Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850.

But Lettice interfered.

"Indeed, Mrs. Randall," she said, "I do not think that you seem to be aware of the state of inflammation that the arm is in. I assure you, you had better apply the bread-and-water poultice, and send for Mr. Lysons."

"You assure me. Much you know about the matter, I should fancy."

"I think I know this much. Dear Mrs. Melwyn! Dear general! It is more serious than you think. Pray, let me write for Mr. Lysons!"

"I do believe she's right, Randall, for the infernal torture you put me to is more than I can bear. Ach! Let it go, will you? Undo it! Undo it!"

But Mrs. Randall, unrelentingly, bound on.

"Have done, I say! Undo it! Will nobody undo it? Lettice Arnold, for Heaven's sake!" His face was bathed with the sweat of agony.

Randall persisted; Mrs. Melwyn stood pale, helpless, and aghast; but Lettice hastened forward, scissors in hand, cut the bandage, and liberated the tortured arm in a minute.

Mrs. Randall was in an awful rage. She forgot herself entirely; she had often forgotten herself before; but there was something in this, being done in the presence of a third person, of one so right-minded and spirited as Lettice, which made both the general and his wife view it in a new light. A sort of vail seemed to fall from before their eyes; and for the first time, they both seemed – and simultaneously – aware of the impropriety and the degradation of submitting to it.

"Randall! Randall!" remonstrated Mrs. Melwyn, still very gently, however; but it was a great step to remonstrate at all – but Randall was abusing Lettice most violently, and her master and mistress into the bargain, for being governed by such as her! "Randall! Randall! Don't – you forget yourself!"

But the general, who had been silent a second or two, at last broke forth, and roared,

"Have done with your infernal noise! won't you, you beldam! Here, Lettice, give me the poultice; put it on, and then write for Lysons, will you?"

In matters such as this, the first step is every thing. Mrs. Melwyn and her fiery partner had both been passive as a poor bewitched hen, we are told, is with a straw over her neck. Once shift her position and the incubus is gone.

The arrival of Mr. Lysons completed the victory. Mortification was upon the eve of setting in. The relief from the bandage, and the emollient poultice applied by Lettice, had in all probability saved the general's life.

Little Mrs. Randall cared for this demonstration of her mistaken treatment; she had been too long accustomed to triumph, to yield the field undisputed to a rival. She took refuge in sulky silence, and when Mr. Lysons was gone, desired to speak with Mrs. Melwyn.

The usual harangue was made. "As she could no longer give satisfaction – would Mrs. Melwyn please to provide herself in a month."

The blood run cold to Mrs. Melwyn's heart. What! Randall! Impossible! What should she do! What would the general do? What would become of the servants? Who would look after them? What could be done without the faithful Randall?

"Oh, Randall! you don't think of leaving me," she began.

I am not going to repeat the dialogue, which was much the same as that which usually ensues when the mistress entreats the maid to stay, thus putting herself into an irremediably false position. The result of such entreaties was the usual one. Randall, assured of victory, took the matter with a high hand, and, most luckily for all parties, refused to be mollified.

Then poor Mrs. Melwyn, in dismay and despair, returned to the drawing-room. She looked quite ill; she dared not tell the general what had happened – positively dared not. She resolved to make one other appeal to Randall first; to bribe her, as she had often done before, to bribe high – higher than ever. Any thing, rather than part with her.

But she was so nervous, so restless, so miserable, that Lettice observed it with much compassion, and came and sat by her, which was her way of comforting her friend when she saw she wanted comfort. Mrs. Melwyn took her hand, and held it between both hers, and looked as if she greatly wanted comfort, indeed.

The general, soon after this, rose to go to bed. It was earlier than his usual hour, for he was quite worn out with what he had suffered.

So he left the two ladies sitting over the fire, and then Mrs. Melwyn at last opened her heart, and disclosed to her friend the dismal tidings – the cause of her present misery – and related in detail the dreadful occurrence of Randall's resignation.

It was time, Lettice thought, to speak out, and she determined to venture upon it. She had long anxiously desired to emancipate the woman she loved with all the intensity of a child, from the fearful yoke under which she suffered: to dissolve the pernicious enchantment which surrounded her. She spoke, and she did so with so much gentleness, reason, firmness, good-nature; that Mrs. Melwyn yielded to the blessed influence. In short, it was that night determined that Randall's resignation, so far as Mrs. Melwyn was concerned, should be accepted. If that potentate chose to communicate her resolution herself to the general, it was well, and he must decide; otherwise Lettice would take upon herself to do this, and, unless he opposed the measure, Randall should go.

With little difficulty Lettice persuaded Mrs. Melwyn not to ring for Randall that night, saying that now she had resigned her position, her mistress had better allow herself to be put to bed by her friend. This was not a difficult task. That she should not meet Randall again was what Mrs. Melwyn in her terror as much desired as Lettice did in her prudence. In short, the general, under the influence of Lettice's representations – she was beginning to gain great influence with him – consented to part with the maid; and Lettice had the inconceivable satisfaction of herself carrying to that personage her wages, and a handsome gratuity, and of seeing her that very morning quit the house, which was done with abundance of tears, and bitter lamentations over the ingratitude of mankind.

How the house felt after she was gone, those who have been visited with a domestic plague of this nature will understand. To those who have not, so great a result from so apparently insignificant a cause would be utterly unimaginable.

"And so they lived very happy ever afterward."

Well – don't stare – they really did.

A good genius was substituted for an evil one. Under her benign influence it is astonishing how smoothly and merrily things went on. The general was so comfortable that he very often forgot to be cross; Mrs. Melwyn, content with every thing, but her power of showing her love for Lettice – though she did this in every way she could think of.

And so I will leave this good, sensible, God-fearing girl for the present, and tell you how Myra went to Mrs. Fisher, and something about that lady.

"blessing and blest in all she does,"

(To be continued.)

[From Guizot's Discourse on the English Revolution.]

THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION

BY GUIZOT

George III. had been seated on the throne sixteen years, when, at fourteen hundred leagues from his capital, more than two millions of his subjects broke the ties which bound them to his throne, declared their independence, and undertook the foundation of the republic of the United States of America. After a contest of seven years, England was brought to recognize that independence, and to treat upon equal terms with the new state. Since that time sixty-seven years have elapsed, and, without any violent effort, without extraordinary events, by the mere development of their institutions and of the prosperity which is the natural attendant on peace, the United States have taken an honorable place among great nations. Never was so rapid an elevation, so little costly at its origin, nor so little troubled in its progress.

It is not merely to the absence of any powerful rival, or to the boundless space open to their population, that the United States of America have owed this singular good fortune. The rapidity and the serenity of their rise to greatness are not the result of such fortunate accidents alone, but are to be attributed in a great degree to moral causes.

They rose into existence as a state under the banner of right and justice. In their case, too, the revolution from which their history dates was an act of defense. They claimed guarantees and asserted principles which were inscribed in their charters, and which the English parliament itself, though it now refused them to its subjects, had formerly triumphantly claimed and asserted in the mother-country, with far greater violence and disorder than were occasioned by their resistance.

They did not, to speak strictly, attempt a revolution. Their enterprise was, no doubt, great and perilous. To achieve the conquest of their independence, they had to go through a war with a powerful enemy, and the construction of a central government in the place of the distant power whose yoke they threw off: but in their local institutions, and those which regarded the daily affairs of life, they had no revolution to make. Each of the colonies already enjoyed a free government as to its internal affairs, and when it became a state found little change necessary or desirable in the maxims and organization of power. There was no ancient order of things to fear, to hate, to destroy; the attachment to the ancient laws and manners, the affectionate reverence for the past, were, on the contrary, the general sentiments of the people. The colonial government under the patronage of a distant monarchy, was easily transformed into a republican government under a federation of states.

Of all the forms or modes of government, the republican is unquestionably that to which the general and spontaneous assent of the country is the most indispensable. It is possible to conceive of an absolute monarchy founded by violence, and indeed such have existed; but a republic forced upon a nation, popular government established contrary to the instinct and the wishes of a people – this is a spectacle revolting equally to common sense and to justice. The Anglo-American colonies, in their transition, into the republic of the United States, had no such difficulty to surmount; the Republic was the full and free choice of the people; and in adopting that form of government they did but accomplish the national wish, and develop instead of overturning their existing institutions.

Nor was the perturbation greater in social than in political order. There were no conflicts between different classes, no violent transfer of influence from one order of men to another. Though the crown of England had still partisans in the colonies, their attachment had nothing to do with their position in the scale of society; indeed the wealthy and important families were in general the most firmly resolved on the conquest of their independence and the foundation of a new system. Under their direction the people acted, and the event was accomplished. And if society underwent no revolution, so neither did men's minds. The philosophical ideas of the eighteenth century, its moral skepticism and its religious unbelief, had no doubt penetrated into the United States, and had obtained some circulation there; but the minds to which they found entrance were not entirely carried away by them; they did not take root there with their fundamental principles and their ultimate consequences: the moral gravity and the practical good sense of the old Puritans survived in most of the admirers of the French philosophers in America. The mass of the population remained profoundly Christian, as warmly attached to its creed as to its liberties.

While they rebelled against the authority of the King and the Parliament of England, they were submissive to the will of God and the precepts of the Gospel, and while struggling for independence, they were governed by the same faith which had conducted their ancestors to this land, where they laid the foundations of what was now rising into a state.

The ideas and passions which now convulse and disorganize society under the name of democracy, have an extensive and powerful sway in the United States, and ferment there with all the contagious errors and destructive vices which they involve. But they have hitherto been controlled and purified by Christianity, by the excellent political traditions, and the strong habits of obedience to law, which, in the midst of liberty, govern the population. Though anarchical principles are boldly proclaimed on this vast theatre, principles of order and conservation maintain their ground, and exercise a solid and energetic influence both over society and over individual minds; their presence and their power are every where felt, even in the party which especially claims the name of democratic. They moderate its actions, and often save it, unknown to itself, from its own intemperance. It is to these tutelary principles, which presided over the origin of the American revolution, that it owes it success. May Heaven grant that in the formidable struggle which they have now to sustain on every side, they may continue to guide this powerful people, and may be always at hand to warn them in time of the abysses which lie so near their path!

Three great men, Cromwell, William III., and Washington, stand forth in history as the heads and representatives of those supreme crises which have determined the fate of two great nations. For extent and energy of natural talents, Cromwell is perhaps the most remarkable of the three. His mind was wonderfully prompt, firm, just, supple, and inventive, and he possessed a vigor of character which no obstacle could daunt, no conflict weary; he pursued his designs with an ardor as exhaustless as his patience, whether through the slowest and most tortuous ways, or the most abrupt and daring. He excelled equally in winning men, and in ruling them by personal and familiar intercourse; he displayed equal ability in leading an army or a party. He had the instinct of popularity and the gift of authority, and he let loose factions with as much audacity as he subdued them. But born in the midst of a revolution, and raised to sovereign power by a succession of violent shocks, his genius was, from first to last, essentially revolutionary; and though he was taught by experience the necessity of order and government, he was incapable of either respecting or practicing the moral and permanent laws on which alone government can rest. Whether it was the fault of his nature, or the vice of his position, he wanted regularity and calmness in the exercise of power; had instant recourse to extreme measures, like a man constantly in dread of mortal dangers, and, by the violence of his remedies, perpetuated or even aggravated the evils which he sought to cure. The establishment of a government is a work which requires a more regular course, and one more conformable to the eternal laws of moral order. Cromwell was able to subjugate the revolution he had so largely contributed to make, but he did not succeed in establishing any thing in the place of what he had destroyed.

Though less powerful than Cromwell by nature, William III., and Washington succeeded in the undertaking in which he failed; they fixed the destiny and founded the government of their country. Even in the midst of a revolution they never accepted nor practiced a revolutionary policy; they never placed themselves in that fatal situation in which a man first uses anarchical violence as a stepping-stone to power, and then despotic violence as a necessity entailed upon him by its possession. They were naturally placed, or they placed themselves, in the regular ways and under the permanent conditions of government. William was an ambitious prince. It is puerile to believe that, up to the moment of the appeal sent to him from London in 1688, he had been insensible to the desire of ascending the throne of England, or ignorant of the schemes long going on to raise him to it. William followed the progress of these schemes step by step; he accepted no share in the means, but he did not repel the end, and, without directly encouraging, he protected its authors. His ambition was ennobled by the greatness and justice of the cause to which it was attached – the cause of religious liberty and of the balance of power in Europe. Never did man make a vast political design more exclusively the thought and purpose of his life than William did. The work which he accomplished on the field or in the cabinet was his passion; his own aggrandizement was but the means to that end. Whatever were his views on the crown of England, he never attempted to realize them by violence and disorder. His mind was too well regulated not to know the incurable vice of such means, and too lofty to accept the yoke they impose. But when the career was opened to him by England herself, he did not suffer himself to be deterred from entering on it by the scruples of a private man; he wished his cause to triumph, and he wished to reap the honor of the triumph. Rare and glorious mixture of worldly ability and Christian faith, of personal ambition and devotion to public ends!

Washington had no ambition; his country wanted him to serve her, and he became great rather from a sense of duty than from taste; sometimes even with a painful effort. The trials of his public life were bitter to him; he preferred independence and repose to the exercise of power. But he accepted, without hesitation, the task which his country imposed on him, and in fulfilling it did nothing to diminish its burden. Born to govern, though he had no delight in governing, he told the American people what he believed to be true, and persisted in doing what he thought wise, with a firmness as unshaken as it was simple, and a sacrifice of popularity the more meritorious as it was not compensated by the pleasures of domination. The servant of an infant republic, in which the democratic spirit prevailed, he won the confidence of the people by maintaining its interests in opposition to its inclinations. While founding a new government, he practiced that policy, at once modest and severe, measured and independent, which seems to belong only to the head of an aristocratic senate ruling over an ancient state. His success does equal honor to Washington and to his country.

Whether we consider the general destiny of nations, or the lives of the great men whom they have produced; whether we are treating of a monarchy or a republic, an aristocratic or a democratic society, we gather the same light from facts; we see that the same laws determine the ultimate success or failure of governments. The policy which preserves and maintains a state in its ancient security and customary order is also the only policy that can bring a revolution to a successful close, and give stability to the institutions whose lasting excellence may justify it to succeeding ages.

FIFTY YEARS AGO

My father, whose manners were at once highbred and lively, had some great acquaintances; but I recollect none of them personally, except an old lady of quality, who (if memory does not strangely deceive me, and give me a personal share in what I only heard talked of; for old autobiographers of childhood must own themselves liable to such confusions) astounded me one day by letting her false teeth slip out, and clapping them in again.

I had no idea of the existence of such phenomena, and could almost as soon have expected her to take off her head and readjust it. She lived in Red Lion-square, a quarter in different estimation from what it is now. It was at her house, I believe, that my father one evening met Wilkes. He did not know him by sight, and happening to fall into conversation with him, while the latter sat looking down, he said something in Wilkes's disparagement, on which the jovial demagogue looked up in his face, and burst out a laughing.