So, in another style, is the exclamation of Mélac Père in one of Beaumarchais's domestic drames, when a sympathising friend is counselling a more confiding spirit; "Mon ami, l'expérience de toute ma vie m'a montré que le courage de renfermer ses peines augumente la force de les repousser; je me sens déjà plus faible avec vous que dans la solitude."* This is pretty much, again, what Miss Austen's Elinor feels, in her time of trouble. From the counsel or conversation of even her nearest friends she knows she can receive no assistance; their tenderness and sorrow must add to her distress, while her self-command would receive en

grow over the scarred ground in due time."* | Both in sentiment and expression this is Dr. Robertson was held by many to be defivery French. cient in warmth of heart, because he was, on principle and in practice, opposed to exhibitions of sorrow. In society they were altogether misplaced and mistimed, he main tained. In the words of his biographer, "he considered, and rightly considered, that if a person labouring under any afflictive feelings be well enough at ease to go into company, he gives a sort of pledge that he is so far recovered of his wound, or at least can so far conceal his pain, as to behave like the rest of the circle. He held, and rightly held, that men frequent society not to pour forth their sorrows, or indulge their unwieldy joys, but to instruct, or improve, or amuse each other by rational and cheerful conver-couragement neither from their example sation." If a man be gloomy, says Mr. Disraeli, let him keep by himself: no one has a right to go croaking about society, or, what is worse, looking as if he stifled grief. "These fellows should be put in the pound. We like a good broken heart, or so, now and then; but then one should retire to the Sierra Morena mountains, and live upon locusts and wild honey, not 'dine out' with our cracked cores, and while we are meditating suicide, the Gazette, or the Chiltern Hundreds, damn a vintage, or eulogise an entrée."‡

Of course the Sierra Morena mountains remind us of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza, how they differed on the expediency, if not the practicability, of consuming one's own smoke; and how to the Don's assurance that if he did not complain of the pains he suffered, it was because knights-errant are not allowed to complain, be their extremity ever so great, Sancho answered, in his frank, simple, genial way, that, for all that, he should be glad to hear his worship complain when anything ailed him; adding, "As for myself, I must complain of the least pain I feel,"§ -or he would be glad to know the reason why not.

Distinguo, in such matters, was Sénac de Meilhan's cue: "Je n'aime point à me montrer à mes amis sous un côté défavorable. . . . . Il faut donc cacher ses plaies, dissimuler les grandes impuissances de la vie : la pauvreté, les infirmités, les malheurs, les mauvais succès. . . . Il ne faut confier que les malheurs éclatants, qui flattent Iamour propre qui les partage et s'y associe." ||

Nil Nisi Bonum.

Lord Brougham's Lives of Men of Letters: Dr.
Robertson.

Disraeli, The Young Duke, book v. ch. i.
Don Quixote, ch. viii.

Portrait de lui-même.

nor from their praise." She was stronger alone, and her own good sense so well supported her, that her firmness was as unshaken, her appearance of cheerfulness as invariable, as, with regrets so poignant and so fresh, it was possible for them to be."t

Mr. Trollope is effective in his description of the demeanour of Lucy Robarts, in her sore distress - how her grand and slow propriety of carriage lasted her until she was well into her own room. There are animals who, as he says, when they are ailing in any way, contrive to hide themselves, ashamed, as it were, that the weakness of their suffering should be witnessed. "Indeed, I am not sure whether all dumb animals do not do so more or less; and in this respect Lucy was like a dumb animal. Even in her confidences with Fanny she made a joke of her own misfortunes, and spoke of her heartailments with self-ridicule. But now, having walked up the staircase with no hurried step, and having deliberately locked the door, she turned herself round to suffer in silence and solitude - as do the beasts and birds." Like one in a poem of Charlotte Bronte's,

Pale with the secret war of feeling,

Sustained with courage, mute, yet high;
The wounds at which she bled, revealing
Only by altered cheek and eye,
She bore in silence.§ . . . .

A subject, this, with which Currer Bell was practically conversant, and which she has treated with force and all the emphasis of earnest iteration in more than one of her works. Take "Shirley" by way of exam

* Les Deux Amis, Acte vI. Sc. 7.
† Sense and Sensibility, ch. xxiii.
Framley Parsonage, ch. xxxi.
Poems by Currer Bell: Mementos.

the command of an army hospital, is to be attributed the delay in the production of this volume, which, however, does not suffer in interest and value on that account. The work has been printed in America, and is illustrated with some maps, and with some excellent woodcuts, from designs and photographs by the author and others.

(where they took some of the natives on board), they got among a perfect forest of icebergs, with which they had to battle for four days, and on one of which they had a narrow escape of being wrecked:

"At last we succeeded in extricating ourselves, and were far enough away to look back calmly upon the object of our terror. It was still rocking and rolling like a thing of life. At each revolution fresh masses were disengaged; and as its sides came up in long sweeps, great cascades tumbled and leaped from them hissing into the foaming sea. After several hours it settled down into quietude, a mere fragment of its former greatness, while the pieces that were broken from it floated quietly away with the tide.

"Whether it was the waves created by the

dissolution which I have just described, or the sun's warm rays, or both combined, I cannot pretend to say, but the day was filled with one bergs. Scarcely had we been moored in safety prolonged series of reports of crumbling icewhen a very large one about two miles distant from us, resembling in its general appearance the British House of Parliament, began to go to pieces. First a lofty tower came plunging into the water, starting from their inhospitable perch an immense flock of gulls, that went screaming up into the air; over went another; then a whole side settled squarely down; then hours of rolling and crashing, there remained the wreck capsized, and at length after five of this splendid mass of congelation not a fragment that rose fifty feet above the water. Another, which appeared to be a mile in length and upwards of a hundred feet in height, split in two with a quick, sharp, and at length long rumbling report, which could hardly have been exceeded by a thousand pieces of artillery simultaneously discharged, and the two fragments kept wallowing in the sea for hours before they came to rest. Even the berg to

On the second day out from Boston, the explorers were enveloped in a dense fog, which continued for seven days. Subsequently, a succession of southerly gales carried them on bra.ely, and they soon had the coast of Greenland on their right. On the 29th of July, they encountered their first iceberg, and on the following day they passed the Arctic Circle. This imaginary line was crossed at eight o'clock in the evening, and the great event was signalized by a salute from the signal gun, and a display of bunting. The weather shortly af. terwards became rough, and in Davis's Straits they lost their fore fife-rail, and were very nearly capsized. Greenland at length appeared through a veil of fog, which lifted after awhile, when they were greeted by a splendid scene of glittering icebergs, countless in number, fantastic in shape, bright and various in colour, and now glowing like burnished metal or solid flame beneath a soft blue sky, radiant as that of Italy. The air was warm and pleasant, and sea and land were bathed in an atmosphere of crimson, and gold, and purple. These northern latitudes can sometimes put on a right royal aspect, more gorgeous even than the sunny south or sumptuous orient. The two Greenland towns at which the wanderers stopped for a few days, however, were sufficiently dull and austere places. Their object in putting in at both these stations - Pröven and Upernavik procure dogs for their sledges. The latter is the more important town; and here Dr. Hayes had the melancholy duty of interring one of his men, who had died suddenly in the night. The burial ground of Upernavik lies on the side of a steep hill, and "It seemed, indeed, as if old Thor himself consists of a series of rocky steps, on which had taken a holiday, and had come away from the coffins are deposited, and covered with his kingdom of Thrudwanger and his Winding Palace of five hundred and forty halls, and piles of stones, for there is no earth. The had crossed the mountains with his chariot and spot is inexpressibly dreary; but Upernav-he-coats, armed with his mace of strength, ik has some cheerful places also. At the and girt about with his belt of prowess, and parsonage, Dr. Hayes found, besides a kind wearing his gauntlets of iron, for the purpose and genial welcome, a room that was "red- of knocking these giants of the frost to right olent of the fragrant rose and mignonette and left for his own special amusement." and heliotrope, which nestled in the sunlight under the snow-white curtains. A After being temporarily blocked up by canary chirped on its perch above the door, the ice, they entered Melville Bay on the a cat was purring on the hearth-rug." 23rd of August, by which time the sun was Immediately after leaving Upernavik no longer above the horizon at midnight.

was to

which we were moored chimed in with the infernal concert, and discharged a corner larger than St. Paul's Cathedral.

"No words of mine can adequately describe the din and noise which filled our ears during the few hours succeeding the encounter which I have narrated.

Here they fell in with the "pack ice," which is "made up of drifting ice-floes, varying in extent from feet to miles, and in thickness from inches to fathoms. These masses are sometimes pressed close together, having but little or no open space between them; and sometimes they are widely separated, depending upon the conditions of the wind and tide. They are always more or less in motion, drifting to the north, south, east, or west, with the winds and currents. The penetration of this barrier is usually an undertaking of weeks or months, and is ordinarily attended with much risk." This vast accumulation of ice stopped Dr. Hayes and his party for some hours, and it was doubtful whether they would get through at all; but, after a violent snow-storm, the sun shone out, the ice parted, a favourable wind sprang up, and in fifty-five hours they were in the North Water. Other encounters with icebergs and ice-packs, however, succeeded; but they were survived, though not without considerable damage to the schooner, and great peril to all hands. On reaching Hartstene Bay, Dr. Hayes determined to take up his winter quarters in a harbour which he denominated Port Foulke, in honour of a friend of his (now deceased) who had greatly helped him in fitting out the expedition:

"The ice soon closed around us.

"My chief concern now was to prepare for the winter, in such a manner as to insure safety to the schooner and comfort to my party. While this was being done I did not, however, lose sight of the scientific labours; but, for the time, these had to be made subordinate to more serious concerns. There was much to do, but my former experience greatly simplified my

cares.

and a half at the side. A coating of tarred pa-
per closed the cracks and four windows let in
the light while it lasted, and ventilated our
quarters. Between decks there was much to do.
whitewashed, was converted into a room for the
The hold, after being floored, scrubbed, and
crew; the cook-stove was brought down from
the galley and placed in the centre of it under
the main hatch, in which hung our simple
apparatus for melting water from the snow or
ice. This was a funnel-shaped double cylinder
of galvanized iron connecting with the stove-
pipe, and was called the snow-melter.' A
constant stream poured from it into a large
cask, and we had always a supply of the purest
water, fully ample for every purpose.
1st of October, and the out-door work of pre-
"Into these quarters the crew moved on the
paration being mainly completed, we entered
then, with the ceremony of a holiday dinner,
upon our winter life. And the dinner was by
no means to be despised. Our soup was fol-
lowed by an Upernavik salmon, and the table
groaned under a mammoth haunch of venison,
which was flanked by a ragout of rabbit and a
venison pasty."

Their life in this savage solitude was not wanting in pleasurable incidents. They read, they chatted, they sang, they published a weekly journal of facetic, and at Christmas they feasted and were right merry. Then there were journeys of exploration over the ice-fields in sledges drawn by the dogs, and these were extremely interesting, and have added to our knowledge of the region, its boundaries, and the approaches it offers to the open sea towards the North Pole. Such expeditions, however, can only be conducted at the expense of great danger, and enormous physical fatigue; and so it was with Dr. Hayes and his friends. The most melancholy incident that occurred was "Mr. Sonntag, with Radcliffe, Knorr, and the death Mr. Sonntag, the second in comStarr to assist him, took general charge of such mand, in an attempt to reach some of the scientific work as we found ourselves able to Esquimaux settlements, with a view to obmanage; and Jensen, with Hans and Peter, taining a further supply of dogs; but this were detailed as an organized hunting force. Mr. Dodge, with the body of the crew, dis- The long unbroken night terminated on the appears to have been purely accidental. charged the cargo, and carrying it to the shore, 18th of February, 1861, when the sun once swung it with a derrick up on the lower terrace, which was thirty feet above the tide, and there more appeared above the horizon, after an deposited it in a store-house made of stones and absence of one hundred and twenty-six roofed with our old sails. This was a very la- days; and nothing could surpass the glory borious operation. The beach was shallow, and majesty of his rising, or the enthusiasm the bank sloping, and the ice not being strong of the boat's crew as they all watched eaenough to bear a sledge, a channel had to be gerly for the first gleam of the great lumikept open for the boats between the ship and nary. It was not, however, until some the shore. The duty of preparing the schooner months later that Dr. Hayes attained the for our winter home devolved upon Mr. McCormick, with the carpenter and such other assist-most northern limit of his explorations, on After a toilance as he required. After the sails had been the shores of the open sea. unbent, the yards sent down, and the topmasts some journey in a dog-sledge, with only one housed, the upper deck was roofed in mak- companion a journey fasting forty-six ing a house eight feet high at the ridge. and six days from the time of leaving the winter FOURTH SERIES. LIVING AGE. VOL. V. 118.

harbour- the doctor reached, on the 19th | prised to see the birds at this locality so early of May, a locality which he thus describes :

"Standing against the dark sky at the north, there was seen in dim outline the white sloping summit of a noble headland the most northern known land upon the globe. I judged it to be in latitude 82° 30', or four hundred and fifty miles from the North Pole. Nearer, another bold cape stood forth; and nearer still the headland, for which I had been steering my course the day before, rose majestically from the sea, as if pushing up into the very skies a lofty mountain peak, upon which the winter had dropped its diadem of snows. There was no land visible except the coast upon which I stood.

"The sea beneath me was a mottled sheet of white and dark patches, these latter being either a soft decaying ice, or places where the ice had wholly disappeared. These spots were heightened in intensity of shade and multiplied in size as they receded, until the belt of the water-sky blended them all together into one uniform colour of dark blue. The old and solid floes (some a quarter of a mile, and others miles, across) and the massive ridges and wastes of hummocked ice which lay piled between them and around their margins, were the only parts of the sea which retained the whiteness and solidity of winter.

"I reserve to another chapter all discussion of the value of the observations which I made from this point. Suffice it here to say that all the evidences showed that I stood upon the shores of the Polar Basin, and that the broad ocean lay at my feet; that the land upon which I stood, culminating in the distant cape before sne, was but a point of land projecting far into it, like the Ceverro Vostochnoi Noss of the opposite coast of Siberia; and that the little margin of ice which lined the shore was being steadily worn away; and within a month the whole sea would be as free from ice as I had seen the north water of Baffin Bay, - interrupted only by a moving pack, drifting to and fro at the will of the winds and currents.

in the season. Several burgomaster-gulls flew over head, making their way northward, seeking the open water for their feeding grounds and birds there is never ice after the early days of summer haunts. Around these haunts of the June."

They then turned their faces southwards, after leaving a record of their discovery beneath a cairn of stones; but Dr. Hayes says he quitted the spot with regret:—

"It possessed a fascination for me, and it was with no ordinary sensations that I contemplated my situation, with one solitary companion, in that hitherto untrodden desert; while my nearness to the earth's axis the consciousness of standing upon land far beyond the limits of previous observations, the reflections which crossed my mind respecting the vast ocean which lay spread out before me, the thought that these ice-girdled waters might lash the shores of distant islands where dwell human beings of an unknown race, were circumstances calculated to invest the very air with mystery, to deepen the curiosity, and to strengthen the resolution to persevere in my determination to sail upon this sea and to explore its furthest limits; and as I recalled the struggles which had been made to reach this seathrough the ice and across the ice-by generations of brave men, it seemed as if the spirits of all these worthies came to encourage me, as their experience has already guided me i and I felt that I had within my grasp the great and notable thing' which had inspired the zeal of sturdy Frobisher, and that I had achieved the hope of matchless Parry."

The return voyage was safely performed during the summer months, and in October. Dr. Hayes was once more in Boston. He contemplates yet another expedition, to facilitate which, and Arctic investigations "To proceed further north was, of course, generally, he proposes the establishment of impossible. The crack which I have men- a colony, with scientific associates, at Port tioned would, of itself, have prevented us from Foulke. We wish him all success in his making the opposite land, and the ice outside

the bay was even more decayed than inside. grand and daring schemes, and trust we Several open patches were observed near the may live to receive from his pen another shore, and in one of these there was seen a flock work as interesting as the present, which is of Dovekie. At several points during our written with great picturesqueness, and in march up Kennedy Channel I had observed the spirit of a true investigator of the periltheir breeding places, but I was not a little sur- ous and the unknown.