LITMIR.BIZ

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and parks in the English fashion, and often contain large collections of paintings and extensive libraries. Along the upper corridors of the country residences of the nobility are ranged large wooden chests, (termed Kister,) containing the household linen, kept in the most scrupulous order. Many of these Kister are extremely ancient, and richly carved in oak. Every peasant family, too, has its Kiste, which holds the chief place in the sitting-room, and is filled with all the treasure, as well as all the linen, of the household. Amongst other lordly structures, Mr Kohl visited Gysselfelt,3 near Nestned in Zealand. It was built in 1540 by Peter Oxe, and still stands a perfect representation of the fortresses of the time. Its fosses yet surround it – the drawbridges are unaltered: and, round the roof, at equal distances, are the solid stone pipes from which boiling water or pitch has often been poured upon the heads of the assailants below. In the vicinity of this castle is Bregentned, the princely residence of the Counts Moltke. The Moltke are esteemed the richest family in Denmark. Their ancestors having munificently endowed several lay nunneries, the eldest daughter of the house is born abbess-elect of the convent of Gysselfelt: the eldest son is addressed always as "His Excellence." The splendid garden, the fine collection of antiquities, the costly furniture and appointments that distinguish the abode at Bregentned send Mr Kohl into ecstasies. He is equally charmed by the sight of a few cottages actually erected by the fair hands of the noble daughters of the House of Moltke. The truth is, Mr Kohl, republican as he is, is unequal to the sight of any thing connected with nobility. The work of a noble hand, the poor daub representing a royal individual, throws him immediately into a fever of excitement, and dooms his reader to whole pages of the most prosaic eloquence.

      The condition of the peasantry of Denmark is described as much better – as indeed it is – than that of the labourers of any other country. If there is no superabundance of wealth in Denmark, there is likewise no evidence of abject poverty. The terms upon which the peasants hold their farms from the landed proprietors are by no means heavy; and their houses, their manner of dressing, and their merry-makings, of themselves certify that their position is easy, and may well bear a comparison with that of their brethren of other countries. Within the last twenty years, great improvements have been effected in agriculture, and the best English machines are now in common use amongst the labourers.

      Upon the moral and political condition of the Danish people at large, we will postpone all reflections, until the appearance of Mr Kohl's remaining volumes. We take leave of volume one, with the hope that the sequel of the work will faithfully furnish such interesting particulars as the readers of Mr Kohl have a right to demand, and he, if he be an intelligent traveller, has it in his power to supply. We do not say that this first instalment is without interest. It contains by far too much desultory digression; it has more than a sprinkling of German prosing and egotism: but many of its pages may be read with advantage and instruction. If the work is ever translated, the translator, if he hope to please the English reader, must take his pen in one hand and his shears in the other.

      LORD METCALFE'S GOVERNMENT OF JAMAICA

      The death of Lord Metcalfe excited one universal feeling – that his country had lost a statesman whom she regarded with the highest admiration, and the warmest gratitude. The Times, and the other public journals, in expressing that feeling, could only give a general and abridged memoir of this great and good man. Every part of his public life – and that life commencing at an unusually early period – stamps him with the reputation of a statesman endowed in an eminent degree with all the qualities which would enable him to discharge the most arduous and responsible duties. Every part of it presents an example, and abounds in materials, from which public men may derive lessons of the most practical wisdom, and the soundest rules for their political conduct. His whole life should be portrayed by a faithful biographer, who had an intimate acquaintance with all the peculiar circumstances which constituted the critical, arduous, and responsible character of the trusts committed to him, and which called for the most active exercise of the great qualities which he possessed. That part of it which was passed in administering the government of Jamaica, is alone selected for comment in the following pages. It is a part, short indeed as to its space, but of sufficient duration to have justly entitled him, if he had distinguished himself by no other public service, to rank amongst the most eminent of those, who have regarded their high intellectual and moral endowments as bestowed for the purpose of enabling them to confer the greatest and most enduring benefits on their country, and who have actively and successfully devoted those qualities to that noble purpose.

      No just estimate of the nature, extent, and value of that service, and of those endowments, can be formed, without recalling the peculiar difficulties with which Lord Metcalfe had to contend, and which he so successfully surmounted, in administering the government of Jamaica.

      The only part of colonial society known in England, consisted of those West Indian proprietors who were resident here. They were highly educated – their stations were elevated – their wealth was great, attracting attention, and sometimes offending, by its display. It was a very prevalent supposition, that they constituted the whole of what was valuable, or wealthy, or respectable in West Indian colonial society; that those who were resident in the colonies could have no claim to either of these descriptions; and that they were the mere hired managers of the properties of the West Indians resident in England. This notion was entertained by the government. The hospitable invitations from the West Indians in England, which a Governor on the eve of his departure for his colony accepted, served to impress it strongly on his mind. He proceeded to his government with too low an estimate of the character, attainments, respectability, and property of those who composed the community over whom he was to preside. The nobleman or general officer on whom the government had been bestowed, entered on his administration, familiar, indeed, with the Parliament of Great Britain, and with what Mr Burke calls "her imperial character, and her imperial rights," but little acquainted with, and still less disposed to recognise, the rights and privileges of the Colonial Assemblies, although those assemblies, in the estimation of the same great authority, so exceedingly resembled a parliament in all their forms, functions, and powers, that it was impossible they should not imbibe some idea of a similar authority. "Things could not be otherwise," he adds; "and English colonies must be had on those terms, or not had at all." He could not, as Mr Burke did, "look upon the imperial rights of Great Britain, and the privileges which the colonies ought to enjoy under these rights, to be just the most reconcilable things in the world."

      The colonists, whose Legislative Assemblies had from the earliest period of their history, in all which regarded their internal legislation, exercised the most valuable privileges of a representative government, would, on their part, feel that the preservation of those privileges not only constituted their security for the enjoyment of their civil and political rights as Englishmen, but must confer on them importance, and procure them respect in the estimation of the government of the parent state. Thus, on the one hand, a governor, in his zeal to maintain the imperial rights, from the jealousy with which he watched every proceeding of the Assembly, and his ignorance of their constitution and privileges, not unfrequently either invaded these privileges, or deemed an assertion of them to be an infringement of the rights of the Imperial Parliament. On the other hand, the Colonists, with no less jealousy, watched every proceeding of the governor which seemed to menace any invasion of the privileges of their Assemblies, and with no less zeal were prepared to vindicate and maintain them. The Governor and the Colonial Assembly regarded each other with feelings which not only prevented him from justly appreciating the motives and conduct of the resident colonists, but confirmed, and even increased the unfavourable impressions he had first entertained. His official communications enabled him to impart to and induce the government to adopt the same impressions. The influence of these feelings, in like manner, on Colonial Assemblies and colonists too frequently prevented them from justly appreciating the motives of the Governor, from making some allowance for his errors, and too readily brought them into collision with him.

      It cannot be denied that those impressions exercised on both sides of the Atlantic an influence so strong, as to betray itself in the communications and recommendations, and indeed in the whole policy of the government, as well as in the legislation of the colonies.

      This imperfect acquaintance with the character of the resident colonists, and the unfavourable

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