in solitude, and he promised shortly to send us down a new and perfectly different system, which should be quite perfect."

"No man should henceforth be kept in solitude, on any consideration,* only every one should be kept strictly separate from every one else. We pondered for a time on what this might mean. At last came out the New Separate System, and then the few amongst us who had long been Visiting Magistrates found that this new system was very nearly Sir George Paul's original plan, stripped of its American improvements."

"It is [therefore] something to brag' of that when the prison system had always been so utterly horrible, one man of our county, with only Howard's suggestions to guide him, invented a certain system, and this system spread throughout the world. Kings even wrote upon it. All tried to improve upon it. But at the end of fifty years, the last and greatest improvement that could be devised was the restoring it to almost exactly Sir George Paul's original design."

There is another great improvement in the treatment of crime, for which the credit is entirely due to the exertions of Mr. Baker himself and of his colleague Mr. Bengough, a younger brother magistrate of Gloucestershire. Even the Philanthropic Society in London (the origin of the Reformatory at Red-hill) "owed a great deal of its success to the labours and influence of a Gloucestershire man, the late George Peter Holford, Esq., of Westonbirt, father of our present worthy member for the eastern division of the county;" but to the establishment of the reformatory on Mr. Baker's estate at Hardwicke we are indebted for the introduction of the system throughout the kingdom, and for all the practical benefits which have followed. Speaking with his usual kindly humour of Mr. Baker and his friend, Mr. Lysons tells us: "This par nobile of Gloucestershire County Gentlemen strenuously devoted themselves to this excellent work; they buckled to in right good earnest, the latter actually living with these young criminals for several months, that he might watch their habits, and learn, from studying their characters, how to improve them. One hears occasionally of great naturalists living with birds and animals around them, to watch their habits, but it is the first time I ever heard of ornithology carried to such an extent as to induce gentlemen to study [in this way] the peculiarities of gaol birds."

It is in their results that the great value of these good intentions has been manifested; and we do not suppose that there are many who can hear of them without some degree of interest.

The only satisfactory information obtained by those who attend our criminal courts is a knowledge of the fact that very few persons are impelled to crime by actual want. The Thievish and Fraudulent may be divided into two principal classes: 1. Those who covet something for which they will not work,-indeed, a strong aversion to work, under any circumstances, is one of their peculiarities; and 2. Those who are trained or hereditary professional rogues. In many of both classes, we agree with Lord Stanley, there are also evidences of some defect in the mental faculties.

* There is, of course, the dark cell as a temporary punishment for breach of discipline.

Now the kind of criminals to which Mr. Baker has devoted his special attention is precisely that from which the second class we have named is recruited. The establishment of Reformatories has not merely diminished the number of juvenile offenders: it has broken up their training schools. In the care with which Mr. Baker watches over the boys after their discharge there is something remarkable. He gives, to many, another and another chance, and often succeeds in cases that every one else would consider hopeless.

We have neither books nor documents before us-nor, indeed, at present anything except a wide expanse of heath-but we speak with knowledge of the results, though our memory may fail us as to the statistics; and the results are as extraordinary as they are gratifying. There are few Magistrates in Gloucestershire so recently appointed as not to remember when-including the city gaol-there were seven prisons in the county. There is now only one, which is capable of containing upwards of four hundred prisoners, but is rarely more than half full-though it receives convicts, under contract, from other places; and all this has been accomplished within the last five or six years. During the same period the cost of prosecutions has been reduced more than half; and the number of juvenile offenders, tried, has fallen from near ninety to very little above twenty. The operation of the Criminal Justice Act of 1855 has done something towards thinning the gaols; as, under its summary process, there are now fewer prisoners waiting their trial at sessions or assizes; and we must give credit also, in the diminution of crime, to the county police, which this was the first county to adopt after the passing of the Act in 1839.

These are achievements of which a county may indeed be proud.

As regards the number of celebrated writers which Gloucestershire has produced, Mr. Lysons does not make out a very strong case. He omits to tell us that his own family has contributed some of the best of our English antiquaries; and he claims for the county Roger Bacon in science, and Sternhold and Hopkins in poetry; but the one is doubtful, and the others will not "count many points." Southey and Chatterton were born at Bristol; Bristol, however, is not wholly Gloucestershire. Taylor, the water poet, was born at Gloucester; and William Cartwright (Ben Jonson's "son Cartwright") near Tewkesbury. But if Gloucestershire is not the birthplace of great poets, it has been their home. Milton, we are reminded, wrote his "Paradise Lost" at Eyford, near Stow-on-theWold, the picturesque retreat of his patron the Duke of Shrewsbury; Pope wrote some of his poetry at Lord Bathurst's, at Cirencester; and Swift dwelt at Berkeley Castle as private secretary to the then Earl of Berkeley.

Berkeley Castle Mr. Lysons considers amongst the distinctions of Gloucestershire, as being one of the oldest inhabited houses in Britain. It may be supposed that a place built as a stronghold in the time of Edward the Confessor, and but little changed, is not very well adapted. to the habits of the nineteenth century; yet even as a modern residence it is, in many respects, a fitting abode for its noble and distinguished possessor. It stands above the town of Berkeley, frowning with massive sternness from an eminence that overlooks the rich valley of the Severn; and a rather sharp ascent leads to a gateway opening upon the courtyard. There is no other grand entrance. A small door reached by one

or two steps, in a corner of the court, conducts to the principal apartments. To the right, on the ground-floor, is a library of moderate dimensions. To the left, on the floor above, approached by a not-verywide stone staircase, is a handsome suite of rooms, consisting of a musicroom, drawing-room, and second drawing-room-which in the late earl's time was the dining-room. The furniture and ornaments-some of them of considerable antiquity-are rich and in excellent accordance with the character of the building. The paintings are chiefly portraits; and in a family distinguished during eight centuries it may be supposed that they are numerous. Beyond the second drawing-room is the ancient chapel, now daily used. A flight of steps to its left, of very easy descent, leads to the present dining-room; and there are few palaces even that contain such an apartment as this. It is the old baronial hall restored and redecorated; and it is impossible to conceive a place in which there is such a total absence of anything that can disturb the enjoyments of the table. Its loftiness and magnificent extent give a purity to the atmosphere that is itself a luxury; yet, even in such weather as last winter, there is no feeling of chilliness; a well-arranged apparatus for the supply of heated external air produces a temperature that is perfect. On a cloudy morning in February, when "the meet" is at "the kennels," there are few things more enjoyable than a previous breakfast in such a room as the old hall at Berkeley. The way in which the habits of former ages have interfered with modern arrangements is chiefly evident in the sleepingrooms. In place of opening into a corridor, they usually open into each other, and it has required skilful management to prevent their sometimes doing so inconveniently. It may also be supposed that when the light has to come through openings in wall some six feet thick, it must at times be intercepted. But, with all this, Berkeley Castle is a place which only nobility can possess-and only the nobility that has existed for centuries. Within sight of it is a princely establishment for one of the best studs and the best pack of foxhounds in the kingdom. We are not aware at what period these outworks were constructed. The Castle

is matter of history. It was given in the reign of Henry II. to a descendant of the Hardinge (son of Sueno, King of Denmark) who was the kinsman and companion in arms of William I., and for seven hundred years it has been held by one of the same family, either as a baron or an earl. Its present possessor, it will be remembered, claims the barony of De Berkeley by tenure. That of Fitzhardinge was recently conferred upon him as due to his services and position, his descent and wide domains. There is in Bristol Cathedral a monument to one of his ancestors, by whom the monastery of St. Augustine, of which the cathedral formed part, was founded in the fifth year of King Stephen; and there are remains of the walls of his house still standing in "Baldwin-street;" so that there is a fitness and historical keeping in the present title of Baron Fitzhardinge of Bristol.

We shall not trespass further upon the subjects briefly touched upon by Mr. Lysons. It is one of the advantages of reading his productions that they seem to give us, for the time, the same genial disposition as his own, and in this mood we cordially thank him for the information and amusement we have derived from his pleasant tribute to the glory of one of our favourite counties.

DUELLING IN MODERN TIMES.*

DUELLING, So rife in France in the middle ages, was little less so in Great Britain. Edmund II. and Canute had set their subjects the example. The judicial combat is said to have been upheld in this country longer than any other. Nothing could exceed the ferocity exhibited at the encounter of William Count of Eu and of Godefroy Baynard, in 1096, in presence of William II. The Earl of Essex, defeated in a judicial combat by Robert of Montfort, in 1163, withdrew to the monastery at Reading. In a judicial combat, held at Dublin in 1583, one of the combatants, M'Gill Patrick, cut his opponent's (M'Cormack's) head off, and laid it at the feet of the judges. It was in vain that the Star Chamber fulminated its decrees against duelling in the seventeenth century; the fashion was rampant, and the practice of almost daily occurrence. The Puritans first set the example of disregard of the accepted laws of honour.

Lord Holles insulted Ireton to no purpose. He even pulled his nose, exposing to him that his conscience should know no wrong, if, having committed such, he should decline to give satisfaction for it. Cromwell's edicts did not prevent the Dukes of Buckingham and Beaufort fighting in a gravel-pit in Hyde Park.

The quarrels of Walpole, Pulteney, and Bolingbroke paved the way for those numerous and disastrous duels which had their foundation in political differences. There was a brief epoch connected with the stage -that of Quin, Garrick, and Macklin-peculiarly characterised by irascibility of temper and turbulence of disposition. Macklin caused the death of Hallam, it is said, by a poke, rather than a blow, with his stick. Pistols, canes, and fists were alternately had recourse to by these choleric Thespians.

The parliamentary debates of 1778 to 1780) were especially violent. Mr. Adam challenged Fox, and wounded him slightly. Pitt had to meet Tierney, and Lord Castlereagh wounded Canning.

A peculiarly melancholy event occurred at Armagh, on the 23rd of June, 1808. The 21st had been reviewed by General Kerr, when, after dinner, a trifling discussion arose between Captains Boyd and Campbell regarding some incident of the day, which led to words. The two gentlemen left the mess-room, and shortly afterwards the sound of pistols was heard in an adjacent apartment. Rushing in, Boyd was found in a chair, mortally wounded. They had fought without witnesses, and by the light of two candles, stuck at each end of the room. Campbell took refuge for some time at Chelsea, but he soon gave himself up, and was hung (after in vain begging to be shot) at Armagh, in 1809. So much for a foolish, hasty word after dinner, and the neglect of those present to ward off evil consequences.

O'Connell having shot D'Esterre, who had undertaken to avenge the Dublin municipality, designated as "beggarly" by the great agitator

Histoire Anecdotique du Duel dans tous les Temps et dans tous les Pays. Par Emile Colombery. Collection Hertzel. Paris: Michel Lévy Frères.

he took a vow to fight no more; but as he continued to indulge in personalities just as much, his sons had to appear for him, till, after the cases of Lord Alvanley and Mr. Disraeli, they were bound over in heavy penalties to keep the peace. The Duke of Wellington and Sir Robert Peel may be both said, by their acts, to have lent their countenance to the practice of duelling as capable of avenging the insults of a political opponent. It is to be hoped that men will grow wiser in their time.

Lord Castlereagh's affair at Wormholt Scrubbs with M. Gérard de Melcy, originating in the young nobleman having written a foolish letter to Madame de Melcy, better known as Giulia Grisi, was altogether an absurd and stupid affair, which luckily terminated in a slight wound inflicted upon the enamoured viscount. The Cardigan, Reynolds, and Tuckey affair was scarcely more creditable to the parties concerned; but, so long as it is supposed that certain affronts can only be washed out by blood, Reynolds had no other alternative than to act as he did. Lord Cardigan had great good luck in the affair; he shot Harvey Tuckey, and did not even receive a reprimand, whilst Reynolds was deprived of his commission. It was, however, a complicated question, in which military discipline, personal pique, and irregularity of conduct were all concerned; but the spirit of justice would seem to demand that insult should not be given where there is neither the will nor the power to give satisfaction, or the law should protect the person from such by making insults punishable, and that severely so. Some men would not then forget themselves so easily. Imagine Kelly, the father, loading his son's pistol when about to fight Lynch at Ballinasloe! Such an act was worthy of the worst times of the Pré aux Clercs.

This allusion reminds us of incidents of duel connected with those turbulent times when parish municipalities' processions, with their banners, and even the choristers of one church would fight against the choir of another. Richelieu had the misfortune to send the wrong notes, one addressed to the Marchioness of Nesle, the other to the Countess de Polignac. The contretemps opened the eyes of both ladies, and a meeting in the Bois de Boulogne was the result.

"You may fire the first," said the countess, " and do not miss me, for I shall not miss you."

Madame de Nesle took aim, and cut a twig off a tree.

"Anger makes the hand shake," added Madame de Polignac, with the coolness of an accomplished duellist. And taking sight in her turn, she carried off the tip of Madame de Nesle's ear. The marchioness fell as if killed on the spot.

Ney, as a young man, was about to fight a duel, when he felt himself pulled by his pigtail. It was his colonel, who had him removed to a dungeon. No sooner out of durance, however, than the future marshal had his fight out. His antagonist was a maître-d'armes, and, like most of his class, a bully, who kept the whole garrison in hot water. Ney cut his right wrist, and disabled him for life. When he had risen to be a general officer, he was, however, considerate enough to grant the nuisance a pension.

An officer of the French Guard having received a slap on the face, stuck an immense piece of plaster, as large as the palm of his hand, on the spot, and then challenged the officer who had insulted him. A short