many not yet attained its acme. When we see Chinese idolators propitiating y-handed idols with offerings of cups of tea; when we see a whole nation, numbering nearly one-third of the human race, adoring a mortal Sovereign with a system of mummery, the labyrinthine tediousness of which we can estimate only by recollecting that it is reduced to a science; when we hear them entreating and conjuring, and then frightening the departing spirit of a dying relative to return, pursuing it with prayers and menaces and fireworks; we may possibly forget that, to the philosopher who examines all systems by the one impartial standard of reason, many of our own customs would appear equally absurd, and to them, infinitely more irrational. But what makes all this really astonishing, is, that many who solemnly practice and perpetuate those absurdities, do not, for one moment, believe in them. As a general rule, the educated Chinese is as coldly sceptical as Voltaire or Tom Paine. It is not, for instance, unusual to hear gentlemen, severally professing the four different religions which prevail in China, politely rivalling each other in praise of the creeds to which respectively they do not belong, and amicably concluding that neither has the slightest advantage; because "religions are many, and reason is one."* The obvious truth, however, respecting all these phænomena, unique and abnormal as they are comparatively with the rest of the world, is, that they are the symptoms of a decaying and decrepit civilization, resembling some carefully preserved garment of obsolete fashion and antiquarian interest, which the most delicate touch suffices to rend, and a strong shake would mingle with the dust which time has gently laid upon it. Of this there are many proofs and illustrations in the analogies of history. In China we can observe those abrupt contrasts of wealth and destitution, of refinement and barbarism, of cultivated intelligence and childish ignorance, which have ever been the features of the last stage of national decline; and again, in their industrial pursuits, we find that minute subdivision of labour, that extortionate rapacity, universal mendacity and general elasticity of conscience, which supply the same inference. But, their shameless laxity of morals, and still more their facile indifference in matters of religion are indications more certain even than these. Indeed, the analogy existing between religious belief and political status is one of the most curious and interesting that can The religions prevailing in China are: 1st, the old system of pure theism, revived by Kong-fu-tse (or, Confucius); 2nd, the idolatry of Fohi, who spelled his system out of the mystic lines on the back of a tortoise; 3rd, the sect of Tautse, resembling the epicureans of Greece; and 4th, Mohammedanism. as be studied in human history. In the vigorous and energetic youth of nations, a religion-irrespectively of its truth-is an active and animating sentiment, the motive to many noble and generous actions, and not less, sometimes, to cruel and fanatical intolerance: political power advances, it begins gradually to take a secondary position and to exercise a wider but calmer influence. Farther on, during the period of national declension, it may be observed to be gradually losing its supremacy over the convictions of the higher, and the actions of all classes in the community; while, although the majority of men may write and speak of it with a conventional and formal respect, and, although the assumptions of a sacerdotal caste may be fully recognized; but few receive any heartfelt impression of its restraints and consolations. It is just upon this principle, that the educated Chinese, while adhering to the formalities of their several religions, as a matter of ceremonious propriety, sensitively refrain from offending the self-love of their neighbours by obtruding them too officiously. There is still another interesting analogy, which, though perhaps apparently fanciful, may not be unworthy of serious attention: that the neglect and decay of public buildings are at once an evidence and a result of the decline, both of public spirit and of the institutions which they represent. Such edifices are those outward emblems of magnificence and liberality, those temples of mind and energy, in which middle-aged nations delight, and which, in their old age, they are no longer able to occupy and enjoy. Looking at the old palaces of Venice and Genoa, and the still older and more regal edifices of Delhi and Agra and Canton, where the marble halls and tesselated chambers are the dwellings of unmolested bats and birds, we feel that they were once the homes of the spirit, of which they are now but the cenotaphs; and, it is scarcely possible for the imagination to picture the intense curiosity and eager expectation, that must await the first free entrance of European intruders, into those jealously closed and fantastically gorgeous residences in "the Northern Court" and "the Southern Court "-Pekin and Nankin-where the Imperial, Majesty of the celestial Empire hides itself from profane eyes; the penetralia which the most highly privileged natives approach upon all fours, and where the very few foreigners who have ever been honoured with the entrée, "are received," to use the words of a modern traveller,* "like beggars, entertained like prisoners, and dismissed like thieves." Of the moral merits of our quarrel with the Chinese, and, indeed of the question whether there be, properly speaking, any quarrel at all; much * M. Huc. has been already written and spoken on both sides. The most obvious considerations, of course, are, that all the effete dynasties and exhausted empires of past time, have fallen, at their several destined periods, not by internal convulsions but by foreign aggression; and, that it is as just and natural that an ancient empire, having enjoyed all the good things of a long life, should make way for a younger and more wealthy power; as it is that an individual man, after his years of active duty, should be superannuated. Thus, younger and more manly races entered upon the rich legacies of Rome and Delhi: and thus they will, of course, enter upon that of China. In all such vicissitudes-and they have been ever repeating themselves in history-younger nations become conquerors and masters; the older communities, whom they supersede, sink into helots and slaves; and it is as romantic to hope for the revival of a nation once fallen from power, as to believe, with the necromancers of the middle ages, that the elastic strength of youth can be infused into a human body which was once young and is now old. The system of exclusion adopted by Chinese policy has probably retarded this uniform doom in their instance; but, we see that not only has it failed to avert it eventually; but, that a variety of causes have been, for some time past, undermining that system itself. The necessities of commerce have been breaking down barrier after barrier; and the pressure of population, overcoming the stay-at-home spirit of the Chinese, has been sending them abroad to acquire the very newest ideas in Australia and California. Now, whether it is morally justifiable that a more powerful and enterprising nation should seize upon and appropriate the natural inheritance of a feeble and exhausted race, is a matter in which ethical philosophers may not be careful to answer; for, although diplomatists may disclaim purposes of annexation or encroachment; these results are inevitable because they are predestined, and as certain as it is that the tide, because it has always hitherto done so, will ebb and flow to-morrow; and, although many instances of individual hardship and wrong must ensue—although the bloodshed and desolation, without which such changes have never been effected, must stain yet another page of history-it is a compensation that the country in question is always benefited by an infusion of new life and the development of long dormant resources. It may be, also, that its native inhabitants, though they descend-metato in agello-into the same subordinate position, as the Aborigines of ancient Italy and mediæval England, may not be less happy, if wisely and kindly governed, than they were as masters of that which they lacked the skill and energy to use. Into the political questions involved, we cannot of course enter here. The administration of conquered provinces is too large and heavy a topic for our present space; and the discussion of it would, in any case, be superseded by the lesson which recent occurrences in India teach-that a ruthless spirit of money-griping always frustrates itself in the end; and, that if rulers will govern with kindness and honesty, wealth and power will be sure to follow. THOUGHTS OF THE PAST. I STOOD on the bank, as the Moon, gently gliding, I saw the light bark on the gentle wave riding, I thought on the time when my beautiful Mary, H. The House with the Twisted Chimneys. CHAPTER I. "Give me an ounce of civet, good apothecary, To sweeten my imagination !"—Shakspeare. SELDOM were two individuals, so closely connected by relationship and identity of worldly interests, less congenial in taste and disposition, than the parties ostensibly composing the firm of Wisencraft and Son, a safe and thriving but unostentatious manufacturing house in one of the smaller towns of Lancashire. They were, in fact, types and representatives of two great and antipathetic classes of the human race; for while the senior partner, Mr. Joseph Wisencraft-or “Old Joe,” as he was more familiarly designated by his immediate neighbours-was eminently practical, hard, stern, narrow-minded, and money-griping, viewing and estimating all things whatsoever with an exclusive reference to the market; his son Benjamin was dreamy and imaginative, vaguely ambitious, full of picturesque and transcendental speculations, utterly contemptuous of money for its own sake, and sighing listlessly for some fabulous treasure sufficient to carry his aerial architecture into actual execution. The father would labour, and scheme, and manœuvre, and dissemble, to make or save a pound: the son would look upon hundreds and thousands with disdain, because they were not millions. Detesting, as he sincerely did, all the little mechanical details of business, the only element in his existence that at all reconciled Benjamin to trade, was the fact that his father was for some years in the habit of employing him as a traveller. In this way he enjoyed that variety of scene and that occasional excitement of free adventure that exactly suited his disposition; more especially as the périod of the opening of our history preceded by a short interval the construction of the first railroads-not that the rail has not its own peculiar romance, sometimes startling and agitating enough; but that it obliterates all diversities of place and scene-and, as his mail phaeton was made to look as much as possible unlike anything commercial, and his pair of bays presented rather a fashionable turn-out, he almost fancied, while on the road, that he was in all external relations the aristocrat which it was his secret, ambition to become. It was all very well, until he touched at those points of his journey where it was necessary to call upon the |