LAST ADVENTURE OF MICROMEGAS.

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singular spectacle. He saw an enormous Giant, laid at full length upon the ground, in the midst of a mighty orchard laden with fruit-chains were on his limbs, and weights upon his breast. The Giant kicked most lustily against these restraints, and his struggles so convulsed the ground, that every now and then they shook plenty of fruit from the neighbouring trees; the natives stood round, and seized the fruit as it fell. Neverthe

less, there was far from being enough for the whole crowd, and the more hungry amongst them growled very audibly at the more fortunate and better fed. The compassionate Micromegas approached the throng. "And who art thou, most unhappy giant ?" he asked.

"Alas!" said the Giant," my name is Industry, and I am the parent of these ungrateful children, who have tied me down, in order that my struggles to get free may shake a few fruits to the ground."

"Bless me," said Micromegas, "what a singular device!but do you not see, my good friends," turning to the crowd,

your father, if he were free from these shackles, could reach with his mighty arms the boughs of the trees, and give you as much fruit as you wanted. Take this chain for instance from one arm and try.”

"That chain!" shouted some hundreds of the crowd; "impious wretch-it is Tithes!"

"Well, then, these cords."

"Idiot!—those cords are Bounties; we should be undone if they were destroyed."

At this instant up came a whole gang of elderly ladies, with a huge bowl of opium, which they began thrusting down the throat of the miserable giant.

"And what the devil is that for ?" said Micromegas.

"We don't like to see our good father make such violent struggles," replied the pious matrons, "we are giving him. opium to lie still."

"But that is a drug to induce him to shake down no fruit, and then you would be starved-spare him the opium at least."

"Barbarous monster!" cried the ladies, with horror, “would you do away with the Poor-laws ?"

"My children," said the poor giant, well-nigh at his last

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COURAGE OF THE ENGLISH.

gasp, "I have done my best to maintain you all; there is food enough in the orchard for fifty times your number, but you undo yourselves by the injustice of crippling your father. You mean well by me--you compassionate my struggles—but instead of giving me liberty, these good ladies would set me to sleep. Trust to nature and common sense, and we shall all live happily together, and if these orchards ever fail you, I will plant new."

"Nature and common sense, dear father!” cried the children; "oh, beware of these new-fangled names-let us trust to experience, not to theory and speculation!"

Here a vast rush was made upon those eating the fruit they had got, by those who in the late scrambles had got no fruit to eat; and Micromegas made away as fast as he could, seeing too plainly, that if the Giant were crippled much longer, those who had laid by the most fruit would stand some chance of being robbed by the hunger and jealousy of the rest.

CHAPTER IV.

Courage of the English-Description of English Duelling-Valour of the English Army-Question of Flogging in the Army dispassionately consideredIts Abolition, to be safe, must be coupled with other Reforms in the Code.

I HAVE reserved for a separate chapter a few remarks upon one of our national attributes-viz., Courage; because they will naturally involve the consideration of a certain question that has lately attracted much attention amongst us, viz., corporal punishments in the army. Your own incomparable La Bruyère has remarked, "that in France a soldier is brave, and a lawyer is learned; but in Rome (says he) the soldier was learned, and the lawyer was brave-every man was brave." Now I think that with us every man is brave. Courage is more universally spread through the raw material of England than it is among that of any other people; but I do not think the manufacture is

quite so highly wrought up in individual specimens as it is in France. I think that an English gentleman, from the fear of a duel, would eat his words sooner than a Frenchman. You see a proof of this every day in our newspaper accounts of these "little affairs." The following is a very fair specimen of a duelling correspondence:

To the Editor of "The Times."

SIR,

You will oblige us by inserting the following account of the late affair between Mr. Hum and Lord Haw.

"In the late election for the borough of Spoutit, Mr. Hum being the candidate on the whig side, was reported in the Spoutit and Froth Chronicle, to have made use of the following expressions relative to Lord Haw, who is supposed to have some interest in the borough: 'As for a certain noble lord who lives not very far from Haw Castle, I confess that I cannot sufficiently express my contempt for his unworthy conduct (great applause)—it is mean, base, treacherous, and derogatory in the highest degree, for any nobleman to act in the manner that nobleman has thought proper to do.'

"On reading this extract, purporting to be from a speech by Mr. Hum, Colonel Smoothaway was deputed to wait on that gentleman by Lord Haw. Mr. Hum appointed Sir Lionel Varnish to meet Colonel Smoothaway upon the matter; the result was the following memorandum:

"In applying the words 'mean, base, treacherous, and derogatory,' to Lord Haw, Mr. Hum did not in the smallest degree mean to reflect upon his lordship's character, or to wound his feelings. With this explanation, Colonel Smoothaway declares, on the part of Lord Haw, that Lord H. is perfectly satisfied.

(Signed) LIONEL VARNISH

PETER SMOOTHAWAY.

But this epeapophogy, or word-swallowing, is only on one

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VALOUR OF THE ENGLISH ARMY.

side in this specimen of correspondence. It is usually on both sides, and may be currently supposed to run thus:

"Mr. Hum having declared, that in calling Lord Haw 'a rascal,” he meant nothing personal to that nobleman, Lord Haw has no hesitation in saying, that he did not mean to offend Mr. Hum, when he called him a rogue' in reply."

Now this sort of shuffling with one's honour, as your Excellency very well knows, is never practised in France; the affront given, out at once go affronter and affrontee; they fight first, and retract afterwards. But the difference in the bilboa appetite of the gentry of the two nations depends, I suspect, rather on the advantage the French possess over the English in animal spirits, than in real courage. With your countrymen, duelling, as well as suicide, is a mere jest—an ebullition of mettlesome humour; with us, it is an affair of serious will-making and religious scruples. Your courage is an impulse; ours must be made a principle. When once our blood is up, it does not descend in the thermometer very readily. The easy lubricity with which our gentlemen glide out of a duel is an understood thing with us; and neither party considers it a disgrace to the other. But if an Englishman has an affair with a foreigner, the case is very different; he is much more tenacious of apology, and ready for the field. A countryman of mine asked me once to officiate for him as second, in a quarrel he had with a Parisian roué; the cause was trifling, and the Englishman to blame. I recommended a compromise. "No," said my hero, throwing his chest open, "if my antagonist were an Englishman I should be too happy to retract a hasty expression; but these d-d French fellows don't understand generosity."

I reminded my friend of his religious scruples. "True," said he; "but how can I think of religion when I know De--isan "atheist."

There is a doggedness in English courage which makes it more stubborn against adversity, than that of any other people: it has in it more of the spirit of resistance, if less of the spirit of assault.

When we look to the army under Napolcon, and that under the Duke of Wellington, we are astonished at the difference of the system: in the one the utmost conceivable encouragement is given to the soldier to distinguish himself; in the other the least.

QUESTION OF FLOGGING.

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To rise from the ranks was, in the French army, an occurrence of every day. The commonest soldier could not obey a fieldmarshall, scarcely his emperor, without seeing the widest scope for personal ambition, in the obedience that he rendered;-if the risk were immense, so also were the rewards. But in England, a wall, rarely to be surmounted, divides the soldier from all promotion beyond that of a halberd. He is altogether of a different metal, of a different estimate from the Frenchman. He has equal punishments to deter, not equal rewards to encourage : he can scarcely be a captain, but he can be terribly flogged. The two principles of conduct, hope and terror, ought to be united.

The question of flogging in the army, however, is far more important to England, more complicated in itself, than appears at first sight. Whenever it be abolished, the abolition, to be safe, should work an entire revolution in the service. I confess I think wonderful ignorance has been shown, both in the popular cry and in the parliamentary debates, on that subject. People have not, in the least, perceived the consequences to which the abolition of corporal chatisement must lead. The heads of the army are perfectly right!-If it were abolished, as a single alteration in the martial code, one of two consequences would infallibly ensue, viz., the loss of discipline, or the substitute of the punishment of death. You hear men and legislators say, in the plenitude of their ignorance, "Look at the French army and the Prussian army; you see no flogging there; why have flogging in the British army?" The answer to those who have studied the question is easy: in the first place, if there is not flogging in the French army, there is the penalty of death. For all the offences for which we flog a soldier, the French shoot him. Nay, they award death to an incalculably greater number of offences than meet corporal punishment with us: there are not above four offences for which flogging is inflicted in the greater part of our regiments; and certainly not eight in any: there are thirteen capital offences. With the French there are above forty offences punishable with death! Besides these, what a long catalogue in France of military faults, to which are appended the terrible awards, "Fers, 5, 6, 10 ans." Boulet, Travaux publics for the same periods! The French code does not embrace flogging, but it embraces punishment much more severe, and much more lightly incurred.