and bureaucracy can amalgamate. The nobles have retired angrily. The king goes out hunting with a few chamberlains, selected from the lower classes; and though the democratic ministers conduct their wives and daughters to the Countess Danner's soirées, the patriotism of the Copenhagen people hides itself when the royal carriages rattle through the

streets.

That the Danes are essentially fond of amusement is seen in the great number of public gardens in the vicinity of the capital. The chief delight is to take a railway trip, not on a real line, but to seat oneself in a number of little four-wheeled carriages, which run round in a circle, with a wooden or pasteboard engine in front, and turned by a couple of wretched men in the centre, while the band plays the railway galop. No landlord can hope for success unless he has at least one of these roundabouts in his garden. But the great delight of the Danes is the six weeks' fair held in the park, to which the peasants and their wives flock in from all the neighbourhood. Generally, Copenhagen is one of the most lively towns in the north; the people are not fond of staying at home, and the streets are crowded with gaily-dressed persons from morning to night. But this is not surprising, when we remember that the Danish kings kept up a brilliant court here for ages, and a city of such a size, with so many employés, military and naval officers, universities, &c., must be fond of pleasure. Copenhagen is not so cut off from communication during winter as are Stockholm and Christiania; many strangers visit it, for it can be reached in twelve hours from Germany by rail or steam. But then, on the other hand, there is no other city in Denmark which can in the slightest degree cope with Copenhagen. There are several towns in Sweden, besides Gothenburg, where people of birth and education are contented to reside; while Norway has the rich commercial town of Bergen, and the old royal Drontheim. In Denmark, on the contrary, everything is centralised in Copenhagen, and all the other towns are miserable holes, where no one will live who can possibly avoid it. In fact, Denmark could not exist without Copenhagen, and it is perfectly justified in saying l'Etat c'est moi!

There is one thing for which other nations may envy the Danes, and that is the art treasures which Thorwaldsen left his country. Besides specimens of his own sculpture, the great artist collected some 300 pictures of old masters, which he also left to the Danes. For his fatherland he even made the greatest sacrifice possible. In the evening of his life he quitted Rome, where he had resided forty years, to live in the cold and misty north. Denmark has no want of literati, and a great deal has been done for the old northern literature and philology. The university has been remarkable for its professors since the foundation, one of the most celebrated being Oerstedt. Holberg devoted his talents to the stage even before Lessing in Germany, while Oelenschläger, by his poetry, gained the hearts of his countrymen and the admiration of Europe. It must not be forgotten that the government grants very liberal pensions to men of talent, for otherwise they would starve. In this they afford a worthy example to Sweden, where, under the same circumstances, government does nothing for authors and artists. At present, however, literature is not very flourishing in Denmark; no new race has yet sprung up to take the place of the departed heroes. Herz, the author of "King

Réné's Daughter," is in years, and so is Hieberg, the author of many celebrated dramatic works. At present the Danes have no novelist to boast of; the only one they possessed, Anderssen, forsook his country before he had attained a great reputation, and now resides in Weimar. The Danes cannot forgive him for the craving he has for German orders, and he has no prospect of ever again finding mercy in the eyes of his countrymen. The government fosters native artists, not merely by allowing them pensions, but by purchasing their pictures, of which 150 have been collected into a National Gallery. They are principally works dating from the last twenty years, and among them are some valuable specimens. But the artists are ungrateful, and as soon as they begin to make a name, they desert their country and settle in Germany or France. Our author sums up the character of the Danes thus:

The Danes seem to me like a man who, being naturally short-statured, wears high-heeled boots, and employs all possible schemes to conceal his defects. Hence they exert themselves in every possible way, but cannot quite conceal their deficiencies. It is the same in their government, their metropolis, their acts, and their industry. They cannot keep up with the great European powers in progress, though they believe themselves quite capable of doing so, possess the same self-esteem as the French, and hence look down on other nations, especially the Germans, as if themselves were the chosen people to whom Providence in its wisdom has imparted peculiar qualities. It is true that many of the Danes are en lightened men, but it would be difficult to point out any period when they have made an important discovery, or displayed any remarkable intelligence. In no branch of human activity have they ever taken the lead, either in trade or in manufacturing, in the mechanical sciences, or in the domain of art and poetry. They have certainly done more than the other northern nations, but the Swedes and Norwegians are now progressing rapidly in trade and navigation, and so they will gradually devote themselves to the arts. The prominent advantage the Danes possess is the more general education and the favourable situation of their country, their better acquaintance with the world, and the happy success of their pretensions. They are active and strong; hence their imagination is lively, and consequently they are clever actors and diplomatists, but even these qualities seem to have degenerated with their country.

All that remains to us now to notice is the Scandinavian Union, which received in some measure the royal assent in Sweden by the reception granted publicly to the Danish students last year in Stockholm. The idea is certainly admirable, for union would here be strength, and Russian intrigues in Denmark would receive a death-blow. But the jealousy existing between the three races will probably prevent any such union for the present; for the Danes are in every respect entitled to the supremacy of the northern nations, but Sweden and Norway, in the consciousness of their progress, are very disinclined to allow it. The Swedes insist that, prior to any amalgamation, the Danes must become thoroughly Scandinavian by giving up the duchies; and, when once restricted to their islands, they could assert no pretensions to become the head of the union. The Norwegians are not at all inclined to give up their liberal institutions even for a democratic monarchy such as Denmark would propose, and their history has sufficiently taught them the misery of Danish supremacy. At present, then, it seems as if the conflicting elements allow of no compromise; but the future affords a prospect of union. Whenever the King of Denmark dies, there will be an insurrection, for the Danes detest the successor thrust upon them by the London conferences, and, in the fear

of Denmark being lost to the Western Alliance, the Great Powers may feel disposed to promote the union by all the means at their command. The Swedes entertain a hope that their next king will reign over Scandinavia, and there is no fear that he would feel terrified at the Russian prestige which has so long prevailed in Copenhagen. Sooner or later, the duchies must be given up, and then the Danes will be compelled to seek allies in their Swedish brethren, to protect them from being swallowed up. Nor should the Western Powers feel dissatisfied at such a union as in any way thwarting their intentions, for they would thus obtain the surest bulwark against Russian expansion; and so long as Sweden takes the lead and keeps it, no apprehension need be entertained as to the firmness of the alliance between her and England.

We trust, however, that no undue precipitation will force a crisis; for if any untoward events occur in Denmark, compelling armed intervention, the consequences will be incalculable. The German Powers are threatening Denmark with a new war on behalf of the Principalities, but we need not fancy that such steps will in any way disturb our peace: 1848 has taught us the value of German interference in Schleswig. But the death of the king would lead to an embroglio; the pretenders to the throne would collect their partisans, and so surely as an insurrection broke out, so surely would Russia carry out her ambitious designs, and a flame be enkindled which would require immense energy and outlay to extinguish. It is certain that England and France cannot allow Russia to secure her position in the Baltic by an occupation of Denmark, and it seems to us that the simplest way to prevent it would be by promoting the Scandinavian Union, and doing all in our power to secure the throne for the Swedish heir-apparent.

QUEDAH: A PAGE IN MALAYAN AND SIAMESE HISTORY.*

QUEDAH is the name of a small province on the western coast of Malaya. It had been always in olden time a Malay state, though possibly tributary alternately to either the Emperor of Siam or the Emperor of Malacca, as the power of either happened to be in the ascendant. After the Portuguese crushed the Malay empire by the capture of Malacca in 1511, it is possible that the Rajah of Quedah presented this "golden flower" to the Emperor of Siam, and in a way swore fealty to that monarch. We, however, seem to have heeded the suzerainty of the Siamese very little, when it served the Honourable Company's interest; for in 1786 we find them inducing the Rajah of Quedah, on his own sole right and responsibility, to sell us the island of Penang for the yearly sum of ten thousand dollars, an annuity upon which the descendants of the rulers of Quedah now exist in Malacca.

Quedah; or, Stray Leaves from a Journal in Malayan Waters. By Captain Sherard Osborn, R.N., C.B. London: Longman and Co. 1857.

However, about the time we were engaged in the first Burmese war, and when it became highly desirable to keep the Siamese neutral in the fray, the Emperor of Siam chose to invade Quedah, and after committing unheard-of atrocities upon the Malay inhabitants, he established his rule, and was confirmed in it by a treaty with us. The Malay chieftains, however, considered themselves aggrieved, and in 1838, when the Hyacinth, one of her Majesty's 18-gun ship-rigged.corvettes, Captain Warren, was at Singapore, they fitted out a fleet of forty war prahus, carrying two thousand fighting men, at a place called Battu-putih, or "White Rocks," on the Sumatran coast, and succeeded with that force in bringing the province under Malay rule.

This fleet of prahus, styled by us a piratical one, sailed under the colours of the ex-Rajah of Quedah; and although many of the leaders were known and avowed pirates, still the strong European party at Penang maintained that at all events, for the time being, they were lawful belligerents, battling to regain their own. The Siamese, however, knew perfectly well how to appeal to a treaty when it involved their own interests, and a deputation from Bankok soon waited upon the governor of the Straits of Malacca, calling upon the British to aid them in asserting their legal yet unjust rights. British good faith to one party had to be supported at the sacrifice of British justice towards the other; and, as usual, the unfortunate Malays were thrown overboard, their rights ignored, themselves declared pirates, and their leader-one Prince Abdullah, a descendant of the ex-rajah-a rebel escaped from British surveillance.

A plan of operations was accordingly arranged, in conjunction with the Siamese, emissaries from his golden-tufted majesty having been sent there for that purpose. The British were to blockade closely the coast of Quedah directly the north-east monsoon, or fine-weather season, commenced, whilst a Siamese army of 30,000 men marched down to reconquer the province.

The Hyacinth, besides her own boats, had lent to her for this service three lugger-rigged and decked gun-boats, named respectively the Diamond, Pearl, and Emerald, or Nos. 1, 2, and 3. They were all manned by Malays, as great, if not greater, pirates and scamps than those whom they went to fight against. Captain Sherard Osborn, of Arctie celebrity, at that time a midshipman of seventeen, was appointed to the Emerald, and a trying position he must have been placed in, the only Englishman, and he a mere boy, in command of twenty-five stout swarthy Malays, to a man criminals of the deepest dye. Well might he exclaim, "Pleasant company!" as he scanned the rogues, who, seated along the deck on either side, were throwing themselves back with a shout at every stroke of their "sweeps," and displaying 'twenty-five as reckless, devil-maycare countenances as any equal number of seamen ever exhibited. One or two characters stood out in relief from this recreant crew. First, there was the serang, or coxswain, Jadee, a tremendous man-eater; then Hajji, or one who had made the pilgrimage to Meccah, and who was, in consequence, not only eminently pious, but was also as eminently skilled in the mystic, physical, and medical sciences. In the first, he was, however, rivalled by a great professor of the Mussulman faith, one Ali, or Alee, as Captain Osborn writes it. There was also Jamboo, the inter

preter, a half-caste, handsome, but effeminate, weak, and nervous in temperament, and obedient as a child.

The Emerald was stationed at first, with the pinnace and the Pearl, off the shallow bar which lies across the Quedah river, a feature common to every river on this side of the Malayan peninsula. The fort of Quedah hoisted its colours, and armed men showed themselves along the battlements; but the boats merely placed themselves in line across the entrance of the river, out of gun-shot, and anchored to commence the blockade.

Our gun-boats lay at the distance of about twelve hundred yards from the mouth of the river, across which a stout stockade had been formed, leaving only one narrow outlet, and there the Malays had stationed a look-out man to give an alarm in case of necessity. Within the stockade, upon the north bank of the river, stood the town and fort of Quedah.

The latter was a rectangular work built of stone, and said to have been constructed in the days when the Portuguese were in the zenith of their glory. The parapet was now sadly dilapidated, and armed with a few rusty guns, whilst on a bastion which, at one of the angles, served to flank the sea face of the works, and command the river entrance, several long, formidable looking pieces of cannon were pointed threateningly at us. Beyond the fort, and on the same side of the river, a long continuation of neat-looking thatch-built houses constituted the town, and off it lay numerous trading prahus, and several topes, a Malayo-Chinese vessel peculiar to the Straits of Malacca. A dense and waving jungle of trees skirted round the town and fort of Quedah, and spread away on either hand in a monotonous line of green.

The first week or ten days of the blockade was monotonous enough: they had to be guarded in their movements, as the policy intended to be pursued by the enemy had not developed itself, and they were yet ignorant of the force of armed prahus which they might possess up the river. At length, want of wood and fresh water in the little squadron obliged the senior officer to detach the Emerald to a group of islands, called the Bounting group, about twenty miles distant, in quest of such necessary articles. Having no small boats, the mode of procuring wood and water was primitive enough: the gun-boat used to be anchored in a convenient position, and then all hands, young Osborn included, jumped overboard, swam ashore with casks and axes, and spent the day filling the former, cutting wood, bathing, and washing their clothing. It was a general holiday; and, like seamen of our own country, the Malays skylarked, joked, and played about, with all the zest of schoolboys. Jadee having communicated one day to Mr. Osborn, that Ali had discovered a splendid wild bees'-nest on Pulo Bedan, he expressed a strong desire to see the process by which the bees were robbed of their store.

We happened to be standing in a wood on a part of that island, and the bees were flying about us, when I expressed this wish in my usual tone of voice. "Hush!" said Jadee, putting his finger to his lips, "hush! speak low, or the bees will hear us!" And then, in a whispering voice, he informed me that the honey would not be fit for capture for some time: and that, at any rate, it was wrong to disturb the bees except at the full of the moon. As he considered it necessary to wait for that auspicious period, I assented, and only took care at the next full moon to be there. Alee and four other Malay seamen were told off to rob the bees'-nest, and they, as well as myself, were soon stripped and swimming ashore. I observed that each man carried with him a small bundle of the husk of cocoa-nut shells, and directly they landed they proceeded to cut