is the power that is driving that train?"- "Well," said the other, "I suppose it is one of your big engines.""But what drives the engine?"-"Oh, very likely a canny Newcastle driver." What do you say to the light of the sun?"-"How can that be?"-"It is nothing else," said the engineer; "it is light bottled up in the earth for tens of thousands of years-light absorbed by plants and vegetables, being necessary for the condensation of carbon during the process of their growth, if it be not carbon in another form; and now, after being buried in the earth for long ages in fields of coal, that latent light is again brought forth and liberated, made to work, as in that locomotive, for great human purposes.' Such an idea was more an immediate intuition of genius, than the result of methodical reasoning.

Sir Robert Peel made Stephenson the offer of knighthood more than once, but he steadily refused. He was not the creature of patronage, and he did not wish to shine with borrowed lustre. He gave a characteristic reply to a request that he would state what were his ' ornamental initials,' in order that they might be added to his name in the title of a work proposed to be dedicated to him: I have to state, that I have no flourishes to my name, either before or after; and I think it will be as well if you merely say "George Stephenson." It is true that I am a Belgian knight; but I do not wish to have any use made of it. I have had the honour of knighthood of my own country made to me several times, but would not have it. I have been invited to become a Fellow of the Royal Society, and also of the Civil Engineer's Society, but objected to the empty addition to my name. I am a member of the Geological Society, and I have consented to become president of, I believe, a highly-respectable Mechanic's Institution at Birmingham.' He wished to join the Civil Engineer's Institute; but the council would not waive the condition that he should compose a probationary essay in proof of his capacity as an engineer! Mr Stephenson would not stoop to enter, and turned his back upon the insti

tute.

In July, 1848, though suffering from

nervous affection, he attended a meeting of the Birmingham Institute, and read a paper to the members 'On the Fallacies of the Rotary Engine.' It was his last appearance in public. A sudden effusion of blood from the lungs, which followed an attack of intermittent fever, carried him off, on the 12th of August, 1848, in the sixtyseventh year of his age. The deathpallor lay upon that countenance, once so ruddy and glowing with health; the keen grey eye looked no longer upon the common light of day; the brain within that massive forehead throbbed no more. A large body of his workpeople, by whom he was as much beloved as admired, followed his remains to the grave. terred in Trinity Church, Chesterfield, where a simple tablet marks his resting-place. A chaste and elegant statue of the great engineer, produced by Mr Gibson of Rome, was placed in the magnificent St George's Hall, Liverpool. To him, more than any other man of this century, the commercial metropolis of England owed a debt of gratitude and a tribute of respect.

He was in

Such is a rapid review of the leading events in the life of George Stephenson-a life pregnant with valuable lessons and large results. He had a work to do in this world, and he performed his duty; he fulfilled his mission with manliness, with energy, and with success. It is impossible as yet correctly to estimate the greatness of the impulse he has given to civilisation, or to weigh in the balance the mighty advantages, commercial, social, and political, which he has conferred upon mankind. Future generations will be better able to form a judgment and give a decision, when the system he originated has been longer in existence, and has attained a fuller development. Great was the work he wrought, but still greater was the workman. We cannot but wonder that one born in circumstances so humble, and labouring long under so many disadvantages, should have been able to exemplify, more perhaps than any other man, the masterdom of mind over matter. He was enabled, through sheer force of intellect and never-failing determination, to make all difficulties and every apparent dis

advantage work together for good both to himself and to the world. Under the stern discipline of poverty and necessity, he early grew strong in self-reliance. He had the desire to learn, the desire to advance, and that desire was accompanied by the resolute will which commands success. He never thought of failure; he never dreamed of impossibilities; he fixed the whole strength of his mind upon the end to be gained, and the means to be applied. By patient, unwearied, self-reliant industry, he rose from obscurity to world-wide renown, and emphatically proved, throughout the whole course of his laborious life, that perseverance is power. By word as by example, he strove on every available occasion to enforce this important truth. On one of his last public appearances, he told the mechanics of Leeds that 'he stood before them but as a humble mechanic. He had risen from a lower standing than the meanest person there; and all that he had been enabled to accomplish in the course of his life had been done through perseverance. He said this for the purpose of encouraging youthful mechanics to do as he had

done to persevere.' It is remarkable that, although Stephenson was originally endowed with a strong mind, an inquiring spirit, and great constructive skill, he attributed to perseverance all his success. Any man, he considered, might have done what he did by simple tenacity of purpose, and the resolution to be undaunted by difficulties. He never plumed himself upon the possession of superior powers, nor was there any affectation in describing himself as a humble mechanic, when he was universally recognised as the greatest engineer of the day. He had all the manly modesty, the unpretending, unconscious greatness, which ever characterise true genius. Social elevation did not destroy his natural humility. Popular applause he estimated at its true value. His personal worth imparted new dignity to his mechanical eminence; his heart was as sound as his head; he was as much beloved as he was admired. George Stephenson was, in fine, a genuine Englishman, frank, fearless, heroic, vigorous in thought and energetic in action. He has left behind him a memorable name, and his works will ever be his noblest monument.

LIFE AND CONDUCT' THE gift of easy writing, which is easy reading, is certainly possessed in no small degree by Mr Hackländer. Every now and then, the public is taken by surprise by some new work from his fluent pen. Before the last novel has become stale, its successor is claiming its share of attention and popularity; and whatever qualities Mr Hackländer's books may possess, they are essentially readable; once begun, no one readily lays down a volume of his unfinished.

We propose noticing from time to time some of his works, without binding ourselves to the exact order in which they appeared. We feel that their extreme popularity on the Continent gives them a claim to notice here. Though they are not written in very

'Handel und Wandel.' Von F. W. HACKLANDER.

VOL. XXVI.

IN A GERMAN NOVEL.* elegant German, nor in a very careful or classic style, but rather the reverse, they must have a special merit of their own, to have attained the widespread circulation which they have done. A good-hearted cheerfulness, a spirit of wild adventure, a careless, happy, life-enjoying nature, with great indulgence for human weaknesses, runs through them all, and makes them especially acceptable, though sometimes somewhat dangerous, to the young. Charity towards our neighbour is Mr Hackländer's only standard of morals—a maxim which, if united with severity towards one'sself, would be perhaps all that is to be desired in a novelist; but in this case it runs a good deal into the fault of confusing right and wrong; at least so it seems to us.

Sclavenleben' ('Slave Life in Europe') has been lately translated into English, and may therefore possibly attain a share of that popularity in England which it has won in Germany. It is a book suggested by 'Uncle Tom's Cabin,' and written to prove that, while public sympathy is lavished on the oppressed abroad, we have, in the centre of civilised Europe, and reaching through all classes of society, a slavery and oppression more galling than Egyptian bondage; an amount of suffering and misery, beside which the hardships of the well-fed negro, beast of burden as he may be, sink into nothing. Mr Hackländer's object certainly is, to awaken a spirit of compassion and generosity towards the outcasts of society; to show how much good may co-exist with evil and degradation; and so to encourage those who have kept themselves unsoiled by the evil, to hold out a helping hand to those who are in the Slough of Despond. The object is a good one; but we doubt whether the author is justified in introducing his readers to scenes and characters which we hope and believe are exaggerated; and which, if true, are especially unfitted for the perusal of the young. The various threads of the story are hung together with the fantastic history of the hero a sort of half robber, half knight, the gibbet and the field alike prepared to grace;' who, after a number of wonderful adventures, closes the tale with the Roman virtue of suicide. The book is written with great power, and abounds in tender and pathetic passages, and noble traits of character; but it also discloses scenes from which we turn with a shudder; and the propriety of publishing which we wholly question. We therefore prefer selecting for remark some other of Mr Hackländer's many works, where we can more entirely sympathise with his feeling, and where his peculiar power of picturepainting offers an attractive illustration of the manners and customs of his native country.

Mr Hackländer's popularity was founded by his 'Sketches of Camp Life,' which at some future time we may notice, and which his personal experience in the Prussian army enabled him to draw with masterly truth.

Since the publication of 'Soldaten Leben,' books of travel, novels, plays, have followed each other in rapid succession. His last book, 'Der Augenblick des Glücks' (The Lucky Moment'), is dedicated to the Empress of Austria, to whose service he is now, we believe, attached: at present we take up 'Handel und Wandel,' one of his earlier works, which attained great popularity in Germany.

It is difficult to render the German words 'Handel und Wandel' into any corresponding term in English: Handel meaning not only trade, but also action; Wandel not only one's general conduct and walk in life, but indicating in a certain sense the wandering life of the German bursche. The words conjointly signify often merely business in general. We have nothing analagous in English, and therefore take the liberty of translating it freely 'Life and Conduct.' The scene of the story is laid in humble life, where Mr Hackländer chiefly excels. The hero is an orphan boy, who tells his own story, and in a natural and simple way describes his humble home, his good old grandmother and aunts-their privations and little luxuries, their labours, and the gossip which lightened these labours; all is given with a naïveté and feeling of truth which makes the uninteresting people interesting.

The boy begins his story with regret that he did not live in days when a friendly phrenologist could have decided his destiny by the form of his head; for, as he says, work he must, that he knew; but for what sort of work he was best adapted, that he knew not.

"Thank God, my child," said the grandmother, "your choice is not difficult, for from the total lack of that thing called money, there is no situation open to you but a shop. Truly," she added, "I had rather seen my grandchild in a pulpit, than behind a counter; but the will of the Lord be done! And among trades there are many for you to choose." So I was

left to decide what I was most inclined to do, and found truly no inclination for anything. When I saw a painter, I always felt sure that I could cut a figure as an artist. If I met a student on the street, with

his short velvet jacket, white cap, and long, many-coloured pipe, I felt convinced that, of all things in the world, I would like to be a student, and have such a pipe. I felt the same once or twice, when I had been in the law-courts, and heard the people pleading: it seemed so easy to say all that. My feelings were excited still more every Sunday, when I saw the officers change guard, or at parade, looking so grand in their gay uniforms. But, as to trade, it had absolutely no hold over my imagination; sitting behind a desk appeared anything but agreeable, and as to standing behind a counter, that appeared wholly intolerable. The only form of trade which presented itself favourably to my infant mind was commerce with foreign lands; and I sometimes fancied myself on a crowded quay, ledger in hand, taking the bills of lading of vessels just arrived from distant shores, while the sailors crowding round told me strange tales of Hottentots and of savage life.'

Choose, however, he must; and the grandmother gives him a history of every possible trade, with its advantages and disadvantages; and his good old friend the Schmiedin weeps over her favourite's destiny, and bewails his not being brought up a pastor, for which he had shown an especial vocation at a very tender age, having been found frequently, with her black apron on as a gown, mounted on a chair, and haranguing the other children. However, his talent had to be nipped in the bud, and, after much discussion, he decides on being a grocer, that trade smacking somewhat of the homebound vessels from the land of spice. An advertisement is written, to see who will have a boy, on the cheapest terms; and after many amusing answers, one is found which suits, and the poor child is packed off by himself, one day at noon, to enter all alone on the duties of his new career; without any one to help him across the formidable threshold of Mr Reismehl's shop, which stood, an object of mysterious awe, within a few doors of his old school-house.

'I had a heavy heart as I stood between the two houses; each step I took towards my new dwelling, I felt myself powerfully drawn back by the

murmuring noise of the well-known voices. It was the singing hour, and I stood and listened, and saw each boy rise from his bench, and take the little song-book, and then they all burst out into the well-known song, in which I had so often joined

"The winter has come,

With its snow and its storm."

A feeling of anguish overcame me, and I wept, like my friend the Schmiedin. There I stood between the two houses, a poor forlorn child; here the school, with its beloved playground, there the new life, which appeared to me so gloomy and so sad.

I had a thousand minds to turn and run home to my grandmother, and say to her that go I would not; when suddenly the song ceased, and I heard the voice of the teacher enjoining them to go quietly and orderly home. books were shut, the slates rattled, and I, ashamed at the notion of being caught crying by my old companions, plucked up heart, and hurried as fast as possible into the shop.'

The

Our little friend stood for some time quite unobserved in the busy shop, and had time to look round at the stores of almonds and raisins, and dried plums, and dainties, so enticing to a childish taste, but which now appeared to him utterly disgusting. With a choking feeling at his throat, he thought a day would at last come when he would leave this place, and turn towards his longed-for seaport, with its masts, and its sailors, and its cargoes from strange lands. At last the principal himself appeared from his desk, and raising his spectacles, gazed at the little fellow, and said

I re

'So, my young friend, it is you, is it? I am glad you have come to-day; still, I see that your good grandmother, worthy woman, has forgotten to tell you at what hour to come. quested the Frau Pastorin to send you here at twelve o'clock. It is now, however, by my watch"-and here he pulled out a huge watch, with a heavy steel chain-"it is now five minutes past twelve-five minutes! hum! hum!"

With this dry reception the boy is introduced to his new duties. Besides the taciturn master of the house, the principal, as he was called, the Reismehl family consisted of a loquacious

elderly sister, and Philip, a long, lanky, lugubrious apprentice, who, for the sake of cake and pudding, or rather cake and coffee, was Miss Barbara's devoted slave; and last, but not least, a pug-dog called Fanny, a personage of great importance in the family, Our young hero is for ever getting into scrapes with Fanny, and is no favourite with Miss Barbara-Philip is always attending to her; and for many a weary day and week he goes on weigh ing out coffee and sugar, and making little paper-bags out of old copy books and paper, which is thus made to do double service. It is a very characteristic trait of the thrifty Germans, that, to this day, it is a common thing to have one's rice and sugar sent home from the wealthiest grocers in Berlin or Dresden, made up by the pound, in little bags, carefully made of old manuscripts, covered with their curious characters, which, to unpractised English eyes, betray no secrets. Life in the Reismehls' house was monotonous and dreary in the extreme. Philip tried to better his condition by paying his addresses to Barbara; and our poor hero would have had a very dull time indeed, but for the neighbourhood of a certain Dr Burbus, who inhabited the next garret. Mr Hackländer has a great affection for mauvais sujets; and this dirty, disorderly, half-educated medical student is evidently a great favourite of his. Burbus tempts the boy to put a plank from one garret-window to the other, across the corner, and then ride over upon it into his garret, which, miserable and squalid as it was, hung round with rude drawings, and with skulls and bones, often echoed with boisterous mirth, and was a scene of dangerous attraction for such a lad. With a sort of good-nature, not rare in such people, Burbus warns the boy against himself, and after having helped him to earn a headache, and got him into disgrace with his master, he tells him something of his own history, and how idle, and ignorant, and good-for-nothing he is, and unhappy withal; and bids him try to get into another shop, and labour hard at any decent trade, and count himself happy that, though an orphan, he has his old grandmother to care for him, or even the old Schmiedin. Above all, he enjoins

him to avoid carefully the acquaintance of such people as himself. Believe me, there is no such bad companion for a boy as an old ne'erdoweel like myself. If they had only understood me when I was a boy," he said "instead of which, nothing would satisfy my poor mother but that her son should be a learned man-I might have remained with my father in the old mill, which had been ours, from father to son, for ever so long. I would have learned my noble trade well, and led a merry life in my dusty coat. But that is all passed and gone. My father is dead, my mother is dead, before she had the satisfaction of seeing her wise son's learning. The mill has passed into other hands; and I—there is not in the whole world a more miserable, forlorn vagabond than I am.”

Our hero, with no small skill, contrived to make his grandmother and aunts believe that the old grocer was too hard on him, and that they must look for some other situation for him; but the separation with the Reismehl family was not destined to take place so peacefully, or by any means as an arrangement by mutual consent. A frolic of the doctor's, whose brief repentance had evaporated, brought all to a crisis. Returning home late one night after a merry party, with a set of wild companions whose freaks were worthy of that class of juvenile John Bulls whose happiness it is to pull off knockers and bell-handles, it chanced that, as they passed the Reismehls' door, the favourite Fanny was shut out in the snow. The tipsy young men pounced upon the poor pug, and declared their intention of hanging her. Our hero arrived just in time to save her life, and have the punishment commuted. It struck the young men as a bright thought, to extinguish the light, and place the dog in the glass lantern, which was swung from one side of the street to the other. There the poor creature swayed about in the wind, its dismal cries awakening its mistress and the neighbourhood, while no one could perceive from whence they came. Meantime, the apprentice hurries up the doctor's stair, in hope of getting from his garret to his own by the perilous bridge; but, just as he is astride on the plank, between