For EIGHT DOLLARS remitted directly to the Publishers, the LIVING AGE will be punctually forwarded for a year, free of postage.

Remittances should be made by bank draft or check, or by post-office money-order, if possible. If neither of these can be procured, the money should be sent in a registered letter. All postmasters are obliged to register letters when requested to do so. Drafts, checks, and money-orders should be made payable to the order of LITTELL & Co.

Single copies of the LIVING AGE, 18 cents.

THE OIL-PRESS.

A TUSCAN PICTURE.

A COOL mysterious chamber, where the glow

Of wintry sunshine from the small barred square

Pierces white radiance through the dusty air;

And in the midst, with patient step and slow,

The white ox treads his round, with head bent low

Beneath the yoke; taking his ample share

A presence pure once moved through the
hushed place,

Stately and sweet and free,
Gave to its tongueless beauty vital grace,
Lit the sequestered lea.

What images engaging gathered there

What warmth, what wit, what charm! How filled with glory were those pastures bare,

How glowed the homely farm!

That form has vanished, and the voice is still,

The halo paled away;

Of labor. The revolving wheel lays Sunset is sad upon the lonely hillbare

The trough wherein it turns, and where

The gold of morning grey;

We feel it as we track the wandering

stream,

Or climb the woodland slope;

Which fills the hempen baskets 'neath the Behind us lies the Eden of a dream,

Before - hard, wistful hope!
Spectator.

JOSEPH TRUMAN.

From The Quarterly Review.
A CYCLE OF CATHAY.1

behavior. The least infraction of the laws laid down for their guidance was WE have seldom read a biography punished by the suspension of trade, which has pictured more clearly and by the withdrawal of their native serfaithfully the subject of its pages than vants, and by the cutting off of all the work which we have put at the supplies. Like the Dutch at Decima head of this article. Many circum- in Japan, they lived at Canton a life of stances have contributed to this result, subjection and insult, to which they apart from the unquestionable skill were fain to submit in exchange for with which the materials have been the large fortunes which the rich shiparranged. Sir Harry Parkes was aments to Europe enabled them to man with marked characteristics. Pos-amass.

sessed of eminent ability, of a courage Such was the condition of things in which never flinched even in moments China when the English government of greatest danger, of a tact and insight took over the management of affairs. into the Oriental character which made In 1833 the transfer from the company him at once admired and dreaded alike to the crown was effected, and from by Chinese mandarins, Japanese dai- that point the history of our relations mios, and Siamese grandees, Sir Harry with China begins. It was thought Parkes stands out as a figure which that the fact of the merchants being must always command attention, while the background of the picture is full of those dramatic situations which seem to fall only to the lot of men of the British race.

members only of a trading company had induced the Chinese authorities to treat them with contumely. It was known that of all bureaucrats the Chinese were the most bureaucratic; that The history of our relations with the possession of an office, however China is practically included within the insignificant, raised the holder imlast sixty years-exactly a Chinese measurably above the people, and it cycle. Before that time, in spite of the was natural therefore to assume that, missions of Lord Macartney and Lord when the English representative should Amherst, China was, to all intents and develop from a merchant into his Majpurposes, a terra incognita. The few esty's minister, a corresponding change merchants who traded in the silks and of conduct might be looked for on the teas of that favored land, lived cabined, part of the mandarins. But this view, cribbed, confined within the narrow though reasonable, was based on mislimits of the factory sites of Canton. conception. In their ignorance of any. Beyond the boundaries of that settle- thing outside the frontiers of China, ment they moved only at their peril. and in the pride begotten of more than They were not permitted to enjoy the twenty centuries of dominion, the Chisociety of their wives and daughters. nese regarded, and still regard, all They were forbidden to enter the city, foreigners with contempt. Their attiand their expeditions on the river were tude has always been that foreigners strictly limited to a given number of residing on their shores are to be remiles. They were not allowed to enter garded as "barbarians," who have the presence of officials even of the come to seek light and leading as well lowest grades, and all communications as commerce in the territories of the to the local authorities took the form Son of Heaven, and that their posiof petitions. The only natives with tion should be that of suppliants for whom they had communication were certain merchants who were especially appointed as guarantors for their good

the imperial favor. Ambassadors commanded no more respect than mercantile representatives. Neither Lord Napier, the first accredited minister to China, nor his successor, Sir George Robinson, met with anything but insult at the hands of the Chinese, who

are past masters in the art of harassing | out supplies of food, deprived of our their opponents. In 1837 Sir Charles servants, and cut off from all interElliot became minister, and his ap-course with our respective countries." pointment was the first step towards Unhappily for the continuance of peace the war of 1840. between the two countries, this mode

over

So long ago as 1799 a powerful agita- of compulsion succeeded, and tion had been aroused in China by the twenty thousand chests of opium, drain of silver occasioned by the pay-valued at 2,000,000l. sterling, were ment in specie for the opium imported given up and destroyed. If our relafrom India. In 1839 the question was tions with the Chinese have taught us once more raised. Memorial after me- one thing more than another, it is that morial was presented to the throne, to yield to hectoring and bluster inevipraying that steps might be taken to tably results in further demands and check the flow of the precious metal more blatant hostility. If Sir Charles abroad. The Council of State carefully Elliot thought that by consenting to discussed the situation; and though a this proceeding he would conciliate the majority of the ministers were in favor commissioner, he was mistaken. Lin of prohibiting the importation of the continued to take no notice of him, and drug, a minority recommended that the arrested British subjects without any traffic should be legalized, but kept in reference to him whatever. This was check by a duty which would add bad enough, but the insolence of the wealth to the coffers of the State. Chinese extended still further. Their Technically the trade had already been war-junks ventured to insult British forbidden, and the traffic against which men-of-war; and when off Chuenpi the emperor's edicts fulminated was a two English ships resented the unwarsmuggling concern which the Chinese rantable pretensions of a fleet of thirtygovernment, had it been in earnest, nine junks by sinking and disabling and had it been possessed of the power them, Lin issued a decree putting an common to all civilized governments, end to all foreign trade, and ordering might easily have put down. It was, the expulsion of British subjects from however, powerless to suppress it, and the shores of China. the wisest course, therefore, would Such an outrage amounted to a dechave been to do then what has been laration of war. The gage thus thrown done now, and to lend the sanction of down was taken up by the English the State to the trade. But in such government, and in 1840 an expedition matters the emperor's government has was sent out under the command of never shown itself far-seeing, and Commissioner Lin was appointed in 1839 to report upon the strained condition of affairs at Canton, where trade had been twice suspended and twice timidly resumed, and to suppress the traffic in opium."

Sir Hugh Gough to punish the emperor's government for the wrong done, and to attempt to place the relations between the two countries on a more satisfactory footing. As preliminary measures the Island of Chusan was occupied, and the forts on the Canton With the ignorant hauteur of a Chi- River were captured, leaving the city nese mandarin, Lin, on arriving at his itself at our mercy. With that fatal post, ignored the English minister, and want of appreciation of the necessities imperiously ordered the British mer- of the case which has pursued us chants to surrender all the opium through most of our dealings with in their possession. In order to en- China, the British commander, instead force this decree he imprisoned the of marching into the city and settling foreign merchants in the factories, and once and for all the question of the even Sir Charles Elliot was, as he right of entry, which was subsequently wrote, "forcibly detained, together to give rise to the second war, agreed with all the merchants of my own and to release the city on the payment of other foreign nations settled here, with-au indemnity. Even when negotiating

this convention, the British commander the depth of his character, and the was not allowed to enter the gates, but strong religious impressions he had rewas induced to state his terms at the ceived from his mother's teaching, foot of the city wall, over which, in saved him from many temptations barbaric token of a desire for peace, which might well have gained the masthe Chinese general threw him the gold tery over him. Bright, clever, and bangles from his arm. In the north active, he soon became a prime favorthe Chinese displayed the same invet-ite, not only with Dr. Gutzlaff and Mr. erate hostility towards the foreigners Morrison, under both of whom he which characterized the mandarins at served his apprenticeship for the conCanton. The local authorities vied sular service, but with Sir Henry Potwith the imperial censors in their vitu- tinger, her Majesty's minister, Major peration of the hated foreigners. In Caine, the military magistrate, and State papers addressed to the throne, Captain Keppel (now Sir Harry Kepthey described the English barba- pel), with whom his love of adventure rians," as an insignificant and detest- and dauntless bravery formed a kinable race, as untamable robbers, and as dred tie. devoid of all feelings but those for Both Dr. Gutzlaff and Mr. Morrison gain. Deceived by these State papers, recognized the danger which so much the emperor, in one of the several lulls social prosperity was likely to entail, which occurred during the war, gra- and kept the boy hard at work. The ciously declared that, "if the barba- lad himself was well aware of his own rians would repent, become humble educational deficiencies, and in him, and submissive, they might still obtain therefore, his preceptors found a willa share of the tender favor of our ing pupil. But the lot which had Celestial dynasty towards strangers.' "fallen into the lap of the gods had deIn a less ingenuous manifesto the Chinese commissioner was instructed to take advantage of a truce to destroy the British ships, to seize the crews, and to send their heads to Peking in baskets.

creed that a career of active usefulness was his destiny. The times were out of joint. A small body of Englishmen were pitted face to face with a fourth of the human race. A war was in progress, and it was no time, therefore, It was at this juncture that Harry for any one who could serve his counParkes, a boy who was then just thir- try to devote himself to his books. teen years of age, landed on the shores The rules which he had carefully laid of China. While yet a child he had down for the employment of his time lost both father and mother, and with were thus rudely interfered with; and his two sisters had taken up his resi- when Sir Henry Pottinger advanced up dence with his uncle, a retired naval the Yangtsze-kiang to Nanking, Harry officer, at Birmingham. There he at- Parkes was ordered to accompany him. tended King Edward's Grammar School Though he had been a conscientious until the death of his uncle in 1841, pupil, the entries in his journal show when he accepted the invitation of his that this new career was more to his cousin, Mrs. Gutzlaff, to join his sisters taste than the humdrum life at Macao. at Macao in China, where these had With zest he took part in every hostile already taken up their abode, under operation, and the more hazardous it the hospitable roof of that missionary was the better it suited his adventurous lady. The new surroundings were spirit. Wherever the Pluto anchored, such as constituted a great moral dan- he wandered on shore in careless deger to a lad of his age. At a time fiance of the fact that he was in an when most boys are beginning the enemy's country. On one occasion he more serious work of school, he en- landed at Woosung, accompanied by tered upon life in a new country, and a young fellow who "was dreadfully isolated altogether from companions of frightened of being kidnapped, although his own standing. Happily for him, he was nearly grown up," writes the