women! A new society of female artists was founded only the other day. Altogether there is hope. But a still greater, because a far more attainable remedy for the slavery, poverty, and sin of England, is emigration. Emigration should be vigorously persisted in. We heartily wish it were made compulsory on, at any rate, the thousands of able-bodied adults of both sexes who crowd the workhouses. That mere law-making can do much, we grievously doubt. No law-making can meet the innumerable fine shades and distinctions of condition and requirement that are constantly growing and changing. Nothing short of miracle in human arrangements will provide alike for all humanity. There never was, and never will be, such a thing as communism. Injustice there will needs be. To make it as little as possible is one great aim of every man's mission. Certainly there has been very little legislation for the two classes of women named; there have been some few public movements in their favour, but, with one or two exceptions, with short-lived zeal and questionable prudence. And surely theirs is a desperate condition ! With both, sooner or later, it is for the most part irremediable dependence and poverty. Each is exposed to "the great crime of great cities." Yet in them, as classes, we behold (perhaps for that very reason) the noblest representatives of their sex in purity and high-mindedness. The vigils of years are nothing to one hour of steadfastness amid such evil as they are exposed to. There are many Jane Eyres amongst them. Good wives for any men, they make the best wives for poor men. class, as a class, has any so good, or so many of them. For the redemption the man brings the woman with the wedding-ring— from discomfort, persecution, all manner of humiliation, in the governess-squalid poverty, severest labour, evil company, in the needlewoman what a heart of love, wisdom, forethought, devotion, governed by what bitter experiences! Daughters supporting parents, and younger brothers and sisters striving womanfully in the great battle. Of course parallel instances are on our side as signal, and more frequent. But what a struggle compared to a man's! What a victory, when it is a victory, compared to a man's! How many social heroisms of this sort are being silently enacted, while the world is absorbed in purple and tinkling cymbals ! Νο For the rest, this cause must be left to the great amelioratorTime. But we hold that all true aspiring women are, in fulfilling their own natures, directly serving the unhappier portions of their own sex in raising the idea of it, and in creating more and more reverence for it. From Florence Nightingale to Mrs. Seacole, Woman is by nature a nurse. One does not wonder at the poor fellows in the hospitals of Scutari kissing the very shadows of the nurses there. We look to Rosa Bonheur with her miraculous horses; so true to nature, aye, and true too to something within us greater than nature, Mrs. Somerville, whose works are the most popular, and moreover among the most advanced scientific manuals of the time; high thoughtful intellects like Mrs. Jameson, the finest expositor of the most poetic side of middle age fanaticism. (Of the Miss Brontés we cannot say much here: about souls so great, so early dead, it is well to be silent.) For the most exquisite blending of tenderness with intensest mental power, we look to, and to no one else of cither sex, Mrs. Browning. She is the poet of women. Her "Aurora Leigh" embodies her hopes and fears, and thoughts of female progress. On the whole, in a crude unreal story and in poetry, the like of which we have not heard in our time, she is hopeful. It is the mission of these, and such as these, and in these ways, to elevate human nature. The poet of our age has, in "The Princess," with the true poet's vision, finely indicated what the place of woman should be in the world "For woman is not undevelopt man, But diverse could we make her as the man, Yet in the long years wiser must they grow; The man be more of woman, she of man ; He gain in sweetness and in moral height, Nor lose the wrestling thews that throw the world; She mental breadth, nor fail in childward care, Nor lose the childlike in the larger mind; Till at the last she set herself to man, Like perfect music unto noble worlds." 172 ART. VII.-SIAM: PAST AND PRESENT. 1. The Kingdom and People of Siam; with a Narrative of the Mission to that Country in 1855. By SIR JOHN BOWRING, F.R.S., Her Majesty's Plenipotentiary in China. 2 Vols. London: J. W. Parker. 2. Voyage du Comte de Forbin à Siam, suivi de quelques détails extraits des Mémoires de l'Abbé de Choisy (1685-1688). Paris: Hachette. TWO-THIRDS of Sir John Bowring's volumes on Siam consist of verbatim extracts and translations from the works of previous writers. His own journal, which occupies but a very short space, is modestly placed towards the end of the second volume, and forms the sequel to some seven hundred pages of such collected materials. In his preface the author returns thanks to Bishop Pallegoix for his permission "to make use of the contents of his interesting work (published in 1854) entitled, "Description du Royaume Thai, ou Siam," and, as he adds, "he has not failed to take advantage of this permission to a considerable extent." Indeed, to Bishop Pallegoix, Sir John Bowring is indebted for the greater part of his information respecting Siam. He has likewise largely borrowed from the works of other French Jesuits, from Colonel Low's "Journal of the Eastern Archipelago," and from the narratives of Crawford, Finlayson, and others. This system of compilation, whilst it detracts in some degree from the literary merit of his performance, at least entitles Sir John Bowring to the credit of frankly adopting the superior information of others, instead of amusing the public with crude opinions or uncertain facts. What we thus gain in information, however, we lose in interest. There is no longer that spontaneity of manner which is the great charm of books of travel; there is none of the freshness with which actual impressions are naturally recorded; and, instead of the easy graceful flow of a personal narrative, we have often the dry pedantic style of an encyclopædia. We remark, throughout the work, that considerable caution has been exercised with regard to observations or criticisms on the present government of Siam, and perhaps the key to this may be Sir John Bowring's work. 173 found in the fact, that the reigning kings read the public newspapers with interest and attention, and exhibit some vindictiveness against those who publicly attack them. One of the first acts of the king, after Sir John Bowring's arrival at Bangkok, was to call his attention to a Singapore newspaper containing some slightly disparaging remarks on his government, for suspicion of having written which the American missionaries had suffered some personal restraint. Our ambassador seems to have foreseen the possibility of thus offending Siamese majesty, and has therefore generally refrained from the expression of adverse opinions, limiting himself to mere statements, giving much prominence to what is favourable, and casting evil a little into the shade. This is politic, and perhaps not unnatural under the circumstances, and we are far from finding fault with any writer who confines himself to facts, and suppresses opinions. We cannot say anything in praise of our author's style, which is laboured and inelegant, and often sets sense and grammar at defiance; but still he has collected much interesting matter respecting Siam, and we are content to thank him for that, without inquiring here whether his task might not have been better performed. We cannot, however, avoid inquiring what possible interest Sir John Bowring thinks that the public can take in such information as the following:-" April 4. This morning enjoyed a bath at six o'clock." These personal details are entirely out of place in such a work, and, whatever he may be himself, the world is supremely indifferent to an author's ablutions. Sir John Bowring gives some account of the early European intercourse with Siam. The Portuguese communications with that country date as far back as 1511; but those cited are of no interest, and are only catalogued. The earliest detailed account which he has been able to find, is that of Van Schouten, in 1636. The Portuguese, however, had active relations with Siam long before the Dutch, but the author does not seem to be aware of the narrative of Odoardo Barbosa, a Portuguese gentleman, who circumnavigated the world at the beginning of the sixteenth century. We find the account of this traveller, written in 1516, comprised in the treatise " Delle navigatione et viaggi raccolto da M. Gio: Batt: Ramusio," published at Venice in 1559. bosa afterwards sailed in 1519 from Lisbon, in the good ship "Vettoria," and again went round the globe, but died without being permitted to reach again his native country. This traveller gives a quaint and interesting account of Siam and its king, "a mighty prince, having many soldiers, both horse and foot, and many elephants." He says that in the port of Tenasserim, the first to which he came after leaving Pegu, "there are many merchants, Moor and Pagan, who deal in all kinds of merchandise. They have ships with which they navigate towards Bengal and Malacca, and other parts. Within the kingdoin is produced much excellent gum benjamin, which is the juice of trees. ***To this port of Tenasserim come many ships from different parts, and bring there copper, quicksilver, cinnaber, cloths of cotton and silk, dyed velvets of Mecca, saffron, wrought coral and beads, rose-water, &c., all which are highly prized in the country." Passing on to Quedah, he says, "here come an infinite number of ships which traffic in all kinds of merchandise. Here grows very good and excellent pepper, which is carried to Malacca, and thence sent on to China.' Another Portuguese gentleman, who continues the narrative of his friend Barbosa, says, "All the land is very green and beautiful, and very rich and prolific, with much people and many cities." Its ports he describes as frequented by many foreign merchants, the greater part of whom are Chinese, because the trade of Siam with China is great." He says that the inhabitants" have the reputation of being a prudent and wise people," and that the kingdom is ruled with justice by the king, "who resides constantly in the city of Odia." With regard to its commerce he says:-"The principal articles of trade which Siam receives from Malacca, are slaves of both sexes in great number, white sandal-wood, pepper, quicksilver, cinnaber, orpiment, cloves, mace, nutmegs, cloth, according to the use of Siam, stuffs of silk and wool, rose-water, carpets, brocade of Cambaia, wax, camphor of Borneo, putchuc and galls." But even then, as he states, the misgovernment of the country, the excessive exactions from foreign merchants, and the extortions of the nobles, greatly cramped trade, which was considerably diminishing in consequence. The Chinese, however, were on a better footing than other merchants. So long as Barbosa relates what he had himself seen, he appears to be truthful and moderate; but when he gives the experiences of his friends he is more apocryphal. We leave the reader to form his own opinion of the following: "Going further inland towards China there is another kingdom of heathens, which is also tributary to the king of Siam, in which there is a beastly and horrible custom, according to what a gentleman of credit has informed me, that when there dies any one of their relations or friends, to honour him they take the dead body, whether by disease or of other death, and |