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veries. We paid considerable attention to two of her recent works-particularly to the narrative of her tour to Egypt-in which two characteristics of her mind forcibly struck us-the self-consciousness which pervades it, and the hardihood and bitterly hostile spirit with which she puts forth (with little or no attempt at proof) the boldest opinions upon the disputed topics of the Bible. We gave her ample credit for vivid and forcible descriptions of the imposing sights and scenes of a land so eminently calculated to test the character of the tourist's intellectual calmness and strength; and it is still our unchanged conviction that her philosophical reflections were the result of an imaginative woman's excitable enthusiasm, and in no instance fetched from the pellucid depths of a mind qualified, either by nature or training, for letting us into the buried secrets of the Pyramids and their surrounding marvels. We remember noticing how the masses of piled-up stone overmastered her imagination; and, when thinking of the men who could achieve such triumphs, how scornfully she spoke of the "upstart Greeks," unable, at least for the time, to perceive the distinction in real intellectual progress between the nation which could pile up stones and rear a pyramid, and the nation which could pile up words and rear a Prometheus.

Again: she proved herself incapable (as we felt) of comprehending that moral greatness may be shown at certain times in overlooking such things as pyramids, when she sneered at the poverty of Christian architecture beside that of Egypt: forgetting that those places for Christian worship were, probably, the product of minds so absorbed by what they believed to be the most important message that ever was delivered to mankind as even to undervalue the shape with which it was possible to cast the mortar and stone under which they panted to deliver it. These are a few stray recollections of a work of much pretence, and affording, therefore, fair scope for forming an equitable judgment of the writer's moral and intellectual qualifications; and nothing we have since met with has altered the judgment we then formed, and which this last of her works has so fully confirmed-that Miss Martineau is a clever woman, but a bad philosopher, even amongst female philosophers. We are far from intending to speak disrespectfully of this laborious writer; and, in thus writing, we have only accepted her own implied challange to investigate the claims upon our confidence of mental "faculties which, she tells the world, can only be satisfied by what so many regard as downright Atheism. Of course, Miss Marti

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neau is entitled to the benefit of this reason; but we ourselves believe, and have said something to prove it to others, that this personal reason needs influence no one else.

We cannot refrain, too, from calling attention to the slighting manner in which she speaks of "Paley's Mechanic-God". -a respectable and useful writer, always deserving of honourable mention. Now, Miss Martineau cannot deny that our globe and all the millions of objects which crowd it were either the result of blind chance or of some de signing mind. Paley takes the latter view, and by a copious induction of proofs attempts to establish it. He reasons-and no materialist can deny it-that design suggests the notion of a designer, through whose wondrous skill all the parts of the universe, great and small, possess a perfect mechanical adaptation to each other, the least deviation from which would ultimately lead to an overwhelming confusion. If there be a God at all, of such original individual mechanism, he is and must be the author. The fault of misapprehension is certainly in Miss Martineau's "faculties."

Again we quote the following specimen of Miss Martineau's religious philosophy, extracted from a letter to Mr. Atkinson :

"That religion (that of Mahommet), imperfect as we see it to be, met needs and gratified faculties among certain races of men which Christianity wholly neglected. We are not of the races whose needs could be met by Mahommedanism; nor are we supplied, even in the most superficial view, by what Christianity offers us. As the omission of a provision for the antagonistic at once with the fatalistic faculties of man made Mahommedanism necessary, so the neglect, amounting to discountenance, by Christ, of the domestic passions and affections, nullifies its operations with us."

Coming from a materialist, we presume that some of this might have been told us in the old words-"Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die." It is plain that the writer has misconceived what must be the essential character of religion, if there be such a thing. Miss Martineau would teach us (at least we can learn nothing else from her opinions), that religion is to be brought down to suit the nature of men, however much the nature may have been deteriorated from its original excellence by the grossest abuses perpetuated through generations. But such a notion of religion as this cannot be accepted, excepting we first of all reject its fundamental idea. The question of revealed religion may be stated thus-whether God should be required to accommodate himself to the defects of man's wilfully abused nature; or, whe

ther man may not be reasonably required to accommodate, by correcting, his wronged nature, to the perfect one of God. Does God want man's religious services; or does man want his religion? We can only reply to the sweeping condemnation of Christ and Christianity by stating our conviction that the writer does not understand either of them. Possibly, the dangerous errors she has embraced may be traced up to attempts to view the subject from the highest points of philosophy (for which, in our opinion, she has otherwise proved herself incompetent)-rather than from the level ground of practical life which so few can quit without going astray.

In speaking of the modern " Papal Aggression," Miss Martineau again enables us to test the value of her general qualifications by the following pettish expressions: When we see the Pope and the Church about to fly off-two old witches on broomsticks!" This, though perhaps a smart female sally, is not, to repeat a former remark, the tone in which successful philosophers-(such as Miss Martineau would fain be considered--as just above this quotation she is vaunting of the triumphs of a science which is to overthrow "Councils and Churches"-we presume mesmerism and materialism) -speak of the solemn convictions of so many who are philosophers.

And, lastly, without fear and trembling, this lady exults in the unbounded self-confidence of one who has demonstrated the falsehood of opinions still held by the noblest intellects of our globe. "What an emancipation (writes this daring speculator) it is, to have escaped from the little enclosure of dogma and to stand-far, indeed, from being wise-but free to learn!" We well remember that this is very nearly the phraseology which Blanco White uses when his infidelity had at last reached its consummation. Miss Martineau is decidedly a copyist without acknowledging her obligations.

Having acquitted ourselves of intending to speak in disrespectful terms of this lady, we cannot permit any other considerations to prevent our warning our readers against the past and any future productions of the same mind. There is great danger to certain readers in the boldness and recklessness with which she publishes, under the garb of much literary excellence, dangerous opinions. But that the "faculties" which embraced them are not to be depended on is proved by the creed to which they have led her, as stated in her last book.

87

ART. V.-Les Bagnes. Histoire, Types, Maurs, Mysterès. Par MAURICE ALHOY. Paris.

JACQUES CŒUR, the famous French financier of his day, lent Charles VII. a hundred thousand crowns and burnt his debtor's bond. Charles ungratefully ruined his creditor in return. Among the property confiscated to the dishonest king were four pretty gallies with gilded oars. The monarch seized them, rowers and all; and from that act dates the galley-life of France. Its inventor was not a better man than its victims.

Condemnation to the gallies, though arbitrarily made, is not legislatively mentioned till the reign of Charles IX., who shaved the heads of the French gypsies and sent them to the oar in shoals. The galeriens were found useful in a coast service; and, in order that their service might not be lost, just as efficiency was gained, the king settled a "ten years' chain" as the minimum of penal period. The "captain of the gallies" prolonged it at his pleasure, and no man could depend upon liberty even after fulfilling his allotted expiation. Henri III. deprived the captains of this cherished privilege, and the virtue of mercy became still more familiar to these sons of affliction when Vincent de Paul exercised among them, as "almoner-general of the gallies," a mission worthy the follower of Him who is the Father of mercies.

When the galley-service ceased, when intercourse between the coast and distant shipping was suspended, and great naval ports received the floating castles that used to find uncertain refuge in open roads and natural harbours, the "slaves," as they were called, were unlocked from the galley benches and sent to labour in the construction and repairs of the ports. This change began with Richelieu; but it was not fully accomplished till the period of Colbert. In the meantime, and even since, vengeance sent as many victims as justice did criminals. The noble who politically offended found himself chained to a reprieved murderer; and the faithful Protestant, guiltless of all crime, was punished for his religious fidelity by a perpetual condemnation. The Republic of the Old Convention cared less for peopling the gallies than for sustaining the guillotine. Once, indeed, the death messengers of the bloody Commonwealth suddenly appeared at Toulon armed with a conventional decree. The convicts were assembled, and, by virtue of this decree, were at once ordered to lose their -red caps. The bonnet rouge was declared to be too sacred

an emblem to allow of its being borne on the heads of criminals; and the latter went bare-headed till royalty, on its reestablishment, restored to the captive criminals the Phrygian emblem of liberty and innocence.

When the name and authority of Napoleon passed the dismal threshold of the prison it was not to bring gladness with them. Pardon was distributed only on the hard condition that the recipient should pass from the dungeon to the battlefield, and the vacant places were crowded with victims guiltless of all crime save loyalty to a legitimate king. But, if Napoleon filled these horrible localities with "the royalist rascals of La Vendée," the restored Bourbons more than replaced the latter with "the imperial scoundrels of the Loire." The system is by no means defunct, and the passions of the day are, if something less active for evil, yet fully as iniquitous in principle as those which prevailed in the bygone times.

The galeriens of France are divided into three Bagnesthose of Brest, Rochefort, and Toulon. Each contains from seven to eight thousand prisoners of all classes, to the swelling of the numbers of which the sedentary tailors are great contributors: at one time, in the three great prisons, the author noted between one and two hundred tailors, of whom not less than twenty-three were condemned for life as parricides. The latter, in common with all who are condemned "à perpetuité," wear green caps. The convicts sentenced to limited periods wear red caps. All have their heads close shorn. Their garments consist of a coarse drab cotton blouse over a red shirt, yellow trowsers, and heavy shoes; and, after ten hours' out-door labour in this dress, beneath a sky which weeps heavily during three hundred days in the year, the forçats lie down in the clothes they have worn, to get such rest as they may upon a hard board and without any additional covering to maintain a suitable warmth. Brest is the most crowded of these caverns of sin, and there the Parisians most abound. The Parisian convict, compared with his provincial fellow, is as the monkey to the tiger. He eschews the prison slang in presence of visitors, and is usually so obedient to discipline as to seldom incur the disgrace of being invested with the coat of many colours which gives to its indocile wearers the appellation of" Harlequins." The commissary, as chief officer of the Bagne, bears the rank of captain; his immediate subordinates are half-pay naval officers; while the guards of the prisoners are men only a degree higher in the social scale than those whom they keep in order; as might

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