that Y, the actor, was expected, immediately took his seat, and the evening passed off merrily enough. An anecdote was given in the course of conversation singularly corroborative of the superstition by which Hook was, clearly, at first affected. A party of twelve had just sat down, and one of the guests having observed a vacant chair, was remarking that he should hardly like to be the person destined to occupy that seat, when a tremendous double rap was heard, the door was thrown open, and Mr. Fauntleroy* announced,-he was hanged within the year! Hook returned to England, harassed by difficulties and pecuniary embarrassments. After a short residence at Somers' Town, where he formed that connexion, which, with his warm heart and honourable feelings, he could never dissolve, although he had never sufficient courage to render it sacred and indissoluble, and many months of durance vile, he took up his abode at Putney, and started, with the assistance of his old friend Daniel Terry, a small periodical called "The Arcadian," but which had little either pastoral in its name or durable in its composition. A more important event in Hook's life was the establishment of the John Bull newspaper at the close of 1820. It is to the permanent preservation of the best things contributed to this paper that the second volume of the "Life and Remains" is devoted. Four years after his connexion with the John Bull, Hook published the first series of that collection of tales which, under the title of "Sayings and Doings," placed him at once in the highest rank of novelists. This was followed, in 1830, by "Maxwell," generally considered as the most perfect of his productions; but of all his works, the most mirth-provoking was "Gilbert Gurney," of which his own personal adventures form the ground-work, and which was published by monthly instalments in the New Monthly Magazine, upon his undertaking the editorship of that long-established favourite, in 1836. Hook deprecated the practice, now all but universal among popular novelists, of delivering his tale by monthly instalments. One of his last letters, addressed to Mr. Poole, a fellow-contributor to the pages of the New Monthly, was in deprecation of the plan, as not only wearisome to the reader, but positively fatal to any thing like fair development of plot. "Jack Brag" followed, a sequel to "Gilbert Gurney," and the portrait of a vulgar, vain, and impudent cross between a tallowchandler and a sporting-gentleman, met with great success. Lastly, "Births, Marriages, and Deaths," published in 1839, was followed, in 1840, by "Precepts and Practice," a collection of short papers and tales, which he had contributed to the New Monthly during his editorship. Two other works, "Fathers and Sons" and "Peregrine Bunce," were never finished by their original author. Another story was at the same time told in connection with this unfortunate gentleman. A Mr. R, a wine-merchant, was very intimate with Fauntleroy, and with a few friends was in the habit of dining with him frequently. On these occasions, when the party was not too large, the host would produce some very choice old Lunelle wine, of which R was exceedingly fond, but Fauntleroy could never be prevailed upon to say where he got it, or how it could be obtained. When the latter was under sentence of death, his old associates visited him repeatedly, and at their last interview, the night before his execution, R—, after having bid him farewell with the rest, on a sudden paused in the prison passage, returned to the cell, and said in a low voice to the criminal,-"You'll pardon my pressing the subject, but now, at all events, my dear friend, you can have no objection to tell me where I can get some of that Lunelle." The success of his novels enabled Theodore Hook to start once more in the world. He rented an expensive house, furnished it extravagantly, sought the most fashionable and dissipated society, kept open table and late hours, and had very soon to beat a retreat once more to the friendly banks of the Thames, where, in a pretty villa near Fulham Bridge, he ultimately breathed his last; his end hastened by a career which had never spared or husbanded either physical or mental resources, but, on the contrary, treated them as gifts, only to be valued for their brilliancy, and the strain they may be capable of enduring, entailing thereby the consequent and inevitable result of a premature extinction. The production of thirty-eight volumes within sixteen years-the author being all the while editor, and almost sole writer, of a newspaper, and for several years the efficient conductor of a magazine-certainly affords, as the Quarterly Review remarks, sufficient proof that he never sank into idleness. In all his works, Hook paid little regard to consecutiveness, or regularity, or even to style. He aimed at delineation of character-at striking and ludicrous scenes and situations-at reflecting the language and habits of actual life-and all this he accomplished, in some of his works, with a success that produced many rivals, but few superiors. Yet with all these successes, and although in receipt of a large income-probably not less than 3000l. a year by his writings-passages in those parts of his diary which have been published, disclose frequent struggles, ever-deepening distresses and difficulties which, while they are often inexpressibly touching, ought not to be without their lesson. THE REBEL" BOERS. "How many a spirit, born to bless, LALLAH ROOKн. THE Times of the 26th of October says :- "We have received advices from the Cape of Good Hope to the 9th of September, and accounts from Sir Harry Smith's quarters, six miles north-east of Bethany, dated August 31, stating that on the 29th Sir Harry Smith encountered the rebel Boers, who were strongly posted at a place called Bloem Plaats, and, after a sharp contest of three hours, defeated and drove them before him with great loss. Sir Harry Smith was wounded in the knee, and his horse killed under him." The leading journal" of the day, in an able article which shortly afterwards appeared (together with the return of very considerable losses on our part), warmly advocates the cause of the so-called "Rebel" Boers; however, as since then this matter has apparently been allowed to drop, the following short notice has been written on the subject, in order to bring before the public, in its true light, the real nature of our proceedings against-if not molested-a useful, peaceable, and unoffending community. A foreign despatch, conveying from afar tidings of success attending the efforts of our gallant and hard-working troops, must naturally, to every true born Englishman, impart certain feelings of pride and exultation; feelings that are not to be repressed, but which may nevertheless be greatly increased or modified, according to the justice or injustice of the cause in which these successes may have been obtained; and it is to be feared that the last accounts from the Cape of Good Hope, though bringing intimations of victory, will not with the most patriotic amongst us be unalloyed with regret that blood-stained laurels should have been culled on ground, where not having planted, we had undoubtedly little claim to reap; and that human life to a large amount has been expended in a cause, which-more especially during these ultra-philanthropic times of peace-on reviewing the real state of the matter, will scarcely be admitted as justifiable in any single point of view. The case of the Dutch settlers at the colony of the Cape of Good Hopein many respects exclusively peculiar-may briefly be stated as follows. Some two hundred years ago, a commercial establishment was formed by the Batavian East India Company, at the furthest point of Southern Africa, whose proceedings from the first foundation-as regarded its intercourse with the few scattered and wandering tribes of savages then found in that part of the world-were ever marked by the dictates of justice and humanity. This factory shortly afterwards became a rapidly increasing colony; the Dutch having purchased land from the natives, whom they denominated "Hottentots," gradually spread themselves over the country, and engaged the latter into their service, not as slaves, but in the capacity of paid and domestic servants; and finally, after a lapse of 150 years, had extended their occupation of territory to the borders of the Great Fish River, where they came in contact with, and thus formed the only check to, Kaffir encroachment from that quarter. Such was the condition in which we found the colony of the Cape of Good Hope, when, towards the latter end of last century, conquest— subsequently ratified by treaty-converted it into a British dependence, by which event a very mixed population became suddenly metamorphosed into British subjects. This population consisted of some forty or fifty thousand Hottentots-generally speaking employed as herdsmen, labourers, or domestic servants-of about as many slaves from Mozambique, Madagascar, or the Coast of Guinea; whilst the remainder (including a half-caste population) was composed of "Boers," descendants from the original, or subsequent Dutch settlers at the Cape. This involuntary transfer of allegiance, effected without their wishes on the subject being in the least consulted, was no doubt repugnant in the extreme to the feelings of the white population; and we should by every available means in our power, and by conciliatory and soothing measures, have endeavoured to soften down, and eventually eradicate, the natural feelings of repugnance and irritation thus created towards us; nor would such a judicious course have probably been found either difficult or unsuccessful with our newly-acquired subjects. Inheriting from his Fatherland a phlegmatic and supine disposition, the South Africa Boer is, by nature, neither restless, irritable, or cruel. Give him his quantum of meat, drink, smoke, and sleep, and he will neither trouble himself, his servants, or neighbours. Such a people, with proper management, it would have been particularly easy to conciliate, and it was evidently our interest so to do; for they were (with our generally small military force on the frontier) the best, the cheapest —and, in short, the only available defence against Kaffir plunder and depredation. Although, as above described, the Boers-by nature and disposition too indolent and apathetic to be either cruel or vindictive-generally speaking treated the servile population (including slaves and Hottentots) with kindness and consideration, a few solitary exceptions may possibly have occurred to the above as a general rule,-and these exceptions were eagerly laid hold of by certain interested parties, and exaggerated to such a degree, as to give rise in 1828 to a notorious enactment, which, by removing every necessary restraint from the colonial population, suddenly infested the colony with hordes of robbers and vagrants; and whilst depriving the white population of many hitherto useful hands for labour, moreover frequently exposed their property to the most vexatious spolia tion. This ill-advised decree was followed by a still more suicidal blow to the interests and welfare of the colony; we allude to the "Emancipation Act," or rather to the hasty and premature manner in which a measure-no doubt just and humane in itself was without due preparation carried into effect,-a measure which, whilst in reality injurious to the cause of humanity, by turning adrift and thereby converting into thieves, plunderers, and vagabonds, a large population utterly unable to provide for themselves, completely ruined the white agricultural inhabitants of the colony, and thus effectually crippled the few remaining resources of the farmers in particular, and generally speaking of all the Boers. "They complained that the sudden emancipation of the slaves and Hottentots had deprived them of the means of living either profitably or comfortably in the colony, and most bitterly reprobated the exaggeration and falsehoods which had, in many instances, been spread abroad, on their general treatment of the coloured races, by interested missionaries and other purveyors of horrors; and added, that not only was the compensation given for their slaves miserably small, but that the difficulties, delays, and formalities to be undergone, before they could touch the money so given, were so great and costly, as to render its acquisition scarcely worth the trouble. "There must be some truth in all this, when we consider, that for these causes, they, and the majority of the richest and most respectable of their countrymen, have quitted the lands on which they were born and to which they were attached; in many instances, without even attempting a sale of their properties. In other cases they disposed of valuable farms for the new gun or waggon, or some such consideration offered to them in their misery, by the rapacious speculators on the temper of mind, into which this state of things had driven their victims. "The hasty, fanatical, and oppressive manner in which the emancipation of the slaves was conducted in this colony, has been the means of driving into the lawless regions, beyond our controul, five-sixths of the wealthy and most respectable of the Dutch Boers, and of converting these previously loyal subjects into bitter enemies, as well of ourselves as of the native inhabitants among whom they are located. Such was the haste with which it was thought necessary to endow the astonished bondsmen in this and other colonies with liberty, that the ruin and misery of their white brethren were not taken into account; lest, in considering any means by which they might be mitigated, time should be lost, and the wretched saturnalia delayed for a brief space. "Let no one, however, imagine that I am an enemy to the complete freedom of any colour or race of the human family. I only regret that while one hand was employed in the beneficent operation of severing the bonds of the slaves, it should have been thought necessary to employ the other, allied with the tongue, in the ruin of their former masters. It seems to be unfortunately essential, that oppression should exist in all nations and societies, and it has been lately the rage to suppose that white shoulders are more capable of bearing with impunity the heavy burden than black ones." * Despairing therefore of obtaining redress from that foreign government, under whose sway they had been, against their inclinations, thus forcibly placed; unprotected from foreign and barbarous invasion; plundered by their former servants and slaves-for the loss of whose labour they had received little or no compensation-in short, roused from their usual phlegmatic apathy by a long course of real injuries and petty vexations, the Boers were at last driven to the desperate and unprecedented step of abandoning their homesteads of emigrating en masse across the colonial border, and of plunging with their families into the boundless wilderness; in the vain hope of being there allowed to enjoy unmolested that state of independent competence, which had been denied to them within the limits of the British territories. Under ordinary circumstances, there can be no doubt that, legally speaking, no colony, however distant, can, unauthorised and of its own free will, throw off its allegiance to an established government; but when that government becomes either incapable or unwilling to protect its remote subjects from internal abuse or external violence, the wisest course it can then pursue is to absolve them with the best possible grace from such allegiance; or most assuredly-as history can amply testify-its unprotected or abused colonial subjects will save the trouble of taking such a step. As to the instance in point, it must moreover be borne in mind, that the Dutch emigrants-deserters, rebels, or whatever other designation may be deemed applicable to the hostile Boers-were comparatively speaking very recently, and without having a voice in the matter, suddenly converted, by "treaty," from Batavian into British subjects; that they long patiently endured their manifold wrongs, till finding the burthen insupportable, they resolved by flight, by the abandonment of their domestic hearths, by quitting for ever the country of their birth and adoption, to escape poverty, neglect, groundless aspersion, marked injustice, an unprotected condition against savage aggression; and lastly, a state of existence which had become intolerably irksome and oppressive. But no-we could not allow these poor people to depart in peace—for even as Pharaoh pursued the Israelites when attempting to escape from the land of bondage-so must we needs follow the unhappy Boers into the wild and desert "Karroo," there to impose a galling and hateful yoke; and thus having fairly persecuted them into open hostilities, we are now reaping the consequences of such ill-judged and reckless measures!+ From "The Cape and its Colonists," by George Nicholson, Esq. (1848.) + Return of killed and wounded, in the affair at Bloem Plaats, August 29, 1848:- Officers, 1 killed, 6 wounded; men, 8 ditto, 39 ditto; horses, 11 ditto, 13 ditto. Names of Officers wounded:-Lieutenant-Colonel Buller, Rifle Brigade, severely; Captain Murray, ditto, mortally (since dead); Captain Armstrong, Cape Mounted Rifles, severely; Lieutenant De Salis, ditto, dangerously; Lieutenant Mill, ditto, severely; Ensign Steele, ditto, dangerously; Ensign Crampton, 91st Regiment, dangerously. |