-sinsin their blundering attempts to save a rickety policy from the sapping contact of Western civilisation, we should have had a very different tale to tell to-day of our commercial revenue with China, however rich St Paul's and Nôtre Dame might have been in trophies of the Palikeaou stamp. The Chinaman, the half Tartar of the north, the half Malay of the south, the broker, the farmer, opium-smoker, and calico vendor, have been our consistent allies against the pig-headed ignorance of the bureaucrats placed over them. Their motives we need not analyse; the fact remains the same. They have always been more ready to trade with than to fight us; they merit the major portion of the credit due to a development of commerce, which exceeds the expectations of the most sanguine.

It will be remembered by our readers that, in the spring of 1860, an allied force of a most imposing character was assembled in the Gulf of Pechelee, under Admirals Sir James Hope and Admiral Protet of the French navy, to revenge a foul act of treachery at the Peiho, and enforce upon the evil counsellors of the Emperor Hienfung the necessity of faithfully ful

filling the conditions of a treaty concluded by Lord Elgin at Tien-tsin in 1858. During the autumn of 1860, the contemplated measures were successfully carried out, and the capital of China was easily captured, with the most satisfactory results, in spite of the fears expressed by professed authorities at home and elsewhere. It would be a waste of time and space to relate how that was effected, and why it became necessary to couple our arrival in the capital of China with an act of apparent vandalism. All these facts may be gleaned from the interesting account recently published by Colonel G. J. Wolseley, one of the staff attached to General Sir Hope Grant. Bearing this in mind, the reader of Colonel Wolseley's pages may safely follow his narrative of events; and it will be well to remember, apart from its military features, that the expedition of 1860 was remarkable as having at last struck a death-blow at the ancient "non-possumus" policy of the mandarins of China. The introduction of Europeans into Pekin as conquerors, not as suppliants, enabled a small but select party of progress amongst Chinese officials openly to avow their opinions, without the certainty of destruction. The blunder, by which the occupation of the mud forts of Taku was preferred to the annihilation of the Tartar army under Sang-ko-linsin, imperilled for a time the prospect of inaugurating a more enlightened policy in the Government of China, owing to the support given to the advisers of the Emperor, by the armed rabble which had been allowed to escape under our very noses from Taku. That obstructionist party in China was headed by three influential officers of high rank, named respectively Tsai-yuen, Prince of I; Twan-hwa, Prince of Ching, and the energetic and ambitious Sushun.

When the Emperor Hienfung fled from Pekin, these three ministers accompanied him to Zehol in

Tartary, and but for his demise, it is probable that their evil counsels would have prevailed for some time against the wiser policy advocated by Prince Kung and the eminent statesman Kweiliang, who negotiated the Treaty of Tientsin in 1858. That it would have been possible for those ultra-conservatives of China to hold permanently their ground, we do not believe, for, by pressure from without, China must have ultimately advanced. Lord Elgin had wisely taken measures to guarantee Europe against a retrograde policy at Pekin, when he stipulated that the Ambassadors of England, France, and America should live permanently at the capital, and hold unreserved intercourse with the Imperial Ministers. The eventual success of the party of progress was thus assured, and from Pekin, it was equally certain that, throughout China, a wiser current of ideas upon the management of her foreign relations would be rapidly disseminated. The sudden triumph, however, of the progressionists in Pekin, was a curious phase in Eastern history, and it is as well that it should be understood. Throughout the latter part of the year 1860, the Emperor Hienfung resided in his long-neglected palace of Zehol, and was prevented by Prince I and his colleagues from returning to Pekin, as he was urged by Prince Kung. A debauchee in the worst sense of the word, already stricken with disease, the wretched Emperor appears, from a report subsequently published, to have been a prey to the bitterest remorse for having fled the capital, and thus abandoned the patrimony bequeathed by his ancestors.

In China, as in all Oriental countries, the monarch is the pivot upon which the administration of the State rotates. Upon the character of the Emperor has always depended the peace and prosperity of China, and its millions of slowthinking industrious people. This has its drawbacks as well as ad vantages, but it is by correctly ap

preciating it that we can understand the apparent anomaly which Chinese history exhibits of the land being one day torn by rebellion, and the next lulled into such order and industry that it is difficult to believe that they have ever been disturbed.

The Emperor Hienfung was the third inefficient monarch that had successively ruled over China. His grandfather Kiaking is described as "alike capricious and distrustful, yet completely under the influence of his minions: addicted to drinking and more odious debauchery, unscrupulous, and avaricious." The present decay of the State dates from his reign, and he left an inheritance of trouble to his successor Taoukwang, who ruled during the first serious collision between China and England. In an interesting collection of State papers, translated by Mr Wade, our present able Secretary of Legation in China, there are several which throw considerable light upon the internal condition of the empire, between 1830 and 1860, and we perfectly concur with him in wondering how the present dynasty was not uprooted years ago. It says much for an organisation which could pass through such an ordeal. A memorial from a high officer during the year 1832, draws a touching picture of the results of Kiaking's misrule, and it alludes distinctly to the states of Kwang-tung and Fokien, where the European opium trade was sadly adding to the mischief, and disturbing the finances of the country. Hienfung, the grandson of the worthless Kiaking, succeeded to his father, Taoukwang, in the year 1851. He was born when his father was fifty, and was naturally indulged and spoiled; and ascending the throne at the early age of nineteen, he soon found the cares of a State, so disorganised as China then was, far too great for one fond of pleasure, and who had major

the year following his accession, "there was an incessant changing of the higher appointments, and it seemed that, like his grandfather Kiaking, he delighted in the dishonour of distinguished men, to whom consideration had been shown by his predecessors, while he advanced some whom his father had very recently disgraced, equally little to his credit." Disorder and rebellion naturally spread, and the unhappy monarch soon despaired. He left his government to a clique, whose administration was marked by peculation and general corruption. Thus, for ten years, from 1851 to 1861, was China utterly misruled. The Viceroys of the provinces-despots ruling over states and populations equal to that of the French empiremisrepresented, in self-defence, the condition of their respective governments. Here and there there were instances of self-sacrifice for the good of their country, but these were the exception, not the rule; and the majority, more especially those in the interior, shut themselves up in their mantles of prejudice, and, satisfied with the knowledge that, in past times, China had often gone through as frightful ordeals, merely echoed the cry of the incompetent ministers in Pekin, that it would be folly to depart from the wisdom of their ancestors. The flood, however, overtook them; for the ruffianism of Kwang-tung and the highland freebooters of Kwang-si province suddenly coalesced with the propagandism of a few scamps, reputed converts from our missions in Hong-Kong. No power that the mandarins could array was able to withstand this fresh trouble; the independent Meaoutsze of the mountains of Kwang-si had always, like the highlanders of old, lived by the plunder of the thrifty lowlander. All the armies of China had been only just able to keep these robbers within moderate bounds; but now that they and the pirates of Kwang-tung were received as allies of Christianity, Taepingism at once sprang into

existence-a scourge before which the officials were doomed first to perish, and then the ill-starred peaceful inhabitants of thousands of square miles of China. Had the Emperor Hienfung possessed the energy or administrative powers of his great ancestors Kanghi or Kienlung, that wretched parody upon Christianity, and its brutal connection with rape and plunder, would have been nipped in the bud, though revolvers and gunpowder had been supplied even more liberally than has been the case. In his last hours at Zehol, the Emperor Hienfung must have been callous indeed not to have sympathised with the miseries of his misgoverned people; and it is probable that on his deathbed he recognised, to some extent, the evils wrought by his councillors, for we find the Empress-mother and Empress-wife, immediately after his decease, frankly adopting a very different policy, and, in the state paper before referred to, the closing scene of Hienfung's life is thus graphically described in the 'Pekin Gazette' :

"The mind of the Sacred One, after

the flight from the palace of Yuen-minyuen to Zehol, was sore troubled at being reduced to such extremity, and when in due time the Prince (Kung) and others charged with the administration of affairs in Pekin had well arranged all foreign its usual tranquillity was restored to the questions that required settlement, and capital, His Majesty again and again called upon Prince I and his colleagues (who were in immediate attendance) to frame a decree announcing his return. They, however, deceitfully and with all means possible, kept from Him these facts, ever alleging that foreign nations, both in sentiment and demeanour, were always falsely inclined. His late Majesty, anxious and worn, rested neither by day nor by night. The cold, too, beyond the frontier was severe, and so the indisposition of the Sacred One increased, until, upon the (22d August 1861), He ascended upon the Dragon to be a guest on high."

The Empress-mother did not, of course, dare thus publicly to denounce the reactionary party at