LESSONS ix <JKO<;RAPHY. 



119 



wlii.-li th" Kntfli-li iiatinii. tlinn faithfully represented by it* 



\pectod and then rrsiutcd the en- 



winch :il. "liiii-iii Bee-mod disposed to make upon 



All tlui constitutional meuna known to the 



peoplo : n-i.-.l in tlio hope of bringing the king to reason, 



au<l t hi'ii-i. itiou of these was the occasion of some 



i was supposed that an open rapture between King and 



uient might be avoided, until Charles himself opened 



the way to nnoonstitutionalism by deserting London, which 



iarod to be unsafe for him to live in, and unfurling 



th.' i-.'val Maii<l;inl ut Nottingham, on which occasion ho 



It hat the quarrel must bo referred to the arbitrament 



of t he sword, and set forward accordingly upon the path of 



Mood. 



Tin 1 third sketch of the series shows the character and quali- 

 t lie man who succeeded Charles in the government 

 :if th,- kingdom, and is intended to set forth both the good and 

 evil ut' tin' Lord Protector's rule. That both were manifested 

 there cannot be any doubt, and much of the evil was derived 

 from tho action rendered absolutely necessary by the excep- 

 tional state of things, by the demand for severe repressive mea- i 

 sures in the presence of numerous and never-ending plots for 

 tin- subversion of the Government, and by the need which tho 

 new Government had constantly to assert itself. In the sketch 

 an attempt was made to show not only the character of the 

 Protector's government, but the character of the Protector 

 himself, tho cares he suffered, the weight of responsibility he 

 vmliiivd, and the depressing sense he entertained of the uttor 

 hopelessness of what he was doing. The manner of his death 

 was also mentioned, and one side of a contrast was established 

 to show how different was the political influence of England 

 and her place among the nations during the time of the 

 Commonwealth, and the time which immediately succeeded it. 

 Following the sketch entitled " King Charles's Veto on 

 Emigration," came, in order of date, an account of " How 

 England became possessed of India." Herein we told the 

 story of the growth of the East India Company, bound up as it 

 was with the achievements of Robert Clive and of Warren 

 Hastings, the first Governor-General of India. How the powers 

 of the Company were transferred to the Crown ; how the Queen 

 of England was proclaimed Sovereign of Great Britain and the 

 Colonies (including India) in 1858, and Empress of India in 

 1876 ; how the Sepoy mutiny broke out and was quelled all 

 these things we have narrated at some length. 



The restoration of the Honse of Stuart is said by some to 

 have been allowed, in order to convince the nation of the utter 

 impossibility of suffering its princes to sit upon the English 

 throne. That Charles II. and his friends conducted themselves 

 in a manner to forfeit the good opinion of all patriotic and 

 right-minded men, and that this misconduct had its counter- 

 part in every department of the State, are matters of general 

 history ; all that could be done here was to give one notable 

 instance in which the Stuart influence permeated to and corrupted 

 even the fountains of justice, and made the public tribunals 

 a mockery and a byeword. The story of the Bloody Assize was 

 added to show the entire hopelessness of the Stuart regime, 

 and to explain the reasons which in 1688 led the English legis- 

 lature to declare that King James II. " had broken the original 

 contract between king and people, and that the throne of Great 

 Britain was vacant." 



The very worst and most questionable incident in tho life of 

 William III. the massacre of Glencoe has been made the 

 subject of a sketch in order that the man might appear as he 

 really was, even under such unfavourable circumstances, a dis- 

 interested hero. The slur of the massacre has been cast upon 

 the king, whose minister presumed upon his position to gratify 

 a private, local malice, and to do a large amount of veritable 

 evil in the belief that good would result from it ; but how 

 little William himself had to do with the matter has been 

 shown, we trust, in our sketch of the business. We have for- 

 borne to take, as wo might easily have done, a sketch from 

 parts of his life when he would have appeared solely as a bene- 

 ficent man, who had renounced the first position in his own 

 country, and the pleasures of independence, in order to do good 

 as the leader of a country which looked to him as its only pos- 

 sible chief, but yet rewarded him for his devotion by delibe- 

 rately stamping on all his most cherished plans, and thwarting 

 all his private personal wishes. 



In Sketches XVIR., XIX., XXVTI., and XXVIII., it wa 



shown when and by what means Ireland and Scotland became 

 parts of tho empire, tho deliberate policy by which Edward I. 

 was guided in hi.s obstinate endeavour* to subjugate Scotland, 

 an. I the almost accidental circumstance*) under which the 

 disunited chiefs in Ireland allowed their country to fall a prey 

 to the rapacity and desperation of a few Anglo-Norman 

 adventurers. An attempt was also made to do justice to the 

 efforts of those who at various times endeavoured to win back 

 independence for their respective countries, and it was detailed 

 how the struggle, continued down to comparatively modern 

 times, was ended by union, arranged on terns agreed to by 

 both sides. 



In Sketches XX. and XXI. (Vol. II., pages 218 and 253) are 

 detailed the efforts made by the House of Stuart to re-enter 

 into authority in the kingdom; there, too, is described the 

 result of their last attempt to take the kingdom by violence, 

 and the determination with which the bulk of the English 

 nation declared for the House of Hanover and Protestant 

 succession. 



Tho disgraceful circumstances under which Admiral Byng 

 was offered up as a sacrifice to appease the populace for the 

 national disasters which came thick and fast during a portion 

 of the reign of George II., are set forth in Sketch XXIL 

 (Vol. II., page 285), while in Sketch XXIV. the origin of the 

 United States is briefly narrated. The remaining three papers 

 which conclude the series of Sketches from English History 

 describe the Gordon riots, or the attempts which ignorant 

 and misguided men made to overthrow the oppressive govern- 

 ment of George III. in so far as it affected the working class ; 

 the dagger scene in the Honse of Commons, when Mr. Burke 

 warned the House and the nation of the rock towards which 

 the policy of Mr. Fox, which was the policy of the French 

 Revolution, was guiding the vessel of the State ; and the 

 meaning of the interest which the people took in the case of the 

 demagogue Wilkes, the man whom, as stated in the sketch, the 

 Earl of Chatham appropriately described as " the blasphemer 

 of his God, and the libeller of his king." 



These sketches include subjects from the earliest period of 

 English constitutional history, and those taken from periods im- 

 mediately anterior to the great war of England and her allies 

 with the apostles of the French Revolution. In succeeding 

 articles we hope to present a few characteristic sketches 

 showing some of the great incidents in ancient history and 

 the life of Continental nations in modern times. 



LESSONS IN GEOGRAPHY. XXIX. 



ASIA. 



Position on the Earth's Surface. Asia, the cradle of the 

 human race, and the original seat of the Garden of Eden, lies 

 within the northern and eastern hemispheres, and to the east 

 and south-east of Europe. The greater part of this continent 

 lies within the north temperate zone ; the exceptions being part 

 of Siberia, which lies within the north frigid zone, and parts of 

 Arabia, Hindostan, Further India, and China, which lie within 

 the torrid zone. 



Boundaries. Asia is bounded on the north by the Arctic Ocean ; 

 on the south by the Indian Ocean and tho Chinese Sea ; on the 

 east by the Pacific Ocean ; and on the west by the Ural Moun- 

 tains, Ural River, Caspian Sea, Mount Caucasus, Black Sea, 

 Sea of Marmora, the Mediterranean Sea, the Isthmus of Suez, 

 which connects it with Africa, and the Red Sea or Arabian Gulf. 



Extent, Length, Breadth, etc. This continent extends from 

 lat. 78 25' N., to lat. 1 20' S. ; and from long. 26 4' E., to 

 long. 170 W. This shows that a very small portion of this 

 continent lies in the western half of the northern hemisphere. 

 Its length, from the Strait of Bab-el-Mandeb, at the entrance to 

 the Red Sea, to Behring Strait, between Asia and North America, 

 is about 7,000 miles, measured across the continent in a straight 

 line, as the crow flies. Its breadth, from Cape Severe, also 

 called Cape Tchelinskin, and North East Cape, in Siberia, in a 

 straight line from north to south, almost identical with the 

 102nd meridian of east longitude, to Cape Romania, at the 

 extremity of the Malay Peninsula, is about 5.250 miles. This 

 continent is connected with that of Africa, at the Isthmus _of 

 Suez, which is about 80 miles wide. The surface of Asia, in- 



