efficient plan of saving a man from drowning | contact with him. I had not been very far before occurred to me. The plan itself is simple enough; I begun not at all to like the sensation. I had it is perhaps the only one that is certain of success quite lost sight of T———, for the water, though in like circumstances; but I do not think I should limpid to the touch, was perfectly dark, owing to even have thought of it, had it not been suggested the total exclusion of the light by the overhanging to me by the merest chance. A few months rock. I fancied too, that I felt oppressed, stifled, previous to the incident I have just described, I as if for want of air in so confined a place, (such was bathing with some friends near a large and is the force of imagination,) and I began to think lofty rock, under which, it was asserted, there of retracing my steps, the more so as I really was was a deep marine cavern. Numerous, it was getting fatigued, and the slowness of my cautious said, had been the deaths by drowning at this progress having consumed a considerable time, my particular spot, for many swimmers had at different breath was becoming exhausted. I was preparing periods attempted, by diving down, to explore the to carry my retreat into execution, when my foot cavern, and had been drowned in the attempt. was struck violently by a human leg, and in a The very danger of the place made us like it. Man manner not so easy to describe as to understand, is a danger-loving animal; and here there was which clearly denoted that the person (it could be something of that zest derived from peril, which no other than T-) who gave the stroke was many amusements, when passionately followed, not merely swimming, but was struggling and in take in the minds of some their principal charm danger. Of course, under similar circumstances, from. There was an excitement in it, and we one is wonderfully alive to the least suspicion used frequently to attempt an entrance into the of danger. I therefore made my way as speedily eavern, but none of us, I suspect, ever had the as possible towards the glimmering light at the courage to proceed to any distance in the dark mouth of the cavern, and it was with no small waters under the rock. To speak for myself at relief that I emerged into clearer and more transleast, I may say that I was indeed fond enough lucid water. My decomposure was considerably of diving down and looking into the palpable increased, when, as I was springing upwards to obscure before me, but I never relished the idea the surface, I noticed a thin streak of blood tracked of trusting myself within it; for though I felt no perpendicularly in the water, from the mouth of current, somehow or other we had persuaded our-the cavern to the surface. This was soon exselves that this might be one of the "mouths of plained, for on reaching the air I saw, to my the ocean;" and I was by no means anxious to be carried, by such a channel, literally to the bosom of my mother earth. We all, in fact, I imagine, contented ourselves with diving down, peeping in, and cruising about as long as breath lasted, and then, when we could hold under no longer, we would return to the surface, resolved not to be out-done by each other in the most circumstantial description of the formation of the cavern, and of the strange and unaccountable sights that, with a little stretch of imagination, we might reasonably be supposed to have witnessed within it for in truth we were sad braggers. One day, however, the matter was brought to a T——, a friend of mine, and one of the boldest and best swimmers that I have ever known, maintained that he had entered the cavern, that he had explored it thoroughly, that he had ascertained that the stories of its depth were quite unfounded, and that, in fact, it was nothing more than a large and unusual hollow in the rock. We adopted; but then, too, it is not every man that were, of course, all very indignant at such an will be stunned. I remember an amusing instance assertion. In fact, it was a complete refutation of of this. Once, when the rest of us were swimall our own imaginary descriptions of its depths, ming at some distance from the shore, a goodhorrors, and immensity. T― persevered in natured but simple Frenchman, to whom I had his assertion; and as we looked incredulous, chal- imparted my specific for saving a drowning `man, lenged any of us who dared to follow him into it. perceiving that an Irish gentleman was going I accepted the challenge; and allowing a moment's through some peculiarly strange evolutions in the start, I dived after him. As I came to the dark water, which the Frenchman took for drowning, mouth of the cavern, T's feet were just dis- the latter got into a boat we had with us, shoved appearing into it-a little to my dismay, I confess, it towards the Irishman, and began belaboring for I half doubted his being really in earnest.him with a cane. Our Irish friend, of course, did However, I followed slowly after him, taking a not understand this, and having hunted his persealightly different direction, so as not to come into cutor out of the boat, had given him the better

test.

horror, T- -floating powerlessly, and faintly struggling on the water, his head and shoulders bathed in blood. Before I could render him any assistance, one of our friends was already helping him to the shore. T had fainted from loss of blood, and a baby could not have been more easily drawn to the land. It appeared, that in the dark he had struck his head against a sharp corner of the interior of the rock, but that he had still sufficient strength and presence of mind to make for the mouth of the cavern, which he had some difficulty in reaching. But it was this incident that first suggested to me the plan I afterwards adopted. Perceiving how easily he was extricated from the water when powerless, I reflected that it might be possible to render powerless a man whom it was necessary to save from drowning, if I adopted the harsh but only available mode of stunning him. I still think that in many cases this is the only means that can be

part of the thrashing, before any of us who could towards where we had seen him last, but could understand the languages of both, were able to not see him. We pulled about and about; he interfere. He was one, in fact, who wouldn't be was nowhere; he was there but a few minutes stunned. But, as a general rule, I say the stun- before. For an hour or two we continued beating ning plan is a good one, as, indeed, must be about in every direction; it was all in vain. Was evident, from the facility of saving a man to it possible-could we credit our senses? Had we whom has occurred an accident, similar to that seen him sink it would have been, as it were, a which I have just stated happened to T———————. consolation; but that he should thus sink and vanish and "make no sign," was more horrible than can be expressed. We bore away at length, sadly and sorrowfully, from where the friend, so full of joy in the morning, lay now unknelled, uncoffined, and unknown."

Poor T- .! His was a melancholy, a mysterious fate. He was scarcely thirty, he had received a capital college education, (at Cambridge, I believe,) and he was one of the pleasantest fellows you could have at a bachelors' party. He could "sing a good song," possessed an abundance of classic and lively quotations in conversation, was extensively informed, witty, and very often eloquent. He was an excellent shot, a bold rider, and the swiftest of swimmers. In a word, he might have been a great man or a pleasant man; he might have been a distinguished politician or a capital boon companion. He rather inclined to the latter of the two characters having spent the first years of his youth in an idle kind of life about London. He there got some money on the death of a relation, and forthwith went travelling about the continent with a shooting jacket and a gun, spending his life in that healthy, harmless, but desultory manner, which is agreeable to many young Englishmen.

66

From the Spectator, 21 Oct.

THE CASTLEREAGH PAPERS. * EXPECTATION is naturally raised very high as regards the interest and value of Lord Castlereagh's papers, when the active nature of his life is considered, and his connection with stirring or great events-as the Irish Rebellion, the Union, the diplomatic conduct of the closing campaign against Napoleon previous to his first abdication. and the subsequent negotiations at Vienna. That expectation is not satisfied by the two volumes before us, relating to the Irish Rebellion and a part of the arrangements for the Union. The papers are imperfect, and sometimes rather the sweepings of a statesman's cabinet than a complete exhibition of his character and career from his own pen, such as we have in the Wellesley, Wellington, Nelson, and Malmesbury despatches. Neither are they a judicious selection from a minister's correspondence, throwing a fuller light upon affairs than could be done by merely his own writing. On the contrary, they often consist of common business letters, and small facts without interest either in substance or manner, though frequently relieved by papers of interest and importance, especially as regards the Union. When an invasion of Ireland was expected, it was no doubt important to the Irish government that any rumors, and still more any authenticated particulars of preparations in the French ports, should be transmitted from London to the Irish secretary; but neither

In the summer following the accident of the rock, a small party of us (T- was one) made an excursion in a boat to the island of Belleisle, so well known in the annals of English prowess. The day was warm, the sea calm, and on our return across to the equally notorious place of Quiberon, T― expressed a wish to have a swim. No one offered to join him, but we all readily consented to reef the sail and wait for him. Into the water he went accordingly, whilst we availed ourselves of the pretext of delay, to have a kind of supplementary luncheon. Our boat drifted with the ripple and the tide, and there was soon a considerable distance between T- and us. His head would occasionally be seen on the top of a wave, and then he would disappear in a hollow, and then again appear, and so on, but no thoughts of danger, of course, ever entered our these, nor similar small reports, nor the official minds. Some of us dozed, some smoked, some eat, some drank, some extemporized on the scenery. Belleisle stood up grim and stern far off on one side, Quiberon lay indistinct and flat, at about an equal distance on the other. At length some one took up a gun to have a shot at a seagull; off went the gun, and down came the seagull, badly wounded, at some forty yards from us. We pulled towards it. It was no easy matter to get hold of it. After a good deal of delay, we succeeded. And spending a little time in looking at it, feeding it, and bending up its broken wing, we began to think of T, and that it was tains anything beyond itself, or if the vivacity of time to get on towards Quiberon. We looked out for T- -, but we could not see him. We * Memoirs and Correspondence of Viscount Castlewere sure, at first, that he must be concealed reagh, Second Marquess of Londonderry. Edited by his brother, Charles Vane, Marquess of Londonderry, G.C.B., behind the rising of the waves. We pulled &c. Volumes I. II.

letters of course in which they were enclosed, have the slightest interest now; and there is a good deal too much of that sort of thing in the volumes before us. "Round him much embryo, much abortion lay," is one characteristic of the hero of the Dunciad's study: we could believe a minister's cabinet distinguished in the same way without having the fact, impressed upon us by opinions and suggestions from known or unknown writers which come to nothing. Of course, the mere smallness of a fact does not militate against its publication if it has interest in itself, or con

The first volume of the Correspondence relates In regard to the biography of my lamented broth- to the rebellion; upon which it throws very little er, including a connected narrative of his public new light. The extensive conspiracy, the treaCCXXXVIII. LIVING AGE. VOL. XIX. 30

counsel; and the jury ultimately find their verdict exercised a sound discretion, than whether he acted rather upon the question of whether the defendant bonâ fide with a fair intention for the public service.

sonable communications with France, the wildness | is stated, a severity not altogether called for; the of the projects unless supported by foreign assis- circumstances are strongly colored by the plaintiff's tance, the cruelties of the insurgents, matched by the tyranny and insolence of the yeomanry, the occasional violence of the troops, and the doings of spies and informers, will be read more fully in other well-known books than here. In fact, no This real or apparent coldness of character very large or distinct idea of the rebellion is pre- would operate upon the literary interest of Castlesented to the mind, except the communications of reagh's correspondence, even were it more comthe United Irishmen with France, and the sources plete than it is likely to be. From the nature of of information open to the government through his mind, he could not endow small or common agents who were not produced. The considera- matters with any life, causticity, point, or pleastion and, looking at the age and its ideas of pun-antry from himself; and he lowered great affairs ishment, the kindness of government towards trea- to his own level. Of course, a measure or an son the most distinct and consequences the most event must have such qualities as it possesses; bloody and ruinous, were also well known. An and these will always remain for those who can explanation of the odium attaching to Castlereagh see them. Castlereagh did not appear to see anyfor his share in its suppression is found in his ut- thing beyond the business quality, and he kept ter impassibility. He seems to have stripped af- everything else out of sight of everybody else, so fairs of all qualities whatsoever except their busi- far as he could manage it. In the business part ness character of a thing to be done or an end to of the matter he was indeed very great, though be reached; and though he might not do a dis- not unrivalled. He saw the true pressure of diffi honest or cruel thing himself, he had, or at least culty, and how it might be surmounted; and with he showed, no feeling against corruption or cruel- immovable temper and inexhaustible patience he ty. He might be said to have adopted the Jesuit set himself to work, as a gambler playing for maxim, that actions have no qualities in them- somebody else might sit down to his game, careselves," without the Jesuit qualification of depend- ful of his cards and his counters, and with an eye ing upon the motive. Cornwallis the soldier, to the stake, but quite indifferent to direct and still hardened in Oriental and American warfare, could more to indirect consequences. No one has ever write thus upon the doings whose necessity he considered the Duke of Wellington a man of admitted: imaginative or expansive mind; yet in pronouneing upon particular matters he frequently lays down general rules, or even elucidates a general principle: there are times, even in the sternest natures, when the human triumphs over the professional character, and the man is seen beneath the soldier or the politician, in some burst of enthusiasm or some trait of feeling. Castlereagh appears to have had nothing of this. He was by become by time: he had no comprehensiveness of nature what the case-hardened lawyer is said to intellect as a statesman; as a minister he had Hence the settlement of Europe began to ferment nothing human in his heart or ethical in his head. before his brewing was over; and the whole Vienna arrangement is now blown up. mode of carrying the Union, though perhaps inevitable, placed a stigma upon the measure itself, and has afforded a never-ending topic to its impugners. Hence the popular and even parliamentary dislike with which he was regarded, and the almost proverbial odium still attaching to his name, notwithstanding the suavity of his manners and his personal respectability.

There is certainly mischief working in various parts of the country, and Marsden thinks in Dublin and its vicinity. In the mean time, the same wretched business of courts-martial, hanging, transporting, &c., attended by all the dismal scenes of wives, sisters, fathers, kneeling and crying, is going on as usual, and holds out a comfortable prospect for a man of any feeling.

In despite of a bill of indemnity, an action was

brought and damages recovered in a case of most scandalous brutality, the infliction of five hundred lashes by one Fitzgerald, a high sheriff, on a gentleman of the name of Wright, without the slight ́est reason, unless it was Fitzgerald's ignorance of French. Upon this case of brutal cruelty Castlereagh coolly writes as follows:

Nothing could be more fatal to the king's interests than an impression obtaining that the Bill of Indemnity was inadequate to protect those who had acted for the public service with good intentions, however in a moment of struggle and warmth they might have erred in point of discretion. Nothing can be more explicit than the words of the law are upon this subject; and there can be no doubt that, if soundly and clearly expounded by the bench, and correctly acted upon by the jury, protection is completely afforded by them to every man whom the legislature could possibly mean to protect. But when these transactions come to be reviewed at a cooler moment, the act of violence is

Hence his

It was, however, this impassibility of character which adapted him for the position he so often had to occupy, of bearing up against failure, charges of blunders, and the effects of the conjoint insolence and corruption that distinguished the old

tory.

A finer mind would have shrunk under it;

proved, when it is impossible for the defendant to a less patient disposition would have fallen foul of adduce evidence to the whole of the circumstances un- his opposition enemy, who offered, we all know, der which he acted. There is a laudable disposition points enough of attack; a more critical percep in the bench to condemn what appears, as the case tion would sometimes have felt the ridicule of his

situation; but a certain torpidity of intellect ren- | the superior risk and expense to which he will be dered Castlereagh insensible to the blunders of exposed. others or his own.

He stood unshook amid a bursting world.

It is difficult to estimate the Private Interests of the barristers, but it must be pretty considerable; as they are about thirty in number, many of whom purchased their seat-say 4.0007. each, taking their seats and prospects of situation together; which gives a result of 200,0007.

The purchasers into the present parliament are very numerous; supposing only fifty, at 1,500l. each, seats being peculiarly cheap, gives 75,000. The Dublin Influence it is difficult to estimate; arises out of property and houses, lands, canalshares, &c., which the owners very falsely conceive would suffer in Dublin-call it 200,000. The calculation will then stand thus

His qualities still more fitted him for carrying the Union than for swaying the English House of Commons. Of that measure he was undoubtedly the main instrument, and as regards mode, the author and contriver. A sentimental mind might have sympathized somewhat with the "constituit tional" outery, and the absorption of an independent nation. A more philosophic genius would have dwelt upon the advantages of forming a part of the imperial nation, and having the field of Great Britain thrown open to Irish enterprise or adventure. A loftier mind would have been disgusted with the corruption in the shape of patriotism that met him on every side, or, if impressed with the necessity of the measure, have counselled more violent modes of action. Castlereagh, when baffled by the vote of the existing House of Commons, set himself coolly down to estimate the value of Irish independence, in a memorial addressed

to the Duke of Portland.

The persons naturally committed against a Union

may be classed as follows:

If the above statement approaches towards the truth, there is a most formidable principle of resistance existing in the nature of the arrangement; which, connected with the general strength of opposition, and supported by local clamor, it is diffiof the measure itself to overcome. cult for the weight of administration or the merits What measure

of national advantage could prevail on the individThe Borough Proprietors-the Secondary Inter-uals of whom parliament is composed to sacrifice a ests in Counties-the Primary Interests in Coun- million and a half of their own private property for ties-the Barristers-the Purchasers into the pres the public benefit?

ent Parliament-Individuals connected with Dublin.

It is scarcely necessary to point out the various modes in which the measure goes to affect the classes above mentioned. It is evident that borough property must suffer a diminution of value by the proposed arrangement. There being but one member for each county intended, thirty-two individuals, whose weight now returns them to parliament, must stand absolutely excluded.

The Primary Interests, though not threatened with exclusion, are exposed to new contests.

by pecuniary compensation; the county impediThe borough objection may be removed at once ment, by giving a second member. The other three classes cannot be reconciled by any change in the distribution of the representation.

Lord Castlereagh then proceeds to enter into the details of his proposition, but with due deference to the British government. They, however, at once adopted the ideas of what the Duke of The Barristers in Parliament look to it as de- Portland calls this "very ingenious and interestpriving them of their best means of advancement, ing letter"—this. “ masterly outline." In a deand of their present business in the courts, if they spatch to Lord Cornwallis, he gives up two memsupport it; the attorneys having formed a combina-bers to the counties, which he hopes will restore tion for this purpose.

On the bor

The Purchasers are averse to it, as being a sur-him "the support of the independent and most render without advantage of the money paid for respectable members of the house." their present seats. oughs he lucubrates thus:

The Individuals connected with Dublin, right or wrong, consider a union as tending to lower the value of their property.

Some estimate may be made of the amount of value thus supposed to operate against the measure. It is proposed to alternate 108 boroughs: taking an Irish seat at 2,0007., and an English seat at 4,000l., the loss of value on an Irish borough would be about one half, or 7,000l. on each, making in the gross 750,000l.

Estimating a county seat at an equal value, where the superior pride of the situation counterbalances its uncertainty, the loss of thirty-two seats extinguished amounts to 224,000/.

The superior value of the other seat cannot, as in the boroughs, operate as a set-off, as it does not in the case of counties belong to the same individual; it can only counterbalance, in a certain degree, to the person possessing the leading interests,

With respect to the borough proprietors, though I cannot subscribe to any proposal for increasing the number of representatives beyond one hundred at the utmost, and am not prepared to admit Lord Castlereagh's valuation of either English or Irish boroughs, I have no difficulty in authorizing your excellency to hold out the idea of compensation to all persons possessed of that species of property; and I do not scruple to advise that the compensation should be made upon a liberal principle.

As to the lawyers, and those adventurers who were tempted to speculate in parliamentary politics by the cheapness of seats at the last general election, there can be no pretenders to compensation whom I should be less disposed, and, I should hope, it will be less necessary to consider, than both, particularly the last description of them.

As soon as the two descriptions of county inter