A board of bank directors was hesitating about a bill for L.100, some thinking it rather indifferent paper, others viewing it more favourably; when down comes the cometic flood, and while the manager rings his bell to see what is the matter, it enters by doors and windows, and in an instant closes the whole concern. A criminal court was sitting in expectation of the return of the jury with their verdict. There was one thinking that death may not be far from his door, and a hundred pitying him in the contrast of their own assurance from the imminent foe, when lo! the flood, and judges, jury, criminal, and sympathising audience, are all instantly on a level. A sanitary commission was deliberating on impediments to the bringing in of fresh and the taking away of foul water, and wondering if there ever would be a body of their denomination which could do anything it wished to do for the benefit of a mild, expectant, inactive, suffering public. The comet pours in its fresh water on the instant, and the whole difficulties of the case are at once resolved. A synod had been called to consider some nice point, hardly palpable to common understandings, but which everybody thought a very important point notwithstanding, and three gentlemen speaking at once to contrary purposes were about to be interrupted by a fourth of a different opinion still, when enter comet—a real Moderator—and at one stroke decides what poor mankind had been wrangling about for centuries, and what, to all appearance, but for this 'redding straik,' they would have wrangled about for centuries to come. Lord Augustus Anser had demanded satisfaction of the Honourable Mr Pavo for an injurious remark, and they were proceeding by railway to make a deadly end of it, when, lo! the comet dashes in like an undesired train from a siding, and quashes one of the prettiest quarrels which has happened for a twelvemonth. There was an unpleasant dispute with America about a herring-barrel, and barrels of a different kind were likely to be resorted to to settle it. The Admiralty was all astir as to how many vessels it might be necessary to set afloat for the business. Brother Jonathan was calculating what could be made of the crisis in working out the election of a president. The comet takes upon itself to set the whole naval force of both countries afloat—the 'origo mali' too—and at the same time to countermand the presidential election. So that matter passes. Another president was on the point of electing himself emperor—a loving pair was about to be wed—the Court of Chancery was just commencing a career of reform—a new author was starting into fame with the most brilliant novel of the season—when the comet thwarts every hope. Lloyd's had never calculated on such an accident. On 'Change, if there had been time for a moment's remark, it would have been regarded as a most unheard-of thing. The life-assurance companies, having in their tables made no allowance for such a contingency, would have been ruined by so many policies 'emerging' (oh, word of mockery!) at once, had it not been that there were no survivors to claim the various amounts. Debts, bonds, contracts, obligations of all kinds, in like manner were absolved by the comet, and Creation itself left to open a new score in, it is to be hoped, a less blotted book.
Considered as a reform, our possible event must be viewed with great interest. The patriot's heart is broken, in the ordinary current of things, by the passive resistance he meets with from the great, inert mass of prejudice and contrary interest. His most generous views are thwarted by thousands of accidents which there was no foreseeing when he put the affair down on paper. Tories hate and scandalise him; despots put him in prison; he only can bequeath his scheme to be wrought out by the happy man of a happier age. Here, however, comes me in a besom which sweeps all the old peccant institutions away at one whisk. Church and state are severed, and for ever. The Holy Alliance against the liberties of mankind is broken up—the pomp and corruption of courts is annihilated—bribery and bigotry are no more. What a clean sweep!—how hopeless reaction! Surely the most extravagant views of the Destructives must be gratified and contented at last.
If the event shall ever happen, it cannot be doubted that the present Mankind will leave many interesting memorials of themselves and their progress for the examination of a new race, should such ever arise. When the geologist of the after-world begins his work—who can tell how many hundreds of thousands of years hence?—he will find, over all our stratification and palæontology, a drift containing the remains of the ancient human species—here a tibia of a stockbroker, there the skull of a poet—here a lady's dressing-case in a fossilised state, there a gentleman's box of cigars: besides all these odds and ends, there will doubtless be ruins of temples, fortresses, ships, gin-palaces, and other pertinents of an active, passionate humanity, the purposes of which will form most curious matter of speculation for the more angelic species then at last come upon the earth. Nothing in writing or print will have survived to convey an idea of the state of our knowledge, or of the attainments of our great writers; but it is possible that a few inscriptions may be disinterred, and that through these some glimpses may be obtained of our history, though of a most detached and confused nature. Probably, the most puzzling thing of all will be our warlike implements and munitions; for to one who never thought of harming his neighbour, how incomprehensible must be any tool designed expressly for that purpose! If the intent of these articles be penetrated, they will doubtless be ranged in museums as curious monuments of passions long extinct, just as we see the instruments of torture used by the Inquisition and other ancient judicatories hung up in antiquarian collections of our own day.
Well, well, my dear brethren—you have read thus far without, I hope, being too much distressed by the idea of the physical contingencies to which it is shewn we are liable. Probably you have, each of you, too many matters of sore concern pressing closely upon you, to be much incommoded by possibilities of so infinitesimal a character. It cannot, nevertheless, be amiss, that you should know these amongst other things that may any day leap from the laps of the Parcæ, were it only to expand your souls a little with things superior to the eternal commonplaces of life. It is, after all, a great thing to be a part of so great a system as that revealed to us in the external frame of things, and to feel in what a mighty hand our destiny lies. Even in the danger of what is here styled a Possible Event, there is a grandeur—both as to the event itself, and the Power under whose permission it will, if at all, take place, and our filial relations to that Power, which never leaves us without hope—which, to a high and purified mind, must be felt as more than reconciling.
BARTHOLD GEORGE NIEBUHR
We have been reading with profound interest the life and letters of one of the great men of Germany, Barthold Niebuhr, published very recently in an English garb.1 The original work we have not seen, but we understand it is about one-third larger than the present selection, made in a great measure under the auspices of the Chevalier Bunsen, the friend of Niebuhr, and his immediate successor in the Prussian embassy to Rome. The interest of the book is, indeed, principally derived from the private letters of Niebuhr, the greater part of which were addressed to his early friend, M