—and those who think him a courageous
imbecile are mistaken, and accuse him
falsely, for he is only a cowardly one, and will
give his poor down-trodden people just
whatever they force from him.

"No, thank you; 'bliged all the same. No,
'pon my word, thankee."

The fact is (between ourselves) that Sultan
is in a position compared with which a naked
man fallen into a pit full of live hedgehogs, or
Professor Moler poking his spectacled head into
what he thought was an empty beehive, but
which, unfortunately for the acute St. John's
wood Professor, turns out to be unusually full
and busy, are as trifles not worthy a place in a
business man's diary. I would rather light my
chamber fire with a powder barrel, or let off
bomb shells for fun at an evening party, than I
would sit on that man's—that Eastern shadow's
—throne. I think, of the two, I would rather
have to lecture on Mr. Tupper's philosophy, or
go the (second) first trip in the Great Eastern,
though both these are as painful and dangerous
things as any ventures I know of.

In the first place, because I should to have to
sit and be thumbscrewed and politely bullied by
those stiff-legged European ambassadors, knowing
resistance to be hopeless, and that delay will
only lead to more dreadful audiences and boredom
unending; secondly, because of that
unpleasant bowstring which, somehow or other, cut
it often as you may, will still go on twisting in
some part of Stamboul; thirdly, because I should
have to govern a stupid, rebellious people, who
have just discovered the logical power of multitude,
and that palace-building (delightful as it
is) is not what kings were put on the throne
for; also, because there are at present in Stamboul
at least ten thousand armed and sullen
Circassians, sore at defeat, rankling and vexed at
their flight from the Russians, enraged at being
staved off with promises, and refused even
hospitality—which has ever been the golden and
unchanging virtue of every Mahomedan, be he
rich or poor. In those rude carts, that are now
jolting them off to a new home in Anatolia,
have seen regiments of silver-banded matchlocks;
at the waist of every one of those angry, dauntless
men, there is at this moment (unless it has
gone to be ground) a huge double-edged dagger,
broad as the palm of your hand: a weapon as
terrible as the Roman gladium, and very like it.
Given (as logicians say) a sudden revolt, what
would stop some thousands of these northern
warriors, burning with defeat, from hewing a
bloody way to that gilded palace of Sardanapalus
—Lord Stratford's kind friend—and then and
there chopping him as small as minced veal, to
show him what a Sultan merits who promised the
brave children of Schamyl fourpence a week
and never paid them. But here I am moralising
and politicising; so I will return and
get back to that crowded street—crowded as the
road to Noah's Ark, and with much such a
motley set of animals—leading from Galata to
Pera: from the Genoese tower, in fact, to my
destination (inevitable, for I am an Englishman),
the hotel that is called Misseri's. I turn and
face the blue Bosphorus that lies softly below,
dividing the Turkish from the Christian quarter
of Stamboul. Away there further, I know lie
Prinkipo and its sister islands, and further
stretches the blue breaker line of Asia Minor.
Slowly my eye passes through all these delicious
changes, and then, travelling into the higher sky,
still craves more beauty and more magic. Can
that be earth still, that glorified bar of golden
cloud, through which a broken line of white
gleams, like the angel that threads a dream?

"Why, Chilibi," says the porter, gnawing
some chesnuts at the street corner, "that is
Mount Olympus."

LEIGH HUNT. A REMONSTRANCE.

"THE sense of beauty and gentleness, of moral
beauty and faithful gentleness, grew upon him
as the clear evening closed in. When he went
to visit his relative at Putney, he still carried
with him his work, and the books he more
immediately wanted. Although his bodily powers
had been giving way, his most conspicuous
qualities, his memory for books, and his affection
remained; and when his hair was white, when
his ample chest had grown slender, when the
very proportion of his height had visibly
lessened, his step was still ready, and his dark eyes
brightened at every happy expression, and at
every thought of kindness. His death was
simply exhaustion: he broke off his work to lie
down and repose. So gentle was the final
approach, that he scarcely recognised it till the
very last, and then it came without terrors.
His physical suffering had not been severe; at
the latest hour he said that his only uneasiness
was failing breath. And that failing breath was
used to express his sense of the inexhaustible
kindness he had received from the family who
had been so unexpectedly made his nurses,—
to draw from one of his sons, by minute, eager,
and searching questions, all that he could learn
about the latest vicissitudes and growing hopes
of Italy,—to ask the friends and children around
him for news of those whom he loved,—and to
send love and messages to the absent who loved
him."

Thus, with a manly simplicity and filial
affection, writes the eldest son of Leigh Hunt
in recording his father's death. These are the
closing words of a new edition of "The
Autobiography of Leigh Hunt," published by Messrs.
Smith and Elder, of Cornhill, revised by that
son, and enriched with an introductory chapter
of remarkable beauty and tenderness. The son's
first presentation of his father to the reader,
"rather tall, straight as an arrow, looking
slenderer than he really was; his hair black and
shining, and slightly inclined to wave; his head
high, his forehead straight and white, his eyes
black and sparkling, his general complexion
dark; in his whole carriage and manner an
extraordinary degree of life," completes the
picture. It is the picture of the flourishing and