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Rh left the harem together. I did, however, give some medicine for the child, and learnt afterwards that he had got well.

The next day, we crossed the Jordan on our way to Nazareth.

I have availed myself of such opportunities as I have had to learn from intelligent Orientals themselves their views as to the comparative influences of polygamy and monogamy upon domestic happiness; and the result has been most favourable to that policy consecrated by Christian laws and Christian usages, by which one man and one woman are exclusively bound together by the marital link, and the children only of such marriages deemed to be the legitimate descendants of their parents. One of the most cultivated Turks I have ever known—a man occupying at the present moment one of the highest positions in the Ottoman empire, and well acquainted with other nations as well as his own—assured me that he had confined his attentions to the lady whom he had selected for his wife as the best means of securing his own felicity. She was a beautiful Ciresssian slave, for whom he had paid a high price: he had her instructed in various Oriental languages, so that she talked readily Turkish, Arabic, and Persian. She had visited the holy cities of Mekka and Medina, and was well read in the Koran and in the doctrines and rites of Islamism. He told me I was not to suppose she was free from woman’s weaknesses; and assured me that at different times he had adorned her person with diamond necklaces, diamond bracelets, diamond anklets—ay! and even, said he, “presented her with a diamond girdle for her waist.” He said she was a tender and a loving wife and mother: but though I did insinuate that it would gratify me much to be introduced to so meritorious a lady, I received little encouragement, and had never the privilege of setting eyes upon the wife of my illustrious friend, notwithstanding a long and close intimacy. .

(my friend Mr. Charles Keene has drawn an initial K, and therefore I must use it, or I should have liked to begin respectfully with His Gracious Majesty) George the Third reviewed Volunteers in Hyde Park on the 26th and the 28th of October, 1803. I thought, the other day, while everybody was talking about the glorious sight of last Saturday, that it would be interesting, and, what is much better, amusing, to turn back to the records of the King’s Reviews, and see whether fifty-seven years make any remarkable difference in the circumstances under which a Sovereign of England calls Englishmen to arm themselves and learn the quickest way of destroying Frenchmen.

That year, 1803, was a busy one. We were not at actual war with our friend Napoleon when it began, but before it was half through we were committed to a tremendous struggle. The Addington Cabinet was in office, but the “Doctor’s” Ministry was not considered a strong one, and people said that it must go out when any grand crash came. Lord Hawkesbury (the Foreign Secretary), and Lord Eldon and Lord Castlereagh, were also in office. Outside were Pitt, and Fox, and Lord Grenville—all strong men—but the people looked to Pitt, in case war should come, just as the people looked a short time ago to another minister—extremely like him, as far as the initial goes and in each case the people looked the right way. However, war came, but the Ministry did not turn out, though the Doctor made proposals to Mr. Pitt to take office. Pitt knew his own value, and had no idea of being a doctor’s assistant. He would come in as head of the firm, or not at all. The medical ministry held on, somehow, until May in the following year, when the heaven-born William came in for the rest of his life, unfortunately a very short term. Pitt, Fox, and Nelson, all went down nearly together. The Uncle of his Nephew was by no means so polite as is the Nephew of his Uncle. Napoleon was exceedingly arrogant just then, insulting the British Lion whenever he had a chance, saying that England, single-handed, could do nothing against France, and filling his newspapers with all kinds of anti-English matter. He had magnificent armies and a powerful fleet, and he was always making additions to both, though he persisted in saying that he was doing nothing of the kind, and declaring that England wanted war, not he. Perhaps it would have been better to have believed him, and not to have armed, but our fathers and uncles thought otherwise.

Parliament had met in the November of the preceding year, and the debates had been very interesting. With such men to speak as Pitt, Fox, Sheridan, Canning, and Wilberforce, and others whose names every schoolboy remembers (try him, Paterfamilias, he is just home for the holidays,—