ties he who holds nearly a whole county con- nected with it; he is the representative of a great tinuously, like the Duke of Sutherland, is of class and gathering: his duties are not merely much more weight in the state than another, personal; he cannot found his right to nobility like the Duke of Devonshire, whose estates, upon personal merit alone. Personal qualificathough of very great value, lie more widely

scattered.

tions can give no valid right to hereditary privileges, whereas land is perpetual-rura mone bunt-and the privileges as well as the duties attached to it should be perpetual also.

"It would, therefore, be another step towards constituting the aristocracy of the state on a more solid and reasonable basis, if the orders of baro

purified of their anomalies, and rendered attainable only under rules of a more general and fixed nature than at present prevail. Both these classes of nobles-for so they may be calledrequire considerable purification; the former, that of baronet, should be made the intermediate class between the nobles by personal merit, or knights, and those who are nobles by their lands, the peers. As was observed before, no baronetcy should be conferred unless a real estate of a certain value could be shown to be possessed, clear of all mort gage and debt; and the retention of such an estate for a certain number of descents, should establish a legal claim to the title of baronet; while

"It may appear an innovation, but we are persuaded that it would be only a return to the fundamental and ancient principles of the constitution, to make the possession of a real estate of a certain value, for a certain time, a legal title to claim the right to nobility. Thus the posses-nets, and of knights of various descriptions, were sion of an estate of £10,000 per annum clear rental, or of 5,000 acres, by the same family, in direct descent for four generations, should of itself constitute a right for its owner to be ranked in the lowest order of nobility,-that of barons, and the barony should give its name to the possessor; while the possession of land of greater extent and value should modify the superior titles of those who held them, until the highest rank in the peerage were attained. All nobles holding not less than £100,000 per annum of clear rental, or 50,000 acres, should ipso facto and de jure become dukes, and so on in proportion between these two extremes of the peerage. Baronets should rank, in virtue of their estates, immedi- the subsequent increase of the same estate, and ately after the barons; and in their turn, too, the a similar retention of it for a certain number of possession of a certain income from landed prop- descents, should establish a further claim to the erty, such as £5,000 a-year clear for four gene- honour of the peerage. If the orders of knightrations, in the same family, should immediately hood were made more difficult of entry, and if entitle its owner to rank among the baronets, they were specially reserved only for public perand to have the style and privileges of that order. sonal services, they would rise again in public "It will be urged, on the other hand, that the estimation, and would be suitable for all purpo crown would thereby be deprived of the power ses of reward required by the sovereign. of rewarding meritorious public servants, by call- "At the same time, and as a consequence of ing them up to the House of Peers, if the pos- this, peers and baronets should not be admitted session of a certain large amount of landed prop-into the orders of knighthood-they should be erty were made a sine quá non for every creation. satisfied with their own dignities. The garter, To this it may be replied that, though the pre- the thistle, and the shamrock should be reserved rogatives of the crown require extension rather especially for the great military and naval comthan contraction, yet that a sufficient power of manders of the realm: the bath, and perhaps reward would be possessed, if men of eminence one or two other new orders, should be destined in the public service, whether great commanders for men of eminence in whatever line of life or distinguished lawyers, were summoned to the they might be able to render service to the Upper House for their lives only, without their country.

titles being made hereditary; and further, that "It is an opinion controverted by some, but it other distinctions might be given which would seems founded in reason, that the twelve judges, be fully sufficient rewards in themselves without who are at the head of their most honourable any encroachment being made on the privileges profession, should not merely be allowed to st of the order of nobles. Thus, in former times, on the benches of the Heuse of Lords, but that when the honor of knighthood was not so com- they should have the right of voting therein, and, mon as it has now become, a great general and in fact, be summoned as peers for life upon their a great judge considered themselves rewarded elevation to the bench. No order of men in the enough if knighted: they never thought of being whole state would exercise power more consci created peers. And the fact is, that though per- entiously, and from no other source could the sonal nobility-the nobility acquired by the per- Upper House derive at once such an increase of formance of great actions-is in itself of the deliberative strength in the framing and revision highest value to the state, as well as to the indi- of the laws. The bench of spiritual lords, and vidual, it is not sufficiently valuable to entitle the bench of legal lords, ought to form two of the heirs of a great man to take perpetual rank the purest ornaments in the bright galaxy of the among the great landed proprietors of the realm. peers of the realm." The duties and responsibilities of nobility depend more upon the trust reposed in each member than "Members of the Lower House for counties upon that member's personal qualifications. The are always called knights of the shires they rep noble cannot be separated from his lands nor from resent; and so they ought to be. No perso his tenants, nor from the multifarious heavy res- should be eligible to represent a county unless ponsibilities thereby incurred; he is the repre- previously adorned with the honour either of sentative of a great interest in the state; he is knighthood or of the baronetage,

or unless the

the representative of his land, and of all con- younger son of a peer of the realm; and indee

the attaching of titles of nobility to the posses- tion to be possible in this age. When the tension of estates of a certain value and fixity of dency of events for centuries past has been to tenure, and the annexing of baronetcies to simi- abridge more and more hereditary power and lar properties, would put all the principal country gentlemen in a position suited to the duties privilege-when political and civil rights have of a knight of the shire. We should not then been constantly extending and diffusing themsee the absurd and mischievous anomaly of an selves among the masses, once excluded from ambitious theorist of no landed property in his their exercise-when even Wellington, the Iron own possession, but backed by the democrats of Duke himself, the embodiment of stern consera manufacturing district, thrust upon the legisla- vatism, has been long ago forced by necessity, to ture as the representative of a large agricultural county. We should rather find the knights of sanction the Catholic Emancipation bill-when the shires forming a compact and most influen- the government has been constrained to endow tial body in the imperial parliament, the real rep- a Catholic college in Ireland—when the Jews, the resentatives of the interests of their constituents, proscribed Jews, are knocking loudly at the doors and the main conservative element in the Lower of Parliament, and demanding (what they must House of the legislature."

soon obtain) the removal of their civil disabiliWe have now presented, in all its fair propor- ties-amid such influences as these, in the broad tions, this magnificent scheme for the regenera- noonday of the nineteenth century, such a rattion of England. Our readers have before them tling of the dry bones of defunct feudalism is a the mighty Panacea, which the political doctor folly, that defies the reach of superlatives. And of Blackwood, disclaiming "all nostrums of po- to whom is the appeal made? To a majority; litical economy," has devised for the cure of all whose wealth, influence, and numbers, steadily evils that have afflicted, are afflicting, or may af- increasing, have wrought the very changes comflict, the body politic. The crowded and star- plained of; and who are now solicited to undo ving population of the manufacturing districts their own work, surrender what they have acare to be silenced, if not relieved, by the ball quired, and submit once more to the yoke under practice of the Real Estate riflemen. The griev- which they groaned so long. In Æsop's fable, ous taxes and poor rates, which oppress the small the enamored lion was persuaded to part with agriculturists, will be liquidated, by the gradual his claws and teeth, that he might not frighten abolition of all the inconsiderable freeholds and the fair damsel who was to become his bride. fee simple estates, and the conversion of the The real purpose to knock him on the head, was owners thereof into tenants under the shadow of not disclosed until he had become defenceless. overgrown proprietors. While other statesmen But here, with admirable candor, the true object are devising the relief of Ireland, by measures to is avowed in the outset: and the great mass of promote and facilitate the alienation of property, the British nation are requested to strip themour projector means to arrest the progress of selves of their franchises, that they may once England towards a similar state of distress by a more fall under the sway of lordly taskmasters. policy exactly opposite. And, when in the ful- Surely, our author's readings of English history ness of time his plan shall have gone into com- must have stopped at the reign of Henry V., or plete operation, the wealth ignobly acquired in at the latest with that of the despotic Harry the the practice of professions, in trade, in manufac- Eighth. He can know nothing of the Stuart dynastures, and the mechanic arts, will probably un-ty-the eventful struggles of the 17th century— dergo a salutary depletion under the swords and the causes which produced them, and the consebayonets of the feudal militia. The purses of quences that have followed. He cannot have rich capitalists will be made to bleed as freely, heard that Cromwell's troopers, and the London as they did in the good old times of the Planta- trainbands, were raised from these same middle genets. Possibly they may be made to disgorge classes in town and country, to which he looks their ill-gotten gains by tooth-drawers and ear- for recruits for the feudal army-that they fought, clippers, so much in vogue in the days of wor- not for prerogative and privilege, but for civil libthy King John: and we may witness the repeti-erty and equal rights-and demolished, on many tion of such diverting scenes, as that in which a field, the squadrons of well born cavaliers, to Front de Bœuf extorts from Isaac the Jew so whom this project is to raise up such illustrious handsome a subsidy, by the aid of threats and successors. He has gone to sleep with the chrontortures. Such were the arts of government and iclers and romancers of the middle ages, and police, under the rule of the feudal monarchs and wakes up, like Rip Van Winkle, thinking his nobles, so much lauded and lamented by this wri-nap has lasted but one night. He cannot comter: and we might reasonably expect a return to prehend the changes that have occurred in the them, if it were possible to conceive of the revi- minds of men, and the structure of governments. val of such a system. It is to be hoped some benevolent friend will put But no sane man can imagine such a resurrec- into his hands Macaulay or Mackintosh, Hallam

[Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1849, by John R. Thompson, in the Clerk's Office of the District Courfor the Eastern District of Virginia.]

THE CHEVALIER MERLIN.

CHAPTER SEVENTH.

"The harber is a lank lean man, and noses

In every cupboard, like a questing dog,

To find some bone of scandal. He seems humble,
Timid, and modest; but beware him sirs,
For the keen newsmonger steals its secret
From the dumb face whereof he grasps the chin."

The Barber.

bles have shorn away your curls. Saucy boy, you are grown tall enough to be a brave page." "This fair lady is engrossed, sir," said Sir Ludwig, "and I must speak in her place. Monsieur, I am called Sir Ludwig of Felseck. I stand in a near relation to the countess, your wife. This child is my son; this gentleman is my friend, the Chevalier D'Imhoff."

"Pardon me, my excellent husband," the countess added, "if I have been remiss. Sir Ludwig has spoken a part of the truth. He might also have informed you that from the birth of this child I have been a mother to him, and love him with quite a mother's devotion."

The eyes of the countess gleamed with a double meaning.

The footsteps heard by the Countess Hermi- Merlin replied to these speeches. His confione, as she conversed with Sir Ludwig of Fel- dence in their truth was not sure. He indeed seck, were those of Merlin; but she was pres- saw nothing in a sure light. He had stumbled ently aware that from a different quarter other into a labyrinth, and shadows, deceptions, riddles persons were approaching. In fact as the Nor- surrounded him. Moreover his loss of self-reswegian swept aside the hangings from a more pect had much injured his customary hearty freeprivate entrance, and paused upon the thresh- dom of manner. Sullen, embarrassed, and irriold, a gentleman, leading by the hand a hand-table, he had become a singularly different persome boy, appeared in the ante-chamber. The son from the frank and bold youth who had, so countess, who had for a moment encountered short a time before, left the Swedish shores with her husband's glance, and smiled away the quar- a heart full of honest love, and a spirit inflamed rel which had a little before left her in tears, by gallant hopes.

turned to the new comers. She at once, upon

"I receive your explanations," he said to Sir catching a view of them, sprang to her feet, and Ludwig. "I do not question you. It is unneran to meet them, exclaimingcessary that I should assume the duty of giving

"He is here, and I knew not of it! Mau- you fair entertainment in this accursed chateau, rice-Maurice"where I am more a stranger than yourself." "Accursed chateau ! did he say accursed cha

Her countenance beaming with smiles and tears, she cast her arms about the boy-a pale- teau? Mon Dieu! my husband, this is intolfaced silent child with a thoughtful expression-erable." and covered his cheeks, brow, and lips, with kisses.

"Beware, countess," said Sir Ludwig of Fel

Beck.

Merlin said with a sullen courtesy-"I withdraw the rude word, madam."

"That is well," replied the countess. At this point in a scene embarrassing to all "Beware? Certainly I shall not beware," parties, a page brought to the Norwegian a sealed the lady answered. "Good D'Imhoff, I salute pacquet. Tearing it open he glanced to the botyou. Take my thanks for so charming a sur-tom of a leaf, and, with a change of counteprise."

nance, left the apartment, saying to the page: "Go before, and conduct the messenger to some place of privacy; then return and let me know where you have bestowed him."

The name at the bottom of the leaf was that

of Captain Piper. Enclosed were letters, sev

eral months old, from Mariana Sture and the good senator, directed to the camp of the king of Sweden. Captain Piper had written briefly as follows:

"Sir,-In passing I have learned enough to be assured that you delay in this neighbourhood. I am en route for Sweden, and send to you certain letters, the answers whereunto will be no burthen to your

assiduous servant

GUSTAVUS PIPER."

The reading of these words brought a rush of|Piper had left Sweden within a month after the blood to the visage of the unhappy Norwegian. departure of the Norwegian himself; he had Shame and grief unmanned him; he feared to joined General Lewenhaupt, and would have open the accompanying letters. When at last followed with him on the course of King Charles, he overcame his nervous hesitation, and read but a Polish count had run him through with a page after page of sweet, hopeful, and confiding rapier at Wilna, in which town he had remained utterances, warm and eloquent from the pure disabled by his wound. He was now returning, heart of Mariana, his eyes became full of tears, still disabled, to Sweden. The incidental quarand he sobbed heavily. rel had spoiled his Russian campaign. As for

Then he heard a step near at hand, and a kind- his present whereabout, he delayed in a village

three leagues distant, awaiting the return of his messenger from the Chateau d'Amour. When this information had been extracted from Eugenius Flavel, with less difficulty than

"You suspect me, and rebuke me, sir," said might have been expected from the taciturnity the girl, interpreting his silence.

which was usual with him in the presence of his master, Merlin said in conclusion:

66

"Not so, maiden," he at length answered. "You have seemed to me dignified by sorrow, 'Say to Captain Piper that I thank him for and of a spirit too grave for wanton arts. I his civility in despatching this message to me; have no confidence to give you, but also no re-and that I will at another time, by another hand, buke."

"When tears are in the eyes of a child or a woman," said Giselle, "they are nothing. But when a strong man weeps, we wonder and are awed. But forgive me; I but yielded to an interest which your singular grief excited. You, naturally enough, withhold your confidence from me, and I leave you."

make answer to certain papers which he has sent to me. Receive this reward for your pains, and return at once to your master."

Receiving with obsequious gratitude the gift of the Norwegian, the valet departed as he had come, under the guidance of the page. Let no follow him, to learn how he freighted himself with news. Conducted by the page, he stole on "Not so, girl," Merlin replied. "Tarry: you with the silent step of a cat, looking closely about are honest, I think, where all else is deception. him, and venturing upon questions to the boy, I have much to learn. I wander among mists. To these the latter answered with so little peint You perhaps will explain many things to me." that Flavel extracted nothing; the lad was eviGiselle mused in silence. She presently said: dently one of those light spirits that live unob"I may explain a part-perhaps enough to servant, and are not reflective enough to be inserve you. But now, or before ample reflection, quisitive or to satisfy the inquisitive. But as the I will not trust myself to speak. Moreover we two proceeded, the wise countenance of Wilmay be interrupted. After nightfall I will meet helm the steward became visible, and this appayou in the Astrologer's tower-in that turret-rition gave the valet better hopes. The steward chamber which you have at times used for your coming forward spoke with a patronizing civility meditations. Some one approaches. A brave to the page, and, as desirous as Flavel himse man may command fortune, and should not des- of a conference which offered an opportunity of pair. Leave tears to the weak. Adieu." exhibiting his rhetorical skill, or at least of letAs Giselle disappeared, the page, who had ting escape those floods of small talk which were been sent to the bearer of the pacquet, returned distressing to him in their pent-up condition, took to say that he had accomplished his errand. He charge of that worthy person, and escorted him then conducted the Norwegian to the same tur- with ceremonious politeness to his own quiet ret-chamber which the girl had selected for the sanctuary. Arrived there he made the valet promised interview. In this room, awaiting his welcome, and introduced him by word and excoming with a fixed stoop in the shoulders, and ample to a stoup of wine. Master Flavel drank looks downcast, but watchful in their humility, warily, pleading the unseasonable morning hour. Merlin found the valet of Captain Piper, Euge- "It is a popular fallacy, sir," said the steward "which rules our appetites by the index of a “Master Flavel,” he said with composure, "I clock, which is but unreflecting machinery. Th remember a scene by lake Vettern, and recog-hour which finds a man thirsty is the hour for his nise you without difficulty. I hold in my hand potation." the despatches from Captain Piper. Where now "How charmingly, Monsieur, your life must is that gentleman? When came he from Swe-pass," said the valet looking around him. den? Why does he return?"

nius Flavel.

The valet answered these questions.

"It has its dignities, and its enjoyments-p

Captain haps not altogether unmerited--but also its t