Major Estcourt resolved upon giving up the intended ascent and returning, but here a new difficulty arose. By this proceeding the Arabs got no tribute whatsoever, and so they opposed themselves to our departure either way. Major Estcourt and Lieutenant Charlewood jumped ashore to get the kedge on board, in doing which they were forcibly opposed by the Arabs, while I stood with my fowling-piece in hand, and one of the servants-Mohammed by name-had also seized a carbine, ready to shoot the first who would strike our friends. Luckily, however, the boat was got off without injury to any one, but not without much contention. It has always appeared to me that this struggle might have been avoided, and our objects gained, had the usual tribute been tendered and the boatmen made to push on regardless of risk. It may be urged against this, that the boatmen were in collusion with the Arabs and would not have gone on, and that if we had pushed on without satisfying the Arabs, they would have attacked us from the banks. But experience has always been in favour of quick and resolute proceedings with Orientals.

Subsequently, and in the year 1842, Lieutenant Selby took the Assyria steamer up the Ab-i-Gargar to the band of Mahbazan, two miles from Shuster, and Mr. Layard explored the ruins of a great city that extended over an expanse of nearly nine miles in circumference, at the junction of the Karun and the Ab-i-Gargar. These ruins presented remains of three different epochs. Enormous masses of kiln-burnt bricks, with cement of bitumen, which belonged to the remote ages of the Kayanian kings; hewn stones with marks in the centre, as are observable at Al Hadhr, Ispahan, &c., and which Mr. Layard considers to be indicative of a Sasanian origin, and Kufic inscriptions illustrative of early Mohammedan times.

Dropping down with the current one day and a night took us back to Ahwaz, where we arrived on the 29th, and on the 2nd of December the steamer took its way down the Karun to Mohammerah. Between these two places the general course of the river is from north-north-east to south-south-west, passing through a country which is abundantly wooded and very thinly populated by Arabs of the Bawi and Idris tribes, subject to the Sheikh of Cha'b.

The river winds but little as far as the village of Kut Abdullah, but beyond that it becomes very serpentine as far as Ismailiyeh, which is a small town belonging to the Bawi Arabs, who carry on a little trade with Shuster and Mohammerah. Seven miles south by east of Ismailiyeh we passed Idrisiyah, a small fort and town, like its predecessor, on the left bank. Eight miles below this again was a holy site called Imam Ali Husein, and ten miles east of this a village called Rubain ibn Yakub. At a distance of twelve miles from this we came to the Karun el Amah, or Khor Kobban, by which we had previously entered into the Dorak canal; and we ultimately reached our old station off Mohammerah on the 5th of December.

Before proceeding to narrate the events that took place almost immediately subsequent to this visit to the Cha'b Arabs; and the ascent of the Karun, it must be mentioned here that the next day, December 6th, the steamer proceeded down the Khor Bahmehshir, further than it had hitherto been, and not many miles from its estuary. On this occasion an excursion was made overland to search for the old channel of the Karun, which Layard calls the Khor Kobban, and which he says before

its discharge was divided into three branches, a circumstance that would account for the curious detail presented in all maps previous to the Euphrates expedition, of the mouths of the Shat el Arab and Karun. Our way lay over a level plain, for the most part encrusted with salt. At a distance of a few miles we came to a ruined hamlet and a well. Close by was a bush, a rare thing in the plain; and as I left the party to examine it, I disturbed a large hyæna that was crouched in its centre. Several shots were fired at the unwieldy beast, but without any effect. A little beyond this we came to the channel of a river, but whether the bed of the Karun, before Kerim Khan's time, or only one of the beds, cannot, as we did not go any further, be satisfactorily determined. On our return to the steamer, we were much surprised at seeing all hands turned out to watch our approach. The bulwarks were lined with curious faces, and the paddle-boxes were surmounted by figures on the anxious lookWhen we got on board the mystery was cleared up. The mirage had magnified and contorted our persons in the most extraordinary manner, and had further amused itself by multiplying us into an army of giants.

out.

THE EXILE'S RETURN.

BY J. E. CARPENTER, ESQ.

ALL-all are changed—each old familiar place,
Each bright-green spot where I in childhood played,
The woods are green, but yet they give no trace
Of those lone paths where I so oft have strayed;

There is afar a bright and sunny land,

Where, through long years, I lived from all estranged,—
Yet my heart yearned once more again to stand

Near my old home-I come-and all is changed.

All, all are changed-the friends I loved of yore,
The dear companions of my boyhood's day,

They pass as strangers by my father's door,

Round which each summer-eve we used to play
Oh, that the world should have such power to blight
Each sunny future that the past arranged;

That youth should be a vision of the night
From which we wake to find, that--all is changed!

All, all are changed-my gentle sister's voice,
I hear not now its tones of happy glee!
Where are my brothers; will they not rejoice?

If friends prove cold, they still welcome me!
No! they have gone before me to the land

Of unknown realms, by mortal never ranged;
I am a stranger in my native land,

Home-kindred-old companions-all are changed!

LIFE AND REMINISCENCES OF THOMAS CAMPBELL.

BY CYRUS REDDING, ESQ.

CHAP. XIX.

Remarks respecting Hazlitt and Scott-Later Contributors to the MagazineEffect of his Domestic Bereavement on the Poet's mode of living-University Prizes-Third Election of Campbell to the Lord Rectorship-Sir Walter Scott's good feeling.

In the last number of the New Monthly Magazine, in a paper, one of a series, entitled a "Graybeard's Gossip," I find the mysterious veil of the authorship withdrawn by an incident the writer himself related to me many years ago, just after it happened. I allude to his refusal to be second to John Scott in the duel in which he fell, so indicative of that right use of reason with which the multitudinous portion of social existence is unacquainted. I refer, however, more particularly to the "Graybeard's" remark upon a passage in my last paper respecting Campbell, who, I state, told me that Hazlitt had been the means of increasing the irritation of Scott, and consequently been one cause of his going out with Mr. Christie. I am inclined to think, that though Campbell, in stating the circumstance did so with the express belief that Hazlitt said what he did with a mischievous design, which, so far I agree with the writer last month, may have been tinctured with prejudice in the inference, yet that the circumstance itself is probable, and not incorrect. Campbell was assuredly thus informed. Hazlitt showed a peculiar taunting humour at times, and did not then reflect in what light his words, any more than his actions, might be viewed. Campbell, perhaps from prejudice, attributed malice where there was no more than the simple expression of a feeling sometimes operating, without looking to consequences. Scott's mind was no doubt sufficiently excited, and though I only knew Scott from meeting him at a dinner-table occasionally, he appeared to me a man who rather wished to stand well with the many than with the few, one whose inclination and mode of thinking led him to feel poignantly from the mental strife between reason and usage. He was not a man to be a martyr in any cause. I well remember the substance of Campbell's remark. I ever laboured to retain Hazlitt for the magazine, and in the course of one of our conversations the poet said, speaking of Hazlitt's disregard of the feelings of others, "There was Scott, Hazlitt was one means of his going out in that foolish affair, by adding to his mental uneasiness through his mischievous remarks. He said:

"I don't pretend to uphold the principles upon which you act, I don't hold the notions you profess to hold. I would neither give nor accept a challenge. I can make no boast of physical courage. I am sure I have not moral courage for such a purpose; but you hold the opinions of the world upon the subject; to me it would be nothing, but for you to pass over such a matter is a very different thing; for me I am nothing, I do not pretend to think as you and the world do."

I am positive that the above is a fair statement of the substance and Feb.-VOL. LXXXII. NO. CCCXXVI.

N

meaning of what Campbell said, when informing me that Hazlitt had contributed to the mental uneasiness of Scott, and thus aided in leading him to send the challenge. But to return from digression to narrative.

In the meanwhile the New Monthly added many more distinguished names to the list of its contributors. At this time, or soon afterwards, Charles Lamb, the dramatist O'Keefe, and Poole contributed some excellent articles. A series of papers of a very valuable character indeed, was sent by Mr.

Wyse, the present member for Waterford. These were entitled "Letters

from Rome," and independently of remarks upon the state of society in the "mother of dead nations," they contained observations upon the existing society there, and upon the antiquities, valuable from the profound knowledge of the subject, which their author had imbibed from long study and laborious research amid the scenes he describes. These papers painted the manners of the better society of the papal metropolis, as few or none else had the means of doing, from their author having been so long in close intercourse with the more distinguished persons of that renowned locality. His communications, of sterling value, merited that subsequent collection and separate publication which they have never yet received.

Near the time of the death of Mrs. Radcliffe, authoress of the "Mysteries of Udolpho," an article from her pen appeared in the Magazine, Í forget whether written for the purpose or not, being so close upon her decease. Mr. Beazley, the architect, wrote papers on the Fine Arts for a considerable time. M. Bozzelli, a Neapolitan exile, by profession a lawyer, contributed some good articles. Telesforo de Trueba, and Galiano, the last still living and a well known Spanish minister, the first deceased in Paris, secretary to the Spanish Chambers, were both contributors. Sir H. Ellis, the Earl of Essex, Mr. Gillies, well known for his German translations, Mr. Moir, of Aberdeen, Sir Gore Ouseley, Mr. Lister, young Praed, much over-rated as a writer, and prematurely cut off by death, Mr. A. V. Kirwan, Mr. Marsh, of the India bar, the Hon. Agar Ellis, Lord Nugent, Mr. Galt, Lord Normanby, Mr. Warren, author of the "Diary of a Physician" (a paper written for and fully approved by the editor of the New Monthly, but stopped by the publisher on its way to the press), were among the contributors to the magazine, in addition to the names already mentioned.

The poet's domestic loss and the new situations in which he found himself placed, burthened with the cares of a household, to direct which he was one of the least competent persons imaginable, at first unhinged a little the temperament that required no great amount of power to throw out of its equilibrium. Mrs. Campbell's death was a fearful break-up of the poet's domestic happiness. Never had a wife more consulted and more happily administered in the circle of home, those numberless comforts, many of small moment individually, but which, small as they may be, in the aggregate grew into the necessaries of every day existence to such a man as Campbell. Her house was a model of neatness and propriety, order and a well-regulated economy were always before her steps. If, as poets are said to do, the husband moved in an eccentric path, if he were negligent of order, the negligence was compensated for by the ruling spirit of the household. The poet's study, which he daily disordered, strewed with books and papers, negligently confused in all manner of ways, was sure to be restored to perfect neatness at the first intermission in his seclusion, and yet nothing essential to his labour or comfort was displaced,

for into that task Mrs. Campbell scrutinised herself. Never did a man sustain a greater loss than Campbell, when she was taken from him, and he but too soon felt this to the core.

Mrs. Campbell was a remarkably neat, good figure, inclined to the smaller frame of woman, and must have been very pretty in her youth, indeed, she was well looking to the last. Her complexion was pale, her hair and eyes dark, her pronunciation with a little of the Scotch patois. She made no profession of a literary taste. Her conversation was cheerful, lady-like, and sociable. Her age at her decease I do not recollect, but she must have been younger than the poet nearly half a dozen years. After her loss he kept up his household as before, and with much that continually reminded him of the deprivation he had sustained but too keenly, endeavoured to fill up the void he thus experienced with those aids to which, in the common course of such calamities man is wont to apply. Solitary and painful hours he passed, but he resisted by calling reason to his aid, that despondency to which one of his disposition might be supposed liable. "I must bend to the necessity," he observed, "to that before which others have bent, and must every day bend, and court reconciliation to what I cannot alter by any effort of my own.'

I have omitted mentioning among the earlier visitors at the poet's house the name of Mrs. Siddons. She was frequently there, and Campbell felt towards her a degree of respect which originated in the effect her acting had produced upon his mind. While there was nothing about this great actress that could be styled genius, she possessed a judgment that never erred as regarded her profession. Her imposing person, and a manner in unison with the stateliness of the tragic muse, her excellence being the result of a consentaneousness of appearance, with careful and laborious study, rather than the spontaneity of genius, was marked by a more sustained and uniform character than is commonly the case in the profession. She trod her path over the highest table land at a uniform elevation; and this kind of character was calculated to attract a man of the poet's temperament, much more than one who exhibited great inequalities.

"You have just missed Mrs. Siddons," Mrs. Campbell would remark, on my calling in just after the lady had left the house.

Then the poet would speak of her as one of the most admirably endowed women that ever existed, closing with, "but you don't think so highly of this extraordinary actress. You do not give a fair measure of justice to my observations."

"I can never forget the effect she produced upon my feelings the first time I saw her; so perfect. Her bearing in some of her characters will remain a vivid image in my memory as long as I live,” I replied.

"And yet you do not think her a wonderful woman; you told Mrs. Campbell that you thought her heavy in society, that she showed no ability, nothing above the common in social intercourse."

"I did say so. The prestige of the great actress is connected with her; she is a woman of good bearing, lady-like, imposing from her fine person and from association, but in society exhihiting plain good sense, nothing more."

"That is always the way," the poet replied, "where people are great by study; she is not flashy enough for you; you want to see her a Madame de Staël."

"On the contrary, no one ever struck me, even terrified me, as she did