]831.] Monthlij Review of Literature. 447 



choly from the same cause at Paris, he comes home, and pitching upon the rural 

 war of last winter, involves a poor well-meaning lad in machine-breaking and 

 stack-burning, to the ruin of himself, and the premature death of a cherry- 

 cheeked lass. The colonies are next visited. To shew the effects of " sudden 

 emancipation," Mr. Bayley describes the condition of a negro, emancipated 

 suddenly at the death of his master. Instead of being benefited hy the change, 

 he finds himself suddenly thrown upon his own resources, unable to procure 

 any thing, necessaries or accommodations, but only as he worked for them. 

 Sickness reduces him to extremity, all is sold to the last rag for present support ; 

 his wife dies, and by a manoeuvre he gets a passage to England. Here he con- 

 trives to drag on life by fiddling in the streets — when he loses his fiddle, by 

 blacking shoes, running errands, pacing before Freemason's Tavern with the 

 papers and reports of the Anti-Slavery Society ; and finally dies of sheer starva- 

 tion, near the London University, and his skeleton is found by the pupils of that 

 thriving establishment. The writer's views are obvious enough, but he over- 

 shoots his mark. We are well known to be no friends to the Macauley party ; 

 but it is but just to say, this is no fair representation of the consequences of their 

 proposed measures. They are not fools enough to call their system " sudden 

 emancipation," as Mr. B. makes them do ; nor is it fairly inferable that such 

 is their purpose. They only propose to accelerate, what the West Indians are 

 resolved to retard. The effect of sudden emancipation would not be the diffi- 

 culty of getting work, for the planters must have free labour when slave-labour 

 is no longer attainable ; and what labourers will be to be got but the emanci- 

 pated slaves ? No, it is the unsettling of the minds of the slaves that is to be 

 dreaded, their repugnance to returning to labour, the probability that they would 

 prefer plunder to labour, and combine as banditti to destroy and devastate, rather 

 than as freemen to maintain their personal independence by the toil of their own 

 hands. Tout ce qui ne'est pas prose est vers, is Mr. Bayley's motto ; and as 

 some of his tales are not prose they are consequently vers. The sketch on the 

 Vistula, excluding the narrative, is of a very superior character — the introductory 

 part is beautiful both in conception and expression. Polignac's doom is too 

 much of the doggrel-cast. 



« The Vistula— the Vistula— 



I gazed upon its tide — 

 When here and there some little bark 



Down the blue stream would glide ; 

 Its waters then were all unstirred, 



Save bj the dashin;^ oar — 

 And tliere was peace upon the wave. 



And plenty on the shore. 



" The breath of summer lost its spice, 



In Praga's shady groves ; 

 The zei)hyr's murmur still was low, 



And half as sweet as love's. 

 The j)alace of a mighty king. 



Had sunshine on its tow'rs, 

 Freedom had not yet taken wing. 



Slaves did not count the hours. 



" I stood upon the river shore, 



I watched each rippling wave— 

 I gathered flowers from tlie banks — 



They might have decked a grave ; 

 I stooi)e<l to i)luck a full wild rose 



From oil" tlic blossom ground — 

 M usic broke sweetly on my ear. 



And scnsi was charmed with sound." — &c. &c. 



