weekly, and we allow them to provide substitutes for a day or two in the week, but we insist on their paying them at the rate of 26s. per week. Yes,' said he, 'I understand; these rich and beneficed gentry employ curates, and the curates of the draymen get about as much salary as those of the clergy.'

'After dinner we took them to the stables to see the horses. Somebody said, Now the Lord Chancellor will be at a loss; at all events he knows nothing about horses. However, fortune favoured him, for he selected one of the best of them and pointed out his merits. Some one proposed that he should get upon his back, and ride him round the yard, which he seemed very willing to do; and thus ends my history of the Lord Chancellor.

'Lord Grey looked care-worn, but was remarkably cordial.'—p. 267.

We must indulge in another piece of pleasantry, which is specially interesting at the present moment, from the political prominence now given to a member of the family concerned. Writing to his daughter, February 14th, 1834, Mr. Buxton says:

'We yesterday dined at Ham House to meet the Rothschilds; and very amusing it was. He (Rothschild) told us his life and adventures. He was the third son of the banker at Frankfort. 'There was not,' he said, 'room enough for us all in that city. I dealt in English goods. One great trader came there, who had the market to himself: he was quite the great man, and did us a favour if he sold us goods. Somehow I offended him, and he refused to show me his patterns. This was on a Tuesday; I said to my father, 'I will go to England.' I could speak nothing but German. On the Thursday I started; the nearer I got to England the cheaper goods were. As soon as I got to Manchester, I laid out all my money, things were so cheap; and I made good profit. I soon found that there were three profits-the raw material, the dyeing, and the manufacturing. I said to the manufacturer, I will supply you with material and dye, and you supply me with manufactured goods.' So I got three profits instead of one, and I could sell goods cheaper than anybody. In a short time I made my £20,000 into £60,000. My success all turned on one maxim. I said, I can do what another man can, and so I am a match for the man with the patterns, and for all the rest of them! Another advantage I had. I I made a bargain at once.

was an offhand man. When I was settled in London, the East India company had 800,000 lbs. of gold to sell. I went to the sale, and bought it all. I knew the Duke of Wellington must have it. I had bought a great many of his bills at a discount. The government sent for me, and said they must have it. When they had got it, they did not know how to get it to Portugal. I undertook all that, and I sent it through France; and that was the best business I ever did.'

Another maxim, on which he seemed to place great reliance, was, never to have anything to do with an unlucky place or an unlucky man. 'I have seen,' said he, many clever men, very clever men, who had

not shoes to their feet. I never act with them. Their advice sounds very well; but fate is against them; they cannot get on themselves; and if they cannot do good to themselves, how can they do good to me?' By aid of these maxims he has acquired three millions of money.

"I hope,' said 'that your children are not too fond of money and business, to the exclusion of more important things. I am sure you would not wish that.' Rothschild. 'I am sure I should wish that. I wish them to give mind, and soul, and heart, and body, and everything to business; that is the way to be happy. It requires a great deal of boldness, and a great deal of caution to make a great fortune; and when you have got it, it requires ten times as much wit to keep it. If I were to listen to all the projects proposed to me, I should ruin myself very soon. Stick to one business, young man,' said he to Edward; 'stick to your brewery, and you may be the great brewer of London. Be a brewer, and a banker, and a merchant, and a manufacturer, and you will soon be in the Gazette. One of my neighbours is a very illtempered man; he tries to vex me, and has built a great place for swine, close to my walk. So, when I go out, I hear first, grunt, grunt, squeak, squeak; but this does me no harm. I am always in good humour. Sometimes to amuse myself I give a beggar a guinea. He thinks it is a mistake, and for fear I should find it out, off he runs as hard as he can. I advise you to give a beggar a guinea sometimes, it is very amusing.' The daughters are very pleasing. The second son is a mighty hunter; and his father lets him buy any horses he likes. He lately applied to the emperor of Morocco, for a firstrate Arab horse. The emperor sent him a magnificent one, but he died as he landed in England. The poor youth said very feelingly that was the greatest misfortune he ever had suffered;' and I felt strong sympathy with him. I forgot to say, that soon after M. Rothschild came to England, Bonaparte invaded Germany; The Prince of Hesse Cassel,' said Rothschild, 'gave my father his money; there was no time to be lost; he sent it to me. I had £600,000 arrive unexpectedly by the post; and I put it to such good use, that the prince made me a present of all his wine and his linen.''-pp. 343-345.

The discussions attendant on the Abolition Bill, elicited various opinions amongst the anti-slavery party. These respected, more especially, the compensation awarded to the planters, and the term of apprenticeship imposed on the negroes. Lord Stanley who had charge of the bill, was evidently indifferent, if not hostile to it, and did all in his power to thwart its noble object, and to render its example inoperative. Mr. Buxton felt this, though he differed from many of his warmest supporters in his view of the course to be pursued. They were opposed to any money grant, as involving a most vicious principle, and would have demanded immediate and unconditional emancipation. He, however, voted for the grant of £20,000,000, but

moved as an amendment that one half of the sum should be retained till the close of the apprenticeship. His amendment was of course lost, and the Bill received the royal assent on the 28th of August, 1833. We stop not to inquire which party was right in this matter. We have our opinion and it is a strong one, and when occasion demands shall be free to give it utterance. We simply remark in passing, that the same sin of omission with which the biographer is chargeable, in the case of the missionaries Knibb and Burchell, is committed in his brief reference to the 'Agency Committee,' on page 327; neither is the character of the relation sustained by that committee to the elder body clearly indicated. A candid examination of the points of difference between the two committees, whatever might be its influence on the reputation of individuals, would have elicited some important principles which are of permanent authority. But let this pass. We proceed with our narrative.

The apprenticeship system, it is well known, did not work well. It gave satisfaction to none, and was found, in practical operation, to be a source of annoyance and vexation. The conduct of the negroes had, indeed, been most exemplary. Never had a great experiment been conducted, so far as they were concerned, to so triumphant an issue. Their peaceable and orderly demeanor had belied the sinister predictions of the planters, and had even outstripped the expectations of their friends. With their task-masters, however, it was otherwise, and the English public were outraged from time to time, by reports of their vexatious and oppressive procedure. The whole system was based on a false and hollow principle, and was not, therefore, likely to prove satisfactory. The master was tempted to exceed his power, by the authority with which he was yet clothed, and the negro looked in vain for that full protection of his person, and reward of his labors, to which freemen are entitled. A movement was, therefore, originated against the apprenticeship, which Mr. Buxton deemed fruitless,' and adapted to injure, rather than to serve, the cause of the negro. Messrs. Sturge and Scoble visited some of the West Indian colonies, in order to collect evidence on the spot, and the work which they published at the end of 1837, filled to overflowing the cup of public indignation. A meeting of anti-slavery delegates was, in consequence, held in London in the commencement of 1838, and vigorous measures were resolved on. Buxton withheld his concurrence, and barely admitted the possibility of success. 'It seems just possible,' he says to one of his coadjutors, that the delegates may succeed, and if so, I am sure we shall both say, 'Thank God, that other people had

Mr.

more courage and more discernment than ourselves!" This was written on the 12th of March, and on the 23d of the following May, he informs a correspondent, with honorable frankness:

'I must write a line to tell you that Sturge and that party, whom we thought all in the wrong, are proved to be all in the right. A resolution for the immediate abolition of the Apprenticeship was carried by a majority of three last night. The intelligence was received with such a shout by the Quakers, (myself among the number,) that we strangers were all turned out for rioting! I am right pleased.'-p. 428.

The closing statement of this letter will have prepared our readers for the information, that Mr. Buxton had ceased to be a member of the Commons' House. He lost his seat at the general election of July, 1837, and on all personal considerations was evidently gratified by the result. His health had for some time been declining, and many of his friends seriously urged him not to offer himself again to the Weymouth constituency. He, however, nobly scrupled to adopt their counsel. 'I don't care a straw,' he wrote to his uncle, about the disgrace. If I am turned out, I cannot help it. I have done my best, and I shall be satisfied. But if I were to go out of my own accord, I think my conscience would reproach me.' What he anticipated came to pass. Tory gold effected a party triumph, and Mr. Buxton, writing to Mr. J. J. Gurney, on the 30th of July, says, 'I am reprieved from death, and emancipated from slavery; and both these blessings came under the favor of dismissal from Weymouth, on Tuesday last.'

We must pass over the subsequent events of his life. Its principal occurrence was the Niger expedition, a splendid conception, the offspring of a noble and generous nature. We are not yet in a condition accurately to estimate it. Future years may show that it was not the absolute failure which many suppose. We can say so the more freely, as from the first we doubted the feasibility and wisdom of the enterprize.

Mr. Buxton's closing days were distinguished by the peace and hopes of genuine Christianity. He rested on the Rock of Ages, and looked forward to another world, with the 'sure and certain hope of a joyful resurrection to eternal life.' He was emphatically a good man, and his end was peace. Free alike. from pharisaism and from dejection, he cherished a wellgrounded confidence in the mediation of the Redeemer. Christ,' was his dying testimony, 'is most merciful, most merciful to me. I do put my trust in him.' On the 19th of February, 1845, his spirit passed to its reward, and his memory will ever be cherished by the philanthropic and the devout.

May our senate be increasingly distinguished by men of like temper, equally upright in purpose, of similar determination, and of repute equally unspotted. This is the great want of the age, to the supply of which the religious men of the empire should promptly and vigorously address themselves.

ART. II. Das Nibelungenlied. Übersetzt von Karl Simrock. (The Lay of the Nibelungen. Translated by K. Simrock.) Stuttgart.

LIKE all other nations, the ancient Germans were rich in traditions, or sagas, which had descended from generation to generation as historical facts. These were used by popular poets (scalds) even at a very early period, as the foundation for epic poems of greater or less extent, which were often collected, arranged, and combined, and at a subsequent period (during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries) remodelled by numerous poets, the so-called minnesingers, or love-minstrels, into creations of much higher pretension and far greater extent. On examining these Sagas, which are partly of Eastern Gothic-Lombardic, and partly Franconian-Burgundian and Northern origin, we find that they rest more or less on a mythical foundation. They were allied in the popular belief with a host of deities, and derived their nourishment from the inward or moral life of the people. The further we trace back the German saga, the more we find in it of those elements which pagans attribute to their divinities. The heroes mentioned partake largely of this character; and the uniformity of the grand intuitions expressed, is preserved solely in consequence of the circumstance, that the divinities, in the processes of time, become humanised, and the heroes deified. The result is a curious phenomenon, namely, the germination of heroic tradition along with traditions about the gods, so that, in the course of ages, the old stem of the fabulous sent forth new branches, derived largely from real life. Deeds of heroism, great changes of destiny, and whatever affected the human mind most powerfully on every new recollection, afforded constant food for the saga; and whatever existed at first in a loose and independent state, the saga gradually connected into a whole; a process, which resulted at one time from a similarity of events, and at another from the agreement and harmony existing between certain descriptions of persons and localities. At first these joinings were anything but accurate or nice; but the workmanship improved in the