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Transcriber's note:

Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_).

Small capital text has been replaced with all capitals.

Text enclosed by equal signs is Greek transliteration (=kydei gaio=).

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  BLACKWOOD'S

  EDINBURGH MAGAZINE.




PRINTED BY WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS, EDINBURGH.




  BLACKWOOD'S

  Edinburgh

  MAGAZINE.

  VOL. LXV.

  JANUARY--JUNE, 1849.

  [Illustration: Buchanan]

  WILLIAM BLACKWOOD & SONS, EDINBURGH;

  AND

  37, PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON.

  1849.




  BLACKWOOD'S

  EDINBURGH MAGAZINE.

  NO. CCCXCIX.      JANUARY, 1849.      VOL. LXV.




CONTENTS.


  THE YEAR OF REVOLUTIONS,                    1

  FRENCH CONQUERORS AND COLONISTS,           20

  THE CAXTONS. PART IX.,                     33

  THE WHITE NILE,                            47

  ART AND ARTISTS IN SPAIN,                  63

  THE DODO AND ITS KINDRED,                  81

  THE SWORD OF HONOUR: A TALE OF 1787,       98

  MEMOIRS OF KIRKALDY OF GRANGE,            112


  EDINBURGH:

  WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS, 45, GEORGE STREET;
  AND 37, PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON.

  _To whom all Communications (post paid) must be addressed._

  SOLD BY ALL THE BOOKSELLERS IN THE UNITED KINGDOM.

  PRINTED BY WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS, EDINBURGH.




BLACKWOOD'S

EDINBURGH MAGAZINE

  NO. CCCXCIX.        JANUARY, 1849.           VOL. LXV.




THE YEAR OF REVOLUTIONS.


"No great state," says Hannibal, "can long remain quiet: if it
ceases to have enemies abroad, it will find them at home--as
powerful bodies resist all external attacks, but are wasted away
by their own internal strength."[1] What a commentary on the
words of the Carthaginian hero does the last year--THE YEAR OF
REVOLUTIONS,--afford! What enthusiasm has it witnessed, what
efforts engendered, what illusions dispelled, what misery produced!
How bitterly have nations, as well as individuals, within its
short bounds, learned wisdom by suffering--how many lessons has
experience taught--how much agony has wickedness brought in its
train. Among the foremost in all the periods of history, this
memorable year will ever stand forth, a subject of undying interest
to succeeding generations, a lasting beacon to mankind amidst the
folly or insanity of future times. To it the young and the ardent
will for ever turn, for the most singular scenes of social strife,
the most thrilling incidents of private suffering: to it the aged
will point as the most striking warning of the desperate effects of
general delusion, the most unanswerable demonstration of the moral
government of the world.

  [1] "Nulla magna civitas diu quiescere potest si foris hostem non
  habet, _domi invenit_--ut praevalida corpora ab extremis causis tuta
  videntur, sed suis ipsa viribas onerantur. Tantum, nimirum, ex
  publicis malis sentimus, quantum ad res privatas pertmet; nec in eis
  quicquam aerius, quam pecuniae damnun, stimulat."--LIVY, xxx. 44.

That God will visit the sins of the fathers upon the children was
proclaimed to the Israelites amidst the thunders of Mount Sinai,
and has been felt by every succeeding generation of men. But
it is not now upon the third or the fourth generation that the
punishment of transgression falls--it is felt in its full bitterness
by the transgressors themselves. The extension of knowledge, the
diffusion of education, the art of printing, the increased rapidity
of travelling, the long duration of peace in consequence of the
exhaustion of former wars, have so accelerated the march of events,
that what was slowly effected in former times, daring several
successive generations, by the gradual development of national
passions, is now at once brought to maturity by the fervent spirit
which is generally awakened, and the vehement passions which are
everywhere brought into action.

Everything now goes on at the gallop. There is a railway speed in
the stirring of the mind, not less than in the movement of the
bodies of men. The social and political passions have acquired
such intensity, and been so widely diffused, that their inevitable
results are almost immediately produced. The period of seed-time and
harvest has become as short in political as it is in agricultural
labour. A single year brings its appropriate fruits to maturity in
the moral as in the physical world. Eighty years elapsed