murmured, and with a sudden effort she threw her herring; and it is in Scotland where this is carried right arm around his neck.

That effort was the last: in another moment the arm relaxed its hold, the last faint breath escaped, and the lips pressed with his were those of a corpse.

There is no stone by Catherine's grave, but Stuart knows it well; and sometimes when the streets are quite still, when the moon is down, and only the stars glimmer faintly on the tombstones, he wanders among the graves, and perhaps pauses a minute beside one undistinguished hillock-sometimes, but not often; for to nourish and indulge such grief as his would be madness, and he is no repining, melancholic man. The proud spirit is wrung, the strong heart nearly broken, but his burden of bitter memories is borne calmly; the duties of the dull present are performed unmurmuringly, and what he suffers, he suffers in silence.

THE HARVEST OF THE SEA.
IN TWO PARTS.-PART I.

THE HERRING-HARVEST.

on to the largest extent, involving a great amount of capital, and employing a large portion of the population: thus forming at its various stations a series of splendid depôts or drilling-places for sailors, both for the royal and the mercantile navies. Like the progress of most branches of our national industry, the growth of our fisheries, although encouraged for some years by government bounty, was, up to a certain point, slow and fluctuating. Unlike the development of land projects, there is more difficulty and danger attendant on those enterprises which are connected with the sea; and the frequent sacrifice of human life, and the total loss of valuable boats and other property on which much capital has been expended, may have hitherto tended to repress that activity in the prosecution of the fisheries which might be supposed to be almost an instinct with 'a nation of shopkeepers.'

Without going minutely into the natural history of the herring, it may be briefly mentioned that many of the old ideas regarding it have long since been exploded. It is now found that instead of being a migratory fish, coming to these shores in vast shoals on a visit from THE anxiety manifested in all countries to obtain the icy regions of the far north, and then after a information as to the cereal harvests and the pro- brief stay with us, for the purpose of spawning, breakbable yield of grain or roots, is now so well known, ing up and taking their departure-they are 'native as to render it a curious circumstance that the pro- here and to the manner born,' breeding on our coasts, duce of the sea should not yet have excited that share and always to be found during some part of the year of attention which its inexhaustible food-resources at some particular fishing-ground. Thus, so early as ought ere this to have called forth. Considering that in the month of May, fishing begins at the Lewis, and this country has the advantage of lines of railway proceeds as the year advances till it reaches the more able to carry produce of any kind to points of great southern stations, being at Edinburgh in summer, and distance in a few hours, it is somewhat astonish-Yarmouth in autumn. In some of the western Scottish ing that commercial sagacity has not yet seized upon lochs, the fish are to be found even in early winter; our sea-harvest with greater avidity, as a means of and on the Ayrshire coast, the herrings are abundant speculation and money-making. So far as we know, in the spring months. So that nearly all the year there are only one or two private companies who have round we can have herrings; and were the deep-sea ventured on such an enterprise; there are no steam-fishing prosecuted as it might be, great quantities propelled fishing-boats, and no improvements of any would be constantly found. moment in our fishing-gear; in fact, to the best of our knowledge, the system of fishing is still pursued as it was in the days of our great-grandfathers. Indeed, so far at least as Scotland is concerned, the best index to the state of the fisheries is obtained by glancing at the condition of the fishing-villages, which are, as to manners, customs, intelligence, and sanitary regulations, two hundred years behind the age in which we live.

The manufacturing and agricultural interests have during the last fifty years made giant strides towards a more perfect development, whilst our fisheries are, comparatively speaking, still in their infancy. But the system of artificial propagation, and steam-carriage from the fishing-station to the market, in specially constructed welled-vessels, in conjunction with a large extension of the plan of deep-sea fishing, would enrich the country with immense supplies of cheap and wholesome food; and speculators in such a field of labour might realise large fortunes as the reward of their enterprise. The present enormous demand for fish in London, and the quantities which might be disposed of in our large and populous inland manufacturing towns, almost exceed belief. The rapid modes of transmission now so common, together with the improved methods of packing and preserving, lead us to hope that we may yet live to see the food-produce of the great deep more than doubled.

To arrive at anything like a notion of the harvest of the sea, as already obtained, or a correct idea of the gross amount of food it would yield, if the various means and appliances of art were used, will require a little arrangement; and as the subject can be conveniently divided, we propose to speak first of the herring-fishery.

The most valuable of our British fisheries is undoubtedly that branch devoted to the capture of the

The fishing-station of Wick, in Scotland, may be regarded as the centre of the most productive district in that country; and all along the northern coast by Banff, Whitehill, Portsoy, Fraserburgh, &c., the herring-fishery is prosecuted with great assiduity; but the amount of business done in this branch at Wick amounts to nearly a fourth of the estimated value of the whole of the Scottish fisheries. As regards the amount of capital sunk in this branch of industry, we are sure we do not exaggerate when we set it down as amounting to nearly three millions of pounds sterling and by means of this, the capture of fish is nearly a million barrels per annum.

The towns and villages of the north-east coast of Scotland owe their existence principally to the fact of their being a field of labour in the fisheries; at anyrate, it is from this cause that many of them-whatever their antecedents-have been converted into those thriving hives of industry we now find them; and many prosperous towns and villages are rapidly gaining importance from their connection with the herring-trade. From Wick to Peterhead, there are a great number of towns having a population varying from 100 to 10,000 inhabitants, and presenting a total of 3000 herring-boats and 15,000 men, and all dependent on the produce of the sea. Proceeding further to the southward, there are between Peterhead and Anstruther 46 fishing-villages, with 1000 boats and 5000 men; in the Leith district, 11 stations, with 354 boats and 1100 fishermen; the Eyemouth district, 7 stations, 225 boats, and 1000 men; Greenock, 31 stations, 591 boats, and 1800 men; Rothesay, 17 stations, 551 boats, and 1600 men; Inverary district, 47 stations, 1062 boats, and 3189 men; Loch Shieldaig, 15 stations, 307 boats, and 1085 men; Loch Broom, 42 stations, 570 boats, and 2120 men; Stornoway, 7 stations, 418 boats, and 2178 men. Coming to Orkney

and Shetland, we have-Shetland, 11 stations, 655 boats, and 3165 men; Orkney, 32 stations, 606 boats, and 2472 men.' The amount of the population concerned in this branch of the fisheries is 68,952, which is made up as follows: 40,350 fishermen, 1913 coopers, 21,832 women employed as cleaners, packers, &c., 3730 labourers, and 1127 fish-curers.

The quality of this fish is described as being divided into three kinds. It is called a matie when it is in its best order-the milt or roe not too much developed. In this condition it is preferable to the full fish, which is another designation; as when the roe or milt is too ripe the flesh is not so rich as in its former stage, its substance having passed into the other portions of its body. There are more of the full fish in the market than there is of the other qualities; as, being on the point of spawning, the shoals come into shallow water for that purpose, and are of course easier of capture than the maties, which keep more to the deep sea. The third quality, the spent fish, make very 'lenten entertainment,' as their substance is gone, and the shadow only left, the flesh being flavourless and watery. There is a great demand for the full fish, in consequence of their large size. They are exported in large quantities to Ireland, where they find a ready market. This kind of herring is mostly caught on our north-east fishingground. The Dutch-cured fish are celebrated for their fine quality; but they begin their season earlier than we do, and catch and cure simultaneously-their fishingcraft admitting not only of this being done, but being even of sufficient size to carry a large stock of staves to make into barrels. Their fish are all maties, and are cured in a different way from ours-the crown-gut being left in the fish, which, it is said, improves the flavour. In all this the Dutch but retain their old superiority, for, as is well known, they prosecuted this branch of industry long before we began to avail ourselves of the wealth of the seas. Their enterprise dates as far back as two centuries from our day, when they had nearly 2000 vessels engaged in the trade in our seas and rivers.

Every season, then, the coasts of Scotland wake up to a brief period of determined industry-the portion of the population having commerce with the sea putting forth their best energies to gather in the harvest of the passing hour; so that from morning to night, and from night to morning, the fishing-stations are perfect hives of productive labour, which continues for a few brief weeks, and then the place subsides once more into a sluggish state of repose for a large portion of the year.

cannot be withdrawn. When once a fleet of boats has
taken up a position, they are very tenacious of it, and
wait with patience, drifting for a long time with the
tide till the fish strike. After waiting long, and when
it is suspected there is no herring, the nets are
'pree'd,' or inspected; and in the event of there being
no fish, they are hauled in, and the boats move off to
another quarter. When the fish do come against the
floating wall of nets, they are, after sufficient time has
been allowed for them to mesh, carefully hauled on
board, shaken out of the nets, and carried on shore.
This is an improvement on a former practice which
permitted the fish to remain in the net till the boat
landed; but by this means they were so 'hashed' and
broken as greatly to deteriorate their value.

Herrings are also frequently taken by a 'seine,' or, as it is sometimes erroneously called, a 'trawl' net. This net is variously used, and is generally about 150 yards long, with a short bridle-rope at each end. It can be effectively worked from the shore by means of a small boat. One end of the net is held by a party on the land, whilst those on board sail away in a semicircle, and pay out the net, embracing as large an area of the water as possible. The two ends are then brought together, and this brings to the shore whatever may be in the net. There is no waiting, as in the other case, till the fish strike, and are meshed; the object in this kind of fishing being to shift the ground as frequently as possible, in order to make a great number of hauls. By this plan, considerable chances of gain are left open to those who pursue it; and as it requires neither the capital nor time necessary for drift-net fishing, it can be, and often is, used by persons who are not fishermen, but who frequently capture vast quantities of fish. This mode is chiefly practised on the lochs of the west coast of Scotland.

When the herrings are captured, and the boats reach the harbour, the process of curing them begins. Immediately on their arrival, the fish are carried to huge but shallow gutting-tubs prepared for their reception. Once there, they are operated upon by a band of females, who gut them with a rapidity which is quite extraordinary. One thousand fish in an hour being the common work, it may be readily conceived that, when a large number of hands are employed, an immense shoal can be disposed of in a few hours. The women employed usually work together in a little band of four or five, each performing a part of the labour which is necessary, some carrying, some salting. After the fish are eviscerated, which is rapidly performed by two simple movements with a knife, they are transferred to another vat or trough, where they are laid down in layers of alternate salt and fish. The sooner the herrings are sprinkled with salt, the better for the

a stick or a brawny arm mixes them well together— a process repeated at intervals till the trough is filled. After a brief rest, depending much on circumstances as to its length, the herrings are carefully re-salted, and then packed into barrels, either flat on their sidesto suit the Irish market-or backs downward, to please the foreigners. Every row, as it is put in, is well sprinkled with salt. A week's rest is allowed before the barrels are finally headed up, as the fish settle down so much as to admit of an additional quantity being put in. When intended to receive the brand of the Fishery Board, the barrel must remain open for ten days.

The fish are principally captured by what are called drift-nets, which are joined together into trains for the purpose of fishing by means of several lengths fastened together. These nets are usually measured by their bulk, a barrel containing a portion 80 or 100 yards in length and 20 feet deep being the standard.'cure.' Then they are 'roused,' as it is called—that is, After the net is prepared, it is placed on board the fishing-vessel, which then proceeds to the appointed place, where the process is gone through of shooting it out from the stern; the boats sailing slowly over the water, the nets being, of course, carefully payed out all the time, till the whole length is exhausted. The train of nets is not of course allowed to be at the mercy of the waves, but is securely fastened to the boat by a line of cord 200 feet long, the other end of the nets being sometimes fastened to an anchor, or a post on the shore, when that is convenient. This process is gone through after sunset, and 'the take' occurs through the night. The nets are suspended by floats affixed to a rope which runs along the back of the train, means of course being adopted to sink them, so that the shoal may strike against them. All this being accomplished, the joined nets are exactly like a great perforated wall floating in the sea. When the shoal of fish are driven against this, they are caught by the head, which, after becoming entangled in the interstices of the net,

A great drawback to our herring-trade is, we think, the want of decked fishing-vessels, properly supplied with the necessary appurtenances for prosecuting the fishery; in short, built on purpose. When whalers go out, either to Greenland or the Pacific, we know that they have not only the necessary conveniences for capturing the whale, but they can extract its

has fled patriot from kingsman, hither royalist from in a rapture of admiration and contentment. A meeting Cromwellian, Bourbonist from Orleanist and Bona- of our states,' with 'jurats,' 'rectors,' 'constables,' partist, legitimist from republican, constitutionalist and bailie' complete, suggests to me at all times an from imperialist, everybody out of power from every-assemblage of the Conscript Fathers,' as depicted body in. From this small spot of earth the most in the Comic Latin Grammar. With all its freedom, discordant and various voices have been ever raised, St Henry's is a hold of feudalism, and firm foe to appealing in the sacred name of Liberty to Heaven. change. Through all the isle, the lords of lands are 'Liberty, queen of the peoples, sole sovereign whom called by the names of their hereditary estates; and the hearts of men acknowledge!' or 'Liberty, avenger almost every seigneurie has its ancient fastness of the sacred blood of kings!' as occasion suits. crumbling to decay, with fosse all dry and overgrown, where the St Henry's cattle-fairest in the world-are turned to feed; and mighty walls with fissures here and there as wide as the great gateway where the iron-studded doors no longer clang. The past is dear to us, and we have played our part in the great scenes of history with some applause. We boast an independence of longer duration than that of England herself. That ruined fort—whose later inhabitants, prisoners for debt, were not so fortunate in defying the constablehas beaten off the great Du Guesclin himself; this castle in our bay held out for weeks against the whole power of Cromwell; not eighty years ago, in this our market-place, we defeated a French invading army, and slew their leader here, on the steps of the courthouse; in the last war, no hostile ship reached our St Henry's harbour, save as a prize; one sailed in, a privateer of France, the Confidente, believing that she had securely reached St Malo; the wrecks of scores came to us from the hungry rocks to northward-they know not friends from foes; an English prince once perished there, and a first-rate of the line went down with all her crew.

At St Henry's have the great ones of the earth in their adversity been at all times accustomed to congregate in the deepest of retirements, and often in the cheapest of lodgings: our population is doubled by their presence. Members of provisional governments in want of food, ministers of finance without a shilling, administrators of public justice on the verge of imprisonment for debt, poets - for claret is sold here for a song-with a turn for satire, painters given to caricature, and generals without a single orderly, are to be met with in every street. 'Able editors,' above all, are especially rife amongst us; of whom, without, as it seems, any perceptible diminution, some forty have been lately put to flight at once. Alas! what a clanging and a fluttering, though, took place at their debarkation, reminding us of nothing so much as the effect of that first gun-fire of Robinson Crusoe's in the wood. It was a hard measure, without doubt, to deprive those of their Jersey who were sans culottes before.

Before that incident, it must be confessed, St Henry's

was not in the best odour in Great Britain. It was

rather fought shy of, as being the resort of gentlemen in difficulties, and a place where brandy was cheaper than it should be. People used to go there for the sake of educating the dear children;' and we all know what that means very well. The law, too, in the isle of freedom was thought to be rather in a defective state-framed, indeed, so much in the spirit of liberty that there was hardly any getting at a culprit at all. And, truly, trial by ordeal, which was the form of judicial interference with the rights of man at the time the St Henry's code was constituted, would still be rather the better of the two. Our business, for the greater simplicity and straightforwardness, is conducted in two languages; and the witnesses are not examined in the presence of the jury, but each has his answers separately taken down and read over to him again at every fresh examination, again and again from the very commencement; so that the performance at last resembles the sporting feat of picking up eggs at stated distances, and returning to the starting-point before going after each of the others. When the court gets tired of this, as naturally happens, the case is adjourned for a few years; so that, by the time the whole of the depositions are collected and ready to be recited to the jurors, most of these are dead or have left the place; and if the prisoner die, we are not sure but that there is a regulation about his eldest son becoming the accused party, and the same with the prosecutors and counsel on either side. Our court-house of St Henry's during a trial is well worth a visit too. The bailie in his scarlet vestments, and the jurors and the law-officers of the crown in theirs, afford a very striking spectacle; while the advocates, attired like inquisitors, are addressing them in Norman-French, or conversing with one another in modern English, and the whole population standing by

These are no reasons why the packets come from England to St Henry's but three times a week; it is further from us than from Rome or from Vienna, yet we are well content. We nigh rebelled when our doors were ordered to be numbered, for convenience of the postmen, and reserved the privilege of choosing our own figures after all. My house is No. 26, but those of my two neighbours are 14 and 71, and there are Our streets are too but a dozen houses in the row. narrow for anything bigger than wheel-chairs. The names over the shops are French, but our bargaining is done in English. In print, it is défendu to obstruct the thoroughfares, but the policeman says 'Move on!' in the vernacular. Good sherry and claret are not dearer than bitter beer; the best French brandy is but 2s. a bottle, and there is no pecuniary excuse for not wearing gloves. The morning-service in our churches is in one language, and the afternoon-service in another. Talented clergy from the mother-country, essaying to preach at St Henry's in the French tongue, make strange mistakes: it is on record that one right reverend prelate assured his congregation that they were there assembled to partake of eau de vie! dozen different names amongst us, but we are mutually We are all each other's cousins, and have not half a scornful beyond description for all that. We have no duties at St Henry's, it is true, but we make it up in privileges. You shall leave the town and breathe the open air before farewell; take whichever road you will, and it will charm you with a hundred panoramas of a square half mile or so: a green field with one cottage by a tiny bridge; a narrow lane caught in a net of in on three sides by the sea; a mill with foamy waterhoney-suckle; a bleak moor purple with heather, shut courses at the hill's foot; a wood besprinkled by great rocks with crowns of fern; a plain with sand-road leading to the shore; cool caverns with fresh waterleaps within them; green pathways leaf-screened from

a cloudless sky. A gallery of cabinet pictures, each in itself a study, is this isle of freedom, which has St Henry's for its capital.

A PAIR OF AUSTRIAN STATESMEN. A WORK has recently been translated from the German, forming part of a series of volumes, by the same author, entitled the History of the German Courts since the Reformation, and is perhaps the most important and most interesting portion of the work-certainly the portion likely to have most attractions for the English reader.* The author's style of writing is not remarkable for its elegance or brilliancy; he is no Macaulay or Carlyle in historical composition; his work commands attention, and owes its acceptability to a certain minuteness of historic detail, and to a liberal admixture of personal anecdote, such as would rarely be presented by writers who aspire to what is called the dignity of history.' Dr Vehse, indeed, altogether disclaims the pretensions implied in this imposing term. Quoting the saying of Horace Walpole, he says: I am no historian; I draw characters, I preserve anecdotes, which my superiors, the historians, may enchase into their weighty annals, or pass over at their pleasure.' The result of his researches is a mass of facts and anecdotes sufficiently significant and curious to form a more than usually picturesque and entertaining compilation.

art of enjoying it, such as Vienna had never seen before; but unfortunately he was also a slave, fettered by those chains of roses which he forged for himself: women and money-brokers were said to have had the key to all his secrets. Lobkowitz possessed neither virtue nor greatness; but he possessed much gentleness of disposition and a refined taste, which gave him the superiority over all his countrymen. His jovial easy humour imparted to his conversation a singularly fascinating charm; the emperor, who, notwithstanding his own gravity and pompousness, was particularly fond of the society of merry people and merry ministers, was never happy without him. He was full of animal spirits and liveliness, teeming with wit, and always ready with some pretty bon-mot or other. A happy knack of intrigue, by means of which he understood how "to push affairs," served him instead of a confirmed habit of business and industry. His keen wit turned everything and everybody into ridicule; not even sparing the emperor, of whom, with a frankness bordering on the most thoughtless indiscretion, he one day said to the Marquis de Gremonville, the French ambassador: "The emperor is not like your king, who does everything himself; but like a statue, which is carried about and placed or moved at convenience."' Lobkowitz always hated and opposed the Jesuits, and did his utmost to circumvent their schemes of policy. His keen wit had been directed against them in all sorts of scurrilous pamphlets and gross caricatures. The emperor, on the other hand, a weak and superstitious devotee, rather favoured them; and they did not fail to take advantage of his friendly disposition. According to Dr Vehse: "His treasury was constantly at the very lowest ebb; but whilst the troops, kept for months without their pay, often plundered their own master's provinces, Leopold lavished his bounties on the Jesuits with unsparing hand. Lobkowitz in several instances prevented these foolish gifts, and even had the courage to annul one of the most important by tearing the title-deed in shreds, which would have conferred on the order the whole of the rich county of Glatz, in Silesia..... Even his last will, which was executed in all legal form and publicly read, bore witness to the sarcastic humour with which he loved to lash the "Spanish priests." The introducThe court of Austria has not been remarkable for tion was couched in terms of the most piteous and the talent or magnanimity of its representatives. The humble contrition; after which, he proceeded to bestow rulers of this nation have had a fortune out of all on the reverend fathers, as a token of the love which proportion to their merits. Were it not proverbial he always bore to them, and for the gladdening of that the world is governed by very little wisdom, one their hearts, 80,000-here the page ended; when the would be surprised at the number of imbecile and half-reader turned the leaf he found-"board-nails for a insane persons who have exercised despotic sway as members of the House of Hapsburg. With two or three exceptions, they have all been foolish, tyrannical, and bigoted in excess; but they were all, or nearly all, extremely lucky in their dynastic and political relations. No royal family in Europe has been so highly favoured by accident and circumstances. This is accounted for, in part, though not entirely, by the circumstance, that most of the Austrian potentates, through lucky accident or judicious choice, had able generals and statesmen in their service, who, using the power acquired by their talents, gained or took upon themselves considerable liberty of action. It is not of such men, however, as Wallenstein or Prince Eugene we wish to speak; we will rather turn to what may be called the curiosities of the Austrian court. Prince Lobkowitz, for instance, prime-minister for a while under Leopold I., is worth glancing at, as a member of the class of officials who have exercised great power in the country.

One feature of these Memoirs, which we cannot but consider admirable, is their marked appearance of veracity. The author tells the truth, so far as he knows it, without the slightest apprehension or misgiving-tells it, indeed, with a certain insouciance and innocency of manner which seems to indicate that he conceived that was the sole thing required of him. As a consequence of his simplicity, he has involved himself in difficulties; for while his books have been extremely popular in Germany, he himself has been exceedingly unpopular with the ruling powers: most of his volumes have been proscribed by one or another of the German states; and we learn from the newspapers that he is now, or was lately, expiating a little extra carelessness or audacity, in relation to the court of Würtemberg, by a six months' imprisonment.

'Lobkowitz was fond of pleasure, and a master of the

Memoirs of the Court, Aristocracy, and Diplomacy of Austria. By Dr E. Vehse. Translated from the German by Franz Demmler. 2 vols. Longman, London. 1856.

new building." Fancy the face of a Jesuit changing from the flush of expectation to the glummest expression of mortified discomposure, on hearing such a bequest read forth in public!

The fall of Lobkowitz as minister was sudden and unanticipated. He was driving at ten o'clock in the morning, on the 17th of October 1674, to his usual audience with the emperor, when he was arrested by a captain of the body-guard, and found himself unceremoniously deprived of all his dignities and honours. The imperial order was to the effect that Lobkowitz, being dismissed from his offices and honours, should leave, within three days, the court and the imperial capital, and betake himself to his estate of Raudnitz, in Bohemia, where he was to remain in exile without ever absenting himself or corresponding with any one. The cause of all this he should never ask to know: if he dared to disobey, he should forfeit his life and all his property.' During his reverse of fortune, his jovial spirits never failed him. He had at Raudnitz a hall got up, one half with princely splendour, and the other half as a miserable hovel. In one half he lived and occupied himself as behoved his former splendid station; in the other, as was suited to his deep fall; and on all the walls he wrote ridiculous