left, and peas; after which, we pitched our tent near one of the fires that were blazing, and lay down to rest.

The rest of the journey to Ochotsk, whence Mr. Hill took ship to Kamtschatka, was performed without any more misadventures; and it only remains for us to notice a great peculiarity among the Yakuti— Mr. Hill calls it a disease, but it appears rather to be a nervous manifestation of the results of brutal tyranny on delicate organisations and untutored minds.

The disease is called, in the language of the natives, mereyachtchit; but the Russians merely term it the Yakoute disease. The first of the afflicted persons whom I saw was a native lady, the wife of a merchant of this place. This was not a bad case; but, as the manner of my introduction to the invalid forms a circumstance in the only account of the complaint which it is in my power to give, it will be first mentioned.

It was a thorough time of merry-making at Ochotsk, on account chiefly of the marriage above mentioned; and the soirées and suppers were nightly, and the strangers in the place were never forgotten. On my arriving one evening at the door of a house of rejoicing, in the company of one of the officers before mentioned, Captain Poplonsky, who had preceded us, and with whom I had previously had some conversation concerning the disease, came out to say that the lady above alluded to was among the guests within, and that he wished me to follow in his “wake,” and close to him, in order that he might give me the opportunity, by suddenly introducing me to her, when I had not been previously seen, of witnessing some of the curious effects of the disease. The lady, he informed me, knew very well that there were strangers in the place, and, upon hearing that I was to be one of the guests of the evening, she had become very uneasy, and wished to retire, but had not been allowed so to do. I confess, when I heard this, and remembered what had been related to me concerning the disease, I feared that I should be a general disturber of the harmony of the evening; and I, therefore, begged I might be rather allowed to return to my quarters, contented with what I had heard, until a better opportunity might occur for observing the effects of the disease. But this was as peremptorily opposed as the request of the lady had been; and I therefore followed the captain, by whom I was closely covered. The lady, nevertheless, easily perceived the attempted deception; and, in considering the effects of the introduction that followed, it is necessary to remember this. When we stopped in front of her, the captain bowed politely, and, after one or two words of course, suddenly started on one side, and, in a tolerably loud and rough manner, at the same instant, uttered some interjectional phrase equivolent to, 66 Behold!" In an instant the lady was absolutely deprived of her senses; and, with a countenance which exhibited, as it appeared to me, at the same time, the passion of terror and the expression of laughter, she fixed her eyes on me for a few minutes, but neither said nor did anything. This produced, strange as it will appear, until all has been said of the disease that this case and the others to be mentioned suggest, a hearty laugh through the whole room. Upon this, the reason of the lady seemed gradually to return; and her countenance now expressed neither sorrow nor anger at what had passed, but rather perfect good-humour and simplicity, with smiles, almost like those of approbation. But it will appear doubly strange that this lady was subjected several times during the evening to the same treatment, which had always the same effect.

The next instance of the disease which I had occasion to witness, was a much more confirmed case. The afflicted person was a man of the mingled blood, and was a ship-carpenter in the service of the government. I was led by the commandant and the captain to the spot where the man happened to be working in company with several other men; and I was told by my conductors, on our way, that I was about to see the disease in its full vigour, and a case in

which the means taken to exhibit it would not only deprive the sufferer of his reason, but reduce him to such a state of subjection as to allow of his being made to perform any act whatever that he was told to do by the party that terrified him, however unlawful or absurd it might be.

When we came to the place where the men were working, the commandant called to the sick man, who was engaged in his ordinary labour among the rest, to approach him, just as if he had merely some instructions to give about the work in hand. The man came from among the rest, and stood in front of us, without seeming to take any notice of the presence of a stranger, which at least seemed to prove that the terror of foreigners that appeared to have had so strange an effect upon the afflicted lady, even before I came into the room, was not a system of the disorder. But while the commandant was conversing with this man, the captain suddenly started as he had done in the case of the lady, and bawled out again some interjectional phrase. At this the man started also, and called out the same or similar words to those used by the captain, and then stood and stared like a madman arrested by his chains. Before, however, the afflicted man had been a minute in this condition, the captain roughly commanded him to beat the commandant, which the man now commenced doing immediately. But the commandant, being on his guard, had scarcely received a blow, and which was luckily not such as a John Bull might have given under similar circumstances, before he started also, and shouted at the same time, and, by a fresh command, set the affrighted man to beat the captain, who, by frightening him again in the same manner, left him stupified and standing inactive. He did not remain, however, in this condition for a longer space of time than about a minute, when, being no further tormented, his senses returned, and he smiled as good-naturedly as if he felt rather satisfaction than anger at the condescension of his officers.

In most cases, when the afflicted person is in the act of doing anything unlawful or ridiculous at the command of another, he will immediately desist if so commanded by the same person; but when the immediate cause of the derangement of the intellect is accidental, the temporary madman is not so manageable. Several children had been killed since the time of the arrival of the officers that were now here, by their mothers letting them fall when they were suddenly alarmed.

Nothing seemed to be here known of the origin, or of the immediate causes, of this disease. It is said to have been prevalent among the natives at the time of the conquest of the country. The Russians, after a few years' residence, are as liable to it as the natives; and its effects upon both races are the same. This seems to indicate that it is at least an impartial endemic, originating most likely in the air and climate; which appears confirmed by the fact that all who are afflicted recover very shortly after leaving the country. Nevertheless, if the observations before made upon the strange contradictions in the Yakoute character be recalled, this may lead to a doubt whether that very submission of this people to their conquerors which has converted them all at once into a semi-civilised people, and the terror of civilised men of which an example has been produced, do not proceed from the prevalence of some sleeping portion of the disease in the very blood of the race. The name, indeed, which has been given to the disease by the Russians, by whom it is called, as before mentioned, the Yakoute disease, seems to indicate that this has at some time been the prevailing opinion among them. As for any such symptoms of the extraordinary malady as might lead the physician to a proper knowledge of it, I am only able to say that I found no one that pretended to know more than might be judged from similar effects to those which have been shown. I heard it, indeed, described while I was here, by some who had not been long in the country, as an affection of the nerves. But unless it were said, at the same time, what it is that affects the nerves, and in what manner these delicate links between the material and immaterial nature of which we appear to be composed are affected, this seems a very unsatisfactory explanation of the mystery.

AMERICAN AUTHORSHIP.

BY SIR NATHANIEL.

No. XII.-THEODORE PARKER.

To write about Theodore Parker without trenching on theology, may seem as preposterous as to take up Milton without reference to poetry, or Mozart irrespective of music, or Titian exclusive of art. Nevertheless,

we must here omit the capital feature in question, or leave out Mr. Parker from this patchwork series-the pages of this Journal affording no space for Church militant polemics. But a writer so marked in contemporary" American Authorship"-so hotly vituperated on the one hand, and on the other resorted to as a real Sir Oracle,-may not be ignored with impunity in any such miscellaneous reviewal. If we do touch on his Absolute Religion, it shall be but a touch; and then off at a tangent.

Perhaps we are already convicted, by some judges, of reckless effrontery in introducing at all this writer's name a name tantamount, in the estimate of not a few, to the incarnate essence of infidel and heretic. He is regarded in many quarters with the kind, if not degree, of shuddering aversion* expressed by the Jewish high priest in " Athalie”

Vous souffrez qu'il vous parle? et vous ne craignez pas
Que du fond de l'abîme entr'ouvert sous ses pas

Il ne sorte à l'instant des feux qui vous embrasent,
Ou qu'en tombant sur lui ces murs ne vous écrasent?
Que veut-il? De quel front cet ennemi de Dieu
Vient-il infecter l'air qu'on respire en ce lieu ?

* If there be any section of English Churchmen which tolerates, and even views with some improper fractional sort of interest, the writings of this American "theist," it is that represented, prominently if but partially however, by Mr. exProfessor Maurice. And here, in consideration of the ferment recently caused by Mr. Maurice's yeast the little leaven which it is feared may leaven the whole lump of our Churchmanship-we will bestow a few words on what seems to us characteristic (in a literary, not theologico-critical aspect) of that gentleman's writings.

By that particular "following" of which Mr. F. D. Maurice is the accredited chieftain, he is pronounced the man of men in these days of trouble, and rebuke, and blasphemy. His influence has been slowly but steadily advancing, since the publication, years ago, of his letters to a Quaker, on the constitution and character of the Church-two volumes which puzzled perhaps every clique of readers, now gratifying them with an assurance that here their own special "interest" (in Nonconformist parlance) might boast of a sterling acquisition to their ranks, and now mortifying them by an abrupt change of tactics all in favour of their foe. Something of the same alternation and antithesis of feeling he has produced, more or less, in all his subsequent (theological) writings. These are so numerous, that, would Mr. Maurice only renounce the single habit of thinking while he writes, and of drawing on that reasoning organ, his brain, as well as on that mechanical agent, the pen of a ready writer, he might positively rival Dr. John Cumming in fecundity. But as he does not make the wrist and fingers his sole agent, his factotum in composition, he must be content to lag a little in the rear of the prolific Presbyterian that G. P. R. James of "religious worldliness" that indefatigable purveyor of safe light reading to "serious families" whose "last" exposition is as

Now, Sir Nathaniel maketh humble confession that he is possessed of a morbid interest in the black arts, as comprised in German and American book-work. Show him a branch of the tree of knowledge of good and

complacently canvassed at a Recordite tea-party, as the said novelist's newest tale in a Christmas ball-room.

Guided by the eulogies of his disciples, and by the wonted promissory tone of his own preliminary statements, one is impelled to expect a great deal from Mr. Maurice. One is led to expect a rich supply of positive instruction. But, saith the proverb, Blessed is he that expecteth nothing, for he shall not be disappointed. That beatitude was not for us, in our study, such as it may have been, of his writings. Disappointed we were. But then we had expected much.

With a respectful O salve! the inquirer approaches him, like Charinus with his "Ad te advenio, spem, salutem, auxilium, consilium expetens:"

too often to find that his Pamphilus might say,

"Neque pol consilii locum habeo, neque auxilii copiam."

Admirable things there are, beyond question, in Mr. Maurice's books. First and foremost, there is that solemn sincerity of religious feeling, in the sacred presence of which one feels both attracted and awed, and for the sake of which one can still assent to the title of "divine" and "divinity," as applied to a certain class of men and class of writings. There is freshness and freedom of thought; a superiority to the peddling platitudes of routine theology; a candid scrutiny of other-sidedness, in place of a prepossessed devotion to one-sidedness only. There is an outspoken caveat against the intellectually conventional when it involves the morally false, an unflinching inquisition of masked pretence, and a resolve to wrest forth the lie from out her right hand. There is a habit of philosophic reflectiveness; there is critical acumen and sensibility; there is scholarship, and steady industry in research. There is an intense yearning after practical results-evident in the political and social schemes which his adversaries rebut as so intensely unpractical. And there is a manly, nervous, forcible style-the style of a man who weighs his words, and that too in the balance of the sanctuary.

Nevertheless, his writings leave one strangely dissatisfied. Quite provoking is the alliance they present of lucid premiss with lame and impotent conclusion. The conclusion is often that in which nothing is concluded. When you fancy yourself surest of his drift, presto! he's arguing something else. Those against (or in behalf of) whom his controversial essays are intended, are heard to say, with perfect justice-"He often enters into our difficulties and admits their full force, but then he flies off to some aspect of truth that he thinks we have neglected, and never meets the objection or refers to it again. He flits from side to side, taking first a turn at sympathy with his opponents to show us how well he understands our position, and how true (though one-sided) he esteems it; and then he hurries off to sympathise with an opposite conviction, and leaves us anxiously expecting sentence, or at least a definite issue, which never comes." The faculty of ready sympathy-of taking observations from his foeman's stand-point-is indeed one of his worthiest traits, and the main cause probably of his popularity in partibus infidelium. But the very accuracy with which he catches the features of alien creeds, and the ease with which he seems to identify his plastic habit of thought with theirs, only serve to enhance the mortification which ensues when his finale comes about. The eager catechumen, hopeful of large results from his instructions, will, in most cases we fear, feel himself at last in the poet's mood, when thus confessing his experience:

"Much I question'd him;

But every word he utter'd, on my ears
Fell flatter than a cagèd parrot's note,
That answers unexpectedly awry,

And mocks the prompter's listening."

Perhaps it may not be quite superfluous to add to this overgrown note a reminder, that its contents, as affecting an English Churchman, are no way apropos of the American author-but that the note is wholly an excrescent excursus, due

evil, and forthwith his hand grasps at the forbidden fruit. Not that he is tempted only by the kind of clusters that flourish in the rank orchards of neology and rationalism; only let there be a rumour of some strange fruit, a true exotic, bursting with poisonous seeds within, though alluring as the apples of Sodom without-and, whether it come from Boston or Halle, or be "raised" by a cardinal or a secularist-he is anon restless till he has had a bite. One week his friends apprehend from the books on his table, that he is on the very eve of a junction with the Church of the Seven Hills-so intent appear his researches into the profundities of Father Newman and Mr. Lucas, the Rambler and the Tablet; the next, he is suspected of an infatuated penchant towards Swedenborg, or Quietism, or the "catholic apostolic" excrescences of the new Irvingites; and the week following, of unqualified agreement with some ultra expression of the Straussian spirit-because he has been seen poring over Froude or Francis Newman, R. W. Mackay or James Martineau, perhaps even H. G. Atkinson or G. J. Holyoake. Were he indeed of opinion that any of the diverse authors thus specified are morally insincere, and purposely misleading, in their several teachings, he could not get through a page of their lucubrations; but supposing them to believe themselves in the right, and assuming their anxiety to convince others of its rightness, he is latitudinarian enough, some say "foolhardy" enough, to handle these edge-tools, to see what use they may be put to, and whether their new-fangled make is really calculated to shelve the old patenteed instruments which have lasted the world so long.

This egotistic preamble may be wound up by the acknowledgment, that as he (if "he" can be egotistic) has taken observations of, so he has not been bewitched by, the "new light" of Mr. Theodore Parker. There is the glare of artificial fireworks about it, an upshot of fizzing, skyscraping pyrotechnics. One word as to P.'s Theistic stand-point (albeit a "power of words" might seem indispensable if such a topic is approached at all). It has been said of a brother-theist at home, that he has created a God after his own mind, and that if he could but have created a universe also after his own mind, we should doubtless have been relieved from all our perplexities. This applies with equal force to Mr. Parker. He too has construed (as a German would say) an ideal First Cause from the depths of his "moral consciousness;" but he has not interpreted the facts of this Cosmos of ours, this "visible diurnal sphere," with its gloomy mysteries and Sphinx-phrased enigmas, into harmony with its supposed Maker. He has cut the Gordian knot of the difficulties of a supernatural revelation; but difficulties of a strikingly cognate aspect, dilemmas of a curiously analogous form, objections of an equally (to say the least) per

to the wilful vagrancy, the truant disposition, of the note-writer. To infer that Maurice is bien apropos of Parker, were a Malapropism of the first magnitude. Such a comparison were "odorous" to a degree of rankness which not all the perfumes of Arabia could sweeten. This cave lector ! is addressed to such as, being uninitiated into the characteristics of both the authors, or of either, might otherwise carry away an impression of homogeneity between them. Between the Thirtynine Articles and Absolute Religion there is a great gulf fixed-albeit here and there a diver hath been found (rari nantes in gurgite vasto) daring enough to cross the dread dreary sea-unappalled, or at least undeterred, by its stormy wind Euroclydon (no 'ampioμov yeλaoua there), or by the "yeasty foam" of its wild waste

of waters.