like demons, but never contested a morsel until it had been fairly thrown in amongst them.

Bangalore was then, and still continues to be, one of the largest military cantonments in the Madras Presidency. In addition to a regiment of Royal Dragoons, and one of Her Majesty's infantry, there were three or four native infantry regiments, one of native cavalry, and the head-quarters of the Madras horse and foot artillery; besides a vast influx of invalids, who came from all parts of India, and the civil, engineer, and clerical staff attached to the place.

The Fort was at a considerable distance from the town or pettah, and the parade-ground, a magnificent open space of some miles extent, intervened. In the fort resided some staff officers and the garrison surgeon, Dr. C—————, a clever but exceedingly eccentric man, who was for ever endan gering his own life by taking off his shoes and stockings, and puddling ankle-deep through every quagmire he encountered, in search of different specimens of thorn, which he extracted from his own naked feet, marking down the precise result of the painful incision they had occasioned, and thus classifying them as more or less poi

sonous.

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With such a large European population, especially during the periodical visits of the governors and commander-in-chief, Bangalore was exceedingly gay. The officers frequently got up amateur performances in a very pretty little theatre that belonged to the community. Balls and suppers were of weekly occurrence, and, young though I was, I was regularly included in the invitations. I recollect one grand affair given by the officers of the artillery, when, for want of space, the supper was laid out under some very large tents which were gaily decorated, and brilliantly illuminated. Hardly, however, had the notes of the "Roast Beef of Old England" subsided, and been succeeded by an universal clattering of knives and jingling of glasses, when a terrific squall levelled the whole structure, left us dark and supperless, and entangled in a heap of confusion-of broken bottles, upset oil-lamps, blanc mange, creams, salads, &c., from which we were extricated by the efforts of the European artillerymen, and escorted home supperless, and wet through to the skin, fit objects for commiseration, yet exciting the irrepressible and uproarious mirth, not only of each other, but of the very native sepoys who were on guard at the various sentinel posts.

RICH as our literature is in works of biography, we have comparatively few that enter into the inner life. Our bookmakers seem rather to prefer dealing in genealogies and outer-life history. They treat us to full and particular, if not always true, accounts of the various relatives, direct and collateral, of the subjects of their memoirs. They tell us what particular events occurred in their career, varied with occasional descriptions of the great folks they have met or corresponded with; but of the men themselves, and of the secret springs of their actions, they tell us little or nothing. In the memoirs recently published of Frederick Perthes, the illustrious bookseller of Hamburgh, we have a fine specimen of what a biography ought to be. It is Perthes the man, not Perthes the mere bookseller or politician, that is set before us. Like many other men who have risen to great after eminence his entrance upon life was sufficiently unpromising. He was born in the year 1772"a very calamitous year for Germany." Famine and pestilence had smote the land, and for a time it seemed as if the youth born under their shadow was still to be haunted by their influences. At the early age of seven years, he was thrown fatherless and almost motherless upon the compassionate care of a maternal uncle. To the instructions and example of this relative, he attributed that intense horror of every kind of immorality, and that respect for the rights of

others, for which he continued ever to be so honourably distinguished.

On reaching his fifteenth year, then still a very small lad, he was sent to Leipzig to become apprentice to Adam Frederick Böhme bookseller there. This personage, a sentimental, eccentric character, soon showed that it was not his intention to spoil him by over-indulgence. His first injunctions to him were that he should let his hair grow in front to a brush, and behind to a cue. He further ordered him to cast off his sailor's round hat, and replace it with a cocked one, specially ordered for his use, and to don a pair of wooden buckles. In the evening, with another apprentice, he was thrust into a garret of such scanty dimensions that it was quite overcrowded with the two beds and two stools, the table and two trunks, which-with the exception of a small, ill-fed stove-constituted the whole furniture. Böhme put his two young assistants on 1egulation allowance. In the mornings they were each presented with one cup of tea, and on the Sundays with seven lumps of sugar, and seven half..pence a-piece, to purchase bread for the ensuing week. Their half-penny roll was all the bread they had to eat at breakfast. From one in the afternoon till eight in the evening they were not allowed a morsel. "This," Perthes naively but piteously remarked, "is what I call hunger." His duty as youngest apprentice required him during the whole

of the first winter to go the round of the other warehouses. When he returned to the office, which was generally not till dusk, he had to stand for hours, with damp feet, collating upon the cold stone flags. Böhme never allowed a fire to be used in his shop. He thought that if he could stand the cold himself, his apprentices had no right to complain. Perthes, naturally delicate, soon broke down under this treatment. His feet became so frost-bitten that he could not walk, and when a surgeon was at last summoned to his assistance, he declared that had another day elapsed, amputation would have been necessary. For nine weeks, Perthes was confined to his little chamber. The time however did not pass unpleasantly. He found a kind nurse in Frederika, his master's second daughter, a sprightly girl of twelve years, who relieved the tedium of his confinement by her lively conversation, and by reading to him works of history.

As Perthes grew up he found himself exposed to much temptation from the dissolute example of -the young men of Leipzig. The bookseller's apprentices, he declared, were, with two exceptions, dissipated youths who spent the Sundays, their only holidays, at the taverns, in all kinds of excess. These made a point of persecuting all the lads in their own sphere of life who kept aloof from their society. Perthes attributed it entirely to the trong moral support he received from his fellowapprentice that he escaped their seductions. "Had I been left to mix with these," he wrote to his uncle, "I should have made shipwreck of all the good principles I derived from you." The opportunities for improving his mind which he enjoyed while in Böhme's service were few, but he availed himself of these with praiseworthy perseverance. The only hours he could call his own were those before seven in the morning and after nine at night. With the aid of a grammar and dictionary he made some progress in French and English; but he had naturally little turn for languages, and his poverty prevented the employment of a teacher. In philosophy he was less successful. The bent of his genius would have led him rather to devote himself to history and geography, but as every young man with any pretensions to intellectual ability was at that period expected to be a philosopher, Perthes had no alternative but to commence the study of Kant, whose system was then in the ascendant. The key to Kant was Kiesmetter's Logic, and with this Perthes first sought to become acquainted. He spent many precious hours scrawling over whole sheets of paper with logical tables by way of familiarising his mind with the interminable terminology and formula of the system; but with all his efforts he never, in the Kantian sense at least, became a philosopher. He had the consolation, however, of knowing that the exercise considerably sharpened his powers. He now began to take a deep interest in social and political movements, and to speculate much on human destiny. The French Revolution, at that time in

its zenith, was regarded by him, in common with most of his contemporaries, as an undeniable indication of the progress of the race. His youthful enthusiasm fondly believed in human perfectibility, and he doubted not that out of the chaos into which this moral convulsion had plunged society, humanity would yet emerge with brighter lustre. Two years later, a better knowledge of his own heart led him to modify his views. He said that while he had supposed that men must necessarily increase in happiness and virtue as they increased in knowledge, the future perfection of the race appeared to him probable; but when daily experience convinced him that men might entertain the most unimpeachable theories of life, and yet in their own persons be given up to the practice of every vice, he then began to despair of seeing realised a virtuous ideal.

ence.

The tender passion, as might be expected, contributed its part towards the development of the young man's inner-life. He found Frederika Böhme, now in the first blush of womanhood, his best moral teacher. "What the most serious reflections on the greatness and perfectibility of man could never accomplish," he said in a letter to his uncle," has been effected by the influence of a pure and innocent love." Evil thoughts, as Perthes significantly termed the prurient tendencies of youth, had occasioned him many a sharp struggle. But these seemed to pass away as the image of the fair Frederika enshrined itself more and more in his inmost heart. He had rivals, as he knew to his cost, for the maiden's beauty brought her many admirers; but even when his passion appeared most hopeless, it still exercised an elevating influHad his suit been more prosperous it might have been attended with less beneficial consequences. Of this he had a notable proof on one memorable occasion when, at a dinner given by Böhme to some strangers on a visit to Leipzig, he found himself placed opposite to Frederika. The one being in the world whom he idolised seemed to have eyes only for him. Her attentions were of the most marked description, and she took every opportunity of drawing him into conversation. In the exhilaration of the moment he departed from his usual abstemiousness and partook freely of wine. The intoxicating draught, true to its ancient prestige, while adding fuel to his passions changed their whole character. Suddenly, in reaching over his chair to take something from the table, Frederika approached him so closely that he could feel her heart beating through her blue silk dress. He lost all command of himself, and rising abruptly, rushed out into the darkness of the night. hours he wandered through the fields like a maniac. | He felt—as he afterwards declared—as if in that hour the sanctuary of his thoughts had been violated. When he returned, the maiden was no longer the same. "She was cold as ice and hard as iron."

For

Perthes soon after this left Leipzig for Hamburgh, where, after a year or two, he entered into

than ever.

partnership with Nessig, his late fellow apprentice, and chief rival in the affections of Frederika. This young man, his junior, had often won the young lady's ear by the lively prattle of his conversation, when her early admirer, who could converse with her only on such lofty themes as the dignity of man and the love of God, had to sit sad and silent. Sentiments would thus arise in the breast of Perthes towards his friend very different from what would have met with the approval of an apostle of universal brotherhood, or an advocate of the perfectibility of the species. By a noble effort, however, he overcame the antipathy which jealousy was fast generating. He opened his whole heart to his rival, who reciprocated the confidence ; and their friendship became stronger In 1796, when business required the presence of Perthes in Leipzig, he engaged to solicit Frederika's hand for Nessig. She was still dear to himself, but he believed that she preferred his rival, and he imagined that his own affection had passed in great measure from the heart to the fancy. His first interview undeceived him. Frederika stood before him in all the frank dignity of her noble nature; her thoughtful eye and expressive features beaming with undeniable satisfaction. He then knew how entirely he was still her slave. He wrote to Nessig revealing the state of his feelings. It was agreed that they should both make an offer of their hand, and that the rejected one should peacefully withdraw. In entering into this arrangement, however, they counted without their host. Frederika, on receiving the conjoint proposals, at first said not a word. Then, with deep earnestness and without changing colour, she replied "I love Perthes-I love Nessig; but my hand I can give to neither." After this, we hear nothing of Frederika; but it was long before Perthes recovered his peace of mind.

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entertained misgivings when he found that in ignoring feeling he was discarding as worthless all that was most peculiar to his character. When at last, he had to tell them that his heart beat higher for virtue than his will willed it, they themselves had begun to arrive at a similar conclusion. They directed him to a new way, which they said, would enable him to fulfil the moral law. This was the celebrated theory of Schiller, by which feeling, inspired, elevated, and purified, was to become the ruling power of the life. Perthes received the dogma with enthusiasm. He believed that he would now achieve that freedom, for which he had so long panted. A little further experience of himself convinced him that the Physical never could be so elevated and ennobled as to harmonise perfectly with the Spiritual. It will be perceived that in all these strivings after moral light and strength, Perthes had proceeded on the assumption that man was capable of himself to work out the problem of his destiny. The failure of his repeated attempts, carried out as they were with such lofty resolution, prepared the way for the coming in of a better hope. Philosophy was to accomplish for Perthes what the law did for the Israelites. When Jacobi, one of Germany's great critics, and a writer distinguished for his deep religious feeling, told him that man was a fallen being, and could never in himself find the satisfaction he sought, his mind was quite ripe for the reception of that fundamental truth. Jacobi's theological views would scarcely meet with the approbation of any of our Christian denominations, yet they proved of essential service to Perthes in the peculiar circumstances in which he was then placed. It was the opinion of this philosopher that while truth had been revealed to man as a guide in his earthly course, this had never been by word or symbol, but as a feeling in his own heart. God, he said, still revealed Himself and eternal truth in human feeling, without any intermediate agency. All that man needed was that he should withdraw himself from the impressions of the sensuous world, and patiently wait for light. This doctrine was accepted by Perthes the more readily that the feelings were still to be followed as the pole-star of life; and years after when he had become a devout believer in that Christianity to which Jacobi himself never attained, he acknowledged that it was he who had first given a right direction to his moral pursuits. We may as well give here the conclusion of this singular but most instructive spiritual history. Perthes, while so resolutely helping himself, was fortunate, as such men always are, in finding others able to help him. The illustrious Claudius, his future father-in-law, directed him to the revelation of Holy Writ as the only source of true religion. Salvation, he said, was to be found not in the feelings listening to the voice of God within, but in the historical fact of the Redemption, and its converting power on the heart of man. Perthes accepted as indubitable historical events the facts

Hamburgh, Perthes was early fortunate in securing the friendship of three young men, who considerably facilitated his moral progress. The association thus formed was of the most exalted character. It was that of four young men uniting themselves together solely that they might assist one another in their strivings after the good and true, and their pursuit of the beautiful. The first effect of the connection upon Perthes was to give him a deeper interest in the great literary works of the period; but its most important influence was the profounder insight it afforded him into the requirements of the inward moral law. His friends taught him that virtue could not consist in momentary impulses and individual acts, but must be a permanent internal state regulating the whole outward life. This was a decided step in advance, for hitherto he had been content with cultivating certain virtues and avoiding certain vices. The chief defect in the system of his new acquaintances was that it subjected all feeling, good and bad, to the iron severeignty of the will. Such as it was, Perthes loyally sought to conform to it, and only

T

of Revelation, and in due time experienced their vital power.

While thus resolutely devoting himself to the promotion of his spiritual interests, he displayed no less energy in prosecuting his temporal concerns. "I feel," he said, "that I have found myself through my calling; owing to my previous negligence this was the only way in which my powers were susceptible of development." In 1798, his connection with Nessig, which was only of a provisional nature, was dissolved, chiefly on account of the trifling returns. But Perthes was not the man tɔ fail in an enterprise on which he had set his heart. Such was the estimation which his energy and straightforward conduct had secured for him, that 30,000 dollars were speedily placed at his disposal to begin business afresh. It was his high ambition to become the medium of literary intercourse for all European nations, and he was fortunate in securing for his next partner John Henry Besser, the man of all others best fitted for giving him the assistance required. The new firm had a prosperous start, and soon took a foremost position in the trade. Previous to this, he had taken a step which more than any other contributed to his earthly happiness and to give confirmation to his attainments in the inner-life. This was his marriage with Caroline Claudius, the daughter of his friend. Caroline was a truly noble woman. "You have penetrated into the profoundest recesses of my being," he once wrote to her, "there is no moment of my existence in which you are not with me and before me; and all I see, feel, and observe, I seem to feel, see, and observe only for your sake." In his family circle, he never failed to find a resting place from the ceaseless turmoil of business life. It proved a little heaven on earth, from which he returned to the world with a refreshed and thankful spirit.

The years were now approaching when Perthes was to find full occasion to test the value of the moral conquests of his youth and early manhood. In 1806, Hamburg, after undergoing many vicissitudes, fell into the possession of the French. This to our brave bookseller, with his true German heart, was the greatest of calamities. But while many in their despair succumbed to the conqueror, believing that Europe was given over unreservedly to the domination of Napoleon, Perthes never relaxed his efforts for the liberation of his beloved city, and of his native land. "Ought we not," he heroically said, "to feel ourselves great, just because we are born in such evil times ?" Even in prosecuting his business, notwithstanding the universal stagnation which ensued upon the proclamation of the French regulations, and the great losses to which he was consequently subjected, he displayed a resolution and confidence manifested by no one else. The excitement of the times only afforded further scope for his enterprising spirit. Niebuhr sportively but appropriately called him-"the king of the booksellers from the Ems to the Baltic." From the first he

had entertained high views of his calling. He now resolved to convert it into an engine for upholding among his countrymen that unity of feeling so essential for the development of German nationality and independence. He started a journal to which he gave the name of "The National Museum." The first number appeared in the spring of 1810. It contained articles by Jean Paul, Frederick Schlegel, and other eminent men. Its success far exceeded the expectations of its projector, but to his regret he could say little of what he fain would have utterred, when it was brought to an untimely close by the formal incorporation of Hamburgh, and the whole north-west of Germany, into the French empire, its cessation was regarded as a national misfortune.

After the annihilation of Napoleon's mighty armament by the frosts of Russia, the French abandoned Hamburgh. The joy of its inhabitants, however, was short-lived. Davoust laid siege to it again in a few months. After a few days' hard fighting, the enemy obtained possession of an important position, which enabled them to open a bombardment. Grenades by hundreds were thrown into the devoted city every evening; but this time it was not to be tamely surrendered. The burgher-guard furnished daily 800 to 1,000 men for the defence of the more exposed points; and each night a portion of these citizen-soldiers bivouacked under the open sky. Perthes was everywhere recognised as the master spirit of the siege, the centre of every effort. When exhausted nature would have been justified in snatching a few moments' repose, he might have been seen patrolling the more distant posts, and inspir ing his comrades with his own dauntless resolution. For twenty-one nights he never undressed, and during all that period never lay down in bed. But no efforts, however gallant, could save the city from its unsparing and indefatigable foe. When it fell, Perthes sought safety in flight. Of the wisdom of this step he soon received convincing proof. His ungenerous enemies not only hung him on the gallows in effigy, and sequestrated his property, but excepted his name, along with the names of nine others, from the general amnesty which they shortly afterwards proclaimed.

Many a man in Perthes' position would have utterly broken down. After a painful struggle with the world for seventeen years, during which he had honestly won a competency for himself and family, it was hard to be turned adrift upon society, with a price upon his head, and a pregnant wife and seven helpless children to provide for. But even in these circumstances Perthes never despaired. His true riches, won by still more arduous effort, were of a kind which the world could not give and could not take away. "Resignation to the will of God," he said, "firm convic tions and rich experience, a heart full of love and youthful feeling, truth and rectitude, such are the treasures which my forty years of life have given." Homeless and proscribed, he devoted himself