But that is in direct contradiction to what he said, as we have just seen:-" He would sometimes say that if life were made what it might be, by good government [the English was certainly a good government] and good education, it would be worth having; but he never spoke with anything like enthusiasm even of that possibility" (p. 48). He must have been difficult to please with both government and | education. John Stuart Mill gives it.as his own opinion that "education, habit and the cultivation of the sentiments, will make a common man [why a common man?] dig or weave for his country as readily as fight for his country (p. 232). His country has always paid, and always expects to pay, for these,

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as well as all other services.

John Stuart Mill seems to have boxed the compass on almost all the subjects he touched: but he never did it on religion, for he never had one to change. He appears to have kept or lost the count of his changes; at least, he speaks of “ the third period of his mental progress," but does not mention the changes during each of these periods. The following is a list of some of them, arranged alphabetically :

Actual revolution. ·
Further mental changes.
Future development.
Last change.
New era in my life.
New fabric of thought.
New way of thinking.

Third period of my mental progress.
Transformation in my opinions.
Transition in my mode of thought.

He was capable of working a good deal of mischief during his lifetime, with people lacking the capacity or knowledge to reject his nostrums, and partly because of the half-mythical kind of mystery surrounding him, and the uncertainty regarding his religious opinions. In the Autobiography such people will not find a sound moral or manly sentiment of any importance; but much to create a disgust for the father, and a pity for the son for being subjected to the training he received; as well as anything but a respect for the want of judgment and natural feeling displayed throughout it. It is unnecessary to speak of his radicalism, democracy, women'srights-ism, socialism, St. Simonism, Owenism, or demagogism generally. But all, or almost all, of his peculi arities could have been forgiven him, had he not, after seeing nearly the three-score and ten, and receiving many public honours, stated in his posthumous writings that he never had any religion, or apparently a feeling of it, or belief in the existence of God, and glorying in the same; thus putting himself, in that respect, on a level with the brutes that perish.

His writings must stand on their merits and the circumstances under which they were produced; and so must the personal and conventional virtues and peculiarities by which he may have been characterized. His Autobiography shows a wonderful egotism as regards himself and all connected with him—all apparently practical atheists; egotism which nothing would seem to have been capable of affecting, except perhaps to anger him for the moment; for in other respects we could imagine it to have been insensible to a hint and indifferent to a rebuke. When writing it, he may have imagined, in his ignorance of

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It

human nature, that he was present- | his own history, and especially that acknowledgement should be made of the debt he owed to his wife, who predeceased him, for his intellectual and moral development! can safely be said that Pan never would have had a temple, priests and worshippers, had be hobnobbed with every one, and been brought home every night on a barrow or stretcher.

ing himself as an object of admiration to the world, notwithstanding that he said, "I do not for a moment imagine that any part of what I have to relate can be interesting to the public as a narrative, or as being connected with myself" (p.1); his only reasons being that the cause of education, and the improvement of the mind, might be advanced by

SIMSON'S HISTORY OF THE GIPSIES*

"WE
few years have wrought sad
havoc with these queer wanderers; for
a long time they stoutly withstood the
inroads of civilization, but now, like
many other romantic nuisances, they are
being improved off the face of the earth.
We can hardly sympa-
thise with the sorrow Mr. Simson
would doubtless have felt, had he been
alive, at their extinction." †

E cannot but think that the last

New York: James Miller.

† In a comparatively late number of Chambers' Journal is the following:-"As the wild-cat, the otter and the wolf generally disappear before the advance of civilization, the wild races of mankind are, in like manner and degree, gradually coming to an end, and from the same causes [1]. The waste lands get enclosed, the woods are cut down, the police becomes yearly more efficient, and the Pariahs vanish with their means of subsistence. [Cannot they find' means of subsistence' away from the waste lands and the woods?] In England there are most 1,500 Gipsies. Before the end of the present century they will probably be extinct over Western Europe." [!]

at

The Athenæum, on the 3d December, 1870, says: "The rest of this people, who are scattered over Europe, and who are disappearing gradually with the increase of the civilization that surrounds them." And the Saturday Review, on the 29th November, 1873, writes:-"In this country the gradual enclosure of commons and waste lands, with other discouragements to vagabond life, can hardly fail ere long to extinguish the race."

66

I confess I felt surprised on reading the above in Land and Water of the 19th July, in the face of the author showing that the Gipsies had only changed their style of life, from an out-door to a settled condition, and were following a variety of callings common to the ordinary natives of the country. In my addition to the work I showed, fully and elaborately, how the tribe exist, and perpetuate their existence, in a mixed, settled, and more or less civilized state; and that been that there cannot be less than so prolific has the race 250,000 Gipsies of all castes, colours, characters, occupations, degrees of education, culture, and position in life, in the British Isles alone, and possibly double that number." The subject of the Gipsies stands thus on an entirely different footing from what has hitherto been believed of it. The idea is novel, but why should anything, merely because it is novel, be tacitly or actually proscribed; to say nothing of those amenities and courtesies that are supposed to be observed in the republic of letters, and particularly between those of the two continents? If such a course had been followed in other matters, and the impression of society, however illfounded, had been the only test of

MR. BORROW ON THE GIPSIES.

HE first thought which a physi- | consideration. cian should have is for his patient, a lawyer for his client, and an author for his subject, in all its as pects, whether good, bad, or indifferent-each leaving himself out of

case as discovered and advanced by others, assuming that he ever examined them; and has put forth his own ideas only, as if nothing had been said by others before or besides him, and given inconsiderate and vague suppositions for realities, and unfounded and illogical assertions for carefully-considered inductive reasonings.

The History of the Gipsies, with Specimens of the Gipsy Language, by Walter Simson, with Preface,

appeared; while it applies to much
that is contained in the work just
published.*

It strikes me as something very singu-
lar that Mr. Borrow, "whose acquaint-
ance with the Gipsy race, in general,
dates from a very early period of his
life;" who "has lived more with Gip-
sies than Scotchmen ;" and than whom
"no one ever enjoyed better opportuni-
ties for a close scrutiny of their ways
and habits," should have told us so lít
tle about the Gipsies. In all his writings
on the Gipsies, he alludes to two mixed fod
Hood

Introduction and Notes, and a Dis- Gipsies only-the Spanish half-pay cap-
quisition on the past, present, and tain, and the English flaming tinman-
future of the race, by myself, pub-in a way as if these were the merest of
lished towards the end of 1865, told us nothing of the Gipsies but what
accidents, and meant nothing. He has
contained, in my opinion, an ample
was known before, with the exception,
refutation of much that Mr. Borrow
as far as my memory serves me, of the
had advanced; but I did not expect custom of the Spanish Gipsy dressing
him to make any reply to it, and far her daughter in such a way as to protect
less admit what was advanced and, her virginity; the existence of the tribe;
I may say, proved. The book just in a civilized state, in Moscow; and the
published by him, under the title of habit of the members of the race pos-
Romano Lavo-Lil, has fully justified sessing two names; all of which are,
my conclusion; for he has complete- tion. In Mr. Borrow's writings upon
doubtless, interesting pieces of informa-
ly ignored all that was said, and the Gipsies, we find only sketches of
will apparently do so for the future, certain individuals of the race, whom he
if the world will allow him to do it. seems to have fallen in with, and not a
As an author, he is evidently a very proper account of the nation. These
self-willed, opinionative, and capri- writings have done more injury to the
cious gentleman, that is full of hard, tribe than, perhaps, anything that ever
hide-bound dogmatisms that are dif- appeared on the subject. I have met
with Gipsies-respectable young men―
ficult of being driven out of him, who complained bitterly of Mr. Bor-
whatever the means that may be row's account of their race; and they
resorted to for that purpose.
did that with good reason; for his at-
tempt at generalization on the subject of
the people is as great a curiosity as
ever I set my eyes upon.
satisfactory are Mr. Borrow's opinions
on the Gipsy question, when he speaks
of the "decadence" of the race, when
it is only passing from its first stage of

As the History of the Gipsies has apparently been little noticed, and I dare say as little read (although doubtless seen by Mr. Borrow), I will give some extracts from it, bearing on him, with regard to the most important parts of what he has written on the subject. These, however, are only a part of what has been said in regard to him; and for the remainder the reader is referred to his name in the index to the book itself. What is contained in these extracts will be all the more satisfactory on account of it not having been got up for the present occasion, but confirmed by nine years' reflection since the history

How un

* When the extracts are from my contribution to the work, they will be so marked; the others are from the history proper. I make no apology for the length of the extracts given in this article, for the reason that a meal is more acceptable than a tantalizing mouthful. What I have said of a naturalist applies equally well to this subject, that one cannot be too full and circumstantial, exact and logical in his information, to make it of any use in settling a question like the one under consideration" (p. 36.)

existence the tent. This he does in, that time, know there even was such a his Appendix to the Romany Rye; and it is nearly all that can be drawn from his writings on the Gipsies, in regard to their future history (Ed., p. 523).