from a meeting-house of Friends. Indeed, very different to the Friends, they have an intense love of music, and preach, pray, and sing at stated times and hours. We were admitted to one of their private singing meetings, and were surprised to see the person who presided give out the hymn sitting, and the whole company singing it in the same position. They have, too, their love-feasts, in imitation of the Agape of the early Christians, at which tea and buns are handed round. All who entertain any enmity against each other, are earnestly warned to absent themselves from these meetings till they have rooted the offence from their hearts. At the close of the Holy Communion, each brother renews his pledge of faithfulness to the Lord, and gives his hand upon it to his fellow; the brethren kiss one another, and the sisters also do the same amongst themselves. They may contract marriages by mutual agreement, under the approbation of the elders, but they also frequently resort to the lot to determine them; and nothing is more common than for a missionary to send home, requesting them to choose him a wife, who is thus selected. The damsel on whom the lot falls has the liberty to decline the match if she pleases, but as it is regarded as a clear indication of the will of Providence, it is generally cheerfully acquiesced in, and a young woman will at once prepare herself, on being chosen, to go north or south-to the snowy fields of Labrador, or the burning deserts of Africa. The Herrnhuters declare that scarcely an instance has been known in which these marriages have not been completely happy

ones.

#

Our concluding extracts will be taken from a scene which our author witnessed in Heidelberg, viz. that of a student's funeral. The description comes well from him, who recently gave to the world "The Student Life of Germany," a work, however, of very inferior attractions when compared with the present book.

Having told us that it was on the 22d of July, 1840, that he witnessed the singular scenes and ceremonies in question, that the deceased, who was from Hamburgh, had died of consumption, and that, on account of the high esteem in which he had been held, his funeral was conducted with more than ordinary formality, viz. by torch-light, and the attendance of the greater part of the students, William Howitt thus proceeds:

Bells were tolling from various churches, and the procession was proceeding through the principal street to the lodgings of the deceased, as we went into the city about eight o'clock. We were at too great a distance to see more than a crowd and the torches; but on reaching the house, the scene was singular to an English eye, and deeply interesting. The main part of the procession had halted at the distance of three or four hundred yards, where they had extinguished their torches. Before this house stood a sort of low covered car, or waggon, with six black horses; the four first in German fashion, at a considerable distance from each other, and from the wheeler, and, having, as usual, traces of ropes, but in this case black ones. The car, which, unlike our English hearses, was not boarded up top and sides, but appeared merely covered with an awning supported by bows of

wood, had laid upon it a plain pall of black velvet, and upon the pall, three garlands of leaves and flowers. The outer garlands seemed to be composed entirely of laurels, and occupied the whole outer portion of the pall, with the exception of a broad margin. Within that was another, which appeared composed of roses and lilies; and then a central one, of flowers also. This inner garland, which was very beautiful, was said to be the work and gift of a female hand. Within it lay his cap, his gloves, and sword. One wondered that the sword should be there, and the books not; and had one inclined to be critical on such an occasion, we should have asked why not as well as the sword, the pipe, the beer-glass, the stick, and the spectacles? The sword, except as denoting the character of the students for duelling, was a singular appendage for a student, but, without being too critical, the whole effect was rich and beautiful. The garlands of laurel and splendid flowers were so dispersed, as to cover nearly the whole surface of the pall with a mass of rich and mosaic beauty, which was made visible to the crowd of spectators by a light set upon it as well as by the flare of a cresset-fire, which was burning before the house, on the opposite side of the little street. Behind the car stood two rows of about twenty torch-bearers each, but with their torches also extinguished. These men were not students, but hired attendants, probably the boot-cleaners of the students, called by them boot-foxes. Many of them were of considerable age. In this manner stood the car and its attendants before the house for about a quarter of an hour, when the coffin, also richly covered with black velvet, and white ornamental work of silver-plated nails and shields, was put into the car; the light was removed from the top, and the attendants, lighting their torches at the funereal fire in the cresset, communicated light from one to another down the line. The pall-bearers, who were young students from the native town or neighbourhood of the deceased, took their places on each side of the car, dressed in court dresses, with their swords, and wearing white scarfs. The mutes, with staves of black, ornamented with bunches of white crape, walked on each side; the band struck up a mournful strain, and the procession moved on. The band, a military one, from Mannheim, a full and very superior one, preceded the car, the musicians being clothed also in black. Immediately behind came the chief mourners, young students in full dresses, with white neckcloths and white gloves. These carried no torches, but on each side of them walked the hired torch-bearers. Then followed the main and almost innumerable train of students, in their usual costume of frock coats and caps, headed by two professors, in their coliege gowns and caps.

Our author goes on to state that the procession, consisting of about seven hundred students, in two lines, extended to not much less than half a mile; that it passed on to the church where they are usually buried, the clergyman performing the customary service, after which a student pronounced an oration over their departed companion. The service being over, the procession moved to the Museum Plaz, at the window of which our author stood. As the first of the long line approached this spot, "the sound of the music became audible, and presently the first torches came flaring through the darkness." We again take up the narrative in a less broken shape:

ran.

Nothing can surpass the strange and wild effect of this scene. The procession, which had gone towards the church slowly, now returned at a quick pace; the music, which had been dolorous and complaining, was now gay and triumphant. The band was playing a martial and resounding air; the students in a wild troop, three abreast, came rushing on, whirling round and round their torches, and shaking them above their heads, like so many wild Bacchanalians, and crowds of boys and young men ran on each side, amid the mingled flare and smoke and gloom, some of them having snatched up fallen and nearly burnt-out torches, and whirling them fiercely about as they The band halted before the door of the Museum, and continued playing while the students formed themselves into a large circle in the square. The first, as he took his place, flung his blazing torch to some distance on the ground, and every one as he arrived did the same. This became the centre of the ring, round which the whole train arranged itself; and as the young men came near its bounds, they tossed up their torches into the air, which came whirling and flaming down from a hundred places into the area of the circle. The scene was most wild and strange. The gathering ring of densely standing figures, all in the Burschen costume; the lights tossing, and spinning, and falling through the air: the hundreds of them lying and blazing on the ground; while others, flying errant, dropped into the thickest masses of the spectators, and were again snatched up, and again sent aloft, and through all this the band playing in a consonant thunder and rending strain of exulting music. When the circle was complete, and all the torches had been flung down, the marschals and the police were seen walking about in it. The scattered torches were thrown together, till they formed one blazing heap, which illuminated with its red light the whole walls and windows of the square, and sent up a rolling column of pitchy smoke, that hung like a sable canopy above the crowds. At once, the band ceased playing: there was a pause of deep silence, and then the whole circle of students, as they stood round the flames, burst forth into a funeral song, which, unexpected as it was, and sudden and solemn as was the strain, startled and thrilled beyond description. The deep red light flung upon the circle; the dark groups behind; the marschals and seniors standing with drawn swords; the blazing pile in the centre, and the sound of the funeral hymn, sung by hundreds of deep and manly voices, like the sound as of the sea itself,—was altogether so wild, so novel, and strange, that it is not to be conceived by those who have not witnessed the like, nor forgotten by those who have. The song was that sung on all such occasions, the hymn for the maintenance of their academical liberty. As it closed, one of the seniors stood forward, and wielded his sword as in defiance. The rest rushed together, and with wild cries clashing their swords above their heads, there was a shout"Quench the fire!" and the whole of the students at once dispersed. The crowds then closed round it, water was thrown on the flames, the dense black column of smoke changed into a white one, and the whole was over.

*

*

We have now only to add that this attractive book contains many spirited and manifestly faithful illustrations, after designs by Mr. Sargent.

75

ART. VI.-Correspondence of John, Fourth Duke of Bedford. Selected from the Originals at Woburn Abbey. With an Introduction by Lord John Russell. Vol. I. Longman.

THE Fourth Duke of Bedford was the grandson of the Lord Russell who died upon the scaffold in the reign of Charles the Second; and his Correspondence was known to contain authentic materials for the illustration of an important period in the political history of England. He was born in 1710, and was a second son, succeeding his elder brother Wriothesley, at the age of twenty-two. On entering the House of Peers he joined the anomalous opposition which eventually drove Walpole from the helm of public affairs. The Duke, however, did not, when the change in the Ministry took place, immediately come into office; but in 1744 he was appointed First Lord of the Admiralty, which office he held till 1758, when he became Secretary of State. He afterwards served the office of Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland; and in 1763 negotiated the much-contested peace as Ambassador at Paris. He was President of the Council in Grenville's Administration; and continued to concern himself with politics to the close of his life. His connexion with public affairs, therefore, extended over the interesting term which elapsed between the fall of the administrations of Walpole and Chatham,-his Correspondence illustrating the period from 1744 to 1770.

John, Fourth Duke of Bedford, although not a man of shining parts, had great influence in the state; and this not merely in consequence of his high rank, immense wealth, and numerous boroughs, but his honesty and methodical system of conducting every kind of business. He was besides a generous friend, and a man of considerable refinement of taste as well as amiability of manners. Still, he would not have been a notable historical character on account of anything that he was, did, or caused to be done, had it not been for the unprincipled and atrocious attack which an anonymous writer made upon him towards the close of his life, and when he became the Duke of Bedford of Junius.

The present volume, a few prefatory letters excepted, contains the Correspondence during the Duke's Administration at the Admiralty. The period therefore when he became a mark for the fierce and bitter enmity of the libeller, and when among other charges, he was accused, in negotiating the peace of '63, of having pocketed the money of France, falls not within the limits of the pages before us. We may remark in the meanwhile, however, that although in the whole range of the villainous and lying attacks of Junius, no one was made the object of a severer blow than the personage under consideration, yet the shafts fell upon none of the coward's victims, with apparently less discomposure on the part of the assailed, or with less injury to

his reputation. "Whither," said the infamous assassin of character, "shall this unhappy old man retire? Can he remain in the metropolis? If he return to Woburn, scorn and mockery await him. He must create a solitude round his estate, if he would avoid the face of reproach and derision." And yet it is not less true that the aged Duke was enjoying himself according to his wonted taste at clubs, evening parties, the theatre, and so forth, apparently unruffled, than that the deadly charges of Junius turned out to be without foundation. But to confine ourselves more particularly to the contents of this first volume, we have to observe that we have not any very new lights upon either the history or the manners of the period comprised; nor can we reasonably look for important novelty of illustration until the conclusion of the correspondence. In the meantime, however, the collection is much diversified in regard to writers, and furnishes agreeable reading; touching too upon a variety of subjects. We have not merely notices of a number of public men and of political intrigues, but of private affairs and family interests. Frequent sights into the business of the Admiralty are obtained, the Duke, according to Lord John, not making it a practice to "allow his decisions to be over-ruled by the junior lords, nor his plans to be disturbed by the meddling of the Duke of Newcastle." We may here quote a curious illustration of his Grace's determination, candour, and methodical minuteness, as given in the editor's introduction :

In the year 1743, the Duke planted the large plantation in Woburn Park known by the name of the "Evergreens," to commemorate the birth of his daughter, afterwards Caroline Dutchess of Marlborough: the space was something more than a hundred acres, and was before that time a rabbitwarren, producing nothing but a few blades of grass, with the heath or ling indigenous to the soil, and without a single tree upon it.

In the course of a few years, the Duke perceived the plantation required thinning, in order to admit a free circulation of air, and give health and vigour to the young trees. He accordingly gave instructions to his gardener and directed him as to the mode and extent of the thinning required. The gardener paused, and hesitated, and at length said, "Your Grace must pardon me if I humbly remonstrate against your orders, but I cannot possibly do what you desire: it would at once destroy the young plantation, and, moreover, it would be seriously injurious to my reputation as a planter."

The Duke replied, "Do as I desire you, and I will take care of your reputation."

The plantation was consequently thinned according to his instructions, and the Duke caused a board to be fixed in the plantation, facing the road, on which was inscribed, "This plantation has been thinned by John Duke of Bedford, contrary to the advice and opinion of his gardener."

The correspondence in this first volume naturally pertains in a particular degree to the war and the negotiation for peace. But on these points we have not regarded the letters with any deep interest,