ship, and I should be as sorry to believe them as you could be to believe what may be said of me." It is pleasant to turn back again from such a happily vanished type of character as this, to the dear old rector the sight of whose quiet parsonage awoke these clerical recollections. In his company we remember to have visited-he white-haired and venerable, his companion little more than a boy-sundry Devonshire vicarages whose occupants, every one of them, afforded proof of the strong independence of mind nurtured among the solitary hills and remote moorlands. To many of their houses a visit was a serious expedition, involving long and somewhat perilous rides through rough, rocky lanes, which in winter were the beds of torrents. So remote, and so evil of access in those days, was Lustleigh, one of the most picturesque and attractive spots within the circle of the Dartmoor border. Now, a railway passes close under the shadow of its little church, where, in the porch, lies an inscribed stone of the fifth or sixth century, as yet not clearly read; and crowds of summer pilgrims sweep up over the hill toward the rocky watchtowers of Lustleigh Cleave. Then, a passing stranger was almost as rare as a white blackbird, and the vicar was left very nearly to the companionship of his hills and oak woods. This vicar was the Reverend William Davy; a man of hardly less energy in his way than Parson Chowne, and quite as well worth studying. But his energy was turned to very different account. His means were slender; his literary ambition was large. He had written, in his solitude, what he called A System of Divinity, in a Course of Sermons on the First Institutions of Religion; but he could find no printer or publisher to launch his production into the world. This did not daunt him. He set up a rude printing-press in his study, and gradually got about him a quantity of indifferent and damaged type. Of this he possessed enough to print two pages at once; and with untiring zeal -"arte mea," he says, "diurno nocturnoque labore" - he carried through the printing, between the years 1795 and 1807, of no less than twenty-six volumes, comprising the whole of his System. Only fourteen copies were printed, one of which is in the Bodleian Library; and it is not to be supposed that many of their pages have ever been looked on by other eyes than those of the indefatigable printer. The book is not attractive in appearance or in matter; but it remains a monument of independent and determined labour. And Mr. Davy carried his activity into other matters than his printing. His vicarage, which was at one time occupied by a brother of the late Lord Macaulay, has undergone much change, and the garden which stretches up the steep hill-side behind it is no longer the curious "paradise" which he left it. On the terraced banks he planted and arranged box and other shrubs which might be clipped regularly, in the form of long passages from Milton and others of the elder poets; his love for "letters" breaking out again in this unwonted fashion. Here stretched along the famous address of Adam · These are thy glorious works, Parent of good, Almighty! There lay Portia's quality of mercy," or Prospero's "baseless fabric of a vision." The lines were worked out in some dark evergreen - box, yew, or juniper. The stops, always carefully added, were sometimes in pleasant contrast; as a patch of clover pinks for a period, or a cluster of hen and chicken daises in a semicolon. This was a gardener who dared to think for himself, and who happily had no theories of bedding out, no dread of mighty horticultural authorities, to perplex or to daunt him. The early days of the rector were those in which ecclesiastical ritual had fallen to its lowest ebb, and in which every man did what was right in his own eyes, though with a license somewhat different from that now in fashion. We have heard of one old gentleman who, arriving late at church, explained to his congregation that he had been delayed on the way by the sweet singing of a robin; and of another who, finding the light fail him, descended from his pulpit, and entering a pew beneath a window, thence finished his afternoon discourse. The clerk invariably read the lessons; and was often so greatly puzzled by proper names and hard words that it is easy to believe the story told of one such functionary, who having once stumbled over the names of Shadrach, Meshech, and Abednego, declined to them again, but referred to them, on each recurrence, as the "aforesaid gentlemen." Sometimes the reader would ask for explanation of a difficult text; and a dialogue would pass between the clerk and his "maister" which might perhaps venture upon edify the rest of the congregation, but | meats for his master. All these figures, was certainly not in accordance with and many of the same character, were to "Catholic usage." The congregation be found on a screen of a certain Devonin these remote village churches much re- shire church which in the course of its sembled the rustic in Southey's Doctor" restoration" has swept them quite (are they much better now?) who, when away. It may be admitted that it would he went to church, "put his legs upon be no easy matter to reconcile such oldthe bench, and thought of nothing." For world simplicity with modern feeling. those whose thoughts were so far active as to keep them awake and lead them into mischief, the stocks rose in awful majesty close beside the porch. It is not so many years ago since a Devonshire vicar and his wife thought it their duty to behold with their own eyes the punishment of a culprit condemned, like Hudibras, to pass the whole of Monday in the stocks, after disturbing the congregation by a tipsy brawl on Sunday. erence into a language to be understanded of modern church-goers; and so make the church itself something more of the home that it was in those ruder days. We are not recommending, 'at least not without becoming modification, such a representation of the Prodigal Son and his story as used not so long ago to be found on many a cottage wall, where in one compartment a housemaid from an upper window waves her handkerchief to the departing youth, and in another the feast on his return is in high celebration, and a portly clergyman, in gown and bands, is helping himself to wine from a The condition of churches in those full decanter. Perhaps too, the percepdays has been too often described to tion of high art had not been thoroughly need re-picturing here. Devonshire dif-developed in that old lady who, after fered little from other counties. White-gazing long and reverently on the St. wash and vast pews; at the east end, Catherine in a memorial window, obrepresentations, more or less lively, of served that it was beautiful, but after Moses and Aaron, and at the west, the all had no very great likenes to "old singing loft with its curtains carefully mistress." But a really great artist might drawn during the performance; all this not impossibly discover some middle reigned supreme; and was only varied way by which the homeliness of past cenby the exceptional taste of some am-turies might be translated without irrevbitious churchwarden who, as in one case, might cover the east window with a transparency representing King George upon his throne, or, as in another, might arrange it with a blind and red curtains But this is to look forward, and our draped on either side. We have changed present business is with the past. With all that. But is it quite so certain that churches in their church-wardenized conin the elaborate restorations which have dition, either "in their native whitewash converted many a village church into a and brickhood," as Walpole describes shrine of modern art, we have not missed some that he visited, or in a state of utter a certain simple, homely element, which, neglect and decay, the font garnished grotesque as it appears in these later with dead bats, and the carved roof literbeautifications, is nevertheless to be ally a place where the swallow had found traced throughout the work of those pe- her nest, an explorer like the rector enriods which we are accustomed to regard joyed many advantages which have alas affording our best models? Ancient most passed away from the architectural wood carving-roof bosses, stall work, student in these days; whilst, on the underside brackets-is full of it. The other hand, as the object of his explorapainted panels of some choir screens tion was then entirely unappreciated, he display figures which, to those who be- was apt to be received with much the held them in their original freshness, same sort of suspicion as attends a modmust have directly suggested the most ern delver among ruined cities of the familiar objects of daily life - Gideon in farther East. But the historical eviarmour like that hanging in the neigh-dences of moulding and of sculpture had bouring hall; Our Lady in such a robe not as yet been tampered with; and it and curious head-tire as might be worn was not necessary to ask whether such at church by the chief dame of the parish; Pharaoh in a dress furred with marten skins, such as Holbein bestows on Sir Thomas More; and his chief baker with a white apron and a basket on his head full of pies and all manner of baked and such a design or detail was a thing of yesterday or a portion of the original building. If parts of the work had been destroyed, what remained was untouched save by time and whitewash, and only needed the architectural knowledge of the explorer for its deciphering. How far He was the first that ever burst and thus, as we seem already to have re- From The Spectator. ENGLISH FOREIGN POLICY. THE Foreign Minister of England must, under any Government, feel his position an awkward one. He is apparently expected to talk largely of the influence of EngWhen he began his wanderings there was land, and to do nothing which corresponds probably no one in Devonshire except to his talk; to take active measures for himself who did not regard Gothic archi-"preserving the peace of Europe "when tecture as an extinct barbarism; and no the peace of Europe is not endangered, one dreamt of expeditions for its sake. and to remit them directly it is; to speak Walpole and Strawberry Hill had not with ostentatious confidence of preserving reached so far west; and few but the the faith of international obligations, and "Ladies" had studied the Castle of when the pinch comes, to show conclusiveOtranto. Accordingly, it was impossible ly how very little the faith of international to say what treasures what stately obligations means. The short conversamonument, what delicately-carved screen, tion between Lord Russell and Lord Deror what antique painting, might not be by in the House of Lords on the auguries found in any of the old churches that lay of the day was not cheering in itself, but sleeping among the hills; and, besides to any one who read it by the light of all this, the difficulty of getting access to those eminent persons' achievements as them sometimes amounted to an adven- Foreign Secretaries, it was still more ture. Farmers and village sextons could depressing.-a little bit of acted burnot understand why a stranger should lesque. Lord Russell, in moving for corwish to enter their church, and they respondence on the affairs of Europe, looked much askance at his proceedings. On one occasion, when visiting a remote parish which had not long before been agitated by a fear of thieves, his application for the church key produced an immediate fortification of all the houses in the place, beginning with the vicarage. Doors were locked and windows barred; and it was only after a conference conducted under extreme difficulties, and a production of clear proofs of identity, that he and his companions were allowed to pass from under the eye of the parish constable. said, (was it irony directed against himself, as he remembered his own great achievements in keeping the peace of Europe undisturbed when Denmark was attacked in 1864 ?) —"For his own part, he was convinced that such was the vast influence of England in the councils of Europe, that it would be in her power to preserve the general peace. He did not think that any Power would venture to disturb it, if there was a strong alliance between England and the other Powers to preserve the peace of Europe. He imagined, in the first place, that they It is idle to regret these old days. might rely on Her Majesty's Government They are gone, and the past never comes to adhere to all the engagements and all back. But, perhaps, when the civilization the treaties to which the Crown of Great of the age shall have run its course, when Britain is bound to her allies. But on lines of railway are restored to their na- this point he hoped there would be no tive coppices and fern brakes, when the evasion, or attempt to evade or shirk walls of great factories are mossed in pic-those positive engagements which the turesque ruin, and when Mr. Ruskin's Crown of this country had entered into. Utopia has become the pattern of life He trusted that if there was any danger throughout the country, what was really to the peace of Europe, the whole influgood in them may reappear in fresh com-ence of Great Britain would be exercised Linations and under different conditions; for the purpose of preserving that peace." i 66 66 Considering that the decisive decline of and good faith" will, if read by the light From The Economist. THE REALITY OF THE INDIAN FAMINE. we be heeded if we did; the public does not know that there is such a problem. We must therefore prove its existence, THE discussions here upon the famine and unfortunately it is easy enough to do in India and the narratives of it sent home so by a series of citations from writers naturally turn upon its more salient out- and speakers of official authority. There lines and its more picturesque features. is a disposition on the part of the public They tell us, or try to tell us, whether to look on this Indian famine as an Lord Northbrook was right in his policy isolated and anomalous event which we in this or that matter; whether Sir G. have to deal with now once for all, and Campbell suggested something better or the like of which we need not expect to worse; what is the state of the popula- see again. But the late Secretary of tion at this moment in Tirhoot or else- State for India, the Duke of Argyll, thus where. And we would not deny for an warns us to the contrary: "My Lords," instant the value of this information and he says, "it is melancholy to think that I argument. They are absolutely neces- should remind your lordships of the fact sary for those who have to decide upon, that famines are of by no means rare occurand for those who wish to learn, the de- rence in India. Without going back to tails of this painful event. But there is the famines of the last century, some of besides a much deeper class of consid- which have left terrible remembrances in erations which this controversy and these the recollections of the people, but going details tend to hide. We have to face in back only to the Mutiny of a few years India a great and new problem, and we ago, we find that no fewer than four ought to see what that problem is. scarcities, amounting almost to famines, The population of India is now, for the have occurred since that time. Every first time in history, augmenting with Minister who has had charge of the affairs great rapidity: year by year the people of India, however short his term of office, become more and more numerous. The since the Mutiny of 1857, has had to deal peace we have compelled, the infanticide with a scarcity of that kind in some part we have prevented, the little civilization of India. In 1861-62 my noble friend bewe have introduced, all tend in this way. hind me, who so long presided over the But there is no corresponding addition to Government of India, had to deal with a the means of supporting the people. serious famine in the North-West ProvAlready they are as thick upon the soil as inces. During the time another of my almost anywhere in the world. The hab- hon. friends held the seals of the India its of the people are much opposed to Office, he had to deal with the famine of change, and the fixed, inherited struc- 1865 and 1866, and when he handed those ture of society often prohibits it. The seals to my noble friend opposite, he (the present subsistence of the poorest in Marquis of Salisbury) assumed office in many parts is excessively small, and con- the very midst of a famine which has left sists mainly of the cheapest kind of food, such a bitter recollection on the minds of and the most precarious. More or less the people. Again, when Sir Stafford unfavourable seasons constantly happen, Northcote gave up the seals of office, and and the consequence is more or less of I took them in 1868-69, there was then scarcity, more or less of high prices, and in the North-West Provinces a serious more or fewer deaths among the popula- famine which cost the lives of thousands tion. The number of the population is of people. And, lastly, when I retire already enormous; there was till lately from office my noble friend opposite sucerror in our estimate of it. We ceeds in the middle of a calamity threatthought, by traditional computation, that ening great danger to the enormously it was in Bengal alone 43,000,000, but by populous district of Behar." [Speech in actual counting we find it comes to the House of Lords, April 24, 1874.] 66,000,000, and 23,000,000, the amount of The present famine is greater than this error, is about the population of England and Wales. The problem is, then, Are we right by our imported Government to force on the indefinite augmentation of this enormous multitude, and if so, how are we to provide for them? an We cannot pretend to solve that problem at the present moment, nor should some famines, though less than others, but what is new in it is the attention given to it in England, and the mode of treatment adopted in India. For the first time we are applying on a sufficient scale European ideas to an Asiatic problem. The native governments always let their subjects die without an effort to save them, and though we have generally made: |