hoary Princeps Senatus-unwearied in all duties of civil life, who accumulated golden opinions to the end; and many, no doubt, can now appreciate better than before the complete mastery of the spiritual over the material, and the self-abnegation of our last and only great man. It was the Duke's habit, at the close of Parliament and the London season, to exchange the wear and tear of the town for the repose and retirement of Walmer Castle. A walk on the seablown beach, and a canter on the velvety downs, braced up his frame, and refreshed and exhilarated his mind; while Strathfieldsaye, lying low on heavy clays, depressed him both physically and morally. Yet the faithful old servant of the Crown was never idle when seemingly resting under the shadow of his rock. The Warden kept good watch over the Channel, which his outpost commanded. That searching eye first spied into the nakedness of our defences, and, a lion in the foes' path, he forthwith suggested the remedy. He warned the country, in his speeches and otherwise, that we were not safe for a week after the declaration of war. The ancient soldier was voted a Cassandra by civilians cunning in calico, and for too long a period his counsels were scouted; but he lived to hear his last Parliamentary speech on the Militia Bill cheered; and his views on national defences are being carried out, now that he is no longer living. Thus, indeed, do the spirits of the great survive. If long life be esteemed a blessing, the Duke's days were lengthened beyond the span of ordinary mortals; and, if he were fortunate in that long life, he was no less so in the close-felix opportunitate mortis. Cæsar was stabbed-Hannibal died of poison, Alexander the Great of excesses, Cromwell amidst the agonies of remorse and terrorNapoleon wasted in a prison-isle, squabbling with his jailer about rations. Wellington-who in the battle and breeze wore a charmed life-whose guardian angel turned aside the bullet and stilled the storm, in order that the destined instrument might fulfil his mission-he, after his great work was done, had full time given him for contemplating the stroke of nature with all the clearness of his faculties, and at last met it, without pain, in his own peaceful bed-chamber. There is no occasion to envy for him even such a glorious exit as that of Nelson - passing at once from the fierce blaze of victory into the valley of the shadow of death. 'His sun,' said the preacher, 'shone brightly through a long, unclouded day; and, in descending, continued to shed a mild, undimmed radiance over the hemisphere which it had so long gladdened. He survived the dazzling glories of his noon, that he might enhance them by the genial warmth and softened lustre of his declining day.' A walk, · A walk, imprudently prolonged by the indomitable octogenarian on a hot day in the second week of September, made him confess that he was fairly beaten at last;' and, on the 14th, an event, long in sight as it were, came on the country by surprise. The Duke awoke early as usual, complained of uneasiness, sent for the apothecary,' was seized with a fit, and spoke no more. He made signs to be moved into his arm-chair, and, seated there, at twenty minutes past three his mighty spirit passed quietly away like any Christom child,' and 6 He gave his honours to the world again, His blessed part to heaven, and slept in peace.' Seldom, indeed, could it have fallen to the lot of any conqueror to look back so entirely on the whole past without fear or reproach. More precious than the marshal's staff-the million-all the titles and trophies that sovereigns could crowd on him-more desirable even than his enduring place in the first roll of martial Fame-is the reflection that his deeds were done for the deliverance of oppressed nations-for the safety and honour of his own country and the civilised world. His campaigns were sanctified by the cause; sullied by no cruelty, by no crimes; the chariot-wheels of his triumphs had been followed by no curses; his laurels were intertwined with the olive-branch; and in the hour of expiring consciousness he may have remembered his victories among his good works. He died in the eightyfourth year of his age, having exhausted glory, having left no duty incomplete, and no honour unbestowed. Apsley House, in its closed deserted loneliness on the 18th of November, formed a marked feature in the public funeral of the Duke of Wellington; it stood without sign of life, as the cold corse of its departed master was carried past. In consequence of a purely accidental occurrence a halt occurred at this spot, and the funeral car paused under the triumphal arch which pedestals his colossal statue. It has not perhaps been generally observed that on fine afternoons the sun casts the shadow of this equestrian figure full upon Apsley House, and the sombre image may be seen gliding spirit-like over the front. We may add also, that we consider the glorious weather of the 18th neither accidental nor without significance. The vaunted soleil d'Austerlitz never gilded occasion so worthy. For weeks and weeks previously, the buckets of heaven had been emptied, and murky was the pall that had long shrouded the earth: on that day the curtain was drawn up, and the heavens smiled approval as the just man was held in remembrance. When the last rites were concluded, and his honoured remains laid in consecrated earth, the curtain fell again, and, to mark the exceptional favour, dark and and heavy clouds continued to weep for weeks, and the winds to howl and lament. Neither can we forget that, on the 9th of January, 1806, when Nelson marshalled the way to St. Paul's, a similar providential manifestation was vouchsafed. There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, The people, the congregated millions, lent to this solemnity its greatest grandeur, and the decorum and reverence of those who went to see formed to us the most memorable part of a spectacle which undertakers could not mar. On that day, when they buried him, all Israel mourned for him; the capital of England became the central scene of the hero-worship of Europe, saved, not subdued, by his sword-and some of the best and noblest soldiers of other lands were present, by command of their monarchs, to pay such a parting tribute as had never before been suggested in the case either of English or of foreign Worthy. A Prince of the royal blood was in immediate charge of the troops: but the new Commander-in-Chief, who had so often shared in danger and success with his lost friend, was active and conspicuous:-'On battle morn or festal day the ranks might well be glad When Hardinge rides along the line:-To day those ranks are sad.' Dense files of horse, foot, and artillery slowly advanced through a living avenue greater than the population of continental kingdoms. Each animated atom was imbued with one thought and grief-a million hearts throbbed with one pulsation. The whole State of Britain was there. The sorrowing Sovereign herself appeared in the person of her Consort. Every civil dignity was represented-every military branch sent a delegate-every regiment a comrade and witness. A military funeral is always impressive-but there will never perhaps be another like to this. Tramp, tramp the long procession moved on to the roll of the muffled drum, and to the dirge-like melody of the dead march, and the aged Pensioners from Chelsea followed their chief once more, and the poor old horse without its rider; and as the coffin passed, every head was bared, every breath held in, every eye moistened. Then to the booming of minute-guns, and to the tolling of the great bell, they carried him into St. Paul's to be treasured up in the heart-core of London. The pall was borne by those who had carried his standards from the Tagus to the Seine, and shared in every victory from Vimiero to Waterloo; and as the cold winds, blowing through the vasty aisles, moved the plumes of the helmet on the coffin, it seemed as if He stirred to dispute victory with death. Then amid swelling choirs, and with the noblest ritual ever composed, and never more impres 2 K 2 sively sively read, they placed the soldier by the seaman; thus, while hoary veterans tottered over the grave, and thousands and ten thousands looked a last farewell, the coffin slowly descended into the dark vault-dust to dust-and Wellington was laid alongside Nelson. We have been much struck, and we have reason to believe that the Duke's surviving friends have been much gratified, with a set of verses on the 18th of November, 1852,' from the pen of Lord Ellesmere-an attached and valued member of his Grace's private circle. We wish we could afford a larger extract from this poem certainly, as far as we have seen, greatly superior to any other which the occasion has produced— but we must limit ourselves to the following lines. Having alluded in a very feeling and also skilful manner to the most eminent veterans that attended their chief's obsequies, Lord Ellesmere thus resumes the grand point of universal interest : 'It is that while all these and more have answer'd to the call, No voice again shall answer to the greatest name of all. It is that we shall see no more on yonder esplanade That well-known form emerging from the vaulted portal's shade; That we shall miss from where we stand at many an evening's close That sight which told of duty done and toil's well-earn'd repose: Pursued by murmur'd blessings, as he pass'd upon his way, While lovers broke their converse off, and children left their play; And child or man who cross'd his path was proud at eve to tell, "We met him on his homeward ride. The Duke was looking well. We pass'd him close, we saw him near, and we were seen by himOur hats were off-he touch'd his own, one finger to the brim." That sight the loiterer's pace could mend, from careworn brows erased The lines of thought, and busy men grew idlers while they gazed. Oh! throned in England's heart of hearts, what meed to man allow'd Could match that homage paid to thee, the reverence of the crowd? Oh! weigh'd with this, how light the gifts by thankful Sovereigns shower'd For thrones upheld, and right maintain'd, and lawless wrong o'erpower'd: Thy single aim was England's weal, thy guerdon England's love!' ART. ART. VIII.-Results of the System of Separate Confinement as administered at the Pentonville Prison. By John T. Burt, B.A., Assistant Chaplain-formerly Chaplain to the Hanwell Lunatic Asylum. 8vo. Pp. 287. 1852. ONE NE of the most engrossing occupations of childhood, as well as one of the most effectual allayers of its superfluous activities, is the business of building houses for the purpose of knocking them down. The small angers and epitomised passions of the tiny republic are wonderfully lulled by a box of bricks or a pack of cards. Even when the hubbub threatens to assume the dimensions of a circular storm, and Jane is screaming for her doll, on which Charles has laid violent hands, because William has run off with his ball-even then the belligerents immediately pause: the constructive faculty is forthwith at play, and the troubled parent is too happy to acknowledge the amorphous mass, shown by the proud architects, as a veritable cathedral, castle, or cottage. Similar infantine conditions of mind seem to be exhibited periodically in that great collective-the public-and to be treated by its rulers after the method of the box of bricks. A sustained clamour has long existed as to punishment in general, and every kind of system enforcing it has been canvassed, adopted, and abandoned in turn. The hanging system, the hard-labour, the solitary, the silent, the separate, and the transportation systems, with their various modifications, have all been taken up and thrown down with such astonishing rapidity as to make one doubt whether there is anything called experience, or whether it is of any use. Blue books and annual Reports, solemn treatises and pungent pamphlets, are to be had by the hundredweight-and yet here we still are, discussing the metaphysics of the reformatory' and the deterrent' principles; building our own veritable gaols after our own peculiar views; first taking care to demolish those which our playmates had erected. So that the box of bricks is charged to paternal John Bull, nothing else need give us a moment's uneasiness; we may determine at leisure whether the sudden extinction of life should not, in every case, be rigidly limited to the murdered, and the murderer taken care of, educated, and sent to some milder climate over sea; or we may expatiate on the theme whether corporal punishment is not very un-English-derogatory to the true-born British ruffian and high-spirited burglar, and only fit for our public schools and our warriors. Some wholesome truths, however, do creep out from this weary rubbish. For instance, the public accepted it as a 'great fact that the association of offenders is, and must be, the most efficient |